Gary Allen's Blog, page 12

Food Sites for November 2017

Something from Rabelais, the Patron Saint of Holiday Excess.
The holiday season—or, as we like to call it, La Grande Bouffe—is about to descend upon us, appropriately enough, in the form of an all-devouring beast. There’s little we can do to stop this devastating assault on our carefully-composed diets, the resulting avoirdupois, or our gastrointestinal well-being... but, at least, none of the text of this newsletter has any caloric value.
Unless, of course, one is seduced by some of these website’s  charms, in which case, all bets are off.
Oh well... there’s always January, the month of remorse.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection reflect some ambivalence about the centerpiece of a certain holiday.

TURKEY: This bird has various meanings depending on the action in your dream. If you saw one strutting and/or heard it gobbling, it portends a period of confusion due to instability of your friends or associates. However, if you ate it, you are likely to make a serious error in judgment.  Barbara Condrony 

TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.  Ambrose Bierce 

Turkey is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that the New World has made to the Old.  Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin 

Turkey takes so much time to chew. The only thing I ever give thanks for at Thanksgiving is that I’ve swallowed it.  Sam Greene

Gary
November, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line.  It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out tasty sites (like Dianne Jacob), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
1,000-Year-Old Illustrated Manuscript of Herbal Remedies Available Online(the Cotton MS Vitellius C III, in the collection of the British Library; text is in Old—which is to say, Anglo-Saxon—English, but includes a link to a modern English translation, available for purchase)
Celery Was the Avocado Toast of the Victorian Era(Heather Arndt Anderson waxes nostalgic, at Taste, about a vegetable that has lost most of its former glamour)
China Sichuan Food(“Chinese recipes and eating culture”...with an emphasis on the foods of Sichuan and Shanxi)
Choi: The Forgotten Fire in Indian Food(Pritha Sen, at LiveMint, on the source of hotness in Indian dishes, before the arrival of New World chiles)
Definitive Sandwich Family Tree, The(John Leavitt’s attempt to resolve—graphically—the endless arguments about what is, or is not, a sandwich)
Eating California’s Most Controversial Ice Cream(Via Dutton, at Literary Hub, savors a dessert of foie gras, sprinkled with ideas about food and guilt)
Food History–A Bibliographic Database(downloadable resource compiled under the supervision of Dr. Allen J. Grieco)
Food, Traditions, Technologies(Fabio Parasecoli reviews Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz’s Cooking Technology: Transformation in Culinary Practice in Mexico and Latin America , for Huffpost)
Gravy(archive of stories and podcasts from the Southern Foodways Alliance)
Great Nutrient Collapse, The(Irakli Loladze has found a mathematical connection between rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and imbalance of micro-nutrients and carbohydrates in the world’s food supply)
Iconic Cheeses of France, The(a map, from VinePair, that only hints at the complexity of the subject)
Mystery Solved: Why Literature’s Greatest Detectives Are all Obsessed with Food(Mackensie Griffin, at Eater, on how the eating habits of sleuths tell us who they are)
Portugal’s Sneaky Sausage that Saved Jews(the BBC’s Theodora Sutcliffe on a curious connection between history and charcuterie)
Sugar Babies(Nora Ephron gushes, in The New Yorker, over the mechanical bliss of Krispy Kreme)
Sushi(a YouTube video from Japanology)
This Tiny Country Feeds the World(high tech methods have made The Netherlands the capital of modern farming; article by Frank Viviano in National Geographic)
What Stinky Cheese Tells Us About the Science of Disgust(Brian Handwerk, at the Smithsonian, on research into what makes some of us turn up our noses)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
In praise of Ruth Reichl: “Food is never just about what we put in our mouths”
Why is it so Difficult to Define the Essay?

---- yet another blog ----
Heinzelcheese: Cheese Places

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #205 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright ©2017 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for October 2017

The winds of change: The last Howard Johnson restaurant left, in Lake George Village, NY
Autumn is a time for reflection on the passing of things. It’s no accident that many of the world’s religions mark the season with remembrance and re-evaluation. It’s also a time when we start to think about dishes we’ve missed for months—sometimes,for years. Is that a descent into frivolous nostalgia? Perhaps, but we don’t care; bring on the comfort food!
We learned, right after the last issue went out, that Food52 had posted one of our recipes. Since there’s still plenty of fresh corn available, check it out. Also, Roll Magazine has posted two of our articles, Dipping into History, about chips & dips, and another about onion soup.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection are about looking back, an activity which may— or may not—be conducive to the production of written words.

