a sweetened bread or cake made from rich dough, baked in tall, cylindrical moulds. The shape is Slavic in origin, and of great antiquity. The 12th-century Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus describes a Baltic pagan harvest-festival bread as a ‘cake, prepared with mead, round in form and standing nearly as high as a person’. The word means ‘old woman’ or ‘grandmother’ and refers to the vertical form, an anthropomorphic usage similar to the derivation of PRETZEL from bracelli, because the twist of dough resembles folded arms. Conversely, the cylindrical shape also recalls ancient Slavic phallic idols. Imperial Russian copper baba moulds as high as 40 cm (16″) are recorded, and it was evident that a true cylinder was the ideal shape, for the dough was not allowed to rise over the top of the mould. In the less well-endowed 20th century, empty cans are often dragooned into service as moulds, and the dough may balloon over the top.
If the shape is Slavic in origin, the same may not be true of the actual recipe—it has been suggested by Lesley Chamberlain (1989) that this came from Italy:
The recipe for it probably came to Poland from Italy in the sixteenth century via Queen Bona, as a transplant of the Milanese panettone. Since then much ritual has surrounded the baking of this fragile masterpiece. Precious pastrycooks declared it needed to rest on an eiderdown before it went in the oven, after which baking took place in an atmosphere of maternity. Men were forbidden to enter the kitchen and no one was allowed to speak above a whisper.
On the other hand, there are rival claims from the Ukraine. Savella Stechishin (1979), writing in an attractive and undogmatic manner, says that baba or babka is one of the most distinctive of all Ukrainian breads, traditionally served at Easter. The name ‘baba’ is the colloquial Ukrainian word for woman or grandma, while ‘babka’ is a diminutive of the same word. (The name ‘babka’ is more commonly used, as the modern loaves are smaller and the name sounds daintier.) She confirms the theory that the shape of the loaf, suggesting a statuesque matron, gave the bread its name and that the fluted tube pan used resembles the skirt of a peasant woman.
Stechishin speculates that the baba-bread may have originated in prehistoric times when a matriarchal system existed in the Ukraine. Apparently priestesses performed various religious rituals some of which may have been connected with fertility (of the soil); hence a special type of ritual bread, the baba-bread, may have been a feature of the ritual. She goes on to say that this event was probably held in the spring, which eventually blended with Easter festivity.
Be all this as it may, the baba’s homeland is generally regarded as being W. Russia and Poland. It is related to other Russian festive breads or cakes, such as the Easter kulich (see EASTER FOODS), or the krendel which is baked in a figure-of-eight shape to celebrate name days. They, however, are fortified with dried fruits and nuts, while the baba was originally plain. Polish and Ukrainian recipes commonly include other flavours (from ingredients such as saffron, almond, cheese, raisins).
Other additions, noticeable in the Baba au rhum and other versions which are now part of the international repertoire, consist in adding dried fruits and, more important, soaking the cake in an alcoholic syrup (often rum-based) after it has been made. These changes seem to have been made in France after the baba emigrated westwards to Alsace and Lorraine. This had happened by 1767 (when the term first appears as a French word) and the baba eventually became a well-known French confection. (A king of Poland, who abdicated in 1736 and was an exile in France, supposedly had a hand in this, but the stories which are recounted in French and other reference works are not convincing.)
To make a baba, yeast is mixed to a liquid batter with flour, eggs, and milk; this is allowed to rise, and then melted butter is beaten in. As for other yeast-risen cakes, much beating is necessary to impart air to the mixture. More eggs are used than in a BRIOCHE dough, for example, and the recipe delays the addition of butter until after the first rise to enable the yeast to work to its full effect. Hence a baba is lighter and spongier than a brioche, with an open texture that makes it ideal for soaking up the syrup or liquor added after cooking (to many its chief attraction).
See also KUGELHOPF, whose history may have been intertwined with that of the baba and SAVARIN, a derivative of baba.
Carica × heilbornii, a large fruit of Ecuador (where it may also be called chamburo), has now been introduced for cultivation elsewhere, e.g. in New Zealand and Europe as far north as the Channel Islands, and is also available in N. America. The plant is not known in the wild, and botanists suggest that it may be a hybrid, perhaps of the mountain pawpaw, C. pubescens, and another fruit of Ecuador.
The plant is relatively small, given the number and size of fruits which it bears. The fruit may reach a length of 30 cm (1′), is star shaped in section, and has tender juicy flesh of a pale apricot colour with a mild and faintly acid taste and a delicate fragrance. Since it is normally seedless and the skin (green, turning to yellow when ripe) is soft, the entire fruit can be eaten; or it can be liquidized to make a refreshing drink or be used in ice creams. A little sugar or honey is often added.
by which is meant that of the Mesopotamians in what is called the Old Babylonian period, has been the subject of recent research, based on a study of three tablets of ancient cuneiform text. These, which are dated to around 1700 BC and were probably found in the south of Mesopotamia, constitute between them a collection of recipes, perhaps the oldest surviving one.
Eveline van der Steen (1995) gives reasons for thinking that these recipes were intended for use in a religious context; and that what would otherwise be puzzling features of them can be explained on the assumption that they are all for versions of a meat-in-sauce dish which would be served to a god in his temple, accompanied by bread (probably mixed barley and wheat) and date cakes, etc. The god (probably Marduk in this instance, as he was the city god of Babylon) would eat behind closed curtains. Leftovers would go to the king.
It was only in 1995 that Bottéro published a full translation and commentary but his study of 2004 made great strides in placing the recipes in context, drawing on many indirect sources concerning food supplies, modes of cookery, and food in social life. His conclusion that these texts preserve the oldest ‘cuisine’ (in the anthropological sense) in the world seems well supported by the evidence, as is his hint that we can occasionally descry these ancient elements in the modern cookery of the Middle East.
the side of a PIG cured with salt in a single piece. The word originally meant pork of any type, fresh or cured, but this older usage had died out by the 17th century.
Bacon, in the modern sense, is peculiarly a product of the British Isles, or is produced abroad to British methods, specifically for the British market. Denmark is the leader in this field. In Britain itself, many regional variations on cuts and cures for bacon exist. It was formerly sold by cheesemongers, rather than butchers, and the association is still maintained in some shops.
Preserved pork, including sides salted to make bacon, held a place of primary importance in the British diet in past centuries. Pigs were kept by everyone, fed economically on scraps, waste, and wild food. Their salted and smoked meat was useful to give savour to otherwise stodgy dishes, and was especially important for the poor. Cobbett, in Cottage Economy (1823), considered the possession of a couple of flitches of bacon did more for domestic harmony than ‘fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. The sight of them upon the rack tends more to keep a man from stealing than whole volumes of penal statutes.’ Victorian and early 20th-century investigations into the conditions of the poor discovered that bacon was a staple of all households except for the most poverty stricken. At this time, it was thought desirable that bacon should be very fat; bacon fat and lard were then much more important sources of fat in the British diet than they now are.
British pigs for both fresh and salted meat had been much improved in the 18th century. During the 19th, Yorkshire Large Whites, Middle Whites, Tamworths, and Lincolnshire curly-coated pigs were the breeds favoured for bacon. However, in mid-century the Danes, seeking a new market for their pigs, bred a very productive bacon pig, the Landrace, and began to export large amounts of bacon to Britain. Nowadays many bacon pigs are hybrids, with Yorkshire Large White and Landrace prominent in their make-up. Danish bacon and hams still account for 35% of British consumption. In the later 19th century, American imports made up a significant fraction of the cheaper bacon available.
The first large-scale bacon-curing business was set up in the 1770s by John Harris of Calne, Wiltshire (taken over in 1962, the factory demolished in 1984). Until this time pigs for London’s bacon had been driven long distances on foot before being killed there, which exhausted them and spoiled the meat. Harris realized that it would be more practical to make the bacon where the pigs were and send that to London.
The standard commercial method of curing bacon is known as the ‘Wiltshire cure’. This was originally a dry cure. The prepared sides of the pig (legs still on, for this method) were strewn with salt and stacked skin side down. (It is during this process that a chemical change, aided by salt-tolerant bacteria and the presence of small amounts of nitrate in the ‘pickle’, produces the characteristic pink colour of the lean.) After ten to fourteen days, the salt was brushed off and the sides matured for a week before packing. Since the First World War, however, brine has been used, both injected into the sides, and for soaking, in place of dry salt. After maturing, the sides may be smoked.
A Wiltshire side is a large piece of meat, and is divided up for various purposes. The shoulder yields the cheapest bacon; the most valued is back and streaky bacon (from the loin region and the belly respectively); while the legs, removed after curing, provide what is called GAMMON; and other parts of the side may become ‘boiling bacon’.
The Wiltshire cure is but one of a number of techniques, reflecting regional preferences for bacon types; while people in the south of England favoured Wiltshire bacon smoked over oak or pine sawdust, people in the north liked ‘green bacon’ (unsmoked and often cured separately from the legs). Ayrshire bacon, a supremely good Scottish version, is made from skinned and boned meat, rolled and lightly cured. The dry method of curing bacon is still used on some farms; bacon so made is distinguished by its dryness and firmness.
The main British use of bacon is in the thin slices called rashers (formerly, COLLOPS), often fried and served with eggs. Although associated with the ‘traditional’ English breakfast, this combination is a favourite meal at more or less any time of day. Larger pieces of bacon, or bacon hocks, boiled and served hot or cold with mustard, were much used as standby dishes in poorer households. There are, or were, all kinds of economical dishes, intended to make a little bacon go a long way: cereal and pulse POTTAGES were early items in this group. Somewhat later, bacon pudding was a common dish in many parts of Britain, in times when every cottager kept a pig. Most regional varieties are suet rolls, or sometimes round puddings, containing bacon, onion, and often sage.
Similar economical practices exist also in many European countries where smoked pork belly is used more as a flavouring than as a meat in its own right.
Preserved pork products which share some of the qualities of bacon are made in other countries. The French use the word lard to mean any kind of bacon, but also either fresh or cured (e.g. smoked) pork fat, which they use to add fat to other lean meat when this is roasted, or in other composite dishes. Streaky bacon is termed lard de poitrine (fumé if smoked, or just poitrine fumée). This is added to such dishes as Choucroute garni (see SAUERKRAUT). Lard salé or petit salé is any salt pork, cut into small pieces.
The general German word for bacon is Speck, but the Germans tend to use streaky bacon or pure fat only, reserving the rest of the side for other products, for example, LACHSSCHINKEN from the loin. Speck is typically cut up small and used to add flavour and fat to boiled dishes.
Italian and Spanish cooks use fatty streaky bacon as an ingredient in made dishes. The Italian PANCETTA and the Spanish tocino are both usually unsmoked; when smoked, the name ‘bacon’ is often used in either language.
Naturally, there is no bacon in the Middle East, where Islam forbids the eating of pork, or in Jewish cookery; but the strong attraction of bacon is implicit in some ingenious bacon substitutes.
There is no Chinese equivalent to bacon. The closest product is finely sliced streaky pork, sometimes cured, used in many Chinese dishes.
minute single-celled organisms which are present more or less everywhere. They resemble plants more than animals, but are usually considered as belonging to a third kingdom, Protista, in which they constitute the group Schizomycophyta. With a few exceptions, they do not feed by the ordinary plant process of photosynthesis but live, according to type, on an enormous range of substances including practically everything found in food, as well as in live animals or plants. They reproduce by splitting in half and some, in ideal conditions, can do this every twenty minutes, so they can spread very fast.
The effect of bacteria in foods ranges from highly desirable to harmful. The great majority are neither, though if they are allowed to grow unchecked in food they may spoil it with off flavours from their waste products, or by producing enzymes which cause softening or gases which cause bloating.
Of the really useful species the most familiar are the lactic acid-producing bacteria which cause fermentation in milk products of all kinds, in PICKLES and SAUERKRAUT, in salami (see SAUSAGES OF ITALY), and in many of the SOYA BEAN products of the Orient. There are many varieties, each producing characteristic flavours and other effects. It is quite usual for types to work in sequence, one kind replacing another as the acidity increases and often living off the waste products of its predecessor. Typically, Leuconostoc spp in plants and Streptococcus spp in milk start a fermentation and are succeeded by Lactobacillus spp which produce and can tolerate high levels of lactic acid.
Other useful bacteria include acetic acid-producing types such as Acetobacter aceti, which turns alcoholic liquids to vinegar; propionic acid producers such as Propionibacterium shermanii, which creates the special flavour of Swiss cheese and also forms its ‘eyes’ by giving off carbon dioxide; Bacillus subtilis, which ferments certain vegetable products such as NATTO and ARROZ FERMENTADO; and a motley crew of bacteria which co-operate with MOULDS and YEASTS to develop the flavour of surface-ripened cheese: the most assertive of these is Bacterium linens, which gives LIMBURGER cheese its pungent aroma.
It seems safe to assume that all useful bacterial fermentations were discovered by accident, the species involved being endemic in the relevant food or in the environment. It is, however, impossible to be sure that the right organisms are naturally present. Conditions can be adjusted in their favour, as when, in making YOGHURT, the milk is kept above 32 °C (90 °F) so that Streptoccocus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, which thrive in such warmth, can outgrow and dominate rivals. In commercial food production it is usual to ensure the growth of the right bacteria by first killing off all those present, often by pasteurization, and then adding a pure culture of the desired type. After fermentation the food may be pasteurized again to stop further bacterial action.
Bacteria also have useful effects in living creatures. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the root nodules of leguminous plants (such as peas and clover) take in nitrogen direct from the air and pass it on to the plant, both feeding the plant and enriching the soil. Herbivorous animals could not, unaided, digest the cellulose in the plants which they eat. It is bacteria in their digestive tracts which break down the cellulose and change it to digestible sugars. Humans have gut bacteria as well, but these do not supply nourishment from cellulose. They do, however, break down certain plant substances: scientific opinion is still divided on how far, if at all, the process aids the nutrition of the host. One unwelcome by-product is wind.
Some cause disease. For example bacteria in unpasteurized milk have been known to infect those who drink it with polio, tuberculosis, typhoid, diphtheria, undulant fever, and foot and mouth disease. They also cause food poisoning. Fatal BOTULISM is due to toxins created by Clostridium botulinum. Staphylococcus aureus, a species common on human skin, produces toxins which cause what used to be called ‘ptomaine’ poisoning; and Salmonella spp, abundant in many kinds of raw meat, especially chicken, are a common cause of less serious poisoning (see SALMONELLA). Campylobacter jejuni, widespread in animals, causes diarrhoea and a typhoid-like illness. Other bacteria that have been causing concern since the late 20th century are Escherichia coli (E. coli), especially the strain O157:H7 which has been implicated in many outbreaks of food poisoning arising from eating pre-cooked meats and minced meats, for instance in hamburgers. The bacteria inhabit the intestines of many animals as a matter of course (they can be picked up from handling live farm animals, for instance during farm visits) and need exclusion from the food chain by sound slaughter practice and careful kitchen hygiene.
Harmful bacteria in food can be difficult to suppress. Many species can grow in a wide range of conditions and can survive, to resume growth when they have a chance, in a much wider one.
Aerobic bacteria are those which breathe air and stop breeding (but do not die) when air is excluded. Other, anaerobic, types breed only in airless conditions and stop (but again survive) when air is admitted. Certain types prefer particular temperatures. Thermophilic bacteria breed fastest between 42 °C (104 °F) and 75 °C (160 °F); mesophilic bacteria between 10 °C (50 °F) and 40 °C (104 °F); while psychrophilic bacteria, although they breed fastest between 150 °C (590 °F) and 20 °C (68 °F), can continue to breed right down to −5 °C (23 °F). One example of the way temperature favours different types of bacteria is the spoilage of unpasteurized milk. At room temperature, mesophilic bacteria turn milk sugar to lactic acid so that the milk goes sour. In a refrigerator these organisms are repressed; instead, psychrophilic bacteria attack the milk protein and turn the milk alkaline and smelly.
Only heating well above their preferred temperature, or antiseptic chemicals, can kill bacteria. Chilling, even freezing, or drying causes them to stop growing; but when warmth or moisture return they at once start again. Some bacteria which themselves are killed by heating form spores from which fresh bacteria can later develop; and these spores can survive very high temperatures. The most dangerous of these is Clostridium botulinum.
Another problem is that of bacterial toxins. Both C. botulinum and harmful Staphyloccocus spp poison not by their presence but by the toxins they produce. If they have been allowed to grow for long enough to produce an appreciable amount of toxin, the food is poisonous and remains so no matter how much it is heated.
All these harmful bacteria are common and we are constantly exposed to them; yet they seldom cause illness except in people with weak immune systems—the very young, the very old, and those who are already ill. A healthy person’s immune system can kill any bacteria as long as these do not arrive in overwhelming numbers.
any of a group of stocky omnivorous mammals, of which the European representative is Meles meles. Various other species inhabit Asia, Africa, and N. America. They are large, burrowing, nocturnal animals, with strong claws and a thick coat. The European badger has a distinctive striped black and white head and an average weight of around 10 kg (22 lb).
In Ireland, badgers have been eaten and cured in much the same way as we now cure bacon. In England badger fat has been used for cooking, and badgers eaten. Jaine (1986a) consulted some of the few written sources before cooking and eating part of a badger which had been mistakenly caught in a fox trap:
‘The badger is one of the cleanest creatures, in its food, of any in the world and one may suppose that the flesh of this creature is not unwholesome. It eats like the finest pork, and is much sweeter than pork.’ So writes Richard Bradley in the early eighteenth century while including a recipe from one R.T. in Leicestershire for brining the gammons before spit-roasting them. Waverley Root calls badger the food of eighteenth-century English peasants seeking more succulent fare. He is accurate in this, for it was by no means dry, and had a pronounced layer of fat over the ham. Where we differ from all those people whose written comments we could find is in comparing it to pork or sucking pig …. We found that the most useful comparison was to mutton. The meat was dark, succulent and strong-tasting, but in no way like pork, having a particular smell to it.
Badgers now enjoy a considerable measure of protection in Britain.
Aegle marmelos, a tree which grows wild in much of N. India and SE Asia, belongs to the same family, Rutaceae, as the citrus fruits. It is not related to the quince, although sometimes called Bengal or Indian quince. The fruits, which look something like greyish-yellow oranges, may have a thin hard shell or a less hard but thick rind, depending on the variety.
The ripe pulp is yellow, gummy, and full of seeds. However, it has an aromatic, refreshing flavour. It can be eaten as is or made into a jelly, marmalade, nectar, squash, or sherbet.
Morton (1987) observes that the bael tree was grown by the famous botanist David Fairchild, at his home in Coconut Grove, Miami; this was after he had acquired a taste for the fruit, served with jaggery (see PALM SUGAR) in Sri Lanka. The fruit is similarly served in Indonesia.
Hindus hold the tree sacred to Shiva and use its leaves in his worship. It is sacrilegious to cut down a bael tree, but to die under one assures immediate salvation.
a dense round yeast bun with a hole in the middle. A slightly enriched dough is shaped into rings, given a short rise, then thrown into violently boiling water for a matter of seconds before baking. The brief boil makes the crust chewy rather than crisp, a texture reinforced by the short rising time. The crust may be brushed with egg to give gloss (an effect also achieved by putting sugar into the poaching water), and it may be coated with onion flakes, poppyseeds, or sesame. Sweet versions are also made, a common kind containing raisins and cinnamon.
The bagel is a Jewish bread, apparently originating in S. Germany, migrating to Poland and thence to N. America, where it has become the most famous and archetypal Jewish food. Its name derives from the Yiddish beygel from the German dialect word beugel, meaning ‘ring’ or ‘bracelet’. Its history means, of course, that it is an Ashkenazi rather than a Sephardi food (see JEWISH COOKERY). As Claudia Roden (1996) points out: ‘because of their shape—with no beginning and no end—bagels symbolize the eternal cycle of life.’
