Confusion

CONfusionefefthe family recipe book

CONfusionef

ef

the family recipe bookdesigned and curated by

Lindsey Tom

When Worlds Collide.....7On Fusion Cuisine and Beyond.....12Alley is a Gourmet Paradise.....19Food & Culture Encyclopedia: Fusion Cuisine.....22Venerable Home: Fusion Cuisine & Nouvelle Cuisine.....26An Exclusive Interview with Wolfgang Puck.....32True Fusion Cuisine.....52Ken Hom: From Chicago’s Chinatown to International Culinary Icon.....54

DRINKSGreen Tea Margarita.....12Ginger & Lychee Caipirinhas.....15Kashmiri Chai with Gin.....16

APPETIZERSPancetta-Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Manchego Cheese & Mint.....25Latkes with Ancho-Chile Salt & Watercress Guacamole.....27Sugar Pumpkin, Feta & Cilantro Quessadillas.....28Kimchi Quesadillas.....31

SOUP & SALADWatermelon & Cucumber Mint Tsatsiki Salad.....35Southeast Asian Rice Noodles with Calamari & Herbs.....37Curried Carrot Salad with Nonfat Yogurt.....39Lamb Tagine with Prunes & Cinnamon.....41Miso Soup with Sweet Potato Dumplings.....43

ENTREESDuck Pizza with Hoisin & Scallions.....47Roast Duck Breasts with Pomegranate-Chile Sauce.....49Pea & Parmesean Wonton Ravioli.....51Broiled Lambchops with Mint Chimichurri.....53Grilled Salmon Fillets with Mango-Cucumber Salsa.....57Roast Beef Tenderloin with Wasabi-Garlic Cream.....59

DESSERTCoconut-Piloncillo Ice Cream with Coconut Tortilla Chips & Fruit Salsa.....62Orange Cheesecake with Candied Kumquats.....64Kataifi with Candied Pumpkin & Yogurt.....67Tangerine-Honey Flan with Grapefruit Segments.....69fo

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6 Confusion

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WHEN WORLDS COLLIDEFOOD FOR THOUGHT - Nov 30, 2005

Psychologists would agree that mentally healthy people have good “bound-aries.” Unlike the tangible perimeters of the physical realm, psychological boundaries are the lines that demarcate your emotional world from others. They also signify the limits of certain interpersonal behaviors. You could probably stroll into a co-worker’s office who you’re friendly with, take a seat uninvited and blurt out obscenities about your ex. But you couldn’t do that with impunity in your boss’s office. There’s a boundary there. And if you can do that with your boss, then the two of you have blurred that boundary.

In all walks of life people occasionally cross boundaries. Sometimes this is a good thing but most of the time it’s not. Boundaries are there for a reason. It is the intuitive and prudent individual who knows when it is fortuitous to breach certain boundaries and when it isn’t.

Boundaries certainly exist in the culinary arena. There are the interpersonal boundaries between the customer and restaurant staff or the staff and the head chef. But on a larger scale, there are boundaries between different cuisines and/or techniques. It is here that a brave few have ventured into the murky waters of culinary synthesis, otherwise known as “fusion” cuisine. Even fewer have done so successfully.

Fusion cuisine began in the 1970’s, spearheaded by such culinary icons as Wolfgang Puck. Puck laid the groundwork for one of the most commonly fused pairings: European and Asian cuisine. Traditionally trained in Europe but equally well versed in Asian cooking, Puck’s launching ground was the apropos California, situated midway between Europe and Asia. Over the ensuing decades “east meets west” eateries began emerging throughout the country, most notably in urban areas where the cultural melting pot was more amenable to culinary integration.

Eurasian cuisine blends ingredients and/or techniques from the two cultures. For example, a spinach salad (Mediterranean) may be paired with tempura battered scallops, (Japanese). Chinese pot stickers could be filled with tra-

8 Confusion

ditional European ingredients. Risotto may be infused with wasabi. Poached tofu is an example of the intermingling of technique and ingredient. Here the French method of poaching is combined with an Asian victual. A less discrep-ant form of fusion cuisine is when two types of Asian cooking are combined such as Thai and Vietnamese or Thai and Malaysian. Here the orchestration of ingredients and techniques is less challenging. Proponents of fusion cooking espouse the bounty of creative opportunities and new taste sensations that it affords.

Dissidents of fusion cuisine call it “confusion” cuisine. The point being, that all too often chefs combine ingredients that have no business being together. The result is a gustatory nightmare. Consider this excerpt from a recently published review of a new restaurant in New York City: “Sometimes the dishes get a little out of hand. Black sea bass is overwhelmed by Asian spices and chop-suey style mussels.”

Other than a lack of culinary dexterity, “confusion” cuisine occurs when chefs try too hard to develop something innovative. Let’s face it; all the classics have been done to death. Nowadays a crucial means for a chef to make his mark on the culinary world is to go where no chef has gone before. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s into a black hole.

Determining which ingredients can commingle propitiously is a daunting task. There’s a tremendous degree of subjectivity, namely the great variability of human taste. While I would find ginger crusted lamb in miso broth to be abhorrent, another person may proclaim it to be extraordinary. The trick of course, is uncovering those elusive and unheard of combinations that naturally resonate with most palates despite the few inevitable dissenters. Talented chefs can sometimes find the best of both worlds.

Merging ingredients/techniques from two dissimilar cuisines into a single dish is not the only road toward culinary enmeshment. There’s a French/Thai res-taurant near where I live that serves both classic French and Thai dishes that are culturally in tact. The “fusion” is the mix of both types of cooking on the menu. Thus you could order steak au poivre with haricot vert (black pepper-corn encrusted steak with French green beans), or pad Thai, the classic noodle dish of Thailand.

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The antithesis to fusion cuisine is to create dishes, indeed entire meals, from ingredients indigenous to a specific culinary region. The theorem is that foods, (and wines for that matter), grown together in the same microclimate, share a natural affinity for one another. Undoubtedly there is merit to this posi-tion from a biochemical standpoint alone. Proponents of this “terroir” driven school of thought recoil at the idea of crossing culinary boundaries. Chefs who are true to their cultural roots believe that fusion cooking diminishes the integrity of both cuisines. More scathing criticisms attack it as an attempt to obfuscate a lack of culinary talent and/or an attempt to jump on the latest food craze at the expense of culinary propriety.

If you’ve never tried fusion cooking I strongly recommend you do your home-work before you do. Seek out a place with a good reputation. Whether you condone fusion cuisine or not, the fact of the matter is that it can be a culinary minefield. You may not mind your worlds colliding but you don’t want them blowing up in your face.

10 ConfusionDrinks

GREEN TEA MARGARITA

GINGER & LYCHEE CAIPIRINHA

KASHMIRIR CHAI WITH GIN

Drinks

12 CONFUSION | drinks

ON FUSIONCUISINEAND BEYONDMany Chefs believe that America, to a large extent, and Australia, to a lesser extent are the world leaders in the development of fusion cuisine. Nora Pouillon observed:

I think that America is really the trend setter in that I think America, by description, is already a melting pot. So it’s very easy here — I mean we are not in a country...isolated from other influences...even if Americans don’t travel outside of America that much, there are so many other cultures that come into this country. Here in Washington, we have a big Vietnamese com-munity, we have a Thai community...you start to adopt some of the foods from those countries, and they start to get incorpo-rated into the American cuisine.

Such melting pot cuisine is reflected also in Southwestern cuisine. Mark Miller, chef-proprietor of Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe and author of numer-ous cookbooks, observed that “Southwestern food is an endogenous regional cuisine. It has evolved over time and has been shaped and molded by a variety of influences including Native American, Hispanic, Mexican, Tex-Mex, and the neighboring Cajun and Creole” (Miller 1989; xi). It is interesting to note that Miller regards these cuisines as native to the USA.

In addition to the transmission of culture through increased global flows being related to ease of travel and migration (Appadurai 1996), Pouillon also observed in her interview that it is easier for fusion cuisine to take off in American — in contrast to Europe — simply because “Europeans are based on very [strong] traditions in their culture. For Europeans, it’s very important to be traditional and, you know, that’s what the culture is based on — that you do the same thing all the time for generations.” This lack of perceived tradition in American cuisine, as noted by Raji Jallepalli, encouraged the development of fusion cuisine by making it”

Green Tea1 Margarita2

Ingredients1 lime or lemon wedge

Sauce of granulated sugar for coating rim of glass

1/2 to 2/3 cup strongly brewed Green Chai Spa Tea

Blend , frozen into 6 to 8 small ice cubes

2 1/2 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) premium tequila

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon orange liqueur, such as Cointreau

2 teaspoons sugar

PreparationRub the lime wedge around the rim of an old-fashioned glass. Dip and rotate the rim in the saucer of sugar, making sure to keep the sugar on the outside. In a blender, combine the chai ice cubes, tequila, lemon juice, orange liqueur, and sugar. Blend on the pulse setting until slushy. Pour into the sugar-rimmed glass.

Variation:For those who prefer their libations over ice, fill a sugar-rimmed old-fashioned glass one-third full of chai ice cubes. Follow the recipe for Green Tea Margarita, using the blender’s pulse feature to blend the ingre-dients until the ice is just coarsely chopped and the mixture is frothy. Strain the mixture through a bar strainer into the prepared glass.

[1] Origin: Brazil. The margarita is the most common tequila-based cocktail in the United States, made with tequila mixed with triple sec and lime or lemon juice, often served with salt on the glass rim.

The drink is usually served shaken with ice, on the rocks, blended with ice (frozen margarita) or without ice (straight up). All three methods are frequently served with salt or sugar on the rim of the glass which is optional. Margaritas often contain an additional sweetener, such as simple syrup or plain sugar, alternatively the Margarita can be made with bottled lime juice, with frozen limeade, or sour mix (each of which contains sugar). Margaritas can also be made with muddled or blended fruits like lime, lemon, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, watermelon, orange, mango or blueberries.

[2] Green tea is tea made solely with the leaves of Camellia sinensis that have undergone minimal oxidation during processing. Green tea originates from China and has become associated with many cultures in Asia from Japan to the Middle East. Recently, it has become more widespread in the West, where black tea is traditionally consumed. Many varieties of green tea have been created in countries where it is grown. These varieties can differ substantially due to variable growing conditions, processing and harvesting time.

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become very chi to reach out to ethnic cuisine because America in and of itself[did not] have a cuisine. They basically had to borrow. I mean we are all redefining American cuisine.”This observation is very enlightening and is fur-ther elaborated by Larry Forgione, owner of An American Place and auther of a cookbook with the same name, who is often looked upon as the

“catalyst behind ‘New’ Americancuisine,” the “Godfather of American cuisine” (Grand Chefs on Tour, 1996, paragraph 1). Although Forgione believes that America has a cuisine to speak of, he noted that

the cooking in America is so new compared to other cultures, you know, where you have French cooking that has been going on for over a thousand years, the Italian cooking in Italy at all different levels and regions, the Chinese cooking for two or three thousand years. There is so much deep culture that American cooking, even back to its roots, is modern cooking because it’s only a few hundred years old. This country is made up of immigrants from all over the world. It’s a melting pot, and that’s the exciting part of America.

The fact that America is a leader in the spread of the fusion of cuisine is inter-esting for several reasons. Historically, American cuisine has generally not been regarded in high es-teem. Forgione, when asked whether he thought people from other parts of the world recognized what constiuted American cuisine, replied:

No, I think that because of America being the commercial giant that it is, that unfortunately we’re represented in the world as McDonald’s, as Coca-Cola — you know as soft drinks and hamburgers...American fine cuisine or haute cuisine [is thought of] as maybe steaks and lobsters, and barbeque ribs — which I think are all wonderful, and certainly make up much

[1] Origin: Asia. Ginger is a tuber that is consumed whole as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale. It lends its name to its genus and family (Zingiberaceae). Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal.

Ginger cultivation began in Asia and has since spread to West Africa and the Carib-bean. It is sometimes called root ginger to distinguish it from other things that share the name ginger.

[2] Origin: China. A major early Chinese historical reference to lychees was made in the Tang Dynasty, when it was the favourite fruit of Emperor Li Longji (Xuanzong)’s

favoured concubine Yang Yuhuan (Yang Guifei). The emperor had the fruit, which was only grown in southern China, delivered by the imperial messenger service’s fast horses, whose riders would take shifts day and night in a Pony Express-like manner, to the capital. (Most historians believe the fruits were delivered from modern Guangdong, but some believe they came from modern Sichuan.)In the Chinese classical work, Shanglin Fu, it is related that the alternate name, meaning leaving its branches, is so-called because once the fruit is picked it deterio-rates quickly.

The lychee was first described in the West by Pierre Sonnerat (1748–1814) on a return from his travel to China and Southeast Asia.

“All cultures do come together here; fusion is no where...”

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It was then introduced to the Réunion Island in 1764 by Joseph-François Char-pentier de Cossigny de Palma. It was later introduced to Madagascar which has become a major producer.

[3] Origin: Brazil. Brazil’s national cocktail, made with cachaça sugar and limes. Cachaça is Brazil’s most common distilled alcoholic beverage. While both rum and cachaça are made from sugarcane-derived products, most rum is made from molasses. Specifically with cachaça, the alcohol results from the fermentation of sugarcane juice that is afterwards distilled.

Ginger1 and Lychee2 Caipirinhas3

Ingredients 8 tablespoons ginger syrup , divided

16 drained canned lychees in syrup

(8 tablespoons syrup reserved), divided

4 limes, each cut into 8 wedges, divided

16 teaspoons Velvet Falernum liqueur,* divided

2 cups cachaça,* divided

8 cups ice cubes, divided

*Velvet Falernum, a liqueur from Barbados, and cachaça, a

Brazilian liquor made from sugarcane juice, are available at

some liquor stores.

PreparationPlace 8 rocks glasses on work surface. Place 1 tablespoon ginger syrup , 2 lychees and 1 tablespoon lychee syrup, 4 lime wedges, and 2 teaspoons Velvet Falernum in bottom of each glass. Using muddler or wooden spoon, mash lime wedges. Add 1/4 cup cachaça, then 1 cup ice cubes to each glass and stir to blend.

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of America, but it certainly isn’t what American cooking is [all] about...I’m not sure we’ve been around long enough or made strong enough statements to reach the point where it’s affecting the whole world.

Fusion cuisine has come to be defined by many as American cuisine. For example, Raji Jallepalli viewed America as a melting pot and clearly viewed fusion cuisine as American cuisine:

All cultures do come toether here; so fusion is no where — no other place is more fitting than America [for fusion to develop]; so, in a way, yeah, I can very easily coin what I am doing American cuisine.

It is particularly striking, and arguably noteworthy, that some of the most outstanding instances of fusion cuisine within the United States are created by foreign-born chefs. This is the case, for example, of such ches as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Claude Troisgros, and Nobu Matsuhisa. Each of them comes from a country with very clearly defined notions of waht constitutes appropriate national cuisines, yet each is a culinary innovator within the global setting. Each combines various ele-ments of cuisine from other cultures with their native and host culture, as well as others. One of the most interesting developments associated with fusion cuisine is that no single culture dominates. As previously noted by Symons, “constant innovation might indicate the shattering of ideal controls” (1991:299). Such may be the case with fusion cuisine. Stephan Pyles observed: “You know what used to be a Western European influence primarily; now it’s obviously from all over the world...food

[1] Origin: Central Asia,India, Pakistan, Afghanistan. The Arabic word qahwah may have been the root for kahwah or kehwa. However, whereas qahwah is used for coffee beans, the BMC kehwa is a green aromatic tea.

