Aroma Cucina

Food Trends in the Aught-Naught Decade

Its 2010 and a new decade beckons us, but what did we eat in the Aught-Naught Decade? Here is a random and completely subjective compilation of food trends in our recently departed decade.  Collected from popular trend lists, I'm not editing, just reporting the facts.

 

2000

Buzzword: Local

Hot Cuisine: Latin, Indian

Prediction: People will grow their own herbs

IN: Eating in restaurants, going out to eat becomes the evening’s entertainment

Wine: Syrah, Zinfandel, restaurants add more wine by the glass

News: Slow Food opens its first US office in NYC

Statistic: 10% of meals in the US are eaten in McDonalds, 65% of restaurant meals are fast food.

Quote: “The trend toward gourmet borders on a hobby.” –Bob O’Brien Pres. Foodservice Info, NPD Group

 

2001

Buzzword: Local, Gourmet

Hot Cuisine: Mexican

Prediction: Raw food movement is over

IN: Cheese carts, healing foods, bulk food dispensers (whole grains that come in big plastic containers and when you lift the trap door they spill everywhere but in your plastic bag), flavored vodkas, bottled water for kids, water sommeliers at restaurants, exotic foods

Event: Rachel Ray debuts on the Food Network, egullet.org launches and foodies unite over the keyboard

Food Recalls: ground beef, hot dogs

 

2002

Buzzword: Local, comfort food, Antioxidants and free radicals enter mainstream vocabulary

Hot Cuisine: Latin, Italian

IN: smaller restaurants, affordable cuts of meat, Japanese ingredients, comfort food with exotic ingredients (lumpy mashed purple Peruvian potatoes), Freedom Fries

OUT: Balsamic vinegar, sundried tomatoes, foccacia, French food

Wine: Late Harvest Anything

News: Obesity lawsuit is filed against McDonalds

Food Recalls: ground beef, cantaloupe

 

2003

Buzzword: Local, Organic

IN: South Beach Diet, meat, protein, Flavored potato chips, beer can chicken

Out: All Carbs

Food Network: Alton Brown’s Good Eats show is HOT

Statistic: Grain production drops dramatically on a global scale and meat consumption is 5 times higher than it was in 1950

Food Recall: Friendly’s Apple Pie a la Mode Ice Cream because it may contain small pieces of a rubber-like material that could present a choking hazard. (Note: it is recalled because we might choke on pieces of rubber?? Not because it contains rubber like material??)

 

2004

Buzzword: Healthy, Organic, Easy

IT Buzzword: Low….low-fat, low carb

IN: Very complicated small plate dishes, El Bulli restaurant in Spain, Molecular Gastronomy, tasting menus, chocolate, yuzu, agave syrup, vertical food presentation

Obsession: Obesity gets world wide attention, the global weight loss industry reaches $240 billion with about $40 billion coming from the US market, energy drinks are the fastest growing supermarket category, bottled water outsells coffee and beer

Consumer trends: 50% of consumers want to eat healthy, the other 50% want convenience

News: Martha Stewart is in prison, Julia Child dies

Food Recalls: The news is full of reports of recalled food staying on the shelves or being returned and mixed with other foods and being reshipped.

 

2005

Buzzwords: Fresh, Local, Healthy, Organic, Whole Grain, Probiotics

IT Buzzword: NO…no trans-fats, no carbs, no calories, no preservatives

IN: Small meals (used to be known as snacks), meals on the go, individual meals, quick fix meals, breakfast, portion control, garlic, layering complicated flavors and exotic ingredients in a single dish, Las Vegas as a dining destination

Out: raw food diets

Perversity: “Healthy” kid foods flood the market: sugar coated whole grain cereals, sugar-loaded yogurt in brightly colored containers

Obsession: is it a good carb or a bad carb

Openings: Alinea Restaurant in Chicago, Iron Chef America débuts, the movie Sideways brings us all a little closer to wine tasting in California

Closing: Atkins Nutrition, founder of the Atkins diet files for bankruptcy

 

2006

Buzzwords: Healthy, Easy, Gourmet, Local

IT Buzzword: Free…Trans Fat Free, Gluten Free

IN: Dark chocolate from a single source, Superfoods: blueberries, avocadoes, green tea, beans, walnuts, chocolate will make us all live long and prosper), Super Tuscan wines, Flavored bottled water, Quinoa, faro, wheat berries, bulgur, amaranth, whole wheat pasta, healthy take out food, convenience food

