Inglenook - for discussion

[chattius 2,526]

I do hard to keep uptodate with forum these weeks. Summer breaks, so no school for kids. I spend my spare time mainly to drive kids to their friends/town/swimming. Disadvantage of countryside is obviously not a lot of busses/trains to do the driving. Actually there are just 3 busses a day 5am, 1pm, 9 pm to town.

 

Beckeoffe is an Elsass recipe not really used at my place, while my wife is knowing it.

 

Wine in soup:

There are recipes for wine soups along the rivers Rhine and Main in germany. These are the places were wine is produced in germany and most recipes contain wine. However, we live in the hessian state which is known for its apple-wine. So closest to a wine soup in our region and really tasty at a hot summer would be:

 

 

Applewine-onion soup

 

2 spoons butter

1 spoon lard

one pound onions cut into rings

 

heat till onions look like glas

 

add 1spoon of brown sugar and roast/caramalize the onions till they are brown

 

add a spoon of flour to the onions

pour 0,2 litres of apple-wine and 1 litre of broth made from fine cut garden herbs to the onions

and boil with a cover at small heat for 15 minutes

 

adding some salt,pepper and if liked 0-4 spoons of destilled fruit-wine or a Apfelkorn to your taste

 

Apfelwein = german cider

Apfelkorn = sweet apple-liqueur

[Bondbug 32]

Nice recipe - need to try that. I have always had a weakness for cider. Used to drink "scrumpy" wwhen I was in Cider Steve's area - selling ice cream from a van.

 

But wine soup is something different from the chabrol, which is just a question of adding a little red wine to the last spoonfulls of a very hot soup, preferably vegetable soup, then drinking it out of the bowl.

 

I note "Beckeoffe" - yet another spelling! The one my wife made was from one of the recipes we have, and was very good.

 

Thanks Chattius

 

I think we all have difficulty keeping up to date with forum during summer holidays. We are away for another 3weeks from the end of this week. We too live in the country, and we have no buses at all.

[Bondbug 32]

Sitting here in a state of shock. I needed a quiet corner. My wife had apparently said that we would take care of the Xmas hooch. They pointed me to a BC Wine shop. So I looked at the wines ... nice selection ... then I looked at the prices.

 

Just got back from hospital. Severe shock. Slight heart attack.

 

Fortunately my wife just received £10,000 lump sum on reaching the age of retirement, so we might just manage a bottle or two for Xmas.

 

I suppose the Canadians are used to this state of affairs. 10$canadian for a bottle that would cost 2euros at home. If I lived here I would be tea-total, and that would be an even greater shock to my system. Even forewarned we would only have been able to bring in 2 bottles each. Sorry Gogo, but that was Xmas in your beautiful country ruined at one stroke. However the eReaders were on special offer, and meals are a good price. Can't win them all. What do you drink? Is it all home-brew?

 

This is the day when Xmas would have started in my youth. School breaks up ... (to be continued if poss after meal)...

[chattius 2,526]

Alcohol taxes, brandy taxes, export taxes?

 

I was on a sales travel in scandinavia 2 years back and I found a restaurant serving german food. Normally I eat whatever the country I visit offers. But the company owner I visited somehow caught me in a conersation about german food. I said what he is naming geran food would be just northern germany, lot of sea fish. So we looked at the internet and found this restaurant which offered more mid german food. The prices were really acceptale, when sked wht to dribk to the lunch I said applewine or beer. Whow, the beer prices were 5 times the ones in germany, and it was a local beer. Alcohol taxes....

 

I exchanged recipes with a fire department in the states, we twinned with it, I was shocked that the cheap local hand cheese is sold for ten times the price at gourmet shops there.

[Bondbug 32]

I spent about 45 minutes writing a post here, then it crashed back to desktop. Forgot I should write it all out in wordpad then cut and paste. Now the family are back and time has gone. Will try again tomorrow

[Bondbug 32]

This interests me Bond, what are you eating a lot of in Vancouver that you're finding different from back home but that you think is good?

 

Did some reading on Provence...is that where you're really living in France...the ULTIMATE gourmet fantasy hangout?

 

The place that dreams and magazine spreads are made of...(quote from Gogo)

 

Moved this here as it did not seem very apt "Creatrix" material -

 

No Gogo, we are not really eating anything here that we do not eat at home. No poutine! Lots of shellfish around, and fish and chips if required. There is even a branch of CAMRA here for "Real Ale" ... pity the price here puts it out of my budget. Oh - Maple Syrup ... every country seems to have it own sweet syrups.

