The Culinary Historian

Food Pyramid Now History

2011-05-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

Interesting that USDA's "mascot"
was a puppet who lied.

Celebrated and reviled, the Food Guide Pyramid, USDA's lame-brained attempt to teach Americans to eat healthy foods (while, at the same time, bowing to lobbyists from Big Grain, Big Meat, Big Dairy and Big Sugar) is finally being put to rest. That doesn't mean the government is giving up. Healthy eating is high on the agenda of the Obama administration, and the First Lady has taken on childhood obesity as her personal cause.

The new graphic guide to healthy eating is going to look like a dinner plate, which I think is a darn good idea. Most people couldn't really visualize how that pyramid translated to daily food intake, anyway. Fully half of that plate is going to be VEGETABLES! That's pretty impressive, especially considering that the vegetable lobby is small, fragmented, and weak.

The new Food Guide is scheduled for release on Thursday, June 2. Copy it quickly, before Big Grain, Big Meat, Big Dairy and Big Sugar do their dirty work. The original Food Guide Pyramid was similarly healthy, with vegetables and fruit occupying the largest tier (replaced by grains, courtesy of Big Grain.) There were more drastic changes, too, but this is not a moment to ponder the mistakes of the past. Let's hope the new food guide will be better rooted in science while being easier to understand.

Read more about it in this very interesting article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/health/nutrition/28plate.html?_r=1&hp

As always, looking forward to your comments On a personal note, I've been out of the blogging loop for a few months. It's good to be back!

Bible Cake

2010-11-12T12:11:00.000-08:00

While researching the history of food during World War Two (for a Culinary Historians of Atlanta event), my friend Chef Christy Seelye-King ran across a 1947 recipe for Bible Cake. It’s really more of a puzzle than a recipe. Each ingredient must be gleaned from Biblical verses. The recipe was published in the “Olio” Cookery Book in England. It’s easy to imagine a scene in one of those stark black and white English movies of the 1940’s. An English housewife, who always wears an apron, is trying to figure out the recipe for Bible Cake, printed in the Sunday newspaper. Her husband is away at war, and she is single-handedly keeping her household going. The Bible Cake recipe-puzzle serves as a comforting distraction.

I wondered about Bible Cakes. Was this idea invented during World War Two, or did it go back a-ways? Turns out I didn’t have to look very far. The answer is in the fine blog, Hushpuppy Nation, written by the food journalist, Rick McDaniel. The earliest Bible Cake recipes are to be found in cookery books published in England during the late 1700’s. The war between England and its American colonies didn’t dampen the enthusiasm that women had for Bible Cakes. None other than Dolly Madison was said to be a fan. Here is a link, with recipe, to the article about Scripture Cake in Hushpuppy Nation. http://www.hushpuppynation.com/scripture-cake/

And here, for your amusement, is the recipe for Bible Cake, published in 1947, in the Olio Cookery Book. Good luck with it!

Bible Cake

Look up the references and work out what’s required. It won’t taste too good if you get it wrong!

1. 225g (1/2 lb.) Judges V, verse 25 (last clause)

2. 225g (1/2 lb.) Jeremiah VI, 20

3. 15ml (1 tbsp) I Samuel XIV, 25

4. 3 of Jeremiah XVII, II

5. 225g (1/2 lb.) I Samuel XXX, 12

6. 225g (1/2 lb.) Nahum III, 12 (chopped)

7. 50g (2 oz) Numbers XVII, 8 (blanched and chopped)

8. 450g (1 lb.) I Kings IV, 22

9. Season to taste with II Chronicles IX, 9

10. a pinch of Leviticus II, 13

11. 5ml (1 tsp) Amos IV, 5

12. 45ml (3 tbsp) Judges IV, 19

(Hint: ‘leaven’ means ‘baking powder’ and you may need to add some Exodus III, 14 to moisten the mixture)

Beat 1, 2, and 3 to a cream; add 4, one at a time, still beating; then 5, 6, and 7, and beat again. Add 8, 9, 10 and 11 having previously mixed them, and lastly 12. Bake in a slow oven for 1 ½ hours.

Ps - If you want a recipe that comes with the answers, click here.

Be the Ultimate Locavore: Eat Forgotten Foods

2010-11-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Chickweed - new gourmet darling -- and free, too!

Do you ever stand in the produce section of your local supermarket, feeling tired of the same old green beans, squash, and lettuce? Are those gourmet fruits and vegetables just too expensive? Are you trying to do a better job of eating locally-grown foods?

Here's an idea - start eating the forgotten foods that are growing all around you. There are hundreds of plants that people have eaten for thousands of years that go begging every day. These are fruits and vegetables that are tasty and nutritious. They were popular foods before people started farming, and even after most people turned to agriculture they enjoyed these wonderful plants that shared our habitats. The only problem is that people stopped eating them. And the reasons people stopped eating them had more to do with demographic and economic changes in society -- it had nothing to do with flavor or usefulness.

Nowadays, we call them weeds. We waste money on harmful herbicides to kill perfectly delicious and nutritious foods that are growing in our own gardens, yards, and window boxes. Our problem is that we just don't know about them.

Well, I've been eating edible wild plants for 40 years now, and I'm here to tell you they are some of the most interesting foods around. I've even been hoping that the current economic downturn will serve as a source of encouragement for adventurous cooks to venture forth into their yards and learn to eat their weeds. Not all weeds are edible, but many more of the weeds in the average suburban yard are edible than are the ornamental plants, many of which are deadly poison. If you only learn -- and use -- five edible wild plants on a regular basis, then you, too, could save money and reduce your environmental footprint substantially.

A few evenings ago, I was invited to give a presentation on edible weeds to the local Master Gardener's group in my home county. Click on the link to see my PowerPoint presentation.

http://apps.facebook.com/slideshare/slideshow/5647297?from=slidespacevio

Please, dear readers, let me know if you would like more information on this topic. In fact, to encourage you to comment, starting this month I will hold a free giveaway to one lucky person who posts a comment to this blog. The winner will be chosen at random, so comment early and often.

Corn-y Halloween!

2010-10-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

Chicomecoatl, Aztec Corn Goddess

Happy Halloween 2010!

The meaning and practice of this ancient holiday has changed drastically over the 2000-years-plus of its existence -- but there is something about the fall festival that's irresistible. Maybe it's the weakening of the sun, the falling leaves, or the weird combination of death and sweetness that calls on those of us in the species Homo sapiens sapiens to take to the darkness and celebrate our own dark side.

The roots of Halloween grow in the British Isles and northern France, the ancestral homeland of the Celts, who also brought us Stonehenge and the Druids (good name for a rock group). In the Celtic calendar, the harvest signified the end of the year, and fell during late October, according to our calendar. The fields were cleared and the stubble was piled up. People extinguished the flames in the family fireplace, and everyone came out to the fields to burn off the old stubble, tell fortunes, feast and otherwise celebrate the old year, a festival known as Samhain. At the end of Samhain, everyone lighted torches from the now-dying bonfires and took them home to re-light their home fires.

