In 2006, a profile of Christopher Hitchens in The New Yorker noted how its subject had the tendency to drink “like a Hemingway character: continually and to no apparent effect.” Although Ernest Hemingway’s approach to alcohol informed the habits of his literary personages, it differed significantly from that of the late journalist. Hemingway, counter to his image, stood firmly against mixing writing and drinking, and when asked about combining the two exclaimed:
“Jeezus Christ! Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes—and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one. Besides, who in hell would mix more than one martini at a time, anyway?”
Whereas Hemingway’s approach to writing and imbibing was often marked by a cautious and professional wall of separation, Hitchens had no such compunctions. The contrarian willingly admitted to drinking a fortifying mixture of wine and spirit throughout the day:
“I work at home, where there is indeed a bar-room, and can suit myself.… At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker’s amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No “after dinner drinks”—most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. “Nightcaps” depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there.”
Despite this hale and hearty routine, Hitchens claimed to be invigorated rather than impaired by his consumption:
“… on average I produce at least a thousand words of printable copy every day, and sometimes more. I have never missed a deadline. I give a class or a lecture or a seminar perhaps four times a month and have never been late for an engagement or shown up the worse for wear. My boyish visage and my mellifluous tones are fairly regularly to be seen and heard on TV and radio, and nothing will amplify the slightest slur more than the studio microphone.”
As with fishing and amorous exploits, so with drinking—one should be skeptical of bold claims. Nevertheless, Graydon Carter, the longstanding editor of Vanity Fair magazine, corroborated the robustness of Hitchens’ constitution in a fond and respectful obituary following the journalist’s death in 2011.
“He was a man of insatiable appetites—for cigarettes, for scotch, for company, for great writing, and, above all, for conversation… Pre-lunch canisters of scotch were followed by a couple of glasses of wine during the meal and a similar quantity of post-meal cognac. That was just his intake. After stumbling back to the office, we set him up at a rickety table and with an old Olivetti, and in a symphony of clacking he produced a 1,000-word column of near perfection in under half an hour.”
In the clip above, Hitchens makes his well-researched pronouncements on the world’s best Scotch whisky. Below, the former Asylum.com producer Anthony Layser sits down with Hitchens for a drink following the release of his memoir, Hitch-22. Over Hitchens’ beloved spirit, the duo discusses everything from writing, to Brazilian waxes, to waterboarding. The conversation, lasting some 14 minutes, is part of an Asylum.com series titled Drinks with Writers, which includes Layser’s interviews with Gary Shteyngart, Simon Rich, and Nick Hornby.
Marcus Gavius Apicius, who lived in the first century AD, was as fine an embodiment of Rome’s insatiable excess as any of his fellow citizens. While some men gained infamy for wanton cruelty or feats of courage, Apicius came to be known as Rome’s most prodigious glutton, with Pliny calling him “the most riotous glutton and bellie-god of his time.” (An alternative, and equally delectable translation, is the “most gluttonous gorger of all spendthrifts.”)
Hearing too that [the crawfish] were very large in Africa, he sailed thither, without waiting a single day, and suffered exceedingly on his voyage. But when he came near the place, before he disembarked from the ship, (for his arrival made a great noise among the Africans,) the fishermen came alongside in their boats and brought him some very fine crawfish; and he, when he saw them, asked if they had any finer; and when they said that there were none finer than those which they brought, he, recollecting those at Minturnæ, ordered the master of the ship to sail back the same way into Italy, without going near the land.
Some would say that sailing all the way to Libya for fish and refusing to set foot ashore because you weren’t impressed with some fishermen’s wares might be called petulant. They would be wrong. It is gastronomically discerning. No less, however, would be expected of a man who ended his life when, as Martial remarks, his purse could no longer support his stomach:
Apicius, you have spent 60 million [sesterces] on your stomach, and as yet a full 10 million remained to you. You refused to endure this, as also hunger and thirst, and took poison in your final drink. Nothing more gluttonous was ever done by you, Apicius.
Only fitting, then, that one of Rome’s best known gourmands became the attributed author of the oldest surviving cookbook. Apicius’ De re coquinaria, which emerged between the 4th and 5th centuries AD,is a compilation of almost 500 Roman recipes arranged, much like contemporary cookbooks, by ingredients. This culinary goldmine, which includes instructions on preparing brains and udders, was inaccessible to English speakers until the advent of Barbara Flower and Elizabeth Rosenbaum’s The Roman cookery book: A critical translation of “The art of cooking” by Apicius, for use in the study and kitchen (1958). Here’s a sample from Book 9, From The Sea:
- Mussels: liquamen, chopped leeks, passum, savory, wine. Dilute the mixture with water, and boil the mussels in it.
