Food History

Horseradish (cochlearia armoracia or armorsacia lapathifolia) is a fabulously pungent root. It really intrigues me that the sixteenth century German use of this root was very similar to the modern Askenazi Jewish use (as a vinegared relish with meats and fish), especially given that the roots of Yiddish are mostly the German of that period.

Eat the root grated very finely with vinegar and perhaps a bit of beetroot. The easy way to make chrain (the relish) is with the liquid from a tin of beetroot and lots of grated horseradish. I guess there is a proper way to make it, but I always do it the easy way. I’m told it goes well with gefilte fish - I know it goes magically with most roasts and most vegetables. it’s also good for clearing the sinuses.

When I was exploring the horseradish web I found a commercial site with rather a good description of making kosher chrain for Passover. It’s worth reading round the ads for the guts of it: kashruth isn’t nearly as complicated as it looks, and neither is horseradish.

The history of horseradish is complicated, however. I’ve seen mentions of it quoted by Pliny and by the Deplhic Oracle, but no-one ever gives the exact source, so I can’t check it out.

In recent centuries horseradish has become the bitter herb of choice for many Passover seders, replacing classics such as rue. This I can check out, and I do, every year at Passover.

Yesterday I cooked my grandmother’s macaroni cheese recipe. I cooked it again today, but with a slight difference.

The first time I stuck firmly to her recipe. It was tasty and filling and exactly what I needed on a cold and tired day.

The second time I changed the proportions. Normally this means adapting a recipe to modern taste, but I was curious to see what would happen if I adapted it to the taste of Jane Austen’s circles instead.

The flavour was better yesterday, which makes sense. This was the precise macaroni cheese of my childhood, after all, and my tastebuds probably remember it better than any other macaroni cheese in the known universe.

The adapted recipe was far more filling. I still feel stuffed, three hours after dinner. It’s amazing the difference a little more mustard and butter makes to the space food takes up in my stomach.

And that’s it. My great culinary history experiment for the week. The only other culinary history activity I’ve done all week is introduce an historical fiction writer to a few spices that were well-known in the Middle Ages. I bought some zedoary for myself at the same time.

PS Please excuse the picture - it’s midwinter and I needed something cheery.

food history, macaroni cheese, macaroni and cheese, zedoary, food of Jane Austen

I’ve borrowed Llyn’s computer to let you know what a perfectly foodie weekend I have had. Tomorrow I’ll be home and Tuesday I’ll launch the competition, but today my friends and I have visited Newtown and various shops (lunch was Turkish bread with baba ganush, carrot dip, chummous and tea) and two major cemeteries and at least one significant church. The ‘at least’ refers to the fact that we only went inside one church. I’ll post about our graveyard visit (and how to see ghosts in Newtown) on my my other blog tomorrow. Tonight I want to tell you about yesterday.

Sydney is full of suburban strips of shops. This is where you can find the most fascinating little places for food. Yesterday, for instance, we dropped into a number of places in Rozelle and Five Dock. Our excursion included two gourmet chocolate shops, a patisserie, an Italian supermarket and Herbie’s. Herbie’s is one of Australia’s best herb and spice specialist shops, run by the inimitable Ian Hemphill. Llyn gave me a belated birthday present of Ian’s book (about which I might have to blog someday) and Ian himself has promised to be interviewed for us. That will probably happen later in July. Ian and I chatted about all sorts of things, from Roman tastebuds to how to spice early nineteenth century dishes correctly.

We ate those heritage carrots for dinner. The white carrot has a higher sugar content than the coloured ones, but is rather bland. The purple one sliced to orange and tasted like the orange ones ie deliciously carrotty. Llyn and I think that if we ever obtain white carrots again, we might try them caramelised and make use of that sugar.

I have carefully packed samples from the chocolate shop and my wonderful new book. With them I packed new memories of the harbour and the bridges, of old tombs and perfect Gothic arches, and of lots of happy moments with friends who are equally food-addicted. I didn’t pack the sickle that we bought at Rozelle markets - it won’t fit in my backpack. I learned how to use it, though, and we’ll find a way to get it to Canberra soon, I hope.

Now you know why my blog entries have been short for a couple of days. I wrote them in advance and posted them on time-delay. I’m back to real life now, though, and life is about to get rather exciting, with interview and competition and all that chocolate and book in my backpack.

Native mint is a prostanthera, and not a mint at all.

It’s another of my favourite Australian native plants. My favourite variety smells and tastes like a mint that has had a faint overdose of Australia, gum nutty and fragrant. It makes a delicious herb tea, especially when added to the “realâ€? mints, and can be substituted for mint in most recipes. It can grow as everything from a ground plant to a tree, but its flowers always look purple and mint-like and its smell is always menthol.

