tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post6678468249147031993..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Steak and a Baked PotatoUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-27334040008132889012014-01-10T15:40:08.922-08:002014-01-10T15:40:08.922-08:00...attend a 16th-century court banquet in France o...<i>...attend a 16th-century court banquet in France or England, the food would seem strange indeed... ...to wash it all down, we would probably drink hypocras, a mulled red wine seasoned with ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and sugar. ...</i><br /><br />I guess I'm a throwback, that's what I drink now. When the weather gets cold I drink Hot Buttered Rum or Mulled Wine. I use Splenda rather than sugar but otherwise that's Rombauer's recipe for Hot Mulled Wine.<br /><br />For this I use Almaden Cabernet from a seven liter box. The spices make anything better a waste. Stick in the microwave and Bob's Your Uncle.<br /><br />Albertosaurus<br />Pat Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13477950851915567863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77562709621637571412014-01-10T12:57:11.380-08:002014-01-10T12:57:11.380-08:00This continues today. Tacky chain restaurants li...This continues today. Tacky chain restaurants like Chilis and Applebees cater to the business lunch. They have huge menus with an option for everybody. They'll have something vegetarian, something gluten free, something atkins/paleo friendly. Its designed to offend the least amount of people. <br /><br /><br />I'd never eat there on my own, but when doing business lunches, I always choose Applebees. Arashtorelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31908431188068215952014-01-10T05:20:47.045-08:002014-01-10T05:20:47.045-08:00Wow. I guess this was the trick post to draw in a...Wow. I guess this was the trick post to draw in all the SWPL Steve readers, huh?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-1920338380469785252014-01-09T21:33:29.638-08:002014-01-09T21:33:29.638-08:00And what about that Portland, Ore. principal who s...And what about that Portland, Ore. principal who said PB & J was racist?readernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82770777589931116152014-01-09T20:54:37.578-08:002014-01-09T20:54:37.578-08:00In your bread musings I'm surprised you didn&#...In your bread musings I'm surprised you didn't mention Texas Toast. It's like a bigger, worse version of typical whitebread.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-78812816181501381802014-01-09T17:17:46.690-08:002014-01-09T17:17:46.690-08:00I'm surprised that the right doesn't use a...I'm surprised that the right doesn't use a successful page from the leftist playbook and coin a word that can be used as a shorthand insult/accusation along the lines of racist, sexist or homophobic. <br /><br />What's needed is a word that means something like "fear and loathing of one's own cultural norms". James Taranto tried explaining the term oikophobia, but didn't get very far. <br /><br />It seems like such a word would be good politics and would help to highlight what actually has been a very powerful idea in the US for a long time. Maybe it goes back to the time of Mark Twain, the idea that if a thing is an American norm, its crap when compared to somewhere else. Europe is his case. <br /><br />Its sick when a society's ruling class despises it's own society.Isaac Bickerstaffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81638983267029846722014-01-09T15:35:28.046-08:002014-01-09T15:35:28.046-08:00"Safer bet is white meat."
But don'..."Safer bet is white meat."<br /><br />But don't eat wild mushrooms just because they're white. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91363117549150010972014-01-09T11:16:23.007-08:002014-01-09T11:16:23.007-08:00I heard corn-fed beef is bad cuz corn produces lot...I heard corn-fed beef is bad cuz corn produces lots of bad bacteria in cow stomachs. Cows should really eat grass. <br /><br />Bill Kurtis said so and put his money on it.<br /><br />http://www.tallgrassbeef.com/<br /><br />But Kurtis seems to having troubles with his business: <br /><br />http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20121206/BLOGS09/121209882/bill-kurtis-tallgrass-beef-fined-403-000<br /><br />-----<br /><br />Maybe we should feed pot to cows and sell it to hippies. <br /><br />Far-out Cow Inc. Potted Meat the Right Way. <br /><br />bloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06607033974434672862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-56321189803355666022014-01-09T10:09:28.001-08:002014-01-09T10:09:28.001-08:00any yelpers on here?any yelpers on here?jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30645146113809324642014-01-09T10:04:42.265-08:002014-01-09T10:04:42.265-08:00haha, well, i think steve is pretty wrong on this ...haha, well, i think steve is pretty wrong on this one, although he does come up with some impressive out of the box thinking when he wants to take an observation about society in a new, counterintuitive direction.