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lsandersonMay 17, 2006
Books of The Times | 'The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton'
Meet the Mrs. Who Organized the Domestic Engineers
Review by WILLIAM GRIMES
A Prince of Pork: In Seattle, Recreating the Perfect Ham
By R.W. APPLE Jr.
SEATTLE
Dry-Cured Sausages: Kissed by Air, Never by Fire
By JULIA MOSKIN
LIFE. Death. Salami. These are the elemental forces that shape each day for Marc Buzzio, one of New York's last and best makers of traditional dry-cured sausages. "There's no substitute for morbidity," he said recently, raising a 12-pound soppressata to his nose.
The smell of rot — the ripe funk you breathe in Italian pork stores and French charcuteries — has always been part of the craft of curing. Traditional dry-cured sausages — the rough-textured, chewy ones like Italian soppressata and French saucisson sec — aren't cooked. Instead, the raw meat is stuffed into natural casings and left exposed to the air, picking up wild yeasts and cultures that start fermentation. Then, like wine and cheese, the sausages are aged in a cool, humid place to develop the rounded, savory taste that comes from slow ripening. White mold grows on the outside; water drips out as the sausage dries. More
The Chef: Iacopo Falai
Celery and Salad Take Turns as Dessert
By MELISSA CLARK
Recipe: Celery Pudding Cakes With Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
Recipe: Strawberry-Rhubarb Salad
The Minimalist
Fat or Skinny Asparagus? Both Have Merits
By MARK BITTMAN
Recipe: Asparagus Vichyssoise
Recipe: Stir-Fried Asparagus With Pork
Recipe: Asparagus Salad With Soy-Mustard Dressing
Smoky, Spicy and True of Heart
By ERIC ASIMOV
Off the Menu
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Crisp Grilled Birds That Borrow Their Flavorings From Provence
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Books of The Times | 'The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton'
Meet the Mrs. Who Organized the Domestic Engineers
Review by WILLIAM GRIMES
When Lytton Strachey was hunting for eminent Victorians to skewer, Isabella Beeton loomed as a tempting target. For generations of middle-class Englishwomen, her encyclopedic "Book of Household Management" was a standard wedding gift, the final word on cooking, sewing and the fine art of hiring a servant or paying a social visit.
She really was an eminent Victorian, although not, as Strachey imagined her, "a small, tublike lady in black — rather severe of aspect, strongly resembling Queen Victoria." In "The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton," Kathryn Hughes's scrupulously researched, definitive study, Mrs. Beeton, as she was universally known, emerges as a fascinating blend of Betty Crocker and Emily Post, with a little Martha Stewart or Nigella Lawson thrown in for good measure. More
A Prince of Pork: In Seattle, Recreating the Perfect Ham
By R.W. APPLE Jr.
SEATTLE
THEY hang inconspicuously behind glass windows just inside the front door of Salumi, a pipsqueak of a place in the shabby Pioneer Square neighborhood of downtown Seattle. Hunks of ruddy-colored meat a little smaller than footballs, trussed with heavy twine, they are easy to miss amid the familiar prosciuttos, salamis and provolone cheeses.
But you miss them at your peril. They are princes among pork products, known in northern Italy as the superstars of the antipasto platter, and coveted by generations of big-time eaters in Emilia-Romagna, which harbors more of that species than any other Italian region. Sweeter, mellower and more delicate in flavor than prosciutto, with an astoundingly smooth and creamy texture, these über-hams, called culatelli, have achieved something approaching mythic status among the few Americans lucky enough to have tasted them on their native ground in the foggy Po River lowlands near Parma.
Until recently, that was just about the only place to taste the genuine article — either at the kitchen table of a hospitable farmhouse or at a traditional salumeria like the 400-year-old Giusti in Modena or at rural trattorias like the incomparable Da Ivan in Fontanelle and La Buca in Zibello, the epicenter of the culatello world. More
Dry-Cured Sausages: Kissed by Air, Never by Fire
By JULIA MOSKIN
LIFE. Death. Salami. These are the elemental forces that shape each day for Marc Buzzio, one of New York's last and best makers of traditional dry-cured sausages. "There's no substitute for morbidity," he said recently, raising a 12-pound soppressata to his nose.
The smell of rot — the ripe funk you breathe in Italian pork stores and French charcuteries — has always been part of the craft of curing. Traditional dry-cured sausages — the rough-textured, chewy ones like Italian soppressata and French saucisson sec — aren't cooked. Instead, the raw meat is stuffed into natural casings and left exposed to the air, picking up wild yeasts and cultures that start fermentation. Then, like wine and cheese, the sausages are aged in a cool, humid place to develop the rounded, savory taste that comes from slow ripening. White mold grows on the outside; water drips out as the sausage dries. More
The Chef: Iacopo Falai
Celery and Salad Take Turns as Dessert
By MELISSA CLARK
IN a restaurant, the division between the savory and sweet sides of the kitchen runs far deeper than, say, a chef's skill level with chocolate tempering as opposed to squab-butchering. It boils down to a fundamental difference in technique.
Savory chefs cook by intuition, gauging quantities with their eyes, noses, fingers or whatever utensil happens to be nearby, be it a measuring spoon or a container lid. Pastry chefs use scales.
This rift poses obstacles for Iacopo Falai, who is both chef and pastry chef at his Lower East Side restaurant, Falai. Having worked as a pastry chef for a decade in Europe before planting a foot on the savory side, Mr. Falai lives and dies by his sleek white battery-powered scale, weighing out everything from the two leeks he needs for a soup (200 grams) to a hefty pinch of salt he adds to cake batter (5 grams).
His kitchen staff of five, however, often rebels. The battle of the scale rages on a daily basis. "I have a problem sometimes with the people working for me even if they are Italian," Mr. Falai said, weighing out strawberries for two seasonally inspired desserts he planned to prepare that day: celery pudding cakes with strawberry-rhubarb compote and strawberry-rhubarb salad with olive oil, mint and fleur de sel. More
Recipe: Celery Pudding Cakes With Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
Recipe: Strawberry-Rhubarb Salad
The Minimalist
Fat or Skinny Asparagus? Both Have Merits
By MARK BITTMAN
THERE was a time when I thought skinny asparagus was special, back in the days when fat asparagus was often overcooked and glommed with hollandaise. Then I reverted. Fat spears had more substance, I thought. More crunch equaled more taste.
Resolving this longstanding debate is impossible, because each type is good. Once you recognize that, you can begin to address the real question: Does it even matter what type you use?
The answer is yes. There are real differences between skinny and fat asparagus spears, aside from appearance, and it's worth attending to them. More
Recipe: Asparagus Vichyssoise
Recipe: Stir-Fried Asparagus With Pork
Recipe: Asparagus Salad With Soy-Mustard Dressing
Smoky, Spicy and True of Heart
By ERIC ASIMOV
LIKE the child of a movie star or a politician, Crozes-Hermitage has enjoyed more than its share of unearned privilege. It arrives in this world with advantages that are obvious to anyone familiar with Hermitage, the great wine of the northern Rhone Valley, known for its richness and power. Merely by association with Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage gains stature and repute, but soon enough it must answer to the curse of heightened expectations. More
Off the Menu
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Crisp Grilled Birds That Borrow Their Flavorings From Provence
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
THE northern Rhone region, the source of Crozes-Hermitage and other terrific syrah wines, is a gateway to the South of France. It inspired a hint of Provence for this pairing: grilled quail flavored by a red wine marinade. More
