Generally, however, the rice plant gives high yields in the right conditions, and early farmers soon realized that the best varieties were those that liked shallow, slowly moving water. In fact, irrigated rice can be grown year after year on the same land indefinitely, and may produce two or even three harvests a year; yields are low, but dependable. But the work of building and maintaining a system of fields, with the channels to supply and drain off water, is immense, and requires a close-knit, orderly community. This was a price that many societies were willing to pay in return for the benefits rice gave them. It is both a generous and a demanding crop.
Perhaps for that reason, rice spread slowly. It was established in N. India, in S. and C. China, and all over mainland SE Asia, by about 2000 BC. By about the 1st century AD it was grown in what is now Sarawak and Sulawesi, and probably in the Philippines, where the immense flights of terraced fields in the hills around Banaue are said to be over 2,000 years old. Much of the terracing that so takes the eye in Java and Bali, however, is of relatively recent date.
The next major advances were into the Middle East and Japan, sometime between 300 BC and 200 AD. It was not until 1900 that cold-tolerant varieties were bred capable of flourishing in the climate of Hokkaido, and by that time Japan was on the brink of a thoroughly modern programme of genetic improvement; rice had long been the country’s staple, and indeed plays a leading role in the foundation myth of the Japanese imperial family.
In the Mediterranean, the Greeks and Romans knew about rice, but regarded it as an expensive import, to be used mainly as a medicine. It was probably brought from India to the Near East by the Persians, but they never thought of it as their staple diet, and it was not grown in Egypt until the 6th or 7th century AD. It is not mentioned in the Bible, although Coverdale’s English Bible of 1535 translates the food that Jacob gave to Esau as ‘ryse’ instead of lentils (Genesis 25: 34).
Rice cooked in clarified butter is said to have been the favourite dish of the Prophet Muhammad. His followers certainly took rice to N. Africa, Spain, and Sicily, into Turkey, and across the Sahara to W. Africa, where a different species, O. glaberrima, was already cultivated (and still is).
By the 13th century rice was being imported into N. Europe. The OED’s first citation of the word is from Henry III’s household accounts in 1234. By the 15th century its attraction had been introduced to N. Italy, where it flourishes in the plains.
In the so-called COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE of natural resources, rice was one of the Old World’s finest gifts to the New. But it did not become established in America until almost two centuries after Columbus’ voyages, another example of how slowly rice has moved to new homes. Many varieties were tried, and a certain amount of selective breeding carried out, before the crop could be adapted to the soils and climates of the Americas. In the north, the first successful crops are said to have been grown from seed brought to Charleston by a ship from Madagascar, while the knowledge of how to grow rice may have been brought from W. Africa by slaves selected for their farming skills; see Karen Hess (1992) for a discussion and much other information about rice in S. Carolina. A pioneer of genetic improvement of all natural products was Thomas Jefferson, who travelled to Piedmont to find out why Italian rice fetched a higher price in the Paris market than Carolina rice, and smuggled seed out in his pockets.
‘Carolina gold’, whatever its genetic origins, flourished in the freshwater tidal swamps around Cape Fear from the 1690s until competition from Mississippi valley rice in the later part of the 19th century. Shortly afterwards, Japanese immigrants to California set up the west coast rice industry. Carolina gold is, however, being grown and marketed once again in the USA. Some of the crop’s most spectacular gains, in fact, have taken place in the past 100 years, in the Americas, N. Japan, China, E. Indonesia, and parts of Australia. At the same time, it has continued to move from being a subsistence staple towards becoming a commodity, a foodstuff traded on local and then on world markets.
Much of the rice now being grown in SE Asia and elsewhere is genetically modified to give higher yields, resistance to pests, and better flavour–all tailored to match local conditions. Without GM rice, the outlook for world production would be even worse than it is.
Rice products. Rice is ground into rice flour (used for puddings, cakes, biscuits, etc.) or (even finer) rice powder, rolled into flakes, ‘popped’ by cooking it in pressure vessels which are then suddenly opened, and pre-cooked to make ‘instant’ rice. A modern rice mill exhibits an astonishing variety of high technology among the traditional noise and dust.
Rice bran, which is removed in the milling and processing of rice, is still used as animal feed, and can also be processed and sold as a beneficial garnish or additive for foods. In Japan, where it is known as nuka, rice bran is an important medium for pickling.
A major product of rice is the rice noodle of which many types are found in Asia and China (see NOODLES OF ASIA; NOODLES OF CHINA).
Rice is also fermented to make vinegars, rice wine, SAKÉ, and TAPÉ. In Latin America, especially in Ecuador, a little known but interesting fermented rice product (ARROZ FERMENTADO/amarillo, or Sierra rice) is made and consumed.
Roger Owen
Considered as food, rice is perceived in different ways in different cultures. Attitudes towards the proper way to cook and eat it seem to depend on the role rice plays in the lives of the people. In many communities where it has long been established as the principal staple, it is revered as divine and is still cooked and served in the plainest possible way; the dishes that accompany it may be elaborate and exquisite, but the rice itself is too precious to be treated as just another ingredient. (Of course there are dishes such as Cantonese fried rice, and Nasi goreng (the Indonesian equivalent), which do not conform to this pattern.)
At the other extreme–the other end of the trade route–rice was in the distant past an expensive import, so rare that it was locked in the spice cupboard and carefully recorded in the household accounts. In medieval Europe it was made into MILK PUDDINGS with refined SUGAR (also very scarce); this is one of the origins of BLANCMANGE. In Elizabethan England it still had a little of the magic of strangeness; steeped in cow’s milk with white breadcrumbs, sugar, and powdered fennel seed it was given to nursing mothers. In Charles I’s time rice boiled in milk with sugar and cinnamon was regarded, as most foods are sooner or later, as an APHRODISIAC. But then it became easier to obtain, and gradually opened the way towards general use and led to the wealth of English RICE PUDDINGS, Scandinavian rice dishes such as the rice porridge of Norway traditionally made for Christmas Eve, and delicacies such as the rice tart of Liège.
Meanwhile, a third attitude to rice had developed in regions where it was grown as a food crop, played an important role in most people’s diet, but was not the only or a major staple food. In much of India, the Levant, the Middle East, and N. and W. Africa, rice became the basis of a huge range of savoury dishes, all of which may be regarded as variations on the PILAF.
Whatever approach is taken to cooking rice, it will be a valuable source of nutrients (see box) and the essential process in the kitchen will be the same: to break open the cell walls and release the starch inside. Boiling water or steam does this very effectively, and if the water is part of a sauce, or is flavoured in any way, the flavour will quickly be taken up by the rice itself. However, the individuality of each grain survives cooking. The grains expand greatly as they absorb the cooking liquid, of which they take in surprisingly large quantities.
Although the use of boiling water or other liquid or steam, at some stage, is essential to every form of rice cookery, the details vary greatly from culture to culture, as does the appearance of the finished dish. For examples, see PAELLA; PILAF; RISOTTO.
If rice is cooked in a constricting wrapper, e.g. of banana leaf or aluminium foil, the grains are forced together into a compact mass which can then be cut up and eaten or can be further cooked (usually fried). This ‘compressed rice’ is popular all over Indonesia (where it is called lontong) and in some other parts of SE Asia.
All the above refers to rice as though it were a single ingredient. There are, however, many kinds of rice and, of all the major plant foods, rice seems to be the most perplexing in its classification and nomenclature. The problem arises from the fact that different systems of classification are adopted for different purposes. The main ones are as follows:
The above list is far from being exhaustive, but gives some idea of the categories which may be met in shops.
See also BIRIANI; CONGEE; DOSA; IDLI; JOLLOF RICE; KEDGEREE; KHICHRI; MOCHI; RICE CAKES OF THE PHILIPPINES; RICE PUDDINGS; SHOLA; SUSHI.
A GRAIN of rice is about 80% starch. When rice is eaten and digested, this starch is converted stage by stage to glycogen in the blood stream providing an excellent supply of muscular energy.
Inside the rice grain, the starch occupies cells whose walls are made of indigestible cellulose (itself another form of starch). Between these cells are a number of useful proteins; a cupful of cooked rice supplies about 9% of an average adult’s daily protein requirement, although several necessary amino acids are missing. These are made up, in most diets, by proteins from other sources, usually meat but often legumes (e.g. the rice and bean dishes of C. America and the Caribbean, and the Risi e bisi of Venice). Vegetarians often derive their ‘complementary’ proteins from soya beans.
Unmilled brown rice, regarded as a health food in western countries, is rarely eaten in rice-staple countries, where people value the whiteness of the milled grain, from which the brownish or reddish outer layers have been rubbed off. These bran layers are rich in fibre and in B-group vitamins. Milling these off reduces the food value of the rice, but other foods eaten in modern diets normally make good the loss. (If not, beriberi will become a menace, as it did in earlier times–see VITAMINS.)
Roger Owen
Vigna umbellata, an annual LEGUME of tropical Asian origin, so named because its small seeds, when dried, are eaten with or instead of rice and are only slightly larger than rice grains. Colour of the seeds ranges from yellow through red and brown to black, and the beans are sometimes mottled. Light-coloured types are preferred.
Rice beans have been grown extensively in NE India and adjoining regions as far east as southern parts of China. However, the quantities grown have diminished, partly because of changed patterns of rice production which have eliminated the intervals between rice crops, intervals in which it was formerly the practice to insert a crop of rice beans. Nevertheless, the fact that the rice bean is one of the very best legumes for nutritional purposes has recently caused a renewal of interest in its use as food for humans.
One problem to be solved if this valuable plant is to be exploited more fully is that its vinelike habit of growth and the fact that the pods fall apart and scatter seed of their own accord make harvesting difficult.
constitute an interesting group of rice dishes, which in the Philippines would most often be eaten at a merienda (light afternoon meal; see MERENDA).
Puto is the generic name for a rice cake made from galapong (rice flour), slightly sweetened and steamed. The rice for galapong is not ground dry, but soaked overnight and then ground wet, formerly in large stone grinders. Fermentation takes place during the soaking, and yeast is usually used. Almost every town or region has a typical puto, a distinctive recipe developed in it reflecting regional taste, or made for special occasions.
Among the best known are: putong Polo, from Polo in Bulacan, which are small (about an inch across), and come in two forms, puti (white) and pula (red-brown). Manapla puto, from Manapla in Negros Occidental, is steamed in banana-leaf cups. Malolos, in Bulacan, has a white puto fragrant with STAR ANISE. On Christmas Eve, Pampangos of San Fernando serve putong sulot, anise flavoured and cut in parallelograms, with panara, a vegetable-filled, peppery pasty. One of the best known is puto bumbong, made of the violet rice called pirurutong, steamed in a bamboo tube and eaten with grated coconut and brown sugar. It is especially served at Christmas time.
There is also puto with topping or flavouring. In Meycauayan they mischievously call puto with egg putong lalaki (man’s puto), with meat putong babae (woman’s puto), and with cheese putong bakla (homosexual puto). There is meat-filled puto called puto pao (referring to the Chinese steamed bun called siopao).
Puto is thus round or in sheets, moulded or cut up, plain or filled, eaten with dinuguan (blood stew) or pansit (see NOODLES OF ASIA), or with grated coconut and sugar. Always, however, it is made from ground rice, and is steamed.
The puto maya of Cebu is not really a puto. It is, strictly speaking, a suman, since it is made from glutinous rice boiled in coconut milk, which is the basic suman recipe. Puto seco is not a puto either, but a dry crumbly cookie (seco means ‘dry’).
