The Food Almanac: June 22, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and saying.
Eating Calendar
This is Seared Fresh Tuna Salad Day. The timing is perfect. The heat has emphatically set in, and even though eating cold food doesn't actually lower your temperature, the sensation of eating chilled, nearly-raw fish with crisp, cold greens, and perhaps some avocado seems a perfect antidote to the weather. The best fresh tuna salads are made with vividly fresh tuna, seared on a very hot grill or pan to a noticeable crust on the outside, but still completely rare on the inside. The color contract between the interior of the tuna (sliced after the searing, of course) and the greens is dramatic and appetizing.
Today is also National Chocolate Éclair Day. The original chocolate éclairs were made with choux pastry — the same stuff creampuffs are made from–and stuffed with pastry cream and topped with chocolate. Now you mostly find a big rectangular doughnut, filled with Bavarian cream and topped with chocolate frosting. Shouldn't be eaten by anyone over 16.
Edible Dictionary
Salade Niçoise, French, n. — An entrée-size salad composed of tuna, green beans, potatoes, green onions, lettuce, tomatoes, anchovies, and hard-boiled eggs, with a simple vinaigrette dressing. Or that's the way it's done in America. In Nice in the south of France — from which the salad hails — the recipe usually omits the lettuce, potatoes, and even the tuna. Where tuna is found in the salad, the traditional variety is canned tuna. It was that way even in this country until the 1980s. Then fresh tuna became widely available and popular, due to the influence of sushi. Now most restaurants sophisticated enough to serve Salade Niçoise use fresh, seared, very rare tuna, served cool. Those are usually French bistros, whose menus almost always include this salad.
Deft Dining Rule #183
You can tell a lot about a restaurant by the size of the capers in the Salade Niçoise. The bigger they are, the less the place spends on ingredients.
Food Through History
Today in 1847, the doughnut was invented when Hanson Gregory watched his mother struggle to get her fried cakes fully cooked in the center. He suggested that she cut a hole in them. It worked! Which explains why beignets are often doughy in the center — if they had holes, they wouldn't be.
Great Restaurant Addresses
This is the birthday in 1837 of Paul Morphy, who many chess experts consider the greatest grandmaster of all time. He lived on Royal Street in the building that now houses Brennan's. He also has a street named for him. In his day — and still, among chess enthusiasts — he was a major celebrity in New Orleans.
Music to Eat Bacon and Beans By
On this date in 1959, people around the country had these lyrics running around in their heads: "They took a little bacon and they took a little beans, and they fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans." Johnny Horton's record The Battle of New Orleans was a million-seller and at the top of the charts.
Food and Drink at War
Back in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, six American ships landed at Cuba's coast. From there the Rough Riders, led by Theodore Roosevelt, invaded the town of Daiquiri. (I suppose they picked up a few in go-cups and rode on.) . . . In another great moment in history, on this date in 1815, Napoleon threw in the towel for the last time after being defeated at Waterloo four days earlier. He abdicated and went into exile, but only after stopping at the Napoleon House for a muffuletta.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Fish Bay is a harbor on the western shore of Lake Granby, the second largest body of water in Colorado. The lake is man-made, backing up water behind a dam on the Colorado not far from its source. The lake (and Fish Bay) are at the 8,400-foot level in Rocky Mountain National Park, where nearby mountains rise another 3,000 feet higher within a few miles. Very dramatic scenery. Fish Bay is well named: they keep it stocked with fish, and it's full of boats on every nice summer day. The closest place to eat is Betty's Cafe and Bakery, a mile and a half north of the dock on Fish Bay.
Food Namesakes
Gary Beers, bass player and singer for the rock group INXS, was born today in 1957. . . Operatic tenor Peter Pears was born today in 1910. . . Danny Baker, a radio comedian in England, gave his first laugh today in 1957. It would be nice if we had more radio comedians here. . . Stephen Chow is a comedian, too as well as a film producer and director in Hong Kong. He jumped onto The Big Stage today in 1962.
Words to Eat By
"Many people have eaten and drunk themselves to death. Nobody ever thought himself to death." — Gilbert Highet, Scottish-American author, born today in 1906.
Words to Drink By
"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough." — Mark Twain.