Month: June 2020

by Chase Christensen

I’ve spent the majority of my life on a farm raising sheep and a small crop of various produce. Before all of that, I lived in a middle class, white, suburban neighborhood named Daniel’s Ranch located in Carnation, Washington, a small farm town home of the original producers of carnation milk and “known” for (at one point) having the world’s most milk-producing cow. Daniel’s Ranch couldn’t’ve included more than 50-100 families i.e. houses. In regard to my background with agriculture, my life in the ranch aside from a very small garden in which tomatoes and Squash were exclusively grown (both of which I despised at the time). In fact, as a child I was very picky about what I ate. If I had a choice in the matter of what would be made for a meal, I would insist on spaghetti with cheese and butter or grilled cheese as well as other foods of a “safe” nature. By “safe” I mean foods with no strong smells, flavors or textures. My food pickiness was by no means a product of my upbringing, as my parents were both quite adventurous with their preferred cuisine. They ate things like raw smoked salmon, prosciutto, escargot, very runny French omelets and other foods of an “adventurous” (by my young self’s definition) nature.

It’s very likely that my predisposition towards certain foods can be attributed to my genetic makeup. Flavors that I like and dislike could be a product of what my ancestors had to eat and therefore grew an affinity for, not only a mental predilection, but a chemical, brain rewiring, propensity. According to a genetic test I am more than fifty percent British and/or Irish and according to both my grandfather and the genetic test I am one fourteenth Danish. What can be said about that I don’t know, as ethnic cuisines far from that of English or Danish appeal to me such as spicy African dishes of lamb, salty, acidic Mexican foods with meat bases such as pork tongue, and creamy spice based dishes such as most Indian food. I can however say that some foods that are of my liking within the cuisine of my heritage exist as well. including salty black licorice, smoked salmon, and pickled herring in mustard sauce. Although I do think predetermined, genetic flavor inclination exists, this is not a barrier for affinity towards flavors contrasting those of what our ancestors ate. Also to mention, just because one comes from a culture in which certain foods or flavors are penchant, an example being a certain vegetable popular in cuisine from said culture. It is if not possible likely that an individual does not favor said ingredient.

As a child, very few vegetables appealed to me. Squash, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, mushrooms (not a vegetable, but in my youth, there was no distinction), zucchini and tomatillos all seemed vile and untouchable. However, I wasn’t the type of child who refused to try anything. I mean, how would I know if I didn’t favor something until a tried it? Which, looking back at, is very forward thinking coming from a child under the age of 10. After I had tried something I didn’t like, there was very little chance of myself giving it a second chance. That being said, just because of my disposition didn’t mean my parents would make grilled zucchini or babganoush for dinner any less. My personal affliction with vegetables made my youth especially difficult due to the fact that I was a strict vegetarian from the ages of 6-17. The word vegetarian within the context of myself is somewhat misleading. When the word vegetarian is used the connotation of vegetables is evidently made, despite that, as a vegetarian I ate very few vegetables and instead ate very processed vegetarian “meat”. I understand the precarious nature of a vegetarian not eating many vegetables, but what has to be understood is that I grew up in a time (early 2000’s) where processed, soy-based vegetarian meat was gaining popularity. A well-timed transition on my part I suppose. As opposed to eating spinach dip, hummus, and cucumber sandwiches, for almost every meal, I would eat deep fried soy nuggets and soy breakfast sausage links, cheese, and carbs. In that age where one could be an “unhealthy vegetarian”, I most definitely was. My diet of cheese, carbs, and soy-based products ended when I decided to quit my meatless philosophy and veer towards the very exciting world of meats.

Meat is a very vast and dynamic section of foodways and without a doubt the reason I became as enthralled with food as I currently am. For the first time in my life my parents were no longer asking me to try foods for my own “mind widening” benefit. I was now taking the initiative upon myself to explore the world of food as I never had before. By including meat into my meals, a whole new world opened up itself before me and I finally got to explore it. When I decided to make the meat-eating transition, I was living on my family’s four acre sheep farm in Duvall, Washington, five minutes away from Carnation. On our farms humble garden my mother grew plants in which the likes of younger me had never even heard of such as ground cherries, kale, and dragon-tongue beans. My culinary world was expanding before me and I was beyond excited. Living in a small organic farm town meant that high quality meat was easy to come by. One could have a steady supply of meat simply by making friends with their free range chicken raising neighbors, or by having those neighbors introduce you to their organic pig raising cousins, or even by making a deal with your middle school principal who raises grass fed beef.

