Pontormo

Years and years ago I lived up the block and across the street from a large country store on the outskirts of a college town that sold incredible cheesecakes, Archie comic books for the devout and everything you could possibly need for baking for cheap: all in clear plastic bags sealed with twist ties, weighed and priced. There and then I first noticed different kinds of powdered milk sold next to yeast, wheat berries and rye flour. These were the days that the popularity of Diet for a Small Planet was just beginning to wane and I always associated dehydrated milk with that kind of economical, fringe cooking. Having somehow misplaced my favorite source of simple, basic bread recipes, I opened up Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (1997; sorry, no time to tend a poolish) and was surprised to see that Deborah Madison recommends the use of dry milk or dried buttermilk in several of her bread recipes. Since there are only a few recipes, it is hard to see a pattern. However, in one case, the recipe is for a whole wheat bread that includes a little gluten flour, but no unbleached white; another is for a rye bread. Does powdered milk complement heartier flours in a way that distinguishes it from fresh milk or buttermilk? Or might it be an established, superior source of protein for vegetarians? Edited to ask: Do I need to make any adjustments in simply replacing some of the water in the recipe with milk--other than, perhaps, increasing the amount of flour slightly?

"Muffins have been inordinately popular for years. I, for one, have never been able to understand why. They must be eaten piping hot and are not very good when warmed over. An exception might be made for bran muffins, but then we could get along just as well without them, too." --James Beard, James Beard's American Cookery Now for someone to write that and THEN go on to offer recipes for muffins... More later, but for now, let me say that his voice was one of the first that I read and first that made me smile.

Cool!

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey (That's to make up for Carrot Top's bunny stew joke) While not exactly about food per se, how about Lois Lenski's books about migrant workers such as Strawberry Girl? And since no one has said it, gulp, Charlotte's Web is about a lot of things, including food.

Dead Egyptians also drank beer. Some of the small entombed figurines of servants and slaves called "ushebti" are carved as if engaged in beer making so the deceased may have an unlimited supply.

