Why write about food

Writing about food is pretty trivial. If food were just for sustenance, contemplating and writing about it would not be worth neither the blink of a single neuron nor the ink of the world’s smallest quill. Personally, I could eat oatmeal or lentil soup for weeks without noticing it. Why, then, do I waste my time on this blog?

Humans are opportunistic feeders and that, in part, is what makes our species ubiquitous. The ingrained ability to adjust our feeding needs and wants to our circumstance opens a channel for universal communication. As the world moves forward at the speed of globalization, this common strand of DNA programming has become even more important. Regardless of whether we (I am talking about those of us who love food and take the time to read articles like this one) trace the origin of food trough history from our armchairs, or we taste it on our travels abroad (or travels to the supermarket), we discover that the biosphere which provides food to the entire World population makes all cultures as interwoven today as were through the history.

As a Dalmatian-American, I would like my fellow Americans who share the same ethnic roots to see that their heritage is as significant to the development of modern civilization as that of other cultures that American history books refer to more often. The first step is to know your ancestors and your own ethnic heritage. One of the simplest and politically unbiased approaches is to be able to taste it, since the tongue is the mean of global communication.

Equating the tongue which is the most complex muscle used by human brain to produce vocal communication with the carrier of taste buds common to all non-speaking animals- this sounds like a miraculous escapade! Well, like it or not, the later function of the tongue may be the lowest common denominator of all humankind.

As often as it is demonstrated that taste for food is acquired and that there are insurmountable cultural difference in feeding habits among ethnic groups, we are equally often reminded that all the differences are mainly circumstantial. Through forty years of life in Dalmatia, I came to appreciate “gruda”, wild grown greens boiled and lightly seasoned with olive oil, a diet staple on the Eastern Adriatic coast. My island, Korcula, is particularly fond of this delicious green. Research into the feeding habits of the island’s population during times of shortage has shown that inhabitants used over 130 species of wild greens in their daily diet. In good times, they “substituted” wild greens with “blitva” better known in America as Suisse Chard. Unfortunately, this green or anything like it is not popular food in America, and to find it one must go to more expensive grocery stores like Whole Foods or Trader Joes.

On the other hand, I was happy to learn that “horta” (with the most praised variety being “vlita,” (amaranth) which sounds like “blitva”) in Greece and “hollow water spinach” in China, were quite common on dinner tables and were prepared in a similar way as Dalmatian “gruda”. Moreover, the gustatory pleasure they provide is the same.

The Mediterranean diet has become very popular in modern times due to assumption that it ensures a long and healthy life. Olive oil was identified as one of the sources of these purported health benefits and now it is promoted indiscriminately on TV shows for frying, braising or just seasoning food. As I remember from my childhood, olive oil was a commodity for harsh times. Most families had their own olive trees and so produced their own oil. A standard procedure involved a long season of collecting olives as they ripened and then keeping them in brine until the harvest was completed. The oil mills were few on the islands and households made sure that they completed their oil production in just one visit. By that time, most of the olives have had already fermented and all the health beneficial ingredients were gone. So, my subjective, untested hypothesis is that it was not the olive oil that kept the Mediterranean population healthy. Instead, it was the gruda, horta, blitva or vlita, and/or the chines water spinach. Olive oil it seems is the easier, more marketable answer to a world that craves miracle cures.

Chinese call water spinach “hollow” not only because of its hollow steams, but because it does not provide enough energy to replace the rice as a staple food in time of shortages. Nowadays, in the time of energy packed fast food, these “hollow” meals are a much needed break for our bodies.

Before I get lost in the labyrinth of food writing justification, let me simply conclude that it has “global cultural” merits . I will touch on this many times in the future. For the moment, let this piece be just a short glimpse into my obsession.
cooking-with-unusual-greens

Black, sepia or tyrian risoto?

