SpiceLines

Kentucky Colonel spearmint is naturally pungent and intensely cooling, but can it compete in a world where food companies are vying to create ever more extreme flavors?

Did you know that the average American family has 40—yes 40—different spices in the pantry? And that supermarkets now routinely stock “exotic “ flavorings such as dried lemon grass and smoked paprika? Or that within five years we’ll be lusting for food seasoned with Indian spices?

This astonishing (even to me) “news” comes from McCormick, via its Flavor Forecast for 2010, and The Wall Street Journal (“A Taste for Hotter, Mintier, Fruitier,” Miriam Gottfried, May 26, 2010, pp. D1, D6).

Is the American palate really changing? According to Journal writer Gottfried, food and flavor companies are racing to create new technologies that will deliver the intense flavors we apparently crave. Wrigley, for instance, has created “textured crystals” called “Micro Bursts” to punch up Orbit Mist gum flavors like Mango Surf and Peppermint Spray.

Tangy chilled shrimp, marinated overnight in white wine vinegar with red onion, garlic and coriander seeds, will take the edge off the sweltering summer heat.

Lately the heat has been stifling. A steamy 102 degrees in the car yesterday—the kind of deadly heat that addles your brains and makes road rage seem positively reasonable.

And then there’s the rain. Tropical torrents. Humidity as thick as whipped cream. Followed by hungry mosquitoes and scary insects none of us have ever seen before.

And the dank smell of mildew in the garage…

It’s enough to drive you to drink.

Or to seize a couple of pounds of perfectly good local shrimp and douse them with white wine vinegar. Chill them overnight in the refrigerator—don’t you wish you could climb inside?—and the next day eat them cold, maybe with a frosty beer.

Aliza Green's foodie tour of Turkey and Chios includes a visit to the Egyptian Spice Market in Istanbul where you can stock up on Iranian saffron, urfa and maras peppers and other exotic seasonings. Photo: Aliza Green.

Centuries ago, a shadowy ancestor of mine was envoy to the Ottoman court at Constantinople. All my life I’ve dreamed of going there—Istanbul, that is—and retracing his footsteps across the magnificent city that spans the Bosphorus, one flank in Asia, the other in Europe.

That’s why “Fragrant Fields and Turkish Delights : Exploring Aegean and Ottoman Flavors” is a such a temptation. This fall cookbook author and chef Aliza Green (whom I met in India a couple of years ago) will lead an unusual 16-day foodie and cultural tour of Turkey and Chios, a Greek island just off the mainland.

The trip is unique in its focus on mastic, a fragrant resin that comes from wild pistachio trees grown on Chios. Participants will have a chance to harvest clear mastic “tears” from an ancient grove and learn how the spice is used in cooking. “As a seasoning, mastic is haunting and slightly sweet with hints of rosemary, mint and fennel, a mild cleansing bitter undertone, and earthy aroma like a pine forest,” Aliza writes. Delicacies to be tasted include figs cooked over mastic wood.

There are also wine and olive oil tastings, market visits and cooking classes with esteemed Turkish chefs, including Musa Dagdeviren of Ciya restaurant who was profiled in the April 19th issue of The New Yorker. (Go here to read an abstract of “The Memory Kitchen” or here for an audio slide show in which author Elif Batuman describes chef Dagdeviren’s resurrection of traditional Turkish cuisine.)

In Istanbul there are visits to Topkapi Palace and the dazzling Blue Mosque, as well as the Egyptian Spice Bazaar where you can stock up on “Iranian saffron, green pistachios, chiles from Urfa and Maras, Turkish apricots, Mediterranean pine nuts and rose-scented Turkish Delight,” and the Grand Bazaar, where doubtless my ancestor bargained for gold or rugs or maybe a turquoise “evil eye.” Four thousand shops and so little time—start making your list now.

The dates of the tour are October 1-16, 2010. Go here to see a complete itinerary.

Hidcote lavender in full bloom at Sunshine Lavender Farm's early June celebration.

"Purple haze, all in my brain…"

It wasn’t exactly a Hendrix moment, but Sunshine Lavender Farm’s celebration was certainly purple.

Almost, but not quite, ripe: Do not pick the Marseilles fig until it turns pale yellow-green and dangles voluptuously from its stem. The trick is beating the birds and wasps to the fruit.

“It’s called a ladder,” Ray said drily, cutting his eyes at me sharply.

This is what happens when you ask the most hardworking, capable, outdoor guy you know a really stupid question.

The question was, “How am I going to get those figs down this year?”

In the past, the harvest from the Marseilles fig tree was paltry—oh, let’s say “precious” as in “precious few.” Anyway, no more than 30 or so plump green figs at the end of a long hot summer of anticipation--and always a handful tantalizingly out of reach.

But this year the tree has come into its own.

Squash for supper? Slice it thin, coat with rosemary and grated lemon zest, dip in egg and breadcrumbs, then fry until crispy golden-brown. Now that's bliss in a bag.

At first I thought he said, “Summer in a bag.”

