The Vegetarian Guy

Each day, 30 to 40 minutes is usually spent cooking. Fast traditional cooking is wonderful, but the traditional slow and carefully prepared dishes add depth, perspective and an understanding of the true meaning of the food. I like to use traditionally prepared condiments, such as tamari, ume plum vinegar, unpasteurized miso, cured olives, salted capers and well aged balsamic vinegar to compliment my quickly prepared meals. Often these dishes are rooted in the climate and politics of the era they originated from, adding romanticized imagery of the times of yore. Many well crafted preparations depend on fermentation, something we are rarely exposed to since refrigeration came into the kitchen. These dishes often define flavors of a cuisine with the unique flavors of enzymatic growth. Often they were used in winter to add flavor and vital nutrients when the fresh harvest was not available. Along with preserving and salt curing, fermentation was used to keep perishable ingredients edible.

Sauerkraut is one of those dishes. In Michigan, every Autumn during the abundant cabbage harvest, housewives and farmers would grate large amounts of the cruciferous vegetable on everything from hand graters to handyman crafted grating boxes which could shred an entire giant head at a time. The freshly shredded cabbage was placed with salt in crocks, barrels or bin, then pressed and covered to encapsulate the fermentation process. After a couple of weeks or so, the cabbage turned into sauerkraut and continued to ferment until canning. Today, a good amount of Michigan’s bountiful cabbage crop is turned into nutritious sauerkraut and donated to food banks.

In India, nation culinary treasures such as Idli, Dosa, Jallebi and Dahi (yogurt) all depend on fermentation for unique flavors and health giving enzymes. Dosa has very ancient roots in South Indian Tamil culture that are at least 6,000 years old. This original “crepe” has maintained popularity and is one of the most recognized and cherished dishes in greater Indian cuisine. Thirty years ago, Indian dahi-walla shops were frequently a stove, a pot and a cook (sometimes with a couple of cows out back) who worked among clay vessels of all shapes and sizes made to hold yogurt as it cultured. Down the street, one would usually find a potter sitting on the ground with a throwing wheel, a pile of clay vessels and a pit for firing. For yogurt, the clay would insulate as well as remove whey from the yogurt as it turned to curd over a four to five hour period. Turning milk into yogurt, butter and sweets were a method of preservation before refrigeration and was practiced wherever cows, sheep, goats and buffalo were kept. I remember my Yia Yia (Greek grandmother) making her own yogurt, keeping a string of cultures from one batch to the next. She would culture the yogurt on top of her refrigerator wrapped in towels where it would stay warm enough to transform the milk into a very tangy yogurt.

India also has a long history of pickle making, using sea salt, mustard, fenugreek, chillies and oils. I learned the craft from a Gujarati family and, over the years would make salty, hot, sour and often sweet pickles during the growing season. Pickles from eggplant, green beans, green mangos, lemons, limes and chillies accompanied the regional Indian cuisine we were preparing daily at the time.

Garum, a fermented fish sauce, was used throughout the ancient Roman Empire, much the same way fish sauces are used in Korean, Thai, Cambodian, Fillipino and Vietnamese cuisines. Soy sauce, shoyu and tamari in Chinese and Japanese cuisines are rooted in similar traditions. Asian cuisines are full of fermented products, like Tempeh, Natto and Kimchee.

Commonly acknowledged, products with long traditions of fermentation are beer and wine. The ancients became masters of wine and beer making, not just for the pleasing effects, but also because water could not be trusted. The armies of Alexander the Great marched to India using beer and wine instead of water. Bread baking as we have come to know it also started from the process of making beer and wine. The white coatings we sometimes see on grapes are a yeast that is also used for sourdough bread. Brewers yeast, the by-product of beer making, is also an old source of traditional bread yeast. Beer making is perhaps one of the oldest known fermenting traditions with archeological evidence from 9,000 years ago. Since it is made with grains, beer has kept a close relationship with bread. Ancient Egyptians had massive bakeries at the base of the Great Pyramid, capable of providing up to 30,000 loaves of bread a day and were conveniently located next to breweries. Up until the last 60 years, many people kept crocks with yeast starters in their kitchens to make bread with. With the exception of Prohibition, yeast was readily available from breweries throughout America. Packaged, and especially, active dry yeast are relatively new in the world of food.

With the arrival of dependable refrigeration, many of these foodstuffs were relegated to the realm of cultural identity as they were no longer were necessary. Commercial manufacturers took over more difficult tasks such as bread baking, wine and beer making, yogurt and butter as well as anything else they could sell back to the public in order for to time to be saved in the kitchen. 19th and 20th century kitchens evolved so fast that many of the time honored culinary traditions have become very rare or even lost.

