(kachauri) are often described as stuffed POORI, and may also be compared with SAMOSA. They are made with a dough usually based on wheat flour, and come in two types: flat patties about 4 cm (1.5″) in diameter and 6 mm (0.25″) thick, popular for TIFFIN snacks and as travellers’ food; and thinner ones (which may be called dal poori). Shapes vary (round, crescent, etc.).
Fillings are usually savoury, but can be sweet (for example besan kachori contain a sort of chickpea fudge with finely chopped dried fruits and nuts in it). Savoury examples are matar kachori (stuffed with a spicy mixture featuring green peas and served on special occasions); aloo kachori (seasoned potato, good for travelling); and radhaballabhi kachori, popular in N. India in the cold winter months, filled with a spicy lentil mixture.
Helen Saberi
an epithet which has been used, especially in southern Africa, of certain plant foods, for which it is now preferable to use names less likely to cause offence.
The term was originally an Arabic word meaning non-believer or infidel; and in this role it could be simply descriptive or derogatory, depending at least in part on the point of view of the speaker. (The same word, spelled with one ‘f’, was used to denote certain people in NE Afghanistan who were not included in the early medieval wave of conversions to Islam; but their descendants have in the main been converted and therefore do not like being called by this name.)
In southern Africa the term came to mean what would now be called ‘black African’, sometimes applying to a particular group and sometimes in a general sense. In most contexts it now has a pejorative sense, to such an extent that its use can be actionable in S. Africa. As a term in the English language, it is therefore falling into disuse. In future there are likely to be fewer and fewer references to ‘kaffir corn’ (a kind of sorghum), ‘kaffir plum’ (Harpephyllum caffrum, a tart red fruit cultivated in S. Africa), ‘kaffir orange’ (Strychnos spinosa, also known as Natal orange, not a true orange), and the more important ‘kaffir lime’ which is described under MAKRUT LIME, the name which it now seems better to use, in line with the recommendation of Saunt (1990).
The last instance is particularly interesting because the term ‘kaffir lime’ seems to have only a very short history in the English language and may be all the easier to eradicate for that reason. Since the fruit in question is of some importance in a number of SE Asian cuisines, it is in books about them that one is most apt to find references to it. Such evidence as had been amassed in the 1990s, when the usage came under scrutiny, suggests that the first occurrence in print may have been in the early 1970s, in Thailand. But it would be a reasonable assumption that the term had its origin in southern Africa and may have reached Malaysia and Indonesia from there through the Cape Malays, and then travelled westwards to Thailand. In the language of each of these countries the fruit had its own name, and there had been little reason until very recently for it to have an English name.
an Arabic term for a ring-shaped biscuit which may be seasoned with cumin and coriander and coated with egg and sesame seeds. A Moroccan variation adds allspice and a pinch of chilli to the dough.
In the Lebanon kaʾk bil-Semsum is a thick, small PITTA bread that is dipped in sesame seeds on both sides before being baked. It is either shaped as a small round pitta bread or made into a small handbag-like loaf with a thick round handle and a flattish round body. It is eaten as a savoury snack with a sprinkling of ZAATAR on the insides. Kaʾk is also made into a sweet breakfast sandwich, the bag end of the bread being cut open and filled with knafeh (see QATAʾIF). Lebanese Christians use a version of the dough, sweetened, enriched with milk, and flavoured with MAHLAB (black cherry stone extract), aniseed, and marjoram, to make Easter biscuits, kaʾk bi Halib; these are stamped flat with a wooden die bearing a religious motif.
Helen Saberi
Diospyros kaki, a cultivated fruit of the PERSIMMON family whose wild ancestor grew in China. It has also been called ‘Japanese persimmon’ and a variety of it (cultivated in Israel) is extensively marketed as ‘sharon fruit’.
It has for long been a popular fruit in China, Japan, and Korea, and has recently ousted the American persimmon in popularity in the USA, where it is cultivated in California. Its introduction there is credited to Commodore Perry in 1856. But Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage round the world, is believed to have brought a specimen to Europe much earlier. In western countries it is often called the Chinese or Japanese or oriental persimmon.
The kaki fruit has many shapes (conical, round, flattened, or almost cubical), colours (yellow-orange to red, with a general resemblance to tomatoes), and sizes. The largest can weigh 450 g (1 lb) and measure 8 cm (3″) in diameter. The thin skin encloses an orange-coloured pulp within which there may or may not be seeds. A kaki, like other persimmons, may be sweet or highly astringent. The astringency is the result of tannins which are normally present (although not in some cultivars) when the fruit is green and hard and which may still be present when it is ripe (although fortunately they are usually absorbed, during the process of ripening, by carbohydrates with which they are associated). The content of vitamin C and of sugar varies but is generally high.
Americans regard the kaki as a fresh fruit to be eaten out of hand, or used in e.g. persimmon ice cream. In E. Asia, however, the custom has been to dry them for storage and use during the winter and early spring. Whether a kaki is eaten fresh or dried depends on whether it is sweet or astringent. Both are very common in Japan. They may be strung up to dry in the sun and wind, or sliced and laid out on rooftops to dry. When dried, the flesh has turned blackish and a fine coating of sugar, like confectioner’s sugar, has appeared on much or all of the skin. One very exotic foodstuff consists in this sugar, scraped off the surface of the dried fruits and pressed in moulds to make ornamental tablets. Such tablets could be given by couples to people who had sent them wedding presents. Also, according to an authority who is referred to as ‘S. Y. Hu’, they were ‘one of the eight comestibles offered with tea during the first course of traditional Chinese banquets’.
Dried fruits, which become flattened if suspended on a cord while drying or which may be flattened mechanically after drying, are known as pressed persimmons; these are packed in boxes in Japan, while in both China and Japan they often are stored on cords. Jane Grigson (1982), who writes with her usual charming erudition about the kaki and the Japanese (especially the great poet for persimmons, Shiki), offers her readers this charming titbit about persimmons in China:
According to one thirteenth-century play, they sold candied persimmons in the street, crying ‘supple-supple-soft, quite-quite-white, crystal-sweet, crushed flat candied persimmons from Sung-yang’.
The same author (1986, with Charlotte Knox) provides further poetic prose about the kaki from Japan, and also refers to what can be a puzzling sight for winter visitors in Piedmont, to wit:
the brown skeleton of a [persimmon] tree, all leaves fallen, hung with huge orange-red globes. A glory often set off by snow and a blue sky. At first glance it seems as if someone had put up Christmas decorations a fortnight early, and that at night they would glow in the darkness.
Dried kakis are eaten out of hand or stewed much the same way as dried apricots and prunes. In China they are a particular favourite during the New Year celebration in February. (Once the spring rains begin and atmospheric humidity increases, the surface sugar liquefies, and the dried fruits are no longer considered edible.)
Oriental relatives of the kaki include D. blancoi (formerly D. discolor), a native of the Philippines or Malaysia which has been taken to other parts of SE Asia and the W. Indies. It is sometimes cultivated. The fruit, known as ‘mabolo’ or ‘butter fruit’, is relatively large, hairy, brown or purplish-red with a white pulp, and with a sweet and pleasing flavour. There are many other relations in Asia and in Madagascar.
READING:
Brassica oleracea var acephala, is a different species from CHINESE KALE, B. oleracea var alboglabra, but the two plants have several features in common. Both are rather coarse and strongly flavoured in comparison with the more delicate CABBAGES of their respective regions; both have tough stems and are good only when young.
Kale and cabbage are varieties of the same species, and both are descended from the same wild ancestor. Kale is the more primitive of the two, and was the ordinary greenstuff of country people in most parts of Europe until the end of the Middle Ages, when the ‘headed’ cabbages were bred. In England kale was known as cole or colewort. Kale (or kail) is the Scottish name, and its continued prevalence is significant. Kale can grow in hard climates where the more delicate cabbages cannot, and still remains in common use in northern regions. There was even a ‘Kailyard school’ of Scottish writers, of whom J. M. Barrie was one. They were so called because they described Scottish rural life and a kailyard (kale field) was a typical feature of this. Indeed, the word ‘kail’ became generic for ‘dinner’ in Scotland; thus the ‘kail bells’ were those which chimed at dinner time, whether or not kail was on the menu.
Other names for kale include the Dutch boerenkool (farmer’s cabbage) and ‘collards’ (a corruption of colewort and the usual name in the USA). All derive from the Greek kaulos, meaning stem. An interesting passage in Bradley (1736) illustrates the original primacy of the word ‘cole’. He says that the Greek word ‘Brassica’ is ‘in English Cole and Colewort’, and refers to ‘the sort of Cole which makes an Head, which we call Cabbage’, and to ‘the Cole so remarkable for its Flower, which we call Cole-Flower, or more commonly Cauly-Flower’. He continues:
The Coleworts are of many Kinds, some of which have their Leaves beautifully cut and curl’d of various Colours, such as Reds of all Sorts, Purples, Yellows and Greens, and also White. I have seen a Bed of these as beautiful as ever I saw any Thing of the Garden.
One advantage which kale had over cabbage until recently was that the season of some varieties extended over the January to April period when there was no cabbage. Hence the name Hungry Gap which one variety has.
Curly-leafed kales such as Scottish kale (Scotch kale in the USA) are less coarse and rigid than the plain kinds, and it is they which are still popular as food. The others are now grown mainly for animal feed.
In the USA the principal kale-growing states are Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey.
RAPE kale belongs to two different species: Brassica napus (rape and colza); and B. rapa ssp campestris (Indian rape and Indian colza). Common names are applied in accordance with the uses to which the plants are put: rape usually for cattle feed, and colza for oil from its seed. (The name colza comes from the Dutch kool zad, meaning kale seed.)
The Tuscan variety, cavolo nero or black kale, has lately become popular beyond its homeland, perhaps because of its ease of cultivation and extreme hardiness, while remaining toothsome.
SEAKALE belongs to a different genus. Seakale beet, along with other SUGAR BEETS and CHARDS, belongs to the SPINACH family. Both resemble true kale in having thick, tough stems and in needing to be well cooked.
a highly idiosyncratic dish of HAWAII. Rachel Laudan (1996) explains that kanaka, an obsolescent term, was much used in the 19th century to mean Hawaiian, and this PUDDING, which is indisputably Hawaiian, remained popular up to or beyond the Second World War.
The tradition of eating plain biscuits, (CRACKERS, sea biscuits, or ‘pilots’ as they are called locally) is a vigorous one in Hawaii; sugar is a Hawaiian product; and canned milk has been a leading staple. These ingredients are all that is needed to make kanaka pudding, by softening the crackers in hot water and taking them with sugar or condensed milk and possibly a little butter.
Laudan comments that this is ‘one of those simple, homestyle desserts that seldom makes it into the cookbooks’. She does, however, give a recipe for Niihau pudding (named for the island of that name), which is recognizably both a form of kanaka pudding and a relation of bread and butter pudding (see BREAD PUDDINGS), and which involves soaking crackers with milk in a roasting pan, then spreading them with butter, adding raw brown sugar on top and baking all this in the oven until the sugar has melted and a crust formed.
also known as poro-poro, the fruit of an Australian shrub of the nightshade family, Solanum aviculare. The berries are shiny, elliptical, orange-red or violet when ripe, with a soft pulp and numerous seeds. They can be eaten raw or cooked, but must not be used until fully ripe.
belong to the small number of marsupial species, all unique to the ancient assemblage of countries known to scientists as Gondwana, and including South America and New Guinea. They are characterized by giving birth to very immature young which complete their growth and development attached to a nipple in the mother’s pouch.
