A Fine Food Resource

[jamiemaw]

One of my favourite Christmas presents that I gave myself this year was The Complete New Yorker, the 80-year digital archive of that magazine that contains 500,000 pages of art and text on eight handy CDs.

The tutorial, search mode and ease of reading are very friendly. A search for 'food' elicited 2,000 returns (just for the past two decades), from cartoons to old favourites such as Joseph Mitchell's 1951 opus on New York harbour and its denizens (referenced in Mark Kurlansky's new book The Big Oyster: New York on the Half Shell) to Thomas Whiteside's extraordinary 1977 Reporter at Large piece on Florida tomatoes.

It's a little daunting, realizing just how much information lies ahead, but fascinating, and is now selling for about the price of four cocktails at The Four Seasons.

Anyone else had the pleasure yet?

Edited March 3, 2006 by jamiemaw (log)

[M.X.Hassett]

It is an exellent resource. When you start thinking of the wealth of contributors in the food and spirits/wine genre, you trully realize what one has at there fingertips. The search feature on it is also very well done. I was reading an article last night about the introduction of Vodka to the US market (feh). I also like the fact that it is a full archive including adverts I actually found an ad for my vintage "rumidor" Good stuff indeed.

[jamiemaw]

It is an exellent resource. When you start thinking of the wealth of contributors in the food and spirits/wine genre, you trully realize what one has at there fingertips. The search feature on it is also very well done. I was reading an article last night about the introduction of Vodka to the US market (feh). I also like the fact that it is a full archive including adverts I actually found an ad for my vintage "rumidor" Good stuff indeed.

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Matthew,

Do you happen to recall the vodka issue or author?

[M.X.Hassett]

Jamie its in the "Talk of the Town" July 28, 1934 (disc 8), it make for a good read heres a brief abstract:

Lengthy talk story about St. Pierre Smirnoff Fils, herediary vodka-makers to the Czar, who have opened a new plant in Bethel, Connecticut. The word vodka, means little water, and ka, affectionate diminutive). It is nothing but alcohol & water, and its quality depends on its refining In Russia, vodka used to be made mostly from alcohol distilled from potatoes, but here grain alcohol is used. The mixing is done in a kind of turbine, after which the liquid goes through a labyrinth of tubes & cylinders filled with special charcoal whose character is a deep Smirnoff secret.

[Chris Amirault]

If memory serves, there was a great article in... um... the early 1990s perhaps about marketing vodka.

[M.X.Hassett]

If memory serves, there was a great article in... um... the early 1990s perhaps about marketing vodka.

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Your probably talking about the Sept. 12, 1994 "Annals of Advertising" article by Arthur Lubow. It discuses how Stolichnya tried to recapture the vodka market after Absolut began to dominate it.

[jamiemaw]

If memory serves, there was a great article in... um... the early 1990s perhaps about marketing vodka.

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Your probably talking about the Sept. 12, 1994 "Annals of Advertising" article by Arthur Lubow. It discuses how Stolichnya tried to recapture the vodka market after Absolut began to dominate it.

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Thank you both. I was trying to convince Eva that I was the tastless one.

[Chris Amirault]

If memory serves, there was a great article in... um... the early 1990s perhaps about marketing vodka.

←

Your probably talking about the Sept. 12, 1994 "Annals of Advertising" article by Arthur Lubow. It discuses how Stolichnya tried to recapture the vodka market after Absolut began to dominate it.

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That's it exactly, Matt. Tx!