Growing up with my Greek Yia Yia’s cooking helped me to appreciate the deep connections between food, culture and environment. For this reason when the current culinary revolution recognized these same connections, I found a natural kinship with those who embraced it. Over the years, I have also discovered the remarkable role vegetarianism has played in human history. Often, it is associated with the visionary brilliance, notably such souls as Gandhi and Einstein. Every cuisine has some form of plant based food in it and I promote that every culture has vegetarian traditions. Commonly, fermented dishes and condiments are prominent in such repertoires.

Beyond obvious refrigeration issues, both ancient and modern medicinal wisdom recognize the potent nutrition and life giving value in fermented foods. Modern science has also recognized the hazards of improperly fermenting, requiring sterile environments and standardized cultures. While this has undoubtedly increased food safety, we have also lost many organic hand-crafted traditions. Often, much of the health benefit is diminished as well. I include as many of these dishes as possible in my culinary stable and even find that once a cultured product is made, it facilitates quick and easy meals while, at the same time, adding the depth of slowly developed flavors.

Mainstream America does not emphasize food as a key to a quality life and source of longevity.  Food is mostly used as a sensual sideshow and necessary evil.  One the big challenges we face, especially in dire times, is to reconnect with the earth’s culinary heritage. Not only the exclusive diets of the privileged, but those of common people.  These are diets that nourish body and soul, which utilize the senses instead of merely placating them.  Such foods help define who we are and keep us in touch with the ever present  organic cycles of the earth.

I first discovered the significance of food as a young child from my Greek grandmother, who tirelessly went out of her way to both nourish and nurture her family through the medium of lovingly prepared traditional dishes.  Memories in my Yia Yia and Papou’s house invariably are associated the times when our family gathered around the dining table, situated just outside of Yia Yia’s kitchen.  There I sampled exquisite hand made, tender dolamdakia, irresistible spanikopita, perfectly balanced moussaka and pastitsio to die for.  The memories were augmented with intense and creamy skordalia, almost sinfully sweet baklava and the melt-in-the mouth amigdalota cookies made from almonds and orange blossom water.  The food sparked conversation and familial bonding. 

Eating this way, we knew what it was to be Greek.  The food was historically intertwined with cultural identity.  What, how and when it was (or is) consumed was a major portion of the Hellenic psyche.  Greece is a land that has witnessed the ravages of changing civilizations, occupations and political turmoil.  Often it was recognized as the center of the civilized world and the source of our modern political structures.  The unique and flavorful cuisine has been a consistent reminder of the greatness that Greece was…and still is.  Much of this glory was achieved over millennia at tables in homes and villages with foodstuffs foraged in the mountains, harvested from the land and caught in the sea.  The plant based food was so significant that the famous Greek Key pattern, found over millennia as a theme on temples, homes, fabrics and ornaments, was derived from the field plowing pattern used by farmers.  Ancient Greeks would also pour a small libation of wine on the earth before drinking, much in the way we toast today.  The Greeks have learned to live with the earth in a respectful partnership, where harmonizing with the energies of the cosmos became a goal in life.  Anyone who has spent time in Greece can still feel this incredible energy integrated into every aspect.  Often this translates into the Greek spirit of life.  Along with the Mediterranean sunshine, the sea breezes and the stark raw beauty of the land, it is unique and unlike any other place on earth.  No wonder so many Greeks return to their mother land.  

“Human beings, stop desecrating your bodies with impious foodstuffs. There are crops; there are apples weighing down the branches; and ripening grapes on the vines; there are flavorsome herbs; and those that can be rendered mild and gentle over the flames; and you do not lack flowing milk; or honey fragrant from the flowering thyme. The earth, prodigal of its wealth, supplies you with gentle sustenance, and offers you food without killing or shedding blood.”

Pythagoras, 5th century B.C.E.

Some of the most incredible food experiences happen unexpectedly. Reflecting upon this enforces how important of the element of surprise is in dining. An unexpected flavor, like the time Jacques Pepin had me taste a mustard he had prepared for an event in Royal Oak, Michigan is an example that comes to mind. Mustards can be overpowering, but this one was full of complexity in acid balance, sweetness and pure mustard mixed with subtle notes of wine and tarragon. One small taste propelled me into a creative streak of mustard preparation. From then on, a variety of handcrafted mustards graced the menu of Inn Season Cafe. They even made it to the cadre of holiday gifts, accompaning my home canned relishes, chutneys and massalas.

Frequently, a taste like this will have us going miles out of our way and spending hours trying to recreate it. Taste becomes imbedded in the memory and this is often why we try to find it again by returning to a restaurant, buying a piece of ripe fruit, or trying to prepare a dish remembered from childhood.

