In Defense of Offal

You may have thought I was joking in my last post about digging in to a steaming bowl of spinal cord. While I do admit to using the line for the sake of humor, the truth is, I would be more than happy to chow down on such a rare dish if I were confidant that it was well prepared. 

You may or may not know that traditionally, the Chinese diet includes all edible or nutrient carrying parts of an animal. This would include all organs, facial parts, tendons, and genitalia. Of course, the majority of North Americans out there, as well as a growing number of younger Chinese, find this concept 'weird' or 'gross'. This 'civilized' segment of the world, is nauseated at the idea of eating an animal's ear, nose, spleen, or tendon. To them, the only reasonable part of an animal to consume is a thin slice of muscle, cut into some sort of nice rectangular shape, or reduced further into little cubes or strips. They must have their meat dressed to appear like anything but what it is: a piece of dead animal.

Of course, anyone who eats bologna or hot dogs--which is pretty much everyone in the aforementioned group--consumes the majority of these animal parts as well, but they are either unaware of this fact or prefer not to know. Perhaps they imagine that Oscar Mayer harvests its famous product from the wiener tree, or that McNuggets are simply formed from some extra tender cut of chicken breast. To me, it is a very simple matter of accepting what these processed foods are made of, realizing they taste good, putting two and two together and saying, hey, these animal parts must taste pretty good too. I see it is as part of the process of maturing as a human being, of opening oneself up to new experiences--much like traveling to unfamiliar places, or reading books about unfamiliar topics. When I was five years old I thought green pepper was disgusting, but I tried it again and eventually I grew to like it. The same goes for alcohol, strong cheeses, fatty meats, and yes, organs. It's all good.

There are those who refuse to accept as valid, what is foreign to their experience. The diets of such people, are guided by what their families prepared when they were children, just as their values and ideas about the world are primarily guided by what they heard at the dinner table. I try not to be judgmental about how others live their lives, and I have been guilty in the past of the sins I now accuse others of. As long as you're not Jeffrey Daumer, I don't really care what you eat. But when I hear words like 'gross', 'weird' or 'disgusting' directed at the diets of other cultures (as I often do, living here in Taiwan), I can't help but get my back up. It is a subtle way of claiming that these cultures are somehow less civilized than one's own. 

I see the opposite as true. If one is to eat meat, and actually considered this choice philosophically, it seems the honorable and reasonable thing to do is to eat all parts of the animal. Furthermore, one should be able to kill an animal and cut it up. Rather than seeing this as a disgusting chore, it should be seen as respecting what the animal was when it was alive. If one cannot do any of the above, isn't there a certain amount of hypocrisy at work?

So as promised, here it is, the recipe for spinal cord soup. Copied from healthy-chinese-recipe.com:

Spinal Cord with Lotus Seed Soup
 [with obvious grammatical errors corrected]

Ingredients:
500g pig spine (mainly eat the spinal cord)
250g lotus seed
1 tsp salt
Procedure:
1. Clean pig's spine (be careful don't let the spinal cord come out).
2. Marinate lotus seeds in warm water for 30mins.
3. Add the above 2 materials in a casserole dish, add 1000g water.
4. Cook 2 hours at low heat.
5. Add salt to taste, serve
Serving Method: Drink soup, eat lotus and spinal cord (some will come out after cooking) and drink the soup. A cup of soup with spinal cord inside and 30g lotus seeds per serving. Serve as side dish at lunch. 2 times a week. 4-8 times will see the effect.
Benefical Function: Nourish blood and tonic kidney. Suitable for spermatorrhea, paleness, weak limbs and fatigue, waist and knees soreness and sore muscles.



 This recipe comes from a Chinese health site , and was listed primarily as a remedy for Spermatorrhea. If you are unfamiliar with the term, as I myself was five minutes ago, it means involuntary ejaculation; also known as cumming-in-your-pants. Happily, this is not a problem of mine, but if it is for you, treat yourself to a nice big bowl of spine soup. You might even like it.

The Great Debate on Yankee Brains and Spinal Cords

Whoops, I guess we haven't mentioned anything to do with Taiwan in about 30 posts. How about this from an article in the October 28th edition of the Taipei Times:

Source: Taipei Times

Under the terms of the new accord, US bone-in beef, ground beef, intestines, brains, spinal cords and processed beef from cattle younger than 30 months that have not been contaminated with “specific risk materials” will be allowed to enter Taiwan starting on Nov. 10.

At present, Taiwan allows imports of US boneless beef from cattle younger than 30 months that do not contain “specific risk materials.”

[Taiwan (AIT) Director William Stanton] said yesterday that 1,034 people out of 23 million Taiwanese lost their lives in scooter accidents last year.

“So when you look at the risk, statistically, [in contrast to] no cases of mad cow disease [reported in the US], well, one might conclude that one should stop driving motor scooters because of the risk [of the accidents],” he said.'

Of course I'm excited to be able to once again tuck into a nice steaming bowl of Yankee spinal cord (recipe to follow). But in truth, I take no stand on the matter of whether to allow these products into Taiwan or not. I tend not to consider my risk of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease when I eat a hamburger. Clearly, the vast majority of those protesting the import of these products have some economic stake in keeping them out, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt. I also have no doubt that Taiwanese beef, in one way or another, poses equal or greater risks to my health than its American counterpart. What I find interesting in the article though, is the rhetorical idiocy of the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), William Stanton. Check out his air-tight logic that people die on scooters, and Taiwan doesn't ban them, so what business do they have banning American brains and spinal cords.