Having read through these posts for the first time only last evening, I have to say I find this the most fascinating thread that members are contributing to this week. I was about to contribute until I came upon Rinsewind's observations concerning the young men and women she teaches. I can vouch for the same. In any moment of cultural transformation, we are bound to witness extremes. As boys grow up with the expectation that they may play multiple roles in their adult lives, some of them are going to want to learn how to cook for reasons beyond seducing the man or woman they fancy. We already are fully aware that the aggressive masculine antics of Iron John--and let's hope, the kinder, gentler presence of a Jacques Pepin or Christopher Kimball--have influenced children who see these as role models for themselves or their future mates. (Come on, no smirking, please. Some of us do develop pangs for wiry guys in glasses.) In turn, now women are studying a broader range of disciplines and preparing for professions their grandmothers would not or could not pursue. Some will associate cooking with domesticity and recall that even though their mothers never changed their last name or stopped working when they married, they were the ones who cooked. Hence, no matter how creative and fulfilling cooking may be, it is a gender-specific role that they are going to avoid. When they marry lawyers, become presidents and have a fax machine as well as two little children playing on the third floor of their Brooklyn brownstones, they're not going to go all the way down to the kitchen in the basement to pull things out of the fridge at 7:30 when they get home. They're going to reach into the drawer with all the take-out menus. If they do not marry or are not legally able to in most of the United States, they still may prefer to devote their time to other pursuits. I think I have used this example in a thread Busboy initiated elsewhere, but, I still am haunted by the advice a successful female professor offered one of her female doctoral students: don't learn to cook and don't learn to drive. That way, when you're a young faculty member no one's going to ask you to host dinners or pick up guests of your department at the airport, so you can work on your publications instead. We may be far sufficiently far away from the notion of "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" or even more sobering, this reminder of the German past: CLICK for some of the youngest members of egullet to fail to recognize just how much cooking retains a complicated, emotionally fraught role in gender politics. (I find it interesting that in the German phrase, the kitchen takes preeminence over children and church.) Now, by using the word "complicated" I am referring to the fact that things are not all one-sided. One of the ground-breaking articles in feminist scholarship that I have taught is "Quilts: The Great American Art," which Patricia Mainardi published in The Feminist Art Journal (Winter 1973) before it became widely anthologized. The author argued against the inherent bias of a question Germaine Greer had raised before her: "Why are there no great female artists?" Mainardi claimed that our culture has long placed greatest value on the artistic production of men such as Michelangelo or even Jean Broc in establishing the categories of "Fine Arts" and "minor arts." No matter how stunning, intricate or expertly crafted, quilts were deemed minor arts because they were made by women, often collectively, for the private versus public sphere, neither for profit nor prestige, hence, largely anonymously. Now all of these terms are important: gender, private space, economics and individual fame. I am going to return to economics shortly. First, I would like to say I find the article useful for understanding why the domestic achievements of women in kitchens have been so under-valued. It took someone like James Beard, a rather large male authority figure, to draw to our attention the value of nineteenth-century women such as Mrs. Elizabeth H. Putnam in first recording and publishing the recipes of home cooks in the United States. Laura Shapiro, among others, are now researching and writing about women in their kitchens to add a new perspective on American history, and not just culinary history. Of course, we all are very familiar with the fact that cooking to please her beloved husband was the way that Julia Child became Julia Child, and paved the way for female cooks to become celebrity chefs as well as pioneers in transforming the ways men and women eat in the United States. So, the relationship between women and cooking in this country, at least, is rather complicated. See Carole Counihane, Around the Tuscan Table, for one perspective of this issue in a different part of the world. I had no intention of writing this much. There is a lot I left out, really, in the paragraphs above. This is by no means a neatly prepared rhetorical argument; I am writing down what occurs to me as I write. However, I would like to summarize (honest) what I thought would be my principal point concerning economics. Go back and look at that compelling image of Mr. Ramsay with a rhinestone-encrusted "F" on his tongue and see what Carrot Top and others have had to say about it. This thread is so fascinating because it is about cultural transformations that go beyond gender. We gripe about and yammer on and on about celebrity chefs here at egullet, men and women alike. What I would like to point out is that Mr. Ramsay and his proudly non-Oxbridge accent have been propelled into the world of the powerful by the good graces of his PROFESSIONAL culinary skills, i.e. what he does for money. Now here is where I have not worked out the argument fully, so pick it apart or fill in the gaps if you have the patience to read this far. Yet Patricia Mainardi's article seems relevant to me here too. Michelangelo was a major force in transferring the status of painters and sculptors and architects from the base level of mere craftsmen or manual laborers to the elevated realm of the intellectual that led to the modern notion of "artistic genius." He was able to do so because he was a man hired by powerful men who admired and recognized his skill and he moved in their circles where he got paid a decent amount of money. Maybe Ramsay had diamond-encrusted diaper pins; I don't know. However, the lout is well compensated for his hard work and talents and may have moved up the social ladder as he gained professional stature and a publicist. Capitalism rewards the professional cook and media celebrity in new ways these days and we don't quite have a handle on what this means yet. When he criticizes women who do not make the effort in their kitchens that he does in his, he is speaking about women who do not gain what he gains from cooking. Basta. Enough. Edited to correct just about everything. I will add that this was being written before reading the latest exchanges of this afternoon.

Spaghetti squash was on sale at Whole Foods last week. I thought, why not, haven't had it for years. Change is good. Poked it with holes, baked it an hour. Scraped it. Tossed strands with lots of butter, salt and pepper and covered it with a simple tomato sauce made from amazing organic plum tomatoes from the farmers market that had little more than butter (yes! see Marcella Hazan), salt and pepper to augment their taste. Tore up some basil leaves. Parmigiana Reggiano. Blah. I know, it shouldn't taste like pasta. I liked the texture. But blah nonetheless. One of my problems was how watery it was. I tried draining it except it kept welling up again as if its boyfriend had just dumped it and it juh juh juhst couldn't stop crying. I've seen a recipe for making it into a gratin (Peterson?). I have half of a squash left over since it was rather ample. Any other suggestions or recipes? Thanks!

P.S. I absolutely all your contributions, especially the fish pants!

I refuse to pay money to watch television, so I don't see many of the food program(me)s that egullet members watch. Nor do I have TiVo for similar reasons. When one of the local PBS stations airs cooking shows, they're clustered in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, so unless I am folding laundry, I rarely get to see those either. However, this post is not about television shows, it's about you. I'll get there in just a second or two. But before I do, I'd like to say this topic is inspired by what I have seen when not attending simply to the ingredients being stirred in the shiny pans or the clear instructions and sound advice offered by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich. It's what she's wearing. A sturdy apron is tied around her waist, I'm pretty sure, but nothing protects garments above the knot. Granted she's performing before a camera, so she's dressed up and wearing lipstick. Still, I am amazed. All that Extra Vergine and we don't see her jump back once to avoid flying beads of oil! I feel particularly rueful when I am folding clothes since there is little I own that was not stained while either cooking or eating. Soooo, I am asking just how much television reflects your reality. Do you manage to walk in the door after work, peel off your jacket and go immediately to the fridge and the stove without fear of ruining the shirt on your back? What about weekends? Are you an apron kind of person? If so, how many? What do they look like? Do some of them play different roles? Have a history? If you believe in the half aprons that our grandmothers wore and are tickled pink by the retro ones on sale at Sur La Table, just HOW do you manage? Or manage to do without? Digital camera owners, feel free to post photographs. For the sake of anonymity, feel free to drape yours over chairbacks or dress up your very large dogs. Edited because who knows if albiston's on the lookout for more spelling errors.

