Just a quick one this week:
Lapham’s Quarterly features this map which traces the paths taken by three now-ubiquitous, but once rare, foods as they were “discovered” and spread by European explorers in the 16th Century: tomatoes, coffee beans, and black pepper. Here’s the full-sized image, where you can actually read the blurbs. Actually, in the case of black pepper, traders have bought and sold it since Roman times, if not earlier, but it was a rare and expensive spice up until the modern era. There’s also some interesting factoids about ketchup; apparently it was invented by the Chinese, but did not include tomatoes until some colonial New Englanders devised their own recipe about 100 years later.
Well, heaven forbid I miss out on this item going around: a New York Times blog post about the origin of the embossed design on Oreo cookies has been popping up on all my reads lately. Apparently the current design only dates back to the 1950s; the original design from 1912 is much plainer. That post inspired this post on The Atlantic’s food blog, which extends the idea to consider possible hidden meanings and mystical symbology in Oreos and other embossed cookies and crackers, and even gives a little “How It’s Made” lesson in the process used to make embossed cookies. Even showbiz blogger Mark Evanier weighed in on the Oreo posts and included his personal story about the Oreo-Hydrox rivalry. Now the latest twist is this link to an artist who lives in Somerville, MA and makes highly-detailed cameo portraits using Oreo cookie halves and the creme filling. Since NEXT year is the 100th anniversary of the Oreo cookie, I am wondering what PR flack from Nabisco got this ball rolling a year ahead of time and why.
These next two links speak volumes: This Mother Jones article (via MetaFilter) details a years-long struggle between processed-meat manufacturer Hormel and workers in the factory in Iowa where the company makes Spam. The workers claim that unsafe production processes exposed them to aerosolized pig brains which caused their bodies to develop an autoimmune disease that has left many of them crippled for life. The vivid descriptions of the carcass-processing floor are as evocative and unpalatable as “The Jungle”.
At the other end of the spectrum, our friend Chef Jo delights in telling us about a farm in Groton, MA that produces hand-raised, grass-fed beef and REAL free-range chickens. If you are in the Greater Boston area, here’s their schedule of farmer’s markets if you don’t want to drive all the way to Groton.
And I’ll leave you with a couple of infographics to help you in the kitchen:
This one illustrates the differences between the assorted knife cuts called for in preparing vegetables
And this one should help you understand the degrees of doneness when cooking steak:
