Gary Allen's Blog, page 21

Food Sites for April 2013

Fiddlehead season


April, the first month of the year to have a feminine name, is about to grace us with her presence. Isn’t it curious that the only gendered months* occur in the Spring? We’re not going to attempt to wrest something meaningful from the fact; it’s just a ponderable something-or-other to aid in procrastinating from actual work.
In celebration of the first day of Spring, we chatted up some cannibalistic aspects of vernal equinox festivities at a meeting of the Culinary Historians of New York, on March 20th. There will be a podcast of the event sometime soon (and we’ll post when it’s available), if you’re the sort of person who reads footnotes, the talk (minus any adlibs) is posted here.
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 sent automatically. Just Served slings more leftovers than most people want to face, especially this time of year -- but, if you that feel you’re up to the challenge, you can follow us on Facebook, or Twitter. In the unlikely event that you find yourself stranded and book-starved, there’s even a kind of index at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
While this newsletter is mostly about food, food history, food science, food writing – let’s face it, we’re filling our faces and thinking about the process, before, during, and after the fact – Dr Sanscravat occasionally has another thought. When he does, it’s usually about himself; there’s a new example of such self-indulgent blather, On Evolution, at our blog.
Leitesculinaria has reposted several of our own articles – and there should be another new one appearing there, hard upon year’s end. Twenty-or-so backlisted of our LC pieces are available here, along with several articles by more noteworthy writers on food history and science.
In honor of the most fickle part of the season, this excerpt from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

The weather here is gorgeous. It’s mild and feels like it’s in the eighties. The hot dog vendors got confused because of the weather and thought it was spring, so they accidentally changed the hot dog water in their carts. David Letterman

GaryApril, 2013
*OK, if you want to get technical, we’ll grudgingly admit that July and August are named for a couple of Caesars – but we’re sticking with the idle question we’ve posed.

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----
Boxty, Coddle, and Balnamoon Skink(a glossary of Irish foods, from Bon Appétit)
Fork of One’s Own, A(“A History of Culinary Revolution;” Jane Kramer’s extended review, in The New Yorker, of Bee Wilson’s Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat)
From Zoo to Table(one man’s meat; journal entries from the starving time in Paris, 1870-71, published in Lapham’s Quarterly)
Gastronomy(the culinary section of cultural e-zine, Nowness)
How to Force Ethics on the Food Industry(Michael Mudd’s op-ed piece in The New York Times)
In Obesity Epidemic, Poverty Is an Ignored Contagion(Ginia Bellafante’s article about the health effects of class and government inaction in The New York Times)
Interactive Visual Guide to the Common Cuts of Beef, An(the basics, from Primer, a men’s magazine)
Lampascioni(Nancy Harmon Jenkins’ post about the edible bulbs of wild hyacinths)
Nordic Food Lab(studying Scandinavian foods, at a house boat laboratory in Copenhagen)
Ottoman Food Map(curiously, chick peas – either as hummus or falafel – don’t appear much farther north than the Syria/Turkey border)
Past the Potatoes: What the Irish Ate Before the Late 1600s(Sam Dean’s article in Bon Appétit; spoiler alert: “moo”)
Polarizing Practice of Eating Horses, The(Corby Kummer on hippophagy, in The Atlantic)
Rise of Independent Cheesemakers, The(Kendra Nordin’s article about producers of artisanal) cheeses, in The Christian Science Monitor)
Setting a Place for History(Ivan Day makes museum exhibits come alive by including period food; article in The New York Times)
Total Pig: On Meat(a “friendly, open-minded” look at carnivory, in The Santa Fe Reporter)

-- yet more blogs --
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Comfortably Hungry
Mister Meatball

----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)
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 #150” 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.

Spring Fever

This was a talk delivered to The Culinary Historians of New York, 20 March 2013, at New York University. The talk was preceded by a delightfully appropriate buffet of treats: Butterfingers, Baby Ruths, gingerbread men, ossi del morto, lady fingers, virgin's cakes (shaped like the sacrificed breasts of St, Agatha), and more. CHNY plans to make a podcast  of this available (complete with ad libs and Q&A)-- and when it is, a link will be added here.



Spring Rituals: Fertility Rites
Spring is a critical time in the life of a farming society. First, it marks the end of winter starvation. It also places great responsibility on farmers: crops have to be planted—not too soon or too late—or the entire community will starve the following winter. Limited supplies of seed corn left from the previous year often exacerbate the pressure. It is essential that everything be timed perfectly.
Almost every agricultural society has had some form of ritual to guarantee the success of the spring planting. Spring rituals, and the initiation rites that mark puberty, are obviously about fertility. Sex, eating, death and rebirth dance together, their movements blurring the boundaries that modern, non-mythic, peoples use to separate the concepts into more easily managed parts. Paul Wirtz described a puberty rite of the Marind-anim of what was then Dutch South New Guinea. After several days of orgies by adults, virginal initiates were brought to the center of the village, to a massive structure of logs. One specially-prepared girl stayed under that structure and had sex with all the male initiates. While she was lying with the last youth, all the logs came crashing down, killing them. Their bodies were then chopped up, cooked and eaten by the villagers.The Liberian Poro society, up until the 1940s, combined sex, eating, death and rebirth in their initiation rites. Young men and women were circumcised and the excised parts dried, cooked, and eaten by initiates of the opposite sex. The male initiation, however, only began with circumcision. It was followed by a long period of isolation (up to four years), when the boys were supposed to be in the belly of the crocodile spirit. They received scars that represented passing through its teeth. When the ritual crocodile pregnancy ended, the youths were "reborn." The Poro's initiation process overcame their dread of vaginal castration during sex. Bruno Bettelheim saw a connection to the terror of the vagina dentataexperienced by some mental patients. He wrote, "The rather unusual custom of eating part of the female genitalia might further suggest inordinate fear of or desire for the vagina, an emotion which is mastered through oral incorporation."Castration, fertility and the cycle of birth and rebirth are the stuff of myth. Of course, they are not always displayed as obviously as in the case of the Poro society's initiation rites. Often, they are called upon to serve several functions in a society at the same time.
In Egyptian mythology, Isis and Osirus introduced farming to the world. Their jealous brother, Set, tricked Osirus into climbing into a sarcophagus Set had made, then sealed it with the help of 72 confederates, and tossed into the Nile. The sarcophagus drifted all the way to Phoenicia, where Isis eventually found it, sending it back to Egypt. Set, however, was boar huntingA fish had swallowed Osirus' penis.
How does that detail of the myth fit into an agricultural myth? What do anthropophagic fish have to do with farming? Only in Egypt—where, each Spring, the Nile overflows its banks, flooding the fields—would this element of the story make sense. The severed organ, now part of the river, is able to continually fertilize the farmers' fields.
The absence of genitalia also helps to explain his new role as Lord of the Dead. The realm of the dead is the reverse side of the living, reproducing, world. You may recall that Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter,A myth of the Marind-anim of Ceram, New Guinea, contains hints of the Osirus story. In it, Admeta killed a boar and found a coconut stuck on a tusk. He planted it, and six days later it flowered. When he cut a flower, he accidentally dripped some blood on it. That blood became the girl-child Hainuwele. When she grew up, she stood in the dancing-ground, giving gifts to the dancers. However, the dancers killed her and buried her there. When Admeta discovered the murder he disinterred her, cut her in small pieces and buried them in many places. He made a doorway to the dancing-ground out of her arms, and the dead Hainuwele called upon the murderers:

"Since you have killed," she said, "I will no longer live here. I shall leave this very day. Now you will have to come to me through this door." Those who were able to pass through it remained human beings. The others were changed into animals (pigs, birds, fish) or spirits. …after her going men would meet her only after their death, and she vanished from the surface of the Earth.Here, again, is the murdered god, the dismemberment, the pieces of the body that yield the foods of later mortals. The source of human mortality is directly connected to an ancient ritual murder that is, simultaneously, the source of human nourishment. Killing and eating are inseparable. The package is tied up even more neatly by the reuse of Hainuwele's arms. The woman's arms become the entrance to the afterlife—the only way to approach divinity. The embrace of physical love is a metaphor for death and transfiguration.
People once believed that their kings were closer to their gods, or that their kings actually were gods. However, the crowns worn by kings were originally used to mark sacrificial animals. Again and again, in culture after culture, we see the sacrificial animal (or person) crowned and decorated as royalty (or rather, that royalty is crowned and decorated like sacrificial victims), then killed so that others might live and prosper.
Euripides had Iphigeneia, in speaking of her approaching death on the altar of Artemis, alluding to the process: "As the priest takes from the basket the barley; So may the fire blaze with the meal of purification, and my father will turn to the right and encircle the altar. …Put on my hair a wreath of garlands and on my head a crown."Originally, the kings of ancient Egypt served for thirty years, then were sacrificed and eaten at a feast called Sed. This was supposed to guarantee the fertility of their fields and the power of the next king. Over time (no doubt at the urging of later kings), other animals began to be sacrificed instead of royalty. Curiously, certain Hebrew demons were called Sedim. In the worship of Moloch, children were sacrificed to appease the Sedim.A revisionist mode of thought—similar to the stories of Isaac and Iphigeneia—is apparent in xenophobic attitudes toward those who sacrificed human beings (especially children, in a process called "passing them through the fire") to the god Moloch. According to some scholars, the

