I was gifted a beautiful hand-painted ceramic zeit and za’atar dish this past Christmas, crafted in a woman-run artisanal workshop in Nablus, it feels very special on many fronts. It serves as a side by side home for olive oil (zeit) and a herb blend (za’atar). The adjoining bowls house a natural pairing of olive oil, usually extra virgin with its smooth peppery piquancy, and a blend of regional herbs (za’tar) often brought together on a fresh flatbread.
For me, it also serves as symbolic of the fertile and prospering lands of Palestine and the wider Middle East extending to the Mediterranean. Palestine, West Bank specifically, the origin of this olive-leaf painted dish is known for its abundance and famous for its olives and olive oil, yielding a rich and intense earth-green elixir of renowned quality.
Za’atar is a blend of herbs made up of dried oregano, wild thyme, marjoram, sumac, sesame seeds and salt, although recipes vary around the Middle East and Mediterranean. The combination of ingredients that make up za’atar balance woody, fragrant, tangy having its origins in Levantine culture from around the 12th century. Some histories date its origins back to what was Palestine and others to the Ancient Egyptians.
The zeit is usually an extra virgin olive and pairs perfectly with the za’atar, forming an inseparable unity carrying a spectrum of flavours in a bouquet of herbs along with a distinctive nutty smoothness in the sesame seeds. Zeit and za’atar form a perfect trinity when served with the freshly baked flatbreads of the region or on salads such as fattoush (an unforgettable ensemble of fresh green salad leaves and herbs, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, pomegranate seeds and molasses, sumac and stale bread with recipes varying around the region).
These flavours of zeit and za’atar and more became embedded in my memory as a teenager in the colourful balloning-fabric adorned ceilings of the Lebanese restaurants in Surry Hills, Sydney. Cleveland Street was, and still is, a little Lebanon food central. I used to think, when I entered Emad’s restaurant, I had left behind Sydney and walked into Beirut with the welcoming soft seating and low tables, designed for sharing with others.
For me, the zeit and za’atar bowl with both its purpose and aesthetic symbolises the fruitfulness and fertility of the region’s land and the unbreakable togetherness of family and home whensharing the spoils of that land,even through the darkness.
With hope that peace allows for the olive groves of Palestine to replenish and the family of herbs return in their plenty to be shared among the many.
Indian Sweets By Adam Aitken, poet, writer and food photographer, Australia
“Certain emotions bridge the years and link unlikely places.” V S Naipaul, Trinidadian writer
I started writing this blog, inspired by Diwali and the food and warm feeling I associate with it. Although it is a Hindu Festival, it is not the religious aspect in particular that I feel connected to, rather it is a sense of heritage and identity that move me. Lakshmi, who is honoured by Diwali, sat among the revered murtis (statue of a deity) in my Grandma’s living room, and together, the two of them made Diwali a lasting family tradition. They created a sense of belonging and hope when Diwali-time came around, which I have kept and carry with me.
According to the Times of India, Indians make up the largest population living outside their country of birth. It‘s no surprise when you look at the back story that there are now around 18 million migrants living abroad. The expansion of the British Empire, as well as that of its European imperialist cousins’, resulted in the making of one of the world’s significant Diasporas. Together, and often in agreement, they transported thousands of Indian labourers to the Caribbean, Africa and parts of the South Pacific and South Asia from 1830s to 1920s. It is through these ancestors that Indian religions, customs and beliefs have sustained, and sometimes, evolved outside of India.
The popularisation of many religious events and festivals around the world, has put Diwali, among other celebrations, on the international calendar. Around this time of year, Indian recipes and ingredients appear in the supermarkets’ glossy magazine specials and television food shows are brimming with Indian cooking content. Long-time chef, Mary Berry, widely renowned for her British baking and cooking, recently departed from her regular format to visit a London-based family celebrating Diwali in her current television series.
In spite of an increased market culture of commercialisation and promotion, it is the Disapora’s deep rooted affinity with Mother India that its descendants have honoured and conserved. Through the generations, the Diaspora has cultivated an unbreakable sense of self which I see in Indian families and communities. I learnt of it too, in a subtle philosophy that infused my childhood with the small things in daily life and beliefs and thoughts that belong to an Indian-ness. While Guyana was the place we as a family were from, I understood that so too are we from India. It was this duality that, universally, older generations had to reconcile. Now, generations on, add in another migrant journey and I am also a Londoner.
In lockdown-London, for this year’s Diwali I was a bit ambitious. I’d made a trip to my favourite supermarket with a long list of dishes in mind that I had planned to prepare. I bought ingredients you would undoubtedly expect for the occasion: fresh coriander and fenugreek, garlic, ginger and turmeric roots, ghee (clarified butter), besan (ground chick-pea flour), okra, potatoes, aubergine and more. But I also made sure to get some pumpkin, guavas and scotch bonnets because the Guyanese, and in fact, the Trinidadians and Surinamese version of Diwali has a distinctive Caribbean lilt.
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Fresh turmeric, ginger, green chilies, okra, mangoes, guavas, limes and fenugreek leaves.
Fresh mint, green mangoes and guavas.
Jaggery (cane juice slab), golden sultanas, cloves and cardamom pods. Ingredients for the popular sweet, parasad.
I had planned to make a green mango chutney to go with poulouris (spiced yellow split pea batter with spring onions and deep fried into balls), unmistakably an Indian-derivative street snack and found only in the Caribbean, as with dhal puri (a roti filled with spiced ground yellow split peas) and baiganee (aubergine slices deep-fried in a spiced batter).
Despite having helpers, I never got to the mango chutney or the baiganee. By the finish though, I had managed something of a feast. The dining table was graced with dishes and sweets from Guyana having made their way there from India many moons earlier, and somewhere in there was probably a little London-ness too.
Below, is my offering to you: two favourite recipes that always appear in the family Diwali feast. I hope you enjoy them, all year round.
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Pholourie(spiced yellow split pea balls)
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½ cup yellow-split peas, soaked in cold water for around 4-5 hours ½ cup plain (all-purpose) flour 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda or baking powder 2 cloves garlic, peeled ½ teaspoon ground turmeric ½ teaspoon ground roasted cumin seeds ½ teaspoon garam masala ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon of salt or to taste 3 spring onions, green parts only, finely chopped 1 red hot chilli, finely chopped, optional vegetable oil such as sunflower, for deep frying
Drain the split peas, reserving about ½ cup of the water.
Put the split peas, ¼ cup of the water and garlic into a blender and process until a thick batter. Add more of the water if, necessary, in order to obtain a thick batter.
Using a wooden spoon, stir in the dry ingredients until well combined.
Stir through the spring onions and chilli, if using.
Taste a small amount of the batter and adjust seasoning, if needed.
