This run of fabulous summer weather is continuing, giving us soft nights where the air is skin temperature and everyone is out in the streets walking, chatting, hanging out at a bar or cafe. I love pedalling in the dark through the soft air, whooshing along on my bicycle. It's so freeing.
These weeks in the daytime, along College and also on Bloor, the bars fill around lunchtime and are open to the street, so we can all see the action and hear the cheers and the groans: people are glued to large screens as they watch the next round of European Cup soccer.
Yesterday afternoon I walked past a small bar and got waved in. "Who are you supporting?" asked several guys sitting along the bar. I looked at the screen: Netherlands 1; Portugal 0. "Portugal" I said. Huge smiles. "Come, sit down! What will you have?" I demurred, needing to get home because guests were coming for an early father's day supper. "Next time!" they said cheerfully, and went back to the game. Later Portugal rallied to beat the Dutch and advance to the next round.
I really must get out to watch a match or two this week. Every two years we have this pleasure, either the World Cup or the European Cup, as fans settle in to watch the matches and cheer, and put flags on their cars and honk their way down the street when their team wins. Even-numbered Junes in Toronto are enriched by all this.
Meantime the annual pleasures continue to unfold: the peonies are done, but the tall red rose bush (more a skinny tree than a bush in fact) is loaded with rich-red heads, and the day lilies are starting to bloom. The tomato and pepper plants that went in four weeks ago are looking healthy; I've mulched the tomatoes in an effort to discourage blight. I've been eating scads of sweet and tender broccoli raab grown from seed this spring. And there's a tall kale plant that came through the winter and has tender grey-green leaves, great for quick stir-frying. The red okra seeds that were planted at the same time as the rapini have not produced much growth. They may have needed more warmth to get started. And they also seem to attract slugs, so they're always hitting setbacks.Win a few, lose a few, is the theme of the garden and needs to be the motto of the gardener, or else s/he goes crazy.
Last night we had a mixed greens salad of leaves from all over the garden, from slightly mature romaine to oak leaf lettuce to some sorrel and tender spinach...Nothing better than fresh lettuce. But as it gets tough in the heat, I am starting to look forward to the first cherry tomatoes, still three to four weeks away probably. sigh.
Tomorrow I teach the last of my six classes on Foods that Changed the World. It has been such a pleasure, as well as lots of work. It makes me want to teach a second food-related course. I've been thinking about something that could explore fermentation and preservation "Putting Food By" kinds of things, from soy processing to cheese to wine and dried fruit to pickles in Japan and Korea, etc. You get the idea.
The question is, how to make it enticing for students? The whole subject of butter and milk products, not just cheese but also yogurt and its cousins, is a huge one. If you have any thoughts on this, on what a good course title and focus might be, please write to me. I find swimming in the large layered ocean that is humankind's relation to and inventiveness with food and food production to be infinitely fascinating. There is so much to wonder at and be amazed by.
And on a non-food topic, speaking of amazement: I went to see the latest Robert Lepage, Playing Cards (part 1 - Spades) on Friday night. What a brilliant spectacle, linked stories and scenes miraculously stitched together on a round flexible stage. Unbelievable. Yes he is a genius.
And back to food: I want to make boxty for the class tomorrow: potato flatbreads from Ireland. there are many versions. The ones I'll make (from my recipe in HomeBaking) are delicious. They include cooked potato and grated raw potato, with wheat flour and some butter or bacon drippings. I'll make a batch of each so people can compare. And then we'll talk about coffee and wine and liquor and beer... Human beings have been brewing and fermenting and distilling beers and wines and spirits from grains and sugar since the beginning of time it seems. What better way to sum up the history of basic foods over time?
Showing posts with label food history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food history. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
LAYERS OF CREATIVITY & INSIGHT TO SAVOUR
I'm writing late on the Cinco de Mayo (the date the Mexicans defeated the French, quite unexpectedly since they were much less well equipped, in 1862. The French did manage to take Mexico City a couple of years later where they proclaimed Napoleon lll's brother Maximilian emperor of Mexico). And it's also a full moon day, an especially big fat full moon they tell us. I caught a glimpse last night as I walked through the streets late after the Beard Awards, happy to be out in the air and walking with a friend. The moon smiled benignly down, or so it felt to me.