After dark, things got creepy, because the old year ended at sunset. The new year wouldn't start until the dawning of a new day - at sunrise the next morning. During the hours betwixt dark and dawn, the boundaries between the world of the dead and that of the living were blurred. That meant the dead were free to roam the land. The dead were a hungry bunch and seemed to prefer sweet foods. Back then, that meant apples and other fall fruits. People dressed up like the dead -- like skeletons, ghosts, goblins, and ghouls, so that they could fit in with all the dead people wandering around looking for mischief. People carved special lanterns with scary faces to help their disguises. These jack-o-lanterns were usually carved from turnips. Pumpkins came later, from a New World that the Celts didn't know about.

Halloween is still celebrated in the old Celtic lands, but it's not that big a deal. No, Halloween has reached its zenith in America, where it is a secular event that celebrates our unique way of mixing and mashing cultures into new forms. I already mentioned replacing turnips for jack-o-lanterns with the much superior pumpkin. Consider corn, more accurately called "maize".

Betty Fussell, American Corn Goddess

Corn is the basis of all American cuisine. If you doubt that statement, I suggest you read The Story of Corn, by the distinguished food writer Betty Fussell. Maize was domesticated by the Aztecs at least 8,000 years ago, in what is now southern Mexico. Maize spread quickly throughout North America and into South America. By the time the European settlers arrived, most Native Americans had stopped hunter-gathering and switched to growing maize and other crops, including beans, squash, chile peppers and tomatoes. Pumpkins are a type of squash.

Settlers from the old Celtic lands brought their Halloween traditions, such as carving jack-o-lanterns and dressing in scary costumes and wandering around in the night trick-and-treating. But corn -- and the corn harvest -- coincided time wise, and became part of the fall celebration, hence Indian corn was used as a decoration and popcorn balls quickly became a Halloween treat.

Enter that very special and distinctively American sweet, candy corn. Now candy corn was invented in the 1880's by a German candy maker who had immigrated to the US and ended up living in Illinois, surrounded by cornfields. Of course, in those years, most Americans lived on farms or in small towns. They got a kick out of the marzipan-like candy that looked like corn. The big sensation in candy corn was that every kernel had three colors! The inventor had figured out a way to use corn starch (!) to keep the sections of hot sugar syrup separate as they cooled. So there is real corn in candy corn. What a sensation!

These days, we take a ho-hum attitude toward candy corn here in the US. But in some parts of the world, it's special. One of my favorite food bloggers, who goes by the mono-name, Adrienne, is an anthropologist-turned-writer in London, England. She is fascinated by those American foods, popcorn and candy corn, and recently posted an article in her witty blog, Coffee in a Teacup. She also developed a recipe that combines popcorn and candy corn. Here it is, for your Halloween enjoyment. Even if you don't try to make it, at least read her description of making popcorn - something we Americans take for granted.

Candy Corn and Candied Corn (adapted from Cooking Light)

¼ cup butter
8 cups popcorn (I did mine on the stove to make it slightly healthier but microwaved is fine too)
8-10oz/ 200-300g marshmallows
a good sprinkling of salt
1 cup+ candy corn

Method:

Make your popcorn. I made mine by coating a medium sized pot with sunflower oil and heating it over the stove, making sure to coat the entire bottom and onto the sides. Then add 100g corn maize kernels and cover with a lid, lightly shaking the pot from side to side. Continue to shake the pot while the corn pops (you can hear it- it's very exciting!) - this not only helps the unpopped kernels to cook, but also keeps the freshly popped corn from burning. You know the corn is popped when you can no longer hear or feel many raw kernels, and when there is a lull of 5 or more seconds. Transfer your popcorn to a large bowl and sprinkle generously with salt. Next add your candy corn to the bowl, taking care not to let them all sink to the bottom. You'll want them spread evenly throughout your mix if possible.

In a small saucepan, melt your butter and marshmallows with a dash of salt over a low flame, stirring periodically as it begins to melt. Do not allow it to bubble. Once fully melted remove from heat and pour the melted mixture over your popcorn. Mix thoroughly trying to evenly coat all of the corn. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Line a baking tray (or two) with grease proof paper. When your mixture has cooled, spray your hands with cooking spray first, then take a handful and squeeze the mixture together to form balls slightly smaller than tennis balls. The marshmallows will work as glue allowing you to press tightly to form compact balls. You may have to respray your hands every couple times, as the mixture is incredibly sticky! Leave to dry/set on the baking tray for 30 minutes or so. Then wrap the balls individually in clingfilm and give away as soon as possible (they probably will only keep for about 3 days or so) to anyone in need of a bit of Halloween cheer, perhaps reminding them about good dental hygiene as these things will certainly stick in your teeth... in a good way of course!

Coca-Cola: the Controversy Continues

2010-10-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Mural in Guatemala, where Coke has been accused of union violence

ATLANTA - Atlanta was destroyed in the Civil War, and the mere fact that it came back stronger than ever is amazing, considering that other places simply disappeared. If you ever take a ride on quiet country highways in Georgia and South Carolina, stop at the historical markers that stand at places in the road where there is nothing to see but a vacant field -- sometimes an old wooden church is all that remains, sometimes a few scattered chimneys. Those historical markers tell the tale of towns that once stood there. A few months ago, the Culinary Historians of Atlanta had a picnic where the thriving town of Etowah once churned. Now it's a lakeside recreation area. Nothing is left but the chimney from the old pig iron furnace that was the town's main industry.

But Atlanta was different. One of the things that helped Atlanta's economy was the invention of an elixir called Coca-Cola. A pharmacist named John Pemberton first concocted the stuff in 1886. The company that was created to mass market the drink, which originally contained cocaine (the "coca" in "Coca-Cola") aggressively pursued profits, which was a good thing in the impoverished South. It made many families wealthy. They, in turn, donated dividends and even Coke stock to local institutions, which still benefit from the generosity the company shows to its shareholders. Some people even claim that Coca-Cola saved Atlanta single-handedly.

The Coca-Cola Company may be good to its executives and shareholders, but there is another side to the story. It has been accused of making Americans fat (the company invented high-fructose corn syrup in the 1980's), of polluting the water in Third World Countries, and of sanctioning acts of violence against workers trying to form unions in developing economies.

Now there's yet another in a long line of books about the company that accuses it of the worst crimes imaginable, including murder. Here is a link to a book review from TheAtlantic.com. Briefly, the reviewer, Daniel Fromson, who is also the producer of The Atlantic's food channel, states that the book is interesting and very readable. He also warns, however, that it is a little one-sided, against the corporate giant.

The book is titled, The Coke Machine: the Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink. The author is Michael Blanding, a political writer who specializes in political exposes and travel.

The story of Coca-Cola and other giant profiteers that sell the food we rely on for health is informative to the culinary historian, in that the way people eat these days has changed from the times when people grew their own foodstuffs or purchased foods directly from farmers or small bakers. It is vital that we, as food-loving bipeds, stay informed so that every time we enter a supermarket we can make intelligent food-purchasing decisions.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1WQAQn/www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/10/the-pause-that-represses-coca-colas-controversies/64456//r:t

Will Tweet for Food

2010-09-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA -- The most important seed bank in the world is currently endangered by real estate developers. A Twitter campaign has won a temporary reprieve for the seed bank, but more help is needed. The future of humankind could be at stake. No joke.

