The weather gods have not been kind to the Hudson Valley this summer. Waterways flooded, roofs ripped off, trees downed, crops flattened. Radar maps splashed with streaks of red like tomato sauce stains on an apron. Some people might be tempted to quit; then again, what is it they say about farmers being the ultimate optimists? It requires a certain resilience to grow what is meaningful to a place, let alone create a prize-winning whisky that is finally about to receive a designation of origin from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Tax and Trade Bureau. It’s the kind of game-changer that might give the old guard of the brown spirits world restless nights.

On sunnier days while driving down certain winding stretches of New York State’s Taconic Parkway, the Berkshires heave into view to the east, and then a few miles farther down the road, the Catskills appear across the Hudson, where the westerly peaks turn purple in the low light of dusk. This almost absurdly romantic backdrop enraptured mid-19^th-century landscape painters like Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church, and spawned an art movement known as the Hudson River School.

Since childhood, the vista has always caught my breath. The temperate valley between these two old mountain ranges certainly catches rain clouds. The region has a long history of agriculture, dating back to early Dutch settlements in the 1660s, with first crops like wheat and rye, hops and barley, grapes and apples. An obvious byproduct was booze: applejack, hard cider, brown spirits, beer. A wealthy brewer founded the college I attended in Poughkeepsie—on Founder’s Day every year, it was customary for the president of Vassar to chug a pitcher of beer, although I hear the practice has since gone out of vogue. (Shall we say the legal drinking age was lower back then?) More recently, with the passage of state liquor laws that incentivized microbrewers and distillers to launch projects here, the Hudson Valley has seen a new boom in production of small batch beverages.

“Our whiskies and beers taste like here,” said Dennis Nesel, owner of Hudson Valley Malt, based in Germantown. A retired financial adviser with a grizzled goatee, he now favors overalls and wields an old-fashioned malt rake. “We call it re-localization. There was a time when the grains were grown here and shipped downriver by sloop, but after Prohibition all that stuff moved West, so we’re bringing it back, trying to make the supply chain grown here, harvested here, distilled here.”

That aspiration has shaped a three-way collaboration. The others include a third-generation farmer, as well as one of the newest distilleries in a pocket valley near the Massachusetts border, where the family behind Tenmile Distillery is gambling on a rising demand for American single-malt whisky. Note: no “e.” We’re not talking bourbon or rye, but closer in spirit to uisge beatha, Scotland’s original water of life.

A few weeks before the valley was swamped with torrential rains, I climbed into a utility truck with farmer Ken Migliorelli to look at one of his fields planted with winter Scala barley. “We’re about a week away from harvesting,” he said, as we parked along the rural road near his crop outside the town of Tivoli. It’s a pretty grass, with a spiky seed head on a long stem that turns from emerald green to platinum blonde as it dries in the sun. Migliorelli took to farming when he was a teenager, and eventually expanded his family’s vegetable business, adding a fruit orchard, farm stands, and weekly market stalls, including Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan. He still grows the same variety of broccoli rabe his grandparents brought over when they emigrated from the Lazio region of Italy in the 1930s. Citing the new demand for spirit grains, the 63-year-old farmer has almost 350 acres of barley and another 50 acres of rye in cultivation, despite the challenges he faces growing these crops in the Hudson Valley.

“In 2021, that was a rough July,” he said. “It just started raining and wouldn’t stop. I lost the barley that we were combining because it pre-germinated out in the field. I could only sell it for animal feed.”

The vagaries of weather are a standard risk for any farmer; however, this spring a half-acre barn went up in a blaze, and Migliorelli lost 15 tons of barley, hay, tomato stakes, and a lot of equipment. His neighbors and loyal customers launched a fundraiser to help rebuild. He gazed out at his waves of grain, undaunted. For him, it’s one crop out of dozens during a year that starts with tender greens and crescendos with apple picking season.

When harvested, Migiolrelli’s grain heads to the malt house, less than ten miles away, for the next step in the process. “It’s a pretty tight circle from here to Dennis, and then down to Tenmile,” he said.

On a good day at Hudson Valley Malt, Nesel and his wife Jeanette Spaeth load 6,000 pounds of malted barley, rye, or wheat into a kiln. By hand. That’s the last step after the raw grain has been steeped and raked in a thin layer on a smooth concrete floor to germinate and develop the sugars that will convert to alcohol. “Floor malting is a craft and an art,” he said. “We do it old school, the way it was done in the 1850s. It’s definitely not glory work.”

Nesel and Spaeth both grew up in the Hudson Valley. After retiring from corporate life, they decided to convert their horse barn instead of downsizing. In 2015, they recognized that area distillers needed a local malting operation. (They have a hopyard as well.) “It would be too easy to go south, but we’re not snowbirds,” he said. “I was looking for a way for our farm to be more sustainable.”

The turnoff for Tenmile Distillery is a shunpike called Sinpatch. An apparent allusion to the area’s checkered past, it leads to the repurposed barn complex with a tasting room and a dining patio next to a parked vintage Airstream that belongs to Westerly Canteen, a restaurant popup serving a seasonal snack menu sourced from Hudson Valley producers. While in residence, chefs Molly Levine and Alex Kaindl celebrate summer with floral infusions, delicate crudos, and heirloom vegetables. In addition, chef Eliza Glaister of Little Egg favors wild game for her popups and occasional private tasting dinners.

When the couple delivers a load of malt, Tenmile’s master distiller Shane Fraser takes over. He walked me into the darkened cask warehouse where his single malt rests in French oak barrels that once held sherry, bourbon, and California pinot noir. (Tenmile founder John Dyson, who formerly served as New York State’s agricultural commissioner, also owns Williams Selyem Winery in Healdsburg.) Born in Aberdeen, Fraser learned his trade at several marquee distilleries, including Royal Lochnagar and Oban, before taking on the lead role at Wolfburn, a startup in the far north. Almost no one who achieves the elevated title of master distiller leaves the job security of his peat-and-heather homeland, but Tenmile presented Fraser with a challenge almost unheard of back in Scotland: creating a new brand of single malt. His first batch of fresh New Make—what we call moonshine or white dog—was barreled in January 2020. He also experimented with unorthodox cask woods, including smaller Italian cherry and chestnut barrels typically used for aging balsamic vinegars, because regulations remain fluid in the States for now. Fraser patted one on a rack. “That’s the thing with the new designation,” he said. “You have to be careful to make sure that it will be defined as American single malt. Because when those rules come out, you can’t use cherry.”

Currently, single malt producers in the States number fewer than 100, which means it’s still an exclusive club, but not the stuffy kind full of tufted leather chairs and cigar smoke. Establishing a formal standard of identity, and having that recognized at the federal level, will give distilleries here a better chance to compete against the global establishment. Single malt no longer means it has to taste like a burned-over bog.

Fraser pointed out another 140 acres of Ken Migliorelli’s ripening spring barley planted beyond a formal apple orchard and beehives. Then we entered the whitewashed brick dairy, where copper stills imported from Scotland have been installed behind a glass curtain wall in the converted great room. The bar, at the opposite end, has a full cocktail program designed around the distillery’s gin, vodka, and whisky.

Fraser and I sat down in the wood-paneled tasting room, and he poured a cask strength dram of Little Rest, Tenmile’s first edition bottling, into my tumbler.

We lifted glasses to our noses.

“I get tropical fruits coming through,” he said. “Some chocolate notes, and once it sits awhile on the tongue, there’s a bit of spice, almost like cinnamon. Every time you go back to it, you smell something different, because it’s so young and still got a bit of life to it. Some of the older whiskies, when you smell them, it’s like, well, whisky.”

I took a sip.

The Little Rest was released this April, after three years and a day in barrels, the minimum to be officially characterized as whisky. Comparably light in style, more like a subtle Speyside than a peaty Islay.

