COOKERY

COOKERY

1. INDIA

Indian food is well-known for being spicy. It always uses spices, sometimes just one spice to cook a potato dish and sometimes up to fifteen spices to compose an elaborate dish. But it is not always hot. Chili peppers were introduced into Asia by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Until that time the typical pungent Indian spices were mustard seed and black peppercorns. Sometimes the spices are used whole, at other times they are ground and mixed with water or vinegar to make a paste. Each of these techniques draws out a completely different flavor from the spice. But India also gains variety from the huge number of regional cuisines which have been adapted to local culinary traditions. Religious groups within each region of India have modified these regional cuisines to suit their own restrictions. There was also the influence of the Moguls who came to India by ay of Persia and introduced the delicate Pullaos and meats cooked with yoghurt and fried onions.

2. AUSTRIA

When Vienna became a great capital city in the seventeenth century, Austrian cooking developed into an art. This was when the famous Viennese pastry began to be made. Food and ideas for cooking were imported from all over the continent: sour cream from the Slavs, paprika from Hungary, noodle dishes from Italy. Although some of the famous cakes and pastries are so extravagant they can only be used for special occasions, other dishes are highly economical. The meat dishes, for example, evolved because the Austrians were loath to kill bulls. They felt it wasteful to keep them and feed them while they grew up but did no useful work. Therefore, they kept only the cows which were killed when they were old and tough: and so the Austrians have a number of dishes which make use of scraggy meat. The many veal dishes, at which the Viennese are virtuosi, grew from the fact that so many baby bulls were killed.

3. SWEDAN

Swedish cooking was in the past restricted by its climate which limited the supply of fresh food to a few months of the year. Meals tended to be monotonous and salted fish or meat and potatoes were served most of the time. But things are very different today with Swedish smorgasbord popular all over the world. The word actually means sandwich table, but in reality there is a great variety of cold dishes to choose from. Swedish cooking developed in the eighteenth century under French influence However, old traditions persist. On Christmas Day, ham is always served at that time, on Christmas Eve plate porridge may be put in the attic or cellar for the little gnomes who are believed to live in the house. The porridge is to thanks the gnomes for their help during the past year and ensures their help in the next.

4. BELGIUM

The Belgians have the same interest in good food as the French. It is something to be taken seriously. A Belgian chicken pate takes time to make, and requires an addition of two glasses of brandy. Chicken Waterzoi is the oldest Belgian national dish. It makes for a hearty country meal and has to be served in extra-large soup plates to hold both the portions of chicken and the vegetables as well. Another famous Belgian dish is rabbit and prunes. This is helped by using half a bottle of wine in its preparation, but it is good dish to prepare well in advanced of the guests arriving.

5. INDONESIA

It used to be the Indonesia custom to put all the food on the table at once and let everyone help himself. The “help yourself” rule still applies but the average family meal now takes place in a sequence of courses and the total number of dishes is now smaller than is used to be because when the housewife cooks there is not enough time to make anything elaborate. Most Indonesians are Moslems and avoid pork. They consider lamb or goat to be their favorite food. The most charming aspect of eating in Indonesia is the warung, or wayside food stall. It customers sit on the bench or on the ground nearby and the cooking goes on behind the stall.

6. POLAND

Poles have always taken an intelligent and lively interest in good food and the large farming population has had a Slavonic gusto in producing original and tasty dishes from the simplest and cheapest ingredients. Soups play an important part in the diet of a Polish family. They have adopted the Russian borscht and transformed it into their own national soup. The basis of borscht is beetroot but no one should be misguided enough to think that it is a weak concoction. But is not only wholesome and nourishing, but has fragrance and color to make it attractive. All Polish cakes and pastries are delightful but among the best are the cheese pastries. For a summer dish a salad, or for picnics, the Polish way of making a cream cheese spread – mixing cream cucumber and chives – is slightly unusual and very pleasant.

7. TURKEY

Turkish cooking has a long tradition dating back many centuries to Byzantium times. From those early times, the Turks have been grilling pieces of meat, usually lamb on skewers. They are also said to have introduced the rice for their famous pilafs from Persia. Of Course, like all regional cooking, they make use of their local vegetables, such as aubergine and courgettes ad sweet peppers. Turks may have a reputation for being a warlike people, but they also have a sweet tooth. The popularity of Turkish Delight in other European by the Turks who continue to like extremely sweet delicacies, such as the fragrantly delicious rose – petal jam.

ABOUT FOOD – BORNE ILLNESS

There has been a great deal of press lately about contamination of food and in particular, fresh produce. The focus has been on Escherichia coli ("E. coli") and Salmonella typhimurium ("Salmonella") infections, but there are many other bacteria, such as Campylobacter, Shigella, and Vibrio species, that also cause debilitating gastroenteric infections.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently advised consumers about how to reduce the risk of foodborne illness from fresh produce. The advice is superb, and so I will use it as the foundation of a more comprehensive approach to produce handling and preparation that takes into account the realities of wilderness and foreign adventure travel. The italicized advice is the original offered by the FDA. The non-italicized comments that follow are mine:

Buying Tips for Fresh Produce

Purchase food that is not bruised or damaged. Penetrating wounds to the food that can introduce bacteria through the surface are probably worse than a bruise, unless the latter is extensive and indicates a large volume of underlying rot.

