SAVEUR

OCTUBRE 2006

FIRST
Wanted: Food Editor. Okay, buddy, drop the Butt Rub. All eyes were on me as I answered their questions
for the umpteenth time. “What do you do?” “I’m a magazine food editor.” “Why are you in Florida?”
“I’m researching a story for Saveur.” “Th ey think it’s the food that did it,” a police offi cer behind me
said. Last June I was in Apalachicola, a seaside town in Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico, to report on its
food scene for our “Food Towns” list (see page 28). In the course of eating a lot of great food, I picked
up a few souvenirs: an Apalachicola oyster shell, a “honey bear” full of Apalachicola River tupelo honey,
and a jar of barbecue seasoning called Bad Byron’s Butt Rub. Th e night before I was scheduled to fl y
back home, I packed up those items, along with some notepads and a combination video/voice
recorder. Th e next morning at the Tallahassee airport, I complied with the usual security rules, placing
my bag on the conveyor belt that takes luggage through a scanner. When I walked over to retrieve my
bag, I noticed that the conveyor belt had stopped. Several Transportation Security Administration
screeners had gathered around the monitor and were staring at it intently. One of them asked, “Do you
have anything in your bag that you shouldn’t have?” As I turned, I saw that all the passengers at the
security checkpoint were being pushed away, their baggage still sitting where they’d left it. Seconds
later, I was being frisked by a cop. I was then escorted outside; the place was swarming with police and
fi remen. Th ey were sending a robot into the now evacuated airport to retrieve my bag. Th ey thought
there was a bomb in it. I was detained in an RV mobile command center surrounded by security
personnel. The bombsquad robot took my bag into an empty fi eld and shook its contents onto the
ground. No bomb, of course—just my souvenirs. To those looking at the scanning machine, they, along
with my recorder, had apparently resembled explosives hooked up to a detonator. After being held for
nearly fi ve hours, I was released. Th e airport’s administration made it up to me by throwing a press
conference and buying me a cheeseburger lunch. Later, waiting for my plane back to New York, I
overheard a guy saying on his cell phone, “I don’t even know if I should get on. I heard that a guy tried to
bring a bomb on board earlier.” No, I wanted to tell him, I was just trying to get my Butt Rub home. —
TODD COLEMAN, Food Editor.

FARE
Explorers and Experimenters from the World of Food, plus One Good Bottle, Agenda, and More. A
Backpacker’s Banquet. We had a sweet tooth; they had peanuts and bananas. O nly the most
gastronomically challenged visitor to Southeast Asia would turn up his nose at the region’s fl avorful
curries, satays, and stir-fries for Western fare, right? But backpackers are a special case. Meandering for
months with a heavy load, consuming all kinds of grub in all manner of guesthouses and street-food
stands, they eventually develop a hankering for the tastes of home—a natural symptom of road
weariness. Depending on where home is, they might crave anything from shakshuka, a dish of eggs in
tomato sauce beloved by Israelis, to banana pancakes— and, surprisingly, they have a pretty good
chance of fi nding it. Roadside cafés and guesthouse kitchens from India to Vietnam serve non-native
dishes like those. Why? I have a theory: a backpacker, lingering in some exotic place with nothing but
time on his or her hands and an appetite for a culinary touchstone, hunts down the requisite ingredients
and cooks up something in a local place, in the process teaching the dish to its owner, who then
replicates it for future wayfarers. Eventually, neighboring establishments clone the dish, and it appears
across the region. While passing through Muang Ngoi, a rural fi shing village along the languid Nam Ou
River in northern Laos, my girlfriend and I unexpectedly left our own culinary legacy behind. After dining
at an eatery we chose at random along the main road, we decided that we needed dessert. We asked
the proprietor whether we could make our own, and he grudgingly agreed. We gathered some bananas
and peanuts (both are popular local ingredients), blended the peanuts into butter, spread the peanut
butter onto a rectangle of fl attened sticky rice, placed the sliced bananas on top, and then rolled the
rectangle into a log, sprinkling the outside with sesame seeds. We found some honey for dipping, sliced
the roll into pieces, and voilà! Dessert sushi. We thought it was delicious. Th e proprietor didn’t. He went
along, however, when we added it to his menu board, naming it “falang roll”, using a rendition of the
Lao (and Th ai) term for foreigner. We continued on our journey and never returned to Muang Ngoi. I
have since learned, though, that the falang roll has become a hit there, even generating its own lore. I
discovered an entry about it on a travel blog, describing it as having been created by “some falang who
stayed for weeks in Muang Ngoi and taught them how to make this sort of dessert sushi” (in fact we
were there for only two days) and noting that the rolls, at about $1.20 a serving, were the most
expensive item on the menu. Th e proprietors are even pushing the falang roll on a hand-painted sign
that hangs prominently outside their stand. Falang roll will most likely never appear in the annals of
culinary history, but I fi gure the chances of its spreading beyond Muang Ngoi are pretty good. For all I
know, it already has. —Andy Isaacson.
RECIPE Falang Roll (Foreigner Roll) MAKES 4 This energy-boosting treat is a twist on the peanut butter,
banana, and honey sandwich—a perennial American favorite. 3 cups thai sticky rice 3/4 cup crunchy
peanut butter, softened 2 bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise into 6 pieces each 1 tbsp. sesame
seeds Honey for dipping 1. Put rice into a large bowl, cover with cold water, and gently swish around
with your hand until water clouds; drain water. Repeat process until water runs clear. Cover rice with at
least 2” cold water and let soak at room temperature for 3 hours. (Alternatively, soak in the refrigerator
overnight.) 2. Fill bottom of a medium steamer or wok with water and bring to a boil over medium-high
heat. Meanwhile, line steamer basket with a piece of cheesecloth large enough to hang over sides of
basket by 1”. Drain rice, then spread it out in an even layer in the lined basket. Cover rice completely
with overhanging cheesecloth. Cover steamer basket and set over boiling water to let steam for 20
minutes, adding hot water to steamer or wok as necessary to maintain water level. Remove cover from
steamer basket and sprinkle 1/2 cup warm water over cheesecloth-covered rice; return cover and
continue to steam until rice is tender and cooked through, 15–18 minutes more. Unwrap rice and
transfer to a sheet pan; cover with a damp towel. Let cool to room temperature. 3. Cover a bamboo
sushi-rolling mat tightly with plastic wrap. Moisten your fi ngertips with water and gently spread out
one-quarter of the rice onto the mat into a 4” x 7” rectangle (don’t pack the rice). Spread 3 tbsp. peanut
butter evenly over rice, then place 3 pieces of banana along the side closest to you. Using the mat to
help you, roll the rice over and around the bananas to form a tight sushi roll, pressing down fi rmly to
seal the roll. Sprinkle roll with some sesame seeds and cut crosswise into 6 equal pieces. Repeat process
with remaining rice, peanut butter, bananas, and sesame seeds. Divide rolls between 4 plates with
honey on the side for dipping. Serve promptly.

Truculent but Tender. An unfriendly llama has a second life on the plate. H e was an aloof oneyear-old
llama. Th e eight other llamas with whom he shared pasture space on my friend’s mother’s farm in
Oregon were destined for long, peaceful lives, but this male—with his standoffi sh attitude and his
hereditary three pairs of sharp, angled fi ghting teeth—had to be culled. A short while after the job was
done, my friend’s mother fl ew from Oregon to New York with a suitcase packed with a few pounds of
llama meat for me. As a curious eater, I welcome the occasional gift of unfamiliar victuals, and I wanted
to do this one justice. If you’ve eaten llama, chances are you got it, as I did, from someone who raises
the beasts as guard animals or pets (a Google search for “llama recipes” turns up far more results for
what to feed a llama than for how to eat one). Even in its homeland, in the Andes of Peru, the llama is
much more a pack animal than it is a food source. When it is eaten, it is considered a provincial specialty
rather than a mainstream meat. A Peruvian friend did manage to fi nd a recipe for me, though— for
pachamanca, a traditional meat dish cooked in an earthen oven and prepared for village fêtes. I didn’t
have a whole village to feed, so I scaled the recipe down to make it serve four people. A friend with a
house in Brooklyn off ered her backyard, and with her help we dug a pit, lined it with foil, and added
preheated stones. In the hot pit I placed lean hunks of llama meat, which I’d marinated with garlic,
vinegar, and Peruvian rocoto chiles. I also piled in potatoes, ears of corn, lamb chops, and tamales, all
liberally strewn with cinnamon, sage, and chiles. While the pachamanca cooked, we prepared llama-
based versions of several additional dishes, including llama-stuff ed cabbage, llama lomo saltado, and—I
couldn’t resist the pun— a spicy version of the Turkish dish of groundmeat-topped flat bread called
lahmacun. After five hours, it was time to unearth the steamy smorgasbord. One guest was squeamish
about eating what he called “a cute llama” and settled, unaccountably, for lamb. Th e rest of us enjoyed
a uniquely delicious meat. Llama has the tang of grass-fed beef but none of that meat’s heaviness;
instead, in each of the preparations, it was remarkably tender and delicate. Th is animal had reportedly
had a predilection for blackberries, and it was almost possible to discern their tartness. My fi rst llama
experience has left me looking forward to a second one, and, attuned to the unsuspected culinary
potential of novel animals, I am keeping my eyes open for other delicious beasts with an attitude
problem. (For details on purchasing llama meat, see The Pa ntry, page 102.) —Paul Adams.
G.I. Grub. A history of military meals brings back fond memories. W hen i was a teenager I dreamed of
becoming a cook in the military. I was an air force brat, the son of a major, and my career aspirations
had been stimulated by visits to various O (offi cers’) clubs around the world with my father. I was
entranced by the toque-topped cooks slicing glazed hams at Eglin Air Force Base, in Florida, by the
layered Jell-O and whipped cream confections served at Off utt Air Force Base, in Nebraska, and by the
World War II–era dining hall at an army post in Germany where I buttered my rolls under portraits of
generals. I wanted in. I eventually gave up my dreams, but I never gave up my romantic attachment to
the idea. I loved the concept of chow—of food and camaraderie, and lots of it. When I recently
discovered the new book How to Feed an Army: Recipes and Lore from the Front Lines by J. G. Lewin
and P. J. Huff (Collins, $15.95), I knew I had found likeminded souls. Lewin and Huff are amateur
historians who are less interested in battle plans than they are in what went into the soldiers’ bellies
before the fi ght. Th eir book is packed with recipes taken from training manuals and military cookbooks
—a hundred in all, spanning the Revolutionary War through the current campaign in Iraq—including
such items as sweet and sour frankfurters (a delicious Vietnam War–era concoction) and slumgullion (an
improvised stew from First World War days). Mess hall meals have always gotten a bad rap. No dish
better illustrates that tradition than the infamous mess hall icon of creamed chipped beef on toast,
acrimoniously nicknamed S.O.S.—for “shit on a shingle”. That term was forbidden at Fairchild Air Force
Base near Spokane, Washington, where my dad was in basic survival training in the ’60s, though. The
cook there wouldn’t tolerate the acronyms and slang that grunts are famous for coming up with (see
box, page 20); his rule was that if you wanted creamed chipped beef on toast, you had to order it by
that name. The truth is, in any case, that S.O.S. is a delicious, satisfying dish, reminiscent of biscuits with
sausage gravy. It makes a great way to start off the day, before you go off to fight the good fight. —Todd
Coleman.
What Would James Bond Think? Today’s spies probably drink chardonnay with their steak. Ja mes Bond
dr ank Bollinger; one of John Le Carré’s heroes made wine in the English countryside; Len Deighton, the
author of the Harry Palmer spy novels, is a noted expert on food and drink. But what’s with all these
other guys? Almost every time we fi nd a reference to wine or spirits in a thriller or a detective novel
these days, the writer gets it wrong. For instance…
RECIPE Shit on a Shingle (Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast) SERVES 10 This recipe is based on one in the
Manual for Navy Cooks (published in 1945). For a traditional, saltier version, don’t soak the beef. 10
ounces dried sliced beef, chopped into 1/2” pieces (about 3 cups chopped; see page 102) 7 1/2 cups
milk 1/3 cup melted bacon grease 1 cup fl our Salt and freshly ground black pepper 20 slices white
sandwich bread, toasted 1. Put beef into a large bowl, cover with cold water, and let soak for 3–5
minutes (depending on how salty you’d like the fi nished product). Drain beef and set aside. 2. Put milk
into a large pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, put bacon grease and fl our into
a medium bowl and stir well to form a smooth paste. Reduce heat to medium-low, whisk fl our paste
into milk, and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 2–3 minutes. Add beef, season with salt
and pepper to taste, and simmer until very thick, about 5 minutes more. Ladle the creamed chipped
beef over toast and serve immediately. No griping!

