Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm delighted to welcome James Oseland to Inkwell to discuss his book
"Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia,
Singapore and Malaysia."

James Oseland is the editor-in-chief of Saveur and the author of
Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of
Indonesia,Singapore and Malaysia, published by W.W. Norton. The book
was honored with International Association of Culinary Professionals
and James Beard awards, and was selected as one of 2006’s ten best
books about Asia by Time Asia. He lectures frequently at New York’s
Asia Society and the Institute for Culinary Education. A California
native, he now lives in Brooklyn and travels to Southeast Asia as often
as possible. 


Leading the discussion with James is our own Eric Gower:

Eric Gower lived in Japan for 15 years, working for the Prime
Minister's office as an editor and writer on political economy before
getting horribly bored and turning his attention to cooking all day
long, for the pure pleasure of it. He now lives in San Francisco,
teaches cooking, and writes cookbooks. His latest, The Breakaway Cook,
was published by Morrow/HarperCollins in 2007. His website and blog can
be found at www.breakawaycook.com.
  

    
I know I speak for everyone reading this in saying that we're thrilled
to have James, "Mr. Saveur" Oseland here to rap with us about food,
cooking, crazy-good ingredients, travel in some of the world's most
interesting countries, food writing, and whatever else he feels like
talking about. 

I've had the good fortune of traveling throughout large chunks of
Indonesia, so it's with special delight that I read James' book, Cradle
of Flavor. On one trip to Banda, WAY out in eastern Indonesia, about
eqidistant from Papua New Guinea and the northern tip of Australia, I
actually met the family to whom James dedicates this book, the Alwis.
Talk about coincidences! 

More on that soon, but I just want to say that the very first
image/memory that comes to mind when I hear the word "Indonesia" is the
nutmeg jam made in Banda. I can still see it, smell, it, and taste it.
James, can you make this stuff? Because I demand to know the recipe if
you can! One of the more wondrous substances I've ever encountered.

Places don't really get more magical for travelers than Banda. I'd
love to hear James's off-the-cuff impressions of the place.
  

    
And after we've heard all about Banda and nutmeg jam, let's just get
right to it: I can think of a few denizens of this place who will want
to know everything there is to know about the Acehnese wisdom of
combing nettles and weed in their food!
  

    
(and just to get into the spirit, I'm about to fire up a big pot of
rendang daging sapi, dry-braised beef, West Sumatran style, outlined in
great clarity on p. 304 of the new book; remarkably, I have every
esoteric ingredient needed! Will report back). 
  

    
Well the rendang was truly fabulous. I went out and did some errands
has it was gently simmering, and I smelled it within HALF A BLOCK of my
house on my way home! Insanely aromatic -- it should be even better
today. The local house critic was blown away.
  

    
Thanks, Eric, for your "well"come. This site rocks, and I'm thrilled
to be a part of it.

And, Eric, I'm also thrilled that not only have you been to Indonesia,
but it sounds like you've been to its outermost reaches--including the
Banda Islands, which are about as remote as Indonesia gets!

Magical places like Banda--a tiny archipelago of islands that are one
of the few locales on Earth that nutmeg is native to--really signify
Indonesia in my mind. Such places also signify one of the main reasons
that I wrote "Cradle of Flavor": I wanted to create a book that not
only exposed Americans to places that they tend to know little about,
but I wanted to honor them in the most true and heartfelt way possible.
I love Indonesia (and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore) a lot; these
countries have gone a long way in shaping not only my palate but my
soul.

As for your question about nutmeg jam, and whether or not it's
possible to make here: Sadly, no--unless you get your hands on some
fresh nutmeg fruit, which is the crunchy-tart-spicy-firm flesh that
surrounds the nutmeg's seed pod and is usually discarded after the
fruit is harvested. In Banda the fruit is used lots of ways: it's
sliced and added to curries, where it lends its lovely, strange flavor;
it's soaked in sea water, then sun-dried, and sweetened, and eaten as
a snack; and, best of all (I think) it's finely julienned and added to
a local sambal (Indonesia's chile-based answer to salsa). Sambal buah
pala (as it's called) is one of God's great gifts to the culinary
world. I wish I were eating some right now.
  

    

I'm really ignorant of the food from those places so I wonder if
you can give a fast intro for those of us know know Indian, Thai,
Chinese and Japanese cuisine and want to understand Indonesian,
Singaporian (Is that correct?) and Malaysian food.
  

