Food & Fragrance: 170 posts

I was enchanted by the premise of “Grandmas Project” as soon as I read about it in the New York Times. It is a web series in which film directors document their grandmothers as they cook. The women also share their stories, dreams, aspirations and give advice, and these short 8-minute films are so tender and heartwarming that watching them makes me feel as if I’m cooking with my grandmother Valentina. Although my cooking lessons come from diverse sources, learning from Valentina gave me a deeper understanding of food as a way of connecting with others, and that’s exactly what makes “Grandmas Project” so compelling.

Valentina learned cooking a young woman married to an army officer and stationed in a military town in eastern Ukraine. Living in the shared housing, she met other “army wives,” who hailed from different parts of the Soviet Unions and whose lessons gave her cooking a multicultural flair. Some of Valentina’s signature dishes were Georgian spicy soups, Armenian stewed vegetables and Tatar meat pies. She also had a big collection of pickled vegetables, which in her recipe books were marked as “from Zulia, Dagestan” or “Natalya, Saratov.” When we prepared these pickles together, Valentina told me about her friends, and even though she had no news from these women for many years, it felt as if they were present.

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Today I would like to introduce you to a fascinating blog called Asian Markets of Philadelphia. Written by David Dettmann, it’s a treasure trove of articles about Asian food, with forays into whatever catches David’s interest at the moment. Since he’s a musician, scholar and  speaker of an impressive number of languages, his interests are wide ranging. Having found his blog a couple of years ago, I became a fan and I now follow David on Instagram and Twitter as well. Wherever he posts, he always sparks my curiosity and inspires new projects, from replicating Uyghur bread at home to planting Korean mint (also known as pinnä پىننە in Uyghur.)

If you are interested in food culture, you will find David’s articles as compelling as I did. He shares more than recipes; there is always an in-depth explanation about the dish’s origins and the context in which it is eaten. Besides providing his version of a particular preparation, he will often include several other sources. Not only does it help me learn more techniques, it is also a great way to discover other great blogs and YouTube channels. As for the blog’s name, it covers different food markets in the Philadelphia area, so if you’re based in PA, you have a terrific guide to the local shops.
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“Would you like to try butterfly pea flower tea?” asked a friend as we were getting ready to order drinks at a small restaurant in Georgetown. After several days eating and drinking through this charming town on the Malaysian island of Penang, I already knew that I was in for a treat. Georgetown’s legacy as a trading entrepôt is its blend of cultures—Malay, Chinese, Indian—that results in a diverse and vibrant cuisine. A standard hotel map will organize the town’s sightseeing locations by the different delicacies one can taste around its neighborhoods, from noodle soups and seafood curries to coconut-scented cakes and dim sum. Of course, I had to try the butterfly pea flower tea.

When the tea came, it was the color of sapphire, an intense, vivid blue. Crushed lemongrass stalks gave it a heady floral and citrusy perfume. As my friend explained, butterfly pea flowers have a mild earthy taste, and the tea—or more properly, tisane—is mixed with other ingredients to give it a bolder flavor, such as fragrant herbs and spices. The color, however, is so striking that it’s a beloved ingredient in drinks, cakes and even savory dishes such as nasi kerabu, rice with coconut stewed chicken and a variety of accompaniments. Local lore has it that butterfly pea flower tisane is rejuvenating and toning. I found it mesmerizing.

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During these cold days, I’m craving comfort. I open my grandmother Valentina’s notebooks and browse her favorite recipes. She loved to cook and she meticulously noted down different dishes she made and how she altered them over the years. However, one recipe is not in the books because it’s too simple to be written down. It’s a recipe for a milk rice that Valentina made almost every week. It included only four ingredients–rice, milk, salt, and sugar, but it tasted heavenly.

The secret to a delicious rice pudding is in slow simmering. The quality of the ingredients matters, and while Valentina used whole-cream milk from her neighbor’s cow, the pudding comes out perfectly even with the supermarket milk I buy. The flavors are pure and inviting, and this is the ultimate comfort food.

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Saffron’s fragrance is complex. A leather accent shimmers darkly against the brightness of green and herbal notes. A languid floral undercurrent meets a spicy warmth. You would think that such an intricate fragrance would be difficult to pair, but as Persian cooking demonstrates, saffron marries well with a wide range of scents and flavors. And so I thought, why not pair it with dark chocolate?

Chocolate is another versatile ingredient despite its richness, and it serves as a perfect sidekick for saffron. The two ingredients complement each other in the most delightful way–the first impression of fresh spice is followed by the floral richness. I sometimes taste gardenia and sometimes a hint of a rose. And to enjoy saffron’s sumptuous color, I selected my favorite recipe for biscotti.

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