January 2007

HONEY

Original publication date: September 8, 2006

My husband and I kept bees for two years. Everything bad that could happen to bees happened to ours, with the exception of a raid by bears. Our hive was where the souls of bad bees went when they died. Our hive was what mama bees threatened their little bees with to make them behave. We finally gave our now-empty hive away. A few months later, a storm took down a tree, which fell directly across the placed where our hive had been. We still love bees, and we still love fresh honey. Honey has always symbolized sweetness of every kind. Wild honey has been gathered for as long as 5,000 years everywhere in the world that honey-bees exist. Honey has been used in sacred rituals and it and the fermented drink made from it, mead, were food and drink for the gods. Jungian psychology associates dreams of honey with the goal of attainment of emotional maturity. Medieval physicians used honey as a balm for wounds and it is still used medicinally today. Eating honey from the area in which one lives is said to build one’s immunity to the pollens in the area. It is also downright delicious!

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February 2007

FISH KNIVES

Original publication date: September 14, 2006

At some point in my life, I acquired an odd-looking implement that I thought was a butter knife, to be used to transport butter from the butter dish to individual plates. In perusing MISS MANNERS’ GUIDE TO EXCRUCIATINGLY CORRECT BEHAVIOR, I find that the object in question is, in fact, a fish knife. It was invented, as were so many bizarre objects and customs, during the Victorian period. It’s used to slit open the side of a fish served whole; the skin on either side of the slit is then folded back and the meat is lifted away from the bones and eaten. Miss Manners tells us that social climbers were advised not to use their fish knives, in the hope that visitors would believe the climbers had had the family silver since before Victoria. Heaven only knows what my visitors think, when they find a fish knife sticking out of the butter. It’s very handy for that purpose.

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March 2007

HOBO FOOD

Original publication date: September 29, 2006

My youngest daughter tells me she loves canned beef stew and anything cooked over a campfire. She must have inherited that from her great-grandfather, who rode the rails looking for work during the USA’s Great Depression. The hobo came into being with the railway– Webster’s Dictionary thinks the name may have come from “ho, boy!”, a railyard man’s shout. From before the American Civil War, men (and women and children) hitched rides on top of, underneath, or in freight cars of trains. In the “hobo jungles” or camps, they cooked over open fires using improvised gear: spits made out of sticks, soup kettles made out of tin cans or lard buckets or steel barrels, ovens and skillets made out of scrap metal. A favorite dish in the 30s was Mulligan Stew, made from whatever odds and ends of food the hobos in camp that day had managed to bring in. So I guess that’s where my daughter gets it. And no, her name is not Mulligan.

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April 2007

FAST FOOD

Original publication date: October 11, 2006

In Ancient Rome, where fuel was expensive, fire was a danger, and space was at a premium, tenement dwellers bought food from cookshops and took it home or ate it on the street. Even then, the cookshop wasn’t new — it was known in Mesopotamia in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, according to food historian Reay Tannahill. In London, by the late 1100s, it was possible to buy milk from someone else’s cow, bread from someone else’s oven and cooked meat from someone else’s kitchen. In the 1200s, Marco Polo found that everyone in China’s Hangzhou, from the poor to the rich, patronized cookshops or restaurants, where they could eat foods beyond their capacities to produce at home. In Europe and the USA, it was generally the traveler and the working poor — men, women and children who all worked full days and couldn’t afford the luxury of fuel and time for cooking — who patronized the chop shop, the fish-and-chips vendor and other food stalls. Say, do you know the muffin man?

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May 2007

MEDIEVAL RECIPES

Original publication date: February 16, 2007

Medieval cookbooks were not intended for the amateur, but for experienced cooks or for those under the guidance of experienced cooks. Details like whether to use salted or fresh meat, how much of anything to use, how long to cook something, or how to prepare the ingredients were left out, since the people using the recipes would either know those things or be able to ask someone who knew. Instructions tend to say things like, “boil a good piece of beef as tender as you may”, “chop it as small as you will”, “boil it well until it is done”, “strew it with sugar and spices enough”, “salt it just right”, and “when it be done, take and serve it forth.” Everyone I know who cooks a lot does the same thing. Ask for a recipe, and they either say, “…Recipe?” or they give one and then give so many possible variations you see the recipe as no more than a basic idea. So forget the details; cook it as you will and serve it forth.

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June 2007

HORSERADISH

Original publication date: March 9, 2007

My mother loves horseradish. I loathe the taste, though I must admit it’s a very pretty plant to look at, with broad leaves, long stalks and little white flowers. Horseradish has been used in medicine and cooking for over 3,000 years. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks valued it, mostly for its medicinal uses, the Delphic Oracle having claimed it was worth its weight in gold. Culinary appreciation (if any) of horseradish seems to have originated in Central Europe. By the late 1600’s, it was standard accompaniment in England to oysters and roast beef. The Germans call it “meerrettich” (sea radish) because it grows by the sea. Some think the English mispronounced this as “mare radish”, which then became “horse radish”. Others think it came to be called “horse radish” to distinguish it from the more delicate table radish. I loathe table radishes, as well. In fact, I never met a radish I liked. Ick. Researchers at MIT claim that horseradish contains an enzyme capable of removing some pollutants from waste water. I’m not surprised.

