badthings

To clarify: Rasteau is a "Côtes du Rhône Villages suivie du nom de la commune d'origine" (see this page). This classification theoretically denotes a level of quality in between a -villages wine and a full communal appelation like Gigondas or Vacqueyras. Unfortunately, Rasteau is no longer as under the radar as it used to be, and it sells for more than $10.

Yeah, and italy used to be part of france. England used to be part of the Roman empire for that matter. The food of Nice is probably best thought of as Niçoise cuisine.

Lulu's Provencal Table and Simple French Food are different books. Although I haven't seen it, I suspect that if you scrutinize your "beautiful" cookbook's copyright page, it will be revealed to be the same book as Lulu's Provencal Table (still in print, in hardcover), with pictures. Yes, available in the states, along with a pb. Simple French Food. My point is that a pb. cookbook is almost useless -- if you are going to go through the trouble of reprinting one, do it in hardcover so that we can cook out of it without destroying the binding.

According to this Richard Olney's Simple French Food has been re-released in hardcover. Excellent. Thanks. That ed. is not listed on amazon.com, and Grub St. doesn't appear to have a US distributor, but it can probably be ordered direct here -- or at least you can try to get a bookstore to do it for you. They also have Jane Grigson's Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery. EDIT: Theabroma, it seems that many of them can be ordered direct from CONACULTA. But some are clearly out of print.

Excellent topic. Any publishers reading this: case-bound please. No paperbacks. You cannot cook out of a paperback. E.g., Olney's Simple French Food, David's French Provincial Cooking

Speak for yourself! The most memorable service I had was my first trip to Chez Panisse (downstairs), many years ago. I was probably 23-24, and it was the fanciest restaurant I'd ever paid for, if not visited. It was one of those times when you feel like there are at least 4 or 5 people devoted exclusively to your needs -- but in a very unobtrusive way. One woman helped us with the wine (she suggested a knockout Bourgoge blanc for under $40), and when she left to get the bottle, another woman walked by, said "oh, I'm so sorry, you're left handed", and moved my wineglass to the other side. I was sitting there with my hands in my lap, talking to my date. No watch, no rings. I have no idea how she knew. (I also have no idea which side the glass is supposed to go on, but no matter). There is of course nothing particularly generous about this gesture, but it was a perfect symbol of the staff's level of concern with my comfort, which was exemplary. I was so happy with the experience that I almost didn't mind when I realized the next day that I'd tacked on an additional 20% tip to the 18% they include in the bill! Almost.

I went to my favorite local wine stores and laid down the gauntlet: give me a $20 Burgundy that is worth the money. The guy who sold me the Marsannay laughed at me (or, charitably, with me). The guy (an importer) who sold me the bourgogne rouge shrugged -- they normally don't bother with anything under $35, just got in the rouge, and hadn't tried it yet. So here are the tasting notes, from worst to best. These wines were drunk with food, and while preparing it. I'm interested in the real world, not blind tastings. Excuse me if the notes are obtuse -- I have a pretty dull palate, but I know what I like, and I can tell if a wine is offering me something or not. 2001 Bourgogne rouge Michel Colin-Deléger & Fils $16 Exactly the kind of Bourgogne that kept me away: thin and sour. 2001 Marsanny Domaine Phillipe Charlopin-Parizot (Gevrey-Chambertin) $23 Delicate and suave, but too sweet. Not bad, not interesting. Monthelie Domaine du Château de Puligny-Montrachet or Château du Domaine de Puligny-Montrachet $8/glass at restaurant, which is why I don’t remember producer or year (though obviously it’s not likely to predate 2000) Good fruit, not much else: a bit international tasting, about as good as the Saintsbury that started this discussion. 2000 Pommard Château Génot-Boulanger (Meursault) $22 This wine had breed, as I believe you wine people call it. Very elegant, verging on austere, with cinnamon/anise-y nose. 1998 Savigny-les-Beaune 1er cru “les Narbontois” Maurice Ecard & fils $25 (on sale from $35 – at the supermarket) By far the most exciting and complex wine. Full on the palate without being vulgar. Good acid and fruit + spice, citrus, and something tropical. The last three wines are the only two I would take pleasure in drinking again. The last two were starting to lead me down the path of Burgundy obsession -- I could see where it was going, even if I didn't follow it all the way. But that is a path I can't really afford more than a glimpse of. I'll be sticking south of the Loire.

It makes a pretty exciting 10 second BBQ sauce mixed with ketchup and vinegar.

