Gourmet Rhapsody, and questions that arrose from the novel.

Gourmet Rhapsody by French writer Muriel Barbery is the fictional retelling of the life of a highly esteemed French food critic named Pierre Arthen. We begin the story as he is dying, and throughout the book we are shown different vantage points of who he is as a person through the eyes of the people that knew him. Revered by some, detested by others, he was a powerful man who exerted his influence and criticisms on the people of Paris.

Barbery is better known for her best selling book The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Although Gourmet Rhapsody was actually written before Elegance, it was translated and promoted after the second book had gained popularity in the US. These two novels are the first published work by Barbery, who previously taught philosophy in France. They contain many of the same characters, though the protagonists are different.

As Pierre is dying, he is searching for a flavor that he struggles to identify. Each chapter vacillates between his and other peoples recollections of his life. In the end, when he identifies what he had been longing for, the reader is left wondering what the true point of his search was.

I will not spoil the surprise for those of you who have not read it. Rather, I would like to pose a few questions that came up when my friends and I were talking about it this afternoon.

When you're reading this book, consider the dichotomy between gluttony and restraint, and the pursuit of pleasure vs. power. What was Pierre's main objective? Did he enjoy the subject of his writings?

Though some interpretations of his life implied that he only sought his own pleasure, how does that tie in with his genuine treatment of simpler, less complicated things and the world he wrote about in his reviews?

We were curious what had been lost in the translation from French to English, beyond the words themselves- did the writer (or the translator) give enough weight to conveying the French attitudes and values on food and culture to a non-French audience?

Was Barbery's florid use of language when describing foods genuine or was it a satire on French food writing in general? Could she have been trying to prove a point, or were her descriptions fodder for underlying philosophical clues to Pierre's motives?

Many of the criticisms payed to him were based on the amount of power he exerted in his relationships, but did he take away power from the people around him, or did those people blindly assign it to him without being conscious of it?

Closure came up several times when we were discussing this novel. Pierre gained closure in the end when he identified what he had been searching for, but not with his daughter. Was that more another example of him single mindedly seeking his own pleaure or not having an understanding of her feelings towards him? Did he consider his family, and what does it say about him as a person if he didn't? What effected him externally- who had the greatest impact on him, and did he respect them?

What did the final request represent? Is it a commentary on the instability of certainty? If it is not nostalgic, than what is at the core of it's impact on him during his dying moments?

What is the writer's point of view? What is she trying to say about the relationship between people and eachother, and people and food?

Trends in the Specialty Food market

The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) just released it's annual report. The trends they've found are interesting- some surprising, some not at all. Most encouraging is confirmation of the strength of the local, sustainable and eco-friendly food movement.

The NASFT defines specialty foods as foods of premium quality that are often made by small or local manufacturers or have exotic or ethnic flavors. Of these foods, the top five categories of foods most purchased last year were cheese; condiments; frozen and refrigerated entrees, pizzas and convenience foods; chips, pretzels and snacks; and frozen and refrigerated meats, poultry and seafood.


Specialty food accounts for 13.1 percent of all food sales at retail.
Yogurt and kefir is the fastest growing specialty food category; sales jumped 38.9 percent in 2009 to $830 million.

-Mediterranean, Latin and Indian were named as the three fastest emerging cuisines.

-Retailers report that 23.4 percent of the foods they sell are local, produced within 250 miles of the store.

-85 percent of specialty food manufacturers make or market natural foods.

-56 percent of specialty food manufacturers report sales growth for 2009, but 10 percent saw sales declines of greater than 20 percent.

-Sales to foodservice represented 20 percent of specialty industry food sales in 2009, or $12.75 billion.

-Mainstream supermarkets remain the predominant seller of specialty foods, with 74 percent of sales.

-Local, sustainable and eco-friendly products were identified as the items that will grow the most in the coming years.

Gougeres

Gougeres are essentially cheese puffs, originating in the Burgundy region of France. We've got delicious comte cheese at Zingerman's right now, so I made some for my Dad's birthday, and served them along side Schwarzwälder Schinken (smoked, cured black forest ham). I bought a bottle of medium bodied red that I've already forgotten the name of, which I drank a bit of before he arrived, as the gougeres grew cold, because he was late.

