En Passant . . .

From time to time, ideas cross my mind, often in response to questions from friends, that are worth writing about, but do not individually merit full posts. This is the first post in a series devoted to such matters.

1. Rancho Gordo sells many varieties of wonderful heirloom beans. They are so fresh that the overnight soak is generally reduced to four hours. http://www.ranchogordo.com/

2. I love Cook's Illustrated, and have a rather unwieldy collection spanning many years. An easy way to access the work done at America's Test Kitchen is to buy The Complete American's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook 2001-2010 and The TV Companion Cookbook 2011. I won't swear to it but it seems to me these books have all, but if not most, of what you find in Cook's Illustrated, including a somewhat shorter version of the analysis that makes the recipes so useful. I still haven't thrown away my Cook's Illustrated but probably could. And certainly it's nice to have so much in a single book (or 2 books).

3. I haven't written about The Art of Eating. This is a very scholarly, no-nonsense, no-ads publication, edited by Edward Behr, that comes out four times a year. I usually read it from cover to cover even though I will never make use of most of what's in it. Occasionally, though, I do use what I learn there; for example, I recently discovered a great product, Trahana, a kind of Greek sour couscous-like grain made with yogurt and dried on the rocks of sunny Greek villages. http://www.artofeating.com/

4. If you use a mandoline to slice vegetables, you will know that it's a great tool, but dangerous to use. To get the last bit of the zucchini requires a scary motion, and the food pushers that come with mandolines are not good. The solution: get a cut-resistant glove, made from super-tough space-age fibers, and slice with abandon. Microplane makes a good one, which sells for about $15.

5. Like hot sauce? Tears of Joy Hot Sauce Shop, in Austin, Texas, has 300 types of bottled hot sauces from around the world. I have not yet ordered because my wife is not a crazy hot sauce fan like myself. I'm looking for a partner for an order. http://tearsofjoysauces.com/

Bobby Jay

Oishinbo - Wonderful Japanese Food Manga

At the suggestion of Andrew Knowlton, Bon Appétit's "Foodist," I have been reading the Japanese manga series, Oishinbo, and it is wonderful.

Being married to a Japanese art dealer and having lived in Japan for several years, I have come to know Japan, its people and its cuisine reasonably well. What I love about the Japanese people is how they care so much about what they do and always strive to do their best, just for the sake of it. Linked to this are the values placed on humility and sensitivity to the needs and desires of others. All of this is rooted in centuries-old Confucian traditions that still affect the soul of the people, although the prosperity of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are no doubt taking their toll on some of Japan's traditional values.

Oishinbo, an amazingly successful series of more than 100 manga written by Tetsu Kariya, is a really fun way to learn about Japanese culinary traditions and also the community values that distinguish the Japanese from other cultures. Starting in 2009, Viz Media has published English versions of selections anthologized from the hundred plus volumes in the series, arranged by topics: Japanese Cuisine generally, rice, vegetables, fish, ramen and gyoza, sake and pub food.

The subject is a quest by Yamaoka Shirô, a culinary journalist, to discover the "Ultimate Menu," a meal that embodies the best of Japanese cooking traditions. Yamaoka was trained as a chef by his father, Kaibara Yûzan, who is one of Japan's greatest chefs, but he left his father's exclusive restaurant because he couldn't stand the way Kaibara's obsession with food caused him to mistreat his wife and family. The two are completely estranged, but their paths cross frequently because a competing newspaper has hired Kaibara to come up with a "Supreme Menu." Although he is a jerk, Kaibara knows food, and has the occasional victory over Yamaoka.

It is worth giving some examples. To see them, click "more" below.
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The rice-making contest

Yamaoka and his father Kaibara are involved in a rice making challenge. It takes place at a traditional inn with a wood-burning hearth, so conditions are optimal. Yamaoka describes his rice:

This is from the koshihikari variety, from Niigata Prefecture. A farm grew it for their own use, without any pesticides. The grains were dried in the sun and we milled them just a little while ago, right before boiling them in spring water from Otakifudô, which is considered to be one of the hundred best spring waters of Japan. Needless to say, I boiled it over a wood-burning hearth and added a fistful of straw at the end to steam it.

