Ballot Turned In Today!

 

The Invention of the Ice Cream Cone (but not the hot dog)

A US postage stamp issued in 1998 commemorated the invention of the ice cream cone at the St.Louis World's Fair in 1904. The stamp is inspired by a photo of a St.Louis family visiting the fair. The photo is the only direct image from the fair showing this novel way to eat ice cream. Several ice cream vendors who had booths at the fair claimed this invention as their own; however, the fair operators' careful records of licensed vendors do not clearly prove who owns this glorious honor. Whatever else is said, the creation of a waffle bent into the shape of a cone and filled with a scoop of ice cream is indeed recognized as having started on the famous fairgrounds in St.Louis in 1904. 

On the cover: the same photo used for the stamp.

I've just read a cute little book titled Beyond the Ice Cream Cone: The Whole Scoop on Food at the 1904 World's Fair, which documents the wide variety of foods served at the famous fair, officially called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Author Pamela J. Vaccaro also researched many other claimed inventions of the fair -- "iced tea, the hot dog, the hamburger, Dr Pepper, and peanut butter" as well as the club sandwich, Heinz pickles, and sliced bread. (p.108) Every one of them existed before the fair, several of them having been mentioned much earlier. The history of the ice cream cone, the exception, is very much a history of the fair, as I summarized in my first paragraph. 

Vaccaro also explored the other claims of "firsts" at the fair. These, she found, do not represent real inventions or even introductions, but less dramatic popularization or even a total mistake. For example, a particular tea vendor is often said to have introduced iced tea in response to the oppressive St.Louis summer heat. This very same individual had actually sold iced tea at the Chicago World's fair a decade earlier. In addition, Vaccaro found many recipes and references to iced tea during the 19th century. 

Beyond the Ice Cream Cone is a fairly amusing book, though sometimes I felt that the author was talking down to me. Maybe that's because she's a long-time elementary and middle-school teacher who feels the need to explain everything in great detail and to repeat herself frequently. Nevertheless, there's a lot of food history here, especially the large amount of information about the control of every detail of food offerings by the committee that ran the fair, about the agricultural and manufacturing exhibits and their numerous free samples, and about the many and varied foods available from restaurants and outdoor vendors. In addition, Vaccaro includes many details, including recipes, about the famous food author Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849-1937), who ran a restaurant and gave cooking demonstrations to her adoring fans throughout the eight months of the fair. 

 

Although I grew up in walking distance of the site of the World's Fair, I can't recall hearing a lot of talk about the fair when I was growing up. Vaccaro's book has me thinking of all the stories that I never heard, though surely some of the older people who were around when I was growing up had memories of something about the fair. I knew that many of the buildings in Forest Park and on the campus of Washington University (where I went to college) had originally been built for the World's Fair -- in particular, the building shown on the souvenir post card above, which I found by a web search. This building was used for the administration of the Fair, and subsequently housed the administration of the University.

While visitors to the fair had a variety of hotel and rooming accommodations available to them, as described in Vaccaro's book, these were expensive, and the fair attracted people who couldn't afford them as well as those who could. Not included in the book is that those who had less money could stay at "Camp Lewis" in the emerging town of University City, an encampment of tents including inexpensive meals and minimal service. This is especially fascinating to me because the site of Camp Lewis became the subdivision where my parents' house was located and where I spent my childhood. Lewis, founder of University City and owner of Camp Lewis, was a very colorful character -- a successful businessman who finally ended up in jail. But that's a story for another day (link).

This blog post © 2020 by mae sander. Photos as credited.

Pumpkins, Falling Leaves, Election Signs, and Autumn Meals

Cauliflower and carrot soup.

Cheese, vegetables, and bread right out of the oven.

 Photos © 2020 mae sander.

Art Works I Can See

During the long lockdown to avoid the coronavirus, I have deeply missed being able to go to museums to see exhibits of paintings, sculpture, and a variety of other types of art. Two outdoor artworks in Ann Arbor are accessible without risk, as very few people are on campus and those who are there are remarkably faithful about wearing masks! 

Raoul Wallenberg Plaza

Leonard Baskin (1922-2000), "Memorial."

First is Leonard Baskin's sculpture titled "Memorial," located in Raoul Wallenberg Plaza, a Holocaust Memorial dedicated in 1994. The garden is situated in a very small corner of the University of Michigan campus at the site of the 19th century Jewish cemetery, now decommissioned. I always find a visit to this site very moving.

Installation on the University of Michigan Museum of Art

We also walked around the campus art museum to see a very new installation by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama. He has wrapped the facade of the building in a huge fabric wall hanging titled “In-Between the World and Dreams.” The material for this installation is jute sacks, which were obtained in the markets of Ghana. With a team of workers there, Mahama designed and sewed the hangings, which were installed at the end of September.

