Canada, Cookbooks, and Kakigori
You're going to crave like five different things after reading this
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It’s that time of year when people start thinking more about cooking with recipes, and not un-coincidentally, it’s also the time of year when most of the new cookbooks have landed on the shelves. Here are five, older and newer, you might want to check out, plus two brand-new books that you’ll certainly want to add to your collection, if you have any sense (and like delicious dishes).
[What are some cookbooks you return to often? Share them here.]
Three for Beginners:
Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book. Written in 1950, the book is mainly interesting as a time capsule. The front page of newer editions notes that “food safety concerns may have changed over the years,” and section one, a bible of domestic science, describes a complete dinner as “appetizer or soup, meat and potatoes, green or yellow vegetables, salad (raw vegetable), fruit, bread and butter, dessert (pie or cake).” If only. But, since it’s Betty Crocker, you actually will find a ton of great (and easy!) recipes in the dessert chapters.
Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan. Phan’s original Slanted Door location, which opened in 1995, is one of San Francisco’s legendary restaurants. The cookbook carefully explains how to create common Vietnamese recipes as well as a few more special-occasion dishes. Some of the techniques require a little practice, but they make for great culinary training.
What’s Gaby Cooking by Gaby Dalkin. This book is very approachable, both in recipes and conversational style. Dalkin’s vibe is very “we’re just throwing this together for a gathering,” and the beautiful photos provide the rest of the inspiration. I’ve made her fruit galette a dozen times.
Two for Experimenting:
Eight Immortal Flavors by Johnny Kan. This 1963 book is explicitly an homage to San Francisco Chinatown. The recipes are a great historical document of the era: Lotus Stuffed Duck, Stuffed Lobster Tails, and Lychee Pineapple Pork Sweet & Sour are among the highlights. Since the original edition was written almost sixty years ago, it does contain a few eyebrow-raising sections, but it blessedly makes no apologies for MSG.
Food of the Italian South: Recipes for Classic, Disappearing, and Lost Dishes by Katie Parla. Though Italian food is one of the globe’s more ubiquitous cuisines, Parla’s repertoire of southern dishes represents the least well-known ingredients and techniques. There are some delicious surprises here, like bread dumplings with potato and tomato broth, and anchovy and spring vegetable stew.
Two New Books to Buy:
Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin. There’s been a lot of pop-scholarly (does the term fit?) work published over the last few years about African-American food traditions and recipes and Tipton-Martin is one of the greats of the genre. Her research is excellent and she includes a lot of context with her recipes such as lamb curry, benne crackers, and sweet potato salad.
Dappled: Baking Recipes for Fruit Lovers by Nicole Rucker. Rucker is quite well-known around Los Angeles for her desserts that she’s sold at pop-ups and her own and others’ restaurants. She recently shared her (Key) lime pie recipe with the LA Times and not only did it change my life (I’m not really kidding), but I saw it all over Instagram, so I know it made an impression on everyone who tried it. Since it focuses on fruit, this dessert book is great for the less chocolate-inclined among us.
Photo: Felix Choo/Alamy
Perogie Paradise in Saskatoon
Baba (grandma) Alice started the tiny Baba’s Homestyle Perogies in the industrial north end of Saskatoon 35 years ago. When she retired in 2004, Rob Engel, a perogie lover, jumped at the chance to take over the café. A short time later, he added the only drive-thru perogie window in North America. Last year over two million half-moons of stuffed dough crossed the counter, each one made in-house with local ingredients.
From the small seating area, you can watch as Tanya and Oksana, two babas from Ukraine, turn yards of delicate dough into flour dusted circles. With a flick of the wrist, they generously fill them with a mixture of mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese, and expertly pinch them shut. The pillowy perogies (also sometimes spelled “pierogi”) are quickly boiled and arrive at the table piping hot, covered in a blanket of sour cream, topped with bits of bacon and fried onions. The restaurant offers 10 entrees, including delicious smokies, smoked sausages made from Rob’s secret recipe; Tex-Mex perogies covered in chili and cheese, and the latest menu addition, “Perogie Poutine” with cheese and gravy. Come by on Wednesday if you like your perogies fried. Nothing here is gluten free yet, but the babas are working on it. 720 B 51st Street East, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; (306) 933-4280; babasperogies.com. -Debra Smith
Photo: Flickr/City Foodsters
How Japanese Kakigori Spread Shaved Ice Across the Pacific
By Fiona Chandra
Is there a more perfect dessert to beat the heat than a cup of fluffy ice topped with something sweet? Shaved ice and its variations are ubiquitous around the world, but in many parts of Asia and Hawaii, it can be traced directly back to Japan. The first shaved ice wasn’t invented in Japan (for just one example, Roman emperor Nero apparently sent slaves to harvest ice for his dessert), but early Japanese migration as well as influences during the World War II helped spread the modern shaved ice desserts from there out across the ocean.
