Food History

Kosher Cooking Carnival

Life is full of lovely coincidences. Today is the day for the Kosher Cooking Carnival and, in fact, by a strange coincidence, this is the Kosher Cooking Carnival main post (there’ll be another tomorrow, I hope, to introduce you to previous carnival hosts). That’s not the coincidence I was talking about.

I was looking at the local paper today and it had this phrase “The new prison has been critisised for being too cold, having inefficient food portions and faulty security systems.” The spelling is not of my doing, and the notion of inefficient food portions tantalises me. I’ve decided to rate KCC posts this month according to how efficient their food portions are. My ratings are final, though I’m perfectly happy for you to apply your own ratings and explain them in the comments.

In the interest of increased efficiency, the posts about food are first and the recipes in a separate section. All other food-related issues are at the end, in a section which I shall call (with pride and great originality) “Miscellaneous.”

This post is a little later out than I expected because a publisher rang. I have 2 novels and an anthology creeping closer to publication and everything gets delayed from time to time.

About food

Our Shiputzim leads the way in efficient food portion control. Discovering that there is cheesecake in Israel is but one step away from finding cheese cake, in massive quantities. Speaking as a cheesecake lover, I’m giving this post 8/10.

Dinner! A falafel dinner, with lots of pictures. It’s 10.30 pm here and I suddenly want a second dinner. 2/10 for portion efficiency, because I am overweight and don’t need a second meal, but 10/10 for deliciousness.

A lovely list of foodie Youtube videos. 8/10 if you have lots of time, 1/10 if you it’s 6 pm and you keep saying “Just one more video, a menu planning one perhaps, or something quick on food safety, then I’ll go make dinner.”

The importance of local kosher certification bodies (and bakeries). I have to give this 10/10 because, well, what will my frum sister do if our local bodies disallow her favourite foods and it’s all my fault? Seriously, a community can bind together or be torn apart according to the skills of these important bodies.

Recipes

Basil pesto. Easy and simple and very similar to the version I make. Just for that, this recipe from ZestyCook gets 9/10. You didn’t know I made pesto? I’m from Melbourne: we have pesto instead of blood (why vampires hate Melbourne – all that garlic). Or we eat dishes like this fabbo garlic pasta.

Me-ander gives us simple baked veggies for Shabbos. I’m a lazy cook and this is terrifically easy, so 8/10. Me-ander also gives us comments on vanilla vodka in coffee. I’m assuming the two posts aren’t too closely linked.

Pickles! Pickles! Keep your sugary sweets, give me some yummy pickles every time (well, almost). Here in HP has a recipe for pickled radish. 20/10, just because it’s about pickles.

Borscht! Almost as delicious as pickles! 18/10 for Ilana-davita’s post. Plus another 8/10 for a really delicious (and so simple) zucchini recipe.

What does one eat with borscht? A good home-made sourdough, of course. Or one can use the starter and turn it into a cake, for later.

Miscellaneous

Me-ander asks one of the Great Cooking Questions - Does wine go with cooked tofu. 6/10, but only because there is no 500 page analysis of great Aussie wines. Tofu and an Australian chardonnay are a match made somewhere very nice indeed.

Food halacha, I think, from The Real Shliach. 9/10 for impressiveness. Especially when he said “We’re in for a fabulous evening’s apocalypse.” I forgot the Carnival and went into fiction writer mode. That’s why the 9/10 – I think my writing students tomorrow have a brand new theme.

I like his other post much better. What do you do when some meat is kosher and some not? This one gets a real 9/10. If you know how to sort out this ticklish issue then the efficiency of your food portions is way higher. Although Canberra prisons don’t serve any kosher meat. Or any kosher food. Or have any Jewish prisoners (to the best of my knowledge). I’m beginning to see a problem in my amazing ratings system.

Broad beans, fava beans: whatever you call them, they are yummy. I learned to cook them the old-fashioned way – my sisters and I would work our way through a giant bag of them so we had enough for dinner. You don’t need to borrow my mother to handle broad beans – all you need to do is print this page and follow the illustrations.

I like this bit of news. We get lots of Israelis in Australia, and it looks as if Israel gets lots of Americans: enough so that the OU heksher has reached its shores. I have no idea how to rate this news in terms of the efficiency of food portions. I’ll leave it to you to work out.