Gary Allen's Blog, page 7

Coping with Covid

We live in strange and fearful times. While everything is strange and unfamiliar, these days, not every fear is based in reality. The devilish part is that we can never know which fears are, and which fears aren’t.

Every day, a trickle of tiny symptoms—a slight cough, a tickle in the back of the throat, an aching shoulder, a runny nose—swell into a flood of doubts and worries. They could be foreshadows of the dreaded disease and the final darkness. 

I question everything about my activities over the last few days. I have, of course, worn my masks religiously—but what about that guy who didn’t, the guy who was nice enough to hold the door for me at the post office? And what about that couple who ignored the one-way aisles at the grocery store? If they didn’t follow that simple safety precaution, then, what other health rules might they have ignored in the past two weeks? What if they were politically-averse to following any rules? What if they don’t even believe that the virus is real? What chance do I even have to survive in a world where such dangerously anti-social behavior is rampant?

What if that strange tightness I feel in my chest is the beginning of my lungs shutting down? I check my temperature. It’s normal. I check my pulse and oxygen levels. My pulse is just as it always is. My oxygen is down a little—95%—but I have asthma, so I should expect that. Oh wait… asthma, combined with my advanced age, are preconditions that tell me I would probably not survive a brush with Covid-19!

Thinking all of these thoughts, it becomes increasingly difficult to sleep at night.

Thoughts are not the only things keeping me awake. A tightness in my chest keeps me tossing and turning. No position change makes breathing any easier. But I had checked all the vital readings I could, didn’t I? 

What if it is something else? I’m old enough to have any number of age-related problems. What if it is my heart? Wait—I notice a dull pain running down the inside of my left arm! Isn’t that a sign of a heart attack? My breathing becomes more difficult.

How bloody ironic. I could die, in my own bed, a victim of my own heart, and Covid would have nothing to do with it. It could be that this is the very night I will die. It would make no difference to me—since I’d be dead—but it would be a very unpleasant thing for my wife to wake up to. Still, it would be better not to die, right? 

Should I wake her, and ask to be taken to the hospital? Do I need to get dressed? Really—does it matter what I look like in the emergency room? Is this even an emergency? What an incredible waste of time, money, and medical resources it would be if this is not a heart attack! My wife wakes during my ten thousandth spin under covers, and asks if I’m alright. I hesitate, then tell her about my symptoms—without offering my amateur diagnosis. She asks if she should take me to the hospital.

I answer, “I don’t think that’s necessary.” I try to go back to sleep, but my chest feels like a tourniquet is being twisted ever tighter around it. I can even feel it between my shoulder blades. I don’t even want to move, lest I gasp for air and frighten my already worried wife. I can’t remember if this is what a heart attack feels like—a spear passing clear through the body.

The tightness is nothing I remember ever having experienced before, but something about what I’m feeling—in the space between my shoulder blades—is familiar. I’ve never had heart trouble of any kind, but I recognize this sensation. I recall that, over fifty years ago, while I was still in school, I went to college infirmary with a similar pain. The doctor handed me over to one of the Phys Ed instructors. He was also a physical therapist, so he massaged my back and told me to soak in a hot tub. The pain subsided.

I got out of bed without waking my wife, dug around in the bathroom until I could locate a heating pad. After warming it up, I slipped it between me and the bed, and waited. Before long, I fell asleep. 

In the morning, the tightness was gone. It was just a muscle spasm. Neither Covid nor a heart attack would take me that day.

Still, I find it curious that our evolution has provided us with ways to prepare for our own demise. It’s something that no other species has developed, or needed to develop. As we age, we gradually receive little hints of the impending end—one by one, our powers diminish in a accelerating increase of little deaths, signaling the relentless workings of entropy—making it easier to accept its inevitability. If we live long enough, most of what makes us who we are will have gone before we, ourselves, are gone. 

If we’re willing to accept these losses in the spirit in which they’re given, we can find peace in the only universe we will ever know.

The Cook’s Tale

 

I’ve had to prepare some unusual—no, weird—meals in my time. After all, when you work for a queen—who happens to be an ogress—you do what you’re told. Better to serve something odd on the platter than to be served on the platter, if you follow my meaning.

Over the years, I’ve prepared fricassees of friars, cobbler cobblers, a timbale of tailor, barbecued barber en brochette, and countless other dainties. I doubt that there are many other cooks who can tell you which cuts of man are most tender, and which require long braising to render them savory and succulent—let alone which sauces best complement them. 

A good cook also learns, over time, the masters’ taste and preferences. We become specialists, whether we like it or not. Our queen, for example, enjoyed her hunting expeditions, and I suspect that’s why she always wanted me to serve meals dressed with Sauce Robert. It is, after all, the perfect accompaniment for the most dangerous game.

Most nights, I had to prepare something different for the prince’s dinner; he did not share her taste in viands. He preferred something lighter—or, at least, less human; roast pheasant, over peasant; some pasta alla putanesca, preferably not sauced with actual prostitutes; or a charcuterie plate of palle de nonno, not made from some grandfather’s genitalia. He was careful to learn what—rather than who—was on the menu.

No one in the kitchen staff was surprised when, upon reaching young manhood, he left the castle in quest of a different kind of life—and diet—for himself. His was a sensitive nature, unlike, in every way, his mother’s. We liked to think that he took after the paternal side of the family, ‘though he couldn’t have had much memory of his father. The king had vanished, when the prince was still a small child. The king—we were told—had been “lost” while on a hunting expedition with the queen. The butler, and other members of the kitchen staff, typically use those little air quotes when speaking of the king’s “disappearance.” Ironic eyebrows, needless to say, are never raised—when the queen might see them.

The prince had been a most gentle and parfait knight; his absence affected the kitchen staff most grieviously. Years passed with nary a word of his whereabouts. We had no way of knowing if he still lived, or if he had fallen victim to barbarians or wild beasts, or—heaven help us—“disappeared” the way his father had. The endless not knowing was almost more than we could bear.

One day, after years had passed, the butler received a letter from the prince. It was fit and proper for the butler to hear from him first. He had always treated the boy, if not like his own son then as a favorite nephew. The prince begged the butler not to speak to the queen about the news it contained. He was free to tell us, however, because the prince felt that we were more family to him than the one he’d been born into. 

His big news was that he now had a family of his own, and he explained how it come to be. About a year into his travels, he’d heard rumors of an enchanted castle, deep in the forest. It had been abandoned for a hundred years. Local people whispered about an ancient curse, though no living person could remember what it was about. They just knew that they should never risk crossing its moss-covered drawbridge, let alone try raising its worm-eaten portcullis. The young prince—thinking that “if that wasn’t the very definition of a worthy quest, what was?”—immediately went in search of the old castle.

After several days of hacking his way through the dense understory of shaggy ancient oaks, he came upon the castle walls. At first, he didn’t even recognize them as such; the crumbling walls were so encrusted with thorny vines and ferns—with mosses plucking old mortar from the joints between the stones—that it seemed it was just a denser part of the forest. Since he could not proceed forward, he turned and followed the old stones to his right. Working his way around the bases of towers between castle’s battlements, he came upon the only entrance. The drawbridge had, long ago, fallen into the moat, but—as forest debris now filled the ancient water work—he was able to walk right up to the portcullis. He gave it a shove, causing much of the old wood to crumble. It rent an opening with room enough for him to pass through. Inside the castle walls, all was silent as a tomb. 

But it was not a tomb. 

Exploring room after room, he found many to be occupied by the bodies of servants—not dead, but fast asleep! At the end of a great hall, he found the lord and lady of the realm, snoring softly on their thrones. He tried, several times, to rouse them from their slumbers, but all of his efforts were in vain.

He continued searching through that eerie dormitory, at last coming to a small room in the attic. Peering through the door, he could see that it was filled with dust-covered spinning wheels. Cobwebs connected them so thickly that they appeared to be covered with sheets for storage. It was as if someone had put them in storage before going on a long trip. 

But they hadn’t gone anywhere; they were still there, lying in perpetual somnolence. 

