foodmuseumblog

The Scent of Green Chiles.....

Friends and acquaintances who have either lived in New Mexico or visited a few times, wherever they may live now, in the fall think they begin to smell roasting chiles, possibly even from as far away as Chillicothe, Ohio.  And then they phone me and I buy bushels of chiles at my local farm stand. ( A Shawnee word that has nothing remotely to do with "chiles," Chillicothe was a nice little place back in the day when a college friend lived on a farm there. )

I am the woman in line at the post office juggling the boxes filled with little holes punched in the sides, as if I were airmailing live iguanas somewhere. ( To Ohio, for example.)

Once upon a time I  bought the chiles roasted, put them in plastic baggies, and then a styrofoam box, with dry ice, and then worried for 2 days until they arrived in San Francisco---the recipients were not at home...........the contents became most unpleasant and oozing. Never again!

Until now--those same chile heads in CA now want me to try again to send them roasted chiles. Hmmm.

To save friendships, I am suggesting two companies based here in NM to all who are lured by the call of the roasting chiles: New Mexican Connection and New Mexico Chili ( though they spell chili the non-New Mexican way. )

( Thanks to http://www.nmcchile.com/ for chile pic.)

"Agriturismi" Keeps Italian Small Farmers Afloat

Bucolia appeals to many of us and Italian farmers have relied on this to keep money flowing to their land--tourists are drawn to small farms equipped to house and feed and provide country sights and walks to people weary of city life.

According to Reuters,     "Agritourism began in Italy as an effort to stop an exodus from impoverished villages after the Second World War, especially in the south, as the country was breaking away from its rural past.

Years on, it is still vital for Italy's agriculture, which used to be the main driver for the country's economy and now accounts for just 2 percent of gross domestic product."

In addition to providing comfortable guest quarters and a spa, one farm relies on its talented cow to please visitors.

"... Miss, a winner of a cow beauty contest in Alto Adige in 2006 for her good looks and record milk yields, is milked -- to classical or popular music."

Pleasingly Persian

Umpteen years ago,  Foodie Spouse and I were married in a garden in Tehran, Iran, after finishing up a stint with the Peace Corps teaching English.  So it seemed appropriate to have an anniversary meal the other day at Pars Restaurant here in Albuquerque.

Fesenjoon with rice, roasted eggplant, yogurt with cucumber----all those years ago, mind you, we were eating chicken and lamb--this time, amazingly, we were able to have fesenjoon--a sublime sauce that combines pomegranate juice with orange juice, onions, and ground walnuts--just as a vegetarian dish. ( We do sample organic critters some, especially after our book-researching trip to France, but rarely.)

The Persian owner of Pars left Iran in 1976---I asked the waiter if we could speak with him and he came out from the kitchen, a weary-looking man, who indicated that he must tread warily when talking about Iran.  Many diners love the food but have no clue about Iran---Persians are not Arabs, for example--or Iraq for that matter. ( Iran/Iraq, same thing. Kind of like Iowa and Idaho. )  I joked, lamely, that we figured we might have taught English to some of the young Iranians who held hostage the Americans during the Carter administration.

The combination of the anniversary and the increasingly bellicose language in the media  towards Iran pushed me to seek out this man, a PhD-holding teacher, and to acknowledge his country's ancient culture, tasty food, the positive interest of its well-educated young people in America, and so on.

Despite all, however, even with geography no longer taught in schools, increasingly I think  Americans who travel and sample differing cuisines are appreciative of  the colorful cultural histories of places and  people.

An excellent book on Persian cookery is this one by Najmieh Batmanglij, an Iranian we knew in Washington, DC.

BTW Has anyone else noted that in recent years  the term "Mediterranean Cuisine" is often used instead of Persian Cuisine in restaurant signs?

Food History Finds Us Again in Florida

Out for an evening swim in the Gulf, we wandered into an older nifty strip of beach called Pass-A-Grille, described by some as an" artsy, bohemian community"---after a fine half hour of bobbing and floating, we saw the monstrous black clouds rolling in for their usual summer afternoon  lightning show and soon buckets of rain were billowing down as we headed back to St. Petersburg. 

Google then quickly informed us that P-A-G Beach was most likely dubbed that in quasi English by fishermen who stopped there to grill and eat some of their catch before heading on.

Food history is all around us, children, if we but pay attention. Remember The FOOD Museum's motto, courtesy of M.F.K.Fisher?  "First we eat, then we do everything else."

Ain't it the truth!

( Thanks to this site for P-A-G postcard: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/fl/pinellas/postcards/ppcs-pinellas.html)

Summertime In Florida And The Food Is Expensive

Chatting with a long-time fish guy at the local Publix supermarket in St. Petersburg yesterday, we veered away from the fish topic---the fish on sale has country of origin labels!--I learned that the high prices of the lackluster-looking veggies and fruit, in part is because Florida trucks 90 percent of its produce outside the state.