“You can see what a little rest does,” said Fraser.

He told me that someone else compared the flavor to a green Jolly Rancher, and sure enough, it did have a perky apple note. 

Rain or shine, it tasted like home.

Recipe

Paper Plane

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Clover Club Cocktail

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Tuna Crudo with Chamomile Oil, Cucumber Salad, and Pea Shoots

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Braised Rabbit with Pan-Fried Radishes and Creamy Polenta

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The post Our New Favorite Single Malt Whisky Comes From … New York? appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a column by SAVEUR Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

As our car wound along the coastline, I glanced at the time. It wasn’t nine in the morning yet, but the sandstone bluffs surrounding the beach at La Jolla Cove were already packed with beachgoers and birdwatchers. Sea lions sunbathed in the sand, while snorkelers bobbed in the ocean.

Growing up in Northern California, I’d been to San Diego many times. La Jolla, a community known for its golden beaches and protected marine life, always seemed to exhibit picturesque suburban life. I wondered aloud to our Uber driver, David, if mine was merely an outsider’s oversimplified perception. He told us he’d grown up in the area and raised his daughters here: “Everybody knew everybody. We didn’t knock on the door—we just walked in the house.” As we drove on, he pointed out his childhood friends’ homes. “Everything closes early at night though,” he added. “Everyone’s an early bird.”

What La Jolla may lack in nightlife, though, it makes up for in vast breakfast options. As if on cue, David dropped us off at the end of a line stretching down the sidewalk outside a local bakery. Early-to-rise La Jollans, it appeared, are zealous about their first meal.

A wait is the norm at Wayfarer Bread, a bake shop founded by Crystal White, an alumna of San Francisco’s famed Tartine. The small bakery churns out baguettes, English muffins, cinnamon buns, sweet and savory scones, and seasonally inspired croissants——black sesame and passionfruit in late summer, plum and hazelnut for autumn, and housemade marmalade and pistachio during winter. “Everyone likes to get up, seize the day here. Surf, swim, bike, run,” White told me. After relocating to San Diego to open her business, the habits of her fellow townspeople, coupled with the demands of running a daytime cafe, quickly turned her into a morning person, too.

Gripping our Americanos and a box of pastries, my boyfriend and I headed in the general direction of the ocean, until we spotted a secluded bench at the end of a cul-de-sac overlooking the water. A group of guys in flip-flops and board shorts strolled past. “That pistachio croissant is so good,” one of them said, nodding approvingly as I took a bite and brushed crumbs from my chin.

A couple blocks away, Dodo Bird Donuts opened recently as the daytime complement to the splashy new restaurant Paradisaea, in part to meet the local breakfast demand. Like Dodo Bird’s dinner-focused sister spot, the locally-owned café nods to the area’s coastal ingredients and Mexican influence. Energizing sips like sea-salt-infused mochas and lattes featuring cajeta (Mexican caramel) made with goat’s milk promise a well-fueled morning hike or dip in the ocean. A rotating donut line-up from Paradisaea’s chef Mark Welker, who previously helmed pastry at Eleven Madison Park in New York, features flavors like horchata, starring a cinnamon-scented cream filling; maple, topped with a coffee cake crumble; and matcha, with a tea-scented glaze. In the mood for something savory, I zeroed in on the breakfast sandwich roster and chose a Cubano-inspired number: rosemary-infused prosciutto, gruyere, dijonaise, bread-and-butter pickles, and eggs from a local purveyor. Washing it down with a matcha latte, I remembered that everything tastes better—and becomes breakfast-appropriate—with an egg on it.

After two morning meals, we needed a stroll, and traced the coastline back toward La Jolla Cove. I knew we were getting close when I could make out the distant sound of a lifeguard and his megaphone warning beachgoers to avoid approaching the sea lions. By the time the marine mammals were in view, we’d worked up an appetite for one more breakfast.

Brockton Villa Restaurant opened its doors in the ‘90s, after the family behind the local company Pannikin Coffee and Tea renovated the beachfront bungalow into an eatery. Megan Heine, daughter of the Pannikin family, fell in love with the storied architecture and ocean-facing hillside, and took over the restaurant in 1994—exactly a century after the property was built. Today, a menu item served since day one remains the restaurant’s most popular: Heine’s famously soft and custard-like French toast, the inimitable (and trademarked) Coast Toast. “We grill the bread first, brown it, and then we put it in the oven to order, so it poofs up like a soufflé,” said Heine, explaining how the kitchen achieves the remarkably pillowy texture.

As we ate our toast on the balcony and watched the beachgoers below, I caught snippets of conversation between patrons and waitstaff. “How was your daughter’s school year?” “The new sitter is great, thanks for asking.” Later, I told Heine how our Uber driver had enthusiastically given us an impromptu tour of the area to showcase its small-town-within-a-big-city character. “Was he wearing a bow tie?” she asked, and I nodded. “Yeah, I know him,” Heine said with a laugh. Serendipitous? Maybe—or just what one would expect in La Jolla.

Though many of the community’s longtime families have stuck around, she told us, the everyone-knows-everyone vibe is evolving. “I have seen decades of change,” said Heine, who also owns Beaumont’s, a dinner spot in La Jolla, with her husband. “The downtown La Jolla that I knew growing up was all locally owned single stores—everything from children’s clothing stores, to the drugstore.” Over time, as San Diego’s economy, population, and real estate costs grew, some of the locally owned businesses that once dotted the main thoroughfares of Prospect Street and Girard Avenue closed up shop, and chains like Banana Republic moved in. However, many of these big-name stores wound up closing, too. “The cost of the rent, and maybe the seasonality of the town—they weren’t able to survive like they do in a mall setting,” Heine speculated.

Yet, amid the ebb and flow of growth and change, many longtime family-owned eateries never left. The third-generation breakfast haunt Harry’s Coffee Shop, dating back to 1960, bills itself as “La Jolla’s oldest diner,” dishing up morning classics like oatmeal pancakes and carne asada breakfast burritos. The Cottage, established in 1992, continues to draw weekend crowds with coastal California brunch fare: crispy crab cakes sandwiched between sourdough, shrimp omelets with poblano peppers, and Mexican-inspired eggs Benedict topped with chorizo and cotija cheese.

Today, though the downtown area is still home to some chain stores, Heine said she feels as though the neighborhood is gradually returning to its former character. “It seems like it’s going back to a bit more unique stores and smaller businesses,” she noted, listing off some of her favorites. “Wayfarer is fantastic. Crystal, the woman who owns it, does a really great job.” When I admitted that I’d visited earlier for my first of three breakfasts that day, Heine’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you were already there? Yeah, I love that pistachio croissant! I walk there from my house to get it.”

After a lifetime in La Jolla, Heine said she can’t imagine living anywhere else. I don’t blame her—Brockton Villa’s balcony boasts one of the neighborhood’s nicest views, overlooking La Jolla Cove with an exceptional front-row seat to nightly sunsets. “We joke that it’s sort of like the Nature Channel. You can just watch everything right here,” she said.

It’s hard not to dream idyllic suburban dreams in a place like this. During another weekend getaway to San Diego back in 2020, we drove to La Jolla to watch the sunset. Half of the city, it seemed, had done the same. After finally hunting down a parking spot, we navigated on foot through socially distanced picnic blankets and sat down in an unoccupied patch of grass. As the red sun inched toward the ocean, the crowd’s chatter fell to a hush. Finally, the star creeped its way below the horizon, leaving a flare of iridescent clouds, fuchsia and lavender, streaked across the sky.

San Diego surely has awe-inspiring sunsets, but they’re matched by an equally arresting phenomenon on the flip side. Back before Wayfarer had a brick-and-mortar location, White would frequently spend the whole night baking, then bring the pastries to pop-up locations as the sun was coming up. One spot was by the beach, so she’d take a break there and watch the sunrise on Ocean Beach Pier. “I remember one sunrise was so gorgeous that everyone in the water started cheering and clapping,” said White, recalling how amazed she felt that this was her home. “It was breathtaking.”

