Gary Allen's Blog, page 18

food sites for November 2014

A bushel of winter squash at a farm stand, Palenville, New York

November is the start of our annual marathon of holiday over-eating or, as we like to call it, “La Grande Bouffe.” With any luck -- sometime in early January -- we’ll shove back from the groaning table (and even more groaning chair) in better condition than the leading characters of that French–Italian exercise in excess.

However, we’ve learned, from long -- and often humiliating -- experience, not to make any rash promises.

Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served,  directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. Also, our stuff frequently appears in Roll Magazine, and last month’s article was on Beechnuts -- which, against all expectations, does not once mention chewing gum.

You can also, should you desire to, follow us on Facebook, and Twitter -- and even a cursory glance at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner will reveal links to entirely too much of our online logorrhea. 

Pre-empting the gorging season, On the Table’s culinary quote collection waxes fat about fat:

American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it. Dave Barry 

I have a great diet. You’re allowed to eat anything you want, but you must eat it with naked fat people. Ed Bluestone 

America is now the fattest country in the world and getting fatter every day. unnamed H.J. Heinz Co. executive 

It’s OK to be fat. So you’re fat. Just be fat and shut up about it. Roseanne Arnold

GaryNovember, 2014

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed (as does Elatia Harris, who is always finding great sites) -- please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have suggested sites -- 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. There are links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.



---- the new sites ----
Austerity Kitchen, The
(Christine Baumgarthuber’s food history columns; archive of older postings here)

Chef Stories
(a collection of six profiles -- Grant Achatz, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, Julia Child, and Alice Waters -- in The New Yorker)

Cooking
(thousands of recipes from The New York Times)

Early Chinese Food History
(Jacqueline M. Newman’s article in Flavor & Fortune)

Food Snobbery Explained
(some embarrassing self-revelation from Snobsite.com)

Frugal Housewife, The: Or Complete Woman Cook
(scanned facsimile pages, and PDF version, of Susannah Carter’s 1803 book)

fruitsinfo.com
(tropical, exotic, accessory, and hybrid fruits; plus fruit news and recipes)

Gareth Jones Food
(website of a self-described gastronome – and food consultant, cook, traveler and educator)

GMOs are Old Hat. Synthetically Modified Food is the New Frontier
(Eliza Barclay reports of new technologies that produce artificial foodstuffs by fermentation, rather than by less appealing, or environmentally-less desirable, methods – such as from petrochemicals)

Gourmet
(selections from the magazine’s archives: 1940s-1970s & 2000s)

Great Hog-Eating Confederacy, The
(Christine Baumgarthuber on the place of pork and corn in the historical diet of America’s southerners)

History on the Half-Shell: The Story of New York City and its Oysters
(article by the New York Public Library’s Carmen Nigro)

Honey, Food is All About Power
(dialogue, between Bani Amor and Thy Tran, on false assumptions about “ethnic” food writers, the imagined audience for their writing, and the ways food writing is used to reinforce stereotypes about race and ethnicity for profit)

How to Prepare a Sauce for the Lords and How Long it Lasts
(recreating a sour twelfth-century recipe that features sweet spices)

In Search of Taste
(quarterly magazine “…dedicated to examining gastronomic cultural traditions [of] the symbiotic affinity between simple food and wine…”)

Information is Beautiful
(infographic on compatibility of flavors)

Joanne Chang Brings the Sweet Science of Sugar to Harvard
(Eater National account of her lecture/demonstration)

Mad Feed
(food for thought via articles and TED-like video presentations)

Magical Tour of Yotam Ottolenghi’s Cookbook Collection, A
(an interview with the author of Plenty )

Morsel
(another aggregator of food articles)

Museum of Food and Drink, The (MOFAD) 
(New York City’s future museum, “… about the culture, history, science, production, and commerce of food and drink,” where one will be able to smell and taste the exhibits)

Myth of Togetherness Around the Table, The
(apparently -- in England at least -- it didn’t exist before middle-class Edwardians decided it should)

See It, Want It: Window Food Displays
(Jan Whitaker, on restaurants’ use of their windows to attract customers)

Seven Moles of Oaxaca, The
(from Mexican chef par excellence, Zarela Martinez)

Tea if by Sea
(Dan Jurafsky’s history of tea, with an emphasis on linguistics)

Wine Snobbery Explained
(“Wine snob. Isn’t that a redundancy…?” more embarrassing details from Snobsite.com)

Zythum: An Egyptian Precursor to Beer
(food safety microbiologist Peter Olsen blogs about an ancient brew)


---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Book academy

Getting Started with Social Media

So You Want to Be a Food Writer

Writer, The


---- yet more blogs ----
Botanist in the Kitchen, The

Draughts Are Deep, The

Edible Arts

Edible Legacies

Fork Tales

Language of Food, The

Morsel

Odd Pantry, The

Plate, The

Ruth Reichl

Shepherd and the Olive Tree, The

Taste of History with Joyce White, A



---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? 

It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.

The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper), (Kindle) 
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)
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 #169 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, 2014 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for October 2014

Ain’t no frost on these punkins yet, but it’s just a little ways off. Some are destined for jacks o’lanterns, some to be smashed in the street, but around here they’ll find their way into pie shells, bread pans, and – a personal favorite – ravioli (with brown butter, crisp-fried sage leaves, toasted pecans, and crumbled gorgonzola). Winter’s coming, we shouldn’t be overly concerned about calories, right?
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served,  directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically.
If you are so inclined, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Not all of the blather we post there is about food, but there’s usually enough to provoke literary dyspepsia. Knock back some omeprazole before visiting the links to all of our online scribbles posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
We’re all supposed to consume things that are in season, hence these excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection (no guarantees that they’re locally grown):

My favorite word is “pumpkin.” You can’t take it seriously. But you can't ignore it, either. It takes ahold of your head and that’s it. You are a pumpkin. Or you are not. I am. Harrison Salisbury

What calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie? John Greenleaf Whittier

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. Jim Davis (Garfield)

GaryOctober, 2014
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed (as does Cara DeSilva, who is always finding great sites) -- please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have suggested sites -- 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 Middle Eastern Recipe Book Claims to Have the Ultimate Hangover Cure(article about Nawal Nasrallah’s translation of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq’s Kitab al-tabikh)
Ancient Famine-fighting Genes Can’t Explain Obesity(the simple, elegant – and commonly- accepted – theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny)
Archaeological Evidence for Peach ( Prunus persica ) Cultivation and Domestication in China(Yunfei Zheng, Gary W. Crawford, and Xugao Chen, on development of peach varieties, ten thousand years ago; in PLoS ONE)
Brown Ale Redux(Jaime Jurado’s article in The BREWER International)
Cheese Course, The(an archive of Janet Fletcher’s columns in The San Francisco Chronicle)
Cookbooks(a large archive of posts by Cynthia D. Bertelsen)
Cool Culinaria(reproductions of vintage menu art, signage, and ephemera, and guide to other collections)
Cooking in the Archives(“Updating Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen”)
COUSCOUS: The Tunisian Variations(Paula Wolfert’s article in the Los Angeles Times)
CuiZine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures (“A peer-reviewed e-journal published by McGill Library,” in English and French)
Desperately Seeking Authenticity(“But…” Rachel Laudan asks in the Los Angeles Times, “…what would an ‘authentic’ cookbook really look like?”)
Dictionary of German-Russian Food Terms(these culinary terms are neither quite German nor quite Russian, which makes sense since they’re from “two German colonies located near the Volga river”)
Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (EMROC)(a group of scholars working to improving free online access to historical archives of recipes)
eatocracy (online food magazine from CNN)
Experiencing the Past Through the Oven(“Worcester’s American Antiquarian Society puts historic recipes [hand-written pages] online”)
foodwritingencyclo(something like an annotated index of interesting food writing, with samples and links to complete texts)
Francesco Tonelli(article about food photographer Tonelli, in Digital Camera Magazine)
gastronomicalibrary(video reviews of international cookbooks)
Georgian Recipes(not Ray Charles’ Georgia, but the spice section alone will keep this Georgia on my mind)
Getting Started in Food History(Rachel Laudan on what to do and what not to do, the whys and hows, and supporting resources)
India: Pantry Guide(illustrated explanation of ingredients; from Saveur)
Internet Archive Book Images(2.6 million copyright-free illustrations, from 500 years of publishing)
Joy of Cooking, The?(sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton on why a healthy home-cooked meal is not always an option)
Just Don’t Call It Turkish Coffee(Maxim Edwards on Armenian coffee traditions, heavily-infused with history and politics)
Meat Prophet of Peru, The(Nicholas Gill’s article, about Renzo Garibaldi, that will have you thinking a lot about aged meats)
NAL Catalog (AGRICOLA)(searchable directory of holdings in the USDA’s National Agricultural Library)
Roads and Kingdoms : Food(e-zine about regional foods of the world)
Serious Eats Guide to Shopping for Asian Noodles, The(Kevin Cox, on pastas made from wheat, rice, and other starches – such as beans, sweet potatoes, and yams)
Serious Eats Guide to Whole Grains, The(Niki Achitoff-Gray on the science, properties, and preparation of many grains, even those that are not grasses – such as amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa)
Snooth Eats(recipes that pair well with wine)
What's the Next Quinoa? Farmers, Foodies Revive Heritage Grains(Andrea Stone tells, in National Geographic, why “ancient grains and ‘orphan crops’ like fonio and amaranth have advantages for farmers and consumers”)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) site for writers/bloggers ----
How to Publish a Food Book: Part One, The Right House

---- yet more blogs ----
Cooked Books
Fornacalia
Neil Cooks Grigson
Oxford Symposium
Recipes Project Blog, The
Why'd You Eat That?

---- changed URLs ----
Culinary Historians of Canada
(formerly Culinary Historians of Ontario)
Culinary Historians of Southern California (CHSC)

Is Food the New Sex?

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
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)
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 #168” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

food sites for September 2014

“A Colonel of Corn,” from Terms of Vegery


With September, harvest kicks into high gear, the nights grow cooler, and we begin to feel more like cooking and -- as the old timers said -- “putting food by.” This summer has been frantic, busier (and stranger) than any in our memory. Frankly, we’ll be happy to return to a slower life, with slower food, and maybe a few more calories than we’ve allowed ourselves. As Leslie Newman said, “As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine. Every autumn, when the wind turns cold and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy. It's time to start making soup again.” 
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically.
While you’re waiting for the happy little popping sounds that indicate that your home-canned foods might not actually give you a mid-winter case of botulism, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Still more links to our online scribbles are posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Not corn, this time -- but another member of the Poaceae tribe -- in this month’s excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Rice is a beautiful food. It is beautiful when it grows, precision rows of sparkling green stalks shooting up to reach the hot summer sun. It is beautiful when harvested, autumn gold sheaves piled on diked, patchwork paddies. It is beautiful when, once threshed, it enters granary bins like a (flood) of tiny seed-pearls. It is beautiful when cooked by a practiced hand, pure white and sweetly fragrant. Shizuo Tsuji

