Sorrel

Sorrel Leaves and Parsley.

Although we've had no nice weather for growing plants outdoors lately, some of the farmers who sell at Argus Farm Stop not far from our house have been growing nice green leaves in their hoop houses or otherwise under glass. Shopping there today I found some sorrel -- a delicious, sour leafy green that's common in parts of Europe but quite hard to find here. I made it into a puree with some parsley, olive oil, and a bit of garlic. All were briefly cooked so that the leafy parts were just wilted, and then pureed with the immersion blender.

Traditionally, sorrel is the main ingredient in the Eastern European soup called Schav, or Green Borscht. I don't recall ever tasting it in my childhood, probably because no sorrel was available: we just had spinach or beet borscht. Sorrel (oseille in French) is also an ingredient in the very famous dish "Saumon à l'oseille façon Troisgros" -- that is, salmon with sorrel puree in the style of the Troisgros brothers, who owned a famous restaurant in Roanne, France, and were pioneers of the Nouvelle Cuisine in the mid-twentieth century.

Our dinner tonight: pan-broiled steak, potatoes in olive oil dressing, and sorrel puree.

Sorrel is mentioned by a variety of French and Russian/Jewish authors -- and one Canadian -- that I've read, including Zola, who considered it a food for poor people. You can see all the times I've read about it or used it (including this one) by clicking here: sorrel.

Iain Pears: "Arcadia" -- A Mash-Up

"'Of course I can cook,' she said crossly. 'I used to enjoy it. I can do fresh perch in a cream and sorrel sauce. Calf’s head in honey and vinegar. Jams and preserves of all sorts. What do we have?' 

"'Bread, cheese, beer, some pickled meats as a treat and porridge for breakfast,' Callan said with an amused snort. 

"'What about tomorrow?' 

"'Bread, cheese, beer, some pickled meats as a treat and porridge for breakfast,' Callan said again. 'That’s easy enough, then.' 

She could drink as well, and felt she deserved to, as she had been the one who had carried the two heavy jars of strong beer. Once the food was ready, Callan made the blessing over it and poured the beer into three earthenware pots. 

"'It may be against the rules,” he said, “but in my village, servants eat with the family. So sit you down, servant Kate, and join our meal.'" -- Arcadia: A novel (p. 275)

Arcadia by Iain Pears is full of delightful passages like this one between a master (fake) and a servant (also fake) living somewhat roughly in a wooded Arcadian environment. The book is a mash-up of genres and settings linked by a couple of time-travel machines invented by a "psychomathematician" named Angela Meerson. Her title doesn't mean she's psycho, but that she has some kind of sort of psychic power that lets her do mathematics sort of kind of magically -- don't ask. Unfortunately, in reading the book's 500 plus pages I wasn't happy with the quantity of effort that it took to get through it compared to the rewards of doing so.

As for the genres: there's the Arcadia part set in an imaginary Shakespearean or Renaissance-Fair ideal time/place with a lot of references to "As You Like It." There's the dystopian future part set around 200 years from now where despotically-managed technology oppresses the enormous population of the planet. And there's the 1960 part set in Oxford where literary scholars are creating fantasies (like Tolkien and C.S.Lewis) and where they can also be former spies: in other words, a literary fiction genre mixed with a cold-war-spy genre. 

"As You Like It" performed in the Ann Arbor Arboretum. June, 2014.
A mash-up of twentieth century and Shakespeare the way Pears seems to envision it.

Each of these sub-plots is populated by a large number of characters. The reader is required to keep track of them as the narrative jumps around without what I would view as helpful reminders. A few of the central characters are transported in Angela Meerson's time machines and appear in more than one setting. Sometimes they aren't clearly identified, though maybe you are supposed to recognize them. I didn't always manage this trick.

Really, I don't want to go into more about this book, though I am proud that I pursued reading it to the very end. In its favor, I can say that Pears did a remarkable job of pulling all the story threads together in the concluding chapter.

If you want a thorough critical discussion of Arcadia, including identification of its numerous literary references, I suggest that you read the reviews in the New York Times by Scott Bradfield (March, 2016) and in Strange Horizons by Paul Kincaid (November, 2015). The book also has an app if you want to read it in a different order or something; I didn't have anything to do with the app.

If you want to read a book by Iain Pears I strongly recommend An Instance of the Finger Post (which I reviewed here) or one of his art-history mysteries, not Arcadia.

