mongo_jones

eggplant. cauliflower. i eat the latter now, still don't eat eggplant.

Let me offer you this from Amazon on this book which won Claudia Roden prizes from the literary world in her field: Roden's book Numerous recipes for you to read, savor, and enjoy .... and, if you are of a mind to do so, experiment with! an brief excerpt of the review, but which answers your question more succinctly, "The book's 800 recipes reflect many cultures and regions of the world, from the Jewish quarter of Cairo where Roden spent her childhood to the kitchens of Europe, Asia and the Americas. Both Ashkenazi and Sepharidic cooking are well represented here: hallah bread, bagels, blintzes and kugels give way to tabbouleh, falafel and succulent lamb with prunes, which are, in turn, succeeded by such fare as Ftut (Yemeni wedding soup) and Kahk (savoury bracelets)." since i'm not in the u.k i did a search on amazon u.s.a and found this instead: The Book of Jewish Food : An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York same book? and if so, do american publishers think their public is so narcissistic that they'll only buy the book if the journey ends in new york and not vilna? and if so, are they right? or is the american title the original? the american hardcover is dated 1996 and the u.k paperpack 1999, but no telling when the u.k hardcover came out.

i didn't mean to imply that i think it wipes out the indigenous culture or that there "outside" contact pre-1948 is irrelevant--just noting that the biggest "outside" influence by far on modern israeli food is that of the incoming 6 million brand new israelis. babar (the first mughal emperor) in contrast showed up with only 12,000 cavalry and whined incessantly about the melons of central asia. foolish man, given the presence of mangoes.

thanks for the recommendation--i will look for it. does it also have recipes?

Or Chinese cuisine. I'd be hard pressed to say there isn't a country with a food culture on this planet that wasn't influenced by outsiders, evolved in vaccum or lacks any regional or cultural diversity whatsoever (okay, maybe the Innuits, but they aren't a country). Some of course are less influenced than others, but they are influenced nevertheless. fair enough, but i think you have to agree that the majority of modern-day israelis arrived after 1948 (or their parents did)--they were, in a sense, the people bringing the "outside" influence. this is where israel and other "settler" countries differ from other countries. as enough time goes by this stops being an issue.

apparently the israeli foreign affairs ministry and i have a similar take on things: "You will find that there is no single Israeli cuisine in the sense that there is a French or Italian cuisine. Native Israeli cooking depends on the land of origin of the cook." though a similar argument could be made for italian and french cuisine. is the cuisine of northern italy closer to that of southern france or to that of sicily? that cochin chicken curry is very similar (except for the apples) to christian chicken dishes from kerala--not surprising given how recently the jews of south india left for israel. don't know where the apples came from--i don't think apples even grow in cochin. there's like 5 jews left in india now. by the way, did you know there's a tribe in north-eastern india which claims to be (or has been claimed as) the lost tribe of israel?

in the late 80s, early 90s a friend of mine was a chef at the best 5 star chinese restaurant in new delhi (the teahouse of the august moon at the taj palace hotel); his preferred meal when at home consisted of ham sandwiches.