Sounds good, especially the mushrooms. Use lots of garlic. Sliced and mixed with rice (or orzo, Carrot Top would say) and same vegetables would be nice, too, especially if you broiled or oven-roasted the tomatoes and mushrooms. Couscous. Pilaf. Also consult recipes for lamb stew. The complementary ingredients would work equally well with lamb sausage. Lamb sausage on a bed of red cabbage with mashed potatoes on the side...or vice versa. Cooked plainly with sides such as: Roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary. Saute'ed [how do you format accent marks, folks?] broccoli rabe with plenty of lemon juice or saute'ed spinach. Spinach loves lamb. Lamb loves spinach.

Edited to remove all content. I just would like to draw your attention back to the interesting question that Megan posed regarding the pleasure one gets from reading cookbooks and Austen: is there a difference? See Carrot Top's thoughtful remarks on problems that arise during moments of profound transformation. See Sandy Smith's reflections on specific terms of O'Neill's argument. I invite those of you interested in this thread to go back and find the link that Gifted Gourment kindly supplied. Please read the article or reread it if you haven't looked at it for a long time.

Carrot Top: I, too, share your concern about the way that Molly O'Neill's title has become ubiquitous. Quite frankly the term is over-, mis-, a- and poorly used by too many writers and Web site designers who prefer intertexuality to writing original copy. However, in the case of Molly O'Neill, the title had a great deal of significance. Look at the beginning of the essay and the personal anecdote that inspired her to write. She was sitting at a table at a book-signing event. Her mother, the woman who used to drive her to ballet lessons and change her sheets, was there to witness how many people gushed over her daughter and what Ms. O'Neill acknowledged was not her best effort. When pressed, there were confessions from the buyers in line that they clipped recipes and bought cookbooks but just never got around to using either, tee-hee. There was something disquieting and uncomfortable about it all. Voyeurism is a major factor in the food world. You and I may admit to looking through cookbooks as if they were fashion magazines, which, even though we DO cook, means there is something seductive going on there between the sheets of paper. But what's with all those people who just like to look? It's the whole celebrity, trendy, flashy, unsettling stuff caught up in and evoked by the event in that bookstore in California that prompted the reference to pornography. It is precisely because the word "porn" makes you and me feel bad that it was and is appropriate. Why is food now so superficially sexy? What's the sleaze factor? How might we who are the objects of the gaze peel off the fishnet stockings that others see when they dress us with their eyes and gain both greater professionalism and respect?

It's great to see how many people love lamb here at egullet. In one fairly recent thread for D.C., Del, VA & MD residents, a number of members were posting praise of the Icelandic lamb which I also see received mention here. The Icelandic leg of lamb (sirloin half; amazing prepared as way above sans lemon) was the first I ever prepared and I intend to do it again since the leftovers were wonderful simply sliced in a sandwich, mixed in with lots of other complementary things flavored with sumac, or used down to the bone in Scotch broth with leeks stewed first in butter and white wine. While I do not have a recommendation for shanks, since it's fall, I urge you to pick up Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, probably my favorite of the author's cookbooks. The Macedonian Lamb Stew Smothered in Spinach Leaves uses lamb shoulder. Glorious. Very next page: Autumn lamb stew with winter squash, lemon and mint which I also recommend.

Please be advised that the proper format for the citation of an article in academic circles requires the use of quotation marks before and after the title of the study. This should be followed by the full disclosure of the name of the journal (in italics), volume number, year and page numbers, thereby permitting your readership to consult your source and quibble with both your overdetermined reading and manipulative willingness to overlook the full context in which the original remark was offered. I think you'll find strong evidence to support a date toward the middle of the week at approximately 8:14 PM (GT) in early 1978 in Cleveland. However, the propensity to construct an essentializing chronology troubles me. Documented evidence supports a relative time line based on region and number of McDonald's franchises per capita, that is, were one not to dismiss altogether the (pre-post)colonical notion of historical progress that is implicated in this model. Most worrisome perhaps, the nomenclature for the categories of classification bespeaks an imperialistic Western bias, glaringly apparent in the choice of "arugula" as the normative term. Moreover, the tripartite system smacks of a Christocentric hegemony. While I am indeed flattered that you recognize my humility in further comments, I would like to point out that I am not a member nor have I ever been a member of the steakhouse scholars, nor have I ever fraternized with their ilk despite rumors to the contrary. I regret the events that took place on the third night of the conference in Leeds after Dr. Ruddy's keynote speech, but that was not my camisole draped over the headboard in the Westchamberlain Suite on the morning of the 23rd. *We are now a concentration within the Department of the History of the Body or Somiatics. Food Styling has merged with the Department of Applied Visual Culture.