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July 2007

BLUEBERRIES

Original publication date: April 26, 2007

I got an email from a local you-pick-it farm, telling me they’ve lost their entire blueberry crop this year because of the early warm spell followed by a hard freeze. I was sorry to hear that, as my husband is extremely partial to blueberries, and I’m very fond of them in blueberry muffins and pancakes. When he goes to the you-pick-it place, he says they should weigh him when he goes in and when he comes out, and charge him for the difference. Blueberries are native to the USA, though they’ve been transplanted to Europe. Some people complain that cultivated blueberries are inferior to wild ones because the cultivated ones are sweet–like that’s a bad thing! There are many varieties of cultivated blueberries, though, ranging from meltingly sweet to pucker-tart. Waverley Root, author of FOOD, says that “Alaskan red-backed voles are so partial to this fruit that most of them have blue teeth during the berry season.” That’s something I’d like to see.

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August 2007

HARES

Original publication date: April 30, 2007A HAPPY DAY FOR HARES

Ah, these are proud days for rabbits and hares! Two fellow Recitopians have emailed to tell me that rabbits and hares are no longer considered rodents, but have been promoted to the order of Lagomorphs. I don’t know if members of the order get to wear ribbons and medals on special occasions, but I like to think they do. Hare bones in prehistoric kitchen middens show the hare to have been eaten all over the world, including New England, Russia, Africa and Rome. The Romans thought eating hare seven days in a row would cure ugliness. The Greeks thought it would cure insomnia. The English thought it would cure melancholy. Unlike rabbits, hares haven’t been domesticated. Perhaps it is for this reason that wild hare, as a meat, is held in higher regard by some gourmands than hutch-raised rabbit. My mother is quite fond of the occasional dish of “sweet little bunny”, though we haven’t had it since the kids got rabbits for pets. As Lewis Carroll said in ALICE IN WONDERLAND, you can’t eat anything you’ve been introduced to!

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September 2007

RABBIT

Original publication date: May 17, 2007

Rabbits, as we all know, are lagomorphs, a family which includes hares and pikas. Although hare is regarded as a dish fit for royalty, rabbit has traditionally been considered lower-class fare. Rabbit can be hunted, snared or bred in captivity. Sometimes hunters sneak up behind them and whap them on the head, which is where the term “rabbit punch” comes from. Rabbit meat tends to be milder and more tender than that of hares. Rabbit milk is said to be high in protein, but I don’t believe I could milk enough rabbits to make it worth my while. Personal experience assures me that the Wikipedia assertion, “Rabbits are very good producers of manure”, is, if anything, an understatement, but I have no way of verifying the claim that rabbit urine increases the productivity of lemon trees due to its high nitrogen content. Rabbits, the same entry says, are unable to regurgitate, a fact which might turn out to be useful sometime, under a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances.

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October 2007

BUSH TEA

Original publication date: June 20, 2007

This was my new food for June. My mother and I just read the latest book by Alexander McCall Smith about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, THE GOOD HUSBAND OF ZEBRA DRIVE; the lead detective, Mma Precious Ramotswe of Botswana, drinks it, and now we drink it, too. Bush Tea, Red Bush Tea, Red Tea or Rooibos (ROY-boss) are all the same thing, and it isn’t actually tea. It’s a tisane or infusion made from red bush leaves, found only in South Africa. It’s an herb, and naturally caffeine-free. It’s also low in tannins and high in anti-oxidants, so it’s smooth and mellow and good for you. It can be drunk straight, or with milk or lemon. Some people add vanilla. Although it’s naturally sweet, some people add honey, which makes it honeybush tea. The kind I had came flavored with honey and vanilla, and it was delicious and rich and mild. Some suppliers are also fair trade partners, giving back to the people and animals of Africa, so it not only tastes good, it feels good, as well.

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November 2007

LEMON

Original publication date: September 24, 2007

This spring, I had a lemon as sweet as an orange. I bought it at a little shop; I only bought one and, just like in a fairy tale, the shop was gone when I went back for more of the marvelous fruit. Such is life. Lemons may have originated in the Indus Valley, though they prefer high humidity and low rainfall, as you find in Sicily and southern California. Lemon is a citrus fruit that doesn’t breed true from seed, but must be cultivated by budding the desired variety on rootstock. Because it must be cultivated, some botanists suspect it’s a hybrid–a variety of citron. Lemon juice is the most acidic food in the kitchen, even stronger than vinegar. The acid makes it tart, sharp or sour, and that makes it a good contrast to oily or fat foods or to the sweetness of honey or sugar. That sweet lemon I had made the best lemon pie I ever put in my mouth. If I’m ever granted three wishes, I think I’ll wish for three of those lemons.

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December 2007

FRENCH VANILLA

Original publication date: October 26, 2007

Somewhere, at age four, my youngest daughter got hold of the term “French vanilla” and I can remember her peering up at the counter man at the ice cream store and demanding to know if his vanilla was French vanilla. I can remember giving him a big nod behind her back and his assuring her that his vanilla was, indeed, French. What she didn’t know is that “French vanilla” doesn’t refer to a type of vanilla bean, a type of extract or a flavor, but to the French method of making ice cream, using a custard base of cream and egg yolks and vanilla pods. The result is rich and intensely vanilla, but many “French vanilla” ice creams are just extra-strong vanilla with vanilla grains included. “French vanilla” coffee is just vanilla, sometimes paired with another flavor to give that impression of the richness of true French vanilla ice cream. So I fooled my child, and yet I didn’t: She took a lick of her cone and said, “I’ve had better.”