An Excerpt from the Journals of Graf Georg von Ziger

February 7th, 1874. Ochamchira, Abkhazia, Russia.

Traveling to have the Halcyon refitted in Timbuktu. Departing Archangelsk was an enjoyable experience—the ladies out with handkerchiefs a-waving for us were motivation to redouble our efforts in the destruction of piracy. We have landed today in Ochamchira, a coastal town on the Black Sea.

Captain Thibodeau has granted us 1 day's shore leave, and I have spent it among the lowest of the low. Dockworkers, prostitutes, clockwork pickers... the criminal element seems to like me when I am not in uniform.

Walking the streets with a group of ruffians who called themselves the "zavodnoĭ ubiĭtsy"—they say it means "clockwork killers"—I began to grow hungry. I commented upon this state to my newfound companions and they escorted me to one of the more cosmopolitan corners of the poor quarter, a through-way for the sailors, aviators, and travelers—poor and wealthy alike—going between the Zeppelin docks and the rail depot. A man stood on the corner, a small boiler beside him. It appeared to be powering the machinery of a workhouse, but he had managed to vent some of the steam through pipes to a series of plates in front of him. On each stood a stack of pans with perforated bases, appearing to be some sort of straining device, like a colander, but flat-bottomed, like a fry-pan. These pipes and plates served to direct the steam shunted from the engine up through the perforated pans, providing a steaming apparatus usable for cooking.

Street food is fascinating. The gentleman, having characteristics both of a Chinaman and a Turk, was cooking several items in the various plates. Buns, dumplings, and even meat items were being prepared for sale—at reasonable rates—to the passers-by, rich and poor alike. Simple food, but delicious. I made note of the different foods I ate, and I have endeavored to re-create the recipes in the kitchen of the Halcyon.

Ice Carving

Ice carving is a part of the Culinary Arts, just like fruit carving, cake decorating, and buffet arrangement.

Admittedly, you do not usually eat carved ice—it's had chainsaws and chisels and drills all over it, been torched down with a giant blowtorch—and its purpose is typically aesthetic rather than nutritional.

Yet, the artistry involved in ice carving is something that leaves me in awe. Some of my friends competed this past weekend in the 2011 NICA Collegiate Championships. On the right, you will see a picture of a robotic angler fish, with a propeller for a tail, gears and a lightbulb as a lure, and a clean, beautiful body with big teeth.

This was the team carving done by two of my friends. It took the gold medal for the team carvings.

I'm honored to know these people, and to have the opportunity to marvel at their skills.

A Culinary Commentary: Utilization

The Buffalo Hunt
From Native Americans

There's an old story—perhaps you learned it in grade school—saying that the Native Americans used every part of the buffalo when they killed it. This story is meant to highlight the decadence and wastefulness of Western culture, in contrast to the noble, in-touch-with-nature Natives. Besides its obviously orientalist trappings and its exclusion of non-plains tribes (I don't think the Mi'qmak, Ojibwe, or Potawatomi were hunting buffalo in the woods and northern lakes,) it is also a patently disingenuous statement: Classical Western Cuisine contains hundreds of uses for many parts of pretty much every edible animal.

February Preview

Since February is a month containing St. Valentine's day, and considering that the theme of romance is so popular across the world, I have decided to incline this month towards the steamy.

A Pressure Steamer

The use of steam for cooking purposes is usually seen as a healthful but ultimately limited cooking method in Western cookery—most people who go to cooking school in the United States learn to steam vegetables for service—but only after they're sautéed—, or potatoes to make into mashed potatoes, or to hard-boil eggs; rarely do the giant pressure steamers in American kitchens see anything outside of the vegetable kingdom.

In other cooking traditions, however, steam sees much more widespread use, for a much greater variety of dishes. In Chinese cuisine, for example, meat is frequently steamed over fragrantly spiced water. Fish is steamed in many culinary traditions, and cooking "en papillote"—an item (often fish,) combined with aromatic vegetables and seasonings, wrapped in parchment and baked—steams the items being cooked in their own evaporating juices.

