Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Gherkins & Tomatoes
A Writer's Musings on Nature and Culture, Since 2008
I didn’t know it then, but when I was much – heck, I’ll be really honest here and say a lot – younger, I began participating in a grand social experiment, one that I understand more with each passing year. Given my nature, the experiment naturally involved food. And that experiment began with a road…
Continue reading ➞ The Food of Florida: A Grand and Ongoing Experiment
The kulebyaka should be appetizing, shameless in its nakedness, a temptation to sin. ~~ Anton Chekov, "The Siren" Fish dishes abound in Russian cuisine, in large part because of the Russian Orthodox Church’s strict rules on fasting during Lent other times of the year. But we cannot ignore the simple fact that fish thrive in…
Continue reading ➞ From Mother Russia with Love: A Fish in Every Pie
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN | Special to The Roanoke Times Sunday, September 29, 2013 At the fish market, the man in black hoisted a bucket of fish to his well-muscled shoulders and strained to keep from slipping on the algae-covered steps. Picking his way out of the churning water, he plunked the bucket down and grabbed…
Continue reading ➞ Exploring the Delicacies of Indonesia, in the Shadows of the Volcanoes
I too for years have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming. ~ Matsuo Basho, The Narrow Road to Oku I cannot forget his face. Soaked with sea water and sweat, grimacing with the physical effort of his daily labor, the lines telling of…
Continue reading ➞ Journeys versus Destinations: Initial Comments on a Sojourn in Indonesia
A bouillabaisse fish, the weever is. Mentioned in William Verral's A Complete System of Cookery (1759) as "weaver," the weever fish's spines emit poison. According to Clifford Wright, a restaurateur in Marseille likely invented bouillabaisse, an expensive version of fish stew and not really the traditional fisherman's fish boil. So much for romantic nostalgia and visions of…
Continue reading ➞ The Fish of France: Weever (Trachinus draco Linnaeus )
Just a pinch, and the primal sea surges, memories filling your mouth. Weep, and you'll know what fish first knew. Bleed, and you'll smell the earth. Sweat, and you'll sense ancient waters flowing. Building block of blood, sweat, and tears. Salt, not sugar, primeval taste. Ancient, this elixir. The essence of legends, myths, stories. Pillars…
Continue reading ➞ Salt of Earth, Crucible of Life
As it fell on a holy-day, And vpon an holy-tide-a, Iohn Dory bought him an ambling nag, To Paris for to ride-a.* ~~ Child Ballad #284A: "John Dory" I first met John Dory at the open-air fish market in Rabat, Morocco. He's a solitary soul. Doesn't hang out too much with his own kind. And…
Continue reading ➞ Cooking with Saint-Pierre (John Dory)
The kulebyaka should be appetizing, shameless in its nakedness, a temptation to sin. ~~ Anton Chekov, "The Siren" Fish dishes abound in Russian cuisine, in large part because of the Russian Orthodox Church’s strict rules on fasting during Lent other times of the year. But we cannot ignore the simple fact that fish thrive in…
Continue reading ➞ From Mother Russia with Love: A Fish in Every Pie
Continuing our Lenten foray through fish cookery in Asia ...
In Asia, cooking fish presents no problem to thousands of ingenious cooks. The abundance of fish and the surfeit of ingredients ensures that fish cookery scales heights far beyond scorched fish fingers, dried-out fillets, and mushy tuna-noodle casserole.
It's Lent. That means fish to a lot of people, even today, despite the relaxed rules of the Church. But how to cook fish? How to get past Mrs. Gorton's Fish Sticks? Many, many ways. Let's look at what people around the world do to get fish from the seas, rivers, and lakes from their…
Continue reading ➞ Cooking Fish — Let Us Count the World’s Ways: Africa
Lent used to be a far more widespread concept in American society than one might think. As Mark Kurlansky made clear in his book, Cod: A Biography of a Fish That Changed the World (1997), cod overfishing led to some radical changes, including Canada's moratorium on cod fishing in 1992. Dan Murphy of Dunville, Newfoundland…
Continue reading ➞ Mrs. Sherman G. Bonney on Lent and Fish
The price of fish is something nice -- for fishmongers through the centuries, that is. And over the years, observers noted the rise and fall in the cost of fish according to the liturgical season and changes in the rules of the Roman Catholic Church.* Because of the price of fish, or even the mere…
Continue reading ➞ A Bloody Fish Story
Mackerel scales and mares' tails Make lofty ships carry low sails. ‑Old Sailors' Rain Warning‑ (Due to family obligations for a few weeks, I'm posting some previous posts that I've dusted off and updated. ) Alas, the poor mackerel! A sky resembling its scales bodes rains. An unfriendly person is "cold as a mackerel". "Dead…
Continue reading ➞ Holy Mackerel!
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
A continuation of our fascination with fish stomachs ... The following fish tale comes from Elie Hunt, a member of the Kwakuitl Nation of British Columbia. Her husband, George Hunt, translated her account into English between 1908 and 1914. A relatively rare example of oral history, worth sharing. (I'll confess that my visceral reaction to…
Continue reading ➞ Can You Stomach It?
Fish Stomachs???? You might believe that fishcakes, along with fritters and croquettes, began as members of the thrifty Leftovers family. But in fact, early medieval English cooks made fishcakes from fish stomachs, which many might consider carrying thrift just a little too far. There is actually a fishcake recipe, on page 170 of Madeleine Pelner…
Continue reading ➞ Fish Stomachs?????
According to Science Daily, Freshwater fish are an important part of the diet of many peoples around the world, but it has been unclear when fish became an important part of the year-round diet for early humans. A new study by an international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts…
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
THE FISH-COOKS (p. 206) [Note: The Abbey paid the fish-cooks for their services, since these people did not belong to the cloistered community.] In the large monasteries, such as, for example, Edmundsbury, there were two cooks for the fish-dishes ; the first was properly called the “fish-cook,” the other was “pittance-cook.” Their appointment was made…
Continue reading ➞ At the Tables of the Monks: The Fish-Cooks
O le bi oju eja ti ehin ko le iwe. (Yoruba) : It is as hard as the eye of a (smoked) fish, which the teeth cannot break. [N.B. -- Applicable to any difficult matter.] (from Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton) Most people who live to eat (definition: the food-obsessed) might…
Continue reading ➞ Fish: Garum and Beyond
The Route to Sustainable Seafood ... Food activism began when pioneers like Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and Sylvester Graham expressed concern over the poor diets of many Americans in the late nineteenth century, and really took off with the scathing work of socialist Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, a fictional exposé of Chicago's meat-packing…
Continue reading ➞ Food Activism I: Slow Fish & Organic Standards
