July 7, 2017
Days Until. . .
Satchmo Summer Fest 28
Food Calendar
This is National Crabmeat Louie Day. It's an excellent cold lump crabmeat appetizer, the sauce made from mayonnaise, chili sauce, and a little mustard. It is not known who Louie (or Louis, as it's sometimes spelled on menus) was. But we do know that the dish is about a century old and first appeared in San Francisco. In New Orleans, crabmeat ravigote (a.k.a. crabmeat maison) usually fills the space on the menu where crabmeat Louie would be seen elsewhere. But it turns up now and then, notably at Clancy's. Sometimes crab Louie is made into a salad, with the saucy crabmeat served in the pit of half an avocados on a bed of greens and tomatoes. A deviled egg us usually in there somewhere, too.
Gourmet Gazeteer
Pecan is a country crossroads in the southwestern corner of Georgia, forty-six miles north of Dothan, Alabama. It is exceptionally well named: hundreds of acres of pecan orchards surround it on all sides, with new orchards being planted all the time. Not many houses nearby, but lots of pecans. It's three miles from the Walter F. George Reservoir on the Chattahoochie River, where there's a state park. For a good lunch or dinner, drive three miles west to Fort Gaines, where Tommy's restaurant waits to serve you. Try the pecan pie.
Edible Dictionary
sassafras, n.--sassafras, n.--One of several species of tree that grows in the eastern half of the United States. Its leaves, when dried and ground, are the only ingredient of gumbo filé, an aromatic herb added to gumbo at the table. The leaves have a big-time nonconformity: they come in three shapes, all mixed together on every specimen of the tree. One of them is a standard point-oval leaf shape. The second looks like a mitten. The third has a large central lobe and a smaller lobe on each side of it. The roots were once used to make root beer, but were banned from that use in 1960 because of evidence it caused liver damage and cancer.
Deft Dining Rule #749
For a reality check, next time a waiter who offers to top your entree with crabmeat, ask how much extra that will be. You will learn why this offer is so often made.
Food Inventions
Joseph-Marie Jacquard did not have beef in mind when, in 1805, he devised a system of programming weaving needles with punch cards. (That idea later found its way into early computers.) But his name has been applied to a method of tenderizing meats with arrays of flat, narrow pins. When shoved into a tough piece of meat, they break connective tissues. A very advanced version of this injects fat into the meat, imitating the natural fat found in the likes of prime beef. Jacquarded beef has a bad reputation among connoisseurs, but I've heard worse ideas.
Annals Of Bread
A more important culinary invention was rolled out today in 1928. The first loaf of pre-sliced bread was sold, the product of a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. The place was Chillicothe, Missouri, and the product was called Wonder Bread. It wasn't long before pre-sliced bread loaves transformed the marketing of bread across America. Of course, this brings up a question: what was the best idea before sliced bread?
Annals Of Food Writing
Simone "Simca" Beck was born today in Normandy in 1904. A cooking school instructor and cookbook author in France, she became famous as one of Julia Child's collaborators on her landmark cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.
Food Namesakes
Organist and composer Robert Stevens Baker popped out of the oven today in 1916. . . Big-league shortstop Chuck Knoblauch emerged into the Big Infield today in 1968. He has an extremely rare bilingual double food name. His first name is the English word for a beef shoulder roast, and his last name is the German word for garlic. . . U.S. Air Force General Earle "Pat" Partridge flew into the world today in 1900.
Words To Eat By
"Good cooking is when things taste of what they are."--Curnonsky, the "Prince of Gastronomy."
Words To Drink By
"A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with--even if he drank."--H.L. Mencken.
