The Food Almanac: August 2, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and saying.
Eating Calendar
It is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day. My first recollection of ice cream sandwiches is from age eight, when our home in Kenner was served daily by a Red Wing ice cream man who drove his truck right in front of our house. He had two kinds of ice cream sandwiches. One was the oblong kind we see commonly now. The other was square, and at first glance appeared smaller. It was thicker, though, and I soon figured out that it was the better of the two. It was an early episode in discriminating taste.
I keep thinking that some dessert chef should create an ice cream po'boy. Dig it: an elongated profiterole, with layers of different flavors, including chocolate (representing the roast beef), strawberry (tomatoes), and pistachio (lettuce and pickles). Whipped cream for the mayonnaise. Nobody's done it yet — perhaps with good reason.
Annals of Bon Vivants
Today in 1674 Philippe II, the Duke of Orleans, was born. New Orleans is named for him, because he was running France at the time of the founding of our city. St. Philip Street is named for his patron, although the duke was no saint. He took over as regent of France until Louis XV — who was only five when Louis XIV died — reached maturity. Philippe was a bit of an oddball, alternately brilliant and nutty, forceful and weak. He had a strong liking for the grand style of living that ouis XIV epitomized. He was suspected of being homosexual (although he was married and had eight children). The French name for our city, Nouvelle Orleans, is in the feminine form; that's alleged to be a joke about Philippe's flamboyance. Phillipe II's eight years in power were among the most corrupt in French history, which is saying something. Whether that set a standard for his namesake city is something to be considered over glasses of absinthe.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Pork Creek runs through the mountains of central Idaho. It's a 201-mile drive from Boise — but a very beautiful, winding trip through the Rocky Mountains. It's only about a mile long, but it drops more than 1,000 feet down the high peaks, collecting enough water to keep the stream wooded while the surrounding area is mostly bare. It flows into Morgan Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River — the River Of No Return. The nearest restaurant for satisfying an appetite for pork now that you've been to Pork Creek is a nine-mile hike over the mountains, then a nine-mile hitchhike down US 93 to Challis, where you find the Y-Inn Cafe.
Penny Party
Today in 1909, the first Lincoln pennies were minted. They were the first U.S. coins to bear the likeness of a real person. In 1909, you could buy many things for a penny. Those days ended sometime in the 1970s. Penny gum machines persisted at least that long. In the store where I worked as a teenager, a penny would buy Mary Janes, Five-Somes (five chocolate-covered malted milk balls in a cellophane sleeve), or a box of wooden matches for a penny until about 1969. Now pennies are strictly for getting payments exactly right. A lot of cashiers now don't bother, and just round up your change.
Annals of Canning
Today in 1904, Michael Owen was granted a patent for a glass-shaping machine. That invention gave rise to the widespread use of glass jars for food storage and marketing.
Edible Dictionary
cracklings, n. — Most often pronounced and written "cracklins." Pork fat and skin, cooked until crisp, eaten as a snack. Cracklings are made several ways, the most delicate of which is to cut the fat off into slices about three-quarters of an inch wide by an inch and a half long. The cut is made through the skin all the way through the fat, then a little bit into the lean meat. It's roasted in a pan until it's crisp. Or it can be fried. The rendered fat is saved for cooking, and the cracklings are eaten as is. Cracklings are more common in the Cajun country and the rest of the South than in New Orleans proper. The only place that's made a name for them is Mother's, where they give them away to waiting customers. It's heart-stopping in its fat content, but sure tasty.
Food Namesakes
Kevin Bacon was married today to Kyra Sedgwick, in 1992.
Words to Eat By
"Watermelon — it's a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face." — Enrico Caruso, famed operatic tenor, who died today in 1921.
Words to Drink By
"If four or five guys tell you that you're drunk, even though you know you haven't had a thing to drink, the least you can do is to lie down a little while." — Joseph Schenck, early American film producer.