Ya right, cow brains and scooters ... pretty much the same thing. Guess we'd better let them in. Of course he could have extended his arguments to cars and roads in general, which are also the cause of multiple deaths in the country. How about fatty foods, surely they raise the mortality rate as well. If we allow those, we'd better send in the brains. As far as that goes, since the government of Taiwan allows scooters to wreak carnage on the population, I guess there's really no argument for banning any product based on safety concerns. Let's bring back lead paint, asbestos, and all those toys from the seventies with the temptingly swallowable little pieces.

Keep in mind that AIT is the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan. And this nonsensical logic comes from the de facto American Ambassador. I'm curious as to what exactly are the qualifications for this position.  Stanton was the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in South Korea, and before that worked for the U.S. State Department in Beijing. He has only held the position of Director of AIT since March 2009. Check out this post about Stanton from The View from Taiwan and the associated article from the Taipei Times. Apparently, not only is he less than Platoesque in his logic, he has also been accused of being 'excessively pro-China' in his views. According to the unnamed sources from The Taipei Times, Stanton, during his time in Beijing, exhibited a pattern of impeding or blocking negative reports on China from being sent back to Washington.

So the questions arise, 'Who is William Stanton and why is he here?'

Cocaine Consumption by Country

In the last post, my jest concerning the cocaine consumption of Brazilians prompted me to actually check the facts. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) my flippant remark was in fact deeply erroneous. Brazilians rank far lower on the cocaine consumption scale than nearly all of the countries in South and Central America. A mere 0.4 percent of the population of Brazil between the ages of 15 and 65 use cocaine. Who do we actually find topping the charts? Those damn Yanks win again with 2.8 percent of the population. The Spaniards finish a close second with 2.7 percent. Canada once again under-achieves with a lukewarm 2.4 percent. I've had our cartographers here at the Donkey prepare the following line graph based on the data provided by UNODC.

Gastromaps: Alcohol

 It is not often we relate the subject of food with innovative cartography. But thanks to the people (or person) over at Strange Maps, I've been able to compile a nice collection of bizarre geographic representations of data laid out in gastronomical proportions. In this first installment of Gastromaps, we will limit ourselves to cartographic representations related to alcohol.

Our first map details the average number of liters of red wine drunk per capita in the countries of the world in 2006.

Luxemburg wins the race with a respectable 5.91 liters while Brazil comes in last at 0.l7 liters. The Brazilians shouldn't feel too bad about this poor showing though. They will be cheered to know that they came first in per capita cocaine consumption. Various line graphs are available to illustrate this point.

Next we have a map drawn up by none other than the late great Freddy Heineken (1923-2002), of the Heineken brewing empire. Heineken believed the European Union would function more smoothly were it to be divided into a series of smaller states based along the lines of ethnic homogeneity. His logic was that a larger number of smaller states (populations 5-10 million) would be more conducive to reaching balanced consensus than a small club of uber-powerful states. Obviously this proposal is merely academic and could never be implemented, but kudos to the beer billionaire for directing his energies to such lofty and abstract pursuits. I'm sure he would have been a formidable opponent on the Risk board.

Finally, you've got to love this advertisement for Absolut Vodka, depicting a redrawn map of the United States and Mexico. The map loosely depicts the borders which existed prior to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) in which the Mexicans were forced to cede nearly half of their territory. The Mexican ad campaign was eventually picked up by the American media prompting calls for a boycott of the Swedish liquor. Had to have bumped up sales south of the border though.

The Encyclopedia of Pasta

A couple of interesting articles from the net:

Retta Zanini de Vita, the 'pre-eminent Italian food historian', recently released "The Encyclopedia of Pasta". In the article, 'So you think you know pasta', Rachael Donadio from the New York Times, visits Zanini de Vita  to discuss her book. As with any subject, the history of pasta ends up being about much more than the object of inquiry. This history is a microcosm of the broader history of Italy. In it we find the influence of the Arabs in the middle ages, and the bitter regionalism from which that country was born and is still characterized by today.


Some interesting facts include ravioli being traced to the 11th Century Arab world as opposed to Liguria, as is claimed by the locals of that village. And no, Marco Polo did not introduce pasta to Italy. Pasta was spread by the Muslim conquerors of Sicily around 800 AD, 200 years before Polo's travels,

In the article, 'When Novelists Sober Up', Tom Shone from Intelligent Life, looks at alcoholic writers and their attempts to get off the sauce. A pretty astounding number of the 20th century's popular novelists battled the bottle with varying degrees of success. The list includes: Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Carver, Cheever, Bukowski (duh),  Hemingway, Leonard, Yates, Amis, and yes, even Stephen King. Apparently he was so sloshed when he banged out 'Cujo' that he doesn't remember writing it. Just as interesting as the article itself is the number of mistakes that Shone gets called out on in the comments forum. Check it out.

How Cooking Made Us Human

There are those in the world who believe that a food blog is less than a vital contribution to the world of letters. Looking down from their ivory towers, these critics view the art of culinary writing as fodder for idle hedonists--as pornography for those more concerned with satisfying their stomachs than their intellects. We at the Donkey have not escaped such criticism. Earlier this month, an editorial in The European sniffed:

The Hungry Donkeys appear content to do nothing more than mess about in the kitchen with the unseemlier aspects of food. They can be likened to two special needs infants confined to a play pen, gleefully smearing themselves with their own feces. Perhaps a little more parental supervision is called for.

We could do little more than endure these barbed attacks. We feigned indifference, but deep in our hearts, we wondered if perhaps there was a grain of truth in these assaults. Could we not be directing our efforts towards more worthy causes, such as decoding hieroglyphics or composing epic poetry?

