A Smart Mouth » Reading

Stalking with Euell Gibbons

Anjuli — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:44:10 +0000

Spicebush

I ate an acorn today and it tasted terrible. I had already worked my way through the shell and pulled out a bit of the meaty inside. As I bit in I could feel the astringency filling my mouth, and immediately I realized – I know what this tastes like! Of course this prompted spitting and cursing on the ground. I have been reading Stalking the Wild Asparagus, a foraging book by survivalist Euell Gibbons from 1962 to get back to my roots as a kid digging in the dirt and eating rotten acorns. So far so good.

We’re in Connecticut for the weekend, so I took the opportunity to head out into the wild of my parent’s backyard and stalk me some acorns. It turns out that humans have been eating acorns forever. There are two types – those with pointy leaves, and those with rounder lobes. The pointer of the two have a more squarish acorn with a lot of tannin in it, which is where the astringency comes from. Tannin is water-soluble, so to make these palatable they just need to be boiled first. The rounder lobed oaks like the white and chestnut have sweeter acorns, and are supposed to be good even eaten raw, per chance I can find them tomorrow! Euell has a few great recipes for acorn meal, grits, and candied acorns which I must try.

What my mother did point out to me were just as rewarding and just as common: sassafras and spice bush. Sassafras, once acclaimed for its medicinal properties, has fallen by the wayside, so much so that someone like my mother would find herself pulling out the baby trees by the fistful. We did find some babies left, and wow were they fragrant. Just like the root beer that has made their taste famous. Spice bush also has a very heady fragrance that’s very lemony and a little spicy. Both plants leaves, bark, or twigs can be extracted and used fresh to flavor teas.

While I sniffed the torn sassafras twig and thought of all the A&W I’d slurped as a kid, Euell countered me with: “Some people object to the medicinal taste of sassafras tea, but those folks have things backward. Some medicines are flavored with sassafras, but this merely means that some medicines taste of sassafras, and not that sassafras tastes of medicine.” Funny how our brains are convinced that our first memories of a smell or taste must be where the scent or food originated. It’s just another way nature shows you that nothing beats the real source. If all goes well tomorrow I will stock up on nuts for the winter and make myself some tea!

Books on display

Anjuli — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:44:38 +0000

For anyone curious of the titles of the butter-smeared-dog-eared pages piled on my kitchen sill, stacked in my bookshelves, or strewn across the coffee table, I’ve somewhat painstakingly and categorically arranged them on a page just for you.

It’s not a best-of list or a comprehensive index of the books I own (and am now putting up for sale to buy food, heh), but instead a best-used list. If you have a question or want a food book recommendation, hit me up in the comments. They’re all favorites, or at least books that have made a food-altering impression on me, so don’t ask me to pick. Take a look.

Wild Fermentation, Sandor Ellix Katz

Anjuli — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:57:16 +0000

“Wild fermentation is the opposite of homogenization and uniformity, a small antidote you can undertake in your home, using the extremely localized populations of microbial cultures present there to produce your own unique fermented foods. What you ferment with the organisms around you is a manifestation of your specific environment, and it will always be a little different.” – Wild Fermentation, Sandor Ellix Katz

Steve Sando, Rancho Gordo

Anjuli — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:29:04 +0000

“‘Ingredients are the new chefs on some level,’ Steve Sando, the founder of Rancho Gordo, summarized with a naughty chuckle as he bounced around Napa in his messy pickup truck recently.” – “Bean Counterculture” in The New York Times

Read this before eating out

Anjuli — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:05:07 +0000

I am rereading Kitchen Confidential mostly because it rules. I also had a desire to get back to that so-badass-it’s-cute depiction that Anthony Bourdain nailed before the whole food celebrity TV thing happened. Yes, it’s all fornication, knives, and dirty food, but with all the rock ‘n roll you could possibly conjure up in a small space with a bunch of illegals, a couple white dudes, and some pots and pans. In short: magic.

I am also enjoying his tips on eating out. Although the books is years old, it’s probably more poignant with New York restaurants closing or going over to the dark side. Eating out is an adventure, but it’s good to know your surroundings. Understanding the kitchen can give you a better chance of taking part in the pleasure and avoiding serious illness. For those who have forgotten (or are allergic to Anthony Bourdain), I have made simple, easy-to-digest bullets for you.

Dirty bathrooms, floors, tables, waiters, etc means a dirty kitchen. Got it?
Fish deliveries come in on Tuesday, so by Monday, it could be five days old. Order fish on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday unless you know otherwise.
Raw lettuce and vegetables breed bacteria. Be careful where you eat raw.
Only Order seafood from places with high turnover so you know it hasn’t been sitting around.
When you’re unsure, order the popular dishes on a menu. They are probably done well or at least have high turnover. Many times others are just filler items.
Avoid mussels unless you have a personal relationship with the guy cooking them.
Brunch is the worst meal of the week to eat in a restaurant. It’s mostly scraps, the chef or sous-chef has the day off, and they’re ripping you off on eggs and bacon.
Don’t order the hollandaise. If you think it’s fresh, think again.
Bread does get recycled. If it looks like it, chances are it came from another table. Choose your germ battles (i.e. holding the railing on the subway, sitting next to the coughing guy, or eating free bread at a restaurant).
Vegetarians and well-doners should cook. At home.
Specials can be the best or worst of the bunch. They are either seasonal or waiters pushing leftovers. Know the difference or ask.

Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

Anjuli — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:17:03 +0000

“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. Sure, it’s a ‘play you pay’ sort of an adventure, but you knew that already, every time you ordered a taco or a dirty-water hot dog.” – Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

Using your senses

Anjuli — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:46:51 +0000

Recipes have a secret history. They’re filled with wisdom, tradition, stories, and many shared meals. They can help stir creativity, and make us bold enough to try something new. Most times, however, we see a page full of words broken out into descriptions, ingredients, measurements, and clinical instructions to be followed OR ELSE.

While we do follow them, we are also fond of thinking of the cuisines of the Mediterranean, where fresh ingredients dictate the daily menu. We think of spending the afternoon walking to local purveyors, sniffing lettuce, sampling cheeses, and cracking open fresh bread. And we all have the perfect image in our minds of learning something by hand from grandma.

We forget that recipes are not the sound of garlic sizzling in a pan, the smell of fresh rosemary crushed between fingers, or the feeling of pressing into properly kneaded dough. They are not the eureka moment when just the right amount of salt has been added, or the feeling of biting into the most tender of eggs. Recipes are also not the experience of sharing a dish at the table with friends, or the look on someone’s face after savoring the perfect bite.

A new recipe can be daunting, strangely foreign, and force us to cling to its every word. Shopping is many times a tug-of-war between organic and conventional, or farmers’ markets and grocery stores, making us exhausted before leaving the house.

I used to constantly flip through magazines, notice an interesting title or technique, and try to imagine how the recipe would taste. Once at the store, there would be the sinking realization that the ingredients I wanted were not the ones that looked fresh. Determined, I would pick them up anyways, get home, and read the recipe over and over. Instead of thinking about what was happening in my pan, I would rely on its details to determine its readiness. Once finished (generally twice the time the recipe claimed), I would put fork to lips and wonder if this was what the author had tasted.

While I may not have an Italian grandmother or French chef in my pocket, or time to wander from shop to shop, I do have my senses and wits about me. I know that lively looking ingredients make for better, simpler, and more flavorful dishes. I also know that learning a bit about the science of cooking can help liberate us from being tied down to recipes.

Since it’s almost the spring harvest, it’s about time for sniffing, touching, and looking for inspiration straight from the ground. Leave the recipes at home, and instead interact with those who provide you with food. If you don’t currently have a personal relationship with a butcher, baker, farmer, and fishmonger, it’s an excellent year to start. Food business who wouldn’t give people the time of day are opening up to the idea of more engaged relationships with customers.

It’s also important to know who you’re buying from. Farmers’ markets have changed, and are starting to sell more of the same stuff you can find in Whole Foods. An interesting article from Mother Jones points out the trending in greenmarkets across the country.

I’ve read a lot in the past year. Today I wanted to share with you not recipes, but the books recently that have reminded me to wake up and smell, taste, listen, look, and touch the edible world around me.

The Art of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher
The Improvisational Cook by Sally Schneider
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Michael White, The New York Times

Anjuli — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:28:03 +0000

Even those willing to work for free are having a hard time. “Everybody’s on the edge, and I don’t need people hanging around my kitchen messing with the morale of the paid guys,” said Michael White, the chef and an owner of Alto and Convivio and, soon, Marea. “Let them go to Italy, learn to make pasta, and wash their clothes in a bucket like I did for seven years.” – Michael White for Julia Moskin’s “With Fewer Pots to Stir, Competition Rises Among Cooks” in The New York Times

Rep for Global Environment

Anjuli — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:01:03 +0000

“Recognizing that meat consumption/production has a large environmental footprint and negative human health effects (in terms of carbon emissions, water footprint, pollution of habitats) we’ve decided to serve a vegetarian entrée with a sustainable duck option.” – Global Environment rep for Grub Street

Caroline Fidanza, Diner Journal

Anjuli — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:07:09 +0000

“A perfect bunch of radishes is almost too pretty to eat. A freshly cured head of garlic is a world apart from a dry Chinese clove. A leek split in half along its length. I believe that this moment, recognizing beauty and curiosity of what is before you ready to be cooked is an essential part of the cooking process. It’s also why it becomes harder and harder to eat conventionally grown food. In addition to being questionably grown and nutritionally inferior, it is positively unremarkable.”
- Caroline Fidanza, “Ribollita” for Diner Journal No. 10