While puzzling over the strange things he’d seen in the castle, his eyes gradually adjusted to the attic’s dim light. He could make out something other than cobwebs draped over a spinning wheel in the far corner. He made his way over to it, shuffling though a century of dust and dry leaves that had drifted in through a long-broken window. 

Brushing aside the work of countless generations of spiders, he was stunned by what he saw. It was a young woman, fast asleep like the others. She was lovely, despite the dusty gray webs in her long blond hair. A tiny drop of century-old dried blood still clung to her delicate finger. He lifted her carefully from her stool and carried her down to the great hall. He lowered her gently onto one of the long tables and stood, frozen in place, staring at her. He had never been so moved by anything he’d seen, anywhere. Nothing, or rather no one, in all his travels, was as graceful and radiant as the sleeping girl before him. Not sure of what to do next, he busied himself with picking dead leaves and bits of spider-web from her hair. Bending closer, over her face, he saw a tiny dead spider, just above her right eyebrow. He thought, for a moment, “Oh fortunate creature, so blessed as to have died for love of this princess!” He brushed it gently away, then leaned to kiss the spot.

One china-blue eye opened. 

Then another. 

They fixed in astonishment on the prince’s face, inches away.

The king and queen stopped snoring and sat up straight, in utter confusion. “Who the hell are you, young varlet?” the king roared. “And what are you doing with our daughter?”

“I humbly beg your forgiveness, sire,” the prince answered. “I found her… most strangely… dozing in an attic room, asleep beside a spinning wheel… one ancient spinning wheel among a mountain of other ancient spinning wheels.”

“Of course,” the king said, suddenly remembering, “the evil fairy’s curse!” The prince was baffled, naturally, but the king recounted a story about a slighted fairy’s ancient spite. He also explained that the prince had been destined to find them, break the curse, and that the young couple had every prospect of living happily ever after. While a trifle far-fetched, at first, it seemed like a good-enough arrangement to the prince and princess. They married and blessed the king and queen with two grandchildren—a boy named Day and a girl named Dawn—who they loved and spoiled to the best of their royal ability.

There was just one little problem. And it was the reason the prince wrote the letter to his former butler. The prince had never gotten around to telling his in-laws about his own childhood. He certainly never mentioned the inconvenient fact that his mother was literally—and not figuratively—an ogress. Not trusting his mother, he wondered if there was a way to tell her about his new family, tactfully, without being too specific about where he now lived.

The butler tried his best, but he was not successful in fooling the queen, a queen who was also a crafty hunter. A predator always knows more about the ways of her prey than the prey knows about hers. She insisted that the prince come home so she could meet her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. As it is extremely bad form to disregard the summons of a queen—or an ogress, or both—he had little choice but to comply.

What he didn’t know was that the queen had already outlined a menu for the first time that the prince would be out of the castle, leaving his family in her tender care. He had been away from his mother too long; otherwise he would have remembered that her understanding of the word “tender” was not the same as most other people’s. On one fateful day, he left the castle, on some royal errand or other, leaving the family with his mother. 

The queen tasked me to find an excuse to separate the little boy from the others, kill him, and serve him to his grandmother. To be ready for the task, I prepared plenty of demi-glace in advance, carefully reducing rich beef stock to a thick syrupy glaze, just oozing with umami. On the morning when I was to execute her orders, I began making enough Sauce Robert for her dish of petit-fils rôti. In a huge copper saucier, I melted pounds of butter, then slowly cooked chopped onions until they were transparent, but not browned. I didn’t want the finished sauce to have even a trace of bitterness. I added white wine to the onions, and reduced it until it was almost entirely evaporated. I stirred in the demi-glace, melted it, and reduced it again, concentrating its richness—then added sharp mustard to counter that richness, and act in counterpoint with the savory roast it would dress.

I then went to the prince’s family quarters. Day was over-joyed when I offered a chance to try out my secret fishing spot. When we got to the pond, a long way through the woods, I took him into a little shed. I fastened a gag around his mouth, so he couldn’t cry out—even though we were so far from the castle that no one could possibly hear him. I trussed him like a chicken and propped him in the corner. He tried to kick and scream. He was so pathetic that I nearly released him. Instead, I told him it was just a little game we were playing on his sister, and that I would soon return to free him. He believed me, laughing with his eyes.

I left him there, bound and gagged, and headed to the nearest farm, where I bought one of the farmers’ lambs. We slaughtered it together, skinned, and butchered it. I carried the meat back to the kitchen in a sack that mostly hid the bloody remains. While it roasted, I reheated the sauce. When the meat came out of the oven, I let it rest while I whisked cold butter into the hot sauce. I arranged the roasted meat on a platter, covering it with sauce. The butler carried the young boy substitute to the queen, who gobbled it down with perverse familial joy.

The next day, with the queen’s appetite renewed, I was told to fetch her granddaughter, Dawn—to be served the same way. 

I explained to the little girl that her brother had wandered off to pick berries, and I hadn’t been able to find him. I suggested that she, being much shorter, might be able to see under the low bushes where the best berries grew. Together, I said, we had a much better chance of finding the lost boy. We walked into the forest, talking about our favorite kinds of berries, until we came to the shack where I’d hidden her brother. She went in ahead of me. When she saw the trussed-up boy in the corner, she screamed—but no one else could hear her. I quickly tied her up and gagged her, but not before she bit me. 

I fear she might share some of her grandmother’s evil proclivities. 

I told them that I was doing this for their own good, and not to worry—their mother would be coming soon to make sure that they were safe. I said nothing about their grandmother’s appetites.

I went back to the farmer who had sold me the lamb. This time, I bought a young goat. We processed the animal, as before, and I took it back to the castle’s kitchen. Once again, I roasted the meat and, while it was cooking, mounted more butter for another batch of Sauce Robert. I carried the steaming platter to the queen, myself. Between mouthfuls, she complimented me, saying that she found each dish to be richer and more succulent than the last.

I bowed, gathered my carving knives, and took my much-relieved leave.

The next morning, the queen awoke hungrier than ever. She sent for me, of course. I prepared a light breakfast of left-over goat/granddaughter, baked in a savory pie. She gobbled it down, burped once, and told me what I must prepare for the night’s menu: the prince’s bride. I had seen that coming—so I just bowed, without comment, and backed out of her room.

I headed over to the castle’s guest wing, where I found the young mother weeping inconsolably. Having heard nothing about her children’s whereabouts, she paced back and forth between the window and their empty little beds, tearing her hair and sobbing. I tried to get her attention, but she did not notice me at first. When she did, she tried to send me away. “Please don’t bother me with talk of menus… can’t you see that I don’t care about anything as insignificant as food?”

Her comment stung, of course, but I did understand, given her situation.

“Please forgive my interruption, m’lady, but I haven’t come to talk about food.” I knew that it was, in one sense, a lie (a sense I wasn’t eager to acknowledge), so I switched to a more congenial subject. “I know where your children are, and can take you to them… but you’ll have to trust me and say nothing… to anyone… until we’re well away from the castle.” Her eyes opened wide, releasing the last if her tears. She wiped them away with a silken sleeve and silently nodded her assent.

Once our horses had carried us deep into the forest, I told her about her mother-in-law, and the plans the ogress had for her little family. She was horrified, naturally, but was comforted by my efforts to prevent the evil plans’ success. 

When we got to the little barn where I’d hidden the children, there was the joyous reunion I’d expected, and the children soon forgot the fear they’d felt when I left them. I suspect the pastries and sweetmeats I’d brought along for their breakfast might have had something to do with the forgiveness they showed to their former captor. We rode off to the farm I’d visited before, each of us sharing our saddle with a happy child.

I asked the farmer if he could put up a few guests, and glanced in the direction of the mother and children. He recognized the royal family, and gave me a knowing glance. “I figured something was up, the other times you stopped by,” he confided. Catching my questioning look, he answered, “While I have sold meat animals for the castle’s kitchens many times over the years, the last two were the only times when you did the butchering here.” I hadn’t realized that I was doing anything sufficiently suspicious to arouse his curiosity.

