Culinary Historians of Chicago
SUMMER 2003
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NEWSLETTER OF THE Culinary Historians of Chicago |
SUMMER 2003 |
Friday: Leave Chicago. Stop at Tuscola -- Amish shops and restaurants -- lunch on your own. Dinner at Pheasant Hollow, Mt. Vernon. Winemaker's Dinner.
Saturday: Breakfast at Inn (included). Morning, Farmer's Market. Noon, Owl Creek Winery, Tour and Picnic Lunch. Evening, Van Jacob Winery, Tour and Mystery Dinner.
Sunday: Breakfast at Inn (included). Mid-morning, Alto Pass Winery, Tour and Lunch.
Accommodations: Hampton Inn (expanded Continental buffet breakfast included), indoor pool.
Transportation: Deluxe motor coach roundtrip (included).
Total Cost for 3 days: $287/person (single occupancy, add $75).
Includes 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, 2 nights' stay at hotel.
For registration and deposit, contact:
Susan Ridgeway
Patty Erd, The Spice House
My parents owned a spice store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They launched the original store in 1957 and dealt with coffees, teas, nuts, spices, sausage seasonings and stock cubes for Polish and Hungarian soups. Since ground spices have no date requirement, they decided to have the freshest of spices and so, ground their spices themselves. In grinding, the spice "dust" permeated everything and the tea and coffee began to adopt the flavors of the spices. So they decided to let tea and coffee go.
Having grown up in such as an environment with such a rich heritage, it was natural then that we continue in the spice business. We own and operate three Spice Houses in Milwaukee, Evanston and Chicago. Penzeys is my brother's spice business. Our store is a Mom-&-Pop, community-focused, old family business kind of store. There is not that much money to be made at a Mom-&-Pop establishment -- it is very expensive and difficult to survive. The work is our reward. My parents' original store in Milwaukee is now what we call their "Retirement Store". They open and close it when they want to.
How did the Chicago and Evanston Spice Houses start?
When we lived in Milwaukee, it was the kind of place where there would be an Indian Restaurant for a short while and then it would be gone! Yet, we opened our first store in Milwaukee.
We opened our Evanston store in an effort to expand our business and it was the first of its kind in the Chicago area. We were moving from being well known in Milwaukee to what I thought of as a gangster town.
We got a cigar box space and spent our life savings on the build out. My husband likes to make something with his hands -- so he built the store himself, driving back and forth everyday between Evanston and Milwaukee for a period of three months. He made a beautiful store. The store looks very much like the store in Milwaukee -- in keeping with the original family concept. All the neighbors came and were very friendly
When we first started our business in Evanston, I used to be afraid of Chicago. On the first night that the Evanston store opened, I refused to take the El to go out to dinner in Chicago. We lived for two years in a tiny flat above the Evanston store. But one needs a little space from work and we found a place at Ogden and Chicago Avenues in Chicago.
I am very comfortable now in Chicago!
The product range and presentation in your stores are terrific. I especially like the "bundling" of spices for local recipes. Tell me more.
Various members of our family -- Dad, Mom and Brother -- came up with the spice blends through trial and error. We now have a whole line of ethnic Chicago spices.
While still in Milwaukee, my husband and I got a book on Ethnic Chicago with all kinds of information on ethnic (German, Chinese, Thai, Korean) museums, restaurants and parades. We marked up our calendar and visited these Chicago neighborhoods on the relevant days. I remember visiting an Irish restaurant on the South side filled with policemen and firefighters. We covered nearly all neighborhoods in our quest for ethnic seasonings. We went to a Ukrainian restaurant to try and figure out Ukrainian seasonings. We found that many of these nationalities had a tendency to adhere to their original mixture of seasonings. So, we wondered about making some of our own to reflect the various cuisines of the world. And we did.
Today, I could take any area of the world and make a spice mixture to reflect its cuisine authentically.
Our ethnic Chicago blends include Little Italian with lots of garlic, Romano cheese, basil and oregano and Bridgeport Potato Spice with oregano, Romano cheese and cayenne pepper. We also make Barbecue spice rubs. Barbecue is an American art form. Every state touts a different kind of barbecue spice.