Hot Cuisine: Mexican, Latin, Tuscan

Libations: Cocktails are in and bartenders are now mixologists

Comeback: Fat is back, 75% of people report using low fat products v. 2001 when 82% report using low fat products

Banned: Trans-fats in NYC

 Published: Ominvore's Dilemma

Preversity: Industrial chicken processor Tyson's Food offers a free downloadable prayer book

2007

Buzzwords: Local, ethnic, exotic, crispy, crunchy, organic, grass fed, free range

IN: small bite deserts, cupcakes, single serving meals, 100 calorie snack packs, pre-cut veggies, premium quality ingredients, Nyotaimori naked body sushi, specialty sandwiches (PA raised ham with NJ organic brie and French mustard on whole grain pita wrap), Super juices (Odwalla with Amazon rainforest ingredients), pomegranate everything, Omega 3 fatty acids, exotic sea salts, Celebrity Chefs

News: Mario Batali’s contract with the Food Network is not renewed

Bigger News: Wal-Mart introduces an organic section

Libations Gone Wild: Very Elaborate Jell-O shots, Flavored Ices, Molecular Gastronomy inspired cocktails, Layered drinks

 

2008

Buzzwords: Local, Farmers Markets, CSA, Cheap, Ethical

IN: Home cooking, chef run noodle bars, offal, barrel aged beer, Fair Trade anything, caffeinated anything, Super fruits: blood orange, acai, goji, yumberry, no knead bread

Hot Cuisine: Korean

OUT/OVER/DONE/FINISHED: Bottled water (oh, really?), raw diets

Marketing Gone Wild: Enriched white bread will improve memory, natural butter flavor makes a comeback, probiotics move beyond yogurt and into Kraft’s Live Active Cheese (they’re kidding, right?), P&G introduces Pur Flavor that will flavor your water as it comes out of the tap, a good night’s sleep is equated with weight loss and Nakazawa Adult Milk is marketed as coming from cows milked at dawn so the milk has a higher melatonin content so you’ll sleep better and wake up skinnier.  (I’d love to see the snappy translation of that marketing concept.)

Recession News: Ruth Reichl at Gourmet magazine publishes a recipe for meatloaf with ketchup

Nanny State News: NYC requires calorie counts on chain restaurant menus, LA bans fast food restaurants from opening in certain neighborhoods

Statistic: It’s an even 50/50 split on money spent for food for home consumption and food away from home

 

2009

Buzzwords: Local, Sustainable, Locavore, Comfort foods, regional, simple, value, bare

IN: Home cured meats, charcuterie, butchers, home cooking, rustic foods, slow cooking, braising, clay pots, beans, bacon, smoked anything, peanut butter, blueberries in everything, gardening

Hot Cuisine: Peruvian (huh? This turned up on everyone’s hot list. Am I missing something??), butchers, recipes are now on the web, on your desktop widget and in your iPhone apps, cookies are the new cupcake

News: Best year ever for the Food Network, the film Julia & Julie is released and Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a hot item

 

 

The only prediction I have for 2010 is that Local will be the buzzword and maybe raw food diets are over. Why does everyone pick on raw food diets? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Happy New Decade!

New Years Food Tips for Wealth, Health and Fertility

Happy New Year to you from the Aroma Cucina family!

We’ve been busily celebrating every possible December holiday, so I’ve been in the kitchen or at the table with friends and family, but we wanted to make sure to wish everyone some peace, prosperity and happiness in the coming year.

 

The naughts, or aughts, or whatever this past decade is called was a difficult decade for pretty much everyone so I thought a list of lucky, healthy, wealth-attracting foods might be a good idea.

 

Bubbly Wine: The thoughtful French and Italians believe bubbly wine brings good luck.  They also believe its good for just about everything else and why would I argue with this institution?

 

Grapes: A tradition amongst Spanish speaking people, eating a grape for each month of the year is thought to bring good luck. However, grapes also symbolize fertility so be warned and take the necessary precautions.

 

Foods that are Supposed to Look Like Money and Therefore Will Bring you Money:

Cooked greens such as collard greens and kale represent folded dollar bills and will bring you wealth. Obviously this is a US tradition. So what should our Euro-toting friends eat? Rainbow gelato?

