Another Kitchen, Other Markets

Another Kitchen. Collage. Lucey Bowen, 1994

     In about a month, my husband, children and their significant others will gather as paying guests of my son's most extraordinary college friend, whom I'll call Mister J.
     Mister J is a Renaissance Man, multi-talented, perennially learning something new. He is also DaVinci's measure of a man, a multi-sport athlete. Mister J, since we've known him, has explored the world, investigated airplane disasters and high finance.
     He decided that he wanted to go to cooking school, and so he did.
     We will gather on the outskirts of Parma, and their will be twenty of us. Under Mister J's direction, we will market, we will prep and we will cook! He's asked us to suggest dishes, as we would for a private chef.
     What should these menus be? Should we consider the marketing first? Here in Lausanne, so much is available that almost any cuisine could re-created. Will Parma's market be similar or different?
     And of course, what will the kitchen be like? I hope and pray that it doesn't have just electric heating elements. I hope there is cross ventilation. My spousal unit is unwilling to leave knives to chance, and so will invest in some new ceramic ones to take along, as we go by train.
     At first, I was planning to opt out of cooking, and just document this epic, but as I imagine mountains of pesto, with the best of olive oils and Parmesan cheese, I know I can't resist cooking. Hands on, apron on, knives at the ready!

Cowbells

With every bite they take, cow music they make.

     I noted the musical sound of cowbells as I walked to Lac Leman. An editorial in the Sunday paper presented views of the cruelty or kindness of cowbells. The author ended by observing that the cows had not been asked for their opinions. Actually, evidence was offered that cows rely on the bells to identify members of their herd.

      Horrifyingly, the last two Sunday papers have included summaries of the dozen deliberately set fires that have killed cows, horses and ponies, as well as hay and other crops, in the farming country north of Lac Leman.

     The farmers are depressed and frightened. These are not factory farms and the families know the cows as individuals --- milking them twice a day. The farmers have taken to leaving their barn doors open, so that if there should be another fire, the cows can escape.

     Psychologists have pointed out that there are two kinds of fire-setters: incendiaries set single fires for revenge. Pyromaniacs are addicted to the thrill of their work, and act in serial fashion.

     With the uncertainty of weather and prices, the stress of all night vigils isn't what the farmers need.

Can the Farmers and the Restauranteurs Be Friends?

Les paysans nient voler le pain des métiers de bouche (Farmers aren’t stealing bread from chefs) said the headline in 24Heures, one of Lausanne’s daily newspapers. Lausanne is not San Francisco, where certain restaurants have come to fame in supporting small farms. Lausanne is surrounded by farms of all sizes, but nothing like the Central Valley, or Watsonville, where factory fields churn out strawberries like so many Legos. Restaurants here serve much local produce, but the famous Lac Leman trout is too expensive for most, and so its imported, sometimes frozen.

Intrigued, I gave the article a careful read, meaning that I had my dictionary and the person sitting next to me in the café helping to translate.

It seems that an organization of the owners of cafés, restaurants and hotels, called GastroVaud, and other of butchers, bakers and confectioners, feel that direct sales from farms compete unfairly with their own highly regulated businesses.

For their part, the farmer’s organizations point out that their direct sales are miniscule compared to the volume of the supermarkets, CoOp and Migros. They think that the businesses of butchers, for example, do not do well because in trying to compete on price, they offer no service. Nor will Butchers pay the price for meat that the farmer can obtain by selling direct to customers at the farm.

Much government in Switzerland operates at the Cantonal level, the equivalent of the State level in the U.S. The Canton of Vaud brought the groups together, as they share the values of authenticité and proximité, (Yes, exactly what they sound like in English.) and should be playing for the same team.

Addicted to Market Cheese Tarts

The Queen of Tarts

It is all her fault. She is at the Lausanne Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the smaller Pully Market on Fridays, always with her portable ovens, and always making these tarts with unconscious competence.

I don't know her name yet, but her tart is my sinful breakfast. She loves what she does; she told me so. In a few months, when my French is improved, I hope to interview her when she's not working.

Fortified, I set out to accomplish what I took the #8 bus at 8 in the morning to do: salad ingredients. It has been stiflingly hot for the last week, and we have been supping on salads. One night, chevre chaud; you know, little warm goat cheese on croutons broken up into nice Balsamic Vinager and olive oil dressing. Another night, a sort of Chef's Salad.

In vain I searched for those strange tomatoes, the Cornue des Andes. According to one market lady, the Lausanne market can sell only products grown in Vaud, Lausanne's Canton; the Cornue must be grown in France.

