egluttony: January 2006

The Golden Pavilion Rokuon-Ji Temple, Kyoto

The Golden Pavilion - Rukuon-Ji Temple

Kiyomizu-dera Temple - Kyoto

The Kiyomizu Temple outside Kyoto is one of Japan's oldest holy sites. The temple dates from 798 but like many Western religious buildings it has been extensively restored, in this case in the 17th century, and it isn't clear what remains from the original. The sprawling complex is a vivid contrast with compact, modern Japan. It attracts many visitors - even on a cold January evening the crowds were out.

Main Gate

Second Gate

Main Building

View from Main Building

Statue

Across the Valley

Steamed crab dumplings

Steamed Crab Dumplings are a well-known Shanghai delicacy. The dough is quite different from the lighter dumpling wraps you see in Guangzhou or Japan - it is quite heavy and would serve usefully as a building construction material with insulation value of about R25. I asked for a serving of 6 dumplings and was told that this was impossible - the twelve arrived almost instantly. As they cooled an ominous purple froth erupted from the one on the far left. After what I thought a sensible interval I tried one to find that its contents still retained a magma-like temperature.

Sticky Rice parcels came elegantly wrapped in lotus leaf bound with string.

Kitsch for Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is approaching and the streets are full of decorations, which is an opportunity for the Chinese both to indulge in kitsch and to turn the occasion into an advertising opportunity. The traditional Chinese lanterns are in the right color, close enough, for Coke.

I spotted these strange dioramas – this one is obviously familiar - and is greeted with happy cries of “Ali Baba!”:

I have no idea what this one is meant to represent:

Yuyuan Garden Shanghai

Shanghai is a huge building site. Although there has been increased taxation of short-term capital gains from real estate, this hasn’t has any obvious effect on the boom. The old city - a small area more or less surrounded by skyscrapers – is presumably in the developers’ crosshairs. Inside the old city is the Yuyuan Garden, which dates from the 16th century and has been carefully restored and maintained. The garden is divided into separate spaces connected by winding stone paths that give the illusion of being cut from rock. The result is disorienting and gives the sense of being in a much larger area.

The stone work on the pathways is remarkable:

Each distinct area has a feature - a lake, a bridge or a building, some from Ming dynasty.

Today was cold but sunny and there weren't many visitors - which was perfect for pictures. The care being lavished on the Yuyuan Garden suggest that it is safe from development - but I would guess that the old city itself is threatened and when that is built over the garden will be shadowed and diminished. Already the buildings close in:

China

This blog is meant to be also about travel – but I haven’t had much raw material recently. A day-trip to Minneapolis and an aborted visit to Des Moines have been all the recent grist. I am now on my way to Asia. I have a guidebook from a previous visit, The Best of China, published by China International Press, which obviously received the government imprimatur. It adheres to the party line, in splendidly overheated prose:

“By night, away from the brothels and opium dens lining the Bund’s auxiliary streets, Shanghai’s richest met in the British and French Clubs to quaff whiskey sours while Shanghai’s endless night burnt to its wick”

This deplorable state of affairs was rectified by you-know-who:

“The 1949 liberation of the city by the CCP marked the beginning of a new era for Shanghai. The brothels and opium dens were shut down with the addicts receiving rehabilitation and the prostitutes retraining. Child labor was banned, slums were eliminated and inflation slowed.”

Well, that was a relief, although there is the lingering sense that the pre-Mao days might just have been more fun.

Some of the food writing doesn’t always hit the right note:

“Just off the central pond this [fried dumpling] vendor is hard to miss, just look for the long line of salivating people”

Just don’t step in the drool.

Ricard

Evelyn Waugh was described by his college tutor as having "an inferiority complex and no palate - drinks Pernod after meals!" Pernod may be viewed as slightly more plebian than other pastis by Oxford dons, but anise aperitifs are generally a bit looked down on. (Maybe after meals was the problem). Pastis has not come full circle and become chic, like cassoulet or rillettes. I side firmly with Waugh in enjoying pastis, although I prefer Ricard to Pernod as it is less sweet.