Beautiful French-Canadian Meals with Inspector Gamache

A pudding du chômeur à l’érable from the blog FoodNouveau.

"The guests watched the sun set ... and enjoyed course after course, beginning with the chef’s amuse-bouche of local caribou. Reine-Marie had the escargots à l’ail, followed by seared duck breast with confit of wild ginger, mandarin and kumquat. Gamache started with fresh roquette from the garden and shaved parmesan then ordered the organic salmon with sorrel yogurt. ... 'And for dessert?'...'For Madame, we have fresh mint ice cream on an éclair filled with creamy dark organic chocolate, and for Monsieur a pudding du chômeur à l’érable avec crème chantilly.'*... Finally, when they could eat no more, the cheese cart arrived burdened with a selection of local cheeses made by the monks in the nearby Benedictine abbey of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac." Louise Penny, A Rule Against Murder, pages 21-22)

That's just the first meal in over 400 pages of country living, detecting, and dining by Inspector Armand Gamache and his wife Reine-Marie. It's a rather long-winded, description-heavy book -- the murder doesn't happen until page 111. Though the plot is fairly tight and the suspense relatively good, I'm tempted to say that food descriptions are my favorite part.

Here few more of MANY food descriptions, which I'm citing without explaining at just which point in the investigation breakfasts, dinners, snacks, and lunches appeared:

"Gamache looked down at a tray of frothy cold soups with delicate mint leaves and curled lemon rind floating on the top. Another tray held platters of open-faced sandwiches, roast beef, smoked salmon, tomato and Brie. The final tray held bottles of ginger beer, spruce beer, ginger ale, beer and a bucket with a light white wine on ice." (p. 146) 

"... sipping his cold cucumber and raspberry soup. There was a bit of dill in it, a hint of lemon and something sweet. Honey, he realized." (p. 204)

"He put a lobster salad in front of her. And Beauvoir got a hamburger and string fries. For the last twenty minutes they’d smelled the charcoals warming up in the huge barbecue in the garden, with the unmistakable summer scents of hot coals and lighter fluid. Beauvoir hadn’t stopped salivating. Between that and the sweating he thought he should order a cold beer. Just to prevent dehydration. The chief thought that sounded good, as did Lacoste, and before long each had a beer in a tall frosted glass." (p. 300)

"... on the village green, waving to the people tending the glowing embers around the stuffed lamb au jus wrapped in herbs and foil and buried before dawn. The meshoui, the traditional Québécois celebratory meal. For Canada Day." (p. 356)

The meals contribute to the Québécois atmosphere which the book works very hard to create. Though the descriptions are very enjoyable, in a way I feel as if all these details, including descriptions of the Auberge where the murder and investigation take place, are a bit forced. I think I like my mystery stories to keep the focus more thoroughly on the detecting.

I'm resisting the urge to compare the way Agatha Christie only suggests and sketches the surroundings, and gives details mainly when they show how time is advancing or when they will turn out to be clues. That said, I enjoyed this and one other of author Louise Penny's Armand Gamache detective stories, and most likely will read a few more.

Author Louise Penny with British actor Nathaniel Parker, who played
Insptector Gamache in the one and only TV movie of a book from the Gamache series.
I'll probably watch it soon, though the reviews were not superb.
UPDATE: Have watched & liked it.

*Chômeur à l’érable avec crème chantilly is a classic Quebec dessert -- in English, called poor man's maple pudding. It's a cake with a thick sauce made from maple syrup, garnished with whipped cream. And yes, maple syrup plays a large role in the cuisine in this book!

Life under Stalin: "The Zelmenyaners" by Moyshe Kulbak

"You can be a Bolshevik, march with the flag, say what you’re expected to, and still help a fellow Jew here and there. ... You know, sometimes I look at a light bulb and I think: the only God left in this world is electricity. You tell me, though: can a light bulb be God?" 

So worries a Jew in Stalin's Russia in around 1930 -- a character in The Zelmenyaners, a comic novel by Moyshe Kulbak. The work -- which deals with the adjustments to Communism, modernity, and attendant dislocations of a Jewish family in Minsk -- was published in Yiddish in serial form from 1929 until 1935. It was recently translated into English, and I read it to my great amusement, as I've always wondered about how the Jews of the Shtetls and the cities of Eastern Europe managed to adapt to the major upheavals of the era.

