Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [61]
BLOODY MARY
It was probably in Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, legendary and dingy that the Bloody Mary was first served in the early 1920s and named either for Mary Queen of Scots, or a girl in Chicago who worked at a bar called Bucket of Blood. The formula was inspired and simple: tomato juice and vodka in a two-to-one ratio, some lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, salt, and pepper. It may even have been thought to be health-giving.
Exact proportions are to taste, but with six ounces of tomato juice there should be three ounces of vodka, the juice of half a lemon, five or six dashes of Worcestershire sauce, and a couple dashes of Tabasco.
Over the years, there have been many enhancements and variations: celery salt, fresh horseradish, sweet and sour mixer, beef bouillon, and even ketchup have been added in various quantities.
The original will still satisfy. It can be drunk at any hour, but it is somehow especially good at a late breakfast.
PICNIC
The word “picnic” first appeared in English in the mid-18th century, from the French piquer, meaning “to pick,” combined with nique, an outdated word that meant “trifle.” Today, it covers everything from a sandwich in the park to an outdoor barbeque, to Manet’s sophisticated painting Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, showing two men dressed in jackets and ties sitting on the ground beside a naked woman and a toppled basket of bread and fruit. But it is always a shared meal outdoors.
A wonderful and comprehensive picnic menu appears in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, originally a series of stories he told his young son, Alistair. In the book, the water Rat introduces his friend Mole to the pleasures of a day boating on the river:
[He] reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon basket.
“Shove that under your feet,” he observed to Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the skulls again.
“What’s inside it?” asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.
“There’s cold chicken inside it,” replied the Rat briefly:
“coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls-cressandwidgepottedmeat-gingerbeerlemonadesodawater—”
SICK DOG
You can say, “Don’t feed him,” but people sometimes think, “Oh, just this little bit.” Too many good-hearted people, especially at a big party, can make a dog happy, but then pretty sick.
A remedy that usually works is to feed your dog the following for two or three days:
1 or ½ tablet Pepto-Bismol twice a day
Boiled white rice
Boiled skinless chicken or lean meat
It may be a little difficult getting the Pepto-Bismol down. You have to be smarter than he is.
MELONS · CHOPSTICKS
M. F. K. FISHER · THOMAS JEFFERSON
SYLVESTER GRAHAM · CRABS · MAYONNAISE
YEAR OF EATING · GARLIC · JULIETTE RÉCAMIER
NAXOS LUNCH · WEDGWOOD · ICE CREAM
TOUR D’ARGENT · GAZPACHO · ADDERS
GLASSWARE · LOBSTER · DRESS · LANG RULES
DAIQUIRI · BARBECUE · MARTINI
GREEK BOYFRIEND · ICE-CREAM TYPES
SHAW · FRANCILLON SALAD · BEER
THE HEDGES · DISASTER
TASTING THE FOOD
SUGAR
MELONS
“There are only two good things in the world, women and roses,” said French poet François de Malherbe, whose nickname was Father Lust, “and two choice tidbits, women and melons.” He was a man of his time, the late 16th century, when melons were enormously popular, not least with his king, Henry IV, and the one who followed, Louis XIII, for whom Malherbe was also the court poet. In 1583, a scholarly document listed fifty ways to eat melons. Nearly one hundred years later, they were still the rage, and an anonymous writer noted that there was not a single meal that did not include them, “served in pyramids and mountains, as if it were necessary to eat it to the point of suffocation.”
These early melons were cantaloupes,