THE GURGLING COD

Happy Pimento Cheese Awareness Month!

Nov 1 is a big day on the Cod calendar, in that 1) our national pink nightmare finally ends, and 2) It's the first day of the best month, Pimento Cheese Awareness Month! New PCAM content on the way but for now, relive the glories of PCAMs past, and please let us know what you doing to raise pimento cheese awareness? 

Pimento Cheese is a Hot Topic

As in Hot Topic? Well, some pimento cheese would look good on the front of that fake Ramones tee, but actually, in this case, our friends at Eater round up some chef stories in re Pimento Cheese. We are very grateful to them for their support of Pimento Cheese Awareness Month. And any excuse to listen to Le Tigre. Play us off, ladies: 

This week in Pimento Cheese Awareness Month

The Hairpin chips in. The post is anchored by a clip from the doc Pimento Cheese, Please. Thanks, ladies! 

Pimento Cheese, Please! from Christophile Konstas on Vimeo.

Pimento Cheese Expertise

None other than John Hodgman has enlisted for the cause:

Look, I forgot to check in or take a picture, but the grilled pimento cheese sandwich and fries with sirachannaise I had at midnight at Geer St. Garden was among the most important meals I’ve ever had.

Check out GSG here. Among southern metropoli, Durham can be irritating in the manner of the college roommate who spends a semester in York and henceforth refers to "lifts" and "flats," but between these folks and Parker and Otis,  but it is a northern outpost of solid pimento cheese awareness. 

The Cod would also like to state a policy of not being mad at sirachannaise. It's the mayoketchup for America's Pacific Century. 

Raise your pimento cheese awareness -- with help from the UPS man*

Even if you live in one of the many pimento cheese deserts in the USA, you can still raise your awareness, with some help from the handsome men in the brown trucks. Callie's, out of the pimento cheese stronghold of Charleston, SC, will ship you some. Caveat pimento cheese emptor! Thet tell us -- "you must order biscuits to order pimento cheese." Life is like that sometimes. But if you are in a pimento cheese desert, there is an excellent chance that you also live in a county designated as underbiscuited, so, like, two birds, one stone.  

*Yes, of course we are interested in reading your UPS delivery guy/pimento cheese fan fiction. 

Pimento Cheese Awareness Month: You don't have to be human

When friends get together and talk about who the real heroes of the fight to raise pimento cheese awareness are, the conversation is not complete without a robot. The pimento cheese bot. Somewhere, there is a loyal robot who diligently re-tweets every mention of pimento cheese, and now even pimeinto* cheese, on Twitter. If you are asking yourself -- "I would like to be more aware of pimento cheese, but how?" the pimento cheese bot is a friend indeed. 

We salute you, Pimento Cheese Bot. If we had hands, and if you had arms, we would shake your hand.

What are YOU doing to raise Pimento Cheese awareness in your community?

Thanks for all the love from the Eaters and Tweeters yesterday. The Cod is passionate about making people aware of pimento cheese, but needs help. In comments or via RT, please tell us what YOU are doing to raise pimento cheese awareness? Please let us know in the comments or via RT. The folks at Saveur dropped a pimento cheese potato gratin that looks absolutely filthy. 

Pimento Cheese Awareness Month: Saluting the pioneers - Hugh Acheson

Happy Pimento Cheese Awareness Month! November is the month when we work to raise awareness of pimento cheese. This time around, we will be saluting pioneers, starting with chef, author, raconteur and pimento cheese activist Hugh Acheson. He has a solid pimento (or pimiento, as he prefers) in his book, A New Turn in The South, the which just dropped, and which you will be wanting. This is a classic new school pimento cheese recipe, distinguished by fancier cheese, and roasted peppers, rather than jarred pimentos. Also, for many mayo is to pimento cheese as vermouth is to the Martini, as is the case here. If you do make your own mayo, make sure it is comparable in thickness to Duke's or you won't get the consistency you want. 

WTF Huff? Or, the Pimento cheese awareness crisis is not over

Evidently, Pimento Cheese Awareness Month was not long enough.* In the HuffPo, some dude named "Meathead Goldwyn"  asserts that "Carolina caviar" is a "nickname" for pimento cheese. As Cod readers know, pimento cheese is a subject of some interest here, and I've never heard it called that. It does not make a lot of sense, in that the one does not have much to do with the other -- it would be like calling sweet tea "Alabama Armagnac." On the other, alliterative nicknames that involve the name of a Southern state are usually pejorative -- Tennessee Tuxedo, Louisiana Limoncello, Mississippi Mustache, etc. I do not have the resources of the DARE at my disposal, and it is possible that somewhere, someone besides this Meathead has referred to pimento cheese as "Carolina caviar," but a cursory search of the phrase indicates that it actually refers to an entirely different dish, a salsaish dip with blackeyed peas** providing the caviarish element. So the "Carolina caviar" headline in the HuffPo is not so much wrong as misleading and confusing. I guess the HuffPo, and its readers, get what they pay for.  

*Watch this space for information about how the Cod, Rick of Rick's Picks, will be making a bipartisan super bowl pimento cheese with Sarah, of Black and Gold Tchotchkes.

**Without a rooting interest beyond the Cormac McCarthy fantasy that will be outlined here, is there a way I can get down a prop bet on Fergie soiling herself during the SB Whatever halftime show? 

Come sample Pepi Pep Pep Pimento Cheese at the Union Square Greenmarket Wed. 24 November, 2010 11am-until.*

As Pimento Cheese Awareness Month thunders along, here is the aforementioned announcement of  a Very Special Pimento Cheese Event: The Gurgling Cod, in conjunction with Rick of Rick's Picks, will be giving away samples of a very special pimento cheese, made with Rick's Picks very own Pepi Pep Peps, this Wednesday, 24 November, at the Union Square Greenmarket from 11am until.* If you decide you want to bring this pimento goodness into your home, we will have copies of the Pepi Pep Pep Pimento Cheese recipe available with each jar of pepi pep peps. We will be serving the PPPPC up with pretzels from Greenmarket neighbor Martin's Pretzels. Can't make it to the Greenmarket? For your Thanksgiving noshing, Rick will be dropping the recipe on the Rick's Picks Facebook page on Tuesday. I will be updating day of on the Twitters, so check back for photos and availability updates. If you think you might have trouble remembering which Greenmarket will host this very special event, listen to this song a few times: 

 

*Until we run out, that is.