In the 60's, fondue was all the rage, at least in our neck of the woods. Slow eating was in. Cool folks huddled around hot cooking oil in a communal pot on the dining room table. Little cubes of beef sizzling on a sharp fondue fork, frequently falling off the fork into the pot; some-time chefs fumbling around with their fork, poking to find their cubes and knocking off everyone else's meat in the process. In time some skill was acquired but the greasy cube was carefully hauled across the table avoiding dripping on the table or everyone else and dipped in creamy dill or plum sauce. Clearly I was not fond of fondue but others were and the pianist also pursued chocolate fondue with fresh strawberries and cheese fondue with bread cubes.
For those who enjoy a languid, more cognitive eating style, it could be a conversational bonanza so while your little cube is cooking, your mouth empty and working overtime talking, despite the constant attention to keeping the oil boiling, the meat from being overdone, the gymnastics with the forks at the minimum, plus deciding whose fork is whose. To achieve that languid space you just had to decide to eat less. Fondue is not a guy thing. Crude as it may seem I was always driven more by my hypothalamus and parotid gland to fill up, so mercifully for me, fondue has succumbed to time and the rat race.
The Garden at Lotus Island always had a few artichokes. They are beautiful when growing and in flower.
Eating the chokes is in addition to fondue another contribution to the Slow Loris eating industry. Sucking and scraping away at the sepals of the flower bud after dipping in garlic butter the eater will need to recondition himself to get rid of the grease and fuzz. Dipping the soft and tasteless bases of the calyx requires preemptive action of slow dissection, ridding oneself of the nascent fuzzy petals which guarantees that the rest of your meal will get cold while filling the garbage pail with the 90% that is the inedible part of the choke. My advice to artichoke lovers is let them flower into their magnificent purple thistle like head and have a table centre for them with your meat and potatoes and ketchup. Quelle delicatesse!
For those who enjoy a languid, more cognitive eating style, it could be a conversational bonanza so while your little cube is cooking, your mouth empty and working overtime talking, despite the constant attention to keeping the oil boiling, the meat from being overdone, the gymnastics with the forks at the minimum, plus deciding whose fork is whose. To achieve that languid space you just had to decide to eat less. Fondue is not a guy thing. Crude as it may seem I was always driven more by my hypothalamus and parotid gland to fill up, so mercifully for me, fondue has succumbed to time and the rat race.
The Garden at Lotus Island always had a few artichokes. They are beautiful when growing and in flower.
Eating the chokes is in addition to fondue another contribution to the Slow Loris eating industry. Sucking and scraping away at the sepals of the flower bud after dipping in garlic butter the eater will need to recondition himself to get rid of the grease and fuzz. Dipping the soft and tasteless bases of the calyx requires preemptive action of slow dissection, ridding oneself of the nascent fuzzy petals which guarantees that the rest of your meal will get cold while filling the garbage pail with the 90% that is the inedible part of the choke. My advice to artichoke lovers is let them flower into their magnificent purple thistle like head and have a table centre for them with your meat and potatoes and ketchup. Quelle delicatesse!
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