"Mangiare e Fare l’Amore"

Photo by egle

Yesterday I had the immense honor to listen to a great man. The founder and president of the Slow Food movement Carlo Petrini addressed a full house in Helsinki last night. Being the overly emotional person that I am, I found myself applauding this charming and charismatic man from the town of Bra, Italy with tears of joy in my eyes. Dear readers, if you still haven’t heard about Slow Food you should correct that with the speed of lightening! In a nutshell, Slow Food is all about preserving and fighting for good quality food worldwide. The ingredients of good quality food according to Slow Food are good/tasty food, clean food and fair food. “If one of these criteria is missing, there’s no quality at all”, Signor Petrini explained with a determined face.

Food has people talking and the masses are (Thank God) opening their eyes more and more. But why do we need all this fuss around food? Isn’t it just a trend? Well, the answer to that question will certainly divide people’s opinions, but if you ask me, or Signor Petrini for that matter, we need to talk about food now more than ever before. And trends have nothing to do with it.

In the past, food didn’t travel the four corners of the world to get on our plats. Seasonality was embraced, respected and followed. It created natural diversity in accordance with Mother Earth. Then came the wave of capitalism and with it also the contemporary plague – consumerism. On top of that, people started traveling long distances for leisure. Soon it wasn’t enough to savor a beautifully ripe mango somewhere in in Africa or South-East Asia, no, the mango had to come to us to any cost. Neither was it enough that the poor little mango travelled halfway across the world to make us happy, no, it had to be of perfect shape and size, the prettiest mango of all. Paying customers started having improbable demands on availability and accessibility. And that’s when it all turned upside down.

Signor Petrini pointed out that at a first glance it seems that food today is all about recipes, sharing them, comparing them, getting ahold of the best ones… But brace yourselves; recipes make up for only 10–15% of gastronomy! Gastronomy – the practice of choosing, eating and cooking good quality food – is a multidisciplinary domain. It’s equally about history and anthropology as it is about economy and medicine for example, and the list goes on and on. This is precisely the reason why I get so disappointed when I hear someone saying they write a food blog and when I check it out it’s overloaded with recipes, one after the other. Why don’t we talk about food like we talk about the next presidential elections or the economical crisis? Without food there wouldn’t even be a next president to talk about, let alone an economy for us to fuck up.

Signor Petrini revealed himself to be a non-believer, “but if I believed in God”, he said, “I’d thank Him for making the two most vital acts of human kind – eating and making love – so immensely pleasant and enjoyable”. In my country, if you ask me, a frighteningly big amount of the people have forgotten both how to relish in food and take ecstatic pleasure of two bodies becoming one. All that matters is safety and whether it’s healthy or not. Everything is restricted and socioculturally controlled. Limits, limits and more limits. I really hope the people listening yesterday went home hungry and lusting… I sure wouldn’t have minded getting acquainted with one of the many Italian chefs present at the lecture ;)

We have come such a long way from Nature. Nature has become so unnatural that we need to add the word ‘nature’ or ‘natural’ everywhere, especially when talking about food (or making love love for that matte). But it should all be natural – NATURALLY! Unfortunately, it is no longer so and that makes my very sad indeed. Signor Petrini said something that really shocked me. He rattled the crowd by actually thanking McDonald’s! At first it was like he had pronounced the name of the Devil, but then he explained to the audience that without McDonald’s and fast food there might not be Slow Food either. And he’s right. The human kind always seems to only learn the hard way…

As a conclusion I’d like you to ponder over something Signor Petrini said. He said that what is absolutely insane in today’s world is that people spend more money on loosing weight than on they do on eating! At first I gasped for air, that’s how astonished I was. But come to think about it, it might actually be true. I have to admit that even I felt a bit guilty. When I first started studying and moved away from home, the content of my fridge was most of the time composed of nothing more than the little lamp and some dry old potatoes. Somehow I still managed to purchase a gym card with a membership fee too expensive to even say out loud, shame on me! But I was vain, young and foolish, what can I say. Nowadays, I’m proud to inform you that it’s quite the opposite and I can't even see the little lamp. A good friend of mine came to my place a few days ago and got very surprised when opening my fridge: “It’s full, you’ve got so much food!”. Yes indeed! I don’t know about the other vital act of human kind, but I surely eat good every single day!

The value of food is so much more than its price. Next time you have to choose between some magic diet pills and good quality food according to Slow Food standards, do yourself and your environment a favor and go for the latter. Be aware of the pleasure good quality food gives you.

