ludja

I think that alot of good people have left. Some have definately left because of changes in policy, etc but I also wonder if some of it is just a normal and ebb and flow of participation. I hope that we will be able to start and maintain interesting discussions and continue to pull in good, new participants; maybe even "lure" some old posters back. The forums and some of the wider goals the society is trying to build up in order to make a society with "legs" are really a great resource. I've been very impressed with the Daily Gullet offerings in the last year or so. I think that has been a good source of interesting new writing and discussion. One thing I have missed is having more frequent "Q and A's" from professionals in the field. I thought the format in which a separate sub-forum was set up and people could ask questions for 4 or 5 days worked really well. I think this offered a great infusion of content from all sorts of professionals in food related areas. I see less of that now. It is difficult to lose great managers and hosts that have been around for a long time, many of them from the beginning, but perhaps it is understandable that people may not be able to do this beyond a few years. It appears to be a substantial commitment of time.

I don’t see that much heat or drama on the thread regarding people’s opinion on others who want to use a cake mix. But, since you have asked several times, I will pass on one aspect of the rise in cake mixes that does impact me in a negative way as a consumer. As evidenced by quite a few posts on this thread, many people don’t like or prefer the taste, mouthfeel and texture of cakes made from mixes. Sugarella recently outlined some of the extra ingredients in typical cake mixes besides flour, sugar, baking powder and how they affect taste and texture. The more bakeries that switch over to cake mixes the less and less each generation will even know what a scratch cake tastes like. Cakes made from mixes will be the gold standard and it will be increasingly difficult for someone to purchase a prepared non-mix cake without access to a higher-end patisserie or bakery. The tail wags the dog, so to speak. I am not crying doomsday, but I think these factors can slowly and over time erode the quality of baked goods generally available to consumers as the majority lose knowledge of what a scratch cake even tastes like. Not a perfect analogy, but my mom has had kids at her house that don't like the homemade cookies because they are only accustomed to the taste of store bought cookies made with artificial ingredients. On various threads throughout eGullet I have seen many people post about bringing a homemade (and wellmade) baked item to a potluck and it is overlooked as the cake mix or supermarket-purchased items are eaten. Luckily, one can choose not to purchase cakes and can instead make them at home. It’s just sad that if you don’t happen to have time or enjoy baking yourself or want a cake that is more professionally styled or decorated, it may be difficult to purchase a scratch cake from a professional baker at a commercial bakery! This does impact me because while I like to bake I do not have any experience in professionally decorating a cake and would sometimes consider paying for this talent. Why keep insisting to people that prefer scratch cakes based on taste, texture, mouthfeel or other reasons that there is no difference between scratch and mix cakes?

I'm having trouble finding a good older thread on eGullet that discusses making this cake. As I recall it was a warm molten-center version. Here is room temperature version of his dessert adapted for Food and Wine: click

Because a tier cake for a celebration does have so many other justifiable requirements besides taste I'm not sure it is a general example of what some are discussing on this thread. (Well, I guess I can't speak for other but as a consumer it wasn't my point of reference, anyway!) I don't mean that it is not a valid topic, but that perhaps it is a separate topic; i.e. "Tier Cakes: Best made with mixes?" (I am not literally suggesting another topic; I think it all fits in here but I wanted to make a distinction.) I am not being snarky in the slightest, but taste is just not the only and maybe not even the main requirement for a tiered celebration cake. For me, so many other factors were important as you point out--that it looks good at the time of presentation, (i.e. surviving transport, being made ahead, etc) and that is cuts neatly, etc. The taste requirement was just that it tasted "good enough" or "as good as possible". We did find a great bakery to make it. It looked great, tasted pretty good as far as I can recall and I don't know whether or not it was a cake mix.

