Behemoth

To steer the conversation more towards my own personal benefit... Schneich, how easy is it to find these breeds in your average German wochenmarkt? I can find them readily at even smaller farmer's markets here in the US but I've never noticed them when I've been in Germany in season. Also, when I've served them to visiting German guests they've expressed quite a bit of surprise so they don't seem to be that common? I've so far only looked in regular weekly markets, not in any of the more famous ones like Viktualienmarkt. This has been one of the few products I have lamented missing when we move to Deutschland, so it would be nice to know I will still be able to buy them. What (as a class, not as individual breeds) are they called in Germany, in case I need to ask? (Growing them myself is not an option, due to the Geneva conventions on inadverant plant torture, benign neglect and absentminded abuse.)

Fried is the way to go. Here are two ways I like to have it: 1) cut into thin slices, fried with onions and garlic until crisp, and eaten with russian dressing & saurkraut on rye as a fake rueben. 2) mashed up with potato and formed into patties, pan fried and served with sweet-hot tomato chutney.

Thanks for the tip! Having looked it up, I think you meant: "A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East" by Sami Zubeida and Richard Tapper. I'll have to check it out.

I seem to be triangulating my way back to Lebanese food tolerance. Day before yesterday, Italian. Yesterday, Indian. Currently simmering on the stove: North African potato tagine with olives and preserved lemons, and Moroccan-style lamb kofta.

Chufi, I'll need a couple of days before I have time. Here are a couple of day-trip recommendations to keep you entertained in the meantime: The cedars: Note in the picture that in late June there is still snow on the highest peaks. If you go in the spring there will of course be a lot more snow. Spring is a great time to go. The fruit trees are blossoming and the countryside is blanketed with wildflowers. The mountains smell like a mixture of thyme and honey and that smell is one of the few things I get really, really homesick for. Another great place to go is Jbeil (Byblos). It is not far from Beirut and has beautiful beaches and great fish restaurants, as well as being the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Imagine eating grilled fish on the beach with a view of a 7000 year old city. Pretty cool. foreground: Phoenecian foundations. Background, Roman columns. As I am taking this photo I am standing in front of a crusader citadel. foreground: Roman ruins. In back, Ottoman era house, beach and mountains.

Billboard outside the factory in Bloomington IL: "Beer nuts -- for back to school!"

Are you going to try a little tahini sauce with it? Even if it's just on the side. Good stuff. I really miss being able to get good fresh fish.

That's how I read it too. However, Absinthe was banned in the US in 1912, and in France in 1915. I know of at least one family that has been distilling Arak since 1890, and they are not considered that unusual. Now suppose or argument's sake they were distilling with wormwood rather than anis. I have no idea whether absinthe was ever formally banned in Lebanon, (let's say it was by french mandate...) then given what I know about Lebanese people, a) 1915 is awfully late for people to have forgotten such a major tradition and b)I really cannot imagine people would have stopped doing what they were doing because of a law. Especially when it comes to distilling at home, which lots of people do. It just seemed fishy.

That is just about the only dish that will induce me to come back to Lebanese food right now. The sheer genius of putting dried mint in tomato broth. Looks wonderful. I've been cooking a lot, but not photographing anything. Today was simple: saag paneer, indian style scrambled eggs, and naan.

The Phoenicians were from North Africa? : I emailed them, no response. ← My other favorite dubious factoid: edit: if you notice the recipes on the bottom of the Lebanon page -- a fattoush with hummus in it, and a red-pepper hummus. Interesting...

