Hello, this is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live in New York City run the motor Center at newsstands studios, joined remotely today by Anastasia hammer. Lopez, how're you doing? I'm good. And you are remote? Because you were exposed to that, but you weren't with former President Barack Obama but you got exposed to like his new style of COVID. Is that true? Yeah, yeah. Fine. Being safe. Yeah. Nice. Can you can you let people know this is classic. If you've been in business with the Stasi, Lopez as long as I have. You get to appreciate the classic mustache. Same was you want to? So any of you out there that have a business know that people like to send you random scam emails constantly. So what was it? What was it they sent to you for the pasta flyer business that you know, the Anastasia close that restaurant down on Sixth Avenue? How many years ago? I think three, three years ago. Okay. So what do you get?

Yeah, I got a text saying that I qualify or POS supplier qualifies for $257,000. And I wrote back and said the restaurant closed but can I still get the money? And they said yeah, send us your email. And I said it's a scam. Email.

Scam scam@email.com. That's classic. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's that's what I love to do that kind of stuff. All right. We also have a course working working the sliders here. We got Joe Hasan in the booth. How you doing? I'm doing great. How are you doing? Doing? Well. I'm doing all right. We got we got Captain John kneehole Here behind me. Rocking the customer service. How're you doing? John? Doing great. Thanks. And what do we got? What do we got? Let's do the bookkeeping right now. What do we got?

Bookkeeping right now what do we got? So for the first time ever, we are live streaming on YouTube for a Patreon people you gotta go check out Patreon and see the post about it.

We are standing reminder that's for all access members only.

PS that's Jackie molecules rockin California booth, which I haven't introduced yet. How're you doing Jack? You're doing well.

I'm good. Sorry. I broke a radio rules.

Listen, everyone knows you anyway, like if Jackie molecules can't say what he wants when he wants what the hell is the world coming to?

Stuff like that.

Anything interesting to report from California?

No, no, no, nothing really except Except given the video setup which is which is fun. And yeah, reminder, it's for the All Access members which the $10 month tier so if you don't see it,

all access sounds always sounds super gross to me all access just sounds friggin horrible. Anyway, I mean, I know it's a good thing. I know people want all access, but like, anytime someone says we'll give you all access to something. I'm like, Oh, please, no, Please edit. Please just give me partial access to only the good stuff. Anyway, back back to bookkeeping download, we got you.

We are still doing the discount with working seven up to the end of April. So check Patreon for that. And then upcoming guests next week Monday at 10am. Special time there will be no show on Tuesday next week. On Monday at 10am. We have Kenji Lopez alt coming in, which will be great. Then we've got James Hoffman coming on Adam DiMartino at a future date Oliver Millman on a future date and hopefully Tony Hopkins at a later date and we will be working with kitchenettes and letters to offer to one or a discount to be determined amount for kanjis upcoming books so stay tuned about that.

Well and if you want to meet Kenji first of all I should just say this today in the studio for the first half we're doing a half the show version of classics in the field here old school with Matt sartwell is going and we're gonna from kitchen arts and letters which you can find on the socials at k a. No NYC AI Kal NYC that would be kitchen arts. Like well the arts there's one a so you don't get the and kitchen Arts Letters. NYC. Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, so we're going to do a classics in the field. But Kenji is going to be at for like a you don't really normally open them.

Do you know we're opening? We're not really opening we're I'm getting there early. So Kenji can come in sign a couple 100 books for us on Monday morning and

customers allowed to go or no, sorry people.

This is a oops, we got to we got to turn him through because he's got this

donuts

rendezvous with you

don't fishbowl and then I thought maybe it was like an early morning signing, which is like I thought maybe it was some sort of like West Coast thing that like West Coast authors nowadays a West Coast guy like we send things very early in the morning, but you know,

just just do Going where we can to make it happen.

All right. All right. So, since we only have you for the first half, John, remind me, I'll save my regular morning tangents for, for after the break. Perfect. All right, you're gonna remind me.

I won't have to. But yeah.

How's this?

You'll go on your attention.

So before we get into people's classics in the field question, I have to get this out of the way. I'm sorry, Matt. But Matt knows that. And everybody who listens to this show knows that. I've been kind of deep diving on this pie expert, Monroe, Boston Strauss. I now you know, own something like six or seven Monroe, Boston Strauss pie tins. I have, you know, which they're fine. They're not great pie tins. They're not God's pie tin. Anyway, by the way, you should own several sizes of pie pan of two, you need several sizes. Here's why. Let's say you want to use his classic trick of doing the inverted baking where you bake on an upside down pie pan. Well, then you're going to want to up end that into the next size of

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Some of there's a lot of new pie books out, right?

