Paul Simons

Just a quick addition - here in the Philly area Goetta is known as Scrapple and revered as a breakfast food. It must be around New York as well - there's a Charlie Parker tune called "Scrapple from the Apple" - that particular apple being  NYC, "The Big Apple", the thing that the biblical serpent used to get Adam and Eve to get into sinning, which evidently NYC has taken to skyscraper levels, But for Charlie Parker it was about pure joy, it had nothing to do with anything else. 

Jerry Ochs

When our two sons were in Cincinnati for the first time, my family introduced them to the Brown Cow (vanilla ice cream and Barq's root beer).  Did anybody else enjoy this simple treat?

Philip Spiess

Yes; we usually made them at home.  Curiously enough, about five years ago, when Browne Academy sent me as one of the chaperones on the 8th Grade trip up the Hudson River, we ended up for lunch in a massive, elaborate classic diner (with all of the neon, mirrors, and jukeboxes appertaining thereto) at Hyde Park, across the road from FDR's home.  There on the menu was a "Brown Cow" (though I don't think it was made with Barq's); I immediately ordered one, and when it came, it was huge (but good!).

Chuck Cole

I remember brown cows being vanilla ice cream and coca-cola.  Black cows were made with root bear and pink cows with red cream soda.  

Arthur (Skip) Gasch

Phil,

About the needle, better to find it quickly than let it find you.

Needles make great weapons...

In any case, no one seems too engaged in the AI discussion or its manifold applications in our society today, so I'll drop back into surveillance mode and just monitor for the next time the subject emerges.

Any serious interest, just text me directly and we can discuss it privately.

Blessings on your food fest discussion.

Art Gasch

Dale Gieringer

  Speaking of delectations from days of yore, one of my favorite Cincinnati treats was raisin bread frosted with icing on top of the crust.  It was delicious toasted with butter and sprinkled with cinammon, though you had to be careful not to melt the frosting in the toaster.    Does anyone make it anymore?

  Then there was calf's liver and onions, a dish that regularly appeared in the WHHS lunchroom and later in our dormitories at college.  It was commonplace on the menus of Boston diners back then.   I can't remember when I last saw calf's liver in a grocery store around here;  you'd have to ask a butcher (one who's not afraid of PETA).   

      Then there was chicken liver sausage (aka liverwurst),  which came in a skin-wrapped roll that you sliced like baloney.    I loved to eat it in sandwiches with mayonnaise.   Don't know where to find the sausage these days, though you can still get chopped liver at Jewish delis.

     Speaking of chickens, there was also city chicken, which was actually faux chicken made out of low-grade veal, pork or other meat chunks stuck on wooden skewers vaguely suggestive of drumsticks,  The idea came from a time when chicken was more expensive, before the modern era of chicken factories.   My mother bought city chicken frozen in pre-packaged boxes like fish sticks.  Speaking of which, we all remember when fish sticks were a Friday lunchroom staple in the days before Vatican II;  they are still on the grocery shelves, but I haven't touched one in years, except in the form of a McDonald's fish filet. 

Steven Levinson

The WHHS lunch room served City Chicken almost weekly, and I always chose it.  Eccentric sandwiches I picked up from my mother included:  (1) peanut butter and bacon; (2) peanut butter and mayonaise; and (3) cream cheese and halved black olives.  I've reverted to eating Nos. 1 and 3 lately.

Philip Spiess

Okay, Chuck, I stand corrected:  According to all of the responsible sources I just checked, they all agree that a "Brown Cow" is made with Coca-Cola and a "Black Cow" is made with root beer.  (I would have thought it was the reverse, since Coca-Cola is much "blacker" than most root beers, which tend to be brown.)

Paul:  Scrapple, that staple of the Pennsylvania Dutch (hence its popularity in Philadelphia), had obviously stretched its influence south to Delaware:  when I was in graduate school there in the late 1960s, I regularly got it at breakfast (gratis) with my fried eggs at a diner in Newark (Del.); I loved it.  Luckily, we can get it (packaged) here in the stores in Virginia.  (I have never seen much difference between it and Cincinnati Goetta, other than the name.)

Dale:  I remember the raisin bread of which you speak; Pepperidge Farm makes a very respectable raisin bread, though it doesn't have the icing on the top (probably because it melts in the toaster).  And we usually see calves' liver in the grocery stores around here (though I never buy it -- I've hated liver since my formative days in the Nursery School at the University of Cincinnati, which regularly served it to us infants).  Liverwurst, as you describe it, can also be found regularly in our grocery stores (I love to make a sandwich of it, slathered with spicy brown mustard).

As to "City Chicken," my mother used to make it regularly, and I occasionally make it as well.  There is a fine recipe for it in the 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking (though not in the 2006 edition); we can still get city chicken (set up on the requisite wooden skewers) at our local butcher here in Springfield, Virginia.

Paul Simons

First kudos to Phil for taking the trouble to reply directly to other contributors to this site. It makes it more of a conversation rather than just calling out into the darkness. Some items are not in my "wheelhouse" so I can't speak to them but when it comes to lowbrow food lookout! I do remember fish sticks and I know everyone can say something about a liverwurst on rye with onion sandwich at Mecklenburg's. The thing on my mind now is those perfectly rectangular frozen fish items that used to be in grocery stores - perch, halibut, sole, maybe even swordfish. Frozen solid - hard as bricks - inexpensive.

Philip Spiess

Art:  Concerning the needle, I get the point.  But before we depart into any private discussions, let me inquire if you are familiar with Edwin A. Abbott's 1884 novel [?], Flatland:  A Romance of Many Dimensions.  It seems to me to possibly have some bearing on the matters that we've been discussing, even if only in a (shall we say) "tangential" way.

