"songs" news and stories

While most top-ten lists of food songs are bombarded with predictable pop selections from the past 50 years (invariably including a Bubble Gum number and "Savoy Truffle" by the Beatles), we've managed to delve much deeper, and come up with a few songs so obscure, you may have never even heard of them. Luckily, some rendition of each lies on YouTube, and most will have you tapping your feet and guffawing before the tune ends.

10. "The Roast Beef of Old England," traditional marching song
This memorable rant against French food ("But since we have learned from all-vapouring France/To eat their ragouts as well as to dance") is the work of Henry Fielding, the 18th-century Englishman who wrote the risqué novel, Tom Jones. The patriotic nature of the lyrics and somber marching cadence may send the wrong kind of shivers down your spine, but who can complain about a tune whose refrain is the gleefully redundant, "Oh! The roast beef of old England/And old English roast beef!"

9. "Sing for Your Supper," The Mamas and the Papas
Though this ditty penned by the songwriting team of Rodgers and Hart first appeared in the musical The Boys from Syracuse (1938), the most memorable rendition is by the Mamas and the Papas. Check out the live performance on YouTube, and you'll see a swaying Mama Cass (who, at age 32, was erroneously reported to have choked to death on a ham sandwich) crooning this romantic and stoic paean to hungry street performers everywhere.

The other day, Sarah Gim posted about a Chicago meat market that was asking people to write meat-related raps. On a similar note, I recently came across an old Ask MetaFilter thread asking for songs about meat. Coincidence? Who knows. What I do know is that there were roughly 100 replies. I was glad to see that someone made the obvious connection to Southern Culture on the Skids (right) for their numerous meat related songs and album titles, including (but not limited to) "Too Much Pork for Just One Fork," "Chitlin Strut," and "8 Piece Box." Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five's "Struttin' With Some Barbeque" also made the list. Personally, I'm partial to the Willie Nelson version of that one. As you might imagine, Ween, Cibo Matto and Tom Waits all make appearances on the list as well. Sadly, two of my favorites, Blind Boy Fuller's "If You See My Pigmeat" and Louis Prima's "Closer to the Bone" didn't make the roster. I guess those aren't really about meat anyway.

The Epi-log, at Epicurious, has a lead on what music celebrity chefs are listening to. Chef and author Anthony Bourdain has a No Reservations playlist that you can download from Rhapsody. The mix is described as being "a dash of classic soul with some tasty pre-punk nuggets and flavorful jazz pieces" and includes songs like David Bowie's I'm Deranged, William S. Burroughs' The Last Words Of Dutch Schultz, and Memo from Turner by the Rolling Stones.

I'm not all that surprised to see the picks from Tony Bourdain, but it does make me wonder what other chefs listen to. Of course, I start to wonder about that only after I wonder how a chef got a playlist up alongside the ones from celebs like Ashlee Simpson and Lindsay Lohan.

Source