The Food Almanac: Wednesday, September 28, 2011
In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu, notes food facts and sayings.
Namesakes of Great Dishes
Georges Clemenceau, the much-admired premier of France during World War I, was born today in 1841. His name is best known in New Orleans for its attachment to a chicken dish in the old-line restaurants here. It's a simple, old-fashioned dish: broiled chicken with mushrooms, peas, onions, garlic, and butter.
Today's Flavor
It's International Shawarma Day. Shawarma is probably the most common entrée on Lebanese menus. When made classically, it resembles gyros, using the same vertical rotisserie. But the substance is different. The beef, lamb, or chicken is first roasted to about medium after being marinated, then sliced thickly. The slices are piled atop the rotating skewer, where their edges get crusty. The chef slices down this stack of slices, and what you get are thin slices of meat with a crusty edge on one side. Delicious.
Edible Dictionary
lardo, Italian, n. — Solid fat, uninterrupted by lean streaks, taken from the rear ends of pigs and then cured much the same way as any other Italian salume. That means that it's brined and seasoned with salt and vinegar. It's sliced exactly as prosciutto or salami would be, and eaten as is, or on crusty slices of bread. It's a product of Tuscany, particularly a mall stone-quarry town called Colonnata. It differs from other salumi in that people who like lardo are bonkers about the stuff. It becomes an obsession. If the subject comes up, it will take 15 minutes to review all the ways in which the stuff is incredibly delicious. It is indeed pretty good — and both expensive and hard to find in this country.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Skillet Branch cuts a severe but short (two miles) valley as it tumbles water some 150 feet down and into Slate Creek. It's in central Kentucky, 49 miles east of Lexington. It's surrounded by farms in all directions. Slate Creek is a good place for smallmouth bass fishing, in case you're hungry. If not a fisherman, you'll find eats two miles west at Erma's in Owingsville.
Deft Dining Rule #134
The best food in a mall food court is served by the ethnic places.
The Saints
Today is the feast day of Wenceslaus, the Duke of Bohemia, who we usually only hear about at Christmas. He's the patron saint of brewers, and of the Czech Republic (which brews a lot of good beer).
Restaurants and Crime
Today in 1975, the Spaghetti House Siege began in a restaurant in Knightsbridge, London. It started as an armed robbery, but when the plans went bad, the robbers took the staff hostage and held them for six days. Of course, this was story was written about in a few books and turned into a movie.
Food Namesakes
American playwright Elmer Rice was born today in 1892 . . . Speaking of plays, a failure entitled Noel Coward's Sweet Potato premiered on Broadway today in 1968 . . . the Jimmie Rodgers song "Honeycomb" hit Number One today in 1957 . . . Japanese tennis star Kimiko Date marked his first day today in 1970 . . . Canadian golfer Kevin Baker teed off his life today in 1966 . . . New Zealand rock musician Alannah Currie howled her first note today in 1957 . . . And sporting a rare double food name is Ginger Fish, the drummer for the band Marilyn Manson. He was born Kenneth Wilson in 1966.
Words to Eat By
"It is odd how all men develop the notion, as they grow older, that their mothers were wonderful cooks. I have yet to meet a man who will admit that his mother was a kitchen assassin and nearly poisoned him." — Robertson Davies, Canadian author and playwright.
Words to Drink By
"God, to relieve his dryness, created the vine and revealed to him the art of making le vin. By the aid of this liquid he unveiled more and more truth." — Benjamin Franklin.