Cephalopods like octopus, squid and cuttlefish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish), fair much better in an icebox than does fish. I have always few pieces of either kind in my refrigerator and can prepare it on a short notice. These sea animals share a common name „ink fish“ as they all have in common „inking“ , releasing a dark cloud when attacked. Most of their ink animals release when caught, but enough of it remains to be used in cooking a black risotto, arrozo nero or „crni rižoto“ ( risotto nero di sepia ) as it is called in Dalmatia.

The problem is that once frozen, ink loses its qualities as food coloring. Unless your fishmonger harvests and sells ink, you are stacked when trying to cook it black. In Italian food stores one can buy ink-colored pasta. That works pretty good for black pasta. Why not then use ink-dyed rice? Well, I am not aware that it is available. But I have found a natural black rice and I decided to try it with cuttlefish the very moment I discovered it.

This rice comes from China. It is one of heirlooms plants that produces non-glutinous short-grained rice. Its purple color comes from a natural pigment anthocyanin. Cooked black rice is of deep tyrian purple color, another color extracted from marine animals. In China it was known as emperors rice. Old Greeks knew about this rice and banned it because they believed it gives strength to their enemies.

Well, is the tyrian purple good substitute for black ink? In fact, only octopus has a black-black ink. Squid makes it blue and cuttlefish makes it sepia brown. Sepia is both another name for cuttlefish and a name for the cuttlefish ink used as a paint in painting and printing. So, we are on the good track. Let's cook!

Have your frozen cuttlefish (1.5 to 2 lb) tow overnight in the vegetable compartment of your refrigerator. Clean it and cut it in a half-inch cubes. Cut tentacles also. Throw away parts of head containing eyes and tooth. Dice few cloves of garlic and one shallot and cook it in a pan with olive oil until it becomes fragrant (do not burn garlic or shallot). Add cuttlefish pieces and braise it on a low heat. Season with salt, sweet red pepper and ginger powder. Add minced parsley and a half cup of dark red wine going brownish (Postup). Allow for alcohol to evaporate and add a cup of black rice. Add fish stock or vegetable stock, or just a water and let it cook for 40 minutes. Add more liquid as needed. After 40 minutes add a handful of white rice and cook for another 20 minutes. Black rice will still be al dente but the cooked white rice will provided creaminess. Before serving, stir in a two spoonfuls of a cream.

Black risotto is now ready for serving. Enjoy nutty flavors of black rice imbibed with garlic and sea flavors, end its great tyrian-sepia color produced by anthocyanins, tannins and cream. Crisp white wine will keep your teeth unstained.

Dalmatian seafood cooking. What's it about?

It is all about ingredients. Capture it fresh and enjoy its delicate flavors without pretention that you could improve it. Handle it humbly and with restrains. Add what's necessary to make a meal, but let it be what it is.  Don't call it fish. Know it by its name and its flavors!

Sofisticated simplicity, of cooks, dishes and dinners.

Fresh Fish

A teacher went fishing with old local fishermen on his twenty-footer. They sailed of at dawn and before the sunrise they lowered the line with some hundred hooks. One hour later the teacher had to pull out the line under the direction of the fishermen. His back started to ache soon but he forgot it immediately when he landed first catch, a 6-pound dentex (zubatac). A few smaller fish followed and toward the end, another dentex, somewhat smaller than the previous one. Before they left home, teacher had just a cup of a marjoram “tea” and hard work made him already hungry. He started thinking about the early lunch (marenda) the moment he landed the first fish.

“Which one are we going to cook?”, he asked the old men, thinking of a great soup that could be made of a dentex. “The smaller one”, said the old men.

“Why the smaller?”, wondered the teacher. “That is the freshest one”, said the old men.

On the small boat there was just a small propane lamp and one pot. Not much ingredients besides few cloves of garlic, some parsley that old men pinched out of a pot on his terrace this morning, few peppercorns and a flask of olive oil. For salt they added some seawater to the pot. Still, teacher had the best fish ever.

“There are only two kinds of fish”, said the old men, “the fresh one and that other.”

And I nearly forgot this lesson.