 

And sorry but no, we are not in Provence, which, as you say, is a superb region, not just gourmet but visually. We are in a region called prosaically "Centre" (which includes Paris at its top end), in a Departement called Touraine in the southern edge of the region. Flat area except where the Loire cuts its way through the limestone with lots of troglodyte caves used for wine storage. It is the area for chateaux, wine and fruit ... the garden of France, though oddly enough grapes do not need good soil. We have Vouvray and Montlouis among the top whites, along with very good Touraine Sauvignon white, and Chinon, St Nicolas de Bourgeuil, Bourgeuil among top reds with Saumur and Saumur Champigny alongside plus a host of other noteworthy reds and whites. Plus the Chateaux along the Loire. Tours is a very fine centre for music as well, largely classical (and baroque which we don't like much) with jazz not far behind. Good cuisine, but not the taste of Provence. Much of my wife's cooking, when it is French orientated (rather than British, Italian, Indian, Greek), is Provencal based, though Cassoulet which we have regularly is more Toulouse area.

 

And we can afford to drink wine with our meals every day.

 

P.S. Will have to check up on Vancouver cuisine - we are an English family, all meals cooked from scratch and we have not really been around looking at the local cuisine here(sad admission). Also I need to consult Viv on Touraine cooking. There are local specialties but I would have difficulty myself identifying them from our normal domestic cuisine after 16 years in the region. We eat out rarely these days. The few restaurants we liked have died the death, and the present exchange rate has severely limited our evenings out.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Bondbug

[Bondbug 32]

... further to previous post:

 

Vancouver & Touraine.

 

Both lacking interesting food specific to region.

 

Vancouver produces cranberries, has many Eastern Asia restaurants - Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and has steak & lobster meals which I gather are common across Canada. The Asiatic, especially Japanese, are good and cheaper than in France, but hardly Vancouver specialties. Plus what I believe are called Microbreweries - brilliant, just like the old days for beer, before we got drowned in tasteless fizz.

If I had the time and could afford it I would try some of the Real Ales on offer in the Waterfront area, a Japanese meal and a steak & lobster nosh up, plus perhaps a Thai meal (love Thai and Vietnamee ). Ah, well ... next time perhaps, if the dear old £ sterling recovers its former exchange rate against the euro.

 

As for Touraine regional specialties such as Fouee (like nan bread), rillettes, and rillons are fair enough but hardly memorable cuisine. Do the chateaux and vineyards then head south for the food.

 

No doubt some of the Vancouver residents on the forum could give a better crit on local BC specialties.

[gogoblender 3,070]

Wow, I had good time to indulge this morning, and Bond, your warm and well-written write up has gotten me into this spirit of "cooked from scratchness" in my head.

 

Ah, Provence...it's only cuz of Anthony Bourdain that I had found out about it. He's the cook/writer/instigator (yes, I rather fancy that word when it comes to about anything ) that enslaves camera crews and food photographers to become his entourage while he trips about to unknown, sometimes sultry parts of cities and countries exploring and revealing delicious gourmet goodies. He does often, as well, visit the classics, and his three part series on Provence stole my heart. When asking a couple there who had asked him what two things they could not do without, they answered, wine and herbs.

 

Herbs!

 

And yet, when her sauce pan was shown cooking oh so beautiful ingredients, laid upon them like a strange small broom was a swatch of (something?) who's taste I could only imagine imparting to the meats and vegetables something so valuable she could not leave her "terroir" without.

 

Now of course, you've gotten me thinking about other areas of France now^^

 

 

gogo

[Bondbug 32]

"other areas of France" ... what better to refresh your few idle hours. Try Alsace next.

 

Mind you I bet Chattius would be less enthousiasic (blast this qwerty keyboard) about French cuisine with all the good stuff he churns out in Germany, and I suspect the Italians would dispute the supposed French superiority. Nowt wrong with British cooking either if you can get into proper traditional English and Scottish cooking.

 

However ... try Alsace next ... wines and cuisine ... and beer though too much of it is Eurofizz these days, which is why I envy you your microbreweries. Same in Germany when I visited the Cologne area back in the er..50s. Every bar had its own brewery ... don't know whether it is still the same now.

 

Funny thing about these TV chefs they don't last over long. I think the good living does for them. Too much booze and fat and stuff and not enough poutine.

 

Any way, the final Xmas explosion is about to burst on us, so I had better wish all and sundry a happy family Xmas, and a successful survival of the New Year orgies.

