CHoWLine - Back Issues

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January 2002

January 13, 2002 Meeting

Program: "Consider the Cookbook: Cookbook writers discuss their craft" with Susan Derecskey, Dianne Hennessy King, Joan Nathan, and Kay Shaw Nelson.

Susan, the author of The Hungarian Cookbook, in print continuously since originally published in 1972, is a food writer. She has ghosted and edited many other cookbooks, and lectured extensively about cookbook writing.

Dianne is a former editor of Pillsbury Publications. Two of her books are The New Pillsbury Family Cookbook, and Pillsbury's Creative Cooking in Minutes. She is a cultural anthropologist who has also produced cooking shows for television.

Joan's newest book, Foods of Israel Today, tells how contemporary Israel's food has been created by the human ingenuity of its many diverst populations while using native ingredients.

Kay's forthcoming book, The Cuisine of the Caucasus Mountains: Recipes, Drinks and Lore from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia, is her seventeenth, combining travel, history, and recipes. She is a food and travel writer with an active interest in geography.

Membership Directory

The new membership directory will be put in the mail in early January and will list those who are members as of December 31, 2001.

Field Trip, Anyone?

Information about a field trip to the annual Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg during the first week of January still is incomplete, but will be e-mailed to those members with e-mail. Farm animals and machinery are exhibited and a wide variety of food is for sale. The show is free and indoors.

Report: December 2 Meeting

Dianne King announced that a final decision on the two suggested themes for our cooperative dinner in April -- food from the Silk Road or food from Julia Child's kitchen -- will be made at our January meeting. There were two "whatzits": Laura GIlliam brought what was identified as a gadget for forming square hardcooked eggs, and Willis and Carter Van Devanter supplied an 1830s hearth spoon. Pre-meeting refreshments, of the variety for which special silver utensils have been designed, were: grapes, cranberry sauce, cheeses, crackers, and nuts. They were contributed by Susan Helm, Francine Berkowitz, and Shirley Cherkasky, and Lori Trolan brought a loaf of bread that had been baked in BL Traho's new beehive oven.

Rayna Green of the National Museum of American History described, with several amusing anecdotes, the process of bringing Julia Child's kitchen to the museum, and reported that the museum staff will be relying on much help from volunteers to accomplish the cataloging and other processes required before the kitchen can be exhibited. When a method for scheduling and using volunteers has been devised, Rayna will inform CHoW members through CHoWLine and by e-mail. In the meantime, those wanting further information may call Rayna at 202-357-2071.

Bryna Freyer accompanied her talk on "101 Ways Not To Use Your Fingers" with an incredible array of silverplate flatware and hollow ware. The text of her talk, as well as that of Roger Horowitz's November presentation is included in this edition.

News Of Our Members

Ellen Schwab's recipe for Hazelnut-Chocolate Stars, one of the winners of Sheila Luken's contest for "The Very Best Holiday Cookies in the U.S.A." appeared in the December 9, 2001, issue of Parade Magazine.

On The Bookshelf

Katherine Livingston calls our attention to the following articles and book:

Curt Wohleber, "From Cheese to Cheese Food," Invention and Technology, Summer 2001, pp. 8-9. How "Kraft persuaded Americans to accept cheese by divorcing it from its microbe-laden origins."

William Boyd, "Making Meat: Science, Technology, and American Poultry Production," Technology and Culture, Vol. 42, No. 4 (October 2001).

Warren Belasco, "Roadside Dreams, Fast Food Nightmares," pp. 767-770, in the same issue of Technology and Culture.

Rodinson, Maxime, A.J. Arberry, and Charles Perry, Medieval Arab Cookery: Essays and Translations, Prospect Books, Totness, Devon, U.K., L35. A reprint with a new foreword.

On The Reading Table

Radcliffe Culinary Times, Vol. XI, No. 2, Autumn 2001.

Newsletter, Association for the Study of Food and Society, Fall 2001, vol. 14, no. 2.

Meeting Notice, Culinary Historians of Boston, December 2001.

Papers From the November and December Meetings

"I Wish I Was an Oscar Mayer Wiener': Hot Dogs and the Transformation of Meat in the 20th Century" presented by Roger Horowitz, Hagley Museum and Library, on November 11, 2001.

"101 Ways Not To Eat with Your Fingers: the Great Era of American Silverplate" presented by Bryna Freyer on December 2, 2001.

 

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