Food city area

Continuing with "Jerusalem: the Cookbook"

Continuing with "Jerusalem: the Cookbook"

Ottolenghi's Kofte My record now stands at 8 recipes done from the Ottolenghi cookbook . Every one of them was worth the effort! Earlier...

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17.10

A New Look at Canned Goods

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVFLi_Dks-8BLv8OxDaNtZaLJ8CY3VAHTuVWL6OCqdoeqHIFZnFhJJoHZ5oMvjWZu28N1kBEYQbF2ZY-tZUwM9Skd-fMjHvPCy2p87VUPvkhxCe72gi-JK3G8PhsHAJmUAS0iar-86Cl2r/s1600/tuna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVFLi_Dks-8BLv8OxDaNtZaLJ8CY3VAHTuVWL6OCqdoeqHIFZnFhJJoHZ5oMvjWZu28N1kBEYQbF2ZY-tZUwM9Skd-fMjHvPCy2p87VUPvkhxCe72gi-JK3G8PhsHAJmUAS0iar-86Cl2r/s400/tuna.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />From Harold McGee, "<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/03/aging_canned_goods_why_time_and_heat_can_make_your_canned_tuna_and_spam.html">Age Your Canned Goods</a>," a very eccentric article about the way that the flavor of canned goods changes as they age: not always for the worse. In fact, he cites a number of experiments where people liked older canned goods better than more recent ones. Aged canned tuna! Aged canned sardines! Even Spam! His subtitle summarizes this view: "Why I now think of best-by dates as maybe-getting-interesting-by dates."<br /><br />Mc Gee writes:<br /><div class="text parbase section" style="border: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px; margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">"As far as I can tell, European connoisseurship in canned goods goes back about a hundred years. It was well established by 1924, when James H. Collins compiled <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Story of Canned Foods. </em>Collins noted<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </em>that while the American industry—which started in the 1820s and took off during the Civil War—focused on mechanization and making locally and seasonally abundant seafood and vegetables more widely available, the European industry continued to rely on handwork and produced luxury goods for the well-off, who would age their canned sardines for several years like wine. Today, Rödel and Connetable, both more than 150 years old, are among the sardine makers that mark select cans with the fishing year and note that the contents 'are already very good, but like grand cru wines, improve with age' for up to 10 years.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">"But the appreciation of can-aged foods wasn’t unknown in the United States. Collins recounts an informal taste test conducted by a New York grocer who rounded up old cans from a number of warehouses, put on a luncheon in which he served their contents side by side with those from new cans, and asked his guests to choose which version they preferred. Among the test foods were fourteen-year-old pea soup and beef stew, and twelve-year-old corned beef and pigs’ feet. The guests preferred the old cans 'by an overwhelming majority.'"</blockquote></div>McGee, of course, always explores the chemical and mechanical details of his subject matter, so the details in the article are absolutely fascinating!

A New Look at Canned Goods

From Harold McGee, " Age Your Canned Goods ," a very eccentric article about the way that the flavor of canned goods changes as th...

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15.40

Restaurants with Views

Restaurants with Views

Sunset at Island Lava Java Cafe and Bistro Captain Cook Bay from the Coffee Shack We've been eating delicious meals during our trip, mos...

