Archives

Long Ago, When Chickens had Teeth …*

October 28, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I’ve never had to kill for my dinner, unless you count the time I mangled a lobster at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, crying silently as I tried to plunge the knife in the right place but failing to quickly put the creature out of its misery. I doubt I would have known how to kill a chicken, either, although my mother used to hint at what to do by exclaiming, “You’re running around like a chicken with […]

Categories: American Cooking, Cooking, Food writing, Photography, Southern Food • Tags: Animal slaughter, Chicken, Fried chicken, Grandmothers, Photography, Southern cooking, Texas

The Lost Arabs of Marseille: Food, Family, and France

June 17, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In his timely Arab France: Islam and the Making of Modern Europe, 1798-1831 (2011), Ian Coller writes of the Arab families associated with Ya’qub Hanna, an Egyptian, a Copt and first non-French general who’d served with Napoleon Bonaparte in his military campaigns in Egypt. The cover, I believe, was chosen to highlight the idea of the Arab “Other.” The artist, Anne Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (1767 – 1824) titled it “Portrait of Mustapha” and painted it in 1819. These families […]

Categories: Africa, Chicken, France, French Cooking • Tags: Chicken, Egypt, France, French cuisine, Immigration, Marseille, Molokhiyya, Paris

Cooking with Mushrooms: Chicken and Walnuts and Baby Bellas, Oh My!

October 7, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I went wild over the cheap chicken thighs at my local Kroger, dumping package after package into my grocery cart. And as I sniffed the seductive odor of pumpkin pies emanating from the bakery, I composed a menu in my head that shouted “It’s FALL, finally!” Mushrooms, walnuts, shallots joined the chicken in the paper grocery bag and I hurried home, enjoying the sporadic spots of leaf color as I wound my way up the mountain. Fall is not just […]

Categories: Chicken, Cooking, Europe, France, French Cooking, Mushrooms • Tags: Chicken, France, French Cooking, Mushroom, Poultry, Walnut

Sliced Ginger Root (Used with permission.)

“Ginger Shall Be Hot i’ the Mouth Too”

August 19, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sir Toby Belch: Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Clown: Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth too. Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3. If anyone ever makes a movie about ginger’s long and fascinating history, I want Leonardo DiCaprio to play the lead. Imagine him sporting a multi-colored pair of hose, leaping from bow to stern on a flimsy wooden caravel … Anyway, Shakespeare described […]

Categories: English Cooking, Food Columns, Ginger, Recipes • Tags: Chicken, Cooking, English Cooking, Fish, Food, Ginger

Tomatoes on the Vine (Photo courtesy of L. Wilcoxen)

Tomatoes, Dust, and a Tasty Soupçon of Africa, Too

July 20, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

My nose burned a little and an odd sensation on my forehead no doubt meant more freckles popping out. I didn’t care. I sat right where I wanted to be on that late August day, in the dirt between two rows of leafy tomato plants. Red globes of all sizes dangled like Christmas ornaments from the plants, the vines sinking into the dust from all that ripe weight.

Categories: Africa, Chicken, Chile Peppers, Food Columns, Recipes, Tomatoes • Tags: Africa, Chicken, Food, Habanero, Hot Peppers, Recipes, Tomatoes

The Artful Pomegranate

November 5, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Guarded treasure, honeycomb partitions, Richness of flavour, Pentagonal architecture. The rind splits; seeds fall– Crimson seeds in azure bowls, Or drops of gold in dishes of enamelled bronze. –André Gide in Les Nourritures Terrestres (trans. Dorothy Bussy) Like the pomegranate itself, so ripe and bursting with seeds, the history of this berry-like fruit reveals more and more the deeper one looks into it. The myths, the legends, and the journeys of the pomegranate serve as an archetypal case of plant […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Chicken, Cooking, Poultry, Spain • Tags: Chicken, Iran, Khoresh-e Fessenjan, Pomegranates, Poultry

