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On thanksgiving and turkey

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Here are three quotes on American holiday, thanksgiving, and an American bird, turkey, by the three American leaders. The first quote is by President Washington on the first national proclamation of Thanksgiving.  The second quote is proclamation issued by President Lincoln establishing the Thanksgiving as national holiday. The third quote is by founding father Franklin on why turkey, the symbolic thanksgiving meal, should be the national bird instead of the bald eagle. (Related Post: Immigrant’s American Turkey)

President George Washington made the first national Thanksgiving Day proclamation under the Constitution in following way.

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.’

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation…”

Thanksgiving Day Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln establishing it as a national holiday occurring on the last Thursday of November is states in the following proclamation.

“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the everwatchful providence of almighty God….”

The symbolic meal of Thanksgiving, the native American bird turkey, was favored by Benjamin instead of bald eagle as our national emblem. Here’s the founding father’s argument:

“For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk; and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him…..”

“I am, on this account, not displeased that the figure is not known as a bald eagle, but looks more like a turkey.

For in truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America. Eagles have been found in all countries, but the turkey was peculiar to ours; the first of the species seen in Europe, being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and served up at the wedding table of Charles the Ninth. He is, besides (though a little vain and silly, it is true, but not a worse emblem for that) a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”

Posted in American Food, Food Culture | No Comments »

Immigrant’s American Turkey

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

On the fourth Thursday of every November, everyone who believe themselves to be Americans celebrate nature’s bounty by feasting with their loved ones. Traditional thanksgiving food is simple baked, boiled, and/or mashed, and served with minimum spices to ensure soft texture and mild flavor that cater to anyone from children to elderly.

Partaking in this meal is a symbolic gesture for every immigrant who becomes an allegorical descendant to the generation of pilgrims who first ventured out to the New World with a hope of a better life. Essentially, the fourth Thursday of November is more American than the fourth day of July celebrated with barbecues.

Most immigrants celebrate thanksgiving meal interwoven with culinary tradition of their heritage. North American bird, turkey, symbolizes their new home in America, while the additional spices and dishes represent their contribution to the melting pot.

How was Thanksgiving started by immigrants?
The overtly rehashed story of Thanksgiving starts with the new immigrants, Pilgrims and their native American Wampanoag neighbors feasted together in October of 1621 as a gesture of gratitude for having food on the table. Coincidentally, Canada started celebrating its thanksgiving in second Monday of October since 1950s.

George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison issued proclamations of a thanksgiving holidays. However at that time states celebrated thanksgiving at different times with its popularity remaining limited to New England with lukewarm celebration in the Southern states.

Lincoln and Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was not a national holiday until the proclamation by Abe Lincoln in 1863. Ironically, Lincoln got his inspiration from Sarah Josepha Hale, famous for writing nursery rhyme “Mary had a little lamb”, who championed the cause for a unifying national holiday that would foster unity in a nation at the brink of a civil war. Lincoln envisioned “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise” for “these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come”  as said by Lincoln in his proclamation.

History of the Immigrant’s Thanksgiving Turkey
The tradition of having turkey for Thanksgiving may have start in nineteenth century New England, where men took aim at a wild turkey in the fields with the winner usually winning a turkey as his prize for marksmanship.

Most immigrants celebrate thanksgiving meal interwoven with culinary tradition of their heritage. North American bird, turkey, symbolizes their new home in America, while the additional spices and dishes represent their contribution to the melting pot. They add spices or dish distinct to their thanksgiving meal. This practice of bringing culinary heritage to a foreign tradition continues as immigrants from all over the world embrace the United States as their new home. Pakistani families may add garam masala in their turkey, their Thai friends may flavor side dishes with coconut milk, while their Norwegian neighbor may bring smoked salmon appetizer.

Likewise, my thanksgiving turkey would be tandoori turkey with saffron gravy.

