Bottarga - Caviar

Closely related names are used for the delicacy in various languages: batarekh , butarkhah , batrakh (Arabic) or botarga (Occitan, Spanish, and Catalan). The name bottarga is used in English and Italian. In other languages it is called boutargue (French), butarga (Portuguese), and butàriga (Sardinian), abudaraho (Turkish), avgotaraho (Greek αυγοτάραχο) 
Added note received after publication from a Greek friend: 
"Αυγο" means: Egg !!  and Αυγοτάραχο means: Egg of the Fish !!.

Bottarga بطارخ

Bottarga Eaten as a Hors d'oeuvre, it is made from Fish roe.

Bottarga is the Italian name for a delicacy of salted, cured fish roe, typically of the grey mullet frequently found near coastlines throughout the world, that often is featured in Mediterranean cuisine and consumed in many other regions of the world. The food bears many different names and is prepared in several different ways.

The product is similar to the softer cured mullet roe, karasumi from Japan and East Asia. Sometimes the delicacy is prepared from tuna.

Etymology

The English name, bottarga, was borrowed from Italian. The Italian form is thought to have been introduced from the Arabic buṭarḫah بطارخة (plural buṭariḫ بطارخ), but ultimately derives from Byzantine Greek ᾠοτάριχον (oiotárikhon)

The Italian form can be dated to ca. 1500, since the Greek form transliterated into Latin as ova tarycha occurs in Bartolomeo Platina's De Honesta Voluptate (ca. 1474), the earliest printed cookbook, and an Italian manuscript dating shortly afterward that "closely parallels" this cookbook attests to botarghe in the corresponding passage.

The first mention of the Greek form (oiotárikhon) occurs in the writings of Simeon Seth in the eleventh century, who denounced the food as something to be "avoided totally", although a similar phrase may have been in use since antiquity in the same denotation. Although depicted in ancient Egypt, it has no known name.

Preparation

Bottarga is made chiefly from the roe pouch of grey mullet. Sometimes it is prepared from Atlantic bluefin tuna (bottarga di tonno) or swordfish. It is massaged by hand to eliminate air pockets, then dried and cured in sea salt for a few weeks. The result is a hard, dry slab that sometimes is coated in beeswax for preservation purposes.

Not all Bottarga is coated in beeswax as some producers simply keep the natural casing of the roe intact, which contains the eggs securely once dried and salted. The curing time may vary depending on producer and the desired texture as well as the preference of the consumers, which varies by country.

Sometimes called the caviar of the south, bottarga usually is sliced thinly or grated when it is served. The delicacy currently is served in many regions, including the following.

Croatia

In Croatia, the delicacy is known as butarga or butarda. It usually is fried before serving.

 

France

In the French region, Provence, it is named Poutargue and produced in the city of Martigues It also may be called boutargue in France.

Greece

In Greece, avgotaraho is produced primarily from the flathead mullet caught in Greek lagoons. The whole mature ovaries are removed from the fish, washed with water, salted with natural sea salt, dried under the sun, and sealed in melted beeswax.

Italy

In Italy, it is best known in Sicilian and Sardinian cuisine as bottarga; its culinary properties may be compared to those of dry anchovies, although it is much more expensive. Often, it is served with olive oil or lemon juice as an appetizer accompanied by bread or crostini. It also is used in pasta dishes.

Bottarga is categorized as a Traditional food product (prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale). It varies by region, in particular, is produced in Sardinia from flathead mullet and in Sicily from Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Lebanon

In Lebanon it is served sliced, where each slice is covered with a piece of raw garlic and the whole is immersed in olive oil, then eaten with flat bread.

Turkey

In Turkey, bottarga is made from grey mullet roe. It is listed in the Ark of Taste. It is produced in Dalyan, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, from the mature fish migrating from Lake Köyceğiz.

Egypt

In Egypt it is produces from mullet roe, mostly from the Borolos lakes, the pouch is salted, dried and consumed in sin slices with lemon over buttered flat bread.

It is interesting to note that Bottarga is seen on Ancient Egyptian murals from the old pharaohs world.

Hab El Aziz

"Hab El Aziz"  or Cyperus Esculentus

If you traveled through TANTA in Egypt by train, car or otherwise you probably remember buying or seeing a small coloured reeds basket filled with a little fruit resembling dried raisins.

Sweets on display-Tanta

It is called “Hab El Aziz حب العزيز” and was sold together with “Homosia حمصيه” and “Semsemia سمسميه” it is commonly found during the Moulid of :"El-Sayyed El-Baddawi" everywhere in Tanta.