Yes. The fall of 2020. It was like, the time again.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was any of them that stick out that you really enjoy. Um,

I think there were several pretty strong books that came out in that rush. Kate McDermott, who's had the two black pipe books, and of course now I can't distinguish them in my brain. But either of them is strong. There was a book called New pi, which came out a little earlier, a couple of guys from Atlanta.

Kevin, but they were non pros, who like just enters a whole bunch of contests. Yes. And they do a whole bunch of weird things to the to the pies like they use some modern techniques. And

some Yeah, I mean, there's some some fairly classic things, but they're, they're pretty crowd pleasing pies. I think they, they have a few unusual approaches. But mostly it's just a tweaks of flavor, rather than technique. So I would say those Aaron McDowell I would look also, you know, it's been around for longer the book from foreign 20 blackbirds, all of those are strong, strong products.

Nice. Well, yesterday, of course, was Pi Day. Yes. John, if if we're all still alive next year, we should make sure that we do our PI social stuff at actually 159 that way is 3.14159 Right? And then that that you know, that's about as many as I keep in my head when I was a kid we were any of you guys memorizing pie kids. I was one of those memorizing pie kids. I used to do be able to do a couple 100 digits.

Oh my God, no, no, it's 3.14

you don't you never had the 159

and then like I think I would have said 157 So I would have been

the way I always remember it was 3.14159 and then I think I can't remember what's after that I thought then that the next each I always remembered as a single and I think it's two and then there's like you remember them in like you you remember them in like strings like I know like pretty soon after that there's an 8979 Like it's like you gotta like use you remember it almost like a threat to find the role and yet if Yeah, you got to find that you got to find the payroll anyway. Yesterday being Pi Day I thought it was moderately appropriate to discuss my Monroe Boston Strauss. Now I'm going to ask Matt this because you know, he's the expert in this so his famous book was called time marches on absolute the classic in the field. Amazing book. Everybody knows it hard to find out but there's reprints and it's online scant Monroe Boston Strauss came up with a second almost completely unknown book that is, I've never seen in the wild a copy of it I interlibrary loan, it's called how to make better pies and it is an entirely different book. And I have done all the research to kind of that there is to do on it. I have scanned a copy of this book, and we have it up for Patreon people right we're right up now for pot for Pi Day for you guys. I know I owe you a video I haven't done a video yet. But I put that book up scan I tried to do a good job. I don't know if you guys looked at it to decent scanning job I did a decent job of scanning and OCR in it right? It is obviously a lot of the same information but like pie marches on which was a series of articles that was published in a magazine how to make better pies is also a series of articles in different magazines. So they are slightly different. And he has slightly different points especially about he finally talks about how to substitute flour in bakers in the in the how to make better pies. So that's up there for you for Patreon people now here's the question, since I'm a believer in information being free, especially because the actual copyright on this is as long as you give the original people credit you're allowed to distribute it. Right according to the original magazine that was in They're like hostile. They're like, do what you want, as long as you give us credit. And since they're way defunct, I'm super happy to anyway, I'd be happy to give them credit. So how long do I wait to have it just be the jealously guarded secret of the Patreon people and then release it into the world so that everyone can have this amazing document?

I absolutely understand the impulse that I don't know the answer to that question. I, I'm afraid that you would really need to talk to somebody who has been to law school,

not mean, legally, just like what do you think right? To give our Patreon people morally right? Like a month?

Oh, you mean your Patreon people do good things for you. I give it a little longer for the Patreon people I give it like six months, six months? Yeah. All right. I mean, the the true believers who are not yet subscribed to your Patreon will be willing to wait. And maybe it'll tip the balance and you know, support you. That's

true. Because if you want to go buy this book, there's one copy on on the internet, as far as I know, I spoke to Bonnie about it. And she was like, what she thinks that to two copies that are up one of them's fake. And the other one, you know, it's like one of these places that like says that they have it, but they don't think it's price match and try to go get it, which I didn't even know is the thing. She's like, Oh, yeah, that's the thing. It's definitely

a thing. Ya know, if she's suspicious, I would, I would trust that suspicion.

So there's one copy available on the internet. And it's $300. So one of you can go buy it if you want. Or you could just join the Patreon to get the scan much cheaper. And you know,

yeah, $300 is not a surprisingly high price for that to paperback. Still, scarcity of material, give it being what it is, I'm not, you know, I've seen worse.

The thing is, is that I have a love for these things that are not actually valuable. Just no one cared about them until much later. And so they weren't saved.