And the growers markets here don't begin until October.....back in NM, the growers markets are now filling up with everything--corn, tomatoes, squash and melons, and green chiles, already being roasted, an aroma once sniffed, never forgotten.

Report From The Road --Eats

The Blue Bell banana ice cream at the pharmacy in Claude, Texas, led to the still-warm glazed donuts served up with a fervent God Bless You somewhere farther down the pike, and then, just before closing time to the warm embrace of the weary people at Savoie's Cajun joint in Shreveport.

Blackened snapper, fresh onion rings to weep over, slaw, and crawfish etouffee for Foodie Spouse. Oh yes--a few miles off the highway but hey, when in Luziana one must pursue food.

Saturday evening in Mobile, we sat outside at the Blue Gill on the causeway to fully enjoy the ongoing Humidity Festival, along with deep fried soft shell crab, slaw, and a cool Land Shark brew. A live band that was fine but decibled for a stadium seating 100,000 entertained us. ( Not having lost my hearing in the 60's, I applied impromptu earplugs.)  And the crowning event, other than jumping fish, was the approach and then takeoff of an airboat seaplane, right into the blushing pink sunset.

Into the homestretch towards St Petersburg, Florida,---  ( In August?? Yes!  If you've lived in DC for years, in what was once a low lying marsh, you have already survived multiple Humidity Festivals of gargantuan proportions, )---we exited in Gainesville and fell into the aromatic arms of the buffet at Chutnees's.  The cuisine is from Hyberabad---you could taste each spice distinctly and yet the blend in the bharta and the dal and all the rest was smooth---many tiny red chiles sparked the veggie dishes, too. The owner told us that they are totally low fat in their cooking style as well, though there was no hint of deprivation...oh my no. Though we have eaten at many fine Indian veggie buffets, this one has shot to the top of the list.

( Crawfish etouffee pic from a California website ( !!) with thanks--http://www.rotarycajun.com/food.shtml)

Food Tidbits

Foodie & Co are on the road, dining with friends and preparing for a family wedding on an old farm in Pennsylvania. Much to report on---another chat with eat local pioneer Joan Gussow on the Hudson River and a lavish meal with a handful of organic farmers, a tour of Riverbank Farm in Connecticut and uber fresh "teriaki" beets to remember with the young apprentices at the end of a long hot day, wild turkeys outside our bedroom room strolling through the newly cut grass, the finest smoked salmon in the East, and a wedding feast tomorrow.

More anon--eat well and be well!

Chickens Came First, And Earlier

100 years before the Spanish began their invasion/exploration of the Americas, chickens made it to Chile from Polynesia. While chickens have been known to cross the road, few of them, if any, swim. So they must have been brought to the wide open free-range Americas by people in boats.

According to a report from Live Science.com, " the chicken bones were discovered at an archaeological site called El Arenal, on the south coast of Chile, alongside other materials belonging to the indigenous population. 

“We had the chicken bone directly dated by radio carbon. The calibrated date was clearly prior to 1492,” ( Lisa) Matisoo-Smith  (of the University of Auckland, NZ, ) told LiveScience, noting that it could have ranged anywhere from 1304 to 1424. “This also fits with the other dates obtained from the site (on other materials), and it fits with the cultural period of the site.”

The American-native sweet potato, long a staple in Polynesia and Melanesia,was most likely picked up by these early island travelers and carried back home. The chickens stayed behind to delight the locals who began preparing Chilean Chicken, a dish that introduced American-born chiles and tomatoes to the Polynesian fowl.

Above: University of Auckland Anthropologist Dr. Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith  and friends

( Thanks to JOHN SELKIRK/Dominion Post for photo at http://www.stuff.co.nz/bayofplenty/4085731a11.html)

Fear of Dehydrated Flying

Less is not more for the flying public these days. No liquids carried on, no rich mayo-filled layered swiss cheese and mustard on rye sandwiches ( presumably...,) just the knowledge that once seated and safe from terrorist threats you can expect to wait 30 minutes or more for a beverage. It's ironic that now that we Americans have finally learned the importance of water to our cellular happiness, we must be parted from our bottles. ( It's true--human beings are 2/3 water, thankfully most of it kept in check by our skin.) Quick travel tip that may still work: instead of exchanging vapidities with the flight attendant greeting your arrival on board, immediately ask for two bottles of water before finding your seat.

The fate of duty free carry-ons is unknown at this time but the booze part of this shopping feature must represent millions in sales every day.