All the gifts are nothing. Money gets used up. Clothes you rip up. Toys get broken up. But a good meal, that stays in your memory. From there it doesn’t get lost like other gifts. The body it leaves fast, but the memory slow.   Meir Shalev 

Food is about agriculture, about ecology, about man’s relationship with nature, about the climate, about nation-building, cultural struggles, friends and enemies, alliances, wars, religion. It is about memory and tradition and, at times, even about sex.  Mark Kurlansky 

Ponder well on this point: the pleasant hours of our life are all connected by a more or less tangible link, with some memory of the table.  Charles Pierre Monselet 

Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Diane Ackerman

October, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line.  It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out tasty sites (like Dianne Jacob), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
Le Livre de Cuisine: Illustrations from Chef Gouffé’s Book(a suggestion of the kind of dishes Jules Gouffé produced—which, hard to believe, are simpler than those of Carême)
19th Century Eating Tour of the Lower East Side, A(follow Luke Spencer, at Messy Nessy, in pursuit of a little nosh)
America’s Heroes, Grinders, Subs, and More(Jenn Sit, at Serious Eats, on the names—and variations—of over-sized sandwiches across the US, plus a tiny nod in the direction of the UK)
Archaeologists Are Recreating Recipes from 17th-Century Ships(Megan Gannon, at Mental Floss, describes recent experiments that aim to discover what those sailors’ food was really like)
Big Chicken: The Medical Mystery That Traced Back to Slaughterhouse Workers(an excerpt about the historical effects of antibiotics on part of our food supply from Maryn McKenna’s book; on NPR’s The Salt)
Decoding the Science of Cheese(everything you could want to know about the wheys and means of cheese; from Cheese Science)
Fast and Furious Tour of Beer History(a frothy timeline by John Hawthorne, at beergifts.com)
First Lady of Carolina Cooking, The(chef/proprietor Vivian Howard, in Saveur, explains how a 500-pound mistake led to the rediscovery of her North Carolinian culinary roots)
Food History at the Rubenstein Library: Getting Started(guide to the special collections at Duke University)
How Food Became Chic(Paul Freedman, in Yale Alumni Magazine, on how our current preoccupation with food came to be)
Is “Ethnic Food” a Slur?(Jan Whitaker, of Restaurant-ing Through History, uses developments in restaurant trends to address recent ethical concerns over this bit of gastronomic nomenclature)
Japanese Origins of Modern Fine Dining, The(Meghan McCarron, at Eater, on kaiseki’s influence on nouvelle cuisine)
Joan Nathan’s Guide to Essential Jewish Cookbooks(Devra Ferst’s annotated list from Saveur)
Le Livre de Cuisine:Illustrations from Chef Gouffé’s Book(a suggestion of the kind of dishes Jules Gouffé produced—which, hard to believe, are simpler than those of Carême)
On the Upper East Side, a Rare Book Library With 10,000 Titles on Food, Cooking, and Nutrition(Sarah Whitman-Salkin, for Edible Manhattan, visits the collection of The New York Academy of Medicine)
Pass the Chipotle(Mexican cuisine, served via podcasts, magazine, tutorials, recipes)
Sour Grapes: The History and Science of Vinegar(a podcast, with links, from Gastropod)
Southern Appalachian Heirloom Bean Terminology(the low-down on down-home legumes, from the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center Inc.)
Survival(“edible wild plants that you didn’t know you can eat;“ by Colin Smith at Basis Gear)
When Claret Was Pink(“Wine production in the Middle Ages,” from Elizabeth Chadwick at The History Girls)
Why Do We Eat Eggs forBreakfast?(Eileen Reynolds plates some history at Extra Crispy)
Why Is Wine So Cheap in France?(short answer: they skip taxes and middlemen; from Jenny Hughes, at Frenchly)
Wild Yeasts are Brewing up Batches of Trendy Beers(Tina Hesman Saey, at Science News, reports on yeasty experiments bubbling away in labs and breweries)
Your Vocabulary for Tasting Cheese(a guide from Slow Food)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
3 Reasons Food Writing Doesn’t Pay
Book He Wasn’t Supposedto Write, The
How Pickles Help Me Survive the Horrible, Wonderful Life of a Writer
Inspiration,  Procrastination and the Importance of Pens: How Writers Write
Photograph That Helped MeFinish My Book, The
So You’ve Decided to Write: How The Hell Do You Get Paid?
Work from Home Pitfall Nobody Talks About, The

---- yet more blogs ----
Food, Photography & France
migrationology

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs:
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #204 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright ©2017 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for September 2017

You can’t tell from this, but it’s almost time to harvest wine grapes...
Late summer, early Fall, call it what you will—it’s bumper crop time for almost everything. Tomatoes, corn, beans, summer squashes, stone fruits, and the earliest apple varieties. Of course it’s only the beginning—but we should enjoy what we have now, and deal with the surpluses of Autumn when we get there. Meanwhile we’ll just pack jars and freezer containers with everything we can’t stuff in our mouths.
We’re still plugging away on our non-foodish novel... so, other than grilling, taking lots of photos, assembling these newsletters, and wasting time on social media, we’ve done nothing of interest lately. Actually, we did write one food article for Roll Magazine, but it hasn’t posted yet.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection reflect another of the things that have kept us from pursuing any activity that might suggest productivity.

