Daniel Rogov

Melissa, Hi.... Party-poopers!!!!!!! Aside from which I think there is a misunderstanding in this article. To me a calorie has never been anything more than the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 cubic centimeter of water by 1 degrees Celsius. I refuse to think of calories in any other way! Or, as might be said, "Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead". No fear, I am laughing at myself as I write this..

Is it possible that many of the vegetables in question have been "forgotten" (a) only in certain geographical regions or (b) specifically among some social groups that consider them too much "the food of peasants" to decorate their own tables? I smiled as I read the piece because every one of these ingredients can be found at either the souk (or if you prefer shuk) of Machane Yehuda in Jerusalem or the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv.

This study reflects a generous chunk of reality but me do groweth weary of so many researchers claiming to have discovered the wheel or, in this case, that olives contain phenols and that phenols are good for us. The ancient Greeks may not have been aware of phenols but they did know about the healthful aspects of olives and olive oils. As to the first to write about the phenols in olive oil, I'm afraid the credit must go to studies done as long ago as the early 1960's in Cornell University in New York State and to the University of Montpellier in France. After that attention turned to red wine (see the zillion and a half articles about the French paradox) but no-one has ever forgotten about the olive. And no fear.....garlic is also good for us. If nothing else it keeps away vampires. I can, of course prove that, for no-one on this planet who has chewed enough raw garlic or hung it on every window in his/her home has been bitten by a vampire in the last 327 years.

Call it glugg, glog or glogg or, if you live in Israel call it Chanukah punch, but I enjoy it during the winter months: One hint: Considering that the wine to be used in the recipe is to be seasoned and boiled, it would be foolish to use the finest wine you have in your home. Best bets are simple and relatively inexpensive but appealing reds 4 bottles dry red wine 1/2 bottle brandy (optional) 225 gr. each seedless raisins and sugar 8 dried figs (optional) 1 large orange, studded with 12 whole cloves 12 cardamon seeds 1 cinnamon stick, about 7 cm. long Combine the ingredients in a large enamel saucepan. Bring to a boil and let boil uncovered for 3 - 4 minutes without stirring. Reduce to lowest possible flame, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes. Let stand in a warm place for 3 - 4 hours before serving. To serve, reheat until piping hot and ladle into mugs or wine glasses, garnishing each of portion with some of the raisins. Serve piping hot. (Yields about 32 punch cups).

I know that people in the USA are probably about fed up with turkey for the moment but consider this recipe for future use: Turkey in Chocolate Sauce A Mexican Dish Known as Mole de Guajolote 1 turkey, about 12 lb. (5 1/2 kilo), cut into joints 6 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped 2 green peppers, seeded and chopped 2 large onions, chopped coarsely 4 tortillas, fresh or canned and toasted 3 oz. (85 gr.) biter cooking chocolate, grated 1 cup lard 1 cup unsalted, roasted peanuts 1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted 1/4 cup chili powder 6 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tbsp. powdered cumin 1 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. powdered aniseed 1/4 tsp. each cinnamon and black pepper 1 bouquet garni made by tying together 3 sprigs of parlsey and 1 bay leaf Place the turkey in a large kettle, pour over water to cover, add the bouquet garni and cook until the meat is tender (about 1 1/2 hours). Remove the turkey pieces, pat dry and set aside. Reserve the stock and cut the meat into serving pieces. In a large heavy skillet heat 1/2 cup of the lard or fat and in this brown the turkey pieces on all sides. Transfer the pieces to a casserole and set aside to keep warm. To the skillet add the onions and garlic and saute these until translucent. Place the onions and garlic in a blender and add all the remaining ingredients except the reserved stock. Blend the mixture to a fine paste. Add the remaining lard or fat to the skillet and in this heat the paste, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. When the mixture is smooth stir in 3 cups of the reserved stock, mixing well. Pour the entire sauce over the turkey and bake in a medium oven, covered, until the sauce has thickened (about 1/2 hour). Serve hot. Ideally served with rice. (Serves 8 - 10) Note: If the lard offends, consider using rendered turkey or chicken fat.

And then there is Hymettus honey. A honey so rich, so delicious, so fragrant that many Greeks justifiably continue to think of this as the honey of the gods.

Dear Ms. Cunningham, No. To tell you the truth I hadn't heard about it until you posted it. The only one I know who often enjoyed dining in the fashion to which you refer was Ludwig the Mad of Bavaria who, of course, drove his servants quite wild with his requests. I suspect though that Ludwig's diet did not consist of SPAM, and that surely does sound like what your post is to me. If I have offended the rules of egullet and am duly spanked, I accept that but truth is, this was too tempting to resist. Something like the profiteroles with which I just finished off my dinner.

