If you got here from the RespectfulEmpiricist web site you will see the beginnings of this year's garden. You'll see that more soil is needed in the four large pots. Along with those will be two smaller pots-about half the size of those. I rarely have mentioned it in previous garden posts but I have a strip about 18 inches by 10 feet along my front walk where herbs are grown. Lastly there are about ten garlic plants located around the yard.
My ten by thirty foot plot out back is history. I'm simply too tired to attend to it as a garden merits. So I will be consolidating the produce to an easily accessible area and I suspect I will garner more and better fruits for my endeavor. I just hope my porch doesn't collapse.
Here is the plan. In the very large pots I can put two tomato plants so I will use three for that. I'll do three standard tomatoes like beefsteaks or something. The other three will be more exotic and will be chosen from seedlings at one of the Farmer's Markets. In the other large pot I am thinking zucchini but we'll see what occurs when I review the seedlings available.
Then there will be the two smaller pots which really can only handle one plant. Jalapeno is a guarantee because I can not envision a late summer or fall without having the ability to pop off a fresh jalapeno whenever I want. The other will be some other pepper and again we'll see what the Market offers.
Herbs will be the perennial Rosemary and a couple of different types of Basil and some Thyme. Cilantro will find itself in the mix because I want it but it also re-seeds a few times every summer. It is the gift that keeps on giving. As you can see there are salsas to be made starting in August or so since the garlic will also be pickable.
So as I tire with age the garden becomes more convenient for me to handle, provide a comfortable space for porch reading and will attract less fauna to steal from it. I am predicting a fine garden for 2012 and will keep you posted with updates and photos.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Physiology of Taste or Transcendental Gastronomy, Jean Brillat Savarin. Philadelphia, Lindsay & Blakiston 1854 348 pp
This edition was an English translation written twenty eight years after the original French-Physiologie Du Gout. Savarin was something of a polymath but earned his keep as a lawyer and politician when those were not the best things to be during his life. He essentially was part of the “Ancien Regime”. Those were the one’s whose heads rolled. He came to America during some of the worst years.
He was quite the intellectual knowing many languages and rubbing elbows with great minds and the rich and powerful. He created for himself a persona as a food expert. This particular book has been in print for all of its one hundred and eighty six years. This attests to the staying powers of his ideas and influence on food writing. (I chose to read the version that I did because it could be found on Google Books).
Savarin also fancied that he was presenting a scientific discussion of food, drink and the people who participated in dining. He made experiments and presented data. Should you read the book you will see that even the mildest skeptic will note the scientific flaws but that is not really what is important. He writes about styles of eating, suggests diets, recognizes problems of eating disorders and does it all in a very readable way. He has a considerable number of humorous anecdotes and often this reviewer wondered if the entire book was written tongue in cheek.
I appreciated his attention to problems of obesity and anorexia primarily because he wrote about them so far ahead of his time. Likewise his suggestions about eating wild and free range meat over farm bred. It was easier in his time to practice that than it is now but again he was ahead of his time.
Savarin has a cheese named after him and he wrote a very delightful book. We would not want to take his science very seriously as it was very personalized and he wrote a long time ago. We have much more information today and many suggestions that he made would be gainsaid by dieticians today but he was not coming totally out of the dark. He did have his methods however flawed and his opting to talk about food in the way he did. His subjects were interesting and his story telling more interesting.
It was a good book about food and gourmands and filled with humor. I’ll end this with one of his quotes.
“Take a raisin?-“
“No thank you; I do not like my wine in a pill.”
This edition was an English translation written twenty eight years after the original French-Physiologie Du Gout. Savarin was something of a polymath but earned his keep as a lawyer and politician when those were not the best things to be during his life. He essentially was part of the “Ancien Regime”. Those were the one’s whose heads rolled. He came to America during some of the worst years.
