food museum blog

Oldest Pubs in (Northern) Ireland?

Sean's in Athlone apparently has daub walls that go back to 900 AD, while Grace Niell's in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland, got its first license back in 1611. 

I can imagine that there were folks quaffing hootch in 900 AD, but I doubt there was any licensing involved whatsoever. Still, both are handsome spots, and one imagines a Guinness would go down well in either.

Codgers Get Green Light to Booze Just a Tad

Riveted though I was this morning on the news in Gail Collins' column (via Levi Johnston) that Sarah Palin does not know how to shoot,--shoot!--I was delighted to segue into a small piece in the NYT that allows as how people over 60 who drink in moderation are not only pleasant to be around, but are also staving off dementia.  I don't know if these same happy drinkers  are wolfing down handfuls of blueberries, too, along with modest amounts of dark chocolate, but, uh, I am.

The moderation bit is the tough part, sometimes, in any endeavor involving tasty food and drink. But-- we ( codgers) are learning to revel more in the pleasures of same, and less in the amounts consumed.

That said, "moderation in all things" is hooey.

The Prez and the Tequila Mash

Last month during his trip to Mexico, President Obama toured the Cabanas Cultural Institute in Guadalajara. It's a former orphanage, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and contains murals by Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco.

And, apparently, exhibits on traditional foodways. In this photo Obama gently touches what appears to be the mash created from crushed hearts of agave, one step on the road to fermentation and distillation of the fabled tequila alcohol.

The alambiques necessary for distillation, incidentally, came from Spain, a contribution from the Arabs who introduced the process there in the late 700's.

Homage to Teddy, and Mocha Chip

Ted Kennedy was enjoying mocha chip ice cream, my personal fave, in his last days, according to this piece in today's WaPo.

While the Howard Johnson's Mocha Chip of my ( and Kennedy's) youth is long gone, the flavor has resurfaced in offerings from Starbuck's--Java Chip Frappuccino comes close. The Internets tell me that Honey Hut, in Cleveland, Ohio, sells a nifty mocha chip.

M. chip was one of the original 28 flavors of ice cream from Howard Johnson's menu--he started his business in Quincy, Massachusetts, with homemade ice cream, doubling the butter fat content, and attracting a slew of customers.  His first roadside restaurant in 1929 led to a chain of 400 by 1954. Cleverly, Johnson had forseen the need for family eateries along the nation's toll roads.

Alas, by the late 1970's, the Hojo roadside joint was fading, as the company zoomed into the lodging business. Thereafter the brand was bought and sold many times over.

Today there are 3 actual HoJo restaurants in operation, in Bangor, Maine, Lake George, NY, and Lake Placid, NY. I visited the Lake Placid place a few years back, and gorged on fresh onion rings, fried clam roll and, mocha chip ice cream. Heavenly.

FYI  Keep up with the HoJo saga here--apparently we may see a return of Hojo's!

Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod--Food Heritage

Named by British voyager Bartholomew Gosnold after his mother, Martha, in 1602 the island of Martha's Vineyard apparently was rich in luxuriant grapevines. As rich in grape, as the Cape nearby was rich in cod. Gosnold named Cape Cod, as well. Such an observer of food,  our little-remembered Gosnold, and food available in such abundance in the not-yet-even colony of Massachusetts.

Gosnold, an attorney with a bent for sea exploration, returned to England intent on recruiting stout souls to help found the Virginia Colony. Five years after his New England sojourn he died in or near Jamestown in 1607, a swampy site he thought rightly to be unsuitable for habitation. Most of the original Jamestown settlers died of famine, and its accompanying scurvy and dysentery.

The tale of why settlers in a land filled with vegetation, game and fish died of hunger even in the summertime is fodder for many books, including Jamestown, the Buried Truth, in which we learn that dogs and cats were eaten by the afflicted Jamestonians.

The Obamas ( and Bo) need not fear hunger during their stay on the Vineyard, however. 35 year-old West Tisbury Farmers Market is right down the lane from their lodgings.

Musings on Food Deserts, and Coffee Shops with Locked Outlets

Years ago we lived in a food desert, apparently. We were in DC, on Capitol Hill, right across from Eastern Market. OK, we didn't.  But the tiny, cramped grocery store we frequented--the aisle could accommodate only one skinny collapsible  stroller at a time---closed down soon after we arrived. So we relied on the Market for some things, and piled into a car to hit the traditional supermarket, several blocks away. 

We could buy yogurt and milk at the  liquor store, two doors from our house, mind you. 