Rice is born in water and must die in wine. Italian Proverb 

Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling. Dave Barry 

GarySeptember, 2014


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 of you who have suggested sites -- 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 ----
American Food Roots(four journalists “dig up the roots of American food”)
Archivegrid(database of archived materials, worldwide – a search, using keyword “food,” found over 29 thousand archives)
Beer Styles: Wheat Beer: Hab Mir Mein’Weizen(article by Jaime Jurado)
Cooking the Books(“…website for all things associated with the Historic [Tudor] Cookery Team at Hampton Court Palace”)
Dining Out: The Food Critic at Table(Adam Gopnik on the nature of food writing, in The New Yorker)
Gastrodiplomacy: Cooking up a Tasty Lesson on War and Peace(NPR story about a course being offered at Washington DC’s American University)
Hampton Court Chocolate Kitchen to Reopen after 300 Years(a taste of luxury from the time of George II)
In Defense of Food Writing: A Reader’s Manifesto(article by Eric LeMay, in Alimentum)
Munchies(an aggregator of interesting food articles from around the world)
Oldest Pottery in the World Found in China(spoiler alert: the pots are older than agriculture)
On Food Writing(Michael Ruhlman’s blog post on the subject)
Prehistoric Aurochs BBQ Leftovers Found in Holland(article does not specify if a dry rub was used, nor what style of sauce was served)
Render (“Feminist Food & Culture Quarterly… that aims to disrupt the canon of mainstream food and cooking magazines”)
Standing on Ceremony: The History of Tea Sandwiches(article by Tamasin Day-Lewis in Saveur)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
10 Biggest Mistakes New Authors Make, The
Authors! Your Cover Font Is Killing Your Book
Finding the Right Publicist for Your Next Book
Lesson in Entrepreneurship, Perseverance and Publishing from Iconic Chef Julia Child, A
This Column Will Change Your Life: How to Think about Writing
Why Being a Good Writer is No Longer Enough…

---- yet another blog ----
Cooking the Books (not the same as the forum above)

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it needn’t even be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
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)
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 #167” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

REMEMBRANCE OF PETS PAST

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Smokey, the cat who spent the last thirteen years of her alloted span of twenty with us. It's been a long time since I've had to go through the experience--but, today, I recalled that I had written about it, ages ago. 
It's not for the squeamish.________________
It is no easy thing, living the life of a literary cliché, but there’s no avoiding the fact that I am a writer who lives with cats. I have always lived with cats. There is little doubt that I shall continue to live with cats. Individual cats are inextricably tangled in all the threads of my experience. I have measured out my life, not in coffee-spoons--as did Eliot’s Prufrock--but in deceased cats.My first cat, Frosty, died of classic altered-male-cat-urinary-problems. He was an ugly, mean-spirited gutter cat who spent his last miserable days soaking all the rugs and furniture with his dribbling excreta. Thus, he guaranteed that we would remember him--not so fondly--whenever the weather turned dampish, for years afterwards.My mother vowed never to get another cat. A week or two later, our next-door neighbor handed her a little gray female kitten. Twinkie (short for Twinkle Toes) was--fortunately--everything Frosty was not. She was charming, loyal, companionable--walking me to the school bus-stop in the morning, waiting for me in the afternoon. She would even follow me fishing--‘though it meant negotiating a half-mile of swamp, hopping from dry spot, to rotten log, to weedy tussock, to floating board to be with me. When she was hit by a car, in front of our house, I was convinced that my knowledge of science was enough to prevent her demise. I explained to my father that she was merely wounded. I was eleven or twelve, and full of confidence in the invincibility of knowledge--but she was furry and dead.I cried for six or seven hours, partly for her loss, partly for mine. We buried her in the backyard.In college, I continued co-habiting with cats. One lovely--but dim-witted--tortoiseshell, was named George C. Scott because she always wore what appeared to be an oddly knowing sneer or twist of her upper lip. Her sister was Peggy Sue, a smart and sexy calico. They shared my house with a sweet motherly tabby named Jane Goodall--the first of several “Jane cats.” After a summer spent on a commune in New Mexico, in 1969, I arrived home to find a feverish George sitting in the kitchen sink with cold water dripping on her head. She died of distemper at the vet’s a couple of hours later. Some years, and many cats later, I was given a huge, peach-colored, altered male named Cicero--as soft and floppy and comfortable as a well-loved toy. One day, he didn’t come home. A stranger came to the door to tell us he had been hit by a car. He was in bad shape, but alive, at the vet’s office. We went to see him immediately. His head had been crushed and he looked like he should be “put to sleep.” My girlfriend couldn’t even look at him. I stayed to comfort him, petting whatever parts did not seem too bloodied, and he seemed to respond. Day after day, I went back, and each day he got a little stronger. When we took him home, he could barely walk. The only way he could get around the apartment was to lean against the wall, and shuffle along edge, circling the entire room to reach the opposite end of the threshold from which he started. We nursed him back to near-health, and he was as grateful as a cat can be. One day, as I was leaving the house, for something that seemed important at the time, I spotted him between two parked cars across the street. When he saw me, his eyes lit up with joy. I yelled for him to stop, but he ran towards me, across two unbroken lanes of traffic.He was hit two, maybe three, times, his body twisting and lurching involuntarily on the double yellow line. I grabbed him from the moving lines of cars, trying to hold his thrashing body close to me.I have seen his terrible, trusting, blissed-out face, across the road, thousands of times since then. Still more years, and more cats, passed through my life. I had four cats: two city cats who moved to the country (Alice and Electra) and two country cats (Sebastian and Jane). The city cats were wimpy non-entities but the country cats were wonderful. Sebastian, huge and black, as gentle and kind as Cicero. Jane, another tortoiseshell, was sweet, soft, with golden eyes. Jane, one hard winter, drank some water that contained Drano or antifreeze (we’d had terrible plumbing problems that year) and developed a wheezing cough. I was about to drive to Florida to visit my parents, so I dropped her off at the vet. I made him promise to call us about her condition.He never called. A couple of days after Christmas, I called him. He told me he “did what he could but... .” He asked what I wanted done with the body. Very calmly, I told him to keep it ‘til we got back and I would take care of it.After returning to my cabin in the Catskills, I chopped a Jane-sized hole in the frozen soil, then drove to the vet’s office. When I arrived, the receptionist seemed uncomfortable, and tried to avoid making eye-contact. She called for the vet to come out to the waiting room. He explained that there had been a mistake, that Jane had been hauled off for disposal at some anonymous pet disposal center. He apologized profusely, and handed me his bill. I paid it and left. A half mile down the road, I had to pull over because I couldn’t drive through the tears.When I got home, I buried my soggy hankerchief in the grave I had dug for Jane.