He was quite the intellectual knowing many languages and rubbing elbows with great minds and the rich and powerful. He created for himself a persona as a food expert. This particular book has been in print for all of its one hundred and eighty six years. This attests to the staying powers of his ideas and influence on food writing. (I chose to read the version that I did because it could be found on Google Books).
Savarin also fancied that he was presenting a scientific discussion of food, drink and the people who participated in dining. He made experiments and presented data. Should you read the book you will see that even the mildest skeptic will note the scientific flaws but that is not really what is important. He writes about styles of eating, suggests diets, recognizes problems of eating disorders and does it all in a very readable way. He has a considerable number of humorous anecdotes and often this reviewer wondered if the entire book was written tongue in cheek.
I appreciated his attention to problems of obesity and anorexia primarily because he wrote about them so far ahead of his time. Likewise his suggestions about eating wild and free range meat over farm bred. It was easier in his time to practice that than it is now but again he was ahead of his time.
Savarin has a cheese named after him and he wrote a very delightful book. We would not want to take his science very seriously as it was very personalized and he wrote a long time ago. We have much more information today and many suggestions that he made would be gainsaid by dieticians today but he was not coming totally out of the dark. He did have his methods however flawed and his opting to talk about food in the way he did. His subjects were interesting and his story telling more interesting.
It was a good book about food and gourmands and filled with humor. I’ll end this with one of his quotes.
“Take a raisin?-“
“No thank you; I do not like my wine in a pill.”
Saturday, October 29, 2011
The end of the Garden
I haven’t spent enough time in the garden this season. Certainly it was more than last season but that is not saying much.
I liberally shared the fruits of this year’s plants with the local wildlife yet still reaped enough for myself. I even canned about half a gallon of tomatoes. Mostly I ate them as they appeared. Stews, sauces and omelets were the primary ways of using my harvest.
The peppers did less well but not horribly so. I used enough and wish I had a few more. Sauces and grilled cheese sandwiches were the largest donees of their jalapeno benefactors.
In the front yard, thyme takes its time and the basil and rosemary flower and bloom as if they could withstand radioactivity. That is fine with me.
As much as I wanted a big garden and as much time I put into developing it I think 2011 was the last year for this man’s vegetable garden. Next year it will be largely sunflowers and milkweed so that I can attract butterflies. No the few vegetables that I will till will be from large containers that will be decorating my front porch. I will better be able to provide the TLC they need. The furry interlopers and the multi legged invertebrates will have to fend for themselves.
I liberally shared the fruits of this year’s plants with the local wildlife yet still reaped enough for myself. I even canned about half a gallon of tomatoes. Mostly I ate them as they appeared. Stews, sauces and omelets were the primary ways of using my harvest.
The peppers did less well but not horribly so. I used enough and wish I had a few more. Sauces and grilled cheese sandwiches were the largest donees of their jalapeno benefactors.
In the front yard, thyme takes its time and the basil and rosemary flower and bloom as if they could withstand radioactivity. That is fine with me.
As much as I wanted a big garden and as much time I put into developing it I think 2011 was the last year for this man’s vegetable garden. Next year it will be largely sunflowers and milkweed so that I can attract butterflies. No the few vegetables that I will till will be from large containers that will be decorating my front porch. I will better be able to provide the TLC they need. The furry interlopers and the multi legged invertebrates will have to fend for themselves.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The onset of the 2011 Garden
April 30th and the garden is all in. It really looks good too. I made some structures for vining tomatoes and zucchini they are not so pretty but they ought to be very functional. Today is May 1 and it is raining so I am not keeping up with the maples seeds that are all over the garden. Yesterday I weeded and cleaned the helicopters out but they are coming down as fast as the rain.
So here is what is out in the garden. Two Jalapeno’s and one Cayenne for the heat of summer. Two Roma Tomatoes, two Beefsteak and one “tomato” whatever that means. I have two zucchini as well. Around the edges are numerous garlic plants popping out of the mulch.
