"The Gay Diet"?

A link on facebook to an article on the Guardian website on "The Gay Diet" sent me on a hunt for articles about food, gender, and sexuality.  I know there's a ton of critical and book-length work on these issues, but I was curious about what people are saying in shorter, more--ahem--digestible types of work.

"Concerned with looking tough, men opt for macho grub" (Toronto Star, 2010) cites a study that makes the groundbreaking revelation that "men really are concerned with eating manly foods, opting for a cup of Joe over a café latte, spaghetti with big homemade meatballs over a tomato and basil sauce, and salad piled with cold cuts and cheese over something more worthy of being called a salad."

...which prompts half-baked evolutionary interpretations of this phenomenon.  Riddih Shah, however, in "Men eat meat, women eat chocolate: How food gets gendered" (Salon.com, 2010) notes that "the U.S. has perhaps one of the more gender-segregated eating cultures in the world. (Can you imagine a French woman saying she stays away from red meat or a French man saying that chocolate is chick food?)."

I've got a lot more to say about this, but I'm curious if any readers want to join in on the conversation.  It's no revelation that all kinds of eating practices, food choices and attributes are gendered; it seems like bitterness (manly) and sweetness (girly) are among the most gendered in American culture, but most gendered of all is the extent to which the food resembles human flesh.  Crazy?  Well, think about meat vs. vegetable, fish vs. steak, even red wine vs. white.  (I think wine-vs.-beer, though, derives more from Francophobia and the counter-definition of a hearty, proudly uncultivated, masculine Anglo-American character)

Shah cites scholarship that suggests that people "are more likely to eat a food when they associate with it qualities they’d like to see in themselves," a notion I recently entertained on this blog.  More to be said here.  But I'm also reminded of Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, in which the protagonist identifies more and more strongly with her food and becomes unable to eat any of it.  This text portrays a very different understanding of eating.  If we identify with our food, is eating violence or incorporation?  Does it make us vulnerable to illness, change our bodies, erase our selfhood, or is it an act of dominance and possession?  And has anything been written since Carol Adams's slightly embarrassing Sexual Politics of Meat and the more amazingly titled Pornography of Meat? 

Also, check out this ridiculous Burger King ad.

So.  It's obvious that food is gendered in my culture.  Is there really a "gay diet," though?  It sounds as though Simon Doonan's Gay Men Don't Get Fat, which prompted the Guardian article, mostly just associates "gay" foods with "girly" foods...  A similar elision happens in the hilarious "SOY MAKES YOU GAY" articles I have to reread from time to time.

Perhaps a better question is, are there queer eating practices?  I've noted before that an overwhelming portion of vegetarians and vegans are queer (and/or female).  Maybe this has as much to do with cultural correlation as it does anything else--as in, if you're already a sort of cultural minority you're more likely to question other cultural dominants?  Then again, for every vegan lesbian I know, I know another lesbian who goes out of her way to talk about how much of a carnivore she is.

There are so many different gender/sexuality/culture matrices at work here, and this post is sloppy, impressionistic, and anecdotal.  Alas.  Happy Friday!

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And here's what you sick people really come here for.

Sesame Panko Tempeh Cutlets with Tonkatsu Sauce 

(testing for Terry Hope Romero's new cookbook)

Kimchi Tofu Eggplant Stew (also tester)

 
Pasta and Squash with Homemade Pesto

Rose Hips

What do I do with these?

South Asian Cabbage Salad

On my vacation, I spent time in Asheville, in Minnesota, and in Chicago.  This latest image comes from that last leg of my travels.

One night in Chicago I cooked dinner for some people.  We wanted something interesting, cheap, and not fussy, so... duh.  We went for baingan bharta, dal with ginger and lime, and some rice with stuff in it.  What's fun is that by this point I can make these dishes without a recipe at all.  I also realized that frying mustard seeds in the tempering oil for the dal gives the final product a wonderful extra texture.