When selecting fresh cut produce - such as a watermelon or bagged mixed salad greens - choose only those items that are refrigerated or surrounded by ice. This is practical in an urban market, but not likely an option in an outdoor market or from street vendors. If you are trekking, you will be carrying your produce without refrigeration, so will be avoiding most items intended for raw consumption, unless they can tolerate prolonged periods of lack of refrigeration without decomposition. As you can see from the photo, you will have many opportunities to buy fruit and vegetables that has been peeled. If you look closely at the photograph, you will notice that the fruit is covered with insects, whose tiny feet spread germs.

Bag fresh fruits and vegetables separately from meat, poultry and seafood products when packing them to take home from the market. This is a great recommendation. Abide by it.

Storage Tips for Fresh Produce

Certain perishable fresh fruits and vegetables (like strawberries, lettuce, herbs, and mushrooms) can be best maintained by storing in a clean refrigerator at a temperature of 40 degrees F or below. If your're not sure whether an item should be refrigerated to maintain quality, ask your grocer. Don't carry these. They are high risk under the best of circumstances.

All produce that is purchased pre-cut or peeled should be refrigerated within two hours to maintain both quality and safety. Again, don't buy or carry pre-cut or peeled fruits or vegetables.

Keep your refrigerator set at 40 degrees F or below. Use a refrigerator thermometer to check.


What if it's cold outside? Is that equivalent to refrigeration? The answer is, only if the environmental temperature is constant and within the accepted ranges for domestic refrigeration, from a safety perspective. If your food freezes or becomes too warm, it is at risk for destruction and/or contamination. Coolers with ice maintained at proper temperature are acceptable, but do not mitigate the other forces of improper hygiene, like introduction of dirt (e.g., bacteria).

Preparation Tips for Fresh Produce

Many precut, bagged produce items like lettuce are pre-washed. If so, it will be stated on the packaging. This pre-washed, bagged produce can be used without further washing. You shouldn't be carrying this sort of item in the backcountry.

As an extra measure of caution, you can wash the produce again, just before you use it. Precut or prewashed produce in open bags should be washed before using. This seems to conflict with the advice immediately above. If you have clean hands and reliably disinfected water, it seems like a better recommendation than the one above. However, remember that most of the pre-washed items are quite safe, so you need to be sure that you aren't taking a good situation and making it worse.

Begin with clean hands. Wash your hands for 20 seconds with warm water and soap before and after preparing fresh produce. Amen! Do this before handling any food. Hand sanitizer is an alternative to soap and water. Remember, it is important to wash hands even if handling something that will be emerging from a wrapper, like an energy bar, if there is a chance that you will touch the food before it passes your lips.

Cut any damaged or bruised areas on fresh fruits and vegetables before preparing and/or eating. Produce that looks rotten should be discarded. This is an excellent suggestion. Use a clean knife to do the cutting. When you cook meat and produce, you should thoroughly clean the cooking implements (e.g., knife, cutting board) if they have been used for handling meat before they are used for preparing produce.

All unpackaged fruits and vegetables, as well as those packaged and not marked pre-washed, should be thoroughly washed before eating. This includes produce grown conventionally or organically at home, or produce that is purchased from a grocery store or farmer's market. Wash fruits and vegetables under running water just before eating, cutting or cooking. You likely won't have running water, so use disinfected water intended for this purpose.

Even if you plan to peel the produce before eating, it is still important to wash it first. This is because you don't want to drag microscopic infectious organisms that you cannot see with the naked eye from the surface down into the part of the food that you intend to eat.

Washing fruits and vegetables with soap or detergent or using commercial produce washes is not recommended. This is because the residue of these products, when not completed removed from the food, can be toxic and make you ill.

Scrub firm produce, such as melons and cucumbers, with a clean produce brush. Mechanical forces greatly improve your ability to remove infectious micro-organisms.

Drying produce with a clean cloth or paper towel may further reduce bacteria that may be present. This is from the mechanical effect and from removing any surface moisture that may continue to carry infectious bacteria, viruses, and/or cysts.

• Food – borne illness is sometimes caused by eating foods which contain certain types of bacteria which are called pathogens. Salmonella is a pathogen you have probably heard of.

• But remember, these types of illness don’t just happen! They are usually caused by poor handling of food in which pathogens are passed from the food handler to the food.

• Believe it or not, bacteria are everywhere – in the air and on our skin, and most are harmless! The only way you can see them is through a microscope – several million of them can fit on a head of a pin!

• Bacteria particularly like those foods which contain lots of proteins and nutritionist. Food like meats, chickens, seafood, eggs and dairy products. Bacteria feel most comfortable when the temperature is between 5 ^oC and 60 ^oC – so this tell us we must keep perishable foods either very hot (steaming hot) or very cold (refrigerator cold