Searching for tastes of the past

I am so happy that I found a site called 'The Museum of Burnt Food: Celebrating the Art of Culinary Disasters'. 

I have started burning foods with great regularity. Today it was a wonderful yummy pot of rice pudding. I have made this a dozen times and each time it's been a resounding success. The rice pudding is creamy and rich and just the right texture.  Today I burnt the entire pot. Very unpleasant, but at least I am not alone in doing this.

I am a pretty good cook. I love cooking and yet, there are foods that I consistently burn. I've burned carrots almost since the day I was married. I cannot count the number of times I have had a saucepan soaking to get the burned carrot residue off.  I've learned to love the caramelised taste of burned food, but the rest of family is not convinced.  I have burned leeks, brussels sprouts, potatoes (yesterday) and many other things. 

A few years ago I completely lost my sense of smell.  I think this is called anosmia.  This condition lasted for over a year and in that time I burned everything - soups, stews, cakes, breads, roasts.  I also over-salted and over-spiced things since the sense of smell and taste is linked. It was not fun at all.  Now I don't have that as an excuse. It just seems that I sit down and get involved in other things and completely forget about anything cooking and needing attention.  I am so grateful that I don't have young babies to forget about. They wouldn't stand a chance!

Message to self - Pay attention and stop pretending to multi-task!

These cold winter days demand unburned hot soups, warm casseroles, home-baked goodies and since I have a bit of time on my hands, I have devoted myself to adding weight to my hips through cooking.

When I arrived in London it was a food ground zero. It was difficult to get a decent sandwich and a good salad was impossible.  Food in restaurants was over-priced and often very bad.  Ralph and I still remember with great laughter now, but gasps of horror then, a particularly bad meal we had in about 1970 at a restaurant called The Green Parrot.  I can hardly recall the actual food, but I do remember some frozen peas with a blue tinge that were like little rock hard bullets. Food was fuel, not really pleasure and meals out were rare.

London has really changed since those early days when I had to travel cross town to get a green pepper or an avocado and anything more than 'flat meat and two veg' was considered exotic. We actually now have some of the best restaurants in the world. Unfortunately, the thing that hasn't changed is the absolute dearth of good Eastern European-type New York style Jewish food.  Where is the Carnegie Deli tower of a pastrami sandwich on rye with half-sour dill pickles and cole slaw?  The unctuous rich cheesecake? The potato knishes and hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut?  The real bagels (not the heavy doughy things we now get everywhere) and the bialys and pletzels?

Sometimes my craving for these foods (and Tootsie Roll Pops) gets the better of me and I try to replicate some things in my own kitchen.  I can say that I am a dab hand at New York cheesecake. I bake challahs and have even made a halway decent job of baking bagels.  My raisin pumpernickel bread is best left a distant memory and I keep meaning to have a stab at my Uncle Willy's fabulous homemade half-sour pickle recipes.

Today was the turn of bialys and pletzels, or onion boards.  As the days get colder and snowier I want more and more of those old familiar carb treats so I decided to bake bialys.  I consulted about 15 different recipes. Bialys are sort of a cross between pizza bread dough, foccacia, and naan.  They have some minced onion and poppy seeds in an indent in the middle and the are just yummy. Pletzels or onion boards are larger and flatter with more minced onion and poppy seeds.  We love these so much that they are one of the things we bring back from the Lower East Side in New York. My mother used to say that the unique flavour could only be found in a bialy bakery in the Bronx where you could watch the baker in action, complete with big fat cigar in his mouth, some of the ashes of which would usually drop into the minced onion garnish, and that this was the special secret ingredient!

I baked bialys today and though they don't taste as good as the genuine NY ones, they are pretty good and this is only the first go.I even photographed them! I am determined to improve the look and the taste.  I may have to take up cigar smoking to add authenticity.

Meanwhile, we can slather them with butter and enjoy.