a

aardvark

Orycteropus afer, an animal of southern Africa which is truly ‘one of a kind’; it has no relations, although it can be counted as a member of the category of ANTEATERS. Dutch colonists gave it its name, which means ‘earth pig’, because it resembles in some respects the pig and because of the amazing efficiency with which it can burrow into the ground, notably to create the system of tunnels in which it lives. These tunnels have many entrances (or exits) and by retreating into them during daytime the aardvark achieves a fair degree of security against large predators. Its own food consists largely of termites, plus various insects, all of which it catches on its sticky tongue. It may cover a considerable distance during the night, guided by its excellent sense of smell, in search of such sustenance. Although it attains a large size (maximum length 1.8 m/6′ maximum weight 100 kg/220 lb), it is rarely seen, due to its timorous and nocturnal habits.

The reputation of the aardvark as food for humans is good. It is commonly described as tasting like pork.

abalone

the common name used since the mid-19th century in N. America, and now generally adopted, for large single-shell molluscs of the genus Haliotis. Ormer and ear-shell are other English names.

An abalone can be regarded as a large and highly evolved kind of LIMPET, using the term in its general sense. It possesses seven holes in its shell through which water is drawn to be filtered through a pair of gills, and a very large oval ‘foot’ or adductor muscle by which it adheres firmly to its rock. It is this foot which is the edible part. Obtaining it is not easy, since the creature normally lives at a depth which makes it necessary to dive and then prise the shells away from the rock. However, the rewards are commensurate with the task, since abalone fetches a good price and its beautiful shell also has some commercial value.

The Chinese and the Japanese are the greatest enthusiasts for this delicacy, and it is noticeable that the finest and largest abalones, such as H. asinine, are found in the Pacific, off the coasts of Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and California. Dried or canned abalone is widely used in the Orient, and everywhere expensive, although fresh abalone costs even more.

The species familiar in the Mediterranean and on the European Atlantic coast as far north as the Channel Islands is H. tuberculata, which may measure as much as 12 cm (5″). This has been esteemed since classical times, when Aristotle described it, but the abalone is not a noticeable feature of Mediterranean cuisines, perhaps because it has never been abundant there. It is more common on the Atlantic coast of France, and there are interesting Breton recipes for preparing it. Its reputation in the Channel Islands is high.

In California the various species include black, red, green, white, and pinto abalones. The red abalone, H. rufescens, is the premier species, and was formerly the only one for which there was a commercial fishery. It could grow up to a size over 25 cm (10–11″), but large specimens are now rare.

Commercial fishing for any species of abalone is prohibited in the states of Washington and Oregon. A Californian project for the establishment of a new country, Abalonia, consisting of artificial reefs for the cultivation of the red abalone, outside the (then) territorial limits, came to grief when the first hulk being towed out for this purpose sank in the wrong place.

For the Japanese, abalone has been an important shellfish since antiquity. Whereas HAMAGURI, the Japanese clam, with its matching pair of shells, has been a symbol of marital harmony, abalone, because of its single shell, has long been used by poets as a symbol of unrequited love.

Japanese fishing for abalone is often done by husband-and-wife teams—the wife diving into the sea, and the husband taking charge of the boat and lifeline. (This is said to be because women can hold their breath longer than men.) The diving women, called ama (sea-women), now go about their task with the aid of neoprene suits which enable them to stay under water longer in pursuit of the shrinking population.

The flesh of all abalones is tough, and must be tenderized by beating with a mallet, to break up the muscle fibres, before cooking. Processing, which is a skilled business, usually ends with the cutting of the trimmed meat into steaks.

The Japanese consider that an abalone whose flesh has a bluish tint will be tougher in texture, and best eaten raw as mizugai, i.e. the flesh is diced and floated in iced water or buried in crushed ice, to be eaten with a dipping sauce. Abalones with yellowish flesh, on the other hand, are thought to be more tender and suitable for grilling, or steaming.

In New Zealand the Maori name paua has been generally adopted for the species found there, especially the large and black-footed abalone H. iris, which enjoys some protection, so that the New Zealand liking for paua fritters and chips will not lead to the exhaustion of stocks.

acacia and wattle

Acacia spp. There are over 600 species, most of them native to Australia but others distributed throughout Africa, S. Asia, and the warmer parts of the Americas. They belong to the family Fabaceae (Leguminosae) whose members, including the familiar beans and peas, characteristically produce seeds in pods.

Many varieties are edible in part (for example, seeds, roots, gummy exudations) and have been exploited for this purpose by Australian Aborigines. Low (1989) explains that some acacias have several times the protein content of wheat; that the dried seeds were ground and baked as a form of damper (see BREAD VARIETIES); and that the species called mulga (A. aneura) is so abundant in the Northern Territory that its seeds could feed a quarter of a million people in an average year. However, virtually all edible wattles were eaten only in desert regions; the exception being the coast wattle, A. sophorae, whose pods and peas were eaten in S. Australia and Tasmania.

It is a far cry from Aborigines in the Australian desert to the renowned chef ESCOFFIER in the capitals of Europe. However, acacia/wattle bridges the gap. Escoffier adopted the European practice of stripping off the flowers of acacia, which have a light but definite perfume, and making fritters of them. He did this with cultivated acacia flowers, first steeped in liqueur brandy and sugar.

Many acacias exude gums, of which the best known is GUM ARABIC, extracted from incisions in the bark of A. senegal.

Accum

Friedrich Christian (1769–1838) chemist and food investigator, was born in Buckebourg, Westphalia. After training as a chemist, he went to London in 1793 and worked for the apothecaries to King George III.

He lectured on science at the Surrey Institute, opened a laboratory, and began to publish work on mineralogy. He then became an engineer with the London Gaslight and Coke Company and published, in 1815, his Practical Treatise on Gas Light. Turning to the investigation of food, he published Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons (1820). He was appalled by the adulteration of food carried on by men who, ‘from the magnitude and apparent respectability of their concerns would be the least obnoxious to public suspicion’. He asserted that ‘spurious articles are everywhere to be found, made up so skilfully as to baffle the discrimination of the most experienced judges’. Accum was not fooled; and he gave his scientific attention to a number of ‘substances used in domestic economy which are now very generally found sophisticated [adulterated]—tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spiritous liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mustard, cream, confitures, catsup and other articles of subsistence’. His book gave methods of detecting adulterations and culinary poisons and listed brewers and grocers who had been prosecuted for adulterating beer and tea.

The powerful revelations in Culinary Poisons of the unscrupulous and dangerous techniques used to defraud the public were introduced by a title-page decorated with a dramatic image: a pot inscribed with a quotation from the Second Book of Kings. The chilling announcement that ‘There is Death in the Pot’ is entwined by snakes and topped by a draped skull.

His book Culinary Chemistry (1821) gave ‘Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegars, Conserves, Fruits, Jellies, Marmalades and Various other Alimentary Substances employed in Domestic Economy, with Observations on The Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of Different Kinds of Food’.

Accum became librarian of the Royal Institution, but he was charged with embezzlement and dismissed. He was reputed to have used the free endpapers of books as notepaper. When tried, he was acquitted, but left England to avoid a continuation of the proceedings against him, which were said to have been inspired by those whose swindles he had exposed. Back in Germany, he became a professor at the Berlin Technical Institute and continued to teach until his death in 1838.

Roy Shipperbottom

achar

(also acar, achard) an Indian name for PICKLE. As Achaya (1994) notes, a Persian or Arabic derivation is commonly given for the name, but Rumphius in the mid-18th century noted that the name axi or achi was among those used in America for the CHILLI pepper and he (Rumphius) thought that this was the origin of the Indian word achar (no doubt because chilli pepper is an important ingredient for pickles).

There are other theories about the origin of the word. Hobson-Jobson (1903; see Yule and Burnell, 1979) has the following interesting entry:

[The word is] adopted in nearly all the vernaculars of India for acid and salt relishes. By Europeans it is used as the equivalent of ‘pickles’ and is applied to all the stores of Crosse and Blackwell in that kind. We have adopted the word through the Portuguese; but it is not impossible that Western Asiatics got it originally from the Latin acetaria.

Among the interesting early citations which Hobson-Jobson gives is one from the 16th century which identifies cashews conserved in salt as achar, and another from the 17th century which gives mango as the prime example (conserved with mustard, garlic, salt, and vinegar).

However this may be, the term has achieved wide currency. It is well known in Malaysia, for example, whither S. Indians had no doubt taken it when they arrived in force in the 19th century; and it is familiar also in S. Africa, having been brought perhaps by the ‘Cape Malay’ immigrants whose influence on the cuisine there is considerable. Indians may also have taken the term to the W. Indies, where it is used in many of the islands. What seems to be an echo of the term occurred in N. America in a Boston publication of 1837 which referred to ‘Yellow Pickle, or Axejar’; see also CHOW-CHOW.

Although the term penetrated to the far north of the Indian subcontinent (notably in Nepal), it failed to reach Afghanistan and does not seem to have crossed the mountain barriers into C. Asia, nor to have travelled westwards to the Levant.

achocha

the fruit of a tropical American tree, Cyclanthera pedata, widespread in Mexico and S. America, of the CUCURBIT group. The gourds or fruits, which are about 5 cm (2″) long, yellowish-white, and prickled on the upper part, are cooked as a vegetable, notably in Peru. The name achocha (or achuccha) is a native one, used in that country.

The fruits are sometimes stuffed before being cooked. Young ones, which taste something like cucumber, may be eaten raw.

Herklots (1972) records that, mysteriously, this plant has come to be cultivated and eaten in parts of Nepal, where it is called korila. He describes the tiny black seeds, vividly, as being like ‘diminutive mud turtles with head and neck outstretched and projections at the corners where the feet would emerge beneath the carapace’.

acids

a large group of substances essential to the working of the body and widespread in food. The scientific definition of an acid is a substance that dissolves in water to release hydrogen ions, dissolves metals releasing hydrogen gas, and reacts with a base to form a salt. All these properties are relevant to food.

First, the release of hydrogen ions—that is, hydrogen atoms with a positive electrical charge—means that acids tend to remove oxygen from other substances, and combine it with the hydrogen to form water. Oxygen tends to spoil foods (see, for example, FATS AND OILS), so acids act as preservatives, as in PICKLES and some fermented foods such as SAUERKRAUT and YOGHURT.

Second, many compounds formed by acids and metals are important in foodstuffs. These include ordinary SALT, sodium chloride, which can be made from sodium and hydrochloric acid. Other examples are BICARBONATE OF SODA, CREAM OF TARTAR, calcium oxalate (see OXALIC ACID), and saltpetre (see NITRATES AND NITRITES).

Third, the reaction of an acid with a ‘base’ (roughly the same as an ALKALI) is the means by which BAKING POWDER evolves gas and thus raises cakes.

Acids may be classed as strong or weak, according to the quantity of hydrogen ions they can release. One of the strongest is hydrochloric acid, an inorganic acid, which is found in the stomachs of animals (including humans), where it helps to break down food. Strong acids are corrosive and this one is no exception; the stomach lining must be constantly renewed as it is eaten away. Many complex organic acids are so weak that their effect is negligible, for example the AMINO ACIDS of which protein is composed. Some organic acids, however, are quite strong, such as citric acid in citrus fruit, malic acid in apples, and acetic acid in VINEGAR. The strength of acids (and of alkalis) is measured on the pH scale (see PH FACTOR).

The old belief that certain foods are ‘acid forming’ and thus in some way bad for the body is no more than a myth.

Ralph Hancock

acitrón

the candied ‘flesh’ (stem) of the large cushion-like biznaga cactus, Echinocactus grandis. This confection is sometimes called just biznaga in Mexico, where it is made, usually shaped into bars of about 2 cm (1″) square. It is used for desserts, for sweet TAMALES, and sometimes in less expected ways, e.g. in the beef hash called picadillo. This is used for the dish chiles en nogada that boasts the colours of the Mexican flag (green chilli, white walnut sauce, red pomegranate seeds scattered over) and is thus often consumed on Mexican Independence Day (16 September).

Acitrón can be found at most Mexican markets or bakeries, in the SW of the USA (as ‘cactus candy’) as well as in Mexico. It does not have a pronounced flavour of its own, but provides an interesting texture. Candied citron may be substituted, indeed, this has always been what the term acitrón has meant in Spain, but candied pineapple is better.

acorns

the nuts borne by oak trees, Quercus spp. Of the hundreds of species around the world, many yield acorns suitable for animal fodder, but only a few bear acorns acceptable as human food. These have been eaten since prehistoric times, and still are, but their use has greatly diminished.

The best and sweetest acorns are from the ilex (or holm, or holly) oak, Quercus ilex ssp rotundifolia (formerly ballota), which grows all round the Mediterranean and in W. Asia. It is common in Spain and Portugal, and varieties of it are cultivated there for their acorns, the best of which are comparable to and eaten like chestnuts. The Duchess who, in Don Quijote, asked Sancho Panza’s wife to send acorns from her village would have been seeking especially fine specimens of this kind. Such acorns are longer than most, and cylindrical in shape. The Spanish name bellota is derived from the Arabic ballū, from which comes the former variety name ballota. This name is also used by Mexicans, but in reference to the acorns of Q. emoryi. The cultural practice of acorn-eating is called balanophagy, from the Greek balanos.

The common oak of Britain and NW Europe, Q. robur, is one of the many unpalatable species with nuts having a high content of tannin; these have only been used as human food in times of famine (see also FAMINE; GEOPHAGY).

In N. America, however, there are several native species whose acorns are palatable and constituted a food of some importance for Indians and early white settlers. The Cahuilla Indians were not numerous, but the detailed account of their treatment of acorns by Bean and Saubel (1972) illuminates vividly the whole question of acorn-eating in the past. For the Cahuilla, these nuts were a food resource of great value, providing less protein and carbohydrate than barley or wheat, but much more fat. Of the four Quercus spp which they used, the California black oak, Q. kellogii, was rated top, since its acorns had ‘outstanding flavor and the most gelatin-like consistency when cooked, a prerequisite for good acorn mush’. However, a really skilled acorn mush-maker would mix acorns of different species; and the whole complex of activities involved in harvesting, preparing, and cooking acorns called for great expertise, much equipment, and due ceremonial.

Acorns themselves and cakes made from acorn meal have remarkable keeping properties. Acorn meal can be used in much the same ways as cornmeal.

Acton

Eliza (1799–1859) regarded by some as the most accomplished cookery writer in the English language, spent her early life in Suffolk, the county where her father’s family belonged, and also spent some time in France. As an adult she lived in Tonbridge (in Kent) and Hampstead (in London). She never married and for much of her life her household consisted of her mother and herself.

Her book Modern Cookery for Private Families was published in 1845, revised by her in 1855, and stayed in print until almost the end of the century. It then had to wait almost 100 years before being reprinted in full (1994), although a generous selection of her recipes had been republished in 1986, accompanied by admirable essays from Elizabeth Ray and Elizabeth David. A separate book, The English Bread Book, appeared in 1857.

The high praise which her work has attracted has been due to a combination of elegant, precise, and lucid writing on the one hand with meticulous and observant activity in the kitchen on the other. The ‘Obs.’ appended to many of her recipes constitute exactly the kind of comment which is invaluable to the cook.

Elizabeth Ray (Acton, 1986) points out that ‘although she is basically a very English cook, many of her receipts are labelled “French”, and appear as a matter of course in the main body of [her] book’. Other foreign recipes, in contrast, appear in a separate chapter on ‘foreign and Jewish cookery’ (Eliza Acton mentions more than once ‘a certain Jewish lady’ who gave her recipes; and it is interesting that these are Ashkenazi rather than Sephardic). Among Elizabeth Ray’s further comments are the following:

Eliza Acton’s muse had once flown further than the kitchen: the story has often been written of how the maiden lady of the eighteen-thirties, already a poet with a modest reputation, took ‘further fugitive verses’ to her publishers—to be told that they would rather have a cookery book instead. Modern Cookery for Private Families was the result, and posterity has agreed with her publishers: the cookery book survives, but not the verses.

Nevertheless, an unmistakable literary talent appears even in her receipts, in the style itself, and in the engaging titles she bestows on some of her dishes. ‘The Elegant Economist’s Pudding’ for example, is an appetising name indeed for what is, in fact, a way of using up left-over Christmas pudding. ‘Poor Author’s Pudding’ is contrasted with ‘The Publisher’s Pudding’, which ‘can scarcely be made too rich’. The italics are her own, the poor author’s.

It is tempting to compare Eliza Acton to Jane Austen, at least for elegance of style and quiet wit. However, although Eliza Acton was the product of that period of English history which Jane Austen so charmingly described in her novels, she was writing at a time when the nature of English society was undergoing radical changes, largely because of the Industrial Revolution; and the beneficial innovations which she introduced into the art of recipe-writing were especially appropriate in that they heralded many new developments in food distribution (the railways) and kitchen technology as well as in other aspects of Victorian life.

Elizabeth David (1984) drew attention to Miss Acton’s ‘singleness of purpose … and meticulous honesty’; and (Acton, 1986) described her book as ‘the greatest cookery book in our language’.

additives

substances added to food to make it more appetizing, to preserve it, or, sometimes, to make it ‘healthier’. The term tends to be used in a pejorative sense for unwanted chemicals introduced by the food industry for purely commercial reasons; but even salt and pepper are additives in the strict sense.

The laws of many countries require all the ingredients of processed foods, including additives, to be listed on the package. In the USA additives are listed by name, but in the EU they are classified by a three-figure number. The FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission is preparing an internationally acceptable classification (derived in large part from the EU’s). These ‘E numbers’ are assigned to both natural and synthetic additives, as well as ‘nature identical’ ones—that is, exact synthetic copies of natural substances such as the green colour chlorophyll (E140). Some numbers are not preceded by E, which often means that their status is under consideration; as with Brown FK (154), a dye used only in Britain to make pale, lightly smoked kippers look more attractive. A very few were assigned numbers but have since been banned, such as the ‘azo’ (nitrogen-based) dye Allura red AC (E129).

Substances used as COLOURINGS have E numbers beginning with 1. They include natural caramel (E150), and synthetic azo dyes such as Green S (E142), used in canned peas, and the notorious yellow tartrazine (E102), which some people believe causes hyperactivity in children.

General preservatives have numbers beginning with 2. They include sorbic acid (E200). Saltpetre or sodium nitrate (E250) is used in cured meats. Acetic acid (E260) is the active principle of vinegar.

Antioxidants, which, among other things, prevent FATS AND OILS from going rancid, have numbers from E300 to E322. These include some vitamins used as preservatives as well as dietary supplements, such as vitamin C or ascorbic acid (E300) and various forms of vitamin E, the tocopherols (E306–9).

The remainder of the numbers beginning with 3 go to substances which are both antioxidants and general stabilizers. One of the commonest is butylated hydroxyanisole or BHA (E320), added to potato snacks, biscuits, pastry, sauces, and fried foods. Citric acid (E330) is used to prolong the keeping time of pickles, bottled sauces, dairy products, and baked goods.

Emulsifiers (see EMULSION) and other stabilizers have numbers beginning with 4. These include natural gums such as GUM ARABIC (E414), PECTIN (E440a), and the dauntingly named polyglycerol esters of polycondensed fatty acids of castor oil (476), used to make chocolate coatings flow smoothly.

Anti-caking agents, which prevent powdered ingredients from going lumpy, have numbers beginning with 5. Many of these are inorganic minerals; for example talc (553b) and kaolin or China clay (559).

Flavour enhancers have numbers beginning with 6. The best known is the controversial MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (621). Another is maltol (636), extracted from malt but also, improbably, from larch bark and pine needles, and used to brighten the taste of synthetic coffee, maple syrup, and vanilla flavourings.

Numbers beginning with 7 and 8 are not used. Those from 901 to 907 are given to glazing agents, for instance beeswax (901) and shellac (904). ‘Improving agents’, used mainly to soften the texture of mass-produced baked goods, have numbers from 920 to 927. One of these, the amino acid L-cysteine (920), is also used as a synthetic chicken flavour. It is extracted from feathers and hair.

A few substances, mostly common ones, have no number; for example GELATIN, STARCH, and the artificial flavour vanillin.

The problems surrounding additives are many and various. A wide range of health problems can be laid at their door, especially those which appear to have been on the increase in the last half-century such as asthma, hyperactivity in children, ME, and allergies, and some are claimed to be carcinogenic. Most developed countries have regulatory bodies to oversee the matter.