The bagel has become generally popular throughout N. America, filled sometimes with cream cheese and lox (smoked salmon from Nova Scotia) or cream cheese and jelly/jam. Some Canadians say that the bagels of Montreal (which contain malt), imprisoned in time in the east-end bakeries of the city, with their wood-fired ovens, and given their preliminary boiling in honey-flavoured water, are best of all: especially the sesame or poppyseed versions. New Yorkers, however, claim that the special quality of New York water makes theirs the best. Wherever they are made, bagels are best eaten very fresh; otherwise they become leathery and have to be split and toasted. (Jewish joke: ‘A bagel is a doughnut with rigor mortis.’)
The anis-flavoured French breads ÉCHAUDÉ and rioute are also twice-cooked in the manner of the bagel, as too was the original English SIMNEL CAKE. In Bulgaria and former Yugoslavia the gevrek or djevrek is similarly ring shaped, raised by yeast in the first and baking powder in the second country. In Turkey, the simit, though narrower and larger, is much like a sesame seed bagel.
Melo melo, one of the largest edible gastropods (creatures living in single shells). The shell, which may measure 25 cm (10″) across, is yellow and red with purplish or black spots. The inhabitant of the shell is itself black with yellow lines, like a huge and exotic snail. This Indo-Pacific species is rarely seen in the markets, but makes good eating and is prized by fishermen in SE Asia, where it is usual to boil the creatures, or fry them with vegetables, or roast them and dip them in a chilli sauce.
The shell itself is of value. ‘The flaring apertures of bailer shells make them especially useful, as their name suggests, for the quick bailing of small boats and canoes caught in tropical squalls. They are also used in native markets as scoops for sugar, flour and salt’ (Mary Saul, 1974).
a dessert which combines hot MERINGUE and cold ICE CREAM. It is made by placing a well-chilled block of ice cream on a base of SPONGE CAKE, masking it with uncooked meringue, and then baking it in a hot oven for just long enough to brown and set the outside. The recipe exploits the insulating properties of air, trapped in the sponge and meringue, to keep the ice cream solid whilst heating the outside.
Mariani (1994) remarks, in an interesting note, that Thomas Jefferson seems to have devised a dish of this type, but gives main credit for the scientific thinking which led to the dish in its present form to Count RUMFORD. He also observes that the famous chef Charles Ranhofer, to whom some give credit for creating the dish, called it ‘Alaska, Florida’ in his own mammoth cook book (1893), and that its modern name seems only to have appeared in print in the first decade of the 20th century, e.g. in the 1909 edition of Fannie FARMER’s Boston Cookery Book.
A French name for a somewhat similar confection is Omelette (à la) Norvégienne. This has been current since 1891 and the alternative name Soufflé surprise began to be used shortly afterwards. Claudine Brécourt-Villars (1996) mentions also the name Omelette suédoise. She concurs in seeing Count Rumford as responsible for the whole idea, but joins Mariani in making a reference to a culinary surprise of this genre which was prepared by a French chef called Balzac for the astonishment of a Chinese delegation visiting Paris in 1867.
familiar as a canned product, are derived from a traditional New England dish, Boston baked beans, for which navy beans (see HARICOT BEAN) are baked with spices and molasses (see TREACLE) in a dish in the oven. The Boston connection seems to have arisen because Puritan families in or around Boston used baked beans as a sabbath dish. Use in print of the term ‘Boston baked beans’ dates back to the 1850s.
(or Bakewell pudding) is more of a TART than a PUDDING, but was always known as a pudding until the 20th century. It is still so called in the Derbyshire town of Bakewell, but the name ‘tart’ is now generally prevalent.
Medieval precursors date back to the 15th century and were called ‘flathons’ (see FLAN). There were two main kinds. One was filled with a sweet, rich egg custard over a layer of chopped candied fruit on the pastry shell. A second version was originally made without eggs, butter, or milk, and was a Lenten flathon; the filling was of ground almonds and sugar made into a liquid paste and flavoured with spices. In the succeeding centuries names such as ‘egg tart’ and ‘almond tart’ came into use.
The name ‘Bakewell pudding’ first occurs in Meg Dods (1826), referring to the custard version; but thereafter the name was used for both.
The recipe for Bakewell Pudding given by Eliza ACTON (1845) was essentially a rich custard of egg yolks, butter, sugar, and flavouring—ratafia (almond) is suggested—poured over a layer of mixed jams an inch (2 cm) thick and baked. Miss Acton noted that ‘This pudding is famous not only in Derbyshire, but in several of our northern counties, where it is usually served on all holiday occasions’, which suggests that it had been known for some time. In this form, it bears some resemblance to various ‘cheesecake’ recipes of the preceding century.
During the latter part of the 19th century the custard version fell into disuse, and the recipe evolved towards its modern forms. Mrs BEETON (1861) gave a recipe for a pudding much closer to the one now known, in which ground almonds were used instead of the candied peel, with a layer of strawberry jam only half as thick under the custard mixture, and the whole contained in a puff pastry case. Since then, Bakewell pudding has shown a tendency to a thinner jam layer and higher proportion of almonds in the filling.
There are now two principal versions. One is the ‘pudding’ recognized by the inhabitants of Bakewell; this is thus described by Laura Mason (1999):
Bakewell pudding as understood in the late 20th century consists of a puff pastry case with a layer of jam (strawberry or raspberry) covered by a filling of egg, sugar, butter and almonds, which is baked.
A legend current in Bakewell, especially in the ‘Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop’, is that the pudding was accidentally invented in the 1860s, when a cook in a local inn made a mistake. This appears to be without foundation, since the pudding was already well known.
The other current version is a shortcrust case with a filling of something like almond sponge cake over a layer of jam.
in English, refers primarily to the action of making up all sorts of flour-based goods such as breads and cakes, and cooking them, usually in an oven, although some are ‘baked’ on a GRIDDLE. A group of items produced at one time may be referred to collectively as ‘a baking’, and the day on which they are produced as a ‘baking day’. Some N. European languages have similar words (such as German backen, from the same root as the English word) but S. Europeans have no equivalent to this general concept.
Baking also has a more general meaning, denoting the cooking of food, uncovered, in an enclosed oven: many Sunday ‘roasts’ are actually baked, as are foods cooked in a TANDOOR. It is also used of food wrapped in a protective cover (for instance, aluminium foil) and placed in the ashes of a fire (e.g. ‘baked potatoes’). A CLAMBAKE is a primitive, and now rather special, variant on the idea of baking.
In English, ‘baking’ in the primary sense has been used with reference to bread and other flour-based items since the Middle Ages. The recipes and methods were transmitted from royal and noble households to country houses. In the 16th and 17th centuries the skills of the pastry-cook were added to those of the worker with yeast dough, so that in modern Britain domestic and commercial bakers take in skills from both fields of expertise, in contrast to France, for example, where the boulanger and the pâtissier remain clearly separated.
Home baking has long been an important activity in England, but the skills required and the emphasis have changed over the centuries. Until the 19th century it was only in southern England that wheat flour was predominant; before this time, only relatively wealthy households had enclosed ovens. These were wood fired, providing falling heat until cold again, a process which took roughly 24 hours, necessitating a concentrated one-day baking session. Heated infrequently, they were used whilst very hot to bake coarse and fine breads, followed by cakes and biscuits as the heat declined. Poorer households, with no oven of their own, used Dutch ovens, or griddles, or sent their dough to public bakehouses. The coal-fired range, developed in the 19th century, and 20th-century gas and electric ovens made the home baker’s life easier.
In the southern part of England, baker’s bread was commonly being bought, even by poor people, well before the 19th century. The habit of home baking has lasted much longer in N. England and in Scotland. Peter Brears (1987) comments that in Yorkshire:
The period from around 1850 up to the Second World War can now be seen as a ‘golden age’ of home baking, when almost every housewife took a great pride in baking all the bread, cakes and puddings eaten by her family, instead of relying on mass-produced convenience foods.
A similar practice of home baking prevails in some other European countries, especially in the North and especially at Christmas and the new year.
a raising agent used in breads, cakes, and biscuits. It consists of a mild acid and a mild alkali which react together when wetted, generating carbon dioxide which forms bubbles in the dough. The reaction begins at once, so there is no need to leave the dough to ‘ripen’ as when using yeast.
The alkaline component of baking powder is usually BICARBONATE OF SODA, also known as sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and as baking soda. The first type, invented in the USA in 1790, was ‘pearl ash’, potassium carbonate prepared from wood ash. This provided only the alkali; the acid had to come from some other ingredient, for example sour milk. Pearl ash reacted with fats in the food, forming soap which gave an unpleasant taste. Soon it was replaced by bicarbonate of soda, which still reacts in this way but to a much smaller extent. An American name used for either of these alkali-only agents was saleratus.
True baking powder, containing both bicarbonate of soda and an acid, was introduced around 1850. The acid was CREAM OF TARTAR or tartaric acid, both of which conveniently form crystals. This was mixed with a little starch to take up moisture and so keep the other components dry, so that they did not react prematurely. A disadvantage of this mixture was that it sprang into rapid action as soon as it was wetted; so the dough had to be mixed quickly and put straight into the oven before the reaction stopped.
Modern baking powder still uses these substances, but some of the cream of tartar (or tartaric acid) is replaced with a slower acting substance such as acid sodium pyrophosphate. This hardly reacts at all at room temperature, but speeds up when heated, so that bread and cakes rise well in the oven.
The starch in baking powder is not fully effective in keeping it dry, so that the components react together slowly in storage and the powder gradually loses its effect. Any that has not been used within a few months should be discarded.
a popular Middle Eastern pastry much imitated elsewhere. It is made of many sheets of FILO pastry laid flat in a pan, brushed with melted butter and given one or sometimes more layers of a sweetened filling of minced nuts (PISTACHIOS, ALMONDS, or WALNUTS). The whole is soaked in a honey or sugar SYRUP, often with a little lemon juice. Before baking, the sheet is cut into diamond-shaped fingers. After baking, these are separated into individual pastries.
The origins and earliest history of baklava are discussed under FILO.
namely Majorca, Minorca (Anglicized versions of Mallorca and Menorca), plus Ibiza and Formentera, with Catalonia on the mainland, the surviving territory of CATALAN COOKERY. However, they call for separate consideration because there is a high degree of contrast between the relatively sophisticated cuisine of Catalonia, especially Barcelona, and the more down-to-earth peasant-style cookery of the islands. See also SPANISH REGIONAL COOKING.
The Balearics are of course not only part of the Catalan region but also part of Spain, and it is noticeable that many of the foods and dishes popular in the islands echo, albeit under somewhat different names, those of Spain. Thus, to take a few examples, bunyols (Mallorquin) are buñuelos (Castilian Spanish), doughnuts; arros brut (a winter dish of rice with rabbit and other game, snails, and vegetables, well spiced) is the Spanish arroz brut; pan-cuit is the bread and garlic ‘soup’ known as sopa de ajo in Castilian and familiar in the south of France and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
Mention of ‘soup’ prompts a quotation from Elizabeth Carter (1989), author of a fine book on Majorcan Food and Cookery. She remarks that:
The Mallorcan word sopes has misled many foreigners into thinking that they were ordering a soup. Actually, sopes are thin slices of Majorcan country bread, pan payes, a circular, beige-coloured bread made from wheat; this bread is left unsalted, a tradition said to date from the Moorish occupation.
Thus Sopes mallorquinas is a Majorcan bread and cabbage dish, almost all bread and sliceable rather than suppable. The same bread is used for pamboli, bread with salt and olive oil—and perhaps tomato, in which case it matches the famous pa amb tomàquet of mainland Catalonia. See also Graves (2000).
A typical cooking dish is the greixonera, a shallow earthenware vessel with four small handles and a rounded bottom. It has no lid (although a small one upside down or large cabbage leaves can be used) and features in a very large number of recipes. Pastanagues moradas ofegades (‘black’, i.e. purple, carrot hotpot) is an example of a dish in Majorca which does require a cover while it is being cooked. It also, helpfully, contains a lot of typical Mallorquin ingredients: currants and pine nuts (Moorish influence, also displayed in the Mallorquin CHARD with pine nuts and raisins); sobrasada (the most famous of the Majorcan sausages, spicy and reddish-orange, see under SAUSAGE); butifarró (a blood sausage spiced with cinnamon, fennel seeds, and black pepper); todas especias (a home-made spice mixture of cinnamon, peppercorns, and cloves); and LARD (amply used in the islands, where the pig is enormously important - and giving its name to the most famous of Mallorquin pastries the ENSAIMADA).
The prominence of the pig in Majorca inspired George Sand, one of the most famous (and critical) of the residents (but not for very long), to write that she would never have got to the island in the first place had it not been that
[the pig] came to enjoy in Majorca rights and privileges which nobody had so far dreamed of offering to humans. Houses have been enlarged and ventilated; the fruit which used to rot on the ground has been gathered, sorted and stored; and steamships, previously considered needless and unreasonable, now run between Majorca and the mainland.
Majorca is famous for its APRICOTS and ALMONDS. The trees enhance the beauty of the island and its fruits the dessert table. The same applies to figs and plums; in their dried form these are among the specialities of Minorca and Ibiza, where one delightful way of packing dried figs involves thyme, sprigs of fennel, and pretty baskets.
The dessert table is also embellished by sweet dishes which betray the culinary influence of the Moors, notably baked items with almond, and the wonderful almond ice cream called gelat d’ametilla. Orxata d’ametilla, a sweet iced drink which is ‘almond milk’ in English, is another example and is not found elsewhere in Spain except for Valencia. See also ANGEL’S HAIR.
is a subject which implicitly poses the question: what are the Balkans? They take their name from the Turkish balkan, referring to the chain of mountains in central Bulgaria, and then by extension to the entire peninsula which stretches south from the rivers Danube and Sava to the southern tip of Greece. Thus ‘the Balkan peninsula’ embraces the whole of former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and European Turkey. It divides the Ionian Sea from the Aegean Sea; and it links W. and C. Europe with the Middle East.
Working out what peoples were in a particular territory 10,000 years ago in any part of Europe is no easy matter, and it is perhaps especially difficult in the Balkan peninsula. Waves of people from C. Asia swept down into, or through, the area in the past, long before it became part of the Roman Empire, and among them were certainly some Celts (still represented by the Albanians). More floods of people poured in during the centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire: Ostrogoths, Huns, Alans, Slavs, etc.
Cookery is thought to have begun in the 7th/6th millennia BC by the Balkan autochthonous population. This view is based on archaeological studies of oven floors and of items like a clay model of a loaf, from near Stara Zagora, dated to c.5100 BC; and evidence indicating that it may well have been in the same region, earlier still, that milking of domestic animals first took place.
Be that as it may, the waves of nomadic invaders and settlers abated during the period of the Roman Empire, but resumed after its fall, thus ensuring a further enrichment of the already complex cultural patterns in the Balkans. The next period of stability was that of Turkish domination, from roughly the 14th to the beginning of the 20th century. These centuries of integrated life under Turkish political control have led to the creation of a common Balkan culture, a sameness in demeanour, in outlook, in eating attitudes and habits.
The similarity of dishes quickly becomes apparent to the traveller; MOUSSAKA, KOFTA (köfte in Turkish), BAKLAVA, sour soups—all these and many others are part of an older shared heritage. There are, understandably, numerous variations reflecting the differences in climate, religious beliefs, and economic conditions.
Bread and other flour-based products are the bedrock of the Balkan diet, supplemented by milk, cheeses (especially of the FETA and KASHKAVAL types), YOGHURT, and large quantities of fruit and vegetables. Like most E. Europeans, the Balkan peoples could be defined as grain-eaters, in contrast to westerners who are predominantly meat-eaters.
The southern part of the peninsula, in the olive-growing Mediterranean region, is different. Setting it aside, one can say that, in essence, Balkan cooking is an amalgam of indigenous gastronomic heritage enriched by Greek, Turkish, and C. European adoptions, bridging the span between E. Mediterranean and W. European cookery traditions.
For the countries which count as being in the Balkans or have been strongly influenced by Balkan culture, see ALBANIA, BULGARIA, ROMANIA, YUGOSLAVIA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA, CROATIA, MACEDONIA, SLOVENIA; plus of course GREECE and TURKEY (because part of it is in the Balkan peninsula, and the entire Balkans have been so strongly influenced by it).
a French term which refers to a hot or cold dish consisting of meat or poultry that has been boned, stuffed, rolled, tied up (often inside a cloth), and braised or poached. Its name is a diminutive form of French ballotte, which in turn is derived from balle, meaning ‘bale’, to which a ballottine has an obvious resemblance in form, although very much smaller.
also known as lemon/common/sweet/bee balm, or melissa, Melissa officinalis, a perennial plant of the Mediterranean region and W. Europe, belonging to the MINT family. It has pale green, deeply veined and downy leaves.
The name balm is a shortened form of BALSAM, which is something different, a resinous preparation often but not necessarily derived from plants called balm.
Lemon balm is used as a flavouring herb. Its lemony aroma, more pronounced in fresh than in dried leaves, enables it to substitute in some contexts for lemon juice and makes it a refreshing addition to salads. It is used for soups, with fish, and in sauces; as a flavouring for milk and yoghurt and for certain drinks; and also, especially, to make balm tea. In the English countryside this balm tea was traditionally sweetened with honey; a nice touch, since Melissa is the Greek for honey bee and was given to the plant as its generic name because bees like it (as Virgil tells us—he grew thyme, lavender, and balm for the benefit of his bees).
Since classical times, balm has been considered to be a cure for melancholy and associated ailments.
sometimes called BALM but not to be confused with the plants bearing that name, is a compound of plant resins mixed with volatile oils, insoluble in water, used in the past for medicinal purposes but also sometimes as a flavouring.
These substances were originally obtained from the Near and Middle East, as balsam of Gilead or Mecca, and their use for medicinal purposes was in line with the Arabic tradition. Pomet (1712) devoted a lengthy passage in his history of drugs to describing these and other sorts and explaining their various remarkable features, such as how the Sultan of Turkey caused each of the small trees which yielded the true balsam of Gilead to be guarded by soldiers. The discovery of the New World added balsam of Peru and of Tolu (now Santiago de Tolu, in Colombia) to the list; and these too were described by Pomet.
Balsam of Tolu is produced by collecting the resin from incisions in the bark of the plant Myroxylon balsamum and letting it harden into cakes in the sun. It can then be used as an alcoholic tincture or dissolved in water with the aid of mucilage or egg yolk. It occurs in some early English recipes, e.g. Artificial Asses’ Milk (Hannah Glasse, 1747), but has declined from having little culinary significance to having none.
See also BALSAMIC VINEGAR.
which takes its name from ‘balsamic’, meaning health giving, is a traditional product of the province of Modena in Italy, produced on an artisanal scale and greatly superior to any ‘balsamic vinegar’ which comes from factories.
Making the real thing takes a long time; see box.
Before any of the balsamic vinegar can be sold under the traditional label of authenticity, it is sampled blind by members of the guild of balsamic vinegar-makers, and has to be approved. The merits of the ‘real thing’ are undisputed, but may have been exaggerated towards the end of the 20th century by its becoming a fashionable ingredient in sophisticated restaurants in western countries; and the production of inferior kinds in factories has been encouraged by the glint of the gold which is attracted by the name.
The book by Professor Benedetto Benedetti (1986), who acknowledges no fewer than 19 other professors and experts as involved in its composition, covers the technical and legal aspects as well as history, traditions, etymology, and medical properties; a thorough work.
the name of both a cuisine, that of Baltistan in the far north-east of PAKISTAN, and of the wok-like utensil (karahi) which is the main piece of equipment used by Balti cooks.
Until the last quarter of the 20th century Balti food was virtually unknown outside Baltistan. However, the chance which led one emigrant to settle in Birmingham, the second city of England, and to open a modest eating place there for the benefit of other emigrants led to surprising results. The ‘Baltis’, as the eating places also came to be called, multiplied at phenomenal speed, breaking through the 100 barrier in Birmingham within a dozen years or so and also establishing outposts in other English towns and cities. The extent of the ‘invasion’ may not be quite as great as it seems, since a number of existing restaurants from the Asian subcontinent have changed their names or menus so as to embrace Balti dishes and profit from their popularity. However, even with allowance made for this the spread of the Balti houses has been remarkable.