In Australia ‘kangaroo’ is used as a generic term covering different species of kangaroo, wallaby, and wallaroo of large and medium size. All belong to the family Macropodidae and most to the genus Macropus. The distinction between species is mainly one of size, itself a function of habitat. Largest and fleetest are the red kangaroos (Macropus rufus) of the wide open plains of inland Australia. Somewhat smaller are the western and eastern grey kangaroos (M. fuliginosus and M. giganteus). The wallaroo or euro (M. robustus) and the agile wallaby (M. agilis), relatively common in northern Australia and southern New Guinea, inhabit more rugged, rocky terrains. Another widespread species is the swamp wallaby, Wallabia bicolor.
Kangaroo was (and still is) a favoured food of Aborigines. Margaret-Mary Turner-Neale (1996), of the Arrernte language group of C. Australia, has described how kangaroos are prepared and cooked:
They shoot them or spear them and then gut them. The milk guts are pulled out and a wooden skewer is used to close up the carcase. Then it’s tossed on top of a fire to singe the hair which is scraped off, and then it’s [put in a hole] and covered up with hot earth and coals to cook it. The tail and both feet are cut off before cooking. These are put in together with the rest of the carcase.
The kangaroo is chopped up so that a lot of people can eat it. The warm blood and fluids from the thighs and the hollow of the chest are drunk. Kangaroos are cut up in a special way: into the two thighs, the two hips, the two sides of ribs, the stomach, the head, the tail, the two feet, the back and the lower back. This is the way that Arrernte people everywhere cut it up.
According to R. J. May (1984), wallaby is commonly hunted in New Guinea and can sometimes be bought, lightly cooked, in Port Moresby markets. May reports that the flesh is tough and a little like rabbit in taste.
Kangaroo was also eaten by white settlers in the early colonial period, selling for sixpence a pound in Sydney in 1796 (when imported salt pork cost one shilling per pound). It was the principal source of fresh meat in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for its first years, and in the 1840s could still be readily purchased in Hobart Town. Explorers and adventurers relied on kangaroos to supplement the minimal provisions they carried, while colonists occupied in clearing land, erecting shelters, and building up livestock herds regarded them as a ready source of fresh meat.
In 19th-century Australia the kangaroo was not only hunted for food but also for sport. The choice of kangaroo as the object of the ritualized, English-style hunt may have had something to do with the exhilaration of the chase, but kangaroos were also plentiful, offered a large target, and were easy to shoot and skin. In addition, kangaroo meat had a close resemblance to familiar meats and was said to be more tasty, more palatable than that of other indigenous animals; early recipe books have more recipes for kangaroo than other game. It was usually likened to hare or venison, which may explain why the most popular kangaroo dish, the steamer, originated as a variant of the English jugged hare.
The kangaroo steamer was essentially a simple dish of kangaroo meat, minced or finely diced, plus fatty bacon, salt, and pepper. These ingredients, sometimes with a small quantity of liquid added, were placed in a pot which was covered tightly and set on or near the hearth where it simmered or ‘steamed’ for several hours, until the meat was tender. It was first recorded in 1820 and seems to have been eaten throughout most of the nineteenth century.
Kangaroo tails were invariably made into kangaroo tail soup, while steaks were often grilled over open fires. Both these dishes could be found in hotel dining rooms until about the turn of the century. With increased production of cheap mutton and beef, ‘bush foods’ disappeared from many tables, especially in the cities where people were more likely to adopt the new trend of ‘dainty dishes’. Even in rural Australia, however, kangaroos may have been less plentiful in the face of systematic destruction by pastoralists. For these landowners, kangaroos were not a source of food, as they had been to the early settlers, but were seen as competition to the production of ‘real’ food (mutton or beef) and income.
Food regulations in the 20th century made it difficult or impractical for retailers and restaurants to offer kangaroo and it virtually disappeared from Australian tables until the late 1970s. Its modern acceptance is, in part, a corollary of the environmental movement and its recognition of the damage done to fragile natural environments by the introduction of hard-hoofed animals such as sheep and cattle, but also coincides with renewed awareness of national identity and the development of interest in Australian culinary culture. Kangaroo meat is also exported to Europe, USA and Asia, with Russia the biggest market, acounting for about one-third of exports in 2004.
Kangaroo is very low in fat and cholesterol and may be cooked in similar ways to beef. It is often cured and smoked and served in salads. When grilled or roast it is best served rare, having been allowed to rest after cooking.
READING:
from Ceiba pentandra, the large kapok tree of the tropics. The young leaves, buds, fruits, and seeds are edible. They are mucilaginous and may be eaten like OKRA. The green fruits may measure 14 cm (5.5″). A variety of this tree is important in Indonesia, as Ochse (1980) explains, with a thought-provoking display of reticence at the end of his explanation.
During three fourths of the year the tree stands leafless; in that time it flowers and bears ripe fruits. These fruits furnish the celebrated wool generally known under the name of capok, which is used, besides for filling mattresses and cushions, for a great many other purposes. But on this matter I will be silent.
He goes on, however, to say that the very young fruits are eaten uncooked as ‘lablab’ (a plate of raw or lightly cooked vegetables, to be dipped in a SAMBAL before being eaten) and that the seeds are also edible. The light brown seeds from half-ripe fruits are eaten raw as a dainty. Ripe seeds are put in the ground for a week to germinate, then incorporated in ‘lablab’.
finger-shaped pastries of the Middle East, similar to MAʾAMOUL. They are traditionally served with a brilliant white cream called naatiffe (natif) which is made from the root of BOIS DE PANAMA. The karabij are dipped into this frothy cream and may then be arranged in a pyramid shape with the remaining cream poured over them.
Helen Saberi
Corynocarpus laevigata, an evergreen tree of New Zealand, bearing elliptical fruits, orange in colour when ripe, which were formerly one of the most important foods of the Maori.
Although the flesh of the fruits is palatable, with a distinctive flavour which has been compared to that of apricots or dates, and despite the presence in the kernels of a powerful alkaloid poison, it was the kernels which the Maori ate. Preparation, to make them safe, was elaborate. The whole fruits were first poured into an earth oven (see NEW ZEALAND) and steamed, then placed in a running stream, trampled on, left to soak for a considerable time, and finally dried. The recorded opinions of Europeans on their edible quality are mixed, but generally unenthusiastic.
The Maori must occasionally have failed to render the kernels safe, since they had a treatment for anyone who was poisoned. This involved binding the victim’s arms and legs straight, in anticipation of convulsions which would have left his limbs permanently distorted, gagging him, and burying him up to his neck in the ground until symptoms abated.
a Russian term which is an approximate equivalent to GROATS. It refers to a wide range of (mostly stiffish) PORRIDGE-like dishes, of which the best known are those made with BUCKWHEAT. Their versatility is explained by Lesley Chamberlain (1983): ‘The various forms of kasha give it a place at every meal of the day—sweet in the morning and before bed, savoury to accompany soup or fill pies or pad out the main meal of the day.’
The same author describes how the washed grains are cooked in salted water until the liquid is absorbed, the technique resembling that for making a RISOTTO, and that the traditional way of serving such kasha is with plenty of butter. She also mentions a way of serving it which Urbain Dubois, the famous 19th-century French chef and author who worked in Moscow for a time, devised; this involves nutmeg and Parmesan cheese. Other ways of presenting kasha include with fried chopped bacon, or fried onions, or chopped hard-boiled eggs. A version with cooked mushrooms and sour cream was called Dragomirovskaya kasha after General Dragomirov who helped defend Russia against Napoleon.
and kishk are the two most usual vocalizations of the same word current in the Middle East. As Françoise Aubaile-Sallenave (1994) puts it, at the beginning of a detailed and authoritative essay, these ‘occur in several cultural areas—Iran, Iraq, Greater Syria, Egypt, south Caucasia and Turkey—and represent very different language families: Indo-European, Semitic, Altaic, Caucasic’.
As if that were not already more than enough complexity, the word has several quite different meanings.
By origin the word kashk is Persian and it seems to have meant originally a BARLEY product. The meaning ‘barley flour’ is found in the Shahnameh, the Persian ‘Book of Kings’ by the 10th-century poet Firdausi.
Another, and more usual, meaning is ‘mixture of cracked wheat and cracked barley’ (also found in the Shahnameh).
Nowadays it is more commonly used for a Middle Eastern preserved food made from wheat and/or barley mixed with either sour milk or yoghurt. It can also mean a dish in which kashk or kishk is mixed with vegetables and/or meat; or it can mean dried yoghurt/buttermilk/curds on their own.
In the wheat-growing areas of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Armenia kishk is the name usually given to a preserved food made of yoghurt and BURGHUL. At the end of the summer, just after the harvesting of the wheat crop, burghul is made by boiling, drying, and crushing the ears of wheat into small grainlike particles. The burghul is mixed with the yoghurt and spread on to a wide tray with edges and left for several days. As the burghul soaks up the liquid it is stirred and rubbed between the palms of the hands every morning. Eventually all the liquid is absorbed and the tiny grains called kishk are spread out on to clean cloths and left to dry in the sun. A final rubbing of the grains is done just before storing which reduces the grains to a powder. This is then put into bags for storage. Anissa Helou (1994) gives a detailed description of how kishk is made in the Lebanon:
In my family, where kishk is made by hand at home, we use one portion of burghul to eight of salted yoghurt. The burghul is put into a wide crock and covered with two parts yoghurt. It is left to soak for 24 hours, during which time the rest of the yoghurt is salted and put in a cloth bag to drain its excess water. The next day the strained yoghurt is divided into three parts, one of which is mixed into the burghul/yoghurt mixture and the other two added on successive days. After all the yoghurt is included, the mixture is left for a week to ferment until it becomes quite sour. It is then spread, in small lumps, on clean cloths laid over straw mats and put out to dry in the sun. The dried lumps are then rubbed between the palms of the hand until they separate into a coarse powder. The powder is filtered through a coarse sifter and put away in canvas bags.
Kishk can be made into a hearty breakfast or soup or added to soups to thicken and add flavour. It is also added to other dishes including meat and rice dishes.
In modern Iran the word kashk does not seem to refer to grain at all; it means dried buttermilk. The buttermilk is dried in the sun and when beginning to harden is formed into small round balls. These balls can then either be stored as they are or they are crushed into a powder ready for use in winter months when milk is scarce and yoghurt cannot be made. This kashk is added to soups or stews to enrich and thicken them; it can also be reconstituted with water, making a rich sour sauce. (A similar product to this kashk is QUROOT).
See also TARHANA.
Helen Saberi
the Bulgarian and Romanian name for a hard yellow cheese made from sheep’s milk in the Balkans. Throughout that part of the world, the name recurs in many versions. It has been suggested that the origin of these names may be the Italian CACIOCAVALLO.
For a Greek cheese of this type see KEFALOTYRI.
deserves consideration separately from INDIA and PAKISTAN. Its climate and the fertility of the soil make it uniquely blessed, in the Indian subcontinent, with food resources of the sort associated with the temperate regions of the world. The activities of the British, in past times, in introducing temperate fruits and vegetables enhanced this natural wealth—besides other important beneficent influences such as that of MOGHUL CUISINE. The eastern part of Kashmir is the province of Ladakh. Here, the climate is less beneficent, conditions are harder, and the culinary parallels are altogether with Tibet rather than India or Pakistan. The Ladakhis are Buddhists. The cookery has been sympathetically described by Gabriele Reifenberg (1996).