You have so many cultures represented here in your store. Where do your spices come from?
We do not deal in generic seasonings.
Historically, spices were considered medicine, used as preservatives and to make food palatable and digestible. Spices were also used as currency, aphrodisiacs, for religious purposes and as a medium to barter. In fact, just recently my eye doctor bartered my eye exam for spices from The Spice House!
Today, we can get anything from practically anywhere. There are so many different spices and influences so nothing is merely Indian or Indonesian. Spices are global and becoming more so as people travel and immigrate. The most consumed spices in this country are pepper, vanilla, cinnamon, chilies, ginger, cumin and paprika.
How do you stay abreast of the trends? Do you travel to find new products?
Where is the next trend coming from? Wherever Americans are traveling. Mexico is popular. We go to Playa del Carmen on the Caribbean. When someone returns from Mexico they often want to cook Mexican. So they go to a Mercado. Cumin and saffron are used a lot in Mexican food.
We keep up with food trends by reading all the food news and recipes printed in local, professional and trade magazines. We belong to several food organizations -- the Culinary Historians of Chicago, for example.
We have been on the Food Network -- Alton Brown featured us in a show. We were in the fruitcake show, which has run for four years now. People are always coming up to us to tell us they saw us in the show, which was made four years ago. Alton left us a fruitcake.
I love the location on Wells Street. Who comes in, what do they ask for and what do they buy? What's most fun about it?
We picked the store on Wells with our hearts.
We chose the Wells location based partly on the demographics. About 70,000 people live within a 1-mile radius and consist of predominantly upscale young people, who might not have much time to cook on a daily basis. Our customers are mostly walk-in's as the lack of parking in the area does not make it an ideal shopping destination. And, oddly enough, just as for the farmers in the field, the foot traffic, and the success of our business is very weather dependent!
We love the Wells Street store. It screams "Spice House". We've now been here three years. The location is simply great. I can walk over to the Chicago Historical Society. It is modeled on the Milwaukee store, which is very attractive with cobblestone, etc.
Wells Street is so European. I used to go to the butcher's shop nearby everyday until it closed. It is very cool being on Wells but it is also very expensive. Being a Mom-&-Pop store is very challenging. I keep up by taking classes and delegating. We have a great staff of graduates from culinary schools. They really know what they are doing, which is very helpful.
What is special about the Spice House?
We sell just spices, herbs and seasonings. We want to do three things and do it well.
We are always in one of our three stores every single day and we work six to seven days a week. My mother says work is much more fun than fun! Last year The Spice House was recognized with a Small Business of the Year Award!
We are a retail business, for the most part. We want real people, and the sensory experience. We have resisted expanding our Internet sales but are getting ready to do that as a significant percentage of our sales stems from the Internet. There are people out there who don't want to shop themselves.
Franchise? No. Because it would be a move motivated by money and we would lose some of the quality we are so proud of. These three stores are like our children. We wouldn't sell any one of them to anyone. My parents would be crushed. We are thinking about another store, soon -- maybe, in Beverly.
Our neighbors and customers are very supportive. When we first started in Chicago, people bought items just to keep us in business, or so it seemed. One old lady bought 30 pepper mills!
The reason for our success is natural evolution and a lucky choice of spices.
Do you have special events around the Spice House banner?
We are involved with a considerable amount of public speaking with topics such as the "Lure and Lore of Spices", and "Spices of India", to name a few. We also conduct culinary tours, lectures, dinner events and classes. We develop these in the spirit of community service. We offer classes for gratis for groups of 50 people or more.
Some recent events for us were the Slow Food's Feast of the Senses, the Old Town Art Festival -- our busiest weekend of the year, and possibly a piece on National Public Radio. I would love to plan a tour to the Chicago Green Market.
Tell us about two or three of your favorite spice blends and how to use them.
Our favorite recipes use blends. We LOVE our Jamaican Jerk spice blend and the recipe for making a marinade is right on the label. We also love using our blends because they have all the right ingredients and are simple to use especially when you have time constraints to fix a tasty meal. Our Bronzeville Rib Rub is a favorite for baby back ribs, our Lake Shore Drive blend is great for fish and veggies, and our customers love our Quebec beef spice on steaks.