Cyperus Esculentus (also called chufa sedge, nut grass, yellow nut sedge, tiger nut sedge, or earth almond) is a crop of the sedge family widespread across much of the world. It is native to most of the Western Hemisphere as well as southern Europe, Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. It has become naturalized in many other regions, including Ukraine, China, Hawaii, Indochina, New Guinea, Java, New South Wales and various oceanic islands.

Cyperus esculentus can be found wild, as a weed, or as a crop. There is evidence for its cultivation in Egypt since the sixth millennium BC, and for several centuries in Southern Europe. In Spain, C. esculentus is cultivated for its edible tubers, called earth almonds or tiger nuts. However, in most other countries, C. esculentus is considered a weed.

HISTORY

Prehistoric tools with traces of C. esculentus tuber starch granules have been recovered from the early archaic period in North America, from about 9,000 years ago, at the Sandy Hill excavation site at the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Mashantucket, Connecticut. The tubers are believed to have been a source of food for those Paleo-Indians.

Dr. Zohary and Dr. Hopf estimate that C. esculentus "ranks among the oldest cultivated plants in Ancient Egypt." Although noting that "Chufa was no doubt an important food element in ancient Egypt during dynastic times, its cultivation in ancient times seems to have remained (totally or almost totally) an Egyptian specialty." Its dry tubers have been found in tombs from predynastic times about 6000 years ago. In those times, C. esculentus tubers were consumed either boiled in beer, roasted, or as sweets made of ground tubers with honey. The tubers were also used medicinally, taken orally, as an ointment, or as an enema, and used in fumigants to sweeten the smell of homes or clothing. There are almost no contemporary records of this plant in other parts of the old World.

Besides Egypt, at present C. esculentus is cultivated mainly in Spain, where it is extended for common commercial purposes in mild climate areas. The Arabs introduced the plant, at first in the Valencia region. They are found extensively too in California and were grown by the Paiute in Owens Valley. C. Esculentus is also cultivated in countries like Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, USA, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Yemen, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Sudan, South Sudan, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Northern Cameroon and Mali, where they are used primarily as animal feed or uncooked as a side dish, but in Hispanic countries they are used mainly to make horchata, a sweet, milk-like beverage. In Northern Nigeria it is called 'Aya' and it is usually eaten fresh. It is sometimes dried and later rehydrated and eaten. Toasting the nuts makes a snack when sugar coated, it is very popular among the Hausa children of Northern Nigeria, a drink known as 'Kunun Aya' is also made by processing the nuts with dates and later sieved and served chilled.

CHUFA TUBERS

Biology

C. Esculentus is an annual or perennial plant, growing to 90 cm tall, with solitary stems growing from a tuber. The plant is reproduced by seeds, creeping rhizomes, and tubers. The tubers are 0.3 – 1.9 cm in diameter and the colours vary between yellow, brown, and black. One plant can produce several hundred to several thousand tubers during a single growing season. With cool temperatures, the foliage, roots, rhizomes, and basal bulbs die, but the tubers survive and re-sprout the following spring when soil temperatures remain above 6 °C

Use as food

Dried tiger nut has a smooth tender, sweet and nutty taste. It can be consumed raw, roasted, dried, baked or as tiger nut milk or oil.

HORCHATA

Dried tubers sold at the market of Banfora, Burkina Faso. The tubers are edible, with a slightly sweet, nutty flavour, compared to the more bitter-tasting tuber of the related Cyperus rotundus (purple nutsedge). They are quite hard and are generally soaked in water before they can be eaten, thus making them much softer and giving them a better texture. They are a popular snack in West Africa, where they are known as ncɔkɔn in the languages Bamanankan or Dyula.

They have various uses; in particular, they are used in Spain to make horchata. “Horchata” is a nonalcoholic beverage of milky appearance derived from the tubers of the tiger nut plant mixed with sugar and water. It has a great economic impact in the Valencia region of Spain.

CHUFA

Flour of roasted tiger nut is sometimes added to biscuits and other bakery products as well as in making oil, soap, and starch extracts. It is also used for the production of nougat, jam, beer, and as a flavoring agent in ice cream and in the preparation of kunnu (a local beverage in Nigeria). Kunnu is a non-alcoholic beverage prepared mainly from cereals (such as millet or sorghum) by heating and mixing with spices (dandelion, alligator pepper, ginger, liquorices) and sugar. To make up for the poor nutritional value of kunnu prepared from cereals, tiger nut was found to be a good substitute for cereal grains. Tiger nut oil can be used naturally with salads or for deep-frying. It is considered to be a high quality oil. Tiger nut “milk” has been tried as an alternative source of milk in fermented products, such as yogurt production, and other fermented products common in some African countries and can thus be useful replacing milk in the diet of people intolerant to lactose to a certain extent

KUNNU

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Tiger nuts should be eaten in only moderate amounts at any one time. Ingestion of 300 Gm of the fibrous dehydrated nuts, chewed without being rehydrated has been known to cause rectal impaction.

