mizducky

I think there is huge potential for doing something modern and interesting with gefilte fish. Not only to rescue them from the lousy reputation they've gotten from all the bad jarred gefilte fish out there, but also because, well, think of the possibilities. Varying the species of fish used. Varying the seasonings and flavorings. Bringing in some cross-cultural ideas (kamoboko/gefilte fish hybrids, anyone?). ← Individuals and caterers here have been making "gefillte fish" with other types of fish for years. They make it with salmon, sea bass, red mullet. This is nothing new. ← Well, it would be a new thing here in this rather goyishe town in the USA. Admittedly, the question that started this topic probably only makes sense in the context of a largely gentile country (like the USA, to name one) where Jewish culture is in the minority; has a specific ethnic history (i.e. Eastern European Ashkenazic Jewish emigration, mostly in the late 19th/early 20th century); and has also undergone a whole bunch of assimilation into the majority culture. I totally hear you that the question sounds, at best, a bit odd in your context, living immersed in Israel's multicultural Jewishness. So maybe the question needs to be rephrased to make it more regionally specific. Oh yeah, I do know that once upon a time intrepid Jewish cooks stuffed a whole intact fish skin with the chopped fish mixture. My grandmother's version must have been a transitional one--she made the chopped fish into patties but then wrapped a strip of fish skin around each one. As to reverting vs. innovating: it does happen, in various creative fields, that artisans seeking to do something new turn to the history of that field for inspiration. Everything old is new again? I dunno. But since I don't think my hand is quite steady enough to skin a fish in one intact piece, I don't think I'm going to go quite that far back for my inspiration. Well, I'm not on Atkins, but I've got other health constraints. And there just ain't a whole lot of Jewish cooking going on in this goyishe town, and what little there is, is not all that inspiring in quality; so yeah, if I want it I'm probably going to have to make it myself. And since I'm going to have to make it in a way that works for my health constraints and tastes, I will have to make some changes here and there. But hopefully these will not be just random changes for the sake of novelty, but knowledgeable and respectful changes done with knowledge of the history of the art.

I think there is huge potential for doing something modern and interesting with gefilte fish. Not only to rescue them from the lousy reputation they've gotten from all the bad jarred gefilte fish out there, but also because, well, think of the possibilities. Varying the species of fish used. Varying the seasonings and flavorings. Bringing in some cross-cultural ideas (kamoboko/gefilte fish hybrids, anyone?). Yeah, yeah, I know, if you monkey with it too much, will it still be gefilte fish anymore? But one of the lessons I'm learning from this discussion is that, in many cases, Jewish food is in the eye of the beholder and/or what you grew up with. (Example: Is my aunt's chicken fricassee specifically Jewish, or related to many other non-Jewish takes on fricassee that may well have pre-dated it? I dunno; all I know is that, when I was a kid, the fricassee was served in the context of a Jewish home, and I picked up by osmosis that my family considered it a Jewish dish, and it was like nothing I saw in my gentile friends' homes or in local restaurants or on TV, so I concluded, rightly or wrongly, that it must indeed be a specifically Jewish thing. And I'm not alone in considering chicken fricasee to at least have a distinctly Jewish-identified variant--click here.) Anyway--I keep on meaning to one day reconstruct my maternal grandmother's method of making gefilte fish from scratch, based on my mother's recollections. And once I've got the basic method down--or maybe even before--I mean to play with it to see what kind of trouble I can get into.

Okay, that explains why you weren't getting our references to squirrels. One of the most beloved bits of information in the classic editions of Joy was the instructions on how to skin a squirrel. Not that I had ever wanted or needed to know that info, but just the fact that the Rombauer ladies put it in there tickled us Joy fans--it was the "look how desert-island-required-reading this book is!" phenomenon. When they did the controversial new and improved edition a few years ago, a lot of old bits of lore, like the squirrel-skinning, had gone missing. So now checking for the squirrel has become one of the touchstones of how you can tell you've got a classic edition or the new one that's been mucked around with.

Not to diminish the joy (so to speak) of this find, but the content of this site seems not to comprise the entire content of the book; rather, they've got featured recipes, tips, and techniques (which, alas, don't seem to include that classic treatise on how to skin a squirrel).

