THE GURGLING COD

Sazerac

Eric Asimov can keep a thermos full of Ramos gin fizzes in his wicker picnic basked for all I care. The Sazerac is what Earl Long and A.J. Liebling drank, not some bastardized milkshake, and thus it is, and ought to be, the rightful official cocktail of New Orleans.
If you have not read the book pictured at right, I both pity and envy you. It's one of the best books I've read about New Orleans, even though it is not really about New Orleans. It is one of the best 20th c. political biographies going, and AJL even throws in a little sumfin sumfin for the fans of Ferdinand Braudel.

Express yourself

Stolen from Gastriques. Interested to hear yea or nay on this, esp from folk in the industry.

Bowie + Queen + Thomas Keller?

 I say this with full respect for the man's many achievements, with an awareness that not only does Thomas Keller have more Michelin stars than do all the restaurants I will ever eat in, but also has sold more books than I ever will, and could probably beat the me at croquet, but news of his new book has me all Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. It's called "Under Pressure," and is all about cooking sous vide. I am not a SV fan, but as the name implies, it involves vacuums (and tepid water). So, vacuum is opposite of pressure, and since this is not TK's long-awaited pressure cooker book, why the name? Is he a really big fan of the Bowie and Queen collab? Did "Get Tepid with Tom" test poorly? Are the west coast H8rs not down w/ V66-era East Coast pop gems?

The McNuggetini

The McNuggetini. And worse than you would think:

2 McNuggz (plus more for snacking)
1 tub McDonalds Brand Barbeque Sauce (plus more for licking off pinky finger)
1 lg. Mcdonalds Brand Chocolate Milkshake (plus more for bringing all the boys to the yard)
1 bottle Vanilla Vodka (recommended brand:Absolut)

Daring critique of SATC the Culture Industry under late capitalism, cocktail breakthrough, or revolting stunt? You be the judge. Bonus coverage here.

Sliding into the Dog Days

Adam Kuban, over at AHT, was all over Flo Fab for her abuse of the term "slider." Says the burger maven,
My ire is piqued here by the notion that sliders can be made with seafood, chicken, or cheese.
They can't.
I will also hazard a guess that even the beef-based sandwiches Ms. Fabricant ends up covering will be mini hamburgers rather than sliders. People, a slider is something very specific. It is not just a mini hamburger. It's a thin, thin slip of beef, cooked on a griddle with onions and pickles piled atop patty. The steamfrom the onions does as much cooking as the griddle. The buns are placed atop the onions, absorbing the pungent aroma and flavor.

The slider ins not my particular obsession, so my passion does not burn quite this strongly, but in a world of "chicken Caesar salads" and "vodka gimlets," it's nice to see folks who insist on the useful convention that words applied to food have some sort of referent.

I am, however, happy to join the SE/AHT/Slice impressario on the calling bullshit bandwagon. The article is enriched with a quotation from a real academic:

The slider is bifurcated, both upscale and working class now,” said David Gerard Hogan, a professor of American history at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, who wrote “Selling ’em by the Sack: White Castle and the Creation of American Food.” “We like eating like commoners: fish and chips, mac and cheese. You see the mundane becoming elite.”

This is maybe more Faith Popcorn 's kind of American history than, say, Eric Foner's, but no matter. And then it gets dumb, and not in the good, Salt 'n' Pepa kinda way:

Professor Hogan says the hamburger is the ultimate American food, partly thanks to White Castle. “The fast-food burger is part of our ethnicity,” he said. “It’s how others define us.”

In order for Hogan's statement to make sense, there would need a) to be a (single) American ethnicity, which could be defined by White Castle. Even if the Canadians and the Mexicans give us a mulligan, and we slide "U.S." in place of "American," we are still left with the untenable task of articulating an ethnicity which is coterminous with the United States. As early as 1782, folks were having a tough time with this, and that was way before Univision, Koreatowns, or Selena. If you are going to pad flesh out an article with pull-the-string quotations from an academic, make sure its one who knows what they're talking about. To sum up: national Identity ethnic identity. Just ask Benedict Anderson. Or the Kurds.

Where have you gone, Fuzzy Zoeller?

I did not expect ever to find myself nostalgic for dead* golfers prone to foot in mouth disease, but this item is one of the dumbest things to come down the pike in some time:
Is there an anti-Southern bias to the Democrats' planned menu at the convention in Denver late August? According to one Denver councilman who was born in North Carolina, there is, foisted on convention-goers by Democratic "food zealots." The convention host committee denies that there's a ban on fried foods. But ABCNews.com obtained a copy of the catering proposals, including an odd one that specifies how many and which colors of food are supposed to appear on a plate.
Here are some of the requirements:
- No items are to be fried.
- Preference is to be given to vendors with "green" practices.
- At least half the meal must consist of fruits and/or vegetables.'
- Meals be colorful, including at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white. (Garnishes don't count.)
- Seventy percent or more of ingredients must be certified organic and/or grown in Colorado, by precooked weight.
- Seventy percent or more of ingredients must be fresh and not pre-processed, by pre-cooked weight.
Denver Councilman Charlie Brown says the stringent restrictions, especially the fried-food ban, will hurt the Democratic Party's image in the South.
"You can't turn red states blue, especially Southern states, without fried chicken," he says.

Where to begin? First of all, evidently, the DNC boosted their guidelines from a Bay Area Montessori school parents' dinner. The idea that eating might be something to enjoy, rather than an opportunity to demonstrate various virtues, does not enter into the question.
On the other hand, this Denver city councilman claiming that these guildelines are "anti-Southern" is an asshole. Anyone who thinks that Southern food = fried food,** or that fresh and local are qualities somehow inimical to Southern food deserves to be straddled by Paula Deen while she she forcefeeds them the new Mickey D's fried chicken sandwich. Also, especially after the little keruffle with this week's New Yorker cover, I'll bet the mortgage that there will not be any fried chicken served as the Democrats nominated the first serious black presidential candidate.
*That was the other one.
**Professor Edge, for one, or theThe Lee Brothers, for two, would beg to differ.

A question for TypePad

Why does your new posting template suck?
Will it ever stop sucking?

Po-Boy Preservation festival

I always shied away from Ye Olde College Inn ‘cause it looks like a place a cheap citycouncilman might have taken his second-favorite mistress in 1972.

Even better than endless salad and breadsticks? I think not.

It's hard to know where to begin with this pitch for Playboy's Girls of the Olive Garden(NSFWish) , which the Golden Fiddler tumbled upon. Is it the question of why it is the shock troops of America's obesity epidemic that are being thus featured? It is it the implausible statement that looking at pictures of seminude employees of a faux Italian restaurant chain could somehow be "Even better than endless salad and breadsticks"?  It is it the charmingly 1995ish appellation "cyber club" for the online presence of what once was actually an influential print magazine? Is it the fear that somewhere, in some dingy corner of the Internet, there are naked pictures of Olive Garden patrons?

Or is it the general sense that this might be the best evidence yet that these are, indeed, the Last Days? Or is it just another Guiteau Monday?

The Dark Knight of the Pizza

While I am close with people who might well find "cloaked with 50% more pepperoni" irresistible, it seems like a less intuitive tiein than those McNuggets studded with tiny crystal skulls earlier in the summer.
(Via Paxton Holley.)
Elsewhere on Flickr, Snack foods that sound like sex acts. Again, some of these are a reach, but I can't believe they forgot Andy Capp's Hot Fries.