Carrot Top

Name five foods that you think represent the United States as "cultural icons" (across the board, as a nation, not focusing on the regional) during the years 1950 to 2000. Do the same, per your best guesses, for the years 2000 to 2050. I'll leave the screen blank as to my own thoughts for fear of "stacking the deck".

I think there are still a few Tad's around! ← We still have one here in San Francisco. ← Sad. Worldwide domination may be next. Someone really should find that black hole and *make* Tad's "of yore". And for goodness sake, do hurry so I can actually be "on topic".

I think there are still a few Tad's around! ← It always seemed to me as if Tad's was not really "real" in some way. Sort of like an alien spaceship had landed during the wee hours of the morning (probably in the only hour that New Yorkers are not out on the streets, between 4:30 after the after-hours close and before 5:30 when people who open coffee shops have to go to work) and little green men with pulsing fragile antennaes on their heads quickly hopped out of the spaceship and built these strange places that served something they knew was called "steak", that Earthlings liked. Since they were aliens, they never really understood what steak was. As should be obvious to anyone that has ever entered a Tad's "Steaks". It's the trickery of thinking that they actually can get a decent steak for like. . 99 cents or the moral equivalent that makes people *want* to believe that Tad's is indeed a steakhouse and not an alien outpost. I'm still fairly certain that somewhere in each Tads's there is a spot, a black hole, that if it could be found (maybe it's in the men's room - who would want to go there, anyway) and some mystic rite held (maybe waving a bunch of arugula and citing Michael Pollan at great length) the restaurant would dissolve into a huge ugly puff of greasy, potato-flaked smoke, leaving some valuable Manhattan real estate available.

Ah. . .you have hit upon one of my favorite iconic foods that I have never yet eaten! And all wrapped up in a wonderful tale. ........................................... I've always wanted to have yak butter tea, ever since I first heard of it a very long time ago. No idea why, or even how the idea struck me that it was something that must someday be done. My son had a friend when he was nine years old, a little boy from Mongolia. An outgoing little fellow (not so little really, strong and solid he was) with a facility for story-telling. He would come to our house to spend the afternoon and would spike the usual sorts of play that little boys do with endless stories of strange creatures he would invent with startlingly odd names. . . imaginary wars set in various parts of the universe and beyond. . .touched in parts by bits of myth and religion. God was a part of his stories, as was Hell and retribution. His imagination was filled with such richness of imagery and action, the lines of the "here and now" blending seamlessly with ancient tales of the ages, his child's mind like the pages of a book, an adventure tale, vivid with life. I always used to ask him about yak butter tea. "Did you ever have yak butter tea when you were a baby?" I'd ask, as he drank some soda or juice while visiting. "Yak?" he'd always say, puzzled. He never remembered what "yak" meant in his language, each time I asked, so I'd have to make shaggy, furry, large animal movements with my hands and arms to try to show him what a yak was. "Oh, yes!" then he always remembered, and said, "Of course. It tastes okay" in his still-lilting musical English. I think he forgot on purpose, just to make me act silly about what a yak was. And he felt very superior, in his little-boy way, each time his friend's Mom tried to ask the same question, all about yak butter tea. I'm not sure, if I do ever have yak butter tea now, that it will be as interesting itself, as he was in his way. But then again, I might look into the cloudy depths of that steaming cup and see the stories of the ages that filled his little-boy mind, the wars, the mythology, the creatures that walk the earth and other places, the good and the evil. I do believe they might all be there to taste, all in that one steaming cup of yak butter tea.

It could very well have been. If it was, it was a good recipe for usually I can't stand the stuff. I vaguely remember how they wrapped the little sandwiches in paper to serve them, though. . . And yes, Schrafft's! Scrafft's Fifth Avenue, wasn't it across from the library? I think it closed right around the time Lord and Tailor closed and another of those department stores. I can still see the tables piled with silk blouses out lining the streets in the sunshine, selling for some ridiculously cheap price, Shrafft's elegantly ensconsed right in the center of it all, an old dowager with some pride of place left . . . Well. I've thought of two more. Nathan's, which I remember as having two places, now is a major player apparently. And here's a scary one. Tad's Steaks. Gluggg. The one on 14th Street was really dreadfully strange. You could imagine that Mickey Rourke in one of his more frightening roles *lived* there.

I really wish you had had the chance to visit a bar in Williamsburg twenty-five years ago. That is, if you were lucky enough to even find a cab that would take you there.