All traces of this self-doubt were erased with the publication of 'Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human' by Richard Wrangham. Wrangham asserts that cooking is not simply one among numerous traits that are unique to the human species, but rather that cooking was the primary behavioral adaptation that spurred our evolution from Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus. Simon Ings from the Telegraph, outlines Wrangham's argument:

Good, big ideas about evolution are rare. Often they’re merely 'just so’ stories, stringing specious skeins of cause and effect over a much more complicated intellectual landscape. At first glance, Wrangham’s argument seems to have been fished from that dodgy pot. Nobody can know for sure when cooking got going because the chances are minute that anyone will ever stumble upon an ancient half-eaten spit-roast and recognise it for what it is. (That archeologists have found earth ovens more than 250,000 years old is startling enough.)
Wrangham’s task, then, is to come up with compelling evidence that the invention of cooking is the only possible explanation for the transformation that stood us on our feet, shrank our guts, gave us silly teeth and receding jawlines, and swelled our brains to their current, horrendously fuel-inefficient size. The big news – I think it is big news – is that he succeeds. Catching Fire is that rare thing, an exhilarating science book. And one that, for all its foodie topicality, means to stand the test of time.

How the tables do turn. One day, you are a scatological infant, and the next, a leading researcher, poised before the very fount of human evolution. We at the Donkey will not stoop so low though, as to take advantage of this change in intellectual climate. We would take no pleasure in ridiculing our enemies as they have ridiculed us. These lowly beasts could do nothing other than carry out their instinctual attacks; for they are simply not as evolved a species as the Hungry Donkey.

The Soft Pretzel Cometh into Being

It has been said that while cooking is an art, baking is most definitely a science. Here Richard Seiberlich proves this maxim true with his invention of the soft pretzel. Previous pretzels remained soft for a maximum of 6 hours. Through Seiberlich's experimentation, he developed the soft pretzel, which we know and love today, staying soft for no less than 12 hours. We at the Donkey salute this culinary pioneer.

Source: South Philly Review

Soft pretzel

United States Patent 3976791

Inventor: Seiberlich, Richard R. (Schaumburg, IL)
Filed: 1975

It may thus be seen that I have invented a new and novel process for producing a new and novel pretzel. The new and novel soft pretzel produced by this new and novel process will stay soft longer than any other pretzel heretofore known. The pretzel is capable of ready commercial success because it can be cooked in the morning at one production and kept warm and soft for the remaining part of the commercial day without need for constant attention or cooking.

After the mixture has been thoroughly blended for the requisite procedural conditions, the mixture is then formed into the shape of a pretzel or the like including other food shapes such as alphabetical letters. The shaping or forming can be in any known manner and would include conventional rolling and forming techniques but it is especially desirable to include that forming operation in which a continuous extrusion of the pretzel mixture is accomplished with a cross-sectional design of a pretzel or the like and then a knife or slicing blade or other such thing slices the extruded mixture, as it is extruded, to form a pretzel or the like. While the forming is intended to be in the shape of a pretzel, since a soft pretzel is the object of this invention, it is obvious that other designs, other than a classical pretzel design, may be created by the forming and it is intended to cover those other designs in which a pretzel-like taste and soft pretzel texture are desired even though the shape may not be of the conventional or classical pretzel shape.

EXAMPLE
241/2 Quarts of lukewarm water were admixed for 3 minutes with 3 pounds of cake yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) and 1 tablespoon of a mixture of vegetable mono- and diglycerides. This mixture was then mixed with 100 pounds of bromated, bleached, unenriched flour for 13 minutes. The mixture was then extruded in a pretzel shape and sliced to form pretzels. The pretzels were sprayed with a solution of sodium hydroxide and water, formed by mixing 8 ounces of 50 percent sodium hydroxide in a gallon of cold water. After the surface was coated, sodium chloride crystals were topically applied and the pretzels were frozen to -30°F. After freezing for 2 days, the pretzels were baked at 700°F. for about 31/2 minutes and produced a pretzel which remained soft greater than 12 hours.

The above example constitutes the preferred embodiment of this invention.

A Controversial Restaurant

If you want to open a restaurant with controversial items on the menu, then I would suggest naming your dishes after dead political leaders, and famous tragic happenings. Many famous dishes are named after people and places. Take your Cobb Salad, your Beef Wellington, even your Oysters Fitzpatrick. However, you want a menu for a select audience.

So we have come up with a few head-turners for you:

1. The Hot Pol Pot
2. Schindler's Bisque
3. The Fidel Three-Cheese Castrorole
4. The Hirohito Salad with Manson Family Ranch Dressing
5. The Stalingratin

You like lamb, Doc?

How about this early food rap by Scatman Crothers in 'The Shining':


"You've got fifteen rib roasts, thirty ten-pound bags of hamburger, we got twelve turkeys, about forty chickens, fifty sirloin steaks, two-dozen of pork roasts, and twenty legs of lamb." ... "You like lamb, Doc?" ... "We've got canned fruits and vegetables, canned fish and meats, hot and cold syrups, Post Toasties, Corn Flakes, Sugar Puffs, Rice Krispies, Oatmeal...and Cream of Wheat. You got a dozen jugs of black molasses, we got sixty boxes of dried milk, thirty 12-lb bags of sugar...Now we got dried peaches, dried apricots, dried raisins and dried prunes." ... How'd you like some ice cream, Doc?

Kinger's Top Choices for Food Movies

There are sex scenes that give me a palpitating sem-ster, there are moments that make me wish I could jump into the screen and throttle a character with my bare hands; and though there are not too many, a good movie or scene with food in it, is capable of making me salivate; that is, to make my mouth fill up with spit and make me want to chew and swallow, chew and swallow.

In short, here are the nominees for best films in the FOOD category.

