Gary Allen's Blog, page 19

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

Food Sites for March 2014

It’s the dead of Winter in the Hudson Valley. For weeks, we have done nothing but work, order fuel oil, shovel Sisyphean mountains of snow, then order more fuel oil. But Spring will come (no matter how unlikely it seems right now) -- and it’s not too early to begin planning your garden. A guest post on our blog, Just Served, from Marie Ianotti pours a shot of Spring tonic to get you started.
Regular subscribers to this newsletter receive these updates directly -- but there is much more at the blog that isn’t delivered automatically (Marie’s gardening advice, for example).
 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.
March is Oscars month (hence this quote from The Godfather trilogy), an excerpt from On the Table’s culinary quote collection. Admit it, you were puzzled by the photo at the top of the page, weren’t you?

“Leave the gun. Keep the cannolis.”

GaryMarch, 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 ----
Consider the Recipe(Kyla Tompkins applies literary analysis to the recipe format)
Global Food History (a new academic journal from Bloomsbury Publishing)
Joy of Digitized Cookbooks, with a List of Go-To Sources, The(Cynthia Bertelsen on the wonders of old culinary texts available online)
Junior’s Cheesecake and the Enduring Appeal of Mediocre Food(“…it's about the comfort and nostalgia that come from familiarity;” article in New York Magazine’s Grub Street)
Medieval Culinary Texts from Central India(first of Ammini Ramachandran’s series of posts, providing the food’s cultural and historic context)
Pizza, Pasta and Red Sauce: Italian or American?(Donna R. Gabaccia discusses the effects of the Columbian Exchange and immigration on foods often thought of as “Italian”)
Sarabhendra Pakasathram - Part IPart II - Non-Vegetarian RecipesPart III - Vegetarian RecipesPart IV - Recipes From The English Kitchen(another of Ammini Ramachandran’s serial posts, this time on a collection of early nineteenth century culinary manuscripts in the Saraswathi Mahal Library)
Scientific Explanation of How Marijuana Causes the Munchies, A(The Smithsonian reports on a study originally published in Nature Neuroscience)
Spice Chest – African Spices(Anita-Clare Field writes, not so much about the spices, as the spice blends that define African cooking)
Squirrels, Rabbits and Other World Events(“An Algonquin Round Table discourse it ain’t;” article from American Food Roots)
Touch Screen That Came to Dinner, The(former NY Times restaurant critic, Bryan Miller, writes -- in the Wall Street Journal -- about how “mobile technology is changing the way we eat out”)
What Cookbooks Mean to Cooks: A Meditation on a Magic Carpet Ride to Turkey (and We’re Not Talking ‘bout the Bird)(“Cookbooks… invite us to ponder civilizations and the formation of human connections;” a post by Cynthia Bertelsen)

---- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Ben Fink Photography
Is Self-Publishing a Better Road to Wealth for Writers?

---- yet another blog ----
Art of the Pie

---- 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 #161” 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.

It may not seem like it right now...

...but Spring is coming. Really it is.
To get ready, take a look at this guest post, an excerpt from Marie Iannotti's latest book,  The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Northeast (2014), where you'll find out much more about what to grow here and how to grow it.



