Oh, those Islands around the Tyrrehnian Sea

 

It is only natural that when one studies Sicily, one drifts northward and runs into those two other large islands: Sardinia and Corsica.  And one can't but notice how very similar Sardinia and Corsica are to each other, apart from one being French and the other Italian, but also in comparison to Sicily to the south.  Apparently Corsica became part of France in 1768 when Genoa sold it to France, long before Garibaldi could liberate it and join it to Italy.  Unfortunately Corsica had declared itself a Republic in 1755 but France crushed the republic in 1769.  So that is why they speak French in Corsica, although Italian is a regional language.

Both Corsica and Sardinia are islands that look inward towards the mountains rather than out towards the sea, purportedly due to the frequent invasions by the Barbary Pirates (but undoubtedly also by other Europeans).  Thus their cuisine centers on sheep and cheese rather than seafood.  On the other hand, the invaders of Sicily occupied the island, which was larger and contained fertile land as well as mountains and much of the livelihood remained centered on the sea, although in Sicily there is a rivalry between the developers of the land (farmers and pastoralists) and the fishermen (the hunters and gatherers of the sea).  Because of this and because the multiple invaders brought their own cuisine and foodstuffs, the Sicilian cuisine is more varied than that of Sardinia and Corsica.

There's a recently published book on Sardinian cuisine: Bitter Honey, Recipes and Stories from the Island of Sardinia written by a former London chef who moved to Sardinia a few years ago, Letitia Clark.  Many of the recipes are traditional (such as the handmade pasta, malloreddus) but she injects her own spin on things and does include some seafood as now it is more common, especially with the tourists.  And the photographs are lovely.  However, I would have liked it if she had put the food glossary at the front of the book and had expounded a bit more on fregola and pani carasau.  But maybe the English are more familiar with such ingredients than we are here in the United States.  And of course, one needs a video to see how to fill and shape the pasta called culurgioni, a ravioli filled with potatoes, cheese, egg and mint.  Thank goodness for YouTube!

Many years ago (2007), I was intrigued by another Sardinian cookbook, Sweet Myrtle & Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia by Efisio Farris.  That's where I first learned about their bitter honey, botarga (the preserved mullet roe), and malloreddus.

But it's always nice to SEE the food and its preparation and that's where, like Sebastian, I could spend my life watching YouTube.  Rick Stein in the BBC's Mediterranean Escapes, visits both Corsica and Sardinia before he continues on to Sicily.  In fact he spends relatively little time in Sicily before he moves on to Puglia.

• Culinary Wonders of Corsica & Sardinia
• Authentic Tastes of Sardinia & Sicily

And if you like Rick Stein, you'll be happy to know there's a Rick Stein's India.  Oh those Brits!

Royal Caribbean Cruise to the Bahamas

OK, we're going to escape from Peru and the Amazon for the moment and prepare for our weekend cruise to the Bahamas in March with Juan and Mandy aboard Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas.  It leaves from Florida's Port Canaveral and cruises to the Bahamas, stopping at Nassau and Coco Cay.  I've never really looked at the Bahamas nor realized that they were so close to the U.S. coast.  But then look how close Miami is to Havana and how many years it's been divorced from Cuba.

If you would like to see what the Mariner of the Seas looks like and see how much fun the older grandkids would have on the top level of this ship, watch the YouTube video, Mariner of the Seas - Full Tour by CruiseIt.com.  And tell them about the Arctic Zone:  all you can eat soft-serve ice cream throughout the cruise.

Miniature Golf

While Fernando is relaxing in the jacuzzi, the grandkids could play miniature golf.   Even Louise and Silas can have fun here as the water isn't real or deep...

When the kids get hungry they could run over to the Dog House and pick up a hot dog, which, like the Arctic Zone, is included in the fare (complimentary they call it).  Oh Oh.  Where are the vegetables?  Ketchup, onions, relish, and sauerkraut?  Don't worry, there's plenty of fruit down in the Windjammer buffet on Deck 11.

Perfect Storm Water Slides

But Deck 13 has all the activities for the big kids: a climbing structure like the one at the Boston Children's Museum, a basketball court so the kids can stay in practice, a climbing wall and a Sky Pad bungee trampoline like the one at the Carnegie Science Center.  They even have some swings for Isabel.  But the greatest attractions will probably be the Perfect Storm dual waterslides and the FlowRider surf simulator.  A pair of grandkids can each choose a waterslide (blue or yellow) and race each other down to the finish.  I'm assuming kid-hearted adults can do the same.  Old people like Papi and me will watch and take videos...
Oh.  And I completely forgot to mention the Laser Tag...