Since nobody else has stepped up to the plate and I feel like procrastinating: Depends on what you mean by strictly. If you were to serve an American style bulgar salad with a little parsley in it and call it tabbouli people would think you were nuts. But most people we knew tweaked their dishes a little in one direction or another and it was considered a nice personal touch, so long as the dish remained recognizable. In other words, there is a limit on how much you can change something (and it also depends on the dish...) but nothing as strict as French cuisine. Well, just considering the history, it would be hard to have generations of writers talking specifically about Lebanese cuisine as opposed to Levantine or "greater Syrian" cuisine. After all, my grandfather was in the Ottoman army and then a Gendarme . I have tried over the past few years to look for truly exhaustive, more scholarly sources but there doesn't seem to be much out there that is specifically Lebanese, or even Levantine as opposed to more generally Middle-Eastern. Of course there is practically a glut of Lebanese cookbooks on the market, and maybe that has to some extent codified what certain dishes are supposed to look like (at least for the foriegners and immigrants who bother with them), even though there are always slight variations, and of course they always focus on the popular stuff. In other words, no real formal scholarly attempt that I've come across. The infamous TV chef was the first place I'd seen where there was some effort to even set down what specific region things come from. (Before that I'd mainly heard of these things from my dad who as I mentioned before loved to take us on car trips of questionable safety to introduce us to the local delicacies...) As to where I've looked, obviously it is easier to search in English, French and German, just because of the existence of stuff like google, amazon and library catalogues. My dad is a book publisher so he is usually a great resource -- he generally likes to feed my various interests but apart from the Ramzi book he sent me I get mostly Arabic poetry and Islamic-era math from him so I've assumed there might not be much out there. Would love to hear if you find anything, or what methods you use to look for books with arabic titles.

Flour power says above that it is about $5 for a whole hen. That seems really cheap to me -- I assume this is for vegetarian but not necessarily organic? I am stuck buying organic here just to get something that's not purdue, and that runs much higher -- I want to say 2-something per pound.

Can you find these in mainstream supermarkets like Schnucks or Krogers? While I do love to support my local farmer sometimes it would be nice to just decide to have a chicken on a Tuesday night without having to plan a week in advance. It sounds like a great product. edit: they have a website, but sadly do not supply in our area. Maybe I should start harassing the local groceries, I'm sure there's a market for it -- right now the only specialty chicken I can buy is frozen.

Oh this should be good. We're having sandwiches on Friday, right?

Okay, this book is nice in that you will probably find listed 90+% of the dishes you might see in Lebanon. The book is bad in that he is very vague when it comes to writing down actual recipes. I should preface this by saying the Jordanian mansaf includes a type of dried yogurt which does not seem to be used in the Lebanese versions. You can find recipes for the Jordanian recipe pretty easily online as it is one of their more famous dishes. Anyway, ramzi gives two recipes, one for a whole baby lamb or goat, about 8 to 10 kilo. The second recipe is for a thigh (presumably top end of the leg?) weighing approx 2 kilo bone included. I will give you the second version as it might be marginally more useful to you given what you have. Ingredients: - 1 leg of lamb, approx 2 kilo - 2 kilo coarse bulgar or "frik" (what exactly is this stuff? It is some sort of "rubbed" grain, I assume wheat. since you probably won't be able to find it, let's stick with the bulgar.) - 1 cup finely chopped onion - 1 tbsp mashed garlic - 1 cup veg oil or samneh (ghee probably fine) - So you can choose to either brown the leg first and then boil it to get a broth, or roast the leg and use some extra bones to make a broth. I would assume there are other aromatics in the brtoh though he doesn't specify. Set the broth aside. - heat the fat and then add onion, and then the garlic. When the onion is golden, add the grain, stir it around so that the grain is coated and then: add the spices. Not that he has listed what the spices are or in what quantities, but on the page are photographs of cinnamon, bay leaves, nutmeg, and cardamom seeds, so presumably these are involved in some way. - you then cover the grains with the broth. When the surface of the broth starts bubbling, cover the pot and turn down the flame, or put the pot in a slow oven. The goal is so that the frik has a chance to soften completely. To serve, put the grain in a large shallow platter, top with the roasted leg, then decorate with browned pine nuts, fried skinned almonds, and boiled peeled (fustuk -- he doesn't specify but presumably he means pistachio?) On the side, you serve yogurt, and a sauce made from a flour/butter roux to which the rest of the broth (and some more spices, apparently...) are added. There ya go, make of it what you will, and let me know how it turns out. BTW, in the photo the dish is also decorated with parsley, radish roses and flowers cut out of lemons (to be honest they look more like limes) & tomatoes. Very pretty. Oh, the "whole lamb" version is similar, except that the spices pictured (though of course not listed) are cumin seeds, what looks to be paprika, cloves and some sort of powder -- possibly just the typical lebanese spice mix. Also, this one uses rice instead of bulgar. edited to add some forgotten info.

