Cooking for Passover, 1478

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjD43kua4HIjtfBUr3AKD-iX5SfonIhdaviOyYOn6Oti2EVh3MEJ8z5pnZvsry1YG8uPrxQ56drz1sJTwZZiOw2EOMcqz6dBq9uBNvhcOfnNUqdg8KRSteVAV05QsZMTBXOFo0ur38DHEJ/s1600/washington-haggadah.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597007072704578482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjD43kua4HIjtfBUr3AKD-iX5SfonIhdaviOyYOn6Oti2EVh3MEJ8z5pnZvsry1YG8uPrxQ56drz1sJTwZZiOw2EOMcqz6dBq9uBNvhcOfnNUqdg8KRSteVAV05QsZMTBXOFo0ur38DHEJ/s400/washington-haggadah.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 372px; height: 400px;" /></a><br />I've read several reviews of a display of a hand-illustrated Haggadah from 1478 on display now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/arts/design/the-washington-haggadah-at-metropolitan-museum-of-art.html?pagewanted=1">Today's New York Times</a> included several illustrations -- this one of two women cooking for the Seder seems especially relevant to my thoughts on holiday cooking of difficult recipes as a way to preserve tradition and allow women to work together.

Cooking for Passover, 1478

I've read several reviews of a display of a hand-illustrated Haggadah from 1478 on display now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New ...

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Passover

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_7AKTfJVjBmoPjlDch5emb3D-SL3eA82pOKad6ilPPReQxdJw41z3lzathUfdMNrw-tafthqR7YtTQWf5LaExQKSqhVntsZyqhMx1Wuovm177qAZ_rIUrpGqGAIf0Kv3Z4GfDXTg8vA/s1600/passover5754.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_7AKTfJVjBmoPjlDch5emb3D-SL3eA82pOKad6ilPPReQxdJw41z3lzathUfdMNrw-tafthqR7YtTQWf5LaExQKSqhVntsZyqhMx1Wuovm177qAZ_rIUrpGqGAIf0Kv3Z4GfDXTg8vA/s320/passover5754.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I've written about Passover and other Jewish holiday food many times. One thought on the subject: there are so many traditional foods for which I use my food processor grating attachment. Grating potatoes for latkes or apples and nuts for charoset is very labor intensive if you don't have an automated device; I wonder how they became traditional. Carol suggested that the women in an extended family would gather to make these foods, thus sharing the labor and also ensuring continuity of the traditions. <br /><br />Also, grating or chopping allows one to effectively share scarce ingredients. Latkes use grated potato -- the abundant ingredient -- to extend the scarcer eggs. Passover is early in the spring, so any fruit our ancestors had would have been saved from the previous year. Besides resembling the mortar for the pyramids, charoset allowed many people to share a few apples, raisins, and nuts. Tsimmis used root vegetables to allow sharing a small amount of meat and dried fruit, if you had it. <br /><br />In ancient Israel, Passover was not quite as much a time of scarcity: the spring lambs would already be the right size to be sacrificed in the Temple. Later Passover became a time to give up one food: bread. So I don't think it's outside the holiday tradition to remember how lucky we are to have abundant food, as well as remembering the other messages of the holiday. <br /><br />Happy Passover!

Passover

I've written about Passover and other Jewish holiday food many times. One thought on the subject: there are so many traditional foods fo...

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Sticky Toffee Pudding has a history

Today in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/apr/14/cook-perfect-sticky-toffee-pudding">Guardian food section</a>: an article about sticky toffee pudding. I ordered it on pub menus a few times in my one longish stay in Cambridge. It's very sweet and sticky indeed, and includes some of my favorite flavors. This cake-with-sauce (remember pudding just means dessert in British English) seemed to be part of the reintroduction of retro desserts into the new and much better English menus we experienced. But now I learn: "as every food nerd will tell you, it was invented in the 1970s by Francis Coulson of the Lake District's Sharrow Bay Hotel." Just like tiramisu, another dish that seemed to go into the eternal past but only goes back partway into the 20th century!

Sticky Toffee Pudding has a history

Today in the Guardian food section : an article about sticky toffee pudding. I ordered it on pub menus a few times in my one longish stay in...

