On the Table - the curious home of Gary Allen, Food Writer & Dillettante

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Once, on the way home from school, when I was in second or third grade, I learned a new word.

It was a time when my vocabulary was in one of its major growth spurts, and I was always ready to show off my new-found knowledge. I was also just mature enough to know that choosing the right moment was essential to extract the maximum benefit from its use.

For the rest of the afternoon, I watched for my opportunity. The afternoon passed, and as darkness descended, I could hear the sounds of dinner being prepared in the kitchen.

My mother's stove was a huge black cast iron affair, for which -- I suspect -- wood had originally been the intended fuel. It had been altered several times, so that it could be used with coal, and later, for burning kerosene. The apartment had no central heating, so the stove served to heat the apartment as well. Consequently, the kitchen was a good place to do one's homework on a wintry afternoon.

Unfortunately for me, on that day, being in the kitchen meant that I knew -- in advance -- what we were going to be eating for dinner that night. One glance at the small glass jar, filled with a reddish-brown substance, sitting -- open -- near the stove, was warning enough. Although I was not happy about the impending menu, I was resourceful lad -- and I could see that there just might be a bright side to my grim culinary situation.

My father came home from his work as a phone company cable splicer. He was hungry after the dim day's labors, spent either on a windy telephone pole, or down in a damp manhole. We didn't have much money, back then -- and my mother had to make great sacrifices in order to put food on the table. However, being only seven or eight, at the time, I was completely oblivious to her maternal heroics.

My father, my younger sister, and I sat at the little linoleum-topped table in the corner of the kitchen, while my mother brought our dinner to us. It was chipped beef on toast. While my father -- who had served in the Navy during World War II -- would certainly have known the dish as "SOS, Shit on a Shingle," he never said anything like that at our table. My little sister, normally talkative, just looked at her plate, saying nothing.

I said nothing.

I was waiting for just the right moment, the point when dramatic tension was at its peak.

At last, that moment arrived. I stood, for effect -- rising to my full forty-five inches -- and announced, clearly and firmly enough to ensure that everyone was paying complete attention, "I'm not going to eat that CRAP!"

As expected, my audience was impressed -- not only with my new word, but with the astonishing appropriateness of its use at that moment. My father's response (an unholy mixture of anger towards my thoughtlessness and vulgarity, defense of his young wife's feelings, and his own frustration in the face of economic hard times) was instantaneous.

I really don't remember the punishment I received. Some blessed vagueness of memory screens the pain of that moment. Two things, however, are certain. First, I did eat chipped beef on toast that night and, second, I never, ever, used the word "crap" at my mother's table again.



A classic dish that serves one unhappy family.

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Cups warm milk
1 (8 ounce) jar chipped beef
salt and pepper, to taste
toast, as needed

Method

1. Melt butter, over low heat, in a saucepan. Stir in flour to make a roux. Add milk, slowly, stirring all the time, until thick and relatively lump-free.
2. Add beef, heat through and adjust seasoning.
3. Serve over toast.

We suppose that this post should have been saved for July 14th, Bastille Day... but here it is, nonetheless. Brioche, that rich little bread with a buttery head just begging to be lopped off, would be the perfect metaphorical treat for the French national holiday.

"Let them eat cake" is often mis-attributed to Marie Antoinette -- and worse, mis-translated. The actual phrase was "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (Let them eat brioche). Marie Antoinette never said it -- or, at least, wasn't the first to do so. The quote is older, and its source not nearly as clear as one would hope.

One version claims that it first appeared in the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1770) -- but Rousseau was actually remembering a still older quote. He wrote, "...the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, 'Then let them eat pastry!'" This appears to be a mistranslation -- but as I could not lay my hands on a copy of the book in French, it's only a guess.

Another version says that it first appeared in a political cartoon in 1740, which may be where Rousseau first encountered the phrase. The fact that he was writing about the possibility of his stealing some bread (to go with some wine he'd finagled) puts a rather interesting spin on the story… one perfectly in keeping with the revolutionary fervor of 1793.

The last version of the quote's history attributes it to Marie Therese d'Autriche (1638-1683), who was married to Louis XIV -- and that's as far back as we've gotten (sorry, we haven't figured out how to force Blogger to include the accent marks on the royal consort's middle name).