Grazie dal cuore Signor Petrini!

Special Delivery

Almost all people appreciate a special home made gift. If it’s something edible, it’s even better. I love preparing something special for someone special. But for me it’s not quite enough to cook or bake a dish that tastes goods in general. Pleasing someone with food can be rather challenging if the aim is to satisfy that one particular person’s taste to the point. How awfully embarrassing isn’t to be invited for dinner and to discover that what’s on the menu is something you simply can’t bear?! Or even worse, something you’re horribly allergic to! What a disaster. I think that a well-chosen and well-prepared dish is the perfect way to prove that you really know and care about a person dear to you. Who wouldn’t be flattered of a custom-made meal?

Not long ago I certainly outdid myself in customizing food. A dear friend of mine who has a minor fetish with Hello Kitty decided to throw a party at his place. Well of course it wasn’t just any party, it was a Hello Kitty party. Fearing that he would ask all invited guests to come dressed up as big headed pink kitty-cats, I discretely asked him for more details. I must say he had me for a second and I started inventing ways to get out of the situation. But I guess he judged by my face that I was slightly horrified so he was kind enough to correct himself. Finally all he wanted was for all guests to bring something Hello Kitty related with them to the party. I was relieved. I really couldn’t see myself dressed up as a Japanese cartoon figure.

For me it meant just another culinary challenge and I was game! Obviously the end result had to look like Kitty. That was certain. The twist was to make her taste perfectly exquisite in my friend’s mouth. After structuring a list of five main ingredients that would both fit together in general and do the trick considering my friend’s taste, I had it nailed

Making a culinary profile of someone you think you in depth is probably harder than you might think. Sweet or savory, creamy or fruity, light or heavy, simple or complex, warm or cold…are just the first criteria that come in mind. If the person in question follows a specific diet, has fully excluding dislikes or suffers of an allergy or an intolerance, the recipe search immediately turns into a much more demanding mission.

The way I see it is that choosing to make the most suitable dish according to someone’s particular taste and to serve a specific purpose is like choosing the right dress-code/outfit for a given occasion. Since one usually doesn’t wear a pyjama to the opera, why should one serve convenience food to someone only eating organic food? It seems ridiculously straightforward and simply, but it’s a very common gaffe I must say. If you don’t know whom you’re really cooking for you better get to know the essential dos and don’ts. If it’s impossible than don’t go for something too special or too complicated. I know, easier said than done. Most of the time I can’t even take my own advice to be honest. Like tonight, I decided to bake something that I could bring to an important appointment I have tomorrow morning. I told myself a thousand times to keep it simple and do it good. Try guessing whether I follow my own advice?

No, I didn’t. Anyway, my creation is now done and waiting to be eaten. One special delivery coming your way! I hope it won’t be a complete flop. Fingers crossed!

Something's Cooking All Right

Looking from the outside in there are fascinating things going on foodwise in Europe all the time and as we speak. It's especially in the Nordic countries (commonly but slightly incorrectly also know as Scandinavia) where something new and fresh is definitely cooking! The New Nordic Cuisine Movement – an innovative and rather new movement for Europe, but certainly so for the rest if the world – is blooming and the "Nordic taste" is turning into a widely recognized and appreciated concept, challenging for example the reputed and renowned, prestigious and flavour-rich Mediterranean cuisine that European food most often is known for outside our continent.

Not a 2010s movement per se as the New Nordic Cuisine Movement has been on people lips and in the making for quite a while already, but it's now that even the mainstream public is starting to get to know this new trend. Why now? It's not so far fetched since noma – Danish chef and food guru Clause Meyer's restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark won the British trade magazine Restaurant's price of World’s Best Restaurant in 2011. noma with Claus Meyer as head captain is giving rise to a whole new movement in the Nordic culinary culture. As they describe it themselves, noma represents a “Nordic gourmet cuisine with an innovative gastronomic take on traditional cooking methods, fine Nordic produce and the legacy of our shared food heritage […] a revival of Nordic cuisine and let its distinctive flavours” (noma's official website).

But there's much more to this movement than noma since it is all about putting back in place the natural limits and conditions that once fully determining human accessibility to food. What's naturally (biologically) and geographically own to our culture and our taste is being uplifted, and stopped regarded upon as constraints and/or culinary handicaps. It's something 100% positive to us and our environment. It's certainly also about elevating the Nordic taste and Nordic culinary culture to the same pedestal as its most refined French and Italian rivals. What Nordic cuisine has to offer has been stipulated in the Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen adopted by the Nordic council of ministers. In ten points the manifesto states the fundamentals for the New Nordic Cuisine Movement. The message and main aim are rather honest and straightforward. The indisputable main criteria widely agreed upon in the Nordic Region are that of seasonality, purity, essential simplicity, respecting a certain moral and ethics and finally, beliefs of significant health benefits for humans and the nature we live off.

