food museum blog

Super Super Bowl

See, it's a food thing--a bowl! And the game itself was the best I've seen in years, the most exciting underdog toenail gripping 4th quarter in memory. ( I was, with my Dad, a Giants fan as a kid....and it all came back last night.)

But on to food during the game--mine? Freshly popped corn, with olive oil and chile/herb powder, salt, and, to honor America, some melted butter....an organic "pink lady" apple, a glass of red wine, and thou, Eli Manning.

Post game, apparently the city of Boston is ante-ing up the following to the city of New York--a mayor to mayor thing.

Bloomberg gets:

--100 cups of New England Clam Chowder from Legal Sea Foods;
--42 pounds of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts in honor of Super Bowl XLII
--12 dozen Boston Cream Pies and 12 Dozen Parker House Rolls (in honor of Tom Brady’s #12) from Boston’s Omni Parker House Hotel
--100 Kayem Old Tyme franks and 100 al fresco sun-dried tomato chicken sausages, the best-selling dogs in New England
--20 Pizzas from Sal’s – one pizza for each selection on the menu
--5 Cases of Brigham’s Boston You’re My Home Ice Cream and 5 cases of Cherry on the Top Frozen Yogurt Bars from Elan.
--100 servings of Stonyfield Farm Organic Yogurt

Now who will actually take home these goodies and eat them, is not known, at least to me. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg will offer the spread to the candidates feverishly flitting in and out of his city in search of delegates.

(The list cribbed from The Bostonist at http://bostonist.com/2008/01/30/gutbusters_mayo.php.)

Not About Gluttony!

The marketing minds in the Dodgers' baseball organization have come up with a lovely new way to increase ticket sales in a lousy part of the stadium, while at the same time pushing up antacid use and obesity figures among Angelenos.  Buy a ticket for a seat out in right field, and get an all-you-can-eat opportunity that begins, according to a report on MSNBC," 90 minutes before the first pitch, and lasts before the start of the seventh inning"-- the available eats are dogs, popcorn, nachos, peanuts and sodas. No beer, ice cream or candy.

"Fans are allowed four items per trip to the food counters under the stands. Soda stations offer unlimited drinks and bottled water is free."

Dodgers' COO Marty Greenspun is delighted with the right field experiment, proclaiming it a hit with fans. ( Average walk up ticket price is $40, $20 if part of a group.  A hotdog usually costs $4.75, as do sodas. )

“This is really not about gluttony,” he said. “This is really about offering a new fan amenity. It’s all up to individual choices.”

( Dodger Dog thanks to http://la.foodblogging.com/2005/05/21/dodgers-fans-divided-over-dogs-drinks-at-stadium/)

"Edible Homage" to Gridiron Hero

These days star professional football players are honored with far more than hero sandwich
status, as this opener by William Kalec in yesterday's Washington Post attests:

"Mt. Fujita towers six to eight inches, depending on how tightly it's wrapped, and is easily scaled by those with an empty stomach or sophisticated palate.

At Rock-N-Sake, a sushi bar in New Orleans's warehouse district, the edible homage to Saints linebacker Scott Fujita consists of crawfish and tuna rolls coupled with avocado sauce and is stacked like a pyramid. For the fifth-year journeyman linebacker who was traded by Kansas City and let go by Dallas without much of a free agent fight, the namesake dish and local cult-hero status is an honor offered with this disclaimer: "I don't want to get all sappy or anything, but . . ." Fujita said."

For those not following the sports world, two major football games will be played tomorrow. The New Orleans team--beignets, shrimp etouffee, etc etc versus  the Chicago Bears--no ketchup hot dogs, deep dish p. pies...( I know! Chicago is a sophisticated dining town, I know, already..)

Then the New England Patriots--the cliche scrod, b.beans,   takes on the Indianapolis Colts--and for this town, I have utterly no clue.  Fried pork tenderloin sandwich?

I'm going with the Saints to come marching in victorious--great comeback team, memorable food and music.

Les Baguettes Win! France Advances to the World Cup Finals

From Lychee to Snickers in 4000 Years

Archaeologists surmise that the royals who lolled in the imperial garden in China's  Guangdong province 2000 years ago ate well.

According to the People's Daily OnLine, "Members of the royal family of the Southern Yue enjoyed the beautiful scenery in the garden while tasting delicious fruits such as lychee, Chinese black olive, melon, persimmon, date, grape and apple," Zhao ( Zhijun) said.  Zhao is a researcher with the Institute of Archaeology.

In unearthing the oldest imperial garden yet found in China, scientists came across more than 100,000 seeds, preserved for thousands of years in a well. ( Were they spat into it??)

China is the original home of numerous food plants that have traveled the world and its farming practices are as old as or older than anything in the Fertile Crescent or the Andes. As James Trager points out in his uniquely useful book, The FOOD Chronology, in 479 BC when Confucius died he left behind numerous songs that mentioned "at least 44 different food plants. (The Old Testament mentions only 29.)"

