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Bookish Foodish Geekish

All you can eat

So apparently the world championship for karaoke singing (you knew there was one, right?) was in Moscow this year. Some guy from New Mexico won (Usher: "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love," if you want to know). The prize: a million dumplings.

It seems wrong, somehow, that the gastroenterologist was only the runner-up.

There's video somewhere, but it's not that interesting. At least not compared to what I was imagining, which was that the guy finishes his song and, instead of applause, he's promptly buried under an avalanche of the entire doughy prize at once.

Possibly this idea was prompted by vague memories of this cartoon.



(If you have ambivalent feelings about Eastern European dumplings in general, perhaps you can relate to the kreplach joke.)

"Voracious hunger is a sign of manliness"

Footnoote to two preceding posts, off a snippet from one of the links.

That line, "voracious hunger is a sign of manliness:" Whopper commercials and certain sportsy or fratly subcultures aside, you may not have seen that as being particularly true these days, even though its converse clearly still is. Ever since at least the 80's and the spawn of yuppie culture there's been an uneasy coexistence between the ol' "real men EAT, make strong like OX" and at least a nod or so to the idea of being relatively "healthy," "cut," drinking protein shakes and running on treadmills and shit. There are obviously other factors at work here, class not least of them. Masculinity is still as associated with power as it ever was, but the sleeker and faster advanced technocracy gets, the more likely you are to see power reflected by efficient eating habits and fat-free bodies: the straightforward opulence of a Diamond Jim Brady becomes replaced by the more ascetic ostentation of personal trainers and individually tailored "special" diets, the better to achieve that lean, mean, hard look.

If you -really- want to see hilariously over the top odes to the Manly Appetite, though...well, let's take a trip in the wayback machine, shall we?

I'm reading this anthology called Endless Feasts, a collection of essays from the soon-to-be-defunct magazine Gourmet. (One thing I may or may not have talked about here is: I read food porn. A lot of food porn. While I'm eating, specifically. I have my little habits, which...some other post).

Anyway, in this compilation, there are several essays by one Robert P. Coffin, each more exuberantly masculine than the last. The first two have to do with huntin' and fishin' with one's brothers in the wild, having dispensed with such "suave and civilized meats" as sweetbreads on toast: ripping apart hunks of lobster with one's bare hands, scarfing down deer limbs washed down with whiskey from the bottle, that sort of thing. Very proto-Iron John, very...woodsy.

The third piece, "Down East Breakfast"-- I'll just give you a taste, okay.

The Maine morning meal is like a tune on the bagpipes which calls the stouthearted Scot to war. It is something that must strengthen him deep to his marrow, and only the masculine and downright victuals will do. The ordinary American breakfast, with its precooked and predigested cereals, its hummingbird nectar of citrus, butterflies of bacon, and anemias of eggs, is as much out of place in Maine as...a French breakfast of a dry roll and chocolat chaud... It would be an insult to his oily manhood. Fat is the foe of weather, and fat is the making of Maine's first meal...

...The Maine breakfast is a hefty meal for hefty he-men.

...It begins with a seething and bubbling of pork fat in the skillet or spider. Fat salt pork in chunks, not lean and feminine bacon rashers, is its base.

...The Down East flapjack is the outdoors, masculine, New World crepe Suzette. It is about as much like its relative in Paris, in London, or in our own Sunny South, as an All-American tackle is like a boy in pants six inches long playing with a ten-cent-store football.

...In any case, there must be the cheese. And when I say cheese, I don't mean something that starts out as a mollycoddle of a food for babies, like milk. I mean...calf's head cheese or pig's head cheese. I mean meat...This is strenuous and fine eating, and it makes a "stick-by-the-ribs-Billy" dish that dish that will take a man straight through three cords of beechwood...without a rest and with a song in the heart.

...Naturally--and this breakfast is all nature and good-natured eating--there is a liquid constantly drunk to float all these ships of heavy meats and fish and wheat or buckwheat on. It is tea...It is as black as your hat. It is about as near to the tea drunk as tea parties by women and womanish men as the male in three-cornered pants is to the adult one in overalls that can stand by themselves...