It has been said that Kashmir is a land of MILK and HONEY, and it is true that Kashmiris enjoy both, sometimes adding to milk or yoghurt a sprinkling of SAFFRON. The quality of the saffron grown there is regarded by some experts as being equal to the best which can be had from Iran or Spain. There are many other crops which are either best of their kind or different in interesting ways from the same things grown in other parts of the world; for example, the distinctive Kashmir shallots (praan), sometimes referred to as ‘Kashmir onions’, are exceptionally good. The landscape of the rich agricultural areas exhibits several dominant themes. There are dramatic yellow fields of MUSTARD, and mustard oil is the standard cooking medium. More important, perhaps, is RICE, providing rectangles of various shades of green and gold, depending on how far the crop has progressed in each. Gita Samtani (1995) observes that: ‘It is here on the fields that salt tea is served in abundance. A special leaf is boiled together with water, milk, salt, and cooking soda until an almost pink colour permeates through the tea.’ (Here there is an echo of the qymaq chai of nearby AFGHANISTAN.)
Kashmir is famous for its lakes, their surface often covered with the pink water lilies which spring up from the rhizomes of the Asian LOTUS, often referred to as ‘lotus roots’ and prominent in Kashmiri cuisine. The lakes are also home to the famous houseboats and to the floating vegetable gardens, built up with reeds and mud to provide fertile beds for many different vegetables.
The population of Kashmir includes not only Hindus and Muslims but also Buddhists; see HINDUISM AND FOOD; MUSLIMS AND FOOD; BUDDHISM AND FOOD. Madhur Jaffrey (1985) explains that
Many of the Hindus in Kashmir are Brahmins, the high priestly class, where the men go by the title of ‘pandit’ (hence Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru). While the Brahmins of the rest of India abhor meat, Kashmiri pandits have worked out quite a different culinary tradition for themselves. They eat meat with great gusto—lamb cooked with asafetida [see ASAFOETIDA], dried ginger, fennel and lots of ground red chilles (rogan josh)—but frown upon garlic and onions. Garlic and onions, they say, encourage base passions.
(sometimes spelled castera) is the ‘Castella cake’ (bolo de Castela) of Japan. This sponge cake, usually very sweet, was introduced to Nagasaki in the 16th century by the Portuguese and is only made by specialist bakers, some of the oldest established of whom are still in Nagasaki. The ingredients are white wheat flour, eggs, and sugar. The texture resembles that of a steamed cake, the result of its being baked in a confined, closed space with coals above and beneath.
Richard Hosking
a prominent ingredient in Japanese cookery, is dried fillets of SKIPJACK flesh. These are treated by steam and then dried so thoroughly that they become as hard as wood, and indeed look like thick wooden boomerangs.
Traditionally, a special implement (like a plane set upside down on a box) is used to shave off very thin slices, usually destined for the preparation of the basic Japanese soup stock, DASHI. However, the shaving is a slow business which requires a certain expertise, so time-saving katsuobushi products are available, including ready-prepared shavings, and ‘instant’ katsuobushi granules.
the Turkish name for a product also prepared all over the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, and in India; this is a rich clotted cream, traditionally made from WATER-BUFFALO milk (and less good when made from cow’s milk and cream). The milk is brought slowly to the boil in a wide, shallow tray, then simmered over a very low heat for a couple of hours, after which the heat is turned off and the cream left to stand for several more hours. It is then chilled. A thick layer of cream will have formed which can be cut with a knife.
Ayla Algar (1991) says:
it was once so popular and widespread in Turkey that special shops were devoted to it. The most famous of these were located at Eyub, where they appear to have functioned, at least in the sixteenth century, as trysting places, with the result that a decree issued in 1573 prohibited women from frequenting them.
Kaymak is enjoyed with some pastries and desserts and used as a filling for QATAʾIF. It is often eaten with sweet preserves or honey; see AFGHANISTAN for the ways it is used there.
Thick English clotted cream (see CREAM), as made in Devon and Cornwall, is often an acceptable substitute for kaymak.
Helen Saberi
now an English culinary term usually occurring as şiş (or shish) kebab, meaning small chunks of meat grilled on a skewer. Shashlik is a term which means essentially the same as şiş kebab but belongs to the countries of the Caucasus (ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN, GEORGIA) and has also become common in RUSSIA, where many cities now have sashlychnayas (shashlik cafés). The word kebab percolated into the Balkans in the form of ćevap (diminutive ćevapčići).
The word kebab has an interesting history. In the Middle Ages the Arabic word kabab always meant fried meat. The compendious 14th-century dictionary Lisdan al-’Arab defines kabab as tabahajah, which is a dish of fried pieces of meat, usually finished with some liquid in the cooking. The exact shape of the pieces of meat is not clear. However, since there was a separate class of dish called saraih, which consisted of long and thin strips of meat, and since most modern dishes called kebab call for more or less cubical chunks, it seems likely that kabab was chunks rather than strips.
Kabab/kebab is not a common word in the early medieval Arabic books, because the Persian word tabahajah (diminutive of tabah) provided an alternative which was considered more high toned. It is because of this original meaning that one still finds dishes such as tas kebab (bowl kebab) which are really stews. In the Middle Ages the Arabic word for grilled meat was not kabab but siwa. It was only in the Turkish period that such words as shish-kebab or seekh kebab made their appearance.
However all this may be, the custom of roasting meat in small chunks on a skewer seems to be very ancient in the Near East. Part of the reason for this may have to do with the urban nature of the civilization there. In Europe the population was largely agricultural and people would butcher a farm animal and roast whole joints from it; but in the Near East they would go to a butcher’s shop and buy smaller cuts. However, a more important reason, and the basic one, was surely that fuel has long been in short supply in the Near East but used to be superabundant in Europe, as deforestation proceeded. This made it natural for Europeans to do much more baking than Arabs (or Chinese or others with a lesser wealth of fuel), and likewise to be more disposed to roast large pieces of meat.
It is often assumed that the Syrian dish kibbeh (spelled kubbah in Arabic, and so pronounced in Iraq), a meat-loaf base of pounded lamb, onions, and bulghur, is related to kabab; but this is doubtful.
The well-known kufta kebab (see also KOFTA), a sort of meatball on a skewer (usually called luleh kebab—luleh means pipe or tube—in Persian, because it is formed in a long sausage shape around the skewer), shows clearly that in Iran kabab came to have the basic meaning of meat on a skewer. (In Arabic kufta kebab is usually called by a name meaning ‘kufta on a skewer’. The Persian word kufta, incidentally, completely ousted the native Arabic word bunduq, which at one time was lively enough to have given rise to the Spanish albondiga.)
Kebabs seem to have spread through the world in step with Muslim influence. SATAY, for example, is said to have come to Indonesia via Muslim traders from India. In former Yugoslavia, the purveyors of ćevapčići are invariably Muslim Bosnians or Albanians, just as the kebabs of Afghanistan, N. India, and Pakistan are marks of Persian and Moghul influence: now consumed worldwide in Indian restaurants. The Greek souvlaki or kalamaki (often now made of un-Islamic pork), the construction of which is so economically described in Chatto and Martin (1987), are yet further evidence of the heritage of Islam. For more on the global spread of the kebab, see DONER KEBAB.
See also TIKKA.
Charles Perry
the Indonesian word (pronounced ‘ketchap’) applied to the dark brown SOY SAUCE of that country. This differs from the Chinese or Japanese kind in being made basically from SOYA BEANS and PALM SUGAR only, and in its short intense fermentation. Gentle heating for about five hours produces a sauce which is thick and viscous in consistency. Ninety per cent of soy sauce produced in Indonesia is called kecap manis; highly sweetened with palm sugar and flavoured with star anise and other combinations of herbs and spices. Kecap asin is less sweet, being made with only half as much palm sugar, and is also less dark and viscous. Asin means ‘salty’ and both these types are noticeably so.
In Java one also finds kecap ikan, a thick dark sauce, hardly distinguishable from kecap manis. The name indicates that fish flavouring (sari ikan) has been added to the kecap manis. There is another product which is also called kecap ikan. This is real FISH SAUCE in the SE Asian sense; it is produced mainly in W. Kalimantan and is not widely used in Indonesia. (Kecap ikan may also refer to a dish: fish cooked in kecap manis.)
Kecap manis is often used as a condiment for foods such as fried chicken (ayam goreng) and will be served in a small dish on the side, while kecap asin will be sprinkled on dishes of Chinese origin.
Kecap was originally produced in the home and is now largely made in cottage industries typical of Indonesia. However, large factories are now producing it and this has prompted attempts to preserve production at village level; if not in the home, then in village co-operatives. The making of kecap is laborious and requires skill, but need not involve complex technology.
The word ‘kecap’ has passed into the English language as catchup or catsup and then as KETCHUP, which now means something quite different.
an intriguing mystery. The only reference found is in Emerson (1908), but it is sufficiently intriguing to deserve quotation:
There is one custom in certain parts of Siberia that I fear will not find many advocates, especially among the young ladies of America. At their risgovorki, or social gatherings, the young ladies that attend are, of course, expected to come attired in their finest clothes and dresses, but instead of participating in any of the conversations it is expected of them that they sit along the side of the room for the purpose of ornament and show. There is, however, one palliating feature for the young ladies about these gatherings, and that is that they are given plenty of kedrouvie nuts, in order to keep their mouths busy. These nuts have a very fine flavour and are considered a great luxury, but they have one drawback, which consists of an innumerable number of small figlike seeds, which are thought to be unhealthy and consequently are not swallowed. Therefore, in order to eat the kedrouvie nut, strict attention must, of necessity, be paid to the business of the moment.
Since first writing this entry, the mystery has been solved. Kedrouvie, correctly transliterated, is kedrovye orekhi, that is ‘cedar nuts’, one of many types of pine nut readily available in Moscow shops. Facciola (1998) describes Pinus sibirica, the Siberian cedar pine: ‘The highly nutritious seeds are eaten. They contain sixty four per cent fat and are pressed commercially for the production of cooking oil. … Gathered from the wild on a large scale in Russia and cultivated in plantations near the Ural Mountains.’
a salty, hard Greek ewe’s or goat’s cheese which is used as a table cheese when young, and for cooking (e.g. in a fried cheese recipe) when more than half a year old, and which is excellent for grating when it is even more mature. The name means ‘hat’ (or head) cheese because it is roughly the same shape and size as a brimless hat. The colour is pale yellow.
originated in the Caucasian mountains and is one of the oldest known cultured milk products. It differs from other such products in that its fermentation is sustained by what are known as kefir grains. When immersed in milk, these yellowish, gelatinous granules swell and turn white, and initiate the fermenting process.
The kefir grains vary in size from something like a wheat grain to something large enough to be described (quite incorrectly, it need hardly be said) as a ‘mushroom’. In fact, they are not single organisms but conglomerations formed from the sediment which is created in kefir by the active micro-organisms. This sediment contains bits of coagulated milk protein, with live cultures of various Streptococci and Lactobacilli and a yeast described as Saccharomyces kefir, and other miscellaneous detritus. It is apt to clump; thus, when kefir is made in a skin bottle or round-bottomed container which is agitated (as by being attached to a nomad’s saddle) the sediment rolls into balls.
