Book Reviews - Sarasota Soundings

The New Portuguese Table

Holly Chase — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:53:16 +0000

When I lived in Portugal, it was not yet a member of the European Union. USAID still had a Lisbon office because, even in the 1980’s, Portugal’s economic development lagged far behind the rest of Western Europe and the nation met criteria for American aid.

Despite decades of northern European and British tourists seeking sun of the shores of the Algarve province, Portugal’s cooking was conservative, and I mean that in a positive way.

Photo Credit: Nuno Correia from The New Portuguese Table

Cooks were fiercely self-confident and their dishes regionally distinct. The country’s legions of farmers and shepherds as well as its coastal Atlantic fishing fleet made most Portuguese locavores by default. The words “nouvelle cuisine” had not yet been whispered in Lisbon, where culinary fusion (circa 1985) meant that medieval Moorish recipes for marzipan and candied egg yolks might incorporate chocolate from Portugal’s former colonial plantations in Brazil or Angola. French influence was present, but only in the kitchens of the old aristocracy or chandeliered restaurants where London wine importers lunched with Lisbon bankers. Techniques and sauces of the ancien regime français had arrived with bayonets, when Napoleon’s armies overran the vineyards and groves of olives, citrus, and stone fruits surrounding Portugal’s quintas, the grand country estates.

But like David Leite, whose southern New England turf I’ve shared, I first knew a very different kind of Portuguese culinary world, that of the Portuguese-American diaspora, largely from the Azores, Portugal’s mid-Atlantic islands. Azorean mariners had settled amongst earlier immigrants—the Germans, Irish, Italians, and Slavs of New England ports and mill towns. They founded their largest enclaves in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and their struggles and success, like those of all new American immigrants, would be reflected in the food and drink of celebration, homesickness, and consolation.

It was a world of boisterous relatives crowded into kitchens that the adolescent David Leite, wishing to be reborn as a WASP, tried to escape. Fortunately maturity and the flood of culinary nostalgia that can overtake us as we contemplate the inevitable loss of beloved elders pushed him to reexamine his cultural identity. He set about to gather recipes from his mother and grandmother.

Then Mr. Leite embarked, not just for the Azores (his parents’ birthplace), but also for Iberian Portugal, to discover that the 1950’s Kodachrome postcard-views, his family’s recollections, had faded. By the 1990’s, Portugal, that once-charming backwater, had become a full-fledged member of the European Community. As Mr. Leite dined with urbane friends immersed in the sophisticated and rapidly changing gastronomic offerings of Lisbon, he was astute enough to realize that he must “embrace this meal, this dining scene, this Portugal.” More importantly, he recognized that, in doing so, he was not “betraying” his family.

Most of the recipes of The New Portuguese Table have antecedents in typical Portuguese home-cooking, but Mr. Leite may use duck breast (rather than the whole bird) or give instructions to braise, rather than to fry in lard. He gives the nod to modern equipment like immersion blenders. Portugal’s cooks at both the home and restaurant levels are reaching into the global pantry and embracing more culinary influences from Portugal’s former colonies in Africa and Asia. Ingredients like fresh ginger, bird’s-eye chilies, and star anise show up frequently.

Frango Naufragado, Shipwrecked Chicken, is a vagabond that supposedly made its way from Mozambique to Chinese Macau via Goa before showing up in Portugal. Whatever the back-story, it’s delicious: grilled chicken meets coconut milk tomato paste, lemons, and chives. Fusion is now the operative word.

Mr. Leite gives us some real curiosities, including an old recipe for Licor de Leite. The liqueur may have a dual heritage in both the distillation techniques perfected by teatotalling Arabs and in the infused digestives concocted by cloistered Catholic orders.

But for those who simply want to recreate flavors from a honeymoon trip to Faro, Cascais, or Nantucket—Mr. Leite has some old favorites like Caldo Verde (Kale Soup) and Lulas Recheadas (Stuffed Squid). Meanwhile, he and his collaborators have created new dishes with staple ingredients—chouriço bread, fava bean salad, cilantro pesto, crème brulée infused with rosemary, and what can be legitimately described as a salt-cod slider or bacalhau burger.

The author acknowledges that “dishes… put in front of me by the women who love me” are the true foundations of the book. David Leite honors those old ways as he gives his readers new ways to capture and enjoy the distinctive flavors of classic and modern Portuguese cooking.

The New Portuguese Table is embellished with the work of photographer Nuno Correia and a team of food stylists and prop finders. Their efforts exemplify fine cookbook illustration and perfectly express the essence of Portuguese food.

The New Portuguese Table:
Exciting Flavors from Europe’s Western Coast
David Leite

Clarkson Potter (August 18, 2009); 256 pages; $32.50

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Cookbook Review: Steamy Kitchen

Holly Chase — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:41:36 +0000

A few weeks ago, we asked the question: Do Cookbooks Matter?

To some of us—cooks, culinary writers, photographers, food stylists, graphic designers, publishers—these books are part of our livelihood. To the vast number of people who dream of wearing one of those food-career labels, cookbooks are escapes from a world in which meals are mostly grabbed on the run by those who too rarely participate in either cooking or dining with others.