One more confession... this post originally appeared, in slightly different form, in the virtual pages of LeitesCulinaria.

It's March, which means that winter's days are numbered. We've got crocuses (croci?) in bloom, the maple sap is flowing, and -- somewhere deep under the cold wet leaves -- morels are dreaming of warmer days to come.

Subscribers to our updates newsletter receive only these updates from our blog, Just Served, in their e-mailboxes. The rest of our little non-update screeds still go into the blog, but they no longer intrude themselves in our subscribers' mailboxes. Last month, we posted an article that purports to be about fishing -- but (wink wink) is really about writing: Speaks with the Fishes.

We also attended the Roger Smith Food Writers Conference last month and posted some of the videos here.

In the news, Dr. Vino explains why the earthquake in Chile will be felt here too: Chilean earthquake: wineries, tanks, bottles damaged or destroyed.

True gluttons for punishment should visit A Quiet Little Table in the Corner, a page that provides an ever-changing master index of any other web places that carry our stuff. The Quiet Little Table is hosted by Marty Martindale's Food Site of the Day, and you should check out some of the goodies she's got posted while you're there.

March is also the month in which we celebrate our Irish heritage -- whether we're Irish or not -- with green bagels, green beer, and corned beef and cabbage. We do this because not of those foods are Irish. Here're some vaguely appropriate excerpts from, or about to be added to, On the Table's culinary quote pages:

"Cabbage as a food has problems. It is easy to grow, a useful source of greenery for much of the year. Yet as a vegetable it has original sin, and needs improvement. It can smell foul in the pot, linger through the house with pertinacity, and ruin a meal with its wet flab. Cabbage also has a nasty history of being good for you." Jane Grigson

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." Douglas Adams

"Uisce Beatha: an Irish or Erse word for the Water of Life. It is a compounded and distilled spirit, being drawn on aromaticks, and the Irish sort is particularly distinguished for its pleasant and mild flavor. In Scotland it is somewhat hotter, and by corruption in Scottish they call it Whisky." Dr. Samuel Johnson

"What butter and whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for." Irish proverb

PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs -- or know of wonderful sites we've missed -- please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those of you who have suggested sites -- thanks, and keep them coming!

PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings, go here.

PPPS: If you've received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don't wish to receive future issues, you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We're happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list -- but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we'll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again. You can unsubscribe here.

PPPPS: Leitesculinaria has been redesigned -- and it still contains some of the best food writing and recipes around. So far, the redesigned site contains only a few of our own articles -- but, eventually, they'll all be here.

All You Need to Know about Bologna
(not really everything, but it does include links to related sites)

American Maple Museum
(maple-sugaring history and equipment, housed in a museum in the northwest corner of the Adirondack Mountains)

Cheese Glossary

(cheese terms, not a listing of cheeses)

Cheesipedia
(descriptions of cheeses, categorized by country of origin and searchable)

Cook's Oracle, The
(Barbara Ketcham Wheaton's searchable "...database designed to help people doing research in pre-twentieth-century cookbooks...")

Culture
(online version of this cheese magazine; recipes, articles, pairings, a guide to cheese styles, searchable directory of cheese merchants)

Diner Lingo, a History
(brief history, and extensive glossary, of diner jargon; PDF requires Adobe Acrobat)

Food News Journal
(selections of the best in food writing and news, in print, online, everyday)

Food Studies
(a research guide from the University of Michigan)

Hot Tamales & the Mississippi Delta
(John T. Edge's introduction to a site devoted to the source of Robert Johnson's saucily metaphorical "Hot tamales and they're red hot...")

Medieval/Renaissance Food Clip-Art Collection
(copyright-free art from the fifteenth through seventeenth century)

New Asian Cuisine
(articles, recipes, ingredients, links)

School Lunches in France: Nursery-School Gourmets
(Vivienne Walt's article in Time magazine)




Recipe for Victory: Food and Cooking in Wartime




Eat Me Daily has posted an article about blogger success stories: "The Year in Food Blog-to-Book Deals [2009-orama]."