Suman is a Filipino dessert made of sticky rice. It may be cooked in pans and then topped with a sugar-and-coconut syrup. This is sometimes called bibingkang malagkit or suman latik, and may have latik (toasted grated coconut) on top. It may also be shaped into cylinders and wrapped in young coconut leaves, then steamed. This is sometimes called suman sa ibus, and is eaten with sugar, or with sugar and sesame seeds, or dipped in hot chocolate, or with ripe mangoes. It may also be made into flat banana-leaf-wrapped packets (about 2″ × 5″), or trapezoidal leaf-wrapped packets, perhaps cooked with LYE, and called suman maruecos or suman sa lihiya. These may be eaten with sugar or with coconut syrup. Suman can also be made from grated CASSAVA or from corn, in which case it is called suman cassava or suman maiz.
Biko is a large rice cake of glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk, much like suman, often topped with fried coconut meal (latik).
Cuchinta (or kutsinta) is also a rice cake, but not porous like puto, and without the whole rice grains of suman. It is made from ground rice, sugar, and lye, then steamed. The lye brings about a light brown colour and a jelly-like texture. This is also eaten with grated coconut.
Bibingka is also made of galapong, coconut milk, sugar, eggs, and now baking powder. (It even comes as a boxed mix.) The batter is poured into a banana-leaf-lined container and baked in a clay oven (or a regular oven) on live coals. It may be topped with cheese made from the milk of the carabao (the local WATER-BUFFALO), slices of salted duck eggs, butter. It is served with grated coconut. In the nine days before Christmas, the dawn masses are the occasion for bibingka stalls outside churches, where the vendors give a free cup of salabat (ginger tea) with each bibingka.
Rachel Laudan (1996), dealing with bibingka-derived confections in Hawaii (see MOCHI), has remarked that the name bibingka may have come from Goa, where this item was a popular dessert in the 19th century; a book of that time gives two recipes for Portuguese Coconut Pudding, the second of which is headed ‘Bibinca dosee …’
Sapin-sapin means ‘layer-layer’, and it is a layered dessert made from fine rice flour (galapong), coconut milk, and sugar. It is usually layered in a flat round basket (bilao), each layer coloured differently. This is therefore a rice cake to cut in wedges.
These are only the best known among Philippine rice cakes. Almost all regions have their own specialities with their own names. Ilocanos make tupig and wrap it in young coconut leaves, and this is sold at cockpits and markets. They also pour puto mixture in bamboo tubes and throw them into a fire as they go off to midnight mass. When they return, the tinubong is cooked. The Maranaw dodol (white or glutinous rice, brown sugar, coconut milk) is cylindrical and leaf wrapped and sticky-chewy. Almost every region says: ‘Try our puto/suman/kutsinta, etc. It is the best.’
Doreen Fernandez
is used to provide an edible base for sweet confections such as MACAROON. It does not come from the rice plant but from Tetrapanax papyrifer, a shrub or small tree of China. The paper is made from the pith of the stem.
is the descendant of earlier rice POTTAGES, which date back to the time of the Romans, who however used such a dish only as a medicine to settle upset stomachs. There were medieval rice pottages made of rice boiled until soft, then mixed with almond milk or cow’s milk, or both, sweetened, and sometimes coloured. Rice was an expensive import, and these were luxury Lenten dishes for the rich. Recipes for baked rice puddings began to appear in the early 17th century. Often they were rather complicated. In one, rice previously cooked in milk was combined with sugar, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, half the whites, BONE MARROW, AMBERGRIS, rosewater (see ROSES), NUTMEG, and MACE. There is a traditional Cumberland rich rice pudding, ‘clipping time’ pudding, with suet or marrow, raisins, currants, sometimes eggs, and cinammon. Plain boiled rice puddings enclosed in a cloth appeared in the 18th century. Usually they included raisins.
Nutmeg survives in modern recipes. It is now unusual to add eggs or fat, and rice pudding has tended to become a severely plain nursery dish. Nevertheless, it has its devotees. There is a curious ambivalence about the skin which forms on top: some consider it the best part, while others recoil from it. Advertisements for canned ‘creamed rice’ (which is only a degraded version of the pudding) state proudly that it has no skin. One point on which there is universal agreement is that it is vital to cook a rice pudding very slowly.
The Chinese eight jewel rice pudding is so named because it is made with eight different kinds of fruit preserved with honey. Eight was said by Confucius to be the number of perfection. The fruits are arranged on the bottom of the dish and cooked, sweetened glutinous rice poured on top. The pudding is then steamed for several hours so that the rice breaks down into a homogeneous mass. It is then turned out (it is only just strong enough to stand up, so this is tricky) and served hot.
See also KHEER; FIRNI; SHOLA; MUHALLABIA; RICE AS FOOD.
an Italian cheese which is by far the best known of WHEY CHEESES. The name, meaning ‘recooked’, refers to the process of manufacture.
The production of ricotta is an economical way of using the whey left over after the production of cheeses such as PROVOLONE. This whey contains protein which can be coagulated. The resulting cheese has little flavour but many uses; and it has become popular wherever Italian gastronomic influence has spread. It may be regarded as the Italian equivalent of COTTAGE CHEESE, so long as it is understood that it is a different product, although with similar characteristics and uses.
Ricotta is usually made from the whey of cow’s milk, but sheep’s, goat’s, and buffalo’s milk whey are also used.
The ‘recooked’ aspect consists simply in the fact that the original milk has been ‘cooked’ once to separate curd from whey and the whey is then ‘cooked’ again, being raised to a high temperature, for the production of ricotta. A little sour whey or other coagulant is added after the heating to help form the second lot of curd, which is then skimmed off. It may or may not be salted at this stage. Light pressure is applied to the curd to produce fresh ricotta, which nevertheless remains crumbly and moist. The other type, dried ricotta, is always salted, pressed more heavily, and dried in a curing room.
There are nearly a score of distinct ricotta cheeses which are well known in Italy, some distinguished by regional names which show whence they come, e.g. ricotta Romana, although this is now produced elsewhere too.
In Italy fresh ricotta is often eaten as a dessert, seasoned with salt or sugar. However, it is also used in cookery, especially for stuffings (e.g. of certain kinds of CANNELLONI and RAVIOLI).
or (angled) luffa, Luffa acutangula, an Asian member of the GOURD family, distinguished by its long, thin shape and its 10 longitudinal ridges. The colour is light or dark green. Cultivation takes place in India, SE Asia, China, and Japan.
The ridged gourd is best eaten young, when still less than 10 cm (4″) long and tender throughout, including the ridges. Chinese stir-fry it. Indians use it in curry dishes. It may be given any of the usual treatments for ZUCCHINI or SUMMER SQUASH.
Ochse (1980) remarks that in Indonesia the young fruits, cooked or steamed, serve as a side dish, lablab, or are cut into slices and cooked with coconut milk and other ingredients.
Herklots (1972) lists other culinary uses.
In Hong Kong very young fruits, unpeeled, are cut in small pieces, cooked for a short time and served with stewed mutton; the bright green, crisp fruit is in sharp contrast to the texture of the meat. In Jamaica pieces of young fruit, peeled, boiled and seasoned with butter, pepper and salt, are incorporated in curries. In Japan they may be sliced and dried before being cooked.
an item of French CHARCUTERIE which is most commonly made of pork but may also be of duck or rabbit or other meat.
The term is derived from the word rille, a dialect form of the Old French reille, meaning lath, plank, rung, etc., and applied since the 15th century to (presumably long and flat) pieces of pork. The variant rillette appeared in early times. The rillettes of Tours and subsequently of Le Mans have been famous, and the term has become part of the English culinary vocabulary.
Rillettes, as sold in a charcuterie, do not look at all like flat ‘planks’ of meat. They have undergone a series of processes, an initial cooking, the addition of some bones and seasoning, further cooking followed by removal of the bones and fat and then, with the fat being gradually restored, the teasing apart of the strands of the meat, producing the characteristic moist grey fibrous appearance of the final product.
The people of the Sarthe region are renowned for their heavy consumption of rillettes; at 12.5 kg (27.5 lb) a year per person this is 100 times higher than the national average.
READING:
a celebrated and popular RICE dish which originated in the rice-growing areas of N. Italy. It has something in common with PAELLA and PILAF, in that rice is cooked in liquid with other ingredients whose flavour is absorbed by the grains, but the method is quite different; risotto is probably a peasant dish which has become sophisticated. The first recipes were published in the mid-19th century by Artusi, the first celebrated Italian cookery writer, and Vialardi, later chef to King Victor Emmanuel.
The rice must be medium to long grain, fino or superfino, and the liquid is normally a stock made from meat and/or vegetables. The rice is gently sautéed in butter, often with some oil and a little onion, and the stock is then added, a ladleful at a time, each ladleful being taken up by the rice before the next is added. Finally, it is mantecato–a knob of butter and some grated Parmesan are added, the risotto is left to stand for a minute or two, and then the melting butter and cheese are thoroughly stirred in. The result should be al dente with a rich, creamy consistency. The method requires more or less continual attention from the cook, and to make good risotto requires experience. The result should be eaten without delay, not kept waiting or reheated.
Towards the end of the 20th century a steady expansion of the concept of risotto was observable, especially in restaurants. Some sweet risottos (e.g. with melon) were already familiar in parts of Italy; now there were more. The range of added ingredients and flavours for conventional savoury risottos was expanded and, as risotto became a more prominent international dish, the role of a risotto was also expanded–it could now be the basis of a more complex dish.
as a culinary term, has a simpler meaning in English than in French. An English rissole is normally composed of chopped meat, bound with something such as egg, flavoured to taste, shaped into a disc or ball or like a sausage, and fried in a pan. Around this basic formula there exists a penumbra of variations which permit making fish rissoles and vegetarian rissoles (even a fruit rissole, in the 14th century); adding other main ingredients, especially potato; coating with breadcrumbs before frying; and, of course, serving with a sauce if desired. Some authors have supposed that the Latin word isicia, which certainly meant something of the sort, could confidently been translated as rissoles, and have remarked that APICIUS declared peacock rissoles to be the best (followed by pheasant, rabbit, and chicken) and listed the ingredients for three different thick sauces which could be used.
However, although making rissoles can plausibly be traced back to classical antiquity (the technique being simple and obvious in any culture in which meats were roasted and facilities for frying existed), there is no necessary connection with the derivation of the actual word from Vulgar Latin (russeola, reddish) via Old French (ruissole).
In the French kitchen the verb rissoler means to brown, and a rissole is always encased in puff pastry or the like, usually fried, but sometimes brushed with egg and baked in the oven. Such rissoles may be savoury or sweet. The latter kind would typically be powdered with fine sugar and accompanied by a fruit-based sauce. See also CROQUETTE; CUTLET.
as a verb, meant originally to cook by exposure to radiant heat in the open; but has more recently come to mean what would formerly have been called baking, namely cooking in the enclosed space provided by an oven.
The term, in either sense, is usually applied to meat. It can be used of fish or vegetables, but less commonly although it is familiar in certain uses, e.g. roast potatoes.
Meat roasted in the earlier sense was kept turning on a spit in front of a fire, with a dripping pan under it to collect the melting fat, and had to be basted almost continuously to avoid its being dried out. If it was cooked at the same fire, but by being held over it on a gridiron, that would be to GRILL (US broil) it.
Meat ‘roasted’ in the oven is being cooked in a moist heat and needs no or less basting. The term ‘pot-roast’ indicates doing much the same thing but in a covered cooking vessel, with a small amount of liquid, the meat being browned first and possibly accompanied by vegetables; see BRAISE.
