National Beef Brisket Day

-Memorial Day-1father's Day--22

This is also National Beef Brisket Day. And well it should be. If there were an official start to barbecue season, it would be Memorial Day. And no cut of beef is better suited to barbecue techniques than brisket.Brisket's qualities lend it to all kinds of slow cooking. Boiled and cut into big cubes, it becomes the heart of vegetable beef soup. Smoked and sliced thin, it's one of the two great subjects for barbecue. Cured ("corned") for a few weeks and then boiled, it's the centerpiece of either St. Patrick's Day or the kosher deli.The magic of brisket comes from the wispy connective tissues you see between the meat fibers. When you cook it for a long time (four hours seems to be the magic interval), these melt into the lean and make it tender. It also gives the broth you make from the boiling liquid (if you cooked it that way) taste superb.Brisket comes from the part of the steer that would be its armpit if cows had armpits. Whole briskets give two sections with differing textures. The flat end is best for smoking and barbecue. The butt end works better for boiling, because its grain twists and changes direction relative to your slicing--a real problem when cutting it into anything other than chunks.

Briskets are like children. Even when you treat them all the same, they all come out different.

Doughnut Cove, Maine is on the edge of the nearly-uninhabited woods in the northern third of the state. It's a small, crescent-shaped harbor on Moosehead Lake, one of the many glacier-carved lakes in the area. It's across Lily Bay from Sugar Island, another Delicious-Sounding Place. Some of the hills and mountains that surround Doughnut Cove tower up over 400 feet. It's a beautiful area, and a good bit of camping goes on in the summer. A number of restaurants are in Greenville, about twelve miles away. (It might be quicker by boat.) The one that caught my eye was Flatlanders.

bresaola, [brez-OW-la], n., ItalianSalted, dry-cured beef sliced from the eye of round and allowed to dry in the mountain air for two or three months. It is the beef equivalent of prosciutto. Because it's very lean and cut from a hard-working muscle, bresaola starts out as very tough. The curing breaks down a lot of the muscle tissue, however. The standard presentation of bresaola slices it so thin that the slices are translucent, making it even easier to eat. Bresaola (the name comes from a regional dialect word that means braised) is most commonly served as an antipasto, usually atop a salad of arugula. Its very dark, reddish-brown color is distinctive, as is its slightly musky flavor.

Today in 1985, outraged by New Coke, the Old Cola Drinkers of America was organized. It, and less well organized protests, later forced the re-introduction of Coca-Cola Classic. That original flavor returned to dominance in the United States (but nowhere else). Justified and happy, the Old Cola members celebrated with Coke and donuts.

Today is the birthday, in 1897, of Jell-O. Pearl B. Wait--a maker of cough syrup--devised the stuff. The original flavors were strawberry, raspberry, lemon and orange. It didn't sell well, so Wait sold the formulas and name to a guy with the great name Orator F. Woodward, who had the advantage of being in the food business already. It took about another seven years, but starting in 1902, Jell-O's sales gelled. There was plenty of room for Jell-O. But when's the last time you ordered it in a restaurant?

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond in his many novels about the suave superspy, was born today in 1908. Fleming had Bond insisting on the best Champagnes (Bollinger, to be exact) and cocktails made with extreme attention to detail ("three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, and then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?"). Fleming is to blame for the fact that more martinis are made with vodka instead of the more classic gin. That's what Bond drank. Shaken, not stirred.

If you really want to call attention to yourself, ask for a martini stirred, not shaken. If questioned, note that when a martini is stirred, less of the ice melts, and the drink packs a more convincing gin (of course, it's gin) punch.

Today in 2004, Bot and Nola opened in Abita Springs. One of the great sno-ball stands, it uses very finely-shaved ice and a dizzying array of flavors, including one they let us formulate for them to approximate the taste of the old soft drink Dr. Nut. It was named for the owner's grandparents, who used to live next door. ("Bot" was the nickname of her grandfather, Bartholemew.) The place was sold a few years ago, and now operates as Honey's Snowball Shack. Thankfully, they've kept on the Dr. Nut flavor.

Clarence "Taffy" Abel, one of the first professional hockey players native to the United States, was born today in 1900. . . Aaron "T-Bone" Walker, blues guitarist, was born today in 1910. . . Pro basketballer Glen Rice was born today in 1967. . . Broadway actress Madeleine Le Roux was born today in 1946. . . Actress Carroll Baker, a classic blonde bombshell, looked cute already when she was born today in 1931.

"I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink."—James Bond.

"The hard part about being a bartender is figuring out who is drunk and who is just stupid."--Richard Braunstein, motivational writer.