Well, that's the that's the story of So, so many books. I mean, Monroe, Boston Strauss has had sort of waves of revival. But this may be the first time that he's sort of caught the attention of somebody who's willing to do something about it.

Yeah. You know, me. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of that, when Dave Chang was on, I mentioned that, you know, again, the pie King was there, and how Los Angeles is actually where a lot of pie innovation happened in the early mid 20th century, right from the 20s up to the 40s. Because of him, really, but you think also Murray calendars down there like that. That was the genesis of a lot of kind of modern modern pie work. Was there. The chiffon pie if I was gonna say that Strauss that's, that's last year was the 100th anniversary of the chiffon pie, and I couldn't get anyone to have us write an article about it. Right, John? That's right. It's ridiculous. I was like 100th anniversary, this chiffon pie, and PSU are all doing it not not, there's no right or wrong way. But like the original was cornstarch thickened, which is weird, because Monroe Boston Strauss is well known for hating cornstarch as an over thickening agent, and yet that's how he chiffons were thickened, not with gelatin. So you know, the original way is actually a vegetarian way. Not a gelatin way. There you have it. Anyways, I and you know, what I say I was going to do for the video we'll get into later I'm digressing. Exactly. The other Los Angeles thing that I spoke to you about and this is why you sent me to Barney on ephemera is a guardian service where the crazy aluminum pots ever, ever, I've gone too deep on this. I've seen pictures of them. I've never owned one. I now own to mine, too many of them. And I have a couple of, you know, listeners and Patreon subscribers who have started snatching this stuff up on eBay, it's still really cheap. It's not induction friendly. So it's not necessarily a long, long term solution for those of us that are going to move to induction in the near future. It's Gas and Electric only. But they're very thick aluminum pans, and they're a form of waterless cooking, so like everyone needs to go. So what waterless cooking was back in the day is you had very like tightly make the pot so that the lids fit on very tightly, and then you would cook everything with the water that came with it. And it's a very similar analogue to Dave Chang's microwave bowls, right. So his microwave bowls the idea is you microwave it, they make steam, the steam then absorbs all this stuff. And this in fundamentally, you're no longer microwaving the food anymore. You're just providing the energy to generate the steam and it steaming itself in its own vapors, and gardening service where from the 30s to the 50s when their factory burned down in Los Angeles. They were doing the same thing. waterless cooking during World War Two when there was an aluminum shortage. Right at the beginning they stopped making their lives out of aluminum metal lids out of glass. So if you're searching for these things guardian service where they're pretty awesome, I love them. But glass lids are postwar and metal lids are pre war and I have put up both copies of the first edition which is the pre war metal lid edition. And the second edition which is the glass lid edition of Guardian Service tested recipes up for the Patreon users as well so you can look at their recipe book. Should you be so inclined. They stuck with the glass lids postwar they did. Okay. They stayed with it and what's interesting is is that as a business this I find this very interesting because sometimes you do things because you have to but then you end up liking it more. So having cooked with both glass and metal lids on the Guardian Service everybody will correct me if I'm wrong guys. What do you like cooking with glass? Or do you like the the stainless steel common lid? Like old school all clad lid? Or do you prefer glass lids?

I use what I get out of the door first.

Wow. By the way, all lids should be you got to figure out a way to hang your lids drawer lid drawers are an abomination.

I don't disagree with you. But somebody I have to get the people to move out of the apartment next door before I can expand my kitchen that

man Yeah, I mean, like, Oh, my, as far as I can, my lids are on the wall. That's why like, luckily, in my metal lids, I've drilled holes in them all in the edges so that I can hang them. And then in my glass lives, they usually have a vent hole glass lids do, I guess otherwise they might be crack if the heat was too high or something I don't know. But most glass lids that I have have a grommet lined hole that you can put over a bread. least most of mine do. We should get some clarity on the field. So I would say everyone likes seen through glass. But the old school one they used to use a trick because what am I going to say John? What am I going to say? What is the key thing about aluminum in the kitchen? I don't know. Okay, two key things. One amazing heat conductor. We all know this right? Second really only to copper in commonly found kitchen equipment to very low emissivity. So the thing that they're trying to work around here is the fact that you can't get a lot of browning. So they have a lot of roasting recipes. But all their roasting recipes do a lot of pre browning of the meats because there's no emissivity, so you get almost no brownie, even if you stick it in the oven. Now, what they do do with the old glass lids, and I haven't tested it yet, but he kept this they put it on the burner. And the whole point is you use very little gas because it's such a good heat conductor and then you pull it off the burner, you move the lid over to the side and literally literally reflect the the gas flames radiant heat off the lid and boom back onto the food to brown it. That's how they tell you to do it in the first edition cookbook.

