Adam Balic

You mean like the Mongols? Many cultures adopted their cuisines to Mongol/Moghul tastes. Today, we consider those cuisines (e.g., what's served in most of the world's Indian restaurants) to be "authentic" regional cuisines. In addition, cultures spread. Wherever they spread, they produce hybrids with what was there before -- that's true of just about everything, not just food. Take for example the Peranakan cuisine of Malaysia and Singapore. Chinese migrants settled in those areas, many of them intermarried, and a cuisine was born that adapted to Malay tastes and ingredients. Cuban-Chinese cuisine and a dozen other hyphenated -Chinese cuisines have developed all over the world. Most such cuisines, to the extent they developed in the modern era, were at least in part influenced by what would appeal to local restaurant customers. It seems to me it makes little difference whether you're adapting cuisine to please conquerors, subjects, intermarried spouses or local restaurant consumer demand. It's all part of culinary evolution. ← Mongols and Mughuls are not quite the same thing, but in any case the worlds Indian restuarants are not based on entirely on this regional Indian cuisine. But to get back to Chinese-American cuisine. Rhetoric is fine but I don't think that speaking in such a vague way actually progresses the discussion. Just because there are numerous places where Chinese settled over hundreds of years, doesn't mean that they can all be compared meaningfully in terms of cuisine development. Dejah introduced the topic to discuss Early Chinese restaurants, which I not sure is the same thing at all as "Chinese-American cuisine". In fact Dejah talks about the families early Chinese Restaurant in Canada, not "America". I guess you could define "American" as "North America", not just the USA but I wonder if that is what people would generally recognise as the definition of "Chinese-American"? To my mind "Chinese-American cuisine" means either what Chinese-Americans eat, a distinctly recognisable cuisine not nessarily eaten by Chinese-Americans or a combination of the two. What ever the case, I assume that "Chinese American Cuisine" is dynamic and as such the food is significantly different to what was served in the 50's-70's? I guess one difficulty now is defining what is "Chinese-American Cuisine" and how it differs, if at all to "Chinese food eaten in America". The food eaten in early Chinese restaurants is obviously not dynamic, it is a fixed definition. I think that if you were to compare the food in early Chinese restaurants in the USA, Canada and Australia (A little bit of information on Chinese restaurants in Australia) then the food served probably has more similarities then differences. I think that these foods that develop when two different cultures interact are absolutely fancinating. I would be very in knowing when recognisable "Chinese-American" dishes developed and how the original dishes differ from what they have become now. As an example I link to the Australian Dim Sim. What is really interesting about this item is how dynamic it is. By the 70's it was such a staple of mainstream Anglo-Australia fast-food that most people would not even have thought about it as a "Chinese" food and the largest producer of mainstream "Dim sims" was a Greek background business, "Marathon Food Industries".

The "Tipo 00, 0, 1, 2" system is about refinement yes, specifically the residual ash content. 00 flour is very finely milled also. My experience has been that depending on the pasta I are making, some flours are better then others and it is a matter or trial and error. For instance there is a big difference in the types of flour that gives the best result when making a really eggy Northern Italian pasta compared to a more southern pasta without egg like Spaghetti alla chitarra. The last time I made pasta I grabbed the wrong flour (farina for dolce) by mistake and this really didn't work out so well.

If you look back at my earlier posts, my concern has never been about authenticity. It's been about clarity. My contention is that Chinese and Chinese American cuisines should be considered separate cuisines, much the way that Mexican and Tex-Mex are considered different styles of cuisine. ← I don't think one should draw a line and put Chinese cuisine on one side of the line and Chinese-American cuisine on the other side. I think it's more a question of there being many types of Chinese cuisine: Shanghai, Sichuan, Hunan, Bombay Chinese, Chinese-American, etc. ← Isn't that a bit of a strange definition of a regional ethnic cuisine, something that was specifically developed to be eaten by people outwith the parent culture? Might have to think about this.

Not all Italian 00 flours are the same either. "00" doesn't define the gluten composition and a single mill can produce various types of "00" flour with protein ranges of broad 7-12%. edit: This Italian Mill has a big range of "00" flour with a very broad range of protein and gluten contents. It also sells both various grades of semolina and "farina di grano duro" which are both made out of durum wheat. It is worth noting that some of the "00" flours actually have a much higher protein and gluten % then the durum wheat flour/semolina.

They are an Australia native. As far as I know they are only grown in Australia for the moment. I have a small tree growing in the back yard, has just set fruit, but I think that I will strip all the immature fruit this year. There are also several other native citrus here, so I imagine that some of the these other species may become commercially available in the near future.

Thanks for the information, I have never seen them in France. I have eaten snake lock anemones (Anemonia sulcata) in Spain and the common red anemone (sea tomato, Actinia equina) in Italy. In Spain they were always fried (although in one case they were used to garnish a "soup" of melon granita and almond milk) in Italy as sort of stew/soup. The omelet sounds interesting, there is a sort of frittata with anemones mentioned in the Apicius collection.

