March 3
St. Joseph's Month. Pullman. Mint. Minnie The Moocher. Deli Meat Day. Hake, A Fish. Sysco. Goldfish. Florida. Sandwich, Illinois.
Eating Around New Orleans Today
St. Joseph's Day is March 19, but to some New Orleans Italian people and restaurateurs, it may as well be St. Joseph's Month. Among the celebrations of the patron saint of Sicily is Andrea's annual Sicilian menu, available now and through the month. It stands out among Andrea Apuzzo's countless special menus in that it includes a number of dishes not often seen throughout the rest of the year. It's a four-course menu for $55, and as usual Chef Andrea is overdoing it with too many choices. Since this is Lent, they're all meatless. You start with a unique appetizer called caciu, which could be best described as a steak of cheese. The best of the second course is either the caponata antipasto or the pasta alla Norma, made with a red sauce and eggplant. The entrees involve a lot of fish, but not broiled sardines; the chef says he can't get them, but that he will add them to the menu if they turn up. The menu finishes with cassata or homemade cannoli.
Andrea's Metairie: 3100 19th Street 504-834-8583.
Sounds Like Candy, But Isn't
The United States Mint was established today in 1791. On this same date in 1835, Congress authorized the building of a branch mint here in New Orleans. It lasted until the Civil War. The building is still there, part of the Louisiana State Museum now, at the southeastern corner of the French Quarter. In a few weeks, we'll be there for the French Quarter Festival.
Music To Dine By
Today in 1931, Cab Calloway recorded his biggest hit and theme song, Minnie The Moocher. She was a red-hot hootchie-cootcher, rhymed the song, which went on to note that "Each meal she ate was a dozen courses." Sounds like my kind of girl. What's a hootchie-cootcher?
Food Calendar
It is National Deli Meats Day. Few food categories show a wider spread of quality than do the sliced, cured, smoked meats. They range from the irresistible goodness of dry-cured hams, pastrami, salami, and deli-style roast beef to such unspeakable atrocities as luncheon meat and standard bologna. The gamut of goodness among hams alone goes from silky and mellow (prosciutto) to disgusting (ham roll).
The good news is that even supermarket delis are adopting higher standards than they espoused even just a few years ago. They've found their customers buy better deli meats if they're available, even at significantly higher prices. The only downside is, with limited space in the typical deli case, some cold cuts of old are becoming hard to find. Cured beef tongue, once universal in delis, is now seldom seen. How much longer will liver cheese be able to hang on?
The next wave in marketing deli meats will be the appearance of deli butchers. They will make recommendations among the various meats, and slice them with more care than given by the standard deli workers of today. We would like to hurry this trend along by suggesting that deli employees be tipped. They make a tremendous difference in the goodness of what they sell. Thinly-sliced meats give a better flavor release than thick-sliced, because of the greater surface area exposed in the meat. Despite that, most deli employees cut meats as thickly as they can get away with unless you ask otherwise.
Edible Dictionary
hake, n.--The fish known by this name in the Gulf of Mexico is related to cod, and is about the size of a speckled trout--one to two pounds, usually. While it's not a common food fish, when it does turn up on a menu it's worth ordering. Its flaky flesh is nearly white and rather soft, making it ideal for poaching or sautes, especially with sauces. It had a peculiar shape, with a tail that comes to a point and a continuous fin along its back and underside. It looks like a standard fish in front and an eel in the back. It turns up most often during shrimp season, when it's a by-catch in shrimp nets.
Annals Of Corporate Food
The Systems and Services Company--known now as Sysco--went public today in 1970. Sysco is an enormous nationwide distributor of food, equipment, and supplies to the restaurant industry. In recent years it has extended its offerings to include the entire range of cooked, ready-to-serve foods to restaurants. Best customers: the chains, who value the consistency that an outfit like Sysco brings above creativity and seasonal cooking. However, Sysco and companies like it are making inroads even in traditional restaurants. Most people would be surprised how much of the food served even in expensive restaurants is prepared elsewhere and just being heated and plated. Some places serve almost nothing but. In the business, these are often called "Sysco restaurants."
Deft Dining Rule #76: If you ask for the recipe for a dish in a restaurant, and they refuse to even begin to tell you how the dish is made, it probably means that they're buying the dish ready-made and just warming it up. This is a certainty if they respond to your request with, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you or kill myself." It's from Sysco.
Annals Of Extinct Eating Fads
In the spring of 1939, one Lothrop Withington (he sounds like a freshman at Harvard, and in fact he was) swallowed a goldfish out of an aquarium on a dare. For a few months, his feat was repeated at an increasing rate not only of frequency but in the number of goldfish swallowed. By the time the fad played out, a record 300 fish were eaten in one go. Then laws and medical advice slowed goldfish eating. What goldfish tasted like never came to light; most were swallowed whole.
Dining By Rail
George M. Pullman, the founder of the company and the creator of the railroad sleeping cars that bore his name, was born today in 1831. The Pullman Company operated the sleepers and diners cars on almost every railroad in America until 1969. It set standards for service at a time when America was far from a country of gourmets. Pullman dining cars on the best trains equaled the food serves in all but the finest restaurants. I read a story once, for example, about a Pullman waiter's being dressed down for inserting the cocktail fork for a shrimp cocktail into the meat of a lemon wedge instead of just under the skin, as he was supposed to. All of this is only a memory now. Eating on Amtrak isn't horrible, but it's nothing special at all.
Food In The Movies
Today is the birthday in 1911 of Jean Harlow, the most unforgettable (because of her voluptuousness) character in the classic film Dinner At Eight. It's about a fabulous dinner with guests and conversations from hell.
Eating Across America
Today in 1845, Florida became the last state in the South to join the Union. It had been a Spanish colony until well into the 1800s. The dominant cuisine of Florida now, other than standard American, is Cuban, particularly in the southernmost part of the state. There's also a strong Greek presence around Tarpon Springs. And Southern cooking throughout the Panhandle. Lots of fine seafood resources, notably Apalachicola oysters, pompano on the Gulf Coast, and royal ruby shrimp and rock shrimp. Conch is a big deal in the keys. But the finest Florida food export is oranges, the best juice oranges this side of our own here Louisiana.
Delicious-Sounding Places
Sandwich, Illinois is a middling-small town (population 6607) sixty-two miles west of Chicago. That's close enough to qualify as an exurb (with its own web site). But for most of its history, its location in the cornfields and the presence of the Burlington Railroad determined its existence. The Sandwich Fair--the oldest county fair n the state, running every Labor Day week since 1889--does indeed have sandwiches, in addition to events like tractor pulls. Among the restaurants in Sandwich are these charmingly-named spots, all within a block of one another, downtown: Brenda's Breakfast Basket, Dinner's Ready, and Picket Fence.
Words To Eat By
"Round a table delicately spread, three or four may sit in choice repast, or five at the most. Who otherwise shall dine, are like a troop marauding for their prey."--Archestratus, ancient Greek food authority and poet.
