January’s brief, snowy white landscape has melted with winter rains, and I spotted a few snowdrops poking through along the walk to lift my spirits.  In these chilly days, the simplest puddings are so comforting, whether made of simmered semolina, cubed day-old bread or poached apples.

Slow-cooking rice smells so good!

But rice rises to the top of my puddings list, especially as north winds whistle around the sloped corners of our Périgordine roof. This moment calls for the tried and true, so I pull out old recipes tucked between tattered edges of my grandmother’s Newell, Iowa church guild cookbook.  I delve into pre-Beeton English recipes, in short:  making rice pudding stirs the historian’s curiosity. It seems that Romans with upset stomachs were given a gruelly rice pudding made with goat’s milk to asuage their discomfort. Rice is easily digestible, a standby for restoring strength to invalids through the centuries.  Cooked in almond milk with a little honey, rice pudding was a noble dish – flavored with saffron – in the Middle Ages. It is likely that both rice and saffron, along with cinnamon were brought back home by returning legions of pilgrims and crusaders. It took on importance as a Lenten dish, in fact it is something of a miracle: a handful of round rice and a liter of milk, cooked slowly, will feed a crowd.

Before launching into actual recipes we might use today, consider an earlier approach, that of John Evelyn, a cook* in Restoration era England. I have adapted the English version to current usage. This follows a description of preparing the intestine casings, as the puddings are stuffed into ‘gutts’, like sausages, and boiled:

“To make rice puddings:  Pick  half pound of rice clean, boil it in 3 quarts of milk till it is tender. Strain it through a colander, stir in ‘a penny’ of grated bread, a pound and half of beef suet shredded very fine. Beat well 16 eggs and 4 egg whites; 2 Nuttmegs, grated, beat a half pint of cream, add a little Rose water and  a pound of sugar, a little musk and Ambergreece. Fill the prepared gutts – but not too full. This quantity will make about 3 dozen double puddings:  boil them quickly.”

His high carbohydrate combination of rice, bread, suet and sugar suited the times when walking many miles and wood chopping were the norm in a day’s work – and finding 20 eggs was evidently no problem.  Every era, every country has set down its own preferred pudding recipes, to the point that one might devote an entire book to the subject. Middle Eastern rice puddings are delicately scented with rose water, Macedonian Lapa is a rice pudding covered with black poppy seeds, while in Hungary Teiberizs is often dusted with cocoa powder and/or cinnamon. Cinnamon is sprinkled through a lacy cloth over Portuguese Arroz doce, a rice pudding seasoned with lemon zest and almonds – never with vanilla, while French Riz au lait à la vanille calls for a vanilla bean steeped in the milk. In Normandy, the traditional Teurgoule is baked for hours in a shallow earthen dish to let a cinnamon-flecked crust form. The same approach to an English slow-baked rice pudding lets a crust form after pouring the hot milk and rice into a buttered baking dish – often made on Mondays while the household wash day claimed the cook’s attention, my English friend recalled.

Then there are the questions of raisins and whether to enrich the pudding with a couple of egg yolks. Some Scandinavians have adapted both, tossing a handful of port-soaked raisins into a Danish bowl of Risengrod, but not into the cold version with whipped cream, Ris à l’amande. You might say every cook has his or her own twist on tradition.  But they all say: start with round rice.  For the long-baked creamiest of puddings, short grained thirsty pudding rice takes its time to soak up all the liquid. Whether your liquid is whole milk, part cream or almond milk, use inexpensive round rice (not Arborio, better suited for savory risottos) – the best out of the 40,000 varieties of rice available in the world. Now, how do you make this picture of simplicity?  One recipe says:

Soak 4 Tablespoons of round rice in water (1 part rice to 8 parts liquid) for 20 minutes. Drain it; preheat the oven to 325°f. Heat 3 cups of whole milk with a split vanilla bean in a heavy saucepan, add 3 Tablespoons light brown sugar or light honey and a pinch of salt along with the soaked and drained rice. Butter a round or oval baking dish. Pour the hot milk/rice mixture into the dish and bake  for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Leave it uncovered if you want a crust to form.  After the first hour, stir in 1/2 cup golden or sweet Smyrna raisins (if you wish), and this is the time to add 2 egg yolks if you wish for color and nourishment. Then scatter flakes of cold butter and 1/4 cup of flaked almonds across the top; sprinkle grated nutmeg and cinnamon over all. Bake another hour or two; the pudding will continue to firm up after baking. Remove from the oven, let cool and serve at room temperature with a dollop of raspberry jam or cherries in a light syrup. Not only comforting, but economically in tune with tight budgets!