 

Lentils, chickpeas, cow peas, black-eyed peas all represent coins and wealth. When combined with fatty pork, it’s a natural wallet enhancer.  Which is why Italians go for the fatty cotechino sausage with lentils, and Southern US households and those with African backgrounds reach for ‘hoppin’ john: a black eyed pea and pork stew.

 

In Turkey, pomegranate arils are supposed to represent money, which begs the question, what on earth does Turkish money look like?

 

You definitely want to eat some part of a pig because eating pork is a nearly universal method of insuring wealth and a bigger waistline.

 

If longevity were an objective then I’d recommend the Japanese and Chinese tradition of eating long, uncut noodles. Provided you don’t choke on the noodles, you will live a long and healthy life.  Shrimp dishes also bring you long life in Japan, so a shrimp and noodle dish should do the trick.

 

If you are looking to hear the pitter patter of little feet in the near future and the 12 grape method doesn’t’ work, you could also try eating some herring roe while invoking the Japanese gods of fertility.

 

Next we come to the Round Baked Thing category and I’m going to go out on a culinary historian theory limb and say that round circles represent eternal life, and I’d like to dedicate this moment to Homer Simpson and his love of donuts.  As the longest running TV show EVER, there must be something to the whole round baked theory. To recap: in Italy you can eat chiacchiere, in Holland "ollie bollen", in Mexico its ‘rosca de reyes, in Greece it’s vasilopita, and in Springfield, its jelly filled with sprinkles.

 

Things you Should Not Eat:

Lobster. What??? I love lobster on New Years Eve, although, actually this could explain a few things. Lobsters crawl backwards and so will your luck and fortune.

Chicken: They scratch backwards and will cause you deep regret.

Winged Fowl: Your good fortune will fly away on their wings.

 

That should help you plan the menu. Now, as to what to wear, it doesn’t matter as long as your underwear is red.  Red underwear wards off the evil eye, however it is a single-use item and you must throw out the undies the next day. The red underwear also symbolizes fertility so that could explain why the usually frugal Italians are throwing out their underwear.

 

And in the interest of historical accuracy, my clan will be celebrating New Year’s Eve wearing Roman togas, as the Romans are responsible for inventing this whole New Years Eve thing. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar was responsible for introducing the 365-day calendar, which put two-faced, forward and backwards looking Janus as the god in charge of kicking off a New Year.   So, don your gay apparel toga with red underwear and have a very, very Happy New Year.

 

 

Thanksgiving Traditions

I hope everyone had a very fun and tasty Thanksgiving weekend. For those of you not in the States: it’s a marvelous holiday that still hasn’t been overly tarnished by commercialism. Friends and family meet for a meal, and that is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Our Thanksgiving was a happy marathon of seeing family and friends, drinking amazing wines, preparing and eating some seriously good food.

 

We try to observe and uphold tradition in our family and two things that are absolute necessity are  Oysters Rockefeller and toys at the table.

We’ve progressed from hanging spoons on our noses to blowing up latex gloves and putting them on our heads, I really don’t know how to describe the mayhem that was caused by the walnuts with the condoms inside and there isn’t much that can top the hillbilly fake teeth, although this year’s fake mustaches and red wax lips were pretty hilarious. Picture a large table of food, mashed potatoes piled high, sweet potatoes covered in walnuts, juicy turkey, gravy, ok you get the picture. Everyone comes to the table and immediately dives for their red wax lips.   

 

Although to be fair, the other cause of frenzy in our family is the Oyster Rockefeller feast. My cousin makes THE best oyster Rockefeller in the universe. Really.

Goes like this:

     1)   Procure a lot of oysters.

     2)   Wake up early on Turkey Day and scrub a lot of oysters. This is a labor of love, lots of cold  water and grit.

     3)   Assemble shucking team in the basement, near the woodworking equipment.

     This is an all male team and it was a proud day, a few years back, when my son made the team.

     4)   Designated Swamp Girl and Cheese Girl must be in position.

      Swamp is the mixture of chopped spinach, garlic, walnuts and sour cream that gets  placed in precise amounts on top of the opened oyster.

       Cheese Girl sprinkles the cheese on top of the swamp and takes   care of oyster baking tray management.

      Cheese Girl must be young and pretty. Alas, my cheese days are over and I’m now Swamp Girl.

