Closing out a trio of posts dedicated to Bob Brown’s Complete Book of Cheese, here’s one last foray into the wide world of ‘50s-era preserved dairy products. As mentioned previously, the combination of Brown’s raconteur tone, the hazy mists of time, and the fact that not all information is available online and/or in English, leads to a bit of confusion about what is real and what Brown has simply invented. That matters less in this last post, which focuses entirely on recipes, all capable of producing very real, very rich delicacies, fabricated or not. This first dish purports to be a traditional favorite of the Engadine, a lush, Sound of Music-style valley in the Swiss Alps; Googling reveals nothing, although I did find a bit of fantastic web animation on the website of this unrelated London restaurant, named after the valley's famous resort town. The second is an explosion of opulence featuring the King of Cheeses, pushed even further into regal richness with champagne and butter. The third is a little less decadent, perfect for dieters who also want to sample one of the book’s 60 recipes for rarebit, or at least get a glimpse of mid-century dieting fashions.
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There's something innately disturbing about the short memory of popular culture, the impetuous hastiness with which celebrated things can be completely and utterly forgotten, a reminder that most people’s legacies don’t extend too far beyond their lifespans. So while it’s nice to imagine we have an adequate picture of what life was like 50 or 60 years ago, a sampling of hit movies and TV shows, icons and stars, fashions and trends, there’s really a huge amount of now-vanished information which leaves this image incomplete. Take for example Bob, Rose and Cora Brown, a by-all-accounts moderately famous husband, wife and mother team of food explorers, who wrote several impressive tomes on the joys of adventurous eating. All of these are now out of print, and the Browns can no longer even boast a Wikipedia entry to their name. Bob, the trio’s de facto leader (if only by virtue of having lived the longest and wrote the most) still has a few scant clippings accessible, including this 2010 NYTimes piece, which seems to completely misinterpret an obvious joke about an idea for an automated reading machine. This disappearance is a shame, since the Browns’ gourmand legacy, the concept of combing the globe for new flavors rather than clinging to the comfortable tastes of home, seems especially relevant today.
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