21 nations where people eat their national symbol
Ah yes, nothing like the smell of an urban myth grilling away on our spurious national day...
http://asiancorrespondent.com/17590/a-good-yarn-spoiled/
This posting is occasioned by our own Juan Carlo Tomas’ article How to host the perfect Australia day barbecue.
Food and battlefields
Alison Vincent sent to me the link below.
http://mobile.cookwithlove.com.au/wwi-cook-book.shtml
My first response was that it was gratuitously exploitative, cashing on the hundredth anniversary of WW1 and in particular on the fiasco of Gallipoli and that the male half of the authors is a serving officer in the Australian Army who has been on My Kitchen Rules. I went to the site and it all got a bit weirder. The couple who have written the book also are running Culinary Battlefield Tours about which they write:
‘An idea was hatched on a family trip to the Somme in 2010 to one day develop tours that would encompass both interests. It was noticed that many couples travelling have differing interests, sometimes the men could spend hours looking at bullet holes and trenches and their partners would be just as happy enjoying the local cuisine.’ They have run one so far in Vietnam and report that ‘The guests loved it and we found the roles had sometimes reversed - with the men being the more interested in learning some cooking tips!’ Yes, yes, red rag to a anti-sexist bull.
Then Alison also sent me this link:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/making-scents-from-gallipoli-discovery-20111004-1v555.html
My first response to this one was gee, that’s interesting, and wow I wonder if it’s really true that the Indian continent eat chapattis. But then I thought, is this any less exploitative in its own way? It’s hardly a surprise to find a field kitchen on a battlefield is it? It’s pretty clear the release of the info is timed to coincide with the Anzac commemoration this year. Does the jovial tone get excused because it’s a report of academic research? We are still talking about a bloody (and I use the term descriptively) horrific battle and here we are speculating on whether the soldiers about to be slaughtered could smell...what...kebabs?
Then Charmaine Obrien said that she knows someone doing a PhD using soldiers diaries to look at what influence being in other countries had on soldiers and their foodways – I think that’s right, Charmaine? My first response to this was gee that’s a piece of research I would really like to see, and that remains my response. I don’t have any feelings of antipathy to it. It raises no questions for me about exploitation. But then I have to wonder, is my response to it because again it is within an academic framework and that it’s not time linked to capitalise on the upcoming commemorations?
I am fascinated by my different degrees of comfort with these three approaches to food and battlefields. I have decided that I really ought to at least have a look at the cookbook before I judge too harshly.
I welcome others’ thoughts. When do cookbooks/culinary tours cross the line? Does anyone know of similar ventures in other countries? What makes one use of subject matter exploitative and another use of similar subject matter not exploitative/
The Language of Food. A linguist reads the menu
Phew! After that little venture into moral morasses, it’s lovely to be able to report that I found much pleasure in The Language of Food, Dan Jurafsky’s tracing of the evolution of specific food items and foodways through linguistic borrowings, generalisations and other more arcane philological pathways. There’s lovely stuff here for example in the chapter From Sikbaj via ceviche to fish and chips, yes, truly; or the travels of ketchup; and a chapter on Why Ice Cream and Crackers Have Different Names that had me trying out the placement of vowels in my mouth. Along the way there is also some gentle prodding for greater tolerance...and that’s not a bad thing either.
Its published by W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2014.
Scientists have discovered a way to ‘unboil’ eggs – and it may be a life saver
“There are lots of cases of gummy proteins that you spend way too much time scraping off your test tubes, and you want some means of recovering that material,” says Gregory Weiss, professor of chemistry and molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of California Irvin.
Sounds like some of my jam efforts. Please please please do NOT tell the Heston Blumenthal’s of the world about this. I really do not want to have a deconstructed boiled egg as the new fad.
Spam Art
How could I resist posting this. It’s Spam. It’s from Durango!! J
http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20150131/NEWS01/150139907/Making-Spam-art-
Paul van Reyk
253 Trafalgar St.
Petersham 2049
PO Box 221
Petersham 2049
Ph: 0419 435 418
Email: pvanreyk@optusnet.com.au
‘"You must never lose your beautiful sense of outraged injustice. alright? Keep it informed and challenge it, but never lose it."
First Dog on the Moon
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