Roasting meat was something at which the British were, indeed are, supposed to excel. An 18th-century visitor to England from Sweden, Per Kalm, remarked that ‘the English men understand almost better than any other people the art of properly roasting a joint’. Admittedly, he qualified the compliment by observing that the English art of cooking did not extend much beyond roast beef and plum pudding, but still it was a compliment; and the French term rosbifs for Englishmen may also be taken as including at least a touch of affection, although usually derogatory.
a name used erratically of more than one plant in the ONION family. It sometimes refers to a form of true GARLIC, Allium sativum, Ophioscorodon group (the cumbrous style of classification now recommended), which has only a small basal bulb and tiny bulblets forming from the flower head, and is prized for its chive-like garlic-flavoured leaves. But it may also refer to A. scorodoprasum, sometimes called ‘sand leek’, which grows wild throughout Europe, often in dry, sandy, or rocky places, with bulbs which can be used like garlic but have a milder flavour.
a British sweet made in large and colourful sticks. There are two types: ordinary rock, sold at seaside resorts and other places visited by tourists, and Edinburgh rock, which is the original form of the sweet but remains mainly a local speciality of Edinburgh. Ordinary rock is a sweet of the plain pulled candy type, which is always professionally made, since it demands very complex pulling techniques. Each cylindrical stick consists of a coloured outer layer enclosing a white core with lettering made of coloured candy (‘A present from Llandudno’ or something of the kind) which runs the whole length of the stick, so that each letter is actually a long strip whose cross-section is that of the letter, and wherever the rock is broken the exposed ends will show a legible inscription (though one of them will show the letters in reverse. The letters are made in a fairly large size from hot coloured sugar and surrounded by a white matrix and coloured outer layer; then the assembly is drawn out to great length so that it becomes quite narrow. Sometimes the sticks are as long and thick as a child’s arm.
Although the history of pulled sugar and pulled candy goes back to the Middle Ages, rock with letters in it is probably a recent invention. The first person who remarked on it was Henry Mayhew in the 1860s, in his study of the work of Londoners, where he noted that a sweet vendor had recently introduced short sentences into sugar sticks. Examples included ‘Do you love me’, ‘Do you love sprats’, and ‘Sir Robert Peel’–the last remembering a then recently dead Prime Minister.
Edinburgh rock comes in much smaller sticks, pastel coloured and with a peculiar chalky consistency. It is made from a conventional sugar syrup in which little attempt is made to inhibit crystallization, so that during pulling a mass of very small crystals is formed. It is left exposed to the air for a day after making, during which it absorbs moisture and becomes quite crumbly. White Edinburgh rock is flavoured with vanilla, lemon, or mint; pink with raspberry or rose water; yellow with orange; and beige with ginger. Although the vast majority of Edinburgh rock is made professionally (still mainly in Edinburgh), it can be made at home.
READING:
(sometimes rock bun, as in some late 19th-century references cited by the OED), a fairly plain and solid small cake/bun, usually enlivened with RAISINS (or currants) and candied peel. Rock cakes take their name from their irregular craggy appearance, not from their consistency. They are made by baking uneven lumps of dryish dough on baking sheets.
Recipes dating back to the 1860s are recorded; a range of flavourings including mace, lemon zest, and brandy were used in early examples. Arnold Palmer (1952) has a reference to City gentlemen in London in the 1870s standing at a counter and lunching ‘off a glass of sherry with a rock cake or a couple of biscuits’. The use of currants, which became standard in the 20th century, is attested from the 1880s.
the common name of Cancer irroratus, a W. Atlantic (Labrador to Florida) relation of the better-known European crab (see CRAB, COMMON) and DUNGENESS CRAB. The yellowish carapace, dotted with brown or purplish spots, may measure a little over 10 cm (4″) across.
The rock crab in turn has a close relation, C. borealis, the Jonah crab. This is slightly larger, and has bigger claws. It has a similar range but is only found in a limited number of localities.
Eruca sativa, a salad plant which grows wild in Asia and the Mediterranean region and is most popular in Italy. The name is clearly a loan from the French roquette. The plant has been introduced elsewhere, including N. America where it arrived with Italian immigrants–hence its standard US name, arugula, a southern dialect form of the Italian rucola. In Spanish there are three names used, rucola, rucula, and orugja. It has only gained acceptance in N. American and N. European markets since the 1980s. Its flavour, akin to that of horseradish or some sorts of cress, is strong and peppery in mature leaves, so these are added to salads with discretion. Young leaves may be used freely. It is a popular vegetable in E. Africa, for example the Sudan.
In classical Greece and Rome rocket was cultivated both for its leaves and for its seeds, which were used as a flavouring or to produce an oil. It was considered aphrodisiac.
a collective name indicating any of various fish which frequent rocky bottoms in the sea. Some fish which live among rocks are large (e.g. the groupers and the conger eel), but the collective term usually refers to the small species which are useful for going into fish soups etc. and which need not be precisely identified. The French term poissons de roche has the same meaning and is a label often seen on a pile of miscellaneous small fish for sale.
a name applied to several species of fish of the COD family, Gadidae, but in particular to the three-bearded rockling, Gaidropsarus vulgaris. This fish has a maximum length of just over 50 cm (20″) and a relatively long body, the upper part of which is of a red or reddish colour, marked with brown blotches. The three ‘beards’ are not beards but barbels, used for groping around for food.
This rockling has a range in the E. Atlantic from Norway down to Portugal, and is present in the western basin of the Mediterranean. The smaller G. mediterraneus is another ‘three-bearded’ rockling with a similar range. But there are yet others with four or five barbels. None has commercial importance, but they have delicate flesh and G. vulgaris in particular is worth eating if obtainable and if really fresh.
Procavia capensis, a small rabbit-sized animal of the Middle East and Arabia and most of sub-Saharan Africa. Surprisingly, it is more closely related to the elephant than to the rabbit. Another name for it and close relations is hyrax. One of these close relations is probably the ‘coney’ of the Bible.
These small animals constitute a minor food resource in most countries in their range. They feed on a healthy diet of fruit and leaves which must be responsible for one feature of them, which is that their excrement contains a substance used in perfumery (although not, so far as can be discovered, traceable in the flavour of their meat).
the eggs or spawn contained in the ovaries of a female fish, especially when ripe. These may also be called hard roe. Soft roe refers to the ripe testes (milt) of a male fish.
The roe of some fish is a delicacy. CAVIAR is the outstanding example. Other luxury products are BOUTARGUE and TARAMOSALATA. However, humbler, unprocessed, roes can also be delicious and may constitute a dish in their own right, e.g. fried slices of COD roe, SHAD roe in the USA, and soft HERRING roes on toast in Europe. Finnish people are outstanding connoisseurs of fish roe, e.g. of SALMON, WHITEFISH, TROUT, and BURBOT.
Roe is at least as good a source of protein as fish flesh, and often slightly superior.
i.e. bread rolls. Most countries have versions of bread rolls as well as large loaves. Convenience and speed are probably the main reasons, as small rolls need much less proving and baking time than loaves, and so can be produced relatively quickly for breakfast. There is no precise delineation between rolls and BUNS, except that rolls are generally plain or savoury, made from ordinary or slightly enriched bread dough, and served with savoury foods. Buns are generally sweet.
The simplest rolls are round or oval in shape, such as English dinner rolls. One of the simplest variations is provided by the French and Belgian pistolet, which is a plain roll but split down the middle to give a two-lobed effect. Bakers may of course display their skill by shaping rolls into knots or other decorative shapes. One fancy shape is the French tabatière (snuffbox), a round, pouch-like roll with a ‘flap’ at one side.
The ‘pocket’ theme is echoed by what is perhaps the most famous roll in N. America, the Parker House roll. Mariani (1994) explains that this puffy yeast roll with a creased centre was created at the Parker House Hotel in Boston soon after its opening in 1855; and that they are ‘sometimes called “pocket-book rolls” because of their purse-like appearance’. From this local beginning they have become a standard item on American tables.
Another American item described by Mariani is the kaiser roll (also called Vienna roll or hard roll), which takes it name from the German word for emperor, this because in shape it resembles a crown. It is believed to have originated in Vienna, and was brought to America by German and Jewish immigrants. Crisp and light, it can be made into sandwiches or eaten as a breakfast roll. It is often topped with poppyseeds.
Aberdeen rowies (also known as Aberdeen butteries or butterie rowies) are small breakfast rolls, enriched with butter by a process of rolling and folding similar to that employed for making CROISSANTS. The shape is roughly oval. A speciality of the Scottish city of Aberdeen, where they are eaten warm, usually for breakfast and spread with butter and marmalade.
A split, filled roll is the basis for some of the world’s most popular snack foods, such as the sesame-topped bun enclosing a hamburger, and the soft white finger roll which forms the basis for a hot dog. Such breads are very similar to ‘bridge rolls’, a British party and buffet standby for many years. These small fingers of enriched white dough, baked closely together so that the sides almost touch, thus remaining soft, are usually split in half and served open, covered with some sort of topping.
There are many other baked items which verge on being rolls but are usually perceived as being in some other neighbouring category such as BUNS or TEA BREADS AND TEA CAKES. For two examples of these other items see ENSAIMADA; HUFFKINS.
a widely used name for a SUET PUDDING made in a roll shape. The name is generally given to a pudding with a sweet filling such as jam, or treacle and breadcrumbs, or mixed dried fruits with marmalade; in each case spread over the flat sheet of dough and rolled up. However, there are also savoury types, for example bacon pudding (see BACON), which was often made in this shape.
The lasting fame of the name was conferred by Beatrix Potter’s quietly horrifying book The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly Poly Pudding (1908) in which the stuffing of the pudding was a savoury one. The hero, Tom Kitten, was to be the stuffing, but fortunately he escaped.
Formerly roly-poly pudding was boiled in a pudding cloth; but the skill of enclosing a pudding of this shape in a cloth has now mostly been lost. Since it could not be adapted to a basin as could a round pudding, it is now almost invariably baked. However, the change of technique has been applauded by no less an authority than May Byron (1923), who also notes an interesting gender-related point about it:
Roly-poly pudding, however (also euphoniously known as dog-in-a-basket), appeals to the masculine appetite as nothing else can do. If you doubt this assertion, go into a City restaurant at midday, and scrutinise the customers’ faces when they hear that ‘jam roll is off.’ It does not need to be accompanied by the gammon and spinach of the nursery rhyme. It is indeed sufficient unto itself. And when it is baked instead of boiled … then, as Humpty Dumpty said, ‘there’s glory for you!’
a German cheese made in Bavaria, is of the same type as LIMBURGER, but is cured for a shorter time at a lower temperature, emerging as a cheese which is generally smaller, milder, less salty, and less smelly than the other. Carr (1985) points out that the two cheeses have similar histories in that both originated in Belgium, where the ancestor of Romadur is called remoudou.
was born as a new state from the 19th-century union of the old principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The majority of its population are ethnic Romanians, descendants of Romanized tribes of the ancient Thracians and of Roman colonists after the Roman conquest in AD 106.
Although more than half of Romania is made up of lofty mountains, the country is still overwhelmingly agricultural. MAIZE is (or was until recently) the bedrock of the Romanian diet. The grain is milled into a fine flour which is used for making MAMALIGA, or ground coarsely for paysatul–two kinds of thick maize porridge which firm up when allowed to cool. These are eaten mixed with cheese, soured cream, or butter, or as a substitute for bread. Nowadays, however, there is a shift away from maize towards wheat, with an increasing urban consumption of bread and other wheat products.
