Adam Balic

As some people may have noticed (or not) I am a bit of a market junky. Sanlucar's market is in the town centre (near Plaza del Roque), a lane from the plaza is lined with a number of stalls, mainly fruit and veg, but at this time of the year there are several stalls selling tiny banded white snails, which become domant this time of the year (hence easy to collect as they climb thistles, posts etc). These same snails are an introduced pest in California and Australia. Snail seller: Bag o' Snails: Aside from various ladies competing in bitter snail selling wars, there are women selling buckets of a number of different types of bivalves (berberecho, coquina, venus shells) and also a few spice stalls. The spice stalls burnt incense, so that my immediate impression was of the smell of the spice souk in Fez, rather then the more usual smells of a modern european market. Inside the market is dominated by fish and veg stalls. Infact mostly fish and other seafood. Beautiful fresh fish. In all the market I did not see a scrap of ice, yet there was never a smell of fish, just of the sea.

I have the book. My impression is that the authors are not claiming that pasta was introduced from China to Europe, directly or indirectly, rather that it had developed it's own pasta independenly. Also, as I mentioned above, one has to be careful of what the authors are talking about when they refer to 'pasta'. There seems to be no evidence that the Chinese had hard wheat until relatively recent times and many of the 'pasta' were possible made of grains etc other then soft wheat. It is a very interesting read BTW.

note: images may be dicy until loading sorted. We had previously spent one day in Sanlucar de Barrameda on a previous trip to Andalucia, basically for me to taste Manzanilla and for my wife to stake out a few metres of beach in the sun. No knowing what to expect we consulted various guide books, these where not very hopeful, "seedy" seemed to be the most commonly useed description. Well it seems that opinions are very personal and to be frank, if maybe not the most obviously touristy town, we still enjoyed it very much. So when a few choice Bank holidays presented themselves, we returned for a more detailed look. This is quite unusual for us, as being Australians living in the UK for a finite amount of time, we want to see as much variety in Europe as possible. Sanlucar itself is situated in the extreme west of Cadiz Province, being seperated from Huelva Province by the Guadalquivir river. It is from this port town that Magellan and Columbus set out to explore the unknown etc etc, but more personally important was the fact that is this town where the manzanilla sherry is produced. This town only in fact. Manzanilla is one of the most delicious and food perfect wines in the world. I very much like it and wanted to know more about it. Food wise Sanlucar is also noted for a string of restaurants in the old fishing quarter (Bajo de Guia). As there are about 150 boats that fish out of Sanlucar this means seafood. OK, now problem number one. Problem number one is that day one of our trip was day six of the local garbage collectors strike and day four of un-seasonal hot weather. Sadly large piles of gently swelling and exploding garbage bags meant that Bajo de Guia is no go. Still the people are amazingly friendly, the weather is not Scottish and the wine is right. Anyway, as I pointed out to my wife several times before she left me, it was living the real experience, right? Breakfast: Toasta with tomato puree and 'ham butter', this is the fat of the fantastic jamon, rendered down with a few scaps of meat and whipped. Think fantastic guilty pleasure. This with coffee and fresh orange juice for two is the incredible sum of €5. The setting for this is a table in the local market. God it made me happy. More on the market later.

I think that as noted above that there is no real doubt that much of the pasta in Italy has Arabic/Persian origins, but I think that a distintion has to be made (as pointed out by Clifford Wright) between hard wheat pasta and soft wheat pasta. The former seems to belong to be Arabic/Persian/Near Eastern, but there seems to be no reason to suggest that some soft wheat pasta are native to Italy or at least Europe.

I guess I can think of a few origins of soft-wheat pasta in Europe alone. - flat breads that evolved into pasta, testaroli are an example of this. - Mlinci (note my Balkan bias) are flat bread/pasta dough that are made from soft wheat then baked for storage and transport (not sure the Italian's ever worked this out for soft wheat products). - Noodle/dumplings as an ancestor - batter type products, either like crespelli (what are those things called that are crepes used as pasta?) or like some types of european and Asian noodles So the two main groupings I see are flat bread v dumplings. I think that latter is more likely and that it isn't a very big stretch of the imagination to get: porridge/gruel/puls/polenta > dumpling > pasta But ultimately I don't think there is one origin and I don't think that it would be a linear relationship.