Recently bins at American airports were clogged not only with shampoos, hand lotion and assorted cosmetics, but also with ( New England) maple syrup, ( New Orleans and New Mexico) hot sauce, (California and Washington State) bottles of wine, all carefully selected and purchased by travelers preparing to bring back goodies from their summer holidays.  So where did all this stuff go? Home with airport employees? Off to the local Red Cross or food bank?

Long lines at airport security are getting under control but the lines at the drinking fountains don't bear thinking about.

Pick Peaches

It's good to know, that while some people in the world are plotting to blow up their fellow human beings while they fly across the Atlantic, others are researching and writing up articles about the world of museums, about intellectual property, about knowledge in danger of being lost, and so on.

The FOOD Museum itself is delighted to have been profiled in the current issue of the Newsletter of the International Council of Museums, a publication of UNESCO, in a section called Museums of the World. ( Coming on-line soon.)

Just a tiny reminder that a very few of the world's people are up to no good. The majority are plugging away at a myriad of positive pursuits.

Why just yesterday I ( Foodie, now tiring of the third person schtick,) picked some rich-looking peaches that were hanging well over a neighbor's fence into the street and gave them a good home.

Feast or Famine: Fat Man Walking--Steve Vaught's Response to Obesity

Steve Vaught is walking across the US from San Diego. He has been on the road since April 10, having set out on his own anti-obesity odyssey as he realized he was almost 40, and weighing in at 400 pounds. According to an article  by Washington Post reporter Amy Argetsinger ( July 7), Steve had long been brooding about his weight, his inability or unwillingness to diet or exercise, and the effect those excess pounds had on his life and prospects. ( The state of California estimates that its segment of overweight and unfit citizens  could cost the government $28.7 BILLION in healthcare expenses, up 32% over five years ago, according to the LA Times' Lisa Girion, April 6, 2005.)

'" There's nothing appealing about fat people,' he says bluntly. " You can't impress them when you're fat." His jobs steadily declined in quality. In March he said he walked away from the latest, managing a muffler repair shop, after the owners sniped about him sitting down too much at work.'

Today Steve is headed across the desert to Winslow, Arizona. You can follow his progress on his website.  We don't know how much he weighs right now but we imagine he has dropped considerable pounds already. His extreme diet jump start is deemed "nuts" by many, of course--he  set out on this journey having had no exercise for years, weighing too much, without an elaborate support team or even much of a plan. ( Keeping hydrated across the desert in summer!! )

Recently The FOOD Museum  embarked on another major report on the dual subject of obesity and undernourishment--see the piece called Feast or Famine on our website. It appears that right now one third of  the world's population is overweight, and one third is severely lacking in food.  This imbalance is to be addressed in a major seminar by the World Food Prize International Symposium, Des Moines, October 12-14, concurrent with the official announcement of the 2005 Prize going to India's Dr. Modadugu V. Gupta, for his work in enhancing nutrition for the world's poorest people.

Cartoon, artist not known to us, found at www.sln.org/uk.

Beans Are GO!--Shuttle Discovery Launched On 13-Day Mission

Commanded by U. S. Air Force  Col. Eileen Collins, the shuttle Discovery took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida today, and minutes afterwards, space launch team members dove into what has become a traditional celebratory meal of beans and cornbread---60 gallons worth of beans, cooked in 12  18-quart cookers.
The custom began back on April 12, 1981 when NASA Test Director Norm Carlson brought from home a crockpot of beans and some cornbread to feed hungry staffers. With each launch he brought in larger quantities of food and kept doling out beans until his retirement. At some point in the past 20 years the cry "Beans are go!" became  code for "a successful launch, let's rip into some chow."
These days NASA official food providers supply the bean and cornbread feast.

The recipe that follows might well suit anyone having an enormous family reunion this summer. Foodie did wonder about the  paucity of celery in the recipe,  went tsk tsk over the liquid smoke, and asked, "Where are the chiles??"   

Successful Launch Beans ( Courtesy Nancy Holland, King5.com)

   Put 6 lbs. dried Great Northern Beans in an 18-quart electric cooker
   Cut 10 lbs of smoked ham into cubes
   Add ham and ham bones to beans
   Add ½ shaker of lemon pepper
   Add 3 lbs chopped onions
   Add 2 stalks chopped celery
   Add 1 tsp. liquid smoke
   Cover with water and cook for at least eight hours.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation--Food History in Oaxaca

Regular Blog commenter and writer Cynthia is just back from a Foodie dream vacation in Oaxaca, Mexico. Not her first visit,  this time she decided to delve deeper into the food history of the region.