A performance artist friend of mine (and cook extraordinaire), Gordon W, would explain it as searching for the perfect combination of flavor and texture which would make “the left eye tear up and slowly run down one’s cheek.” I first knew what Gordon was talking about when he had me taste Mattar Paneer he had learned from a family while living in India. This beautifully crafted dish was made with freshly shelled peas in a gravy-like tamarind-tomato sauce. The hand rolled and spiced fresh cheese diamonds were gently cooked in ghee and marinated with the sauce and peas until they would puff up into bread-like, melt-your-mouth delicacies. It was the essence of high cuisines in India and, as was the case with many of those dishes, etched the memory with exquisite flavors, textures, aromas, visuals and romantic imagery of historic civilizations.

Sometimes a flavor we have in our subconscious memory resurfaces when triggered by an event with no association to the original, but by a combination of elements that give a sudden whiff, color or even angle of light similar to the first dish. This was true the time I tasted some Moroccan briwat cookies brought to me by a vendor in Montreal named Mustapha. He and his wife had a family business selling traditional home-baked Moroccan pastries to restaurants and delis in Montreal. Infused with orange blossom water and hand-formed, these almond cookies immediately triggered memories of my grandmother Anthe’s favorite almond cookies from my childhood.

Anthe’s cookies were the traditional amigdalota, made in Crete from freshly harvested young white almonds. She was able to transform the recipe into one that worked with ingredients available in Canton, Ohio and they were still perfect. Years later in Crete, my Aunt Yorgia made the same cookies for me (from a recipe she learned in 1937) with the proper young white almonds and they were exactly as I remembered them to be.

Needless to say, I purchased those delicious Moroccan pastries for the restaurant. We continued the account the entire year I was in Montreal and the briwats were particularly popular. Tastes and discussions with Mustapha and his wife gave me a window into the magnificent world of Moroccan cookery, as well as reinforcing the depth of influence that Cretan culture played in my childhood.

As someone who is somewhat food obsessed, I continually look to take advantage of culinary experiences which either trigger familiar memories, or add to my knowledge of food. Frequently, those experiences begin a sequence of mental recollections that release forgotten memories, not just of thoughts and perspectives, but tastes, smells, sights, sounds and textures. They become three dimensional imagery which can be recreated in the kitchen. Some of the best culinary discoveries come from within after a little external coaxing.

Song of Solomon 7:12

The Hillcrest market is chock-full of bright red pomegranates this season.  As I walk through the colorful market, these provocative fruits stand out like jewels and attract the eye.  They are believed to be one of mankind’s first cultivated crops and were prized throughout history.  Native to the Mediterranean, Anatolia and Himalayan region of India, it is the fabled fruit of the gods in mythology.  Persephone was given six pomegranate arils by Hades, which forced her to return to the underworld each year.  After her mother Demeter protested by not allowing the earth to bear fruit, Zeus came to a compromise allowing Persephone to return each year.  Her departure and welcomed return were the ancient explanation for the seasons, a reason given for annual regeneration of crops and a significant part of the secret rites of the Eleusis Mysteries.  Also, through this story of union between Hades and Persephone, the pomegranate became the symbol of marriage in ancient Greece.  Ancient Egyptians viewed the fruit as a representation of the afterlife.  They drank the juice as a health tonic, used it for dyeing cloth and painted representations on tomb walls.  In Persia, Pomegranate trees were planted in Zoroastrian temple courtyards where the leaves were a symbol of eternal life.  The fruit has also been prominent in an incredibly elegant cuisine which also featured the sweet, sour and savory flavors of dates, saffron and mint. 

In India, the fruit was as a symbol of favorable influences which evolved from a story where the Buddha was very pleased after he was given a simple gift of one pomegranate.  In Northern Indian cuisine, dried pomegranate seeds, known as anardana, are a common sour flavor used interchangeably with tamarind, lemon and kokum. We find pomegranates commonly used in the Mediterranean cradles of civilization and also mentioned numerous times in the Bible and Torah. Not only has it been a treasured food, but as is commonly true with popular ancient foodstuffs, it is one of the healthiest as well.  Today it is frequently added to lists of “super foods” with profuse amounts of vitamin C and anti-oxidants.

“The incomparable beauty of Greece stimulates all the senses and enriches the spirit.  From the stunning azure of the Ionian and Aegean seas to the herb- and beehive dotted mountains, honey-sweet fruit aromas fill the air , while the twisted trunks of olive trees and the curling vines of the ubiquitous grapes delight the eye.  Colors vibrate.  Air seems fresher, the atmosphere lighter, than in other lands. You can imagine you see Hermes flying gracefully across the cloudless sky on his winged sandals, or the misty-eyed Nereids and Naiads dancing on the blue-green water.  It is impossible to resist the attractiveness of the warm, volatile Greek people or keep from falling in love with their country.”

