September 25, 2017
Days Until. . .
Halloween 36
Deft Dining Rule #14
Calling to cancel a reservation at the exact time you were supposed to be there is viewed by restaurateurs as almost as thoughtless as not showing up at all.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cherryville is in southeastern Missouri, 102 miles southwest of St. Louis. Appropriately, it's on the east side of the Cherry Valley and its creek, a tributary of the Missouri, and therefore a contributor to the water drunk in New Orleans. It's in the middle of broad open fields populated with cows. Small as Cherryville it, it has not one but two restaurants: Bowers and Cottrell's, and The Wedge Grill.
Edible Dictionary
fleur de sel, French, n.--Literally, flower of salt. That is a good description of the salt crystals that form when the salt water off he coast of northern France--notably in Brittany--is evaporated. The crystals are made not only of salt, but also other minerals in the water. Sometimes a kind of pink algae that can live in brine is also present in the final product. All of these impurities add flavor complexity--and expense--to fleur de sel. You'd use it more to season food at the table than in recipes requiring a teaspoon of salt in a quart of water, say. It's ironic that the goal of saltmakers for millennia was to produce pure salt. Fleur de sel and other gourmet varieties of salt are distinguished by their impurities.
Annals Of Stadium Eating
After being closed for over a year to repair damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and the people who evacuated inside, the Louisiana Superdome reopened today in 2006. And another opportunity to institute the vending of edible food in the big bowl was lost. I hear that a new company is making strides in there, but I have not investigated the affair.
Annals Of American Leisure
Today in 1926, Henry Ford announced that the workers in his plant would begin working a five-day week of eight-hour days. That event is often noted as the beginning of the consumer economy in America. Many firms followed suit. Workers who'd previously had little free time before suddenly had not only leisure time but some money to spend on it. One of the things they bought was Ford automobiles. They also spent some of it in restaurants. It's no surprise that the next decade and a half was a time of great expansion for the restaurant business in New Orleans and elsewhere.
Wine In War
The Second Battle of Champagne began today in 1915. The French attacked the German-occupied wine country and fought for a month and a half. It resulted in a tremendous, useless loss of men and machinery of the kind for which World War I was infamous. The French wound up losing all the ground they gained shortly after.
Food In Science
Today in 1974, a report came out identifying Freon, then used as a propellant in aerosol cans, as responsible for much depletion of the atmosphere's ozone layers. A movement to stop using the stuff for that purpose began. It gave us all a reason--as if taste weren't already enough--to stop eating aerosol cheese, whipped cream, and other foods we'd be better off making ourselves. Good news: in recent years, the ozone hole over Antarctica has diminished in size, which means that the banning of CFCs has helped.
Food Namesakes
George Salmon, an Irish mathematician whose main work involved surfaces, was born today in 1919.
Words To Eat By
"[It was] a soup so thick you could shake its hand and stroll with it before dinner."--Robert Crawford, British writer, who may have been writing about New Orleans turtle soup.
Words To Drink By
"Whenever someone asks me If I want water with my Scotch, I say, “I'm thirsty, not dirty.--Joe E. Lewis, abrasive stand-up comedian of the 1950s and 1960s."
