National Strawberry Day

Today is National Strawberry Day, although the strawberry industry doesn't seem to know about it. Strawberries worth celebrating. Here in Louisiana (where the strawberry is the official state fruit), the strawberry season is in high gear.. (They seem to appear a little earlier each year.) That schedule owes to our southerly latitude. Strawberry harvests will radiate north over a great deal of the rest of the country for months. Strawberries are unusual in that they carry their seeds not inside but outside the fruit. A botanist would jump in here and say that what we call the seeds are actually the fruits, and what we call the fruit is really a much-expanded base peg. That said, we note that few fruits can match the fragrance and lusciousness of big, ripe strawberries at the peak of the season. When they're at their best, the best way to eat them is all by themselves--no cake, no whipped cream, no sugar, no saccharin.Unfortunately, the goal of the agricultural industry is to grow big, colorful strawberries that stay that way long enough to make it to the supermarket and stay there for a week or more. To do that, they've developed strains that resist ripening while having a gorgeous, ripe-looking red cast. That's why they don't have the fragrance and the sweetness we remember of old.The most glorious time for strawberries is when Louisiana strawberries are sold by the flat from trucks on the sides of roads. The berries are lots better than other sweets you could be eating. Full of Vitamin C and fiber. And, most important, full of juicy, sexy deliciousness.

In New Orleans today it is sometimes Lundi Gras--Fat Monday. Its celebrity relies entirely on that of the next day. Sort of like Christmas Eve. A suburb of a holiday. While a few pre-holidays have become more famous than the holiday itself (Halloween, New Year's Eve, for example), Lundi Gras will be forever sandwiched between the Sunday before Mardi Gras--when the Carnival Season peaks--and Mardi Gras itself tomorrow. Few people work in New Orleans on Lundi Gras, but I do--writing this. Today is also one of several candidates for the birthday of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Today in 1827, students home from schools in France put on masks and paraded through the city, celebrating the last day of freewheeling eating and drinking before Lent. It would be another thirty years before the celebration jelled into the first major parade of Comus. The first recorded celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama (which claims to have had it first) was this date in 1703.

Today in 1879, saccharin was created in the lab at Johns Hopkins University by Constantine Fahlberg and Ira Remsen. It was the first artificial sweetener, about three hundred times as sweet to the tongue as sugar. That comes at the price of a slight chemical or metallic aftertaste, which I find can be masked almost completely by using a little real sugar with it. Saccharin didn't hit the big time until World War I, when there was a shortage of sugar in the United States. Its use declined in the 1970s, when tests seem to indicate that it's a carcinogen. It carried a warning label for years. However, since then its safety has been confirmed, the label is gone, and it's in pink packets everywhere.

Tilsit, (German), n.--A pale yellow cow's-milk cheese made commercially in Germany and nearby countries. Its history allegedly began with a mistake. Dutch farmers trying to make their familiar Gouda stored the cheese in a place that was too moist. Instead of tightening up into the uniform texture of Gouda, the cheese formed interior cracks, which admitted bacteria that sharpened the flavor and aroma of the cheese. Another story has it that the cheese was created in Russia by Swiss emigrants trying to duplicate Emmentaler, but the damp-cellar anecdote remains. Tilsit is like a sharp Havarti. (In fact, Havarti may have evolved from Tilsit.) It's a good snacking cheese, and goes well with Riesling wines.

Clabber Bottom is eight miles north of Lexington, Kentucky. The farm fields there where horses grazed for two centuries are giving way to suburban development. I-75 passes right through Clabber Bottom. The name comes from the low spots created by the looking Elkhorn Creek, which runs through and almost surrounds the area. Also, this was a place for so much dairy farming at one time that it was alleged to smell like sour milk. Clabber does settle at the bottom, and when it does, you're close to having Creole cream cheese. A cluster of dozens of chain restaurant is about two miles away in Georgetown.

If you'd complain if you got lukewarm or reheated food in a restaurant, why would you ever get take-out?

You'll never get the best food in a restaurant if you get it to go.

Today in 1985, Geraldine Ferraro--the first major female candidate for Vice-President of the United States--appeared in a Diet Pepsi commercial on television. She was allowed control of the content of the spot, and more or less made it into a speech about women's rights. Nevertheless, she was criticized for doing this. Walter Mondale and Ferraro lost the election in 1984 against the unbeatable incumbent Ronald Reagan.

John Steinbeck was born today in 1902. His gripping, important novels of unfortunate people in the American West have--for some reason--titles that refer to food: The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flats and Cannery Row.

Today is Elizabeth Taylor's birthday, in 1932. She had dinner at the now-extinct Christian's once. Owner Chris Ansel asked if she would autograph a menu. She said she would if he'd pick up the check for dinner. Chris said, "Never mind."

Today in 1912, Lord Herbert Kitchener opened a railway from Khartoum to El Obeid in Sudan. . . Pro basketballer Chris Dishman was born today in 1974. . . Film actor Alan Fudge was born today in 1944. . . NFL Hall Of Fame player Raymond Berry was born today in 1933. . . Singer Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas was born today in 1971.

"Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign that something is eating us."--Peter De Vries, American author, born today in 1910."All culture corrupts, but French culture corrupts absolutely."--Lawrence Durrell, English author, born today in 1912.

"We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink."--Epicurus.