I would be scared.

I'm just skeptical. I haven't tested it yet. But I'm just like really, really

solid meant to get that hot. I mean,

I well it shouldn't get it should get some conduction heat but all of the radiation most of it should be reflected. So to the extent that there is radiant heat coming off of it's supposed to act like a very good reflector. Interesting concept. One last one, John, I know you're mad at me. Yep. There double boiler is a dry double boiler.

Seriously, nothing, nothing down below no water. So what

it is, is it's just one pot sitting inside of another perfect seal between the two pots and just an air gap between them. And that's their double boiler. They're like our Hughes solely than that we can do a double boiler without water. Have you tried it? I have one on the way. Glass Lid. Anyway, when their factory burned down, and they moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, and when their factory burned down in the 50s. They went the way of the dodo hard to recover from that. Alright, classics in the field. So are we answering questions? Are we just letting that talk about classics? Does he had the questions in advance? He can he can. Yeah, you can describe why don't you do it in the order that you see fit?

Okay, well, I have some of the questions in my head, and I worked out some longer answers to them. Depending on how much time goes, we can revisit some of them. One of the questions that popped up several times was information about classics from the classic era, books from the classical era, I should say. So books from ancient times, those who are very scarce, not a lot has survived. And what we often have, is fragmentary material. And stylistically in terms of approach, they're very different from anything we would consider a cookbook these days. The oldest material that we have, in any kind of substantial form comes from about 330 BCE. It's a poem by a guy named Mark Estrada sub Gala, which was a Greek settlement in Sicily. And his work doesn't actually survive on its own. But large portions of it are quoted in a work that was published at the end of the second century AD. So almost 500 years later. He was quoted extensively in a book by a fellow named Athenaeus, who was a well known orator. He was living in a Greek colony and in northern Egypt, and he wrote a book 15 volumes, called the deep narcissists, which translates as roughly the philosopher diners or the learned inquisitors. And it ranges across a wide range of subjects somewhat a radically as you might expect from dinner conversation among learned people in Greece. And he often quotes from Arca Stratus. Who gives something like recipe, something like chopping tips, mostly for choosing fish, the Greeks were serious about fish in a way that almost nobody who succeeded them has ever been serious about it. And it's full of advice on how to recognize a good one. Don't let an Italian cook this particular fish because they'll do it wrong. But have them cook this fish instead. It's highly opinionated. It has a lot of character. But it's not a set of detailed instructions in the way that we now in the 21st century

expect Italians in time well known bad cooks, right? They hired Greeks to do their cooking, but they hated work, right? They Romans hated work. Well, I

mean, lots of people hated work, and particularly the people who were producing these books. I mean, and that's one of the problems with the surviving material. So Plato, for instance, didn't really think much of the Sicilians because he thought they were too serious about food. Plato was suspicious of people who liked to eat well,

he thought the sign of character Plato, good writer, crazy lunatic, man. Yeah,

lots of in lots of respects. I mean, you know, he was paranoid and hyper conservative and invented Atlantis to discourage the Greeks from having a Navy, I mean, so not always the person you want to go to for good food advice. So there were fragments of books that we know like about tiny little amounts of like, there was a book on breadmaking by someone named Chrysippus, of Tayana. But it's only known by reference in other works. So the idea that something you know, equivalent to even like the Koran of classical Greece, just those those things were being produced, in part because the people who did the work, were not the people who were creating the books.

What about the what about the, the cuneiform tablets in the Yale Babylonian collection that were translated a number of years ago by that French guy is now dead?

I don't, I haven't seen material from them. And my recollection is that it's more in the way of record keeping, than it is a set of actual instructions. I mean,

he forgot the guy's name, he compiled a book, which was then translated in the mid 2000s. But yeah, it's one of those things where the recipes, I read the recipes, and they're extremely, like, mash up, mash up these things, and you get it together. But then people have tried to people, this one professor tried to like infer, based on other knowledge he had of what people would have had tried to infer kind of how they would cook, and he did a cookbook of I forget the name of it. But you know, and then recently, there was in England, in 2019, I think some group of a Mesopotamian scholars did a dinner where they tried to recreate a lot of this stuff. But again, it's a lot of it's very speculative.