BOOK REVIEW. Inside Sushi. A comprehensive new book invites everyone to make the Japanese classic
BY KENNETH WAPNER. I n the 1970s I worked for a sushi chef at a Japanese restaurant in New York City
called SoHo Robata. I was in my 20s, an unsure but willing apprentice. My mentor was a staunch
traditionalist, having been apprenticed himself to a sushi chef in Japan when he was in his teens. At the
time, sushi was largely unheard of in the United States except in places like New York and Los Angeles,
where a population of Japanese expats and Hollywood agents made the consumption of delicately
prepared raw fi sh the newest dining experience. Although my stint didn’t last nearly as long as that of
the typical Japanese sushi chef (a period of anywhere from fi ve to 15 years), I left my station behind the
sushi bar forever fascinated by the culture and artistry of sushi. In her new book, Th e Sushi Experience,
Hiroko Shimbo writes about how her own fascination with the food developed when she was a child
living in Japan. On special occasions her mother would order out for sushi, and, as a rare treat, Shimbo
would go with her family to a sushi restaurant. “To walk into the impeccably clean restaurant was like
entering a shrine,” she writes. Recalling her fi rst impression of a sushi chef, she adds, “He delivered the
beautiful sushi calmly and confi dently.… [F]rom a child’s point of view, his fi nesse seemed miraculous.”
Shimbo is the author of the acclaimed Th e Japanese Kitchen (Harvard Common Press, 2000) and is
herself a trained sushi chef. In her latest book, she presents sushi within the larger context of Japanese
food. In its fi rst chapters, the book off ers information that will help any reader impress fellow diners at
their next sushi dinner, with explorations of the history of sushi, the character of sushi chefs, and the
rituals of eating at a sushi bar (the next time you enjoy a really good piece of sushi, Shimbo advises, be
sure to compliment the maestro with “Oishii!” [“Delicious!”]). But it is in subsequent chapters that the
book really takes off . In them are fascinating sections on the art of Japanese knife making; the pairing of
sake and sushi; and the cleaning and storing of an oroshiki, the tool traditionally made from sharkskin
that sushi chefs use to grate fresh wasabi. Shimbo’s soulful knowledge of Japanese food distinguishes
The Sushi Experience from the many books on sushi already available. In her instructions on the
preparing of daikon, the white radish commonly used as a sushi garnish, for instance, she recommends
letting it rest in a sieve over a bowl: “The collected juice is full of vitamin C, so drink it diluted with some
water.” I also admired her tips on making dashi-maki tamago, the sweet, multilayered omelette that is
an essential part of any sushi chef’s repertoire; and her simple recipe for gari (pickled ginger) is one that
any home cook could follow, with pleasing results. Each of Shimbo’s recipes is accompanied by an
introduction explaining the dish’s background. In many cases there are also step-by-step technique
photographs and a sidebar with additional tips. For shrimp tempura roll, she gives us not only guidance
on making tempura batter but also a sidebar on cutting the shrimp so that it doesn’t curl up. Besides
recipes for staple favorites like negi-toro temaki (tuna and scallion roll) and kappa-maki (thin roll with
cucumber), Shimbo off ers moreintriguing ones. I tried the recipe for beef and crisp sweet potato roll; it
made for an incredibly appealing combination of fl avors. I also tried a recipe for chicken teriyaki roll
that involved marinating chicken thigh meat for 30 minutes in beer, soy, honey, and ginger and then
cooking it with shishitogarashi (Japanese green pepper). I couldn’t locate the Japanese pepper, so I
substituted frying peppers, per Shimbo’s instructions. I thought the outcome was fi ne, although the fl
avor imparted by the beer struck me as a bit un-Japanese. One chapter that I found particularly useful is
titled “Sushi Seafood”. In it Shimbo clues readers in on how to order engawa, the edge or fi n of fl atfi sh,
a delicacy that chefs may reserve for select customers, and how to distinguish between buri, mature
yellowtail, and hamachi (yellowtail in its young adult form). I’d like to believe that the fi shing and
slaughtering techniques for fi sh destined for the sushi trade are as widely practiced as Shimbo seems to
indicate. Sushi-grade fi sh, she writes, should have been caught by “pole and line…and quickly
transferred, alive, to a tank of sea water”. She goes on, “After resting overnight at the port to recover
from any stress, the fi sh is slaughtered ...instantaneously, so that it undergoes the least struggle and
stress.” Shimbo does the reader a great service by outlining the process that occurs after the fi sh’s
death, leading up to and through rigor mortis, as the lactic acid produced by it changes the texture and
taste of its fl esh. Readers will come away with a new understanding of why “freshest” isn’t necessarily
the best. Methods for fi leting fi sh are laid out in photographs, but readers may fi nd that even given
Shimbo’s precise directions they’ll nevertheless need practice to achieve sushi-worthy slices of fi sh. Still,
Shimbo optimistically asserts that “preparing sushi is a lot like putting together a sandwich and not
much more diffi cult”. Well, sort of. Other books have covered terrain similar to that in The Sushi
Experience, but they lack Shimbo’s friendly, encouraging approach. She has created an essential
addition to the library of any sushi lover—including me—both for use in the kitchen and as an etiquette
guide at the sushi bar. To that, I say, “Oishii!”.
10 HELPFUL TIPS FROM THE SUSHI EXPERIENCE. 1 l By toasting a sheet of nori, you can revive its
fragrance and make it even crisper. 2 l Rice sold soon afterharvestis labeled shin-mai (new harvest).
Shin-mai is delicious as table rice but is too moist and tender for sushi. 3 l When spreading sushi rice
over the nori, do not press tightly. The rice should have the appearance of snow that has just fallen to
the ground. 4 l If you’re worried about the safety of eating raw fish, you can rinse the fish in freshly
brewed and cooled tea, which acts as a sterilizing agent. 5 l Before grating fresh wasabi, sprinkle the
grater with sugar, salt, or lemon juice, any of which will extract more flavor from the rhizome. 6 l When
shopping for mirin (sweet rice wine), find a brand thatthat has a relatively high alcohol content and does
not have corn syrup or another form of sugar as its first ingredient. 7 l If shoyu (soy sauce) is of good
quality, a drop in a glass of cold water should hold its shape. 8 l Pour a bottle of sake that has sat on the
shelf too long into your bath. The organic acids will make your skin smooth and moist. 9 l When you take
a seat at a sushi bar, greet your chef with “Yoroshiku” (“Please treat me kindly”). 10 l Because
disposable chopsticks can be rough, some people rub them together to remove splinters. Doing this at a
good restaurant, though, is considered poor manners.
THE SAVEUR LIST. 5 Food Towns. From the Gulf Coast to the Pacifi c, these unsung burgs really cook. A
merica’s big cities suff er no shortage of adulation for their food scenes. But, we wondered, what about
all those towns in between? Wasn’t it time they got their share of praise as well? Narrowing our list to
our fi ve favorite places wasn’t easy, but we had certain criteria. We searched for geographically diverse
communities of fewer than 100,000 people. We sought places that had a thriving food culture—towns
with locally supported markets, great restaurants of both the white-tablecloth and the roadside variety,
and passionate producers. Th e result, we hope, will have you mapping out your next road trip
accordingly. (See The Pantry, page 102, for more information.) APALACHICOLA, FLORIDA Down on the
coastline of the Florida Panhandle, just past the houses with rusting tin roofs and the boiled-peanut
stands along Highway 98, lies the old-time oyster town of Apalachicola. This waterside hamlet—known
in the local argot as “Apalach”—has a lot to off er the food tourist. Grab breakfast at the 60-year-old Red
Top Café, where early risers dive into plates of creamy grits, fl aky biscuits, spicy concave disks of
sausage, and fried eggs. Across the street is Seafood-2-Go Retail Market, Inc., where 90 percent of the
seafood that owners Dottie and Tracy Evans sell is locally caught, including yellowedge grouper, which
Tracy calls “the best fi sh that swims”. Down the road is the Piggly Wiggly supermarket, lovingly referred
to as “Th e Pig”. Th ere’s a palpable feeling of community here: owner Lee McLemore stocks the store
with a surprisingly large wine selection, police chief Andy Williams moonlights in the prepared-foods
section and barbecues in the parking lot, and George Watkins personally fi lls the shelves with his superb
tupelo honey. For the fanciest dinner in town, try the new Avenue Sea, at the Gibson Inn. Old-timers
stay away—it’s known as a place where “they cook things we’ve never heard of”—but they don’t know
what they’re missing. Chef-owners David and Ryanne Carrier (alums of the French Laundry and
Chicago’s Blackbird, respectively) offer a dégustation menu that one evening included bay fl ounder
roasted on the bone and served with sweet-tart orange slices, olives, and roasted garlic. For a fi sh
house with a neighborly feel, stop in at Papa Joe’s Oyster Bar & Grill, where the waitresses often ask,
“Whatcha want, hoss?” when taking your order. Take your pick from the trench of oysters buried in ice
at the bar, or opt for a basket of fried grouper and hush puppies. A customer on a recent night quickly
devoured two dozen oysters and blurted out, “I put a hurtin’ on ’em.” Apalach invites you to do the
same. —Todd Coleman ASHLAND, OREGON Ask any denizen of Ashland, an arid Oregon enclave about
15 miles north of the California border, where to eat, and he or she might well respond by asking
whether you’ve seen the current production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Ashland is home to the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival, and once a local has learned which plays you’ll be attending, the next thing he’ll
ask is whether you’ll be dining before the show or after. Indeed, Main Street (and its tributaries) has
become a veritable restaurant row, lined with establishments whose kitchens showcase local seasonal
ingredients from California’s farmland, Oregon’s fertile pastures, and the Pacifi c Ocean. One of the
row’s early pioneers was David Taub, co-owner of the intimate traditional French restaurant Chateaulin,
which opened in 1973 and still serves kir royales at the polished oak bar and crêpes au confi t de
caneton in the chandelier-hung dining room. At Amuse, the menu is undeniably more Pacifi c
Northwestern, as evidenced by the dungeness crab cakes accompanied by shaved daikon or the black
truffl e–roasted hen with tender steamed lacinato kale. Oregonians love to complain about Californians’
fl eeing north, but no one’s complaining about former Golden Staters Vernon and Charlene Rollins,
owners of New Sammy’s Cowboy Bistro, in Talent, about half a dozen miles northwest of Ashland. After
leaving behind their New Boonville Hotel, in the Anderson Valley, they opened a place here in a
dilapidated former gas station. Inside you’ll be treated to charmingly eclectic, rustic fare that ranges
from grilled poussin to braised buffalo tenderloin—and Vernon’s wine list is nearly 3,000 bottles strong.
Th e list over at Winchester Inn Restaurant and Wine Bar is much smaller, but it’s just as well curated,
with an emphasis on selections from Oregon’s Willamette, Rogue, and Applegate valleys. Allyson’s of
Ashland—a cooking school, cookware shop, wine store, and charcuterie, cheese, and sandwich counter
—provides home cooks and curious culinarians with all the tools and ingredients they’ll need to prepare
a meal on those evenings when even Roxane can’t tempt them to the theater. —Camas Davis
BURLINGTON, VERMONT Alongside Lake Champlain, Burlington—home to the University of Vermont
and long a mecca for skiers, aging hippies, and old-fashioned conservatives—is a place where locally
produced ingredients are served everywhere, from fi ne-dining establishments to mom-and-pop diners.
You can also catch up with growers and producers on Saturdays at the Burlington Farmers Market, in
City Hall Park. While you’re there, talk with Willow Smart, owner of Willow Hill Farm, about her Blue
Moon cheese, a sheep’s milk blue cheese aged in a cave in the Green Mountain foothills. At City Market,
a full-service supermarket that is run by one of the fi rst organic food co-ops in the country, you’ll fi nd
bread from Red Hen Baking Company, which makes daily deliveries of its authentic baguettes and pain
au levain. Th e Queen City may seem like an odd place for an innovative Chinese restaurant, yet at A
Single Pebble, chef Steve Borgart makes popular items like mock eel, a dish of crisped braised shiitake
mushrooms made to resemble that creature. At Bistro Sauce, located in the adjacent village of
Shelburne, you’ll fi nd a favorite spring dish called VT Native’s garden tart—a phyllo dough shell fi lled
with wild greens, including nettles, cattail shoots, and ramps hunted down by foraging stars Nova Kim
and Les Hook. One of the owners, Emily Iliff , is a graduate of the nearby New England Culinary Institute.
Ask the locals where to have breakfast, and they’ll probably say Sneakers Bistro & Café, located in a
storefront in the old mill town of Winooski, fi ve minutes from downtown Burlington. Th e line out the
door begins to form at nine in the morning, but you’ll know the wait was worth it when you dig into a
huge stack of fl uff y golden pancakes dripping with Vermont maple syrup and butter or the house
favorite, eggs benedict. Fresh? Absolutely! —Bronwyn Dunne CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA Chapel
Hill’s proximity to both mountains and sea gives it a climate perfect for growing many things, and North
Carolina has a long tradition of hog farming. For a taste of what that all adds up to, visit the Chapel Hill–
Carrboro Farmer’s Market (open Saturdays from March to Christmas); among our favorite vendors are
the Chapel Hill Creamery (the farmers’ cheese and the fresh mozzarella are both wonderful), Eco Farm
(yes, those are North Carolina–grown fava beans), and Elysian Fields Farm (go for the bratwurst made
from the meat of naturally fed pigs). An even more obviously local delicacy comes from Allen & Son B-Q,
possibly the best place on Earth for sampling authentic eastern Carolina–style barbecue. Th e pork
shoulder is cooked over hickory, chopped to bite size, and doused with a vinegar sauce. Be sure to order
a side of giant crunchy onion rings and the cherry cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream. In the way
of other legends, there’s Crook’s Corner, a quirky Southern restaurant made famous by the late chef and
cookbook author Bill Neal and run with equal panache by his successor Bill Smith. Some of Neal’s dishes
are still on the menu (the shrimp ’n’ grits, made with sautéed mushrooms and bacon), but Smith’s own
staples—like green Tabasco-roasted chicken and fried catfi sh fi ngers—are just as much fun. Th e food
across the street at Lantern restaurant demonstrates chef Andrea Reusing’s ambitious marriage of
North Carolina ingredients with Asian fl avors, and she pulls it off beautifully; that means dishes like egg
drop soup with North Carolina blue crab and local peas and braised Chatham County rabbit with ginger
and house-cured ham. As evidence that North Carolina has one of the nation’s fastest-growing
immigrant Mexican populations, Fiesta Grill, located on the outskirts of town, turns out Mexican
standards, including homemade tortilla chips and mouthwatering tostadas de ceviche on weekends,
that will make you forget you’re north of the border. —Kelly Alexander LAWRENCE, KANSAS Lawrence is
a college town, so it’s not surprising to fi nd a brewery on downtown’s main drag, Massachusetts Street.
But the Free State Brewing Co. is more than just a dive for University of Kansas fraternity brothers. Free
State proprietor Chuck Magerl serves several small-batch beers on tap, including the intensely hoppy
Copperhead Pale Ale and the sweet and mellow Wheat State Golden. Th ere’s also a menu prominently
featuring regional ingredients, among them braised sausages from Krizman’s House of Sausage in Kansas
City, Kansas, flautas containing chicken raised by a local Mennonite family, and sandwiches on bread
from Lawrence’s own WheatFields Bakery. On Saturday mornings, families and carbloading cyclists
swarm the WheatFields café for lattes and loaves of naturally leavened bread made from organic
Kansas-milled flour. At Pachamama’s, chef Ken Baker’s menu of “world cuisine” changes monthly and
might include grilled beef filet (from a ranch in southern Kansas) served with pan-roasted oyster and
shiitake mushrooms from nearby Wakarusa Valley Farms or a mozzarella–eggplant roulade with
lavender-roasted tomatoes from Pendleton’s Farm, just east of town. Another Lawrence favorite is
Tortas Jalesco, formerly a taquería located in a Phillips 66 gas station but now in a real restaurant space
that serves up the popular tortas—long rolls packed with slow-roasted pork or other fi llings topped with
diced tomatoes, cilantro, and guacamole. Amy Saunders of Amy’s Meats sells her hormonefree beef and
pork products (from grass-fed animals raised by her husband on lands outside of town) at the popular
Downtown Lawrence Farmers’ Market. You may even see some fraternity brothers there. —Sarah
Breckenridge.

KITCHENWISE
Hollywood High. This Los Angeles kitchen is gorgeously efficient BY KATHLEEN BRENNAN. John Pleshette,
a Los Angeles–based actor (he played the character Richard Avery on the television series Knots
Landing), is passionate about food and cooking. He makes stocks from scratch, prepares all of the
family’s meals, and sends recipes weekly to more than 150 family members and friends. The “John
Pleshette’s Meal of the Week” e-mails, complete with color photographs, have included recipes for such
dishes as savory green garlic risotto, oxtail stew, and roast chicken with onions and endives. John’s wife,
Lynn, a literary agent, is reputed to be one of the best nonprofessional bakers in the city. When the
couple entertain, guests are often treated to her culinary endeavors, including moist ricotta cheesecake
and airy lemon soufflé tart. The Pleshettes bought their three-story Spanish-style house, set high in the
Hollywood Hills with a view out to the ocean, in 1976. The kitchen, which featured linoleum fl oors,
standard-issue cabinets that ran up to the ceiling, and a small enamel sink, was in pretty good shape. Th
e only changes the pair made initially were to tear down a wall at the far end of the room that set off a
breakfast nook and to install French doors in the exterior wall beyond the nook, providing access from
the kitchen to a scenic canopied terrace. Around ten years ago, however, the couple decided it was time
to redo the rest of the kitchen. John assumed the role of designer. As a cook who swears by effi ciency,
he spent a lot of time planning where everything—from appliances to measuring spoons—would go.
“Almost all the decisions I made were practical,” he says. “When I cook, I like things to be within easy
reach.” He also believes in keeping frequently used items out in the open: “Kitchen equipment is
attractive; I don’t understand hiding it.” For those reasons, he kept the functional U-shaped layout of the
old kitchen and constructed a worktable, which he set between the sink and the cooktop. It’s not as
large as a traditional island, but with a shelf underneath, a built-in knife holder, and a maple surface that
one can cut on directly, it’s just as useful. Located above the table are some of John’s favorite pots and
pans, suspended from a sturdy rack, which a local metalsmith assembled from two crossbars and four
stainless-steel brackets. Under the cooktop are deep shelves that slide out completely to allow easy
access to the equipment in the back. Similarly, to the left are a series of open-fronted vertical dividers
that hold baking pans, cooling racks, and the like. Th roughout the kitchen, John opted to incorporate
more drawers than cabinets; he fi nds the former more convenient. He also laid down an oak fl oor
because he felt it would be easier on the feet than tile. John wanted to ensure that he and Lynn could
work in the kitchen simultaneously. To ease traffi c congestion, he placed a baking station, stocked with
all of Lynn’s cooking paraphernalia, between the sink and the refrigerator. Th e one change in the room
that was more aesthetic than utilitarian was the coving of the ceiling. “It wasn’t necessary,” John admits,
“but it gives the room a nice feel.” He then put three-and-a-half-watt xenon strip lights in the soffi ts;
their glow bounces off the ceiling and gives off a “very pretty, warm light at night”—and makes an
attractive room even more so. (For more information, see The Pantry, page 102.)
1. Attractive Investment John likes to use these copper pots not only for cooking but also to serve dishes
in. They’re as pleasing to look at as they are to cook with, he says. 2. Baker’s Secret This corner of the
kitchen, dedicated to baking, houses everything from fl our and sugar in the pullout bins to measuring
cups and spoons on the tool bar, bowls in the drawers, and a standing mixer on the counter. 3. Custom
Fit To the left of the cooktop, running down the hall to John’s office, are several wooden storage units.
John designed them to meet his specific needs. The one closest to the cooktop contains spices, oils, and
various condiments, while the one featured here holds his favorite cookbooks, platters, and bottles of
wine. 4. Morning Squeeze John customized the interiors of most of the drawers and cabinets in the
kitchen. He stores oranges and onions in this drawer, which has been equipped with holes to keep the
produce fresher longer. (He uses the oranges for making freshly squeezed juice.) 5. Cook, Watch, and
Listen A fan of television and of jazz and classical music, John installed a mini home entertainment
center in the kitchen. He covered the casing of the double ovens with the same white subway tile used
on the walls to create a more cohesive look.

CELLAR
Mistress of the Dark. Powerful aglianico soft ens into elegance with age BY JOHN WINTHROP HAEGER. T
h i n k of br aw n y, dark, powerful wines that are also fresh and elegant; wines that combine smoke and
bitter chocolate with sweet herbal fl avors when young, then develop surprising delicacy and haunting
fragrance with ten or 20 years of age; wines that remind many tasters of great nebbiolos and are
sometimes dubbed “the barolos of the south”—but that cost a fraction of what barolo does. These are
the wines made from aglianico, a grape variety often said to be a pre-Roman import from Greece,
though it is more likely just another example of Italy’s rich heritage of indigenous varieties. According to
Piero Mastroberardino, whose family is generally credited with reviving aglianico after World War II, the
first “modern” aglianico was made at his family’s estate near Avellino, in Campania, about 40 miles
inland from Naples, in 1968. Now the grape seems to be in the midst of a whirlwind of viticultural
activity all over its home turf, from the Mediterranean coast north of Naples to the Gulf of Taranto, in
the arch of Italy’s boot. Doctors, photographers, architects, and the sons and daughters of local farmers,
buttressed with advice from luminary consulting winemakers like Riccardo Cotarella, have attracted
international attention with a fl urry of new wines. Th e sweet spots are Irpinia and Taburno—two
upland areas in the western foothills of the Apennines—and the slopes of Monte Vulture in Basilicata,
where high altitudes, cold nights, and volcanic soils produce especially intense wines that sometimes
display ferrous fl avors reminiscent of those in pomerols. Other successful—and sometimes more
approachable— aglianico also comes from warmer coastal areas along the Mediterranean south of
Salerno. Virtually all young aglianico is forbiddingly tannic, though. Even at a tender age, it may prove a
tasty match for spicy salumi, gamy ragù, or juicy beef dishes, but it will provide greater satisfaction if it’s
aged in the bottle for a decade or more.
Tasting Notes. The aglianico-based wines from Campania and Basilicata that are now available in the
United States vary greatly in price. We found wines to like at all levels. See THE PANTRY, page 102, for
sources. DE CONCILIIS PAESTUM ZERO 2003 ($100). Incense, bay laurel, dates, and dried figs on the
nose; then ripe, rich, sweet, velvety, and almost soft on the midpalate, with an explosion of tannin at
the finish. ELENA FUCCI DEL VULTURE TITOLO 2003 ($49). Complex nose of fruit, nuts, and marzipan;
then elegant, inky, and ferrous in the mouth, with some bitter chocolate and black pepper; nicely
structured wine that retains both intensity and fruit through the midpalate. FEUDI DI SAN GREGORIO
DEL VULTURE VIGNE DI MEZZO EFESTO 2002 ($40). Unusual nose of walnuts, butter, and marzipan;
sweet black fruit and India ink in the mouth; intense, mouth-coating, and long. FEUDI DI SAN GREGORIO
IRPINIA RUBRATO 2003 ($19). Opaque, deep, and black-red in color, with aromas of ripe blackberries,
earth, and tobacco; a lean, inky integration of black cherry and mineral flavors; and a long midpalate
with well-wrapped tannins. MACARICO DEL VULTURE 2003 ($54). Dark, black-ruby wine, with flavors of
charcuterie, hard spices, cherry, and chocolate following a minty nose; the tannins are soft and nicely
coated, and the wine finishes long. MASTROBERARDINO IRPINIA NATURALIS HISTORIA 2000 ($65). A
blend of aglianico and piederosso, another southern Italian variety. Deep garnet in color, with aromas of
tobacco, hickory, and iodine; intense flavors of black cherry, blackberry, and dark chocolate; ferrous and
tannic at the end. MASTROBERARDINO TAURASI RADICI 2000 ($41). A pretty, mediumdark wine with
savory, balsamic, and intermittently medicinal aromatics, followed by slightly citrus-tinged red fruit on
the palate; a benchmark wine. MOLETTIERI TAURASI VIGNA CINQUE QUERCE 2000 ($45). Dark and
opaque, with aromas of Mercurochrome, earth, smoke, barrel char, and black pepper; still hard despite
three years in barrel; very tannic and long. MUSTILLI SANT’AGATA DEI GOTI CESCO DI NECE 2001 ($28).
Mediumdark wine with highlights of brick and tile; redolent of dried apricots, stone fruit peelings, and
hazelnut, with red and exotic fruit flavors plus pepper in the mouth; lovely, accessible, medium-weight
aglianico. PATERNOSTER DEL VULTURE DON ANSELMO 2000 ($62). Interesting barrel-derived aromas of
spearmint and pomegranate followed by sweet black fruit that is first rich, then creamy, and finally
grippy and chewy; a huge wine built for the future. PATERNOSTER DEL VULTURE SYNTHESI 2002 ($22).
Orange peel and mint in the nose; sweet, bright, round, and intense in the mouth, with black fruit and
chocolate flavors; then tannic, ferrous, and mineral. TERRE DEGLI SVEVI DEL VULTURE RE MANFREDI
2001 ($27). Deep, brick red color; aromas of black licorice and cherry with citrus peel highlights; a sweet
attack,then bright and warmly spicy, with more cherry and tobacco; a peppery finish with hefty tannin.
—J.W.H.

ESSAY
Dilbert’s Kitchen. Has TV chef Gordon Ramsay gone out of control? BY COLMAN ANDREWS. Gordon
Ramsay, the onetime professional soccer player turned Michelin three-star chef, may or may not be a
jerk, but he plays one on TV. The Fox network “reality” show that he hosts, Hell’s Kitchen, which is based
on a 2004–2005 British TV series of the same name that also starred Ramsay, records the goings-on at
(according to the show’s website) “a culinary boot camp…overseen by world-renowned but terrifying
Head Chef Gordon Ramsay”. Th e show, it is promised, “will serve helpings of terror, tears, tantrums and
triumphs”. Translated, that means that we see (and hear) Ramsay ranting and raving and cussing his way
around a restaurant kitchen while two six-person crews of underexperienced cooks, in the course of
competing for the title of executive chef at a new restaurant opening in Las Vegas, cringe and tremble
and occasionally talk back while they try not to slice off a fi ngertip or, worse, break the emulsion. Okay,
so, granted that terror, tears, tantrums, and triumphs make good drama on TV (and elsewhere, too)—
but remind me what they have to do with making good food. Does panic inspire the saucier to greater
delicacy? Does a cowering pastry chef make lighter pâte feuilleté than one just normally hunched over
the marble slab? Is this what the chef’s art is really all about? Watching Hell’s Kitchen, one can’t help
remembering that old joke whose punch line, in part, proposes that in Hades itself the policemen would
be German and the chefs English—except that Ramsay is a Scot, which probably makes the barb even
more pointed. Nobody denies that he can cook, however. When the 39-year-old Glaswegian—who
traded his soccer career for positions in the kitchens of Albert Roux at Le Gavroche in London and then
Joël Robuchon in Paris, earned three stars at his own restaurant back in London in 2001, and today has
nine eateries in the British capital plus one each in Dubai and Tokyo and one scheduled to open this fall
in New York City—tossed the restaurant critic A. A. Gill out of his fl agship establishment, Gill was moved
to describe Ramsay as “a wonderful chef, just a really second-rate human being”. I’ve never met Ramsay
or seen him in live action, so I have no idea how accurate the second part of Gill’s characterization may
be. What I do know is that a chef who yells and swears and makes his subordinates wince isn’t really in
control; he’s a bad manager, a joke of a boss—like that guy with the black-hair horns in “Dilbert”. Of
course Hell’s Kitchen is just showbiz. I doubt that Ramsay storms around the kitchens of his real-life
restaurants screaming commands at tremulous employees. By leading gullible viewers to think that he
does, though, I’m afraid he renders the cause of good food an extreme disservice. Raymond Blanc, the
outspoken chef-proprietor of the two-star Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, in Oxfordshire, while not
mentioning anybody by name, presumably had Ramsay partly in mind last spring when he denounced
TV shows featuring abusive chefs. “We have eight million morons watching these programs,” he said.
“Th e brains of the British have gone soft.” When his remarks subsequently ignited a fi restorm of
reaction, he refused to back down, adding, “Th ese shows have done such irreparable damage to the
industry.” Restaurant cooking is a collaborative art, requiring the synchronized contributions of skilled
workers under the command of a strong leader. Sure, there’s pressure, but it’s not a cutthroat
competition. Passion for cooking is an admirable trait, but it doesn’t—and indeed shouldn’t—have to be
expressed at the top of one’s voice.