Romania’s most colourful crops are provided by the POPPY and the SUNFLOWER. The ripe poppyseeds are not narcotic, and are freely used to sprinkle over bread dough, or as a filling for confections such as cozonac–the traditional yeast cake baked on Good Friday in celebration of the Romanian Orthodox Easter. A high-quality edible oil is also extracted from the ripe, cold-pressed poppyseeds. The use of cooking oil obtained from sunflower seeds is gradually replacing animal fats for most culinary purposes.
Fruits make up a significant part of the diet: cherries, quinces, grapes, and apples are cultivated in higher areas, especially in the foothills of the Carpathians. Plums abound throughout the country.
Large herds of dairy cows graze on the pastures of the plains, water-buffaloes inhabit the low-lying regions of the Danube, and sheep are confined to the hilly and mountainous areas. The white brine cheese telemea, made from cow’s, sheep’s, or water-buffalo’s milk, takes first place in the list of Romanian cheese; it tastes very much like FETA cheese but it is often spiced with aniseed. Caşcaval (see KASHKAVAL), as old as the Romans who probably introduced it, is a hard, yellow, full-fat cheese made from sheep’s milk. Brînzay, too, is a sheep’s cheese, pale yellow and rather crumbly.
The most southern and extensive lowland region is Wallachia, meaning ‘Land of the Wallachs or Vlachs’ (from Walh, a Germanic word for foreigner, which has also given Wales its name). Wheat, maize, and barley are now widely grown here, with rice in the far south, and a great many walnut groves strung along the Danube. Bucharest, the capital, lies in this region.
Integrated life during the long era of Ottoman domination have helped to shape Wallachian cookery in the Balkan mould. A number of dishes, coinciding in name and, to a certain extent, in content with those to be found in other Balkan countries, are now national institutions in Wallachia and the province of Banat. BAKLAVA (baclava in Romanian), chiftea (burger), ciorbay (soup, see SHORBA), dulceatay (fruit preserved in heavy syrup), ghiveciu (mixed vegetable casserole, see GYUVECH), iahnie (stew), musaca (MOUSSAKA), PILAF, rahat (TURKISH DELIGHT), sarmale, mezelic … all obviously derived from Turkish and Greek sources, have entered the Romanian national kitchen either via the Balkans, or directly during the Turkish occupation of the country.
Many Romanians still live in scattered pockets all over the Balkan peninsula. Often known as Vlachs, they speak Aroumanian, a dialect of the Romanian tongue. Many Vlachs are settled in Dobrogea, Romania’s only maritime province lying in the north-eastern corner of the Balkans. This province already had a motley mixture of population, including Turks, Tatars, and Ukrainians. The Danube with its delta is where the best fish are to be caught. The fishermen, many of Ukrainian descent, spit-roast or grill their catch over wood embers, or cook a Russian-Ukrainian fish soup called uha; in contrast to the Wallachian ciorbay (see SHORBA), this soup is not acidulated.
The food in the province of Maramureş, which borders on the Ukraine, also shows the influence of Romania’s north-eastern neighbour. Local specialities include Russian BORSHCH, which is beef soup with beetroot and other vegetables; kaşa, porridge made with food grain; găluşti or dumplings, called in Russian galoushki; and rasol, a dish of boiled beef, its name derived from the Russian word for brine, rassol.
Beef constitutes the core of the cookery of Maramureş, and the province of Moldova (Moldavia) in NE Romania. The national emblem of Moldova is the head of an aurochs, the wild bull (Bos primigenius), the ancestor of all modern cattle, drawing attention to the long history of cattle rearing in the region.
Quite different from the rest of the country is the cookery of Transylvania, the largest of Romania’s provinces, which lies within a crescent formed by the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps. Three national cuisines meet and cross-pollinate here: Romanian, Hungarian, and German. Saxon cookery in the region has retained much of its original character: Auflauf, baked pudding; Knïdeln, dumplings; Gewürzküchlein, embossed spiced biscuits; Rosenkranz, a rich ring-shaped yeast cake; Bratwurst, beef or pork frying sausage–these are a few of the many dishes still prepared in the German tradition.
A distinct group in south-eastern Transylvania are the Sekels–a Hungarianized branch of the Bulgar-Turks, who had joined the Hungarians before the conquest (in AD 896) of their present-day homeland. Sekel food is considered by many Hungarians as the true, indigenous, Hungarian cuisine which has survived to this day relatively intact. Székely gulyás, for example, is thought to be of much older parentage than the modern Hungarian GOULASH.
Maria Kaneva-Johnson
READING:
Irma (1877–1962)author of one of the best-loved and most used American cookbooks of any period, The Joy of Cooking. The child of a family of German origin in St Louis, Missouri, she came to cookbook writing in an incidental way, following the death of her husband. Her first book was published at her own expense in 1931 and was not transmuted into a commercial publication until 1936. Full success came in 1943 and thereafter the book became a best-seller. Anne Mendelson (1996) has provided a brilliant history of the book and its author, and of her daughter Marion Rombauer Becker, who was co-author from 1951 and then solely responsible after her mother’s death in 1962. She reckons that total hardback sales of the book from 1931 to 1996 amounted to almost 10 million copies. It seems likely that a comparable number of paperback copies have been sold.
In an illuminating comparison of The Joy of Cooking with its rivals of the decades from the 1930s to the 1970s, Mendelson highlights the special attractions of the book, which depended very much on its author’s lighter and more personal touch. The Joy of Cooking was not devised to match the requirements of the market, as perceived by professional publishers, but as a direct and often breezy communication from an enthusiastic cook to whoever cared to be on the receiving end. That the number of people who elected to be on the receiving end was so vast reflects credit not only on Irma Rombauer’s approach to the subject, but also on that of her daughter, who introduced a considerable amount of nutritional and other scientific material without weighing the book down unduly and who rivalled her mother’s tenacity in holding out against unreasonable proposals by the publishers. (The degree of author/publisher strife was spectacularly great.)
The history of The Joy of Cooking sheds much light on the development of American tastes in food, and cooking methods, and cookbooks over a large part of the 20th century. Mendelson’s biography brings this out clearly; and it would doubtless have been a source of gratification to both Irma Rombauer and her daughter to think that the story of their record-breaking and much-beloved book could be used so effectively to trace a larger piece of history.
(in full, salsa romesco), the name of an important Catalan sauce, whose ingredients are normally a pounded mixture of fried bread, garlic, grilled tomato, almonds, and hazelnuts, plus paprika and chilli powder, all made into a smooth paste with wine (if possible from the Priorat) and wine vinegar. But there are many different versions, as Patience Gray (1986) has attested:
The variations of this sauce are legion, secrecy surrounds the method and there is no common agreement among fishermen or cooks about its creation. The annual romescada at Cambrils near Tarragona is in fact a kind of challenge to fishermen to produce the ‘best’ romesco. Four thousand people may turn up to participate in the contest (as onlookers) and a white night is spent by restaurateurs to prepare for the multitude. The master romesco-makers set to work, crouching over their mortars, at little stands in the dazzling April light, engulfed by an excited throng.
Corvus frugilegus, possibly the only member of the crow family which is still eaten, although rarely, in Britain. The range of this bird extends across the boreal and temperate zones of Europe and Asia as far as China. It is known for its hoarse ‘caw’ and its habit of breeding in large colonies known as rookeries (one of which, in Aberdeenshire, comprised nearly 7,000 nests in the 1950s). Its reputation as food has never been high, but in some parts of the north of England, for example, rook pie has been an established dish. As so often, Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (various editions before and after 1900) gives a balanced view, to accompany a detailed recipe:
The rook affords a dry and coarse meat. A pie made of young rooks is tolerable; at least, it is the best form for using these birds as food … Rooks require long stewing, or they will not be tender. The breasts are the only parts of the birds which are really worth using.
a N. American beverage akin to the spruce beers and small beers of the Old World. Although made by early settlers, it was not commercialized until the late 19th century when Charles E. Hires began to market packets of the powdered ingredients for home brewing, then diversifying into syrups and the finished beer itself. Artemas Ward (1923) gave a good description:
a refreshing beverage made by the fermentation of an infusion of roots, barks, and herbs, such as sarsaparilla, sassafras, spruce, wild cherry, spikenard, wintergreen, and ginger, with sugar and yeast. The flavoring or extract, is retailed in convenient packages, each sufficient for about five gallons of ‘beer.’ It is the action of the yeast on the sugar which gives the slightly exhilarating quality (from the small percentage of alcohol produced) and the effervescence (from the action of the carbon dioxide).
The alcoholic content is so small that it could be and was recommended by the temperance movement. Since the 1960s, when SASSAFRAS was found to be carcinogenic and thus banned from use in the beer, flavourings such as birch extract have been substituted.
one of the three most famous blue cheeses of the world, has a longer recorded history than either of the others (STILTON and GORGONZOLA). It is probably the cheese which Pliny, writing in the 2nd century AD, described as ‘bearing off the prize at Rome’. It is certainly the cheese which the monks of St Gall offered to the Emperor Charlemagne in the 9th century. He first disdained and then, under their tuition, delighted in the veined parts, so much so that he was furnished with two whole Roquefort cheeses each year thereafter. St Gall is not far from the village of Roquefort sur Soulzon, after which the cheese is named.
The village, now almost a small town, lies on the side of a hill called Le Combalou in the region of Les Causses, limestone plateaux which prolong the westerly flank of the Cévennes mountains. It is a wild and arid area, not for lack of rain but because the porous limestone soaks it up and leaves the surface too dry for anything but the hardy box and other scrub. Sheep can graze there, but the land cannot be used for other purposes.
Le Combalou, like other hills in the area, suffered an internal collapse in the very distant past, which left it equipped with natural caves. These communicate through fissures (known as fleurines) with the open air above, and encompass an underground lake. The caves remain at a remarkably constant temperature, between 44 and 48 °F (7–9 °C), night and day, summer and winter, and always enjoy a relative humidity of 95%. Visitors, who are made welcome, see ample evidence of moisture. But they will not see the most important resident of the caves, the mould Penicillium roqueforti, although this micro-organism is present by the millions. Invisible themselves, these work on the cheeses with visible results, being responsible for the blue veins which gradually develop inside.
Three main factors contribute to the unique flavour and texture of a Roquefort cheese: the use of sheep’s milk, inoculation with Penicillium roqueforti, and the special conditions which the caves offer for maturing the cheeses.
Until fairly recent times the sheep’s milk which was used all came from sheep grazing in the vicinity. However, when production of Roquefort was stepped up in the 19th century the supply became inadequate. The rules were therefore adjusted to permit the use of sheep’s milk from certain selected places such as Corsica and the Pays Basque, where conditions were deemed suitable.
The mould itself, which grows naturally in the cave and can be cultured on pieces of bread, is used elsewhere, e.g. in the production of Danish blue (see DANISH CHEESES). But the extraordinary conditions in the caves, maintained by beneficent currents of air through the fleurines, cannot easily be replicated; and Roquefort justly retains its protected status, since it has no peer. (It is fair to add, however, that the bleu des Causses, also made from sheep’s milk, and with the same mould and techniques, but matured in caves of less repute, can come very close to the real thing.)