While most additives mentioned are used to control the appearance or physical performance of processed foods, some are designed to correct nutrient loss during processing or to enhance nutritional value. For example white flour has B-complex vitamins added; some breakfast cereals are enriched by the same group: niacin, riboflavin, and thiamine; and fluoride is routinely added to people’s water supply. It is also possible that bioactive ingredients that some claim promote better health will be allowed as food additives in the future, rather than remaining outside the food chain as dietary supplements. Prebiotics and probiotics that are marketed via yoghurt-style drinks and purport to improve intestinal function are instances of this tendency.

Ralph Hancock

adlay

Coix lachryma-jobi, a cereal plant with large, starchy, tear-shaped grains. It is native to SE Asia, where it has long been used for food, though generally only as second best when there is a shortage of a main staple crop. It is most widely grown in the Philippines.

The plant travelled westwards long ago, through India. It is now found wild in Spain and Portugal, and there is a dwarf form, probably introduced by the Portuguese, in Brazil.

Varieties may have hard or soft seed coats. The hard-shelled kinds are very hard, and the grains have an attractively lustrous appearance. They have been used in many regions as beads, sometimes for rosaries, which is why ‘Job’s tears’ figure in their botanical name. (Naturally occurring round lumps of the shiny mineral chrysolite, similarly used, have the same name.)

Soft-shelled varieties, especially that called ‘Ma-Yuen’, are preferred for eating, for example in macrobiotic diets. After being husked and roasted they may be ground to a coarse flour, which can be used for making bread if mixed with flour from a conventional cereal.

adobo

a culinary term of the Philippines which usually refers to pork, or chicken and pork, stewed with vinegar, bay leaf, peppercorns, garlic, and soy sauce until brown and aromatic. It may be served with its sauce, or fried crisp. The sauce may also be thickened with mashed chicken liver.

The word comes from the Spanish adobo, referring to a pickling sauce of olive oil, vinegar, and spices (or to the Mexican paste of ground chillies, spices, herbs, and vinegar); and from adobado, pork pickled with the above or with wine and onions. The French daube comes from the same root, addobbo, ‘seasoning’.

Adobo has long been called the quintessential Philippine stew, served with rice both at daily meals and for feasts, and also taken on journeys, since the stewing in vinegar ensures that it keeps well without refrigeration. It is palatable hot or cold. Although chicken and/or pork are the basic adobos, there are many others, for example with squid, various shellfish, catfish, and kangkong (WATER SPINACH, swamp cabbage). More exotic examples are agachonas adobadas (with snipe), adobong bayawak (with MONITOR lizard), and adobong kamaru, in which the mole CRICKET is featured. The Philippine adobo is thus vinegar-stewed food of almost any kind, not a dish of Spanish or Mexican derivation but a native dish which was given a Spanish name by the Spaniards who came and saw something similar to their own adobado. Raymond Sokolov (1991) is correct to emphasize that ‘Filipino adobo stands by itself, fully formed and always distinct from the “adobo” dishes of Mexico and Spain’, although there are scholars who cite the vinegar- (not wine-) based stews of the Valencian solomillo de cerdo in adobo and the Peruvian adodo de cerdo as possible precursors of the Filipino model.

Doreen Fernandez

adulteration

the mixing of foodstuffs with inferior or spurious substances, has been going on for as long as food has been sold. Roman bakers were accused of adding chalk to bread. More usually it is goods of high value that are adulterated, for example spices. In England in 1316 the Guild of Pepperers issued a decree banning the moistening of saffron, ginger, and cloves to make them heavier, as they were sold by weight. Often highly noxious adulterants were used: cayenne pepper, which easily loses its red colour, was tinted with cinnabar, an extremely poisonous mercury compound.

The increase in trade brought about by the Industrial Revolution turned adulteration from minor fraud to big business. According to Shipperbottom (1993), mustard in the 1850s rarely contained more than 20% real mustard seed, the rest being wheat or pea flour, linseed meal, and plaster of Paris, coloured with turmeric and spiced with cayenne pepper. Ground pepper was adulterated with powdered bones. A common ploy was to sell real spices which had already been used; for example, ground ginger was made from ginger root that had already been used to flavour ginger beer, so that it was more or less tasteless.

Until the advances in chemistry at the end of the 18th century it was hard to prove that foods had been adulterated. The first systematic analysis was undertaken in Britain by the German chemist Friedrich Christian ACCUM, who published A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons in 1820. This was prefaced by the famous dictum: ‘There is death in the pot.’ It surveyed not only foods and spices, but also wine, spirits, tea, and coffee, all expensive and therefore much adulterated; and it described analytical methods that could be used to detect substitutes.

Laws were passed to outlaw such frauds, without much success; an anonymous book published in London in 1859, Tricks of the Trade, told many horror stories, and an intrepid analyst of the early 1870s disclosed that mushroom ketchup was being simulated with a liquid made from rotting horse livers. From the 1850s to the 1870s the British doctor Arthur Hill Hassall published articles exposing frauds of all kinds, leading to the passing of Acts of Parliament in 1860, 1872, and 1875, the last of which required that processed foods should be labelled with a full list of their constituents.

Hassall’s work was brought together in a book of nearly 900 pages (1876) which contained remarkable illustrations of adulterations revealed under the microscope, and which is still a sort of ‘bible’ on the subject. The same applies to the magnificent American book by Wiley (1911), who was the principal architect of the world-renowned FDA (Food and Drug Administration) of the USA.

Fraudulent practices, including adulteration as well as substitution (of inferior products) continue, more actively in some parts of the world than in others. The worst of them have been eliminated or subdued in countries which have established adequate systems of control, but the plugging of loopholes is a perennial task.

One widespread modern (but not new) form of adulteration is the addition of water to increase the weight of (especially) processed meats—these can be treated with polyphosphates, chemicals which allow the meat to absorb large amounts of water. Obnoxious though this sort of thing is, it is less iniquitous than some of the old forms of adulteration by actively toxic substances.

Ralph Hancock

advieh

the Persian name for a SPICE MIXTURE, includes a wide range of such products, indeed an almost infinite range, given that even in modern times the mixtures are normally prepared in the home, according to the preferences and practices of the cook and the particular purpose of a given mixture. Not every Persian housewife uses it every time. Some cooks only sprinkle a little turmeric or cinnamon, or perhaps a little powdered coriander seed for fragrance or a bayleaf to ‘cut’ the muttony flavour of the meat, while others will make up a blend or even several different blends: one for delicate and fragrant dishes, another for hearty day-to-day meals, and a third for an aromatic sprinkling when serving festive dishes. The individual sprinklings or the blends are all known collectively as Advieh.

A popular Advieh blend from the south of Iran includes coriander seed, turmeric, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, and black pepper and is reminiscent of a CURRY POWDER (although more delicate since not including hot chillies, red peppers, ginger, and garlic, none of which would ever appear in any Persian Advieh recipe). Some mixtures also include nutmeg or cloves.

Advieh from the sunny upland of the Persian plateau and from the north-western region contains dried rose petals which give a rare and heady fragrance when sprinkled over delicate rice dishes during the steaming process.

Margaret Shaida

Afghanistan

a landlocked country at the heart of Asia, is the crossroads for four major cultural areas: Persia and the Middle East; C. Asia; the Indian subcontinent; and the Far East. It is a land of contrasts and extremes—scorching deserts; high, inaccessible snow-capped mountains; and green, fertile plains and valleys, some of which are subtropical.

Afghanistan was a crossroads on the ancient SILK ROAD which linked East and West and which played a vital role in the exchange of foods, plants, skills, and knowledge. Other influences came with invading armies: Alexander the Great; Genghis Khan; the Moghul Babur and the Persian Nader Shah; and then the British with their Indian troops in the 19th century and the Russians in the 20th century (although the latter left a negligible cultural influence behind them).

The names Afghan and Afghanistan mask the diversity of ethnic groups in the country: Pushtun, Tajik, Turkmen, Hazara, Uzbek, etc. This was another factor which made the country a melting pot for different cultures and traditions. Its cuisine reflects internal diversity, besides mirroring the tastes and flavours of its neighbours.

Bread is the staple food, usually made with wheat flour in the form of either NAN, which is leavened and baked in a TANDOOR, or CHAPATI. Bread is very often eaten on its own with tea (chai) but it is also used as a scoop for food or as an accompaniment to dishes such as soup. (See SHORBA.)

Although bread is the staple, rice is of great importance. Long-grain rice is used for the many sorts of PILAF; also for chalau, the basic white rice which is accompanied by meat or vegetable stews (KORMA) or burani (vegetables with yoghurt, see BURAN). Short-grain rice is used for the basic sticky rice called bata which is served with a stew or vegetables, both savoury and sweet SHOLA, and other rice desserts.

Pasta and noodle dishes (on which generally see NOODLES OF ASIA) also play an important part in the Afghan cuisine, as do savoury fried pastries such as BOULANEE (pastry stuffed with gandana (see LEEK), or mashed potato), sambosa (see SAMOSA), and PAKORA. These are often served for lunch or as one of the numerous snack foods available from street vendors (tabang wala).

Lamb is the favourite meat although goat, beef, water-buffalo, camel are also eaten, as are poultry and game. Since Afghanistan is a Muslim country, pork is not eaten. Lamb is often made into KEBABS. These include the fiery hot speciality of Jalalabad, chappli kebab (which means sandal kebab, named after its sandal-like shape); rib or shinwari kebab, named after one of the large Pashtun tribes; shami or lola kebabs which are made with ground meat, potatoes, split peas, and fried in oil. Dumba, the fat from the FAT-TAILED SHEEP, is grilled with kebabs to provide more succulence or boiled with lamb to make dopyasa.

Fish does not play an important part in the Afghan diet. In the winter some sea fish (but not shellfish) are imported from Pakistan and river fish such as trout or sheer mahi can be found. JALEBI are traditionally served with fish during the winter months.

Dairy products loom large in the Afghan diet. Yoghurt (mast) is used extensively in cooking. It is often strained to make a creamy substance called chaka, which in turn is sometimes dried and formed into balls which harden and resemble grey pebbles. This is called QUROOT. Cheese (PANIR) is also made. In the springtime a snack called kishmish panir is a dish of white cheese served with red raisins. Qymaq, another milk product, is similar to the Middle Eastern KAYMAK. It is sometimes eaten with nan for breakfast, but is better known for its use in the Afghan tea called qymaq chai (see below), which is made for special occasions.

Desserts, sweets, cakes, biscuits, and pastries are considered to be luxuries. Many resemble those of Iran, the Middle East, and India. Milk-based puddings include FIRNI and sweet rice dishes. HALVA is popular as are pastries such as BAKLAVA and the pastry shaped like elephant ears called goash-e-feel.

Abrayshum kebab (abrayshum meaning silk) is an unusual Afghan sweet which is made with egg in such a way that the egg forms threads which are then rolled up like a kebab and sprinkled with syrup and ground pistachio. The egg threads are supposed to resemble silken threads, hence the name; see Saberi (1993).

For the Afghan New Year, a pre-Islamic festival marking the first day of spring, a traditional dried fruit and nut compote called haft mewa is prepared.

At the end of every meal fresh fruits in season are served. In summer this would include melons and grapes of which there are numerous varieties and for which Afghanistan is famous. Grapes are made into both red and green raisins. Nuts (pistachios, almonds, walnuts, pine nuts) are used extensively in cooking, mainly as garnishes, but are also eaten as snacks.

Tea, both black and green, is consumed copiously all over Afghanistan. Chaikhana (tea houses) are an important institution. They not only furnish tea from a constantly boiling samovar, but very often provide meals and accommodation for travellers.

Tea is seldom drunk with milk, but often flavoured with cardamom. Sugared almonds called noql are a common accompaniment. Qymaq chai is served for special occasions. This special tea (see, again, Saberi, 1993) is made from green tea in such a way that, with the addition of bicarbonate of soda and the process of aeration, the tea becomes red. Milk is added, producing a purply pink tea which is then topped with qymaq.

Helen Saberi

afternoon tea

one of a pair of tea meals (the other being HIGH TEA), both of which are essentially British and which, although alike in having tea as the beverage served, stand in high contrast to each other in other respects.

Mrs Beeton (1861) expressed succinctly the material difference when she remarked that ‘There is Tea and Tea’ and went on to say that ‘A “High Tea” is where meat takes a more prominent part and signifies really, what is a tea-dinner … The afternoon tea signifies little more than tea and bread-and-butter, and a few elegant trifles in the way of cake and fruit.’

Although the custom of taking a cup of tea, at least occasionally, at a suitable time in the afternoon may have been adopted by some ladies in the late 17th century, it seems clear that neither afternoon tea nor high tea, the meals, started to become established until late in the 18th or early in the 19th centuries. Since almost all authors rely on the indefatigable Ukers (1935), who had scoured available literary and artistic sources for indications on this point, he must be allowed here to speak for himself:

Dr Alexander Carlyle wrote in his autobiography of the fashionable mode of living at Harrowgate in 1763 that, ‘The ladies gave afternoon tea and coffee in their turn.’ For the custom of afternoon tea as a distinct and definite function, however, the world is indebted to Anna, wife of the seventh Duke of Bedford, 1788–1861. In her day, people ate prodigious breakfasts. Luncheon was a sort of picnic, with no servants in attendance. There was no other meal until eight-o’clock dinner, after which tea was served in the drawing-room. The Duchess of Bedford struck out a new line; she had tea and cakes served at five o’clock, because, to quote herself, she had ‘a sinking feeling’.

Fanny Kemble, the actress, in her Later Life, records that she first became acquainted with afternoon tea in 1842 at Belvoir Castle, seat of the Dukes of Rutland. She added that she did not believe the now universally-honored custom dated back any further than this.

In the 20th century, afternoon tea has kept to a formula: tea (in a pot, with milk and sugar, or perhaps lemon if China tea is served); dainty small sandwiches (cucumber, very thinly sliced, is a favoured filling); scones with butter and jam (optional); some form of little cakes or slices of a large cake; biscuits (optional); and a serviette or napkin to complete the generally dainty picture. The effect is charming and may be achieved by a hostess (or host) with far less expenditure of effort and money than a full meal, or even a high tea, would require.

A variant of afternoon tea is the Devon cream tea, which towards the end of the 20th century was advancing relentlessly across all the other counties of England, and indeed appearing in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, sometimes described as just ‘cream tea’. This calls for scones, clotted cream, and jam.

For afternoon tea in Australia see Barbara Santich (1988).

agar-agar

the Malay name for a GUM which was discovered in Japan. The name originally applied to a mucilage extracted from a red SEAWEED of the genus Eucheuma. This was in use only locally. The type of Japanese agar-agar which is important both in Japanese cooking and worldwide comes from red algae of the genus Gelidium. This gum, known in Japan itself as kanten, is referred to by many names, including grass jelly and seaweed jelly, also Japanese or vegetable gelatin (although true GELATIN is an animal product).

Agar-agar is the most powerful gel-former of all gums, owing to the unusual length of its carbohydrate molecules. Agar-agar gels are unique in withstanding temperatures near boiling point. They are thus ideal for making jellied sweet dishes in tropical climates, without any risk of their melting or sagging, and for ASPIC coatings.

The marine plants from which agar-agar is made are gathered and left on the beach to dry and bleach before being sold to a factory. There they are beaten and washed in fresh water to clean them, then boiled to extract the gum. This is frozen, then thawed. As the water runs out of it, the impurities are carried away. The purified gum is finally dried.

The method of purifying kanten by freezing and thawing is said to have been discovered accidentally by a Japanese innkeeper during frosty weather in 1658. Since then the product has gained widespread popularity in Japanese cuisine not only for making jellies but also as a general thickener for soups and sauces. It is also used in China (as dai choy goh), in the Philippines (gulaman), and elsewhere in SE Asia.

During the 19th century agar-agar was imported by western countries for making desserts. When it was discovered that agar-agar jelly was an ideal medium for the experimental growing of bacteria, this trade expanded. Agar-agar also began to be more widely used in the food industry.

The Second World War stopped trade with Japan, and western countries looked at their own native seaweeds. They found some which yielded what were often inferior substitutes for agar-agar, but also discovered or reappraised others which gave useful gums such as ALGINATES, carrageenan (see CARRAGEEN), and furcellaran (see GUM). Since then agar-agar has been less dominant in the market, although some continues to be imported from Japan, to be used as a thickener, emulsifier, and stabilizer in numerous products.

The seaweed called OGO in Japan is the source of a similar product.

agaric

an old term for any mushroom, is derived from the classical Greek name for mushroom, agarikon, which in turn comes from the town of Agara, once famous for its mushrooms. The name has survived in both popular and scientific nomenclature, but with meanings which differ somewhat from each other (and, incidentally, from the meaning in classical times).

The scientific classification Agaricales comprises all the families of ‘mushroom-shaped’ fungi, i.e. those which have caps with radiating gills underneath and which grow on stems. All these might therefore be correctly called agarics. But in ordinary speech they are not.

Nor is the name agaric restricted, as would have been convenient, to the ‘true’ mushrooms, of the genus Agaricus, such as the common FIELD MUSHROOM, the cultivated mushroom, and their numerous close relations. The trouble is that this genus was known as Psalliota until the end of the 19th century, by which time a wider and looser application of the name agaric was too well established to be narrowed in conformity with the change. Thus we still have ‘orange agaric’ as a common name for both the oronge, Amanita caesarea, and the saffron milk cap, Lactarius deliciosus; and ‘fly agaric’ as the name for Amanita muscaria, a harmful species. In contrast, in the genus Agaricus only one species, the wood agaric, has a common name which includes the word agaric.

Because of the possible confusion, the term agaric is not used in this book in a general sense, but only when it is part of an established common name.

agar wood

Aquilaria agallocha, a fragrant wood commonly used in oriental incense, has occasional culinary uses. Paula Wolfert (1973), calling it aga wood, identifies it as one of numerous possible ingredients in the Moroccan spice mixture known as RAS-EL-HANOUT. In Morocco it goes under the Arabic name of oud kameira.

agave

a tall perennial plant, of which there are many species in the genus Agave, almost all originating in Mexico or nearby regions. Some, notably A. americana and A. deserti, yield food. They are often called maguey.

Four major parts of the agave are edible: the flowers, the leaves, the stalks or basal rosettes, and the sap.

Each agave plant will produce several pounds of edible flowers during the summer. The starch in the buds is converted into sugar, and the sweet nectar exudes from the flowers.

Agave leaves are best in winter and spring when the plants are rich in sap. (They often have on them larvae of the agave skipper butterfly, Megathymus stephousi; these were roasted on the leaves by the Indians and then picked off and eaten as a delicacy.)

The stalks, which are ready during the summer, before the blossom, weigh several pounds each. Roasted, they are sweet and taste like molasses.

When mature (six to eight years old) the agave provides a fourth food, its sap, which may be tapped at the rate of half a gallon a week for two months or more. In its fresh state this is transparent with a greenish tinge, sweet but with a bitter taste; it makes a pleasant refreshing drink, called agua miel (honey water), or can be boiled down to make a syrup or sugar. However, fermentation sets in quickly; within a few hours, if left to itself, the sugar of the sap will be converted into carbonic acid and alcohol, and on the way to becoming vinegar or the alcoholic drink pulque.

Agave is and was cultivated extensively in the highlands of Mexico, especially as the source of pulque. There is, in effect, a whole cuisine in this region based on these plants.

READING:

Coe (1985, for use by Aztecs); Bean and Saubel (1972, for use by Cahuilla Indians).

agouti

(sometimes spelt aguti), any of a number of Dasyprocta spp, C. and S. American rodents of the family Dasyproctidae. The common (or golden) agouti is found most abundantly in the forests of Guiana, Brazil, and N. Peru but the range of the genus extends northwards through C. America to Mexico; one species, D. cristata, is found in the W. Indies. The name agouti comes from the Tupi-Guaraní name, aquti.

Agoutis are only about 50 cm (20″) long overall but do not have much of a tail, so there is quite a bit of body, weighing around 3.5 kg (nearly 8 lb) and giving plenty to eat. They are nocturnal. Burton (1962) reports that: ‘A hunter’s trick is to toss stones into [the] air; these falling to [the] ground sound like falling fruit to agutis, which come out to feed.’ Fruit is the animal’s favourite food but it also eats vegetable matter, leaves, roots of ferns, etc.

Charles Darwin and his shipmates, in S. America in the course of their voyage round the world aboard the Beagle, ate agouti, which Darwin described in his journal as ‘the very best meat I ever tasted’. (However, he thought agouti and cavy were interchangeable names, so he may have meant a GUINEA PIG.)