Lots of fruits and desserts for the kids

While the kids are exhausting themselves and their parents, what are Papi and I going to do?  Papi would say "go to the Casino" but I'd rather walk around the running track -- it's complimentary :-) or I could plan what I was going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner or I could go down to the Windjammer buffet and do a taste test.  I don't know how I'm going to try every dish they put out.  The kids would have a field day, of course, being able to see and choose their own meals.  Naturally they would prefer the buffet to the Main Dining Room but for dinner I prefer formality and meat that hasn't been sitting around getting cold and overcooked.

Teatime scones and biscuits

To prepare myself, I've been watching YouTube videos of Royal Caribbean cruises, of which there are a surprising number - maybe one for every person who's taken a cruise!  TravelTouristVideo has videos of the meals, both the Windjammer buffet and the Main Dining Room.  They sailed on the Liberty of the Seas, not the Mariner of the Seas, but the menus look pretty standard.  They had a tea time as well as a lunch at the Windjammer but that might be reserved for the days the ship is at sea and not in a port like Nassau or Coco Cay.

Aged Prime Rib of Beef

We don't have to prepare for the buffet because it is all there for the taking, but at the Main Dining Room they have "classics" that are always on the dinner menu, and specials of the day that are not.  Below is one of the dinner menus and I might have to order two starters:  the crispy calamari and the Caesar Salad.  Fernando can have the Duck a l'Orange and I can have the Beef Tenderloin.  If you want to see what a lot of these dishes look like, check out TravelTouristVideos' Cruise Ship Dining Room Food - Dinner by Royal Caribbean.  They liked the prime rib, lamb shank, rack of lamb and duck a l’orange (definitely meat eaters).  Hopefully our cruise will have some of those.  As for the desserts, they liked the Royal Cheesecake but not the Creme Brûlée.

If none of the entrees or desserts appeal to you in the Main Dining Room, you can hop on over to the Windjammer buffet, which has themed dinners (Asian, TexMex, Indian etc), a salad bar and lots of desserts (jello, cakes, cupcakes, mousses, cookies etc).  TravelTouristVideos will take you on a tour in its Royal Caribbean Buffet Dinner Food on Liberty of the Seas.    And of course they also have a tour of Royal Caribbean Buffet Breakfast Liberty of the Seas so that we can start our gourmandizing at 6:15 in the morning.

Stay tuned.  We might actually get out of the dining room and off the ship in the next episode.

Amazon Food

Maracuyá

I couldn't stay away from this topic for long, especially when it involves tropical fruit.  One of the best things about Colombia was its various passion fruits (maracuyá, curuba, granadilla, badea), lulo (naranjilla in Ecuador), and tomate de arbol.  Most of these were made into juices so there is some processing involved (including adding water, cross your fingers).  It seems that maracuyá is fairly common in Peru but the others less so, although I read somewhere that before the Spaniards arrived, the Moche people along the coast made ceviche with fermented curuba, called tumbo in Peru (Passiflora tarminiana or banana passion fruit).  But the Amazon has a whole new collection of fruits for us to explore.

HeNeedsFood is a blog by an Australian ex-chef who visited the Belén Market in Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto where we'll be traveling.  This might be the closest we get to it since markets are not high on everyone's list, especially when the heat and humidity make them odoriferous.  The photos are interesting but few of the fruits are labeled.  Here are a few that I've identified.

Brazil Nut

Pijuayo

Sapote

Chonta

The Pijuayo (Bactris gasipaes), a palm fruit as is the Brazil nut, is called chontaduro in Colombia and is a common street food in southern Colombia, although not in Bogotá when we lived there in the 70s.  The Slow Food Arc of Taste mentions that the Amazonians in Peru make masato out of it, which is a tame form of chicha.  And in Peru, chonta is shredded hearts of palm which is a very popular salad in the Amazon, which we absolutely have to try.

Aguaje

Another palm fruit (there are many) is aguaje from the palm Mauritia flexuosa.  Unfortunately it is very difficult to do Internet searches on many of these Amazonian fruits because almost everything Google gives me are ads for dietary supplements.  Everything from the jungle is a superfood nowadays, available in pill form because it appears that the fruit itself is an acquired taste since the flesh is quite dry and tastes like carrots.

Camu camu

Camu camu (Myrciaria dubia) is a cherry-like fruit that grows on a small bushy riverside tree in the Amazon.  They make it into juices and sorbets.  It's very high in vitamin C but like many tropical fruits, it's quite acidic and you need to add sugar to the juice.

Luciano Mazzetti

Another visit to the Belén Market is done by Peruvian chef Luciano Mazzetti on his YouTube channel Taste & Travel (Viaja y Prueba) when he travels to Iquitos, the capital of the Department of Loreto and where we will land for our Amazon trip.  The photography is great but the episodes are in Spanish, Mazzetti speaks lickety split moving from one food to the next, and the background music makes understanding difficult for the non-native speaker.  Nonetheless I find his videos well worth the effort and his enthusiasm for the people and their food is contagious, even if you can't understand a word he says!

