Food Sites for June 2022
Friday, May 13, 2022
Ramps and fiddleheads...
...seasonal treats to harvest when morels—or trout—successfully elude our efforts to bring them to the table. If only they’d all cooperate. We imagine a dinner of morels & fiddleheads, with trout in ramp butter. Alas, Spring’s larder is as fickle as its weather. So we freeze ramp butter and dry morels for another time, another dinner, perhaps in the dead of Winter—when Spring is only a memory or a dream.
You can, if you wish, follow us on Facebook (where, among other things, we post a lot of photographs), and Twitter. Still more of our older online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, mostly about our food writing.
We’ve continued posting our Substack newsletter. “Another Little Taste...” includes a sample from Ephemera; “You’ve Been Served...” features an essay from Tabula Rasa, Baby: (Not Written in Stone); it’s not really a food book—but, as our gullet is adjacent to our brain pan, there’s plenty of culinary content in it. The Writing Life ...Whatever That Might Be is another Substack post; it’s an excerpt from How to Write a Great Book (which is not, at all, about food). As usual, a free subscription automatically delivers these things to your virtual mailbox—and no one will be the wiser (including you).
A couple of foraged comments, from On the Table’s culinary quote collection:
A white truffle, which elsewhere might sell for hundreds of dollars, seemed easier to come by than something fresh and green. What could be got from the woods was free and amounted to a diurnal dining diary that everyone kept in their heads. May was wild asparagus, arugula, and artichokes. June was wild lettuce and stinging nettles. July was cherries and wild strawberries. August was forest berries. September was porcini. Bill Buford
My fare is really sumptuous this evening; buffaloe’s humps, tongues and marrowbones, fine trout parched meal pepper and salt, and a good appetite; the last is not considered the least of the luxuries. Journals of Lewis and Clark, Thursday, June 13, 1805
Gary
June 2022
PS: If you encounter broken links, changed URLs—or know of wonderful sites we’ve missed—please drop us a line. It helps to keep this resource as useful as possible for all of us. To those who have pointed out corrections or tasty sites (this month we’re tipping our hat to Krishnendu Ray), thanks, and keep them coming!
PPS: If you wish to change the e-mail address at which you receive these newsletters, or otherwise modify the way you receive our postings or—if you’ve received this newsletter by mistake, and/or don’t wish to receive future issues—you have our sincere apology and can have your e-mail address deleted from the list immediately. We’re happy (and continuously amazed) that so few people have decided to leave the list but, should you choose to be one of them, let us know and we’ll see that your in-box is never afflicted by these updates again.
— the new sites —
Ancient Beer is Craft’s New Frontier
(Sara Toth Stub’s Sapiens article on collaborations between archaeologists and brewmasters)
Ancient Indigenous Oyster Fishing Practices Could Save Coastal Ecosystems, Study Finds
(Jennifer Walter’s Inverse article on oysters and water quality)
Armenia’s Culinary History Hides in a Museum’s Manuscripts
(Rafael Tonon reports, for Gastro Obscura, on ten manuscripts in the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts)
Battle to Invent the Automatic Rice Cooker, The
(Anne Ewbank chronicles the triumph of Japanese technology for Gastro Obscura)
Chemical Traces in Ancient West African Pots Show a Diet Rich in Plants
(Julie Dunne, in Phys Org, on recent archaeological findings from Nigeria)
Chinese Food Is a Celebration of Time and Place
(Clarissa Wei weighs in, at Epicurious, on authenticity vs. adaptability in Chinese cuisine)
Comprehensive History of Beer Brewing, A
(Franz Meussdoerffer’s chapter of 2009’s Handbook of Brewing: Processes, Technology, Markets)
Dutch Institute of Food & Design, The
(international group that publishes—among other things—Magazine F, each issue of which is devoted to a single ingredient)
Experiencing the Ancient Flavors of Recipes from the Bible
(Ronit Vered’s article in Haaretz—requires subscription)
How to Eat Like an Anglo-Saxon King
(Diana Hubbell debunks a few culinary myths for Gastro Obscura)
Inside Look at Judith Jones’ First Notes for Julia Child, An
(an excerpt from Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz’ Warming Up Julia Child: The Remarkable Figures Who Shaped a Legend that tells the story of the early days of editing Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
(99 Percent Invisible takes on the grocery industry’s use of “ethnic aisles”)
(“Ah-BEETS,” you say? Jan Whitaker’s Restaurant-ing Through History site takes on pizza’s curious local monikers in Connecticut)
Precolonial First Nations Oyster Fisheries Sustained Millennia of Intense Harvests, Study Shows
(Donna Lu’s article, in The Guardian, on the scale and methodology of indigenous oyster culture)
(British food: A History has an answer; no surprise, the word had different meanings on the opposite shores of the Atlantic)
— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
Advice for Future Food Writers
AI Sommelier Generates Wine Reviews without Ever Opening a Bottle
Aunty Sylvie’s Sponge: Foodmaking, Cookbooks and Nostalgia
Can This Cultivated Meat Startup Make Lion Meat a Thing?
Collapse of the Industrial Livestock Industry is Coming, The
Feminine Ending/Masculine Ending
High Art of Food Literature, The. Seriously?
How to Organize, Clean, and Maintain Cookbooks
We Invented the Cow 10,000 Years Ago
Why are Many Modern Recipes a Challenge?
Why You Should Learn “Winespeak”
— podcasts, etcetera —
Comfort Foods for a Weary World
How Black Culture Helped Define American Cuisine
Nopalitos: Taming the Prickly Pear Cactus
— that’s all for now —
Except, of course, for the usual legalistic mumbo-jumbo and commercial flim-flam:
As an Amazon Associate, this newsletter earns from qualifying purchases made through it. These include our own books (listed below), and occasional books mentioned in the entries above. If you order anything via those links, the price you pay is not increased by our commission.
Occasionally, URLs we provide may take you to commercial sites (that is, they’ll cost you money to take full advantage of them), or publications that have paywalls. We do not receive any compensation for listing them here, and provide them without any form of recommendation—other than the fact that they looked interesting to us.
Your privacy is important to us. We will not give, sell or share your e-mail address with anyone, for any purpose. Ever. Nonetheless, we will expose you to the following irredeemably brazen plugs for our own books:
The Resource Guide for Food Writers
(Hardcover)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
(newsletters like this merely update the contents of the book; what doesn’t appear here is already in the book)
The Herbalist in the Kitchen
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food And Drink Industries
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Human Cuisine
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Herbs: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sausage: A Global History
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods
(Hardcover)
(Kindle)
Sauces Reconsidered: Après Escoffier
Terms of Vegery
(Paper)
(Kindle)
How to Serve Man:
On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, & the Nature of Eating
(Paper)
(Kindle)
How to Write a Great Book
The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Ephemera: a short collection of short stories
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Prophet Amidst Losses
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Future Tense: Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Backstories: As retold by Gary Allen
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Tabula Rasa, Baby: (Not Written in Stone)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #260 is protected by copyright, and is provided at no cost, for your personal use only. It may not be copied or retransmitted unless this notice remains affixed. Any other form of republication—unless with the author’s prior written permission—is strictly prohibited.
Copyright ©2022 by Gary Allen.