Simmonds (1859), who managed to produce relevant comments on the edibility of virtually every four-footed creature, has this to say:

The white tender flesh of the agouti … when fat and well dressed, is by no means unpalatable food, but very delicate and digestible. It is met with in Brazil, Guiana, and in Trinidad. The manner of dressing them in the West Indies used to be to roast them with a pudding in their bellies. Their skin is white, as well as the flesh.

The US National Academy of Sciences, reviewing in 1991 the potential for raising agoutis commercially, commented that its meat is leaner and gamier than that of the PACA, which is generally preferred, but that it is nonetheless a promising resource.

agriculture and food

In countries of the modern industrialized world, supermarkets brim full with colourful displays of fruits, vegetables, and many other products from around the globe are part of everyday life. But this astonishing variety, and the great choice of foods it offers, is the result of very recent changes in agricultural production and international trade. Prior to the modern era, the daily diet of most people came from the agricultural produce of their local region. This pattern of regionally differentiated agricultural systems, each with its distinctive set of crops and domesticated animals, had evolved over many millennia from the time, some 10,000 years ago, when hunting and gathering (foraging) began to give way to agriculture (farming). In the core regions where agriculture first emerged, regional cuisines based on local produce developed, and crops and livestock of local origin later began to spread from one region to another, thus making new foods available and adding diversity to local diets.

From hunting and gathering to agriculture

Archaeological evidence shows that agriculture began 10,000 years ago in the SW Asian ‘Fertile Crescent’, and soon thereafter in China, but independent transitions to agriculture occurred more recently in other regions of the world, and the general replacement of foraging by farming took place very slowly. For most of humanity’s existence, survival depended on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants, insects, and other small animals. Archaeological evidence of past hunter-gatherer diets is skewed towards animal foods because bones tend to survive much better than the remains of plants, but ethnographic and historical accounts of hunter-gatherers who survived into modern times indicate that most groups obtained their food from a great variety (commonly 50 or more species) of locally available plants and animals.

To subsist on such broad-spectrum diets required an intimate ecological understanding of the habits and habitats of the plants and animals that provided food, and there is evidence that many so-called hunter-gatherers also practised small-scale cultivation of favoured wild plants (without however transforming them by cultural selection into fully domesticated crops dependent on human care for their survival). Some of these plants later became staple crops in early agricultural systems, whereas many wild species dropped out of the food spectrum, thereby beginning the process by which overall food diversity was gradually reduced as agriculture became established in, and spread from, the core regions.

Early agricultural systems

At present there is insufficient archaeological evidence to determine where and how frequently agriculture may have arisen independently, but, in addition to SW Asia and China, it is clear that agricultural systems based on distinctive assemblages of crops and domestic animals also developed in tropical America and northern tropical Africa. In each of these four regions, one or more locally domesticated cereal and herbaceous legume became staple crops: in SW Asia, WHEAT, BARLEY, LENTIL, PEA, and CHICKPEA; in China, RICE, common and foxtail MILLET, and SOYA BEAN; in tropical America, MAIZE and Phaseolus BEANS; and in northern tropical Africa, SORGHUM, finger and pearl millet, COWPEA, and two species of GROUNDNUT. The legumes complemented the cereals nutritionally by providing oils and essential AMINO ACIDS, such as lysine, that the cereals lacked. Domesticated roots and tubers were also staple sources of CARBOHYDRATE, notably manioc (see CASSAVA), POTATO, and SWEET POTATO in tropical America, YAMS in Africa, and TARO and yams in SE Asia.

The roles of domesticated animals in early agricultural systems varied greatly. In SW Asia, GOATS, SHEEP, PIGS, and CATTLE consumed agricultural by-products, and provided traction, meat, milk, and manure, in a uniquely productive and nutritionally balanced agro-pastoral system that expanded in prehistoric times west across Europe and east into C. and S. Asia. In China, WATER-BUFFALOES, pigs, and CHICKENS became closely associated with rice cultivation in a system that spread far into SE Asia. In the African and American tropics no domestic animals were fully integrated with crop cultivation, but the indigenous cereal-and-legume systems of those regions nevertheless expanded widely, supplemented by root crops, and, in America, by CHILLI pepper which is particularly rich in vitamin C and added a sharp flavour to the bland taste of maize and beans.

The internationalization of agriculture

By AD 1500, when Europeans began to explore and colonize other continents, agriculture had expanded extensively in all the habitable continents except Australia (which remained a land of hunter-gatherers until the 18th century), and most of the world’s population of some 350 million obtained almost all their food from agricultural products. But the systems of crop and livestock production that had gradually evolved in the core regions of early agriculture still retained much of their biotic and dietary distinctiveness. European expansion brought about the worldwide, especially transoceanic, dispersal of crops and domestic animals (see COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE), and as subsistence agriculture increasingly gave way to large-scale commercial production geared to international trade, the cultivation of many minor crops declined, with accordant loss of dietary diversity. This process was driven particularly by the development of monocultural systems of production, notably plantation agriculture of tropical crops such as BANANA and SUGAR cane (both of SE Asian origin) in tropical America, and cacao (from C. America) in W. Africa. Similarly, large-scale ranching and mechanized grain farming developed in N. America following the introduction of cattle and wheat (of SW Asian origin).

These changes vastly increased the production, export, and international availability of such foods, but as they came to dominate much of the world’s trade in food, consumption of many local products declined. This has resulted in a drastic reduction in the range of foods on which the world’s population of over six billion now depends. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, only 30 crops supply over 95% of the plant-derived energy in the human food supply, over half of which is provided by rice, maize, and wheat. Since farming began to replace foraging 10,000 years ago agriculture has made possible a massive increase in the human population, but at the expense of an overall reduction of dietary diversity, as many former foods have been reduced to minor items of diet or are no longer consumed at all.

David Harris

READING:

Harris (1981, 1998, 2005); Vaughan and Geissler (1999); Cowan and Watson (1992); Anderson (2005).

aïoli

described by Blancard (1927) as the ‘triumph of the Provençal kitchen’, is in effect a garlic MAYONNAISE. But it is not just a sauce; it can take the form of Aïoli garni which is a whole dish in itself, traditionally served on Christmas Eve and incorporating beef or a boiled chicken.

Among the items which aïoli accompanies are potatoes, beetroot, fish and other seafood, and boiled salt cod. It may also be amalgamated with fish stock to make a thinner and pale yellow sauce to be poured over the fish in the famous Provençal dish called Bourride.

Aïoli does have a reputation for being indigestible, if eaten in quantity. Olney (1974) comments: ‘A more easily digestible but less silken aïoli may be prepared by substituting boiled potato … for the egg yolks.’ The same author observes that the quality of the olive oil is important; and that an aïoli ‘is traditionally prepared in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle; the weight of the mortar prevents it from slip-sliding around as one turns the pestle with one hand while dribbling the oil with the other.’

See also SPANISH REGIONAL COOKING for the Catalan allioli.

ajmud

Trachyspermum roxburghianum, a plant of the umbelliferous family (to which celery, for example, and a number of important flavouring herbs belong). The seeds are used in India and SE Asia for flavouring pickles, chutneys, and preserves, as well as ‘curry’ dishes. The leaves, which smell of carrots, are also used to some extent as a substitute for PARSLEY. The seeds are an important minor spice in many parts of India. The name ajmud is also used of CELERY seed.

It is cultivated in SE Asia, often in kitchen gardens, and also in India.

ajowan

Trachyspermum ammi, an umbelliferous plant of India and the Near East, related to CARAWAY and AJMUD. Its seeds constitute a spice which is used as a flavouring (e.g. sprinkled on biscuits and bread in Afghanistan), and also possesses useful antioxidant and preservative qualities. The flavour of the spice has been described as ‘a combination of anise and oregano with a hint of black pepper’.

The seeds, sometimes referred to as carom seeds, yield an essential oil, thymol; this is mainly used in toothpaste and for medical purposes, but also for flavouring purposes.

Some authors have said that an English name for ajowan is LOVAGE, but this is a mistake, although both plants belong to the same family.

A related spice, used in Ethiopian cookery, consists of the seeds of bishop’s weed, Ammi majus.

akebia

the fruit of either of two oriental climbing shrubs in the genus Akebia of the family Lardizabalaceae.

Although appreciated in their native region (China, Korea, and Japan), the fruits are rarely cultivated there and have not been introduced elsewhere on a significant scale. Each plant produces up to three pendent fruits, purplish in colour. Those of A. trifoliata may reach a length of 12 cm (5″). They burst open when ripe to reveal thick, semi-transparent flesh and numerous black seeds. This flesh, which has only a faint flavour, is edible, and so is the skin.

Akebia is often mentioned in Japanese literature where it is evocative of pastoral settings. Spring is when the young leaves and buds are eaten. The fruit, a delicacy of autumn, is sometimes eaten as is, but may also be stuffed with a MISO (bean paste) and chicken mixture. For this dish the seeds are removed, the stuffing put in, and the whole then tied up with a thread and lightly fried. As is often the case, it is the stuffing rather than what is stuffed that is tasty.

The dried leaves are made into a tea in Japan.

akee

(or ackee) the curious fruit of a W. African tree, Blighia sapida, introduced to the W. Indies by Captain Bligh of HMS Bounty (whence the generic name Blighia). It is a member of the same family as the LYCHEE of SE Asia.

The name ‘akee’ may be a corruption of the Mayan achee, which was a name applied to several plants whose flowers attract honey bees.

The fruit is comparable in appearance to a peach, but in structure to an orange, as it has segments. It measures 7–10 cm (2–4″) long, is usually red when ripe, but sometimes yellow. When fully ripe, it splits open spontaneously, exposing three shiny, black seeds partly surrounded by a fleshy, cream-coloured aril (seed coat).

This aril is the only edible part; the rest of the fruit is not safe to eat. Morton (1987) states that the toxin (hypoglycin, a propionic acid) has been shown to reside in the seeds and in unripe arils. What is in the unripe arils is largely dispelled by light when the fruit splits, but what is in the seeds remains; squirrels never eat the seeds.

The akee is to be eaten at the peak of ripeness, just after the capsule splits, an occurrence which is often followed by a race between man and bird to reach the succulent fruit first. The aril is oily and does not keep for long.

Akee can be eaten raw but are usually cooked. Since their texture resembles that of brains (or, say some, scrambled eggs), they are sometimes known as ‘vegetable brains’. The flavour is mildly sweet and delicate. In the W. Indies they are cooked as a vegetable, for example in the national dish of Jamaica, salt fish (usually cod) and ackee (the alternative spelling being preferred). They are canned and exported to Britain for the W. Indian community.

In Africa, the fruits are eaten raw, or cooked in a soup, or fried in oil.

W. Indians sometimes apply the name akee to a related fruit, Melicoccus bijugatus: see MAMONCILLO.

à la

a French phrase which introduces a name indicating how a dish has been prepared: thus, Sole à la normande, Potage à la Rothschild. In the whole phrase the words façon de or mode de are usually understood: thus, Sole à la [façon] normande; Potage à la [mode de] Rothschild. Sometimes the missing words are included in the phrase: thus, Tripes à la mode de Caen. Sometimes the words à la are omitted: thus, Sole normande may appear all by itself.

It is rare for these phrases to be self-explanatory. The great majority are in code, and in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, when the coded terms were most freely used, even chefs and restaurateurs and the most sophisticated diners needed a lexicon devoted to their interpretation, such as (to cite the title of the English version) Hering’s Dictionary of Classical and Modern Cookery (Bickel, 1977), a book commonly used by chefs in the past and one which still has some currency at the dawn of the 21st century.

Alexandre DUMAS the elder (1873) poked fun at the system, building a whole edifice of witty comment on the basis of a turnip recipe which he came across, Navets à la d’Esclignac:

What can possibly have earned M. d’Esclignac the honour of giving his name to a dish of turnips? In this field, there is no odder subject of study than the books written by cooks and the strange way in which they suddenly make up their minds to make a sauce of, to put on the grill, or to roast our famous men.

This is what we find in one single book, in the section on soups:

Potage à la Demidoff

à la John Russell

à l’Abd-el-Kader

à la ville de Berlin

à la Cialdini

au 15 Septembre 1864

au héros de Palestro

à la Lucullus

à la Guillaume Tell …

Dumas gives scores of other examples, many drawn from other categories of dishes.

If the system had not got out of hand, in the way mocked by Dumas, it could have been more useful. The coded terms were capable of conveying a lot of information with great brevity. Thus a restaurateur composing his menu in the year 2000 might have to write: ‘Poached eggs, Abyssinian style—dressed on flat croquettes of sweet potatoes, hollowed out and stuffed with chestnut, coated with white butter sauce mixed with shredded white Italian truffles’, whereas his predecessors in 1900 could just have put down Œufs pochés à l’abyssinienne in the expectation that at least some customers (even if they could not interpret all the 312 other terms for serving poached eggs in Hering’s manual) would know what to expect from this one.

To continue the case for the defence, it is of some interest (if true) that a dish has a national, regional, or ethnic connection (à la polonaise, à la niçoise, à la juive). It is normally of less interest, as Dumas noticed, to have a personal connection indicated, although there are some worthy examples: it may be thought that Parmentier deserves to have his name perpetuated by the names of potato dishes. In this connection there is an interesting point to which the famous chef ESCOFFIER, a great one for dedicating dishes to persons he admired (or wished to gratify), paid attention. In the case of a dedication the words à la are inappropriate; the dish is not in the style of Dame Nellie Melba but named in her honour—so pêches Melba, not pêches à la Melba.

Any attempt to create a little all-purpose lexicon of à la phrases comes up against the difficulty that many of them change in meaning according to what it is that is being cooked or garnished. Thus à l’anglaise applied to potatoes is one thing, whereas it has different messages if it refers to fish or to a custard. The difficulty is well understood and circumvented by clever organization in various recently published pocket guides to French culinary terms. There is a corresponding, albeit different, problem with the Italian ALLA.

Despite this problem, it is worth mentioning that the à la phrases include a pleasant group which indicate that down-to-earth and practical, non-aristocratic, ladies are the inspiration for certain dishes: à la bonne femme; bourgeoise; fermière; ménagère. And it is fairly safe to assume that à la provençale portends the presence of tomato and garlic, soubise the use of onion, and so on.

albacore

Thunnus alalunga, one of the most prized members of the TUNA family. Its long pectoral fins distinguish it from its relations and account for its alternative common name, longfin tuna, and the specific name alalunga. Maximum length: 125 cm (nearly 4′). Colour: dark blue on the back, lighter below, like other tuna.

The albacore is a fish of the seven seas, but is most abundant in the open waters of the Indo-Pacific, and in the Atlantic. The world catch fluctuates around 200 MT, roughly twice as great as that of the bluefin tuna, but far less than that of the yellowfin tuna. Its relative importance is greater in the Atlantic area, but it is not a common fish in the Mediterranean.

The meat of the albacore is noticeably lighter than that of other tuna, and is the only tuna meat which can be labelled ‘white meat tuna’ in the USA. For the same reason it has common names meaning ‘white tuna’ in some languages. It is widely regarded as one of the best tuna for eating, but the Japanese, who can be regarded as the chief connoisseurs, dissent; they do not normally use it for SASHIMI (raw fish) or SUSHI, the two preparations calling for fish of top quality. It is canned in Japan as ‘chicken of the sea’.

The French name is germon or thon blanc; in francophone countries albacore means the yellowfin tuna, T. albacares.

Albania

the smallest and least known of the Balkan countries, is known to Albanians as Shqipëria, meaning ‘Land of Eagles’—an appropriate name since two-thirds of the country is mountainous. Its language, the sole survivor derived from ancient Illyrian, is like no other, although now it contains a considerable number of words of Turkish, Slavonic, and Italian origin, especially noticeable in a culinary context.

The decades after the Second World War, when Albania was the sole European client state of communist China, have left little or no trace in Albanian kitchens.

Until the Turkish occupation of the country in the first year of the 16th century, the Albanians were Christians—Eastern Orthodox in the south, Roman Catholic in the north. The following centuries, however, saw a gradual Islamization of the population until, by the 19th century, Islam had become the predominant religion. Except in the traditionally Orthodox south, where food remained Graeco-Mediterranean in essence, and the coastal zone, where Italy exerted a considerable influence, Albanian cookery evolved as a result of this Islamization and under the influence of Turkish food and culinary practices.

On a national scale, bread, cheese, yoghurt, and pasta are valuable staples in the diet. The standard Albanian loaf is dark beige in colour, on the heavy side, with a slightly sour flavour. Cheeses follow the general pattern of the Balkan region and include a white brine cheese similar to the Greek FETA.

Sheep’s, cow’s, and occasionally water-buffalo’s milk is used to make yoghurt (kos), which in taste and consistency is identical to Bulgarian yoghurt, although the list of micro-organisms involved is not quite the same.

Pasta, makaronash, is very popular. Scores of pasta products, commercial as well as home made, are served in dozens of different ways—as a main dish for lunch or supper, or, if the meal is to be without pasta, as a starter which, in Albanian, is called antipaste (from the Italian ANTIPASTO). A regular restaurant antipaste is Kanelloni alla toskana (from Italian cannelloni) which consists of a couple of pancakes stuffed with minced ‘veal’ (immature beef) and given a gratin finish. Another national antipaste is Byrek me djathë (from Turkish BÖREK), a small triangular pastry which accommodates a filling of white cheese and eggs.

The MEZZE ritual and various other features of Turkish cookery, including some use of rice and PILAF dishes, Turkish coffee, and some Turkish sweets, have been preserved. Food traditions generally are still strong among the older generation, as well as in the villages populated by Albanians in Yugoslavia (in Kosovo, Montenegro, and the town of Tetovo in Macedonia) whose isolation from the mother country has strengthened traditions. But even in those parts, women’s emancipation and the slow dismantling of the social system of the extended family and the clan are eroding ancient food habits.

Maria Kaneva-Johnson

albatross

Joseph Banks, recording in his journal many details of Captain Cook’s famous voyage in Endeavour, states that albatross was eaten aboard as the ship approached Tahiti. His entry for 5 February 1769 enthuses that the birds were ‘so good that everybody commended them and eat heartily of them tho there was fresh pork upon the table’.

alcohol

colloquially refers to potable liquids containing quantities of ethyl alcohol (C₂H₅OH), and is the sense used here. Technically, alcohol denotes a class of organic compounds distinguished by the presence of a hydroxyl group (an oxygen atom combined with a hydrogen atom, linked to a carbon atom). Minute quantities of some of these are responsible for complex flavours in items as diverse as fruit and Scotch whisky.

Apart from its use as a drink, to which many volumes have been devoted, alcohol has a role as an ingredient in cookery. Many examples of the use of locally popular alcoholic drinks in the foods of different areas exist, from beer in Belgium to saké in the Orient. Grape-based alcohols—wine, champagne, port, sherry, Marsala, brandy, and other spirits distilled from grapes—have a global importance. The wide distribution of viticulture, the extensive trade in wines, their distinctive flavours, and the influence of French kitchen practice have all contributed to this. However, dietary laws forbid Muslims to use alcohol in any form, including as an ingredient.

Use of alcohol in food can be divided very roughly into two categories: cooked or uncooked. Lower-proof alcohols such as wines, ciders, and beers are almost always cooked; those of higher alcohol content (such as sweetened, flavoured liqueurs) are more likely to be used with no further cooking. There are exceptions, such as champagne (with a relatively low alcohol content) which is poured over peaches or berries; and the vermouths and anise-flavoured spirits of Mediterranean countries (high proof), used principally as flavourings in fish cookery.

In cooked dishes, the addition of wine, beer, cider, or other alcohol is usually made before cooking (even some time before, as in a MARINADE). It has a noticeable effect on taste, even if used in relatively small quantities. The drinks themselves have distinctive flavours, which become more concentrated during cooking, as a proportion of the liquid in a dish inevitably evaporates. Alcohol also combines with acids and oxygen to give (respectively) esters and aldehydes, groups of aromatic compounds, which no doubt contribute to the result.

It is sometimes debated whether any alcohol will remain in a STEW after cooking. The answer is ‘almost certainly not’. The theory of stews demands that they should be cooked at temperatures high enough to coagulate the proteins in the meat (over 60 °C), but not as high as the boiling point of water (100 °C). The practice of most cooks is to let a stew perceptibly ‘simmer’, at a temperature somewhere around 95 °C (203 °F). Ethyl alcohol vaporizes at 78 °C (172 °F). So any alcohol in the cooking liquid of a conventionally prepared stew will be evaporated (‘boiled off’). An alcoholic drink used to FLAME food will inevitably lose its alcohol in the heat of the process. Likewise, when rice wine is added to stir-fried dishes in Chinese cuisine, the fierce heat of the wok will be enough to evaporate the alcohol content.