<br /><br />the reason americans eat a ton of cows has nothing to do with trust. it's because, they can.<br /><br />don't want to get into a bunch of long posts on food though. otherwise i'll end up spending an hour typing about columbian exchange, food chains (not restaurant chains, the old food chain from high school biology class), proliferation of cattle animals around the world, where tomatoes and potatoes and chocolate come from, food infrastructure (which lots of countries don't have), and then i'll end up debating the merits of various steakhouses which will devolve into michelin star discussions.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81393804928393868242014-01-09T08:35:36.227-08:002014-01-09T08:35:36.227-08:00"This is the famous high trust society we hea..."This is the famous high trust society we hear about?" - right after the then largest immigration wave in our history, certainly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49672827925365006582014-01-09T08:07:38.104-08:002014-01-09T08:07:38.104-08:00...middle of the 17th century, the northern Europe...<i>...middle of the 17th century, the northern European diet began to change. This new regimen relied on fewer spices, based its sauces on fats such as butter and olive oil, and incorporated raw fruits and vegetables.</i><br /><br />It sounds more like the aristocracy and urban middle class changed their diet and simplified it to something closer to what the rural peasantry were already eating.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-68091566487245140022014-01-09T07:03:27.827-08:002014-01-09T07:03:27.827-08:00I never liked steak until I learned to cook it mys...I never liked steak until I learned to cook it myself to the right internal temperature. Restaurant steak is generally tough or will have a strip of gristle running through the center of it. My friends would be sending theirs back because it was over/under-cooked, while I happily ate my fish or pork tenderloin.<br /><br />Then I got good quality steak (direct from a farmer) instead of the factory stuff, and learned to cook it quickly. Practically melts in your mouth, and you want to chew the bones afterwards. Then I got an old cookbook from the 60s that recommended putting a pat of butter on top of your steak (and pretty much everything else). Holy crap.Cail Corishevhttp://cailcorishev.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12827439882782115062014-01-09T00:42:44.543-08:002014-01-09T00:42:44.543-08:00"As someone who has eaten much of what's ...<i>"As someone who has eaten much of what's available around the world and grew up on habaneros, I say nothing compares to the classic 1950 steak house meal, done right. And all those other white bread classics. The real problem is you can't find them anywhere anymore."</i><br /><br />You can find them at some private clubs. A friend of my father's is a member of the University Club, and we ate there a few times as his guests. My father called it "an Ivy League Sizzler". Meat and potatoes, usually a carving station with some roast, maybe a cooked salmon, some veggie dishes, a pasta station, and a couple of heavy desserts (e.g., chocolate mousse with whipped cream). For that matter, you can find essentially the same sorts of food without the fuss at a typical New Jersey diner.Dave Pinsenhttp://twitter.com/dpinsennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-23178085012807511982014-01-08T23:35:13.712-08:002014-01-08T23:35:13.712-08:00One of the most annoying things about Mexico is th...One of the most annoying things about Mexico is the hippie type of ex-pat, usually female, who INSISTS on trying the "real" or "native" food, and by "insists" I mean "asserts as a moral virtue." How many times have such hippies dragged me to absolutely disgusting dives and forced me to look at an inedible dish? Believe me, no sensible non-Mexican soul wants to dine in a hole-in-the-wall madre-y-padre restaurant here, much less eat from a street stand. Montezuma's Revenge is real and doesn't come only from the water.<br /><br />One of the best things about America in this regard is corporate chain restaurants. They are valued for predictability and safety the world over. For example, KFC is considered (in some places in Asia, too) to be a kind of upscale restaurant, believe it or not. The local one is full of rather snobbish customers and has a wait staff.