A few gift books for 2010 inspiration

*One of  Restoration England’s Renaissance men, John Evelyn was a landscape architect, city planner, author and scholar. Prospect Books, London published John Evelyn, Cook , The Manuscript receipt book of John Evelyn, in 1997. This jewel of a book arrived one day recently, a surprise gift from an English friend.

Note: For more on rice, see   www.foodsubs.com/Rice.html

Isolate the key flavors, the products of southern France, and the list looks something like this:  olives, olive oil, lemons, tomatoes, bell peppers and pimento, almonds and pistachios, anchovies, and of course, garlic.  Scan all countries ringing the Mediterranean Sea to find only slight variations on this lineup.  So, which kind of garlic do southern cooks choose and use most? Once dried, braided and strung up, the pink garlic of Lautrec keeps longer, while the white – almost sweet - allium sativum of Beaumont de Lomagne in Gascony is the juicy choice during summer and early autumn.  By the first of November, bitter, green sprouts appear inside this variety, indicating it is ready for planting in the next round, to be harvested early the following July.  In the same rhythm, for about a thousand years garlic has been cultivated in southern Europe – but jump back 6,000 years to trace cultivated garlic in Egypt and India. This powerful allium, noted in Sanskrit medical treatises from the second century B.C. to the second century A.D., was devoted to use as an antifungal, antiseptic and cleansing agent.  The upper classes never ate garlic, as was true of Brahmins, the clergy and upper classes around the Mediterranean for centuries:  it was a peasant ingredient relegated to cucina di povera.

How things have changed since the 1940’s, when garlic was embraced as a flavorful element by popular opinion, gradually making inroads into haute cuisine.  Fast forward to the second half of the twentieth century, when gastronomic sights were set on southern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and into the twenty-first as “fresh and healthful” became each cook’s mantra. Meanwhile, the “peasant cooking” of Europe that included garlic and other hefty ingredients has come into the spotlight. It is hard to imagine an Andalusian gazpacho, a Greek skordalia, or even Polish dill pickles without  garlic to enhance the punch of flavors….and don’t ignore this season’s vibrant blend of garlic, basil and nuts: pesto.  To crush or to cook is your choice.  When garlic is cooked, the hot sensation and odors of allicin disappear, and the edge of raw garlic mellows. With this in mind, Sicilian cooks rarely or never use garlic raw, but prefer the deeper flavors of the cooked buds.  But what about haleine (bad breath)?  Avoiding garlic breath doesn’t seem to be a concern when everyone else is eating garlic – as the vagabond has noted in Gascony and the Languedoc.  More refined tastes and sensitive noses may beg to differ, as the situation varies.  Planning to meet with your lawyer after lunch?  He has probably just had garlic-infused sausages and pasta tossed with pungent pesto on his plate.

All these comments aside, how can you best keep the savory garlic on hand for a quick tzadziki salad or to rub onto a lamb chop? Preserving buds in olive oil is good for a week – at most. After that, unwelcome bacterial growth is a distinct possibility. For longer term use, I like to pop garlic cloves into a small jar of sherry vinegar to keep in the fridge, and seldom buy more than two heads at a time.  In eastern Europe, young bulbs and shoots are pickled as a condiment. Baking whole heads of garlic with a roast chicken is reserved for a special event, and each person has a small spoon to scoop out the sweet soft – very mellow – garlic. Whether you crush or cook garlic, you’ll be doing yourself a favor – it boosts the immune system, acts as a stimulant to digestion, and enhances flavors of whatever it is mixed with, especially the other other sun-drenched icons of Mediterranean cuisine.

Note: There are over 300 varieties of garlic, so if you are interested in planting your own, refer to www.2sistersgarlic.com/varieties.htm for details.