This year I overturned all of the dirt since the clay that has been hoed and mixed with sand continues to reconstitute itself over every off season. Then I layered about an inch of leaves and about three inches of fresh topsoil. That set for a month or so as the process started about March 1. Then I weeded those early bloomers and rendered about three inches of mulch-it really looks good.
As you may imagine when the soil is really prepped for a good garden it is likewise a healthy environment for weeds and windswept tree seeds (which of course are weeds since I am not attempting to grow a forest there. I took some photos and decided to take some every weekend that I am here in order to gauge the progress even though there is not really much reason to do that. I am just obsessed with classifying and charting almost everything.
Last summer was disastrous for the garden due to the unusual heat and the intensity of my job. I expect things to be improved this year and I have a renewed devotion to making this year’s harvest a great one.
So here is what is out in the garden. Two Jalapeno’s and one Cayenne for the heat of summer. Two Roma Tomatoes, two Beefsteak and one “tomato” whatever that means. I have two zucchini as well. Around the edges are numerous garlic plants popping out of the mulch.
This year I overturned all of the dirt since the clay that has been hoed and mixed with sand continues to reconstitute itself over every off season. Then I layered about an inch of leaves and about three inches of fresh topsoil. That set for a month or so as the process started about March 1. Then I weeded those early bloomers and rendered about three inches of mulch-it really looks good.
As you may imagine when the soil is really prepped for a good garden it is likewise a healthy environment for weeds and windswept tree seeds (which of course are weeds since I am not attempting to grow a forest there. I took some photos and decided to take some every weekend that I am here in order to gauge the progress even though there is not really much reason to do that. I am just obsessed with classifying and charting almost everything.
Last summer was disastrous for the garden due to the unusual heat and the intensity of my job. I expect things to be improved this year and I have a renewed devotion to making this year’s harvest a great one.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Two food books by Ruth Reichl
Tender to the Bone: Growing up at the Table by Ruth Reichl, New York, Broadway Books, 1998 282 pp. ISBN: 0-7679-0338-2
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl, New York, Random House, 2002 302 pp. ISBN: 0-375-75873-9
Reichl has built quite a reputation over the years. She has been the food critic for a number of publications. These two memoirs are tales of how she got to be such an august figure in the annals of food writing. They detail her life from a fairly young girl up to about age 40. It is rich with stories about the characters in her life both noted figures and college friends. She writes very well and keeps the reader interested and she explains her gift in the introduction of Tender to the Bone. She is less interested in the facts of the story than she is with the story. This is a commendable admission.
The book is written as “chick lit” and though there may seem to be some misogyny in that statement, remember that we all know what it means and regardless of our politics, we know it when we see it. There is nothing wrong with appealing to the rather mundane side of feminine interests. I read both of these back to back and enjoyed them as I did. It was impossible to recognize them as gospel after her early admission and so they were read more with eye for fiction.
I love food books and while reading them I imagine the odors of a kitchen as the descriptions are being prepared. I go to the store too often to purchase ingredients that I have not thought of. I admire the combination of flavors and bolster my own technique. While reading a book about food it is that subject which is almost always on my mind. Both of Reichl’s books temporarily sated that appetite in me. She filled that need quite well.
The chronicles of some 20 years (college to her 40s) of her life brought her from a rather mindless acceptance of new age philosophy about eating to an exquisite gourmet. My own interests are in the middle. I remember the Elmer’s Glue-like casseroles (I am three years younger than the author so we are contemporaries) that may have been chevron’s of righteous thinking in 1971 but they were unpalatable. Vegetarian cooking has come a long way since then. She also experienced haute cuisine which may delight my tongue but needs to be feted upon me as I won’t pay for it.
The notion about cooking and dining that threaded through most of her stories however was keeping it simple. This is the essence of cooking and entertaining and she lauded that many times. Grand feasts are best when the right combinations of simple foods are brought together. Dining is not meant to be garish.
