A Guide to Culinary Research

While I've taught a number of classes about how one would begin culinary research at the New York Public Library, I understand that people can't always make it to midtown in the middle of the day, nor does everyone live in New York. For those reasons and more, I've put together a brief tutorial on how to begin culinary research at a library and I will attempt to make this as universally applicable to other libraries as possible.

Running Rampant: Ramp Suppers from the Library of Congress

(Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Click on images for more information.)

If you live in New York, as I do, and frequent the kinds of restaurants that serve seasonal food, as I sometimes do, you can't escape ramps in May, even if you wanted to.

Ramp pancakes, ramp pesto, charred ramp aioli, pickled ramps, ramp butter, and grilled ramps, have quickly become the allium du jour through the spring months, finding their way into menus and dishes and pickling jars.

But there is a fascinating folklife/foodways component to ramps, as beautifully photographed and documented by the Library of Congress Folklife website.

Ramps are one of the first edible wild foods to grow in the Appalachia mountain region in spring, and to celebrate this annual rite, ramp suppers and festivals are organized throughout the area.

(American Folklife Center poster collection)

The oldest festival is said to be the Cosby Festival, which was founded in 1954 and takes place on Kineauvista Hill, near Cosby in East Tennessee.

(Courtesy of Library of Congress)

And then there are the spring suppers at the Ramp House in Drews Creek, West Virginia where weeks before the supper is held, the community comes together to prepare for the big event. One of the most important jobs is to clean the ramps, and to do so, the women gather together in ramp circles. "The female camraderie on these evenings, pungent with the aroma of ramps, coffee, and sassafras tea, and punctuated with laughter, makes this an event in its own right," writes Mary Hufford in Folklife Center News (1998).

(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Hufford's piece is filled with fascinating anecdotes about ramps. They're higher in vitamin C than oranges, they're believed to thin and purify the blood, and "they satisfy the body's craving for living food at the end of a winter filled with produce that's been dried, canned, frozen, or shipped from faraway places."

Another interesting tidbit about ramps: The Menominee Indians referred to the smelly ramps as "pikwute sikakushia" which meant skunk. So they called a large ramp-filled Illinois land mass "shikako" which was then anglicezed to Chicago.

The ramp history in the United States is rich and deep, and I'll be thinking of those ramp circles the next time I buy a bunch from the farmer's market.

For Hufford's beautiful piece and more photographs of Ramp House Suppers in West Virginia, see the Library of Congress' "Ramp Suppers, Biodiversity, and the Integrity of 'The Mountains'."

Oh, What a Night...

Looking through the world famous Savoy Cocktail Book can make you thirsty: thirsty for their clever and creative drinks; thirsty for more information about Harry Craddock, the bartender at the Savoy Hotel in London who wrote the lovely book; and thirsty for a modern cocktail book that can make drinks sound as good as this one.

Well, some of my thirst was momentarily quenched last night after I made a Savoy cocktail at home. The drink is called One Exciting Night, but unless you call watching My Nine News with Harry Martin and Brenda Blackmon exciting, than I'm afraid I didn't live up to the name's slightly high expectations. The flavor, on the other hand was completely satisfying. Equal parts sweet and dry vermouth, gin, sugar, and a splash of orange juice work well together and I wouldn't shy away from making it again...but next time I'll attempt to do right by its title.



One Exciting Night
(from the Savoy Cocktail Book)

1 dash orange juice (I added more than a dash. Call it a splash)
1/3 French [dry] vermouth
1/3 Italian [sweet] vermouth
1/3 gin (the Savoy specifies Plymouth for you purists)

Frost edge of glass with castor sugar. Put all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake well and strain into Port Wine glass. Squeeze lemon peel on top.

On the Menu: Nikita Khrushchev's Breakfast

On Sunday, September 20th, 1959 at 8:30 in the morning, Nikita Khrushchev left Union Station in Los Angeles on the Southern Pacific train line bound for San Francisco. This was his breakfast menu.

(click to enlarge)

Khrushchev's visit to the United States, the first for a Soviet premier, captured the headlines and occupied much of the press of the day. His visit was the result of a campaign led by Vice President Richard Nixon, who himself had just returned from a successful trip to the Soviet Union and Poland, urging Khrushchev to visit the U.S., and President Eisenhower to pay a visit to the U.S.S.R.

After hemming and hawing from both parties, a deal was sealed. Khrushchev, en famille, would visit the U.S in September, 1959, with Eisenhower reciprocating the following autumn.

Khrushchev's trip to the U.S was, by most accounts, successful. But when the State Department informed the Premier that his trip to Disneyland had been cancelled due to security concerns, Khrushchev's temper flared. Khrushchev was reported as saying, "What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera...or have gangsters taken hold of the place that can destroy me? I cannot find words to explain this to my people." As the New York Times reported, "The incident was probably the first time that Disneyland has figured as a controversial subject in Soviet-United States relations."

Presumably, Khrushchev got over his disappointment by meeting the likes of Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, and the stars of Hollywood. And perhaps his breakfast the next morning didn't hurt either.

(click to enlarge)