Here is Patty's recipe for using Jamaican Jerk spice.
The Spice House
1941 Central St.
Deepa Sanyal is an urban planner in the process of setting up World Food -- a multi-ethnic food market in Chicago.
June 2003
July 2003
ENGINEER'S RECIPE FOR CHOCOLATE-CHIP COOKIES
DIRECTIONS:
Using a screw extruder attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460°K oven for a period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown. Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25°C heat-transfer table, allowing the product to come to thermal equilibrium.
Note from the editor, a classical chemist by training:
The above recipe for chocolate chip cookies appeared in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN, June 19, 1995, p. 100). It was attributed to Jeannine Ackerman of Witco Corp.
THAT SIDE OF THE OCEAN
Alan Davidson didn't set out to start a culinary journal. Nor did he mean to found a culinary press or inaugurate the premiere global food symposium of the 20th century. In ways, his professional history is as accident-prone and idiosyncratic as the food history he seeks to demystify. The founding editor of the British journal Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC) and prime mover behind the Oxford Food Symposium, Davidson's name has come to signify in food circles what Margaret Mead's does for the world of anthropology. Davidson's recent collection of food writing, The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy, is but a snippet of Davidson's esteemed career as a chronicler of all things gastronomic.
Wilder Shores serves up the best of what PPC published over its ongoing 21-year history. Its introduction details Davidson's unlikely development into one of the revered epicurean intellects of our time. In freeing himself from a diplomatic post to pursue a writing career, Davidson, along with his wife Jane, became involved with Time/Life's Good Cooks series. Alan was to serve as editor and right-hand man to Richard Olney, the creative engine behind the project.
A proviso of Time/Life required that all recipes slated to appear in the series be previously published, a hurdle Olney couldn't clear for a handful of his most vital recipes. So it was that PPC, a kind of journalistic artful dodge, was born. The journal would publish Olney's recipes pseudonymously. Little did the Davidsons know at the time that their culinary ruse, aided by the able hands of Olney, cookbook writer Jane Grigson, and food writer Elizabeth David, would develop a life of its own, one that remains strong after 21 years.
Wilder Shores hits the high notes of those two-plus decades. Divided into seven discrete segments -- Scoops and Distant Beachheads, Culinary History, On Your Plate, Books and Cooks, Exotica, Recipes, and Notes and Queries -- the book can be read episodically or piecemeal, but the frequent referentiality among articles inspires the greatest enjoyment cover to cover.
Scoops and Distant Beachheads heralds the journal's claim as the site of groundbreaking new research in cuisine, allowing for articles to become the locus terminus, or core work, on the subject. Memorable examples include instructions for cooking a full meal on a car engine during an afternoon's drive, and a handful of articles on INTERSPI, an organizational cousin to INTERPOL, but dedicated to unmasking mysterious spices, such as bois de Panama, a sudsy relative of soapwort that is also the central ingredient in one of Lebanon's most extravagant desserts.
Culinary History delivers what its title promises, exploring the back-stories of various cakes, trifles, birds and spices ("The Saracen Connection: Arab Cuisine and the Medieval West" provides a particularly illuminating discussion of saffron). Culinary History as a section title, however, is something of a misnomer, as culinary history underwrites virtually every page of this rich compendium. Perhaps more appropriate would have been Culinary Ancestry, as it is the good work of the food genealogist that is showcased here, a veritable mapping of each item from its present incarnation to its likely point of origin, such as the informative Curry Rice: Gaijin Gold: How the British Version of an Indian Dish Turned Japanese.
On Your Plate is a more overtly gustatory celebration, though not all of it equally appetizing. While "El Arte del Tapeo," "Tuscan Cold-Pressed Olive Oil" and "The Denby Dale Pie" whet the ordinary palate, discussions of skyr (an Icelandic dairy delicacy often fermented in the stomach of a cow) or long-cooked eggs may appeal to more maverick appetites. This section includes a particularly intriguing discussion titled "Snail Trails," which traces the fickle attitude of the French toward their fabled mollusk to shifting presentations of the gastropod in cookbooks.