How's this for a hypothesis? It's possible that at least one major component of this concept of "Jewish" food that we're wrestling around with here only coalesced once significant numbers of Eastern European Jews emigrated to North America. Whereas back in the old country, their food wasn't all that different from their neighbors, in the context of their new home their foods and folkways were definitely distinctive (still with some overlaps, mind you, but yet with enough differences to stick out). And thus you started to see that distinctive body of foodways get labeled "Jewish cooking" here in the North American continent (and not so much elsewhere in the world). Anyway, just a thought...

Well, I adore the traditional Eastern European-by-way-of-New York Ashkenazi food I grew up with, but I'll give you a few extremely pragmatic reasons why I don't eat a whole lot of it these days: 1. The "heaviness" thing ... okay, I totally hear folks on the topic that Ashkenazi food does not have to be heavy; however, remember I'm a bit of a freak about my whole weight-management thing, and I find that the prized dishes of a lot of cuisines, not just Ashkenazi, can be challenging to fit into my routine. There are, however, traditional dishes I do still fit in easily and enjoy with gusto, like beet borscht (we'll leave aside for now the thoughtful subdiscussion about whether dishes like borscht are uniquely Jewish) 2. Being (currently) a single householder, there's a bunch of dishes I don't make very often because they only seem to work right if you make a big batch, and I only have so much room in my freezer. Some dishes, however--like the borscht--present no such problem, because I can hoover through a batch of borscht at an alarming clip. And as I am (hopefully) going to be changing my living/working arrangements fairly soon such that I will be cooking for another beside myself, I may well be finding opportunity to revisit some of those big-batch recipes. 3. The few restaurants and retailers of Jewish-style food in my area are, well, adequate at best, and at worst ... well, they suck. (Insert obligatory kvetch about the sorry state of franchise "bagel" manufacturers here.)

Just caught up. I've never been anywhere in Atlantic Canada, so all of this is fascinating to me. The look of the land is at least familiar to me from years I spent around New England, so I'm feeling all nostalgic for that corner of the continent now. I'm enjoying how your playful attitude comes through in your photos, your words, and your food. Adorable kids!

I love onions for breakfast. Sauteed till caramelized like crazy as fillings in omelettes (onion, mushroom, and swiss cheese is my all-time favorite omelette), raw slices with lox and bagels, pickled with herring. Roasted onions are lovely too--I've seen those more as a brunch thing but hey, why not earlier?

Howdy folks--if I might interrupt all this gorgeous-looking food with a query: A local Vietnamese restaurant here has a couple of dishes on its menu that, at least in English translation, feature "deer" as the meat. For instance, there's a bun plate called Bun Nai Xao or "Rice Vermicelle w/Stir Fried Deer." The staff is way friendly but I'm running into a little language barrier in determining whether this really is venison, or perhaps some other sort of meat. And I've eaten venison so rarely that tasting the stuff is not clarifying matters much (other than that, while it looks a little like beef, it doesn't really taste like beef). Anyone able to help with a translation or explanation? Thanks muchly!

What a fascinating blog! Sorry I wasn't able to contribute more substantively. I can see that I've still got a hell of a lot of catching up to do on Malaysian cuisines (alas, there seem to be extremely few Malaysian restaurants in San Diego). Anyway, thanks for presenting all those ravishing foods--I'm intrigued and inspired.

Aw, the wheeled tote's not so bad ... especially when it's done up in faux zebra-skin. Actually, the thing can be a pain in the arse to load and unload, not to mention navigate down the street or up stairs ... Ditto what everyone else has said about the current sorry state of grocery bagging. I regret to report that I have heard myself snap things like: "Would you please not throw my food around like that?" I get a lot of my basics at Food 4 Less not only because of the prices, but because they are totally bag-it-yourself. The baggers and cashiers at the local 99 Ranch do take some nice care with their bagging. Like putting each glass jar in its own paper bag and then grouping those together in a plastic bag, so they're a little cushioned against each other. They do burn through a lot of bags that way, and in general, but at least there's some purpose to it. They also do a neat trick with lacing the handles of the plastic bags together so that stuff won't fall out.

Hi, yunnermeier! Just dropping in late to say "great blog!" I'm up to my ears in work and probably won't be able to participate much more substantively than that, but I will be reading along as best I can!