The grains are added to the milk and it is left overnight until a CURD has formed. The milk is then strained and the grains recovered for reuse. The kefir is best consumed when chilled and should foam and fizz like beer.
a name applied both to certain large brown SEAWEEDS and to the ash (a source of iodine and potash) obtained by burning them. The industries devoted to producing the ash were important in the 19th century, but then declined as cheaper sources for the two end products were discovered.
The species sometimes called ‘edible kelp’ is Alaria esculenta, whose long fronds (up to 3.5 m/12′) are found on cold and rocky N. Atlantic shores around the low-tide mark. Midribs have been eaten like celery or chopped into salads in N. America; and various cooked kelp dishes have been recorded from such places as Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, and Orkney.
It is in the Pacific that giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, occurs; its fronds may be as much as 25 m (say, 80′) long. Most of the commercial kelp preparations available in N. America come from this species.
In Japan itself, KONBU, Laminaria spp, is the kind of kelp which has the greatest importance as a foodstuff, being marketed in various forms and used in many important culinary preparations.
a confection of hard crystalline sugar heavily flavoured with MINT and shaped into slabs, has been made in Kendal in the English Lake District since at least the mid-19th century. It is promoted as an energy-giving food for polar explorers and mountaineers.
Laura Mason
see NORWAY LOBSTER
the Malay name of a tree, Pangium edule, which is common in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. It produces rough, brown fruits up to 15 cm (6″) long with a yellow, sweet, aromatic pulp containing several flat, oval seeds the size of large coins.
The seeds are eaten in Malaysia and Indonesia after the removal of toxic substances (hydrocyanic acid) by repeated boiling and soaking in running water. Alternatively, the use of fermentation produces a strong flavoured condiment.
Burkill (1965–6) remarks that the antiseptic properties of the glucoside in the seeds is brought into use when pounded seeds are used, in the fashion of crushed ice, to preserve fish on their way to market; this in Java.
A cooking oil is obtained from the seeds.
a deep purple-red dye used since ancient times as a food colouring. Its name is derived from the Arabic word qirmiz, which has the same meaning.
Kermes has a curious source. It is made from the dried, pulverized bodies of a scale insect, Coccus ilicis, which is a parasite on an ilex (or evergreen) oak, the kermes oak. After mating, the female insect settles on the oak and becomes attached to it, losing all her limbs, and swells into a round, featureless lump. For this reason it was long thought that the ‘grains’ which appeared on the tree were vegetable rather than animal. They are not the same as oak galls, which contain an insect larva but consist of woody vegetable matter produced by the tree itself in response to the irritation caused by the parasite.
During the Middle Ages kermes was gathered and prepared in Portugal, an old name for it being ‘grains of Portugal’. A related insect native to Poland, C. polonicus, was also harvested for ‘grains’.
Kermes was widely used as a food colouring in the medieval period, red being the favourite colour for decorated dishes. It was and still is added to a sweet, spicy alcoholic cordial, alkermes, which survives in France and Italy.
However, in the early 16th century COCHINEAL, a brighter dye made from an American scale insect, began to be imported into Europe. At first cochineal was used to adulterate kermes because it was cheaper. However, it was soon seen to be a superior product, and was sold on its own. Kermes declined in importance thereafter, but is still available.
The name of this rich milk and almond pudding, which is flavoured with rosewater, ironically means ‘beggars’ bowl’. There are many variations of the same dessert found all over Iran and the Middle East, and in Afghanistan.
Keshkul is the Persian word for an oval bowl made either of wood, metal, or coconut—or the very valuable COCO DE MER. These bowls were carried suspended by a chain from the shoulder by paupers or beggars called fuqara (the plural of faqir).
Faqirs, who called themselves ‘the paupers of God’, travelled from house to house begging for food. Donations of food (and sometimes money, although the faqir could not ask for money directly) were placed in the keshkul which would eventually be filled up with different kinds of food. Hence the name of this dessert—it is sprinkled and decorated with various blanched nuts (almond, pistachio) and coconut, symbolizing the keshkul being filled with a variety of food.
Helen Saberi
the fruit of Dovyalis hebecarpa, a small shrub native to Sri Lanka, resembles a deep purple cherry but is covered with fine hairs. It is sometimes called ‘Ceylon gooseberry’. Being quite acid, the fruit is generally used to make jams and jellies, but is also an ingredient in some meat and fish dishes. It is now cultivated in a few other tropical countries including the Philippines, and is known in Hawaii, California, and Florida.
A related African species, D. caffra, is commonly called kei apple or umkokolo. It occurs in both wild and cultivated forms in SW Africa, near the Kei River. It has been introduced to the Mediterranean region, and is grown in the Philippines as ‘umkolo’. The fruit is soft, golden yellow when ripe, bearing a resemblance to the apricot. It is similarly used for jam, as are those of several minor African species of the same genus.
a general name for a range of salty, spicy, rather liquid condiments. These belong to the cuisines of the western world, but all are descended from oriental ancestors. The word ‘ketchup’ comes from the Chinese (Amoy dialect) kêtsiap, meaning a fermented fish sauce, probably via the Malay word kechap, now spelled kecap, which means SOY SAUCE. The word was brought back to Europe by Dutch traders who also brought the oriental sauce itself. The sauce has changed far more than has the word, although the name has appeared in a large number of variations such as catchup and catsup.
Tomato ketchup is the best known and almost the only ketchup left nowadays although formerly there were many different kinds, the only common features being their salty taste, their concentrated texture, and the fact that they kept well. Although tomato ketchup contains and indeed tastes principally of sugar and vinegar, mushroom ketchup contains neither, and is nothing other than a salted mushroom extract, differing also from tomato ketchup in its liquid transparent consistency. C. Anne Wilson (1973) believes that mushroom ketchup was the first kind in Britain; people used to pickle mushrooms, intending to use the mushrooms, but then started using the pickle too, and finally took to using the pickle by itself.
Oysters, mussels, walnuts, and many other ingredients have been used to make ketchup, and could be blended with spices, garlic or onions, wines, and spirits to vary the flavour. Stobart (1980) cites from the 19th century a host of ketchups including oyster, mussel, Windermere (mushrooms and horseradish), wolfram (beer, anchovies, mushrooms), and pontac (elderberries).
READING:
is the Indian name for sweet milk puddings usually made with rice, although it can also be made with fine noodles called SEVIYAN, or SEMOLINA, CARROTS, or SAGO. It is sometimes called sheer, which means milk in Persian. It probably originated in Persia where a similar dessert is known as sheer birinj (rice pudding).
There are many variations in the flavourings which can include raisins, cardamom, cinnamon, almond, pistachio, saffron, kewra essence (see SCREWPINE), or rosewater, etc. For special occasions it is customary to decorate the chilled kheer with edible silver or GOLD LEAF. The Persian version, sheer birinj, according to Hekmat (1970), was originally the food of angels, first made in heaven when the Prophet Muhammad ascended to the 7th floor of Heaven to meet God and he was served this dish.
Helen Saberi
a popular Indian dish of rice and lentils with spices. It is the origin of the rather different dish known as kedgeree (see ANGLO-INDIAN COOKERY). In addition, as Zubaida (1994) points out in an interesting passage about the diffusion of foods and dishes, it has a further history:
A good example of imperceptible diffusion is the Cairo kushuri, an ever-popular street food, a dish of rice and lentils, often bulked up with the even cheaper macaroni, served with a garnish of fried onion and spicy sauces. I have not been able to find any satisfactory accounts of the origin of this dish in Egypt. I can only assume that it is the Indian kitchri, also made from rice and lentils and spices. And it must have reached Cairo through the British forces. Long before the hamburger and the fried chicken, colonial circulation spawned a popular staple which Cairo made its own.
a traditional Near Eastern beverage-cum-dessert, served as a digestive. It is typically made from dried fruits and nuts (e.g. apricots, prunes, raisins, almonds, pistachios) simmered with sugar and rosewater. It is served cold. A drop of aromatic oil (e.g. musk, sandalwood, rose, or ambergris) may be added.
Ingredients and nomenclature vary considerably. In Persian, the name means ‘good (khosh) (or agreeable) water (ab)’. In Egypt, khushaf is the name. In Turkey, the name komposto has come into use, marking the resemblance to the Balkan COMPOTE.
Vetiveria zizanioides, also known as vetiver and Botha grass and sometimes spelled cuscus, belongs to the family Gramineae. It is a large bushy grass found in tropical India and cultivated throughout the tropical world.
Khus-khus has been used for centuries in India as an incense or perfume, and medicinally. The roots are a source of an essential oil which makes a stimulating tonic drink or is added to sherbets and other fruit drinks. It is thought to have a cooling effect on the body. Morton (1976) observes that in the food industry it is added to canned asparagus to enhance the flavour.
Helen Saberi
a versatile paste of grain, onions, and meat that forms the basis of many dishes in LEBANON AND SYRIA, EGYPT (kobeiba), ISRAEL (cubbeh), IRAQ and extreme SW IRAN (kubba), the Persian Gulf (chabâb), and southern TURKEY (bulgur köftesi). It is known among the western Armenians as kuefta. (See also KOFTA.)
The grain is BURGHUL (bulgur wheat) in most places but often rice in Iraq, particularly in the south, where fish may replace lamb. In some places the grain predominates over or even supplants the meat. The mixture is traditionally pounded in a large mortar (jurn) carved into a block of stone several feet high with a correspondingly large pestle (mudaqqa) held vertically in both hands. The aim is to achieve a perfectly smooth mixture in which none of the ingredients may be detected. Making it by the traditional process can take several hours and in villages the sound of kibbeh being pounded can be heard throughout the afternoon.
Kibbeh is most often made into aqrâs kibbeh, which are thick patties or torpedo-shaped balls. These are always given a filling, perhaps a lump of fat but more usually a mixture of fried meat and onions, optionally flavoured with nuts and raisins. The aqrâs may be deep fried (maqliyya) or grilled (mashwiyya), and for these purposes the cook tries to form the kibbeh mixture into the thinnest possible crust around the filling, so that it becomes crisp in cooking but does not break.
Mastering this difficult skill has traditionally been one of the great tasks of a prospective bride in Lebanon and Syria.
Aqrâs kibbeh are also cooked in liquid. In Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria this is usually a yoghurt sauce (kibbeh labaniyya), but in N. Iraq and S. Turkey the liquid may be lightly salted water (for a traditional large, flat patty made in Mosul and the torpedo-shaped Armenian Harput kuefta) or a stew of meat, onions, and vegetables such as tomatoes, chickpeas, cabbage, and aubergine, made sour with lemon or bitter orange juice.
In Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, kibbeh is also baked in a round pan used for BAKLAVA, and cut into the same lozenge shapes as baklava or other geometrical designs. The cake has the same sort of filling as aqrâs kibbeh. Particularly in Aleppo, in northern Syria, balls of kibbeh may be roasted on skewers alternating with chunks of vegetables such as aubergine. The kibbeh mixture may be served raw (kibbeh nayyeh), and because this requires the highest grade of meat, completely free from sinews, it is a traditional hospitality dish for showing honour to the guest.
