Zester Daily

5.23.13 -

At a reading a few weeks ago in Portland, Ore., I finally blurted it out for the first time: “I hate the word veggies!” There was a stirring in the audience. I expected trouble, but instead, there was a solid murmur of agreement. One chef, Cathy Whims of Nostrana, said she couldn’t stand the word either, but was sometimes horrified to hear herself using it on occasion because it’s just around so much. Like using “like.” Can we make it go away?

And why would I bother to have and squander any emotion at all about the word veggies? I’ve wondered myself about why I don’t like it and won’t use it. I think it’s this: The word veggie is infantile. Like puppies. Or Cuties. It reduces vegetables to something fluffy and insubstantial. Think about it: We don’t say “fruities,” or “meaties” “or “wheaties” — unless it’s the cereal. We don’t say “eggies” or “beefies.” We don’t have a Thanksgiving birdy; we have the bird. But we don’t seem to be able to say vegetable.  Certainly it’s no longer than saying “Grass-fed beef” or “I’ll have a latte.”

Veggie turns vegetables into something kind of sweet but dumb, and in turn, one who eats a lot of vegetables might be construed as something of a lightweight, but one who can somehow excused. “It’s just veggies, after all. They’ll snap out of it.”

‘Vegetables’ speaks to their many strong traits

But the word isn’t used just by errant omnivores. Vegetarians are very fond of the word too, and they use it all the time. Plant foods, especially vegetables, are the backbone of vegetarian magazines, yet even there they’re reduced to veggies. I think vegetable is a more dignifying name by far. Just think of what plants do and what they’ve gone through to be on our plates.

They’ve been moved all around the world and gone rather willingly to where we humans have wanted them.

They’ve been altered to be pleasing to human palates.

They have adapted to all kinds of circumstances and survive against all odds and at extremes ranges of heat and cold, wetness and aridity.

The tiniest sprouts can move concrete. Eventually.

They can be dangerous and deadly, or they can be tender and sweet. And some come close to being both in the same plant. Like potatoes and tomatoes.

They can cure ills, for example, aspirin comes from willow; liver remedies are derived from members of the aster family, which include artichokes, burdock, chicories, milk thistle and lettuce among others; brassicas may prevent cancer. There’s the whole pharmaceutical stance one can take regarding vegetables given the truly amazing nutrition they offer.

Vegetables have serious means of protecting themselves — with spines and thorns, or by emitting subtle odors or substances. They can keep other plants at a distance so they alone can make use of limited amounts of water and nutrients; they can find ways to use other plants to climb on. Seed pods are cleverly designed to attach a ride to a jacket, a hat, a dog’s fur to be carried elsewhere to grow. (The burdock burr was the model for Velcro.) And they can defend themselves against predators; pinions discharge a sap that keeps bark beetles from boring in. (The food part is the pine nut).

Plants also keep other forms of life going by attracting bees and hummingbirds, moths and insects, which they feed.  They can sometimes cajole birds into carrying away their seeds to plant elsewhere. Plus they give us flowers and fruits in abundance. We love honey of all varietals — especially that derived from thyme, a member of the mint family, and flowers, too. We even use flowers in the kitchen.

Their seeds can sometimes last for hundreds of years or more. Some sprout only in fires, which is one reason burned forests can recover some kind of growth soon after a fire.

They don’t complain when we waste them by using only the most tender parts and ignoring rough-looking leaves and stems and cores. Chickens are grateful of them.

In short, plants are generally quite amazing, strong and clever beings that evolve with time. Whether you are an omnivore or a vegetarian (or a chicken), we all benefit by eating plants. Plant foods. Vegetables. Fruits. Seeds. Stalks. Heads. Crowns. Skins. Cores.

I hadn’t thought about it when I was working on “Vegetable Literacy,” but I think — I hope — that the book, among other things, offers a way to go beyond the “veggie” concept of vegetables by introducing them as the eccentric and powerful personalities they are.

Top photo: Rainbow chard. Credit: Deborah Madison

5.16.13 -

We’ve gathered around a rustic wooden table at Don Alfredo Pollos al Pastor, a country restaurant sitting 7,000 feet in the Nahuatzén Mountains, an hour west of Morelia, Michoacán, in the colonial town of Pátzcuaro, Mexico. The wait for the Mexican food is a torment. Aromas of grilling meat hit us hard and make us pant through the thinner air in anticipation of what’s to come.

I sip an amber Victoria beer and drift into memories of the restaurant in the late 1980s, when the place was nothing more than a roadside shack with a dirt floor and corrugated metal roof. Then we sat at wobbly metal tables on rusted chairs boasting Cola-Cola logos for decor.