Planning Your Perfect Vegetable Garden
Complaining about the weather is winter sport for Northeasterners, but our long, cold winters are really a mixed blessing. Although they keep us indoors, they provide plenty of time to plan our gardens. So much time that it's easy to get carried away. If you are planning your first vegetable garden, you can be realistic or be overwhelmed. Even old hands at vegetable gardening need to be reined in. Think back to the cabbage your kids grew weary of after three steady weeks of cole slaw. Do you want a repeat of that? Instead of fantasizing, grab a cup of tea and a seat by the window and ask yourself; How much time do I have to work in the garden? How much space can I spare? What vegetables do I really like to eat? 
Making choices about what to grow is probably the most important of your garden planning tasks, because those choices will dictate how much time and space is required. Every gardener tries to plant more than their space can hold. That's a gardening given, and it really doesn't get any better with experience. However, you can make your decisions a little easier by considering these 3 things:
1. Plant what you like to eat. This should be common sense, but seed catalogs are seductive. Consider how you eat already, not an idealized version of what the back-to-the-earth gardener eats. If your kids adore carrots, not chard, use your space to re-seed carrots every couple of weeks. If all you are really interested in is fresh salads, start with tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and radishes. You can always add more.
2. Plant what you cannot get fresh locally. Sweet corn is grown up and down the East Coast and the start of sweet corn season is a regionally celebrated event. Farmers' markets and stands will be overflowing with it. On the other hand, matchstick-thin green beans are rarely grown commercially and taste their snappy best when eaten fresh from the garden. Home gardeners can grow thousands of vegetables that will never be found in the produce aisle. Planting something new and different every year is a great way to expand your culinary horizon as well as your gardening chops.
3. Plant things that grow well in your area. Some crops, like sweet potatoes and melons need a longer, warmer growing season than many of us can provide. You might want to leave them for the pros to grow. Plant for the season we have, starting with cool weather greens,  then clearing space for the heat lovers we can please, like tomatoes and zucchini, and cap the season off with vegetables -- like kale -- that sweeten with frost.
Be wary of vegetables that come with a guarantee of problems. Multiple leaf-spotting disease spores lie dormant in the soil, waiting for the perfect conditions to infect your tomatoes. Foil them by choosing varieties that are resistant to reoccurring problems in your area, like 'Celebrity' or 'Roma'. It's not a guarantee, but it does give you an edge, and there are plenty of choices. Choosing vegetables and varieties suited to your climate will pay off with less effort on your part and a better harvest.
Navigating the eccentricities of gardening in the Northeast is not easy. Plants are not "plug and play". They don't thrive if you ignore them and they require a lot of follow-up, which is why some people love gardening and others avoid it. For those who love it, our lingering, hazy summers and cool, crisp falls provide a growing season capable of yielding an every-changing menu of seasonal food. You wouldn't eat it all at once and you shouldn't try to plant it all at once.
______
Marie Iannotti is a gardener who writes, photographs and speaks irreverently about gardening. She is the author of The Beginners Guide to Heirloom Vegetables (Kindle, Paper) and The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Northeast (Paper). You can find her at PracticallyGardening.com and About.com Gardening.

Food Sites for February 2014

Nutmeg and Mace,  Myristica fragrans

Winter continues to serve up its worst, but a warm kitchen -- filled with the aromas of hearty slow-cooked dishes helps get us through February. Well, that, and Valentine’s Day. Or maybe both. It is no accident that Valentine’s Day falls in the dead of winter  (is any couple foolish enough to break up during such a dismally icy month?).
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. The blog continues to be neglected while plugging away at a book project... but Roll Magazine served up an amuse bouche from our book, Terms of Vegery , as “Go Ahead, Just Take a Little Taste…”.
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.
Sans additional comment, we’ll conclude this month’s introductory palaver with just two excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. HL Mencken

God have mercy on the sinner / Who must write with no dinner, / No gravy and no grub, / No pewter and no pub, / No belly and no bowels, / Only consonants and vowels. John Crowe Ransom

GaryFebruary, 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 ----
Biggest Food Revolution Ever, The: The Printed Cookbook?(Cynthia Bertelsen on the how and why of early cookbooks)
Geography of a Restaurant Menu, The(sociologist Gwen Sharp’s analysis of marketing techniques used on menus)
Lifelong Fight Against Trans Fats, A(Melanie Warner’s New York Times article about Dr. Fred Kummerow, one of the first scientists to note the connection between trans fats – and oxidized fats – with heart disease)
RecipeCurio.com(an archive of preserved, mostly twentieth-century, recipes – from handwritten cards, clippings, and cookbooks)
Sauce for Thought: A Brief History of Spices that Serve as Natural Food Coloring(Alice DeLuca on colorants that predate Red Dye #2)
SkyBlueSky(David Hagerman’s food and travel photography)
Two Reasons Why I am Interested in What King Kalakaua of Hawaii Ate(Rachel Laudan – and Henry Voigt – offer some insights into cross-cultural cuisine)
When a Food Writer Can’t Taste(Marlena Spieler’s post-accident account “phantom scents and distortions of actual smells — phantosmia and parosmia, respectively;” in The New York Times)
Why Study the History of Cookbooks, or, the Art and the Mystery of Food(Cynthia Bertelsen on the early history of cookbooks, along with an excellent bibliography of cookbook bibliographies)

---- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Battle Cry from the Goddesses of Food, A
How to Blog a Book
Work from Home? Do it Better.

