From The Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester

Facts


The Chinese ideogram for crisis comprises two characters - 'danger' and 'opportunity.'

Food


Caviare -from beluga (biggest fish), ossetra, sevruga (smallest fish.)

Daube - stew named after 'daubiere' pot.

Bouillabaisse - bouillir and abaisser (boil and reduce.)
Cook quickly to ensure emulsification of oil and water.

Saffron - 4000 stigmas of Crocus sativus for one ounce. Use only one or two threads.

John Dory (St Pierre (fr.) - thumbprint of St Peter on head.)

Oregano - essential to pizza.

Omelette - base must be wiped but not washed, cast-iron pan seven-inch diameter, thick base. Turn eggs a few times with forks - don't beat - use good butter; add eggs when foam subsides and before it changes colour. Confine the filling of omelette to a tablespoon or two. Melt butter over high heat.

The Normandy diet of cream and apples is reminiscent of the harsh winters that drove Norsemen south.

Peach stones and roasted apple-seeds contain cyanide toxin.
Flesh poisoned by cyanide smells of almonds.

Potato - its popularity led to a virtual mono-culture in Ireland, which played a part in the famine which killed a million.

English cooking is dominated by sweet and sour - lamb and mint sauce.

Chilli heat is reduced by starchy and cool things - rice, potato, bananas, beer, yoghurt - not the 'non-interventionist' water.

Shellfish goes with cummin.

Aioli - 2 egg yolks + four cloves of garlic + one pint of olive oil + lemon juice.
Repels flies; the garlic taste is detectable on the skin for 72 hours afterwards.

In Poland, green vegetables are called wloszczyzna 'things Italian'.
North, passionate about butter, beer, potatoes, meat, South - fruit, veg, oils, fish.

Tomato - Lyscopersicon esculentum 'the edible wolf's peach.'

Jacket potatoes - in their nightshirts in Italian.


Drinks


Chilled martini - vermouth and gin + a grace-note (olive, lemon.)
'The silver bullet' - left in freezer to gellify.
Served unbruised -shaken not stirred.
martini + onion = gibson

Vodka - diminutive of voda (Slavic - water)
Eau de vie (French)
Akvavit (Scandinavia)
Usquebaugh - water of life (Ireland)

Aperitifs -

Should be dry and cold to stimulate appetite,
Should keep the drinker aware of how many he has had (unlike thick eggy drinks)
Martinis, daiquiris, whiskey sours
Meditteranean drinks - anis, pernods, ouzos, arracks and punt-e-mes,
calvados okay as 'sidecar.'
g and t, bourbon (not Scotch whisky, nor Campari and vermouth - too nastily flavoured.)

Quotes


'A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory.' (Keats)

Winter is the 'morte saison quand les loups se vivent de vent.' (Villon)

'The salad is the glory of every French dinner and the disgrace of most in England.'
(Captain Ford c1846)

'The artist is living in a state of seige.' (Auden)

'A beer and potato guilt culture.' (Auden)

'Once the improbable has been ruled out, the solution must lie in the realm of the impossible.' (Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle)

'Beware any enterprise requiring new clothes.' (Thoreau)