Izzy's Culinary Adventures in Queens

When two or more people meet and interact, they affect and change each other--how about when two or more peoples meet?

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Lunar New Year

Today I took my three children to the Lunar New Year parade in Flushing, Queens. It is more commonly referred to as Chinese New Year, but much of Far East Asia celebrates it. I took the kids to the one in Chinatown in downtown Manhattan once a few years ago, but the crowding was too much. I have since taken them to the one in Flushing, which is at least as large if not larger--certainly the Asian community is larger. Flushing is also in the only Councilmanic district in NYC actually represented by an ethnic Chinese Councilman, John Liu. Well, I attempted to attend this year as well. I was running late, but the parade was over early this year. It was cold, which was why I was delayed--trying to find the shortest, warmest route to the parade. I was initially disappointed, but decided to make the best of things and walk around Flushing a bit. There was bound to be an eatery that would be interesting.

Going to the parade with my children kills many birds with one stone. Naturally, I get to spend time with my children. I also get to see "the dragons!" Yes, I admit it, I go for me. I like those dragon and lion dancers. I also get to expose my children to the cultures of the world. These cultures will retain an air of the exotic, but not of the foreign or alien, as they grow older. I want them to be at home in the wide world.

My disappointment did not last long. I saw a pair of dragons dancing across the street with drummer and cymbalists in tow, as well as an entourage of following onlookers. We gave chase, and followed them to the Flushing Mall (39th Avenue and Prince Street). The dancers danced through the mall visiting each merchant's stall along the way. My impression is that it's for luck. I saw the dragon receive small gifts from some of the shopkeepers, which I assume is also traditional.

We roamed around the mall and found their food court on the lower level. The mall is like no other mall I've been to before. It's like being in Chinatown, but larger and more comfortable, though still relatively small and crowded. Naturally, I went where the folks were at. A bustling spot, rather "no frills," but not unpleasant. The only trouble I have when attempting to negotiate these surroundings is communication. There appeared to be multiple shops under one roof and one cashier. The appropriate system was not clear. Folks are usually quite pleasant, but they don't understand you, or their command of English is limited. In such cases, I ask, and ask again, until I find someone conversant in English--it usually doesn't take too long. The system is, pay the cashier, and wait by the appropriate kiosk for your number to be called--in Chinese! Folks were comparing numbers and tried repeating my number for me, so I'd understand it when it was called. I think i would've done okay, but luckily I didn't have to. The lady at the counter saw my face, asked for my ticket and took care to unite me with my order.

I got the House Special Chicken, I believe, for $7.50. The food was not bad, not great, though my kids really liked it and that's saying something. The best part though, was eating among ethnic Chinese, most of whom were not born in this country. It was especially good for the kids, though obviously it was good for me too. The Chinese, understandably, appear to have a different sense of personal space. Finding seating in the place was not easy. Someone observing my efforts to seat the kids suggested I take a seat at a time. My daughter sat first, she's a little shy, but she spoke to the man who assisted us. Next sat my youngest son, as space became available, and finally a couple arose and there was space for us all.

The resulting coziness was good. We shared the meal. The kids insisted on using chopsticks. I insisted on actually getting food in my mouth! We remained at the table with a gentleman from Taiwan who was good company, kindly assisted me in getting an extra bowl and spoons for the kids. I've made a number of queries regarding good Dim Sum places, and he gave me a tip to add to the others I've received. He referred me to a place on 37th Avenue between Main Street and Prince Street. This location is easily reached via the #7 train to the last stop: Main Street, Flushing. This gives four tips I have to follow up on: 2 Thai places, one Mexican, and now Dim Sum. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

What is authentic?

My Thai cookbook prompted a field trip in search of ingredients for new recipes I must try. The first place I look when searching for all things East Asian is my local chinese supermarket--The Great Wall Supermarket on Queens Boulevard, not far from Jacobus Street. It's on the south side of the boulevard, and has a parking lot. I love this place! To tour this market is to tour another world. For me, it is more convenient and accessible than Chinatown in Manhattan--even though I often bike to work and ride right through it! The store is rather large and I take my children who are fascinated by the live food section (mostly fish and shellfish), and the meat section where chickens are sold with their heads attached. The store is full of Chinese and other Asians along with an occassional non-Asian face like my own. Although the products are mainly targeted to Chinese consumers, there are many others including Thai, Korean and Japanese, as well as a "Goya" (Spanish foods) section. In fact, this is where I found the requisite fish sauce last time I cooked Thai dishes.

