September 18, 2017
Days Until. . .
Summer ends 4. Fettuccine Frenzy: Wednesdays, Thursdays & Fridays through September @ Middendorf's.
Food Around The World
Today is Independence Day in Chile, which declared its intent to dislodge its Spanish colonizers today in 1818. Fast forward 173 years, and we find Chile emerging as a major producer of excellent wines at such attractive prices that they caught on quickly in the United States. Chilean wines have two unusual tales to tell The first is that it's one of the largest winegrowing area in the world growing French wine grapevines on their own roots. The phylloxera root louse has not (yet) arrived there, is why. Second, Chile recently discovered that a grape variety they've been calling Merlot is actually Carmenere, an old French variety that is probably extinct in France itself. All of that is secondary to the fact that Chilean wines, grown on volcanic soils at the same latitudes as the other great wine-producing areas of the world, are excellent.
Annals Of Cheese
Elmer Maytag was born today in 1883. He was the son of the founder of the Maytag Corporation, the maker of washing machines and other large household appliances. He is of special concern to us because, as president of the company, he started a dairy farm in Iowa in the 1940s. The farm--still owned by the Maytag family--developed a cow's-milk blue cheese that has become the leading such cheese in America. Eat some crumbles of Maytag blue today in his honor.
Annals Of Cookies
Today is the birthday, in 1956, of Debbi Fields, the founder of Mrs. Fields, whose cookie-baking stores in malls and downtowns all over America sell those soft, warm, gooey cookies everybody seems to love. She is as famous for having been a young mother with no business experience when she opened her first store in Palo Alto, outside San Francisco, in 1977. An apocryphal story, circulating on the Web for years, has it that a customer at a Mrs. Fields asked for the cookie recipe. She was told the price was one ninety-five, and bought it. A charge for $195 showed up on her. To get even, she published it all over the place. The same story is told about Neiman Marcus. Both versions are pure myth.
Today's Flavor
Today is National Blue Cheeseburger Day. The standard cheeseburger--the most popular main dish in America--is so common that more than a few makers of them are always on the lookout for an interesting variant on the idea. The one that's making the greatest inroads these day uses blue cheese in top of the beef. The hamburger restaurants trying to climb upscale have found this one particularly successful. Their customers are not only intrigued by the notion, but willing to spend a much higher price than they would for a cheeseburger with a slice of American, or even grated Cheddar. Like other cheeseburgers, this one gets much of its allure from the widespread notion that any dish can be improved by adding cheese. This is clearly not so, but in the absence of better ideas (hamburger joints, even the expensive ones, are not exactly on the cutting edge), cheese appears. And the more offbeat the cheese, the better. In my opinion the combination doesn't work well. The main problem is the heat of the burger. The flavors of melted blue cheese are completely out of whack. I like hamburgers, and I like blue cheese, but I'd rather separate them. Take the lettuce and tomatoes off the burger along with the blue cheese, make it into a side salad, and you have two dishes, both of which are better than the one they were made from.
Deft Dining Rule #766:
Anyone who eats blue cheeseburgers only does so when other people are watching. This is especially true if it's Maytag blue cheese on there.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Banana Lake is a long (about quarter mile), narrow (you can throw a rock across it) body of water in northwestern Montana. It's just west of the Flathead Indian Reservation. The mountains surrounding the valley where Banana Lake collects its scant water are crisscrossed with ski runs. It's high, wide, big-sky country. The nearest restaurant is The High Plains Cafe in Plains, four miles west.
Edible Dictionary
fritot or friteau, [free-TOE], French, n.--A small piece of meat or seafood, dipped into a light batter and fried. The most common foods made into fritots are frog legs, oysters, crawfish, mussels, and small pieces of fish. They're usually served on a platter with a variety of items as an appetizer.
Delicious Roles In Television
James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano on the television show The Sopranos, was born today in 1961. He won all the awards one could win for that role, one of the most complex ever portrayed on the tube. Tony Soprano liked to eat braciole, a dish better known around New Orleans as braciolone.
Food On The Air
The Columbia Broadcasting System went on the air today in 1927. From its earliest days it broadcast many cooking shows. Many advertising dollars were attracted to such programs. The hosts would have to speak very slowly, repeating everything twice, so that listeners could get the recipes down. It made for stultifyingly boring listening. That's why I rarely give recipes on my radio food show. When I do, I run right through them, giving the general idea, and telling people to go online for the details. The last food show on CBS Radio was a five-minute daily shortie with Chef Mike Roy in the late 1960s. CBS announcers signed off all its radio shows in the Golden Age with, "This is CBS, the Co-LUM-biaah Broadcasting System." I keep that tradition alive when we go to CBS on my Saturday shows on WWL.
Music To Eat Popsicles By
Today is the birthday, in 1944, of singer Michael Franks, whose most memorable song was Popsicle Toes. Interesting, unique style he had. . . but after listening to five or six of his songs in a row, you about had it for the next six months. Hey! He has a food name!
Food Namesakes
Speaking of franks, we begin with a rare double food name: Bun Cook, a pro hockey player in the Hall of Fame, born today in 1904. . . American classical composer Norman Dinnerstein started eating today in 1937. . . John Berger, an artist and art critic in England, gave his first opinions (perhaps while eating blue cheese!) today in 1926.
Words To Eat By
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."--Advisors of Debbi Fields, who created Mrs. Fields' cookies. She was born today in 1956.
Words To Drink By.
"Love, with very young people, is a heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst, or to get drunk; it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine."--Isak Dinesen.