Tandoori Turkey
for tandoori spice paste (for 10 lb turkey), mix together following*
ghee (1 cup, substitute with re-solidified melted butter)
tandoori spice mix (1 tablespoon,  substitute with any curry powder)
fresh ginger and garlic paste (2 tablespoons)
chicken stock (2 tablespoons)
salt (2 teaspoons)

on the roasting pan for gravy
can of low sodium chicken stock
red onion (1 sliced, large)

* traditional tandoori marinade is yogurt based

After removing packaging materials and other organs (gizzards etc.,) coat the inside cavity of turkey with spice paste. Pour ½ of chicken stock in there. Stuffing a turkey is not recommended for both food safety as well as taste safety. Make stuffing in a pan as casserole instead.

My favorite tip for moist turkey breast comes from Harold McGee. Few hours before the end of thawing the turkey, selectively put ice-packs on its breast. Due to the difference in temperature between breast meat and turkey, the turkey breast will cook slower than the rest of turkey. This will prevent drying of turkey. Be sure to remove the ice-packs before baking.

With your fingers and/or flat plastic spatula separate the skin from the breast meat. Be gentle and don’t tear the skin. Rub the spice mix in between turkey skin and the breast meat.

Rub the spice mix outside the entire turkey.

Add chicken stock and sliced onions to the roasting pan.

Cover the breast with a sheet of aluminum foil. Roast in 325 °F oven. Remove the foil ½ an hour before the roasting ends. Covering the breast with a foil sheet also helps in preventing the breast from drying.

USDA recommends (see USDA’s turkey cooking recommendations) the minimum internal temperature of 165 °F for food safety. Nowadays, many turkeys come up with “pop-up” temperature indicators. However, just to be safe, use instant read thermometer to check temperatures of innermost parts of the turkey, such as thigh, wings, thickest part of the breast.

Check doneness of turkey early and often.

Timetables for Roasting Turkey  (USDA)

Unstuffed Turkey Roasted at 325 °F Oven Temperature
4 to 8 pounds (breast) 1½ to 3¼ hours
8 to 12 pounds 2¾ to 3 hours
12 to 14 pounds 3 to 3¾ hours
14 to 18 pounds 3¾ to 4¼ hours
18 to 20 pounds 4¼ to 4½ hours
20 to 24 pounds 4½ to 5 hours

Saffron Gravy

for 1 cup of dripping from roasted turkey
saffron (dozen inch long strands)
whole milk (¼ cup, use half and half for richer gravy)
corn starch (1 tablespoon)

Leave a dozen inch long strands in milk sometime after putting the roast turkey. The amount of saffron depends on its quality.

After removing turkey, pour out the dripping from turkey. Blend mushy roasted onion with other liquid drippings.

Mix corn starch with the saffron milk and pour over blended turkey drippings. Reheat until thickens. Gravy done.

Thanksgiving is an American celebration of sharing the ample of wholesome, often simple, foods any way you like it.

All the Illustrations by: Sumayal Shrestha

Bibliography
Elizabeth Pleck, “The Making of the Domestic Occasion: The History of Thanksgiving in the United States,” Journal of Social History Vol. 32, No. 4, Summer, 1999, Page 773-789.

Janet Siskind, “The Invention of Thanksgiving: A ritual of American nationality”, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2, June 1992, Page 167-191.

Melanie Wallendorf and Eric J. Arnould, “We Gather Together”: Consumption Rituals of Thanksgiving Day,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 18, No. 1, June 1991, Page 13-31

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Posted in American Food, Food Culture, Food Science, Food Techniques, Indian food, Meat | 6 Comments »

Bacon Cheeseburger Beckoning

Saturday, November 12th, 2011

Bacon cheeseburger is the undoubtedly the most popular style of the omnipresent cheeseburger (my list of best burger in DC).

Here’s a simple bacon burger idea: get a low fat beef and add bacon fat to get 80/20 beef with 20% bacon fat.

Majority of burger experts suggest 80 percent lean ground chuck, also known as 80/20, with 20 percent fat content. For this bacon burger, get a lean beef, here it’s 93% beef.

Get bacon fat, from cooked bacon. Don’t throw out the fat after cooking bacon. Use strainer to collect the bacon fat. Let it cool and store in refrigerator until use.

Weigh and add bacon fat to get 20% of total fat in meat. For 1.5 lb of 93% meat, I added 13% of additional fat, 3 oz of pure bacon fat.

Mix lean beef with bacon fat.

Shape into 6 to 8 oz burgers each, here 6.75 oz each.

Cook, on a grill or a grill pan. Any other pan works as well but ridge pan will avoid cooking burger in it’s own fat and who doesn’t like a nice grill marks on burger.

Cheese. You can’t go wrong with any cheese that melts. Here’s my choice is blue cheese crumbles.

Add cheese

Cook until the cheese melts.

Buns, a classic sesame bun can’t be bad unless you want to bake homemade bread with bacon bits instead of sesame.

Toasting buns is always a good idea. Instead of butter, use the bacon fat tripped from burger to toast the buns – more bacon flavor

Instead of ketchup, I used bacon jam made with onions, balsamic vinegar, celery etc., from Skillet.

Skillet bacon spread adds another layer of bacon flavor.

Bacon burger is nearly ready.

Add a strip of bacon. You can cook the bacon a day before and collect the bacon fat for the bacon burger.

Ready to eat, the bacon burger.

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Posted in American Food, Burgers, Meat, Recipe | 3 Comments »

Lobster Rolls Obsession

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

More high resolution photos at DesiGrub’s Facebook album

One hour (or more) long line for a lobster roll! I refuse to stay such a long line to get my lunch on a work day – who has time? At the same time, I was somewhat intrigued by the lobster rolls that made people to stay out in muggy DC weather for an hour to eat $15-18 lunch.

Before these reviews of lobster rolls, I have to disclaim that I am not an expert on lobsters or grew up eating them on a weekly basis. I know good food and believe that ocean already made lobsters so tasty – all we need to do is heat it to perfection without too much of bells and whistles.

Why lobsters are sustainable and expensive?
Lobsters are trapped live in a cage that allows it to enter but makes it difficult to exit. This inefficient way of fishing lobster has inadvertently resulted it in being overfished. Additionally lobster sustainability in the United States has increased because lobstermen are required to measure lobster size and release small young and big fully grown lobster back to the sea to insure healthy future breeding stock.

Lobster recommendations in DC (in no particular order);

Red Hook Lobster Truck [4.5 oz lobster meat]
You can get lobster roll in Maine style (mayonnaise, lime) or in Connecticut style (melted butter) made from Maine lobsters. Both of them are served on white bread toast with big chunk of lobster meat and paprika seasonings. The bun sort of gets soggy with the drizzled melted butter in Connecticut style lobster roll. I would definitely recommend it if the truck is in your neighborhood and if there is no big line. I don’t think this (or any food) is worth hour-long line.

Red Hook’s Connecticut Style Lobster Roll
Red Hook’s Maine Lobster Roll

BGR – The Burger Joint [5 oz lobster meat]
Surprisingly this burger joint serves amazing lobster rolls made from lump claw and knuckle meat from Maine lobsters. I liked the fact that there was no sauce in the lobster roll. Big chucks of lobster were served on a lettuce leaf placed over three conjoined slider buns with sweet cole-slaw dressing sauce. The bread base for the roll can be improved but simply the lobster and sauce makes this lobster roll worth the try. These are seasonal items and served from June to September depending on the quality of the lobsters.

Bgr Joint’s Lobster Roll

Luke’s Lobster [4 oz lobster meat]
Lobster roll lobster from father Jeff’s sustainable Maine seafood company making it a true sea floor to your plate choice. Chunks of lobster meat are made to order and served with mayo and their secret seasoning on toasted/buttered white bread bun. The butter, mayo and seasoning are all optional if you don’t like them.