 

Then I have to get back to France via GB, and am not looking forward to the long drive south in a jet-lagged stupour (sure the spelling there does not look right).

[Bondbug 32]

Unexpected bonus. Family have all gone off to IKEA. Freed at last from the eagle eye of she-who-thinks-she-must-be-obeyed, I have managed to get out and get the last present for her, and I have time to spare ... I think.

 

So Gogo, you talk of cooking 'from scratch'. Not always easy in the city.

 

You need access to good fresh materials, which usually means access to open markets where local producers bring their wares. I recognise that some supermarkets do all they can to bring their veg. to the sale point fresh, and many reject stuff just at the point when it is becoming interesting, but it is never the same. Interior atmospheres, however carefully controlled, are never as kind to veg as open air ... good for folks like myself who hate indoor air-conditioned atmospheres. We buy big bags of beans every year to shell/shuck for cassoulets. If you are not careful you will find slightly rotting stuff in the centre of the sack. Mind you, even with open markets you have to look carefully, and find merchants you can trust. We are lucky where we live there are good markets in the villages and small towns near us, though not in our village itself which has nothing - no shops at all now where there used to be 7 or 8. In the villages here the merchants do not sell the shop when they retire; they close the shop, convert it into living accommodation and continue to live there among the people they know. Streets in the centre of these villages are full of houses with what were obviously old shop windows and doors on their street facades. There is even one old pub not far away where the now retired owner has not even bothered to remove the old signs and advertising panels ... no sign at all that it not still a working pub. That wouldn't do in England, but I suspect much of mainland Europe is the same.

 

Some cities are fortunate in still having large, probably 19th century covered markets, iron/wrought-iron enclosures and gates, with plenty of air circulating, but many authorities have pulled these down and replaced them with more hermetically sealed modern replacements, usually away from the town centres and near the major roads for road access. These have become distribution centres instead of accessible live markets. I don't know the situation in N. America. Vancouver for instance is only about 100 years old - Port Moody here is currently celebrating its 100th birthday, and, given the rate of expansion since then I doubt if any early 20th century markets have survived. The best markets for keen cooks are neither drive-in nor cooped up in giant commercial centres. Need to ask daughter, who is a keen 'from scratch' cook when time allows how she manages, or, as I suspect, adapts to what is available. She grows what she can in their garden and they have friends with an allotment so they manage pretty well. But time for two busy professional people is limited, and with a son subject to 7 year old 'peer pressure' the house is still full of the most unimaginable (to me) crap.

 

So how do you hard working city folks get by ... or are you completely conditioned to the mass produced pre-packed alternative living style. Perhaps I should get realistic and accept that the cook from scratch (very old-fashioned) way of life is the small minority alternative living style. I hasten to say that we adopted it because it is much cheaper than the pre-packed food style, though I think that fact has been disputed here in the past. You are lucky to have Chattius who is much more in tune with the times and who gives the impression of being a knowledgeable and dedicated do-it-yourself type.

 

Whoops ... here they come ... I'm off.

[chattius 2,526]

I have a bit time while controlling the potatoe fire.

 

Picture from a nearby potato festival this summer

 

 

I think I posted years back that we do potato fires after harvest. This year we are nearly 75 relatives, some fom big towns, so we decided to show the town kids some old traditions. Burn down like three cubic metres beech wood, lay potatoes in, wait till the potato skin shoes no water bubbles anymore, cover whole potatoe with more hot ash, wait half an hour, yummy.

 

One of my nieces will marry tomorrow and we had most space. All kids in barn in sleeping bags, kids rooms for my siblings...

 

Rarely that I have enough people to try out these large recipes... Potato fire, field kitchen

 

Talking about markets:

Wetzlar, a30000 people town in my youth, had several market places. Picture is the kornmarkt, market for corns: wheat, rye, barley,... It has a fountain mid which was used for the horses. Then there were markets for iron tools, fish, ... Now there is just one marketday a week at cathedrale where mainly veggs, meat and eggs are sold.

August Imgard, who brought the x-mas tree to the states lived there before he emigrated. More omportantly, at lest for me, my first girl friend too.

 

[Bondbug 32]

Looks as if you are enjoying your Xmas. Good luck for the wedding.

 

Will have to try your potatoe cooking method. We used to do this on Bonfire Night, Nov5th. But I did not have the right technique.

