"Bob" Veal: What's New Is . . . Um, Old

There's really not much new under the sun, as evidenced by this article. (Warning: If you're squeamish, you may want to take a pass.)

Nineteenth-century Americans routinely sold, bought, and ate "bob veal." Many people regarded it as a delicacy; others were horrified at the idea. In either case, outrage over the notion of "bob veal" surfaced with yawn-inducing regularity. As it has, apparently, right in the here and now of the twenty-first century.

And it's not just bob veal that got Americans cranked up. Every so often, someone would launch a crusade about slaughterhouse cruelty, about its impact on animals and humans. Etc.

Remember the uproar in early 2008 about "inhumane" practices at a California slaughterhouse? (I commented on it at the time. You can read that here and here.) As I noted then, there's nothing new there. Dig around in nineteenth century newspapers, you'll find hundreds of examples of that same story.

It all comes down to choices: If you want meat, well, there's a price to pay. And there's no way to produce affordable meat without, well, skinning a few calves. (Yes, for those who are wondering, I do eat meat.)

Tip o' the mug to Chris Raines for pointing me toward this story. He blogs here. Follow him on Twitter, too: @ITweetMeat.

In the Kitchen: Chicken, Chard, and Barley Soup

It's November 1. (Or will be by the time you read this.) You're seriously overdosed on shitty candy. The antidote? Soup. No doubt there are bazillions of versions of this dish out there, because this is an obvious combination of foods. This particular version is what came out of my brain and cupboard one night.

Serve it with this: Slice a baguette lengthwise. Spread both pieces with salted butter. Set under the broiler for six minutes. Ohhhhhh.....

• 1/2 pound of boneless chicken
• 1 c. barley (the real stuff; not that boxed instant crap)
• 1 small onion
• a couple of carrots
• a couple of celery stalks
• one bunch of chard
• can of chopped tomatoes
• can of white beans (cannilini or navy) (or whatever) (No, I have no idea how to spell cannilini) (Canillini?)
• a half cup or so of grated parmesan

Fill a saucepan with four or five cups of water and heat to boil. Add the barley and cook until done to your preference. (I like mine a bit chewy, which takes about 25 minutes.) When it's finished, drain the barley, reserving the water.

Put the chicken in a soup pot, add water to cover, boil, and then turn heat to a simmer. Cook for, I dunno, twenty minutes or so? Until the chicken is done. Remove the chicken and reserve the water. (You're going to use the barley and chicken water as the soup base.)

While that's happening, remove the stems from the chard. Chop those and set aside. Roll the chard leaves into bundles and slice them. Chop the onion, celery, and carrots, setting the onion aside so you can cook it first. To the soup pot, add a quarter or so of olive oil and the onion. Cook on medium till onion is golden brown. Add the carrot, celery, and chard stems. Cook five or six minutes.

While that's underway, turn to the chicken, which should be cool by now. Cut it into spoon-sized bits. Add the can of tomatoes to the soup pot; cook another five or six minutes. Add the chard to the pot. Cover the pan, and cook seven, eight minutes; until the chard is cooked down. To the pot add the beans, barley, chicken, and some of the barley-chicken liquid. How much liquid? I don't know. Four cups? You want the soup to have some body, so don't get carried away.

Add some salt and pepper. Let it cook on medium-low heat for a half hour or so. Pour the wine. Sprinkle some of the cheese on your soup. Enjoy. Your brain will forget all that sugar.

Kindle versus Nook: The "Smackdown"

The past month or so, new e-reading devices have poured out of the --- I was gonna say "woodwork," but somehow that cliche doesn't quite cut it --- so I'll say instead --- are appearing like mold after a flood. There have been so many that I'm having trouble keeping them straight. But so far the only serious contender  to Amazon's Kindle is, near as I can tell, Barnes and Noble's "Nook." (Yes, if you use one, you're enjoying nookie....)

So this excellent piece today at the Atlantic is  helpful: A summary of the differences, pros, and cons of the two devices. Big tip o' the mug to Dexter for sending the link my way.

Shout-Outs For Two Good Guys: Jacob Grier and Carl Miller

. . . who have nothing to do with each other. (Er, I mean whose Good Deeds are unrelated to one another.) (Although I doubt they know each other.)

First, if you live in the Portland, Oregon, area, you're lucky: A group of local mixologists are mixing it up ("it" in this case being beer and spirits) this coming Sunday on behalf of Schoolhouse Supplies, which provides school supplies for kids in need. Read more here at Jacob Grier's blog. Then be there, or be square.