Food Sites for August 2014

“A Bronx Cheer of Raspberries,” from Terms of Vegery  


August is fast upon us -- and that means sweet corn is readily available. It also means we have an endless list of corny puns about corn that could be foisted upon you, but we’ll spare you that (just this one time).
In other news, our big herb reference book, The Herbalist in the Kitchen is now available in Kindle format -- which means it's much more affordable and is easily searchable. That's handy, because a truly functional index would have required a second volume of an already expensive book (and the University of Illinois Press would never have agreed to that). So, if you ever need to find out about hbok or oba, the answers will be literally at your fingertips.
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. If you are so inclined, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. Insomniac gastronomes can also find links to all of our online scribbles posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. 
I know, you thought you might get out of here without corn puns, and you were almost right (this time) – but sweet corn seems to make writers wax nostalgic, so we‘re serving up these amaizing excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Nothing rekindles my spirits, gives comfort to my heart and mind, more than a visit to Mississippi... and to be regaled as I often have been, with a platter of fried chicken, field peas, collard greens, fresh corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes with French dressing... and to top it all off with a wedge of freshly baked pecan pie. Craig Claiborne

Hunger makes you restless. You dream about food -- not just any food, but perfect food, the best food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother's milk singing to your bloodstream. Dorothy Allison

In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiner's Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island Duck, he might have written a masterpiece. A.J. Liebling 

It is not elegant to gnaw Indian corn. The kernels should be scored with a knife, scraped off into the plate, and then eaten with a fork. Ladies should be particularly careful how they manage so ticklish a dainty, lest the exhibition rub off a little desirable romance. Charles Day

GaryAugust, 2014
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 of you who have suggested sites -- 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 ----
Brief History of the Smörgåsbord, A(Anita-Clare Field’s post about the classic Scandinavian groaning board)
Does Israeli Cuisine Exist?(“Queen of food writing” -- Dalia Lamdani, in an interview in Haaretz -- “serves an answer”)
Eating, Dining, and Snacking at the Fair(Jan Whitaker remembers the food at the World’s Fair, fifty years later)
Little History of Sushi, A(another historical nosh from Anita-Clare Field)
Meaning of Soul Food, The(an interview with Adrian Miller in The Times-Picayune)
Neanderthal Meal, The: A New Perspective Using Faecal Biomarkers(archaeological evidence about the real paleodiet)
New Flavors for the Oldest Recipes(Laura Kelly recreates ancient Mesopotamian dishes; in Saudi Aramco World)
Next Breadbasket, The(Joel K. Bourne, Jr. on the corporate take-over of arable land in Africa; the first of a series of articles on food in National Geographic)
Nonya Cuisine of Malaysia, The(Eric Hansen, on the “fragrant feasts where the trade winds meet;” in Saudi Aramco World)
Swamp Cabbage and Sunshine(Cynthia Bertelsen on the “craziest-ever hearts of palm salad [that] sums up Florida’s food history”)
These Savory Bites Recall Earlier Times In England(Elisabeth Luard on a culinary tradition that is barely a memory today; at Zester Daily)
Why 10% of the Population Hates Cilantro and the Rest Doesn't Know Any Better(Nacho Caballero explains the science behind the phenomenon)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
5 Research Steps Before You Write Your Book Proposal
9 Words We All Really Need to Stop Using When Talking About Food and Drinks. Please.
CRAFT THOUGHTS: Why You Should Edit As You Write
DIY: How to Pitch Book Bloggers(requires subscription to Publishers Weekly)
I Was a Digital Best Seller!
I Want Your Job No. 19: Cookbook Editor
Penflip
“Phantom” Receipt Found? Yes, but…
Why I Left My Mighty Agency and New York Publishers (for now)

---- yet another blog ----
Flourish

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it? It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
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)
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 #166” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

food sites for July 2014

Summer: a time when real men sacrifice heroic chunks of animal flesh on the altars of grills or smokers (and others just bake quiche).


Another year has gone by, and with this issue of the updates to The Resource Guide for Food Writers, we have completed fourteen years of continuous publication. Some of you might even remember the earliest incarnations that went out via e-mail (or possibly strapped to the backs of rodents who were trained to scurry through the Intertubes). We had no idea, starting out, that we’d still be doing this – after 165 postings. In recognition of this anniversary, we’ll offer the usual clichés: “slow and steady wins the race,” “all things are possible,” and – most apropós –“ignorance is bliss.”
In other news, due to scrupulous attention to portion sizes, there is 20% less of your correspondent than there was at our last anniversary issue. We suspect that many people will be disappointed to learn that this information merely reflects 20% less avoirdupois, not verbiage.
As we can certain the bard never said, “Ya’ gets whatcha’ pays for – and, sometimes, not even that.”
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically.
If you are so inclined, you can follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. If that does not sufficiently addle your pate, links to all of our online scribbles posted at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.  Roll Magazine recently published an expanded article on Black Cows Redux, the roots of root beer floats (with a few summer-appropriate recipes).
We’ll conclude this month’s introductory remarks with a self-referentially-consistent excerpt from On the Table’s culinary quote collection: 

