I love American and Australian pies. They may be world apart in flavour and ingredients, but the pie lovers just can’t do without them. And here comes a fascinating biography…
Pie is the latest in a series of small, engaging and beautifully illustrated books edited by food historian Ken Albala, who wrote last year’s entertaining Pancake, writes The Age.
“Janet Clarkson, a GP and lecturer in medicine at the University of Queensland, is also a culinary historian — and clearly has a great love of pies.
“The word ‘pie’ is richly evocative — even beyond the strictly culinary context. Instantly, for example, we may think of blackbirds, four and twenty of them; of kings and pocketsful of rye and childhood. Or perhaps Laurel and Hardy will come to mind with cream-pie fights, faces shocked and white-frosted.
“If we are Australian, we think of pies and sauce, footy and slurping the meat from under the steaming pastry lid; if American, it’s mom’s apple-pie — homely, hokey and sweet.
“Clarkson weaves these tales, with arch wit, into a splendid story: it is extraordinary how much food history reveals about our various cultures. She ends on a slightly wistful note: the great variety of pies we once cooked and enjoyed have largely disappeared from home and commercial kitchens.
“Encouragingly, she provides recipes from centuries past to entice us: among them, one of ‘apples and orenge pilles’ (1597), a curried fish pie (1827) and a lemon cream pie (1925).” More here…
Reference to “pyes” as food items appeared in England (in a Latin context) as early as the 12th Century, but no unequivocal reference to the item with which the article is concerned is attested in the Oxford English Dictionary until the 14th century. See here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.