The distinguishing features of Balti food have been well defined by Chapman (1993), who opens the introduction to his excellent, and amusing, book on the subject by dispelling any possible misapprehension that the whole Balti phenomenon belongs to the realm of fantasy: ‘There really are Balti people who live in Baltistan. Once it was a kingdom complete with its own royals. Now it is the northernmost part of Pakistan.’ He explains that the term ‘Balti’ refers both to the area of origin of this cuisine and also to the utensil used for cooking and serving:
The must from specially cultivated varieties of grape is reduced by slow simmering to a half or a third of its volume and after a year’s fermentation and acidification sets off on its long slow journey from youthful zest to sumptuous maturity, siphoned from one container to another in a batteria of barrels of decreasing size, each made from a different wood which adds its own aromas to the slowly concentrating liquid. This traditionally takes place under the rooftops of homes in the region, from the Este palace in the centre of Modena, where the ducal acetaia flourished in the 18th century, to the attics of ordinary families. Here the extremes of temperatures and climate contribute to the maturing process as the aceto balsamico concentrates by evaporation during the stifling summer heat and rests and matures during the cold, clammy winters.
This densely perfumed brew needs to be used with respect for its qualities, a few drops in a salad of fresh garden herbs and leaves, or crisp white chicory; a dribble across a simple home-made vanilla ice cream; a scant teaspoon swirled into the cooking juices of some simply grilled or fried meat or chicken; a last-minute addition to a savoury strawberry salad with spring onions and cucumber. A small dose in a liqueur glass makes a fine after-dinner digestive, reminding us of its medicinal use in the past and hence its name, a balsamic cure-all.
Gillian Riley
Known also as the karahi, the Balti pan is a round-bottomed, wok-like, heavy cast-iron dish with two handles. The foods served in the Balti pan are freshly cooked aromatically spiced curries. Balti food at its best is very aromatic but not excessively spiked with chillies. Traditionally it is eaten without rice or cutlery. Balti bread is used to scoop up the food using the right hand only.
Chapman’s analysis of the origins of Balti cooking includes a bow to CHINA (notably Szechuan); to TIBET; to MOGHUL CUISINE; and to the ‘aromatic spices of Kashmir’ (see KASHMIR). He gives clear notice to his readers that other sources have been tapped to produce many of the dishes served in Balti restaurants in Britain, and points out that many of the people operating or working in these restaurants may never have been anywhere near Baltistan. See also ASIAN RESTAURANTS.
an oriental delicacy particularly associated with the Philippines, is a boiled fertilized duck’s egg, and is savoured for the variety of textures within: the broth, the very young chick, the yolk. It is eaten by cracking the top of the shell, sprinkling a little salt within, and sipping the broth, then opening the whole egg and eating the rest with rock salt.
The Chinese are said to have brought to the Philippines the idea of eating duck eggs at this stage of maturity. The process has, however, been indigenized, and is now done (in towns like Pateros, in Rizal) in very native ways. Eggs delivered to the balut-maker (mangbabalut) are laid under the sun briefly to remove excess moisture and to bring them to the ideal warmth for keeping alive the zygote within. The eggs are then taken to a garong, a deep wooden trough lined with rice husks, in which are set bamboo-skin baskets (tuong) lined with paper and husk and wrapped in cowhide. Into these baskets are placed the eggs, separated in 100-egg sacks of netting (tikbo). The eggs are kept warm in these sacks by a system of transferring each tikbo from one tuong to another twice a day, thus keeping the warmth even. Eggs at the bottom of the basket are warmest, those on top the coolest, and the transferring evens this out.
On the 9th day the eggs are held up against an electric bulb; opacity shows that the zygote has developed. A clear, transparent egg has not developed one, and is set aside to be boiled as penoy. A failed balut (e.g. when water seeps in through the permeable membrane and contaminates the fluid inside) is called abnoy, and has a sulphurous smell. It is, however, beaten and fried, and/or made into bibingkang itlog, which is eaten with a vinegar dip.
The perfect balut, to the Filipino, is 17 days old, and called balut sa puti; the word ‘balut’ also means ‘wrapped in’, and put means ‘white’, i.e. the chick is ‘wrapped in white’, not mature enough to show feathers, claws, or beak. Filipinos in the USA make 16-day-old balut, with the chick hardly visible at all, to serve to non-Filipinos. Beyond 17 days, the chicks develop, and vendors are said to sell this at bus and train stations, where they do not expect to see their customers again (but they would not worry about their Vietnamese customers, who are said to prefer 19-day-old balut).
Most balut are sold by vendors (magbabalut), who carry them in lined baskets that keep the eggs warm, and offer a tiny spill of paper containing salt with each egg. The most omnipresent of food vendors, they ply the streets in early dawn (to sell to those coming from nightclubs or night work), throughout the day and into the night, with a distinctive cry: ‘Balu-u-ut!’ that has inspired a popular song.
Balut, popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac, is now also served in restaurants as an appetizer (rolled in flour, fried, and with a vinegar-chilli dip), adobado (cooked in vinegar with garlic), or baked in a crust with olive oil or butter and spices as a ‘surprise’ (Sorpresa de balut).
plants of the grass family, belonging to the genera Bambusa, Dendrocalamus, Giganthochloa, Phyllostachys, and others. Some of the several hundred species grow to 30 m (100′) tall. The stems of all kinds are hard and tough: indeed, bamboo scaffolding is stronger, weight for weight, than steel. However, the very young shoots, harvested just as they appear above ground, are tender enough to be edible, and are a popular vegetable in China, Japan, Korea, and SE Asia.
Many, but not all, species of bamboo have edible shoots. Most contain prussic acid, but in edible kinds there is none or only a little, which can be destroyed by cooking. The species most commonly used in China and Japan are Phyllostachys edulis and half a dozen other members of that genus, plus Sinocalamus spp. Bambusa spp are also eaten. Herklots (1972) quotes an authority on Chinese bamboos as declaring that the shoots of Phyllostachys dulcis (pah ko poo chi, sweetshoot bamboo) have the best flavour.
Cultivated bamboo shoots are grown by earthing up the base of the plant with pig manure, which promotes rapid growth and blanches the shoots, making them less bitter. As soon as the tips appear, the shoots are dug up, severed at the base, and prepared for consumption, usually by trimming and boiling. Subsequently they need only a brief heating through if added to a mixture of stir-fried vegetables.
Fresh bamboo shoots can be kept in a refrigerator, and slices taken off as needed. Canned bamboo shoots are almost indistinguishable from the fresh article. Since they come already prepared and cooked, they can be used straight from the can. The species Thyrsostachys siamensis is an important species in Thailand for bottling and canning.
Dried shoots are also available; and pickled shoots are considered a delicacy in several Asian countries, e.g. Burma.
Although people in western countries tend to think of bamboo shoots as typically Chinese, and they are indeed prominent in Chinese cookery and horticulture (there being numerous cultivated species, becoming ready at different seasons), it is arguable that the Japanese interest in bamboo shoots is even more intense. Indeed, the use of bamboo in Japanese kitchens is a whole subject in itself, diverging somewhat from the general practices already described. Katsue Aizawa (private communication, 1991) writes:
The young shoots of bamboo, which normally come out in April and May, are a typical spring vegetable in Japan. The shoots of mosochiku (Phyllostachys pubescens) are thought to be the best, and Kyoto is famous for them.
The harvester of bamboo shoots looks for cracks on the surface of the earth and digs up the emerging shoots almost before they come out. For only very young shoots are edible, and they are known to make amazingly rapid growth (more than a metre, which is over 3′, in 24 hours).
After initial preparation, shoots are cooked with dashi and soy sauce, boiled with rice, put in soup, etc. They are thought to have a special affinity with WAKAME (a seaweed commonly eaten in Japan), and these are often cooked together, the dish being called wakatakeni.
Tender parts of the skins that tightly envelope bamboo shoots (called kinukawa) are also edible. They are often used as a garnish for clear soup.
The leaves of mature bamboo are sometimes used as food wrappings, e.g. for glutinous rice (steamed in large bamboo leaves, for the Boys’ Festival in May) and for the candy called sasaame, a speciality of Niigata.
Bamboos and other canes often have edible seeds. The seeds of some Bambusa spp resemble rice and are often called bamboo rice. They are as palatable and rich in protein as any cereal grain, but each plant produces only a few seeds.
A unique and highly prized substance derived from bamboos of the genus Bambusa is tabashir. This is a concretion intermediate in nature between sugar and a stony mineral which occasionally forms from the liquid inside the joints of bamboo stems. Tabashir is as rare as a pearl in an oyster and nearly as expensive. It has a long history of use for medicinal purposes.
a fruit which belongs to the tropics and has its origin in SE Asia, has achieved a remarkably high level of consumption in temperate countries. For consumers there, bananas are almost uniform in appearance, being varieties which ship well and look good. But in the tropical regions where bananas grow there are countless varieties, varying widely in appearance and eating qualities. There are, moreover, both eating bananas and cooking bananas, usually called PLANTAINS. The latter have an entry of their own, dealing with their varieties and culinary uses, but they are not a separate species and therefore figure in this entry in their botanical aspect.
The story of the botanical names for the banana is interesting. Musa goes back to the Sanskrit ‘moca’, but does not seem to have attained its Latinized form until the Middle Ages, via the Arabic ‘mauz’, first used in the 13th century. (Theories that the name came from that of the doctor of the Emperor Augustus, Antonius Musa, or from the south Arabian trading city of Moka seem to be without foundation.) The old specific name sapientium, whose origin is explained elsewhere in this entry, was reserved for sweet, eating bananas. Plantains or cooking bananas were assigned to M. paradisiaca, another name with a story behind it. In an Islamic myth, probably of Indian origin, the banana was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the Garden of Eden (which was fittingly situated in Sri Lanka). Furthermore, after the Fall, Adam and Eve covered their nakedness with banana leaves rather than those of the fig. This may explain why in some parts of the W. Indies people call a banana a fig. It is certainly true that large pieces of banana leaf would have been much more effective for Adam and Eve than small fig leaves.
The banana plant is a strange growth, which looks like a palm tree, but is not a tree. It is a perennial herb which grows a complete new ‘trunk’ every year, and dies back to its roots after it has flowered and fruited. This is all the more remarkable in that some kinds grow to a height of 12 m (40′). The ‘trunk’ is in fact composed of overlapping bases of leaves wrapped tightly to make a fairly rigid column. New leaves constantly emerge at the top, forming a crown of leaves which are blown into tattered strips by the wind (a neat evolutionary adaptation to lower their wind resistance, for the ‘trunk’ is not as strong as a real tree trunk and risks being blown down).
Eventually the flowering stem emerges at the top, bearing a large flower surrounded by red bracts, the whole growth having a strikingly phallic appearance. The bananas develop some way back from the flowering tip of the stem. The increasing weight causes the stem to bend over, so that the fruits point upwards. They are arranged in ‘hands’ of ten to twenty bananas set in a double row in a half spiral around the stem. There may be up to fifteen hands in a complete bunch, which can weigh 45 kg (100 lb) or more.
The history and botanical classification of bananas are subjects best left to experts, e.g. Purseglove (1985), for they are of extreme complexity. A starting point is the wild banana of the Malaysian/Indonesian region, Musa acuminata, sometimes known as the ‘monkey banana’, whose fruits were no doubt used for food from very early times. This species and a hybrid between it and an inedible wild species, M. balbisiana, are the ancestors of most modern cultivated bananas. They are often described as being in the series of Eumusa (good banana) cultivars, and may be distinguished from each other by what is called their ‘ploidy’. For most purposes it is enough to know the names and characteristics of the cultivars.
It seems likely that edible bananas date back several thousand years in India. They were certainly known by repute to the Greeks in the 4th century BC, when the army of Alexander the Great encountered them on trees in India. Pliny the Elder, writing several centuries later, recorded the incident and cited the Indian name pala for the fruit. This name passed into classical Greek and is reflected in some modern Indian names. The classical writer Theophrastus repeated a legend that wise men sat in the shade of the banana tree and ate its fruit, whence the pleasing but now obsolete botanical name M. sapientium, meaning ‘banana of the sages’.
The banana reached China about AD 200, when it is mentioned in the works of Yang Fu. However, it was grown only in the south, and was considered a rare, exotic fruit in the north, an attitude which lasted well into the 20th century.
During the 1st millennium AD the banana also arrived in Africa, probably taken directly from the Malay region to Madagascar. By the end of the 14th century the fruit was being cultivated right across the continent to the west coast.
During the same period it was taken eastward through the Pacific islands. The Arabs had spread cultivation through their lands south of the Mediterranean before AD 650, but no further north than Egypt, the climate in S. Europe being too cool for the plant. Consequently, the banana remained unknown to most Europeans until much later, although the discovery in 1999 of a banana skin in a Tudor rubbish tip in London puts back the date of the earliest entry of the fruit into England from its display in the herbalist Robert Johnson’s shop in 1633.
The first serious European contact with the fruit came not long after 1402, when Portuguese sailors found it in W. Africa and took it to the Canary Islands. That is why the European name ‘banana’ comes from a W. African word, the Guinean banema or banana (also bana, gbana, etc. in neighbouring regions). The Canaries have remained an important banana-growing area ever since, and it was from there that a Spanish missionary, later Bishop of Panama, took banana roots to America in 1516, after which the new plant spread quickly through C. America and the northern parts of S. America. For some reason the Spaniards saw a likeness between the banana tree and the totally different plane tree (plateno), which is how the plantain got its confusing name.
Another myth now appears. The spread of the banana in S. America was so rapid, often anticipating the progress of the colonists, that some early writers were convinced that it had existed in S. America, among the Inca, before the Spanish Conquest.
During the 19th century occasional small consignments of bananas were sent by fast ships from the Canaries to Europe and from Cuba to the USA. Early varieties had not been bred for keeping qualities, so the fruit had to arrive in little more than a fortnight and was an expensive luxury. But all this began to change in the 1870s, when two American entrepreneurs began to ship bananas from the Caribbean to New Orleans, Boston, and New York. They also set up plantations on virgin soil in producing areas. In 1899 they merged their interests to form the United Fruit Company, which had and still has great influence in C. America and the islands, for most of the trade of these lands depended on it; hence the derogatory name ‘banana republics’.
However, whatever view is taken of this influence, the company must be given credit for making the banana a familiar and reasonably priced fruit in temperate lands. Other companies followed its lead, and handsome, big, yellow, Caribbean bananas began to appear in Europe as well, ousting the small brown Canary ones. The acceptance of the fruit was almost entirely due to promotion and marketing by the various companies involved, for example Elders and Fyffes Ltd in Great Britain from 1901.
The main commercial varieties of the banana are Gros Michel and Cavendish Gros Michel. Gros Michel is the familiar, big, yellow eating banana which has for decades been the main export variety. It is thick skinned, robust in shipment, reliable in quality, and of adequate flavour. It has long been grown in SE Asia and Sri Lanka. In Malaysia and Indonesia it is called ‘pisang Ambon’ (Amboyna banana). Introduced to the W. Indies in 1835, it soon became the dominant variety, and is often called the Jamaican banana.
Cavendish bananas are a group of southern Chinese origin. The most popular cultivar is Dwarf Cavendish, so named because the plant has a short stem. This variety can stand a cooler climate than most bananas. The Canary banana is a subvariety of Dwarf Cavendish.
Cavendish bananas are shorter, blunter, duller coloured, and thinner skinned than Gros Michel. The flavour of most kinds is better, and they are preferred in Asia, where they are the leading variety. They are now replacing Gros Michel in the W. Indies and parts of S. America.
Lacatan is another export variety very similar to export types of Dwarf Cavendish. It is the lakatan of the Philippines, where it is regarded as the best banana in the world. It is highly aromatic and its pulp is sweet, firm, and light orange-yellow when ripe.
Other varieties, including some particularly good ones, are usually eaten only in the regions where they are grown, because their skins are too thin or their lives too short to permit export except by air, as a luxury item.
The silk banana is grown in tropical regions worldwide. In the French W. Indies alternative names are used, meaning ‘plum, apple, or pineapple fig’. It has very white flesh and a sweet but sharp taste. A similar variety, also widely grown but less important, is the lady’s finger or apple banana.
A small, thin-skinned, deep yellow banana of bulbous shape is called sucrier or bird’s fig in the W. Indies and pisang mas (golden banana) in Malaya and Indonesia. It is a major variety in New Guinea, with a flavour which is sweet and pleasing.
The Mysore banana grows well in poor soil and is often cultivated in the more barren parts of Asia. It is quite a good eating variety and is of great importance in India. In Thailand it has a name meaning ‘milk of heaven’.
Both in Asia and the W. Indies there are several kinds of red banana, sometimes green striped, with pink flesh. They are delicious, but frail and short-lived. Nevertheless a few are exported to the USA.
The bananas grown for export are suitable for being picked when only two-thirds ripe, and continue to ripen during shipment. The ripening process involves a chemical change in which starch is converted to sugars (made up of sucrose 66%, fructose 14%, and glucose 20%). Protopectin is also converted to soluble pectin. As bananas ripen they give off ethylene gas. Most fruits do this during ripening, but bananas produce an exceptionally large amount. (Ethylene causes ripening and development of colour, as well as being produced by it, so one fruit can help another to ripen. A ripening banana put in a lidded box with green tomatoes turns them red. It also helps a hard avocado to ripen overnight.)
Apart from being eaten fresh, bananas may be made into interesting desserts, e.g. banana fritters and Caribbean sweet dishes in which bananas are flavoured with rum. In India, bananas are made into various confections, such as panchamrutham, spiced and sweetened with honey.
Other parts of the banana plant are also used as food or in connection with food. See BANANA FLOWER; BANANA LEAF.
also called banana heart, the inflorescence of the BANANA, is used in many Asian cuisines. The ‘flower’ (technically, the male part of the flower) is sheathed in outer reddish petals. When these are removed, the paler inside, which is what is eaten, is first debittered by boiling in a change of water, and then used or further cooked in various ways. The flowers may be sliced and used in salads. Or they may be cooked in curry-type dishes with the immature green fruits (i.e. half-formed bananas), as in Malaysia. In Indonesia they are often served as a hot vegetable, e.g. sliced and simmered in coconut milk.
a material of great use to cooks in the tropics, is used to wrap up many foodstuffs in the markets, and again in the kitchen, in almost all the regions where the BANANA grows. See also WRAPPED FOODS.
These uses, although familiar, have not often been described in detail. However, Monina Mercado (in Cordero-Fernando, 1976) devotes an entire essay to its virtues in the Philippines for these purposes. She points out that most rural cooking in her country is done over a wood fire, and that this usually results in what is in the bottom of the pot being burned. But if a piece of banana leaf is in this vulnerable position, all will be well.
Lining a pot of rice, a piece of banana leaf at the bottom will not burn before the top is done to fluffy whiteness. And even if the bottom should burn to a brown crisp—the cook has gone away to chat over the fence—the crust, stuck to the banana leaf … would be a delicacy: golden brown and toasty crisp, subtly flavored with burnt banana leaf.
This flavour is a perfect partner for rice. Monina Mercado describes the flavour as ‘cool but not mint cool; faintly smoky and lightly fragrant, but far from aromatic’.
Banana leaf is selected with care for use in cookery. Very young leaf, thin and yellow, is strong and makes the ideal wrapping for something which needs to be cooked for some time. If mature, dark green leaf is used, it is first made pliant by softening it over a flame. This process enhances its flavour.
Foods are often wrapped in banana leaf to be steamed. In Java this mode of cooking is called pepesan and may include salt fish, spices, and young coconut, or meat and spices, or simply vegetable and spices. Banana leaves also provide impromptu plates and tablecloths and containers for rice and other foods, as Monina Mercado explains:
Simply as a container, banana leaf is as versatile as the imagination. Twisted into a small cone pinned together with a sliver, it holds peanuts, boiled corn or betel. Twisted into a large fat cone tied with twine, it holds take-home pancit from the Chinese restaurant. The same large fat banana leaf cone holds the farmer’s lunch for the day; hot newly-cooked rice with a bit of fish on top.