---- yet another blog ----

My Carolina Kitchen

---- 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 #160” 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 January 2014

We might not be taking our morning coffee in the garden anytime in the near future.

Lately, in our part of the world, Winter has blasted us with everything it has to offer. Not that we’ve indicated any interest in being the recipient of such largesse. It does mean that (other than time spent shoveling) there’s more time for wandering about the internet, visiting tasty sites.
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. The blog continues to be neglected while plugging away at a book project... but Just Served did have one new post. Unfortunately for subscribers to this newsletter, “What’s in a Sausage?” is not really about our beloved encased meats – unless “encased meat” is understood to be our brain and the reading we’ve stuffed into it. However, since a new year is about to arrive, you might consider reading about one of our January traditions: “Hoppin’ John for the New Year Celebration: Hope For a Rosy Future” – one that is mirrored, in Japan, with sekihan (rice cooked with tiny red adzuki beans).
You can (if so inclined) follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. You can also find links to all of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Leitesculinaria has reposted twenty-two of our backlisted (and vaguely historical) LC pieces here.
To balance all the holiday excess, this month. we’ll add just one excerpt from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Now hoppin'-john was F. Jasmine's very favorite food. She had always warned them to wave a plate of rice and peas before her nose when she was in her coffin, to make certain there was no mistake; for if a breath of life was left in her, she would sit up and eat, but if she smelled the hoppin'-john, and did not stir, then they could just nail down the coffin and be certain she was truly dead. Carson McCullers

GaryJanuary, 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 ----
A-Z of Unusual Ingredients: Coconut OilA-Z of Unusual Ingredients: DukkahA-Z of Unusual ingredients: MatchaA-Z of Unusual Ingredients: Ras el Hanout(Rachel Smith’s articles, in The Telegraph)
American Cakes – Carrot Cake(Gil Marks, at The History Kitchen, on the three-thousand-year-old roots of a classic cake)
Appam - A Temple Food Offering with a Very Ancient History(Ammini Ramachandran’s account of Hindi ritual cooking)
Archaeologists Officially Declare Collective Sigh Over “Paleo Diet”(“The nutritional benefits of the diet are not what the grievance is about…” it’s that neo-Neanderthals don’t recognize a joke when it’s on them)
Are There Fundamental Laws of Cooking?(Samuel Arbesman, writing in Wired Magazine)
Culinary Art: History and Marketing Strategies(five papers presented at CrossCulTour Summerschool, Friesach, Austria, 14 -17 September 2010; three are about food in the Medieval period)
From DNA to Beer: Harnessing Nature in Medicine and Industry(an exhibition at the U.S. National Library of Medicine)
Geographical Distance, not Climate, Explains Regional Cuisines(a statistical analysis of Chinese cooking styles, by Yuxiao Zhu, et.al.)
Gourmand, The (British food and culture journal)
Guide to Collecting Cookbooks, A(a brief introduction, from online used book seller AbeBooks)
History of Carrots(first page is a brief timeline, but is followed by much more detail)
Honey Bees Across America(Brenda Kellar traces the spread of Apis mellifera for the Oregon State Beekeepers Association)
How Stress Affects Your Food: From Distorted Tastes to Comfort Eating(Amy Fleming’s post on why we taste with our brains, not our tongues)
just-food(food industry news aggregator)
McRib, The: Enjoy Your Symptom(Ian Bogost, in The Atlantic, tells why we don’t want to know how the food magicians do their tricks, but derive satisfaction just by knowing that we are being tricked.)
New Kind of Food Science, A: How IBM is Using Big Data to Invent Creative Recipes(Aatish Bhatia, on how to deeply analyze the recipe-writing process, in Wired Magazine)
Pride and Partridges(Pen Vogler, in The Guardian, on Jane Austen and food)
Rapeseed Revolution, The(Lydia Bell’s article on the oil known, in North America, as “canola”)
Road Trip Restaurant-ing(Theodore Dreiser and Emily Post wrote the first “road trip” books -- at least ones involving automobiles; Jan Whitaker’s observations of the meals they experienced)
Shircliffe Menu Collection, The(Jan Whitaker’s article about 10,000 items in the New York Historical Society’s Patricia D. Klingenstein Library)
Study: Fast-Food Culture Hinders Our Ability to Savor Life(Julie Beck’s article in The Atlantic)
Sweet Potato Varieties(everything you need to know about the roots that are neither tubers nor yams)
Vintage Cocktails: Gee Whiz, The Evolution of the Gin Fizz(Kimberly Voss’ article, in The Southern Food and Beverage Museum’s OKRA Magazine)
Wild Raspberries : Young Andy Warhol’s Little-Known Vintage Cookbook(a whimsical collection of thoroughly untestable recipes from the pre-pop artist and Suzie Frankfurt)

---- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers ----
Five Ways To Identify a Bullshit Food Writer
I Ate the Sponsored Food: Why Disclosure Isn’t Enough.
Publishing Trend for 2014: A New Demand for Eye-Catching Cookbooks
Writer's Web

---- yet more blogs ----
Cookery Year in Coorg, A
Food in Jars
Les Leftovers
my cooking hut
Retro-Food.Com


---- and just because it’s a new year ----
5 Futuristic Food Trends


---- 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 this newsletter, 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 On the Table.
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 #159” 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.

Now That the Holiday’s Over

Thanksgiving dinner has come and gone. Mostly gone. While it was everything you could have hoped for, I'll wager you’ve pretty much lost interest in the leftover turkey sandwiches that seemed so wonderful – back on Wednesday. Even stuffing has lost its appeal. And yet there is still more turkey in the ‘fridge.Assuming you’ve already served every conceivable variation of the original dinner, and gone off into Turkey Tetrazini territory and beyond, you’re probably looking for a way to serve that left-over turkey in some way that doesn’t taste so much like… so much like… well, you know, turkey.Around our house, we have a solution to this annual problem. It may not be new, or traditional in a New England sort of way, but it has prevented a lot of tired left-overs from becoming raccoon fodder.Back in seventeenth century Mexico -- as the story goes – word reached a poor convent that its bishop was going to pay a visit to the nuns. They needed to find something suitable to serve him, but all they had was turkey. After all these centuries, we can’t be certain that it was left-over turkey but, for the sake of the story, let’s go with it. In a state of increasing panic, they ransacked their pantry for anything that might make the boring turkey more appetizing. They found chiles – this was Mexico, after all -- but also some spices, a little dried fruit, some nuts, and a few precious blocks of chocolate. They combined it all and served the bishop the best thing he had ever tasted. He left the convent a happy man, and everywhere he traveled, he raved about the wonderful dish he’d had in Puebla. A bishop on a donkey was the foodie blog of the day, and the dish became an immediate success.There’s a wonderful recipe for it in Diana Kennedy’s The Cuisines of Mexico . It’s a complex and time-consuming process – wholly undesirable characteristics in the days following exhaustive efforts in the kitchen and dining room. We want something easy, something tasty, something we can eat with our hands as simply as a sandwich – yet not another damn sandwich – and something that will not even vaguely remind us of repasts so recently perdu.Our solution is this much-simplified version of Ms. Kennedy’s Mole Poblano de Guajolote. We spoon it onto flour tortillas, and wrap them burrito-style. They’re good on their own, but (if you’ve recovered enough from the holiday to exert yourself) a garnish of avocado cubes, a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds, and some mild Oaxacan cheese would not be out of place.Quick Mole PoblanoYield: 8-10 servingsIngredients6 cups turkey stock (you did make stock from the bones, right?)
1 oz. stale French bread
4 cloves
1/8 tsp. coriander seed
10 black peppercorns
¼ tsp. fennel seed
¼ tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbsp. raisins
1 Tbsp. chile powder (I used ancho)
20 almonds, unpeeled
3 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
2 oz. raw pumpkin seeds
2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
12 oz. leftover turkey, shredded
8-10 nine-inch flour tortillasMethod1. Combine first twelve ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot, bring to a boil then turn down to simmer. Cook until bread has broken down, and the sauce is slightly thickened.
2. Pour mixture into blender. Cover tightly, place kitchen towel over blender cover (hot liquids can easily splash out dangerously), and blend until smooth. Don’t over-fill the blender – if need be, purée in two batches.
3. Pour mixture back into pot, and add chopped chocolate. Heat gently, while stirring, until all chocolate is melted. Taste for seasoning, and thin with a little more stock if needed (it should be very thick, but not pasty). 
4. Add shredded turkey and cook until just heated through, stirring to make sure the sauce doesn’t scorch.
5. Spoon about a half cup of mole across a tortilla, add garnishes if desired, fold in the two sides, then roll up to form the classic burrito shape.

