The recipe below is for a Thai dish called larb nua. This is the first Thai dish I ever had, though it has now been a couple of decades since my brother first took me to the Thai Room on Western for my birthday—back when there were only a few Thai restaurants in Chicago. He ordered, as he was already familiar with the cuisine, and larb was our starter. I loved it, and still do. I have, since then, enjoyed it often, both at the growing number of Thai restaurants over here and during two trips to Thailand.

As is common in Asia, though this is called a salad, lettuce plays only a supporting role. This dish can also be made with ground chicken, in which case it is larb kai. Enjoy.

Larb Nua
(Spicy Thai Beef Salad/Appetizer)

1/4 cup uncooked white rice
1 lb. ground beef
1/4 cup lime juice*
2 Tbs. Thai fish sauce
1/2 tsp. galangal powder
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
6–8 scallions, thinly sliced
2 Tbs. chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbs. chopped fresh mint leaves
1 tsp. crushed red pepper*
Lettuce (about 1 head iceberg or 3 heads butter lettuce)
Mint sprigs for garnish, if desired

In a small pan, cook the rice over medium heat, shaking the pan frequently, until the rice is a nice golden brown, about 4 to 8 minutes. Grind the rice fine in a blender or coffee grinder, and set aside. (Alternatively, if you have a good Asian grocery store, you can just buy toasted ground rice. But this is so easy to make, I don’t bother, since I need so little for this recipe.)

Put the ground beef, lime juice, fish sauce, galangal powder, and onions into a skillet and stir to combine, breaking apart the beef. Still stirring occasionally, to keep beef broken apart, cook this combination over medium-high heat for about 5-7 minutes, or until the beef is cooked.

Remove the skillet from the heat. Add the scallions, cilantro, mint, crushed red pepper, and ground rice. Mix thoroughly so that all the ingredients are well combined.

There are two primary ways for serving this dish. One way is to put down a bed of lettuce leaves and pile the larb on top. The other way is to have the lettuce and larb separate, and spoon larb into individual lettuce leaves and eat them as wraps. The first way is tidier, the second way is more fun. Serves 6–7 as a first course, 3–4 as a meal.

*Notes: Key lime juice is your best choice, as key limes are the same basic lime variety as Southeast Asian limes.

A full tsp. of crushed red pepper makes this pretty fiery—which is authentic, but perhaps not to your taste. If you are unaccustomed to spicy food, you might want to start with 1/2 tsp, or even 1/3 tsp. of the red pepper. You could even leave it out. It will still be delicious.

©2009 Cynthia Clampitt

Ancient Greeks and Romans were the people most responsible for what we in the West view as “what’s for dinner.” They were the ones who added lettuce-based salads and desserts to a menu that had previously focused on just getting enough calories to survive. I’ve actually noticed in my travels that, in areas outside the cultural influence of Greece and Rome, these things don’t really exist. In Asia, they will put out a sliced orange at the end of a meal, because they’ve learned that American and European tourists expect something sweet, but it’s not part of the culture, and a nice tossed green salad is just not something you’re going to find on a traditional Oriental menu.

Evidence from Egyptian tomb paintings indicates that lettuce was being cultivated in Egypt before 4,500 BC, though the first writings were Assyrian documents from around 800 BC, when lettuce was identified as being among the 250 plants growing in the gardens of King Merodach-Baladan in Babylon. Herodotus tells us that lettuce appeared on royal tables in Persia by about 550 BC, but it was a delicacy reserved for kings. These are all locations surrounding the likely point of origin of lettuce, which was inner Asia Minor, trans-Caucasus, Iran, and Turkistan.

Rome loved lettuce as soon as it arrived, which was before 500 BC, because by 500 BC, lettuce was listed along with cabbage and artichokes as the three most popular vegetables in the empire. It was the Romans who decided that leaf lettuce would be nicer if there were more leaves and they were closer together, so they bred the first head lettuce. The Romans preferred the Cos lettuces, what we more commonly call Romaine (actually, that’s why we call it Romaine—it was Rome’s lettuce, though by the time the lettuce was being called Romaine, Rome was the home of popes, not emperors). But the alternate name of Cos tells us where the lettuce came from before it reached Rome: the Greek island of Cos.

