On baking day, the housewife generally mixes enough dough for at least fifty loaves of bread.  While the dough is proofing, she lights the firewood in the tannour.  The tannour is ready for baking when the flame dies down and the wood coals are glowing.  Baking in the tannour is usually a collaborative effort with the housewife and her friends.  One of the woman rolls out the piece of dough, then passes it to another woman who tosses it on her hands until it reaches the desirable thickness and size, and she in turn passes it a a third woman, who places the loaf on a round cotton pillow.  Now comes the delicate part of operation.  Using the pillow on which the flattened dough is placed, this last woman literally stick the dough onto the hot clay inside the tannour.  It takes no more than a couple of minutes to have finished loaf, which is removed with great speed by the woman tending to the tanoor itself. 

Sometimes, my grandmother would prepare couple stuffing.  She would make sauteed Swiss chard and onion, zaatar and oil or pepper with tomato.   She would stuff the fresh dough with the Swiss chard stuffing and flatten the dough and then stick it inside the tanoor.  Or, she would brush the fresh baked bread with the zaatar mix or pepper mix.  We used to play around the tannour until the bread is out and  Sitoo, grandmother, brush it with the zaatar.  All what you could hear after that is silence.

http://youtu.be/GpqPcrpcNTk

People in the Middle East invented a coring tool to core the zucchini and eggplant.  They picked grape leaves off the vines and wrapped them around rice and meat.  They even used cabbage as wrapper, probably copied from a similar Norwegian dish.  If something could be cored, then it could be stuffed.  If something could be wrapped, then it was wrapped.

Recently, when I was spending a Saturday morning carving the core out of a couple dozen small, gray zucchini, I thought of my sister, who is a medical doctor in Syria, an endocrinologist by specialty.  She has no interest in cooking, but she’s obsessed with cleaning houses-hers, mine, our parents-she doesn’t care.  When my parents came to visit me a couple years ago, my sister was obliged to prepare a meal for my brothers left behind in Syria.  I have no idea way, but she decided to make stuffed zucchini for them.  She cored about 30 zucchini for stuffing, thinking they would be sufficient for the next week.  It was painful for her to do the kind of work she detested doing, but she felt a sense of accomplishment when she finished cooking them.  Turning the fire off under the pot, she went to her clinic for couple of hours.  Upon her return, she found that our two brothers had eaten all 30 stuffed zucchini, leaving her not even one for herself.  She told me that she cried for a full hour.  That was her last effort at fancy cooking. She has since refused to even to boil an egg.

Although the Moors had taught the Spanish how to stuff vegetables when they conquered them a few centuries ago, the Spanish were too smart to undergo the kind of obsessive work required to core small zucchini.  So when Columbus brought back to Spain sweet peppers from the new world, their national dish became stuffed sweet peppers, which are much easier to prepare because one only needs to pull out the seeds.  There is no need to core a pepper.

Stuffed grape leaves are more known around the world because they are offered in Greek, Turkish and Eastern Mediterranean restaurants.  Grape leaves are somewhat easy, and because of my sister’s pain, I’ve found a new way to stuff zucchini.  I cut them in half lengthwise before coring and stuffing them.

It started me thinking.  How did some dishes acquire their names?  For example, a baked potato is no secret.  It’s a baked potato.  But a dish called “Nun’s Sigh,” is a complete mystery unless someone were to tell you what’s in it.  The same is true for “Skunk Cookies,”  which is a recipe sent in by Rochelle Hink, of Sioux Falls.  Of course, it’s a cookie, but who knows what it’s like without being told.  Rochelle tells me that it is a family recipe made at Christmastime.  They were named by her father when he was about five years old.  They are a pinwheel cookie with an addictive flavor.  But the name would not indicate that.

