Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia GIVEAWAY

HEY FOLKS!

The Monster four volume FOOD CULTURES OF THE WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA is now in print. Seeing how most of you will not be likely to lay down $380 on amazon for this baby, and seeing how I have many copies taking up my dwindling office space, I thought I'd just give away a set. They weigh a ton - around 150 chapters, covers the whole world.

SO, the first person who can guess my favorite Spanish soup (I did happen to write the chapter on Spain) by 9 PM tomorrow will win the entire set. OK, no point in waiting until tonight!


*AND THE WINNER IS*

BiblicalFoods with the tenth answer - salmorejo cordobes - after only 20 minutes.
Congratulations! Those of you who guessed gazpacho were very close, but the correct answer was right there on page 27 of The Lost Art. It's a thicker much more interesting kind of gazpacho. BiblicalFoods please get back to me via email and tell me who you are!! and give me an address, because there was another correct answer from David Farris. I'll put the whole beast in the mail today if you can get back to me soon via kalbala at pacific dot edu.

UPDATE 10:47 PM: I have to say I would never have guessed in a million years that the winner is the dad of one of my favorite students, who I had the pleasure of meeting at a talk/book signing last summer. Maybe I talked about the soup! THAT worked out perfectly, huh?

Alaskan Yellow Eye

I live in a place where, for reasons I cannot fathom, the very idea of whitefish is utterly unknown. I mean smoked whitefish, sold whole, pretty much anywhere food is to be found, on the East Coast. Shrivelled, with a shellac hue of skin, fragrantly fishy and oily. In it's perfect form, with just a touch of mayo on a bagel. I know you will cringe here - a cinnamon raisin bagel.

That, this is not. But rather a species I think called Yellow Eye, a slab given to be by Wild Bill, my history department compatriot, who caught him in Alaska. I smoked it yesterday with some wild salmon, and what you see before you is, I must admit, much better than whitefish. The capers aren't bad either. Now if I could only get a real bagel in this wasteland.

Gorditas

So, last week I spoke at a gig on Nuevo Latino Cuisine at Davis. The lunch was fantastic. Adriana from Pico Pico Maize Cafe in Napa and SF made Arepas with magnificent sides. And she explained to me how to make them. I haven't had a chance until today. BUT, in fact, today we have a guest contributor. My son, who wrote this recipe (and called them gorditas for a class assignment). But it is entirely his recipe as he wrote it (a very different style from my own, as you'll see). BTW - He's 14.






Gorditas by Ethan Albala

Meat and cheese-filled corn pocket
Serves 4 people
Prep/Cook Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef, 1 onion, ½ of a green bell pepper, ½ of a red bell pepper, cilantro, salt, pepper, ½ teaspoon of cumin, ½ a teaspoon of oregano, “P. A. N.” pre-cooked white corn meal from Columbia, mozzarella cheese, 4 Roma tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 chile mulatto, pinch of piloncillo, cinnamon, and nutmeg
Procedure:
1.) Filling
1. Heat olive oil in pan
2. Break up ground beef in pan, cook until brown
3. Add chopped onion to pan, along with the cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, bell peppers, piloncillo, cinnamon, and nutmeg
4. Turn heat down, and let filling simmer on low
5. Pass chile over open flame to soften
6. Break open the top of the chile and pour out the seeds
7. Soak chile in a bowl of 2 cups of hot water for 10 minutes
8. Blend chile with chopped tomatoes and soaking water until smooth, then add it to the filling in the pan.
9. Let filling simmer for ½ hour on low heat with the top off
2.) Wrap
1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Mix 5 cups of water and 4 cups of P.A.N. mix into bowl
3. Make 12 even balls of dough; racquet ball size
4. Flatten balls into a ¾ inch thick, 3 inch diameter even disc
5. Put patties into dry, hot pan to make a crust, then put in oven for 20 min at 3500 F
6. Slice the side of the Gorditas to make a pocket, do not cut all the way through
7. Fill pocket with filling, cheese, and cilantro, sour cream or yogurt optional
8. Eat and enjoy!

LHAM RECIPE

No, this is not an Algerian L'ham Lalou or a Thai Khao Lham. It's yet another of my attempts to invent a new word. It's a lamb-ham. A cured and in this case smoked lamb shank. It was five bucks. Took less than a week. And I smoked it along with a whole chicken and a lot of other little things. Here's what you do. Buy a pair of lamb shanks. Salt them generously with a tiny tiny pinch of instacure #1, and some good unrefined sugar. Add some spice, cloves I like. And thyme. Whatever. In a ziplock in the fridge for about a week. Then smoke over the coldest smoke you can manage - I used hickory soaked in local ruddy zin. Never got above maybe 180 - 200 degrees. In a regular little Weber kettle. A few lumps of hardwood charcoal to get it going. Then hung in the cave (i.e. wine fridge with all the other salumi) for a while. I'm impatient. But I think it should keep a long time. Think of it as a little teeny lham. Carved as is, very thin slices. Lightly cooked, no more.

Spring Cleansing Veggies

At the risk of seriously offending my porcofiliac friends, here is a meal not only lacking in meat of any kind, but dare I say it... vegan.

No, I have not lost sight of my ideals. Let me explain, this is after a trip to New Orleans. More meat than could choke a camel. Restuarant August was truly phenomenal. Strawberries in season and combined in unimaginably delightful ways with crudo tuna, pork fat, lamb belly, sweetbreads and various other carnivorous delights. It was several hours and about a dozen courses. Ravioli truffled with seafoam and tomato concasee was dizzying. And dare I say Cochon was even better? A selection of "boucherie" bits of salami, smokey pancetta, pate, ham, coppa. Followed by a smoked hock on read beans and rice.

So can you blame me for craving some vegetation upon comng home? This is so simple, but greens is greens. Mustard in this case. Surrounded by sauteed corn, shallots and jalapenos with a good shot of lemon juice. Some sliced little orange tomatoes on top. Came together wonderfully. Try it instead of that salad I know you are dreading right now. Perfect for spring and after overindulgence.

Good Shit

I am a man who rarely succumbs to expletives in common parlance, almost never in moments of anger, and certainly not casually for trite effect. But today, and it usually does approach stealthily, I found the urge to curse irresistable. It began around 7 am when I found myself cursing before a class at UT Austin into which I was skyped. Then my Western Civ class. OK, you can't talk about 19th c. Imperialism without cursing a bit. Before I knew it, I was cursing at colleagues. In e-mails. "OH for FUCK"S Sake!" I said to someone.

So it is only fitting that this be named something indecorous. Though it includes some of my favorite things. Broccoli rabe, capers, onions, chili flakes and, believe it or not, corned lamb shank - which is marvellous beyond description. But the whole can only be described as "good shit." I'm sure Alton Brown wishes he could use that phrase on TV from time to time.

PIZZA MOVIE

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/publishersoffice/screeningroom/0411/getcreative/get_creative_in_the_kitchen.html This is a movie of me and Rosanna, making pizza utterly from scratch. It follows a clip from my hero Graham Kerr!