In Finland, Finnish food is going through similar revival. Finland, known familiarly as the little brother of Sweden might come one step behind the more known Nordic countries, but Finnish input and distinctiveness, nevertheless, shouldn't be underestimated or simply labelled under 'Scandinavia'. I really disapprove of that I must say! Obviously and undeniably, Finnish cultural heritage and also food culture both have their origins in Scandinavian or better Swedish culinary traditions and sometimes it might be hard to wholly separate one from the other. However, the Russian influence on Finnish food culture and taste is not to be dismissed. Herein lies the uniqueness of Finnish cuisine today. Not fully Scandinavian, a touch Slavic and Russian, rather Nordic but still fully Finnish.

I'm very happy to see this development and it has made me think even more about what my own personal taste is, what it represent and where it comes from. I wanted to share this with you, dear readers, now as I'm writing my Master thesis on this exact phenomenon/issue. Thesis writing is darn lonesome by the way and I feel like I'm loosing it several times a day. I guess I simply wanted to share this with all of you and inform you that I'm still here as hungry as ever for new information, new vibes and above all new tastes! If this post gave birth to same awesome and intriguing ideas that might be useful for me ( ;) vink vink), hit me (hard enough) with an email: edithsalminen[at]gmail[dot]com and share your mind with me.

Until then, wish me luck, long nerves and good sprit. Pretty please.

Accepting No Excuses

Needless to say, I'm really no big fan of this dreadful commercial festivity of love. For someone like me who doesn’t consume anything sweet, this day is just filled with big no-nos in all possible ways. Food-wise it's ridiculous: Heart shaped cupcakes, kitsch wrapped chocolates, creamy and puffy pastries; I've even encountered a heart shaped steak once! What a waste of perfectly fine meat I’d say…

However, there’s something about love and food that naturally goes hand in hand. I mean only the act of eating together in many cultures is the number one sign of intimacy and bonding and it is often a mutual slipper slope to other more sexual activities. C’mon, passion and lust (and love) are embedded in good food! But really, why go and make a mockery of your loved one by letting him/her cut in to a heart shaped Tournedos?! It’s just plain stupid if you ask me. A real sign of devotion and love is to cook for your loved one yourself. Now I’m sure there a bunch of lazy-asses or people calling themselves horrible cooks who would oppose, but I have to say in my defense that love really does make you do things you would never do otherwise! That is what I call Valentine’s Day spirit.

And of course I’ve got a personal story for you, otherwise it would be too easy to sit here and speak for almost anything hypothetical. A couple of years back, no, six years back I think it was, I was already a huge gourmade and on top of that I was IN LOVE big time. Back then, Valentine’s Day still meant something to me. It was a special day where any act of love however absurd, overwhelming or cheesy, was fully legitimate and welcome. I had all kinds of romantic images in my head of a five-course meal in a classy restaurant, but considering our age and our economic misery, we wouldn’t even have been able to order a decent glass of red. Let’s say that fantasy had to be postponed to the remote future back then. But I certainly wasn’t ready to give up the thought of being served a romantic meal though, and I damn sure didn’t want to be covered in food stains when I for once had planned on wearing a little sexy dress and be all girly and pretty to please my boyfriend. Solution: I decided that he would be the chef for the night. See that’s the great thing about teenage love. You were actually able to command our loved one and he would do what ever you asked for. ­Good old time…

My ex, poor fellow, was everything but a cook – seriously. I remember his Dad even pealing the oranges for him (maybe that was simply because he was too lazy…anyway)! But to my astonishment he fully accepted the challenge. I was ecstatic! Maybe now he finally would realize how much work and effort a home cooked meal actually takes and he would finally appreciate all my works of art that he had gobbled up in matter of seconds without even recognizing whether it was chicken or beef he was eating.

He started stressing a week ahead it seemed and when D-day arrived he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I felt bad. Maybe it would be best if I took over after all. He was somewhat of a sore looser so there was no way he would admit defeat before even having attempted the task. Three hour before dinnertime he asked me to leave the house. I delightedly followed his orders. As I kissed his goodbye and wished him good luck, I couldn’t help but feeling warm inside when I noticed the stack of recipes he had ripped out from magazines and printed out from the internet. I felt special and loved, what more could I have asked for.