Here's the story. The Pavlovsk Experimental Station was founded in 1927 by the brilliant botanist and plant geneticist, Nikolai Vavilov (my secret crush), with the goal of collecting a large amount of plant genetic material to better feed Russia and the rest of the world. Vavilov traveled the world collecting plants while developing a theory on the origins of cultivated crop plants that is still important to botanists, crop scientists, plant geographers, and ethnobotanists. Vavilov carefully chose the location for its soil and climate because it is a living seed bank. The seeds are "grown out" to keep the strains alive and grow the collection. If seeds aren't grown out, the DNA will eventually

Nikolai Vavilov

die. Vavilov invented the very idea of seed banks. There are now more than 1,000 seed banks around the world, but Pavlovsk is the most important one, because it has more seeds than anyone of all types of plants. It is especially important for its collection of 5,000 types of fruits and berries, 90% of which are extinct, except for the collections at Vavlosk Station.

Under Stalin, Vavilov himself was persecuted and imprisoned. His crime was that he was more loyal to science than to politics and that he was from the bourgoisie. His parents were merchants, and he was an educated person. A high crime, indeed. He also criticized Stalin's favorite scientist. whose views regarding evolution turned out to be dead wrong. In 1940, Staling imprisoned Vavilov for these "crimes". Three years later, Vavilov died in prison, of malnutrition. Eventually, he was vindicated. The government even issued a postage stamp in his honor.

The scientists who work at Vavlosk Station have always been deeply committed to their work. By the time Vavilov was imprisoned, he and his colleagues had already collected seeds from more than 200,000 plant varieties. During WWII, while Vavilov languished in prison, the scientists at Pavlovsk continued their work. Even during the 900-day siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg was called Leningrad during the Soviet era), the scientists heroically managed to keep Pavlovsk Station's work alive. Twelve of the scientists starved to death during the siege, surrounded by edible plants and seeds. They refused to eat their work.

Rare berries at Pavlovsk

Pavlovsk has already saved the world, in a sense. After a drought in Ethiopia, and war in the Balkans wiped out crops, seeds from Pavlovsk helped farmers plant new crops to feed the populace. In future years, with the threat of global climate change, the old crops may fail, and genetic material from seed banks such as Pavlovsk will be needed to find new crops that will thrive under different climatic conditions. Ironically enough, it's already happening. Russia is currently undergoing a terrible drought that has killed off most of the wheat crop. Already, Prime Minister Putin has issued an order to stop all wheat exports from Russia. It's time to plant the winter wheat, and farmers are trying to do so in dry soil with no promise of rain. The crop scientists at Pavlovsk, with their enormous seed collection, might be able to find a strain of wheat that can thrive in the new dry conditions.

But Pavlovsk itself is threatened with extinction. It's a story worthy of Kafka himself. Pavlovsk Experimental Station is owned by the Russian government, on government-owned land. And even though it is the original seed bank and the most important seed bank in the world, the Russian government has refused to do the paperwork necessary to make it part of the global network of seed banks. The budget has been cut almost every year.

Because of the budget cuts, Pavlovsk has been forced to lay people off, and the once-beautiful gardens have deteriorated. The important plants are still healthy and robust, but there are also a lot of weeds and a generally unkempt look about the place. The government that cut the budget now says that "obviously" the people who work there just don't care about the place. Nothing could be further from the truth. They just don't have the money for such frills as paying for gardeners to do the weeding.

Enter the Department of Housing. Now, housing is a big deal in Russia, and the Pavlovsk Experimental Station happens to be on some prime real estate (which was not the case when it was first established. It was out in the countryside.) The government wants to turn the land over to a real estate developer to build luxury housing. The value of Pavlovsk is irrelevant to these people. In terms of the value of a priceless seed bank, here is their response, (loosely translated)-- "If it is priceless, that means one cannot set a price. So priceless is the same as worthless. It has no value. It has no worth." I told you. Kafka-esque.

The Department of Housing said that Pavlovsk Station could be moved. The scientists say that would take ten years, because of the mature living plants in the collection. Luckily, there is a strong connection between Pavlovsk and Kew Botanical Gardens, near London, England. The scientists at Kew put out the call. In response, the Global Crop Diversity Trust started a Twitter campaign to save Pavlovsk. Over 30,000 tweets were sent, and one week later, President Medvedev tweeted back! Pavlosvsk was given a one month reprieve, and Medvedev called for an investigation.

We can help by keeping the pressure on. Here are some links about what you can do to help save this important place (it won't cost you a cent!)

http://www.croptrust.org/main/index.php?itemid=818

http://twitter.com/InvasiveNotes/status/24469603024

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jLXt-hvcZiNgyMRFr117wAlFhz_g

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/16/russia-president-pavolvsk-twitter

Steppin' Out

2010-09-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Blogging, like most writing, can be a lonely thing. You sit staring at the computer screen and wonder if anyone is out there -- if anyone will read your digital scribbling.

But then I attended the Food Blog Forum yesterday. It's not lonely at all. It's a cyber-community. There's ALWAYS someone to "talk" to.

This was the first time I had come out of my shell since starting The Culinary Historian a few months ago. The forum was held at The Shed on Glenwood, a new restaurant in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Atlanta. There was plenty of parking, as most of the surrounding buildings are empty or under construction.

One hundred other food bloggers were crammed like sardines into the too-small space, perched on the hardest little wooden chairs many of us had enjoyed in a long time. But the speakers were knowledgeable and engaging and it was wonderful to spend a day in the company of such an interesting group.

The main speaker was Jaden Hair, of steamykitchen.com Jaden de-mystified blogging and shared what it takes to be a successful blogger. In the last session of the day, she just sat in a chair and talked about her experience, what she has learned, and what works. She had no PowerPoint, no visual aids. She just sat and talked and answered questions. I learned a lot.

The main thing that I came away with was that a good blog is entertaining and has useful information. A cooking blog is a good example and most of the other bloggers had cooking blogs. They put up cute pictures of their kids and share a recipe or two.

I wondered, how does The Culinary Historian fit into this paradigm? My aim is to have a blog that is thoughtful and informative. But is it useful? Is it entertaining to anyone but me?

So, dear readers (and I only have a small idea how many of you are even out there), please tell me. Should The Culinary Historian be funnier? Have more pictures of food? Offer recipes? If it has recipes, should they be old and historic or fresh and new for today's cooks?

I really want to know and will take action based on your comments and suggestions (Jaden refers to this as "community driven"). If you don't want to comment publicly you can send me an email at deborah.duchon@gmail.com

I'm hoping to hear from A LOT of people! Thanks!

From Cannonballs to Coffeepots

2010-09-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Thompson, a/k/a Count Rumford

First, a digression. We Americans value niceness. In our culture, it is just as important to be nice as to be good. It is not enough to do the right thing, to simply be honest and charitable. We also should be really nice. In our books and movies, the good guy is nice and pleasant. The bad guy is rude and mean.

It is not so in all cultures. Some years back, I attended a seminar at the East West Center in Honolulu. Most of my fellow attendees were Asian, while the instructors were American. In private, my comrades grumbled that the instructors seemed cloying and insincere. "If they have something to say," one remarked after a round of class presentations, "They should just say it." The instructors were all-American. They smiled a lot when they spoke to the class and criticism was preceded with a compliment. The Asians hated it.

In another example, before a trip to France I read up on French culture, and was struck by the separation of helpfulness from niceness. This is a problem for the French when working with American tourists, because in the French view, it is not necessary to be nice in order to he helpful. But Americans often come away from encounters with tour guides, hotel clerks, train conductors and the like feeling like they've been assaulted. Although they might have been given good information and treated fairly, the tourists didn't get the smiley face and have-a-nice-day attitude that Americans expect.