Daniel, Hello... William Bradford is hardly an "unknown". One of those who arrived on the Mayflower, and considered one of the most influential and imporant leaders of the Pilgrim group, he was also one of the few who left behind detailed diaries and journals of his years in the New World. He also served as governor of the new Pilgrim community for all but five years of his long life after arriving in America. As to J.C. Furnas, I'm afraid you'll find his credentials no less in order. Widely acknowledged as one of the great historians of America, his major work was probably the three volume The Americans: A Social History of the United States, 1587-1914. And no, I am not at all attacking a great holiday. I am merely, as others have sought to do, attempting to put that holiday more fully into the perspective of historical reality so that we can appreciate it even more today.

With regard to papaya, cocoa and several other foodstuffs that originated some in the Caribbean, others in Mexico, and yet others in South America, we should keep in mind that for at least three hundred years before the settlers arrived either in Massachusetts or Virginia that the Native Americans had developed a complex system of trade (much dependent upon barter systems) between tribes. It was not at all unusual for such ingredients to be found even among the tribes of what we now think of as the Far West of the United States. With regard specifically to papaya, at least since the 15th century, papayas were grown, albeit in miniscule amounts) successfully as far north as New Hampshire, the Native Americans being quite wise enough to realize that specially constructed tents (not teepees in this case) would serve to hold the warmth and humidity necessary.

Its a lovely book. The only problem is that it perpetuates a myth that has no basis in reality. Here's a piece I wrote about Thanksgiving some years ago... No-Nonsense Thanksgiving Daniel Rogov This Thursday, several hundred million Americans will celebrate the holi- day of Thanksgiving. Because the day is so closely associated with good dining, even the poorest Americans will stretch their budgets in order to buy the foods traditionally associated with the holiday. To deprive an American of his Thanksgiving meal is so unthinkable that special dinners will be flown to soldiers in places as far away from America as the Saudia Arabian dessert and the weather research station in Antartica. Even prisoners in solitary confinement will be given Thanksgiving dinners. As most of these people sit down to their dinner tables, they will reflect on the story of the first Thanksgiving, held more than three and a half centuries ago, when the Puritans made their home in the New World. There is probably no myth dearer to the hearts of Americans than the story of that first Thanksgiving. The standard tale goes something like this: after establishing them- selves at Plymouth, Massachusetts and Jamestown, Virginia the Puritans immediately realized that they had arrived in a land that was beautiful and bountiful. They gave thanks to God, befriended the Indians and quickly learned the ways of their new land. Life was so good that one year after their arrival they sat down to a marvelous feast where white and red men and women celebrated together. Its a great story. There just does not happen to be a word of truth in it. Shortly after the Puritans had set up camp in the colonies, William Bradford , probably the most able leader of the group, wrote that the land they had come on was "a hideous and desolate wilderness full of wild beasts and wild men." Simply to survive in this new world was an act of bravery and the first winter in America was ghastly with famine and disease. The chief killer was scurvy, which resulted from a lack of Vitamin C. {The Puritans had fared well enough on their voyage across the Atlantic because the ship was well supplied with cabbage, onions and unpasteurized beer (all of which contain low levels of Vitamin C). Once on land, however, those supplies ran short and the settlers had no idea of what to do. Because they considered the Indians barbarians, they failed to learn that drinking tea based on pine needles would have prevented this disease.} Historian J.C. Furnas writes that "subsisting on dried salted meat and biscuits, and precious little of either, the colonists died like flies, if not of disease of sheer starvation. "Had the Indians attacked, defense would have been impossible", Furnas notes, but "fortunately for both the Pilgrims and those now proud of descending from them, a plague had wiped out nearly all of the local Indians that very winter. The colonists gave thanks to God more for the `scourge that was set on the heathen savages' than for other blessings." It took almost six years until the Pilgrims finally came to realize that the vegetable riches of the new world were enormous. Cocoa, cassava (manioc), many types of beans, corn, papaya, sweet potatoes, avocado and the members of the pumpkin family were available in abundance. Deer, wild pigs, quails, pigeons were also readily available. As to the bird most often associated with Thanksgiving, it is probable that the turkey only became part of settlers' diet somewhere about 1690, 55 years after the fabled Thanksgiving feast was supposed to have taken place. Regardless of myths, folktales and out-and-out lies, America is a rich and bountiful land, and the spirit of Thanksgiving is one that may justifiably be celebrated. Do, have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Mary, Hi.... You force me to at least partly date myself. That article was written in a day when computers were used primarily by the Pentagon and at MIT, before the term PC (both personal computer and political correctness) were dreamed of and before anyone other than a few science fiction writers had even dreamed of what would one day become the internet. Apologies.....the word "link" in those days referred primarily to a series of rings forming a chain.........