 

At present e use wood fire, but I expect it would need more wood than we use with our small number of potatoes wrapped in foil and cooked in the fire for 30-40 mins. We usually do this when we are using the hot ashes for barbecuing. We don't get the taste of the wood ash into the potatoes.

[Bondbug 32]

Previous post seems to have posted itself twice. Deduct 100 posts. Go to jail direct. Do not pass GO. No poutine for 3 months Edited December 26, 2011 by Bondbug

[chattius 2,526]

Back to Anrhony Bourdain:

I think he did a single episode in germany and then he was choosing Berlin, outch. Local cooking traditions depended on a lot of factors:

 

Taking germany, once 100 small kingdoms, each taking taxes, so it highly depended where you lived if you could for example afford sea fish, south germany after passing a dozen tax stations, outch. Then after Martin Luther, religion splitting, some recipes following old feasting rules, some being free. Add laws like the 500+ year old german beer brewing law. It was not meant to keep chemicals away, as it has been these days, but to use high quality and expensive barley for beer, and leaving wheat and rye for bread baking for a then starving population. Some areas becoming creative and saying that beavers would be fishes and allowed to be eaten while feasting, ... Some other food rules to keep independand from imports,.... Some kings convinced the pope that they had no fat resources than butter and that they should be allowed to use it while feasting,... Other kings werent begging,... So there was no thing someone would call a german cuisine. Lot of local recipes.

 

Traditional food ws hindered alot by politics, accessibility, price, ....

 

The area I live now was decleared more or less free centuries ago. It was able to produce evrything needed on its own 400 years ago. Producivity per square mile was not reached even with ferilizer and machines till the 1960ties. Put being independand meant not much imported food and more importnt spices, food was following seasons,...

 

Spicing was done for example with dried mushrooms instead garlic or bear garlic in winter.

[Bondbug 32]

I thought Germany unified nearly 150 years ago. I take it that the main states have retained strong regional differences in cooking, depending on resources, as they have in GB and France which 'unified' over 500 years ago. Despite a certain multi-national trying to persuade everyone to eat the same thing, when people cook for themselves they fall back on the old traditional regional variations.

[podgie_bear 184]

Despite several multinationals and just about every big chain and supermarket who wants to 'rationalise' what they sell. It gets harder and harder to even buy some of the ingrdients as they are determined to decide what we should be allowed to buy.

Edited January 9, 2012 by podgie_bear

[Bondbug 32]

You should try buying ingredients for British cuisine in France laddie. The basic tatties and meats are there but in different formats (how can a tattie be in a different format? Good question). Some things are scarce, some things free. Turnips (maybe swedes to you!) are not easy, the French had nothing else to eat during the war and still refuse on the whole to eat them. Tea is easy, but it is tea for French taste, for drinking without milk, and expensive by my standards. We buy a year's supply of leaf tea on our annual visits to GB. Curry spices are difficult and expensive. We have problems with oatmeal (ground). Custard is beginning to appear. Bovril and the like not available but we make our own stock and gravy anyway. But these are minor problems and can be got round. Suet however, which the French turn their noses up at, is great - free if you ask nicely, otherwise thrown away or wrapped round meat to stop it drying out in cooking.

 

But I have been disturbed by the way in which supermarkets have been trying to iron out regional differences in traditions and terminoloy. I still, for instance, recall that when we first went to live in Scotland Xmas was not recognised, no break, but 3 days for New Year. Now they fall in line with Xmas (commercial boom time). I wonder for instance (have not been north for a while) what has become of "turnips" and "swedes" in north versus south terminology, and all the different regional variations in names for spring onions.

[chattius 2,526]

Yes, at my parents a small supermarket chain had like 100 different sausages and 3 diffeent potato chips. Then walmart took over and it was like 100 different potato chips and 3 different sausages. Dried peas and beans only in 2 variants,....

 

Half a year later my mother started to buy only at the towns street market.

 

But there is still the garden, where a crazy technical mathematician can farm mathematical vegs to teach maths to the kids while cooking. No joke:

 

 

Self similiar as fractals, number of spirals do fibonacci numbers,....

 

Oldest recipes in my area are 250+ years old. Someone on the walz brought it back from italy. Nice mix of broccoli and cauliflower.

 

Preferred recipe: roasted with Mett and noodles.

[Bondbug 32]

OMG - didn't realise Walmart had arrived. Bad as MacDonalds. With apologies to our North American friends, I for one do not want an American takeover of our shopping habits.

 

Anyway - back from Vancouver and happy in my little boring village - armed with a camera at last.