With dreams of strolling along the sea, the vagabond was eager to adjust to a slower pace and explore the ports of La Rochelle.  Anticipation grew during the two hour train ride from Bordeaux, a route passing through woodlands, pastures and broad fields of wheat and sunflowers. The region, Charente Maritime, is wedged along France’s Atlantic coast above Bordeaux’s Médoc vineyards and below the flat fields of the Vendée. For centuries, the hub city of La Rochelle has been a crossroads  of commerce, culture and politics – all evident in the city’s diverse architecture, bearing traces of wars and conflict. The first destination was a long walk on La Rochelle’s ramparts, and though it was a very hot Sunday afternoon, a cool edge on the Atlantic breeze perked up a tired traveler.  It was not difficult to imagine schooners loaded with spices, cotton, and strange New World products approaching this deep-draught port. I could also picture carts hauling trunks to be loaded

onto immigrant ships carrying Huguenot Protestants, about to embark for North American shores.  I am sure that they tucked in an accordian or fiddle,  grandmother’s recipes, the family Bible – and dreams of a new life.

Towers still mark La Rochelle’s harbor on the Bay of Biscay, but pleasure boats of all sizes – cruising in to shop or to dine well – have replaced frigates and schooners of times past.  Plenty of boutiques line streets of the old town and choosing which café or restaurant offers the best Moules Marininières can be a confusing menu-study game. A steaming bowl of  Moules de Bouchot (mussels grown on a post) a dish of plump shellfish in a rich saffron sauce, was the vagabond’s choice of starter at Restaurant 4 Sergents.  The professional serving staff scurried between 90 places in this unusual setting, an early nineteenth century open-court building. The thick, leather bound winelist offered a good sampling of regional wines:  we chose a pleasant Orfeo, a 2005 merlot made less than an hour away from La Rochelle near the town of Vix.  To sum up the dining experience, it is on my list of  “must return in another season” destinations on the Atlantic coast.  In fact, the list of reasons for a repeat visit ranges beyond the restaurants, the spotless market hall packed with fish, cheese, chickens, meat and bread specialties, to museums and galleries worth a second look. There is much more to explore in the Charente..watch for market details and photos next week.

Traveler’s note: Reserve a table a day in advance at Restaurant 4 Sergents at 49, rue Saint-Jean, La Rochelle. Tel. 05 46 41 35 80.  Inviting menus change with the seasons.

Coming up in August:  Making fresh cheese, a recipe for Préfou from Arçais, and simmering cherry tomato chutney.

Oysters, truffles, chili peppers, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chocolate, oh – cinnamon, mint and almonds – the list of notorious aphrodisiacs is long. Is it the zinc in oysters (and pine nuts as well) that lends credence to their legendary powers? How much of the allure rests in nutrition, for garlic’s medicinal heat as one case, has stirred research into the pungent bulb’s properties.  Certainly each ingredient’s sensual qualities, the color and aromas come into play when preparing a menu with a hint of seduction. Fragrance is on almond’s side, as Samson knew when he courted Delilah with sweet almonds. Did cinnamon do the trick when the Queen of Sheba set her cap (or crown?) for King Solomon?  Spices are legendary, as Romans knew when they munched on anise seeds to stimulate their libido. There appear to be several winning combinations on the list, depending on the setting and mood, the season and personalities involved in the plot…..and seduction is a plot, non?

The plot… er the menu: in truffle season, pull out a paring knife, trim a small truffle and dice it, slice a log or a round of fresh chèvre cheese horizontally. Sprinkle truffle dice between the layers and wrap this appetizer in baking paper or a small brown paper bag (NOT in plastic) and tuck it in a cool place for a day or three before your dinner.  Garnish it with arugula/roquette (also on the list…). Stir up a hearty soup based on garlic, ginger, tomatoes, with basil and even a little fresh mint (to add at the end of cooking). Use chopped chicken or lamb for texture and protein, and toss in a touch of chili pepper, let it rest to mellow overnight. A fresh baguette or crusty roll is perfect on the side.  All of this can be ready well before dinner time, to allow maximum time for “conversation”.  The wine, a fresh white Vouvray with the chèvre truffé, and later a subtle and complex Bordeaux Supérieur or the dark fruit of a Gigondas would be my choice – but possibilities abound. Now, what’s for dessert? A gooey chocolate-almond-nutmeg fondant cake would be superb (with or without a dusting of chili).  Stay tuned, the Valentine recipe is being tested…and tasted.