We were there for the food. We didn’t have to think about it. The menu was simple: chicken, handmade corn tortillas, soupy pink beans and a fresh table salsa made with the local heat-packing chile manzano (Capsicum pubescens), onions and sour oranges. If we were lucky and there on a weekend, they’d have a few baby lamb legs over a fire. As time has passed, the lamb has become so popular the restaurant’s simple terracotta serving plates now boast a new hand-lettered name: Don Alfredo Pollos y Borrego al Pastor (chicken and lamb over coals).

Before entering the larger space today — now with a real concrete floor and solid roof — we gape at the main attraction, a trench 20 feet long and 4 feet wide filled with a long, center mound of glowing embers of white mesquite. On either side of the trench are a few dozen 4-foot spiked metal rods, each impaling three chickens, lined up in two neat rows. The bright yellow flesh of the birds comes from their diet of fluorescent orange marigolds. Combine this and the high temperature of the coals, and you have incomparable flavor and beautifully charred crisp, golden skin.

A flamenco twist to a Mexican surprise

The biggest surprise lies at the far end of one row — 10 additional steel rods with a few kilos of marinated pork hanging from each rod, pouring out aromas the way only pork can. The chunks of meat appear dark from the mesquite, but not a speck of blackened pork is anywhere in sight. Roasting meat is in the blood of these cooks; they rotate and swivel the rods like turns of flamenco, flourish and sizzle, flourish and sizzle.

It has been a long, dry season for lovers of flesh in this part of the world. Pork is celebrated after a Lenten stretch and the Easter lambs have all been eaten. I’ve had my share, perhaps more than my share, of succulent carnitas over the years here in Michoacán, the carnitas capital of the world, but this young pork is primal perfection. These pigs are Mexicans, raised to be fat and placed upon a hot fire, not like their American cousins bred to be lean, mean and articulated muscle machines. Their flavor comes from mesquite smoke and bubbling fat-basted meat cooked lowly and slowly to achieve a moist interior and a mahogany-colored, stunningly brittle skin.

As orders fly in, the cooks select chicken or pork from the spikes and transfer it to a chopping block. A few precision hacks with a machete, a squirt of sour orange juice over the crunchy spitting skin, a sprinkle of salt and the platter is on its way to the table. The torture is over, the waiting is complete and satisfaction is imminent.

Not more than 10 minutes and a half bottle of beer have been swallowed since we passed through the doorway, but they were slow Mexican minutes and we have the patience of hungry Americans, which is to say none.

We ravenously descend on our platters. The waiter has brought pork, chicken and warm corn tortillas. There is a growling silence until, one by one, tortillas are piled with copious quantities of meat and that sweat-inducing table salsa to make perfect tacos. One bite says everything; the wait was worth it. Full grinning mouths smile at each other across the table. We are reduced to happy noises, for there are no words worth the pause.

Fresh Chile Manzano and Sour Orange Table Salsa

You may substitute one juice orange and one Mexican (aka Key) lime to achieve a similar flavor to Don Alfredo’s sour orange, a type of Seville orange primarily used in marmalade. A chile manzano, rocoto or perón (Capsicum pubescens) looks like a huge habañero, so to be sure that you have the right chile cut it open, manzano seeds are black.

Makes about 1½ cups

Ingredients

1 white onion (3 inches), peeled and finely chopped

½ chile manzano, stemmed, seeded and finely chopped

2 Mexican sour oranges, juiced

Sea or kosher salt to taste

Directions

Stir all the ingredients in a serving bowl. Serve at room temperature.

Don Alfredo Pollos y Barrego Al Pastor, Tanganxuan intersection on the Periférico (aka the lower end of Libramiento, before it enters the Glorieta opposite the Bodega Aurrerá supermarket), Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Telephone: (434) 342-3151. (The original location, and still the best.) A second spot is on the autopista Morelia-Pátzcuaro, Km. 6. Telephone: (443) 132-5975.

Top photo: Pork and chickens over mesquite in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. Credit: Nancy Zaslavsky

6.3.13 -

The European Commission has shown customary timidity in abruptly withdrawing a proposal made last week to exert minimal control over the quality of olive oil served in restaurants. The idea behind the proposal was admirable — that olive oil be served in original, tamper-proof bottles that state the oil’s credentials on the label, rather than poured from an anonymous jug into cruets or bowls on the table. In that way, consumers would be certain of what they’re being served and there would be no easy way of substituting bad oil for good. Restaurants, in the commission’s words, should be “obliged to use oil bottles equipped with an opening system which cannot be resealed after the first time it is opened, together with a protection system preventing them from being reused once the contents indicated on the label have been finished.”