In a wok or heavy-based pan, heat the oil until hot. The oil needs to be hot, before smoking point is ideal.
Once you have the oil at the right temperature, you can begin to cook the pholouries. Forming the pholouries: By hand: using your fingertips and thumb, scoop up a portion of the batter. Using your thumb to swiftly transfer the mixture, lower it gently into the hot oil. The pholouries should float to the top immediately, this indicates that the oil is hot enough. Allow the pholouries to cook until golden, turning with a slotted spoon so that they colour evenly. Alternatively, you can use two spoons to drop the batter into the hot oil. With one spoon, take a spoonful of batter and lower the batter gently into the hot oil using the other spoon to slide it off.
Drain on paper towels. Continue to cook in batches.
Serve with a green mango or tamarind chutney or a good Caribbean hot pepper sauce.
Serves 4-6 as a snack
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Pumpkin Curry
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, such as sunflower 1 medium brown onion, peeled and finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 green chilli, (or a banana chili or scotch bonnet), finely chopped, optional ½ teaspoon ground turmeric ½ teaspoon ground cumin ½ teaspoon garam masala ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1lb (500g) pumpkin (or butternut squash) peeled, seeded and cubed around ¼ cup water salt to taste
Heat the oil in a lidded karahi or heavy-based medium sized saucepan.
Add the onions and allow to cook on a low heat for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until they are a deep golden colour.
Add the garlic and chilli and cook for around 1-2 minutes, stirring regularly.
Add the spices and cook for around 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the spices from sticking and burning.
Add the pumpkin cubes and coat well in the spice mixture by stirring through.
Add the water and stir. Cook with the lid on for around 20-30 minutes or until the pumpkin is very soft. Once soft, break up pieces using the back of a wooden spoon so that the pumpkin is mostly mashed.
Serve with rice, paratha rotis or puris. Dhal also makes a good accompaniment.
Serves 4
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From Letter to Marco Polo by Adam Aitken, Australia
MENU
Beef curry & Chicken curry & chutney
& dhal last night, tonight vegetable
curry & leftover Port Vindaloo with
cucumber & yoghurt as a
side dish,
Was it like this in Mountbatten's time -
this anglo-Indian post-coital bliss??
Consider Newtown's very own Swami's motto:
"My cooking is the result of
Indian tradition & personal genius & charm"
(I misquote grossly but the sense is close.)
What better way to sniff fire
after a bad flu or too much Virginia Woolf
serialised on 2FC. When Percival goes to
INDIA
everyone gets pissed on nostalgia
after bubbly & smoked salmon &
sleeps with everyone else. Dipti
(who's got a thrilling past in the
crazy Ceylon corridors of power) thinks
it's overdramatised. When her Mum brings
a Red Cross parcel of CURRY &
a bottle of Rose Syrup we dream of
climbing Everest / flying high on
Hilary's vision of India, now going nuclear.
Covid-19 continues to attack us from all angles. For the first time since it began, Carnival went ahead without its street party. Instead, this year, the trail of steel pans, hypnotic percussion and circuit of sound systems was moved into the virtual space. It’s not just the music-filled streets of Notting Hill or the unity of a community, or even the spectacle and sparkle of the costumes and floats that we missed, but the food too. No jerk chicken this year!
Photographer Steve Eason
In truth, it’s probably not the first year that there hasn’t been smoking jerk barrel drums, neither is it the first time that Carnival has taken place off the streets. The first Carnival, back in 1959, took place indoors at St Pancras Town Hall, and in January, the peak of winter. Back then, tropical ingredients like allspice berries needed for jerk seasoning were hard to come by. It was also near impossible to buy ingredients for Caribbean specialities like Jamaica’s Akee and Saltfish (salted codfish cooked with indigenous ackee fruit) and Pepperpot (traditional Amerindian-derived dish from Guyana). Even so, Caribbean food was served at the event, dishes like chicken curry, roti, rice and peas and souse (spiced and pickled pig meat) made a show, reminding people of home.
Dried allspice berries
The carnival had been organised ‘to raise spirits to demonstrate resilience and celebrate Caribbean culture’ at a time when race attacks had sparked a wave of riots around Britain, including around Notting Hill, the year before. In response to the damaging effects the conflict was having on the black community, Trinidadian-born woman, journalist and communist party activist, Claudia Jones, organised the indoor carnival. She wanted to do something that would celebrate West Indian culture and lift people’s spirits.
The year before, Jones had founded Britain’s first black newspaper, The West Indian Gazette. The Gazette had strong ideological commitments, and it connected the issues West Indian immigrants were confronting in Britain to the global struggles against colonialism and racism. It provided a space for writers to publish accessible commentary on their experiences and race relations in Britain, African independence movements, and on the US Civil Rights Movement. Jones wanted the newspaper to nurture a sense of cultural consciousness among West Indians, through its writers.
During the fifties, West Indian immigrants came to Britain at a time when the racist rhetoric of Oswald Mosely, British fascist politician was intensely popular. He appealed to a poverty-stricken white working class who bought into the idea of blaming migrants for their economic and social hardships. Unrelenting race attacks across Britain had spurred Jones to put on a soul-building event that would serve to bolster a black working-class battling with unemployment, low wages and discrimination at every turn.
The event was immensely popular and attracted the support of activists, artists and writers. Among the artists present were Boscoe Holder, Fitzroy Coleman, Mighty Terror and Edric Connor. Jones was applauded for organising what at first seemed unfeasible, an indoor carnival. Her energy and instinct for timing was one of her many gifts. At the time, the Carnival stage manager, political activist and socialist, Trinidadian Trevor Carter, said “Claudia, unlike the rest of us, understood the power of culture as a tool of political resistance. The spirit of the carnival came out of her political knowledge of what to touch at a particular time when we were scared, in disarray.”
The following year, Carnival was held in a larger venue, the Seymour Hall, Marble Arch. It headlined with calypso genius, Lord Kitchener and actor, Cy Grant. Writers Samuel Selvon (The Lonely Londoners (1956)) and George Lamming (The Emigrants (1954)) were on the panel for the beauty queen pageant. And the event’s popularity grew in the two years that followed, moving each time to larger venues: Porchester Hall and then the Lyceum Ballroom.
It wasn’t until 1964 that Carnival moved to the August Bank Holiday and onto the streets. Although, Jones was not involved in organising it, the event followed through her ambitions to bring together community through its culture. The street party came about because Ladbroke Grove social worker and community activist, Rhaune Laslett, wanted to organise outdoor festivities for local children from various ethnic groups. She was of mixed Native American and Russian descent, and, she too had wanted to lift the children’s spirits.
Musician extraordinaire, Russell Henderson, worked alongside Laslett, and was pivotal in setting up what was to become Notting Hill’s first Carnival. They enlisted musicians and children’s performers to attend what was described as a ‘street party’. Laslett wanted “to prove that from our ghetto there was a wealth of culture waiting to express itself, that we weren’t rubbish people”.
