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Good Eats: Use Your Noodle IV: Lasagna
Reclined on his sofa, a relaxed Alton discusses comfort, a watchword of twenty-first century marketing. Does comfort apply to foods? Of course it does – any food intended to change one's emotional state for the better is a comfort food, and one of the true classics is Lasagna, with its layers of meat and veggies and noodles. Alton's got a new take on the old classic, using a slow cooker. And for desert, he shows how to turn lasagna noodles into a delicious Lasagna Noodle Kugel.
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Episode Info
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Episode number: 14x17 Production Number: EA1417H Airdate: Monday March 28th, 2011 Director: (Unknown)
Writer: (Unknown) |
Recap
The watchword of 21st century marketing may just be comfort. To prove his point Alton surfs through several commercials (all narrated by a suspiciously familiar voice). Each of them extols the virtues of its product's comfort, from shoes to car air conditioning to a giant sack-like cocoon suited for home lounging. The concept extends to food: comfort food, eaten to produce an improved emotional state. Several more commercials, extol the comforts of mashed potatoes and meatloaf and macaroni, suggesting these products are just like Mom used to make or perhaps even better. If comfort is king, shouldn't a cook want to prepare the most comforting food there is?..Read the full recap
Episode Notes
Card: The last king of Naples, Francesco II, was nicknamed Lasa due to his father's love of lasagna.
Card: Italian-American food was the first “ethnic” food to gain widespread acceptance in the US.
Card: The earliest references to combining pasta and tomato sauce date back to only the 1830s.
Card: The world's largest lasagna was made in 2008 and weighed in at 8,800 pounds.
Title: The term use your noodle is an idiom for applying thought to solving a problem, which Alton does in Good Eats. It also pubs on the subject of the episode, a kind of noodle.
Episode Quotes
Alton: You know, if there's a watchword in twenty-first century marketing, it isn't luxury or economy or beauty or efficiency or intelligence. It's... comfort.
Alton: If comfort is indeed king, then as a cook wouldn't you want to know how to prepare the most comforting dish of all time – a dish that... well... that epitomizes the concept of comfort?
Italian Mother: (to Alton) I hope an-a pray that-a one day, you have a kid like you!
Alton: Luckily, cooks are starting to rediscover the long lost ingredient that is time, and the crock pot is back in action.
Alton: I prefer to marry two proven, old-school multi-taskers: my analog style three quart slow cooker and a standard lamp or appliance timer, available at your local hardware store, this is the kind of device, you know, you plug a lamp into in order to trick some burglar into thinking you're home when you're not.
Alton: There's no such thing as comforting spa food!
Cultural References
When Alton introduces the lokshen kugel, calling it Jewish lasagna, a crowd of stereotypical Jewish people appears to shout, “Tradition!”. This is from Fiddler on the Roof, a book, musical, and film all telling a story of turn of Jewish life in early twentieth century Russia (around 1905).
Episode References
This is the fourth episode in the Use Your Noodle series. Other outings include Pantry Raid: Use Your Noodle I, Use Your Noodle II, which the Food Network calls “For Whom The Cheese Melts 2” (about macaroni and cheese), and a second Use Your Noodle II (technically Use Your Noodle III, but perhaps named this because of the Food Network's retitling of the second outing). A fifth noodle episode appears later this season and covers Asian noodles.
Analysis
What Alton prepares here is not a traditional lasagna, but it is well-suited to crock pot cooking. Some of the techniques, such as the use of hot water to soften noodles, will transfer to other recipes.
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