Fondant Chocolate, a cake that is almost done retains a molten middle if not baked too long – but is not bad as a cake….if you get distracted before dessert.  Stir it  up ahead of time, it can be popped into the oven and bakes at 350°f for 8 to 10 minutes in individual ramekins (1/2 cup+1 tablespoon/150 ml) or baking cups. Melt 3 packages of 70% chocolate (each package 100g, broken into little pieces – half milk chocolate is milder) in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water; let cool while mixing 1/3 cup light brown sugar with 6 tablespoons butter cut into bits and 5 medium-sized eggs.  When blended, add 1/2 cup ground almonds (or 1/2 cup flour, sifted), 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg. Orange zest or cinnamon could also be added at this point if you wish. Blend in the chocolate – it will be grainy at first, but blend steadily – and then add 2 tablespoons dark rum. Pour batter into 5 or 6 buttered ramekins, each 2/3 full, place them on a baking sheet, dust with a little sugar, and bake until edges firm up, begin to rise but middle remains soft, about 9 minutes. Serve warm in the cup or turn out (carefully, to retain the soft center) onto a dessert plate and garnish with sour cream or whipping cream sprinkled with crimson pomegranate seeds.  If desired, dust with cocoa mixed with chili powder for an extra zing. To cut the recipe in half, use 2 large eggs to make 3 servings.

Making pancakes is good exercise, look at it this way.  When I watched women making crèpes at a foire in Brittany, they stirred, they flipped, they rolled or folded the golden pancake envelope around a sweet filling- and so deftly it took but a minute.  Practice makes perfect (as we all know, the first pancake is always ratée - a mess!) and these crèpe flipping experts have been at it since they were about six years old. But why, I wondered, is the crèpe always eaten on February second, Chandeleur ? Thank the pagans, whose sun-worshipping traditions were reinterpreted as Christianity took hold around the Mediterranean.  Roman revelers worshiping Pan carried torches on their noisy processions to chase away the last traces of winter and celebrate the longer days of early spring.  Forty days after Christmas, when the Greeks carried candles to the mass for Hypapante (the meeting) in the fifth century, they marked the day Mary and Joseph presented Jesus for consecration at the temple.  This follows – torches, candles for Chandeleur - but what about pancakes? The round, quickly-made blini symbolized the sun for Russians, who saluted the return of spring during “butter week” before their forty meatless days of Lent began. Blinis bathed in butter answered the need for street food as they invoked the nature’s spirits for an upcoming season of abundance.  So, the round crèpe is still flipped across Europe, certainly in France, during February’s days of Carnaval that run from Chandeleur to Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday.

For a far better description of the crèpe and all its cousins around the world, I dipped into a tidy little volume: Pancake, A Global History, by food historian Ken Albala.  Pancake is one of a delicious series called Edibles by Reaktion Books, a UK publisher.  Not only does Albala’s book answer many questions about this universal favorite, he amusingly covers such traditions as pancake races (what was I saying about the pancake as exercise?!). The last pages are devoted to recipes for everything from Berry Explosion Pancakes to Provençal Socca and Brittany’s Galettes.  Oh, and do try the blini – with or without caviar – to celebrate the sun’s return.

Crèpe flippers take note: London’s pancakealympics are set for February 22nd at Blackheath Market, and the flip-finals to be run at Islington Green Farmers’ Market on February 24th at 12:20.  For directions and further details about the pancake races, visit: www.pancakeday.lfm.org.uk. Bonne chance!

And Shrove Tuesday is Pannukakku Päivä in Finland, where the vagabondgourmand learned to eat split pea soup on this day – always followed by a pancake with strawberry jam.  Bring on the pannukakku!

A week in Lorraine – the Meuse and Moselle region of northeastern France – isn’t enough. What I had planned as a jaunt to visit Verdun, to taste and learn more about fine, artisanal sugared almonds turned out to be a revelation beyond candy-making. Wedged between Alsace and Champagne-Ardennes on the northern route to Luxembourg, the Lorraine region doesn’t get much ink in travelogues – or even in foodologues. The fact that Jeanne d’Arc lived here is an item tossed into guides and tourist pamphlets, as an aside to the glories of the Isle de France and the Loire valley. Since pre-Roman times, this cross roads has carried its history well, surviving invasions and changing rulers. In fact, it is amazing that so much remains after centuries of warfare.