And I said, “So poetic.”

Actually Ray was handing me a heavy bag of yellow crookneck summer squash. He looked at me quizzically. “Potatoes, tomatoes, sweet corn. Supper in a bag. In about two weeks.”

Now I get it.

Ray is the man. He pulls up poison ivy with his bare hands, turns withered bulbs into tropical jungles, even makes our temperamental grass grow. One day he tracked the path of the sun across the vegetable garden, then meticulously trimmed the branches that were shading out the tomatoes. Now Caspian Pinks and Purple Cherokees are ripening in the sun.

Noxious leaf, or delectable herb? Your taste for cilantro may depend upon what you ate as a child, and, though the science isn't clear, on genetic predisposition.

Here's the question: Do you love cilantro, or do you hate it?.

In our house, there isn't a day that goes by when cilantro isn’t calling plaintively from the refrigerator. “That tabbouleh would be so much better with me instead of that boring parsley,” it whines. “And what about that chipotle chicken soup you’re making, or the pot of black beans simmering on the back burner? You know you want me!”

Yes, actually I do. There’s nothing like cilantro to lift the flavor of other ingredients. And besides, I love the taste and fragrance of its floppy foliage.

Right now the soft, fresh aroma of the leaf is conjuring up a big bowl of summertime pico de gallo. The tomatoes are bursting with ripe, fruity flavor, and the just-picked serrano chiles taste like sweet green peppers riddled with pockets of fiery heat. Add a handful or two of fresh cilantro—plus lime juice and chopped onion—and suddenly you have a succulent salsa that is the essence of deliciousness.

But maybe you’re not a cilantro lover. Julia Child despised it.

Crazy mixed-up tabbouleh is packed with zingy flavors, including Turkish urfa pepper, preserved lemon peel, sweet dried cherries and of course, lots and lots of cilantro.

If you don’t like cilantro, stop right here.

Do something fun. Like watching the French World Cup soccer team evade millions of delirious fans at Charles de Gaulle. (All four of them.) Or trying to figure out why your water bill is $15,056.15 this month. (Is that a misprint?)

But if you love cilantro, go right to the kitchen. It’s time to make “tabbouleh gone wild.”

Like ordinary packaged tabbouleh, this version is made with bulgur wheat, lemon juice, cucumbers and tomatoes. But wait.

Now toss the tasteless, dried up herbs that come in the box. In fact, toss the whole seasoning package. Add handfuls of fresh herbs from the garden: ruffled basil, cooling mint, Italian parsley and thyme leaves—a mixture, if you have it, of vibrant lemon, French and silver thymes. Now stir in a generous two cups of cilantro, chopped fine.

Yes, really.

An old photo of a Moroccan camel, a new card for SpiceLines: Bringing the faraway, nearby.

“I have used these things to say what is to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.” Georgia O’Keefe, www.newmexicohistory.org

The artist Georgia O’Keefe walked alone in the desert, collecting bleached bones of animals that later found their way into her paintings. Her most famous canvas, From the Faraway, Nearby, depicted an elk skull suspended in a big sky over low hills—a magical found object imbued with all the wonder of the wide, wide world.

In a different way, via this this blog, I try to bring the wide, wondrous world a little closer to us. Sometimes the faraway is indeed distant: You might get a peek at Lisbon’s glorious azulejos, spend night on a houseboat in Kerala, see the vanilla orchid bloom in Veracruz. Back at home I’m in the kitchen—nearby—spinning out recipes in the spirit of the generous cooks who shared them with me: Amit Ghosh and his Red Snapper Curry, Raschida and her Berber Omelette, Dona Elena and her Rich Coffee Flan.

Spices, of course, are the ultimate faraway, nearby. Pepper, turmeric, cinnamon and dozens more not only carry the flavors of the distant world into the pot on my stove and yours--they also stimulate thoughts of other ways of living right here at home.

On the coast of Morocco I was smitten by a pale, long-legged camel on whose back I rode one November morning. Zidaine’s limpid gaze, rolling gait and the delicate way he planted his feet in the wet sand set me to dreaming of having my own ship of the desert. When he walked elegantly into the sea, I was ready to go along, wherever we might land.

The notion of importing a camel is, so far, just a dream. But our friend Mike, a stellar Austin designer, ran with the dream. He’s created a new look for SpiceLines, starting with a proper card featuring…the camel. I love the bright colors and the handwritten scrawl on the back side, but most of all I love the cheery little camel, a descendant, I’m sure, of the great creatures who trod the vast deserts, laden with spices and other precious goods, bringing the faraway a little closer.

I’m off for a week, not to the faraway, but to the fairly nearby. I’ll be disconnecting—no laptop, no Blackberry, no, um, well probably I will take my camera—for a few days of yoga and meditation.

Come to think of it, that sounds just like the faraway, nearby.

See you after the fireworks have faded into the sky.

So sorry, everyone--this entry should have been posted last week while I was away, but it didn't. Yet another reminder that I'm no techie...