The Food Almanac: Friday, January 3, 2014

Food Through History
One of the many people who claimed to have invented oleomargarine got a patent for it today in 1871. Henry Bradley of Binghampton, New York followed on the heels of Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, the French inventor who made the first margarine a couple of years earlier. . . Another invention that had more than one father was the drinking straw. Marvin Stone patented his today in 1871. It was made of spiraling, wax-saturated paper. Anyone remember paper straws? The shift from paper to plastic occurred in 1966. At least, that was the year we made the change in the straws we used for Icees at the Time Saver.

Food On The Air
Today is the birthday of Betty Furness, an okay actress in the 1940s and 1950s. During her performance in a live television drama, she was asked to read the commercial for Westinghouse appliances. The company liked her so much that she became their spokesperson. For years, she demonstrated to all the young American women who were building households at that time everything they needed for their kitchens. Her famous catchphrase was, "You can be sure if it's Westinghouse."

Edible Dictionary
juicy lucy, n.–A variation on the cheeseburger in which the cheese is enclosed inside the hamburger patty before grilling. It's popular in the Midwest, particularly in the Minneapolis area. Matt's Bar, one of the claimants to have invented it, spells it "jucy lucy." The idea has such appeal that most restaurants offering it also make version in which mushrooms, chili peppers, and other ingredients get into the middle of the patty. Here in New Orleans, a two-location restaurant called "Ms. Jucy Lucy's" sells the sandwich.

Gourmet Geography
Parsnip, California is in the extreme northeast corner of the state, up in the arid mountains near the Nevada border. It flows into Cedar Creek in a canyon whose bottom is about 5000 feet above sea level, with the 7000-foot Tule Mountain towering above it three miles west. Beautiful but tough hiking country. It's named for the cow parsnip, which isn't related to the kind we eat. So you'll be hungry. The likeliest nearby place to find food is the Likely Cafe, five miles northwest on US 395 in the town of Likely. Water is more likely: several lakes and reservoirs are nearby.

Food Calendar
Today is National Chocolate-Covered Cherry Day. That makes me realize how long it's been since I had one of those, filled with some kind of white, sugary creme and a juicy liquid around a maraschino cherry. They were the last word in candy when I was a kid. I never questioned that until a girlfriend pointed out something I knew but ignored: they're sweet enough to cause near-pain in the eating. And if the chocolate shell cracked, the runny insides would flow out into a sticky mess, and let the cherry dry out. My mother, who recognized nothing as too sweet, loved and expected boxes of chocolate-covered cherries for all holidays.

Deft Dining Rule #213:
It wouldn't be a bad idea to refrain from eating anything sticky. They're almost never good.

The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
Why would you believe anything a skinny food writer says? We had better food writers when they weren't all on television.

Thirty-Six
The first issue of this publication–all four pages of it–appeared today in 1977. The New Orleans Menu began as a biweekly print newsletter full of restaurant reviews. It expanded over the years into 40-page monthly magazine, then into a quarterly 100-page book. The evolution into this daily internet newsletter occurred in 1997. Five subscribers have been on the rolls the entire thirty-six years. Thank you!

Food Namesakes
American sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead was born today in 1835. . . Jaak-Nikolaas Lemmens, a composer and organist who lived in Brussels, Belgium, was born today in 1823. . . Apple Computer Company was incorporated today in 1977. . . William Tucker, believed to have been the first African-American, was born today in 1624. His parents were from Africa, but he was born in the American British colonies. ("Tucker" is Australian slang for food.) . . .The final Peanuts comic strip appeared today in 2000, when Charles M. Schulz, its creator, retired.

Words To Eat By
"This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal... We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke."–Jane Grigson, British cookbook author.

Words To Drink By
"Anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water, that terrible poison, so corrosive that out of all substances it has been chosen for washing and scouring, and a drop of water added to a clear liquid like Absinthe, muddles it."–Alfred Jarry, French writer of the late 1800s.