It has to be speculative, just because we're not even confident in a lot of cases about the ingredient names. And, you know, if you start going back and looking at the history of early grains, there's there's so much division about what something possibly could have been that it's all making leaps of

faith, right? I mean, even stuff that is fairly well tested like a patient's right, which we haven't gotten into yet, as I am supposed to pronounce it a patient's like

I say, I say a patient. I mean, I know people say a peak. Yes. But I also say Julius Caesar and said of Julius qaisar. So he says

that, you should say it the way you say it, I like it the better way you say a patient. Yeah. And Julius Caesar.

Yeah, no, I meant I say, I don't try to pretend that I'm pronouncing the classical Latin way, because they're all dead anyhow. Yeah. But I mean, these, they've entered contemporary culture, and sort of assumed contemporary American pronunciations is my that's my thinking. Yeah.

Also, though, people shouldn't make the mistake that just because everyone's dead, that we can't figure out how it was pronounced. There's a whole Historical Linguistics field of study, which is amazingly interesting. I took a class on it in college where they can deduce the pronunciation based on the changes that happen post that link. It's amazing work. You ever read that stuff?

I read small amounts of it and realize that was in way over my head.

Yeah. It's, it's just amazing to know that somebody does that. That's all I need to know. I don't need to do it. I took a class on it. And it's enough to know that there are other people who do it. But my issue with a patient is is that most people and this is why my favorite is, I think the more recent one instead of the Dover reprint I prefer the Sally Granger because she, I think, tries to take seriously the recipes and not say, well, all of these recipes must have been wrong. Therefore, I'm going to use my modern cook sensibility to recreate them, which I think is always the wrong move. Like I think the assumption is, is that these people a knew what they were talking about and be their food tasted good. That's always the assumption to make. Right?

I think I think you have to take it that way. Because otherwise, I mean, why are you interested? If you're not trusting in the author, to have at least a passionate concern with their subject matter, then you're wasting your time and the veiling translation that is that I think the one that's available and over. It was interesting work because it got the ball rolling on doing translations of the pieces. But there have been numerous subsequent ones, and they grow Cochon and Granger one that prospect Brooks has done. That is impressive and acknowledges differences in the text. It tries to understand them. That's a serious effort to get into the material and see what can be drawn from it. Right.

And speaking of Sally Granger, we should get her on some time. I don't know she didn't seem interested. But she just did a recent book on fish sauce on Gorham and liquidation. But it's unobtainable because it just costs so dang much. Why didn't we you said that their publisher is known for not caring about things.

There are some publishers whose whose business model involves direct sales solely to interested academics. And they assume that it's somebody with a book buying budget, either a library or an institutional budget. And so they're pricing the books at 180 $500. They don't offer discounts to booksellers, or to any kind of reseller because they're confident and they're in the direct market. week week, it breaks my heart because, you know, there's a lot of asks, if not a very good material out there that should be more widely available.

Right now for a more modern someone had a question. And then we'll then we'll move to a different continent unless you have more for the for the old world No, I think, or the European slash, because there's nothing Egyptian right? No one's done a good work on Egyptian,

not that I've seen, I mean, you know, tiny bits of information around about beer making, and so forth. But food production, you know, and there's some blurry lines about the way Egyptians treated beer, they sort of concert considered a way of preserving grain and, and they fed people a lot of beer a week beer. But nothing more complex than that, that I'm aware

of any any good, really good new work in English for like the translation of the 14th century Islamic stuff.

There have been some books, there are several good books that are that are coming out. Translate translated by a scholar named Noah Walden stralla. And she has continued to translate that material, I think very thoughtfully, well supported by footnotes and anecdotes and her own research. But those are expensive, too. They run anywhere from 90 to $200. So it's better than some things but it's not a casual weekend pickup.

And are these the kinds of things that you I guess you'd have to interlibrary loan if you didn't have the money, right? Or something like this? Yeah, I

would, I would assume that a good interlibrary loan program would be able to get them to you. I mean, we keep three or four of them at the store. Because we do get enough inquiries about them. They're not on the website, unfortunately. Because to be honest, I need to spend time with them to be able to write about them intelligently. I haven't done that yet.

Most of the stuff that I've seen, well, I'll say I haven't researched it number of years. So you tell me but you know, the last time I researched with you was a number of years ago. Medieval medieval Chinese stuff in English was really sparse as anything good thing. Good come out.

I haven't seen it. No. I mean, I, I, I'd love to have a selection of things like that. But I'm not aware that it's been translated. Right. And

I know that someone was working on a translation of the Old like, Thai royal stuff. Did that ever come to light? Not any record told me that that there was these old documents that Thompson got and our whatever? And then, wow,

I mean, I'd love to have that out. I'll

ping ping, ping recurs. Yeah, yeah. That would be fantastic.

I have no idea what that would even look like, right?

