Thursday, April 8, 2010

Quotation of the day for April 8, 2010

The Quotation Of The Day Mailing List

Quotation of the Day for April 8, 2010



"Indian food made me more English. Like most Englishmen of my generation I now think of takeout or delivered Indian food as a native dish imported centuries before. I am English enough to think of Indian food in particular as an aspect of England that I miss here in the US where Chinese is the ethnic dish of local preference. But my Englishness also leads me to miss East European Jewish cuisine in its very slightly adapted British form (a little more boiling, a little less spice than Jewish cooking here in the US). I can work up a nostalgia for fish and chips, but in truth it is nothing more than a self-generated gastronomic Heritage Exercise. We hardly ever ate the stuff when I was a child. Were I ever truly to set out in Search of Past Taste I would begin with braised beef and baked turnip, followed by chicken tikka masala and pickled wollies swabbed in challah, Kingfisher beer and sweet lemon tea. As for the madeleine that would trigger the memory? Naan dunked in matzoh ball soup, served by a Yiddish-speaking waiter from Madras. We are what we ate. And I am very English."

- Tony Judt, historian, from his essay Food.

Submitted by: Terry Labach
Mar. 25, 2010

Shopping through our Amazon links supports Quotation Of The Day. Find
Tony Judt
at Amazon.ca.

Visit our Amazon.ca store
Find
Tony Judt
at Amazon.com.

Visit our Amazon.com store