A few years ago I stayed in a hotel in Alpe d’Huez, and drank Ricard every evening (before dinner, please note). It was always served with a small pitcher and elegant glasses with the Ricard logo. On leaving I asked Jeanette, the proprietor, where I could get them and she wrapped up a set for me as a gift.

The reason that pastis goes cloudy is not cold water, as I used to think, but because aneth is soluble in alcohol but not water. If you leave Ricard and water overnight it will settle into a bicolored solution.

By the way – a great article on rillettes in Becks and Posh.

Beringer Alluvium 1998 $31

If you are a California wine-maker how do you market Bordeaux-like red wine blends?

For people who like Bordeaux the California wine industry has always posed a problem. Good Californian reds are mostly cabernet sauvignon – chewy, tannic and unapproachable when young. These age well, although slowly, but are usually available on wine lists or stores young – and already expensive. An alternative is merlot, – a softer, more fruity, usually less complex wine. Merlot is “attractive”, meaning “wine for the undiscerning”, and on its own it can come across as uninteresting. In contrast, pinot noir is totally self-sufficient, but it fares best in cooler areas of the state so has never approached the production levels of cabernet sauvignon. A fallback position is zinfandel but anything poured into zinfandel is wasted anyway.

For many years California faced a marketing problem: the American consumer bought by grape variety. If a winery produced a blend, this might be a better wine than a varietal, but how to market it?

Two ideas emerged. One was to invent the word Meritage – the other was to try to go it alone on the name of the winery with a specific tag to indicate a blend. Some of these names are more successful than others.

Alluvium from Beringer is a terrific wine – structured to age well, but drinkable young. It is a little tannic, but not harsh – obviously quite a lot of cabernet – and it unclenches quite rapidly. This is a much better wine than the equivalent cabernet varietal. It has balance and length, along with the characteristic strong berry and oak.

The name Alluvium is unfortunate – overtones of effluvium and opprobrium, and the soil reference is a little heavy-handed.

The phrase “Napa Valley Red Wine” is becoming wine-speak for “interesting and probably expensive blend.” I will start to look out for the most bizarre solution to the naming problem. Presumably someone thought of and rejected Napeaux.

Wine

Zonker and the 1500

Zonker and the 1500 calorie dessert

Doonesbury today is a reprint from last year – well worth a rerun.

Downtown 140 Hudson - restaurant review

In late 2004 Downtown 140 opened in a small downstairs dining room on the main street in Hudson, Ohio. Basement conversions are something of a challenge for a restaurant owner – the space is seldom ideal. The dining room here is long and narrow, with attractive stone walls and a low, beamed ceiling. I have eaten here with family, friends and colleagues five or six times in the last year, and have roamed around their interesting menu and wine list. The cooking is inventive and modern with little pretension and no drama. The dishes are divided into Smallest Plates, Small Plates and Not So Small Plates, so diners can mix and match. Downtown 140 avoids the pitfalls of intrusive service and huge portions - either detracts from even the best food. The servings are generally small, and one can certainly tackle an offering from each category without undue strain. Among the smallest are elegant truffled mushroom risotto cakes, oysters, a tuna taco and “artisan” American cheeses, which I suppose one could return to after the not so small plates before finishing with a dessert. The small plates also have a range of less usual salads – the small pear poached in red wine was perfectly ripe, with a small, not overpowering, portion of blue cheese in the center. A field green salad with apple slivers, spanish cheese and almonds was fresh and tart.

The duck cassoulet comes in a small metal pot with a lid – a precisely sufficient helping with small pieces of duck served on the side. Three large sea scallops were firmly seared and moist inside – it came with crawfish ravioli. A small piece of Hudson valley foie gras on toast was superb. Sauces are fashionably sparse but not reduced to stickiness. Downtown 140 seems content to serve small portions on large plates without apology – pointing up the “less is more” theme.

The Executive Chef, Shawn Monday, is a veteran of the grey lady of Hudson, Turner’s Mill, but his menu is vastly more adventurous and inventive. His chief difficulty here must be space, but it obviously allows for much more personal oversight. Courses came out precisely together and nothing appeared to have sat under a lamp. One group of three seats at a bar overlooks the kitchen, which allowed an evening punctuated by casual discussion with the kitchen staff, and an insight into running a 55-seat restaurant out of a tiny galley space.