A mature banana leaf is very large. When a cookery book says ‘Take a banana leaf’ it usually means ‘Take a piece of banana leaf’. In western countries it is sometimes possible to obtain banana leaf for free from shops which import tropical produce wrapped in it. This will always be the dark green, mature leaf. The manifold uses of the leaf may be explored further by looking at the entries CAMBODIA; DAGÉ; GRUBS; MINNOW; OYSTER NUT; PHILIPPINES; TAMALES.
are named after the town in Oxfordshire with which they have been associated since at least the 17th century. The cakes were sold from a shop there in 1638, by one Betty White according to some local records. (This shop, in Parsons Street, was certainly known as ‘The Original Banbury Cake Shop’ in 1833 and its history is documented since then, including the export in the 19th century of considerable numbers of the cakes to India.)
The first known recipe, by Gervase Markham (1615), required a rich, sweet, spiced, yeast-leavened dough to be divided into two portions. One was left plain, and the other was mixed with currants. The portion with the currants in was then sandwiched between thin layers of plain paste. If the quantities given in the recipe were used to make just one cake, the final product would have been very large, weighing about 4 kg (8 lb). Similar cakes were known elsewhere, one example being the Shrewsbury SIMNEL CAKE; in Scotland, one has survived down to the present day in the form of BLACK BUN, made at New Year.
By the first part of the 19th century, recipes show that Banbury cakes could be made either as large flat pastries, scored and broken into oblong pieces after baking, or as individual confections enclosed in puff pastry, similar to those still known.
Dorothy Hartley (1954) says that the cakes ‘used to be carried around, all hot and crisp and fresh, in specially made chip baskets, wrapped in white cloths’. She adds that they were always eaten fresh and hot.
Modern Banbury cakes are small and oval, made of light flaky pastry with a crisp top achieved by a powdering of sugar before baking. The filling is of butter, chopped peel, dried fruit, sugar, and mixed spice.
ECCLES CAKES are similar to Banbury cakes.
formerly E. Pakistan, is a largely Muslim country which corresponds roughly to E. Bengal (W. Bengal being largely Hindu and part of India). The geography of Bangladesh is therefore dominated by the great rivers which flow into the Bay of Bengal (and are apt to create floods during the monsoon season) and by the enormous alluvial delta which they have created. The climate is subtropical. Population density is remarkably high.
Fish and rice are the staples. Well-known fish include the hilsa, Tenualosa ilisha, a SHAD and therefore full of small bones; and the bekti/bhekti/begti (etc.), which is Lates calcarifer, the giant sea perch which is one of the best fishes in the Indo-Pacific and well known in Australia as BARRAMUNDI. Rice is considered to be a food of higher status than bread, so when rice is served there will not be bread. However, many breads, mostly corresponding to the range available in India, are made. An example is provided by LUCHI, a kind of fried bread like the northern Indian POORIS. Stuffed, e.g. with green peas, these become KACHORI.
As Bangladesh is so heavily populated, the proportion of poorer people existing on a basic diet and vulnerable to the famine conditions which occur from time to time is relatively high. The diet for such people would indeed be basic. As Chitrita Banerji (1997) writes:
Many poor peasants in Bangladesh remain content daily with just rice, an onion or two, some chillies and the handful of shak [any kind of leafy green eaten as a vegetable] or boiled potato. Urban workers living in slums often feel lucky if they can manage a regular supply of rice and dal.
However, for the better off there are sophisticated dishes and confections, reflecting the prowess of Bengali cooks and demonstrated particularly in the amazing range of confectionery for which they are world famous. A professional sweet-maker, called moira, is a figure of importance, who, according to the author quoted above is traditionally pictured as ‘a huge, immobile mountain of flesh, sitting in front of his stove or in front of a huge platter of white chhana which he manipulates with the ease of long practice’. For one extraordinary British legacy which survives in the hands of these sweet-makers, see LADIKANEE.
a Dutch baker’s shop specializing in pastries, cakes, and Dutch koekjes (see COOKIE). In some shops it is possible to drink a cup of coffee and enjoy a cake on the premises.
It is traditional in Holland for a person having a birthday to buy cakes for his friends or colleagues, and these cakes would normally be obtained from the banketbakkerij.
Varieties made and sold at the banketbakkerij include the following. They are seldom made at home.
Speculaas (speculoos in Belgium and Spekulatius in Germany), Christmas biscuits (traditionally baked for St Nicholas’s Eve on 5 December) made of wheat flour, butter, sugar, and a mixture of spices in which cinnamon is predominant. The dough is baked in decorative moulds. The biscuits are crisp and flattish and may have cut almonds pressed into the underside. For special occasions, a very large speculaas may be made in a special mould. The Abraham, as Ileen Montijn (1991) explains, is baked for a man’s 50th birthday:
a large, flat, edible doll, once made of bread dough, nowadays more cake-like and elaborately decorated, or even mistakenly taken to be a kind of gingerbread man …. The basis for this is in the Bible, John, 9: 57: ‘Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?’ The giving of Abraham dolls to people on their fiftieth birthday (and Sarah dolls to women, as a kind of consolation prize) has … become more rather than less popular.
One variety of speculaas has a rich filling of almond paste sandwiched between two biscuit layers.
Taai-taai, chewy Christmas biscuits made in the same way as GINGER BISCUITS from rye flour and molasses, honey or syrup, and no fat. They are flavoured with aniseed rather than ginger. Like speculaas, they were traditionally baked in carved wooden moulds in various shapes, mostly human, but also representing biblical scenes, ships, and so on. The industrial production of both speculaas and taai-taai began around 1880 and one result was a great loss of variety in the moulds. Today, however, all speculaas and taai-taai are still sold in traditional moulded shapes, however rudimentary. Two exceptions are Pepernoten (see below) and filled speculaas.
Pepernoten, like German Pfeffernüsse (see GINGER BISCUITS), often made with rye flour. Traditionally these are strewn around by Black Peter, St Nicholas’s assistant, on the saint’s day of 6 December.
Banketletters, flaky pastry with an almond paste filling, cut out in letter shapes for St Nicholas’s Day. The commonest letters are S for Sinterklaas (Santa Claus) and M for Moeder (Mother). These pastry letters have, since the beginning of the 20th century, had their counterparts in the form of chocolate letters which are available in all those letters of the alphabet which correspond to first-name initials. These constitute a customary present for Dutch men on St. Nicholas’s Day. The old pastry letters are still in demand during the winter months.
Sprits, a very old variety, round, made from a liquid dough, piped from a forcing bag.
Beschuit met muisjes (rusk with little mice), offered to family, friends, and colleagues when a baby is born. The mice are white and pink or blue sugar-coated aniseeds. They are a very ancient food, having been used to decorate dishes in the Middle Ages. They were called trigy then. Aniseed, like fennel, is a traditional cure for stomach disorders and colic in babies.
Wellington, a long almond biscuit, rounded at each end with a narrower waist. Other famous and popular cookies are krakelingen (a kind of sweet PRETZEL), bitterkoekjes (a chewy bitter almond macaroon), and Amsterdamse koggetjes, a buttery biscuit studded with bits of caramelized sugar which is, as the name suggests, a speciality of Amsterdam. There are many others: for a more detailed account see Pagrach-Chandra (2002).
a griddle-baked flatbread from the highland zones of Britain, made from barley, oats, or even PEASEMEAL, water or buttermilk. One made from a mixture of flours was called a meslin bannock (see maslin in BREAD VARIETIES).
The derivation of the word may be from the Gaelic bannach, itself stemming from the Latin panicium. Bannock is hence a generic term for bread in those non-wheat-growing regions, and Wright’s Dialect Dictionary has found it current throughout N. and W. Britain. In Scotland, the bannock was pre-eminently made with barley (or BERE MEAL, bere being a primitive form of barley that does better in acid soils); in England, more often of oats. It is thicker than the OATCAKE, and larger than a SCONE, ‘about the size of a meat-plate’. Like scones, the bannock was unleavened until the introduction of bicarbonate of soda.
Originally, bannocks were baked in the embers, then toasted on the GRIDDLE before eating, though the more usual method now is to bake entirely on the griddle. An English–Latin wordbook of c.1483 translates bannock as focacius (hearth bread), or panis subcinericius (bread baked in the ashes). The dough was moister than an oatcake. Dr Johnson encountered bannocks on his trip to the Highlands in 1773 and noted that ‘I learnt to eat them without unwillingness; the blackness of their colour raises some dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable.’
The jannock, though it may seem phonetically related, is principally a Lancastrian and north country word, not seen before the 16th century, for unleavened oaten bread.
Not every bannock is a simple hearth bread. Those of Selkirk are festive breads similar to lardy cakes; Pitcaithly bannocks are a rich shortbread; Gayle bannocks, in Wensleydale, were griddle cakes made with much lard, flour, and currants, and the staple diet of local quarrymen.
the English word, and its close relations in other languages (French banquet, Italian banchetto, etc.) have had different meanings at different times. Today, the meaning of banquet in English is: a formal and sumptuous meal, usually of a ceremonial nature and for a large number of people. The word embraces the meal in its entirety.
However, in the 16th and 17th centuries this was not so. The whole of a formal and sumptuous meal would then have been called a FEAST; and the word ‘banquet’, at that time, referred to the final, sweet, course or episode of the feast. This often took place in a separate room, not the one in which the main part of the feast had been consumed; and its character was different.
In medieval times, it had been common for wine and spices to be served as the finale to any important meal, after the tables had been cleared. The purpose of this ceremony, called the ‘voidée’ in accordance with its French origin, was originally medicinal. The spices and the spiced wine were selected and prepared in a manner thought to aid digestion.
However, the serving of these items sometimes became merged with the serving of the last course of the feast, which consisted in various sweetmeats and which was also modelled on a French practice. And as time passed, the two things were separated again, but now in reverse sequence; the spiced wine was served first, and this was followed by the service of sweetmeats.
Hence the interesting and pleasant characteristics of the English banquet of those times. Some nobles began to design and build special rooms, or even special buildings, for their banquets. These were often secluded; not necessarily by being built some way from the main house—there was a fashion for building them on the roof. One can imagine the merriment with which the important guests would file along a corridor and then mount perhaps several staircases, finally emerging from a small circular staircase onto the roof, enjoying a panorama of the surrounding countryside, and passing into a small private room in which the sweetmeats would be laid out ready, with exquisite artistry.
Often, there would be no servants; or, if there was one, he would be gone once he had seen to it that the guests were all present and comfortable. Part of the pleasure lay in the ‘withdrawn’ and private atmosphere of the banquet, when people could relax completely, indulge in indiscreet talk, and so forth.
The scent of flowers and the sound of music, being played by musicians who were nearby but out of sight, could complete the charming environment.
Examples of banqueting rooms given by Jennifer Stead (1991a) include the earliest known banqueting room on a roof, that of Sir William Sharington, who, in the middle of the 16th century, had an octagonal lookout tower incorporating two banqueting rooms, which still survive.
A banqueting room could also be set in a garden; in the Renaissance period the garden itself was seen as a source of inspiration and refreshment for intellect and spirit and senses alike, one might say a banquet for the mind as well as a feast for the eyes. Indeed, the room might itself be made of garden materials. Queen Elizabeth caused a temporary banqueting house to be erected in Greenwich Park for the entertainment of the French Ambassador and his staff. This was made entirely of boughs and blossoms. And at Cobham Hall in Kent a living lime tree was converted into a banqueting house comprising three rooms at different levels, with stairs between them, and accommodating fifty people in all.
The theme of water was generally popular, and the sound of water splashing in a fountain was considered to be a highly appropriate background noise for banquets. It was not uncommon to combine the function of ‘water house’ (a building which housed the pumps and pipes which supplied water to the house and to the gardens) with that of banqueting room. And some banqueting rooms took the form of grottoes, where elaborate decorations of sea shells and a damp atmosphere conducive to the growth of ferns and suchlike plants created a wettish environment which was thought to have particular charm.
All this has long been lost. Few are the instances in modern times of a ‘banquet’ which offers true pleasure to the participants.
(sometimes banoffee pie) a dessert made from biscuits, butter, cream, bananas, and condensed milk (dulce de leche). Its name is a portmanteau, a combination of banana and toffee. Two chefs from the Hungry Monk restaurant in Jevington, E. Sussex, claim to have invented it in 1972. The dish gained remarkable currency in English country restaurants within a few years, appealing to the sweet tooth of a new generation of diners. The recipe was never patented, however, and in the 1990s a number of supermarkets began selling it as American pie.
Adansonia digitata, a broad, spreading tree with a thick, spongy trunk. It belongs to tropical Africa and bears fruits whose pulp is a popular food and seasoning. This is often called ‘monkey bread’. Another name, ‘cream of tartar tree’, refers to the whitish-yellow pulp of the fruit, which contains tartaric acid. Pastoral tribes use the pulp to sour milk. The fruit pulp is also remarkably rich in ascorbic acid.
Various kinds of porridge and gruel are also made, either from the seeds or the flesh of the fruit. The young shoots and leaves of the tree are eaten in soup or as a pot-herb.
steamed buns which are found, with various fillings and in slightly different forms, all over China.
Unlike JIAOZI, baozi are leavened. When they are made in western countries, commercial yeast is used and the resulting buns are softer than they would be in China, where it is still usual to keep some uncooked dough from the last batch to leaven the next one.
Fillings may be savoury, for example the Cantonese roast meat called chahsiu; or sweet with fillings such as mixed sugared nuts, sweet red bean paste, dried JUJUBES boiled and mashed, or simply sugar.
‘the traditional morning roll of Scotland’ (Marian McNeill, 1929), which is also made in Ireland, is a soft roll. The term, which has been in use since the late 16th century, is of unknown derivation.
Dough for baps is lively, sometimes including butter or lard to ensure tenderness; the crust is well dusted with flour before baking in a hot oven. Shapes vary, from triangular to square to torpedo (Dublin), though round is now most common. It is customary to press a floured finger into the centre of each bap before baking to prevent blistering of the crust. In Scotland, baps are never sweetened, but currant baps are made in Ireland.
a moist Welsh bread containing currants, raisins, or sultanas, candied peel, and sweet spice. The name literally means ‘speckled bread’, referring to the fruit. Bara brith is often served sliced and buttered for AFTERNOON TEA or HIGH TEA. Originally a yeast cake, but recent recipes sometimes use raising agents such as bicarbonate of soda.
See also BARM BRACK and TEA BREADS AND TEA CAKES.
a name commonly but loosely applied to most of the numerous species of fish in the genus Barbus. This consists of freshwater fish only, and falls in the CARP family.
The principal European species is called BARBEL. The various fish called MAHSEER in the Indian subcontinent (assigned to the genus Barbus by some authorities, but to the genus Tor by others) belong to the same group.
Generally, however, Barbus spp are small and more valued as aquarium fish than for eating.
Malpighia punicifolia, is the most important member of a group of small fruiting trees and shrubs of which most are native to tropical and subtropical America. It is also known as acerola, and as the W. Indian/Puerto Rican/native/garden cherry. It is much cultivated in the W. Indies, where the fruit is eaten fresh or made into pies and preserves; and has been introduced to other areas with suitable climates, such as Brazil and Hawaii.
The fruit is bright red and the size of a cherry (up to 3 cm/1″ in diameter). The shallow furrows running down the outside betray the position of the three stones which are to be found inside. The flesh is juicy and subacid, more like a raspberry than a cherry in flavour. When cooked it tastes like a tart apple. It is remarkably rich in vitamin C, outdoing even rose hips in this respect and having a twentyfold advantage over oranges, weight for weight.
the edible fruit of a vigorous, climbing, leafy cactus, Pereskia aculeata, grown mainly in the W. Indies and C. America. Its numerous common names include lemon vine, blade apple, and gooseberry shrub.
The small, often pear-shaped, fruits have a thin skin which is yellow or reddish in colour, and contain small soft seeds. When ripe, they are juicy and somewhat tart. They can be eaten raw, but are usually stewed or preserved with sugar, or made into jam.
meat (or other food) cooked in the open air on a framework over an open fire; or an event incorporating such cooking; or the framework and accompanying apparatus required for this.
The word comes from the Spanish barbacoa, which in turn had probably come from a similar word in the Arawak language, denoting a structure on which meat could be dried or roasted. When the word first entered the English language, in the 17th century, it meant a wooden framework such as could be used for storage or sleeping on, without a culinary context. However, by the 18th century it took on the first of its present meanings, and—at least in the USA—the second one too. The third meaning, like the apparatus itself, became commonplace in the latter part of the 20th century.
Barbecues, naturally, occur most often in countries where the climate is right for outdoor cooking. Texas (and N. America generally) and Australia are examples of regions where the cult of the barbecue is most noticeable. In the southern states of the USA much barbecuing is done at low temperatures in a sort of closed oven called a pit (which in Texas may literally be a pit dug in the ground), making it suitable for cooking tougher cuts of meat. Southern barbecue derives much of its flavour from wood smoke. The traditional barbecue was of pork, although traditions everywhere have been expanded in recent times to accommodate other meats (emphasis on spare ribs and sausages, steaks and chops), poultry (especially chicken), fish, and various vegetables (usually as an accompaniment). Rivalry between different kinds of barbecue sauce is intense. The whole barbecue scene and the atmospherics surrounding it are considerably affected by a cultural circumstance, to wit the general practice of having men rather than women do the barbecuing. This gender allocation is not limited to western man’s weekend leisure activities but is also seen in the unexpected context of EAST AFRICA.
a name usually applied only to Barbus barbus, a C. European species of freshwater fish in the CARP family. Other Barbus spp are called BARB.
The flesh of the barbel is bony; so it is not greatly esteemed or used as food. The roe is said to be toxic, and may sometimes be so, but Blanchard (1866) recalls that the naturalist Bloch ate barbel eggs, as did other members of his family, without ill effect.
a shrub of the genus Berberis, of which many species grow wild throughout the temperate regions of Europe, Asia, and America. A closely related genus, Mahonia, familiar in western countries as an ornamental garden shrub, also has a wide distribution. Some shrubs which were formerly thought of as true barberries have now been reassigned to Mahonia.
All these species bear berries which are edible but sour. Berberis berries are generally red, varying from coral to deep crimson, almost black. B. vulgaris, the common barberry of Europe and Asia, has elongated, bright red berries which hang in clusters.
Mahonia berries are usually blue or bluish. Several Mahonia species bear the name Oregon grape (or hollygrape), and others are associated with Mexico or the south-west of the USA. Among the latter, for which agrito is a common name, M. swaseyi is a promising candidate for improvement by selection.
Traditional uses of barberries, called ‘poor man’s red currant’ by early settlers in N. America, include preserving them in syrup or vinegar to provide a sharp flavouring; and making them into a jelly or jam, e.g. the French confiture d’épine-vinette, a speciality of Rouen and Dijon which is made from a seedless variety of B. vulgaris.
Most European barberries are too sour to eat fresh, but several species found in the south of the USA and Mexico are sweet enough to have been eaten thus by American Indians. Their tart flavour is popular in Iran where they are used in PILAF dishes and in stews. In India some species, e.g. B. vulgaris and B. aristata, are sun dried to make ‘sour currants’ and used like raisins in desserts.
a culinary operation described with his usual lucidity by Stobart (1980):
A bard was an armoured breastplate for a horse. In cooking, it is a breastplate of fat, salted fat or bacon, a thin slice of which is tied around meat or fowl to protect and moisten it during roasting. This is particularly necessary when the meat lacks its own fat; the bard also helps to keep rolled meat neatly in place.
an Indian sweetmeat made principally of dried milk (khoya, see MILK REDUCTION and INDIAN SWEETS) with various additions. The name comes from the Persian word for snow, presumably because plain barfi is white and might be thought to resemble snow. In this plain form, barfi is among the simplest of all Indian sweets. It is common, however, for its already pleasant taste to be improved by adding ingredients such as coconut, carrots, pistachios, or white pumpkin, and by spicing with cardamom.