I am told that not all varieties are equally edible, so use a bit of discretion in sampling.

Today, an article from the Washington Post that summarises an article from Science about a Smithsonian study. It appears that chili pepper has been in use or over 6,000 years. Not just used, but probably domesticated. This is seriously cool stuff - check it out.

Lime is a totally classic and totally classy ingredient. Forget margaritas (or give your margaritas to me and I will drink them for you), lime is much more than an element in a popular mixed drink.

Lime is really citrus aurantifolia: - the leaf is brilliant in the food of many countries, especially South East Asian. I don’t think this is the same plant as the European linden (tilia spp) which produces limeflowers.

Lime juice is particularly important in Australian history. The “lime juice tub� was any ship bound for Australia during a certain period, named after the use of lime juice against scurvy in the British Navy.

Apart from being good against scurvy, and in mixed drinks, a squeeze of lime juice is a useful addition to a lot of dishes, both sweet and savoury.

[tags]food history, lime, ingredients[\tags]

Today I feel you need to meet one of my favourite spices for cooking with game and other strongly flavoured meat. Juniper (juniperus communis) - German wacholder, French ginèvre, Italian ginepro - the spice used in gin.

Gin and tonic may be a fashionable cocktail today, but gin was the despair of the alcoholic classes in England (cheap, strong and readily available) during the industrial revolution. This notwithstanding, gin makes a good base for liqueured fruit.

It’s also got a far longer history than gin and tonic suggests. The plant is native to Europe and Asia and is still wild-harvested in some countries, mostly Nordic.

You can find some rather nice pictures and more information here.

food history, ingredients, juniper

Today’s herb is one I’ve mentioned elsewhere. It has a long prehistory - having been used well before Europeans discovered Australia - but a rather recent history. It’s one of my favoruite herbs of all time, and I suspect it will appear in other posts: you can never have too much lemon myrtle.

Lemon myrtle (backhousia citriodora) has nothing to do with lemon botanically. It’s an Australian evergreen tropical tree. Its leaves have one of the best lemon fragrances you can find, and makes a wonderful herbal tea (a couple of leaves in a cup with boiling water, and Bob’s your uncle, which is interesting, because I don’t have an Uncle Bob), it also adds a delightful scent to soups, stews and anything else where lemon is good. Its advantage over lemon grass is that the scent is closer to lemon, as is the taste, and its advantage over lemon is that it does not seem to be at all acidic.

food history, lemon myrtle, ingredients

Today is an ingredients post. It’s been too long since I’ve done one of these, so I’m making up for it with the number of ingredients covered in one simple idea.

Think mixed spices.

For as long as there has been cooking and people have had spices to mix, I rather suspect cooks have mixed spices to achieve the best possible end result. In the Middle Ages you could buy poudre fort, or poudre douce, or even poudre marchant. Poudre marchant wasn’t powdered salesperson; it was the spiceseller’s own blend - think of all the current purveyors of fine food who tell us about their secret herbs and spices: there’s nothing new under the sun.

Also not new is the thought that the spelling of the name of a spice mix varies according to what language it appears in. To me, the names of spice mixes are the equivalent of Elizabethan spelling: a source of endless charm and ocasional logic. (Actually, there is a logic in the names - but I’m too lazy to explain vowel and consonant shift in words borrowed from other languages.)

Anyhow, here’s my home list of spice mixes that are called ‘five’. It isn’t everything in the world. In fact, it isn’t nearly everything. It’s the mixes I came across during a year-long period when it entertained me to write them down - almost all of them are straight from the kitchens of various friends. If generous souls give me more recipes, I will add to the list and resissue it some day.

1. Panch phorum - Indian Five Spice Powder -a standard mix will often include cumin seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, nigella seeds, and fenugreek seeds.
2. Chinese lo sueh liew - ginger, anise, cinnamon, coriander etc - I don’t remember what etc was, but this spice mix is great in a winter stew.
3. Yemenite. This mix goes very nicely with vegies: - grind all spices before measuring. 2 tbs cardamom, 5 tbs cumin, 5 tsp black pepper, 3 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp coriander.
4. “English” mixed spices (for cakes rather than curries) - Australians buy these from a packet, so I lack a recipe (alas).
5. Spice mix for punch (as opposed to panch phorum): cinnamon, allspice, several cloves, the merest trace of ginger, a skerrick of nutmeg.
6. Sri Lankan curry powder - not 5 spices, but one of the most versatile powders round - I really need to do a special post on this one day, so I’ll leave your need for a recipe unfulfilled.
7. Bulgarian - chili, mustard, coriander, savory and marjoram.
8. This one is really six herb powder “herbes de Provence� - rosemary, marjoram, savory, sage, thyme and oregano
9. An Iraqi version (which has a lot more than five spices) has allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, ginger and rose petals in about the following ratios (I feel arithmetical): 32:8:8:8:1:1:1:1.

