23 Jul

Urban Foraging

Cherry jam, plum jelly, and Rainier cherries with basil

Cherry jam, plum jelly, and Rainier cherries with basil

Now that I live in Seattle, summer means cherries from Eastern Washington and autumn means apples. I have a vivid memory of the first time I saw a tree with flowers on it, so you better believe that I was kind of amazed when I first realized that there are happy fruit trees throughout my adopted city. My first summer, I drooled over the heavily-laden plum trees in the yard of a house across from my apartment building. Finally, I built up the confidence to go and knock on the door.

“Umm, excuse me, but I was wondering if you are going to pick all your plums?” Read More

06 Jun

Raspberry lemonade

I woke up to sunshine and an 80 F forecast today. We’ve probably got some Junuary ahead, but summer has made an appearance in Seattle this week. This is my favorite time of year, when it is sunny but not overly hot yet. Mid-eighties triggers my Alaskan nostalgia, along with a strong desire to test whether I could actually sit inside the fridge if I took out all the drawers and shelves.

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Freeze Frame by jaime

For now, though, I can put on my sunscreen and sit in the backyard with a cool drink and be as happy as a cat with a full basket of clean laundry to sleep on. Here’s what I’ve been drinking, so you can make it for yourself. Read More

07 Dec

Selyodka pod shuboi, or Herring in a fur coat

Well, here it is. Шуба. I asked my taller half this morning what the appropriate layers inside were, since there was some variation in the recipes. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll tell you if it’s wrong.”

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And here it is before I smoothed out the final layer of mayonnaise. I’m terribly afraid it will be wrong. I made a small one so we can taste it and figure out something else last minute if it is really, really wrong.

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04 Dec

Golubtsy (Russian cabbage rolls)

golubtsi-10My taller half and I are going to a dinner next weekend, with the theme of “Russian food cooked badly.” A kinder way to put it might be “Amateur Russian cuisine night,” because the group is made up out of a few first generation immigrants and people like me, who have studied abroad in Russia and gained some familiarity with the cuisine. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might remember that I occasionally make borshch beet soup. My taller half, who came to the US at age 14, has told me that “it’s good, but it’s not borshch.” This might be because I am making a vegetarian version without the traditional beef bone or other bits of meat involved, but really I suspect it’s because I’m not his mother. Read More

30 Oct

What the Chukchis eat in the Russian Far East

Dishes of the Peoples of Yakutia

I am prepping for NaNoWriMo, as I may have mentioned, and I am super excited about it, because I’m planning an epic fantasy set in something like Siberia/the Russian Far East, except there is magic around, and the indigenous peoples have the political cooperation and shamanistic powers to drive back the Cossacks instead of becoming a fur-producing colony for the Russian Empire.

As such, I’ve been reading about Siberian history, and the mythology of various peoples of the RFE, making good use of my Russian degree. I’ve always been interested in RFE history, since it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from Alaskan history, so I have some seemingly random references that are suddenly helpful, like this cookbook. Why do I have “Dishes of the Peoples of Yakutia”? No idea. But now it is providing me with helpful information on the diet of the Sakha [Yakuts], Evens, Evenks, Yukaghirs, and Chukchis. I started with Chukchis, because I’ve been reading some of Waldemar Bogoras’s texts on the Chukchi. Here’s my own rough translation of this cookbook’s Chukchi section, with occasional personal commentary in italics. The Russian text happens to be online already. I should note that the authors say there are few Chukchi around in Yakutia (I believe they mostly live in the next region over, Chukotka), and therefore their recipes are all sourced from other publications.

Chukchis hunted for wild reindeer, marine mammals, wild fowl and other game. They also fished, gathered wild berries, edibles plants and their roots. They boiled or roasted meat and fish, but also dried many products.

