John Whiting

I have a dim memory that, according to both practices, the animal must be killed by slitting its throat.

Pig's trotters, says Theodora Fitzgibbon, are cooked in water for several hours; they may then be dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and fried in bacon fat. Mine seemed to have avoided the first stage entirely. True, there is very little meat on them, but there is a gelatinous unctiousness in the cartilage which, when subdued by long cooking, sticks to your ribs -- and also to the beans in a properly amalgamated cassoulet. As a child I loved that archetypal German snack, pickled pigs feet, in which chewy hunks of bone and cartilage were fished out of vinegar and sucked in mouth-puckering ecstasy.

Would I consider Alan Davidson a culinary anthropologist? Yes in the sense that he is very aware of the interaction between cuisine and culture. But he doesn't have a graduate degree in anthropology; for some, that would be the determining factor. Mariani, yes indeed. He even passed the skully-joe test. I looked it up and he had it right. (It's "fisherman's candy" -- rock-hard dried cod as made and gnawed on by Provincetown fisherman.) But he will be superceded in a couple of years by Andrew F. ("Andy") Smith, who's doing a guide to American food and drink for Oxford. Warch for it -- it will be worth whatever it costs.

Sorry, it jes' don't smell right.

Much depends on exactly what you use a reference book for. The basic difference is between a dictionary and an encyclopedia. The former will give you definitions of unfamiliar or vaguely familiar words; e.g. what the hell is a muffuletta. The latter will take a subject, whether broad or narrow, and take you through it in sufficient detail to put it into some sort of perspective; e.g. Italian-American cuisine. Somewhere beyond this merely functional process is a type of reference work which Oxford University Press brilliantly conceived, namely the Companion. Originally it was what scholars call a vademecum or "come-with-me", a personal guide through an area of knowledge usually written by one person. One of the last of these monolothic solo efforts was James Hart's _Oxford Companion to American Literature_, of which he quite literally wrote every word. Alan Davidson, whose name is on _The Oxford Companion to Food_, comes as close to this superhuman achievement as anyone alive today. After giving us his monumental guides to North Atlantic and Mediterranean Seafood (and along the way serving as a diplomat all the way up to ambassador level), he settled down to a twenty-year labor of love which culminated in this final work. He had some very distinguished assistants and contributors -- their work is identified by their initials -- but the greater part is his alone. The best use one can make of such a work is to curl up in a chair, a good bottle of wine within easy reach, and read it. Allow Davidson to be your companion for an hour or so. Do this regularly and you will end up with an education far more liberal than a computer-driven mish-mash such as the _Cambridge World History of Food_ will give you, even though the latter is something like twice the length.

For specific information on Western -- mostly European -- cuisine, including abbreviated recipes, nothing can match Theodora Fitzgibbon's _The Food of the Western World_. It's out of print but abebooks.com has lots of used copies.

I hate to be a me-tooer, but -- let's get on with learning from you!

Cabrales, I hope you will attribute my lack of a translation, not to snobbish elitism, but to chronic insoucience.

I'm delighted to read Cabrales' favorable response to one of my favorite restaurants. Here's my much less detailed report from five years ago: ###################### September 1997 Here’s today’s set meal from Buerehiesel in Strasbourg, a Michelin listing that’s worth every one of its three stars. This was like California cooking at its best - not a single heavy sauce, everything prepared in such a manner as to underscore the perfection of the ingredients. Spread out over three hours it left us satisfied but not stuffed. The pigeon breast was the high point, barely cooked but almost fork-tender. I can’t get very excited about frogs’ legs, particularly considering how most of them are obtained these days. These were as good as I’ve eaten, but by application of a pleasure/ principle equation (How good does it taste? How uncomfortable does it make me feel?), I will probably stay away from them in the future. Otherwise, ten out of ten! To go with the progression of courses I chose a Hugel Gewurtztraminer, which the sommelier attempted to guide me away from on the grounds that it was too sweet. But I am among those who find that its distinctive fruity flavor goes well with a great variety of courses and cuisines – even Oriental – and so I persisted. It is well in accord with 19th century tastes in food/wine compatibility; i.e. the wine should be approximately as sweet as the sauce. Victorian wine experts were every bit as dogmatic on this as their modern counterparts, and so, since I do not believe that progress is inevitable, I feel free to follow my whim of the moment. ################################# La marinade de Thon, mousseline de Cabillaud et legumes printaniers a l'huile de Basilic Les Schniederspaetle et les cuisses de Grenouille poelees au Cerfeuil Le Saint-Pierre, les Moules et Haricots Tarbais, a l'Aneth et au Citron confit Les tartines grillees au foie de Canard, fleur de Sel et Poivre, petite salade de Roquette et Artichaut cru La poitrine de Pigeon au Chou vert, echalotes confites et champignons des bois La tarte fine aux Figues, glace aux epices Les De1ices Buerehiesel (i.e., the “sweet trolly”, with a preponderance of fresh fruit “soups” of various sorts.) ######################## It must be the healthiest gourmet extravaganza I’ve eaten since Chez Panisse.