Since it's too late to edit the text above, let me correct one error in fact here: At the restaurant (vs. store) that I passed, Joe's got the noodles, not Bob.

Postscript since my thanks was premature. I went out to investigate both places today and I am in THANK YOU!!!!!! Kam Sam is my favorite of the two, but probably only because I went there first. The place seemed a bit bigger, however, Maxim did carry a few things that Kam Sam did not...and vice versa. The service at Kam Sam was also endearingly kind, from the first telephone call to the question about qualities of the different brands of fish sauce. (I asked one shopper who was squatting next to me and through her help, I ended up with about seven different men behind the fish counter consulting one another & two opinions: one the most expensive brand, the other a contradiction expressed with greater, persuasive conviction). In addition to finding oodles and oodles of aisles of enticing packages in both stores, I was really impressed by the produce. Beautiful, beautiful greens. Fresh water chestnuts and bunches of scallions for 39 or 50 cents, top notch watercress for 69 cents, little bags of Thai basil for 79 cents and so forth. Quite a few kinds of mushrooms, including fresh something that looked like porcini, only the cap was small compared to the swollen lower part of the tapering stem. (Possibly the Chinese boletus, but I could swear it was called Oyster something even though it did not resemble oyster mushrooms which they also had.) Eels swam in buckets. Tilapia swished and peered out of glass tanks. The meat looked pink as the first party dress of the little girl with four older brothers. All except the purple black frozen silken chicken. St Johns and his patron saint Anthony would have had to cross their legs tight, shifting back and forth with disciplined joy to see all the little bitty parts of piggies. A major shipment arrives at Maxim's Saturday afternoon from Philly, kind of late. Both stores stay open till 8:30 PM and close a little earlier other days, and judging from the crowds, I got the impression today (Sat.) is their biggest shopping day. And yes, there were lots of different kinds of Chinese sausages to choose from. I did not check frozen foods, but there were packages of Chinese style ones looking pretty authentic from San Francisco. Oh, and I forgot to check the case with sweets and pastries, but I had a nice folded pancake filled with chives and egg to tide me over as I made my way home. And passing by, Bob's Noodle Shop was jam-packed at around 6:30 pm. Looked great. This really made up for the morning when I discovered yet another one of my posts had been deleted.

Let me add that Megan and I have been in communication and she's graciously offered to come up with questions to see if we can use egullet for a new type of more pointed discussion. Since Gifted Gourmet has graciously and promptly made the article accessible to all of us, especially those who have not yet participated in the earlier thread, it would be wonderful if interested parties could try to read "Food Porn" over the weekend. I am sure people will have things to say before next week, but I am going to wait around for Megan's lead before jumping in again.

Yes, thanks, Heather J Shorter! I'll try to get out to Rockville some time soon and report back about the availability of fresh water chestnuts. They are common in St. Louis where there is a large and venerable Chinese American community, and popular in Boulder, Colorado among the Birkenstock crowd. The real deal is different than the canned variety, sweet as candy as well as crunchy. I tend to use Jerusalem Artichokes instead when I can find them.

Urad dal, whole, purchased in St. Louis (two hometowns ago) circa 1996.

Always good to get the juice from an insider, R! Here, feel free to squash me for going tangential, but the Tropicana product used fresh, imported blood orange juice. In Italy, you can buy the stuff straight in cartons. Israel, too? I have rarely had good blood oranges from California and they're always the burgandy-colored Moro type, lacking in subtlety and often bitter. But, back on topic, sorry about your bad potato chips. Blue cheese popcorn would be good, too. Someone has already noticed a blue cheese powder is used on current snack food, but never as the dominant flavor. Maybe it's proven too hard to produce a good, ungaggy taste thus far.