The prepared mixture is simmered until thick, left to cool, and cut into small cubes. The same mixture formed into flat round tablets may be called pera in Bengal and Nepal (echoing the Afghan term sheer pera).
Some barfi mixtures are precisely the same as those for SANDESH and the usage of the names overlaps; as does the habit of colouring the confection in several different colours, layered so that cut pieces are striped.
Hordeum vulgare, the oldest cultivated cereal in the Near East and Europe (and possibly anywhere, for it may have come before cultivation of rice in the Far East). In the ancient world it was for long the most important food grain; but it is now used primarily for animal fodder, secondly for making MALT for beer and other products, and only thirdly as a food grain.
The name barley derives from the Old English bære, which survives in Scotland as bere (see BERE MEAL) without the suffix ‘ly’ which was originally given to turn it into an adjective (meaning ‘of barley’).
Barley originated as a wild grass of the Near East, often called H. spontaneum, but now classed in the same species as cultivated barley, H. vulgare. Wild barley, or remains of it, have been found in N. Africa, Asia Minor, and temperate Asia as far east as Afghanistan. It has fragile ears, from which the seeds fall when mature: a feature necessary to a wild plant which has to propagate itself, but unsuitable for a cultivated crop. Domestication led to the emergence, as early as the 6th millennium BC, of cultivated barley with firmly attached grains, which then became dependent on cultivation for its survival.
Types of barley are described as ‘2-rowed’, ‘4-rowed’, and ‘6-rowed’. These terms are explained in technical books about cereals, but are hard for lay people to understand, at least without diagrammatic pictures. It is perhaps enough to know that the earliest cultivated forms of barley, and most modern varieties, are 2-rowed, whereas 6-rowed barley, which in antiquity seemed to give a better yield, was the chief barley of the ancient world. This is why the barley ears depicted on ancient Greek coins, for example, do not look like modern barley, being shorter and fatter.
Most barleys of whichever row number have seed husks terminating in stiff bristles (awns). It is awnless types, with reduced husks, which are known as ‘naked’ barleys. These are most common in the east.
The oldest known remains of barley are at Tell Mureybat, Syria, a site dating from about 8000 BC. A considerable store of grains was found but they are of the wild type and evidently gathered rather than cultivated. (It is also at this site that the earliest wild WHEAT was discovered. Many of the oldest sites in Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor have both barley and wheat; but barley is more abundant and found in more places, and it seems almost certain that it was cultivated earlier.)
During the whole of the ancient period up to classical times barley was the chief staple grain of the whole Near East, including Egypt and Greece. It reached Spain in the 5th millennium BC and spread north from there to what is now France and Germany, although it probably did not reach Britain until the Iron Age, around 500 BC. In its eastward movement it reached India in the 3rd millennium BC and China in the 2nd.
At the beginning of the classical era in Greece, barley was still the leading staple food all around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. It was eaten as porridge and made into unleavened bread and malted for beer.
During the last centuries BC in Rome barley gradually became less esteemed. This must have been partly due to improvements in bread-making. Barley contains much less GLUTEN than wheat, this being the substance which gives wheat bread its firm, elastic texture and ability to rise. Leavened bread can be made from barley, but it is always dense, coarse in texture, and dark, although the flavour may be mild and pleasant. Also, BARLEY BREADS stale quickly, because they lack the water-retaining powers of the gluten network in wheat or the natural gums in RYE. Thus increasing skill in making well-risen bread, and the universal preference for light-coloured bread, led to a demand for wheat from those who could afford it.
However, the ancient Egyptians, who made good bread themselves, did not abandon barley; and it did not fall into general disuse. It remained cheaper than wheat and was much eaten by the poor. It was considered a strengthening food (wrongly, for it contains less protein than wheat). At the Eleusinian games winners were awarded sacks of barley. Roman gladiators were fed on it, and were known as hordearii, ‘barley men’.
In Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, barley bread was considered inferior to rye bread and greatly inferior to wheat; but barley bread was used even by the rich, as trenchers, which served instead of plates. Barley remained the chief bread grain of Europe as regards quantity rather than quality until the 16th century, and lingered in remote areas, for example, in the north and west of Britain, for some time longer. In the 19th century in the form of bonnag, it was still the main kind in the Isle of Man.
Barley had other uses in Europe apart from bread, being added to soups and stews or made into porridge, gruel, and beverages such as barley water (see below). Barley also continued to be grown for use in making alcoholic drinks.
As for the Orient, barley had arrived in China before wheat, and evidence of its cultivation is very ancient. It was quite widely eaten in the north; though as a cheap alternative to wheat, MILLET was preferred. It was cooked in broth, or used like rice, or made into flat cakes; and it was malted to make malt extract, which was used as a sweetener. This product was made in China from early times, and was later to become the principal sweetener of Japan, where barley is still an important food, chiefly in pearl form (see below).
In TIBET, and in the adjacent western parts of China, barley is a more important crop. Its resistance to the severe mountain climate gives it a major role through the whole Himalayan area to northern India. The staple food of Tibet, TSAMPA, is toasted barley (or other grain) ground to a flour.
Barley went to the New World with early European settlers. Columbus could not make it grow on Haiti, but the Spanish did better in Mexico and in 1602 it was grown in Massachusetts. In the USA it was seldom used for bread, since there was maize as a second-class alternative to wheat, but it was made into beer. As in Europe, barley was and remains a major fodder crop.
As well as being ground into barley meal (for a particular kind of which, see BERE MEAL), barley is sold in various forms. Whole barley grain for use in soups and stews may have some or all of the bran ground off. Unground grain, with the bran intact, used to be called Scotch barley and was the cheapest kind. Pot barley has some of the bran removed, and pearl barley is ground to complete whiteness. The bran has a distinct but pleasant flavour, whereas pearl barley has almost none. ‘Patent barley’ is meal made from pearl barley, which is used as a thickener and to make babies’ cereal feeds.
Barley water used to be made at home by boiling pearl barley in water. The infusion was cooled, sweetened, and sometimes flavoured with orange or lemon. Ready-made and bottled barley water is now more usual. It is a traditional drink of infants, invalids, and tennis players at Wimbledon. See also ORGEAT.
BARLEY SUGAR is a sweet which was originally prepared from flavoured barley water made into a syrup with sugar and boiled to the verge of caramelization. Nowadays there is no longer any barley in it, but the name persists.
Among the dishes made from barley, barley PORRIDGE is more delicate than oatmeal porridge, to the point of being rather insipid. It was usually made with milk rather than water. A sweet version with nuts, Belila, is traditionally made by Sephardic Jews to celebrate a baby cutting its first tooth. Another porridge-like dish in Britain was barley berry, or aleberry, made by boiling stale barley bread in mild ale until thick. This was served with honey and cream. Lothian barley pudding, still made, is a plain boiled pudding made from pot barley, currants, water, and a pinch of salt, and served with sugar and thin cream or milk. Dorothy Hartley (1954) cites an old English dish, Barley bake with celery; barley, chopped celery, and mutton broth are the main ingredients. However, the barley dishes which survive most strongly in Britain are probably soups with pearl barley, exemplified by Scotch barley broth; see SCOTCH BROTH. A larger range of barley dishes is to be found further north, e.g. in RUSSIA and the Baltic countries.
In conclusion, it is noteworthy that Sokolov (1996), in a masterly survey of cereal grains, declared barley to be his favourite and furnished an anthology of recipes which should go a long way to convince any sceptics.
Since BARLEY suffers from a lack of GLUTEN, though high in other proteins and starch, these breads have commonly been unleavened, GRIDDLE breads, such as BANNOCKS. If a leavened barley bread is wanted, it is best to mix barley with wheat; such mixtures have been usual in parts of Europe where wheat cultivation was marginal, or in times of dearth. If a light crumb structure is desired, the fibrous and indigestible outer bran of the barley is best discarded. The flavour of barley bread is sweet and nutty.
Barley’s tolerance of many soils and climates has given it wide geographical spread; hence it was a breadcorn of ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as of the lake-dwellers of Glastonbury in Iron Age Britain. That said, its earliest and most enduring use has been as the starchy base to POTTAGES and GRUELS, or as raw material for beer.
The Greek author Archestratus (5th century BC) is cited by Athenaeus as claiming that the best barley comes from Lesbos, closely followed by Thebes and Thasos: ‘get hold of a Thessalian roll, rounded into a circle and well pounded by hand. They call this krimnitas, others call it chondrinos [these names come from terms describing coarsely milled barley].’ However, a century on, Aristotle thought barley less health giving than wheat, and it is evident that richer, more cosmopolitan communities such as Athens, where there existed a body of professional bakers able to manipulate leavenings, favoured wheaten bread as lighter and more digestible. The same was true of classical Rome; panis hordeacius was by and large for slaves and the poor.
The way in which barley has declined as a breadcorn consequent on increasing wealth and sophistication is illustrated in medieval Provence and Languedoc where its use, which had been considerable, almost vanished in the 14th century as wheaten bread, or a mixture of wheat and rye, became universal. It continued far longer in northern and western regions where climate favoured its cultivation. In Tudor Britain, the north-country traveller Fynes Morison observed: ‘the English husbandmen eat barley and rye brown bread’, but, ‘citizens and gentlemen eat most pure white bread’. Come the Corn Tracts of 1764, it was estimated that barley contributed less than 2% of the raw material for bread in south-eastern counties, as opposed to nearly 48% in Wales and over 24% in the south-west. In northern districts, it was by then displaced by oats. In those areas where it was still popular, the commonest mode of cooking was as an unleavened hearth bread, under an inverted cauldron with hot coals heaped above.
An interesting barley bread survives, although tenuously, in the mountainous Jura region of France. This is bolon (or boulon), which has a history stretching back to medieval times, but was made with oats until late in the 19th century, after which a mixture of barley and other cereals began to be used and then just barley. This bread, which comes in small loaves weighing about 60 g (2 oz) each, is remarkably hard, too hard to be eaten in the normal way, but suited to its particular purpose which is to be eaten in a sort of PANADA (bolons broken into a casserole, warm water plus milk, garlic or onion). As explained in IPCF (1993), it will keep for a year.
Barley was widely cultivated in Scandinavia, and is an important element in flatbreads in Norway, Sweden, and northern Finland, also Orkney and Shetland (see BERE MEAL). Bonnag is a barley bread which has survived in the 20th century in the Isle of Man.
In Iraq, the distinction between wheaten and barley bread is identical to that in Europe: it is synonymous with poverty or meanness. ‘I remember the gibe shouted from one shopkeeper to another across the market: “What do they have for supper?” Answer, “Barley bread and water melon”’ (Zubaida, 1990).
A curious sidelight on the history of barley doughs is their use to make condiments in the medieval Arab world, described by Perry (1998). Unleavened, unseasoned barley doughs were rotted in closed containers for 40 days, to make budhaj (literally ‘rotten’), then dried and ground into flour which was further rotted as a wetted mixture with salt, spices, and wheat flour to make a liquid condiment called murri; or with milk to make kamakh.
See also PAXIMADIA, a kind of barley ‘biscuit’ made from a barley bread in Greece and elsewhere.
a simple, old type of English boiled syrup sweet, with a distinctive twisted shape. Originally, in the 17th century, the sugar syrup was made with barley water, an infusion of boiled barley which gave it an agreeable, mild flavour. Now the most usual flavouring is lemon juice, whose acidity favours the making of a clear, uncrystallized sweet. The syrup is cooked to the hard crack stage (see SUGAR BOILING), poured out onto a slab in a sheet, and quickly cut into strips which are twisted before they harden.
In France a special sucre d’orge was being made by the Benedictine nuns of Moret-sur-Loing in the 17th century. After enjoying great popularity in the 18th century it underwent various vicissitudes, (including a move to another town, Provins, and a commission given by Napoleon to a former nun, Félicité, to keep him supplied with the product) before finishing up in modern times back in Moret, but with its manufacture in secular hands. There is reputed to be a secret ingredient, known to only one person and tantalizingly called poudre de perlimpinpin; it has proved to be imperceptible to chemical analysis. This barley sugar is not twisted, as in England, but comes in triangular pieces (berlingots) or ‘rods’.
(or barn brack) an Irish fruit bread containing dried fruit, peel, and something in the way of spice (one tradition being the use of caraway seeds). The name is generally spelled with an ‘m’, suggesting the original use of barm (the yeast drawn off fermenting malt) as the raising agent. However, as long ago as 1904 one authority was upholding the spelling with an ‘n’ on the ground that this was an Anglicized version of the Irish bairgain breac, two words meaning respectively ‘bread’ and ‘speckled’. This view was endorsed by Florence Irwin (1949), a sparkling, very Irish and authoritative writer, and indeed by the less sparkling but also authoritative OED. Whichever view should prevail, it seems clear that ‘brack’ represents an adjective, not a noun.
Cathal Cowan and Regina Sexton (1997) provide the fullest description and history of barn brack, and indicate its symbolic roles at Hallowe’en and the New Year.
See TEA BREADS AND TEA CAKES; and BARA BRITH, for a similar Welsh product.
fierce fish with large jaws and a devastating array of teeth, belong to the genus Sphyraena. The great barracuda, S. barracuda, is found in tropical waters all round the world, but especially in the Caribbean and adjacent waters. A solitary fish (unlike some small relations, which swim in shoals), it is potentially dangerous. So far as direct attacks on human beings are concerned, it is reputedly (but the matter is doubtful) a greater peril than any shark; and it is also one of those fish which in certain conditions can cause in humans who eat it what is called cigatuera poisoning. Its maximum length is not far short of 2 m (6′). The same applies to S. jello, a species found only in the Indo-Pacific. A smaller species of the Caribbean region, S. guachancho, known as the guachancho, seems to be free of the cigatuera danger.
The Mediterranean species, S. sphyraena, may be up to 120 cm (4′) in length but is usually much smaller. A resemblance to the freshwater PIKE is acknowledged in names such as the French brochet de mer and the Italian luccio marino.
Barracuda steaks are good when fried, and may also be prepared in other ways.
a name of Australian Aboriginal origin used both for a fine sea fish, Lates calcarifer (also known as giant sea perch), and for fish of the family Osteoglossidae (bony-tongued fish).
The former is considered to be less deserving of the name barramundi, but this is so familiar in northern Queensland that it seems likely to stay. It is a prized game fish, attaining a very large size (maximum length 1.5 m/5′), golden-brown or greenish above and silvery below, with small red eyes. Throughout its range, from the Persian Gulf to the Philippines, it is prized for its excellent flesh, and it is of major commercial importance in India. Although a marine species, it does enter fresh waters. How it came by its Anglo-Indian name ‘cock-up’ seems to be a mystery.
The latter are freshwater fish, living in slow-flowing rivers. The two Australian species are Scleropages leichardti, the spotted barramundi, and S. jardini, the northern barramundi. They have a maximum length of 90 cm (35″), the same as that of their Asian relation S. formosus. The flesh of all three is good.
(or Ceylon spinach, also called vine spinach or Malabar nightshade, Basella rubra) a climbing plant whose succulent red or green leaves are eaten like SPINACH. Widely cultivated in tropical Asia and China, and now also in Africa and the New World. It is probably a native of India, where the variety previously distinguished as B. alba, with green leaves, is the one most commonly eaten (and is what is usually meant by the name Indian spinach).
The plant, which is prolific, is commonly grown as an annual or biennial. The bright red juice from the fruits is used, especially by the Chinese, for colouring foods such as pastries and agar-agar; and is sold in powdered form for these purposes in various countries including Indonesia. The leaves are mucilaginous, and are often used in Asia as an ingredient for soup, including a Chinese ‘slippery soup’, or as a pot-herb, in stews or with other vegetables. Young leaves may be eaten as salad greens, but are preferred as cooked greens, like spinach; the green form retains its fresh green colour, whereas the red form loses much pigment to the water, and is less attractive. The leaves have a very mild flavour; while the stems, which also become mucilaginous when cooked, tend to be somewhat bitter. In general, basella leaves can be prepared in any of the ways suitable for spinach.
CHINESE SPINACH is something quite different.
an aromatic herb in the genus Ocimum of which there are several species and numerous horticultural varieties.
The best known to cooks is Ocimum basilicum, native to India, SE Asia, and NE Africa, and very commonly used in the Mediterranean countries. This is an annual plant, typically reaching a height of 60 cm (2′). O. basilicum var minimum is a small-leafed species, the most perfumed of all, called Nano verde (green dwarf) by seedsmen in Italy. O. basilicum var citriodorum is a lemon-scented basil; and O. basilicum var purpurascens is purple leafed. These varieties are sometimes listed as cultivars. Another variety of importance to Thai cooking and sold widely in the USA and Australia as ‘Thai basil’ is also called Liquorice basil and in Thailand bai horapa.
Other species are as follows:
The early reputation of basil in Europe was characterized by a remarkable capacity to inspire approval or denigration. Referring to the polemic it aroused in classical writings, Culpeper (1653) records it as ‘the herb which all authors are together by the ears about’. The potency of its associations goes some way towards explaining the suspicion with which it was sometimes regarded. These tend to be erotic or funerary and often are both: the fusion of meanings can be seen in the story by Boccaccio which later inspired Keats’s poem Isabella. In addition to this, a widespread belief that basil bred scorpions is reiterated in the old herbals.
Basil reached England from S. Europe in the 16th and N. America, up to parts of New England, in the 17th century. Since all basils, to a greater or lesser degree, are plants of warm climates, none grows freely in more northerly regions.
In the cuisines of S. and W. Europe, and their descendants in the New World, especially in the W. Indies, basil is known particularly for its affinity with the tomato, but goes well with many other partners. It is an essential ingredient of the Italian PESTO, but has many other uses.
Dried basil loses its fragrance. The herb can be preserved for a while in olive oil or honey. However, Alicia Rios (personal communication) keeps basil by layering in salt in a sealed jar, the purpose being to get a basil-perfumed salt as a base for flavouring soups and sauces rather than as a means of preserving the basil.
In Asia, the use of basil is uneven. It is a very popular herb in Iran and even has to be imported. In contrast, Julie Sahni (1980) writes:
Because of the sacred association of basil with the Hindu God Vishnu, the use of this herb in Indian cooking has been severely limited. However, in many Indian homes a delicious brew of basil leaves, shredded ginger, and honey, known as ‘Tulsi ki Chah’, is served during the winter.
Among Buddhist and Muslim peoples this special consideration does not apply, and basil of various species is freely used in most countries of SE Asia. In Thailand, ‘holy basil’ leaves are used fresh or dried in curries along with chillies to produce a characteristic hot and aromatic flavour. Lemon basil is added to vegetable curries and in Indonesia it is added to fish curries. Basil seeds swell to form a mucilaginous gel when soaked in water or other liquid. They make a sherbet drink in this manner in the Near East, Iran, and Afghanistan, and in Indonesia they are soaked in coconut milk and sugar to produce a drink called indring. In Thailand, they appear in a delicious dessert, Mang nak lam ka-ti, giving the effect of tiny black jelly-baby fish afloat in a caviar-studded sea of milk, what looks like caviar being sweet basil seeds.
or txokos, are part of a larger Basque tradition of communal cooking and eating. Today there are over 2,000 txokos around Euskadi (the Spanish Basque Country). The epicentre is Donostia (San Sebastian) where the first homely clubs sprang up in the mid- and late 19th century. Members could quaff local cider from the barrel, share a simple dish or two after work, and sing, another favourite Basque male activity. Their origin, perhaps, lay in a need to get round the restricted opening hours of the cider houses. Women have never been allowed into the kitchen nor, usually, in the clubs, except for guest visits (the women have never really challenged this). Another unspoken rule is that politics, religion, and other tricky areas of conversation are avoided at the table. The gastronomic society cooks, or tripazais, come from every social class and occupation and, since the 1970s, their cooking has risen to a very high standard. Kitchens are now fitted with professional ovens. The style is largely traditional, though originality is prized. ‘In Guipizcoa’s gastronomic societies many cooks invent new stews’, comments one tripazai, quoted in José Castillo’s book, Recetas de 200 cocineros de sociedadas vascas (1991). ‘They do more for the world than those who discover a new star.’ The recipes in this book are an excellent sampling: there are long chapters for salt cod, fresh fish from the Bay of Biscay, and game, very few puddings, and, in the meat section, a recipe for fried young donkey. The exchange of dishes in the txokos has lent new character to the region’s restaurant repertoire by bringing in recipes from rural areas and, especially, from the fishing ports and boats. (See also SPANISH REGIONAL COOKING.)
a fish name long used in Europe for the excellent fish described under SEA BASS, and widely adopted in N. America and elsewhere for naming fish related to or deemed to bear some resemblance to the European species.