<br /><br />You'll not find me in a filthy garage slurping homemade mole off a rancid chicken enchilada, but wit' my gringo homies instead, up in Chili's eating a well-done burger and drinking cola <i>sin hielo</i>. There's much to be said for being unadventurous.<br /><br />(My time in Mexico is almost over, and I'm more of less glad of it. I will tell all on my hobby blog in the next month or so.)Davidhttp://david-passingparade3.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26242714933804761412014-01-08T22:42:27.061-08:002014-01-08T22:42:27.061-08:00About "White Food", Steve Sailer, Taki M...About <a href="http://takimag.com/article/white_food_steve_sailer#axzz2pmXZSJQe" rel="nofollow">"White Food"</a>, Steve Sailer, Taki Magazine, Jan 08, 2014.<br /><br />Rachel Laudan is a historian of science who seems to be a world expert in this. (Her blogsite is <a href="http://www.rachellaudan.com/" rel="nofollow">www.rachellaudan.com</a>.)<br /><br />She has an online article, <a href="http://www.rachellaudan.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/birth_of_the_modern_diet.pdf" rel="nofollow">"Birth of the Modern Diet"</a>, Rachel Laudan, that I think was published a couple of times in Scientific American (perhaps updated versions?).<br /><br />Her blog has a web page where the <a href="http://www.rachellaudan.com/culinary-history/birth_of_the_modern_dietpdf" rel="nofollow">article can be accessed</a>. Extract synopsis:<br /><br /><br /><i>"The origins of modern Western cooking can be traced to ideas about diet and nutrition that arose during the 17th century...<br /><br />...attend a 16th-century court banquet in France or England, the food would seem strange indeed... ...to wash it all down, we would probably drink hypocras, a mulled red wine seasoned with ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and sugar. ...<br /><br />Fast-forward 100 years, though, and the food would be reassuringly familiar.<br /><br />Before 1650, the elite classes throughout the Islamic and Christian worlds from Delhi to London shared pretty much the same diet: thick purees, lots of spices, sweet and sour sauces, cooked vegetables, and warmed wines. Sugar was ubiquitous...<br /><br /><br /><br />...middle of the 17th century, the northern European diet began to change. This new regimen relied on fewer spices, based its sauces on fats such as butter and olive oil, and incorporated raw fruits and vegetables.<br /><br />Sugar appeared only at the end of a meal. What happened? ...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...Most crucially, doctors advised their patients on the food and drink they should consume.<br /><br />...cooking stood as the basic metaphor for the systems that sustained all life.<br /><br />...By the middle of the 17th century, ... physicians of a quite different persuasion began to join the courts of northern Europe. These scholars derived their ideas from Paracelsus, an itinerant doctor from Germany who, in the 1520s, began to mock the structure of classical medicine.<br /><br />Historians of science still debate the causes ... the technology of distillation seems to have contributed to it. ...<br /><br />...prominent physicians of the 17th century advocated this new understanding of digestion, ... Thomas Willis, then the best-known doctor in England and a founding member of the Royal Society of London. ...believed that digestion involved fermentation rather than cooking...<br /><br />...British physician Willis, who had noticed the sugary urine of patients suffering from what doctors later termed diabetes ... The moral was clear: sugar was dangerous, perhaps even a poison.<br /><br />... entrepreneurs saw an opportunity in this new cuisine, <b>selling “restaurants”—which is French for “restoratives”</b>—to those who could not afford their own chefs.<br /><br />...Europe’s middle classes emulated the aristocracy, developing a taste not only for restaurants but for all the new cuisine.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...The modern curries of India and moles of Mexico, for instance, resemble the cuisine of pre-Paracelsian northern Europe. ...<br /><br />The Western cuisine born in the 17th century long outlived the dietary theory that inspired it..."</i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />So the history of how White Western food came to be unique is entangled with the development of Western medicine and early Western science. Somebody had to do it.<br /><br />As someone who has eaten much of what's available around the world and grew up on habaneros, I say nothing compares to the classic 1950 steak house meal, done right. And all those other white bread classics. The real problem is you can't find them anywhere anymore. Oh, how can Steve Sailer be so wrong? It not just something for traveling salesmen in the 20th century. It's a 500-year long science experiment; a unique cultural accomplishment. Eat it proudly, Steve, eat it proudly!