Three hours later I was welcomed back to the house. It smelled amazing! Of course there were some bubbly wine, roses and a heart shaped card, but that was not the point. The point was that he had done it! A three-course meal was about to be served and all I had to do is sit and look pretty. Everything tasted divine! Plus he really hadn’t taken the easy way out. And this was a young man who honestly couldn’t cook for the love of God! 

So there you go, I won’t accept any more excuses – ever. If you haven’t made reservation in a restaurant that doesn’t serve lame-ass Valentine’s Day specials, cancel your reservation and google a few yummy recipes on your lunch break and on your way home drop by the nearest well equipped grocery store. I bet my head on it that you will get lucky!

Reveal Yourself

Have you ever thought about what happens to food and the raw materials when they're being cooked? Have you ever pondered what a specific  way of preparation means and signals? Have you ever realized that when food is cooked and prepared it gets a label and it carries a marker of something? Known for his famous work Physiologie du goût (Physiology of Taste) published in 1825, epicure and gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brilliat-Savarin said "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are". Do you think the food you cook tells the others the truth about you?

I've many times thought about what kind of image and idea I convey of myself through my cooking, my food preferences and my eating habits. I've always considered myself as a very incoherent eater, but maybe I do, after all, follow certain patterns.

It's fascinating to see the variety of dishes the exact same ingredients and raw materials can result in when they're being cooked by different people with different culinary backgrounds. We turn food into cuisine with our hands. I for sure would love to base my understanding of another person solely on his/her eating and cooking! I wonder what I could find out only based on a cooked dish. Food habits and preferences matter and what a person decides to eat and how he cooks his food could definitely give off some interesting secrets.

I wonder how close to reality a judgement made through food could be. Could I tell whether it's a man or a woman, a Swede or an Englishman, whether the person is young or old, fit or unhealthy…Some elements are certainly more obvious than others. Anyone who has worked as a waiter in a restaurant knows this. At some point you just know who ordered what. But not everything is as clear. And I'm sure each and everyone of us has some very contradictory and incoherent vices.

I have a feeling that naming a person's cultural background based on his cooking and food preferences might be a bit trickier. It's not like food stays within any cultural boundaries nowadays. Besides, how much do we know about foreign countries' cuisines except for the common stereotypes? A year and half ago, I was jumping up and down of joy when I first found out that I'd be living with a Greek when moving to Sweden. I had always wanted to learn how to make an authentic Moussaka. Turned out the only thing that Greek ate was hamburgers and other junk food! I think this proves my point.

But if we stick to cultural markers only, not only do we eat foods from many different countries, but our eating habits can have multi- and/or transcultural origins. Until recently, I was sure that the Finns could boast with being the only people to make smoked cheese. A while ago a friend of mine living in Vigo, in Spain made me try a Galician speciality, smoked cheese – Another one bites the dust.

So if it's no longer what you eat that reflects your cultural origins, I'd like to suggest that it's the way you cook and prepare food that still can reveal your cultural identity. I'm saying this because a few days ago as I was watching a cooking program on TV, I realized that it's enough that you add one crucial ingredient or do something that no one else would do and you're busted. The chef on TV was showing how to make fajitas. I was surprised, a Finnish TV chef preparing fajitas in February, ok, why not. The ingredients he would use all seemed to respect the authentic recipe. And then as he had almost convinced me, he blew it.  I quote "in order to make it easier and faster" (to two 'musts' in Finnish everyday cooking) he empties a plastic bag of deep-frozen mixed "Mexican" veggies on the frying pan together with the ready sliced and ready marinated "Taco & Fajitas" chicken slices. Sigh.

In some strange way you just got to love it though. I mean it's simply a means to make an otherwise pretty foreign dish seem more familiar. In the best of cases, the Finn eating the Finnish fajitas à la Finnish TV chef might one day have the will to try the real thing because he got a "smooth landing" to a whole new world of tastes through the version suitable for Finnish taste. One sure can hope for the best.

Am I What I Eat?

 There are many sayings related to food and I regard many of them as essential spices of my daily vocabulary. To use food and kitchen terminology in other registers and contexts is not only fun, but also very metaphorical and figurative. There’s especially one saying that I have stumbled upon recurrently these past few days.