...Some of the older men a bit past their full bloom, or some younger ones not yet come to theirs and having peach fuzz instead of whiskers on their cheeks, dilute this tea with sugar or milk. But the middle and powerful males take its tannin into themselves neat. It galvanizes their "innerds," they say, against the damp and cold...[A] wise saying is that tea is tea only when it puts whiskers on the bottom of the soles of your feet. Maine men's feet have hair on their bottoms so they can cling to their dories and rolling logs...

...The Down East breakfast is the strong meal of strong men.

At the conclusion of a meal like this--or more accurately, writing up the vicarious experience of it, as the actual Maine he-men are already lumbering off to put in a hard day's work stacking cords in the bitter cold-- presumably one lights up not an effeminate cigarette but a foot-long, thick, masculine cigar with a fine strong honest smell. None of your Cuban imports either, but a plain straightforward -American- cigar, completely free of foreign impurities and effete insinuating subtext.

The gentleman, perhaps, protests too much. But what exactly is it that he's protesting?

At first glance it's not a "protest" at all; it's a celebration of, well, bigness. Male bigness, but also American bigness. Clearly the particular cultural myth the author is appealing to goes back a long way, at least as far as, say, Paul Bunyan, Giant in a Great Land,. This piece was written shortly after WWII, when America was on top of the world, and Gourmet, along with the idea that fancy eating is a legitimate American pasttime, was in its early years.

And yet one could argue that there's a hint of...anxiety, here. The author, remember, is writing for Gourmet readers, which from the onset was decidedly on the upscale, not-very-likely-to-be-doing-much-cordwood-chopping side. "The Magazine of Good Living." The Song Of Masculinity is all entangled with class: it's basically romanticization of Hard Work And Simple Living, Like Our Pioneer Forefathers (and Their Helpmeets) Practiced. And which, one gathers from the Huck-Finn like paens to escaping the study and running wild in the woods with his pals, doesn't much resemble the life of the author or his audience; otherwise, it probably wouldn't seem that romantic.

This is all decades before the "wealth gap" widened dramatically. Second Wave feminism's still in its nascency, but Rosie the Riveter now has to be considered as competition for the men returning from the war. We're still a long way from the analysis of, say, Stiffed, or Stuffed and Starved; ironically, the era Coffin is writing from is one that's now viewed nostalgically itself. Traditional Families, Hard Work In The Heartland, Father Knows Best. As the ulcerated CEO's on their treadmills can attest, perhaps, even the simple joys of gorging oneself aren't that simple anymore.

Whatever the men are hungry for-along with the rest of us- it's probably not going be satisfied with a big breakfast, if indeed it ever was.

Diner

"...so he's all like, 'I'm a good person! I run an orphanage for children with AIDS in Africa!' And I'm all, 'that doesn't make you a good person, that makes you--'"

The counter guy glances over at me.

"I'll be with you in a second. I'm in the middle of a heated story."

"I know, I'm listening to the heated story," I smile.

The guy winds up with a flourish, and the three or four people he'd been declaiming to get up from the booth. Laughter and goodbye kisses all around. Counter guy finally comes over to me as they head out. I'm ready to order, but he's still in narrative mode:

"So I'm talking to this guy, right? We're having a normal conversation about politics, stuff like that. And so then I say, blah when I was at the gun show with my boyfriend, and he goes, 'You were at a -gun show-?' '...Yeah?' 'Why? Why?' 'Because we go hunting,' and he goes -nuts.- 'How can you -do- that? You get off on killing!' and I'm like, 'nnnooo, it's just something we do, I grew up in the country, me and my family used to go on hunting trips, we eat what we kill...' And then he's all, 'You're a bad person! I'm a better person than you!' --I think this is where you came in..."

"Where was this?" I interrupt.

"He was sitting literally right where you are. And then so he's all, 'if I had a gun I'd shoot you right now!'"

"...Oh, shit! This just happened?"

