From the written literature in Euro-American languages you might be forgiven if you assumed that coffee only spread West and Italians are the only ones who know how to drink it well. Coffee’s movement east from Africa has barely been studied and commented on; idioms, styles… …idioms, styles, standards of judgment, forms of sociality beyond the bourgeois public sphere

1. Spices and Meat

Surprisingly, flawed opinions persist about the use of spices in Early Modern Europe. Apparently it was to cover the smell of rotting flesh or to compensate for poor quality meat.

I read two instances recently. 2. MNPearson writes in Spices in the Indian Ocean World (2016 edn.: xvi), otherwise a terrific source, that “Spices, and especially pepper, were widely used to disguise the semi-putrid smell and keep the meat palatable through the winter.”

Celebrating new NYS law to aid #FundExcludedWorkers! Progressive, pro-working people alliance strengthening in NY. Second major victory after Intro 1116 B passed NYC Council . maketheroadny.org/wp-content/upl… facebook.com/StreetVendorPr…

1/10 In this special issue of Food, Culture & Society (Feb 2021) we take the long-view on street vending in global cities from Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok, New Delhi, Milan, Mexico City, New York to LA. 10 articles. Abstract. In library databases.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… 2/10 Jayeeta Sharma provides a sonic history of the banning of street cries from Beijing to Boston through the 19th century, while highlighting how writers and tourist-bureaus churned out sentimental postcards and coffee table books about the protagonists. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

Data visualization: Vegetarian-Non-Vegetarian/Rice-Wheat Line: India. Also clearly demarcates the cow belt. From the questions, I probably should put down my provisional thinking why that might be so here. Level 1 explanation: wet-rice works well with fish ecology of the river valley civilizations.

Listened to Harold McGee at the Oxford Symp on the tedium of growing vanilla. Did not realize his dissertation was „Keats/the Progress of Taste." An English instructor whose life’s work is writing on organic chemistry. Career moves. Kids watch/learn @Harold_McGee @OxfordFoodSymp Then I read Ken's piece on herbs/spices in 3 Roman cookbooks, Apicius (4th.c. CE), Martino (1470), Artusi (1891). Hypothesis: spices are exotics, driven by status. Herbs are local, driven by palate. Lesson #1: No basil in Italian cooking for a long time @kenalbala @OxfordFoodSymp

#nytfoodfestival: Feeding the World. Good intentions + good topic + good people = inane, apolitical, self-congratulatory commentary. Everything hinging on individual waste + charity. A waste of time. Missed opportunity. Bottura talks way to much about everything. Celebrity driven ill-informed nonsense. Mostly.