China news from the 21st century--Snickers will be the official chocolate of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

In Search of Olympian Foodish Things

The Torino 2006 website features an earnest declaration that the Olympic Village eateries will cater to any and all food allergies/special diets but if you want to dine outside the village try the agnolotti and chocolate-based desserts.

Other than that, precious little of edible news appears to be surfacing from the Winter Games.

Except this:

Hannah Teter, the American snowboarder, calls her family's home-produced "all natural" maple syrup, "the bomb."  The syrup comes from trees on their land in Belmont, Vermont.

Her male colleague on the board, 19 year-old Shaun White, a redhead, was dubbed the Flying Tomato by someone who watched him leap over luggage in an airport lobby.

And American ice skater Johnny Weir claims not to eat at all...

Foodie tried to glean food-related bits about other country's athletes but, alas, failed.  Googling "Norwegian cross country skiers" she brought up a piece on "the search for speed," that zeroed in on everything except food.

Finally she  glimpsed a brief NBC report on  truffle hunting in Italy. Nothing new there, sorry.

Put This in Your Super Bowl XL

Foodie reports (thanks to Sports Illustrated, Feb.6,2006):

The Pittsburgh Steelers' official song is performed by a band called, unpalatably,  Corned Beef & Curry.

Seattle Seahawks' fullback Matt Strong is pictured in SI holding a clammy cool fish at Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Seattle's "local delicacy" is sushi--according to SI, evidently a Japanese immigrant named Shiro Kashiba started the city's first sushi joint in 1967.

In Pittsburgh the locals favor Primanti's Sandwich: "a big hunk of grilled meat and chilly cole slaw and hot fried egg and fresh tomato and crisp French fries between two slabs of chewy Italian bread that you could hardly fit into your mouth.."    Why? Because when Primanti's Restaurant first opened as a hole-in-the-wall place during the Depression serving "lunch" to workers unloading fruits and vegeatbles at night the owners forgot to buy plates and utensils. Everything was piled onto the sandwich bread...

Sports Illustrated makes no mention whatsoever of what Detroit, the venue for SBXL, offers culinarily.

May the best fed team win.

Fast Food--Spuds Fuel Tour de France Cyclists

Along with carb-laden bars , fortified drinks, bite-sized French sandwiches with meat, cheese and butter, racers on the move in stages of the Tour munch on potatoes, sometimes baked, sometimes boiled.  This year the Tour began in an obscure peninsula in the Vendee region, Ile Noirmoutier,   known for its special "new" potatoes, the Bonnottes. Cultivation of this variety dates back to the 1920's and was always done by hand. In recent years production of La Bonnotte has been revitalized, especially as Bonnotte pairs beautifully with the local oysters. It is entirely possible, therefore, that yesterday's racers were mindlessly stuffing themselves with carbs from rarified potatoes prized by gourmandes.

Athletes who need 6000-7000 calories per day  eat cooked potatoes the way more sedentary types eat apples. At the feeding stages, team helpers hand long bags of supplies to their racers, trying to connect as cyclists flash by at 30-50  miles per hour. You can see the cyclists stashing supplies in their kangaroo pouches, tossing wrappers and bottles to the winds as they scarf or slurp something down. Fast food for the athletes, slow cleanup, for someone.

Banned in Baseball: Iced Cabbage

Boiling in the lead-up to the 4th?  Try iced cabbage leaves on your head---seems Babe Ruth used to apply same to his head, changing them every two innings.
So did South Korean pro ballpayer and pitcher Myung-hwan Park until his league banned the practice.
Evidently the pitcher has quite a follow-through--his hat flew off twice in a recent game, sending the  cabbage leaves flying.  Korean Baseball Organization officials  felt the cabbage practice " can interrupt games," hence the ruling against the vegetative cooling device.  The Seattle Times, June 23, reported the KBO considered cabbage leaves to be a "foreign substance." 

Cabbage is the centerpiece of Korea's ubiquitous  kimchi, people. Foreign?!  Sheesh.

The National Noshtime--Ballpark Eats

Play ball! Baseball games these days are entertainment and eating events, as thousands of fans glimpse bits of the game from long lines as they  wait for their food, sipping on local wines or micro-brews.
Cannolis at Shea, fudge at Coors Field, boiled peanuts in Hot-Lanta, gyros at Pittsburgh's PNC Park, fish tacos at PETCO Park San Diego, pierogies in Cleveland, and, according to PETA's latest survey, for vegetarian baseball fans, the Bay Area is the best. ( PETA is the animal rights' organization based in Norfolk, VA. ) The Giants at SBC Park offer veggie dogs and burgers, edame, veg sushi, even portobelllo mushroom burgers. Over in Oakland, the A's do the veggie usual, plus baked potatoes and a "savory bean pie." ( Sounds terribly Brit, the last one.)

Of course hot dogs, whether meaty or veg, still rule at ballparks across the country, though when in Chicago, remember never to let ketchup near your dog. Evidently it's a cultural affront to the locals.