[A] quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business. A.A. Milne

GaryJuly, 2014


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 of you who have suggested sites – 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 ----
25 Amazing Food Infographics, Drawn From 49,733 Recipes(Cliff Kuang’s article, in Wired, features some very interesting ways to look at food data)
Author Looks for Truth About Early Food Editors(Nancy Stohs reviews Kimberly Wilmot Voss’s The Food Section: Newspaper Women and the Culinary Community for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Chemistry of Fish, The(Harold McGee, at Discover Magazine)
Civil Eats(“promoting critical thought about sustainable agriculture and food systems” daily)
Gluttony: The Good Eater(“never trust the lean and hungry,” warns Emily Toth – and Shakespeare)
Julia Child's List of Discarded Titles For Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Rebecca Onion‘s article on Slate)
Miracle of Feeding Cities, The(how urban food systems work, world-wide; site maintained by The Food Lab at the University of Texas, Austin)
Mustard Manual(“Your Guide to Mustard Varieties” from Serious Eats)
Put a Fork in It(Mark Vanhoenacker examines how – and why – Americans hold their eating utensils the way they do, and why they need to change)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
7 Outrageous Requests to A Food Blogger
America Has Stopped Cooking, and Here's How Our Recipes Are Suffering for It
Ladies of the Pen and the Cookpot: M.F.K. Fisher

---- yet more blogs ----
Eat This Podcast
Food and Geography
Herb Journal, The
Spice House, The
Well Preserved

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (Hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Hardcover) (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (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 #165” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for June 2014

When life gives you lemons... or it just feels a bit like summer...

Oh frabjous day! The manuscript for our latest book, Preserving Food, Preserving Culture, was sent to the publisher (Reaktion) ahead of its due date. Which means we hardly know what to do with ourselves.
Well... there is the kitchen to re-do. And yet another book peeking over the horizon. And then there are those thirteen articles to write for Oxford University Press’s Savoring Gotham by July.
Speaking of which, Savoring Gotham still has a number of topics in search of authors – if you’re the sort of caped hero (or heroine) who can swoop in to write for this new encyclopedia of New York food, let us know, and perhaps there’ll be a match made in Metropolis. I promise to avoid making any other comic-book allusions (but only because neither DC nor Marvel have published a series on The Scribbler: “mild-mannered super hero by day, unrepentant wordsmith under cover of darkness”).
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically.
You can (if so inclined) follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. You can also find links to all of our online scribbles at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. Leitesculinaria has reposted twenty-two of our backlisted (and vaguely historical) LC pieces here.
To celebrate glorious spring -- fully arrived, foreshadowing the better parts of summer, and none of its drawbacks – a few items from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. Grow green with the spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Henry David Thoreau

In the vegetable world, there is nothing so innocent, so confiding in its expression, as the small green face of the freshly-shelled spring pea. William Wallace Irwin 

You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed. Saki

GaryJune, 2014

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 of you who have suggested sites -- 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 ----
Do Emigrants Create National (or Regional) Cuisines?(Rachel Laudan looks at the way foods – and cooks – travel)
Everything but Rats and Puppies(Scott D. Seligman’s article on the early days of Chinese food in America; in Beijing’s The Cleaver Quarterly)
Fictitious Dishes : Elegant and Imaginative Photographs of Meals from Famous Literature(a review, with photos, of a book by Dinah Fried; posted in BrainPickings)
Is Reintroducing Acorns into the Human Diet a Nutty Idea?(Dawn Starin’s article in Scientific American)
lthforum.com(“the Chicago-based culinary chat site”)
Maangchi(Korean recipe site, with cooking videos and ingredient information)
Pacific Herring(everything you might want to know about Clupea pallasii)
Pike Place Market Centennial(an online exhibit from Seattle’s City Archives)
Recipe Recommendation Using Ingredient Networks(a paper -- by Chun-Yuen Teng, Yu-Ru Lin, and Lada A. Adamic – that analyses the way choice of ingredients does, or does not, predict the success of a recipe; in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Web Science)
table matters (online magazine on food, drink, and culture, from Drexel University)
Why Don’t We Eat Swans Anymore?(Monica Kim thinks about the unthinkable, in Modern Farmer)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Cite This For Me
I Self-Published a Cookbook, Despite it All
Truths from the Other Side of Publication
Yale College Writing Center

---- yet more blogs ----
Cooking in Theory and Practice
forager/chef

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (Hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Hardcover) (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (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 #164” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for May 2014

Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis
“Spring at last! Spring at last! Thank god almighty, it’s Spring at last!” Time to be back in the woods, searching for the wily ramp and shy morel (and admiring the early bloodroot, columbine, and wood anemone). 
And, somehow, get the latest manuscript off to the publisher by its due date...
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically.
You can (if so inclined) follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. You can also find links to all of our online scribbles at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. One can even hear some of our representative blather at Roll on the Radio. Roll Magazine also published a much re-worked article on artichokes, My Cynara Redux, a tale of thwarted lusts of various kinds.
Leitesculinaria has reposted twenty-two of our backlisted (and vaguely historical) LC pieces here.
The month of May is no time for philosophizing; just enjoy it for what it is. Consequently, here’s this month’s bit of perspective from On the Table’s culinary quote collection: 

Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit. Haruki Murakami

GaryMay, 2014

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 of you who have suggested sites -- 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 ----
Adventures of a Boudin Junkie(Sara Roahen on the trail of the quintessential Cajun sausage; in Garden & Gun)
Areni Winemaking – Ancient and Modern(Laura Kelley on her visit to “the site of the world’s oldest known winery,” in what is now Armenia)
Brief Guide to Great Stinky Cheeses, A(olfactory bliss, or mephitic nightmare – your choice)
Chile’s Global Warming(Deana Sidney on the history of chile peppers’ migrations around the world; in Saudi Aramco World)
Cookbook Shelf, The(Eater’s interviews with chefs about their cookbook collections)
Gastronomie Médiévale(an online exhibition from The University of British Columbia; in English and French)
Graduate Journal of Food Studies (“A peer-reviewed journal on food studies for graduate students.”)
John Cage: Mushroom Hunter(an exhibit at the Horticultural Society of New York)
Panorama Italia (articles and recipes, most in English, some in Italian, some in French)
Salt of the Earth(interview with Southern food historian Marcie Cohen Ferris; in Guernica)
Why Guinness Is Less Irish Than You Think(as The Economist points out, it’s actually – faith an’ begorra – English!)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Anatomy of the Cookbook, or, What is a Recipe?
Do Content Aggregators Take Advantage of Food Bloggers?
Grammarbase
How to Write Recipes That Are Harder to Steal
Intelligent Speller and Grammar Checker
Quick and Dirty Tips: Grammar Girl
Top 10 Ways to Make Your Editor Love You
Why Audiobooks Are the Next Big Thing in Self-Publishing

---- yet more blogs ----
drink factory
Savoring the Past

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter.