American Food Historian, An


Culinary Curator, The


CurdNerds


Gastronomista


gas-tron-o-my


Gigabiting


Hedonia


Kalofagas


Russelnod.com


Spice & Ice, and more...




Except, of course, for the usual legal mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:

Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose -- ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs:

Our books, The Resource Guide for Food Writers, The Herbalist in the Kitchen, The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries, and Human Cuisine can be ordered through the Libro-Emporium.

Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...

...for the moment, anyway.

Last weekend (February 13, 2010), many of the most influential American food writers gathered in an art-filled mid-town hotel in Manhattan to discuss a subject that is near and dear to them: how to survive as food writers in a time when publishing (at least print publishing) seems to be in decline, and electronic publishing hasn't found a way to pay the very people who provide its all-important content.

Needless to say, there was quite a bit of hand-wringing -- and rightly so -- but there was also some valuable advice. Most notably, in his summation of a panel on The Future of Food Writing on the Internet, David Leite made an impassioned call to arms for all to join in taking control of our own careers, embrace the future, and just get on with it.

Several of the panels were recorded and are available as video on the web. For those who were unable to attend -- or were there but attended other simultaneous panels -- here are a few of them:

From Websites to Blogs to Facebook
Food writing has progressed from tiny triangular marks impressed in clay tablets, stored in heaps in Mesopotamia, to much tinier magnetic impressions stored somewhere "out there" in cyberspace. Changes in the medium may change the message, but the goal is the same: writers want readers to experience their work -- what's different is that readers get to respond to writers more directly than ever before. Like it or not, food writing is not likely to change back to the one-directional medium it once was.

Gary Allen, chair
Irena Chalmers
Mitchell Davis
Bret Thorn
Laura Weiss

Food for Thought: The Future of Academic Food Writing, Part 1
Food for Thought: The Future of Academic Food Writing, Part 2
Recent years have witnessed an explosion in academic food writing. Food series have rolled off university presses and specialized and cross-disciplinary journals abound, all to sate the growing appetite for classroom materials and scholarly investigation. This panel unites distinguished authors and editors in the academic world to assess where we are and where we might be going in this hot pot of academe.

Cathy Kaufman, chair
Ken Albala
Jennifer Crewe
Bruce Kraig
Marion Nestle
Andrew F. Smith

Powerful Potables
Calling all cork dorks and coffee geeks! How is the increasingly specialized world of beverage writing evolving? How have platforms like Wine 2.0 changed the playing field? If you already write about food, what tools & training do you need to expand into writing about wine and other potables.

Kara Newman, chair
Alice Feiring
Alan Kropf
Nora Maynard

The Future of Food Writing on the Internet
This panel will explore how the continually changing, ever-evolving world of Internet technology is impacting food writers. Will technology make it easier -- or harder -- for writers to make a living? Will there come a time when a writer can completely sidestep traditional media and become successful, financially and critically? How will developing technologies impact -- positively and negatively -- the industry?

David Leite, chair
Elissa Altman
Joe Langhan
Bonnie Tandy Leblang
Renee Schletter

Good-Bye Gourmet, Hello Yelp! -- The Changing Role of the Restaurant Critic, Part 1
Good-Bye Gourmet, Hello Yelp! -- The Changing Role of the Restaurant Critic, Part 2
However much the media landscape has changed, people still want to know where to eat. This panel on restaurant reviewing will touch on the past, current, and future of restaurant reviewing. Emphasis will be placed on changes in the relationship between the reviewer and diners, the reviewer and media outlets, and the reviewer and the restaurant industry. The craft of reviewing restaurants will be explored in the context of other forms of cultural criticism.

Mitchell Davis, chair
Gabriella Gershenson
Irene Sax
Robert Sietsema

TV and Beyond: The Future of Food and Cooking in Broadcast Media
Beginning with home economist-hosted programs in the 1940s, cooking on television has evolved over the last sixty plus years into a phenomenal industry and pastime. What does the future of food media look like and where/how will we view it? Who will be our guides? What will we be taught and how and what will we learn?

Kathleen Collins, chair
Geof Drummond
Joe Langhan
Dana Polan
Krishnendu Ray
Kate Rohmann