Even though exact origins of kehwa are still unclear, most Kashmiris believe that the aromatic traditional drink kehwa dates back to times immemorial & has been a part of local consumption for ages. Certain sources also trace the origins of the drink to the Yarkand valley in Xinjiang Area (Areas of Kashmir & Xinjiang were part of the Kushan Empire during the 1st & 2nd century AD. It is likely that use of kehwa & its spread from one region to another was facilitated & popularised in these regions during the Kushan rule).

[2] Origin: The Netherlands, England. Gin is a spirit whose predominant flavor is derived from juniper berries ( Juniperus communis). Whereas several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, gin is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories. Distilled gin is crafted in the traditional manner, by re-distilling neutral spirit of agricultural origin with juniper berries and other botanicals. Compound gin is made by simply flavoring neutral spirit with essences and/or other ‘natural flavor-ings’ without re-distillation, and is not as highly regarded. The minimum bottled alcoholic strength for gin is 37.5% ABV in the E.U., 40% ABV in the U.S.

There are several distinct styles of gin, with the most common style today being Lon-don dry gin, a type of distilled gin. In addition to the predominant juniper content,

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London dry gin is usually distilled in the presence of accenting citrus botanicals such as lemon and bitter orange peel, as well as a subtle combination of other spices, including any of anise, angelica root and seed, orris root, licorice root, cinnamon, cubeb, savory, lime peel, grapefruit peel, dragon eye, saffron, baobab, frankincense, coriander, nutmeg and cassia bark. London dry gin may not contain added sugar or colorants, water being the only permitted additive.

Some legal classifications of gin are defined only as originating from specific geographi-cal areas (e.g. Plymouth gin, Ostfriesischer Korngenever, Slovenská borovička, Kraški Brinjevec, etc.), while other common descriptors refer to classic styles that are cultur-ally recognized but not legally defined (e.g. Old Tom gin).

changes for a reason...you can still have heritage with change.” This is related to both the previously mentioned concern with the preservation of local cultures and the increasing ease and frequency of travel by both chefs and consumers. In descriing what contributed to his style of cook-ing, Norman Van Aken said: “I feel free to sort of wander the globe and search for flavor.” Susanna Foo observed: You don’t have to use traditions you can use what’s wonderful!” (Susanna Chats It Up, 1998). Travel is critical to other chefs’ inspirations as well.What many of these chefs are describing as a particular form of hybridiza-tion. Hybridization refers to “the ways in which forms become separated from existing practices and recombine with new forms in new practices” (Rowe and Schelling 1991: 231), which is an increasingly prominent feature of contemporary societies (Pieterse 1995). Blending of cuisines has always taken place throughout history and across the world. The primary distinctive feature about the fusion cuisine of today, though, is that it is not bound by the pre-modern limitations of space or time. The world has become a much smaller place, and people are increasingly aware of others. Both of these developments encourage or allow for the expansion or elimination of boundaries that provide the necessary condi-tions for the greater blending of cuisines from different places and times.

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18 CONFUSION | drinks18 CONFUSION | drinks

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NOT a Chinese Restaurant

...

It’s more like French cooking than Chinese, with a bit ofGerman, Italian, and Swiss flavoring thrown in.

...

RichardWing

European monarchs dined there. Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek once sent ambassadors to try the famous escargot. Ronald Reagan ate there when he was governor of California. Yet this food mecca is not in the culinary cities of Paris, San Francisco or Rome.

Instead, the Imperial Dynasty restaurant is nestled among pastures and cotton fields in rural California. One family has run the business for 123 years. Now, as Sasha Khokha of member station KQED notes, 84-year-old chef Richard Wing has decided to close down the five-star restaurant.

Wing's grandfather opened up shop in the tiny city of Hanford's Chinatown in 1883, selling bowls of steaming noodles for five cents. Wing himself began cooking when he was six — peeling onions, washing bean sprouts and shelling shrimp.

Wing left Hanford during World War II to join the Army. And in 1945 he caught the attention of Gen. George C. Marshall, who asked Wing to accompany him to China as his personal chef.

"It was like a fantastic dream for me," Wing says. "Imagine for a humble Chinese cook to be offered this wonderful privilege to be assigned to the great five-star general."

That assignment also included being a food taster for Marshall, who was allergic to shellfish and strawberries. Wing tasted food from kitchens in Europe and Asia, where he carefully watched chefs and compiled his own recipes. During this service to Marshall, Wing also cooked for Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.

When he returned to Hanford in 1958, his mission was to bring fine dining to Cali-fornia's rural San Joaquin Valley. He transformed his grandfather's noodle house

into a five-star restaurant, decorating it with intricate jade carvings, and tasseled Chinese lanterns. But the Imperial Dynasty was not a Chinese restaurant.

"It's more French cooking than Chinese," with a bit of Russian, German, Italian and Swiss flavoring thrown in, Wing says.

Wing's menu boasted Cornish game hen and poached salmon, with egg fu yung as the only obvious Chinese dish. Soon, the Imperial Dynasty attracted diners from all over the world to the cow town. A group of wealthy New York businessmen used to fly in once a month just for the escargot — a garlicky recipe Wing took years to perfect.In the restaurant's final months, locals — mostly wealthy farmers — came back three and four times a week just for those buttery snails. And for beer and wine — the basement cellar holds 70,000 bottles — some from the 1920s.

This wine, and Wing's menu, won him scores of international awards. But health problems kept him out of the kitchen for the past year. He says he's tired, and the fourth generation of Wings doesn't want to take over the restaurant business. So the Imperial Dynasty, which anchored Hanford's fading Chinatown, has closed its doors for the last time.

Imperial Dynasty Restaurant // Hanford, CA // (1883-2006)

Appetizers

PANCETTA-WRAPPED DATES STUFFED WITH MANCHEGO CHEESE & MINT

LATKES WITH ANCHO-CHILE SALT & WATERCRESS GUACOMOLE

SUGAR PUMPKIN & FETA CILANTRO QUESADILLAS

KIMCHI QUESADILLAS

Appetizers

22 CONFUSION | appetizers

Fusion cuisine is the deliberate combination of elements from two or more spatially or temporally distinct cuisines. Transcending conventional geo-graphical and historical boundaries, it is a unique form of cuisine particular to today's postmodern world. The precise origin of the term "fusion cuisine" is uncertain although "culinary globalization," "new world cuisine," "new American cuisine," and "new Australian cuisine," all other names for fusion cuisine, have their roots in the 1970s in the emergence in France of nouvelle cuisine, which combined elements of French and, primarily, Japanese cook-ing (Sokolov, 1992). As nouvelle cuisine spread to other nations, it com-bined with elements of the foods of the host country. As Adam Gopnik has observed, while the Enlightenment of new cooking took place in France, the Revolution occurred elsewhere. Indeed, fusion cuisine has emanated pri-marily from the United States and Australia, but has spread to other parts of

the world as well. Fusion cuisine may have taken off in the United States and Australia, because of those countries' short history relative to the rest of the world, their unique im-migration histories, their lack of a cuisine that is clearly recognized by other parts of the world, and, most importantly, their lack of a culinary tradition.

As fusion cuisine evolves, many more ethnic and regional cuisines beyond French are being combined to form new hybrids. Exemplars of fusion cuisine include Pacific Rim cooking predominant in Australia and New Zealand, and Norman Van Aken's New World Cuisine (combining Latin, Caribbean, Asian, and American elements) found in the United States. An example of a specific fusion dish that combines classic Chinese recipes with French techniques and Mexican ingredients is Susanna Foo's pan-seared sweetbreads with veal dumplings made with ancho chili and served with

[1] Origin: Italy, Spain, UK, France. Italian pancetta (Italian pronunciation: is a type of dry cured meat, similar to bacon. It is pork belly that has been salt cured and spiced (nutmeg, pepper, fennel, dried ground hot peppers and garlic are often featured), and dried for about three months (but usually not smoked). There are many varieties, and in Italy each region produces its own type.

Pancetta can be rolled, or straight (with all the fat on one side). The straight variety is more common in Italy and Spain than elsewhere, especially where home-made pancetta is still produced.

When served on its own, the rolled pancetta is presented in very thin slices. More often it is used to flavour other dishes, especially pasta sauces. Recipes such as all’amatriciana often contain pancetta as a substitute for guanciale, which is much more difficult to find outside of Italy.In Croatia, pancetta is cooked with sarma and punjena paprika, a traditional dish.

In Spain, medium to long and relatively thick portions are also served as a side dish,

usually fried in olive oil or its own fat. Fried eggs with chorizo and pancetta is consid-ered a popular hearty breakfast in some rural parts of the country.

In the United Kingdom, Pancetta is more commonly sold as packs of cubed belly (rather than rolled). It has recently gained in popularity in both the UK and US, to the point where it is now frequently available in supermarkets.

In French cuisine, pancetta is sometimes used for larding.

Pancetta also combines well with the following ingredients: Parmesan cheese, aspara-gus, goat cheese, cream, mushroom, frisée and radicchio.

[2] Origin: Mediterranean. The Arabic word qahwah may have been the root for kahwah or kehwa. However, whereas qahwah is used for coffee beans, the BMC kehwa is a green aromatic tea.

Even though exact origins of kehwa are still unclear, most Kashmiris believe that the

FOOD & CULTURE ENCYCLOPEDIA:FUSION CUISINE

23

Sichuan pickled relish and crispy shallots.Fusion cuisine is distinct from historical combinations of cuisines, such as those that occurred in the sixteenth century when foodstuffs from the New and Old worlds mixed. It is also dif-ferent from Creole cooking, which combines elements of French, African, Acadian, and Native Ameri-can cooking. Geographers have described the long his-tory of food-stuffs crossing geographical borders and the ways in which food is socially constructed through various processes (Cook and Crang, 1996; Bell and Valentine, 1997). Earlier forms of cuisine that combined elements from different regions or ethnic groups were reactive, rather than proactive, as is today's fusion cuisine. These cuisines emerged slowly from the everyday cooking practices that occurred within individual households and local communities. In contrast, fusion cuisine has de-veloped rapidly and has found its way into everyday kitchens and restau-rants as a direct consequence of the concerted and conscious activities of cultural intermediaries in the form of professional cooks, celebrity chefs, and cookbook authors. Fusion cuisine is an innovative and experimental process that demands from its practitioners the constant creation or re-creation of elements into novel food forms.

The social and cultural conditions that have contributed to the develop-ment of fusion cuisine, as well as most forms of contemporary cuisines, include increasing processes of globalization, increasing cultural flows through media and travel, the rise of a consumer culture, the modern

Pancetta1-Wrapped Dates2 Stuffed with

Manchego Cheese3 & Mint

4

Ingredients 20 Medjool dates

20 whole fresh mint leaves

1 3-ounce piece Manchego cheese,*

cut into twenty 1 1/2 x 1/4 x 1/4-inch

strips

4 3-ounce packages thinly sliced

pancetta (Italian bacon)

PreparationCut small slice off 1 short end of each date and discard. Using tweezers

or needle-nose pliers, carefully remove pits from dates through small opening; discard pits. Place 1 mint leaf across opening of 1 date, covering cavity. Using 1 cheese strip, push mint leaf and cheese into date cavity. Using fingers, pinch date opening closed. Repeat with re-maining dates, mint leaves, and cheese strips. Wrap 3 pancetta slices securely around each date, enclosing date completely. Place pan-cetta-wrapped dates on baking sheet, spacing slightly apart. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake dates uncovered until pancetta is crisp and bottoms of dates caramelize, about 30 minutes. Using tongs, transfer dates to platter and serve warm.

* A Spanish cheese made from sheep’s milk; sold at some supermarkets and at specialty foods stores.

aromatic traditional drink kehwa dates back to times immemorial & has been a part of local consumption for ages. Certain sources also trace the origins of the drink to the Yarkand valley in Xinjiang Area (Areas of Kashmir & Xinjiang were part of the Kushan Empire during the 1st & 2nd century AD. It is likely that use of kehwa & its spread from one region to another was facilitated & popularised in these regions during the Kushan rule)

[3] Origin: Spain. Manchego is a sheep’s milk cheese made in the La Mancha region of Spain. Manchego is aged for three months or longer, and is semi-firm with a rich golden color and small holes. It ranges from mild to sharp, depending on how long it is aged.

Manchego is produced in La Mancha and is made only from the whole milk of Manchega sheep. The rich, semi-firm product is aged in natural caves for three to six months, imparting a zest and exuberant flavor. Manchego is barrel-shaped and weighs about 2 kg (4 lb). It comes in a 25 cm (10”) diameter wheel, 12 cm (5”) thick, with a herringbone design on the inedible rind caused by the surface of the press used in

the manufacturing process. (This traditional embossed pattern dates from when the cheese was wrapped in sheets of woven esparto grass.)

Additionally, Manchego is pressed using wooden boards that leave imprints of wheat-ear patterns on the top and bottom of the product, rendering a unique and earthy appearance. The color of the paste is white or light yellow, and the rind is generally somewhere between light brown and dark grey. The taste depends on the maturity: mild, subtle, and fresh; or strong and full-bodied with a tangy farmhouse flavor.

Manchego’s flavour is very distinctive, slightly salty but not too strong. It is creamy with a slight piquancy, and leaves the characteristic aftertaste of sheep’s milk; it tastes very similar to feta cheese, though not as salty and with a chewier texture. Just like wine, Serrano ham and olive oil, Manchego cheese is protected by its Denominación de Origen. This controls its production, ensures the exclusive use of milk only from the Manchega sheep, and dictates an aging period (in natural caves) of a minimum of two months.


food system, the expansion of the cookbook industry, the increased prominence of chefs throughout the world, the growth of the food and restaurant industry, and a greater concern with healthy lifestyles. Images constantly bombard the world, increase consumer knowledge, and esca-late demand. Further, advances in technology have made foodstuffs from around the world available to all at any time. Boundaries are eliminated through the Internet, television, and the convenience and affordability of travel. Further, as consumers become increasingly concerned with living healthier lifestyles, the idea of mixing the healthiest elements from a variety of cuisines becomes appealing. For example, steaming and grilling may replace frying as a method of cooking, while herbs and spices are used in place of butter. The combination of these cultural and economic elements increases the likelihood that many culinary forms and combina-tions will exist.

Fusion cuisine, like fusion music and religion, appeals to multicultural-ism, diversity, and novelty; it is also quite easy to market. It is an ex-pression of the contemporary world of images and actively promotes a blending and diversity of cultures. It is a global cuisine in the sense that its elements are representative of cultures from around the world. One of the most interesting developments associated with fusion cuisine is that no single culture, with the exception of the French, dominates. Fusion cuisine com-bines elements of what are traditionally referred to as ethnic or regional cuisines, and may provide an opportunity to mainstream various ethnic and regional cuisines as well as pro-vide opportunities for immi-grant and minority chefs. Additionally, because of the hegemony of French cooking that persists in the culinary world, combining elements of French cooking may elev-ate the status of various eth-nic and regional cuisines in a way that might not be accomplished otherwise.

