culinary | The Rambling Epicure

Relaunching of The Rambling Epicure E-zine

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, April 25, 2018 Permalink 0

I launched The Rambling Epicure e-zine, this website, nearly ten years ago as a literary culinary electronic magazine with a host of well-known food writers and photographers, all of whom are still active members of the related Facebook groups Culinary Travel and Mastering the Art of Food Writing. Editing and publishing this on my own required an incredible amount of gratifying work and because I was busy with my personal projects, I have left it semi-dormant for the last year or two. Today, I would like to relaunch it in a different form as part of an effort to encourage conversation about food, cooking, and writing.

My primary goal is for The Rambling Epicure to become a wellspring of enlightening epicurean essays and culinary fiction. We all have captivating personal and family tales about what we cooked and what we ate through many generations, during good times and bad. These memories are part of our food culture—and our food heritage—and should be an effective way to transmit our experiences and values beyond our front doors.

But my ambitions are greater than just memoir: I’m also interested in publishing articles and essays related to historical research in the field of gastronomy and in reviews of food books.

I would like to make this a cooperative effort that opens the door for us to share our potential as cooks, diners, and writers. Together, we will create a literary culinary site unlike any other, with information and stories that can be passed down to future generations.

Venetian Hours: Looking for a Nonna

Published by Jonell Galloway + Thursday, March 3, 2016 Permalink 0

Nonna Violante in Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy, cooking school, making passatelli pasta, Hotel Eliseo, #lovingromagna

Venetian Hours: Lost in Italy and Looking for a Nonna

by Jonell Galloway

If you live in Italy, you have to have a nonna. Having just lost my “adopted” Italian grandmother, Nonna Margherita, in Switzerland, the time was right, and it happened in the most unlikely place: Bellaria-Igea, a seaside town in Romagna, known as the Italian region of land-and-sea because of its plentiful bounty of both fish and meat. As a result, the cuisine is varied and copious, playing on unending themes of the two. The hillsides beyond the shores are verdant and rolling, producing excellent wine, meat and cheese, while traditionally, the inhabitants by the seaside are fishermen.

Fishing net of a batana fishing boat in Adriatic Sea, Igea-Bellaria Marina, Nonna Violante, #lovingromagna

Originally, Bellaria-Igea was a village of solely fishermen and their families. Their wives supplemented the family income by renting out rooms in their seaside cottages. While the men were fishing, the wives tended to the guests by cooking, cleaning and generally making them feel at home. Over the years, they added extra rooms and their homes became locande, or “inns,” and eventually pensioni, or “small hotels,” and this became a seaside resort. This is the story of the family of my new nonna, Nonna Violante.

Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, May 8, 2013

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Permalink 0

Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, May 8, 2013

by Simón de Swaan

What a flavor (oysters) have – mellow, coppery, with almost a creaminess when you chew and analyze. I drank some good beer with them and floated on a gastronomically sensual cloud.–James Beard

James Andrew Beard was an American chef, cookbook writer, cooking teacher and television celebrity. Beard became active in the culinary community in New York soon after World War II, going on to become a true culinary reference in the United States. He helped Americans discover, identify and define their culinary heritage through his travels, teaching, and work, and through some 20 cookbooks, about half of which are still in print. His lively and sometimes eccentric personality made him somewhat of a celebrity, but his true measure lies in “his vast culinary knowledge; they are the measure of the times, too. The James Beard collection is a slice of American history. Written between 1940 and 1983, the books tell us through the language of food what we had and what we longed for, who we were and whom we hoped to become,” said Alexandra Zohn and Peggy Grodinsky in James Beard (1903–1985): The Complete Works.

His work lives on through the Beard Foundation which continues to provide culinary education and encourage excellence in American cuisine.

Snapshots with Chefs at the 2013 James Beard Foundation Awards
Blue Hill Tops James Beard Food Awards, Chef Title Split – Bloomberg
And the 2013 James Beard winners are …
Dan Barber’s Blue Hill wins top James Beard Foundation award
Beards name ChopChop top food publication of 2013

Food History: Before there were Restaurants, there were Street Kitchens

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, October 5, 2012 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Some form of restaurant has existed ever since humans have been eating. The phenomenon grew as large cities formed, and as people traveled on the ancient silk roads in the Middle East and China, and in the Roman Empire, often in the form of inns where one could both sleep and eat.

Street kitchens and food trucks are by no means a modern invention. Jean-Robert Pitte says in his essay “The Rise of the Restaurant”:

Throughout the world, the principal type of eating establishment has always been the street kitchen, where a person can buy a precooked dish for a modest sum. They have always existed in China and still exist throughout Asia, even in industrial and postindustrial countries such as Japan…Street restaurants are still common in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa… (from A Culinary History: Food, edited by Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari)

Newfangled Food Vocabulary: Kitchentuition

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, April 23, 2012 Permalink 0

“Everyone knows that a plausible candidate for a wife must have kitchentuition,” says the Urban Dictionary.

“Kitchentuition” refers to someone who is a wonder in the kitchen, and has that magic touch when it comes to using knives, cutting boards and just about every other kitchen utensil, i.e. kitchen intuition.

The term “kitchentuition, not to be confused with ‘kitchen tuition,’ “is a bit sexist, but at least it’s not offensive in any other ways, like many urban dictionary terms,” says the Urban Dictionary.