Posts Tagged ‘potato’
“Enjoy every sandwich”*…
See how your quick, on-the-go lunch sandwich was produced (and as a bonus, how your big catch at sea becomes a permanent part of your decor)…
* Warren Zevon
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As we contemplate commercial comestibles, we might send inventive birthday greetings to Benjamin Thompson; he was born on this date in 1753. A supporter of the Tory Loyalist cause during the American Revolution, he fled to England after the war, where his scientific efforts during the conflict had earned him a reputation (and a knighthood). But he soon decamped to Bavaria, where he served as an aide-de-camp to the Prince-elector Charles Theodore. He reorganized Charles Theodore’s army and created the Englischer Garten in Munich, which remains one of the largest urban public parks in the world. For his efforts, in 1791 Thompson was made an Imperial Count, becoming Reichsgraf von Rumford. He took the name “Rumford” after the town of Rumford, New Hampshire, which was an older name for Concord where he had been married.
Relevantly to today’s post, he studied methods of cooking, heating, and lighting, including the relative costs and efficiencies of wax candles, tallow candles, and oil lamps. He invented Rumford’s Soup, a nourishing soup for the poor, and established the cultivation of the potato in Bavaria. And he invented the double boiler, a kitchen range, a coffee percolator– and the Rumford fireplace (which more efficiently heated rooms). He is also credited with the invention of thermal underwear and with creating the “baked Alaska.”
“If I could go to dinner with one person, alive or dead, I think I would choose alive”*…
… OK, but when? Nathan Yau unpacks the data on when Americans eat dinner…
I know dinner time varies around the world, but I wanted to know if dinner time was different within the United States, and if so, by how much. Who eats the earliest? Who eats the latest?
Using data from the American Time Use Survey [here], between 2018 to 2022, we can see the percentage of households in the country who were eating during a given time…
The tasty results: “When is Dinner, By State,” from @flowingdata.
* B. J. Novak
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As we take our seats, we might send tasty and nutritious birthday greetings to Antoine-Augustin Parmentier; he was born on this date in 1737. A pharmacist and nutritionist, he pioneered the extraction of sugar from sugar beets and (in 1805, when he was Inspector-General of the Health Service under Napoleon) established the first mandatory smallpox vaccination campaign. But he is best remembered as a vocal promoter of the potato as a food source for humans.
Starting in the 1870s, many dishes including potatoes were named in honor of: potage, velouté, or crème Parmentier, a potato and leek soup (AKA vichyssoise); hachis Parmentier, a cottage or shepherd’s pie; brandade de morue parmentier, salt cod mashed with olive oil and potatoes; pommes or garniture Parmentier, cubed potatoes fried in butter; purée Parmentier, mashed potatoes; and salade Parmentier, potato salad.
Thought it’s probably coincidental, today is also National Julienne Fries Day.
“Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something”*…
Rice is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world’s population, especially in Asia and Africa. It is the third most widely-cultivated staple crop worldwide, after maize/corn and wheat… and it is notoriously difficult to prepare correctly on a stove…
Cooking rice on a stovetop can be fraught. Add too much water and you end up with porridge. Without a keen sense of timing, you end up with undercooked [pellet-like] grains…
The automatic rice cooker is a mid-century Japanese invention that made a Sisyphean culinary labor as easy as measuring out grain and water and pressing a button. These devices can seem all-knowing. So long as you add water and rice in the right proportions, it’s nearly impossible to mess up, as the machines stop cooking at exactly the right point for toothsome rice. But creating an automatic rice cooker was not so easy. In fact, it took decades of inventive leaps, undertaken by some of the biggest names in Japanese technology…
How the biggest names in Japanese technology fought to make rice easy: “The Battle to Invent the Automatic Rice Cooker.”
* Mitch Hedberg
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As we ponder the pursuit of perfection, we might recall that today is National Potato Day– a celebration of the fourth most-widely cultivated staple crop.
“Without the potato, the balance of European power might never have tilted north”*…
In his economic masterwork The Wealth of Nations, the great Scottish economist Adam Smith reveals himself to be a deep admirer of Irish poor folk. Or, more specifically, their preferred food, potatoes.
“The chairmen, porters, and coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root,” Smith wrote. “No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution.”
Smith had struck on a connection little recognized even today: that improved labor productivity, surging population, and outmigration were thanks to the potato.
This phenomenon wasn’t confined to Ireland. As The Wealth of Nations went to press, across Europe, the potato was upending the continent’s deep demographic and societal decline. Over the next couple centuries, that reversal turned into a revival. As the late historian William H. McNeill argues, the surge in European population made possible by the potato “permitted a handful of European nations to assert domination over most of the world between 1750 and 1950.”…
More on “the secret to Europe’s success” at “The Global Dominance of White People is Thanks to the Potato.”
* Michael Pollan
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As we speculate on spuds, we might send fertile birthday greetings to Henry Allan Gleason; he was born on this date in 1882. An ecologist, botanist, and taxonomist who spent most of his career at (and in the field, doing research for) the New York Botanical Garden, he is best remembered for his endorsement of the individualistic or open community concept of ecological succession, and his opposition to Frederic Clements‘ concept of the climax state of an ecosystem. While his ideas were largely dismissed during his working life (which led him to move into plant taxonomy), his concepts have found favor since late in the twentieth century.
“Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor”*…
There was a time when “Sour Cream and Onion” was an exotic variety of potato chip…
No longer!
“25 Unique Potato Chip Flavors From Around The World You Probably Never Heard Of”
* William Cowper
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As we reach for the dip, we might recall that it was on this date in 1880 that African-American inventor A.P. Abourne was awarded a patent for refining coconut oil– the oil of choice for today’s gourmet potato chips (and of course, for theater popcorn).
It is a sad comment on the conventions of the day that there are no photos of Mr. Abourne available– at least that your correspondent can find. So a generic coconut oil illustration will have to do…
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