This was not a sudden decision. It had been discussed for at least a year. And to those of us who have encountered, over and over again, rancid, fusty, smelly, old oil in those colorful little bowls or cruets on restaurant tables — even in some very fine establishments — it made good sense. But the proposal evoked an outcry from journalists, chefs, restaurateurs and the public at large such that you might think the EC had proposed reinstating capital punishment.

Baffling backlash

Consumer protection? No way! This was out-and-out interference in commerce, the naysayers cried, especially commerce that involved “little guys” — small-scale restaurateurs and café owners and small-farm producers of olive oil. This was Brussels interfering with time-honored traditions, forcing out modest concerns in favor of big industrial-sized multinationals that promote commodity olive oil. The virtue of this argument is difficult to understand because large producers would have very little to gain from the proposal. But in the end, the EC, bowing to pressure on all sides, withdrew the regulation.

Much of the uproar came from sources with nothing on the table. I cannot speak for the German press, but British journalists suddenly had, as they themselves might say, their knickers in a twist over the proposal. Silly Europeans, the Brits snickered, there they go again, fussing over trivia, imposing ridiculous rules on innocent restaurateurs, as if they didn’t have anything else to worry about in Brussels. Why don’t they do something about the economy instead?

Elsewhere, however, the outcry was even more difficult to understand and I got the impression that most people simply had not read the proposal. It is not a hardship for restaurateurs to provide tamper-proof bottles of olive oil since that is the way most small quantities of olive oil are sold. I buy oil in half-liter bottles or tins in local shops where I live in Tuscany. These containers almost uniformly have a plastic pour spout inside that is difficult to remove, and through which it would be difficult to refill the bottle. Furthermore, bottles such as these are the product of many different olive oil purveyors, from small, local farmers to substantial wineries that also produce oil for large, supra-national concerns. Disposing of the bottles once the contents are gone is also an easy task — they simply go into the glass-product recycling bins that are universal in most of Europe.

Check out the following excerpt from Public Radio International’s “The World,” a daily NPR news program:

At a little café in a Spanish village. . . the owner, a guy named Aris, says he’s indignant [about the new regulations]. Aris drives to his favorite olive orchard . . . to buy his oil right out of the presses. He tops up his big five-gallon jugs, and each morning at the café he fills his oil flasks by hand, then sets one on each table. . . . He says he doesn’t understand how Europe can have a problem with this.

Not necessarily extra virgin olive oil

The problem, simply stated, is that all over Europe, thousands of restaurateurs, large and small, top off oil flasks or cruets or bowls with what is most likely not extra virgin at all but a much lesser grade of olive oil — if, in fact, it is even olive oil and not some cheap substitute. And if it is extra virgin, it will most likely be rancid, fusty and several years out of date — just a few of the most common faults in extra virgin olive oil that not only give bad flavors and aromas to the food served, but also ultimately are bad for diners’ health. And even if it happens to be good olive oil when it goes into the flasks that are filled, day after day over the years without being cleaned, it’s inevitable that the “fresh” oil added will be thoroughly contaminated by the nastiness at the bottom of the flask.

I would hazard a conservative guess, based on long years of experience, that at least 70% of the oil on tables in European restaurants, and at least 85% of the oil on tables in American restaurants, would not pass muster if the research team at UC Davis’ Olive Center were to take up the challenge and test them for their extra virginity. When they tested imported extra virgin oils available in California retail shops a couple of years ago, 73% failed to meet sensory standards.

BYO EVOO

Which is why, when I go to an ordinary restaurant, and even sometimes to extraordinary ones, even in the olive oil-producing regions of Spain, Greece, Italy and California, I carry with me a small, discreet tin of high-quality extra virgin to adorn my dishes when necessary in order to avoid what’s in those cute glass, or rustic terracotta, or other type of cruets that sit on every restaurant table. (Of course, that doesn’t save me from the fact that they’ve been cooking my food with that junk, does it?)

Essentially, the problem the EC was trying to address was consumer fraud, a serious concern with olive oil, in Europe as everywhere else in the world — as many of these same journalists have been whining about for years. The new requirement would have prevented unscrupulous restaurateurs from filling their cruets with questionable oil. It was a tiny step forward in government efforts to combat fraud and to prevent what is all too often nasty, out-of-date, fake, unacceptable oil from being served up as if it were something genuine and special.

One simply cannot have it both ways. We cannot moan over fraudulent olive oil masquerading as fine extra virgin, and then gripe and sneer when the government takes a first, tentative step toward rectifying the situation. If we truly want reform, if we truly want to be sure that the oil in that bottle or on that table is what it says it is, then we must expect a lot more similar, and quite possibly even more stringent regulation in the years ahead. And welcome to it!