“I guessed it had something to do with the queen,” he explained. I asked, in faux innocence, what he meant. “Everyone in the realm knows there’s something odd about her,” he continued, “whenever she comes to our part of the forest to hunt, someone goes missing. It didn’t take us long to guess where they’d gone.”

I apologized for my part in their disappearances, and he was forgiving, as I had no choice but to do the queen’s bidding. He also said he’d be happy to do anything that would prevent the prince’s family from disappearing down the queen’s gullet. He admired my craftiness, and suggested that I would need a larger bundle of meat, this time, to avoid making the queen suspicious. He sent one of his sons into the forest to shoot a deer, which we butchered as before. While the deer was, technically, the product of illegal poaching—it was going to find its way to the royal table, anyway. The farmer and I privately savored the ironic amuse bouche.

I gave him my thanks, and bade the royal family goodbye. I lashed a bulging bloody sack of venison to the princess’s saddle and took the two horses back to the castle. The queen witnessed my arrival from a parapet, and nodded in lip-licking approval.

Normally, I hang game for days to age and tenderize the meat, but I knew the queen was impatient to polish off the last of those who had usurped her son’s affections. While the surrogate “princess” turned on a spit, I finished making the last big batch of Sauce Robert.

That night, I loaded a huge platter of meat—disguised by a thick napping of rich sauce—unto a cart and wheeled it into the queen’s quarters. She tore into the meat, sopping up additional sauce with every bite. She smiled her approval, and—during a brief period when her mouth wasn’t jammed full of her supposed daughter-in-law—said, “I don’t know how you do it, but we dearly love your cooking… you always have a surprise for us!”

I winced involuntarily at the thought that she had seen through my plan. But, as she continued eating, I realized that she hadn’t intended to pun “deerly.” When a ravenous ogress is gorging herself in your presence, it is possible to be overly sensitive to nuance. Recovering myself, I answered, “You’re too kind, m’lady.” Tempting fate, I added an afterthought, “if there’s any secret, it’s in the sauce.”

She looked up, quizzically—which terrified me— then dove back into the platter, waving me off. You can be sure that I was more than happy to leave her quarters! All night long, I worried that she would see through my subterfuges, and recognize my deceptions. It was a long and sleepless night, you can be sure. Then, first thing in the morning, I awoke, terrified, to the sound of insistent pounding on my door. Shaking with fear, I made my way, in dread—ever so slowly—across the room. Summoning my last reserves of courage, I opened the door. 

Just a crack.

Imagine my initial relief when I saw the prince standing there! It faded when I saw that he was red-faced with rage. He said he’d searched, high and low for his family, without success. He also asked all the servants if they knew where they might be. They told him, again and again, that his loved ones were last seen leaving the castle. With me. The prince and I had been on the best of terms, since he was a child, when I secretly served him treats from the kitchen. Now all that good will was gone. Stealing his family had undone everything. His sword in hand, he was preparing to julienne his former friend if he didn’t get immediate answers to his questions.

I begged him to come in, and—in a conspiratorial whisper—told him I knew where the princess and children were, and that they were safe. That tempered his anger, somewhat. I told him I would tell him more—once we were far enough from the castle. He wanted answers, on the spot, but he saw that I couldn’t be forced to speak. We took a few horses, but no guards, and rode into the forest.

I started, “You are aware, of course, that I know that your mother has… certain… unusual… dining habits?”

“What?” Then, “how do you know about that?”

“She doesn’t prepare her own meals, does she?”

“I see.” He rode on in silence, then asked, “why are you bring that up, now?”

“While you were away from the castle, she requested some… special… culinary items.”

“So? She’s the queen. She can order whatever she wants.”

“Whoever she wants, in this case.”

“You don’t mean…”

“I do, alas. She first wanted your son. Then your daughter, And finally, the princess.”

He was speechless, as pale and quivering as a well-set blanc mange. 

“Where are they now?” he finally managed to ask. I told him about the farmer, and the ways I had managed to fool the nasty old woman into thinking she was feasting upon princess and grandchildren. I did not, of course, call the queen a “nasty old woman,” out loud. Having recently escaped being sliced and diced by the prince, I was in no hurry to stir him to anger. A nasty old woman she might be, but it was not my place to disparage his mother.

The family reunion, at the farm, was every bit as rapturous as you might imagine. The farmer prepared a feast—that, significantly, I did not cook. The prince rewarded the farmer’s business with the title of Provisioner to the Crown, guaranteeing his family generations of steady income. Nearly everyone was deliriously happy.

Everyone except me. 

I had troubling thoughts of what the queen would do when she found that I’d tricked her. I half expected her to order me to make a huge pot of Sauce Robert, enough to drown me. Dark thoughts occupied me on our journey back to the castle. Seeing the furious queen, pacing in rage upon the parapets—when the prince and his family arrived—did not, at all, ease my fears.

I held back, while the prince rushed across the drawbridge, calling for the royal guards. They charged up to the queen’s chamber, burst through the door, and subdued the raving wild-eyed ogress. They trussed her tightly, like a giant porchetta, and heaved her unto an oxcart. As the prince was leading the troop and the cart into the forest, he turned to me. “This is one exceeding bitter dish. Might you recommend something that will sweeten it?” 

My first thought was that The Queen’s Sauce—a whiskey-flavored variation on Crême Anglaise—might make an interesting, and à propos, dessert. I then realized that there was little time to prepare it, and that I was over-thinking his request. I ran out from the kitchen with several gallons of honey. 

When the group reached a suitable spot, deep in the forest, they rolled the old cannibal off the cart. They shoved an apple into her mouth to silence her, then poured honey all over her body. Then they rode back to the castle to celebrate the coronation of the new King and Queen. 

I was promoted to the rank of Executive Royal Chef—upon my solemn promise never to make Sauce Robert again. We never found out what polished off the old queen; it could have been ravenous bears, venomous toads, or relentless ants, or perhaps all of them.

©2020, Gary Allen

 

Food Sites for December 2020

 More pumpkins, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

The past month has given us much to celebrate and much to mourn—opposite conditions that are usually treated with a strict regimen of over-eating. For better or worse, the upcoming holiday season will provide ample opportunities for such treatments.

Penwipe Publishing continues to remain in staycation mode, but—while the pandemic has provided plenty of time—our obsession with following the news has provoked and unprovoked such writing. This month, we’ve tried to add to our still-growing collection of fables. One new story, in process, is more food-centered than most, but Covid news is slowing its progress. 

Maybe next issue...

Listed below are a few more podcasts we’ve found that provided opportunities for procrastination (as if we needed any).

You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a LOT of photographs), and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, mostly about our food writing.

In honor of November—and procrastination—a couple of items not found in On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well. Mark Twain

I’m going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow! Sam Levenson

Gary
December, 2020

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Roz Cummins), 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 —

10,000 Vintage Recipe Books Are Now Digitized in The Internet Archive’s Cookbook & Home Economics Collection

(Josh Jones opines on old cookery books, and ways to access them, electronically)

Analysis of Indian Restaurants

(Vivek Aithal explores, graphically, the food scene in India)

Brief History of the TV Dinner, A

(Kovie Biakolo’s article, in Smithsonian Magazine, about what were originally intended to be called “Strato-Plates”)

Celery Forever: Where America’s Weirdest Soda Came From and How It’s Stuck Around

(Chris E. Crowley writes about the origins—and survival—of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray, in Serious Eats)

Confusing Tastes and Smells: How Odours Can Influence the Perception of Sweet and Sour Tastes

(article in the Oxford University Press journal, Chemical Senses, by John Prescott and Robert Boakes)

From Apicius to Gastroporn: Form, Function, and Ideology in the History of Cookery Books

(Abigail Dennis’ entry in Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 31, No. 1, Fall 2008)

Historical Dig Sheds Light on the Food of the Underground Railroad, A

(Reina Gattuso on archaeological findings in Maryland)

