Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center in New York City at newsstands studios with a kitchen Arts and Letters cooking issue special doing classics in the field. I don't do the old school classics in the field anymore, John. someday maybe I'll bring it back. Now. I got a feeling in my heart though. Before I could sing it again. You know?

Yeah. I don't know. Someday.

I don't know. Maybe that's the thing I you know, that I've lost is that ability to do the classics in the field? I don't know. Anyway, as usual, we got Joe Hasan rocking the panels. How're you doing? I'm doing great man. Good. Looks like a full house today. Oh my god. Yeah. You know nervous. Joe gets a little nervous when the when when the new stand Studios is is full full. We are I wouldn't say nervous. Just I don't have as many fingers as a you know, wish I needed to do you know to uplift rent, right. Lotta a lot of buttons. Right. And in California, we got Jackie molecules. How you doing? I'm doing great. Yeah. Beautiful day. Yeah. I mean, isn't that why you're in California? Where the hell? Why the hell else? Would you be in California then? You know, you weather hogs. He's got a great apartment. Oh, nice. Nice. Hey, listen, here's what I hear. I hear that when people move from places like where we live that are like, like, you know, garbage weather, right? And they move to they moved to places with nice weather, that they do actually feel better for like a year and a half, two years. And then it like all becomes the same to them. And they're just as miserable as they were before. Hmm, disagree. I'm two years here now and I'm starting to feel better because three Yeah, but that's actually might be because of the people not because the way I'm just talking about weather related phenomenon. Well, yeah, definitely take that for granted. Yeah, yeah. And in Vancouver Island we have now what's what? What are you the? What do you think operations Quinn? What do you think Booker and DAX operations?

Yeah, I don't know. We we were bouncing around some ideas. I feel like second net. Wait a second.

All right, I am hitting it with this a true story. True story. And I'm gonna go in reverse order. I'm gonna go in order like that they're seated in me. If you're watching on Patreon, you can call your questions. 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507. But I'll go in this order. We have our special guests, Matt sartwell. From kitchen Arts and Letters. How you doing? Man?

I'm well, thank you. Yeah. Glad to be here.

Well, we're glad to have you because you have yet to be stumped. So anyone by the way, no pressure. Now no pressure. Now let like call in your we shouldn't call it like stumped a mat or something like that. You know? 917-410-1507 And then I'll go all the way back, John. How you doing? Doing great. Thanks. How's the chef life treating you?

Peachy my guy got over the COVID and so I had a day off on Sunday was laid in bed and did absolutely nothing and was completely worthless. And it was fantastic. Have you

have you gotten your menu to the point yet where you don't need to sandbag everything.

Yes, we finally ran out of almonds the other day. As a big, big momentous occasion

when you say you ran out of it. You bought more right?

No, sir making my own Oh, Jesus.

Aren't there better things you can spend your time on and making mayonnaise Dude,

it takes like, eight minutes. 70 minutes? Yeah, who

makes good man is almonds. Almonds Corporation. You know what you're supposed to do? I don't know if you remember this, but what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to bring out the Hellman's and thereby bring out your best gotcha, right, which is a slight tip of the hat to the fact that across the across the river, the big river, not our river that it's best made over there. So if you say bring out the elements bring out the best what they really mean is, it's the same as best made. Anyway. I look you really think that you're gonna make a man is that? What are you using? So I'm using only the finest walnut oil like what is it? They what is it that you hope to make out a man is it's better than the helmsman is?

I don't know it's like use for deviled egg filling and a char some scallions and add some lemon juice and make a dipping sauce for me. I don't know it's not like its own thing. It's a building block. Right? Yeah. Right. So why

why not just make it like eight eggs, you know, quart of oil from lemon juice and garlic mustard. It's all good. I

mean, everyone picks their battles. That's your battle. I love it. I love it. I'm gonna support it. Yeah. And of course last but certainly not least, because I know she has something to talk about today.

I don't have anything to talk about. Oh, come on.

Such a trash can stars. You this to us. You threw a pig roast.

My neighbor and I who Dave hauled.

No, you said, I liked him. I said I liked him.

He said, What did you say?

I said, I know for these guys, these guys know these guys. So what happened was is this is it listen.

