Hungry In Hogtown

Brain food: Mario Batali's lamb's brains ravioli

My first exposure to the glories of lamb offal was entirely accidental.  "Abbacchio con funghi," read the chef's recommendations at one of Rome's oldest restaurants, La Campana, and a succulent lamb chop or tender braised shank did seem like a perfect fall supper in the Eternal City.  Moreover, because of my almost non-existent knowledge of Italian at the time, I was tickled about having understood the Roman dialect word for lamb.

"Pride goes before a fall," they say, and I was about to learn my lesson.

The full name of the dish is actually "animelle di abbacchio con funghi."  I naively ignored that first word, dismissing it as nothing more than a minor detail.  This is Rome, however, a city that prides itself on its culinary artistry with the "quinto quarto," or "fifth quarter" of the animal, the collection of snouts, guts, brains, and tails that have been staples of the city's working class cuisine for millenia.

When my meal finally arrived, I couldn't help but notice the extensive network of ridges and crenelations running through my piece of lamb.  "Rachel," I muttered, "I think I've ordered brain."  Not quite, it turns out, but nestled within my pool of rich brown gravy and mushrooms lay a tender, plump lamb sweetbread.  I had a decision to make: suck it up, try it, and then reach an informed opinion, or take a mulligan and order something new.  My decision: eat first, ask questions later.  So I screwed up my courage and took a bite.  Not bad, really.  The texture was smooth and rich, pillowy like a dumpling, and the meat gravy superb.

Having finally eaten a sizable portion of my meal, I tried to ask our waiter what I was eating by tapping my temple while asking, "Dove?" -- the Italian word for "where" -- hoping he would understand the implication, which he did.  "Si," he confirmed.

I continued to eat more, though I didn't attack supper with my usual gusto.  Yes, even I -- gobbler of rabbit ears and glutton for horse fat --  get culinary cold feet.  I'd like to rationalize my anxiety by claiming fear of mad cow disease, but no lamb has ever been diagnosed with BSE and no case of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, the human equivalent, has ever been linked back to sheep.  No, my fears about eating lamb brains aren't about what's in the lamb's head.  It's about what's in mine.

Brain presents a big culinary problem for most of us.  It's squishy; when cooked, it's grey.  Both factors are a huge turn off.  But the bigger issue with brain, I think, stems from the unmistakable resemblance of an animal's brain to our own, and from the immense symbolic weight we place on that organ as the locus of thought and as the seat of the soul.  We rather easily disassociate ourselves from animal flesh, but we've all taken enough high school science classes or watched enough sci-fi and monster movies to recognize that a lamb's brain looks almost exactly like a miniaturized version of our own.  We recognize a little too much of ourselves in a brain.

I first tasted actual lamb's brains a few years ago at Babbo, Mario Batali's flagship New York restaurant.  Batali actively promotes cooking with offal, and his menus reflect his passion.  At Babbo, our server urged us to try the lamb brains francobolli -- postage stamps of fresh pasta stuffed with a mixture of poached brain, ricotta, sauteed onions, and a little seasoning, dressed with gently heated butter, some fresh sage, and a sprinkling of parmesan -- so I took the plunge.  I'm glad I did.  The brain's contribution is more texture -- a slightly creamy lusciousness -- then flavour, but the dish really does taste marvelous.

Of course, Batali does his best to make "the nasty bits" palatable to his patrons.  As others have already pointed out, he usually mixes offal into his dishes in small quantities, and it's probably no coincidence that the lamb's brains are hidden within a pasta envelope.  As they say: out of sight, out of mind.

It's an entirely different story when you're both diner and chef.  Any illusions are forgotten the instant you hold a chilled, slick brain in the palm of your hand.  No easy task given how difficult it is to find naturally raised lamb in Toronto.  The most pleasant surprise I received when preparing lamb brains is price -- they were free.  According to my butcher at Cumbrae's, no market exists for the product in Canada.  The next step, cleaning the brains, can hardly be described as pleasant.  For one, there were a few small chunks of skull wedged into the brains -- a by-product, no doubt, of extracting the brains from the skull using a saw -- and, for two, there's the pain-in-the-ass task of removing the outer membrane and blotches of congealed blood.

After soaking the brains overnight in a couple of changes of water to drain any remaining blood, the recipe, which I adapted from an identical recipe for calf's brains in The Babbo Cookbook, is entirely straightforward.  Rather than fuss over the pasta envelope, I prepared basic, square ravioli, not postage stamps with fancy edges.  The homemade dish, though less artfully presented, is every bit as good as the restaurant version.  The richness of the filling marries artfully with butter, flavours complemented by the sharp herbal note of sage and the zing of lemon zest.  We even found one friend eager to taste the dish, and he enjoyed it too.

