BERNEVAL

J.M. Coetzee Nobel Prize Lecture

But now, reflecting further, there begins to creep into his breast a touch of fellow-feeling for his imitators. For it seems to him now that there are but a handful of stories in the world; and if the young are to be forbidden to prey upon the old then they must sit for ever in silence.

One of those stories is that of demise. Given to us by Brillat-Savarin (trans. Anne Drayton).

On the appearance of the barbarians, the culinary art vanished, together with all the sciences of which it is the companion and consolation. Most of the cooks were massacred in their masters’ palaces; others fled rather than cater for their country’s oppressors; and the few who stayed to offer their services had the shame of seeing them refused. Those fierce mouths and scorched gullets were insensible to gentle charms of delicate fare. Huge haunches of beef and venison, immeasurable quantities of the strongest liquors, were enough to please them; and as the usurpers never laid aside their arms, most of their meals degenerated into orgies, and he banqueting-hall was frequently the scene of bloodshed.

There is a steak house in Toronto named aptly enough Barbarian’s Steak House. Where alas tartare is not on the menu.

And so for day 931
01.07.2009

A worldwide tour of the powers of mastication.

To make liquor from grain or other starchy foods, the enzyme action of a substance such as malt or saliva must be used to change starch to sugar. When a very starchy food is chewed, either raw or after heating, diastatic enzymes in the saliva break down the starch into sugar. In this most primitive style of making alcohol from starch, the chewed mash is then spit out together with saliva, put in a container and fermented through the action of wild yeast. Liquor was made from chewed mash in Central and South America, including chicha beer made from maize or manioc, and in East and Southeast Asia. According to Chinese historical chronicles, liquor was made from chewed rice during the seventh century by the people of Primorsky Krai (the Siberian coastal region nearest to Korea and Japan), during the tenth century by minority groups of southern China, and during the Ming era (1368-1644) in Cambodia. Chewed-mash liquor survived up to the early twentieth century in Taiwan, where it was made by aboriginal peoples from their staple millet as well as from rice, and in the nearby mainland Chinese province of Fujian.

from The History and Culture of Japanese Food by Naomichi Ishige.

Reminds one of other beverages that pass through digestive passages such as Kopi Luwak coffee.

And so for day 924
24.06.2009