I wrote that first paragraph last night, then hit the hay. New York can do that, just get the adrenalin going, and going, and then suddenly I run out of gas. Yesterday after our Beard Cookbook committee meeting I headed up to Kitchen Arts and Letters. Nach Waxman was not there (he's more likely to be there early in the week), which I regretted, but being in the store is always a treat. There are treasures to discover each time. And each time I know I've only scratched the surface, leaving many wonderful books unnoticed.
Just as well perhaps, because covetousness starts to take over - yes I'd like to own that one, and that one, oh and yes perhaps those two... I came away with two books, one of which I am especially pleased to have. It's by Phyllis Bober, who died about ten years ago, a tall intelligent force-of-nature woman, beautiful, with dark red hair and a distinctive style. She taught classics at Bryn Mawr but I knew her through food. She had a deep interest in traditional foodways, and her two passions, for history and for food, come together in this book: Art Culture & Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy.
I first met Phyllis on an Oldways trip to Tunisia. One day five of us rented a car and drove to the ruins of a Roman city called Bulla Regia in the northwestern Tunisian plain. I'll never forget Phyllis's enthusiasm as we guided us around the site. She knew it intimately, from her studies and reading, but had never been there. She showed us the amazingly intact mosaics, explained the distinctive architecture (houses built with underground areas to give coolness and shelter from the summer heat), and her delight in it all brought the place alive.
And now I have her clarity on the page, helping me decipher some of the early history of emmer and other wheats, the role of barley, the food traditions in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
I need this help, to prepare for the Foods that Changed the World course that I'll be teaching at the School of Continuing Studies at U of T, starting in mid-May, for six weeks. It's all coming together, but as always with interesting rich subjects, I now feel that I could take double the time, or more, to explore each of my topics.
From Kitchen Arts and Letters it's an easy 19 block walk to the Whitney, where I saw the Biennale. I had read some pans of it, but I like to see for myself. The most outstanding-to-me art that I saw (which may just mean, the things I understood at least a part of) were: a thoughtful installation by Nick Mauss, Dawn Kasper's nomadic studio; Nicole Eisenman's multi-painting collections, and her one large painting, (such versatility and intent); Tom Thayer's fragile-looking haunting birds and suspended sculptures; Liz Deschenes' subtle and somehow powerfully memorable photo print sculptures; and finally the extraordinary multi-media installation by Werner Herzog called Hearsay of the Soul, which is mesmerising.
Yes, it's a bit of a long list.
A walk back north took me to the Met to spend more time at "The Steins Collect." What a contrast, with order and colour and form the priority. But it's worth remembering how shockingly wild Matisse was at the time with his violent use of colour (hence that label "fauve"). Weekends are a crowded time to be at the Met, but not, I discovered, after 6 in the evening. It's open until 9 pm, so civilised, on Friday and Saturday, and the crowds thin nicely. Afterwards, after a look at the Byzantine and Islam show, and a little time with the Van Goghs (now there was a guy who shocked in his time - I love the Berceuse), I went to the balcony that overlooks the entrance hall and had a glass of white wine (a very pleasing Alberino) and started reading Phyllis's book.
It was dusk, with the moon up but not visible in the cloud, as I headed back south the 35 or so blocks to my hotel. What a wonderful privileged rich day. I'll have lovely things to think about as I sit around at JFK this evening waiting for my plane to Toronto.
Thank-you New York.
I wrote that first paragraph last night, then hit the hay. New York can do that, just get the adrenalin going, and going, and then suddenly I run out of gas. Yesterday after our Beard Cookbook committee meeting I headed up to Kitchen Arts and Letters. Nach Waxman was not there (he's more likely to be there early in the week), which I regretted, but being in the store is always a treat. There are treasures to discover each time. And each time I know I've only scratched the surface, leaving many wonderful books unnoticed.
Just as well perhaps, because covetousness starts to take over - yes I'd like to own that one, and that one, oh and yes perhaps those two... I came away with two books, one of which I am especially pleased to have. It's by Phyllis Bober, who died about ten years ago, a tall intelligent force-of-nature woman, beautiful, with dark red hair and a distinctive style. She taught classics at Bryn Mawr but I knew her through food. She had a deep interest in traditional foodways, and her two passions, for history and for food, come together in this book: Art Culture & Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy.
