food museum blog

Remembering Sugar Workers

Remember that sugar plant explosion two weeks ago in Georgia? I kept hearing the story but never encountered a discussion as to why sugar is such an explosive material. Today I found that Slate.com had provided this lengthy explanation.

Earlier this morning a report on NPR quoted a local florist working on a wreath for a memorial service--nine people were killed in the accident. Here's what she said about the people who made Dixie Crystals possible:

"When I use that sugar, I've always thought of these guys, and now, of course when I use my sweet sugar, these guys that help put it in that bag are gone," Brown says. "And the whole plant's gone and the whole community just suffers, so I think it kind of does bring it home."

Dixie Crystals brand, today owned by Imperial Sugar, began in 1917.  The new business venture was then known as the Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation. According to Imperial's website history, " Nearly 400 people, white and black, moved from Louisiana to Savannah to help build and run the plant."

We try to remember with gratitude every day the people who bring us our food, of all variety. Those who fish commercially, farmers and farm laborers, scientists, truckers, supermarket workers, agronomists, chefs, servers, botanists, soil experts, and on and on.

Tiptoeing Into The Cuban Thing

Recently we wandered into a storefront Cuban eatery on 49th street North in St Pete to explore its black beans and rice, Cuban coffee and so on.

The waitress, NOT Cuban, as she told us, rolling her eyes, said all the beans contained meat, but you could try the white rice and tostones???  Hmmm. All veggie Son of Foodie wanted beans and rice...well, he ordered a cafe con leche and salty, dry as pressed wood, plantain cakes, while I leapt on the fish sandwich, having been told by the same waitress that the owner/cook caught his own, and at only $7.95 each.  Tatsy fish, lightly seasoned, was cooked just right, albeit smashed in the Cuban sandwich manner between two large slices of bread.

As I removed the bread casing, I found zero sauce, oil, nada, between fish and bread. And no garni of any kind on the plate. So the fish really rather resembled aquatic roadkill. When I got to talking with Cuban-born Nelson Guerra of The Cuban Delight Cafe, he said that the stark presentation was "the way we always do it," and then elaborated on the differences between Tampa Cuban bread--authentic!--and Miami Cuban bread--Not!  Apparently the earliest immigrants brought their traditional breadmaking ways to Ybor City, the cigar-making section of Tampa I have blogged about before and Fidel crushed this bread style once he took power in Cuba. Huh? Really? Did it represent freedom and rebellion?  ( Will research further. Miami Cuban bread is loaded with lard, apparently.)

Anyway, when I asked about the grouper, and was it REALLY grouper ??, Nelson said that he had been among the whistle-blowers on the Chinese catfish-sold-as-Florida grouper story of recent months. "So this fish I ate today was real grouper you caught? " "Not exactly," said he.  While he has negotiated with a distributor to buy only verifiable grouper, that fish family is large and widespread and, in fact, the fish I had just eaten was South American.

So what about the whole sustainable fish thing? Nelson shrugged: "My customers want and expect grouper." But neither they nor I check piscatory passports, most likely.

(The non-Cuban waitress not only tried to sell us the false fresh-caught by Nelson fish story, she also misinformed us about the beans--the black ones, as we figured,  never have meat.)

( Photo by Bob Croslin of roast pork plate appeared in the St Pete Times review of this cafe, probably before Nelson took over...http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/05/Weekend/Home_cooking__Cuban_s.shtml)

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.

The New New Thing in Birds--Plus--Tasty Lunch in Indian Country

Apparently I missed noting that heirloom chicken is de rigeur for the trendy and food aware these days. Catching up on my New Yorker reading, in an article about the director of the Metropolitan Opera I noticed that a special dinner thrown for the Met featured "heirloom chicken. " This immediately conjured up images of antiquarian birds with feathery toes and festooned "ears," as painted by a lesser English artist of the 18th century.

I am at ease with heirloom tomatoes and heirloom beans and whatnot, of course. But with chickens, the average mortal is still trying to consistently find " natural "birds, let alone organic hens.  The foodily correct societal goal of tracking down ancient and venerable strains of hen for the pot or the roasting pan seems wearying.

Regular readers here know that I rarely eat birds, having started on the veggie-fishy route 30 years ago after befriending a hen named Harold. But for those of you who do, I hope you have a culinary road map as to the whereabouts of these rare birds.  ( NY Metro folks can go to Heritage Foods--it has at least one, an English breed, and also sells heritage turkeys.)

