Food & drink takeaways - 23 August
Curated taster samples of every day’s food & drink associations
A retired master chef’s drama-filled weekly family suppers, licking jam from a wrecked car as an art statement and local food sourcing at its most local.
Just some of the treats that 23 August brings to the food and drink table. Click on the links for extras.
Food on screen
Family food movie Tortilla Soup opened in UK cinemas on this day in 2002 – the story of a retired master chef who is losing his sense of taste but, in scenes rated by Time Out magazine as among the finest 50 food on film moments, his compulsory weekly suppers with his daughters {header photo} as they all try to lead new lives still feature delights such as peppers blistered over charcoal, octopus dredged in flour and ground chillies.
"Makes you famished for spice-rubbed whole fish and lamb with orange salsa while it amply feeds your soul " said the Philadelphia Inquirer on the Plex TV site.
And if you want further examples of the movie's mouth-watering credentials, you can find a recipe for Tortilla Soup's Tortilla Soup on the Screen to Table blog site.
Food in art
American painter, assemblagist and pioneer in the concept of performance art, Allan Kaprow, was born on this day in 1927.
He was a key exponent of 'happenings' – theatrical events created by artists in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Artnet takes up the story of one in particular: "Of the numerous happenings Kaprow staged throughout his career, which nearly always involved audience participation, many also included the act of eating. . . The photo of Kaprow’s Household of the same year has become one of the most iconic of his oeuvre. A multi-part happening, the work involved covering a wrecked car with fruit jam, and some participants wiped up the jam with bread and ate it, while others licked the jam up directly from the car."
Participants lick strawberry jam off of a wrecked car in Allan Kaprow’s happening, Household (1964). Photo: Cornell University Library.
Food in diaries and journals
There's a lot made of local food sourcing in culinary and hospitality circles these days.
It's built on a philosophy that goes back a long, long way as 17th century writer and intellectual John Evelyn described in his diary entry for this day in 1681.
He accepted an invitation to dine at the home of a local politician in Wotton "where was much company, and such an extraordinary feast, as I had hardly seen at any country gentleman's table.
“There was not anything save what his estate about it did afford; as venison, rabbits, hares, pheasants, partridges, pigeons, quails, poultry, all sorts of fowl in season from his own decoy near his house, and all sorts of fresh fish.”