Top photo: Bottled olive oil. Credit: Flickr / foodistablog

5.14.13 -

It’s spring in Southern California, and our backyard fruit trees have run riot. Golden yellow loquats the size of my child’s fist hang heavily from two trees, and oranges left over from the winter crop spectacularly cover a 30-foot tree shading my daughter’s playhouse. Our yard looks like a postcard trumpeting the glories of Los Angeles suburbia, circa 1923.

But as with any paradise there’s a dark side. This year, the dark side comes from the loquats. I don’t know what to do with them.

There are so many loquats that our yard has become a hazard. Fully-ripe loquats drop from our trees every five minutes, and as my daughters play in the yard, they grind the soft yellow orbs messily into the lawn and walkway. Still more are up there, some as high as 40 feet, way beyond the reach of our ladder and picking tool. They’ve become a feast for the flocks of squawking, screaming wild parrots in our neighborhood.

These are another holdover from the 1920’s “California is Paradise” meme. Some of the  wild parrots are said to be runaways from the estate of Lucky Baldwin, and the creatures tear the loquats to bits, scattering the seeds and skins across our back yard to mix with the rotting ones.

We have two loquat trees that dominate our backyard, each with slightly different variety of fruit. When we first moved to this house, I had no idea what loquats were and wasn’t even sure they were edible. For several weeks we raked them into huge messy piles and shoved them into the recycling bin. But I couldn’t stand to see this bounty left to rot, so I started asking questions about this small, fleshy yellow fruit. I discovered that loquats are not only edible, they’re downright delicious. My youngest daughter became obsessed with loquats when she was just a year old and ate her weight in loquats that first season.

Don’t sweat the seeds

Over the past few years, I have turned our loquats into loquat cobbler, loquat butter and loquat leather, with varying degrees of success. The biggest problem with loquats is their incredible seed-to-flesh ratio. Each loquat contains one to six large seeds, which means that you get almost as much seed as you do edible flesh in each loquat.

When I first starting researching loquats, I’d read that the seeds were poisonous. Filled with arsenic, and possibly cyanide. The websites were not clear. But like any paranoid mother, I worried that my children might eat them and fall into a temporary coma, just like an unnamed child I’d read about online. Although we’d been eating loquats for several years without incident, I decided to put my fears to rest once and for all by checking with an expert.

I put in a call to professor Jules Janick, director of the Indiana Center for New Crops and Plant Products at Purdue University. He’s not only the co-editor of “The Encyclopedia of Fruits and Nuts,” he is also a kind and understanding voice of reason. Janick told me that loquat seeds are indeed toxic, but then so are the seeds of apples and pears. To put things into perspective, Janick said, “If you ate 3 pounds of them, then it might be a problem.” He also reminded me that the bitterness of the seeds would stop someone from eating them pretty quickly. I realized that my daughter was at far greater risk for choking on a loquat seed than being poisoned by its chemical components.

Backyard loquat adventure

With this in mind, on an April afternoon, I took my loquat-loving youngest daughter to the back yard to begin Loquat Harvest 2013. We planned to fill my daughter’s toy wagon with enough fruit to make loquat leather, but we were quickly distracted by the fun of the collection process. We examined huge spider webs woven between the tree’s broad leaves. We ducked our heads from a torrent of loquat hail that rained down on us as I used our fruit picker to reach an especially high cluster of fruit. But we stopped in our tracks when we discovered a tiny hummingbird’s nest attached to a small wavering branch of our loquat tree. All thoughts of loquat leather disappeared and we marveled at this tiny treasure.

Our loquat tree was not only a source of food for humans and birds alike, it was a home. Our loquat trees now feel like an integral part of our own home, one that we happily share with our feathered friends.

I’m still experimenting with new ways to use the backyard bounty, without creating more work than necessary. The simplest approach is to just eat the fruit straight from the tree, spitting out the seeds, of course. But that’s a LOT of loquats to eat.

Our future is sure to be full of new loquat-laced dishes including loquat jelly, loquat chutney and loquat-chicken tagine. Maybe even a batch of loquat ice cream. But even as my family members stuff themselves with loquats, I think that the bounty of Southern California may simply be too much to keep up with.

I may have to ignore much of the fruit of the loquat this year.

And the real beneficiaries, the screaming, squawking, fat and happy parrots.