I guess that's why I'm so fascinated with the man who started the first school lunch program for poor children. He was an amazing person -- an inventor, an innovator, a man who did many things for the betterment of society. But he was not nice. His biographers use words like "despicable" to describe him.

Benjamin Thompson Birthplace

Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814) was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, in a home that is now a museum listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. His father, a farmer, died before little Benjamin reached the age of two. The boy was educated in the village school and soon realized that farming was not for him. He had a mind for science and studied hard. He even walked to Cambridge to attend lectures at Harvard College by the distinguished mathematician and physicist, John Winthrop. He became a teacher, and moved to Concord, New Hampshire (formerly called Rumford) to accept a teaching position in 1772. There, he met and married a wealthy widow who was 14 years older than him -- and he instantly gained the wealth and status that he craved.

When the Revolution started, he took the side of the British. The local populace suspected that he was a British spy (which he was) and when an angry mob came after him, he fled, abandoning his wife and child, forever. He moved to Boston, where he continued his spy activities and recruited people to the British cause, until he joined the British evacuation of Boston in 1776.

In London, he conducted experiments on gunpowder and continued his scientific studies with guns and cannons. For his service to the crown, he was knighted. He became famous within military circles for his work with gunpowder and munitions, and in 1783, accepted the position of Major-General and Privy Counselor to the Elector of Bavaria. He moved to Munich.

Thompson's illustration of his cannon-boring experiments

During his travels in Europe, he met an elderly lady who had a strong influence on him. All that is known of her is in one line of a letter that he wrote, that this unnamed woman "opened my eyes to other kinds of glory than that of victory in battle."

After meeting this woman, he devoted the rest of his life to the betterment of mankind. He stayed in Bavaria for five years and became a pioneer in the Social Reform Movement. One of the many good things he did there was found the Poor People's Institute, which provided food and work for the poor. He also started a school for poor children, which included lunch. This place was not paradise. Everyone was expected to work. And the food was basically a soup made of potatoes, peas and barley (giving rise to the term "soup kitchen"). Funding was always an issue, and Thompson learned as much as was known about nutrition in order to provide healthful, but budget-conscious meals.

Monument to Count Rmford in the English Garden, Munich

He became famous throughout Europe for his work, and the governments of England, Germany, France, Scotland, and Switzerland consulted with him to set up similar programs.

While in Bavaria, he also came up with work programs for idle soldiers, set up the English Garden in Munich, started a veterinary school, and convinced farmers to start growing nutritious foods, such as turnips and potatoes, which, up to that time, were suspected as poisonous.

In his quest for ever more efficient ways to prepare food, he invented such things as: the double boiler, the kitchen range, the fireless cooker, the percolator, and the pressure cooker. In recognition of his achievements, he was named a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He took on the title Count Rumford, in honor of the town in New Hampshire where his fortunes changed.

Where would we be without the percolator?

After five years in Munich, his patron died, and, having no other friends, probably on account of his abrasive personality, he returned to London. There, he ran another feeding program, serving 60,000 meals per day. He also continued inventing things that made people's lives better. The most famous of these is the Rumford Fireplace, which made him extremely wealthy in his own right.

The peripatetic count moved one more time – to Paris, where he lived out his life still conducting research into the nature of heat and light. In physics circles, he is remembered as the Father of Thermodynamics. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, died in Paris in 1814. He left the bulk of his estate to Harvard College.

This article, although way too long by blogging standards, barely scratches the surface of the story of Count Rumford. Saint or sinner? You decide.

You're Invited - August 22

2010-08-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Victims of a hostile takeover

You are invited to the next meeting of the

Culinary Historians of Atlanta

The Ice Man Goeth

In 1923 an ice refrigerator, known today as an icebox, cost less than $30. Ice was plentiful and cheap. In contrast, the least expensive electric refrigerator was $450, and was made with flammable refrigerants. Electricity was costly and scarce, especially in rural areas. So, why in the world did the ice men and the icebox disappear? What were the public and backroom deals that led to the downfall of ice refrigeration? Who promoted the switch? Was the public duped? Did people really need a new Frigidaire refrigerator (and color matching electric range)?

Millie Coleman will tell this tale. Millie doesn't just lecture. She creates a series of characters from a particular era to to create a new genre -- part performance art, part informational. Playing the part of one Mary Engle Pennington, a 1920s chemist and director of the ice industry's Household Refrigeration Bureau, she will explain how refrigeration, sanitation and nutrition science, along with the Irish potato famine, propelled American society's craze for appetizer aspics, gelatin salads, jiggly Jell-O desserts and ice box pies -- all of which which paved the way for the institutionalized foods we eat today.

Open to the public. $5 per person Free to CHA members (CHA dues are $15 per year).

Date: Sunday, August 22, 2010

Time: 2-4 pm

Location:

Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts

1937 Lakeside Parkway, Tucker, GA 30084

Please RSVP by sending a comment or through our Facebook page:

Facebook address is Culinary Historians of Atlanta

Upcoming events:

September 26 - The Herbs of Shakespeare - herbs that were used in Elizabethan times

October 17 - Relishing History - the history of three condiments - make your own mustard!

A Brief History of the National School Lunch Program

2010-08-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

School lunch in Tokyo includes rice, soup, fish, pickled cucumbers and milk

The National School Lunch Program is getting a bad rap these days. A free lunch for low-income children? Is it a communist conspirancy? A muddle-headed liberal give-away program? Why are school lunches so high in calories and low in quality? A recent study found that school lunches in the US are nutritionally lacking. Unfortunately, the study was published in Canada. It was also published in California - click here for more info.

Sometimes, in a case like this, it's instructive to look at the reason such a large and dysfunctional program ever came to be. The reasons are, to say the least, enlightening.

The National School Lunch Program began in 1946 in the interest of national security. It was also a sort of "give-away" program for farmers, mainly as a way to distribute excess commodity foods, such as cheese.

During both World Wars One and Two, an astounding 40% of military inductees of both sexes were rejected for service because of poor health, much of which was related to poor childhood nutrition. Twenty percent alone were rejected for poor dental health. Other medical conditions included rickets, pellagra, and goiter. Also, there were a large number of inductees who lacked basic academic skills. The link between eating and learning was well understood. as it has been for hundreds of years. As an example, an iodine deficiency results in both goiters and mental insufficiency.

Ironically, during the same time period, farmers were unable to sell all the food they produced. One of the tragedies of the Great Depression was that people starved while farmers produced an abundance of food. But people had no money to buy food -- and the farmers needed money to keep producing food. The farmers were forced to destroy tons and tons of good food in the name of economics.

Dairymen dumping milk during the Great Depression

Now, Congress had been supplying funds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a school lunches since 1932, but funding was spotty. For instance, the first grant went to a few counties in southern Missouri to pay people to cook school lunches. This was actually as part of a jobs program, not out of concern for child nutrition. Most of the grants were year-to-year rather than long-term. School districts were wary of investing in proper lunchroom equipment if they weren't sure they would be able to pay people to operate it or purchase foodstuffs in future years.

So in 1946, the National School Lunch Act was enacted. Section 2 of the Act defines its dual purpose:

"It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress, as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food, by assisting the States, through grants-in aid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of food and other facilities for the establishment, maintenance, operation and expansion of nonprofit school lunch programs.”

