Beef | Gherkins & Tomatoes

The Meat of the Matter: A Question of Sacred Reverence

October 26, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Meat eating presents modern society with a bit of a dilemma. How to raise and slaughter large numbers of animals under humane conditions, while keeping the price down and within wallet reach of most consumers? That’s the major issue, tinged with other, often moralistic, questions. First, right up front, I am not a vegetarian, and never will be, despite having fumbled with the idea a few times. My first experience with vegetarianism came about chiefly out of curiosity. The central […]

Categories: Africa, Agriculture, Beef, Cattle, Cooking, Festivals, Hunger, Lent, Local foods, Photography • Tags: Beef, Bruce Aidells, Farming, Meat, Michael Symon, Photography, Vegetarianism

Hamburger Heaven, or the Global Burger: A Medley of Recipes

August 9, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Hot weather does funny things to people, especially to cooks. Certain instincts crop up at about the same time that air conditioners crank up the juice. Primeval visions prevail, usually of smoldering coals and roasting meat, prompting the almost daily obeisance to that great American tradition, the summer barbecue grill. And summer just wouldn’t be summer without another American tradition — the barbecued hamburger sandwich. Originally a chopped beef gravy-covered patty characteristic of German cooking, the hamburger became a sandwich […]

Categories: American Cooking, Beef, Recipes • Tags: Beef, Cooking, Food, Grilling, Hamburgers, Labor Day, Summer Food

Saffron: The Gold We Eat

July 29, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Once used as money instead of gold in Don Quixote’s Spain, saffron costs upwards of $1000 US per pound. Indeed, the world’s costliest spice. Most likely you will not have ever seen saffron for sale in your local grocery’s spice department. Knowledgeable customers ask the store managers for it; they keep it behind the counter, safe from pilferers. Why do cooks desire saffron? Saffron lends an indescribable flavor to food. It also imparts a tenacious yellow color to anything it touches; […]

Categories: Beef, Recipes, Rice, Spices • Tags: Beef, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Rice, Saffron, Tagine

Still Mi Amore — Wild Abandonment Among the Tomatoes and Zucchini

June 14, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A market is three women and a goose. ~~ Italian proverb ~~ I know that for many Italian women my nostalgic idea of Italian cooking would seem foreign, as alien as if I zoomed in from another planet. Louise DeSalvo makes that clear in her book Crazy in the Kitchen: Foods, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family as she debunks the myths of the happy Italian family. And the quiet testimony of an Italian-American friend of mine seconds […]

Categories: Beef, Cookbooks, Cooking, Italian Cooking • Tags: Beef, Cookbooks, Italian Cooking, Louise DeSalvo, Marlena de Blasi, Sacra di San Michele, Tuscan Beef Stew

Idylls of Cuisine, #60

April 25, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Italian Cooking, Pasta, Photography • Tags: Beef, Food Photography, Italian Cooking, Italy, Meatballs

De-Constructing Hawaii’s Loco Moco

January 25, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

For those seeking examples of culinary fusion, Hawaii provides a very deep well to peer into. Rachel Laudan discovered this while teaching at the University of Hawaii and wrote an award-winning book about the subject: The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary Heritage.* One of those fusion dishes which Laudan mentions, albeit briefly, is a “traditional” concoction called Loco Moco. One of the plate specials so popular in Hawaii, Loco Moco generally features two scoops of white sticky rice topped […]

Categories: Beef, Hawaii, Home Economics, Ingredients, Methods • Tags: Beef, Cooks, Eggs, Hawaii, Loco Moco

Deep Roots: A Love Note to the Lowly Carrot

August 11, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A dish of carrot hastily cooked may still have soil uncleaned off the vegetable. ~~ Chinese Proverb Except for the feathery grey braids poking out from under the rebozo, she looked like a child washing dishes. But she wasn’t a child and she wasn’t washing dishes. Rinsing the large carrot— one about the size of a zucchini zonked on steroids at the end of a scorching mid-western summer — in her impromptu sink, the old Indian woman leaned over a […]

Categories: Afghanistan, Beef, Carrots, Lamb, Mexico, Recipes, Rice • Tags: Afghanistan, Beef, Carrots, Chicken, Lamb, M. M. Vilmorin-Andrieux, Qabili Pilau, Recipes, Rice, The Vegetable Garden

Flavor Principles Out of Africa: It’s the Beans

June 5, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Fermented Foods, Especially Oilseeds, as Flavoring in the Cuisines of Africa Opo Iru ko ba obbe je. (Yoruba proverb): Plenty of Iru [dawadawa] does not spoil the stew. In Africa, as in other parts of the world, fermented foods form an important part of the diet. Made from plant and animal materials, these foods are transformed into more intensely flavored products by the presence of bacteria, yeasts, and molds. These modify the original foods (or substrates) physically, nutritionally, and organoleptically. […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Beef, Fermentation, Fish, Recipes • Tags: Africa, Beef, Dawadawa, Fermentation, Fish, Flavor Principles, Iru, Locust Beans

Cape Malay Cooking

April 18, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A Cape Malay Cooking Safari: A little history and a scene-setting food shopping tour, then comes the food and a cooking class. Cape Malay Cookbooks and a recipe: The Cape Malay Illustrated Cookbook, by Fadela Williams More Cape Malay Cooking, by Faldela Williams South African Cape Malay Cooking, by Sonia Allison and Myrna Robins Traditional Cape Malay Cooking, by Zainab Lagardien Beef Curry: According to the author of this recipe, Beginning in the 17th century, slaves from Indonesia and India […]

Categories: Africa, Beef, Cape Malay • Tags: Africa, Beef, Cape Malay, Cooking, Curry

Becoming Italian

August 11, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I’m hardly Italian. Nowhere near it. With a family tree first planted in America in 1632, a seedling from a village not far from Norwich, England, we’ve been in the New World so long that we have no ethnic ties or traditions at all. But for some reason, Italian food and culture and history tapped something in my soul. Through my pots and pans, I’ve adopted Italy’s cooking. And dreams of idyllic Italian style. My house walls glow terra-cotta red in the morning sun. Rows of rosemary, oregano, and mint sprawl in my garden. And I collect Italian cookbooks like a money-mad King Midas wallowing in gold coins.

Categories: Beef, Food Columns, Italian Cooking, Pasta, Recipes, Tomatoes • Tags: Beef, Cooks, Food, Italian Cooking, Pasta, Tomatoes

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