Eat This Newsletter 196 — Invented Traditions
Is food more susceptible to invented traditions than other topics? It sometimes seems so.
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Is food more susceptible to invented traditions than other topics? It sometimes seems so.
Italian Food: The View From Up High
John Last, a journalist based in Padua, shares his conclusion that There Is No Such Thing As Italian Food in Noema magazine. Much of this may be familiar, and the claim of the headline (probably nothing to do with Last) has been true forever, but it nevertheless makes for an entertaining read. Last asks:
The real question is, will Italians stay bound to invented traditions, or will they embrace their mercurial past?
To which I would venture to answer, “Yes!”
Not everything need be a simple binary these days, and obviously people in Italy will do both. Personally, Sicilian avocados and mangos make me inordinately happy, and I look forward some day to being offered “ogbono soup with Sicilian mango seeds and Calabrian okra”. In fact, I’d settle, now, for Calabrian okra being available at my local greengrocer.
Truffles: The View From Way Down Low
You may be familiar with the truffle oil scam, but everything else you think you know about truffles is probably a lie too.
An uncompromising intro to an article that doesn’t disappoint, at least as far as truffle fakery is concerned. The oil thing is probably quite well known at this stage, but I had been ignorant of some of the other sharp practices. I did not know, for example, that some species have “decorative, tasteless, and worthless tubers,” and that the bits of “truffle” so present in my formaggio tartufata are probably little chunks of those species, the over-powering trufflish aroma of the cheese coming only from synthetic 2,4-dithiapentane and other components of fake truffle oil.
This is not a diatribe against all truffle oil, some of which may even be reasonably good. But bad truffle practices do matter.
Synthetic garbage sold as a luxury gourmet item gives customers the idea that truffles have an intense gas-like aroma.
It is a scam because it deceives customers; that is, it falsely represents a product that has nothing to do with truffles and puts all restaurateurs who try to work honestly in an unfavorable position: if you don't flavor truffle dishes with added aromas and flavors that the guests are used to, the naive guests will think you're being cheap and trying to save on their meal.
I am not all that enamoured of truffled things, although scrambled eggs and fresh egg pasta are two great backgrounds for a fresh truffle. In that, take the author's advice:
Always ask restaurant staff if they use truffle flavorings or the real thing: pure truffles. Smell the dish before putting truffles on it and insist that the waiters grate them in front of you.
And good luck.
More on Lab Meat and Milk
The past year saw huge strides in lab-grown meat and milk and, perhaps, the start of a reasoned backlash. Quite apart from the question of affordability, which enthusiasts are keen to say will come from scaling up, there are doubts about whether the world really needs the protein on offer and whether the process, in general, is anything like as environmentally friendly or sustainable as it is painted. A recent review in Knowable Magazine (an offshoot of Annual Reviews) goes through all those familiar arguments, which is handy.
The thing is, many of the arguments for lab meat and milk are actually arguments against cruelty and environmental destruction. The article does a good job of examining the assumptions and predictions behind the various ethical and sustainability claims. Cultured versions of luxury products, such as foie gras or caviar could help with cashflow, it argues, and cultured meat could also be used to enhance fake meats, giving the nascent industry a bit of a boost. In the end though, I fall back on my old mantra, for all the old reasons: pay more for better quality meat, rather than for cellular agriculture.
Fog in the Black Sea
Trying to keep on top of food exports from Ukraine is not easy, and I’ve tended to rely on people who are doing it full time, through Twitter hashtags like #blackseagraininitative. How’s it going? Hard to say, really. Grain and other products are moving, but slowly. UnHerd magazine offers a partial analysis in an article — Putin is sabotaging Ukraine’s grain deal — but no single article can cover the comprehensive picture. One worrying element in that article is a reference to ship insurers cancelling war cover in the region “in the face of steep losses”. I understand the need to make a profit, and find myself wondering how the cost of insurance affects the cost of grain.
Food in My Ears
Code Switch, a podcast about race from NPR, had an episode early in the New Year about food and inequality in America. I have not yet listened, but it is queued up in my playlist and I expect good things. The episode promises: How do race and class affect the way we eat? What does it mean to “eat like a white person?” And if food inequality isn’t about “food deserts,” what is it really about?
An All-Female Brotherhood …
… is perhaps the pinnacle of French gastro-historical flummery collated by Gastro Obscura for our reading pleasure. Fancy dress and cod pageantry in support of local regional specialities seems a harmless enough pursuit to me, and is by no means limited to France. There was a time when my main ambition was to be accepted into the Cofradía de la Alubia de Tolosa, in Euskadi, despite the lack of a fancy-pants costume.
Take care.
p.s. Cheese-eaters courtesy of La Confrérie du Brie de Meaux