Instead I got a hefty yellow tomato, which I expect will be sweet. Two others, with a bit of the point end of the Cornue, were Belle de Bern. I picked up herbs , potatoes, mixed lettuces with edible flowers, carrots and strawberries.

The market's treasures.

When the #8 bus dropped me off at Alpes, I strode determinedly into the patisserie. At first, I was seduced by the apricot tart, apricots are in season. Instead, for a once a month indulgence, I chose the Pear, called a Napoleon. Why it is nothing like the pastry I think of as a Napoleon, I cannot tell you. I think a thin slice of it, with a few of the strawberries, will be heaven. In case you were wondering, resemblance to the Driscoll's variety was undetected.

N.B. After the market, I swam for 45 minutes.

Another Year, Another Kitchen, Other Markets

Tomate Noire from France @Evian Market

Tomate Corne of the Andes @Evian

     

Exactly a year since I posted about food!   

  

     

True, I was researching and writing about it for the next six months, for the Oxford Symposium of Food and Cookery. A year later, I'm in another small country that starts with an S and specializes in banking. You guessed it, Switzerland. The Swiss National Day comes just before Singapore's, but the Starbucks here featured no Swiss National Buns. La Chocolaterie Wuthrich did. It's across the street from our front door, with display windows next to the bus-stop we use every day. They looked like hot-cross-buns, filled with raisins but no icing.

This year, Swiss National Day was celebrated on a Monday, which meant a long week-end, and two days when Wuthrich and just about all of the sidewalk cafes were rolled up tight. It was also very hot; in an not-Swiss, more-like-Singapore way.

   
So we took ourselves out on the water, catching a morning ferry across to Evian, yes, where the water comes from. Not one of the CGN "Belle Epoque" boats, but a more utilitarian craft.
   

After a coffee, and well hydrated, we found Evian's market in full swing. Along the lake shore avenue, vendors of clothing, dry goods and shoes lured shoppers with SOLDES. (Sale!)

Further up the hill, we chanced on something I've not seen or tasted in too long: nougat. This was nougat with an appetizing range of flavors. It started me thinking about the origins of nougat. Was it the Turkish Delight that the witch in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," used to tempt the little brother? Yes, Wikipedia tells me: "The origin of nougat dates back to the 12th century, where it first appeared on Middle-Eastern documents. It was named Halou (“sweet” in Arabic). Phoenicians crossed the Mediterranean Sea with it, and from this crossing Nougat spread over the European continent." 

 
There were honeys of every possible flower, and seven kinds of tomatoes. Corne des Andes was a mystery. Turns out it is ancient, and Incan, Cornue de Andes, shaped like a horn. I'd never seen it before, and cannot wait to try them from tomorrow's Saturday market in Lausanne.  It took me a week to think through Coeur de Boeuf, (Beef Heart). Translation of Beefsteak? 

Beefsteak

Comparing the markets of the two prompts a lot of thought. As I wrote in my Oxford paper, Singapore, having no rural hinterland, imports almost all of its food. Over the causeway from Malaysia and Thailand, or through the docks, produce, meat and fish are distributed to the "wet markets" that fill up the lower floors of "cooked food" or Hawker Centers.

   
 Switzerland has a hinterland, but nothing at the market comparable to "hawker centers."  Contrary to my assumptions, it is not all mountains. There are great swaths of bottom-land where all manner of grains and vegetables are grown. Terraced hill-sides along the lakes produce wine grapes. You will remember from Ancient History that Rome colonized the region. Its citizens grew rich from farming and commodity trading.

The modern Swiss are very conscious of country of origin, and issues of organic and sustainable farming. And as in some American supermarkets, even the chains are conscious of consumer's desire to know where there food comes from.

   
And of course, there's cheese. Lots of it. We had cheese tarts for breakfast, so in the name of testing our axiom that you have to work hard to eat badly in France, we had lunch here:

       

There is really only so much cheese a person can eat.

     I believe in the theory that Chop Suey adheres to rules of its own, no matter where its made, as in use only canned or frozen ingredients, with the exception of corn starch. To test this theory, I ordered it.

Chicken Chop Suey

As it turns out, we must have worked hard, very hard. My theory of inherent Chop Suey proven, in this sample of one.

The Great Starbucks Mooncake Epic Fail

      I have made a new friend named Lucy! (And she has a daughter named Lulu.) We met for coffee this morning at the rather upscale shopping mall at the Jurong East MRT station.  We were going to meet yesterday but she was babysitting her grandson.

      Starbucks is the first store when you enter the mall from the MRT, so we decided to meet there.

All Eight Starbucks Mooncakes.

     In the interests of researching the Starbucks conception of a mooncake, Lucy and I tried a bite of each, while we told each other our life stories. 