Mom’s Chinese Steamed Fish from The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook
Photo by Jaden Hair

We’d contend that viewers watch Food TV more to be with entertaining “food people” than they do to learn how Paula Deen mixes meatloaf or Ina Garten whips cream. Whether pictures of the geeky Lee Brothers and their friends cracking crabs at a Low Country picnic are in a book or a magazine, to see the photos invites us to suspend reality and to temporarily share that camaraderie—even if all we are contemplating for a solo dinner is diet soda and half a cup of cottage cheese .

When it comes to cookbooks, picture-perfect presentations of artisan loaves, rustic faience platters beneath glazed roasts, exotic table textiles, candles, and wildflower bouquets (all expertly captured by the camera) are part of the allure. But in the age of Facebook and “friends” one may never meet—it’s often the images of people, guests enjoying themselves around food celebrities, that allow us to share the hipness and happiness so much harder to achieve in our real lives.

And while millions of these photos (not to mention thousands of cooking videos) can be seen on the Internet, cookbooks remain a way to remove ourselves from the world-view filtered by search engines. For better or worse, screen-delivered content is part of our lives. Whether we are lucky enough to still claim a job in a cubicle or are stuck at home, spending hours on Monster.com searching for jobs that would land us back in a cubicle, a lot of us live online. That’s one reason it’s soothing to read something on that material created by the ancient Egyptians—paper.

*****

Continuing to examine and cook from the new books piled high in our dining room, today we look at someone whose trajectory we’ve been following for a few years:

Jaden Hair began Steamy Kitchen as a blog and expanded it into a successful cookbook that is testimony to both the realities of everyday life and the social rewards of sharing food. Chinese-American and raised by a mother who cooked, the author didn’t learn her craft at her mother’s wok, but fired up her own only when she became a homemaker and mother of two boys.

In brief—although a few of her offerings are classic Chinese (Mom’s Chinese Steamed Fish), most of Steamy Kitchen’s recipes are what we’d call fusion food or “Asian Modern” (Furikake French Fries, Pork & Mango Potstickers, Thai-style Chicken Flatbread, Asian Pear Frozen Yogurt). Jaden uses straightforward techniques, fresh ingredients, and some Asian pantry staples to yield brightly flavored dishes. Her stance is that authentic tastes and textures of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Malaysian, and Japanese food can be readily achieved by home cooks willing to invest a little time and thought in a week-night family dinner.

Clearly, the Steamy Kitchen blog readers, scores of whom volunteered to test recipes for the cookbook, find food conversation stimulating; it adds another dimension to their social networking. Jaden-the-blogger has made her readers feel like friends around the table and has built an enormous following thanks to her seductive photography and casual, let-me-tell-you-a-secret monologue. Her telegenic appearance and personality haven’t hurt, either. But most significantly, Jaden’s recipes are for dishes readers want to make and share.

Jaden’s got it right—if you’ve read the recipe, assembled your mise en place, and follow her instructions—it won’t take much time to prepare a delicious meal, one that will surpass anything you could order in most Asian restaurants in America.

The most striking aspect of The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook is the spectacular food photography. Self-taught and dauntless, Jaden-the-photographer managed to persuade Tuttle, her publisher, to let her do almost all the photography for the book. Given how far Tuttle went to feature a color picture of every dish, some bigger than life-size, one wonders why the handful of instructional photos (not taken by the author) weren’t given a little more space.

As one reader described it, Steamy Kitchen is “text-dense.” In addition to recipes, the book is packed with anecdotes, family memories, and copious credits to friends and fellow-foodies. What should not have been given so much real estate is the sophomoric, bloggy chatter, some of it trite and off-color. It’s a glaring distraction from the simple elegance of the recipes and illustrations. For their own sake and that of a first-time author, we wish Tuttle’s editors had asserted themselves at least as much as Jaden’s garlicky Asian Pesto.

Nonetheless, Jaden’s suggestion of using a Microplane to grate those devilishly hard lemongrass stalks gains her redemption. The text can be cleaned up for the second edition. For now, we’ll forgive her and wish her the success she deserves.

The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook:
101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight’s Dinner
Jaden Hair

Tuttle Publishing (October 10, 2009); 160 pages; $27.95

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On Guidebooks…

Holly Chase — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:50:37 +0000

As a travel consultant specializing in the Mediterranean and the Middle East (I’ve lived and travelled extensively throughout those regions), I always urge my clients to read about a place before they make any reservations. I regularly compile both general and special-interest reading lists, making suggestions for travellers who may have a month to backpack through the Pontic Mountains of the Black Sea coast or merely an afternoon to escape their cruise-ship’s shore-excursion to Ephesus.

I have clients who ask for no more than clean youth hostels and overnight buses and many others for whom a 150-foot private yacht and a Lear-jet are barely adequate. Even after three decades of travel experience, I still have to do my homework to keep up with what my clients want—or think they want—based on what they’ve seen, read, or heard before they come to me.