Kibbeh is the most characteristic dish of the eastern Arab world, but there is no evidence of it in medieval cookery writings. Possibly this is because the diluting of meat with grain made it food of the common people, not worth recording, but it may also be a dish that only originated in recent centuries. Iraqis say kubba was invented in Mosul, and this may be the case. Another Mosul and N. Iraqi speciality, ʿurûq (in the south of the country called khubz lahm), shows the same idea of combining roughly equal quantities of grain and a meat and onion mixture, in its case bread dough rather than bulgur or rice. The Iraqis also have a proverb concerning kubba: Habbâya ysawwûha kubbâya, or ‘They make a grain into a kubba’, meaning ‘to make a mountain out of a molehill’.
Charles Perry
a word derived from the French quelque chose and meaning a fancy dish, a ‘little something’. In the 16th century the term denoted an ‘elegant, dainty dish’, but later it was often used in a derogatory sense. Thus Addison, writing in the Tatler in 1709, referred to ‘That Substantial English Dish banished in so ignominious a manner, to make way for French Kick-shaws’. On the other hand, Hannah GLASSE (1747), although she professed to be generally and hotly opposed to what she called ‘French Tricks’, gave a straightforward recipe for Kickshaws; in this instance small fruit pies.
The term fell into disuse, except as a deliberate archaism, in the course of the 19th century.
which come in pairs, have a distinctive shape (rounded on one side, concave on the other) which is reflected in terms like kidney bean and kidney potato. The kidneys in animals have the task of removing waste matter from the bloodstream and excreting it as urine. This role puts some people off eating them, especially in N. America; but in most parts of the world those of cattle, sheep, and pigs are eaten with relish, especially those of a calf or lamb.
Kidneys are encased in a thick coat of creamy fat; this is generally removed before sale (although a calf’s kidney can be cooked inside its fat). Kidneys should be bought and cooked very fresh. Those of adult animals, which will be less tender and often smell of urine, need careful preparation and relatively long cooking, e.g. braising; alternatively they can be chopped or sliced small and then stir-fried, as in China. Very small kidneys, e.g. of cocks or rabbits, cook rapidly and may be of use as garnish.
Kidney soups are found in N. and W. Europe (Russia, Poland, Germany, England). Grilled kidneys used to be offered at English country-house breakfasts; and STEAK AND KIDNEY PIE is a well-known English speciality. Braised kidneys are liked in France, and kidneys grilled on skewers are popular in the Near and Middle East.
a fermented vegetable and fish relish which is one of the most important foods in KOREA. A little is eaten at every meal as an accompaniment to rice.
Most Koreans make their own kimch’i. The commercial product sold in jars is inferior. The main ingredient is usually CHINESE CABBAGE, but there are many variants based on other vegetables, e.g. the oriental radishes which are ubiquitous in E. Asia, or on CUCUMBER. Tongkimch’i, the normal cabbage-based version, differs in its composition in summer and winter according to what is available. A typical winter recipe includes, besides the cabbage: small quantities of salted fish, other vegetables such as leek, garlic, ginger, and chilli pepper ‘threads’, with many optional additions.
The minor ingredients are sandwiched between squares of cabbage leaf wilted by salting to make it more pliable. The bundles are tightly bound with string, then close packed in a jar of brine. Fermentation begins quickly and is usually complete within a few days, depending on the temperature. It is the normal lactic acid fermentation which occurs in any vegetable pickled in brine (see PICKLE).
Kimch’i keeps for some time if the jar is buried out of doors in the cold Korean winter, so it is a means of preserving vegetables for that season. When the jar is opened there is an unpleasant smell, but this soon dissipates and kimch’i itself has a pleasant if strong taste.
a name best reserved for two fish of the W. Atlantic, Menticirrhus saxatilis, the northern kingfish, and M. americanus, the southern kingfish; but the name is often used in a loose way of other species; see AMBERJACK, including yellowtail and WAHOO. These fish are closely related, within the family Sciaenidae, to the CROAKERS and DRUMS, but lack an air bladder so cannot make the noise which their cousins produce. The northern kingfish has irregular dark bars on its sides, which the other species lacks. Maximum length 40 cm (16″).
The northern kingfish is most common between Chesapeake Bay and New York; although its full range is from Florida to Cape Cod, it is only a summer visitor in the north and is largely replaced by the southern kingfish in the south.
These are excellent table fish. The white flesh has a fine texture, making it suitable for salads, and responds well to all the standard ways of cooking fish.
Genypterus capensis, a large fish of interesting appearance; it is mottled, of variable coloration, and may reach a length of 160 cm (64″).
The kingklip (called koningklip in Afrikaans) has a limited distribution along part of the S. African coast. It is described by Smith and Heemstra (1986) as ‘one of South Africa’s most sought after table fish; taken mainly by trawlers or deep line boats’. They quote earlier authors as saying: ‘as it is nowhere abundant, far more fish named “kingklip” on menus is eaten than is ever caught.’ The liver is said to be an outstanding delicacy.
Catathelasma imperialis, a large mushroom which grows on the ground in mountainous woods in western N. America and in Japan. The olive brown, sticky cap measures 15–40 cm (6–16″), and covers buff gills which extend down the stalk a short distance. The stalk bears a double ring, and bulges just below this. Texture and flavour are good, and ‘it will freeze well. Many people make pickled mushrooms from this fungus since it stays very crisp and crunchy’ (Miller and Miller, 1980).
Not to be confused with the king boletus (see under CEP).
a culinary term of the Visayan language in the Philippines, becomes kilawin or kilawen in other languages. It refers to fresh, uncooked fish briefly marinated in vinegar so that it is transformed from rawness to the very next stage while retaining translucence. It is thus fish ‘cooked in sourness’ (technically, in acetic acid) and then enhanced with such condiments as onions, ginger, and chilli.
On either side of this delicate edge between the raw and the cooked exist other variants of kinilaw: fish, crab, shrimp, or sea urchin plucked fresh from the waters, dipped in vinegar (with chilli, or chilli seeds, or onions and ginger) and eaten raw; cucumbers or crunchy young papaya dipped in vinegar; banana ‘heart’ (i.e. BANANA FLOWER) blanched slightly and dressed with vinegar; pork, beef, goat, shrimp, or fowl cooked or half-cooked in vinegar. Kinilaw may also be made with flowers, insects, and seaweed—all fresh.
Archaeological evidence has proven kinilaw to be about 1,000 years old, and therefore indigenous to the Philippine Islands. The Balangay excavation in Butuan City (carbon-dated to the period of the 10th–13th centuries AD) uncovered FIshbones cut the way they are today, in association with halves of the fruit known locally as tabon-tabon, also cut the way they are today for kinilaw. This fruit (Hydrophytune orbiculatum) is known locally as tabon-tabon and used in Mindanao both to remove the fishy, raw taste from kinilaw, and to prevent stomach upsets.
Variations on the theme are found throughout the islands. The fish may be washed in tuba (coconut toddy) before being marinated and served with tuba vinegar (fermented from the toddy). Others may add such condiments as wild onions or shallots, and ginger sliced, grated, or squeezed into juice. Chillis may be added whole, chopped, mashed, or marinated in the vinegar. Vinegar—usually made from sugar cane, coconut, or other palms such as nipa (Nypa fruticans), sugar palm (Arenga pinnata), or fishtail palm (Caryota rumphiana)—may be used as the marinade or kept separate as a dip. Lime juice may be used instead of or added to the vinegar. Sour fruit like green mango, kamias (Averrhoa bilimbi, see BELIMBING ASAM), green siniguelas (Spondias purpurea or ‘Spanish plum’—see MOMBIN), and balimbing (Averrhoa carambola, CARAMBOLA) may be added to enhance the tartness. Grated tabon-tabon or bakawan (Rhizophora sp) bark may be used to neutralize the fish taste or smell. Coconut milk may be added at the last moment to sweeten the mix, or the coconut may be toasted before squeezing, to add a different flavour. A more exotic last-minute addition is papait (bile juice or juice squeezed out of partly digested grass from the digestive tract of GOAT, or cow), a speciality of the northern Ilocos Islands.
Kinilaw is thus an island-born cuisine, predicated on food absolutely fresh, ‘cooked’ in an acid medium.
See also CEVICHE.
Doreen Fernandez
READING:
Potos flavus, an unusual animal of Latin America (S. Mexico to the Mato Grosso in Brazil) which lives in tropical forests and has a long prehensile tail which enables it to hang from the branches of trees. Its maximum weight is under 5 kg (10 lb). Its diet features fruits but also includes insects; its long tongue enables it to suck nectar from flowers as well as to catch the insects.
The kinkajou are eaten but are not an important food resource, given their small size and shy habits.
now usually a noun but formerly also a verb, meaning a method of curing HERRING (formerly also salmon) by splitting open, salting, and smoking (see SMOKING FOODS). The kipper is lightly salted, sometimes dyed, and cold smoked.
The best kippers are produced on an artisanal basis in Scotland, the Isle of Man, and a few places (such as Craster in Northumberland) in England. Those made on a larger scale may be quite acceptable, but suffer by comparison with the best and will have been treated with an artificial dye (permitted but undesirable).
The Craster or Newcastle cure was the first to appear, but mention should be made of the Manx (undyed), the Scottish (often dyed, quite salty) and the Whitby (split through the back rather than the belly, lightly salted but quite smoky in flavour). The herring season used to revolve round the British Isles in a clockwise direction, and the fish had varying degrees of fat or oil depending on the time of year. The fish caught off Northumbria were small but had good oil content. The modern decline in fish stocks and changing patterns of fishing have meant that most curers are now supplied from much further afield than was the case when these local recipes were developed (see Mason and Brown, 1999).
The kipper is a British institution and is perceived as part of what a gastronomic writer of the French sort would call ‘Britain’s culinary heritage’. However, in its present form, as applied to herring, it only dates back to the first half of the 19th century. It was in the 1840s that a Northumbrian curer, after years of experiment, launched his kippered herring on the London market. He borrowed his term from a cure applied to salmon, but how far that went back is not clear. (References to ‘kippered salmon’ are known from as early as the 15th century, but there is room for doubt in interpreting them since ‘kipper’ was a term for a spent salmon, i.e. one which had done its spawning and survived in poor, emaciated condition. It may be, as Cutting (1955) suggests, that such salmon were made more readily saleable by the kippering process, and that this was how the process got its name.)
Kippers are easily cooked, by frying or grilling (US broiling) or ‘jugging’ (see JUG).
A stir was caused in the 1990s by the publication of a French official work which seemed to suggest, while acknowledging the existence of British kippers, that a similar product made in the north of France was the original or dominant version; but the suggestion disappeared from the next printing. The incident does, however, point to the need to acknowledge here that there is such a thing as a French kipper.
sometimes spelt kissel, a Russian fruit dessert, is a type of FRUIT SOUP which has been thickened with ARROWROOT, CORNFLOUR, or POTATO flour. The dish is an ancient one, and the original thickening was obtained by a process of souring and pounding cereals. The word kisel means sour. It is still made with oats in Belorussia, where it goes under the name zhur, i.e. sour.
Any fruit may be used to make kisel, e.g. plums, gooseberries, rhubarb, raspberries, etc., but kisel is at its best when cranberries or other tart berries or currants (red, white, black) are used.
A layered fruit and milk kisel, resembling BLANCMANGE, is also sometimes made.