The book is episodic, covering the lives of the descendants of one Reb Zelmele. In a kind of apartment building that Reb Zelmele built for his sons we meet a large number of his descendants, and their spouses or lovers, and a few others too, simple people: "a Zelmenyaner is no more complicated than a slice of bread." (p. 4)

Sometimes the author looks back to the history of family members, for example, how one of them had survived the Great War and the Revolution because he had a wooden spoon:

"Although he had more than once lost his rifle, he was never without the wooden spoon that he kept tucked into his boot leg, his most precious weapon of the war....By the time it was old and black and broken at the handle, no bigger or cleaner than the palm of his hand and hardly still a spoon at all, it had done more for him than any spoon in the world had ever done for anyone. He had raked potatoes from campfires with it. He had eaten snow with it. ... He had spooned castor oil, vodka, and plain water down his throat with it. He had dug trenches with it. Once he had even rented it out for a single meal in exchange for a thick slice of bread." (p. 128)

During the main narrative, in the early years of the Communist regime, Jews in the apartment building ate traditional foods: potato puddings, boiled potatoes, cold potatoes, bread, herring, hard-boiled eggs, bagels, jam. Jam, it seemed had miraculous properties for comforting the eater, curing the sick and other purposes. The Zelmanyaners loved to eat, especially children: "Given a slice of bread with a pickle, or a radish and a bowl of sorrel soup, they gulped it down and cried: 'More!'" (p. 31)

And times change as on this occasion towards the end:

"The food was served. Uncle Itshe had a sharp eye. He saw at once that it wasn’t the usual Zelmenyaner fare. It started with little tidbits served from tins, each barely enough for a lick and a bite. What else was to be seen on the table? Gorgeous yellow apples on a white platter. Round little tortes in cobbler dishes. Canned delicacies on white trays. A suckling pig, its lewd little head at one end of a trencher with its feet tucked beneath it and its tail curled like a cord at the other end. Tall, thin wineglasses with napkins folded inside them." (p. 213)

I'd love to also tell you about the huge and varied smells that the author describes like this one about the apartment building -- "A smell of fresh pine boards mingled with the odor of the long-gone geese that had once laid their eggs in the vestibule" --  but I'm out of time. (p. 23)

The Zelmanyaners are doomed by modern life and by the outlawing of their ways of making a living, as summarized in this passage:

"The last tailor is gone— the old Jewish tailor with the little beard, the thin, amused brows, and the dry-as-dust fingers. 

"Gone is the barefoot potato wolfer and fecund progenitor who reproduced like grass, doubling and redoubling himself.  

"Gone is the merry Jew who needed only a bowl of sorrel soup to make him sing the world’s wonders." (p. 173)

The end of the story is the end of the Zelmanyaners' apartment building:

"Reb Zelmele’s kingdom, which had endured for seventy years and several generations, had come to an end. Not only would it never see the fulfillment of its founder’s dream, the well from which it could drink its own water, it was doomed to be wiped from the earth with its little houses, fences, sheds, and even its brick building that had been the incomparable pride of so many Zelmenyaners." (p. 263)

Zola: "The Masterpiece"

Emile Zola: The Masterpiece, 1885-86
Cover illustration from Auguste Renoir:
"Portrait of Frederic Bazille," 1866.

In his novel The Masterpiece, Emile Zola depicts a group of ambitious young men beginning their careers as painters, sculptors, and writers, particularly Claude Lantier the central figure. Near the beginning, they meet at the home of Pierre Sandoz, an aspiring writer, who holds the group together by hosting a weekly Thursday night dinner party. He's approved the menu proposed by the daily maid, "Skate, and then roast leg of lamb and potatoes?" The dinner party introduces the men, and the level of detail about the dishes served is extraordinary. (p. 56)

As the dinner began, the maid complained bitterly "because it was half-past seven and her lovely joint was drying up in the oven." The first guests were already at the table eating their "excellent onion soup" when another arrived. Conversation continued as she set another place.

"When the skate was served, the vinegar bottle was brought on to the table for those who wanted to give an extra fillip to the black-butter sauce. They attacked the simple meal with great gusto, devouring large quantities of bread, but being careful to put plenty of water with their wine. They had just greeted the leg of lamb with a hearty cheer, and the master of the house had just begun to carve, when the door opened again." As they ate and talked, Zola lets the reader know the interests of the various group members.