Books and Cooks is a somewhat self-reflective chapter that examines the contribution of cookbooks to the larger culture. It studies culinary practice in the literary works of Jane Austen and Anton Chekhov and interrogates 18th-century cookery book pioneer Hannah Glasse, who may have pilfered many of her recipes from cookery writers before her. Also showcased here are paeans to cherished food writers Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson and MFK Fisher.
Exotica is an earthy, wince-inducing revelation for both the adventurous and voyeuristic palate. It delights in discovering foods at the very margins of edibility, and as such, may be the most irreverent segment of the anthology. Through vivid descriptions, authors pre-digest rotted barley, viper soup, rattlesnake, worms, cow udder and raw meat from the still twitching hide of the buffalo. The chapter ends somewhat mercifully on a sweet palate-cleanser: a discussion of Japanese tea cakes flavored with the essence of candles.
Recipes offers a multinational sampler plate of the best of PPC, organized in chronological order from the recipe to which PPC owes its origin: Aubergine Gratin, submitted by one Nathan d'Aulnay, the painter (a.k.a. Richard Olney). Recipes are also scattered throughout other sections of the book. Senegalese Chicken Yassa was a particular highlight for this reviewer. Not surprisingly, the recipes are as notable for the loveliness of their voices as for the integrity of their instructions.
Notes and Queries serves as both endpoint and launching pad for audience investigation. Each issue of PPC featured an informal dialogue section, where readers responded to articles or offered sought-after recipes or answers to vexing culinary questions. Editors and authors, as well, could proffer bits of wisdom. From piecrust ornamentation to the peculiar nomenclature of the kaffir ("infidel") lime, this section typifies the multivocality of the journal over its lengthy evolution.
Although distinctly British in tone, Wilder Shores has a decidedly international ambition, covering food practice from every corner of the world with a balance of racial, ethnic and class underpinnings. A discussion of trifles from the world of British privilege keeps company with an examination of the Ugandan scarcity that makes the links between termites and edible mushrooms essential science.
The international scope of this compendium makes a term like "fusion" strike nearly juvenile chords: this book draws, redraws, crosses out, then draws again the global culinary map. The arguably esoteric nature of most of its chapters gathers to an enormity far greater than the sum of its parts. It is a pleasure course for those with even a passing interest in food history, and a must-read for anyone who feels there's nothing new under the culinary sun.
Note: all royalties from the sale of this book go directly to the Sophie Coe Memorial Prize Fund, named for a frequent contributor to PPC and honoring an essay, article, paper or self-contained portion of a book on the subject of food history.
A food writer for the Boston Globe, Denker draws on both anecdotal and scholarly evidence to assemble his bill of fare, a tasty history lesson for folklorists and foodies alike. He visits Greek diners, Cincinnati chili houses, Dominican bodegas, Jewish delis and Arabic bakeries. He guides us on walking tours to Boston's Chinatown along Beach Street, Chicago's Greektown down Halsted Street, Brooklyn's "Little Syria" along Atlantic Avenue, San Francisco's Italian neighborhood of North Beach and the Mexican Plaza district of San Antonio.
Denker's approach departs widely, though, from Alan Davidson's in Wilder Shores. As Denker acknowledges, "Written for a general audience, [this book's] object is not to instruct or analyze. This folk history first and foremost tries to tell the colorful story that unsung ethnics have made to our culture." It is in this position of observer, rather than analyst or interpreter, that Denker delivers the history of the American diet as traced through the immigrant groups that mapped the country's culinary landscape.
At barely 200 pages, the book is an easy read in one sitting, but its seven chapters may be best devoured, one select dalliance at a time. Chapters become neighborhoods unto themselves, marked by the local color that makes up America's, and Denker's, mosaic: Greek, Italian, Middle Eastern, Jewish, Chinese, Latin and Indian/Pakistani.