Fortified wines and spirits have several uses in cookery. The high alcohol content is often exploited by flaming, or they can be used in sauces, as drinks of lower proof are.

They are also used as ingredients in sweet dishes, an extensive and important role shared with liqueurs, cordials, and eaux-de-vie. Uncooked, they add potent flavours. Thus a little Madeira may be added to consommé immediately before serving. Sherry, brandy, and Marsala add flavour and an alcoholic kick to creamy puddings such as trifle, syllabub, cranachan, brose, tiramisu, zabaglione, and egg nog. These dishes, many deriving from recipes such as the possets of 16th-century England, have a long history as restoratives. Some are served warm, perhaps speeding absorption of alcohol and enhancing the ‘pick-me-up’ effect (alcohol provides a source of quickly available energy because it is absorbed into the blood stream without prior digestion). Higher-proof alcohols are extensively used in confectionery, combined with chocolate in puddings and sweets, in icings, cakes, sweet sauces, and used to enhance raw or cooked fruit-based desserts.

Finally, alcohol contributes to the preservation of food. Wine marinades help meat, fish, and game keep a short time in hot weather. In combination with sugar syrup, wine makes elegant and attractive fruit conserves.

See also BEER; WINE.

Laura Mason

alexanders

Smyrnium olusatrum, a large umbelliferous plant with yellow flowers, native to the Mediterranean region but able to thrive further north. It resembles CELERY and was for a long time widely grown for use as a vegetable or herb.

Alexanders is intermediate in flavour between celery and parsley, but with a bitter aftertaste which may have been diminished by the practice of earthing up and blanching the young shoots. It was used in medieval times as an alternative to, and in the same way as, the bitter sorts of celery then current. Evelyn (1699) commended the use of young shoots in salads or ‘in a vernal pottage’, while Caleb Threlkeld (1727) gave a recipe for an Irish ‘Lenten Potage’, a soup based on alexanders, watercress, and nettles; see Grigson (1955).

Alexanders was supplanted in the 18th century by the improved kinds of celery which were then developed. It is now almost forgotten as a foodstuff, although it still grows wild in much of Europe, including Britain. It is common around the sites of medieval monastery gardens, where it had been cultivated as petroselinum Alexandrinum (Alexandrian parsley—hence the common name).

Alexanders is sometimes called ‘black lovage’ or ‘wild celery’; although both LOVAGE and celery belong to different genera. In Newfoundland the name is applied to another umbelliferous plant, a type of wild angelica.

alfalfa

is the American and more usual name of a leguminous plant, Medicago sativa, which is often called lucerne in Britain. Apparently a native of Media (Iran), from which comes its generic scientific name, it was said by Pliny to have been introduced to Europe in the course of the invasion of Greece by the Persian Emperor Darius in 491 BC. Laufer (1919) states that it was introduced to China as early as the 2nd century BC.

Alfalfa is now grown worldwide in warm temperate (and cool subtropical) regions, especially in the USA, the Russian Federation, and Argentina. Its main uses are as a forage crop for feeding cattle and as a green manure.

Alfalfa has been used for human consumption in Europe in times of shortage, e.g. in Spain during the Civil War, when it was the basis of dishes such as alfalfa soup. The mature plant is coarse and has a grassy flavour. The young leaves, which are better, have been eaten as a vegetable, e.g. in China. The seeds can be ground into a meal, but it is now more common to use them for producing alfalfa sprouts, widely eaten as a salad vegetable.

alfonsino

Beryx splendens, a fish of temperate waters, especially the N. Atlantic between Madeira and the Portuguese coast, but also parts of the Pacific, e.g. in the vicinity of Japan, Hawaii, and New Zealand. Both it and the nannygai (see below) belong to the family Berycidae. Both are in turn related to other fish of the families Holocentridae and Apogonidae, and share with them a tendency to be called, vaguely, ‘redfish’ (see REDFISH).

Maximum length: 60 cm (25″). The colour is rose red, and orange below, with all fins and the inside of the mouth bright red. The flesh is palatable. In Japan it is thought to be at its best during the winter months.

Centroberyx affinis is a related but slightly smaller fish of southern Australian and New Zealand waters which has an attractive coloration—‘a beautiful glowing golden orange on the head and body and fins, with darker red-orange longitudinal bands along each row of scales’ (Ayling and Cox, 1982). It is called golden snapper or koarea in New Zealand; nannygai in New Zealand and Australia; and, officially, redfish in Australia, the Aboriginal name nannygai having been deemed less attractive for commercial purposes. It makes reasonably good eating, although somewhat bony.

Algeria

is a Muslim country and, in terms of area, is the second largest political unit in Africa and the Middle East, although by far the greater part of its area consists of Sahara desert. There are small numbers of nomads (see BEDOUIN FOOD) and settlements at some oases, but most of the 25 million inhabitants of the country live on the fertile coastal strip, called the Tell, which is bounded to the north by the Mediterranean and to the south by the Plateau which marks the beginning of the Atlas Mountains; and most of the rest on the Plateau, whose different climate makes it suitable for sheep farming and the cultivation of cereals. Although mainly Arab, the indigenous Berbers are estimated to make up 20% of the population. The Kabyles are the largest Berber group. Their Amazigh tongue is an official language of the republic. Original Berber cuisine was most likely no more than subsistence, but their later cookery styles as they absorbed Arabic influence constitute an important element in the national repertoire (see Zedek, n.d.; Wright, 1999; and under COUSCOUS and MOROCCO).

As elsewhere in N. Africa, meat dishes are usually of lamb, mainly grilled or spit roasted or stewed (see TAGINE); and cereals are principally represented in couscous and various breads. The round Arab bread baked in clay ovens in the countryside is standard fare but French bread became established in the big cities (Algiers, Oran, Bône) during the long period, lasting 130 years, when Algeria was a French colony (counted by the French as part of Metropolitan France and only achieving liberation after a long and bitter war).

Morocco, Algeria, and TUNISIA together constitute what is called the Maghreb (or, if LIBYA is included, the greater Maghreb). Ingredients and cooking styles vary to some extent from one country to another, but it would be fair to say that there is at least as much culinary coherence as political solidarity between the three. All three have exerted an influence on France through their cuisines, exporting such items as couscous, MERGUEZ sausages, Arab-style pastries, etc. Returning French colonists, including the so-called pieds-noirs, have in turn contributed dishes to the French repertoire, as have Algerian immigrants (if only by bringing into being shops and market stalls which carry Algerian ingredients, which thus become more accessible to the French).

READING:

Heine (2004).

alginates

a general name for various gums extracted from SEAWEEDS in the category of brown algae. These include Californian kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera; several wracks of the genus Ascophyllum; and oarweeds of the genus Laminaria, which grow around the coast of Britain. The USA and Britain are the chief producers.

Alginates have become increasingly important recently, in line with the growth of the processed food industry, and are now among the most widely used gums. They have excellent thickening, suspending, emulsifying, stabilizing, gel- and film-forming properties, and can be dispersed in both hot and cold water. They are used in ice cream, where they prevent ice crystals from forming, and in other desserts and syrups, bottled salad dressings, and many dairy products including processed cheese; but they are not used in domestic cookery.

aligote

an unusual dish of mashed potato in which very fresh CANTAL cheese is melted, the whole then being vigorously beaten to produce a smooth elastic texture. The elasticity of this dish, which is a speciality of Auvergne, is such that a pair of scissors has to be provided when it is served.

The success of the dish depends on choosing suitable potatoes; on using butter and cream when mashing them, to produce a very rich and smooth texture; and on the rapidity as well as the vigour of the beating.

Aligote is often served with a coarse sausage of the region. See Graham (1988).

alkali

an odd-looking word which comes more or less straight from the Arabic al-kali, meaning the calcined ashes of plants such as saltwort. In food science it means ‘any substance which neutralizes or effervesces with acids and forms a caustic or corrosive solution in water’ (NSOED). It can also mean a soluble salt (or mixture of such salts) of an alkaline nature. See ACIDS, and also PH for an explanation of the scale by which the acidity or alkalinity of a substance is measured.

Very few foodstuffs are alkaline. Indeed, McGee (1984) remarks that ‘egg albumen and baking soda are the only alkaline ingredients to be found in the kitchen’. However, a number are almost neutral, e.g. milk. So adding milk (or yoghurt) to a mixture will normally reduce the acidity of the mixture.

alkanna

a red or brown dye extracted from the roots of plants of the BORAGE family, Alkanna tinctoria and A. officinalis, which has been used both for fabrics and as a food colouring since the time of the early Arab civilizations. Its name comes from the Arabic al hinnā, meaning ‘the dye’ (not to be confused with the red dye commonly called henna, which comes from plants of the genus Lawsonia).

The original alkanna plant is a native of the Levant. Both this and other kinds of borage which yield dye are now found, both wild and cultivated, in much of Europe and around the Mediterranean. Old English names are (dyer’s) alkanet and orcanet.

The dye gives a red colour when dissolved in oil or alcohol, but only a dull brown in water. Medieval recipes call for its use in meat dishes. Nowadays, despite competition from artificial colourings, it is used in sausage skins, ice cream, and drinks and to deepen the artificial colour of margarine.

alla

the Italian equivalent of the French À LA as an indicator of the style in which a dish has been prepared, has been used with relative restraint. Most alla phrases are topographical; those referring to a person, or to an ingredient or utensil or general concept (alla casalinga, in the style of home cookery), are rare.

This is a difference between Italian practice and that of France. Another difference, although only of degree, is that in Italy the meaning of phrases such as alla romana/milanese/fiorentina/napoletana will almost certainly vary according to what it is that is being cooked, whereas in France such variations, although they occur, are somewhat less common.

As with the French term, alla is really an abbreviation, for all’usanza di, meaning ‘in the manner or style of’.

alligator

an animal now better known as food than its slightly larger relations, the various species of CROCODILE. A tradition of eating alligator in the south of the USA, especially Louisiana, seemed likely to die out when fears that the alligator would become extinct caused it to be given protected status; but the tradition was strong enough to prompt the creation of alligator farms, where they are now bred for the table (besides furnishing valuable leather).

Of the various species which are found in tropical swamps around the world, Alligator mississippiensis is the most notable. Although its heartland is the Mississippi delta, its range extends from Texas to the Carolinas. It is usually eaten when young and about half its maximum length of about 3 m (10′). The meat is white and flaky, resembling chicken or (as one authority described it) flounder; it is thus suitable for many methods of preparation and cooking. It would still be premature to predict how widespread its consumption in the western world will eventually be; but the signs are that the practice of farming alligators will spread and grow to the point at which their meat is generally available.

allspice

the dried, unripe berry of Pimenta dioica, a tree of tropical America which is mainly cultivated in Jamaica and is the only spice whose production is confined to the New World. Efforts to introduce it to other parts of the world have been largely unsuccessful.

The English name allspice was given to the spice because its flavour resembles a mixture of other spices, especially CLOVES and black PEPPER; some people also detect hints of NUTMEG and CINNAMON. But allspice is not the only name current in English; PIMENTO is much used in commerce, as a result of confusion long ago.

The allspice tree belongs to the myrtle family, and is not related to the pepper or to capsicum plants. However, when Spanish explorers encountered the plant in Jamaica at the beginning of the 16th century, they thought that the berries resembled those of the pepper and gave them names such as ‘Jamaica pepper’ and ‘pimento’ (from pimienta, the Spanish word for peppercorn).

The green berries, when dried, become reddish-brown. Their aroma and flavour come mainly from their volatile oil of which the major constituent is eugenol, the principal flavouring element in cloves. The source of their pungency has not been finally identified, but a tannin, quercitannic acid, is present, producing some astringency (again, as in cloves).

Allspice may be used whole, in pickles and marinades; or ground, in cakes and puddings and with cooked fruits. Its essential oil, pimento berry oil, can be used instead of the ground spice for flavouring purposes, but lacks some of the characteristics of the spice. Distillation of this oil takes place mainly in Europe and N. America. A less expensive oil is made from the leaves, in Jamaica, and exported as pimento leaf oil.

The popularity of allspice varies considerably by region. It is used extensively in N. America; and much more in N. than S. Europe. During the latter part of the 20th century, a general order of importance among importing countries was this: USA; Germany; the former Soviet Union (imports fluctuated considerably according to price); Sweden; Finland; UK; Canada.

almond

the nut borne by the beautiful almond tree, Prunus amygdalus, is delicately flavoured and highly versatile, has been cultivated since prehistoric times, and is the most important nut in commerce. The USA (California) is the main producer, supplying over half the world’s crop, followed by Spain and Italy. Almonds are also grown in most other Mediterranean countries, and in Portugal, Iran, Afghanistan, and Australia.

The almond belongs to the same genus as the apricot, cherry, etc., but it differs from them in having a leathery fruit, which can only be eaten when immature, and a comparatively large stone and kernel. Its ancestors are thought to be several wild trees of W. and C. Asia, whose small, dry fruits produce bitter kernels. The tree fruits only in warm temperate climates, tolerating neither spring frosts nor tropical humidity. Thus, when it spread from its region of origin, this was along a restricted band of W. Asia to the W. Mediterranean.

The oldest mention of almond cultivation is in the Bible. Aaron’s rod, which miraculously bore flowers and fruit, was of almond wood (Numbers 17: 8). The ancient Greeks cultivated almonds, and their name for the nut, amygdalon, has become, via Latin, the botanical name of the species and, in corrupted form, its name in modern European languages. The Romans regarded the almond as a Greek nut, calling it nux Graeca. In classical times Phoenician traders introduced its cultivation into Spain; and it was being grown in the south of France (Provence is just within the northern limit of its cultivation) as early as the 8th century BC.

Turkestan, Afghanistan, and Kashmir mark the almond’s eastern limit. The Chinese, although they have tried at various times to cultivate the true almond, have generally used instead the indigenous ‘Chinese almond’ (see below).

Majorca, where large-scale planting began in the latter half of the 18th century, is an important place for almonds. Read and Manjon (1978) remark that ‘in the early spring Majorca is a sea of white blossom’, and describe the harvest which starts towards the end of August thus:.

The fruit is first shaken down on to large canvas sheets, the tough green skin is then cut off and the nuts are left to dry in the sun and then despatched in sacks for cracking, roasting or milling. The female kernels, which occur in pairs, are usually ground for confectionery, while the larger male nuts are roasted or salted

Both bitter and sweet almonds are cultivated. Those with bitter kernels contain prussic acid and are poisonous; but their taste is so disagreeable that no one is likely to eat enough of them to be made seriously ill. The poison and much of the bitterness can be driven off by heat, so that bitter almonds can be used in various ways, e.g. the extraction of a wholesome oil for flavouring purposes. Varieties used for dessert are sweet. These have the characteristic ‘almond’ flavour, but only mildly and some varieties not at all.

The main commercial distinction is between hard (or thick) shell varieties; softshells; and the extra thin papershells. The last two kinds are generally preferred both for dessert and for processing.

Well-known varieties include Jordan (nothing to do with the country of that name, but a corruption of the Spanish jardín, meaning garden) and Valencia, both semihard-shelled Spanish types, and the Californian papershell Nonpareil and softshell Ne Plus Ultra. The numerous Italian varieties of almond are almost all hard shelled. Their names are subordinate to commercial quality classifications such as ‘Avola scelta’ (choice Avola).

Uses of almonds are in many instances of great antiquity. They were of great importance in early Arabic and medieval European cookery, partly as a source of the ‘almond milk’ which was used in early versions of BLANCMANGE (and which is still current in refreshing drinks such as ORGEAT and horchata—see CHUFA). Since then, although ‘green’ (immature, soft) almonds are eaten in some places as titbits and many almonds are roasted and salted for consumption as snacks or with drinks, the main importance of the nut has been to the confectionery industry. Such products as MARZIPAN and NOUGAT (and its many relations) and MACAROON all depend on it. The Spanish range of almond-flavoured cakes, biscuits, etc. is probably the most extensive in the world.

Products of the almond are numerous. Almond paste, much used in confectionery and baking, is the basis of marzipan, as mentioned above. To produce the paste, blanched kernels of sweet almonds are ground, mixed with water and sugar, and cooked to a smooth consistency. Ground or powdered almonds, both sugared, are available. See also SUGAR ALMONDS.

The terminology of oils, essences, and extracts of almond is confusing, and, as remarked in Law’s Grocer’s Manual (c.1895), ‘it is highly important to be certain as to which is intended’.

Almond oil, a delicate and expensive product, formerly in high repute as a superfine culinary oil, is made from bitter almonds; it is still used in some superior confectionery.

Oil of bitter almonds, or almond essence, is not the same. It is made from the presscake left after the extraction of almond oil. This residue retains poisonous substances, and has to be steeped in water for half a day, then distilled. The result is a highly concentrated almond flavouring.

Other ‘almonds’. Because the almond is so well known and so highly esteemed, the name has been borrowed for application to other nuts. The ‘Chinese almond’ is a near relation; it is a special kind of APRICOT grown in China for its kernels alone. But some other ‘almonds’ are of unrelated species. The INDIAN ALMOND is described separately; the ‘Java almond’ under PILI NUT. The name ‘almondette’ is used for the CALUMPANG NUT, and ‘almendrón’ (Spanish for ‘big almond’) for a relative of the SOUARI NUT.

altitude

Whole books have been written to guide the unwary through the pitfalls of cooking at altitude (Anderson, 1980). Water boils at 100 °C (212 °F) at sea level, provided barometric pressure is normal. On a low-pressure, stormy day this may change by a degree or two, for the lower the pressure, so the lower the temperature of boiling. As a rule of thumb, boiling point falls one-third of a degree C for every 100 m above sea level (0.18 °F per 100′). A lowered boiling point does not prevent food from cooking, since most of the changes that occur in food when it is cooked take place well below 100 °C (212 °F). In the world’s highest capital city, La Paz in Bolivia at 3,800 m (12,400′) above sea level, water boils around 87 °C, so these temperatures are easily attainable. However, water at a lower temperature contains less heat, and the time it takes to boil food is therefore much increased; it can take several hours to boil a potato.

It is not only things boiled in water that are affected. With cakes, the low pressure means the batter will lose moisture earlier, the leavening will work more vigorously, but the starch and protein will set more slowly due to the temperature of the batter being lower (McGee, 2004). Adjustments in many recipes have to be made, whether for biscuits, for breads (which rise much faster), for deep-fried foods (where the hot fat will brown the outside long before the insides are cooked), for roast meats (which will cook more gently, for longer) and even for jams and custards.

Ralph Hancock

amanita

is a genus of fungi which has to be treated with special attention, since it includes several edible species but also the notorious death cap and destroying angel, besides several species which are poisonous to a lesser extent. McIlvaine (1902) gives an eloquent description of the Amanita species.

They are the aristocrats of fungi. Their noble bearing, their beauty, their power for good and evil, and above all their perfect structure, have placed them first in their realm; and they proudly bear the three badges of their clan and rank—the volva or sheath from which they spring, the kid-like apron encircling their waists, and patch marks of their high birth upon their caps. In their youth, when in or just appearing above the ground, they are completely invested with a membrane or universal veil, which is distinct and free from the skin of the cap. As the plant grows the membrane stretches and finally bursts. It sometimes ruptures in one place only and remains about the base of the stem as the volva. When such a rupture occurs the caps are smooth. In most species portions of the volva remain upon the cap as scruff or warts—or as feathery adornment; any or all of which may in part or whole vanish with age or be washed away by rain. Extending from the stem to the margin of the cap, and covering the gills, is the partial veil—a membranaceous, white texture of varying thickness. As the cap expands this veil tears from it. Portions frequently remain pendant from the edges, the rest contracts to the stem as a ring, or droops from it as a surrounding ruffle, or, if of slight consistency, may be fugacious and disappear, but marks remain, or the veil itself will always be traceable upon the stem.

The main edible species of the genus are the BLUSHER, GRISETTE, and ORONGE (or Caesar’s mushroom). These are described in separate entries, as is one harmful species, the FLY AGARIC. In Europe the most dangerous species are Amanita phalloides (death cap), A. virosa (destroying angel), and A. verna, described respectively as occasional, uncommon, and rare. Eating as little as 20 g (less than 1 oz) of one of these was likely in former times to prove fatal, but medical treatments have now been devised which can save victims from death. Symptoms usually appear after a delay, so anyone who may have eaten one should seek medical advice at once. See the warning below.

