Garden salade

One of the herb gardens at the University of Washington

We’ve been reading a lot about the evils of processed foods, so I decided to make a post about my favorite uncooked meal that also happens to be very healthy. I assume it to be especially good for the immune system, for it includes olive oil and garlic in addition to all the antioxidants and nutrients in the lettuce. It is my personal belief and preference that at least a spoonful of olive oil is taken per day; many Mediterranean cultures have olives as one of their cornerstone foods. The French also used copious amounts of olive oil absent from the American diet, or poorly substituted with generic vegetable oil. Much like corn is to the American diet, olives can be taken in a variety of ways. Olive oil is eaten with bread; olives adorn certain dishes, especially pizza; olives make up pistou and tapenade, to name but a few. But olives are not usually processed and chemically altered like corn. Michael Pollan describes in The Omnivore’s Dilemma all the environmental degradations of monoculture corn production- but I saw firsthand the olive trees compliment the landscape and promote polyculture along with lavender or other crops. I was shocked tofind Pollan describe the way in which corn molecules are manipulated into being in everything from –surprisingly- cardboard to fiberglass to MSG. I naturally assumed most of these products to be petroleum-derived but was haunted to hear that they are made of the same thing that I happen to be eating right now in my Sun Chips.

I realized vegetable oil can be used on anything, I even saw some olive oil ice cream there. Another interesting tendency was the ability to make any meal compatible with bread. The Carrascosas thought I was quite unusual with my soft spot for plain baguettes. "No one eats their bread plain here," they would tell me. What they didn't realize is that like the anthropologist who traveled to Belize, the local foods they take for granted daily are of great pleasure to me.

The salad in my family is very often the solid dish; it is rare that we have a dinner without a salad. I suppose in many ways the salad is to my family what the baguette is in France, or rice is to Asian cultures. The lettuce, carrots, and -I suppose- garlic can all be homegrown.

Homegrown Salad
1 head lettuce
¼ cup grated Romano cheese
3 carrots, sliced
for one batch to toss a large salad for 6-8
1/4 C olive oil good quality extra virgin
2 T vinegar, can use balsamic, or raspberry, or rice vinegar for variety
1 clove garlic pressed
1 t to 1 T mustard, to taste, can use country style or French's style
dash Worcestershire sauce, optional (note this makes it non-veggie cause it has anchovies)
dash salt, to taste
dash sugar, to taste
blend and toss immediately before serving

Also, my mom wants me to add that she “never ever once gave [me] the dreaded lunchables.” Thanks, mom!

Japanese Obento: The Link between Food and Society

I found it extremely intriguing the attention focused by the Japanese on their obento, especially compared to the carelessness of American lunches. Lunchables offer no symbolic love or support. The whole Japanese culture seems to be fixated completely on productivity, and since lunch is the only break the children receive from incessent learning, it is the only time a mother can express her love. It is also noticeably different in France, where children are allowed to go home for lunch. I think that food truly highlights the foundations of our societies: what children eat for lunch reveals a certain truth about the nature of the entire society.

So for making my obento in class, I decided to go with the cute animal dominant present in Asian culture and make a bear out of the rice triangle. I tried to contrast the colors as much as I could, throwing flavor contrast to the winds. It is hard to see, but the seaweed wrap under the yellow and pink contains egg and Japanese vegetables. Other than the high salt content, I designed the obento to be an overall healthy meal with all the major food groups represented.

My obento including pickled plums, seaweed, rice, fish, cucumber, egg,

Japanese vegetables, squash, green beans, and salmon

Andrea Arai, our guest speaker and expert on obento, noted that the economy of Japan had a huge effect on the modern obento. During the boom of the 1980s, the obento was more important than ever because the Japanese believed that if you followed traditions, a happy future lay ahead. I couldn’t help but compare this to the economic boom in the United States in the 1950s. In Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation, she notes that the typical 1950-era American family ate a meat-and-potatoes meal almost every night cooked by a mother that was expected to stay at home a provide for the family. It is a reasonable assumption to suggest that Japanese food will soon go the way of American food: much less strictly structured and much less traditional. Already, Japanese wives have begun to leave the house and take jobs, leaving the obento in an unsure position in Japanese society. But I thoroughly enjoyed the art of designing my food’s appearance for the first time, something largely absent in American cuisine, even if the taste wasn’t the best.