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19.18

Native Species and Canoe Foods

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8459133873/" title="culturalfest julia2036 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="culturalfest julia2036" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8109/8459133873_87f1966ddb.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br />I had a long discussion today with Julia (above, holding a segment of sugar cane). She was giving out samples of food at a cultural festival at the Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historica Park -- <a href="http://www.nps.gov/kaho/index.htm">one of my favorite parks in the whole world!</a> We got into a conversation about the food plants that are native to the Hawaiian islands prior to human arrival, "canoe foods" that came with the Polynesian settlers, and foods that Europeans brought after the arrival of Captain Cook. Besides a variety of plants, the canoe foods included pigs, chickens, and dogs. Julia has wondered if eggs from the chickens played a role in cooking in pre-western-contact times -- she has been unable to find any references to the use of eggs.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8460236472/" title="culturalfest2033 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="culturalfest2033" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8384/8460236472_9b90d1af31.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br />Served on a ti leaf, the sample foods at the festival included coconut, taro, breadfruit, sugar cane, Hawaiian purple sweet potato, and Kalua pig (not shown). A beverage from a plant that grows up on the higher hills tasted to me like tea. While the sugar cane and sweet potato are very sweet, the taro and breadfruit are rather bland, though not bad at all. I believe that in more recent times, the way people ate these foods may have become more complex and highly flavored.<br /><br />Cooking in Polynesian times was mainly done in pits dug into the ground and lined with various leaves.  They thus cooked a whole animal. The pit's contents was steamed slowly over a long period of time, and thus quite soft. Other preparations included use of water heated by adding hot stones to water held in gourds, or fermentation as was done with poi. Julia described to me the use of salted fish for long sea voyages, but said she was not aware that other meats would have been preserved by salting. The stone-age Hawaiians had no pottery or metal, so there were no cook pots.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8459134235/" title="konafarmers2026 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="konafarmers2026" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8244/8459134235_b1069f446f.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br />Breadfruit was available at the farmers' market this morning as shown above. I also saw some of the purple Hawaiian sweet potatoes, which are quite small and have a light-colored tan skin.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8459133681/" title="culturalfest2039 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="culturalfest2039" height="375" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8530/8459133681_9726317323.jpg" width="500" /></a><br /><br />Here is Julia, getting ready to serve a sample of Hawaiian foods.

Native Species and Canoe Foods

I had a long discussion today with Julia (above, holding a segment of sugar cane). She was giving out samples of food at a cultural festival...

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17.04

Curry: maybe the oldest cuisine

"Curry is not only among the world’s most popular dishes; it also may be the oldest continuously prepared cuisine on the planet," according to Washington State University researchers Arunima Kashyap and Steve Weber. Working in the remains of an ancient city along the Indus river, they used modern molecular and archaeology techniques to identify residue from cooking pots as much as 4500 years old and discovered residue from ginger, turmeric, garlic, rice and other grains, and chicken. A <i>Slate </i>article dated last Tuesday,  <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/01/indus_civilization_food_how_scientists_are_figuring_out_what_curry_was_like.single.html#correction">The Mystery of Curry</a>, explains their findings.<br /><br />"Kashyap used what is known as starch grain analysis. Starch is the main way that plants store energy, and tiny amounts of it can remain long after the plant itself has deteriorated. If a plant was heated—cooked in one of the tandoori-style ovens often found at Indus sites, for example—then its tiny microscopic remains can be identified, since each plant species leaves its own specific molecular signature." In addition to cooking residue, the research team examined the teeth and bones of humans and animals from the archaeology dig, which also provide evidence of the same foodstuffs being consumed.

Curry: maybe the oldest cuisine

"Curry is not only among the world’s most popular dishes; it also may be the oldest continuously prepared cuisine on the planet," ...