Finally, many traditional English "Puddings" (starch- or dairy-based desserts) are steamed as the preferred cooking method.

I hope you'll enjoy the offerings in the month to come. I've gotten busy again, so sadly my posts will not be as frequent as they have been in January, but I'll try to keep you up with something intriguing every week; and, since eating is about more than just food, I hope to tell you more about wines, spirits, and beers that I enjoy with the foods I cook, as well as blathering on about a few subjects near and dear to my culinary heart (just outside the layer of butter.) I also will hopefully offer some Hungarian items, to tie in with my attempt to learn a bit of Hungarian.

In the meantime, eat well, my friends.

Roast Pork Loin with Sage-Onion Stuffing and Apple Sauce

Mrs. Beeton prescribes this combination of dishes in her book, and as I am from time to time inclined to take a cook-book writer at their word, I have elected to prepare the dishes exactly as she sets forth.

Exactly, that is, with the exception of any tweaks I might need to make to render the dishes delicious, edible, and suitable for the palates (and diets) of my friends. Mrs. Beeton leaves quite a bit un-said, you see, about the proper manners of cooking; there is much that must be read between the lines of her work, that must be assumed or implied or otherwise added to the simple recipes she provides.

A nice dinner is never amiss, however, and since I'm at home I might as well prepare something that everyone will enjoy—and that will serve as an opportunity to perfect these historical recipes for later use. After all, while half of cooking is creativity, the other half is replication. A dish is no good if I can't make it again the same way.

Chicken Consommé

Clear soup. Not just clear, but crystalline. It is—or can be—perfection in a bowl. The effort put into creating such a dish speaks through the gentle flavors, perfect clarity, and precisely prepared garnishes. It is a foundation of the classic cuisine of Escoffier, but it originated earlier.

What Mrs. Beeton described in her entry "To Clarify Stock" was refined over the ensuing 40 years into Escoffier's King of Soups—Consommé. The concept of a clarified stock has been around for many years—indeed, some recipes can be found dating to the medieval period—but it has been refined over the ensuing years.

Mrs. Beeton said,

INGREDIENTS - The whites of 2 eggs, 1/2 pint of water, 2 quarts of stock.
Mode.—Supposing that by some accident the soup is not quite clear, and that its quantity is 2 quarts, take the whites of 2 eggs, carefully separated from their yolks, whisk them well together with the water, and add gradually the 2 quarts of boiling stock, still whisking. Place the soup on the fire, and when boiling and well skimmed, whisk the eggs with it till nearly boiling again; then draw it from the fire, and let it settle, until the whites of the eggs become separated. Pass through a fine cloth, and the soup should be clear.

This technique has only changed slightly since her writing—the basis of clarification is still egg whites, but now we include lean ground meat and mirepoix in the process, creating a mixture known as "clearmeat," which is then simmered in the stock, to create what is known as a "raft;" this raft traps the impurities in the stock and enriches it simultaneously, creating wonderful flavors.

A Linguistic Project

For this coming month, my friend Miss Kagashi (of The Steamer's Trunk,) has laid forth a little challenge. The details are on her blog, but in short—you are challenged to learn a language.

Being as I already know a fair bit of French, though my abilities are on the wane due to lack of usage—rendered now mostly a way to be easily annoyed by culinary professionals pronouncing things like "foie gras" as "fwah gwah"—and a fair bit of Yiddish, my usage of which is regular enough to keep me speaking it convincingly, I've decided to add a third foreign language to my acumen.

I've spoken before about my maternal grandparents, both of whom grew up in Vienna, and both of whom were born around the time of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While learning German—the language of Austria—would certainly be easy, given that Yiddish is very close in structure and vocabulary, I've decided to do something a little more daring, a little more dangerous, and a little more difficult: I'm going to learn some Hungarian, properly called Magyar. It's a Finno-Ugric language, unrelated to German, English, or French. It's got a modified Latin alphabet, but the word forms are going to be rather alien to me.

Oh dear.