Loquat-Apple Leather

Ingredients

8 cups seeded loquat halves (approximately 9 to 10 cups of whole, ripe fruit depending on size)

2 cups applesauce (store-bought is fine)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Wash loquats and remove any blemishes and remaining brown bits from stem and blossom ends. Be sure to use ripe loquats, which are softer, sweeter and less acidic than unripe loquats.

2. Cut loquats in half. Scoop out the seeds and white membrane inside the pulpy yellow flesh. Don’t bother to peel them.

3. Make two batches of loquat-apple purée by adding 4 cups of loquat halves, 1 cup of applesauce and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon into blender or food processor. Process until smooth. (The blender does a slightly better job on breaking down the peels than the food processor, but either will work.) Repeat with second half of ingredients.

4. Place a solid tray liner, usually called a fruit roll sheet or non-stick dehydrator sheet, on top of your dehydrator tray.

5. Spread a layer of loquat-apple purée, about ¼-inch thick, onto the solid tray liner. The fruit leather will have a more uniform thickness if you spread the puree slightly thicker around the edges. Be sure to follow instructions for your dehydrator. Some suggest brushing the tray with a thin layer of vegetable oil to the tray liner before adding fruit purée.

6. Place the tray (or multiple trays if you have them) into the dehydrator and dehydrate at 135 F for 4 to 8 hours, until the fruit leather is translucent and can be easily peeled from the tray without falling apart. It may still feel a bit sticky to the touch, especially in the middle.

7. Cut into strips and roll.  Keep in a closed container or bag until ready to eat.

Picking loquats. Credit: Susan Lutz

5.27.13 -

Is it possible that an exotic date-filled confection offers insights into the secret origins of Christianity? Well, while it remains a fringe theory, researchers have suggested that during Jesus Christ’s so-called “Lost Years” — between the ages of 12 and 30 — he may have traveled east along the Silk Road, studying Zoroastrianism in Persia and then immersing himself in Buddhism and Hinduism in India. These spiritual practices would become the bedrock of his teachings upon his return to Israel.

Implausible, you say? Perhaps. But if you’re looking for clues, you’re less likely to find them in decaying documents or a secret trove of relics than in a delicious Iranian pastry known as koloocheh, the round, doughy delicacy that I discovered while browsing the aisles of my favorite Iranian market in Irvine, Calif. Like a cross between the Fig Newton and the German Jewish Purim pastry hamantaschen, koloocheh have the distinctly Eastern twist of sugary dates, perfumed rose water and cardamom. Intrigued, I decided to re-create them for my Persian cookbook.

Cookie as Cultural Connector

Little did I know when I started to research koloocheh that they would reveal a bridge between diverse peoples and vast distances stretching back millennia. As it turns out, similar filled round cakes form a part of the holiday traditions of virtually all cultures whose paths have crossed the ancient Silk Road trade routes. In India, fried gujia pastries with coconut, dried fruit, and nuts, are eaten during Holi, the Hindu festival of colors that marks the start of spring. Further east, in China, the mid-autumn harvest festival ushers in the season of moon cakes, pastries pressed in elaborate molds and stuffed with fillings both sweet and savory. Heading west, in Eastern Europe, the yeasted buns known as kolachy or kalacs hold jam, poppy seeds and walnut fillings, and are meticulously prepared at Easter. Round, stuffed sweets are also an iconic part of Slavic cooking, where the name kolache is derived from the Old Slavonic word kolo, for “circle” or “wheel.”

To the south of Iran, in the Arabic world, ma’amoul are formed in intricately patterned wooden molds, then stuffed with dates and walnuts. Ma’amoul are eaten by Muslims at Eid, Christians at Easter, and Lebanese and Egyptian Jews at Purim, while their fried, honey-soaked counterparts, known as makroud in Tunisia, are a part of North African Eid celebrations. There is evidence of similar filled confections as far back as Sumer, now modern-day Iraq, one of the ancient world’s most sophisticated civilizations.

Silk Road Influence

If Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims all celebrate holy days with similar foods, it hardly seems outrageous to suggest that their spiritual rituals might also share a common foundation. Indeed, this is why koloocheh goes to the very heart of what my book, “The New Persian Kitchen,” is all about: how the Silk Road’s rich synthesis of ideas formed the unique culinary treasure that is Iranian food. It became crucial to me that a recipe for koloocheh, such an emblematic sweet, be a standout among the book’s recipes.

After several different approaches, I finally created a cookie that was simple to make and beautiful to behold. The key lay in making a buttery dough rendered flexible with the addition of an egg. Formed into disks, the dough is topped with a spoonful of date-walnut filling, then pinched closed and molded into a puck shape. A sprinkling of walnuts serves as decoration, and any imperfections are covered by a snowy layer of powdered sugar. The cookies are flaky and moist, not too sweet, and ideal with a cup of hot tea, which is how they would typically be served in Iran.