Carachama

Luciano also visits the market in Pucallpa, which is closer to Lima and accessible by road yet still in the Amazon basin.  In both of these videos Luciano eats a lot of fish and there is one curious fish, the Carachama, which is a catfish covered with an armor of gray and black scales.  It lives in swampy water and feeds on dead wood and its inhabitants.  You can read more about it in the Slow Food Arc of Taste where you can see more endangered foods of Peru.  Actually you can't "see" them because no photos are included, a real shortcoming of the site.

Paiche

Paiche is an even more famous catfish of the Amazon, partly because it is the largest freshwater fish in the world, so you can have filets and not a lot of bones so the people in Lima can eat it at upscale restaurants.  Even Whole Foods carries farmed paiche.  Me, I think I'd prefer piraña because it is a carnivore and shouldn't taste like mud.

In the Pucullpa video, Luciano also eats majas, a 9 pound rodent which is cute and is supposed to be very tasty.  It is also called a Paca, or Lowland Paca and is widespread throughout the Americas in tropical forests.  Iquitos Times has a list of Amazon creatures we can use for reference, if not for food.

Paca or Majas

Majas with platano and chonta (heart of palm) salad

Food in the Dominican Republic

I suppose that most of the food at Iberostar Bávaro won't be Dominican but I want to know what it is so that I can identify it when I see it.

Malta con leche condensada

BuzzFeed has an article on "What to Eat and Drink in the Dominican Republic" that lists 45 dishes and drinks.  In the realm of drinks they mention the local beer, Presidente, which is supposed to be the only beer available at Bávaro Suites, the rums by Brugal and Barceló, and the herbal potion Mamajuana.  Then there is Malta, a sweet malt beverage like Pony Malta, which is mixed with sweetened condensed milk, creating a beverage that rivals the English gypsy tart in sugariness.  Hard on its heels is Merengue Soda, a cream soda from the local Refrescos Country Club beverage company.  A final Dominican drink is Morir Soñando which is orange juice and sweetened evaporated milk, which have to be kept at a low temperature so they don't curdle.

Pastelon de Platano Maduro

Then the savory dishes and you can find recipes for many of these dishes on the website Dominican Cooking.  We might as well start with the starches.

Plantains.  The Dominicans boil and mash up green plantains into a dish called mangú which is served topped with pickled onions alongside fried egg and fried salami for breakfast.  They also fry green plantains into tostones and mash fried plantains with garlic and chicharrones into mofongo, a Puerto Rican dish that has become a Dominican staple.  Finally there is a Pastelón De Platano Maduro which is mashed sweet plantains layered with ground beef and cheese.  I'd like to try that.

Casabe bread

Yuca or Casabe.  Yuca is served stewed or boiled and fried as in Colombia but it is also made into casabe bread, a very typical staple used by the Taino Indians that were native to the Dominican Republic.  Because yuca is more indigenous to the Caribbean than is corn, it was used for making bread instead of corn.  Yuca or plantain and other root vegetables also replace corn masa in the tamal-like Dominican pasteles en hoja, which are wrapped in banana leaves rather than corn husks.  These are mainly made at Christmas so we might not run across any.  Then there are Bollitos de Yuca (Cheese-Filled Cassava Balls) made with mashed yuca, stuffed with cheese and then fried.

Majarete

Corn is used in a few typically Dominican dishes like majarete, a pudding made from fresh corn, milk and sugar and flavored with cinnamon.  There is also gofio, which is roasted corn meal mixed with sugar and eaten as a snack.  Next there is chenchén, cracked corn pilaf which is the Dominican take on the Haitian Maïs Moulu (corn grits typically served at breakfast with avocado and fish or eggs).  Unlike the Haitian dish, chenchén is dry like pilaf and not to be confused with Maiz Caquiao or Chaca (Cracked Corn Pudding) which is like the Colombian mazamorro.  Chenchén is often served with chivo guisado or habichuelas guisadas.

Moro de habichuelas

Moving on to the next starch: Arroz!  Chofan is the Dominican version of chow fan or Chinese fried rice.  Asopao is a soupy rice dish that can be made with chicken or shrimp.   Locrio is a Dominican paella made with chicken or pork.  Moro de habichuelas is rice with black or red kidney beans (Moros y Cristianos) and Moro de Guandules is rice with pigeon peas.

To see what a Dominican restaurant might serve that is typically "Dominican", look at the menu for El Canuco in Santo Domingo.

Eating Foreign in London

I know, I know.  I should be concentrating on British food.  But London is closer to Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia than is the U.S., so it is closer to the source for foreign foods.  Here are a few restaurants that I have happened across that look interesting.

