Eclectic reporting/opinions on all things food--- exploring news; food history; growing; marketing, cooking and eating; book reviews; film and culture; food safety, school lunch reform, GMO foods; diet/nutrition and wacky food fun.
Archaeologists in Rome--both women, one French---have discovered a rotating dining room in Emperor Nero's Golden Palace. Written up in reports 60 years after Nero dispatched himself, and long sought, apparently the room actually exists. According to this report from the Telegraph,
"The leader of the four month dig, Françoise Villedieu, said her team
discovered part of a circular room which was supported by a pillar with a
diameter of more than 13 feet...The hall is said to have had a revolving wooden floor which allowed guests to
survey a ceiling painted with stars and equipped with panels from which
flower petals and perfume would shower onto the tables below."
After a two week utterly informal comparison test, I have decisively concluded that organic bananas do indeed taste better than the usual, much better. 29 cents each vs 19 cents at Trader Joe's. I focused in on the organic bananas because their texture was firm, their flavor not icky and cloying, and one had the sense that these were fruits that had not traveled thousands of miles in refrigerated ships and trucks, though of course, they must have.
It's well known that commercially grown bananas experience their share of herbicides and pesticides, as do the people who work with them in the fields and pack them in the sheds. That alone makes the move to organic--only a dime more per banana!--the appropriate choice.
Clever entrepreneurial farmer Gao Xianzhang in Hexia, northern China, is making a bundle selling 10,000 pears molded into baby form--selling them for 5 pounds UK each, according to this report in the Daily Mail. ( Take a look at the mold at the link above.)
Michelle Obama just hosted the 18 wives of the economic summit G20 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh----the 2 male spouses were not on hand-- at the working farm of Teresa Heinz, head of the Heinz Endowments, and the wife of Senator John Kerry. The visitors have apparently enjoyed a meal the details of which have been kept under wraps, or perhaps, en papillotte.
Here's the food story according to Sandra McElwaine in The Daily Beast: "The meal, catered by super chef Bob Sendall of All in Good Taste, who
is known for foolproof soufflés and jumbo lump crab cakes, is top
secret. No one will spill the beans—literally—except some of Heinz’s
fresh organic veggies or free-range chicken might make it to the table.
Or maybe Michelle will opt for Sendall’s most sought-after item: Toffee
Taboo—thin sheets of Belgian dark chocolate with toffee cashews and
almonds, a salty sweet dessert he has been concocting for years.
(Before the summit even started, one unidentified dignitary requested
pancakes from Pamela’s Diner. During a campaign stop in 2008, the
president made a pit stop at Pamela’s and called the pancakes
“outstanding.” Because of the massive security, the restaurant hasn’t a
clue about how it will manage to get the pancakes to the customer, but
they’ll be ready for delivery, as requested, on Friday morning.)"
So this heart-shaped (hot) potato walks into a bar...No, wait, it's David Letterman, a potato, and Barack Obama. And, for those not in the know, about 27 years ago, the founder of The Potato Museum, the mother tater to The FOOD Museum On-Line, appeared on one of Letterman's first shows, talking tubers, showing spudifacts, and causing Dave to ask, "Why not celery?"
Clearly, Obama gets it.
Ps The owner of the dessicated, heart-shaped potato in play on Letterman was Mary Apple. Just saying, cuz you know the spud is a pomme de terre in French and aardappel in Dutch, so... Earth apple, that is.
From Michelle Obama, at the opening of the Freshfarm Farmers' Market near the White House--
"You know, when we decided to plant the White House garden, we
thought it would be a great way to educate kids about eating more
healthy. Right, kids? Vegetables? (Applause.) Yay for vegetables! But
as it turned out, the garden has turned into so much more than we could
have ever expected, and it's a really fun thing to do as well. This has
been one of the greatest things that I've done in my life so far. "
"And it's important to know that when I travel around the world, no
matter where I've gone so far, the first thing world leaders, prime
ministers, kings, queens ask me about is the White House garden.
(Applause.) And then they ask about Bo. (Laughter.) Everybody, it's the
garden and Bo, or Bo and the garden, one or the other."
She went on:
"(The WH garden) has truly inspired me and the White House staff to look for
opportunities to put the topic of healthy eating right on the table and
at the forefront of health care discussions."