The wine list is very strong – mainly emphasizing American wines, with a host of possibilities by the glass, ranging up to exotics such as Caymus. On one occasions we had two bottles of Oracle from the Miner Winery – more because my host was in the middle of an Oracle implementation than anything else! This is a Bordeaux-type blend – merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc – and seemed much more aged than its year would suggest. It was smooth, full of character without harshness, and had an even balance. Sadly, on a later visit it had disappeared from the list. A Grgich Hills cabernet reminded me (once more) to avoid young cabernet varietals, and I stuck to a clear, clean Chalone chardonnay.

The service throughout was present, helpful and discreet, and I have never had a sense of being hurried. I suspect that people linger here and Mr. Monday’s throughput is not as rapid as he would like. One colleague told me that he was offered a reservation at 5pm or 9pm on one recent attempt, suggesting a conscious plan to turn more tables. Prices are not elevated for the quality of food and preparation, and Downtown 140 seems to be busy most evenings.

The dining room is loud – a combination of low ceilings, stone walls and, certainly in the front space, being close to a small bar, cranks up the noise to discomfort when the dining room is full. I would put some softer fabrics on the walls – certainly in place of some of the uninspiring paintings. This is not always the place for serious conversation, although it is noticeably quieter at the back.

Dining in Hudson thanks to Downtown 140 and Vue (see my review) is now vastly improved – the two experiences are very different. Both deserve to prosper.

Salmon with Soy Orange Glaze

Here is salmon recipe that I created. The sauce is clear and light. You can thicken it with flour but I think you lose the sharp combination of orange ginger and soy, which goes well with salmon.

2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup water
1 16oz fillet of salmon
3 oranges
2 cloves garlic
1 1” piece of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil plus half tablespoon
2 tablespoons soy sauce
½ cup chicken stock

Using a potato peeler cut the outer rind off one of the oranges taking care not to cut into the pith. Slice the rind into very thin strips. Mix orange rind, sugar and water in a small saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and reserve the strips of orange peel. Meanwhile juice the three oranges, strain and reserve the juice.

Finely chop the ginger and garlic. Heat half a tablespoon of olive oil in a small saucepan and fry ginger and garlic for three minutes. Add the orange juice, soy sauce and remaining olive oil. Bring to the boil and simmer until reduced by half. Rinse and dry the salmon and place in foil-lined baking tray. Pour three tablespoons of the orange juice mixture evenly on the salmon and broil for eight minutes under a hot broiler. Add another two tablespoons of the juice and broil for another two to four minutes. Do not overcook!

In the final cooking for the salmon add the chicken stock to the orange mixture and bring to the boil.

Pour the sauce over each serving of the salmon and serve. Serves four.

Susanna Foo's Dumplings

After the excesses of the holiday period we turned to pork dumplings yesterday. I use a recipe from Susanna Foo's excellent Chinese Cuisine. Her method uses gyoza wraps, pork, napa cabbage, scallions, ginger, soy and sesame oil. She calls for a light dipping sauce made of soy sauce, balsamic and water with ginger floating in it. There is an amount of labor involved in making dumplings - I usually make

a double quantity as they freeze so well, which turns the manufacture into an assembly line involving several family members. (You need to freeze the dumplings separated on a baking sheet before bagging them, as in the picture). This recipe produces extremely light dumplings, thanks to the gyozas instead of the usual leathery wonton wraps. The crunch of the napa cabbage and ginger mixes elegantly with the moist pork. A far cry from the doughy slabs you meet so often.

My copy of her book is dog-eared from use. Although not at all slavish in her adherence to tradition, Susanna Foo has an abundance of authentic dishes including Braised Beef Shin with Five Spices, a banquet staple in China. There is much influence from other cuisines, especially Thai and French, and she unapolegetically uses Western ingredients. However, the results are not the kind of westernized bastard Chinese cooking that you see almost everywhere. This is a genuine fusion cuisine from the other perspective - she adds French ingredients and techniques into Chinese dishes - a refreshing change from the insinuations made by wasabi and sesame oil in the other direction. Susanna Foo operates an eponymous restaurant in Philadelphia, which I haven't visited. It gets very positive reviews.

National Cuisines - why the differences?

