Vanilla Heaven

I recently had the pleasure to receive notice from Mr. Agas Ramada Setiadi about what looks like vanilla heaven: his organic vanilla plantation in Java. His web site is truly wonderful - but see below for ordering in USA-showing his healthy looking farm, organized and clean facilities, beautifully photographed products and processing steps, and historical, botanic, and culinary information about vanilla. I can smell vanilla just by visiting his site and am very excited to try his product, which I just ordered. Best of all it is FAIR TRADE! My favorite lines from his site are these: "Vanilla is the underwear of the baking world; it makes everything look good and plays well in the sandbox with others." since I would never have connected underwear with vanilla. But this makes sense, because I can add vanilla to - for example - cut strawberries with a bit of
sugar and the aroma of the berries and that of the vanilla do some behind the scenes magic.


   I have received the Vanilla in the mail and can report that it rises to the level of being an elegant gift for a birthday or other event, besides being in the class of highest quality ingredients that I use for my cakes. The service is also impeccable. Very important to note that one must order it from Indri Vanilla, run by Chef Whitney Olsen of Tempe Arizona, if you are shipping inside the U.S.A. 

Agas even has instructions for producing an extract using apple cider rather than alcohol, to conform with Muslim dietary practices. Plus, he has links to a YouTube video showing vanilla orchids being hand pollinated, recipes and tips- such as how to make your own vanilla coffee, and most important: how to HOW GO TO BANDUNG via Air Asia and driving instructions to his planation. I have an urge to buy a lottery ticket at this moment. Sigh. 

For now I will be content with the small piece of heaven represented by his vanilla shipped to me.

I descend from bakers via both parents so perhaps this accounts for what some see as my fanatical enthusiasm for vanilla (and cacao, and butter, yeast breads rising...). But no matter, I am so glad to share devotional interest in this vine with so many people, past and present. The Totonac people, of Mazatlan Valley on the Gulf Coast of Mexico first cultivated vanilla for medicinal use. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal man, fled to the forest with her lover. The lovers were captured and beheaded. Vanilla vines grew on the spot their blood touched the ground. Conquered by the Aztecs- who apparently began culinary use of vanilla, the Totonacs paid tribute by sending vanilla beans to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. Xanat translates roughly as nectar of the gods, and the twisting vines evocative of an embrace, perhaps. It seems completely unsurprising that a passionate and divine origin is ascribed to vanilla.

In his book, Vanilla Orchids: Natural History and Cultivation, Ken Cameron provides more botanical history, molecular analysis, and instructions for producing vanilla at home. Vanilla vines under cultivation must be checked each day for flowers in order to hand pollinate each one - since only in certain small areas of Mexico does a specific species of bee exist with a natural ability to pollinate the orchid and create the fruit. The drying and other handling of vanilla is likewise an exacting labor of love - making the high price understandable.

Rachel

 

Eel migration and Hurricane Irene

     I love storms, rain. It's difficult to relate with negative comments about stormy weather. Of course, there can be some inconveniences - too much rain in too short a time ruined my tomatoes last year and I empathize with other's more serious losses. 

    But the excitement of a storm, the smell, watery reflections and varieties of rain, wind, snow, and skies energize me - even if it is only a local passing shower. Hemispheric scale events like Hurricane Irene, now approaching New England, do more to promote contemplation of the awesome world from which our mundane affairs distract us. 

    Irene comes with the new moon, darkest of nights, bringing wetness and flooding eels need to complete a life phase: passing back to its origins in the middle of the Atlantic, far from its sojourn to inland waterways and pools. More sensitive and tuned in to these events, eels right now are on the move. 

   Having just read Eels, An exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the worlds most mysterious fish, by James Prosek, Hurricane Irene takes on an intense shade more meaning. Part ethnology, part natural history, Prosek's book tells us a story not only of this amazing fish but also stories of eels woven through the lives of many cultures - their religions, economies, art and lore. He also points to what has been mostly forgotten in this modern rush of activity in which we are enmeshed, a decline of knowledge that mirrors the decline of the eel. He is also a gifted artist, so reading his book is doubly pleasurable for its illustrations, which reflect the respect with which he approached the native people of New Zealand, other pacific ocean cultures, as well as scientists and others whose lives the eel touches.