- (Sauce) for oysters: pepper, lovage, yolk of egg, vinegar, liquamen, oil and wine. If you wish, add honey.
- (Sauce) for all kinds of shellfish: pepper, lovage, parsley, dried mint, lots of cumin, honey, vinegar, liquamen. If you wish, add a bay leaf and folium indicum.
Unfortunately for the aspiring Roman chef, neither De re coquinaria nor Mmes. Flower and Rosenbaum included the necessary quantities of the ingredients. While one may choose to parse the translation independently to arrive at the appropriate meaning of “lots of cumin,” there is help for those looking for a quick fix.
In 2003, a chef and food historian named Patrick Faas published Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. While some of the content concerns Roman table manners, the heart of the book lies in the recipes. Faas provides over 150 recipes, most of which he sources from Flower and Rosenbaum’s translation (alongside a few dishes mentioned by Pliny and Cato). Eight are freely available on the University of Chicago Press website, and we’ve provided a few as an amuse-bouche:
Roast Wild Boar
Aper ita conditur: spogiatur, et sic aspergitur ei sal et cuminum frictum, et sic manet. Alia die mittitur in furnum. Cum coctus fuerit perfundutur piper tritum, condimentum aprunum, mel, liquamen, caroenum et passum.
Boar is cooked like this: sponge it clean and sprinkle with salt and roast cumin. Leave to stand. The following day, roast it in the oven. When it is done, scatter with ground pepper and pour on the juice of the boar, honey, liquamen, caroenum, and passum. (Apicius, 330)
For this you would need a very large oven, or a very small boar, but the recipe is equally successful with the boar jointed. Remove the bristles and skin, then scatter over it plenty of sea salt, crushed pepper and coarsely ground roasted cumin. Leave it in the refrigerator for 2–3 days, turning it occasionally.
Wild boar can be dry, so wrap it in slices of bacon before you roast it. At the very least wrap it in pork caul. Then put it into the oven at its highest setting and allow it to brown for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4, and continue to roast for 2 hours per kg, basting regularly.
Meanwhile prepare the sauce. To make caroenum, reduce 500ml wine to 200ml. Add 2 tablespoons of honey, 100ml passum, or dessert wine, and salt or garum to taste. Take the meat out of the oven and leave it to rest while you finish the sauce. Pour off the fat from the roasting tin, then deglaze it with the wine and the honey mixture. Pour this into a saucepan, add the roasting juices, and fat to taste.
Carve the boar into thin slices at the table, and serve the sweet sauce separately.
Ostrich Ragoût
Until the 1980s the ostrich was considered as exotic as an elephant, but since then it has become available in supermarkets. Cooking a whole ostrich is an enormous task, but Apicius provides a recipe for ostrich:
In struthione elixo: piper, mentam, cuminum assume, apii semen, dactylos vel caryotas, mel, acetum, passum, liquamen, et oleum modice et in caccabo facies ut bulliat. Amulo obligas, et sic partes struthionis in lance perfundis, ete desuper piper aspargis. Si autem in condituram coquere volueris, alicam addis.
For boiled ostrich: pepper, mint, roast cumin, celery seed, dates or Jericho dates, honey, vinegar, passum, garum, a little oil. Put these in the pot and bring to the boil. Bind with amulum, pour over the pieces of ostrich in a serving dish and sprinkle with pepper. If you wish to cook the ostrich in the sauce, add alica. (Apicius, 212)
You may prefer to roast or fry your ostrich, rather than boil it. Whichever method you choose, this sauce goes with it well. For 500g ostrich pieces, fried or boiled, you will need:
2 teaspoon flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
300ml passum (dessert wine)
1 tablespoon roast cumin seeds
1 teaspoon celery seeds
3 pitted candied dates
3 tablespoons garum or a 50g tin of anchovies
1 teaspoon peppercorns
2 tablespoons fresh chopped mint
1 teaspoon honey
3 tablespoons strong vinegar
Make a roux with the flour and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, add the passum, and continue to stir until the sauce is smooth. Pound together in the following order: the cumin, celery seeds, dates, garum or anchovies, peppercorns, chopped mint, the remaining olive oil, the honey, and vinegar. Add this to the thickened wine sauce. Then stir in the ostrich pieces and let them heat through in the sauce.
Nut Tart
Patina versatilis vice dulcis: nucleos pineos, nuces fractas et purgatas, attorrebis eas, teres cum melle, pipere, liquamine, lacte, ovis, modico mero et oleo, versas in discum.
Try patina as dessert: roast pine nuts, peeled and chopped nuts. Add honey, pepper, garum, milk, eggs, a little undiluted wine, and oil. Pour on to a plate. (Apicius, 136)
400g crushed nuts—almonds, walnuts or pistachios
200g pine nuts
100g honey
100ml dessert wine
4 eggs
100ml full-fat sheep’s milk
1 teaspoon salt or garum
pepper
Preheat the oven to 240°C/475°F/Gas 9.