Use in medicine and cosmetic industry

As a source of oils, the tubers were used in pharmacy under the Latin name bulbuli thrasi beginning no later than the end of 18th century. In medicine tiger nuts are used in the treatment of flatulence, diarrhea, dysentery, debility and indigestion.

Tiger nut oil can be used in the cosmetic industry. As it is antioxidant (because of its high content in vitamin E) it helps slow down the ageing of the body cells. It favours the elasticity of the skin and reduces skin wrinkles.

Lupin bean

Lupin "tremoços" or lupini beans are the yellow legume seeds of Lupinus genus. They are a traditional food in the Mediterranean basin (L. albus) and Latin America (L. mutabilis). They are traditionally eaten as a pickled snack food, primarily in the Mediterranean and South America. The bitter variety of the beans are high in alkaloids and are extremely bitter unless rinsed for a long time.

History and distribution

Termes (Lupini) cart in Cairo

The earliest archaeological reports on lupins are referred to the Twelfth Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs (over 2 thousand years BCE). In their tombs, seeds of Lupinus digitatus Forsk., already domesticated in those times, were discovered. Seven seeds of this species were also retrieved in the tombs of this dynasty dated back to the 22nd century BCE. They are the most ancient evidence of lupin in the Mediterranean.

Lupini were popular with the Romans, who spread their cultivation throughout the Roman Empire. Today, lupini are most commonly found in Mediterranean countries and their former colonies, especially in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Brazil, as across the Middle East (where it is part of Sham El Nessim holiday meals).

The Andean American variety of this bean, Lupinus mutabilis, was domesticated by pre-Incan inhabitants of present-day Peru. Rock imprints of seeds and leaves, dated around 6th and 7th century BCE, are exhibited in the National Museum of Lima. It was a food widespread during the Incan Empire. Lupins were also used by Native Americans in North America, e.g. the Yavapai people.

Varieties

Lupini Flowering Plant

Some varieties are referred to as "sweet lupins" because they contain much smaller amounts of toxic alkaloids than the "bitter lupin" varieties. Newly bred variants of the narrow-leafed or 'Australian Sweet Lupin' (L. angustifolius) lupins are grown in Australia, Germany and Poland; they lack any bitter taste and require no soaking in salt solution. The seeds are used for different foods from lupin flake, vegan sausages, lupin-tofu, and lupin flour. Given that lupin seeds have the full range of essential amino acids and that they, contrary to soy, can be grown in more temperate to cool climates, lupins are becoming increasingly recognized as a cash crop alternative to soy.

Three Mediterranean species of lupin (blue lupin, white lupin and yellow lupin) are widely cultivated for livestock and poultry feed. Bitter lupins in feed can cause livestock poisoning.

Lupini dry

Lupins are currently under widespread cultivation in Australia, Europe, Russia, and the Americas as a green manure, livestock fodder and grazing plant, and high-protein additive for animal and human foods.^[2] In Australia, the danger of cross-pollination of the wild bitter and cultivated sweet low-alkaloid variety is understood to be unacceptable when testing reveals the presence of one bitter bean per hundred sweet beans, and a wide quarantine zone is maintained around lupin-growing croplands to prevent wind-blown wild pollen from having a large influence on crop toxicity.

Cuisine

The Andean lupin L. mutabilis, the Mediterranean Lupinus albus (white lupin), and Lupinus hirsutus are only edible after soaking the seeds for some days in salted water.

Lupini beans are commonly sold in a brine in jars (like olives and pickles). They can be eaten by making a small tear in the skin with one's teeth and "popping" the seed directly into one's mouth, but can also be eaten with the skin on. Highly skilled lupini eaters learn to fissure the skin by rubbing the bean between forefinger and thumb. In countries like Portugal, "tremoços", are very popular in bars as a snack while drinking beer.

Lupini after preparatiom

In Egypt, lupin is known by its Arabic name, "termes" (ترمس), and it has been sold by street vendors, as a very popular snack.