Steven writes: I agree. I love 'em. But a friend who is a genuine food historian tells me that although Kurlansky is a fine prose stylist and a good journalist, he doesn't know how to identify and verify sources with the accuracy of a trained scholar, and so his books are riddled with demonstrable errors. Don't ask me what they are; I don't know. But I'm inclined to take the word of my friend who is a generous person, likes the two books and has refrained from any public criticism because he admires him for what he has accomplished.I can say, from my own knowledge, that Kurlansky's early New England history is centered on Gloucester at the expense of Cape Cod, New Bedford and the Islands. It's the sort of superficiality that a journalist is apt to be guilty of: with one eye on the clock, use what sources you have readily available and assume that they are sufficient. And Steve, your rearguard action on the greenhouse effect is rapidly being overtaken by events. If you're not quick, you may end up in the same footnote to scientific history as the pundits who solemnly swore that smoking had nothing to do with lung cancer.

It's interesting how closely this discussion of kitchen interaction parallels another very old-fashioned hierarchical social structure requiring absolute discipline; namely, the symphony orchestra. The arrogant behavior of conductors was once legendary, along with the stupidity of viola players and the bolshevism of the brasses -- a whole network of control and resistance to control which nevertheless functioned when necessary as a single complex organism. Just like a huge hotel kitchen. Today the situation is very different. Simon Rattle, one of our greatest living conductors and a good friend, is a persuader rather than a commander; in the many concerts in which we've worked together, I've never seen him express anger or disrespect to a player during a rehearsal, onstage or off. It was this profound respect, together with his breathtaking competance and artistry, which made him the Berlin Philharmonic's overwhelming choice as their new conductor, forcing their collective will on the administrators and politicians who had considered other candidates. A still younger conductor -- and another good friend -- is David Robertson, a rapidly rising star whom I've known since his student days at the Royal Acadamy. He's a young Californian with great talent, knowledge and enthusiasm, and he occasionally guest-conducts orchestras in London which include young musicians who were his Academy contemporaries. They love him -- because he's totally competant and runs a tight rehearsal, but still treats them as his equals. Modern orchestras don't play worse because of this burgeoning democracy -- they play better. It's a new age we're living in. I wouldn't want to go back to the days of dictatorial arrogance, either in the orchestra or in the kitchen. I think I could taste the bitterness in the soup.

And de Groot's _Revolutionizing French Cooking_ was America's introduction to nouvelle cuisine, back when it was a serious effort at reform and simplification -- not unlike what the Bauhaus did for art after the wilder excesses of 19th century romanticism and its heirs had finally unravelled.

Well said! I wrote about it at some length in another topic. It was an early influence on Alice Waters, along with E. David. Steve, I'm afraid your response is uninformative.

jaybee, at 2" deep, your paella dish would produce mostly crust without enough "steaming space" underneath for proper braising. (Of course, without a lid, braising isn't the proper name for the process, but it approximates it.) So it would probably end up yummy and gooey -- not exactly a cassoulet, but not something you'd throw away. Also, the capacity of the dish would hardly justify the work involved with so many different ingredients. My advice is, go for the largest clay mixing bowl that will fit in your oven, which is also a perfect bread bowl. Don't worry about making too much; made-up cassoulet freezes just fine and, baked again with a new crust and added liquid, is even better. It must have been a different soup-like process without a crust, but Anatole France reported that the cassoulet at his favorite restaurant had been stewing continuously for twenty years!

