food museum blog

Toiling Under the Spreading Avocado Tree

In response to a Post from fellow Blogger Kathy F. at

http://whatdoiknow.typepad.com/what_do_i_know/ , I wrote the following.

"Usually I am not blogging from a small cafe table outdoors under an enormous avocado tree. Yet since I am in St Petersburg, Florida, for several weeks, working on a food history book, this site seems appropriate to a Blog dedicated to all things eclectically food. ( My usual workplace is a messy home office in New Mexico.)
My new workspace is not always tranquil. Acorns from surrounding live oaks hammer down on adjacent sheds and squirrels natter loudly.
If only my new digital camera worked with this traveling laptop, I would enclose a pic. Maybe later, after a huge avocado and grapefruit salad. The adjacent yard has numerous gfruits and friendly neighbors..."

This reminded me that eons ago, in our parlor floor apartment on the Lower Eastside of New York, just off the Bowery, we had a lovingly nurtured scrawny avocado tree in a pot, grown from an actual seed, as urban pioneers did in those days.  It did have extravagent arms, as I recall, and it became woefully dusty, but it gave a shot of rich, ripe greenery to a windows-at-each-end, none-at-the-sides little pad. It may have gone to a friend when we moved to Brussels, or perhaps it was the plant my mother found a home for at a car dealership in the 'burbs.

In any event, its cousin, the exuberant tree under which I toil, connects me with the Florida of old--the lush acres of trees and citrus groves planted by Hamilton Disston's people in this very neighborhood that later sprouted 1950's bungalows. Initially, Disston bought 4 million acres of FL land for 25 cents an acre back in 1881 and proceeded to create agricultural land. He is perhaps best known for his tireless effort to drain" the worthless swamp you people call the Everglades."

A complex fellow with vast influence over Florida, Disston's dealing went sour in the late 1890's and he died in 1896, either from a heart attack, or, as one report has it, by a single shot to the head. He was found in his bathtub.

Disston Heights, the small neighborhood where I am staying, is the one area in the entire county that does not require flood insurance. It's a dizzying 40-60 feet above sea level, thank you, and its inhabitants need not evacuate in times of hurricanes.

But if the hurricanes doen't get them, the squirrels will--the avocados, that is. We are vigilant each morning, ready to pick up the heavy fruit that have tumbled to the ground during the night. Most of them have tiny toothmarks by dawn.

Food History Finds Us Again in Florida

Out for an evening swim in the Gulf, we wandered into an older nifty strip of beach called Pass-A-Grille, described by some as an" artsy, bohemian community"---after a fine half hour of bobbing and floating, we saw the monstrous black clouds rolling in for their usual summer afternoon  lightning show and soon buckets of rain were billowing down as we headed back to St. Petersburg. 

Google then quickly informed us that P-A-G Beach was most likely dubbed that in quasi English by fishermen who stopped there to grill and eat some of their catch before heading on.

Food history is all around us, children, if we but pay attention. Remember The FOOD Museum's motto, courtesy of M.F.K.Fisher?  "First we eat, then we do everything else."

Ain't it the truth!

( Thanks to this site for P-A-G postcard: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/fl/pinellas/postcards/ppcs-pinellas.html)

Romney Dinged at Diner, Loses Appetite

Republican candidate Mitt Romney came up against an actual American asking tough questions at the Red Arrow diner in Manchester, NH recently. The questions  about health care came from Michelle Griffin, a Red Arrow employee for 12 years. As the Washington Post reported it, Griffin was  "in no mood for platitudes."

About the Red Arrow--it's a food heritage site, in business since 1922, tra la. ( Its history page  says the joint opened in October 1921...and also "since 1922." ..) Open 24 hours, The Red Arrow was voted among the top 10 American diners by USA Today at one point.

The boom days of dinerdom were in the 1950's and then fast food joints began edging out the old silver-sides. But there's a resurgence in affection for diners these days, thankfully. To find the real thing one must get off major highways  and look along sideroads for places stuffed with cars at 6:30 am--at least that's how we choose where to stop for breakfast--apple pie a la mode and coffee, please. Plus--are those home fries made fresh?

