You know you are in California

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7237105398/" title="california9750 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="california9750" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7219/7237105398_bbcb06912e.jpg" width="375" /></a><br /><br /><ul><li>You know you are in California when you are smiling at your burrito out in the sunshine.</li><li>You know you are in California when a farmer at the farmers' market explains that he sells three types of artichokes, and another farmer has two kinds of avocados, some ripe, some hard. And a third farmer says that last year's tomato plants still have some tomatoes on them. </li><li>You know you are in California when girls wear short shorts with Uggs. It's hardly worth mentioning the sight of surf boards, but they're here too.</li><li>You know you are in California when you see flights of pelicans, sea fog, lagoons, tidal sloughs, and rolling waves.</li><li>You know you are in California when you smell the eucalyptus trees.</li></ul>

You know you are in California

You know you are in California when you are smiling at your burrito out in the sunshine.You know you are in California when a farmer at the farmers' market explains that he sells three types of artichokes, and another farmer has two kinds of avocados, some ripe, some hard. And a third farmer says th…

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"One Man Band" Diner

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7224594862/" title="utah9706 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="utah9706" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7224594862_ecb2d262a5.jpg" width="394" /></a><br /><br /> The "One Man Band" diner in the very strange town of Nephi, Utah, is a fun place to eat. The menu has a long list of instructions, beginning with the directive that you should decide exactly what each person at the table wants to eat, and then phone in your order on the red telephone beside the table (where the juke box should be, I guess). The kitchen is open to the dining room where tables are formica-topped and benches are naugahide. We watched the kitchen staff assemble the meals:<br /><br />  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7224595118/" title="utah9708 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="utah9708" height="375" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7071/7224595118_0a912c34a4.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br /> I loved the eggs, hash browns, toast, and melted cheese I ordered -- breakfast for dinner!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7224595338/" title="utah9714 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="utah9714" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8011/7224595338_0c82e8f267.jpg" width="500"></a><br /> After we ate, we took a ride (yes, even though we drove for 8 hours today) up a mountain into the Uinta National Forest. It's amazing how Utah scenery is spectacular even when it's in an obscure place off the beaten track (like this isn't Zion, Arches, Capitol Reefs,<br />Brice Canyon, etc).<br /><br />  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7224595520/" title="utah9724 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="utah9724" height="375" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7084/7224595520_6bf3f88801.jpg" width="500" /></a>

"One Man Band" Diner

 The "One Man Band" diner in the very strange town of Nephi, Utah, is a fun place to eat. The menu has a long list of instructions, beginning with the directive that you should decide exactly what each person at the table wants to eat, and then phone in your order on the red telephone beside the tab…

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Dinner in Cheyenne

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7219156982/" title="wyoming9699 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="wyoming9699" height="500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7074/7219156982_8961102740.jpg" width="375" /></a>'<br /><br />The Albany Bar in Cheyenne has been in business since 1942, and the building is at least half a century older than the business. I think the menu may have been updated -- though not too much. I had trout with a baked potato (the trout isn't local) and Len had a steak sandwich (maybe the cow was local). The interior of the Albany is full of old-style wooden booths and fixtures from the past -- the exterior has the typical extra-tall front pediment of a 19th century frontier building. It's across the street from the old Union Pacific Railroad Station, now a museum, and not far from the Capitol building.<br /><br />For dessert, I had lemon cheesecake, which I would call New York style. I wonder what they would have served in the 1880s when the railroad station was new. Above our table was a photograph of the construction of the station with the workers standing on the partially built walls. Cheyenne history photos were on all the restaurant walls.<br /><br />  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/7219157438/" title="wyoming9688 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="wyoming9688" height="375" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5333/7219157438_e887703f86.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br />The Albany atmosphere contrasted with that of the very up-to-date brewpub in Des Moines where we ate dinner last night, though the menus had quite a bit of overlap, such as several Mexican-style offerings and of course hamburgers of various types (more trendy at the brewpub, naturally).

Dinner in Cheyenne

'The Albany Bar in Cheyenne has been in business since 1942, and the building is at least half a century older than the business. I think the menu may have been updated -- though not too much. I had trout with a baked potato (the trout isn't local) and Len had a steak sandwich (maybe the cow was loc…

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"Tomatoland"