MEMORIES
Honeymoon in Yerevan. To become one of the family, a newlywed must fi rst partake of an Armenian
feast BY LITTY MATHEW. It was a Sunday afternoon in June, four years ago, when I sat down to lunch
with my husband’s extended family. In honor of our marriage, a few days earlier in California, and our
arrival in Armenia to celebrate our honeymoon, they had fi lled a long dining table to overfl owing with
cold meza (appetizers). Twelve mismatched chairs, their backs turned to the drab beige wallpaper, were
placed around the table in the dim room that served as parlor, dining room, and extra bedroom for my
husband’s aunt Serpouhi and her family. Th eir red stone apartment building on Boulevard Mashtots—a
central thoroughfare in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital—reminded me of an old general in a shabby uniform.
It had once been grand but was now perpetually under repair, the symbols of Soviet pride like daily
running water and aff ordable heat having long since disappeared. “Eat and shut up,” my husband’s
redheaded aunt Serpouhi said in a raspy voice, placing in front of me a chipped enamel pot of tender
beef stewed with onions, tomatoes, and fried potatoes. My mouth watered from the aroma of the slow-
cooked meat, but my palms began to sweat at Serpouhi’s harsh words. In her 70s, she is my mother-in-
law’s oldest sister. It had taken a while for Melkon’s parents to adjust to the idea of a non-Armenian
daughter-in-law, and I worried that the rest of his family would have a harder time. Th ey spoke in
insistent, open-voweled words. It sounded as if they were arguing; I’ve since come to realize that it was
just the excited nature of their language. Melkon leaned over to assure me that “eat and shut up” was
the translation of ker u sus, the traditional name of the hearty stew before me. I didn’t understand
much Armenian, but I understand food. Besides the stew on the table, there were plastic bowls— placed
in strategic corners to hide the spots where the tablecloth was worn—fi lled with roasted eggplant and
zucchini dips. Th ere were lengths of fl at lavash, saucers of homecured olives, sliced basturma (a meat
cured with cumin and garlic), rounds of sheep’s milk cheese, and a plate of basil, cilantro, dill, green
onions, and tarragon—the herbs that Armenians commonly serve as condiments. A large pitcher of
water sat in the middle of the spread. In Yerevan, tap water (when available) is like Evian, coming from
unspoiled mountain streams, and is so clear that I could see dust settling on its surface. Home-brewed
vodka decanted into Fanta bottles and Armenian brandy were passed around the table. “You have to try
our brandy,” Melkon insisted between bites. “Th ey say Winston Churchill preferred Armenian brandy to
the French stuff .” No one had forced Melkon and me to honeymoon here, in this place still desperately
trying to redefi ne itself after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. A country about the size of
Maryland, surrounded by Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, and Iran, Armenia, which had suff ered under
Soviet rule, was suff ering in a diff erent way since the Soviet withdrawal. Th e streets were potholed;
the public gardens were unkempt, their trees cut down for winter fuel; offi cials on every level held out
their hands for bribes. My husband’s father cannot bear to see his beloved homeland in this condition,
and so he refuses to return. But I wanted to know everything about Melkon: the small village outside
the city where he grew up before moving with his parents and sister to Rhode Island in 1980 in search of
economic opportunity; the once lush park around the opera house where he and his family would stroll
on weekends; the cavernous food market where they used to buy, he remembered, fl oral-scented
tomatoes. I wanted to see snowcapped Mount Ararat, the supposed resting place of Noah’s Ark and a
beloved icon for every Armenian—though it is geographically in Turkey, an enemy to Armenia since the
turn of the 20th century, when the Turkish government began a systematic genocide of the Armenian
population. Aunt Serpouhi and her daughter-in-law, Rouzan, a brunette with a warm smile, brought dish
after dish from the confi nes of the small kitchen. A salad of tomato and cucumber, fl avored with onion,
parsley, and lemon, tasted to me like the sun. Next came smoky pork kebabs that Aunt Serpouhi slipped
off the skewers and onto my plate, sliced marinated white mushrooms mixed with minced garlic and dill,
and tender quickly boiled green beans from the Ararat valley dressed with garlic and olive oil. A platter
piled high with moist stuff ed grape leaves brought applause from the table. After a time, I couldn’t eat
any more, but to refuse, Melkon whispered to me, was out of the question. A feast like this cost more
than a family member’s monthly salary. “Try the pickled okra,” urged Rouzan. “I put them up myself.” I
took a deep breath, imagining a space in some remote corner of my stomach, and reached for one. It
was crisp and briny. I ate three. We had been eating for almost three hours when Aunt Serpouhi
acquiesced to a break. Th e younger cousins cleared the table and then danced to a song on the radio. I
wandered to the front balcony, overlooking the street below, and searched for Mount Ararat. Although
it can be seen from almost anywhere in Yerevan, it eluded me. I did see the city’s central square and the
opera house and the façade of a Mexican restaurant called Cactus, run by an Indian and reportedly a hot
spot for those whose wallets were thick with U.S. dollars. Ani, Aunt Serpouhi’s granddaughter, brought
out a cool glass of tahn, a yogurt drink with salt and dried mint, and a plate of roasted almonds to tide
me over until dessert. She stayed to practice her English, while Melkon played backgammon with
Rouzan’s chain-smoking husband, Ashot. “Do you know Armenia celebrated 1,700 years of Christianity
last year?” Ani asked conversationally. You couldn’t miss it if you tried, I thought. Banners
commemorating the anniversary still festooned the major streets. I thought about Armenian Christianity
the day we visited the ruins of Erebuni, a stonghold of the powerful kingdom of Urartu, which fl
ourished from 900 to 600 b.c. Th ere, a stone tablet inscribed with ancient symbols harked back to a
time much earlier than Christianity, when Armenians fi rst formed their culture. You could feel the
presence of the region’s vast history in the everyday, in the 500-year-old songs still sung on the radio, in
the naming of children after gods and goddesses, and in the aromatic foods that came from every
kitchen. After fi nishing my drink, I was escorted back to the table, which was now set with porcelain
demitasse cups. We sat down to juicy apricots as big as apples, pumpkin preserves, plump home-dried
raisins, and delicate phyllo dough layered with rose water–infused pastry cream, a specialty of Aunt
Serpouhi’s that refl ects the family’s roots in Lebanon, where they lived for a time during and after the
genocide. Rouzan poured thick Armenian coff ee fl avored with cardamom. Ashot passed around
homemade 100-proof mulberry vodka. We slipped into silence, heavy with unspoken conversation. Aunt
Serpouhi reached over and took my empty coff ee cup. I worried that she was going to pour seconds.
Instead, she turned the contents of the cup into the saucer and read my fate in the leftover grounds. She
placed my fi ngers in her hands and told me that my future held much happiness and many good meals.
I smiled, thinking that they couldn’t get much better than the one I had just had.
RECIPE Rose Napoleons. MAKES 1 DOZEN. This delicate pastry (left) is a favorite of Litty Mathew’s
husband’s aunt Serpouhi. If you’re short on baking sheets, you may bake the phyllo dough in two
batches. 3 egg yolks 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 tbsp. fl our 1 tbsp. cornstarch 1 1/4 cups milk 1 1/2 tsp.
rose water (see page 102) 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 12 12” x 17” sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed 6
tbsp. butter, melted 2 tbsp. confectioners’ sugar 2 tbsp. shelled pistachios, fi nely chopped 1. Whisk egg
yolks and sugar in a medium bowl until pale and frothy. Sift flour and cornstarch into egg mixture; whisk
to combine. Put milk into a small pot and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Pour milk into egg
mixture in a slow, steady stream while whisking vigorously. Transfer egg–milk mixture to the pot and
cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, to make a thick custard, 5–6 minutes. Remove from
heat and stir in rose water and vanilla. Transfer mixture to a bowl; let cool over an ice bath. Cover
surface with plastic wrap; refrigerate until ready to use. 2. Preheat oven to 350°. Put 1 sheet of phyllo on
a parchment paper–lined baking sheet, brush with some of the butter, and top with a second sheet of
phyllo. Butter top, then repeat process to make 6 layers in all. Repeat process on a second baking sheet
with remaining phyllo and butter. Top each stack with a sheet of parchment paper, followed by a baking
sheet to weight them down. Bake until light golden brown, 25–30 minutes. Let cool completely (with
baking sheets on top). Using a sharp knife, cut each stack into thirty 2” x 2” squares. Reserve phyllo
scraps. 3. To assemble: Place 1 phyllo square on a platter, dollop with a generous teaspoon pastry
cream, and top with a phyllo square. Continue building layers until you have 5 layers of phyllo and 4
layers of pastry cream in all. Repeat with remaining phyllo and pastry cream to make 12 napoleons in all.
Dust napoleons with confectioners’ sugar, sprinkle with pistachios, and crumble some of the reserved
phyllo scraps over the top. Serve immediately.
SOURCE
Fruits of the Forest. Malcolm Clark’s mushrooms are no ordinary fungi BY KATHLEEN BRENNAN.
Originally, Malcolm Clark’s interest in mushrooms was purely scientific. A British-born biologist, Clark
traveled in the early 1970s to Japan, where he met Tsuneto Yoshii, a renowned mycologist exploring the
medicinal uses of fungi. Th e experience opened Clark’s eyes to mushrooms, but only as far as their
curative properties were concerned. In 1977 he moved to Sonoma County and, with his business partner
David Law, formed Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc. The company name notwithstanding, Clark at first grew
and marketed mushrooms (specifi cally, shiitake) solely for therapeutic purposes. He soon realized,
however, that for the venture to survive, he would also have to sell mushrooms as food. Today Gourmet
Mushrooms is one of the largest exotic- mushroom producers in the United States, cultivating more
than 30 varieties of fungi, including (left foreground, counterclockwise from top) fruity forest namekos,
meaty, porcini-like trumpet royales, nutty brown clamshells (known in Japan as honshimeji), rich velvet
pioppinis, silky baby oyster clusters, and snowwhite alba clamshells. Some of the country’s leading chefs
have been its clients, among them Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, and Wolfgang Puck. Four years ago
the company began offering its mushrooms, packed in baskets like the one shown, directly to the public
under the name Mycopia. The mushrooms, all grown organically, are shipped within hours of being
picked. To someone accustomed to the varieties normally found in supermarkets, the freshness of
Clark’s fungi and their depth of flavor are astonishing. Although Gourmet Mushrooms has made its mark
chiefl y as a source of gustatory pleasure, Clark, now semiretired, still considers himself a man of science
above all else. Indeed, this pioneering fi gure, known to friends and associates as “the Indiana Jones of
mushrooms”, continues to travel the globe, test tubes in hand, searching for new varieties. “I have a lot
of respect for mushrooms,” Clark says. “They are survivors, growing in the worst, dark, dank places in
the world. Fungi are incredible.” A two-pound basket of assorted mushrooms costs $57.50, and a four-
pound basket is $82.50, including shipping. To order, call 707/823-1743 or visit www.mycopia.com.

CLASSIC
Vietnamese Fire. This spicy noodle soup is an invigorating brow wiper BY ANDREA NGUYEN. A steaming
bow l of bún bò huê´ (pronounced boon baw HWAY), the signature noodle soup of Huê´, Vietnam’s
former imperial capital, brings tears to my eyes—and not the sentimental kind. My father, who lived in
the city in the 1950s, regularly ate the famously fi ery dish—a substantial concoction made with rice
noodles and sliced beef and pork—for breakfast, as is traditional; and the dish invigorated him,
especially on dreary cold mornings during the long rainy season. Years later, in California, he introduced
it to me. From my fi rst slurp of the chile- and lemongrass-laden broth, I was hooked. Huê´’s residents
are known for their feisty nature; their city, located in central Vietnam, was once part of the fierce
kingdom of Champa, at war with the northern Vietnamese for hundreds of years. Centuries later, from
the early 1800s until 1945, Huê´ was the seat of the Nguyê´n dynasty. Despite the relative poverty of the
region, palace cooks developed a sophisticated style of court dining for persnickety rulers. Composed of
modest ingredients, however, bún bò huê´ was created not for royalty but rather for the common folk,
who were no doubt as energized by the dish as were my father and I. Most Vietnamese noodle soups
tend to be delicate and usually generate heat only by means of the accompanying condiments, but bún
bò huê´ comes with the heat built in. Chiles are much appreciated in Huê´, as is pastelike fermented
shrimp sauce, which anchors the broth with its pungent edge and balances the citrusy lemongrass. At
the table, you may tweak the fl avors with lime, fresh mint, and sliced raw chiles. Some people from
other parts of Vietnam also garnish the dish with bean sprouts, shredded lettuce, and fi ne strips of
banana blossom. A purist, though, would advise against such embellishments, arguing that they detract
from the soup’s essential character.
RECIPE Bún Bò Huê´ (Huê´-Style Spicy Beef and Rice Noodle Soup). SERVES 8. See page 102 for a source
for hard-to-find Vietnamese ingredients. 7 tbsp. canola oil 3 medium yellow onions, 2 cut into 1” dice, 1
thinly sliced 1 tbsp. annatto seeds 2 lbs. boneless beef shank (shin), halved crosswise, tendon removed
and discarded 1 lb. boneless pork leg, from the upper butt portion Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 lbs. beef bones, cut into 2” pieces, boiled for 3 minutes 1 1/2 lbs. fresh pork hock, cut into 1/2” slices
(see page 99) 3 tbsp. plus 2 1/2 tsp. Vietnamese fish sauce 5 trimmed stalks lemongrass, 4 cut into 3”
pieces, bruised; 1 minced 1 1” chunk Chinese yellow rock sugar 3 tbsp. dried chile flakes 3 cloves garlic,
minced 1 tsp. granulated sugar 2 tbsp. fine shrimp sauce 2 14-oz. packages large round bún (Vietnamese
rice noodles), boiled, then rinsed with cold water 1/3 cup chopped rau ra˘m (Vietnamese coriander) 3
scallions, green parts only, trimmed and thinly sliced 1. For the broth: Heat 2 tbsp. oil in a stockpot over
medium-high heat. Add diced onions and cook for 2 minutes. Add annatto; cook until onions are yellow,
4–5 minutes. Season beef and pork leg with salt and pepper; push onions to side; add beef and pork.
Sear meat for 4–5 minutes; add bones, hocks, and 5 quarts water. Bring to a boil; skim off and discard
any scum. Add 3 tbsp. fi sh sauce, bruised lemongrass, and rock sugar; reduce heat and simmer for 1
hour. Transfer pork leg and hocks to a bowl of cold water; let soak for 10 minutes. Simmer broth for 1
hour more. Repeat soaking and draining with shank. Chill leg, hocks, and shank in refrigerator. Skim fat
from broth; strain through a fi ne sieve. 2. Combine remaining oil, chile fl akes, garlic, and minced
lemongrass in a small pot over medium-low heat; gently simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir
in remaining fi sh sauce and granulated sugar. Set chile mixture aside. 3. Bring broth to a boil in a large
pot. In a bowl, stir together 1 cup of broth with shrimp sauce; pour into pot through a fi ne sieve and stir
in 1 1/2 tbsp. of chile mixture. Season to taste with salt. Divide noodles between 8 bowls. Cut beef and
pork across the grain into 1 /16”-thick slices; top each bowl with slices, followed by sliced onions, rau
ra˘m, and scallions. Add hocks to broth; bring to a boil. Ladle 2 cups hot broth with some hock into each
bowl. Serve with remaining chile mixture, mint sprigs, sliced thai chiles, and lime wedges, if you like.