Fusion cuisine has been met with mixed reactions because it is char-acterized by its lack of rules, or perhaps more accurately, by the precept that the rules ought to change constantly. Fischler claimed that contemporary gastronomy might be better thought of as "gastro-anomy" increasingly characterized by its lack of normative structure. Critics argue that practi-tioners of fusion cuisine deconstruct French and other cuisines (which do have codified culinary traditions and are clearly understood as unique

25

Latkes1 with Ancho-Chile Salt & Watercress Guacomole2

Ingredients 2 large dried ancho chiles*

1 3/4 teaspoons coarse kosher salt, divided

2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, diced

2 cups chopped white onions, divided

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1 large egg

1 tablespoon masa (corn tortilla mix),** toasted, or plain all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 tablespoons (or more) vegetable oil

Watercress Guacamole

Fresh watercress sprigs

PreparationToast chiles in small skillet over medium heat until darker and aromatic, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Cut in half with scissors. Stem, seed, and tear chiles; grind finely with 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt in spice mill.

Drape smooth kitchen towel over large bowl. Blend potatoes and 1 cup onions in processor until potatoes are very finely ground, scraping down bowl often. Scrape mixture into towel. Gather towel around tightly and squeeze out at least 1 cup liquid.

Scrape dry potato mixture from towel into another large bowl. Add ci-lantro, egg, masa, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt, and 1 cup onions. Stir until mixture becomes moist and sticks together.

Heat 6 tablespoons oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. For each latke, drop 1 rounded tablespoonful potato mixture into skillet; flatten to 2 1/2-inch round. Fry latkes until golden brown, adding oil as needed, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to rimmed baking sheet. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature. Rewarm in 400°F oven until crisp, about 5 minutes per side.

Arrange 3 latkes on each plate; sprinkle with chile salt. Spoon Watercress Guacamole into center. Garnish with watercress sprigs.

* Available at many supermarkets and at specialty foods stores and Latin markets.

** Also known as masa harina; available at many supermarkets and at Latin markets.

[1] Origin: Hebrew. Latkes are traditionally eaten by Ashkenazi Jews during the Jewish Hanukkah festival. The oil for cooking the latkes is reminiscent of the oil from the Hanukkah story that kept the Second Temple of ancient Israel lit with a long-lasting flame that is celebrated as a miracle.[6] Despite the popularity of latkes and tradition of eating them during Hanukkah, they are hard to come by in stores or restaurants in Israel.

The word leviva, the Hebrew name for latke, has its origins in the Book of Samuel’s description of the story of Amnon and Tamar.[8] Some interpreters have noted that the homonym levav means “heart,” and the verbal form of l-v-v occurs in the Song of Songs as well.

[2] Origin: Spanish. Guacamole is an avocado-based dip which originated in Mexico.It is traditionally made by mashing ripe avocados with a molcajete (mortar and pestle) and adding tomatoes and seasonings. Guacamole was made by the Aztecs as early as the 1500s. After the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, guacamole became popular in Spain.

The name comes from an Aztec dialect via Nahuatl čhuacamolli, from čhuacatl (=”avocado”) + molli (=”sauce”).

Two U.S. “National Guacamole Days” celebrate the dish, Sept. 16 and Nov. 14

culinary languages), and reassemble them into "new culinary sentences" that are not grammatically correct. Another related and frequently echoed criticism of fusion cuisine is that it is a haphazard mixing of cultures that lacks a respect for tradition. Further, particular cuisines become more or less popular as part of the hybrid, depending upon what is "hot" at the moment and not necessarily upon what tastes good. Because of increasing processes of globalization and consumerism, it is unlikely that fusion cuisine is going away any time soon. There are limitless possible combinations yet to be created.


Scholars have used a variety of metaphors to present a powerful symbol for identities in Western culture - and beyond - dur-ing the twentieth century in general and the times that we have come to call "postmodernity" in particular. As early as the late nineteenth century, Simmel was speaking of Western societies as constituted of strangers (Simmel, 1971), an image made far more poignant, and transferred to a vaster domain of discourse, by Martin Heidegger, for whom "homelessness is coming to be the destiny of the world" (Heidegger, 1977: 219). Edward Said uses the metaphor of the exile: "The exile knows that in a secular and contingent world"(Said, 1990: 365). Said writes, "homes are always provisional. Borders and barriers, which enclose us within the safety of familiar territory, can also become prisons, and are often defended beyond reason or necessity.

Exiles cross borders, break barriers of thought and experience"(Ibid.). Said, ad-mittedly, does not speak of Western culture in the sense that Simmel or Heidegger does, if at all. But the metaphor of the exile may still be a potent one to sensitize us to the realities of identity in a world where heterotopia 1 is becoming ordinary. 1 1 Heterotopia is a Latin word that means “place of otherness.” It originally came from the study of anatomy, where it refers to parts of the body that are where they should not be: out of place organs, missing pieces, extra fingers or toes, or, like tumors, alien to the body as a whole (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). I use the term in its more contemporary meanings, to denote sites that are ambivalent and uncertain due to a multiplicity of meanings attached to them; sites that have become incongruous or paradoxical; (Continued on page 28)

[1] Origin: North America. Pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae (which also includes gourds).[1] In the United States and Canada it is a common name of or can refer to cultivars of any one of the species Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata. They are typically orange or yellow and have many creases running from the stem to the bot-tom. They have a thick shell on the outside, with seeds and pulp on the inside.

In British[2] and Australian English, pumpkin generally refers to what North Ameri-cans call winter squash, but would include the above species. This article is based on the North American definition.

[2] Origin: Greece. Feta is a brined curd cheese traditionally made in Greece. A sheep’s milk cheese, varying amounts of goats’ milk may be added, as long as goat milk makes up less than 30% of the total mixture.[1] Since 2005, feta has been a protected designation of origin product in the European Union. Although traditional feta cheese should only include sheep and goat’s milk, it is quite common that cheese sold as ‘feta’ includes cow’s milk, or even is composed exclusively of cow’s milk.Feta is an aged cheese, commonly produced in blocks, and has a slightly grainy texture. It is used as a table cheese, as well as in salads, pastries and in baking, notably in the

popular phyllo-based dishes spanakopita (“spinach pie”) and tyropita (“cheese pie”) and combined with olive oil and vegetables.

Similar white brined cheeses (often called ‘white cheese’ in various languages) are found in the eastern Mediterranean and around the Black Sea.

Feta is salted and cured in a brine solution (based on water or whey) for several months. Feta dries out rapidly when removed from the brine. Feta cheese is white, usually formed into square cakes, and can range from soft to semi-hard, with a tangy, salty flavor that can range from mild to sharp. The cured cheese easily crumbles. Its fat content can range from 30 to 60 percent; most is around 45 percent milk fat. Most feta cheese has a pH of 4.4 to 4.9.[2]

Feta is also an important ingredient of Greek salad. Feta, like most cheeses, can also be served cooked; it is sometimes grilled as part of a sandwich or as a salty alternative to other cheeses in a variety of dishes.

[3] Origin: Mexico. A quesadilla (Spanish pronunciation: [kesačðiča], usually anglicized is a Mexican snack food made primarily of cheese inside a folded corn or


VENERABLE HOME: FUSION COOKING AND NOUVELLE CUISINE

27

2

1

2

3

wheat tortilla and cooked until the cheese melts. Occasionally a second ingredient is added with the cheese to add variety to the dish. The word comes from Spanish, and literally means either “cheese tortilla” or “cheesecake”.

In other countries, quesadillas may be an unrelated cheese-based food.

Exactly what constitutes a que-sadilla varies from region to re-gion and between the U.S. and Mexico and is not universally agreed upon by chefs[citation needed]. However, it is gener-ally agreed that the quesadilla is cooked after being filled or stuffed with the cheese. Varia-tions in which the quesadilla is stuffed with additional ingredi-ents sometimes are incorrectly named burritos; while a taco or burrito is a tortilla filled with pre-cooked ingredients, as are some variations of the quesa-dilla, the additions are mostly different. Also, the tortilla used for a quesadilla is folded or flat, but never wrapped up like the tortilla in a burrito.

The purist faction may argue that only the folded-style Mexican version is a “real” quesadilla, although some chefs such as Rick Bayless have made more liberal interpretations of the dish[citation needed].

Also, there is the American naming of quesadilla not just to the folded Mexican “quesadilla” but to the Mexican “sincronizada”.


sites that have an aura of mystery, danger or even transgression about them; marginalized sites, and incongruous forms of practices. These contemporary meanings of heterotopia help me shift the emphasis of the literatures dealing with eating practices and identity, whose main focus are the stable, consistent, and/or homogeneous sides of the relationship between eating practices and identity, to the multiple, ambivalent, uncertain, discontinuous, incongruous, and/or transgres-sive sides of it. Furthermore, they help me to bring out some of possible capacities of ways of eating practices related to identity, which are challenging boundaries and, in Foucault's words, are “simul-taneously represented, contested and inverted”

James Clifford’s image of travel and of the tourist also conveys a sense of a nomadic identity, of wandering from terrain to terrain, explor-ing one by one the domains of Borges’s Chinese encyclopedia, while crossing borders and breaking barriers. And “if we rethink culture … in terms of travel,” Clifford contends, “then the organic, naturalizing

Kimchi1 Quesadillas2

Ingredients 1/2 stick unsalted butter

2 cups cabbage kimchi, drained and chopped

8 fresh perilla or shiso leaves

4 (8-inch) flour tortillas

1/4 cup roasted sesame seeds

2 cups coarsely grated sharp Cheddar (6 ounces)

2 cups coarsely grated Monterey Jack (6 ounces)

Vegetable oil for brushing

PreparationMelt butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat, then cook kimchi, stirring occasionally, until edges are golden, about 6 minutes. Cool kimchi.

Place 2 perilla leaves over one half of each tortilla and top with one fourth of kimchi, 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, and 1/2 cup of each cheese. Fold in half to enclose filling.

Brush a 12-inch nonstick skillet or 2-burner nonstick griddle with oil and heat over medium heat until it just begins to smoke, then cook quesadillas, turning once, until golden and cheese is melted, about 4 min utes total. Serve imme-diately.

29

bias of the term culture - seen as a rooted body that grows, lives, dies, etc. - is questioned. Con-structed and disputed historicities, sites of displacement, interference, and interaction, come more sharply into view” (Clifford, 1992:101). Paul Carter makes a similar argument in urging us to think in terms of migration. “It becomes more than ever urgent to develop a framework of thinking that makes the migrant central, not ancillary, to historical processes,” he exhorts. “We need to disarm the genealogical rhetoric of blood, property and frontiers and to substitute for it a lateral account of social relations, one that stresses the contingency of all definitions of self and the other, and the

[1] Origin: Korea. Kimchi, also spelled gimchi, kimchee, or kim chee, is any one of numerous traditional Korean pickled dishes made of vegetables with varied seasonings. A common manifestation is the spicy baechu (cabbage) variety. Kimchi is the most common banchan, or side dish, in South Korea and many South Korean communities and locales. Kimchi is also a common ingredient and combined with other ingredi-ents to make dishes such as kimchi stew (kimchi jjigae) and kimchi fried rice (kimchi bokkeumbap). Kimchi is so ubiquitous that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) developed space kimchi to accompany the first Korean astronaut to the Russian-manned space ship Soyuz.

[2] Origin: Spain. A quesadilla is a Mexican snack food made primarily of cheese inside a folded corn or wheat tortilla and cooked until the cheese melts. Occasionally a second ingredient is added with the cheese to add variety to the dish. The word comes from Spanish, and literally means either “cheese tortilla” or “cheesecake”.

In other countries, quesadillas may be an unrelated cheese-based food.

Exactly what constitutes a quesadilla varies from region to region and between the U.S. and Mexico. However, it is generally agreed that the quesadilla is cooked after being filled or stuffed with the cheese. Variations in which the quesadilla is stuffed with ad-ditional ingredients sometimes are incorrectly named burritos; while a taco or burrito is a tortilla filled with pre-cooked ingredients, as are some variations of the quesadilla, the additions are mostly different. Also, the tortilla used for a quesadilla is folded or flat, but never wrapped up like the tortilla in a burrito.

The purist faction may argue that only the folded-style Mexican version is a “real” quesadilla, although some chefs such as Rick Bayless have made more liberal interpre-tations of the dish[citation needed].

Also, there is the American “quesadilla” which corresponds in fact to the Mexican “sincronizada”.

Soup &

Salad

Soup &

Salad

WATERMELON & CUCUMBER TSATSIKI SALAD

SOUTHEAST ASIAN RICE NOODLES WITH CALAMARI & HERBS

CURRIED CARROT SALAD WITH NONFAT YOGURT

LAMB TANGINE WITH PRUNES & CINNAMON

MISO SOUP WITH SWEET POTATO DUMPLINGS

32 CONFUSION | soup & salad

This exclusive interview with renowned chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck is part of an exciting new program by About.com1 to expand our award-winning content by adding celebrity guest authors to the site. Not only did we get to interview the legendary chef, he agreed to share some of his favorite recipes (including his famous pizza dough2) on About.com’s American Food site!

Wolfgang Puck has excelled in every conceivable aspect of the food busi-ness – multiple James Beard Award-winning chef, trendsetting restau-rateur, celebrity caterer, popular television personality, and celebrated cookbook author.

Coming to Los Angeles in 1975, he quickly became a favorite of Holly-wood's elite as chef/owner of Ma Maison. Wolfgang went on to create his flagship restaurant, Spago, and with signature dishes like pizza topped with smoked salmon and caviar, Puck became a star, and Spago a world famous culinary destination.

Wolfgang Puck went on to open many award-winning restaurants, includ-ing Chinois, in Santa Monica, and Postrio, in San Francisco. Wolfgang is also considered the premier caterer in Southern California, best known as the star of the annual Governors Ball, where he's served as official chef for the post-Academy Awards celebrity banquet for the past 14 years.

While you may not have dined next to George Clooney at Spago, you may have enjoyed Wolfgang Puck's cuisine in a more modest setting. He launched his first line of frozen food in 1987 to meet his customers' desire to enjoy his food at home. His all-natural frozen pizzas, appetizers, soups, stocks, and broths, are available at grocery stores nationwide.

A special thanks goes out to Wolfgang for his time, and for participating in About.com's new celebrity guest author program. We hope you enjoy the interview, as well as the signature recipes he has graciously agreed to share with us. For a more complete and detailed bio, you can visit this page on his official website.

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CHEF WOLFGANG PUCK

33

If you could only eat one pizza for the rest of your life, which would it be?

"It would be the Four Cheese Tomato Pesto Pizza."

Regarding your new line of pizzas, how long did it take you to decide on the com-binations?

"It took 27 years of experience."

What was the motivation for the new 11-inch size?

"I believe it’s the best frozen pizza we have made so far. The balance of the crispy dough and the moist cheese and ingre-dients makes it as good as a restaurant pizza."

The new Tuscan pizza sounds great. It features uncured pepperoni, sopressatta salami and Italian sausage. I know you've some single meat toppings before, but that's a lot of meat - is this a trend toward heavier, more substantial toppings?

"The Tuscan pizza weight-wise does not have more meat than other pizzas, it’s just different textures and tastes. And since it’s thin crust, it certainly does not come off as heavy. On the contrary – it comes out light and tasty."

Is there ever a heated debate between you and your team over which pizzas will make the final cut?

