Eat This Newsletter 187: Legends
Hello
I’ve been hard at work on the next series. ETA: 19 September. But that hasn’t stopped me scouring the internets in search of additional sustenance.
Killjoy Preaching in the Desert
For francophones (and those with access to machine translation, or a francophone), a delightful interview with historian Loïc Bienassis of the University of Tours. It’s a wide-ranging discussion on the invention of culinary origin legends that touches on a few of the legends and, even more so, tries to explain why they are both so attractive and so enduring.
Bienassis proposes three useful categories: serendipity, the kind of happy accident that gave rise to the tarte Tatin; importation, someone bringing a technique from afar, like the supposed birth of camenbert when a priest from Brie took refuge during the French Revolution with Marie Harel in Normandy; and big history, exemplified (along with importation) by Catherine de Medici.
Catherine de Medici, legend would have you believe, more or less created French cuisine when she crossed the Alps with her retinue of Florentine cooks, recipes and ingredients. To promoting the virtues of the fork we can add the introduction of “ice cream and sorbets, macaroons, artichokes, broccoli, sabayon, choux pastry and cream puffs, frangipane” etc etc. And yet, the legends don’t really get going until the 18th century, and, as Bienassis and a co-author point out, “We can add, thanks to archival research, that in the list of service people who had dealt with Catherine, since her arrival in France and until her death, there were absolutely no Italian chefs”.
Still, the legends persist, proof that mere evidence makes for a very weak sauce.
A Tenuous Link to Pizza
The supposed impact of Catherine de Medici in France is, I think, an example of the “pizza effect” in reverse. That’s “the pattern that unfolds when an insignificant cultural item or practice is exported to another country, whereupon it achieves a level of success unheard of in the native country”. I came across it when I shared Karima Moyer-Nocchi’s history of pizza in Italy in Eat This Newsletter 174 at the end of January. When a Great Person of History appears, their presence magnifies the glories of existing insignificant cultural practices.
In that issue, I included a very brief mention – no more than a link – to a story from NPR about Ibrahim Songne, who arrived in Italy from Burkina Faso at the age of 12 and went on to open a pizzeria that was named one of the 50 best pizza places in the world. Now there’s a follow up, bringing the story of Ibrahim up to date. Of course Ibrahim created s pizza in honour of NPR – goat cheese, dried figs, shaved Trentingrana cheese, rocket, pine nuts and spicy oil – which sounds intriguing, but more to the point the exposure cemented his position in the town and has given quite a boost to the business, along with his charitable pizza sospesa. A customer can pay for an extra pizza to be given to someone in need.
When you break the story down, though, what is it really about? I would say that anyone with the interest, passion and enthusiasm can become a great pizza chef. The need to overcome strong local prejudices would be an obstacle, but clearly not an insurmountable one. There’s nothing that says you have to be Italian to make great pizza, or any other Italian food. A glimpse into the kitchen of any restaurant here will convince you of that.
The Allure of Alliteration: African Agriculture
Hard on the heels of my conversation with Jori Lewis about peanuts in Senegal comes a nicely illustrated article from AramcoWorld about Senegal’s tiny enclave. It asks Is the Sky the Limit for The Gambia’s Groundnuts?.
The answer, as always, is “No”, but along the way there’s a fascinating story of how The Gambia’s Youth Empowerment Project, supported by the European Union, is working to put peanuts at the centre of efforts to interest young people in agriculture and business. Capturing added value is the key, which is why the project has invested in 100 machines to tackle various aspects of processing peanuts from husking to crushing for peanut butter. Along with improved varieties and better farming practices, the country seems to be adapting to more erratic rainfall and increasing temperatures, and the project has created more than 1000 jobs.
The Price of Cheap Chicken
Last Saturday, 3 September, many people were remembering the declarations of war against Nazi Germany. Bryant Simon, an historian at Temple University in Philadelphia, reminded Twitter that is was also the 31st anniversary of the Hamlet Chicken Fire in North Carolina.
The fire was a huge, entirely avoidable, disaster that killed 25 workers and injured 55 other people at the Imperial Foods chicken processing plant.
I spoke to Bryant Simon about his book on the Hamlet fire in February 2018. If you haven’t already, take a listen. And if you want to read a quick refresher, I suggest Eric Loomis’ account.
Now, tell me: has anything much changed?
And the Mystery of Male Chicks
The specialisation that underpins all industrial food production means that to breed a single layer hen, you need on average two eggs, because one of them will hatch male. Those chicks are no use as meat because they grow too slowly to be competitive. And so, across Europe, about 330 million male chicks are killed each year.
There is an alternative. In Germany, it has been illegal to kill male chicks since the beginning of 2022, and France is due to follow suit from the end of this year. UK supermarkets, however, are “not keen to promote eggs that don’t contribute to the killing of male chicks alongside their existing stock.”
That’s according to a report in The Guardian, which explains how the process works in Germany.
Respeggt, a German service provider of in-ovo egg sexing, uses its patented Seleggt process to identify and prevent the hatching of male chicks. On the ninth day of incubation, a small drop of liquid is extracted from the eggs and analysed. Once hatcheries know which eggs will hatch into male chicks, they can repurpose them for other uses.
Yeah, no, I can’t really crack that either. Does it really matter whether a chick is “repurposed” at 9 days or 21 days?
Another tricky one. According to the one UK supplier of pre-sexed eggs, most of them have gone to “small-scale and hobby chicken farmers”. And yet, I would have thought that those might be the very people who could handily use a dual purpose breed good for both eggs and meat.
It is all very confusing.
Take care.
Jeremy