The Food Almanac: April 5, 2011

In The Food Almanac, Tom Fitzmorris of the online newsletter, The New Orleans Menu notes food facts and sayings.

Legends of American Dining
Owen Edward Brennan was born today in 1910. He founded Brennan's in New Orleans, which expanded to become one of the most influential and successful family-owned restaurant groups. He was later joined in the business by his brother, sisters, and sons. What came out of that combination was a style of grand dining that dominated New Orleans for decades.

Legends in Winemaking
Today in 1994, André Tchelistcheff died, ending the most influential career in the history of California winemaking. Born in 1901 in Russia, Tchelistcheff worked in the French wine business before going to California as Prohibition ended. At Beaulieu Vineyards he pioneered methods of winemaking and wine marketing that made them what they are today. Tchelitscheff planted French grape varieties and blended wines in a French way, but used American oak barrels for aging. He also was the first to use cold fermentation, and developed methods for protecting vines from disease and frost. His laboratory and wine library was the most respected source of information about viticulture for decades. When you drink a Napa wine especially, you are benefiting from Tchelistcheff's legacy.

Legends in Seeds
W. Atlee Burpee, who founded the seed company that bears his name, was born today in 1858. His company sold seeds nationwide by mail order, and the varieties of plants whose seeds he sold became dominant just by that fact.

Legends in Dairy
Today in 1881, Edwing Houston and Elihu Thomson received a patent for a centrifuge that separated cream from raw milk. It made possible all those creamy soups and sauces we love so much. Cream — is practically a sauce unto itself — is a magic ingredient. So much so that restaurants overuse it, sometimes winding up with too many dishes that taste the same. When you find more than fifteen percent of a restaurant's non-dessert menu made with a substantial amount of cream, you are in a restaurant with a failure of imagination.

Eating Calendar
In honor of Owen Brennan — whose grand Breakfast at Brennan's redefined the upper limits of that meal — today is Fancy Poached Eggs Day. Most of the egg creations on Brennan's menu were French classics. It shortly became clear that the ones people liked most were poached eggs (which few restaurants offered in the 1940s) set atop some flavorful food (ham, crabmeat, creamed spinach), and covered with hollandaise. From that came the endless variations we find today in any restaurant that serves Sunday brunch. The restaurants love such dishes: few menu items carry as low a food cost percentage as do eggs.

Deft Dining Rule #168
If you want to see how good a breakfast chef is, ask for coddled or shirred eggs. If they make either without question, you have a winner.

On this day in 1930, Mohandas Gandhi took a group of his followers to a salt flat and began collecting salt from the ground, in defiance of a British rule that all salt had to be bought from England. He was arrested immediately, but scored a moral victory.

Gourmet Geography
Salt Flat is a ghost town on the high plains of West Texas, with the towering Guadalupe Mountains in the northeast. It's well-named; lakes in the area dry up and leave salt deposits behind. A dispute as to who owned them led to a war among the settlers in the 1870s. The Texas Rangers were called in and settled it, but not until a dozen men had been killed. This is dramatic, wild desert country. And you can eat there, at the Salt Flat Cafe, about the only thing left in town.

Edible Dictionary
fleur de sel, French, n. — Literally, flower of salt. That is a good description of the salt crystals that form when the salt water off the coast of northern France — notably in Brittany — is evaporated. The crystals are made not only of salt, but also other minerals in the water. Sometimes a kind of pink algae that can live in brine is also present in the final product. All of these impurities add flavor complexity — and expense — to fleur de sel. You'd use it more to season food at the table than in recipes requiring a teaspoon of salt in a quart of water, say. It's ironic that the goal of saltmakers for millennia was to produce pure salt. Fleur de sel and other gourmet varieties of salt are distinguished by their impurities.

The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
Non-iodized table salt is the purest salt in the history of salt-making. I can't think of a reason not to use it.

Food Namesakes
Alberto "Cubby" Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond movies, was born today in 1909. Not only does he have a food name, but one of his ancestors actually created the vegetable by hybridizing cauliflower. Gregory Peck was born today in 1916. Daniel Bakeman was the last surviving soldier from the Revolutionary War when he died today in 1869. The Lord of the Satsuma Clan, which lived on the island of Kyushu in Japan, invaded Okinawa on this date in 1609.

Words to Eat By
"Without butter, without eggs, there is no reason to come to France." — Chef Paul Bocuse.

Words to Drink By
"Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age." — Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, born today in 1937.