What’s in a Sausage?

My friend Carey and I met yesterday, and we spoke for a while about my little book on sausages. His fond childhood memories of sausages in England prompted him to wonder what we know about the earliest sausages. I mentioned references to blood sausage in Homer, and how modern Linguiça and Longaniza are direct descendants of Roman Lucanian links, which are -- in turn -- descended from older Greek ones. All rather ordinary factoids.This morning, that discussion seems to have been about more than encased meats (not that the subject isn’t a juicy one in itself). No, it has something to do with what -- in me, at least -- passes for an intellectual life. I have always been a voracious and eclectic reader. I’ve consumed thousands of arcane volumes, on subjects as diverse as history of science, anthropology, mythology, physics, geology, archaeology and paleontology, computer science, philosophy and religion. Most of that reading was non-fiction, but my more literary readings generally lean toward the classics. Given a choice between old books and new, I always choose the old.I only half-kiddingly refer to myself as a dilettante, but a better description would be “serial monomaniac.” Subjects grab hold of me for a while, leading to a bouts of obsessive reading. An interest in fly-fishing provokes the consumption of countless entomologies, life-histories of various salmonids, and angling literature from contemporary writers all the way back to Dame Juliana Berners’ A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle , with obligatory stops at a couple of editions of Izaac Walton. A fascination with words leads to etymology, which suggests that Greek and Roman literature might offer some hints, which leads to a prolonged stay among the Loeb Classical Library’s editions, with red-covered Romans and green-covered Greeks of all descriptions. Herodotus and Thucydides start me wondering about connections between myth, vaguely remembered bits of oral history, and archaeology. I find I must read everything I can about Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. But it’s not enough – I need to examine the earliest ancestors of Homo sapiens sapiens. That requires a look at evolution itself – which carried to its logical extreme passes back though the planet’s history, to cosmology, and ultimately to quantum physics.I realize there could be a connection between the orbital distances of electrons around the nucleus of atoms and the colors of the perceived world, from pigments and dyes to the spectrum of light itself. The most esoteric scraps of information appear to be directly connected to the seemingly most-obvious aspects of day-to-day life. The pot of feijoada, bubbling away on the stove contains – scattered among the black beans and linguiça -- the colonial history of Brazil, the discovery of the New World, medical notions of the Renaissance, the Crusades of the Middle Ages, the Islamic fascination with spices, linked via sausages all the way back to Ancient Greece, and via the Homer to memories of Bronze Age conflicts. Noticing that the ancient gods spoke directly to the heroes at Troy (something they rarely do today), leads to reading a book on the breakdown of the bi-cameral mind. Which leads to a bunch of books on the functioning of the brain (and a host of literary – as in “non-scientific” -- speculations on the nature of thought itself).Why would these seemingly unrelated subjects hold such fascination? Why follow every lead back to point where there is nowhere to go beyond the axiomatic? Why prefer the raw purity of Aeschylus over the more psychologically-correct Sophocles? Mathematical Bach over Romantic Brahms? Why this constant need to strip away the surface soil, to see what’s buried beneath? Why spend countless hours on Ancestry.com digging into every remote corner of my genealogy? What could possibly be gained through all this effort?That conversation with Carey suggests an answer of sorts. Sausages may be a savory metaphor for this quest: they are literal links between the past and present, and between all these disparate subjects; and each one is stuffed with tiny scraps of whatnot, fused together into a savory morsel that is something quite different from its ingredients, yet somehow incorporates the attributes of each. The expeditions through all these subjects do have something in common: they are about the search for an ultimate answer, the First Cause, if you will. While ego obviously initiates our attempts to find our place in the history of the Universe, we are unlikely to find much ego gratification there. It’s all so big and we’re so small. However, it’s oddly comforting to know that even though we occupy such an insignificant portion of that time-space continuum, we simultaneously contain all of it.Despite the sound of that last sentence, there is nothing mystical about it (‘though I can certainly see how mystics might reach similar conclusions). We each represent a history of everything that came before us, in microcosm, much like a strand of DNA… or a link of sausage.