A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world. Louis Pasteur 

Drink wine every day, at lunch and dinner, and the rest will take care of itself. Waverly Root 

Cheese that is compelled by law to append the word 'food' to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit. Fran Lebowitz

A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money.Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do. P. J. O’Rourke

September, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line.  It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out juicy sites (like Renee Marton), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
Americans Are Divided About Almost Everything—Except Hot Sauce(Chase Purdy, at Quartz, on some of the demographics behind the popularity of these condiments)
Anthony Todd: Food and Drink Writer(Todd reviews restaurants in Chicago, but also opines amusingly on the life, loves, and loathes of being a restaurant critic)
Archaeology of Food and Identity, The(Katheryn C. Twiss, in Anthropology News, updates Brillat-Savarin with the evidence that we have always been what we eat)
Brief Look at Cheese and the Early History of the United States, A(Oldways provides a sample of research being done by Daniel McElligott, a consultant with the Cheese Coalition)
Cheesemonger, The(an archive of cheesy articles from The Kitchn)
Chinese Food in India—a Fiery Fusion of Flavors(Sanjiv Khamgaonkar, at CNN, on the history—and evolution—of Chinese food in the subcontinent)
Food in Political Cartoons: Depicting Society. Main Themes And Evolution(Mona Lazar, in her Pickled Spruit blog, analyzes the structure, methodology, and impact of these supposedly simple images)
How to Drink Wine(Dwight Furrow establishes approaches for negotiating a path through a complicated set of subjects)In Search of the Great American Beer(Natasha Geiling writes about indigenous hops and their place in American brewing for The Smithsonian)
Mad Cheese Scientists Fighting to Save the Dairy Industry, The(Clint Rainey writes, for Bloomberg, about government efforts to get us to eat more cheese)
Now Online: The Oldest Known Cookbook Authored by an African American(1866 book by “Malinda Russell, An Experienced Cook;” thanks to the University of Michigan Library)
Partition Changed India’s Food Cultures Forever(Anoothi Vishal, in The Wire, laments the loss of dishes caused by the great disruptions of 1947)
Science of Raw Ham, The(Riccardo Meggiato explains the slow chemical magic that converts a pig’s hind leg into prosciutto or serrano ham)
Sourdough Project, The(microbiologist Ron Dunn is examining 1,000 sourdough starters, from around the world to see what lives in them, how it got there, and what effect these populations have on the finished bread; some of these organisms might even come from the bakers’ bodies)
Southerner’s Guide to Pimento Cheese, A(an archive of articles on the subject, from Garden & Gun)
Things Related to Corn(Hari Balasubramanian, at 3 Quarks Daily, on  “Nixtamalization, Planting Techniques [The Milpa], and Journeys in North America”)
When Beer Goes Sour: An NMR Investigation(John Edwards and Adam Dicaprio explain the science behind intentionally-sour brews)
Where Did the Taco Come From?(Katy June Friesen interviews Jeffrey M. Pilcher for an answer in The Smithsonian)
Why Hard Cider Is the Ultimate American Drink(Craig Cavallo, in Conde Nast’s Traveler, on what we drank before wine, beer, and whiskey were the quaffs of choice in the US)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
3 Ways to Almost Guarantee Your Writing Will Make a Bad First Impression
Critical Condition: In the Age of the Influencer, Do Restaurant Critics Still Matter?
Do You Want to Be Known For Your Writing, or For Your Swift Email Responses?
Eat Your Words
Food Photography Didn’t Start on Instagram—Here’s Its 170-Year History
How to Keep Writing When Life Gets in the Way
Writers, Protect Your Inner Life

---- yet more blogs ----
Cook-Coquus
Curious Cuisiniere
Strangertalk

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #203 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for August 2017

Summer is burgers-on-the-grill season... but, apparently, also faux-burgers-in-cupcake-form season.This once-bitten example was not shy about being a production of Mary Ann Williams, for the Brooktondale Market, near Ithaca, NY.
It’s summer, so we spend a lot of time on the road. This gives us the opportunity to try many regional beers and local variations on the hamburger theme. So far, the most interesting one was layered with bacon, sliced jalapeños, and pimento cheese. Some day we’ll post photos of the beer cans and bottles we’ve sampled, as we seem to be living in the golden age of “artisanal” beers and—even more—artisanal labels.
We’ve been distracted from writing about food lately (a non-foodish novel has been taking up our time, instead). So, no new links of our own; just the usual monthly potluck, below.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection are about some of the surrogates we are invited to ingest. They are amusing in much the same the way that gallows humor amuses us.