or a production/assembly line

the "nation" of kings herod or solomon were not nations in the sense that israel is a nation. for instance, herod and solomon were kings. but we don't need to get into political science here (though i would recommend benedict anderson's highly readable imagined communities on the origins of modern nationalism). and no, there really is no such thing as pakistani cuisine or indian cuisine. there's bengali cuisine, sindhi cuisine, malayali cuisine, punjabi cuisine etc. and for the most part punjabis, sindhis, malayalis, tamils, bengalis, kashmiris etc. have never eaten each other's foods. the newly formed states of india and pakistan (which had also never existed as nations before 1947) had a multiplicity of food cultures but not a unique food culture. more importantly almost all of the indians in india and many of the pakistanis in pakistan (partition complicates this a little) and their foods were already there when 1947 rolled around. i'm not sure what the percentages are for the sabras (thanks for that reminder--i think i knew that from my teenage years' reading of leon uris) in israel. and i'm not denying that the region has a unique or distinct food history--i'm wondering if a recent political entity like israel or jordan or syria can lay sovereign claim to any of it given that almost none of the current-day middle-eastern geo-political map was in place in 1900. on the other hand the discrete geographic region of "india" was already pretty much in place when the british showed up (though divided up into different administrative units)--some of it just had lines drawn through it later: the mughal map and the british map leading up to 1947 didn't differ very much. i don't know if the same can be said of almost any of the current middle-eastern states with regard to medieval times (leave alone earlier). but india is a complicated story--the only current analogy might be if all of western europe (which could fit inside india, though you wouldn't know this from the mercator projection) was one country. if there are things from sabra food culture that are unique to the part of the region that became israel then that's a different matter, and i'd love to know more about that. the falafel and shwarma descriptions in this thread are very interesting but they seem to be describing recent (post 1948) innovations. also what relationship do non-sabra israelis have to sabra food etc.? has adopting an israeli identity meant any centralizing of food traditions etc.? or have the multiple cuisines of the returning diaspora remained relatively autonomous and/or hybridized in new ways? to be clear: i have no agenda here--i'm not out to prove that israel has no unique cuisine of its own; just wondering what it might be, how/if it can be dis-entangled from the rest of the region, and in the case of the latter-day israelis who were already there or whose forefathers were already there in 1948, to what extent their cuisine can be traced by to an ancient israeli "nation" rather than to 2000 years of evolving/contested identity that includes as you say christians, muslims etc. if the sabras' cuisine has developed in this complex hybridized way how much use is it to refer to the israel of solomon or herod in talking about the cuisine of the modern state of israel?

i'll be very impressed if an indian restaurant in the u.s (assuming that is where toasted is) serves such a regionally specific dal.

the writer may be onto something, though i don't know what the rest of his political agenda may be. at least the point bears examination, not a simple dismissal as "bogus". let's not forget that nations in general are very recent inventions--the first modern nation not being all that much older than israel. we'd have to stretch the meaning of "country" for the 2000 year thing. the jewish people have been around that long and more but the israeli nation that occupies the current geography (however much that changes every day) is far more recent and is predominantly made up of people who settled there after its founding. it would be truer to say that jewish food has been around a long, long time but i'm not so sure about israeli food or that the two categories completely overlap. similarly while middle-eastern food has been in that region for a long time some of it doesn't simply become "israeli" because part of the region becomes israel in the mid-20th century. on the other hand if you're talking about the food of just the jews who'd lived in the area that became modern day israel for the last couple of millenia, and who then became israelis that's a different matter. but to my knowledge the descendants of these people are a minority of the population of the modern state of israel.

most indian dals are not eaten as soups. the only possible exceptions that might be called dals in indian restaurants in the u.s are sambhar, rasam and the old anglo-indian standby, mulligatawny soup (all of these are thin and spicy and can be yellow, and can have vegetables in them). so, the first question is are you using the word "soup" because the dish in question is liquidy and can be eaten with a spoon, or is this something that is advertized as a soup in the soup section of the restaurant in question? now among the other indian dals the ones that could be yellow are mushoor dal, moog dal, channa dal and arhar dal (have i forgotten any, people?). mushoor dal and possibly arhar dal can be thin--moog and channa rarely are. all are rarely prepared "spicy" or with enough vegetables in them for vegetable and dal to have equal billings in their names. if it was one of these you ate it was either an unusual prep or you have a very low spice tolerance. in other words, i have been of no help at all. the best thing to do would be to ask the restaurant in question which lentil they use.

at the risk of sounding like a straight man: it is i who have broken with the kosher laws here. the recipe doesn't call for catfish--it is what i have substituted for the more appropriate malayali riverine fish which may well have scales and not dwell at the bottom of the river. any malayalis know what would probably be the most appropriate local fish in the original recipe? what do kosher laws say about meat and coconut milk, by the way?

my wife cooks with hot bean pastes and what look more like chilli flakes than chilli powder--what does your korean chilli powder look like skchai? if it has the same relationship to indian chilli powder that korean "curry" has to indian curry powder it may be different indeed. i am speaking here though of the really hot chilli powders. not all brands available in the u.s specify type of chilli or heat level.

has anyone tried adding some hot indian chilli powder to their dok bok ki? as i mentioned earlier my wife has started doing this and she swears it makes it more like the korean street version.

yes j.r seafood (on 4th street, adjoining the mall) has surprisingly decent food. they have the anglo-standards as well as fairly hardcore stuff. this is pretty unusual in santa monica.

oh my lord--you mix the steamed rice in the shell with the crab juices and more importantly the brains! hawh hawh hawh (drooling like homer simpson). fortunately we'll be in l.a for 2 weeks soon and i'll be able to get my fix.

you're welcome band girl

you've got to wake up pretty early in the morning (or stay up pretty late) to be beat me to ass-related matters.

am i the only one who gets a kinky thrill from eating things with the word "baby" in their names? baby-carrots, baby-corn, baby-artichokes, baby-humans...oops! what a giveaway!

too lazy to go upstairs (from my basement cave) and look for the cookbook. but this is roughly it: 1 lb catfish fillet--cut into 3-4 inch pieces six small lethal green chillies--split lengthwise 5-6 dry red chillies--torn up 5 cloves of garlic--chopped 1 medium onion chopped (recipe calls for 8 shallots chopped but if you think i'm going to chop 8 shallots you is a fool) inch piece ginger--chopped (is there an indian recipe out there that ever calls for more or less than "an inch piece" of ginger?) 1 tspn mustard seeds 1 tspn fenugreek seeds 2 stalks curry leaves (afoodnut, the store in boulder gives these out free with purchase) 3 petals cambodge soaked in a cup of water (i use black kokum--also available in the boulder indian grocery) 1 tspn turmeric salt um. i think that's it for the ingredients--i'll confirm later. prep: heat oil--toss in mustard seeds. as soon as they start popping toss in everything except fish, turmeric, cambodge/kokum and salt. once the onions (or shallots for the absolutely correct) begin to brown toss in everything remaining but the fish (cambodge/kokum goes in with soaking water). mix and add fish. stir gently, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer till fish is cooked (about 5-10 minutes). eat with steamed rice. quick, easy and delicious. and a very good advert for the book. those who like it more or less spicy can adjust the green and red chillies to taste.

first-press? now, there's a painful thought. can we say first-extract instead? and the old bastard did live to be almost a 100 and was pretty sharp till the end. hmmm.

are these kuleen brahmin type desis? you might have better luck with the fisherfolk. or am i being overly romantic? now, that'd be a change.

It's possible, though unlikely, that there are (literally) primitive cultures in Africa (and India) which refrain from cooking meat and simply gnaw it from the bloodied bone. However, if there is such a culture in the tropics, it's also highly likely it refrains from being clothed and suffers from an extremely low life expectancy. And, naturally, it would be a bit much to refer to this basic food as "cuisine." It doesn't make sense to eat meat or fish raw in the tropics, much of what we know as the history of Indian food (specifically) is also the history of how to preserve food for the maximum time, and how to mask/augment the taste and smell of rapidly deteriorating produce. i get all that about heat and preservation--i highly doubt anyone, anywhere in india eats raw meat--though as i say that i wonder about some of the north-eastern peoples in cooler climates. i'm wondering, however, if any coastal people have at freshly caught raw fish, before the heat becomes a factor.

is it kosher to post recipes from other people's cookbooks on the forum? in the meantime, "nadan" just means "country" or "rural" i think--malayali recipes that have the word "nadan" in their names seem to be simpler country style dishes--usually without coconut milk and usually pretty spicy. ammini or vikram can corroborate or tell me i'm full of it.