The curd for Roquefort is prepared at the dairies where the milk is collected, and is inoculated in advance with a little of the Penicillium when it is placed in its moulds. The infant cheeses, known as pains, are conveyed to Roquefort and enter the caves for a period of affinage, which lasts for several months and involves salting, brushing, piercing with needles, lying on one lot of shelves for weeks on end, being wrapped in tinfoil and transferred to cold storage, the use of a thin, hollow probe to check progress, and so on. The attendant human beings are dedicated to their work, and enjoy particularly good health as a result of sharing this strange environment with the cheeses.
A finished cheese weighs about 2.5 kg (6 lb), and is wrapped in aluminium foil and furnished with a stamped label to guarantee its authenticity. The Société Anonyme des Caves et des Producteurs Réunis de Roquefort, founded in 1842 and known to all simply as La Société, is responsible for 80% of the production. In all, about 1,600 tons are produced annually, most of it to be eaten in France. For obvious reasons, Roquefort is among the most expensive cheeses; but it is rich, so that a little goes a long way, and there is no waste.
This outstanding cheese is the subject of a whole book by Pourrat (1956), published by La Société and translated into English as The Roquefort Adventure. This is presented as a work which enables the reader to comprehend, by a study of what has happened at Roquefort, the history of mankind; and it bestows on the struggles which have taken place over protection of the name, and also between the dairymen and the cheese-makers, an epic quality not usually associated with such matters.
Sarah Tyson (1849–1937) one of the most prolific and influential American cookery writers. Her biographer (Weigley, 1977) credits her with 54 cookery books or booklets, and cites much evidence of her important role in shaping the study of home economics and dietetics. She has been described as the first American dietitian. Mrs Rorer came late to the profession and had little formal instruction. Having enrolled for a cookery course at Philadelphia in 1879, and having completed it with distinction, she was asked to take it over when the teacher resigned. She did, and never looked back.
In 1883 she opened the Philadelphia Cooking School which, with the corresponding institutions at Boston (see Mrs LINCOLN and Fannie FARMER) and New York, was to play a central role in the formation of American ideas on cookery in the rest of the 19th and the early part of the 20th century. She was a woman of method, and of energy; a combination which enabled her to conduct a wide range of activities. Besides running her school, she took part in many pure food expositions, became a leading cookery journalist, travelled in Europe, and opened a restaurant in New York (which was, however, a failure). She was a considerable show-woman, and in her cookery demonstrations customarily wore a silken dress, to show that cooking need not be dirty work. A typical press comment was that ‘in her biscuit-colored dress of India silk, her dainty cap set upon fair hair, her neat apron and arm shields, Mrs Rorer does present a very pleasant appearance indeed’. Relying on her presence and her reputation as ‘Queen of American Cookery’ and ‘the nation’s instructress in cooking’, she was not averse to disconcerting her audience by condemning some of the very dishes she was teaching them to prepare (‘There is nothing in a cake to give you brain and muscle unless you get the latter from beating the cake’) or undermining established ideas (‘When a man talks to you about his mother’s cooking, pay no attention to him’). If something went wrong with a demonstration, her wit was quick enough to carry it off. Thus when, in boning a chicken (after an explanation of the need to know its anatomy precisely), her knife missed a joint, she commented briskly: ‘Malformation of the joint.’ Her principal books were Mrs Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook Book (1886) and Mrs Rorer’s New Cook Book (1902). These and her other publications revealed a certain development in her thinking as time passed, but certain themes were constant. A salad should be served 365 days a year. Desserts were bad.
the unsatisfactory English name most commonly applied to any of a group of EUGENIA FRUITS (a name which has retained some currency although less appropriate after most of the species have been transferred from the genus Eugenia to Syzygium). Alternative names in English are no better, and it would be preferable to use the Indian/Malay name JAMBU, the meaning of which is explained separately, instead. The fruits do bear a superficial resemblance to apples, but do not eat like apples. Four principal species in the group are described below.
Syzygium jambos, the ‘true’ rose-apple, is native to the Malay peninsula. It is cultivated in that region, in India, and in the W. Indies (where it may be called ‘pommerac’ or ‘rac apple’–or ‘Malabar plum’, a name sometimes also used for the related JAMBOLAN). The fruit may reach the size of a small apple and is yellow, often tinged with pink, or greenish in colour, with a waxy surface and a delicate aroma of rose. The flesh within is also rose scented, whitish, crisp, and juicy but lacking in flavour. They may be cooked with sugar or made into jams or jellies, preferably mixed with other fruits which have more flavour.
S. malaccense, the Malay (rose) apple, is the fruit of a tall and striking tree which is native to the Malay archipelago, but is now cultivated from India to S. China and Hawaii (where it arrived before the Europeans and is known as ohia ai). The fruits, which are roundish but slightly oblong and narrowed at the stalk end, measure about 6 cm (2.5″) and have waxy skins, at first pale green and later of a rosy hue with faint white markings. The flesh, which is scented, is juicy and slightly sweet in flavour.
S. samarangense, the Java or Semarang (rose) apple, is cultivated in its native region, Malaysia and Indonesia, and occasionally in tropical America. The fruits are nearly round, or pear shaped, and measure about 5 cm (2″). They are commonly pale green or whitish, but sometimes pink or red. Betty Allen (1975) remarks that: ‘The green forms are eaten with a little salt, and they make a pleasant sauce. The pink fruits on the whole are more juicy and less aromatic, but all of them are rather flavourless.’
S. aqueum, the watery rose-apple or water apple, originated in the south of India and grows wild there and in parts of Malaysia. It has an uneven shape, being wider at the apex than at the base. ‘The colour of the fruit varies from white to bright pink, the skin is glistening, almost translucent and bruises easily. The flesh is crisp and watery, with a scented flavour, sometimes insipid’ (Betty Allen). The fruits are good thirst-quenchers and, although they consist mainly of water, have fruit sugars and a lot of vitamin A in their skins. They make good additions to salads.
(sometimes rozelle) Hibiscus sabdariffa, also called flor de Jamaica or Jamaica sorrel or red sorrel, although it did not reach Jamaica until the beginning of the 18th century and is not a close relation of sorrel. It is thought to have its origin in Africa, but is now cultivated in many tropical regions, including SE Asia. Burkill (1965–6) infers from the nature of its names in India and Malaysia that it is a relatively recent arrival in Asia. It is grown mainly as a fibre crop, but its culinary uses amount to more than a mere by-product.
Roselle is a woody annual, with green leaves on stems which are usually red. There are two main types: H. sabdariffa var altissima, which is the more important economically because of the fibre for which it is cultivated; and H. sabdariffa var sabdariffa, which embraces the cultivars grown for their edible calyces (see below).
The young leaves and shoots are used in some regions, especially Africa, as a green vegetable. They are mucilaginous, and pleasantly acid, and have been compared to rhubarb. In the Philippines they are sometimes used to impart acidity to the dish called SINIGANG. The leaves and stalks are used as a curry seasoning in India and Sri Lanka.
The plant is unusual in that one of its edible parts is not the fruit but the calyx of the fruit. The calyx is what is familiar as the little green star on top of a tomato or strawberry. In this instance it is red, large and fleshy, and enwraps a small, useless fruit. It is made into a refreshing, sour ‘sorrel’ drink in the W. Indies and elsewhere, and is also used to produce jellies and jams. Gladys Graham (1947), writing from Panama, says of it:
Sorrel is such an important beverage and jam-jelly ingredient that highway crews widening Central American roads will cut down every other shrub and tree in their way, leaving the sorrel to blossom on the road shoulders. It comes at the end of wet season, or the beginning of dry, and the sorrel drinks of Christmas times are almost as important as the attendant ceremonies and fetes. The product will taste a little more like cranberries than cherries.
The calyces are marketed dried as well as fresh, and are the source of a red food colourant. The Filipino author Maria del Oroso, whose collected essays on food were published in 1970, recommended a wide range of uses for them, embodied in 60 recipes. These included sauces and omelettes and cakes, as well as beverages. The roselle had been introduced to the Philippines in 1905, shortly after it arrived in Australia and the USA.
Rosmarinus officinalis, one of the most prized culinary herbs, is a common wild plant of Mediterranean hillsides, but will also grow as far north as S. England, where the Romans introduced it originally (although it is commonly said that it had to be reintroduced by the Normans after 1066).
There is no doubt about the importance attached to rosemary in classical Greece and Rome, but the situation with regard to ancient Egypt is less clear. An 18th-century archaeologist found and reported a specimen of rosemary in a garland adorning an Egyptian body. However, a later commentator remarked that the leaves were reported to be green, which seemed odd after thousands of years in a tomb, and speculated that the archaeologist might have been fooled by a practical joke carried out by his guides. On the other hand, Dorothy Bovee Jones (in Foley, 1974) records that:
In his ‘Histoire Naturelle’, Valmont Bomare (1731–1807) reported that when coffins were opened after several years, branches of rosemary that had been placed in the hands of the dead were found to have grown so that they covered the corpse.
Thus an element of doubt remains, which is perhaps appropriate for a plant whose ‘Ancient Egyptian name was tentatively said by Loret … to be nkpty.’
In medieval times, and indeed throughout history, people have tended to attach more importance to the medicinal than to the culinary properties of rosemary. However, some of the supposed medicinal properties are important in the context of diet and doctrines such as that of FOUR HUMOURS, and deserve mention here. There was a general opinion that rosemary fortified the brain and memory (hence students wearing rosemary wreaths before taking examinations), and Gerard (1633) advised that to remedy weakness and coldness of the brain some rosemary should be boiled in wine and the patient should inhale the fumes through his nose, while Culpeper (1653) recommended it as a remedy for such ‘cold diseases of the head and brain, as the giddiness and swimmings therein’. The list could be prolonged indefinitely, but space must be found for one more recommendation, that of Sir Thomas More, whose garden on the banks of the Thames was but a few hundred yards from where this article is being written; he wrote: ‘I lett it runne all over my garden walls, not onelie because my bees love it, but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and therefore to friendship.’ He might have added ‘and to love and fidelity’, and that rosemary is unusual in having a traditional use at both weddings and funerals. To go by Dorothy Bovee Jones (again), he could also have referred to it being an ingredient in a famous medieval formula:
In the handwriting of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, there may be seen today, in a library, formerly the Imperial Library of Vienna, a manuscript dated 1235. It contains the formula for the famous ‘Hungary water,’ a distillation of rosemary, lavender and myrtle. The Queen was paralyzed, and tradition says that this recipe was invented by a hermit especially for her. Rubbed with it every day, it did indeed effect a cure. The preparation became well-known, especially in southern France, in the neighborhood of Montpellier, where it was widely used.
Its distinctive aromatic flavour is especially liked in Italy, for both sweet and savoury dishes (Italian butchers often dress meat with it before selling it, or hand out free bunches of it with the meat); and Provence. Rosemary is often used to good effect with roasts, e.g. roast lamb, or as a stuffing for fish to be barbecued. The use of some rosemary when wood is burned to smoke meat and sausages gives the products a flavour which is especially liked in Spain.