Reichl and I both haunted Ann Arbor during a few years and her tales of life there were compelling to me especially her description of the only fish and chips joint in town and its proprietor-the Englishwoman-Hilly. I ate many a fish and chips meal wrapped in newspaper while doing my laundry in a house cum laundromat cum fish and chip joint. I was always served by an Englishwoman perhaps two and half time my age. I like to think that Reichl and I ate at the same place.
No book about dining and cooking would be worth its salt if it did not include a large number of recipes and Reichl provides many. Some are off my list because they are too sweet or expensive. Others are off my list because they are too detailed for my interests but probably half of what she provided will be tried either in their entirety or in some portion of it. These books will not line my regular bookshelf but instead will sit on the row where the cook books rest.
Yes reading about food makes me monomaniacal about food and writing about it does too. It is time to hone a few knife edges and dirty up the kitchen.
Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl, New York, Random House, 2002 302 pp. ISBN: 0-375-75873-9
Reichl has built quite a reputation over the years. She has been the food critic for a number of publications. These two memoirs are tales of how she got to be such an august figure in the annals of food writing. They detail her life from a fairly young girl up to about age 40. It is rich with stories about the characters in her life both noted figures and college friends. She writes very well and keeps the reader interested and she explains her gift in the introduction of Tender to the Bone. She is less interested in the facts of the story than she is with the story. This is a commendable admission.
The book is written as “chick lit” and though there may seem to be some misogyny in that statement, remember that we all know what it means and regardless of our politics, we know it when we see it. There is nothing wrong with appealing to the rather mundane side of feminine interests. I read both of these back to back and enjoyed them as I did. It was impossible to recognize them as gospel after her early admission and so they were read more with eye for fiction.
I love food books and while reading them I imagine the odors of a kitchen as the descriptions are being prepared. I go to the store too often to purchase ingredients that I have not thought of. I admire the combination of flavors and bolster my own technique. While reading a book about food it is that subject which is almost always on my mind. Both of Reichl’s books temporarily sated that appetite in me. She filled that need quite well.
The chronicles of some 20 years (college to her 40s) of her life brought her from a rather mindless acceptance of new age philosophy about eating to an exquisite gourmet. My own interests are in the middle. I remember the Elmer’s Glue-like casseroles (I am three years younger than the author so we are contemporaries) that may have been chevron’s of righteous thinking in 1971 but they were unpalatable. Vegetarian cooking has come a long way since then. She also experienced haute cuisine which may delight my tongue but needs to be feted upon me as I won’t pay for it.
The notion about cooking and dining that threaded through most of her stories however was keeping it simple. This is the essence of cooking and entertaining and she lauded that many times. Grand feasts are best when the right combinations of simple foods are brought together. Dining is not meant to be garish.
Reichl and I both haunted Ann Arbor during a few years and her tales of life there were compelling to me especially her description of the only fish and chips joint in town and its proprietor-the Englishwoman-Hilly. I ate many a fish and chips meal wrapped in newspaper while doing my laundry in a house cum laundromat cum fish and chip joint. I was always served by an Englishwoman perhaps two and half time my age. I like to think that Reichl and I ate at the same place.
No book about dining and cooking would be worth its salt if it did not include a large number of recipes and Reichl provides many. Some are off my list because they are too sweet or expensive. Others are off my list because they are too detailed for my interests but probably half of what she provided will be tried either in their entirety or in some portion of it. These books will not line my regular bookshelf but instead will sit on the row where the cook books rest.
Yes reading about food makes me monomaniacal about food and writing about it does too. It is time to hone a few knife edges and dirty up the kitchen.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Two For The Road
Two for the Road by Jane and Michael Stern. New York, Houghton Mifflin 2006 292 pp. ISBN: 978-0-618-87268-8
The last time I read a book by the Sterns was about 35 years ago when, enamored of popular culture, I picked up Roadside America. There are a lot of similarities between the two books; each is a tale of the couple’s back road travels in this case searching for regional food. It was light and entertaining.