The local council had granted Laslett permission for an outdoor party to take place and had agreed to cordon off part of Portobello Road. Once the festivities kicked off, with music from the Russell Henderson Steel Band and performances from kids entertainers, it took on its own momentum. Taking off down Ladbroke Grove, it grew fast as local West Indians joined in with the music and dancing. White British onlookers were also drawn into the parade.
From children’s street party it turned quickly into a parade. The ‘carnival’ partied on down past Holland Park and beyond the cordoned area, managing a much bigger circuit than agreed with the council. Since Jones and Laslett’s successes, the Notting Hill Carnival has taken place every year, continuing to be a space where the black community come together to perform, party, eat and defend their civil rights. Although, the Carnivals that followed those early years were not without obstacles.
The sixties brought its own challenges, not least with the Enoch Powell River of Blood speech on 20 April 1968. If anything was going to consolidate a civil rights movement in Britain, it was a venomous populist orator like Powell. He fed the insecurities of the white British unemployed and working class with his anti-migrant and nationalist speeches, not dissimilar to some of the commentary heard around Brexit today.
By the seventies and beyond, Carnival increasingly became a meeting point of police brutality and the disillusionment of young black and Asian people. Britain was blatantly failing its second generation West Indians, with many feeling alienated by British institutions and subjected to high unemployment rates. The Met Police constructed a stereotype of young black men as criminals, using and abusing stop and search laws to harass and provoke. Police and Thieves by Jnr Murvin and Lee Scratch Perry become a symbol of that conflict and an anthem at Carnival.
My own first experience of carnival as a child was of a lively musical colourful moving show, jaw-stopping costumes and a deep bass that reverberated through my roasted sweetcorn. Add to that memory, mixed feelings of fun and fear; and breaking into a sprint when the police charged the crowd, and my parents holding on tightly to my hand as we ran, until we reached a safe corner.
Photographer Steve Eason
Over the years, carnival has grown from its black community base, galvanised first by Claudia Jones and later by Rhuane Laslett, into the largest street festival in Europe. Without the musical thread of calypso, reggae, dance hall, soca, chutney, dub and ska giving expression to a growing black political consciousness, British culture would look very different today. For me, Carnival’s music expressed the West Indian experience in Britain and unified the voice of protest. Without it, we couldn’t have had the political expression or call for black and white to unite against racism in the lyrics of two-tone, jungle, hip hop, garage, grime, rap and more.
This year, had Carnival gone ahead on the streets, the same defiant confrontation of oppression that Jones had pioneered through her writing, activism and support, would have been headlining in lights on centre stage. From Carnival’s civil rights and community activist roots, we have a strong and important tradition that continues to be relevant and significant. The Black Lives Matter movement would have been visible and present in the people, music and parade, loud and proud.
Despite the absence of the street carnival, there were socially-distanced, mask-wearing demonstrators marching in Notting Hill last Sunday in the Million People March. They were demanding respect, justice and dignity. They were mourning too, the human loss, caused by a global system that fails the black community and asylum seekers and refugees. From the streets around Portobello, the demonstrators’ aim was to bring together all the different communities calling for change, just like carnival’s foremothers had, the women who started it all.
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Wonderful World, Beautiful People – Jimmy Cliff – Released 1969
Take a look, at the world And the state that it’s in today I am sure, you’ll agree We all could make it a better way With our love put together Everybody learn to love each other Instead of fussing and fighting Cheating, backbiting Scandalizing and hating Baby, we could have a Wonderful world, beautiful people You and your girl things could be pretty But underneath this, there is a secret That nobody can reveal
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Rest in Power, George Floyd Rest in Peace, Mercy Beguma Rest in Peace, Chadwick Boseman, King
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Carnival feeds thousands of people each year as they party through the bank holiday weekend. It’s brought the food of the West Indies to the streets of London. Jerk pits park up on road corners and stalls set up selling Trini rotis and Guyanese Pepperpot on Notting Hill’s gentrified streets. If you missed your fix of Jamaican jerk chicken this year, I’ve included a recipe for fans. To keep it real, make sure you get hold of its characteristic blazing scotch bonnets. The flavour is only matched, (or surpassed even?), by the Guyanese wiri wiri pepper.
Scotch bonnet peppers
Jerk seasoning
Jerk cooking is a testimony to slave rebellions and unity on the island of Jamaica. The indigenous Tainos, living on the island before European colonisers arrived, were long using a type of smoking and barbecuing to cook meats. Later, freed slaves, formerly from African nations, formed a rebellious community, the Maroons, that united with the Tainos against the British and their enslavement and exploitation. Once the British formally accepted defeat, the Maroons settled, and ‘jerk’ cooking developed into a style of cooking that focussed more on flavour and less on food-on-the-go. Using Taino methods, meat was cooked with smoke and heat, and allspice tree branches to fuel the fire. Local hot peppers were later added to create a seasoning resembling the smokey and spicy jerk seasoning we know today.
Jerk Chicken
Jerk Seasoning:
25g/¼ cup dried allspice berries (also known as pimento) 1 inch cinnamon stick 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon dark brown sugar 6 spring onions (green onions) including green parts, roughly chopped 6-8 large celery leaves (optional) 1 large sprig of fresh thyme, use only the leaves 2/4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed 1 small onion, peeled and quartered 3 scotch-bonnets, seeded and halved juice of ½ lime salt to taste
around 1kg chicken pieces 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Traditional mortar and pestle method: You can make the entire jerk seasoning in a large mortar and pestle, instead of using a spice blender and food processor.
Pre-heat oven 350oF. Place allspice berries in a non-metal ovenproof dish and roast in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove and allow to cool.
In a spice blender, or mortar and pestle, grind the allspice berries, cinnamon and black peppercorns until ground. Add the grated nutmeg to the spice blend.
Place the spring onions, onion, garlic, scotch bonnets, celery leaves, thyme leaves only, sugar and lime juice into a mini food processor and blend until all the ingredients are minced. Transfer to a small bowl and add the ground spices. Season with salt.
With a sharp knife, pierce the chicken pieces several times.
Add the jerk seasoning to the chicken and mix well. Leave covered and refrigerated to marinate for around 3-4 hours, or overnight if time allows.
Cooking: In the oven: Pre-heat oven to Gas 6/200oC/400oF. Put the oil in a roasting dish and spoon half of the marinade on top. Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes. Reduce temperature to Gas 3/170oC/325oF and cook the chicken for around 45 mins -1 hour. During cooking, baste the chicken pieces with the pan juices. On the bbq: Prepare the bbq to a high temperature (around 400oF) and first seal the meat pieces on both sides. (This can be done directly above the coals.) Ideally, a covered bbq is best, or you can cover an open bbq loosely with aluminium foil. Then, put the lid down (or cover with foil) on a drum or kettle bbq with vents slightly open, and reduce heat to low (325oF) with the lid down for around 1 hour or until chicken is cooked through. Or use indirect heat, by pushing coals to the side. This will prevent flare ups.