Having come this far, we must now decide if we want to explore brains further.  Where Batali uses brains as just one note in a broader harmony, Fergus Henderson features them front and centre.  The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating includes a small section of lamb brains recipes, everything from deep fried brains to a terrine.  There's even a recipe for cold lamb's brains on toast, "for those who particularly enjoy the texture of brain."  Hmmm.  I'm not sure we're there yet, Fergus.

The undisputed king of noodles: el Bulli's two metre parmesan spaghetto

Sometimes molecular gastronomy can be a real pain in the ass.  Even the simplest of recipes -- and a two metre parmesan spaghetto is, believe it or not, relatively straightforward -- can be sabotaged by seemingly benign requirements, requirements like "1-1 L ISI siphon with the emptying attachment spaghetti."  Emptying attachment spaghetti?

Mangled English aside, I have no idea what that might look like, nor have I found a retailer that sells it.  The likely reason is simple: the spaghetti attachment is actually a customized piece of equipment designed specifically for (and likely by) el Bulli itself.

Unfortunately, the attachment points to a larger problem with pursuing molecular gastronomy at home generally, and cooking from the el Bulli cookbooks specifically: both require a constant stream of specialized equipment -- equipment that is often difficult, if not impossible to get.  The el Bulli cookbooks compound the problem by offering no indication of where, or even if, the necessary equipment can be purchased.

Acid flashback: memories of balsamic vinegar and Faith Heller Willinger's Adventures of an Italian Food Lover

It seems fitting, in hindsight, that the first gift I gave Rachel after our wedding was a bottle of balsamic vinegar.  And not just any old bottle, either.  I'm talking about the genuine article, the mahogany ambrosia produced in and around Modena, Italy.

Like many couples, we honeymooned in Italy.  Unlike many couples, however, we spent our first week in Bologna.  It may seem an odd choice, but Bologna and the surrounding region of Emilia-Romagna are widely considered to be home to the best food in Italy.  The region straddles a unique culinary fault line.  To the south lies olive oil country, while to the north, butter is the fat of choice.  These traditions collide in Emilia-Romagna, where Bologna sits at the epicentre of this culinary earthquake.  Rather than choose one fat over another, the bolognesi do what all sensible gluttons would -- eat both -- thus earning themselves the apt moniker, "la grassa," or "Bologna the fat."

After a week of tortelli, squacquerone, and mortadella, we knew why.  One night we'd feast on a luscious ragu or bollito misto, the next would be an orgy of truffles.  Every meal included yards of pasta fresca, or fresh egg pasta.  One particularly memorable meal, at Trattoria da Gianni, included a marvelous cheese plate consisting of nothing more than two of the region's towering culinary achievements: chunks of parmigiano drizzled with balsamic vinegar so intense it tasted more like sharpened honey than vinegar.

That's what makes it special, of course.  The finest balsamic is aged for decades in an ever smaller series of wooden barrels, each imparting subtle hints of flavour while further concentrating flavours through evaporation.  The result is vinegar in name only, for the finest balsamics taste sweet, with a captivating, but not overwhelming, acidity.  This is vinegar that can be sipped like a liqueur, or even enjoyed with dessert. Before we were married, Rachel would sometimes finish a meal with a bowl of strawberries, peaches, or vanilla ice cream drizzled with good balsamic.

But never the best kind.  Not the liquid gold christened with the prized Denominazione di Origine Controllata -- the government designation that certifies the origins and quality of traditional Italian food products -- and sold in a bottle so distinctive it looks more appropriate to a sorcerer's workshop than a kitchen.  Then we entered a tiny little shop in Bologna on Rachel's birthday, fewer than ten days after our wedding.

Flogging a dead horse: Au Pied de Cochon's foie gras poutine with horse fat fries

Italy boasts one of the richest gastronomic inheritances of any country.  It seems unfair that any place, let alone one tiny corner of that country, Emilia-Romagna, should be home to so much culinary gold: parmigiano, prosciutto di Parma, balsamic vinegar, mortadella, and pasta fresca.  As mouthwatering as that list is, keep in mind that it excludes an even longer list of gastronomic treasures from other parts of the belpaese: Piedmont's white truffles, the risotto of Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Veneto, and Tuscany's olive oils.  And that's just a selection of northern Italian specialties, there's still the south.  And the wine.