Panch Phorum slow-cooked with cabbage

An Indian friend and I invented this when I had to keep salt intake low and was missing pickles. It tastes a lot like sauerkraut.

Chop a white cabbage finely. Add 15 g (you can change the quantities to taste) panch phorum. Cook in a slow cooker until it’s soft and sauerkrauty.

ingredients, food history, spice powder, mixed spices, five spice

One thing that comes up whenever I play with historical recipes is the different scents we like to give our food. Orange blossom was quite popular in the 1810s and lemon essence was a staple in Melbourne cupboards in the 1960s.

One day I will do a lengthy post on the difference between essences and oils and waters and spirits and cordials and other products made from an important base ingredient. In the interim, let me titillate your palate with a very brief introduction to lemon eseence.

Technically, lemon essence is the oil extracted from lemon peel. It’s also known as lemon oil. There is a cold pressed variety and a hot pressed variety - go for cold pressed if you can find it.

Lemon peel contains an extraordinary amount of essential oil. In fact, most citrus fruits do. Most ‘essences’ have been extracted with alcohol or using other techniques - the best lemon essence is simply pressed from the fresh peel.

Lemon peel has been used as an ingredient for as long as lemons have been known. Lemon oil can substitute for peel in dishes where you only want the fragrance. If you need the pectin, however (eg in marmalades) then the oil will not work.

If you need a non-acid form of lemon fragrance, then lemon myrtle is your baby. It’s the most perfect lemon scent nature produces (in my unbiased opinion) and is almost completely acid free. I use far less lemon essence than I used to and lemon myrtle is to blame.

Today and all this week I’ve been preparing for Passover, so naturally my mind has turned to food poisoning rather than to food proper. This is because of the curious and interesting results of going through one’s cupboards and refrigerator and freezer.

One day I might do a post on poison in food, but today I was thinking more about what happens when one doesn’t clean out cupboards and scrub pots and pans.

There was a rather good incident (retrospectively good, not pleasant at the time) at a Melbourne Cup carnival (in Canberra, Australia: centre of the known universe) for five hundred or so people a few years back. The head of a particular government department decided that we all would take too much time off if we had Melbourne Cup functions in each workplace, so he gave us permission for a two hour lunch (on flextime) as long as we were back at work for 2 pm. Then we could have exactly the time it took to watch the race (4 minutes?) and the rest of the afternoon was not to be spent in the usual drinks and silly hat competitions. You can still hear the echoes of groans resulting from his office-wide memo on the subject.

What happened? One of the stalls he so carefully approved gave most of us food poisoning. Instead of losing a bunch of us to drink for a few hours, he lost half the Department for nearly two days. And the area most hit? Australia’s Quarantine Inspection Service. I love this anecdote - I put it in a novel and the novel has been accepted by a publisher, so watch this space.

One type of food poisoning that is entirely fictional, rather than made into fiction, is the reason for people in the Middle Ages eating many varieties of spices.

People ask me, time after time after time:

“Was the meat all rotten in the Middle Ages? Did they only use spices to hide the flavour so they didn’t starve to death from lack of food?”

Interesting thought. On a whole bunch of levels that’s an interesting thought.

Firstly, if people could’t afford fresh meat, why would they spend the money they didn’t have on spices that cost many times the price of fresh meat?

Secondly, do you yourself open your cupboard or fridge and see something that’s foul and say “Mm, smells rotting. Foulness prevails. Ick. Must have it for dinner. Let’s just sprinkle some ginger on it first.”

No? The thought of stomach cramps and a visit to the hospital don’t appeal to you? You don’t like the thought of dysentery and all those other delightful side effects of food far beyond its eat-by date?

If you can’t stomach that food, why, then, would it have appealed to your ancestors? The side effects of food poisoning from rancid meat haven’t changed over the years and then - as now- it would only be appealing if there genuinely were no other food.

Which brings me to “Thirdly”. The population of Europe grew steadily and significantly until the fourteenth century. This means that mass starvation wasn’t nearly as common as some people seem to think (why can’t peasants be well-fed? why is there always someone in a room who assumes that they’re always starving?).