I'm not sure the 1975 date makes sense. 1975 is when McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Hong Kong. It was already firmly established in the US in the 1950s. Nor was it the first such chain. White Castle dates to 1921. Moreover, people have been drinking Coca-Cola since 1886. My parents, born in 1937, grew up in the 1940s and 1950s drinking soda, eating the same commercial candy bars we eat now, grabbing fast-food burgers in their car, etc. They probably ate fewer vegetables -- especially fresh ones -- that today's kids. I think the baby boomers, who are slightly younger than my parents, are a generation we can examine to see the effects of the modern American diet -- and the news seems to be good. The boomers are incredibly vital as they approach retirement age. If current statistical projections hold, they will push the life expectancy average farther than it has ever been pushed before. ← It seems likely true that people's overall diet did continue to steadily improve in many ways following WWII as you pointed out and, of course, McDonald's and Coca-Cola existed and were well-beloved before the 1970's. I just wonder if some of the positive gains made during this period started to be overlaid with some negative trends at some point due to changes in portions, ingredients and dietary habits. For example, your parents may have gone to burger places as teenagers on the weekend, but were they being brought there for dinner 2 or 3 times a week? They drank Coco Cola but were they downing it in Big Gulp sizes or in a 10 or 12 oz bottle? Did they have a cola when they went out to the burger place or were theyalso having it with their school lunches? It is not that processed foods did not exist before 1975; it is more of question of whether a change in their pervasiveness, portion size and the frequency with which the are consumed will have an effect. (Maybe there are also 'bad' ingredients that have been added or maybe there are 'good' nutrients that are being lost.) How negative is this "negative trend" and how will it be counterbalanced with some of the gains you mentioned? I guess that is the experiment. I chose a 1975 "start date" due to the reported much larger consumption of soda, for instance, starting roughly in the 80's. This is the time that McDonald's, Seven Eleven and other restaurants started increasing the sizes of fries, sodas, etc. The frequency of families eating out, not just at fast food restaurants, but at others too, I think really started to take off at this time also. I also witnessed with my own eyes the growth in processed and semi-premade food in supermarkets from the 1980's onwards. The 1980's would also correlate with the time that HFCS was being added to more foods and in larger amounts (raising the calories count) of "low fat" foods. HFCS-sweetened fruit juice seemed to have become a much more popular drink for children. I'm not sure what the transfat trajectory is in terms of abundance in processed foods. That may have already made healthy inroads before 1980, but I suspect that its use was increased during this time period in processed foods in order to label food products as containing 'no saturated fats' or as being 'low in cholesterol'. Increasing numbers of families with both people working or with only one parent may also have had an effect on the type of food that kids were raised on. I also wonder what proportion of children raised this way have kept on eating in that vein as they grew up just because they were used to larger portions, high sugar foods, eating out more often and not used to cooking "real" food or having the time to do it. I did really mean that it was an experiment. I don't know if these dietary changes (to whatever extent they are different from previous times) will really have a significant impact on people's well being from a health perspective as they age. Maybe as you seem to suggest the sheer abundance and diversity of foods in our diet will still put people on this diet 'ahead' of other generations. (In any case, to me, there are other benefits besides those related to health that recommend the kind of suggestions that Pollan makes.)

Thank you for sharing your experiences. It is interesting to hear this reason for a professional bakery to use cake mixes. Typically the reason I *would* buy a cake from a bakery would be because they could make something I could not easily replicate. I think this is why I usually buy pastries from bakeries if I find a good one. I don't usually make many pastries at home. Some professionals have mentioned price as being a factor in the reason they use cake mixes. Are they really cheaper and why? Is it because oil rather than butter is used in the cake batter?