…Moloch of the Old Testament was neither Milcom nor any of several other foreign deities who had similar names (e.g., Muluk) and were worshipped in neighboring regions. Rather, it was to the Jewish God Yahweh, himself, that human sacrifice was offered… Later Israelites apparently were so appalled by the practice that they tried to blot out their shame by changing the name of the god from Yahweh to Moloch (or Molech), as though human sacrifices had been offered only to a foreign deity.Religions, as they evolve into—or are replaced by—new religions, must suppress the old ways—even if they are the ancestors of the new. At the same time, the past's essential character must be incorporated so that nothing important is lost (just like the spilling of blood beside the altar, so that life can return to its source).
We know that the meat eating is intimately tied to notions of sacrifice, and that the life taken is essential to the continued spiritual life of those who consume it. What happens when non-believers eat the meat of the sacrificial animals? Certainly, there is no incorporation of the sacred—but might some other kind of sin be involved? For instance, if an animal is sacrificed to a god in whom one does not believe, does that act of eating its sanctified or transubstantiated flesh constitute an unauthorized act of theophagy? Does eating such flesh, in some way, give authority to any idols to which the sacrifices were made? Christ equated the eating of meats sacrificed to idols with fornication.He is, in effect, denying that some foods carry a magical burden—that eating them cannot be a path to the sacred. This is a rather odd position for St. Paul to take—considering the fact that he was the founder and promoter of a new religion whose central ritual is the magical transubstantiation of mere bread and wine into the flesh and blood of its God.
Communion
The Christian Rite of Communion is perhaps the most obvious example of symbolic cannibalism.The Romans were not indulging in any spiritual activities. It was a purely political act of expedience, although it appears that they did take some pleasure in it. Crucifixion was

…derived from a Carthaginian sacrificial rite that the Romans adopted and used mockingly against their defeated enemies. Later they applied it widely to low-class and non-Roman felons. Christ himself was mocked as a Jewish king by the crown of thorns and the inscription INRI. The Roman treatment of Christ can be seen as the degradation of a fallen king."

When Paul, on the analogy of the mystery religions, evolved …the myth of a Savior who should die, be eaten, and rise again, he felt that the only explanation of the mysteries necessary was the story of Jesus…But as times changed, and as the church expanded and began to take in learned and intellectual men, the myth was no longer all-sufficient. The fundamental idea of the absorption of deity by killing and eating it became less obvious. Men began to speculate how the bread and wine could be the very body and blood of immolated God. And thus, turning to Aristotle or to other philosophers, they evolved the dogma of a transmutation…

…[e]verything possible was done to make vivid to the people the reality of the body and blood. Thus the bread was made in the image of a man and pierced by the priest, just as the great god of the Aztecs had once been treated; hot water was used to increase the resemblance of wine to blood.The Catholic Church was neither first nor alone in believing that genuine transubstantiation occurs.

Transmitted through the Orphic mystery cult, the tradition of partaking of the torn god's flesh and blood entered in a sublimated and symbolic form into the rites of Christianity. Even in the sixteenth century, men were excommunicated from the Lutheran church because they denied the doctrine of ubiquity—the physical presence of the blood and body of Christ in the consecrated host…In the Byzantine Church, the Eucharist used to be cut from the center of a special loaf of bread. That piece was known as the Lamb. The Lamb was cut into smaller pieces in a series of symbolic shapes and arrangements. No crumb was lost or wasted. The Lamb, or body of Christ, was not the only "person" that was eaten, however.

Pseudo-Germanus… considers the entire loaf as a symbol of the body of the Virgin Mary. From this body, he tells us, the body of the Lord has been extracted… The remaining part of the loaf, which he specifically called "bread of the body of the Virgin," is distributed to the faithful… Mary was considered to be the symbol of the Church; so it may again be supposed that the symbolic distribution of her body meant communion with the body of the Church.The Eucharist was not always the tiny, non-nutritive wafer we see today. In fact, Communion used to be part of a "love feast," in which all participants received real food. "Libations over sarcophagi led naturally to ritual meals over the tombs of the Christian martyrs, until, that is, Saint Ambrose [fourth century Bishop of Milan] forbade them, and substituted the symbolic meal of the eucharist."Massimo Montanari wrote about the bread/body metaphor in the early Christian church:

A sermon of Augustine explained in careful detail the metaphorical analogy between the making of bread and the formation of a new Christian: "This bread retells your history. It began as a seed in the fields. The earth bore it and the rain nourished it and made it grow into a shoot. The work of man brought it to the threshing floor, beat it, winnowed it, put it in the granary, brought it to the mill, ground it, kneaded it and baked it in the oven. Remember that this is also your history. You did not exist and were created; you were brought to the threshing floor of the Lord and were threshed by the work of oxen (so I shall call the preachers of the Gospel). While awaiting catechism, you were like the grain kept in the granary. Then you were lined up for baptism. You underwent fasting and exorcism. You came to the baptismal fount. You were kneaded into a single dough. You were cooked in the oven of the Holy Ghost and became the true bread of God." The essence of bread was, however, Jesus Christ himself, "planted in the Virgin, fermented in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the sepulchre, and seasoned in the churches where every day the Holy Host is served to the faithful."The idea of transubstantiation achieved the status of reductio ad absurdum in the thirteenth century when Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln (later Saint Hugh of Lincoln) was viewing a sacred relic at Féchamp—the desiccated arm of Mary Magdalen. He shocked those present by taking a bite out of it—but defended his actions by saying, "if he could touch the body of Christ in the mass, he could certainly apply his teeth to the Magdalen's bones."Christ was the "incarnation"—literally, God in the form of meat—and the fruit of Mary's womb. There is a nice symmetry in Christ's beginning and ending as foodstuffs for our nourishment. Is it a coincidence that the infant Jesus, destined to be eaten, was laid in a manger—a feeding trough for animals named for the verb "to eat?"
When the Magi visited the infant Jesus, they came bearing gifts. Today, we think of them only as precious gifts, suitable for a young king. However, at the time they carried immense symbolic value as well. Gold, obviously, was expensive—but it was also the color of the sun (and Christ was a new incarnation of solar deities like Apollo). Its most significant attribute, the characteristic that makes it desirable as a form of currency, is that is incorruptible. It does not rust or waste away. It is eternal—just like the young deity. What about the other two gifts, the frankincense and myrrh? "Though the whole range of spices was used for culinary purposes and in aphrodisiacs, it was frankincense and myrrh that were use almost exclusively for sacrifices"Of course, the three wise men could not predict that the boy they visited was destined for sacrifice. In all probability, they—themselves—never existed. They functioned, in the story, to connect events from the life of Jesus to existing mystical ideas. The Gospels were written more than a generation after the crucifixion, and were molded by Paul's vision of the new church.All religions build on fragments of previous religions, as ancient cities were built upon the rubble of still older cities. St. Peter's, in Rome, stands upon the spot where ancient worshippers of Attis sacrificed bulls. Muslims and Jews still fight over the Dome of the Rock, the supposed site of Isaac's near sacrifice. Both Artemis and Mary were virgins who were known as the "Queen of Heaven," and both—despite their virginity—were associated with childbirth. In Ephesus, the ruins of Artemis' great temple stand nearby the church that marks Mary's grave.
The Jesus story sounds very much like that of the Bacchus/Dionysus of the Orphics or of Adonis, Osirus of the Hellenistic Egypt, or even Sumerian Tammuz. That's because the basic ideas were in place, waiting (as it were) for incarnation.

Dionysus was believed to be actually within the substance of the wine and raw flesh that the worshippers consumed. A Persian Mithraic text reads: "He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood will not be made one with me or I with him, the same shall not know salvation." Dionysus, like Christ, was sacrificed, and saved his followers through "…initiation in his mysteries …Did he not appear in the communal feast of his initiates as the model of those gods who offer themselves as victims … of sacrifice?"
The Romans were used—if not by Christ (to give substance to his sacrifice), then certainly by Paul, who actually molded the facts of Christ's short career into the passionate fulfilling of Jewish prophesy that it was to become.This other Saint Hugh (not to be confused with the child martyr, supposedly killed by Jews in 1255) was one of the best-loved bishops in England, a confidant of three Kings (Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, and John). He is mentioned in the opening paragraph of the Magna Carta, although he had been dead for fifteen years (John had been one of St. Hugh’s pallbearers). Hugh was canonized in 1220.
_________


After the talk, anticipating the kind of question people always have (but don't always ask), an additional  -- shorter --  paper was read:



Discovering the Flavor of Human Flesh The French diplomat/explorer Paul Morand knew William Bueller Seabrook had the requisite verbal skills, and suspected that he had the courage needed for the task. Morand knew tribes that still practiced cannibalism. He smoothed Seabrook's way with equipment, letters of introduction, transportation—everything he would need. Morand believed that the opportunity for such a trip was fast disappearing, telling him, "…you must …get yourself invited to dinner with the cannibals."It made perfect sense to Seabrook. "I made up my mind before leaving New York that when it came the subject of cannibals I would either write nothing whatever about them, or I would know what I was writing about."Seabrook spoke with the Gueré tribe and, after asking about their source of human flesh, he posed a basic question. "To my asking why they ate it, they had returned the question back against me, saying 'Why shouldn't we eat it?'"Rather than beginning with taste directly, he asked which parts they preferred. They replied

that for solid meat the loin cuts, the ribs, and the rump steak were the best. The liver, heart, and brains were tidbits, but tasted identically the same as those of all other animals. …as a matter of personal choice, the palm of the hand was the most tender and delicious morsel of all.

felt in duty bound to make the most of it. [He received] a portion of stew with rice, …so highly seasoned with red pepper that fine shades of flavor might be lost to an unaccustomed palate.However, the Gueré were wary of this white stranger and feared retaliation if the authorities learned of their cannibal feast. Seabrook later discovered that they'd served meat from an ape, not a man. He left Africa without achieving his goal, knowing he would have to write about his experiences as if he had been successful. He went to France to write the book, where he solved his problem:

…[a friend] obtained for me from a hospital interne at the Sorbonne a chunk of human meat from the body of the first healthy human carcass killed by accident, that they could dispose of as they chose. I cooked it …[and] ate a lot of it in the presence of witnesses.He knew what he had to do.
Seabrook's writing hesitated at this point, as if at a threshold. If ignorance is bliss, there can be no return to the Garden of Eden after stepping outside. He was a gentleman, and he was giving his reader one last chance to avoid taking that step. "The raw meat," he wrote,

in appearance, was firm, slightly coarse-textured rather than smooth. In raw texture, both to the eye and to the touch, it resembled good beef. In color, however, it was slightly less red than beef. But it was reddish. It was not pinkish or grayish like mutton or pork. Through the red lean ran fine whitish fibers, interlacing, seeming to be stringy rather than fatty, suggesting that it might be tough. The solid fat was faintly yellow, as the fat of beef and mutton is. This yellow tinge was very faint, but it was not clear white as pork fat is. In smell it had what I can only describe as the familiar, characteristic smell of any good fresh meat of the larger domestic animals.

