Archives

The Promise of Apple Blossoms

May 6, 2013 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Spring, when she sashays in, always takes my breath away. Such vivid raiments cover her, so radiant that Joseph with his coat of many colors could only turn green with envy. The eye hardly knows where to light, much as a honey bee – turned loose in a field of daisies – darts from one nectar-filled delight to another, drunk on the experience. Apple trees always draw me close. I suppose it has to do with the apple tree that […]

Categories: Apples, Art, Food writing, Photography, Poetry • Tags: Apple blossoms, Apples, Art, Food writing, Haiti, Kenscoff, M. F. K. Fisher, Meditations, Photography, Still life, Susan Branch

The Dame* with a Pot and a Pen

June 18, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

She’s a little bit like liver, you see. You either hate her or love her. Elizabeth David, according to this blog post from The Dabbler in the U.K., deserves a lot more kudos than she’s getting: I confess to having fallen just a little in love with David since I first discovered her books a few years ago. She was wilful, adventurous, determined and uncompromising. But for more than anything, I love her for significantly improving the quality of my […]

Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, England, English Cooking, Food writing, France, French Cooking • Tags: Cooking of Provincial France, Elizabeth David, French Provincial Cooking, Haiti, M. F. K. Fisher, Order of the British Empire, The Dabbler

French cooks Annals of Caliphs' Kitchens

Mezze … and You Get a Curfew with That, Too

August 1, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In Haiti, the earthquake of January 12, 2010 destroyed numerous lives and many structures, including Petionville’s cathedral and central plaza. Sadly, the people of Haiti still are suffering, from the effects of the earthquake and from a long tortured history. Like so many former French possessions, Haiti—once called France’s “Pearl of the Antilles”—still looks to France for many things, including food. The following story recalls other difficult days in Haiti, the tumultuous months and years after Baby Doc’s flight into exile […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Eggplant, France, French Cooking • Tags: Arab cooking, Baba Ghanouj, Baby Doc, French Cooking, Haiti, Le Phoenicia, Lebonese Cooking, New Book of Middle Eastern Food, Petionville

Breadfruit: Blight of Captain Bligh

April 20, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

When Captain James Cook entrusted thirty-three-year-old William Bligh (at the time a Commanding Lieutenant) with the HM Armed Vessel Bounty in 1787, breadfruit — not adventure — drove what became an infamous voyage. Bligh and his mutinous men sailed to Tahiti (the largest island in French Polynesia) to bring breadfruit trees back to Caribbean in hopes that the fruit would provide adequate food for the slaves working on sugar plantations there. (Bligh later undertook a second voyage as a captain […]

Categories: Recipes, Haiti, Agriculture, Gardens, Local foods, Cooking • Tags: Ahupua'a, Breadfruit, France, French Colonies, Fritters, Haiti, Hawaii, Limahuli Botanical Gardens, Tahiti, William Bligh

Cuddrireddri (Photo credit: Alberto Ferrero)

Remembering Haiti Post-Carnival (Kanaval)

March 14, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In March 2011, Japan suffered an 8.9 earthquake, a magnitude not often experienced. While the massive earthquake last year in Haiti was less on the Richter scale, it nonetheless did terrible damage that is still not wholly cleaned up. The gruesome scenes from Japan turned my mind back to Haiti. In Haiti, the tragic earthquake of January 12, 2010 destroyed the Haitian Kanaval as well as countless lives and buildings. Kanaval was canceled last year. Carnivale, Carnival, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Karneval, Masopust, […]

Categories: Carnevale, France, French Cooking, Haiti • Tags: Carnevale, Carnival, Earthquakes, Edwidge Danticat, France, French Cooking, Haiti, Jacmel, Mardi Gras, Masks, Shrove Tuesday

Inroads of Language, Basted with the Stiff-Necked Grip of French Cuisine

December 27, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The reach of France’s colonial empire extended far beyond a few fur trappers and Hollywood’s stereotype of exhausted men, rubbing at their scraggly beards, cursing their conscription into the Foreign Legion. Language, not just nationality, impacted millions of people over the centuries. And, I think, cuisine. Food came with that language and made a dent that I sensed very strongly when I lived in Morocco, Haiti, and Burkina Faso, all French-influenced former colonies, all imbued with an essence every bit […]

Categories: Art, Chicken, France, Haiti, Paintings • Tags: Auguste Escoffier, Cartes, Chicken Fritters, France, Francophonie, French colonial empire, Haiti, L’Empire colonial français, Maps, Marinad ak Poulet, Marinade de Volaille

C’est Pas Foie Gras, Or, Liver Follies and Foibles

November 18, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I have a confession to make: I don’t really like liver. For one thing, the gamey taste lingers on the back of my tongue a tad bit too long. For another thing, the smell of liver frying in butter nauseates me. It’s enough to gag a goat. Don’t ask me why on earth I ended up cooking 20 pounds of goat liver one day in Haiti. It’s a long story. The abbreviated version sounds pleasant enough. I landed a job […]

