insearchofjason
May 18th, 2004, 08:41 AM
Musical tastes: Famous songs about food
By Ian Hodder
Special to MSN
If a DJ ranked pop culture's favorite song subjects, love would top the chart. But one notch down on the countdown, with a catalog of hits that spans all genres, the topic of food would score a strong second. Folks have been getting down to food songs since ancient civilizations described pit-roasted meat in verse — way before your iPod blasted Kelis' ubiquitous "Milkshake."
The food-song cornucopia runneth over with tunes from almost every major pop musician. The Beatles played "Strawberry Fields Forever" and the lesser-known, more-culinary "Savoy Truffle." Billy Joel reminisced about "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," as Blondie opted to "Eat to the Beat." ZZ Top enjoyed "TV Dinners." Smashing Pumpkins made "Mayonaise." Kelsey Grammer capped each episode of "Frasier" with a serving of "Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs," while Weird Al Yankovic cooked up "Eat It," "I Love Rocky Road," and "Girls Just Want to Have Lunch."
"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity," Frank Lloyd Wright once said, and the great architect's remark doesn't apply just to Craftsman-style kitchen furniture. Food consumption ranks up there with breathing on the primal-urge meter and, especially when shared with others, meals satisfy spiritual and social urges to which oxygen exchange can't hold a candle (Faith Hill's "Breathe" notwithstanding).
A brief history
Back in the day of China's aptly titled Chou Dynasty, around the 12th century B.C., scribes of the Shih Ching book of songs honored their society's agricultural abundance with mouth-watering passages about gourds, millet and tripe. Funny grub aside, they also tucked into roast lamb, washed down with rice wine. Moving ahead through history to the Bible, the Song of Solomon is ripe with food imagery, including a section that equates a woman's bosom with a bunch of grapes.
Even many of the ditties you haven't sung since childhood (or the last time you overdid it on the rice wine) are chow-related. For example: "Hot Cross Buns," with its subject's religious symbolism; "On Top of Old Smoky," the "all covered with cheese" version; and "Jimmy Crack Corn," which research reveals is actually about making moonshine. And those "four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie"? Legend has it medieval English bakers would slip live birds under a baked crust, so the critters would fly free when the treat was served.
Nourishing the senses
"In many ways cooking and music are similar art forms," says New York culinary historian Andrew F. Smith, editor of the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Both require ingredients and instruments and result in an ephemeral product best experienced with friends. Yes, food consumption fulfills a biological need, Smith continues, but it also nourishes our other senses. "The characteristics of food are often hard to verbalize, but they're very powerful."
This explains why songwriters are fond of using food as metaphors for feelings difficult to express with words. Because we associate at a visceral level certain dishes with certain qualities, like chocolate-chip cookies with Grandma's TLC, food references are a forceful artistic device. Meaning that musical menu items should be taken with a grain of salt. In London's Observer newspaper, music critic Campbell Stevenson wrote that "when Robert Plant asks you to 'squeeze my lemon,' he's not in need of help preparing a dressing for his couscous." Same deal with the aforementioned Kelis, who's not in need of help preparing a frosty dairy beverage.
Musician and former restaurateur Bob Pastorio hosts a Virginia radio show about edibles and culture. He also wrote the food-songs entry for Smith's encyclopedia and compiled a list of popular American food songs that quickly surpassed 700 titles. (For a list of 500, surf to mixedup.com.) "Food is so universal and pervasive," Pastorio says, "that it's a topic you can never run dry on."
Among his research findings are "a whole lot of New Orleans blues songs that seem to be about food, but are really about sex." Chief offender: "It Must Be Jelly ('Cause Jam Don't Shake Like That)." Pastorio is, however, an aficionado of music (and victuals) from the South, considered by many the epicenter of America's food-song scene. His favorites? "Bread and Butter," "Chicken Cordon Blues," and "Red Beans and Rice." You know the latter as the theme of the TBS series "Dinner and a Movie."
Lyrical tastes
When asked for her favorite food song, my music-geek friend Paula reeled off Japanese band Cibo Matto's "White Pepper Ice Cream" and Squeeze's "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)," before belting her top pick: "What would you doo-ooo-ooo for a Klondike Bar?" Further unscientific study determined that adman-made lyrics, from "my bologna has a first name" to "I feel like chicken tonight," are among the most-memorable music ever devised.
The final word on food songs goes to the late blues musician Albert Collins and his song "Too Many Dirty Dishes." Before work, the song's narrator scarfs a bowl of Froot Loops and leaves the sink empty, only to return in the evening to a steak bone and a suspicious sinkful of plates. Thus, Collins has touched upon eating for both subsistence and sumpin'-sumpin', brand-name food products, and with a touch of wit, the deep emotions only a food song can trigger.
http://wine.msn.com/?article.aspx?aid=22
By Ian Hodder
Special to MSN
If a DJ ranked pop culture's favorite song subjects, love would top the chart. But one notch down on the countdown, with a catalog of hits that spans all genres, the topic of food would score a strong second. Folks have been getting down to food songs since ancient civilizations described pit-roasted meat in verse — way before your iPod blasted Kelis' ubiquitous "Milkshake."