Lucy was born in 1942, so she's four years older than me. She was too young to remember the Japanese Occupation.  I told her about my father's voyage to Bombay, India, with a troopship of British soldiers, who sailed from on to Singapore arriving just as the Japanese attacked. 

Lucy was the second of 16 children. She grew up in the area of Singapore near River Valley Road and Zion Road. Her family consider themselves Paranakan Singaporean, tracing their root their roots to Riau in Indonesia and Southern China. Lucy attended Catholic school and was baptised a Catholic, and identifies herself as Buddhist. Lucy told me she did not consider herself Chinese, and I asked her what she meant by that. She explained that if she were to go to China, she would feel completely foreign.  She doesn't speak Mandarin.  Because her father, born in 1919, was adopted, it's not possible to trace his Hakka ancestors to a particular village. 

She has two children, one a lawyer, married to a lawyer, living in London, and the other, the father of her grandson, living here and working for his father.

I told Lucy about my two children, and she repeated, Atlanta, Georgia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We are planning to have coffee each week. She's studying oil painting, I'll be studying Mandarin, Chinese Brush Painting and Asian Film. I know we are going to have great conversations.

The Starbucks mooncakes are about two inches across, and bear the mould of the Starbucks mermaid. Our verdicts caption each one:

The Yuzu White Lotus Paste with Red Bean
was more like a macaroon than a mooncake.

 

We found the Coffee White Lotus Paste
with Maple Walnut, much much much to sweet.

Brownie with sea salt chocolate truffle?
Too sweet!

Mango with Passion fruit truffle?
Great flavours --- for sorbet!

White Lotus Paste with Black Sesame
was quite good.

The White Lotus Paste with Egg Yolk had
a balance of sweet and savoury.

You know I love Hazelnut, but Hazelnut
Macchiato with Milk Chocolate Truffle,
NO WAY

The Lavender and White Chocolate Pearls
with Earl Grey Truffle was back in macaroon land.

      I would love to know who dreamt up these flavours.  On one hand they seem to go against the grain of local tastes, yet then again young Singaporeans have very adventuresome eating habits!

When the Quotidien Isn't

    This morning, I'm headed off to the Indian Heritage Center.
     First, I wanted to muse on my good fortune at being here.  It is a delight to get up and go swimming every morning, with a almost 50 meter lap pool just a walk away. Then, breakfast,which is usually a salad---so healthy! Once a week, I indulge in the marvel of kaya toast and soft-boiled egg, or noodles.
     I'm in the midst of daily explorations both the gardens and the cuisine of Singapore.  At night, I delve into the extensive literature, scholarly and popular on these topics.  One terrific resource is from editor Ken Albala's Rowman and Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy: Eating Together: Food, Space and Identity in Malaysia and Singapore by Jean Duruz and Gaik Cheng Khoo.

     Here's what I'm not doing: Cooking. There doesn't seem much point when great food is available for S$3-6 a plate.
     Here's what else I'm not doing: Eating at the plentiful branches of western fast food. These are to be found in the shopping centers located at main transportation hubs.  But I am paying attention to the morphing of global chains to local/global tastes.  Here are some illustrations:

Pizza Hut does English Comfort Food for Australians?

Pizza Hut does Swiss and French?

    And this:

Starbucks Does Moon Cakes!

     Invention is everywhere!

You know you're craving a coloured flavoured soup dumpling!

     I know I'm craving plain Shanghai soup dumplings, an maybe, just maybe will try the truffle one.

     And speaking of Ken Albala and soup for noodles, here are the directions for making the Hokkien Meehoon Mee.  I begin to understand how the noodles get their flavor when this marvelous liquid is added back into the stir-fried egg and rice noodles.

      In a large saucepan bring 4 cups of water to a boil and add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 lb pork butt. Stir in 3/4 lb shrimp, Unshelled, boil for 2 minutes, and transfer with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Let the shrimp cool until they can be handled and shell them. In the boiling liquid boil 1 lb. cuttlefish or squid, turning it for 1 minute and transfer it with slotted spoon to a bowl. Let the cuttlefish cool until it can be handled and cut it into 1/4 inch rings. Continue cooking the pork in the cooking liquid at a gentle boil, turning it, for 25-30 minutes, or until the cooking liquid is reduced to about 1 cup. Transfer the pork to a bowl, reserving the cooking liquid.. Let the pork cool until it can be handled and shred it. 

      This is the recipe that Gourmet's Fred Ferretti and his wife, Eileen Yin Fei Low extracted from the Hyatt Regency Singapore in 1986 for Gourmet.  I suspect that Zanne Early Stewart tested it as well!