For the masses, yes, but more like a couple millennia for rich people. There is no reason to grow wheat (because of its inferior yield to the lesser grains) unless you are making leavened bread (gluten). And of course wheat, wine, oil is the holy trinity of mediterrannean civilization. So white bread has been around for quite a while, just not in the peasant tradition (I recently read somewhere that there were many people on Sardinia who had never eaten wheat bread until well after WW II). You would think that there is enough of an urban tradition (going back to the communal period at least) with wheat bread to inspire some decent loaves somewhere on the peninsula. What I mean is not exactly that bread is a euphemism for polenta, but rather a kind of generic term like "corn" that often means merely "grain-based food". In Rome, "bread and circuses" really meant "the corn (i.e., wheat/barley) dole and circuses". The extent to which the masses kneaded their grain and took it to a baker is debatable, but much of it surely ended up as gruel, which was also the basic ration of the army. In the middle ages, landlords had a double monopoly, on the mill and the oven, which naturally encouraged peasants to find other applications for their grain. And if I were faced with a big pile of millet or barley or spelt, I would try to find something better to use it for than a loaf of bread, for obvious reasons (gluten). Hope that wasn't too pedantic. Wheat-based pasta was also a luxury item until the 19th century (except in wheat-growing areas like Apulia and Sicily), yet most italians seem to do OK with that. So what is it about bread that is such a problem?

this is the formula:

I did my first pork shoulder on the Weber last weekend. Thanks for the inspiration, Klink. Sorry I didn't get pictures. details: about 5 lbs. of shoulder I had in the freezer (left over from my cassoulet) defrosted, then a S&P only rub overnight. smoked for about 6 hours, until I got too hungry to go on (170 F internal). I think I was pretty conservative on the temp. -- closer to 200 than 250 for most of the time. opened it up a little bit towards the end. I was getting at least a 50 degree difference between the temp at the grate and at the vent. Used kingsford briquets with the Jack Daniels oak barrel chips -- the only kind I could find that didn't look like they had some kind of perfume or something in them. Stopped with the chips after about 3 hours, because it was getting pretty dark and I was afraid of oversmoking. No mop, but I was worried about drying it out, so I butterflied a nice chunk of pork belly (also left over from the cassoulet) into a "larding blanket". This seemed to work pretty well (the ends were much more dried out than the part that had been covered by the "blanket"). plus, I ended up with a huge sheet of smoked cracklin, which I ate while "carving" -- i.e., tearing it to shreds with my bare hands. another hour would have made it more perfectly "pullable", but it was pretty good. The smoke ring was about 1/8", and solid around the perimeter. I also threw on another chunk of (uncured/unbrined) pork belly to see what it would do. Interesting, but not bacon. My only question is, do I really have to flip it/refuel every half-hour? It seemed like every hour would be enough. EDIT: PS, my new pig avatar is from a drawing my girlfriend made a couple years ago. In the original, the pig is standing on a weber.

In the US, I think it is important to distinguish between Italian and Italian-American food. Trashing one for not being the other is childish. Of course, many more restaurants now are shooting for "authentic Italian" and at various levels. I am not qualified to judge these attempts beyond their obvious shortcomings. The River Cafe in London has been called, more than once, the best Italian restaurant in the world. I've never eaten there, but I'd find that hard to take if I lived in Italy. EDIT: The two most successful Italian-style restaurants in the Bay Area are, in my opinion, are Delfina and Oliveto.

Bill you'll have to clarify this history lesson. Do you mean that "bread" was a euphemism for "polenta" aka gruel for the vast majority of people because only the rich could afford wheat (except in Apulia), and everyone else had to make do with rye (if they were lucky), millet, and other "lesser grains"? Not to mention chestnut flour. Surely Montanari and Capatti address this issue in that book you just reviewed. (The point being that the ultimate bread of fantasy was as soft and as white as possible, i.e., wonder bread, and understandably, if you been calling ground chickpeas, chesnuts and dirt "bread" for your whole life). Of course, this does not explain why the only marginally better off French countryside has historically produced better bread. But stale bread is better for ribollita.

Bill, there is an interesting John Thorne article that attempts to defend the usefulness of these ratings, as opposed to the dissemblings of the wine merchant. Interesting but wrong. Part of his problem is having to shop in Northampton Mass. (I went to school there, so I am very familiar with the local liquor stores, even if I spent my time in the malt liquour section). The other part of his problem is that he is fixated on the idea that there is a miniscule amount of great wine, and everything else is a rip-off, some kind of scam people are perpetrating on him. Hey, I love great wine as much as anyone else, but I don't stay up at night worrying about it, because I know I can't really afford it unless I get lucky. And, contra Thorne, there is a lot of good wine out there that is pleasurable to drink, goes well with food, and represents different terroirs/winemaking styles faithfully enough to be intellectually stimulating as well. And costs less than $15/bottle. To me, the secret of wine is to get over the pervasive insecurity that you're being duped and the experts are hiding something from you, so you can enjoy this diversity. The easiest way to do that is to find a good merchant, as others have suggested. And drink a lot. Other Bill (Klapp): said article refers to a spreadsheet that sounds susiciously like yours.