You know my neighbor, we got to pick from Heritage my neighbor dug a pit in my yard the night before big ass pit big pit at 5am He started the fire. Yeah. And then the pig went in and ate. And then Dave got wrapped, wrapped

wrapped in aluminum foil and a nice banana leaves and then

got there at what time to two. And I said go fix

it. Well, here's, here's the thing. So like, what happened, what had happened was, is that even though I personally, and I could have mailed them, right, I personally own at least two four channel thermocouple recorders with thermocouples that can be embedded in the ground. I own at least two of them. I also want to eat channel that I could have resurrected if you really need it in a channel thing, right? There's

probably some in the storage

on the way to uninstall stupid,

Matt. Matt, since you weren't involved in this scenario. Let me see if you can guess what kind of thermometer they were using to measure the temperature.

You'll never guess?

candy thermometer. Oh, that would have

been no, no, no, they were using the COVID style forehead, small child thermometer that you like.

Like the strip that you plaster on your floor. I know the

little one that like you walk up to someone like at an airport and you like hold it at their forehead. And you see whether they have a fever

because mice the old soup and pasta fly are supposed to bring, you know, forgot. Yeah,

but so we know that the pig did have a fever. Right? What level of he also, you can't use an IR thermometer pointed out aluminum foil, not one thing was right about the way that they were measuring the temperature of this pig. Consequently, they were like this pigs like room temperature pig was not at room temperature. Pig was fine. Now, it is true, right that then when they tried to rebuild the heat, they were having an issue because they weren't getting enough air underneath it. So what we did is we we put we took the pig out to the pig out put coal up on a great start at a coal fire through some more coal at the bottom to heat it put the pig on top, some more. So a little bit of dirt, some more coals and it baked through fine. But people here's the other secret. It does not matter enough of the pig. And this is what I said when I was enough of the pig is going to be cooked in one of these scenarios that there will be enough to feed people. Then you take the stuff that it's right by the joint right by the thigh or wherever it's not cooked that well. And you take it inside and you panic and everyone will be happy. It doesn't really matter. It's about the communal thing of ripping apart a whole beast in front of everybody. That's the whole that's the whole thing and and it tasted good. I thought it was good. It was good. I mean, when you bury a pig like that, it's not going to be crispy. It's not it's not a rotisserie. It's not a crispy scenario. But a gooey fat is also a good fat a gooey skin is a good skin. Gotta wrap your head around it most of us think we only want crispy skins but this is a mental issue that Americans have. Same that we have with there's a lot of things that we can't we bread needs to be light and airy pigskin needs to be crispy. Apples need to be crunchy wrong wrong and wrong, right. Anyway. Man, good to have you here.

Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

Was there another Oh, guess what? Guess who else was at anastasius Pig party are greasy friend or oleaginous buddy, Nick Coleman. Man learned a lot about him that night. A little bit too much way too much to share on the air. Way too much to share in the air but in case you do we still have a discount or a Patreon people still get this kind of growth in mind. Alright, think that expire? Well, he's going to come on and we'll hook it up because you guys need to go out and tastes his new Cora Tina, olive oil from Chile March harvest. It was delicious. Delicious, like green grassy. And he busted out a Magnum of it. You know what he does? It's kind of weird though. He makes a Do you ever use his oil mat? No, I haven't. You gotta check it out. So Grove and Vyas his company so what he does is he sells olive oil in like wine bladders. It's like his best deal is the olive oil in a wine bladder and it comes in a wine box. So this dude, he's an olive oil, dude. Right. So what does he do? He comes he brings olive oil. I bring wine. He brings olive oil. He puts the box of olive oil on the picnic table like It's wine. Yeah. And I guarantee you people are like glued in take take a sip of it because you know what I mean? And he's like, I'm glad that's good. Weirdo guys a weirdo. Like he's going to come back on. People enjoyed him last time is also coming up soon. We have Jorge Guevara from who from Messina, who is new masa cookbook is out. Yeah, you have that at the kitchen original dinner. So we

don't have it yet. But we have a lot on order. We're expecting it to do really well. We've been selling his little nixtamal book, that's the basis right for this step forward. And we're really excited about that.

