Parsnip and Pear Latke

Even though I enjoy a good latke, I prefer my potatoes prepared almost any other way: french fried, mashed, au gratin, baked, or roasted. Latkes are a once-a-year dish for me and I'm fine with that arrangement.

That once-a-year day came when I prepared some potato latkes to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah last Friday. I served them with sour cream and smoked salmon, and while it was a satisfying meal, I used the latkes more as a vehicle for the delicious salmon I bought earlier that day than for anything else.

But I wasn't ready to ditch the latke train forever. Joan Nathan's article in the Times got me jazzed for a new take on some old dishes, and I began perusing more recipes for latkes with root vegetables. When I found this recipe on Epicurious.com for a Parsnip and Pear Latke, I knew I had a winner. It had everything I had been looking for: root vegetables (with twist!) and more than a dash of horseradish (a thumbs-up ingredient, if there ever was one).

The result was savory sweetness with a punch. Served with sour cream-horseradish on top, it's the perfect way to celebrate Hanukkah. Once-a-year? Try twice-a-month.

Parsnip and Pear Latkes (from Bon Appetit, December, 2006)

1 6-7 ounce, underripe Bosc pear, quartered and cored
1 7-8 ounce parsnip, peeled and quartered
1 large egg, beaten (I would add two next time)
1 1/2 T chopped celery leaves (I used parsley)
1 1/2 t drained white horseradish
3/4 t salt
black pepper
1/2 cup panko
Vegetable oil

Shred pear in food processor with grating blade. Transfer to paper towels and dry well. Transfer to a large bowl. Shred parsnip in processor and then add to the bowl with egg, celery leaves, horseradish and salt. Mix well and then add panko and black pepper.

Coat bottom of large skillet with oil. Heat over medium heat. Drop mixture into skillet in 1/4 cupfuls. Flatten with spatula and cook for approximately four minutes on each side until browned.

Serve with sour cream mixed with horseradish.

"A spontaneous eruption of the id"

(From 1899, not 1966)

The Velvet Underground had a reunion the other night at the New York Public Library, and while I didn't get a chance to attend, a colleague made me feel better by sending me a wonderful article called Syndromes Pop at Delmonico's, from a 1966 issue of the New York Times, which described what happened when the group made an appearance at Delmonico's.

The New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry held their 43rd annual dinner on January 13th 1966, and the evening's entertainment was none other than members of the Factory crew: Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Billy Lunich, Gerard Malanga, and the Velvet Underground.

Warhol showed his films during cocktail hour, and while the black-tied psychiatrists and their wives dined on roast beef, potatoes, and string beans, the Velvet Underground played what one doctor called "a short-lived torture of cacophony." During that performance, "Warhol and his cameramen moved among the gathering with hand-held cameras, using the psychiatrists as the cast of a forthcoming Warhol movie."

Warhol wasn't the only one benefiting from the exchange. Many of the psychiatrists in attendance were thrilled to be able to study Team Warhol. There was Edie Sedgwick, "on full blast -- chewing gum and sipping a martini," John Cale "in a black suit with rhinestones on the collar," and Nico "in a white slack suit with long blond hair."

One psychiatrist likened the experience to "a repetition of the concrete quite akin to the L.S.D experience," while another was a bit more direct: "Why are they exposing us to these nuts?"

Food News: The Philadelphia Issue

Live in Philly or planning a visit? Here are some food-related events (and links) worth traveling for:

We start off with "Who's Coming to Dinner: Cooking for Different Audiences," an exhibition of Chef Fritz Blank's Culinary Archive and Library at the University of Pennsylvania until December 19, 2009.

The African Cookbook, is an online cookbook from the African Studies Department, also from U Penn.

Three Little Fishes, and how to cook them up nice, from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Philadelphia National Candy, Gift and Gourmet Show is soon approaching, January 10-12, 2010, at the Atlantic City Convention Center.

And from earlier this year, the Atlantic asked where to find the Best Philly Cheesesteak in Philly. Where do you stand?

Seafood Watch

With the news that the demand for beef is one of the largest contributors to global warming, we're left asking Where's the Fish? Unfortunately simply switching from a Big Mac to a Filet-O-Fish isn't as easy as it sounds (oh, but that it were!). Fish consumption is fraught with both ethical and environmental repercussions. Whether it's the high levels of mercury, the intense overfishing that's leaving our waters bereft of wild specimens, or the farmed fish that Mark Bittman cleverly calls, "the cage-raised chickens of the sea" eating fish is increasingly becoming a edible moral quandary.

An easy (perhaps too easy) place to work out your confusion is with the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch Recommendation List. With their Super Green List you can feel "good" about your fish-eating options. As of October 2009, eight fish (a mixture of both wild and farmed) made it to the Best of the Best List, including Rainbow Trout (farmed). With relatively inexpensive rainbow trout available at my local coop, it makes a wonderfully easy meal. One of my favorite recipes comes from Vij's Indian Cookbook, and is a simple sour cream curry that works beautifully with the seared trout.

Seared Rainbow Trout with Sour Cream Curry
(adapted from Vij's Cookbook which calls for Striped Bass in the recipe)

Sour Cream Curry

3/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp. asafoetida
3 cups pureed tomatoes (I use canned crushed tomatoes)
1 T. salt
1 t. tumeric
1 t. ground cayenne pepper
2 t. ground fenugreek seeds
7 cups water
1 1/4 cups stirred sour cream
3 T. crushed garlic

Heat 1/2 cup of the oil in pot on medium heat for one minute. Add asafoetida, stir well and allow to sizzle for 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, salt, tumeric, cayenne and fenugreek. Stir together and reduce heat to low, cover the pot and cook for five minutes. Remove the lid and stir well.