Luke’s Lobster Roll

PS. Checkout this stop-motion animation of Luke’s Lobster Roll.

All above three lobster rolls are equally good it their own right. Now, here are some other lobster rolls that I would be hesitant to recommend.

Kinkead’s
For comparison sake, I tried a high end Kinkead’s lobster roll. The lobster roll was not better than any other fast food place. Kinkead’s Maine lobster roll is served with side of coleslaw and homemade French fries. Lobster had bit more mayo than I preferred but loved the fresh aromatic herbs on the lobster. The sides were excellent and lobsters were decent but I would not recommend paying twice for a similar quality lobster roll.

Kinkeads Lobster Roll Platter
Kinkead’s Lobster Roll

Au bon pain  [4 oz lobster meat]
Lobster salad croissant sandwich is made from over a quarter pound of lobster mixed with light mayonnaise. I found this lobster had fewer chunkier pieces and way too much mayo (see photo). I ate it is twice so it’s not that bad but I would choose Red Hook, BGR or Luke’s lobster any day.

 

Au Bon Pain’s Lobster Croissant

Quiznos
Quiznos’ limited time lobster & seafood salad sub looked pretty on the promo but was nothing special than any other fast food sub they serve. These lobster rolls are seasonal and like Au bon pain’s choose them only as the last lobster resort.

Quiznos Lobster Sub

When Quiznos introduced the lobster and seafood salad sub, they promoted with this eco-video which shows setting four protagonist lobsters free into the wild. Choose

The narrator ends the video by saying, “We couldn’t help but wonder if what we’d done was just a big contradiction. It’s not their fault, they taste so good.” Indeed!

Posted in American Food, Fish, Ingredient, Lunch, Meat | 2 Comments »

One Night Chef

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Surya Ramjali is the creator of the non-profit organization One Night Chef. This charity allows supporters the opportunity to treat themselves to a gourmet, three course meal in the comfort of their own home while also contributing to society.

Throughout my life journey, from the mountains of Nepal to the plains of Kansas, food has been a part of my adventure. Cooking started as a chore. Growing up in Nepal, my mother had this assignment for my brothers and me; I was responsible for the preparation of dinner, my younger brother was responsible for lunch and my youngest brother for cleaning of the dishes. And thus cooking planted its seed in me.

When I moved to the United States at the age of 20, cooking became a way to connect. As a R.A. in my college dorm, I would often prepare meals for my residents. This experience allowed me to acquire my most basic cooking skills while connecting with an unfamiliar culture.

Later, I started a career as an aerospace engineer and moved to Kansas. Here, cooking became a way to relieve stress, a passion and an art form. This passion for food coupled with a passion for philanthropy bore One Night Chef.

The One Night Chef culinary adventure starts by reserving an evening at onenightchef.org to have a chef come to your home to prepare a three course meal. Here you select an available date and the menu of your choice. You are charged a fixed fees (based on the number of guests) to cover only the cost of the food use to prepare your meal. Any additional amounts deemed appropriate for the service provided by the chef are contributed to charity.

The charity to which the proceeds of One Night Chef is allocated to will change based on need and will always be featured on the homepage of our website. Fans of One Night Chef can visit our Facebook page to vote on the next charity to receive donations.

Right now, One Night Chef serves Wichita, KS and its surrounding areas. The goal is to one day have One Night Chef serve and raise funds for communities around the world. I want everyone to experience the joys of fine dining while giving to those in need. The preparation of food is a journey in itself. It is self discovery. It is art. It is science. It is teaching, learning, and feeling. The preparation of food is sensing, timing, mixing and growing.

The preparation of food is providing. Food is giving.

To learn more about Surya, One Night Chef and their current charity visit onenightchef.org or like One Night Chef on Facebook. Photographs by Surya Ramjali and Bianca Tyler.

Posted in American Food, Announcements | No Comments »

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