Recipe

Custardy French Toast

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The post The Coastal Village That Runs on Breakfast appeared first on Saveur.

I first encountered “savory cake” as most French people do: at an apéro dînatoire, a boozy buffet-style dinner of room-temperature offerings. On the table were a number of unfamiliar dishes—I recall a cold rice salad studded with bright pink surimi and dainty plastic verrines of layered vegetable purées—but one was a revelation: a loaf cake filled with black olives, shredded deli ham, and hunks of barnyardy goat cheese. They told me it was cake salé (“savory cake”), and with one bite, I was hooked on its tender, olive oil-scented crumb. 

When you hear the French 101 word “gâteau,” you probably envision architectural pâtisserie marvels, but le cake is far humbler. The sweet versions are domed loaves that are often glazed with lemon or marbled with chocolate, while the savory iterations are filled with meats and cheeses, perfect for lunches and picnics. 

In the 16 years I’ve lived in France, I’ve encountered many such casual cakes, but while quiches have become a Starbucks mainstay and savory tarts like pissaladière have starred on Food Network, le cake salé is nowhere to be found Stateside. 

I’m not the only one who’s noticed a dearth of this delight. “I don’t get it,” says author and French pastry eminence Dorie Greenspan, who has included a savory cake recipe in nearly every cookbook she’s published in the last decade. “It’s easy to make. It keeps well. And once you have the basic recipe, you can add whatever you find in your refrigerator or pantry.”

Indeed, le cake salé is a testament to what Aleksandra Crapanzano, author of Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes, considers a characteristic frugality in French home cooking. It isn’t so much about the cake itself as it is about the add-ins: sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese in Provence, perhaps, or Reblochon cheese and lardons in Savoie. (Or, more pragmatically, chopped-up leftover roast chicken, or cubes of those past-their-prime cheeses kicking around the fridge.)

But cake salé wasn’t always an anything-goes blank culinary canvas, according to French baker and cookbook author Sophie Dudemaine. When she discovered the dish in a magazine in 1998, there was only one type French people were making, filled with olives and ham. 

Dudemaine saw huge potential in cake salé, but she didn’t dig that recipe, which turned out a dry, one-note brick. So she got to work, first reducing the flour, which made the cake less dense. Then she swapped the butter out for sunflower oil, which resulted in a moister crumb. Finally, she turned to the fillings, where she really let her imagination run wild, developing versions filled with melty raclette cheese and bacon or seasonal creations with chanterelle mushrooms and asparagus. Bonus: She could fit far more loaf tins in her oven than pie pans, which led her to abandon the idea of selling savory tarts at the local market in favor of the rectangular cakes.

A decade later, Dudemaine had enough loaf cake recipes to fill a cookbook. Les Cakes de Sophie, published in 2000, sold over a million copies. The media dubbed her the French Martha Stewart, and suddenly savory cakes were omnipresent on French tables. Twenty years later, they still are: The 2022 edition features 100 recipes, most of which are new (think cake salé with rabbit in mustard sauce, a nostalgic French favorite revisited in a new format).

Most French cooks don’t know the debt they owe to Dudemaine. And yet, despite the unabating cake salé craze back in the Mother Country, the dish has hardly leapt its borders. This cake-shaped hole Stateside may have less to do with the dish itself and more to do with when it’s traditionally served. In France, wedges of savory cake are a mainstay of the aperitif, the course of pre-dinner drinks and nibbles so sacrosanct it’s protected by UNESCO. Americans love their cocktail hour, but there’s simply no U.S. equivalent to the French apéro. 

Beyond divergent mealtime traditions, cake salé has a visibility problem. Unlike their sweet counterparts, savory cakes are glaringly absent from French bakeries and restaurants both in France and abroad. “I’ve never seen a savory cake outside the home,” says Crapanzano. That means even the most adamant visiting Francophile would struggle to catch a glimpse of the dish, let alone taste it.

“Unless you’re close enough with a French person to be a frequent houseguest,” she says, “these are things that you would never know about.” French dinner invitations tend to be hard-won, following weeks or months of meeting in bars, cafés, and restaurants—and even then, it would likely take several such meals before you could be served what’s essentially upgraded leftovers.

But there’s hope for the savory cake seekers among us, whether a trip to France is in the cards or not. Recipes by Greenspan and Crapanzano abound; some are filled with Roquefort and walnuts, while others toss in chorizo and crumbled goat cheese. 

Back in France, there are signs that cake salé is finally beginning to fly the nest. Recently I glimpsed shrink-wrapped tomato-feta cakes in the apéro aisle of my local Monoprix, and two savory cakes have popped up on the menu at the Marcounet, a floating bar on the Seine. 

Paris even has a new bakery, CakePart, that’s dedicated to “les cakes” both savory and sweet. The owners, Sarah Zerbib and Margaux Sodoyer, say the business is an homage to their childhood love of cake: the vanilla-scented ones Zerbib’s mother made for four o’clock goûter, or the chocolate ones Sodoyer’s mom brought to weekend meals with extended family. 

Each day, in addition to these sweeter offerings, CakePart bakes off a handful of cakes salés, whose ingredients vary seasonally: In winter, butternut squash may dot the batter; in summer, tomato and eggplant peek through the crust. “We see it as a ‘fast good’ meal—one with healthful ingredients, but where you don’t necessarily have to go sit in a restaurant for hours to eat,” says Sodoyer.

Americans may never fully embrace the French apéro, but savory cake is a gateway to its palpable joie de vivre, whether you serve the dish for lunch or brunch (which Greenspan recommends) or take it on the go. Crapanzano rightly points out that savory cakes keep longer and hold up better than most sandwiches, making them perfect for hikes and picnics.

Regardless of the occasion, you’ll want to keep a few tips and tricks in mind when making cake salé. Crapanzano says full-fat buttermilk is your best bet for achieving a moist crumb. A tablespoon or two of extra olive oil ensures the cake remains moist even when  the add-ins are on the drier and less fatty side. Filling-wise, three cups is a good amount to add to the batter to ensure each bite marries rich, eggy dough with pleasing pockets of texture. 

“I say, open your fridge. Now that you have the base, add whatever you like,” says Dudemaine. Greenspan agrees: “It’s the kind of thing where if you make it and love it, it can become yours.”

Recipe

Cake d’Alsace (Bacon, Guyère, and Caramelized Onion Loaf)

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The post Is This Humble Dish France’s Best-Kept Culinary Secret? appeared first on Saveur.

“Until the 1650s there wasn’t anything remotely like distinct, codified ‘national’ cooking, anywhere,” writes Anya von Bremzen in her new book, National Dish. Those are fighting words if, say, you’re a chef specializing in “authentic” Japanese curry, an Italian American exalting the primordial Italian-ness of pizza, or a food writer (cough) publishing recipes for Thai this or French that. 

On a whirlwind tour of six cities—there’s Parisian pot-au-feu in one chapter, pizza in Naples the next—Von Bremzen celebrates the colorful histories of canonical dishes like ramen, mole, and borshch. But she also picks at their accepted narratives like a scab: Was pizza Margherita truly invented in 1889 to honor the queen of Italy, as Wikipedia and umpteen scholars would have you believe? (Spoiler: It wasn’t.) Are mezzes really Turkish, considering there was no cookbook with the term “Turkish” in its title until the 1970s? (Probably, but it’s complicated.) 

Answering these fraught questions, Von Bremzen’s prose is anything but academic—it’s as bold and richly textured as a steaming bowl of shoyu ramen. In Oaxaca, kernels of maize “glimmer like multihued amber.” In Seville, tapas are “little road signs or historical plaques, couched in the language of the plate, marking the long epic national narratives of power and politics.” 

