Daily Food Quote: April 27, 2012

Published by Friday, April 27, 2012 Permalink 0

From “Channeling MFK Fisher: An Everlasting Meal, ” by Kurt Michael Friese, on Civil Eats

“In a time when we can all appreciate the value of frugality in the kitchen, when each of us can ring a wry smile from the Tuscan proverb she quotes: Si stava meglio quando si stava peggio (“We were better off when things were worse”), it is refreshing to know that with just a little effort, and a lot of love, delicious healthy meals are waiting to be awakened from their slumber in the back of the pantry.”

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Quelling Quitchen Quatastrophes: Letters from my Fans

Published by Friday, April 27, 2012 Permalink 0

by Adventures in Good Eating, The Quonstant QuonnoisseurThe Count of Monte Cristo

Gentle readers, your correspondent is grateful for all of the letters and postcards that you have sent.

TQQ gets along fine with his mail carrier.

While it is not possible to respond individually to all information requests, The Quonstant Quonnoisseur here will answer some of the most frequently-received inquiries.

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Food Art: Vineyards in B&W 4, food photography by Rosa Mayland

Published by Thursday, April 26, 2012 Permalink 0

This is the fourth in a series of B&W vineyard photographs by Rosa Mayland, author of our column Rosa’s Musings. She also runs a popular food blog, RosasYummyYums.

 

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Highlights from First #FutureFoodWriting Live Twitter Chat

Published by Thursday, April 26, 2012 Permalink 0

by Melissa Bedinger

For those reeling from the ‘virtual whiplash’ of following so many threads, or for those who were unable to attend, here are a few excerpts and key points from panelists and participants of The Rambling Epicure’s first live Twitter chat on the future of food writing. Very special thanks to our panelists: Amanda HesserJohn BirdsallCorie BrownDianne JacobMonica BhideGloria Nicol, and Wilson Dizard III.

 

ON THE FUTURE OF FOOD WRITING

@MichaelDChing: RT @BillDaley: @writes4food Indeed. But the future won’t be like the past. Keep mind, options open! #futurefoodwriting April 20, 2012, 6:04 pm

@mbhide: There is a future.. but I see myself more as a business person than a writer. I have to do diff things to make a living #futurefoodwriting April 20, 2012, 6:04 pm

@John_Birdsall: @mbhide I think food writers always had to be business people, though. #futurefoodwriting April 20, 2012, 6:05 pm

@mbhide: @writes4food I wrote about creative rebirth http://t.co/sQfT5GQ4 #futurefoodwriting April 20, 2012, 6:08 pm

@PeteDulin: @wotsforteatoday – True. Research, dig up new angles, build rep for quality. #futurefoodwriting Distinguish from what exists already. April 20, 2012, 7:36 pm

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Food Writing Tips: Aristotle on Writing

Published by Thursday, April 26, 2012 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Since the April 20, 2012, #futurefoodwriting live Twitter chat was such a success, I’ve decided to start posting writing tips from time to time. I’m thrilled so many people are interested in improving their writing.

The first quote is not about food writing in particular, but about writing in general. It applies to food or blog writing, or to any other kind of writing. One could say the same about the second quote: always seek to make your writing better. Check it and check it again. If you’re still not sure, have someone else you trust read it. Making excellence a habit, of course, relates to whatever we do in life, not just writing.

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.Aristotle

Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.–Aristotle

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a ...

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 B.C.; the alabaster mantle is a modern addition.

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Yummy Umami: The 6th Basic Taste?

Published by Thursday, April 26, 2012 Permalink 0

Yummy Umami: The 6th Basic Taste?

by Diana Zahuranec

Quick, name the 5 basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty…and the fifth one is umami. Umami is the word that describes the savory taste of food, or perhaps “meatiness” of a food. It is the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate. The Japanese singled out this flavor in the early 1900s thanks to a chemistry professor from the Imperial University of Tokyo, Kikunae Ikeda, who isolated the glutamic acid compound C5H9NO4. Glutamic acid is found in both free and bound forms. The free form, which is formed when the protein molecule breaks down and releases glutamic acid, is the one we taste. “Umami” means in Japanese, literally, deliciousness.

Kikunae Ikeda, the Chemist who singled out MSG

A few years ago, I remember there was some hype that spread virally through America’s highly-informed (and often misinformed) consumer culture about MSG.

What is this lethal-sounding additive in the foods we eat, so cleverly covered up by only using three letters to trick us when we know better? It was soon known that MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is an ingredient added to most processed foods in order to enhance their flavors. In the media, MSG was linked to many ills, including migraines, nausea, and cancer, among others.

Wariness and fear of MSG actually began in the 1970s, after Dr. Ho Man Kwok wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was experiencing all sorts of uncomfortable after-effects from a Chinese dinner, including numbness, weakness, and palpitations. He did not specifically link his symptoms to MSG, but a year later a study was done on baby mice by injecting high dosages of MSG (up to 4 grams per kilogram of body weight) and observing the brain lesions the mice suffered afterwards. Thus was born Chinese Restaurant Syndrome (CRS). Studies, anecdotes, and reports were quick to follow suit afterwards, claiming that MSG was linked to all sorts of ills. Some prominent nutritionists today are convinced that added MSG is harmful, especially for children.

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Daily Food Quote: April 25, 2012

Published by Wednesday, April 25, 2012 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.–Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, when India was still under the British Empire.

More commonly known as “Mahatma,” he “pioneered a belief in resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, based on total nonviolence. This concept helped India to gain independence, and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.”

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, April 24, 2012

Published by Tuesday, April 24, 2012 Permalink 0
by Simón de Swaan

All cooks, like all great artists, must have an audience worth cooking for.–André Simon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

André Louis Simon (1877 – 1970), born in France but married to an English woman, was the charismatic leader of the English wine trade for almost all of the first half of the 20th century. He became the grand old man of literate connoisseurship for a further 20 years.

His most distinguished book was The History of the Wine Trade in England from Roman Times to the End of the 17th Century, in three volumes (1906, 1907 and 1909).

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Newfangled Food Vocabulary: Kitchentuition

Published by 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.

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Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, April 23, 2012

Published by Monday, April 23, 2012 Permalink 0

 by Simón de Swaan

Americans, more than any other culture on earth, are cook-book cooks…–John Thorne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Thorne is a culinary writer born in Quincy, Massachusetts, who has written a number of best-selling books on food history and culture, including The Outlaw and Pot on the Fire: Further Exploits of a Renegade Cook.

A graduate of Amherst College, he began to teach himself to cook frugally while living briefly in New York City’s Lower East Side, where he sought to become a writer of some sort as a very young man during the 1960s.

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