Lucullus, perhaps the first true gastronome and certainly one whose name will always be associated with fine dining was used to entertaining lavishly. Once, when dining alone at home, the famed gastronome was shocked when his servants presented him with a simple supper of eggs and porridge and demanded of his servant: "What, were you not informed that today Lucullus was dining with Lucullus? Where is the feast befitting the honor and station of my most esteemed of guests?" My attitude is precisely the same as that of Lucullus.

First of all, to live anywhere in France and not to be out and on the town at midnight on the third Thursday of November is an out and out sin - quite enough to either condemn you directly to hell or to label you once and forever as a misogynist! Nobody drinks nouveau Beaujolais because it's a good wine...people drink it because its a social phenomenon and because drunk nicely chilled in large mouthfulls it can be great fun, especially when ordered by the pichet (pitcher) at your favorite wine bar or bistro. No one has ever made a "great" nouveau Beaujolais, no one ever will and no one strives for that. At their best they are light, refreshing, and, for lack of a better word "fun"......and forgive me but sometimes "fun" is an admirable goal to seek in this too often too troubled world. Second, let me remind us all that nouveau Beauolais is neither the begin-all or the end-all of what happens in Beaujolais. There are of course the cru Beaujolais wines - Morgan, Moulin-a-Vent, Julianas, etc and many of those are indeed excellent wines, well worthy of our consideration. As to me, wherever I find myself in the world on the night of the nouveau Beaujolais will find me in whatever bars, pubs, cafes, wine stores that are opening the wine precisely at midnight. (True sometimes I get sneak tastings a few days before but that doesn't rob me of the fun of that special evening). Best I ever did (for an article of course) was for my newspaper to book a round the world flight for me on that day so I could taste the wine as it was opened in France, Germany, India, Japan, California, New York and London. Exhausting but one of the most fun and probably funniest articles I have ever written.

Best use I ever saw was in a cafe on Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro where the large physical space was divided by walls made entirely of such bottles. As for me personally.......considering that I taste 35 - 50 wines daily, all I do is give thanks to the gods that the garbage trucks come once daily!

As to meatloaf in a restaurant, I have long ago memories of what was surely the world's most superb version of this dish, served daily at Morris' Diner (known to his regulars as "Cheap Morris") on Bruckner Boulevard in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. As to truly long menus, the only one I ever found of interest was that at the now defunct Airport Diner in Newark, New Jersey. 115 different sandwiches, 25 different pies, some 80 different salads and 20 different soups listed daily. Best deal there was a platter on which a generous scoop each of excellent egg salad, chicken salad, potato salad, all served with Levy's Jewish Rye Bread. Were there ever really "good old days" or do our palates and our childhood memories play tricks on us?

Not all of us.......

Fanatic no but adamant yes. Over years of experimentation I have found that many foods lose at least some of their flavor when exposed to this method of cooking and that many foods when cooked or re-heated in the microwave tend to become soggy. If not out-and-out soggy, at least harming the texture of most of the dishes with which I have experimented. My own experience with microwave ovens is that they are most appropriate for preparing artichokes and the warming of baby bottles. I'll go along as well with a suggestion from one of my own readers that they have their place on small yachts where slapping waves do not make for comfortable cooking and where cooking space is at a minimum. I am, however, willing to concede to being somewhat of a traditionist and that may account for part of my attitude. I do, for example, own a food processer. Despite that, it is most often to the mortar and pestle that I turn. And yes, I have tasted sauces and pates made with both methods (food processor and mortar and pestle) and in a significant number of tests can recognize the difference between them. Like Melissa, I am not (at least I hope I am not) a Luddite and am all for progress, invention and innovation, even when those turn part of our world topsy-turvy. I do, however, insist that some traditions remain traditions because they are indeed better.