And then to go with these dishes, I made a salad that turned out great!  It's a bit like this brussels sprout dish, but napa cabbage is so much more delicate, it doesn't need cooking.  Moreover, I used the technique, more often found in macrobiotic cooking, of "pressing" the salad to tenderize it.  Anyway, this is one of the best salads I've had, hands down, and it's EASY.  The textures are crunchy but light, and the fried spices and toasted coconut round out the generous dosage of lime juice, while the fact that those spices are cumin and mustard give the salad a bit of pungency.

South Asian Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

2 lbs napa cabbage (1 small whole one), shredded

2 carrots, shredded

1/2 tsp? salt

1 TB? oil

1 tsp? mustard seed

1 tsp? cumin seed

1/4 c? unsweetened coconut

lime juice (of 1/2-1 lime?), to taste

red pepper flakes, to taste

(salt to taste)

Instructions

1. Put cabbage and carrot in a large bowl with some salt; massage it to mix, then set aside, with several heavy plates on top pressing down on the cabbage.  Leave it that way for an hour?  If you're using regular cabbage I think the time is more important than with napa cabbage.
2. In a small frying pan, heat oil.  Fry mustard and cumin until mustard starts popping.  Turn off heat and set aside.
3. In a fry pan or toaster oven, toast the coconut until lightly browned.  Set aside to cool.
4. Toss the oil and spices with the cabbage and carrots.  Stir in coconut.  Add lime juice and red pepper flakes to taste, as well as more salt, if desired.  You could also fry dried red chilies (perhaps 1?) in the oil with the spices and omit the red pepper flakes in this step.  Serves about 4.

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Upon returning home to LA, there was NOTHING perishable in my kitchen.  I had, however, made a batch of something resembling this kimchi before leaving town.  So I whipped together some noodles with tahini-tamari sauce, chili-garlic paste, kimchi, and some torn up nori.  Yum.  I guess the pre-refrigerator days are the reason things like dried seaweed and pickled cabbage even exist.

 

And yes, it looks a lot like the salad above, but it tastes totally different!

Creamy Wild Rice Soup

Happy New Year!  I'm finally back from traveling.

 

I always forget to use wild rice.  I think this recipe came up on finding vegan and reminded me of the wild rice I brought back from Minnesota almost a year ago.  Although my soup ended up being rather underwhelming, it also taught me one really useful trick.  Cashew cream, which is so easy, made the soup instantly creamy! and in a non-creepy way; putting soymilk or vegan sour cream or something in a soup seems a little weird.  But this was just cashews soaked in water and pureed, and it made a thick, neutral-tasting cream.

In this recipe, I omitted the "chicken" seasoning and the cornstarch, used regular sodium broth, used white wine instead of sherry, and used an onion instead of a leek.  I found that 6 cups of stock was about right; I've never really liked brothy soups.  Despite the thyme and the mirepoix, however, I thought the soup was a bit bland.  I ended up using lots and lots of black pepper.  I think if you were trying to get your Midwestern grandmother to go vegan, this would be an excellent thing to serve her.

How might I make this more exciting?  More garlic?  More wine?  Mushrooms?  Sage?

Creamy Wild Rice Soup

(adapted from leafy greens and me)

Ingredients
1/2 c raw cashews, soaked for at least four hours, drained
1/2 c filtered water
*

1 c small diced carrots
1 c small diced celery
1 onion, chopped
1 TB finely minced garlic (or more)
1 TB finely minced fresh thyme
1/4 c white wine
6 c vegetable stock 

3/4 c organic wild rice
2 TB cornstarch (optional)
1/4 c minced chives

salt and black pepper

Instructions

1.    Drain cashews and place in a blender along with filtered water and blend on high for about 4 minutes until creamy. 
2.    Strain mixture.  You should have about 3/4 cup of cream.  If less, add additional water.

3.    In a large dutch oven or stock pot, heat olive oil and add leeks, garlic and thyme and cook until leeks are soft, about five minutes.
4.    Add wine and reduce for a couple of minutes and then add vegetable stock.
5.    Bring broth to a boil and stir in brown rice along with celery and carrots and salt and pepper to taste.
 6.   Reduce to a simmer and cook until rice is tender about 45 minutes.
 7.   Five minutes before serving, whisk together cashew cream or soy milk with cornstarch and add to soup, stirring slowing for about 3-4 minutes until soup thickens.
 8.   Check for seasonings and add more salt and pepper to taste.  Serves 4.