The real reason for different countries having national cuisines of vastly different standards is not obvious, so I am happy to reveal this for the first time:

A country either developed a great national cuisine or it accumulated colonial possessions. No country has ever managed to do both.

The obvious example is Britain, which by the end of the 19th century (and this does seem to have been the crucial time), had huge territories all over the globe and execrable food. By contrast the French, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Italians stayed at home and developed an outstanding national cuisine. Of course, the Japanese became a colonial power in the 20th century, but this doesn't seem to have been the important period, and even the Italians tried to colonize Ethiopia in the 1930s. Spain had shed most of its colonies by 1850, and so prospered on the culinary front, unlike Belgium and Portugal and to a lesser extent the Netherlands, which retained colonies until in the 20th century to their gastronomic cost.

A possible flaw in this theory is that there are many countries what did not have colonies that still failed to develop a strong national culture of eating. Switzerland and Russia spring to mind. This is undoubtedly true and there are probably many examples of countries that did not have the means, economic system or mercantile structure to permit this to happen. The Swiss may have been surrounded by other countries providing excellent food so decided not to compete. However, in every case the acquisition of colonies proved fatal to the culinary ambition.

If this theory is true, one might ask why. A colonial power has to regularly produce a fresh crop of adminstrators, steeped in the mother culture but willing to devote their lives to holding onto farflung possessions. These people had to separate themselves completely from the comforts of home, in particular the pleasures of the table. For British would-be imperialists this would clearly have been no sacrifice - a posting to India would be a significant step up on the food scale. This, I submit, competely explains both the Empire and British cooking.

National cuisines - the ranking

Before we can explain why some countries produce better cooks than others we need to quantify the differences. I carried out a Google search on pair combinations of the words, France, French, cooking and cuisine, and recorded the number of hits I got:

	France	French
Cooking	11,900,000	15,100,000
Cuisine	10,400,000	12,000,000

The total of these four searches is 49,400,000 hits which we will consider to be an indication of the importance of the French national cuisine. The idea is that the more that is written about something the more important and culturally relevant it is.

I repeated this for several countries and put the results in a graph:

This is pretty much what you would expect, although there are a few odd results. Despite what I said about Britain and Germany having emerged from the culinary Stone Age, these countries actually fare reasonably well. One might need to correct for size of the country and some index of accessibility to the Internet, but we will go with these crude data. As you might expect, France comes out ahead of everyone else. Portugal, I suspect, earns its place at the bottom due to its reliance on reconstituted dried cod.

Why is food good in some countries and not in others?

Why did some cultures develop a characteristic highly developed cuisine and others didn’t? The heavyweights of France and China have a history of cooking and eating going back hundreds or thousands of years, whereas Germany and Britain, to name just two, have more or less emerged from the culinary Stone Age.

Some circumstances count against developing a national cuisine. If you lived north of the Arctic Circle, life historically was a struggle to survive. It is hardly surprising that an elaborate range of dishes did not develop there. Real grinding poverty is also an opponent of gastronomy. If you are perpetually hungry, you don’t care how the food tastes.

However, poverty at a certain level was not an obstacle – think of thrifty French country cooking – but the development of a middle class is important. The rich would eat food prepared by their own cooks and the poor would eat what they could. Only the middle class went to restaurants, inns and hotels.

An early written culture obviously assisted documentation and travel clearly spreads good regional food. A mercantile economy where farmers would sell a variety of goods in a local market would be helpful, as would long periods of political stability.

Beyond those relatively simple factors it seems hard to know why certain countries were successful and why some were not. I think that none of these factors is decisive, although some may contribute. The real reason lies elsewhere.

After much research I am happy to announce that I have finally solved this important question. The answer will be revealed in subsequent posts.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to"

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else"

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn"

"A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out."

"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others."

Château Palmer

The site for Château Palmer asks that you register with a logon and a password to get full access. It is an excellent site, well designed, with some fine photography and interesting historical information, so this is worth doing, and in return they send you this cheerful message.

Revamp

Looking over the blog I got a feeling of dull sepia tones and a gloomy, overcast atmosphere. The photos taken under natural light seem to have the color balance of an Old Master awaiting restoration - which was explained by my having the camera set to flourescent while actually using tungsten light. The rest of the ambiance came from the somewhat sepulchral template. As a New Year's attempt to make a fresh start I have corrected my camera setting and selected a different, brighter template.