Pamela Michael (1980) describes some interesting sweet confections made with rosemary. These include a rosemary conserve, for which she found recipes from the 16th and 17th centuries and which is described as looking and tasting almost exactly like honey. Another is a kind of compote of oranges flavoured with rosemary. For effects which are both decorative and edible she cites crystallized rosemary flowers (small and fiddly to work with, but very pretty) and also a medieval edible centrepiece called Rosemary Snow: ‘a large branch, or “bush”, of rosemary was decorated with whisked cream, egg white and sugar, usually set in a loaf of bread.’
the well-known flowering shrubs of the genus Rosa, can be traced back to ancient Persia, Egypt, Babylon, and China. More than a score of species are recognized; and there are almost innumerable hybrids and cultivars. The petals of most species can be eaten or used to flavour food, either directly or in the form of rosewater (a fragrant flavouring obtained by the distillation of the petals); and the fruits (known as rose-hips or haws) of many species are edible. Species which are good sources of petals or rosewater include:
For the Greeks, from whom many of the relevant legends come, the rose was a symbol of love, beauty, and happiness. The Latin word rosa comes from the Greek word for red, rodos. The Romans, who associated the rose with Venus, goddess of love, scented their wine with rose petals.
Roses had probably first been cultivated, several thousands of years ago, in Persia. It is known that Persia was making and exporting rose wine from rose petals as long as 2,000 years ago. In Iran rose petals are still preserved in jams or dried to be used to perfume many sweet dishes. The dried petals are also added to the spice mixture ADVIEH used in flavouring savoury dishes.
In medieval England they were used to flavour butter (which can also be flavoured with rosewater). Rose-petal jams, conserves, sorbets, and drinks have been and still are made in Europe. The French town of Provins in Champagne is famous for its rose-petal jam. In Turkey rose petals are boiled in water to flavour loucoum (TURKISH DELIGHT), and in India they are put into a heavy syrup to make gulkand, a rose-petal preserve which is used with betel leaf for cutting bitter aftertastes and refreshing the mouth. In China, flower heads of the red China rose, R. semperflorens, are sometimes cooked whole as a vegetable.
Crystallized rose petals used in western countries are more of a decoration than a flavouring.
The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans managed to extract fragrance from the rose by steeping petals in water, oil, or alcohol. And it is probable that the technique of distillation of rosewater evolved in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD in Mesopotamia.
By the 9th century Persia was distilling rosewater on a large scale. It is, however, usual to name AVICENNA, the famous physician of the 10th century, as being the person who discovered rosewater. It was in his time that the use of rosewater as a flavouring for food came into vogue in the lavish and sumptuous cuisine of the Arabs. It was used to flavour a variety of dishes and was even sprayed over the surface of the cooking pot.
The use of rosewater spread to Europe via the Crusaders. It was, for example, popular in medieval England. Rosewater was also a favourite flavouring of the Ottoman Turks and they in turn introduced it to Bulgaria, where the Valley of the Roses at Kazanluk is famous for its production of rosewater, oil of roses, rose-petal jams, and preserves.
Water distillation is the oldest method used to extract the fragrance, and rosewater is still produced in this way in many eastern countries. The technique has been summarized by Helen Saberi (1993), who points out that the same method can be used to obtain rose oil, known in English as attar or otto of roses, derived from the Persian atr, meaning perfume or essence.
Nowadays, however, steam distillation is the preferred method of obtaining attar of roses, as it produces a more delicate and fragrant oil.
Rosewater is still used extensively all over the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. Famous rosewater-flavoured dishes include Turkish delight and many other sweets and desserts of the Middle East and India (see, for examples, SHOLA; BAKLAVA; FIRNI; HALVA). Rosewater can also flavour beverages such as LASSI and SHERBET.
Rose-hips or haws, the fruit of the rose, have been eaten as a fruit in Europe and Asia and by the Indians of N. America. The vaselike receptacle of the fruit contains seeds covered with irritating hairs, so it has to be emptied before it is edible. Or the whole fruit can be boiled to make a sweet, slightly perfumed syrup. Species whose fruits are used both in Europe and Asia include the briar rose or dog rose, R. canina, which is made into tea or TISANE, and the eglantine, R. eglanteria.
Rose-hips are remarkably rich in vitamin C. When, during the Second World War, the British diet lacked fruits providing this vitamin, schoolchildren were sent to gather rose-hips, from which a syrup, issued as a dietary supplement for small children, was made. Rose-hip syrup is still sold, especially for babies.
a general Indian term for bread. In this sense it covers the whole amazingly diverse range of breads found in the subcontinent. However, it is also used in narrower senses, for example in some parts of India as an alternative name for CHAPATI and phulka, or as part of the names of particular breads.
The origins of roti, in the wide meaning of Indian breads, can be traced back 3,000 or 4,000 years, to the arrival of the Aryans in the Indus Valley. In this connection it is noteworthy that BARLEY was the major grain eaten by the Aryans. Although WHEAT was known from very early times, its widespread adoption for bread-making purposes came relatively late. Later still came corn (MAIZE), probably brought by the Portuguese and welcomed in the Punjab.
Numerous names of breads incorporate the term roti. These may reflect the method of cooking (tandoori roti); or something to do with shape and size (roomali roti is as thin as the scarf after which it is named). But more often they refer to the type of flour used; thus besan ki roti contains chickpea (BESAN) flour.
Roti in the wide sense have become an important element in the intercontinental culinary scene, mainly because so many of these Indian unleavened breads have spread to other parts of the world where Indians and their foodways have become established, including SE Asia, E. Africa, and some islands in the W. Indies, not to mention many cities in England.
The Trinidadian writer V. S. Naipaul, whose ancestors had migrated from the plain of the Ganges 100 years previously, recalled in one of his many books how important sacrifice had been to his people and that it made the cooking of food into a ritual: ‘the first cooked thing, usually a small round of unleavened bread, a miniature, especially made, was always for the fire, the God.’ The symbolism remained important although it could be pointed out that roti and other Indian breads in Trinidad differ significantly from the originals in being made, nowadays at least, with baking powder. If Trinidadian roti, made thus, are ripped apart to provide pieces which can be dipped into curry dishes, they are called ‘buss-up-shut’ because of a resemblance to the torn cloth of a ‘burst up shirt’.
Finally, a noteworthy feature of the impact of roti on the British in the days of the Raj has been illuminated by Ayto (1993):
The words for most Indian breads have only infiltrated English since the 1960s, but roti is an exception. Members of the British army serving in India in the late nineteenth century took it up as a slang term for ‘bread’, spelling it rooty or rootey: ‘And the ʾumble loaf of “rootey” costs a tanner, or a bob’ (Rudyard Kipling, 1900). The long-service medal awarded to British soldiers in India in the early twentieth century was colloquially known as the rooty gong.
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the name adopted in Australasia, and now widely used, for fish of the family Trachichthyidae, especially the orange roughy, Hoplostethus atlanticus. As the scientific name indicates, this species is not confined to Australasian waters, although that is where it has come to prominence as a commercial catch and from where it is exported to many destinations. It is also found off S. Africa (where the general common name for fish of this family is slimehead, or slymkop), and in the N. Atlantic, although its presence there, in deep waters to the west of Britain, was little noticed until the end of the 20th century, when sophisticated trawling equipment began to be used, notably by French fishing boats, to make substantial catches of it. Since it is a very slow-growing species, fears have been expressed that it may become a victim of overfishing in the Atlantic, as has already been happening in Australasian waters.
The body, deep and compressed in shape, is orange in colour, with silver tinges on the flanks. The skin is rough; a near relation is sometimes called the sandpaper fish. Maximum length 40 cm (16″) in New Zealand waters. The flesh, which is good to eat, is usually available in fillets.
The smaller silver roughy, H. mediterraneus, has a similarly wide distribution but is of much less importance.
a French sauce which is typically orange or red in colour (from pounded sweet red pepper, paprika or the like), thick in consistency (bread is an ingredient), flavoured with garlic, and suitable for adding to Provençal fish soups such as Aigo sau and BOUILLABAISSE.
something rolled up, for example in the manner of a SWISS ROLL. This French term gained increasing currency towards the end of the 20th century, when savoury preparations of this sort, as well as sweet ones, proliferated.
‘The various kinds of roux are used as the thickening agents for basic sauces, and their preparation, which appears to be of little importance, should actually be carried out with a great deal of care and attention.’
So begins August ESCOFFIER’s article on Roux in his monumental Guide culinaire; almost an entire page is devoted to roux brun, though only short paragraphs deal with the preparation of the roux blond and blanc. Etymologically, and historically, all this makes perfect sense. Roux in French literally means ‘reddish’ (or ‘orange’) hence the first roux must have been brun. These early roux were made by cooking flour and butter together until a reddish tint was obtained then using this to thicken a sauce or broth. Its widespread use in French cooking seems to date from the mid-17th century. At that time, LA VARENNE (1651) described the preparation of a liaison de farine (flour thickener) made by cooking flour in lard and, by the end of the century, cooks are referring to this mixture as either farine frit or roux.
By the mid-18th century cookbook authors are advising that ‘roux de farine’ (flour-based roux) be cooked until the butter and flour are ‘a nice yellow’ and recommend that the resulting paste be stored for later use (cooks need only ‘warm a piece in a little pot’ with broth as needed). The roux had its critics, however, and some French gastronomes began complaining about the over-use of the roux in sauces as the 19th century approached. CARÊME came to its defence in the 1830s calling those who dared criticize the use of roux ‘ignorant men’. ‘How’, he asks, ‘can fresh butter and the finest flour, mixed and cooked over the embers, turn into the unhealthy menace some authors decry?’ A roux, writes Carême, is as indispensable to cooks as ink is to writers but, he warns, just as a poor scribbler cannot produce a masterpiece simply by dipping his pen into that black liquid, a sauce is not necessarily improved if the roux has not been simmered with sufficient care.
In recent years the roux has once again come under heavy criticism and, with the advent of NOUVELLE CUISINE in the early 1970s, many chefs abandoned its use (preferring to thicken their sauces with vegetable purées or using emulsified butter instead). But, despite its chequered history, the roux remains one of the cornerstones of French cuisine and, when perfectly executed, imparts a slightly nutty flavour as well as an appealing unctuosity to sauces which use it as a base.
Philip and Mary Hyman
are, strictly speaking, two distinct species of tree in the genus Sorbus in the rose family; but the names tend to be used interchangeably. To compound the confusion, the sorb may also be called ‘service tree’ or ‘wild service’ in Europe, whereas in America that name is given to a more distant relation (see SERVICE-BERRIES). All bear clusters of red or orange ‘berries’ (not true berries, but pomes), which are sour and astringent, unless exposed to the mellowing effect of frost, and most suited to making a sharp jelly which goes well with venison and other game or fowl.
S. aucuparia, the rowan or mountain ash, owes its specific name to the practice of bird-catchers in Germany and elsewhere who would trap small birds in hair nooses baited with rowan berries. It grows wild in Europe and N. Asia, especially in mountainous regions, and is matched by S. americana in the east of N. America.
S. torminalis, the one usually called sorb, tends to grow further south in Europe (in Britain, for example, rarely north of C. England). Because its fruits are larger than those of the rowan, green or brown rather than orange, and recognizably like small apples or pears, the name ‘sorb apple’ is sometimes used. Another English name, mainly dialect, is ‘chequer’. In the south of Italy, the sun ripens the fruits sufficiently for them to be eaten raw. In Britain, where they used occasionally to be gathered for sale, it was usual to ‘blet’ them (as with the MEDLAR) to soften them and mellow their sourness, and then to use them in tarts.
Ruta graveolens, a small shrubby plant of the European parts of the Mediterranean region, now cultivated elsewhere too. The leaves, blue-green and fleshy, have a strong and unattractive aromatic odour, and a bitter taste. They are used, fresh or dried but usually minced and in small quantity, for flavouring bread, meat dishes, and so on; and to impart bitterness to certain alcoholic drinks.
The plant has enjoyed a high reputation for medicinal properties. Another common name, herb of grace, arose because holy water used to be sprinkled from brushes made of rue.