Kisel is similar to the Scandinavian rødgrøt and the German rote Grütze.
a word used in Britain and N. America to describe various items of sugar confectionery or kindred items. The NSOED gives, from the early 19th century, ‘a small cake or piece of confectionery; a sweet, a chocolate’. Craigie and Hulbert (1938–44), dealing with N. America, give, from 1825, ‘a term applied to different kinds of candy, as a small ball of taffy or a confection made of sugar and egg whites’.
In more recent times, the best-known use of the term in this sort of sense has been for the Hershey Kiss, a kind of milk chocolate drop, brought up to a peak. It was first marketed in 1907 (and followed by the Hershey Hug in 1993).
The word is also applied to some confections with a hard exterior and a soft filling, such as chocolate-dipped marshmallows; or two small biscuits sandwiched together with a soft icing. There are corresponding terms in other countries: thus little almond biscuits filled with fruit preserves are called bocconetti di mandorla, ‘almond kisses’, in Italy.
Malini Bisen (1981) describes various forms of the Indian sweet delicacy called ‘cool kiss’, which typically involves fruit, sugar, potato flour, and cream.
including ovens, pots and pans, the myriad culinary devices which have been employed around the world in the course of three millennia, and weights and measures for kitchen use, are topics which it would be pertinent and pleasant to explore in the present book. But no; they need, in the opinion of the present author, a separate volume, an ‘Oxford Companion to the Kitchen’.
In the meantime, reference may be made to: The Cook’s Room (1991, ed. Davidson); and The Cook’s Companion (1985, by Susan Campbell).
sometimes called African horned cucumber or jelly melon, Cucumis metuliferus, is a cucurbit whose fruit has a golden orange skin, with protuberances which give it the appearance of a small space craft. The flesh inside is of a rich green.
Generally, this fruit is more decorative than flavourful.
the national emblem of New Zealand, any one of several flightless and tail-less birds, about the size of domestic fowl, of the genus Apteryx.
For a long time now there has been no question of eating any of these rare creatures. However, an account by Charles Edward Douglas (a pioneer New Zealand explorer who wrote about birds among other things) survives (with his spelling) from the very end of the 19th century of its edibility:
As for eating a kiwi. Just before they commence breeding they are very fat and good eating. Still I must confess it requires some considerable practice to get the acquired taste. They have an earthy flavour, which to many would be disagreeable. The best definition I ever heard about roast or boiled kiwi, was a man, remarking it tasted as he should imagine a piece of pork boiled in an old coffin would be like. The egg has slightly the same flavour, but is not to be dispised. One egg makes an excellent fritter, covering an ordinary frying pan.
(or Chinese gooseberry),
Actinidia deliciosa, was first grown commercially on a large scale in New Zealand, but originated in E. Asia, where several other species of Actinidia grow wild and bear small fruits.
Seeds from the Yangtze Valley were taken to New Zealand early in the 20th century, and commercial cultivation began just before the Second World War. The fruits ripen slowly after being picked, and keep well, so there were possibilities for exporting them to Europe. The first shipment reached England in 1953. When NOUVELLE CUISINE blossomed in France and elsewhere, the kiwi fruit quickly assumed a star role as an exotic, decorative ingredient in fruit salads and in many other dishes besides; the thin slices which can be cut from it to serve as a garnish had become a cliché by the 1970s.
The fruit, which is the size of a large egg, has a thin skin, brown and hairy on the outside. Inside is a firm, green pulp containing tiny, black, edible seeds. The taste is sweet and slightly acid.
Kiwi fruit are rich in vitamin C, ten times more than the equal weight of lemons would be. They also contain an ENZYME similar to that in PAPAYA or PINEAPPLE, which has a tenderizing effect on meat.
Once kiwi fruits had become popular in Europe and N. America, growers in the south of France and California began to cultivate them. New Zealand remains the principal grower and exporter but has lost what was effectively a monopoly.
A mystery to which Jane Grigson (1982) has drawn attention is why the Chinese did not perceive the possibilities of this fruit. There is little evidence of their having shown any interest in it, except as a tonic for children or women after childbirth.
Calidris canutus, a bird which appears in English recipe books of the 17th and 18th centuries but which was already losing its position in the markets by the beginning of the 19th century and has since dropped out of sight almost entirely as a table bird. The knot is also called red sandpiper or, when in its winter plumage, ‘grey plover’. It appears on British coasts at the end of the summer and in the autumn, but has its breeding grounds in the Arctic. The same applies to a few other sandpipers, which are smaller than the knot (whose average total length is 25 cm/10″).
If a knot is prepared for the table, this can be done in any way suitable for a SNIPE.
or knotgrass a name referring to the knotted roots of plants of the genus Polygonum, including BISTORT and SMARTWEED, and Fallopia, but with special reference to Japanese knotweed, Fallopia japonica, an edible oriental herb which has been introduced to N. America; and Fallopia sachalinensis, giant Japanese knotweed, also edible.
Japanese knotweed is a vigorous plant which has made itself at home throughout the USA where its jointed, hollow stems (like bamboo, hence another name sometimes used, flowering bamboo) reach a height of 2 metres (7′). Gibbons (1962) indicated many uses for it. The young shoots make a pleasant vegetable, whose acidity can be tempered by the addition of a little sugar in the cooking. Or, they can be steamed and made into a purée, which can in turn serve as the basis of a sweetened cold soup. The mature stems, peeled, can be treated like rhubarb; and it is even possible to make a jam or pie from them.
(kocho chang, kochuzang) a fermented hot pepper and soya bean sauce or paste, a product of Korea which has some resemblance to chilli pepper sauces of the Caribbean region. It is used to add flavour to savoury dishes.
Besides SOYA BEANS and CHILLI peppers, both fermented and ground, and salt the brew may include ground glutinous rice, JUJUBE flour, dried beef, SOY SAUCE, etc. Production, including time for maturing, is a lengthy process.
is the common English form of a term which has currency all the way from India through C. Asia to the Middle East, the Balkans, and N. Africa. It refers throughout its range to RISSOLES, MEATBALLS, CROQUETTES, DUMPLINGS, and so on, usually made of ground or mashed meat, well kneaded and often mixed with other ingredients such as rice, BURGHUL (bulgur wheat), or vegetables and spices to form a smooth paste. They are sometimes made, e.g. in India, with fish or just vegetables rather than meat.
Kofta often have a spicy stuffing, typically of nuts, cheese, or eggs. They can be cooked in numerous ways: grilled or barbecued; fried; steamed or poached, very often in a rich sauce.
Margaret Shaida (1992) says that the word kofta is derived from the Persian koofteh, meaning pounded meat; and that the first evidence of Persian meatballs appeared in one of the early Arabic cookery books. They then consisted of finely minced, well-seasoned lamb, made into orange-sized balls, which were cooked and glazed in saffron and egg yolk three times. This method was later adopted in the West under the name of gilding or endoring.
In Iran there are again numerous variations on the preparation of koofteh. Perhaps the most famous and well known are the koofteh Tabrizi. According to Shaida they are the largest dumplings in the world with an average size of 20 cm (8″) diameter but they are often much larger and she goes on to say:
These enormous dumplings are the pride of housewives from Tabriz and the whole north-western province of Azarbaijan.
Previously, considerable strength and stamina were required to pound the ingredients together into an adhesive mixture. One lady from Tabriz told me to knead the mixture until my arms fell out. The other great joy of a Persian meat dumpling is the treasure hidden in its centre. In the case of a Tabriz meat dumpling, boiled eggs and fried onions, or prunes and walnuts are inserted into the centre of the dumpling. Occasionally … a whole chicken, itself stuffed with dried fruits and nuts, is concealed in its depths. Such inner delights elevate the Persian dumpling to a rare height of sophistication.
From Persia the kofta migrated to India with the Moghul emperors, and so did the hidden treasure version. On special occasions at the Moghul court nargisi kofta (narcissus meatballs) were served. The mixture of spiced meat is wrapped round hard-boiled eggs before being cooked. When served, they are cut open, and their yellow and white centres remind people of the narcissus flowers which bloom in the hills in the spring time. Here may be the origin of SCOTCH EGGS.
Many other countries, from the Mediterranean to C. Asia, have their own variations of kofta. The word can also be spelled in a number of ways: kefta (Morocco), kyutfte (Bulgaria), qofte (Albania), kefte (Greece, plural keftethes), kufte (Armenia), köfte (Turkey), and kofta (Afghanistan and India).
Helen Saberi
Brassica oleracea (Gongylodes group), a bizarre form of the common CABBAGE in which the base of the stem swells into a globe the size of an orange while the leaves remain comparatively slight. The globe, which forms just above the surface of the soil, is the part of the plant of most interest to the cook. When young, this has the texture of a good turnip and a flavour which has elements of both turnip and cauliflower. However, the stems which spring from the globe, and their leaves, are also palatable and resemble cabbage.
The plant is a biennial; and there are two principal varieties, white and purple. The origins of kohlrabi are as mysterious as its shape. In the 1st century AD Pliny the Elder mentioned a ‘Corinthian turnip’ which grew above the ground, but gave no further useful facts about it. The first reliable evidence shows it to have been grown in France in the 14th century. It is now popular in Germany and C. Europe (also to some extent in Israel, India, China, and SE Asia), but less so in Britain, where it is still a curiosity or used for animal feed. The name comes from a mistaken belief that it is a cross between cabbage or kale (German Kohl) and turnip (species name rapa). Its curious Latin variety name gongylodes refers to a type of small red turnip resembling the purple kohlrabi and common in C. Asia, where its Kashmiri name is gongolou.
Lesley Chamberlain (1989) remarks on the popularity of kohlrabi as a root vegetable in C. Europe, emphasizes that ‘its flavour … is only fully released when it is as tender as soft fruit, so there is no merit in undercooking it’—or in eating it grated and raw in a salad, as some do.
the Japanese name for a product which consists of steamed cereal (usually rice) or legumes, fermented for several days, to provide a starter for preparing other fermented products, including SOY SAUCE, MISO, and SAKÉ. A flat yellowish-green cake in appearance, it is not edible itself but is rich in the enzymes needed for making these edible end products. The mould Aspergillus oryzae is the most prominent of the fermenting agents which produce koji, but many others may be involved, depending on the precise results to be achieved.
Koji is said to have originated in China and appears there and in Korea under various names; but it is generally known by its Japanese name because of the extensive uses to which it is put by the Japanese. Different kinds of koji are distinguished by epithets indicating a particular end product, or colour, or substrate: thus soy sauce koji, red or black koji, barley koji.
Garcinia indica, a tree of the Asian tropics which produces round, purple fruits the size of a small orange. These have a variety of uses, the best known being the production of ‘kokam butter’, extracted from the kernels, in SW India. The description of this by Watt (1889–96) is not enticing. ‘Kokam butter, as found in the bazaars of India, consists of egg-shaped or concavo-convex cakes of a dirty white or yellowish colour, friable, crystalline, and with a greasy feel like spermaceti.’ He adds, however, that the product, when fresh, has a smell which is ‘not unpleasant’, and melts in the mouth like butter, leaving a sensation of cold on the tongue.
The fruits themselves have also been eaten in SW India as a semi-medicinal food. They are acid, and considered by some to be better than tamarind for the preparation of acidulous drinks. Joe Roberts (personal communication, 1990) says that a refreshing syrup is made from the juice for a fairly common drink in S. India; that the acidic flavour enhances certain curries and DALS; and that in Kerala kokam is used in fish cookery and is called ‘fish tamarind’. In curry recipes tamarind and kokam may be used together.