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04.56

Eighteenth-Century French Kitchens

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLX1IpkB1laGBlFjVffjQtvyMm7AVtiSQj96RG8VPEdS4Y1Yj-itDh17TiH5r-lQFK8_eqKIUJyVNpbskVsUYho7jEt-TNgyjOKCrp4-KWPC2fzJ90D4AvSIvCf1gtihyLbh6r-SGynnK-/s1600/Chardin-kitchen-maid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLX1IpkB1laGBlFjVffjQtvyMm7AVtiSQj96RG8VPEdS4Y1Yj-itDh17TiH5r-lQFK8_eqKIUJyVNpbskVsUYho7jEt-TNgyjOKCrp4-KWPC2fzJ90D4AvSIvCf1gtihyLbh6r-SGynnK-/s400/Chardin-kitchen-maid.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kitchen Maid Peeling Turnips by Chardin, 1740</td></tr></tbody></table>I'm reading <i>A Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine</i> by Susan Pinkard. Among many interesting ideas in the book, I was interested to learn of the genre paintings of kitchen scenes by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, which<a href="http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/jean-baptiste-simeon-chardin"> I found here</a>. I love the way that Chardin depicts humble women and their workspace. Chardin's art, writes Pinkard, "came to be admired not only for its verisimiltude but also for its authenticity, that is, the trueness of the subject to itself." (p. 183)<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Xo90oJcq2WbJG3JsxQ3CfZu0Qx8t-tbIL7b3tORoX9RjyTOzjIltpo_BmyeSZbs1sCSP-y8KMJ6F7Hlp8txzFnUkfB6CUXMhNk3RglFcft4PUMXZtxCiFs2MRQ9zNGT3B0YSz-zLqKQj/s1600/chardin2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Xo90oJcq2WbJG3JsxQ3CfZu0Qx8t-tbIL7b3tORoX9RjyTOzjIltpo_BmyeSZbs1sCSP-y8KMJ6F7Hlp8txzFnUkfB6CUXMhNk3RglFcft4PUMXZtxCiFs2MRQ9zNGT3B0YSz-zLqKQj/s400/chardin2.jpg" width="342" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another Kitchen Maid by Chardin</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsvuUnLe6D9qIBlgampykgSZr0I4TnQQX23naG2dJ8musJUPoIBMbRUTtTT6kCorxdTuYn5faphUlFNu4E9IYXMuyZ5P0w0PR48biZH0TDoUxXR8Pb3XvNDuFI2ZZ0Z_31a03-XZKR12uy/s1600/chardin3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="347" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsvuUnLe6D9qIBlgampykgSZr0I4TnQQX23naG2dJ8musJUPoIBMbRUTtTT6kCorxdTuYn5faphUlFNu4E9IYXMuyZ5P0w0PR48biZH0TDoUxXR8Pb3XvNDuFI2ZZ0Z_31a03-XZKR12uy/s400/chardin3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woman Drawing Water from an Urn by Chardin</td></tr></tbody></table>The revolution in taste that the book describes appears cyclical. Cuisine in France became more and more elaborate for a while, and then cooks and discerning eaters would rediscover the taste of fresh seasonal produce, more basic ingredients, and simpler dishes. Sometimes of course these dishes were deceptively simple, requiring hours in the kitchen to produce what seemed to be a plain slice of meat with a glaze on it.<br /><br />The characteristics of cooking that was modern in the 17th century at times seem to have been discovered anew in the 20th century. "A skillful modern cook achieved variety not through fanciful invention, exotic seasonings, or complex combinations -- paths that had been well trodden by his medieval predecessors -- but by subtly highlighting the elemental properties of raw materials," writes Pinkard. "By the 1650s, proponents of delicate cooking  had evolved a series of techniques and novel recipes -- including a new class of silky sauces that were emulsified with butter, cream, or