Eat This Newsletter 108

An opportunity to change food for the better

These are the links behind the piece. Only the last two are recent. For what I think follows, you can read Eat This Newsletter 108 online. Please feel to subscribe, too.

When in Rome An eternal story of mythic history

Golden fork and spoon to make fettucine Alfredo

Cover of The Eternal Table According to Virgil, Rome owes its existence to a food-based prophesy that persuaded Aeneas that this was indeed the place for the weary Trojans to make a new home. And according to the proprietors of both of the restaurants that claim to serve the original, authentic fettucine Alfredo, Alfredo himself invented the dish in the 1920s.

In her new book, Karima Moyer-Nocchi examines The Eternal Table from Aeneas to Alfredo, and about all one can conclude is that from the very beginning Rome, like everywhere else, has been subject to waves of fashion, innovation and conservatism.

Golden fork and spoon

Pasta Alfredo offers a perfect example. The cutlery in the banner photograph and those in this image illustrate the unreal history of the dish. One contains the original inscription, one does not. One is original, one is not. Which is which?

Notes

  1. Karima Moyer-Nocchi’s website is The Eternal Table.
  2. Thanks to the Victoria & Albert Museum for the little bit of music in the middle.
  3. There’s an awful lot of Alfredo stuff on YouTube, but this is the one Karima mentioned in the episode.

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Eat This Newsletter 107

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A sweet sour story Immersed in apple cider vinegar

vinegar barrels

I went to Kilfinane, in Ireland, for the Hearsay Audio Festival. I stayed because Maurice Gilbert offered to show me round his apple empire at Ballyhoura Artisan Food Park.

cover artwork with photo of Maurice Gilbert sniffing vinegarI was sitting in O’Seachnasaíth’s public house, having just finished an excellent take-out that I’d brought in from Tasty Bites, because that’s how things work there, and enjoying a final Guinness. A chap I recognised, because I’d seen him grilling hamburgers at the Ballyhoura Artisan Food Park, introduced himself, and I learned that he was in fact part owner of Ballyhoura. What followed was an excellent conversation about the various apple juices he’d concocted, which I had been enjoying all weekend, and, which really piqued my interest, a brief account of how they made their apple cider vinegar.

It being late at night, in a somewhat noisy pub, recording was out of the question. Maurice was kind enough to offer to do the whole thing again for me in the morning, so I changed my departure plans and showed up, armed this time with my recorder.

Notes

  1. Ballyhoura has a website.

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Eat This Newsletter 106