Often it reminded me of the wonderful little books that Calvin Trillin proffered many years ago about his food experience. I remember Trillin’s listing of types of restaurants to always avoid (no cute names like Kate’s Kozy Korner for instance). The Sterns opine on that subject and it mirrored Trillin nearly to a tee on page 19. That was disappointing but it could be that their experience brought them independently to the same conclusions.
There is also a hint of William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways. Moon suggested as he travelled on the small roads around America that we ought “Be careful going in search of adventure -- it's ridiculously easy to find.” This book by the Sterns shows that they agree with Moon.
Their gambles and gambols focus on foods and the people who create, serve and share them. They are of regional cuisine from every corner of the nation. The company of diners and the personalities of their wait staff is the meat (excuse my choice of words) of this text; it is all about small town culture. There is no haut cuisine found here.
As pleasant as their accounts were (I admit to eating more than usual during the day I read it) they also are egregious in their self indulgence. They brag about often eating 12 meals a day. Virtually none of the food they gobbled was close to healthy. I felt fat just reading the book.
Yet I did revel. I remembered some of my most entertaining dining experiences such as traveling through Maryland’s eastern shore late one summer afternoon. Feeling underfed my companion and I guessed that we would find suitable dining but found only elegant restaurants or Hardees. We thought we would have to wait for hours to get to some sort of suburban environment and something at best tolerable. Instead we found handmade road signs inviting us to barbeque. Following the signs a few miles off the highway, we came upon what looked like a Mennonite colony slowly smoking pork shoulders, boiling potatoes and sauerkraut and stirring potato salad. For a pittance we were served huge portions for this fund raising event. We were sated and I am sure the Sterns would have been proud of us.
Mixed into the stories of gastronomical adventure, were actual recipes from their regional collection. It is unlikely that I will every make any of them. They are largely designed to make food that will kill someone my age and yet, the Sterns are older than I.
The last time I read a book by the Sterns was about 35 years ago when, enamored of popular culture, I picked up Roadside America. There are a lot of similarities between the two books; each is a tale of the couple’s back road travels in this case searching for regional food. It was light and entertaining.
Often it reminded me of the wonderful little books that Calvin Trillin proffered many years ago about his food experience. I remember Trillin’s listing of types of restaurants to always avoid (no cute names like Kate’s Kozy Korner for instance). The Sterns opine on that subject and it mirrored Trillin nearly to a tee on page 19. That was disappointing but it could be that their experience brought them independently to the same conclusions.
There is also a hint of William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways. Moon suggested as he travelled on the small roads around America that we ought “Be careful going in search of adventure -- it's ridiculously easy to find.” This book by the Sterns shows that they agree with Moon.
Their gambles and gambols focus on foods and the people who create, serve and share them. They are of regional cuisine from every corner of the nation. The company of diners and the personalities of their wait staff is the meat (excuse my choice of words) of this text; it is all about small town culture. There is no haut cuisine found here.
As pleasant as their accounts were (I admit to eating more than usual during the day I read it) they also are egregious in their self indulgence. They brag about often eating 12 meals a day. Virtually none of the food they gobbled was close to healthy. I felt fat just reading the book.
Yet I did revel. I remembered some of my most entertaining dining experiences such as traveling through Maryland’s eastern shore late one summer afternoon. Feeling underfed my companion and I guessed that we would find suitable dining but found only elegant restaurants or Hardees. We thought we would have to wait for hours to get to some sort of suburban environment and something at best tolerable. Instead we found handmade road signs inviting us to barbeque. Following the signs a few miles off the highway, we came upon what looked like a Mennonite colony slowly smoking pork shoulders, boiling potatoes and sauerkraut and stirring potato salad. For a pittance we were served huge portions for this fund raising event. We were sated and I am sure the Sterns would have been proud of us.
