Food Fights & Bakeries

Here are your food talking points for the week

• Fun interview with baker Rose Wilde over at Wordloaf. I’m a big fan on hers, personally and professionally. Look at her creations! Rose has also been on Smart Mouth, check it out! (That’s a link to YouTube because so many podcast platforms have come and gone that I just use links wherever I can find them.)

• Speaking of Wordloaf, Amy Halloran has taken over that newsletter for a bit and recently posted about a paper doll set Pillsbury took to market in 1936. Yes it was propaganda, but it had artistic merit.

• Members of the Houston chapter of Food Not Bombs keep getting ticketed for feeding the homeless, because that city has rules against giving food to more than five people “in need” at a time. That’s correct, give food to as many rich people as you want, but DO NOT alleviate anyone’s suffering. Cool stuff, Texas. “Luckily,” no one’s actually had to pay the fine because either the issuing cop or the prosector doesn’t show up to court, and/or potential jurors refuse to consider making someone pay $500 for this “crime.” By the way, Food Not Bombs has city permission for its weekly events. I can’t imagine thinking cops are needed, that issuing 90 citations is a good use of taxpayer-funded time.

• The New York Times has a short video up about the fight over who created butter chicken. Meher Mirza wrote about the dish a couple years ago for Smart Mouth, and her story holds up. I will say that both origin stories told to the NYT - that butter chicken was created to use up leftovers, or that it was a panicked last-minute dish served to an unexpected and demanding group, are both standard food history nonsense. (What are the “leftovers” here supposed to be? Entire chickens? Get lost.) h/t Aniruddh Pandit

• Speaking of silly food creation stories, don’t give me that “created by accident” stuff, either. (But let me eat the torta.) I’m a big fan of José R. Ralat’s work on Texas foodways — here’s him on fish tacos in the desert — and yes of course he’s been on Smart Mouth!

• Palestinian food is SO GOOD. Chefs shouldn’t be afraid to claim it.

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This newsletter is edited by Katherine Spiers, host of the podcast Smart Mouth.

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