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Fuzzy Red Alien Fruit!

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   Rambutan, the spikey red cousin to the lychee. I have seen them in food magazines, on TV and the Internet all my adult life. I'm not much of a tropical fruit fan, but when I saw these in the store last week I couldn't resist giving them a try. (And there was a $2 off coupon, all the better!) Like its relatives, rambutan is native to Southeast Asia. The name comes from the Malay word rambut which means 'hair' due to the fuzzy bits.   The spikey bits are soft, not pokey like I expected. Various Internet sources said the rind could be peeled with fingernails, but mine weren't up to the task. I used a paring knife and cut through it, then gave the fruit a twist and one end popped right off.    The fruit is a translucent white and smelled a little floral when I first opened it. Inside is a single white seed that I nibbled around.   The taste is sweet with a slight tart finish. The flesh was juicy but not drippy. It is traditionally eaten fresh or ca...
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Memorial Day and Donuts

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  Today is Memorial Day, the day we honor those who gave their lives in service of the military. I decided to try a WWI rationing recipe and in the mood for something sweet and fried, picked the original Salvation Army donut.   The Salvation Army donut was handed out to the U.S. soldiers fighting in France by the hundreds. Volunteers started frying the donuts in soldier's helmets, and earned themselves the nickname 'donut lassies'. Foodstuff was in short supply, so they had to come up with a recipe that was quick, easy and made from readily available ingredients.   With the help of my journeyman baker husband, we gathered together the ingredients. As these were made on the front lines during the war, they are leavened (raised) with baking powder instead of yeast like the donuts you get at your local bakery.  We used our trusty stand mixer to start the process and then moved to hand mixing.   The dough was super wet, and at this point I took over, ...
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Holy Provel, Batman!

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   A s a food anthropologist I have been a huge fan of Atlas Obscura's food feature, Gastro Obscura. After years of reading about weird and wonderful foods that are served nowhere near Central Texas, one day it suddenly  occurred to me that I could make pretty much anything that didn't call for esoteric equipment or ingredients that I could not source due to shipping restrictions.   Something that has intrigued me for a long while has been Provel cheese. Provel is a St. Louis staple, a Velveeta-like concoction of Swiss, Provolone and white cheddar with an added smoke flavor that was invented in the 1940s to feed the need for a pizza cheese with a 'clean bite'. In years past I had seen Provel in our local stores, but not since before the plague. When I decided that I was going to use Provel in my first couple of recipes I started looking. Local store websites would say they had it, but it was nowhere in sight when I went to or called the store...
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Welcome!

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 Welcome to The Why of What We Eat!  I've been writing fiction for the last several years. I've have enjoyed it, the worldbuilding is the most fun. You get to make up an entire universe just the way you want it. I will definitely finish out the Salvage series, I have put way too much work into that storyline to let it just fizzle off. But my true loves are and always have been history, anthropology, and food.   When I was young, there wasn't much on TV. We had a whole three stations, and a snowy PBS station that came in a bit more clear early mornings and late night when the local stations powered off for the night. I have always been an early riser, and my parents were not. So by the time I was 6, I was getting up and feeding myself in the mornings. I discovered on the snowy PBS station The French Chef followed by The Galloping Gourmet. These two shows plus the food traditions of my own family and culture cemented my interest in where food came from and why, at the ...
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