This time I was looking for two items in particular, kaffir lime leaves and tamarind paste. These weren't the only things, but the main things. It was a very frustrating search! One of the problems with the store being so Asian is that no one speaks English. What made matters more frustrating is that I am certain it was there--I just didn't know where to look and exactly what I was looking for. I did find something interesting though: a Thai brand of chicken stock! Well, this called into question all my stock theories re: Thais and cooking. It also brings to the fore two questions: "What is authentic?" and "How much do cuisines affect each other in this shrinking world that we live in?" Both questions speak to the heart of the existence of this blog.

I am exploring new worlds through new immigrant populations more diverse and numerous than ever before, yet these populations, both here and at home, do not exist in isolation. The historian, Eric Hobsbawm, stated, "80% of the world's population emerged from the Middle Ages in the 1950's." The pace of change since then has been breath-taking! One can meet women selling ices and speaking on cellphones in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park (site of the World's Fair) who probably grew up in remote Amerindian mountain villages in Latin America. My parents visited some of these areas as evangelical missionaries in the 1960's, including jungle villages that probably no longer exist in shrinking Amazonia. I reflect on these things when I look at tons of "exotic" processed foods on local supermarket shelves. There is quite a paradox as many traditional peoples now straddle two worlds. This is reflected in food available, as fresh, traditional food is readily available, but obviously processed food has made its way into the home kitchen.

Just like most Americans, they are too busy working to cook. Sure, some folks were never fond of cooking, but most folks who remember the old ways know that cooking is not just work, but art. Your pots almost speak to you, urging you to create something new. They know that cooking is about love, not mere duty. There will always remain a faithful few who will not bend the knee before Baal! Okay, before I get all Luddite on you, let me take a breath and step back. It's not modern convenience that I object to, but the commercialization of our lives, which has extended to our very sustenance! It has become such that many now prefer processed food and find the taste of fresh food alien! Processed food can never be as good for you as fresh. It is also inevitable that we will use processed foods. I regularly use canned beans and tomato products. The latter can be found in many states of processing: from whole peeled tomatos to paste and sauce. Naturally, less processed is better, and jarred is better than canned, but that's just my opinion.

The other fact is that soup stock is a French concept that might have been passed onto the Indo-Chinese, as the region of Southeast Asia was formerly referred to, during French colonial rule. Thus, it may very well be a pretty authentic Thai adoption from nearby Vietnam. Vietnamese restaurants sometimes have frog's legs on the menu. Here's a recipe for chicken stock from ThaiTable.com: http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Chicken_Stock.htm. It's a great site for Thai recipes!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

My New Thai Cookbook

I was shopping in Borders recently--in bargain cookbook section, it's where some of the best actual cookbooks are! I found a Thai cookbook called The Greatest-Ever Thai Cookbook by Judy Bastyra and Becky Johnston. It was only $7.99! The photography is beautiful and more to the point, it is full of fine recipes. I like the fact that these do not include silly substitutions like ketchup! As I thumbed the pages examining the recipes for signs of "watering down" I noticed that some of the recipes called for vegetable or chicken stock. I wondered if Thais used vegetable stock. One of the recipes involved was Pumpkin-Coconut Soup, which calls for the use of vegetable stock. I did a quick search on the internet to find a recipe without stock, since using soup stock to make soup seems redundant. I found one recipe at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Silky-Coconut-Pumpkin-Soup-Keg-Bouad-Mak-Fak-Kham-104372 that indicated "mild pork, or chicken stock." This suggests that pork is being substituted with stock. This substitution could be for various reasons, not necessarily bad. Vegetable stock turns this into a vegetarian meal. Also using pork means that the cooking time is extended because pork does need to be cooked. Chicken stock may be the difference in making a dish Kosher or Halal. I prefer fewer processed foods, and canned stock has a lot of sodium. When I make this recipe I will try pork the first time around.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

What got this started?