In some ways, it’s more work than ever. Now, in addition to doing my own research in situ, I have to know what Rick Steeves, Conde Nast, Fodor, Frommer, The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, and assorted Websites are saying. So, I read a lot of prosaic, and sometimes silly, articles that were cut and pasted from PR materials supplied to travel-writers on fam trips. And knowing my clients won’t be able to read a Google map of the ancient city of Pergamum on an iPhone when it’s high-noon, without a shade-tree in sight, I review guidebooks.

Archeological site of Pergamum

That’s right, I still value those relics of alternative information technology: hand-held, dead-tree devices containing static data on analog pages. Many of my favorites are not in English; others are long out-of-print, and that may be just as well, because their irreplaceability makes them too valuable for me to be tempted to pack them in this age of luggage minimalism.

For years, I’ve been a fan of the INSIGHT GUIDES series—using their stunningly illustrated (and consequently hefty) volumes to help plan my own travel. Whether using them in my long-time stomping grounds in Turkey, Greece, Syria, and Jordan or for lands beyond (South America and East Africa), I have always found that their cogent text and photos compelled me to want to learn more, as both a reader and a traveller. And in this Internet era, I think that’s what guidebooks SHOULD do.

Recommendations of hotels and restaurants, closing times, train schedules, and fare prices, change too rapidly to be well-documented in books. These days, that information is best found online and confirmed, as needed, by email, a phone call, or fax. With Internet cafes and Wi-Fi access so widespread, much of what guidebooks once contained need not be committed to printed pages. If you want extensive lists, with stars and prices to rate hotels and restaurants, Fodor and Frommer will oblige you. But if you’d prefer pithy commentary on the Kurdish-Turkish dispute, the politics of urban building, ancient mythology, Byzantine gossip, and opinionated travel recommendations (“The road south leads to Hakkari, a town best avoided…“), Insight Guides: Turkey will not disappoint.

The hundreds of color photos, larger type, and attractive lay-out on coated stock mean that Turkey weighs about two pounds. Both to pack and also to lug Turkey along as one negotiates the cobbled alleys of Istanbul, requires a real commitment from its owner. However, those winning photos are worth many times the weight, for they do speak volumes. So rather than criticize the series for being too fat, I would say that I unflinchingly recommend the books for planning your travels. But for most people, who want to travel light, the guides are best left home or at least back in your lodgings. Pocket guides they are NOT!

Insight Guides were first developed to serve adventurous European and British travellers, so they cover some terrain that may surprise Americans. The guides range from individual countries (Cuba, Malta, Namibia, Burma…) and a few states (Colorado, Florida, Texas…), to regions (Tuscany, Oman & the UAE, the American Southwest, the Turkish Coast…), and cities (Istanbul, Oxford, Kuala Lumpur, Perth…). There are also a handful of idiosyncratic guides to Amazonian and Indian wildlife and marine life in the South China Sea.

Insight also produces the Fleximap™ a laminated, folded city map. As an example, ISTANBUL includes a decent street index, detailed mini-maps of popular tourist areas, 26 short descriptions of major sites, and panels of emergency phone numbers with very basic notes on opening/closing hours, currency, and transportation. Tough enough to withstand a spilled glass of Turkish tea and fingers sticky from baklava, the map this would be perfect for the cruise passenger docked for two days in Istanbul.

Cruise ship docked in Kusadasi, the Turkish port for Ephesus

But suppose you’ll be touring one or more countries on your own for a couple of weeks? You don’t want to pack a library, but you do want more than a map to read when you’ve missed your Greek island ferry and need to plan the next sixteen hours. If I were to chose ONE series for on-the-spot utility, I would select the narrow-format green Michelin guides—not as light as they once were, but still portable and packed with intelligent, entertaining writing on history and sights. Still in evidence are those convenient stars of recommendation. In the old days, when the guides were only in French, we also had those stock phrases mérite un détour and vaut le voyage .) As before, the Michelin guides include annotated lodging and dining selections and excellent maps that anticipate the user’s needs. (The Athens metro plan notes stations as they are actually signed, in Greek, along with English phonetic spellings.)

For further utility, the latest green Michelins include Web addresses, making them truly helpful planning companions. Unfortunately, Michelin doesn’t cover nearly as many regions as the Insight series (You’ll get Thailand, British Columbia, Lauguedoc-Rousillon and Greece, but no Turkey.)

So, if you are “planning to plan” a trip, go to the library or a a real bookstore to actually see (and lift) a few books in the series mentioned. And to get a dizzying view of the coverage available from just ONE publisher-distributor, go to Langenscheidt.com. I knew them first for their language-learning series, and I still have my yellow plastic-covered pocket Turkish dictionary from the 1970’s. This German publishing conglomerate now handles both the Insight and Michelin guides, along with the Berlitz and Langenscheidt dictionaries, phrasebooks, and CDs. Langenscheidt is also distributing an interesting series of cookbooks, but we’ll save our take on those for a future post.

The post On Guidebooks… first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.

Do Cookbooks Matter?