The same species occur in N. America, along with a few other dangerous relations. A. phalloides is known in S. Africa; both it and A. verna occur in China; A. verna and A. virosa are present in Japan. These are all woodland fungi which appear in the late summer or autumn, except for A. verna which, as its specific name indicates, comes up in the spring.

Warning See the general warning under MUSHROOMS, ad fin. So far as the Amanita mushrooms are concerned, the most important precaution is to avoid any mushroom in which the following three features are present: a volva or the remnants thereof at the base of the stem (often out of sight near the surface of the soil); a ring or traces thereof near the summit of the stem; and white or yellowish-white gills under the cap.

amaranth

Amaranthus spp, a large group of plants of which many provide edible green leaves and some provide, or formerly provided, grain. They occur all round the world, mostly in the tropics. Many of the species are primarily used as ornamental plants in gardens, but the edible ones alone are a bewildering array, especially in Latin America, SE Asia, and W. Africa; and classification of the genus has been frequently revised.

One of the most prominent of the amaranths whose leaves are eaten, A. tricolor, is described under BASELLA (and is also known as Chinese or vine spinach).

The best-known species which has provided a grain food is A. caudatus; for this, and general remarks on the use of amaranths as a cereal crop, see INCA WHEAT.

Other species which are eaten on more than a minor and local scale include:

• A. cruentus, a plant of temperate zones, cultivated in India and elsewhere, often called ‘bush greens’ in Africa;

• A. spinosus, one of the several species treated under CALLALOO;

Besides three which have the discouraging names A. dubius, A. hypochondriacus, A. lividus.

But there are many others, including at least two which are used for food colouring. These are A. hybridus, known as sangorache, the source of a dye for colouring chicha and ceremonial maize dishes; and a hybrid form called komo which produces the pink colour in Hopi wafer bread (piki).

Amid all the confusion of botanical and common names, the name ‘amaranth’ itself is confused. It is derived from the Greek amarantos (unfading), because of an ancient belief that it was immortal. However, a false idea arose that the name meant ‘love flower’ (Latin amor, love, and Greek anthos, flower) and its name thus acquired a final ‘h’. Vernacular names such as love-lies-bleeding and florimer (flor-amor) reflect this misunderstanding.

ambarella

Spondias dulcis (formerly S. cytherea), a tree native to the Society Islands, but now widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, especially in SE Asia and the Pacific islands. It is cultivated, but not on a large scale.

The greyish-orange plumlike fruits are produced in pendent clusters of two to ten. Each fruit is about the size of an egg, and contains several seeds surrounded by a yellowish pulp. The taste of the pulp is pleasantly sour; the flavour sometimes with a hint of pineapple; and the aroma sometimes resinous and pungent. The unripe fruits are made into relishes, pickles, and also soups. The ripe fruits are used for sauces and preserves.

Ambarella (the Sinhalese name) is widely known as Otaheite (Tahiti) apple in former British colonies, and as Jew plum in Jamaica. The fruit is much in evidence in Trinidad, where it is known either by the French name pomme cythère or as golden apple. Other names include Brazil plum (or hog plum), and Tahitian quince (although in Tahiti itself the name vi is used, and this name is occasionally used elsewhere too).

Related species include the MOMBIN (yellow and red) and IMBU.

ambergris

an intestinal secretion of the cachalot or sperm whale, sometimes found in the animal itself but more often floating on the sea or washed up on the beach, used to have a minor culinary role. It is a waxy solid, occurring in lumps which weigh anything from a few ounces to 90 kg (200 lb). Ambergris was familiar from medieval Arab medicine and cookery. The French saw a resemblance between it and true amber and, since its normal colour is ashy grey, called it ambre gris. From this name are derived the English ambergris and variants thereof such as ambergrease. Like MUSK, it was used in conjunction with other aromatics, such as CARDAMOM, to perfume foods, mostly confectionery. The practice, not uncommon in the 17th century, seems to have died out in Britain in the 18th century. Hannah Glasse (1747) used it in only one of her 900 recipes, and that (for Icing a Great Cake Another Way) came from an earlier book. It may be that its fall from grace as a flavouring (together with musk and civet) is linked to its passing as a body perfume in favour of more floral scents (Corbin, 1986).

However, the use of ambergris apparently continued in France in the 19th century. The reliable encyclopedist Trousset (1879) states that it was sometimes used as an aromatic flavouring, but in very discreet quantity. According to Favre (c.1883–92), the ‘ambre’ used by Brillat-Savarin in his chocolat des affligés, recommended by Dumas (1873), was ambergris (not amber).

Lane (1860) describes the use of ambergris by wealthy people in Egypt to flavour their coffee. The usual method was to melt a little ambergris in one pot and pour hot coffee from another pot over it. But some preferred to place a small piece of ambergris (about two carats) in the bottom of a cup and add coffee; the small piece lasted two or three weeks.

Landry (1978) states that the Chinese were the first to appreciate the flavour of ambergris, which they imaginatively referred to as the ‘flavour of dragon’s saliva’, and sprinkled in powdered form on boiling tea.

amberjack

a common name for fish of the genus Seriola. The Mediterranean species, S. dumerili, one of the largest (up to 125 cm/50″) and best known, also occurs in the Caribbean region, on the eastern seaboards of S. and N. America, and in the warmer parts of the Indo-Pacific. Its name was bestowed because it has yellow (amber) streaks running along its sides and belongs to the family of fish (Carangidae) loosely referred to as JACKS.

Just how many other species there are in the genus seems to be uncertain, but there is no doubt about S. lalandi, which is well known in Australia as yellowtail kingfish and in California as Californian yellowtail, and occurs elsewhere too (e.g. S. Africa, Argentina).

Although the amberjacks are pelagic fish, rarely caught in quantity and not well known in the markets, they are familiar to sport fishermen in many parts of the world; and the smaller specimens make good eating.

ambigu

a distinctive sort of evening meal, or supper, which enjoyed some popularity among the upper classes of England from roughly the middle of the 17th century until the middle of the 18th. It was less formal than a dinner, but was nonetheless carefully planned and provided substantial fare. The meaning of the French word which was appropriated to use in England in this way can be ‘a mixture of different things’, and this meaning was reflected in the wide variety of dishes laid out on the ‘sideboard’ for an ambigu. The dishes were mainly cold, as for a supper.

Charles Carter, author of the last of the great English ‘court cookery books’ (1730), provided table layouts for no fewer than ten ambigus (or ambogues, as he called them). One example incorporates the explanation that it was for a masquerade and shows empty plates set on the table ‘to eat on, for none Sat Down’.

ambrosia

the food of the gods in classical mythology. The term may mean food in the narrow sense of eatables, in which case it is the counterpart of NECTAR, the drink of the gods; or it may mean food in the wider sense of sustenance, when it embraces drink also.

What the gods were actually supposed to eat is a matter of conjecture.

In the English language any especially delicious food may be called ambrosia; but this usage has become uncommon.

amchur

a dried product prepared in the northern states of India from unripe MANGO flesh. Immature fruits which have become windfalls are peeled and then marketed in the form of slices or powder.

Amchur is used as a souring agent for curries, including certain vegetable curries, just as tamarind pulp is; and it is also used in chutneys and soups. Pruthi (1976) observes that the main purpose of its addition is to lower the pH of the gravy so that the dish will keep longer.

American cheeses

are mostly versions of European ones, especially CHEDDAR. Two which can claim to be American originals are described under BRICK CHEESE and LIEDERKRANZ.

The American cheese industry is centred on Wisconsin, where a state law once obliged restaurateurs to serve two-thirds of an ounce each of Wisconsin butter and Wisconsin cheese with every meal (it lasted two short years, 1935–7). New York State ranks second in production of cheese. Other states known for their cheeses are California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Vermont.

Cheeses of the Cheddar type were first made in New England early in the 17th century, and were being exported to Britain by the end of the 18th century. The Cheddar technique, adapted to a greater or lesser extent, now produces numerous varieties of which the following are noteworthy: Colorado Blackie has a black rind; Coon is a premium variety which has a dark rind due to the conditions in which it is aged; Herkimer County cheese, the pride of New York State cheese-makers, is aged for a year or more, with a crumbly texture, a sharp and nutty flavour, and an attractive pale orange colour; Longhorn does not refer to a kind of cow but to a particular size of Cheddar; Vermont (State) cheese is a Cheddar with a tangy flavour, while Vermont Sage is flecked with sage, see SAGE CHEESE; Store cheese is a name for plain Cheddar of the kind which was a stock item in village stores. The Cheddar made in Tillamook, Oregon, prompted the publication in 1933 of a book in two volumes, the first of which is scarce and the second unobtainable. The title is The Cheddar Box. Volume I is a normal book, describing in picturesque language the history of the cheese made at Tillamook. Volume II looked like a book but was really a box containing a 2 lb (1 kg) cheese. Brown (1955) recalls borrowing a first volume whose flyleaf was thus inscribed:

This is an excellent cheese, full cream and medium sharp, and a unique set of books in which Volume II suggests Bacon’s: ‘Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.’

Colby, a highly popular American cheese named after the town of Colby in Wisconsin, resembles Cheddar but has a softer and more open texture, and is moister. Two steps in the regular Cheddar manufacturing process, that known as ‘cheddaring’ (slicing up the curd) and the subsequent milling, are omitted when Colby is made. Several American cheeses with other names are really varieties of Colby. Cornhusker, developed in Nebraska, is like Colby but contains less fat. Monterey (or Jack, an alternative name now little used) is named after Monterey County in California, where it originated in the 1890s. It comes in two main varieties; a whole-milk semi-soft cheese, and a cheese for grating which is made with skimmed or semi-skimmed milk. Both are made by a process resembling that used for Colby, but more rapid.

Club cheese resembles POTTED CHEESE and may be thought of as the original of processed cheese, with which the name of James Kraft, a Canadian by birth, will be forever linked. His company was merged in the 1920s with the makers of Philadelphia CREAM CHEESE.

The relationship of American consumers with the cheeses, especially the raw milk cheeses, of Europe has been dogged by various laws prohibiting or inhibiting their import. However, recent developments have made the country more self-sufficient in this regard as the rise of artisanal cheese-making has been as inexorable here as in other English-speaking countries. National competitions may attract hundreds of entries; the climate of consumption is in their favour; American cheeses may yet rise above their reputation for a certain monotony.

American cookbooks

The history of cookbook publishing in the United States exemplifies the abundance and diversity that characterize American society. In recent years a flow of cookbooks numbering in the thousands has steadily issued from American publishing houses. This is in stark contrast to the record of the early years; America came late to cookbook publishing. Although the settlers carried cookbooks with them to the New World and imported cookbooks, especially from England, and kept manuscript receipt books, cooks in the original colonies had been preparing food for more than 100 years before the first cookbook was published in America.

Then in 1742 William Parks, the printer at Williamsburg, Virginia, published E. Smith’s The Compleat Housewife, first issued in London in 1727. During the following half-century, this book and several other English works were reprinted in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, most notably Susannah Carter’s The Frugal Housewife (1772) and Richard Briggs’s The New Art of Cookery (1792). When Parks printed The Compleat Housewife, he claimed to have made some attempt at adapting it to American tastes and practices. However, no cookbook seriously attempted to reach an American audience for more than another 50 years.

The year 1796 marked the first appearance of a cookbook written for Americans and adapted to the American way of life: Amelia SIMMONS’s American Cookery … Adapted to This Country, and All Grades of Life. Although American Cookery borrowed heavily from English cookbooks, its genius was its recognition and use of American products and practice. So many firsts and milestones of American cooking appear in this small volume that it has justly been hailed, in its specialized sphere, as another declaration of American independence.

Two conflicting trends were evident during the 60 years following the publication of American Cookery. English works, including the major contemporary classics by RAFFALD, Rundell (see ENGLISH COOKERY BOOKS), Glasse, Henderson, Nutt, Kitchiner, Soyer, and ACTON, were being reprinted regularly, often with special adaptations for the American audience. But, increasingly, cookbooks written by Americans for Americans were capturing the market.

Although reprints and pirated editions of Amelia Simmons’s book continued to appear (a dozen by 1830), no important new cookbook was published until 1824 when Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife was issued. This was the first regional American cookbook and set a pattern for the many to follow, including such early classics as Mrs Lettice Bryan’s The Kentucky Housewife (1839); Thornton’s The Southern Gardener and Receipt Book (1840); Philomelia Hardin’s Every Body’s Cook and Receipt Book … Designed for Buckeyes, Hoosiers, Wolverines, Corncrackers, Suckers (1842); Mrs Howland’s The New England Economical Housekeeper (1844); the Carolina Housewife (1847); and Mrs Collins’ Table Receipts: Adapted to Western Housewifery (1851).

The 1820s also brought the first printings of works by two of America’s most influential cookery authors, Eliza LESLIE and Lydia Maria Child. Miss Leslie’s various works were to dominate American cookbook publishing for the next 30 years. Mrs Child’s only book on cookery, The Frugal Housewife, went through at least 35 printings between its first appearance in 1829 and 1850 when it was allowed to go out of print, arguably because of her increasingly public work in the cause of anti-slavery as well as the publication of more modern cookbooks.

In 1827 the first book on household management written by a black American appeared, The House Servant’s Directory by Robert Roberts. Additional black-authored works on cookery and household management published in the 19th century include Tunis Campbell’s Hotel Keepers’, Head Waiters’, and Housekeepers’ Guide (1848) and the first southern-black cookbook, What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking (1881). From this meagre beginning and by the end of the 20th century, interest in and generation of black culinary literature had grown to become a significant specialized area of publication.

During the 1830s cookbooks by the American and English authors previously mentioned were printed and reprinted in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ohio. The works of Mrs Child, Miss Leslie, and Mrs Randolph clearly dominated this decade, although other authors appeared, including ‘A Boston Housekeeper’, whose The Cook’s Own Book (1832) was the first alphabetically arranged culinary encyclopedia to appear in the United States.

The last year of the decade brought the publication of the first of many cookbooks of another major figure in American culinary history, The Good Housekeeper (1839) by Sarah Josepha Hale. As editor for 40 years of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most influential American magazine of the 19th century, Mrs Hale was the arbiter of national taste for much of that period.

By the 1840s new authors appeared on the culinary scene: Catherine Beecher, Mrs Cornelius, Mrs Crowen, Mrs A. L. Webster, and Mrs Howland, although earlier writers continued to be influential, especially Miss Leslie, Mrs Hale, and Mrs Child. Cookbooks began to be published in new cities, including some in the Midwest and the south.

By this time, certain trends had appeared that are still a part of the American cooking scene: economy and frugality; management and organization; and a preoccupation with baking, sweets, and desserts. Several other themes of American cookery appeared in the 1830s and 1840s: vegetarianism, diet and health, and temperance; representative were Sylvester Graham’s A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making (1837), William Alcott’s Vegetable Diet (1838), and Miss C. A. Neal’s Temperance Cook Book (1841).

Many of these same themes continued in the cookbooks of the 1850s, as did the domination of writers already mentioned. In addition, several new authors emerged, all of them American women, such as Mrs Abell, Mrs Bliss, and Mrs Chadwick.

By the mid-19th century, women were writing the majority of American cookbooks; works by male professional chefs and male medical doctors were the exception. This trend has more or less continued to the present time, although the last few decades have seen increasing numbers of male cookbook authors.

By 1860 more and more cookbooks were being published, and they had become an integral part of the publishing industry. The upheaval of the Civil War (1861–5) caused a decline in the publication of all books, including cookbooks. Following the Civil War, cookbooks were written to help southern women adapt to their changed circumstances. Of these, Mrs Hill’s New Cook Book (1870) and Mrs Porter’s New Southern Cookery Book (1871) were among the most influential.

Then, in the 1870s, three major cookbook explosions occurred, the effects of which are still with us.

The first was a Civil War legacy: cookbooks compiled by women’s charitable organizations to raise funds to aid victims of the war and their families. When the war ended, these groups turned their attentions to other charitable causes. The trickle of these early books published in the 1860s and 1870s has now become a flood, as hundreds of such books are issued in the United States each year. In the earlier years when women were without full political rights, the fund-raising cookbook proved to be one very effective way for them to participate in and influence the public life of the nation.

Several cookbooks which began life as fund-raisers were reissued, under varying titles, for many decades and became American classics; notably, Buckeye Cookery (1876) and Mrs Kander’s Settlement Cook Book (1901).

The second major development was promotional literature, the advertising pamphlets issued by the growing number of national food and kitchen equipment companies. Tens of millions of such pamphlets have flooded the American market in the last 150 years; every household probably has a few in a kitchen drawer. These bits of culinary ephemera were often extremely handsome; they merit further investigation as they document trends in American foodways.

The third important force was the growth of the cooking school and home economics movements. These began with the influential cooking schools founded in New York by Professor Pierre Blot and Juliet Corson, and intensified with the great cooking schools and their teachers—Sarah RORER in Philadelphia and Mary LINCOLN and Fannie FARMER in Boston. These schools dominated American cookbook publishing for the remainder of the 19th century and early into the 20th. Mrs Rorer authored more than 60 books and pamphlets as well as serving as editor for major food and household magazines. Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) went on (with many revisions and new editions) to become one of the best-selling and most influential cookbooks in America.

It is useful to place in more general historical context the facts outlined in the 19th-century chronology presented above. That period, the first post-colonial century, saw profound changes in the land and peoples of America, and all of this ferment was reflected in the cookbooks of the time. The talented women authors cited above were influential beyond their cookbooks. Not only were they recognized culinary authorities, but they were also reformers active in all the major social and cultural events of their day from consumer issues to women’s rights. Their books went through numerous editions. They reached millions of households with their classes, journal articles, and cookbooks, and in all they did, their social consciousness was manifest.

As America moved westward a cookery literature useful to the pioneers appeared. Among the most popular were works authored by Dr A. W. Chase. His books, in endless variations, were written to enable the frontiersmen and women to do for themselves, out in the wilderness, everything that was necessary to survive, from cooking to shoeing horses.

With the settlement of the continent and the rise of cities, massive tomes addressed to the urban housewife appeared, complete with information on how to deal with servants and how to entertain properly.

In addition to cookbooks and advertising pamphlets, national magazines and almanacs offering household advice and recipes became ever more popular in the latter half of the 19th century. Long a part of American life, these publications, general in nature at first, turned increasingly to specialized subjects that included women’s topics and cookery. Cooking magazines continue to play a very influential role in American cookery.

The large waves of immigration that began late in the 19th century produced a special cookery literature. Books in almost every European language, sometimes bilingual, were available through the country. Some contained American recipes to teach the new immigrant, in his native language, how to cook American food; others had recipes from the old country, with or without altered ingredients to suit the new homeland. In addition to the foreign-language cookbooks published to fill the needs of immigrants, foreign and international cookbooks began to be written for the American housewife. By 1920, an American cook could find books on the cuisines of most cultures.

In general, the ethnic works mirrored the successive waves of immigrants: German, still prominent in the Midwest; and French, with historic roots in St Louis, Detroit, and northern Maine, but especially in New Orleans and Louisiana. There (mixed with Spanish, Caribbean, African, Southern, and Italian) it was the basis of CREOLE and CAJUN cookery, both of which endure in the kitchen and on the printed page. Other major ethnic influences came to include the Hispanic, Mexican, African, Chinese, Italian, Jewish, Scandinavian, Middle European, and Shaker—all overlaid on the English and Native American base. The large new waves of immigration in the last quarter of the 20th century introduced still more cuisines to America, mainly Asian and Latin American, and the cookbooks followed.

The First and Second World Wars, the Depression, and Prohibition (1920–33) all influenced the cookbooks of the first half of the 20th century. The period is best noted, however, for the appearance of the American classic The Joy of Cooking (1931) by Irma ROMBAUER; see Jan Longone (1996a), also Janice B. and Daniel T. Longone (1984).