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons. Alfred E. Newman

We were taken to a fast-food cafe where our order was fed into a computer. Our hamburger, made from the flesh of chemically impregnated cattle, had been broiled over counterfeit charcoal, placed between slices of artificially flavored cardboard and served to us by recycled juvenile delinquents. Jean Michel Chapereau

Banquet: a plate of cold, hairy chicken and artificially coloured green peas completely surrounded by dreary speeches and appeals for donations. Bennett A. Cerf

 GaryAugust, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line.  It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out juicy sites (like Nicola Miller), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
85-Year-Old Woman Who Wants to Collect Every Recipe in the World, The(BBC interview with Barbara Ketcham-Wheaton)
After Oranges(Wyatt Williams revisits John McPhee’s Oranges , in Oxford American)
Aftertaste of Empire, The: Food and Decolonization(Amanda Banacki Perry, in the blog of the American Historical Association, takes a fresh look at culinary assimilation and asks, “...is an authentic cuisine even possible?”)
Culinária: 13 Livros de Receitas Antigos(thirteen old cookbooks, from Portugal and Brazil, in Portuguese)
Food Photography, Over the Years(Julia Turshen, in The New York Times, reviews Susan Bright’s Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography )
Food Symbolism in Kafka’s Metamorphosis(episode three in The Pickled Spruit’s “Food in Books” series, by Mona Lazar)
Great Uprising, The: How a Powder Revolutionized Baking(Ben Panko, in The Smithsonian, on the history of baking powder, with a nod to Linda Civitello’s book, Baking Powder Wars )
Lots of “Craft” Beer Is Brewed by Anheuser-Busch. Here’s How to Spot the Real Stuff.(Caitlin Dewey, in The Washington Post, on efforts “...to differentiate ‘true’ craft beers...” from mass-produced pretenders; needless to say, the big companies are fighting back)
Madame Bovary’s Wedding Cake(Joachim Kalka‘s article, in The Paris Review, on literary accounts of grand edible structures in the form of cakes)
Scientists Pit Sourdough Against White Bread—With Surprising Results(Ed Yong writes about a study that suggests that much of what we think we know about nutrition might not be accurate for everyone; an article in The Atlantic)
Social Media and the Great Recipe Explosion: Does More Mean Better?(Bee Wilson, in The Observer, on how the internet has changed the way recipes travel and evolve—for better or worse)
Supertasters Among the Dreaming Spires(Dan Rosenhec, in The Economist, wonders if all the hullabaloo about wine tasting has any basis in reality)
Unlikely Power of Cookbooks, The(a podcast from the BBC on “...how cookery books have been used to demonstrate power, strengthen colonial and soviet ideology, and divide society by class and race”)
Where the Cocktail Party Came From(Laura Carlson, at Atlas Obscura, on the feminist origin—in St. Louis, of all places—of these preprandial revelries)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Food Photography Blog
How Not to Freelance: Or Why I Finally Admitted That I Was a Business Owner
Like Moths to a Flame
Some Cookbooks Are Turning to Illustrations Instead of Food Photos to Convey Their Recipes

---- yet more blogs ----
1000 Cookbooks
Recipe Reminiscing

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)......for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #202 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for July 2017

Bacon Butty, York, England.
We’ve recently returned from a trip to Ireland, the U.K., and France. Needless to say, we ate and drank well... and are happy to have proved to ourselves that the horror stories about the food of England are utterly false. At least they are now (we suspect that post-war gastronomy might have been a different story). We never sought fancy restaurants, but found even ordinary places were as good as better-than-average eateries in the U.S.
What with all the browsing and sloshing, we didn’t get any writing done, but did take thousands (several thousands) of photos... and walked enough so that none of those foreign calories had a chance to take hold. 
We did learn that our sausage book is now available in Japanese, and Can It! has been translated into Korean. Neither of those events required any effort on our part, which is just the way we like it.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection cover a range of scurrilous slanderings of the English table. We include them even though they are no longer valid (but still amusing).

The English have only three sauces—a white one, a brown one and a yellow one, and none of them have any flavor whatever. Guy de Maupassant 

Speaking of food, English cuisine has received a lot of unfair criticism over the years, but the truth is that it can be a very pleasant surprise to the connoisseur of severely overcooked livestock organs served in lukewarm puddles of congealed grease. England manufactures most of the world's airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria. Dave Barry 

If the English can survive their food, they can survive anything. George Bernard Shaw 

Every country possesses, it seems, the sort of cuisine it deserves, which is to say the sort of cuisine it is appreciative enough to want. I used to think that the notoriously bad cooking of the English was an example to the contrary, and that the English cook the way they do because, through sheer technical deficiency, they had not been able to master the art of cooking. I have discovered to my stupefaction that the English cook that way because that is the way they like it. Waverly Root 

English Cooking: You just put things in hot water and take them out again after a while. Anonymous French Chef 

...the true spirit of gastronomic joylessness. Porridge fills the Englishman up, and prunes clear him out. E.M. Forster 

All in all, I think the British actually hate food, otherwise they couldn’t possibly abuse it so badly. Americans, on the other hand, love food but seldom care what it tastes like. Bill Marsano 

I’ll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world is that they were just looking for a decent meal. Martha Harrison 