I first met Phyllis on an Oldways trip to Tunisia. One day five of us rented a car and drove to the ruins of a Roman city called Bulla Regia in the northwestern Tunisian plain. I'll never forget Phyllis's enthusiasm as we guided us around the site. She knew it intimately, from her studies and reading, but had never been there. She showed us the amazingly intact mosaics, explained the distinctive architecture (houses built with underground areas to give coolness and shelter from the summer heat), and her delight in it all brought the place alive.
And now I have her clarity on the page, helping me decipher some of the early history of emmer and other wheats, the role of barley, the food traditions in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
I need this help, to prepare for the Foods that Changed the World course that I'll be teaching at the School of Continuing Studies at U of T, starting in mid-May, for six weeks. It's all coming together, but as always with interesting rich subjects, I now feel that I could take double the time, or more, to explore each of my topics.
From Kitchen Arts and Letters it's an easy 19 block walk to the Whitney, where I saw the Biennale. I had read some pans of it, but I like to see for myself. The most outstanding-to-me art that I saw (which may just mean, the things I understood at least a part of) were: a thoughtful installation by Nick Mauss, Dawn Kasper's nomadic studio; Nicole Eisenman's multi-painting collections, and her one large painting, (such versatility and intent); Tom Thayer's fragile-looking haunting birds and suspended sculptures; Liz Deschenes' subtle and somehow powerfully memorable photo print sculptures; and finally the extraordinary multi-media installation by Werner Herzog called Hearsay of the Soul, which is mesmerising.
Yes, it's a bit of a long list.
A walk back north took me to the Met to spend more time at "The Steins Collect." What a contrast, with order and colour and form the priority. But it's worth remembering how shockingly wild Matisse was at the time with his violent use of colour (hence that label "fauve"). Weekends are a crowded time to be at the Met, but not, I discovered, after 6 in the evening. It's open until 9 pm, so civilised, on Friday and Saturday, and the crowds thin nicely. Afterwards, after a look at the Byzantine and Islam show, and a little time with the Van Goghs (now there was a guy who shocked in his time - I love the Berceuse), I went to the balcony that overlooks the entrance hall and had a glass of white wine (a very pleasing Alberino) and started reading Phyllis's book.
It was dusk, with the moon up but not visible in the cloud, as I headed back south the 35 or so blocks to my hotel. What a wonderful privileged rich day. I'll have lovely things to think about as I sit around at JFK this evening waiting for my plane to Toronto.
Thank-you New York.
Monday, March 26, 2012
LATE MARCH THOUGHTS OF FUTURE PROJECTS & HOPES
Late again with an update. My apologies. Blame it on spring, the equinox, nu-roz (Persian new year; I made sabzi pulao for friends, and lots of green veg, as well as grilled chicken and grilled pork), a lot to get done... Anyway, here I am at last. This last week was my aunt Pen's 90th birthday (March 22); she has dementia, so any love or wishes are kind of without weight for her. Still even those with dementia can surely feel the warmth in the air, the singing of the birds, the feeling of optimism in the air....
Now we're back in some cold weather, crisp and bracing. It's just enough to make us grateful for the warmth that's promised in the next few days. In the back yard the earth got warmed last week, the rye I'd planted as a cover crop, and the clover, are both flourishingly green. So is the flat-leafed parsley that made it through the winter, and the garlic chives, already thrusting up their flat blades.
I had some of the chives, and the parsley, as well as some young dandelion, chopped into the pan a couple of days ago, flavouring some olive oil . The occasion was the visit of Lillian from Grey County. Just before leaving she'd checked her mushroom logs and, astonishingly, there was an early flush of shiitakes. This is a full month earlier than ever before. So she brought some down, moist and full of promise in a brown paper bag. I chopped them coarsely, tossed them in on top of the greens, and then once they'd softened and given off a little moisture, in went four whisked fresh orange-yolked large eggs from a farmer not far away. What a feast. We ate slowly, contemplatively, looking at the promising dark soil in the back yard and getting caught up on each other's news and thoughts and imaginings.
Now I feel that spring really has arrived.