“We Are What We Eat”, that’s what they say, don’t they? I’ve learned that the food you eat can not only reveal your tastes, but even your gender, ethnicity, social status, cultural traditions and the list goes on. But of course the saying is usually employed when promoting healthy eating habits. Come to think of it, if I am what I eat, then I have to say I’m a pretty scrumptious person: I love eating delicious, honest, flavorful and fresh food! Jokes aside, I honestly believe the food I eat is both healthy and appetizing at the same time. Sometimes however, I just can’t help myself and my lust for all those special treats take over my will of being healthy and in control!

There’s someone in particular who almost always brings out the true gourmande in me. Let me introduce my favorite partner in crime Tif – a fabulous woman who has inspired me through her many exotic recipes and taste combinations, a loyal friend who’ll always sneak to the fridge with you for that last little bite... When we’re together we certainly are what we eat! We turn into spring rolls, pannacottas, goat cheese filled duck breasts, you name it. We even manage to turn into human sushi – don’t ask. But still, there’s one thing we most certainly become and that is cheese!

We both returned to our parents’ houses for Christmas, Tif to Central France and me to Southern Finland. We then reunited for New Year’s in Strasbourg where we’ve lived together a while ago. We didn’t really have time to plan ahead, but I trusted my intuition that we’d have  a “mutual understanding” on things anyway. And did we have a mutual understanding alright!

I arrived to my ex-home in Strasbourg with my bag full of goodies. As special treat with love from Finland just for Tif, 1 and a 1/2 kg of leipäjuusto – a Finnish oven baked cheese she has had a love affair with since 2 years and still going strong. Six hours later Tif arrived. She only needed to unzip her backpack and I already understood. She took out a huge plastic container, opened it and the source for the smell was immediately located. Tif and her Dad are always very generous with food gifts, but never before had I’ve had the immediate access to such a quantity of fine artisan cheese! One cheese among the many, the Salers was an especially enchanting encounter. If Tif has given her heart to leipäjuusto than I’ve even named myself after the Salers cheese. I took it as my pseudo-French surname to avoid sort of “misunderstandings” connected to my Finnish one that’s how much I love it!

Accompanied by nice bottle of Cahors, our favorite red, we dug in. Bonsoir Cantal, salut cher Rocamadour, comment vas-tu Saint-Nectaire, ça fait longtemps Bleue d’Auvergne… Ah, it felt like home. As I was about to savor a nice big chunk of Salers, I took a moment of silence. After all, I was about to take the “We are what we eat” to a whole other level. The moments of metamorphosis has to be crystallized. I no longer only bare its name, I truly turned into Salers. I think I’ve answered my question.

                                                Mini Teeny Tiny

As those of you who follow culinary trends know, mini is the new maxi. And no wonder, small is cute. There’s no doubt about it. Girls and women go AWWWWW pouting their lips, making that certain face... They just can’t help it. Neither can I to be quite honest. Bakeries have started making tiny cup cakes, mini tarts, mini what-have-you instead of rather unaesthetic overly big versions. In my opinion, it’s all for the best. Firstly, mini pastries and desserts are awfully cute and tempting. Secondly, you don’t feel half as bad after eating them. And thirdly, it might come as a surprise to those of you with a severe sweet tooth, but one or two bites maximum will do the trick most of the time. All in all, perfect I would say!

We decided to skip the traditional Christmas food this year. It’s a bit boring, it’s heavy and no one in my family is especially fond of it. Not a big loss, in other words. Of course I had ideas for the whole alternative Christmas menu, but there was something teeny tiny that I really wanted to do and Christmas would be the perfect occasion to carry it through. So even though there won’t be a traditional Christmas meal in my house this year, we’ll certainly be very full and very satisfied anyway.

A festive meal prepared with love will for sure guarantee the satisfaction, but the whole shebang isn’t complete without a dessert.  But what to do – I’m unable to make up my mind and choose one yummy dessert over another! Solution: several mini desserts! Here we go…

I really had trouble choosing four mini desserts out of the million ideas I have in my mind, but I think I nailed it down pretty well. As tonight’s dessert I’ll serve:

Mini cinnamon & orange crème brûlée

Mini blackcurrant-blueberry-Cointreau jelly

Mini gingerbread biscuits with Brie-cheese filling

Mini chocolate truffles with a touch of cardamom & Himalaya salt

I did most of the preparations last night already and it has been hard not give in to a tiny "sneak peak". I hope everything will taste divine because if not, I‘ll be devastated.  I hate to serve something that I myself don’t regard as the best I can do.

Merry (mini) Christmas! Be good to your belly!