The Japanese have enjoyed kakigori, or shaved ice, since the 10th-century Heian period. The first recorded mention of a shaved ice dessert is a mention of a scraped ice dessert topped with sweet arrowroot vine in the book Makura no Soshi (The Pillow Book) written by the aristocrat woman Sei Shonagon. At the time, ice would be harvested during the winter and stored in icehouses until the summer. Kakigori was originally reserved for the nobles, but with new technological advancements, ice became more accessible and kakigori shops started to pop up, serving shaved ice topped with flavored syrups or red bean paste.
During the Edo period in the 17th-19th centuries, a number of Japanese Christians fled religious persecution in their home country and landed in the Philippines. After the US built the first ice plant in the Philippines in 1902, the Japanese-Filipinos started selling what was called mongo-ya, a shaved ice dessert with red beans, sugar and milk. The defeat of Japan in World War II led to the repatriation of Japanese-Filipinos to Japan. Filling the void left behind, local Filipinos started to make their own version of mongo-ya by adding native ingredients such as jackfruit, coconut, plantains and ube ice cream, creating what is now known as halo-halo (meaning “mix mix”). In Manila, you can get a taste of the old school halo-halo at Aling Banang, which has been open since 1934.
Further east (or, west), another shaved ice also started to evolve. In the 1800s, many Japanese sugar farmers emigrated to Hawaii and brought over their love of kakigori. What was originally a Sunday treat became an island mainstay when some of these Japanese immigrants opened shops and grocery stores around Hawaii, including Matsumoto Shave Ice, the oldest extant shave ice shop in Hawaii. (Shaved ice also took on the Hawaiian pidgin pronunciation and spelling and became “shave ice.”) The shave ice in Hawaii also started to incorporate local tropical flavors in the syrup, such as the famous POG combination (passionfruit, orange and guava).
Like Japan, Korea has also enjoyed shaved ice for centuries, since the Joseon Dynasty (1391-1897). However, the modern popular dessert known as patbingsu, which is distinguished by its use of red bean paste (pat means red bean while bingsu refers to shaved ice) is believed to have been introduced during the Japanese rule of 1910-1945. During the Korean War, patbingsu started incorporating ingredients imported from the United States, such as cereal. These days, there are a variety of bingsu offered in chain restaurants in Korea, not all of them served with red beans.
Just as shaved ice in these countries evolved from kakigori, kakigori itself evolved over time in Japan. Many of the kakigori shops in Japan focus on perfecting the ice or the syrup that is used, rather than adding multiple toppings. A fine example is Kakigori Kobo Sekka, which makes its ice from the spring waters of Mount Fuji. However, in the past few years, shaved ice desserts from outside Japan are gaining popularity there, including a number of Korean patbingsu stores, bringing the icy treat full circle.🍧
[More on halo-halo in this episode with chef Margarita Manzke.]
Read These
Recipes in Cuneiform: We know old recipes were light on the details, so no surprise that ancient recipes were even more so. But there’s enough there to trace 4,000 years of Iraqi food. (As it happens I just had Iraqi food for the first time this week. It’s very good.)
Dad Jokes: An adorable illustrated piece on parental kitchen hacks.
Enormous Shrimp Industry: You think you know about shrimp, and then you find out who have to specifically ask for “chemical-free” wild seafood.
The Most Complicated Simple Dish: The restaurant Eggslut has a terrible name but a great signature dish of mashed potatoes and a poached egg. It’s basically what you eat the morning after Thanksgiving: a perfect comfort food. Here the recipe has been recreated, and provided you have glass jars with lids and a sous vide setup, it’s easy to make. (If not, just fry your mashers and eggs. That’s great, too.)
This newsletter is edited by Katherine Spiers, host of the podcast Smart Mouth.
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Kakigori sources:
Shonagon, Sei. The Pillow Book. London: Penguin Classics.
https://metropolisjapan.com/kakigori-tip-shaved-iceberg/.
Ocampo, A. (2012). Japanese origins of the Philippine ‘halo-halo.’ https://opinion.inquirer.net/35790/japanese-origins-of-the-philippine-halo-halo
Osawa, K. (1981). A Japanese in the Philippines : an autobiography.
The Colorful Story Behind Shave Ice (October 29, 2015). https://www.wardvillage.com/articles/the-colorful-story-behind-shave-ice.
Dang, Tae Keuk (2010). "Snowy delights and variations on bingsu.” Korea Herald.