Categories: Cooking, France, French Cooking, Pork, Poultry • Tags: Cooking, Foie Gras, Goat liver, Haiti, Jane Grigson, Michael Ruhlman, Pâté

Christopher Columbus, Portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo (Library of Congress)

BY WAY OF AFRICA: Seafood on the Plate

August 5, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Africa, West “…with a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves.”–Lord Byron– Five hundred and eighteen years ago, an event occurred that changed the world in more ways than its perpetrator thought possible. Christopher Columbus’s voyages caused a collision of cultures, people, and foods on a scale never before seen in the history of mankind. With Columbus’s “discovery” of America, thousands upon thousands of people yet unborn were destined to become slaves. And many millions of people around the […]

Categories: Africa, Food Columns, Recipes • Tags: Acras, Africa, Cooking, Cooks, Food, Haiti

Coconut Groves and Coconut Dreams

August 3, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“Columbus had no idea, of course, of the almost infinite ramifications of his voyages on the way future people would eat.” ‑‑Raymond Sokolov‑‑ Why We Eat What We Eat(1991) Trying to get the meat out of a coconut is like trying to pull a tooth without Novocain, a very painful process. I know—I tried to do the locavore thing once with a casual piña colada, wrestling with a coconut from my yard and nearly decapitating myself with a machete. As […]

Categories: Africa, Haiti, Recipes • Tags: Coconuts, Cooking, Food, Haiti, Recipes

Displaced by Quake, Haiti Woman Cooks in Camp

Idylls of Cuisine, #47

January 24, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

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

Categories: Cooking, Haiti, Photography • Tags: Cooks, Earthquake, Food Photography, Haiti, United Nations

Eat a Meal of Solidarity: Haiti’s Sos Pwa Rouj

January 17, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

As in a nightmare wrought by Quentin Tarantino, I watched the horrors unfolding in Haiti after the earthquake. Hands tied, unable to help in any major way, I turned to my pantry, memories of the lovely Haitian women who cooked for us stepping into my mind, smiling, images of hope for Haiti’s future. Here’s a dish that soothes and nourishes. To Haiti … in hopes that all will be fed. Sos Pwa Rouj (Red Beans in Sauce) Serves 8 2 […]

Categories: Beans, Cooking, Haiti, Recipes • Tags: Beans, Beans in Sauce, Haiti, Haitian Cooking, Sos Pwa Rouj

In Haiti, The Four Horsemen Strike Again

January 13, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Surely all of you now know about the latest disaster to hit Haiti — an earthquake of 7.0 hit Haiti at about 4 PM on January 12, 2010, followed by aftershocks of 5.5 and 5.9. The damage to Port-au-Prince looks like the result of a bombing raid and, indeed, experts say that the devastation resembles that of a nuclear blast. For the poor, traumatized people of Haiti — 80% of whom live at poverty level or below — the situation […]

Categories: Food News, Haiti • Tags: Development Assistance, Disaster, Earthquake, Haiti, Starvation

Notes from Haiti: Restaveks

December 29, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

All around the world, cooks come in many shapes, ages, and dispositions. Many of these cooks are children, mostly girls, working in the kitchens of wealthy people. In some cases, the arrangement veers on the edge of slavery, not employment. And in Haiti, an outright form of slavery still exists. A recent Huffington Post article, “Report Says 225,000 Haiti Children Work as Slaves,” contains no real new information, although such publicity brings exposure and therefore possibly an end to this […]

Categories: Cooking, Food News, Haiti • Tags: Cooking, Haiti, Restaveks, Slavery, Water

Idylls of Cuisine #31

September 20, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

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

Categories: Haiti, Photography • Tags: Food Photography, Haiti

Counting Beans: A Soupçon of History

June 26, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Not too long ago, I looked at the messy pile of one-pound bags of beans in my pantry and knew I needed to start using them up. But how? For some reason, the night before, I’d cooked chicken-and-sausage gumbo and maybe I could just make red beans to go with the leftover rice. Yes, that would be it. Never having made red beans and rice in the style of New Orleans, I could feel that little frisson of excitement that […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, American Cooking, Beans, Haiti, Recipes, Southern Food • Tags: Bean Soup, Bean Stew, Beans, Haiti, New Orleans, Southern cooking, West Africa

Root vegetables for sale in Paris market

Open-Air Markets, Vanishing Communities?

August 2, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“How much more French can I get?,” I asked myself as the vendor behind the melons glared at my right hand snaking toward a cantaloupe.

Poking the tomatoes, prodding the chile peppers, breaking off a hunk of fragrant golden ginger, and deliberately bruising cilantro leaves to get a whiff of that perfume, I moved through the Parisian open-air market on Rue de Rennes, the Eiffel Tower looming behind me. There, in front of me, dozens of golden cantaloupes sat, pyramided in a perfect triangle.

Categories: French Cooking, Haiti, Morocco • Tags: Food, France, Haiti, Markets, Morocco, Paris

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life