Bagna Cauda, Mea Culpa
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IN THIS ISSUE: P.R. drivel or jewels (depending on your perspective), home recipes from the military wives of the Atomic Age, and Amiel’s misremembered Italian facts.
Appetizers
Ripped From the Inbox
An ongoing series in which we present a few gems from our press release-jammed inbox with no context or comment.
“Cowboy Colostrum Collaborates With toto on a Cookies & Cream Protein Cookie — Available in Sprouts 4/15”
“[REDACTED]’s Spring Onion and Coffee Blanc-Manger with a Green Pea Velouté is not your average blanc manger. The blanc manger, which is traditionally presented as a dessert course, is reimagined by Executive Chef [REDACTED] as a savory combination of onions, coffee, and the traditional base of heavy cream and gelatin.”
“US fine dining trend to watch: Australian-trained chefs”
Fission Cuisine
A few days ago, Cold War culture archivist Bill Geerhart uploaded the entirety of Eatomic Secrets, the 1954 community cookbook of the Women’s Club on Sandia Base, to the Internet Archive for all to enjoy.
The top-secret scientists building the American atomic arsenal were eating (and drinking) pretty well out in the New Mexico desert, with pickled shrimp, Panamanian arroz con pollo, two varieties of beef stroganoff, a whole section on casseroles, and dozens of cake and cookie recipes gracing the cookbook’s faintly glowing pages. There’s even a range of ethnically themed menus at the back for the ambitious midcentury chef (with a note for the Chinese menu that you might need to import the right kind of soy sauce from L.A.’s Chinatown). Let us know if you try any of the recipes out, including the cocktails—it appears that mutually assured destruction was built on a foundation of military-approved drinking. —S.D.
Bagna Cauda, Mea Culpa
By Amiel Stanek
Misremembering the story, revisiting the facts, keeping the recipe.
If we dined together at a restaurant that had bagna cauda on the menu in the last fifteen or so years, I’d like to apologize. I was probably a real jerk. The scene would go a little like this: I’d see those two words on the menu and murmur approvingly, Oooooh, bagna cauda. To which at least one person at the table would ask, innocently, What’s that? And I’d explain, obnoxiously, that it is an Italian regional delicacy, that it means “hot bath” in Piedmontese, that it is a rich, warm, salty garlic and anchovy dip traditionally served in the style of a grand aioli, with lots of raw vegetables and bread for dunking, and that it is one of my all-time favorite foods.