Seaside Fare: Camarones (Shrimp)

Seaside Fare: Canoa Quebrada, Brazil

 

Canoa Quebrada, near Fortaleza in the Brazilian State of Ceara is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  While Brazil is in South America, they are the only country in that region that speaks Portuguese instead of the “usual” Spanish.  One of the amazing things is, how great the food tastes with minimal preparation.  Its literally caught right in front of you.  You can see the fishermen on a boat maybe 100′ away.  The shrimp are probably the best I have ever had.  I love shrimp, always have.  in Jamaica they were seasoned with habanero peppers, (the hottest on the planet), but they eat them with the shells on, and the shells are thicker and much crunchier and harder to chew/swallow.  The shrimp in Brazil are perfect.  here in the USA we eat the shrimp with the shells off, and discard the tail.  But we are missing a great component… when the shrimp are cooked in their shell it adds so much more flavor.  And in Brazil, you remove the head, and eat the whole shrimp, shell and all, some eat the tail, but some also discard the very end of the tail.  The shells are so soft and delicious, you want to eat as much of it as you can.  They either cook in olive oil or cook over an open flame.  In any case, the best afternoon snack I ever had on the beach was an ice cold beer and a plate of a couple of dozen fresh fish caught just a few minutes ago from a few feet away.  A squeeze of lime, maybe some french fries, I wish I was back there already and it hasn’t even been a week.

 

 

 

Fortaleza

I am not sure how many people have heard of Fortaleza.  It means the “stronghold”, in this case, it was the Northeast corner of Brazil.  Invading ships from Europe would approach this area first, but they would be prepared.  Fortaleza is an amazing place.  Anyone has heard of Rio de Janeiro, but those who are experienced travelers know that Fortaleza is the place to go.  Even Brazilians from other parts of the country visit here on vacation.  Its not an easy place to get to.  In fact, even from NYC, you can get no direct flight to Fortaleza.  You must either fly through Sao Paulo or Rio and then up to Fortaleza.  This adds at least 5 hours to your voyage.  It is almost like you want to fly to Chicago, but you must first fly down to Miami, change planes, the fly back up to Chicago.    Now I know they are crunched all the numbers, but I still can’t believe that this waste of fuel and time justifies a direct flight to Fortaleza.  IN any case, Fortaleza is an amazing place and has a significant Italian population.

Minestrone

Minestrone is a vague term.   Its basically a vegetable soup which can consist of any ingredients, usually vegetarian.  Today I went to my friend Vittorios’s house for lunch.  The last lunch I will eat before I leave the country to explore Brazil.  It was a cold day, so he was using sliced up zucchini from the garden, some basil, salt, some beans from the garden, and a handful of linguini broken into 4 parts to serve as noodles rather than linguini.  A dash of grated cheese and it is wonderful.  This is not soup, and not quite a pasta dish but it is minestrone, you add vegetables one day, pasta the next, and maybe even something else like chicken the next so it lasts a week or more.

What I have learned from Vittorio is that leftovers are not bad, as long as you continue to re-invent them every day.  I quite frankly don’t care for most leftovers, some, but not most.  But in this manner, the Italians re-invent the dish so its something different each day.

While it is is getting colder and we need hotter food to warm our bodies, we use the leftover vegetables from the gardnen, hard pasta, olive oil, salt, and some boiling water.  Again, this is not traditional fare.  It is if you are not used to it, but if you are old school, its the norm.

 

 

Sicilian prefers prison to house arrest with wife

Sicilian prefers prison to house arrest with wife

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) – A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home, Italian media reported Thursday.

Santo Gambino, 30, did time for dumping hazardous waste before being moved to house arrest in Villabate, outside the Sicilian capital, Palermo, Italian news agencies reported.

Gambino went to the police station and asked to be put away again to avoid arguing with his wife, who accused him of failing to pay for the upkeep of their two children.