Holly and Skip — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:34:54 +0000

We write a lot about food. Our interests in history, gardening, and cooking inform our enjoyment of food and reinforce our belief that understanding culinary culture is vital to maintaining a civilized world.

All this has us thinking about the ways in which people share their gastronomic enthusiasms. Beyond growing, preparing, and consuming food together, people want to share ideas about food—even if they themselves may never serve or even taste the food they discuss. The best illustrations of this truism are the recipe-laden food blogs—and reader comments:

‘Sparagi (Asparagus Omlette) from Almost Italian dot Com

Delish!
Best ever, thanks for sharing.
I’m putting off my diet for this one, LOL
Must try, ‘cuz my hubby LOOOVES marshmallows.
OMG—this is awesome.
Anyone got a recipe for a good tomato sauce?
A keeper for sure!

As food bloggers, we’ve learned that only a small percentage of readers (ours or anyone else’s) will ever make any of the hundreds of thousands recipes to be found, free-of-charge, on the Internet or in the volumes filling miles of public library shelves.

But that does not prevent enthusiasts from prowling the aisles of independent and mega-chain bookstores that allow browsing at will and even provide tables and comfortable chairs to those they hope may actually buy books if given a chance to sit down with them. Last week we witnessed a 70-ish woman in the café of our local Barnes & Noble. Beside her, we counted a stack of of eight new cookbooks from which she was selecting recipes that she then copied in long-hand on a yellow legal pad. It didn’t appear she’d bought so much as a bagel or the café du jour, but she sat there for at least 90 minutes, deep in her research. We hasten to add that she was well-dressed and wearing a pair of sneakers that would sell for close to $150. (One of us is Italian and always zeroes in on shoes.)

Setting aside that copyist’s unabashed sense of entitlement, we’re still not sure what our sighting reflected or portends. Was it a good or a bad sign for those who write, publish and try to SELL words good enough to eat?

The magazine Gourmet is lying in state; many major American newspapers are on IV’s as feature writers, reviewers, and food editors lose their jobs. But recipes and food-focused articles continue to appear in many other publications on health, cooking, travel, and decor. Sit in the waiting room of your accountant, Toyota dealer, or daughter’s orthodontist; whether you pick up a six-month-old copy of Southern Living, the latest AARP Magazine, or a newsletter from an insurance company, you’re rarely more than a page away from a recipe accompanied by a photograph or article on comfort food; exotic ingredients; anti-oxidant vegetables; low-sodium or ethnic twists on old favorites; fusion, healthy-fast, or slow food; low-calorie, vegan versions of ethnic favorites… You get the drift.

This glut is an indication of Americans’ fascination with novelty and current fixation on “free” food (as in free of—guilt, salt, fat, gluten, cruelty, dairy, carbs, sugar, peanuts, pesticides, genetically modified ingredients, or red meat). Yet even with food everywhere we look, these are days of food exclusion. In our neighborhood, we’re hard-pressed to gather half a dozen friends who can share the same meal with omnivores like us.

And, despite an avalanche of free recipes and the worst economy many of us have ever known, writers and publishers are still bringing out new cookbooks. And people are still buying them.

We’ve asked ourselves and our friends why anyone still purchases a cookbook when it’s so easy to go online and come up with 45 Pad Thai, Pot Roast, or Paella recipes in less time than it takes to open a bottle of wine.

We’re collectors ourselves and have been at this a while. Thus, we weren’t surprised by the answers we got, which confirmed that many of the most avid cookbook accumulators never make more than one or two recipes, even from a book they love.

So what forces are sustaining cookbook publishing?

In the coming days, we’ll be trying to answer that as we review some new titles on the Sarasota Soundings blog.

And we’d like your contributions, too. Tell us why you and those in your own circles buy cookbooks or like to receive them as gifts. If you want to cite a favorite (and agree to eschew words like “delish” and “awesome”) we’d welcome a couple of lines telling us why a particular book speaks to you.

Photo Courtesy Austin Evan

In the meantime, stay tuned for our take on several pounds of books on traditional and revamped food from Portugal to Korea…

The post Do Cookbooks Matter? first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.

Modern Spice

Holly Chase — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:29:31 +0000

Modern Spice
Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen
Monica Bhide

Simon & Schuster (April 21, 2009)
288 pages; $25.00

Every culinary tradition that immigrated to the United States became something else once its practitioners settled themselves here.

In a sweeping generalization (for many households and communities are certainly exceptions), I’ll declare that some of these immigrant food cultures have lost much in translation: Japanese, Chinese, and Mexican are glaring examples. But other culinary cultures have gained: Eastern European, Greek, and Scandinavian cuisines are good examples on the plus side, if only because abundant ingredients and social stability in the U.S. allowed those immigrants to expand their traditions with ingredients they already knew but which were scarce in their homelands.

But regarding the multiple cuisines of the Asian Subcontinent, I have no single verdict. (I’ve lived and cooked in India, and I know Indian* cuisines from the diaspora—from market stalls, and home kitchens to grand restaurants in places I’ve resided or worked—London, Portugal, East Africa, the Arab Gulf, and the US.)

