Food Of The Future

Are new products like Olestra the answer to the world’s health problems? Unfortunately, some scientists in the USA are concerned about Olestra. One nutrition described it as a ’crazy substance’ that cause cancer, heart disease and even blindness in the elderly. Should we ban food additives and return to a simpler, more natural way of producing food? Or should we use new technology to create new, healthier types of food? It’s hard to decline when the ‘experts’ can’t agree on the future of food.

Hot Dog

#22 The Big Apple’s Big Oyster Stew

“ Mildly potent, quietly sustaining, warm as love and welcomer in winter “, according to one of its many admirers

Much imagination and invention has gone into the gradual evolution of what humans regard as food. Our furry ancestors ate pretty much whatever was at hand – if it didn’t eat them first. How we first decided to boil water or make bread is anyone’s guess. But what turn of events could have possibly induced someone to eat an oyster? For all inventions, an oyster in its shell looks like a rock, and surely even early humans must have figured out the rocks were inedible. What’s more, once the shell was opened the naked oyster itself, all translucent and slimy, must have looked singularly unappetizing.

So, yes Swift is right to commend that first hearty gastronome who, throwing caution to the wind, slurped down the first oyster and that exhilarating salt taste of the sea. Perhaps he had seen gulls drop the shells from a great height to the rocks below and perceived that there was something tasty inside. (What inspired the gull to figure this out remains a mystery.) Since that day, oysters have occupied a unique position in our culinary history. Few comestibles have been as celebrated and scorned, relished and rejected as this humble bivalve. For every person who swears that oysters are the perfect food (or aphrodisiac), there is someone else with a nose wrinkled in disgust at the thought of interesting one of the slippery little rascals.

Few places have embraced oysters with quite as much Epicurean gusto as New York City in the 19^th century. Red-and-white-striped muslin balloons illuminated by candlelight were suspended on nearly every corner advertising oyster cellars. Locals like the Rabelaisian financier “Diamond Jim” Brady thought nothing of consuming three or four dozen oysters as an appetizer. By 1877, Fulton Fish Market was selling approximately 50, 000 oysters per day- even in the r-less months. (Traditionally, oysters are to be eaten only in those months with names that include an r.) The great oyster beds of Long Island and the Chesapeake produced mammoth molluscs up to a foot in length. On a visit to our shores, the English author William Makepeace Thackeray commented, rather vividly, that eating one was like “swallowing a baby.”

On America’s East Coast the annual harvest was so plentiful that oysters could abundantly grace the tables of rich and poor alike. They were so inexpensive that they were used in everything from soups to stuffing and appeared, in various recipes, almost nightly on many New York tables. Even the city’s rougher neighbourhoods offered the popular “Canal Street plan, ” promising customers all the oysters they could eat for only 6 cents.

But with the exception of a freshly shucked dozen of the choicest Belons, Wellfleets or Malpeques straight off the boat with the brine still dripping from their shells, no oyster dish has captured the American- heart and stomach as much as the humble, delicious oyster stew. Served hot, oyster stew was a poor man’s meal, a glorious creation born from the simplest ingredients: oysters, cream, butter. And it’s a dish that’s redolent of the New York of Roosevelts and Rhinelanders, the Five Corners, Coenties Slip, cobblestone streets, robber barons in silk vests, and Horatio Alger newsboys running in the rain, selling The New York Sun for a penny a copy.

By the turn of the century, oyster stews had become a traditional American Sunday night meal. Quick and easy for a skilful cook to prepare, a stew – unlike soup- can be made in a matter of minutes. M.F.K. Fisher, the American culinary essayist, wrote memorably of the charms of oyster stew in her 1941 book Consider the Oyster. Pondering why American lexicographers had never seen fit to give “oyster stew” its own definition in the dictionary, she asked, “Is it possible that they never knew, when they were children, the cozy pleasures of Sunday night supper in wintertime, when crackers and the biggest tureen of steaming, buttery, creamy oyster stew stood on the table, and was plenty? ” Sadly this paragon of the dinner table seems, with few notable exceptions such as the famous Oyster Bar in New York’s Grand Central Station, to have gone of the buggy whip. Two different factors have contributed to the steady disappearance of oyster stew from our nation’s gastronomic consciousness. The first is basic expense: Oysters are no longer as common and cheap a foodstuff as bread. The other is that today, in our calorie-conscious age, “buttery, creamy” meals like oyster stew conjure up horrible images of hardening arteries and sagging bellies. This is a shame. On cold winter afternoons, there is no greater pleasure than a soothing, aromatic bowl to nurture the insides and lift the spirits. Few other meals have the near-magical power of oyster to be, in the evocative words of Fisher, “mildly potent, quietly sustaining, warm as love and welcomer in winter.”

