Life This Week: August 8, 1938

Gin Sours recommended by none other than "Ed Sullivan...Famous Columnist"

serves 2

2 teaspoons sugar
2 jiggers gin
juice of one lemon
juice of one lime
ice
soda water

In a cocktail shaker, stir the sugar into the gin and citrus juices until it dissolves.  Add ice and shake then strain into two sour glasses (or, in our case, Stella Artois glasses!), top with soda water and garnish with a maraschino cherry and a citrus slice or peel.  Enjoy!

What goes with Gin Sours better than big band music?

Even though most people today associate swing music with World War II, the article "Swing: the Hottest and Best Kind of Jazz Reaches its Golden Age" reads, "It was the fashion two years ago, and a year ago, and six months ago to say that the form of jazz called 'Swing' was on the way out."  It goes on to state that "as of August 1938, Swing is the most popular kind of popular music."  The article (which has lots of photos) also contains thirty record suggestions, which include swing selections from two decades. One section, "Swing's Black Royalty," traces the origins of the form back even farther to turn-of-the-century New Orleans.

"Here are 30 Good Hot Records" (at least what I could find of them):


Albert Ammons- "Boogie Woogie Stomp"


Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five- "West End Blues" (9th track)


Frankie Trumbauer Orchestra (Bix Beiderbecke on clarinet)- "Riverboat Shuffle" (7th track)


Bix Beiderbecke- "In a Mist" (7th track)




Connie Boswell (and Bing Crosby)- "Bob White" (3rd track)


Eddie Condon- "Carnegie Drag"


Bob Crosby's Band- "Rampart Street Parade" (This is supposedly a 1939 recording, but it was what I could find!)


Tommy Dorsey- "Stardust" (5th track, vocals by Frank Sinatra)


Duke Ellington- "Clarinet Lament" (17th track)


Chick Webb Orchestra (vocals: Ella Fitzgerald)


Benny Goodman- "Don't Be That Way" (9th track)


Benny Goodman Quartet- "Moonglow" (3rd track)


Fletcher Henderson- "Money Blues" (75th track)


Gene Krupa and his Chicagoans- "Blues of Israel" (1st track)


Meade Lux Lewis- "Yancy Special" (1942)


Red Norvo- "Blues in E Flat"


King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band- Dippermouth Blues (6th track)


Artie Shaw- "Nightmare" (8th track)


Fletcher Henderson (vocals: Bessie Smith)- "Young Woman's Blues" (156th track; 2nd from last)


Stuff Smith and his Onyx Club Boys- "You'se a Viper"


Fats Waller and his Rhythm- "Dinah"


Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton- "Body and Soul" (9th track)


Maxine Sullivan- "Loch Lomond" (11th track)


Slim & Slam- "Flat Foot Floogie" (13th track)


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Speaking of Pictures...These are Shooting Sticks

Traditional British Food: Lammas Lample Pie

Lammas, celebrated August 1st, probably began as a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon festival.  By the early Middle Ages, however, it was already considered a prominent harvest holiday.  Lammas also marked the beginning of autumn at that time.*  August 1st in no way feels like the beginning of autumn in Kansas--the average high temperature in Wichita for that date is 94˚F.  However, London's average high is only 73˚F, which seems a lot more like autumn to me!  In addition, the "Little Ice Age" of the early modern period** probably made August seem that much more autumnal.

Cattern Cakes and Lace suggests celebrating Lammas with a Lample Pie (yes, another food with a funny name).  "Lammas" is either a corruption of "loaf-mass," because bread was made with the first wheat from the harvest and then blessed by the parish priest, or is a corruption of "lamb-mass" because lambs used to be dedicated at church on the first of August.***

Lammas Lample Pie and Haricots verts au maître d'hôtel

Lample Pie is made with lamb and apple and a lot of nutmeg.  I had to use ground lamb, because the only other available lamb were crown roasts or chops.  The roasts and chops were $20+ per pound and the ground lamb was $6-something.  Plus, if I buy a lamb roast or chop, I'm going to roast or grill it, not put it in a pie!  Evidently lamb stew meat isn't very popular in Kansas.  Actually, lamb isn't very popular at all.  I also changed the recipe to make individual pies so I could make my own freezer meals.  The lamb and apple (and lots of nutmeg!) work really well together.  I would definitely make this again and I would be tempted to make it deep dish and add lots more apple, because the apple slices were really yummy with the rosemary-nutmeg lamb fat melted into them.

The green beans are from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which is always the best source for well-buttered vegetable side dishes.  I usually go with the minimum cooking time on Julia Child's veggie recipes, though.  Fifteen minutes is too long to blanch a green bean!

Lammas Lample Pie

Click here for my shortcrust pastry recipe.

1. Roll 1/6 of the shortcrust pastry to 1/8" thickness.  Trim to the circumference of the pie plate.
2. This recipe is a good excuse to get whole nutmegs and a Microplane grater, which is a great investment.
3. Paul adds ground lamb to our 12" skillet.
4. Use a leaf-shaped fondant cutter to make pastry leaves.
5. Lay out your individual pie plates, along with the lamb and apples.
6. Place a layer of apples on the bottom, topped with lamb and another layer of apples.
7. Pastry lids are slashed four times and topped with four pastry leaves.
8. Dig in!