The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (Hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Hardcover) (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (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 #163” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

Foodsites for April 2014

 Early Spring is such a teasel...
April promises to be a cruel month: the usual work load, plus a book deadline to meet, plus a talk to deliver, and that is only the first half of the month. 
Then we begin remodeling our kitchen -- ceiling to floor, including building the cabinets (it’s an old house, nothing “standard” is ever going to fit). And by “we” I mean “me.” This will not be one of those hiring-someone-else-to-design-and-do-the work-then boasting-about-the-achievement-afterwards deals. Don’t get me wrong, there will be boasting, and having someone else do the work would be peachy. It’s just not going to happen that way. Maybe if I buy a lottery ticket…
But I digress. Here’s the very last updates newsletter… before the deluge, that is.
Regular subscribers to our updates newsletter receive these updates from our blog, Just Served, directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically. For example, this month we posted an updated version of an article written for LeitesCulinaria about eight years ago. It’s about Chicken à la King, and the search for its origins.
You can (if so inclined) follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. You can also find links to all of our online scribbles at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
April is the cruelest month, and not just because it has a fifteenth. Here’s this month’s excerpt from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors… and miss.” Robert Heinlein

GaryApril, 2014

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 of you who have suggested sites -- 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 ----
Are Italians Changing Their Food Habits?(Andrea Maraschi peers into the nation’s shopping cart)
Are We Falling Back in Love with Frozen Food?(a peek into the UK’s refrigerated section, in The Guardian)
Food: A Dish of Sicilian History(Paula Wolfert in The New York Times)
French Food Before Taillevent(Jim Chevallier clears up some misconceptions about medieval food)
Loving Animals to Death(James McWilliams on the ethics of carnivory, in The American Scholar)
Lunch Hour(an exhibition at the New York Public Library)
Magnificent Banquets for the Wedding of Annibale II Bentivoglio and Lucrezia d'Este, The (Bologna 1487)(basta! enough already, Fra Cherubino!)
St. Brendan and his Miraculous Food: Heavenly Meals for a Legendary Voyage(an ascent of the big rock candy mountain of the ninth century)
Very First Anglo Saxon Toast?, The(looking for historical evidence from an unlikely source: Geoffrey of Monmouth)
zarela.com(website of Mexican chef/cookbook author Zarela Martinez)

---- inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers ----
10 Things I Learned on Book Tour
100 Verbs for Recipes, from Julia Child
Author Tries Kindle After 16 Cookbooks
Cookbooks, A Love Story
E-Books: Pros & Cons of the Top 5 Self-Publishers
How Art Can Change the Way We Eat
Let’s Take the Baby Talk out of Recipes
Rose by Any Other Name, A: Pros and Cons of Pseudonyms
Thesaurus.com
Translator

---- yet more blogs ----
Emily Contois
Garden Earth - Beyond Sustainability
Medieval Cookery

---- that’s all for now ----
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
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 support On the Table, without spending a dime of your own money on it?
It’s easy. Whenever you want to shop on Amazon. Com, click on any of the book links below, then whatever you buy there (it doesn’t even have to be one of our books) will earn a commission for this newsletter:
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (Paper) (Kindle)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (Hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Hardcover) (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (Paper) (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (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 #162” 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) 2014 by Gary Allen.

Chicken à la King

Newspaper ad, ca. 1917
I received a query from a chef, who was preparing a themed dinner of American classic dishes. He was puzzled because he couldn’t find anything on the origins of chicken à la king. The first question to come to mind was, “What ever happened to that stuff? It used to be everywhere.” When I started looking around for an answer, I discovered that New Yorker scribe and food writer, Calvin Trillin, had been puzzled by the same thing, some 20 years earlier. He wrote:

I’ve been wondering for a long time where all the chicken à la king went. A few years ago, I began to think that the government might have it stored somewhere — in huge silos, maybe, or in those salt caves in Kansas where they keep surplus rutabagas….