Little Georgia
As I was browsing around the Columbia Road Flower Market on Google maps, I ran across this little restaurant that serves food from Georgia (the country, not the state).  They have a location in Hackney (East End) and another larger one in Islington which is about a mile from the British Library.  On the menu is the traditional cheese bread Khachapuri and the meat dumplings Khinkali, as well as roasted red peppers, onions and eggplant.  The chef even has a cookbook called Supra that you can find on Amazon.

Mari Vanna
This is a small Russian restaurant with borsch, herring, pelmeni, stuffed cabbage and all those other typically Russian dishes, plus a few Georgian ones.  The interior is supposed to look like a 19th century Russian dacha but they also have a location in New York City which looks very expensive (herring under a fur coat is $16) and another one in Washington DC (Adjarski Khachapuri for $18).

Brasserie Zédel
In case we want to pretend we are in Paris, this is an underground restaurant in the art-deco style near Piccadilly Circus so much of the attraction is the atmosphere.

Pilpel
Remember the falafels at L'As du Fallafel in Paris?  Pilpel looks very similar and is very popular (4.8 out of 5 on Google) with 6 locations.
Antalya
This Turkish restaurant up near the British Museum has lots of lamb dishes, as well as eggplant.  Most of the reviews are very positive except for a few that are very negative saying the food was bland and overcooked.  Overcooked is ok if it is a lamb shank, just don't order chicken breast.  Because England is so proud of its lamb, middle eastern restaurants should be good here.

Mamie's Crêperie & Cidrothèque
If we want some Breton galettes for a quick lunch we can stop my Mamie's which isn't far from Temple Church and the Royal Opera House.  I don't think we ever got to a crêperie in Paris, did we?

Santa Maria Pizzeria
TimeOut considers their Neapolitan pizza some of the best in London and not too expensive.  They have a location in Fulham but that is west of the apartment, further from downtown London, and I'd prefer going east.  It's like flying to Charlotte to get to LA.

TimeOut's 100 Best Cheap Eats in London
As in the rest of European cities, you find the cheapest food in ethnic restaurants, be they Chinese, Indian, Thai, Mexican or Middle Eastern.  After a few days eating fish and chips, meat pies, and Sunday Roasts, we might be anxious for a shift in cuisine, plus we'll get more British food up in Yorkshire and the Lake District and we wouldn't want to spoil our appetites and jade our tastebuds.

In the end, of course, we'll just pop into a place we run across that looks good and is convenient and has seating for us.

The New Improved British Food?

They say British food has gotten better but does that mean dumping the traditional dishes like fish and chips, pie and mash, bubble and squeak, toads in a hole?  Or can they be made lighter and more exquisite, more Frenchified?  I'm hoping that the list at Visit Britain can help.  It is there that they say that a Brit's favorite comfort food is a good pie and they recommend the Ginger Pig, but it looks more like a butcher shop than a restaurant, so that doesn't help us at all.  For the Sunday Roast Visit Britain recommend Hixter but the menu says "Brunch" not "Sunday Roast" and "All our beef is aged in a Himalayan salt chamber and comes from Shorthorn, Hereford and Aberdeen Angus breeds."  Himalayan Salt Chamber?  Don't the Brits have their own salt?

Full Borough Breakfast

For the full English breakfast Visit Britain recommends Roast in the Borough Market, but that comes at a price:  16.50£ instead of the 5.50£ at the Chelsea Bun.  I'll save Roast for Sunday Dinner since the full breakfast doesn't look that different from the Chelsea Bun.   That's about it from Visit Britain but they do mention that one must have afternoon tea and they have only one to recommend, The Thames Foyer at the Savoy.  I like to have a choice so Olive Magazine has a list of Afternoon Tea Spots in London, but they also give recipes in case you want to bake your own scones.  Maybe we can pick up some scones and clotted cream and tea and make our own Afternoon Tea.

Beef & Yorkshire Pudding

Visit Britain does recommend Rules Restaurant for Olde-Worlde British Dining and their menu is quite interesting, although beyond our means.  They have grouse (watch for lead shot), rabbit, venison, steak and kidney pie, steak and kidney pudding, shepherd's pie, leg of lamb, pork cheeks, duck breast, dover sole, beef.  The photo at the left is roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for two but the pudding looks a bit dark to me.  And then for dessert: spotted dick, sticky toffee pudding, rhubarb and raspberry fool.  The desserts I could go for but everything still looks a bit dark and heavy, like persimmon pudding and the interior of their restaurant.  Time to find a place that is nice and airy, with dining al fresco, and still has locally sourced British products.  Are we across the Channel yet?...

For lighter food we might have to go to a cutting-edge restaurant like Restaurant Gordon Ramsey, which is actually in Chelsea down by the Physic Garden, but the only price that is listed is 120£ for 3 courses.  Gulp.  Oh wait!  It's only 70£ for the 3 course lunch menu (and I was worried about a prix fixe price of 45£...).  You have to admit that the dishes look absolutely lovely and fresh.  Especially the desserts.  We'll have to find a cheaper venue.