Look at demographics. Another firstly, once the meat animals are gone in a starvation situation, they’re gone, so too much starvation doesn’t explain the regular use of spices either. And we know that this wasn’t so - there was enough meat to supply more and more hamlets and villages and towns and cities, so the meat supply wasn’t impossibly erratic nor non-existent. Not that either would explain the regular hiding of rottenness with spices - only stupidity explains that, but let me continue arguing because obviously I’m in a mean mood and need to argue.

If you look at the Middle Ages you can see that increased population, you can see some cool improvements in ploughing, in field systems and in food distribution. So if things were better, why would rotten meat be a standard part of the diet? Pickled meat, yes. Putrid meat, no.

The truth about spices in the Middle Ages is that they helped preserve some dishes, but mostly they seem to have been used to make dishes more yummy. Like … you know … the reasons we use spices. Sometimes we make chutnies and pickles, but mostly we sprinkle pepper onto something or weave paprika through a goulash because we like the flavour.

Preservation is a good and flavouring is good - but hiding the inedible is really, really odd. I do wonder when folks assume their ancestors had no tastebuds and no common sense and not much intelligence what that says about the person who thinks such things, since - after all - they have received certain genes from these zombie-like ancestors.

And I think I’d better sign off before I get way too snarky for my own good. I think I need chocolate. Cinnamon chocolate perhaps, lest the chocolate itself be putrid and decaying.

I’ve talked in other posts of other places to buy herbs and spices online, but today I received a little parcel from Herbie’s. They only had a third of my dream list of hard-to-get stuff, but they got me my herbs and spices incredibly quickly and the quality is just gorgeous. I keep picking up my packets of chilli and admiring the gorgeousness of their content.

I have grains of paradise and file powder, long pepper and cinnamon leaf. I have Eucalyptus Olida, Mexican chocolate and three different types of chilli. And I have my favourite spice of all: cubebs. Expect posts on all these as I revisit them with my class and elsewhere later in the year.

Today’s ingredient is sumac berries. There are various types of sumac. Some are more poisonous than others. The ones that are most readily available are the poisonous North American one (rhus vernix) and the fruit used in Middle Eastern cooking (rhus coriara). Some people call the latter “Lebanese thymusâ€?. It has a lovely tart and slightly sour flavour and is useful in a wide range of dishes. In languages ranging from English to Hebrew, it’s known as ’sumac’. If you want the technical specifications for poisonous sumac or more about the origins of the plant, check here.

Edible sumac has a nice long history. I suspect that nice long history takes it as far back as Ancient Egypt, but I still have to explore it a bit. There are some mentions of it imported into Europe during the Middle Ages, but evidence of how it was used is much harder to discover.

A very easy salad is tomatoes, lots of parsley, olive oil, lemon juice and lots of sumac. I also add a generous amount to meat patties.

Coriander (coriandrum sativum) is cilantro or Chinese parsley in US English if you’re talking about the leaf, and coriander if you’re talking about the seed. In Telugu it’s dhaniya and in Hindi it’s dhaniya. In French it’s coriandre.

Never leave home without it. It’s a key herb in several culinary traditions and appears as a less crucial part in a range of others.

It has a very long and exceedingly distinguished culinary history. It was used in Ancient Egypt (my theory is that even Moses ate the stuff) which is reassuring for those who do not like the distinctive scent. It can add sparkle to a salad, or savour to a stew.

The root is also good to cook with. One of my favourite coriander root recipes is Thai.

Chicken party snacks

Grind coriander root with garlic and chicken and perhaps some salt (all quantities to taste). Spread the paste on small squares of toast. Heat some vegetable oil and fry the squares face down until they are crisp.

Today’s ingredient is coconut (cocos nucifera). In Sinhalese it’s called pol. This delectable nut is high in fat and very unhealthy; it is hard to live without, and hard to live with.

A common method of using the nut in the West used to be coconut cream aka creamed coconut, which is a form so thick of coconut milk that it has solidified. These days it’s harder to find, and we tend to look for coconut in cans or powdered form and to use it as milk.

Coconut milk is santen in Indonesian, and absolutely crucial to Indonesian cooking. When used in South East Asian cooking, coconut milk is generally described according to three general consistencies. Thick milk is so dense it flops rather than flows. Medium milk is thick but quite flowing and wet. Thin milk is runny and watery.

The very best coconut milk is fresh - you grate the coconut and run water through it until you get sufficient milk of the right consistency. You keep the water, and use the grated (and now much less flavoursome) nut as a garden fertiliser.

In Australian and UK cooking desiccated coconut used to be far more popular than than the milk. It’s still used in classic Aussie recipes such as lamingtons and coconut ice. If you want to get a bit closer to fresh coconut but still only have access to the dried version, try fluffing the shreds out with a little water and let them sit for an hour or so.