I mean, they're the best source of corn for sure. Especially corn for Nick civilization. You know, the one thing that you know, like, I have the book, because he's coming on, right. So I have the book. And yeah, the issue really, for most people getting into this is the grinding. You don't I'm saying that but we will deal with that more when when he's on. It's the grinding, like, you can go on his website and you can get a $1,500 grinder and then you're good for the rest of your life. But I hope you make a lot of masa. You don't I mean? Yeah, like a lot of masa.

That's a commitment. Or you're rich or not.

Right, right. Right. Okay, fair. By the way, my classics in the field is what's going on with a grain grain whole grain books coming out. We still got more milling and grain books coming out. It's important because that's the section of my book I'm writing now.

Not much on the immediate horizon, looking into the through the fall and into the winter season. I haven't seen much so you're gonna have some fresh territory there. You're gonna be able to claim it.

People still buy in Leontief book. Yeah.

Pretty steady. Nice. Yeah. I mean, that's a that's a committed audience. It's not like you know, the same person, that same number of people who come in looking for I'd like to get started making bread. But what do they

buy now? They Reinhardt people.

Reinhardt is a good place for a lot of people to begin. If they're

waiting Reinhard, do you do the apprentice? You go old, you go the newer stuff.

I go with the apprentice and go with the apprentice. I think it sets people up pretty well to discover what they might be interested in. And then they can go off and pursue narrower paths.

It's a nice looking bread on the cover. But the lady who baked it doesn't look too excited about it.

I agree with that. She's I don't know how many times how long she was in that photo studio.

Because anytime I look at that book, I'm like, That's the picture where she looks the most psyched about bread. Or maybe it's like she's supposed to look serious. Anytime someone takes a picture. And they look overly serious. Or they unless, like, aren't, aren't they supposed to make me think they'd like they like doing this? I don't know. I mean, look, she can feel how she likes about the bread. But it's she's like, here's the bread.

It is a curious choice. But I you know, the content of the book always wins me over. So

I never met Reinhardt.

I have. Yeah, he's, he's a really knowledgeable, earnest, serious guy, and who is a painstaking teacher, he's really careful about, about the way he deals with people and with his students. And he's, he's wholesome, you know, in all the best positive senses of that word.

Yeah, I just reread his, the 2007 the whole grains cookbook, you know, in advance of the section that I'm writing on using whole grains but self ground. I haven't fully finished his 2017 sprouted grains and whole grains book, because that has that one do

that one's less. That's a that's a much more specific targeted kind of thing. And I think the Leontief book came along and yeah, claim some of that territory.

Yeah, well, it's interesting because he's actually kind of moved around. So again, this is really in the weeds. I apologize. But Reinhardt's book in 2007 was a huge advocate of long pre soaks of, of the whole wheat. Much of it on yeasted basically letting it sit around. And I don't know what I think about that. I think it probably works. He says in the introduction yet 350 People test the recipe because he sent out recipes to like just people on the internet and hasn't tested which is a phenomenal idea. I wonder he didn't pay them. Right. They just tested it because they liked him because yeah, yeah. And I don't know, maybe maybe when my book gets closer, I'll talk more about that. Why why I think that may or may not be a good idea. I think most the big problem is most people's whole wheat flour sucks. Real bad. Just not a good product like they're using. They're using the wrong wheat to make a good whole wheat bread. You know, the reason why spring wheat you know, hard spring wheat red spring wheat wasn't so popular back in the day, way back in the day in the 1850s and 1860s. Because they had no way to millet properly right. It was only after the invention of the middlings purifier which blew all of the brand out that they could get brand free relatively hard red spring wheat and that became a miraculous bread bread flour but no one really liked baking with it back when the brand has it because it's it's not that it tastes that great when it's got all the brands and big fan. Anyway, that's just me. And if you soak it for a long time, I think what he's doing he thinks he it's all he's coming from a perspective of oh, oh you need to you need to you need to jack the sugar. So you need the amylase and you need the starch to break down she said a sugar to get crusted up and whole wheat. It already tastes like whole wheat so unless it tastes bitter Oh All you're doing is slacking the dough out by having a go for a long period of time, which is why I think if he does the pre pre pre, he's pre slacking it and then making the dough he wants anyway. Long story. Too much. All right. For you, Matt, let's go here. Alright classics in the field question. My sister in law is looking for a book that talks about all the cuts of meat now, Zack, Zachary has been waiting for like a year for you to answer this question. So my sister in law was looking for a book. I'm sorry. I'm sure she already owns it, right? That is about all the cuts of meat from as many animals as possible, at least pork and beef. Don't give me one that doesn't have pork and beef. But I'm assuming also lamb. What else rabbits?