Everywhere, practical cooks will seek substitutions for hard-to-get ingredients. But one thing Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis in America cannot replace is the culture of domestic help that facilitated much of their cuisines’ complex refinement. Even families of modest means had servants, and until very recently many households were multi-generational and included grandparents, daughters-in-law, aunts, and cousins. Extra mouths, yes, but also extra hands—to roast and grind spices, grate coconuts, and keep fried treats and breads coming hot from the kitchen while the rest of family sat down to a meal.

Here, immigrants from the Subcontinent have assimilated while maintaining many of their traditions. But the B4 visa software bachelors of Silicon Valley and the first and second generation Indians who typify many of the South Asians in the US today are just like so many other Americans: too busy to cook or ignorant of the techniques needed to create a meal from scratch.

Enter Monica Bhide, corporate-consultant-turned stay-at-home-mom who loves to share food. She has practical considerations: two kids, a husband in a high-powered job, and the usual demands of a suburban American—and no visible servants. She’s a tireless and generous commentator, journalist, and talk-show guest who seems to have something of a financial cushion. And that’s particularly significant, for she is unabashed when she specifies jumbo shrimp, tiny lamb chops, lump crabmeat, basmati rice, jarred chutneys, spice mixes, and other prepared ingredients that are relatively expensive here in the US.

But if there’s a commodity on which many Americans put a higher value than food-totally-from-scratch, it’s time. Monica’s readers will buy boneless chicken breasts and squid rings to save themselves some prep work. Better they take Monica’s shopping list than many others out there in the popular media. Whether discussions of food are in print or on TV, radio, blogs, or Facebook, one has to ask how much of it is actually ever made, and more significantly, made to be shared.

This is not a coffee-table book; every publisher is on a diet these days, and so there are just a few color photos. Nonetheless, the recipes themselves and Monica’s essays on food are imaginative and inviting. Many who purchase Modern Spice will not follow the straightforward recipes; rather, they’ll use them for inspiration. This book won’t teach you how to cook—but if you can read and follow directions, you’ll be able to party.

Should we call her the Desi Devi? Monica writes for her confident and comfortably situated, if not affluent, crowd. If you are reading this blog, you know them: the med-students from Mumbai, geeks from Chennai, and public policy pundits from Poona. Whether they are hip urban professionals in Toronto and Boston or the IT babe in the next cubicle, chances are many of them did not learn to cook—let alone cook like Monica—back in India. But they may have learned here. South Asian or not, anyone who came of age when the Silver Palate cookbooks were on every shelf will understand where Monica’s coming from.

She writes for both the Tuesday-night shopper on her way home from the office as well as the weekend bon vivant pouring his neighbors tamarind margaritas while they grill kebabs. Giving her fans a range of brightly seasoned dishes with minimal fuss, Monica will save her readers time. And the subtle message in a not-so-subtle cookbook is that you should spend that time with people you care about. Pick up the book, then pick up the phone. Invite someone to dinner. Stay home to share food you’ve made yourself.

* I am using the term “Indian” in the old geographical sense, as in “the Indian Subcontinent” which—before 1947—was simply British India but is now three nation-states: Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Each of these sovereign nations has multiple languages, alphabets, creeds, and cuisines within its borders.

Tamarind Chicken
(From Modern Spice, Copyright © 2009, Monica Bhide)

This stir-fry is great on top of steamed basmati rice. I use a tablespoon of prepared tamarind chutney to add a quick tamarind flavor to this dish.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. Vegetable oil
2 – 3 Medium or 6 – 8 small organic shallots, sliced
3 Small green serrano chiles, slit lengthwise
1 Garlic clove, sliced thin
1 Lb. Chicken strips, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
1/2 tsp. red chile flakes
Table salt
1 Tbs. store-bought tamarind-date chutney

Preparation:

1. Heat the oil in a medium skillet over high heat. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the shallots and green chiles. Sauté for about 1 minute or until the shallots just begin to change color.

2. Add the garlic and sauté for another 30 seconds.

3. Add the chicken and cook 7 to 8 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

4. Add the turmeric, chile flakes, and salt to taste and cook for another minute. Add the tamarind chutney and mix until the spice mixture has coated the chicken well. Remove from the heat. Serve hot.

The post Modern Spice first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.

Aromas of Aleppo

Skip — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:19:26 +0000

The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews
Poopa Dweck with Michael J. Cohen
Photography by Quentin Bacon

Ecco; 400 pages; $49.95

The exploration of culinary culture is one of the most effective ways to awaken the uninitiated to both the complexities of other societies and the possibilities for fruitful interaction with them.

What do most Americans know of Aleppo, a settlement founded several millennia BCE and continuously inhabited ever since? Not nearly enough. Also known as Halab, Halep, Alep… the city lies in what is now northern Syria. Jews, Muslims, and Christians have long mingled in what was a provincial capital of the Ottoman Empire. Until recently, in this polyglot and multi-ethnic city, a cultural rival of Damascus, one could find residents representing most of the faiths and ethnic groups of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean.

