Kitchen Things: An Album of Vintage Utensils and Farm-Kitchen Recipes
Richard Snodgrass
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 1626360367
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Similarly, most people usually have a library of favorite recipes on which they rely: some passed along from relatives and friends, others from mentors and teachers. These are the recipes cooks return to time and time again, in part because they evoke memories of the people who have enjoyed them and prepared them in the past.
Kitchen Things, by master photographer and respected novelist Richard Snodgrass, celebrates these well-loved objects and recipes and showcases them in an unexpected way—a way that touches upon the science of food, the physics of cooking, the sensory pleasures of eating, and indeed the very nature of life itself.
In his reflections, the author is aided by his patient, persistent, and very perceptive wife, Marty, and her mother, from whose Western Pennsylvania farmhouse kitchens the objects and recipes were sourced. The gentle, often humorous repartee between the author and these wise and knowing women forms a running narrative throughout the book.
Maple Sugar: From Sap to Syrup: The History, Lore, and How-To Behind This Sweet Treat
Afternoon Tea: A Timeless Tradition
Fika: The Art of The Swedish Coffee Break, with Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats
Scoop: 125 Specialty Ice Creams from the Nation's Best Creameries
Soap Making Recipes: Soap Making for Beginners
The staff of life. An Irish soda bread, perhaps, with no currants or raisins. GLASS MEASURING CUP “So now you’re giving advice on love? I thought this was a book about kitchen things.” “It is about kitchen things.” “So, to quote Tina Turner, ‘what’s love got to do with it, got to do with it?’” Marty, arms extended above her head, raises the roof as she works her hips a couple of times. “It was only an analogy.” “It seemed pretty particular on the subject of lovers.” “Remember, I did have a
shows us that observing a phenomenon changes the phenomenon. Maybe photographing a thing not only changes the thing—it changes us. BONING KNIFE No collection of kitchen things would be complete without a knife or two. For that matter, the same can be said for any general collection of tools. Making tools defines the Paleolithic period, beginning around 2.5 million years ago (there were people sitting around making tools 2.5 million years ago! And today we worry about things like getting a
Peter Durand, received a patent from King George III for a similar process using tin-plated iron canisters—hence the name can and the verb to can. (Why the name canning stuck for the homegrown effort of preserving food in mason jars is another of life’s little mysteries.) The first commercial canning factory opened in England in 1813, and the containers were soon in use by the English Navy. But there were problems. For one thing, the best skilled craftsmen could only make six cans a day. For
semaphore,” Marty says. “It’s an early geared can opener. At least I think that’s what it is.” “Or a guy sending signals with those semaphore flags. I tried to learn that once when I was in the Girl Scouts.” “There’s only one arm.” “Then maybe he’s sending only half the message, like shorthand. Would that make it short-arm? Why’d you say you think that’s what it is?” “Because I can’t find any mention or example of it in the reference books. I figure it must have been a design that didn’t
perhaps Edvard Munch’s The Scream. (The idea that Munch’s painting portrays an ice cream headache is just silly.) It looks simple enough, but a lot of factors are at work to get a proper somersault of ice cream. There’s the coefficient of friction, with the flow against the metal scoop, to say nothing of the coefficient of thermal expansion as the size of the metal changes with the change of temperature. The laws of thermodynamics are involved somewhere—none of which I pretend to understand—as