Paprikas will be forthcoming, I suspect.

Wine of Note: Guenoc Victorian Claret

Claret is a British term, somewhat genericized in the United States (but so are many wine names... an argument for another day,) used to refer—nowadays—to a dark red, dry Bordeaux wine. If you pay attention during The Supersizers Go Victorian, you'll notice that Claret is one of the most frequently consumed wines—after all, Bordeaux wines are classic, they're delicious, and they're what French Wine was known for for many years.

Guenoc, a label of Langtry Vineyards, produces a wine they call "Victorian Claret." It was brought to my attention during The State Dinner, when one of our guests brought it with her to share. A simply delightful wine, I had to go out and find another bottle (or three) so I could have a drink of it when I was not in the kitchen, running around like a madman.

The Wine Buyer quotes the winemakers at Guenoc, who say,

The [...] North Coast Victorian Claret is a complex blend of our award winning wines. Dark ruby in color, the wine has a wonderful fruity nose bringing on black cherry, plum, and blueberry aromas. Rich and soft on the palate, the hints of vanilla and nutmeg, from 12 months of barrel aging, add to the complexity and the long smooth finish.

I have a penchant for drinking Big Red Wines. I like Zinfandels, Shirazes, and Chiantis—things that make my palate stand up and take notice, things that don't taste at all watery. The other night I had some Italian wines that are supposedly delightful—but they tasted watered-down to me, and I didn't enjoy them. In that regard, this Claret does not disappoint—the flavors are full and strong, yet the wine is eminently drinkable, even by people who may not like the aforementioned big spicy wines.

The Victorian Claret is available in stores and on-line, and retails for anywhere from $10 to $15, depending on local taxes, discounts, etc. Don't buy any in Michigan, though, I have dibs on it all.

Mystery Spices

Portrait by Mark Moore of Pict Studios.

Every so often—more frequently when cooking in a kitchen with foreign items—you will run into a spice you've never encountered before, a spice for which you have no frame of reference, or a spice whose appearance does not correlate with the name on the label.

When cooking with Oz, we discovered one such spice while preparing the Lentil Soup. Searching for something to give it a little extra zing, we came across the above-pictured jar in Oz's kitchen cabinet. Glancing at the label, the kitchen crew immediately knew it was Turkish in origin (the Turks like their i-with-no-dot letter quite a bit,) but were all uncertain as to what, exactly, it was. Physically, it resembled a slightly finer version of crushed red pepper, but there were almost no seeds in it, and the color was much deeper and richer, almost like Sumac. It smelled fragrant, but didn't have a particularly unique odor. Being the intrepid culinarians that we are, each sampled a small portion (a couple flakes,) and found it to be somewhere between the flavor of paprika and crushed red pepper, but with a marked sweetness.

From what Oz's father (a Turkish fellow) says, and what little English information was found by another researcher, it's a family spice, a sort of "house blend" of ground/crushed peppers used widely in Turkey.

It was quite delicious, and definitely added a certain je ne sais quoi to our soup.

The moral of this story is this: Never be afraid to try something new. Flavors are an experience as powerful as any other, and can catalyze creativity or be the springing-off point for research and new culinary understanding. Sometimes, if you're lucky, a new spice can be just what you're looking for.

A Milestone!

I am... exuberant. Some times. This is one of those times.

Sometime today, ladies and gentlemen, I hit 10,000 views on this humble blog. I appreciate your readership, and hope you have enjoyed the recipes and writings I have posted so far, and that you will enjoy the things to come in the future.

I find it auspicious that on the day I post my favorite production so far—my Mulligatawny Soup—I also hit this milestone. Please take a look at that recipe, it's delicious and a popular dish with everyone who has consumed it.

I'm also flattered to have been featured on the Phoenix New Times in their post, Steampunk: The Past and Future of Cooking? as well as the Steampunk Tribune in the post called "Steampunk Gastronomy." Both are rather rewarding, and it's exciting to get attention for something that I enjoy doing for myself as much as for others.

I have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities for this little endeavor... much more will soon be written.