Definitely check out the Montanari book. It is a good education in why you have to take a lot of popular food history -- and history in general -- with a grain of salt. The amount of meat that peasants ate varied greatly depending on the period, but probably reached an all-time low in the nineteenth century. I was just reading a John Thorne article suggesting that Irish peasants were eating 10 kilos of potatoes a day -- and nothing else, except maybe a cup of buttermilk -- before the famine. Conversely, peasants in the "dark ages" had the most diverse (and meaty) diets of any period except our own. Another excellent book by an italian that deals with this subject on a more theoretical level is Massimo Livi-Bacci, Population and Nutrition : An Essay on European Demographic History (out of print). There were certainly a lot of feast days, and remember, there were also at least 120 fast days -- no meat allowed. The penalty for eating meat on a fast day was death (in the Carolingian capitularies). Related question: I have read somewhere that wasabi was used to disguise rancid fish in the Kyoto period (Kyoto is I think 2-3 days from the coast on horseback) -- has anyone taken the trouble to disprove this claim? EDIT: Adam this is a bit of a misconception, as there are certainly literary sources for a wide variety of things illiterate people did -- just not recipes. But this is immaterial, because only the wealthy could afford spices.

Just found Cox's Orange Pippins at the farmer's market. Astonishing, almost artificial apple flavor taste. Candy-like. Good crispness, but on the verge of being too mealy. This is the quality that seems most variable, though -- I'll see what they're like next week.

I was thinking about this the other day: aside from a knife, a pan, and a corkscrew, I think the salad spinner may be the most useful item in my kitchen. I literally cannot remember how we made salad without it. Plus, it doubles as a colander.

Another excellent book is Food: A Culinary History which Montanari edited with Flandrin. He wrote some of the chapters too. And see this thread for a new translation of a book he wrote with Alberto Capatti on Italian food.

Do let us know if you can further clarify the difference between sweet lemons and sweet limes, esp. if the former are being sold as the latter.

a/k/a "saba". my bottle says "acetified grape must". it is like balsamic, but sweeter, grapey-er. it is not acidic enough for an agrodolce, so I too am stumped. I thought I had just read a bunch of recipes that called for it when I bought it, but then couldn't track any down. (my theory is that this product was invented before sugar was easily accessible in europe, to take advantage of all that grape sugar. probably mostly used to sweeten polenta, and/or desserts).

There is a difference between sweet lemons (C. limetta Risso) which are green, very floral and sweet, and 'Meyers' (lemon X mandarin hybrid) which are vivid yellow, spicy and aromatic. Does anyone know where I can purchase Sweet lemons in the bay area? Paula, "sweet lemons," or at least this one, sound a lot like "sweet limes", although they are not the same, according to this page and this one: However, "sweet limes" are almost always be found at the Berkeley Bowl. Also sometimes called "Palestine limes," I think? Monterey Markey, also in Berkeley, usually has at least one exotic citrus: in the last year I've seen Citrons, Buddha's Hands, Bergamots, and Yuzu, but not, I think, sweet lemons. But you might want to talk to them ((510) 526-6042), as they obviously have some excellent sources for citrus (at one point they found a farmer who grows 5-6 different italian varieties). Returning to the original question, I have always found it easiest to identify Meyer lemons by their smooth, shiny peel, which is easily distinguishible from even waxed lisbons/eurekas because they are much bumpier.

It has been. The works of Massimo Montanari -- The Culture of Food has been translated into English -- are the best overview of the history of European diet. A succinct explanation of why the spices=preservative/spices=disguise of rotten food theory is wrong is found on pp. 60 ff. of that book, with references. An good source for peasant diets is Piero Camporesi's Bread of Dreams. His sources are early modern, but they are relevant for the some parts of the late (post -12th-century) middle ages, which seems to be the period of interest to the SCA.

I think it has become lost somewhere in this thread, but there has been a considerable diversity of opinion here. Some people have been defending him, and some have been attacking him. Among the latter, there is a considerable divergence between those who feel he's betrayed a noble cause, and those who feel he's revealed the innate hypocrisy of a fashionable cause. These are all (more or less) legitimate positions to take. Some people have announced that they'll never return to Frontera, but no one has suggested that this besmirches Rick's true greatness, which has nothing to do with his TV persona, his hypocrisy, or anything else, except his his love of Mexico and its food, and his ability to explain it to the rest of us. I can certainly understand why people might be annoyed off by the cock sucking invitations flying around, but I don't understand the vehemence of Bayless's defence. He is a "celebrity," of his own volition, and therefore loses certain qualities of personhood in our society. This is simply a fact that we're all responsible for. That is the whirlwind he reaps. (Bourdain too, though to a lesser extent because his grand pronouncements tend to deal with pleasure more than morality). Finally, goddamn it, douchebag is one word.

Frank Prial begs to differ in today's Times. I have been "working" on this question since Craig's original post -- results coming soon.

In case it is not clear, no ducks are raised for foie gras in the town or county of Sonoma -- the Sonoma Foie Gras farm is out in the valley, somewhere near Stockton (a little "marketing" that came back to bite them in the ass). So this is clearly a direct assault on Manrique and his partners and the store they've been trying to open in the town of Sonoma.