Traditionally served with rice and peas or good on its own with an iced cold beer.
Yesterday, I decided to make a Cuban cerdo asado (known also as lechón asado outside of Cuba), roast pork. I was inspired by the fruit in my kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught bright limes blur into two bergamot lemons against fully ripened oranges. The collective zests reflecting a light only the impressionists know how to capture.
Photograph by poet, writer & food photographer, Adam Aitken, Australia
Their citrus allure led me to put together the marinade for the cerdo asado. Traditionally made with Seville oranges (bitter oranges), that I unfortunately cannot buy, I made do with combining lime and lemon juice to sweet orange. Once added to the pork, its best left refrigerated overnight, if time allows. I gathered the ingredients: fresh oregano from the garden (dried is also very good), garlic, my oranges, limes and a lemon, bay leaves and black pepper, and sometimes, I add a little cumin.
I am an aficionada of Cuban food which I note has been deconstructed and reconstructed over recent decades, often leaving the newcomer to Cuba wondering what all the fuss is about. It’s inevitable that some travellers may come away disheartened by their experience. Having had the gloss of intoxicating mojitos and the nostalgia of specialities like empanadas and tamales, promised in the travel branding but that fail to show.
The reality is, the visitor’s dining experience begins with a brutally cropped version of a traditional Carte du Jour. Cuban food at the present time is a shadow of its former selves and has been for some time. With long queues to get staples and a limited range of food choices, it’s not surprising that the visitor comes away without the full picture. Whether they chose the Nacional restaurant, looking over Havana’s Malecon, or dine in the cafes amid the contagious beats of Santiago de Cuba’s revered music scene, there is little choice. An abridged recurrence of ingredients read as a precis of a real Cuban menu.
Since achieving its acclaimed Revolution in 1959, Cubans have faced multiple setbacks to date. Hostilities and extended hardships have plagued post-revolution Cuba and its leadership. Marred by the fallout from capitalism’s continued hysterics, Cuba has had to curtail doing business with just a handful of trading partners. Families and cooks island-wide and across generations have suffered the consequences.
A fusillade of embargoes and economic blockades, isolationist policies, as well as the parting of ways with old aid and trading friends has been unrelenting for Cuba. Burdened by economic barriers and subject to skewed leadership, Cuban cooks have had to learn new ways of cooking traditional recipes and to make do with limited ingredients. The highs and lows of supply plot how Cuban cuisine has and is taking shape in a country where the land is fertile but resources are few.
In the current climate, the lows last longer, compounded by Venezuela’s crises as well as the impact of decisions made by a long time acquaintance. Segue to the current US leader. Executing his policies with buffalo-finesse, he has ordered a wind back to pre-Obama times in relation to Cuba. The progress the Obama administration made in resuming diplomatic ties, allowing Cuba to export its world-renowned rums and cigars, has been reversed and old restrictions have returned.
Cuba is back to dealing with a vengeful neighbour who has packed up his toys and taken them home, again. With Monopoly-mentality, he has withdrawn the Marriott hotel and ceased play. By contrast, it comes as no surprise that a country whose people have repeatedly garnered the will, expertise and determination to take on their imperialist ex-friend, has impressive control of Covid-19. If only they had exchanged notes. Cuba could have shown the US how they prepared two months prior to their first detected case, how they actively screen, and how their very strong primary healthcare system has been a major factor in controlling their outbreak. But still, the US has Cuba to thank for the dazzling Cuban fare found on its soil.
Following the Revolution, the secrets to Cuba’s deep-rooted culinary traditions were smuggled out. Stuffed into bourgeois suitcases packed last minute, they were carried in boats pulled in by Florida’s tow ropes. Drawn to the attraction of surplus and their host’s open-arms reception, a welcome preserved only for defectors, the migrants unloaded and assimilated into American life.
Taking their first step onto western democratic soil, and at ease with the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great, they set about realising a profit from their recipes and knowhow, among other things. So began the wave of predominantly middle-class Cubans into the US, who had shirked the Revolution. Most diffused into the long-time established Cubana community in Miami; made up of tobacco factory labourers, artisans and contract farm workers.
Miami’s Little Havana, had been first populated and built by economic migrants. They were fleeing poverty long before the revolution, and during the time when rich Americans traded their meagre dollars for Cuban souls. The area was later expanded by counter revolutionaries. Setting up their homes, cafes and restaurants in and around the area, the newcomers commemorated their new life with culinary invention: Miami’s infamous Cuban Sandwich. A testimony to their exodus.
Little Havana lays just a few sailing hours away from the mother country, where cooks continue to adapt or create recipes in their sparse kitchens. Surrounding the streets around Calle Ocho, bustling bars and eateries trade in stark juxtaposition to the scant restaurants across the straits in Santiago de Cuba, Varadero and Havana, Cuba’s tourist hot spots.
It was in Little Havana, that I found signature dishes like ropa vieja and picadillo that were either completely absent in Cuba or adapted to availability. Here staff served in restaurants decked out like ‘home’ and decorated in colourful artwork. I found a fantastic cafe, where Cuban son dropped infectious latin beats while customers perused an impressive menu. Steaks were served with the ubiquitous mojo criollo (fresh garlic sauce). Seafood such as lobster was in abundance, lechón asado was served with sliced yuca, sautéed plantains and a rich recipe of frijoles negros (black beans) or, the historically named, moros y cristianos (black beans and rice, or Moors and Christians).
Back in Havana, I had found that some old classics remained largely intact. But they were mostly in the honoured restaurants of Hemingway’s choice, La Bodeguita del Medio and El Floridita. Among the few recipes that remained true to their origins, were the cocktails and drinks. In El Floridita, I had a beautiful margarita in 1950’s style. In the Nacional bar, I sipped on Cuba Libres with fresh limes slices afloat. Not to be missed was the fresh yerbabuena (Cuban mint) crushed in cane juice, doused in a sea of golden Cuban rum, topped in a highball with soda water and slices of lime. The Mojito. The fragrance of yerbabuena against the rum’s heady molasses is sheer genius in a glass.
Photograph by Adam Aitken
Photograph by Pamela Lalbachan
The afficionadas among us, rate Cuban food highly, both outside as well in, despite the shortages. On a visit to Havana, I was fortunate to meet a local cook and abuela (grandma), Angélica Suarez. She showed me just how good the food is, still. She had been cooking traditional Cuban food long before the Revolution. In her Havana apartment, she was holding together childhood traditions while successfully creating minimalist versions of old recipes where ingredients were scarce.
