Food city area

Chicago: Hog Butcher and Stacker of Wheat

<a class="title" href="http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Metropolis-Chicago-Great-West/dp/0393308731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297003131&sr=8-1">Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West</a> by William Cronon is a long but very readable book about the economic history of Chicago. The author documents many innovations that arose in Chicago between its founding in the 1830s and the end of the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the interaction between the city and "the Great West." The central theme of the book is the unity of urban activities in Chicago and the agricultural development of the plains, woods, and farms that produced the raw materials. Two sections of the book, concerning the grain trade (including the invention the grain elevator and the development of a futures market at the Chicago Board of Trade) and the meat trade (including the creation of the Chicago stockyards and the meat packing industry), were especially interesting. Railroads and the telegraph contributed to the development of nationwide markets by speeding up communication as well as transport of commodities. This discussion illuminates the early development of what's now viewed as industrialization of the food industry. A romantic view of the life and productivity of the farmer as contrasted to the rapacious and perhaps parasitic role of wholesalers was at least as common in the nineteenth century as it is now. Cronon makes clear that the efficiency of the markets and inventions of the nineteenth century were essential to enable the farmers to get their produce to consumers. He constantly points out how the word "natural" was used to mean a wide variety of things, many of them far from the usual meaning of the word. The railroad was one of the central enablers for this agricultural industry. Cronon writes: <blockquote>"Railroads were more than just natural; their power to transform landscapes partook of the supernatural, drawing upon a mysterious creative energy that was beyond human influence or knowledge." (Kindle location 1697)</blockquote>In the case of the grain trade, efficiency came from the combination of grain elevators near the lakefront where boats left for the East, railroads that stopped near to farms to pick up the grain, and the Board of Trade's development of a grading system to ensure quality of grain; these elements allowed wholesalers to combine the same grade of wheat from many farmers. Rail transport replaced wagons quickly. By 1852, twice as much wheat came by rail than by wagon. <blockquote>"In 1860, Chicago received almost a hundred times more wheat by rail than by wagon; ten years later, no one even bothered to keep statistics on the latter." (Kindle location 1764)</blockquote>The resulting stream of grain could be loaded from the steam and gravity-powered grain elevator onto rail or water transport with far less human labor than had been required to handle separate bags of grain. Instead of using their horses to pull wagons to market, farmers could use them to increase their production of grain. Improved communication let farmers know when the grain might more cost-effectively be fed to cattle instead of sent to market. And the cattle market, including the Chicago stockyards and meat packing plants also emerged with added efficiencies due to rail transport. Cronon documents the changing meat trade just as interestingly as he did the grain trade. Of course I was thinking of the Carl Sandburg Poem: <div style="text-align: center;">HOG Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders... </div> Paul Krugman recommended this book; in fact, he mentioned that he was reading it on a Kindle, as I did. I'm glad I took his advice. However, the Kindle edition has quite a few unfortunate errors in the text due to (I suspect) careless checking after it was scanned. Also, the Kindle edition retains the placement of illustrations in two groups as is always done with hardcopy books; the handling of the captions for these illustrations was also very awkward. Maybe eventually electronic books will take advantage of their potential to more logically arrange illustrations.

Chicago: Hog Butcher and Stacker of Wheat

Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon is a long but very readable book about the economic history of Chicag...

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06.37

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I'm really interested in understanding why world food prices have gone up, as I've read in several news articles in the last few days. Paul Krugman's blog today offered an economics explanation. He writes: <blockquote>"Overall grain production is down — and it’s down substantially more when you take account of a growing world population. Wheat production ... is way down. "You might ask why a production shortfall of 5 percent leads to a doubling of prices. Part of the answer is that some kinds of demand are growing faster than population — in particular, China is becoming a growing importer of feed to meet the demand for meat. But the main point is that the demand for grain is highly price-inelastic: it takes big price rises to induce people to consume less, yet collectively that’s what they must do given the shortfall in production. "Why is production down? Most of the decline in world wheat production, and about half of the total decline in grain production, has taken place in the former Soviet Union — mainly Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. And we know what that’s about: an incredible, unprecedented heat wave." --<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/soaring-food-prices/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Soaring Food Prices"> Soaring Food Prices</a></blockquote>

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I'm really interested in understanding why world food prices have gone up, as I've read in several news articles in the last few day...

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17.43

Cooking Cartoon from xkcd

Cooking Cartoon from xkcd

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12.46

Statistics

Statistics

News from the Guardian: " Food prices hit record high: UN food price index up 3.4% from December, the highest level since the organisa...

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10.24

In Real Life

Some important government pronouncement on food just told us to eat less. Marion Nestle approves -- see <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2011/01/2010-dietary-guidelines-finally-get-tough-on-obesity/70540/">2010 Dietary Guidelines Finally Get Tough on Obesity</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2011/02/getting-beyond-jargon-a-close-look-at-the-new-dietary-guidelines/70589/">Getting Beyond Jargon: A Close Look at the New Dietary Guidelines.</a> There are lots of open questions. Most people with a weight problem already know that they eat too much. The government didn't need to do research on their behalf. They also know that the diet industry only helps around 10% of them, and that most weight loss is temporary. And that doctors don't have any really effective strategies. Nor does the government. Then there's another little detail, as stated in the L.A.Times: "The fast-food industry didn't get the memo" -- <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fast-food-calorie-20110202,0,6031639.story" target="_top"><img alt="'Eat less,' U.S. says as chains super-size their fast food" class="headlineThumb" height="105" src="http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/storylink/2011-02/59167211-01181728.jpg" width="187" /></a><a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fast-food-calorie-20110202,0,6031639.story" target="_top" title="'Eat less,' U.S. says as chains super-size their fast food"> 'Eat less,' U.S. says as chains super-size their fast food</a> The article offers a ton of details on how fast food chains aren't on the same page as the government. If they were, fast-food representatives told the reporter, they'd be out of business. So here comes another litany of menu choices with thousands of calories and oodles of all the things the government says not to eat, including (though named only by Marion Nestle) the SOFAS -- SOlid Fats and Added Sugars. People want strong tastes: that means salt and sugar. People want good value: that means huge portions. Meat. Cheese. Gallons of coke. Fries. Well, tomorrow is Groundhog Day and again I'm thinking of that movie about being trapped in the same repeating nightmare over and over. Which reminds me that we're having a blizzard so there's not a chance that the Groundhog will see his shadow; probably no groundhog in most of the country will even be able to get out of his hole. But that's irrelevant to fast food.