Healthy food! Health! No way. And then, the First Lady went on to mention growers markets, and thank all those who farm.
"Farmers' markets are a simple but major ingredient in solving access
issues in many communities. And for those who think that fresh fruits
and vegetables are out of their reach financially, as the Secretary
mentioned, and I want to reinforce the fact that this market and other
farmers' markets around the city participate in the WIC program, the
SNAP program, the Double Dollar program, and the Seniors benefits
program. And each SNAP and WIC dollar equals two dollars at a farmers'
market to purchase fresh produce."
Listen, people, en garde. Should you encounter a tall, mischievous-looking woman of Teutonic appearance in a hotel corridor, lurking near the maid's cart, just walk right on by. She's lifting plastic shower caps to use as bowl covers and means no real harm.
When she visits the U.S., bowl covers are high on her shopping list and she ferrets them out, somehow, somewhere. I remember bowl covers--they were big throughout my childhood, and maybe yours. Elasticized things in several sizes, that one's mother used to seal leftover mashies from drying out in the fridge. Everyone had them, and no one thought bowl covers would ever become as scarce as hen's teeth, to quote an elderly friend of mine, but they did. Instead, we progressed on to embrace plastic wrap, until learning it was killing us with chemicals.
A few years ago I was stunned to see bowl covers hanging on an odd dispenser in the soup section of a major supermarket chain and I pounced on them, buying up several sets, and passing them on to friends. Today, looking into my wax paper and tin foil drawer, no bowl covers, not a one.
I remembered that in the early 1980's my sainted mother bought a few archaic things at the Vermont Country Store, like wood handled butter spreaders, and, YES, bowl covers.
They still have them, described as "Reusable 1950's Vinyl Bowl Covers." Did the copywriter intend to suggest that cartons of actual 1950's bowl covers survived in an underground bomb shelter somewhere only to be discovered and handed off to the VCS for sale? Or not?
Of course, duh, Google knows its bowl covers--the copy with this polka dotted offering from Kitchenworks in fact, says, "They look just like shower caps!"
Eavesdropping on an informal gaggle of what appeared to be Trader Joe's' top bananas chatting hard against the coffee wall, I heard that they had just come from a meeting with "corporate." ( A second Albuquerque TJ's is opening any minute.)
So I stepped up and said, "Excuse me, but what about Florida?"
A big guy in a Hawaiian shirt replied--"Funny you should ask. FL was top of the list, but now it's a no go. That state has the most foreclosures, the first decline in population in decades, and high unemployment."
"But wouldn't that make space less expensive? And more people looking for the well-priced? offerings TJ specializes in? "
"That's what I thought," he said. "But corporate doesn't think it's a good bet."
(Damn.)
Meanwhile, the WaPost reports that supermarkets in the DC Metro area are cutting prices, or rather as the writers hyperbolically put it more than once, prices are "plunging." On things like Folger's coffee and detergent. Stores who had upgraded with sushi and exotic cheeses to entice higher end consumers now are cutting the heck out of t. paper prices.
I, for one, am more likely to eschew sushi than t. paper in these troubled economic times.
Reading Randy Cohen's piece in the NYT this morning, in which he asks why people don't make more tv shows or films about "heroes" who do astonishing work without any need for guns, led me back to Norman Borlaug. He died recently, age 95.
Borlaug was a plant pathologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work in developing and spreading around the world high yielding wheat varieties resistant to disease. In 1986 he established the World Food Prize to honor those who had worked to lessen global hunger. He was close friends with one of our gurus, John Niederhauser, the legendary potato breeder who was a World Food Prize Laureate in 1990.
You can read about Borlaug in many places. Here at Wiki, and his NYT obituary here.
Early on, hungry people made an impression on Borlaug. In 1935, still a student,he was a leader in "the Civilian Conservation Corps, working with the unemployed on U.S. federal
projects. Many of the people who worked for him were starving. He later
recalled, "I saw how food changed them ... All of this left scars on
me".
We had chatted with the engaging Dr. Borlaug on a few occasions, and recognized his and Niederhauser's shared global views, deep intelligence, diligence and high energy. These were not narrowly focused office guys, diddling around 8 hours a day. They never stopped working.