"Only once with a manufacturer – they told me they knew how to make pizzas so I let them do it. I tasted them and it was obviously not what I wanted. All I told them was, now that we have tasted these pizzas, let’s go back into the kitchen and make real ones. And they were a little shocked, but there was no disagreement."

Any predictions on which of the new fla-vors will be the best selling?

"I believe that the thin crust four cheese tomato pesto will sell the most, certainly here in California. In Chicago and the Midwest, I believe the Tuscan pizza will win out."

Is a savory chocolate pizza possible?"I’m sure that I could come up with a dessert pizza. Since it’s only a yeast dough, it wouldn’t be too hard to make a pizza

with some chocolate, but to be appealing, it would have to have a different name."

You are well known for trying lots of cre-ative flavor combinations. In your ex-periments, have there been any fantastic flops? Or, things you were shocked went well together?

"I cook in my head before I start a recipe. So with all the expe-rience it’s rare that I will make something which doesn’t taste right. Because when I put ingredients together, I know what the end result will taste like."

When did you first realize that you wanted to become a chef?

"When I was 13, I realized that the kitchen would be my play-ground, my hobby, and my profession."

What are your fondest food memories from childhood?

"Eating Wienerschnitzel with mashed potatoes for Sunday lunch."

Are you an extremely adventurous eater? Are there any foods you won't eat or even try?

"I’m rather adventurous in food, as long as the quality of the ingredients are first rate. Which means you won’t find me at Burger King or McDonald’s."

What is your guilty pleasure? What do you snack on when no one else is around be-cause you don't want anyone to know?

"I love sweets, chocolate, caramel, fruit, you name it. Also, cookies, pies, soufflés, but - everybody knows about that."

What's your favorite comfort food?"A good vegetable soup."


[1] Origin: Greece. Tzatziki, tzadziki, or tsatsiki is a Greek meze or appetizer, also used as a sauce for souvlaki and gyros. Tzatziki is made of strained yoghurt (usually sheep’s-milk or goat’s-milk in Greece and Turkey) mixed with cucumbers, a good amount of garlic, salt, usually olive oil, pepper, sometimes dill, sometimes lemon juice and parsley, and sometimes mint added. The cucumbers are either pureed and strained, or seeded and finely diced. Olive oil, olives, and herbs are often used as garnishes.

In Cyprus, the dish is known colloquially as ttalattouri (cf. tarator), and recipes often include less garlic and includes the herb mint, unlike the Greek counterpart. Tzatziki is always served cold.

In touristy restaurants, and outside Greece and Cyprus, tzatziki is often served with bread (loaf or pita) as part of the first course of a meal. Greeks, Cypriots and those

from all over the Middle East use this dish as a side dish to a meal with meat. The acid-ity cuts the fat, thus tzatziki is also used as a sauce for souvlaki and gyros, in which case it may be called cucumber sauce (especially in the U.S.).

The Greek word is derived from the Turkish cacık, which means a form of chutney (cacık, the Turkish side dish with similar ingredients, is diluted).

In Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, the same dish is known as “dry tarator” or “Snezhanka” salad, which means “snow white salad”, and is served as an appetizer. During preparation, the yogurt is hung for several hours in a kerchief and loses about half of its water. The cucumbers, garlic, minced walnuts, salt and vegetable oil are then added.

“Instead of one history guided by globalization, or hybridization, or the pervasion of ethnic cuisines, or the emergence and develop-ment of nouvelle cuisine and its many offspring in a multiplicity of local cuisines, or even an increase of contiguous spaces, there are multiple histories marked by all these de-velopments, each following its own temporality, its own rhythm, its own complex of disruptions and transformations, its own set of associations and consequences.”


35

Watermelon & Cucumber Tsatsiki1 SaladIngredients

1/2 stick unsalted butter










Brush a 12-inch nonstick skillet or 2-burner nonstick griddle with oil and heat over medium heat until it just begins to smoke, then cook quesadillas, turning once, until golden and cheese is melted, about 4 min utes total. Serve immediately.

Similar dishes in Iraq are known as jajeek, normally served as meze alongside alcoholic drinks, especially Arak, an Ouzo-like drink made out of dates.

A variation in the Caucasus mountains, called ovdukh, uses kefir instead of the yogurt, thus creating a refreshing summer drink. This can be poured over a mixture of vegetables, eggs and ham to create a variation of okroshka, sometimes referred to as a

‘Caucasus okroshka’.A similar dish is made in Iran and Afghanistan called mast-o-khiar and “chaka”, respectively, literally meaning yogurt with cucumber. It is made using a thicker yogurt, which is mixed with sliced cucumber, garlic, and mint (sometimes chopped nuts are also added).

Greek-style strained yogurt, of various fat levels, is now sold in many supermarkets,

eliminating the most time-consuming step of preparing tzatziki in the traditional way and allowing the cook to quickly prepare a yogurt-based tzatziki with a thick consistency.

Cacık may also be compared with raita and pachadi in India, all are served as a refresh-ing appetizer along with other dishes.

The Sephardic Jewish name for this sauce, at least in Greece, is tarator.

35


necessity always to tread lightly” (Carter, 1992: 7-8). Yet, while all these metaphors suggest a sense of what is involved in experience of self in a context of heterotopia, none conveys its complexities fully. Metaphors of exile, home-lessness, migration, travel - all metaphors of the nomad who moves ceaselessly and has nothing to call home - do sensitize us to the realities of contiguities and crossings, to lateralities and disruptions, and to fluidities and contingen-cies. But they are all flows without ebbs, exhala-tions without inhalations, deterritorializations without reterritorializations, and instabilities without stabilizations. Heterotopia is about a vulnerable home, an increasingly vulnerable one, at that. Or better, it is about the emergence of a new home, one that welcomes monstrosities as well as familiarities, one that in fact erases the difference between the monstrous and the familiar and makes of vulnerability a virtue rather than a problem.

Perhaps one of the characteristics of the “history” of food and eating practices in the last forty or fifty years — the period when the postmodern seems to have expanded in Western societies — is not a linear one, far from it. Instead of one history guided by globalization, or hybridization, or the pervasion of ethnic cuisines, or the emergence and development of nou-velle cuisine and its many offspring in a multiplicity of local cuisines, or even an increase of contiguous spaces, there are multiple histories marked by all these developments, each following its own temporality, its own rhythm, its own complex of disruptions and transforma-tions, its own set of associa-tions and consequences.

In a sense, history itself be-comes “heterotopic,” refus-ing linearity, continuities, and systematization. It is the vision developed by Foucault in his late work where, as in the chapter on “Method” in the first volume of The History of Sexuality (Fou-cault, 1978: 92-102) or in the lectures published under the straightforward title “Two Lectures” (Foucault, 1980),

[1] Origin: China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Rice vermicelli are thin noodles made from rice, sometimes also known as rice noodles or rice sticks. They should not be confused with cellophane noodles, which is another type of vermicelli.

Rice vermicelli are a part of several Asian cuisines, where they are often eaten as part of a soup dish, stir fry, or salad. Rice vermicelli are particularly prominent in the cuisines of People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Rice vermicelli also feature in the cuisines of South India and Sri Lanka, where they are called sevai or idiappam (the latter also called “string hoppers”).

One particularly well known, slightly thicker variety, is called Guilin, comes from the southern Chinese city of Guilin, where it is a breakfast staple.

[1] Origin: Italy. Squid is a popular food in many parts of the world. In many of the languages around the Mediterranean sea, squid are referred to by a term related to the Italian “calamari” (singular

“calamaro”), which in English has become a culinary name for Mediterranean dishes involving squid, especially fried squid (“fried calamari”).


37

he describes a multiplicity of force relations developing independently of one another, engendering a variety of practices, both at the level of the relations between people and of the relations with one-self. In the chapter on “Method,” for example, Foucault speaks of the multiplicity of force relations and their interrelations. After clarifying what he does not mean by “power”

- a group of institutions and the mechanisms by which these operate to ensure people’s subservience, a mode of subjugation or a general system of domination (Foucault, 1978: 92) - Foucault explains:

It seems to me that power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they oper-ate and which constitute their own organization; as the process which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as the support which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or system, or on the contrary, the disjunc-tions and contradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies. (Foucault, 1978: 92-93)

I want to retain two main points from Foucault’s idea of force relations as above stated.

First is the idea of “immanence,” an idea that bespeaks of the autonomy of force relations and of the potential for each particular complex of forces to have a history of itself, independent of other force relations, at least partially as long as it remains free from the others’ powers of contagion. Foucault posits a condition according to which all realities are in essence circular and self-contained. Take sexuality, Foucault asks us: there is nothing such as an objectivity concerning sexuality outside of the forces relations that constitute it. “One must not suppose that there exists a cer-tain sphere of sexuality that would be the legitimate concern of a free and disinterested scientific inquiry,” he writes. “If sexuality was constituted

Southeast Asian Rice Noodles1 With Calamari2 & HerbsIngredients













as an area of investigation, this was only because relations of power had established it as a possible object; and conversely, if power was able to take it as a target, this was because techniques of knowl-edge and procedures of discourse were capable of investing it. Between techniques of knowledge and strategies of power, there is no exteriority” (Foucault, 1978: 98).

Likewise, cuisines have no exteriority. A cuisine exists only in the polyvalent practices through which it becomes what it is. All practices are a manifestation of the cuisine; the cuisine becomes one because of the practices that invest it: they become their own organization. However, one should note that this organizing relationship between cuisine and practices does not mean that the constituting practices do not come in contact with other force relations, both in the general domain of eating practices and in domains that are not inherently associated with food - the domain of signs that Jean Baudrillard analyzes, for instance, as I argue below is the case with nouvelle cuisine.

Thus cautioned about the ongoing contact between other force relations, we turn to the second important point from Foucault’s brief discussion of power that, I suggest, it is neces-sary to retain. Fields of force relations mesh into or repel one another, they support or resist one another, or they simply coexist in perfect ignorance of one another. Given a historical dimension, as Foucault vposits in his “Two Lectures,” the multiplicity of forces relations, pulling towards or away from one another, gives rise to a reality of multiple historicities whose individual genealogies have to be carefully traced. Foucault describes what emerges from tracing these multiplicities: “a genealogy, or rather a multiplicity of genealogical researches, a painstaking rediscovery of struggles together

This trend to “authenticity,” however, is nothing like the search for gastronomical roots that characterizes some of the ethnic food movements of the present times.

39

Curried1 Carrot Salad with Nonfat YogurtIngredients 1/2 stick unsalted butter








PreparationMelt butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat, then cook kimchi, stir-ring occasionally, until edges are golden, about 6 minutes. Cool kimchi.



[1] Origin: South India and South Asia. Curry is a generic description used through-out European and American culture to describe a general variety of spiced dishes, best known in South Asian cuisines, especially Indian cuisine. Curry is a generic term and although there is no one specific attribute that marks a dish as “curry”, some distinc-tive spices used in many curry dishes include turmeric, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, and red pepper. The word curry is an anglicised version of the Tamil word khari, which is usually understood to mean “gravy” or “sauce” rather than “spices”. In Urdu, an official language of Pakistan and North India, curry is usually referred to as saalan. In

most South Indian languages, the word literally means ‘side-dish’, which can be eaten along with a main dish like rice or bread.

Curry’s popularity in recent decades has spread outward from the Indian subcontinent to figure prominently in international cuisine. Consequently, each culture has adopted spices in its indigenous cooking to suit its own unique tastes and cultural sensibili-ties. Curry can therefore be called a pan-Asian or global phenomenon with immense popularity in Thai, British, and Japanese cuisines.


with the rude memory of their conflicts” (Foucault, 1980: 83).

Admittedly, the genealogies of cuisines and eating habits often do not develop in the same landscape of now forgotten struggles and conflicts as the genealogies of madness, disci-pline, or sexuality that Foucault himself studied. Yet a reading of the history of food and eating habits fits as well as any in the vision of multiple force relations, or perhaps multiple fields of practice, developing heterotopi-

cally through a multiplicity of lines at a multiplicity of rhythms that sometime converge, sometimes intersect, sometimes collude, sometimes merge and fuse, and sometimes just ignore one another.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF NOUVELLE CUISINEThe history of nouvelle cuisine is indeed exemplary. As told by the food critic and historian Ray-mond Sokolov (1991), nouvelle cuisine follows from a long and distinguished lineage of French cuisine, a lineage marked by breaks and discontinuities, the result of revolutionary culinary inno-vations more often than not in line with changing attitudes in French society and culture in general. Indeed, Sokolov sees the emergence of nouvelle cuisine as continuing, or to put it more accurately,

“discontinuing,” a long tradition of discontinuous developments that trace back to the nineteenth century, if not earlier. Sokolov does not shy away from tracing the lineage back to the times of Columbus and the first real redefinition of gastronomy brought about by the incorporation of “New and Old World” in-gredients.

But it was only towards the mid-nineteenth century, with the emergence of a generalized pat-tern towards culinary

“authenticity,” that the twists and turns that according to Soko-lov led to nouvelle cuisine were set in motion. This trend to

“authenticity,” how-ever, is nothing like the search for gas-tronomical roots that

“Cookbooks not only preserve, they over-define and delimit cooking when they set forth a single version of a dish and, explicitly or implicitly, suggest that other versions are spurious.”

41

Lamb Tagine1 with Prunes and CinnamonIngredients











Brush a 12-inch nonstick skillet or 2-burner nonstick griddle with oil and heat over me-dium heat until it just begins to smoke, then cook quesadillas, turning once, until golden and cheese is melted, about 4 minutes total. Serve immediately.

[1] Origin: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. A tagine or tajine is a type of dish found in the North African cuisines of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, which is named after the special pot in which it is cooked. A similar dish, known as Tavvas, is found in the cuisine of Cyprus. The traditional tagine pot is formed entirely of a heavy clay which is sometimes painted or glazed. It consists of two parts; a base unit which is flat and cir-cular with low sides, and a large cone or dome-shaped cover that rests inside the base during cooking. The cover is so designed to promote the return of all condensation to

the bottom. With the cover removed, the base can be taken to the table for serving.Recently, European manufacturers have created tagines with heavy cast iron bottoms that can be fired on a stovetop at high heat. This permits browning meat and veg-etables before cooking. While the similar Dutch oven and Sač (a cast iron pot with a tight cover) braises most efficiently in the oven, the tagine braises best on the stovetop.


characterizes some of the ethnic food movements of the present times. During the nineteenth century it involved the invention of a hegemonic cuisine, the cuisine of the dominant Parisian bourgeoisie, out of the mul-tiplicity of authentic traditions that flourished at the time.

As an example, Sokolov asks what is the proper, authentic way to prepare mayonnaise, a question that may appear trivial but which reveals the con-struction of a culinary hegemony. For Sokolov, the answer is apprehended immediately: the question is silly not because it tells nothing about cui-sine, but because there is no such thing, the same way that there is no

“authentic” apple pie or authentic bouillabaisse. Even within families, Sokolov notes, “people disagree about the authentic way to make dishes handed down from the same older relative” (Sokolov, 1991: 220). And what the question tells about cuisine is about the definition of a proper way of cooking, fostered by cookbooks, magazines, and the constructed renown of a handful of top chefs, and the marginalization of countless recipes, many of which would soon disappear. As Sokolov writes, “au-thentication is a procrustean bed; it lops off the messy edges of cook-ing. Cookbooks not only preserve, they over-define and delimit cooking when they set forth a single version of a dish and, explicitly or implicitly, suggest that other versions are spurious” (Sokolov, 1991: 221). But the authenticity trend also brought into being a field of culinary practices and, actually, of force and power relations which do not deviate that much from the model that Foucault describes above. For as Sokolov tells the story, the hegemonic cuisine that takes shape during the nineteenth century comes under attack from a variety of quarters, either in the form of a stubborn survival of local cuisines and deviant recipes or, more problematically for the advocates of “true” authentic from the permeation of new technolo-gies into eating practices in general and cooking practices in particular.