Von Bremzen is no newcomer to the intersection of food and national identity. Born in the Soviet Union (more on that in her memoir, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking), she has written a potpourri of books, including Paladares: Recipes Inspired by the Private Restaurants of Cuba, Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, and The New Spanish Table.

National Dish reads like a lively, personal spin-off of those titles. It’s as if, after spending decades fact-checking culinary history for myriad articles and cookbooks, she finally reached her foodie “fakelore” quota and said, “That’s it, I’m calling BS.”

That frustration can be felt in the occasional rhetorical bomb—for instance, when Von Bremzen writes that many national dishes are “products of a late-capitalist cultural logic that treats identities, belonging, heritage, and origin myths as commodities subject to the rule of the marketplace.” But she’s equally quick to point out that although identities are social constructs, that fact doesn’t make them any less real or important.

Last month, I gave Von Bremzen a ring at her apartment in Queens to get a window into how she grappled with some of these sticky subjects. Here are the highlights from our conversation.

BK: How did this book idea come about?

AVB: I guess it all started with the collapse of the Soviet Union. My first book, Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, was about all the different cuisines that belonged to an empire. And it came out right when [the USSR] was breaking up into many countries. I hate to say it now, but the book had a sort of imperial perspective, with “Russian” in the title. Later I did this book called Greatest Dishes: Around the World in 80 Recipes, which had me researching iconic foods like pizza, risotto, and mole—and that got me thinking, gee, there’s so much material here, but in a cookbook you can only do so much. 

What is the best thing you ate while researching?

Pizza. Because who doesn’t love pizza, especially when Enzo Coccia is making it. Then there was pringá in Sevilla. It’s basically a full Andalusian cocido [meat stew], just distilled into a slider. You get four perfect bites that are the essence of Spanishness—the pimentón, the chorizo … all in a tapas-scale version. And in Mexico I loved all the different moles. Especially with the warm handmade tortillas made from heirloom maize. The way they puff on the comal. The toasty scent and earthy corn. Those tortillas—it’s like comparing mac and cheese from a box to something your Southern grandmother made. 

Tell me more about those moles. What role does mole play in Mexican culture today?

It’s everywhere. In Mexico City, you have chefs like Enrique Olvera making borderline metaphysical moles that are aged for over a year and served at different stages of maturation. What’s interesting is that mole is colonial—it represents a mix, or mestizaje, of ingredients both Spanish and native Mexican. Now, down in Oaxaca, there’s a lot of attention being paid to “indigenous” moles that have almost no Spanish elements. So you have a multiplicity of moles, not one colonial hybrid dish. 

The subtitle of National Dish is, “Around the world in search of food, history, and the meaning of home.” Did you find the meaning of home?

The book wasn’t about me, but it did make me reflect on my childhood in the USSR. Borshch, for example, represented home for me and for Russians in general, but when war broke out in Ukraine, borshch suddenly became political, with Ukraine rightly calling it theirs. I’m a ruthless cosmopolitan of sorts, so for me, “losing” borshch seemed justified. It was a way of decolonizing it from, and for, myself. Many other Russians wouldn’t agree with me, though. Home is an idea we carry inside us, but it can divide us, too. 

What was the most surprising discovery you made?

For me it was this whole story about pizza Margherita—how the dish got its name from a queen who allowed a pizza to be named after her … The claim is repeated in every academic source, yet it turns out, it’s fakelore. So many of the “traditional” dishes I looked at are actually recent inventions. For instance, people think Japanese curries from Sapporo and Hokkaido and whatnot are old, but they didn’t exist before the 1980s. 

Did researching this book change your view on cultural appropriation as it relates to food?

When we talk about cultural appropriation, we’re really talking about racial injustice and other power imbalances. I think it would be much more useful to talk about those issues directly. So, instead of “he appropriated my mofongo,” maybe it’s, “there is racial injustice in the food sector.” National identities change all the time. When most dishes were invented, current borders didn’t exist—so how can you really claim something is from Syria or Lebanon or Turkey when it was eaten under the Ottoman Empire? The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah says that when you treat culture like corporate property that belongs to someone, you’re not acknowledging the fluidity and complexity of cultural exchange. Nations do that with food. I wish every time we talked vaguely about cultural appropriation, there was a “donate” button, because ultimately only political action can effect change.  

In the book, there’s constant tension between universality and propriety. That a dish like pizza can be eaten everywhere, with new iterations being created all the time, and yet many claim it’s from a specific place. How do you walk that tightrope?

After writing this book, I’m much more in the universalist camp. When you start reading about this stuff, you see how recent borders are, and how histories are appropriated and mythologized for the purpose of commercial and political interests. But regardless of the actual history of a dish, what’s more important is how people feel about it. 

On that note, UNESCO recently said dolma, stuffed vegetables, were part of Azerbaijan’s cultural heritage. That didn’t sit well with Turkey and Armenia, countries that also lay claim to the dish. Are these international organizations perhaps hurting more than they’re helping?

When UNESCO gives dolma to Azerbaijan, they’re not saying the dish belongs to that culture; they’re saying they want to honor the dolma-making tradition of Azerbaijan. Of course, that’s not how it’s read. And because everything is about marketing and nation-building and place-branding, countries use these designations in promotional campaigns—not just abroad but at home as well. I think these organizations mean well, and their phrasing is ok, but it’s all very complicated. 

One of the most fascinating passages was about cucina povera, and how we get it all wrong. 

Yes. There’s this whole myth that peasant cuisine was wholesome and wonderful, but when we look at what people actually ate in Italy or France, for example, we find horror stories of scarcity, hunger, and bleak gruels. Sure, our ancestors ate more healthy whole grains, but they definitely wanted the white rice. We poo-poo white bread and industrial food now, but when they became accessible to the masses, imagine what a revolution that was. 

I was struck by the fact that American perceptions of certain food cultures often don’t jibe with reality. You mention that sake accounts for six percent of booze consumed in Japan. Beer is Spain’s alcohol of choice by a landslide, not wine. Where does this disconnect come from?

It’s natural to orientalize cultures, to imbue them with the essentialist qualities we want to see in them. When you go to Turkey, you want to see Turks eating Turkish food. So when you realize Japan has some of the best French, Italian, and hybrid food you can imagine, it’s hard to check the “authenticity” box. That’s where the cultural appropriation question comes in: What do you do when a country like Japan wants people around the world to appropriate its food? At the same time the world was falling in love with sushi, Japanese people were turning away from their traditional diet. Ironically, the success of Japanese food abroad encouraged Japanese diners and chefs to rediscover authentic local cuisines. 

What do you hope readers come away with?

I want people to understand that identity is transactional, complicated, and really important, and that food is a part of that. I hope readers will be skeptical of essentialist stories and canned bits. To recognize that food histories are dynamic and open-ended.

The post The Problem with National Dishes appeared first on Saveur.

Eliane has always been a bit of a black sheep. Early on, she broke the mold by being one of the few women in her family to read up on topics like psychology and science. At a time when most women were relegated to the kitchen, she was busy advocating for freedom of mind, body and spirit. But no matter how heated things got at home because of her rebelliousness, one dish was always a unifier: her mother’s minestra di verdure. 

Eliane, who lives in Paris and is 86 years old, was born in Tunisia to Italian parents who emigrated in hope of finding work and making a better life for themselves. At age five, she and her family moved to France, where she still lives today.  

A kick-scooter-riding, rap-loving feminist—who’s also on Instagram—Eliane has a youthful spirit that belies a rich, long life. A highlight was fighting for women’s rights during France’s legendary May ‘68 protests. “That was a revelation for me. It was a time of sexual liberation … I knew I didn’t want a husband like my father. I saw other people [romantically], so my husband did too.”