1. Eat Drink Man Woman
2. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover
3. Like Water For Chocolate

And great films with great food scenes, I would have to go with my all time favorite: The Prison Scene in Goodfellas, the Pasgetti and Meatball Scene in Lady and The Tramp, and the scene in which Mickey Rourke feeds things to Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 Weeks was also preeety good, in that I reminisce of some of my first palpitating sem-sters as movie aficionado.

There are plenty more, no doubt. And we would be real chuffed to see some of your favorites in our comment section.

A Happy Place

 I just wanted to throw up this soothing image for anyone who was traumatized by Kinger's image for his 'Big Tuna in Little Versaille' post. Just stare at it for a couple of minutes and breathe deep.

Knifing around down on Knife Street

About a year ago, and during one of my attempts to leave Taiwan in search of a new career in the culinary arts, I decided it was time to buy some good knives. I was pretty excited--a good set of knives being something I'd always seen in the kitchens of mature and productive humans. I had been slumming around some pretty lame cutlery all my life. What I had in the way of knives were pretty low-rent utensils I'd purchased at 7-11, or else I'd discovered one or two in a box of hand-me-down articles left around one apartment or another. I had even found a knife close to a pile of garbage, from which I salvaged not only a knife, but a mug too. Cooking school or not, I had grown tired of dull and deceitful knives; their weary blades sliding off the face of an onion leaving not even a dent, yet brazenly slicing through my fingernails. Enough was enough.

Yet like any other lifestyle upgrade, you at once become the naive shopper, a kind of prey to a good salesperson, dazzled by shiny things, and you shuffle around the store secretly eying these items on display like they were an exposed nipple--ashamed as you are, you can only momentarily avert your eyes.

Basically, there are many great knife buys in Taiwan; some made locally by hand, and a whole range of German and Japanese blades ranging from around 100NTD to 6500NTD. Looking at them from the eyes of a novice, I immediately blamed such an exorbitant price discrepancy on name brands. This has worked all my life, and hence I still never got a pair of Jordan's. But once I took one of these blades in my hand, I could immediately see why it was so expensive, or 'dear' as my grandmother would say. The way it fit and balanced in my hand, the weight of it's handle, the subtle way the handle bulged out slightly to fill the recess between palm and fingers--made every other knife in the shop pale--no pekid- in comparison.

The brand I'm referring to is probably the most famous out there: Henckels of Germany. Thankfully, they have a wide range of knives in each price category. That is, the wammy-jammy high-enders are about 5-6000NTD, yet you can still get a decent cook's knife for around 1200NTD.

And this is what we're talking about; The Cook's Knife. The general all-purpose blade, referred to in slasher flicks as a 'butcher's knife.' This long triangular knife can be bought in lengths ranging from 6 to 12 inches. But in the case of buying that one good knife, size--meaning large--is not what's most important.

It's all about your hand size. And since I have small dainty little numbers, I opted for an 8 inch knife, though I was initially salivating over the 12 inch chief of knives. The second thing to consider is the weight. Do you like a heavier blade that will basically guillotine its way through onions, even when on the dull side? Or are you more like a glam guitar shredder like Yingway Malmsteen, and prefer a lighter blade? I myself like a heavier knife. I like the feeling of heavy steel in my hand, and though I look down on gun collectors, I can understand the fixation with heavy metal.

In the end, I went with a Henckels Twin-Cuisine 8 inch Cook's Knife. It is one long piece of steel, that is, the handle is steel coated with some kind of stone-like laminate. I figured this would fair well in Taiwan's humid climate. Wooden handles become petri dishes in which to grow sea monkeys and other fetid mini-lifeforms. The knife cost me 4700NTD, and I can honestly say that I've never looked back. It's like riding a good bicycle, or living in a place that has great water pressure. Once you've experienced these luxuries, you can never go back.

However, there are some other great knives out there in Taiwan for much cheaper. For one, the Japanese company Global makes a great cook's knife for around 1200NTD--if you like an extremely light knife. The handle is also of dimpled steel, grippy, and sea monkey safe. Another great knife is made by F. Dick, a German company that produces great kitchen knives, but just doesn't have the marketing buzz to charge as much as the other more popular brands. Their cook's knife will run you about 1000NTD, but that's for a 12 inch blade. I haven't seen anything of their's shorter than that. But, if this is still too much of a commitment, you can always go local. There is one "knife street" I know of in Taipei, just on the other side of the train station. Here you can find a wide array of cheaper Taiwan-made knives. They are trusty, well-priced, and most likely way better than anything you might pick up at the sevie, or if you're like me, find in the garbage.

In conclusion, my shopping experience was a good one. I got an all around knife that does everything. But like buying anything, there is a scam in knife-buying, just like anything else. There are many different kinds of blade out there; cleavers, deboners, paring knives, bread knives, fish knives, santuko blades, bird's beak paring knives, scalloped blades, and more. I would honestly say that if you do a lot of cooking, and you are in need of some knives, then a cook's knife is the best start.

There are sadly a lot of cooking students out there with a bag full of expensive knives they will never touch except to clean with their own tears. It's too bad the donkey wasn't there to tell them that a cook's knife, a paring knife, a bread knife, and a boning knife are all the blades you will ever need. And remember, the most dangerous knife is a dull knife.

Big Tuna in Little Versailles

While still yucking it up at Chuck's last post, I am once again reminded of how polarized Chuck and my views are; especially when it comes to cooking food. Perhaps it is such dichotomy that makes this donkey such a wonderful beast, and perhaps our friendship such an interesting and fulfilling one. However... Chuck boasts about only ever needing salt and pepper, as if he went mining for jellybeans one day, and presto, discovered salt, and now shops it around like Willy Loman and so many shop-vacs. I too use salt, but I also am as little afraid of spices as I am of using color in a painting.