I would be tempted to use freshly grated coconut for this recipe but perhaps it would work well with pre-grated coconut as well. The recipe is for a "confiture de noix coco" or coconut preserves in Backyard Bistros, Farmhouse Fare: A French Country Cookbook by Jane Sigal that I have been meaning to try. The recipe involves making a deep amber caramel with 1/2 cup sugar and 2 Tbs water. As soon as you take the caramel off the heat, you blend in 2 cups grated coconut to cool it off a bit. Then return the pan to medium high heat and stir in 3 cups of water. Cook for ~ 10 min, stirring occasionally. Then stir in 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 3-inch piece of cinnamon. Cook for about 20-30 more min stirring now and then until most of the water evaporates. The recipe recommends that you can pour this into jars, chill and use for about 2 months or you can process the mixture into canning jars for longer storage. I'm a coconut fiend so to me this sounds like heaven as a spread on toast. Let us know what you think of it if you try it! edited to add: The Henrietta's coconut strips that you linked to sound intriguing as well. With the ingredients listed and the photo shown, I wonder if one might try to "bread" the coconut slices with an egg and milk mixture followed by a dip in flour with a pinch of salt. Then fry the strips in vegetable oil and finish the freshly fried pieces with a dip in sugar? One might also try adding a small amount of cinnamon or grated lime zest to the sugar mix.

Are the high end European books mainly from France and Spain or are there example from other European countries as well? Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Italy?

I love to add cooked green beans to this dish as well. (I think this is a variant that also comes from Liguria.) Sliced boiled young potatoes can also be added.

In reading my last post it made me think of another point. I do enjoy cooking and derive joy from cooking for family and friends. So, for me, it is easy to follow the now apparently "radical" idea of actually cooking foods from ingredients for the large part. What if one doesn't enjoy cooking? Besides the responsibility of taking some hand in ones own health, I still think that ones responsibility as a parent is to provide good foods and habits for ones children. I do think that cooking and eating together is an important aspect of raising a healthy and happy child. (And no, this doesn't mean that someone growing up without this experience might not be able to right things later on in their life.) How people feed their kids will of course vary according to their choices and needs, but the extreme approaches now of fattening kids on a primary diet of overly fattening and processed food is just not a step in the right direction. I also thought again of Fat Guy's article which questioned whether or not there was really a "fat epidemic" which may very well not be the proper term to use. This is only from personal observation, but it surely seems that there are many more overweight schoolchildren now than there were in, say, the 1970's. (I think this has also been substantiated with studies but I don't have the references to them.) This would also counter the argument in that article cited. Namely, that it only seems that more people are overweight because the heaviest people are more overweight now than then. So, it is true that this whole issue does very quickly hit many buttons and does have many ramifications beyond just ones personal likes and dislikes. This is probably one of the reasons that there are such impassioned responses against the reasonable suggestions made in the article.

Indeed, life is too short not to eat in a way similar to what follows from Pollan's suggestions. Spend the money and take the time to prepare and eat good food with family and friends. One might even gain some health benefits to boot!

Yes, it is disputed. For example, in the New York Times article, "The Fat Epidemic: He Says It's an Illusion," Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the discoverer of the gene for leptin, is profiled. More and more required reading piling up around here. ← Whether or not the new diet experiment of the last 25 years has or has not resulted in more overweight people, I would personally rather limit my participation as a test subject. I don't see any advantage to do so; only possible disadvantages. (I"m not convinced by the article Fat Guy cited as well. I'd have to read quite a bit more on this topic. As far as I can tell, the conclusions in the article rely just as heavily on statistics as the conclusions it purports to overturn, namely, that more people are overweight now than before. Although I agree it's certain that genetics plays a significant part in body mass and type, I do also believe that diet and physical activity play a role.) In any case, Pollan's advice is pleasing to me on many levels beyond just weight and potential health issues although roughly incorporating this approach in my life has incidentally helped me to regain a weight and fitness level I am very happy with. Eating and cooking a diversity of "food" as he defines it and sharing it with family and friends is a true joy for me and its benefits are many. As a complete and non-apologetic omnivore, my diet and enjoyment of food has increased immeasurably as I've learned to cook with many more fruits and vegetables. By “limiting” the quantity of what I eat compared to what many of us have become accustomed to vis a vis the example of current restaurant portions, it has also been gratifying and possible too, to increase the quality of what I eat. To me these are all reasons enough, although, increasingly I do think it is important to also think of the impact that our choices make on the environment, and the people who grow our food, in the broadest terms. This concern and interest has just followed naturally from wanting to have access to a diversity of good ingredients. I also agree with lperry in that I thought that Pollan’s article mirrored much of the philosophy put forth by Rogov. Pollan is exactly *not* recommending or prescribing an adherence to some particular nutritionism-guided fad or idealogy. He is simply saying, “Eat (real) food. Not too much. Mostly plants. “ The fact that people may use Pollan's points to advance their particular “agenda” is not relevant to me and I think the focus in this thread on looking at the suggestions as the political agenda of this or that group is throwing a red herring into the discussion of this article. Do you think the advice is good? I do; I think it is good, holistic advice for all of us who are endlessly bombarded by the marketing effects and "nutrition advice" that have produced the current prevalent style of food and eating in the U.S. Pollan's advice yields many ”unintended” benefits and has the effect of reclaiming many positive aspects of eating and living. One simple benefit accrued: Spend the money and take the time to prepare and eat good food with family and friends.

