Just outside of Eagle, Wisconsin, is the world's largest museum dedicated to the history of rural life - Old World Wisconsin. Over 50 buildings were identified across the state, disassembled, and re-assembled in one campus. And one part of the fund-raising effort to get this all started back in 1976 was a cookbook - The [...]
The Devil’s Playthings – Smoked Deviled Eggs
Idle hands are the devil's playthings and a bit of idle time led to to this take on Deviled Eggs. The History Channel tells me Deviled Eggs may be as ancient as 1st century Roman culture, where they marinated small song birds and stuffed them into eggs. In this case, my good friend Tom gave [...]
On Culture, Caraway…again
The flavor combinations we detailed in our post On Culture, Caraway, and a Computer were intriguing - partly because of the genesis of the recipe and partly because of the use of under-appreciated caraway. The texture of the pudding we prepared, given the bacon and pepper flavors, seemed odd, but the taste was interesting. So [...]
A Moment From 100 Years Ago
A smiling, white-haired gentleman greets me and I give him the name of our party. “Oh, you’re having lunch with my good friends today. Welcome.” The dining room has plenty of dark wood, lit by stained glass and low lights. Nearly every bit of wall space has either a German artifact or a framed photo [...]
On Culture, Caraway, and a Computer
One of the featured examples of innovation in Frans Johansson book The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation is the work of Marcus Samuelsson at Aquavit. Johansson explains the idea of Associative Barriers, the associations our brains naturally make between certain ideas. Some of these ideas are culturally bound. When we hear [...]
Great Lakes Cuisine 