Rabbit probably not so much.

Like guys, because they're welcome. No one uses the inner sides of a rabbit right? No one's using rabbit awful. Not to my knowledge. Cappy Berra

probably scarcer?

Yeah, it should give characteristics of the cut How is best used? Like at what kind of dishes and how best to cook at trying to learn the things a butcher would know without becoming a butcher? And how to be a better informed me consumer. Alright.

So this was a great question because it reminded me of a book that's no longer available that i i found had a lot of utility when it was around. It's a book called How to Cook meat by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby. And it basically

lets you hear the grilling fire guy. Yeah. So

the Cambridge restaurant guy. Yeah. And it is organized by type of cut, and, and cooking method. So you're looking at like, big cuts of beef that need to be slow roasted or small cuts of meat that need to be pan seared. So it is actually talking to you about how, where the meat is coming from on the animal, what its characteristics are, and what that tells you about the method that you should use. And it covers meat. I mean, it covers beef, it covers pork, it covers lamb. I know, I don't have a copy of it on hand at the store right now. I went running around looking for one in the basement yesterday.

But is it collectible or normal?

It's normal. I mean, it's easily findable for like less than 20 bucks online. And it's a but it's a I think it's organization for me is the great appeal. The recipes are fine. I mean, I used to back in the day. And I'm not not trying to slam on them at all. But I think the real insight, there was the way that it approached me and I let you feel like I understand why. Why this cup is being cooked in this in this method.

What about coming at it from the other angle? Just people who use a lot of different cuts of meat and awful like Fergus Henderson's work?

Well, I mean, everybody likes Fergus his books but they're not systematic at all in their approach to awful they, they showcase it's used, but they don't say you've got a spleen. Now, here's what you do with it. Here's how I mean, his books don't don't get in there and do that. And books on awful don't tend to stay in print. The American public isn't as enthusiastic about them as they might be. So Chris Constantino did a great book. And he said Hulu did a great book on awful, but they both had relatively short lives in print. And you know, even people who were have high profile associations with nits will say a couple of famous New York butchers or butcher shops. Their their approach is really about recipes, and less about technique. So I think there's a book out there to be written by somebody who has the skill and the background to sort of say, you know, what is this piece of flesh you have in front of you? What do you know about it is what are the fibers like? What is its fat content? And then what does that tell you about what you can do with it?

It started almost like an acting coach. What is this piece of flesh? The amazing yeah, all right. pmjay book question, probably impossible to answer but don't know if they have an indication of pre orders are normal customers can't see excetera ie just kitchen artisan letters, no things that we don't. Albert Adria and David Gill have released a book called candy which is in Spanish. Do the folks that kitchen arts and letters have any idea if there will be an English translation?

So specifically about candy, I suspect that that's not going to happen? Those big Spanish publishing projects, if they happen in English at this point, they're usually happening simultaneously at publication time. And a lot of the Spanish publishers aren't undertaking that work themselves. When people like Montagues still doing that or Montague does that but Montague is not the publisher of candy I believe it's planeta. implant that's almost never does simultaneous publication. American and English publishers are not for the most part undertaking to translate big books from Spain. And then the other thing really working against and to use that the restaurants that it's associated with, all closed during the pandemic. So there's not a lot of excitement on behalf of a publisher for a desert bark from restaurants that aren't around any

but it's in Spanish not in Catalan.

I've only seen it in Spanish and Spanish. All right,

and is it good? Um, the Spanish speakers like it?

Yes, there's a lot of interesting material in there. It's, it's over published, it's comes in a box and there's a volume with the recipes and there's a volume with the photographs and it's, I think it's unnecessarily fancy. For people who want to take it and use it. It's, it's, it feels more like a souvenir for people who are at the restaurant, and therefore, even less reason for somebody to undertake translating.

So a bit bloated?

extravagant.

