Well alright folks - I'm plugging another Culinary Historians of Southern California event 'cause I like 'em so much. This one I'll be missing, since I'm going to be playing an astronaut who's been abandoned on a space station for 20 years in a short film. Talk about typecasting! Jane'll probably show up for it, though. Hard to say "no" to New Orleans cuisine.
Saturday, March 10, 2012, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library
Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.
Free and open to the public
Albert Sonnenfeld speaking on…
“Food Obsessionals: New Orleans and the French Connection”
The Louisiana Purchase was as good a deal as the purchase of Manhattan, especially for the culture of food. Mark Twain wrote of New Orleans that to understand its culture one needs to imagine what French society would be like in a genial climate and in the freedom of a new country; Sherwood Anderson apostrophized New Orleans as “dear city of Latins and hot nights.” The “Big Easy” is above all a “Catholic city” in its view of the pleasures of the bedroom, table and kitchen, a refuge from Cromwellian austerity, that curse brought upon our land by a Puritan heritage.” I call this “the French Connection.” Though the architecture of the Carre or Quarter is Spanish; the food culture is FRENCH Catholic.
As Marcelle Bienvenue asked (without answering): “Who’s your Mama, Are you Catholic and can you make a Roux?”
The talk is a small unsweetened beignet of cultural history…
Albert Sonnenfeld calls himself a cultural historian. He is a free-lance journalist, restaurant consultant and reviewer, and for many years literature professor at Princeton (1959-1986) and USC (Chevalier Professorship, 1986-2004).
Sonnenfeld’s edition of Food: A Culinary History (Columbia University Press, November 1999) attracted media attention. Since 1999, he has directed the series, Arts of the Table: Studies in Culinary History for Columbia University Press, where he has published Culture of the Fork (2001). His edition and translation from the Italian of Il Cibo come cultura (Food as culture) appeared in 2006.
Four times decorated by the French Republic, most recently as Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1997), and as Chevalier dans l’ordre du mérite agricole (2003). He served four terms on the National Board of Directors of The American Institute of Wine and Food, whose L.A. chapter he co-chaired. In 2002 he was named editor of The FCI Review by The French Culinary Institute of New York. He was food columnist and restaurant reviewer for Westside News Publications and Brentwood Media Group and he is syndicated by “Critique Guides Series.”
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