I like Indian food. I like to cook, which means I like the process of putting food together--it's essentially curiousity/love combination. I satisfied my curiousity a bit when I purchased a cookbook from the bargain shelves at Barnes and Noble called Indian in 6: 100 Irresistible Recipes That Use Six Ingredients or Less by Monisha Bharadwaj. The book was a bargain of the best kind. I don't usually like shortcuts, but in this book I got a feeling for the kitchen common sense of a woman with many roles banging out some stylish home cooking. Mrs. Bharadwaj lays out very user-friendly recipes while still using authentic ingredients. What was exciting for me, was that I could find these ingredients readily and locally. Turmeric took a little looking, but I found it both in healthfood stores and supermarkets. I found garam masala powder at an international supermarket (It was self-described as such.) in Astoria, Queens, right on 34th Avenue, not far from Steinway Street. I was looking for lentils to make dal and found myself turning to a woman from the Indian sub-continent (There are three major nations within it that are customarily pertinent to this culinary conversation: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.) to ask advice. I thought to myself, this is pretty cool.

I found that this was the case for many ingredients, and half the battle with cooking is finding the ingredients. It's not just the abundance of fresh, authentic ingredients in Queens that excites me, but the eateries, from the most humble cart to the restaurants that cover cuisines I never thought imaginable. My wife and I rarely get a "date night." We work, go to school and have three wonderful children. My mother in the Bronx still works, and she's not exactly around the corner. My wife's parents and most siblings live outside New York State. However, when we do go out, it's not hard to find good, exotic, inexpensive food. The last place we went that met this criteria was a Burmese restaurant--one of the few in the state, let alone the country. Prior to this, we had gone to a restaurant which offered more than one ethnic type of food on the menu. Among the offerings were some Tibetan dishes! I ordered one, but I cannot remember which--I was too engaged in conversation with the wife, like a good husband. The total bill was a little over twenty bucks! What's even cooler is that there is actually a Tibetan community in the vicinity!

I learned this while eating my lunch in a playground in Jackson Heights--it was the only place with a bench where I could sit down and eat it. As I ate and took in the scenes, I noticed six boys, varying ages, sharing three bikes. The boys on the bikes would pedal around some while the unmounted boys would converse. After a few laps the bikers would swoop in and swap places. It caught my eye first because of the example of rather harmonious sharing, but also because while the boys were speaking another language, they did not look alike. Some looked more East Asian and others looked more Indian, so at one point I had to ask, "Excuse me, but what language are you speaking?" The answer was "Tibetan." These examples of the ethnic diversity of Queens took very little effort to find, and are almost taken for granted when you live here. That doesn't make it any less worthy of note.

P.S. I will update with names and locations later.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Beans

Beans have been cooked in the New World for a very long time. Among Eastern Woodland tribes like the Iroquois they were one of the "three sisters": corn, beans and squash. Mexican re-fried beans are the descendant of Aztec cookery. Rice and beans are a staple of Puerto Rican cuisine. There are several staples that form the center of a meal in the Caribbean. Plantains are another one of these, and the many types of tubers the New World is so famous for, are yet another. As per my parents, in Puerto Rico in the old days, the principal staple was vianda or indigenous tubers like yucca, malanga, yautia, and others. Unlike the rest of the Americas, maize was not the principal crop of the Taino ancestors. Nevertheless, in my home rice and beans were the primary center of our meals. In America what was reserved for Sunday dinner became standard. Most folks use canned beans these days. This is because dry beans on the shelves of the Goya section of the supermarket take a long time to prepare. Nevertheless, it is always best to learn the right way. One can always take shortcuts later.

Dry beans are cheaper and fresher than the canned, pre-cooked variety. However, there are some steps in their preparation that cannot be avoided. The first is soaking. The beans must be soaked in clean, fresh water for at least 8 hours--the package may say six, but trust me, eight is better. They should be soaked in a large container with three to four parts water for one part beans. The water should be discarded--it contains indigestibles like "phytin." The beans ought to be rinsed before cooking. The recipe is as follows:

a half cup of beans (soaked it will increase to a cup)
2 tbsp. of tomato paste
two cubes of sofrito
salt to taste
a pork neck bone or jamon de cocinar (cooking ham)
1 tbsp. mojito (garlic cloves crushed with vinegar and olive oil)
Calabaza, if desired
Plantains, grated and rolled into balls--not unlike "matzoh-balls!" (Again, if desired)

The pork, tomato paste, and salt should be placed in about 5 cups of boiling water and simmered for about 15 minutes. The beans should be added and cooked for at least an hour. Now add the plantains, mojito and calabaza. Cook for an additional 20 minutes and add the sofrito. Continue to cook for another fifteen minutes, then remove and serve over rice. Canned beans reduces the time by about an hour, the water to about 2 cups and the only real cooking is that of the pork, plantains and calabaza (squash). Tender items, like sofrito ought not to be overcooked.