FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Autumn – season of mists and mellow fruitfulness –and if you live in this beautiful city of ours a season of marvellous menus, fabulous food, and wonderful presentations about food, of course, by celebrity chefs.
Yes, It’s that time of year again, folks, Savour Kilkenny time when the Parade and the Castle Road, are alive with the seductive smell of sausages, burgers and, of course, the exotic odours of foods that tantalise the taste buds, teasing us mercilessly until we succumb to some calzone, chowder or couscous. It’s that time of year when foodies from near and far descend on this city of ours, the Marble City, the Medieval Capital of Ireland and, who knows, but, judging by the success of Savour, possibly the Food Capital of Ireland in time to come. And why not?
Already we are the Festival Capital of Ireland: we have the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, the Roots Festival, the Animation Festival, our famous, and unique, Arts Festival, the Gowran Park Horse Racing Festival, the Kilkenomics Festival which is growing in popularity each passing year and the festival of the moment – Savour Kilkenny. Oh, and I may even be forgetting a festival or two. If so, my apologies.
In the meantime, here are some tasty morsels about food:
The style of restaurant service we are all used to – individual plates pre-filled and served – is called Russian service, and originates from the table of the Czar of Russia. In French cuisine it was traditional for all food to be prepared in advance and displayed in copious amounts on side tables; the result was that much food was wasted and it wasn’t always hot. Russian service caught on very fast, was very convenient and is now the primary way food is served.
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When the Greek singer Demis Roussos visited the once famous Mireabeau Restaurant in Dublin he tucked into five dozen oysters, three lobsters, three ducks off-the-bone and a variety of fresh vegetables followed by an unspecified amount of Demis Surprise pudding, a soufflé with a delicate cinnamon sauce and a mixture of liqueurs. After that he ate bowls of coddle and Irish stew!
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If you weigh yourself immediately before a meal and then four hours later, you will often find you are lighter as a result of moisture loss through the skin during the process of digestion.
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Honey doesn’t go off. It is the only known food source that keeps indefinitely in its raw form. In fact, Archaeologist T.M. Davies discovered a 3300-year-old jar of honey in an Egyptian tomb; to his amazement, the honey was in remarkably good condition. I eat my peas with honey, I’ve done it all my life, it makes them taste quite funny, but it keeps them on the knife.
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Every year in Japan numerous people die from eating fu-gu, a fish considered a delicacy. It has a poison in its guts and only licensed cooks are allowed to prepare it. There is a live-minnow eating festival held every year in Geraardsbergen in Belgium. Minnows are dropped into a chalice of red wine then drunk.
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“Anyone who saw those poor creatures would have done the same,”said Arlene Harris. She was speaking after rescuing five lobsters from a party she was attending in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. “I went by the pot where they had the lobsters,”,she explained, “I peeked in and saw them wiggling their tails. They were saying: take me to the beach.” Arlene snatched the lobsters and drove to the harbour where she returned the lobsters to the sea. Meanwhile her husband ate his lobster pretending nothing was going on.
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The couple had just finished their expensive dinner in an exclusive restaurant. The waiter was pouring a third glass of port when he noticed the gentleman slide off his chair and disappear. “Excuse me, madam,” he said. “Your husband is under the table.” “No he’s not,”she replied ashen-faced. “My husband has just come in the door!”
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Finally, Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in the afterlife in a well-preserved body; rather one should skid in sideways – Chablis in one hand, chocolate in the other, body totally worn out and screaming: “WOO-HOO, what a ride!”