Britain is the only country in the world where the food is more dangerous than the sex. Jackie Mason 

More than any other in Western Europe, Britain remains a country where a traveler ... has to think twice before indulging in the ordinary food of ordinary people. Joseph Lelyveld

 GaryJuly, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line.  It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out juicy sites (like Jeri Quinzio & Andy Smith‏), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
Americans’ Bizarre Relationship With the Color of Their Food(Joe Pinsker interviews Ai Hisano—a fellow at the Harvard Business School—about the history of artificially colored foods; in The Atlantic)
Fake Food(Gastropod looks at Great Britain’s attempts to deal with ever-more sophisticated food fraud; podcast)
Here’s What Fruits and Vegetables Looked Like Before We Domesticated Them(Tanya Lewis, at Science Alert, serves before-and-after photos of some familiar grocery items)
Inside the Birthplace of Indian-Chinese Cuisine(Sharanya Deepak, at Munchies, on the two-century-long fusion of Chinese and Indian cooking)
Itinerant Tacos: A Brief History of Tortilla Factories(Rocio Gomez, at Nursing Clio, on the social history of the Mexican staple)
Mouthfeel: The Effect of Sensation and Texture on the Flavor of Food(Russ Parsons interviews Ole Mouritsen, author of Mouthfeel: How Texture Makes Taste , for The Splendid Table)
Tamatiebredie(Jonathan Katz on a classic multicultural “Cape Malay” dish from South Africa)
Well-Dressed Guappo, A(Chef Anthony Scanio, at NOLA Defender, on a local salad dressed in an ethnic slur)
Who Owns a Recipe?(Sarah Bond, at Forbes, on “Race, Food and the Debate Over Cultural Appropriation”)
Who Owns Uncle Ben?(Shane Mitchell, at The Bitter Southerner, on the curious historical connections between Carolina Gold and what some have called “perverted rice”)
Why Angela Dimayuga Calls the Menu at Mission Chinese Food New American Cuisine(Helen Hollyman’s interview, at Munchies, with the executive chef of this NYC sibling of the San Franciscan fusion restaurant)
Why is Asian Salad Still on the Menu?(Bonnie Tsui, in The New York Times, on the “casual racism” and inherent vagueness of this ubiquitous menu item)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Feast of Historic Food Photography, A
Nine-Step Plan for Actually Getting Work Done During Summer, A


---- yet more blogs ----
Art and Politics of Eating, The
Dinner: A Love Story

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #201 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for June 2017

Peacock (Pavo cristatus), wandering freely at the Bronx Zoo.
We’ve included the peacock, above, not because peacocks are food (‘though they certainly have been in the past), but because—amazingly enough—this is the TWO-HUNDRETH issue of these newsletters! The bird’s combination of pride and gaudy excess seemed somehow apt.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) feature at least two pretty questionable recipes.

Pecok Rosted: Take a Pecok, breke his necke, and kutte his throte, And fle him, the skyn and the ffethurs togidre, and the hede still to the skyn of the nekke, And kepe the skyn and the ffethurs hole togiders; drawe him as an hen, And kepe the bone to the necke hole, and roste him, And set the bone of the necke aboue the broche, as he was wonte to sitte a-lyve, And abowe the legges to the body, as he was wonte to sitte a-lyve; And whan he is rosted ynowe, take him of, And lete him kele; And then wynde the skyn wit the fethurs and the taile abought the body, And serue him forthe as he were a-live; or elle pull him dry, And roste him, and serue him as thou doest a henne. Recipe from the kitchens of Henry VIII.

Redressed Peacocks Which Seem Living; and How to Make Them Breath Fire Through Their Mouth: You should first kill the peacock with a feather, driving it upon its head, or else drain its blood from under its throat as with a pig; but it is better to take out its tongue and then to slice it under its body—that is, from the top of its breast to its tail—slicing only the skin and removing it gently so that it is not damaged; when you have skinned it, pull the skin back right up to the head, then cut away the head, which will remain attached to the skin; do the same with the legs, and likewise the tail, taking out the leg bones so that the iron will make the peacock stand up will not be seen; then take the skinned carcass and set it to roast stuck with lardonns, or else baste it with grease often enough that it will not burn… hang the Peacock by the heels upon a Spit, having stuffed him with sweet Herbs and Spices, and roast him, first sticking Cloves all along his brest, and wrapping his neck in a white Linnen Cloath, alwayes wetting it, that it dry not. When the Peacock is rosted, take him off from the Spit, and put his own skin upon, him, and that he may seem to stand upon his feet, make some Rods of Iron fastned into a Board, made with leggs, that it may not be discerned, and drive these through his body as far as his head. Some to make sport and laughter, put Wool with Camphir into his mouth, and they cast in fire when he comes to the Table. Also you may gild a rosted Peacock, strewed With Spices, and covered with leaves of Gold for your recreation, and for magnificence. The same may be done with Pheasants, Grains, Geese, Capons, and other Birds. Cuoco Napoletano, late fifteenth century