WINE for the FAMILY. IN CALIFORNIA’S WINE COUNTRY, THE ROBLEDOS COME TOGETHER EACH
WEEKEND FOR THEIR MOTHER’S FINE MEXICAN COOKING—AND TO HONOR AND STRENGTHEN A
DREAM The Robledo Family Winery, above, in Sonoma, California, surrounded by chardonnay vines.
Facing page, members of the Robledo family, gathered at the home of Reynaldo and Maria Robledo for
Sunday lunch. BY MARGO TRUE.
E very Sunday afternoon, the children of Reynaldo and Maria Robledo gather at their parents’ house in
Napa for lunch. Maria makes a Mexican feast of giant proportions—spicy pork or chicken posole,
homemade tortillas, tostadas, rice, beans, maybe chiles rellenos or a smooth, chocolatey mole, and
some fresh salsas—for her nine children, ranging in age from 13 to 34, plus their spouses and her
grandchildren. In good weather, they eat outdoors under the branches of a broad, leafy oak tree. Th e
table stretches on and on: there are typically almost 30 people here, laughing and talking in both
Spanish and English, passing around sweet-faced babies while toddlers and older kids scoot in and out of
the grapevines planted right up to the house. Th is is the Robledo family, and the business it took
Reynaldo 35 years to achieve, Robledo Family Winery, is for them. As Reynaldo, his wife, and any of his
children will tell you, they don’t see the American dream as a mirage or a cliché. Th ree years ago,
Reynaldo became the fi rst former migrant vineyard worker in North America to own a winery. (Other
Mexican-Americans have since done the same; see sidebar, page 56.) Reynaldo and some of his relatives
came to California from the Mexican state of Michoacán in 1968, when he was 16, with several of his
relatives. He started out earning as little as $1.10 an hour (most of which he sent back to his family in
Mexico), living in a transient labor camp near Calistoga, and putting in 14- to 18- hour days pruning
vines. Now he has a vineyard management company with 30 to 45 year-round employees, as well as his
winery, whose vineyards cover 220 acres (90 of them on long-term lease) in Sonoma, Napa, and Lake
counties. He sells grapes to prominent wineries like Gloria Ferrer, Kendall Jackson, and Benziger and
makes 10,000 cases of his own wine, a quantity that has doubled since 2004. Over the past year, he has
begun to release an ambitious array of new bottlings—pinot grigio, pinot blanc, barbera, muscato, and
port—as well as the varietals he has already sold: chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir, sauvignon blanc,
syrah, cabernet sauvignon. Several of Robledo’s wines have won awards. His 2001 Reserve Chardonnay
received a double gold medal at the 2004 California State Fair, and his 2003 pinot noir has garnered
multiple honors (among them a gold from the 2006 Orange County Fair wine competition). Satisfying
though all this success is to Reynaldo, what pleases him the most is that each of his nine children works
for the family businesses. Lorena, the oldest, helps keep the books for both the vineyard management
company and the winery and is married to the company’s personable winemaker, Rolando Herrera—
also Mexican-American and a former director of winemaking for Paul Hobbs, known for its fine single-
vineyard wines. Vanessa, the other daughter, is the winery president, and although she’s not yet 30, she
has the grace and confi dence of someone much older. Th e seven sons have all chosen niches for
themselves: Rey Jr. is a specialist in vine grafting and in tending the family’s 100 planted acres of olive
trees; Jenaro is a vineyard manager; Lazaro is the tasting room manager; eager, 13-year-old Emiliano
began driving an ATV at age fi ve to scare away grape-eating birds, but harvesting is what he likes the
best. “I think he has something inside already,” says Reynaldo proudly. On a Sunday morning in October,
Maria stands in front of an enormous stockpot, stirring boiling hominy (dried corn) for the posole (a pork
stew) that the family will devour in a few hours. Her roomy kitchen sits at the back of the house into
which she and Reynaldo moved nine years ago, a big, two-story place with a red-tiled roof and
numerous family portraits decorating the living room. She has the radio down low, but normally, says
Vanessa, she cranks it up to full blast and sings along to Mexican folk songs. “Siempre toma un poco de
vino cuando cocino [I always have a little wine when I cook],” says Maria; it helps her fi nd a good wine
to match with the food. For this posole, though, she already knows the right wine—it comes from the
pinot vines framed in her kitchen window. Every now and then she turns around to help Jocelyn,
Vanessa’s little daughter, work the tortilla press, exhorting her, “Fuerte, mi hija! Fuerte! [Press fi rmly,
my daughter! Firmly!]” Rey Jr.’s wife, Erika, is at the kitchen island, pulling crabmeat from the shell for
tostadas. Vanessa blends soaked dried chiles for salsa, sneezing from the fumes. Lorena sits on a stool
with her new baby in her arms. Reynaldo is here too, in a handsome black cowboy hat, splitting quail in
half with quick thunks of a knife. When Maria joined Reynaldo in Sonoma in 1972 (they had been
sweethearts in Michoacán and married in 1970), she started cooking in earnest, drawing on memories
of her mother’s hearty, country-style Michoacán food. She cooked not only for her growing family but
also for Reynaldo’s cousins and uncles and grandfather, many of whom were living with them in a small
house. Th e Robledos and their children moved frequently to be close to Reynaldo’s place of work. Th eir
last house stood on the same spot as the present one. “I’d always know where to fi nd my mother: in
the kitchen,” says Vanessa. “Th at old house! It had two rooms with an extension out the back, no
closets, and was about a hundred years old and crumbling. You could practically see through the boards.
We’d beg my dad, ‘Please buy us a house!’ And he’d say, ‘Nope, I’m buying more land.’” By the time
their current home was fi nally ready, the relatives had moved out and most of the kids had gotten
married and found homes of their own. “At last they built this house, and everybody disappeared!” says
Vanessa, laughing. It wasn’t so easy to cook food that was infl ected with the fl avors of Michoacán in
those early days, Maria says, because the ingredients were hard to locate. But she did her best to match
what she remembered, making do with olive oil instead of lard and trying whatever chiles and beans she
could fi nd. When no tortillas were available, Reynaldo would come home from an arduous day in the fi
elds and hand-grind corn so that she could make them. Now she can get everything, even proper
Michoacán cheeses and fresh Mexican crema, similar to crème fraîche, and the right pork cuts for
posole—but her cooking refl ects decades of adaptation to a U.S. pantry. She still likes olive oil, though,
for its light taste, and isn’t averse to using a dash of steak seasoning here and there. She’s using both
right now, for a skilletful of her chiles rellenos— fat, chopped-steak-stuffed poblano peppers in a crisp,
puff y casing of beaten egg. “It gives me much pleasure to cook,” she says. She even organizes feasts for
hundreds of people at a time, for special events and celebrations of Mexican holidays, at the vineyard’s
tasting room (the biggest, the harvest festival in October, is open to the public and features mariachis).
How on earth do they manage to get along, all 11 of them, as both relatives and co-workers? “Well, we
don’t always agree,” Vanessa says. “But we always fi nd a way to work things out. What keeps us
together is knowing what my parents went through.” Th ey also learned to cooperate early on, by
working the vines together: every day after school and on weekends, the children were in the fi elds
with their father; Vanessa began farming the vineyards when she was eight. And, she says, there’s her
mother’s cooking. “Mom keeps us all together, and the way she does that is through her food.” Should
one of the children, all of whom live within a 15-mile radius, attempt to bow out of Sunday lunch, Maria
is quick to get on the phone, cajoling him or her into coming over. “Mom is the family glue,” adds
Everardo, the aff able second-born son. Reynaldo finishes cutting up pork ribs for the posole and
suggests that we go outside for a grafting demonstration. Fall is actually the worst time to cut into a
grapevine, he explains, because the sap sits low at this time of year; it must be fl owing high in the plant
to help the graft adjust to the rootstock. “I can do it now, but only because I know the plant,” he says.
With a thick, sharp knife, he snicks an angled cut into the top of a one-year-old trunk and then a slit into
the angle itself, into which he inserts a short piece of three-year-old budwood, taken from the arm of
another vine. He bandages the graft carefully. “Th is will produce next year,” he says. He has, in essence,
fast-forwarded the trunk, encouraging it to produce fruit three years sooner than it would otherwise.
Next we drive through the low, fl at Rancho Los Hermanos vineyard, its chardonnay and pinot noir vines
stripped of fruit now and the leaves turned golden green. As we bump along, pieces of his story emerge.
I’ve already heard about his fi rst days of pruning in Calistoga and how he proved to be such an
exceptional worker that he was supervising a crew of 35 men—including his father—in less than a year.
And I know that he went to work for Sonoma-Cutrer six years later as a vineyard manager, developing a
reputation for an uncanny skill at growing grapes and especially at the delicate art of grafting. “I tried to
learn things on my own, without pay,” he says now. He’d stay on after a full day at work, immersing
himself in every aspect of viticulture, from driving farm vehicles to combating pests. Curtis Ranches,
where he began working in 1982, even sent him to France to teach workers his time-compressing
grafting technique. (The French scoffed at first but stopped two weeks later when the vines began to
bud.) By 1984, he’d saved up enough to buy 13 acres of land in a debris-strewn field on a former landing
strip in the Los Carneros area. “It was an airport before. I took 17 truckloads to the dump.” With Maria
and the children working beside him, he cultivated that land in his spare time after putting in full days as
a vineyard manager. There the house now stands, and pinot vines thrive. Slowly, bit by bit, he found
other parcels in Sonoma, often buying land others thought unworkable and making it produce. Rancho
Los Hermanos was one of them. “People were saying it was no good, but I knew it was good.” Now
we’re crossing the Napa River, and Reynaldo talks about what has driven him for so long, his voice
thickening with emotion. “I suff ered a lot, and I don’t want my family to suff er the same. I wanted to
have at least ten acres for each of them, so they would all have a way to make a living. Th at was my
dream, and I have passed that.” Still, he worries. “I think, What if I don’t make it? If I lose everything, I
am too old to start again.” He’s depending on his family now, after all their years of depending on him.
Even out here on the land, Reynaldo’s family surrounds us. Th is vineyard, Rancho Los Hermanos (Th e
Brothers), is named for all his sons. Next to it is Rancho Los Quatez (Th e Twins), for Luis and Francisco.
Other vineyards are Rancho La Familia, Rancho Maria, and Rancho Emiliano. From the winery itself are
wines named after family: Two Sisters is a late-harvest sauvignon blanc, dedicated to his daughters;
Seven Brothers, a crisp sauvignon blanc with a hint of grapefruit, is his best seller. In 2004, the winery
launched its La Familia Collector’s Series, a reserve cabernet available only at the winery, labeled with
Reynaldo and Maria’s wedding photo. The 2005 bottling features a shot of the entire family. Th is year’s
release has a portrait of Lorena, the oldest, along with a brief biography. The series will continue, says
Vanessa, all the way down to Emiliano. Even the Robledo wine club, now with 1,200 members, is called
La Familia and off ers memberships on three diff erent levels—padrinos (godfathers), tios (uncles), and
primos (cousins). The funny thing, says Vanessa, is that some of the members actually behave like
relatives, inviting the Robledos over for dinner and even to their own reunions. Reynaldo’s world truly is
his family, and the larger that family, it seems, the better. All the Robledos are deep into lunch now, at
the long table next to the vines. Clusters of wine bottles and bowls of salsa are arranged for pairing with
the fragrant dishes that Maria has made. For her tostadas, piled high with shrimp, crab, and avocado,
Maria has set out the refreshing Seven Brothers sauvignon blanc. Initially I’m skeptical about drinking
the pinot noir with the posole: surely the earthy stew will trample on the wine, I think, but instead it
brings out the deep cherry notes in the pinot, and the wine somehow broadens and mellows the
spiciness of the posole. The chiles rellenos, crisp and light on the outside, meaty on the inside, find their
match in the firmly tannic syrah. The quail, browned and then braised in a silky, forceful, brick red salsa,
is fine with the syrah but also just plain good on its own, and even the little kids are sucking the meat off
the bones, ringing their mouths with salsa. In all the wines, the fruit shows through, which is winemaker
He rrera’s goal: “I like my wines to have concentration and richness, as long as they show the variety.”
Besides making wine for his father-inlaw, he vinifi es for four other companies and still has found the
time to create a label of his own: Mi Sueño (My Dream). At the end of dinner he gives his children a tiny
cup of wine, teaching them to drink it very slowly so that they can savor the fl avors. After an hour or so,
the family members have mostly dispersed, taking with them the tumble of little shoes and socks left on
the front steps. The Robledo Family Winery’s website opens onto an illustration of an oak tree,
superimposed with the names of each person in the Robledo family and a brief defi nition: “Robledo (rō
'blā 'dō), n. 1. oak tree; strength, longevity and grace.” It’s a name that suits them, and their hopes.
THE RISE OF THE VINEYARD WORKER. Like other vast human creations—the pyramids of Giza, Notre
Dame, the Taj Mahal—the sweeping vineyards of California owe their being, in large part, to massive
physical effort. The clearing of the land, the planting, and the endless pruning, irrigation, grafting,
spraying, harvesting, and countless other tasks required to make millions of vines fl ourish are labors
that have traditionally been (and continue to be) done primarily by Mexican migrants and their
descendants. The original migrants began arriving in the state in large numbers in 1942 under the
bracero (guest worker) program, a collaboration between the American and Mexican governments
originally intended to offset wartime labor shortfalls but continuing until 1964. It’s probably no
exaggeration to say that the modern-day California wine business wouldn’t exist without their efforts.
Within the past two or three decades, Mexican-Americans have begun assuming higher-profi le roles in
the wine industry. They’ve become farm and vineyard managers, winemakers, and vineyard consultants
and, increasingly, are opening wineries of their own. Manny Frias of Frias Family Vineyard in St. Helena
and Michael Trujillo of Karl Lawrence Cellars in Napa made their fi rst wines in 1991. Now there are at
least a dozen established Latino-owned wineries in California, including Ceja Vineyards, Gustavo Thrace,
Alex Sotelo Cellars, and Renteria Wines, and more are emerging. (Arturo and Ana Keller, father and
daughter, of Keller Estate in Petaluma are apparently the only Mexicans—as opposed to Mexican-
Americans—who own a California winery.) “We expect the number of Latin-owned wineries to grow
exponentially within the next fi ve years,” says Sandra Gonzalez, a Sacramento-based marketer, whose
Vino con Vida communications company focuses on Latino wine producers and consumers. Most of
these new wineries are family run, are built on decades’ worth of savings and experience, and utilize the
skills of the college-educated younger generation. A burning issue in the wine industry these days is HR
4437—the proposed bill, otherwise known as the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal
Immigration Control Act of 2005, that ignited major protests all over the country this past spring. The bill
would, among other things, impose stiffer penalties for illegal immigration and would criminalize as
felons all illegal aliens. Even now, there are labor shortages in the vineyards, say vineyard managers.
“The work remains tedious, and there aren’t too many people willing to toil in the variable weather
conditions year-round,” says Hector Bedolla, who sits on the board of the California Association of
Winegrape Growers. “Although conditions have indeed improved in terms of there now being charities
and other organizations that provide support to the workers, it is still very, very hard work.” When I
asked Vanessa Robledo how her family felt about the bill, she replied diplomatically, “We always express
ourselves through our wine.” But on Mexican Independence Day (September 16) this year, they released
a syrah–cabernet–merlot blend called Los Braceros (The Guests), 10 percent of the profi ts from which
will go to Vineyard Workers Services in Sonoma, a charity that aids fi eld-workers. —M.T.
RECIPE Posole Rojo (Pork and Hominy Stew). SERVES 8–10. In Michoacán, Maria Robledo’s birthplace,
posole is typically made with pork broth. The soup always contains hominy, dried corn kernels that have
been cooked in an alkaline solution (such as slaked lime) to remove the hull. For a source for hard-to-
find Mexican ingredients, see THE PANTRY, page 102. 5 dried cascabel chiles, stemmed and seeded 4
dried pasilla chiles, stemmed and seeded 3 dried new mexico chiles, stemmed and seeded 5 cloves
garlic, chopped 4 15-oz. cans golden hominy, drained and rinsed (about 6 cups) 11 /2 lbs. pork neck
bones, cut into 2” pieces by your butcher 11 /2 lbs. pork leg, cut into 2” pieces by your butcher 1 lb. pork
spareribs, cut into 2” pieces by your butcher Salt 10 radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced 1 large white
onion, roughly chopped 1 /2 small head green cabbage, cored and thinly sliced 1. Put chiles into a small
pot and cover with water; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and
simmer, covered, until soft, about 20 minutes. Drain chiles; transfer to a blender. Add 31 /2 cups water;
purée until smooth. Strain through a medium-mesh strainer into a bowl. Purée garlic and 1 /4 cup water
until smooth. Set chile mixture and garlic purée aside. 2. Put hominy and 9 cups water into a large pot;
bring to a boil over high heat. Stir in chile mixture, garlic purée, pork bones, leg, and spareribs, and salt
to taste. Reduce heatto medium-low and simmer, covered, until pork is tender, about 2 hours. Uncover
and simmer until pork is very tender, about 2 hours more. Serve posole garnished with radishes, onions,
cabbage, and three-chile salsa (see page 55), if you like.
RECIPE Calabaza y Camote (Candied Squash and Sweet Potatoes). SERVES 6–8. This hearty mixture of
slowly simmered squash and sweet potatoes is bathed in a delicious syrup that is sweetened with the
rich Mexican unrefined brown sugar known as piloncillo, which comes in the shape of a cone. For the
best results, stir infrequently while cooking, to keep the squash and potatoes intact. 4–5 sweet potatoes
(about 3 lbs.), scrubbed, halved lengthwise, and cut into 2” chunks 1 butternut squash (about 2 3/4
pounds), scrubbed, trimmed, halved, seeded, and cut into 2” chunks 1 lb. Mexican brown sugar
(piloncillo, about 2 cones), cut into small pieces (see page 102) 1. Put sweet potatoes and 1 cup water
into a large pot, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer,
covered, for 20 minutes. Add squash and sugar, stir to combine, and cook, covered, stirring occasionally,
until sweet potatoes and squash are soft, 1–1 1/2 hours more. 2. Uncover pot and cook until sweet
potatoes and squash are just falling apart and liquid has thickened, about 45 minutes. Transfer sweet
potato–squash mixture to serving bowl and let cool to room temperature. Divide between bowls and
serve at room temperature.
METHOD Three-Chile Salsa. This dark, almost chocolatey salsa would make a great accompanimentfor
seared steak or grilled pork chops. Take 10 dried cascabel, 10 árbol, and 6 pulla chiles (see page 102)
and tear them into large pieces, discarding stems (discard seeds for a milder salsa, if desired). Heat 1 /4
cup extra-virgin olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 6 chopped cloves garlic and cook,
stirring constantly, until light golden, about1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer garlic to a blender,
leaving the oil in the skillet. Add chiles with their seeds (if using) to skillet and cook, stirring constantly,
until fragrant and slightly darkened, about 3 minutes. Put chiles and oil, 1tbsp. cider vinegar, 1 /2 cup
water, and salt to taste into the blender and purée until very smooth, about 3 minutes. Serve this salsa
with pork and hominy stew (see page 52), if you like. Makes about 3/4 cup.
Grilled Tomato Salsa. Grilling the tomatoes and chiles imparts a lovely, smoky char to this salsa. Preheat
grill to medium. Grill 4 fresh árbol or thai chiles, 3 large tomatoes, 2 serrano chiles, and 1 jalapeño chile,
turning frequently, until well charred, 2–3 minutes for the árbol chiles, 6–7 minutes for the tomatoes, 4–
5 minutes for the serrano chiles, and 7–8 minutes for the jalapeño chiles. Transfer each item to a plate
when it’s done. Core the tomatoes, stem the chiles, and roughly chop them along with 3 cloves garlic.
Transfer all the ingredients to a food processor and pulse 3–4 times until well combined but still chunky.
Transfer salsa to a bowl, season with salt to taste, and serve with poblano chiles stuffed with beef and
cheese (see page 59) or tortilla chips, if you like. Makes about 3 cups.
RECIPE Tostadas de Ceviche de Camarón y Jaiba (Shrimp and Crab Ceviche on Fried Tortillas). SERVES 6.
The word tostada means toasted in Spanish. In Mexico, tostada refers to a corn tortilla that’s fried to a
crisp. It may also refer to a dish that uses the crunchy tortilla as a kind of edible plate for all sorts of
delicious ingredients, in this case a luscious shrimp and crab salad typical of Michoacán, the seaside
Mexican state where the Robledos come from. Canola oil 18 4”–5” corn tortillas (cut 6” tortillas with a
round cutter, if necessary) 11 /2 lbs. cooked medium shrimp, peeled, deveined, and chopped 3/4 lb.
lump crabmeat 1 /4 cup fresh lemon juice 2 tbsp. chopped cilantro 1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded,
and chopped 2 large tomatoes, chopped 1–2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, seeded, and fi nely chopped 1
small red onion, fi nely chopped Salt 2 avocados, peeled, seeded, and cut into slices 2 limes, cut into
wedges 1. Pour oil into a heavy medium pot to a depth of 1” and heat over medium-high heat until
temperature registers 350° on a deep-fry thermometer. Working in batches, fry tortillas until light
golden brown, turning once, about 30 seconds. Transfer tostadas to a paper towel–lined plate to let
drain and cool. 2. Put shrimp, crab, lemon juice, cilantro, cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapeños, onions, and
salt to taste into a large bowl and stir to combine. Spoon ceviche evenly onto tostadas, garnish each
with a slice of avocado, and serve with lime wedges on the side.
RECIPE Chiles Rellenos (Poblano Chiles Stuffed with Beef and Cheese). SERVES 4. Maria Robledo employs
an interesting technique with her recipe: she leaves the seeds inside the chiles so that they’ll mingle
with the stuffing, adding a little spark of heat. 8 large poblano chiles 11 /4 lbs. beef sirloin, trimmed and
cut into 1 /2” pieces 11 /2 tsp. garlic salt 1 tsp. steak seasoning, preferably McCormick Montreal Steak
Seasoning 11 /4 cups extra-virgin olive oil 1 /2 cup cooked short-grain white rice 1 /2 cup cotija cheese,
grated (see page 102) 1 /2 cup monterey jack cheese, grated Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 cup
fl our 6 egg whites 3 egg yolks 1. Place a rack about 4 inches from the broiler element and preheat. Lay
chiles on a baking sheet in a single layer and broil, turning once, until they just begin to blacken, about 5
minutes on each side. Transfer chiles to a paper bag and close the top (alternatively,transfer to a large
bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap). Let chiles steam for 20 minutes. Peel charred skin off of chiles,
leaving seeds and stem intact (discard skin). Using a small knife, make a 1”-long lengthwise slit near the
top of each chile to form a pocket. Set aside. 2. Put beef, garlic salt, and steak seasoning into a medium
bowl and toss to coat. Heat 1 /4 cup of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in 2
batches, brown the beef, about 5 minutes per batch. Transfer beef to a large bowl. Let cool slightly, then
add rice and cheeses to beef, season with salt and pepper to taste, and stir to combine. Stuff each chile
with about 1 /2 cup of the beef mixture. Set aside. 3. Put flour into a wide, shallow dish. Put egg whites
into a large bowl and beat until soft peaks form. Add yolks to whites and beat gently to combine. Heat
remaining oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches, dredge chiles in
flour, shaking off excess, then dredge in egg mixture and transfer to skillet. Fry chiles until golden brown
on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer chiles to a paper towel–lined plate to let drain; sprinkle with salt.
Serve immediately, with grilled tomato salsa (page 55), if you like.
Tasting notes. We tasted a range of wines from the Robledo Family Winery and from Robledo
winemaker Rolando Herrera’s own Mi Sueño Winery. These were our favorites. See THE PANTRY, page
102, for sources. MI SUEÑO RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY CHARDONNAY, ULISES VALDEZ VINEYARD, 2004
($38). An immediately appealing chardonnay, with a vaguely tropical bouquet, plenty of luscious fruit,
and a mouth-filling richness, all in perfect balance. MI SUEÑO NAPA VALLEY CABERNET SAUVIGNON
2002 ($60).Dark and dense in appearance, with berries and spice in the nose and black cherries and
cassis on the palate; concentrated and nicely rounded. MI SUEÑO EL LLANO NAPA VALLEY RED WINE
2003 ($35). An unusual blend of cabernet (80 percent) and syrah, with lots of fruit and some Christmas-
candy spice in the nose; fruity and peppery in the mouth, with dusty tannin and a pleasant finish.
ROBLEDO LAKE COUNTY PINOT BLANC 2005 ($22). Young, crisp, and simple, with good varietal character
and a slightly greenish aftertaste that is in no way off-putting. ROBLEDO LAKE COUNTY PINOT GRIGIO
2005 ($18). Light and agile, with citrus in the nose, followed by a citrusy, mineral-rich flavor. Less
substantial than the best Italian pinot grigios but quite nice. ROBLEDO LAKE COUNTY SAUVIGNON
BLANC “THE SEVEN BROTHERS” 2005 ($15). An intense varietal aroma leads into a tasty middle-ofthe-
road sauvignon blanc, fresh and sufficiently acidic but not at all green or vegetal. ROBLEDO LOS
CARNEROS CHARDONNAY 2003 ($25). Aromatic and creamy but subtle in flavor, with medium body,
attractive fruit, and good balance. ROBLEDO LOS CARNEROS MERLOT 2002 ($36). A good standard
interpretation of the grape, soft and not overly perfumey, with hints of blackberry. ROBLEDO LOS
CARNEROS PINOT NOIR 2003 ($28). Light and not very complicated, but easy to drink and unmistakably
pinot noir. —THE EDITORS.
RECIPE Guisada de Guilota (Quail Braised in Tomatillo–Chile Sauce). SERVES 4. In this dish the sour
tomatillos add body and a tangy background to the deep, earthy chile sauce that the quail simmers in.
See THE PANTRY, page 102, for a source for hard-to-find Mexican ingredients 11 /2 lbs. tomatillos,
husked and rinsed 12 dried árbol chiles, stemmed 6 dried cascabel chiles, stemmed 3 cloves garlic,
chopped 1 /2 tsp. ground cumin Salt 6 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil 6 quail (about 11 /2 lbs.), halved
lengthwise, wingtips removed, rinsed and dried well 2 tsp. steak seasoning, preferably McCormick
Montreal Steak Seasoning 1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add tomatillos and boil
until tender, about 8 minutes. Drain and set tomatillos aside. 2. Preheat oven to 350°. Working over a
large piece of aluminum foil, break open chiles, spilling seeds onto the foil. Wrap foil over chiles and
seeds to form a package and roast in oven until fragrant and darkened, about 15 minutes. Put chiles
with seeds, garlic, and 1 cup water into a blender and purée until smooth. Add tomatillos, cumin, and
salt to taste and blend just until incorporated, leaving tomatillos chunky. Set tomatillo–chile mixture
aside. 3. Heat 4 tbsp. of the oil in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches, cook
quail on each side until deep golden brown, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer quail to a paper towel–
lined plate and wipe skillet clean. Reduce heat to low, add remaining oil, and return quail to skillet.
Sprinkle quail with steak seasoning and cook, covered, for 30 minutes. Add tomatillo–chile mixture to
skillet with quail, stir to combine, cover, and simmer until falling apart and very tender, about 2 hours.
Divide quail between 4 bowls and serve with warm corn tortillas, if you like.