The program was successful. As a result, it was expanded to include breakfast and there was even special legislation enacted to improve access to milk. It spurred tons of research on childhood nutrition and the links between nutrition and learning. The USDA has posted a very interesting History of the National School Lunch Program on its website. Check it out for the full history.

Partly as a result of these programs, we understand more about good food for kids. It's a shame that the present state of child nutrition in America is in crisis. These days, the biggest reason that military enlistees are turned down is obesity. Retired military officers are supporting the reform of school lunches, calling obesity a threat to national security.

School lunch in Washington, D.C. YUMMY!

This is a fascinating topic that has captured the public's attention. Jamie Oliver, a British celebrity chef, did a reality series on school lunches that has the industry a-buzzing (he did the same thing last year in a British school lunch program). Top Chef had a special episode where the contestants were expected to cook a tasty, nutritious school lunch within the same budgetary constraints that school districts are forced to live with. It was hilarious. My pet peeve about this episode was that celebrity chef Sam Kass, who was a guest judge, stated categorically that the tomato is a fruit. Shortly after the segment aired, the Obama administration made this guy some kind of school lunch guru. He doesn't even know the difference between a fruit and a vegetable. Clearly, the cult of personality has seduced the liberal left of which I was once a part.

A vegetable

Naturally, I want to get into the act, too. Over the next few months, this blog will examine the historic context for our national nutritional pickles. Stay tuned and comment often.

Bitter/Sweet

2010-07-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

They tantalize with seductive promises to taste like sugar but without the calories. Without the spike in blood sugar. Without the guilt. And they deliver, sort of, if you can stand the metallic flavor that dances on your tongue long after the tart sweetness fades away. They are, of course, artificial sweeteners.

Now there's a new book (well, actually, it's due for release in September but you can order an advance copy now) with the title Empty Pleasures: the Story of Articifial Sweeteners from Saccharine to Splenda.

According to the author, saccharine, the result of an accidental laboratory laboratory by-product, was first seen as an adulterant. But when its profit potential became apparent, it was introduced to the public at the 1893 World's Fair. From there the reader goes on to learn about the public reaction, and how the cause was taken up by women's magazine editors and public relations mavens. Nearly 300 pages long, the book offers a leisurely journey through the stories of the many sweeteners to follow, including NutraSweet, Equal, and Splenda.

Food producers and pharmaceutical companies have worked together for over a century to weave these products into our daily lives. We need to better understand what they actually are, how they work, and how they affect our health. We also need to raise our own awareness about how they are marketed to us and our families. It seems that this book might help.

Artificial sweeteners cost food companies less than natural sweeteners. It's no wonder then, that they push products that contain artificial sweeteners as "lite" or "low calorie". These products are highly profitable. In the past ten years more than 4,000 new food products containing artificial sweeteners were introduced in the American marketplace. In the meantime, even though most people purchase these products for purposes of weight loss, a 2004 study coming out of the University of Texas found that they actually contribute to obesity.

The author of this book is Carolyn de la Pena, a professor of American Studies at the University of California - Davis. This is one of the most important land grant schools in the US. She would have had access to tons of information normally not available to the average person. We owe her a big Thank You for sharing this important information.

Ordering information: Empty Pleasures is published by the University of North Carolina Press.
ISBN 978-0-8078-3409-1d. $32.50 cloth bound. 296 pages.

Cooking as a Team Sport

2010-07-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

The ultimate drive-thru

Competitive cooking is big business. Professional teams travel the US entering competitions for glory and trophies.

This week’s guest columnist is Mike “Gadgetgeek” Stock -- barbecue chef, radio personality, founder of 285foodies.com, and my friend. He helps out as a sous-chef while providing color commentary for the radio show Chef and the Fatman when Team Bobby Q grills, smokes, and slathers ‘cue at competitions around the Southeast. Chef and the Fatman have a cooking show on Sunday from 3-5 p.m. on AM 1160 in Atlanta,
Credit for all photos goes to Mike Stock.

I didn’t know anything about this stuff until I met Mike. It’s a world unto itself with a cast of characters that reads like a Russian novel. Oh, and if you're wondering how this fits into culinary history -- well, this is culinary history of the future.

Barbecue Competitions

Mike "Gadgetgeek" Stock

It takes all kinds. BBQ competitions are a way to spend part of a weekend or a Saturday with your family or buddies, to cook, smoke, or grill your way into bragging rights, a trophy, and/or some money. I have been following around the ABA (American Bass Anglers) tour here in the Southeast. Being the observer has let me in on some of the local cooks and a few of the regional professional teams that compete weekly using the KCBS (Kansas City Barbecue Society) sanctioning umbrella and judging rules to keep the playing field level. The ABA has combined some seemingly disparate competitions into a fun weekend. They have two divisions of BBQ competition with local cooks competing in Backyard Barbecue and professionals from the KCBS circuit. To round out the day, they have a bass fishing tournament and a battle of the bands music fest.

BBQ competitions are all about the "run-what-you-brung" entrepreneurial approach to cooking in the backyard taken to a whole different level. The variety of smokers from inexpensive to full-blown motor home rigs with all of the kitchen equipment found in a commercial kitchen tells the story best. Some of the folks competing are having a wonderful time for the weekend with the family, the dog and some friends and others have their race face on and are there to WIN the prize and the money.

The bass fishing side of the event takes off at sunrise. This time they are fishing on beautiful Lake Logan Martin just west of Talladega. Their bass will not be judged until mid afternoon freeing up a nice chunk of time for the BBQ event, a battle of the local bands and sometimes an ice-tea competition.

The BBQ competitors have been tending fires and smokers since after the Friday night campfire get-together. They have the option of entering pulled

pork, beef brisket, pork ribs and chicken. The schedule needed to pull off properly cooking all four entries is intense. They put on their Boston butt roasts late Friday night for the pulled pork judging around noon on Saturday. Some sleep, some keep one person on watch and other contestants rely on electronic equipment to keep their smoker on just-the-right temperature for that long and low cooking that pork shoulder requires. Beef brisket takes less time than the pulled pork, but more than the ribs usually taking about 6 hours. The pork ribs will be a 4 to 6 hour adventure starting in mid morning. The chicken will take less time than the beef or pork.

Attending one of these events gives a regular home griller/smoker/cook a chance to see how really good these meats can be prepared. Sometimes samples are shared after the contestants have turned in their boxes to be judged. A few of the competitors are very secretive and will barely talk to regular attendees as they walk by and others are very cordial and will chat on and on about how they cooked their meat and why. I find lessons can always be learned in these events. Having attended several of the ABA showdowns this year, I am seeing familiar faces in both the pro ranks and backyard BBQ teams again and again.

photo: Mike Stock on location in Pell City, Alabama

More pics on Flickr.com-- http://www.flickr.com/photos/49637895@N00/sets/72157624209449301/

Competitive barbecuing falls under the auspices of the Kansas City Barbecue Society

http://www.kcbs.us/index.php

Perspectives in Olive Oil

2010-06-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of California Olive Oil Council

WASHINGTON, DC - United States Department of Agriculture officials published new standards for olive oil in the April 28, 2010 edition of the Federal Register. The standards will go into effect on October 25, 2010. This is being touted as an historic achievement because up to now there have been no standards. All those extra-virgin, virgin, light, and other labels? Sheer marketing! The new standards are meant to better inform consumers and also to weed out producers that mislabel their products and make misleading claims. The new regulations are a the result of the efforts of the California Olive Oil Council, which first filed a petition in 2005 requesting that standards be issued. Follow this link for the actual language from USDA http://www.cooc.com/docs/USDAstandard.pdf

This is big news and I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it in the coming months. Gone are the romanticized notions of extra-virgin coming from the first pressing and and virgin coming from the second pressing. The USDA has scientifically quantified the standards. For example, the oil labeled U.S. Extra Virgin Olive Oil will contain not more than .8 grams per 100 grams of oleic acid. And that's just the beginning.

