Rachel Laudan

Things are moving fast here.  We are back in Mexico, will live in Mexico City not Queretaro, and have a complicated move coming up in the next few days.  That accomplished, I hope to start posting regularly again, working my way through a huge backlog of topics I have notes on: more on cous cous, culinary aesthetics, semitas roundup, US versus Mexican grocery stores, sustainability and its confusions, culinary nostalgia, white bread, Chinese bakers, how to think about migrant cuisines, lots and lots of good stuff.

So how were the wheat couscous and the maize couscous (remember this is not sweet corn nor even cornmeal but essentially a crumbled tamal of maiz that has been treated with alkali and ground wet) described in at least one Mexican manuscript cookbook of the early nineteenth century served?

Here’s what the anonymous author says about the wheat couscous.

Grind sugar and cinnamon together, put layers of couscous, sugar and cinnamon, another layer and another dusted [with sugar and cinnamon?]  that remains  at the middle [of the pot] because it grows [rises] a lot; take the broth in which a hen and meat was cooked with lean ham, with fresh parsley, yerbabuena [mint] and cilantro; take the fat of this broth, moisten the alcuscuz repeated times as it becomes spongy, this you do putting the pot over another of boiling water, and when it is cooked and high [in the pot] add a fried lamb’s tail or a cooked bird, or hard boiled egg yolks cut up.

And about the maize couscous.  I take it these are alternatives.

Put a pot with cinnamon and sugar between two fires [that is on the fire with embers on the lid] until it makes a crust; make it with milk like rice, also, or spread a pot with lard and all the spices and beef marrow, brown it, or cook with tomato and spices, like cooked rice with lots of saffron or how they would like it cooked.

These alternatives seem very traditional with the use of sugar and spices with meat.  Typical of dozens of recipes in eighteenth century manuscript cookbooks from Mexico or New Spain as it was called.  Interesting too the comparisons between the maize couscous and rice, either rice pudding, the rice with milk, or pilau-paella style rice with spices, saffron and tomatoes.

Comments welcome and encouraged.

Finally, what all food historians have been waiting for.  Sandy Oliver, long time friend, moving force for years behind Food History News, author of authoritative books and articles on American Cuisine, and unassuming practitioner of  a traditional lifestyle for decades before it became the thing to do (think slaughtering and preserving your own pigs as well as growing your own vegetables) has entered the blogosphere.

And what a difference the blog makes.  In the 90s in Hawaii, I stumbled on boxes of cordyceps in Chinese grocery stores.  It did not seem to fit neatly into animal, vegetable, mineral categories.  Hmm.  After poking about I found an article by Alan Davidson who had been equally puzzled, and who spilled some of the beans about the curious cordyceps.  Now all I would have had to do was google.  You will love this site.  The Hawaiian mushrooms are pretty amazing too.

Closer to home  (temporary home in Austin, Texas, that is)  I was intrigued driving to Houston a few years ago to run across a historical marker commemorating the Wendish presence in the area.  Here’s a description of Wendish noodles on the blog Boots in the Oven by Rachel and Logan Cooper whom I had the pleasure of meeting recently. But apart from being home made are they different from other German, Central European noodles?

And can you reconcile increased milk production with a prohibition on the killing of cattle? That’s what Rajaratarala asks of Sri Lanka.   Always interesting reflections on farming in South Asia.