Kékfrankos from a former Kulák. Ferenc Takler survived communism to produce glorious Hungarian
wines, BY ROGER MORRIS. Takler is enjoying success with not only international varieties of grapes but
native ones like kadarka as well. F lowing south from Vienna, the waters of the storied Danube River slip
across the Hungarian border, wind their way into the capital, Budapest, and then chug toward Serbia
and Romania and, ultimately, the Black Sea. About 90 miles downstream from Budapest, near the village
of Decs in an area known as Southern Transdanubia, 56-year-old Ferenc Takler’s winery sits on the first
line of low, undulating hills that rise from the fields along the river’s western bank. A lightly traveled,
two-lane country road runs along the bottom of the gentle slope. On either side of the winery are quiet
neighborhoods of comfortable homes situated on small lots interspersed with vegetable gardens.
Takler’s winery is at the vanguard of a winemaking renaissance taking place here. While the wines of
Eger and Tokaj have historically been the pride of Hungarian viticulture, Szekszárd and Villány, Southern
Transdanubia’s two main appellations, are beginning to make their presence known on the world
market. Several wines from the region were awarded medals at the 2005 Challenge International du Vin,
in Bordeaux, and Takler’s 2003 Premarius red blend won the special prize for best Hungarian wine at the
2006 Citadelles du Vin competition, also in Bordeaux. Takler and other winemakers in the region are
enjoying success not just with international grape varieties like cabernet sauvignon and merlot but also
with native grapes, such as kadarka and kékfrankos. It has been a long road back for Hungarian wines.
The Communist takeover in 1945 and the 45 years of Soviet domination that followed battered the
Hungarian wine industry, which was turned into a fountain of cheap, high-alcohol wines meant to
quench the thirst of the rest of the Soviet empire. In vineyards across the country, low-yielding, quality
vines were overcropped or uprooted in favor of prolific ones, and some private cellars that were not
part of the production system were either abandoned or treated disrespectfully. As a prominent
landowner whose family had grown grapes in the area since the mid-1700s, Ferenc Takler suffered more
than most winemakers. In 1978 the Soviets branded him a kulák—a pejorative term for landed peasants
deemed class enemies—and threw him off his property without compensation. His estate and others
like it were broken up into small plots and redistributed. “My two young sons and I were on the street
with not any money for a flat,” he says, as he stands with his wife, Zsuzsa, in their small tasting room.
Takler was only 28 at the time, but he and Zsuzsa managed to keep their young family together with the
help of family and friends. Eventually they renovated a burned-out home and turned it into a winery.
When the Communist government fell in 1990, Takler joined other Hungarian vintners in striving to
elevate the wine industry, a goal now achieved. “We have come a long way in a dozen or so years,” he
says proudly. Hungary has a remarkable viticultural heritage and has long been renowned for both its
fiery, slow-maturing red wines and its rich white dessert wines. Its first national vineyard classification
took place in the 1708, earlier than such classifications in most other parts of Europe. At about the same
time, wines from Tokaj—known for both dessert and white table wines—were finding favor in the
French and other imperial courts. Throughout the 19th century, the Hungarians were ranked among the
world’s best winemakers. The late wine importer and writer Frank Schoonmaker called Hungary
“traditionally, the greatest wine country of Eastern Europe”. For Takler and his colleagues, the goal is to
return Hungary to that status. A friendly yet intense man with a florid face that Brueghel might have
wanted to depict, Takler walks through his cellar brandishing a wine thief (a tube-shaped sampling
device) like a scepter, a man clearly enjoying a measure of vindication in making the types of quality
table wines that the Soviet system wouldn’t permit. His two sons have become his chief assistants—
András, the older, as the business manager and Ferenc Jr. as the cellar master. Because the area’s
vineyards were carved up as part of the land redistribution that took place during the Communist era,
Takler has been unable to build a completely contiguous estate anew; the cost of doing so would be
prohibitive. Instead, he now farms nearly a dozen separate plots spread across the region. Although he
produces a small amount of chardonnay, he focuses mainly on red wines, cultivating kékfrankos,
kadarka, merlot, cabernet franc, and cabernet sauvignon. He is also now experimenting with syrah.
Among Takler’s wines are several proprietary blends and varietals that are sold both in Hungary and in
the United States. He also makes a bikavér, otherwise known as “bull’s blood”, the traditional Hungarian
meritage-style blend. Bull’s blood is defined as a blend of three or more red varieties that can be made
only in the Szekszárd and Eger regions. During the Communist era, bull’s blood from Eger—egri bikavér
— was imported into the United States as an affordable wine but one of dubious quality. That image is
slowly changing; the revolution in Hungarian winemaking has led to vast improvements in bull’s blood.
While Zsuzsa goes off to tend a pot of traditional paprika-fl avored chicken stew with spätzle to feed
lunchtime visitors (for more on Zsuzsa Takler’s cooking, see box, right), Takler continues our tour of his
very modern cellar, fi lled with stainless-steel tanks and a modern press. Of the foreign-made wines he
has tasted, he tells me, zinfandels from California have had a big impact on him (“small berries with
smooth tannins”). Th e zinfandel infl uence is apparent in his 2003 reds, which were the product of an
unusually long, hot summer. With his 2003s, Takler has gone beyond mere respectability; tasted in
barrel, his red wines are stunning, combining smooth, elegant fruit essence with integrated tannins and
California-level alcohol. Th e Takler kékfrankos, for example, is huge and generous—portlike from its
superripe fruit, with tinges of cognac aromas in the fi nish. Th e bikavér is more approachable. A blend of
kékfrankos (38 percent), merlot (25 percent), cabernet sauvignon (20 percent), and lesser amounts of
cabernet franc and kadarka, it has notes of blueberries and creamy chocolate. Bikavér is Takler’s
personal wine of choice, and he has won med als for it at the Bordeaux competitions. Th e winemaking
at the Takler facility uses a combination of new and traditional techniques. Th e handpicked grapes are
fermented in cooled tanks for around three weeks in total. However, about one-third of the fermenting
must is placed in open tanks in order for more oxygen to get into the wine. Both large and small oak
barrels, new and used, are utilized for aging, and the wines remain on wood for 12 to 20 months,
depending on the robustness of the wine. Later, over a lunch featuring Zsuzsa’s chicken stew and a 2002
barrel sample of the winery’s hallmark bordeaux-style blend, Regnum, we talk about wines from the
other primary red-wine area of Transdanubia, Villány, located farther south, where we visited the
previous day and where Takler has an assortment of winemaking friends. One of them was Pal
Debreczeni, who, tragically, died in an automobile accident not long ago. “Pally was here when we
blended this wine,” Takler says, taking a sip of the Regnum. The two men met in 2002 at an industry
event where they were pouring side by side and became friends, equally passionate in their desire to
make world-class wines. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that his death was a great loss for the
Hungarian wine industry,” Takler says. (For more on the wines of Villány, see box on page 70.) As we are
finishing Zsuzsa’s lunch, András arrives home from a business trip to Paris. Like the rest of the family, he
is bristling with pride at what the four of them have accomplished in a mere 12 years. “We think the
region is evolving,” he says. “Right now 10 percent of our market is export, and we have to grow that to
50 percent. We have to expand markets in Europe and the U.S.A.” He pauses, searches for the right
words, and smiles: “We just have to go and go!”.
the Takler Table. Touring Ferenc Takler’s winery, south of Budapest, with author Roger Morris and some
other visitors last fall, I got distracted when Takler’s wife, Zsuzsa, started making lunch for us on the
patio. A stout, rosy-cheeked woman with short auburn hair, she deftly hung a very large, wide-mouthed
cast-iron pot on a steel tripod set over a portable burner and then attached a propane tank to the
burner. Noticing me, Takler explained that his wife was preparing paprikás csirke (chicken paprikash), a
classic Hungarian dish, and that the formidable pot, called a bogracs, was traditionally used for cooking
large quantities of such stewlike meals. After heating some lard in the pot, Zsuzsa browned several
handfuls of chopped onion and spicy bright green bogyiszlo¯ (banana peppers) in it, followed by chunks
of chicken. By the time she’d added smoked ham, allspice, juniper berries, and a fi stful of sweet paprika,
it seemed as though anyone within smelling distance had gathered around her and the vessel. During
past harvests, when the winery’s annual production was much smaller, Zsuzsa would make enough of
her hearty paprikash or smoky ozpörkölt (venison goulash) to feed her family as well as all their seasonal
workers. A few years ago, she realized that the number of hired hands had grown too large for her to
continue offering food to everyone, but she still enjoys cooking for a crowd and hauls out her bogracs
whenever guests are staying for lunch or dinner. A meal at the Taklers’ is typically a straightforward
affair. The paprikash, venison goulash, and bean soup (made with dried white beans, smoked sausage,
carrots, celery root, cherry peppers, and caraway seed) she serves are standards throughout Hungary.
They are often accompanied by a specialty of the Szekszárd region—salty little rolls called sárközi
tejfeles büjtök, which Zsuzsa drizzles with a sour cream sauce. In Szekszárd, fi sh—plentiful in the
Danube and the region’s many lakes—is consumed almost daily, and Zsuzsa likes to bake carp with
sliced potatoes, bacon, tomatoes, and green peppers and then top them with a tangy sauce of sour
cream thickened with a little fl our. According to Zsuzsa, this dish, called rácponty, was created in the
mid-19th century by Serbs who fl ed to Hungary and settled along the Danube. Mrs. Takler’s meals
almost always feature a simple salad of butter or green-leaf lettuce tossed with white wine vinegar,
acacia honey, and a sprinkle of salt. “Most Hungarians use sugar for their salad dressing,” she says, “but
I grew up with honey that my father harvested, so I like to substitute it whenever a recipe calls for sugar.
It tastes like fl owers, but it’s meaty. You can bite into it.” She also admits that although her husband
isn’t very fond of sweets, when she comes by a fresh batch of acacia honey, it’ll usually fi nd its way into
one of her desserts. Whether the result is little honey cakes or a honey-laced grape strudel with white
wine sauce, nobody, not even Takler himself, seems to mind. —Camas Davis.
PAL’S legacy. After Tokaj, Villány is perhaps Hungary’s most popular wine region. Approaching the town
of Villány, one is struck by the rows of two-story white buildings along the hillsides, many with brightly
painted doors. These are historic press houses, which are still used today by small winemakers. Red
grape varieties here include kadarka and another Hungarian variety called kékoportó, as well as
cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, syrah, and zweigelt (an Austrian cross). Villány’s Pal Debreczeni
was considered one of Hungary’s best winegrowers at the time of his death, in 2004 in a car accident.
With his wife, Monika, he owned a winery called Vylyan, located west of town at the head of a long
hillside adjacent to a large stone quarry. It’s a modern facility, one of the premier wineries in the region.
Monika, an elegant, well-spoken businesswoman, has vowed to implement the plans she and her
husband laid for the winery. “We are planting 11 hectares [27 acres] this year for a total of 125 hectares
[308 acres],” she said on a tour of her vineyards not long after her husband died. “None are in the valley;
they are all hillside.” The soil, she pointed out, is clay over limestone, and she explained how she and Pal
had gradually increased vine density to obtain greater fruit intensity. She is also continuing with their
plan to be producers of biodynamically grown wines. “The main thing is to respect nature,” she said.
“This is the beauty in it, to work in harmony.” And there is harmony in her wines—the crisp chardonnay,
with its fresh-apple fl avor; the kékoportó, full of raspberries, which has a pleasant chalkiness; the
zweigelt, redolent of spicy rhubarb; and the syrah, bursting with blueberries and chocolate. “Vintage by
vintage, we are systematically looking to make complex wines,” she tells me. So far, she deserves high
marks for progress. —R.M.
RECIPE Ozpörkölt (Venison Goulash). SERVES 4. In Hungary, the dish most of us think of as goulash is
usually called pörkölt, meaning stewed. Beef chuck or pork shoulder may be used in place of the venison
in this version of Zsuzsa’s recipe. 2 lbs. leg of venison, cut into 2” chunks (see page 102) 1 tbsp. white
wine vinegar 1/4 lb. smoked bacon, fi nely chopped 1 large yellow onion, fi nely chopped 1 1/2 tbsp. hot
paprika, preferably Hungarian (see page 102) 1 /4 tsp. dried ground thyme 1 /4 tsp. dry mustard 4 whole
allspice 4 juniper berries 2 cloves garlic, fi nely chopped 1 small tomato, cored and chopped 1 /2 green
bell pepper, cored, seeded, and fi nely chopped 1 cup red wine, preferably merlot Salt 6 medium yukon
gold potatoes (about 2 lbs.), peeled; cut lengthwise into wedges 1 /4 cup butter, cubed 2 tsp. chopped fl
at-leaf parsley Freshly ground black pepper 6–8 slices crusty white bread 1. Put venison and vinegar into
a bowl; cover with boiling water. Put bacon into a large pot over medium heat; cook until crisp, 6–8
minutes. Add onions and cook until softened, 6–8 minutes. Drain venison; add to onions. Increase heat
to medium-high and cook until just browned, 8–10 minutes. Stir in 1 cup water, paprika, thyme,
mustard, allspice, juniper, garlic, tomatoes, and peppers; reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer, covered,
until venison is just tender, about 2 hours. Uncover pot, add wine and salt to taste, and cook until
venison is very tender and liquid has thickened, about 1 1/2 hours more. 2. Put potatoes into a pot;
cover with salted water; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer until soft, 10–12 minutes. Drain
potatoes and toss in a bowl with butter, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve goulash with
potatoes and bread.
RECIPE Sárközi Tejfeles Büjtök (Sour Cream Rolls). MAKES 2 DOZEN. These soft and tangy rolls are the
best when they’re eaten still warm and gooey. 53/4 cups fl our, sifted 2 cups warm milk 1 1 /4-oz.
package active dry yeast 1 tbsp. sugar 1 tbsp. plus 21 /2 cups sour cream Salt 3/4 cup plus 3 tbsp.
margarine, softened Freshly ground black pepper 1. Stir together 3/4 cup fl our, 1 /2 cup milk, yeast, and
sugar in a large bowl to make a loose dough. Cover with a towel; let rise in a warm spot until doubled in
size, 1–11 /2 hours. 2. Whisk together remaining milk, 1 tbsp. sour cream, and 11 /2 tsp. salt in a
medium bowl; add mixture to risen dough. Add remaining fl our and 2 tbsp. of the margarine and mix.
Turn dough out onto a lightly fl oured surface; knead until soft and smooth, 10–12 minutes. Shape
dough into a ball, dust with fl our, and transfer to a large bowl. Cover with a towel; let rise in a warm
spot until doubled in size, about 11 /2 hours. 3. Preheat oven to 450°. Grease a 9” x 13” pan with 1 tbsp.
of the margarine. Divide dough into 24 equal pieces; roll each into a 10”-long rope. Tie each rope into a
knot. (Keep dough ropes covered with a towel while working.) Arrange knots in pan in a single layer.
Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm spot until about one-third larger, 40–45 minutes. Brush knots
with 4 tbsp. margarine (melted) and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°;
bake until cooked through and deep golden brown, about 5 minutes more. 4. Heat remaining margarine
in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in remaining sour cream and season with salt and pepper
to taste. Cook, stirring constantly, until just hot, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Using tongs,
separate knots while still hot and dip in sour cream sauce to coat; transfer to a large platter. Pour any
leftover sauce over knots, cover loosely with a towel, and let soften for 10 minutes. Eat warm.
RECIPE Rácponty (Baked Carp with Sour Cream Sauce). SERVES 6. Carp’s meaty fl esh stands up well to
the bacon and sour cream sauce in this dish. Bluefi sh makes a good substitute if carp isn’t available. 6
medium yukon gold potatoes (about 2 lbs.) Salt 1 /2 lb. smoked bacon, fi nely chopped 3 medium
tomatoes, cored and cut into 1 /4”-thick slices 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced 1 /2 green bell
pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped Freshly ground black pepper 3 tbsp. butter, melted 1 whole carp,
cleaned (about 5 lbs.) 2 tsp. hot paprika, preferably Hungarian (see page 102) 1 cup sour cream 1 tbsp. fl
our 1. Preheat oven to 400°. Put potatoes into a medium pot, cover with salted water, and bring to a
boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until just tender, about 25 minutes. Drain.
Peel potatoes while still warm; let cool. Slice potatoes crosswise into 1 /3”-thick slices. 2. Cook bacon in
a skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, about 6–8 minutes. Arrange potatoes, overlapping slightly, in
bottom of a large ovenproof dish. Top with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and bacon with its fat, seasoning
with salt and pepper to taste between layers. Pour butter over top. 3. Make crosswise incisions in skin of
carp (on both sides) spaced about 1” apart from the tail to the head, just barely cutting into the fl esh.
Sprinkle carp all over with paprika and salt to taste; place on top of vegetables. Bake until carp is three-
fourths cooked through and potatoes and tomatoes are beginning to brown, about 40 minutes. 4.
Meanwhile, whisk together sour cream, fl our, and salt to taste in a bowl. Remove carp from oven, pour
sour cream mixture over top, and bake until vegetables are golden brown and carp is completely cooked
through, 20–25 minutes more.
RECIPE Bableves (Bean Soup with “Pinched” Pasta). SERVES 6–8. This satisfying bean soup is fi nished
with homemade pasta bits called csipetke, which are pinched by hand. Top the soup with a spoonful of
sour cream for extra richness. 1 cup dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight and drained 1 /2 lb.
smoked sausage, such as kielbasa, cut into 1 /2” pieces 1 /2 tsp. dried tarragon 1 /2 tsp. caraway seeds 6
cherry peppers, stemmed 4 medium carrots, peeled, trimmed, and cut crosswise into 3” pieces 1 small
celery root (about 2/3 lb.), peeled and cut into 1 /4” pieces 1 medium yellow onion, fi nely chopped 1
dried bay leaf 11 /3 cups plus 2 tbsp. fl our 2 eggs Salt 1 tbsp. lard 1 tbsp. hot paprika, preferably
Hungarian (see page 102) 1 tbsp. chopped fl at-leaf parsley 1 clove garlic, fi nely chopped Freshly ground
black pepper 1. Put beans, sausage, and 14 cups water into a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until beans are half cooked, about 25 minutes. Add tarragon,
caraway, peppers, carrots, celery root, onions, and bay leaf and cook, stirring occasionally, until beans
are tender, 40–45 minutes. 2. Meanwhile, put 11 /3 cups fl our, eggs, and a pinch of salt into a medium
bowl and mix with your hands into a dough. Turn out onto a lightly fl oured surface and gently knead
into a ball. Using your hands, pinch off a very small piece of the dough, roll it into a 1 /4” ball, then pinch
it between your fi ngertips to a 1 /16” thickness. Transfer pasta to a lightly fl oured sheet pan and repeat
with remaining dough. 3. Heat lard in a small skillet over medium heat. Add remaining fl our and cook,
whisking constantly, until mixture is light golden brown, about 4 minutes. Add fl our mixture to soup
while whisking vigorously. Add pasta, paprika, parsley, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer
over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until soup has thickened and pasta is cooked through,
about 30 minutes.
RECIPE Szo¯lo¯s Rétes Bor Szószban (Grape-Filled Strudel with White Wine Sauce). SERVES 8. The word
Strudel means whirlpool in German. This dessert’s name refers to its fl aky layers, which wrap around its
soft, sweet fi lling. FOR THE STRUDEL: 6 tbsp. butter, melted 1 /3 cup coarse semolina 3 12” x 17” sheets
frozen phyllo dough, thawed 6 tbsp. dried bread crumbs 2 cups seedless black grapes (about 10 oz.) 2
egg whites, beaten to soft peaks 1 /3 cup granulated sugar 1 tsp. vanilla sugar 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tbsp. honey, preferably acacia 1 tbsp. sour cream FOR THE WINE SAUCE: 3/4 cup sugar 3 tbsp. flour 6
egg yolks 11 /2 cups milk 1 /2 cup white wine, preferably riesling 1 tsp. lemon zest 1 tsp. vanilla sugar
(see page 102) 1. For the strudel: Heat 2 tbsp. butter in a small pot over medium-high heat. Add
semolina and cook, stirring often, until light golden brown, 3–4 minutes. Stir in 1 1 /2 cups water, reduce
heat to medium-low, and cook, covered, until soft and porridgelike, 5–6 minutes. Let cool. 2. Preheat
oven to 350°. Grease a large baking sheet with 1 tbsp. butter; set aside. Lay 1 sheet of phyllo on a
kitchen towel; brush evenly with 1 tbsp. butter; sprinkle with 2 tbsp. bread crumbs; top with a sheet of
phyllo. Brush with 1 tbsp. butter; sprinkle with 2 tbsp. bread crumbs. Repeat one more time. Strew
grapes over phyllo; drop semolina in dollops over top, followed by egg whites. Spread out with a rubber
spatula, then sprinkle with sugars and cinnamon; drizzle with honey. Using towel to help you, roll strudel
like a burrito to form a 12”-long cylinder. Transfer to prepared baking sheet; brush with sour cream.
Bake until light golden brown, about 40 minutes. Let cool slightly. 3. For the sauce: Whisk together
sugar, fl our, and yolks in a heatproof bowl until pale yellow. Whisk in milk, wine, zest, and sugar. Place
bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook, stirring constantly, until sauce resembles thin
pudding, about 20 minutes. Strain sauce through a fi nemesh sieve; let cool over an ice bath. Cut strudel
crosswise into 8 slices and serve with sauce.
Tasting notes. Takler wines are hard to fi nd in the United States but worth the effort. Here are four we
tasted recently. See THE PANTRY, page 102, for a source. ROSÉ CUVÉE 2005 ($12). A gem of a wine
(kékfrankos with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and a bit of kadarka), sleek and slightly pétillant
and full of red summer fruit—but substantial enough to drink throughout the year. HERITAGE CUVÉE
2003 ($24). Kékfrankos and merlot are the main players in this seductive red (with, again, the cabernet
boys and a little kadarka); its ripe-cherry character is offset by an elegance almost Tuscan in style. NOIR
GOLD KÉKFRANKOS RESERVE 2003 ($30). Not as complex in fl avor or as richly textured as the Heritage
Cuvée (this one is all kékfrankos), but delicious, with lean blackberry-like fruit and tobacco and
chocolate in the finish. PROPRIETOR’S RESERVE REGNUM 2002 ($65). Mostly merlot, with 10 percent
kékfrankos, adding up to a slightly stemmy, claretlike blend, with angular tannins and suggestions of
mint, raspberries, and red currants. —THE EDITORS.