 

So a trial posting! I was not sure where to postthis. It may relate to Chattius thread about old kitchen utensils, but it is in fact still used here, and probably elsewhere to. It is the iron for burning the top of "creme brulée" - sorry I can't remember the English name.

 

Basically for burning the sugar on top of a bowl of "egg custard", but any firm crème could be improved this way - blancmange, ordinary custard well set.

 

This is (I hope) the preliminary set-up: crème in bowls, iron on gas. The iron is called "fer à bruler" here, I.e. iron for burning.

 

 

 

This shows red hot (or nearly) iron applied to top of the sugar that is generously sprinkled on top of the crème.

 

 

 

This shows the finished aspect of the first crème

 

Yum.

 

Yep - I think that camera will do nicely -er - not to eat of course, nor brulée

[gogoblender 3,070]

wow, you made my morning!

My Aunt just made Creme brulee for Christmas, and it was fantastic. She used so many eggs, I could feel them on my tongue while eating the stuff (only yolks she says, nothing but the best for us!)

 

Great photos, I think we need this recipe...is it just cream and yolks?

 

 

gogo

[Bondbug 32]

Thought I had posted a brief reply - certainly wrote one! With apologies for delay - I don't get here as often as I would like to.

 

Anyway - recipe in main kitchen threads, with a PS for your Aunt.

 

My wife uses egg and milk (! cholesterol) and sugar, but it is good nonetheless!

Edited January 24, 2012 by Bondbug

[chattius 2,526]

The sister of our au pair girl will come for a one week visit to germany. She is a vegetarian and now we really wonder which typical local recipes are vegetarian No lard, ham, sausages, ...

 

It will probably result into some poor people food, with stuff which is ready in and around house. I wonder if cheese and milk is allowed? I do hard in the non german classification of the no meat, no meat and no eggs, no meat and no eggs and no milk, no meat but fish allowed, ...

[Bondbug 32]

Kisch? If egg was permitted!

[cider_steve 26]

The sister of our au pair girl will come for a one week visit to germany. She is a vegetarian and now we really wonder which typical local recipes are vegetarian No lard, ham, sausages, ...

 

It will probably result into some poor people food, with stuff which is ready in and around house. I wonder if cheese and milk is allowed? I do hard in the non german classification of the no meat, no meat and no eggs, no meat and no eggs and no milk, no meat but fish allowed, ...

 

My mother has been vegan for some years now, and was vegetarian since the 1960's.

 

Traditionally vegetarians won't eat meat, fish, sea food etc, whereas vegans add any dairy products to that list, which limits the diet.

 

My mum uses products like quorn and tofu to supliment her meals. She eats lots of beans/pulses etc too.

[chattius 2,526]

I am thinking about apple dumplings. I was told that an apple dumpling in southern USA is apple pieces in a dough. The ones I do are closer to meat balls, just no meat. It was a typical meal to get rid of leftovers in my family.

 

Take 6 old, dry and hard breadrolls. Lay them in water to soften them.

Cut 6 pounds apples into small sticks, typical ones which are sorted out for storing in cellar- worm holes and such

Add 6 eggs, 150 gramm butter and 750 gramm flour

Form dumplings and heat them for 15 minutes in hot apple wine

 

You can serve the dumplings with vanilla sauce and cinnamon as a dessert.

 

 

Now we have a a pot with used apple wine, hmmm. We take it as a base for a soup. Roast some fine cut leek, carrots, onions and parsley root in a pan and put it into the pot with the applewine. Add fine cut potato cubes, boil it, use a mixer/blender/liquidizer to make it creamy. Add cream and most important fine cut over-ripe handcheese. Boil till handcheese start to meld, put on a dish and add a dumpling or 2 on each soup. Rest of dumpling are frozen to be a dessert on another day.

 

Handkaese, hand cheese, is done by bacteria and not by calf stomach pieces, so it should hopefully qualify as a vegan food. Very tasty low fat cheese which ripes all the time, and gets a more and more stronger smell and taste. If it is really ripe and I would like to eat it, rest of family refuses to sit at same table. Then it ends in this soup

 

So nothing wasted at this recipe, should make vegans and tree huggers happy.

 

5 of the 6 german companies which produce hand cheese are in a radius of 8 kilometres around my birthplace. I really grew up with it. Production of hand cheese

 

When it was market day in town I was ordered by my father to buy hand cheese at the market when returning from school. Was probably this selling trailer I remember: