Food Sites for September 2023
Sunday, August 20, 2023
Small signs that Autumn is just beginning to appear.
As we write this, it’s still August, with September just around the corner. The days remain hot, but—each evening—the temperature dips a little lower. Summer’s sparkling white daisies have been replaced by golden black-eyed susans, and farm stands reveal different produce than they had just a few weeks ago.
The equinox is coming, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
This summer has been one long series of short vacations, which has played havoc with our commitment to writing. Still, we did manage to post a few Substack pages:
“Holy Acid Flashback, Batman...” looks back at events from the summer of 1969;
“Appetite” is a tale of adolescent wandering and wondering;
“Absinthe Makes the Tart Grow Fonder” is an ode to the Green Fairy;
“It’s a Puzzlement” asks, and tries to sidestep an answer to, the question “What, Exactly, are Herbs?”;
“Geriaticks” suggests that memories, like youth, are sometimes better off being lost;
“It All Comes Back to Me, Now...“ revisits the issue of memory, as well as a certain character about whom we’ve written in the past;
and,
“Bibliomania” that is, at you might expect, too much about too many books.
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 online scribbles can be found at A Quiet Little Table in the Corner and other Substack pages. There’s even an Amazon author’s page, that’s mostly about our food writing.
“To everything there is a season,” and this is the season for quotes about seasonality from On the Table’s culinary quote collection.
No dish changes quite so much from season to season as soup. Summer’s soups come chilled, in pastel colors strewn with herbs. If hot they are sheer insubstantial broths afloat with seafood. In winter they turn steaming and thick to serve with slabs of rustic, crusty bread. — Florence Fabricant
The right food always comes at the right time. Reliance on out-of-season foods makes the gastronomic year an endlessly boring repetition. — Roy Andries de Groot
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. Grow green with the spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. — Henry David Thoreau
Gary
September 2023
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 virtual hat to Dianne Jacob), 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 —
6 Stories That Will Make You Scream—For Ice Cream
(frozen treats from Gastro Obscura)
Arabic Medieval Cookbooks in English Translation: Treasure Troves for Near Eastern Material Culture
(an overview from Nawal Nasrallah, in The Ancient Near East Today)
Can Music Change the Way Food and Drink Tastes? New Data Says Yes
(Finlay Mead’s article—in Dmarge—on how sound affects our perception of taste)
Curry May Have Landed in Southeast Asia 2000 Years Ago
(Phie Jacobs, in Science, on archeological evidence of ancient spice trade)
(David Edgerton’s review of Ulbe Bosma’s The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years, in Literary Review)
(an overview, with links, from Hellenica World)
Eat Like Jane Austen with Recipes from Her Sister-In-Law’s Cookbook
(Reina Gattuso’s GastroObscura article about the publication of the cookbook of Austen’s sister-in-law: Martha Lloyd’s Household Book)
Gene-Edited Yeast Is Taking Over Craft Beer
(Anna Kramer’s Wired article on what’s brewing in GMO these days)
Jambu & its Electric Leaves & Flowers
(Nicholas Gill’s New Worlder article about Splilanthes oleracea, a South American herb that makes your mouth tingle like Sichuan Pepper)
(recipes and articles on noshes, from bagels to za’atar)
Major Oyster Regions of the U.S.
(Hannah Staab’s guide, at VinePair)
Most Famous Regional Hangover Food Across the U.S., The
(VinePair’s Olivia White serves the dishes to have when even the idea of eating food is off the table)
(Linda Rodriguez McRobbie shares the history of the ubiquitous sandwich in the Saturday Evening Post)
(Jeff Koehler’s article in AramcoWorld)
Surprisingly Cool History of Ice, The
(Linda Rodriguez McRobbie on the history of harvesting ice—in New England, for use in the summer, and even in the tropics—for The Saturday Evening Post)
(the history of dome-top jar lids, at Tedium)
Tingly Tongues, Music, and Scents: Behind the Rise of Multisensory Cocktails
(Leena Tailor, at VinePair, on recent developments in mixology)
What Is Old Bay Seasoning, Anyway?
(Ellen Gutoskey tells the story of Gustav Brunn’s spice mixture at Mental Floss)
(answer provided by the Science Reference Section, Library of Congress)
Why Did the Soviet Union Suffer Chronic Food Shortages?
(Harry Sherrin, in HistoryHit, on how not to manage a country’s food supply)
Why the Tomato Was Feared in Europe for More Than 200 Years
(K. Annabelle Smith’s history lesson, from Smithsonian)
— inspirational (or otherwise useful) sites for writers/bloggers —
415: How and Why to Self-Publish a Cookbook with Matt Briel from Lulu
Accuracy and Precision in Food Writing
Before Humans Ate Chickens, We Treasured Them as Exotic Pets
Beyond Escoffier: The Evolving Restaurant Kitchen
Dirty, Dank, and (Occasionally) Dangerous: What Makes a Dive Bar a Dive Bar?
Fair-Weather Vegans Should Remember It’s a Diet, Not a Fad
Food and Art: Changing Perspectives on Food as a Creative Medium
Food, Sex, Language: The Lost Lovers and Later Words of M. F. K. Fisher and Elizabeth David
How Cooking Videos Took Over the World
How to Make Viking Funerary Flatbread
I Was a Champion of Fake Meat: But I’m Not Surprised People Are Losing Their Taste for It
In Ancient Rome, Everyone—Yes, Everyone—Was Hammered
Magnificence of the Bluefin Tuna, The
Mr. Trillin Picks a Peck of Unpickled Peppers
Nutrition Science’s Most Preposterous Result
On the Joys of Food-Centered Fiction
On the State of Literary Magazines
Plea for Culinary Modernism, A
Problem with National Dishes, The
Right Way to Describe a Wine, The
Rise of Cookbooks in America, The
To Know a Place, You Must First Know Its Snacks
Why Do So Many Cookbooks Have Similar Recipe Lists?
— more blogs —
Blood and Sandwiches: Classicists in the (Roman) Kitchen
— podcasts, etcetera —
Calvin Trillin: Food as Comic Relief
Chris Morocco: What Is a Recipe and What Is a Template?
Eating It…In the Hudson Valley: Gary Allen
Everything You Need to Know About Bitters
How Big Business Built the Food Pyramid
— 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 are providing 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)
The Backstories: As retold by Gary Allen
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Tabula Rasa, Baby: (Not Written in Stone)
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Unbelievable: A Modern Novella
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Hot Hot Hot/Risky Business
(Paper)
(Kindle)
The Long & Short of It: A Miscellany
(Paper)
(Kindle)
Here endeth the sales pitch(es)...
...for the moment, anyway.
______________
The Resource Guide for Food Writers, Update #275 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 ©2023 by Gary Allen.
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