How Enslaved Chefs Helped Shape American Cuisine

(Kelley Fanto Deetz’s article in Smithsonian Magazine)

How Flavor Chemists Designed the Controversial Pumpkin Spice

(Madeline Muzzi’s Inverse interview with Hedy Kulka, a principal flavorist at McCormick)

Indigenous Food Systems Network

(a Canadian resource)

It’s Bread, Jim, But Not As We Know It

(a comparison between modern and medieval English baked goods)

Male Bias in the History of Bread: Logo for Fleischmann’s Yeast

(An article from William Rubel’s baking blog)

Newly Digitized Menu Collection Shows Off America’s Lost Railroad Cuisine, A

(from the collection at Northwestern University’s Transportation Library)

Not a Fan of Hawaiian Pizza, Processed Cheese, and California Rolls? Blame Canada

(Emily Monaco’s Gastro Obscura post that shifts the onus for some questionable foods northward)

On the 19th-Century Food Writer Who Embraced Gluttony As a Virtue

(Joy Lanzendorfer, for Literary Hub, discovers “the complicated pleasures of Elizabeth Robins Pennell“)

Passionate Professional from Puglia Has a Face-to-Face with the Pandemic, A

(L. Aruna Dhir interviews cooking-school host, Silvestro Silvestori, for hospitalitynet)

Punk Domestics

(archive of defunct site about DIY food preservation methods; embedded links may no longer work)

Science of Lactic Acid Fermentation, The: Pickles, Kraut, Kimchi, and More

(Tim Chin tells all, at Serious Eats)

Taínos Refused to Grow Food, The

(Jess Romeo, at JSTOR, on interactions between the explorers and native peoples of the Caribbean; spoiler alert: “the Spanish starved”)

Those Funky Cheese Smells Allow Microbes to “Talk” to and Feed Each Other

(a report on research about the complexity of cheese-ripening, from Tufts University)

Varietal Vinegars Are on the Rise—Here’s What You Need to Know

(Siobhan Wallace shows, at VinePair, that good vinegar is not just spoiled wine)

— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —

Cookbooks Are Much More Than Just Recipes

Cookbooks Help Me Escape These Days

Dealing with the Inner Critic

Delectably Indulgent History of Perfect Food Photos, The

Every Foodie Has an Origin Story

Pitching a New Editor: Don’t Be Too Clever

— more blogs —

Food Dictator, The

My Kitchen, ‘tis of Thee

— podcasts, etcetera —

Big Apple Episode, The

Eaters Guide to the World

Italian Reacts to “Italian” Food Videos, An—Gordon Ramsay, Lidia Bastianich & Instant Pots, Oh My!

“Nose Dive” into the Science of Smell, A

Start Here! (An African Podcast)

— that’s all for now —

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include my own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order any books via those links, the price you pay is not increased by our commission.

Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose. Ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our own books:

The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)

The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)

Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier

(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)

How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)

How to Write a Great Book
(Kindle)

The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Kindle)

Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Kindle)

Prophet Amidst Losses
(Kindle)

Cenotaphs
(Kindle)

Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Kindle)

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

______________

The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #242 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 ©2020 by Gary Allen.

Food Sites for November 2020

Assorted pumpkins, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

Remember George Henry Boughton’s famous painting of pilgrims, walking solemnly to church? It was done in 1867, only four years after Lincoln created Thanksgiving as a national holiday. It will soon be dragged out of hiding, as it is every November. It always makes me think of how grimly drab and gray the season is, and how many months more of such weather we can expect to endure.

Then I remember that much of that time will be spent cooking for—and maybe even eating with—friends. I imagine the warm kitchen, filled with savory aromas, and I start ransacking my cookbook collection.

Penwipe Publishing remains on staycation, but the pandemic is good for something: it provides plenty of time for writing. This month, our blog posted another short story; “A Girl to Do the Cleaning” is more for our still-growing collection of fables. It has only a tenuous connection to our food writing, but still...

Look below for a few more podcasts—and a little humor—to distract you from the media’s never-ending chatter about trying to survive in the plague year.

You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a LOT of photographs), and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, mostly about our food writing.

In honor of November, a few large squashes from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

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

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

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

Gary
November, 2020

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Dianne Jacob), thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

— the new sites —

2,000-Year-Old History of Vending Machines, The

(Chason Gordon’s article at Food52, about mechanically-enhanced instant gratification)

Cooking Pom

(Karen Vaneker’s paper on the traditional taro-based dish of Surinam)

Food for Healing: Convalescent Cookery in the Early Modern Era

(Ken Albala’s 2011 essay about soft bland food meant for invalids, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences)

Food on Table, The: History, Culture, Art and Popular Expression in Roman Cooking

(an overview by Rose Gaudiano)

Jewish Food Legacies from Spain

(Annette B. Fromm’s 2105 paper)

Medieval Arabic Cookbooks: Reviving the Taste of History

(Marcia Lynx Qualey’s Aljazeera account of ancient books in modern English translation, with details of Arabic food, culture, and etiquette)

Nixtamalization

(YouTube video, from CIMMYT—the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center—explaining the production and use of nixtamalized corn)

Race to Redesign Sugar, The

(Nicola Twilley’s New Yorker article about the science behind making sugar sweeter—so formulations won’t need as much)

Travel Back in Time with Mcgill University’s Cookbook Collection that Spans 350 Years

(Gail Dever’s blog post about an internet archive of 264 cookbooks that were written between 1615 and 1966)

Ultimate Guide to Ingredient Substitutions and Equivalents, The

(Kristin Stangl provides links to lots of substitution strategies at The Spruce Eats)

Who Invented Hummus?

(Diana Spechler deals with a contentious subject for the BBC)

— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —

50 Pitching Guides for NYT, Natgeo, Wired, Wapo, Bustle and More

Adapting and Adopting: The Migrating Recipe

Cheese can Protect You from 'All Forms of Death', According to Scientists from the University of Łódź

Colorado Couple’s 20-Year Search for Extinct Fruit Finally Pays Off

Did Early Humans Invent Hot Pot in Geothermal Pools?

Fat Chance

Genetic Fix to Put the Taste Back in Tomatoes, A

Republishing Content: How to Update Old Blog Posts for SEO

Tasty Only in Afterthought: 6 Words That Didn’t Always Describe Food

— podcasts, etcetera —

All the Eater Shows You Love, in All the Places You Love to Watch Them

Aunty Sylvie’s Sponge: Foodmaking, Cookbooks and Nostalgia

Babish Culinary Universe

Genius Recipe Tapes, The 

Homemade Podcast Episode 17: Dorie Greenspan on Baking, Butter, and Elbows-On-the-Table Food 

Your Fave Food52 Shows Are Now Streaming on a TV Near You

— a little humor —

How to Make a Bodega Sandwich

Off-Kilter History of British Cuisine, The

— that’s all for now —

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include my own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order any books via those links, the price you pay is not increased by my commission.

Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our books:

The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)

The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)

Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier

(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)

How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)

How to Write a Great Book
(Kindle)

The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Kindle)

Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Kindle)

Prophet Amidst Losses
(Kindle)

Cenotaphs
(Kindle)

Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Copyright ©2020 by Gary Allen.

A Girl to Do the Cleaning

 

You know, when Snow White first showed up at our little home, I felt for her.

She gave us a long—and very sad—spiel about being mistreated by her vain step-mother. You know how Freudians are always going on and on and on about the tsuris that patients get from their mothers? Let me tell you, mothers got nothing on step-mothers in that department.

Endless guilt-trips are one thing; sending a kid into the forest to be slaughtered by some hunter in a goyishe red plaid jacket is something else altogether. Sure, the guy didn’t go through with it, but—just telling her that he was supposed to cut out her kishkes, and bring them back for her step-mother’s dinner—it’s the sort of thing that could keep a girl in therapy forever.

Besides, at fifty bucks a pop, who was going to pay for all those sessions?