As for the "no mood for platitudes,"  many of us are feeling that way these days, and sometimes the gorge rises. You can read Ms. Griffin's questions via the WPost link above.

Making Many Clams from a Fried Mollusk

At the end of our little east coast jaunt recently, we were strolling past some cars parked at the Jersey shore when we spotted one with a flaming red bumper sticker reading "Woodman's of Essex--Inventor of the Fried Clam 1916."  Google led me to the Woodman's website and then to Rhonda Woodman, married to one of the clamming Woodman's, who rang me up in response to an email request for more info about this invention.  Could this be true? The first ever?

It all started with Lawrence and Bessie Woodman who in 1914 began a weekend business from a stand selling homemade potato chips, chewing gum, and fresh clams, dug each day. Apparently July 3, 1916 was a slow day for trade and a passing fisherman jokingly told "Chubby" --he doesn't look fat at all-- Woodman he ought to toss some clams into the hot oil--suggesting that if the clams were as tasty as the chips, he'd have a winner. 

Of course nobody tosses a clam into hot oil!! Come on! But-- out of the shell, perhaps...Bessie and Lawrence worked together to come up with a good batter, tossed the shucked clams into it, then fried them up and served them to the locals. Naturally, the clams were sublime--and the little stand on Main Street in Essex, Massachusetts did a glorious amount of business the next day, on the Glorious Fourth.

And Woodman's of Essex was off and running. Howard Johnson came to them to learn how to fry clams, for Pete's sake. Once I learned that, I was convinced of the Woodman's claim. ( HoJo's was my childhood icon, the ultimate in road food...fried clams, fresh fried oni0n rings, iced tea and mocha chip ice cream.)

   They still dip the clams in milk and then corn meal at Woodman's and while most of the clams are the prized Ipswich variety from the area, at times they must buy from mollusk moguls in Maine, or Maryland or even Washington State.

The bones of Chubby and Bessie's original building are still there though Woodman's today is a much bigger institution--always informal and friendly and fast-paced. New England Clambakes and lobsters can be had anywhere in the country from Woodman's, for a price. ( Clambake for two starts at $124.95 with free shipping.)

Rhonda Woodman told us that in coming months their website will be completely revised and the company will kick off a new tradition--get a Woodman's bumper sticker and photograph it in an exotic spot, then post it on the website. Prizes may well be involved...

Happy Tercentenary Birthday, Carl!

Carl Linneaus, the Swedish botanist and medical doctor who codified the naming of plants and animals, is celebrating his 300th birthday today, May 23. Well, the rest of the world is.

According to an informative website from the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Linneaus is not only credited with establishing a set and simplified pattern of binomial naming--a Latin name for the genus, and a type of shorthand name for the species--but he was also a gifted teacher. One of his most famous students during his time at the University of Uppsala was Daniel Solander who sailed with Captain James Cook on his first voyage around the world, bringing back to Europe the first plant specimens from the South Pacific and Australia.

Linneaus' farm at Hamarby near Uppsala is a food heritage site one can visit today, as is the first botanical garden established in Sweden in 1655.  1300 species grow here, all familiar to Linneaus. The garden has been restored to a design dictated by him in 1745.

Linneaus was a controversial figure in his lifetime, accused of being too sexually explicit in his system.  And he started out calling humans  Homo diurnis , or "(hu)man of the day," but later settled on the more flattering, Homo sapiens, "wise human."  Hoping to boost Sweden's economy, he tried and failed to grow coffee, rice, bananas and cacao, plants that were decidedly inappropriate for his country's chilly climates.

Dr. Jude Philp of the University of Sydney sums up Linneaus this way: "Linneaus was an extraordinary man. He was a doctor who wrote on everything from the evils of coffee and tobacco, to syphilis and healthy eating. He was an astute political person with royal contacts and connections with the Dutch East India Company. He was a teacher, gardener, traveller and a magnificent self-promoter."