Oh boy--lots of fun stuff to catch up on... I think I forgot to wish you congratulations on your annivesary. So ... mazel tov! Now for some other comments, in no particular order ... The rats (and their eating habits) are just adorable. Random still-sort-of-food-related tangent: I took the little nephews last week to a kid's science museum, which had a feature called Rat Basketball. Some staffers had painstakingly trained a pair of rats to dive through wee basketball hoops for food rewards. They had trained them to grab the little basketball (actually, the ball from a roll-on deodorant vial) in their mouths by coating it with peanut butter. It was very silly, but very dear. Oh yeah--duck confit quesadillas. All of that dinner looks fabulous, but somehow the quesadillas are really turning my crank. Re: asparagus--stumbled on this link, which gives a nice layperson's account of the organic chemistry behind the stinky pee phenomenon, and the genetics behind both producing it and smelling it. Scallops make wonderful ceviche (Latin American dish--raw scallops "cooked" by a lime juice marinade).

Thanks, Hiroyuki! I do have miso in the house, but it's brown not white ... I think I'll go with the wasabi/soy sauce option this time; by the next time I pick up some sashimi konnyaku I'll see if I can also remember the other stuff.

I've been back home for nearly a week but am only just now finding time to report on the foodie aspect of my visit to Charlotte. Not as much to report as I had hoped, partly because my 5- and 9-year-old nephews turn out to be a bit too rambunctious to take to any restaurant more sophisticated than a Chick-fil-a. And I had the "joy" of my very first experience of a Chuck E. Cheese -- ah, the pleasures of playing auntie ... I did manage to slink away on my own a couple of times for some slightly more sophisticated repasts. One of my hits was the Penguin. Dang, that was a fun place--my kind of joint. I haven't seen a restaurant staff with that many tattoos and piercings since I left Seattle. I totally spaced the fried pickle recommendation, and instead wound up ordering the BBQ salad: It was mentioned that NC-style barbeque, when not done perfectly, can be on the dry side. This stuff was a tad mite dry. But it had a great smoky flavor and aroma, and I could clearly see traces of a nice pink smoke ring on various bits of meat. I slathered some of the vinegar-based sauce on, and was well satisfied. On another escape I did a run through NoDa, and wound up having lunch at Addie's Jamaican Cuisine. I ordered what was billed as the Jerk Chicken Salad: As you can see, this is more like jerk chicken plus a salad, but I have no complaints--especially since that hunk o' bird was one of the juiciest, moistest chicken breasts I had ever tasted. The jerk seasoning was great, but I confess I'm even more impressed with the chef for keeping the white meat so juicy. Edited to add: the server at Addie's highly recommended their sorrel drink, so I got some--and boy am I glad I did. Wonderful stuff ... was that a hint of cinnamon in there? Whatever it was, it was delicious. We did wind up taking the nephews to Discovery Place, but all they wanted to eat was jellybeans from the Candy Unwrapped exhibit. Their mom practically had to beg them to take a break and come with us for lunch in the museum cafe, more because she and I were starving than anything else. (The less said about the quality of that meal, the better.) But at least I got out and experienced a little taste of "Weird Charlotte"--and I liked it.

I dropped in the local branch of Mitsuwa Marketplace and had myself a little konnyaku spree: The variety that is a first for me is the sashimi konnyaku: Apparently the green flecks are seaweed; rosemary extract is also listed in the ingredients. I'm not sure how clear it is from the photo, but this konnyaku is formed into two thick "homemade"-looking patties somewhat like really fat hamburgers. Back a couple of pages in this topic I saw several people recommending that sashimi konnyaku be served with karashi, either alone or mixed with soy sauce. Alas, I didn't think to buy any karashi while at Mitsuwa. How would a mix of wasabi and soy sauce do?

Hey, Chufi, great to see you blogging again! I think I recognize some Lee Kum Kee labels in there ...

I too have fond childhood memories of braised beef tongue ... I'm yet another nice Jewish girl from New York, so that's why, unlike many Americans, I actually enjoy such dishes. I've been overjoyed to discover that the local Asian markets here in San Diego carry beef tongue on a regular basis--mostly frozen, but in the case of tongue it doesn't seem to hurt the quality any. I've also been eyeing the pork and lamb tongues I've been seeing in various ethnic markets--their small size makes them very attractive to me as a single householder. Haven't actually bought any yet, but this topic is reminding me I want to give 'em a whirl.

