Posts tagged food and drink

For me Cel-Ray actually seems more plausible than some of the other regional North American soft drinks I've heard about. I remember a college friend once returning from Montreal with some sort of pine-based soda, which did seem like a bit too much (but no doubt has its fans).

cultural worlds, food and drink, new york

Nate:

The soda’s origins are foggy. It’s not clear whether an actual Dr. Brown existed, but most accounts point to beginnings on the Lower East Side around 1870, when the drink was marketed as a health tonic. Dr. Brown’s has no official website, and may be the only brand of celery-flavored soda. It’s canned at a plant on Long Island called Pepsi-Cola of New York, though Dr. Brown’s is owned by Canada Dry.

To find out more, I call the bottling plant and reach Rosalie Mileo, the customer service manager for Dr. Brown’s. I ask her to tell me about the company. “There is no Dr. Brown’s,” she says. “It’s just a name.”

Whatever the ontology of the company, she does concede that Cel-Ray lags considerably in popularity behind the other Dr. Brown’s sodas, which include black cherry, cream soda, root beer, diet cream soda, and diet black cherry. A diet version of Cel-Ray was produced until several years ago, Mileo tells me, and Cel-Ray is most in demand in New York and in Florida, “because lots of retired New Yorkers live there,” she adds.

“Are there plans to stop manufacturing Cel-Ray any time soon?” I ask.

“There are no plans to stop manufacturing Cel-Ray any time soon,” she echoes.

“Can you tell me anything else about Cel-Ray?” I ask.

“It’s not popular,” she replies firmly.

Sometimes cultural objects—homespun cloth in Independence-era India, the predominance (in spite of pressure to import cheaper international varities) of locally-grown rice in postwar Japan—take their most profound meanings not so much from the object itself as from the technology (actual or implied) that is used to produce the object.

asia, clothing, cultural worlds, food and drink, horizons of the possible, india, japan

Nate:

When a modern Japanese family sits round the supper table eathing their bowls of Japanese-grown rice, they are not simply indulging a gastronomic preference for short-grain and slightly sticky Japonica rice over long-grain Indica rice from Thailand. They are eating and absorbing a tradition—in the sense of an invented and reinvented past. While the television beside the dining table pours out a stream of images of the here-and-now, of an urbanized, capitalist, and thoroughly internationalized Japan, each mouthful of rice offers communion with eternal and untainted Japanese values, with a rural world of simplicity and purity, inhabited by peasants tending tiny green farms in harmony with nature and ruled over by the emperor, descendant of the Sun Goddess, who plants and harvests rice himself each year in a special sacred plot. Simple peasant rice farmers are as marginal in contemporary Japan as hand-spinners are in India, but the small rice farm, like the swadeshi [homespun-style cloth] industry, lives on as a powerful symbol.

Here's a way of fighting hunger and obesity at the same time, by incentivising (or perhaps just enabling) healthier food choices for those on public assistance. But I wonder how many people who'd like to take advantage of such a program would actually have a farmer's market they could easily get to? And there's the issue that, if you're poor and your job, time, and home situations are less stable, canned goods and fast food may be (as noted earlier) a better fit for your short-term needs.

behavioral economics, cultural worlds, food and drink, government, poverty

Nate:

In the 2008 farm bill, Congress allocated $20 million for a pilot program to explore how to create incentives to purchase fruits, vegetables or other healthful foods in order to improve the diets of food stamp recipients and potentially reduce obesity. Several nonprofit groups and foundations are experimenting with similar incentives.

One is the Wholesome Wave Foundation, an organization that works to make locally grown food more widely available. In the spring, it launched a program that doubles the value of food stamps and fruit and vegetable vouchers of low-income mothers and seniors who use them at farmers markets in Connecticut, Massachusetts and California.The Wholesome Wave matching grants were an instant hit at the City Heights market in San Diego. On the first day that matching funds became available, sales using government-issued electronic benefit cards soared by more than 200 percent. In subsequent weeks, the line to receive matching vouchers formed at 7:30 a.m., and the available funds were exhausted by 9:30 a.m., just 30 minutes after the market opened.

“We’re not taking away your benefits because you spend them on Twinkies,” said Michel Nischan, a Connecticut chef and president of Wholesome Wave. “But if you decide you want to spend it on fresh tomatoes, you’ll get double your money.”

This bit from the close of Walker Percy's novel is about as good an example I can recall of a sort of sublime cultural layering—the lovely, humble juxtaposition of the transcendent and the everyday, of fallenness and grace, and of taking our cues from the best of all that culture has to offer.

christmas, cultural worlds, food and drink, horizons of the possible, repentance

Nate:

Barbecuing in my sackcloth.

