Posts Tagged ‘cooking’
“The duty of a good Cuisinier is to transmit to the next generation everything he has learned and experienced.”*…
Five years ago, we marked the passage of Lynn Olver, a reference librarian who pretty much single-handedly created and maintained The Food Timeline: history of human eating habits for 20,000 years. Worried that her life’s work might lie fallow and spoil, her family was searching for a new host.
Happily, one was found. Later in 2020, Virginia Tech University Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences (CLAHS) offered Virginia Tech as a new home for the physical book collection and the web resource– and the site lives on…
Ever wonder how the ancient Romans fed their armies? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip…and why? So do we!!! Food history presents a fascinating buffet of popular lore and contradictory facts. Some experts say it’s impossible to express this topic in exact timeline format. They are correct. Most foods are not invented; they evolve…
Dive into “The Food Timeline,” courtesy of @vtliberalarts.bsky.social.
See also (the source of the almanac entry below) chef James T. Ehler‘s marvelous FoodReference.com– “on this date” history and more.
(Image above: source)
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As we dig in, we might send healthy birthday greetings to Gilbert Blane; he was born on this date in 1749. A Scottish physician who served on the Sick and Wounded Board of the Admiralty, he instituted health reform in the Royal Navy. Perhaps most memorably, he was largely responsible for requiring citrus juice (lemons, later limes) on all naval vessel to prevent scurvy.
“I’ve run more risk eating my way across the country than in all my driving”*…
On the occasion of his retirement from his weekly column, a dean of British culinary criticism, Jay Rayner (the Observer‘s/Guardian‘s Happy Eater), observes that, while much has changed in the food world, there are a few truths that still hold…
I have been writing this column for 15 years. That means there have been 180 of them, filled with wisdom, insight, whimsy, prejudice, contradiction and sometimes just outrageous stupidity, all of it interrogating the way we cook and eat now. As this is my last of these columns I thought, as a service, I should summarise the key points. Are you ready? Good. Let’s go.
Individual foods are not pharmaceuticals; just eat a balanced diet. There is nothing you can eat or drink that will detoxify you; that’s what your liver and kidneys are for. No healthy person needs to wear a glucose spike monitor; it’s a fad indulged by the worried well. As is the cobblers of being interested in “wellness”, because nobody is interested in “illness”. People have morals but food doesn’t, so don’t describe dishes as “dirty”. And stop it with the whole “clean eating” thing. It’s annoying and vacuous.
Fat is where the flavour is and salt is the difference between eating in black and white and eating in Technicolor, even if your cardiologist would disagree. Brown foods and messy foods are the best foods, and picnics are a nightmare. Buffets are where good taste goes to die. Most dishes can be improved with the addition of bacon. The kitchen knives in holiday rentals are always terrible; take your own. Hyper-expensive foods are never about deliciousness; they are about status. Don’t bother with them. Bechamel sauce is easy to make; just follow the damn recipe.
Often, good food takes a while to cook and sometimes it requires skill; all those cookbooks with words like “simple” and “express” in the title may not be your friend. If we’re going to slaughter animals for our dinner, we have a responsibility to eat as much of that animal as we can, including the inner wobbly bits. Some of the best foods carry with them the faint whiff of death. Making chutney at home from your allotment glut is a lovely hobby, but you really don’t have to share what you’ve made with your neighbours.
Tipping should be abolished. It’s wrong that restaurant staff should be dependent on the mood of the customer for the size of their wage. They should be paid properly. It works in Japan, France and Australia. It can work in the UK. All new restaurants should employ someone over 50 to check whether the print on the menu is big enough to be read, the lighting bright enough for it to be read by and the seats comfortable enough for a lengthy meal. If a waiter has to explain the “concept” behind a menu there is something wrong with the menu.
By all means serve small sharing plates, but make sure the table is big enough for all the dishes that are going to arrive, and they come out in an order that makes sense. The kind of wines that natural-wine fans adore smell of uncleaned pig’s bottom and are horrible. Waiters should always write down orders. Eating alone in a restaurant is dinner with someone you love and a delicious opportunity for people watching. Great food can be found in the scuzziest of places. Gravy stains down your shirt are not a source of embarrassment; they are a badge of honour. Expensive restaurants are wasted on the people who can afford them. And food should always, always, be served on plates. Not on slates. Not on garden trowels. Not on planks. On plates…
Words to eat by: “This is my final OFM column. Here’s what I’ve learned about buffets, ‘clean eating,’ and what not to serve food on” from @jayrayner1.bsky.social in @theguardian.com.
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As we dine out, we might recall that it was on this date in 1989 that Jack Dietz (son of “Watermelon King” Bob Dietz) set the still-standing world’s record for watermelon seed spitting– 66 feet 11 inches. Contests are held throughout the U.S. each year in an attempt to best Jack.
A young competitor (source)
“In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous.”*…
With this post– and with all best wishes for the Holidays!– (Roughly) Daily heads into its annual seasonal hiatus. Regular service will resume in the new year.
Tis the season when thoughts turn to festive feasts… featuring, for many, turkey; but for others, a range of alternate “mains.” Adam Shprintzen shares the history– and his personal experience– of a real outlier– but one that played an important role in the development of American food culture…
… Meat substitutes marked a turn for the vegetarian movement at the start of the 20th century, one that led to a depoliticization for a whole generation of vegetarians. Protose—the name mashes together the word protein and the suffix -ose, or full of—was the most popular and enduring meat substitute crafted in the experimental kitchen at the Battle Creek Sanitarium (or San), the Michigan health resort operated by John Harvey Kellogg from 1876 to 1943. Promoted as a versatile meat alternative, Protose could be eaten as an entrée like a beef steak, on a sandwich for a light lunch, or as a roast to be carved ceremonially. The product was served to San visitors, marketed via mail order, and available at local grocers. The marketing of fake meats in early-20th-century America represented a transformation from vegetarianism’s radical, 19th-century political past into a community of individualistic consumers looking to produce healthy, economically productive bodies and minds…
… Research based on product descriptions led me to an approximation of the product: wheat gluten, cereal, and peanut butter. I used a wooden mixing spoon to work the ingredients together, which increased in resistance as the peanut butter activated the gluten proteins. The ingredients combined into a meatish paste with the consistency of raw, ground beef.
