Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [72]
In the 17th century, only the rich could afford sugar, which was brought to Venice from India and sold as a luxury item or sometimes as a medicine. The slave trade was essentially created to support its production, especially in the Caribbean and Brazil, where on large plantations with cost-free labor it could be produced much less expensively than with sugar beets grown in Europe.
Today, available and cheap, sugar, along with corn syrup, is the number one food additive in the United States. Made from sugar cane or sugar beets, it takes a number of forms: white or refined sugar; brown sugar, which is incompletely refined and retains some molasses that gives it color; confectioners’ sugar; and molasses itself, produced during refining. For white sugar, the refining process involves half a dozen steps, starting with the crushing of the cane. The resulting liquid is filtered to remove impurities and the color of the molasses that coated the sucrose crystals of the raw sugar; then the liquid is evaporated and dries into granulated white sugar.
Sugar provides quick energy, but its nutritional value is essentially nil. Yet Americans now consume, on average, about 150 pounds of it a year per person in food or drinks, the equivalent of about 32 teaspoons per day. A single teaspoon doesn’t have many calories—only about fifteen, compared to about two for artificial sweetners.
VICHYSSOISE · OUZO, RAKI, ARAK
COLUMBUS · WATERMELON · SOYER · YOGURT
FIRST HOME-COOKED MEAL · DOG LIFE
TOMATOES · CLOS MONTMARTRE · PEACHES
DIAMOND JIM BRADY · GUACAMOLE
BLACKOUT · JULIA CHILD · CORKAGE
VAUX-LE-VICOMTE · WINE STAINS · OLIVES
ARTICHOKES · CRU DES PTOLÉMÉES · DENIS PAPIN
APRICOTS · POMPEII · FIGS IN WHISKEY
POISONOUS MUSHROOMS · SECRET FORMULA
CHERRIES · ARMAGNAC · CHINESE CUISINE
DONALD SULTAN DINNER
CORN
VICHYSSOISE
It is hard to resist a dish with a wonderful name. Eggplant—which is actually a fruit—as a name is nothing, and even eggplant parmigiana is not much better, but imam bayildi, which means “the priest fainted,” is another matter. The eggplant is stuffed with a mixture of chopped onion, tomato, and parsley, all browned with garlic and currants and baked slowly. It was the aroma of this dish that made the legendary priest faint from sheer joy.
Then there is vichyssoise, cold, smooth leek and potato soup, now a classic. Julia Child dismissed it as an American invention based on the genuine leek and potato soup (“smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make”), and Richard Olney an equally great authority, cast only a brief glance at it while extolling potage aux poireaux et pommes de terre, as it is prepared night after night in French working-class homes, which carries, Olney said, a message of well-being that he would be happy to receive every evening of his life.
Vichyssoise, in a sense, is American. It was created by a French chef, Louis Diat, in New York, in the first part of the 20th century Diat came from the region around Vichy, and the soup was based on the memory of one of his mother’s. Oddly enough, he didn’t call it vichyssoise in his own cookbook, but the name was attractive, and it stuck.
The recipe for vichyssoise is, in fact, simple:
VICHYSSOISE
3 cups sliced white leeks
1 medium onion, sliced (optional)
Butter
3 cups potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 ½ quarts chicken broth or bouillon
1 cup heavy cream or mixed heavy cream and milk
Salt to taste
Chives, minced
Soften the leeks and onion in butter in a covered pan. Add the potatoes and chicken broth or bouillon, and cook for thirty minutes or so, until all are tender. Purée in a blender or force through a fine sieve. Return this to the pot and add the cream. Stir. Bring nearly to a boil, then season with salt. Cool, then