The turkey is smoking well. The children have gone to bed, but they’ll be up at dawn to open their presents.

The night is clear and cold. There is no moon. The light of the transmitter lies hard by Jupiter, ruby and diamond in the plush velvet sky. Ellen is busy in the kitchen fixing stuffing and sweet potatoes. Somewhere in the swamp a screech owl cries.

I’m dancing around to keep warm, hands in pockets. It is Christmas Day and the Lord is here, a holy night and surely that is all one needs.

On the other hand, I want a drink. Fetching the Early Times from a clump of palmetto, I take six drinks in six minutes. Now I’m dancing and singing old Sinatra songs and the Salve Regina, cutting the fool like David before the ark or like Walter Huston doing a jig when he struck it rich in the Sierra Madre.

Last month when Andy was in town we took hearty advantage of the chance for some (for us) rare face-to-face meeting and eating. He arrived at my doorstep, cheeses in hand. And yes, they were well-cultured to a wedge. The one that's stuck with me was the Morbier, as much for its resonant ash-stripe branding as the flavor (which was, of course, quite fine). Penitence never tasted so good.

cultural worlds, europe, food and drink, france

Nate:

Morbier is a semi-soft cows’ milk cheese of France named after the small village of Morbier in Franche-Comté. It is ivory colored, soft and slightly elastic, and is immediately recognizable by the black layer of tasteless ash separating it horizontally in the middle. It has a rind that is yellowish, moist, and leathery.

Traditionally, the cheese consists of a layer of morning milk and a layer of evening milk. When making Gruyère de Comté, cheesemakers would end the day with leftover curd that was not enough for an entire cheese. Thus, they would press the remaining evening curd into a mold, and spread ash over it to protect it overnight. The following morning, the cheese would be topped up with morning milk. Nowadays, the cheese is usually made from a single milking with the ash added for tradition.

The aroma of Morbier is found somewhat objectionable by some, though the flavor is rich and creamy, with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

A neighborhood halal poultry store inadvertently serves a surprising intersection of communities.

animals, community, cultural worlds, food and drink, horizons of the possible

Nate:

“This is the same chicken we have on the island,” Ms. Pierre said. “When my mother would make the chicken for dinner, I was right there at her feet helping her. Everything I learned to cook, I learned from her in Haiti.” To her surprise, she has found a taste of home and the perfect chicken at the Halal Live Meat and Poultry Market, a short bus ride from her house.

Muhammad Ali, the 41-year-old Bangladeshi owner of the market, is happy that Ms. Pierre is happy, even if it was never his intention to provide the ingredients for a homey Haitian dish. When he opened Halal Live two years ago, after deciding to forgo a doctorate in international politics, his only goal was to provide the mainly Pakistani Muslim community in the area with meat slaughtered under the traditions set forth in the Koran. Drawn to this bustling corner of Archer Avenue and 168th Street because of the pedestrian traffic — three buses stop outside his door — he had no idea that he would end up with such a polyglot clientele.

“I would say 50 percent of our business comes from people I never expected to come here,” said Mr. Ali, a shy, small-framed man, talking over the squawks of poultry and the chatter of customers. Among those who are keeping business booming are a Nigerian exchange student heading home from biology class at York College, a Salvadoran mango vendor who stops there after working the sidewalks of Jamaica Avenue, and Orthodox Jews who come accompanied by a shochet, a person trained to slaughter animals according to kosher ritual.

One of the arguments for the repeal of so-called blue laws limiting alcohol purchase on Sundays is that they're an outmoded and inappropriate way of imposing one group's religiosity on those who don't share their beliefs. As this economic study indicates, though, repealing blue laws seems to have the most significant, and negative, effect on potential churchgoers, not on nonbelievers. (As a side note, the original Blue Laws, passed in 1655 in New Haven, CT, forbade the following Sabbath activities: baby-kissing, shaving, pleasure walks, as well as this final, general restriction: "Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap.")

addiction, alcohol, church, food and drink, horizons of the possible, sabbath

Nate:

In this paper we identify a policy-driven change in the opportunity cost of religious participation based on state laws that prohibit retail activity on Sunday, known as “blue laws.” Many states have repealed these laws in recent years, raising the opportunity cost of religious participation… We then use a variety of datasets to show that when a state repeals its blue laws religious attendance falls, and that church donations and spending fall as well… We find that repealing blue laws leads to an increase in drinking and drug use, and that this increase is found only among the initially religious individuals who were affected by the blue laws. The effect is economically significant; for example, the gap in heavy drinking between religious and non religious individuals falls by about half after the laws are repealed.

The sonic signature of a cultural (and culinary) world.

cultural worlds, food and drink, latin america, mexico, sound

Nate:

You hear it from a block away: an amplified, singsong call with an uncanny power to slice through the urban din. The tone is cheap and tinny—as kitschy as a sound can be. And it’s my favorite in Mexico City.

