A History of How We Cook and Eat

choi

Dawn Drazal, The Science of Sizzle; Bee Wilson serves up a smorgasbord of information about food tools and techniques. New York Times, Nov 18, 2012 (in th eBook Review section)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/1 ... -by-bee-wilson.html
(book review on Bee Wilson, Consider the Fork; A history of how we cook and eat. Basic Books, 2012)

My comment:
(a) erudition (n):
"extensive knowledge acquired chiefly from books : profound, recondite, or bookish learning"

(b) The review mentions "Jane Grigson, one of the grandes dames of English food writing."
(i) grande dame (n; French, literally, great lady; plural grandes dames, also grande dames):
"a usually elderly woman of great prestige or ability"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grande%20dame
(ii) In French, "une grande dame" --a (noble) lady-- and "les grandes dames" are the singular and plural form, respectively, according to
http://www.larousse.com/en/dicti ... glish/grande%20dame

(c) The "The review states, "So, which does come first, the stir-fry or the wok? Wilson’s answer is, 'Neither.' To solve the riddle, we have to take a step back and contemplate cooking fuel: firewood was scarce, and with a wok you could cook more quickly after chopping food into bite-size morsels with a tou, or Chinese cleaver. Chopsticks were also part of this 'symbiosis.'”
(i) By "neither," the book--hence the reviewer--means both stir-fry and the wok appeared at the same time, as "symbiosis."
(ii) The "tou" is Cantonese pronunciation for knife.

(d)
(i) waribashi 割り箸 【わりばし】 (n): "splittable (wood) chopsticks  <和食のレストランへ行くたびに、割り箸を家へもって帰ります。    Whenever I go to a Japanese restaurant, I take the disposable chopsticks home with me.>"
(ii) waru 割る 【わる】 (v): "to divide; to cut; to break"
(iii) hashi  箸 【はし】 (n): "chopsticks"
Jim Breen's online Japanese dictionary

(e) The review next says, "The British, on the other hand, with their abundance of firewood, went in for enormous haunches of beef spit-roasted in front of a roaring hearth. And spit-roasting entailed a universe of now defunct technologies like gravity jacks, which replaced child- or canine-powered turnspits. (There was even a dog of that name with short legs and a long body, specially bred, as Wilson puts it, to 'trundle around' in a large wheel connected to the spit with a pulley.)."
(i) haunch (n):
"1a : HIP
b : HINDQUARTER—usually used in plural"
(ii)  spit (n): "a slender pointed rod for holding meat over a fire"
(iii) For "spit roast" (as a verb) see rotisserie
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotisserie
(Mechanical turnspits ("roasting jacks") were later invented, first powered by dogs on treadmills, and then by steam power and mechanical clockwork mechanisms)
(A) roasting jack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roasting_jack
(In Britain, starting in the Tudor period, dog-powered turnspits were used; the dog ran in a treadmill linked to the spit by belts and pulleys)
(B) Turnspit Dog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_Dog
("The Turnspit Dog was a short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel, called a turnspit or dog wheel, to turn meat. The type is now extinct")

In the second sketch, do you see a dog in a wheel suspended above a woman sitting by the hearth?
(iv) rotisserie (n; French rôtisserie, from Middle French rostisserie, from rostir to roast — more at ROAST; First Known Use: circa 1920):
"an appliance fitted with a spit on which food is rotated before or over a source of heat"
(v) trundle (n, originally meaning "small wheel"; vi):
"to move on or as if on wheels"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trundle

(f)
(i) overbite
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overbite
(ii) Overbite. Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary. (32nd edition; E-Book). Elsevier, 2011 (arranged alphabetically).
http://books.google.com/books?id ... amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ

Under the heading "overlap" and the subheading "vertical overlap."

(iii) This video did not show biting in action (but swallowing only), but you can see what "overbite" is in a normal person.
My X Ray swallows. YouTube.com, uploaded by spladgum on Sep 11, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umnnA50IDIY&feature=related   
(g) The book quotes Pres Bill Clinton as joking, "“No more false choice between the left utensil and the right utensil."

(i) eating utensil etiquette

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_utensil_etiquette
(section 2 Fork etiquette)
(ii) table setting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_setting
(In the simplest form, a fork is placed to the left of the dinner plate, and a knife and a spoon, to the right)

(h) The review finally comments, "Studies cited by Wilson show that by reducing the need to chew our food, processors eliminate some of the work it takes our body to digest it. Although the calories on paper may be identical, the body receives more energy (translating into pounds) from 100 calories of processed food than from 100 calories of whole food."

That is, to digest coarse food, humans spend energy via biting, chewing, peristalsis, and son on--which consume energy. So the net intake is much less than if he consumes processed food.