Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 Ash Wednesday
Curfew. Pistachio. Kellogg. Cereal. Couscous. First Jazz. Fats Domino. Beating The Cook.
Today in 1945, as World War II was in full tilt, a midnight curfew went into effect for all bars and nightclubs everywhere in America. Wow. That must have been rough here. I'll bet that gave the restaurant business a boost.
Food Calendar
Today is allegedly National Pistachio Day. The best use of pistachios in New Orleans is the dipping of the ends of cannoli in them at Angelo Brocato's. Which, like most makers of ice cream, makes bright green pistachio flavor. (It's the green part of spumone, too.) That flavor is so delicious that I wonder why it's not more often used. As in pistachio sno-balls. Pistachio bread pudding. (I think I'll try that myself.) Or in savory dishes. Indeed, I couldn't think of a non-sweet use of pistachios, other than eating them right out of the shells. (Remember when there used to be gum machines filled with red-shelled pistachios? I can't remember the last time I did, but it has to be twenty years.)
The more I thought about this the more intrigued I was. So I started looking through a few cookbooks. Finding nothing there, I did a web search and came up with a bunch of grower organizations that seemed to be quarreling with one another about aflatoxins and the difference between machine-shelled and hand-shelled nuts. Nuts! The only other thing I learned is that they originally came from Iran, which produces more pistachios than any other country. The United States (you could say California) is a close second. They're very good for you. Eating them in the shell is so slow that you stop before you can eat the equivalent amount of peanuts.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez: Eat pistachios. Anything bright red on the outside and bright green on the inside can't be all bad.
The Physiology Of Eating
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was born today in 1852. He ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and promulgated many offbeat theories of health. One of those was vegetarianism. Another was "fletcherization," in which one chewed each biteful of food a hundred times before swallowing. He thought people should eat a diet that was primarily grain, and his brother William K. Kellogg created the famous cereal company to make that easier. About half of Dr. Kellogg's radical ideas actually make sense. But plenty of them were just nutty.
Delicious-Sounding Places
Cereal, Illinois is well-named. It's in the middle of the vast cornfields on central Illinois, 109 miles south-southwest of Chicago. It was founded as a station on a branch of the Illinois Central Railroad from Kankakee to Bloomington. The line was spun off into its own company some years ago and is now called the Bloomer Line. All it does is haul corn from grain elevators to major rail connections. A branch of Indian Creek loops around Cereal and a few farmhouses are scattered nearby. The nearest restaurant is Marie's Meating (!) Place in Chatsworth, about five miles away.
Edible Dictionary
couscous, n.--A farinaceous dish made from hard-wheat semolina flour. The flour is dampened and then rolled by hand or machine until small pellets form. Those are passed through a sieve to remove bit bits smaller than a certain size, which are then added back into another batch. The morsels that pass (or, really, don't pass through the sieve) are dried and ready for use. The standard way of cooking couscous is to steam it in the top of a two-piece pot called a couscoussiere. A simmering stock of meat and vegetables in the bottom steams and flavors the couscous, which is then mixed with the meats, seafood, or vegetables. The resulting dish is a loose, damp but not juicy stew, with the couscous itself forming most of the dish. There are offbeat variations of couscous throughout the dish's Northern African homeland. Some kinds of couscous are made with cracked wheat or barley grains and are not pasta. Israeli couscous has much larger pieces, the size of peppercorns.
Deft Dining Rule #739: If you ask the server whether the couscous on the menu is instant couscous, the worst possible answer is, "I don't know."
Music To Eat Gumbo By
Today in 1917, Livery Stable Blues--considered the first jazz record--was recorded for Victor by the Original Dixieland Jass Band. They were a five-man combo from New Orleans. Where else but the birthplace of jazz?
Food Namesakes
Antoine "Fats" Domino, a major figure in early rock 'n' roll, was born today in 1928. He has both a food nickname and two restaurant names. And he had a hit song with a food name: Blueberry Hill. But he's known for his music more than his eating. He's not very fat anymore--hasn't been for a long time. A true-blue Orleanian, he still lived in the Lower Ninth Ward when Katrina hit. He lost everything there, but he rebuilt. Good old Fats! . . . Theodore Sturgeon, an American author of science fiction, was born today in 1918. . . Charles D. Baker, the mayor of Las Vegas during that city's Rat Pack boom years of the 1950s, was born today in 1901. . . Big-league pitcher Preacher Roe took The Big Mound today in 1915. . . Currie Graham--who has a rare double food name--was born today in 1967. He played the station commander in NYPD Blue.
Words To Eat By
"You think that I am cruel and gluttonous when I beat my cook for sending in a bad dinner. But if that is too trivial a cause, what other can there be for beating a cook?"--Martial, ancient Roman author.