  • Pal’gyn [Пальгын] – Fat skimmed off of crushed and boiled reindeer bones, mixed with minced greens or boiled willow leaves and sorrel. Also mixed with meat for a smoked reindeer sausage.
  • Vil’mulimul’ [Вильмулимуль] – Reindeer blood, kidney, liver, ears, roasted hooves, and lips mixed with berries and sorrel and stuffed into a stomach, which is dried and then saved in cold storage and fermented over winter to provide a rich spring food, full of calories and vitamins. This food is made by many northern peoples.
  • Kykvatol’ [Кыкватоль] – Reindeer meat dried during windy weather in summer, or in the smoke indoors in wet weather. Outer layer is dry, but the interior remains fresh. It is sliced before eating, and fried if there are raw sections.
  • Nuvkurak [Нувкурак] – Whale meat dried until it has a hard crust while the inside of the meat remains raw. This is boiled in large cauldrons and stored in jars of seal oil. This is only used during winter. I was recently reading The Shaman’s Coat by Anna Reid, who mentions that boiled whale meat was quite succulent.
  • Mantak (or Intilgyn) for future use [Мантак (или интилгын) впрок] – Chukchis, as well as eskimos, widely used whale meat and whale skin [blubber?]. Blubber with tallow was eat raw and boiled. It was boiled for future use, and stored in jars with water and leaves of fireweed. This was a winter food. The leaves provided a pleasant smell and helped it keep longer. At the first frost in the fall, fresh blubber with tallow was put in a pit for meat. [This is a reasonable storage option in regions with permafrost.] Here it stayed until spring. In the winter it was eaten frozen, before bed. It was eaten boiled with a porridge made of the kyiugak plant.
  • Dish of roots of grasses or herbs [Блюда из корней трав] – Peeled and washed roots and stems of edible plants are minced and then pounded into an evenly mixed mass then mixed with finely chopped reindeer meat and seal oil. This is a stand alone dish, but can be eaten with other dishes.
  • K’uvykhsi [К’увыхси] – The upper stem and leaves of [three-wing-fruit] are gathered before it flowers and saved for later. The grass is boiled, cream scalded… too many exotic words in this one, but it is added to all traditional dishes.
  • Fermented reindeer [Квашеные оленина] – Layers of reindeer meat and bones are tightly packed into a bag of either seal or reindeer skin, called a tenegyn. In this summer, the tenegyn is buried near any remaining patches of snow, and snow piled on top. In the winter the preserved meat is dug up.
  • Fermented heads [Квашеные головы] – In mid-summer, when salmon first return, they begin to ferment the heads of these fish. First they make a small hole, taking up sod/turf from the earth. The hole is prepared for the heads. The bottom is covered with willow switches or sod, and on top of this a layer of fish spines. The heads are placed on the spines. Then the heads are covered with another layer of spines and on that, sod. They put earth over this and lightly tamp it down. Later, when the earth settles to be level with the sod, they take the heads out of the pit. Fermented heads are calculated to be ready in September, for the arrival of those who went far away for work. Apparently fermentation in plastic bags or buckets leads to botulism, while the traditional methods are safer.
  • Boiled meat [Мясо отварное] – Reindeer meat is cut into small chunks. As many chunks as needed for a portion are put into a pot. Boil until ready: leave it a little under-cooked otherwise the reindeer loses its juiciness and the taste peculiar to this animal. Salt to taste. Remove the cooked meat from the broth and cut into small pieces. Pour broth over meat and serve.

I think I have literally had this
Russian dictionary for fifteen years.

Perhaps next time I’ll share the dishes of the Yukhagirs, one of which is a cold drink made of whitefish caviar.

Apparently reading Russian language sources for my current project is the reason why I acquired US Dept. Of the Interior Fish & Wildlife Service Circular 43, “Glossary of Marine Conservation Terms in English and Russian,” compiled in 1956, and “My Nose Is Frostbitten: Useful Phrases for Russian-American Exchanges” by Melissa Chapin, even though neither or them can tell me what трехкрылоплодный горец is. Etymologically, I think it breaks down to three-wing-fruited mountaineer, which doesn’t help me place it in English. Apparently I need a botanical glossary as well!

18 Oct

Ginger Carrot Soup

Last weekend the weather in Seattle turned cold and wet, ending a long and beautiful Indian summer, and, in my mind, signaling an important change in diet. Time for soup!

I can remember exactly the first time I ever had a ginger carrot soup, how delicious it was, and how long I struggled to recreate it. I think I’ve got some mastery of the process now, so I thought I’d share it.

Most of the cooking is actually done in a frying pan, which allows things to carmelize and soften up without being boiled to death. The first time I fried things first before adding them to broth, I felt like I had discovered an important culinary secret. Now I cook a lot of soup ingredients in the frying pan or oven before I get them wet, and get richer flavors. So start with your frying pan, and save the soup pot for last! Read More