Nothing in your last posting I'd argue with. We seem to agree on the facts, if not our personal reaction to them. Edit: Yes, the symbolic sandwich. Not unlike l'Astrance's famous avocado ravioli.

Some people respond enthusiastically to limitless luxury, others prefer simplicity and think of expensive food in the guise of a hamburger as -- well, as decadent. [That's not a word you encounter often in these pages.] I'm not about to argue the moral superiority of one mindset over the other; I'm simply more comfortable with a hamburger that looks like a hamburger, tastes like a hamburger and costs like a hamburger. As for filet steak, lobsters, caviar, foie gras, truffles -- I love 'em all. In fact I love them so much that I hate to see them elevated into status symbols, as in that ludicrous American extravaganza, surf n' turf. A lobster on a plate in an expensive restaurant has become a signal to neighboring tables that the person who has ordered it has a long purse. The tail is eaten, and the big claws; the rest of that wonderful meat goes back untouched to the kitchen where it will probably end up in someone else's soup. A crab wouldn't do; it's not as expensive and it's too much work. As for champagne, I suspect that it wouldn't be nearly so popular for ostentatious occasions if it didn't come in a distinctive bottle and make a noise when opened. Steve, this isn't aimed at you personally. I'm sure expensive food isn't wasted on you, and you have probably become so accustomed to gastronomic luxury that it's a norm rather than a splurge. Lucky you.

No one has mentioned that great French classic, soupe de poisson, or it's upmarket sibling, bouillabaisse. These are normally so much work and/or so expensive as to set themselves aside for special occasions. I have a version, however, whose cheapness and ease of preparation have put it into our regular rota: Bouillabaisse for peanuts One of the culinary ironies of our time is that so many peasant recipes which evolved to make economical use of ingredients in plentiful supply have, as these ingredients disappeared, been transformed into exotic and expensive gourmet fare. I’ve already described my localized and economized versions of cassoulet and brandade; now it’s time to have a crack at bouillabaisse. Of course I’m using these time-honored names generically, much as one spoke of “California champagne” before such usage was prohibited by law and custom. When standards are constantly debased for commercial gain, such protection is essential. But much of the cassoulet and bouillabaisse served in regional tourist traps is “authentic” in name only. In the north of Scotland I made ersatz cassoulet from readily available local ingredients which I preferred to any I had been served in a restaurant, even in Languedoc. Bouillabaisse belongs to a family of stews known the world over among fishermen who must sell or trade their catch and then feed their families on what’s left over. This includes virtually all of the small-boat fishermen who still survive, for there are very few who practice “subsistence” fishing in the totally self-reliant manner of old-fashioned smallhold farmers. Just as pizza and lasagne, exported to America by impoverished Italian immigrants, were gradually converted into luxury dishes to match their consumers’ new-found prosperity, so bouillabaisse, in the hands of chefs, has come to include the most expensive shellfish and often has to be ordered a day in advance. Even those families making it at home in the basic traditional manner are now forced by the escalating price of fish in the markets to recapitulate the ingenuity of those original impecunious fishermen. Waverley Root is quite correct in his opinion that bouillabaisse is at its best when made with an already constructed soupe de poisson. Some authorities even prefer this humble dish to its up-market sibling; there is a heartiness and complexity of flavor which cannot be achieved by just rapidly boiling a few fish in water. Soupe de poisson may be made expensively with whole fish, extravagantly with fillets, or cheaply with fish heads and bones obtained from a friendly fishmonger. These are boiled up with the usual vegetables and herbs and then strained. If heads and bones or whole fish are used, this can be a fiddly process, depending on how much time you spend attempting to force some of the flesh through a collander without a plethora of small sharp bones. I based my quick, cheap bouillabaisse on Colin Spencer’s classic straightforward version in his Fish Cookbook, with certain modifications enabled by a pressure cooker, a food processor, a blender, and a kosher fishmonger. Cheap Instant Bouillabaisse This recipe is for the smallest practical quantity, enough for six generous servings. The ingredients will cost as little as three to four pounds. It can be freely multiplied. For the soup: 1 lb minced white fish (commonly sold by kosher fishmongers) 2 tbls olive oil 5 garlic cloves (or to taste) 1 onion 1 leek, cleaned 1 fennel root 1 small red chili pepper, or powdered cayenne to taste 1 can tomatoes 3 pints water Julienne all the vegetables in a food processor. Put all the ingredients in a pressure cooker, bring to maximum pressure and cook for ten minutes. Depressurize under running cold water and blend at high speed to emulsify. Allow a few minutes for the flavors to recover and combine. Half an hour’s preparation and cooking will give you a strong, thick, delicious soupe de poisson, ready to eat as it is, with croutons, grated gruyère and garlic mayonnaise or rouille. You may also cook in it, for about 15-20 minutes, 1 lb. diced or sliced raw potatoes You can, at the same time as the potatoes, cook whatever additional fish and shellfish you prefer, depending on availability and the size of your wallet. To keep the first attempt notably cheap, I used 1 lb coley fillet, skinned [essential] and cut into small pieces This I added for the last five minutes of cooking the potatoes. Cheap, boring fish – the sort you feed your cat – but, within the total context, nectar and ambrosia, made even sweeter by the fact that authenticity, as defined by the best authorities, would have added at least a zero to the cost. We had it two nights in a row and plan to make it again immediately. We could even afford to eat it twice a day. ©2001 John Whiting, Diatribal Press

