Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder

[Jerome Foster]

Just what is a N.Y. System weiner or wiener anyway? 50 years of eating in
NYC and I never heard of it.





----- Original Message -----
From: <Bapopik at AOL.COM>
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Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 10:38 PM
Subject: Snail Salad, Pepper Biscuits, Rabe, Weiners & Baking Powder


>    "Snail salad" is not in John Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD
AND
> DRINK.  Will it be in the next volume of DARE?
>    "Rabe" is in Merriam-Webster, with a first date of only 1976.  "Rabe"
is
> not in the OED.  Well, "rabe" is _sort of_ in the OED.  It says that
"rabe"
> is "rabbi."  Correct this at once.  MY RABBI IS NOT MADE OF BROCCOLI!
>
>
>    12-2-1992, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-02:
> _FOODWISE R.I. cuisine from traditional to ethnic_
> by Donna Lee
> (...)  That led to talk about Rhode Island food.  My husband, a Rhode
Island
> native, asked which foods I had never tasted before I moved from
> Massachusetts 10 years ago.
>    It was a long list.
>    First was spinach pie.  In my north-of-Boston town, it meant quiche
made
> with spinach--not Rhode Island's spinach-filled turnover.
>    I had eaten marinated squid and octopus in Boston but never heard it
> called snail salad.  We had sugared fried dough at fairs, but didn't call
> them doughboys.  The list included coffee syrup, Del's frozen lemonade,
> pepper biscuits, rice pie at Easter, deep-fried smelts, jonnycakes, French
> pork pie, plain tomato pie instead of cheese-topped pizza.  I never tasted
> any of these until I moved south of the Bay State border.
>    We had clam fritters, but nothing like the mostly dough clam cakes of
> Rhode Island.
>    As a Bostonian, I never encountered a N.Y. System wiener.  I'm still
not
> converted; I'd rather have a Saugy (another Rhode Island discovery) than
the
> squishy-soft N.Y. System wiener.  A decade later, I' still trying to
> understand why some spell it "wiener," some spell it "weiner" and some
shops
> spell it both ways on the same store front.
>    Rabe--which I learned to cook by tasting the great version at Mike's
> Kitchen at the VFW Post in Cranston--was new to me 10 years ago.
>    Since then, Boston's culinary horizons have broaded, and rabe wouldn't
be
> so unusual.  But 10 years ago, innovative restaurants such as Biba,
> Hamersley's Bistro, Jasper's, Olives, East Coast Grill and Michela's were
> still in Boston's future; Yankee standards such as Parker House scrod and
> Durgin Park Indian pudding were the norm, and not many Yankees ate rabe.
>
>
>    10-18-1988, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. F-01:
> _WHAT'S UP ON THE HILL:_
> _We owe "our own" clam cakes and red chowder to the earliest Italian
> immigrants_
> by Donna Lee
>    Many of Rhode Island's favorite foods can be traced to Italy.
>    Even those doughy deep-fried balls known as clam cakes have an Italian
> heritage.  "Neapolitans called them 'pizzette' and served them in fish
> restaurants," says Nancy Verde Barr of Providence, who is completing a
book
> of souther Italian cooking to be published by Knopf.
>    Rhode Island and Manhattan each have a red clam chowder.  Manhattan
> chowder starts with vegetables and contains no milk.  One of Rhode
Island's
> versions combines milk, clams, potatoes and tomatoes.  Guess who put
tomatoes
> in the chowder?  "The Italians," says Barr, who has taught Italian food
> history ar Brown University Learning Community.
>
>
>    4-27-1994, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. G-02:
> _Baking powder history_
>    Baking powder is what makes muffins, banana bread and cakes rise.
>    Rumford Baking Powder was launched 140 years ago right here in Rhode
> Island, developed by Eben Horsford.  He was a chemistry professor at
Harvard
> University, a position endowed as the COunt Rumford chair.
>    While another brand had been introduced around that time in Boston,
> Rumford's endured.
>    The East Providence Historical Society is marking the anniversary of
> Rumford Baking Powder with displays throuhgout May. (...)
>    When George F. WIlson and Horsford started Rumford Chemical Company in
> 1854 in what is now East Providence, the name of Horsford's benefactor was
> used for the company.  As the business grew, the community in East
Providence
> became known as Rumford.  Rumford Baking Powder is now manufactured in
Terre
> Haute, Ind.
>
>
>       10-15-1997, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, pg. C-04:
>    The Rumford Chemical Works was historically important because it was
the
> first company that made baking powder, according to Edna Anness, curator
of
> the East Providence Historical Society.
>    Gearoge F. Wilson, a businessman, and Eben N. Horsford, a scientist,
> established a plant here in 1856, and over the years it employed thousands
of
> people.   (...)  Rumford got its name from the plant and came to be known
as
> the "kitchen capital of the world."
>
> (The first company to make "baking powder" or not?  It was made in 1854 or
in
> 1856?  Did the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL and the East Providence Historical
Society
> forget _everything_ in the three years between articles?--ed.)
>