What the building normally looks like (source).

Mahama's installation will be in place for just a few weeks, and then will be moved to a museum in Detroit. For more information, see "Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama to blanket U-M Museum of Art with jute sacks."

Blog post and original images © 2020 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

Beer Street and Gin Lane

 In the mid-eighteenth century, England experienced a drug crisis. Gin, a cheap new beverage with a much higher alcohol content than previous popular drinks, became a threat to society. Poor people drank gin instead of working, instead of taking care of their children, and instead of behaving responsibly in any way. Gin-drinking was accused of every evil that we have associated with various drug problems in our society in the last 50 or 75 years. Pressure grew to create laws regulating the manufacturing and distribution of gin — which was completely unregulated at the time. 

William Hogarth (1697-1764) was a successful artist, who issued large editions of his etchings at affordable prices. As the pressure grew for something to be done about the gin epidemic, he created a print called Gin Lane that caricatured and emphasized the social dangers of gin. The center of the print is a woman whose drunkenness is so severe that she is letting her infant fall out of her arms. Throughout the rest of the print are equally egregious examples of debauchery and dysfunction. For a detailed description of what each image means, see the article "Beer Street and Gin Lane" in  Wikipedia.

William Hogarth, Gin Lane. 1751.

The companion print to Gin Lane is called Beer Street. Beer, a much lower-alcohol drink than the distilled gin, had been the choice of Britain's lower classes (and others) for centuries, especially because it was much safer to drink than any drinking water available at that time. Beer was considered a patriotic drink -- a native English product, while gin was a foreign introduction. While the people in Beer Street are prosperous-looking, and seemed to be hard workers, there's also quite a bit of satire in this print. According to the analysis in Wikipedia:

"On the simplest level, Hogarth portrays the inhabitants of Beer Street as happy and healthy, nourished by the native English ale, and those who live in Gin Lane as destroyed by their addiction to the foreign spirit of gin; but, as with so many of Hogarth's works, closer inspection uncovers other targets of his satire, and reveals that the poverty of Gin Lane and the prosperity of Beer Street are more intimately connected than they at first appear. Gin Lane shows shocking scenes of infanticide, starvation, madness, decay and suicide, while Beer Street depicts industry, health, bonhomie and thriving commerce, but there are contrasts and subtle details that some critics believe allude to the prosperity of Beer Street as the cause of the misery found in Gin Lane."

William Hogarth, Beer Street, 1751.

The satire and caricature in  Hogarth's works, including many other than these two, has always appealed to my sense of humor and my interest in social problems in times past. The foibles of society always could be made into amusing and penetrating art works! I'm sharing this with Elizabeth at Altered Book Lover for the weekly blog event featuring drinks that she sponsors each Tuesday.

Blog post © 2020 mae sander, public domain prints taken from Wikipedia.

The Treason of Images

Life follows art.

"This is not a pipe" or "The Treason of Images"
By René Magritte (1898-1967). LA County Museum of Art.

This is not the Mona Lisa. It is a Rice Krispie Treat.
Source: "Reconsidering the Rice Krispie Treat." 

"FIVE WORDS IN ORANGE NEON" by Joseph Kosuth, 1965. (source)

Blog post and original photo © 2020 mae sander.

Sequels

Recently, I've been reading sequels from a variety of mystery authors. Writing a full review post of every sequel seems a bit redundant, but here's a quick report on some recent ones. As I often do, I'm notably interested in the way these authors use food to tell their stories.

Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura

The second in the Rei Shimura series is titled Zen Attitude (published in 1997). I enjoyed it very much, for its many Japanese scenes set in several Japanese cities. Rei Shimura, the amateur detective who just happens to be around when murderers are busy, has become an antique dealer, with customers whom she must handle with Japanese tact despite her American upbringing. There's plenty of suspenseful detecting and escapes from dangers, as one would expect.

I particularly enjoyed references to special Japanese food and drink; for example, a woman customer asked:

"You drink mugi-cha, don’t you?” My hostess poured cool barley tea for me into a dark earthen-ware cup. (p. 41). 

Or another occasion when she slept at a friend's house:

"She showed me a thermos of green tea and a tiered basket filled with pickled vegetables and onigiri, fresh rice balls stuffed with pickled plums that I loved. I must have smelled them when she walked in and woke me up." (p. 166). 

If anything, I liked the second in the series better than the first one. I'm surely expecting to read more! 