Exactly what it looks like. The Not family make them in a graduated series of sizes from about 6" to 15" (across the top). The steeply angled sides give you lots of crust without the contents drying out too quickly. The oven is moderate, so no cover should be used; in fact you wouldn't get a crust at all. Before we got our cassoles, I sometimes made cassoulet in an oven-sized pottery lasagne dish we'd had made, about three inches deep. Acres of crust, but I had to keep careful track of stock levels in the dish. Lovely results, but I was firmly told by an authority that this was a perversion. However, his own cassoulet pot was just an ordinary shallow bow-sided casserole. What price authenticity? A baked bean crock will do OK in a pinch, but practically no crust. The best answer, for those who can't travel to Languedoc and bring back their own, is in fact very simple and thoroughly satisfactory in every way -- a large pottery mixing bowl with a wide top and gently curving sides. The proportions are almost exactly those of a proper cassole; that's what I used in Scotland for my improvisation. The only quibble is that the outside as well as the inside is glazed, which an expert will no doubt tell me invalidates the entire operation.

Note that my method doesn't call for making confit. Paula to the contrary notwithstanding, I don't think it's necessary. In fact, more than one honest English or American alien transplant to the Southwest has commented that local farmers are more often popping their birds in the freezer than going through the time-honored but laborious process of salting, rendering, cooking and sealing. For cassoulet purposes, roasting and/or steam brazing is quite good enough. The trick is to get the flavor of caramelization into the pot in advance of its final amalgamation. The other important aspect of the final cooking is keeping the dish moist enough not to dry out, but not so wet as to turn into soup. If it gets too thick and sticky, you can always add more water or stock, providing it hasn't hardened into an impenetrable mass. Any professional chefs reading all this will doubtless have thrown up their hands in horror. My gradually evolved method is simply a labor of love; at no point have I tried to go back to an earlier stage and make the process more efficient. I've gradually come to the conclusion that, in making a tolerable cassoulet, method is more essential than authentic ingredients. I once made a cassoulet from scratch in the course of a single afternoon, using only ingredients available at an ordinary supermarket on the north coast of Scotland. Instead of a goose, or even a duck, I used a decent free range chicken, and drizzled chicken fat over the breadcrumbs that formed the crust. A fussy Frenchman who ate the result swore it was better than most of the "authentic" cassoulets he'd eaten in his own country.