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-72814854928685779752014-01-08T22:29:14.610-08:002014-01-08T22:29:14.610-08:00The link to the falling inequality of the Great Co...The link to the falling inequality of the Great Compression has more to do with not raising a fuss over trivial things, and not so much with conformity.<br /><br />We have a highly conformist culture today. In food, it was Italian, then Greek, then Thai, then Spanish, then whatever. But at each time, there was an intensely conformist drive to do what everyone else was doing.<br /><br />Or look at yoghurt, which has been enjoying a bandwagon effect for decades now -- despite having no fat and more sugar than a candy bar. (Not the stuff that keeps people on that Greek island living for so long.)<br /><br />The difference between mid-century and Millennial conformity is whether people whine or not while all engaging in the same activity. Back then, they didn't complain about there not being a dozen different breeds of cattle that they could choose their steak from.<br /><br />Whereas now, the supermarket has over 100 different options for yoghurt. And it's not enough to all be on the Thai bandwagon -- we have to compete to see who knows where the best particular Thai restaurant is.<br /><br />Or which band nobody's heard of yet. ETc.<br /><br />Cocooning periods swing towards greater conformity, while more outgoing times are more free-spirited.<br /><br />The inequality cycle is something different, and related to status-striving. The attitudes are "making do" vs. "complaining for something better" (which, of course, you do not desire but DESERVE).<br /><br />The Great Compression was not only a mid-century thing. It included the '20s and early '30s (the Jazz Age), plus the '60s and early '70s -- not conformist periods. It's an odd combination -- making do and not obsessing over status contests, while also enjoying a free-wheeling lifestyle. It was tailor-made for fun-loving populists. agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42499981392410982942014-01-08T22:16:05.201-08:002014-01-08T22:16:05.201-08:00Judging from my grandparents vs parents, people at...Judging from my grandparents vs parents, people ate just fine in the 40s and 50. Both sets of grandparents were northern European, regular middle class in small North Eastern towns, and both sets, including the men, enjoyed cooking, canning, and gardening. Roasts, ham, potato casserole, lasagna, hash browns, pickles, stews, pies, etc. Healthy, happy, not fat, not skinny. <br /><br />It was my parents that dropped the ball in the 80s. Dried out pork chops, pot roast with disgusting boiled onions, baked un-breaded fish fillets with lemon. Not just white bread, but the cheapest store-brand white bread, bought on sale and then frozen. Fluffer nutter sandwiches. Campbell's tomato soup. The high point was Ortega hard shell taco night. <br /><br />High end steak places are more about signalling than food. There's a certain type of person that likes to drop steak house names to indicate their own importance. I've only eaten in them on expense accounts, and I'm always disappointed. If I want good steak I can cook a $20 supermarket rib-eye with some mushrooms, a baked potato and a $12 wine. <br />Chief Seattlenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-14019897180471377572014-01-08T21:39:43.253-08:002014-01-08T21:39:43.253-08:00Food is a game now if it wasn't always. I stil...Food is a game now if it wasn't always. I still dip into Cook's magazine and Lucky Peach because they are no-nonsense. The closer you get to NY, LA, or Chicago the more likely it is that you have a crappy expensive meal and an amazing meal at a restaurant with no waiters. <br /><br />My hint for now is that it's not likely that anyone will have bad Burmese food. This is where the Chinese food cooks are reliably light on the sugar and the bill is low. I'd recommend Banh Mi and pho, but I think that's been around long enough now that most people who read Sailer will have had at least one bad experience with it.V05https://www.blogger.com/profile/04623642781470602855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20860346236122898312014-01-08T21:32:58.529-08:002014-01-08T21:32:58.529-08:00Peasants could not get meats, so that affording me...<br />Peasants could not get meats, so that affording meats was not in question. In feudal society the nobles owned the land and all the animals on it; peasants merely worked the land and were not allowed to kill husbanded or wild animals for food.