One of the finest American bass is Morone saxatilis, the STRIPED BASS, or striper, which is treated separately, together with the black sea bass, Centropristes striatus, and the white perch, Morone americana, which might just as well have been called a bass but was not. See SQUETEAGUE for a species which has been called white sea bass.
Names such as Antarctic or Chilean Sea Bass have been incorrectly applied to Dissostichus spp, better called Patagonian toothfish (or ice fish).
Two freshwater game fish of N. America bear the name bass. These are Micropterus dolomieui, the smallmouth bass; and M. salmoides, the largemouth bass, fish of moderate size (the latter and larger has a maximum length of 80 cm/32″).
Channel bass is an alternative name for the red drum (see DRUM). Stone bass, Polyprion americanus, is an alternative name for the WRECKFISH.
In SE Asia, ‘bass’ occurs in the names of some members of the grouper family. Thus ‘hump-backed sea bass’ is an alternative to polka-dot grouper (see GROUPER), and ‘giant sea bass’ is the usual English name for both the huge Epinephelus lanceolatus, formerly Promicrops lanceolatus, and the even huger Stereolepis gigas (again, see GROUPER).
an operation familiar to all cooks, may have one or both of two purposes: to keep moist, and therefore tender, the surface of something being cooked; or to add more flavour, as when a piece of fish or meat has been in a marinade before being cooked, and is then basted with the marinade during the cooking process.
Where flavour is the aim, the use of herbs, e.g. a sprig of rosemary, to apply the liquid to the surface may be helpful. However, the best tool is a sort of syringe; but this seems to have been unavailable to cooks until the 20th century, spoons having been used previously.
a dish with a puzzling name which was current in the 17th and early 18th centuries in England. The name, which is often spelled ‘battalia’, is derived by the NSOED via French béatilles from the Latin beatillae, meaning small blessed objects or trifles (originally nuns’ pincushions, rosaries, and the like, but hijacked by cooks for delicious trifles of offal). Thus this pie would be one containing especially fine titbits such as cockscombs and sweetbreads. An early recipe by Robert MAY is indeed full of trifles (and a lot of poultry), as is Rabisha’s contemporary ‘battlely’ pie. Both also call them ‘bisk’ pies (see BISQUE) and John Nott (1726) gives two recipes, one for fish which incorporates battlements and towers in the pie-case (as, too, did Rabisha), which would suggest an alternative origin for the name if the correct one had not already been established. At the same time, John Evelyn recorded a beatillo pie (rather closer to the French original) and in the 1720s Eliza Smith thought hers good enough to be served as a bride pie for a wedding feast. By the middle of the 18th century, the term had largely dropped from English usage.
the lower (or sometimes the upper) jaw bone of a pig, with attached cheek, brined (and in the past also dried), cooked, and often pressed in a mould. In appearance a Bath chap is like a cone cut in half vertically; the curved upper surface being covered with light brown or orange breadcrumbs and the interior being streaky with pink lean and white fat in layers. Bath chaps are often eaten cold, a tasty dish.
The word ‘chap’ is simply a variant on ‘chop’, which in the 16th century meant the jaws and cheeks of an animal. These are probably what Mrs RAFFALD (1782) intended when she gave a recipe ‘To salt chops’ with salt, saltpetre, bay salt, and brown sugar. This called for the meat to be dried afterwards; it would probably be expected to keep for several months. Law’s Grocer’s Manual (c.1895) notes that both the upper and lower jaws were used, the lower one which was meatier and contained the tongue selling at about twice the price of the upper.
Why this English speciality has been associated with Bath is not clear, except that Bath is situated in an important bacon-curing part of England.
For a similar Italian product, see guanciale under PANCETTA.
flying mammals of the order of Chiroptera, are mentioned in the Bible among the unclean animals which the children of Israel were not supposed to eat, and this fact alone suggests that they must be edible and tempting. In fact the fruit-eating bats of India and SE Asia, and other places such as Mauritius, although taboo to the Hindus as well as the Jews, are widely eaten. They are clean animals living exclusively on fruit, and have a taste which has been compared (like so much other exotic animal fare) to that of chicken.
Newly arrived passengers at Vientiane airport in Laos are surprised to see youths waving very long poles high in the air on the short stretch of four-lane highway to the city centre. They are trying to knock down bats, to be eaten. Eaten they are, and protein they provide, but (like insects) they are often absent from official statistics about food consumption.
R. J. May (1984) gives a description of how ‘flying fox nets’ are hung across cleared flight paths by roadsides in Papua New Guinea, and explains that the flying fox is a large species of fruit-eating bat, Dobsonia moluccensis. In his view the flesh is richer than chicken and more like that of a game bird. These flying foxes are usually cooked over an open fire, so that the fur is singed off, and the skin is removed before eating.
Flying foxes are also very commonly eaten by Sulawesan Christians (but forbidden to Muslims). They tend to be curried in a rich brown RENDANG style sauce. Restaurants which serve DOG often serve flying fox also.
a commercially produced cake popular in Britain. It consists of four square lengths of SPONGE CAKE, two coloured pink and two left yellow, stuck together with apricot jam. When cut this gives a chequered cross-section. A sheet of almond paste is wrapped round the outside.
The cake appears to be of late 19th-century origin. The first record in print is 1903. Ayto (1993) states that the cake was ‘named in honour of the marriage of Princess Victoria of Hesse-Darmstadt, granddaughter of Queen Victoria to Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884’. Prince Louis later took British nationality and Anglicized his name to Mountbatten. Ayto also observes that the two-tone Battenberg cake ‘was probably designed to mimic the marbled effect of many German breads and cakes’.
is a semi-liquid preparation consisting of eggs, milk, and flour in varying proportions. Lighter batters can be made by replacing some of the milk with water or beer.
One of the main uses of batter is to coat foods which are to be deep fried, either little pieces of vegetable, fish, meat, fruit to make FRITTERS; or larger items, such as fish fillets. The texture and viscosity of the mixture is important, for it must be thick enough to adhere to the food, but not so thick that the coating becomes excessive and heavy. The batter cooks very quickly in the hot fat and forms a crisp shell around the food, preventing scorching, whilst retaining flavour and juices.
Wherever deep-frying is an important cooking method, something similar to batter will have evolved to fulfil this role, although the ingredients may differ substantially from those used in Europe. Japanese TEMPURA recipes call for various combinations of flour, egg (or egg yolk alone), and water; Chinese deep-fried recipes for wheat flour, cornflour, and water; and the Indian PAKORA, a type of vegetable fritter, uses a batter of chickpea flour and water.
In the USA, the meaning of ‘batter’ extends to some thicker mixtures such as those for cake and for spoon bread (sometimes called ‘batter bread’, see CORN BREAD).
More generally, cooked in a thin layer in the bottom of a frying pan, a batter makes PANCAKES or crêpes (see also FRAISE). Poured in a thicker layer in a large tin, and baked in the oven, it becomes YORKSHIRE PUDDING.
However, despite the fame of this last item in its savoury version, most batter puddings are sweet. One example is the French CLAFOUTIS, which contains fruit. Fruit is also an ingredient in many of the English batter puddings, of which Dorothy Hartley (1954) gives an impressive range, from medieval to modern times. Some are boiled or steamed, for example the Gotham pudding from the little town of that name in Nottingham, which incorporates slices of candied peel and, after being steamed, is to be served ‘with cowslip wine and sugar’. Another steamed batter pudding belongs to Tiverton in Devon, incorporates ginger and other spices as well as candied lemon rind, is served with butter and sugar, and ‘should be eaten at once while light and spongy’. However, many, e.g. Kentish cherry batter pudding, are baked.
Tewkesbury (or Welsh) saucer batters are small baked puddings made by quickly baking two saucerfuls of batter, putting fruit on one and inverting the other on top of it to make a lid. These ingenious snack meals, ‘ready by the time the kettle boils’ for tea, may be unique to the Tewkesbury area and other fruit-picking districts. However, their small size is echoed in small baked batter puddings made elsewhere: for example the American POPOVER, and the Austrian Pfitzkauf (‘puff up’) which is eaten as a dessert with fruit.
See also HASTY PUDDING.
or bavaroise terms which can confuse because they look alike and also because the second sometimes equals the first but can also refer to something quite different.
The dessert called bavarois (originally fromage bavarois) usually consists in an egg CUSTARD (crème anglaise in France) mixed with whipped CREAM and set with GELATIN in a mould. It first appeared in print early in the 19th century, when CARÊME gave a recipe. Although its English name is sometimes ‘Bavarian cream’ and some French authorities believe that it was brought to France by a French chef who had been working in Bavaria, the connection is not clearly established. However, the great chef ESCOFFIER, when he declared the title ‘Bavarois’ to be illogical and suggested that ‘Moscovite’ would be more appropriate, may be taken to endorse by implication the topographical derivation.
A bavarois may vary in flavouring, shape, and accompaniments. It can also vary in name, for the form bavaroise (the feminine noun crême being understood, or in some instances present) occurs; see Höfler (1996).
However, the long established and correct meaning of bavaroise is a beverage, something like a CAUDLE, which is described in detail by Favre (c.1905). It has hot tea with milk as an essential ingredient, into which is whisked a mixture of sugar and egg yolks, to be followed by some kirsch. Escoffier explains that it is to be drunk from special glasses while still frothy, and that it can be flavoured in various ways.
Favre also admits the existence of a bavaroise sauce, involving horseradish, vinegar, and crayfish butter, said to be suitable for tasteless fish. In case anyone should still think his treatment of the subject incomplete, he takes pains to demolish the erroneous idea that something called Colbert is at all like a bavarois or bavaroise. It has neither the same constituents, the same taste, nor the same qualities, he thunders. See, however, COLBERT.
from the tree Laurus nobilis, is one of the most widely used herbs in European and N. American cooking. The tree is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, but will grow much further north. It belongs to the family Lauraceae, which also includes cassia, cinnamon, sassafras, and the avocado.
The bay was the laurel with which poets and victorious warriors and athletes were crowned in classical times. In French it has kept the name laurier; and a notorious trap for translators of French recipes is to render this as ‘laurel leaves’, which in English may be taken to mean the larger leaves of Prunus laurocerasus, the cherry laurel; these can be used in minuscule quantity for flavouring custards and the like, but are harmful in larger amounts.
Bay leaves appear as a constituent of a BOUQUET GARNI, in a COURT BOUILLON, and in many forms of marinade. In N. Europe they are regularly used in fish dishes and in fish pickles or marinades. In many countries a bay leaf is added to potatoes which are to be boiled. However, their use is not confined to savoury dishes. In Britain they have often been used for flavouring custards and milk puddings.
In the north-west of the USA, the leaves of Umbellularia californica, the California bay (or California laurel, or Oregon myrtle), are used in similar ways for savoury dishes. They have a stronger flavour than European bay leaves.
‘Bay leaves’ in the Indian subcontinent are likely to be leaves of the CASSIA tree, Cinnamomum aromaticum.
In the W. Indies, the name bay leaf is used for the leaf of the ‘bay-rum tree’, Pimenta racemosa (in the family Myricaceae), whose bark and fruits are used for flavouring by cooks and whose leaf oil is an industrial food flavouring.
Prunus maritima, the best-known wild plum in America, is found along the eastern seaboard from New England to Virginia. The cherry-sized, crimson or purple fruits were among the first foods that the early colonists learnt to adopt. They make an excellent jelly; this is sometimes served with soft-shelled crabs, since the two products share the same season. They can also be used in many candies, desserts, and beverages, and to flavour meat and fish dishes.
An impressive conspectus of this fruit’s role in the kitchen is given by Elizabeth Post Mirel (1973). In what could serve as a model work on a minor fruit, she includes historical matter, observing that the first European sighting of a beach plum was by Giovanni da Verruzano in 1524, when he was exploring the coast of New York. But it was not until Humphrey Marshall (1785) wrote his scientific description of Prunus maritima that its botanical identity was established. Efforts have been made since then to cultivate the beach plum. Although cultivation remains rare, there are named cultivars in existence. This helps to preserve the identity of the beach plum, which is not always easy. The plant is highly variable in form, so much so that at one time botanists proposed two species, the high and the dwarf. Also, there are many other wild fruits which have similar characteristics; Mirel, citing Canada plums to the north, wild goose plums to the south, and Allegheny plums to the west, states helpfully that any of her recipes for beach plum can be used for ‘any wild plums you can find’.
a term loosely applied to any legume whose seeds or pods are eaten, and which is not classed separately as a PEA or LENTIL.
The nutritional and agricultural advantages of beans and other legumes are discussed under LEGUMES. See also DAL; GRAM; PULSE; and (for what is perhaps the single most famous bean dish) FUL MEDAMES.
Beans have a good reputation. The English expression ‘full of beans’ means ‘in an energetic, cheerful mood’. There is a corresponding Portuguese phrase: cheio de feijão.
Most beans familiar in the West were formerly classified in the genus Phaseolus, which is named on account of the shape of the pods it bears, to suggest a swift sailing boat; but many of these species have now been assigned to the genus Vigna.
Since the common names of beans are often confusing, the following table is provided to show what botanical species there are and what common names are usually applied to them (with headwords of other entries in bold type as usual).
Bean species in other genera are:
For bean products see: BLACK BEANS; GUM; KECAP; MISO (bean paste or sauce); NATTO; SOY SAUCE; TEMPE; TOFU (bean curd).
Coffee ‘beans’ are not beans: they are the twin stones of a fruit. Vanilla ‘beans’ or pods are the fruit of an orchid rather than a legume. Locust ‘bean’ refers to CAROB.
are produced by allowing seeds to germinate and grow for a short time to form shoots. The Chinese have been sprouting MUNG and SOYA BEANS for 3,000 years, and bean shoots, always popular in E. Asia, are now widely available elsewhere.
Sprouts of all kinds are highly nutritious. Germination breaks down some of the starch and protein in the seeds and makes them more digestible; and the green shoots contain vitamin C which was not present in the seeds. Raw sprouts contain substances which inhibit the action of the digestive enzyme trypsin and must be cooked to make their protein available. Only a little cooking is necessary, such as the Chinese method of quick stir-frying, which preserves the crunchy texture of the sprouts.
of various species, has sometimes been used for meat, the paws being particularly valued. While there are medieval European recipes, some extremely elaborate, in modern times it is most likely to be found in Korea, China, and E. Asia. In this region there is also a trade in bear’s gall for medicinal purposes. All this has had a catastrophic effect on bear populations. The Inuit sometimes hunt polar bear for its meat. Bear’s grease, the fat, was esteemed for cookery by the French settlers in the Mississippi Valley, and is said to have been preferred in New Orleans, at some time in the 19th century, to butter or hog’s lard. Hunting (permitted) and poaching of bears for sport continues in the USA, just as there are reports of official culls where the urban bear population has become a nuisance. Hence, perhaps, the availability of bear meat from internet game suppliers. Trichinosis is a hazard when eating bear: the meat should always be thoroughly cooked.
Arctostaphylos uva ursi and other species of the same genus. This is a low scrubby plant which grows wild in northern and Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and America. It provides dry, unappetizing fruits which are eaten only in times of famine, or by bears, as its botanical name doubly indicates (Arctostaphylos and uva ursi mean ‘bear’s grapes’ in Greek and Latin respectively). However, the berries of A. alpina, the alpine bearberry, which are less dry and reasonably pleasant to eat, are consumed in Lapland and parts of Russia.
is made by beating butter into a reduction of something acid (vinegar or lemon juice) with shallots and flavouring herbs (tarragon, chervil), and egg yolk, then heating the result until it begins to thicken. It is a robust sauce, often served with grilled steak or grilled fish of a substantial sort, like salmon.
McGee (1990) gives an illuminating account of the scientific aspects of preparing this sauce, and emphasizes that the ratio between egg yolks and butter, accounted sacrosanct by many authorities, can safely be varied within widely spaced limits. Flexibility, within rather narrower limits, can also be shown in the exact choice of ingredients and in the sequence of operations.
Béarnaise is a ‘mother sauce’ from which by slight modifications some other minor sauces may be devised.
James Andrew (1903–85), a commanding personality among American food writers and teachers from the 1940s until his death. His many books introduced readers to the possibility that cooking was more than a daily slog, that men might cook domestically as well as women, and that food was to be enjoyed for its innate character, not as a vehicle for unnecessary ornament or mere status.
He was born in Portland, Oregon, to an English mother who had emigrated in her youth and who kept a boarding house. His father was a customs official. He intended at first to go on the stage, but came to food as his larger ambitions apparently stumbled. In 1939, in partnership with the gourmet writer Bill Rhode (who died in 1946), he opened Hors d’Oeuvre, Inc. in New York, a shop that offered inventive canapés, take-away catering, and other foods. This gave rise to his first book, Hors d’Oeuvre and Canapés, in 1940. His second was Cooking it Outdoors in 1942. War service intervened, predominantly in catering for sailors, but on return to New York he immersed himself in the nascent food scene, appearing on television in 1946 (the first such performer in the USA), writing much for Gourmet, Woman’s Day, and House and Garden magazines, completing more books, and eventually serving a brief unhappy stint as restaurant manager on Nantucket. The early 1950s also saw him establish his cooking school in New York, with a later branch opening in Oregon, undertaking lecturing and freelance teaching, and entering into a consultancy with Restaurant Associates, a large company developing ‘theme’ restaurants, whose portfolio also included the Four Seasons in New York City.
His books were popular and, therefore, important. The comments of his biographer Robert Clark, à propos one of them (published in 1959), might stand for all: ‘[Beard] himself may have regretted that he had yet to produce a work of gastronomic belles-lettres or a classic reinterpretation of the culinary canon, but in both form and content The James Beard Cookbook was a genuine if perhaps unintended gesture toward the much greater good of furthering gastronomic democracy—if not to all Americans, at least to the middle of the middle class rather than its upper margin.’
While a supreme educator, Beard ran the risk inherent to his era, and to his trade of journalist, that stemmed from a cosy relationship with food and appliance manufacturers. Yet, unlike many of his peers both in America and abroad, his reputation did not depend on exploring and introducing the cookery of alien cultures to a domestic market, but rather on highlighting the gustatory possibilities that existed in every state and every town.
are small and round in shape, about 1 cm (0.5″) thick, with a crisp, short texture, and slightly cracked sides. A speciality of the southern states of the USA, they are an exception to the general N. American habit of using the word ‘biscuit’ to indicate a soft product similar to a British scone.
To make beaten biscuits, flour, salt, and a little lard are mixed to a stiff dough with milk and water (or whole milk, for a richer result). Then the dough is beaten with a rolling pin for half an hour or more, until it blisters. It is then rolled, cut into rounds or squares (traditionally by a cutter which presses six prongs into the centre of the biscuit as it cuts). They are baked until pale brown on the outside, but should remain white within. Bernard Clayton Jr. (1973) commented that: ‘The true mark of the beaten biscuit buff is splitting the biscuit with the tines of a fork. Never the knife or fingers.’