Angélica showed me how to make her unforgettable sopa de pollo (Chicken Soup). She also taught me how to begin the dish with a sofrito. From her, I learned that adobe (seasoning), an inherent component of meat and fish cookery in Cuba, mirrors the method of Guyanese home-cooking I was taught. Indeed, seasoning (or marinating), is a widely used precursor to preparing meat and seafood dishes in the whole of the Caribbean. Angélica seasoned her chicken with an adobe made of crushed garlic, oregano, paprika, olive oil and salt and black pepper.
The Cuban sofrito is also very similar to that of many Caribbean recipes, with the exception of the herbs used. Mediterranean herbs and ingredients are characteristic of a Cuban sofrito. Chopped onions, spring (green) onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, oregano, parsley, bay leaves and variations thereof make up a sofrito. The chicken pieces were cooked gently in its adobe, the sofrito and stock. Angélica later adds plantains, sweet potatoes, carrots and noodles to complete the sopa de pollo. The result was a wonderful, heart-warming dish executed with technique and steeped in layers of flavours.
I later went on to discover lechón asado in a paladar, a small in-home restaurant, in Havana’s backstreets. We found the place on a narrow residential street where we were beckoned by a couple to go inside. They welcomed us from their doorstep, as though we were personal guests. We were promptly directed to sit in the front room at one of two small round tables covered in red and white gingham tablecloths.
The hosts were the cooks, a content couple in their thirties, who were earning a living from tourism. They served us a lesser version of lechón asado, which is traditionally made with a suckling pig, on a bed of arroz con frijoles negros (rice and black beans) with yellow plantain slices. The strength of the characteristic bitter orange seasoning had been toned down, yet the pork was roasted to texture perfection and suffused with a robust mojo criollo.
The host told us that Cuba had known better times, and not that long ago either. She went on to talk about how she usually made her lechón asado, that is when ingredients are aplenty. It was a fascinating snapshot of criolla cooking, the triangular meeting point for Mediterranean citrus and herbs and an Afro-Cuban style of cooking meat with indigenous food. The addition of black peppercorns and cumin seeds completes the history; spices brought to Cuba by Iberian conquistadors via traders.
Although it was not easy to come by old traditional recipes in Cuba’s cafes and restaurants, I was impressed by the food I had eaten. It epitomised the place in time and the passion people have for their cultural identity. In everything I tried, whether it was a cocktail, contrived in part at least for the tourist, or a homemade meal, I experienced a strong and proud sense of Cuba’s culinary and national heritage. When economic burdens lift, Cuban chefs are doing what chefs do everywhere, taking in global trends and influences while preserving their traditional cocina criolla.
Cerdo Asado (Roasted Pork)
6 lb fresh unsmoked gammon or pork shoulder 8 cloves garlic 2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon whole or freshly ground black peppercorns, (or ground black pepper is fine) 1 and ½ cups bitter orange juice* (If you can’t get bitter orange juice, use one cup of sweet orange, ¼ cup lemon and ¼ cup lime) 2 teaspoons fresh oregano leaves or 1 teaspoon dried oregano 2 bay leaves, roughly broken ½ teaspoon ground cumin 1 and ½ cups olive oil
*bitter orange juice comes from Seville oranges. If you cannot get bitter (or sour) oranges substitute half of the sweet orange juice, mixed with one quarter fresh lime juice and one quarter of fresh lemon juice.
Wash the pork and pat to dry. Pierce deeply around the pork with a sharp knife. Place in a lidded bowl or container.
In a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic with the salt and peppercorns (if using whole peppercorns) until it becomes a paste. If using ground black pepper, add now and stir.
Take half the garlic paste mixture and rub all over the pork.
Transfer the remaining garlic paste to a small mixing bowl and add the bay leaves, cumin, olive oil and citrus juices to make the marinade.
Pour the marinade over the pork and marinate in the fridge, preferably overnight. Rotate the pork or turn the lidded container upside down at regular intervals to ensure all of the meat is evenly marinated.
Remove meat from the fridge around an hour before roasting.
Pre-heat the oven at gas 3/170oC/325OF
Place the pork in a non-reactive roasting pan, fat-side up and cover loosely with aluminium foil. Set aside the marinade. Cook for around 3 hours, (until the internal temperature reaches 170oF).
While cooking, frequently spoon the reserved marinade over the pork and baste with pan juices.
Remove foil and continue to cook for 2-3 hours, until the pork is soft. Baste pork in pan juices.
Remove from oven, cover with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with mojo criollo (garlic sauce).
Serves 6-8
Serve with black beans and rice, sautéed yellow plantains (for recipes see The Complete Caribbean Cookbook for recipe). To make the famous Cuban Sandwich use roasted pork slices.
Mojo Criollo 6-8 cloves garlic ½ teaspoon salt 1 small onion, very thinly sliced ½ cup bitter (Seville) orange juice* (see above) ¾ cup olive oil
In a mortar and pestle or using the back of a knife, crush the garlic with the salt until it becomes a paste.
Transfer to a small mixing bowl and combine onion and citrus juices. Allow to infuse for around 30 minutes.
In a small pan, heat the oil until just hot, not smoking.
Take off the heat and pour over the garlic mixture while stirring briskly.
Serve with credo or lechón asado (roasted pork).
Makes around 1 cup
Variations: finish with ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper and/or ¼ teaspoon dried oregano.
Today is National Windrush Day, a day to honour the British Caribbean community, who arrived between 1948 and 1971. My family are part of the generation of West Indians who came to Britain during that time, to help repair post-war Britain in the 1950s. So today, I’m taking a little time out to reflect on this day and on my family’s migration to the UK.
Having chosen to make London their new home in the 1950s, my grandparents anticipated a new and prosperous life in a land promising hope to generations. They set sail from Guyana’s tropical shores for London’s cooler climes. Their first cultural adjustment was the weather. Bitterly cold winters, with snow almost knee-deep in Finsbury Park had them questioning the joy and laughter promised to them on glittered Christmas cards. Winters in London turned my Grandma into an expert in layering and insulating the body, making us leave for school in Michelin-man style.
Naturally though, there were highs and lows to uprooting to a new country. The Windrush story can’t truly be told without acknowledging that racism hindered the ease within which the Caribbean community settled in. I know my grandfather regularly questioned why they had been allured to Britain, with its enticing advertising, when the reality was they were faced with barriers when trying to set up the most basic needs of a family, such as housing. Back then, it was standard to see signs displayed in windows saying ‘No Irish, no blacks, no dogs’.
The fight for equality and justice was always an undercurrent for the Windrush generations, and remains so. Yet, as I begin to surmise what it means to celebrate Windrush day, as a first-generation Guyanese, I think about the West Indian community as having intrinsically helped to shape what is British culture today.
