Pan AmericanTaco Day

Halloween... 27, Poor Boy Festival... 33...Thanksgiving...51

Today is Pan-American Taco Day. Tacos in the United States have changed a lot in the last decade. Here we were, thinking that a hard-fried corn tortilla filled with ground beef, lettuce, and tomatoes was a taco. Maybe it is in some bordertowns, but that item is so odd to most Mexicans that when a Taco Bell opened in Mexico City, Mexicans who had been to America were disappointed not to find the crispy tortillas filled with the salad that we call a taco here.

A more typical Mexican taco is made with a soft flour tortilla filled with grilled meat, peppers, and onions. We have been able to get those ever since Taqueria Corona opened. And even before that, really, although the items was usually listed on menus as "tacos al carbon." In the aftermath of the hurricane, so many Mexicans and Central Americans came to New Orleans to work on construction projects (and other things) that the phenomenon of taco trucks sprang up. Some of these were allegedly good. Owing to some bizarre lack of luck, I have never found an active taco truck at any time or place, even when following reports given me the day before. As time has gone on, many of the taco truck operators have opened permanent taquerias around town. While these have added a new dimension to the dining scene, I would not say that the phenomenon has blossomed fully yet.

Mull is the remnant of a formerly larger town in the Ozark Mountains in north central Arkansas. The church is still there, along with just a few houses. Almost entirely wooded, the area is pretty during the late fall, with brilliant fall colors filling the many steep hollows. The springs and well provide excellent drinking water. It's two miles north to the closest restaurant, the Buffalo Point in Yellville. Which is a quieter place than it sounds.

Today is National Vodka Day. Vodka is defined by law as a colorless, odorless spirit with a high alcohol percentage. If it must be odorless and colorless, where is the quality criterion? It doesn't really exist, of course, and it proves just how effective advertising can be. When mixed with other ingredients, one vodka is just like any other. (I know I will get some flack for saying that, but blind tastings tell the tale.) My feeling about vodka is about the same as that of my friend Paul LaBruyere, who once said, "I'd as soon pour it down the drain and hit myself over the head with the bottle as drink it."

Today in 1933--in the middle of the Depression--a new men's magazine called Esquire published its first issue. It was the Maxim of its day, and if you were caught reading it you were thought of as a roue. By the time I got to it, in the late 1960s, it had become one of the best magazines on the newsstands. Its articles about food have always been far better than in other general magazines. I particularly recall a 1972 article about the ultimate Christmas feast. It inspired me to do one of my own. The long version of that story is in my book Hungry Town.

Today in 2004, Richard Axel and Linda Buck won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. They made major discoveries concerning the sense of smell, the most intriguing of which is that three percent of the genes in humans are responsible for our ability to distinguish and remember at least 10,000 different smells. My favorite aroma: that of a well-aged old Bordeaux red wine.

One of the world's most prized eating fish, the Dover sole lives along the eastern shores of the Atlantic Ocean, along the coasts of Europe as far south as Northern Africa. It gets the first half of its name from the fishing port on the British side of the English Channel, where the best soles have been caught for centuries. The soles (there are other kinds) are flatfish, a family whose other members include flounders and halibuts. Most such fish lie on the bottom of the seabed, blending in with it, until suitable prey happens by. The sole then explodes from seemingly nowhere and grabs its food. Because of this behavior, one of its eyes have migrated to the upper side of its body. Sole meuniere--dusted in flour, sauteed in butter--is the classic way this beautiful white fish is cooked. In the classiest places, it's brought to the table whole, and deboned right there for the diner. A few restaurants in New Orleans serve Dover sole, but the local flounder is actually a better fish.

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment, animals, birds, and all other things natural. He is the namesake of San Francisco. And a famous New Orleans dish bears his name: crabmeat St. Francis, created by legendary chef Warren Leruth, who was a devotee of the saint.

Today is the birthday, in 1941, of New Orleans author Anne Rice. She was christened Howard Allen O'Brien. . . Actress and model Rachael Leigh Cook was born today in 1979. Her picture appeared on boxes of Milk-Bones. . . Texas Rangers pitcher Dennis Cook stepped onto the Big Mound today in 1962. . . Actor Eddie Applegate was born in 1935. . . Francesco Crispi, Italian premier in the late 1800s, was born today in 1818. . R.W. "Johnny" Apple, New York Times writer on politics and (occasionally) food, died today in 2006. He liked New Orleans and visited here often, mainly to eat--his favorite pastime.

"The local groceries are all out of broccoli,Loccoli."--Roy Blount, Jr., humorist and writer, born today in 1941.

"The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind."--H.L. Mencken.