PRICKLYSWEET. With their sublime balance of succulent and sour, pineapples are the most irresistible of
tropical fruits, BY KELLY ALEXANDER. A woman’s coming-of-age journey entails lessons both great and
small, but it’s unusual for it to include a member of the family Bromeliaceae. Nevertheless, a pineapple,
that trusty symbol of hearth and home, standing proud with its green-brown skin and its crown of
swordlike leaves, played a pivotal role in my own growing up. I was a typical college student: self-
absorbed, overly confi dent, delineated by black liquid eyeliner. When a worldly (read: considerably
older) male acquaintance from back home made a show of seducing me over the phone one day during
my sophomore year, I responded with all the forethought and caution you’d expect. “Of course you can
fl y me down for the weekend!” I blurted out. When I arrived, my paramour whisked me off to that most
romantic of places—the nearest supermarket. Apparently his bachelor pad had no provisions, and he
asked me to choose a few things to eat. Rows of pineapples stood before me in the produce section,
beckoning with their promise of exotic fl avor and juicy fl esh. Th e fruit was a perfect choice, I thought,
for the torrid days and nights that surely lay ahead. My date, however, looked skeptical. He leaned over
and asked, “Do you know how to cut up one of those?” My face turned red, and not from
embarrassment. How could I—someone who’d watched her mother carve countless pineapples for the
fruit salad she’d always sign up to take to potlucks—be mistaken for someone so inexperienced? At the
time it never occurred to me that the guy was merely implying that the job could be daunting; no, he
was challenging my very sophistication. That May–December romance ultimately proved to be a
disaster, but my love for the pineapple flourished. The truth is that I’ve been attracted to pineapples for
as long as I can remember. For me, their superiority in the realm of tropical fruit was—and is—
unquestionable: a pineapple has more dimensions of fl avor than any mango and is more satisfyingly
solid than a mere papaya. To eat a slice of ripe pineapple is to delight in a perfect balance of acid and
sugar, each bite a burst of opposing forces. Foods from carob to carrot have been deemed “nature’s
candy”, but I think that the pineapple is the only one truly deserving of the nickname. It didn’t take me
long to realize, of course, that pineapples were good for a lot more than just Mom’s potluck fruit salad.
Quite possibly my favorite dessert since I first tasted it, years ago at (of all places) a Yom Kippur break-
the-fast party, has been pineapple upside-down cake. And I quickly discovered that the fruit could be an
asset to savory dishes as well. Toward the end of my college career in Chicago, I took to sitting at the bar
at Frontera Grill, Rick Bayless’s excellent Mexican restaurant, and feasting on manchamanteles,
“tablecloth stainers”—a rich dish of chicken and pork stewed in a mole spiked with chunks of pineapple.
I was also lucky enough to enjoy real piña coladas (that is, those made without the aid of premixed swill)
on a trip to the Puerto Rican island of Culebra, where the juice was squeezed fresh and the drink was so
refreshing that even the maraschino cherry garnish was a swell touch. And is there a person with a pulse
who can’t claim that Chinese-American staple of sweet and sour pork with pineapple, lolling in neon red
cornstarchy goodness, as a guilty pleasure? In fact, when my future husband cooked that dish on our fi
rst date, I knew at once that I’d found the man for me. The pineapple is remark able for reasons beyond
its irresistible fl avor. No small part of the fruit’s international appeal has to do with its striking exterior,
an outward manifestation of the more than 100 berrylike, diamond-shaped “fruitlets” that compose the
fruit’s flesh. The organization of those fruitlets in three interlocking spirals, in fact, is considered by
mathematicians to be geometrically perfect because the number of spirals in each direction conforms to
three consecutive numbers from the system of mathematical cadences called the Fibonacci series,
usually eight, 13, and 21. Another appealing aspect of the pineapple is that it’s the world’s only known
source of bromelain, a powerful enzyme that breaks down protein—that’s why you see pineapple listed
in so many diet menus—and is thought to be eff ective in relieving a host of ailments from bronchitis to
(some believe) cancer. In much of the world, and especially in Great Britain and the American South, the
pineapple is also a common symbol of hospitality. We have the English to thank for that. Th e fruit was fi
rst grown successfully in England in a hothouse by one of Charles II’s gardeners in 1661. Pineapple
became a favorite of the king’s and was therefore the centerpiece in many elaborate table displays at
his court. By extension, the image of a pineapple was used as a fashionable decorative motif and
incorporated into household objects and architectural ornamentation. Even today, pineapple
iconography appears on everything from McMansion gateposts to, well, my favorite pair of fl ip-fl ops.
The world’s first pineapples are believed to have grown in the tropical lowlands of what is now Brazil,
along with other, mostly inedible plants in the Bromeliaceae family, such as Spanish moss. Grown wild,
pineapple plants have wide stalks that act as water containers, which help nourish not only their own
fruit but also a host of critters, from single-cell organisms to frogs. Th eir journey from miniature tropical
ecosystems to their transformation into the common modern pineapple species (Ananas comosus)
began long before Europeans arrived in South America, when indigenous tribes living in the jungly basins
that surround the Orinoco and Amazon rivers started domesticating the fruit. Over the course of
centuries, the pineapple was transported throughout South America to the West Indies by way of the
dugout canoes that Carib Indians used to navigate the waters off the continent’s coast. It was a
surprisingly easy task in that the fruit, though generally seedless, is both a perennial and easily
reproduced from cuttings. On his second trip to the Americas, in 1493, Columbus reported seeing it for
the fi rst time on the Caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe. Later, Spanish sailors returned to Spain with
cuttings of the fruit, calling it piña (pinecone) for its appearance. The Portuguese were responsible for
taking the pineapple over subsequent centuries to India, Java, and China. Although probably introduced
in the 16th century by Spanish sailors, pineapple wasn’t cultivated on a large scale in Hawaii—the place
with which we in America tend to associate it the most—until 1885, when one Captain John Kidwell
began trial plantings of several varieties of the fruit, including the cayenne (see sidebar, below), on the
island of Oahu. Th e advent of steamship transportation in the Pacifi c around the same time made it
possible to ship fresh pineapples to the mainland. It was James Drummond Dole, an American with an
undergraduate degree from Harvard and an interest in horticulture, who fi rst made the fruit available
worldwide when he built a pineapple cannery in 1903. “After some experimentation,” Dole explained in
the 25th anniversary book of Harvard College’s class of 1899, “I concluded that the land was better
adapted to pineapples than to peas, pigs, or potatoes.... Pineapple growing created the necessity for a
market, and in order to enlarge the market to the entire United States (and other countries) and to
extend the marketing season throughout the entire year, a cannery seemed necessary.” By the middle
of the 20th century there were eight pineapple companies in Hawaii, and Hawaii became the pineapple
capital of the world, growing more than 80 percent of the total crop. Today, it accounts for less than 2
percent of the world’s pineapples; Thailand and the Philippines have become the number one and
number two producers, respectively. Among the other countries growing commercially signifi cant
quantities of pineapple are Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, India, and China. As pineapple cultivation has
spread around the globe, new varieties have developed, many of which are not exported to this country.
I’ve heard that feasting on a pineapple in Th ailand or India or Costa Rica is an entirely diff erent
experience from sampling, say, a small chunk of the fruit off of a tasting stand at my local Piggly Wiggly.
If that’s true, I can’t imagine how delicious those other varieties are, because what I get here is good
enough for me. R ecently one of m y de a r est pa ls called to tell me of a pineapple-related triumph. “I’m
trying to diet,” he said, “so instead of my normal bag of chips I grabbed some pineapple from a nearby
deli—they even cut it up for you and everything.” I told him I thought it was great that he was eating
more of this wonderful fruit—a cup of fresh pineapple chunks has only about 75 calories—but that the
convenience of the cut-up fruit didn’t interest me. After all, I know how to cut up a pineapple.
RECIPE Rojak (Pineapple and Jicama Salad). SERVES 4. Rojak means mixed up in Malay, the national
language of Malaysia, where this dish (right) originated. A refreshing mix of fruits and vegetables in a
sweet and salty dressing, it’s a popular street snack there. See THE PANTRY, page 102, for a source for
hard-to-fi nd Asian ingredients. 1/2 tbsp. belacan (Malaysian dried shrimp paste) 6 tbsp. gula jawa
( Indonesian palm sugar) 5 tbsp. kecap manis ( Indonesian sweet soy sauce) 2 tbsp. fresh lime juice 3–6
red thai chiles, stemmed and coarsely chopped Salt 2 kirby cucumbers, stemmed and cut into 2” chunks.
1 medium green mango, peeled, cored, and cut into 2” chunks 1 small jicama (about 3 / 4 lb.), peeled
and cut into 2” chunks 1 / 2 large, ripe pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into 2” chunks 1 / 3 cup
unsalted skinned roasted peanuts, finely chopped. 1. Wrap shrimp paste in a 5”-square piece of
aluminum foil to form a package; press down with heel of your hand to fl atten paste into a 1/4”-thick
disk. Heat a gas burner to medium-low or an electric burner to medium-high, place package directly on
burner, and toast until paste begins to smoke, about 1 minute. Turn with tongs and cook for 1 minute
more. Unwrap disk; let cool. 2. Put shrimp paste, sugar, soy sauce, lime juice, chiles, and salt to taste
into a blender; pulse to form a smooth paste. Transfer dressing to a large nonreactive bowl, add
cucumbers, mango, jicama, and pineapple, and toss to combine. Season with salt to taste. (Alternatively,
arrange on a plate and drizzle with dressing.) Transfer salad to a platter, sprinkle with peanuts, and serve
immediately.
RECIPE Tepache (Mexican-Style Fermented Pineapple Drink). MAKES ABOUT 3 QUARTS. This recipe for
tepache (above) is an adaptation of one in The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy (Clarkson
Potter/Publishers, 2000). 1 large ripe pineapple (about 4 lbs.), crown and base removed, outside
scrubbed and rinsed 2 whole cloves 2 whole allspice 1 4”-long piece canela (Mexican cinnamon; see
page 102) or cinnamon stick 1 lb. piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar; see page 102), crushed, or 1 lb. dark
brown sugar 1 1/2 cups light beer. 1. Cut the pineapple (unpeeled) into 1 1/2” cubes. Put the cloves,
allspice, and canela into a mortar and crush roughly with a pestle. Transfer the spices to a large 4- to 5-
quart earthenware or glass jar with a tight-fi tting lid. Add the pineapple cubes and 8 cups of water and
stir to combine. Cover the jar with a lid and set in a location that receives plenty of sun (or in a warm
spot) and let sit until mixture begins to ferment and become bubbly on top, about 3 days, depending on
the temperature. 2. Put the piloncillo and 1 1/2 cups water into a small pot and bring to a boil over
medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar
has completely dissolved, 4–5 minutes. Remove from heat, let the sugar syrup cool slightly, and then
add with the beer to the fermenting pineapple mixture. Stir well, cover, and leave in a warm place for 2–
3 days longer, until it smells strongly fermented and appears bubbly throughout. Strain the mixture
through a few layers of cheesecloth lining a fine-mesh sieve into a clean jar; discard the solids. Serve the
tepache chilled or poured over ice. Store in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks.
Manchamanteles de Cerdo y Pollo (Mole with Chicken, Pork, and Pineapple) SERVES 4 Manchamanteles
(below, right), a spicy, stewlike dish from Mexico, is considered to be one of the seven classic moles of
Oaxaca. This recipe is based on one in Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico by
SAVEUR consulting editor Rick Bayless (William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1987). 6 medium dried
ancho chiles (see page 102), stemmed, seeded, deveined, and halved 5 tbsp. lard 1 small white onion,
chopped 5 cloves garlic, halved 1 lb. lean boneless pork shoulder, cut into 2” cubes and patted dry 2
bone-in chicken breast halves (about 11 /4 lbs.), halved crosswise and patted dry 3 black peppercorns 2
whole cloves 1 1 /2”-long piece canela (Mexican cinnamon, see page 102) or cinnamon stick 2 1 /2”-
thick slices firm white bread, torn into small pieces 2 tbsp. cider vinegar Salt 1 /2 large ripe pineapple,
peeled, cored, and cut into 11 /2” cubes 1 ripe medium plantain, peeled and cut into 1” cubes 11 /2
tbsp. Sugar. 1. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Working in batches, toast chiles on both
sides, pressing them down with a metal spatula, until aromatic, about 11 /2 minutes. Transfer chiles to a
large bowl, cover with boiling water, weight down with a plate, and let soak, 30 minutes. Drain. 2. Heat
4 tbsp. of the lard in the skillet over medium-low. Add onions and fry until softened, 5–6 minutes. Add
garlic and cook until onions are golden brown, about 18–20 minutes. Remove onions and garlic from
skillet with a slotted spoon and transfer to a blender, leaving lard in the skillet. Increase heat to medium,
add pork, and cook, turning often, until golden brown on all sides, 12–14 minutes. Transfer pork to a
paper towel–lined plate and set aside. Add chicken to the skillet and cook, turning often, until golden
brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer chicken to plate with pork and set
aside. Reserve skillet with any remaining lard. 3. Put peppercorns, cloves, and canela into a mortar and
crush with a pestle to a powder. Transfer spices to a blender. Add 1 cup water, drained chiles, and bread
and blend until smooth, 2–3 minutes. Strain mixture through a fi ne-mesh sieve into a medium bowl,
pressing on solids with the back of a spoon. Discard solids. 4. Heat reserved skillet over medium heat,
carefully add chile mixture, and fry, stirring constantly, until thickened, 4–5 minutes. Transfer chile
mixture to a large heavy pot. Add pork, 2 cups water, vinegar, and salt to taste and stir to combine.
Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until pork is
very tender, about 21 /2 hours. Add chicken and pineapple and cook, covered, until chicken is cooked
through, about 20 minutes. 5. Meanwhile, melt remaining lard in a medium skillet over medium heat.
Fry plantains, turning often, until golden brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Transfer plantains to the
mole and stir to combine. Add sugar and salt to taste and continue to cook for 10 minutes more. Serve
with corn tortillas, if you like.
RECIPE Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. MAKES ONE 9” CAKE. This recipe for the classic American cake
(left) is an adaptation of one that appears in SAVEUR consulting editor Marion Cunningham’s The Fannie
Farmer Cookbook (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990). 12 tbsp. butter 1 cup light brown sugar 5 canned pineapple
rings, drained (reserve juice) 5 maraschino cherries, drained and stemmed 11 /2 cups flour 1 /2 cup
granulated sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1 /2 tsp. salt 1 /2 cup milk 1 egg. 1. Preheat oven to 400°. Melt 4
tbsp. of the butter in a 9” cast-iron skillet over medium-low heat. Add brown sugar and stir until well
combined. Remove skillet from heat, add 1 /4 cup of reserved pineapple juice, and stir well to combine.
Arrange pineapple rings in a single layer in bottom of skillet and place a cherry in the center of each. Set
skillet aside. 2. Put fl our, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and stir to
combine. Melt remaining butter in a small pot over medium-low heat. Remove pot from heat, add milk
and egg, and beat with a wooden spoon until well combined, about 1 minute. Pour milk mixture into fl
our mixture and beat until smooth, about 1 minute. Pour batter into skillet, covering the pineapple slices
completely, and smooth out batter with a rubber spatula. 3. Bake cake until golden brown and a
toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, 30–35 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 10
minutes. Cover skillet with a large plate and carefully invert the cake onto it. Serve warm or at room
temperature, if you like.
RECIPE Sweet and Sour Pork. SERVES 4. This recipe for sweet and sour pork (right) is based on one in The
Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee (J. B. Lippincott Company, 1972). It is most
certainly a Chinese-American rendering of a Cantonese dish, employing a version of a sweet and sour
sauce that is most typically used on fi sh, usually yellow croaker. 1 1 /4 lbs. pork loin, trimmed and cut
into 1” cubes 1 tbsp. dry sherry 2 tbsp. soy sauce Peanut oil 1 cup cornstarch 1 /3 cup white distilled
vinegar 1 /2 cup sugar Salt 12 drops red food coloring 1 small onion, cut into 1” pieces 1 /2 large ripe
pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1” chunks 1 /2 small red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into
1” pieces 1 /2 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1” pieces 4 thin “coins” of peeled
fresh ginger 1 clove garlic, minced. 1. Using the fl at side of a meat mallet, lightly pound each pork cube
to a 1 /4” thickness. Transfer to a medium bowl, add sherry and 1 tbsp. of the soy sauce, and toss to
combine. 2. Pour peanut oil into a wok to a depth of 1” and heat over medium-high heat until
temperature registers 375° on a deep-fry thermometer. Put all but 2 tbsp. of the cornstarch into a wide
dish. Dredge pork in cornstarch, one piece at a time, pressing down with your fi ngers to coat well.
Discard cornstarch left in dish. Working in batches, fry pork in peanut oil until cooked through and
golden brown on all sides, 4–5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a paper towel–lined plate to
let drain. Heat oil until it registers 400° on a deep-fry thermometer, then refry pork in a single batch
until deep golden brown, 1–2 minutes, to make pork crisper. Return pork to plate. Discard all but 1 /4
cup of oil in wok; set aside. 3. Put remaining soy sauce, 1 cup water, vinegar, sugar, and salt to taste into
a small saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir until
sugar has dissolved. Mix together remaining 2 tbsp. cornstarch with 1 /4 cup water in a small bowl; stir
into the simmering sauce along with food coloring and 2 tbsp. additional peanut oil and simmer for 1
minute. 4. Heat wok with reserved oil over medium heat. Add onions, pineapple, peppers, ginger, and
garlic and stir-fry until vegetables are crisp-tender, 5 minutes. Stir in sauce, bring to a boil, then add
reserved pork and toss to combine. Serve with rice, if you like.
RECIPE Seared Foie Gras with Caramelized Pineapple. SERVES 4. This appetizer (left) is a famous and now
classic dish that’s served at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois on Main in Santa Monica. In the 1980s, Kazuto
Matsusaka (now of Beacon) was the chef de cuisine; here is his version. FOR THE SAUCE: 11 /3 cups port
11 /3 cups red wine 2/3 cup plum wine 2 shallots, minced 2 cups veal stock 1 cinnamon stick 2 tbsp. cold
butter, cubed FOR THE GARNISH: 1 /2 cup port 1 /2 cup plum wine 1 /2 tsp. light brown sugar 1 4”-long
piece fresh ginger, peeled and julienned FOR THE FOIE GRAS AND PINEAPPLE: 11 /2 tsp. sugar 4 1 /4”-
thick rings fresh ripe pineapple 2 tbsp. peanut oil 4 2-oz. slices cold foie gras Salt and freshly ground
black pepper 1 /2 cup flour. 1. For the sauce: Put port, red wine, plum wine, and shallots into a medium
saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring
occasionally, until reduced by half, about 30 minutes. Add stock and cinnamon and cook until liquid has
reduced to about 1 cup, about 30–35 minutes. Strain through a fi ne-mesh sieve and return to saucepan
(discard solids). Set aside. 2. For the garnish: Meanwhile, put port, plum wine, sugar, and ginger into a
small pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until syrupy,
about 35 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. 3. For the foie gras and pineapple: Sprinkle sugar
evenly over tops of pineapple slices and caramelize with a kitchen torch. Set aside in a single layer. Heat
oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Generously season each piece of foie gras with salt and
pepper, then dredge lightly in fl our, shaking off any excess. Sear foie gras on both sides until crisp and
golden brown, 1–1 1 /2 minutes per side. Transfer to a paper towel–lined plate. 4. To assemble: Bring
sauce to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and whisk in butter a little at a time until
smooth and glossy. Place 1 piece of pineapple on each of 4 warm plates and top each with a slice of foie
gras. Spoon sauce over foie gras, then top with a dollop of the ginger garnish and some of its syrup.
Serve immediately. The Pantry, page 102: Sources for Malaysian dried shrimp paste, Indonesian palm
sugar, Indonesian sweet soy sauce, Mexican cinnamon, Mexican brown sugar, and ancho chiles.