Lupin beans can be ground into a flour, and this is widely used in parts of Europe and in Australia as an additive to wheat flour, enhancing the flavour and lending a rich, creamy colour to the resulting foods.

Nutrition

Lipini Plant

The lupin is devoid of starch, which is very unusual for a species of edible bean. Lupins have a thick seed coat (25%) which consists mainly of cellulose (insoluble fibre-bran) and its removal is the first step in lupin processing. The kernel (split) of lupin is rich in protein (40%), fibre (40%) and moderate in fat (8%) made up largely of unsaturated fatty acids. Intensive plant breeding programs have ensured that modern lupin varieties have relatively low levels of the alkaloids found in their ancestral genotypes. Lupins also contain moderate amounts of carotenoids; beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin and tocopherols (Vitamin E).

Australian sweet lupin features a higher calcium and phosphate content than cereals, with trace element content varying in line with the mineral content of the soil in which the lupin is grown.

Lupin oils have high antioxidant capacities due in part to the presence of tocopherol (Vitamin E – the total vitamin E content is about 2.3-4.6 mg/kg of oil).

Health benefits

Lupins are:
*One of the highest sources of plant proteins available (40%), roughly 4 times higher than whole grain wheat;
*One of the highest sources of dietary fibers(36%);
*Easily digestible with high bio-availability of essential nutrients and minerals;
*Cholesterol free and contain negligible amounts of trypsin inhibitors (known to interfere with digestion) often found in other legumes;
*Very low in lectins and saponins (two known gastric irritants), the latter of which afflicts the soybean even after extensive baking and processing;
*Convenient, healthy and do not require chemical treatment;
*Are probiotic promoting the growth of good bacteria;
*Are very high sources of essential amino acids and;
*Gluten free

Studies have revealed that Australian sweet Lupins:

  *Suppress appetite;

 *Reduce the glycaemic load of carbohydrate based foods;

 *Reduce blood pressure; Improve glucose metabolism (diabetes);
*Improve bowel health.

Toxicity

Lupin poisoning is a nervous syndrome caused by alkaloids in bitter lupins, similar to neurolathyrism. Lupin poisoning affects people that eat incorrectly prepared lupin beans. Mediterranean cultures prefer the historic bitter lupin beans with the required toxin-removal by traditional leaching in water preparation methods due to the better flavour that results. Improper preparation of bitter lupins with insufficient soaking allows pharmacologically significant amounts of the anticholinergic alkaloids to remain in the beans, and poisoning symptoms result.

While the alkaloids found in raw and dried beans are bitter and unpalatable to many, with merely insufficient soaking the level is reduced. There are several references in medical literature to poisoning caused by errors in lupini preparation.

Lupin allergy

Lupin allergy may cause life-threatening anaphylaxis in sensitive individuals. 

There is some cross-reactivity with peanut allergy, so nut allergy sufferers should exercise extreme caution with lupin-containing food. In the EU, lupin must be listed as an allergen in pre-packed foods where it has been used, but may still be hidden in over-the-counter products. This can be a significant problem for allergy sufferers since breads, pastries, pizzas, pasta, cakes and ice cream are all commonly sold over-the-counter, and all may contain lupin. Lupin has even been found in some tomato ketchup sauces. At present, no desensitization treatments are available, so avoidance is the only advice offered, alongside carrying an epi-pen and anti-histamine/anti-inflammatory medication.

Bread in ancient Egypt

Bread, the Staff of Life

Barley, emmer and pre-eminently wheat were used.

The emmer (an old kind of Eurasian wheat with bearded ears and spikelets that each contain two grains) was taken from a silo in which it had been stored after threshing and winnowing. The spikelets were moistened and pounded by men in mortars in order to separate the chaff from the grain. The bran was removed and probably used as animal feed.

Grinding

The grinding was mostly women's work and took hours of hard labour kneeling down every day, often causing disability. Only the amount of meal used each day was prepared. They fought tedium by singing chants such as "May the gods give my master strength and health" (or that is what their master, who left the record of these words, would have liked them to sing.)

   

Until the Middle Kingdom mills were placed on the floor, later they were raised onto workbenches, rendering the milling process somewhat less tiresome. The mill was a simple trough with two compartments. The grain was poured into the top compartment and by rubbing and crushing it with a grindstone, moved into the lower partition. Since the Roman Period rotary mills have been known.

After sieving, the larger particles were poured back into the top for further grinding. The sieves made from rushes and the like, were not very efficient and allowed grains of sand and little flakes of stone to remain in the flour, especially when soft mill stones were used.