Jerry Ochs

Phil: As our resident historian, do you remember Dolly Madison's chocolate covered doughnuts (a dozen to a box)?

Philip Spiess

As a matter of fact, Jerry, I do not; we indulged ourselves with crullers and Virginia reels from Virginia Bakery in Clifton (to say nothing of their Schnecken).

However, as you appeal to me in my capacity as an historian, I will humor you (but not with humor):  Dolly Madison was a national bakery brand that started in 1937.  It was famous, among other things, for the "snack cakes" known as "Zingers," which, no doubt, is why it was eventually purchased by Hostess Brands.  Dolly Madison snack cakes were best known for having a long marketing association with Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" characters, which appeared on Dolly Madison products packaging from the 1960s through the 1980s.  Each snack flavor featured a different "Peanuts" character:  Cherry and Banana Creme -- Charlie Brown; Apple -- Linus; Lemon -- Lucy (no doubt because she was sour); Berry -- Schroeder; Pineapple and Coconut Creme -- Sally; Strawberry and Peach -- Peppermint Patty; Chocolate -- Frieda; and Boysenberry -- Marcie; Charlie Brown was also on "Zingers" packages.  Much later, Snoopy appeared on all flavors of Dolly Madison snack pies; he also was on the "Gems" doughnut packages.  The Dolly Madison bakery brand, which had outlet stores for its bakery from the 1980s through its closing, was liquidated when Hostess Brands went out of business in 2012.  Apollo Global Management, which acquired Hostess's "Twinkies" brand in 2013, also acquired the rights and corporate name to Dolly Madison snack cake brands, with plans to resume production of the products.  (Don't know if they ever did.)

Bruce Fette

I agree, Kudos to Phil for making this site interesting to read every day!

Philip Spiess

Note to Jerry Ochs on the matter of Limburger Cheese:  There's a wonderful sequence in Charlie Chaplin's (silent) film satire on World War I, Shoulder Arms (1918), wherein he receives a package of said cheese from home, and, despising it, throws it out of his dugout, whereby it hits the German commander on the other side in the eye, who (of course) freaks out (by the by, Limburger cheese is Belgian in origin).  The strongest cheese I will agreeably submit to is "Beer Cheese" (Bierkase), supposedly comparable to Limburger, but is, I maintain, (at least) slightly milder.

Jerry Ochs

Holy inflation, Batman.  Found this on Amazon.

Chuck Cole

Donut Gems, Twinkies and the like are well known for extremely long shelf lives.  When our graduate students present their annual research-in-progress reports, the department provides modest funds for them to purchase beer and snacks for the after-seminar get-together.  One of my colleagues requested that his students include Twinkies among the snack foods.  Several years ago, I once took a twinkie package, lost track of it in my office, and only found it several months later.  I sent it to my colleague through inter-departmental mail. He later thanked me and said it was delicious.  I don't think he looked at the "sell by" date, or perhaps it said 2020.

Philip Spiess

Jerry's Amazon package doesn't look like it has Snoopy on it, does it?  That must mean it's fairly new -- or way old!

Jerry Ochs

Chuck:

Jerry Ochs

Skip: Artificial intelligence isn't a threat to humanity. Natural stupidity is.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) April 9, 2019

Philip Spiess

And now, for those who love Scrapple, referred to above (Paul?  Jerry?  Myself!) -- no, not Scrabble, you idiot! (did someone mention "natural stupidity"?) -- I am pleased to pass on to the assembled masses the opening lines from the recipe for Scrapple, as put down in The Book of Corn Cookery (pp. 49-50), published in 1918 "to allow American women to help win the World War [I]":

"1 Pig's Head, split in halves . . . Remove the eyes and brains from the head; scald well the head and ears and scrape thoroughly.  When well cleaned put on to cook in plenty of water. . . .  This is very good for a winter breakfast."

[I would love to see the size of the average 1918 homemaker's pot that could hold the usual standard pig's head -- and "plenty of (boiling) water" -- and get away with it.]

Jerry Ochs

It was probably the same pot they washed the baby in, hence the old saying, "Don't throw the hog's head out with the bathwater."

Paul Simons

In accordance with this site's stipulation of strict neutrality, absolute non-partisanship concerning the national political debate, I will say that the Scrapple recipe Phil quotes is a remarkably accurate description of a politician. However I am not advocating cooking and/or consuming politicians. We have not yet returned to cannibalism, and even if we had, I hear they are not so much tough and stringy as they are fatty and tasteless.

Here is a far better choice, along with its inventor:

Jerry Ochs

If you are late for a cannibal banquet, you get the cold shoulder.. 
 

Philip Spiess

Jerry, what's eating you, anyway?

[Actually, your quip reminds me of the Greek myth of Tantalus, who insulted the gods by daring, on one occasion, to cook and serve up to them his own son Pelops.  Most of the gods were aware of the deception, and refused to eat the dish, but Ceres, melancholy and distracted by the recent loss of her daughter to the Underworld, was not paying attention and absent-mindedly ate part of the lad's shoulder.  In pity, the gods restored Pelops to life, and Ceres replaced the missing shoulder with one of ivory (or gold, sort of like the astronomer Tycho Brahe's nose).  Perhaps to avoid social embarrassments thereby, Pelops retired to the Grecian peninsula, which is still called the Peloponnesus in his honor.  (And you all doubtless remember what happened to his fond papa, Tantalus, in Tartarus, don't you?  It's a tantalizing tale.)]

Paul Simons

Summer Reading List - light reading, by the pool or at the beach.