Denker begins with a gloss on the traditions born in each ethnic group's native geography. He explores the ways these traditions were carried over, much like their distinctive products, from Old World to New: Greeks arrived with buttery confections, Italians with broccoli and tomatoes, Middle Easterners with olive oil, Russian Jews with black bread and herring, Chinese with noodles (steamed or fried), Latins with plantains and chilies, and Indians with curries. Denker visits the rich urban neighborhoods that burgeoned from these ethnic migrations, even touching briefly on the hybrid cultures that emerge from a more global sensibility and economy. In kind, few chapters are complete without discussion of some of the supermarket brand names credited to immigrant families: Goya canned beans, Vita herring, Carvel ice cream, Nathan's hot dogs, Chun King chow mein and Colombo yogurt.
What The World on a Plate serves up, in fact, is as much a history of common brands as a study in cultural anthropology. In essence, the seven chapters of this book tell the quintessential American immigrant story. We learn for example, of the Uddo family, founders of Progresso Foods, who revolutionized the way ethnic foods were organized in supermarkets. Or the Colombosians, a displaced Middle Eastern dairy family who transformed yogurt, a savory Armenian staple, into a sweetened American health food popularized by a series of television commercials. Read as such, this is a life-affirming story of the American dream, a kind of bootstrap narrative of hard work and ingenuity resulting in financial success. It is also, however, only part of the story.
One can't help but wonder over the omission of various "unsung ethnics" from Denker's field of vision. What about the Korean, Thai, Cajun, Creole, African, Vietnamese, Japanese, Scandinavian and Native American influences, to name but a few? Are they absent because they were less likely to form discrete urban neighborhoods and marketplaces? Is it because they lack the common association with household brands that Denker tends to showcase? Of course it can be argued that every study is -- by necessity -- a process of selection, that no single history is comprehensive. But given the relative brevity of the book and Denker's lively, engaging prose style, we would have gladly followed him to other neighborhoods in pursuit of increased depth of flavor.
Despite these gaps, the communities that populate these pages make for memorable excursions, not unlike a weekend trek to Chinatown or after-dinner espresso at a Greek kaffenia. Particularly absorbing is the development of Indian cooking in America from a strict Muslim omnivorism to an amalgam of Moghul meat preparations, Bengali Hindu vegetarian fare, Bangladeshi curry dishes and Pakistani kebab traditions. These are certainly tales worth telling, and Denker tells them well.
Although culinary scholars may find the world on this plate a bit wanting, those approaching the subject of food history for the first time will find Denker's a fascinating exploration of our American culinary climes. In this engaging choice for summer reading, Denker provides a passport to the American culinary melting pot and a valuable starting point for further exploration.
First, Dr. Bruce Kraig hurt himself and was unable to participate and then, we were concerned that we wouldn't get our tickets on time. But, as things usually happen, the pieces all fell into place, and five of us headed off to tour southern India.
Chennai was our port of entry. I stepped outside the airport, took a deep breath of the warm, fragrant air, and looked around. Instantly I knew that I was going to fall in love with India, and that two weeks wouldn't be enough time. Our surroundings were enticingly exotic and beautiful beyond imagination. Every place around us bustled -- crowded, and full of life. Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is in the state of "Tamil Nadu," which in Tamil -- the local language -- means "the Land of the Tamils." Chennai, the oldest city in India and the fourth largest, has a population of 10 million.
As we headed off on our first afternoon tour, I noted that they drive on the left -- a vestige of British rule. On the first afternoon, we focused primarily on the foreigners who had come to India. We toured Fort George, former seat of British government in this region. In the fascinating museum there, I learned, among other things, that Elihu Yale, for whom Yale University is named, was governor of Chennai in 1687-1692. Small world.
We drove through the Portuguese part of town, with the Bay of Bengal on our left. We headed to St. Thomas Cathedral, the oldest church in India and said to be the burial site of St. Thomas. St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, reportedly landed in Kerala in 52 A.D. and taught in Chennai for 20 years.
The afternoon included several other sights and a stop for shopping. We had just arrived at noon, after nearly 20 hours of flying, and we didn't push ourselves. Simply driving through town was a pleasure. The markets, motorcycles, trishaws, cows, cars, people, shops, universities and temples around us were delightful, and our guide was a fountain of entertaining information. We learned that Chennai's major industries were leather, run by Muslims and tolerated by Hindus, and films. Bombay or Bollywood produced films in Hindi while Chennai aka Chollywood produced films in Tamil, Malayalam and a dozen other South Indian languages.