Police charged him with violating the conditions of his sentence and made him go home and patch things up with his wife.

www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE59L56L20091022

Beans

Today I went to Vittorio’s house to check on the fermentation of the wine.  He invited me in for lunch.  It was all food harvested from the garden.  Tomatoes, basil, peppers (hot and sweet), mushrooms he found in the woods, and beans.  He soaked and cooked the beans all day, added sage leaves he grew, and served it with the fire roasted peppers from his garden.  I don’t know the raw costs of this, but I know the time to care and harvest it basically turned into food for free.  Sure, time, care, harvesting takes time.  He is retired, but this labor of love translates into enough food to eat for months.  If you cannot eat it fresh, you cook, preserve, freeze, ferment or cure.  How much do you spend on groceries?  How much land do you have?  If you even have a few square feet, you can grow enough food for  season. The best part is, it will be the best food you eat and far surpass anything you would have spent money for this season.

Basil

With what little basil that is left now that the cooler weather has come, its time to save it.  The beauty of Italian food is, they don’t try to keep unseasonal items in season all the time.  But its also important not to waste.  So, with those basil plants that now have much smaller leaves and about to get frostbitten, just take them, put in a food processor with olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, salt, pepper, blend and you now have pesto for bread, dipping, pasta, bruscetta, etc.  If you have one of those “old fashioned” ice cube trays, fill each one, and each is about a serving for one person when you go to defrost.

Columbus Day

Well, I won’t go into my usual rant about how Columbus has been diss’d (disrespected) as an invader, rapist, dstroyer, etc.  Instead I want to go into his genius of how he knew the world was NOT flat and how to work around the Vatican in a diplomatic was to prove there was another side of the world.  His fellow Italians laughed at him, the Spaniards funded him to find a shorter route to India. And, the Spaniards won.  This is why (while I am Italian) I do not mind that the world, especially in the USA speaks Spanish.  If not for the Spanish, there would be no USA, and if not for Italy, there would be no genius visionary like Columbus.   So call him a villain or whatever, he could not come all the way back to the king of spain and just hand him a tomato (a fruit which is not always associated with Italian cooking until AFTER his visit to the Americas), he had to hand them gold riches, etc.  to show that their financing of his nearly disasterous journey would yield nothing but a mutiny.  So he brought the royalty gold, fruits, tomatoes, chocolate (cocoa), and many other items to present to the royal family that their efforts and money was not wasted.

Today in 2009 Columbus was regarded as an invader, thief, barbarian.  But let’s face it, if he did not come, discover and bring the resources back to Europe and the world, all his efforts would be in vain.  There is no one, within the realm of sanity, that can convince us that the Americas have brought prosperity and improvement to the world though the discovery of the Americas.    Both The United States and Brazil alone have contributed more to the world in the last 100 years than almost any other country.   The USA has introduced film, cinema, motion pictures, assembly line cars. rock & roll and so many other important contributions to the rest of the world (such as literature, music, technology, food, travel routes, etc etc etc.)  The field of medicine alone has helped cure fatal conditions wold-wide.  And, let’s face it. all of Europe would be speaking German if not for the efforts of the USA in World War II.

The Americas are not perfect. North, Central or South. But nor is the rest of the world.  We have sins and crime against us just like anyone else, but in the end, our good deeds, through Columbus, have tried to make a better world.

 

Top 10 Most Dangerous Foods

On WNBC New York Local news at 11pm, they stated a report which concludes that the top 10 most dangerous foods which risk contamination are:

1)  Leafy Greens
2)  Eggs
3)  Tuna
4)  Oysters
5)  Potatoes
6)  Cheese
7)  Ice Cream
 Tomatoes
9)  Sprouts
10) Berries

Alright, why?  Some I just don’t get.  but let’s break this down.

1)  Greens: These are always vulnerable because they soak in whatever they are exposed to, whether its saliva from a rabid rabbit or unclean water, or worse yet, a field worker who decided to relive himself in the field rather than going to the nearest bathroom.

2)  Eggs:  Sure, salmonella, no big surprise there. But when was the last time you got sick from eggs?  The only time there is serious salmonella outbreaks, its NOT from the eggs at the diner that were ordered over easy.  It was one single egg that got mixed with dozens in a big bucket that contaminated your omelette or scrambled eggs.  If you like your eggs scrambled, remember this when you go to a busy breakfast hotspot, but if you order them over easy, then you eliminate your risks by hundreds.

3) Tuna:  I don’t get this one.  Tuna is the most widely consumed (and almost extinct) fish there is.  Especially if its marinated in lime juice and/or dressed with fresh squeezed lemon, I don’t see this happening.  I would think its tuna salad with mayo thats been sitting out at room temperature for too long?