Ranina serrata, the most delicious crab of Hawaiian waters according to Hosaka (1973), lives in sandy holes among the coral, a short distance offshore.
(often given as kombu), the Japanese name for many of a large and important group of brown SEAWEEDS, mostly in the genus Laminaria. In terms of annual production this is the second largest group in Japan, outranked only by WAKAME. Among the most prominent species of konbu are:
Konbu requires cold water and grows off the coasts of northern Japan, especially Hokkaido, where rausu konbu, for making dashi, and rishiri konbu, for general use, are cultivated and harvested in vast quantities at the end of summer. The konbu is dried and cut into lengths of 1 m or more for sale. Specialist shops sell it in such lengths, but others have to sell it in smaller pieces or folded up. This information is given by Hosking (1996), who also observes that:
The importance of this seaweed in Japanese food can scarcely be overestimated. It is essential for making dashi stock and is used in innumerable other ways in cooking.
It is, incidentally, rich in MSG (see MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE). Konbucha is a tea made from powdered konbu and drunk in Japan.
Closely related species in the Atlantic may be referred to as oarweed or more loosely as kelp or wrack (sugar wrack in the case of the fourth of those listed above).
also known as devil’s tongue jelly, a food extracted from the starchy root/corm of Amorphophallus rivieri (formerly A. konjac), an Asian plant known as konjac. Konnyaku is a perennial plant of the arum family, said to be indigenous to India and Ceylon. In its native countries and also in China it has been grown since ancient times. It was first brought to Japan by way of Korea during the Nara period (710–94) as a medicinal plant. Its cultivation as a food plant started about 400 years ago in Ibaragi prefecture in C. Japan.
This is an important ingredient in Japan. The root/corm itself is never seen in the markets, not for reasons of propriety (the generic name means ‘shapeless phallus’, a horrifying concept) but because considerable processing is needed to turn it into anything edible.
Corms of konnyaku are first ground roughly and then made into refined flour. When mixed with water, it turns into a paste because of its main constituent, a polysaccharide called mannan. It is then solidified by adding limewater. It can then be moulded, cut into squares, boiled to remove the alkaline smell, and drained in baskets. The finished product is brown or grey in colour, dense and gelatinous in texture, and neutral in flavour. Fresh cakes are sold from tubs of water, and may be unrefined (dark) or refined (light).
The same foodstuff is sold in filament form. In thin filaments called by the poetical name shirataki (white waterfall) it is an indispensable ingredient for sukiyaki (see JAPANESE CULINARY TERMS). Thicker filaments are known as ito konnyaku (string konnyaku). Shirataki are sold in cans or refrigerated plastic tubs, and are believed to have a healthy cleansing effect on the intestines.
In any form, konnyaku is parboiled before use.
Konnyaku is generally treated like a vegetable (though there is a kind which is eaten uncooked, as SASHIMI). In itself konnyaku has little flavour, but is liked for its firm, jelly-like texture and for its ability to absorb the flavours of things it is cooked with. Two of the most typical dishes using konnyaku are: nikomi oden (vegetables, FISH PASTE, TOFU, konnyaku cooked together in DASHI, SOY SAUCE, and MIRIN) and miso oden (boiled konnyaku served with sweetened MISO).
A. variabilis, a close relation, is also used for the production of konnyaku. For another relation, see SURAM.
a country with a long history, a rich culture, an ancient court, and an elaborate system of etiquette. Korean food is hearty, boldly flavoured, and highly nutritious.
The Koreans like to say that they are descended from a single race, and, indeed, they are primarily Mongolian, slightly more stocky than the N. Chinese, but taller than the Japanese. Around the time of Christ, there were three kingdoms in ancient Korea, Koguryo to the north, Paekche and Silla in the south. These kingdoms were culturally advanced and boasted royal courts, nobility, class systems, and centralized governments. It was around this time also that Buddhism was introduced to the area, becoming the preserve of royalty, while Confucianism flourished among the minor aristocracy. With the aid of the Chinese, Silla conquered the other two kingdoms and established a unified country with elaborate palaces and imposing monuments.
In later centuries, despite incursions from the north and the west, hostility from Japan, and some intrusive activity by Europeans, the Koreans maintained their autonomy. They lost it in 1910, when the country was annexed by Japan, but regained it after the Second World War.
The political division of the country into N. and S. Korea, which began with the Korean War of the 1950s, corresponds to a large extent with geographical and climatic factors. The mountainous north produces less food than the fertile and warm plains of the south.
Various things can be held to be prerequisites for the formation of a distinctive cuisine: the structure of a social system, to provide special occasions for the development of special foods; a long and prosperous court life (or the equivalent), to evolve refinements in the cuisine; and the establishment of a solid religion, to provide rituals and occasions for festivals and feasts. Korea has had all these. Its cuisine developed into two distinct types of cooking: the home cooking of the common people, developed within the traditional family and as the province of the housewife, and the complex and elegant cuisine of the royal courts, using a wider variety of seasonings and spices, more intricate cooking methods, and elegant presentation of food.
Throughout Korea, the main meal of the day is still breakfast, which evolved to fortify the men before a hard day’s work. Lunch, even in the royal courts, was, and still is, a light meal: noodles or rice, mixed with red beans, nuts, and seeds for protein. Dinner in the courts and homes of the wealthy families was an elaborate affair of nine to twelve dishes accompanying a central bowl of rice. Everyday dinner in the home usually consists of between three and seven dishes, depending on the size of the family. Special occasions, such as the celebration of a wedding or a 61st birthday (any birthday after 60 is considered as a victory over death), or a birth or memorial anniversary, will all have their appropriate foods and table arrangements.
Koreans have always believed that good health is maintained by sensible eating and a good nutritional balance. They also follow the oriental rule of Five Flavours: salt, sweet, sour, hot, bitter. Salt, soy sauce, and salty bean paste provide the first; beet sugar, honey, and sweet potatoes are used to sweeten food; chilli peppers and mustard provide heat; vinegars are used as souring agents; and ginger is regarded as a bitter flavour. In addition to the Five Flavours, the Koreans also try to follow an arrangement of five traditional colours: red, green, yellow, white, black. The last does not easily occur in nature, but such foodstuffs as dried cloud-ear mushrooms (see WOOD EAR) provide a semblance. Seaweed is not widely used in the cuisine, as it is in Japan.
The predominant elements characteristic of the cuisine are garlic, green (spring) onions, sesame seeds (toasted and used whole or ground), ginger, dried red chilli peppers. Ground cinnamon, hot mustard, and black pepper are also used. Meats and other foods are often marinated in mixtures of chopped green onions, sesame seeds, and oil, vinegar, and soy sauce before being cooked. Dips and combinations of condiments for sauces, such as hot bean paste, vinegar, and soy, accompany such dishes as barbecued or broiled (grilled) meats, deep-fried vegetables, etc. Dishes are often garnished with eggs, cooked into a thin omelette and then rolled, before being sliced into strips.
Beef is the most commonly used meat, in soups, barbecues, and hotpots. Offal (variety meats), such as tongue, heart, liver, and tripe, is also included in many dishes such as soups and stews. For their liking for DOG meat, see the relevant entry. KIMCH’I, pickled vegetables, accompany most meals. These pickles compensate for the scarcity of fresh vegetables during the long winters, but summer pickles are also popular.
Korean meals are eaten from bowls. Rice and soup demand spoons. Chopsticks are used only to take portions from the serving dishes. The meals are presented on dinner trays, rather in the manner of the Indians or the Thai. Small trays are used for one or two people; a large, round tray, called a kae-ryang sang, is used for a crowd.
Firepots, the bronze or brass utensils with a bowl surrounding a central chimney that houses charcoal to cook the food or keep it warm, are used for special dishes and for some soups. The Mongolian barbecue, where various ingredients are diced into small pieces and then stir-fried on a convex iron griddle shaped rather like a Mongolian helmet, is rather a hybrid and, because of its association with an ancient enemy, is not a common item in Korea, although many Korean restaurants outside the country do feature it.
Jim Bauman
a polymorphic cookery term of the Near East and W. Asia, which also appears as qawurma/awurma, qawarma, ghourma, qrma, qorma, etc., all of which forms are variations on the Turkish qawurmah (sometimes written kavurma, from the verb meaning to fry).
In Turkey, the term has two meanings: fried slices of meat; and meat conserved in fat and salt. In other parts of the Middle East the word has this second meaning (see QAWARMA). In Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon there are various dishes cooked from this conserved meat and called qawurma. In Iran, although this meaning is known, the derived word ghourma has come to mean primarily ghourma sabzi—meat and herbs braised in butter or GHEE with dried limes and some kind of bean.
The home territory of the korma family is an arc stretching from the Middle East through Afghanistan to N. India. In Pakistan and India, the term refers to a dish in the category of BRAISE (i.e. a dish in which the main ingredient is cooked slowly with a minimum of added liquid) or of STEW (a dish in which the main ingredient is cooked slowly in a relatively large amount of liquid). In the latter case it would normally be the sort of stew which finishes up with a thick rather than thin sauce.
Korma (qorma) in Afghanistan may be made either as a braise or as a stew; and it was probably from this pivotal region that the dish gradually spread to N. India with the Moghul conquerors (see MOGHUL CUISINE). Indians often enrich their kormas with nuts, yoghurt or cream, and butter.
or kumiss a drink of some, but varying, alcoholic content, prepared by fermenting mare’s milk. Its existence in an only slightly alcoholic form and its value as a ‘food’ combine to justify its inclusion in the present volume.
Koumiss is still a popular drink in C. Asian countries such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and in Mongolia, where it is known as ayrag. It probably originated with the Turkic nomadic tribes who wandered throughout the steppes of C. Asia and China in ancient times. It was, and still is, considered to be strengthening and fattening.
Emerson (1908), who explores the subject with characteristic thoroughness, describes as follows how koumiss is made:
Take of mare’s milk, not cow’s, six parts and of warm water, one part, put this into a bag made from the skin of some animal in which there is a little sour cow’s milk or a piece of rennet from the stomach of a calf, colt or lamb. This will induce fermentation and soon a thick scum will rise to the top. When this has ceased gathering, the bag is shaken for some minutes and is then allowed to remain quiescent for several hours, when it is again stirred by a sort of churning motion. It is only necessary to do this three or four times in order to have the beverage complete and perfect.
Marco Polo was one of the early travellers in the Orient who remarked on koumiss. Another was William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar, who travelled across C. Asia in the 13th century and gave his own description of the making of koumiss, reporting that the churning went on sporadically for about three or four days, which is the length of time favoured by the Kazakh peoples who continue to make kumiss in Russian Turkestan in the 20th century. When William of Rubruck arrived at Karakoram, he was impressed to discover that a far-ranging French goldsmith had built for the Mongol prince, Mangu Khan, a silver fountain with four spouts which dispensed, respectively, koumiss, wine, mead, and rice wine, of which the first was the most honoured.
So far as China is concerned, people have tended to think of koumiss as a drink belonging to the north of the country (and Mongolia). Yet Chang (1977), writing of the Sung dynasty (960–1279), points out that ‘it was a well established item in the Sung diet: the emperor had a special office for its production, some restaurants specialised in serving it, and it occurs many times in the lists of banquet foods’.