In the last half of the 20th century, the market for cookbooks expanded in step with and sometimes faster than that of general publishing. By the year 2000 it was estimated that the average American woman owned fifteen cookbooks and that three out of ten women ‘collected’ cookbooks. The Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook, which had been in continuous production since 1930, boasted aggregate sales of 32 million. This burgeoning performance quickened its pace in the 1990s, albeit with a stumble in 2002–3. Since 1984, there had been an annual average increase in sales of 5%. Cookbooks have benefited from improvements in printing technology allowing more colour photography, a beneficial symbiosis between print and broadcast media, greater attention to food paid by daily and periodical JOURNALISM, and that GLOBALIZATION of food supplies, as well as of personal TRAVEL, which provoked an interest in the food and cookery of alien cultures. The post-war era has perhaps been dominated by those four colossi, JAMES BEARD, Craig Claiborne, JULIA CHILD, and, in the field of gastronomic literature, M. F. K. FISHER, but the breadth of the genre has increased to such a degree that it encompasses far more than the general cookbook with which people were most familiar in the years up to 1945. Disregarding those books that cover the politics of food, ecology, and narratives of food production (for recipes have they none), and ignoring the innumerable diet guides which may be heavy with recipes but patrol a different culinary frontier, there have developed important specializations within the genre. Books that study foreign cuisines are more deeply researched and more intent on capturing authentic tradition. In like manner, the regional cookery of America itself has yielded to closer, sometimes academic, investigation and explanation. The scientific basis of cookery has been explored and drawn into domestic practice, just as the secrets of professional kitchens have been shared with amateur cooks as well as other chefs. The celebrity chef’s cookbook has flourished as never before, encouraged by television exposure and the increasing percentage of household income spent in restaurants. The best modern cookbooks have shown a greater zeal to explain and more willingness to go into detail than hitherto. Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking was conceived as giving an amateur, from the contents of a book alone, every chance of replicating French haute cuisine, something ESCOFFIER would never have thought possible. This earnest ambition informed the length, detail, and didactic style of the recipes: a vital legacy. In parallel with this closer inspection of the cooking process, there has also arisen a renewed gastronomic literature that seems less masculine in its emphasis, concerned with informing the reader rather than merely voicing opinion, and taking in a variety of prose styles. Similarly, a broader interest in food throughout society has infected genres such as the memoir or autobiography—lives often seen through the haze of smoke above the kitchen range—and the novel, some perhaps combined with recipes (see LITERATURE AND FOOD).

Janice Longone

amino acids

the substances of which PROTEIN is made. Twenty-four of them are known to be involved in the synthesis of protein, of which 20 are important. These are glycine, alanine, proline, valine, leucine, isoleucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, tyrosine, cysteine, serine, threonine, asparagine, glutamine, histidine, lysine, and arginine. The names in italics are those of the 10 ‘essential’ amino acids for humans. These cannot be made in the body, and have to form part of the diet. The others can be made by altering other amino acids. Other animals have different sets of essential acids.

Amino acids have part of their chemical structure in common. Their general structure is R-CH-(NH₂)-COOH, where R is a group of atoms which varies from one acid to another; in the simplest, valine, this is simply one hydrogen atom. The -NH₂ group is known as an amino group, the -COOH group as a carboxyl group; the latter is a characteristic part of organic acids.

Proteins consist of chains of linked amino acids. When one acid is joined to another the amino group of one acid loses one hydrogen atom, and the carboxyl group of the other acid loses one hydrogen and one oxygen atom. The two groups then link thus: -NH-CO-. This is known as a ‘peptide bond’. The two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms join to form a molecule of water, H₂O.

The peptide bond can be broken by putting the two parts of the water molecule back in, so that the amino and carboxyl groups resume their original form. This is known as HYDROLYSIS, and is fundamental to the cooking and digestion of protein.

The molecules of living things are ‘chiral’—they can exist in either of two forms which are mirror images of each other, known as ‘laevo-’ (left-handed, L for short) and ‘dextro-’ (right-handed, D) forms. As a rule only L forms are found in nature, and this applies to all amino acids except glycine, which is too simple to have more than one form.

The food industry uses some amino acids on their own. L-glutamic acid and its salt MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE are both used as flavour enhancers. The SWEETENER aspartame is made from aspartic acid.

Ralph Hancock

anardana

a spice consisting of the dried seeds of the POMEGRANATE, is used in India, especially in the north, for acidifying chutneys and some curries. The seeds and pulp are separated from the rind of the fruit and dried in the sun for 10–15 days, turning a reddish-brown. The spice is marketed in this form and ground before use. The seeds of the wild pomegranate called daru which grows on the lower Himalayas reputedly yield the finest anardana.

Julie Sahni (1980) remarks: ‘Many chefs prefer pomegranate over mango powder, as pomegranate seeds impart a distinct sweetish-sour taste to a dish instead of just a sour taste.’

This spice is also sometimes used to flavour dishes in Iran and the Middle East, although the syrup made from fresh pomegranate seeds is in more common use in that region.

anchovy

a fish of the family Engraulidae. Species are found in all the warm oceans, and it is interesting to observe the varying uses made of them in different regions of the world.

The anchovy of culinary renown is Engraulis encrasicolus of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the warmer waters of the E. Atlantic coasts. In earlier centuries it was mainly consumed as salted anchovies, which were sold from barrels. It is now more familiar in the form of canned anchovy fillets, which are used to impart a distinctive and salty flavour to many dishes. The preserved anchovies of Collioure, in the south of France, are reputedly among the best.

However, the practice of eating fresh (unsalted, and not canned, but often frozen) anchovies is spreading to other European countries from those where the abundance of the catch had already made it a familiar delicacy, for example Portugal, Spain, and above all Turkey. The Turks are beyond doubt the greatest enthusiasts in the world for anchovies, which they call hamsi. The intense and proprietorial feelings inspired by hamsi in Turkish hearts have found expression in some remarkable poems recited by itinerant troubadours on the Black Sea coast, one of which is cited by Davidson (1981) along with an impressive list of the culinary uses to which hamsi are put in Turkey, including their incorporation in a kind of bread.

On the western side of the N. Atlantic, the striped anchovy, Anchoa hepsetus, arouses little interest.

In the Indo-Pacific region anchovies present a different picture. E. ringens occurs off the coast of Peru and adjacent countries in shoals so enormous that the catch of the anchoveta (its Peruvian name) has often been the biggest by weight in the whole world. The cold Humboldt current, which flows northwards in those parts and is very rich in zooplankton, accounts for its abundance. This species is made into fish meal.

In Asian waters there are anchovies of the genera Stolephorus (long-jawed anchovy); Coilia and Setipinna (hairfin anchovies, with sharply tapering rear ends); and Thryssa (the moustached anchovy, which has rearward extensions to its upper jaw which are thought to resemble a moustache or the whiskers of a cat, and whose Thai name means ‘cat fish’). These are all good food fish, but do not have the special importance in Asian cuisines which the European anchovy has in Europe. The explanation may be that in SE Asia a special taste which corresponds in gustatory effect to that of the European anchovy is already provided in the daily diet by the FISH SAUCES of the region. These may, incidentally, be made from anchovies.

andouille and andouillette

are tripe-based sausages, but otherwise they have little in common. The former is generally a large sausage, frequently smoked and eaten cold in slices as a starter; the latter is a small sausage that is never smoked and is generally grilled and served hot as a main dish. There are numerous versions of each. The words may derive from the Latin inductile, meaning something drawn out.

Andouilles were served on the best French tables in the Middle Ages, but in the centuries since then they have mutated into a more rustic sort of speciality. The use of the term andouille as a slang word meaning ‘imbecile’ might seem to fit with this new role, but it is hard to explain and appears to be incompatible with the existence of lively associations of andouille-lovers.

Andouilles or aunduyle, stuffed with chopped TRIPE and other entrails, were known in Britain in the 13th century and were still being mentioned in the 17th and 18th centuries, but both the word and the recipe passed out of use.

The most famous andouilles are from Normandy (andouille de Vire) and Brittany (andouille de Guéméné). Both are smoked, and both are eaten cold. Thin slices have an interesting appearance on the plate, with little white squiggles of tripe and CHITTERLING or (in the case of Guéméné, which is made with larger pieces of chitterling rolled up) white spirals. However, in some parts of France an andouille is simply a large sausage which is poached with beans or cabbage and eaten either hot or cold.

The best-known andouillettes are those of Troyes (by far the most widely imitated), which are made exclusively of pure pork ‘innards’; and those from the Beaujolais region, made with calf’s mesentery. All are cooked before eating; grilled andouillettes with mustard and puréed potatoes are a popular dish of French bistro cookery.

Philip and Mary Hyman

angel food cake

sometimes called angel cake, a light, pale, and puffy N. American sponge cake or angel food. It is made with egg whites to which cream of tartar is added to prevent darkening. Mariani (1994) writes: ‘The egg whites give it a texture so airy that the confection supposedly has the sublimity of angels.’ The cake is often baked in a ring-shaped (‘tubular’) mould.

This is a plain cake, but may be flavoured with nuts and/or spices, or enriched with fillings or frostings.

Angel food cake was known in the USA in the 1870s, according to Mariani (and the name appeared in print in both the USA and Canada in the 1880s). Some perceive it as a good way of using up surplus egg whites.

angelica

the name for a group of tall umbelliferous plants with thick stems, in the genus Angelica. Of the many species, growing in most temperate regions of the world, the most famous and useful, growing in Europe, is Angelica archangelica. It has a distinctive scent, often described as musky.

Parkinson (1629) observed that all Christian nations call this plant by names signifying its angelic associations, and ‘likewise in their appellations hereof follow the Latine name as near as their Dialect will permit’. The basis for the angelic associations is not clear, although it may be connected with the plant’s reputation as an antidote to poisons; and the archangelic ones might be due to the fact that the flower would be in bloom on 8 May (old calendar), the day of St Michael the Archangel.

A. archangelica is native to Scandinavia, Russia, and the mountains of E. Europe. It was an important plant in Norway and Iceland from the 11th century AD and probably even earlier. The first Norwegian lawbooks set penalties for stealing from another man’s angelica garden, and we learn about the gathering and use of angelica in several Icelandic sagas.

Angelica was unknown in continental Europe at that time and was not mentioned in the first herbals. In fact, the names archangelica and herba angelica were first used for dead-nettles (Lamium) and some of their relatives. Only from the 13th century did the plant known to us as angelica inherit the name.

The traditional use in Scandinavia was to peel and eat the stems and stalks raw, like a fruit. Over the years a cultivar with sweet, almost solid stalks developed in Norway. It is known as Vossakvann after the area (Voss) where it is still grown. The leaf stalks have also been blanched and eaten like celery, and the leaves were candied. The roots were made into preserves, and angelica water was a well-known cordial. Its use as a vegetable survives in some countries, e.g. Greenland and the Faeroes, where it is eaten cooked. Nowadays, however, much the most common use is to candy the stalks, cut into short pieces, for use in cakes and CONFECTIONERY. In England it is frequently used to decorate a TRIFLE. Most of the angelica grown commercially for candying comes from France. It is also widely cultivated in other European countries, mainly for its root, used in herbal medicine and alcoholic beverages like Chartreuse and gin.

The candied stalks have been sold as ‘French rhubarb’ in the USA. Elsewhere, the addition of a little angelica to stewed rhubarb is thought to be a good way of reducing the acidity.

Growing and candying angelica have been a speciality of Niort in France since the latter part of the 18th century, and the Niortais now have a monopoly in France. (Tales about the origin of their specialization are of doubtful validity, and it was not an invention of Niort—the art of candying angelica was already being practised in the south of France around 1600; but claims have been made that the angelica grown at Niort is superior to any other.) The process of candying angelica as practised at Niort is elaborate, involving many stages, and takes up to a year or more.

Ove Fossç

READING:

Fosså (2006).

angel’s hair

cabello de ángel, a speciality of Majorca but familiar in other parts of Spain, has been well described by Janet Mendel (1996) as ‘fine golden strands of candied fruit … made from the flesh of the sidra, a type of large squash, striated in green and yellow, which seems to be used for nothing else but this’. The pulp is cooked, then cooked again with sugar to produce a stringy jam which is used for various sweet purposes, e.g. as a filling for ENSAIMADAS. It is widely obtainable in canned form. References to it in culinary literature often say that it comes from a ‘pumpkin’.

angel shark

Squatina squatina, which occurs in the Mediterranean and E. Atlantic, with close relations in warm temperate oceans all round the world, is a fish with unusual features and interesting names. It is correctly termed a shark, having cartilaginous rather than true bones and possessing most of the other characteristics of sharks; but is regarded by scientists as representing an evolutionary stage between sharks and rays.

Certainly it does not look like a conventional shark. On the contrary, it is generally agreed to present an ecclesiastical appearance. Medieval sages saw its large pectoral fins as wings and its tapering body and tail as angelic robes. From being an Angel, it was later demoted to the rank of Monk by Norwegians, who according to the ichthyologist Rondelet, writing in the 16th century, were impressed by a specimen washed up on the shore and noted that ‘it had a man’s face, rude and ungracious, the head smooth and shorn. On the shoulders, like the cloak of a monk, were two long fins.’ It is still often called monkfish, although promoted to Bishop by some authorities; and an Australian species has even attained the rank of Archbishop, no doubt because of its ornate dappling of denticles (McCormick, Allen, and Young, 1963). A well-known medieval woodcut shows the fish in episcopal guise.

The W. Atlantic species is S. dumerili. Both it and S. californica of the E. Pacific are comparable in size (maximum length about 1.5 m: 5′) and eating quality (better than most people realize, and better than the common run of edible sharks) to S. squatina.

Generally, the angel shark can be treated like a RAY. It is always safe to bake a sizeable chunk of ‘wing’ with added flavours, whether these are Mediterranean or Asian.

Although the angel shark is sometimes called angel fish, it has nothing in common with the small reef fish of the Indo-Pacific to which that name properly belongs.

angler-fish

Lophius piscatorius, a fish of bizarre appearance and considerable size (maximum length 2 m: 6.5′), which is also called monkfish (a confusing name, also applied to ANGEL SHARK). It has an extensive range from the Black Sea through the Mediterranean and up to Iceland. On the American side of the N. Atlantic its close relation L. americanus is known as goosefish.

The angler-fish is a master of camouflage, concealing itself on the seabed in a manner well described by the Duke of Argyll (quoted by Goode and associates, 1884, who omit to say which duke):

The whole upper surface is tinted and mottled in such close resemblance to stones and gravel and seaweeds that it becomes quite indistinguishable among them. In order to complete the method of concealment, the whole margins of the fish, and the very edge of the lips and jaws, have loose tags and fringes which wave and sway about amid the currents of water so as to look exactly like the smaller algae which move around them and along with them. Even the very ventral fins of this devouring deception, which are thick, strong and fleshy, almost like hands, and which evidently help in a sudden leap, are made like two great clam-shells, while the iris of the eyes is so coloured in lines radiating from the pupil as to look precisely like some species of Patella or limpet.

Thus disguised, the angler-fish agitates the ‘fishing-rod’ above its head and prepares to engulf in its vast mouth the smaller fish which come to investigate. It even has a spare fishing-rod. The main one projects forward and has a piece of tissue on it which serves as ‘bait’. But in case this is bitten off, there is another behind which can be brought forward. It bears no bait normally, but apparently grows a piece of bait if it is brought into use.

The ability of the fish to swallow large prey is astonishing. Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) report that an angler 1 m (3.3′) long has a mouth which gapes 23 cm (9″) horizontally and 20 cm (8″) vertically; and that an angler 65 cm (26″) long was found to contain a codling 57 cm (23″) long.

Naturally, such a remarkable creature has attracted many interesting vernacular names. The American name goosefish (bestowed because it stuffs itself) is matched by bellyfish, allmouth (N. Carolina), and the cognate ‘lawyer’ in parts of New England. The Scots name Molly Gowan has no obvious explanation, but the Irish ‘frogfish’ is understandable and is echoed by many names in other languages.

The tail of the angler-fish, or rather the tail-end of its body, is the part which is skinned and marketed. In the Netherlands it is sold as ham or hozemondham. The merits of the angler-fish became widely acknowledged in Europe during the 1960s to the 1980s, but its acceptance as human food in N. America has advanced rather more slowly.

The flesh is so firm and white that it invites comparison with that of the lobster; indeed, there have been instances of a lot of angler-fish being used to supplement a little lobster. It may be poached or steamed, or opened out butterfly-fashion and grilled. Slices can be fried. The head, when obtainable, makes a good soup.

Anglo-Indian cookery

a product of British rule in India or, more precisely, a result of the interface between Indian cooks and British wives of British officers and officials stationed in India, could be viewed as an example, on a grand scale, of CREOLE FOOD; or, more simply, as the most interesting ‘colonial kitchen’ which resulted from the imperial era of British history.

There is a rich literature. One outstanding item is the wonderful dictionary known as Hobson-Jobson (‘A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive’). Others are provided by those 19th-century English authors (notably Colonel Kenney-Herbert, on whom see ENGLISH COOKERY BOOKS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES) who produced manuals intended for use by the English memsahibs in dealing with their cooks. Recently, serious contributions of a historical and gastronomic nature have been made by Jennifer Brennan (1990) and Burton (1993).

The scope and scholarship of these books can hardly be reflected in a short article, but it will be appropriate to mention a few of the dishes or foodstuffs regarded as typical of Anglo-Indian cookery.

Mulligatawny soup is an ingenious adaptation necessitated by the British requirement for soup as a separate course, a concept unknown in India. As Burton explains:

Such soups as there were had been used as thin sauces, poured over plain rice and mixed with dry curries, but never drunk by themselves, due to the Indian custom of serving all the dishes of a meal at the outset rather than course by course.

The simplest of these ‘rice-mixers’ consisted merely of spices boiled in water, perhaps with the addition of fried onions. In the north of India the recipe was enriched by yoghurt and known as shorwa; in the south, where lentils were often added, the dish was called saar. In the Tamil version tamarind was included and the soup called rasam. When used metaphorically the ras part of rasam, like saar, means ‘essence’—and essences are what they were.

Hobson-Jobson explains the etymology: ‘The name of this well-known soup is simply a corruption of the Tamil milagu-tannir, “pepper-water”; showing the correctness of the popular belief which ascribes the origin of this excellent article to Madras.’ From the same source we learn that British officials in the Madras Presidency were known as ‘mulls’ (after mulligatawny) whereas those at Bombay were ‘ducks’.

The simple concept of pepper water was greatly elaborated in some recipes for mulligatawny (which might call for a score of ingredients) but the basic prescription was always for some chicken or mutton, fried onion, curry powder, and stock or water.

Kedgeree, originally khichri, is a common Indian dish which was already being described by visitors hundreds of years ago. Hobson-Jobson quotes from the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta (1340): ‘The munj (Moong) is boiled with rice, and then buttered and eaten. This is what they call Kishri, and on this dish they breakfast every day.’

By ‘moong’ is meant mung bean. The description remains correct, although other ‘lentils’ (the term is used in various ways—see LENTIL) can be used and it is usual to add flavourings (onions, spices). It seems to have been under British influence and for British tables that flaked fish or smoked fish was built into the dish, replacing the ‘moong’ or ‘lentils’; and again due to the British that chopped hard-boiled eggs came into the picture (plus, in de luxe versions, ingredients such as cream). It was this transformed dish which became famous as kedgeree, a British breakfast speciality.

CURRY is an Indian category of spicy sauces or dishes transformed for Anglo-Indian purposes. CURRY POWDER, pre-mixed and packaged, was a major result of this development.

Country captain is a chicken dish of mysterious origin. Burton (1993) explains that:

The term ‘country’ used to refer to anything of Indian, as opposed to British, origin, and hence the country captain after whom this dish is named may have been in charge of sepoys. It seems more likely, however, that he was the captain of a country boat, since the recipe turned up midway through the nineteenth-century at ports as far apart as Liverpool and the American South (where many Americans mistakenly think the dish originated).

Hobson-Jobson had reached much the same conclusion; and thought that the origin of the dish was to be found in a SPATCHCOCK with onion and curry stuff, of Madras.

Pish Pash, according to Hobson-Jobson, is ‘Apparently a factitious Anglo-Indian word, applied to a slop of rice-soup with small pieces of meat in it, much used in the Anglo-Indian nursery.’ It appears to come from the Persian pash-pash, meaning shivered or broken in pieces, from the verb pashidan, to break.

Moley, also spelt mollett or moli, is defined in Hobson-Jobson as ‘A kind of (so-called wet) curry used in the Madras Presidency, a large amount of coco-nut being one of the ingredients. The word is a corruption of “Malay”; the dish being simply a bad imitation of one used by the Malays.’ It would seem to be closely allied to the Tamil dish of moli.

Hurry-Scurry is a variation on French toast. Burton (1993) explains that it was ‘presumably so-named because it could be made at short notice. It consisted of bread slices cut into fingers, dunked in egg and milk, then fried in ghee, and spread with jam. … Henrietta Hervey, in Anglo-Indian Cookery at Home, calls her version Bombay Pudding.’ However, there is also some confusion as two other puddings shared this name in the Anglo-Indian kitchen: one was a sort of summer pudding, the other a halva-like mixture of semolina.

WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE is a sort of transplant from India to England.

