Sunday, February 19, 2006


what food & eating are all about

"While I was perusing cookbooks this morning looking for something to make of groceries purchased yesterday, I found this. It's quoted in 'Lost Recipes, Meals to Share with Friends and Family' by Marion Cunningham.

Now, while this is an odd little book, starting with its binding and ending with its title, the recipes inside are overall just plain out good eating of an old-fashioned nature, without arcane ingredients and easily made. Which of course is her point, that in the day when people lavish their kitchens with fancy counters, cabinets and appliances, they don't do much cooking there, and a lot of the emphasis on cooking is chef-driven, fancy dishes that are a lot of trouble and ingredients to make.

I guess that's why my parents and I are digging stuff like pot roast, lasagna and other simple fare. And why people get SO very excited about home made bread and cookies.

Mary Beth

Here's the pertinent quote:

The pleasures of the table are for every man, of every land, and no matter of what place in history or society; they can be a part of all his other pleasures, and they last the longest, to console him when he has outlived the rest.

Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
from the preamble to 'The Physiology of Taste' "

There's no need to fisk this, imvho. so i won't. people appreciate simple, pure food that's about the food.

it's not just that they're yahoos or that food preferences are imprisioned by their childhood memories and suspicions, altho' there is a lot of that, alas.

i find m.b.'s statement quite sensible. now back to the coffee!

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