Leonard Lopate Show – Globavores: Corn
Click here to listen.
Heritage Radio Interview
Click to here to listen to The Accidental Food Historian with Linda Pelaccio.
Word of Mouth Food Writing Workshop January 2013
WORD OF MOUTH:
Led by food journalist and author Betty Fussell, our Word of Mouth workshop will focus on the human dynamic of eating and telling. A place as rich in food culture as Tepoztlan provides a natural site in which to explore the interactions of both social narratives. By experimenting in a variety of non-fiction forms, from memoir to essays to tweets and blogs, we will discover individually and as a group how best to mouth our words and tell our personal stories through our shared dialogue with food.
UNDER THE VOLCANO:
Under the Volcano is a weeklong retreat for writers who are ready to come up for air in an atmosphere of generous critique. Convening every January in the foothills of central Mexico, we meet outside ordinary time, in a program designed to stimulate both mind and heart. All our workshops combine high-level small group sessions with private conferences and offer ample opportunity for relaxation, discovery and solitude.
Our roots in the village of Tepoztlán enable us to offer our participants an insider’s look at one of Mexico’s most beautiful and historically rich pueblos, one that has maintained its pre-Hispanic dignity through an impressive array of traditions and proud resistance to over-development.
For more information click here.
Cooking with the Troops
This is a wonderful organization that is helping troops and their families through cooking classes and events. I look forward to getting involved myself this year. Learn more by clicking here.
In America, Corn is King: Colin McEnroe of NPR interviews Betty
This is a strange time in the life of corn. The 2012 US corn crop is getting smaller by the hour because of the terrible heat and drought in the Midwest. It’s difficult to know what that means, because from a certain perspective, this country produces way too much corn.
There’s also a mild uproar over so-called “Agent Orange” corn, a strain genetically modified to be immune to the active ingredient in Agent Orange, the controversial Vietnam era herbicide. The idea is to start plating a crop that could be protected from weeds by 2,4-D, which is associated with all kinds of health problems. (Mmmmm, good!)
On our show today, you’ll learn more about the odd linkage between humans and corn. For ancient MesoAmerican civilizations, it was a sacred substance that permeated all life.
Today, it does permeate all life. Corn is in everything.
Washington Post Honors Culinary Moms
Whether you learned kitchen craft at the elbow of a family matriarch or have come to understand the significance of food through the printed word, chances are good that women you’ve never met have imprinted on your culinary DNA. They are mothers of invention, in effect, who have shown us the way by instruction and by example — their strengths passed on in legacy, in creativity and in recipes we adapt as our own.
Here are just a few of the many, some perhaps lesser known these days, who continue to inspire us. Click Here!
BETTY FUSSELL understood early on that people have deeply personal responses to food, and that writing about food would be a significant contribution in the realm of American culture. The list of publications her work has appeared in speaks to the quality of her prose, which is wonderfully vivid and well researched. Her 2008 book, “Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef,” was well ahead of the pendulum swing toward renewed interest in that topic.
An energetic and dramatic speaker, the native Californian began her moderating duties on a recent cookbook panel by declaring: “Cookbooks are a fraud. . . . They pretend to be how-to manuals and they’re actually dreamworks.” By next year she hopes to finish her 12th book, “How to Cook a Coyote,” which has to do with being at the bottom of the predator chain. She will turn 85 in July.
The role of food as it pertains to old age is a current fascination of hers: “It becomes a ritual of order and pleasure, a funny kind of delicious anchor,” she says. “Memories get clearer, and my tastes have simplified.”
— Bonnie S. Benwick
Betty at the Food Book Fair
FOOD + MEAT + BONES
Sunday May 6th, 11:45am-12:45am
Andrew F. Smith, Author, Eating History
Betty Fussell, Author, Raising Steaks
Bruce Weinstein, Author, Goat and Ham
Mark Scarbrough, Author, Goat and Ham
America consumes more meat than any country in the world. We have books, TV Shows, shops, shirts and ad campaigns devoted to meat. Butchers are newfound celebrities and the quest for the Holy Grail has been replaced by the search for America’s best hamburger. Why are we so obsessed with bacon and burgers? What cultural and historical legacies have led us to be a meat-crazed nation? Why are butchers so sexy but hamburger flippers are left out of the spotlight? Get the meat and bones of these answers!
Betty on “Cooking up a Storm” with Marja Samsom
Cooking Up a Storm: “Egg”-cellent with Betty Fussell
Click Here to Listen! Cooking up a Storm
Betty Fussell stops by the Clocktower to pay a visit to Marja Samsom and conduct experiments in dessert alchemy. This episode highlights the egg-based dessert Ile Flottante or “Floating Island” using a recipe that references techniques dating back to the 16th century.
To create your own sweet and fluffy egg island prepare:
For the meringue:
6 whipped egg whites
A dash of salt
3/4 cups sugar for beating
After peaked, add an additional 1/4 cup sugar
Drop whites in boiling water
Cook for 1.5 min on each side
For the custard:
Add the eggs’ yolks to warmed half & half (or milk – depending on the thickness you desire)
Whisk & chill
Add syrups & orange zest to taste
Betty at the Roger Smith Cookbook Conference 2012 “Cookbooks as Dreams of the Ideal”
Cookbooks are much more than collections of instructions to get dinner on the table. From our earliest culinary records through the present (and beyond, we predict), cookbooks document culture, technology, identity, and even aspirations. What makes cookbooks a unique resource for historians, anthropologists, sociologists and others is that most cookbooks do this unconsciously; that is, in the guise of filling a practical need for practical instruction, cookbooks teach the careful reader about the values, needs, and desires of the cookbook audience.
Chair: Betty Fussell, Writer and Lecturer
Panelists: Paul Freedman, Professor of History, Yale University, Jane Lear, Freelance Writer, Editor and Editorial Consultant; Molly O’Neill, Author
