November 3, 2017
Days Until
Thanksgiving (Nov. 23): 21 Christmas: 57 New Year's Eve: 64.
Roots Of Our Food Culture
Today in 1762, Spain acquired Louisiana from France. The Spanish had a long enough run to leave behind a distinct stamp on New Orleans culture. The architecture of the French Quarter, is really more Spanish than French. The Cabildo was a Spanish institution. Bayona, Susan Spicer's restaurant, is named for the Spanish name for Dauphine Street. Spanish cooking influenced Creole food, making it quite a bit different from French food, even though the French names survived. Jambalaya, for example, is a form of paella.
Today's Flavors
It has been posited by someone who clearly knows nothing about figs that this is National Fig Week. More logical is National Pepper Month, which could come at any time. My taste for black pepper seems to keep growing, such that there's almost no such thing as too much of it. The main problem with most chefs' versions of barbecue shrimp? Not enough black pepper by half.
All that said, the main observance on this date is National Chili Day. That's because this is the time of year for the Annual Terlingua Chili Championship Cookoff in Terlingua, just outside Big Bend National Park in West Texas. The most famous of all chili cookoffs, it was founded in 1966 by Frank X. Tolbert and Wick Fowler. Terlingua in those days was truly a ghost town, a former mercury mining village in the most hostile imaginable desert environment. Now it's a resort, with more people living there than it did in its mining years. The forty-third running of the cookoff begins this Saturday, with every participant claiming that only his version is real Texas chili.
Chili con carne is almost impossible to find in a New Orleans restaurant anymore. I'm talking about a bowl of ground or shredded or cubed beef or maybe other meats, stewed down with spices (notably cumin, chile powder, and cayenne). And, of course, chile peppers, onions, garlic, and other savory vegetables. Some people call the police at the mere mention of adding beans--usually red beans--to the pot. But lots of people do that, and it's not bad.
Chili con carne is unarguably a Texas dish, going back at least to the 1850s. Even then it had a reputation as a low-down food. Which probably explains why those who make in for the many chili competitions in Texas and elsewhere build their chili-cooking routines into dogmas of almost religious ferocity.
Cooking Calendar
Today is National Men Make Dinner Day. There is an organization behind this movement, and it even has a website. Okay, we of the male persuasion accept the charge, and will get right on it. We cook real food anyway. Doesn't say anything on the website that it has to be low-anything, or include lots of vegetables and a nice salad. Also, I don't see any reference to this day as Men Clean Up The Kitchen Day. So. Here are some thick sirloin strips and some bog potatoes ready to be baked. And away we go.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
The critical element of a well-made chili is a layer of clear, orange grease (there is no other word for it) floating atop the unstirred pot.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Little Neck is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens, and so is officially part of New York City. It doesn't look like it, through. The houses and street layout are more like those modern American suburbs than the Big City. Little Neck is named for Little Neck Bay, an inlet from Long Island Sound, just north. Here is where the clams that once were the best in the world were harvested. Pollution brought an end to most of the clam beds a hundred years ago, but some of them have recovered in recent times. Littleneck clams are still found in restaurants, but very likely come from other places along the Atlantic coast. The best restaurants in Little Neck are Italian: Il Toscano and Giardino. Both have great clams.
Edible Dictionary
frozen custard, n.--The original soft-serve ice cream, made by enriching a standard ice cream mix with eggs. This not only gives the resulting product a more opulent flavor, but softens it a bit. Frozen custard also differs from regular ice cream in not being frozen as hard as ice cream--which gets chilled down to as low as 40 degrees below zero F. The higher temperature at which frozen custard is served ass further to its rich taste and mouthfeel. Frozen custard has become a rarity, as most soft-serve ice cream has gone over to vegetable-oil blends or frozen yogurt. If you find it anywhere, don't miss it.
Deft Dining Rule #218:
Never order a bowl of chili con carne from a restaurant that doesn't have crackers in a basket on the table.
Eating Around The World
This is Independence Day in Panama, celebrating the breakaway of that country from Colombia. The split was largely the doing of the United States and Theodore Roosevelt, who wanted to have a cooperative government in place so the Panama Canal could be built and controlled by the U.S. The food of Panama is much like that of Colombia, whose food has more in common with the cooking of Central America and the Caribbean than with the rest of South America. Seafood is big, but so is beef. The ceviche served in Panama is unusual in being very peppery, and usually served with a side order of popcorn. (I'm not kidding.) Here's a web site with a recipe for Panama-style ceviche.
Annals Of Food Marketing
Frozen bread was marketed for the first time today in 1952. A baker in Chester, New York had the idea, inspired by Clarence Birdseye (the inventor of quick-frozen food). It works so well that you have eaten a great deal of frozen bread without knowing it. That baked-in-house bread you see in most supermarkets starts as frozen dough. If you freeze a loaf of New Orleans French bread, you can make it seem as if it had just been baked by rubbing the outside with wet hands, then running it through the oven at 350 degrees until it gets crusty. And let's not even bring up how much better brown 'n' serve rolls are than they have any right to be.
Food Namesakes
We begin with the most famous food namesake of them all: John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. He was born in England today in 1718. After attending Eton and Cambridge, he served in the House of Lords and in the highest ranks of government. His life was full of travel and adventure. But he is best remembered as the person for whom the sandwich is named. Meat served between slices of bread (hardly a new idea) began to be referred to as a "sandwich" as early as the 1760s. The usual story is that he was so engaged at the gambling tables that he asked for something he could eat without leaving the game. But Montagu was a workaholic, not a playboy, and it's more plausible that what he didn't want interrupted by a full meal were his duties. The Sandwich Islands were also named for Montagu. They're now called the Hawaiian Islands. Ken Berry, an actor who appeared on quite a few television shows (notably F Troop and Mama's Family) was born today in 1930. . . Karel Salmon, a composer whose best known works are songs based on Greek themes and Jewish hymns, was born today in 1897. . . Writer John Esten Cooke, a novelist who wrote mostly about the Confederate South in a very formal style (The Wearing of the Gray was his best known), was born today in 1830. . . Italian Composer Vincenzo Bellini was born today in 1801. The cocktail of the same name is, however, named for artist Giovanni Bellini. . . Wilfred Trotter, a British physician who was an early neurosurgeon, was born today in 1872. (A "trotter" is what Brits call a pig's foot.)
Words To Eat By
"Chili represents your three stages of matter: solid, liquid, and eventually gas."--Dan Conner, a character on the Roseanne show. Coincidentally, this is Roseanne's birthday, in 1952.
Words To Drink By
"Tequila may be the favored beverage of outlaws but that doesn't mean it gives them preferential treatment. In fact, tequila probably has betrayed as many outlaws as has the central nervous system and dissatisfied wives."--Tom Robbins.