     5)   Trays of oysters go into the oven until the oysters are bubbling hot.

     6)   Everyone gathers around, burning their fingers on the shells, and slurping

      down the delicious contents.

Is it true that laughter aids digestion?

 

 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is developing into the Anti-Turkey festival. All the people who couldn’t gather on Thursday gather on Saturday for a lobster feast. Of course this involves the ritual of hypnotizing all of the lobsters so that they will be relaxed, happy and tender. This year, we were also treated to a truly outstanding ceviche, and I vote this gets added to the annual, traditional Anti-Turkey menu.

 

All of this is just my way of saying that I’m thankful, happy and grateful to have my family, to share laughter and to embrace tradition.

 

 

 

A strega without her broom.

A strega is a witch and I’m feeling like a strega without a broom.  No, I'm not talking about cleaning; I’m talking about not having my familiars about, my spices, herbs, oils, vinegars, my tools of the kitchen trade.

Coming back to NYC, to an empty kitchen is one thing. But as I go around the kitchen seeing what I need to start cooking again, I’m realizing what a disconnect the average US person has from their food supply. I’ve gotten used to getting my eggs from Bruce’s obliging chickens, I reach for chili peppers that I grew and dried, I have jars of summer produce and I know I shared the same hot summer sun as that basil, buying cheese isn’t a plastic shrink wrapped affair, it’s a trip to the cheese maker, which involves having a long chat about life and only then do I get the carefully wrapped piece of cheese.  It sounds so romantic and nostalgic, but that’s because how many of us feed and clean out a chicken house, or get up pre-dawn to milk sheep? Romance is more fun that reality which is why we make love in the dark. The older you get, the darker the room…but I digress.

 

Romanticism aside, I was physically connected to my food and now I’m in the city buying food that I don’t know anything about it. According to the last US Census in 2000, 80% of us live in urban areas. Since you are reading this, it’s safe to assume you care about food and know what time of year tomatoes are at their peak. It’s also a reasonable bet that you are in the minority. After a screening of the film, Food Inc., at the New School, there was an excellent discussion panel led by Jill Richardson, and she told of talking to people who literally thought that spaghetti was a plant, or that pumpkins grew on trees. Sounds ridiculous, but what if you never had any opportunity or reason to know better? It’s like having street smarts: I don’t walk around with my handbag open or put it on the back of my restaurant chair, but that nice lady from a small town in Iowa who is an instant target for an urban pickpocket, how should she know better?  Tomatoes are always in the supermarket, apples are always in the supermarket, and cherries appear at Christmas time, how would someone know the season for these fruits?

 

Food Inc. is a cornerstone film in the way that Inconvenient Truth was. It’s a wake up call to everyone that we need to look at what’s going on with our food sources and the culture of eating. The film attempts to highlight many of the key areas of concern: industrialized meat operations, consolidation of crops, exploitation of workers, obesity, fuel and water consumption, cheap junk food versus expensive healthy food, the implications of patenting seeds, etc. etc. etc. etc. But, the part that struck home for me was the family that ate dinner together….in their car, after getting a drive through hamburger meal.  The mother’s reason was long working hours so cooking was impossible and it was cheaper.  She also had been under the impression that a drive-thru burger meal was healthy.  The camera then follows them into a supermarket where we see that chips and soda are much cheaper than some broccoli.

 My heart broke.  I think the family may have been Mexican-American, so somewhere in that mother’s history is a long and beautiful culinary tradition. Where did it go? How did it get lost? What happened that we are so disconnected from our food? What legacy will she give to her daughters?

After the film and the panel discussion with Peter Pringle, Bryan Walsh and Marion Nestle,  there was Q&A time and one audience member made a staggering point: food memories are a very strong touchstone. If the times you remember eating as a family are shared at a McDonalds, then the smell of McDonalds will always be warm and fuzzy and comforting.

 

There is no magic bullet cure, we are talking about a systemic multi-generational disconnect from our food, loss of cooking skills and the benefits of dining together.

The film cobbled together some band-aid slogans as a tagline to make us all feel better: Eat organic. Plant a garden. Etc.

These are noble sentiments, not a guide to a return to respecting our food.

The last audience member asked a simple question of the panel, “What can I do?”  And a very wise Marion Nestle replied, “Pick one cause.” She’s right; no one person can provide us with solutions. Stonyfield's Organic Yogurt is now available at Wal-Mart; that was Gary Hirschberg’s small step towards bringing a good product to many.