I believe — and sincerely hope — that no such reserves exist, in Kansas or anywhere else. The very idea of vast pools of flour-thickened goop, fermenting under decades of midwestern suns, or slowly heaving, like magma, in perpetual darkness, is the stuff of nightmares. While there is an answer (of sorts) to the question of where chicken à la king went, perhaps I should deal with some earlier questions first: Where did the dish come from? Who invented it? Why does it bear a decidedly non-American name (granted, “à la,“ as in “pie à la mode,” can pass for American, but kings have been pretty much non grata in this country for a couple of centuries, and certainly longer than the dish has been around)? And, since it seems that its originator went to the trouble of using a French prepositional phrase, why not go all the way and call it “Poulet à la Roi?”In looking into the dish’s origins, I quickly discovered that the problem was the exact opposite of what the chef thought it was. Rather than a shortage of answers, there were entirely too many explanations of the dish’s early history.One version claims that Thomas Jefferson created the dish at Monticello. We can discard that one immediately: We could find no mention of anything resembling chicken à la king in Jefferson’s papers. Moreover, does it seem reasonable that the author of the Declaration of Independence would name something after a king? Not likely at all.In another version, French chef Charles Ranhofer, at New York’s Delmonico’s, invented the dish in the 1880s. Horse breeder Foxhall P. Keene — an alleged regular customer — was the first to sample the new creation, and consequently, it was originally named “Chicken à la Keene.” Not exactly “Chicken à la King,” but close enough to be believable, if you’re the sort who believes just about anything you’re told.A variation on that story says the dish was first prepared in London’s Claridge Hotel in 1881 for Foxhall’s father, J. R. Keene. While this version is more specific as to the date — and tosses in a number of interesting, but unrelated, facts to make it sound even more believable (a characteristic feature of urban legends) — it suffers from the same problem as the first one; it concludes with the name “Chicken à la Keene.”Another version says that chef “Finnan Haddie” Joe Bolton of College Inn — a 1920s Chicago speakeasy and restaurant — invented the dish. According to College Inn’s corporate website, chef Joe Colton of College Inn (note the different spelling, and loss of nickname) invented the dish. We contacted Del Monte Foods, the current parent company of College Inn (known, today, primarily for its canned stocks and broths; we’ve always suspected — wrongly, it seems — that the company name was a pun on “collagen,” the substance from bones and connective tissue that gives body to stocks), to get more details. Their spokesperson described the original College Inn as a “nightclub,” and claimed it was “the oldest nightclub in America.” Beyond providing the company’s history of corporate ownership, the only thing the spokesperson added was that the College Inn company was formed in 1923. Based on that information, we began to suspect that the other story details — about Colton, for example — may not be entirely accurate. Those suspicions were aroused by an ad for College Inn canned chicken à la king that appeared in the Syracuse Herald on Tuesday, June 22, 1920 — three years before the company was supposed to exist. 

Popular hostesses are providing new and tasty delight for family and guests with College Inn Chicken a la King; Welsh Rarebit and Chop Suey. Any one of these remarkably delicious foods may now be served with all the piquant flavor that has made famous the renowned College Inn in Chicago's Hotel Sherman, all prepared under strictest supervision from recipes developed and guarded by world famous chefs. The remarkable part about College Inn Foods is that they are hotel prepared without being hotel priced. You will be delightfully surprised when you try them. Order several of these items today from your grocer.

Yet another version brings the story back to the neighborhoods of New York City — specifically, a hotel in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn — where chef George Greenwald first dished it up for the hotel’s owners, Mr. and Mrs. E. Clarke King (in some versions of the story, especially online, their names are seen without the “E.”), in the 1890s. This was much more promising. For one thing, it eliminated the need for “Keene” to morph into “King.” Second, the time was about right, for reasons that will become clearer below.When Fannie Merritt Farmer published her The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book in 1896, she included two recipes for chicken à la king — signaling that the dish had become popular since Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cook Book, on which Farmer’s book was based, was published, in 1883. Mrs. Lincoln had been silent on the subject of chicken à la king, perhaps because she’d never heard of it. The 1901 Settlement Cook Book also contains a recipe for the dish.The two earliest mentions found in newspapers of the phrase “chicken à la king“ are in virtually identical articles — either an early example of syndication or blatant plagiarism. They appeared in the Evening News (Tuesday, November 20, 1906; Ada, Oklahoma) and the Massillon Independent (Monday, December 24, 1906; Massillon, Ohio). The article in the Evening News credited its source as The New York Post. It didn’t provide a date, but it did furnish instructions for preparing the dish:

A favorite dish served in one of the popular hotels of New York is Chicken a la King. The recipe is as follows [:] Cut into small pieces the white meat of a cold roast chicken. Make a sauce with two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan over the fire. When the butter melts stir in two heaping tablespoonfuls of flour, which has been well sifted. When the flour and butter are mixed to a cream pour in slowly a pint of hot milk stirring constantly to keep from forming lumps. Allow the same to boil up once; then add a tablespoonful of grated onion, a saltspoonful of salt, and the yolks of two eggs. Stir them briskly through the sauce, add two truffles and two mushrooms cut in small pieces and fried lightly in butter, one sweet green pepper cut in shreds after the seeds have been removed, and a generous tablespoonful of caper chopped and just a suggestion of grated nutmeg. Last of all, add the chicken, stir all together and allow it to cook a minute. Chicken a la King is usually served in a chafing dish.

So... chicken à la king appears to have been created sometime between 1883 and 1886. For reasons that seem mysterious today, it suddenly became popular, and recipes for it appeared everywhere, springing up overnight, like French revolutionaries — or, at least, like mushrooms.We now know a bit more about the name and date, but how was the dish created? In the Foxhall Keene version of the story, Keene told Ranhofer of a dream he had about a dish of chicken prepared with cream and pimentos — and the chef invented it on the spot. Possible but unlikely, especially since the chef’s own 1893 cookbook, The Epicurean, included a very similar recipe but, pointedly, does not contain a recipe called “chicken à la king,” which would be unusual, had he invented it:

Chicken Fricassee à la Favorite (Fricassée de Poulet à la Favorite)

Prepare and cut up the chickens the same as for plain fricassee…; Soak the pieces for half an hour, then drain and return them to the saucepan to moisten them with white broth…; Cook the chicken, drain it in a colander, and run the liquid through a napkin; put it back on the fire to reduce to half[,] adding eight gills of velouté sauce…, then reduce once more until the sauce adheres to the spoon, afterwards finish with egg yolks and butter. Strain through a tammy, and keep hot in a bain-marie. Wash thoroughly the pieces of cooked chicken in cold water; pare nicely, and place them in the sauce; after they are well heated, dress and garnish around with a cluster of carrot balls half an inch in diameter, blanched and cooked in white stock… and a little sugar, also small white onions cooked in white broth. Decorate the outside with small flat egg-plant croquettes containing mushrooms and truffles, and use also trussed crawfish for the ornamentation.