Luxurious,

not practical.

All right. All right, this one I know, I know that you're not going to like this question. So I'm going to give it to you anyway. And then you can say, what you think about this kind of question and what maybe a question you would like to answer that is similar. Alright. Kota wants to know, Matt, what are your all time favorite food or beverage books?

I get asked this question a lot. And you know, my personal preferences are so wildly different from what else is out there in the world. The book that I have run through four copies of in 37 years, is cucina fresca, Viviana Laplace and Evan climbin book that came out in 1985. It's a really practical Italian is cooking book. Everything's meant to be served cold at room temperature. So that's smart. It's great for parties.

Ma. Give me Give me Give me the title again. cucina fresca,

still in print, it's been around, I have, you know, worn out on my copies. And a lot of times I open the book up, I flip through it, I close it, and I go into the kitchen and I know what to do with it's what's in the refrigerator. So what like veal, tomato, that kind of stuff? That kind of stuff. Yeah.

And actually like that stuff you like that stuff?

I do. I do. It's I think it's great to have it on a cold day, or a hot day. There's a salad in there. I mean, it's not really super traditional Italian if there's a definite California spin on it, because that's where they were Aegiali would have hated it, surely would have hated it. Probably but, you know, push rally

on our favorite author and say, Giuliana jolly.

He was quite a character and a brilliant man, but somewhat narrow in his approach to things. He always had

a smile on his face when he insulted you least. He never insulted me with a scowl. It was always with a smile.

Oh, you you got more attention from him than I did. So, cucina fresco to own a news. And then I think I've talked about this on on the show before for a reading book, a book called The oysters of Loch Murray occur. by Eleanor Clark 1962 National Book Award winner, brilliant piece of writing about an oystering village in France. It's partly a natural history. It's also a profile of a vanishing way of

life. You have never had a true plate oyster. Never had one never had a real French like old school oyster. We are right. Well, I mean don't people don't like them typically. Right. People who are not used to our oysters here.

There is a there is a difference. Yeah, I I have to say I I'm not even that much of an oyster fan. I just liked the writing in this book.

John, what about you? You belong guy? Are you are you French oyster in and out your face? Are you?

I like them, but it took me a little while to get to like them. Yeah,

what's your ultimate oyster? Wellfleet eyes the sub East Coast wishes? Yeah, I easily okay. I like I love it. I like Wellfleet Yeah, yeah. You know what I don't like that everybody likes. I don't like my oysters and tastes like watermelon cucumbers so are melon and cucumbers. So you know which oysters I don't like they're the prettiest oysters are one Greek now the Kumamoto I'm not a Komodo guy. I don't like Columbo they're fine. Yeah, they're fine.

But they're not why you eat or spin

away. You do ICERs go east coast baby. Yeah, East Coast. And you know my as will be the cape if you're going to do anything although I like I like a lot of East Coast oysters, right. Anyway, interesting story about room temperature. Are you familiar with the pseudo Italian owned by a large company restaurant car mines. It has family style in the Upper West Side are I am aware of them? Yeah, yeah. So in 1996, right. I was at Columbia grad school with my wife. And we went out to car mines with Miley carpenter who you know now is big up in hers. publishing but started the Food Network magazine, one of the things and the server comes. And she says, we're serving the pasta with a room temperature sauce. And we were all like, that's the worst sounding thing I've ever heard. It's coming out room temperature. It really is like, even if that's the actual temperature, you want to serve it, you got to come up with something better. Like oh, what are you too lazy to either make it cold or hot? Or leave? Like there's got to be a good word for room temperature sauce. It doesn't make me like puke in my in my mouth a little bit. She's like room temperature. So it's rolling. Right? sighs You hate that right? Yeah, it's gross. Yeah. Ambient ambient sounds like Ambien. I don't know. Someone out there. Come up with an idea. Let me know. All right. Patrick Ciccone writes in is Waverly roots food and informal dictionary to be relied on for factual information, or should the information be treated as semi mythological? And are there any other similar books to recommend with similar breadth of content and writing style? It is fun to read route.

Absolutely. He is an amazing storyteller. But he was the kind of guy that if, you know, you went out drinking with him, and you told him a great story about Kumamoto oysters, he would write that down, and he would tell it to everybody else, because he loved stories, but he would never go out and check. He was not a researcher, he was a gatherer of information. So you have to keep that in mind. And keep in mind also that this was 1980.

