
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997                 TAG: 9702270070

SECTION: FLAVOR                  PAGE: F1   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: Morsels 

SOURCE: Ruth Fantasia 

                                            LENGTH:   64 lines

TRAVELING EXHIBIT SERVES UP A NOURISHING LESSON IN HISTORY

SOMETIMES IT'S amazing how little things change.

Take chef's uniforms: tall hat, pants and a high-collared jacket that opens down the front. It's a bit less ornate than the original frock, but today's chefs are dressed pretty much the same as when the uniform was designed for a Turkish military chef during the 16th century. (Before then, chefs wore civilian clothes.)

A look at food history was part of a traveling exhibit by the Culinary Archives & Museum located at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I. The exhibit - sponsored by Hans J. Schadler, executive chef of the Williamsburg Inn - was on display last weekend at the southeast region convention of the American Culinary Federation in Williamsburg, and Monday at the university's Norfolk campus.

The museum houses more than 500,000 artifacts and historical documents including cookie molds from the early 1800s (shaped like pigs), a note signed by Napoleon Bonaparte making sure the bakers were paid, and menus from presidential inaugurations.

``The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy; Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind Yet Published'' by A Lady (London, 1758) includes this instruction for making hamburger sausage:

``Take a pound of beef, mince it very small with half a pound of beef suet.

``We have to remember that they didn't have meat grinders,'' says Barbara Kuck (appropriately pronounced cook), curator of the museum. ``They had this very lean meat that didn't have enough fat to do what they wanted to do, so they had to mince in the fat.''

Today's supermarkets offer lean and extra-lean ground beef, and it was only a few weeks ago we published an article by Jimmy Schmidt recommending you add the most fat-laden meat you can find to ground beef for making hamburgers.

But perhaps the most telling artifact is an illustration by James Montgomery Flagg, the artist who created the famous Uncle Sam ``I Want You'' poster for the U.S. Army. The piece, titled ``The Recipe of Wedding Cake'' shows a cupid wearing a toque and holding Love's Cook Book in his right hand. A big mixing bowl, sugar and measuring cups are in the foreground. With his left hand, the cupid is spooning money out of a sack.

The caption reads: ``Funny, but these up-to-date cookbooks call for a lot of this.'' Corny humor

Here's a joke you can tell your children:

Who led the corn army into battle?

The kernel.

Bill Bastali of Commerce Township, Mich., won $5,000 for that one from Quaker Popcorn Cakes.

Other finalists:

What did the little ear of corn say to the big ear of corn?

Hi, pop.

And . . .

Why didn't the corn like the farmer?

Because he picked their ears. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Martin Smith-Rodden/The Virginian-Pilot

At Johnson & Wales University in Norfolk, staff members view part of