Mixed into the stories of gastronomical adventure, were actual recipes from their regional collection. It is unlikely that I will every make any of them. They are largely designed to make food that will kill someone my age and yet, the Sterns are older than I.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Fish, A History from the West
Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World by Brian Fagan, NY, Basic Books, 2007 338 pp. ISBN: 978-0-465-02285-4
On the whole this was a very interesting and compelling read. He gives us a history of fish and fishing through many eyes. From prelates to yeomen and craftsmen to vendors we are drawn through about 1200 years of western fishery. The book is well referenced making it a very useful guide to further research and that is commendable. It is not without some shortcomings but in all it is a good and readable history. It is worth mentioning that amongst his many images (not very good in black and white) he also provides a large number of recipes some ancient and others not so; all tested created and eaten in recent times. My copy will now rest on the shelf with my other cookbooks.
He uses religion (primarily Catholicism) as a thread to his tale. It was religion that influenced fish eating which tethered it strictly to economics. When the western Catholics wanted fish they got it. It was at times a luxury and at other times a food for the poor and hard working people. Of course different types of fish had different status and as such, some types eaten by the rich and powerful and others by the commoners and monks.
As it turns out, fish husbandry goes back a long way and with some sophistication. As far back as the 11th Century, Europeans were flooding meadows to cultivate Carp. Despite the proliferation of this fish, it still was a expensive commodity.
Other downsides to this industry include poaching but more critically, land wars occurred resulting from disagreements between fishers and plant farmers as to the use of land. It also meant the redirection of natural streams, diverting them toward the Carp pond and away from plantings. This sort of misappropriation of a natural resource continues to ignite violence today.
Fishing generated many different economic phenomena some of which require us to borrow from Chaos Theory to explain trends. For instance during the 8th century there were a limited number of Catholic saints to which feast days are required. In the 16th century there were many more. This influenced the supply and demand of various fish-Sturgeon for the gentry, salt cod for most everyone else. Also when there were shortages of certain types of fish (or for that matter meat), new Catholic non-meat eating days were authorized. Fagan makes an excellent case for the church’s sway on the economics of the fishing industry.
He also gives us several examples of technology’s influence on the industry. New curing methods-mostly using salt, were always being worked on. Europeans appreciated their tasting of the product differently. The French preferred “wet” salting and the Spanish liked “dry salting”. The improved methods styled by coopers also helped preserve fish for the market.
Salt was a bigger issue and harsh salt taxes imposed often seriously impacted the cost of the fish when they hit the eager markets. Fish was often plentiful but not always cheap. This had an effect on supply and demand of course but even with high prices there was the right demand from the right market.
Another important factor to fishing was the improvement of the ships that did the fishing, the ones that did the transporting and others that had specific roles in making the industry a success. Not only does he provide a historical sequencing of ship adaptations he gives us some specifics. Fagan also is personally interested in being a participant observer (maybe he was an active seaman) in fishing re-enactment. He has sailed many of the same waterways in newly constructed models of old fishing boats. He has a 20th century feel for what may have been endured under the less sanguine days of yore. Those asides provided a very curious addition to an otherwise well told tale.
It was fishing and not spices Fagan explains, that brought Europeans to the New World. They came here with their devout convictions to escape real or imagined religious persecution. They nearly failed for reasons similar to the ones Jared Diamond described in Collapse. That is, they came unprepared and with high expectations. This was not the land of milk and honey and it only took the first winter for them to realize it. They did not come prepared for any failures nor did they take the advice of the natives that may have been offered. The Jamestown and Penobscot communities nearly died off for those reasons.
However much I liked the book I do have a little distaste for what Fagan did not do and that is to credit Mark Kurlansky who is perhaps the leader in this sort of scholarship. I could not appreciate his damning with faint praise, Mark Kurlansky. The writer who has so elegantly provided us with detailed and erudite histories of both Salt and Cod as well as the New England history including the importance of fishing was pretty short shifted. A brief aside reminding us of Kurlansky’s history of the Basques was mentioned at the end of the book. Knowing about his role in the literature of this arena, I think Fagan could use some humility.
