The Food Almanac: June 2, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and sayings.
Eating Calendar
Today is Bean Salad Day. Served cool or cold, marinated in the usual salad dressings, bean salads are good. The beans have to be undercooked a little and allowed to stand with the olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, and herbs for at least a few hours. Adding beans to a salad obviates the need for the grilled chicken or fried shrimp on top for protein. A red bean and rice salad garnished with herbs and baby lettuces, and perhaps even thin slices of a dense, smoky, spicy sausage hits the spot.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
The best beans for making salads are fresh beans. But fresh beans are only around when they want to be, not when you want them to be.
Edible Dictionary
mung bean, n. — A small bean about the size of a green pea, widely grown and eaten throughout Southeast Asia, from India to China. It's usually green, which gives rise to its name "green bean" in many Asian languages. There's also a red mung bean, which is really pale brown. Mung beans are eaten whole in Asia, bust less often in America. Here, they're better known for their sprouts, widely used in salads. The starch from the beans is processed into cellophane or glass noodles (also called "bean thread" noodles, in which guise they turn up in much Thai and Indonesian cooking). They seem to be native to what is now Bangladesh, and have been grown since prehistoric times.
Appetizing Places
Bean City is on the southernmost tip of Lake Okeechobee, in the middle of the Florida Peninsula. It's the headquarters for a vast acreage of sugar cane, which waves in the breeze to the flat horizon in all directions. A few small orange groves are the only break in monoculture. Who knows? Maybe they grow some beans, too. The nearest restaurant is Perry's, three miles east on US 27 in Belle Glade.
Music to Eat Beans By
The Paul Biese Trio recorded the jazz number Chili Bean today in 1920, in New York City.
Eating Around the World
Today is the national holiday of Italy. On this date in 1946, a national referendum decided that the wreck of the fascist state should be rebuilt as a republic, not a monarchy. (The king voted the other way.) Governmental chaos has continued ever since, but Italy functions reasonably well, in its own way, with a lot of the business world flying below the government's radar. It's the world's best eating country, if you ask us. It's all about taste. Very little about mind games.
The Physiology of Eating
Max Rubner, a physiologist, was born today in 1854. His discovery was that the energy potential of food was the same whether an organism ate it or whether it was just set on fire. Same number of calories released. He did not determine how heartburn works into the equation.
Tirophilia Today
On this date in 1928, the Kraft Cheese Company (that was its name then) rolled Velveeta out to a waiting world. What is Velveeta, anyway? The Kraft web site is silent on the matter. The package says it's "pasteurized prepared cheese product." Which is what? Apparently the invention was not so much the cheese as the package: a foil-wrapped oblong of soft, rubbery, day-glo yellow cheese inside (originally) a wooden box (now it's cardboard). Before that there were cheese spreads, but sold in cans. Canned cheese. Now there's something that reminds us that those were not the good old days.
Food and The Law
Today in 2003, the Department of Agriculture said that, for dietary purposes, batter-coated frozen French fries were to be considered fresh vegetables. Once again, dietary considerations diverge widely from those involving taste. Fries made from freshly-cut potatoes are clearly more enjoyable to eat — although so many people have only eaten frozen that they sometimes reject fresh ones the first time they taste them.
Annals of Teetotaling
Maine became the first state in America to ban alcoholic beverages, on this day in 1851.
Music to Rot Your Teeth By
And your brain, too. Today in 1972, Sammy Davis Jr. had a number one hit with (Wait! Before I tell you, don't let the song start playing your head, lest it stay for days!) The Candy Man.
Food Namesakes
Lydia Lunch, a writer and experimental performer in many media, was born today in 1959. Tim Rice-Oxley, keyboard player for British rock group Keane, was born today in 1976.
The Saints
This is the feast day of St. Erasmus, also known as St. Elmo. He lived in the third century. St. Elmo's fire — the discharge of static from your body — is named for him. He is a source of intercession if you're troubled with abdominal or stomach pains, or colic.
Words to Eat By
"I'm a McDonald's girl; several times a week. Usually the two-cheeseburger combo meal." — Nikki Cox, actress, born today in 1978.
Words to Drink By
"An alcoholic has been lightly defined as a man who drinks more than his own doctor." — Dr. Alvan L. Barach.