Yet I can't help but feeling that Italians cheat themselves.  Don't get me wrong, this italophile wishes he could wake up many mornings in Bologna or Rome, start the day with a cappuccino, and then gorge on local specialties.  But have you ever eaten marvelous foreign food in Italy?  Yes, there exists the occasional Chinese or Indian restaurant, but they are largely an afterthought in a country where gastronomic xenophobia is the norm.  What chance does food from the other side of the world have in a country where food from the other side of the mountain is viewed with disdain? 

Canada -- English Canada, really -- is a different story altogether.  With perhaps the exception of Newfoundland, we have no native cuisine.  The Great White North is a gastronomic Great White Canvas.  Over the past century, we've begun filling that canvas with the smells, tastes, and textures of the countless ethnic groups that weave the fabric of this country.  Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident that in our major urban centres.  Walk the streets of Toronto, for example, and you'll be confronted by a series of delights from around the world.

Caramellow: el Bulli's cream and white coffee caramels

Who among us doesn't fondly recall the sheer joy of a trip to the local convenience store as a child?  Maybe your parents had just handed you a dollar, or maybe you'd found some spare change lying on the sidewalk.  If you were like me, you instantly converted whatever newfound pittance was burning a hole in your pocket into a small brown paper bag of your favourite treats: chips, chocolate bars, Freezies, maybe even licorice.

Forget change, I wanted to leave that store broke.  And that's where penny candy came in handy.  What good is three cents, especially when there are gummi bears, Swedish Berries, and, my personal favourite, Kraft Caramels to be had for just a penny apiece?

My childhood love affair with Kraft Caramels -- light only, thank you very much -- was intense.  This was candy that knew how to entice: the transparent wrapper is genius, the junk food equivalent of a beautiful woman wearing an outfit that reveals just a hint of décolletage.  Giddy with anticipation, I'd remove the wrapper, pop the candy in my mouth, and resist the urge to chew.  Some pleasures must be savoured slowly to be appreciated properly.  Then I'd wait for those sweet, creamy, and vanilla notes to wash over my palate.  With uncharacteristic discipline, I would occasionally consume an entire caramel without so much as a single bite -- the square of caramel would just dissolve away into nothing.  Ordinarily, however, I would abandon self control and rip into the candy with my teeth.

Miso horny: Nobu's black cod with miso

You know that feeling.  It's that lingering cloud of doubt that hovers over you while preparing a recipe from a cookbook written by one of your favourite chefs.  Maybe it's Batali, maybe Keller, or maybe, as in my case, that chef is Nobu Matsuhisa.  I hate that feeling.

You follow the recipe to the letter.  The finished dish is good, great even.  But no matter how hard you try you can't fully appreciate the dish because you're bugged by that voice in your head constantly feeding that nagging doubt: is this really as good as the dish at the restaurant?

This niggling suspicion attacks in two ways.  First, it casts doubt on whether you've even prepared the dish well.  "Surely," your frazzled brain reasons, "Thomas Keller has some sort of magical knack for roasting a chicken.  I, however, am a rank amateur, and have surely prepared a chicken only slightly better than Swiss Chalet."  There may be some truth to this -- none of us will ever be Thomas Keller -- but such worries are best written off as the culinary equivalent of performance anxiety.

The second cause for suspicion is far less benign, in my opinion, specifically because it's beyond the home cook's control.  I'm speaking of the cookbook recipe that can charitably be described as an "adaptation" of the restaurant dish, but is, of course, presented as "the dish I serve my patrons."  One of the more disturbing lessons of Heat, Bill Buford's chronicle of his time at Babbo (Mario Batali's flagship restaurant) is that Batali's recipes are not faithful reproductions of his astonishing restaurant dishes.  Want to reproduce the fresh egg pasta at Babbo?  Don't use the Babbo cookbook.  Ditto for polenta.  Buford reveals that Batali enriches the pasta at Babbo with extra egg yolks, and that the use of instant polenta, which is a Batali recipe standard, is viewed as a personal failing at the restaurant.

There are times when scrupulously recreating a restaurant dish is impossible, and so the recipe must be adapted to better suit the equipment and ingredients available to the home cook.  I've got no issue with alterations under such circumstances.  It is, however, reprehensible to sell an altered recipe as the original when a home cook could reproduce the original without any specialized equipment or ingredients.