To turn the basic recipe into a real meal, I followed a 1913 recipe for Protose cutlets from Lenna Frances Cooper, the San’s head dietician. The recipe called for Protose to be mixed with corn flakes, milk, eggs, and salt. The mixture was slow-roasted in an oven and filled our apartment with a smell that can best be described as vaguely chicken-adjacent. The result was texturally satisfying, though admittedly a little bland….
… The experience [helped] me understand why this was a culinary step forward for vegetarians, both fulfilling a desire to have more food choices and to present vegetarianism as socially acceptable by emulating meat. Smelling, tasting, and touching this fake meat helped me appreciate the sensory power of food as a historical force. And as a vegetarian of 16 years, the process also helped me appreciate and understand that my own food choices were and are very much shaped by the fake meats of the past…
The emergence of fake meat: “Protose Cutlets,” from @veghistory.bsky.social and @historians.org.
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As we size up surrogates, we might consider an alternative to eggnog: today is National Sangria Day. The name derives from the Spanish word for bloodletting and refers to the red wine that was used as a base for the wine, fruit, and fruit juice punch.
While it’s typically associated with summer, one notes that Sangria’s red color makes it a perfect celebratory libation for the Holidays.
“Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.”*…
These days, we tend to believe that the heart and the brain are the crucial human organs. It wasn’t always so– in medicine nor, as this article in Hepatology Communications explains, in literature and the arts…
Hepatocentrism was a medical doctrine that considered the liver the center of the whole human being. It originated in ancient populations (Mesopotamic civilization) and persisted in Western countries until the seventeenth century. Hidden references to hepatocentrism may be found in artistic representations and literary works, from the myth of Prometheus in the Greco‐Roman world to the crucifixion iconography throughout the Middle Ages. In the mid‐1600s, fundamental discoveries irrefutably demonstrated the central role of the heart in human physiology, which laid the foundations for creating cardiocentrism, shifting the life’s center from the liver to the heart. The advent of cardiocentrism immediately restricted the importance given to the liver, favoring the heart in the fine arts. Nevertheless, the liver maintained its importance in literature and popular belief as is evidenced by the widely acclaimed literary texts “Snow White” by the Brothers Grimm, “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, and “Ode to the Liver” by Pablo Neruda. Our aim is to analyze the most significant artistic representations and literary works that contain references to hepatocentrism, evaluating the changing ideas and beliefs regarding the role and function of the liver throughout history. We want to underline the tight relationship between art and medicine; fine art and literature could be a valuable source for understanding the history of hepatology…
Fascinating: “‘I Miss My Liver.’ Nonmedical Sources in the History of Hepatocentrism,” from @HepCommJournal. (via Robin Sloan)
(Image above: source)
* William James
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As we analyze anatomical art, we might send well-seasoned birthday greetings to Cat Cora; she was born on this date in 1967. A chef, restaurateur, television personality, and cookbook author, she made television history in 2005 as the first female Iron Chef, joining Bobby Flay, Mario Batali and Masaharu Morimoto on the first season of Food Network’s Iron Chef America, ultimately spending 10 seasons on the show.
She sautes a mean liver.
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are”*…
Fuchsia Dunlop in praise of the multifaceted, deliciously-diverse Chinese cuisine…
If you visit a Shaoxing wine factory, you may walk past a stack of crumbly bricks made of some rough, pale, porous material. You’ll probably assume it’s debris left behind by negligent builders. But these bricks, this stuff, so unprepossessing to the eye, is one of the most important Chinese ingredients. You won’t see it in your bowl; you won’t smell or taste it directly; yet it’s an invisible presence in almost every Chinese meal. It is not merely an ingredient, but a pre-ingredient, the progenitor of some of the most vital components of Chinese edible culture. Like a genie, it brings Chinese food and drink to life.
The bricks are made of what is known as qu—which sounds like “choo,” but with a lovely softness—a sort of coral reef teeming with desiccated microorganisms, enzymes, moulds and yeasts that will spring into action in the presence of water, ready to unleash themselves on all kinds of foods, especially those that are starchy. The Japanese, who learned about qu from China, call it koji ; it’s sometimes translated into English as “ferment.” When awakened, all these microorganisms will magically transform cooked beans, rice and other cereals, unravelling their tight-knit starches into simple sugars, then fermenting the sugars into alcohol, meanwhile spinning off a whole aurora of intriguing flavors. It is qu that converts soybeans into soy sauce and jiang. Qu is the catalyst for fermenting alcoholic drinks from rice, millet and other cereals, as well as grain vinegars. It’s no exaggeration to say that qu is one of the keys to what makes Chinese food Chinese…
More kitchen secrets in this excerpt from her new book, Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food “The Marvels of Qu: What Makes Chinese Food and Drink Unique,” in @lithub.
* Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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As we investigate identity, we might send tasty birthday greetings to Edwin Traisman; he was born on this date in 1915. A food scientist, he developed the process for freezing McDonald’s french fries that allowed for their standardization, developed Cheez Whiz for Kraft Foods, and researched E. coli.
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