Sokolov’s example, again, concerns mayonnaise and the introduction

43

Miso1 Soup with Sweet Potato DumplingsIngredients












of “fake” mayonnaise into European markets during the early twentieth century. The reaction of purists was understandably hostile. But quite clearly, what was at stake was not the purity of mayonnaise, for no such thing existed; rather, at stake was a challenge to the voice of experts who had themselves decided what was “the” recipe for mayonnaise and who blamed the popularity of the fake on the laziness of people. And while convenience (rather than laziness) is part of the answer, Sokolov sug-gests that the popularity of the fake is simply due to the fact that people

“actively prefer the fake” (Sokolov, 1991: 219). The hegemony of processed foods that the offspring of capitalism and multinational corporations and the greatest abomination for lovers of “authentic” cuisines, of whatever sort, begins to challenge and substitute for the hegemony of the culinary elite.

Nouvelle cuisine, Sokolov tells us, implied a revolutionary “reordering” of the world of the kitchen; and his choice of the word “reordering” (So-kolov, 1991: 222), perhaps fortuitous, as we shall see, conveys nicely the extent of the transformation of food and eating practices, at least in one of its histories, in the last thirty years or so. The changes brought about by the chefs associated with nouvelle cuisine were noticed rapidly, yet ex-actly what these changes consisted in, Sokolov shows, was a great mystery. Sokolov tells his own first encounter with nouvelle cuisine. In 1972, be-fore Paul Bocuse was a household word or nouvelle had entered our lan-guage as a culinary buzzword, I visited Bocuse’s restaurant in the village of Collonges-au-Mont d’Or in almost perfect innocence of the worldwide revolution in taste that was fermenting there on the peaceful banks of the Saone. Much had been written in France, in murky prose, about what was taking place chez Bocuse and at a few other luxury establishments owned by young chefs who had studies with Fernand Point at Vienne and then fanned out across the countryside. Dedicated to a new, minimalist style of cooking, they shunned the stuffiness of the haute cuisine [that developed from the movement towards authenticity] in the early years of the century. Yet, Sokolov remarks, although everyone seems to have been talking about nouvelle cuisine, “at the time [...] it was especially difficult to say in con-crete terms what was up” (Sokolov, 1991: 223). Clearly, the minimalism in itself would have never been able to take off as a trend.

French connoisseurs might be somewhat snobbish but they would not embrace a cuisine that requires a visit to Burger King afterwards if there were nothing to it except the minuscule size of its servings. And the explanations given by the chefs of the so-called Young Turk movement are not very helpful, either. The use of new ingredients or an emphasis on fresh, al dente vegetables and raw fish were invoked, the elaboration of new sauces was alluded to, the dietary qualities of the new dishes was advanced, but, Sokolov argues, none of it was particularly new, let alone revolutionary. “Even a cursory glance at the ingredients actually served up by the Young Turks should have convinced us all that the dietary claims blandly served up in interviews by Bocuse and Alain Senderens of Arches-trate in Paris were a soufflé of rationalizations,” Sokolov (1991: 223) notes. It is true, he admits (Sokolov, 1991: 224), that nouvelle cuisine follows a line of development dating from the early twentieth century and espoused

[1] Origin: Japan. Miso soup is a traditional Japanese soup consist-ing of a stock called “dashi” into which is mixed softened miso paste. Although the suspension of miso paste into dashi is the only char-acteristic that actually defines miso soup, many other ingredients are added depending on regional and seasonal recipes, and personal preference.

The most common dashi soup stocks for miso soup are made of niboshi (dried baby sardines), kombu (dried kelp), katsuobushi (thin shavings of dried and smoked bonito, aka skipjack tuna), or hoshi-shiitake (dried shiitake). The kombu can also be used in combination with katsuobushi or hoshi-shiitake. The kelp and/or shiitake dashi serve as a vegetarian soup stock.

Outside of Japan, American or European style miso soup is some-times made by dissolving miso in a Western vegetable stock. The stock might include ingredients such as negi, carrot, potato and daikon radish. In some versions of the dish chicken stock, Western-style fish stock, and other non-dashi bases can even be used, but there is some debate over whether or not miso soups made using these non-traditional bases count as true misoshiru. Christian Japa-nese refugees who came to the Philippines during the Edo period brought along miso soup, but the Filipino recipe differs mainly by the inclusion of tamarind, which gives it a more sour taste than the

43

Entrees

EntreesDUCK PIZZA WITH HOISIN AND SCALLIONS

ROAST DUCK BREASTS WITH POMEGRANATE-CHILE SAUCE

PEA AND PARMESEAN WONTON RAVIOLI

BROILED LAMBCHOPS WITH MINT CHIMICHURRI

GRILLED SALMON FILLET WITH MANGO-CUCUMBER SALSA

ROAST BEEF TENDERLOIN WITH WASABI-GARLIC CREAM

46 CONFUSION | entrees

by Bernard Point that places increasing stress on local cuisines and local flavors.

Nouvelle cuisine takes this earlier-starting trend to new heights and makes it a cornerstone of its culinary philosophy. In this sense, in particular when compared to the elaborate dishes of the nineteenth century aimed at aristocrats and bourgeois enamored with pomp and circumstance (the actual referent point for the young chefs rather than the fake ingredients of multinational capital-ism), nouvelle cuisine represents a genuine movement towards simplification and authenticity. But again, even if the young chefs moved one step fur-ther than their mentor in the insistence on simplicity and local flavors, the trend itself hardly amounts to a revolution.

In order to gain a better understanding of the truly revolutionary nature of nouvelle cuisine, Sokolov invites us to compare the photographs in Bernard Point’s cookbook with those of his disciples Michel Guerard, whom Sokolov labels as the “real genius of contemporary French gastronomy” (Sokolov, 1991: 223), and the brothers Jean and Pierre Troisgros. The pictures in Point’s book are simple enough, especially when compared with earlier manuals, but the culinary world that he presents, Sokolov tells us, is still that of the banquet, “the world of the platter on which a suckling pig or a whole tart is presented to a tableful of people or a large family assembled for a dramatic occasion” (Sokolov, 1991: 224).

By contrast, “the younger chefs selected photographs of individual plates, with the food on them arranged meticulously to make a visual effect on its own. In their book the brothers Troisgros credit their father as the source of the ’custom of both presentation and service on each guest’s individual plate - very large plates, which we were the first to use’” (Sokolov, 1991: 224-225). The difference is not innocuous, for according to Sokolov, it is precisely in those two characteristics - presentation and service - that nouvelle cuisine revolutionized food: It makes food not a gastronomical experi-ence but a visual one, while its emphasis on the dish rather than the dinner sets in motion, almost literally, a new order of things as far as eating habits are concerned.

Here, the history of nouvelle cuisine converges with another history, one that follows an entirely different temporality and whose effects within French society spread well beyond food. While both the turn to the visual and the definition of the plate as the unit of the culinary experience were undoubtedly in line with trends present in French culinary history since the early twenti-eth century, they were also, to a significant degree, the result of aesthetic ideas that “traveled to France from abroad, in particular from Japan, and found receptive soil in traditionally xenophobic France” (Sokolov, 1991: 225). The influence of Japanese aesthetics on French art forms had in effect

[1] Origin: Italy. Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc shaped bread usually topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella and then a selection of meats, salamis, seafood, cheeses, vegetables and herbs depending on taste and culture.

Originating in Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many different parts of the world. A shop or restaurant that primarily makes and sells pizzas is called a “pizzeria”. The phrases “pizza parlor”, “pizza place” and “pizza shop” are used in the United States. The term pizza pie is dialectal, and pie is used for simplicity in some contexts, such as among pizzeria staff.

[1] Origin: China Hoisin sauce, or Haixian Sauce, is a Chinese dipping sauce. The word Hoisin is a romanization of the Chinese word for seafood as pronounced in Cantonese.

Mandarin-style Hoisin sauce ingredients include water, sugar, soybeans, white distilled vinegar, rice, salt, wheat flour, garlic, red chili peppers, and several preservatives and coloring agents. Traditionally, Hoisin sauce is made using sweet potato. Despite the literal meaning of “seafood,” Hoisin sauce does not contain fish.

“Fusion cooking emerged in several places simultaneously as the effect of the new culinary opportunities provided by ‘globalization.’”


47

Duck Pizza1 with Hoisin2 and ScallopsIngredients

1 duck (or chicken) breast, fat trimmed

1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 pound whole-wheat pizza dough

3 tablespoons hoisin sauce

1 cup baby spinach, chopped

1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella

1/2 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and diced

4 scallions, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons black sesame seeds

PreparationHeat oven to 400°F. Sprinkle duck with five-spice powder, salt and pepper. Heat oil in a medium skillet over high heat. Cook duck until browned, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer skil-let to oven; bake duck until outside is cooked but inside is rare, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 4 to 5 minutes. Thinly slice on the diagonal into 8 pieces, then cut each in half. Set aside. Form dough into 8 even balls, then flatten to form 3-inch disks and place on an ungreased bak-ing sheet. Spread hoisin sauce on crusts with a pastry brush. Top with spinach, cheese, bell pepper and duck. Bake until cheese is melted and bubbly, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.

a long history, entirely its own, visible, for example, in the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec or in the on-and-off flirtations of French haute couture with Japanese fashions. And this history indeed converged with the his-tory of food to engender nouvelle cuisine. Japanese aesthetics found a ripe field of development among the young chefs for whom that other history, the history of French cuisine, “already predisposed to paint with food on the circular field of a plate” (Sokolov, 1991: 225). Nouvelle cuisine became a feast for the eye, its minimalism becoming a function of Japanese art rather than the miserliness of the young chefs or a French obsession with slimness.

And here the history of nouvelle cuisine intersects yet another history, the history of the gradual dominance of images and signs in postmodern societies analyzed by Baudrillard. Sokolov has no need — nor do I —to refer to the theoretical vocabulary of Baudrillard or hyperreality or the simulacrum. But if he seems to be unaware of that vocabulary, Soko-lov (1991: 226-230) nonetheless sees the ultimate meaning of nouvelle cuisine, and the reason for its widespread success in spite of its miniatur-ism, as a function of its signifying character. Sokolov invokes the world of deconstruction, of all things. As he prepares to make the argument about nouvelle cuisine as a system of signs, he writes: “The world of nouvelle cuisine, as I am about to show, is a forest of symbols and allusions that the knowledgeable diner can ‘read’ and decode much as a literary de-construction might decode the figurative code of a poem” (Sokolov, 1991: 227). What Sokolov describes, however, is nouvelle cuisine as involving a self-referent semiotic world, as Baudrillard describes the postmodern world of the sign – a culinary world composed of pure signifiers deprived of any signified.

In nouvelle cuisine one does not consume food but images, signs, and meanings that refer to other meanings and are devoid of anything sub-stantial. The gastronomical value of the meal becomes thus irrelevant, and, therefore, the minimalism of the cuisine is not an issue. One does not go to a nouvelle cuisine restaurant in order to have a good meal in the conventional sense of the word but to relish the consumption of signs that it mobilizes. In this sense, nouvelle cuisine is the ultimate postmod-ern practice as far as food is concerned. This postmodern practice also explains the preeminence of the plate as opposed to the dining experi-ence as a whole. For according to Sokolov, the culinary signifiers have to be presented, as Baudrillard argues the images in advertisements or the merchandise in a department store do, in a closed system, entire in itself, wholly present, such that the signifiers taking their meaning from their multiple interrelations. For people unable to read the code, nouvelle cuisine becomes just a bizarre experience, a sign of snobbism where one does not even have enough food to have a feeling of its taste, an uncon-scionable fraud given the little that one is served compared to the price one pays.


[1] Origin: China. Peking Duck, or Peking Roast Duck is a famous duck dish from Beijing that has been prepared since the imperial era, and is now considered one of China’s national foods.

The dish is prized for the thin, crispy skin, with authentic versions of the dish serving mostly the skin and little meat, sliced in front of the diners by the cook. Ducks bred specially for the dish are slaughtered after 65 days and seasoned before being roasted in a closed or hung oven. The meat is often eaten with pancakes, spring onions, and hoisin sauce or sweet bean sauce. The two most notable restaurants in Beijing which serve this delicacy are Quanjude and Bianyifang, two centuries-old establishments which have become household names. A variant of the dish known as crispy aromatic duck has been created by the Chinese community in the United Kingdom.

[1] Origin: Latin America. Chili pepper (from Nahuatl chilli), also known as, or spelled, chilli pepper, chilli, chillie, chili, and chile, is the fruit[1] of the plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae.

Although botanically speaking, the fruit of capsicums are berries, the peppers are considered as vegetables or spices for culinary purposes. Depending on flavor intensity and fleshiness, their culinary use varies from use as a vegetable (e.g., bell pepper) to use as a spice (e.g., cayenne pepper).

Chili peppers originated in the Americas. Their cultivars are now grown around the world, because they are widely used as food and as medicine.

ANOTHER HISTORY: FUSION COOKING But this history, which itself comprises several histories, each with its own temporality, is not the only history of food in modern and postmod-ern times. Other histories converge, intersect, or develop in parallel with the history of nouvelle cuisine, yielding results that might or might not resemble one another yet that are at the same time totally differ-ent. Here the case of fusion food, whose history interweaves with other histories that we lump together under the label of globalization, is in turn exemplary. As Sylvia Lovegren (1995: 420) suggests, fusion cooking is perhaps the most significant trend in food of the 1980s and 1990s and, to her mind, the one with the greatest likelihood to survive into the future. Unlike French-based nouvelle cuisine, fusion cooking, which blends cui-sines from different countries, developed on the West Coast of the United States at Japanese-French and Chinese- Italian-French restaurants. While hip and fashionable at first, fusion cooking lost much of its trendi-ness during the 1990s, but, as Lovegren indicates, by contrast it gained in acceptance so that by now “American cooks feel increasingly comfortable combining ingredients and techniques from around the world, without worrying about ’authenticity’ anymore” (Lovegren, 1995:4 20). Of course, Lovegren reminds us, in a way, fusion cooking is not new to Americans, or to people in other parts of the world. “As a nation of immigrants we have constantly adapted Old World foods to our won ways of doing thing” (Lovegren, 1995: 420) — just as, I note, people in the “Old World” adapted

“New World” foods to theirs. “Chili con carne, tamale pie, pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, jambalaya, and pasta primavera, among many others,” she explains, “can all be considered Fusion dishes. The difference now is that we are consciously melding cuisines, rather than simply adapting foreign foods to American tastes and ingredients” (Lovegren, 1995: 420).