Those revolutionary times shook something loose in her. “Before that, I thought: I’m married, I have a child, so that’s it, my life is this. But I was wrong,” she said. At age 40, Eliane decided to go back to university, and a few years later, she began hosting her own culture show on France Culture Radio, providing a platform for the country’s most intelligent women. 

Yet amid all those life changes, nostalgic dishes like minestra kept her grounded and in touch with her roots. There was a comfort in the recipe’s simplicity: Always beans, carrots, zucchini, turnips, leeks, green cabbage, celery root, and fennel. Always simmered, not boiled. Always made for loved ones, not for one, as a means to nourish and connect.

These days, Eliane cooks the soup for her granddaughter, Lola, the French filmmaker and actress who made the Grandmas Project mini-documentary about the dish. Like her grandmother, Lola celebrates minestra as a direct link to her Italian heritage. “I don’t speak Italian, and my Italian family doesn’t speak French, so nonna’s soup is really the only link we have left,” she says.

But beyond distant family roots, the soup is a testament to the pair’s deep connection here and now. “She’s my best friend, my idol, my role model,” says Lola. 

Each time Lola visits her grandmother, Eliane slips on her sun-yellow jacket, hops on her scooter, and heads to her favorite greengrocer at Aligre market to pick up ingredients for minestra. “She knows I can’t go too long without it,” chuckles Lola. 

Upon her return, the two sit together at the kitchen table, sipping on a glass of red wine as they peel and chop vegetables, talk about their love lives, and belt out Italian songs from Eliane’s childhood. 

That’s Nonna for you. A woman who believes in the plurality of lovers, in the power of psychology and science, and the importance of stepping outside one’s comfort zone. “My aim in life is to be as cultivated as possible by the time I die,” she says.

Recipe

Minestra di Verdure

Get the recipe>

The post This Italian Nonna’s Vegetable Soup Is a Portal to Her Past appeared first on Saveur.

When Hugo Martinez first moved from Mexico to the U.S. in 2018 to attend Stanford Business School, every party he attended with his American classmates was stocked with beer, wine, and sometimes spirits. By the time he graduated in 2020, there had been a shift—the beverage selection at student shindigs were now dominated by Ready-to-Drink (RTD) sips. Yet, none of the flavors in the cooler, from the White Claws to the Truly hard seltzers, appealed to his palate. In a sea of strawberry, cherry, and kiwi options—none of which really tasted prominently like the advertised fruits—Martinez missed the vibrant, refreshing, boldly fruit-forward drink flavors he grew up with in Mexico City, like tart limonada, tangy tamarindo, and sweet, floral mango.

Though many of his American peers seemed to enjoy the RTD beverages, “I didn’t see the Latinos, and Hispanics, and me and my Mexican friends get into them as much,” he recalls. Martinez suspected this was because they were accustomed to totally different flavors, many of which are arguably bolder and more distinct than what they were encountering in the ice box.

In his native Mexico, there’s a broad category of delicious drink flavors that go well beyond the handful of bog-standard fruit flavorings that make up the RTD aisle in U.S. grocers. A lightbulb went off in Martinez’s entrepreneurial brain—perhaps there was an opportunity to introduce American imbibers to beloved Mexican ingredients through RTD beverages. So, he developed one, a spiked agua fresca called Picadas. Fermented in small batches, the canned drinks are reminiscent of the non-alcoholic varieties one might find on a traditional Mexican taqueria counter. The flavors represent nostalgic ingredients from Martinez’s youth—the distinctly tropical-tasting guayaba (guava); a sweet and sour limonada helada (made with Key limes rather than lemons); and mango, featuring a much sweeter variety of the fruit than the mangoes typically available in the U.S.   

Picadas is just one of a spate of all-natural Mexican beverages now sweeping the drinks industry in the U.S.—with an emphasis on traditional Latin American flavors. Rafael Martin Del Campo, co-founder of the Los Angeles-based tepache brand De La Calle, was born and raised in Mexico City. He’s the third generation in his family to brew tepache, a naturally fermented probiotic drink made from pineapples that’s popular among homebrewers throughout his native country. De La Calle is already available in grocery stores nationwide, and Martin Del Campo says there’s been interest from both customers and stores in exporting the product to not only Mexico, but South American and European countries, too. 

In Picadas’ case, Martinez and his team distributed their product solely in Mexico for an entire year before launching in Texas, the brand’s first U.S. market. But these beverages have broad appeal and Del Campo says both Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations have embraced his company’s products. As Martinez puts it, Picadas is “made by Mexicans for Mexicans for the world to enjoy. Not just the Mexican consumers.”

Mexican Americans make up 20% of the current U.S. population. That demographic is only growing—and businesses are increasingly trying to cater to the community, says Martinez. He points to the success of brands like Topo Chico, Jarritos, Corona, Modelo, and Takis, all of which have introduced Mexican products to the U.S. market, and explains that, “brands are starting to realize that there’s a huge market that they’re not paying attention to, that needs a different solution or a different product than what’s available.”

Brands like De La Calle may also be riding the zero-proof wave, but these culturally relevant libations aren’t just capitalizing on a trend—Mexican households have been making and drinking flavorful non-alcoholic concoctions for generations. Now, the U.S. market is catching up.

Even established food brands are moving into sips, in an effort to share the familiar flavors of their heritage to a new audience in drink form. Longtime Bronx-based tortilla purveyor Buena Vista recently launched Soda Mexicana, a less-sweet alternative to Jarritos, in pineapple, mandarin, apple, tamarind, and hibiscus flavors, all made with natural cane sugar. With just 15 employees, the small brand hopes to build a local following that prefers a lower-sugar alternative to the treacly big dog that’s carried in virtually every supermarket and bodega in Mexico and the U.S. alike.

Del Campo attributes much of Americans’ affinity for Mexican products to the two countries’ proximity. “We’re neighbors to Mexico,” he says. But the entrepreneur also believes there’s interest in more globally inspired drinks across the country in general, and that interest is only growing. “People are looking into more ancestral, and authentic, foods and beverages.”

The post These Mexican-Made Canned Drinks Are Giving Local Flavors Their Due appeared first on Saveur.

Rise & Dine is a SAVEUR column by Senior Editor Megan Zhang, an aspiring early riser who seeks to explore the culture of mornings and rituals of breakfast around the world.

After catching a pre-dawn flight from Medellín and doing some early-morning trekking around the high-elevation Colombian capital of Bogotá, all my tired friends and I could think about was breakfast. As we waited in line outside La Puerta Falsa—a historic establishment that’s been serving traditional homestyle Colombian fare since the early 1800s—the smells of its famous tamales (masa, chicken, and other ingredients wrapped in banana leaves), ajiaco (a hearty chicken-and-potato stew), and chocolate completo wafted out into the street.

When we finally piled into seats on the second floor of the tiny wood-paneled restaurant, it didn’t take long for us to make our selections from the short menu. The scents that had simultaneously tortured and tantalized us were the restaurant’s can’t-miss classics, according to advice that a few Bogotana friends had shared with me before the trip.

But, just as a server was climbing the narrow stairs to take our order, I spotted something else on the menu. Last year, after I read Mariana Velasquez’s cookbook Colombiana ahead of a previous trip to Colombia, one recipe in particular stayed with me. Changua, a milky soup featuring eggs, cheese, scallion, cilantro, and hunks of bread, seemed like exactly the kind of morning meal I’d devour: a soupy, belly-warming breakfast in a bowl that requires minimal cooking effort beyond some quiet stirring. In the recipe headnote, Velasquez likens the dish to a breakfast I know well: “Changua is to Colombians what congee is to the Chinese: a comforting, soothing, and savory broth.” Though the dishes have decidedly different ingredients, I could see the common thread, and was sold.