Everyone loves the rice, saying that it is fluffy and sweet, with each each grain cooked perfectly, "smooth on the tongue with just the right degree of firmness."

But he loses.

The great gourmet who is one of the judges tastes Kaibara's rice (actually made by an assistant):

[Yamaoka's] rice seemed perfect, but now that I've had [Kaibara's], I can see that it wasn't. Compared to this, [Yamaoka's] lacks uniformity. I thought his was fluffy, but compared to [Kaibara's], it's like a hard cotton mattress against a feather bed. And the moment you chew on the rice an enchanting sweetness and aroma fill your mouth . . . whereas [Yamaok's] rice smells of bran.

The secret: Kaibara's assistant put the rice on a black tray and then picked out the grains that wer broken, cracked, dark or too small, resulting in perfect uniformity of texture and taste.

Lots to learn about the importance of rice but, even more, the importance of respect for the ingredients and of attention to the smallest detail.

The Banquet

Yamaoka's boss asks him to arrange a banquet in honor of his friend, a third-generation Japanese-American who is a United States senator. It turns out that the competing publishing company got there first, and put on an extraordinary feast for the Senator, including sashimi cut at the banquet from a whole bluefin tuna and an entire hand-raised wagyu cow. The senator is clearly exhausted and over-sated by this showy banquet.

To his boss's dismay, Yamaoka responds the next day by leading the Senator on a hot mountainous walk to a lovely traditional inn. In a cool room overlooking the mountains the senator is served hot hôjicha, which paradoxically cools him down. After that he is served elegant gyokuro tea slowly steeped in 130 degree water. Waiting for the tea to brew, the senator describes his trip to Japan. "Day after day, I've being going to rich, extravagant banquets. But the food was only rich in cost. All of it lacked the most essential ingredient. And lacking that, it can't truly please anybody, no matter how expensive it may be."

The gyokuro is finally brewed and served. The Senator is enchanted.

What a pretty color . . . a kind of goldish-green, with an emerald tint to it . . . a sweet gentle slightly bitter flavor with a soft aftertaste . . . it's as if a breeze from a mountain stream has just blown through my body. I probably wouldn't have understood this flavor if you had just given it to me the moment I arrived here after walking under the sun. It's because I drank that hot hôjicha first . . . . Now I get it! You made me walk under the scorching sun so that I'd understand the flavor of this tea . . .

Yamaoka's boss tells the senator that this completes his meal. The senator responds that he'd be angry if he was served anything else. He continues, "I've just had a taste of the real Japan. The spirit of Japan. ... This is the essential ingredient all those expensive feasts were lacking. So what more could I ask for?"

What indeed?

Bobby Jay

What to Do When No One Has a Clue

My friend Barbara Harrison is co-author, together with Stephanie Pierson, of What to Do When No One Has a Clue: Advice for the Brave New World. This is a fun read, with advice from experts in many fields, including Bobby Jay, about what to do in delicate situations; one chapter of particular interest to foodies is "How to Eat and Drink [Putting it on the Table]." The book also contains stories from real life in our crazy world -- our dog Sylvie makes an appearance with her (pseudonymous) owner. A perfect summer book and an excellent gift for your friends and relatives, clueless and otherwise.

Bobby Jay

Marcella Hazan

I recently read Marcella Hazan's autobiography, Amarcord. I confess that I didn't love it. I'm not sure why not, but somehow the narrative energy was less than I have found in a number of other similar biographies, notably Jacques Pépin's The Apprentice and Julia's My Years in Paris. That being said, however, reading this book reminded me of the enormous debt we all have to Marcella for revamping the way we think of Italian food.