The first references to these southern beaten biscuits appear in the mid-19th century (Karen Hess, 1981). The method of repeatedly hitting a stiff plain dough with a wooden pin is related to the traditional bakers’ method of kneading with a brake, a wooden lever attached at one end to the wall above the kneading table. This was worked up and down by hand, or, with a larger version, by ‘riding the brake’, i.e. by sitting on it as on a see-saw whilst an assistant moved the dough back and forth beneath it. As an alternative to hand beating, a special ‘beaten biscuit machine’, consisting of two wooden or metal rollers (like a miniature clothes mangle) was devised; these are now prized antiques. The recipe and kneading show some similarity to SHIP’S BISCUITS which were intensively worked, with a brake, by trampling, or by putting the dough through rollers.
a cheese from the French Jura and Savoie regions, is the best of the French cheeses of the GRUYÈRE type. Like real Swiss Gruyère (as opposed to EMMENTAL) it has few and small holes, and a nutty flavour. Other French cheeses of this type include Comté (or Gruyère de Comté) from the Franche-Comté district, which has larger holes and a coarser, distinctive flavour. All are made in the characteristic large wheel shape, usually weighing up to 60 kg (140 lb), and occasionally as much as 130 kg (290 lb, the greatest weight of any cheese in normal production).
From Françoise Botkine (1993) we learn that:
The whey left over from Beaufort proper is used to make Sérac (from the Latin, serum, meaning whey). Sérac is a white cheese, lean and compact like Italian Ricotta. Together with Tomme, Sérac used to constitute the staple diet of the mountain people, who kept their Beaufort to sell at market, since it was their sole means of earning money.
Castor canadensis, a member of the family Castoridae. These animals have stout bodies about 1 m (40″) in length with a tail of about 30 cm (12″) characteristically broad and flat which serves variously as a rudder, propeller, and signal gun when the animal is in the water. Mature animals reach weights up to 30 kg (over 60 lb).
Beavers live in ‘colonies’, each ‘colony’ consisting of a family unit of up to 12. They are well known for their building of elaborate dams and ‘houses’ or lodges. The dams cause an overflow of river banks, forming a beaver-pond in which they construct their lodge.
A beaver’s diet is strictly vegetarian; they feed throughout the year on bark, twigs, tree buds, grass, berries, lily roots, and other aquatic plants.
Although the beaver’s industrious habits, wholesome diet, and generally meritorious lifestyle have endeared it to many human beings, the fact remains that beavers are also prized for their flesh, and are eaten.
According to Ashbrook and Sater (1945) ‘beaver meat is dark in colour, fine in texture and tender’. They go on to say that:
A beaver skinned and dressed will weigh a little more than half as much as before, that is, a fair-sized animal will dress 25–30 lbs. This should include the tail and liver, which are especial delicacies. The tail is fatty tissue, rich and palatable when cooked, and was greatly relished by early trappers and explorers. The liver is large and almost as tender and sweet as that of a chicken or goose. The body meat has rather a gamy flavor, but if properly cared for and cooked is excellent and was generally preferred by trappers to any other game, even in the early days when buffalo, elk, and deer were abundant.
The beaver is a versatile animal in the kitchen. The range of recipes for cooking it includes a pot roast, barbecued beaver, baked, fried, stewed, fricasseed, or in a meat loaf or pie. Ashbrook and Sater, on whom this list is based, also observe that many Indians smoke their meats before cooking to eliminate the gamy flavour.
the name of a sauce which plays a large part in European cuisines; not only in France, although that is where the name originated.
The question of its origins has been discussed by Sokolov (1976):
Gastronomic literature is filled with tedious pages and trifling disputes. Béchamel has inspired more than its fair share of this piffle. People will argue about whether the correct spelling should not be béchamelle; whether the Italian version, balsamella from the Romagna district, is the original of the best-known and easiest mother sauce.
In such matters prejudice will always rule, for there is no evidence one way or the other. We can only point to the appearance of sauce called béchamel during the reign of Louis XIV. And, as so often, this original sauce bore only a slight resemblance to the modern sauce. While we think of béchamel as an all-purpose white sauce made of scalded milk, roux, and flavorings, Carême made it by enriching velouté with cream.
Sokolov also dismisses as intrinsically unimportant the debates which have taken place in modern times about whether a béchamel must be made with veal or need not be.
What is common to almost all accounts of béchamel in modern times is that it is prepared with a ROUX and scalded milk, usually flavoured, and that once assembled it is cooked gently for quite some time.
See also VELOUTÉ (similar, but stock-based rather than milk-based) and WHITE SAUCE.
a tube-shaped PASTY with a SUET crust and an interior division, one end containing a savoury filling, the other a sweet filling. The clanger was thus a meal in itself, which could be taken to work and constituted a counterpart to the dual-function version of the Cornish pasty.
The Bedouin (or Beduin) were nomadic herdsmen who lived in the deserts of Arabia and N. Africa. The number of true nomads is now in decline but their food culture has survived to influence the more sedentary populations which have developed in these regions.
Bedouin existence depended on their herds and flocks. The CAMEL was the supreme possession, providing transport, milk for food and drink, meat, hair, hides, and dung for fuel. Camels were, however, a Bedouin’s wealth and prestige and would rarely be slaughtered for meat. Any camel meat usually came from the slaughter of surplus bull calves or injured or sick beasts. The camel enabled man’s penetration of the extensive desert areas, as they are capable of sustained travel in search of pasture with only intermittent water supplies. Where daily access to water could be assured, herds of GOATS and SHEEP were kept by the Bedouin, primarily for milk and meat but also for their skins which were used as water and food containers.
Bedouin hospitality rules varied but the common version required that a host was duty bound to provide at least a minimum of board and lodging for three and one-third days. After that time the guest was required to leave but was still under the host’s guardianship for a further three days. Frequently a beast would be slaughtered for the first meal to demonstrate the host’s wealth, social standing, and to uphold tribal honour. Whilst this meal was being prepared, COFFEE or some other light refreshment such as DATES and BUTTERMILK would be served and the guest would be politely questioned to extract useful information. These gatherings were strictly male affairs. If women were in the encampment they would be segregated and would prepare the meal, although slaughter and butchery were men’s work.
The main dish of boiled MUTTON or camel calf served to an honoured guest was called mansaf. It would be presented on a bed of rice or wheat and would normally be a festival dish for the Bedouin. These meals were served to the guests first. Food was generally eaten speedily. Once the guest had taken his fill he would leave the food to allow someone of lower standing to have his turn. After rinsing his hands he would retire to wait for everyone to finish, after which more coffee would be served. After all the men had eaten, any remaining food would be taken to the women and young children. A host would often abstain from eating, taking a supervisory role to ensure that the hospitality was worthy.
Routine Bedouin fare was a basic and monotonous diet of milk, bread, and DATES. Bedouin culinary requirements ranged from the need to sustain a small group travelling independently, probably with grazing flocks, to the provision for large tribal groups who might be settled in one area for several weeks. Thus bread, which was a staple, could be simply cooked in the embers of the fire by wandering herdsmen. In a tribal encampment large quantities of shirak or rukak (thin unleavened breads) would be required and would be prepared and cooked on a metal sheet over the fire. Access to fresh provisions might be close at hand in a nearby oasis or could be several days’ march away.
Small game was simply thrown on the fire to cook in its fur and was eaten in its entirety. On the other hand, a butchered beast for a feast in a large camp would be cooked in a jidda, a large stewpot, and served on rice, liberally drenched with rendered animal fat or samn (clarified butter—see GHEE). Wheat was grown in Arabia whilst rice was imported from Iraq or India.
Cooking utensils were simple and robust, appropriate to the nomadic lifestyle. The jidda, made of tinned copper, came in a variety of sizes, large sizes being required for festival meals. It was accompanied by a shallow dish, sahen, for serving food. Wooden bowls and serving dishes were also used. Much cooking was an improvised affair—three stones to make a tripod support and a search for dried plant roots in the desert sand or some dried camel dung for fuel.
Bedouin food was dominated by a number of staple items. Apart from their animal stock and milk products the staple items were dates, wheat and rice, flour, and samn.
Dates were of prime importance to survival in the desert. They were an ideal food, readily obtainable as they grew in all the oases; non-perishable, easy to consume, economical to transport, and providing excellent nutrition as a balance to the other main dietary constituents.
Milk, haleeb, from camel, goat, and sheep was consumed, although the preference was for camel’s milk. Of the three, it was drunk whole and the other two usually after the butter had been made as they were considered to be too rich. During the spring grazing, herdsmen would subsist solely on their camel’s milk.
Samn was a major product of the Bedouin herds for consumption and also as an item of commerce. The samn was prepared by churning either fresh milk or yoghurt in a skin which was inflated by blowing into it at regular intervals. The fresh butter was heated with a little flour and occasionally coriander and cumin. Once the samn had been poured off into the storage skin, the curds and flour were eaten and not wasted.
Yoghurt was drained and salted to make a sun-dried food for storage, jamid. Initially like a cheese, the drained yoghurt eventually became rock hard (see KASHK AND KISHK). It was reconstituted by pounding in a mortar and mixing with water or sieving into hot water. As a traveller’s food it could be gnawed in its natural state.
Water was a precious commodity. Throughout the deserts it was only dependably found at some waterholes and at various springs associated with oases. It was transported in a waterskin made from goat hide.
Coffee, kahwa, was the prime social drink and a marker of hospitality. The ring of coffee pestle on the mortar as the freshly roasted beans were crushed was the signal for men to gather at the coffee tent for the exchange of news and retelling of stories. Guests were received by the host who would frequently prepare the coffee himself.
Coffee was always freshly roasted in a roasting spoon, then cooled in a wooden tray before being pounded and subsequently brewed in a pot made of clay or tinned brass. It was served in small ceramic cups and was often flavoured with cardamom.
Game formed an important element of Bedouin food though it was not available on any regular basis and would at times be an item of last resort, e.g. the eating of carrion and the prohibited foods (harram, as opposed to halal, permitted foods). Small game such as jerboa and lizards could be dug out of burrows with a camel stick. Locusts were consumed, generally roasted or parched over the fire. If not consumed immediately the dried flesh could be ground up into meal and stored in a skin to be added to stews at a later date.
With food resources at a premium there was little prospect of regular meals for the Bedouin. One meal a day would be adequate and it could easily happen that there would be no real meal, a few dry dates and some camel milk sufficing.
a small nut of fine flavour, which has been gathered from beech trees, Fagus spp, and used for human food since prehistoric times. However, its main use has been for feeding animals, especially pigs. The nuts are often called beechmast, or simply ‘mast’ (a term applied also to ACORNS).
The generic name for beeches comes from a Greek word meaning ‘to eat’, indicating the importance which the nuts have had as food. However, the names in Germanic languages, Buche, Buke, etc., are all related to ‘book’. Loewenfeld (1957) speculates that this may be because runic tablets and early ‘books’ were made of beech; she notes also that the same is true of the first letters cut by Gutenberg for printing purposes.
Beech trees are large and beautiful, and belong to temperate climates. The main European species, F. sylvatica, is found throughout Europe and temperate W. Asia to the northern edge of India. F. grandifolia, the principal N. American species, is common in most of the USA and southern parts of Canada.
The small triangular nuts are borne in pairs inside a cup with four prickly brown sides. The nuts change from green to brown as they ripen; the husks open out; and the pairs of nuts are then ‘blown on windy days in thousands from their coverings to the ground, where they lie hidden among the carpet of rustling golden leaves’ (Claire Loewenfeld, 1957).
There is no doubt about the attraction of this ‘mast’ for animals. Squirrels, badgers, dormice, and larger animals such as deer are greedy for it. The value of beech woods for the purpose of feeding domesticated animals and poultry used to be very great. Howes (1948) says: ‘it is no exaggeration to state that in times gone by the value of many an old estate in Britain was estimated more by the amount of mast the woods on it produced, which of course included acorns as well as beech nuts, than on its actual area.’
In general, beech nuts have been regarded as food for humans in times of famine or scarcity. Roasting makes it possible to peel them without difficulty, and they are then rubbed and sieved to rid them of small hairs, after which they can be dried and salted and eaten whole; or ground into meal for making bread. The meal can also be used in cakes and biscuits. In N. America, Indians and white settlers alike made use of beech nuts in times past.
The oil which can be obtained from the kernels is above average in keeping quality and flavour, and has been used by rural populations in Europe both for cooking and as a salad oil.
the meat of domestic CATTLE, Bos taurus, eaten mainly in N. Europe, the Americas, and Australia. The word derives from Anglo-Norman bœuf; less desirable parts of the animal are referred to in English with the Saxon prefix ‘ox’ (OXTAIL, ox CHEEK, etc.), reflecting the social divide which existed in England after the Norman Conquest.
Beef usually comes from castrated males (steers, or bullocks), which are killed at about 18 months to 2 years, providing tender meat. Heifers not required for breeding are also used. Up to the age of 6 months, the meat of young cattle is regarded as VEAL. The consumption of veal in France and Italy, where it is most popular, runs at about a third that of beef. Cattle that are older than veal yet younger than adult beef are sometimes eaten in countries where the climate is too hot to permit hanging the meat without extensive refrigeration. In Normandy, where this type of meat is well liked, it is called bouvillon.
The quality of beef from a particular animal is partly dictated by its breed, a subject discussed under CATTLE. Fodder is also important. Grass-fed beef is considered to have the best flavour, although many cattle are intensively reared on grain. To rear cattle using grain, or pasturing them on land suitable for growing grain, is an inefficient use of food resources. Seventy per cent of grain grown in the USA goes to animal feed, yet only 60 per cent of a cow will go towards human nourishment. The world is eating more and more beef, particularly in the USA and countries influenced by its food habits. This is both cause and consequence of developments in beef husbandry. Of this, there are two major types: the extensive ranch allowing free range, herded when necessary by cowboys (first practised in Spain); and the intensive enclosed agriculture (of Britain and other northern countries) where the animals are maintained in fields, brought indoors during the winter, often fed on grain and concentrates. A hybrid system may also obtain. Increased consumption has seen both a growth in the grain-fed cattle lots of N. America, and an extension of prairie ranching into hitherto forested or marginal lands. Often the forests, for example in Brazil and Latin America, fall victim to wild grasses of African origin, changing the ecology of a region for ever. See MEAT, where many other matters relevant to beef are also discussed.
Medieval contributions to the art of beef cookery—beyond simple roasting and boiling—were the development of the PIE, and BRAISING. BEEF OLIVES originated during this time too. Broiled or grilled steaks were also popular. During the 16th century these were made into ‘carbonadoes’, see CARBONADE AND CARBONADO.
As the thick POTTAGES of medieval cookery went gradually out of fashion, they were partly replaced with ‘made dishes’ of meat in sauce: for example braises, RAGOUTS, DAUBES, and HASHES.
Beef was also treated by SALTING (this may be called ‘powdered’ beef in early English documents). Some was cured with spices and molasses, and simmered for immediate consumption; more was barrelled in brine or smoked for long keeping. Another way of dealing with beef was to souse and COLLAR it. Cheaper cuts were used for POTTING; Scottish potted HOUGH is made from shin of beef.
During the 19th century, beef acquired a position of primary importance in European haute cuisine. The coarser cuts went into the pot to provide a foundation for stock-enriched sauces, or to be cooked and boiled down for CONSOMMÉ. The OFFAL was used up in economical dishes. (In England beef suet went into the crust for English SUET PUDDINGS.) Even the bones were roasted and the BONE MARROW extracted to spread on toast. Whenever possible, a piece of beef was added to the composite boiled meat dishes of peasant and bourgeois cookery, such as the New England boiled dinner, French POT-AU-FEU, Italian BOLLITO MISTO, Spanish COCIDO (cozido in Portugal), and Romanian ciorbă (see SHORBA), which provide broth or soup for a first course, and a plain meat course to follow.
Beef carcasses are large and, except on the rare occasion of an ox-roast, are divided into smaller cuts or joints. This is a more complex task than dividing pigs and sheep, and the pattern of division varies between and within countries.
In Britain, the main cutting lines run at right angles to major muscle groups, cutting through fat deposits and bone. The most expensive and tender cuts, used primarily for roasting, or for cutting into STEAKS, come from the ribs and sirloin. An exceptionally tender piece of meat is located underneath the backbone in the region of the sirloin; if removed in one piece it is known as the ‘fillet’, and used as a superior roast or for steaks. Both sides of the rump together, with the back part of the sirloin attached, constitute a ‘baron’ of beef.
Most other cuts of beef are traditionally cooked by moist methods. Silverside, topside (the ‘round’, frequently called for in old cookery books), and brisket are left as joints; neck, chuck, shin, and flank are cut up for pies and stews.
A simplified version of the British pattern is followed in the USA, but with more emphasis on making pieces suitable for grilling (broiling). Much of the less tender meat is minced (ground) and used for dishes such as HAMBURGERS.
The French cut their beef in a different pattern, dissecting muscles to provide a higher proportion of meat for grilling and frying. For instance, a cut from the fore rib which in Britain would be used exclusively for roasting is divided by the French into the tougher muscles, which are sold for stew, and tender ones, sold as best-quality steak.
Whether the bone is left in the joint or not is a matter of taste; it conducts heat, helping the joint to cook, and contributes to flavour. On the other hand, a boned and rolled joint is easier to carve.
Bovine spongiform encephalitis, colloquially known as ‘mad cow disease’, came to light in Britain in the mid-1980s and was subsequently identified in some other European countries. Exactly how it started is a much debated question, but the former practice (discontinued in Britain in 1988) of recycling dead sheep and cattle meat as animal feed (and changes in the 1970s in the regulations governing this practice) is widely viewed as a prime factor.
Efforts to eradicate BSE had a particularly severe effect on cattle farming (millions of animals destroyed) and the meat trade in Britain. The full consequences of ‘new variant CJD’, the form it has taken when transmitted, with fatal results, to humans, are yet to be known. The disease has had widespread effects. International trade in beef has been reduced. The supervision and control of animal husbandry, to ensure traceability of animals entering the food chain and to secure safe slaughter, has much increased. At some stages, consumption of beef has lessened, usually only to recover. Various parts of the animal have been removed from human consumption, particularly the brain and spinal cord. This has changed our relationship with traditional modes of cookery, where all the animal was consumed with relish, emphasizing our preference for prime cuts. This is the more true because of new limits on the age of animals slaughtered for human consumption.
The major outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain in 2001 served to reinforce the lessons imbibed from, and habits changed by, BSE.
One side effect of this, especially in Britain, was that large amounts of cold beef had to be ‘used up’ in other dishes. Mrs BEETON devoted much space to ‘cold meat cookery’ including baked beef, a precursor to SHEPHERD’S PIE; a beef RAGOUT; broiled beef and oyster sauce; and BUBBLE AND SQUEAK. RISSOLES, HASHES, and CURRIES were other uses for leftovers. Thus evolved the English habit of serving a large roast of beef on a Sunday, and making the remains into a series of dishes for the other days of the week.
The study of food science advanced during the 19th century with the discovery of proteins, then known as albumen, in fluid extracted from meat. It was erroneously thought that meat could be ‘sealed’, allowing a crust to form on the outside early in cooking, thus preserving these precious fluids. This belief is not entirely extinct; it belongs, however, to the realm of CULINARY MYTHOLOGY. McGee (1990) writes well and in detail on this, and on 19th-century preoccupations with MEAT EXTRACTS, which affected attitudes to beef and provoked much activity in Britain in making ‘beef tea’, and in the production of items such as Oxo.
The British have earned for themselves an enviable reputation for roasting beef:
The English men understand almost better than any other people the art of properly roasting a joint, which is also not to be wondered at; because the art of cooking as practised by most Englishmen does not extend much beyond roast beef and plum pudding.
Thus wrote the Swede Per Kalm in 1748. Like many other clichés, that of the rosbif, the beef-fed Englishman with a fleshy face and high colour, contains more than a grain of truth. For centuries visitors have commented upon the excellence and quantity of beef eaten in England. They also noted the English liking for rare beef, a taste which according to Rumohr (1822) led many continental visitors to believe that it was actually raw meat which was being eaten. With the disappearance of open fires from most kitchens, what is known as ‘roast’ meat today is actually oven baked; but the principle is still based on the use of dry heat. YORKSHIRE PUDDING, gravy, roast potatoes, boiled greens, and horseradish sauce are the usual accompaniments to roast beef.
