The Zingerman’s Roadhouse is excited to announce that on March 24, executive chef and managing partner Alex Young received his second James Beard Award nomination for Best Chef in the Great Lakes Region. One of five nominees, Chef Alex Young is the only chef from Michigan. Check out his interview with Sylvia Rector of the Detroit Free Press.
Archive for March, 2008
Chef Alex Young of Zingerman’s Roadhouse receives James Beard Award Nomination
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008Interview Margaret Johnson, Author of The New Irish Table
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Margaret Johnson is a prolific author and a noted authority on both Irish cuisine and on the ways Irish culinary traditions are represented in the U.S. In advance of her trip to Ann Arbor to join us for a special evening of Irish-American supper and stories at the Roadhouse on March 19 we asked her a few questions about how she came to love the food of the Emerald Isle.
Ari: Tell me your background.
Margaret: I was born into a 3rd generation Irish family in Newburyport, Massachusetts, under the strong influence of a 1st generation grandmother. Always talk of “the old country” and the nostalgia that comes with it. Both maternal grandparents came from Ireland in 1898 (yes, 1898) and paternal grandparents even earlier. I’m 100% Irish-American, which explains my life-long interest in all-things-Irish. My first visit there wasn’t until I was 40 years old and I have been there close to 50 times since then.
Ari: What are some things that most Americans don’t know about Irish cooking?
Margaret: Maybe a better way to answer this is what they think they know about Irish cooking–bland, boring, “dreadful stuff my grandmother used to make!” That’s what I’ve always heard–mostly from people who’ve never traveled to Ireland. Irish-American food is all about corned beef and cabbage (which isn’t even Irish–don’t get me started on this subject!!), so most Irish-Americans really need to be educated about what the kind of food people in Ireland really eat–fresh, wonderful fish and meat, vegetables to-die-for, and a very sophisticated approach to cooking for the last 20-25 years.
Ari: We’ve been learning a lot about Irish butter. What’s your experience with it?
Margaret: Irish butter is absolutely the best! IF you consider that the taste of butter is a direct result of what the cows eat, it only makes sense that grass-fed, free-range cows would produce the best milk. You can almost taste Ireland itself when you spread it on toast, and it is a fantastic ingredient in baking.
Ari: Can you tell me about Irish-American cooking traditions?
Margaret: Well, the Irish have always been considered to be ‘plain’ cooks. Nothing fancy, so meat and potatoes figure prominently in Irish-American cooking. I think a lot of it has roots in the Famine years, when food was notoriously scarce. People learned to “make-do” with some meat and a few spuds, and that cooking tradition came with the millions who emigrated to America and their 44 million who claim Irish ancestry.
Ari: What else are we forgetting to ask you?
Margaret: Since I’m not a trained chef, how did I get interested in Irish food writing?
My interest in Irish food stemmed from my interest in Ireland. When I first traveled there, no one in America was writing anything positive about Irish food. Finally, in 1996, Bon Appetit devoted an entire issue to the subject of Ireland in a Special Collector’s Edition. That was my clue to forge ahead with my own research and have written seven Irish cookbooks to date (two published in Ireland in 1992 and 1995) and five by Chronicle Books. They are publishing a sixth next Spring called Tea and Crumpets.
Irish Food in the Toledo Blade
Thursday, March 13th, 2008It’s time to highlight Irish food
Article published Tuesday, March 11, 2008
St. Patrick’s Day is Monday, so it’s time for Irish food. Traditional Irish foods are gaining international attention, led by the Allen family at the Ballymaloe House in County Cork.
In keeping with that movement, Zingerman’s of Ann Arbor will bake loaves of Irish Brown Soda Bread at the Bakehouse through Monday. Dinners are planned at the Delicatessen and at the Roadhouse showcasing the flavors of Irish cuisine.
On Monday from 4 to 7 p.m., an all-you-can-eat Corned Beef and Cabbage Dinner is $16.99 at Zingerman’s Delicatessen. On March 18 from 6 to 8 p.m. Irish Sweets Baking Class with Margaret Johnson will be at Zingerman’s Bakehouse. Cost is $40. Reservations at www.bakewithzing.com.