" I signed up for a couple of courses with Susan Trilling at Seasons of My Heart.   Susana's classes were particularly well-suited to my interests--not only did she work overtime  exposing us to every possible traditional Oaxacan food, she also lectured on food origins, arranged for us to have a local scholar show us through the Ethnobotanical Gardens and lecture on the history of food domestification, cultivation, and processing in Oaxaca ( where the first maize may have been bred)
and she took us to a Zapotec village in the mountains, where the women taught us how to use pre-Hispanic cooking tools and techniques to prepare an almost entirely pre-Hispanic meal.

We also had heaps of fun in the classroom/kitchen at Susana's Racho Aurora, where we prepared a wide range of traditional Oaxacan specialties on both traditional and modern equipment. It was simply splendid--and just the sort of thing I thought might interest others interested in food history."

How Green was My Desert--Foodie Visits Canyon de Chelly

Foodie is just back from a brief hop into Navajo Country, visiting Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley. It was not a visit replete with breathless gustatory moments---although the red chile beans and tortilla at the El Rancho in Gallup, New Mexico, were indeed tasty,  and the blue corn mush for breakfast at The Junction  in Chinle, Arizona was a pleasant surprise.

The major news?   Greenery.   The Canyon itself had been closed for a few days due to flooding of the canyon floor-----sage was thick and had filled in all the empty dirt patches all over this part of the world. Farmers could not get to their lands by truck ( no one walks down anymore as people did in the olden days) so no corn, beans or squash had yet been planted.  And cold temperatures were amazing the locals.  " By now it should be real hot down here,"  said one jewlery-seller on the canyon floor, who added he had not seen the land as  green for at least seven or eight years.

In Monument Valley we stayed at fabled Goulding's, a lodge started in the 1920's by a young couple  who built a trading post.  You can visit the original post, now a mini museum---canned green grapes were a big item with the Navajos along with huge sacks  of Blue Bird flour from Cortez, Colorado, a brand begun in 1920 and  still dominating  in the 21st century.  Blue Bird seems to be the only flour traditionally used by Navajos  to make fry bread, a delicious and popular lard-based dish that many think has contributed to the rise in obesity and diabetes among southwest Indians generally.

The vibrant blue bird on the cotton sack continues. ( Cortez Milling says it may be the last mill putting flour in cotton bags, used by generations of natives to make purses, clothes, even diapers.)
I bought a 25 lb bag at Basha's supermarket in Chinle for $5.33, and now it sits on my hearth, a colorful reminder of the cherished song of the blue bird at dawn in newly-green Navajo country.

( Photo from  philipgreenspun.com)

Sorting out Food and Cooking in Abuja, Nigeria

Long-time friend from Belgium and frequent blog commenter, Roswitha, is in Nigeria for a month, helping her daughter and young family settle in there, just moved from their home in London. ( Abuja is a "new" capital city.) Foodie thought her observations and experiences in the food arena would prove enlightening to many blog visitors. Here are some excerpts:

All vegetables have to be disinfected. In a bucket with a Milton chlorine solution. They are soaked for 30 minutes. Then dried and put in the fridge. They were "miltoned."  ( Note: this process of disinfecting seems to have sprung up in the UK under the name Milton during the Great War, but thus far Foodie has not discovered who Milton was.)

Making coffee, preparing food, all needs bottled water. We have an office-type water cooler and are using just under a container-a huge bottle- a day. In addition to bottles. Reading info on the water quality in Nigeria and in books about Africa sounds like a nightmare. There are meter-long worms able to install themselves in your body, brought there by unclean water. They can be removed by curling them over a piece of wood after they break through the skin. It takes only several days to accomplish this task. Nice.

At one shop we saw crushed packages of organic oats and stocked up on them. Went through the meat department and decided on the spot to become a serious vegetarian. Some of the meat tried to follow me to convince me otherwise. The vegetables were not fit for the bin. Shopping is definitely not a one stop affair but a quest.

Making breakfast for the children with a dwindling supply of familiar foods. Washing dishes in scalding water, always remembering not to use tap water for anything else. Thinking during breakfast what to make for lunch, again with a small selection of ingredients. Starting lunch preparation after breakfast. Deja vu- all over again??? (joke ) My German mother started Sunday lunch right after breakfast and I have thought of it often in the past and thought it almost impossible. Here I am doing it, too. A look through the staples to find out what to prepare. Today it was tabouleh. Bulgur was easy to get- lots of Arabic foods available. Tomatoes-cucumber, parsley came from the local market and were already miltoned by Victoria..( Victoria is the family's already treasured woman- of- all- trades helper.) Get drinking water to boil. Scald tomatoes and peel. More drinking water ( it flows very slowly ) to boil for bulgur. Use too many containers to keep everything clean- more dishes to wash......

Photo of dried fish, Abuja Market, from http://www.geocities.com/charoa2/Abuja.html