Because those recipes are different. Because it's like they live in a different literally different, like plane from Yes. From the ordinary people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, when that'd be, that'd be something some. Yeah. All right. So we have a question from rapa. Does Matt know it? We're talking about the What I've always referred to as the michelito books, but there's actually four books, right? There's introduction to Japanese cuisine, flavor and seasonings, and then there's cutting techniques, one locally to one and wiggly to two, right? So do you know if they're just out of stock, or if they're out of print,

they aren't technically out of stock, but there is no date in the system as of a week or two when I last checked on them. So that means, at least not in the next two to three months. But they're distributed in the United States by Random House on behalf of Kodansha. And I have backorders in this in the Random House system for all of them.

Yeah. And they're well enough known that the price on AV is pretty jacked up.

I am not surprised to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. They are useful, meticulous books, and I don't understand what the what the difficulty is in finding a bigger market for them.

We I don't own any of them. But I've seen the spreads. And they're pretty good. Yeah,

they're I mean, they're, they're, they're from the source. They are the kind of careful, thoughtful, precise approach that you would expect from a serious Japanese system. And I don't know why it's such a struggle. Are they

in English as well? Or they are in English, or they are translated? Are they as bad as the Monty? Not that I'm going to make you bad mouth classic English translation is better? Yeah. I mean, you know how I feel about certain Spanish publishers, translation skills.

I know exactly what you're talking about. And I will say that they are getting better. I don't know that they've actually hit the perfect point. But they have taken criticism seriously.

Well, that's nice. I mean, if I can tell that your Spanish translation is bad, it's real bad. Yeah, is that I'll speak Spanish. So it has to be really bad for me to know, there

are there are some publishers in Spain who were being very careful. The recent disfrutar book was really well translated. It felt pretty idiomatic

nice. I mean, like, I've said it a million times, but like it that the most important Spanish book in the United States in the early 2000s Wasn't I don't think the the El Bulli books it was it was the Roca book, in terms of its impact on working shifts, everyone I know who was interested in in suevey, low temperature book, they were all getting the Roku book and a lot of people based a lot of their early thoughts off of the Roku book, it was the only book on on on technique. Yeah. You know, prior to when Thomas Keller came out with his book, which I have issues with many issues with I have issues with the Roca book, too, but it was the very first group to attempt to do it. And it was kind of a kind of a watershed moment. And, you know, at the school when I was at the French culinary at the time, we had both the Spanish and the English versions. And so I looked at them side by side because the brokers were super famous for this. Warm cod. Right? And so in and then I looked at the recipe I was like, That's gross, because it's cod, right? And I'd never been to L Clark and rook I still haven't, which is unfortunate, because I'd love to co I was like, that's gross. 104 degrees cod, the, you know, I mean, like, gross. And then I looked at its buckle it's bacalao. So salt cod, entirely different. Beast, and just, that's how little they cared about translating into English back in. When was that book? Oh, 405. So I'm like, a little over 302 Somewhere around there. So two, yeah. Oh, two? That makes sense. Because that Yeah. Right. Because, uh, one or two because Wiley, I was buying him circulators and like, oh, 203 You know, and he had that book right? When WD opened WD 50. It was like, he had that very early on. And that was remember, I remember reading that book and being like, What the hell is this? You know what I mean? Like, anyway, alright, so let's get some more classics. So to begin with, alright, all right, we got to get the classics out because I lose Matt after the ad roll. I'll do an ad soon. So what else we have? What about New World? Hit me for?

Do we want to do classics in the field? Yeah. Okay, so, two, two books that I've brought suggest. First, not really new world but simple French food by Richard omy. Amazing book from 1974 Only is an incredible snob. And he's a big liar about when it comes to the idea of simplicity. But if you know that going in, you're going to find this fascinating book. He is incredibly passionate and detailed. At the same time, he's you get the feeling that he would have been a horrible pain in the ass to know and work with. But the book is completely absorbing and it is very true particularly to Southern French province, all food. So I think it's the kind of thing that anybody who's interested in French food needs to know about out, just take his mean, he tosses around the word in the cell fairly often with regard to just about anybody to good word though, who isn't himself? Well,

I mean, it's not gonna You're not allowed to say anymore. I mean, it's like it sounds good, imbecilic. And

so where would you like to better use it too many times, yeah. And it starts to lose its power. Yeah. As a contrast to that, I came to talk about taste of country cooking by Edna Lewis. Both of these are about home cooking. They're very rooted in a sense of place, the Lewis book is about the food, mostly the food that she knew growing up in a very small community. And in rural Virginia, it's very connected to the way the food was produced, where the ingredients came from, she talks about a salad green that they picked that they planted along the fence posts on the way to the well, because they watered the greens every day as they were carrying water into the house. So it has that, that sense of, of being very connected to a way of life. The only book is a little more, there's a key phrase point in the early part of the only book where he talks about how he talks to the men in the village she lives in, they're always willing to talk about great food forever and ever. And the women get very tired of talking to him about it very quickly. And I think he's sort of divorced, the the work of the production of this food from the enjoyment of

eating it easy to talk about, if you don't have to make it.