Either way, they were much easier to prepare than I had imagined and will continue to experiment with them. They're delicious on their own (best served warm), or you can fill them easily with any manner of fillings- mushrooms, beef, ham- by either slicing them in half and filling them like a sandwich, or piping the filling in through the bottom or side with a pastry bag with a small tip.

Gougeres

Ingredients

1/2 cup (125ml) water
3 tablespoons (40g) butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of chilli powder
1/2 cup (70g) flour
2 large eggs
12 chives or 1-2 T fresh thyme, finely-minced
3/4 cup grated comte cheese (or gruyere)

Method

-Preheat the oven to 425F/220C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
-Heat the water, butter, salt, and chili or pepper in a saucepan until the butter is melted.
-Dump in the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture pulls away from the sides into a smooth ball. Remove from heat and let rest two minutes.
-Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring quickly to make sure the eggs don't 'cook.' The batter will first appear lumpy, but after a minute or so, it will smooth out.
-Add about 3/4 of the grated cheese and the herbs, and stir until well-mixed.
-Scrape the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a wide plain tip and pipe the dough into mounds, evenly-spaced apart, making each about the size of a small cherry tomato.
-top each puff with a bit of the remaining cheese, then pop the baking sheet into the oven.
-Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 375F/190C and bake for an additional 15 to 25 minutes, until they're completely golden brown.

My {malted} milk shake brought all the boys to the yard

I've had cravings for malt-flavored sweets ever since we had a malted vanilla milkshake on the menu back at NoMI in 2004. We were using amber malt, procured from a beer brewing supply company, and bourbon vanilla beans in the ice cream base. What put the milkshakes over the top was that we were blending the malted vanilla ice cream not with milk but with un-spun ice cream base. They were so rich we had to serve them in a shot glass. It was about that same time that there was popular song out, with the chorus of 'my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard' and i would hum it in my head, never sure of what it was supposed to mean in the songwriters context, but certain of how it fit into mine.

Malt is not a common ingredient, but I came across this recipe as a quick fix for my cravings:

This recipe appears in Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2008)

Brewer's Blondies

Yield: 24

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons malted milk powder

14 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 3/4 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup malted milk balls (like Whoppers or Maltesers), coarsely chopped in a food processor

3/4 cup (9 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Vanilla ice cream, to serve

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and malted milk powder together.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until completely combined. Scrape down the bowl, add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until combined.

Add the flour mixture in two batches until just combined. Add the malted milk balls, chocolate chips and walnuts and beat until just combined, about 10 seconds. The mixture will be thick. Turn the mixture out into the prepared pan and use an offset spatula to spread it evenly.

Bake in the center of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the blondie comes out clean.

Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes. These blondies taste delicious warm. Cut them into squares and serve with ice cream. They also taste great at room temperature. Once thoroughly cooled, cover tightly with plastic wrap and keep at room temperature for up to 3 days.

For the ultimate snack, place one Brewer's Blondie on a microwave-safe dish and heat on high for 15 seconds. Remove the blondie from the microwave oven and top it with one heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream. Let the warmth of the blondie melt the ice cream for a few moments, then serve immediately.

Buckwheat Crepes

The sun is finally beginning to shine again, as the winter months are more behind us than ahead. Late this morning I walked over to a friends place and we made crepes. As usual, we couldn't decide on just one filling so we made three. Each of them turned out delicious enough to warrant sharing.

The thought of buckwheat crepes was on my mind when I woke up- one of those random food cravings that pops into my head when I'm dragging myself out of bed and getting ready to go to the gym. It seemed like a good idea, since the batter needs to sit for at least 30 minutes before it's ready. Every time I make crepes I wonder why I don't make them more often- it's a fun process and it takes only a little effort to get a great result.

This version is from The Gourmet Cookbook, which has over the years become one of my 'go-to' books for whenever I'm looking for a recipe that I've never made. It seems to have everything in it, and they are all tested and work well.

