"Just over two and a half million years ago, our brains swelled. Less than a million years later, they swelled again, our posture and our gait changed, our jaws shrank, and we grew taller. These two evolutionary changes define our species, distinguishing us from our fellow primates. 1.8 million years ago, we learned to cook. Cooking... literally powered our evolution."
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
How Cooking Made Us Human
"Just over two and a half million years ago, our brains swelled. Less than a million years later, they swelled again, our posture and our gait changed, our jaws shrank, and we grew taller. These two evolutionary changes define our species, distinguishing us from our fellow primates. 1.8 million years ago, we learned to cook. Cooking... literally powered our evolution."
Friday, December 25, 2009
Food Poem Fridays: John Engels' CRANBERRY-ORANGE RELISH
by John Engels
A pound of ripe cranberries, for two days
macerate in a dark rum, then do not
treat them gently, but bruise,
mash, pulp, squash
with a wooden pestle
to an abundance of juices, in fact
until the juices seem on the verge
of overswelling the bowl, then drop in
two fistsful, maybe three, of fine-
chopped orange with rind, two golden
blobs of it, and crush
it in, and then add sugar, no thin
sprinkling, but a cupful dumped
and awakened with a wooden spoon
to a thick suffusion, drench of sourness, bite of color,
then for two days let conjoin
the lonely taste of cranberry,
the joyous orange, the rum, in some
warm corner of the kitchen, until
the bowl faintly becomes
audible, a scarce wash of sound, a tiny
bubbling, and then
in a glass bowl set it out
and let it be eaten last, to offset
gravied breast and thigh
of the heavy fowl, liverish
stuffing, the effete
potato, lethargy of pumpkins
gone leaden in their crusts, let it be eaten
so that our hearts may be together overrun
with comparable sweetnesses,
tart gratitudes, until finally,
dawdling and groaning, we bear them
to the various hungerings
of our beds, lightened
of their desolations.
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P.S. What do you think of poem-recipes?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Recipe by Miz SunDrop: Cornbread Dotted with Dried Cherries
1/2 cup shredded jack or cheddar
1 cup flour
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Yams with Mustard Greens
- 2 small heads mustard greens, washed, dried, and sliced into 2" long ribbons (cut down the length of the rib and then slice into thin ribbons cross-wise)
- 1.5" ginger, peeled and thinly julienned
- 4 shallots (or 1/2 large red onion), finely chopped
- salt to taste (approx. 1 tsp)
- lal mirchi (red chilli powder) to taste (mine is very spicy, so I probably used no more than 1/4 tsp)
- about 2 tbsp olive oil
I used purple mustard greens (like these) that I picked up at the Union Square Greenmarket.