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Anne's Kitchen

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/5614103982/" title="anne-kitchen 7 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="anne-kitchen 7" height="640" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5227/5614103982_8b3968216b_z.jpg" width="480" /></a><br /><br />Last night our book club met at Anne's house, an amazingly preserved Queen Ann style house with many of the original features, including woodwork and cabinets in the kitchen, a pedestal sink in the bathroom, pocket doors that still work, and a carved screen above an archway between the living room and adjacent sitting area. Recently updated kitchens look very similar to one another, but hers has a very special appearance.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/5614104130/" title="anne-kitchen 6 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="anne-kitchen 6" height="100" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5309/5614104130_5fa4711b69_t.jpg" width="75" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/5614103828/" title="anne-kitchen 4 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="anne-kitchen 4" height="75" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5269/5614103828_f8a889c2c2_t.jpg" width="100" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/5614103344/" title="anne-kitchen 2 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="anne-kitchen 2" height="100" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5262/5614103344_575c6e7528_t.jpg" width="75" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/5614102936/" title="anne-kitchen 1 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="anne-kitchen 1" height="75" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5108/5614102936_7b8d0918e9_t.jpg" width="100" /></a><br /><br />I've posted many, many photos of kitchens, and I have just been tagging them to make them viewable at the same time. To see them all, click on the label "KITCHENS" at the bottom of this post or in the sidebar.

Anne's Kitchen

Last night our book club met at Anne's house, an amazingly preserved Queen Ann style house with many of the original features, including...

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"When the Killing's Done" by T.C.Boyle

Are vegetarians more ethical than other people? Quite a few vegetarians appear in T.C.Boyle's<br /><br /><div class="image"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/When-Killings-Done-T-C-Boyle/dp/0670022322/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302447341&sr=1-1"> <img alt="Product Details" class="productImage" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41DaFinmH%2BL._AA160_.jpg" /> </a> </div> <a class="title" href="http://www.amazon.com/When-Killings-Done-T-C-Boyle/dp/0670022322/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302447341&sr=1-1">When the Killing's Done</a><br /><br />Definitely not every one of them is ethical, though they think they are noble.<br /><br />"Meat is murder," says Anise, girlfriend of the least ethical and most despicable character in the book. "Eggs are murder too." The boyfriend, Dave LaJoy (ironically named as even his vast wealth, luxury mansion in Montecito, and luxury yacht give him no real joy) doesn't eat meat -- he does eat eggs. Meatlessness doesn't help his disposition: he goes into rages when he doesn't get his way, and he becomes more and more vicious and vengeful throughout the book. Professing to love living creatures and want to protect them, he commits a number of really horrific acts. In contrast, Rita, mother of Anise, once lived on the last sheep ranch on Santa Cruz in the Channel Islands; Boyle un-ironically portrays her love of her sheep, her dedication to tending them, and simultaneously, the way she loves to cook and eat their meat.<br /><br />Alma, the main and much more likable character in the book, is also a vegetarian, but her job involves killing a number of animals. She's an ecologist, and has done research on Guam where the brown snake, introduced accidentally, has proliferated and done incredible damage, utterly changing the environment. Alma wants to save Santa Cruz from similar disasters due to non-native species, so her work requires that she oversee the killing of feral rats and pigs. Dave LaJoy's pretense is that he wants to save these animals from death: his actual motive more and more clearly is some sort of vendetta against Alma. Boyle presents the scientific, ethical, and human issues in this conflict, and though he makes the reader admire and like Alma and despise Dave, I think he leaves the ethics open. Also the question of vegetarianism.<br /><br />The book has several intertwined themes and stories. Besides the story of Anise and her mother, there are other personal histories. Dave's rise to wealth that gives him no joy is one. Alma's story starts with the boat accident that took the lives of her grandfather and his brother, and the survival of her grandmother who managed to get to shore at Santa Cruz Island. Later, her father also dies in a water accident when his Scuba air supply becomes polluted with carbon monoxide. Humans in this book just have a problem with the sea! There's a lot behind the confrontation between Dave and Alma.<br /><br />I thought about Santa Barbara as Boyle named streets, landmarks, and businesses that played a role in the plot. I'm looking forward to being there again next month and will think of this book in connection with Garden Street, Anacapa Street, Bath Street, the freeway through town, Stern's Wharf and the Marina, the elaborate tile in the Courthouse, the Lobero theater, and even Lazy Acres, my favorite grocery store, all mentioned.<br /><br />And here's a photo from our 2003 trip to the Channel Islands. I thought of this trip as I read Boyle's descriptions along with all the action that takes place there:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/5606422590/" title="113_1316 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="113_1316" height="640" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5267/5606422590_61db2180f8_z.jpg" width="480" /></a>

"When the Killing's Done" by T.C.Boyle

Are vegetarians more ethical than other people? Quite a few vegetarians appear in T.C.Boyle's When the Killin...