Anyway, the outdoorsman let her go. In a kind of mitzvah—not that goyim have any idea what a mitzvah is—he kills a wild boar, and cuts out the lungs and liver to fool the old bitch. I ask you, how ironic was that? She had no idea that, instead of step-daughter, she was noshing on treyf!

Anyway, let me get back to her story. Snow White had been wandering around in the forest for some time, when she stumbled upon our house. We were all at work at the time, so she just walked in and helped herself to my left-over kugel, washing it down with our last bottle of Doctor Brown’s Cel-Ray tonic. Losing that soda was the first thing that made me question the wisdom of keeping her around. You know how hard it is to find Cel-Ray out here in the sticks?

Anyway, tired from all that wandering in the wilderness, and stuffed with the last of our food—and tonic—she decided to take a nap. One-by-one, she tried out all seven beds, without even thinking of making them afterwards. She finally found my bed, and fell fast asleep.

When we got home from work, that’s where we found her. Everyone was annoyed, at first, by the mess she made—but they got over it once they got a good look at her. She was a knock-out, I’ll admit it. Still, her looks didn’t make up for taking over my bed.

Flustered, and still a little groggy, she told us her story. Six of us took pity, and invited her to stay. Not for free, of course. A little rent would’ve been fair, but the girl didn’t have a penny to her name. I knew I would be out-voted, so I kept my opinions of her to myself. I did manage to get her to agree to work off her rent by keeping house for us.

I should tell you that it’s been ages since we had a cleaning lady come in. Actually, we’ve never had a cleaning lady come in. The place looked it, too. Still, it was our schmutz—our cobwebs, our greasy dishes, our dust-bunnies, our moldy crusts of rye bread, our dirty socks—we were used to things being the way they were and we liked them that way.

Then we discovered that, in addition to an OCD approach to cleaning, the girl could cook.

I have always done the cooking for all of us, in exchange for having someone else do the dishes. Of course, that meant that no one did the dishes, but given the general appearance of the place, no one much cared. Still, I was hesitant to give up my status as head cook. At least until I tried her kasha varnishkes. And her kreplach. And her knishes. And her matzoh ball soup. And her latkes. And her brisket that was to die for.

Even her kugel was better than mine. So, I decided to keep her around. Considering what she had told us, we warned her to never let anyone but us in the house—and be especially careful when we were at work.

We have to go to work every day—except Saturday, of course. We work in the mines, prying gemstones out of the rock. I know, I know—you’re going to ask, “what are seven good Jewish boys doing, working in a godforsaken mine, doing physical labor?” While our mothers wanted us to be lawyers, doctors, or—at least—CPAs, that kind of work is hard to find in the forest.

We usually tell people that we’re in the jewelry business.

Anyway, Snow White agreed that our advice was worth taking—so, every morning, it was off to work we’d go. When we came home, each night, tired and hungry, she was waiting for us. In a clean house. With a table heaped with food that was so heavy it could choke a bear. Not that any of us had ever seen a bear, but still. Heavy food—and heartburn—are part of our heritage, and we would never give them up.

What else would we have to complain about?

Speaking of complaints, I didn’t really have any—despite my earlier reservations about her. Well, almost no complaints. I wasn’t thrilled when she made up new names for all of us. She called Avram “Doc;” I have no idea why. Ethan became “Sneezy.” Itzhak was renamed “Sleepy.” Tzvika became “Bashful.” Zadoc, for reasons I’ll never understand, she rebranded as “Happy.” It made no sense; Zadoc has been a nudnik as long as I’ve known him. Maybe the girl had a sarcastic streak. She called Reuben “Dopey.”

That, at least made some sense because he’s always been a schmendrik.

I guess what really galled me was the name she chose for me: “Grumpy.” My mother named me “Malachi,” which—while not perfect—was at least bearable.

Anyway—we were at work, a couple of weeks ago, when Snow White answered a knock at the door. The girl is, as I’ve said, pretty, but she’s also pretty dumb. Or maybe she’s just not a good listener. Whatever. So—as we later learned—she invited in an old seamstress who was trying to sell some special dresses she had made. 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, over the years, is that pretty girls always want to be prettier. That made her a sucker for the old woman’s sales pitch. She tried on a kind of corset gown, and let the seamstress adjust the ties at the back. She was thrilled to see that her waist seemed to shrink away—at least until she began to find it hard to breathe. She begged the old woman to loosen the ties, but when she turned around, the woman was gone.

By the time we got home from the mines, Snow White was on the floor, gasping for air. She did look good; practically no waistline and her bosom bulging out in a most provocative fashion. Well, it would have been provocative if her normally creamy skin hadn’t taken on a bluish cast from lack of oxygen.

Avram grabbed a scissor and cut her out of the dress.

When she recovered enough to speak, she gasped, “Thanks, Doc… but I really wish you hadn’t ruined the dress. I bought it wholesale… on credit… and now I won’t be able to return it!” Nothing was ever good enough for her; she always found a way to kvetch about something. We explained, again, what a bad idea it had been to let a stranger into the house.

She looked like she believed us.

Still, only a few days later, another old woman knocked on the door. She was selling beautiful combs and brushes. Naturally, our girl couldn’t resist. The woman showed Snow White a particularly lovely comb made of genuine mother-of-pearl—and offered to let her try it. After just a few strokes through her wavy black hair, Snow white began to feel woozy. The poisoned comb was still in her hair when she dropped to the floor. She tried to get the woman’s attention but, once again, the old woman was gone.

Again, Avram was the one to save her; he plucked the comb from her hair and flung it into the fireplace. Again, she said, “Thanks, Doc… but did you have to ruin it? It was so pretty!” Once again, we explained how foolish it had been to let a stranger into the house.

She looked like she believed us.

Still, a week later, we got home to find our girl lying on the floor. A partially-eaten apple was beside her, right next to her outstretched fingers. Snow White has always been a slow learner, but it looked like she had finally learned her lesson. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do her any good, as she was also as cold and dead as leftover kugel.

I had mixed feelings about all this. Sure, it was sad that she was gone. And I would miss her cooking. And she did brighten up the place, just by being there. It didn’t hurt that she also washed the windows, which made a big difference. Who knew? On the other hand, I never really adjusted to all the new names she’d given us. No matter how dumb, no good Jewish boy wants to named “Dopey.” Or “Grumpy,” for that matter, ‘though “Grumpy” was a whole lot better than “Dopey.”

We took her out to a clearing in the woods, where she would be surrounded by birds and flowers, and laid her on a glass-covered bier. Despite the solemn occasion, I couldn’t hold back a smirk when I thought it looked like a deli’s showcase. We could have called her “Goldilox.”

The gems weren’t going to spoil in the mine, so we took a week off work to sit shiva. On the third day, we heard hooves on the path. Looking up, we saw the most elegant rider we’d ever seen. He was so clean-cut, I would’ve bet a dollar that he was goyishe. He swung down from his big white horse, and walked solemnly to the bier. He knelt beside it, and removed his big plumed hat. That’s when I spotted the prince’s payes. I never would have guessed he was one of us. 

He gazed longingly at Snow White’s face, then raised the glass lid, and kissed lips that were as cold as a pickled herring. To make a long story short, she woke up, they embraced, they got married, we kvelled. The reception was fabulous, with more chicken liver pâte, schmaltz and gribenes—and Cel-Ray—then even I could finish. 

It was bittersweet to lose her—again—but at least we can brag that we once had a princess who did housework.

Food Sites for October 2020

 

Kosmic ornamental kale

We’re so looking forward to cooler weather, when we can use the oven for slow cooking again. We’re not completely tired of outdoor grilling, yet—but there’s a stash of duck confit, pork belly, and garlic sausage in the freezer, just waiting to become cassoulet. It’s not something we would have considered, let alone eaten, during the summer doldrums.

Penwipe Publishing remains on staycation, but it hasn’t kept us from pecking away at the keyboard. So far. Our blog posted another short story this month; “Stomach Problems” is part of a book-length collection of fables, still in its infancy. We may have drifted away from writing about food history, but our appetites remain somewhere on the greediness spectrum between infantile and adolescent.