Obviously, dishes similar to chicken à la king were being served at the time. Chef August Escoffier, for example, had a similar recipe in his 1907 Guide Culinaire:

Fricasée de Poulet à l’Ancienne

Préparer la fricassee comme à l’Ordinaire.—Environ 10 minutes avant de servir, la garnir de: 15 petits oignons, cuit au Consommé blanc; 15 petits champignons canelés, cuits, bien blancs.

Au dernier moment, lier la sauce avec 2 jaunes d’oeuf, 4 cuillerés de crème et 30 grammes de beurre; completer avec une pincée de persil et de ciboulette hachés.

Dresser en timbale et entourer de petits fleurons en feuilletage, cuit à blanc.

While Escoffier’s cooking seems elaborate by today’s standards, it was actually vastly simplified from the cooking of his time (and certainly less complex than Ranhofer’s recipe). Here’s our English approximation of Escoffier’s terse French:

Old-Fashioned Chicken Fricassee

Make the fricassee in the usual way* …ten minutes before serving, garnish with 15 small onions, cooked in white stock, and 15 small fluted mushrooms, cooked but not browned.

At the last moment, thicken the sauce with 4 egg yolks, 4 spoons of cream and 30 grams [an ounce] of butter; finish with a pinch of chopped parsley and chives.

Form in a timbale [and then unmold onto a plate] and surround with small decorative pieces of puff pastry, baked but not browned.

[*Cut chicken up as for frying, but only sear it in butter without browning, then cook it in sauce.]

So we know that the dish was just one of many similar dishes, and that it acquired its name in the last years of the nineteenth century—and that it had disappeared by the mid 1980s. New York Times writer Craig Claiborne was already treating it as an historical recipe — essentially a museum piece — in 1985, basing his version on what he believed to be the E. Clark King version:

Chicken à la King

Ingredients

1/4 Cup plus 2 Tbsp. Butter, melted 

1/2 Green pepper, shredded

1 Cup Mushrooms, sliced thinly

2 Tbsp. Flour

1/2 tsp. Salt

2 Cups Cream

3 Cups Cooked chicken meat, cubed

3 Egg yolks

1 tsp. Onion juice

1 Tbsp. Lemon juice

1/2 tsp. Paprika

to taste Sherry

Pimento, shredded 

Method

Sauté peppers and mushrooms in 2 Tbsp. butter, 5 minutes.

Add flour and salt, cook until frothy.

Add cream and cook until thickened.

Put sauce in double-boiler, add chicken and let stand until hot.

Melt remaining 1/4 Cup butter, beat in egg yolks, onion juice, lemon juice and paprika until thick.

Stir egg mixture into sauce and chicken, add sherry.

Serve on toast, garnished with pimento.

This is hardly the luxurious product that Ranhofer or Escoffier — or any of the regulars at Delmonico’s or Claridge, or Brighton Beach, for that matter — would have recognized. Claiborne’s dish was, however, much more elegantly passé than the version most Americans would have known at the time. Here’s Betty Crocker’s pre-1969 recipe:

Chicken à la King

Ingredients

1 can (6 oz.) Sliced mushrooms, drained (reserve 1/4 Cup liquid)

1/2 Cup Green pepper, diced

1/2 Cup Butter or margarine

1/2 Cup All-purpose flour (if using self-rising flour, decrease salt to 1/2 tsp.)

1/4 tsp. Pepper

2 Cups Light cream

1 3/4 Cups Chicken broth (chicken broth can be made by dissolving 2 chicken bouillon cubes in 1 3/4 Cups boiling water, or use one 14 oz. Can chicken broth)

2 Cups Cooked chicken or turkey, cubed

1 jar (4 oz.) Pimento, chopped

Toast cups [see note] or patty shells

Method

In a large skillet, cook and stir mushrooms and green pepper in butter 5 minutes. Blend in flour, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in cream, broth and reserved mushroom liquid. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute. Stir in chicken and pimento; heat through. Serve hot in toast cups.

8 Servings.

Note: Toast cups are made by trimming the crusts from white bread, spreading with soft butter or margarine, then pressing, butter-side down, into muffin cups and baking at 375 degrees for 12 minutes or until lightly toasted.

It seems that chicken à la king didn’t die a sudden and tragic death. Trillin would have noticed that. Instead, it suffered a slow diminution of quality, one or two ingredients at a time, one substitution after another — a sort of death of a thousand cuts — until there was no longer any reason for making the dish.Trillin, who has an answer for everything, may well have stumbled onto something, back in 1985: 

Not long ago, on a particularly fancy airline menu, I came across an item called Poulet aux Champignons Supreme. I asked the stewardess what she thought it was. She looked around furtively. She drew closer. Then she said, almost in a whisper, "Chicken à la king."

Recipes like chicken à la king do not spring into being from thin air, nor vanish entirely from the face of the earth. Instead they mutate, or assume new identities. They don’t need to hide in government silos in Kansas; they can lurk unseen among us, ready to reappear, unbidden, on a plastic tray, at any time. 
References Betty Crocker Cookbook . New York: Golden Press (division of Western Publishing Company, Racine WI), 1969. College Inn HistoryEscoffier, Auguste. Guide Culinaire . London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1907. Ranhofer, Charles. The Epicurean, a Complete Treatise of Analytical and Practical Studies on the Culinary Art, Including Table and Wine Service ... and a Selection of Interesting Bills of Fare of Delmonico's from 1862 to 1894 . New York: Dover Publications [1971] (Reprint of the 1893 ed.)Stevens, Patricia Bunning. Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes . Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998.Trillin, Calvin. If You Can’t Say Something Nice . New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1987.Whitman, Joan (ed.). Craig Claiborne’s New York Times Food Encyclopedia . New York: New York Times Books, 1985.
----------------------This article originally appeared, in slightly different form, on LeitesCulinaria, and is used here by permission