Borlaug was attacked in later years by those who felt his approaches had led to ecological degradation and an over reliance on chemicals. In a NYTimes interview with John Tierney, he said, "...some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels.
If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world,
as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and
fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable
elitists back home were trying to deny them these things".
He worked to lessen the use of pesticides, in the end, but continued to lament that governments were not doing more to address the world's burgeoning populations.
We expect to have ample food to eat, every day, but we pay little attention to those whose toil provides it. Food production is not sexy, so don't expect a mini series on it any time soon.
In today's NYTimes, Michael Pollan writes that no discussion of health care reform, costs, and so on should overlook "...a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet."
Bravo!
It's obvious, it has been said and written before, but there it lies, maybe less like an elephant and more like what an elephant leaves behind after digesting a good meal.
When Foodie Spouse and I applied for a slightly different health insurance policy several years back, we were asked if we smoked--no, never--and if we "used alcohol." Nothing was asked about our diet, nor about our level of physical activity. I asked the asker why her company was not interested in knowing any of that.
Silence.
You can get better auto insurance rates if you show evidence of being a safe, skilled driver. My health care provider apparently could care less that we might be a better risk for them than an inert couple hooked on fast food and soft drinks.
But, as Pollan points out, once the pre-existing condition loophole is removed with the passage of a proposed health care bill, "... health insurance companies will
promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of
obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet."
According to Pollan, currently it costs the country $147 billion to handle obesity in the United States.
Yesterday evening, out walking with the terrier, I watched young parents leaving the neighborhood soccer fields with their kids after practice. A pretty, seriously overweight blond mother looking well shy of 30, and her hefty 6 year-old daughter climbed up into their Jeep, the mom with some effort.
Sean's in Athlone apparently has daub walls that go back to 900 AD, while Grace Niell's in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland, got its first license back in 1611.
I can imagine that there were folks quaffing hootch in 900 AD, but I doubt there was any licensing involved whatsoever. Still, both are handsome spots, and one imagines a Guinness would go down well in either.
A young U.S. Marine died recently in Afghanistan. You may have read about him, in this AP story. His name was "Bernie" Bernard, and he was from Maine.
You might have missed that he died in a pomegranate grove. The Taliban, so we are told, were deeply hidden there, among trees whose fruit is symbolic of fertility to Hindus, but, more aptly, a prized specialty of the Gardens of Paradise in the Islamic tradition. The prophet Muhammad was said to be a fan.
A native of Asia--some say India, some Iran--the pomegranate is a key ingredient in the Persian dish, fesenjan, a rich sauce also containing walnuts and oranges, that is often served with chicken.
We well recall the destruction of numerous ancient date palm groves in Iraq, during the current and previous war. A recent film, The Lemon Tree, tells the tale of how a citrus grove literally comes between a Palestinian and an Israeli woman.
I have been nurturing a foot high pomegranate plant, started by a friend of mine. It's doing well, in the semi-tropics of Florida, though it is a plant that thrives in arid conditions.
Alas, the 21 year-old from Maine, with little experience of the wider world, is not thriving as his parents expected he would. He was blown apart among trees whose flowers delight and whose fruits sustain health and bring pleasure.
( Thanks to http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/organic_pomegra.php for photo above.)
Riveted though I was this morning on the news in Gail Collins' column (via Levi Johnston) that Sarah Palin does not know how to shoot,--shoot!--I was delighted to segue into a small piece in the NYT that allows as how people over 60 who drink in moderation are not only pleasant to be around, but are also staving off dementia. I don't know if these same happy drinkers are wolfing down handfuls of blueberries, too, along with modest amounts of dark chocolate, but, uh, I am.
The moderation bit is the tough part, sometimes, in any endeavor involving tasty food and drink. But-- we ( codgers) are learning to revel more in the pleasures of same, and less in the amounts consumed.
Last month during his trip to Mexico, President Obama toured the Cabanas Cultural Institute in Guadalajara. It's a former orphanage, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and contains murals by Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco.
And, apparently, exhibits on traditional foodways. In this photo Obama gently touches what appears to be the mash created from crushed hearts of agave, one step on the road to fermentation and distillation of the fabled tequila alcohol.
The alambiques necessary for distillation, incidentally, came from Spain, a contribution from the Arabs who introduced the process there in the late 700's.
