The Food Almanac: May 19, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and sayings.
Food Calendar
Today is National Devil's Food Cake Day. Here's how you get devil's food cake to be really dark and different: add red food coloring to the batter. It won't show as red, but as a strangely deeper dark brown.
More interesting is National Meat-And-Three Day. The hotbed of the meat-and-three meal is the roadside diner. Many of those still show a list of the special entrees of the day, with a meat, poultry, or fish as a central item. Below that is a list of ten or fifteen vegetables and salads, from which you may choose three to go with your entree. Corn, peas, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, French fries, cauliflower, green salad, cole slaw, spinach, and lima beans are among the most common items on such lists. Most of us were introduced to this concept in school cafeterias, which serve a meat-and-two through grammar school, and then escalate to meat-and-three in high school.
Deft Dining Rule #173
The most enjoyable part — perhaps the only enjoyable part — of a meal in a meat-and-three kind of place is nostalgia for simpler times.
Deft Dining Rule #174
The restaurants of the 1950s and earlier, no matter how delicious our memory makes them seem, were nowhere near as good as the restaurants of today.
Appetizing Places
Rib Mountain is a long ridge rising some 700 feet above the otherwise nearly flat terrain in central Wisconsin. It's the main feature of Rib Mountain State Park, and is near the Big Rib River, a challenging stream for canoers. The hardest part is Rib Falls. All of this is just west of the city of Wausau, which is where you'll have to go if you're looking for something to eat. Try Fazoli's, a mile away from the mountain. It's on US 51, which is a direct 1,171-mile route back to New Orleans.
Eat And Drink In Sho-Biz
On this date in 1942, the actor John Barrymore was rehearsing a script in which his character worries that he might die from drinking. Ten days later, Barrymore did indeed die of cirrhosis of the liver (which, in New Orleans, would be considered a death by natural causes).
Edible Dictionary
grains of paradise, n. — A mildly peppery spice from the tropical zones of western Africa. It grows in a pod on an herbaceous perennial plant, Amomum melegueta. The seeds are what's consumed; they're about twice the size of black peppercorns. They became popular in Europe in the 1400s, when trade in black pepper and other spices was spiraling upward, and anything that could add flavor was in demand. Grains of paradise are much milder than black pepper, and have a bitter finishing flavor. It was a second choice if black pepper were unavailable or too expensive. Although it's still used in its native African range, it's almost disappeared from the spice market, despite the efforts of a few chefs who use it to puzzle their customers.
Looking Up
Today in 1910, the earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet, the anticipation of which caused panic in many gullible people. Nothing happened, except that for about twenty minutes the oysters had a strange chocolate flavor. After the event, the shells of lobsters were a lot thicker.
Annals Of Food Writing
Jane Brody, who writes widely on cooking and nutrition, mostly in the New York Times, was born today in 1941. Jane Brody's Good Food Book is her best collection.
Food Namesakes
Dame Nellie Melba (real name: Helen Porter Mitchell, from Melbourne, Australia) was born today in 1861. Both Melba toast and the dessert peach Melba are named for her. She was a superstar opera singer of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and men throughout the world were smitten by her. The toast named for her was what she ate to take pounds off her well-rounded body. Peach Melba, which you can get at Antoine's any day and occasionally in a few other restaurants, is peaches and ice cream with a thick raspberry sauce. . . Rice University in Houston was first chartered on this date in 1891. . . Cambodian dictator and mass murderer Pol Pot was born today in 1915.
Words To Eat By
"I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them." — Nora Ephron, American writer, born today in 1941.
Words To Drink By
"One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time." — Lady Nancy Astor, one of the wealthiest people in the world in the early 1900s.