"--What? No, Monday night. So then I'm like, okay, you say you're a good person but you just threatened to kill me."

"Yyyyeah, wow, maybe 'do not engage' at that point...craziness."

"I swear, I was going to hit him. I wanted to hit him. I had to walk away at that point. --Are you ready to order?"

I give him what's already become my usual: creature of habit, me. Rare cheeseburger, no mayo, scoop of cottage cheese on the side, coke. As he's going to put in the order, I say, because I'm hooked too at this point:

"So, first of all, he's morally opposed to hunting for food, but he's in a diner..."

"Oh, yeah, he's going on and on about how he's a vegan, and I'm thinking, I didn't say it, those french fries you're eating? Were fried in the -same- oil as the scallops, the chicken...and I was like, haha, I win."

"And then of course there's the whole, 'I'm going to kill you.'"

"I know, right? You hate guns, but if you had a gun you'd shoot me. Okay!"

"Crazy."

Someone else puts the juke on, or perhaps it goes on randomly. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 'Man.'

I got a man who makes me wanna kill
I got a man who makes me wanna kill
I got a man he makes me wanna UGH
I got a man who makes me wanna kill
There he is. There he is. There he is. There he is....

Simultaneously, a police siren wails in the distance. The synchronicity gods are happy today.

The guy brings me my burger.

"I swear, I'm a little guy? but when I get angry, I get really angry. I will kick your ass. I totally wanted to hit him. He's, like, got no neck, he's got those gym shoulders that go all the way up to his head? I had to walk away."

"Seems smart."

"My friend wrote a letter to the manager saying how well I handled it."

He turns to another counter person, one I haven't met yet, just starting his shift apparently.

"People are getting crazier. Yesterday, this woman says, 'I'm not gonna pay for this. I didn't finish eating it and he took it away.' And we're all, yes, but you said you were done, and when we asked if you wanted it to go, you said no.' 'I didn't eat it, so I'm not gonna pay."

I take a bite of my burger. Nice and red and juicy, just the way I like it.

Quote of the day, 8/1/08

from the comments of this post:

"critics of porn and sex work often bring to the table their own notions of what sex is and take that as normative."

--Linnaeus

I think you may have a point there. This was initially my problem at least. Then I saw pie porn and I figured that if a banana cream pie actually aroused people, then I have no useful frame for other people's sexual desires.

--Kristen, responding

So, gourmet, organic, etc. cookies -seems- like a good idea, right?

...and they come in flavors like chocolate chip, and chocolate mint fudge, and everything you supposedly want.

So why is it that they inevitably taste like ass? And I find myself going back to terrible shit like Mallomars and Hostess Cupcakes?

ETA: and while we're on the general subject.

I propose a moratorium on all use of the term "cookie" for derisively signaling that so -and-so is a Crap Ally or just plain asshole who's made some entirely inadequate gesture nominally toward erasing oppression and is now wondering, whinily, why effusive thanks and praise are not coming hir way from the oppressed/annoyed persons in question.

Why? Because

a) as overused and often misused poli-blog cliches go, it's getting even worse than "straw__"

b) cookies are a GOOD thing. we should not be minging in doling out COOKIES.

EVERBODY HAVE COOKIE!!!

Okay, time for a Kitten Break, I think

Four kittens tag-teaming an empty Coke box. IZ DED FRM KYOOT TIEM NAOW


bonus! The Cupcake Blog! All cupcakes, all the time.

the creative expatriate; or, huzzah, another member of the First Church of the Easily Amused

Bollybutton has some advice on what to do with too many olives.

2) Ladies, kiss that pasty skin goodbye. Mash up some black olives, spread liberally over skin, rinse off after two days. Voila! Home-made self tan (you may end up purple but purple is IN this year)

...

12) Sick of being cat-called in the summer? Wear a pair of bicycle shorts and fill with olives all around. Walk down the street complaining loudly about your cellulite.


13) For that god-like feeling, purchase thousands of pairs of googly eyes and glue a pair onto each of your olives. Cover every surface in your house with your little minions staring up at you in awe and adoration....