    

(NOTE: Offsite readers with questions or comments may have them added to
this conversation by sending them to <inkwell@well.com> -- please be sure to
put "Oseland" in the subject line. Thanks!)
  

    
Here's a picture of a fresh nutmeg fruit:

http://tinyurl.com/2udczx

I just got a fresh supply (from Germany, of all places) of very fresh
mace, that spidery red covering, which turns yellowish as it dries. But
to make the nutmeg jam, you're saying I need that white fleshy part,
yes?
  

    
(Good lord, where in Germany did *that* come from, Eric?)

I'm looking forward to this discussion, although I'm trepidacious that
there will be a huge number of crucial ingredients I won't be able to
find, which is always frustrating. 
  

    
Silly me. I didn't even realize that the nutmeg was actually harvested
from inside a fruit (the fact that they're seeds should have been a
hint, I know).  

I'm with <jmcarlin> on this.  I know little of Indonesian food, but
lots about the Asian regions he mentioned.  Are there many similarities
to Thai, Indian and Japanese foods?
  

    
(Ed, friends visiting from Frankfurt gave it to me.
www.gewuerzkarawane.de -- really high quality)
  

    <scribbled by gower Wed 6 Feb 08 11:06>
  

    <scribbled by gower Wed 6 Feb 08 11:10>
  

    
I also made the Indonesian spice cake from the book last night. Good
lord! It's a gorgeous dessert, and filled the entire neighborhood with
tantalizing aromas, I'm sure. I'm enjoying a piece with coffee as I
type this, it's really great.

James, when you're done giving us the synopsis of the summary of
Indonesian/Malay cooking 101, say a word or two on desserts. Are they
eaten at the end of a meal, like in the West? What's more prevalent,
the classic Indonesian style combos of rice flour and palm sugar, or
the
more colonial/euro-influenced butter-egg confections?

I'm also fascinated by the role colonialism has played in food there,
with jaffles on every street corner--would love to hear your take on
Indonesian perceptions of "foreign" foods.
  

    
(sorry about the scribbles, weird glitch)
  

    
James, I'm really enjoying reading "Cradle of Flavor" but still need
to cook from it. Your story backgrounds add richness. I've been to the
region numerous times (Singapore, Bali, Penang) on business and
holiday, and love the range and flavor.
  

    
I am so happy to have the chance to talk to someone who knows about
nutmeg fruit!  Once about 10 years ago now, I found some dried, candied
nutmeg fruit in the spice section of Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco.
 I brought a little home, chopped it up and added it to an apple pie,
and it was spectacularly good.  So I returned to the store, bought the
rest of the jar (not quite a pound of the stuff).  I hoarded it like
gold and only used it when I had the very best apples, because the
store never got in any more, and no one that I talked to had any idea
what I was talking about when I asked them where it came from.  I've
never seen it for sale anyplace.  I spoke to the owners of a fancy
spice shop in Chicago who had traveled to a nutmeg plantation in
Grenada and they didn't even have any idea of what I was talking about.
 

So.....do you have any suggestions for where to source candied nutmeg
fruit, or do I have to go to indonesia myself to buy a supply?
  

    
Happy Lunar New Year, everyone.

I have to run off to work in a few minutes, but I am going to try to
answer the questions about Indonesian food...so tricky to sum up, but
here I go!

Indonesia is the world's fourth largest country, just behind the U.S.,
population-wise. It is comprised of more than 15,000 islands that
stretch a distance roughly equivalent to that of Fairbanks, Alaska, to
Florida. The largest (and/or most culturally prominent) are Java, Bali,
Sumatra, Borneo (the lower two-thirds, anyway, which is called
Kalimantan), and Sulawesi (or Celebes).

The country achieved independence from the Dutch in the mid-1940s; the
Dutch had been its colonial rulers for over four centuries and
established (more or less) is contemporary boundaries. 

The Dutch had originally come to the region seeking the indigenous
spices that grew in abundance on many of the islands, including nutmeg,
cloves, cinnamon, cassia (a cousin to cinnamon), turmeric, and ginger.
But they'd been preceded by quite an illustrious bunch, including the
ancient Chinese and Indians (who had been traveling to the islands,
also in search of spices, for at least 1,000 years before Europeans
entered the picture) and Portuguese explorers.

All of these visitors left their mark on native foodways that were
already in full swing (owing, largely, to the ancient maritime kingdoms
of Java and Sumatra that ruled much of the islands for centuries): the
Chinese, for instance, imparted a local love of stir-frying; the
Indians, an appreciation of mingling complex spices together; the
Dutch, an affection for butter-based sweets; and the Portuguese
introduced chiles, which are immensely popular in all Indonesian
cooking.