Sokolov, in his usual way, attempts to place fusion cooking in a larger so-cial and cultural context. Sokolov was writing at a time when fusion cook-ing was still in its infancy and unrecognized as a separate trend; for him as for others writing during the late 1980s, fusion seemed to be a varia-tion of nouvelle cuisine. Yet, even then, Sokolov saw fusion as involving something different. Here, Sokolov is writing about a high-society buffet dinner he attended in the late 1980s in New York’s Rockefeller Center. The occasion served to mark the death of James Beard, one of New York’s most distinguished chefs; close to a thousand people paid a minimum of two hundred and fifty dollars each, Sokolov recounts, “for the privilege of

49

Roast-Duck1 Breasts with Pomegranate-Chile2 SauceIngredients

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

2 cups refrigerated pomegranate juice (such as Pom)

2 cups low-salt chicken broth

4 large dried California chiles,* stemmed, seeded, torn into 1-inch pieces

1 1/2 teaspoons adobo sauce from canned chipotle chiles in adobo**

1 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1/8 teaspoon ground cumin (not toasted)

Coarse kosher salt

PreparationHeat oven to 400°F. Sprinkle duck with five-spice powder, salt and pepper. Heat oil in a medium skillet over high heat. Cook duck until browned, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer skillet to oven; bake duck until outside is cooked but inside is rare, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 4 to 5 minutes. Thinly slice on the diagonal into 8 pieces, then cut each in half. Set aside. Form dough into 8 even balls, then flatten to form 3-inch disks and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Spread hoisin sauce on crusts with a pastry brush. Top with spinach, cheese, bell pepper and duck. Bake until cheese is melted and bubbly, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.

49


[1] Origin: China. A wonton (also spelled wantan, wanton, or wuntun in transcription from Cantonese; the Mandarin pronunciation is húntún) is a type of dumpling com-monly found in a number of Chinese cuisines.

Wontons are commonly boiled and served in soup or sometimes deep-fried. There are several common regional variations of shape.

The most versatile shape is a simple right triangle, made by folding the wrapper in half by pulling together two opposite corners. Its flat profile allows it to be pan-fried like a potsticker in addition to being boiled or deep-fried.

A more globular wonton can be formed by folding all four corners together, resulting in a shape reminiscent of a stereotypical hobo’s bindle made by tying all four corners of a bandanna together. The much larger Australian deep-fried dim sim has a similar shape, but wontons in this configuration are more commonly served in soup.

A related kind of wonton is made by using the same kind of wrapper, but applying only a minute amount of filling (frequently meat) and quickly closing the wrapper-holding hand, sealing the wonton into an unevenly squashed shape. These are called xiao

wountwun (literally “little wonton”) and are invariably served in a soup, often with condiments such as pickles, ginger, sesame oil, and cilantro (coriander leaves).

[1] Origin: Italy. Raviolies (plural; singular: raviolo) are a type of filled pasta com-posed of a filling sealed between two layers of thin pasta dough. The word ravioli is reminiscent of the Italian verb riavvolgere (“to wrap”), though the two words are not etymologically connected.[citation needed] The word may also be a diminutive of Italian dialectal rava, or turnip.

The earliest mention of ravioli appear in the writings of Francesco di Marco, a merchant of Prato in the 14th century. In Venice, the mid-14th century manuscript Libro per cuoco offers ravioli of green herbs blanched and minced, mixed with beaten egg and fresh cheese, simmered in broth, a recipe that would be familiar today save for its medieval powdering of “sweet and strong spices”. In Tuscany, some of the earliest mentions of the dish come from the personal letters of Francesco di Marco Datini, a merchant of Prato in the 14th century. In Rome, ravioli were already well-known when Bartolomeo Scappi served them with boiled chicken to the papal conclave of 1549.

“One does not have a hodgepodge of neatly bounded identities existing side by side within oneself, no matter how ‘postmodern’ one might be.”

5151

Pea and Parmesean Wonton1 Ravioli2

Ingredients 2 2/3 cups frozen peas (3/4 pound)

1/3 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano plus additional for

serving

2 teaspoons chopped mint

About 64 dumpling or wonton wrappers

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted

Preparation Cook peas in boiling salted water until just tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain and cool, then purée in a food processor. Stir in cheese, mint, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

Put a rounded teaspoon filling in center of a wrapper. Lightly brush edge of wrapper with water, then place a second wrapper on top and seal, pressing out any trapped air. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling, keeping ravioli covered as you work.

Boil ravioli in 2 batches in a pasta pot of salted boiling water until tender, 2 to 3 minutes per batch, removing with a slotted spoon. Drizzle with butter and sprinkle with cheese and pepper.

Ravioli were already known in 14th century England, appearing in the Anglo-Norman vellum manu-script Forme of Cury under the name of rauioles.[4][5]. Sicilian ravioli and Malta’s ravjul may thus be older than North Italian ones. Maltese ravjul are stuffed with irkotta, the locally produced sheep’s-milk ricotta, or with gbejna, the traditional fresh sheep’s-milk cheese.Preparation of home-made ravioli with ricotta.

Today, ravioli are made in worldwide industrial lines supplied by Italian companies such as Arienti & Cattaneo, Ima, Ostoni, and Zamboni. “Fresh” packed ravioli usually have seven weeks of shelf life. Canned ravioli, pioneered by Chef Boyardee, is arguably the most widely available form of ravioli available in cultures where ravioli is not a common dish. This type of ravioli is filled with either beef or processed cheese and served in a tomato, tomato-meat, or tomato-cheese sauce. Canned ravioli has more in common with other canned pastas than with traditional ravioli dishes. Its roots are in traditional American “red sauce” Italian-American restaurants opened by Italian immigrants in New York and other cities.

Similar foods in other cultures include the Chinese jiaozi or wonton – in fact, ravioli and tortellini are collectively referred to as “Italian jiaozi” or “Italian wonton” – Eastern and central European pierogi, the Russian pelmeni, the Ukrainian varenyky, the Tibetan momo, the Turkish mantı, German Mault-aschen, and Jewish kreplach. In the Levant, a similar dish called shishbarak contains pasta filled with minced beef meat and cooked in hot yogurt.

51


TRUE FUSION CUISINE“Elements of various culinary traditions while not fitting specifically into any. The term generally refers to the innovations in many con-temporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s”

53

Broiled Lambchops with Mint Chimichurri1

Ingredients For lamb chops:

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

4 (1-inch-thick) lamb shoulder chops

For mint chimichurri:

1 to 2 garlic cloves

2cups flat-leaf parsley including trimmed stems

2 cups mint including trimmed stems

1/3 cup distilled white vinegar

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For peas:

1 (10-ounces) package frozen peas

3 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

PreparationCook chops:Preheat broiler.

Stir together cinnamon and 11/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a bowl, then rub over chops. Broil in a 4-sided sheet pan 3 to 4 inches from heat, turning once, 8 to 10 minutes total for medium-rare.

Meanwhile, make chimichurri and cook peas:With motor running, drop garlic into food pro-cessor and finely chop. Add remaining sauce ingredients and 1/2 teaspoon salt and pulse un-til herbs are finely chopped. Transfer to a bowl.

Cook peas in water and butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, covered, stirring once or twice, until just tender, about 3 minutes.

Serve chops drizzled with a little chimichurri and serve peas and remaining chimichurri on the side.

What does the word fusion mean to you? To some it means combining music of different genres. To others, it’s the potential of clean nuclear power yet to be discovered. Other people become thirsty for a popular brand of blended fruit juice. Fusion is the combination of two or more separate things to make one end product. So, how would you define fusion cuisine? Wikipedia defines it as the combination of “elements of various culinary traditions while not fitting specifically into any. The term gener-ally refers to the innovations in many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s”. Based on this definition, some people may believe that restaurant menus that include separate dishes inspired from different cultural backgrounds make it fusion cuisine.

These same people may think that having Italian Eggplant Parmesan, French Coq au Vin, Greek Moussaka and Japanese Oden share one menu is fusion cuisine. Simply put, it is not. That would be called an inter-national menu and there’s nothing wrong with that; but it’s not fusion cuisine. Wikipedia’s definition is a good start but let’s remove some ambiguity by taking it a step further by stating that true fusion cuisine is the combination of two or more ethnic influences into one single dish creating a sum greater than its parts or, at least, that’s the intent. It is this type of culinary combination that we will explore on Examiner.com’s Dal-las Fusion Food Channel.

The most popular type of fusion cuisine in Dallas is Asian fusion which is a combination of ingredients and technique. It typically involves, but is not limited to, the Asian, American and European cooking styles and ingredients. If fusion cuisine sounds difficult to create, that’s because it is. Anyone can add an assortment of ingredients to a dish but it takes a really capable and passionate chef to prepare it in a way that doesn’t seem hodge-podge. The end goal is a multi cultural flavor that seems naturally homogenous regardless of its origin. Places like Chow Thai Pacific Rim in Plano, Abacus in Dallas or The Fish in Oak Lawn are successful examples of fusion cuisine. This channel is dedicated to providing more insight into this topic and you are invited to join us along the way.

[1] Origin: Argentina. Chimichurri or Chimmichurri is a kind of green sauce, though there is a red version as well, also used as a marinade, for grilled meat. It is originally from Argentina and Uruguay, but is also used in countries as far as Nicaragua and Mexico.

There are various fanciful etymologies for the word. One story claims that it comes from ‘Jimmy McCurry’, an Irishman who is said to have first prepared the sauce. He was marching with the troops of General Jasson Ospina in the 19th century, sympa-thetic to the cause of Argentine independence. The sauce was popular and the recipe was passed on. However, ‘Jimmy McCurry’ was difficult for the native people to say. Some sources claim Jimmy’s sauce’s name was corrupted to ‘chimichurri’, while others

say it was changed in his honor.Other similar stories involve Jimmy Curry, an English meat importer; a Scot, James C. Hurray, travelling with gauchos; and an English family in Patagonia overheard by the group of Argentinians that were with them while saying “give me the curry”. All the stories share an English speaking colonist and the corruption of names or words by the local population.

The Argentinian gourmet Miguel Brasco say that chimichurri word origins are be-tween the British prisoners after England tried to invade the Spanish colony of Argen-tina. This prisoners asked for condiment for their food mixing english, aborigines and Spanish (castilian) words. Che-mi-curry stands for “che mi salsa” (dame condimento)


KEN HOM FROM CHICAGO’S CHINATOWN TO INTERNATIONAL CULINARY ICONKen Hom, the globe-trotting Chinese-American chef who grew up in Chicago’s Chinatown, has had an auspicious 12 months, even by his standards.

Last June, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Hom an honorary Order of the British Empire (the highest-ranking recipients are knighted and titled “Sir” or

“Dame”) for “services to culinary arts,” specifically for his work on the British embrace of authentic Chinese cuisine.

This year opened with the 25th anniversary edition release of Hom’s first best-selling book, Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery. It’s never gone out of print, with more than 1 million copies sold in 13 or 14 translations, depending on whether or not you consider U.K. and U.S. English different languages.

His first book, Chinese Technique, was published in the United States in 1981, but it was Chinese Cookery, the 1984 companion book to the BBC television series of the same name, that estab-lished Hom’s career. To date, Hom has 28 books — on Chinese, Thai and East-West cooking — and five BBC series to his name.

The numbers climb far higher with Hom’s line of cookware, established in 1986. More than seven million of his woks and accessories have sold in 59 countries worldwide.

“One in every eight households in the U.K. now has a Ken Hom wok,” Hom says.Says Fuchsia Dunlop, the British cook and author who specializes in Chinese cuisine: “He’s hugely influential [in the U.K.]. When anyone thinks of Chinese food, they think of Ken.”

Last May, Hom quietly celebrated his 60th birthday. Though he’s often asso-ciated with early PBS food television, Hom was in fact born two genera-tions after Julia Child and is two years younger than Food Network’s grande dame, Paula Deen.

‘Down-to-earth’ food suits himI first met Hom for tea last spring in the Lobby restaurant at the Peninsula Chicago Hotel just prior to a dinner in his honor at the hotel’s Shanghai Ter-race restaurant. Hom stays at the hotel during his frequent visits back to see his mother, Ying Fong Hom.

Long gone were the wavy hair and slim, silky shirts immortalized in re-runs of his cooking shows and on You-Tube. The modern-day Hom has aged handsomely, with his Tom Colicchio-esque bald head and a Chinese-style

suit with a mandarin collar.

He spoke quietly and haltingly, but with flashes of his worldly life — an international culinary icon, anonymous in his hometown.

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“I come back at least two, three, four times a year to visit my mother, but not for a long time because of my commitments elsewhere,” Hom said. “I have a long history with the Pen, which you know is a Hong Kong institution. In the ’80s, I first started bringing chefs to Hong Kong. I’d drag them through hot, sweaty, dusty markets. Coming back to the hotel’s tranquility was almost like being stoned.”

The dinner that evening at Shanghai Terrace was a rare occasion.

“I normally like to have dinner with my family while I’m here,” Hom said. Earlier that day, he went with some relatives for lunch at Great Wall in Chinatown Square, where they ate pei dan sau yook jook (thousand-year-old egg and shredded pork congee).

“They also had chopped roast siu ngap [roasted duck]. I was in heaven,” Hom said.

“I don’t mean to sound blase, but I’m not interested in all these high-end restaurants. I don’t desire to have a three-star meal. I just want to eat very down-to-earth food, like a good roast chicken or a simple bottle of wine that I don’t have to think intellectually about or its history or what it’s been through.”

So where else does Hom eat in Chicago? “I like Lao Sze Ch-uan, Emperor’s Choice and Phoenix for dim sum. But I also like Mexican food.”

Hom does dine every visit at Frontera Grill and Charlie Trot-ter’s. Trotter was once a student of Hom.

“I’d decided to move out to California on a whim,” said Trotter. “This was back in the autumn of 1983. And I saw this flyer that

said that the famed Ken Hom was teaching classes out of his house in Berkeley.

“My Asian minimalist aesthetic, part of that I attribute that to Ken. He’s one of the few renaissance culinarians. He’s spent time everywhere, and not just quick trips, but quality chunks of time. I don’t know that I consider him American, Euro-pean or Asian. He's one of the few global culinarians.”Learning the ropes in Chinatown

While Hom’s professional life is one filled with success — cooking for celebrities including Tina Turner, mentoring chef and PBS star Ming Tsai — his early personal life reads like a Chinese soap opera.

He was born in Tucson and was only 8 months old when his father died from a heart attack.

“He’d just cancelled his life insurance policy, so my mother was left with nothing,” said Hom. “She moved us back to Chi-cago where she had family. I grew up in Chinatown, where I only spoke Cantonese until I was 6 years old.”

When Hom was 11, he started working after school and on weekend’s at his uncle’s restaurant, the old King Wah on Wentworth.

“Paul Lee wasn’t my ‘uncle-uncle’ but he was distantly related. He was called ‘uncle’ like my godson calls me ‘uncle,’” he said.

Hom earned around 50 cents an hour.

“I learned by osmosis and absorbed a lot of things from my uncle. He was a very cosmopolitan businessman and a hell of a hard worker. He became sort of a father/mentor type person to me.

“I would arrive at 7 or 8 on a Saturday morning and he would have already been there since 6 a.m. making rice noodles. He’d have three woks going. They’d all be steaming away while he was making the noodles with just rice flour and water. He would start the first one, then the second and third, then run back to the first.

“At that time the noodle manufacturers were only making cheap chow mein. No one was making fun [rice noodles] so he was making it himself.”