Alberto - I see what you mean, I think that some of the confusion (I have) with lasagna/e is that there is a difference between the dish(s) and the pasta. When ever I see lasagna I metally think of the stuff that Garfield eats (cartoon cat character BTW), rather then the wide sheets of pasta that are called lasagna. I know of the Sicillian and E-R dishes that use this pasta and are named after the pasta, what makes me think that the Romans may have not had that much to do with the evolution of these modern dishes is that there don't seem to be widespread variations lasagna dishes in the former Roman empire or even within modern Italy. To my knowledge? From a practical point of view, if you make sheet pasta the basic form you get is going to be lasagna (cut it up and it becomes lasagnette, pappadelle etc etc), I can see the Romans possibly giving the word to describe this type of dough shape (from the Greek), especially if it was a high status dish, but any direct link to a recipe is harder to see. The word seems to be widespread (used by Marco Polo for instance) to describe flat sheets of pasta, but if the Greek word pre-dates the Latin, maybe the widespread use of this word to describe a flat dough product pre-dates the Roman useage for a flat-quasi-pasta/bread, and continues in a more restricted manner after the Romans were dust.

Alberto - I think that most Italian sources I have seen prefer to derive 'Lasagne/Lasagna' from the Greek 'lagana which was a type of flat bread and seems to fit the Roman image of the dish. The other suggestion is that the word has a vulgar Latin origin, named after the cooking vessel 'lasania, which has its origins in the Latin 'lasanum (which I think means 'piss pot'). What ever the case, from the Roman recipes I have seen I imagine a dish that contains flat bread, a bit like the modern Lunigiana 'Testaroli' or maybe the Balkan 'Mlinci'. But, I'm not sure that this means that the Roman dish is the only ancestor of the modern Italian dish. I would favour a Greek (or earlier) original model that developed locally in several locations (the Roman model being one of these), later there was some cross fertilization, maybe. It seems more logical to me that the Sicilian lasagna has Greek, rather then Latin roots in any event. Fun isn't it?

It is a complicated issue and is difficult to approach as what qualifies as 'pasta' differers from writer to writer. I think that a general answer would be that 'pasta' has independent and multi-regional origins, but some specific pasta or a least their names can be traced. For instance 'Laska' in Malaysia in origins in a Persian (and maybe older) noodles name, but the noodles now used in the dish most likely have East-Asian origins. But, most writers now agree that Marco Polo did not bring back pasta to Europe, although he used a word for a type of European pasta to descibe something he saw in SE-Asian. The Romans most likely had flat sheets of dough, but it is difficult to say it these were pasta (even if the word they used to describe these gives us a modern word for a type of pasta). It is all a matter of definition. Is a flat-bread a pasta? Most people would say not, but there are products in this class that are used in a manner that a pretty close to most peoples definition of a pasta. Anyway a much better discussion on this topic can be found on Clifford Wright's site.

From earlier this week, a Baeckeoffe type stew recipe from Alsace. Lamb shoulder, pork shoulder, beef ribs and ox-tail were marinated in riesling with onions, thyme, juniper berries and cloves for 24 hours. This was then layered in a pot. First a layer of potatoes and onions, then the meat: then another layer of potatoes: then the whole lot covered in the strained marinated and is sealed in the pot and put into the oven. This was cooked overnight at 100.C. The result:

It is a recipe from a book on the food of Alsace. Not sure if it is a representative recipe or not though. I remade the recipe. The problem is that as the dough comes out of the ricer, the individual 'strands' clump together and they then sink to the bottom of the pot. I thinned some of the dough/batter, this made it worse. I thickened some the dough/batter with extra semolina and this improved thinks a great deal. So I'm thinking that experience is the key. I must have ate a kilo of 'experimental' spaetzle, I feel slightly 'full'.

Yes, these are found in various regions, often with names like "merde di can" (although these are made with swiss chard).

Duh, Damn spelling. Should it be "Spätzles" rather then ""Spätzle"" is it plural?

Cool, I will give this go tonight.

British flour, not American . It is about 12.5% protein content. Sounds like the flour isn't the issue, the user maybe..

I guess you could call it that, but "rose petal jelly" (or "Gelée" if you prefer) or "Rose Petal Bavarois ", is proberly better.

These are used for making pate/terrines in a crust, the ridges are impressed into the pastry. If you have a top crust, then you don't weight down the terrine. The gap between the force meat and crust is mostly filled in with aspic.

I made spätzel for the first time last night. 500 gms bread flour 100 gms fine semolina 6 eggs 250 gms drained curd cheese Water This was mixed together, water added until a cake mixture type batter was acheived, rested for 30 minutes and put through ricer. Spätzel cooked in water, browned in butter with sage, and flavoured with Austrian pumpkin seed oil. OK, they were fine, but the mixture was very elastic and this ment that there was clumping of the spätzel as they came out of the ricer. Should flour with less gluten be used?