egg yolk or thickened with roux -- that were intended to highlight the <i>goût naturel </i>of carefully chosen principal ingredients." (p. 64)<br /><br />Health and taste were both motives in the development of 17th and 18th century cuisine in France; some of the prescriptions also sound as if they were reinvented in the 20th century. One practitioner suggested reducing consumption of meats and alcohol while increasing "vegetables, grains, dairy products, and mineral water." If that didn't make one feel healthy, he suggested "lowering" diets "that sequentially eliminated meats and fish, and then eggs, fruits, and vegetables." Eventually one might end up eating only milk and "seeds such as oatmeal, rice, and sago." (p. 167)<br /><br /><br />I've also been reading <i>The Expert Cook in Enlightenment France</i> by Sean Takats. The book covers the same era, but concentrates on the responsibilities, the life, the environment, and the reputation of cooks. Most of the cooks worked in private kitchens, as public dining was in its earliest stages at the time. Their pay could be very high -- the cook was often the best-paid employee of the house. They not only cooked but they were responsible for elaborate purchasing of all the food and material for the kitchen. They had to be expert at account-keeping to inform their masters where the large sums of money were going. Many cooks had to be aware of new trends in cooking and theories of health and cleanliness.<br /><br />The chapter on kitchens was especially interesting. One debate about kitchens at the time was where they should be located. Kitchens were feared; fumes from charcoal stoves and noxious smells from foods that had gone off were clearly dangerous. However, even if a large home or chateau had space, if the kitchen was too far from the dining room the food would arrive cold and extra servants would be required for carrying and serving it.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxJWWiUh853BDmKFz8AiMeaAML1PcdQGDJNlb8rgyltp1WqlmHd73DwwJQPaJNjzJNFWen1GlknRDv-anf-uaCZ-0RX5HCd3jyEIMjfJNAxngZvOh-oL40oTwC8ooPtgZiyu1DxZeHy4p/s1600/salad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxJWWiUh853BDmKFz8AiMeaAML1PcdQGDJNlb8rgyltp1WqlmHd73DwwJQPaJNjzJNFWen1GlknRDv-anf-uaCZ-0RX5HCd3jyEIMjfJNAxngZvOh-oL40oTwC8ooPtgZiyu1DxZeHy4p/s400/salad.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Salad Maker by Etienne Jeaurat 1752</td></tr></tbody></table>The author mentioned the painter Jeaurat's depiction of a salad maker -- L'Eplucheuse de Salade, above -- as showing some of the furnishings and equipment in an 18th century kitchen. Cooking equipment involved a large number of tin-lined copper pots, as well as various strainers, ladles, and equipment for cooking on the kitchen hearth as well as on the charcoal-burning stove that was typical. However, cooks in private homes didn't own any of the elaborate and expensive equipment that they needed to prepare the wide variety of foods that were expected. "A single copper cooking vessel could cost the equivalent of several days of a cook's wages." (p. 70)<br /><br />On the death of the head of a household, cooks and other staff lost their jobs and the kitchen tools were often sold at an estate sale. Obviously, the records of these sales are now valuable as primary sources, as are the newspaper ads and other notices in which cooks sought new employers.

