Interview with food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins
Food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins has established herself as one of the authoritative voices on Mediterranean cuisine. She has lived and traveled extensively within the region and divides her time between homes in Maine and Tuscany. We recently caught up with her to talk with her latest book Cucina del Sole.
KGI: In the intro to your book, you describe the essence of Southern Italian cuisine as the simplicity of “natural ingredients” made using “straightforward, uncomplicated techniques.” What are a few of the ingredients and flavors that define the region for you and what makes them different from their counterparts available elsewhere?
NHJ: The natural ingredients I'm thinking of are the products of Southern Italian fields and gardens, the vegetables and fruits especially, that have such extraordinary depths of flavor, quite unlike those available elsewhere in the world. I put this down primarily to geography--also climate to a certain extent. Mild rainy winters and hot dry summers seem to be ideal for vegetable gardening. But the volcanic geography of much of the south--I think especially of the areas around Etna in Sicily and Vesuvius in Campania, but also, lesser known, the Monte Vulture in Basilicata. In Campania they call the soil arapilla and it means specifically soil that evolves from volcanic ash. In some places it goes down as much as three meters and it is peculiarly rich in minerals. That to me is one source of the flavor of tomatoes from the slopes of Vesuvius or the great array of citrus from around Etna, not to mention the wine grapes from all three regions. Puglia's geography is not volcanic but it represents another advantage--a porous limestone karst that soaks up rainwater and acts as a giant sponge beneath the fields of Puglia, where a large portion of Europe's organic vegetables are raised. Obviously everywhere in the world there are unique combinations of geography and climate that lead to the production of certain vegetables, but I think there are few places where such high quality is so consistent around the year and across the board as it is in the south of Italy.
continue reading...
Added on: Oct 7, 2007 in
Category:
From the Garden
Comment This Article
Refer it to Friend
Conquer Stress, Depression & Anxiety. Naturally In Just 90 Days!
Click Here!
|
Other News in the From the Garden category |
| 1. |
Making home-made mayo
|
|
|
Home-grown veggies cry out for home-made mayo as a dipping sauce or as a spread for those delicious tomato sandwiches many of us are enjoying this month. KGI's friend, Chef John of Foodwishes.com, is with us in the good fight against sugary, corporate mayo. Check out his video above and recipe below.
Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
1 tbl fresh lemon juice
1 tbl white wine vinegar
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup olive oil
Warning: watching John's video is likely to give you a bad case of stick blender envy if you don't have one already.
|
| 2. |
How to make compost
|
|
|
With autumn leaves falling, lush grassy lawns springing back from summer's heat and drought, and gardens generating heaps of tired vines and other vegetable wastes, this is the perfect time to start a new compost pile or breath some new life into your old one. Our latest how-to video shows you what you need to know to create a pile that smokin' hot.
|
| 4. |
50 Ways to reduce your carbon footprint
|
|
|
"Just hop on the (biodiesel) bus, Gus. Make a new (home energy) plan, Stan..."
We know from singer songwriter, Paul Simon, that there are 50 ways to leave your lover, but did you know that there also 50 ways to leave your carbon-wasting ways? The Metro Silicon Valley News has recently published a helpful list of 50 things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. Remarkably, 10 out of the 50 had a connection to food, drink and gardening. Maybe it's time we all found a new plan.
26. READ LABELS AND BUY LOCAL. Organic from Canada or overseas isn't as easy on the environment as locally produced products. Buying anything imported across an ocean means a container ship transported it. "Just one container ship traveling one mile produces NOx emissions equaling 25,000 cars traveling the same distance," says Anthony Fournier of the Santa Barbara County Pollution Control District. Foreign manufacturers often use carbon-intensive industrial and environmental practices that are illegal here. Many imports are made in sweatshops where people labor in dangerous work environments and aren't paid fairly. Reducing the demand for imports not only reduces our carbon footprint but also sends a message to big business that we want better for everyone.
34. BECOME A LOCAVORE. When you choose out of season organic food that's from journeyed overseas instead of locally grown anything, the pollution caused by the container ships outweighs any benefit you're going to get. Locavores say eating what's available locally is healthier anyway. Cooking dinner? Make a few meals at the same time and stash them in the fridge.
35. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMER. Visit www.localharvest .org and find the farmers market nearest you. Even better, find a CSA and get your produce from a sustainable local family farm.
36. MAKE YOUR OWN SALAD. Live Earth Farm's Debbie Palmer says make your own organic salad mixes from scratch and use less bagged and precut produce because they use a lot of resources to produce.
37. DON'T BE A SLAVE TO CONVENIENCE. We'll all be paying later for using convenience foods like packaged mixed salads, because they use a lot of resources to produce.
38. AVOID FAST FOOD. Methane-producing factory farming and long-distance shipping are the heart of its business model and they're clear-cutting rain forests to graze their cows.
39. EAT LESS MEAT. Especially beef. The Worldwatch Institute says growing numbers of intensively farmed livestock are responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and account for 37 percent of emissions of methane, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of CO2, and 65 percent of emissions of nitrous oxide, another powerful greenhouse gas, coming from manure.
41. GREEN COFFEE IS DELICIOUS. Barefoot Coffee Roasters' Andy Newbom says that when you buy fair trade or organic coffee you're supporting sustainable farming practices that don't clear-cut trees or use pesticides or chemical fertilizers and that makes a big difference. "Buying fair trade coffee rewards and supports sustainable farming, reducing developing nations' carbon footprint," he says. "It's easy for the first world to say let's reduce our carbon footprint, but it's harder for farmers in developing countries to do this." Buy fair trade beans whole or ground, get a press or cloth filter and make your own.
42. DISPOSABLE CUPS? Really? Do the math: Buying coffee every day in a disposable cup generates at least 20 pounds of paper a year plus several hundred megaindustrially produced plastic covers. Styrofoam cups are worse. Dr. Theo Colborn, in "Our Stolen Future," says researchers have found traces of polystyrene in 100 percent of human tissue tested, because it migrates from the cup into hot food and beverages. Yuk! Bring your own coffee cup!
47. YOUR GARDEN ISN'T AS GREEN AS YOU THINK. Alrie Middlebrook designs and builds native plant gardens locally. She says take out your water-guzzling lawn and replace it with native plants. They use less water and nourish birds and bees.
Photocredit: Andy
|
|
|
Other News |
More than a year after their two children were severely sickened by E. coli, a southeastern Wisconsin couple has settled their federal lawsuit with four California spinach companies.
|
Love at first pastry
I've been on the Pepperidge Farm wagon for quite a few years.
Many people know the brand for its ubiquitous and...
|
|
Everyday Menus: No Cook Recipes