Our hotel, the Taj Connemara, was a splendid place (if it's good enough for Queen Elizabeth, it's good enough for me). After a short nap, we headed down to the hotel's glorious main restaurant -- The Rain Tree. The tables were set outdoors beneath massive, spreading rain trees. The evening breeze brought us the fragrance of the jasmine and frangipani growing nearby. Women sat on a platform near the entrance, making hand-made breads, while dancers and musicians performed nearby. We were enchanted. What made it even better was a demonstration by the head chef of how many of the local dishes were prepared. We saw an amazing dish made from huge shrimp (prawns in India, as in Britain) that were tossed in lime juice, salt and chilli paste, and then rolled in a blend of about a dozen ground spices and deep fried. Wow, was that ever sensational!
After a tour of the kitchen, we were shown to our table, and we had the opportunity to avail ourselves of a splendid buffet. The food was beyond amazing. Personal favorites (among dozens of dishes) included lamb in basil and cilantro sauce, roasted spiced quail, spiced greens, bread rice, kohlrabi in a cream sauce dotted with black mustard seeds, and pineapple tossed with chilli and cilantro.
Tamil Nadu is known as the "Temple State." Day two saw us heading off to Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram -- with some of the area's numerous magnificent Hindu temples. We saw tall towers covered with images of Hindu deities and which, opened up into halls of pillars, pools and sacred images. The ancient stones felt damp and cool to our bare feet. We were required to leave our shoes at the door. We were awed and delighted with the antiquity (one temple we visited dates to the 7th century, another to the 9th century), the beauty, and the immensity of the temples.
We next stopped to learn about Kanchipuram's main industry -- silk -- more than 80 percent of the town's population was involved. In a local silk factory, we watched skilled artisans hand-weave spectacular silks in iridescent colors, most with intricate gold borders. Everything was just gorgeous. This led quite naturally to our doing our best to support the town's silk industry. All five of us found much to buy, from ready-made shirts, scarves, shawls and pillowcases to custom-made clothes. All our special-order items were dutifully delivered to our hotel that night, by an earnest young man who made sure that each of us had exactly what we expected.
After lunch, we were off to see more temples. The temples we saw now were particularly interesting because they represented the progression of temple making in this region. We saw temples that were carved into caves, carved out of giant monoliths, and built out of quarried stone. The artwork was splendid, and some of the bas-relief images of animals were life-sized.
On day three, we flew to Cochin in Kerala -- our next stop. Kerala is India's "Spice State" and accounts for about 80 percent of India's spice exports. Among the most beautiful places in the world, the state has the highest literacy rate in India -- almost 100 percent -- and a long history of multiculturalism. It was the destination of traders for 3,000 years to procure the fabulous spices that made India the destination of so many explorers. Kerala is the point of origin of pepper, cloves, cardamom and ginger.
What we saw and experienced in Kerala would take pages to describe, so I shall stick to some of the highlights. We enjoyed an elaborate meal in a private home and were delighted to see family members' wedding albums. We saw a cooking demonstration of Kerala cuisine at the splendid Coconut Lagoon, a resort built among waterways, palm trees, flowers and butterflies. We stayed in traditional Kerala teak houses. We plied the famous "backwaters" of Kerala in a handsome wood and bamboo houseboat and witnessed firsthand the lives of local families, farmers and fishermen, as they tended their nets, washed clothes or pots, or walked past the impossibly lush rice paddies. When we stopped to watch a local ceremony, complete with richly caparisoned elephant and a path outlined by small fires, we were welcomed and even guided to the best spots for viewing. Before seeing a performance of Kathakali, Kerala's religious dance/theater, we watched the actors apply their complex make-up. We perused palaces, including the Hill Palace with its fascinating collection of royal jewels, Western paintings, ornate palanquins, Roman coins and antique weapons.