On Saturday afternoon the biting cold wind was a good excuse to head into the warmth and watch a movie, not just any movie, but the brilliant Wim Wenders doc PINA. It’s in 3-D, and if you haven’t seen it, well, keep an eye open and grab a chance when you get it. The film is about the dance of Pina Bausch, a legendary choreographer and dancer, who died just before the film was made, and about the dancers in her company. I’ve now seen it twice (the first time was in January) and would happily go again. Thrilling is the best word for it.
Now the week has started; I should be doing taxes, but have been preparing my talk for the IACP (Int Assoc of Culinary Professionals), where I am giving two small sessions on food and travel. Should be fun. It’s always interesting to hear where people are coming from, what their questions and issues are. My job is to talk, but also to listen; I guess that’s a pretty obvious thing to say, but still very true and important to remember.
My kid Dom says people don’t remember much from talks (or lectures, he says, and he’s doing a PhD, so has some ground for knowing). He says the important thing is to have a basic message or theme that you can keep coming back to…the stories and examples are then embroideries and illustrations, all supporting the basic message. hmm I had thought to show slides (old language for images via power point). There may not be the necessary equipment, and in one way I’d be happy with no images. They can be a distraction when we’re there to talk about ideas.
On the other hand, I love to give people fresh windows for imagining the world, and photographs of daily life in other places are a great way to do that.
It’s in the lap of the gods, the image question. I’m ready for either scenario.
And I’m looking forward to seeing people I haven’t had time with for a long time, all of them coming to NYC for the conference itself and also to take advantage of the gathering of food people from all over.
And on the subject of food, I’ve just finished Empires of Food, by Fraser and Rimaz (published by Counterpoint Press in 2010). It takes a line through history that focusses on the food limits that various empires and societies have hit, and that we are heading for in our turn. The cycle is roughly that a food innovation leads to higher production, population growth etc, but eventually the society hits a ceiling, and then things fall apart or crumble. The first example is Mesopotamia, and it moves forward from there, often gracefully and in interesting ways. But it’s not a dreary march through bad news, it’s somehow fresh and undoctrinaire. Highly recommended.
It’s useful grist for my mill, that these days needs to be grinding through food history (with help also from Charles Mann’s 1493 and other books, and from blogs such as Rachel Laudan’s) to produce six two hour classes in May-June. I’m teaching a course called Foods that Changed the World at the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. Here's the link. I’ve heard that the students at these courses are an interesting and varied group, so I’m looking forward to it all. I’m hoping to be able to do some tastings with the class. If you know anyone who might be interested, do let them know about the course.
Meantime the BURMA book gets closer and closer. There's a blad that's been designed, (stands for book layout and design, a kind of booklet that gives a feel for the look and content of the book) and the book itself will soon be in second galleys, hurrah! I'll have them sometime next week probably, to correct, and also to annotate with, for example, captions for the photos. And then before the end of April it wings off to the printer.
This project may be close to done, but of course life in Burma continues to unfold in all its complexity. The by-elections are taking place this coming Sunday, April 1, and after that presumably Aung San Suu Kyi will have a seat in parliament. I feel so committed to the place, after these three years of work and paying close attention. It's been extreme immersion, and I am reluctant to step out of it, want to continue my engagement with Burma and the geopolitics as well as the food and culture.
Now we all hope that recent progress continues in establishing real rights and freedoms for the people of Burma and negotiating real settlements with the Karen and Kachin and Mon and Chin and Wa and Shan, etc. It needs to happen. There needs to be a new Panglong-type agreement, to make real and strong the idea that Aung San Suu Kyi's father worked toward and achieved just before his death, of a consensual federation of Burma. Fifty years ago that ideal fell with the coup, in March 1962. Let's hope this really is a new era.
FIngers crossed. And happy spring everyone...
Now we're back in some cold weather, crisp and bracing. It's just enough to make us grateful for the warmth that's promised in the next few days. In the back yard the earth got warmed last week, the rye I'd planted as a cover crop, and the clover, are both flourishingly green. So is the flat-leafed parsley that made it through the winter, and the garlic chives, already thrusting up their flat blades.