Yes. And I think that comes through, but still, it's it is. It's an amazing document of, of culture, and food. And despite his inclusiveness and his giant blind spots. He is passionately concerned with with the way that these people were cooking and eating,

but diametrically opposed to analysts.

Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't. I've never seen the two of them in a room together. I can't imagine how much they would have had to say to each other and our time, but Lewis was she was very calm and collected and stately and, and I think didn't much care about what other people thought. And only was passionate and intense and sort of a darting wit, and technically incredibly accomplished as a cook, but not much flexibility in the way he thought about things.

So let me ask you a quick question. I'm gonna get my butt handed to me here in the Americas has anyone superseded? Sophie COEs, America's first cuisines? Because that's old. That's like 1994 95. It's like pushing 30

I have not seen any serious attempt at addressing pre Columbian culture or food in English since then. Yeah. Since then, there may be works in Spanish that look any good. It is. It is. It's I think it's quite seriously good. It it really wasn't interested in, in sort of hearsay on folklore, she was looking for documents, she was looking for archaeological evidence. She wrote it with her husband, who was an impressive scholar of middle America. A lot of the research was her own, but she used him as sort of a rigorous sounding board. And she also did a book called the true history of chocolate, which was done a few years later. Still in print also, and, and fascinating. Look at what we know, the problem with a lot of that time is that the there were records in many cases and they were destroyed by Spanish colonial people who thought they were preserving the natives from their heathen ways.

And on the way out, and we'll go right from whatever you say here. It's been a pleasure having you on on the way out as usual, we'll have you back. For this. I guess we're doing half half segments. John, basically. Flexible Kota asks, we'd love to hear a classic in the field about either old school, ancient cooking in general, in general, or native Native American first people. So here in the US anything what do we got? Other than the sous chef, which is a newer book, not a

right Shawn Sherman's book is is great, but it's definitely a contemporary look at the use of traditional Native American ingredients, but informed by classic technique. No, we don't really have some great ancient work from even from the 19th century. As far as I know, it's that was pretty much stomped out. And a lot of cases people who had indigenous traditions were uprooted and moved. They were forced to adapt their diets to things like wheat which were beneficial to the wealthy white settlers who were growing and selling to them. So it's there's a tremendous loss there and you and documentation about what's out there is mostly about agricultural practices and what can be discerned. But in terms of like cooking, no, not to my knowledge.

Now there's a field of scholarship open there. Yeah. Well, Matt, thanks so much. We're going to be right back with more cooking issues. This episode of Cooking issues brought to you by ora king salmon, our favorite fish. Today we have Michael Fabbro, from ORA King to tell us more about it. The way that an animal fish specifically is slaughtered has a huge effect on the actual quality of the the mussel meat. And you guys take great pains to make sure that the fish is under as little stress as possible, right? Yeah, absolutely. Everything we do throughout their lifecycle, we're trying to minimize stress. But that becomes critically important at harvest. We basically gather the fish, have them swim up, kind of the food is upstream channel, where they will get to a point where there's a percussive stunner and a bleeder. And that percussive stunner will knock them out so that they're not aware of the next kill step. So they're not feeling pain, there's no release of lactic acid, that when you buy or king you're buying a salmon that has hatched in a second cleanest water in the world kept in good conditions in a low density environment. Very good genetics with a very high fat content is slaughtered under very non stressful conditions and shipped immediately to LAX. So she had arrives at your door from gold belly. Four days after it was swimming in the water, or a king salmon. Follow them on Instagram at aura king salmon. Everybody's favorite fish. And we're back. So I realized after I let him go that I didn't answer some. ask him some questions. Gas Station chef in PA wanted to know if the White Rabbit cookbook was still gonna come out. Matt says it's been put on hold indefinitely. Why John? I couldn't hear what he said. Well, yeah, I don't really know much about that. Yeah, yeah. It was that one owned by some like horrible person.

No, but I mean, he definitely a lot of rich Russian oligarchs would have eaten at his restaurants, one of the best restaurants in the world on the 50 bustles.