Which brings us to Medlar, also in Chelsea with 1 Michelin Star but offering a 3-course dinner menu for 49£ and a 3-course lunch or Sunday dinner menu for 35£, plus a 12.5% discretionary gratuity.  Two years ago SheerLuxe had a helpful article: "How To Eat At The Best Restaurants For Less", that said you could get 20% off your Monday night dinner there.   I wonder if that discount is still operational.

And, in case you don't know, the medlar is a fruit that has to be "bletted" before it is eaten, kind of like a Hachiya persimmon.  Even the English don't eat medlars anymore and Shakespeare called them "open-arse" according to The Independent: "Medlars: the 'open-arse' fruit that could be making a comeback". 

Now I'm going back to that SheerLuxe article to see if I can ferret out some more light airy cuisine.

What to Eat in London, Episode 2

Mushy Peas
I can see adding mint to English peas but why mash them into a mush?  Is it so that you can smoosh them onto the back of your fork and eat them more easily?  Mother always told us about the time in 1956 when they went to England and she saw this man eating peas off his knife.  I can see mixing up peas with your mashed potatoes so they don't run all over your plate, like we do with corn at Thanksgiving, but not mashing them.  Wikipedia, however, tells me that mushy peas are made with Marrowfat peas which are mature peas that are left to dry in the field, and not with frozen green peas.  So it's kind of like refried beans I suppose.  Here's a recipe if we want to try it ourselves, otherwise we can order them with our fish and chips or meat pies.

Meat Pies
Goddards at Greenwich has a bit more on the history of Pies and Mash.  Originally in the 1700s the pies were filled with eels but when eels became too expensive, they filled them with meat.  If we take a trip down to Greenwich (preferably by boat), maybe we can stop at Goddards for lunch, as pies and mash are very reasonably priced.  And we can have a fruit pie or crumble for dessert.  Unless we want a sticky toffee pudding...

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Puddings
We always had persimmon pudding for Thanksgiving and Christmas at home in California -- do you think it was the influence of our British ancestors?  But we didn't have "sticky toffee pudding" which appears on an awful lot of menus in London.  There's a website called Great British Puddings,  and although their English isn't the best, they do have a great variety of sweet and savory pudding recipes, and even some videos. 

Often "puddings" is another term for "desserts".  You can make your own sticky toffee pudding with this recipe from the BBC -- containing dates in a sponge cake with a caramel sauce, which you can make yourself or buy it canned from Carnation.  And then there is always Spotted Dick.  Years ago I picked up a little book called The National Trust Book of Traditional Puddings at a book sale and the author says that King George I was a lover of puddings and known as "Pudding George", probably being the Georgie Porgie of pudding and pie.  Some of the dishes in the book have charming names like 'Pears in Nightshirts', 'Moonshine', 'Poor Knights of Windsor'.  And then there are flummeries and fools, cobs and clangers, crumbles and humbles, snows and syllabubs.  Is it Leena that likes her desserts?

Moving on to more substantial food, The Telegraph has an article on the 15 most British foods ever and one of them is:

The Full English Breakfast or the Full Monty
We don't need to go to a fancy restaurant for this, the neighborhood Chelsea Bun should do just fine.  Serious Eats has a guide to let you know what is in it or you can check out this recipe from the BBC containing sausage, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, tomato, eggs and bread (fried).  They forgot the Heinz baked beans.  I think it would be easier to eat out with this one than to prepare it in the apartment and I don't think we could eat it every day, although TimeOut London has a list of the best full English breakfasts in the city if we want to try.

What to Eat in London

...  besides Seville Orange Marmalade.

When one goes to a foreign country one has to eat like a native and not be tempted to order hamburgers, loaded nachos, sweet potato fries, pizza, cupcakes, and, God Forbid, macaroni and cheese.  (This might mean I'll have to drink gin and Scotch instead of rum and coke...). Since the English are so much like us (meat and potatoes) one has to be very discerning whilst reading the menu.  Fortunately a lot of the menus are online so I can prepare in advance.

Sunday Dinner
Penny says we have to go out for Sunday Dinner -- which doesn't mean that horrible institution called "Brunch" -- if I want breakfast I'll go out for a proper English breakfast during the week.  Unlike Americans, the British eat lamb and so Lamb Rump is a common main dish on Sunday Dinner menus, alongside Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding.  The Hollywood Arms near the apartment offers roast beef, chicken, pork belly, or lamb, all served with goose fat.  The nearby Pig's Ear serves roast beef, chicken or pork, all with Yorkshire pudding.  The Medlar, with a Michelin star, is a bit more inventive and serves Rump of Belted Galloway, turbot, quail, cod, lamb rump, pork loin, chicken or gnocchi in a 35£ 3-course menu (is $48.50 beyond our means?).