Megan, thanks for taking the initiative. What I was hoping in my original proposal is that we could choose a reading and set a date sometime in the near future to give everyone time to find a copy and read it. According to another society member, MX Hassett has been interested in discussions of books, too. Since you've already expressed interest in "Food Porn", would it be possible for all interested parties to hold off discussion until two weeks from today, i.e. October 28? I see someone else has already posted a new comment concerning previous threads. If they are not full-fledged analyses of the article, might we still consider doing this now? That way there is the potential for a lively, concentated exchange. I am afraid if we invite everyone to talk now and jump in once s/he's found the article, comments will not necessarily address the reading nor be informed. The butler does not do it in the library with a candlestick (hmmm) anywhere on O'Neill's pages, but informed comments offered before others get to read the piece might spoil the fun for potential readers. I noticed in searching this site for Nigel Slater's Toast, that only a few comments were made, none about the book itself, simply because people had not read it at the time the thread was created and no one had the book on the desk in front of the computer. This is sort of a democracy, but does that strike current readers as promising? If so, let me offer a full bibliographic reference. There are two, really: O'Neill, Molly. "Food Porn." In Best Food Writing 2004, ed. Holly Hughes (New York: Marlowe & Company: 2004): 2-19. The article originally appeared in Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2003. (That is the extant of the citation in the anthology, no volume or page numbers.) Should you contemplate purchase, do note that there are articles & excerpts by egullet members Mimi Sheraton, Anthony Bourdain & Matthew Amster-Burton, perhaps among others. The work of the latter, "Learning to Cook, Cooking to Learn" was selected from eGullet.com.

I can't believe I've logged on to write this before seven in the morning. We're all sick! But anyway, my two cents: Michael Seasons produces one of my favorite junk foods: white cheddar cheese puffs. As far as I am concerned, none other compares. It strikes me that blue cheese flavoring would be perfect coating light puffed corn. I prefer potato chips plain. However, one of the problems at the heart of the "How Come they Don't" question is test marketing. Second: cowardice. Who knows how we managed to get to the point where salsa outsells ketchup, but I suspect chain restaurants led the way, then manufacturers stepped in and responded to new public receptivity (sp? sorry, I don't do dictionaries before coffee). Most food manufacturers seem to be scaredy-cats. Tropicana briefly produced a "Red Orange" juice that contained blood oranges. Man was it good! Then the company got frightened and replaced the blood oranges with red grapefruit. (I personally think they should have approached Mel Gibson and tied the original product to his highest grossing film.) Safer. Not so foreign. Look at how many upscale brands of apricot-mango yogurt there are, yet none of the really good (IMHO; i.e. sans tons of sugar) companies will produce a simple pineapple one. Horizon's brief flirtation with flavors that included rosehips and fresh ginger died an early death. They're all copying one another. Exotic is okay as long as someone else is doing it too. Look at the way blue cheese is written as the subject of this thread. Again, too foreign. You need something All American. Unless Frank Perdue's heirs give the public pre-cooked, pre-glazed packaged chicken wings to go along with their blue cheese potato chips, I don't think the latter's gonna fly.

Thanks, BB! I just googled Italian sites for "arigola" and found this: Italian variations on "rucola" There's no mention of "arugula," but this makes sense. You're onto something. Schneider reports the theory that a regional name for "rucola" might be the source for "arugula," but no one could identify anything definitive. Since we're supposed to be as accessible as possible and use only English, I do hope the link is okay. For the sake of transparency, let me mention that the name of the site refers to a type of grocery store that specializes in produce. The entry on this page discusses a type of arugula and offers different variations on the name of the plant; "rucola" stems from the Latin word "eruca" (masculine, though) whose ancient etymology is uncertain. "Arigula" you'll notice is one of the variations listed. The cultivated variety is said to be quite different from the variety treated in this entry, surprisingly more flavorful, or rather, more intense, than the wild plant. [in some parts of Italy, in fact, you can see old women dressed completely in black, bending over on the side of the road picking arugula since it grows like a weed.] Before assuming its current role in salads and soup, arugula was prized as a medicinal herb. It helped if you had problems with indigestion or impotence! P.S. It's too late to edit, but in my second post in this thread, I wrote "Pana" instead of "Pane." Not as bad as a typo that albiston corrected elsewhere, but...

The cost is rather prohibitive unless you find a special sale on artichokes, but one of the best I have ever made is Marcella Hazan's artichoke lasagna. It was wonderful with plain homemade egg pasta--although spinach noodles would be pretty--allowing the taste of the artichoke hearts to stand out. The recipe calls for 4-5 artichokes and asks you to cut off and discard all their leaves, though I am sure you could steam them separately to justify expense. The recipe begins on page 184 of More Classic Italian Cooking (1978). I can't give you the page for the revised, one-volume edition of the original publication.

Thank you for starting this thread! Here in D.C. proper, Lee's in Chinatown closed. Two questions: Are any of these places Metro-accessible? Does anyone sell good FRESH water chestnuts?