Lettuce spread northward from the Mediterranean, both in wild and cultivated forms. Actually, cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is closely related to the wild lettuce (Lactuca scariola), from which it seems likely (though not definite) that the domestic varieties were developed. By 600 AD, lettuce was also being grown in China, from whence it spread throughout Asia.

Lettuce continued to gain popularity through the Middle Ages, so it was natural that it be among the plants brought to the New World once the Atlantic had been crossed. And they brought it early. Columbus must have taken seeds with him, as lettuce was growing on Isabela Island in the Bahamas by 1494. Successive landfalls were made as new places were explored and settled, and lettuce spread through North and South America, both in wild and domestic forms.

Lettuce continued to be immensely popular. Thomas Jefferson grew 19 varieties of lettuce at Monticello. Three types of lettuce seed arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, and it quickly spread there, as well.

Today, lettuce continues to be immensely important. In the United States, it is second only to potatoes as most popular fresh vegetable. The average American consumes around 30 pounds of lettuce each year. But lettuce is important worldwide, including in those countries where a tossed green salad is almost unknown (such as Asia, where it can be anything from a hot vegetable to a wrap for savory fillings). It is the world’s most popular salad plant.

Lettuce probably gets its name from the Old French laitues (plural of laitue, the French name for lettuce). Like the plant’s Latin name, Lactuca (think lactose), the French name laitue also means “milky” (milk is lait in French). This is because lettuce has a milky juice running in its veins—a juice which, like milk, is mildly sedative.

This article originally appeared in a slightly different form in Hungry Magazine.
© 2009 Cynthia Clampitt

In Mexico’s Yucatan, pickled red onions—cebollas encuridas— are served at almost every meal, appearing as soon as you sit down, along with the salsa. They are a delightful and delicious way to enhance foods, from simply piling them on tortilla chips to using them to enhance a dish. I came to be fairly addicted to them when I toured the Yucatan a few years ago, and I now make them regularly.

You must use sour orange juice. It’s completely different from sweet orange juice—more like lime juice. Straight vinegar would be better than using sweet orange juice, but look for sour orange in the Hispanic- or Mexican-foods aisle of your grocery store, or check at a Hispanic grocery store. It’s worth the effort, because the flavor really is different if you try substitutes for the sour orange.

And just so you know, these are good with more than just Mexican food. Almost anywhere you’d use pickles, relish, or onions can be enhanced with this flavorful condiment. Enjoy.

Cebollas Encuridas
Yucatecan Pickled Onions

1 large red onion, thinly sliced
boiling water, to cover
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sour orange juice, or to cover
1/2 tsp dried oregano, preferably Mexican oregano

Pour boiling water over the sliced onions. Let sit for 1 minute. Drain, discarding the water. Put the onion in a non-reactive container (glass, porcelain, etc.) and add the rest of the ingredients. Let sit for at least one hour, but preferably overnight. Depending on the size of the onion, makes 1 to 1-1/2 cups of pickled onion.

Note: If I’m pressed for time, which is almost always, I’ll just grab the bottle of Mojo Criollo that I almost always have on hand, and use that in place of everything except the onion. This great marinade can be found in just about any Hispanic grocery store, and it contains most of the ingredients listed above: sour orange, garlic, salt, pepper, and “herbs.” The difference in the result is close to unnoticeable—so feel free to take the easy way out.

©2009 Cynthia Clampitt

Onion

The Allium genus includes some of my favorite purveyors of flavor, including garlic, shallots, leeks, scallions, and onions. It is hard to imagine cooking without these fragrant, vibrant plants. And in fact, no one has ever really had to, because wild members of the allium genus grow worldwide. That’s why, even though onions as we know them arrived with European explorers, we still ended up with Indian words that refer to a place where wild onions were causing a stink: the Potawatomi word checagou, which means “place that stinks of wild onions,” and the Menominee word shika’ko, which means “skunk place,” which actually referred to the smell of the wild onions. We’re not sure which of these words was the derivation of Chicago, but the point is, there were a lot of wild onions growing here long before domesticated onions made it over with European settlers.

