LL-L "Delectables" 2004.12.02 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 02.DEC.2004 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Gustaaf van Moorsel <gvanmoor at aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: delectables

In reply to Criostoir's:

>>> Porridge _is_ a decent meal.

Ron Replied:

> Of course, Críostóir!  I can't speak for Tom, but I was mostly joking (as
I
> believe was Sandy when he cracked bunches of jokes about porridge a long
> time ago).

I second that.  Since the beginning of this year I have lost 35lbs by
increased exercise and an adapted diet, featuring exclusively porridge for
breakfast.

Gustaaf

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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2004.12.02 (06) [E]

Ron wrote: "I admit it wasn't my favorite and tended to involve drama and
struggles of will when I was little."

He was referring to grits or something like them.  Now, if there ever was a
reason not to eat Southern Cooking (southern U.S. that is) grits would be
it.  I don't think the ones that other people (certainly not me!) eat are
made from oats though.  Honestly, I don't know what they're made of, but the
resemble very small grains of a much-too-watery cous-cous.  They have the
flavor of rice cakes, which taste something like I imagine styrofoam would.

However, there is hope!  Here in Texas, some cooks have taken to baking
grits with generous amounts of cheddar cheese and bits of jalapeño.  That's
the only way I will eat them.

Mark Brooks

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2004.12.02 (06) [E]

Ron wrote:
"I prefer Irish oats, though, even though they're a bother to cook (usually
helped by overnight soaking and pressure-cooking). I use pre-cooked rolled
oats, mixed with oil or melted butter, in lieu of flour doughs and crumbles
on things like American-style fruit cobblers or crisps -- a pretty good
low-carb adaptation, a great treat for diabetics if prepared with sweetener
instead
of sugar."

Oats certainly require much more patience than the likes of pasta. I am not
at all surprised that potatoes were such a success in the sodden climates of
northern Europe (especially the Celtic and Lowlandic areas). Every time I
eat a pastie (pastry, potatoes, swede, onion, parsley and beef and a pinch
of pepper) I wonder how my ancestors managed before the introduction of the
trusty Peruvian tuber. Turnips?

Ron also wrote:
"When I was a child in Hamburg, we used to eat a local variety of porridge
(LS _haver-grüt_ ~ , G _Hafergrütze_ "oat grits" ~ _haver-bry_ ~
_haver-brey_ ~ , G _Haferbrei_ "oat mush," under the general category label
LS _melksup_ ~ _milksup_ , G _Milchsuppe_ "milk soup"), though I
admit it wasn't my favorite and tended to involve drama and struggles of
will when I was little ..."

...and that's with milk, and sweet, I presume. I adore oily and smoked fish,
and like seaweed and oats separately, but the thought that large swathes of
northern Europe subsisted on a gruel of all three (in Donegal until well
into the twentieth century) day in day out fills me with culinary despair.
Yet if it was good enough for our ancestors with the infinitely more
physically demanding lives they led...

Lastly, Ron wrote:
"I believe in "eating locally," i.e. eating mostly the types of foods that
grow locally, because they tend to be right for surviving in a given
climate."

Our freezer in Australia had dozens of roo steaks in it - my favourite meat.
Most born and bred Australians consider roo to be dog meat, and won't go
near it. They say just the smell makes them urge to boak. At one point I was
eating it twice a day to make some room in the fridge. Kangaroo is an
amazing source of iron and very low fat. I am sure the South Africans on the
list could sing the praises of ostrich which falls in this category, too.

All this got me thinking: what are the sources of some Lowlandic recipes?
I'm thinking here specifically about the diffusion of East Slavic / Baltic
styles of cooking about the place due to the Hanseatic routes, and the
Indonesian influences on Netherlandic and Afrikaans food.

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Delectables

Mark (above), apparently in response to my North German _grüt_ remarks:

> He was referring to grits or something like them.

Ng-ng.  You're only right etymologically speaking ("grits" & "groat(s)"
being to LowSax _grüt_, Scand. _grytta_, _grøte_, _grød_, etc., also related
to "grit" < OEng _gréot_, OSax _griot_).

> Now, if there ever was a
> reason not to eat Southern Cooking (southern U.S. that is)
> grits would be it.

Now, listen here, buddy boy!  What sort of a Southerner are *you*?  You're
talking about something escential here, and if you keep up this kind of talk
you'd call the eternal wrath of Southerners and their Northern descendants
upon yourself, including my wife's.  Yes, I hated grits ("greeuhts" in some
Texan dialects) when I first had it (just like it's slimey, purple-gray,
fizzy Hawaiian counterpart _poi_, which is made from slightly fermented taro
mush and is to be scooped up with an index finger and licked off), but I've
come to live with it and turn it into an advantage.  Sure, it isn't eaten
widely up here, but it is wildly loved among many African Americans and
other folks with Southern heritage.  I've learned that the key to a
harmonious weekend is serving my wife breakfast in bed with grits as the
central part of it.  In the meantime, I have reached the status of grits
_chef extraordinair_.  So there!  (You've got to do what you've got to do.)

Grits are made from ground, dried hominy.  Hominy (< Narragansett
_appuminnéonash_ < _apwóon_ '(3rd) cooks' + _minneash_ 'fruit', 'grain') is
(Indian) corn (maize) that is preserved with lime (I believe), which gives
it a strange texture.  The gritty flour is cooked with water and (plenty of)
salt.  Most people serve grits runny, others thicker.  Mine is creamy
because I stir it continuously while cooking.  I've never had jalapeño
peppers in grits.  However, I do make cheesy grits (a bit of a fad up here
at the moment), even eat it myself occasionally, because the cheese (fat)
keeps carbohydrate absorption down, and, yes, the cheese helps a great deal
in other areas as well (such as flavor).  In any case, grits are no good
unless they come with plenty of salt and have loads of freshly greated
pepper on top, besides a pad of butter melting on top.

There you have it, a lesson on American food from a Hamborger Buttje ... ;-)

Enjoy (or at least try to)!

Críostóir (above):

> ...and that's with milk, and sweet, I presume.

Yep.  I liked it only a bit better than mild and rice soup with cinnamon and
sugar.  All these "milk soups" were typical children's suppers, at least in
the first two or three decades after World War II, before the "Economic
Miracle" had a real impact in working class circles and people ate "luxury"
foods.

> All this got me thinking: what are the sources of some Lowlandic recipes?
I'm
> thinking here specifically about the diffusion of East Slavic / Baltic
styles of
> cooking about the place due to the Hanseatic routes, and the Indonesian
> influences on Netherlandic and Afrikaans food.

That would be *West* Slavic.  I've always assumed my family wasn't typical
of our area because we didn't quite have the same sort of diet as our
neighbors (e.g., didn't eat kale for Christmas) and ate some things that
others didn't or rarely did.  When later I became intellectually aware of
our partial Slavonic origin due to westward migration (my parents being the
first generation born in the Hamburg area) I often suspected this to be at
least in part Eastern, Slavonic-based heritage.  The many cold fruit soups
(especially cherry or elderberry soups topped with beaten eggwhite puffs) we
ate in summer may be a part of that, as may have been clotted sour milk with
sugar, various buttermilk dishes, including what seems to be Sorbian _kwasna
poliwka_ "wedding soup," millet cooked in buttermilk, and also turnip and
rutabaga (swede) mush with mutton.  Oh, and not to forget stuffed cabbage
rolls (which are very popular all over Central and Eastern Europe)!

Reinhard/Ron

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