…prepare[d] the steak and roast in the simplest manner, as nearly as possible as we prepare meat at home. The small roast was spitted, since an oven was out of the question, and after it had been cooking for a while I set about grilling the steak. I tried to do it exactly as we do at home. It took longer, but that may have been partly because of the difference between gas flame and wood coals.

When the roast began to brown and the steak to turn blackish on the outside, I cut into them to have a look at the partially cooked interior. It had turned quite definitely paler than beef would turn. It was turning grayish as veal or lamb would, rather than dark reddish as a beef-steak turns. The fat was sizzling, becoming tender and yellower. Beyond what I have told, there was nothing special or unusual. It was nearly done and it looked and smelled good to eat.

It is not agreeable to think that an intelligent, educated member of the white race and of the American nation, has voluntarily descended to a scale lower than that observed by these lowly peoples. And not the least repugnant feature of this indescribably sordid affair is the levity, almost the pride, with which Seabrook has recounted to the representatives of the press his adventure in a new "experience."This was no monster, devoid of human feelings. Seabrook was a sensitive, intelligent person who had willingly put himself in one of the most psychologically-challenging positions imaginable. His description of the experience:

I sat down to it with my bottle of wine, a bowl of rice, salt and pepper at hand. I had thought about this and planned it for a long time, and now I was going to do it. I was going to do it, furthermore—I had promised and told myself—with a completely casual, open, and objective mind. But I was soon to discover that I had bluffed and deceived myself a little in pretending so detached an attitude. It was with, or rather after, the first mouthful, that I discovered there had been an unconscious bravado in me, a small bluff-hidden unconscious dread. For my first despicable reaction—so strong that it took complete precedence over any satisfaction or any fine points of gastronomic shading—was simply a feeling of thankful and immense relief. At any rate, it was perfectly good to eat! At any rate, it had no weird, startling, or unholy flavor. It was good to eat, and despite all the intelligent, academic detachment with which I had thought I was approaching the experience, my poor cowardly and prejudiced subconscious real self sighed with relief and patted itself on the back.Without any external compunction—no famine, shipwreck, siege or plane crash—he became a cannibal. This was almost fifty years before Arens' assertion that there never was a reliable eyewitness to any act of non-emergency cannibalism. Can a more reliable eyewitness be imagined?
Still, we are left with that nagging question: What does it taste like?
Seabrook was not finished with us, yet. He wrote:

I took a big swallow of wine, a helping of rice, and thoughtfully ate half the steak. And as I ate, I knew with increasing certainty what it was like. It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable. As for any other special taste or odor of a sort which would be surprising and make a person who had tasted it not knowing exclaim, "What is this?" it had absolutely none. And as for the "long pig" legend, repeated in a thousand stories and recopied in a hundred books, it was totally, completely false. It gives me great comfort here to be able to write thus categorically.Almost all.
Seabrook had one last surprise for us:

Daisy
According to Marjorie Worthington—Seabrook’s second wife—the cooking took place in Montmartre, at the apartment of a writer she called "Daniel Blanc."(Worthington, Marjorie. The Strange World of Willie Seabrook. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966, pp. 55-56.)Seabrook did not do the cooking himself. The cook in the little apartment did the work—being told only that the meat "was a kind of wild goat that no one had ever eaten before." Seabrook sat by, taking careful notes about the process. (Worthington, p. 56)His host’s wife came home while the meat was being cooked. She was a teetotaler and a vegetarian and was upset by the fact that Seabrook "had brought not only cognac and wine into the house—but meat." She was, however, curious about the "exotic African food," and wanted to try it—but Seabrook’s wife begged "them not to touch it because it was something utterly nasty." When Seabrook ate the cooked meat, Worthington became nauseous and had to leave the room. The next day Seabrook dictated while his wife typed the passages for Jungle Ways. "He told exactly what the human flesh tasted and looked like when it was cooked; but the repast, as he dictated it, was eaten in the heart of the African jungle with his black African hosts." (Worthington, p. 57)

On Evolution

Editor’s Note: By all accounts, Dr Sanscravat has never progressed beyond the navel-contemplation stage. He has, however, pushed digression well into the realm of obsession.
_______
I’ve spent many years—too many, perhaps—thinking about money.
Nothing useful, of course, such as how to get my hands on some, but about the stuff itself. Nor do I care about the reasons why some people are so driven to the acquisition and accumulation, or spending and wasting, of filthy lucre. Such concerns would only take me into realm of psychology (or worse, pop psychology), a mental exercise in which I have no interest. 
The numismatic aspect of the subject was slightly more intriguing, but only because of the interweaving of art, technology, and history. It is oddly pleasant to hold a Roman coin, to feel the ancient cold metal slowly take on the heat of one’s hand, a hand the existence of which no Roman citizen could have ever imagined. However, while the coin is re-warmed, the coin is not actually revitalized. The idea of the coin does not acquire new life. Admiration of the artifact is a shallow kind of love, if love it is at all.
I was only interested in money as a concept.
The first “money” was not money at all. The earliest transactions were literally exchanges; they were barter. One had a surplus of something, and traded it for something else of equal value. We’ll ignore, for the moment, the capitalist notion of exchange for something of greater value than that which is traded (as I said, mere acquisition and accumulation doesn’t move me).
Barter had one significant limitation: it only worked when items of equivalent value were traded. If one had an extra cow, but needed only a new hat, matters became more complicated. That is when the first money was invented. One could trade that cow for something that stood for the cow’s value—a large number of beads, brightly-colored feathers, whatever—then exchange just a few of those items for the hat. What was traded was an abstract slice of cow for an actual hat. Over time, we discovered that the accumulation of beads or feathers was inconvenient, so we invented special pieces of metal that stood for beads and feathers. Later, we developed pieces of paper that stood for accumulated piles of metal stored somewhere else. More recently, we developed pieces of plastic that stood for the pieces of paper, that stood for the piles of metal, that stood for the feathers and beads, that stood for that much put-upon cow. Today, most of our exchanges are made of nothing more than virtual ones and zeros, passed electronically from machine to machine, with no need to shovel cow manure at all.
What has happened is that the notion of money has been increasingly abstracted, refined to an essence so ethereal that the connection to its bovine roots is completely lost.
What has happened here, in this essay, has little to do with money. Well, in a way it does—but we don’t want to dwell on unpleasant thoughts, so we’ll ignore them. I suddenly realized that my career has followed the same evolutionary path as money.
When I was young, I was a painter and photographer, using media that consumed more money than they could ever earn. I was accumulating a large number of cows that were not exchangeable for hats (or food or rent). As a result, I turned to drawing. The fact that, with nothing more than a pencil and paper, one could make art, was fascinating. Drawing led to a career as an illustrator, which—unlike painting—occasionally brought in actual income.
Illustration is a curious mixture of concept and technique, and technique has a lot to do with physical facility. The muscles of one’s hands, like any other muscles, get better and better at doing certain things through repetition. A lot of what is considered an artist’s “style” is what the artist calls his/her “hand.” The muscles really want to go where they always go, so the kinds of lines one makes—their curvature, their weight, their varying thicknesses—are decisions made, automatically, by one’s muscles. After a time, the conscious mind has little to do with it.
Eventually, I began to lose interest in drawing. It felt like I was no longer learning new things about the craft. Perhaps I was dissatisfied with the limited range of things those finger muscles would let me do. Whichever it was, I longed to spend more time on the conceptual part of drawing, and less on the merely physical. I craved the same sense of exhilaration I’d experienced when I traded camera and paintbrush for pencil and pen.
The transition to writing has accomplished some of that. Writing, by its very nature, is more conceptual, less physically-driven. That makes it very appealing to those of us who are basically lazy (at least in the physical sense). Significantly, writing is a skill that can never be mastered; one can always learn something new. It offers an opportunity for unlimited growth, something I wasn’t feeling with illustration.
What’s more, a writing career pares one’s focus down to an essence, a life that—like money—is evolving into something that is ever-more abstract.
_______

Editor’s Addendum:  Dr Sanscravat does not seem to have carried his analysis to its logical conclusion. A career can only achieve a perfect level of abstraction upon the death of its practitioner.

food sites for March 2013

Citrus fruits -- providing vitamin C before Spring's first greens appear. 

