Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
White to rose to crimson this cow tongue’s muscle, fat, cartilage, and bone draws our attention more as anatomy than food, but food it is . . . simmer for hours, smoke for hours, roast, sautée, stew. Why paint such a raw scene? Gustave Caillebotte’s Calf’s Head and Ox Tongue (1882) exemplifies an everyday reality … Continue reading Transforming Tongue: The Alchemy of Cooking (“True Detective” Style).
Gustav Klimt‘s painting Garden Path with Chickens from 1916 no longer exists. Hasn’t for awhile. Thirteen of his paintings stored in Schloss Immendorf castle in Lower Austria during World War II were destroyed by retreating German forces who set off explosives. Only a photographic reproduction of the work allows us to view it today. Gustav Klimt’s … Continue reading Chicken Soup For A Friend Who’s Fallen Ill.
A moment of hospitality in Django Unchained . . . until the raw ugliness of slavery appears again and all hell breaks loose. Slaves weave in and out, a mouth articulates racist physiognomy and all around plentiful, elaborate food. This fictional scene echoes history, voices letters from the past. In Culinary Conversations of The Plantation … Continue reading Southern Hospitality: Then And Now
Looking through the ground-breaking, original four-volume series The Image of the Black in Western Art, the myriad of interpretive decisions highlight problems and struggles with the representation of people of African descent in Western art. A project started by John and Dominique de Menil in the 1960’s as a response to segregation in America, the … Continue reading Further Thoughts Toward A Lecture In North Carolina: Lowcountry Seafood Boil.
The year begins with champagne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party (circa 1880-81) and new dietary guidelines. Well, something like that. Marion Nestle at Food Politics offers a review of the impregnable document: The 2015 Dietary Guidelines, At Long Last, while Mother Jones points out that climate goes missing in the document: There’s A Huge … Continue reading A Week Thinking About What We Eat
Ah, cocktail hour, that wonderful moment a wee past 4 in the afternoon when accomplishments of the day may receive reward, and upcoming night toasted. In the summer, this means the classic, the ineffable gin and tonic. Our featured image by Rachel Weber, Hendrick’s Gin and Tonic with Cucumber, uses the composition of a still-life … Continue reading Drinking Gin And Tonics With Nina Simone And Raymond Carver.
People around the country and in the nearby towns muttered a great deal among themselves, but said very little to the outer world. They had talked about dying and half-deserted Innsmouth for nearly a century, and nothing new could be wilder or more hideous than what they had whispered and hinted years before. Many things … Continue reading Cooking Fish With H.P. Lovecraft
Let’s read the opening sentences of Jane Grigson’s Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, an awe-inspiring journey through cooking and prose. It could be said that European civilization –and Chinese civilization too–has been founded on the pig. Easily domesticated, omnivorous household and village scavenger, clearer of scrub and undergrowth, devourer of forest acorns, yet content with … Continue reading Jane Grigson, Pig Tails, Henri Michaux And Debussy–All From a Far-Off Country.
Who would I like to have over for dinner? Well, Vincent Price, of course. Besides terrorizing my younger years with such movies as House on Haunted Hill and The Raven, he also was a noted art collector and gourmand. My grandmother passed down to me A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price … Continue reading Vincent Price Cooks Small Boys, Final Words With The Dead, The Surprise Of Wild Boar, And Eating Pork Belly While Listening To Ralph Stanley. (Part 4)
The day begins with bourbon. Well, actually the day began with the removal of the pork belly from its brine, lighting of hickory wood, and now since my only duty today calls for a careful watching of the smoker, I feel morally sound in tipping a glass . . . or two. Three pounds of … Continue reading Smoking Pork Belly, Making Black Truffle Butter, Drinking Some More Woodford Reserve And Talking To The Dead, While I Listen To Barbara Dane And Uncle Tupelo. (Part 3)
