Karen, with friends Esther and Rose Hanig, went off to Ramp Fest Saturday. I stayed behind to mind the store.
They gave the food and the ambiance rave reviews. They ate enough so I barely had to make dinner.
Here are a few photos taken by Karen.
Jeff Gimmel - one of the prime ramp movers
Sam Starr's Truck Pizza got in on the action
Karen got carded - "Drinking Age Verified"
Almost immediately after my previous posting, “Mystery Pizza Truck – still somewhat of a mystery“, my Facebook page lit up with comments from Gary Shiro at Hudson Opera House and Peter Pehrson at Acres Food Coop about the future whereabouts of my mystery. Gary informed that Truck Pizza will be at 347 Warren St during Winter Walk on December 3rd. Peter delivered the news that Truck Pizza would be operating that very evening at the Basilica.
So, off I went last night, arriving fashionably late at 8PM for a party that began at 5:30.
Sam Starr and crew were right there inside the truck in front of the roaring oven. Being late I didn’t get a chance to taste the featured pizzas, but Sam whipped up a couple. I took them home. Karen and I gobbled them up. We give them a big thumbs up. Karen particularly liked the slightly burned edges. The crust was very thin and crisp. Total cooking time about a minute. Just as Sam had told me early in the summer when we first talked about this venture.
This wonderful little book (283 pages including 40 pages of recipes) by Mark Kurlansky is a great introduction to viewing history through a different kind of lens. We are all to used to history as told from the point of view of great men (almost always me) and nation states. Codis about the fish, fishing, processed food, ecology, trade, slavery, rum, fishing technologies, food around the whole of the Atlantic and beyond and more. It is a wonderful example of regional history.
How did the “sacred cod” sculpture end up hanging from the ceiling of the Massachusetts State House? Or, how did salted cod come to be such a prominent part of the cuisines of Spain, Portugal, France and other countries? How did it come that European fishermen competed for access to cod fisheries along the coast of New England and Canada well before the Pilgrims ever arrived? Where did cod fit into the slave trade that brought millions of Africans to the Caribbean, and North and South America? How did cod come to be almost fished out of existence in the 20th century?
The Sacred Cod of Massachusetts - MA State House
This book answers these questions and more.
Title: Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world
Author: Mark Kurlansky
Publisher: Penguin Books, 1997
Reviewer: Mark Orton