Food for Thought
Heather Atwood
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Click here for the Taste of the Times video, creating Vietnamese Pickle Salad
Did you know that Vietnamese spring rolls became a staple in African culture when the French controlled Indochine, and policed Vietnam with soldiers from Senegal? The Africans fell in love with the fresh rolls and took the recipes home. Now "Nem," are a primary element of Senegalese cuisine. In the 1500s Portuguese missionaries carried to Japan Christianity and the Portuguese method for frying food, what we know now as tempura. All fried foods in Japan have a Portuguese origin, and in fact the word for bread in Japanese is "pan," from the Portuguese "pao." Oh, and the Portuguese also poured the Japanese their first cup of coffee. Food anthropologists study these things: the way foods travel, the way food changes a culture, sometimes making itself so instantly comfortable one would never know it had just arrived with the last colonizer, and wasn't a tradition of generations. Corky White is a professor of Anthropology at Boston University, and specializes in Food Studies, particularly East Asia. She is diminutive, wears round glasses, has bouncy, curly hair, and speaks in a cultured Cambridge voice infectious with passion. Whether she's talking about Japanese coffee culture (of which she is an expert), or her catering days in the 1970s mentored by Julia Child, Corky's knowledgeable conversation ripples happily. Back to that Japanese coffee: upon that first sip of java 500 years ago, the Japanese, Corky says, never looked back. Japan is now the third largest coffee importer in the world after the U.S. and Germany. The urban coffee scene, as cited by Japan Inc., "has long played a central role in the lives of its urbane citizenry." Indeed, the $20,000 Japanese system of preparing "siphon coffee" popular in Japanese cafes makes even the brassiest Italian espresso machines look like over-sized blunt instruments. Part science, part art, the siphon system is two stacked glass orbs. Hot water in the bottom orb is heated on a bunson burner. The water then boils up through the coffee grounds into a second glass orb above, at which point it is so artfully stirred that a server in San Francisco practices whisking every morning for five minutes before he actually makes coffee. The directions on whisking start with a person's posture.
Coffee in Japan is ceremonious and serious (if you're interested, Jaho Coffee and Tea in Salem, Mass. is the only coffee shop in this country besides the Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco making Siphon and Kyoto-style cold-brewed Japanese coffee. Forget the witches; go to Salem for the coffee. Smooth and bitterless, this coffee is a destination drink). Corky has many stories, but her Julia Child stories are the winners. Here's a favorite: in the early 1970s Corky worked as a caterer for Harvard's European Studies Department. One day she was making a traditional Ukranian Pork Borscht. In a distracted moment, the entire pot of cabbage burned, stinking up the dining room full of 50 hungry history professors. In tears, Corky called Julia (apparently, new to catering, Corky often called Julia in tears). Julia's advice? First, open all the windows to let the smell out. Second, go out and buy LOTS of lemons, sour cream, and scallions. Lemon rind successfully cuts the taste of scorch. The fat from the sour cream coats the tongue and dulls taste. The scallions will simply distract one's tongue from the burned vegetables. Then, go out into the dining room and pour the guests LOTS of wine. Find a beautiful soup tureen: fill it with the sour cream, lemon-rind, scallion-rich soup, and proudly carry it into the dining room announcing to your guests - ta da! - Smoked Borscht! My last Corky story returns again to that French colonization of Vietnam, which, happy for the world, has lead to what Corky defends as the world's most delicious sandwich. According to the anthropologist, baguettes, pate, and mayonnaise are now ubiquitous in Vietnam, because of that long French stay. Marry those gallic staples with standard Vietnamese fresh pickles, "Do Chua," and you have a perfect melding of textures and tastes, an improved version of the French "salad sandwich" featuring lettuce, tomatoes and dressing on a baguette. Called "Banh Mi," this food anthropologist's darling can be eaten now from New Orleans to Australia. On the streets of New York they're known as the "Saigon Sub." Here is Corky's recipe for Do Chua, a "forgiving" flexible recipe for Vietnamese pickles. I've been making them all summer when the produce bin starts bulging, and find that cabbage can be substituted well for daikon radish; call in the food anthropologists! Say this is the New Englander's adaptation of Vietnamese pickles, and finally something to do with cabbage besides cole slaw. Corky White's Do ChuaSFlb3 cups of shredded or julienned daikon radish 2 cups of shredded or julienned carrot 2 cups of shredded kohlrabi or zucchini or cucumber 3 TB finely shredded fresh red chilis, such as serrano 1 cup chopped fresh coriander one bunch scallion, shredded one sweet onion, such as Vidalia, shredded dressing: 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar 3 TB asian sesame oil 2 TB sugar 2 cloves garlic minced fine 1 TB salt SFlbMix daikon, carrot and kohlrabi, if used with 1/4 cup sea salt. Set aside in colander over a bowl for an hour or more. Can sit for up to three hours, unrefrigerated. Mix together dressing ingredients until salt and sugar are dissolved. Taste for balance. Then squeeze out the vegetables, rinse in cold water, squeeze again. Taste for salt, keep rinsing if necessary. The vegetables should be crisp-limp. Add zucchini or cucumber if using. Add onion, fresh chili, scallion. Toss with dressing, add coriander and let sit for at least an hour before using. If keeping longer, refrigerate in a glass jar. Will keep up to a week, getting better all the time. Fermentation works.