It's almost March, which means -- according to the calendar, at least -- Spring is on the way. It can't come too soon for us. For example, we were supposed to be on a panel at this year's Cookbook Conference, but Winter Storm Nemo got in the way. Consequently, we posted our contribution here.
To mark the occasion of Spring's arrival, we'll be chatting about some unusual aspects of vernal equinox festivities at a meeting of the Culinary Historians of New York, on March 20th. The evening promises to have less to do with "blue birds, blossoms, and bunny rabbits," than with Le Sacre du Printemps. While cannibalism and human sacrifice will be on the menu, attendees have nothing to fear...
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 sent automatically. Just Served slings more leftovers than most people want to face, especially this time of year -- but, if you that feel you're up to the challenge, you can follow us on Facebook, or Twitter. In the unlikely event that you find yourself stranded and book-starved, there's even a kind of index at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Here's a talk we gave (about the evolution of food service styles) at the IACP Food History Symposium, Innovation at the Table, held at the Hagley Library and Museum, University of Delaware, September 29, 2007.
Leitesculinaria has reposted several of our own articles. Twenty-or-so of our  backlisted LC pieces are available here, along with several articles by more noteworthy writers on the history and science of food.
A vaguely seasonal excerpt from On the Table's culinary quote collection:

A Jewish woman had two chickens. One got sick, so the woman made chicken soup out of the other one to help the sick one get well. Henny Youngman

GaryMarch, 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----
Between the Recipes, Scribbles Speak Volumes(Kate Murphy's article on the joy of marginalia in The New York Times)
Cappuccino Conquests, The: The Transnational History of Italian Coffee(essay by historian of consumption, Jonathan Morris)
Celebrating with Sweets in Ottoman Turkey(Mary Isin's presentation to the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery)
Chicken Soup(Dr. Stephen Rennard's research re: Jewish penicillin)
Eat Your Books(a tool for indexing all the recipes in your cookbook collection)
Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, The(Michael Moss, in The New York Times, serves up a taste of his book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us)
FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950–2000(an exhibit at the Smithsonian)
Fork, Pen & Plow ('zine from the Food Studies Graduate Programs at NYU Steinhardt)
How Forks Gave Us Overbites and Pots Saved the Toothless(an Atlantic interview with Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork, about some of the effects cooking have made on human evolution)
Making 1000 Year Eggs(method, and a little chemistry, of the ancient practice of preparing these not-so-ancient eggs)
Prosperity Starts with a Pea(Jessica B. Harris' article, in The New York Times, on black-eyed peas)
Recipes Project, The(a site that researches the history of recipes)
Soy Sauce(Robert Carmack's article in Feast Magazine)
Weed to Wonder(the history and science behind the development of corn from a weed called teosinte; a project of Cornell University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Wrapping and Stuffing Food Relationally: Pleasure, Place, Production and Power(geographer Mike Goodman's paper, delivered at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery)
Yale Global Online ('zine about the globalization of food and plants)

-- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers --
How Much Should E-Books Cost?
How to Write Yourself Into Existence

-- yet more blogs --
American Table, The
FOODNFLAVORS
My Kitchen Table
My Life Runs On Food

-- changed URL --
AdViews: A Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commercials

----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 plan 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)
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 #149" 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.

Plagiarism

I was supposed to be on a panel on Friday (“For Such Kind of Borrowing as This, If It Be not Bettered by the Borrower, among Good Authors Is Accounted Plagiary”) at this year’s Cookbook Conference at the Roger Smith Hotel in NYC—but, alas, winter storm Nemo deep-sixed my travel plans. I had hoped to introduce our topic by talking a bit about the differences between plagiarism and copyright violation. I’m sure Cathy Kaufman and the other panelists were able to survive my absence, but here are some of the things I would like to have said:___Plagiarism, or piracy, has been with us for as long as we’ve been human, In fact, it might well be among the disreputable candidates for the title of “world’s second-oldest profession.” It’s just too tempting to retell a great story as if it were our own. Before the printing press was invented, “plagiarism” was a rather meaningless term. Early writers freely copied the work of their predecessors, often verbatim, as if they had written it themselves. It was regarded almost as an acknowledgment of a writer’s erudition. Considering the fact that the only way a book could be produced was by physically copying each and every page with a quill pen, the physical book was the precious thing – not the “content,” as we think of it today. For example, by law, any ship that arrived at the Egyptian port of Alexandria had to surrender any books it carried to the collection of the city’s famous library. If the book’s original owner wanted to “keep” his book, he could have a scribe make a duplicate.The earliest known cookbook, De Re Coquinaria, is merely a collection of recipes, collected from unknown sources, and attributed to one of several people named “Apicius” who had probably lived centuries before the book was compiled. The name “Apicius” was more of a marketing tool than a mark of someone’s intellectual property.The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century changed everything. The physical book became cheap, and the content became something of value as authors began to make money off book sales (rather than through some form of patronage). The early days of printing had a wild-west-like quality that may seem eerily familiar to those of us who are writing in the Internet Age. Printers routinely reissued entire books, changing only the title and author. Cookbooks (and herbals) were early best-sellers, hence were routinely pirated.The first attempt to tame the rampant plagiarism was England’s “Licensing Act of 1662.” It was not, however, designed to protect the rights of authors. Instead, it helped the printers to establish a monopoly on the sales of registered books. Writers would sell the “content” for a set fee, and the title was then the property of the publisher. There was nothing like today’s system of royalties, so—even if a book became a best seller—the author’s only chance of increased profit was by using the book’s success in negotiating the next book contract.That changed in 1710. The “Statute of Anne” created the world’s first copyrights, making the author the sole owner of the work for a period of fourteen years. If, at the end of that term, the author was still alive, the copyright could be renewed for another fourteen-year term. I’d like to believe that today’s payment situation (in this electronic free-for-all that is the internet) will be resolved as it was after the early days of printing—but that is a subject for another panel.When our new nation was formed, in the glow of The Enlightenment, the Founding Fathers realized the importance of ideas—so they incorporated, into their new Constitution, language that would secure “for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." It was followed, three years later, by “Copyright Act of 1790.” Like the “Statute of Anne,” it protected an author’s rights for fourteen (plus an additional fourteen) years. Over time, the copyright law has been modified and extended to reflect changes in technology (and authors’ longevity), so that today any work created after 1 Jan 1978 is protected for the life of the author, plus seventy years.___It’s useful to think of plagiarism as an ethical term, and copyright as a legal term—and, as with all things ethical or legal, there are some precise details and some that are ripe for interpretation. Both concern the rights and responsibilities of cookbook writers. Plagiarism is practically a capital crime in academia. That’s because academics know that all knowledge is the result of carefully building on that which has already been learned in the past. Think of it as preserving the chain of evidence: if the chain is broken—through misappropriation, inaccurate citation, or faulty quoting—all subsequent findings are threatened. It’s to every scholar’s advantage to carefully cite every idea that has come from someone else. For a cookbook author, something similar is in effect. As Amanda Hesser said, in this very conference, "History of cooking is tweaking recipes." When we adapt or “tweak” a recipe, our work is part of a continuum of cooking ideas that stretches back to a time long before Apicius (whoever he was). Our work is more meaningful, not less, when we share the credit with those who came before us.Copyright law, on the other hand, doesn’t protect ideas at all; that’s part of the realm of ethical concerns about which plagiary is concerned. Copyright only protects the expression of ideas. A list of ingredients in a recipe is an idea, hence not copyrightable—however, the way a recipe’s steps are written may be copyrightable. So: “1 Tbsp. buckwheat honey” is not protected, but “warm one tablespoon of buckwheat honey with two tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange juice, stirring until completely dissolved” can be copyrighted. Does that mean that we can merely take another’s recipe, paraphrasing just enough to escape the letter of the law? Technically, I suppose we could, legally—but we would be ethically amiss, and risk violating the canons regarding plagiarism.It is conceivable that a recipe might utilize some technique that is so innovative that it is patentable—but, again, that’s well outside the range of our current discussion.___I’m sure that the other panelists have already covered many of the complexities of the plagiarism/copyright problem. But it might be useful to summarize in a different way altogether. Tom Lehrer’s song about the mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky included a bit of satirical advice we might all keep in mind: 

Plagiarize! Plagiarize, 

Let no one else's work evade your eyes, 

Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, 

So don't shade your eyes, 

But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... 

Only be sure always to call it please research.

