food museum blog

Are We Big Mouth?

  "We don't manufacture anything in this country anymore but appetite," roared comedian and radio talk show host Marc Maron recently. " America is the world's MOUTH!"  Of course he was referring to more than just food.

Recipe Theft, Deceiving Your Kids, And All That

You may have heard about Jerry Seinfeld's defense of his wife against charges of what he dubbed "vegetable plagiarism." Apparently Jessica Seinfeld's book, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, (Harper Collins,) came out about 6 months after Missy Chase Lapine's book on the same topic, The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals  ( Running Press.)  Ms Lapine evidently thinks it's possible that Ms Seinfeld took her ideas and reworked them for her book. Ms Seinfeld says she has never seen the book.

The ideas? Stuffing mushed up veggies in other foods--inside a burger?--in truth, I have read neither book--to get kids to eat them.   According to an AP story, on The David Letterman Show recently Jerry Seinfeld put it this way:

"I love the term 'plagiarism' for this little event," he said. "Because it used to be you had to really take a theme from a major novel, some sort of literary narrative. Now, you're in your kitchen making brownies, you sneak a little spinach in there, your name's dragged through the mud."

Funny! ( Humor defuses many things,  even  possible lawsuits (?), so Jessica is lucky to Jerry on her side.)

A few things here irk /interest me---

1---This "sneaky" and "deceptive" route regarding kids and good food raises many red flags with me, not least the sneaky bit.  What, are you afraid of your kids?  Invite your kids to eat a bit of everything, or at least to try a taste, from the moment the kiddo can do solid foods. Make the food delicious and colorful and unseasoned at first. ( And if she/he won't eat more than a whisper of a veg, do not panic--I recall several little kids who ate only white foods for months, or ate almost nothing, or ate only hotdogs, and they all survived and today are adults who cook  and eat extremely well.)

2--The titles....the  first  is awkward and badly written. The second is waaay too long.

3--The cookbook recipe thing--I have often wondered about this, even as I contributed a couple of "my" recipes to a series of books I wrote about food plants.  I mean, who knows where one gets these things?  A while back I was sauteeing shrimp in some red chile, scallions,  olive oil and garlic and I wanted to make a nifty sauce--so I removed the cooked shrimp, randomly grabbed some tequila, swirled it around in the pan and added a bit of half and half, and had a terrific "new" dish, served with quinoa and baby brocc. Did I really invent something new?  Had no other chef before me put together that combo? I have no clue, but remember, YOU READ IT HERE FIRST, dammit. 

Weigh in, people.

Bad Food Jokes

Q: What's the name of the eatery that opened next door to the atom smasher?

A: Fission Chips

Bad Food Jokes

What's the conversation when Boutrous-Boutrous Galli meets Yo-Yo Ma for lunch?

How's the mahi-mahi?   So-so.