There is hope, though it doesn't come easily or cheaply.  The only surefire way to learn whether a homecooked version of a dish is the real deal is to actually go to the restaurant and eat the original.  Which brings me, finally, to Nobu's black cod with miso.   Many years ago, I made this dish after friends who had tasted it at Nobu London raved about it.  Word spreads quickly, and now Nobu's signature plate seems to be on the menu at pretty much every pan-Asian restaurant in the Western hemisphere.  For good reason, too.  Not only is the recipe (FYI, I use equal amounts of sake and mirin) accessible to even the most novice cook, the finished product is phenomenal.  The key is the fat content of the black cod, which creates a luxurious buttery texture and flavour.  Three days in a sugar-spiked miso marinade adds more umami punch and increases caramelization during cooking.  We fell in love with this dish the first time we made it, and have continued to prepare it frequently ever since.

But how does homemade black cod with miso compare to Nobu's version?  To figure that out, we visited New York and enjoyed a stupendous meal at Nobu.  We chose to eat omakase -- the Japanese equivalent of a tasting menu -- but asked if the chef might make one little exception and include the black cod.  Some things you just have to know, after all.  Nobu's black cod with miso is superb -- it doesn't hurt that they served ours with some seared foie gras -- and I was thrilled to learn that our homemade version, minus the foie gras, is every bit as good.  So much for that anxiety.

There was, unfortunately, one thing I discovered I cannot prepare even a fraction as well.  Our menu included nigiri sushi -- wonderfully fresh slices of raw fish atop sushi rice.  But what rice!  I have never tasted such perfect sushi rice in my life: a fragrant, perfectly cooked, neatly compact bundle in which each grain of rice was still individually discernible on the tongue.  Simple genius: rice free of starchy consequences.

I know I can't make rice like Nobu, but at least I can prepare its black cod with miso secure in the knowledge that it's every bit the equal of what they serve to their customers.

Purée-fication: crab cakes with popcorn purée

I hate secrets, especially food secrets.

What is Coca Cola's secret formula?  Why does Heinz ketchup taste so much better than any competing brand?  What is the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices?  And how the hell do you make Moto's popcorn purée?

My answers are: marketing; wish I knew but think this article is perhaps the most interesting analysis I've ever read about ketchup or any other topic; not sure, but I think it includes MSG; and someone please tell me because that sauce is addictive.

Yes, ever since our meal at Moto I've been unable to get popcorn puree out of my mind.  Every so often I drift off into a reverie, pondering how to reproduce that sauce -- the toasted background flavour, and those powerful salty and buttery notes.  It's movie theatre popcorn ambrosia.  My one and only taste was a tiny golden pool in a dish of snow crab with a passion fruit noodle, which is not a lot to go on.  I was so taken, I even asked our server how to make it.  Her reply was simplicity itself: "popcorn, milk, and a lot of butter."

I crumb in peace: deep fried rabbit ears and the politics of food

Some of you have seen the reaction to my post on el Bulli's deep fried rabbit ears.  Some of you even responded with insightful commentary of your own -- both for and against the dish -- and with expressions of support via comments and email, for which I'm extremely grateful.   Other comments were veiled threats and personal attacks.

You can imagine, then, how comforting it was to wake up Saturday morning to find my mother in law, our five year old niece, and three year old nephew baking chocolate chip cookies in our kitchen.  They used a recipe from the Joy of Cooking.  These cookies are outrageously good, especially warm from the oven with a glass of cold milk.

But what exactly is the connection between the cookies and milk in this post and the rabbit ears in the previous one?

How to be a polentone: the secret to great polenta

This may come as a surprise to non-Italians, but "polentone" is actually an insult.  "Big polenta" or "polenta eater" may seem like mild stuff, but it's a pejorative term used by southern Italians to raise the hackles of their northern compatriots. Think of describing a French person as a "frog" or a German as a "kraut," insults that are also based on food preferences. The northern equivalent for southerners, "terrone," also lacks a suitable translation, but is equally, if not more, insulting.

The tension between northern and southern Italians may surprise many non-Italians, who tend to think of Italians as a homogeneous mass.  This notion coudn't be further from the truth, especially in the minds of Italians themselves.  This is, after all, the country that invented "campanilismo," extreme devotion not merely to one's region or city, but to the area within earshot of the local campanile, or church bell tower.  In Rome, for example, your typical aventino believes that your average esquilina may as well be from another planet, not a different hill.  You can imagine, then, the chasm that exists between a napoletano and a milanese.

This tension manifests itself most noticeably in three areas: politics, soccer, and food.  Italian politics is a muddle, but it also most explicitly reflects the differences between the regions.  The Lega Nord, or Northern League, has risen to prominence by giving voice to northern dissatisfaction with the south.  At its most extreme, some in this coalition have even called for independence for Padania, their name for the northern third of Italy.  This party is not a marginal one.  It holds seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and helped to bring Silvio Berlusconi to power, for which it was awarded positions in cabinet.  The League's message has softened over time -- it now emphasizes decentralization over independence -- but its popularity testifies to rifts in the belpaese.

