I have purchased my first Louisiana hot sauce in the past week because I plan to make my first deviled crab. All I remember of Tobasco sauce is my small-child "It burns, waaaa!" I can go up to #4 on the Thai hotness scale, so surely I can handle this!
How did you go through life without contact with Tobasco or other Louisiana Sauces? Especially Tobasco?
I can't say the idea of adding sherry to pea soup ever occurred to me (I make it with ham) but know that it makes turtle soup special. I think your palate is a lot more sophisticated than mine.
A of dribble sherry over a bowl of pea soup, maybe a teaspoonful, was very popular in Continental & French cooking and in the States.
The prototype for this would seem to be "Potage St Germain". Essentially, "French Pea Soup". There was a French Food explosion in the States starting in the early 60's. In French restaurants it was generally "Haut Cuisine", which translated here to rich, expensive, sophisticated dining, that some might call "snobby".
However French cooking soon made its way into America's kitchens & American mainstream restaurants though, as can be seen by:
"French Onion Soup (incl Au Gratin)", Beef Bourguignon, Quiche Lorraine, Chicken Fricassee, "Potatoes Au Gratin", Ratatouille, Coq au Vin, Crème Brûlée, Crêpes, Chocolate Mousse, etc., etc.
Much of the initial French restaurant and (even more-so) French home-cooking boom can be attributed to Julia Childs, who subsequently begat more French Chef television luminaries like Jacques Pépin.
By the late 70's/early 80's Haut Cuisine had run it's course, and in-turn begat the rise of Bistros & Bistro (common) fare. Think "Steak Frites"! French Bistros remained popular until the 90's, and by the turn of the millennium even their fare fell out of favor. Now we have many assimilated dishes, but few French restaurants. I really miss my favorite local Bistro. It hung-on until around 10 years ago. It was started in the late 70's. There's a few others left, so they haven't died-out absolutely completely. But they're few and far between, and the currently ones in my city are fairly Americanized, to the point I might even call most to be more "fusion" than French!
But I wrote all this to make the point of Potage St Germain & sherry in pea soup! Potage St Germain has been a French Restaurant staple since the 60's, and virtually always includes sherry in the dish, or quite often in a small thimble on-the-side (traditional & preferred). On-the-side, allows the diner to add as they prefer. If you're aware of the small cream thimbles some old-school diners used when serving coffee in the 60's & 70's, it's basically the same thing.
If you do try this, serve the pea soup in individual bowls, and then at the table dribble a little dry white sherry over the top. You don't need much, maybe a teaspoonful. My preference is for a dry lighter sherry.
Since you've mentioned oenophiles, [. . . ]
Tobasco is aged in repurposed Bourbon barrels, obtained from Bourbon distilleries after the product has been removed from the barrels & bottled. That, plus 3 years aging, is probably responsible for the complexity I believe note.
There will never be another Mike Royko. Thank you for the mention.
en.wikipedia.org
Starting from 4th grade in Grammar School, with my paper routes, Mike Royko was one of my childhood hero's. Before there was Jimmy Breslin, there was Mike Royko! My other "journalistic" literary hero (besides Papa Hemingway), was Studs Terkel, whose books were "journalistic recounting" of sorts. Oh, there also was Bob Green, after he went on tour with Alice Cooper - representing the new breed of journalists like Hunter S. Thompson.
As a child & later a teen, I was so smitten by these newspapermen that I seriously considered going to Medill (N.U.) after High School. But after looking at starting journalism salaries, vs my other career consideration, Journalism sounded too much like the music dreams I had playing in garage bands --> starve & hope you get the one-in-a-million-chance that will likely never happen! It wasn't for me. I went for the guaranteed money, with the only starvation requirement being that of being a finite-period-of-time starving-student!
I'm blown-away you have the same appreciation for Royko I have! Have you read his books? Or, his Columns? How about Terkel? have you read him?
www.pastemagazine.com