But this was in such sharp contrast to the varied foods sold in small shops on the Lower East Side of New York, where we lived back in the early 70's. Cheese shops, green grocers, bagel joints, bakeries, Italian delis, fruit-sellers, and bodegas in adundance.

Meanwhile, the joys of cafe-sitting with one coffee all day while plugged into the Internet? Disappearing, perhaps. As more ( out of work) people crowd in and dominate tables, coffee shops, themselves struggling, are fighting back, according to this piece about New York in the Wall Street Journal.  Maybe laptoppers should be welcomed only at long counters equipped with plugs, with a time limit derived from a complicated formula based on food/drink consumed.

Further:

Food desert as defined by Wikipedia:  "A food desert is a district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet, but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants."

On food deserts from Chicago-based Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting.

Buying in Bulk from Trader Joe's

In line with dozens of instant soups and packets of Indian food to buy for Foodie Spouse who soon returns to a Trader Joe devoid life in Florida, I marveled at the final total, topping my all-time high. But apparently my purchase was small potatoes compared to that of a prior shopper, who had driven into Albuquerque from Durango, and loaded up one cart with wine, upper and lower decks, and another cart with food.

"Those folks spent over $600!" said the checker.

FS showed up and asked, as usual, when TJ would finally make it into Florida.

Not anytime soon, we were told. ( Sigh.)

"Well," said FS, tossing the Pav Phaji and Lentil Rice Biriani into bags. " At least in Florida we have Ikea--one in Tampa and one in Orlando. Ha!"

The checker, clearly a newcomer, looked stricken. "There's no Ikea here?"

The WH Beer Thing

Bud Lite. (!!?)

Had anyone asked, I would have suggested that the WH beer meister/meistress put a selection of locally brewed offerings on ice, with appropriate tasty snacks, and let the Prez, the Prof and the Cop choose among beers produced by some of America's finest small breweries.

 Shenandoah Brewing Company in Alexandria, VA is one--Their Stony Man Stout might have appealed to someone.  Capitol City Brewing Company in DC ( been there, drunk that)  has this:  Capitol Kolsch, along with Amber Waves Ale. Patriotism run wild!  I mean let's drink seriously good, local beer, and promote the best.

I'll drink to peace and understanding from here, maybe with a Jack Rabbit IPA from the Chama River Brewing Company in Albuquerque, dudes.

Don't Take Away Our Right to Slurp and Get Fat!

If you haven't yet seen the (corn) syrupy ads from the beverage industry opposing a possible tax on soft drinks/sodas/colas, then you have not relived the bizarre "educational" films we had to sit through as teens back in the day, minus the flapping sound of the film leaving the reel. ( There was always a geeky kid in thick glasses running the movie projector who leapt up to save the day at that point.)  Apparently sodas are woven into the fabric of American life far tighter than I knew, right up there with apple pie, handguns for the demented, and fear of health care reform.

Anyhoo.

Let's just tax everything food-stupid, like the tiny portions of fake cheese packaged with partially hydrogenized-fat-laden crackers, chemical-infused microwave popcorn, iceberg lettuce, and icky- sweet huge, mushy so-called Delicious apples. 

Actually, I honestly have no clue as to the acres of  food-stupid offerings available at the supermarket.  If I am standing in line at one, I am clutching toilet paper or cleaning products, and the people in front of and behind me are buying cartons of Dr. Pepper and Sprite, usually Diet. These people are by definition fat. Diet Schmi-et. Fat.

My personal chubs come from drinking wine and nibbling on full-fat and real- sugared Delicious ice cream. I think I'm already being taxed on wine-imbibing, so let the soda-slurpers pay their fair share! ( Leave my Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino alone.)

Moon Food for Thought

Noting the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I remember well where I was when I heard the news. I was eating dinner, chicken Kiev with green beans,  in the garden of a  restaurant in Iran, in Kermanshah, having just been reunited with my fiance, a Peace Corps volunteer whom I had not seen for over a year.

The waiter came out and gestured at the moon, clearly visible from our table. "Your Americans are walking around up there," he said. We looked more closely at the moon, symbol to lovers, object of poetic fancy, and felt both exhilarated and vaguely depressed.

"People are tromping around on the moon, " I said.  Apollo Eleven carried a particularly unpoetic fellow up there to the land of green cheese, who read aloud a corny line as he stepped from the lunar landing module ladder onto the dusty moon surface.

Much chatter ensued later among the literati, as to the need for a writer, a poet, to visit the moon and report back with a bit more descriptive precision.

Thus far, this has not occurred.

( Moon pot roast from Apollo 17, 1972. )