When onion-cutting came up in a previous topic, I realized I didn't quite know how I did this task. I started paying a little more attention (more than just the basic don't-lop-off-a-finger level of attention) and realized I kind of varied my approach based on the size and internal construction of the onion. I start with the basic halve-and-vertical-cut approach. If the onion's huge, I will then throw in a horizontal cut or two; if it's small, I'll dispense with those; then slice away into cubes; if there are some individual fat layers in the onion, I'll chop the resulting chunks up a bit further once I've got the basic cubes all done. And I do happen to like that chunk right by the root--plus my folks raised me to be a tightwad, so I can't just throw it out! So that bit, and any other bit that gets too awkwardl to hang onto in the normal way, I'll just turn any old direction that makes it easy to chop, and have at it. I guess you could call this the System D (as in "Do whatever works") method. Professional cooking instructors might howl with laughter, but it works for me.

Great read! I too had wondered why the hell supermarket strawberries suck even here in SoCal, when I know they're growing them just a few miles away. But yeah, supermarket strawberries are supermarket strawberries. I should know better than to buy them, but sometimes I give 'em a go anyway. Hey, at least they're good roughage! When I was in North Carolina this past weekend visiting the nephews, we visited a U-pick strawberry farm. They still looked like the supermarket variety, but getting them fresh out of the fields did help the flavor issue at least a little. Found the historical note on Japanese-American strawberry growers fascinating ... the moreso because even once their US-born offspring got the right to own land, those on the West Coast had that land yanked out from under them when they were sent to the WWII relocation camps. Somehow I think there was some definite strawberry-farm envy (and land-grabbing opportunism in general) along with jingoistic war-hysteria behind that sad chapter in US history. I had an acquaintance back in Seattle whose family owned a strawberry farm on Vashon Island before they were shipped off to the camps.

I am especially fond of Trader Joe's store-brand whole peeled Roma tomatoes--especially the low-sodium variant. I like to be the one to decide both the texture and the salt content of the tomatoes in my recipes. And the price is excellent for the quality. I also tend to stock up on "generic" whole canned tomatoes whenever I see them on special. For everyday long-simmered dishes they do just fine as far as I'm concerned. By the way, I'm intrigued to hear that DOP San Marzanos are not necessarily "all that." I keep looking at them in the store and being repelled by sticker shock. Speaking of which, I did not know that Pomi has a lower salt content than other canned/packaged/etc. tomatoes--that's a plus as far as I'm concerned. I'll start keeping an eye out for sales of them now.

Thank you, Hiroyuki, for a wonderful and highly educational blog. (I think my favorite photo is that of your children catching the trout. )

Well, I can totally wax poetic on the joys of a well-made reuben, but that by no means requires you to do likewise if it doesn't sing to you. I will point out, however, that I've suffered through some pretty miserable exemplars of reubens. IMO the sauerkraut needs to be pretty mild, and very well drained--otherwise, yeah, its flavor will overwhelm everything else and its water content will make the rest of the sandwich too watery. And it goes without saying that you need good-quality corned beef, swiss cheese and rye bread--and I prefer it when they go easy on the Russian dressing. But when everything's done right, and the whole thing toasted on a diner-style griddle, it is a thing of beauty to those who love it. Amen to that. I too have run into some lame-ass excuses for panini here and there--it seems like a lot of shops jumped on the panini bandwagon without actually bothering to teach their staff proper technique with that shiny new panini press. And again, ingredient choice and prep is key IMO. There are some breads that take to the panini press much more readily than others--I really prefer the places that use a sturdy artisanal bread, sliced thin for optimum heat penetration and crisping. And if there's no cheese in the innards to get all melty, I think they've missed the best feature of this creation. So it sounds like I'm coming down against indiscriminately grilling/heating/toasting just any old collection of sandwich fixings and calling it good, huh?

That looks like the same Yukio Hattori who used to appear as the commentator on the original FujiTV Iron Chef show, right? That show had a huge cult following here in the United States--our Food Network used to rerun it frequently. Sadly for those of us who were fans of the original, Food Network quit running it in favor of their own US-produced version.

In addition to all the above suggestions (all of which I agree with and have resorted to at one point or another), I would put forth another strategy--to make some kind of spread using the cheese in question. No, not the same mouthfeel as a slice of cheese--but it does guarantee that you get an even layer of cheesy goodness across your entire sandwich. (sez she who has fond memories of the roast beef and Boursin sandwiches on thick slabs of artisanal bread once made by Formaggio's when they were a sandwich shop in Harvard Square in the late 1970s)