James Beard (1903–1985)
Posted by davincicook in Chef Talks, Culinary Greats on March 3, 2010
Father of Modern Day American Gastronomy
James Beard
American food and cooking expert James Andrews Beard promoted excellence and variety in dining experiences. A native of Portland, Oregon, he was born on May 5, 1903 to Mary Elizabeth Jones Beard and Jonathan A. Beard, a shipyard appraiser. His mother taught him cookery of all types, including informal dishes suitable for picnics, backyard feasts, and barbecues. In the introduction to The Cook’s Catalogue (1975), Beard quipped, “I grew up in the Iron Age of American cookery. We had a cast-iron wood stove.… For stove top cooking we used iron skillets, iron Dutch ovens, and iron stew pots.” He declared iron the king in his mother’s kitchen in Gearhart, seventy miles northwest of Portland, but conferred some culinary credit on “earthenware, tin, some copper, and the ghastly enameled pots known as graniteware.” Read the rest of this entry »
Origin of Spanish Tapas
Posted by davincicook in Cuisine and Culture, Food History on March 3, 2010
cosas de picar, cazuelas & pinchos
After Mohammed’s followers gave up gambling, pork, and alcohol following his death in 632, the spread of Islam reduced the number of places in the Arab world where alcohol was available. In Muslim Spain, laws forbade the serving of alcoholic drinks except as an ingredient in cooking or an accompaniment to food. Barkeepers began serving drinks in mugs capped with a lid, or tapa.
From the practice of placing small morsels of food on the lid came the Spanish tradition of tapas, small dishes of bar food that made drinking legitimate. As described by the Spanish food critic Alicia Rio, these tasty bites encouraged diners to admire the cook’s art and to engage in genial conversation.
Today, the small savory servings come in three types: cosas de picar (finger food) such as olives, pinchos served on toothpicks, and cazuelas (small servings), dishes topped with sauce.
Can chefs and cooks be food scientists?
Posted by bogart in Food Science on February 15, 2010
A Food Scientist
Typically, it’s people trained in Food Science who are responsible for supplying the abundance of safe and nutritious foods found on the store shelves. Food Scientists are the people who make sure our food supply is safe, convenient, and long-lasting, yet still as nutritious as possible.
Food Science is an applied field, where numerous disciplines like chemistry, physics, engineering, biochemistry, microbiology, and even psychology are applied to the production and preservation of foods. In contrast to cooks and chefs, whose main interests are in the kitchen, Food Scientists are concerned with the large-scale production of high-quality nutritious foods that are safe for consumption, particularly after extended times of storage.
What’s new for 2010?
Posted by davincicook in Chef Talks on January 20, 2010
Happy New Year!
The author at the World Food Expo 2009
Been busy these past few months preparing for my ServSafe® Food Protection Manager (FPM) certification so I haven’t updated my blog since. Anyways, the good news is, I passed the FPM exams and also passed the advanced training for ServSafe Instructor/Proctor exams so I am now a ServSafe® Certified Instructor & Registered Proctor aside from being a Certified ServSafe® Food Protection Manager. I am currently working as a culinary instructor for food safety and will be having ServSafe training and exams the whole year.
For this year I’m gearing up on giving you tons of culinary articles related to food safety, kitchen science, food trivia and history, quick tips, delectable recipes and more. Follow me on twitter for my latest tweets, http://twitter.com/davincicook and let us explore the art & science of the food we eat. Happy eating everyone. -The Davinci Cook