Today I would describe myself as a food ambitionist: going out of my way to try things I never have before and making it my goal to be more than well versed in cuisine. I can’t help but contribute that to my “late bloom” into the food world and from the open-minded food philosophy of my parents

Prompting this eating memoir is a class at The Evergreen State College, entitled Comparative Eurasian Foodways,in which the focus is to explore history, culture, and gastronomy of Eurasia specifically China, Greece, and Italy. As a reference, the class was asked to read excerpts from one of the most popular food memoirs, titled Shark Fin and Sichuan written by Fuchsia Dunlop. The contents are of her experiences in graduating culinary school in the Sichuan province of China. Although I am not in culinary school, this gastronomy class has an exciting aspect: every Friday the class makes dishes based on the cuisine of the three cultures previously stated. Each base of the meals we make are ones we’ve spent all week learning about via lectures, readings, and media, such as films. Most recently, we focused on meats by making meatballs traditional to said cultures. The Chinese meatball, which to me was flavorfully more unique than the others was one of pork which (aside from the average meatball ingredients) consisted of water chestnuts, sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger and green onion with a reduced, sticky sauce made up of a variety of flavorful ingredients like Shao Xing cooking wine, star anise, and rock sugar. It’s complex, cultural, meat-based foods like this which my younger, vegetarian self had no possible grasp of.

In part one of this memoir, my brilliant awakening to meat was touched upon. To further the readers understanding of my relationship with flesh and its culinary use, I will expand upon this. After being a vegetarian for 12 odd years, my knowledge of meats was beyond lacking. At the age of 17, I couldn’t tell the difference between ham, roast beef, or turkey. Being disconnected entirely from meat eating culture, there was so much about meat that fascinated me. It was all so new, everything I learned held so much weight: the salty, slightly sweet and smoky flavor of ham with its spongy, juicy qualities, the dry, soft turkey with its almost gamy flavor, and roast beef with its utmost complex tantalizing essence; all of it was a learning process and one which was greeted with intense craving. Due to a complete lack of knowledge in meats, that entire genre was comparable to that of the new frontier, the world was my oyster.

On the note of seafood, which to this day is my protein of choice, it was the deciding factor on my ambitious transition into the carnivorous ways. Growing up my entire life in the PNW, in fact forty minutes from the ‘oh-so majestic’ Seattle, there was no lack of seafood. The most acclaimed of such is the salmon, which growing up and still to this day is one of my least favorite seafoods; that is, however, if we’re talking about the Seattle way of cooking it, which is the only form it was ever served to me. To elaborate, a meal which my household ate perhaps once a month maybe more if it was on sale, was salmon fillets baked on cedar panels with brown sugar, salt and pepper, garnished with dill and lemon juice after cooking. As a kid it was a very bland dish with a very uniform flavor, however being high in nutritional value seemingly justified the one note meal. It was in my teenage years that I discovered smoked salmon lox, salmon jerky, and salmon sashimi, which are superior forms of this fish which  highlight all the good aspects. The good aspects being the subtle fishiness and the amazing fat which the salmon holds between each layer of its muscles. My preference for raw, cured, and smoked salmon rather than simply a baked one gave rise to my overall inclination to foods prepared with these aforementioned methods.

Raw, cured, and smoked meats are the essence of what meat should be. As a field trip for my gastronomy class, we went to Portland, Oregon and got to experience a culinary variety showcase. On the way to the event while riding in one of the school vans, mostly oblivious to what I was about to experience, a gas stop was needed. During this break, a few of us went into the gas station store and bought cheap processed foods to tide our hunger due to not eating breakfast. I grabbed an extremely processed ‘meat stick’ which only god knows how many different animals coincided in this single item. Paired with this stick was a highly processed ‘cheese food stick’, which according to the ingredients consisted of anything but dairy. The reason I’m mentioning this is for the purpose of juxtaposition of the qualities of food eaten before and during the variety showcase. Walking into the showcase I was unprepared for the events proceeding. About eighty vendors all with their own two-to-three table long booths were preparing and serving tapas-sized plates of organic, locally grown dishes. Such dishes were oven-roasted small purple potatoes covered in a caramelized buttermilk sauce seasoned with smoked kelp, moist tres leches style melon cakes made with special varieties of organic melons grown in the area, and savory, sweet, flakey pastries topped with caramelized leeks, all of which were so phenomenal and overshadowed my gas station snack by such magnitude that I had forgotten I had even partook in such a food until finding the wrapper in my pocket preceding the event.

Such high-class foods of a higher caliber such as ones sampled at the variety showcase have opened up the culinary world to me more than was previously thought possible by myself. This showcase was a demonstration of culinary creativity and skill. Not only is creativity a main factor in delicious foods, but so is flexibility with the ingredients making up a dish. Take for example, a butternut squash; now this squash is an earthy semi sweet food that in my experience is cubed, oven roasted with olive oil, salt, and pepper and treated as a savory side. Of course, the use of butternut squash can also be that of a sweeter profile by cubing and roasting with cinnamon and brown sugar. However, this is no dessert, simply a sweet side. I experienced a dish at the variety showcase in which butternut squash is pulverized into a squeezable paste, slightly sweetened and squeezed using an icing dispenser into chocolate dipped ice cream cones. The creamy paste is cold, refreshing, quite sweet, and slightly earthy, it tastes very much like a high-quality dessert. However, its base and majority of flavor can be attributed to the vegetable that it is. Now, this food cannot be associated with a specific cuisine or culture, it is merely a product of modern food ingenuity. Taking this gastronomy class and learning about not only historic food culture, but also modern food culture, my palate has been widened and my mentality towards foods and flavors has grown and expanded for the better.

by Ethan Bowlen

There was a small, rickety wooden stool tucked in the corner of the kitchen, sitting beneath the white landline telephone mounted on the wall. Here, I would perch at the counter’s edge and follow along with my mother as she cooked; she would give me micro-portions of her ingredients, and I would do my best to imitate whatever she was creating.  We would chat in silly French accents and create lighthearted dramas as we worked on pies, cookies, spaghetti or lentil stews. I had a favorite wooden spoon and mixing bowl, but I especially loved the rolling pin and how intentional and productive it felt to roll out the doughs of floury desserts. Elsewhere, I went by “Ethan,” “E,” or “Ebay.” While I was with my mother in the kitchen, in my family’s first home on Bawden Street in Ketchikan, Alaska, I was “Monsieur le Chef.”

Although my alter-ego “Monsieur le Chef” only truly came alive during the brief period between the ages of four and five years old, my times as he are the oldest and most palpable memories of food I can recall. I still smell the light, sweet fluffiness of various flours and doughs, dusting the countertop and my face and hands; I can still see the kitchen, the sun basking the countertops beneath the wide windows that overlooked our small and wild Alaskan garden; I can still feel the muscles of my mouth tighten joyously with long ago smiles and giggling chit-chats shared while I sat on that stool, rolling pin in hand.  With the memory of Monsieur le Chef comes a gentle cascade of sensory experience, as well as an overwhelming nostalgic appreciation for the childhood that I lived and for the people who made it so.

My first and most formative food memories were given to me by my mother, ultimately through whom Monsieur le Chef was born. She gave me agency and pride in my culinary creations, however rudimentary and fantastical they may have been; she taught me that work and skill-building did not have to be a chore, and that, with the right company and the right attitude, one could find enjoyment and pride in the completion of tasks. Unfortunately, these lessons were recently remembered and for the majority of my youth I remained quiet, passive and reserved.

I’ve only just rediscovered a serious passion for food and the sensory experiences that are intrinsic to eating. Thinking now in earnest on my relationships with food and the people who shaped my perceptions of it, the passion was always there— it just went unaddressed and sat unfueled. I am older now and thus memory does not flood, but crops up in anecdotal river teeth, fuzzy pictures with sporadic instances of vibrant sensorial clarity. Beginning with my culinary origin as Monsieur le Chef in the kitchen with my mother, I can then trace my love of food and the dimensions of my palate best through other guardians from my youth. Through my father and the parents of my childhood friends, I became further acquainted with the dynamics of food, household kitchen cultures, and family.

At my childhood home, my father was the master of breakfast and a man of simple yet flavorful taste, indulging in cereals and pancake mixes and bacon on the stove. Although they more or less came straight from a box, I don’t believe that I have had pancakes better than the ones my dad used to make. When I would stay the night at a friend’s house, I would miss having breakfast at home, though there was always much to be gained at these fresh and diverse locales.

Health was to be had at Alec’s home, no doubt his father’s profession as a physician played a role in this culinary factor. For a long time, a persistent ribbing of Alec referenced an instance in which Andy, his father, became very upset with him after discovering Alec had eaten more than two Oreo cookies.  At Sy’s home across the channel on Pennock Island, we ate Dutch Babies made by his parents, Peggy and Paul, topped with powdered sugar and lemon juice; I always felt especially privileged to spend mornings at this dining table, with the rich flavor of these light and fluffy cakes mingling with the scents of salt spray and fresh air as we looked out at the ocean and the mountains.

In retrospect, I can see that these two locations in addition to my immediate home were where my passion for food first took root. Each household, each cook, had an individual set of characteristics, systems, and sensations to add to the food that was prepared for eager young mouths. I am only now beginning to make my journey back to who I was when I was Monsieur le Chef, and in recognizing those in my life who have influenced my palate and my culinary perceptions, I will try to cultivate a more active and intimate relationship with food.