The restaurant offered two menus, one for Chinese custom-ers and “one for Westerners,” Hom said. “We’d get 80 pounds of conch delivered every week in burlap bags and I dreaded it because it was my job to break them open with a hammer. It was so smelly.

“The Chinese would come in weekends and order all that kind of stuff. During the week it was egg foo young and chop suey, but it was still a fancy restaurant.”

A teacher and mentor

Hom worked while attending Haines Elementary and then Tilden and Amundsen High Schools. He also attended Chi-nese school in the basement of the Chinese Christian Union Church in Chinatown.


Hom says he really learned Chinese language and culture at the movies.

“My mother used to drag me to this cinema, Sing Sing Theater near Harvey Park, every Sunday. Over peanuts, we’d watch three or four Chinese tear-jerker movies. I spoke a dialect, Toisan, so it helped me with my proper Chinese,” he said.

Hom later “escaped” the restaurant business by studying art history at the University of Cali-fornia at Berkeley, but he supported himself by teaching cooking classes, first on Italian pasta and later Asian cuisine.

Says Tsai, host of “Simply Ming” on PBS and owner of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass.: “I helped open the Intercontinental Hotel in Chicago in 1990 in food and beverage, but left to take the sous chef job at Silks in San Francisco because Ken was consulting. He was the first person I learned how to make Peking duck from.”

Blending stylesHom and Tsai are often both associated with so-called fusion cuisine. Not surprisingly, they both have strong opinions on the topic.

“I hate this word ‘fusion,’” Hom said. “It drives me crazy.”

Said Tsai, “I don’t like the term ‘fusion’ because you fuse atoms together to make nuclear bombs. You don’t fuse food. You blend food. Ken said to me early on, point blank, this is not a trend. It’s not a fad. We’re taking the oldest techniques and blending them.

“Once at Ken’s house in Berkeley, we came up with these ginger scallion cornmeal waffles and we incorporated them with Peking duck. It’s chicken and waffles and duck a l’orange. It was fabulous and brilliant.”

Tsai’s speculation on why Hom never became as well-known in the United States as he has in the United Kingdom?

“It was a combination of two things. Ken never had his own restaurant and it was hard to get

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a reputation pre-Food Network with no restaurant. And all the time he spent in Europe. He became like the Emeril of Europe.”

On the ‘Noodle Road’Louise Huterstein, 21, who grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, England and attends Northwestern University in Evanston, likens Hom to “an early Rachael Ray.”

“Not the dog food-selling Rachael Ray now, but back when she just showed that cooking was not that difficult,” Huterstein says. “Ken Hom simplified what seemed like a very complicated cuisine.”

Huterstein, whose parents are both chefs, admits she’s something of an anomaly among her peers.

“If you ask friends of mine from high school, they probably don’t know anything about him,” she says.

That will likely remain the case for most Ameri-cans. Hom says he has no plans to move back to the States.

“My life is elsewhere. I live in Paris, in the Pigalle in Montmartre, and winters I spend in Bangkok and Pattaya [Thailand]. I’m more in Asia now,” he said.

In 2008, Hom hosted “The Noodle Road,” a highly stylized, “Matrix” meets “Anthony Bour-dain: No Reservations” food and travel television series for the Korean Broadcasting System.

The award-winning, five-part series drew “10 to 15 million viewers in a country of 45 million people,” said Hom. “We filmed in about 14 coun-tries and spent three years on it.

“A friend just asked me, ‘You’re 60 and beginning this new career in Ko-rea?’ Koreans stop me in the street when I’m in Seoul. It’s stranger than fiction, I know.”

And as colorful as a Chinese soap opera.

Grilled Salmon Fillet with Mango1-Cucumber Salsa2

Ingredients 1 large ripe mango, peeled, seeded and diced

1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely

diced

1 small garlic clove, minced

Juice of 1 lime

1/8 tsp. ground cumin

1 cup chopped green onions, green portion only

1/2 cup diced red bell pepper

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 Tbs. chopped fresh cilantro

2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for grilling

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

4 salmon fillets, each 6 oz.

PreparationIn a large nonreactive bowl, stir together the mango, cucum-ber, garlic, lime juice, cumin, green onions, bell pepper, cayenne pepper, cilantro, the 2 Tbs. olive oil, salt and black pepper. Taste and adjust the season-ings. Set aside, stirring occasionally, until ready to use.

Prepare a hot fire in a grill.

Season the salmon fillets with salt and black pepper and brush both sides with olive oil. Arrange the salmon, skin side down, on the grill and cook until the skin is crisp and lightly browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Using tongs, carefully turn the salmon over and continue cook-ing until it is opaque throughout and lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes more, or until done to your liking.

Transfer the salmon to a warmed platter. Serve immediately and pass the salsa alongside.

[1] Origin: East Asia. Mangoes belong to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous species of tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is indigenous to India.[1] Cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions and distributed widely in the world, mango is one of the most extensively exploited fruits for food, juice, flavor, fragrance and color.

In several cultures, its fruit and leaves are ritually used as floral decorations at wed-dings, public celebrations and religious ceremonies.

[2] Origin: Spain. Salsa may refer to any type of sauce. In American English, it usually refers to the spicy, often tomato based, hot sauces typical of Hispanic cuisine,

particularly those used as dips. In British English, the word typically refers to salsa cruda, which is common in Mexican, Spanish and Italian cuisine. or “give me curry”. Later “che-mi-curry” corrupted to Chimichurri

The word salsa is derived from the Latin salsa (“salty”), from sal (“salt”). Saline and salad are related words. The proper Spanish pronunciation is; however most English speakers pronounce it as pronounced. The Spanish meaning of the word salsa makes the common expression “salsa sauce” redundant.

58 CONFUSION | entrees58 CONFUSION | entrees

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[1] Origin: East Asia. Roast beef is a dish of beef which is roasted in an oven. Essential-ly prepared as a main meal, the leftovers can be and are often served within sandwiches and sometimes is used to make hash. In England, Canada, Ireland, and Australia, roast beef is one of the meats traditionally served at Sunday dinner. A traditional side dish to roast beef is Yorkshire pudding.

In England, roast beef is the signature national dish which holds cultural and national-istic meaning for the English.

In a similar manner to the English use of the word “frog” to insult the French (as they eat cooked frogs), the French use “rosbif ”, meaning roast beef, as an insult to the English because of their association with the dish.

[2] Origin: Spain. Wasabi; Wasabia japonica, Cochlearia wasabi, or Eutrema japonica) is a member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbages, horseradish and mustard. Known as “Japanese horseradish”, its root is used as a spice and has an extremely strong flavor. Its hotness is more akin to that of a hot mustard rather than the capsaicin in a chili pepper, producing vapors that stimulate the nasal passages more than the tongue. The plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. There are also other species used, such as W. koreana, and W. tetsuigi. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are W. japonica cv. ‘Daruma’ and cv. ‘Mazuma’, but there are many others.

Roast Beef 1

Tenderloin with Wasabi2-Garlic CreamIngredients

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 large garlic cloves, pressed

1 tablespoon prepared wasabi

1 2 3/4- to 3-pound beef tenderloin, tied

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

Preparation Make Wasabi-Garlic CreamCombine cream and garlic in saucepan and cook over medium-high heat until reduced to 1 cup, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes. Whisk in wasabi and cook for 1 minute, remove from heat. Season to taste with salt.

Make TenderloinCoat beef with olive oil.

mix sugar and salt together. Rub this mixture over top and sides(not bottom) of beef. Place on rimmed baking sheet and place in preheat-ed oven. Be sure bottom is not rubbed.

Roast until thermometer inserted into center registers 120°F for rare. Remove from oven; let rest 10 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Remove strings. Reheat sauce over medium heat. Cut beef into thick slices; serve with sauce.

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Dessert

COCONUT-PILONCILLO ICE CREAM WITH COCONUT TORTILLA CHIPS AND FRUIT SALSA

ORANGE CHEESECAKE WITH CANDIED KUMQUATS

KATAIFI WITH CANDIED PUMPKIN AND YOGURT

LYCHEE COMPOTE WITH RASPBERRIES AND CHAMPAGNE GELEE

62 CONFUSION | dessert

Coconut-Piloncillo1 Ice Cream with Co-conut Tortilla Chips2 and Fruit Salsa3

Ingredients ice cream

3 cups canned unsweetened coconut milk* (preferably

organic)

1 cup finely crushed piloncillo** cones

1/8 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

3 large egg yolks

1 tablespoon dark rum

chips and salsa

4 7-inch-diameter flour tortillas

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

9 teaspoons plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 large egg white

2 large mangoes (about 1 pound each)

2 cups quartered hulled strawberries (from one 1-pound

container)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

*Available at many supermarkets and at Indian, Southeast

Asian, and Latin markets.

**Mexican raw sugar shaped into hard cones (smaller

chunks are sometimes labeled panocha); sold at Latin

markets.

PreparationICE CREAMCombine first 3 ingredients in heavy large saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean halves; add bean. Bring to simmer over medium heat, stirring until piloncillo dissolves. Remove from heat. Cover and steep 30 minutes.

Whisk egg yolks in large bowl. Gradually whisk in coconut milk mixture. Return to same sauce-

pan. Stir over medium-low heat until slightly thickened and thermometer registers 160°F, about 4 minutes. Cool custard 1 hour, then chill at least 2 hours or cover and chill up to 1 day.

Whisk rum into custard. Remove vanilla bean halves. Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to container. Cover and freeze at least 6 hours and up to 2 days (ice cream will not get very hard). chips and salsa

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Using small plate as guide, cut out 6-inch round from each tortilla. Cut each round into 6 triangles. Reassemble into rounds on prepared sheet.

63Grind coconut and 1 teaspoon sugar in processor. Beat egg white in small bowl until foamy. Brush some egg white all over each reassembled tortilla. Sprinkle each evenly with 2 teaspoons sugar, then 2 tablespoons ground coconut mixture.

Bake tortillas until crisp and topping is golden, about 20 minutes. Cool. Break triangles apart. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Working with 1 mango at a time, stand mango on its side. Cut off round-

[1] Origin: Central and South America. Panela is an unrefined food product, typical of Central and South America, which is basically a solid piece of sucrose and fructose obtained from the boiling and evaporation of sugarcane juice.

Common Spanish names: chancaca, papelón, piloncillo, panocha, rapadura, atado dulce or empanizao. In India and Pakistan a similar product is made which is called gur or jaggery. In Brazil, it is known as rapadura.

[2] Origin: United States (Mexican). A tortilla chip is a snack food made from corn tortillas, which are cut into wedges and then fried (alternatively they may be discs pressed out of corn masa then fried or baked). Corn tortillas are made of corn, vegetable oil, salt and water. Although first mass-produced in Los Angeles in the late 1940s[citation needed], tortilla chips are considered to be a Mexican food. Though usually made of yellow corn (as pictured), they can also be made of white, blue, or red corn.

The triangle shaped tortilla chip was popularized by Rebecca Webb Carranza as a way to make use of misshapen tortillas rejected from the automated tortilla manufacturing machine that she and her husband used at their Mexican delicatessen and tortilla fac-tory in southwest Los Angeles.[1] Carranza found that the discarded tortillas, cut into triangles and fried, were a popular snack, and she sold them for a dime a bag at the El Zarape Tortilla Factory. In 1994, Carranza received the Golden Tortilla award for her contribution to the Mexican food industry. She died in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 19, 2006, at the age of ninety-eight.

Tortilla chips are the quintessential and often complimentary appetizer in Tex-Mex and Mexican restaurants in the U.S. and elsewhere. Their popularity outside of Cali-fornia saw a steady rise in the late 1970s when they began to compete with corn chips, the dipping chip of choice during the first three quarters of the 20th century. They are typically served with a dip, such as salsa, chili con queso, or guacamole. When not served with a dip, the chips are often seasoned with herbs and spices. Although they

are now available worldwide, the United States is one of the main markets for tortilla chips. Commercial brand names for tortilla chips include Tostitos, Doritos, and Don Tacos (in Japan).

A more elaborate dish utilizing tortilla chips is nachos, which consists tortilla chips served with melted or shredded cheese, although often other toppings are added or substituted, such as meat, salsa (such as pico de gallo), refried beans, guacamole, sour cream, diced onions, olives, and pickled jalapeños. More elaborate nachos are often baked for a short period of time to warm the tortillas and melt shredded cheese. First created circa 1943 by Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, nachos may represent the earliest known creation from tortilla chips.

A similar fried corn snack is the corn chip, which is not made from a tortilla, but from corn meal which has been processed into a particular shape, typically a small scoop. Fritos are an example of this. The principal difference between the corn in tortilla and corn chips is that the corn in a tortilla chip has undergone a process known as nix-tamalization, which involves processing the raw corn with quicklime. Note that both tortilla and corn chips are referred to as “corn chips” in Australia and Oceania. The main snack food competing with tortilla and corn chips is potato chips or ‘crisps’.

[3] Origin: Spain. Salsa may refer to any type of sauce. In American English, it usually refers to the spicy, often tomato based, hot sauces typical of Hispanic cuisine, par-ticularly those used as dips. In British English, the word typically refers to salsa cruda, which is common in Mexican, Spanish and Italian cuisine. or “give me curry”. Later

“che-mi-curry” corrupted to Chimichurri

The word salsa is derived from the Latin salsa (“salty”), from sal (“salt”). Saline and salad are related words. The proper Spanish pronunciation is; however most English speakers pronounce it as pronounced. The Spanish meaning of the word salsa makes the common expression “salsa sauce” redundant.

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Orange Cheesecake1 with Candied Kumquats2

Ingredients Candied Kumquats:

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

9 ounces kumquats (about 25 medium), thinly sliced

crosswise, seeds removed

Crust:

2 cups vanilla wafer cookie crumbs (made from about

9 ounces cookies, finely ground in processor)

1/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

6 to 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

1 cup fresh orange juice

1 cup sugar, divided

2 tablespoons finely grated orange peel

4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 large eggs, room temperature

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PreparationFOR CANDIED KUMQUATS:Combine water and sugar in medium saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add kumquats; reduce heat. Simmer until kum-quat slices are translucent, about 25 minutes. Remove from heat; cool kumquats in syrup. Strain kumquats, reserving syrup. Combine kumquats and 1/4 cup syrup in small bowl. Return remaining syrup to same saucepan; boil until reduced to 1 1/4 cups, about 8 minutes. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover separately and chill.

FOR CRUST:Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Combine cookie crumbs and brown sugar in medium bowl; add 6 tablespoons melted butter and stir until crumbs feel moist when pressed together with fingertips, adding remaining 1 tablespoon melted butter if mixture is dry. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and 1 inch up sides of 9-inch-diameter spring-form pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides. Bake crust until set and edges are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool crust in pan on rack. Maintain oven temperature.

Wrap 4 layers of heavy-duty foil tightly around outside of pan with crust to make pan water-proof.

FOR FILLING:Combine orange juice, 1/4 cup sugar, and orange peel in small saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat. Simmer until mixture is reduced to 3/4 cup, about 10 minutes. Chill until cool.

Meanwhile, using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and remaining 3/4 cup sugar in large bowl until

smooth. Mix in sour cream, flour, and salt. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in cooled orange juice mixture. Pour filling into crust; place spring-form pan in large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of springform pan.

Bake cake until just set in center, about 1 hour 35 minutes. Remove cake from roasting pan; remove foil. Place cake directly in refrigerator and chill overnight. Arrange kumquat slices atop cake, covering completely. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Tent cake with foil and refrigerate.

