Coffeehouses and Proust

Coffeehouses had existed for centuries in the Muslim Ottoman realms before they spread to Christian Europe in the mid 17th century. They were introduced by merchants and migrants with links between the two worlds. The first was established on St Mark’s Square in Venice in 1647. Five years later Pasqua Rosée, a Greek, set up London’s first coffeehouse in St Michael’s Alley in the City of London. Armenians played decisive roles in establishing the first cafés in Paris (at the St Germain fair in 1671) and Vienna (a spy in the post-siege Habsburg capital set up its first kaffeehaus in 1685). Organised around the consumption of a stimulant, these places contrasted with the raucous intoxication associated with taverns. Coffeehouses soon emerged as centres of exchange, information and debate.  Jeremy Cliffe, New Statesman

e anche di dolcetti si parla, parlando di Proust:

Over the course of Villa Albertine’s Proust Weekend, a series of talks, workshops, and readings celebrating the forthcoming English translation of the last volume of the Recherche and the centenary of Proust’s death, I ate more cakes per diem than usual: on Sunday afternoon, a miniature pistachio financier, a Lego-shaped and moss-textured cake that reminded me of the enormous chartreuse muffins at my college cafeteria; on Saturday morning, a crisp, disc-like, almond-sliver-sprinkled shortbread cookie with a hole, which reminded me of a Chinese coin; and, on Friday night, at a holiday party, a dish of Reddi-wip and sour cream studded with canned mandarin slices and maraschino cherries apparently called ambrosia salad. It reminded me of the music video for Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.” But these were really only preliminary research exercises for the episode in which Proust Weekend was to culminate: a “Proust-inspired madeleine event with surprise guests”!

The history of Nazism in Small Objects

‘I can’t cook,’ writes the historian Karina Urbach, ‘which is probably why it took me so long to realise that we had two cookbooks on our shelf at home with the same title’ – a 1938 edition by her grandmother Alice and one from the following year attributed to Rudolf Rösch. When she did notice, however, it provided a key to unlocking some fascinating family history and a little known strand of Nazi persecution. Matthew Reisz, Spectator

interessante recensione a due libri che attraverso oggetti comuni - un libro di cucina, un coltello - scrivono insolite storie del nazismo. I libri sono: Alice’s Book: How the Nazis Stole My Grandmother’s Cookbook, di Karina Urbach (MacLehose/Quercus); e My Grandfather’s Knife and Other Stories of War and Belonging (Joseph Pearson). Nella foto Alice Urbach - l'autrice del libro di cucina di cui si parla.

E, dagli archivi del Guardian, un articolo sull'importanza della letteratura nell'insegnarci a capire meglio i sentimenti altrui:

New research shows works by writers such as Charles Dickens and Téa Obreht sharpen our ability to understand others' emotions – more than thrillers or romance novels. Liz Bury, The Guardian

Going Gaga for Gazoz

If the Israeli gazoz revival could be attributed to a single person, that would be Binyanim (Benny) Briga, the owner of Cafe Levinski 41, a hole-in-the-wall establishment in Tel Aviv’s Florentin neighborhood. Five years ago, Briga, previously a restaurant owner, settled in the tiny location and started offering customers abundant, photogenic gazoz, using entirely house-made ingredients... Se volete leggere la storia del gazoz, cliccate qui. Devo ammettere di aver scelto questo post perché mi piaceva il titolo, ma suppongo che anche la bevanda sia gradevole, perché non aprire un gazoz bar a Milano?

Bitter

Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor, With Recipes di Jennifer McLagan (Ten Speed Press) un libro di cucina che celebra quel che sembra la nuova moda in cucin in America, l'amore per quel che è amaro. "But this is a peculiar moment in American culinary life. We no longer flee from the taste of bitter. We fête it: hop-fueled beers, single-origin coffees, intensely dark chocolates, imported amaros, foraged wild greens. These are not peripheral tastes in modern America. They’re the tastes that people who get excited about food and drink are apt to get most excited about. The modern American food movement is bitter at its core". Nicholas Day, slate.

Apple Cake

"Apple Cake" è il titolo del racconto di Allegra Goodman uscito sull'ultimo numero del New Yorker. Si svolge intorno al letto di Jeanne morente e ha una delle più belle scene di morte che abbia letto, "She wanted to open her eyes, to rise up from her bed. She wanted music and she wanted apples. She wanted to touch the sandy beach, to feel summer's heat. She wanted all this, but she couldn't have it. She died because she couldn't breathe". 

In un'intervista Goodman fa anche una considerazione molto interessante tra letteratura e cibo, "My mother Madeleine’s rugelach were unbelievable. I could not use them here because they would have upstaged everything and everyone else. Apple cake is food for a short story. Rugelach require a novel". I rugelach sono dei dolci ebraici, delle specie di croissant (v. foto). newyorker.

Woman of Valor

Lihi Lapid, Woman of Valor (Gefen Publishing House). “I realized I have two women living inside of me. One is the donut from Hanukkah, and the other is the champagne from New Year’s. The champagne wants to party all night and the donut needs to wake up tomorrow for the kids. The donut wants the kids to eat only food that she made. And the champagne stopped on the way and bought cold pizza, because she didn’t have time.” 
Lihi Lapid ha 46 anni, è israeliana ed è la moglie del ministro delle finanze di Israele. Tiene una rubrica per Yediot Aharonot che parla di ricette e aneddoti di amore e bambini (un'idea che mi piace molto).  tablet.

Olive Oil

Si è parlato anche in Italia di Extra Virgin Suicide, un fumetto che illustra la produzione del nostro olio d'oliva extra vergine. Le vignette, molto carine e sofisticate, sono di Nicholas Blechman, che è stato mio studente, alla fine degli anni '80, a Brown. Molto bravo nello studio - oltre che nel disegno - e piuttosto alternativo nella vita. nyt.

A Girl and Her Pig

A Girl and Her Pig è il titolo del primo libro di cucina di April Bloomfield, chef e co-proprietaria di tre noti ristoranti di NYC, The Spotted Pig, The Breslin Bar & Dining Room (citati dalla guida Michelin) e The John Dory Oyster Bar. "The cookbook, which Bloomfield collaborated on with the food writer J. J. Goode, enthusiastically advocates for the oft-derided British cuisine, championing hearty, rustic dishes. Alongside recipes inspired by Marcella Hazan and England’s Mediterranean neighbors (gnudi, mussels stuffed with mortadella, carta da musica with bottarga), appear Anglo-Saxon classics like potato bread, beef-and-blue-cheese pie, trifle, liver and onions, “faggots” (baby-fist-size packets of pork cheeks), and Eton mess". newyorker.