When our spread finally arrived, the steaming-hot tamales and slurpable ajiaco were just the stick-to-your-ribs revitalization we needed. But the milky, allium-rich changua, with slices of cheese and bread fanned out across the surface and a generous portion of chopped herbs sprinkled on top, was the dish we talked about for the rest of the day.

Before tasting changua for the first time, we had little frame of reference for what a dairy-rich soup with cheese and dough soaking in it would taste like—would it be creamy? Vegetal? Like a savory cereal? As we ate spoon after spoonful, diverse textures and bold flavors made up each interesting bite, with the crisp, pungent scallions, the jammy eggs, and the chewy, milky cheese sparring for flavor dominance. We tried to draw similarities to dishes familiar to us, but none felt nearly like an adequate comparison—changua is more layered than porridge, more watery than chowder, and more textured than cereal with milk. We cleaned our bowls, all the while dunking in more bread between bites to sop up the soup. Later in the day, when hunger pangs kicked in again as we hiked down Monserrate, my friend JJ brought the conversation back to that memorable soup. “I think that changua was my favorite,” he said wistfully, and we all echoed agreement.

Bogotana chef Alejandra Cubillos González, whom I met when she was helming the kitchen at Sofitel Barú Calablanca‘s Bahía Restaurant in Isla Barú, attributes her home city’s association with soups like changua and ajiaco to the relatively chilly climate and high elevation (about 8,660 feet above sea level). Across the country’s mountainous Andean departments like Santander, Boyacá, and Cundinamarca, she says, changua is usually considered breakfast. Whenever Velasquez, who was also born and raised there, cooks and eats the dish, “it reminds me of dewy, cold mornings in Bogotá.”

It seems what often kindles affection for changua is the breakfast coming to one’s rescue on frigid days. Chef and cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt had his first taste at a restaurant near Lake Tota in Boyacá. “It was a very cold morning in the mountains, by a fireplace,” he recalls. As he slurped down the warming bowl of changua, “I thought it was the perfect thing.” On the other hand, López-Alt’s wife, who is Colombian, grimaced and teasingly made faces while he finished his soup. “She grew up with it and never liked it,” he says.

As a group that unanimously enjoys changua, my friends and I might be something of an anomaly. “Some people love it, and others hate it,” says Velasquez of the divisive dish. So, many home cooks freely adapt the ingredients to their liking: some families add potatoes, while others choose to skip the cheese. Some place the bread into the serving bowls first before pouring the soup on top, while others leave the bread on the side and dunk it in as they eat. “Every house has their own version,” says Maria Delgado, the chef behind Cartagena’s Caffé Lunático, who recalls that her grandfather, like many, served changua with calados, a variety of stale bread. Other families might choose almojábanas or pandebono—two other Colombian bread varieties made with cheese—or a simple crusty white loaf instead.

Since returning home from Bogotá, I’ve experimented with cooking different versions of changua, especially on blustery mornings in Boston. Yet, I always go back to craving the more-is-more version La Puerta Falsa served us: lots of cheese, bread in the bowl with extra on the side for dunking, and a heap of punchy, aromatic herbs. That’s what I, a member of the pro-changua club, would call breakfast luxury.

Recipe

Changua (Milky Colombian Soup)

Get the recipe >

The post This Milky, Eggy, Cheesy Soup Comes to the Rescue on Chilly Mornings appeared first on Saveur.

Growing up, I always considered backyard grilling a special-occasion activity—reserved for warm-weather long weekends like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. My parents would invite friends around and dust off our Weber; then we’d marinate drumsticks, ribs, and vegetable skewers and prepare appetizers and drinks before spending the day shepherding platters from the indoor kitchen to the grill to the backyard table. I always loved our cookout days, even though there was a lot of going back and forth between the indoors and outdoors, and not a lot of sitting down to enjoy the summer air.

Recently, I took a road trip from my parents’ house in Northern California down to the Santa Ynez Valley, home to the 10,000-acre Alisal Ranch. In addition to raising horses and maintaining its lakes and golf courses, the ranch hosts “BBQ Bootcamp” events a few times a year, when pitmasters from around the country convene to demonstrate tips and best practices for amateur grillers. As chefs walked us through easy techniques for cooking all kinds of foods, from pizza to puddings, I began to realize that a grill is a far more versatile and forgiving tool than most of us might think. Perhaps using one doesn’t have to be a labor-intensive, all-day affair either, and, with the optimal tools and ingredients, maybe it doesn’t have to be relegated to holiday weekends, or even to dinnertime. “Look at your grill as an outdoor range,” Valerie Gordon, the chef behind Valerie Confections in Los Angeles, told us. “It’s not just steak, ribs, and potatoes. Just about everything can be cooked on the grill.”

“When I’m inside cooking, I’ve got my back to my family,” said Paula Disbrowe, author of the grilling cookbook Thank You for Smoking. Outside, on the other hand, the grill is the center of the entertainment, the hearth around which everyone gathers. For making the most of our backyard grates and cooking outside with ease, here are some of my top takeaways from grilling camp.

Break out the cast-iron skillet. A well-seasoned cast-iron vessel is a practically indestructible cooking tool that’s nonstick to boot. With one of these versatile skillets on the grates, you can make practically anything you’d make on an indoor stovetop—whether it’s scrambled eggs and French toast for breakfast, grilled-cheese sandwiches and shrimp skewers for lunch, or chicken thighs for meal prepping. “The bonus is the proteins absorb the wafting charcoal and wood smoke aromas, [yet] you retain all of the flavorful juices,” said Disbrowe. This means you can even grill dishes that require or produce a good deal of liquid, like a hearty paella or marinated vegetables.

Add woody, herbaceous aromas. Different kinds of wood impart different flavors, so Riker recommends experimenting with a few varieties to find your preferred wood or combination of various types. “Mesquite wood provides a strong smoky flavor, while fruitwoods like cherry or apple offer a milder, sweeter taste,” he explains, adding that his favorite is olive, which imparts a distinctly nutty essence. If you’re using a gas grill, you can still introduce the element of wood via a wood chip box. “Even a small amount of woodsmoke adds tremendous flavor,” advised Disbrowe, whose preferred woods are hickory and oak, both of which provide rich, intense aromas that pair especially well with red meat. Further heighten the flavor by adding fresh herbs directly to the grates: “I love to add sprigs of rosemary or even small stems of fresh bay leaves to the periphery of the fire, so they smolder more slowly,” Disbrowe noted.

Keep an all-purpose spice blend on hand. A simple spice mix is key to grilling efficiently for a crowd—it’s much easier to keep a single shaker on stand-by, rather than a whole line-up of spice jars. Take Santa Maria rub, for example, which is especially popular among tri-tip fans and typically includes salt, black pepper, and garlic powder (though some cooks like to incorporate additional flavors such as paprika, thyme, or cumin). The mild-flavored concoction can be sprinkled over eggs in the morning, rib-eye in the evening, and snacks in between.

Foil it up. Riker’s favorite foolproof technique for cooking delicate foods, like certain seafood and vegetables, is to seal them in packets of foil to keep the ingredients tender and moist. Add a splash of citrus juice and a sprinkling of spices and herbs first, and always crimp the edges of the packet tightly to keep everything contained. (Open it up carefully—nothing ruins a day of backyard fun like a nasty steam burn.) On that note, you should keep foil around anyway, as it’s handy for tenting cooked foods to keep them warm while they rest.