Eighteenth-Century French Kitchens

Kitchen Maid Peeling Turnips by Chardin, 1740 I'm reading A Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine by Susan Pinkard. Among man...

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13.45

Tu B'Shevat

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8412190402/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="jwc 1 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="jwc 1" height="240" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5275/8412190402_14155a2e37_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fruit and Wine for Tu B'Shevat Celebration</td></tr></tbody></table>Saturday is Tu B’Shevat, a Jewish holiday that honors trees, especially fruit trees. Although it's in the depth of our winter, it falls in the earliest part of spring in Israel. In antiquity, this was the traditional time to plant trees. Modern celebrations for Tu B'Shevat include eating a wide variety of fruits and nuts, especially the “seven species” – wheat, barley, olives, dates, pomegranates, figs, and grapes (for eating and for wine). Each of these items has many special associations and symbolic meanings in rituals, Jewish literature, and Biblical lore.<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Although the exciting parts of the menu for Tu B’Shevat rituals are the delicious fruits, especially those that grow on the trees, the holiday expands to celebrate barley and wheat as well. I find the history of grains and how they were eaten in Biblical times to be a very interesting subject. Wheat wasn’t just ground into flour for bread or fermented into beer, but was eaten as a kind of whole-grain or wheatberry pilaf; some wheat could even be eaten raw right from the fields before it became too hard. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Freekeh is a middle eastern dish that offers a way to understand what the ancients did. It's made from fresh, green wheat berries. Recently in food articles I've seen some references to it, and I think it has appeared on menus at trendy restaurants. According to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/dailydish/la-dd-freekeh-what-is-it-20130115,0,7530842.story">an article</a> in this week's <i>L.A. Times</i> freekeh “in Aramaic means ‘the rubbed one,’ a reference to rubbing off the roasted husk to reveal the grain, still green because it has to be harvested when young.”<br /><br />The cookbook <i>Jerusalem </i>by Ottolenghi and Tamimi gives two recipes using either a whole or a cracked form of freekeh: spicy freekeh soup with meatballs (p. 148) and poached chicken with sweet spiced freekeh (p. 182). The authors write: "We use it for making pilafs, in salads, and for serving with lamb or chicken... . Its earthy flavor and slightly coarse texture go particularly well with sweet spices."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gastronomica.org/roasting-green-wheat-galilee/">An article</a> in <i>Gastronomica</i>“Roasting Green Wheat in Galilee” describes a few Arab farmers in Israel who still harvest and prepare unripe wheat, which they call <i>farike</i>. Their methods are much the same as  in ancient times. Timing is essential – “there is a short interval of a few weeks during which the mature wheat, though still green, is soft and full of starches and protein. This is the only moment at which the wheat can be eaten fresh from the stalk, and the time when <i>farike</i> can be prepared.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The article explains the connection to Biblical tradition: “Roasted grain (<i>kali </i>in Hebrew) is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. It appears in the list of foods that Isaac commands his sons to bring to their brother Joseph in Egypt, and it is the love offering that Boaz extends to Ruth as they rest on the threshing floor. Different English translations of the Bible refer to roasted grain as ‘parched corn’ (corn being a British term for grain) or ‘parched grain,’ yet in Arabic biblical translations the term that is used is <i>farike</i>.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Wheat berries from mature wheat are available at farmers’ markets and various stores; however, the pilaf that I have made from them is probably quite different from the interesting and historically relevant dish described in these articles. Some time, I’ll have to try one of the many recent freekeh recipes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Grains both ripe and green were important nutritionally and culturally in the past; references to bread in Biblical passages show how central it was to the ancient diet. Tu B'Shevat makes us aware that the tree fruits of Israel 2000 years ago and more were also central and also much loved for their tastes and aromas. Centuries before sugar arrived in the Middle East, date honey – a sweetener extracted from dates -- was an important internationally traded commodity. Cleopatra Queen of Egypt demanded to own the orchards near the Dead Sea that produced the best dates and date honey in the Roman world. Having one's own "vine and fig tree" was a symbol of peace and security. And in modern times, citrus orchards became one of the keys to the economic success of the state of Israel.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/8412190208/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="jwc 2 by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="jwc 2" height="240" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5040/8412190208_0e1771f59b_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More fruit for Tu B' Shevat -- also bright green olives</td></tr></tbody></table>Earlier this week, I attended an event to learn more about Tu B’Shevat, including how to prepare some traditional and modern foods, such as date-oatmeal bars, platters of dried fruits, and decorative arrangements of totally non-biblical fruit such as chocolate-covered strawberries, pineapple, and blueberries. Our hostess for the evening says that her preferred tree fruit to eat for the holiday is carob -- another Biblical species though not in the traditional list of seven. I knew little of this holiday until one of our visits to Israel in the 1990s, when we went to a secular Israeli celebration with similar platters of dried fruits and arrangements of fresh produce. I’m delighted to think of the numerous meanings and possibilities of the celebration of trees.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>

Tu B'Shevat

Fruit and Wine for Tu B'Shevat Celebration Saturday is Tu B’Shevat, a Jewish holiday that honors trees, especially fruit trees. Although...

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21.30

Food city area

Continuing with "Jerusalem: the Cookbook"

A New Look at Canned Goods

Restaurants with Views

Native Species and Canoe Foods

Curry: maybe the oldest cuisine

Eighteenth-Century French Kitchens

Tu B'Shevat

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