The Food Almanac: April 6, 2011

In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and sayings.

Annals of Convenience Food
The TV dinner was introduced by Swanson Foods today in 1954. The genius was Gerry Thomas. He was trying to figure out a use for leftover turkey from the preceding year's Thanksgiving supply. He came up with a pre-cooked, packaged dinner with cornbread dressing, peas, and sweet potatoes in a three-compartment aluminum tray that you could just warm up in the oven. It sold for ninety-eight cents. Swanson thought it would be a hit if they sold 5,000 the first year. By the end of 1954, ten million of them had been were snapped up. We were excited by the idea of TV dinners when I was a kid, but we never liked the flavor. We always figured we were doing something wrong, otherwise it wouldn't taste so bad. The saddest fact was that this stuff we were so excited about could not possibly compare with our mother's home cooking.

The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
If you're making calas or rice pudding, use brown sugar. Rice needs a little caramel flavor to keep from being insipid as a dessert. Cinnamon wouldn't hurt, either.

Deft Dining Rule #708
If you're in a restaurant where they serve a dish you hardly ever see anymore, order it. You may be the last person ever to do so. Don't expect much from it.

Gourmet Geography
Partridge, Kansas is a small town of 260 people in the south central part of the state. It stands at the junction of US 50 and KS 61, just up the road from Hutchinson, 58 miles west-northwest of Wichita, in the prairies. It stands at the junction of two transcontinental main lines, those of the historic Santa Fe and Rock Island railroads. The people raise a lot of cattle and wheat. The nearest restaurant is the Dutch Kitchen four miles up US 50. Interesting fact: eleven percent of the working women in Partridge are waitresses.

Music to Drink Martinis By
This is the birthday, in 1960, of jazz guitarist, singer, and composer John Pizzarelli. He's a terrific interpreter of standards, with a unique, velvety sound. And he has (more or less) a food name!

Edible Dictionary
gluten, n. — A pair of proteins that occur in wheat (and a few other grains), which, when joined by having water added to flour made from the grain, become elastic. When you stir, stretch, and knead the dough that results, the gluten binds into a texture that captures bubbles from the leavening agent, and causes what you make from the dough to rise, and to get a distinctive "crumb." The formation of gluten strands is desirable in making most bread and pasta; less so in cakes and biscuits. That's why working the dough is necessary for the former, and to be avoided for the latter. Hard wheat tends to form a strong gluten, soft wheat a tender one.

Junk Food Through History
Twinkies were introduced on this day in 1930. James Dewar of the Continental Baking Company wanted to get more use from the pans used to bake strawberry shortcakes, which sold well only during strawberry season. The new product was a runaway success. A half-million hens are needed to lay all the eggs used in Twinkies in a year. What a way to make a living!

Food Inventions
Today in 1938 Roy Plunkett, a DuPont researcher, cut open a tank of a refrigerant gas he was working on. For some reason, it had no pressure. He found that the gas had polymerized into a slippery white powder which, to make a long story short, became Teflon. Teflon-coated cookware is handy for a couple of things. It's perfect for an omelet pan. Or a muffin-tin-like pan for making popovers. Otherwise, I avoid the stuff, because I like the juices and browned bits to stick to a pan a little. And ultimately non-stick coatings flake off. Which stands to reason: if nothing will stick to it, how do they get it to stay on the pan? Answer: Not very well.

Food Namesakes
Roger Cook, an investigative television journalist in England, was born today in 1943. Brown Sugar was the first hit for Rolling Stones Records, which was formed on this date in 1971 for the group of the same name. Sugar Ray Leonard won a fight with Marvin Hagler today in 1987. Early NASCAR race driver Herb Thomas was born today in 1923.

Words to Eat By
"There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. And that is my answer, when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love?" — M.F.K. Fisher

"Cutting stalks at noontime. Perspiration drips to the earth. Know you that your bowl of rice each grain from hardship comes?" — Chang Chan-Pao.

Words to Drink By
"To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue." — William F. Buckley, Jr.