Serious Eating in the Südtirol. A reunion across the generations in German-speaking Italy is fueled by
dumplings, gnocchi, cured pork, and sauerkraut. I n 1970, newly liber ated from the Marine Corps, I
escaped to Europe with my wife, Lucie, and we began tracing random patterns on the map—following
the strawberries north, as the saying went, which for us meant staying on the cusp of late winter snow
(for skiing) and early spring warming (for trout fi shing). After working our way across Bavaria and
Austria, we looped south across the Italian border into the region of Südtirol (South Tyrol), or Alto Adige,
passing through the town of Bozen (Bolzano) and ending up in Meran (Merano), where I wanted to try
to find my grandfather’s favorite cousin, Traudl Semler Tinzl. Under Hapsburg rule for more than fi ve
centuries, until the Treaty of Versailles ceded it to Italy following World War I, the Südtirol has long
struggled to protect its Teutonic cultural identity—both German and Italian are official languages there;
hence the two forms of most place-names—and Traudl’s late husband, Dr. Karl Tinzl, was a Südtirolean
patriot and parliamentary representative who was a key figure in resisting the region’s Italianization.
Meran was popular in the 19th century for its thermal springs, its mild climate, and the miraculous local
“grape cure”, which seems to have consisted simply of eating the local vernatsch—also called schiava—
grapes. To us, the town looked like some Italianate Alpine fantasyland, with its Eastern-influenced
domes, high roofs, quirky towers, and houses inset with oriel windows over cavernous porticoes and
decorated with fading frescoes. Semlers have lived in Meran since 1881, when my great-
greatgrandfather Ing war Adolph Ernst Konrad Semler, a businessman from Berlin, purchased a villa
there called the Stadlerhof, believed to be the property of the emperor Francis Joseph and the
temporary home of his son the archduke Rudolf. One of Ingwar Semler’s sons was my great-grandfather,
the first George Semler. The other, my greatgrand-uncle Ernst, was a dropout from Kaiser Wilhelm’s
imperial navy—rumor has it that he was forced to resign his commission after fighting a duel with a
fellow officer over the favors of a Japanese princess—who retired to the Stadlerhof to hunt, fish, and
write poetry. (The family has a copy of his book Edelweiss und Tannengrüne with an inscription to Ernst
from the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose assassination sparked World War I.) My
beginnings as a writer had met with scant success at the time we decided to go to Meran, but I already
knew enough of the family history to suspect that there might be a good story there. Masters of seat-of-
the-pants travel, however, we had failed to write ahead and had no idea how to fi nd Traudl—or the
Stadlerhof, which was now her home. Fortunately, Meran is a small place, and we asked around until a
butcher, having looked us over and apparently decided that we were all right, surrendered Frau Tinzl’s
address. As we approached the fabled villa, a sturdy silver-haired woman— a perfect female version of
my grandfather—emerged through the garden gate. Th ough she was completely unaware of my
existence, much less of the fact that I had come to Meran to fi nd her, she pointed a blocky fi nger at me
and, with a wide smile, announced, “You must be a Semler!” She welcomed us warmly, showing us
through the garden and up past the great brass semler doorplate into the villa, three fl oors of oak-
paneled rooms with a hunting lodge–style dining room bristling with antlers. In the study upstairs, she
pointed out a bullet hole in a ceiling beam. After a particularly bitter quarrel with his wife, she said, my
great-grandfather had stormed upstairs and discharged a pistol. Hearing the shot and fearing that he’d
done away with himself, his wife came running—only to fi nd him rolling on the fl oor howling with
laughter, roaring, and saying to himself, “You see? She loves me, she loves me!” It was lunchtime, and
Traudl called her lifelong friend Vali to ask whether she’d join us. We went off to pick up Vali, and as we
approached her villa, children going by us on bicycles began ringing bells and yodeling. Traudl blushed
and explained that in honor of her husband Karl Tinzl’s defense of Südtirolean identity, the locals
sometimes paid her these little homages. With Vali in tow, we climbed up to a wood-balconied, fl ower-
bedecked Gasthof (inn)—I’ve long since forgotten its name—on the slopes high over Meran, where we
ate delicious spinatschlutzkrapfen (rye-fl our ravioli fi lled with spinach and cheese) and a plate of lightly
smoked speck, the excellent Tyrolean bacon. Over lunch, Vali teased Traudl, saying that it was really she
who should have married Karl Tinzl and that he surely would have fallen for her had she not come down
with the measles and been forced to miss a crucial ball half a century ago. As the evening glow settled
over the early spring afternoon, we said good-bye to Traudl and promised to stay in touch—although,
sadly, we never met again. One autumn afternoon three and a half decades later, I was sitting on the
leafy patio of Bozen’s Hotel Figl, waiting for the current resident of the Stadlerhof, Traudl’s son George
(named for his great-uncle, my great-grandfather). I had never met Joergl (as everybody calls him), but I
knew I would recognize him, and it barely surprised me when he turned out to be a virtual reincarnation
of my grandfather: same height, same complexion mottled from hours in the sun, same slight hesitation
in his speech. It was as if my grandfather had been suspended in time, like Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old “ice
man” in Bozen’s archeological museum. Joergl took immediate charge of my search for my long-lost
Südtirolean family and the region’s culinary traditions, sketching out a tasting and feasting map of the
area’s most interesting restaurants and inns. Th at fi rst afternoon we went to meet his old friend Franco
Kettmeir (like Joergl, Franco is an economist), one of the Alto Adige’s top wine producers, at his winery
in Kaltern. As we sampled Kettmeir’s wines, he briefed me on the Südtirol’s thriving double economy, a
combination of tourism and agriculture, and on its architecture, an intricate mix of Venetian
Renaissance and Alpine design known as Überetscher Baustil. “Everything here is dual,” he added with a
chuckle, “east and west, north and south, Italian and Austrian, Mediterranean and Alpine. Even Bozen is
both Italy’s hottest and coldest city, steaming in summer but freezing in winter.” That evening we drove
up to the town of Signat, which hangs over Bozen on the side of the Ritten, the high meadowlands
towering over the confl uence of the Eisack (Isarco) and Talfer (Talvera) rivers. Th e Signaterhof, one of
two excellent inns in Signat (the other is the Patscheiderhof), sits next to the town church and school
and overlooks a vine- and apple tree–covered gorge. A slight fragrance of vinegar fl oated up the valley,
the scent of ripe fruit ready to fall, while the cable car connecting Bozen with the Ritten glided silently
across the wooded hillside in the twilight. Erika Lobiser and her husband, Günther, run the Signaterhof—
he is the chef—while their two sons, Mathias and Maximillian, attend the 14-student elementary school
across the street. Family pictures showing generations of dirndl-clad, leather-trousered Tyroleans
embellish the restaurant’s walls, and a ceramictiled stove by the door awaits winter. We tried a variety
of Günther’s creations, beginning with speckknödelsuppe, a traditional beef broth surrounding a speck-fl
ecked dumpling; “ravioli” made of potato, fi lled with chanterelles and sprinkled with parmigiano and
parsley; and roasted potatoes with a marvelously light fresh-cabbage salad spiked with speck and
caraway seeds. A st. magdalener classico, made just downhill from Signat with vernatsch and lagrein
grapes, accompanied dinner. Joergl, who was exactly the age Traudl was when we fi rst found her in
Meran, fi lled me in on family history and on Dr. Karl Tinzl’s tumultuous career. He was elected to the
Italian Parliament in 1921 and not again until 1954; jailed from time to time (“Father always told us not
to worry. He was happiest when they treated him badly, and in jail he had no decisions to make”); and
listed by the Nazis for execution as the Th ird Reich unraveled. The next day, Saturday, was market day
in Bozen, and by early morning the elegant Laubengasse, the porticoed shopping promenade at the
center of town, was crowded with shoppers. At the Obstmarkt (Fruit Market), the hub of all the activity,
I met my cousin Kira, Joergl’s daughter, and her husband, Tomas, for a stroll around town and a glass or
two of local pinot grigio at the popular outdoor Fischbänke on Streitergasse, a former fi shmonger’s
shop converted into a street tavern. Joergl and his wife, Moni, joined me later for lunch near Mittelberg,
above Bozen, at an inn called Pfoshof, where a bowlful of delicate, porcini-fi lled ravioli with parmigiano,
chives, and splashes of thick balsamic vinegar off ered proof positive that I was still in Italy. Later, in
Meran, I was less sure when I found myself in the middle of a Schützenfest, where squads of fi refi
ghters and home guardsmen dressed in lederhosen and plumed Tyrolean hats all fully surrendered to a
tuba-dominated brass band, steins of beer, and general hilarity. A day later, I had a rendezvous with
Monika Hellrigl at Vögele, the city’s oldest and most famous tavern, where we feasted on wild boar with
red wine sauce and polenta. Monika is the daughter of the late Andrea Hellrigl, a masterly chef who
once ran an elegant small hotel in Meran called Villa Mozart and then moved to New York City to be
chef at the upscale (now defunct) Palio, where he was rechristened Andrea da Merano (which sounded
a lot more Italian to American ears than Hellrigl did). Over a meal a few hours later at the Figl, Monika
told me how the present South Tyrol autonomy statute ensured that both Italian and German language
and culture were respected in the region, and she explained the key role that Karl Tinzl had played in
writing the original document. “Curiously,” she noted, “the cooking of the South Tyrol perfectly
expresses this cultural cohabitation, a Germanic foundation with Latin fi nesse: a counterpoint of
dumplings and parmigiano.” The next morning Joergl invited me to meet him at Schloss Schöneck, a
12th-century castle he owns near Pfalzen, an hour north of Bozen. After a tour through the ramparts,
rooms, and chapel of that sprawling hilltop fortress, which Joergl has been restoring over the past 20
years, we descended to the Schön eck restaurant, below its walls, where the proprietors—Karl
Baumgartner; his wife, Mary; and his brother, Siegfried—greeted us with a demonstration of the ways in
which Südtirolean cuisine, for all its Teutonic dumplings, may off er tastes and textures as refi ned as any
southern European chef can turn out. First we had bauchspeck, mountaincured pork belly lightly
smoked in birch. Next came dark carob-flour ravioli filled with almkäse (cows’ milk cheese made by
Karl’s brother Hansi, a famed cheese maker from Brixen), followed by fragrant wood pigeon on red
onions with a sauce made from balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, red wine must, and wild cranberries. The
sweet closing argument was fritelle di mele, thick slices of batter-fried apple rolled in sugar and
cinnamon, sprinkled with mint, and served with an aromatic cranberry compote. Th e following day
Joergl took me to another 12th-century castle, Schloss Rubein, this one located a hundred yards from
the Semler house in Meran. The castle, which is the preserve of an old friend of Joergl’s, Gräfin
(Countess) Eliane du Parc–von Holz schuler, contains a second-fl oor loggia with a 15th-century chapel
and a hall with overhead frescoes by Bartholomäus Riemenschneider. After a walk along the Passer
(Passirio) River, we passed the 13th-century Sankt Georgenkirche, stopping to listen as a lovely Bach
cantata poured forth from the choir loft. Dinner up in Schenna at the Th urnerhof featured a simple filet
mignon smothered in porcini with six perfect potato croquettes and a Th urnerhofbrett’l— a board of
speck, prosciutto, sausage, and cheese. Also on hand were several bottles of Muri-Gries Riserva Abtei
Lagrein 1991, tasting of chocolatey minerals and berries, made by Swiss monks near Bozen and widely
considered the Südtirol’s finest bottle of wine. On the l ast day, we met at the Stadlerhof for a family
lunch prepared by Moni and Kira. Joergl showed us his wine cellar and then the garden, its grape arbor
heavy with lagrein and vernatsch grapes. Eventually we got to the meal, which included spinach gnocchi,
cheese gnocchi, and a schlachtplatte, “butcher’s platter” or “slaughter platter” (in reference to the
annual pig killing that yields several of its elements), consisting of pork loin and chops, hauswurst (pork
sausage), sauerkraut, and potatoes. Th e wine, a red Meraner Weinkellerei Eines Fürsten Traum
Vernatsch 2004, gave Joergl a chance to teach me the Tyrolean hunters’ greeting, “Weidmannsheil!”
(“To the noble hunter!”). “These teufl isch [fiendish] wineglasses,” he added, “have leaks that allow the
wine to run down your arm and evaporate!” Upstairs were portraits of my great-great grandfather, my
great-grandfather and his brother Ernst, and my grandfather Ralph and his brother George Herbert as
fourand five-year-olds—some century and a half of us in all, the rows of faces as familiar to me as my
own or those of my father, George, or uncle Ralph. I wished them all a “Weidmannsheil!”.
THE GUIDE SÜDTIROL. Country code: 39 Exchange rate: 1 euro = $1.30 Dinner with drinks, tax, and tip:
Expensive Over $50 Moderate $25–$50 Inexpensive Under $25. WHERE TO STAY HOTEL FIGL Kornplatz
9, Bozen (0471/978412; www.fi gl .net). Rates: $128–$140 double. The Mayr family’s friendly and simple
22-room hotel in the middle of Bozen has been modernized with sleek, minimalist materials (mostly
glass and wood). PARKHOTEL LAURIN Laurinstrasse 4, Bozen (0471/311000; www.laurin.it). Rates: $211–
$301 double. Th is elegant hotel has 96 comfortable rooms, and the hotel bar and café (moderate) is
one of Bozen’s most popular meeting spots. SCHLOSS RUBEIN Christomannostrasse 38, Meran
(0473/231894; www.rubein .com). Rate: $256 double. Countess Eliane du Parc–von Holzchuler’s 12th-
century castle has been home over the centuries to many illustrious Südtirol families. With a private
chapel and stunning Riemen schneider frescoes in the loggia, the place off ers a splendid taste of a time
long past. WHERE TO EAT PFOSHOF Oberlengmoos 5, Ritten (0471/356723). Inexpensive. Jakob and
Monika Gamper run this 19th-century Gasthof, serving such pure Südtirolean specialties as porcini-fi lled
ravioli. Th e hike from the Lengmoos out to Mittelberg and the Erdpyramiden—“earth pyramids” caused
by erosion—is the perfect pre- or post-prandial trek. RESTAURANT SCHÖNECK Schloss-Schöneck-Strasse
11, Kiens (0474/565550; www .schoeneck.it). Expensive. Th is establishment, located near Schöneck
castle, serves some of the most refi ned cuisine in the area. Chef Karl Baumgartner’s specialties include
birchsmoked speck and game dishes in the Südtirol style. THURNERHOF Verdinserstrasse 26, Schenna
(0473/945702; www.thurnerhof-schenna.com). Moderate. This classic Wirtshaus (tavern) serves fine
regional fare. Don’t miss the Thurnerhofbrett’l, a spread of cured meats and cheese. VÖGELE
Goethestrasse 3, Bozen (0471/973938; www.voegele.it). Moderate. Bozen’s most famous and
traditional dining haunt serves excellent Alpine fare with Italian hints, such as wild game and various
types of ravioli and gnocchi. WHERE TO STAY AND EAT HOTEL ELEPHANT Weisslahn strasse 4, Brixen
(0472/ 832750; www.hotelelephant .com). Rates: $90–$136 double. A famous South Tyrolean
institution dating from 1449, this 43-room gem has wonderfully creaky fl oors, a stately bar, and three
dining rooms (expensive) serving fi ne cuisine. PARKHOTEL HOLZ NER Oberbozen, Ritten (0471/345231;
www.parkhotel-holzner.com). Rates: $95–$125 double. Th e Holzner family’s Alpiner Jugendstil (Art
Nouveau) clubhouse may be the best place to stay in or around Bozen. Th e dining room (expensive)
offers fi ne food, including black tagliolini with leeks, shrimp, and saffron sauce and filet of venison.
SIGNATERHOF Signat 166, Signat (0471/365353). Rate: $80 double. Günther and Erika Lobiser’s
comfortable inn, overlooking Bozen from the southern face of the Ritten (the high plateau above
Bozen), off ers excellent Alpine cuisine (moderate) in a family atmosphere of good taste and simplicity.
Speckknödelsuppe (Tyrolean bacon–dumpling soup) is a specialty.
RECIPE Spinatnocken und Topfennocken (Spinach and Cheese Gnocchi). SERVES 4. This dish is an
adaptation of one made by Kira Tinzl. Resist the urge to stir the gnocchi while they simmer in the pot,
lest they fall apart. 11 /2 lbs. stemmed spinach leaves (from about 2 large bunches), washed, drained
briefl y 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. butter, softened 1 small yellow onion, fi nely chopped 1 clove garlic, fi nely
chopped 2 cups plus 2 tbsp. ricotta, drained for 1 hour through a fi ne sieve 11 /2 cup plus 2 tbsp. fl our
3/4 cup fi nely grated parmigiano-reggiano 4 eggs, lightly beaten 1 egg yolk Freshly grated nutmeg Salt
and freshly ground black pepper 11 /2 cups fresh white bread crumbs 1 tbsp. chopped fl at-leaf parsley
1. For thes pinach gnocchi: Wilts pinachin 2 batches in a large skillet over medium-high heat, turning
often,11 /2 minutes per batch.Drain. Squeeze liquid fromspinach; finely chop. Heat 2 tbsp. butter
inskillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic; cook until softened, about 6 minutes. Add spinach,
reduce heatto medium-low, and cook, stirring often, until most ofthe liquid has evaporated, 16–18
minutes. Transfer mixture to a bowl; let cool. Add 1/2 cupflour, 14 tbsp. Of the ricotta, 1/2
cupparmigiano, 2 eggs, yolk, pinch of nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste; mix well. Cover; refrigerate
for 2 hours. 2. For the ricotta gnocchi: Beat together the additional remaining ricotta, 3 tbsp. butter,
remaining eggs, pinch of nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl. Stir in bread crumbs and 2
tbsp. flour. Cover; refrigerate for 2 hours. 3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil; reduce heatto a
gentle simmer. Put remaining flour into a bowl. Using 2 soup spoons, form ricotta mixture into 16 small-
football-shaped gnocchi and roll gently in flour to coat; drop in water and simmer until cooked through,
16–18 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer gnocchi to a plate. Form spinach mixture the same way
(without rolling in flour); simmer for 16–18 minutes (do not stir). Transfer spinach gnocchi to plate. 4.
Divide gnocchi between 4 plates. Cook remaining butter in a skillet over medium-high heat until light
brown, 3–4 minutes. Pour over gnocchi; sprinkle with remaining parmigiano and parsley.
RECIPE Speckknödelsuppe (Tyrolean Bacon–Dumpling Soup). SERVES 8. This is an adaptation of a dish
served at the Signaterhof, in the town of Signat. 11 /2 cups warm milk 6 tbsp. chopped fl at-leaf parsley
3 eggs 1 cup fi nely chopped speck (Tyrolean bacon, about 5 oz.; see page 102) 3 stale white bread rolls
(about 1 /2 lb.), cut into 1 /4” cubes 3 tbsp. butter 1 medium yellow onion, fi nely chopped 1 /2 cup fl
our Salt 8 cups beef broth 1. Whisk together milk, 2 tbsp. of the parsley, and eggs in a large bowl. Add
speck and bread;toss to combine. Let moisten for 30 minutes. 2. Heat butter in a skillet over medium
heat. Add onions; cook until softened,8–10 minutes. Transfer to bread mixture. Mix in flour and salt to
taste. 3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over medium-high heat. Using your hands, form bread
mixture into 8 large dumplings. Drop into water; simmer until cooked through, about 20 minutes. 4.
Meanwhile, bring broth to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Using a slotted spoon, divide dumplings
between bowls. Ladle broth into bowls and garnish generously with remaining parsley.
RECIPE Wildschwein in Rotwein Sosse mit Polenta (Wild Boar and Soft Polenta with Wine Sauce). SERVES
4. This is a version of a dish served at Vögele, a famous tavern in Bozen that is housed in a 13th-century
building, which once lodged such celebrated guests as J. W. von Goethe. 6 tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. fi nely
chopped rosemary leaves 2 cloves garlic, fi nely chopped Salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 4-oz.
wild boar loin steaks, each about 11 /2” thick (see page 102) 1/4 cup red wine 1 /2 cup veal stock 11 /2
tbsp. raspberry jam 4 tbsp. cold butter, cubed 21 /2 cups milk 3/4 cup fi ne polenta 1. Put 2 tbsp. of the
oil, rosemary, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste in a shallow dish; stir to combine. Add steaks, turn to
coat each piece, and arrange in a single layer. Cover dish with plastic wrap and let marinate at room
temperature for 2 hours. 2. Heat 2 tbsp. oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add steaks and cook,
turning once, until browned and medium rare, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate to let rest;
cover loosely with foil.Discard oil and place skillet over medium heat (wipe out skillet if drippings have
burned). Add wine and cook until reduced by half, about 1 minute. Add stock and jam and cook,
whisking occasionally, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add 2 tbsp. butter, a few
cubes at a time, whisking constantly, to form a smooth sauce. Return skillet to heat and cook until just
thickened, about 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Keep sauce warm. 3. Combine
remaining oil, 21 /2 cups water, and milk in a medium pot; bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to
medium-low and add polenta in a steady stream while whisking constantly. Cook, stirring occasionally,
until thickened and soft, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in remaining butter, and season with
salt and pepper to taste. 4. Spoon polenta onto the center of each of 4 plates. Cut each steak on a slight
bias lengthwise into 1 /3”-thick slices; arrange over polenta. Spoon sauce over boar slices.
RECIPE Kartoffelteigtaschen mit Pfifferlingen (Potato Ravioli with Chanterelle Mushrooms). SERVES 4.
These delicious ravioli get their gently chewy consistency from a dough that’s made of boiled potatoes.
FOR THE FILLING: 1 tbsp. olive oil 1 /2 small yellow onion, fi nely chopped 1 clove garlic, fi nely chopped
1 /2 cup trimmed, fi nely chopped chanterelles (about 2 oz.) Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp.
fi nely chopped fl at-leaf parsley FOR THE PASTA: 2–3 russet potatoes (2 lbs.), peeled and cut into 2”
chunks Salt 11 /2 cups “00” fl our (see page 102) 1 tsp. sweet wine, such as moscato 4 egg yolks 2 tbsp.
olive oil 1 /2 lb. chanterelles, trimmed, larger ones torn into small pieces Salt and freshly ground black
pepper 4 tbsp. butter 1 /4 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano 1 /4 cup small sprigs fl at-leaf parsley 1. For
the filling: Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring often,
until softened, 3–4 minutes. Add chanterelles and salt and pepper to taste and cook until softened,
about 5 minutes. Stir in parsley and transfer mixture to a bowl; set aside. 2. For the pasta: Put potatoes
into a large pot, cover with salted water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low
and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain potatoes, return to pot, and dry slightly over medium-
low heat, 4–5 minutes. Press potatoes through a potato ricer onto a large parchment paper–lined sheet
pan in a single layer; let cool. 3. Put potatoes, flour, wine, yolks, and salt to taste into a large bowl;
gently mix into a soft dough. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; divide into 2 balls. Cover 1
ball with plastic wrap; refrigerate. Roll out remaining dough into a 10” x 14” rectangle; cut in half
crosswise. Spoon some of the filling in 10 small mounds (1 generous tsp. each) on half the dough,
keeping them spaced about 2” apart. Run a moistened finger around each mound to form a 2” square.
Lay other half of rolled-out dough over mounds; press down in between mounds to seal ravioli. Using a
ravioli cutter or a sharp knife, cut dough into ten 2”-square ravioli. Transfer to a lightly floured sheet
pan. Repeat with remaining dough and filling. 4. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over medium-
high heat. Gently drop in ravioli and simmer until floating and cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chanterelles, season with salt and pepper
to taste, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer chanterelles to a bowl. Return skillet to
heat, add butter, and cook until light brown, 3–4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer ravioli to 4
plates. Top with mushrooms and parmigiano and drizzle with brown butter. Sprinkle with parsley.
RECIPE Tiroler Schlachtplatte (Tyrolean Butcher’s Platter). SERVES 6. Schlachten means to slaughter in
German. This “slaughter platter”, with its sausages and cuts of pork, is traditionally made when a hog is
killed and butchered. 6 tbsp. butter 6 bratwursts (about 11 /4 lbs.) 1 medium yellow onion, chopped 2
lbs. sauerkraut, drained and rinsed 4 cups beef broth 2 cups white wine 2 tbsp. yellow mustard seeds
11 /2 tbsp. juniper berries, crushed 2 dried bay leaves Salt and freshly ground black pepper 6 pork blade
chops (about 6 lbs.) 11 /2 lbs. pork loin 12 small yukon gold potatoes, peeled 2 tbsp. chopped fl at-leaf
parsley 2 tbsp. chopped chives Dijon mustard 1. Heat 2 tbsp. butter in a large pot over mediumhigh
heat. Add bratwursts and cook, turning occasionally, until well browned on all sides, about 6 minutes.
Transfer bratwursts to a plate and set aside (wipe out pot if drippings have burned.) Return pot to
medium-high heat and heat 2 tbsp. butter. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly
browned, 6–8 minutes. Stir in sauerkraut, broth, wine, mustard seeds, juniper berries, bay leaves, and
salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, covered, for 30
minutes. 2. Increase heat to medium-high; nestle chops and loin in sauerkraut. Bring to a boil; reduce
heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Return bratwursts to pot and cook, covered,
rearranging meat occasionally, until all meat is cooked through and just tender, 45–50 minutes. 3.
Meanwhile, put potatoes into a medium pot and cover with salted water; bring to a boil over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, about 8–10 minutes. Drain, leaving 2 tbsp.
cooking liquid in pot. Add potatoes, remaining butter, 1 tsp. parsley, and salt and pepper to taste and
gently toss to combine. 4. To serve: Remove pork loin from pot, transfer to a carving board, and carve
into 1 /4”-thick slices. Divide loin, bratwursts, blade chops, and potatoes between 6 plates. Drain
sauerkraut and divide between plates. Garnish with remaining parsley and chives. Serve with mustard
on the side.
RECIPE Fritelle di Mele alla Cannella con Composta di Mirtilli Rossi (Cinnamon Apple Fritters with
Cranberry Compote). SERVES 4. These fritters, a version of those served at Schöneck, are essentially
Südtirol-style apple doughnuts. FOR THE CRANBERRY COMPOTE: 1 /4 lb. fresh or frozen cranberries
(about 1 cup) 1 /4 cup sugar 11 /2 tsp. kirsch FOR THE CINNAMON APPLE FRITTERS: 2 granny smith
apples 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice 1 cup fl our 1 cup light beer 1 tbsp. canola oil 1 /2 tsp. vanilla sugar (see
page 102) 2 egg yolks 2 egg whites Pinch of salt 1 tbsp. granulated sugar 1 cup granulated sugar 1 tbsp.
ground cinnamon Canola oil for frying 2 tsp. chopped mint. 1. For the cranberry compote: Put
cranberries, sugar, and 2 tbsp. water into a small pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat
to medium-low and simmer, stirring often, until cranberries have begun to soften and split, 8–10
minutes. Remove from heat; stir in kirsch. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool. 2. For the cinnamon
apple fritters: Peel and core apples; cut each crosswise into 9 slices. Transfer slices to a medium bowl
and toss with lemon juice; set aside. Whisk together flour and beer in a medium bowl. Add oil, vanilla
sugar, and yolks; stir to make a batter. Put egg whites and saltinto a medium bowl and beat until stiff
peaks form. Add granulated sugar and gently whisk to combine. Gently fold egg whites into batter. 3. To
assemble: Stir sugar and cinnamon together in a medium bowl; set aside. Pour oil into a large pot to a
depth of 2” and heat over medium-high heat until a deep-fry thermometer registers 350°. Working in
batches and using a fork, dip each apple slice in batter, shake off excess, and fry until golden brown on
all sides, 4–5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer fritters to a paper towel–lined plate; let drain
briefly. Toss fritters in sugar mixture to coat. Divide fritters between 4 plates. Spoon a little compote
onto each plate and sprinkle with mint. Serve immediately.