Meanwhile, and speaking of heirloom, if you are ever at Acoma Pueblo, one of the most unusual of all the pueblos of New Mexico, take the tour and then plan for an informal, inexpensive lunch  at the Yaak'a Cafe in the visitor center. On a recent visit we savored traditional lamb stew, green chile and pork stew, and pinto beans with chicos ( dried corn,) with a side of red chile. Plus Indian bread. Three of us split the enormous pinon nut-topped brownie, too.

( Thanks to http://www.heritagefoodsusa.com/what_we_sell/index.html for the portrait of the Dark Cornish hen.)

9th Century Viking Tum Contents

Archaeologists in Oslo are reopening a Viking burial mound to take another look  at remains first interred in the year 834 in what is now southeastern Norway. ( The bodies of two women were found at the same time as the famous Oseberg Viking longboat was discovered--- it was moved to Oslo. The remains were placed in an aluminum casket in 1948 and reburied in the mound.)

Scientists are keen to determine whether one woman is Viking Queen Aasa and the other either her daughter or a slave. Yesterday when I read this AP article on Yahoo it mentioned that one way to pinpoint royal from commoner was to examine the contents of their stomachs--if meat were found, it would clearly indicate that the eater had been of the elite. If fish were found, it was likely that the person chomping down that last herring (?) was a member of the proletariat.

Curiously, no trace of this information appears today in any republishing of the AP piece I can find on the subject. I neglected to bookmark it and the original food-relevant article has vanished.

Conspiracy theorists, do your duty!

ADDENDUM  September 13---Thanks to alert commenter, Kathy F, we have the missing food info from a Reuters article.  Here it is:

"In addition to the DNA study, new chemical analysis of bones can tell what people ate. In Viking times meat, such as elk, was prized, while poorer people ate fish.

“If they were mother and daughter they would probably have had the same food. If one woman was a maid they would have had different diets,”  ( Egil) Mikkelsen, ( director of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History) said."

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)

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...

Museum for a Melon

The watermelon, long associated in the American mind with southern summer seed spitting contests, sweltering hot days, and ants paddling in rivers of pink juice on the creaky old picnic table, is native to Africa.  It was part of the Egyptian scene by 2000 BC and may well have grown wild throughout much of the continent, including the Kalahari desert.

It is only fitting, then, that there's a Watermelon Museum in China.

( Like that segue?)

China, as we are all painfully becoming aware, grows more of everything than any other country on earth, including watermelon. ( Turkey is a very distant second in watermelon production.)  A  small area in DaXing province has held a watermelon festival yearly since 1987, and the province grows 1/3 of all the world's watermelon, apparently. The museum in Panggezhuang Village  opened in 2004 and features over 170 different watermelon varieties, watermelon art, info on growing and harvesting, plus "the world's largest watermelon," whether in waxwork effigy or oozing on a pedestal we do not know.

The Japanese have been growing square watermelon in glass frames for decades now, and yellow watermelons, seedless watermelons and mini perfectly round watermelons are becoming commonplace. And for more on all this see the website of the National Watermelon Promotion Board.

For The FOOD Museum's exhibit on watermelon click here.

ps  True to its name, the w.melon is 92 % water,  but it also is vitamin rich and packs lycopene, an ingredient that supposedly has many health-giving qualities...

Chickens Came First, And Earlier

100 years before the Spanish began their invasion/exploration of the Americas, chickens made it to Chile from Polynesia. While chickens have been known to cross the road, few of them, if any, swim. So they must have been brought to the wide open free-range Americas by people in boats.

According to a report from Live Science.com, " the chicken bones were discovered at an archaeological site called El Arenal, on the south coast of Chile, alongside other materials belonging to the indigenous population. 

“We had the chicken bone directly dated by radio carbon. The calibrated date was clearly prior to 1492,” ( Lisa) Matisoo-Smith  (of the University of Auckland, NZ, ) told LiveScience, noting that it could have ranged anywhere from 1304 to 1424. “This also fits with the other dates obtained from the site (on other materials), and it fits with the cultural period of the site.”

The American-native sweet potato, long a staple in Polynesia and Melanesia,was most likely picked up by these early island travelers and carried back home. The chickens stayed behind to delight the locals who began preparing Chilean Chicken, a dish that introduced American-born chiles and tomatoes to the Polynesian fowl.

Above: University of Auckland Anthropologist Dr. Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith  and friends

( Thanks to JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post for photo at http://www.stuff.co.nz/bayofplenty/4085731a11.html)

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)