Look below for a few more podcasts to distract you from the media’s never-ending chatter about the pandemic.

You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a LOT of photographs), and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, mostly about our food writing.

Looking forward to fall, a few goodies from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

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

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

As the days grow short, some faces grow long. But not mine. Every autumn, when the wind turns cold and darkness comes early, I am suddenly happy. It’s time to start making soup again. Leslie Newman

Gary
October, 2020

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Cynthia Bertelsen), thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

— the new sites —

Aided by Modern Ingenuity, a Taste of Ancient Judean Dates

(Isabel Kershner’s article, in The New York Times, about the successful fruiting of Israeli date palms from 2,000-year-old seeds)

Birth of the Modern Diet

(Rachel Lauden’s Scientific American article traces it back to seventeenth-century notions about nutrition)

Divided States of Chili: A Guide to America’s Most Contentious Stew

(Sho Spaeth goes where Anglos fear to tread for Serious Eats)

Downfall of Rosewater, Once America’s Favorite Flavor, The

(Jaya Saxena’s GastroObscura piece on a nearly forgotten kitchen staple)

Gahwa Renaissance

(Arabic coffee ritual and etiquette, from Shaistha Khan, in AramcoWorld)

History of Howard Johnson’s Restaurant, The

(Christopher Setterlund’s account of the first franchised restaurant chain)

Jiggly Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Jell-O in the South, The

(Kinsey Gidick writes about a “gelatinous trend” in a Nashville restaurant, for southern magazine Garden & Gun)

New Worlds and New Tastes: Early Modern Europe

(Brian Cowan’s paper on the forces that changed European gastronomy, beginning in the sixteenth century; a PDF)

Recreate the Ancient Egyptian Recipes Painted on Tomb Walls

(Jess Eng translates a couple of dishes from hieroglyphs for GastroObscura)

Thirsty? Oh Yeah!

(David Buck waxes nostalgic about Kool-Aid for Tedium)

What Bread Tasted Like 4,000 Years Ago

(Keridwen Cornelius and Sapiens, in The Atlantic, on efforts to recreate the sourdough of Ancient Egypt)

— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —

Bizarre Foods

Brewing Mesopotamian Beer Brings a Sip of This Vibrant Ancient Drinking Culture Back to Life

From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies

Great Advice From 25 Writing Manuals by Famous Authors

How 12 Female Cookbook Authors Changed the Way We Eat

How Boxed Mac and Cheese Became a Pantry Staple

One Tasmanian's 54-Year Obsession to Catalogue All of the World's Edible Plants to End Malnutrition

Philosophy has Been Wrong About Wine for 2500 Years

Picnicsonfilm.org

Pirate Who Penned the First English-Language Guacamole Recipe, The

Redemption of the Spice Blend, The

Strange Grief of Losing My Sense of Taste, The

Why Americans Just Can’t Quit Their Microwaves

Why Americans Can’t Write

Wine, Food, and Life Itself

— podcasts —

Doughboys

Home Cooking

I’ll Drink to That!

It’s A Gourmet World After All

PROOF

Spilled Milk

— another blog —

Stained Page News

— that’s all for now —

Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include my own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order any books via those links, the price you pay is not increased by my commission. 

Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our books:

The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)

The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)

Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier

(Hardcover)
(Kindle)

Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)

How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)

How to Write a Great Book
(Kindle)

The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Kindle)

Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Kindle)

Prophet Amidst Losses
(Kindle)

Cenotaphs
(Kindle)

Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Kindle)

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

______________

The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #240 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 ©2020 by Gary Allen.

Stomach Problems

 

It’s a terrible thing to be ruled by one’s appetite; having to spend every waking moment wondering what—if anything—is for lunch; sniffing the air for dinner suggestions; and howling in the dark over the emptiness of one’s stomach. Worse, people hate me for the very thing I can never control.

Perhaps they attack me for what they fear to find in themselves. It disgusts them. I disgust—and frighten—them.

I freely confess to having a big appetite; but, no matter how much they preach about moderation and a healthy diet, I still can’t stop myself from eating everything I get the chance to sink my teeth into. You think fat-shaming is bad?

Try being a wolf.

Life is brutal and unfair in a world over-run with judgmental humans. At best, they mistrust me and regard me as some sort of evil monster. At worst—well I don’t like to think too much about that.

It’s depressing, so let’s change the subject. 

I must tell you about my day. I was sniffing about in the forest, as I always do, when a delicious aroma wafted my way. It was rich and buttery, accented with toasted nuts, vanilla, and—if I was not mistaken—just a hint of spice. Maybe nutmeg? Cinnamon? But that was just the dessert menu! I could also smell an entrée. One of my all-time favorites.

Little girl.

I could hardly believe my good fortune! I carefully crept upwind—so I wouldn’t miss any of those mouth-watering scents. And, before you ask, my mouth did water—the fur around my muzzle was soaking wet. Not foaming-at-the mouth wet, mind you, but wet enough to arouse suspicion in anyone so inclined. I judiciously wiped my muzzle with both paws, and stepped into the path before her.

She was startled, at first—but when I spoke to her, she relaxed. It’s not often that one encounters a suave and congenial forest creature. I could see that she found me almost as charming as I find myself. She told me that she was on her way to visit her Gammy, who wasn’t feeling well. She felt her grandmother could use some cheering up. I complimented her on her kind concern for the old woman—all while thinking the little girl would make a tasty snack.

“You know…” I suggested, “I’ll bet your grandmother would love a bunch of forget-me-nots. I saw a patch of them blooming not far from here.” Seeing how appropriate my recommendation was, she smiled, thanked me, and left to gather the flowers.

Humans are always going on and on about how clever foxes are. You would think that no other members of the dog family had any smarts. C’mon people—we’re not all like your stupid inbred purse puppies. I planned ahead, to maximize my rewards. Rather than eating the little girl (and the fragrant cake in her basket) right away, I figured I could eat her grandmother first—and have the rest for dessert!

As soon as she turned the corner of the path, I took off the other way. I boundied through the woods, making a beeline to her grandmother’s cottage. Once there, I paused at the edge of the clearing to catch my breath. I crept up to the door, low, so I wouldn’t be seen from the ivy-covered cottage’s little windows. I knocked lightly on the front door.

No response.

I knocked again, a little harder.

No Response.

I pounded loudly.

“Who’s there?” came a cracked voice from deep inside the tiny house.

Using my best falsetto, I answered, “It’s me, Gammy—Little Red Riding Hood. I’ve caome to visit you.”

“Who?”

I repeated my lie—louder, this time, which was difficult because I was afraid my falsetto would break under the strain. It didn’t. A little old lady, dressed in a flowered nightshirt and matching cap, opened the door. Before she had a chance to see that I was not her favorite grandchild, and slam the door, I burst through, knocking over some furniture and knickknacks in the process. 

I ripped off her clothes and gobbled her up. 

She was okay—a bit dry and stringy for my taste, but I was hungry enough not to mind.

Next, I had to prepare for the next part of the day’s menu plan. I straightened up the room, sweeping a couple of broken Hummel figurines into the fireplace ashes. I put on the nightshirt and cap, drew the blinds so the room would be dark, and climbed into the bed. I was still warm. Nice.

I was dozing comfortably when I heard a faint knocking sound.

I didn’t respond.

The knocking came again, a little louder.

I didn’t respond.

The knocking came again, much louder this time.

“Who’s there?” I asked, using my best—slightly cracked—falsetto voice.

From behind the old oaken door came the reply, “It’s me, Gammy—Little Red Riding Hood. I’ve come to visit you.”

“The door’s open, dear—come on in.”

From under the covers, I could see her silhouette in the doorway. She couldn’t see me, at first, but her eyes gradually adjusted to the cottage’s dim light. She then began making comments about my distinctly ungrandmotherlike appearance. I managed, in my sweetest falsetto, to allay her fears. At least I was able to do so up to the point where she said, “My what big teeth you have, Grammy!” That was getting too close to home.