“Warm as Love”

There are a few places left on the East Coast where you can still find old-fashioned oyster stew. One of the great restaurants in New York City and a monument to the fading cult of the oyster, the venerable Grand Central Oyster Bar and Restaurant still makes hundreds of oyster stews by hand every day, each one “warm as love.”

Grand Central’s Oyster Stew

8 freshly opened oysters

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoon (¼ stick) butter

1 ounce sherry

¼ cup oyster liquor

½ teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika

Dash celery salt

1 cup half-and-half

Place all ingredients except half-and-half and 1 tablespoon of the butter in the top part of a double boiler over boiling water. Don’t let the top pan touch the water. Whisk or stir briskly and constantly for about 1 minute, until oysters are just beginning to curl. Add half-and-half and continue stirring briskly, just to a boil. Do not boil. Pour stew into a soup plate. Serve piping hot topped with the remaining tablespoon of butter and sprinkled with paprika. (Don’t forget the oyster crackers!)

#23 Good Nutrition – Some Basics.

Wherever we live, whatever we do, we all need to fuel our bodies. We need an adequate supply of energy – or calories. And to stay healthy and keep our bodies working properly, we need adequate amounts of more than 40 complex substances, in proper balance, that our bodies extract and absorb from a variety of foods. These 40 or so nutrients are categorized into six main groups: carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and clean water.

Nutrition is the nourishment provided by food. It is the sum of the means by which we take in and process food. Here’s a brief listing of what nutrients do for us and some foods that include them.

Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates, or starches and sugars, are our main source of energy. They also provide fiber and many vitamins and minerals. Foods rich in carbohydrates include wheat, rice, corn, and other grains (commonly eaten as bread, cereal, and pasta); starchy vegetables, such as potatoes and cassava; and fruits.

Proteins: proteins build, repair, and maintain our muscles, organs, blood, cells, skin, bones, teeth, hair, and nails. Foods rich in protein include lean meat, fish, poultry, beans (including soy preparations such as tofu), peas, nuts, dairy products, and eggs. (While these foods contain the highest percentages of protein, a balanced diet according to the Food Guide Pyramid -–which emphasizes carbohydrates – will provide adequate protein. See Complementary Proteins, below right).

Fats: Fats are a concentrated source of calories, and, therefore, of energy. Certain fatty acids (components of fat) are converted into molecules that are the basic material of our cell membranes. Unsaturated fat is recommended. Foods rich in unsaturated fat include oils, most types of fish, avocados, huts, and soybeans.

Vitamins and minerals: Vitamins and minerals help our bodies stay healthy and work properly. Vitamins such as A and C play specific roles in our metabolic processes, regulation growth, tissue replacement, and general cellular activity. The mineral potassium, for one, regulates the fluids in our bodies, as well as processes such as muscle contractions and nerve impulses. Iron is an essential part of haemoglobin, the oxygen carrier in our blood. Some vitamins and minerals are required in only small amounts but nonetheless are vital for health. To get them, eating a variety of fresh and well-prepared foods is recommended. Foods rich in vitamin A include beef liver, fruits and vegetables that have a yellow/orange colour (such as sweet potatoes and carrots), and dark green leafy vegetables. Foods rich in vitamin C include many fruits and vegetables. The richest in vitamin C are guava, red bell pepper, papayas, and oranges. Potatoes and apples contain vitamin C in smaller amounts. Foods rich in potassium include bananas, milk, haddock, okra, turkey, oranges, tomatoes, and bell peppers. Foods rich in iron include lean meat, iron-fortified foods (such as breakfast cereals and, to a lesser degree, bread products), pumpkin seeds, bran, dark green leafy vegetables, fish, nuts, and dried fruits.

Water: Water is often called the forgotten nutrient. It helps transport other nutrients, remove wastes, and regulate body temperature.

#24 Humour. Jokes. Funny Stories.

Jokes.