I have suspected for some time that since olive oil became a culinary darling, with the myriad products available on the shelf, we consumers are being duped. I've paid a lot of money for disappointing olive oil on many occasions, and have eventually settled for a couple of brands I can count on. I hate settling. I'd rather be adventurous and try new things. But once (or twice) burnt, twice shy. The best olive oil I've ever had came from a small estate in Tuscany. They only produce enough to sell locally. I bought a few bottles to bring home but once they were gone, well, they were gone for good.

We take olive oil for granted, but it's important stuff. As usual, when I read the news, I got to wondering. It comes from the Mediterranean area, but where did it originate? Are there still wild olive trees? What other interesting historic tidbits are there about "liquid gold?" -- as Pliny the Elder was reputed to have called it.

It turns out that olives are native to the Near East, especially in the area of present-day Syria and Israel. The wild form is actually a shrub and it still grows wild in its native range. The olive was one of the first trees ever domesticated, and has been cultivated for at least 6,000 years. the oil was probably first used for lamps. Later on, its value as an unguent, especially when perfumed, came into vogue. It was later still that olive oil was cultivated for its culinary usage. By the time of ancient Greece, it was a valuable food, and an important product of Crete, as evidenced by large numbers of presses and jars that have been found by archeologists. Cretan oil was shipped to Egypt and elsewhere.

Pliny wrote "There are two liquids that are especially agreeable to the human body: wine inside and olive oil outside." In the 2nd Century, B.C., the Roman author, Cato wrote in his treatise on farming, about ripe olives being harvested by picking up from the ground after a "windfall" and the importance of washing off the leaves and manure before pressing for oil.

The Spaniards probably brought the first olive oil to North America, although English colonists were known to import it, as well, stimulating the Spanish olive oil industry. Franciscan monks planted the trees near their missions, and they soon realized that the trees did better in California than elsewhere in New Spain. Visitors to abandoned monasteries in California as late as the 1800's noted that the buildings were in ruins, but the olive trees were thriving.

These days, most US olives come from Northern California. Southern California is actually the prime climate, but land values from San Diego to north of Los Angeles have soared to the point that farmers were driven out of business. In Northern California, olive tree farmers make much less than grape farmers, so the business is still endangered.

Personally, I think we should thank the California Olive Oil Council for their efforts to maintain high standards for such an important product. And I even think we should "Buy American" in this case, to help keep the California olive oil industry alive. We buy California wine - why not olive oil, too?

What's Your Beef?

2010-06-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

Lascaux, France - Cave painting of wild aurochs, circa 15,000 BC

Yountville, CA - June 8, 2010

Milling around on the lawn of the Villagio Inn in this Napa Valley town, sampling healthy beef dishes created by local chefs, I got to thinking about how important cows are to human well-being. I was there because I had the great good fortune to be a speaker at the Live Well 2010 conference, sponsored by the National Beef Cattlemen's Association. Following the opening meeting, which included my address on food & culture, we repaired to the lawn for the opening reception, featuring beef and wonderful Napa Valley wines. I got to talking with a woman who owns 3,000 head of cattle on a ranch in central Nebraska. She was there with her adorable 9-year-old daughter, and she told me that it truly is a family operation, and that they care about their animals. She was scheduled to speak the next day and was delighted for the opportunity.

But where do cows come from originally? How could these docile creatures survive in the wild? It's a complicated question with an even more complicated answer. Whole books have been written on the subject. In the interest of brevity (after all, this is just a blog) here is the short answer.

Cows are the domesticated form of a now-extinct critter called the "aurochs," from which we derive the term "ox." The aurochs was larger and more aggressive than the present-day cow, with large, lyre-shaped horns on both males and females. With a huge, shaggy mane covering its enormous shoulders, it was an impressive beast. The aurochs' naturally ranged throughout Eurasia and south into the Near East. It was killed off by humans - through hunting, loss of habitat, and, ironically, the disease that spread from domesticated herds. The last aurochs died in the 1600's.

By 8,000 years ago, humans in the Near East, or "Fertile Crescent" as it became known, had developed fields of high quality wheat and allied grains. They had domesticated sheep and goats, which were a good source of milk, meat, leather and muscle power. The aurochs were probably attracted to the grain fields, and humans started to see them as potentially better sources of milk, meat, leather and muscle power than sheep and goats. They were probably captured and the most aggressive animals were quickly killed and eaten. The more docile individuals were allowed to breed. Their offspring were even more docile and the process of domestication began.

The first cows were probably kept by priests, as milk was seen as a ritual gift from the goddess, according to the findings from archeological excavations in Anatolia. But once someone figured out how to yoke cattle to a plow, the stage was set for agriculture on a scale never seen before. Cattle helped the ancient Egyptians gain dominance and used their power to domesticate even more plants and animals.

Thanks to the Egyptians, we enjoy onions, garlic, green peas and other foods. The Egyptians also domesticated cats (some say they domesticated themselves, which makes sense to a cat lover) because the huge stores of grain attracted rodents. Those huge stores of grain and other foods could not have been cultivated without large, strong draft animals.

Meat cows were brought to the New World by the Spanish. Milk cows came with the English. By the time settlers reached the territory of Texas, there were feral cows living free on the range, descendants of escapees from the Spanish stock. They were big and fierce, with large horns -- and the process of domestication began all over again.

If you want to read more about the history of beef, you might want to read Beef: the Untold Story of How Milk, Meat and Muscle Shaped the World, by Andrew Rimas and Evan Fraser.

Ooooooo- It's Uzbek Cuisine!

2010-06-06T07:46:00.000-07:00

Moscow, Russia

A plate of mysterious-looking Uzbek food. What is stuffed in those dumplings? (photo by Charles Mathes)

In response to the article about our picnic on May 15, 2010, alert reader Charles Mathes sent a note saying "I know from Uzbek food -- I spent two weeks in Moscow on business and tried a lot of restaurants. Our favorite Moscow restaurant was Cafe Babai (or something like that). In fact of all the places and cuisines we tried from the various republics, Uzbek was the hands down winner!" Charles is a high-end art dealer, selling works by Picasso, Calder, and the like. He was in Moscow for an art show. In the interest of full disclosure, we went to high school together (Go Tigers!) If you're interested in purchasing a $100,000 tapestry, he's the guy to see at janekahan.com or at least visit his website and look at the pretty pictures. Charles' and his colleagues were introduced to Uzbek food by their guide/translator/bodyguard, Julia Kalakova, a stunning and accomplished woman whose passion is gypsy dancing. Her pic is below, doing a little gypsy dancing in the Cafe Babai. (photo by Charles Mathes).