Add water, stir and increase the heat to medium. Bring to a boil and cook for ten minutes, stirring regularly so that the water blends in completely with the spices. Stir in the sour cream and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for another five minutes. Remove from heat.

In a small frying pan, heat the remaining 1/4 cup of oil on medium heat. Saute garlic for five minutes or until brown but not burned. Stir cooked garlic into the curry and set aside.

Fish

6 fillets rainbow trout (or striped bass)
1 T. salt
1 T. cumin seeds
1 1/2 T. ground cumin
2 T. ground coriander
1 t. tumeric
1 t. cayenne pepper
2 t. paprika
1 T. mango powder
1/2 c. canola oil for searing

In a large bowl, mix salt, cumin seeds, ground cumin, coriander, tumeric, cayenne, paprika, and mango powder. Spread this mixture on a baking try and dip each fillet in the mixed spices making sure both sides of each piece are completely coated. Arrange coated fillets on the baking tray.

Just before serving, heat 1 1/2 T of oil into a nonstick frying pan on medium heat. Place a fillet, skin side down, in the pan and cook for about 2 minutes. Allow the skin to become slightly crispy. Gently turn the fillet over and cook for another 2 minutes. It should flake easily when prodded with a fork.

Arrange one fillet, skin side up, in a large bowl. Pour sour cream curry on top. [Coconut rice is also a nice addition.]

Joy to the World

One hundred and thirty-two years ago today, in 1877, Irma Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking, was born in St. Louis, Missouri.

What is arguably the most famous cookbook of all time began in 1931, when Rombauer, at fifty-three, self-published her collection of family recipes, calling it The Joy of Cooking.

(Fowl & Game chapter from the 1931 self-published Joy of Cooking)

A few years later while playing bridge at her cousin's house in Indianapolis, Irma met Lawrence Chambers, president of the publishing house Bobbs-Merrill. Chambers admired Rombauer's work, bought Joy of Cooking, and Bobbs-Merrill published the book in 1936.

The book was so successful that Bobbs-Merrill published an enlarged and revised edition in 1943 which Rombauer wrote with her daughter Marion Rombauer-Becker. A third edition of Joy was published three years later in 1946. And in 1951, the first Joy of Cooking edition to credit Marion as co-author was published. Many more mother/daughter revisions followed. In 1997 Irma's grandson, and Marion's son, Ethan Becker, was added to the co-author string, when the All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking was published. Most recently, in 2006, the seventy-fifth anniversary edition of Joy of Cooking was released, and so the family tradition continues to this day, forty-seven years after Irma's death.

For a fascinating look at the Rombauer's, I highly recommend Anne Mendelson's wonderful book Stand Facing the Stove. To view older copies of Joy, the New York Public Library is fortunate to have the original 1931 self-published Joy, plus the first edition 1936 Bobbs-Merrill Joy, and many other editions too.

So happy birthday to a woman who truly brought Joy to the World.

David Ferriero's Desert Island Cookbook

Name: David Ferriero

Occupation: Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries

Desert Island Cookbook: The Classic Italian Cookbook
by Marcella Hazan

Why The Classic Italian Cookbook? David explains:

An inspiring, relaxed approach to food preparation, in keeping with the Italian ethos. As she writes in the "Afterthoughts" section of her book:

What people do with food is an act that reveals how they construe the world.... What we find in the cooking of Italy is a serene relationship between man and the sources of his existence, a long-established intimacy between the human and natural orders, a harmonious fusion of man's skills and nature's gifts. The Italian comes to his table with the same open heart with which a child falls into his mother's arms, and with the same easy feeling of being in the right place. (Hazan 393)

For me good cookbooks nurture creativity and experimentation. Hazan's cookbooks do that. Her polenta with gorgonzola and fried polenta recipes lend themselves to experimentation with other ingredients. Her sauces, likewise, encourage experimentation. Among my favorite recipes: chicken livers with sage, roast chicken with rosemary, fennel braised in olive oil, and the pasta dishes -- cappellacci to cappelletti, tortellini to tortelloni!

Chicken Livers with Sage
(from Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cookbook)

1 1/2 lb. chicken livers
2 T. finely chopped shallots or onion
2 oz. butter
1 dozen dried sage leaves or a handful of fresh sage
6 T. dry white wine
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper

Examine the livers for any green spots and cut them out. Remove any bits of fat and wash the livers thoroughly in cold water. Dry well on a paper towel.

Sauté the shallots in the butter over medium heat in a frying pan. When they turn pale gold, raise the heat and add the sage leaves and chicken livers. Cook over high heat for just a few minutes, stirring frequently, until the livers lose their raw, red color. Transfer the livers to a warm dish.

Add the wine to the pan and boil briskly until it has almost completely evaporated. Scrape up and loosen any bits of cooking residue. Add any liquid the livers may have released in the dish, and allow it to evaporate.

Return the chicken livers back to the pan, turn them quickly for a few minutes over high heat, add salt and pepper, and then transfer to a warm serving dish.

Japanese Albumen Photographs

Women serving tea

The Japanese hand-colored albumen photographs you see here are just a few in a series available on the Library's Digital Gallery and in the Library's photography collection. The photos, roughly 110 in all, date from the 1890's until the first decade of the 20th century, and include images of Japanese city and landscapes, gardens, shops, and the rituals of every day life.

Liquor store

Fruit store

Tea picking

Gathering shellfish

Tea time

Having a rest (smoking and serving tea)