This way of preparing the flour caused severe abrasion of the teeth above all of those who depended upon bread as their main source of nourishment.  But it affected all classes: Amenhotep III for instance suffered badly from his teeth.

kneading bread

The dough was made of flour, water and leaven - either some sour dough left over from the previous day or some leaven from the last brewing of beer - and was left to rise in warm moulds and then baked in closed ovens. During the New Kingdom ovens big enough to bake several loaves simultaneously came into use. These ovens often had ceramic steps on the inside and their outside was covered with clay. Round imprints made with jar openings prevented cracks forming in this outer layer.

Sesame seeds, honey, fruit such as dates, butter, eggs, oil and herbs were often added to the dough to flavour the bread. In the first millennium BCE yeast came into use, replacing the sourdough. Over forty varieties of bread and cake were made in the New Kingdom.

The following satirical description of baking dates from the New Kingdom - by this time ovens were generally accessed through an opening at the top:

The baker kneads incessantly and puts the loaves in the fire. His head is in the middle of the fireplace. His son holds him by his legs. Should they slip out of his hands, the father would fall into the fire.

According to this description the dough may have been formed into flat round disks which were stuck to the hot inner surface of the oven (in the manner pitta bread is still baked in Arabic countries) or tall, thin bread moulds standing upright in the fire were still used, as they had been during the Middle Kingdom.

Hand formed bread was baked on a clay disk covered by a lid. Later, a vaulted copper or iron sheet was used. The bread dough was baked on its convex part, while, turned upside down, the concave part served as a sort of kettle for cooking liquid foods.

When no oven was available, the Egyptians baked wafer thin bread on the hot sand, as desert dwellers have done since time immemorial (The bread is called “Shamsy” or Solar) and is still used in upper Egypt until today.

The making of Solar bread

Bread was often used as a synonym for food and hospitality. The New Kingdom scribe “Anny” exhorted his readers Do not eat bread while another stands by without extending your hand to him. The rich, hoping that good deeds would count in their favour in the afterlife often mentioned their generosity.  Sheshi, Harkhu and many others made such claims, using formulaic language which inspires little faith in the trustworthiness of their protestations:

I gave bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked.

Original text by: André Dollinger 

Molokhia

 Molokhia

Bon appétit

Quelle est cette panacée, d'une puissance redoutable,

Qui, en nous rassasiant, nous rend invulnérables?

Qui excite les neurones, stimule la matière grise

Et nous insuffle au cœur une langueur exquise?

Ce met lucullien que l'on sert à la louche,

Et dont l'évocation nous met l'eau à la  bouche ?

Chargé de vitamines, potassium, carotène ,

Ce délice des rois, ce pyro-énergène ,

Ce plat sui generis, pour ne pas dire unique,

Dont la réputation remonte aux temps antiques,

Vénéré des Romains, des Hellènes, des Puniques,

De l'Égypte à l'Indus, en passant par l’Afrique,

Ce plat - que dis-je ce plat ? - ce nectar  d'Horus

Que Cléopâtre offrait à son amant Julius,

Et l'Empereur Hadrien au bel Antinoüs,

N'est autre que le..."Corchorus olitorius " ......

Mais loin des quolibets et sourires ironiques

Car c'est, en bon latin, son nom patronymique !

Connu sous d'autres noms au fil des millénaires :

"Molo" pour les modernes, ou "Corrette potagère" ,

Ce potage capiteux, qui embaume les chaumières,

Dope nos énergies, nos forces immunitaires ...

Dénigré par certains, qui le trouvent "gluant" ,

Je l'estime, quant à moi, velouté, gouleyant...  

                                              

CA DONNE L EAU A LA BOUCHE................

Sa robe est d'un vert Nil tirant sur le moiré ;

Très légèrement soyeux, il caresse le gosier.

Selon qu'on y ajoute pain grillé, viande ou riz,

En fonction des recettes, sa consistance varie.

Dûment assaisonné au vinaigre ou citron,

Agrémenté d'ail, de coriandre et d’oignon,

Ce met flatte le palais... et dégage le côlon !

Il est à déguster avec modération,

Car l'excès en tout nuit. Comme l'affirme Aristote,

Les bonnes choses de la vie se savourent en litote ...

Trois conseils sont de mise : Molo , molo ...molo !

Deux assiettées suffisent ; la troisième est de trop ...

Nous lui devons beaucoup, clamons fort ses mérites

En lui rendant céans l'hommage qu'il mérite .......

 (Mario Vicchi, alias Marius d'Alexandrie, Rome, juin 2014)