Of the 325 species within the allium genus, onion is probably the most widely used today. Its antiquity makes it hard to pinpoint its origin, and scholars disagree on its starting point, but let’s just say “the Old World,” because it was somewhere around Central Asia or the Middle East or maybe even the eastern Mediterranean that it first came into use.

Fortunately, with the rise of civilization, onions became easier to track. The Sumerians were writing about them in cuneiform around 3000 BC. Mesopotamians loved onions. Hammurabi considered onions so important that, in his famous code, he stipulated a monthly ration of onions for the poor. They were most commonly sliced and eaten raw on bread. (Mesopotamians considered onions to be virtually a panacea—and they actually weren’t far from being right. Onions are antibiotic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, contain a powerful antioxidant that also acts as a sedative, and can lower your cholesterol. Definitely strong medicine.)

The Egyptians were great onion eaters, and the onion is the plant that appears most often in Egyptian art. (They didn’t just eat onions; when preparing a corpse for burial, Egyptians used small onions to replace eyeballs in mummies.)

The man on the street in ancient Rome was addicted to raw onion on bread for breakfast, and while the Romans viewed onions as largely for the average to low-class citizen, the cookbook author Apicius, who wrote for the wealthy, used onions in his sauces.

China loved and loves onions. The “three strong-flavored seasoners” of Beijing-style cooking are onions, garlic, and ginger.

Appreciation of onions was widespread in England by the 1200s at the latest, and by Elizabethan times, onions and leeks were the most popular vegetables in England. So it’s not too surprising that the British brought onions with them to the New World. The first known planting of the introduced Eurasian Allium cepa was in Massachusetts in 1648. Even though the Americas have numerous varieties of wild onion, it is the Allium cepa that has become the dominant onion in the United States, and indeed throughout the Americas.

©2009 Cynthia Clampitt
This article originally appeared in a slightly different form in Hungry Magazine.

Portuguese Architecture in Old Goa

Before I mention what happened after I landed in Goa, it seems appropriate to mention our internal flights in India. The country’s Jet Airways is now one of my favorite airlines. They have spotlessly clean jets, offer lots of leg room, have a great on-time record, offer superb Indian food, and they feed you even on a one-hour flight (always with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options). The airports in India will make you crazy (at least three security points to pass through for every flight), but this airline, at least, makes internal travel a delight.

And now, Goa.

Goa was Portuguese until 1961, which means it was controlled by a European power after all the rest of India had gained independence from Britain. A few years later, Goa was invaded by hippies who didn’t want the ‘70s to end. Signs of both groups were abundant, from Portuguese cathedrals to hippy tie-dye and head shops.

The buildings in the photo above are the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on the left and Se Cathedral on the right. Se Cathedral is said to be the largest church in Asia, and is actually larger than its counterparts back in Portugal.

Our hotel, the Fort Aquada Taj Resort, is built inside an old Portuguese fort and has a spectacular view of the ocean. We enjoyed the remains of the old fort as much as we enjoyed the beauty and amenities of the lovely beachfront hotel.

Remains of Fort Aguada

Goa Fish Market

Round Eggplants, a specialty in Goa

Chef Madre Deus's Kitchen

There was a good bit of interesting history in Goa, which I enjoyed, and the contrast of Indian culture and European architecture was interesting. However, it is not a place one visits primarily to become immersed in Indian culture. The signs are all in English, the locals carry Portuguese passports, and when you throw in the aging hippy population, it looks kind of like something someone from another planet would have cobbled together after a brief visit to Earth. However, it’s a gloriously beautiful place, with lots of ocean beaches, broad rivers, and lush vegetation (including thousands of coconut palms); the people are charming; and the food is amazing. It is a place where visitors come to relax, to hit the beaches, or to indulge in the local spas (which we managed to fit in, too). So it was a good “airlock,” helping us transition from the richly exotic India we had experienced elsewhere into a somewhat more European setting, in preparation for our departure.