After a balcony smoke and mini-debate on the subject of salt, pepper, and the other "superflous" spices, as Chuck so referred to them,  I challenged him to a "tuna-off." Not to say that my tuna salad sandwich is a recipe I would tattoo on my ass, like a mulit-colored peace sign, or a Canadian flag or something, but there are a few tricks I've learned over the years that have rendered my tuna so good that I almost have to remember to even use bread at all.

It is true that Spartan living is desirable to one without even a pair of spoons, as is it generally required to hit the books while in prison, yet cooking for me has always provided a certain solice and break from the complexities of life. In this sense, Sands and I are like Anne Murray and Janice Joplin, and ne'er shall the two twain. Even the most hectic and difficult of recipes immediately puts me at ease. Cooking is probably the only thing I do consistently, as I am a lazy M'er F'er. I am sometimes even too lazy to buy cigarettes, and I've often said that this may be my one hope in someday quitting the weeds.

I will say that my tuna salad recipe takes about the same time as Chuck's to make; but it is a different animal altogether. You might say that if our respective tuna salads were robots, then Chuck's would be the the old and battered R2-D2 knock-off called B.O.B. in the movie The Black Hole, while mine would most certainly be a less gay version of C3PO.

There is a town in the film Wild At Heart, called Big Tuna. In a sketchy little bungalow, we meet a menacing and foul-toothed villain named Bobby Peru. It is in this home you will find a cubby hole behind a draping red David Lynchian velvet moo-moo. Pull back the folds of drapery, and you will find a dwarf reciting a secret recipe backwards....His last words, ".eciohc si anut sihT"

Kinger's Big Tuna

prep time: 5 minutes (provided you own more than just chilled beers)

1 can tuna (drain oil, put in bowl)
1 clove garlic (minced)
1/4 white onion (minced)
1 green onion (chopped)
2 tbsp. mayonaisse
1 lemon (juiced)
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. cracked pepper
1 tbsp. pickle juice
1/2 tsp. dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. paprika

mix and put on bread and eat on plate.

The Spartan Tuna Sandwich

I woke up yesterday in a foul mood. My lack of exercise over the past year has left me feeling like a bloated slug. As I sipped my morning coffee, I determined to end this extended period of immobility and regain my former Spartan glory. I felt it would be too humiliating to head to the pool and gas out after ten slug-like lengths, so I opted for a more military regime of training that I could perform in the privacy of my own home. I made it through about five minutes of jumping jacks, twenty or so sit-ups and a few girl-style push-ups on my knees. That was it, I was done, the initial rush of euphoria at raising a sweat, soon shifted to a dull nausea. But underneath the nausea was the intense hunger of a long-dormant warrior. I felt like a grizzly that had just emerged from hibernation. I needed food. None of my usual lunchtime options appealed to me. I just couldn't do another greasy bowl of noodles, nor would I be satisfied with some poor excuse for a sandwich. I knew at once what I had to have. I needed a proper tuna sandwich--the tuna sandwich I have honed and perfected over decades.

You may assume that someone with the audacity to write a food blog would have a spacious kitchen decked out with all manner of the latest and finest modern accoutrements. You may imagine that I host grand dinner parties, whipping off a bouillabaisse with lobster tarts at the drop of a hat. You would be wrong. While I may have lost my Spartan physique, I have most definitely maintained my spartan manner of living. In a bid to reduce the complexity of my life, I have tried to own as few things as possible. I live in a bachelor suite and my kitchen consists of one sink, one gas burner, and a half-sized fridge. In the past year I have cooked exactly nothing. I own one kettle, one knife, one bowl, two cups (one for whiskey, one for tea), and a few sets of wooden chopsticks (for when they forget to throw them in the takeout bag). Basically the only thing that has entered my fridge is Asahi silver. So to produce the tuna sandwich of my dreams, I had to start from scratch. Not only did I need to buy the fish, mayo, lemons, celery, onion, lettuce and bread; I also had to produce a few tools to perform the operation. I am now the proud owner of a fork, a can opener, and a mixing bowl. I cleaned off the top of my fridge for some necessary prep space and set to work. I couldn't have been happier with the results.


The Spartan Tuna Sandwich


Prep time 5 minutes


Ingredients:
1 can solid white tuna in water

1 celery stalk
1 head baby romaine lettuce
1 jar Hellman's Mayo
1 lemon

1 white onion
1 small fresh baguette





Drain the can of tuna and throw it in a bowl. Cut the celery stalk, first lengthwise with five or six cuts, then chop finely until you've produced a small handful. Eat the remaining celery on the spot. Throw two generous forkfuls of mayo into the bowl (two heaping tablespoons). The flaw of many tuna salads is an inadequate amount of mayo and a resulting dryness. Cut the lemon in two unequal pieces about 60/40. Take the seedless small half, and squeeze all of the juice into the bowl. Mix the contents of the bowl with a fork until there are no large chunks of fish. Cut the onion in half and slice off two razor thin slices. (Whereas Goodfellas had us believing garlic should be cut in such a manner, the opposite is in fact true. Garlic should be cut relatively chunky. To quote Tony Shalhoub from the great Italian food film Big Night "you cut it too small! you no taste!!" Raw white onion is the ingredient deserving of thin slicing. Cutting it wafer-thin allows it to sweat and sweeten without cooking.) Cut the baguette in half. Spread the tuna salad on the bread--not to much and not too little. You need enough tuna to compete with the girth of the baguette, but the last things you want is tuna squeezing out the ends of the sandwich as you eat. Lay on the onion, separate it into rings and spread it evenly over the tuna salad. Throw on 5 or 6 leaves of the romaine, not just one or two. You need to feel the crunch and freshness of the veg. Close the sandwich, squish it down a bit, and enjoy. I would normally have added salt and pepper to the mix but I don't happen to own these spices and I forgot to buy them. Nonetheless, I was surprised to find nothing lacking in the spiceless version.