The emphasis on regionalism, simplicity and quality of ingredients now seems obvious, but it was not always so. Her user-friendly and near-foolproof books, particularly The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classics of Italian Cooking, contributed significantly to Americans' sophistication in matters of Italian food. Those volumes, together with her activities outside of the book world (chronicled in Amarcord) to the demand for and now availability of a myriad of Italian ingredients, like extra virgin olive oils, balsamic vinegars, dried and fresh porcini, sun-dried tomatoes, that enable us to achieve very authentic results. \

Whenever people discuss the most important cookbooks on their shelves - the ones they could not live without - Marcella's initial works are mentioned. When my wife and I bought an apartment in Paris, I immediately bought Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which incorporates (and slightly expands) her first two volumes, to provide a trove of useful recipes that are in some ways easier to achieve in France than in NY due to the availability of ingredients. Marcella's later books, Marcella Cucina and Marcella's Italian Kitchen, are also wonderful and complete her amazing culinary legacy.

Later writers, starting with a more educated public, have continued the tradition started by Marcella, exposing Americans to Italian specialties that are within the competence of amateur cooks and yet give us access to unfamiliar regions of Italy where, through food at least, an older way of life survives. My favorite of these is Lidia Bastianich (see my post "Tutti a Tavola with Lidia Bastianich"), but mention must be made of Mario Batali and of Marcella's son Giuliano Hazan.

So, thank you Marcella, for inviting us into your Italian kitchen.

Bobby Jay

Gourmet RIP

Alas, Gourmet is no more, having succumbed to a dwindling bottom line after 68 years.

As I sat down to write this, I came across the post on www.serveitforth.com bemoaning the loss of Gourmet, and I imagine the entire food blogosphere is or will be abuzz with comments. Nevertheless, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on Gourmet.

I was a subscriber to Gourmet for 35 years. It started when my wife (then fiance) and I were given a one-year subscription at a spice shower in advance of our wedding, and I continued to renew until now, with no lapses. During our multi-year stints in Paris and Tokyo, before the age of the Internet, the monthly arrival of Gourmet was a cherished event and a tie to home. Although we have long since lost touch, I remember very well the woman who gave us that initial subscription. The ultimate gift that kept on giving!
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People often complained that the recipes were too difficult, and there is some truth in that. Still, I always used the recipes, and some became standards in my repertoire. But I must admit that for years I found Gourmet's recipes to be a bit complex and as a result I had some notable failures. During the last 10 years or so, I found them to be more user-friendly, but maybe that’s just me.

The really great thing about Gourmet, though, was always its monthly jolt of inspiration and challenge, whether of food to cook or eat, places to go or things to experience. The travel pieces were more than inspiring; if you were going where they had been, you found wonderful restaurants and other sights that the more generic, non-food oriented guides might have missed. I will never forget our perfect lunch more than 30 years ago at a tiny restaurant in the back of a fish store in Antibes near the Picasso Museum. We certainly would not have discovered it on our own and owe that memory entirely to Gourmet.

Other, more recipe-oriented food magazines have a value, and I subscribe to many of them, but Gourmet was special and irreplaceable.

Sad news.

Bobby Jay

Julie and Julia - The Movie

Saw Julie and Julia last night and really enjoyed it. As expected, Meryl Streep was an absolutely perfect Julia Child, and Stanley Tucci was also excellent as her husband Paul. The lesser plot about Julie Powell (ably played by Amy Adams), the young secretary/blogger who decides to cook all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, was better than I had expected based on the reviews. Indeed, I think it was essential to prevent the "main" Julia story from becoming a mere bio-pic.

The movie is an exuberant celebration of food and eating, cooking and writing about it. But it also makes the point that cooking for others (and it always is for others) is essentially an act of sharing. Both Julia and Julie cooked out of love for their husbands and friends (and in Julia's case the entire American public), not just to find something to do. To me, this is the film's real message and what makes it so poignant.

I have read and enjoyed both of the books that the film is based on, and found the movie to be true to the books, but, especially as regards the Julia story, to be much more; the food photography and styling are superb, Paris is at it most lovely, and Streep's Julia is more alive than the one on the page.

A must-see for anyone who reads this blog.