Here is a kitchen improvement, in return for Peacock. For roasting or basting a chicken, render down your fat or butter with cider: about a third cider. Let it come together slowly, till the smell of cider and the smell of fat are as one. This will enliven even a frozen chicken.  Sylvia Townsend Warner

 GaryJune, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line.  It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out juicy sites (like Jeri Quinzio & Andy Smith‏), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we‘ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
Agricultural Literature and Rural Life(historic agricultural information preserved by the National Endowment for the Humanities)
Brief Introduction to Muslim Chinese Food, A(Clarissa Wei, at Munchies, on the traditional dishes of the Hui and the Uyghurs)
Digitizing Material Culture: Handwritten Recipe Books, 1600–1900(John Rees on the online collection of the US National Library of Medicine, and their usefulness to food scholars)
Dividing and Conquering the Cuisines of China(Carolyn Phillips, at Munchies, on attempts to make gastronomic sense of a culture when “No monolithic Chinese cuisine exists”)
Europe According to Culinary Horror(Yanko Tsvetkov, at Atlas of Prejudice, on gastronomic xenophobia, complete with delightful maps)
Food-bridging: A New Network Construction to Unveil the Principles of Cooking(academic paper that examines two very different ways of combining flavors)
How the Cronut Opened the Door to Better Desserts(Marguerite Preston, at Eater, on the rebirth of patisserie in the Big Apple)
How to Become a Chef in France(according to the Rambling Epicure’s Jonell Galloway, it’s not easy)
Is Flavor Intensity Destroying the American Palate?(Dwight Furrow asks the right questions at Edible Arts)
Magical Dinners(Chang-rae Lee’s Korean-American culinary memoir in the New Yorker)
Man Who Eats, The(Yiyun Li’s Chinese culinary memoir in the New Yorker)
Milk: A History of Tasting What Cows Eat(Nicole Welk-Joerger, at Nursing Clio, on the history—and future—of milk tasting)
What’s in Your Microwave Oven?(Susan Strasser, in The New York Times, on the history of, and social changes brought on by, this ubiquitous appliance)
Why Snacking Is the New Meal(just-food’s Victor Martino on the causes, and effects, of changes to the three-square-meals paradigm)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Curious Appeal of ‘Bad’ Food, The
How to Do a Food Photography Shoot—My Process in Eight Steps
Kurt Vonnegut’s Greatest Writing Advice
Michael Pollan and the Luxury of Time
Myth of ‘Easy’ Cooking, The
Struggles of Writing About Chinese Food as a Chinese Person, The
things we never say, the
Why of Cooking, The

---- yet more blogs ----
In my Iraqi Kitchen
Madame Huang’s Kitchen

---- that‘s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #200 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gary Allen.

The Grapes of Wrath Make a Passable Chardonnay

Jobless man asks judge for jail timePOSTED: 2:55 p.m. EDT, October 12, 2006COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)—A man who couldn't find steady work came up with a plan to make it through the next few years until he could collect Social Security: He robbed a bank, then handed the money to a guard and waited for police.On Wednesday, Timothy J. Bowers told a judge a three-year prison sentence would suit him, and the judge obliged.
When this story began to circulate on the internet, some people said it “sounded” true; others said it was probably an urban legend.  Some others decided it was time to go to the bank.
The elderly gentleman stopped, just inside the front doors of the Lorraine, Ohio branch of the Bank of America, and began to talk about the weather with the uniformed guard. It was just small talk, a pleasant, if somewhat boring, conversation—the sort of thing that happens everyday, making the day feel a little more human, yet utterly forgettable.
The man’s wife carefully filled out the appropriate slip of paper, then waited patiently for the next available teller. She noticed the nameplate at the counter and, when it was her turn, she said, “Good morning, Charlotte—what a pretty name—I’d like to make a withdrawal, if you don’t mind.” She placed her purse on the counter, and handed the paper to the young teller. “Certainly, ma’am,” she smiled professionally at the nice little old lady. When she looked at the withdrawal slip, she saw that it was blank. “Sorry ma’am—I’m afraid you forgot to fill this out.”
“Silly me,” she replied, “just turn it over, Charlotte.”
On the back—in neat, if slightly shaky script—were the words, “This is a robbery. Please keep away from the alarm button, and put only the contents of your drawer into my pocketbook.” The teller was stunned, but the whole thing was done so calmly that she did exactly as she was told.
The guard, whose attention had wandered away from the pleasant old man’s monologue, noticed the look on the teller’s face and started in her direction. The old man beside him interrupted his commentary on all things meteorological, and said, “I wouldn’t do that. I have a gun, and I would much prefer that we keep all this on a sociable level. Don’t you agree?”
The guard looked at the gun. In fact, he never took his eyes off it as the elderly couple walked slowly out of the bank.
When the police asked for descriptions of the robbers, neither the teller nor the guard could say anything more specific than, “Longish grayish white hair. Glasses. He might have had a small beard or mustache—I didn’t really notice. You know… old.” The surveillance tapes confirmed everything the witnesses said. There was absolutely nothing distinctive about the robbers.
They looked just like all the other bank customers.

