National Fish Mousse Day

Today in 1766, Spain officially took possession of the Louisiana Territory, including New Orleans, from France. The new Spanish governor was an accomplished scientist and explorer, Antonio de Ulloa. The French population of New Orleans was unimpressed, and Ulloa knew it. He kept the former French governor on as a figurehead and flak-catcher.Spain ruled over New Orleans during an important time in the city's history, especially for its architecture. The French Quarter is really more Spanish in design than French. Its Spanish street names are remembered with tiled plaques. Susan Spicer's restaurant Bayona is named for the Spanish name for Dauphine Street, where it's located. They also left an influence on Creole cooking, most notably on jambalaya. As for Ulloa, they named a short side street for him in Mid-City.

Brennan's in Houston opened today in 1967. It was the first expansion of the Brennan's restaurant name outside New Orleans, and was followed by others in Dallas and Atlanta. Those closed in the 1970s, but the Houston Brennan's remains one of the most popular and most highly-regarded restaurants there--even after being closed for a year and a half after a fire in 2008. It occupies one of the oldest buildings in downtown Houston, handsome and comfortable. The menu combines Creole flavors with those of the Southwest: very interesting. Alex Brennan-Martin (Ella's son and brother of Ti Martin, who co-runs Commander's Palace) owns the majority share and operates it hands-on. Until Ralph Brennan and partners took over Brennan's on Royal Street in late 2014, Brennan's in Houston had no connection with it. Now they recognize one another.

Inventor of the chuck wagon, Charles Goodnight was born today in 1836. He was a cattle rancher in the Texas Panhandle in the mid-1800s. His name lived on in the famous Goodnight-Loving Trail, outlined in 1866 by Goodnight and his partner Oliver Loving. On it, the most legendary generation of cowboys drove thousands of head of cattle north to the railroads in Colorado and Wyoming.

The original Culligan Man, Emmett J. Culligan, was born today in 1893. He founded a water treatment company that spread worldwide, and pioneered the widespread treatment of drinking water in the 1930s. Culligan thought that city water supplies, even when safe to drink, could use some improvement, particularly in the matter of removing treatment chemicals.

Apricot is a small farming community in south central Washington State. It's about 190 miles east (by different roads) from both Seattle and Portland. It's surrounded by fruit orchards, including those bearing its namesake fruit. Apricot is one of the few areas outside California that raises commercial quantities of the luscious yellow-orange fruit. However, many of the apricot groves are giving way to growing wine grape vineyards. Since Apricot is on I-82, it's not far to the nearest restaurant: the 10-4 Cafe, two miles west.

pilaf, n., adj.--This is a menu word that makes a dish sound more complex than it really is. A pilaf (or pilau, or plov, or any of a host of other spellings) is rice that has been taken one step beyond merely being cooked. This next step, however, can be in any of a number of different directions. A pilaf can come from cooking the rice in stock instead of water. Or adding herbs, spices, nuts, other grains, vegetables, seafood, or meat. The more ingredients added, the less likely the dish is to be called a pilaf. (Jambalaya, for example, is far beyond pilaf.)All of this comes from the Middle East, but so long ago that the idea has spread widely and diversified. A good example of pilaf is the Lebanese practice of adding pasta to rice for a side dish. Somebody in San Francisco picked up on this and Rice-A-Roni--commercial American pilaf--was born.

Momofuku Ando was born in what it now Taiwan today in 1910. His nickname was Noodles Papa. He was the founder of the Nissin Food Products Company, whose great breakthrough was Ando's invention: ramen noodles. Those are instant-cooking noodles in individual packages. Add hot water, and you're ready to eat. Noodles are so popular throughout Asia that this became a huge product, there and all over the world.

Today is National Fish Mousse Day. While this may not immediately ring a bell with you, or seem a bit too rarefied, I will attempt to persuade you that a) making a fish mousse is easy and b) it's as delicious as it is impressive. You make fish mousse by poaching fish (or shellfish--it also works with shrimp, crawfish, lobster, and other seafoods), then pureeing it in the food processor with some of the stock you poached it in. You blend this into beaten egg whites, and then fold in some whipped cream. (Some recipes call for gelatin; throw those out.) After it's refrigerated, the mousse tightens up, and can be served as an appetizer. Or you can layer it between or atop a fish fillet and bake it. Or--well, there are a lot of uses.We're not far away from Passover, when a variant of fish mousse--gefilte fish--will be served in almost every Jewish home. But that's really a different taste.

If a lighter sauce or mousse is what you're after, beat the eggs until they're really pale.

Ask, "Is this [sauce, soup, dessert] made here?" If the server doesn't know, ask him or her to find out. The answer will tell you a lot about the restaurant. If the answer is "No," then its value to you should be discounted by twenty percent.

Canaan Banana, the first president of Zimbabwe, was elected to life today in 1936. . . British economist William Henry Beveridge was born today in 1879. . . Premier of Italy Francesco Crispi was forced to resign today in 1896, after making too many sensible reforms. . . John Coke, an early secretary of state in England, was born today in 1563. . . Whitney Port, who was on the MTV reality show The Hills, was launched today in 1985.

"If you don't love life you can't enjoy an oyster; there is a shock of freshness to it and intimations of the ages of man, some piercing intuition of the sea and all its weeds and breezes."--Eleanor Clark, American writer.

"They eat, they drink, and in communion sweetQuaff immortality and joy."--John Milton, Paradise Lost.