One of our favorite days in Kerala was the day we headed north to Trichur. The transit was lovely through small towns past plantations of rubber trees and banana plants, across bridges spanning winding rivers lined and overhung with greenery. Our guide, Unni Krishna, had promised to take us to a local market and he made good on that promise in Trichur. We stopped at an extensive and opulently stocked produce market. As we got out of the van and began to make our way across the wide, busy street, people were friendly and smiling, but looked startled. Within minutes, news of our presence had spread through the market. As we turned a corner, a hundred or more men, let loose a thunderously joyous cheer.
On two other occasions in the market, upon turning corners, a roar of welcome greeted our appearance. Men and boys waved, grinned, beckoned, and tidied up produce to look good for photos. They carried out their largest jackfruit or best peppers, laughed, chatted, and introduced themselves. They pointed out good images to photograph, and posed near their stalls. We photographed mountains of bananas, grapes, apples, chillies, shallots, gourds, eggplants, potatoes and ginger. When we finally tore ourselves away from this wonderful place, Unni Krishna explained that tourists almost never come north of Cochin, so our presence would be an exceedingly rare, if not unique, event for the people at the market. I can honestly say that it was unique for me, too. What a welcome!
Across town, at the Siddhartha Hotel, another treat awaited us. We were in Trichur to experience a sadya, a traditional Keralan feast. This is so traditional that, not only are the types of foods and number of dishes well established, but dishes also have specific places they are to be set down on the traditional banana leaf used as a plate. Three cordial chefs demonstrated the preparation of more than a dozen dishes, many of them utilizing vegetables we had just seen for the first time in the market place (snake gourd, ash gourd, drum stick), as well as prodigious amounts of spice and coconut milk. Coconut milk and coconut oil are two of the defining elements of Keralan cooking.
Sigh! It was time to leave Kerala. We headed back to the splendid, new airport which, despite the marble and glass, still offers such charmingly anachronistic touches as waiting rooms furnished with wood and upholstery armchairs, all with embroidered antimacassars, and jetted off to Bangalore in the State of Karnataka . . . stay tuned for more from wonderful details about Bangalore and Goa.
2113 Sanborn Circle, Plainfield, IL 60544
Phone: 815-439-3960; Fax: 815-254-9483
E-mail: saridgeway0622@yahoo.com
An interview by Deepa Sanyal
Before grilling, rub heavily over chicken, pork or fish.
Or make an authentic marinade mixing:5 Tbs spice
Pour over 4 large pieces of chicken and marinade overnight. Grill and enjoy!
4 Tbs vinegar
2 Tbs olive oil
4 Tbs orange juice
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs lime juice
1512 N. Wells St.
(In Old Town)
Chicago, IL 60610
312 274 0378
www.thespicehouse.com
Evanston, IL 60201
847 328 3711
847 328 3631 fax
The April issue of Chicago Tribune Magazine featured our CHCer Aggie Nehmzow. Aggie Nehmzow's therapeutic crusade for heirloom tomatoes.
William Rice. Chicago Tribune. April 27.
The American Society of Business Publication Editors presented CHCer Diane Toops with a Midwest Editorial Award for her regular column "Toops Scoops" revealing new product and food trends in Food Processing Magazine.
Hot dog historian and CHC President Bruce Kraig, Ph.D., retired professor emeritus at Roosevelt University, was flown to Coney Island to educate the 4th of July visitors and Nightline TV viewers everywhere on the history of the wiener.
This was passed on to me from a friend, who got it from a friend, who got it from various friends over time. So, I'm clueless as to where it came from. Enjoy!
From Catherine Lambrecht
1.) 532.35 cm3 gluten
2.) 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
3.) 4.9 cm3 refined halite
4.) 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride
5.) 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H222O11
6.) 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H222O11
7.) 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
8.) 2 calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein
9.) 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao
10.) 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)
To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two and three with constant agitation. In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at 100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six and seven until the mixture is homogenous. To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of the homogenous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredients nine and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of an exothermic reaction.
By Christy Prahl
The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy: Twenty Years of Food Writing (Ten Speed Press, December 2002), edited by Alan Davidson with Helen Saberi
The World on a Plate (Westview Press, June 2003), by Joel Denker
A two-part travelogue by Cynthia Clampitt