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Gourmandise or Gluttony?

I just read "<a href="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/04/04/the-gourmand/">The Gourmand</a>" by Mark Gimein, illustrated and with a strong contribution by artist Charlotta Westergren. The author and illustrator link several main themes. First, they ask whether the concept of a gourmand in Brillat Savarin and other historic sources applies to modern times. In the past, straightfoward love of food was often held in contrast to self-advertising through luxurious and ostentatious meals at rich people's tables. In particular, the two authors explore the question in the context of the new book <span style="font-style: italic;">Modernist Cuisine</span> by Nathan Myhrvold. What I find most interesting is their discussion of classic still-life painting as a critique of gluttony, display of wealth, and excess.<br /><br />Gimein writes:<blockquote>"Brillat-Savarin’s grand meals are supposed to test the ability to experience the sublime, but they are also grievously expensive. Even the guest who can’t tell truffles from Cocoa Puffs notices that. The promise of the banquet is transcendence, but its subject is the patron’s wealth." <p>"In this, Charlotta offers, the Brillat-Savarin banquet is like the classic still life. It’s not for nothing that the Flemish still lifes of masters ... are filled with lemons—the priciest exotic fruit of the time. With the still life the patron shows off his possessions. Or, more subtly, he shows off the richness of his material life while also alleging his indifference to it... . Either way, the invitation of the still life is to transcend luxury by contemplating a luxuriously painted canvas."</p></blockquote><p></p>And about Myrvold, whose books themselves are unusually expensive? The author's view:<br /><blockquote>"In the many interviews that have been published with Nathan Myhrvold, my favorite quote is one that he gave to <em>Time</em> magazine: 'I want to empower people to make a better roast chicken.' While <em>Modernist Cuisine</em> does have instructions on how to cook a chicken (with a <em>sous vide</em> machine), this seems to me roughly like a Northern Renaissance burgher insisting that he is just commissioning an illustration of how to polish a goblet or slice an orange. Does anyone believe this?"</blockquote><br />The illustrations are especially well-suited to the points made about modern taste. From the article, here is a still life by Charlotta Westergren, illustrating the idea that "the pig is a symbol of gluttony, butterflies mark the transcendence of the soul."<br /><br /><img alt="Still Life" src="http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Charlotta-Westergren-La-Nature_Morte-Au-Cochon_BLOG.jpg" /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">-- Charlotta Westergren, <em>La Nature Morte au Cochon</em>, 2008, oil and car paint on aluminum, 24 in. x 54 in.</span></div>

Gourmandise or Gluttony?

I just read " The Gourmand " by Mark Gimein, illustrated and with a strong contribution by artist Charlotta Westergren. The author...

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Is Pez Food?

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7z2loHk8DH4ZVisgbPWg_Ly06RxS7qa6wR5017rHi65ilnDQe8sToL_yQovVrKJ9Grvz6Z5TbhJ4l9qUQKvvqsBDcQEjo6PsqE6zdDVgIYoYhauWc_N4Ia5GTFe41zQT4Kdwd1XdqrKL/s1600/royal-pez.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593277501881170114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7z2loHk8DH4ZVisgbPWg_Ly06RxS7qa6wR5017rHi65ilnDQe8sToL_yQovVrKJ9Grvz6Z5TbhJ4l9qUQKvvqsBDcQEjo6PsqE6zdDVgIYoYhauWc_N4Ia5GTFe41zQT4Kdwd1XdqrKL/s400/royal-pez.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 384px;" /></a><br />The other day I posted about <a href="http://regional-food.blogspot.com/2011/03/royal-wedding.html">Royal Wedding</a> food-themed memorabilia. But this one is even more delicious. As it were. The Pez company has made exactly one set and is auctioning them for charity. <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2011/04/kate-william-pez-dispensers-royal-wedding-auction.html">See this</a>.<br /><br />PS -- I remember the Pez Dispenser fad that raged when I was in seventh grade. And a re-run in the 1990s. Did Pez ever go out of style?

Is Pez Food?

The other day I posted about Royal Wedding food-themed memorabilia. But this one is even more delicious. As it were. The Pez company has ma...

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