Quote of the day, 9/23/07

Silky dark chocolate ganache paired with a thin layer of pure raspberry. (It was like the Raspberry Fairy was wearing a chocolate bra and rubbed her boobs on my tongue)

--Creampuff Revolution, a woman who clearly has her priorities in order, describing a truffle

i want to live in this website

Cream Puffs in Venice.

*sobs,* sulks, goes off to eat a dreary Subway sandwich or some such tripe...

foods that are tempting in miserable hot bloody weather.

name some.

i'm running low on inspiration here.

on which note: a meme, or something.

Saw "Sicko" the other night, and been meaning to write about it.

For now, though, cheap and easy, either your place or mine:

What's the most affecting meal you can remember?

Carnivals and roundups and such, belatedly

First off, yesterday Tuesday was Blog for Domestic Workers' Rights, as initiated by saltyfemme.
The skinny:

The event is in conjunction with a massive Town Hall meeting and accountability session at Judson Memorial Church in New York City on Thursday, June 7th. Domestic Workers United (DWU), an organization of nannies, housecleaners, and elderly care givers, is pushing a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights through the state legislature in Albany. If passed, it would be the first legislation of its kind, guaranteeing basic rights to domestic workers in New York state. Domestic workers have been excluded from most federal and state labor laws, including the National Labor Relations Act.

...I'm gonna see if I can swing by JMC later, actually, I'll be around that part of town already. Drop me an email if you're in the city and are thinking of doing the same. (yeah, short notice, but. lilith_sincere AT yahoo DOT com)

More info on the event:

Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights

The roundup seems to be mostly in the links in sf's comments, but a few highlights are

saltyfemme herself, putting it in a feminist context (hellllo, Betty Friedan),

Sylvia, making connections to globalization and migrant workers as well as her own family history,

Black Amazon, writing powerfully as usual.

-Way- late noting this, the first Carnival for Radical Action. Am planning to settle in for a good slow proper read over the weekend.

The May-ish edition of Carnival of Bent Attractions, now housed at Transadvocate

I waited so long to post the 38th Carnival of Feminists that now the 39th edition is up, too.

A couple of carnivals I made it into, also belatedly:

Carnival Against Child Abuse

and

The Carnival of Dining Out

(yes, odd combination)

Finally, I am pleased to announce that I will be part of feministe's Project Guest Blogger (partial list only up at this link), the week of 7/02-7/08, along, I believe, with the lovely and talented Aishwarya.

i'm ready for my sandwich, Mr. deMille

meh. hungry, yet...not. that is: i know i need to eat, yet none of the currently available options appeal. i did fast food burgers way too many times this last while. yesterday, for dinner (there are even fewer options in my neighborhood than in certain dreary parts of Manhattan), i had roast chicken from a Peruvian fast food joint. it used to be one of the few edible-ish places around; as with so many places around my spot, it seems to have gotten worse. anyway: it was gross.

i don't feel like cooking, either, so there too. and i'm out of groceries and can't be bothered...

going to Subway shortly i guess. cheese sandwich, with onion and a drop of oil. nothing else. water to drink. breath mint to follow. with this Spartan repast, a library book of Elizabeth David's writings propped up, in much the same way that one (oh noes) "uses" prawn (mmm. prawns. actually, ick, i don't like shrimp either) to get one through a rather run of the mill "relief" session.

meh.

i know you are all simply riveted by this.

i'll have more substantial nourishment for me and y'all...eventually.

Guns and butter

In the beginning, like camels, we lived on our past. We had been well nourished. The Bougey is famous for its food and we didn't feel hungry until some weeks after strict rationing had been enforced...We were really very well off. What was lacking was milk, butter and eggs. There was an infinitesimal amount of these on our ration cards, but by the time the Germans had collected their requisitioning there was nothing left to distribute to the inhabitants. The German soldiers were interested in butter. It appeared many of them had never tasted it. Had not Hitler asked them if they wanted butter or guns and had they not given the right answer? One day, marketing for whatever unrationed food might still be for sale, a German soldier came into the shop. He pointed to a huge mound of butter and said, One kilo. One kilo, the clerk exclaimed. The German nodded his head impatiently. The butter was weighed and wrapped up. Unwrapping one end of the package the German walked out of the shop. From the open door where I was standing I saw him bite off a piece of the butter. It evidently was not what he expected it to be for with a brusque movement he threw it violently over the garden wall of the house opposite. The story got about. People came to look at it. No one would touch it. There it stayed.

