What was the latest fashion at court of Versailles in 1696? Why English peas of course, hadn’t you heard? The ladies of Versailles knew a good thing when they tasted it. In the late 17th Century fresh, green English peas were all the rage. It may seem odd to us, since today peas are seen [...]
Archive for the ‘Ingredients’ Category
Fresh (and Fashionable) English Pea Soup
Posted in Cocktails, Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Ingredients, recipes, tagged English Pea Soup, English peas, Food History, garden peas, green peas, recipe on June 10, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Scottish Shortbread: Gluten-free Baking Ahead of Its Time
Posted in Food History, Ingredients, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged gluten-free, oat flour shortbread, recipe, Scottish shortbread on June 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The current popularity of gluten-free foods has prompted the creation of many wheat-free versions of traditional baked goods, including Scottish shortbread. It turns out that this actually isn’t an innovation at all. Historically shortbread was a food of the poor in Scotland and was made with oat flour, which is (usually) gluten-free. While looking for [...]
Is Slow Food Really Slow?: Cooking with Dried Beans
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Ingredients, tagged beans, cooking dried beans, dried beans, recipe on May 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“Is Slow Food Really Slow?” is a series here on Comestibles in which we explore the hypothesis that some of the processes many modern home cooks have declared too time consuming are a lot easier than the admen would have us believe. Unless you’ve come up with a way of folding time and space in [...]
Is Slow Food Really Slow?: Vinaigrette
Posted in Food History, Ingredients, recipes, tagged homemade vinaigrette, recipe, salad dressing, vinaigrette on May 10, 2010 | 2 Comments »
“Is Slow Food Really Slow?” is a series here on Comestibles in which we explore the hypothesis that some of the processes many modern home cooks have declared too time consuming are a lot easier than the admen would have us believe. I challenge you to find a bottle of commercial salad dressing that is [...]
The Sydney Fish Market
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Ingredients, Travel, tagged abalone, australia, australian fish, fish, sydney, Sydney Fish Market, Travel on May 3, 2010 | 2 Comments »
As proudly announced in its national anthem, Australia is “girt by sea.” That makes for bountiful fresh seafood, ranging from oysters, to coral trout, to pricey greenlip abalone. One of the best places to sample this briny harvest is the Sydney Fish Market, the largest in the southern hemisphere. Unlike the “New” Fulton Fish Market [...]
Farmers’ Market Shopping in Queensland, Australia
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Food Zen, Ingredients, Travel, tagged Brisbane Farmers' Market, photos, tropical fruit on April 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the most exciting parts for me about my recent visit with Janet Clarkson in Brisbane was our trip to the local farmers’ market. Brisbane, being in the southern part of the state of Queensland, is sub-tropical, but much of the rest of the state lies squarely in the tropics which means, exotic fruits [...]
Vegemite: Australian for “Yummy”
Posted in Food as Anthropology, Food History, Ingredients, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Australian Food, australian food history, how to eat vegemite, vegemite on April 19, 2010 | 8 Comments »
When visiting Australia it is impossible not to encounter Vegemite, that mysterious black goop which many Aussies spread on their toast every morning and hold in a special place in their hearts. As a recent commercial attests, “Australian made….internationally misunderstood.” I can report that while it looks like sludge left over from a secret experiment [...]
The Proper Care and Mixing of Vermouth
Posted in Cocktails, Food History, Ingredients, Traditional Foodways, tagged 19th Century cocktail, Cocktails, dry martini, history, how to store vermouth, martini, vermouth on April 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
If you find yourself among the gentlemen in their frock coats and wide cravats in a Parisian café in the 1880s during the hours just before dinner, and are wondering what to order, the word you’re looking for is vermouth. Between the hours of 5 and 7 all the best people crowded these fashionable watering [...]
Coffee as it was Served A Thousand Years Ago
Posted in Food as Anthropology, Food History, Ingredients, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged ancient coffee recipe, cascara, coffee, dried coffee cherries, history of coffee, quishir, recipe, sufism on April 7, 2010 | 2 Comments »
It must have seemed like magic, a substance that not only granted boundless energy, but curbed hunger as well. It wasn’t the first drug of course, we’ve had opium, alcohol, and psychedelic mushrooms for a lot longer. But coffee was different. As Balzac wrote: Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to [...]
A Magic Trick with Lemons
Posted in Food History, Ingredients, recipes, Traditional Foodways, tagged lemons, north african food, pickled lemon, preserved lemons, recipe on March 30, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I always think of preserved lemons as a North African ingredient, lending an exotic, mysterious flavor to Moroccan and Tunisian cuisines, among others. But recipes for “pickled lemon” can be found in several 18th and 19th Century American and British cookbooks and I was surprised to find them in a spring rabbit recipe in Patricia [...]