On the whole this was a very interesting and compelling read. He gives us a history of fish and fishing through many eyes. From prelates to yeomen and craftsmen to vendors we are drawn through about 1200 years of western fishery. The book is well referenced making it a very useful guide to further research and that is commendable. It is not without some shortcomings but in all it is a good and readable history. It is worth mentioning that amongst his many images (not very good in black and white) he also provides a large number of recipes some ancient and others not so; all tested created and eaten in recent times. My copy will now rest on the shelf with my other cookbooks.
He uses religion (primarily Catholicism) as a thread to his tale. It was religion that influenced fish eating which tethered it strictly to economics. When the western Catholics wanted fish they got it. It was at times a luxury and at other times a food for the poor and hard working people. Of course different types of fish had different status and as such, some types eaten by the rich and powerful and others by the commoners and monks.
As it turns out, fish husbandry goes back a long way and with some sophistication. As far back as the 11th Century, Europeans were flooding meadows to cultivate Carp. Despite the proliferation of this fish, it still was a expensive commodity.
Other downsides to this industry include poaching but more critically, land wars occurred resulting from disagreements between fishers and plant farmers as to the use of land. It also meant the redirection of natural streams, diverting them toward the Carp pond and away from plantings. This sort of misappropriation of a natural resource continues to ignite violence today.
Fishing generated many different economic phenomena some of which require us to borrow from Chaos Theory to explain trends. For instance during the 8th century there were a limited number of Catholic saints to which feast days are required. In the 16th century there were many more. This influenced the supply and demand of various fish-Sturgeon for the gentry, salt cod for most everyone else. Also when there were shortages of certain types of fish (or for that matter meat), new Catholic non-meat eating days were authorized. Fagan makes an excellent case for the church’s sway on the economics of the fishing industry.
He also gives us several examples of technology’s influence on the industry. New curing methods-mostly using salt, were always being worked on. Europeans appreciated their tasting of the product differently. The French preferred “wet” salting and the Spanish liked “dry salting”. The improved methods styled by coopers also helped preserve fish for the market.
Salt was a bigger issue and harsh salt taxes imposed often seriously impacted the cost of the fish when they hit the eager markets. Fish was often plentiful but not always cheap. This had an effect on supply and demand of course but even with high prices there was the right demand from the right market.
Another important factor to fishing was the improvement of the ships that did the fishing, the ones that did the transporting and others that had specific roles in making the industry a success. Not only does he provide a historical sequencing of ship adaptations he gives us some specifics. Fagan also is personally interested in being a participant observer (maybe he was an active seaman) in fishing re-enactment. He has sailed many of the same waterways in newly constructed models of old fishing boats. He has a 20th century feel for what may have been endured under the less sanguine days of yore. Those asides provided a very curious addition to an otherwise well told tale.
It was fishing and not spices Fagan explains, that brought Europeans to the New World. They came here with their devout convictions to escape real or imagined religious persecution. They nearly failed for reasons similar to the ones Jared Diamond described in Collapse. That is, they came unprepared and with high expectations. This was not the land of milk and honey and it only took the first winter for them to realize it. They did not come prepared for any failures nor did they take the advice of the natives that may have been offered. The Jamestown and Penobscot communities nearly died off for those reasons.
However much I liked the book I do have a little distaste for what Fagan did not do and that is to credit Mark Kurlansky who is perhaps the leader in this sort of scholarship. I could not appreciate his damning with faint praise, Mark Kurlansky. The writer who has so elegantly provided us with detailed and erudite histories of both Salt and Cod as well as the New England history including the importance of fishing was pretty short shifted. A brief aside reminding us of Kurlansky’s history of the Basques was mentioned at the end of the book. Knowing about his role in the literature of this arena, I think Fagan could use some humility.
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