Another problem first recipe
- rosemary
- May 22
- 5 min read
"The driving force behind this Encyclopedia has been collective curiosity - mine and those whose help I have sought in collating the information between these covers." Charmaine Solomon
Such a beautiful photograph of some gorgeous spot in Asia and I'm opening with this just to attract you as a reader I guess.
I am recently back from a walk back from the shops, and today's thoughts ambled around how somebody should set up a small travel business, for old people like me who like to absorb new cultures by visiting one spot in a new place, but in a leisurely way, by just exploring the nearby area - perhaps a guided tour of a local 'hot' tourist spot, and otherwise visits to markets, shops, churches, temples, villages, whatever. One a day, not at the crack of dawn and above all else including gorgeous food, either eaten out or cooked in one's luxury lodgings by somebody else - a local expert.
So when I decided to have another look at my next first recipe book, with a shrinking heart, because the first recipe is this - to me -disgusting - Marinated abalone - and actually found the photograph above opposite the page on which this recipe resided but without a picture (I found it on the net) it so tied in with my walking dreamings, that I resolved to try and deal with this recipe in a more roundabout way.
This is the book in question, which think I was actually given to me by one of my family and as you can see it's actually a reference book - an encyclopedia - which Charmaine Solomon wrote with her daughter Nina, who gets accreditation on the title page. I haven't used it a lot, but I have used it occasionally - as a reference book. Mostly when I have come across an ingredient I didn't know, or to expand on something I was writing about in my blog. And for that alone it is worth having. Well if you are really interested in food. It's a big book - almost 500 pages - with sumptuous photographs - not that many though - from a team of noted travel photographers. For they are mostly of aspects of Asian food culture, rather than of recipes. I once did a two day landscape photography course here in Melbourne - just before digital cameras - which was led by one of those photographers - Richard l'anson who was working for Lonely Planet at the time. I never really mastered all the technical stuff but I did learn a lot about composition and choice. But I digress.
As you've probably realised by now, if you've been following me for some time, I often have problems with first recipes. There tends to be a uniformity about them. Basic stock is a regular, as are asparagus and artichokes, soup, sauces, breakfast or other really basic stuff.
This book, being an encyclopedia is arranged alphabetically and so we begin with Abalone - which is rather more Asian than artichokes or asparagus. Nevertheless - there is Artichoke, Chinese - which is:
"Not related to globe artichokes or Jerusalem artichokes, but a perennial plant of the mint family which produces small white edible tubers"
As shown here. Somebody - under one of the pictures on the Google Images page described them as cuties. I thought they looked like maggots, which to my mind are some of the most repulsive looking things that exist on this planet.
There is also asparagus which is the asparagus we know and for which she gives two recipes - Thai style and Chinese style.
The opening words of her Introduction to the book rather recall my walking thoughts about exploring, albeit extremely superficially, the cultures of new places, and particularly through their food:
"How many times have you stood in markets in faraway places and wondered what things were and how they might be used? How often have you been shopping and even in supermarkets, seen unfamiliar produce and felt you were missing out?"
So very true. Some of my most memorable tourist experiences have been of food markets and supermarkets. Although today I don't have to go far to be similarly confused - a visit to a nearby Asian supermarket - or even the Asian section in my local Coles or Woolworths, is similarly disorientating.
But back to abalone, which I vaguely seem to remember would appear on restaurant menus and in foodie magazines fairly regularly a long time ago. I didn't know what they were and besides I think they were expensive. Then I became dimly aware of them becoming endangered through overfishing. Today there are rigid rules in Australia with respect to fishing - i.e. diving - for abalone, with the two main areas being the coast on the borders of NSW and Victoria, and off the south coast of WA which was the first abalone fishery in the world to receive MSC certification as a sustainable fishery. There is a short video on the MSC website, explaining the process. One thing I learnt from that is that the waters off the coast there are so pure because there are no rivers running into it, and no pollution from industries either.
Abalone have just one shell - they cling to the rocks, from which they are prised by the divers. The insides of the shells are beautiful and also prized for ornamental reasons.
In here encyclopedia Charmaine Solomon gives a fairly detailed description of how to extract an abalone from the shell, concluding that:
"The whole thing is rather daunting and canned ... produces better results."
It is very expensive, and I gather it's a relatively valuable export industry for Australia, for Asians love them. I get the impression that abalone farming is still in its very early days. Hence the expense of it - they are individually collected by divers.
Not for me I think.
At the end of the book there are several pages, with drawings of various Asian raw ingredients, and each entry has a list of alternative names for the ingredient in question - there are six for abalone - from Burma, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand and:
"The word 'abalone' is in fact the Californian Spanish name for the species known as 'sea ears'."
Abalone is a relatively small entry in the Encyclopedia. 'Duck' for example has four pages and several recipes, but "you will also come across entries discussing places, dishes, techniques and utensils". There are ten pages on Techniques for example. She says it is not a recipe book - and it isn't but there are nevertheless over 500 recipes within.
I shan't be throwing it out, because it's one of those things that whilst rarely used is invaluable when it is. Although maybe not. I guess you can find it all on the net. MInd you if you look up abalone in Wikipedia you are confronted with a very lengthy and detailed discussion on all manner of stuff. Too much for a tiny mind like mine, so a page from Charmaine Solomon is rather better.
Now who can I persuade to set up that dream travel company? Or is there one already? I looked at Captain's Choice once, but it was all go, go, go - up early in the morning and on to the next thing however interesting and luxurious it was. Never mind the price. I should have set this up myself earlier in my life.
YEARS GONE BY
MAY 22
2024 - Nothing
2023 - The last plum - yes they've gone
2022 - Scraps
2020 - Deleted
2019 - Nothing
2017 - Nothing
Commentaires