Growing up in London, the Notting Hill Carnival was, for me, Windrush Day. The music, the smell of jerk chicken, sautéed plantain and saltfish, the taste of Guinness punch, and the colours, the lively shades of the islands. All of this was an emblematic celebration of the achievements of the diaspora. Sound systems stacked in the streets of Ladbroke Grove and Portobello Road, transformed west London into a Caribbean carnival for a whole day. People came together on a summer’s bank holiday with Soca, Chutney, Ragga, Reggae and Rap vibrating deep into the soul.
When I take carnival out of the experience, I see my family and community settling in a place that they were both shaping and confronting. I see also my grandmother, a strong woman, gathering strength and resilience along the way. She, like other West Indians, made and sustained a life in Britain, a good life at that. Once she had worked through the tangled turmoil of British society, with all of its contradictory standards, she had a happy life. She belonged to a community with shared experiences, and spent time with friends and family, who she cooked for and laughed with, and cried with too.
This Windrush day, I pay respect to the generations who paved the way for us, and made it easier for my generation. I also celebrate the Caribbean heritage kept alive through families, grandparents and great grandparents. Today, of all the wonderful places I have been fortunate to live in and visit, with all their beauty and serenity, my favourite place in the whole world to be was at my Grandma’s kitchen table. The brightly coloured floral tablecloth, her kitsch salt and pepper shakers and homemade chutney, all props for the centrepiece, her life’s stories in Guyana. After cooking and eating together, followed by a dessert always served with ice-cream or custard, the radio playing, we would sit there for hours, just limin’.
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Coconut Ice Cream
Photo by Michelle Garrett, food stylist Liz Trigg, from The Complete Caribbean Cookbook by Pamela Lalbachan
1 cup (8 fl oz/250ml) fresh coconut milk 1 cup (8 fl oz/250ml) fresh milk 3 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch) 1 cup (8 fl oz/250ml) caster (superfine) sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons grated coconut 2 egg whites, beaten to soft peaks
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Combine coconut milk and halt the milk in a medium saucepan.
Combine remaining milk and cornflour and add to the saucepan with the sugar and salt.
Cook over a medium/low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture forms a thick custard-like consistency.
Stir in the grated coconut. Allow to cool.
Pour the mixture into a lidded container, cover, and place in the freezer until it is partially frozen.
Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, add the egg whites and beat until smooth. Return the ice-cream to the container and freeze for 3 hours, then beat again until smooth and creamy. (Alternatively, freeze in an ice-cream maker following the manufacturers instructions.) Return to the freezer until the ice-cream is frozen.
Before the lockdown officially kicked in, many businesses and organisations were already acting on their better judgement by closing workplaces and considering how to keep staff safe, as well as how to transfer our work spaces to our homes. Trailing the forward thinking, the UK government focussed its entrepreneurial mind on how we would carry on our jobs, provide essential services and primarily, keep the economy ticking over, albeit in isolation. So, here we are, working from home.
For me, one plus to having work and home in the same place, apart from the obvious safety aspect, is that it has given me more control over cooking and eating routines. I can take later lunches and prep the evening meal earlier in the day or even the day before. Yet, despite the helpful time shifting, there is a sense of retrogression about lockdown. I’ve found myself reviewing times gone by, without romanticising, to a time when labour-intensive food preparations and preservations were intrinsically part of family and working life.
Homeworking these past few weeks also got me thinking to when I first came across working from home. I remember as a very young child, my Grandma worked as a dressmaker in our home. The days would begin and end with the humming of her sewing machine. A sound that filled the room with its undulating buzzing, controlled only by my Grandma’s slippered soles as they pressed down on the square pedal at her feet.
My Grandma, a dressmaker, in her north London home in the 1960s.
As a child, I marvelled at the rainbow coloured, odd shaped cut-outs which were dropped off in the mornings in huge tied bundles of fabric, and later picked up as ready-to-wear and virtually ready-for-sale dresses. Getting the textile jigsaw pieces to fit together into a coherent wearable garment took her a lot of sewing hours. My Grandma worked hard back then, only stopping her work to prepare meals for the family.
One dish I remember vividly that she used to make was spiced sautéed chick peas, known simply as channa in our house. It was a quick snack she would put together using chick peas (soaked overnight) and ‘a good pinch’ of just a few spices, including jeera (cumin seeds), sautéed with chopped garlic and onions. She cooked it to texture and taste perfection, until the sweetness of the onions contrasted flawlessly with the nutty, buttery chickpea flavour. It was well-timed and a good stalling tactic for her ahead of preparing the evening meal later. Once she had bowled up the steaming channa, coated in roasted jeera, paprika and ground black pepper, she would get back to her sewing.
Dried chick peas by Poet, Writer and Food Photographer, Adam Aitken, Australia
Like so many new migrants in the 50s and 60s she was a home worker and, like others at that time, she was subject to a hostile social environment in Britain. Work was available but the welcome, not so great. Indeed, it’s a well documented migrant story far and wide that a community’s response to their host’s hostility and accompanying discrimination, is to seal off and conserve cultural traditions; to build a safe haven where the heart and soul of their heritage can be protected.
Looking back, that response was echoed within our family and that of family friends. Over time, each of them built part of a nexus that together made up a whole community. Food, religion, literature, music and style were all constituent parts, which when strung together kept an impregnable lifeline to the Caribbean while guarding cultural keepsakes. It ran through our home and weaved, unfettered, through the homes of family, family friends and beyond. My Grandma’s cooking was just a part of that common thread.
In her north London Victorian terrace, her twoworlds converged, creating a montage of cultures and a gateway, for me, to the Caribbean spirit. As a child, I was still to visit Guyana. Yet, growing up I could feel its character and its temperament: a gentle breeze swept through its scented mango and guava trees, a warm yellow light lit it up and blue skies held it all together on a wildly changing terrain. Feeding my imagination were the pictures that hung on the walls and mantle pieces, some boasting Guyana’s sunladen landscapes, others recounting history in black and white images. In contrast to the monochrome, displayed around the house was a show of Caribbean flora growing with the flamboyance of attentively nurtured fresh and artificial flowers.
Easily though, the kitchen was the most interesting, a place of curious things where my Grandma kept some unusual looking utensils. One that springs to mind was her dhal gutni. It had a wooden handle with an eight-pointed wooden star attached at one end. When the handle was swizzled between the palms, the star magically transformed cooked lentils into a smooth dhal. No electricity required.