Soccer is a notorious vehicle for sublimating broader social, political and religious tensions.  One need look no further than the rivalries between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona or Celtic and Rangers, proxies for the battles between Castillians and Catalonians and Catholics and Protestants respectively (How Soccer Explains the World, by Franklin Foer explores this idea in depth).  Italian soccer is no different.  In A Season with Verona, expat British author Tim Parks chronicles the highs and lows of following his favourite team, Hellas Verona, up and down Italy for one season.  The book offers insights into the strained relationship between north and south, filtered through the lens of the beautiful game and the tifosi obsessed with it.  While visiting Catania, which, being in Sicily, is about as far south as you can go in Italy, Parks is struck by a newspaper editorial lamenting the return of the Veronesi.  "'We must form a common front against these northern barbarians," the article blares.  Why the harsh reception?  Because at the last match, when volcanic eruptions from Mount Etna threatened the Sicilian city, the Veronese fans brought banners saying Forza Etna ['Go Etna']."

Politics and soccer aside, we come to food.  Anyone familiar with Italian cuisine is well aware that "Italian food" is not a monolithic entity.  It is, rather, a collection of regional cuisines, many of which bear almost no relation to one another.  The Arab and North African roots of the Sicilian kitchen, for example, are completely foreign to the Austrian-influenced dishes of Trentino Alto Adige.  There are some ties that loosely bind Italy's diverse culinary traditions -- wheat pasta being the most obvious -- but all regions pride themselves on the distinctive ingredients and techniques that distinguish their local fare.

Throughout much of the north, one of those traditions is polenta.  Polenta is textbook Italian -- a rustic dish with peasant roots that's adaptable to a limitless variety of sauces and preparations and is a snap to make.  Great.  Sort of.

Fine ham abounds: Newsom's aged Kentucky country ham

It never ceases to amaze me that the centrepiece of North American holiday meals is a bird chosen by a group of people who dedicated their lives to avoiding pleasure.  I know, I know, it's tradition, they were starving, blah, blah, blah.  But c'mon, this has gone on long enough.  Do you really love turkey that much?  Of all the edible fowl, there's not a single one that ranks below the turkey in terms of taste, juiciness, or convenience, and yet everyone insists on it for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Rather than enjoying the simple elegance of a roast chicken, the succulence of a medium rare magret de canard, or the gamey bite of quail, people turn to the inferior gobbler.

To eat turkey is to be underwhelmed.  Since many of my friends seem willing to stab each other over the breast, let's start there.  A modern turkey breast is nothing more than a bowling ball of protein.  If it were merely dry and stringy, that would be one thing, but those shortcomings are compounded by the fact that a turkey breast has a taste profile only slightly more complex than iceberg lettuce.

As if it weren't bad enough that turkey fouls our plates twice a year, the relentless waddle of the turkey army continues apace. Some would now have you believe you should eat it out of season, replacing the beef and pork with turkey in your burgers and sausages.  Those with no shame now advocate turkey breast instead of a roast.

It's insane, and I'm doing all I can to stem this tide.  Every year I plead with Rachel to remove turkey from our holiday menu, and every year I'm denied.  I cope by devising ever more elaborate schemes to render this blandest, driest and stringiest of meats palatable.  Forget brining, I devoted more than a day of my life to making a Thompson turkey the Christmas before last.  I was told all that effort would be worthwhile.  "The juiciest bird you've ever eaten," they said.  Damn lies!  And don't even get me started on the week-long, Sisyphean torture that is turkey leftovers.

(Note from Rachel:  I have to intervene here and rebut some of Rob's points.  I quite like turkey, and decent cooking plus a good bird equals a delicious meal.  It doesn't have to be elaborately prepared.  Let's face it, someone who loves to experiment with molecular gastronomy is naturally drawn to the Byzantine complexity of a Thompson turkey -- and I helped him with it.  AND I've made excellent pot pie with leftover turkey, among other tasty dishes.  The man is simply unreasonable.)

Then I stumbled upon an alternative I knew Rachel couldn't refuse.  Last year, she reviewed a wonderful paean to the glories of the pig, Pig Perfect, by Peter Kaminsky.  Kaminsky criss-crossed the globe searching for the finest porcine delicacies.  One of the jewels he unearthed is Colonel Bill Newsom's aged Kentucky country ham.