I had some of the chives, and the parsley, as well as some young dandelion, chopped into the pan a couple of days ago, flavouring some olive oil . The occasion was the visit of Lillian from Grey County. Just before leaving she'd checked her mushroom logs and, astonishingly, there was an early flush of shiitakes. This is a full month earlier than ever before. So she brought some down, moist and full of promise in a brown paper bag. I chopped them coarsely, tossed them in on top of the greens, and then once they'd softened and given off a little moisture, in went four whisked fresh orange-yolked large eggs from a farmer not far away. What a feast. We ate slowly, contemplatively, looking at the promising dark soil in the back yard and getting caught up on each other's news and thoughts and imaginings.
Now I feel that spring really has arrived.
On Saturday afternoon the biting cold wind was a good excuse to head into the warmth and watch a movie, not just any movie, but the brilliant Wim Wenders doc PINA. It’s in 3-D, and if you haven’t seen it, well, keep an eye open and grab a chance when you get it. The film is about the dance of Pina Bausch, a legendary choreographer and dancer, who died just before the film was made, and about the dancers in her company. I’ve now seen it twice (the first time was in January) and would happily go again. Thrilling is the best word for it.
Now the week has started; I should be doing taxes, but have been preparing my talk for the IACP (Int Assoc of Culinary Professionals), where I am giving two small sessions on food and travel. Should be fun. It’s always interesting to hear where people are coming from, what their questions and issues are. My job is to talk, but also to listen; I guess that’s a pretty obvious thing to say, but still very true and important to remember.
My kid Dom says people don’t remember much from talks (or lectures, he says, and he’s doing a PhD, so has some ground for knowing). He says the important thing is to have a basic message or theme that you can keep coming back to…the stories and examples are then embroideries and illustrations, all supporting the basic message. hmm I had thought to show slides (old language for images via power point). There may not be the necessary equipment, and in one way I’d be happy with no images. They can be a distraction when we’re there to talk about ideas.
On the other hand, I love to give people fresh windows for imagining the world, and photographs of daily life in other places are a great way to do that.
It’s in the lap of the gods, the image question. I’m ready for either scenario.
And I’m looking forward to seeing people I haven’t had time with for a long time, all of them coming to NYC for the conference itself and also to take advantage of the gathering of food people from all over.
And on the subject of food, I’ve just finished Empires of Food, by Fraser and Rimaz (published by Counterpoint Press in 2010). It takes a line through history that focusses on the food limits that various empires and societies have hit, and that we are heading for in our turn. The cycle is roughly that a food innovation leads to higher production, population growth etc, but eventually the society hits a ceiling, and then things fall apart or crumble. The first example is Mesopotamia, and it moves forward from there, often gracefully and in interesting ways. But it’s not a dreary march through bad news, it’s somehow fresh and undoctrinaire. Highly recommended.
It’s useful grist for my mill, that these days needs to be grinding through food history (with help also from Charles Mann’s 1493 and other books, and from blogs such as Rachel Laudan’s) to produce six two hour classes in May-June. I’m teaching a course called Foods that Changed the World at the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. Here's the link. I’ve heard that the students at these courses are an interesting and varied group, so I’m looking forward to it all. I’m hoping to be able to do some tastings with the class. If you know anyone who might be interested, do let them know about the course.
Meantime the BURMA book gets closer and closer. There's a blad that's been designed, (stands for book layout and design, a kind of booklet that gives a feel for the look and content of the book) and the book itself will soon be in second galleys, hurrah! I'll have them sometime next week probably, to correct, and also to annotate with, for example, captions for the photos. And then before the end of April it wings off to the printer.
This project may be close to done, but of course life in Burma continues to unfold in all its complexity. The by-elections are taking place this coming Sunday, April 1, and after that presumably Aung San Suu Kyi will have a seat in parliament. I feel so committed to the place, after these three years of work and paying close attention. It's been extreme immersion, and I am reluctant to step out of it, want to continue my engagement with Burma and the geopolitics as well as the food and culture.
Now we all hope that recent progress continues in establishing real rights and freedoms for the people of Burma and negotiating real settlements with the Karen and Kachin and Mon and Chin and Wa and Shan, etc. It needs to happen. There needs to be a new Panglong-type agreement, to make real and strong the idea that Aung San Suu Kyi's father worked toward and achieved just before his death, of a consensual federation of Burma. Fifty years ago that ideal fell with the coup, in March 1962. Let's hope this really is a new era.
FIngers crossed. And happy spring everyone...
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