The long-term effects of Anglo-Indian cookery on English cookery are perceptible in the popularity of curry dishes and of CHUTNEYS, but not much else. A separate matter is the arrival of Indian restaurants in Britain, mainly in the second half of the 20th century, and the introduction of their kitchen terms, e.g. VINDALOO, into the British culinary vocabulary (although not into British kitchens).

See also ASIAN RESTAURANTS; TIFFIN.

READING:

Kenney-Herbert (1885); Chapman (1998); P. Brown (1998); Bhogal (2003).

Anglo-Saxon food

a subject which has generally been neglected, is now illuminated by the two volumes (1992, 1995) from Ann Hagen on Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink. The first covered ‘Processing and Consumption’, the second ‘Production and Distribution’. The author approached the subject from a background of archaeology but harnessed to her purposes a wealth of literary evidence. Since, for many readers, the interest of her study, which she defines as extending from the beginning of the 5th century to about 1100, lies as much in her diligent and ingenious use of source material as in the substance of the information she gathered (which is in any case so extensive and disparate that it would be difficult to summarize), it seems best here to cite her own account of the sources.

The area covered is Anglo-Saxon England and the Celtic west of Britain, with occasional reference to continental sites.

Primary material is of two kinds: documentary and archaeological. Material in the vernacular was supplemented from Latin manuscripts. Writings on all kinds of subjects were used, from laws, chronicles and sermons, to poems and medical recipes. Surviving manuscripts have been preserved by chance, so there will always be lacunae in the documentary record. Moreover, this is very heavily weighted towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, with few Old English manuscripts surviving from before the tenth century. While place-names are often recorded for the first time after the Conquest, where Old English elements are involved it is reasonable to assume they were in use in the Anglo-Saxon period. …

Archaeological evidence is available for the whole period and is the main source of data for early Anglo-Saxon England, but, as with manuscripts, the recovery of evidence is a matter of chance.

Soils preserve material differentially, and recovery techniques themselves will bias a sample of animal or plant material. Different methods of quantifying the numbers of animals from an animal bone sample produce different results. Problems of interpretation (that the absence of fish bones may indicate not that few fish were eaten, but that many fish were eaten, bones and all, or that animal bones in graves may not represent foodstuffs) are dealt with in the text.

Chemical analysis and electron spin resonance techniques can add to our picture of what the Anglo-Saxons ate and how they cooked it. Human skeletal material provides information about diet not available from other sources. Excavated structures relate to the processing (mills, kitchens) and consumption (halls) of food.

People who have never had occasion to study this subject are likely to be aware of only one incident in Anglo-Saxon cookery, to wit King Alfred and his burnt cakes. It is interesting to see how this is handled by a culinary historian. Ann Hagen has compared three versions of the story, finding that in one the loaves are burning at the fire; in a second they are on a pan with the fire underneath; while in the third the bread is being baked under the ashes of the fire. So we learn that ‘cakes’ seems to be a misunderstanding for loaves of bread, and are led by an analysis of the source material into a survey of baking equipment and techniques used in Anglo-Saxon times, plus the interesting point that Old English has both masculine and feminine forms for bakers; and a quotation which shows that barley bread and pure new butter were considered a good food for Anglo-Saxon invalids. On top of all this, we discover that although Alfred’s cakes were loaves, the Anglo-Saxons did also have cakes, described as well spiced, and possibly enriched with cream, eggs, butter, honey, and preserved fruits. Whether the Anglo-Saxons had crumpets or only pancakes seems, however, to be an open question.

READING:

Banham (2004).

Angola and Mozambique

though not adjacent and geographically very different, were both once Portuguese colonies and their cooking was influenced thereby and also by the trade between them. Laurens van der Post (1977), describing the ‘two wings’ of cooking in Africa which the Portuguese created and which were held together by their presence, puts it well:

Roughly, one is South American, or more specifically Brazilian, and is most evident in Angola. The other is a compound effect, in Mozambique, of the Portuguese experiences of the East from its Arabian outposts in Zanzibar to the coast of Malabar in India and Malacca on to the Celestial Empire. Since there was a constant coming and going between Angola and Mozambique from the earliest days, these two schools naturally borrowed freely from one another. Yet it is surprising that they retain nuances of their own. Rice, spice and the fruits of the Orient feature more prominently in Mozambique than they do in Angola.

He goes on to describe how life in Saint Paul de Luanda (founded in 1575, the oldest city established by Europeans south of the Sahara, and now simply Luanda) was for centuries like that of a Brazilian city, including many aspects of food, such as the seasoning. Indeed, he says that ‘Muamba chicken’, a strong claimant for the title of national dish of Angola, is ‘purely Brazilian’ in origin.

The enormous influence which the Portuguese had on the diet of Africans was perhaps based not so much on their cooking styles but on their talents as gardeners and importers of many plants now thought of as basic foods in Africa. From the Americas via Angola they introduced maize, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet potatoes, chillies, sweet peppers, and cassava/manioc. From the east via Mozambique came oranges, lemons, dozens of spices, new kinds of rice and beans, and probably bananas and sugar as well as many tropical fruits. The Portuguese introduced the domestic pig, chickens, olives, and salt cod as well as coffee and tea. Through the interchange between these two former colonies these foods spread to most of Africa and made a huge difference to the basic diet of the continent.

Angola was the country most ravaged by the slave trade (the depopulation is estimated at some three million people), and the most heavily settled by the Portuguese themselves. It is Africa’s largest state, but even since independence in 1975 has remained one of the most sparsely populated, with a population not much over 10 million. It is mostly high plateau, with a coastal strip cooled by the Benguela Current. The area was settled about 2,000 years ago by Bantu herders from the north who subsisted mainly on dairy products, grain pastes called funge (which has become funchi in parts of the W. Indies), and wild green vegetables. Thus it remained until the Portuguese, looking in the early 16th century for routes to the Spice Islands, established bases for re-victualling.

The Portuguese passion for fish and salt cod, in particular, has remained. One dish, Esparregados de bacalhao, reflects the combination of cuisines, being salt cod with cassava leaves, sweet peppers, Guinea pepper, and palm or sesame oil. Another seafood dish of Portuguese origin is a soupy dish of cuttlefish with limes, powdered sesame, olive oil, and TABIL.

These are by no means the only links with Portuguese cuisine. European-style bread is still liked in the towns. Goat meat is popular as it is in Portugal; in Angola it is usually cooked in a pot with garlic, chillies, and cloves. Another common dish is Assola de mais, cooked dried beans mixed with fresh maize fried in pork fat. Also, van der Post observed that in both Angola and Mozambique great care is taken to use the blood of a slaughtered animal—whether as an ingredient or in a sauce or dressing, even for yellow rice—and it has been suggested that this may reflect medieval Portuguese practice.

In Mozambique, most of which is lower lying than Angola, and thus more tropical, besides facing across the Indian Ocean to India and SE Asia, a large Goanese settlement made curry and coconut preparations popular. But Mozambique is known above all for the dishes called piri-piri (see PIL-PIL), which may have originated there. Piri-piri in Mozambique means basically a small hot chilli, but any dish flavoured with chillies is now known as a piri-piri, a usage which has become international. The sauce by this name differs from most chilli sauces in that it is made with oil, lemon juice, and garlic.

Dishes flavoured or thickened with cashew nuts are also common. A notable coastal dish is Matata, made with clams, nuts, and green leaves, traditionally pumpkin.

Another Portuguese legacy is a liking for sweet dishes, especially those made with eggs. Coconut puddings and candies are common in Mozambique.

Jenny Macarthur

anise

(or aniseed) the plant Pimpinella anisum and especially its seed. A native of the Levant, it was known to the Greeks by the 4th century BC. Culinary use extends at least as far back as classical Rome, for Pliny wrote of the seed: ‘Be it green or dried it is wanted for all conserves and flavourings.’ It is now grown in warm climates all over the world but especially in SE Europe, N. Africa, and India.

The plant, especially the seeds, has a sweet and unmistakable taste. Anethole, the principal essential oil in the seeds, is what gives the flavour to drinks such as the French pastis, ouzo in Greece, and arak in Turkey; and this use has been dominant in modern times. ‘On the Aegean coast [of Turkey] a familar winter sight, in February, is the loading of bags of anise on board Turkish ships bound for overseas ports, a particularly aromatic undertaking’ (Kalças, 1974).

However, anise is also employed as a flavouring for breads in some European countries, e.g. northern Spain, and in the Middle East; and likewise for cakes and in sweets, among which anise comfits used to be popular, and creams. Indians use the seeds in some curry-type dishes; and anise turns up, in discreet quantity, in various recipes for seafood.

The seeds are sometimes chewed after meals, e.g. in Afghanistan and India, as a means of sweetening the breath and as an aid to digestion. They are slightly roasted first for this purpose.

Aniseed balls, a popular English sweet, are mentioned under DRAGÉES.

STAR ANISE is different but also contains anethole.

annatto

Bixa orellana, a small to medium-sized tree, native to tropical America. This is often grown for purely ornamental purposes because of its red-veined leaves, clusters of pink flowers, and thick, spiny pods which open to reveal scarlet seeds. But it is also useful in other, including food, contexts.

In the Caribbean the seeds were used extensively in the past by the Caribs as body paint (hence ‘redskins’ as a name for American Indians) and for medicinal purposes (they are a rich source of vitamin A) but food colouring is the principal use. Annatto oil or lard is made from the hard orange-red pulp surrounding the seeds. The coloured and flavoured lard (manteca de achiote) is used in a number of Caribbean islands, e.g. to colour codfish cakes in Jamaica. Where PALM OIL was not available, slave societies used it to produced a red-coloured oil to remind them of their ancestral cooking medium.

Annatto was being imported into Europe by the 17th century (when many European chocolate recipes called for it). In the 18th century it was being used by cheese-makers in England to give an orange or red colour to Cheshire cheese and red Leicester. The colour is derived from bixin, which is a carotene pigment. So is the pigment which produces the natural yellow colour of butter and cheese, which comes from the fresh grass eaten by the cattle in summer. In winter, cattle eat fodder which lacks the pigment and dairy products are naturally paler. They also tend to be paler than average at any time of year in certain regions; CHESHIRE cheese, for example, is a pale ivory unless something is done to brighten it. MARIGOLD petals have been used in the past, but the colour which they provide is relatively weak and may be accompanied by an unwanted flavour. Annatto imparts practically no flavour, even when added in amounts sufficient to make cheese bright orange. So annatto was preferred for this purpose. In recent times, however, it has been partly replaced by beta carotene, which is obtained by an industrial process from other sources.

The whole seed is ground and used as a spice in some regions particularly in parts of the E. Indies and in C. and S. America, as well as Mexico. Mexican achiote, ground to a paste ready for use, is imported to the USA.

Antarctica

a continent about which very little has been written from a gastronomic point of view. However, as Kurti (1997) points out, there is some material available. Laws (in Kurti and Kurti, 1988) provides ‘A Perspective of Antarctic Cookery’, in which he writes:

Delicacies included young crabeater seals, especially filet or liver, leopard seal brains, seal chitterlings (the small intestine of one species can be several hundred feet long), fish and shag. The eggs of several sea birds were appreciated though the whites of penguin eggs are an off-putting translucent bluish-grey and are better in cakes and omelettes than fried or boiled. Particularly to be avoided were giant petrels (flesh or eggs), and elephant seals which, although the subject of my PhD thesis, are repulsive, however cooked.

Laws also cites a publication Polar Record 9, evidently from the late 1950s or 1960s, which carried an essay by a cook (Gerald T. Cutland), recording dishes which he had prepared using Antarctic raw materials (e.g. Braised Seal Heart and Escalopes of Penguin). Further reminiscences of Antarctic cookery are in Baker (2004) who also sailed in S. Georgian waters. That island yielded some wild greens (DANDELION and akena) as well as REINDEER (left there by whalers in the last century) and PENGUIN.

It can be expected that in the course of the 21st century there will be some developments in Antarctic cuisine, although the commendable international agreements which limit human intrusions into the continent will ensure that undesirable radical changes do not occur. On the other hand, it can be expected that controlled exploitation of Antarctic seafood will increase. The FAO had already published in the 1980s two excellent volumes of Species Identification Sheets for the Edible Marine Fauna of the Continent.

anteaters

the name given, for the obvious reason, to various wild animals found in S. America, Africa, and SE Asia, of which the AARDVARK is perhaps the best known. Anteaters have long snouts which they thrust into ant-heaps in order to devour the ants or termites. Alternatively they may climb trees in search of tree ants, as do the pangolins or scaly anteaters of the genus Manis. The nature of their diet, which they catch with a sticky tongue, has resulted in their having no or merely vestigial teeth.

The name pangolin is sometimes used for these animals. In S. Africa there is the Cape pangolin, Manis temminckii. The Indian pangolin, M. crassicaudata is sometimes eaten by hill tribes, and is also found in SE Asia (Malaysia). The Chinese pangolin is M. pentadactyla.

Anteaters generally have tough flesh, but are edible. In S. America they are often stewed, which helps to tenderize the meat.

antelope

any of a group of ruminant mammals of Africa and Asia. They are typically graceful, having long legs and horns, and include the ELAND, WILDEBEEST, gazelle, springbok, hartebeest, impala, etc.

The name antelope is a general one which may be derived from a Coptic term which according to Burton (1962) applied originally to the mythical unicorn but now covers the wide range indicated in the preceding paragraph. Most antelopes are good runners (the S. African sassaby, for example, is said to be faster than any horse) and many of them graze in herds on plains. Some are of graceful appearance, while others such as the wildebeest (gnu) are ungainly. Almost all antelopes are African species.

There is one animal which is sometimes called an antelope which differs from true antelopes in two respects: it belongs to the New World, and it has branched horns. This is the PRONGHORN.

Brief notes follow on a number of the species or groups of species which count as antelopes.

• Dik dik, Madoqua saltiana, a diminutive and attractive animal of Somalia and Ethiopia.

• Gazelle, a name used of many species of small fawn-coloured antelopes found in Asia and the drier parts of Africa. They are speedy creatures and have conspicuous black and white face markings. The Dorcas gazelle, Gazella dorcas, one of the smallest, measures less than 60 cm (2′) high at the shoulder; found in N. Africa from Algeria to Egypt and Sudan.

• Hartebeest, Alcelaphus spp, one of the largest African antelopes. Its meat is far inferior to that of the slightly larger eland.

• Impala, Aepyceros melampus, a favourite prey of lions. ‘A herd of impala in full flight leaping in a giant follow-my-leader across roads is one of the most striking sights of Africa’ (Burton, 1962). The meat is usually tender, faintly aromatic, and good to eat if it has been larded before cooking.

• Kudu, Strepsiceros strepsiceros, another of the largest African antelopes, but with inferior meat.

• Saiga or steppes antelope, Saiga tartarica, of the steppes from C. Asia to NW China, which figures in Kazakh cuisine (see CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS).

• Springbok, Antidorcus marsupialis, which has qualities similar to those of the impala.

• Blackbuck or Indian antelope, Antilope cervicapra, an animal of the plains of India and Pakistan.

See also BUSHMEAT.

antipasto

an Italian term which literally means ‘before the meal’ and refers to foods served as appetizers before the meal proper begins. Typical items are olives, pieces of raw or cured ham, marinated mushrooms or other vegetables, and items of seafood.

As the popularity of Italian food increased in the second half of the 20th century this term acquired wide currency in English. However, Ayto (1993) points out that the English language first took the word over at the end of the 16th century, naturalizing it to ‘antepast’.

For corresponding terms in other languages, each with its own slightly different meaning, see HORS D’ŒUVRES, MEZZE, TAPAS, and ZAKUSKI.

ants

insects of the order Hymenoptera, living in large social groups with a complex organization and hierarchy. Their colonies typically comprise winged males, wingless sterile females (workers), and fertile females (queens).

Ants have been a food resource for Aborigines in Australia, who relished especially the honey ants, Melophorus spp, which they call yarumpa. Bodenheimer (1951) furnishes a good description:

The ‘honey ant’ itself is a modified worker of the colony, which is so overfed by the ordinary workers that its abdomen swells to the size of a marble, about 1 cm. in diameter, in consequence of the liquid honey stored within. With the exception of a few transverse plates (tergites and sternites), the abdominal walls are reduced to an extremely fine membrane, through which the honey can be clearly seen. The insect’s viscera are compressed into a small space near the vent. The ant in this condition is naturally unable to move from the spot. It appears that the inflated ants in this extraordinary way provide for the needs of the colony during the barren season of the year, acting as living barrels, which can be tapped as required. … When a native wishes to partake of the honey, he grips one of the ants by the head, and placing the swollen abdomen between his lips he squeezes the contents into his mouth and swallows them. As regards the taste, the first reaction the palate receives is a distinct prick of formic acid, which is no doubt due to a secretion produced by the ant in self-defence. But this is both slight and momentary; and the instant the membrane bursts, it is followed by a delicious and rich flavour of pure honey.

Jerry Hopkins (2005) offers an instructive survey of ant consumption particularly in SE Asia, but they also figure on the menu in Latin America, for example in Colombia, and in Mexico where they are eaten live in tacos. He notes that they are among the most popular insect species around the world.

So-called ‘white ants’ are TERMITES and belong to another order.

aphrodisiacs

in the usual sense of foods or drinks which stimulate the sexual appetite and improve performance, are prominent on the list of human ‘wannahaves’, but virtually non-existent. Alcoholic drinks may affect appetite and (sometimes detrimentally) performance, but are outside the scope of this book. So are drugs. That leaves, for consideration here, substances which can be classified as food.

A study of the literature on the subject shows that most foods have, in one culture or another, been perceived as aphrodisiacs. No doubt foods which contain nutrients and therefore help to maintain human bodies in working order can be said to be aphrodisiacs in the very weak sense that they help to maintain the sexual function as well as the numerous others which our bodies are expected to perform. But this sense is so attenuated as to be without significance.

There are a very few substances which improve blood circulation in the genital areas. The most notorious is ‘Spanish fly’, also known as cantharides. It consists of the powdered bodies of a bright green beetle of N. Africa, which in the past was sometimes an ingredient in the Moroccan spice mixture RAS-EL-HANOUT. It can be very harmful indeed, and its sale in the spice markets of Morocco was finally banned in the early 1990s. However, it continues to be the subject of tall tales and anecdotes. One Moroccan, asked by a researcher whether he had any personal experience of the effects of Spanish fly, dissolved into laughter and, between laughs, related how his wife had once added some to a pan of spaghetti which she was boiling. When she came to serve this, she found that every single strand of spaghetti was standing bolt upright in the pan.

Johimbine, a substance derived from a S. American tree, improves blood circulation and is considered by some medical authorities as being useful for some people in facilitating the erection of erectile tissue; but it is a drug, not a food. The same applies to the male hormone, testosterone; it is not present in any foodstuffs.

Otherwise, one is left with the psychological effects of certain foods. It may be that sexual appetite is increased for some people if they eat something which they know has an aphrodisiac reputation (oysters); or which is thought to bear some resemblance to sexual organs (carrots, figs); or which is so rare and expensive that it creates an atmosphere of luxury or thoughts of wealth and power (such thoughts being sometimes linked to sex). What this comes down to is that a person’s mind may be turned to thoughts of sex by eating something which is in some way a symbol thereof. But this is not a very compelling idea. A remark attributed to a Roman prostitute, that kissing and embracing are the most effective aphrodisiacs, rings true and makes the nibbling of carrots or sucking of figs seem, by comparison, pathetically feeble.

The same verdict, ‘pathetically feeble’, could be applied to a book by one master of English prose (Norman Douglas) and furnished with an approving preface by another (Graham Greene). It is called Venus in the Kitchen (1952) and, whether regarded as a joke or as a source of information, is an embarrassing failure.

There are other books which attempt to deal with the subject seriously, but they—while not irritating their readers by misplaced levity—provide no real food for either sex or thought. Typically, they list foods which have been deemed to be aphrodisiacs in various cultures around the world, to about 1% of which they are able to attach an unconvincing testimonial, such as that a medieval herbalist stated that he had a colleague whose nephew believed that he had been excited after eating the food in question, but which are otherwise unsupported by anything more substantial than superstition and legend.

The negative nature of this survey may prompt the question: why have so many people looked for something that is not there? The answer must surely spring from two sources. First, human beings are subject throughout their adult lives, to a greater or lesser degree, to sexual urges (these being necessary to ensure propagation of the species). Secondly, it is not always easy to satisfy these urges, and an obstacle frequently encountered is outright unwillingness, or at least lack of a matching simultaneous desire, on the part of the prospective partner. If, therefore, a human being of either gender knew of a seemingly innocuous food which, when ingested by the prospective partner, would immediately produce a flood of sexual desire, how happy that human being would be and how often would this knowledge be utilized! In short, the concept of a truly aphrodisiac food is on a par with that of finding a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow.