Remove pan sides; place cake on platter. Cut cake into wedges; drizzle some kumquat syrup over and serve.

The KUMQUAT SYRUP is perfect with the cake—but don’t stop there. It’s also yummy drizzled over vanilla or coffee ice cream or in a cup of tea, a glass of club soda, or even a vodka Martini.

[1] Origin: United States. Cheesecake is a dessert consisting of a topping made of soft, fresh cheese on a base made from biscuit, pastry or sponge. The topping is frequently sweetened with sugar and flavored or topped with fruit, nuts, fruit flavored drizzle and/or chocolate.

Savory cheesecakes also exist, served sometimes as hors d’oeuvre or with accompany-ing salads.

The earliest author who mentions cheesecake is Aegimus, who wrote a book on the art of making cheesecakes. Cato the Elder’s De Agri Cultura includes recipes for two pies for religious uses: libum and placenta. Of the two, placenta is most like modern cheesecakes having a crust that is separately prepared and baked. In 1872, William Lawrence from Chester, NY, along with other dairymen, came up with a way of mak-ing an “un-ripened cheese that is heavier and creamier by accident, actually looking for a way to recreate the soft, French cheese, Neufchatel. Lawrence distributed the cheese in foil, becoming a brand that is familiarly recognized as “Philadelphia”. Later on in 1912, James Kraft invented a form of this cream cheese, but pasteurized it- this is now the most commonly used cheese for cheesecake.

[2] Origin: Southeast Asia. The kumquats or cumquats are a family of small fruit-bearing trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, in the genus Fortunella which is often included in the genus Citrus. The edible fruit closely resembles that of the orange (Citrus sinensis), but is smaller and is often oval.

They are slow-growing evergreen shrubs or short trees, from 2.5 to 4.5 metres (8 to 15 ft) tall, with sparse branches, sometimes bearing small thorns. The leaves are dark glossy green, and the flowers pure yellow, similar to other citrus flowers, borne singly or clustered in the leaf-axils. The kumquat tree produces 30 to 50 fruit each year. The tree can be hydrophytic, and fruit is often found floating near the shore during the kumquat season.[citation needed]

Kumquats originated in China, appearing in literature dating to the 12th century. They have long been cultivated in Japan, and were introduced to Europe in 1846 by Robert Fortune, collector for the London Horticultural Society, and shortly thereafter into North America. Originally placed in the genus Citrus, they were transferred to the genus Fortunella in 1915, though subsequent work (Burkill 1931, Mabberley 1998) favours their return to Citrus.


As American restaurateurs increasingly combine Chinese, Japanese, Thai or Pan-Asian cooking techniques and flavors with regional ingredients and Yankee culinary chutzpah, they are finding little historical guidance when it comes to meeting the meal-end expectations of their guests.

In Asia "there is not a concept for dessert," Asian cooking authority and restaurateur Bruce Cost explains. "It's kind of an Anglo-French thing." Asian cui-sine features "sweets," Cost says, but "nobody ordains that dessert is a part of everybody's meal."

Cost, who created Ginger Island in Berkeley, Calif., last year, opened Ginger Club, a "Tropical Asian" restaurant Nov. 3 in Palo Alto, Calif. His desserts include fresh ginger-infused spice cake with orange-flavored creme anglaise and lemon-grass-spiked ice cream.

"I don't feel any compulsion to serve authentic desserts because they don't exist," Cost says.

In contrast, the desserts served at The Mandarin in San Francisco are traditional foods but ones that fail to meet the cake-pie-or-pastry test of many dessert-seeking Westerners. Julian Mao, owner of the upscale Chinese restaurant, says fried and sugarglazed bananas, similar to those served in China's ancient Imperial Court, are one of the restaurant's best sellers.

The bananas are cut, lightly coated with flour, fried in the kitchen and stirred in a melted-sugar syrup at tableside before being dipped into ice water to encase the pulpy pieces in a sweet crystal shell.

Flavored creme brulees are becoming a standard within the East-West-

ASIAN DESSERT FUSION: A SWEET SUCCESS"I don't feel any compulsion to serve authentic desserts because they don't exist."

67

Kataifi1 with Candied Pumpkin YogurtIngredients

1 1/2 cups plain yogurt (14 ounces; not nonfat)

1 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons mild honey

2 cups water

1/3 cup granulated sugar

3 (3- by 1/2-inch) strips fresh lemon zest

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 3/4 pounds sugar pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled,

halved

lengthwise, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (4 cups)

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

slightly

3 tablespoons confectioners sugar

1/4 pounds kataifi (shredded phyllo dough) from a 1-pound

box, thawed

1/2 cup sliced almonds (2 ounces), coarsely chopped

Special equipment: a nonstick muffin tin with 12 (1/2-cup)

muffin cups

PreparationDrain yogurt in a sieve lined with a dampened paper towel or coffee filter and set over a bowl 1 hour, then discard liquid and stir drained yogurt and 1 1/2 tablespoons honey together in a small bowl until honey is dissolved.

While yogurt drains, bring water, granulated sugar, lemon zest and juice, cinnamon, and remaining cup honey to a boil in a 3- to 4-quart heavy pot over moderately high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then add pumpkin and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer pumpkin, covered, until tender but not falling apart, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer pumpkin to a bowl using a slotted spoon, then boil syrup until reduced to about 1 1/2 cups, 5 to 8 minutes.Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Stir togeth-er butter and confectioners sugar until combined well. Gently pull apart strands of kataifi in a large bowl to loosen, then toss with butter mixture and almonds until coated well. Divide kataifi among 12 muffin cups and press into bottoms and halfway up sides of the muffin cups, creating nests. Bake kataifi until the outsides are golden, 12 to 18 minutes (check by gently lifting one out of a muffin cup with a paring knife or small offset spatula), then cool completely in tin on a rack.

Transfer kataifi nests to serving plates. Just before serving kataifi, spoon about 1/3 cup pumpkin into each nest, then drizzle each with about 1 1/2 tablespoons syrup and top with a tablespoon of yogurt.

Cooks’ notes: Yogurt can be drained 1 day ahead and chilled in an airtight container.

Pumpkin in syrup can be cooked 3 days ahead and cooled completely, then chilled (together) in an airtight container. Bring to room temperature before proceeding.

Kataifi nests can be made 1 day ahead and kept in muffin tin, covered tightly with plastic wrap, at room temperature.

[1] Origin: Egyptian and Mediterranean.Künefe is a very fine vermicelli-like pastry used to make sweet pastries and desserts. It is sometimes known as shredded phyllo.

Kunafah is of Fatimid origin. Kunafah has long been present in Egypt and the Levant[citation needed]. It has also been a staple of the cuisines of the former Ottoman empire in the Eastern Mediter-ranean and the Balkans.

Kunafah is made by drizzling a row of thin streams of flour-and-water batter onto a turning hot plate, so they dry into long threads resembling shredded wheat. The threads are then collected into skeins.

Kunafah dough comes in three types: * khishna: “rough”, consisting of kadaif pastry, which looks like long thin noodle threads. * na’ama: “fine”, consisting of small pieces of semolina clustered together. * mhayara: a mixture of both khishnah and na’ama.

The pastry is heated with some butter, margarine or palm oil for a while and then spread with soft cheese (see Nabulsi cheese) and more pastry; or the khishnah kunafah is rolled around the cheese. A thick syrup, consisting of sugar, water and a couple of drops of rose water, is poured on the pastry during the final minutes of cooking. Often the top layer of kadaif pastry is colored using orange food coloring. Crushed pistachios are typically sprinkled on top as a garnish.

In Egypt, the filling is mainly composed of either crushed nuts mixed with powdered sugar and cinnamon, or of sweetened cream cheese.

In Turkey, only kadayif pastry (shredded pastry; called “wire kadayif ”) is used for making künefe. Kadayif is not rolled around the cheese. Cheese is put in between two layers of wire kadayif. It is cooked in small copper plates, served very hot in syrup with clotted cream kaymak and pistachios or walnuts.

The city of Nablus is especially renowned for kunafah. The kunafah of Nablus is filled with Nabulsi cheese and plays a central role in Palestinian cuisine.

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fusion segment: Elka in San Francisco and Nobu and Otabe in New York, among others, sell green tea-infused brulees; Roy's Restaurant in Hono-lulu in Hawaii instills the essence of lemon grass in its brulees; and Vong in New York hawks ginger creme brulees.Some chefs use green tea powder from Asian markets or restaurant supply houses for their brulees, while others steep tea leaves in boiling milk.

With the exception of brulees, however, meal cappers within the segments differ wildly as dessert makers combine traditional Asian items -- such as citrus, sweet red beans, seaweed gelatin and lychee -- with Western foods, including dairy products.

At Elka, the East-West restaurant in San Francisco, pastry chef D. Jemal Edwards turns out Asian pear tarte Tartin in bourbon-pear liquor with five-spice ice cream and "tiramisushi."

Inspired by the popular coffee-laced Italian dessert tiramisu and sea-weed-wrapped sushi rolls, "tiramisushi" is a coffee-and-coffee-liquor-soaked cake roll filled with coffee custard. The roll is dunked in chocolate, sliced in the fashion of a sushi roll and served with chocolate chop sticks.

"The biggest challenge with [fusion] desserts is to not get too trite. You have to resist adding ginger or sesame just to make it fit the theme," Gilmore adds. "I think we've fallen off the wagon in a few cases, such as with the 'tiramisushi.'"

Bruce Hill, chef at San Francisco's Oritalia, says a few East-West desserts have found a following at the Asian-Italian restaurant. One is a Fuji apple-almond tart served with vanilla bean gelato and cranberry caramel.

Roy's pastry chef, Rick Chang, offers guests at the Euro-Asian restaurant a fried eggroll-like dessert filled with apple, banana and pineapple and served with a cinnamon-ginger creme anglaise.In Houston at the Empress of China, chefowner Scott Chen mixes Western-style desserts, such as cheesecake and choco-late souffle, with the likes of a dish called

"Dragon Eyes" and an-other, red bean-stuffed, honey-glazed bananas served with lime, mango and raspberry sorbets.

[1] Origin: Spain and Mexico. Sometimes Latin American restau-rants make the distinction between regular flan and dolce de leche, flanflanflan served with a milk caramel sauce. Unlike crème caramel, the milk caramel sauce is added after the flanflanflan is baked and inverted. It is creamy rather than crunchy.

FlanFlanFlan enjoys great popularity in the US, in Latin American countries, and in the Philippines. It is also very popular in Japan, where some variants may be made with soymilk, since many native Japanese do not regularly consume cow milk.

There are also some instant flan mixes available. Thickening from these tend to come from the addition of either agar or gelatin. Authentic flanflanflan would probably not use either thickener, but would depend upon the addition of eggs to create the proper thick-ness. Most restaurant recipes, however, suggest gelatin.

While flan is most often present in individual portions, some make a large flanflanflan to serve at parties. This can be a particularly visu-ally appealing dish, especially if either dolce de leche is added to the top, or if the flanflanflan has been baked over a layer of caramelized sugar. Some even use a small blowtorch to further harden the sugar after baking. This provides a nice crunch that contrasts well with the creamy custard.

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Named for the image conjured up by its ap-pearance, "Dragon Eyes" features the white,round lychee fruit, which are stuffed with a strawberry-cream cheese mixture and served on a berry sauce.

Yoshi's Cafe in Chicago is "mostly a European restaurant with a little Oriental influence," Yoshi Katsumura, the chef-owner, says. His dessert menu includes green tea ice cream, pump-kin caramel with ginger and Japanese-style seaweed gelatin cubes and fruit in a simple syrup with ice cream.

At Otabe in New York the fusion desserts are the work of French pastry chef Eric Hubert. Many of his desserts are prepared on a tableside griddle, including hot pancakes spread with made-to-order jam. A yogurt sauce is served on the side in a cookie cup. Another Otabe dessert combines pear sauteed in clarified butter, figs and anise-mint tofu ice cream.

At nearby Vong pastry chef Serge Decrau-zat's creations include banana-kiwi-passion-fruit salad with white pepper ice cream and chocolate mousse with caramel-sesame ice cream.

Drew Nieporent, man-aging partner of New York newcomer Nobu, says the restaurant tries to include in its desserts products that are available in Japan, including pumpkin and persimmons. He says a few desserts based on traditional Japanese foods were recently

added, including Amitsu, a dish made with apricots, other diced fruits and red bean paste. A tart made with candied orange peel and served with chocolate sorbet and yellow plum-sake sorbet are also part of Nobu's des-sert repertoire.

Tangerine-Honey Flan1v with Grape-fruit SegmentsIngredients

3/4 cup sugar, divided

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs

4 large egg yolks

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup finely chopped tangerine peel

(cut from 3 large tangerines with vegetable peeler)

1 cup fresh tangerine juice

2 pink grapefruits

PreparationPosition rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Bring 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water to boil in heavy small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until sugar dissolves and brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush. Increase heat and boil without stirring until syrup is deep amber color, swirling pan occasionally, about 7 minutes. Pour caramel syrup into 8-inch-diameter cake pan with 1 1/2-inch-high sides; quickly rotate pan so syrup covers bottom.

Whisk eggs, yolks, honey, vanilla, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Bring cream, con-densed milk, and tangerine peel to simmer in medium saucepan. Slowly whisk hot cream mixture into egg mixture. Whisk in tangerine juice. Strain custard into caramel-lined pan. Place pan into 13x9x2-inch metal baking pan. Pour enough hot water into baking pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan.

Bake flan until set in center when cake pan is slightly moved, about 40 minutes. Remove from water; cool 30 minutes. Chill flan un-covered until very cold and firm, at least 6 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; keep chilled.)

Cut all peel and pith from each grapefruit. Working over medium bowl, cut between membranes, releasing segments. Chill until ready to use.

Cut around flan in pan. Place plate on top of pan and invert, releasing flan. Cut into wedges; serve with grapefruit.

Images

Epicurioushttp://www.epicurious.com

Bon Appetithttp://www.bonappetit.com

Flickrhttp://www.flickr.com

Chicago Sun Timeshttp://www.suntimes.com

GastronomicaGastronomica Magazine

The Language of Foodhttp://languageoffood.blogspot.com

Floating Leaves Teahttp://www.floatingleaves.com

Ozark Warriorshttp://www.ozarkwarriors.com

L. Tom Recipe BookLinda Tom’s recipe book

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essays•interviews•recipes

Epicurioushttp://www.epicurious.com

Bon Appetithttp://www.bonappetit.com

Chicago Sun Timeshttp://www.suntimes.com

AnswerFood & Culture Encyclopedia:

Julie L. Locher

Food for ThoughtWhen Worlds Collide

Mark R. Vogel

On Fusion Cuisine and BeyondGlobalization: Critical Concepts In Sociology

Roland Robertson, Kathleen E. White

Venerable Home: Fusion Cooking and Nouvelle Cuisinehttp://www.suntimes.com

Minjoo Oh

Alley is Gourmet ParadiseSt. Petersburg Times

Charles Hillinger

An Exclusive Interview with Chef Wolfgang Puckhttp://www.about.com

John Mitzewich

Asian Dessert Fusion: A Sweet SuccessNation’s Restaurant News

Alan Liddle

True Fusion CuisineDallas Fusion Food Examiner

MC Cunningham

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