Food Sites for December 2013

Eighteenth-century field kitchen re-enactment, Fort Ticonderoga, New York

Since the over-the-top-overeating holiday season is fast approaching, this month’s photo is somewhat more austere than is our usual wont. While we love gastronomic excess as much as (and possibly more than) most folks, we know that the sequel to all that hearty holiday fare is the bitter aftertaste of regret.
[The previous paragraph was intended as a kind of peptic talk, to urge us to fight the good fight against the dark forces of over-indulgence. We do not expect it to have any influence, whatsoever, on our actual behavior.]
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. The blog continues to be neglected while plugging away at a book project... but Just Served is already dishing out some holiday leftovers. In the classic Susan-Stamberg’s-mother’s-cranberry-sauce-mode, we’ve replated our “Thanksgiving (Special Holiday Report).”
You can (if so inclined) follow us on Facebook, and Twitter. You can also find links to all of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Leitesculinaria has reposted twenty-two of our backlisted (and vaguely historical) LC pieces here.
Here lie three holiday excerpts from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

It [Thanksgiving] was founded by the Puritans to give thanks for bein’ preserved from the Indians, an’ we keep it to give thanks we are preserved from the Puritans. Finley Peter Dunne

It was dramatic to watch [my grandmother] decapitate [a turkey] with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with “gourmet” status. Russell Baker

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. Erma Bombeck

GaryDecember, 2013

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 ----
Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine(an exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago)
Culinary Luminaries: Edna Lewis(video of a panel held at the New School, in New York City)
Favorites from the L.A. Public Library’s Menu Collection(a few samples from the collection of Dr. Melvin Schrier – who donated some 9,000 items)
Food Think Tank, The(a site about sustainability, not only of what is eaten, but of the eaters)
Foodspin(in-your-face humor, with a side of attitude – or maybe just trolling for foodies)
Glossary(Italian cooking terms)
How 17th Century Fraud Gave Rise to Bright Orange Cheese(hint: someone was skimming off the top…)
It’s the Umami, Stupid. Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow(article on the Smithsonian Institution’s blog, “Food & Think”)
Saturated Fat is Not the Major Issue(cardiologist Aseem Malhotra, writing in The British Medical Journal, explains that cutting saturated fats -- like butter and cheese – from our diets discourages neither obesity nor heart attacks)
Swallow Magazine (a droll step away from the usual foodie gushing)
Table Sauce World(descriptions, ingredients and histories of many, many, condiments, new and old)
Thai Ingredients(more than a glossary, each link leads to a detailed article on the ingredient)

---- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers ----
5 Ways to be a Good Literary Citizen
14 Foodie Phrases That Have Lost All Meaning
Book Marketing 101
Confessions of a Dyslexic (Word Award Winning) Food Writer
Cost of Killing Off Real Food Writing, The
Lesson 873 – The Power of One (Photo)
Make the Most of Your Indie Bookstore Event
Off the Page Design
Writer’s Circle

---- yet more blogs ----
Bowl Half Full
BRUCE AND MARK
honey & jam
Kosher Camembert

---- moved or changed URLs ----
Culinary Historians of Southern California, The

---- 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 this newsletter, 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 On the Table.
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 #158” 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) 2013 by Gary Allen.