"The meal ended in pandemonium, with everyone taking at once. The last course, a choice piece of Brie, was particularly well received, not a trace of it was left. The bread nearly ran out and the wine actually did, so everybody washed the meal down with a good long draught of water, with much smacking of lips and clicking of tongues, accompanied by hearty laughter." (p. 71-73)

Many years later -- almost at the end of the novel -- Sandoz attempts to reunite the members of the group by holding another Thursday night dinner. By this time, he's a wealthy and successful novelist, some of the others are successful artists (though they have sold out) but the protagonist, Claude Lantier, has become, in all eyes including his own, a dismal failure. Just as much detail is provided for this meal, over which Sandoz's wife Harriet presides.

"She had a small staff now: a cook and butler ... She accompanied the cook to the markets and went in person to deal with her suppliers. They were both fond of exotic dishes, and on this occasion they decided on oxtail soup, grilled red mullet, fillet of beef with mushrooms, ravioli a l'italienne, hazel-hens from Russia and a truffle salad, as well as caviar and kilkis [anchovies] for hors d'oeuvre, a praline ice-cream, a little Hungarian cheese, green as an emerald, some fruit and pastries. To drink, simply some decanters of vintage claret, Chambertin with the roast and sparkling Moselle as a change from the same old champagne with the dessert." (p. 321)

Unlike at the first dinner, on this occasion the guests and their wives quarrel relentlessly and and exchange insults. They are scarcely able to notice, much less enjoy the high quality, expensive ingredients, and imaginative choices of dishes and accompanying wines that the Sandozes have provided. Zola describes each course as he did for the earlier dinner, but only to tell us how little they were appreciated. The contrast between the two events in every respect is in my opinion a kind of tour de force -- an extremely interesting use of food to highlight human relationships, perhaps one of the most intense I know of.

Throughout the novel, Zola focuses on the ridicule and antipathy of both the art establishment and the public towards the early works of the Impressionists. Claude Lantier is convinced that he has a new vision for his vocation as a painter, and he tries over and over to be recognized and accepted.

Edouard Manet: "Still Life with Carp," 1864
One of the ridiculed paintings of the era, reminds me of the foods in the novel.

Zola tells of the politically charged way that artists' work is judged for the famous Salon, and describes how Lantier's work is displayed there -- first as a "rejected" artist, then as a accepted, though ungraciously accepted, artist. Zola always offers fascinating details. For example, this description of the Salon in Paris:

"the air was hot and the atmosphere soured by perfume which soon gave way to a predominating smell of wet dog. It was evidently raining outside... for the latest arrivals were very wet, and their heavy garments soon began to steam in the heat of the room. ... Claude saw all the faces emerge from the dusk, all round-eyed and open-mouthed with the same idiotic rapture." (p 284-285)

Lantier's difficulty is not only with the public and mainstream art critics, but also with his inability to complete any painting to his satisfaction. Each effort, he is sure, will be a masterpiece, but he can never actually finish. Zola did not specifically identify Lantier with any particular artist (though he clearly thought of Cezanne, Manet, and Monet whom he was very close to). However, after reading this novel, Cezanne, his lifelong friend from childhood and youth, never spoke to him again. For the modern reader, the key to which artists, exactly, were being described is less intriguing than the two simultaneous themes of Lantier's slow decline and failure, and of the intense political environment for art in that era.

Cezanne: "The Eternal Woman," 1877.
I wondered if this painting contributed to Zola's descriptions of
Lantier's works, which include nude figures in unexpected places.

Lantier's first entry into the Salon, as Zola described it, was very
similar to Manet's famous "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" (1862-63)

Lantier and his mistress/wife Christine are vibrant characters and their failures and sorrows are remarkable. In addition, Zola's choices of detail for depicting other characters and scenes are irresistible. For example, there's one woman character who throughout the novel is defined by her smell. She was married to an herbalist, who ran "a mysterious little shop which the herbs and spices filled with the fragrance of incense."

Zola writes of her "all-pervading perfume, the strong smell of simples that impregnated her clothes and scented her greasy, always untidy hair -- the sickly sweetness of mallow, the sharpness of elderberry, the bitterness of rhubarb, all dominated by that warm odour of strong peppermint which seemed to be the very breath of her lungs, the breath she breathed into the faces of her men." (p. 62) This aroma follows her even after she leaves the shop and marries, assuming pretensions to much higher status.

As they fall into poverty and want, Claude and Christine Lantier have many meager meals as well as more opulent ones. A single example: once when their food money is exhausted, she pawns a dress and obtains enough for a poor dinner of sorrel soup and potatoes. Lots more descriptions of great meals and impoverished ones appear in the book than I have included here -- I wonder if someone has created a cookbook from them (though I haven't found it).