Meh, I do it all the time. I'll check good ol' chef ramzi and attempt a translation. Corrections welcome.

There was big article in Saudi/Aramco March-April 2005 about Arab writers abroad. Diana Abu-Jaber is profiled, along with a large number of other people who I've been meaning to read. Here is a link for anyone who might be interested. Goodness, everyone commenting on the thread in the past tense. You don't get off that easy. I am trying to put some time in on a paper for work but after that I plan to harangue you with the charms of the Bekaa valley and the cultural intricacies of getting plastered on small batch Arak at three in the afternoon.

I can't think of any off the top of my head. ← edit: oops, wait. There is "mansaf", which is not so common in my family but is apparently a dish typical of the bekaa valley. (I've only had mansaf in Syria and Jordan, there are a couple of different styles. I can try to dig up a couple of recipes if you want.)

I can't think of any off the top of my head.

I have to agree. India definitely fits the above descriptions, and is precisely the sort of example I was looking for and failed to come up with. Distinctive, simultaneously unified and diversified, and certainly influential throughout Southeast Asia and beyond. The problem with talking about overlap between cuisines in the countries of the Maghreb, or of the Middle East, is that those borders in many cases didn't exist 60 years ago. I should make clear that I don't take the definition of "cuisine" vs. "kitchen" as any type of hierarchy. I am just enjoying the chance to think about something besides the work I keep putting off.

I am out of my league here but I've always been curious about this. I have yet to hear an unambiguous definition of what sets "cuisine" apart from mere "kitchen". The closest I have come to a satisfying answer is that it defines a way of cooking that has been codified formally, in writing, at a certain point in time by an upper class male. Which is fair enough. French and Chinese cuisine cerainly share this trait. But if that is the working definition, does Italian cookery still count? Is there an Italian Escoffier? And if there isn't, then surely Moroccan cuisine should have as much claim to the label "cuisine" as Italian does. Or is it one of those things where "I can't define it exaclty, but know it when I see it"? Daniel, I must say your accent threw me for a loop. Are you originally from NY? Anyway, it was neat seeing Claudia Roden "in person". Thanks for posting this.

Of course. That's exactly the point. The other side of the coin is that I would also pick a fight with someone who says modern life is all better. Basically I just like to pick fights. As my husband put it: "My wife the athiest, unless she's trying to piss someone off."

Adam, all will be forgiven if you do this while wearing a milkmaid outfit. I personally wasn't talking about colonialism, although I suppose that feeds into it in some ways. I was taking issue with nostalgia. I get all bitchy about it here in the US as well -- you should hear my neighbors talk about the good old days of the 1950s. Maybe times were simpler, but I have a hard time thinking of pre-civil rights/pre women's lib as "the good old days". I realize this is not exactly an original point of view or anything... That said, I can definitely see the appeal. I succumb to it myself often enough. I guess I just want people to see the complexity of it all. (I find the complexity also beautiful, in a weird way...)

I think that is exactly the problem I have with such statements. What most people think of as simple times are in fact usually not so simple at all. I myself have written lovingly about walking through the souks with my grandmother and the amount of time she spent making eveything from scratch and all that...but the fact of the matter is, she was pulled out of school at a young age for financial reasons, married off to a guy who was much older than her, had ten kids over the years and basically channeled all her restless energy and sharp wit into a few odd hobbies and (as Almass can surely attest) culinary experiments that took her far afield from the local cuisine, just to escape the drudgery of it all. I would hate to give up the time I spent with her growing up, but I often wonder what choices she would have made, in a different time and place. Anyway, Farid is right about the olive oil. We grind our own, on a stone mill. It is a thick and opaque green and no matter how much money I have been willing to spend in gourmet stores, I have never found anything that comes close. Probably easier to find in California than on the East Coast though...

Marlena, I apologize. It is a sore subject for me. Not the politics so much as the sentimentalization of food. Professional habit, though I'm guilty of it myself enough times. If a kind moderator would remove offending post I would be most appreciative.