Food Sites for May 2017

Atlantic Herring (Clupea harengus)
in the Hudson Valley’s Black Creek
Sure, it’s trout season, but the arrival of herring in local streams is a much more dramatic indicator of the arrival of Spring. These spunky little fish push their way upstream from the ocean into little streams to spawn... by the millions. If ever there was a demonstration of the “lusty month of May,” it’s the sight of a tiny brook, filled bank to bank with silvery bolts of pure energy.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quote collection) are still pretty fishy.

How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

The herring are not in the tides as they were of old… William Butler Yeats

Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest... with... a herring! Monty Python

 GaryMay, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out juicy sites (like Cynthia Bertelsen), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
Early Hominids Ate Just About Everything(Ken Sayers, at Phys.org, provides a different view of the paleo diet)
Finding Primary Sources(links to online texts of 19th & 20th century cookbooks, from LeMoyne University)
How Chicken-Fried Steak Got Its Texas Twang(Robert Moss, at Serious Eats, dishes on the dish’s non-Texan origins)
How the Victorians Failed in the Kitchen(Zenia Malmer, at The Victorianist, on “...the blundering Victorian cook, a much overlooked figure in culinary history...”)
How to Drink Wine the Right Way, According to Science(Ryan F. Mandelbaum decants at Gizmodo)
Medieval Cabbage and Kale from Tuscany(leafing through the Anonyma Toscana, a fourteenth-century Italian manuscript)
On Gastronomical Authenticity (Raymond Sokolov, at The Best American Poetry, on how trying to recreate am authentic dish is a fool’s errand)
Serious Eats Guide to Beans, The(Craig Cavallo spills the beans... and lentils, pulses, and other legumes)
Taste of Wine Isn’t All in Your Head, The—But Your Brain Sure Helps(Mark Schatzker, on NPR’s The Salt, interviews Gordon M. Shepherd, author of Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine)
Wine, Women, and Wisdom: The Symposia of Ancient Greece(Francisco Javier Murcia, at National Geographic, on the structure and functions of these erudite dinners; if you want to know more about the food itself, read The Deipnosophists of Athenaeus)
Your Tea Tastes Great Because of Science(Extra Crispy looks at the processes and procedures, ancient and modern, that lead to a great cuppa)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Money in Food Writing? Still No.
Real Legacy of Lucky Peach Is How It Looked, The
Recipe for Success, A: Tips for Self-Publishing Your Cookbook
Where Most Best-Selling Cookbooks Go Wrong

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs: 
Want to help On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you plan to go shopping on Amazon, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there will earn a commission for this newsletter without adding to your cost (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books).
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(these newsletters merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
 (Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #199 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gary Allen.

Strata

Route seventeen rolls along New York’s southern tier, periodically dipping toward the Pennsylvania border—then rising as if to pay a visit to the finger-lakes. It passes places with names that stir the imagination—Red House, Painted Post, Horseheads. We’ve seen these signs many times. Karen merely nods toward a particular sign to indicate that she already knows what I am going to say. I say nothing, and we chuckle over the untold jokes.
The sun goes down, and I keep on driving.
Karen doesn’t like driving at night, but I am actually a safer driver in the dark. During the day, I can’t help seeing the beds of ancient Devonian streams, filled with rounded gravel that rolled along in their currents a hundred million years before the first dinosaur eggs were laid. I know not to look for dinosaurs here—any rocks that might have held their bones and footprints washed, long ago, into the sea. Where those rocks had been are rounded mounds of sand and gravel left by glaciers only yesterday.
With night, I am not so distracted. There is only the road.
Karen gradually falls asleep and I am left to think about night-driving. St.-Exupery I’m not, however, and until we pass through the convoluted and brightly lit area around Binghamton, little of interest occurs to me. I suspect that this is the sort of state in which drivers fall asleep, but a quart of Starbucks, from Erie, Pennsylvania, is still working.
I keep driving.
Around Deposit, the road begins to climb and descend and twist about—we are entering the western margins of the Catskill plateau. Signs indicate the nearness of the Delaware River. Place names—like Hale Eddy, Long Eddy and the enigmatic Fishs Eddy, conjure visions of giant trout swirling in the darkness.
We pass over a hill and enter the Beaverkill watershed—hallowed ground for fly fishermen. If there was enough light, I would find it hard to resist watching the air above the streams, looking for the tell-tale swoop of swallows and darting of cedar wax-wings that indicate a hatch of may-flies or caddis-flies, checking to see that fishermen wade near the best positions in the stream.
But it is night, and a car is tail-gating me. He’s so close, I can see the ribbed texture of the glass over his headlights in my mirror.
We pull into a rest area between Livingston Manor and Liberty—the tail-gater follows us in, then parks several cars past us. No one gets out of the car. Perhaps a dozen cars are parked there—but no one is walking around. We notice that raincoats and such are hanging inside the car next to us, and the windows are covered with condensation on the inside.
At the back of the rest area, flowing silently in the dark, is the Willowemoc—the most trouty of the streams that feed, first, the Beaverkill and then the Delaware. The cars are filled with sleeping trout fishermen. It is nearing midnight, on a Friday, and they have driven—probably straight from work—so that they can wake up next to some of the prettiest water in the east.
Karen dozes lightly through the familiar mountains as we drive the last hour or so.
I smile in the dark, picturing the white inside a huge brook trout’s mouth as it tries to inhale my home-made dry fly: the fly bouncing along perfectly, swinging naturally through the darkness under a mountain laurel that overhangs a Catskill stream, the great spotted antediluvian head emerging from unexpected depths.