On March 19 at 7 p.m., Supper and Stories with Irish-American writer Margaret Johnson will be at Zingerman’s Roadhouse. Reservations are required at 734-663-FOOD.
A centerpiece of the cooking and baking is imported Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. Made from milk of grass-fed cows, the butter’s flavor is evocative of the diet of grasses, according to Zingerman’s.
Kerrygold products are sold in local stores. For appetizers, a pub lunch, or a dessert cheese tray, serve a selection of Irish cheeses such as Kerrygold Dubliner, Blarney Castle, Cheddar, and Red Leicester. These are sold in area supermarkets and specialty stores. Serve with bread, crackers, toasted nuts, and fresh or dried fruits.
Irish dishes include Irish Champ, which traditionally has been considered “peasant fare,” but has been spotted on the menu at some of London’s finer restaurants. Creamy mashed potatoes are laced with scallions and are served in a peak; a small dip is made at the top and filled with melted butter, which is perfect for dipping each forkful of potato.
Irish soda bread is a quick bread made with baking soda and usually with buttermilk. It is speckled with currants and sometimes caraway seeds. Before baking, a cross is slashed in the top of the loaf.
The legend of Irish coffee credits chef Joe Sheridan in 1942 for serving coffee to tired travelers at the Foynes Airport in County Limerick, Ireland, according to information from Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey.
Mr. Sheridan sweetened the hot coffee with sugar, added a dram of Irish whiskey, and floated a dollop of lightly whipped cream on top. You get the coolness of cream and the hot of the coffee for “real Irish coffee.” It was transported to America where the Buena Vista Cafe in northern California began serving the first Irish coffees in 1952.
The Zagat Survey of restaurants describes the “famous Irish Coffee that still sets the standard” at Buena Vista Cafe, located on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
St. Patrick’s Day is also a day to serve corned beef brisket and Irish lamb stew. The latter is a traditional layered dish of equal parts seasoned lamb, potatoes, and onions. Water and stock are poured over all, the pot is covered, and the food is cooked slowly for two to three hours. It can be made the day before to allow the flavors to blend.
Corned beef and cabbage is an Irish-American invention. A six-pound brisket, serving 8 to 12, is covered with water, onions, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves, and garlic and simmered for three to four hours until the meat is tender. Cut a head of cabbage into six wedges and place on top of the meat and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes. Cabbage wedges can also be cooked in the microwave, which makes a tender, sweet vegetable.
Kathie Smith is The Blade’s food editor.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20081092180
Gullah Cooking in the Ann Arbor News
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Gullah Cooking
Posted by Nan Bauer, News Special Writer February 20, 2008 07:42AM
Categories: story
Nan Bauer
News Special Writer
Sallie Ann Robinson doesn’t shake hands. She hugs. I almost get one when I first meet her in the kitchen at Zingerman’s Roadhouse, but she and chef Alex Young are up to their elbows in cornbread stuffing for thick, rosy pork chops. “I’ll hug ya later, darlin’,” she tells me.
Later is at the Rhythm of Gullah Cooking dinner hosted at the Roadhouse that night, one of an ongoing series of dinners held there about once a month, sometimes more often. One reasonable price (in this case, $39) gets you four delectable courses centered around a particular theme. It takes place in a room where you can sit at your own table or share a larger table with other participants. (For the current schedule, go to zingermansroadhouse.com.)
What makes Robinson’s food unique from other Southern food is her background; She’s Gullah, and a native of Daufuskie Island, S.C. There is no Gullah Gullah Island, by the way, in case your kids watched the PBS series popular several years back. Instead, the Gullahs live on a group of small islands off the southern coast of South Carolina and the northern coast of Georgia. The area is the featured location in Pat Conroy’s book, The Water Is Wide,” about his year teaching there. Robinson’s in the book, as “Ethel.”