After a day in Verdun, where Dragées Braquier have made sugared almonds since the eighteenth century (this is another, sweeter story!), we took a regional bus back to Metz, rolling through tranquil landscapes of pastures and river valleys from the Meuse to the Moselle. The city’s enormous central train station has a hulking stone presence, reflecting the neo-roman style popular in early twentieth century Germanic architcture (Metz was at the time under German rule).  I looked up at the modern fingers of light ringing the station plaza, and thought: these look like talons – or claws of a beast. We would meet the monster later, in the crypt of Cathedral St-Etienne.

We ambled up and down walking streets lined with shops on the way to the city’s central market. The best of Metz’ shopping streets is Rue Tête d’Or, where pastries and confections decorate windows, enticing me inside to inspect and to catch a whiff of raspberries and vanilla. I stopped to admire fanciful pastries as we passed Claude Bourguinon’s chocolate shop and tea room, just as a case of artisanal ice creams was temptingly rolled onto the street. We found the U-shaped Metz market hall facing the grand cathedral, which is still the hub of this vibrant city. Longer than the cathedrals of Bourges or Strasbourg, and nicknamed “God’s Lantern”, Metz’ cathedral is illuminated by 6,500 square meters of stained glass. Like many buildings in this historic center, St-Etienne is built of a luminous golden stone, pierre de Jaumont. With or without exterior illumination, these plazas and surrounding façades seem to glow from within. After a pause to study the cathedral looming over a café on the plaza, I was ready to scout for regional specialties in the market hall. June brings the melon season, berries and rhubarb for tartes, along with early green cabbage and flats of chantarelle mushrooms. Jars of Mirabelle plums are everywhere, but fresh Mirabelles will not be in the market until August. Then, the sweet, golden plum is cause for celebration in Metz, attracting thousands to its annual Mirabelle Fest.

Well past noon, a mounting hunger sent us in search of lunch à la Lorraine. The Restaurant du Pont St-Marcel is a short walk, across two bridges, from the cathedral. We luckily found a table on their shaded terrace, an ideal spot to watch swans dipping into the river. I sipped a fruity white Moselle wine and awaited the arrival of a Tarte aux poireaux (Leek tart), then a Pintade au choux (Guinea fowl braised with cabbage) before tackling a Tarte aux groseilles à la crème d’amandes. The waitress, dressed in peasant skirt, cap and bodice, smiled when I rolled my eyes and took the last bite of the dark berry (currants and raspberries) tart with almond cream. My husband, Michel, didn’t look surprised and asked: More cream, eh? Well, a two-tart lunch doesn’t happen every day – only in Lorraine.

The crypt below St-Etienne cathedral holds artifacts of the city as well as religious documents and sculpture. And that is where I encountered a replica of the city’s legendary monster, the Graoully, suspended from the ceiling. St-Clement, the first bishop of Metz, was credited with destroying the menacing beast who was said to live in the old Roman arenas. It is a story reminiscent of St-George and the dragon, a familiar metaphor of Christian force crushing pagan beasts. In the third century, St-Clement founded the first chapel on the site of the Roman forum’s ruins. But tales of the Graoully are still told, in fact a literary award for science fiction writing, Le Graoully d’or (The golden Graoully) is awarded annually in Metz.

The famous Dragées de Verdun drew me to the Moselle, but there are many other reasons to return. The Mirabelle Festival in August, the huge monthly flea market – perhaps to find Madeleine molds or oval earthenware terrines – a gathering of brocante dealers second only in size to Paris’ noteworthy Marché St-Ouen, and the Marché de Noël would all be fun. Imagine stepping out of the monumental railway station into a frosty plaza filled with cabin-stalls chuck full of jams, pâtés, wines, novelties and preserved Mirabelles – all well lit by designer Philippe Starck’s narrow, pointed street lights. In any season, Metz is well worth the detour.

To view more images of Metz, tap the photo above. Then tap category “Bites of History” to return to the story.

Note: Take the TGV Est from Paris’ Gare de l’Est, about one hour’s train ride to Metz, via Nancy.

Restaurant du Pont St-Marcel is at 1, rue du Pont St-Marcel in Metz. Open year round, reserving a table for dinner is advised : tel. 03 87 30 1229. Claude Bourguignon’s chocolate and pastry shop at 31, rue Tête d’Or, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:15 to 7 p.m., and Sunday from 8:30 to 12:30.