As well, “Bare Little Buns in The Grass,” is another strange name—a bean dish—sent in by Margaret Kuiper, a dietician, who tells me that it is a Dutch recipe that her mother made certain to send to her when she moved here from Canada.  She wanted to make certain that she retained her Dutch heritage, which is something to applaud.  She tells me that the Dutch are notorious for funny food names, such as “The Hague Bluff,” and “John in the Bag,”

I’ve chosen several of the funniest sounding names to pass on to readers, including a Syrian recipe for stew that I’ve seen in Syria, called, “Burn the Fingers,” which I believe derived from how the stew is cooked.  At the end of the cooking time, the cook must drop pieces of bread dough into the stew, which, if not done properly, burned the cook’s fingers.

“Umm Ali,” is an Egyptian dish which means “Ali’s mother.”  The myth that accompanies this dish is that the Sultan of Turkey, which had occupied Egypt back then, grew hungry while touring villages along the Nile.  The village wanted to please the Sultan so they brought out the best cook in the village, a woman named, “Umm Ali.”  All she had for ingredients was dried bread, nuts, coconut meat, milk and sugar.  She mixed them and baked them in the oven, and the results were what is now called, “Umm Ali.”  He was so fond of the dish that he asked for Umm Ali’s dessert from the palace chefs, thus the name.

A Turkish dish, called “Imam Fainted,” derives its name from the Imam—a Muslim cleric—who loved the dish so much that he would faint each time he ate it.  It is an eggplant dish where the eggplant is stuffed with tomato, onion, and garlic, then simmered in olive oil until done.  Even thinking about it, I cannot blame the Imam for fainting.

There is also a famous dip called “Baba Ghanoush,” translated to “Spoil your Father,” and “Lady’s finger,” which is filo dough stuffed with walnuts.  The Lady’s finger comes from the delicate result of the thin filo dough.  Another dessert is called, “Eat and Thanks.”

If you have any dish with funny name, I would love to hear from you.

Unlike the United States, where New Year’s day is spent nursing hangovers and watching football, there are a variety of ways different cultures celebrate the coming of the New Year.  In Japan, for example, New Year’s day is one of the most celebrated holidays.  Japanese people spend it visiting family member, neighbors and friends.  The first sunrise on New Year’s day is observed in great reverence, as is the first meal of the year, as well as the first bath taken in the new year.

All around the Mediterranean, while Christmas or the Muslim Eid is the time to spend with one’s family, New Years’ Eve is the day spend with one’s friends, dancing, visiting, and all the other accouterments of partying.  Women usually plan weeks ahead to time to choose a dress to wear.

My mother always cleaned the house and prepared a New Year’s menu well ahead of the new year.  For her, it was a bad omen to cook and clean on New Year’s Day, where she was fearful of doing it every day of the year thereafter.

In Syria, a special New Year’s dish prepared was required to be white in color, meaning that there would be no sadness or sorrow for the remainder of the year.

In Spain, a sweet, crown shaped bread is served in the first week of January.  A small doll is randomly inserted in the loaf when the bread is almost finished baking.  Whomever gets the slice with the doll must then hold a party of every friend who is present in the room during the January gathering.

Also in some counties in Mexico, just as the clock turn 12, people pull an empty suitcase and run around the neighborhood.  They think this will make their new year full of fun trips.

Well now, If you see me at midnight running around pulling a suitcase with lentils spelling from my pocket, please don’t call the police.

Have fun, stay safe and  have a very Happy and Healthy New Year.

A tannour is a three foot by two foot oven made from a special kind of clay that retains heat.  Usually, four to five families will share a tannour, so it is placed in a location convenient for all the families involved. It is usually placed on the ground next to a wall.  The space between the tannour and the wall is filled with rocks that are packed smoothly with a special clay.

On baking day, the housewife generally mixes enough dough for at least fifty loaves of bread. While the dough is proofing, she lights the firewood in the tannour.  Thetannour is ready for baking when the flame dies down and the wood coals are glowing.  Baking in thetannouris usually a collaborative effort with the housewife and her friends.  One woman rolls out piece of dough, then passes it to another woman who tosses it on her hands until it reaches the desirable thickness and size, and she in turn passes it to a third woman, who places the loaf on a round cotton pillow.  Now comes the delicate part of the operation.  Using the pillow on which the flattened dough is placed, this last woman literally tosses the dough onto the hot clay wall inside the tannour, and, amazingly, the dough sticks to the wall.  It takes no more than a couple of minutes to have a finished loaf, which is removed with great speed by the woman tending to thetannour itself.

