food museum blog

Musings on Mullet

Today, children, we turn our attention to the magnificent leaping mullet, the mostly-vegetarian fish with a gizzard ( tastes like flying chicken?) and the focus both of a kiddie book, The Wise Mullet of Cook Bayou, and an October event in Florida's northwest panhandle with the enticing name Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival.

The book was written by journalist and native Floridian Timothy Weeks. It tells the strong simple  story of three mullet in a Florida bayou who choose different life paths, with the "wise" one making out the best. Weeks says his book is based on a story by the Persian Sufi mystic Rumi, a philospher and poet who inspired the "whirling dervishes," those for whom dance was a pathway to the Divine.  Many old hand Floridians say the mullet "leaps for joy," as often as it leaps to avoid danger, so the Rumi connection is fitting.

Weeks' children's book project became a family affair. His mother, Jeanne, did the illustrations. His sister, Kimberly Bryant did the editing, and his Dad, David inspired his early interest in mullet. Crazy as it may sound, this shiny, tidy book laid out with a combo of hand drawings and computer graphics, smells terrific, sort of a petroleum and printing press melange. The odor does not from the two recipes by Jeanne at the back  for Golden Brown Mullet and Cheese Grits, staple foods of the denizens of Cook Bayou.  ( Contact Weeks directly for the book-- educators can obtain a teaching packet as well. )

Once we saw the mighty leap of one of these fish in Florida, we decided perhaps we harbored a mullet-within, and became loathe to eat them. Before the infamous net ban of 1995, mullet was the least expensive fish in local Florida markets. Today it's harder to find, though the smoked mullet at South Pasadena's( St. Petersburg) Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish is a favorite.

For more things mullet, visit the B.B. Mullet Festival in Niceville, named Boggy Bayou until the citizenry wanted a more Up Town name. You and 100,000 other visitors will eat 10 tons of mullet ( we know, mullet doesn't sound scarce) during three days, October 20, 21 and 22.

(For exhaustive info on fishing mullet in the UK, click here. Seems they will bite at flakes of white bread..)

As for the fabled "do," known as The Mullet, no mullet possibly could leap to the notion that its arrangement of fins (?) ( see the mullet pic up top) would spawn an entire culture. Wikipedia says the mullet --short everywhere, but long in the back, was sported by fishermen in the 19th c to keep the backs of their heads warm.

"Gastronomie! Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France." Buy This Book!

      Yes, fellow foodies, our glorious book ( says Foodie modestly,)  is now in stock and raring to be bought by you and yours. 

Christmas is coming, so snap up this one for your foodie friends and family members hunkered down in armchairs, waiting for fuel prices to drop. Or buy the book for active foodie travelers bored with all the usual sites. Gastronomie! is the first extensive exploration ever of French food historic sites.

No one else delivers you this kind of book, food-lovers, packed with colorful photos from our trek and from The FOOD Museum's collections. We traveled over 10,000 kilometers around France ( someone had to do it) to bring you the backstory of French food.

France, the mother country of Western cuisine, is the home of more museums about food, and more initiatives to preserve food heritage traditions and sites, than any other.

Explore the Saffron Museum in Boynes, the world food museum at Agropolis in Montpellier, the ruins of a huge Roman mill outside Arles, the Olive Museum in Nyons, the fig orchards of Sollies-Pont, the oyster beds of Ile d'Oleron, the turkey parade and festival in Licques, the village ovens of Bugey, the Chocolate Museum in Biarritz, the Newfoundland Fishing Museum in Fecamp, the Honey Museum in Gramont, the melon statue in Cavaillon, the truffle market in Lalbenque, and more.

And sample a few choice recipes, as well.

Buy it! ( Only 19.95.)  In stores, via Amazon, or on-line.  ( By Meredith Sayles Hughes and Tom Hughes, Bunker Hill Publishing.)

What I Did on My Summer Vacation--Food History in Oaxaca

Regular Blog commenter and writer Cynthia is just back from a Foodie dream vacation in Oaxaca, Mexico. Not her first visit,  this time she decided to delve deeper into the food history of the region.

" I signed up for a couple of courses with Susan Trilling at Seasons of My Heart.   Susana's classes were particularly well-suited to my interests--not only did she work overtime  exposing us to every possible traditional Oaxacan food, she also lectured on food origins, arranged for us to have a local scholar show us through the Ethnobotanical Gardens and lecture on the history of food domestification, cultivation, and processing in Oaxaca ( where the first maize may have been bred)
and she took us to a Zapotec village in the mountains, where the women taught us how to use pre-Hispanic cooking tools and techniques to prepare an almost entirely pre-Hispanic meal.

We also had heaps of fun in the classroom/kitchen at Susana's Racho Aurora, where we prepared a wide range of traditional Oaxacan specialties on both traditional and modern equipment. It was simply splendid--and just the sort of thing I thought might interest others interested in food history."

Menu English: "We serve Pork with fresh garbage!"

Foodie pal Marc recently sent us a book called Here Speeching American--A Very Strange Guide to English as It is Garbled Around the World, by Kathryn Petras and Ross Petras, Villard Books, NY.  The authors are quick to note that, yes, they do not speak Hindu well either, and that American travelers butcher the world's languages regularly.

Having said all that, they offer some funny tidbits,  such as  these menu examples translated into English by the locals:

                                 

Shrimps in Spit   

Bacon and Germs

Chicken Mouse in Tartlet

Appendix Salad ( Pork)

Toes with Butter and Jam

Children Sandwiches

Pork Condom Bleu

Deep Fried Peking Dumpings

Lobster Thermos

Horse-Rubbish Sauce

Boiled Tasteless Jam Pork Soup

Bon appetit!

 

Feeding Firenze

This food tour of Florence really got my mouth watering. Besides claiming the Florentines invented ice cream it brings up the touchy subject of how Italians really taught the French to cook. It's by Jay Rayner in the Observer Food Monthly, one of our favorites.