Time Travel

Diane

Proust's madelaine launched reminisces to fill 3,000 pages in his iconic "In Search of Lost Time" and food has been the subject of many another unforgettable memoir, so when it was my turn to host an Epitourist feast, I thought, "why not time travel?"

Everyone was asked to prepare a dish that brought back special memories of time past and bring a story to share about why they chose that particular dish.

The taste of food really can transport you to another time and place; perhaps remind you of the trip to Italy sipping limoncello or a childhood's summer night. Taking a bite of food is fleeting while preparing the dish can be like spending time with people you love.

And whiling away a whole afternoon eating and enjoying the dishes and memories with kindred spirits... what a Present!

Menu

Pizza bread paired with ginger ale

Wine Jelly and Brie

Sausage Rolls Revisited

French Onion Soup

Hawaiian Roast Chicken, Two Bean Salad, Coconut Rice

Lingonberry Soup

Diane's Momoir

I've been missing my mom so much this holiday season, I chose dishes that reminded me of her. So for me this was more of a momoir lunch. My mom really taught me a lot about resourcefulness, and as I grow older I appreciate her lessons more.

Pizza Bread

When I was about nine or ten, pizza was my dream food and I constantly pestered mom to order. Instead she showed me how to make my own. Simple fare: lightly toast white bread, spread with cheese whiz, smear some ketchup, cut up some wieners, add some cheddar and olives, and sprinkle with hot pepper flakes, and broil for a couple of minutes.

I haven't had this in years, and although I can't say it is the same as Proust's madelaine, it reminded me of late summer nights and staying up past bedtime.

Paired with ginger ale for the Epitourist lunch.

Wine Jelly

The first recipe written in my own hand in my little cookbook is for wine jelly, something my mom and I made together when Rob and I first started going out. I was about eighteen years old - so young! And so proud to share these as handmade Christmas gifts. Rob's mom was one of the recipients, I suppose I wanted make a good impression. Since then I've put the recipe aside and haven't made it until now, forty years later. How wonderful to have this simple recipe to evoke such strong feelings of love and nostalgia, from Christmas Past to Christmas Present.

Mementos for the Epitourists of our time travel lunch.

Recipe for wine jelly from Certo + Tips for preserving with paraffin

Hawaiian Roast Chicken

As I was dithering what to serve, I mentioned my dilemma to Rob, who without missing a beat and without the benefit of options or prompting, came right out and said, "Hawaiian Chicken." This was a bit of a specialty of my mom's that she would make when I was visiting home from college. Although I didn't have this recipe directly from her I was able to find it on the Dole pineapple site.

Served alongside coconut rice and Ottolenghi 2 bean salad.

Paired with Gewurtztraminer.

Laura's Sausage Rolls Revisited

Given the season, it seemed fitting to choose a Christmas-past food memory for an appetizer.

Sausage rolls were a staple Christmas item of my childhood. I clearly recall the red and white tube of Maple Leaf Sausage meat that my mother would split open and mold into a long snake, placed along a piece of rolled out pastry. My mom made terrific pastry, but for some reason she never made her own for sausage rolls or her mince pies. She bought blocks of Tenderflake flaky pastry dough. I think it was perhaps because she made so many, which she froze to have on hand all through the Christmas holidays. She packed them into large silver film reel cans that my father brought home from work. They were just the right height and size.

As I baked my version, the smell wafting from the oven and watching the grease from the pork and butter ooze from the little rolls, transported me back in time.

Sausage rolls revisited:

I wanted to make my own pastry and filling. After much googling, I decided on this recipe from the Guardian:

Notes: Made about 25 small rolls.

Needed a little more flavouring in the filling. More salt and pepper and perhaps a bit more nutmeg and lemon.

For the pastry
225 g plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 tsp English mustard powder
175g very cold butter
1 egg, beaten with a little water and salt

For the filling
300 g port belly, skin removed, minced or finely chopped
300 g pork shoulder, minced (this can often be bought ready minced if you don't have a good butcher)
200 g smoked streaky bacon, rind removed, finely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
Nutmeg, to grate
2 tbsp roughly chopped thyme leaves
8 sage leaves, roughly chopped

1. Sift the flour, salt and mustard powder into a mixing bowl, and grate in the butter. Stir them together with a knife, so the butter is well-coated with flour, and resembles a rough crumble mixture. Pour in enough ice-cold water to turn the mixture into a dough that comes away cleanly from the bowl - be cautious, it shouldn't be sticky - and bring together into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for half an hour.
2. Put the meats into a large bowl and mix well with your hands. Tip in the rest of the ingredients and combine, seasoning well with black pepper and a little salt (remember the bacon will be salty, so don't go overboard). Preheat the oven to 220C.
3. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to about a thickness of 1/2 cm, and cut into 3 length ways. Divide the meat into 3 sausages, as long as your pastry, and place one slightly off-centre on each strip.
4. Brush one edge of the pastry strip with beaten egg and then fold the other side over to enclose the sausage meat. Press down to seal, and then go along the edge with the back of a fork if you like, to make a pattern. Brush with more egg wash, cut to the desired size, and prick each with a fort. Repeat with the rest of the pastry and meat.
5. Put the rolls on a baking tray, and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack, and serve warm.

