The Food Almanac: April 12, 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 Licorice Day. Most licorice on the candy rack contains no actual licorice. The natural licorice flavor — similar to that of fennel or anise — comes from the root of a European plant. It contains, in addition to the distinctive taste, a compound called glycyrrhizin — the sweetest natural substance on earth. It's being used in a new kind of artificial sweetener that hasn't quite been perfected yet. Licorice is more widely used in drugs and herbal medicine than in cooking. I've only encountered actual licorice root once in a dish: the deconstructed oysters Rockefeller at MiLa.

Today is also Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day. For most people, that's a trigger for childhood memories. For me, it conjures up the lunch counter at Woolworth's on shopping trips with my mother. Those sandwiches were good, but I preferred the version served in the school cafeteria, made by putting a slice of cheese on a hamburger bun and baking it until the cheese stuck the two halves of the bun together.

Once in a great while I make a grilled cheese sandwich at home, when I have some interesting cheese to do it with. Not standard Cheddar, which releases too much grease when melted. Something like Gruyère, or raclette, or Jarlsberg, or Fontina, or even the aggressively aromatic tête de moines, grilled on bread with some texture and nuttiness... yes!

The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
Licorice is the liver of candy. And you can quote me on that.

Gourmet Geography
Soda Butte is a landmark along the northeast entrance road to Yellowstone National Park. It's the cone of a dormant geyser and rises to 4,645 feet — about 150 feet above Soda Butte Creek, which flows into Lamar Valley, a very pretty place. Soda Butte is famous among naturalists as a place where packs of wolves (re-introduced in mid-1990s) have taken up residence. It was the first place they've lived in Yellowstone since the rangers wiped out the last wolves in 1926. If you're hungry as a wolf around there, it's a twelve-mile drive to the well-named Range Rider Lodge in Silver Gate.

Edible Dictionary
arepa, Spanish, n. — Somewhere between a stuffed tortilla and a sandwich, an arepa is a common street food in the northern part of South America, especially Colombia and Venezuela. It begins with a rough dough made from special cornmeal with the texture of grits, but without the lime used to make Mexican tortillas. Patties are rolled or hand-patted down, either mixed with or stuffed with a wide variety of ingredients. Cheese is the most common, but shredded beef or pork, beans, chicken, yucca, and scrambled eggs find their way inside (or sometimes on top, like tostada). Arepas are made in almost all sizes, from a few bites to as wide as a pizza (but much thicker). Arepas have relatives: the Salvadoran pupusa is a close cousin, as is the Mexican gordita.

Food Festivals Through History
In ancient times, this day began a seven-day festival in honor of Ceres, the goddess of growing grain and of motherly love. She gave her name to the words cereal, as well as to the first-named asteroid. Her festival, which began being celebrated in the third century B.C.E., was called Cerealia. I wonder if Kellogg's and Post ever thought of bringing that back to life. Seven days of revelry about cereal! (Hmm. I guess we've answered that question.)

Music to Eat By
On this date in 1969, Simon and Garfunkel released The Boxer, the only national hit which makes reference to a certain kind of sandwich. It's in the first line.

Deft Dining Rule #51
If you arrive at a restaurant less than a half-hour before closing time, and the dining room has only a few people who are finishing up their meals, find another place to eat.

The Saints
This is the feast day of St. Zeno of Verona, one of many patron saints of fishermen. He died today in 371 A.D.

Food Namesakes
Jean-Francois Paillard, a French classical music conductor, was born on this date in 1928. (A paillard is a thin, grilled slice of meat, in case you didn't catch the food connection.) Yung Wing, the first Chinese student to graduate from Yale University, arrived in the United States today in 1847. Howard Baker Sr., former Tennessee governor and U.S. Senator, was born today in 1902. William Cookworthy, a Quaker minister and pharmacist in England, got his life cooking today in 1705. He invented the first porcelain that didn't have to be imported from China to England. Guy Berryman, the bassist with the group Coldplay, was born in Scotland today in 1978.

Words to Eat By
"My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you." — Nora Ephron.

Words to Drink By
"Champagne and orange juice is a great drink. The orange improves the Champagne. The Champagne definitely improves the orange." — Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.