Herbes de Provence

Another view-altering food experience that I had was a month long foreign exchange program to France, where I lived with a family in the Southern Provence region. This warm region near the Mediterranean is not unlike the Hill Country of Texas so much of the food has overtones, if not similarities, of each other.

Teaching the French about Texas. The cowboy hat may have been a little misleading but it was still fun to wear and it sure kept the kids’ attention

I never had the same dish twice; Madame Carrascosa was careful always to adjust the ingredients just enough to that it tasted completely different. One of my favorite and easiest to make dishes was composed of sausage and peas tossed together and cooked in an herb-filled broth. The vegetable and meat were mutually complemented, giving each a taste of the other. The French especially seem to employ this idea of balance with every meal. The food groups were always intertwined and never eaten alone. Lamb with carrots. Fish with cucumbers. Come to think of it, it was an ingenious idea to mix it all up; it gave the food a flavor that no one ingredient could accomplish. Pollan discusses the way humans –omnivores- debate what to eat more than any other species, but I say the French are an exception. They don’t deliberate over what food to eat; they simply use whatever ingredients are available and magically morph it into haute cuisine.
Many of my favorite dishes were homemade recipes. I was reminded of this recipe in particular because of our class tour to the herb gardens, and I noted we made our pistou rouge almost entirely with ingredients we had ourselves or were bought at the local Carrefour from local suppiers. The recipe was simple enough:


Pistou Rouge- much like tapenade but red
1 cup dried tomatoes
½ cup Pine nuts
50 ml Olive oil
50 g parmesan
50 g basil
3 pieces garlic
¼ squeezed lemon juice
Dash of Salt
Dash of Pepper
Grind everything into a paste for use on crackers or bread. Enjoy!

The Foundation: Chips & Salsa

Before you even get water at a restaurant, you're served chips and salsa. It's the basis for Tex-Mex food, and it leaves the options open from enchiladas to barbecue. The art of making salsa is a big deal in Texas because there is a myriad of flavors, spices, and herbs that make each type unique, much like fine wine. There are entire, intense contests based on home recipes made in the blender, and I find that even though salsas such as the East Side Cafe salsa are delicious, the homemade ones have something much more authentic that can't be accomplished except on a small scale. Perhaps it is because that is the way food was originally prepared, but when my mom makes homemade salsa, it tastes like water in the desert (and believe me, you'll need plenty of water):

Texas Homestyle Salsa
1 C coarsely chopped onion
1 C cilantro, leaves and stems
1 jalapeno (or more to taste), coarsely chopped, seeds removed
1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped
2 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes, drained
3 T lime juice, I use about 2 times this much
1/4 t salt
Blend. Yield 4 C.
Eat.

The two deciding factors are the chunkiness and the spicyness. My host family had never even heard of 'jalapenos' or 'pinto beans' that I needed for my family's salsa, so I had to improvise a bit. 'Tortilla chips' were also nonexistant! I was quite shocked to find Carrefour bountiful with cheeses but lacking the basic necessities for the chips & salsa experience.Tomatoes define the texture and I prefer the smoother, runny salsas rather than the large pieces that make up the thicker stuff. Jalapenos are the mainstay pepper in Texan salsa, but I like to substitute with an occasional bell pepper. Lemon juice gives it a zap of tartness that separates my family's salsa from others. But most of all, the crunching of the chip and the spicy burst make chips & salsa such a desirable food. Just don’t forget to have plenty of water nearby!