This is the first of a two-part round-up of this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery which took place from July 9-11, 2010 at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. The weather was unseasonably warm and I was glad the College Bar — why don’t American colleges have official bars? It’s so civilized — opened at [...]
Archive for the ‘Traditional Foodways’ Category
Highlights from Oxford 2010: Cured, Fermented and Smoked
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, Food as Anthropology, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Cured Food, Fermented Food, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Smoked Food on July 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Infamous Surströmming of Sweden
Posted in Food History, Food Safety, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Surströmming, Swedish Food, Fermented Herring on July 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Just a quick note from the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. As this year’s theme was Cured, Fermented and Smoked Foods, I got to try lots of unusual preparations from around the world, the most striking of which was Swedish surströmming. Food science maven Harold McGee spoke about it in his Plenary presentation titled [...]
Cured, Fermented, and Smoked
Posted in Food History, Food as Anthropology, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, Travel, tagged Cured Food, Fermented Food, Food History, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Smoked Food on July 7, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The highlight of my food history year is coming up this weekend. I’ll be attending the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in the UK. This annual gathering of food historians includes both professionals and enthusiastic amateurs and focuses on a specific theme. This year we’ll be exploring cured, fermented, and smoked foods. These are [...]
From the Emergency Baking Department: Pound Cake
Posted in Food History, Traditional Foodways, recipes, tagged cooking with a scale, cooking without a recipe, Food History, pound cake, recipe on June 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Pound cake is the workhorse of the tea cart, able to withstand drowning in fruit syrups and whipped cream, or it can be easily tarted up with a citrus glaze. It’s the perfect thing to toss in the oven when you find out the new vicar is coming to tea in a couple of hours. [...]
Raclette, No Fancy Equipment Needed
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Ingredients, Traditional Foodways, recipes, tagged Food History, Raclette, Swiss Food, cheese, Raclette without a machine on June 23, 2010 | 3 Comments »
In the past, I have expressed my withering disdain for single-use kitchen gadgets like garlic presses, shrimp de-veiners, and pineapple slicers. Today I’m adding another one to the list, the Raclette Machine. I’m bowled over that people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for an appliance that makes a dish created by Swiss livestock [...]
A Mixture of Several Things in No Particular Order: Chimichurri Sauce
Posted in Food History, Ingredients, Traditional Foodways, recipes, tagged argentinean food, Chimichurri sauce, Food History, recipe, using leftover parsley on June 21, 2010 | 1 Comment »
It has happened to all of us. You buy a bunch of parsley so you can chop up about a tablespoon of it to use for garnish, and the rest languishes forgotten in the fridge, where it eventually turns to sludge. Well, dear reader, it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. The gauchos of [...]
The Kind of Pickle You Want To Get Into
Posted in Farmers' Market Cooking, Food History, Ingredients, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010, Traditional Foodways, recipes, tagged Food History, recipe, jewish food, kosher dill pickles, homemade pickles, cucumbers, Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010 on June 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Next month I’ll be attending the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in the UK. Each year, this conference on food, its culture, and its history focuses on a different theme; this year it’s Cured, Fermented, and Smoked Foods. Living in a New York City apartment, the temperature and humidity of which is difficult to [...]
Scottish Shortbread: Gluten-free Baking Ahead of Its Time
Posted in Food History, Ingredients, Traditional Foodways, recipes, 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 [...]
Jeweled Rice for a Persian Wedding
Posted in Festival Cooking, Food History, Traditional Foodways, recipes, tagged cooking with rose petals, Food History, Jeweled Rice, Persian food, Persian wedding food on May 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I find there is no better way to get to know a culture than by cooking some of its festival food. When I saw a recipe in Margaret Shaida’s absorbing historical cookbook, The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, for a special rice dish, traditionally served at weddings in Persia, I couldn’t resist. Not only does it [...]
Tasting the Crossroads of the Mediterranean
Posted in Food History, Traditional Foodways, recipes, tagged chicken with lemon and olives, Food History, Moroccan food, recipe, tagine on May 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Oh, to be in the souk bargaining with an olive merchant, while chickens destined for the pot scurry around your feet. I’ve never been to Morocco, but if the mysterious flavors of its cuisine are any indication, I must visit. One of the classic combinations is a tagine of chicken with lemon and olives. A [...]