4)  Oysters:  Yes, I can see this… although I love the raw bar and have eaten countless raw clams and oysters… the trick?  Drink a margarita, daiquiri, or even a caipirinha, no matter what your preference, lime juice has enough acid in it to cook ANYthing you eat.  So that after dinner cocktail can really be more healthy to your stomach than harmful to your liver.

5)  Potatoes?  Really?  I would love to see the reports on potato contamination.  Yes, hundreds of years ago they were known as “night shades” (poisonous foods) but in this day and age?  We either boil the hell out of them or fry them till burnt.  I don’t get it, I would think potatoes are the safest of all fresh foods.

6)  Cheese:  If its processed, and left out of the refrigerator, yes, I can understand how it is a vehicle for contamination.  But “real” cheese (not processed) like from Europe (not processed like in USA) really has no chance of bacteria forming as it is aged naturally.

7)  Ice Cream:  I don’t eat a lot of this, but again its a shocker.  Its ice, its cream, I guess because its dairy its vulnerable if left out at room temperature, but again, I don’t see this as a big threat.  Do you?  When was the last time you got sick from ice cream?  Was it because it was left out at room temperature or you ate a gallon of it and it was actually a different sort of illness?

 Tomatoes:  I do understand this one, again, because they are grown and subjected/exposed to many elements, from animals to man, to whatever they were washed with — all fruits (and/or vegetables) are subject to this risk. However, I do not recall ever becoming sick from eating a tomato, especially if cooked or served in a salad with vinegar.

9)  Sprouts:  Please see the above notes on fruits/vegetables.  I don’t know what they classify as “sprouts” but it gets back to how/where they were grown and how they are harvested and by whom.

10)  Berries:  I can easily see this, especially since I have been paying particular attention to grape growing, wine and harvesting.  Wine needs to be picked when most ripe, but before the rainfall when they can absorb too much water and dilute the true fruit of the grape.  At the same time, all poisons in the soil, or animals or humans, can also be absorbed.

The solution, for me, is to just have an after-dinner drink.  And, it not be alcoholic (although its more appetizing)… just the juice from one lime will burn and cook thoroughly anything you ate, raw, cooked, contaminated or otherwise.  There is a way to enjoy all foods, and if they are “risky foods” (none of which I consider risky outside of raw oysters), then take the next step, which is a culinary pleasure, a mixed cocktail of fresh lime juice to eliminate all worries and possible risks of eating these foods.  Remember, bacteria cannot survive in high acidic levels and/or alcohol.  Mexicans have Margaritas, Italians have Grapa, Brazilians have caipirinhas, and the Japanese use wasabi, a horseradish condiment where its been proven that bacteria cannot survive.  Know your food, know your preventative cure, enjoy.  Its all good in the end, but be cautious just the same if your stomach is sensitive to any of these things.

Zucchini Flowers

So what do you do with those orange flowers that grow out of the tops of the zucchini?  They are in fact a tremendously edible and delicious part of the plant.  I have seen them used in minestrone soups, but more popularly, fried.  If you do a search, you will find that many want to stuff it with ricotta cheese or even mozzarella cheese.  This food is best kept simple, dipped in a little beaten egg, rolled in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, and fried in extra virgin olive oil.  They don’t take long to cook but fry them till they look done to you… I personally like everything fried brown and crispy, even my french fries, I like them dark brown and crunchy… below are before & after photos…

Time to Make the Wine

Well, its the last day in September. So we know what October brings, time to make the wine.  It all starts by buying 60 36-pound crates of grapes, putting them through a grinder, removing excess stems and allowing the crushed grapes to begin to ferment for 4 days.  On Sunday, we will continue by putting them through a 100+ year old wine press brought over from Calabria.  The wine will then be poured into barrels and bottles and transferred into old oak barrels to ferment and develop further.  Some time in the Spring the wine will be ready to drink.  A few days of labor and a couple of thousand dollars and there will be enough wine for 1.5 years, plus a lot left over to share with friends around the holidays as gifts.

Here is a video from last year’s wine pressing, its only 3 minutes long but this year will show you the full process, beginning till the end, so you too can give it a try.  Its not easy, its not cheap, but its also not rocket science. If you have the patience, the space, the time and money, you too can make your own batch of wine and label it as your own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nutA3MGM050&feature=channel_page

More to come in the following days!