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” My head is truly spinning reading many of the responses to this article. I am truly surprised by the fierce defense of ultraprocessed foods by so many people, but I think I will reserve comment on this until I absorb and think more about what I think is motivating these responses. It is truly bewildering at a certain level although I think that Pollan brilliantly exposes how "nutritionism" and marketing have trained people to eat this way nearly as easily as one trains a circus seal to do tricks by feeding it fish. (I see that there is now a discussion on what "processed" means, suffice it to say for now that I don't mean "white bread".) One of the many things that I think has been misinterpreted (willfully?) in the article is his suggestion to eat food that ones great-grandparents would recognize. The suggestion is *not* to eat the diet that one’s great-grandparents did but rather to use this as one helpful and practical metric in limiting the amount of ‘modern’ (post 1970, say) ultra-processed foods ones eats. As someone pointed out, for example, it doesn’t mean not to eat kiwi’s if one grandparents or great-grandparents had not seen that particular fruit. It also doesn't mean to eat the same portion sizes they did. It also needn’t mean that one should abolish ALL processed food from ones diet. The suggestion is to limit these items that, for many, have formed an exponentially increasing percentage of their diet. Do some people really think this is a bad suggestion? (This question is not for those whose livelihood depends on a company that produces this type of food product or for those that own stock in companies that do!)* And regarding the discussions about how healthy or not we are now compared to previous generations, the real “experiment” will come to fruition when the people born after 1975 become older. This group, as a whole, has been the one who has truly been saturated with high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, etc and excessive portion sizes to a degree that has not ever been seen before. And also to address one of Pollan's points, by eating so many processed artificial foods we may not yet even understand what has been "bad" or missing from this type of diet. The case of transfats and margarine is one example. The experimental input into the experiment on the lives and long term health of this generation has resulted not only from the choices made at the supermarket but also from the choices to eat out at restaurants and fast food restaurants at a pace very different from a generation or two before. The latter choice also has significantly increased the amount of HFCS, transfats and just the plain old amount of food people have eaten in the last 25 years. The first part of the experiment is already yielding easily observable results as evidenced by the much larger proportion of overweight and obese people in the population. Is this a disputed fact? I suspect that the remaining experimental results will start appearing soon. *and journalists with a stake and makers of anti-statins and weight loss companies and ...well, anyone who has a stake in maintaining the status quo. The question is, though, for some who may at least intiially find themselves virulently opposed to the straightforward suggestions made in the article. One might ask oneself, why am I having this response?

A favorite Italian salad I make this time of year when tomatoes are at their weakest uses mixed greens or arugula/rocket, olive oil-lemon vinagrette, small cubes of percorino or parmigiano reggiano and sliced pears. A great combination of tart vinaigrette, slightly bitter greens, savory cheese and sweet pears. I like the other crostini (non-tomato) ideas above as well. If you'r set on tomatoes I'd try a sun-dried tomato topping.

