Tuesday, February 25th, 2020
Bourbon Mixing Course. Caruso. Namesake Dishes. Insanity. Celery. Celery Creek. Celeriac. Potato Collection.
Today was the birthday, in 1873, of Enrico Caruso. In Italian restaurants across America, dishes are named after the famous operatic tenor, but they differ from place to place. I don't know of a classic dish bearing his name. Caruso was such a hearty eater that it seems there ought to be such a dish. Searches through cookbooks turn up a wide range of namesake Caruso dishes with sauces including everything from cream to prosciutto to spinach. Chef Andrea has a pasta Caruso with eggplant.
Deft Dining Rule #120: If a restaurant names a dish after you and you haven't done anything of great note in your life, then you can claim to be a true gastronome.
Annals Of Bad Cooking
Today in 1859, the insanity defense was first used to establish the innocence of a defendant. Little did the lawyer involved guess that the innovation would appear in a dining venue. Some years ago, I complained about a dish in a little French Quarter restaurant, now long gone. It paired flounder and pralines. When the waiter returned to the table after passing my comment along to the chef, he said, "We'll take it off the check. The chef pleads insanity." I never ran into that chef again.
Food Calendar
Today is National Celery Day. For most people, celery is strictly a background performer in cooking. It's one-third of the holy trinity of Creole cooking. But it doesn't step out into the foreground nearly as onions and bell peppers. It's hard to think of a dish in which celery is the main ingredient, but I will advance two. Braised celery, served as a vegetable side dish, is better than you might imagine. And celery cream soup is delicious.
In its usual role as a part of the flavor team, however, celery is indispensable. Imagine a bloody mary, tuna salad, stocks, or vegetable soup without it. Its flavor is subtle but distinctive, containing a slight acidity and an aromatic flavor reminiscent of anise. In some uses, celery's flavor improves a dish dramatically. Triple the amount of celery in your recipe for red beans, and it becomes much more delicious than you might imagine.
Celery has been used for food and cooking in Europe since ancient times. It developed from wild plants that still grown around the Mediterranean. We almost don't have to say that celery's good for you. Its natural diuretic properties can actually bring blood pressure down. Eating it fills you up while adding very few calories to your intake.
I also see that it's National Chocolate Covered Peanuts Day. I believe we are mainly talking about Goobers here.
Delicious-Sounding Places
Celery Creek travels seventeen miles through the western edge of the Texas Hill Country, flowing into the San Saba River at the town of Menard. The terrain is unambiguously going to dry plains here, and the river beds are so full of gravel that mining gravel is a serious business. Celery Creek is dry most of the time, but trees clearly mark where it runs. Why it has its name is unknown, especially since no Bell Pepper and Onion Creeks are nearby. The Sideoats Bakery and Cafe, a half-mile from the mouth of Celery Creek, is the nearest restaurant.
Edible Dictionary
celeriac, n.--The widely-used French name for celery root. It's a heavy, bulbous, crunchy vegetable that is--sort of--what it says it is. It comes from a different variety of celery than the one we commonly eat, with smaller, hollow stalks that nevertheless have an unmistakable celery favor. The root is about the size of a turnip and has an irregular shape that makes it challenging to remove the brown, hard peel. Inside is a white, crisp, unstarchy vegetable with a different flavor from that of celery stalks--although there are similarities. It has a bit of a nutty quality. Celeriac is most often served raw as part of a salad. The popular sauce for it in France is remoulade.
Annals Of Food Research
Donald McLean, a Scottish botanist, was born today in 1922. He had a passion for potatoes, and through his lifetime he collected three hundred sixty-seven different kinds of spuds.
Food In Show Biz
Today is the birthday (1913) of actor Jim Backus. He is most famous as Thurston Howell III, the rich guy who was always portrayed with a martini in his hand on Gilligan's Island. His voice was so distinctive that he had a busy voice-over career, too. His most famous voice was that of the visually-impaired cartoon character Mr. Magoo.
Zeppo Marx was born today in 1901. He was in the Marx Brother's early movies, but later he became the business manager for Groucho, Chico, and Harpo for their many food-named movies: Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, and the rest of them.
Food Namesakes
Actress Diane Baker was born today in 1938. . . The well-named comedian Carrot Top sprouted today in 1965. . . Big league first baseman Danny Cater hit the Big Basepath today in 1940.
Words To Eat By
"The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me."--George Bernard Shaw, about a vegetarian dinner. Oddly, he was a vegetarian himself.
Words To Drink By
"The soft extractive note of an aged cork being withdrawn has the true sound of a man opening his heart."--William Samuel Benwell.
