The Food Almanac: April 26, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and sayings.
Food Calendar
This is National Pretzel Day. Most of us first encounter pretzels in their small, hard form, the kind you get in a bag for a crunchy, salty snack. When I was a kid, the most common pretzels were sticks, sold in small rectangular boxes for a nickel. Now the traditional pretzel shape, which was supposed to represent a boy's arms when at prayer (the story has it that the original pretzels were the reward for learning one's prayers), dominates the pretzel market. Soft pretzels, long a street food in New York City and elsewhere, have become more widely available, especially in food courts in malls and airports. They're made of a bread dough that doesn't rise very much, and so has a dense texture. They're habit-forming. I have thought for a long time that pretzels are long overdue to turn up in the bread baskets of restaurants trying to offer something a little different.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
Beer begets pretzels, and vice-versa.
Food and The Law
Today in 2006, Chicago passed its infamous ban on foie gras in restaurants. The law was pushed by people who say that the process of raising ducks for foie gras — the fattened liver, brought about by overfeeding the birds — is inhumane. This is widely disputed. Despite the law, some restaurants continued to serve foie gras, and restaurants outside the city limits of Chicago that never served the expensive delicacy before started selling a lot of it. Two years later, the ban was struck down, and the city has returned to its senses. (Especially the sense of taste.)
Eating In The Park
This is the birthday, in 1822, of Frederick Law Olmsted. He was the father of large, natural city parks, starting with New York's Central Park. An exception was made to Olmsted's design for Central Park when the Tavern on the Green was built in it. That restaurant, with sales of over $37 million a year, was the busiest independent restaurant in America until it went bust and closed in 2009.
Gourmet Geography
Salt Fork — a town with a rare double food name — is in north central Oklahoma. The town is a dwindling farm community surrounded on three sides by the Negro River, a tributary of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. The changing course of the Negro has stripped the soil, so most of the arable land is away from it. The Salt Fork's waters run 193 miles, rising in Kansas and winding up ultimately in the Mississippi. Salt mines nearby give the river and the town its name. The nearest place to eat is twelve miles west in Pond Creek, at a place well named The BBQ Joint. It should also be noted that the closest town of any size is Enid — "dine" spelled backwards — thirty-three miles from Salt Fork.
Food In Music
Mashed Potato Time, a dance record by Dee Dee Sharp, hit Number One on the pop charts today in 1962. To do the Mashed Potato, you pretend that a baked potato is on the floor, and you're mashing it with your foot. (I am not making this up. I actually did this dance on a 1960s television show for teens.)
Edible Dictionary
tahini, Arabic, n. — Sesame seeds ground into a paste, and most commonly used in the making of the Middle Eastern dip hummus. A jar of tahini almost always contains exactly one ingredient: the ground seeds. That makes it the simplest condiment in the world. However, the oil content of the seeds can break away from the solids. No problem: stir it back in. The word comes from an Arabic root that means "to grind." It probably originated in ancient Persia. Versions of it are also found in the Far East, where its more bitter flavor comes from having the seed hulls included in the mix.
Food and Drink Names
A play called Jelly's Last Jam opened today for 569 performances on Broadway, about Jelly Roll Morton. Sir Edwin Alliott Verdon Roe, the first person to build and fly an airplane in England (in 1908), was born today in 1877. Pete Ham, a member of the Beatles soundalike group Badfinger, was born today in 1947. Olympic basketball player Robert Boozer was born today in 1937.
Words To Eat By
"A food is not necessarily essential just because your child hates it." — Katherine Whitehorn.
Words To Drink By
"It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth." — George Burns.