--The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook

Go to Hell('s Kitchen)

antiprincess and rootietoot have started a new cooking blog. good eats. good reads. good peoples. you should check it out.

Quote of the day, 3/27/07

But human nature is weak. You must not ask too much of it.

--Somerset Maugham, "The Three Fat Women of Antibes"

...ah, hell, I'm gonna post the context for that, because my lunch made me think of it in the first place:

They ate grilled fish while Lena ate macaroni sizzling with cheese and butter; they ate grilled cutlets and boiled spinach while Lena ate paté de foie gras; twhice a week they ate hard-boiled eggs and raw tomatoes, while Lena ate peas swimming in cream and potatoes cooked in all sorts of delicious ways. The chef was a good chef and he leapt leapt at the opportunity afforded him to send up one dish more rich, tasty, and succulent than the other.

'Poor Jim,' sighed Lena, thinking of her husband, 'he loved French cooking.'

...Lena was going to stay with friends on the Italian Riviera and Frank saw her off by the same train as that by which she had arrived. She was taking away with her a lot of their money [won at cards].

"I don't know how to thank you," she said, as she got into the carriage. "I've had a wonderful visit."

[Frank's] reply was perfect in its combination of majesty and graciousness.

...But when she turned away frm the departing train she heaved such a vast sigh of relief that the platform shook beneath her...

...[she] stopped dead still. She could not believe her eyes. Beatrice was sitting at one of the tables, by herself...

..."Beatrice, what are you doing?" she cried...Beatrice looked at her coolly.

"Eating," she answered.

...In front of Beatrice was a plate of croissants and a plate of butter, a pot of strawberry jam, and a jug of cream. Beatrice was spreading butter thick on the delicious hot bread, covering this with jam, and then pouring the thick cream over all.

..."You'll put on pounds and pounds."

"Go to hell!"

She actually laughed in Frank's face. My God, how good those croissants smelt!

"I'm disappointed in you, Beatrice. I thought you had more character."

"It's your fault. That blasted woman. You would have her down. For a fortnight I've watched her gorge like a hog. It's more than flesh and blood can stand. I'm going to have one square meal if I burst."

The tears welled up to Frank's eyes...Speechless she sank down on a chair by Beatrice's side. A waiter came up. With a pathetic gesture she waved toward the coffee and the croissants.

"I'll have the same," she sighed.

Give me chocolate, or else I die

just saying.

Comfort foods

What are yours?

mine seem to involve an inordinate amount of dairy, i am noticing lately. mac and cheese, linguine sort-of-alfredo, creamed spinach.

Is that a banana in your tithing box, or are you just...

The very lovely Ray Something and his partner Kirk Cameron (no not that kind of partner you heathen perverts) explain to the atheists how there's Providence in the shape of a banana.

There is no, repeat, NO double-entendre here, so get your filthy degenerate minds out of the gutter right now.

I mean it. Stop laughing.

Just because a man utters lines like

The banana and the hand are perfectly made for each other

(it's because of the ridges, you see)

and

When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face

and

Here Kirk, hold this

and

Notice how gracefully it sits in the hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry, it's just the right shape for the human mouth. It's even curved toward the human face to make the whole thing so much easier...

does NOT give you license to start making all kinds of unseemly and uncouth comments and gestures.

next thing you know you'll be trying to suggest that ol' Ray is actually inadvertently arguing that Intelligent Design allows for sodomy.

bollocks.

it's just a banana, people. sometimes a banana is just a cigar, and/or proof that there is, in fact, a God. Move along; nothing to see here.