Zola's book The Belly of Paris is better known than this one for amazing depictions of food and hunger. While The Belly of Paris centers on the market and describes much more food, this too is a Masterpiece of food writing!

Sorrel Soup in Ten Minutes

In my little temporary kitchen here in Santa Barbara, I have decided to try out "French Cooking in Ten Minutes." Author Edouard de Pomiane was a microbiologist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. In the early years of the 20th century, Pomiane studied various aspects of the chemistry of digestion. He became interested in nutrition and cuisine and began writing about food, eventually producing quite a number of rather popular cookbooks.

From 1923 until 1929, Pomiane did a radio show about cooking: probably the first cooking show ever broadcast.  He tried to simplify the process of preparing meals, recognizing that many women both cooked and worked outside the home, and thus were very pressed for time.

For my initial effort, I planned a meal that used one of his recipes: Sorrel Soup, and attempted to use his rhythm of cooking quickly to produce a three-course, French-style meal. My second course was meatballs (which I had ready to cook before starting) with cucumber-tomato salad (which wouldn't be at all French: Pomiane would recommend noodles or a canned vegetable -- the French love of canned peas to me is just as mysterious as their love of Jerry Lewis). The third course was cheese with fruit.

Pomiane's Recipe

Sorrel for the Soup

My first challenge was to obtain the soup ingredients, specifically sorrel and semolina. Sorrel is a rather sour green herb that's used much more in France and other parts of Europe than here. I've found it in Michigan in the past.

I asked at every vegetable and herb stall in the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market Tuesday. Some had heard of it, some not. One farmer said he had planted it -- but it wasn't ready. Finally, at the far end of the market I found just a few bunches of it.

 

Semolina

Next, I needed semolina, a type of wheat used in cereal and pasta. I found it in the bulk grain section of Whole Foods -- which was lucky as I only needed 2 tablespoons, and I'd hate to waste the rest of a big package.

Boiling water -- the key to the 10-minute cooking technique that Pomiane recommends -- is really easy. No matter what you are planning, he says, you start by putting a pot of water on the stove to boil. Cream and butter are also not hard to obtain. So I was ready. The clock starts when the water comes to a boil, but I started to cut and cook the sorrel per directions while the kettle was heating. I also started cooking the meatballs:

Well, the soup did take around 10 minutes from the time the kettle whistled. But I wouldn't really say this meal was ready with only 10 minutes of effort.

Soup's On!
As Pomiane recommends, I left the meatballs on the stove while we ate the soup.

Update: apparently, I forgot to mention that the soup was delicious, and really tasted French. The meal seemed French style as well. Thanks to those who asked here & on FB.

The Farmers' Market, Santa Barbara

Shopping for herbs

As we planned our trip to California, I looked forward to shopping at the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market again. Local produce here is varied because we're near so many climate zones. I'm sure the terrible drought is affecting farmers here, but the market was still full of variety.

Dates in color-coded bags

Vendors at yesterday's downtown market offered seasonal strawberries, hand-produced olive oil, avocados, artichokes, asparagus, walnuts, pistachio nuts, tangerines, lettuce and many other greens, Meyer lemons, free-range eggs and chickens, tomatoes, chirimoyas, artisanal cheeses, root vegetables, garlic and garlic shoots, dried fruits, jams and crusty pies from fresh fruit, and more -- all locally grown or made, all sold by the original farmers or producers.

Smells and tastes of the market are delightful. The perfume of never-refrigerated strawberries is amazing, especially compared to the odorless plastic-covered cold berries in a supermarket. The aroma of many types of herbs mingle so you can't quite identify them. At many stalls you can taste a sample: cheddar cheese with sage -- we bought that! Two kinds of dates -- we chose honey dates. A section of a special local tangerine. A little cup of olive oil -- we bought a small bottle.

Chirimoyas -- a fairly exotic fruit. To me they taste
like juicy fruit gum. (I didn't buy them this time).

Our dinner was almost 100% farmers' market food: an omelet with dill, green onion, and cilantro; tomatoes with herbs and lemon juice; baby artichokes dipped in olive oil; sliced strawberries. The depth of flavor of every item was stunning. The olive oil is especially notable both in taste and velvety texture on the tongue. We will be eating more of our bounty in the next few days -- cauliflower, lettuce, sorrel, avocados...

Ride a bike to the market!