All of these streams of influence are mirrored in contemporary
Indonesian food: meals are always built around rice (which has been
grown in the region for at least--roughly--4,000 years);
coconut-milk-based curries, heavily spiced with cumin, coriander, and
cinnamon, reign supreme; stir-fries are huge; and there's rarely a meal
where chiles (and the sambals I mentioned in an earlier post!) aren't
big players.

Though there are great differences between the almost countless
regional cuisines of Indonesia (just think about it: the place has more
than 15,000 islands!), a few elements define them all: The country's
foods are lusty, rich, and intensely spiced--a perfect mosaic of a few
millennium's worth of influences. As for the general flavor profile of
these foods, try to image a gentler, friendlier version of your
favorite Thai dishes....

Later today I'm going to try to sum up neighboring Malaysia and
Singapore...now off to work!
  

    
Happy Lunar New Year to you, too.

Your description is very helpful.  "...gentler friendlier version of
your favorite Thai foods" was just what I was thinking right before I
read that passage.  
  

    
Back from work!

And back to my brief description of the foodways of SE Asia:

Right next door to Indonesia are its sister countries, Malaysia and
Singapore--places I also cover in "Cradle of Flavor." As large as
Indonesia is, Malaysia and Singapore are small--they've got a combined
population of about 30 million people.

But what joyous foods those 30 million folks eat: Though Indonesia's
foodways are the source of many of Malaysia's and Singapore's cuisines,
a slew of regional variations and favorites exist, like char kuey teow
(a delicious street food made of stir-fried rice noodles and shrimp)
and laksa (another noodle dish, this one served more as a soup, with a
spicy, elegant curry broth as the soupy base).

Man, I love the food over there! It's so alive with flavor!
  

    
Back to nutmeg:

Yeah, unfortunately you need to make the jam from the fresh fruit
(and, alas, I don't know where to by the candied, dried version of it).
But a happy approximation might be to make a nutmeg-flavored simple
syrup (half water, half sugar, and a handful of cracked open nutmeg
seeds simmered together for about 15 minutes or longer) and add a few
teaspoons to some soda water--like pure and natural Coca Cola.
  

    
And, Eric, I'm so glad you made the spice cake (which is basically a
super-rich pound cake with lots of ground spices)--it's one of my
favorite recipes in the book.

Cooks in Indonesia do an amazing thing with the same batter and bake
the cake into multiple, thin layers, to make a gorgeously striated work
of art. But one humble layer suits me fine.
  

    
Street food in Singapore is so good is makes my whole body hurt.
One influential blogger from Singapore told me that nobody cooks at
home in Singapore, because you couldn't possibly do better than the
street stalls, both in terms of quality and in price, not to mention
convenience. What an amazing statement, but it's probably true. 

Speaking of home cooking, James, I assume you're the cook in the
family? Tell us about a typical "survival" dinner in the Oseland
household. Surely you don't  regularly make rendang on weeknights?As
good as that recipe is, man that's a lot of work, a lot
stove-attention. How do you balance everything you know about great
traditional cooking with the pressures of holding down a full-time (and
then some) full-time job and getting food on the table?
  

    
(slipped by James, and please pardon the typos)
  

    
Ah, the street foods of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.... My
hands-down favorite? A tiny a.m. stall (it's basically a picnic table)
on an alley in Penang, Malaysia, called Lorong Bangkok. I get toast
that's been grilled over coals, a soft boiled egg topped with a few
slices of red Thai chile, soy sauce, and pepper, and a frothy glass of
black tea and sweetened condensed milk. Total heaven--East meets West
in the most beautiful, organic way.

Oh, and then there are the satays of Java: shrimp, beef, goat,
chicken....

Yes, I am the cook in the family. And it's true: I don't make rendang
on weeknights. But I do make it on weekends (or I make, say, a nice
Javanese chicken curry or a Malaysian-style beef or fish stew) and
parcel the leftovers out through the week. To go along with it, I'll
make up a fresh batch of steamed rice every night along with quickly
stir-fried Asian greens, like bok choy or choy sum (easy to find at
Asian markets), with some garlic and a pinch of salt.

If I don't have a nice main dish already prepared, often--very
often--I'll just have the rice and greens and fry an egg until it's
crispy around the edges. The combination of the three--especially the
way the egg oozes deliciously into the greens--is brilliant. And the
meal takes scarily little time or effort to assemble.