A Harte Appetite

Perhaps you've noticed the recent newspaper ads for something called the "vinegar diet," which promises that you can lose weight without cutting calories or going hungry. The hitch is you have to drink vinegar several times daily. I haven't tried the regimen but I suspect it would sour me even further on dieting. Unless, however, I could substitute that most un-vinegar-like of vinegars, the balsamic variety.

I remember well the first time I went to Paris, more than 30 years ago. What impressed me most was not the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. No, it was the bread. Crusty, chewy and full of flavor, there was simply nothing like it available at home at the time.

"I appeal to history," protested Napoleon Bonaparte as he was shipped off to final exile on St. Helena. History's ultimate judgment is still out on the diminutive Corsican, but I submit that from a culinary standpoint he deserves our gratitude. That's because were it not for Napoleon one of the world's greatest indulgences might never have been invented.

The pomegranate, that beautiful fruit with the jewel-like red seeds, has recently exploded on the culinary scene. Which is appropo for a fruit which inspired the name a hand-tossed explosive, known as the grenade.

Grenadiers, 18th century soldiers who specialized in throwing grenades, thought that the device's shrapnel pellets reminded them of those seeds. Though the pomegranate may have only recently come into its own as a trendy ingredient, it has been around for a long time.

"A handful of couscous is better than Mecca and all its dust." So says a famous Moroccan proverb about almsgiving.