More papoutsakia from Rosemary Barron's "Flavours of Greece". Recipe altered to suit taste and what was in the house. Half pork, half beef, onions, celery, carrot, ham and tomato, flavoured with honey, cinnamon, allspice and oregano. A really good tip from this book is to mix the white sauce with an egg yolk and then fold in the whipped egg white, this gives a much lighter topping. White sauce was flavoured with bay leaf, nutmeg, aged gouda and some Irish brie style cheese.

I would assume so also (their bones are black also BTW), but I once assumed that sea bass, sea bream, turbot, cod and sea trout were wild caught... I wouldn't think that they are battery raised (wouldn't be any point for a meat bird), but they could still be fairly intensively raised, in barns for instance, and fed crappy commercial pellets. I doubt this is do, but it is something to think about.

Some chicken breeds with South American blood have blue-green eggs (like the araucanas mentioned). In the UK the larger supermarkets sell Cream Legbar, which are blue-green to olive. The genetics of the blue egg and black skin traits are relatively simply, so if you really wanted to you could breed a black-skinned blue egg laying magic chicken. Especially if you come from a country where there is a strong commercial incentive to do so. If I was going to do it I would start off with these chickens as parental stocks. 1.01 Breeding Magic Chickens

The taste like chicken. They are just a chicken breed with a few genetic quirks that make them look a little different (no 'hooks' on the feathers, hence the fluffiness, five toes, black skin etc). They aren't a different species or anything that would make the distinctly different. The breed of chicken can effect flavour etc, but diet is very important as well. A commercially raised silkie chicken is likely to taste just as rubbish as any other commercial breed. The opposite is also true.

These are the dead form for Silkie Chickens. The are very docile, great mothers and quite popular as pets.

Given the hugh amount of Australian wine sold in the UK, it is strange how difficult it is to find an interesting bottle. Things I can't get. Fortifieds: Muscat and Tokay from Rutherglen (Chambers, Bullers, Stanton and Killeen). Riesling: Pikes, Castle Rock, Leo Buring, Howard Park, Delatite. Semillion, the age worthy examples from the Hunter River Valley would have to be some of Australians best whites. But they need to be aged!: Lindermans, McWilliams (lovedale and elisabeth), Tyrells. Tahbilk Marsanne. Again needs to be aged for ~5-10 years otherwise it tastes like nothing. Shiraz - Lindermans and Tryrell's Hunter River Shirazs (big range, I mean the top end), Jasperhill, Bowens Estate, Craiglee, Mt Langi ghiran, Best's Great Western bin 00. Coonawarra Cabernet's (Bowens again, Balnaves, Wynns). Any red wine from AP Birks Wendouree. Plus many others. Sob.

The recipe you post is identical to a contemporary Algerian one. I suppose we can ask the question if such dishes are found in the rest of Italy. I'm still trying to digest The Mediterranean Feast it's quite the book. ← How interesting and I thought that when I cooked it that I was recreating a dish that hadn't been made for a few hundred years. What is the name of the Algerian dish? The Tuscan agrodolce sauce for wild boar is similar to this (once you take out the New World ingredients). Some of the early tuscan cookbooks apparently contined Arabic recipes, I will look into what they were exactly.

The use of vinegar is interesting. Many of the medieval Arab recipes use vinegar as a souring agent, but this doesn't seem to be the case now. I wonder if the translation 'vinegar' is means a grape product though, or another type of similar product. In the 14th century "Description of Familiar things" there is a recipe for Marwaziyya, which is named for the central asian city of Merv and is an thought to be an ancestor of the North African feast dish Mrouzia. The two dishes are quite different in taste profile, due to the vinegar in the medieval recipe, infact it reminds me of the Italian Agrodolce sauces. I wonder if this Italian cooking method had an Arabic root? My version of the medieval recipe is: 1.5 kg meat (lamb) 500 gm onions (grated) 2.5 ounces raisins 2 ounces of jujubes 6 ounces of prunes vinegar mint mixed spices saffron sugar Mix meat with spices and onion, rest overnight. Gently heat the meat mixture until fragrant Add pre-soaked fruit Cook for 1.5-2.0 hours, add sugar/vinegar syrup to taste. Adjust seasoning with more spices, salt and mint, glaze under the grill and leave to settle for 10 minutes or so.