So that's when that came out right before he died. Yeah,

that was very late. And so food scholarship was very much an evolving field at that point. A lot of people didn't believe it should be taken seriously as a whole field of endeavor. And so I mean, was helping that along in some ways, but he wasn't investigating,

right but on the scale of liars, right? Um, I mean that in a negative way, or is it stars likes it when they say I don't mean this in a pejorative way?

Yeah, to non English. Yeah. Yeah, it

was, it wasn't a good terminology to use to someone who's not a native English speaker anyway. So like, to me the highest culinary liar is George herder from the bull. Absolute bull cookbook. Yeah. Or whatever that whatever the series is called. Every single thing the man says is fundamentally fabrication and cantankerous. Often offensive, great read. You don't I mean, it's hilarious. Yeah, he's the biggest liar. I mean, I don't know whether I can trust his information on how to stick my finger in turtles but and get his head to poke out so I can chop it off. I've never tested this, you know, the other technique for taking turtles head off his to put out a stick and the turtle will bite it. And then you can chop the turtles head off, or his suggestions on how to survive a hydrogen bombing attack. I don't know if these are valid. But I know that almost every single food history that he gives is, like way off base.

You don't trust a man who claims to have Chateau Briones recipe for Chateau breonna.

Yeah, he's but the books are very interesting. And they're not even collectible yet. Right? They're still cheap.

They're still it's fairly easy to find. I mean, he, he self published most of them. And he, he was pretty generous, I think about seeding the world with them. So yeah, you just I mean, you, you almost sort of have to assume that whatever he tells you is absolutely the opposite of true.

Yeah, some of the recipes work. I've

tried some of them, I've never done somehow I was never called.

But so so. So on the level of like, that's the biggest liar, right? On down to just kind of your every day, you know, most old cookbooks provide some sort of false histories of how things happen. But they're kind of, you know, middle of the road route seems kind of in between those two. Right? What like, where would you where would you put it in terms of the the lie scale, not the lie scale, that the Tall Story still scale?

I would always, always seek to verify what I read in route. Like I said, he he was for him, it was always about the story that was, you know, the question asked, is it mythology and, and, and I think in that sense of, as he was looking for details that confirmed what he thought he knew about the character of a place. I mean, it's true in his food of Italy, and it's true in his food of France. He was trying to provide color and context. And in doing so, in a way that made sense with everything else that he knew telling the truth lies, or telling, telling things that he thought ought to be true, right? When he heard them, he's like, oh, yeah, that fits. So I'm going to tell that story. So I mean, you can go out and find comprehensive reference works that I have in have more authority, I mean, the Oxford Companion to food that Alan Davidson edited I think it's a much stronger resource.

It. What about his fish books, they have lots of good stories.

I don't really think of them as a story,

sort of like where they're from, because he went all over the world and collected information on all these fishes.

I think that's that's most true of the Southeast Asian bar. Yeah,

that's the only one I have.

Because cuz that was, you know, he was he started writing that when he was a British consular in Laos.

You don't think it's a good read? I think it's a good read. For a book on fish.

I have to go back. And look, it's been a while I don't often have to consult it. So.

So what what should what should Patrick look for? If, if they like route? What should they look for? Where should they go?

So that reading quality is is hard to match? Honestly, I mean, let's be honest, there's a vast amount of information on that book. And if you go out and research it all, it's not going to leave you time to write about it. In the same way. I mean, books like The Oxford Companion, are researched and compiled by a bunch of different people, each of them writing within an area of specialization, but they're not chosen because they're necessarily great writers. So there is a kind of dryness there. And I don't know where there's a point on the balance scale that says, really charming to read. But comprehensive.

What about that guy? What Raymond Raymond Olivier, right. What's his name? Right. Who wrote the book on click? What was his name? John. Remember? We got his book? French? Oh,

I'm Olivia. Yeah, yeah. Not Olivia. Olivia. Olivia. Yeah,

that's a good read. You read that one?

Because I don't know. Oh, I have to go back and look

at it for that. Good reader. Good. Good reading. Yeah. enjoyable, even in translation.

