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CHAINLETTER #3 - November 1st, 1999
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The biweekly newsletter of Food Chain,
delivering organic meals by bicycle
to busy San Franciscans.
http://www.food-chain.net

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CONTENTS:

1. EDITORIAL: X-Rated Home Cooking
2. RECIPES: Dried Fava Beans with Oregano
3. AT MARKET: Proliferating Pomegranates
4. FOOD CHAIN NEWS: Valet Bike Parking
5. MEALS YOU'VE MISSED
6. SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE

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EDITORIAL: X-Rated Home Cooking

If you have ever bought a cookbook, let's
suppose a Chinese one, hoping to duplicate
your favorite restaurant dishes, then you
have probably been disappointed to find that
the recipes don't match up to the Ma Po Tofu
or Hot and Sour Soup you dreamed of making
nightly.

That is partly because the menus of "ethnic"
restaurants (as if Europeans and
Euro-Americans have no ethnicity?) have been
standardized to American palates, and partly
because restaurants have a repertoire based
on the Royal food tradition while most
cookbooks keep it simple for those of us who
don't have our own wood-fired ovens and
kitchen staff. Restaurant equals royal food,
cookbook equals peasant food.

The great cuisines of the world developed in
countries with temperate climates, good soil,
contact with trade from different cultures,
and Royalty. Before there were restaurants -- a
nineteenth century invention -- the only people
who solely prepared elaborate food for others
worked for the very rich. Before
industrialization, the very rich were mostly
royals.

French food is a familiar example, who else
but someone with a lot of time on their hands
and a mandate from Louis or Charles to create
ever-more-elaborate dishes would have thought
to force-feed a goose until it was so bloated
that flight was a mere memory, then cut out
its overstuffed liver and grind it up with
spices and herbs and call it "goose liver
dip"? Julia Child says, "...pate is a
dressed-up meat loaf - why not give it a
try," - but some chef in a castle kitchen had
the time and decadence to come up with pate
de foie gras in the first place.

You can bet that Thai kings and princes who
were believed to possess the virtue of all
their people and often in history to be
incarnations of Shiva and other Buddhist
divinity, ate really well. Go to any Thai
restaurant today and you'll see Pad Thai, the
ubiquitous national noodle dish, imported and
reworked from Chinese noodle-based cuisines
to the north. You'll get fragrant, delicate,
and extremely hot curries from India to the
west, and from Malaysia to the south you can
try out the heavy, dense, peanutty Mussamun
curry, literally "Muslim-style."

Dazzled, perhaps, by multilayered, many-hued
towers of food, by mousses and foams and
aspics and little forks for the escargot, by
warm lemon-scented towelettes and glamorous
menus and desserts named "Death by
Chocolate," and radishes cut to look like
roses, I grew up believing,in spite of
information from my palate and heart to the
contrary,that restaurant food was superior to
its home-cooked cousin with the obvious
ingredients, stultifying regularity, and
trail of dirty dishes.

But my bedside reading this week has been a
cookbook (yes, I read cookbooks,just as the
billionaires of today were called nerds
fifteen years ago for reading Byte magazine,
I too will have my revenge) that is changing
my mind.

Unplugged Kitchen by Viana la Place is a
reflection on simple food bordering on erotic
idolatry. This woman gets off on rubbing a
young, tender, moist clove of garlic over the
rough surface of grilled bread, and I held my
breath and had a fitful night's sleep after
reading her instructions for eating Dried
Fava Beans with Oregano:

"To savor this dish to its fullest, you must
eat the fava beans one by one, squeezing out
the soft cream inside into your mouth, then
sucking the skins until they are completely
empty. The final picture is dark, chalk-brown
fava skins, emptied of flesh, lying in small
heaps in bowls that have been wiped clean
with honest bread."

I never realized that good home-cooked food
might need a rating.

Stefan Lynch
Food Chain Chef/Cyclist

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RECIPE: Dried Fava Beans with Oregano

Had to do it. Remember to follow the eating
instructions above.

1 lb. (apx two cups) dried fava beans (if you
shop at Rainbow, they are in an elevated bin
on the outside end of the bulk beans aisle)
8 cups spring water
6 tablespoons organic extra-virgin olive oil
8 cloves organic garlic, peeled and crushed
3 heaping tbs.. Mediterranean oregano (also
called Greek oregano)
sea salt
black pepper

Soak the beans overnight in a large bowl with
water to cover by 2-3 inches.

with a small knife, cut away the dark band
across one side of each bean.

In a soup pot, combine the favas and
everything else and simmer for about an hour
or until the broth has thickened and is
darkly flavored, and beans are meltingly
tender inside.

Ladle beans and some broth into bowls and
serve with bread and a lover for soaking up
the juices.

Adapted from Unplugged Kitchen by Viana la
Place.

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AT MARKET:

Local pomegranates, those funky fun fruits,
should be showing up really soon, Food Chain
will be featuring them in some upcoming
meals.

All the squashes are here, make sure to break
out of the pumpkin-butternut-acorn triad and
try some kabocha or red kuri.

Sweet potatoes, beets, and all the good
winter greens (kale, swiss chard) are also at
hand.

You should stop buying corn, eggplant and
most peppers because these can't really be
grown locally at this time of year. They're
all worth the wait until June when local
crops will be sweet and succulent.

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FOOD CHAIN NEWS:

We catered the opening of the new Bike
Station at the Downtown Berkeley BART last
week. This free valet bike-parking service
run by the Bicycle Friendly Berkeley
Coalition is modeled after a few others in
the state where you can ride your bike to the
train and know that it will be in safe hands.
Great idea.

Orders for Food Chain meals can be placed at
http://www.food-chain.net/orders

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WHAT MEALS YOU'VE MISSED:

If you weren't a Food Chain customer the last
two weeks, some of the meals you missed were:

First Fall Broccoli Salad with Soy-Lime
Vinaigrette.
Seitan In Mushroom Port Cream Sauce
Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Shredded
Broccoli Greens
Chocolate Rum Cake

Carrot Couscous Currant Cumin Salad
Curried Butternut Squash Soup
Moroccan Potato Casserole
African Mandazi in Vanilla Orange Sauce

Mesclun Salad with Broccoli and Roasted
Peppers in a Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette
Shiitake Pot Pie with Polenta Crust
Hazelnut Apple Crisp
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