Zaatar Mixture

makes 2 cups

1       cup Mediterranean thyme

1/2  cup Mediterranean sour sumac

1/4  cup ground toasted chickpeas

3      tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

1      tablespoon ground rosemary

salt to taste

-Mix all the ingredients.

-Spread the mixture on a cookie sheet and place in a 350 F. oven for 5 minutes.

-Remove from the oven and allow the mixture to cool before using or storing.

-Add olive oil 2 oil to 1 Zaatar to make zaatar bread or to use as dipping oil.

Equally important, perhaps, is the role of spices and herbs in folk medicine.  Before chemicals were used in curing and healing, folk medicine was the sole source of curing people’s ills.

One imagines that, by accident or by design, herbs and spices have been used in medicine for several thousands years, the most famous of which is the culture of Chinese folk medicine.  Although doctors in China are known for their expertise, the use of folk medicine still is prevalent there. I would say that, there are few places in the world where folk medicine has been abandoned as a cure.

In fact, many ancient remedies have been the basis for the modern medicine that is used today.  In many societies, when a person goes to a medical doctor and is prescribed a medication for his or her ailment, that person after having the doctor’s prescription filled at a pharmacy quite often stops at an herb medicine shop as a way of hedging the bet, to make certain that one or the other cure will work.

During research for my book “Secrets of Healthy Middle Eastern Cuisine,”I stopped at a spice market in Damascus, and spoke with the owner of the shop. He asked me if I was married.  When I told him that I was, he launched into a lecture about how  to make my husband forever faithful to me.  He advised that I buy his mixture of four spices and have my husband drink form the mixture. He guaranteed that my husband would see me as the most beautiful woman in the world and that all other women would be ugly to him. One supposes that this kind of fold medicine is why some will not take it seriously.

Here is a recipe for mint pesto that make great spread with grilled cheese and boiled or roasted potatoes.

Mint Pesto

makes 1 cup

1        cup chopped fresh mint

1        clove garlic

1/2   walnuts

zest of one lemon

1/4   cup olive oil

salt to taste

-Place all the ingredient in a food processor and process for one minute or until smooth paste.

Denial must run in the family, because my husband has lately figured out a way to deny both his weight and his age.  He calculates his weight in kilograms (divide the number of  pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms).  And he calculates his age in Celsius (Fahrenheit temperature minus 32 times 5/9), which produces a much smaller number.

I have a friend who claims to be a very nutrition savvy. He told me that he fallow the food pyramid and ate only what was recommended for his height and weight.  He said for breakfast her rarely finish one serving of carbohydrates and serving of fruit.  When I asked him to write down everything he consumed, I learned that his idea of one serving of a carbohydrate is a large bowl of cereal, a whole bagel with cream cheese, and a banana.  One serving of a drink, according to him, is two glasses of orange juice.  So, his idea of a serving was the sized of the meal he heat in one seating.  I don’t need to tell you how shocked he was when I figured that his breakfast alone came to 9 serving of carbohydrate, almost all his daily allowance for carb.

Those who are struggling daily with too much weight are caught up in the purely American notion that everything must be super-sized.  We buy an extra large popcorn in the theatre because we can get a free refil of a food that we’ve already had too much of.  The same is true with soda, and with fast food meals.

We have come to understand which fats are bad for us.  We are beginning to understand that junk foods are not good for us, but what we haven’t come to terms with is, what is a proper serving size for the food we eat. 

Vegan Basil Pesto

makes 2 cups

12      ounces lite tofu

6        cloves garlic

1        cup chopped fresh basil

zest of one lemon

1/2   cup olive oil

salt to taste

-Place all items in a food processor and puree until you have smooth paste.