While we're focused on the South Pacific, has anyone mentioned Rachel Lauden's _The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage_? Lauden is not just a food writer; she's a noted scholar and a trained historian. This keeps her from seeking for a narrow "authenticity" in the cuisine of one of the most polyglot cultures in the world. Free of bias, she is able to face the fact that Spam has become an integral part of Hawaiian cuisine, and so she gives it a chapter on its own in which she explains its wide pragmatic appeal. We need more like her.

The usual garlic press -- small, cylindrical, with tiny holes -- is fiddly to use. Much of the pulp comes up the sides of the plunger and has to be poked back down. Others have a large rectangular bed with rows of larger holes, which is removable. The garlic squishes out at either end. None of them are perfect. I've come to terms with the small cylindrical kind. With my under-the-tap cleaning method, I find it satisfactory -- just. This week I was given a mezzaluna together with a shallow curved chopping block. After I've tried it with garlic, I may change the habit of a lifetime.

I've had several private requests for my cassoulet recipe, as well as a public one, so I'm inserting it here. It's not so much a recipe as a method, but it contains enough information to be intelligible to anyone who is familiar with the process. Cassoulet for the New Millennium This year I decided to approach the cassoulet from an entirely different perspective: start from the desired result and work backwards. The traditional components, all of which may or may not appear together, include a bean stew, a pork stew, a lamb stew, sausages, and confit of goose or duck. What I wanted was a dish containing all of these, slowly braised in the oven in the usual fashion, with an overall flavour, but in which the individual components preserved their distinctive identities. There were several problems to be solved. The richest meat flavours are obtained through roasting or grilling, but the tastiest cuts of meat are usually the toughest, which require marinating followed by a long slow roast. This is impractical for relatively small quantities of meat. The usual approach for a cassoulet is to brown the meat and then stew it with an appropriate assortment of vegetable and herbal flavourings. This time I decided to make use of our large thick-bottomed pressure cooker. First I browned the meat thoroughly on all sides, on the bone, so that the fat was partially rendered. It was removed and the vegetables sautéed, more slowly, in the fat. (If you do it the other way around, as is often suggested, it’s almost impossible to avoid burning small bits of veg that are left behind.) A small amount of white wine was added to deglaze and then reduced; the meat was returned to the cooker, which was topped up with a bit of water, the lid sealed in place, and the stew cooked under pressure for fifteen minutes, then checked and cooked further as necessary. With pressure cooking, the meat can cook in a small amount of liquid, which means that the stock is very intense without reduction. In fact a large pressure cooker, with a rack, is a miniature version of a professional steam oven costing thousands of pounds. When first opened up, pressure-cooked foods may be somewhat lacking in flavour, but after they’ve rested, the flavours come together and intensify. There is, of course, no crispness—but that is of no importance when the cassoulet will be simmered in an oven for several hours. What survives is the flavour of the caramelisation that has resulted from the initial browning. This worked well with the lamb and pork. The latter was a big piece of free range belly which included all the necessary meat and fat, and the skin for lining the bottom of the cassole. After cooking, the bones were stripped and the skin, fat, meat and stock went into separate containers for refrigeration. All were labelled – before I was through I would end up with a dozen assorted packages! But what about the goose? The traditional method of preparation is confit, which, before refrigeration, was the only reliable means of preservation. This I felt to be unnecessary if the meat was to be used immediately. I put this to Paula Wolfert at a recent Oldways conference in London. She agreed, up to a point. It was not worth making confit, she said, unless it was going to sit for at least six months. After that, unique flavours emerged which were not obtainable by any other method. But I didn’t have six months. What I had was a frozen half goose – complete with neck and head! – which I had bought on the market in Chateau Thierry. And the cassoulet had to be ready within a week. I decided on an unorthodox approach – roasting. Since the bird was bilaterally severed, it would lose a lot of juice; and so I roasted it inside a melt-proof plastic bag, open side up, the skin rubbed with its own fat and the cavity filled with carrot, celery, onion, garlic, seasoning, a sprig of thyme, a sprig of rosemary, and a couple of bay leaves. This was roasted in a