Gullah culture blends African, European and Native American influences, and has its own language (“Take two words and smash ‘em together, and you got Gullah,” says Robinson), art, and cooking style.
A natural storyteller, Robinson introduces the meal with a highly personal history lesson. No electricity, no cars, and no plumbing meant a childhood where everyone worked pretty much from dawn to sunset. Additionally, without a single store on Daufuskie, everything, from the meat to the herbs to the fruit, was home-grown.
Robinson cherishes her heritage, and writes eloquently about it in her second cookbook, “Cooking the Gullah Way Morning, Noon and Night”:
“Our soil was rich and natural, and we grew many fresh organic vegetables in our gardens. The woods were filled with adventure and a variety of wild game, berries, nuts, and herbs. We learned of both their goodness and danger. God gave us the stars, the moon, the sun, the tides, as well as our changing seasons… I have memories of many moments of joy, pain, spirituality and love, but, most of all, memories of blessing. It is the blessings that have guided me this far.”
Her two books aren’t cookbooks so much as memoirs with recipes. Those recipes are outstanding despite, or perhaps because of their simplicity, as my sister, Becky, and I find out when the first of four courses appears.
The appetizer place has a Daufuskie-Way Deviled Egg, a roasted oyster, deviled crab cake and sweet potato fries. It’s just enough to whet our appetites for the soups; I get ‘Fuskie Seafood Gumbo, thick with okra and perfectly spiced, while Becky gets an incredibly rich lima bean soup. I can’t place the flavor, which is smoky, sweet and deep.
The next day I learn from Robinson that the soup only has four ingredients: lima beans, broth, cracklings (crispy pig skin), and pig tails, “but a turkey wing will work fine if you don’t eat pork.” (Kroger sells smoked turkey wings that do indeed make an excellent stand-in for ham bones in traditional Southern dishes.)
Next up is the entree; Becky gets one of the pork chops that I saw being prepped that afternoon, and I go for Country-Fried Fish with Grits. They are surrounded by spicy Crab Rice, grilled corn on the cob, and the best yams I’ve ever eaten in my life, melt-in-your-mouth sweet yet with exactly the right texture.
We nibble at our desserts, sweet potato pie and blackberry dumplings, both just sweet enough to leave us utterly satisfied and just a little stuffed. Mid-meal, Robinson makes the rounds to make sure everyone’s happy with the food. It’s kind of like having Michelangelo ask you if you like his color combinations.
“This is the way we ate, every day,” she tells me the next day over a cup of tea. “Nobody got fat; we were all working too hard. Mama would always cook like this, especially on Sundays. You never knew who would stop in, so you wanted to make sure there was plenty of food.”
Sadly, Daufuskie has modernized along with the rest of the world, and is now home to a golf course; many families who have lived there for generations now have to rent out their land in order to pay taxes on it. Robinson herself currently lives in Savannah.
But through her books, she helps keep the culture alive. The unique organization of her book, where recipes are featured based on the time of day they were served, impresses that Gullah is an entire way of life, not just a way to cook.
The final section of the book is one you won’t find in any trendy cookbook by some young whippersnapper fresh out of culinary school. Home Remedies offers a primer of island beliefs, as well as cures for warts, hiccups, high blood pressure, and, naturally enough given the location, choking on a fish bone. It’s a book you can take from the kitchen to your bedroom nightstand without missing a beat.
“No one ever left the table without a bellyful,” Robinson tells me. Spend some time with her yourself through one of her books (the other is “Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way”) and you’ll feel marvelously satisfied in both your belly and your heart.
Country Candied Yams with Raisins
From “Cooking the Gullah Way Morning, Noon, and Night” by Sallie Ann Robinson, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2007.
6-8 medium-sized sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup whole milk, warmed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pineapple juice
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 stick butter, softened
2/3 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2/3 cup raisins
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
1. Put the sweet potatoes in a medium bowl and set aside. In a bowl, mix together the milk, vanilla extract, pineapple juice, and sugar. Pour this liquid mixture over the sweet potatoes. Add the butter, cinnamon, allspice, and raisins and stir to combine. Transfer to a baking pan and smooth out the top. Place the lemon slices over the sweet potato mixture. Bake in a preheated 375-degree oven about 45-60 minutes. Remove from the oven and enjoy hot or cold.