Far too soon, it was time to head home. Most of us boarded the plane already making plans for a trip back. Southern India was an absolutely magical destination, a place of profound beauty and rich culture. It is also a place of gracious, friendly people who always made us feel welcome. I can’t wait to return.

Mysore Country Road

We landed in Bangalore, where we were met by our next guide, Sudhakar. Bangalore, with 6 million people, is India’s “Silicon Valley.” Impressive buildings lined broad streets of the bustling city. But crowded, modern Bangalore was not our destination. Karnataka was once known as the State of Mysore, and it was into the Mysore district, the heart of the one-time Kingdom of Mysore, that we headed. Boulevards lined with jacaranda trees, mimosa, flame trees, and frangipani soon led us out into a lovely and constantly changing countryside. We passed the impressive, granite Ramanaga Hills, which were featured in the movie “Passage to India.” On all sides, there was much to delight the eye: markets, small villages, carts drawn by ponies or Indian cows, workers, children, temples, fields, and farms.

We stopped outside of the city of Mysore to visit the summer palace of Tipu Sultan, one of the last holdouts against British rule. This teakwood beauty was gorgeous inside, with murals, tiles, inlay, carvings, and arches in the Mughal style. The palace is a small gem in a setting of lovely gardens. We were then off to Tomb Gumbez, where Tipu Sultan and his parents are buried. This white marble confection is sometimes known as the “mini Taj Mahal.” Then it was on to Mysore, the “Sandalwood capital” of India.

Lalitha Mahal Palace

On the approach to our hotel we did not, in fact, realize we were approaching our hotel. The gorgeous Lalitha Mahal Palace is actually a real palace. It was built by the Maharajah of Mysore for visiting rajas and ambassadors. However, the current Maharajah leases this palace to the government to run as a hotel. The A/C was a little less reliable than at the more modern hotels, but the joy of staying in such a spectacular place far outweighed so small an inconvenience. The doorman was attired in the formal dress of the Maharajah’s household. The ivory-inlaid teak elephant in the lobby was surrounded by a carpet of jasmine and roses, which perfumed the air. The rooms and baths were spacious and elegant, and meals were served in a vast, Italianate room of Wedgewood blue and white with stained-glass, domed ceiling. It was just glorious.

After an excellent lunch (the most extensive buffet I’ve ever seen, with an impressive array of Indian delicacies, accompanied by live sitar music), we were off to visit the Maharajah’s palace. We learned that there is a current prince of the family living at the palace, but parts of the palace are still available for viewing. One quickly runs out of superlatives when faced with such a place. Sudhakar told us that there is a saying: Jaipur is the palace city in the north; Mysore is the palace city in the south. One of the women in our group who has seen both said that the palace before us was more glorious than the one in Jaipur. The huge, opulent Mughal-style building is built to impress, with ground-floor ceilings high enough to permit the passage of the royal elephant surmounted by the 80-kilogram Golden Howdah. I just wanted to stand and stare at the exterior for a few hours, but we had to keep moving. Inside, we saw stunning rooms with glass ceilings, silver chairs and a golden throne, endless halls and fabulous chandeliers, teak doors inlaid with ivory and doors of solid silver. It was glorious and astonishing.

Because this area is renowned for its sandalwood, there were a couple of stops to buy sandalwood carvings and sandalwood-scented soaps (I love sandalwood). Then, we headed back to the hotel. The monkeys running along the hotel’s ledges and balconies made us realize that they weren’t kidding when they posted the signs near our balcony doors about keeping monkeys out of the rooms.

