Archive for Food & Drink
October 1, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Science & Nature, Technology & Computing, Food & Drink
One of my favorite pieces of kitchen kit has always been a simple plastic pastry mat I received as a gift many years ago. It did an excellent job of keeping flour off the counter and was imprinted with circles showing how far dough should be rolled out for different sizes of pie and tart pans. The mat also made it easier to get pie crusts into a pan, because you could invert the pan onto the dough and then just flip the entire assembly over. Try that with a countertop! Well, a few months ago, my faithful pastry mat finally gave up the ghost, so I headed down to my favorite kitchen supply store to buy a replacement.
Kitchen stores are dangerous places for me, just like hardware stores and computer stores. Everywhere I look there’s some newfangled, high-tech gadget calling out to me, and my mind races as I […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
September 29, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Food & Drink
The fruit is picked by hand at the peak of ripeness, then crushed, fermented in oak barrels, and aged for three years before being bottled. The final product is a distinctive shade of red, and is served in fine restaurants all around the world. But it’s not Cabernet, Merlot, or Burgundy. It’s Tabasco® Sauce, the world’s most famous red pepper condiment. It has been bottled on Avery Island, Louisiana by the McIlhenny family since 1868. And this little bottle is full of interesting stories.
Avery Island is located 140 miles (225km) west of New Orleans. The term “island” is a bit misleading, as it’s not surrounded by water so much as marshland. This 2,200-acre (900-hectare) mound of solid ground was originally called Petite Anse, and part of it had been inherited by a Baton Rouge judge named Daniel Avery. When Avery eventually purchased the rest of the property for his family, […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
September 26, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Clever Ideas, Food & Drink
I once heard a rumor that almost provoked a deep moral crisis. I have always had a profound, passionate, and unshakable devotion to chocolate. Equally strong is my contempt for mosquitoes (and I’d say that even if I hadn’t contracted malaria during a summer in Indonesia when I was in college). The rumor, which turned out to be unsubstantiated, was that mosquitoes pollinate the cacao trees from which cocoa is produced. I had been worried, because I didn’t know how I could maintain my belief that mosquitoes were pure evil if they were necessary for the creation of pure good. Luckily, I did not have to grapple with this serious philosophical issue and I could go on loving chocolate and hating mosquitoes without feeling any inconsistency.
The only real shortcoming of chocolate is that it has an unfortunate tendency to melt when you don’t want it to. Hot chocolate, hot fudge, […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
September 10, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Science & Nature, Society & Culture, Food & Drink
When I was in college, I had a professor who was known for being a bit on the odd side. Although he was smart, friendly, and much loved by the students, he had some strange and inexplicable habits. For one thing, he had a very peculiar way of speaking, including about a dozen idiosyncratic phrases that he repeated over and over. A friend and I, when we got bored, used to sit in the back of the classroom and keep a tally of how many times he used each of these phrases. The professor always kept a pen clipped to his collar, even if he was wearing a shirt with a pocket (a practice that amused me so much I adopted it myself—and keep it up to this day). And he encouraged us, on multiple-choice exams, to write in our own answers in the margin if we didn’t like any […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
August 4, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Mind & Body, Food & Drink
Because of my abiding interests in food, cooking, and unusual stories, I was excited to discover the books of Margaret Visser. Visser achieved literary fame for her books on the culture of eating: Much Depends on Dinner and The Rituals of Dinner. But the first book of hers I read was The Way We Are, a collection of short essays on all sorts of interesting things, from the unexpected origins of words to the stories behind everyday customs and cultural artifacts—each one backed by a solid bibliography. Hmmmm, a series of short essays on interesting things. What a concept! Although I did not deliberately try to emulate Visser’s M.O. on this site, it certainly was an implicit inspiration.
One of Visser’s topics in particular caught my attention: fasting. On a few rare occasions I had fasted for a day at a time, but Visser was talking about extended fasts—those lasting more […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
July 21, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Food & Drink, History
I love Friday mornings. It used to be that I looked forward to Fridays simply because they were the last work day of the week. Then I began working for an employer with the wonderful tradition of providing free bagels and cream cheese for the entire company every Friday morning. They were good bagels, too. Not only was this a great incentive to get to work on time, it put me in a proper frame of mind to be productive and happy for the rest of the day. Ever since then, I’ve carried this custom with me to other places I’ve worked, and even when “work” means my home office, I make an effort to get a fresh bagel on Friday mornings. It’s just the right thing to do.
A Hole in the Story
There are, by actual count, umpteen bajillion Web sites that proudly recount the history of the bagel—that is […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
July 16, 2008 at 10:00 am · Filed under Science & Nature, Food & Drink
At lunch time one day a few years ago, I walked into a cafeteria near the building where I was working. I wasn’t in the mood for a salad or sandwich that day, so I looked at the hot entrees. Behind the glass was a heated serving pan full of rice, and next to it another pan containing a mixture I couldn’t quite identify, though there were some clearly recognizable vegetables and on the whole it looked fairly appetizing. The “daily specials” sign was missing, so I asked the server what it was. She looked down at the food, thought hard for a few seconds, looked back up at me, and said matter-of-factly, “Ingredients over rice.” Another few seconds passed and it was clear that was the only answer I was going to get. I said, “Fine, I’ll have some of that.” It was delicious—though to this day I have […]
Original post by Joe Kissell
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