Bobby Jay

Cooking by Hand -- Paul Bertolli's Excellent Book

I first heard of Paul Bertolli's marvelous Cooking by Hand from an article in Edward Behr's The Art of Eating, in which Behr lists it as one of the nine cookbooks that he would keep on his shelf if he had to give up all his hundreds of others. Bertolli's book has many recipes, true, but really it is more a series of essays on Italian food than it is a cookbook. This is evident from the chapter headings -- "Ripeness," "Twelve Ways at Looking at a Tomato" and "Aceto Balsamico," for example, rather than meat, fish, pasta, etc. It is a splendid read, although you might want to skim through the very long chapter on charcuterie if, like me, there is no chance that you will put it to practical use. But even this chapter is full of interesting lore and information that will make you a more thoughtful cook and shopper.
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Cooking by Hand can at times be quite moving. I actually cried when I read this passage from a letter Bertolli wrote to his newborn son Antonio, which serves as the introduction to the chapter on Aceto Balsamico:

It is two months now that you have been alive and I have decided not to wait to tell you about a special gift we have received in honor of your birth. Your gift came in six separate boxes from our friends in Italy, Francesco, an artisan barrel maker, and his wife, Maura, whom you will soon meet and visit. Francesco has built for you six beautiful casks, Antonio's batteria he calls it, for making aceto balsamico, no ordinary vinegar, as you will see. When Francesco's sons were born he built barrels for them as well and if you were to climb to the very top floor of his house, there under the roof you would see them lined up in rows, one slightly bigger than the next, his sons' names . . . burned into the head of each. Next to these are casks that Francesco's father filled for him nearly 50 years ago! You would also smell something extraordinary as you approach the low door that leads into this room, called the acetaia, the place where vinegar ages -- an aroma that is dense and pungent and like no other that has passed under your nose. . . . Francesco has given to you, but also to our family, a rare gift and the wish of continuity.

By the time you are old enough to read this, the vinegar that I will soon start for you will have aged enough to draw. In it you will taste the years it has marked since you were born. It will grow sappy as you move into your teens, then deepen and thicken as you become a man. In your twenties its dark obscurity will mirror the complexities of life that dawn on you; in middle age balsamico may help you remember who you are and with whom you have belonged. When you grow old, it will be the nectar that you have waited all your life to sip, by then a kind of magic elixir. Like you, it will have become everything it has ever been for better or worse, an embrace of the "sweet and sour" that is life, a family keepsake to pass along to loved ones of your own. . . .

Wow! I still get misty-eyed just typing this, and I am not really a huge fan of balsamic vinegar.

Bobby Jay

Michael Ruhlman's "Ratio"

I have just finished reading Michael Ruhlman's fine new book, Ratio, which was inspired by what he learned during his studies at the Culinary Institute of America, chronicled in his excellent The Making of a Chef. Ruhlman became fascinated by the basic ratios that good chefs know by heart, which enable them to improvise with confidence rather than follow recipes. The book contains basic ratios for doughs and batters; stocks (and roux and beurre manié used to thicken them); farces, mousselines and other meat-related items; fat-based sauces; and custards.

The point of the book is not so much to provide recipes (although there are many) but to show how recipes are created and to give the reader the means and courage to make up his or her own in the same way that chefs do. For example, after giving the basic ratio for pie dough and then a recipe for tart dough using that ratio, he tosses off dozens of variations that can be made without significantly deviating from the basic ratio -- caramelized onion and compté tart, leek and walnut tart, potato and leek tart, tomato tart, peach and prosciutto tart, various sweet tarts and a number of fruit tarts, among others. This is really a new kind of cookbook!
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Another thing I love about this book is how Ruhlman's love affair with food and cooking comes through in his simple unadorned prose. Here is my favorite excerpt from the book, in which he is discussing batters:

. . . people who are gifted pastry chefs have simply seen the crepe-cake continuum more clearly for longer, rather than seeing crepe equaling one set of instructions, cake another, and so hav been able to improvise; they understand how small adjustments in fat, flour, egg and sugar can result in satisfying nuances of lightness and delicacy or richness in flavor and texture. It's all one thing.

Which is why I love cooking. It's all one thing.