Back to Uzbek cuisine. If you will recall, on May 15, 2010, the Culinary Historians of Atlanta held a potluck picnic. Everyone was supposed to bring a dish that represented their ethnicity or an old family recipe. Glenn Mack brought a dish that represented his wife's ethnicity. He told a story of going to visit his in-laws in Uzbekistan to learn to cook Uzbek style. I wondered, what is Uzbek-style cookery? So, between Glenn's great story and delicious eggplant, and Charles raving about his experience with Uzbek food, I decided to look it up. Turns out, this is some fantastic kind of cooking.

Uzbekistan is a newly-emerged nation-state, once part of the Soviet empire, located in central Asia. It is a fertile region, reasonably stable politically, with an ancient culture and well-developed cuisine.

The national dish is plov, which is Uzbek for pilaf. It's cooked by men. In fact, men get together just to cook pilaf. One of the nice things about this, in my opinion, is that men are doing something useful for a change, and it keeps them sober, because there is a rule that you can't drink vodka after eating plov. The men also hang out at teahouses, drinking green tea and eating plov. If you are planning a wedding or other big event, you need to hire an oshpaz, a man who is an expert at making plov. An oshpaz cooks plov in a huge cauldron. In some cases, the recipe calls for as much as 200 pounds of rice, and is cooked in one enormous cauldron. It's possible to serve as many as 1000 guests from one of these cauldrons. (photo courtesy of orexca.com).

The basic ingredients are rice, meat, carrots, onions, and oil. But recipes vary with the region and the individual cook. There is a whole culture of plov in Uzbekistan, that I can only compare to barbecue here in the South.

Plov is not the only Uzbek food. Uzbekistan is rich agricultural country with a temperate climate that allows for the cultivation of many foods -- a locavore's paradise. Visitors to the country sometimes come back claiming that they developed an addiction to the bread, which is cooked in a clay oven, or tandyr.

The photo to the left (courtesy of orexca.com) shows a healthy-looking boy in Uzbekistan with lepyoshka, a round-shaped flatbread. Cooking bread in a clay oven gives it a distinctively crispy crust.

Meanwhile, back in the Cafe Babai, Charles managed to get a nice shot of the kitchen, which, as you can see, features a clay oven.

Sometime, this blog will take a look at the history of clay ovens, but not today. And sometime it would be fun for the Culinary Historians of Atlanta to take a field trip to Uzbekistan, but not this year.

Looking forward to your comments.....

Memorial Day Pique-Nique

2010-05-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

The above photo is of a picnic held on Bastille Day, 2000, in Paris (CBS News) The idea was to bring people together without regard to class, race, or gender in the new millenium. About 4 million people attended huge pique-niques in streets of Paris. Similar pique-niques were held around France on the same day.

United State of America - On the eve of Memorial Day, you may be planning a picnic with friends and family. Memorial Day is the traditional beginning of the summer season. A picnic or barbecue is a good way to kick off the summer. But have you ever thought about where picnics come from?

Our American-style picnic has its roots in Europe, specifically in Medieval outdoor hunting banquets. This tradition continued among the wealthy throughout the Renaissance and reached its zenith during the era of Victorian garden parties. Even in the US, elaborate picnics, complete with servants in attendance, were enjoyed by wealthy families. But most Americans made picnics more informal.

The European tradition spread both East and West. The painting to the right shows attendants at a royal picnic in Persia in the 17th century

The great food historian Margaret Visser has this to say about it:

The French might have invented the word "picnic," pique nique being found earlier than "pic nic." (The meaning, aside from the probably connotation of "picking," is unknown.) It originally referred to a dinner, usually eaten indoors, to which everyone present had contributed some food, and possible also a fee to attend. The ancient Greek "eranos," the French "moungetade" described earlier, or modern "pot luck" suppers are versions of this type of mealtime organization. The change in the meaning of the term, from "everyone bringing some food" to "everyone eating out of doors" seems to have been completed by the 1860s. The impromptu aspect, together with the informality, are what the new meaning has in common with the old; there is a connotation too of simple food, which may be quite various, but which is not controlled, decorated, or strictly ordered into courses. Picnics derive, also, from the decorous yet comparatively informal sixteenth-century "banquets" mentioned earlier, which frequently took place out of doors...Not very long ago, picnics were rather formal affairs to our way of thinking, with tables, chairs, and even servants. But everything is relative: what was formal then made a trestle-table in the open countryside seem exhiliaratingly abandoned. The general feeling of relief from normal constraints..."
---The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolutions, Eccentricities and Meaning of Table Manners, Margaret Visser [Penguin:New York] 1991 (p. 150-1)
Enjoy your Memorial Day pique-nique!

Saturday in the Park

2010-05-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

COOPERS FURNACE, GA - May 2010

We should have awarded a prize for the best food-and-family history story at our potluck picnic. It would, without question, have gone to Glenn Mack. Glenn is President of Le Cordon Bleu of Atlanta. He's also a world traveler and has studied food and cooking in some unexpected places. One of those places is Uzbekistan. You see, Glenn told us, his lovely, sparkling wife is half-Russian, half-Uzbek. One summer they visited the Uzbek side of the family. Glenn took it as an opportunity to learn to cook Uzbek-style. After a few days of cooking together, Glenn's in-laws sat him down and said they had a confession to make. Glenn got concerned, "What is it?" he asked. They answered, "We're not really Uzbek. We're Tatars!" Glenn responded, "Then let's cook Tatar food!" And so they did, and that's why Glenn brought a Tatar eggplant dish to the picnic. (Accompanying thumbnail is Glenn)

All the food at the potluck was fantastic. We're a diverse group, and it showed. A few examples: we had Caribbean-style pigeon peas and rice, Korean rice noodles, Pennsylvania-style ham salad, Polish goulash, Italian antipasto, Swedish-style filled cookies, and Midwestern-style oatmeal-coconut cake with a mysterious past. Everyone wants all the recipes, and so we are collecting them to bind into a little publication for our members. But more about membership later. Watch this blog for more information in the next few days.

Twenty-five culinary historians and one Irish wolfhound met up on this perfect day in May on the tranquil banks of the Etowah River to share food, fun, and family stories. It was hard to imagine that this was the site of a terrible battle and weird, but exciting locomotive chase during the Civil War. What is now a picnic ground was once the town of Etowah, Georgia, home of Coopers Iron Works, where pig iron was fabricated for sale to munitions manufacturers working in service of the Confederacy. All that remains is the giant stone chimney that was the heart of the factory, now known as Coopers Furnace.

Chef Christy Seelye-King helped bring the images of the past alive in a spirited presentation on the town and General Sherman's destruction of it. She told us that another venture in Etowah was the manufacture of hand-made knives that were carried by Confederate soldiers. The knives were kind of big and bulky, not well suited for combat. More soldiers deployed them for culinary purposes. In another link to culinary history, as part of the Great Locomotive Chase, the trains had to stop for meals. One of the trains was actually commandeered while it was stopped to allow troops to have breakfast. There are no historical documents describing the breakfast, so we conjectured on that for a few minutes. Were the soldiers chomping on hardtack or hard boiled eggs?
(photo: Chef Christy)

After the meal, we dispersed to the many corners of the park. Some folks went fishing, others hiking and geocaching (or at least attempting to - the cache was never found), and a few just relaxed in the picnic shelter, socializing and listening to the birds, the river, and the laughter of children.

