SIGN WITH AN E

Kool-Aid has recently been making headlines in the The New York Times. The latest story is of pickles flavoured with Kool-Aid (apparently a hit with the kiddies). This worries the author: ‘Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated.’

Fortunately globalisation has not (yet) transported the Kool-Aid pickle to my side of the world, but when it does, it will be no more difficult to avoid than any of the other luminous foods out there. And, apropos tradition, I recently read a great line by Siri Hustvedt: ‘Legends can live and breathe only on verbal terrain’. So, as long as us traditionalists keep talking about (and eating) the revered pickle, I am sure its longevity will be secured. Let our words be your brine, oh pickle!

The previous story was about how food blogging has enabled the sharing of whacky ideas, like substituting orange Kool-Aid for orange zest, should you find yourself in a kitchen without real fruit. This has understandably caused some consternation among editors of foodie magazines, whose job it is to print tried and tested recipes. The suggestion is that the great democratic internet – full, now, of amateur cooks pretending to be pros and, worse, sharing their amateurish tips – jeopardises the jobs of real people who are paid to help/tell us how to cook.

There is also anxiety about the appreciation of professionalism: ‘“You see Emeril [Lagasse], the most genial guy in the world, making a U-turn in the middle of a recipe, and people think they should cook like that, too,” said Ms. Stewart of Gourmet. “They forget that he’s a highly trained chef.”’

The debate has some merit, but I don’t think that either blogging or Kool-Aid is seriously going to affect any part of the Food (Media) business. On the contrary; people will continue to watch and buy Emeril, the pro, as fervently as they do Rachael Ray, the amateur, who probably earns more money. And people will continue to put whacky spins on old classics, as they have been doing for much longer than they’ve been able to blog about it. The only difference is that kitchens are no longer private.

Much more disturbing is the idea of a next generation being unable to cook without the internet. From “My Dinner with Google“: ‘Printout in hand, we cooked, ate and delighted in a concoction we never would have conjured without Google. Then, dessert caught my eye — a blackening banana sitting on the countertop, one day away from the compost heap. So I dashed to the computer to cook it.’

that today is National Butterscotch Brownie Day.

(I kid you not).

And while we’re on the topic, don’t miss National Emu Week, slated this year for May 5-13 (OMG, that’s now. What am I supposed to do?)

I will be looking forward to the Teacher Thank You Week, coming up in the first week of June. Of course that coincides with National Hug Holiday Week, so that could be scary.

Sigh. If only it were November, then we’d be one step closer to National Indian Pudding Day.

How do people in the US of A get anything done?

From a recent review of The Joy of Drinking (Barbara Holland) in the New York Times:

‘The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Holland writes, “claims that a moderate beer drinker — whatever that means — swallows 11 percent of his dietary protein needs, 12 percent of the carbohydrates, 9 percent of essential phosphorus, 7 percent of his riboflavin, and 5 percent of niacin. Should he go on to immoderate beer drinking, he becomes a walking vitamin pill.”’

More like a passed out vitamin pill, I’m sure.

Clearly whoever was writing for that journal was under the sway of Wilbur Atwater, the man responsible for our current hysteria around calories. It all started innocently enough; in 1896 Atwater put one of his students in a glass box, fed and drank him, and recorded his energy output. The experiment led to several others, the writing of various reports and, pretty much, (fast forward 100 years) the standardisation of what we know as “Recommended Daily Allowance”. Most people loved Atwater – it was some pretty groundbreaking stuff! – but not the The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, who ‘organized an anti-Atwater campaign when he confirmed—by sustaining a test subject for six days on a diet “largely composed of alcohol”—that liquor was a food.’ (From Nick Cullather in The American Historical Review. Fascinating article; go check it out)

I’m doing one of my favourite things, which is to bake bread in the evening. My lounge is about to be overwhelmed by the smell of baking bread (bread that, contrary to souffle, rises beautifully in my oven), and that is a fine thing on a Wednesday evening.

Someone I know is flying across the skies in one of those big contraptions we know as planes. I hope he is awake to see the nearly-full moon out my window.

That said, it’s time to go look at the bread. The smell is here. But I’ll be saving the tasting for tomorrow, when packed lunch is in order. On the menu tonight: rice cakes with chilli peanut butter, goat’s cheese and cucumber. AND, a drizzle of honey.

Hey. Before you call me wierd, take a look at the chocolate feature in the new Food, Home and Entertaining (‘Here are some of the boldest and most innovative chocolate recipes, and only one of them is a dessert.’). Dark chocolate, Rocket, PIstachio and Gorgonzola Salad with olive oil and honey dressing. I mean, really.

There’s a building across the road from where I work that is being demolished to make way for some new luxury hotel. All day the demolition crane has been banging away at the structure, which falls, bit by bit, in a steady rumble, punctuated now and again with a mighty thundering crash. People stop on the street to watch, and I have been fascinated myself on several smoke breaks already by watching a building disappear.

I wonder why it is that destruction is so much more interesting than construction. I mean, people don’t exactly stop to watch a building going up. And while some of us may enjoy watching a souffle rise more than eating the thing, there seems to be more satisfaction in taking something down. Wine-making is a fascinating process, but only because of what you get to consume at the end.

Still, the interest in the building across the road may be because its bricks are falling under the weight of both gravity and history. It used to be a synod for the Dutch Reformed Church, and though it hasn’t seen synod-action for some time, apparently some miraculous things used to happen there. From John Scott on IOL:

‘At lunch times hundreds of delegates would pour out of the building into the CBD.

Wherever you went, black and white figures popped out of nowhere, examining for themselves the sinfulness or otherwise of the city.

…

Yoga, karate and Zen Buddhism were all satanic, as was Scientology, until the Scientologists threatened to sue the church, at which point Scientology was taken off the satanic list.

Artificial insemination was approved, so long as the husband’s sperm was used and not that of a “third party”.

Koot Vorster, brother of prime minister John Vorster, was a long-time moderator of the synod.

Before retiring he boasted he had worn his wit strikkie for 45 years, even to rugby matches, because it warded off temptation, and he told the story of one particular dominee who was seen slipping into a pub.

“He wasn’t wearing a white tie,” Dr Koot declared.

“A white tie stops a person from doing such things.”

…

The highlight one year was when a Cape Times reporter sent to cover the synod had a conversion himself, and interrupted proceedings to announce he had given his heart to the Lord.

From being an objective observer, he had become the Main Event. Next day Die Burger reported that the Cape Times had at last seen the light.’

So now you know: if you want to avoid the falling bricks of a hangover, wear a white tie.