The French import (or did) a large % of the white port production for use as an aperitif. I think that this is a lovely aperitif in hot weather.

It was indeed, also called a figue de mer: Microcosmus "petit monde."As described by P. Wells "Violet or figue de mer: unusual iodine-strong, soft-shelled edible sea creature, with a yellowish interior. A delicacy along the Mediterranean, particularly in Marseille." It looks like this. ← Merci John, but in the spirit of Abra's original question; How do you cook it? ← They are a type of sea squirt. They also make excellent bait. Are sea anemones eaten in France commonly?

Very well said. Another phenomena that I have seen is where "ethnic" cookbooks have made an attempt at modernisation. Often they get branded as "inauthentic" because there is not mention of "traditional" methods, which is not good at all or the flip side of this is that the authors are so careful about being throughly modern that there is no mention of the legion of servants that formally had a place in the kitchen. Either way it is the servants in the kitchen that loose their voice.

Yes it seems that the Mexican sub-species Persea americana var. drymifolia has the anise scent and flavour. This doesn't mean that all Mexican avacados have the anise scent, for example Mexico grows a huge amount of Hass and this is likely to be hybrid of Guatemalan and Mexican sub-species. How strong is this anise flavor? Could I add a some ground anise to guacamole to approximate the flavour? ← You could. I don't think these tiny avocados are usually made into guacamole. Most people eat just the flesh or flesh and skin. The everyday avocado for guacamole is the Hass. There's a trend to add fruit to guacamole but it does nothing for me. Mash the avocado, add a spoon of salsa verde, and done, Rachel ← Hass I can do . I must admit that when using avacado of questionable quality, I usually added samba olek to the guacamole.

Yes it seems that the Mexican sub-species Persea americana var. drymifolia has the anise scent and flavour. This doesn't mean that all Mexican avacados have the anise scent, for example Mexico grows a huge amount of Hass and this is likely to be hybrid of Guatemalan and Mexican sub-species. How strong is this anise flavor? Could I add a some ground anise to guacamole to approximate the flavour?

Bulgur isn't just "cracked wheat", it has been parboiled then dried (not toasted as such as dried in a kiln). The par-cooking most like bursts the starch granules and produces are gel, which gets re-hydrated on final cooking. Boiling cracked wheat will liberate a whole bunch of free starch and will produce wallpaper paste. When I have cooked with bulgur it is more a process of absorbtion then boiling. For fine grades I just pour over hot liquid, for very coarse grades I cook until the grains are tender, but firm (10 minutes max.) then put on the lid and leave it for 15-20 minutes.

Those tiny avacado's are really interesting. I have seen serveral books mention the anise flavour of avacado leaves, but to date none of the leaves I have tried have any of this flavour at all. Is it a variety thing or a location thing do you think?

Those are unsual looking quince, judging from the relative size of the seed they look like small fruit. Do you know what variety it is or if is a regular quince (Cydonia oblonga) at all and not something like a flowering quince (Chaenomeles spp.)?

The speckled eggs are from a Turkey? Do they have any cooking properties that differentiate how they are used in cooking from Chicken eggs, or are they pretty much interchangeable? Nothing made of sugar at the stall?

For such a popular cake there seems to be little, if any documentation readily avaible about a cake with this name. I should judge it as apocryphal unless some contemporay evidence comes to light.

Richard, those are fantastic looking pots. I would love one to play about with. This site gives some examples of the Welsh equivalents and gives an idea of how they were used in situ. In Scottish prints of domestic scenes you would see a cauldron like these suspended next to a griddle pan. Ironically it was the development of the cast-iron range that put an end to this type of domestic arrangment. A large pot suspened from a chain over a central hearth was a common arrangement throughout Europe. Here can be seen the remains of my families hearth in Croatia.

Feel free to use un-sealed cast iron cooking vessels as much as you wish. I collect it and use it, along with other items of kitchenalia. I suggest you don't try to make a batch of strawberry jam in them though.

Really? Everybody I talked to about cast iron swears by it and its properties. Especially the nonstick seasoning that "beats out any teflon pan" ← There is an excellent discussion on the relative merits of various types of cookware here.

Unsealed cast iron? Not really, only for camping and this is getting less common. Lots of other materials have better cooking properties and are easier to use. Lots of people use the enameled cast iron for cooking in Australia and at least in Chianti this is also the case now (my sister in law received a huge amount of Le Creuset from the local commune as a wedding present).