My battle? Bringing people back together to the dining room table and letting people know that cooking isn’t so hard.

 See the film. Make some choices of your own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunting Season Conundrum

  The guns are blasting outside, so it must be hunting season in Umbria.  Mushroom hunters battle for territory, clusters of men dressed in camouflage gather on the sides of the road clutching walkie talkies in one hand and the lead of a barking dog in the other. Cinghiale is hunted ‘in battuta’ meaning the hunters and their dogs bark and whoop and flush the prey into a tight spot and then they shoot it. I have mixed feelings about battuta style hunting as it doesn’t’ seem very sporting to have 10 men with advanced weaponry, dogs and a lot of communication devices chasing after one wild boar. On the other hand, the terrain around here is seriously challenging, one misstep and you disappear into the bowels of a bottomless ravine, so maybe it’s best for everyone if they hunt in a group. That is, everyone but the cinghiale.

Dana McCauley’s recent blog post “How Bloodthirsty are you?” is a lively piece where she grapples with her own issues about hunting.

I have to support responsible hunting because I love to cook and eat game, so I can’t be wishy-washy on the subject. But, could I pull the trigger? I just don’t know.

According to my dear friend Jay Cassell, a life long hunter and big muckedy-muck editor at Field & Stream, the number of hunters and women hunters has risen in the US to around 15 million, but as a percentage of the overall population, the hunting population is shrinking and women account for less than 10% of hunters. Jay thinks I should take up hunting, and maybe I’ll go out with him when we get back to NY, if only to symbolically honor the fallen deer (Because Jay, if I go out with you, I totally expect to come back with a nice buck, none of this, oh better luck next time nonsense like you pull with fly fishing!). 

In Umbria, hunting is so woven into the fabric of life, you just accept that in the fall it sounds like you are living outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, it’s best to wear a red bicycle helmet and you always hope that sooner or later someone is going to hand you a choice piece of cinghiale. This weekend, we are serving cinghiale with black olives at the Taverna del Verziere during our Festa del Bosco and I promise to say a small prayer of thanks to the animal spirit. It’s the least I can do.

So, what about you? Do you eat game? Could you pull the trigger?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Green Acres Syndrome

 

Remember Eva Gabor yelping, “Goodbye City Life!”  Well, I’m having my Eva Gabor moment. There was a time in my life when I wore red fingernail polish, uh, actually had finger nails, kept high heels under my desk for those special times and had more suits than pairs of jeans.  Life has changed and I’m not complaining, as we made some conscious life changes and living the way we do requires time and effort. We’ve gone through our first full orto season and as I clean the canning pot yet again, it leads me to wonder when the backlash to local, slow, seasonal eating is going to occur.

 

 It’s wonderful to plant a garden in the spring; the little plants are so full of the promise of good things to come. Then summer comes and you eat tomatoes until you burst. Then fall blows in…and by now, you are flummoxed about what to do with yet another large batch of produce.  I’ve canned tomatoes until my fingers shriveled, figs are embedded in my shoes and my rugs, and I even ground my own grape skin flour! And this morning, I’ve got liters of limoncello waiting to be bottled.

 

I’m not complaining, but I do wonder how many other people would do this. People who eat local for a year get a book deal! OK people, this is not Everyman stuff if you get a book deal.

 

I think its high time for the media to stop taking the easy way out and publish every word that falls out of Michael Pollen’s mouth, and I’m taking the easy way out here by making him the fall guy for what I perceive as an over-simplification. I’m thrilled that Michelle Obama has a garden at the White House, but not for a second do I think she’s loosing sleep over what to do with the green tomatoes that are still on the vine.

 

There has been a huge disconnect from our food source, and I’m completely in favor of acknowledging that chickens actually die to make Chicken McNuggets, but expecting people to grow their own, eat only in season or not eat any food that’s traveled more than 50 miles, is just plain nuts. It’s also not going to solve the problem of e.coli in frozen hamburger patties or spinach, because the bulk of the population uses bagged spinach and stashes frozen hamburger in the freezer. Its time to open up the discussion to reality: food will need to be mass grown to feed the masses, it will need to go through distribution centers, but that doesn’t’ mean that we shouldn’t take a good hard look at what’s going on and fix it.