I do have some gripes about this book, primarily the way in which Ruhlman switches back and forth between volume measures, counts and weights, which makes it difficult to follow the ratios and, more important, has led to a number of errors and inconsistencies. In the section of crème anglaise, for example, one recipe converts 4 ounces of egg yolks to 7 large yolks while two other convert the same 4 ounces into 8 yolks, and another converts 6 ounces into 9 yolks. I usually cook by weight, but often will use eggs by count; what am I supposed to do here?

This is more than a quibble, but there is so much great stuff in the book that I can forgive it.

If you love food, Ratio is worth reading.

Bobby Jay

Food Movie -- La Grande Bouffe

La Grande Bouffe, one of the best-known movies about food, has recently become available in the US on DVD, so I watched it again for the first time in many years.

Directed in 1973 by Marco Ferreri, La Grande Bouffe is a French black comedy about four men -- a pilot (Marcello Mastroianni), a chef (Ugo Tognazzi), a television host (Michel Piccoli), and a judge (Philippe Noiret, one of my all-time favorites) -- who go to a villa in France with the goal of eating themselves to death. What follows is an orgy of lavish food and sex (added to the festivities almost as an after-thought).

I found the movie to be black, indeed, but not comic. Indeed, it is profoundly sad and a reminder that food is not the be-all and end-all of life. Worth seeing, as any film with these four great actors would be, but not if you're expecting to laugh.

Bobby Jay

Food Movies Revisited

In my post on Food Movies I noted that I had not seen Eat Drink Man Woman. Recently some friends suggested that I this was a major omission and lent me the DVD. They were totally right. How could I have missed this movie for so many years?

Directed by Ang Lee, this is a lovely film in which magnificent Chinese food plays a starring role; indeed, food is the means by which the family that is at the center of the film communicates. The food is sumptuous beyond description and the story of how a widowed master chef and his three daughters seek to find themselves, happiness and one another is moving and well-told. Definitely among the top half-dozen food movies ever made.

Bobby Jay

Excellent Book - The Omnivore's Dilemma

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. This is a really insightful book about where our food comes from, and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in food.

The first part of the book explains that if we are what we eat, we consist mostly of corn, with a fair amount of petroleum thrown in. Pollan explains in a lucid, readable way how corn became has become the dominant crop in the US and, indeed, the world, since World War II, and the implications of this on our diets, health and world economy: the dominance of industrial agriculture, less healthful food (high levels of antibiotics required due to the lack of natural antibodies in monocultural corn diet and the lack of biological richness in chemical fertilizers), inhumane treatment of animals, etc. Pretty scary stuff, but not hysterically presented.

The second part of the book is about alternatives, organic farming and smaller sustainable farming. Pollan makes the case that organic has become closer to industrial than "real" farming but concludes that it is better, due to the absence of antibiotics, than conventional. The meat of the book (no pun intended) is the lengthy discussion of "grass farming," meaning sustainable, local farming based on intense management of the soil by careful grazing, involving chickens, pigs and beef in a virtuous cycle of soil nourishment and producing meats that taste like the real thing. I found this part of the book to be extremely moving, and came to be convinced that such agriculture could be commercially viable if we were able to agree as a society to factor in the total cost associated with apparently cheap food, i.e., health issues, environmental issues and, not as intuitively, energy consumption. If only . . . . In the meantime, there is something we can do, namely encouraging the burgeoning community supported agriculture movement, shopping at farmers' markets and paying the extra price for meats and vegetables that are designed (through milennia of evolution, not the laboratory) to meet the nutritional needs of our species (and which, not coincidentally, taste much better). I was already doing this for more simplistic reasons (see my post "Community Supported Agriculture"), but plan to redouble my efforts.

The final section describes Pollan's foray into the worlds of hunting and gathering, in order to get closer to the food and, "take responsibility" for killing animals for food. I found it pretty entertaining, but without practical application; even Pollan admits that we are not ever going back to that way of life.

Bobby Jay

Great Culinary Resource

I have recently discovered Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. (Although, from the blurbs on the back cover, it appears that every major player in the food world had already discovered it.) This is an amazingly comprehensive treatise on the named subjects, and if you are interested in food, you need this book.