R. chalepensis is Egyptian rue, less important but otherwise similar. What is sometimes called Syrian or African or wild rue is, however, a plant of another genus, Peganum harmala, whose seeds are used as a condiment, e.g. in Afghanistan as ïspand (or ïsfand) and in Turkey as üzerlik.
the Malay name for the fruit of Flacourtia rukam, a tree of the same genus as the better-known RAMONTCHI and LOVI-LOVI. Native to Asia and long associated with Madagascar (as French and Spanish names, prune malgache and ciruela de Madagascar, testify), it has been introduced to the American tropics.
The roundish fruits are about 2 cm (1″) in diameter, nearly black in colour when ripe, and with a juicy, acid, yellowish-white pulp. They vary in sweetness but some are good eaten raw when ripe. Like the ramontchi, they can also be made into jams and so forth when slightly unripe.
F. cataphracta, the paniala, is cultivated in the Far East and has also been introduced to the New World. Its russet-purple cherry-sized fruits resemble the rukam.
Count (1753–1814) Benjamin Thompson was born in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He came from farming stock but, with an eye on higher things, he studied experimental philosophy, chemistry, and medicine as well as French, and became a schoolmaster before the age of 20.
During the American War of Independence Thompson was a loyalist and spy working for the governor of Massachusetts. Later he raised and commanded the ‘King’s American Dragoons’, a regiment known and hated for its atrocities on Long Island. His first ‘British’ career, spent partly in America and partly in England, during which he was knighted, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and became a full colonel, ended in 1784 when, at the age of 31, he left for Munich and entered the service of the Elector of Bavaria, first as aide-de-camp, then Minister of Police and Grand Chamberlain. The 15 years in Munich were very productive. In addition to his seminal contributions to the theory of heat he also designed the ‘English Garden’, a lasting memorial. He was created a count of the Holy Roman Empire and chose for his title Rumford, the original name of the town of Concord (New Hampshire).
In 1798 he returned to England and founded in 1799 the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He settled in Paris in 1803.
The Harvard University Press edition of Rumford’s published work, in five volumes, covers a wide variety of subjects. Less than one-tenth of the approximately one million words are devoted to food. However, these passages are of great interest and demonstrate Rumford’s great interest in topics as disparate as:
On the last of these items, it is often said and seldom contradicted that Rumford discovered convection by observing that hot stewed apples or apple sauce cooled more slowly than clear soup. This is cited sometimes as an example of observations in everyday life leading to discoveries in basic science. Rumford did indeed try to find the reason for the vastly different behaviour of a clear broth and a viscous pureé, and explains his puzzlement thus:
When dining I had often observed that some particular dishes retained their Heat much longer than others, and that apple-pies, and apples and almonds mixed (a dish in great repute in England), remained hot a surprising length of time.
Much struck with this extraordinary quality of retaining Heat which apples appeared to possess, it frequently occurred to my recollection; and I never burnt my mouth with them, or saw others meet with the same misfortune, without endeavouring but in vain, to find out some way of accounting in a satisfactory manner for this surprising phenomenon.
However, it was a chance observation in an entirely different field (examining the sand on the sea shore at the hot baths of Baia, near Naples) that gave him the clue to the nature of the transport of heat by convection and the reason for the difference between apple sauce and broth; in the apple sauce the circulation of the water is hindered by the fibrous material suspended in it.
The famous soup which Rumford devised for feeding the poor of Munich in the workhouse was ‘a soup composed of pearl barley, pease, potatoes, cuttings of fine wheaten bread, vinegar, salt, and water, in certain proportions’. After much experiment he concluded that this was ‘the cheapest, most savoury, and most nourishing food that could be provided’. He gave precise instructions on the preparation and specified, for example, stale little loaves of semmel bread (such as the bakers in Munich donated to the good cause) as being the most suitable for his purpose.
Each inmate of the workhouse was to receive 20 fluid ounces (560 ml) of this soup (whether as the only meal of the day or as the main meal or as one of two meals is not clear, although many commentators have adopted the first and worst interpretation). An analysis in the 1930s showed that the calorific value of such a meal would only be 960 calories. It would follow that unless the recipients managed to obtain quite a lot more food from other sources, they were on a starvation diet. This is not to say that there was no value in Rumford’s work on his soup. It was indeed economical and nutritious, and it is significant that Rumford himself wrote of the advantages of adding a little minced red herring and grated cheese to it. On the assumption that some such supplements were often provided, and on the further assumption that one helping of the soup was not all that the inmates were given, they may have been getting just enough.
Nicholas Kurti
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Karl (1785–1843) often referred to by his title, Baron von Rumohr, one of the most unusual and impressive figures in the history of gastronomic writing.
His book Geist der Kochkunst (The Essence of Cookery) was first published in Germany in 1822, attributed to Rumohr’s personal cook (Mundkoch) Joseph Kïnig. The profession of Mundkoch dated back to times when persons in high positions found it necessary to have a trusted employee to cook and taste (for fear of poisoning) all their food. Kïnig had accompanied Rumohr on two extensive trips to Italy, whither he went in his capacity as art historian, but taking a keen interest in the food. In the second edition, published in 1832, after the book had been established as a success, Rumohr acknowledged that it was his own work.
Rumohr was equipped to write his book (which preceded by several years the more famous work by BRILLAT-SAVARIN) by a scholarly knowledge of food and cookery in classical times and by much experience of cooking in his own household, plus a remarkably wide range of knowledge about British, Italian, French, and Spanish cookery and even such esoteric items as flavourings used in Indonesia, the diet of N. American fur trappers, and the cooking of food on heated stones in the South Sea islands.
The whole thrust of his work was not in the direction of grand dinners and expensive dishes but towards a resurrection of the native German traditions of cookery and towards increased understanding on the part of his readers of nutrition and of the scientific aspects of cookery. He saw his readers as women; his book was dedicated specifically to six women and in the more general sense to all those German women who had responsibility for feeding households. Such women would have been favourably impressed by his understanding of kitchen procedures and by his down-to-earth approach. In the vigorous and philosophical introduction to his book, Rumohr remarked severely: ‘a certain over-refinement of the art of cookery is tending to appear among civilised people. This usually accompanies an affected taste in literature and art.’ (This snippet illustrates how ready he was to perceive connections between the so-called fine arts–and for that matter religious, ethical, and political questions–and the art and science of cookery.) In another passage he denounced ‘the habit of eating fussy snacks’. He explained that a ‘nibbler’ could be recognized immediately by his decaying teeth, swollen eyes, and dreamy appearance. However, with his customary analytical and precise approach, he conceded that there were special reasons for students having snack meals (while proposing that they should organize themselves to eat in messes, like English army officers, in order to avoid this necessity); he also observed that his criticisms did not apply with equal force to all the various regions of Germany. He said that ‘the habit of eating between meals, with its characteristic “fast food shops”, has so far established itself in a few provinces only. It is most entrenched in Upper Saxony.’
The excellence of Rumohr’s writing and of the advice which he offers would have been more than sufficient, if he had been writing in English, French, or Italian, to assure him a very wide audience and enduring international fame. However, he is still little known outside Germany. His book was translated into Swedish some time ago, but no French translation is available and the first English translation, the excellent one by Barbara Yeomans, did not appear until 1993 (see Rumohr, 1993).
Phaseolus coccineus, is so called because it is a climbing plant. It has a stronger flavour and more showy flowers than the green ‘French bean’ (see HARICOT BEAN) with which it is sometimes confused.
The runner bean originated in C. America, possibly Mexico. American Indians still eat the starchy roots, besides the young pods and dried seeds which are generally consumed.
The ‘scarlet runner’, named for its bright red flowers, was introduced to England by Tradescant, the gardener of King Charles I. At first it was grown for its flowers which were often used in bouquets. The flower colour is a sign of the colour of the seeds, which range from white through pink to a deep purple. Mottled seeds are common.
Some of the very numerous cultivars have round, stringless, pods. In Europe and N. America it is usual to eat the pods when they are still young and tender. In Britain they are often allowed to grow on before being marketed and in this state are referred to by Jane Grigson (1978) as ‘monstrosities’. In the same vein, Stobart (1980) remarks that when the beans have become old and tough they have to be sliced before use and that this practice is referred to in America as ‘Frenching’, although it would be abhorrent to the French.
When mature seeds are sold in the USA, they may be called snail beans, butter beans (white ones), or pea beans.
are composed of bread dough incorporating sugar, eggs, and butter. It is shaped into a loaf or cylinder, baked, cooled, and sliced and then dried in low heat until hard. Rusks have a low water content and keep well. Sharing a common origin with the modern BISCUIT, medieval rusks were known as panis biscoctus (meaning ‘twice-cooked bread’) and were used as a form of preserved bread to provision armies and ships at sea (see SHIP’S BISCUIT).
The passage below is by Joyce Toomre (1992). She says that the eastern origin of noodles and ravioli-like preparations in Russia is well established by etymological evidence.
Both the words and the products show their Eastern roots. The Russian word for noodles, lapsha, comes from Turkic instead of the Germanic nudel from which both the English noodle and French nouille derive. According to Kovalev, the word for small Siberian dumplings, pel’meni, comes from Finno-Ugric while their shape and filling resemble the Central Asian chuchvar and manti, the Turkish borek, and the Georgian khinkali. Only vareniki, another type of filled dumpling, show their Slavic origins directly since the name derives from the verb varit’, to boil. Vareniki are prevalent in the Ukraine and are more likely to have entered Russia across the Polish border from Eastern Europe and Austria-Hungary. Vermicelli and macaroni were both later imports from Western Europe. Dal’, the great Russian lexicographer of the nineteenth century, defined vermishel’ (vermicelli) as ital’janskaja lapsha (Italian noodles) and makarony (macaroni) as trubchataja lapsha (tubular noodles) or ital’janskaja trubki (Italian tubes).
In many countries there are products which resemble rusks in that they are essentially oven-dried bread, whether plain (e.g. BRUSCHETTA) or of a sweet kind; but they may incorporate other ingredients such as spices or nuts, and are given individual names according to recipe.
In Britain, plain rusks are generally thought of in specialized terms, as an edible teething aid for babies, or as ‘rusk crumb’ (which acts as a meat extender in some sausages) but regional traditions of using rusks in place of bread survive, especially in East Anglia, where they are made in the shape of small rolls and called ‘hollow biscuits’ or ‘knobs’.
In Germany a rusk is a zwieback, i.e. twice baked. It takes the form of a small loaf which can be sold fresh but which ordinarily is sliced before toasting and further baking until dry. It crossed the Atlantic with German emigrants in the 1890s and is common in the USA. The French equivalent, biscotte, is baked as an oblong loaf, sliced, then toasted in a hotter oven than is used to dry English rusks. Calvel (1962) observed that it was not at all popular until the 1950s. Wartime scarcity and rationing had had such a dreadful effect on French bread that biscotte was preferred by many.
Laura Mason
a country which has presented many different faces to the world–from the time of Mongol rule in the early medieval period through the centuries of the Tsarist Empire to being the core of the Soviet Union for most of the 20th century, to the Russian Federation of the 1990s.
Behind these various faces have always been the masses of ordinary Russians, mostly peasants. Their food, unlike that of the wealthy and privileged (whether at the Tsarist court or belonging to the upper reaches of the Communist Party), has been consistently simple. A similar dichotomy between the food of the wealthy and that of the poor has of course been observable in many countries; but it has been especially noticeable in Russia.