Then there is Roast, a restaurant in the Borough Market, that offers Salt Marsh lamb, a lamb that grazes on the salt marshes.  You are supposed to serve salt marsh lamb with samphire, a sea vegetable that grows in salt marshes and looks somewhat like asparagus. Now they are growing it in greenhouses to supply the new demand for it in supermarkets.  How is it going to obtain its salty flavor?  The greenhouse variety is in season from May to October so we might be able to find it.  The real stuff from the salt marshes has a short 2-3 week season from late June to early July, after which it becomes too stringy.  And yes, you should serve it with fish too but I'd rather have chips...

Fish and Chips
Oh yes, we have to have fish and chips, only not too often or I'll get sick.  Time Out London has a list of 14 of the Best Chippies, one of which is Golden Union whose fish is from sustainable British waters, whose frying oil is changed 8 times a week, and whose potatoes are from the Fenlands of East Anglia, peeled and cut by themselves and only fried once (no Frenchified double frying here!).  Their menu offers cod, haddock, plaice, rock salmon, pollock and coley.  So plaice is a flounder or sole, rock salmon is a type of shark, and coley is related to cod.  Lots of the trendier fish and chips restaurants use matzoh meal or panko instead of the traditional batter and fry their chips twice so we will have to be on our guard in order to get the traditional fish and chips.  Oh, and another thing they serve in Fish and Chips shops (and something for Fernando to try along with jellied eels) is saveloy, a bright red, highly seasoned pork sausage that used to be made from pig brains.  They're supposed to be like the Maine red hots or red snappers.

Pie and Mash (and liquor)
Pie and mash (meat pie and mashed potatoes) is a traditional London working-class food and is often accompanied by jellied eels and a parsley liquor.  Business Insider ate some Pie, Mash and Jellied Eels at F. Cooke's in the East End but I can't say that I'm anxious to try it, although I do like meat pies and mashed potatoes.  Battersea Pie Station in Covent Garden even offers steak and kidney pie, that Daddy liked so much and that Mother made once in a blue moon.  And, as always, TimeOut London has a list of 14 traditional Pie and Mash shops, which are cheap as can be (around 3 £) but scroll down to #1 F. Cooke ("one of the very few to still sprinkle the shop floor with sawdust; traditionally used to prevent the floors becoming slippery from discarded eel bones").

More to come!

Japan on YouTube

Naturally when I watch Japanology episodes on YouTube, other videos are recommended for me.  Some are better than others but I was happy to find that there are some really unique videos on Japanese street food.  Fortunately they are in English.  Here are a couple of channels:

TabiEats
This is a couple of guys (the main commentator seems to be a Japanese-American from Hawaii) who also have a blog with recipes featuring healthy dishes like Kit Kat pancakes, Mac and Cheese Pies, Okonomiyaki, Omurice and many Yoshoku dishes (Japanese-style Western dishes).  If you thought the Japanese only ate delicate perfectly arranged small dishes of fish and vegetables, this will disabuse you of that notion.  The advantage to them having eclectic undiscriminating tastes, is that they appreciate almost everything they eat, they even feature breakfasts at Lawson and 7-Eleven convenience stores!  I'd rather have breakfast at a French pastry shop like Gontran Cherrier but I might be up to a dinner at a 7-Eleven when we arrive in Tokyo and it's late and every restaurant has long lines.  Perhaps more interesting are their episodes on street food in the Tokyo neighborhoods of Asakusa and Oeno.  He tries to film an episode on supermarkets but they don't like people filming in them.  Sort of like libraries...

Only in Japan
The first episode I watched was Street Food in Shibamata which is a suburb of Japan and is famous for being the setting of a Japanese film series called Otoko wa Tsurai yo (It's tough being a man) featuring an unlucky-in-love character called Tora-san.  Maybe it would be a change to check out the suburbs if we find Tokyo too hectic.  There are also episodes on Vending Machines, Super Escalators and Ice Cream Flavors.
If you like trains, there is an episode on the overnight sleeper car JR Sunrise Izumo Express from Tokyo Station to Izumo on the Sea of Japan and another episode on the Kitaro Family (Pokemon) Train" train in Yonago.

Tokyo Cheapo
Tokyo Cheapo has a channel on YouTube but also its own website offering a downloadable ebook guide to Tokyo.  What does their Shinjuku guide say about the neighborhood?  We'll let you know what we think!

Japan next? Tokyo, Kyoto and Hakone?

I thought I better post something before a year lapses since my last post, April 29, 2015, about the weather on the Camino.  And I should post something about our 2 weeks on the Camino (I had left it for something to do over the winter when I couldn't garden but other things got in the way...).  Since last April we have traveled in the U.S.: California, Boston, the Outer Banks; but I don't have to prepare for those destinations like I do for a foreign country.