KITCHEN Techniques and Discoveries from Our Editors and Recipe Testers.
Comfort Toast. My maternal grandmother, Evelyn Jones, had a knack for making a little bit of meat go a
long way. That talent proved particularly useful when my grandfather William (below, right) returned
home to Florida after World War II. While serving in the navy, he developed a fondness for creamed
chipped beef on toast (see recipe, page 20), also known among servicemen as “shit on a shingle”. To
satisfy his cravings, my grandmother regularly made creamed chipped beef, but instead of calling it by
its dysphemism she created her own term: “apcray on apcray” (pseudo pig Latin for crap on crap). As
she broadened her repertoire so that it included other creamed proteins, like chicken or tuna (below,
left)—a favorite of mine from the time I was little—those variations were also referred to by the same
designation. To this day my mother carries on the apcray on apcray tradition, and so do I. Not only are
these creamed dishes economical, comforting, and really delicious; they would, I think, make my
grandfather proud. —Liz Pearson.
RECIPE Apcray on Apcray (Creamed Tuna on Toast). SERVES 4. To feed a larger crowd, Evelyn Jones often
expanded a version of this recipe with more white sauce or vegetables. She also sometimes substituted
boiled chicken for the tuna. 1 tbsp. butter 1 small white onion, fi nely chopped 1 rib celery, fi nely
chopped Salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 cups milk 1 /4 cup flour 2 cups frozen green peas 1 6-oz.
can water-packed tuna, drained 2 tbsp. drained, chopped pimientos 1 /4 tsp. poultry seasoning 2 hard-
boiled eggs, fi nely chopped 8 pieces sandwich bread, preferably whole wheat, toasted 1. Heat butter in
a medium pot over medium heat. Add onions, celery, and salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring
occasionally, until softened, about 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside. 2. Add milk to
pot, whisk in fl our, and bring to a boil, whisking occasionally, over mediumhigh heat. Reduce heat to
medium-low and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, 6–8 minutes. Return onion mixture to the pot
along with the peas, tuna, pimientos, poultry seasoning, eggs, and salt and pepper to taste and stir to
combine. Cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened and heated through, 8–10 minutes. Ladle
creamed tuna over toast and serve immediately.

Golden Treat When researching our pineapple feature (see page 74), we heard about one recipe that we
had to try: for oven-dried spicy pineapple snacks (below). Created by pastry chef Pichet Ong for his new
Manhattan restaurant PONG, it involves tossing oven-dried pineapple chunks with flaky sea salt, chiles,
and lime zest. The interplay of ingredients is tantalizing, but the pineapple’s semidry flesh is what makes
the dish irresistible: it’s chewy, vaguely juicy, and bursting with flavor. —Sophie von Haselberg.
A Leg Up. Por k hock s—whether smoked, which makes them ham hocks (below, left), or fresh (below,
right)—add soul to many dishes, often transforming mundane ingredients into something special. They
do just that in such Southern staples as hoppin’ john and stewed mustard greens; ditto for the
Vietnamese noodle soup called bún bò huê´ (see page 48). In that dish, fresh hocks, sliced crosswise into
round disks, lend flavor and body to the broth and are great to nibble on as well. But what are pork
hocks, exactly? Investigating the matter, we learned that they’re just cross sections of a hog’s leg, cut
from either at or just above the knee joint on the front leg or at or just above the hock joint on the back
leg. However you slice them, pork hocks—consisting of skin, bone, meat, collagen, and fat—are the
epitome of pork. —Todd Coleman.
RECIPE Oven-Dried Spicy Pineapple Snacks. MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS. This Southeast Asian combination of
sweet, salty, spicy, and tart flavors makes a great cocktail snack. You may also leave the pineapple
overnight in a gas oven, turned off; the heat from the pilot light will dry the fruit. 2 ripe pineapples,
peeled, cored, and cut into 3⁄4”–1” chunks (see page 79) 1 ⁄4 cup demerara sugar 2 tsp. sea salt,
preferably Maldon 1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg 2 thai chiles, stemmed, seeded, and fi nely chopped Zest
from 2 limes 1. Preheat oven to 225°. Divide pineapple chunks between 2 large baking sheets and
spread out in a single layer. Bake, rotating pans and flipping pineapple chunks halfway through, until
chunks are light golden brown and dried around the edges but still juicy in the center, about 41 ⁄2 hours.
Transfer pans to a cooling rack; let pineapple cool to room temperature. 2. Put sugar, salt, nutmeg,
chiles, and zest into a medium bowl and stir to combine. Add pineapple and toss to coat. Transfer to a
serving bowl and serve immediately.