Cook big steaks to feed a crowd. Instead of grilling individual steaks one by one, get big cuts of meat and grill those, then slice them up for guests. “The secret to cooking this meat to perfection is to season it generously,” said Craig Riker, Alisal Ranch’s executive chef. Sprinkle the entire surface with kosher salt, then refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes, or ideally overnight. When you’re ready to grill, let the meat come to room temperature; then, cook the steak over indirect heat, seeking out the cooler parts of the grates, which will promote more even cooking. When the meat is 8–10 degrees away from the desired temperature, move the steak to the hotter parts of the grates and sear for a couple of minutes on each side. Reverse-searing achieves that crisp, brown exterior while keeping the inside juicy and tender. While a tomahawk steak might sound intimidating, Riker promises it’s a great at-home option: “The marbled fat yields melt-in-your-mouth tenderness and a robust flavor,” he said—especially when paired with a rich, herbaceous chimichurri.

Intensify salads by grilling the ingredients first. Try introducing a smoky char to your vegetables before tossing them into a salad, and you might never go back. Sturdy ingredients like asparagus, bell peppers, mushrooms, okra, squash, and shallots all taste great after a kiss from the flame. Before adding the grilled veg to your raw greens, simply toss them with some fresh herbs, butter, and apple cider vinegar to create what Riker calls “a flavor explosion.” Or, keep it extra simple with a mere three ingredients: “A split romaine, grilled and finished with olive oil and salt, is hard to beat,” suggested Burt Bakman, the pitmaster behind the Los Angeles restaurant Slab Barbecue. And don’t rule out fruit—grilled watermelon salad with feta is another one of his go-to’s.

Grill fruit to make spiked drinks. A brief rendezvous with heat can bring out the jamminess of sturdy fruits like pineapple and stone fruits. “Grilling peaches intensifies their sweetness,” said Riker, who recommends cooking the slices until they have char marks before adding them to a favorite sangria to the whole batch with subtle smoky flavor. (Drinks writer Leslie Pariseau aptly likens the aroma to “the comforting scent of an early evening campfire.”) Alternatively, muddle the grilled fruit with syrup and citrus juice, then shake it in with ice and your liquor of choice to make an icy, slurpable cocktail.

Make boats out of sturdy fruits and vegetables. Nothing’s more fun than an edible bowl, especially for kids, so turn ingredients into boats and fill them with tasty toppings. Riker recommends grilling a few halved, pitted avocados flesh-side down, then topping them with spicy salsa and cotija cheese for a creamy appetizer or side dish. Or, spoon the seeds out of a halved zucchini or eggplant before filling them with cheese and herbs and giving them a blast of heat for a craveable cheese pull. For dessert, try caramelizing halved, pitted peaches, then filling them with whipped cream or mascarpone and sprinkling with cinnamon sugar and granola—an entertaining spin on a peach crisp. The cooking and assembly all happen outside, and guests can top their boats to their liking.

Go ahead, make a pizza. It’s totally feasible—or, dare we say, easy—to make a pizza using your grill. First, stretch out the dough and give it a light sprinkle of flour. “Just a dusting will help prevent the pizza from sticking onto the peel and becoming a calzone,” noted Brendan Smith, co-owner of the Santa Barbara pizzeria Bettina. Place it directly on the grates and par-cook it on both sides; then, when you’re ready to eat, top it with sauce and other add-ons and give it a final grill. According to Smith’s co-owner Rachel Greenspan, if you opt for meats like sausage, they can be placed onto the crust raw: “The fat seeps out as it cooks,” she pointed out. Eggs are also a fun addition, especially for breakfast: use cheese to build a small well in the center of the pizza, then crack in a raw egg for a delectably oozy yolk. Smith also encourages home pizzaiolos to get creative with seasonal veg combinations: during spring, Tutti Frutti peas and mint pesto make a refreshing pair, while in the summer, the pizzeria always makes a peach-and-poblano-pepper pie. Don’t have pizza dough on hand? Swap in flatbreads or pitas for a time-saving alternative.

Make melty, custardy treats. Desserts made from liquidy, quick-cooking batters are great candidates for the grill—think a skillet chocolate-chip cookie, fudgy blondies, and sticky toffee pudding. (Dense batters with a long cook time, like pound cake, won’t perform as well). Make sure to grease any skillet using a pastry brush, and “you will get a crispy edge like you’ve never had in your life,” Gordon promised. “Throw the batter on the grill while you’re eating dinner, and as soon as you’re done eating, dessert is ready.”

The post Your Backyard Grill Can Cook a Lot More Than You Think appeared first on Saveur.

When Natasha Raheja told her grandmother Nani she wanted to film her cooking Sindhi kadhi—a tangy Pakistani curry brimming with lotus root, okra, and cauliflower—she laughed. Nani wondered aloud what anyone could possibly want to know about an old woman like her. But the fact that her eldest granddaughter was the one asking was reason enough to agree. 

For years, Natasha had been collecting voice recordings of her grandmother while she cooked the dishes of her birthplace, Sindhi province in Pakistan. It was a way for Natasha to connect with her heritage. A Texan of Pakistani descent, she spent every summer with her grandparents in Gujarat, India. She knew that Nani and Nana (her grandfather, a textile merchant) wound up there after the 1947 Partition forced them out of Pakistan. She also knew that the two had lived in refugee camps, and that Nani never returned to her home country—and never saw her family again.

Natasha understood the facts, but what was it like to live through that upheaval? She would ask questions, but they were always met with silence. The books she’d read about post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression among Pakistani refugees made her wonder if her grandparents were even aware of their own trauma.

It’s clear from the Grandmas Project film—part of a series about grandmothers cooking with their filmmaker grandchildren—that Nani possesses great strength and calm. She proudly took care of everyone, including Nana: Nani would do the chores while Nana got to rest, revel in his memories, listen to the radio, and savor Nani’s cooking. Sindhi kadhi was a staple in their home, and though it was probably the thousandth time he’d eaten it over their 60 years of marriage, it’s clear from his expression that it still sparks something inside him. 

Sadly, Nani never got to see Natasha’s film when it came out in 2019. She passed away that same year, making the footage an even more poignant reminder of her generous, contented spirit. When Nana watched it, his eyes filled with tears at the all-too-familiar images of his wife wrapping herself in her favorite pistachio-green saree before sitting down to eat. Without Nani, and without her comforting cooking, Nana feels homeless. 

These days, Natasha is keeping her grandmother’s spirit alive by making Sindhi specialities like Sindhi kadhi alongside her mother and sisters. Every year, on the anniversary of Nani’s death, Natasha dons one of her grandmother’s sarees and gets cooking. She says the smells and tastes open a portal through which she can access the fading memories of those Gujarat summers.

Recipe

Sindhi Kadhi (Pakistani Vegetable Curry)

Get the recipe >

The post Finding Family History in a Big Bowl of Curry appeared first on Saveur.

Portland, Oregon-based photographer Jordan Hughes stirred up vehement debate on TikTok earlier this year when he made an espresso martini—a latter-day mixology flex—and finished it with a shower of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. 

“I tried it and I can report back that it’s just crazy enough to work!” wrote one viewer. “Straight to jail,” condemned another. Some were appalled, others tickled, and still others traced the combination to a concrete place in their sensory recollections. “This unlocked my memory of coffee cheese! It’s a Swedish bread cheese (no bread, just sturdy) served in coffee,” one user shared. 

Hughes’ Parmesan-scented concoction may have sparked mixed reactions, but the drink is part of an ever-growing range of salty, spicy, and briny creations showing up on drinks lists all over the world. According to Dave O’Brien, a veteran wine and spirits developer who helped launch Aperol in the U.S., the trend towards savory sips is rooted in the mixology craze of the late aughts—and the evolution of American drinkers’ palates have traced a clear arc. “I’ve seen our collective tastes change from more sweet, to embracing bittersweet, to finally a more bitter and adventurous palate,” he explained. On the other side of the equation (and bar), business owners face stiff competition. “I think bartenders feel the need to innovate to help their drinks programs stand out,” he added. 

As savory drinks take up growing real estate on bar menus, mixologists are incorporating brine into their beverages in surprising, and highly sippable, ways. 