My cookie conundrum served as a lesson about the role recipes play in human evolution. They are mobile nuggets of knowledge reshaped by their adopted cultures and eras, living documents of history. I don’t know if koloocheh came to Iran via the east or the west, and I don’t know if Jesus took Buddhist ideas back with him from India to Israel. But it’s clear that the diverse societies along the Silk Road strongly influenced one another, and I need only look as far as koloocheh to see — and taste — the truth of that theory. Just think: Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have been reimagining and integrating each other’s ideas since before the time of either Buddhism or Christianity. The ancient conversation continues as recipes evolve in the New World.

Top photo: Louisa Shafia (in front of a monitor also featuring her). Credit: James Rotondi

5.14.13 -

I spotted a pair of fresh Atlantic mackerel at my fishmonger in Umbria, Italy, this morning, their unmistakable sleek, glossy skin, marked like the waves of the ocean, steely blue and gray. It’s astonishing that a fish so reputedly fragile could be brought so far, from the Atlantic coast of France to this little market town in the Tiber valley, without damage, and yet this pair smelled as fresh as a sea breeze.

Of course I snatched them up and brought them home to try a favorite Elizabeth David recipe (from “French Provincial Cooking”), one she says comes from the Breton coast, near where my fish were caught.

In some quarters, mackerel has a reputation as poor folks’ food, and fancy chefs often scorn it. But I adore this fine fish. Beautiful to look at, even more so to taste, rich and fat and full of healthful Omega 3 fatty acids, mackerel is just the thing to pick me up after a surfeit of meat, which I’ve been consuming at a tremendous rate in the last couple of weeks. Nothing truly beats the mackerel you catch off a dock in Maine on a calm, early summer evening — jigging for mackerel, it’s called — but any fresh mackerel is worth the very slight effort it takes to prepare it. Emphasis is on “fresh,” however — your nose will tell you immediately if it’s not, but the visible evidence is just as reliable: When the shiny skin goes dull and the eyes lose their luster, that’s a fish to reject.

If you catch the mackerel yourself, gut it right there on the dock and toss the guts back in the water where they’ll make a fine supper for some other creature, whether finned or winged. If you’re buying from a fishmonger, have him or her gut the fish for you but leave the head and tail intact for a handsome presentation. The best mackerel recipe is the simplest: Build up a fire on the grill and throw the whole fish on, let the skin blister and bubble, then turn the fish (carefully — use a wide spatula and try not to break up the fish) once only, and cook the other side to a blister. Because the fish are small, rarely reaching as much as a pound, they cook quickly and are done in minutes. Serve with a wedge of lemon and enjoy!

Any fish you don’t consume immediately can be turned into a sort of soused mackerel, a recipe that comes from the eastern Adriatic and is reminiscent of Spanish escabeche.

Soused Mackerel

Ingredients

1 to 1½ pounds fresh mackerel, grilled or broiled

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

1½ cups water

Zest of an organic lemon

Juice of the same lemon, plus enough white wine vinegar to make 1½ cups

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon sugar

3 garlic cloves, crushed with the flat blade of a knife

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Pinch of sea salt

3 or 4 fresh rosemary sprigs

Directions

1. Combine everything but the fish and simmer together for half an hour or so to reduce.

2. Once the marinade is reduced, set it aside to cool and then pour it over the fish — either the whole grilled fish or the fillets, which, once cooked, are very easy to lift off. Leave to marinate overnight or in the refrigerator a couple of days. Serve as part of an antipasto or meze.

But back to the Elizabeth David recipe, Maqueraux a la Façon de Quimper, which is simply poached mackerel with an egg-butter-mustard sauce. I use olive oil instead of butter — it goes better with a rich fish like mackerel. This is also a splendid sauce to serve with poached or grilled salmon.

Maqueraux à la Façon de Quimper

Adapted from Elizabeth David’s recipe in “French Provincial Cooking.”

Makes 2 main course servings, or 4  first-course servings

Ingredients

For the fish:

2 fresh mackerel, each weighing a little under a pound

6 cups water

1½ cups dry white wine

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 carrot, scraped and coarsely chopped

1 small yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 branch celery, coarsely chopped

Handful of fresh parsley, coarsely chopped

For the sauce:

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon Dijon-style mustard

Freshly ground black pepper

½ teaspoon lemon juice, or more to taste

2 tablespoons chopped green herbs (parsley, chervil, tarragon, chives, dill, fennel tops)

¼ to ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions

For the fish:

1. As soon as you get the mackerel home, gut them, if necessary, and rinse under running water. Keep them very cold until ready to cook. Put them in a bowl with ice cubes piled around and set the bowl, covered, in the refrigerator.