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyTca-Wl2KIQRc5TBAnGrReoUR9RuRU_8nDG9umIyXBO2lOS4gPrwv2VAcrnrD5ETi1YtVYBgyikwK-NBbfATJGeV0weaKQTSfN6veumzrOth9J_Sq7UsfC4l6mdNqxPGI4q-A6YCoCBP9/s1600/tomatoland.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyTca-Wl2KIQRc5TBAnGrReoUR9RuRU_8nDG9umIyXBO2lOS4gPrwv2VAcrnrD5ETi1YtVYBgyikwK-NBbfATJGeV0weaKQTSfN6veumzrOth9J_Sq7UsfC4l6mdNqxPGI4q-A6YCoCBP9/s1600/tomatoland.jpeg" /></a><i>Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit</i> by Barry Estabrook is a very focused book. Too focused. The tomatoland he describes is in Imolakee, Florida, and almost nowhere else. The most startling fact of the book is that Florida isn't really a very good place to grow tomatoes. The soil is sandy and poor in nutrients for the crop, and there are too many insects. As a result, the big growers who have considerable political clout have received exceptions from many regulations of the use of dangerous and disgusting chemicals on their tomatoes -- bad for consumers, much worse for field workers.<br /><br />The humanitarian issues of Estabrook's tomatoland include underpaying workers, cheating them of wages, exploiting their ignorance and frequent status as illegal aliens, ensuring that they are poorly housed and fed, carelessly exposing them to hazards like pesticides, and at worst, brutally enslaving them. He clearly explains that this is real and total slavery with only a slim chance of escape. He describes several lawsuits and campaigns for fairer treatment of workers, and profiles various victims and advocates. He's especially detailed about the well-known campaign to increase the pay of tomato pickers, and corporate resistance (from businesses like Trader Joe's, which I think by now has conceded) even to a token increment of a penny per pound of tomatoes.<br /><br />The culinary issues are predictable: why don't tomatoes have any taste? Estabrook describes the indifference of the major growers to whether their tomatoes do in fact taste like tomatoes. He acknowledges that no mass-market, high-quantity agriculture could produce garden-ripe, fresh-picked taste -- but goes to some length to clarify that the extremes of tasteless tomatoes could be addressed, and how a few experimental labs are working on tomato taste and on preserving and incorporating genes from wild plants that grow in South America. The large-scale growers, however, just don't care. Yes, organic farmers have some success, as do farmers in other places, but the demand for a cheap product overwhelms them.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>True, most tomatoes consumed in America are grown in Florida (the book is rich with statistics), and tomato-growing is an area of many important issues, humanitarian, political, nutritional, and culinary. However, I was disappointed by the lack of contrasting stories about organic farmers, farmers with alternate methods, or about farms in Canada, Mexico, or other states -- that is, the producers of the tomatoes that I actually eat when fresh local tomatoes aren't in season. He describes only one or two farms that serve a small part of the population of New York City, and a brief description of an organic farmer in Florida.<br /><br />In sum, the material in this book is important, but I wanted a broader look at the tomato.

"Tomatoland"

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook is a very focused book. Too focused. The tomatoland he describes is in Imolakee, Florida, and almost nowhere else. The most startling fact of the book is that Florida isn't really a very good place to …

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Mexican Food, American Promoters

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwctg23drYRaAvN2iSQ5ECli_TsGzL9GW7wMzNRvgfFwHuqeNXyr_rTf3_rEKtPLWit-FWZRRs54Ja_-salRUza5GWN6aC0BwqkxEytF2y7Qm9h8be_DyKjGNNE2CxitbcLpgsxyzhBEAP/s1600/taco-usa-how-mexican-food-conquered-america-gustavo-arellano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwctg23drYRaAvN2iSQ5ECli_TsGzL9GW7wMzNRvgfFwHuqeNXyr_rTf3_rEKtPLWit-FWZRRs54Ja_-salRUza5GWN6aC0BwqkxEytF2y7Qm9h8be_DyKjGNNE2CxitbcLpgsxyzhBEAP/s320/taco-usa-how-mexican-food-conquered-america-gustavo-arellano.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />As I said in my most recent post, I couldn't resist reading Gustavo Arellano's new book <i>Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America</i>. It's every bit as good as I expected. I liked the organization by food type. First, Arellano discusses the tamales that were sold by street vendors in many US cities in the 19th century.  Then chili, tacos, enchiladas, burritos, salsa, each becoming well-known, popular, and highly profitable in non-Mexican communities throughout the country. There's also a diversion into the history of a famous tortilla with the face of Jesus on it.<br /><br />The most salient fact about each popularization, is that Mexican restaurant owners or food vendors or more recently food trucks have developed the foods for American taste, but in every case, it was non-Mexicans who cleaned up by amplifying sales. Taco Bell, the late (unlamented) Chi-Chi's, Chipotle, etc. were all the result of a non-Mexican amplifying what Mexicans had invented. There's really no implication of theft, just that the non-Mexicans seemed to have had the capital and know-how to scale a good idea into a national or regional restaurant chain -- and make a lot of money. Similarly, Arellano describes how most high-profile grocery products like Old El Paso tortillas and salsa, Newman's Own, Pace, Gebhardts, etc. were developed by non-Mexicans, based on the recipes and expertise of Mexican cooks and sauce makers.<br /><br />Arellano also has a very interesting chapter called "How Did Americans become Experts at Writing Cookbooks on Mexican Food?" I never thought about this either. Non-Mexicans study regional cooking, become well-versed by interviewing Mexican cooks, and they write the books.<br /><br />The book reminds me of Jennifer 8 Lee's book <i>The Fortune Cookie Chronicles</i>, which explores how Chinese food became so popular throughout the USA. Both authors have a fantastic grasp of the way Americans of many ethnicities think and how they form food tastes. Both present the experiences of ethnic food producers and what it means to them, not just to the consumers.