A lot of the images of pots were most likely not cast iron, large scale use of cast iron for domestic use didn't really take off until the middle of the 18th century. It was relatively expensive to make, relatively fragile, reactive with many foods and needed special care. Even in northern Europe, earthenware or stoneware was cheaper and easier to make. If you broke it, it is easy enough to replace. The Industrial revolution didn't occur for many countries until quite recently and you really nead this sort of infrustructure to produce cast iron domestic vessels cheaply. Cast iron is better then most ceramics for large vessels, but copper is lighter and easier to work. Large amounts of domestic copper vessels were requisitioned in Italy during WWII so old items are rare and can be very expensive, I'm not sure that this was the case for iron vessels, but it so it would have altered the way that people cooked. On the other hand, when cast iron became cheaper to produce it was much better for people that were relatively mobile and where the infrastructure for large scale ceramic production was not in place. At my grandparents farm in Australia (settled in the 1850's) there are large amounts of cast iron pot remains. I imagine this is the same in the USA an Canada. In camping stores in Australia, for a few dollars you can still buy cast iron cooking pots etc, known as "Dutch Ovens" for the most part.

I have no problem with coexistence. I don't think that the two extremes of traditional or contemporary have to be mutually exclusive, but there is no reason why a modern "creative restaurant" has to have any basis in traditional cooking. If this is the case then I think that you can run into the issue where "Italian food purists" don't consider this type of food "Italian" (what ever that means). The flip side of this is where high end diners are dismissive of tradional food.

"Generic" was used in the sense of "general/not specific identitiy". I said earlier that if I am eating in Italy then I want to eat something that is Italian and delicious, not something generically delicious. Maybe this is where Italy fails on the fine dining scene, not generic enough? I think that at some point FG (?) mentioned that at least one present cutting edge chef produces food of the highest international standard without in reference to local food traditions. In this discussion I have trouble keeping track of what level of cooking we are talking about. I'm not at all sure that restuarants serving food of the highest international standard for a restricted group of diners can be compared usefully to fiaschetteria, osteria, ristorante, trattoria, taberna.... When we are talking about "Contemporay food", does this mean "International Modern" of the moment or are we talking about the development of at new wave of "Contemporay Italian"? I think that FG is correct, restaurants at international cutting edge have no need to have a basis in tradional cooking, and in part the emphasis on technique and ingredient quality excludes this. Which isn't to say that inspiration can't come from local dishes or traditions either. What is proberly more important at this level is originality of thought and execution of the dish. For example, I notice that Robuchon is now being criticized for selling dishes that are too heavily influenced by other chefs creations. No matter how delicious these dishes are, they are not his "original creations". In terms of fiaschetteria, osteria, ristorante, trattoria and taberna it could be possible to contruct some sort of hierarchy in terms how they relate to one another and what sort of food they produce, but for the vast majoritory of them "delicious" is going to be a much more important criterion then "originality". Getting back to the original question "Tradition v. Contemporary Italian Cuisine, Is it a conflict or a building block?", I feel that on an intellectual level that their is no conflict between the two, but also at a high end international dining level there is no requirement for any real overlap either. On the otherhand what Italy does have in vast amounts is food that fits many peoples definition of "Delicious". One conflict that I see is that some individuals that have a primary interest in high end international dining level food is the way in which all this delicious Italian food is discussed is in the negative. Italian food culture has failed in someway because it hasn't (and maybe can't) produce the required high end international dining experience. I think that the view that Italy has failed to deliver the high end international dining experience and the view that traditional food in Italy is delicious are both correct, I don't see the conflict in the two opinions. What I think is an interesting question is if it is true that Italy has failed to deliver the high end international dining experience, why is this so? A few years ago I would have said it was because the tradional food were so good that there wasn't a niche for the high end international dining experience. I felt then that this type of dining came from regions where the local traditional food culture was either degraded or never really existed. To a certain extent I have changed my views on this, I don't see a conflict with the development of an international dining scene and having strong local food traditions. I don't have a simple explanation of why Italy doesn't have this high end international dining culture, and I don't think there is a simple answer.

I would think that your would have both Eruca sativa (salad rocket) and Diplotaxis tenuifolia (wild rocket), but I think that it is more the stage that they are picked that is the difference. To be honest most of the rocket I have seen in Tuscany is the same type was Kevin is using, but the size of the leaves indicates that they are being picked very young (like this is the stage in development that I planted out my rocket from the garden store punnet). The flavour gets very better as they get older.

For me this is more about "Personal taste" then "Tradition v. Contemporary". For me personally the beans are too big and I like them cooked to the point that the still squeak when you eat them, but are definately not al dente. I don't think that this makes my preferences either Tradition or Contemporary just an idiosyncratic choice. I think that the definition of what is Traditional or Contemporary has to be better defined then just "level of cooking in veg.". Having eaten large amounts of raw baby artichokes and broad beans in Italy, where would these fit in to the "Tradition v. Contemporary" model for instance. What I guess is contemporay is that the beans lack any particular regional identity, in fact they could be on a plate in France, England, NYC or Melbourne. I'm not against delicious, in fact I am quite for it, but if I am eating in Italy then I want to eat something that is Italian and delicious, not something generically delicious. Maybe this is where Italy fails on the fine dining scene, not generic enough?