I spent the last week cooking the kind of food that a bear would select before hibernating for the winter, as a result of which we are all feeling torpid and inactive. I think that I need to strike a brighter more springlike note, although in the Midwest we are certainly nowhere near spring yet. One challenge I would like to attempt is to reproduce the perfect tarte tatin. A project that might help us through the remaining winter months.

Useful kitchen equipment

The kitchen equipment industry produces many devices to make cooking more convenient, productive or pleasant. Few directly affect the quality of the food produced. One such item is a fine-mesh, shallow strainer I bought last year. I don't remember how much it cost - I know it wasn't much - and I don't know who made it. It is an ideal tool for skimming and removing solids from sauces, stocks and soups. Due to its shallow bowl you can use it effectively in small saucepans and skillets. Although a bit fragile, this one seems to have withstood hard usage, and its wire frame means that the handle doesn't get too hot. A good gift for someone who serves lumpy sauce.

Hopes for eating out in 2006

Offal - please let us have more restaurants serving kidney, liver, sweetbreads and gizzards. After that we can go on to andouillettes, trotters, tête and joue de veau, and, for the truly daring, brains. People are happy to eat foie gras, so why not all the other adventurous options. Peasant food is fashionable! While we are at it, let's have all of the scallop, served on the shell, not just the muscle.

Slow cooking - more braised dishes appear on menus than before, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Coq au vin is almost unheard of, for example.

Appetizers - let's ban the dreaded shrimp cocktail. Pallid, defrosted, overpriced shrimp with a vinegary sauce is a crime not an appetizer.

Desserts - a bit more imagination, please! The same tired favorites have outworn their welcome. Crème brûlée, sorbet, tiramisu and (god help us) New York cheescake have earned their retirement or at least a less demanding performance schedule.

Prix fixe - how about a shorter menu, with a few combinations that are good value? It must be much easier to run a restaurant that had a shorter menu. Quality would be better, and because there would be less waste of food, eating out could be made less expensive. We might all do it more often.

Smaller portions - My spirits often sink at the quantity of food put in front of me. Laden plates are not appealing, and you face the choice of leaving the food on the plate, taking it home or eating it - each option unsatisfactory.

Tipping - I would strongly prefer service compris, say at 12.5%, and I bet the public would respond positively. It might even make service better.

Real Chinese food - could we have something that a bit more closely resembles the food that Chinese people eat in China? Indian food in the US is vastly more authentic that its Chinese counterpart, albeit less vegetarian. So is sushi, Thai and even French. Chinese food is the only holdout. Outside a few places in NYC and California, what we are served in Chinese restaurants in the US is a parody of a great cuisine.

Better and older Bordeaux - Nobody wants to buy young, expensive top-shelf Bordeaux, yet wine lists regularly feature costly wines that are not ready to drink. This makes no sense at all. Yet, in wine stores you can find reasonable older wines, not perhaps from such elevated chateaux as Lafite or Latour, but which are drinking well and don't cost a fortune. We just don't see them very often in restaurants. Which is why, although I love Bordeaux, I almost always pick something else.

OK, I'll stop now.

egluttony

Monday, January 30, 2006

The Golden Pavilion Rokuon-Ji Temple, Kyoto

Kiyomizu-dera Temple - Kyoto

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Steamed crab dumplings

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Kitsch for Chinese New Year

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Yuyuan Garden Shanghai

Saturday, January 21, 2006

China

Monday, January 16, 2006

Ricard

Beringer Alluvium 1998 $31

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Zonker and the 1500

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Downtown 140 Hudson - restaurant review

Friday, January 13, 2006

Salmon with Soy Orange Glaze

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Susanna Foo's Dumplings

National Cuisines - why the differences?

Saturday, January 07, 2006

National cuisines - the ranking

Friday, January 06, 2006

Why is food good in some countries and not in others?

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Château Palmer

Monday, January 02, 2006

Revamp

Useful kitchen equipment

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Hopes for eating out in 2006

About Me

Links to Blogs

Other Links

Previous Posts

Archives