Maraschino Cherries
Thursday, March 13th, 2008If you think about it for more than 15 seconds, you’re going to quickly come to the conclusion that the super-processed, red-dye-number-whatever, cute little maraschino cherries that we all grew up with cannot possibly have been the original item. Just as cream cheese didn’t start out in foil packages with a one-year shelf life and a lot of stabilizer, so too there’s more to maraschino cherries than what they put into the cans of fruit cocktail.
So what were the original maraschino cherries? Quite simply, they were cherries that were macerated in maraschino liqueur. At one time, maraschino liqueur was more popular than cointreau. The marasca cherry, or in Latin, prunus cerasus marasca, grows typically on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, especially on the Dalmatian coast. It’s a pretty tart, dark red fruit that gives maraschino liqueur its unique flavor. So we’re starting with tart cherries, and then putting them into the very highly-rated Luxardo maraschino liqueur which has been made in Italy since the 19th century. Yes, the difference is beyond night and day. Bacon to Bacos.
Credit for creating maraschino goes to a Genovese by the name of Girolamo Luxardo, who was living in Zara on the Dalmatian Coast where he became familiar with the local cherry. His wife, Maria Canevari, began using the cherry to make liqueurs at home (as was customary at the time) and after her “rosolio maraschino” gained a reputation among serious connoisseurs, Girolamo opened a distillery in 1821.
After World War II, the Luxardo family relocated to the Veneto region of Italy. Today they have about 22,000 cherry trees, in the hills between Padua and Venice. The fruit is all hand-picked, crushed, fermented and then distilled in pot stills. The new liqueur is aged for two years in Finnish ash vats. There are some other maraschino liqueurs out there but they’re pretty much all copies of the Luxardo original and not anywhere near as good.
The liqueur on its own is very thick and full-bodied, and very complexly flavored. You can’t miss that it’s made from cherries; big and rich with a purity of flavor that hints subtly of cinnamon. It’s got a long, strong finish, as do the cherries that we macerate in it. I think every single person that’s sampled them has loved the flavor!
So with all this about the real thing, you might be wondering just what happened to maraschino cherries that changed them so drastically. Well, it seems that back in the 1920′s, one Ernest H. Wiegand, a horticultural professor at Oregon State University, developed a method for preserving cherries that was based on brine not alcohol. And in the process, the “modern,”-or what I think would more fairly be called “faux”-maraschino was first manufactured. (If you’re really interested, Oregon State still offers a course devoted to the technological and scientific aspects of maraschino cherry production.)
To compound the problem, the formal American definition was changed in 1940 when the FDA determined that, “A maraschino cherry is a cherry that has been macerated in a flavored sugar syrup, and then dyed. Red maraschino cherries are usually almond-flavored, while green are mint-flavored.”
A small thing at first glance, our shift back to making REAL maraschino cherries at the Roadhouse is something significant. Even today, Epicurious says on its website, “At one time they were traditionally flavored with Maraschino liqueur though such an extravagance is now rare.” They’re a meaningful flavor addition to the Classic Cocktail line at the Roadhouse. Think about what it means to put those super-processed ones into your cocktail-it’d be like putting American singles on a Niman Ranch burger. And, in the bigger scheme of food life, it’s a move that’s as meaningful as baking great bread, growing good produce locally, eating good olive oil, etc.
As part of our effort to take back our language around food, I think we can safely and clearly differentiate these cherries verbally as well as in flavor simply by pronouncing the name as it should be pronounced in Italian, “mar-ahs-kee-no,” instead of the Americanized “mar-ah-shee-no.” We do, by the way, still have the old-style ones for kids and for nostalgic adults. The real maraschinos aren’t for kids, but they are really good.