You just invented a new word all of GARCH. It's like, oh my god. I know. But like, we got to get Nick from the olive oil thing. That can be the olive GARCH. And I also forgot to ask for Miguel coons the best like the best book on for infusing liquors like a deep dive like liquid intelligence style. Why don't you ask Matt offline and we'll we'll get that to him on

I spoke to him about that beforehand. That doesn't really exist yet. Unfortunately. Yeah.

Well, you can get that Italian liquors book that got ganked from me. You know, because that's all that's all infusions and stuff, but it's like Italian style, like fury, the LP and all that stuff. So well. Glad you asked that. Because then now we know that we at least tried to get an answer. What else do we miss?

foraging? clanfield.

We Euell. Gibbons. Yep. stocking the whatever stocking to blue eyed scallops stocking the wild asparagus. Like, stocking that the whole firm is not just good. But like anyway, those. So stars. You there? Yeah, I'm gonna tell you a story. I'm gonna you're gonna enjoy it ready? You ready for my morning? So you had your scan things? And here's what happens to me. Right? So. So for those of you that don't know, like, in my house, you can't play music out loud. Because it triggers kind of Booker, he loses his mind. So like consequently, like I haven't taught DAX like a lot of like, you know, what I used to listen to so DAX Yeah, only listens to very specific stuff anyway. So like when you want to hear music, you put earphones in? And so like people are walking around the house and we can't hear what's going on around us. Right? You know, you get the picture. So, you know, go into the bathroom this morning. I'm doing my business. And I'm listening to Soundgarden as one does. Everyone who listens to the show knows I love Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. I'm listening to I forget what song it was. I think it was like, you know my WAV or something? And of course, I'm marveling at how well Chris Cornell can go between like all those different registers, right? I mean, how seamlessly the man can go between all of his different registers, right? It's, it's, it's, he's great. And then the next song that comes on because you know how, like, the Stasio likes this, but you know, how you choose one song, and then Apple will just decide what you're going to listen to next. Yeah, and it's not based on anything, right? Yeah. So they decide that what I want to listen to is Machine Head by Bush, right. Now, you remember that song? Yeah, breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out like that crap. It's not bad. It's not a bad song. It's just like, I wasn't listening to the radio at that point in my life because I owned a 76 Pontiac Bonneville. I hadn't yet spray painted gold. It was right around the time I had spray painted gold but stuck in the cassette player was a bootleg of Jean James Brown star time discs three and four. So that's all that I ever listened to was James Brown star time three and four for the entire time that I had that Pontiac because that's all the Pontiac played was James Brown. Anytime you turn the key on, it was James Brown. So like that was like the soundtrack of my life for the time that Bush became famous. So anyways, I'm listening to my earphones breathe in, breathe out. I'm like, this song is so much easier, like the vocal range is so much smaller than freaking Chris Cornell. So I'm like, it's not a bad song. But I'm like, these guys are weak compared to Soundgarden. Right? I mean, just vocally. I mean, he's good singer, but it's just not the same. You agree with me? Right? I mean, it's just not as impressive. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So I get this crap. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. I get up. And I lean over, and I'm hearing to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. And then all of a sudden, the music stops. I'm like, what? And then I feel the earpiece falls out, my air pod falls out of my ear. And I'm like, No. And I see because my head is over the toilet. And it's falling in to the business. And I'm like, and while it's falling, like my whole life isn't like my whole brain is in slo mo I'm having all these thoughts. I'm like, I'm gonna have to reach in and reach out and reach in and reach out and reach in to get it right through the business. And then like, what am I gonna do with it? It's a but then I realize, oh, no, my fingers already pressing the flush button. And fish Gone. Gone. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Anyway, that was my mind you try to that. Your mind does terrible things to us. That's like I told you like I knew this guy. Who knew someone who their first day at work went to retrieve a pen they dropped into the deep fryer because or like people if you're about to have your first job in a kitchen, like and no one tells you this. Your reflex is to reach for the knife that you've just dropped. Let It Go get your feet out of the way you know what I'm saying your reflexes to go get it and it's not a good reflex. Very bad. Yeah. Or like you know like anyone who's heard me say this like when you catch on fire your reflexes to run away from yourself. Why? Because you're on fire. Don't do that. You have to train yourself not to heal Yeah, that was my that was my morning nice awesome No, I knew this Stassi would appreciate that. Me It's no it's no closer but you know nothing beats not Yeah, yeah. If you know if all of this goes really south and you know that we're all going to get wiped off and it's going to be a nuclear Armageddon right if that happens. What sandwiches Peter Kim gonna have as the missiles are coming in stuff.