medium oven until it was well browned and then the entire contents of the bag, including the juices which had already been extracted – but no additional liquid – were transferred to the pressure cooker and steamed for fifteen minutes. The carcass was then removed, the neck and head cut off and returned to the pot, and the meat stripped from the carcass when it was cool enough to handle. The bones and skin were returned to the pot and the mixture pressure cooked for another fifteen minutes to make a concentrated goose stock, from which the precious fat was then separated. In the meantime, the meat was cut into bite-sized pieces and left to cool before refrigeration. Mary and I tasted it and agreed that it was some of the most densely flavoured goose we had ever experienced. Then the Toulouse sausages, also bought at the Chateau Thierry market. These were roasted in a pan on a rack, covered and with a little water, in a medium oven until well browned; then allowed to cool, cut up into short lengths and refrigerated. That left only the beans – four lbs in weight – some of which had been bought on the Perigueux market, the rest organic dried canellinis from Le Fromagerie in Highbury. They were soaked overnight, the water thrown away, then brought to the boil for 12 minutes in fresh water, also thrown away, and finally simmered gently for just over an hour, with an onion, carrot, celery and a bouquet garni, in four pints of chicken stock made from fifteen free range carcasses obtained from our generous butcher. (The beans, though dried, were new and so took less time than the usual aged imports.) None of the goose, lamb or pork stock went into the pot; these were to be kept, undiluted, for the final simmer of the assembled cassoulet. At last, on the day before serving, the assembly. There being such a large quantity, this was done in a large plastic washing-up bowl. Because of a mid-winter warm spell all the various stews were refrigerated, and so they were warmed slightly, one by one, in the microwave. This was primarily to avoid tearing the beans apart, which had already been thoroughly cooked so that, after the final baking, they would properly dissolve in the mouth without chewing. The various stocks were combined, heated and collected in a separate bowl – except for the bean stock, which would be used for topping up. A brilliant addition, suggested by Paula Wolfert and recommended by Charles & Lindsey Shere, is a quantity of cooked pork fat blended with garlic; I used a half pound of fat and the equivalent of a couple of heads of garlic – all of this stirred into the combined stocks before adding to the bowl. The final mixture was twice what would fit into our largest cassole, and so the excess was packed away in plastic boxes in the freezer. Starting with the squares of pork skin laid fat side down in the cassole, I transferred the rest of the contents of the washing-up bowl, pouring it and shaking it down so as not to break up the beans with a spoon. Then warmed stock – first the rich concentrated stock from cooking the meats, thoroughly mixed with the blended fat/garlic, and then a bit of the bean stock to supplement – was poured in little by little until the cassole was filled within half an inch of the top. Finally, crumbs of home made whole meal bread – mostly hard crusts slightly moistened and broken up in a food processor – were evenly scattered over the top and the divine goose fat liberally drizzled over all. This was baked in a gas 3, 325ºF oven for a couple of hours, the crust broken up once and again at the end of that day’s cooking. (This would make it easier for the top-up stock to penetrate the next day.) It was then left overnight to cool and to integrate. On D-Day (D for Devour), the cassole was topped up with heated bean/chicken stock and put into a cold oven three hours before it was to be served, and the temperature set again at gas 3. (Because of overnight absorption, it was necessary to check the liquid level and top up again more than once .) At the end of two hours the cassoulet was gently bubbling and a new, delectable crust had formed. Ceremonially it was brought to the table. An entire cassole, the largest made by Mssr. Not, was emptied by ten hungry people. A guest proclaimed that its flavours had gradually revealed themselves like the successive mountain ranges in a Japanese print. No cook was ever happier. ©2000 John Whiting, Diatribal Press, London

At the moment, there seem to be only five of us who have found something better to do than watch a spherical object being kicked around a distant field. Hello, JD!

Most of the European bread-based soups are methods of reclaiming stale bread which has totally ossified (e.g. French onion, gazpacho). When the bread is good, it's really worth reclaiming.

I'd be interested to know Shaun Hill's reaction to this article -- a Michelin-starred chef who cooks unassisted in a small domestic-sized kitchen with very little special equipment. For instance, he doesn't cook woodcock ungutted because the stink would go straight out into the dining room.