In keeping with the British theme, in the August 1, 1938, edition of Life, "France and England Shake Friendly Hands as King George VI Arrives in Paris" and "Life Goes to a Party with England's Lord Chief Justice in the Sacred Inner Temple," which is a must-read for any fans of Evelyn Waugh or Nancy Mitford, because it's wonderfully absurd: all the games are practically illegal, some barristers provided choral entertainment while other barristers threatened to sue due to the noise and all of it to raise money to pay for barristers for those who can't afford them.  Insert any number of lawyer jokes here.

 

*****

I hate that food has to be political, but I'm glad I didn't alienate my readership with my anti-GMO rhetoric.  I learned that most of you have the same concerns I have!  In the time since my last post, I've watched The Future of Food (which is currently available from Netflix streaming) and learned exactly how organisms are genetically modified.  It's even scarier than I thought.  Here's a hint: it involves the use of e. coli!  The Future of Food doesn't have the production values Food, Inc. had and the narration reminds me of high school science films, but it was extremely informative and even I understood the scientific explanations and I was never much of a biology person.  I did take botany in college, but that was only because I had to take a life science and I don't like the smell of formaldehyde.  Maybe I should have paid more attention!  The Future of Food also has a nice section about what we can do as consumers and voters.

There's a guy from the Center for Food Safety in the film, so I decided to check out the organization's website.  Turns out, they have a Shoppers' Guide, which lists non-GMO groceries and has tips on avoiding GMOs.  The app version includes news and ways to get involved.  I know that "voting with your wallet" is a problem for people with limited resources, but it's only the cost of a stamp or internet access to write to a government agency or a congressman.  I've had one of my senator's offices hang up on me, but I keep trying and I keep hoping that maybe on the next issue there will be more people who speak up.

*****

*"First Fruits" in Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 327-331.

**

Graph from Wikipedia

***"Lammas Day" in Julia Jones and Barbara Deer, Cattern Cakes and Lace: A Calendar of Feasts (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1987), 90.  The Oxford English Dictionary states the origin is "Old English hläfmœsse (see loaf, Mass), later interpreted as if it were LAMB + MASS."

50's Monster Mash: The Giant Behemoth

That's Tower Bridge in the background--Nesszilla (as I call him) has made his way to the Thames to die in fresh water.  Sad, isn't it?  Too bad he has to destroy London while he's at it.

First off, thanks to Nathanael at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear for hosting this blog event.  I decided to watch and write about The Giant Behemoth because it's set in Britain.  I mean, how many British 50s monster movies are there, anyway?  Let's get the basics out of the way--the Giant Behemoth is a leftover electrified dinosaur that has become radioactive due to nuclear testing in oceans.  He's a Nessie/Godzilla hybrid!

I have to admit that I completely lost interest in this film after Nesszilla emerges in London.  The first part of the movie was much more compelling.  For instance, this Cornish blonde (who's unfortunately only in the first 15 minutes) wears the cutest clothes:

Doesn't this make you want to be a fisher(wo)man?

Cuffed jeans and a duffel coat are going on my to-buy list.

What one wears while cooking (possibly radioactive) fish for dinner.

Searching for a missing father requires a chunky-knit cardigan.

I wonder if that's what this lady is knitting?

Finally, check out this girl's fair isle.  Awesome!

I also thought that some of the events in the beginning of the film would make a great science not-fiction story.  So, rather than take this film at face value, I've decided to look at Nesszilla as a metaphor for the man-made threats to our food supply.  In the movie, lots of mysteriously dead fish wash ashore in Cornwall.  Sound familiar?  As scary as an electric, radioactive dinosaur is, it's not quite as scary as the fact that humans have created a situation where dead fish do wash ashore--no radioactive monster required.  The Giant Behemoth is simply all the things that we've done to ruin the earth and our own food supply.  Unfortunately, the real behemoth isn't as easy to slay.  I'd like to suggest a couple of things we can all do to help.

I've been wanting to make Haddock with Parsley Sauce for a long time and this movie seemed like a good tie-in.  Maybe my stomach isn't as weak as I thought?  Anyway, I had to buy pollock and the sauce separated irrevocably, so I ended up with poached fish topped with cream, lemon zest and parsley, which was actually pretty tasty.

Why did I use pollock, you ask?  Well, I have this very cool iPhone app (don't worry, there's a web version, as well) from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, called Seafood Watch.  It tells me which on-sale fish to buy (and which to avoid) at the grocery store so I can be sure to buy a sustainably fished fish so we can all enjoy fish in the future.

*****

Also way-scarier-than-radioactive dinosaurs: Genetically Modified Organisms, created by the giant behemoths that are chemical companies like Monsanto and Dow, and flourish through our ignorance.  This as-yet-untitled film project (that I'm supporting at Kickstarter) seeks to shed light on the ever-increasing hold chemical companies have over our food supply.  Please watch this video and, if you can, donate to the project.  You can give as little as $1, but if you give $25 you get a digital download of the film, which I thought was pretty cool, because a documentary about GMOs will probably never get a showing in Wichita.


The "sizzle reel" is also at Always Order Dessert, where I first heard about this project.  If you're still wondering, "what's the big deal?" watch this CBS News video or the film Food, Inc. about how Monsanto sues farmers across America for patent infringement.  Plus, is anyone else freaked out by the fact that Monsanto has created a soybean that is dependent on a toxic chemical?

*****

Also, I apologize for being behind in checking all your lovely blogs.  Our internet is on the fritz.