 

Ask yourself some questions:

Are you willing to wash your own spinach, cut up your carrots?

Are you willing to travel to find a good, responsible butcher, pay more for your meat, and probably eat less of it?

Are you willing to eat fish that hasn’t been filleted and still looks like a fish?

Are you willing to give up coffee or olive oil, because not that many of us live close to coffee growers or olive groves?

Or what about that gorgeous Australian syrah you recently tasted. Willing to give that up?

Are you willing to give up sleeping in on a Saturday morning so that you can weed the garden?

Do you know how to make a pie crust? 

 

None of us are saints; everyone has something they don’t want to do without and I’m not advocate of paralyzing food guilt. Not all of us are cut out for the Little House on the Prairie routine and I’m absolutely certain that if a woman from the mythical Old West Prairie was to drop down into a 21^st century kitchen she would sink down on her knees in tears of gratitude.

 

So, let’s step up the discussion and stop damning all that is mass produced or shipped, stop feeling guilty for buying potato chips instead of growing the potatoes, and start getting creative in our thinking about how to fix what is wrong with our food distribution systems. We should move beyond sound bytes and media slogans to truly, honestly debate how to develop a sustainable food model.

 

Why? A Tomato Canning Revelation

Once upon a time there was a woman who always cut the ends off the ham before she put it in the roasting pan. Her daughter, having learned the recipe from her mother, cut the ends of the ham before putting it in the roasting pan. When it was the grand daughter’s turn to make the ham, she asked, “Why do we have to cut the ends off, Grandma?”  Grandma replied, “Because my roasting pan was too small.”

 

It’s good to remember to question, to not work from rote.  Case in point:  I just figured out that I don’t have to peel the tomatoes before I can them. I learned how to peel tomatoes (pour boiling water over them and the skins will slip off) at my mother’s knee. I remember the hours, the tub of hot water with tomatoes bobbing around, the wrinkly fingers, the smell of a gazillion warm tomatoes as we put them up for the winter.

 

I also remember a few Italian summers ago, having to deal with a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes, and I peeled every last, stinkin’ one of them.  It was a good day not to come and talk to me in the kitchen.

 

This year, I had the  “Ah-Hah Moment God” come and bonk me on the head with my food mill. I put the tomatoes in a pot of boiling water for about 5 minutes, ran them through the food mill, all the tomato juice and pulp goes into the pot and you are left with nothing but seeds and skins in the mill. No peeling. No seeding. The tomato juice and pulp went back on the stove until it thickened, then into the sterilized jars.  Sooooo much easier than peeling all those tomatoes!! No wonder those clever Italians call it passato.

 

So the moral of the story is: just because you’ve always done it one way, doesn’t mean it’s the only way. And that’s not just in the kitchen.

 

P.S. I needed to show off our gorgeous beefsteak tomatoes. Stunning to look and just as stunning in your mouth.

Where Credit is Due: Name that Dish Contest

There is a legal minded school of thought that believes  recipes should be copyrighted. That he who creates a dish can somehow  ‘own’ that dish and could possibly even be paid a royalty for it every time another person makes it.

I think it is a fool’s goal.  Virtually since the moment that a woman figured out how to put meat on a fire and cook it, the art of cooking has been a communal affair.  (And you know it was a cavewoman because woman were the food preparers, so it stands to reason that she stood there saying, oh god, I don’t want to eat carpaccio again tonight and so she tried putting a little heat to the meat.)  Every recipe stands on the shoulders of another recipe, on inspiration from somewhere or someone. 

Which brings me to the name that dish contest. I wanted to make something a little special for lunch last week because it was our anniversary. A romantic dinner is not an option during festa week, so we had to settle for a quick, but joyous lunch and we both love roast quail.

I wanted to make a rich, spicy sauce as a counterpoint to the roasted quail, and I’ve been in a Renaissance spice mode recently, so there was mace, nutmeg, ginger, lots of pepper, but I used tomatoes as a base which weren’t around during the Renaissance, and I finished the sauce with a good jolt of whiskey, New Orleans style.  So what could you call this creation if you wanted to honor its roots?  Roast Quail with a Post-Renaissance Creole Sauce accompanied by Creamy Polenta? Now, that is a catchy name that should earn me the coveted “Pretentious Dish Description” award.

And now that I have a unique name, could I copyright the dish?