For example, I was recently trying to find out the difference between blackstrap molasses and other kinds. McGee has an information-filled page, as opposed to a short (and not useful) paragraph in the Larousse Gastronomique, itself a worthy resource. Not only that, but I found myself in the middle of a fascinating section on the refining of sugar, with a lot of useful and interesting information on "factory" brown sugars like demerara, turbinado and muscovado and refinery brown sugars (all other kinds).

Not the kind of book to read cover-to-cover, but a truly wonderful and essential resource.

Bobby Jay

Oops, Left Out the Best Food Movie

Hard to believe, but my earlier post on food movies omitted the best food movie of all time (well, maybe second after Babette's Feast): Ratatouille. My wife saw it without me and concluded that I, Bobby Jay, am in fact Remy (see portrait above left), the charming Parisian rat/chef in the film, or vice versa; either way, I take that as a compliment. Thanks to the person who reminded me (and who wishes to remain anonymous).

Bobby Jay

Food Movies

Food movies form a subgenre of food literature, and there have been some good ones. Of course, the best ones are not just about food, but about people in interesting situations. I list a few below, but solicit recommendations from others because I am sure I am omitting many.

The greatest food movie is certainly Babette's Feast, a French/Danish movie in which a French chef uses her dazzling cooking skills to wake up an entire Danish town of straight-laced protestants.

I also love The Big Night, which has a lot to say about the origins of interesting Italian food in America but also about family.

An excellent but less well-known food movie is a French movie, A Chef in Love, about a French chef in Georgia during the period of the Russian Revolution.

I also liked Mostly Martha (a German movie) and, to a lesser extent, the American remake, No Reservations.

And Chocolat, a nice story with the wonderful Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.

Although not a food movie, there are some magnificent (if somewhat implausible) food scenes in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence.

Finally, two well-respected food movies that I don't know well are Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman.

Bobby Jay

Another Food Book

I knew I had left out some interesting food books in my earlier post.

One of these is Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor, by Hervé This. It is interesting and readable despite a fair dose of science that a lay person will not understand. It gives you insight into some of the cutting edge cooking being done in Spain and elsewhere using liquid nitrogen, sous-vide convection baths, various gels, etc.

Bobby Jay

Food Literature

An excellent book for food lovers is Une Gourmandise, by Muriel Barbery, who also wrote the award-winning and really brilliant l'Elegance du Herisson (now out in English translation as The Elegance of the Hedgehog). Une Gourmandise is the story of an influential food critic who is on his death bed and wants, before he dies, to recreate the signal food experience of his life. There are fantastic riffs on grilled fish, potatoes, and many other foods and experiences, and a satisfying ending. The French is relatively easy to read, without complex structure, but still it's French.

Bobby Jay

Food Biographies

I'm not a huge reader of books by chefs and other food professionals, but still have read quite a number.

I very much enjoyed Jacques Pépin's The Apprentice and Julia Child's My Life in France. They both know food, France and how to tell a story. For lovely stories about life and food in the French provinces, try Susan Herrmann Loomis' On Rue Tatin and Georgeanne Brennan's A Pig in Provence.

I liked Judith Jones' The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food a lot less, and I found Bill Buford's Heat to be interesting but lacking something. I thought Anthony Bourdain's classic Kitchen Confidential was a more exciting "view of the restaurant from inside."

Although written by critics as opposed to practitioners, the great The Food of France by Waverly Root and A.J. Liebling's Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris stand above the rest for insight into the majesty of French cuisine.

I recently read a nice little book, Untangling My Chopsticks, by Victoria Riccardi, which deals with the amazing food that is part of the tea ceremony. If you are interested in Japan (where I and my wife lived for three years), she gives you plenty of good insights and fun anecdotes.

A quirky book, and a good read, is Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, by Julie Powell, a young New York City woman who didn't know how to cook but decided to cook every recipe in Julia Child's seminal Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Funny and moving.

I think I'm leaving some out and will add to the list later.

Bobby Jay