Sweet Potatoes Day

Christmas--7
New Year's Eve--13

Today is Sweet Potato Day. Sweet potatoes are essential to the holiday table, but we never get tired of eating them down here in Louisiana. Not only do they taste good with Creole and Cajun food, but they're a major local crop. Louisiana sweet potatoes are the standard of the business, like Vermont maple syrup, Idaho potatoes, and California artichokes.Sweet potatoes are the roots of a vine related to the morning glory. They have thin, reddish brown skins and the soft, orange insides, with a substantial sweetness. All varieties of sweet potatoes are New World vegetables, and have been cultivated in the Americas for as long as five thousand years. Columbus ate them on his first voyage. They're widely but inaccurately called yams. The true yam is an unrelated, larger, harder, starchier African root, popular in the Caribbean. But even in Africa the sweet potato is replacing the true yam, simply because it tastes better.Most sweet potatoes are harvested in mid-summer to early fall. This has no effect on their goodness or availability, because they can be stored for months. (Indeed, storage seems to help the flavor.) Sweet potatoes are good both in savory dishes (baked, mashed, or fried) or desserts. The line is frequently crossed; most mashed sweet potatoes are made too sweet, with extra sugar and molasses and the like. On the other hand, you can add more spices--cinnamon, nutmeg, even a little cardamom.My time favorite use of sweet potatoes is something I grew up with. When my mother made chicken gumbo, she also baked sweet potatoes, and we ate the two together. Dig out a half-spoon of sweet potato, then dunk the spoon right into the gumbo.Sweet potatoes have become much more common in restaurants, largely because they can be substituted for white potatoes by people on low-carb diets. Give me the spicy, soft ones with the butter and cinnamon. Preferably in the company of a slow-roasted duck.

Today is the birthday, in 1935, of French chef Jacques Pepin. He was one of the first real chefs to become a media presence, appearing frequently on television, writing columns in food magazines, and more than a few books. Although they seem dated in their style--the chef-superstar industry has come a long way since the 1970s--his recipes and explanations remain excellent. Pepin's books are well worth owning. My favorite is La Technique, which I keep within reach of my right hand.

Inside my oven
A yam was weeping
I shouldn't have forked it around.

Next time gently
With tongs I'll remove it
Puffed skin, but safe and sound.

Fig, North Carolina is in that treasure trove of towns with food-related names, the contiguity of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. In the foothills of the Appalachians, in other words. It's where Rich Hill Creek pours into the New River, and upper tributary of the Mississippi River. We get Fig water in New Orleans. A school for the surrounding small farms is the main presence in Fig. It's thirteen miles to The Junction, the nearest restaurant, in Jefferson.

soubise, [soo-BEESS], (French), adj.An onion-flavored sauce from classic French cookery, named for the gourmet Charles de Rohan, the Prince of Soubise in France in the 1700s. It has become uncommon. The last time I saw a soubise sauce, it was served with a poached egg dish at brunch at Commander's Palace. It's made by cooking sliced onions slowly in butter for just under an hour, adding bechamel, straining the mixture, then enriching it with heavy cream. It could be ripe for a revival with the likes of panneed veal, or perhaps with a fish. Or maybe it will just become extinct.

No place in the world has all the food of all the world. If you have looked in vain for a certain foodstuff or dish where you live, it may well mean that you will have to travel elsewhere to find it. For example, peirogies in New Orleans or crawfish etouffee in Poland.

This is the day in 1892 when Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker first was performed, in St. Petersburg, Russia. I was amazed the first time I saw it that it was really about a nutcracker. I've been trying to find a performance of The Nutcracker to attend somewhere around town, but I can't seem to. It is seven days till Christmas. Fourteen days till New Year's Eve. Gentlemen, you may start wearing your Christmas ties today outside of Christmas parties. Starting tonight, you are required to have an eggnog spiked with brandy or rum (your choice) as your evening toddy. You are running late for making reservations for any of the holidays; get that done soon. Make restaurant reservations now. A list of restaurants open Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, plus all the Reveillon menus (now being served in over forty restaurants around town, and our favorite Christmas recipes, are all on our Christmas Page.

Today in 1642, Dutchman Abel Tasman (the man for whom Tasmania is named) landed his ship on New Zealand, the first European to do so. New Zealand is so far away that it took a long time for its food products to appear in our market. But they're all over the place now. Most racks of lamb served in New Orleans restaurants are from New Zealand. They're smaller and more strongly flavored than American lamb, and not quite as good, but much less expensive--which explains why restaurants and home cooks like them so much. New Zealand wines have also become common; the country makes the world's best Sauvignon Blanc, overall, and many other good wines, too. And while the kiwi fruit didn't come from there, it was New Zealand that renamed it for its unique native bird (from "Chinese gooseberry") and made it popular.

Early baseball superstar Ty Cobb (whose nickname The Georgia Peach was also a food name) was born today in 1886. . . British playwright Christopher Fry was born today in 1907. . . John Stout Snook, who has a rare food and beverage name (a snook is a great eating fish, popular in Florida) was born today in 1862. He was a U.S. Congressman from Ohio. The Burma-born English writer Hector Hugh Munro, whose pen name was Saki, was born today in 1870. He wrote amusing books about British society. In addition to the homophone with the Japanese rice wine, Saki also had a dish named for him at the extinct but fondly remembered New Orleans restaurant the Caribbean Room, in the Pontchartrain Hotel.

"I saw him even now going the way of all flesh, that is to say towards the kitchen."--John Webster, British writer, born today in 1580.

"Passing the vodka bottle."--Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stones, born today in 1943. He was explaining how he manages to keep going.