Cover photo by Roger Dickerson

2010-04-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

Culinary Historians visit the Waffle House Museum!

Decatur, GA - April 2010
The Newest Way to Give Yourself a Treat” at the Waffle House Museum

2.6 billion customers have visited a Waffle House restaurant over the past 55 years, and last weekend 26 CHA members visited the Waffle House museum to soak up some nostalgia.

Located on East College Avenue in Decatur, this small museum is free and open to the public during the week and one weekend day per month. If you missed the event then you missed exploring a 1955 era Waffle House complete with menus featuring $1.50 steaks, a compact open kitchen with bacon “cooking” on the grill, and a storage area with ice box pie.

A gallery next door includes memorabilia and some groovy uniforms from the sixties. If you go be sure to talk with the guide, she has free waffle coupons you can use at the Waffle House restaurant down the street.

I was great fun to go behind the counter and play with the plastic food. As you can see in the above photo, it looked like the real thing.

One of the most amazing things about this museum was to see the "commissary" in the back. This is where the prep work and a good bit of the actual cooking really took place.

The commissary is a kitchen - not much larger than a home kitchen, but with a commercial stove and plenty of storage shelves. It was presided over by one woman, Aunt Millie (who was really the aunt of one of the owners). She had a part time helper in the person of her great-nephew, who would ride his bike to the restaurant after school.

In the commissary, she made pies, biscuits and other items from scratch. She also came up with the method for making those marvelous Waffle House home fries. After much experimentation, she found that the potatoes should be steamed first, then peeled, then shredded. Then, and this is where the boy-helper came in, 5 oz. servings were weighed out. Each serving was placed in a small paper bag. When the short order cook in the front of the diner needed to cook an order, he just dumped the already-softened potatoes on the grill to be browned. Aunt Millie and her helper cooked, peeled, and shredded 150 lbs. of russet potatoes every day. They used a mechanical device for the peeling and shredding, but it was still a lot of hand work.

Almost everything was made from scratch in those days. No more, unfortunately. Nowadays, convenience reigns over flavor. There is a commissary in every Waffle House. It's larger and more high tech, but very little is made from scratch any more.

On another note: Does anyone know the people in our photo?? They were newbies and we didn't get their names!!

Article by Karen Gilbreath and Deb Duchon
Photo by Matthew Wong

Historic Beer and Avant Garde Pizza

2010-03-26T06:34:00.000-07:00

March 23, 2010

Varasano's Pizza and Marchant du Vin teamed up to host the best pizza & beer night ever. We enjoyed beers that had been made by small, European breweries for hundreds of years Each of which was paired with just-the-right slice. Thirty-five intrepid culinary historians braved Atlanta rush hour traffic to descend on Varasano's Pizzeria on Peachtree Road in Buckhead, to enjoy the feast and the fine company. The beers included: Zatec (Czech Republic), Orval (Belgium) and Samuel Smith (England). The pizzas were off-the-menu specials designed by Jeff Varasano, but were twists on regular menu items, including Varasano's signature pizza, Nana's Favorite, and the outstanding Salumi & Sun-Dried Tomatoes.

Our resident historic beer expert, Rob Nelson, Regional Sales Manager for Marchant du Vin, entertained us with the stories of these small breweries. For example, the Orval is made by Trappist monks, just as they've made beer since the Middle Ages, but with updated techniques, including pasteurization. They make it primarily for themselves (they water it down for their own consumption) but it also provides an income for the monastery. Until modern sanitation came along, beer was safer than water, so it was an important beverage for everyone, including children.

Eating History - 11/16/09 - BIG EVENT!!!

2009-10-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Our biggest-ever event will be held on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 7:30 pm. Admission is free. Parking is free.

The noted food historian Andrew F. Smith will speak. An engaging speaker, Andy is the author of more than 15 books on food history. He teaches food history and food writing at the New School in New York City. The program will be on:

Eating History: Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine

Food historian Andrew F. Smith will recount—in delicious detail—some of the major moments that made contemporary American cuisine, as described in his brand new book, Eating History: Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, from Columbia University Press. The style of American cooking, along with the ingredients that compose it, has never been fixed. With a cast of characters including bold inventors, savvy restaurateurs, ruthless advertisers, mad scientists, adventurous entrepreneurs, celebrity chefs, and relentless health nuts, Smith pins down the truly crackerjack history behind the way America eats.

Location: Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, 1927 Lakeside Parkway, Tucker GA 30084. Enter from Northlake Parkway, between Lawrenceville Highway and Lavista Rd. just east of I-285.

Please rsvp by sending a comment to this blog. See you November 16!

Julia & Us Party 8/24/09

2009-08-31T15:01:00.001-07:00

Culinary HIstory of the Future, Part I

2009-01-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

ATLANTA - January 20, 2009. The only composter of its kind on the East Coast is housed at Emory University's Food and Catering Service. Senior Director Patty Ziegenhorn-Erbach and her staff hosted a Culinary Historians of Atlanta event today to show us how the machine works. Twenty-five of us showed up on this wickedly cold evening to watch lumps of food scraps, coated with enzymes, rotate in a stainless steel hopper. The enzymes break the food scraps down into water and a small amount of organic material. The water falls to the bottom of the hopper, from which it is pumped through a series of filters, and bathed briefly in the glow of a ultra-violet light to kill nasty organisms that might be in residence. The clean (but not potable) water is then flushed down the sanitary sewer and to Atlanta's water plant for further scrubbing. The eventual plan is to use the water on campus, for watering the beautiful campus landscaping. and cutting down on the university's dependence on the water system.

Sitting next to the filtering system is a large container of used cooking oil, which is used by "Cliff", the on-campus shuttle system. The shuttle busses drive up to the dock, pump the oil directly into their fuel tanks and return to their duties with no time wasted going to a gas station.

We also discussed our plans for 2009. In March, we plan to visit the Soul Food Museum in downtown Atlanta. Stay tuned for more information. In May, we'll discuss the book The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Michael Pollan is an influential food writer who will be in Atlanta in March, 2009 for at least two speaking engagements. If you are interested in seeing him in person, you can attend the annual conference of Georgia Organics. Here is the link to their website http://www.georgiaorganics.org/conference

We also discussed starting a true membership program, with annual dues of $25 per person, or $20 for seniors and students. Roger Dickerson has agreed to serve as Treasurer. We also discussed holding a fund raiser either in addition to or instead of membership dues.

Food of Roman Orgies

2009-01-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

On a beautiful autumn Saturday last November, we gathered to celebrate the foods of Roman orgies. We met in the pavilion at Woodlands, in Decatur, Georgia. While we feasted on the foods of Ancient Rome, using recipes provided by Christy Seelye-King, we discussed the history that we were eating, Roger Dickerson read us a long, explicit passage from Satyricon, reporting on one such event. Deb Duchon gave the culinary biography of Apicius, and Marko Robinson reported on the history of ale and beer.

Some of the foods that we enjoyed include: olives, grapes, mead, ale, wine, ham, figs, dates, herbed cheese, honey, bread, and broccoli. This was a family event, and the children in attendance seemed to enjoy having a day in the woods as much as the food.

Field Trip - 9/14/08

2008-09-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

Field Trip

Join us for the Chow Down at the Atlanta History Center on Sunday, September 14, 2008. Here's the link for more information http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/template.cfm?cid=830

2008-08-16T13:59:00.000-07:00