Maharajah of Mysore's Palace at Night

Once a week, the Maharajah’s palace is lighted up at night, outlined with tens of thousands of light bulbs. As we ate dinner, the lights in the hotel dimmed for a moment, and we were told that that meant that the lights had been turned on at the palace. We soon joined the throngs who turned out to see the splendid display, enjoying with them the live music and sparkling beauty of the palace and the warm, fragrant night.

Mysore Rice Paddy

Vegetable Seller

Jaggery Seller

Then it was on the road again, continuing through the splendid countryside. There were touches of color everywhere: folk paintings on trucks and wooden carts, occasional pastel-colored houses, washing lines covered in bright saris, and flowering tress and bushes. And the air is as fragrant as the land is beautiful.

We visited two of the region’s most splendid temples. It would take hours to describe the intricate carvings, the rank upon rank of mythical animals, real animals, histories, warriors, gods and demons, musicians, dancers, and other artwork decorating the interiors and exteriors of these temples. The carvings are incredibly detailed: skulls are hollow; necklaces are separate from the bodies of dancers. It is truly amazing.

Mysore Temple

I felt that there was far more that I would have enjoyed seeing in Mysore, but we were off again the next day, this time headed for Goa.

Coconut and Waterways in Kerala

Spices For Sale

It would take days to describe everything we saw and experienced in Kerala, so I shall share only some of the highlights. We enjoyed an elaborate meal in a private home, then were delighted to see family members’ wedding albums. We had a cooking demonstration of Keralan cuisine at the splendid Coconut Lagoon, a resort built among waterways, palm trees, flowers, and butterflies, where one stays in traditional Kerala teak houses. (The photo across the top of this blog is from that cooking demonstration.)

Classic teak houses of Kerala

In a handsome wood and bamboo houseboat, we plied the famous “backwaters” of Kerala, which gave us an opportunity to witness the lives of local families, farmers, and fishermen, as they tended their nets, washed clothes or pots, or walked past the impossibly lush rice paddies. (The photo at the top of this post was taken from our houseboat.)

A fisherman holds up a huge fresh prawn.

One of our favorite days in Kerala was the day we headed north to Trichur. The transit had been lovely, through small towns, past plantations of rubber trees and banana plants, across bridges spanning winding rivers lined and overhung with greenery. Our guide, Uni Krishna, had promised to take us to a local market, and in Trichur, he made good on that promise. We stopped at an extensive and opulently stocked produce market.

One small corner of the sprawling Trichur Market

As we got out of the van and began to make our way across the wide, busy street, people were friendly and smiling, but looked startled. Within minutes, news of our presence had spread through the market. As we turned a corner, a hundred or more men let loose a thunderously joyous cheer. On two other occasions in the market, upon turning corners, a roar of welcome greeted our appearance. Men and boys waved, grinned, beckoned, tidied up produce to look good for photos, carried out their largest jack fruit or best peppers, laughed, chatted, introduced themselves, pointed out good images to photograph, and posed near their stalls. We photographed mountains of bananas, grapes, apples, chillis, shallots, gourds, eggplants, potatoes, ginger, and vastly more. When we finally tore ourselves away from this wonderful place, Uni Krishna explained that tourists almost never come north of Cochin, so our presence would be an exceedingly rare, if not unique, event for the people at the market. I can honestly say that it was unique for me, too. What a welcome!

Cooking lesson

Sadya - Traditional Keralan Vegetarian Feast

Eventually it was time to leave Kerala (sigh). We headed back to the splendid, new airport (which, despite the marble and glass, still offers such charmingly anachronistic touches as waiting rooms furnished with wood and upholstery armchairs, all with embroidered antimacassars), and jetted off to Bangalore, in Karnataka.

Gathering Sun-Dried Rice in Tamil Nadu

A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of traveling through southern India with four other members of the Culinary Historians of Chicago. Our itinerary had been arranged by Culinary Historians president, Dr. Bruce Kraig, who had just finished filming a TV special on the foodways of southern India. This had the tremendous advantage of giving us access to chefs and learning opportunities we would otherwise not have had. Though there was a considerable focus on food, the tour also took in a wide range of non-culinary delights as well. We did far too much to include in one post, so I’ll break this up into the four states to which our travels took us: Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, and Goa.