Surrounded by pasturage supporting flocks and agricultural land yielding nuts, wheat, and olives, the city was a stop for the caravans bringing silk and spices from farther east. Given the ingredients at hand, it is no surprise that the inhabitants of Aleppo expressed themselves as much in the kitchen as they did in the city’s esteemed metal, glass, and textile workshops. Aleppo, with its population of Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks and other Europeans has long been renowned for the variety and sophistication of its food.

Through their research and documentation of the rich social, spiritual, and gastronomic textures of Aleppo’s Sephardic community, Poopa Dweck and Michael J. Cohen have succeeded admirably in presenting and preserving a culture through food.

Sadly, most of Aleppo’s specifically Jewish dishes are now to be found only in the diaspora of Aleppian Jewery. Middle Eastern political tensions over the past 60 years have caused virtually the entire community of Syrian Jews to emigrate. Aleppian Jews are scattered from London to Latin America. In the US, where large communities reside in Brooklyn, NY and New Jersey, they, like immigrants before them, live amidst other ethnic and religious groups, and use food to maintain their distinct identity. And what food!

While one cannot claim that a Druse, Armenian, Turkish Sufi, or Maronite Christian would never serve roast chicken with lamb-stuffed eggplant or that only a Jew would make a bulgur and walnut salad with tamarind extract, the ingredients and techniques of such dishes drop big hints and speak volumes about communal identity. And that’s most evident in the recipes reflecting kashrut, Jewish dietary law, to which the Aleppian community is strictly adherent. Thus, the rice dishes rich with sheep’s milk butter won’t be prepared by observant Jews if they are serving their pilaf with meat; Aleppian Jews would make theirs with vegetable oil.

There’s a wealth of general Middle Eastern culinary information here: well-photographed and detailed instructions for making string cheese with nigella seeds and recipes for candied eggplants with cloves, pistachio-studded Turkish delight, and sesame halvah. In both Syria and the US, most Aleppians would never make these things at home, but would buy them from specialty shops. Apparently the authors are leaving nothing to chance: they’ve seen their parents’ generation leave home, and that’s enough to make them meticulously list and document what the immigrants managed to bring with them.

Some dishes, like sliha, a concoction of wheatberries with pomegranate seeds, nuts, and coconut served to celebrate a baby’s first tooth, are occasion-specific. Arcane, but easily made, it’s safe to say that sliha is probably something that would be lost were it not for the efforts of the authors.

The production values of this hefty tome are exceptional. With its lush graphics, fascinating archival photos, and luxurious contemporary food styling, the book is—in a word—gorgeous.

For many, the very idea of Syrian Jewish food may seem recherché, but the recipes, simple and clearly written, yield extraordinary results.

Syrian or not, Jew or gentile, for anyone who seeks to learn more about the Middle East and its culinary legacy, this would be a wonderful present.

Through what has clearly been a labor of love, Poopa Dweck and Michael Cohen have created something of permanent value, not only to their community, but to anyone who knows—or wants to learn—the power of sharing food. And if our world ever needed that power, it needs it now.

With the fragrances of garlic, mint, lemon, saffron, allspice, and rose water—Aromas of Aleppo could literally bring a lot of people to their senses.

By Holly Chase

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Book Bites – Part II

Skip — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:24:39 +0000

We continue our eclectic roundup of books that have crossed our desk over the past year.

The Art of Simple Food
Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution
Alice Waters

Clarkson Potter (October 2, 2007); 416 pages; $35.00

Perhaps because Ms. Waters herself has been more visible than usual,* a lot of reviewers were expecting this book to be a louder manifesto. There seems to have been anticipation that the founder of Chez Panisse would present us with a declaration more reminiscent of a 1960’s UC Berkeley anti-establishment rally than this quiet, but no less insistent or impassioned, call for responsible food production, preparation, and consumption.

What we have is an iconic book for the new cook or for someone who already cooks but wants to capture the essence of food through Alice Waters’ lens. Given the number of books replete with sensuous photographs and recently published by other celebrity chef-restaurateurs, those who eat with their eyes and collect cookbooks are bound to be disappointed by The Art of Simple Food. It’s not a flashy book. No macro shots of micro-greens; in fact, no photography at all—just painstakingly delicate line-drawings by another member of la famille Panisse, Patricia Curtan.

Will this book accomplish the author’s goal—to help her readers learn how to shop, cook, share, and love food? Absolutely—but book-sellers are going to have to work a little harder until enough people literally get Alice Water’s message

“that the underlying principles of good cooking are the same everywhere.Those principles have less to do with recipes and techniques that they do with gathering good ingredients, which are the essence of cooking.”

Ms. Waters lays out the reasons to plant gardens, shop locally, and support local farmers. She exhorts her readers to join her

“delicious revolution, one that can reconnect our families and communities with the most basic human values, provide the deepest delight for all our senses, and assure our well-being for a lifetime.”

*Note: See our review of the recent biography:Alice Waters and Chez Panisse The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by James McNamee

As Monty Python used to say, “And now, for something completely different!”

Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill Cookbook
Explosive Flavors from the Southwestern Kitchen
Bobby Flay

Clarkson Potter (October 16, 2007); 288 pages; $35.00

We could not ask for a better example to contrast with Alice Waters and her Chez Panisse than to juxtapose her with the flamboyant Bobby Flay (photography by Ben Fink) and his Mesa Grill.

Everything about the book and food is intense. From the larger-than-life photos with gorgeous props to the elaborate mis-en-place and multi-step recipes, you know this is food as theater. You can almost smell the mesquite, hear the sizzle of the grill, and feel the heat (there’s a Scoville scale for rating chiles). Or is that glow and warmth coming from the foot-lights? Local food? Fuhgeddaboudit—this is New York, so you might guess that the ingredients for a Southwest fusion-menu were not gathered by Native Americans foraging in Central Park.

But like many who finally got great seats to Phantom of the Opera or Cats, the diners who got their table in the exuberant Mesa Grill want something more than an Amex receipt by which to recall the experience. A splashy book like this fills the bill. The ambitious may actually cook from it—for the recipes are well-organized. While Alice Waters is writing for the home cook, Bobby Flay is scaling-down genuine restaurant food, whose execution at Mesa Grill depends on a legion of prep artists. Not many home cooks are going to do Cornmeal-Crusted Oysters with Mango Vinaigrette and Red Chile Horseradish or Sixteen-Spice Chicken with Cilantro-Pumpkin Seed Sauce when they want to whip up dinner after a day at the office. But if they love the process, they’ll love this book, and their friends and families will love them for preparing this food.

Does this sound like a refrain? Maybe Bobby and Alice should share some space after all—on both the stove and the shelf.

Disclosure: Clarkson Potter sent us both of these books for review

The post Book Bites – Part II first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.

Book Bites – Part I

Skip — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:56:51 +0000

An eclectic roundup of books that have crossed our desk this year.

The Last Chinese Chef: A Novel
Nicole Mones

Houghton Mifflin (May 4, 2007); 288 pages; $24.00

The procuring, preparation, presentation, and enjoyment of food provide an excellent introduction to cuisine as a mirror of modern China. Tension between reverence for past traditions and the brashness of an expanding consumer class can play out on a Beijing menu as much as on a city street clogged with bicycles and SUVs. Amidst the improbable mid-life situations of the protagonists and the novel’s strained plot, the strongest character, China’s complex cuisine, stands out. From crisp yet spongy jelly-fish to lotus root with sausage and pungent celery, nuanced textures and flavors carry on the real dialogue.

The House of Mondavi
The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty
Julia Flynn Siler

Gotham (June 21, 2007); 464 pages; $28.00

Take the classic immigrant saga: hard work, strife, success…and more success. Set this drama in California, the ultimate American dreamscape. Give the plot and subplots, like the very vineyards that provided Cesare Mondavi and his descendants with their livelihoods, decades to develop.

Add the seemingly inevitable elements of sibling rivalry and hubris; bring in the lawyers and accountants. It’s the tale of another family businesss whose growth and influence surpassed the visions of its founders… But if that’s not enough, change the names and repeat the cycle of superlative achievements and suspicion with the next generation.

Speed-dial the attorneys and the TV news crews. Finally, allow Julia Flynn Siler from the Wall St. Journal to put the whole show together as a business thriller.

The Year of Eating Dangerously
A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes
Tom Parker Bowles

St. Martin’s Press (September 4, 2007); 400 pages; $24.95

You know that Tom Parker-Bowles wants to be Anthony Bourdain rather than a gentleman who knows better. Being the thirty-something son of the Duchess of Cornwall and, thus, the step-son of Prince Charles can hardly be considered an occupational handicap unless one wants to be taken seriously as one more enfant terrible de cuisine.

If we thought that we might be pushing the author over the brink and into inconsolable depression, we wouldn’t say that we were disappointed in his book. But we think he’s probably quite well-balanced, so we’ll take him to task for wasting his talents; he is an adroit writer. Maybe you can take the boy out of Eton, but you can’t take Eton out of the boy… Like many schoolboys, he’s willing to try almost anything to get attention. Whether it’s incendiary, illegal, endangered, smelly, treacherously hard to harvest, or still wriggling, our boy wants to eat it.

And we quickly realize, he’s simply testing the limits of tolerance—of both himself and his readers. Tom Parker-Bowles ingests hot chillies, insect eggs, dog soup, and things both live or seriously decomposing. Although he’s capable of some trenchant reflection (on the cultures he experiences or how meat animals are raised and slaughtered) most of the book confirms that he’s opening his mouth at the table so he can boast of his exploits later. His vagabond year was one of extreme sport (and, in some instances, extreme expense). We hope he’s gotten this out of his system.

Disclosure: The publishers of these books have sent them to us for review.

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The post Book Bites – Part I first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.