( Portrait of Linneaus thanks to the Swedish Museum of Natural History,  http://linnaeus.nrm.se/botany/fbo/welcome.html.en)

Another Slice of History Burned--the Cutty Sark

The "extreme clipper" ship the Cutty Sark, the vessel that graced the bottle of whisky my father-in-law always drank, has been badly burned today, as it lay in drydock in Greenwich, England being restored. A perfect example of its kind, and the last in the world, the ship was slim and trim for speed, its carrying capacity less than other clippers--but in the English tea trade of 1869 speed was primary.

The Cutty Sark's owner, Jock Willis, wanted her to be " the fastest ship in the annual race to bring home the first of the new season's tea from China."

Incidentally, Edward Bramah, who established and runs Bramah's Museum of Tea and Coffee in London, told us on our visit a while back that tea in the UK was a key element of the Industrial Revolution there because factory owners could keep their employees awake, warm and sustained very cheaply on tea with milk and sugar.

( Photo by Wendy Bumgardner, http://walking.about.com/od/trailbritain/ig/Greenwich-Photos/Cutty-Sark-Bow-View.htm)

More on Eastern Market, DC--PLUS--Cleveland's West Side Market

Our friend Marc, long-time Capitol Hill resident and supporter of The FOOD Museum, sent us this update about the Market recently devastated by fire:

"I went down to see Eastern Market yesterday. The good news is that the building is basically structurally sound. The good news is that the building is basically structurally sound.  The bad news, as I realized only after seeing Tommy (the crab cake guy) out
front with Mrs. Calamiris, from the vegetable market, was that the
vendors have lost their livelihoods.  It's hard for me to believe that many
of them were insured against these losses. 

The city, which appears to have a functional mayor for the first time in thirty years, is working
hard to keep the market going in the school yard across the street while the building is reconstructed; but the damage was severe and it's going to be a very difficult time."

Contributions to help rebuild Eastern Market can be sent to http://www.capitolhillcommunityfoundation.org/

Blog reader Walt, from Cleveland, laments that we have not listed West Side Market on the website. ( Note: Many markets around the world will be part of our new updated Global Food Heritage Listings, being worked on now.)

Here's the market described at Project for Public Places:   "The West Side Market is easily visible by its large clock tower and has been for 90 years. It is easily accessed by public transportation, foot, and car. It is a stop for tourists from near and far. The area surrounding the market is evolving into the culinary district with nearby ethnic restaurants, a brewery, apartments, condominiums, and an upcoming retail area in an historic building with complementary small businesses (home decor, wines, candles, etc.) The West Side Market is the place to shop whether you make $15,000/year or $100,000 a year. It is the place to shop if you are a new citizen to Cleveland or have lived here for 80 years. Cleveland is home to more than 75 different ethnicities and the market is that central place to shop no matter what language you speak."

( West Side Market clock tower pic from http://www.csuohio.edu/ce/programs/iep/ielp_cleveland_photo_gallery.htm)

There Isn't Greensburg, Kansas Anymore--and--Sustenance Over Violence, Please

Friday night a mile wide-tornado destroyed virtually all of Greensburg, Kansas, a town of 1500 people, many of them wheat and corn farmers.  Eight were confirmed dead. Back in 1888 the Kiowa County Signal described Greensburg  as " the liveliest town in the state today, for money, marbles or watermelons."  We'd love to know more about those watermelons.

( At left: Old fashioned soda fountain in Greensburg's Hunter Drug Store--no word as to whether it's still there. )

Meanwhile, in Iraq Sunday, more than 50 Iraqis died in a fruit and vegetable market when a truck blew up. People trying to feed themselves and their families have gone down one more time.  (Eight more hard-working, overstretched U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb as well.)

These repeated reports, about people dying in markets, or cafes, or bakeries, get little play lately--it's like the almost identical daily Beirut violence reports we used to hear on the radio when we lived in Belgium in the 1970's. Finally, after 15 years, the exhausted warring parties there called it quits. Much "never-again" lamentation and monument-building to the dead ensued.