87 Jermyn Street was also the home of Sir Isaac Newton, wasn't it? The apple on the head guy? I'm rather hoping he turns up as a character somewhere, too. Looks like The Oyster House Siege will be a jolly romp. An excellent way to spend a Saturday night.

In the city: Zum Zum - great grilled German sausages and sides, seemingly authentic. . . Chock Full O' Nuts - decent coffee quick, and I remember the cream cheese sandwich on raisin bread as being a really cheap and fast and relatively healthy lunch. . . Orange Julius - I can taste it now, a perfect Orange Julius with a hot dog. . . Outside the city: Howard Johnson's - BLT's, hot dogs on New England buns grilled with butter, clam rolls, and of course 28 flavors of ice cream!

I'm really glad to see that happening there. Fantastic. I bet they *will* taste pretty good, too. The guy that started that obviously knows what he's doing - lots of background from his family's business. . .the only thing I could not figure out from the website was whether they were hydroponic or not. A greenhouse operation *can* be hydroponically-based without having to state it, can't they? Not that I think it matters (in some ways). Some of the best tomatoes I've tasted recently (a bit strange to think of but true) have been hydroponic.

To which my Not-Really-My-Uncle Earl used to append, "as well as ornamental." SB (would prefer to serve as a decorative centerpiece in this regard) ← You might actually be able to start a nice little side-business, doing just that. People are always looking for interesting table-topper ideas, no? Do let me know if you need any help. ............................................ Another "forgotten food", one of my favorites: ambergris.

It's much more fun reading about everybody else's life. Who does the cooking in your home? Me Do you eat foods from take-out or restaurants or buy ready-made foods often? Take-out about twice a week, restaurants about once a week, ready-made no. Fast-food for snacks for the kids about two times a week. They remain healthy and not overweight. Do you cook absolutely "from-scratch" using unprocessed ingredients often? Aside from eating take out or going to restaurants, I cook three meals a day every day. About half of those meals are from scratch, half not. I'd personally find it too time-consuming and boring to cook each meal from scratch. Are you single, married or living with other(s)? Single Do you have children? Two, ages 12 and 14. They can cook basic things but would rather have Mommy do it. If I had a Mommy here, I probably would too, so how can I blame them? What sort of work do you do? Full-time Mom. Sometimes I think when I grow up I'll be a writer, so I practice at that. Other times I think I'd rather just move to St.Pete's beach and be a beach bum. Do you feel you have enough time to cook the sorts of foods you like to eat? Yes, but the two other people in my family like different foods than me, so usually I cook what they like to eat. I'm interested in the questions of time, culture, society, money and class. As they relate to food and how it fits into our lives, of course. That's funny. So am I! As a question for "extra credit" , is the form of your daily cooking/eating/dining different than it was in your family when you were growing up, and if so, how is it different? Yes, different. My mother did not enjoy cooking so food was never that important. Lots more variety in our foods today, and though we don't always eat sitting around the table, when we do, the kids don't have a book stuck in their face as I remember always doing. . . My reason for posing these questions is to listen to how people are living, in the ways of "food". For I think food is in the category of the few things that do give meaning to life. I've had more than one "lifestyle" with food, myself, and each one is vastly different. I've been married to a man who would eat everything and anything, who loved food, who came from a background where food was a huge part of everyday life. Then I was married to a man who was trained as a chef but who only wanted to eat meat and potato-like things, and who had a very limited (and inappropriately snotty for someone who could not taste) palate. I've been a pastry chef which was great fun, a chef which was good and interesting fun, an executive chef which was immense fun and very rewarding in all ways, and a VP in charge of foodservices for a large corporation, which was really not fun at all. I love to feed my children in ways, but detest it in other ways, for have found it to not be all that it's cracked up to be. What gives pleasure in food, in the ways that we live with it? Are the credos that we are taught "true"? Women in particular have a complex relationship with the kitchen - it's where we've "lived" and worked from, historically. Yet now there are (at least) two conflicting notions of how we should be, in terms of food and cooking, this way that we've used to nurture others for so very long. One way says "Throw off the old shackles! Use what you please in terms of convenience foods, it frees you for other things in life that you can find time to do. . .the food is still good, and good for your family *and* you." Another way says "Focus in on the finest, the best, the most pure and quintessential foods. Take time to cook for yourself and for your family, for they *can* and *will* know and feel the difference." I don't know. I really don't. There might not be an answer. But it sure seems worth pondering, to me. So please give me more stories to ponder.

Here you are, dearie. Zebra for Lunch

Facts? You want facts from me, Genny? I have to face sober reality?! Okay. . .a bit later, though. This Little Red Hen has to clean the house and go grocery shopping before sitting down to write anything that is longer than a sentence or two.