“In Greece there is an intimate interaction of people with nature, and hence with food. This interplay is never more obvious than in the Greek markets, where fresh fruits and vegetables are piled high in baskets—a refreshing contrast to the packaged fruits, dehydrated herbs, and frozen, unrecognizable fish seen in markets in the United States.  Invariably, instances of Greek philoxenia (hospitality) surprise tourists.”

From:  The Food of Greece

By:  Vilma Liacouras Chantiles

While attending to my father’s convalescence and physical therapy, we have had an opportunity to catch up on various stories of family history and the shared passion for understanding our human traditions.  One of the memories he described was his father Dimitri’s coffee house in Canton, Ohio.  Before opening in Canton in 1925, he had run a coffeehouse for the local coal mine in Sunnyside Utah.

Carbon County History

Burned out by a jealous rival and alarmed by the Castle Gate coal mine explosion that killed many of his friends and acquaintances, he moved the family to Canton to start over.  My father remembers watching Dimitri make the coffee by boiling it in an ibriki (Greek coffee pot), letting it rest and boiling it again—three times altogether.  When he poured the coffee into the demitasse cup, my father would marvel at Dimitri’s mastery of the craft.  Skillfully, he started at the bottom and accurately lifted the pot up about two feet, then down again, filling the cup and never spilling a drop.  The coffee always came out perfect with kaimaki (foam) around the edge.

Coffeehouses had been the Greek version of service clubs, such as Masonic Temples, Elks Lodges, etc.  These became popular in America during the late 19^th century as men’s clubs and respites for a patriarchal society.  Brought over from Greece, coffeehouses fit seamlessly into this model and were the center of social activities in Greek communities across the country.  Business was bolstered by fresh immigrants off the boat throughout the beginning of the 20^th century.  Coffeehouses were strictly men only establishments and my father remembers going with his mother as a young child to a coffeehouse looking for her husband and to try and get him to come home.  They wouldn’t let her inside which left a powerful memory for a young boy.

Dimitri’s coffeehouse in Canton only lasted a couple of years before he sold it.  Times were changing.  After this my father remembers him going to a coffeehouse to look for someone and there would hardly be anyone in there.  Asking for the person Dimitri would be told “they are married, they’re home.”  Still, Dimitri was brought up on and spent his formidable years in, the coffeehouse culture.  My father remembers him saying “Tha pao y sto kafenion,”  ’I am going to the coffeehouse” as he walked out the door in the evenings.  In 1946, my father was visiting the Canton home on a break from college, and met one of Dimitri’s old coffeehouse acquaintances who arrived by bus and did not own a car.  It was a bit of leftover history as most of the coffeehouses had been shut down by then.  He remembers the visitor as well educated and knowledgeable, staying as a “guest of the home” all day and all evening.

Society was changing very fast in those days. Coffeehouses were the product of simpler times, when people travelled by foot, interacted in person and lived by the course of the sun.  In a few short years, electricity, telephone, radio, automobiles and a host of supporting contraptions would undermine long established social structures.  The younger generations were looking to the future, the bright promises offered by new technologies and modern lifestyles, unencumbered by the restrictions of previous generations.

Later, as a social worker in Cleveland in the late 1960′s, my father remembers discovering remnants of a Greektown on a downtown side street near the old Erie Street Cemetery.  One coffeehouse was left with a few “coffeehouse bachelors” who would sit there all day reading papers, nursing coffees and discussing events of the day.  When I first moved to Detroit in the late 1970s, there was still one old style coffeehouse in Greektown on Monroe Street with a few patrons who would play cards, read papers and talk emphatically, the same way as past generations.  I also had an opportunity to visit the original counterparts in Greece.  Every village still had one or two establishments where one could hear animated conservations while passing by.  The coffeehouses still provided a forum for free political and social discussion.  (Considering the fact that women were left out qualified the true democratic ideal)  They were diminished in the early 1970s during the reign of the Junta when public venues were often seeded with spies.  After democracy returned, younger generations did not revive the coffeehouse culture as it had been.  In the mid 1980s some coffeehouses were opened for women by women and it was a huge subject in Greek conversations at the time.   Greece was about to join the EU and most (men and women) thought it was a “good thing” or “about time.” For some stubbornly stoic men, it was an assault on tradition and they could not imagine a place where women would not need men!  I heard one woman respond “don’t forget it is the Greek women who have raised the great men of Greece.”  With that said, those men in the conversation were silenced and justifiably so.  Because of these forward thinking women, along with changes in social trends, coffeehouses have had an upswing in popularity. They continue, not as bastions of the old patriarchal society, but as unencumbered community venues for both men and women.  If Dimitri were there today, he would only find small resemblances in coffeehouse life, yet—he undoubtedly would appreciate the Greek spirit that is still alive and well in his Hellenic homeland.