A global movement

Marian Beke, owner of erstwhile London bar The Gibson (which will be reopening in Berlin later this year), is arguably a pioneer of the savory cocktail movement. The Slovakia-born mixologist has been experimenting with unexpected flavor profiles for years. In 2018, he collaborated with Belgium’s Copperhead Distillery to roll out a savory gin featuring five botanicals and 13 pickling spices, including mace, pepper, cassia, bay leaf, ginger, allspice, fennel, and dill seeds. In 2019, Beke launched a liqueur line with Italian spirits producer Casoni featuring flavors like Balsamic Vinegar of Modena.   

According to Beke, savory cocktails correlated with UK customers’ relatively salty palates. Consider the classic English breakfast—back bacon, eggs, sausage, baked beans, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, black pudding, with fried and toasted bread—a sodium-rich way to start the day (at odds with many American breakfast staples like pancakes and waffles). Beke said that UK imbibers were already stalwart fans of unsweetened classics like martinis and old-fashioneds. When he began serving savory drinks, like a martini aged in balsamic barrels and served with truffle onions, it was immediately apparent that customers were into them. So he continued to experiment. “We tried to introduce an element of savory or umami into each cocktail,” he explained. Think sea salt, smoked fruits, a hint of balsamic for syrups, pickled eggs for martinis, or pickles as a garnish. 

In other regions where palates skew sweeter, Beke noted, one might expect a savory cocktail to be met with more skepticism. Take Spain, for example, where people don’t bat an eye at mixing coke and red table wine (hola, kalimotxo). And yet, the country has seen its own savory mixology boom, including recent openings like Especiarium, a cocktail bar in Barcelona’s El Born neighborhood dedicated to exploring the world of spices. There, the menu features cheeky, thoughtfully made sips like the popular Saltbae: Gin Mare, a spicy tomato juice, sriracha, a mix of salsas, and salt and pepper “al gusto” (to your liking). Partner and head bartender Antonio Naranjo described it as their spicy take on a Bloody Mary. “You expect something that everyone does the same—the Bloody Mary—and instead you taste a bomb of flavors. And as the ice melts, you get sensations in different parts of the mouth and the nose.” He called it a “complete sensory experience.” 

Bartenders are flexing their creative muscles, and—despite the authoritative ring to the term “mixology”—not taking themselves too seriously 

Finding inspiration in food

As Beke’s English brekkie-inspired drink suggests, a staple ingredient or time-tested recipe can be a solid jumping-off point for cocktail innovations. In New York City, the menu at Noho haunt Jac’s on Bond features a caprese martini, with notes of olive oil, tomato, basil, and balsamic vinegar. According to beverage director Trevor Easton Langer, the creation phase often starts with seeking inspiration from dishes or ingredients that one already loves—no matter how far off they might seem from the world of cocktails. On the rise of savory mixed drinks, Langer noted, “There have been fine variants of classics like the Dirty Martini, Gibson, and Bloody Mary, but there’s been a massive influx of thought-inducing tipples that you’ll want to try purely out of curiosity—like, ‘How’d they turn this into a drink?’” 

Over in New York City’s Meatpacking District, Genesis House puts yet another spin on a classic with their Kimchitini. Head bartender Leslie Hong, who had been daydreaming about a kimchi-infused martini for some time, used her vegan kimchi recipe as a base. Through trial and error, she figured out the ideal ingredient ratios for the cocktail. “I created a cold-brewed gochugaru-and-salt solution to pull the color and flavor,” Hong explained. “The final cocktail also gets a little muddled fresh Asian pear to bring back a little fresh sweetness.” The resulting drink “marries the best parts of the traditional dirty martini with a beloved element of Korean cuisine,” added Kevin Prouve, Genesis House’s general manager. 

When Dave Kupchinsky, bar manager at Bar Moruno in Los Angeles, was looking to shake up the classic martini, he beelined to the restaurant’s kitchen for ideas. There, chef Chris Feldmeier told him about a salmon martini he onced sipped at Dr Stravinksy, a trailblazing cocktail bar in the seaside city of Barcelona (where the team also produces a curiosity-piquing gorgonzola cheese rum). This birthed Bar Moruno’s popular salmon martini, a fish-forward, briny, and unexpectedly balanced cocktail. “I take smoked salmon and infuse it into Tanqueray gin. That sits for about three weeks, then I strain it off, including a lot of fat—but you have to leave some of the fat because that’s where all the flavor is,” Kupchinksy explained.

It makes sense. Consider the dirty martini: a briny cocktail with an oily touch from the olives. Kupchinsky pointed out that fat has been finding its way into the cocktail shaker for some time now. He recalled the bacon old-fashioned at mythical New York speakeasy PDT, adding, “That was probably 10 years ago.” More recently, mixologists have taken the fat-washing method—infusing a spirit with something fatty, freezing it and skimming off the fat—and run with it, incorporating plant-based ingredients like coconut oil, peanuts, avocados, and more. In New York City, the restaurant Hutong serves its Ancient Old Fashioned with sesame-washed bourbon. Curio Bar in Denver offers a sip called Heathen made with green chili vodka, rhum agricole, coconut, and lime oil. The effect of fat-washing is a richer, rounder flavor and, as Naranjo of Especiarium suggested, a fuller sensorial experience. 

Fermenting is another savory technique infiltrating the beverage menu. At Workshop, a new Portland restaurant with a vegan tasting menu that makes heavy use of chef Aaron Adams’ fermentation lab, the cocktails are inspired by people and places culled from Adams’ memories. One, the K&A, is a tribute to Kevin Farley and Alex Hozven of the Cultured Pickle Shop and features Rittenhouse rye, Cynar, and celery kombucha vinegar. It sounds almost nutritious enough to negate any detrimental effects of alcohol (except, perhaps, that late-night text sent an ex).

Be it fatty, fermented, or generously spiced, you can have your cocktail and (sort of) eat it, too.

A twist on nostalgia

Savory cocktails may be as old as the dirty martini itself, which dates back to 1901, but it’s clear that mixology experts are going bolder than ever with briny ingredients. Sometimes, in getting patrons to embrace seemingly strange combinations, it helps to tap into a spirit of nostalgia, drawing on profiles that might hit a sentimental note of familiarity for cocktail creators and customers alike.

Recently, I popped into Abricot Bar, a buzzy new cocktail spot in Paris’ Belleville neighborhood. Co-owner Allison Kave, a Brooklynite cum Parisienne, served me their instant-hit minitini—a teensy-weensy dirty martini at the right price of five euros. It was perfectly chilled and packed with savory flavor. Kave explained that the team makes their own brine, blending lactic acid, salt, and water, and also uses Baldoria Dry Umami vermouth for its strong notes of mushroom and seaweed. (Obvious by now: the OG briny cocktail is catnip for savory spinoffs.) 

For the next round, Kave poured one of the cocktails on tap—the Cel-Ray, a fresh take on a G&T inspired by the cult-favorite vegetable soda and Jewish deli mainstay of the same name. It’s made with the juice of lemon peels, Citadelle gin, aquavit, and a celery syrup produced in-house using fresh celery and fennel seeds. I sipped the bubbly elixir from its tall glass and got an instant hit of celery. But there was something deeper—an earthy, nutty, maybe even malty character, which I asked Kave about. “That’s probably the rye bread notes that come through from the aquavit,” she told me. The aquavit, Kave explained, is flavored with the same caraway seeds that stud rye bread in those Jewish delis of our native New York. We shared an IYKYK smile. For an instant, two New Yorkers in a bar on a quiet street in Paris’ 10th arrondissement were transported to warm memories of the place they used to call home. 

“This is amazing,” I told Kave. It was easily drinkable—nothing cheesy or gimmicky about it. The woman next to me leaned over the bar and ordered the same.

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