The food-song cornucopia runneth over with tunes from almost every major pop musician. The Beatles played "Strawberry Fields Forever" and the lesser-known, more-culinary "Savoy Truffle." Billy Joel reminisced about "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," as Blondie opted to "Eat to the Beat." ZZ Top enjoyed "TV Dinners." Smashing Pumpkins made "Mayonaise." Kelsey Grammer capped each episode of "Frasier" with a serving of "Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs," while Weird Al Yankovic cooked up "Eat It," "I Love Rocky Road," and "Girls Just Want to Have Lunch."
"Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity," Frank Lloyd Wright once said, and the great architect's remark doesn't apply just to Craftsman-style kitchen furniture. Food consumption ranks up there with breathing on the primal-urge meter and, especially when shared with others, meals satisfy spiritual and social urges to which oxygen exchange can't hold a candle (Faith Hill's "Breathe" notwithstanding).
A brief history
Back in the day of China's aptly titled Chou Dynasty, around the 12th century B.C., scribes of the Shih Ching book of songs honored their society's agricultural abundance with mouth-watering passages about gourds, millet and tripe. Funny grub aside, they also tucked into roast lamb, washed down with rice wine. Moving ahead through history to the Bible, the Song of Solomon is ripe with food imagery, including a section that equates a woman's bosom with a bunch of grapes.
Even many of the ditties you haven't sung since childhood (or the last time you overdid it on the rice wine) are chow-related. For example: "Hot Cross Buns," with its subject's religious symbolism; "On Top of Old Smoky," the "all covered with cheese" version; and "Jimmy Crack Corn," which research reveals is actually about making moonshine. And those "four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie"? Legend has it medieval English bakers would slip live birds under a baked crust, so the critters would fly free when the treat was served.
Nourishing the senses
"In many ways cooking and music are similar art forms," says New York culinary historian Andrew F. Smith, editor of the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Both require ingredients and instruments and result in an ephemeral product best experienced with friends. Yes, food consumption fulfills a biological need, Smith continues, but it also nourishes our other senses. "The characteristics of food are often hard to verbalize, but they're very powerful."
This explains why songwriters are fond of using food as metaphors for feelings difficult to express with words. Because we associate at a visceral level certain dishes with certain qualities, like chocolate-chip cookies with Grandma's TLC, food references are a forceful artistic device. Meaning that musical menu items should be taken with a grain of salt. In London's Observer newspaper, music critic Campbell Stevenson wrote that "when Robert Plant asks you to 'squeeze my lemon,' he's not in need of help preparing a dressing for his couscous." Same deal with the aforementioned Kelis, who's not in need of help preparing a frosty dairy beverage.
Musician and former restaurateur Bob Pastorio hosts a Virginia radio show about edibles and culture. He also wrote the food-songs entry for Smith's encyclopedia and compiled a list of popular American food songs that quickly surpassed 700 titles. (For a list of 500, surf to mixedup.com.) "Food is so universal and pervasive," Pastorio says, "that it's a topic you can never run dry on."
Among his research findings are "a whole lot of New Orleans blues songs that seem to be about food, but are really about sex." Chief offender: "It Must Be Jelly ('Cause Jam Don't Shake Like That)." Pastorio is, however, an aficionado of music (and victuals) from the South, considered by many the epicenter of America's food-song scene. His favorites? "Bread and Butter," "Chicken Cordon Blues," and "Red Beans and Rice." You know the latter as the theme of the TBS series "Dinner and a Movie."
Lyrical tastes
When asked for her favorite food song, my music-geek friend Paula reeled off Japanese band Cibo Matto's "White Pepper Ice Cream" and Squeeze's "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)," before belting her top pick: "What would you doo-ooo-ooo for a Klondike Bar?" Further unscientific study determined that adman-made lyrics, from "my bologna has a first name" to "I feel like chicken tonight," are among the most-memorable music ever devised.
The final word on food songs goes to the late blues musician Albert Collins and his song "Too Many Dirty Dishes." Before work, the song's narrator scarfs a bowl of Froot Loops and leaves the sink empty, only to return in the evening to a steak bone and a suspicious sinkful of plates. Thus, Collins has touched upon eating for both subsistence and sumpin'-sumpin', brand-name food products, and with a touch of wit, the deep emotions only a food song can trigger.
http://wine.msn.com/?article.aspx?aid=22