Features of the standard Russian diet, hitherto, have been:
Lesley Chamberlain (1983), in a brilliant introduction to the whole subject of food in Russia, identifies the main influences which have successively been brought to bear on the underlying pattern.
Long ago it was the Mongol conquerors who were responsible for introducing, at least for the wealthier households, certain spices from Asia (e.g. ginger and cinnamon). But there were many later arrivals from the same direction, and these included some but not all forms of pasta; see box.
Tea arrived from the late 17th century in small amounts and then from the 18th century in larger quantity, as explained by Professor Robert Smith (1980) in an elegant essay on the samovar.
The Russian Orthodox Church calendar had a huge influence, specifying over half the days of the year as suitable only for ‘Lenten’ foods (vegetables, fish, fungi), while eggs, milk, meat could only appear on the other days. Russian Easter confections such as kulich (see EASTER FOODS) and PASKHA belong of course to the same calendar.
It was Tsar Peter the Great (at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century) who was largely responsible for bringing Russia into a European (especially Scandinavian) cultural context, with repercussions in the kitchens of the well-to-do and for important items such as the ZAKUSKI table.
The 19th century saw the introduction of French chefs etc. to St Petersburg and Moscow, and the publication of the monumental cookery book by Elena Molokhovets of which an admirable edition in translation, with copious explanatory material, by Joyce Toomre (1992) is now available. The three famous French chefs who left their mark in Russia were CARÊME, Urban Dubois, and Olivier. The last of these three opened a restaurant called the Hermitage in Moscow in the 1880s, described by Lesley Chamberlain as ‘one of the great historic restaurants of the world’, and it was there that French-Russian cuisine was most fully elaborated. Although the French influence, at least at the top of the culinary tree, was great, one must beware of supposing that any dish with russe in the title actually came from Russia. Charlotte russe, for example, as explained under CHARLOTTE, seems to have been invented by Carême in France or England and was only rechristened by Carême later. It is Sharlotka in Russia. As for ‘Russian salad’, as interpreted in western countries (i.e. diced cooked vegetables in or with mayonnaise), it was essentially a French-Russian creation called Vinegrety which had a dressing of oil and vinegar (see VINAIGRETTE). The salad to which Olivier gave his name involves cold game (or salmon in Lent) and has a more sophisticated dressing.
In thinking of Russian food and cookery, one naturally thinks of European Russia, but the Russian Federation extends all the way eastwards to Mongolia and China and includes regions (notably Siberia) with very different characteristics and different foodways. To take one example, the Buryats of S. Siberia (who may in turn be divided into the W. or Baikal Buryats and the E. Buryats who live on the other side of Lake Baikal) have distinctive foodways which are the subject of an award-winning essay by Sharon Hudgins (1997), based on pioneering culinary research among these people:
Placed in front of me was the sheep’s stomach, which had been filled with a mixture of fresh cow’s milk, fresh sheep’s blood, garlic, and spring onions, tied up with the sheep’s intestines, and boiled in the pot with the rest of the meat …. Our hostess leaned over and sliced the top of the stomach. The contents had not been fully cooked and blood oozed onto my plate. She took a large spoon, scooped out some of the semi-coagulated mass, and handed a spoonful to me.
A far cry from the dishes recommended by Mrs Molokhovets or those confected in St Petersburg by imported French chefs.
See also: BABA; BLINI; CAVIAR; COULIBIAC; PASKHA; PIROG; SERVICE À LA RUSSE; STURGEON.
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are largely modelled on those of other countries, or have been developed on parallel lines.
The first cheeses to be imported into Russia on a substantial scale were Dutch ones, in the 18th century. The popularity of this type of cheese has been maintained ever since. In the 19th century wealthy Russians imported the English hard cheeses (Cheshire, Chester) which joined Dutch cheeses as a luxury on the ZAKUSKI table. As Lesley Chamberlain (1983) points out, the Russians never followed either the French practice of eating these matured cheeses as the penultimate course of dinner or the English way of eating them at the end of the meal.
Appreciation of semi-soft, soft, and blue cheeses developed later. No doubt tastes of this sort were restricted to the wealthier and more sophisticated Russians. It is interesting in this connection to examine the use of cheese in the greatest Russian cookery book, that of Molokhovets (1861). Joyce Toomre, her translator into English (1992), sums this up as follows:
Molokhovets used cheese extensively in her recipes. Those specified were Dutch (undifferentiated), Parmesan, Stilton and Swiss. Limburger cheese was mentioned, but not used in a recipe. Despite the influence of French cuisine on the Russian kitchen, Molokhovets did not refer to French cheeses, either as a class or individually, not even Roquefort. The cheese most commonly used in these recipes is tvorog, made at home from curdled sour milk.
Russia did not have a native tradition of sophisticated cheese-making; but everywhere there was some sort of CURD or COTTAGE CHEESE. Tvorog, mentioned above, is the generic name for these. There were ‘pickled’ (brined) versions of them, such as brynza (see ‘PICKLED’ CHEESES). Tvorog and brynza did not qualify for the ZAKUSKI table, but were and still are often served as the first course of a simple meal.
Among the numerous Russian dishes which use tvorog are PASKHA, pirozkhi (see PIROG) with a cheese filling, and some kinds of cheese pudding.
a genus of mushrooms. It is surprising that the group has no common English name, except for ‘russula’, which is simply the scientific name laicized. The same applies in Italy, where the name is rossola, and in France, where all except one species (mentioned below) are russule. The very large number of species (over 100 in Britain and nearly 200 in Europe as a whole), the bright hues which many of them display, and the fact that many are highly edible could be expected to have yielded a whole crop of vernacular names.
Russulas have a wide distribution, from Russia to S. Europe, in N. America, China, and Australia. Most russulas are of medium size, up to 10 cm (4″) across the cap, which in young specimens is convex but later acquires a depression in the centre. The gills are normally white or whitish, and so is the stem, but the cap is often brightly coloured. The relatively short stem has no ring or volva, and is noticeably brittle, snapping like a stick of soft chalk.
The best species for eating, and the one which does have vernacular names, is Russula virescens, with a green or greenish-grey cap, paler at the edges than in the middle, and with a surface which breaks into a characteristic pattern of cracks. A summer mushroom, found under oak and beech trees, it is a traditional favourite in the north of Italy (as verdone).
Other good species include:
All species of Russula which have a mild taste are edible; those with a bitter, acrid taste, some of which can burn the mouth severely, are to be avoided. It is prudent to take special care over the identification of those with red caps.
Secale cereale, a cereal which came into cultivation later than WHEAT, BARLEY, and OATS. Rye was for centuries the principal bread-making cereal of N. Europe, and still is in eastern parts of the continent, especially in Russia. This is partly because it grows well in cold regions: well into the Arctic parts of Scandinavia and up to 4,250 m (14,000′) in the Himalayas. It is not just a northerly substitute for wheat, since it has its own special qualities and is preferred by some peoples, but the amount grown is slowly declining.
The original ancestor of rye was a perennial grass, Secale montanum, common in N. Africa and mountainous regions of the Near and Middle East, and known as mountain rye. Probably around 3000 BC, somewhere in the highlands of E. Turkey, Armenia, and NW Iran, where the harsh climate is unsuitable for wheat or barley, this was developed into a cultivated annual plant.
Cultivated rye, S. cereale, is up to 1.8 m (6′) tall. The seed head has two rows of narrow greyish-green seeds enclosed in large husks with stiff bristles.
Rye cultivation entered Europe from the east around 2000BC and had spread westwards to Germany by 1000BC, skirting the lands where the classical civilizations were developing. (It also spread eastwards to the Himalayas, but without entering the main part of India; nor did it reach China.)
The first mention of its cultivation is in the 1st century BC by Pliny, who describes it as grown in the Alps and an unpleasant grain fit only for the very hungry. However, the Germanic tribes valued it. When the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain they brought rye with them and for a long time afterward more rye was grown in Britain than wheat. Bread was made both from pure rye flour and from maslin (rye and wheat ground together); the latter gives a more manageable bread dough. Lower grades of bread were made with mixtures of rye and barley and other grains.
Rye suffers from a peculiar disease called ergot, caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. The organism invades the grains and replaces them with swollen black or purple lumps. Rye in this condition, which is quite easy to spot, is described as ‘spurred’. It can be excluded from the harvest by sieving the grains after threshing. Ergot-infected grains are much larger than those that are unaffected. Ergot is exceptionally poisonous. Eating even a small amount of it causes hallucinations, and death. The outbreaks of ‘dancing mania’ and other aberrations which affected whole villages in the Middle Ages were generally caused by ergot, as were, it is suggested, the wilder accusations surrounding the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. The active substance which produces hallucinations is lysergic acid, a form of which is the drug LSD. Not only hallucinations, but dry gangrene and the loss of extremities are the terrible consequences of ingestion (Ferrières, 2002). The last major outbreak in Europe was in 1951 at Pont Saint-Esprit in France when four people died and 200 were affected. However, the problem remains in less wealthy countries where food supplies are so meagre that to sieve the grain and so diminish the harvest seems more perilous than to trust to luck.
Other Germanic tribes, such as the Franks, established rye firmly in France, where a dense, grey, rye bread remained the chief kind in country areas until the early 20th century, long after rye had faded into relative unimportance in Britain. In Germany, C. and E. Europe, and in Russia, RYE BREADS were dominant. The numerous kinds ranged in colour and solidity from the deep brown and dense German PUMPERNICKEL and the common Russian black bread, to the paler and lighter breads of Poland and Sweden.
Rye was first grown in the New World in 1606, when the French pioneer L’Escarbot sowed it in Nova Scotia. (The so-called ‘giant wild rye’ of the north-west, Leymus condensatus, also called ‘bunch’ or ‘lyme grass’ and eaten by Indians, is a native but not closely related plant.) Rye has continued to be grown on a small scale in the north of the USA and in Canada, where various kinds of rye bread have been made popular by E. European and Jewish immigrants and have indeed become indispensable for certain American kinds of SANDWICH, e.g. the Jewish salt beef and rye.
Apart from bread, rye is also used to make certain drinks, including the Russian KVASS and American rye whiskey (bourbon whiskey is made predominantly from maize).
are most popular in continental Europe north and east of the Rhine; in Scandinavia; and in N. America where immigrants from these areas have settled. They are made from pure RYE, or rye and wheat mixed (a combination known historically as ‘maslin’ in Britain), and are often flavoured with caraway, aniseed, fennel, or cumin.
Because its seeds are greyish-green, it is impossible to make pure white flour from rye. Bread made from rye flour with all the bran removed is pale grey. Wholemeal rye flour gives ‘black bread’, which is really dark greyish-brown unless some colouring agent is added. Rye is low in gluten, the substance which gives wheat bread its light, elastic texture; so rye bread is always rather dense. However, its total protein content is only slightly lower than wheat, and rye bread keeps moist for longer than wheat bread, thanks to a small amount of natural gum in the grain which traps moisture, and which is also responsible for its characteristic stickiness.
A distinguishing feature of nearly all rye bread is that it is leavened with a SOURDOUGH culture, normally by keeping back a piece of dough from the previous batch. The culture contains yeast and lactic acid-producing bacteria which give the bread a special and delicious sour flavour. PUMPERNICKEL is made with a culture containing only bacteria, which is why it rises so little. In the highly baked, unleavened rye crispbreads of Scandinavia the faintly bitter natural flavour of rye comes through pleasantly.
The French still make rye bread (pain de seigle), especially in Brittany, the Massif Central, and the south-west.