We all use recipes that have come before us to build new ones, but—if we’re careful to cite our sources, being “sure always to call it please research”—we will be remembered not as pirates, but as collaborators with the cookbook authors who preceded us.___References“A History of Copyright in the United States” “Lobachevsky Lyrics - Tom Lehrer” 

Service

This was the   Keynote Speech, delivered at the IACP Food History Symposium, “Innovation at the Table,” held at the Hagley Library and Museum, University of Delaware, September 29, 2007
First, unlike some of those attending or speaking this conference, I know practically nothing about the future, let alone the future of the food service industry. Since I have learned a little bit about its past, that will be my focus this morning. Second, while I did co-edit The Business of Food, a new encyclopedia for Greenwood Press, I wrote very little of it. I did, however, get to read it all, and I’m proud to say that it contains the work of a lot of food historians who are much better informed than I am. The publisher would be upset if I didn’t tell you when the book will be available, so I’ll do it now: The book should be out late this fall.Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to discuss the history of food service without using some French terminology – which leads to my third confession. My French accent is horrible. Whenever possible, I will use English translations, even if that disappoints the real scholars in the room. If those of you who actually know how to speak French try to keep your snickers low enough so that those who don’t won’t catch on, I’ll be eternally grateful.
SERVICEWhat food service providers do today is the result of a the innovations of a thousand generations of servers who came before them -- servers who struggled with many of the same issues we face today -- and who invented new and creative ways to deal with those issues. By studying its history, today’s food service companies can benefit from the insights of their ancient colleagues, and possibly avoid the necessity of reinventing the solutions they discovered ages ago.The kinds of service seen today evolved along with the foods that were served in the past. When we study historical cuisines, we study their service: foods, table manners and service have always appropriate to, and reflective of, the societies they served. Looking at the way our ancestors dined in their banquets, dining habits in modern bistros and family restaurants can be better understood.The Ancient World: Greece and RomeThe earliest written descriptions of recognizably Western dining scenes are found in the Old Testament of the Bible and in the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. In reading them, it’s obvious that the authors were primarily concerned with the status of the diners. Until fairly recent times, writers (for the most part) did not write about ordinary, everyday life. Since they wrote for the rich and powerful, they described banquets and special occasions attended by people of high social status. Cyrus H. Gordon, in his book The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations, noted that, “…each man got a portion commensurate with his station.” Who received which portions, and how much, was based entirely upon status. Generally, the host was the ranking personage; he received the largest and choicest portions, the “proportionate feast.”By 400 BCE, the Greek banquet had become standardized, with a fixed structure for the items served, and the manner in which they were to be served had been established. Formal dining, as we know it, was reserved for wealthy men. These banquets were generally held in private homes, as the Greeks had very few public eating-places. The only exceptions were small stalls in the agora – the public marketplace – where a snack was more likely to be grabbed by a servant than by his master.Greek dining rooms were small, containing couches for the guests. Rooms were described by the number of couches they contained, much as we might describe a restaurant table as a “deuce” or a “four-top.” Typically, these feasts took place in a five-couch room, with a small table in front of each couch. A basket containing a selection of breads, made of wheat or barley, was placed on each table. Servants brought large dishes from the kitchen and each guest chose his favorite portion, tossing scraps, shells and bones onto his own table.The meal was divided into three sections. The first course might include fruit, poultry, salted seafood and small savory meat dishes, much like Spanish tapas, today. These light dishes were followed by heartier fare -- fresh seafood and roasted meats, such as lamb or baby goat.After this course, the tables were whisked away with all the bones, etc., and new tables were placed before the guests. Servants circulated with towels and basins of warm water, scented with precious oils, with which the guests could clean their hands. Desserts -- such as dried and fresh fruits, cheeses, nuts and small pastries or other confections – came next. Wine was mixed with water, tableside, in kraters, large clay pots, shaped like wide-mouthed vases, with handles on the sides). Diluted wine was considered healthier than water alone -- and drunken behavior was discouraged (at least during the early stages of the meal).Once again, the soiled tables were removed, signaling the end of the meal and the beginning of the symposion (a curious mixture of literary and philosophical discussions, music, acrobats and female dancers -- all accompanied by drinking of unmixed wine). So far, other than wine, I have not noticed the presence of such diversions in this symposium.The Romans adopted – and adapted --a great deal of Greek culture, including their culinary arts, but they took Greek ideas about the meal as mere starting points. The Romans used larger amounts and varieties of seasonings, more complex recipes, more costly imported ingredients and more elaborate presentations -- the beginnings of what we would recognize as Haute Cuisine.Unlike the Greeks, Roman families often dined together. However, strict rules governed the positions of each diner, based upon his or her status. The head of the household always had the most prestigious position. Guests, in turn, had their positions assigned according to their social rank. Even being invited to dine signaled social recognition that was much sought-after. Who one invited, who accepted an invitation, and to whom one appealed for an invitation, said much about one’s power in ancient Rome.A Roman dining room was called a triclinium, because it contained three couches, each accommodating three diners. The three couches were arranged in a U-shaped pattern. Diners rested on their left sides, their left elbows propped up on cushions. The legs of the second diner on the couch were behind the cushion on which the first diner rested, etc. This left their right hands free to choose from sumptuous foods, each carried from the kitchen on a large platter called a discus. Each guest ate from a red pottery bowl or dish, such as the then-famous Samian ware.A Roman dinner consisted of three courses. The first, the gustum, gustatio or promulsis, was similar to our hors d’oeuvres or first entrée. It was served with mulsum, a light wine mixed with honey. Then followed the mensae primae, or “first table” (remember, this sequence is based on the Greek banquet). A red wine, mixed with water, accompanied the mensae primae. The next course was the mensae secundae. This “second table” included a dessert of fruits and other sweets -- and the first unwatered wines of the meal. As in the Greek symposion, this was the time for serious drinking to begin.A final note about the Romans: In order to maintain their vast empire, they built a network of roads all over Europe. At regular intervals along these roads, simple inns were established to provide food and lodging for travelers. All roads -- including our Interstates, their exit ramps festooned with gaudy signs for restaurant and motel chains – do indeed lead straight back to Imperial Rome.Middle Ages through the RenaissanceAs with Greek and Roman meals, the hierarchy of power and status were reflected in upper class medieval meals. In Anglo-Saxon times, meals were large-scale affairs, taking place in the main hall of a castle; there were no rooms reserved solely for dining. The tables consisted of immense boards laid across heavy trestles (which is the origin of the modern sense of “board,” as in “room and board”). The first thing placed on the table was the salt-cellar. It determined the status of all those who were to eat (salt was second only to spices as valued edible commodities in the Middle Ages). High status diners ate “above the salt,” the rest below. Only those above the salt were seated on chairs. The rest would sit on benches that were, in effect, miniature versions of the trestles and boards at which they sat.The only implement on the table was a carving knife. Carving was a manly art, and was, at first, reserved for the person of highest status. Later, this task was given over to the “Officer of the Mouth,” the highest-ranking servant. A new concern with courtliness and manners -- if not sanitation -- demanded that the Officer of the Mouth “set never on fish, beast, or fowl more than two fingers and a thumb.” Diners brought along their own knives. They used them to cut foods into pieces small enough to be conveniently eaten with their hands.In thirteenth-century France, sanitation began to be recognized as a desirable practice. Johannes de Garlandia defined coquinarii, cook-shops, as filthy places, selling tainted meat -- but, significantly, he also praised one place that used hot water to wash its dishes, plates and utensils. This new taste for cleanliness required that the boards used as tables in banquets be covered with a large cloth called the nappe. Its top surface was kept scrupulously clean, but the sides, where it hung down, were used for wiping of hands (which were especially greasy since they had no forks). Food was served from common bowls, called messes  -- an apt term if I ever heard one. Food was scooped, or dragged, to large dishes or trenchers (slabs of stale bread used as plates), which were shared by two or three diners.Cook’s shops, often little more than booths set up in the market, offered a limited menu. Chaucer, in the prologue to “The Cook’s Tale,” described one of these places in what may be the very first restaurant review:

For many a pasty have you robbed of blood,

And many a Jack of Dover have you sold

That has been heated twice and twice grown cold.

From many a pilgrim have you had Christ's curse,

For of your parsley they yet fare the worse,

Which they have eaten with your stubble goose;

For in your shop full many a fly is loose.

This is the sort of review that restaurant patrons need – and are unlikely to find in Zagat – but it is the stuff of nightmares for those in the food service business.Inns and Taverns, the descendents of Roman way-stations, were more established places of business, serving table d’ hôte (literally, “the host’s table,” the ancestor of our prix fixe menus). It was a fixed menu, at a set price, often at set times. The tavern, as a public eating-place, was significant in England but had very little presence in France at that time.Wealthy households had a large number and variety of silver bowls, basins, pitchers and other serving vessels. Ordinary folk might have no more than a pewter mug and a black bread trencher. The display of wealth, through service wares, was only one of the ways that status could be expressed through meals. In the late fourteenth century, people began to think of food and its service as art forms, worthy of study and respect. Tirel, for example, collected and codified the best of Medieval cooking in his books, Le Viandier and Ménagier de Paris. A century later, Bartolomeo Sacchi (better known as Platina of Cremona) wrote On Decent Enjoyment and Good Health -- the world’s first printed food book. In it, he discussed proper manners, table etiquette, table setting and more. The book altered the way the wealthy -- who still ate with their fingers -- thought about eating and manners.Some popular historians trace the origins of classic fine dining to a single aristocratic family of the sixteenth century, the Medicis of Florence. It has been said that, when Caterina de Medici married the future King Henri II of France, in 1533, she brought, as part of her trousseau, a small army of Italian cooks, chefs, servants and wine experts.If Caterina introduced fine dining and its appropriate service to France (and the charming legend is by no means historically accurate), her cousin, Marie de Medici, wife of Henri IV, certainly continued her culinary mission. François La Varenne, the first great chef of France, is reputed to have received his training in her kitchens. While Tirel looked to the past for inspiration, La Varenne’s book, Le Cuisinier François (1651), marks the beginning of a more modern approach to cooking, foreshadowing Le Guide Culinaire of Escoffier, still 250 years in the future.New table manners, beginning with Platina, were expanded during the reigns of both Medici cousins. Among the table refinements, allegedly brought to France (and later the rest of Europe) by the Medicis, were:

the ritual of washing the hands before sitting down at the table (hand washing before meals seems to have been a forgotten, then restored, practice from classical antiquity)

using a spoon for soups and other liquids;

using a fork to select food from a platter;

passing the best morsels of food to others at the table;

blowing on hot food was discouraged, as was filching extra dessert by hiding it in a napkin (apparently, some diners still felt a bit peckish after thirteen or more courses). 