Apicius

is unique among surviving texts from the Roman Empire: it is the only classical cookery book. It is a businesslike collection of recipes, apparently for banquets at which no expense was to be spared, for many costly spices are called for. There are about 470 recipes in total, over 200 of which are for sauces alone. Most of the remainder are for meat, fish, and vegetable dishes, these too typically including strongly flavoured sauces. There are a few recipes for sweet dishes and one or two for flavoured wines.

The great number of spices in many Apicius recipes implies a fashion of cuisine in which the flavour of the main ingredient would often be unrecognizable, and there is independent evidence that this approach to cookery—the ‘disguised’ dish—was at times in fashion at Rome. The recipes probably come from many different sources, some no doubt inserted by cooks and copyists who worked with earlier versions of the text. It has been suggested that several recipes which give exact quantities for ingredients may come from a dietary guide for invalids and may be Greek in origin.

A few recipes are named after individuals; one or two very elaborate ones are named after a certain Apicius (see below). Patina Apiciana, one of these, happens to be mentioned by another source of about AD 200. But Apicius as a whole is impossible to date precisely. Some work under this name existed by the time the ‘Lives of the Later Caesars’ (Historia Augusta) was compiled in the late 4th century AD. Because of an anecdote in this (highly unreliable) source, it has been suggested that Apicius was intended for reading rather than for practical use. Against that, the language of the text as we know it is the Vulgar Latin of the Roman lower classes: Apicius is indeed a very important example of this variant of Latin, the direct ancestor of the modern Romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian. However, educated people, those with leisure for reading, demanded classical grammar, a cultured style, and a careful choice of words, none of which is offered by Apicius. It is best to conclude that it was used as an aide-mémoire for those who worked in the kitchens of the wealthy.

Apicius survived the Middle Ages in two 9th-century manuscripts, one now in the Vatican, the other in the library of the New York Academy of Medicine. Numerous copies were made from these in the 15th century as humanist scholars became interested in the work. The first printed edition appeared at Milan in 1498. No earlier English translation exists than the interesting but unreliable version by J. D. Vehling (Chicago, 1936).

Apicius is in origin a Roman personal name: the first known Apicius was a legendary gourmet of about 100 BC. Apicius became a kind of nickname, given to various cooks and gourmets. Stories tell of another, M. Gavius Apicius, of the time of Tiberius (AD 14–37) and yet another under Trajan (98–117). It was said, for example, that M. Gavius Apicius chose to live in Minturnae, Campania, because prawns grew bigger there than anywhere else. Then he heard that bigger prawns were to be found in Libya, and set out immediately. As his ship approached land it was met by a fishing-boat offering fresh prawns for sale. On learning that they were not, after all, any bigger than those of Minturnae, Apicius ordered his ship to turn and make straight for home.

The recipe text bears this same name Apicius, meaning ‘The Gourmet’, but there is no need to suppose that any of it was written by any of these individuals.

Other texts are known to have carried this same name Apicius. One that survives is the Excerpta Apicii (‘Outline Apicius’) occupying a few pages of an 8th-century manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The compiler was ‘the Illustrious Vinidarius’, illustrious once but unknown now. It contains 31 brief recipes preceded by an interesting list of spices and flavourings said to be required in every kitchen.

The most convenient edition of Apicius, with parallel English translation, is The Roman Cookery Book: A Critical Translation of The Art of Cooking by Apicius by Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum (London, 1958). See also Carol Déry, ‘The Art of Apicius’, in Cooks and Other People (Oxford Symposium Papers, 1995); Jon Solomon, ‘The Apician Sauce’, in Food in Antiquity (Exeter, 1995). (Note: John Edwards’s The Roman Cookery of Apicius (London, 1984) includes the first English translation of the Excerpta Apicii of Vinidarius.) There is a new edition and translation of the whole text by Sally Grainger and Chris Grocock, forthcoming.

Andrew Dalby

Appenzell

(or Appenzeller) a Swiss cheese which takes its name from the Canton of Appenzell and has an exceptionally long history. Some authorities believe that it can be traced back to the 8th century AD.

Appenzell is made from whole unpasteurized milk by a process similar to that used for Gruyère and Emmental. But before being left to mature the rind is washed with spiced white wine or cider. It comes in a small wheel shape, weighing about 6 to 10 kg (15 to 22 lb); has a brownish rind and a golden-yellow interior with some small holes or ‘eyes’; is firm but elastic in texture; and has a flavour which develops from mildly fragrant to moderately strong as the cheese ages.

Appenzell rass (rass meaning sharp) is a version made from skimmed milk, marinated for much longer, and consequently more tangy in flavour.

Appert

Nicolas (1749–1841) a Frenchman of great importance in the history of food conservation, came to public notice when the well-known gastronomic writer GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE, in the third year of his Almanach des Gourmands (1806), wrote about him admiringly as one who had found a method of bottling a large number of fruits and vegetables. Food treated in this manner had the advantage of keeping for a long time and thus allowed the gourmand to sample dishes which recalled ‘the month of May in the heart of winter’. According to Grimod, ‘the petits pois above all else were as green, as tender and as delicious as those eaten in season’.

Appert was a maker of confitures (in his time, conserves of fruit) and it was natural that it should have been a member of this profession who brought about a new technique to guarantee the conservation of foodstuffs. However, Appert’s work had a much wider scope than just fruits, for he discovered that any food which had been hermetically sealed in bottles and sterilized by boiling (in an autoclave) would keep for months, even years. Moreover, it would still taste almost identical to freshly cooked products, a taste which would not survive salting, drying, smoking, or any of the other conserving procedures which were known of at that time.

When Appert published in 1810 his Art de conserver he introduced housekeepers to the principle of conserving meats and vegetables and, at the same time, won a prize of 12,000 francs which the French government had offered for an invention which would ease the problem of feeding the army and navy.

Although in his early experiments and in the world’s first CANNING factory, which he opened in 1812, he had worked with jars and bottles, he switched from these to tin-plated cans in 1822.

Appert’s successes are all the more striking when one considers that several more decades were to elapse before Pasteur made the bacteriological discoveries which permitted a full understanding of why Appert’s techniques worked.

Philip and Mary Hyman

appetite

the desire to eat, is regulated by both physical and mental factors. It might be said that the physical feeling of wanting food is hunger, and the mental one is appetite; but the two sensations are so interlinked that the distinction is not useful.

Most obviously, we feel hungry because our stomach is empty. The time the stomach takes to empty after a meal depends on the nature of the food and how long it takes to digest; sugary foods take the least time, followed by other carbohydrates, proteins, and finally fats. Fats also inhibit the movements of the stomach wall, further slowing digestion.

Several hours after a meal the stomach signals its emptiness with the familiar ‘hunger contractions’. These stimulate nerves in the stomach wall which send messages to the appetite regulating mechanism of the brain. By this time the level of glucose in the bloodstream, high immediately after a meal, has fallen considerably, and this is detected by the liver which in turn sends a warning to the brain.

Two parts of the brain directly control appetite: the ‘appetite centre’ and the ‘satiety centre’. Both are in the hypothalamus, a primitive part of the brain not under conscious control. It is the appetite centre that responds to nerve impulses from the stomach and liver and relays them to the conscious mind, creating a desire to eat.

The amount we eat is controlled by the satiety centre, in a way which is not well understood. Clearly the stomach sends messages to the brain reporting how full it is, but the exact degree of fullness that gives a feeling of satiety varies not only from person to person, but from day to day in the same person. There must be some way in which the mechanism detects the amount of energy a person is using, and thus how much food is required; but the details are still mysterious.

The entire regulatory apparatus is sometimes called the ‘appestat’ on the analogy of a thermostat, which regulates temperature. In most people it is remarkably accurate, so that they stay the same weight for years at a time. But some people eat more than they need, and gain weight; less often, others eat too little and lose weight.

The appestat tends to be most accurate when a fair amount of energy is being used and plenty of food is being eaten to fuel it. At low levels, when a person is inactive, control slips a little. The person will feel less hungry and eat less, but perhaps not little enough. So sedentary people often gain weight gradually. People may also be in the habit of eating a certain amount of food, whether they need it or not. This can lead to ‘middle-age spread’: someone becomes less active over the years but continues to eat as much as before.

Although the regulatory mechanism is not under direct conscious control, it is strongly influenced by mental events. We see some foods as appetizing, owing mainly to a memory of what these or similar foods taste like. This recognition prompts the appetite centre to prepare for eating and digestion. The salivary glands begin to function—that is, the mouth waters—and the stomach signals its readiness by hunger contractions. Likewise, the smell of food being cooked, although sometimes unattractive, is often enough to arouse appetite, for example when one has just got up in the morning and smells toast or bacon or coffee aroma from the kitchen. Another stimulus to eating is simply the time of day: we expect to eat at lunchtime, so we feel hungry. Yet another is the actual consumption of some preliminary titbit, such as the amuse-gueules which are offered in some restaurants, or, on a larger scale, the numerous small items which are found in HORS D’ŒUVRES, MEZZE, ZAKUSKI, etc.

The satiety centre’s reminder that we have eaten enough may be overridden if the food being eaten is especially tasty, or merely because we have a certain amount on our plate and expect to (or are expected to) finish it.

Appetite may also be repressed. Foods of repellent aspect or smell, seeing or remembering unpleasant events, and psychological depression can all have this effect—though some people eat more when unhappy, finding food comforting. In western societies where there is social pressure to be slim, people may feel guilty about eating. In severe cases this, or other malign factors, can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

Ralph Hancock

apple

The apple, Malus pumila, one of the first fruits to have been cultivated, is now the most important fruit in Europe, N. America, and temperate regions in both northern and southern hemispheres.

There are about 7,000–8,000 named varieties, although only a small proportion of these are of commercial or historical importance. An alphabetical list of some interesting ones is given under APPLE VARIETIES below.

ORIGINS

The large, sweet apple familiar in modern times is essentially a cultivated product, much changed from the tiny, sour fruits, such as those of the CRABAPPLE, which were its wild ancestors. The natural strategy for an apple tree, in order to propagate itself most effectively, was to produce hundreds of tiny fruits instead of a small number of large ones. The apple’s wild relatives in the rose family, e.g. the ROWAN and HAWTHORN, all do this. It was no easy task to persuade apple trees, by selection, to evolve against their natural bent to give larger apples, some of which may now weigh over 500 g (1.25 lb).

The original wild crabapple of Europe, Malus sylvestris, is not the direct ancestor of the cultivated apple, although it and other small wild apples contributed to the apple’s development through interbreeding. The main ancestor of the modern apple was M. pumila var mitis, a native of the Caucasus where it still grows wild. Early, small, apples were pale green, yellow, or red and consisted principally of core, the part of the apple which is useful for the tree’s reproduction; it is the seed box, consisting of five compartments, each usually holding two seeds. The edible fleshy part surrounding the seed box is called the torus. Selective breeding enlarged the torus whilst leaving the core little larger than it had been originally.

The production of reliable, consistent apple trees is not easy. Apple seeds grow into trees resembling their parents no more than human daughters resemble their mothers. The flowers of most varieties can be fertilized only by the pollen of other varieties. And there is a natural tendency for offspring to revert to the wild state. As Behr (1992) puts it: ‘Without the techniques of grafting (or of rooting a branch), each tree in the world would constitute its own variety, distinct from every other.’ These techniques are a legacy to the modern world from classical times.

APPLES IN CLASSICAL TIMES

The first written mention of apples, in Homer’s Odyssey, is not specific, since the Greek word melon is used for almost any kind of round fruit which grows on a tree. Thus the legendary ‘apples’ of Greek myth—given by Paris to Aphrodite, or thrown down by Hippomenes to distract Atalanta, or growing in the Hesperides—may have been other kinds of fruit, or no particular kind at all.

In later Greek writings a distinction was made between the apple and the related QUINCE, which had been growing in the E. Mediterranean region before the arrival of the apple. The ‘apples’ with which the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon asked to be comforted would probably have been quinces. The Hebrew word used, tappuach, meant ‘apple’ later, but not necessarily then.

The Bible is not specific about the nature of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The notion that it was an apple came much later, possibly because of the high opinion of the apple which was general in Roman times, or perhaps later still when the apple had become the standard fruit of W. Europe, the one which would come to mind first whenever fruit was mentioned. Paintings of the temptation of Eve always show an apple; but these are all European, the Jews being forbidden to make religious pictures.

At some time in the classical period it was discovered how to produce apples of a consistent variety: by taking cuttings (‘scions’) of a good tree and grafting them onto a suitable rootstock, where they grow into branches producing the desired fruits. The process is first described in De Agricultura, written in the 2nd century BC by Cato the Elder.

The Romans considered the apple a luxury fruit, better than the fig. It seems at least probable that two or three varieties known to them are identical with kinds grown today. See Api and Court pendu plat under apple varieties below.

LATER HISTORY OF APPLES IN EUROPE

After the fall of the Roman Empire the cultivation of apples lapsed into disarray. Although the Arabs preserved many classical techniques, including that of grafting trees of all kinds, they were not in a position to reorganize European apple-growing, since they invaded Europe from the south, through hot regions unsuitable for apples.

However, apples continued to be grown, and certain distinct types were recognized. In England the two leading kinds were the Costard, a large variety, and the Pearmain. These were both known in the 13th century. There are recipes for apple dishes in 14th-century works such as the MENAGIER DE PARIS and the FORME OF CURY(E), which also includes one for a CAUDLE made with apple blossom.

Grafting was reintroduced and became systematic by the 16th century. Good new varieties of apples were developed, mostly in France, and soon spread to England where their superiority over native apples was acknowledged, although the conservative English would not allow the newcomers to supplant entirely the older kinds. The new apples included the first Pippins, from which many good eating varieties were developed.

From the same ancestors came the Reinettes, mostly small, dull coloured, and very late to ripen. The Reinettes were most important in France, and are still widely grown there. Apples of this type also spread to other countries, e.g. Boskoop (or Belle de Boskoop), a late variety popular in the Netherlands.

Apples of other types known in Britain before 1600 were the Nonpareil; the White Joaneting; and the Royal Russet, ancestor of a long succession of russet apples with a matt brown skin and a pearlike flavour.

In N. Europe, especially in Scandinavia and Russia, the climate required apples which would ripen quickly in the short summer. The most satisfactory were of a type whose best-known example now is White Transparent. All are light coloured, sometimes with a crimson flash or stripes, and with soft, juicy flesh.

APPLES IN OTHER CONTINENTS

Emigrants to America at first took apple pips rather than scions, which would have died on the voyage, in order to establish the domestic apple in the New World. This procedure gave rise to entirely new varieties, which were further diversified by interbreeding with native American crabapples. As a result American apples became and remain a distinct group. Some have European characteristics, such as Boston Russet, a variety raised in the mid-17th century. Others are unlike their ancestors. For example, the famous Newtown Pippin is quite different from any European pippin.

A two-way trade in varieties arose. Gravenstein, the best of the N. German and Danish apples, became popular in the USA. American Mother, a red, juicy, mid-autumn apple, enjoyed a vogue in Britain in the 19th century.

The spread of apple cultivation in America was encouraged by a notable eccentric, Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1775. He collected large amounts of apple seeds from cider mills and journeyed up and down the country planting them wherever he went.

Apples could also be grown successfully in some parts of the southern hemisphere, and new varieties were developed there too, e.g. Bismarck, a brilliant crimson cooking apple, in Tasmania. S. Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile are now all major exporters of apples to the northern hemisphere, taking advantage of the reversed seasons to sell when local apples are scarce.

In the Middle East and most of Asia the climate does not suit apples except in some cooler, hilly areas. Thus they are grown in the upland, but not the lowland, parts of Lebanon. India produces apples in the northern hills and some are grown in Nepal and on the mountain slopes of E. Java. China has grown apples since well before AD1000, and its crop now accounts for 41% of the world harvest. Japan produces apples extensively, and has contributed the variety Mutsu to the international repertoire.

In the latter part of the 20th century, European production of apples was highest in Italy and France. In N. America, the leading US states were Washington, Michigan, and New York, while Canada was also a significant producer (Ontario the most important state).

PREFERENCES IN APPLES

National tastes affect not only the choice of varieties but also the categorization of apples.

In Britain apples are divided clearly into eating and cooking varieties, a distinction which is much less rigid in other countries. (An English cooking apple disintegrates to a purée when cooked. This effect is brought about by a high content of malic acid, which is characteristic of early, soft, green-skinned apples of the Codlin type, such as Grenadier; and of the late, long-keeping, red-striped Lane’s Prince Albert family which includes the familiar Bramleys.)

As for eating apples, the British are catholic in their taste. It may still be possible to discern some traces of the effects produced by the Victorian and Edwardian custom of taking DESSERT with port; this prompted enthusiasm for apples with a ‘nutty’ flavour which would complement the port. It was also partly responsible for a small tide of gastronomic prose about apples which washed over England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (see POMOLOGY), and which embodied language which resembled writing about fine wines. But none of this had much effect on the vast majority of British people. They accept with docile pleasure the imported golden and red delicious, but their greatest favourite is still the Cox. They are not deterred by the curious appearance of the russets, which has caused these to be neglected in other countries.

In the USA apples are judged more by their appearance, and red varieties are preferred. While some deep red apples are good, there are also insipid varieties such as Rome Beauty which sell on their looks alone; and there are popular varieties of other colours: Golden Delicious is of American origin. Few kinds are sold purely as eating or cooking apples, and most are used for both purposes.

STORAGE AND PRESERVATION, AND APPLE PRODUCTS

Storing apples is simple in principle, but exacting in practice. The requirements are that the apples should be of a well-keeping—which means late—variety; that they should be absolutely sound, for even a small bruise or a break in the skin releases enzymes which hasten decay; that the place should be dry and cool; and that the apples should not touch each other, lest infection be spread by contagion.

The practical details were understood early. Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) warned against trying to store windfalls or apples picked on wet days. He recommended a cool, dry room with windows on the side away from the sun which could be opened on warm days. The apples were to be stored in a way that would permit free circulation of air around them.

From early times apples were preserved by drying. The usual method in medieval Europe was to peel and core the apples and dry them whole, threaded on strings: this required a warm and airy drying room. The later method of cutting apples across into rings is more reliable, since these dry faster.

An unusual old drying method was the preparation of Norfolk ‘biffins’. These were apples which were dried, whole and unpeeled, in warm bread ovens so that they shrivelled into a form like roundish, red prunes. The partial cooking helped to preserve them. They were close packed in layers as they dried. The pommes tapées of the Loire Valley in France are somewhat similar, but are peeled first; then dried in special ovens for about five days, during which they are occasionally ‘tapped’ with a mallet to encourage them to subside into a flattish shape, for ease of storage. It is usual to soak them in red wine before eating them. Similar treatment produced poires tapées in the past but, although they were famous in the 19th century, these have virtually disappeared.

Apple butter, which is apple sauce concentrated by boiling it down with cider, was a traditional European product associated especially with the Dutch. It was they who introduced it to America, now its principal stronghold.

All these old preservation methods were made less necessary at the beginning of the 20th century by the introduction of chilled storage, and more recently by inert nitrogen storage. (Nitrogen, which makes up three-quarters of the atmosphere, is harmless to fruit. It is only the oxygen in the air which contributes to spoilage; so, if this is removed, keeping time is much prolonged.)

The main commercial apple products are fresh apple juice and cider (the alcoholic kind—see CIDER for the American meaning of the term). This latter is a major industry in parts of France, especially Normandy, and the west of England; and the traditional cider-making in the Basque region of Spain is being revived. Calvados and its American counterpart, applejack, are distilled spirits derived from apples (applejack also means apple turnover in E. England).

VERJUICE, formerly used as souring agent in the same way as vinegar, was sometimes made from apples, though more usually from crabapples. Cider vinegar is mentioned under VINEGAR. Apple PECTIN is extracted from apple pomace (pulp, including rejects and trimmings).

OTHER USES OF NAME ‘APPLE’

Since apples were the fruits best known to the Europeans who colonized the other continents, they naturally used the name as a point of reference in describing strange fruits which they met. Thus misuse of the name ‘apple’ for unrelated fruits is more prevalent than with any other fruit name. A few examples are CUSTARD APPLE, ROSE-APPLE, SUGAR-APPLE, WOOD APPLE; and, of course, PINEAPPLE—the most famous example of all.

READING:

Morgan and Richards (1993); Sanders (1988).