2. Make a court bouillon for poaching: In a saucepan or fish kettle large enough to hold the mackerel, combine the water, wine, bay leaves, peppercorns, carrot, onion, celery and parsley. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

3. Drain the mackerel and add to the simmering liquid. Bring back to a gentle simmer and cook for just 10 minutes, then remove the fish immediately from the court bouillon and set aside to cool.

4. When cool enough to handle, lift the skin off the fish and take the fillets off the bones. Check to be sure all the bones are gone, then arrange the fillets on a serving platter and keep cool while you make the sauce.

For the sauce:

You can make the sauce by hand in a bowl, using a wire whisk, but it is easier to make in a blender or food processor.

1. Combine the egg yolks and mustard in the processor and buzz briefly. Add the pepper, vinegar and herbs, and buzz once again, just to combine.

2. Now, with the motor running, slowly add the olive oil, just as you would with mayonnaise, a few drops at a time at first, and then in a steady dribble. The sauce should mount like mayonnaise but for this recipe it should be no thicker than heavy cream. Taste and add more lemon juice if it seems to need it.

3. Pile the sauce in the middle of the serving platter and serve immediately.

Top photo: Mackerel and a copper poissonnière. Credit: Nancy Harmon Jenkins

5.31.13 -

I don’t think of myself as having a mania for amassing stuff, especially when I compare myself to those hoarders depicted on television reality shows, people who can’t get near their stoves or their bathtubs because of the menacing mountains of clutter that obstruct any approach. But while I may not be a hoarder — someone who collects absolutely everything in a pathological way — I am a serious collector of recipes. This recipe-collecting quirk of mine may seem to some to have gotten a little out of hand.

To start with, I have a large and growing collection of cookbooks that are neatly arranged in bookshelves all over the three floors of my house. I also subscribe to food magazines that I can never bring myself to discard, even after reading them, for I have put Post-its on all the recipes I hope someday to try. Then I routinely read several newspapers, all of which publish recipes, and I clip and save the ones I like. I also check out cookbooks from my public library and photocopy recipes that look good to me. While reason tells me that I will never be able to cook all of the dishes whose recipes I have gathered, the thought of discarding any part of my recipe collection seems to me out of the question. And I know I am not alone.

Where have all the Gourmets gone?

When I was a professional collector of cookbooks, working in a library with a specialty in food history, I would often hear from people wanting to donate their collections of Gourmet magazine to a respectable institution to be preserved for posterity. These offers usually came up when people were moving into smaller quarters and no longer had room for old copies of the magazines. The would-be donors generally had around 20 years worth of Gourmet. This was a reflection of the owner’s peak cooking years, and not a whole set. But because my library already owned two complete and bound sets of Gourmet, I had to turn down these offers much to the dismay of the would-be donors. Parting with the magazines was hard enough, but the thought of dumping their collection into a paper recycling bin was impossible to face. To give them solace, I let them know that they were not alone in their attachment to the magazine, and would describe to them a New Yorker cartoon I had once seen that captured their concern. It shows a woman dressed in mourning speaking to a lawyer who says, “That being your mother’s wish, I see no reason we can’t arrange interment with all her old copies of Gourmet.”

Such fidelity strikes me as ever so human. Those old magazines were filled not only with enticing recipes, but articles about trips to exotic places and what to eat once you got there. By discarding their Gourmets, people were effectively giving up the dream of finally cooking all of those dishes and going to all of those wonderful places, and who wants to give up such a dream?

Recipe collecting in the Internet age

Nowadays, however, this need to cling to cookbooks, food magazines and newspaper clippings does not grip everyone interested in recipes. The ease of finding recipes on the Internet has caused some people to discard all of their paper sources because they know they can easily find virtually any dish they want online. I too search online for dishes, but this does not reduce my paper collection, for I immediately print newfound recipes and add them to my already bulging files. In any case, I find that online recipes are no substitute for cookbooks, the best of which are more than just batches of recipes. Like other good books, they have a voice, an author passing on wisdom and knowledge for the benefit of readers. To my mind, the best cookbooks should be read straight through before donning one’s apron and heading for the kitchen.

