The Food Almanac: June 14, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and sayings.
Eating Calendar
Today is National Strawberry Shortcake Day. You can now buy strawberries all year-round, and we're seeing strawberry shortcake a lot more, too. We love it at our house, because it tastes good and its preparation involves three things we're always either buying or making: strawberries, whipped cream, and shortcakes. A true shortcake is not that Twinkie-like cake that came to be used for this dessert decades ago, but more like a biscuit. We bake them exactly as we do the biscuits we make for breakfast, except that we use half-and-half instead of buttermilk and about three tablespoons of sugar per cup of flour.
Appetizing Places
Strawberry, Alabama is about midway between Birmingham and Huntsville. It's a wide spot in the road in the middle of rolling farm country. It's on the Strawberry Branch of the Black Warrior River, which further long its route becomes a major navigable river. It's not much here, though, draining foothills of the Appalachians at about the 900-foot level. The nearest restaurants are all five miles north in the town of Arab. There you'll find Three Guys Grill, which is actually better than Five Guys.
Roots of Bourbon
Today in 1789 was the first recorded making of whiskey from fermented corn mash, in Bourbon Country, Kentucky. That was the birth of what we now call just bourbon, the most famous distilled spirit in America. It is held in high regard overseas and in Latin America, with a reputation somewhat like the one we accord to Cognac in America. In recent years, the bourbon distillers reversed a long slide in their fortunes by creating new small-batch bourbons of much higher quality. My favorites are Van Winkle, Baker's, and Knob Hill.
Edible Dictionary
blended whiskey, n. — In America, a mixture of straight bourbon or other barrel-aged whiskey with "neutral spirits." The latter is an unaged spirit similar to vodka, and has no significant flavor or aroma. Blended whiskeys, therefore, are much lighter in flavor than bourbons. These were the dominant domestic brown spirits in the days following the end of Prohibition, and remained so through the 1960s, when they began to fade. Not many of them are around anymore. The best known is Seagram's 7 Crown. Most Canadian whiskies are also blends, as are most brand-name Scotches. The blended Scotches begin with single-malt whiskies (usually more than one), and the diluting "neutral spirits."
Deft Dining Rule #182
The only good reason for drinking a blended whiskey is to honor the memory of your father or grandfather. Their drinking habits almost certainly involved Seagram's 7, Calvert's, or Four Roses.
Annals of French Cuisine
Napoleon won what he considered his greatest victory on this date in 1800 at Marengo in northern Italy, near Turin. He was fighting the Austrians. The battle is commemorated in a dish called chicken Marengo. It was what Napoleon's cooks served him after the battle with ingredients foraged from the area. The original recipe's sauce was made with crawfish. Most recipes now leave that out, unless they're made in Louisiana.
Physiology of Eating
Dr. Henry Heimlich proposed what became known as the Heimlich maneuver today in 1974. While it doesn't always work, and sometimes results in a fractured rib or two for the victim, it has saved thousands of choking victims who might otherwise have died or been permanently injured. Many of these were in restaurants, with the person doing the maneuver being just another customer. If you don't know how to do it, you should learn. Here's how, from Dr. Heimlich himself.
Food Namesakes
John Bartlett, who compiled the book of quotations that became so famous that his name is forever associated with such a book, was born today in 1820. He had no connection with the pears. Bill Baker, a Congressman from California, was born today in 1941 65 today. John Scott Trotter, who was the bandleader on George Gobel's early television show, was born today in 1908. (A trotter is a pig's foot, in case you never heard the term.) Gil Lamb, a movie actor in the 1940s, was born today in 1906.
Words to Eat By
"Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine — how good how fine. It went down all pulpy, slushy, oozy, all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large, beatified Strawberry." — John Keats.
Words to Drink By
"I know folks all have a tizzy about it, but I like a little bourbon of an evening. It helps me sleep. I don't much care what they say about it." — Lillian Carter, mother of President Jimmy Carter.