Mexican Food, American Promoters

As I said in my most recent post, I couldn't resist reading Gustavo Arellano's new book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. It's every bit as good as I expected. I liked the organization by food type. First, Arellano discusses the tamales that were sold by street vendors in many US cities …

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Where do tacos come from?

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGd3JQ5iU24YwViz9yteQG52f-1gTXcLekFp0IXsY_rgWEf6mcaRxRCHtgIUHDogTnAIevR4jQ3EYaBR_97qIQwgzhWwVysXLmgQ2dNspNyrTpYtJJn5X5XuWbZdwC2WV3bi29EF9i1px/s1600/Mexican.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGd3JQ5iU24YwViz9yteQG52f-1gTXcLekFp0IXsY_rgWEf6mcaRxRCHtgIUHDogTnAIevR4jQ3EYaBR_97qIQwgzhWwVysXLmgQ2dNspNyrTpYtJJn5X5XuWbZdwC2WV3bi29EF9i1px/s320/Mexican.jpg" width="317" /></a></div><br />How many really intriguing reviews does it take to get me to buy a book? I've been reading quite a few reviews of the newly published book <i>Taco USA</i> by Gustavo Arellano. Julia Moskin's review, featured on page one of the online <i>New York Times</i> (shown above), made me do it. From the reviews and amazon's Look Inside the Book feature, I'm convinced that Arellano will enlighten me about many features of American food  history. He emphatically says it's not a book about Mexico, and not a book about fancy "authentic" Mexican restaurants with that weird corn fungus and epazote. I wonder if he'll mention Xochimilco which used to be in downtown Detroit (maybe still is). And I wonder if it served his sort of American Mexican food or something else.<br /><br />Maybe the first reference I saw to Arellano's book was <a href="http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2012/03/mexican_venn_food_diagram.php">L.A.'s Idea of Mexican Food vs. What Mexicans Really Eat</a> last March. A Venn diagram from the article appears below -- it's one of a series of Venn diagrams about what various ethnic groups eat and what we think their cuisine is about. It's a fun article, with quite a few other ideas about "real" Mexican food.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6eQ2mTz5smQCe0qS0oMv7MVVpRhZ7BgWpPC_kLlLWhjfy372BCFnXeCA0w6iVImOZC7vxQLKb_QpJnsvqHcqcGs7stdZXIzY1zbcEbO7x5ow_TNL1kbznxzILuY5rPydrSNJPtwYFqY8R/s1600/MexFood.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6eQ2mTz5smQCe0qS0oMv7MVVpRhZ7BgWpPC_kLlLWhjfy372BCFnXeCA0w6iVImOZC7vxQLKb_QpJnsvqHcqcGs7stdZXIzY1zbcEbO7x5ow_TNL1kbznxzILuY5rPydrSNJPtwYFqY8R/s400/MexFood.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />See "Gelatina" in the list of things that Mexicans in Mexico eat? It's Jello with fruit in it. Colorful. Who knew?<br /><br />The next thing I'm probably going to do: open my iPad to the Kindle app and start reading <i>Taco USA</i>. I'll write my own review some time soon.

Where do tacos come from?

How many really intriguing reviews does it take to get me to buy a book? I've been reading quite a few reviews of the newly published book Taco USA by Gustavo Arellano. Julia Moskin's review, featured on page one of the online New York Times (shown above), made me do it. From the reviews and amazon'…

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Mysterious Edible Mona Lisa

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4X8t835GgU1SYEJ8HtoF3N0xvkOSZ0iMsvLNuDiHzHNaWf_oV4kcREFeDdMd6Gv0UnUxM1bg5v9vhNe-_lPHZDDkE8LvTzZnfj-i-J3azyyqOP9lQwSDwe59lWPpWLFl0N89c4F8_D7aB/s1600/edible-mona-lisa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4X8t835GgU1SYEJ8HtoF3N0xvkOSZ0iMsvLNuDiHzHNaWf_oV4kcREFeDdMd6Gv0UnUxM1bg5v9vhNe-_lPHZDDkE8LvTzZnfj-i-J3azyyqOP9lQwSDwe59lWPpWLFl0N89c4F8_D7aB/s320/edible-mona-lisa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Depicted <a href="http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2012/04/stop-it-with-the-small-plates-except-where-they-work.html">here</a> on the blog The Amateur Gourmet -- but who is she, this mysterious woman made of something edible but unidentified. Is she warm, is she real? Or just a cold and lonely work of salami?

Mysterious Edible Mona Lisa

Depicted here on the blog The Amateur Gourmet -- but who is she, this mysterious woman made of something edible but unidentified. Is she warm, is she real? Or just a cold and lonely work of salami?…

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