Maybe the U.S. government should just announce victory, exemplified by the triumph of eliminating Saddam, and pull the troops out. Then maybe the Iraqis can get back to the business of sustenance.

Food Heritage Site--DC's Eastern Market Burns

The 134 year-old Eastern Market on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC was virtually gutted by fire today. It was the last of the city's traditional markets, home to numerous vendors, some of whose businesses date as far back as 60 years. Fortunately, the structure of the building was saved and already there is a clamor to rebuild it.

For many years we lived right across the street from the Market and popped in and out of it regularly. Its funky Market Lunch was the best place in town to eat soft shell crab sandwiches and cole slaw, as well as crab cakes and more. We always brought visitors to the Market, and they were delighted  to experience a European-style  shopping experience in these United States.

In the summer the sidewalks outside filled with seasonal vendors selling  all manner of fresh fruits, veggies, and  artsy crafty wares. One of our favorite characters there was a tooth-free elderly dame who supposedly peddled "local" products---when we sniffed the strawberries, she could always be counted on to say, "Them's Driscoll's, Honey! " ( Errrr....you mean from California?)

No doubt the outside sellers will be there once the structure is stabilized. And Eastern Market, a community meeting place and the heart of Capitol Hill--a place not lately associated with much warmth--must indeed be preserved. It is a food heritage site that should be high on any foodie's list.

( Pic from www. pps.org)

Stone Barns Center in New York--Splendor in the Snow

In the good old days, if you were a Rockefeller and you wanted to have only unpasteurized milk on your table, you hired an architect and built your own fine damn dairy on your property. That's what John D. Rockefeller, Jr. did in the 1930's on his family's huge landholdings in Pocantico Hills, New York.

Today the dairy barns and some 80 acres of their surroundings comprise the stellar non profit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a place made possible in 2004 through the largesse of David Rockefeller, to honor his wife, Peggy, who died in 1996. Peggy Rockefeller was a hands on farmer who created, and oversaw more than one Rockefeller family farm in New York's Hudson Valley. She also founded the American Farmland Trust. 

Stone Barns is firmly committed to sustainable farming, based on traditional and even artisanal methods, but all with a modern spin. And food education is a key part of the mix. ( We include Stone Barns in our list of food heritage sites--an example of farming that honors the past and yet seeks out the most reasonable high tech approaches available today.)

The day we visited, a cold rain on its way to becoming snow was driving against the folks enjoying lunch outside the tiny cafe--we joined them and tasted assorted winter root vegs including Jerusalem artichokes in a salad built on cooked wheat grains. This was after our tour of the impeccable greenhouse---lined with young green salad sprouts and a perfect tribute to the upcoming St. Patrick's Day. The young woman working there sported a "Farmy" tee shirt and said she had never been happier. A former employee of the parks department, she said she had always "wanted to grow food instead of flowers."

Stone Barns is working hard on its educational mandate--even in the supposedly elite counties just up river from Manhattan according to ed director Judy Fink, "wealthy and poor commingle." Younger student visitors learn not only what sustainable means and how to pluck greens, but also explore their way around a white tablecloth and cutlery. Apparently people of all ages touch base at Stone Barns. While we ate lunch a bevy of Italians, including a couple of chefs, arrived in the heavy snow, to take a spin through the place.

Alas, we didn't get a chance to eat at Blue Hill, the handsome high end restaurant at Stone Barns that features the finest of the food produced there, augmented by the finest of the food produced in the relatively immediate area--their reservation list involves a two months  wait. Chef Dan Barber and his crew have made their reputation by stressing the actual fresh raw materials they work with, rather than fanciful manipulation of sauces and spices. This review from the NYTimes attests to that approach.

As we drove away, I recalled a visit to another magnificent  farm originally created by old American money--1400 acre Shelburne Farms in Vermont, once a Vanderbilt holding, now an educational center and food heritage site whose mission is " to cultivate a conservation ethic." More on this later.

If you visit Stone Barns, do not bypass the shop--its buyers have rounded up superb farm/gardening/culinary items in one spot.