Cara Black's Aimee Leduc

Black's Murder in Belleville is the second detective tale in the Aimee Leduc series (published in 2000). It's every bit as over-the-top violent and exciting as the first in the series, maybe more so. By the end of the first chapter, Aimee has been a witness to a fatal car bombing, has picked up the survivor (a friend who had phoned her for help), stolen a moped, dragged her injured friend onto the moped, and avoided an unknown but clearly evil-intending pursuer. She rides the moped down the steps of a Metro station, with her friend somehow on her back, avoids the enemy, and gets away. That's just the first chapter. Oh, yes, she also is always dressed perfectly for every scene. 

Not much more about this that I would want to say. Lots of bad guys! Really bad ones! Will I read another? Probably. Will I read all 20 of them? Probably not.

Tana French's Dublin Murder Detectives

The Secret Place (published 2014) is very readable despite its substantial length. It's well-crafted: the major action in the book, from the start of a new clue in a cold case until full explanation, takes place in less than 24 hours. Alternate chapters describe the events leading up to the murder that's under investigation. The scene is in a girls' school in Dublin, which is very well portrayed, although I think some of the teenage slang dialog may be a little forced and too much like TV.

I enjoyed the way that food is used to show emotional states, especially the food in the school dining room and the snacks the girls buy at a mall near the school. For example:

"Becca digs her heels into the ground, stares at her beef casserole and refuses to get pulled in. If they want to act like idiots, that’s their problem; they can fix it themselves."(p. 427). 

"A heavy girl with her back to me looked like she was lashing into her food, but over her shoulder I caught a full plate of chicken pie chopped into tiny perfect squares, getting tinier with each vicious cut." (pp. 232-233).  

Each of French's novels introduces a new detective in the Dublin police, except for The Witch Elm, which has an amateur detective. I have liked them all.

More Sequels

Quite a few other series that I've read in the past have new books available, such as the Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny and the Inspector Brunetti series by Donna Leon. I think I've missed several Inspector Montalbano novels in the series by Andrea Camilleri, who died last year but I think left some unpublished work. And I did recently write a full post on the recent sequel in the Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacot series by J.K.Rowling. As there are several authors that I intend to try for the first time as well, I guess I'll have plenty to do!

Review © 2020 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

The Chauvet Cave in France

Werner Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" offers a rare tour of an unimaginably ancient site: the Chauvet cave in the south of France. Images and bones of extinct cave bears, cave lions, rhinos, mammoths, and more illustrate human encounters with these animals, as well as horses, ibex, and many others whose descendants still survive in our world. The humans who inhabited the region between 25,000 and 35,000 years ago seem to have held ceremonies in the cave, as well as painting the amazing murals on the walls and seemingly constructing an altar with a bear skull placed on it. 

To preserve the pristine images throughout the cave, which was discovered in 1994, the French authorities allow very little access, and limit visitors to just a few scientists. As a result, the paintings have suffered little damage of the type that resulted from large numbers of people viewing most of the other known Paleolithic rock-art sites, and the footprints of people and animals, as well as the art works, are still unspoiled. The film shows us all this and more.

The quality and realism of the art work is astounding.
Just a few screen shots cannot show you how great these artists were.

Interviews with the scientists working in the cave are very fascinating.

Stalactites and stalagmites formed in the cave after a landslide sealed
the original entrance, leaving the art in remarkable condition.

Besides the cave artwork, the film explains other features known about these
early humans. This screen shot shows a demonstration of a spear and a spear-thrower,
which would allow the user to bring down large game. 

Musical instruments such as flutes, and small carved human figures also characterize the residents of this part of Europe in the Paleolithic era, and the film includes much about them. Besides the human residents and the very numerous types of animals, the area was populated by Neanderthals, who -- interestingly -- seem to have left no artwork or artifacts at all. Scientists and historians of humanity believe that the Neanderthals, in fact, did not develop these amazing skills at rock-art painting, carving, and making flutes and other items. Art seems to be unique to our species.

Blog post © 2020 mae sander. 

Photos are screen shots from the film, which was released in 2010.

A Few Walks in Ann Arbor

In Mary Beth Doyle Park

A Dragonfly with such beautiful transparent wings.

Mallett’s Creek, a waterway through Ann Arbor, has been routed through this former wasted area
to control flooding by letting the water spread out and drop the silt before flowing downstream.

Shadow selfie

Near home

A frog in the gutter at night.

Gallup Park

After our last kayaking of the season. Only this one other kayaker was on the water.

Walking Along the Argo Cascades

Political graffiti: “Black Lives Matter” and “KKKops,”
from the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor, and others.

The cascades are an artificial canoeing and kayaking stream made from
the old spillway of Argo Dam on the Huron River.

 

Blog post and all photos© 2020 mae sander.