Place the chopped nuts and the whole pine nuts in an oven dish and roast until they have turned golden. Reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Mix the honey and the wine in a pan and bring to the boil, then cook until the wine has evaporated. Add the nuts and pine nuts to the honey and leave it to cool. Beat the eggs with the milk, salt or garum and pepper. Then stir the honey and nut mixture into the eggs. Oil an oven dish and pour in the nut mixture. Seal the tin with silver foil and place it in roasting tin filled about a third deep with water. Bake for about 25 minutes until the pudding is firm. Take it out and when it is cold put it into the fridge to chill. To serve, tip the tart on to a plate and pour over some boiled honey.
Columella Salad
Columella’s writings suggest that Roman salads were a match for our own in richness and imagination:
Addito in mortarium satureiam, mentam, rutam, coriandrum, apium, porrum sectivum, aut si non erit viridem cepam, folia latucae, folia erucae, thymum viride, vel nepetam, tum etiam viride puleium, et caseum recentem et salsum: ea omnia partier conterito, acetique piperati exiguum, permisceto. Hanc mixturam cum in catillo composurris, oleum superfundito.
Put savory in the mortar with mint, rue, coriander, parsley, sliced leek, or, if it is not available, onion, lettuce and rocket leaves, green thyme, or catmint. Also pennyroyal and salted fresh cheese. This is all crushed together. Stir in a little peppered vinegar. Put this mixture on a plate and pour oil over it. (Columella, Re Rustica, XII-lix)
A wonderful salad, unusual for the lack of salt (perhaps the cheese was salty enough), and that Columella crushes the ingredients in the mortar.
100g fresh mint (and/or pennyroyal)
50g fresh coriander
50g fresh parsley
1 small leek
a sprig of fresh thyme
200g salted fresh cheese
vinegar
pepper
olive oil
Follow Columella’s method for this salad using the ingredients listed.
In other salad recipes Columella adds nuts, which might not be a bad idea with this one.
Apart from lettuce and rocket many plants were eaten raw—watercress, mallow, sorrel, goosefoot, purslane, chicory, chervil, beet greens, celery, basil and many other herbs.
Founded by Rick Prelinger in 1983, The Prelinger Archives have amassed thousands of “ephemeral” films — advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films of “historic significance” that haven’t been collected elsewhere. We’ve featured some gems from the Archive in months past. Remember How to Spot a Communist (1955) or Have I Told You Lately I Love You (1958)?
Among other things, the archive features some 2,000 public domain films, which people are free to remix and mashup however they like. Some time ago, Shaun Clayton got into the spirit, took a series of 1950’s and 60’s-era coffee commercials from the Archives (like the one below), and “edited them down to just the moments when the guys were the biggest jerks to their wives about coffee.” The point of the exercise, I’d like to think, wasn’t just to show men being jerks for the sake of it, but to throw into stark relief the disturbing attitudes coursing through American advertising and culture during that era. And nothing accomplishes that better than mashing up the scenes, placing them side by side, showing them one after another. It gives a clear historical reality to views we’ve seen treated artistically in shows like Mad Men.
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It comes as no surprise that Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, possessed a sweet tooth. Having dazzled young readers with visions of Cavity-Filling Caramels, Everlasting Gobstoppers, and snozzberry-flavored wallpaper, Dahl’s candy of choice was the more pedestrian Kit-Kat bar. In addition to savoring one daily (a luxury little Charlie Bucket could but dream of, prior to winning that most golden of tickets) he invented a frozen confection called “Kit-Kat Pudding.”
The original recipe is, appropriately, simple enough for a child to make. Stack as many Kit-Kats as you like into a tower, using whipped cream for mortar, then shove the entire thing into the freezer, and leave it there until solid.
Book publicist and self-described literary fangirl Nicole Villeneuve does him one better on Paper and Salt, a food blog devoted to the recipes of iconic authors. Her re-imagined and renamed Frozen Homemade Kit-Kat Cakeadds bittersweet chocolate ganache, replacing Dahl’s beloved candy bars with high quality wafer cookies. It remains a pretty straight-forward preparation, not quite as decadent as the Marquis de Sade’s Molten Chocolate Espresso Cake with Pomegranate, but surely more to Dahl’s liking than Jane Austen’s Brown Butter Bread Pudding Tarts would have been. (The author once wrote that he preferred his chocolate straight.)
Villeneuve spices her entry with historical context and anecdotes regarding early 20th-century candy marketing, Dahl’s hatred of the Cadbury Crème Egg, and his dog’s hankering for Smarties. Details such as these make Paper and Salt, which features plenty of savories to go with the sweet, a delicious read even for non-cooks.
