- Reviewers are surprisingly pleased with the service and selection at chain favorites like Outback Steakhouse, Chili's, and T.G.I. Friday's
- Young, energetic Danish chefs return home after culinary school, and bring with them a unique, fresh perspective
- One author marks her trials and triumphs in birthday cake making over the years, including the dreaded Barbie cake (at right)
- On the hunt for a Chicken Canzanese recipe, circa 1969
- The taco truck controversy marches on
- A quintessential mint julep recipe, perfect for Derby-goers
Posts with tag norway
The New York Times in 60 seconds: Chains, cakes and chicken canzanese
A kebab shop in the Arctic Circle? Talk about frozen food
I hate the cold, so I have a hard time seeing why anyone would want to move to the island of Spitsbergen, about 300 miles from the northern tip of Norway. However, that is exactly what Kazem Ariaiwand did, and he had a very good reason for making the move. Mr. Ariaiwand is an Iranian who had been seeking asylum in Norway. His family had been accepted, however, he was denied. As it turns out, Spitsbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, doesn't require pesky paperwork or residency status to live there. So Mr. Ariaiwand moved there as a temporary solution and promptly opened his kebab shop. It's become so popular that it has challenged traditional foods, like whale meat and seal meat, for superiority.
I can understand this man's motives, and I certainly see why a kebab shop would be so popular in the arctic circle. I've never had the pleasure of seal or whale meat, but it seems like a kebab would win me over pretty quickly!
A place for every seed, and every seed in its place
In an attempt to counteract threats of certain foods becoming extinct, scientists in Norway are attempting to collect and store every species of seed in the world. Seeds in the Global Seed Vault range from Nigerian peas to Mexican corn, and they reside in a structure impervious to bombs and earthquakes (these scientists aren't kidding around). Temperature is regulated electronically, and no one person has all of the keys to the vault. And why the Arctic? One, it's not crowded, so the seeds won't be messed with. And two, it makes it a lot easier to keep the seeds at the required minus 20 degrees Celsius.
Until now, there has been no single storage system for the world's seeds. The idea came post 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, when scientists realized that the our diverse foods would most likely continue to be threatened and ultimately wiped out by disasters. These seeds are precious in part because they can scientists to identify strains of disease and fungi so that vulnerable food can be made resistant to these potential killers.
Scientists are also exploring ways to keep foods like bananas and coconuts, which can't be stored as seeds. Eventually, the goal is to have a database that farmers and plant breeders can consult to quickly and easily find seeds have certain characteristics so that they can be modified.
'Tis the season for lutefisk
Lutefisk is one traditional Christmas food that often gets short shrift during a season when visions of gingerbread and fruitcake dance in the heads of foodies and nonfoodies alike. And perhaps with good reason. Who on earth would eat preserved fish that has a jelly-like consistency, much less reserve it for a holiday treat?
Norwegians and other Scandinavians, that's who. Lutefisk takes its name not from the Medieval stringed instrument, but from lye. Honest, it translates to "lye fish." This venerable holiday "treat" is prepared by adding lye to air-dried cod or other white fish. After the fish has been steeped in a noxious brew of cold water and lye it is actually caustic and must be soaked in several changes of water for almost a week to render it edible. Fans of the movie Fight Club will be intrigued to learn that if it soaks too long in the lye, the fats in the fish will render it into soap. Now, there's an item for a holiday gift basket, homemade fish soap.
Is saving seeds in an Arctic mountain necessary?
The Norwegians are building a "doomsday
vault" for seeds. Buried deep inside a mountain, deep in the Arctic Circle, scientists say that the seeds will
be preserved indefinately at temperatures well below freezing. And, to prevent theft, as well as for safety's sake,
"the mountains are patrolled by polar bears," though humans will most likely monitor the facility.
The seed depository is being created to preserve the various species of plants that currently exist on the planet, many of which will disappear with each passing year as selective breeding reduces diversity in favor of commercially popular crops. In theory, these seeds can be used to resurrect species of plants that may disappear in the future. Intriguing as this idea is, one must wonder if there would be a demand for such reconstructed species, or whether they would only be regrown for scientific curiosity. Would it be easier to simply alter existing strains of apples - through selective breeding or gene modification - than to rebuild it from a seed or two? And if it were necessary to rebuild agriculture from the approximately 2 million seeds in the vault as the result of something wiping out global plant life, it seems likely that most of humanity would be wiped out as well. Maybe the Norwegians would still be able to get there, though.
Food science reading list
For all you food scientists out there, I recently came across a great web site/reading list called Molecular Gastronomy, Kitchen Chemistry and the Science of
Cooking. The title pretty much says it all, and the list includes links to books and articles for both the
lay-person and the scientist as well as plenty of web resources and other "light" reading. There are plenty
of familiar names like Harold McGee, Alton Brown and Robert L. Wolke. The list is maintained (last updated in November, 2005) by Martin Lersch at the University of Oslo's chemistry department. I wish I could give you more background, but little of the material on the surrounding sites is in English.
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
