Every generation tackles old problems anew.  Abject homelessness, “radicalized” socialists, tyrant capitalists, gilded-age life-styles and monopolistic practices may seem like current news, but they were omnipresent in the first Gilded Age in California, circa the 1890s. A “naturalistic” writer, Frank Norris, surveyed this landscape through his novel The Octopus: A Story of California (1901).  Its themes revolve around the railroad systems’ ability to exercise cartel control over California ranchers and farmers by the late 19th century. …

Defying a family trend around our dining table, I refused to call oleomargarine by its shorthand substitute, butter, in my early teens. I abhorred its fake butter taste on toast or corn-on-the-cob. Chastised as a finicky eater, I became a butter purity activist in my tiny domain of one. Food names matter, neuro-psychologically. As Apicius, an early Roman gourmand put it, “We eat first with our eyes.” Scientists theorize that “the smells and flavor of…

Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure and sensual self-indulgence. When applied to food, we conjure up high-priced luxuries like the Italian white Alba truffle—the “Mozart of mushrooms”—or the French black Périgord truffle—the “black magic apple of love.” Hedonic food consumption is vivid—hence memorable. As we chew and swallow fine foodstuffs, we express satisfaction in facial expressions and vocal utterances. When hosts of the Food Channel’s The Best Thing I Ever Ate reminisce about glorious meals,…

Richard Olney’s The French Menu Cookbook (1970) and Simple French Food (1974) profoundly shaped American food trends in the 20th century—mostly behind the scenes. They inspired Alice Waters as she launched Chez Panisse, igniting a fresh California cuisine revolution. She, James Beard and Julia Child would all make regular pilgrimages to Olney’s hermitage dwelling in Provence to dine with this genius of the palate. Success spawns copycats. The culprit here is Richard Nelson’s American Cooking (1983).…

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful composition of matter may potentially obtain a United States patent. When it comes to food compositions, however, this seemingly broad scope of patentability is judicially tempered. Novel foods are not patentable unless they demonstrate a “coaction or cooperative relationship between the selected ingredients which produces a new, unexpected and useful function.” In reality, patent applicants find it difficult to satisfy this scientific-sounding rule. Even if an inventor…

Truffles mushrooms reside in a Holy Grail land of taste preference. They call to mind ancient French banquet meals and rural truffle hunters and their dogs. Scarce and expensive, the truffle industry satisfies market demand by bottling their musky scent in so-called truffle oils. The Pacific Northwest is an unsung truffle backwater—when compared to the famous truffle growing regions of Périgord, France and Alba, Italy. Most residents never see, smell nor taste our region’s outstanding…

Pecans are a microcosm of Americana.  “As the Stuart Pecan Company would brag in 1893: ‘We [Americans] have rightfully a monopoly upon the nut.’”[1] Wild pecan trees proliferate in riverine ecosystems coursing through the southern United States.  Their domesticated, often patented counterparts now satisfy huge consumer demand for these indigenous nuts, once vital to tribal commerce.  Indeed, the name pecan is derived “from an Algonquin word meaning, loosely translated, ‘a nut too hard to…