Lawsy, lawsy, I adore cute articles that forget to back up their information with hard data!!!! 1. That more women are categorized as super-tasters than men is beyond question and that is neither a cultural, parapsychological or metaphysical property. It is purely biological. On an overall basis, women simply have more aste buds per square centimeter on their tongues and a somewhat more heightened sense of smell than most men. 2. The above cannot at all be extrapolated to say that those women enter the wine profession are super-tasters. 3. That women as a group have been denied access to winemaking over the years is obvious to all, but then again this has been true at every upper level of every profession in the world. That women have broken into the field of wine since the 1980s is increasingly apparent and in this case that not a biological function but a result of the ongoing struggle for social equality. 4. No-one in his/her right mind will or should claim that men and women are physiologically the same. 5. Whether women are more sensitive, more intuitive or whatever during pregnancy is something that has yet to be demonstrated in other than folklore and mythology. It surely sounds nice. Whether it has any basis in reality is not known. 6. Overgeneralizing about women's talents as winemakers, wine writers or sommeliers is no less dangerous and foolish than generalizing about their abilities to clean house. 7. Any person judging a wine on the basis of whether it was made by a man or a woman, whether it was made in France, Italy, the United States or Slovania is acting foolishly. The only (!!) valid judgement of the quality/qualities of any wine should be based fully and entirely on the liquid that happens to be in the bottle.

From time to time I start off by saying I have both good news and bad news. This time, only good news but one minor correction in terminology if I may...... I think we're using the term globalization of wine when we really mean "internationalization" of wine. That is to say that many wines are being produced that have so much in common that it is impossible at a tasting to know whether this Merlot or that Pinot Noir has come from New Zealand, Oregon, Burgundy, Bordeaux or Oshkosh, Missouri. The good news is that as much as I personally find interntionalized wines rather boring they do have a large audience and that's fine. I'd rather have people drinking a high quality internationalized Merlot with their meals than a Diet Cola! More good news is that those who find such wines boring have an abundance of options. Europe is no more moribund in wine than is Oregon or Lebanon or Napa. Even more good news is that critics do indeed differ one with the other sometimes even on what they consider accepted standards. That, happily, and as it should be, throws it into the hands of intelligent consumers to decide which critics best speak to their own palates. And if all of that isn't good news enough, have no fear.......Chateau Petrus, Penfolds, Beringer, Chapoutier, and Hubert de Montille are all doing just fine in their own realms thank you very much.

A few suggestions: Scrambled eggs with fresh truffles grated over - Brut Champagne Truffled pasta or truffled rissoto - Barolo, Barbaresco or a full-bodied Barbera d'Asti Truffled oysters - the damned well best red Burgundy your bank account can afford Truffles en sarcophage with concentrated demi-glace - Brunello di Montalcino, Sassicaia or Solaia

For those unfamiliar with it, may I suggest Peter May's delightful internet site for unual names and labels. Peter's site can be found at http://www.winelabels.org/ . Methinks, by the way, that some of the labels posted on this thread came from that site and that it would have been gentlemanly to give credit to the source

Rose, Hi... I am indeed familiar with the practice of dipping the tip of one's cigar into brandy. Winston Churchill did it all the time, Marilyn Monroe did it and Bill Clinton does it some of the time. Alas, most true aficionados of the combination of cigars and brandy (I include here in broad terms Cognac, Armagnac, Calvados and other fine brandies) acknowledge that although it can have its charm, the "dipping" habit is somewhat barbaric serving primarily to make the smoking tip of your cigar mushy and perhaps ruining the brandy of your choice. As to dipping a cigar into wine, I would sooner have an encounter with the bubonic plague. At least that, if caught early enough, can be cured. Ye faithful curmudgeon

It is now twenty minutes before midnight where I am, and I am on the way to my small terrace with my Montecristo and a small snifter of Armagnac. I will say before that that cigars, like wine, each have their own personality, and matching the right cigar to the right wine or brandy can be an enormous pleasure. As to tonight - it will be a Montecristo Especiale No 2 (Panatela) from Cuba - Medium bodied and with flavors of nutmeg, citrus fruits and spices this marvellous, smooth smoke maintains its character until it is completely burned down. The Armagnac is to be the Chateau Laubade of 1972. If I were to choose a wine instead of an Armagnac or Cognac for this particular cigar it would almost certainly be a relatively young Brunello di Montalcino, perhaps the 1997 or 1999 Pian delle Vigne of Antinori. Call it a game if you like but I'll tell you with no shame whatever that this is a game that gives an enormous amount of pleasure.

Mary, Hi... Rather than post a bunch of comments, let me refer people to my fairly recent tasting notes of some of the wines of Priorat. Should be enough to say it all..... http://www.stratsplace.com/cgi-bin/search?...untry=&UserID=4

I hate to be the first to remind us but there has been since the 1880's a good deal of information taken from the tombs to the effect that the first wines made in Egypt were probably not made from grapes but from a variety of fruits, those including watermelons and other melons. Indeed there seems a good chance that the first grape vines to make their way into Egypt did so via ancient Israel and that they got to ancient Israel via what is now Iran. As to syringic acid - perhaps not the very best of tests as this acid is present not only in grapes but in a great many fruits.