 I leapt from under the faded quilt and wolfed her down (you see what I did there?). She was, exactly as anticipated, tender sweet, and delicious. I put a pot of water on the stove for tea. When it was ready, I enjoyed a leisurely dessert, savoring every last crumb of the cake from the girl’s basket. My belly filled, and my mind well-pleased by the day’s successes, I decided to take a nap in grannie’s feather bed.

I was just drifting off to dreamland—where fat juicy sheep bounded, one after another, into my waiting jaws—when I was roused by a loud banging at the door. Noiselessly creeping to the window, I peered through a gap in the still-drawn curtains. Outside, to my utter dismay, a large, muscular woodsman stood, poised to break down the door. In one clenched fist he held a large, scary, and very sharp, axe.

The rest of the story is too painful to retell.

 

Food Sites for September 2020

July’s blueberries, popped in the freezer, ready to drop into a late summer cocktail.

If you were injudicious enough to overdo the planting of zucchini, last Spring, you’re probably overwhelmed and exhausted now that Summer’s days of reckoning have arrived. It’s no easy thing, trying to find ways to sneak giant green submarine-shaped vegetables onto the porches of unsuspecting friends and neighbors each night. Have you noticed that nobody has ever crept, under cover of darkness, to abandon surreptitious baskets of berries at anyone’s front door?
Penwipe Publishing is still on staycation, but it hasn’t stopped our incessant scribbling. Our blog has posted two new short stories this month; one is part of a book-length collection, and the other has no connection with anything else. 
Yet.
Disclaimer: These stories have little more than a trivial connection to food. ”You Don’t Know Beans” might be the foodier of the two, but don’t expect to raise an appetite while reading it—and “The Whale in the Room” has much more to do with punctuation than what might populate one’s plate.
We’re also including an especially apt podcast, below, to entertain you during the on-going pandemic.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a LOT of photographs), and Twitter. Still more of our online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, mostly about our food writing.
“It’s summatime, summatime, summ, summ, summatime,” at On the Table’s culinary quote collection:

Summer cooking implies a sense of immediacy, a capacity to capture the fleeting moment. Elizabeth David
No dish changes quite so much from season to season as soup. Summer’s soups come chilled, in pastel colors strewn with herbs. Florence Fabricant

Gary
September, 2020
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Dianne Jacob), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You’ll find links at the bottom of this page to fix everything to your liking.

— the new sites —
Dining in Diaspora(Liana Aghajanian’s project to document the foods of Armenia through articles and recipes)
Evolution of Palestinian Cuisine, The(Yasmin Zaher’s extensive article in Israel’s Haaretz Newspaper)
From AP to 00: A Guide to Common Wheat Flours(Kristina Razon explains all for Serious Eats)
How Bouillon Cubes Became an International Pantry Staple(Mari Uyehara [dis]solves the culinary Rubik’s cube for Serious Eats)
How It All Began: A Brief History of the Kitchen Brigade(M.M. Pack’s article on restaurant organization in The Austin Chronicle)
Jump Right In: A New Tool for Historical Research Using Cookbooks(Rachel Lauden’s post about Barbara Wheaton and The Sifter—an online resource of over 5000 cookbooks)
Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts (complete text of I.B.Tauris’ 2013 book; as a PDF)
Taste of Maroc(articles on the culture of Morocco—and lots of recipes)
Understanding the Art and Science of Aging Cheese(Christine Clark explains affinage, at VinePair)
When Eating Turtle Was All the Rage(there’s nothing mock about Jaap Harskamp’s article in New York Almanack)

— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
Australian Food Writers Call for Greater Diversity of Voices in Wake of New York Times Durian Debacle
Debating the Term “Ethnic” and Where It Fits in Food and Restaurants
How Food Media Created Monsters in the Kitchen
How Historical Societies Are Bringing Their Recipes to Pandemic Cooks
Interviewing Principles
Paradoxes of Jews and Their Foods
Pitch Letter Checklist for Writers: 5 Simple Steps to Get Noticed
Recipes and Dishes: What Should Be Copyrightable?
There’s No I in Jam: Sqirl Wrestles with the Sticky Question of Who Really Owns a Recipe
Tips for Effective Proofreading
When Words Fail
Why the Fridge is Where We Head When We’re Bored

— podcast —
M.F.K. Fisher: How to Cook a Wolf

— changed URL —
World Food Habits: A Comprehensive Bibliography Updated Through 2010

— that’s all for now —
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include my own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order any books via those links, the price you pay is not increased by my commission. 
Occasionally, URLs we provide may link to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them). We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose—ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our books:
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Terms of Vegery
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Kindle)
How to Write a Great Book
(Kindle)
The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Kindle)
Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Kindle)
Prophet Amidst Losses
(Kindle)
Cenotaphs
(Kindle)
Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
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The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #239 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 ©2020 by Gary Allen.

Another Summer/Pandemic Diversion

The Whale in the Room
Most homes proudly display objects that their families use to signal something about themselves. It might be an old photo of ancestors they can’t quite remember—or, perhaps, even identify. Maybe a cookie jar from a distant childhood. A grandfather’s pipe, a grandmother’s rolling pin. A flag that supports the search for Vietnam-era MIAs and POWs. A souvenir carved coconut from a tropical honeymoon. A ticket from 1969’s Woodstock Festival of Music and Art. Bronzed baby shoes once worn by someone who is now a grandparent, several times over.People keep these things—despite the admonitions of clutter-hating evangelists of home decorating—because they mean something, even if they’re not exactly sure what. Sometimes they’re kept because the objects spur them to think about the meaning of their lives. The objects also initiate conversations, especially with people who have never visited the home before. The objects are even preserved and displayed for no reason that anyone can remember.Still, they are kept.My house doesn’t have any of those things. Well—that’s not exactly true. I do have one thing. I don’t remember when I got it. I can’t even recall when I had it professionally framed—but I did. I pass by it every day and—all too often—it makes me stop and wonder.The frame contains a receipt, the kind you used to get in diners and luncheonettes. They usually wound up impaled on a spike by the cash register, but somehow this one survived. At the top, in deep indigo ink, is printed “Guest Check.” Most of that line is missing on ours; it must have been torn, in haste, from some waitress’s order pad. Below the title, on a field of pale blue-green, are delicate lines for ordered dishes. The slip’s edges are slightly yellowed. I recall that this one has written, in the careful script that no one uses anymore, “BLT, W/W T, Mayo—$.75”. On the next line down, “Pepsi—$.10”. There’s no date on the slip but, with those prices, it is obvious that it was written a long time ago. You can’t see any of that, now, because the slip is framed to exhibit the back side only.Today, peering out from its archival matted frame, you can just make out three words, written with a fountain pen, in faded peacock blue ink. There is nothing else. The inscription that has so captured my attention for all these decades is deceptively simple: “Call me. Ishmael”.Of course, I know the source of the words, but something about them doesn’t quite compute. Why would someone write the opening line of Moby Dick on a luncheonette check? And why alter the quote with a punctuation mark? I might be way off-base—maybe the text has nothing to do with the book at all. But, if it’s not Melville’s Ishmael, who is—or was—my Ishmael?I once knew someone, in college, over half a century ago, who had a dog named Ishmael—but I doubt that a long-dead dog has anything to do with this. The faded ink of the inscription could date from that time period, but the whole thing is just too unlikely to waste time on. Sorry for the distraction.Looking carefully at the faded message, it’s hard to tell if its only punctuation is a period or a comma. That raises other questions.If it’s a period, the message was probably written by Ishmael himself. It’s an instruction, possibly even an order, to some unidentified recipient. What was so important that the note was necessary? And for whom was it meant? Was the waitress—or the cashier—supposed to get in touch with Ishmael? While the message is quite curt, there’s no exclamation point to suggest any urgency. Perhaps the message was supposed to be a romantic invitation—although, if so, it lacks very much in the way of poetry, or even sentiment. I can’t imagine our imaginary waitress (or cashier) being too strongly moved by it. Unless they were already romantically-involved, and the note is a couple’s shorthand that both would understand.The absence of even a hint of a time or date for the recipient’s response is, like everything else in the document, maddeningly vague.On the other hand, what if that lone punctuation mark was not a period. If it was a comma, then the message was addressed to our Ishmael. All the same questions we’ve asked, so far, could just as easily be applied in that situation—but in the other direction. If so, the very existence of the guest check actually begins to make sense. Only the recipient would have been a position to have kept it. That he did suggests that it had some special meaning for him. Perhaps he made that call. Perhaps it led to something momentous in his life, something he wanted to relive in memory, again and again, forever. On the other hand, perhaps it led to the greatest disappointment of his life. Perhaps it was an emotional scab he could pick at, compulsively; or an old war wound he could rub, whenever it ached with a change in the weather.There is yet another question. Why did neither Ishmael nor his correspondent continue to keep the guest check? At some point, it found its way into my house—so, whether by accident or conscious decision, it left their possession. Did joy fade with time, or pain relent?Despite spending so many years on it, I have gotten no closer to solving the mystery of the annotated guest check. It’s almost a Zen koan—an inscrutable phrase that provokes (and unprovokes) understanding. It tugs at me, every time I walk by it, as cool and mute as a gravestone. All that I know, for certain, is that I feel strangely (and endlessly) moved by the happiness (or unhappiness) of Ishmael and his correspondent—whoever they were.They call me.