After scrutinizing my behavior, I have finally decided to accept the fact that I am a collector. Unlike hoarders, I do not find meaning and value in absolutely every material object that comes my way, but I sure do find meaning and value in recipes. Some people collect porcelain figurines of dogs, while others are on the lookout for antique toys or snuff boxes. The objects of our passions differ, but we collectors are all alike in that we love the thrill of the hunt, and find that discovering a new addition to our collection can be as much fun as having and keeping it. In my case, I keep my favorite recipes — newspaper clippings, printouts and handwritten jottings — in a shabby green folder in my kitchen, and am reminded that each of those recipes came from a different source. If I hadn’t tracked them down, saved them and cooked from them, I am sure that the pleasures of my family table would have been diminished.

Top photo: A cook’s recipe collection. Credit: Barbara Haber

5.13.13 -

I was taken aback recently to hear the hard statistics: The United States imports more than 50% of the fruits and vegetables we put on our tables.

We regularly see produce from Mexico, Canada, Chile, China, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru and more — imports that have tripled since the 1990s. The produce is harvested before it is even ripe, so that it can be cheaply and efficiently boxed and shipped to our shores for consumption often weeks later.

And while it is a fact that the local food movement is growing exponentially, the reality is that these small farming efforts are often built on marginal land or urban plots. As for big agriculture, according to the American Farmland Trust we lose more than one acre of farmland to urban development every minute of every day, 24/7.

It all adds up. Stifling competition from often inferior product from abroad. Aggressive developers here at home. Shopping malls. Young farm family members choosing not to follow in their parents’ footsteps.

According to the USDA, the number of farms in the United States fell to a six-year low in 2012.

Shrinking number of farmers

According to the USDA, as of 2007 (the latest date for such statistics) the average age of principal farm operators was 57 years old and there are relatively few prepared with the skills to take their place. How could it be that the Unites States, once the envy of the world in terms of agricultural output, is not even producing enough to feed our own people?

As a nation it’s no secret that we eat too much and too much of the wrong foods, and this has dire consequences on our health. We are currently ranked 33rd on Newsweek / Bloomberg’s 2012 survey of the world’s healthiest countries.

I was reminded of these and other sobering statistics at a screening of “Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farm Fields,” a powerful documentary that addresses the urgent need to retool and reboot U.S. farming practices.

Thanks to the efforts of Dulanie Ellis and Ray Singer, award-winning filmmakers in Ojai, Calif., a social action campaign has been launched nationwide to give combat veterans the opportunity to become a new generation of farmers.

In 2000, Dulanie Ellis launched Walk Your Talk Productions to explore what it would take to protect the world-class farmland in her region of California from development. Thus began her commitment to agricultural activism. Her partner in the documentary, filmmaker Ray Singer, shared her passion and together they embarked on a three-year journey that has profoundly affected each of them. Their goal is to strengthen the growing network of combat veterans who are transitioning into organic agriculture and to build resources for veterans so they can create healthy new lives for themselves and contribute to food security for our nation.

Back from the battlefields

Recently returned from protecting U.S. interests overseas and having traded in their fatigues for overalls, hundreds of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq are now committed to growing organic produce and selling it to local communities from Seattle to Florida.

Colin and Karen Archipley, founders of Archi’s Acres in Valley Center, Calif., have taught more than 100 veterans not only how to grow crops, but how to run a farm as a business through their Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training (VSAT) program.

VSAT is a proprietary hands-on six-week training program “from seed to market” with an emphasis on developing a business plan. Colin and Karen purposefully tap into the skills and military training of the veterans — attention to detail, dedication and thoroughness — and assist with job placement and business creation at the end of the immersive training. Graduates include successful farm owners and workers, soil-testing pioneers, restaurateurs, and owners of food companies.

Michael O’Gorman, a passionate advocate for the cause of teaching veterans to farm, is the founder and director of the Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC) located in Davis, Calif. This national network of independent veterans-in-agriculture has teamed up with the USDA to offer free educational retreats in sustainable agriculture all around the country, open to veterans and their spouses.

The coalition serves as an important networking agency. Veterans are able to talk with farmers, attend workshops on financing and related business topics. FVC also offers the Fellowship Fund, which makes small but strategic grants to farmer-vets so they can get what they need most to strengthen their operation.

“Our goal is to connect the latest generation of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan to viable careers in agriculture,” says Michael. “What we see amounts to religious conversions. These young folks have taken on the military and farming — two of the hardest challenges we face — and they’re not even 30 years old.”

American-grown food for all — it’s more than a wish. The United States is projected to add some 18 million people by the year 2020. With nearly 334 million mouths to feed by the end of this decade, food supply is arguably one of the defining issues of our time. Think about it. Homegrown food is healthier for you. Healthier for your children. Healthier for our communities. Healthier for America.

The next time you plan your week’s shopping, check first for a local farmers market. You may just find a veteran farmer continuing to do service for our country.

Top photo: Mark Winkworth. Credit: JJ Britt