Variations of this standard can use green pepper mixed with or in place of the celery. A generous amount of chopped parsley is a good substitute for romaine. Toss in a few capers for some nice salty hits of flavour. Proper sour pickles in brine can also add something nice to the mix, throw on a slice or chop finely into the mix, but if you add slices hold the lettuce and switch to rye bread.



I should add that I believe the tuna melt is a farce. Cheese should go nowhere near tuna. The same goes for tomato. The fish is simply happier without this unnecessary and uncomplimentary filler.

The Growing Ambitions of the Food Police

Sellspringen by Leni Riefenstahl, circa 1930s

Perhaps you've heard that sugared beverages are now being taxed in 40 American states. This money grab is based on the justification that those who consume them, place a disproportionate burden on the state medicare system. This is the same argument justifying the 300 or 500 percent surtax levied on cigarettes. But of course, there is an underlying ethical paternalism behind these taxes--these products are bad for people and higher prices will discourage their consumption. Here is a great article from William Saletan at Slate, on the latest in a growing number of governmental infringements on the personal freedoms of citizens of that country. I urge you to read it as the implications are huge. The best part is the excerpt of some academic arguing for the taxation of diet soft drinks based on the justification that they encourage a dependence on sweet foods.

Isn't it interesting though, that coke machines are found in almost every middle school in the States ... no contradiction here. Local governments don't seem to mind the Coca-cola company funding their schools in exchange for the obesity of their children. Think of all the new books they could buy if they provided cigarette machines for the kiddies as well.

Now that we've demonstrated the sham of any ethical justification for the tax, let's broaden the implications of the economic argument. Let's consider who spends more time in the hospital, your average couch potato, sucking on darts and hucking back ding-dongs, or your average professional athlete? Better start taxing skateboards and football equipment too. I also wonder if these figures thrown around, demonstrating how smokers and cola addicts are a disproportionate burden to the state, factor in the shorter life-spans of people in these sectors of society. Think of the kajillions saved in pension payouts. Seems more reasonable to add a surtax on those with healthy life-styles, who are likely to collect these payments for decades as non-productive member of society. Guess why half of the world's smokers live in China. Their government has obviously figured this out. Long-term thinkers, the Chinese.

Food Stuffed with Stuffed Food

       Source: http://z.about.com/d/homecooking

Kinger's post about chicken stuffed with pork filled buns sent me into a deep meditation on the subject of stuffed foods. From the humble shui jiao to the noble poulet cordon bleu, we are all drawn to the idea of eating food that is stuffed with other food. Why is it that the very mention of stuffed food gets the salivary glands flowing?  Is it the combination of flavour sensations that stuffed foods produce--the sealing in of juices, the explosion of flavour? Or is it more a matter of the luxury of consuming a dish that takes an inordinate amount of time to prepare--Mama loves her little bambino! she spent all day making ravioli just for him!! Perhaps though, the true explanation for our love of stuffed foods can be found in the deeper and murkier realm of Jungian psychology. Is it not possible that our enjoyment of a won ton or a pirogi subconsciously brings us back to the warmth and safety of our mother's womb? Or conversely, does meat inserted into a supple envelope not somehow recall the primal and life-giving act of coitus?

Whatever the reason, our purpose here at the Donkey is not to confound you with the intractable mysteries of life, but rather to lull you into a mindless stupor with descriptions of mouth-watering delights. So to consider the love we all share for stuffed foods, surely we can multiply that love by stuffing food with food that is itself stuffed with other food. Can you wrap your mind around a concept as profound as this? Of course we need not stop at two stages of stuffing. We can keep stuffing the stuffing to the power of ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, until we reach the subatomic level of inserting some mash of quarks into a light crust of electrons. For as with the iconic Ukrainian wooden doll--that contains another doll, that contains another doll, ad infinitum--what we are approaching is a model of eternity. You may recall the madman in the classic Dracula, who captures flies to feed to a spider, which he in turn feeds to a bird, which he then wishes to feed to a cat. Was he really so mad?... Now we are beginning to think on the same level.

And this is where I find foul with Kinger's chicken recipe. Why cut up the pork buns? Does this not defeat the purpose? Shouldn't the buns be inserted whole into the ass of the chicken? In response to this perceived error, I have compiled several recipes that focus on the glorious act of stuffing food with unmolested items of stuffed food.


The first recipe is a traditional English Christmas roast of foul. It involves stuffing a chicken into a duck, which is then stuffed into a turkey. This dish is refered to by some as ballotine and by others as turducken. In truth, I find neither name fitting, as the word ballotine refers to a stuffed and rolled piece of meat, while the word turducken leaves nothing to the imagination.

Here's the recipe from Peggy's Home Cooking Blog ... Thanks Peggy!

 

Turducken

Prep Time: 1:

Cook Time: 4:

Ingredients:

• 2-3/4 cups prepared savory bread stuffing, at room temperature, divided use
• 2 cups prepared cornbread stuffing, at room temperature, divided use
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup whole berry cranberry sauce
• 1 (10 to 12-pound) turkey, deboned
• 1 (4 to 5-pound) duck, deboned
• 1 (3 to 4 pound) chicken, deboned
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 3 cloves garlic, cut in quarters
• 6 fresh sage leaves
• 2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
• 1 Tablespoon browning sauce (such as Gravy Master® or Kitchen Bouquet®)
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Have the turkey, duck, and chicken already deboned (save the bones for stock) before you begin to assemble the turducken. Keep all of the poultry refrigerated until you are ready to use it. Do not assemble turducken until you are ready to bake it in order to avoid foodborne illness from contaminated stuffing.