Eating UtensilsThe fork was used in Italy before it appeared in northern Europe. Charles V of France (1337-1380) did not use forks, nor did the Duke of Burgundy include forks in his household inventory in 1420. Bartolomeo Scappi’s 1570 book, Cooking Secrets of Pope Pius V, contains the earliest-known illustration of a fork.The title page of the 1604 edition of Vincenz Cervio’s Il Trinciante (The Server), printed in Venice, shows a wood engraving of meats being roasted on spits and carved tableside. Of the two diners pictured, one seems to be examining a morsel skewered on the point of a knife, while the other sits patiently, his two-pronged fork awaiting the next slice of roasted bird. The illustration is a seventeenth-century snapshot of table manners in the midst of change.Henry VIII had initiated formal, luxurious dining in England, but under his daughter Elizabeth’s rule, the practice flourished. Table manners came to be expected of refined folk. Forks were recommended for the serving of portions of meat, although there was no mention of their use as eating implements.Men and women were seated alternately at the table. Husbands and wives shared a plate -- but it was a plate, not a trencher (guests might still be given trenchers, because the immediate family out-ranked guests, and social status still governed courtesy). Today, trenchers survive only in our term “trencherman,” for folks we’re more inclined to refer to as “gluttons.”Spoons were the primary table utensils. Diners brought their own spoons to dinner. Silver (as in “born with a silver spoon in his mouth”) was reserved for the wealthy, which in pre-capitalist times tended to mean nobility. Lesser folk owned spoons of tin-plated iron -- or if they were truly poor, wood. The material of which one’s spoon was made determined where, relative to the salt-cellar, one got to sit -- and one’s position relative to the salt defined one’s rank. Early in the seventeenth century, books about table manners and the right way to serve became popular. Braithwaite’s Rules for the Governance of the House of an Earl (1617) listed spoons and knives as essentials, but did not mention forks.Thomas Coryate was a traveler and one-time Court Jester in the court of James I. While traveling in Italy, he became convinced of the usefulness of the fork. He wrote home, in 1611:

For while with their knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten their fork, which they hold in their other hand upon the same dish, so that whatsoever he be that sitting in the company of any others at meal, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meat with his fingers, from which all at the table do cut, he will give occasion of offense unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good manners, in so much that for his error he shall be at the least brow-beaten, if not reprehended in words. Hereupon I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion not only when I was in Italy but in England since I came home.

Coryate’s English countrymen remained unconvinced and, mocked him with the nickname “Furcifer” -- a newly coined word combining the Latin word for “fork” with a synonym for Satan. Indeed, as late as 1897, sailors in the British Navy were not permitted to use forks as it was considered an effeminate affectation.During the reign of Queen Anne (1665-1714), napkins and the increased use of forks made it possible to use finer table linens. Table-setting began to be seen as an art in itself. Books on the subject, including the first titles about napkin folding, began to appear.While La Varenne had made high Gallic culture out of the kinds of cookery practiced in the kitchens of Henri IV, the dining room now began to be a place of pomp and protocol. A military-based brigade system of officers of the household, complete with uniforms (which even included swords for the highest-ranking servants) was created -- not to wait in trenches, but to wait on trenchermen.A 1662 service manual for these officers of the mouth explained, “Give the best portions to the most esteemed guests, and if they are of great importance, give them an extra portion.” It signaled the beginning of a shift of emphasis from the function of meals for the sake of promoting the status of the host, to one of providing the most pleasurable dining experience possible for the guest – but it was still based on status.The RevolutionThat shift of emphasis, from host to guest, paralleled shifts in society at large. The French Revolution, the rise of democracy, new conceptions of the role of the individual in society, and the ascendancy of capitalism in Europe made possible the restaurant, as we know it. Great chefs, no longer the exclusive privilege of nobility, began to see themselves, not only as artists (in the same larger-than-life sense that painters, poets and composers began to see themselves) but also as entrepreneurs. They were participants in, and chroniclers of, societal changes.The French Revolution was not, of course, the sole cause of the development of restaurants in France. Rather, both were effects of the same democratizing spirit; the first suggestion of restaurants in France had appeared about twenty years before the Revolution. It could be argued that the rise of popular public eating-places aided and abetted the rise of democratic/revolutionary zeal. Coffeehouses had been around, both in France and in England since the second half of the seventeenth century. The Café Procope was a popular meeting place for intellectuals, like Voltaire. It opened at its current address, in 1686, and is today the oldest surviving coffeehouse in Paris.In 1782, A. B. Beauvilliers opened what we would recognize as the first true French restaurant, ironically named “The Great Tavern of London.” The term “restaurant” already existed in France, but it previously referred only to small establishments that sold broth or bouillon, that is: “restoratives.” Beauvilliers, and other chefs, notably Carême, had spent time working in England -- especially during the Revolution, when association with French nobility might have endangered their lives. Beauvilliers invented the à la carte menu, offering his guests the opportunity to choose from a number of menu items. This was a marked change from the table d’hôte of the past, signaling a greater interest in the pleasure and convenience of the guests.French Service found its roots in the court of Louis XIV, grandson of Marie de Medici and Henri IV. The meal was divided into three separate parts, or services. The first and second services consisted of the soups, game, and roasts that were listed on the menu. The third service was dessert. The sequence was much the same as it had been in ancient Greece and Rome – though the opulent style of the dishes served would have astounded even the most jaded Roman epicures. As guests entered the dining room, they found the first course already in place, the entrée. Hot items were kept warm on réchauds or heating units. After each of the courses were finished, the guests left the dining room while the tables were cleaned and reset for the next service.French Service had some distinct disadvantages. The tables were overloaded, and not merely with food. Elaborate centerpieces, flower baskets and candelabras seemed to fill every available inch. Despite the use of réchauds, the last items served were generally cold or had, at the very least, lost their freshness. With so many dishes served, most guests limited themselves to one or two items and rarely had an opportunity to sample others.Carême lived on the crest of the social changes characterized by the Revolution. He represents the grandest statement of the old, court-based, cuisine but was inspired by the vigor of a new society creating itself. Carême was one of the last hold-outs in favor of French Service. It was a perfect frame for the exhibition of his grand architectural displays of food.Carême’s preference for the grandeur of French Service could not slow the shift to a more guest-centered form of service. Early in the nineteenth century, Grimod de la Reynière published his Manual for Amphitryons, a guidebook for table service. The term “amphitryon” is used in place of the old “officer of the mouth,” or carver (the person in charge of the dining room). Reynière’s motto for service staff, “The host whose guest is obliged to ask for anything is a dishonored man’” was a far cry from the kind of status-based service seen in the courts of the past.This change in focus was echoed, in 1825, with Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste. His aphorism, “To invite a person to your house is to take charge of his happiness as long as he be beneath your roof,” is a logical extension of Reynière’s edict. Thirty-one years later, Félix Urbain Dubois’ La Cuisine Classique codified this sentiment by introducing European diners to Russian Service. Food was served, hot from the kitchen, in individual portions, rather than from an immense display, where all the dishes, prepared well ahead of time, had been sitting for maximum visual effect.If French service was intended to impress guests with the host’s largesse (even if it was served lukewarm), Russian Service assured that each guest’s meal was served at its best. The burden of assuring the guest’s enjoyment was shifted to the host (or, rather, to the host’s staff), while attracting as little attention as possible. In a sense, Dubois had rediscovered the best aspect of classic Roman table service: piping hot dishes rushed out for the guest’s delectation.From this point on, the development of European, and especially French, cuisine became a series of small refinements. Chefs, from Escoffier to Bocuse, alternately applied the modern taste for increased simplification (approaching the understanding of food in a systematic way) with a search for new influences. This latter search was made sometimes among old but almost forgotten cookbooks (Tirel, LaVarenne and Carême were -- figuratively -- exhumed and re-examined). Chefs also began exploring exotic cuisines from countries recently made accessible by modern transportation. The evolution of table service slowed to a crawl, as the needs of fine dining were adequately met by fine-tuning of the formats of table d’hôte, á la carte, French and Russian Service. Significant change, for better or worse, would have to come from somewhere else.A New WorldIn 1900, the first edition of The Michelin Guide, in France, reflected changes in modern society -- a society characterized by mobility, a desire for freedom of choice, and disposable income – specifically, a society that used automobiles to exercise those freedoms. It also reflected the foodservice industry’s increasing awareness that the guest’s satisfaction is paramount. These modern concepts did not originate in France, the world capital of fine dining. They came from the New World, and they were generated by forces that could never have been imagined by the likes of the great chefs of historic French cuisine.There were two profound differences between the evolutions of dining habits in the two hemispheres. American culture developed in an environment characterized by the industrial revolution and a work ethic that originated with Europe’s protestant reformation. That combination made efficiency an almost religious virtue. In the nineteenth century, technological changes shaped America’s rise to power more than history or geography. While European cuisines and services developed slowly from ancient historical roots, the evolution of American cuisine was accelerated by the need to feed vast numbers of people, spread out over an entire continent, as quickly and cheaply as possible.Rapidly changing technologies in the nineteenth century enabled this change. Almost simultaneously, agriculture, transportation and food processing were transformed by new technical ideas. Even taste preferences were forced to yield to scientific analysis. Companies that manufactured millions of units of food items could not afford to make their products according to the refined tastes of one or two people. By the beginning of the twentieth century, marketing science, with tasting panels, focus groups and surveys of public opinion began to be used -- first to read, then to transform, the American taste.In the Old World, labor was the least expensive component of meal preparation – but, in America, raw materials were cheap. Increased industrial production of American ingredients brought material costs down, causing the cost of labor to rise as a proportion of the total cost. The cost of skilled labor began to be seen as a limiting factor in the pursuit of higher profits. The combination of economies of scale (through increased mechanization) and greater use of unskilled labor provided the profitability the food industry required. Liability due to food-born illness (both literally and in the sense of damaged market perception) has led to a greater interest in sanitation. The needs for good sanitary practices and government regulation are both cause and effect of the mechanization of the food industry.A rejection of hedonistic pleasure (based upon the religious convictions of many of the early colonists and an idealized image of the rigorous lifestyle of the frontier) combined with Yankee thriftiness and an insatiable appetite for progress -- such as “modern” technologically produced foodstuffs -- to define American eating habits. The elaborate presentation and service that distinguished European-style fine dining were dropped in favor of a simpler style that made a virtue of efficiency inspired by the work-ethic. Americans were “doers,” not dawdlers. People prided themselves on their simple tastes and their willingness “to get on with the work at hand.” Fine dining and elaborate service came to be regarded as almost un-American self-indulgence.Gail Borden, the inventor of condensed milk, was a prototypical champion of efficiency. He once bragged that there was a:

Time was when people would… spend hours at a meal. Napoleon never took over twenty minutes… I am through in fifteen.

Viewed historically, given Borden-like motivations, the development of fast food franchises seem inevitable -- a kind of culinary manifest destiny. Fast food satisfied almost every one of the conditions I’ve described. Indeed, the mass-market approach to food production -- and minimized service -- worked very well for a few decades, when the baby boomers (the single greatest market niche in history) were relatively young. As the boomers’ tastes matured (and their disposable incomes grew larger), the uniformity of fast food and the absence of table service began to lose some of their attractiveness. Americans began to want more from their dining experiences, and the industry responded.During the first half of the century, American fine dining restaurants tried to emulate European manners. French service was the most elegant, followed by Russian, and a simpler English style of service. American service evolved from the European models, utilizing aspects of all three styles in varying combinations. Today’s dining is less stratified and formal; it exemplifies the democratic shift that has characterized the history of table service. The manifold changes in American eating habits in the past two decades can be divided into two main categories, grouped according to the direction of cultural shift involved. Some of these changes occurred spontaneously, while some were initiated by the foodservice industry. First, there has been a recurrence of the popularity of fine dining. This would seem to contradict the overall trend towards simpler meals, but fine dining is not what it used to be. Chefs are celebrities, and have made themselves accessible to huge numbers of diners through their cookbooks, television shows and public appearances. However, the new high-end dining has become more casual, in order to cater to the youthful self-image maintained by aging baby boomers. The bistro is an obvious attempt to blend fine dining with casual life-style. This reflects a trendy descent from the lofty levels of service that accompany haute cuisine. True haute cuisine still exists, of course, in a few dozen elite restaurants around the world – but, by their very nature and expense, they are distinct from the larger societal picture we’re discussing. However, the new ideas such restaurants utilize (for example, the recently fashionable “molecular gastronomy”) do eventually filter down, in modified form, to the kind of establishments that concern us.The second change in our eating habits is more in keeping with the economic history of foodservice in America. Rather than abandon the profitability of mass-production, the major foodservice companies have chosen to modify the perception of their products and services. Seeking to capitalize on “niche” markets, these companies have adopted different personalities and different menus to appeal more to individual tastes: there are seafood chains, Italian chains, Mexican chains and eclectic chains (generically chic places that offer a variety of different trendy foods in some sort of neutral environment). Several chains adopted the informal atmosphere of the sports bar, sanitizing the image a bit so that it would be suitable for family dining. Typically, they might offer, on one menu, a whole range of seemingly unrelated foods: pastas, steaks, fajitas, soups (Gumbo, French onion soup, New England Clam Chowder), egg rolls and pizza.Many of these restaurants adopted entertainment themes -- for their decor and service styles -- that reinforced the impressions created by their menus. Restaurant dining became the equivalent of a visit to a theme park, and it was supposed to be, above all else, fun. Such restaurants can be seen as a trendy ascent from the lower levels of service that are typical of fast food establishments.These two basic approaches to modern food service (adjusting customer expectations down from White Tablecloth dining and up from the grab-and-gulp of fast food) are not antithetical. Both options (the franchised theme restaurant and the bistro) are probably just stopping points along the road from fast food to fine dining. Baby boomers are well-into the most lucrative parts of their careers and their children have “left the nest.” If ever there was a time for better dining and more responsive table service to bloom again, it is now. CONCLUSIONTo summarize, the history of food service consists of a set of parallel developments:

There has been a general increase in the sophistication of the food served, and a concomitant rise in sophistication of the manner in which it is served and consumed. While there have been occasional detours, the trend has been toward a more subtle understanding and integration of the parts of the meal. There has been a gradual increase in awareness of the inherent qualities of the foods we eat.

The importance of sanitation has received increasing emphasis. The development, and gradual acceptance, of the fork and of table manners were indicators of that change. The modern industrial/mass market approaches to food delivery have made “untouched by human hands” not only a possibility, but in many cases an expectation.

Efficiency, first desired as a route to profitability, is routinely expected by increasingly time-constricted customers, and is therefore is a requirement for success; and finally:

The definition and functions of the host have changed. Originally, the word referred to the “lord of the manor,” the person actually paying for the feast. Gradually, the term “host” and the host’s responsibilities were transferred to the top officer of the household, in effect acting as the lord’s surrogate. Today, hosting duties are spread out over the entire spectrum of the food service industry, from the teenagers manning the registers at fast food joints to the CEOs of their parent multinational corporations. 

All of these reflect a progressive shift of emphasis from the status of the host to the pleasure of the guest. Burger King’s “Have it your way” has become the mantra of this increasingly democratic approach to food service. Immensely successful sandwich franchises, like Subway and Quizno’s, take this literally – with the selection of every ingredient in the meal being left to the diner.

A Brief Rant about Education

I recently had a curious experience while making a small purchase at one of those inappropriately-named "convenience" stores that litter our once-lovely landscape, simultaneously abusing our sensibilities and pandering to a host of perceived "needs" that no one really needs. I gave the cashier a bill that was larger than required, then realized that I could limit the amount of spare change in my pocket by adding a few coins to the amount I'd already given to her. 
Unfortunately, I handed them over after the cashier had already started entering the amount on her cash register. Sensing her confusion, I explained why I was giving her more money, and told her the amount I should get back. 
She froze for a moment, utterly pole-axed, then walked over to a different register, and entered the purchase and tendered amounts there. Once she learned that there had been no flim-flammery, no attempt, on my part, to flummox her with larcenous slight-of-hand, she returned to her original register -- where she began the transaction anew, from the beginning.  All in all, the process consumed perhaps five or six minutes for each dollar of my purchase. 
Think of the savings of time our society could amass if we were all required to master second-grade arithmetic.

Food Sites for February 2013

Groundhog (AKA "Woodchuck"), Marmota monax


February is fast approaching, and a certain resident of Punxatawny, PA is preparing to elate or depress us with his prognosticating. In the event that the rotund rodent's forecast is not simpatico with your plans for the remainder of winter, we offer this website. If you’re feeling especially vindictive, try this (you'll find some satisfaction in the fact that the instructions call for boiling the miscreant violently).
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 sent automatically. Just Served slings more leftovers than most people want to face, especially this time of year -- but, if you that feel you're up to the challenge, you can follow us on Facebook, or Twitter. In the unlikely event that you find yourself stranded and book-starved, there's even a kind of index at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
It's a little late now, but procrastinators might want to check out "Hoppin' John for the New Year Celebration: Hope For a Rosy Future."
Leitesculinaria has reposted several of our own articles – and there should be another new one appearing there, hard upon year's end. Our backlist of LC pieces is available here, along with several articles by more noteworthy writers on food history & science.
For this month's quotation from On the Table's culinary quote pages, two naturalists speak of the beast du jour:

My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre clean. Henry David Thoreau

As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Henry David Thoreau

Every time I shoot a woodchuck, eight come to the funeral. John Burroughs

GaryFebruary, 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----
20 Things Everyone Thinks About the Food World (but Nobody Will Say)(opinion piece by Chris Schonberger, Nick Schonberger, and Foster Kamer)
Amy Cotler(food writer and radio host of The Locavore Way)
Archive for the "Food and Beverage Plants" Category(some medieval favorites from The Cloisters in NYC)
BeerSci: How Beer Gets Its Color(details of the Maillard reaction and caramelization, in malting and brewing)
Evolutionary Whodunit: How Did Humans Develop Lactose Tolerance?, An(some current ideas about the advantages of milk-drinking; on NPR)
First We Feast (e-zine about food, drink, and travel, served with humor and a side of iconoclasm)
How Old Is Herbal Medicine?(evidence of herb use in medicine and cookery, back to he Neanderthals)
Impossibility of Historical Flavour, The(when Thomas Wolfe wrote, "you can't go home again" was he talking about the tastes of foods and wines of the past?)
Inside the Meat Lab: The Future of Food(Alex Renton's editorial, in The Guardian, about why the world's food supply must change, and some of the technologies that may be employed to do it)
Man and Molluscs(data base of edible -- and inedible -- molluscs with many links)
Nitty Grits(searchable international culinary dictionary)
Our Absurd Fear of Fat(Paul Campos' article, in The New York Times, questions the supposed connection between obesity and mortality)
Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture(an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History)
Salt, We Misjudged You(Gary Taubes' article, in The New York Times, on the lack of scientific basis for restricting salt in the diet)
SPIR.IT, The (newsletter about distilled liquors & cocktails; with recipes, articles, and trade news)
Surprisingly Manly History of Hot Cocoa, The(the drink of choice for royalty and warriors, from the Aztecs to today's MREs)
Using Cookbooks in Historical Archaeological Research: New Mexico as a Case Study(Cynthia D. Bertelsen points to a recent paper on what cookbooks can tell us about the past)

-- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers --
10 Feature Story Formats for Freelancers
15 Food Blogger Trends of 2012 That Need to Go
Are Food Blogs Killing the Joy of Cooking?
Complicated Case of the Simple Cookie, The
Descriptive Words vs. Technical Terms: Not Always the Same
Giles Coren on Food Writing
How to Write (Better)
Readers Gravitating to e-Books
Shady Business(the pros  & cons of literary agents)
Ten Bold Predictions for Ebooks and Digital Publishing in 2013
Tweets, Shoots and Leaves
Why Study Food?
Yo! Cookbook Authors (& Wannabes): When Chronicle's Bill LeBlond Speaks You Ought to Listen

-- yet another blog --
Austerity Kitchen, The

-- changed URL --
Multi Cultural Cooking Network

--- 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:
Would you be willing to support this newsletter, if it didn't require you to spend 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)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (hardcover) or (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (paper) or (Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History (Hardcover) or (Kindle)
Terms of Vegery (Kindle)
How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eatin g (Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #148" 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.

food sites for January 2013

“A Goose of Spruce” Picea pungens ‘R. Kluis’(an excerpt from Terms of Vegery)


January is named after Janus, the Roman god of doorways, the god with two faces – one facing forward and one facing back – a perfectly appropriate household deity for any writer. The Greeks, who – we are told on good authority – had a word for everything, believed that Mnemosyne (memory) was the mother of the Muses. So (as soon as you’ve finished abandoning your New Year’s resolutions and gotten back to your writing), remember to look back in a forward-thinking way.
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 sent automatically. Just Served slings more leftovers than most people want to face, especially this time of year -- but, if you that feel you're up to the challenge, you can follow us on Facebook, or Twitter. In the unlikely event that you find yourself stranded and book-starved, there's even a kind of index at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
You can also download our latest book, How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating , a Kindle book from Amazon. It’s creepy, intriguing, funny, scary, illuminating, puzzling, and addictive; everything you could want in a book about something you would rather not think about. If that doesn’t provide sufficient anthropophagic thrills, we’ve also made our earlier book, Human Cuisine , available as a Kindle book.
So, two books on herbs and two books on cannibals. They’re all very different, but we do hope we’re past those subjects now, and can think about something else for a change. For an article that has nothing to do with cannibals, and only passing reference to herbs, check out Leitesculinaria has reposted several of our own articles – and there should be another new one appearing there, hard upon year's end. Our backlist of LC pieces is available here.
For this month's quotation from On the Table's culinary quote pages, I couldn’t really stray far from Bitter Bierce.

Our uniform vanity has given us the human mind as the acme of intelligence, the human face and figure as the standard of beauty. Of course we cannot deny to human fat and lean an equal superiority over beef, mutton and pork. Ambrose Bierce

GaryJanuary, 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----

Beef’s Raw Edges(articles, videos, and slide shows about the meat-packing industry, in the Kansas City Star)
Biomolecular Archaeologist Uncorks World's Oldest Known Grape Wine(Stacey Shackford’s article in Cornell University’s Ezra Magazine, about the "Indiana Jones of ancient ales, wines and extreme beverages")
Cheddaring Cheese – The Process(a step-by-step explanation of what makes cheddar cheddar; from The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin)
Chunky History of Peanut Butter, A(Jon Michaud’s article in The New Yorker’s annual food issue)
Eating Nano(nanoparticles are already being used in processed foods and food packaging, without FDA oversight)
Food Porn Daily(get your mind out of the gutter; it’s just a gallery of food photography)
Foodbeast(“food news, culture and entertainment” plus reviews and recipes)
Fortune’s Cookies(Jan Whitaker’s post on the place of these “Chinese” lagniappes in American restaurants)
Holy Cow! First Cheesemakers Date Back 7,500 Years(archaeological evidence of early cheesemakers and their possible effects on human evolution; in LiveScience)
Ilian Food Photography(portfolio of a former photojournalist who took his camera from the streets into the kitchen)
Legend of the Potato King, The(Christophe Niemann retells an old food story, graphically, with spud prints)
Lost in Translation: Brown Sugar(Melissa Bedinger explores brown sugar and molasses – and the processes used to make them from cane and sugar beets)
No Innocent Spice: The Secret Story of Nutmeg, Life and Death(Michael Krondl and Kathleen Wall dish about some spicy seventeenth-century food history, on NPR)
Origin of the Word “Bacon”(a little etymology, with added bacon trivia)
Peacock-Harper Culinary History Collection(Cynthia Bertelsen’s “Bibliography of Virginia-Related Cookbooks;” a PDF)
Quest for Wine's Origins, The(“through DNA profiling and archaeology, researchers have found what they believe is the cradle of wine grape growing;” article in Wine Spectator magazine )
tea trekker(an informative site from a purveyor of fine teas from Asia and Tanzania, tea wares from China and Japan, and books about tea)
Tip of the Tongue: The 7 (Other) Flavors Humans May Taste(recent research into our ability to perceive more than the four or five basic tastes; in LiveScience)
To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish(video about cochon du lait, from UM Media Documentary Projects and Southern Foodways)
Toothpicks(Jan Whitaker’s post about the place of these little devices in restaurant history)
War of the Stinky Cheeses, The(video about the risk of French “artisanal” cheeses’ demise, at the same time as North Americans are learning to make their own versions; in French, with English subtitles available)
What Makes Some Food Awful and Other Food Offal?(Gary Truitt’s article in Hoosier Ag Today)


-- inspirational (or otherwise) sites for writers/bloggers --

Chef’s Adventure in Self Publishing, A
From Plate to Page
Giz Explains: How You’re Gonna Get Screwed by Ebook Formats
John Cleese on Creativity
Why E-Book Subscriptions Are The Future


-- yet another blog --

Upstart Kitchen, 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.
Our books:
The Resource Guide for Food Writers (paper) 
The Herbalist in the Kitchen (hardcover)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (hardcover)The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries (Kindle)
Human Cuisine (paper)Human Cuisine (Kindle) 
Herbs: A Global History (Hardcover)Herbs: A Global History (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 #147" 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) 2012 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for December 2012

"A Flatulence of Beans," an entry from  Terms of Vegery

December is almost here, which means that (officially, at least) the election- and hurricane- seasons are blessedly over. It's a month for shopping, avoiding shopping, and serious digesting (all of which seem like exhausting work to us). Consequently this issue is a tad lighter than our usual over-stuffed newsletter.
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 sent automatically. Just Served slings more leftovers than most people want to face, especially this time of year -- but, if you that feel you're up to the challenge, you can follow us on Facebook, or Twitter. In the unlikely event that you find yourself stranded and book-starved, there's even a kind of index -- including a recently-added article from Roll Magazine, on Roquefort Dressing -- at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Leitesculinaria has reposted several of our own articles – and there should be another new one appearing there, hard upon the year's end. Our backlist of LC pieces is available here, along with several articles by more noteworthy writers on the history and science of food.
This month's quotation from On the Table's culinary quote pages offers some advice for the endless dinner party that is the holiday season, but it comes from someone who was probably known as "Buzz-kill Bill" to his friends:

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.

 W. Somerset Maugham

GaryDecember, 2012

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 infested with these updates again. You'll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

----the new sites----
Check Out This Food Atlas Created by "Guerrilla Cartographers"(Sara Johnson's well-illustrated article about Food: An Atlas, by Darin Jensen and Molly Roy)
Deconstructing the California Roll(Lexi Dwyer's article, at Gourmet Live, on the history of the now-ubiquitous avocado-laced sushi)
Flowers that Have Changed the World of Food #1: Orchids(first in a series of blog posts, by Laura Kelly, that merge botany, gastronomy, and photography)
Flowers that Have Changed the World of Food #2: Saffron(Laura Kelly's blog continues...)
Flowers that Have Changed the World of Food #3: Cloves(Laura Kelly's blog continues...)
Garlic's Origin, Medicinal Uses, and a Recipe for Garlic Dessert from King Nala(a tale told from a distinctly sub-continental perspective)
Interview with Marcella Hazan, An(conducted by Aussie Margaret Hogan)
Language of Food Photography is Universal, The(The Splendid Table's Lynne Rossetto Kasper interviews Penny De Los Santos)
New Push to Reduce Antibiotic Use in Farm Animals(Todd Sperry's article on CNN)
Origin of the Adage of Eating Oysters Only in Months with an 'R', The(Nigel Moore tracks down the sources of, and justifications for, this bit of culinary advice)

----yet another blog----
Food Politics

----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:
Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers , The Herbalist in the Kitchen , The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries , Human Cuisine , Herbs: A Global History, and Terms of Vegery  are currently available.
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
 __________________
"The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #146" 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) 2012 by Gary Allen.