Is it after tried to remember it's about it's primarily about French? Yeah. To some extent.

No, no, no, no, it's about not just French cuisine, but like his place in French cuisine. But at this point, that's an historical document. Yeah. Because, you know, he was big, I think, you know, he was a generation or two after a Sculpey. A, but still, like, you know, from that, you know, that era was still alive in his mind. You know, I think I think he was most big at right after World War Two. I want to say, but, you know, that's an interesting period of French cooking when France was still considered on top of the world.

They were Yeah, they were in a great position. They were in kind of a stall, that people like Chappelle would come along and help get things started again. But there were people like Oliver who, who were trying not to be self satisfied and stuck and doing it this way, because that is the way we have always done it. I think he, he sort of he's on that. He's sort of slightly froze post for an arm PA. And

yeah, again, I wasn't expecting to talk about I didn't go look at the dates on it. But he is an old school French curmudgeon, which I appreciate. You know what I mean?

He wrote over a couple of really charming books for kids.

Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Didn't his daughter did something in the arts? I think I can't remember it. Look, I shouldn't say anything. Unless I look it up beforehand. Because like, you know, the memory goes, goes out. Memory goes memory leaves you Warren Johnston, our friend with Oh, wait. Yeah, our friend. He is the one who gave us the great Canadian. Cheese's. Right? Can you like the cheese's? He's muted, but he does like the cheese. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pro cheesy, right. Yeah. Top notch. If we ever get more, man, I'll see if you can get some tea although like they'll do you know, you probably don't allow Cheetos anywhere near your bookstore because they're like death. Like death to the books

is aiming to do with prints. Yeah,

yeah. Anyway, Warren writes, I'm working on some high alcohol 80% by volume infusions for blending. Making a vermouth product and trying to find the right ratio for some spices and barks. I haven't found much solid writing about the best best practices for this. Do any books slash authors come to mind for this kind of thing? Specifically, ingredients like Angelica Orris, coriander, gente, and Cassia. Cardamom. No. What about that book you recommended for me that the other guy bought out from underneath me?

Remind me which book i which of them and

the Italian the Italian Italian muckers? Yeah,

so that's a book that has lots of single examples of recipes that the author collected from different practitioners but there is no statement of principles. Right so he this is a slow food originated project. He traveled around Italy, collecting recipes from so if it sounds cool to me, it's a terrific repository. But it's not systematic in its presentation of of anything you could sit down and perhaps with some nice spreadsheets attempt to make some extrapolations.

I know Warren use that kind of guy. What's the name of that book?

Italian liquors?

And do you remember the author's name? I

can. First name is Renato.

That's probably all you need.

It's on our website. It's blue. Yeah,

yeah, that I remember. I remember not buying it, because I still I still haven't finished my damn book, Matt. Well, and I still don't own that other book. Well,

I won't say anybody was paying me not to sell you that book until you finished yours. All right. There are people who feel that way. I'm not saying I'm one of

them. Yeah, yeah. One book more or less, what is the matter? Mark a writes, and I'm looking for some information on mango varieties that describe locations where they grow seasons when ripe, and their taste I am not interested. Repeat. Not interested in recipes. And mango by Jen. Correct. Nick is mostly recipes and therefore not helpful for him not so he's not saying it's not a good book. He's just saying not helpful.

So I did take him some time to look around at this. We have a book in the store called the mango, edited by a guy named Richard lits, who is on the faculty of the Center for Tropical Agriculture at the University of Florida. It describes about 60 different cultivars from around the world. It sometimes discusses the tastes, but it's not systematic in that way. And it talks about their range, but not much beyond which countries they're coming from. I nothing I could find talked about seasonality, and I think because it probably varies so much from from location to location and climate, right. It might be the kind of thing where an ag school library might have better resources, but I think there are so many varieties of mangoes planted in so many places that you're really going to want to work with somebody who