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“The Whale in the Room” is protected by copyright, and is provided 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 ©2020 by Gary Allen.

A Fable

You Don’t Know Beans
My little Jackie is one sweet little kid; a sweet little idiot. The boy is all good intentions and no brains. He knew we was hungry, so he planted a garden. We also tried to raise chickens and rabbits. He loved them so much, he let them “play” in the yard—where they all got eaten by foxes. But, afore that happened, they ate up all the seedlings in his garden. Of course, he was never gonna’ get around to weedin’or waterein’ it, so it’s not like we were ever going to get anything to eat from it, anywhow. The boy means well, but he’s as dumb as a brick.No, that’s not fair—to bricks.The only thing that kept us going was Emily, our beloved milk cow. She gave us butter and cheese, and—since she was what-you-call a “cash cow”—we traded her extra milk for stuff like flour and sugar. I used to like to bake cakes and cookies for Jackie. Or did, until we didn’t have no egg-laying hens. Damn foxes. And then Emily’s milk dried up. We had no bull to freshen her, so all she did was keep the weeds down around our little cabin at the edge of the forest. Weeds that I could have used to make soup. Stupid cow.I’m too old and weak to work for anyone else, nowadays, and Jackie—well who would ever hire someone like him? There was nothing left for us to do but sell Emily. Thinking back on it now, I ‘spose I shoulda’ been the one to take that cow to market. Maybe I thought that a cute little kid might get a better price than I coulda’. You think you can guess how that turned out, doncha’?Well, maybe you can—an’ maybe you can’t—but I betcha’ you don’t know the whole story.Lemme tell ya’ ‘bout the morning the two of ‘em walked into town together. I made a necklace of daisies for her to wear— to dress her up a bit, y’know—and put our last crust of bread and a sliver of cheese in Jackie’s pocket. I told him how important it was, that he had to get a good price for her. “Maybe we could get some more chickens,” I said, “maybe even enough to go into the egg business.” If nothing else, we could live on scrambled eggs and the few wild onions that Emily hadn’t eaten. He nodded like he knew what I was talkin’ about.I know, now, that it was foolish, but I believed him. I swear, sometimes I think that he’s not the family idiot. I am.Anyway, off they went.That evening, I spotted him away off, skipping up the path in the dim twilight— alone. He was swinging a little pouch, and he had that big goofy grin on his face. Excited, I called out to ask if his pouch was full of gold coins. “Even better!” he shouted back. That’s when I began to worry. Turns out, I had good reason to. The pouch did not hold gold coins. It did not hold silver coins. It did not hold copper coins.It held beans.Five beans.Not even enough to make soup.My first instinct was to beat the boy senseless, but it was far too late for that. The child was born with no kind of sense. Maybe he had just enough sense to see that he was in big trouble, because he started right in telling me that they weren’t just any old beans.He said they were magic beans. He’d traded them, for daisy-wearing Emily, with some old tramp he’d met along the path to town. He said that the tramp had promised that the beans would grow so tall that they’d lead to a place in the sky—where he’d find bags of goId, a hen that laid eggs if solid gold, and a harp made of gold that would sing anything you asked it to. I’d never heard such nonsense in my whole life! Besides, if I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a million times, that he should never talk to no strangers. But the boy just can’t help himself—he can git along with anybody.Like I told ya’, he’s a sweet kid with no smarts whatsoever.I took the pouch and sent him up to bed with no supper. I weren’t trying to punish him—neither of us had any supper, ‘cause there weren’t none to be had. In disgust and disappointment, I tossed the beans out the window, where they landed in Jackie’s “garden.” I just plopped down to the table with my head in my hands, wondering what in hell to do next. I fell asleep there, a fitful kinda’ sleep with nightmares fulla’ thunder and earthquakes. I usually wake up early, when the sun first come in through the window, but the next morning I woke in the dark. Jackie was shaking me. He tried, at first, to drag me to the window, then out the front door. Looking around the corner, to where his garden shoulda’ been, all we could see was an immense bean vine. Five thick stalks twisted around each other. They clung to the side of our little house, then spiraled up into the clouds.‘Afore I could stop him, Jackie begin shimmyin’ up them giant plants. Up and up he went, ignoring me when I screamed for him to, “come down this minute, young man!” Don’t know whether he heard me or not, but he soon disappeared into the clouds. I was beside myself with fear. I ran, back and forth around them damn vines, looking up, pullin’ my hair, and cryin’ out for my baby. I heard a distant rustling sound, way up high, then something tumblin’ down through the big leaves. “My god,” I thought, “he’s falling!” What would I ever do to stay alive—in my old age—if I lost my Jackie?The sound got louder, swellin’ into a kinda’ whooshin’, ‘afore endin’ in a horrible crash. I couldn’t bear to look, at first, but then thought there might be something I could do to save the boy. I opened my eyes and turned to the cabin. The roof was all caved in an’ dust was swirlin’ around so’s I could barely see. “My god! My boy! My house!” Only when some of the dust settled, could I see what happened.Poking out of what was left of my poor roof, the torn stem of a huge green-bean pod. That damn vegetable done ripped through the thatchin’, an’ the rafters, an’ Jackie’s upstairs bedroom—only comin’ to a stop when it reached the kitchen table. Somehow, my boy must have broken it off when he was aclimbin’ through them giant vines. When he climbed down, a while later, he just stared at our wrecked house. He told me he was disappointed because the old tramp had lied to him, exaggeratin’ the beans’ magic. He said he’d walked all around, lookin’ everwhere, but never saw him no giants, no gold, or nothin’. Just clouds. I was bawlin’ my eyes out—from grief an’ relief—but he tried his damnedest to comfort me. He told me that we had nothing to worry about.For once in his life, the boy was right about somethin’. His sweet good nature, an’ all that pointless jabberin’ he’d done over the years, made him the darlin’ of all of our neighbors. When they learnt of our misfortune, they all come a-runnin’. Dozens of ‘em showed up with tools and such, everthing they’d need to fix our caved-in roof. Not only that, they built us a small barn, and a real—fox-proof—chicken coop. They even left us some livestock—a young heifer, and some chickens and ducks—to get us restarted. So far, none of them hens has laid a golden egg. Not a one.You know how—when folks pitch in, like that—they expects to be fed, right? By a stroke a’ luck, I was able to be their good neighbor, too. While Jackie told ‘em all stories about the things he seen—and didn’t see—up in the sky, I served everyone from platters heaped high with thick slabs that I hacked from a Boston Baked Bean.


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“You Don't Kmow Beans”—one of the stories in a new book of collected, and re-imagined, fables—is protected by copyright, and is provided 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 ©2020 by Gary Allen.