Mandy says we need to go to Tokyo and Kyoto and to Hakone to see Mt. Fuji.  I have no concept of the layout of Japan so a nice map would be the first step, to see which towns are near each other.  I have no bucket list of things to see and check off but would like gardens, markets, kitchenware and handicraft stores.  I want to walk the streets and wander through neighborhoods, eat the food, but not in 4 star restaurants, only in little noodle joints, or on the streets, where we can afford it.

Three weeks later:  As you can see I didn't get very far with this post.  But now I'm reading Juan and Mandy's Insight Guide to Tokyo from 2004.  It's a little dated because it talks about the effort to move the government offices outside of Tokyo in case there is an earthquake.  One of the 3 locations suggested is Fukushima...

Current Must-Do in Tokyo
Kappabashi Market.  This is where they have the fake food shops but also the restaurant supply stores.  Bento.com has a list of the various stores he found interesting: Tanaka for lacquerware;  Kondo and Okuda for bamboo products; Hashito for chopsticks; Kamata for knives; Propack for everything; and Maizuru for plastic food models, including souvenirs like magnets and keychains.  This was written in 2005, it looks like, so that's not much better than the Insight Guide.  I hope things don't change much in Japan...
On the same website (dated 2004), Yukari Pratt has a list of tools for the Japanese kitchen, like strainers, bamboo colanders, wooden lids, graters, and brushes, which she says make great gifts for gourmet friends.  It looks like I better take a big suitcase.

Antenna Shops
Prefectural "antenna shops" are retail stores that specialize in food and other products from a specific Japanese prefecture or city. Set up by local governments and located in Tokyo and other major cities, they are meant to promote an appreciation of regional foods and crafts, and encourage tourism."  Bento.com has a map of antenna shops in Tokyo and you can browse through a list of them with descriptions.  You can click through to their websites and then have google translate the Japanese for you: "Black of cartilage of pig chili soy sauce boiled (65g) and finished with a soy sauce taste of perfect Kagoshima classic knob of rice or potato shochu black pig cartilage."

Must-Do in Kyoto
Bento.com also has a section on the Nishiki Market in Kyoto, with a list of recommended shops, such as Aritsugu for knives and strainers, Dintora for Japanese spices, Fuka for fu (wheat gluten), Takakuraya for pickles, and Yubakichi for yuba (tofu skin).  They recommend following up with a visit to the nearby food floor of the Daimaru Department Store.  Department stores seem to be alive and well in Japan, with food courts in the basements, like the old City of Paris in San Francisco.  Or was that just in 2004??

Seafood on the Camino

The north of Spain has a lot of seafood, even in the towns in the mountainous interior -- except maybe in Leon where meat is king -- and they have a lot of local names for them, so I decided to create a glossary, with photos so I'll remember.  There's a post on The 12 Essential Galician Seafood Catches by a Texan living in Santiago which should help.

Vieiras or Zamburiñas
These are scallops which are the symbol of the Camino de Santiago so we should try to find them someplace, although I know we can get them at home without any problem aside from money.  Our good friend José Andrés has a PBS Made in Spain episode on Galicia in which he begins with a recipe for zamburiñas a la gallega which are served on the shell.  Our Texan in Santiago says vieiras are larger than zamburiñas.

Pulpo con cachelos (Pulpo á Feira / Pulpo a la Gallega)
This is boiled octopus with boiled potatoes and it's hard to get a simpler dish than that.  Our Texan in Santiago recommends the Bodegón Os Concheiros as his favorite pulperia.

Too bad they don't serve it with red peppers and a salad to give it some color.  They need more chefs like my high school art teacher, Mr. Brothers, who once asked me:  "Doesn't your mother choose her dinner menu by what looks good on the plate?"  As if that was the obvious way to come up with a well-rounded meal.

Percebes
These are goose-neck barnacles that Rick Steves had to pay $16/pound for in the Santiago market.  He could have gone out to the Asturian seashore and picked his own like José Andrés did in this Made in Spain episodes on PBS which I urge you to watch because there is no chef more entertaining that José.  Or you can follow this gastronomic driving tour of the Costa da Morte, which sounds lovely.  The restaurant that they recommend eating at in Santiago de Compostela is La Bodeguilla de San Roque which seems to serve more meat than fish.  Autalia also offers a Ruta gastronomica en coche por el norte de Galicia de Coruña a Ribadeo (the northern coast) and another western coast route: Ruta gastronómica en coche por As Rias Baixas de Muros a Baiona (south of the Costa da Morte), in case we ever find ourselves in Santiago with a car.

Nécoras
These are velvet crabs which are the favorite of our Texan in Santiago.  He says if you can try just one of the 12 seafoods, try these.  He also mentions the larger spider crab, centollo, but they are more expensive.

