Kitchen Table Tidbits #5

1.   MIND YOUR MANNERS: Did you ever wonder how “good manners” came about? Not that it is much of a worry these days as they become extinct. But it appears to have to do with separation from animals. For so long, we shared the same roof, common folk didn’t have stables or cow sheds or chicken coops. We shared some similar habits. Both man and beast ate with the equipment God gave them. But along came knives and forks, and with them etiquette. Don’t lick your lips like a horse, don’t eat with your mouth open like a pig, and don’t guzzle like a swan. Only a cat would lick the bowl. You probably wouldn’t have had a wolf in the house unless you were Red Ridinghood’s grandma, but there’s another: Don’t wolf your food.

2.   FEDS TO CATCH MORE CATFISH: I’ve presented several notes on Vietnamese catfish (which under our protectionist federal law cannot be called catfish) and how tons of that fish get into our country without inspection, often mislabeled as a higher priced fish such as flounder, grouper, pollock, shark, sole etc. In addition to mislabeling, problems have also involved health violations. Until recently the feds have done a bang-up job of avoiding serious inspection of the imports. But over the past year federal inspectors did catch a fairly astonishing 273 tons of “adulterated or ineligible” catfish. That figure apparently shocked Congress and in the forthcoming budget for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, far stricter inspections are ordered. Consumers should feel well protected because inspection by the feds is over and above required self-inspection by suppliers. Though previously known as “swai” these catfish will be labeled “basa” or “tra,” basa being the best fish.

3.  YOU NEED THESE KNIVES: Elizabeth David may be our best food writer of all time, and her biographer (Artemis Cooper: Writing at the Kitchen Table) considers “Batterie de Cuisine,” an essay in David’s French Country Cooking, “one of the most useful that Elizabeth was ever to write, and holds as good today as it did in 1951.” The essay covers utensils needed for a proper kitchen. Regarding knives, I was pleased to find that I have instinctively collected those David recommends. That would include a “small vegetable knife, razor sharp, a medium one for trimming meat and fish (known as filleting knife), a large one for cutting up meat and poultry, and a long-thin-bladed ham knife for cold meat, and anything which has to be thinly sliced.” Add to that a good bread knife, and keep them all in a special place, tipped with corks. “Let it be understood by all members of the household that there will be serious trouble if your knives are borrowed for screw-driving, prising open packing-cases, cutting fuse wire or any other purpose for which they were not intended.”