British cooks perform adequately in other areas of beef cookery, offering such specialities as Boiled beef with carrots and various pastry-based items, including STEAK AND KIDNEY PUDDINGS or pies, and several items which belong to the PASTY category: Cornish pasties and the Forfar bridie. A much grander pastry dish is Beef Wellington, an English equivalent to the French Bœuf en croûte.
French cookery is famous for slow-cooked rich stews, in which the beef may be left in one piece, or cut up. Bœuf à la bourguignonne, cooked with wine, salt pork, and garnished with mushrooms and small onions, is probably the best known. A rich beef stew is also characteristic of Flemish cooking, where it is known as carbonnade (see CARBONADE AND CARBONADO), and contains onions and beer, and is topped with a crust of mustard-flavoured bread. Italians, too, make hearty meat stews; those from the north are more likely to contain beef, such as a Lombardy stufato, a stew of beef with tomato. Further south, the Stufato alla romana is based on shin of beef.
Braised beef is popular in C. and E. Europe. For German Sauerbraten (see GERMANY), a cut suitable for pot-roasting is marinated in a mixture of wine vinegar, water, and spices for two days or so, then cooked in the marinade, and served with potato dumplings.
A famous beef dish of Russian cookery is Beef Stroganov. It consists of strips of fillet steak browned swiftly in butter, served in a sauce of shallots, wine, and soured cream. There is some disagreement over which Stroganov, Alexander Grigorievich Stroganov, who lived in the Black Sea port of Odessa, and did much entertaining, or a 19th-century diplomat, one Count Paul Stroganov, is the person honoured. Another beef dish which has become internationally popular is the Hungarian GOULASH.
Cured beef remains important. See PRESERVATION; SALTING; DRYING; also CORNED BEEF; PASTRAMI; BÜNDNERFLEISCH.
In those parts of the world where for various reasons there is no strong tradition of eating beef, there may be a slight tendency towards increased consumption caused by the general ‘internationalization’ of foods or, as in Japan, by the development of a new connoisseurship. In the area around Kobe, Japanese shimofuri (marbled beef) is raised on a diet including rice, rice bran, beans, beer, enhanced by regular massage. This is very fine and some distinctive methods for cooking it have evolved.
The entry for JAPAN explains how the country was for a very long period cut off from western influences, affecting among other things the food and cookery of Japan. It was in the middle of the 19th century and particularly at the time of the Meiji Restoration, that the situation with regard to beef began to be transformed. Previously, cattle in Japan were maintained as draught animals, and for manure and for aesthetic purposes. The orginal draught cattle of Japan consisted of what are called the Wagyu breeds, of which (and many other pertinent matters) Valerie Porter (1991) gives an excellent account. When it was possible to import foreign breeds of cattle in the latter part of the 19th century, cross-breeding began and led to the establishment of various crossbred breeds, of which the one known as ‘Japanese black’ became and remains dominant. It was in the 1850s that importation of foreign cattle and other products began to be possible, but the climactic year for this process of change was 1868 when Emperor Meiji came to power. His attitude was formally expressed in a statement which he released in 1873: ‘His Imperial Highness graciously considers the taboo [against meat] to be an unreasonable tradition.’
Ritchie (1985) gives a graphic description of this radical change. ‘The Japanese,’ he says, ‘after centuries of living with a taboo against meat eating, remained wary. It was soon seen, however, that the foreigners were both large and enterprising. Perhaps this had something to do with the diet. The Japanese, concerned to a man with the goal of “catching up with the West,” began to look at cows with new eyes.
‘An example of the new regard is a popular work of the period, Sitting around the Stew Pan, (Agura-nabe), a short book written in 1872 by Kanagaki Robun. Here patrons of a beef stew shop tell their stories, most of which have to do with the desirability of eating beef.’
the popular name in England for Yeomen of the Guard, dates back to the 17th century. It was wrongly supposed during much of the 19th century to be derived from the French word buffetier, meaning someone who attends at the sideboard. Weekley (1958) exposes the fallacy, declares that the word simply means ‘eater of beef’, and continues: ‘In the 16th century the compound had two special meanings: (1) a burly Englishman, as compared with less favoured races, (2) a pampered menial. The Yeoman of the Guard was both.’
familiar in England, originated in medieval times, when cooks would take slices of beef or veal (or mutton), spread them with a stuffing of, say, breadcrumbs, onion, and herbs, and braise them. When they call the result ‘olives’, this was a mistake; a corruption of the name of the dish, ‘aloes’ or ‘allowes’. This came from the Old French alou, meaning lark; the idea was that the small stuffed rolls looked something like small birds, especially ones which had lost their heads in being prepared for the table. In this connection it is interesting that, although the standard French word for these rolls is paupiettes, there is an alternative name, alouettes sans tête, literally ‘larks without heads’. Also, in English they are still often called ‘veal birds’. Corresponding terms in other countries are: Italy, involtini; Poland, zrazy; Czechoslovakia, ptachky; and Germany Rouladen.
(also called ox-tongue fungus) Fistulina hepatica, a large bracket fungus which grows like a shelf from the trunks of oak and chestnut trees. It is found in Europe and parts of the USA, e.g. New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and some regions of southern Africa including Swaziland. It has pores, not gills, and belongs to the group of Polypores. The pores, however, are formed by small tubes which remain distinct and independent from each other, a feature which distinguishes this species from other polypores.
The common names are explained by Badham (1863):
This fungus, which, in the earlier stages of its development, frequently resembles very closely a tongue in shape, structure, and general appearance, presents later a dark, amorphous, grumous-looking mass, bearing a still more striking likeness to liver.
The upper surface is usually sticky, or gelatinous when wet, and of a blood-red colour which darkens with age. Underneath, the flesh is mottled and veined, resembling raw meat, and exudes a juice like blood when cut.
A beefsteak fungus can grow to an enormous size. Badham remarked that he had himself picked one which measured nearly 150 cm (5′) round and weighed over 4 kg (8 lb), and that he had heard on good authority of a specimen weighing 14 kg (30 lb).
The fungus has an acid flavour, betraying the presence of tannins. This is more apparent when it is eaten raw, for example sliced into a salad, than when it is cooked. For either purpose it should first be peeled and have its pores removed, and then be sliced. The slices should be salted and put aside for a while to remove excess water and acidity. They may be fried or stewed or grilled. Badham comments on this too:
No fungus yields a richer gravy, and though rather tough, when grilled it is scarcely to be distinguished from broiled meat. … its succulency is such that it furnishes its own sauce, which a friend of ours, well versed in the science of the table, declares each time he eats it to be ‘undeniably good’.
as an alcoholic beverage has no place in this book, but it does have two claims for inclusion. One is that the early history of brewing is closely bound up with that of bread-making, as both were early and obvious ways of using CEREALS. The other is that beer is an ingredient in certain dishes.
It was in ancient Egypt and the Near East that the beer and bread connection was apparent from early times. But the same connection is found at later times elsewhere, for example in N. Europe. Studies such as some of those edited by Astri Riddervold (1988) provide details. The essential fact, of course, is that beer provided the ale-barm or YEAST that was used to raise many loaves.
As for beer as an ingredient, this is prominent in the north of France and Belgium, especially for various versions of CARBONADE, for each of which a specific beer may be required. In Britain, beer is used in curing or cooking ham and it does occur occasionally in other culinary contexts, of which Elizabeth Craig (1955) has provided details. Its uses in Germany, for example in meat cookery and certain sweet soups, are more noticeable.
for which the correct technical name is colostrum, is the milk produced by a cow, or any other mammal, immediately after giving birth: it is markedly different from normal milk and contains various substances which favour and protect the newborn animal. For cooks the important point is that it contains much more of the lactalbumin proteins than usual, so that it is thick when raw and sets to a custard when cooked.
Tradition attributes mystical curative powers to beestings, and it has often been used to make special curds and other dishes for invalids.
Isabella (1836–65),author of the most famous cookery book in the English language. Mrs Beeton does not correspond at all to the general impression which people have of her. The sheer size and scope and authoritative air of this book, Beeton’s Book of Household Management, have caused people to imagine a matronly figure, in middle age, if not older, perhaps looking somewhat like the standard image of Queen Victoria, during whose reign Mrs Beeton lived.
In fact, she was a beautiful young woman, married to a bright and enterprising young publisher, who started at the age of 21 to produce material for her husband’s English Woman’s Domestic Magazine, including the collection of vast numbers of recipes and information about how to run a household. She was only 25 years old when her work appeared in book form, and only 28 when she died (of puerperal fever, contracted after giving birth to her fourth child—and having lost the first two in infancy).
Her book, in its first edition, was a triumph of organization, common sense, and kitchen skills. Mrs Beeton had borrowed from her great predecessor Eliza ACTON the innovative method of setting out recipes in a standard way, with appropriate brevity but also with the requisite details. And she was well served by her friends and by contributors to the magazine for which she worked. Yet, whatever benefits of this nature she enjoyed, the compilation and editing of what was the greatest work on cookery and household management in the 19th century called for an extraordinary talent. This she displayed, with occasional flashes of a pretty wit, to lighten what might otherwise have seemed too didactic an approach to her readers. Didactic, of course, she had to be because the task she had set herself was to instruct both mistress and housekeeper in all aspects of housekeeping, while supplying background information on the natural history of foodstuffs (a feature in which she anticipated developments which in the main did not take place until a hundred years later) and explaining points of etiquette and wrapping up the whole package with advice on lifestyles and morals which was intended to ensure that her readers approached their tasks in the appropriate frame of mind. To do all this required an almost military approach (‘As with the commander of an army … so is it with the mistress of a house,’ she wrote) and a decisiveness which would ensure that readers were not left bemused by too many alternatives or vague instructions. After all, their days would hardly be long enough to cope with their manifold tasks, even if they completely eschewed the ‘faffing around’ which messes up the day for so many people. Mrs Beeton recommended early rising (‘one of the most essential qualities’). She noted with approval that Lord Chatham gave this advice: ‘I would have inscribed on the curtains of your bed, and the walls of your chamber, “If you do not rise early, you can make progress in nothing.” ’
However, a great book such as hers could not be based solely on such exhortations to readers, comprehensive scope, good organization, and a clear style. The something more which was necessary to make it great was that intangible quality which is hard to pin down but which radiates almost palpably from the finest cookery books, an emanation which tells the readers that the author really knows what she is about.
Given that her book merits such high praise it is all the more unfortunate that its later history was on the whole a sad one. Sam Beeton ran into financial difficulties in 1867, while seriously ill and still suffering from the shock of bereavement. He relinquished all his copyrights, including his late wife’s book, to the publishing firm Ward, Lock & Tyler. Elizabeth David (1984) has chronicled what happened thereafter. To begin with, the new publishers were content to reprint and to produce abridged volumes. However, a new and considerably changed edition came out in 1888, containing much which Mrs Beeton had not written and would not have written. In 1906 there followed a completely revised edition, with the cookery sections re-edited by a well-known chef and author, C. Herman Senn. Elizabeth David comments that, although this carried the book considerably further away from the down-to-earth approach of the original author, grafting on to it ‘refined little things in dariole moulds’ etc., such as Edwardian professional chefs delighted to produce, and adding ‘other laughable little items’ which left Mrs Beeton’s reputation vulnerable to critical scorn, the Senn edition was ‘a wonderful and beautiful book’ and was still a coherent whole.
It was at this point that references by Sam Beeton to his ‘late wife’ dropped out of the book, leaving the unwary to suppose that she might still be alive and tendering her advice; and from then on it was downhill all the way until eventually, by the 1960s, the revised book did not contain a single recipe as written by the author. Fortunately, two other publishers subsequently produced facsimile reprints of the first (1861) edition, so that those who would like to savour Isabella Beeton’s recipes and homilies directly from the original source may easily do so.
one of four useful forms of the versatile plant Beta vulgaris. The two which provide vegetables for human consumption are the red, globular roots of beetroot itself, and its leaves; and the stalks and leaves of CHARD. Mangelwurzel, treated with beetroot in this entry, is also cultivated for its edible root, but used for animal fodder. The fourth form is SUGAR BEET, whose roots are an important source of sugar.
All these cultivated forms are descended from the sea beet, B. vulgaris ssp Maritima, a wild seashore plant growing around the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe and N. Africa. This has only a small root, but its leaves and stems are sometimes eaten. Early Greek writers such as Theophrastus referred to the cultivation of this plant. By about 300 BC there were varieties with edible roots.
Red beet, known as Roman beet, and yellow-rooted varieties spread through Europe and Asia in succeeding centuries.
In Europe a yellow kind developed into fodder beet. In Germany it was known as Mangoldwurzel (beet root), which was corrupted to Mangelwurzel (root for time of need) because it would only be eaten when nothing else was available.
However, until well after medieval times, beet roots remained long and relatively thin. The first mention of a swollen root seems to have been in a botanical work of the 1550s and what is recognized as the prototype of the modern beetroot, the ‘Beta Roman’ of Daleschamp, dates back only to 1587.
In Britain the common beets were originally all light in colour. The red beet, when introduced in the 17th century, was described by Gerard (1633) with some enthusiasm (‘a most excellent and delicate sallad’). It soon found its way into the recipe books. Evelyn (1699) declared that cold slices of boiled red beetroot (such as are still familiar to everyone in Britain) made ‘a grateful winter Sallet’, while adding that it was ‘by the French and Italians contriv’d into curious figures to adorn their Sallets’. The anonymous authors of Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery (1744) gave two recipes, one for frying red beets as a garnish for carp and other fish, and the other ‘To make the Crimson Biscuit of red Beet-roots’.
The scarlet colour of beetroot is due to the combination of a purple pigment, betacyanin, and a yellow one, betaxanthin. Yellow roots have little of the former. The pigments are much more stable than most red plant colours, and are sometimes extracted and used as edible food colourings.
A cultivated beetroot may be as small as an orange or as large as a grapefruit. Although red, globular varieties are dominant, there are some with flattened tops, some with golden or even white flesh, and some which are shaped like thick carrots. Prolonged cooking makes the colour fade. When whole beetroot is boiled, the skin is left on to avoid damage to the cells and letting the colour leak out.
See BORSHCH, for what is probably the best-known beetroot dish.
the French term denoting a general class of small, light, batter-coated, deep-fried items equivalent to the English FRITTER. Besides being ubiquitous in France, beignets of this sort are prominent in various places, e.g. Quebec and New Orleans, where French is spoken and French culinary influence is strong.
‘Beignet’ also has a specific gastronomical meaning of deep-fried choux pastry, sometimes distinguished with the name beignet soufflé (because the paste puffs up considerably when cooked). These may be served sprinkled with icing sugar, or filled with jam, or with a savoury filling such as chopped ham or grated cheese. A small, round, plain one is known as a pet de nonne (‘nun’s fart’).
Choux paste is popular in many countries for making fritters. The Italians use it to make bigné, simple lemon-flavoured puffs sprinkled with sugar made for St Joseph’s Day. Spanish buñelos de viento (‘puffs of wind’) are made for various feast days, such as All Saints; they become buñelos de San Isidro when filled with custard and served during the May festival of that saint. Sonhos (‘dreams’, a Portuguese and Brazilian name) are lemon-flavoured choux beignets soaked in cinnamon-flavoured syrup.
a country fashioned in its present form in 1839, is made up of a Flemish part in the north and a Walloon (French-speaking) part in the south, plus the bilingual capital Brussels in the centre. The division is not just between languages. The scenery differs (flat in the north, mountainous in the south) and so do the pattern of employment, indices of wealth, birth rates, and—perhaps most important—personality profiles. The Walloons are generally held to be softer in outlook, more pleasure-loving, and more gastronomically inclined; whereas the much more numerous, and richer, Flemish are seen as diligent and determined go-getters. Any such generalizations are liable to many exceptions, but few would deny them a certain validity.
Given this split, is it reasonable to speak of a Belgian cuisine? In fact, the singular word does fit, if one takes into account certain national dishes, the dissemination of regional specialities from both parts across the whole country, the liking shared by both the Flemish and Walloons for certain ingredients—e.g. EEL, SHRIMP, MUSSELS, GAME, CHARCUTERIE (e.g. boudin blanc, see WHITE PUDDING), and HAM, CHICORY (which the Flemish call ‘witloof’ and the Walloons ‘chicons’) and the fine varieties of PEAR which Belgian growers in the 18th and 19th centuries did so much to develop; plus the important unifying role of the capital. In terms of culinary sophistication Brussels ranks above, say, Amsterdam and Strasbourg, Milan and Geneva. The very names of streets in the capital excite the appetite. Belgian Cuisine (Belgian Tourist Office, 1981) cites among others impasse du Potage (Soup Dead-end), rue des Harengs (Herring Street), rue des Faisans (Pheasant Street), and impasse des Groseilles (Gooseberry Dead-end).
The national dishes certainly include Moules et frites (mussels with chips, the chips being eaten with mayonnaise), skilfully cooked at hundreds of restaurants and roadside stalls and especially at places like Ostend on the North Sea coast. Another would be CARBONADE, which belongs to the south but not exclusively, witness the version cooked in beer and called Carbonnade à la flamande. Another candidate would be the famous dish of eel cooked with herbs, which has different names in north and south (Paling in’t groen and Anguilles au vert respectively). Yet another would be WATERZOOI. And one could also add two very popular dishes made with the little crevettes gris which are caught locally on the North Sea coast: Croquettes de crevettes (deep fried, usually served in pairs) and Tomates crevettes for which hollowed-out tomatoes are filled with shrimp and topped with mayonnaise.
Specialities of the Flemish-speaking north include Asperges op zijn Vlaams. This is ASPARAGUS the Flemish way (the cooked asparagus is accompanied by potatoes, boiled or braised cooked ham, hard-boiled egg, melted butter, and grated nutmeg), and Malines is its capital city. HOP SHOOTS (in their short season in early spring), are a speciality of Poperinge in Flanders but popular throughout Belgium.
For the historically minded, it is interesting to note certain traces of Spanish rule, such as what Belgians call escavèche (see ESCABECHE). Going even further back, one may savour what is supposed to be Charlemagne’s grandmother’s soup. Now known as Potage liégeois, this is a pea and bean soup, one example of the numerous and particularly good soups which Belgians enjoy. Another one associated with Liège is Soupe Tchantches, named after a mythical comic figure of Liège, who has been made into a marionette. It is a vegetable soup with the addition of fine vermicelli and milk. Truleye (from truler, to crumble) is a cold soup into which gingerbread is crumbled, but there is also a hot version made with beer, sugar, butter, and nutmeg.
Southern Belgium is a land of châteaux and fortresses, among the pastures of Hainaut in the west and the rugged hills of the Ardennes in the east. The Ardennes is noted for its famous smoked raw ham and for charcuterie and PÂTÉS in general, but perhaps even more so for its game, wild boar (sanglier, here at its very best), deer, and rabbit. It is in this region and elsewhere that one also finds one of the many excellent Belgian TARTS, such as tarte au sucre or tarte au riz. Not far away is Spa, known for the Spa biscuits which are probably the best-known product of a well-established biscuit industry (one cannot say long established, since it was only around 1900 that it began to achieve its present prominence; but of course many of its products such as speculoos—see speculaas under BANKETBAKKERIJ—are of great antiquity). Cramique (a fruit bread) and Craquelin (a sugar loaf) also deserve a special mention, as do WAFFLES (gaufres) which Belgians eat with great enthusiasm.
Passing from the dessert course to FRIANDISES, one has to note that the chocolatiers of Belgium, mostly of Greek origin (Daskalides, Léonidas, etc.) are acclaimed internationally for the unsurpassed quality of their products. These, with coffee, follow nicely after what many visitors to Belgium would consider to be one of the national desserts, namely the Dame blanche (ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate sauce).
Averrhoa bilimbi, a fruit-bearing tree, native to Malaysia, which has no English name. ‘Asam’ refers to the sourness of the fruit, which is related to the sweeter CARAMBOLA. The fruit is also distinguishable by its smooth, unridged, yellowish-green skin, looking a little like a gherkin.