Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
Here’s a menu of food-related articles from the last few days. Consider it a dinner invitation to match your refreshing beverage upon returning home from work. One for me, one for you. Our appetizer addresses one aspect of the food waste problem–just throwing it away. Oh, the above menu is from Feast–once upon a time … Continue reading Today’s Menu
Jules-Alexandre Grün knew how to paint a dinner party. All the light, all the wealth, all the joy. Such a beautiful nineteen hundred and eleven, what could go wrong? I think of the word hospitality. Here’s a Walter Arnold photograph of the old Marine Hospital in the French Fort area of Memphis, Tennessee. … Continue reading The Dinner Party: Do I Amputate, Change Out, Or Kill The Guests?
Hardwoods and evergreens press emerald, malachite and viridian leaves and needles up against the road snaking along the edge of Little Traverse Bay between Harbor Springs and Cross Village. Bellworts, violets and wake-robins cover the forest floor, while above the sun disappears for minutes at a time as I drive M-119, the Tunnel of Trees … Continue reading James Salter: Life Is Meals
“Ah wanna tell ya ’bout a girl,” Nick Cave sings. “Ah wanna tell ya ’bout a sausage,” I sing. Cotechino. It’s 1511 and you’re living in Mirandola, a city in northern Italy in the province of Modena. The famous Pico della Mirandola’s family runs the city, but that’s little help to you now as Pope … Continue reading The Past And Future Of Food: Nick Cave, Cotechino Sausage, The Holy League, The Beatles, Soylent, And Nick Cave Again.
In Tracie McMillan’s National Geographic article, “The New Face of Hunger,” the nature of agribusiness, food production and government subsidies becomes a part of the puzzle of hunger in America. It’s a cruel irony that people in rural Iowa can be malnourished amid forests of cornstalks running to the horizon. Iowa dirt is some of … Continue reading We Don’t Like To Take Advice About Food–And That’s Part Of The Problem.
A compelling view of hunger from Osage, Iowa to Houston, Texas to the Bronx, New York. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hunger/ This is also a good place for a book recommendation: The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis. A small food bank in Toronto, Canada … Continue reading Hunger In America
What’s in a cooking pot? Here’s Rachel Laudan in Cuisines and Empires on the subject: The cooking pot, in which diverse elements were brought into harmony, symbolized culture and state. When the Greeks founded a new colony, they carried a cauldron and a spark of fire from the mother city. Confucians argued that the king … Continue reading Aaron Needs A Goat–I Have A Stew To Cook, Sins To Confess, And Côtes du Rhône To Drink. Let’s Here It For Family Bovidae!!
So, apparently there is a terroir battle between those who smell each soil particle in a glass and those who only smell alcohol and cry “Pour on!” I’m posting Dwight Furrow’s review of the situation, along with Compound Interest’s blog on the aroma of the sea–something particular dear to my heart when I curl up … Continue reading Terroir Battle? You Know What Side I’m On!
Why would this episode of Empires, Cannibals and Magic Fish Bones begin with Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates? Ah, just you wait–death, drink, friends, and something sacred are all in the air. The Odyssey, so much eating, so much time: sacrifice and feasts, strangers walking in the door and feasting, sailors feasting on cattle … Continue reading Ancient Cuisine Philosophy For 500, Jack! The Odyssey To Yum Yum Cha To Nineveh To Cajun Country.
While working on a new post, I often like to scrawl through what’s happening in the blogosphere and discover a comet, orbiting planet or an emerging galaxy–today is one of the emerging galaxy days, I think. Throughout Dan Barber’s new book The Third Plate, he’s constantly wondering if chefs like himself are part of the … Continue reading Is The World Better Off With Celebrity Chefs? Bourdain, Pépin, And Hong Kong Gardeners.