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

The Random Herbalist: Books About Monastic and Medieval Gardens

July 27, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I find the following books enlightening, soothing, and motivating. My plan is to create/design a medieval/monastic herb garden over the upcoming winter and plant it starting next spring.* Monastic Gardens, by Mick Hales (2000) Private worlds glimpsed by a privileged few, monasteries have long maintained an aura of mystery. Outsiders imagine the silent seclusion, the austere settings, the rigorous routines of a religious life. But these sacred places share a common bond with the secular realm. Monks and nuns, too, […]

Categories: Bibliographies, Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Bibliographies, Brother Cadfael, Chicken, Fennel, Gardens, Herbs, Hildegard of Bingen, Medieval Gardens, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Monks

Anyone Can Build a Whizbang Chicken Scalder (Even You!)

June 13, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

From the back cover of Herrick Kimball’s book, Anyone Can Build a Whizbang Chicken Scalder: Every small-farm and backyard poultry producer needs a good scalder to quickly and efficiently scald their homegrown poultry prior to plucking. Precise scalding translates to fast, complete, and easy plucking of feathers. But high-performance ready-made scalding equipment is much too expensive for your average small-scale poultry producer to justify. And no one has every come up with plans for an easy to make, relatively inexpensive, […]

Categories: Agriculture, Chicken, Poultry • Tags: Chicken, Herrick Kimball, Poultry Farming

Chicken Curry, From Réunion (the Country)

May 11, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Réunion is a country. About 800 kms. east of Madagascar. Off the coast of Africa. A former fueling/supply station for ships on their way to Asia for spices. A bit “out there,” yes. But the food there … tastes and flavors marry each in ways only possible when people from different cultures meet each other and, well, you know. Beginning officially in 1649, France wielded power, political and culinary, over this small way-station (then called “Bourbon”) in the Indian Ocean. […]

Categories: African Cooking, Réunion • Tags: African Cooking, Chicken, Chicken Curry, Curry, Réunion

Chicken in Red Palm Oil (Photo credit: John Tolva)

Palm Oil, Chicken In

May 9, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe once wrote that proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. A recipe for chicken in red palm oil: CHICKEN IN RED PALM OIL Serves 4-6 ¼ c. red palm oil 1 chicken, cut up for frying ½ t. ground coriander 1 t. sea salt 1 t. dried orange peel 1 t. dried minced garlic 1/4 t. ground hot red pepper (cayenne) Melt the red palm oil in a large cast-iron skillet. Mix the […]

Categories: Africa, Chicken, Oil Palm, Recipes • Tags: African Cooking, Chicken, Chinua Achebe, Palm Oil

Dame Alice de Bryene’s Household Book: Easter 1413

April 8, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

One of the most spectacular “finds” related to English medieval history, The Household Book of Dame Alice de Bryene (1931 edition) provides a detailed glimpse into the daily life of an English gentry household over the period 1412 – 1413, down to the exact food purchases and the price paid. It tells of widowed Dame Alice de Bryene during one of her seventy-five years. That year Easter fell on April 23, a late date, and Dame Alice served the following […]

Categories: Chicken, Easter, English Cooking, Middle Ages, Recipes • Tags: Chicken, Cooking, Curye on Inglish, Dame Alice de Bryene, Easter, Food, Forme of Cury, Middle Ages

Can a 3-Star French Chef Be a Regular Guy? Marc Meneau Tries

August 20, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Writing about 3-star French chef Marc Meneau is, in a way, like trying to write about Leonardo Da Vinci. Geniuses really need geniuses to write about them, to interpret them, to salute them, like buck privates in the presence of 5-star generals. It’s a little bit like meeting God – you’re afraid to look at the burning bush. But sometimes star chefs just have to make do with lowly food writers. After a sublime, relaxing lunch at Meneau’s Vezelay retreat in France’s […]

Categories: Chicken, French Cooking, Recipes • Tags: Chicken, Cooks, Food, French Cooking, Marc Meneau, Recipes

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life