Buckwheat Crepe Batter
(enough for about eight 10" crepes)

2 T unsalted butter
3/4 cup + 1 T buckwheat flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 large eggs

Start by making a brown butter: cook it in a small saucepan over moderately low heat until golden brown. This gives a nice nutty depth of flavor to the crepes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool slightly.

Sift together the flours and salt in a bowl. Separately, whisk together the milk, eggs and brown butter. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until smooth. Cover and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.

My friend has a fantastic cast iron pan from lodge cookware that is the perfect size and weight for crepes (and useful for other things as well). Let the pan get hot enough to make butter sizzle, and run the end of a stick of butter across the top of. Tilting it up slightly, pour about 1/4c of the batter onto one side and quickly roll the pan around so that the entire surface is coated with a thin layer. After a minute or two, flip it over. They taste best when there is a little bit of browning but they're still soft enough to drape and fold. With the oven on warm (250F) we stacked them on top of one another on a plate as they were finished- this keeps them warm. If you're not going to be using them right away, cover them up with a slightly damp towel.

For our first course, we sauteed some spinach with butter, a dash of nutmeg, salt and pepper and piled it in the middle of the crepe, folding the four sides in. We left a little bit of the spinach showing in the middle and topped it with a fried over easy egg. The runny yolk made a great sauce and the overall flavor was at the same time light and filling.

We then moved on to the classic nutella + banana, followed by crepes stuffed with sauteed apples with cinnamon, with a light dusting of powdered sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice on top.

When the fridge is empty, a simple squeeze of lemon juice and a dusting of sugar is a delicious alternative.

The poached and the soft boiled:

I've been awash by the pursuit of making soft boiled eggs. I like delicately piercing them with a small wire to release the air in them before boiling, and was pleased that my carefully timed 6 minutes this morning resulted in just the right amount of runniness in the yolk. Oh, egg yolk. Please pass the salt and pepper. A bowl of yoghurt with red current preserves on the side, a pot of yunnan at hand.

And tonight's lentil serenade was as much about the rendered pancetta, toasted spices, brown chicken stock, lentils du puy and caramelized onions as it was a vehicle for a poached egg, yolk barely contained by a thin skin surrounded by soft whites. My mistake of too much vinegar in the poaching water turned out to be a blessing in disguise- the overall effect of the finished plate would have not been complete without that hint of bright acidity. Next time I'll poach them with a bit of sherry vinegar.

Bai Hao Oolong Tea

Bai Hao Oolong is produced in Hsinchu (aka Xinghu) Taiwan. Sometimes referred to Oriental Beauty, White Tip Oolong, or Champagne Oolong, in Taiwan it is often called Pingfang tea. As with everything, authenticity is based on the source of where the tea came from.


While most high quality Taiwanese teas are picked in the spring or winter, Bai Hao is harvested in the months of June & July, sometimes extending out into October. In reading about how it is made, I came across some contradictory stories. One source wrote that it is called bai hao because of the tender white downy buds that are picked along with the top two leaves, resulting in the white 'tips' evident in the dry leaves. Another source wrote that this particular tea relies on insects (like 'Miele de Sapin' fir tree honey) to achieve the white 'tips'. In their explanation, the tea bushes are home to a parasitic leaf hopper that feeds on the leaves and discolors the edges. Their chomping begins an enzymatic process that is essential to flavor and character development in the tea. Farmers wait until they have left their mark on the tea leaves before harvesting, and after picking and drying, the edges turn white causing contrasting strands of white among the black leaves. It could be a little bit of both, but without going to Taiwan and learning firsthand, I can be sure exactly.

Historically this tea is heavily fermented (according to Rishi) and roasted but in recent years they've been producing it with a light fermentation, resulting in a light fruity, honeyed taste. It's smooth with just a hint of tannin or acidity in the finish- my tongue can't quite tell the difference this morning.

This is a tea intended to be brewed and sipped in a gaiwan, a tea brewing method very popular in the east but not often seen here in the states. They're perfectly ideal for oolong teas, and although the setup is a bit different, it's a much more enjoyable way of drinking a cup at a time and brewing as needed. Here's a link to a basic video of how to use one at home. If you want to see the classical ceremonial way of brewing, watch this video.