I don’t think so because all those medieval and Renaissance cooks influenced my choice of spices, and while dreaming of merchants in Venice, I wandered into modern times with my tomatoes and then remembered how the whiskey flavor acts like jazz music to bring all the flavor components into focus.   For me, paying homage to the roots of a dish is critical because no one, since the harnessing of fire, has operated without knowledge of someone else’s contribution.   Cooking is one of the ultimate grand traditions and we do right by knowing and understanding its history.  So the next time, you slice a tomato and throw a few leaves of basil on it, stop and think about how that dish evolved, and take comfort that you are truly not alone in the kitchen.

P.S. If anyone does think of a good name for that quail dish, let me know, ok?

Is there a new dining culture afoot?

Is it the ‘crisi’, as it’s referred to in Italy? Has the economic crisis actually caused people to lose their taste for over the top opulence, or is it just me?

The past few years in New York, we started going out to dinner less and less. I thought it was just the high prices; it certainly puts a damper on things when you have to pay $14 for a glass of mediocre at best wine, or when going out for pizza and a bottle of wine isn’t a cheap evening.

“I get no kick from champagne, mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all.

So tell me why should it be true?”

Cole Porter’s lyrics suddenly start playing in my head.

I don’t want to be in Las Vegas dining at some deluxe food palace where it’s all about show-me-the-money. That doesn’t mean that these temples don’t serve fine, fine food, but the setting seems wrong, sort of crass and entirely from another era.  Has the pendulum swung away from ostentation towards a more personal, intimate dining experience? Will there be pent up demand for ostentation or is there a new dining culture emerging?

I’m betting on a new dining culture, where passion for the food trumps passion for a spectacular chandelier. Methinks there is a subtle trend afoot where people are pulling in their purse strings but still wanting, expecting and receiving excellent food and wine at fair prices. Look at the ‘gourmet’ street carts that are popping up in US cities like Portland, or the BYO culture in Philadelphia that allows a restaurateur to get their place established without mortgaging their first born for a liquor license. There is a resurgence of interest in old school charcuterie, cheese making, bread baking, brewing beer at home.  In the US this could be the emergence of an actual food culture akin to the European culture where local and seasonal always held sway and teaching your children the fine points of pinot noir is considered an obligation.

Italy is not exempt from this cultural shift although it faces different challenges. One of the biggest hurdles is the resistance of Italians to try something new, even if it is a salumi from the next region over. I fell in love with a Tuscan salumi called finnochione on a recent trip to Florence and stupidly didn’t bring any back with me to Umbria. It will require crossing the border before I can taste that salumi again. Wine lists are numbingly the same from place to place and menus tend to be variations on the same old, same old.

I’ve been thinking about this since Sunday when we treated ourselves to lunch at Spritio Divino in Montefalco. I believe they could be the embodiment of the future of Italian dining. There is passion for the food and a sincere joy in sharing the flavors. We were treated to a mind blowing taste of prosciutto that is produced by somebody’s nearby grandfather. It was rather thick cut, the fat melting onto the plate, salty, unctuous, sexy. It would have been a sin to eat it with a piece of melon. This proscuitto flavor had a beginning, a middle and an end and another flavor would only have been a distraction. We chatted with Nila, our sommelier waitperson and all three of us enjoyed having a complete wine geek conversation about grape varietals, the weather in 2005, Prohibition in the Ukraine. It was a perfect lunch, served in a simple setting but with such attention to detail, such passion, such flavor that I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world for all the money in the world.

And that my friends, is where I think the future of dining is heading and I’m excited.

Celebrity Chefs beget Celebrity Butchers?

Say it isn’t so.
It’s bad enough that celebrity chefs have become entertainers instead of cooks, now we have a new macho breed of butchers?

Look, I’ve been the butcher’s friend and advocate for years. I believe in a good butcher, I revere a good butcher, but please, don’t make him a rock star.

HOWEVER, if you are must go the rock star route then you have to feature Jeffrey. It’s like forgetting to mention Elvis when you talk about rock n roll history and pretending that Eric Clapton got his education in a vacuum.  If there is to be a macho, philanthropic, sort of crazy butcher rock-star icon, it’s Jeffrey. Only please don’t any suggest to him that he show up at the Essex St. Market in full glam rock, because he just might do it.

For shame, Ms. Severson.