Ancient New Year's Customs To America

 Food and the New year are always entwined.  There are so many customs and legends. Many of our Black American food customs have originated from them and they are a delicious way to ring in a new year.

Kayla Stewart an award winning food writer and part of the Bittman Project, an online food journal write this informative piece in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Every New Year's Black Americans have some combination of green veggies and cow peas, namely collards and Hopping John. Why these foods?The choice of greens, usually cooked with pork for flavor symbolize paper moneys. collards do resemble folded dollars. The peas promise good luck,health and abundance according to Adrian Miller a food scholar and author. Yet African countries never had any food related New Year's customs. This is a messy marriage of using european based ingredients such as collards, a derivation of colewort or a non heading cabbage and African cooking methods, namely a long, low and slow simmer. West Africans did cook black eyed peas but these were for deities who had a fondness for the legume. Geography also played a strong part in the way the dishes are prepared. Lousiana has a surprisingly strong German influence so cabbage instead of collards. Black and Southern traditions became inextricable. The foods were the same. 

There are distinctions though. Amethyst  Ganaway, a Lowcountry chef and writer have noted that people interchange  black eyed peas and rice with Hopping John. . The last is a one pot meal of rice and field peas.It's also lighter , redder and creamier in look and texture than the other.. How people celebrate will factor in, it means sharing good will along with hope  from a marginalized and suppressed sector of society. It,s not just greens and beans either for welcoming another year. Other foods have also been included in the New Year's canon is seafood gumbo. It came from the Carolinas Low Country J.J. Johnson the and owner  chef of New York's Fieldtrip believes his grandmother's philosophy of if you eat good and healthy in the new year, you'll be good and healthy in the new year.Ms. Stewart includes recipes for all these dishes.There is one for collard greens plus cornmeal dumplings which are an easy blend of cornmeal, flour, baking powder and butter. The collards are flavored with green onions and garlic.  There is an easy black eyed pea  recipe made with salt pork or bacon. The gumbo is a bit more elaborate but worth it. You do have to create a gumbo spice mix first. The gumbo is a tasty mix of lobster , crab and scallops.

The traditions are a messy marriage of European and African yet it works. These recipes symbolize hope and happiness for the new year. It speaks to the aspirations in all of us.

Coming Home To Indonesia

 Indonesian food is a vast array of flavor, color and texture. Not many know this, associating the archipelago with turquoise waters and white sugar sand beaches. However, there's a new cookbook coming out that  will change people's view of the country. Lara Lee is the author and her new book is a kitchen must have.

Kayla Stewart ,a freelance food writer interviewed Ms Lee about her new book Coconut And Sambal: Recipes From My Indonesian Kitchen (Bloomsbury Publishing), Ms Lee is originally from Australia with an Indonesian father and an Australian  mother. It was when her paternal grandmother, Margaret Thali moved from West Timor to their home. Suddenly there were dishes like roasted Balinese chicken, gado gado,a kind of hot salad with peanut sauce dressing and rendang,a spicy and colorful beef dish. Ms. Lee missed these dishes when she moved to London where there were only two (!) Indonesian restaurants in the entire capital. She had to cook her favorites and then discovered she loved to cook these classic Oceania dishes. The idea for a cookbook was born after she visited family there in 2016. She unearthed her grandmother's handwritten recipe book, an oddity because Indonesian family recipes are orally passed from one generation to the next. Back in London, she reached out to Sri Owen, the prolific food writer, cooking teacher and guardian of Indonesian cuisine. She worked with Ms Lee to help deepen her understanding of the cuisine.

There are recipes included and the ingredients are pretty common. Home chefs can try rendang daging, or beef rendang. This is cubed and defatted beef cooked with a spicy paste of chiles, shallots and garlic along with a host of such spices as cumin , coriander and ginger.Coconut milk, lemongrass and bay leaves are also added along with makrut limes leaves (which can be bought at an Asian grocery). There is also chicken nasi goreng, a chicken and  sunny side up eggs dish, spiced up with shallots, ginger and turmeric. Kecap manis a , kind of ketchup, and soy  sauce are added too. Kecap manis can be bought or made ,It's soy sauce cooked with light or dark brown sugar until a syrup forms and can be stored up to two weeks in the fridge.The chicken and eggs are served with crisp crackers and basmati or jasmine fried rice. Rib lovers will love iga babi bali, Balinese sticky glazed pork ribs. The marinade is a fiery blend of cayenne chilis, garlic shallots and kecap manis. After being marinated , the ribs are then slow roasted in a 350 degree oven for two(!) hours. This would be great served with fried basmati or jasmine rice.

Indonesia is beautiful beaches and the ultimate vacation getaway. It is also islands full of rich culinary history. Coconut and Sambal: Recipes from My Indonesian Cookbook will show that along with delicious recipes full of fire and flavor.