Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
Houston like any city from Ur to Rome to Hong Kong tells its story through food and those who bring food traditions from around the world to their neighborhood. A Brief History of Houston Barbecue offers such a tale, one where I stir a barbecue sauce in my Houston Heights home and wonder, whose sauce … Continue reading More Alchemy And Travels Through Space And Time With Barbecue Sauce.
My morning thoughts do not immediately turn to blood, but then I read an article by Katie Macleod which offers a wonderful observation of blood sausage and what we will eat when we’re young and what we will not in Blood for Breakfast is Wasted on the Young. And then, all my thoughts turn bloody. … Continue reading Blood In The Kitchen.
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.
Ah, ginger beef tripe from Yum Yum Cha Cafe. Though no longer a fixture of Rice Village, many a Sunday morning the Harvey/Maya family traveled to its storefront window and entered in search of dim sum. Beef tripe comes to us from the muscle wall of the first three chambers of a cow’s stomach. The … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: The Stomach Our Cultural Engine.
I’m working on two lectures I’ll give next week on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein. Much to offer. I could focus upon the sublime views of nature such as Victor Frankenstein contemplates just before he meets his creation high in the Alps. I resolved to go alone to the summit of Montanvert. I remembered the … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: The Anatomist And The Butcher.
This beautiful looking cow heart you’re gazing at appears courtesy of Regula Ysewijn, who blogs under the title Miss Foodwise. Stuffed with kale, bacon and mushrooms this hearty repast reminds us that any body part in a human we probably dine on when it comes from an animal. More about this fabulous dish later, for … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: Heart and Blood
Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity posits the curvature of spacetime, caused by the presence of mass, creates gravity. If massive objects change this curvature, then a wave should be produced. Yet, Einstein doubted whether scientific technology could develop to the degree necessary to create an extremely sensitive measurement. That seemed to be the case, until … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: Brain (Part 1)
Look at it. So beautiful. Firm, bright color, everything you would want. Consider Harold McGee’s view of skin in On Food and Cooking. Usually cooks don’t welcome large amounts of toughening connective tissue in meat. But taken on their own, animal skin, cartilage, and bones are valuable exactly because they’re mostly connective tissue and therefor … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: Skin And Flesh
Certainly one of the most famous severed heads belonged to Louis XVI as depicted in Georg Heinrich Sieveking’s copper plate engraving from 1793. Simon Schama in Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution narrates the final moments of this most unfortunate king. The steps to the scaffold were so steep that Louis had to lean … Continue reading The Anatomical Theater: Head And Face