    I remember fishing when I was young in Wareham, by Buzzards Bay, with my uncle Donald. A sailor, in the navy before WWII,  who had the arms and attitudes that made me think of Popeye, he was a demolitions expert tasked with killing Japanese soldiers in the tunnels of Iwo Jima and had seen terrible things. Did this make this tough man more aware of every small magical, delightful detail? Perhaps; his salty stories did touch on wonderful things he'd seen 'round the world on the water. Fish featured big to him. He had built a row boat - it leaked and was as heavily built as a battleship. But we got about the pond by the cottage he and Aunt Peggy kept, catching horn pout, pickerel, bass, and sometimes eels. He encouraged me to eat eels some day, but as Peggy would not clean and cook them, we had to throw them back.

   Long years after, I ate eel in a Japanese restaurant. It was like mackerel, but sweeter, darker, and more buttery. I would have eaten eel often if caught myself - since who knows where the restaurants get them? China, most likely, as Prosek describes, mostly for the Japanese market, for which eel has a still vibrant culinary, mythical, and tremendous economic appeal. The Japanese eel has all but been fished out. Heavily funded research of ways to farm them in man made ponds has been under way for years. Now I know eels everywhere are possibly endangered, I am hoping for the success of the scientists involved in this effort, as well as for those working to protect the habitats for which the eel has surprising and profound influence.

    

Dolphin Meat

Yes, the meat is eventually labeled as whale meat from a different, more sought after, species and purchased at supermarkets, high levels of mercury notwithstanding. The animals are slaughtered in a brutal manner, at a rate of about twenty thousand individuals annually. The film, The Cove, alleges certain facts that seem to be in dispute - such as that dolphins are culled before the slaughter to meet the needs of places like Sea World and dolphin petting sites around the world, supplying them with dolphins for their purposes. Evidence is not immediately apparent and these places deny it. Yet, overall, images captured let the film speaks for itself and are not open to dispute. See the film, visit the site if you love dolphins free in the seas. 
    One comment in the film by one of the Japanese fishermen was a rationale to the effect that while in the west we eat cattle, here they eat whales, dolphins, and other creatures. A great observation, when divorced of its intent to justify the practice, since in both the west and the east it seems that socio-culinary traditions have spiraled out of control and certain acts are referred to as if historically based by those who practice what is in fact very far removed from tradition.
Rachel

Adopt a rainforest

     The enthusiasm of my friend Korbin Duley at Cuipo.org prompts me to post once again after long quiescence here at Culinary Heritage. After years of seeing signs along highways proclaiming that some fast food joint "adopted" a highway I have issues with this use of the word, adopt, even though I am glad that the process contributes to cleanup. Something temporary and too commercial about it, and I have suspected that the stretch of road could be un-adopted at will and then perhaps re-adopted by some other commercial entity - oh wait, corporations are persons now, I forgot - I mean, person.


   Here is something permanent: adopt a square meter of rainforest for five dollars. Or more! Look it up on google maps and show your kids, friends, coworkers, and employer- who may make a matching gift. It will make a permanent difference to the ecology of the earth and the five dollars will come back to you in so many good ways. Along with adoption, you merely pledge to protect this parcel of land by acting with care regarding the things you do every day. You can make up your own pledge or follow something like this:


  I will buy organic foods grown using sustainable farming.
  I will carpool to work with friends 2 days per week
  I will recycle my newspapers
  I will use reusable grocery bags instead of paper and plastic
  I will recycle plastic
  I will buy locally grown vegetables to reduce my carbon footprint

  So please, go to the Cuipo.org site, read about it, look at the stunning videos, and maybe next time you see one of those highway signs, you will remember you did something pretty cool. By the way, a Cuipo is a tree, Cavanillesia platanifolia, that is extremely large and grows in such places as Panama, and depicted in this photograph and this beautiful painting by  Ricardo Sanchez Beitia. See his other work at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/ricardo-sanchez-beitia.html