Served with Alsace Vin Blanc

Caroline's French Onion Soup

I found Diane’s theme of Time Travel very challenging. The food of my childhood could not inspire me. The Canadian foods of the 1970s were pretty much meat, potatoes and iceberg lettuce. We lived in a tiny, remote village on the edge of the James Bay Territory. My mom cooked to feed her family and baked to satisfy her sweet tooth. It was a necessity, not a passion. Although I served a French Onion Soup for this Time Travel lunch, I wished I had made her aspic. It would have been fitting, fun, delicious, pretty and festive.

French Onion Soup

Serves 8

- 2 quarts of water
- one beautiful ox tail, approximately 1/2 kilo
- 1 carrot
- 1 stick of celery,
- 1 onion sliced in half skin on
- 1 clove of garlic smashed with skin on
- fresh sprigs of rosemary, thyme and oregano
- salt to taste (adjust salt at the end)
- 1/2 cup of white wine or vermouth
- 1/4 cup of Cognac
- 4 kilos of Vidalia onions thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup of butter
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- pretty sage leaf
- 8 slices of toasted crusty bread
- 2 2/3 cup of grated Comté cheese

Season and roast the ox tail in a 425○ oven for 30 minutes.

Boil 8 cups of water. Place roasted ox tail, boiling water and following 6 ingredients in a pressure cooker. Put pressure cooker on high heat and pressurize. Cook for 15 minutes under high pressure. Let pressure cooker depressurize naturally. In total, this entire process takes approximately 30 minutes. Using a sieve, strain the broth. Feed the veggies to the chickens and keep the meat for Monday night’s beef and barley soup! Return the broth to the pot, add white wine and cognac. Gently simmer.

Thinly slice onions to 1/8”. A mandolin slicer is handy here. Heat half of the oil and butter over high heat. Once pan is nice and hot, toss in half of the onions. Reduce the heat to medium. Place a lid askew over pan. It is key to slowly caramelize the onions. This step should take approximately 50 minutes. Stir occasionally and keep an eye on the temperature. Stir caramelized onions into the simmering broth. Repeat this step for the remaining onions.

Cube bread to make croûtons. Toss with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toast in a 425 oven for 10 minutes. Set aside. Put a slight slug of oil in a pan. Heat to medium high. Quickly fry sage leaves until slightly darkened and glossy. Remove and set aside.

Ladle onion soup into deep bowls. Top with croûtons and 1/3 cup of grated cheese per bowl. Broil on high in oven for 5 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and starting to show browned/blackened spots. Remove from oven. Crown the beauties with a sage leaf and serve.

Kaarina's Lingonberry Soup

One of my most precious childhood memories is of my grandmother showing me the tiny blue pearls of muscari growing in our summer house garden about an hour’s drive outside of Helsinki. A spry 80-something, Mari-mummo took me along on her rambles through the nearby woods to gather berries, wild mushrooms and dry kindling for the wood stove in the old farmhouse kitchen.

We fetched our milk from a nearby dairy farm, walking through a meadow where the cows grazed among the buttercups and bluebells. A thick layer of cream topped the milk and mummo skimmed that off for our glorious summer desserts.

You could mark the passage of the summer by the fruit and berry soups - known as kiisseli - that appeared at the table under a blanket of whipped cream. Rhubarb and strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, red and black currants and finally, just before it was time to go back to school in the city, lingonberries.

I chose puolukka (lingonberry) kiisseli for our Epitour Time Travel feast because its unique sweet and tart taste can transport even the most down-to-earth Finn back to grandma’s kitchen. And not least, because for the first time I found lingonberries in a Toronto grocery store at Yummy Market. (Check ahead if they have some in stock.)

Puolukka kiisseli - Lingonberry Soup

2 cups lingonberries
4 cups water
3/4 cups sugar
4 tbsp potato starch (or cornstarch)
Half teaspoon vanilla
Generous handful of lingonberries
Heavy cream

Bring the lingonberries and water to a boil for 15 minutes. Strain and return the juice to the pot. Stir in the sugar and return to a boil.

Mix the cornstarch into 3-4 tablespoons of cold water, making sure there are no lumps. Off heat, pour the cornstarch into the juice in a slow steady stream stirring constantly. Return the pot to the element and heat until it bubbles but do not boil again. Add the vanilla. Cool in a cold water bath.

Scoop a generous handful of frozen berries into the bottom of a serving bowl and pour the kiisseli over them. Sprinkle sugar over the kiisseli to prevent a skin from forming over the top. Allow to cool completely. It is best enjoyed at room temperature on the day it is made. Serve with heavy cream, whipped cream, ice cream, crème fraîche, vanilla sauce, yogurt or rice pudding.

The tart red berries also grow in northern British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland but little has been done here to grow them commercially. That could change. The long-ignored lingonberry is about to make its way into the Super Food category. Federal research is underway into health and nutritional benefits of lingonberries. The little red berry could well provide future industry and new jobs for Canada’s economically challenged northern communities.