Gamba / Camarón
These are shrimp and the Texan says they tend to be tiny and a lot of work to shell.

Cigala
These are scampi or langostinas or jumbo shrimp with garden shears for hands.

Razor Clams

Almejas / Ameixas (in Gallego)
These are clams with concentric ridges.

Berberechos
These are cockles, like clams with radial ridges.

Navajas / Navallas
And these are razor clams.

Mejillones / Mexillóns
These are mussels and are very affordable, according to the Texan.

Now you'll notice this seafood is almost all shellfish without a real fish in sight.  I guess we'll have to wait till another post for those.  In the meantime, I'm going to read the Texan's post on "What to Eat in Galicia: 10 Dishes to Try" in which he says:

"I’m gonna go out on a limb here and argue that the region of Galicia in the northwest part of Spain churns out the best food in the entire country. Give me some Galician food any day over expensive Basque pintxos, snobby Catalan cuisine, or the famine food of the central meseta."

Stay tuned!!

León Gastronomy

León did not get its name from león the lion but from the Roman Seventh Legion that set up its fortress here to protect the gold mines in Astorga in the first century AD.  Sometime we will have to go visit the nearby Las Médulas where the Romans used hydraulic mining to wash away the soil from the mountains and retrieve the gold.

Las Medulas

Despite the real derivation of its name, León still uses the lion in its coat of arms.

León is situated on a high plain, to the east of Burgos.  After León, the mountains begin again so this is not the part of the Camino that we chose to walk, although I wish we could have visited the towns of Astorga (a Roman town founded in 14 BC as Asturica Augusta), Ponferrada (from the Latin Pons Ferrata or Iron Bridge), and Villafranca del Bierzo.

Chorizo de León

León is known gastronomically for its cured meats so Fernando can't be a vegetarian here.  He won't want to be when morcilla, lengua and manitas de cerdo appear on the menu.  The Chorizo de León is spicy with red paprika and smoked over oak wood.  We'll have to remember to take some with us for lunches when we are walking.

Then there is Botillo del Bierzo, which I've already mentioned, as being the caecum of a pig stuffed with miscellaneous parts, including bones, so that is something that is not picnic food but that one has to sit down to and that is served hot.  Plus it wouldn't fit in my little 16 liter  Gregory Maya backpack.

Lengua Curada

Then there is Lengua Curada or cured tongue which can be served "loncheada" with aceite.  I'm assuming this means sliced thinly (as for "lunches") and dressed with olive oil because the tongue is not very fatty and dries out.  There is also stewed lengua on the menus or we could get a "surtida" with an assortment of cured meats, because of course we have to order some morcilla (blood sausage) for Fernando.  The restaurant La Poveda has an extensive list of animal parts in its "raciones" or tapas menu, some of which I will have to Google to discover what they actually are before we get there.  Like mollejas de lechazo, which are sweetbreads of a young lamb, chipirones (squid), ajetes (young garlic), oricios (sea urchin), necoras (small crabs), and one we'll definitely have to try: percebes or goose barnacles.

Pimientos del Bierzo

I, of course, might opt out of most of the meats so that I can concentrate on the pimientos del Bierzo -- Valle del Bierzo being west of León --  and the pimiento morrón de Fresno de la Vega, Fresno de la Vega being just south of León.  I'm afraid I'll have to settle for canned ones since May isn't exactly the season for peppers.  Maybe we should have planned the Camino for September when there are more harvest festivals.  If we stay in private hostales and pensiones and hotels we shouldn't have to worry about the end-of-the-season bedbugs.  Maybe next time!

Cocido Maragato

What other vegetable options are there in León?  In Pamplona they had a number of tapas with berenjena that were very good so I am hoping there might be a couple of eggplant tapas in León.  Alubias and other beans are popular in the region -- essentially anything that can be cooked into a hearty stew with meat.  One such stew is Cocido Maragato from Astorga which features berza (that broccoli raab type of green), garbanzos and seven to twelve meats (what did you expect?).  The meat is served first, then the garbanzos, and last the soup.  All cocidos seem to be composed of garbanzos and meat.  Then there is the Olla Berciana which appears to be the same thing from the photos, only it is what they eat in Bierza.

And I suppose there is always the Menestra de Verduras, that overcooked vegetable stew.  Did you know that you can buy the vegetables frozen in a bag so all you have to do is add water and meat?  If we had an apartment we could make our own undercooked version without the meat.

I am always on the lookout for a version that is fresh and green but I was a bit surprised to find out that in 1994 the famous Catalan chef, Ferran Adrià of elBulli, deconstructed the menestra into what you see on the left.  What do you think?  I'm afraid he has had no influence whatsoever on the Spanish cooking of the menestra.