Measure out 2-1/4 cups of bread stuffing and set aside. Place remaining 1/2 cup of bread stuffing in another bowl and add 1/2 cup of the cornbread stuffing along with the whole berry cranberry sauce and pecans. Toss gently to combine. Place remaining 1-1/2 cups cornbread stuffing aside. You should have 3 separate stuffings.

In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine butter, garlic, sage, and thyme until herbs are finely chopped.

Run your hand under the skin to separate and make a pocket, but do not separate skin completely from the meat. Distribute the butter herb mixture evenly under the skin.

Rub the skin of the turkey with the browning sauce (promotes even browning but doesn't add flavor), then the olive oil. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

Flip the turkey over so it is open and skin-side down. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Spread bread stuffing evenly over turkey cavity. Place duck on top of bread stuffing, skin-side down.

Spread cranberry nut stuffing on top of open duck cavity. Top with chicken, skin-side down.

Spread cornbread stuffing on top of open chicken cavity. Skewer the back of the chicken closed. Bring up the sides of the duck to cover the chicken. Skewer the back of the duck closed. Repeat process with the turkey. Carefully turn the turducken over, so it is seam-side down and breast-side up. Remove all skewers except the last one holding the turkey together.

Place turducken in a heavy roaster. Roast 3 to 4 hours, until meat thermometer inserted in the very center of the chicken stuffing reaches 165 F. Baste once per hour with pan juices. If turducken begins to get too brown, tent loosely with heavy-duty aluminum foil that has been coated with vegetable spray.

Let turducken rest 30 minutes before carving. To serve, slice turducken across the breast to show off each layer.

Yield: 12 to 14 servings



Yes, let the turducken rest, its been through a rough time.

I know, I hear you out there saying 'this is good and all, but turkey, chicken and duck are so...pedestrian. Don't you have anything a little more exotic to offer?' Fear not, dear reader. The best is yet to come.

The following recipe is from Anonimo Toscano's, Libro della Cocina, written sometime between the late 14th century to the early 15th century. It's been reprinted from Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site.

Stuffed Peacock.
Skin the peacock, keeping the head with its feathers: then take pork meat that's not too fatty, and also the ground meat of said peacock or another one, and mince and grind them together. Also grind spices, cinnamon and nutmeg, whatever you want; once these have been well ground and beaten with egg whites, mix them together, and beat said spices and meat together thoroughly, and keep the yolk on its own. Then stuff said peacock with said minced and ground meat and the aforementioned spices: and wrap said peacock in pork caul fat, and close it with a wooden pick: and thus put it in a cauldron in lukewarm water, and boil it gently. And when it has been boiled solid [i.e., the mincemeat stuffing is fully cooked], roast it on a spit or on the grill, and color it with beaten egg yolks, which you have kept aside; and don't take all of them, but make apples out of the rest of them, as follows, that is: take raw pork loin and mince it very finely with a knife and chop it thoroughly; then mix said meat with said reserved egg yolks and aforementioned spices, and make it so thick that you can make little apples in the palms of your hands; and roll then in egg yolks and color them and set them to boil in water. Once they have boiled a little you can roast them and color them slightly with egg yolks, using feathers. Some of these apples you can put inside the peacock, and on the outside, under said caul fat. And once this is done, re-clothe the peacock in its coat, skin and feathers reserved, and carry it to the table; and, with the coat taken off, serve it.


I know...now you're saying that the peacock is not stuffed with any other stuffed item, but rather with run-of-the-mill meatballs, what fraud is this? I agree dear reader. I am on your side. That is why I suggest substituting the original ingredient of meatballs with the pre-stuffed ingredient of beef ravioli. A fine variety of this food-stuff can be procured from Chef Boyardee or from your local Italian grocer.

Next we have a recipe from International Cuisine presented by the California Home Economics Teachers, 1983.

Stuffed Camel

1 whole camel, medium size
1 whole lamb, large size
20 whole chickens, medium size
60 eggs
12 kilos rice
2 kilos pine nuts
2 kilos almonds
1 kilo pistachio nuts
110 gallons water
5 pounds black pepper
Salt to taste

Skin, trim and clean camel, lamb and chicken. Boil until tender. Cook rice until fluffy. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. Hard boil eggs and peel. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. Add more rice. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. Serves friendly crowd of 80-100.

Shararazod Eboli, Home Economist, Dammam, Saudi Arabia


Now we're getting somewhere. But how about this. Let's shove the camel up the ass of an elephant. Then let's sew the elephant into the belly of a whale. We'll lower the whole things into an active volcano to make sure it's extra crispy. Then, in a great act of magnanimous charity, we'll tow our creation across the ocean to feed some third-world country. Together, hand in hand, let's get our stuffing on!  

Check Out New Web Link

Manjula's Kitchen is an all around great website. More often than not, websites and recipes for Indian cuisine are either completely unauthentic, poorly written, and in many cases, just don't work. This one does. I've used it several times, and have recreated food reminiscent of my favorite dishes from great Indian restaurants. Pretty much all the recipes are accompanied by clear and concise videos. Manjula keeps up her good work from the heart. She is not working with a million dollar budget, and you can't find her on Travel and Living after "Jamie in his Garden". This is down-home cooking-from the home-at its best. All recipes are vegetarian, and even us meat-tooths at the Donkey, love this site. Watching and learning, I wish she was my aunt. Check it out.

