“We’ve become a food culture”

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 12:45:00 +0000

Three of the books you’ve chosen are heavily focused on, and influenced by, France. One is by an Italian immigrant. Isn’t our topic American food?

I do think of these very much as American food books. American food is the food of immigrants. You go back a couple of hundred years and we were all immigrants, unless we’re going to talk about Native American cuisine. And for much of the early part of the 20th century, Americans were slavishly following French cooking. So it’s not an accident that Alice B Toklas and AJ Liebling were focused on France.

Why did people slavishly follow French cuisine?

Don’t mess with these mice

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:01:00 +0000

Many species of starfish relish oysters, clams and other shellfish, much to the chagrin of fishermen who watch over oyster beds and farms. Legend has it that oyster fishermen used to dispose of any starfish they dredged up by cutting the creatures in half and tossing them back into the ocean. Since starfish can regenerate lost limbs, the fishermen unwittingly doubled their foes’ numbers. It’s hard to say exactly how true this oft-repeated story is, but the starfish’s regenerative talents are biological fact. Salamanders, newts and many other amphibians can regrow severed limbs too, replacing all the missing bone, muscle, nerves and skin without any trace of scar tissue. By and large, mammals are not so fortunate. Perhaps the most notable exception is a particular strain of lab mouse known as Murphy Roths Large (MRL), which seals small holes in its ears and regrows toetips thanks to its unique gene expression.

Salon.com > Oysters

“We’ve become a food culture”

Don’t mess with these mice