What’s the difference between borscht and alt-country music?
Uh, pretty much everything, except for singer-songwriter, Neko Case, the most recent in a long list of celebrities to share Ukrainian beet soup recipes with an adoring public.
Filmed at the behest of Rookie, an online magazine by and for teenage girls, Neko’s videotaped lesson is both basic and refreshingly unexacting. Her status as the child of Ukrainian immigrants affords her the street cred to tell viewers they should take it as a sign they’re on the right track should someone of eastern European extraction insist they’re doing it wrong. (Her on-camera version is gluten-free, and—prior to the addition of sour cream and chicken stock—lactose-free and vegan, as well.)
Interested in sampling her version? Put the laptop on the counter. You won’t miss anything if you commence chopping right away. The demo is as casual as her lack of styling, clocking in at nearly twenty minutes, including tips for tear-free onion cutting, celery leaf usage, and the making of mirepoix.
Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez went to college together, served in the Marines in Afghanistan, then, after returning home, stumbled upon the world of specialty coffee and began “an obsessive quest to brew the perfect cup.” That quest resulted in the publication of an interactive digital book designed for the iPad. Perfect Coffee at Home ($4.99) uses illustrations, interactive graphics, videos and a soundtrack to make the tutorial “an immersive experience.” But you don’t need to foot the bill or have an iPad to improve your coffee making skills.
Over at The Atlantic, Haft and Suarez gave some free advice last week, publishing an article where they, among other things, enumerated 10 essential tips for making coffee. They boiled things down to this:
Buy good coffee beans. Preferably whole beans, sustainably farmed, and roasted within the past few weeks.
Grind your coffee just before brewing. They say, “it’s the number one thing you can do to improve your coffee at home.”
Store your coffee properly. Keep the coffee in an airtight container, away from sunlight. Try to avoid freezing the beans, unless they’re going to linger for more than two weeks.
Use a good amount of coffee, and the right proportion of coffee to water. The ideal is what they call “The Golden Ratio,” 17.42 units of water to 1 unit of coffee.
Find the right grind size for your coffee beans and aim for a uniform grind.
Control the temperature of your water. Keep it somewhere between 195 and 202 degrees. Boiling water can sour the coffee.
If you get really skilled, you can agitate the coffee during the brewing to control the taste.
Focus on technique. And once you learn the right technique, make sure you’re precise and consistent.
Use quality tools. Buy the right bean grinder and coffee maker. Make a good investment in your coffee drinking future.
When experimenting with the brewing process, adjust only one variable at a time so you can accurately track results.
The Atlantic article offers more detail than what we’ve highlighted above. So we’d encourage you to give “How to Make Perfect Coffee” a read. You can also find short video primers on the Haft & Suarez YouTube Channel. If you have your own great coffee making tips, definitely share them with us in the comments sections below. We want to know!
Why would you want to escape from Alcatraz when you could eat Beef Pot Pie Anglaise for lunch on Tuesday, Baked Meat Croquettes on Wednesday, and Bacon Jambalaya on Saturday? On second thought, why wouldn’t you want to escape.
Above, we have the actual menu for the meals served at Alcatraz during one week in September, 1946. (View it in a slightly larger format here.) Alcatraz was, of course, a high security federal prison that operated off of the coast of San Francisco from 1933 until 1963. Some of America’s more notorious criminals spent time dining there — good fellows like Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Bumpy Johnson, and James “Whitey” Bulger.
As you may know, Bulger is now back on trial in Boston. After being released from prison during the 1960s, he allegedly re-immersed himself in the world of organized crime, before eventually spending 16 years living as a fugitive, largely in California. While on the lam, he amazingly had the chutzpah to visit Alcatraz (now a tourist site) and pose for a picture where he donned a striped suit and stood behind mock prison bars. I have to wonder whether he had some Puree Mongole for old times’ sake?
Cookpad bills itself as having the “Best Japanese recipes from the largest cooking community in Japan.” And that’s not just your usual web site hyperbole. Established back in 1997, Cookpad houses 1.5 million recipes created by a base of 20 million users. And it’s now a publicly-traded company on the Tokyo stock exchange. This week, Cookpad did everyone in the Anglophone world a favor by releasing an English-language version of its site. Right now, you can navigate your way through 1,500 recipes and find dishes like Udon with Thick Egg Soup, Very Delicious Stir-fried Tofu with Shimeji Mushrooms, and Pan-Fried Autumn Salmon with Ginger Sauce. And if you’re patient, you’ll soon find another 30,000 recipes added to the site. It’s worth noting that all recipes are translated by humans, not computers, and the translators are apparently compensated for their efforts.
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