Second shout-out (and, really, the two are not connected): chops to Carl Miller at BeerBooks.com. Besides running BeerBooks, Carl is an accomplished historian whose focus is beer. This week I learned  that his new project involves tracking down the story --- the real one --- about the Conrad-Busch-Budweiser relationship. This is a labor of love (although one that I hope will reward him in more than love) by one of the good guys.

So, go get 'em, Carl. (Frankly, better you than me wading through all those legal briefs. . . )

How's that for random acts of blogging? Well, okay, long as I'm here and long as you asked: Yes, am hard at work on the manuscript. Spent a miserable week tearing a chapter apart and trying, with not much success, to reassemble it. Every book has such a chapter: one that does not want to come together. Does. Not. But I'll get the bastard in the end. 'Cause I always do.

Historical Tidbits: Beer Styles and the Law, 1913

In 1913, the editors of the brewing trade magazine American Brewer contacted the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Inspection Board in hopes that someone there would clarify the meaning of the (still relatively new) pure food and drug laws. Under what conditions, asked the magazine’s staff, could a brewer use the term “Pilsen” or “Bohemian” on his labels?

The inspection board’s chair responded reported that brewers could avoid paying fines (or worse) for violations of the laws by sticking to beer beers “of the true style after which they are named.” Otherwise, the government would consider them to be “misbranded.”

If, for example, a brewer wanted to use a label or trademark containing the words “Pilsen Style” or Wuerzburger Style,” he must “use the same materials and process of manufacture” as used in the country where those beers originated.

He thought it unlikely that any American brewer would be able to comply. As he pointed out, for decades brewers had added  corn and rice to  their beers because “the people of the United States did not desire a heavy type of beer made from malt.”

“It therefore seems to me. . . that we are not producing in this country beers of the Wuerzburger or Culmbacher types” but rather an American beer with a foreign name.

“I think that the sooner the brewers of this country get away from the use of foreign names on their beers and sell their products on their merits, letting the consumer know that they are an American type of beer different in quality from foreign beers, the better it will be for the whole industry.”

The editors at AB disagreed. There was “no guarantee,” they pointed out, that a German brewer making, say, Bohemian or Wuerzburger beer was not also using adjuncts.

Moreover, brewing processes were not set in stone: A brewer could create a Bohemian type beer using any number of processes and materials. Still, the editors agreed that brewers should stop using foreign names because it was clear that the Department of Agriculture intended to enforce the law: A year earlier, the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Georgia had seized a shipment of bottled beer whose labels read “Special Export Extra Pale Beer. Brewed from the very best malt and hops.”

The attorney claimed that the beer contained “little if any malt” and plenty of “other grains.” (The brewer paid a one hundred dollar fine.)

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Source: “The Pure Food Law in Relation to the Brewing Industry,” American Brewer 46, no. 5 (May 1913): 230-231.

The (Mis)Information That Drives Historians Crazy

This is the kind of crap that drives me batty. The other day I was reading something (can't remember now what it was) that led me to The Kitchen Garden Network. According to the site's "About" page, the people at KGN are focused on

the politics and economic forces that influence what reaches the food outlets where we shop for what we eat.

Okay. Fine. If they'd stopped there, I wouldn't have had the urge to bang my head against the wall. Instead, the site's founder goes on to note that

Up until the 1970’s a large portion of our food came from local sources . . . ’   Roadside stands, farmer’s markets, local co-ops and the like were a given. Organic produce had not yet become commonly available. By the 1980’s everything changed. The political climate altered the agricultural landscape in many dramatic and detrimental ways. Many farmers went out of business and farms began to be sold off at a rapid pace.

Oh. Ohhhh..... My aching head. Where should I start to correct the errors? (*1)

Should I begin by changing "1970s" to "1870"? Or explain that prior to the 1970s, few Americans bought their food at "roadside stands, farmer's markets [or] local co-ops"? Or dissect the claim that somehow in the 1980s, "everything changed"?

Or just explain that when I read stuff such uninformed nonsense, first I cringe, and then I worry? Because the current debate about food is being fueled by this kind of inane, inaccurate "information." Worse, substantive discussion about the global food system, climate change, and the like is in danger of being derailed by a lack of insight, context, and history.

It drives historians like me crazy. And frankly, it scares the crap out of me. (If too many cooks ruin the soup,  too many ignorant minds and chattering mouths destroy the debate.) So --- maybe I should choose door number three and get back to work on my current project. Because  the "food fight" needs a historian's input.

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*1:  Mind you, I'm not picking on the people at Kitchen Garden Network. I could have used dozens of other, similar examples. This one just happened to be handy.