At a recent conference, I had said a few things about some of the unnatural things that we call natural these days, and during one of the breaks a pleasant and informed young lady let me know something about fat-free milk, about which I must have said something. I must have said something like “never …
And Tell Them We Are Men
“I wish you well. May your table be graced with lovely women and good men. May you drink well enough to drown the envy of youth in the satisfactions of maturity. May your men wear their weight with pride, secure in the knowledge that they have at last become considerable. May they rejoice that they …
The Shaman and the Chicken Bones
I once read a quip as a tag line on the bottom of someone’s email that was really quite profound — it said that if your pastor says that the wine in the Bible was really grape juice, then how can you believe anything he says? Whenever someone stubbornly clings to foolish and thrice-disproven notions, …
Pastry is Bread Transfigured
“Paradox is the only basket large enough to hold truth. It is the very simplicity of bread which provides the foundation for all the complexities that man has wrought with flour. The violin is an astonishingly plain piece of business, carried beyond itself by craftsmanship: Stradivarius, Guarnerius, and Amati have gone down in history because …
Rejoicing in Gluten
“There are few actions you will ever take that have more of the stuff of history in them. A woman with her sleeves rolled up and flour on her hands is one of the most gorgeous stabilities in the world. Don’t let your family miss the sight” (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, …
Cheese to Challenge Your Manhood
“Cheese is at once a testament to the Creator’s ingenuity in providing enzymes and bacteria that will do fearful and wonderful things for milk and to man’s audacity in the face of some pretty forbidding stuff. The blander varieties, of course, are hardly more alarming than milk itself; but the farther reaches of the subject …
Just Plain Eat
“Against all the propaganda for fancy eating and plain cooking, I hope to persuade you to cook fancy and just plain eat. First of all, it is better for your soul. Only a daily renewed astonishment at things as they are can save us from the idols” (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, …
Next to Godliness
“Woks and iron skillets should be rinsed and wiped, never washed. If someone comes along and tells you cleanliness is next to godliness, the proper answer is, ‘Yes — next. Right now I’m working on godliness'” (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, p. 142).
But a Concession to Nutritional Knowledge is Not a Concession to Nutritional Mysticism
“Does he seriously hope to pass off this rhapsody on meat and starch as a treatise on cooking? Does he actually think that anyone who has the least notion of what is involved in a balanced diet would condescend to settle down in the waistland of gravy and spaetzle he praises so extravagantly? Well, believe …
A Triumph of Glutinosity
“It is in strudel dough that the glutinous properties of flour enter the new Jerusalem in a triumph of elasticity” (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, p. 118).