Accordingly, her kitchen was a gastronomic hybrid of the offerings of both the tropical and temperate. On the one hand, she did her best to get hold of beloved ingredients like cassava and karela (bitter gourd), on the other, she embraced new foods like grapes, apples and cabbages. Make no mistake, we were privy to a range of amazing Dr Who-looking fruit and vegetables which were a far cry from the school dinners we ate at lunchtimes. As for chick peas, we only ever saw them at home, in my Grandma’s channa.
Somehow though, she brought it all together under one roof: tradition, home and her work. I suspect her work probably took over more than she wanted. Back then, dressmakers around the world, were not protected by labour laws and in many households similar to ours, once children returned home from school, they helped women meet their targets. We too used to help my Grandma finish off. Using our plastic knitting needles, we turned the sewn edges of polka-dotted collars into sharp acute angles and matching dress belts, into perfect perpendicular corners.
Dressmaking was also immensely popular work among immigrants across the Atlantic where that same protection of community and culture built up around the tenements in lower Manhattan. While New York Italians were preserving the virtue of their pastas and pizzas, their fellow-German migrants were seasonally preserving cabbage in large barrels for sauerkraut. New York’s tenements in the 1800s through to the 1960s, housed many a dressmaker and provided hundreds of migrants with jobs. Around Elizabeth Street in old Little Italy, Italian women sewed at home for the garment industry and their children helped also with finishing work at home.
In truth, working from home is no newcomer, it’s a centuries-old way of working that’s been reinstated and reinvented by the Covid-19 crisis. One of the differences though, in it’s modern interpretation, is that it’s possible to take stock and, hopefully, improve work-life balance. For me, working at home has brought back the aroma of freshly roasted jeera drifting through my day. Weaving the thread from my London upbringing into my kitchen and very much shaping the fabric of my life. As dried chick peas fall into the bowl in their loud clamour, I’m reminded of the many dishes brought into my world from my Grandma’s past, a reminder of her life’s stories told. Of the place, throughout my life, I would always hear her call home.
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Channa (sautéed chick peas)
Ingredients
200g dried channa (chick peas), soaked overnight in around 800ml cold water, or 1 can of channa, drained and rinsed under cold water 3 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped 2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped 1 red chilli, preferably a Scotch Bonnet*, finely chopped with seeds, (reduce amount or omit if you prefer less of a kick) 1/2 teaspoon ground paprika 1 teaspoon roasted jeera seeds (cumin seeds** or ground) 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper salt to taste
* Scotch Bonnet pepper, a fiery and colourful Caribbean pepper with truly awesome flavour, once you get past the heat. ** If time allows, for a full cumin experience, dry roast the seeds in a small frying pan for a few minutes on a low-medium heat. Shake the pan regularly until the seeds turn a medium-dark brown and their aroma is released. Then use whole or partially crush in a mortar and pestle.
If using canned, drain channa into a colander and rinse under cold water.
If using soaked, place the channa with the soaking water in a medium sized pan. Set on a high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for around 30-40 minutes until just soft to the bite. Drain the chick peas in a colander.
Heat up the oil in a medium sized pan. Add the onions and sauté for around 6 minutes until the onions are translucent.
Add the garlic and chilli and continue to sauté for 1 minute.
Now add the channa and continue cooking for around 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the onions are a golden colour.
Add the spices and salt to taste and stir through. Cook for another minute. Taste and adjust, if necessary.
Serve hot or cold.
Tip: When serving add a generous squeeze of lime juice and chopped coriander.
Lockdown has fast become a ‘normal’ way of living but that’s not to say that some days I don’t wake up feeling like the one thing I want to do is to go out. Instead, I accept that life has gone bananas, temporarily. That said, it does seem that lockdown has brought out the baker in many of us. YouTube clips and Instagram inspiration are kick-starting dormant bakers everywhere.
My neglected fruit took me on a welcome journey this week and got me baking banana bread. I pondered the countless ingredient additions there are to a banana bread recipe.
Thanks to the supermarkets, corner stores and food workers many of us are not short on choices of fruit. Thank you, again, key workers for maintaining a steady supply of bananas to our supermarkets and local shops during lockdown. My deep gratitude is extended to the long chain of workers required to bring bananas from their country of origin to our local streets at this difficult time.
Every time I make banana bread, I think of Dominica where I once tasted a banana bread so delicious that it’s never been forgotten. A bunch of characteristic Caribbean flavours that run through the islands were brought together in one sweet, moist banana bread.
Bananas are aplenty in the Caribbean; finger bananas, sugar bananas, Cavendish, red-skinned bananas and more. Each variety carries its own characteristic flavour and levels of natural sweetness. So, for me, it’s no surprise that when I put ripe bananas, Demerara sugar*, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice into a mixing bowl that I think of my Dominican banana bread. Actually, from these ingredients alone you get a compilation of island stories.
The Demerara sugar takes you to slave plantations and slave rebellions in the Demerara region of Guyana in the 1830s, (ok, it’s not an island). Nutmeg and cinnamon were among a collection of spices to name the island of Grenada ‘the Spice Island’ because of the world-leading levels of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and mace it produced. Allspice, loaded with regional revelations, leads you to the origins of the bbq where Jamaica’s indigenous people (theTaino) used the allspice berry branches to cook their meat. Indeed, the art of ‘jerk’ cooking emanates from the allspice berry lending itself to a cascade of recipe stories. As for the bananas, Day-O, Day-O, daylight come bringing many a song and story recounting a long history of banana labourers’ lives and fruit production in the West Indian economy that continues to the present day. And, if I were to add some rum to my mixing bowl, as I so often do, we’re in the territory of the world’s finest rums.
Bananas have been grown and exported from the Caribbean for centuries. They are an important part of the economies of many islands, such as the Dominican Republic and St Vincent. Once an important bread and butter industry, (no pun intended), bananas, along with sugar, kept the economies of the islands buoyant. Unfortunately, over the past decades, banana exports have massively declined, as large-scale production in other parts of the world has stifled the small family run farm and medium sized plantations in the wider Caribbean.
The Windward islands do still produce bananas only now on a much smaller scale. The politics of global economics has left the Caribbean banana industry suffering, despite the fact that the Caribbean, arguably perhaps, produces the most flavoursome bananas out there.
For me, the best bananas I have ever tasted were in the Caribbean. The region’s banana plantations struggle yet they manage to thrive, despite competition from mass production in other countries. Islands such as St Lucia and the Dominican Republic are assisted by Fairtrade so that they can continue to export bananas. I always seek these out when shopping because they tend to support the smaller producers in the Caribbean while also promoting the use of less chemicals. And, they taste good too!
Whatever bananas you chose, there’s no excuse not to make banana bread because we all, at some time, have overlooked bananas, forgotten as their hue drifts from sunshine yellow to deep brown. Well, most of us. As each day passes, they sit in the fruit bowl turning darker and darker while the sugar within reaches fermentation levels. At this point, you can either steal the moment, or you could forward plan and purposefully set aside some bananas to over-ripen for baking. The jury is still out as to whether you have to use seriously over-ripe blackened-skin bananas or just plain ripe bananas, but in my opinion over-ripened is good, it makes for a moist and flavoursome banana bread.