Baba Ghanoush Coleslaw

I've always loved hummus and baba ghanoush. The honky side of me has also craved the odd fried chicken and creamy coleslaw meal too. Here's something I tried tonight. It was the chief! Baba Ghanoush Coleslaw ala Kinger. I must say at this point that this baba ghanoush recipe is pretty approximate. I generally eyeball everything, without all the measuring. This however will give you a good base for which to tweak your own version. Enjoy.
 

Baba Ghanoush:
2 1-pound eggplants, halved lengthwise **
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, chopped ( I usually add more)
Pita bread wedges

Coleslaw:
1 large carrot, julienned
1 large cucumber, jullienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 tbsp. mayonaisse (optional)
2 tbsp. apple cider vinigar

Method:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Generously oil rimmed baking sheet. Place eggplant halves, cut side down, on sheet. Roast until eggplant is very soft, about 45 minutes. Cool slightly. Using spoon, scoop out pulp from eggplant into strainer set over bowl. Let stand 30 minutes, allowing excess liquid to drain from eggplant. **

Transfer eggplant pulp to processor. Add 1/4 cup oil, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic; process until almost smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to small bowl. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Bring to room temperature before serving.) Serve with pita wedges.

Coleslaw is pretty straightforward. Julienne veggies, mix them up. Add about a tablespoon of mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is optional, but I find that it helps create that white trash tasty coleslaw of our childhood picnics at Nascar.  A dash of salt and cracked pepper is good, and so is the juice of half a lemon. Refrigerate.

When both slaw and dip are cool, serve salad with a dollop of baba ghanoush on top. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro. You won't be sorry for long.

Notes: 
White cabbage can also be used, as in a traditional coleslaw-but I like this mix better. 

**Also, it should be noted that if you are using the much skinnier Asian eggplant, you do not need to cut it. Just bake it at 250 degrees Celsius until it is soft--around 10 minutes. To keep the same yield, I would use 1-2 large Asian eggplants. 


To be more efficient, prepare the slaw while the eggplant is cooking. And, unless you have a glass blender, I would allow the eggplant to cool down for a couple minutes before hucking into some plastic cheapy job.


Servings:
Makes about 1 3/4 cups of baba ghanoush
Makes a medium-sized salad bowl of veggies

Time: 
20 minutes

Baked Chicken stuffed with Steamed Pork Buns

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I guess I've been crapping the perverbial bed on the blogging front. That, and being on the lam has sadly prevented me from writing anything.  Anyway, I thought I'd share a new recipe/creation I custered up the other night. I was walking to the supermarket with an empty tank at around 6pm. I'd been smoking and drinking coffee all day, so I was starving yet jacked on the nick and the caff. I had been thinking I'd make a chicken soup. Pretty easy, throw everything into a pot, watch some tube, occasionally stir, and there it is. Instead, I noticed that the supermarket had whole chickens on sale for 40nt. Tired and lazy as I was, I couldn't pass these tasty little guys up, so I bought the biggest one I could find, and began walking home, thinking all the way of how I would bake this little chy chy.

When it came to the mental tetris game of what can I make with what I already have, fitting ingredients together, using whatever leftovers I can, etc etc, I realized I didn't have what I needed to make a decent stuffing. I had potatoes and carrots that had been roasted the previous night, so that would provide a nice bed to soak up the juices of the bird, but I had no stuffing. While I was walking, I came upon a steam bun stand. They make homemade Taiwanese pork buns. Juicy little numbers that are a little crispy at the bottom where some of their juice has carmelized on the grill. Immediately, I had found what I needed to substitute everything that makes up a good stuffing; salty, fatty meat, breadcrumbs that should take on a rather chewy texture, and a rich body.

Long story short, I diced up these little bad boy steamers, threw them into the pan with some diced onion, garlic, celery, a little soy sauce to keep in tune with the Asian style bun, some diced brown mushrooms, a little white whine, butter, some other savory spices, some cumin, a little chicken stock, and a couple tablespoons of cornmeal. When this mixture was all clumping together, I let it cool down, then I stuffed the bird. I then rubbed the chicken with turmeric, coarse salt, cracked pepper, rosemary, oregano, and thyme. The remaining stuffing I spread around the chicken, covering up most of the last night's potato and carrots.

I baked the chicken-covered in foil-at 200 Celsius for 30 minutes. I then pulled out the chicken, took off the foil and baked it uncovered at 220 Celsius for another 30 minutes, this giving the skin a nice brown tan. I pulled it out again, dropped a little dollop of butter on the chicken, recovered it, and baked it at 180 Celsius for another 15 minutes. When it was finished, I must say the meat was falling off the bone. The bottom layer of potatoes and carrots were caramelized and full of flavor from the drippings, and the stuffing was some of the best I'd ever had. It is a shame I took no picture. But in it's ease of execution, you should definitely try this one.

Kinger Sighted in Taipei

We at the Donkey are troubled by recent news that one of our founding writers, Kinger, has apparently absconded from justice and is now hiding out somewhere in the Taipei area. We have heard that Kinger, operating under the alias of Professor Kingsley Von Shitzintrowzer, has been posing as some sort of pseudo-scientific, new-age, nutritional guru. He has apparently been sermonizing on some form of health treatment that combines the benefits of citrus fruit with the Eastern cleansing practice of colonics. According to our sources, he has been claiming  this practice is particularly effective on young Asian females and has been charging absorbitant fees to personally administer the treatment. We have secured this photo of the so-called Professor Von Shitzintrowzer, taken during one of his recent lectures on "citronics".

Kinger, if you are reading this, we urge you to end this farce. It's time to pay your debt to society, and return to the straight and narrow path. You need to once more direct your talents and energies back to more altruistic purposes here at the Donkey. If not for us, or yourself, then do it for your loyal readers around the world. We know you will make the right decision.