who's a horticulturist. Right. Well, the US is mangoes are the our germ plasm for them is stored at the Fairchild in South Dade. And that's where the the USDA GRI N like germplasm is stored and on the USDA grn grn website. There they have it's there searching isn't actually as good as it used to be. But on their website is an exhaustive list of all of the hundreds and hundreds I don't know if it's 1000s That's why I'm saying hundreds hundreds but it could be 1000s For all I know of mango cultivars they have with a story of how they were sessions and where they originally came from. And some notes on the flavor and fibrous SNESs of them. The former head of that program at the Fairchild was named Richard Campbell and Stasi went and I went with Harold McGee down there and had a very disappointing rain filled trip where they didn't let us eat all the mangoes that they had sworn on a stack of Bibles that are gonna let us eat remember that stuff? Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

that was fun ish yet this

the it will I forget her name but the lady who is like at the center that day, they were getting ready for their their yearly mango festival. And listen, once the mangoes drop on the ground, then they're overripe. Okay, so the mangoes dropped on the ground. They're overripe. The lady goes, you can't pick mangoes off the tree. Remember this does. And then so we're like, fine. So we picked them, the ones that looked like they just fell. And then we're sitting there, Harold, Anastasia and I, and we're taking tasting notes. Her friend Claire is watching my kids outside. They're running around in the rain getting soaked, right? So we're taking tasting notes and ladies, like you're tasting notes are inaccurate because you're eating over ripe mangoes. If I could have pushed a button if she had a shock collar on, she would have gotten zapped so hard. You know what I mean? But Richard Campbell has since left he left in 2017 I think he left the Fairchild but when he was there, along with Norris Ledesma, who's another great researcher in mangoes, they traveled the world tasting mangoes, taking the seeds back and growing them. Tropical mangoes growing the world's most delicious fruit. I think I don't own a copy of it. And I looked it up on the web before it came. And it's in the $250 range. So I would interlibrary loan it, the bookstore at the spice fruit and spice Park in South Dade. It has books that they bought when they were new, and they don't change the prices based on their value and nobody buys them and so I actually bought my you know, the fruits of Brazil that blue book are Yeah, I bought it from them for you know, whatever its original cover price was not the infinity that people charge for it now. So I would look it's actually interesting botanical places sometimes buy things right when they're printed and then never sell them like I've found some cool stuff at the New York Botanical Garden gives Shop. That's a great shop. Yeah. Oh, I love the Yeah, yeah. Great shop anyway. So look at look at the ARS das GRI n.gov website for mangoes, and, you know, get there. And that's actually, when we went to the Geneva agricultural extension for apples. I printed out all of the apple varieties and pictures with tasting notes. And when they were, you know, from the USDA grn website, so it's not easy to use, but it is useful. Anyway. Doctor kill fork, what do you have against forks? Doctor? What do you have? Because that can't be a real name. Right?

I would suspect it's not. Yeah, it will be cool.

Like what stars? What specialty? Do you think a doctor kill fork would would be in? No, no. No. Yeah. Gee, gastroenterologist, up right. Now not exactly a question. Okay, ready for this? Not exactly a question. I can't stand Pheidon books, something about the layout they use for recipes makes me irrationally upset. Am I missing something? Does anyone prefer this layout.

So I understand, being irrationally upset, I have to give a lot of props to Pheidon for their coverage and their willingness to publish people who are being overlooked by just about anybody else. But formatting is, is I think, for them often a reflexive choice based on their history as an art book publisher. And they have a design aesthetic and a style that arises from from that. And that assumes that having all the photographs of the plated food at the front, and the recipes at the back is sort of like having, you know, photographs of all the bottle Celie pieces in the world. And then scholarly notes at the back. I don't like that either, though. Well, I I can certainly understand that I find it frustrating, it may help them save on paper costs. I mean, if I didn't often works in relatively small print run. So they're trying to keep their costs down. But it makes me not as a user of a book, I certainly understand that frustration, because you're like, What is that thing right there? Why what you know, why is it? What is that? Why is it that color? Why does it have that texture? And obviously, reading the recipe should give you a lot of clues to that. But if you're flipping back and forth, it's frustrating. I have lots of conversations with lots of publishers about the way they they publish things. And my conversations with five and about about format are some of my longest running.

Speaking of layout problems, about 18 or 19 years ago, kitchen Arts and Letters sold me a book called pigs of the world pig breeds of the world is Has anyone done a better version of that because all the pictures there, you have to line up the picture with an outline of the pig and then take the number of the pig and go down to see what the pig was if they ever ridden that