*origins of this variety of sugar is from the Demerara region of Guyana. A missed opportunity to give it a geographical indication of origin, perhaps, as many countries now produce demerara-style sugar, such as Mauritius.
Banana Bread
Photo taken from my book, The Complete Caribbean Cookbook by Pamela Lalbachan, Lansdowne Publishing
I sometimes add to this recipe a tablespoon or two of golden or dark rum at the point that I add the milk. It adds a little something special.
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8 oz(250g) butter 8oz (250g) demerara sugar 3 very ripe medium bananas, peeled and mashed 1 medium egg, beaten 1 lb (500g) self-raising flour (or plain/all-purpose flour + 1 tablespoon baking powder) ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, or ground nutmeg ½ teaspoon ground allspice berries (if you do not have this you can omit) ½ cup of milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (vanilla essence is a good substitute) 1 tablespoon of dark/golden rum (optional) 1 tablespoon seedless raisins
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Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/Gas 4.
2. Butter a 9 x 5 inch (22.5cm x 12.5cm) loaf pan.
3. Cream the butter and sugar together until light in colour.
4. Add the bananas and the egg and mix well.
5. Sift in the flour (and baking powder if using plain/all purpose flour), cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice and stir well into the mixture until combined.
6. Add the vanilla extract to the milk and stir. Gradually beat in the vanilla-milk liquid, and rum (if adding).
7. Stir in the raisins.
8. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake in the centre of the oven until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 45 mins-1 hour.
9. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn the bread out onto a rack to cool completely.
So I start my first food blog, finally. Only taken a couple of years. Before I say anything food related, I would like to say thank you to the NHS. Big respect! You are undeniably the backbone right now. Immense gratitude goes out too to other key workers such as the drivers, transport workers and others keeping it all going, including the food workers. Without all of you I would not be able to sit in the safety of my garden, writing about the world we live in through food, recipes and community.
Lockdown is a new way of living, tough at times, and intensely isolating. That said it is allowing some of us the freedom and time to spend on the things we love and to try something new. I am cooking more than ever, and that is saying something as I was pretty much close to full capacity before lockdown.
Our response to the Covid-19 crisis has made me think carefully about what I need, what is it that I really couldn’t do without with? For some people, it may have been toilet rolls but I’m pretty sure there were also other indispensable items unique to all of us. For me, it was garlic and lemons. Then about 10 other things came in a tight second, such as paprika, ginger, olive oil and fresh herbs.
The reason is that as long as the cupboard, or indeed the garden, is stocked with herbs and spices, my kitchen security blanket is by my side. Stocking up on spices has been relatively easy as the food shelves are generally stocked and signs of panic largely bypassed this section of the supermarket. Having a range of herbs and spices allows me to add interest to everyday staples and can even jazz up that everlasting bag of carrots you bought to tide you over. Marinated carrots (zanahorias aliñadas) springs to mind.
That said, woman cannot live on herbs and spices alone. Keeping a range of carbs in the cupboard maintains the momentum and inclination to keep mixing it up when you’re cooking. Try rice, potatoes, pasta, noodles, polenta, masa, breads. On that note, we can also home make, noodles, breads such as tortillas and chapatis, pasta such as ravioli, tagliatelle and dumplings, you get the idea. With this is mind, my kitchen is a place of creativity and reflection. For me, it’s a place for contemplation and thinking about those I am cooking for, with music on in the background.
Lockdown has made me consider, carefully, with some degree of shame, about the amount of food I had been wasting. Binning food either because it had migrated to the back of the fridge, or because I had bought vegetables, with good intentions, that I just didn’t have time to cook. All this is now a no go.
Since lockdown, almost everything is getting used. Now, when I think about throwing things out, I pause and maybe make a stock from old vegetables, peppers, onions, carrots, and might include a left over roast chicken carcass, that kind of thing. I have saved an inch of celery, a quarter of a shallot, used coriander that has long lost its chorophyll and taken on a faded shade, a thumbnail-sized piece of scotch bonnet (type of hot Jamaican pepper). And, not only do I feel like I’m doing my bit for the planet; recycling, reducing the food miles by making food last longer (less trips to the shops), it’s keeping cooking lively and making isolation at home just that little bit more workable. And, I’m hoping my efforts are contributing to the greater good.
The extended homemade menu is going down well as we stay at home. We always eat together, but now we talk just that little bit more about the food while we catch up, having spent time apart in different parts of the house. A small house, I hasten to add, no west wing at my place. And, it’s just as good if you’re cooking for one, looking after yourself gives a sense of wellbeing. When I lived in a one bedroom flat in Stoke Newington in London, I cooked almost just as much then as now, sometimes after a big night out. I confess, that’s a bit extreme but you get the picture. Point is, cooking for one can be just as enjoyable as cooking for more. Eat well, enjoy what you eat, boost your immune system and help the NHS.
Whether you live with others or alone, cooking is one way to occupy the mind and pass the time. For me, I like food to carry me on little journeys. I’ll put a bunch of ingredients together that’ll take me back to a great Vietnamese lemongrass chicken I once had, to a mean Italian pesto I tried in Italy. A fine meal brings a lot of happiness, and there are a ton of food expressions I could use right now but I won’t go there, I have bigger fish to fry.
I’ve put together this recipe to kick off my first blog. It makes a great salad to have on its own or as an accompaniment. I have used the following ingredients but if you do not have all of the vegetable ingredients, make do with what you have or substitute other ingredients, such as cherry tomatoes, celery and parsley. Za’atar is a Middle Eastern herb similar to oregano, marjoram and thyme. You can buy it in your local supermarket typically selling Middle Eastern food. Za’atar preparations are often mixed with other ingredients such as thyme and sesame seeds. I am using a Palestinian za’atar in this recipe. Try substituting dried oregano or a mixture of marjoram and oregano if you do not have za’atar.
Meditteranean inspired Feta and Za’atar Salad
20 green olives, chopped
½ cucumber, finely cubed
½ red pepper (pimento), finely cubed
¼ green pepper (pimento), finely cubed
½ banana shallot (1 shallot, ¼ red onion or brown onion), peeled and finely diced
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (or bottled)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper
120g feta
Generous pinch of za’atar, (or dried oregano, if you do not have za’atar)
Put all of the chopped salad vegetables into a shallow serving dish.
In a small bowl, lightly whisk the lemon juice and olive oil.
Pour the lemon juice and olive oil mixture over the salad vegetables and lightly stir through.
Add the salt and black pepper and lightly stir through.
Pamela Lalbachan 