<br /><br />Every once in a while - at major ecclesiastical events such as Easter, or at harvest festival - the nobles would let the peasants kill a pig or a deer to feast upon. This explains why common Americans esteemed meats - they'd thrown off the yoke of peasanthood and, so long as they could pay for what they wanted, they were allowed to eat all the meats they liked. This held true for first and second wave immigrants from Europe, as their enjoyment of meats that had been proscribed to them in the old country buttressed the already established common American esteem for meats.<br /><br />Late nineteenth and early twentieth century advances in animal husbandry, novel machine-driven distribution systems (rail, road, and then aviation), the abandonment of salt as a meat preservative - displaced by refrigeration, further reinforced the popularity of meats. A family that subsisted on meat dishes and that served them to their guests showed that it was well-off, able to afford the good things in life.<br /><br />It was only after all those advances had become commonplace and thus taken for granted that the haute cuisine foodist fads, which became affordable for the common people and not just for the nobility and the early industrial barons, emerged, both here in North America and also in Europe. It wasn't until the foodist craze began that the hitherto less varied, yet still nutritionally excellent, American diet came to be disparaged as mere "comfort food." All this had very little, if anything, to do with the fears or tastes of traveling salesmen.<br /><br />All that said, this still holds true: De gustibus non est disputandum.Auntie Analoguenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43007585030411460412014-01-08T21:27:01.127-08:002014-01-08T21:27:01.127-08:00Some idiot was trolling for slate or another rag l...Some idiot was trolling for slate or another rag last Thanksgiving that favoring white meat from the bird was racist. As the NPR hipster journalists are now saying "fact is" choosing white, bland foods is a good way to avoid getting sick. Getting food poisoning used to be a big damn deal. If the meat is supposed to be white, and it is white, and if the meat is supposed to have only a mild flavor and it does, then you are on your way to a safe meal. On the other hand, judging whether meat is gamey or rotten relies on a good nose (not broken, not over exposed to smoke, etc), a reasonable IQ and sobriety. Safer bet is white meat.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12955097031357330132014-01-08T21:12:01.544-08:002014-01-08T21:12:01.544-08:00Sorry but I love beef. Maybe plot is the Polish ge...Sorry but I love beef. Maybe plot is the Polish genes, which subsisted on terrible cabbage and root vegetables. Or the Irish genes which divested on cabbage and different foot vegetables. Or the German genes that know 'beef is for rich people, chicken is for peasants, so the middle class eat pork and sausage.". Beef is expensive. And yummy. And it is plentiful and inexpensive here and nowhere else.Alicenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18626194390422127892014-01-08T21:03:15.670-08:002014-01-08T21:03:15.670-08:00One of the fundamental divisions of mankind is tha...<i>One of the fundamental divisions of mankind is that between foodists and non-foodists. I'm a non-foddist, and I could happily get my daily dose of nutrients from a food pill. But foodists would still eat food if it had zero calories. In fact they might see that as a plus, since they could eat more food.</i><br /><br />Aye, that may well be. I wouldn't eat if I didn't need to, for hunger and for health<br /><br />I would simply skip out on that whole aspect of human existence like a robotDifference Makernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26434414789759820942014-01-08T20:10:29.824-08:002014-01-08T20:10:29.824-08:00So, did/does Ruth's Chris advertise in other i...So, did/does Ruth's Chris advertise in other inflight magazines, or have you just been looking at the same ad I recall seeing in the Southwest magazine for so many years?<br /><br />I'm always pleased as punch when my sirloin comes off the grill looking like that filet mignon in the ad.ben tillmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63945797213959930512014-01-08T19:59:56.473-08:002014-01-08T19:59:56.473-08:00"As much as it's fashionable to "eat..."As much as it's fashionable to "eat local" and eat like a native in exotic locales, travelers like chains because they know what they're going to get. If only as a fall back or reserve from the local cuisine."<br /><br />The McDonalds at Tokyo/Narita airport always looks like an overcrowded refugee center for (white) urban hipsters and presumably locavore advocates. There is even a convenient overflow area across the corridor that is frequently packed to the brim with these people dining on the floor and such.Ex Submarine Officernoreply@blogger.com