In Real Life

Some important government pronouncement on food just told us to eat less. Marion Nestle approves -- see 2010 Dietary Guidelines Finally Get...

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20.16

Aurelio Zen eats a hamburger

Ratking is the first in a series of police procedurals starring detective Aurelio Zen. The author, Michael Dibdin, continued with around a dozen other Zen novels. Aurelio Zen is an honest and dedicated crime fighter in the rottenly corrupt atmosphere of Italian politics and policing. In Ratking, he solves a kidnapping, implicating members of the victim's family; however, all the perps get off. Dibdin follows many precedents in crime fiction, including the use of meals to punctuate the pace of the investigation and to illuminate Zen's character and his relationship to the people he interviews. Earlier detectives like Maigret, Hercule Poirot, and even Sherlock Holmes had quirky food preferences; the convention continues in works by Donna Leon (Commissario Guido Brunetti) and Andrea Camilleri (inspector Salvo Montalbano) and many others. Ratking has one slightly offbeat food theme: during the course of the novel, Aurelio Zen's relationship with his American girlfriend Ellen is hitting a low point. She comes to see him in Perugia, the site of the kidnapping where he is temporarily posted. They go on a picnic, but the weather is bad and they are forced to eat in the car: <blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Ellen started to unwrap the food: a mound of ricotta, slices of cooked ham, olives in oil, half a loaf of bread. On a warm sunny day in the open air it might have been idyllic. Eaten off sheets of wrapping paper balanced precariously on their shivering knees, the cheese looked a disgusting white excrescence, the ham pale and sickly, and the olives slimy. Even the wine, a heavy red, was a failure." (p. 182-183)</blockquote>At the very end, Zen returns to his home base in Rome and Ellen invites him for a simple dinner, where he tells her how he solved the crime. Although she said the food would be simple, he's a bit shocked to see "Findus 100% Beef American-style Hamburgers" on the label of a "shiny packet." She broils the meat and warms some buns. Then: <blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"She served the hamburgers wrapped in paper napkins, and brought a liter bottle of Peroni beer from the fridge. The hamburgers were an unhappy hybrid of American and European elements. The meat, processed cheese, and ketchup tried to be as cheerfully undemanding as a good hamburger should, but were shouted down by the Dijon mustard, the pungent onions, and the chewy rolls. "Zen began dismantling his hamburger, eating the more appetizing bits with the fork and discarding the rest." (p. 257-260)</blockquote>Of course she then tells him her plans for the rest of her life -- which don't include him. I enjoyed this tightly-plotted and suspenseful novel. I also read Cosi Fan Tutti, a later Dibden-Zen work, but found it a little too contrived, especially the effort to reproduce in modern Naples the plot of the Mozart opera of that title. My friend Sheila recommended this author, and told me that the Zen novels are currently being made into a BBC TV series in the UK. They will also air on PBS. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1618371/">IMDB</a> lists 3 episodes so far, all this year -- I eagerly hope to watch them.

Aurelio Zen eats a hamburger

Ratking is the first in a series of police procedurals starring detective Aurelio Zen. The author, Michael Dibdin, continued with around a ...

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07.44

The History of Rugelach

Joan Nathan can make food sound irresistible -- and her article "<a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/life-and-religion/57109/tale-of-two-treats/">A Tale of Two Treats </a>" in Tablet Magazine today really did it. She traces the history of two types of baked goods, rugelach and schnecken, in German, German-Jewish, American-Jewish, and American history. She writes: <blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">Schnecken are the predecessors to the American sticky bun, the sweet roll, the iconic rest-stop treat Cinnabon, and the delectable pecan roll that I used to eat at <a href="http://www.annarbor.com/passions-pursuits/drakes/">Drake’s</a> in Ann Arbor, when I studied at the University of Michigan. The popular <a href="http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=910">Settlement Cook Book</a> documents the evolution of this pastry: The first edition of the cookbook, issued in 1901, includes a recipe for “Cinnamon Rolls or Schnecken”; the 1920 book contains two versions, the original and one for “Cold Water Schnecken“; but by the 1940s the Settlement Cook Book had edited the name of the treat down to simply “cinnamon rolls,” and still later editions find the same yeast dough appearing as pecan rolls baked in muffin pans.</blockquote>I too remember Drake's sandwich shop, a declining favorite in Ann Arbor for many years until it closed in the early 1990s. Sadly I remember most vividly how for its last years, it was so poorly staffed and maintained that a display of Halloween candy corn sat fading in the window throughout all seasons, until it finally closed. Never mind. I loved Nathan's descriptions of delicious pastry.

The History of Rugelach

Joan Nathan can make food sound irresistible -- and her article " A Tale of Two Treats " in Tablet Magazine today really did it....

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08.27

Food city area

Chicago: Hog Butcher and Stacker of Wheat

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Cooking Cartoon from xkcd

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In Real Life

Aurelio Zen eats a hamburger

The History of Rugelach

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