Clik here to view.
The Cult of Prime Rib
N.B. I first published this piece in the summer of 1997, in the first issue of my zine Travelling Shoes. The issue was titled “Las Vegas: Carnival of Fools”. It’s hard to credit now, but as recently...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The End of the Mason Jar
Ten years ago, serving a drink in a Mason jar was something only done in the privacy of your own home, where your neighbors couldn’t find out, or at the Cracker Barrel, as a way of getting into the Hee...
View ArticleClik here to view.
California’s Vanishing Lakes and the Hunger of the Mines
If you drive the long stretch of Interstate 5 known as the Westside Freeway, from the foot of the Grapevine through Buttonwillow and on to Los Banos, you’ll be cruising along the edge of the richest...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The California Slipshod Method: Poultry Farming in 19th Century California
In my last post, “California’s Vanishing Lakes and the Hunger of the Mines”, I made frequent reference to the one dollar eggs of the Gold Rush, a staple of 49’er anecdotes and 19th century California...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Great Sushi Craze of 1905, Part 1
The official history of Japanese food in the United States says that Americans didn’t get a taste of raw fish and vinegared rice until the late 1960s, when groovy Hollywood stars and trendy Buddhist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Great Sushi Craze of 1905, Part 2
In Part One of “The Great Sushi Craze of 1905” I introduced to you what might have been the first real Japanese restaurant in the United States, a bare-bones place that opened in the summer of 1889 at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A History of The Last Time I Ate at a Chinese Buffet
For the past few weeks I’ve been doing an intermittent fasting-style diet, in which I don’t eat from roughly six in the evening until two in the afternoon the next day. The idea being that if I abstain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chicken and Waffles: The Most Complete Expression of Southern Culinary Skill,...
Enlarge An advertisement from the Honolulu Daily Bulletin, February 17, 1909 Chicken and Waffles are bacon and eggs: not so much a single dish as an inspired combination of two different things...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chicken and Waffles: The Most Complete Expression of Southern Culinary...
Enlarge Handbook of New England, 1919 In Part I–published lo these many months ago–I noted that chicken and waffles is historically three different dishes: creamed chicken and waffles, broiled chicken...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fattest Man in Tennessee
Enlarge Nashville Tennessean, February 13, 1857 No, I am not the fattest man in Tennessee. I know this conclusively because I have recently been in a Super Wal-Mart in Mufreesboro. More surprising to...
View Article