The range of koumiss, as noted above, also extended westwards from China. Mountstuart Elphinstone (1839) has this to say about koumiss when describing the food of the Uzbeks.
The national beverage is kimmiz, an intoxicating liquor, well known to be prepared from mare’s milk. The milk is put in the afternoon into a skin, such as is used in India for holding water, and is allowed to remain till within two or three hours of day-break, when it is beaten and rolled about till morning at least; but the longer the better. The liquor thus made is of a whitish colour and a sourish taste: it is only to be had in plenty during the two last months of summer, and those who can afford it are generally drunk for the greater part of that period; but kimmiz is not sold, and those only can enjoy it who have mares enough to make it in the house.
Enough mares, in the right condition, were not always and everywhere available. The Kublai Khan had 10,000 pure white horses and mares at his disposal, and the milk of these mares was reserved for the royal family, so there was no shortage of koumiss in his palaces. But he was uniquely fortunate. Elsewhere, people might have to make do with a similar beverage made from sheep’s milk, or from camel’s milk or milk from the dri (see YAK). A similar beverage made by Laplanders, called pima, is made from reindeer’s milk.
Helen Saberi
small filled PASTA of JEWISH COOKERY. It is made at home from egg noodle dough, usually filled with minced meat or chicken, and often added to chicken broth. There are also cheese kreplach, which can be a main dish in ‘dairy meals’.
the general name for the small shrimplike CRUSTACEANS which abound in polar waters, especially Euphausia superba in the Antarctic, and which are eaten in prodigious quantities by whales. In the latter half of the 20th century scientists and technicians, especially in Germany and Russia, have experimented with harvesting krill and producing from it foodstuffs for human beings.
The matter is of some importance because krill have the potential to be a food resource of unusually high quality; the nutritional content, which includes a balanced kit of amino acids and important trace elements, is almost ideal. Moreover, the resource would be a huge one. It was estimated in the 1980s that the annual catch of krill could be greater, in weight, than the whole annual catch of fish worldwide at that time. And it seemed that technical problems had been overcome by the elaboration of processing methods which could be carried out on board ship immediately after the krill (which spoil rapidly) had been caught. They are pressed to yield a juice full of protein. The presscake is set aside for animal feed. The juice is then heated to coagulate the protein, and this is formed into blocks of paste which are frozen. In the former Soviet Union this krill pâté was marketed as ‘Ocean paste’; this was highly nutritious and quite tasty but not a popular success.
the Indonesian/Malaysian name for a thin, usually savoury CRACKER, popular in many parts of SE Asia and with many local variations. In some areas, they are called keripik (with a very short e). The basic material is flour—WHEAT, RICE, MAIZE, or CASSAVA—which is mixed with other ingredients to provide flavour and then dried in the sun to make something resembling a thin, dense, and exceedingly hard biscuit. When put into very hot oil, this more or less doubles its length and width in a few seconds, and when it has cooled it has a most satisfying crunchy texture.
The obvious comparison is with a Chinese PRAWN CRACKER; indeed, krupuk are often flavoured with prawn or shrimp, but tastier than the Chinese product. The best of these krupuk udang, or shrimp crackers, are considered to be those made in the town of Sidoarjo, near Surabaya in E. Java; these are widely exported. Another popular type is flavoured with chillies. Sweet krupuk are made in some places.
Roger Owen
come from a tree, Cubilia blancoi, which grows mainly in the Philippines and also in the Moluccas and Sulawesi. The oval fruit is covered with spikes and about 5 cm (2″) long. It contains a single, starchy nut resembling a chestnut, but with a less interesting flavour, although highly nutritious. The nuts have been sold in the Philippines under the name of castañas (chestnuts), and eaten boiled or roasted, but their future is uncertain; the tree has been classified as potentially needing protection.
the Japanese name (more correctly rendered as kuzu) for a leguminous plant, Pueraria montana var lobata, which is native to Japan and the Orient but has been widely cultivated in the south-east of the USA, and has become an aggressive weed. It is mainly grown as animal fodder, but is also the source of a valuable starch.
The starch, which is called gok fun in China and ko fen in Japan, comes from the root. Tsuji (1980) describes its good properties thus:
As a thickener, kuzu starch—extracted from the root of the vine—is excellent: it produces a sparkling, translucent sauce and adds shiny gloss to soups. It has a gentle pleasant aroma, and does its work at fairly low temperatures. Because it is an alkali, it balances acidity, such as found in sweets. Dusted over foods to be deep fried, it yields a light, crisp, almost crystalline snow-white coating.
A tropical species, P. phaseoloides, is native to SE Asia and has been introduced to Africa.
a term often met in JEWISH COOKERY, meaning PUDDING. It may be either sweet or savoury.
Lokshen kugel, one of the most popular, itself exhibits this ambivalence; there is a savoury version made with noodles, curd cheese or sour cream, and a pinch of nutmeg, and a sweet one without the nutmeg but with the addition of sugar, lemon or orange zest, and raisins.
Best known of all is potato kugel. Claudia Roden (1996) introduces this with a quotation from the German poet Heinrich Heine, who addressed the editor of a Jewish magazine in what must have seemed like discouraging terms: ‘Kugel, this holy national dish, has done more for the preservation of Judaism than all three issues of the magazine.’ He meant potato kugel, no doubt made in the traditional way with eggs, chicken fat, onion, and grated potato.
The German word Kugel means ball or something round, and is evidently the origin of this term, as of KUGELHOPF, see below.
a rich, light, delicate yeast cake, made from flour, eggs, butter, and sugar, is related to BRIOCHE, BABA, and SAVARIN. It contains raisins, and may be flavoured with lemon peel or decorated with slivered almonds.
The identifying characteristic of kugelhopf is its tall ring shape. This is derived from the mould in which it is baked, round and deep, with a central funnel, and fluted with decorative swirls. After baking, the cake is turned out and dusted with icing sugar which catches in the pattern, like newly fallen snow.
Kugelhopf is one of the best-known C. European bakery products, but spelling and pronunciation vary, tending to be kugelhopf at the western edge of its range, and gugelhupf in the east. It is made in a wide belt from Alsace (where the small town of Ribeauville holds a fête in its honour every June); through parts of Germany (notably the Black Forest) and Poland; and into Austria, where a rich version of it is served for Jause, afternoon tea. The traditional pattern in C. Europe was for kugelhopf to be baked for Sunday breakfast, when the village baker had his day off.
It is also popular with Jewish communities who have settled in these areas. Lesley Chamberlain (1983) draws attention to the link between the name kugelhopf and the Jewish KUGEL, a kind of round, firm, sweet or savoury pudding. Both terms refer to something round; and both seem related to the German Kugel, meaning a ball or something round.
Laura Mason
are small Indian breads made of leavened white flour dough, pressed into rounds and deep fried. Often they are filled with spiced vegetables or curd cheese before being fried.
In Afghanistan kulcha means biscuit.
of the genus Fortunella, a fruit resembling a miniature ORANGE, seldom more than 3 cm (1.25″) across. Until recently it was placed with the orange in the genus Citrus, but has now been assigned to a genus of its own because of the simpler structure of its fruit. In particular, its attractive golden rind is not a distinct, pithy covering like that of a true citrus fruit, but is thin, soft, and pulpy. This is all to the good because the rind is therefore edible, and the fruit can be eaten whole, although the taste of most kinds is rather too sour for the average palate.
Kumquat trees are all small, seldom exceeding shrub size. They are native to SE China, where they still grow wild, and the name is a corruption of the Chinese chin kan (golden mandarin). Two main kinds exist: the oval, Fortunella margarita, the best known and the one most often cultivated; and the round, F. japonica, with larger, sweeter fruits.
There are various natural hybrids, one of which, F. crassifolia (F. margarita × F. japonica), is unusually sweet and the best variety for eating fresh. This kind is cultivated in China and Japan, and there is one variety with striped fruits.
The kumquat can also form hybrids with true Citrus species. One fruit which is thought to have originated in this way is the calamondin ‘orange’ or CALAMANSI, whose parents may have been a MANDARIN and a kumquat. Since the kumquat is more resistant to cold than ordinary citrus fruits, growers have experimented with Fortunella × Citrus hybrids (orangequats, limequats) and Fortunella × Poncirus (trifoliate orange) hybrids (citrangequats), hoping to find edible fruits or useful hardy rootstocks for grafting. One citrangequat, Thomasville, has smallish golden fruits which are pleasantly flavoured.
Kumquats and calamondins have been cultivated in China since early times. Two kinds of kumquat are described in Han Yen-chih’s Chu Lu (Monograph of Citrus) of AD 1178. Later, cultivation was taken up enthusiastically in Japan, where the cold winters made citrus growing difficult. The kumquat also spread further afield. Curiously, what may be the first reference to it, antedating the Chu Lu by almost three centuries, is in the Iraqi writer Ibn Wahshya’s Book of Nabatean Agriculture, completed in 904. He describes a grafting method to produce ‘very small citrons, of the size of an olive’ but warns that
it must be done … at the time of a certain conjunction of sun and moon. [And the tree must be] fumigated with certain substances whilst a formula is uttered. The branch which is to be grafted must be in the hand of a beautiful damsel, whilst a male person has disgraceful and unnatural sexual intercourse with her; during intercourse the woman grafts the branch into the tree.
The kumquat was brought to London in 1846 by the plant collector and explorer Robert Fortune, after whom the genus is now named. By 1850 it had also reached the USA. The most popular way of treating kumquats in China has been to preserve them in honey, or more recently sugar. Sometimes the rind alone is preserved.
Shortly after their introduction to the West, kumquat plants would be placed on the table at fashionable dinners so that guests could pick the fruits. The main uses of the kumquat in western countries now are as an ornamental shrub and for making marmalade.
a Russian beverage which is just eligible for inclusion in this volume both because its alcoholic content is very low and because it appears as an ingredient in a number of dishes, including many of the items in the classic Russian cookery book by Molokhovets. Joyce Toomre (1992), the translator of this work, provides the following excellent description in one of her numerous Translator’s Notes.
Kvass is a lightly fermented sour-sweet beverage that is commonly made of black bread or grain with yeast and somewhat resembles beer in flavor. Both grain kvass and beet kvass are used for soup. Other more delicate varieties of kvass are made from fruits or berries. Kvass, along with mead and beer, has been drunk since Kievan Rus’. Whereas the nobility in earlier times preferred mead, the common people drank kvass. It was the most popular drink in nineteenth-century Russia, consumed by the rich as an occasional refreshment and by the peasantry on a daily basis. Like the gathering of mushrooms and berries, the eating of prjaniki, and the consumption of shchi, the drinking of kvass in late Tsarist Russia had become a culture-laden act that helped to define one’s Russianness. Although kvass was easily made at home, the itinerant kvass peddler was a common figure in the streets and markets. Even today, it is not unusual to see a kvass truck parked at the curb while the driver dispenses drinks to a crowd of customers. Kvass is a relatively healthy drink, having a low alcoholic content (0.7 to 2.2%) and a good proportion of readily assimilable proteins and carbohydrates.
There are also versions of kvass in neighbouring countries. Jean Redwood (1989) states that the Polish version is with lemon juice, and that the Lithuanians add raisins in addition, while cinnamon is a flavouring in the Ukraine. Added flavours in Russia include caraway, mint, or (further north) blackcurrant leaves.