In thinking of this forgotten food, I'm reminded of a saying from my youth, rarely heard anymore: "Make yourself useful!"

Goodness. I'll have to hunt up that recipe. Those were the olden days, when women were allowed to leach tannin and even sharpen the very atmosphere with their tongues. It's likely that I used that method. Thank goodness for St. John's, though I detest galantines of any form or flavor after having made too many. Making too many galantines can become like a science-fiction movie at best, a horror movie at worst. All that meat. Brandy. Meat. Brandy. A pistachio or two. Your fishy duck comment reminded me of "Bombay Duck", though. Haven't heard of that lately, but then of course there's not a lot of ancient colonels sitting before the fire in ratty leather armchairs at the club telling old tales here in Virginia.

Ah. . .don't worry about that bubble, Zoe. I have plenty more where that came from. Nice recipes, there. I would try the pine-needle thing, maybe. First I'd have to catch my woodsman. I don't *do* pine-needle collection. (Too messy on the fingernails, you know. )

Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah.

Crying shame, too. My acorn hoe-cakes used to go so well with the pemmican I used to pick up at the corner deli, which to my great disgust, they do not carry anymore.

And it has definitely been more than a couple hundred years since I had a delightful dish of roast swan brought to the table, re-decorated in its own feathers. Though that might have been a good solution to this modern-day occurence that I just read of. . .

In ancient times, when nomads crossed the deserts on camels (before there were tourists or cameras following them ) they used to carry dried-milk cubes. You know, like. . you milk your camel, then allow the milk to curdle in the sun, then press it somehow into dried little hard things that you could pop in your mouth like just so many Raisinets when you might need sustenance on a long journey. There's a reference in Reay Tannahill's "Food in History". Lots of good forgotten Ancient Roman foods, too. Probably for good reason.

You have become my romantic heroine in one fell swoop, Carolyn. Meatballs roasted on the open carburetor and all. Keep up the good work.

Yeah. I didn't see that movie, but just looked it up on the "official site". Six hunky hovering guys and one sultry Charlize Theron, huh? Who needs meatballs, I ask you.

I love the idea of Mini Coopers barreling through a desert, with meatballs as the meal! Great visual image for a movie script. . .

Your description of the cooking method reminded me very much of Maine lobster bakes - a pit is dug near the border of the beach. You then line it with large flat rocks, build a fire on top of the rocks with lots of driftwood (or wood brought, or charcoal, but naturally driftwood gives the best romantic feel), let it burn down to redhot coals, throw some seaweed from the beach on top of that, then add lobsters, corn on the cob, little potatoes, and maybe some clams. Cover with more seaweed and/or the soil you'd dug out before (sometimes with a tarp underneath) and bake till done. The recipe you mention also reminds me of the French way of cooking bass with fennel leaves, outdoors. The pine needle element is surprising in the recipe. . .I'm wondering if it is a *real* recipe or if the author was using the metaphor of the slightly-angry, disconcerting pine-needle feel and taste on the otherwise-delicious food to add to the mood of her story. . .(people who like "facts" often think these conjunctions completely nuts, but people who use intuition as a path through life can see the relationship ) P.S. Was it actually pine needles that was in Paula Wolfert's recipe? It would be sad to have to disprove my romantic, metaphoric point with mere facts. . . but if so, I wonder where the recipe came from, geographically, and the "why" of pine needles as opposed to any other thing that could be used. . .flavor-wise, pine would not be my choice if there were anything else at all growing around the area that could be used. . .pine has that scent to me of clean linoleum floors. . .

I admit to being disappointed that there are only two guys left. (If there were even *one* place like that in most other places, there would be a sign on all approaching highways offering "Tours! Come Have a Real Pickle!" perhaps with a picture of a grinning man edging a pickle towards your face as it drove by in the car. . .so that says something, anyway. . .the pickle places quietly (heh) survive. ) Now if someone took the pickle-making idea, expanded it into including all the varieties of ethnic pickles in one place (the kimchee of one neighborhood, the peppers and onions of another, etc etc) added a counter where you could have a good coffee or tea or maybe a glass of "vin ordinaire" with maybe some good breads ordered in from nearby for sale, or at least a selection of good crackers of every variety, that could really be fun. But not the same, I guess - not the same flavor of the old pickle places. Forgive me, I am just waking up and dreaming of new pickles to get into without having had enough coffee yet. P.S. I can't tell you how much I miss this, not living there anymore. It's like a longing for the sound or smell of the ocean would be to someone that grew up near that. . .