The image is a quarter century old. 
I did not hook that trout, but I have seen its rise a million times, in perfect clarity. I no longer fish for actual trout, but still, I envy the sleepers in the cars. Not, of course, the aching stiffness they will certainly feel in the morning—but definitely the cool damp grass before dawn, the taste of coffee from a stainless steel thermos, and the promise of that glossy black current beneath the mountain laurels.

Food Sites for April 2017

Brook Trout, Salvelinus fontinalis
April Fool’s Day: A fly fisher’s religious holiday, celebrated by tricking oneself into thinking that this year it will be different. It won’t snow, icy water won’t overflow one’s hip boots, one won’t be surrounded by worm fishermen who haul in fish after fish while one silently prays that one’s fingers won’t be too frozen to respond in the unlikely event that a trout actually takes a fly. 
Opening Day is the reason Irish Coffee was invented.
Last month, Roll Magazine ran our article about searching for morels. “Spring: An Old Man’s Fancy Turns to Thoughtsof Mushrooms” is almost the opposite of a how-to article.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
This month’s quotes (from On the Table’s culinary quotecollection) are even more fishy than usual.

My fare is really sumptuous this evening; buffaloe’s humps, tongues and marrowbones, fine trout parched meal pepper and salt, and a good appetite; the last is not considered the least of the luxuries. Journals of Lewis and Clark, Thursday, June 13, 1805 

Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you can sell him fishing equipment. Anonymous

 GaryApril, 2017
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out juicy sites (like Cynthia Bertelsen), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

---- the new sites ----
African Americans, Food,and the White House: The Value of Diversity(Fabio Parasecoli, at Huffington Post, on a recent book about the role of race in the White House kitchen)
Brief History ofArtichokes, A... and the Mafia(Daniela Blei, in Kitchn, on the shady history of the delicacy in America)
Celebrating theAfrican-American Shoebox Lunch(Amanda Yee, at Paste, on a nearly forgotten item of travel food; see also “Unpacking the Chicken Box: The Story Behind Baltimore’s Carryout Staple”)
Culinary(guide to some of the special collections in the library of the University of Guelph)
Donald Trump vs. the FoodSnobs(Frank Bruni’s New York Times op ed, “We’re brutal on eating habits, period.”)
Ism’s of Food: When the Mind Rules the Belly, The(Randy K Schwartz examines the intersection of philosophy and gastronomy, in Repast)
LoveAffair with Older Wines, A(Esther Mobley, in the San Francisco Chronicle, on what happens as wines age, and how—and why—we react to the changes)
Neanderthal Dental PlaqueShows What a Paleo Diet Really Looks Like(Ed Yong, in The Atlantic: Fred Flintstone was a locavore)
Origin Myth of New Orleans Cuisine, The(Lolis Eric Elie, in Oxford American, on the little-recognized influence on Creole cooking by black cooks)
Radical Origins of Free Breakfast for Children, The(Arielle Milkman, at Eater, on how a Black Panther project led to the creation of a federal program)
Science of Liquorice,The: Whether You Love the Dark Root—or Hate It(Simon Cotton, in The Conversation US, gives us something to chew about Glycyrrhiza glabra)
Story of Spam, The(Nicola Miller covers everything except Monty Python’s take on the subject)
When “Soul” Became“Southern”: The Gentrification & Rebranding of African-American Food(Eboni Harris, at Highsnobiety, on the denial of black contributions to a classic regional cuisine)
Why Humans Love Crispy Food So Much(Jeremy Glass, at Extra Crispy, listens to these foods, and decided that “eating crunchy food produces an orchestra in our brain that’s playing, like, every one of your favorite songs at the same time”)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
Why Authors Should Respond to Reviews of Their Book on Amazon

---- still more blogs ----
Fine Dining Lovers
Flavors of Diaspora
Garden, Cook, Write
Sephardic Food

---- that’s all for now ----
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The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #198 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author‘s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright (c) 2017 by Gary Allen.