Recipes from the Rim: Part III

Skip — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:16:51 +0000

Isabel’s Cantina
Bold Latin Flavors from the
New California Kitchen

Isabel Cruz

Clarkson Potter (August 28, 2007);
224 pages; $27.00

In the introduction to her book, Isabel Cruz relates, “As a single mother with two kids to feed and no formal education to fall back on, I relied on what I knew best, the things I had learned in my childhood kitchen. Naively, I opened a restaurant in San Diego…”

Growing up in Los Angeles, the author’s Puerto Rican family loved to cook and party with their Peruvian, Mexican, Cuban, and Asian neighbors. One quickly realizes that Isabel Cruz had quite a lot to “fall back on.” Now a successful chef-owner of five West Coast restaurants, Ms. Cruz presents a series of bright and simple fusion recipes. She makes the most of California’s produce and ever more available fresh Asian and Mediterranean ingredients like ginger, lemongrass, mint, and basil. Balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and soy sauce appear in Latin comfort food that has been lightened with creativity, common sense, and Asian dash.

Salmon with Papaya-Mango-Mint Salsa
Photo: Gregory Bertolini

Ms. Cruz’s restaurants have a wide spectrum of clients—those who go for the Power Breakfast plate of brown rice, steamed vegetables, scrambled egg-whites and get their kick from salsa and those who sink into the Pina Colada Pancakes. There are plenty of low-fat, and even some fat-free, recipes, but then there are Churros... (and yes, they’re fried, but in canola oil, not lard.) A make-me-right-now photo of guilt-free Raspberry-Lime Agua Fresca is balanced by a shot of Strawberry-Mango Cobbler. This is not spa food. Rather, it’s an array of beverages and dishes that, though born in restaurants, may be easily prepared by home cooks.

The food Ms. Cruz offers is both “healthy” and indulgent. She admits that she has tried to subtly slenderize both the recipes and those who love the food of Latin America. Lots of steamed, roasted, and grilled fish, poultry, and lean meat get their zing from quickly prepared sauces of citrus, chili, mint, and cilantro. But she doesn’t preach. Recipes include butter, sugar, white flour, and tequila as well as tofu, quinoa, collards, jicama, and chamomile tea. Rich or spare,the dishes are all appealing and speak for themselves; absolutely nothing in the book is self-concious. And in these days of fusion foolishness, Ms. Cruz’s food and philosophy should be welcomed into many kitchens.

Note: Clarkson Potter sent us this book for review

The post Recipes from the Rim: Part III first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.

Recipes from the Rim: Part II

Skip — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:11:44 +0000

American Masala
125 New Classics from
My Home Kitchen

Suvir Saran with Raquel Pelzel

Clarkson Potter (October 2, 2007);
272 pages; $35.00

Known for his Manhattan Indian-fusion restaurant, Devi, the effusive Suvir Saran takes mainstream American dishes (or once-ethnic dishes that have become mainstream) and infuses some of them with Indian spice and Indian techniques. He also takes inspiration from Mexican, Mediterranean, and North African kitchens.

So, we get Tamarind-Glazed Meatloaf, Turkey Hash Masala, Shrimp Scampi Masala, Indian Eggplant Caponata, and French Toast (with cardamom). There are some very rich, if tame, comfort foods—and a lot of cheese (Parmesan, Gouda, taleggio, fontina, ricotta). Cheese is not a huge feature of Indian cooking, but Mr. Saran is clearly enraptured by it. Two and one-quarter pounds of three different cheeses ensure that his mild Macaroni and Cheese (serving 8-10)will make some people very happy.

Roasted corn on the cob (Chaat Masala Corn with Lime) would make more people happier if there were a guideline for making this sour and salty seasoning blend. We’re glad to see a recipe for Mr. Saran’s version of Garam Masala, but someone forgot to include one for Chaat Masala; at bare minimum, there should be a description of it. (A basic chaat masala would include toasted cumin, coriander seed, black pepper, red chili, powdered mango, asafoetida, and the distinctively sulphurous Indian kala namak, “black salt.”)

Scallops with Roasted Pepper Chutney
Photograph by Ben Fink for American Masala

It’s clear that Mr. Saran loves to entertain, but I will take issue that roasting vegetables in the oven for an hour (and then to purée them as a dip) is what anyone—pro or not—does to whip up a snack for unexpected guests. And I am mystified as to why his skillet corn bread uses a package of prepared corn-bread mix, unless it is some secret, unswerving homage to the recipe’s originator, one Grandma Hayes.

Nonetheless, the spirit of American Masala is contagious. The recipes illustrate that appreciation of flavor occurs at many levels and that spice does not have to mean heat. Though he is a restaurant chef, Suvir Saran delights in preparing food at home and demonstrates that it’s both practical and fun for home cooks to have a global pantry.

Suvir Saran’s engaging anecdotes (Raquel Pelzel is credited as his co-author) make it clear that he grew up in an affluent and well-educated Indian family with their own cook. In contrast, Puerto Riquena-American Isabel Cruz was raised in a polyglot Los Angeles neighborhood of Caribbean, Latin American, Japanese, and Thai immigrants. In the next post on fusion cooking, I will look at her new book, Isabel’s Cantina. —Holly Chase

Note: Clarkson Potter sent us this book for review

The post Recipes from the Rim: Part II first appeared on Sarasota Soundings.