Brenda Miller
>Eating Essays
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Tom Nealon @ HiLowBrow is doing a series of essays on the history of condiments.
In 1908, Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, a scientist at the University of Tokyo, fascinated by the powerful taste of stock made from a certain variety of kelp, discovered that the source of this flavor is free glutamates. This taste he named umami — which, somewhat weirdly, is what we still call it. Glutamate is an amino acid involved in neurotransmission that occurs naturally in most protein-rich foods (though in wildly different concentrations) and in a few other foods. Essentially, glutamate-rich foods trick the body into thinking that it’s consuming vast amounts of protein — which is extremely pleasant, even if it’s just broth.
This effect has not been lost on history’s empires — if religion is the opium of the masses, umami foods are the steak sandwich. If your income, class, estate, or faith denies you regular opportunities to consume rich sauces and savory meats, you’ll reach for the nearest bottle of umami every chance you get.
@ Pif Magazine Jeremy O’Brine reflects on the meaning and strangeness of the word organic.
“Are your eggs certified organic?” says a lady wearing giant, oval shaped black shades as she stoops over a notebook filled with 4 x 6 pictures of chickens engaged in various chicken activities. There are plump, brick-red hens scratching through straw, pecking at invisible specks of food, kicking dust up under their feathers, resting in cozy looking roosts, and grazing in safe, well-kept fields. The question is directed at a plump lady in her late-twenties wearing a black and white striped apron surrounded by boxes of eggs. She runs this booth, and from what I understand, makes her living selling the eggs of her happy chickens along with the bacon, sausage, and other meat products of her not-so-happy pigs.
With a slight frown she looks up and says, “no, haven’t had a chance to get our food certified at this time.”
The sounds that stay with me from the years I lived in Benin are those of the several languages spoken there—and of cooking. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the rural savanna, where food preparation was the domain of women, who cooked over coal or wood fires. Deftly wielding a wooden baton, my neighbor Nyaki stirred maize meal in a fire-licked pot. As the maize thickened toward the consistency of polenta, her baton went thwump, thwump, thwump. Or picture two women standing on either side of a three-foot mortar, each holding a long wooden pestle and taking plunges at boiled yams, pounding one after the other in a driving, two-beat tempo: barum, barum, barum, barum. Watching them, I’d wonder, how long have women been working these instruments on this food in this dance?
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| “The Toaster” by Ingrid Falk & Gustavo Aguerre |
Brenda Miller considers the joys of toast at Sweet.
Today, for no good reason, I ate two slices of toasted cinnamon/raisin bread at 9:30 a.m., a mere two hours since breakfast. I slathered the first one with whipped butter, and even as I ate it I made up a reason to have another. It was that Ezekiel, biblical bread, made with sprouted grains touched by Jesus, so it couldn’t be that bad for you, could it? It might even lead to a brief bout of cinnamon-scented clarity. So I toasted the second one and ate it slowly, slowly, biting off the crust first to leave a perfect round to nibble until I reached the center. The center eaten, and then there was a perfect nothingness—see? Enlightenment. And then a little nap
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Okay, I admit it: I have an unhealthy preoccupation with toast. Do I eat toast socially? Yes. Do I eat toast when alone? Yes. Do I lie about my toast consumption? Yes. Do I hide the evidence of toast consumption? Yes, Yes. Do I make up lame excuses for toast consumption? Why yes, yes I do.
altimoniere 