Listen now, as it nears, the nasal-toned male voice stretching out syllables and pauses, again and again, into a verse so familiar it could be the unofficial anthem of this vast city, a kind of culinary call to prayer. ”Ri-costa-ma-les oaxa-que-ños!” blares a loudspeaker on the vendor’s tamale cart. ”Tamales oaxaqueños!” ”Tamales calien-ti-tos!”

Go to any neighborhood in Mexico City, from gritty to grand, and at some point during the evening you might hear it. The recorded call, always in the same hypnotic voice, is pumped from countless speakers aboard countless tamalero pedal carts. Step up and order your delicious Oaxacan tamales.

Here's some bracing local culture—and cultural change—for you. I first heard about the festive Ugandan grasshopper harvest and consumption from a just-returned biologist who'd done some fieldwork there. He reported that the hoppers, fried in their own fat, tasted like popcorn shrimp. In any case, here's a recent update from a blogger in Kampala.

africa, business, consumption, cultural worlds, food and drink, least of nations, technology and change

Nate:

To those that have acquired the taste, nsenene is the object of undiluted greed for many Ugandans of all ages. A favourite joke is to tease a husband about finding himself on the receiving end of his pregnant wife’s tantrums if she asks for nsenene in the middle of the night, moreover on the wrong month.

During the month of Musenene, everyone was sure to get a mini harvest and neighbours would freely (maybe grudgingly too) share their catch.

Well, the romantic story of nsenene of old is no more. Today most of the grasshoppers that make the long trip from the Abyssinian heights end up at commercial harvesting rigs set up by ambitious greedy capitalists who have monopolized the catching of nsenene.

Weeks before the first insects are expected, building sites with top floors are booked and leased for the sole purpose of catching the most nsenene possible. The ‘combine harvesters’ consist of rows of huge barrels fitted with shiny new iron sheets and crudely wired light bulbs. The fluorescent lights bounce off the iron sheets, at once attracting and blinding the insects. When they hit the iron sheets the nsenene slide all the way down to the bottom of the barrel, literally. Security guards are hired to keep watch, and sometimes live electric cables are wired around the area to deter thieves. This way the monopolists lag home tonnes and tonnes of nsenene, and close out the ordinary people who used to get free ‘manna’ from heaven.

What if every office worker vowed to buy lunch only from people they know?

community, cultural worlds, food and drink, neighborhoods

Andy:

Several years ago, I lost my patience with our alienated, unattached world at lunch one day. I was waiting to get a sandwich at a place called Au Bon Pain. It’s a chain, it’s cheap enough, it’s fine. I was in a bit of a hurry. I eat late and the place was empty. There was no one in line, but I obediently stood in the proper place between the stanchions and waited to be told to approach the counter. Two sandwich makers were talking to each other behind the counter. They looked up, and I stepped forward meekly, and they continued their conversation. Fine, I waited. And waited. They laughed, I presume at me. I gave the customary attention-seeking cough and laser stare. Eventually one of them asked what I wanted in a surly tone and with a put-out look. The other guy slowly made the sandwich. I went back to the office to eat. The sandwich had tomato on it. I asked for no tomato.

I vowed never, ever buy lunch on a workday from a stranger again. It was a solemn vow that I break only under drastic circumstances. So, now I get lunch from Frank, Art, or Tommy, guys I have come to be friends with who run three different places. I like them. I think all three are funny, and they usually laugh at my jokes, which is key. I don’t see them except for lunch, but that’s fine. I enjoy spending money where I know the people. Lunch is now a little social part of my day, and I feel like I work in a real neighborhood, which it really isn’t. I love being a regular. I love purposefully limiting my choices instead of expanding them. Most of all, I think that I enjoy being loyal just for the sake of being loyal.

I don’t ever hate lunch anymore. I consider lunch one of my greatest triumphs.

My favorite social historian writes on the place of spices—and the importance not just of their rarity but of their foreign-ness—in the culture of Medieval Europe.

cultural worlds, exoticism, food and drink, odor, paradise

Nate:

The one thing that pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, saffron, and a whole series of other spices had in common was their non-European origin. They all came from the Far East. India and the Moluccas were the chief region for spices. But that’s only a prosaic description of their geographic origin. For the people of the Middle Ages, spices were emissaries from a fabled world. Pepper, they imagined, grew, rather like a bamboo forest, on a plain near Paradise. Ginger and cinnamon were hauled in by Egyptian fishermen casting nets into the floodwaters of the Nile, which in turn had carried them straight from Paradise. The aroma of spices was believed to be a breath wafted from Paradise over the human world.