Excellent article; thank you for linking to it here.

For additional information and links, here is the discussion on the trans fats ban in NYC: click

I think it is also a concern and a discussion on the propogation of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in so many processed foods is an equally important topic of discussion although not directly related to the topic of this thread. A similarity between trans fats and HFCS is that they are a substitute or added ingredient to so many items that people may or may not be aware of. One difference to me is that it seems easier to limit ones HFCS or sugar intake by the food choices one makes. Transfats are more difficult to avoid since they are used in many processes, foods and goods that are not made at home and the items, for example, baked goods at the supermarket bakery, may not have labels on them. Even without a label, it is still pretty easy to know when one is making a choice to eat a "sweet" item. (This, despite the fact that HFCS is "hidden" in some other processed foods, like ketchup.) I think that there will be increasing attention focused on the amount and pervasivness of HFCS; it is a related but separate issue from whether artificial transfats are truly harmful and should be removed from foods. One thing that is also interesting is that it seems a great majority of people are willing to get behind bans on ingredients that are deemed carcinogenic. I am not sure how easy it is to correlate the exact risk and amounts of ingredients that will lead to cancer in an individual but the bans seem to be less controversial. For some reason, I guess that cardiovascular disease and Type II diabetes leading to heart attacks, strokes and other debilitating symptoms seem less threatening or more vague to people. My two posts on this thread aside, I'm not sure where I stand right now on whether a ban of trans fats is a good idea or not for Philadelphia or elsewhere and whether it would even lead to a desired goal. What is the magic substitute ingredient that would replace trans fats and what is its longterm effect on health? Ultimately I think a more drastic change in people's food choices are what will be most important. However, if it has been shown that artifical transfats are really so bad why should they continue to be allowed to be hidden in such a large spectrum of food that is sold to consumers?

No, I wouldn't rather they don't eat. I'd rather they eat the same thing at the same price or a penny or two more but WITHOUT THE TRANS FAT. What do you find so objectionable about that? ← Penny or two? Are you runnig these places? Are you setting prices? Do you know what the PandL says? Why is it only a penny or two, and how can you state this as a fact? Just curious. Yes or no. You are making an assumption, I gather, that you know what is going on in the busines, unless you are actually in the business then I would love an address so that I can visit. I am only asking what your basis for that knowledge is founded in. ←

I found a few eGullet digests courtesy of bleudauvergne from last spring on eGullet. Perusing them also helps give an idea of the content for Saveurs and Regal. Saveurs digest Regal digest

I've been wanting to try this recipe from "Saveur Cooks Authentic French" for Gateau aux Noix: click Thanks for the link to the walnut bread, cdh!

This thread really has been an inspiration; especially since I own the Flatbread and Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean cookbooks but haven't cooked from them much to date. I have to look in my libraries for The Georgian Feast though; I need that potato salad recipe! Did your friend have a blast having all these wonderful foods? Was the food how they remembered it?

Looks great and I'm glad you got to use the real whipped cream! I'll bet they really appreciated the entire meal.

Are fried sauerkraut balls a dish in parts of Indiana as well? I'd never heard of them until someone mentioned them in another Heartland thread. Googling revealed that sauerkraut balls have apparently made an appearance at the Indiana State Fair... In any case, while I like sauerkraut, I'm not sure I can picture how these would taste!

Thanks for the updated review. It fits in what I've heard through the grapevine and friends. I heard the quality was much better when the restaurant initially opened and that maybe continued for a few years before a decline in quality set in.

I've had a great oyster chowder at Hog Island although I think it was also a thinner broth style (which I happen to like). Usually I don't order New England clam chowder on the West coast though as at most places I've seen the opposite problem to what you encountered for your taste--- too thick and pasty for me! The pistachio macarons sound delicious and I'm looking forward to your other reports. (After I tasted my first French-style macaron a few years ago I immediately learned how to make them at home; they are a great, great thing. Congrats on your discovery!)