Our first stop was Chennai, formerly known as Madras, in the state of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu means “the state where they speak Tamil,” and Tamil is the local language.

When we landed in Chennai, I stepped outside the airport, took a deep breath of the warm, fragrant air, looked around, and instantly knew that I was going to fall in love with India—and I also knew that two weeks wouldn’t be nearly enough time. Our surroundings were enticingly exotic and beautiful beyond imaging. They were also bustling, crowded, and full of life.

Chennai is the oldest city in India and the fourth largest, with a population of 10 million. As we headed off on our first afternoon tour, I noted that they drive on the left—a vestige of British rule. As we drove, our guide pointed out a grove of mango trees and told us, rather proudly I think, that there are more than 400 varieties of mango in India. Mangifera indica is, as the mango’s Latin name indicates, indigenous to India, so it didn’t surprise me that they’d have the lion’s share of the varieties grown, but it did amuse me that this was the first thing our guide pointed out.

That first afternoon, we focused primarily on foreigners who had come to India. We toured Fort George, former seat of British government in this region. In the fascinating museum there, I learned, among other things, that Elihu Yale, for whom Yale University is named, was governor of Chennai in 1687-1692. Small world. We drove through the Portuguese part of town, with the Bay of Bengal off to our left, and headed to St. Thomas Cathedral. This is said to be the burial site of St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, who reportedly landed in Kerala in 52 A.D., then taught in Chennai for 20 years. This is the oldest church in India.

The afternoon included several other sights and a stop for shopping, but we had just arrived at noon, after nearly 20 hours of flying, and we didn’t push ourselves. But simply driving through town was a pleasure. The markets, motorcycles, trishaws, cows, cars, people, shops, universities, and temples around us were a constant delight, and our guide was a source of much entertaining information. (We learned that Chennai’s major industries are leather—run by Muslims and tolerated by Hindus—and films. While Bombay, or Bollywood, produces films in Hindi, Chennai, aka Chollywood, produces films in Tamil, Malayalm, and a dozen other languages.)

Tamil Nadu bustles, but not always with cars.

Our hotel, the Taj Connemara, was a splendid place (if it’s good enough for Queen Elizabeth, it’s good enough for me). We all took short naps, then headed down to the hotel’s glorious main restaurant, The Raintree. The tables are set outdoors, beneath massive, spreading raintrees, where the evening breeze brought us the fragrance of the jasmine and frangipani growing nearby. Women sat on a platform by the entrance, making hand-made breads, while dancers and musicians performed nearby. We were enchanted. What made it even better is that the head chef was waiting for us. He demonstrated how many of the local dishes are prepared, including an amazing shrimp dish with huge shrimp (prawns in India, as in Britain) that were tossed in lime juice, salt, and chilli paste, and then rolled in a blend of about a dozen ground spices and deep fried. Wow, was that ever sensational.

After a tour of the kitchen, we were shown to our table, and we had the opportunity to avail ourselves of the splendid buffet. The food was beyond amazing. Personal favorites (among dozens of dishes) included lamb in basil and cilantro sauce, roasted spiced quail, spiced greens, bread rice, kohlrabi in a cream sauce dotted with black mustard seeds, and pineapple tossed with chilli and cilantro.

Hindu Temple in Mahabalipuram

Silk Weaver

Temples carved from huge boulders

After lunch, we were off to see more temples. The temples we saw now were particularly interesting because they represented the progression of temple making in this region. We saw temples that were carved into caves, that were carved out of giant boulders and outcrops of rock (pictured above), and that were built out of quarried stone. The artwork was splendid, and some of the bas-relief images of animals were life-sized—including this carving of a cow being milked.

Ancient Carving in Temple Cave, Tamil Nadu

On day three, we headed back to the airport for the flight to Cochin in Kerala.