Stroganoff (?) + Burger (?)

This stroganoff is one of the best things I've had this month.  I suppose it's not too different from this earlier recipe I made, though I wasn't going off of it as I did this one.  I learned a few things from this dish: first, cooking with wine is so great.  I don't like drinking it, but using a splash in place of tamari or stock allows you to a) add liquid (which can be essential to cooking things the way you want) without adding salt and b) add a completely different flavor which changes the other flavors, blah blah... I know you know these things.  But here it was amazing.  Also, I recently realized that adding flour to thicken dishes need not be so stressful; I have often worried about not whisking quickly enough and getting chunks/dumplings.  But if (just like with cornstarch) you mix the flour with a bit of cold water first and then add it, it's foolproof.  I have no idea why recipes direct you any other way.

I also made stir-fried dandelion greens with this.  Here, too, wine was really helpful, because the greens are so tough that they need to stew a little in extra liquid that cooks off, rather than just quickly fry.  These were cooked with garlic, tamari, white wine, and red pepper flakes. 

Tempeh-Mushroom Stroganoff

Ingredients

olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

pinch salt

lots of mushrooms, sliced

1 block tempeh, cut into small cubes or crumbled

1-1.5 c white wine

1 c stock

fresh rosemary

fresh thyme

dried sage

red pepper flakes

3 TB flour, mixed with 1/2 c water

Instructions

1. Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan.  Saute onion several minutes, then add garlic and a pinch of salt; cook several minutes more.  Add mushrooms and tempeh and cook until mushrooms have released their liquid, then deglaze with the wine.  Add stock as well.
2. Bring pot to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.  Add herbs and red pepper flakes.  Cook about 15 minutes, uncovered.  Then add the flour-water mixture.  Simmer until everything thickens.  Serve hot with noodles.  Serves about 4.

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These Harissa Lentil Fritters froze and thawed quite well!

Cranberry-Walnut-OrangeBlossom Bread

Cranberry walnut bread is actually pretty traditional in my family.  Wanting to continue this, I took this recipe for cranberry orange walnut muffins and turned it into a loaf, which only entailed baking it longer--over 50 minutes.  Also, in a half-assed attempt to make it match with other menu items, I added a few tsp of orange blossom water.  I used more white flour than in the muffins.  And finally, I ended up using lemon zest instead of orange out of pure necessity.

This bread was great: not too sweet, and the orange blossom water was very subtle.  However, it dried out very quickly (like a day or two), and I think that using more oil and less applesauce might change this...

Cranberry-Walnut-OrangeBlossom Bread

Ingredients

1 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c white flour
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 c turbinado sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp dry ginger
1/2 tsp salt
*
1/3 c oil
1 c applesauce (unsweetened)
juice and zest of one medium orange or lemon

1-2 tsp orange blossom water
soymilk or water to desired consistency (about 1 c)
*
1 c walnuts
1 c fresh cranberries

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375*. Oil loaf pan.
2. Combine dry. Add wet, adding liquid to muffin-batter consistency (it should be thick, but just goopy enough that you can pour it with a ladle). Stir in walnuts and cranberries. Fill loaf pan. Bake about 50 min.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Mint, Sumac, and Pistachios

Lacking sunflower seeds, I made this squash recipe from ecurry with pistachios instead.  Wary of sumac, I decreased its role in this dish.

In the end, it's really the quality of the squash that makes or breaks a squash dish.  And it's so hard to tell from the outside.  I liked the flavor combination, but the final product ended up a bit underwhelming.  I think with a different squash, though, it would be great.  If anyone knows how to dowse for good squashes, please let me know.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Mint, Sumac, and Pistachios

(adapted from ecurry)

Ingredients

1 medium acorn or butternut squash or pumpkin (about 1-1.5 lbs) 

2.5 TB olive oil

1 TB honey 

1 TB lemon juice 

1/2 tsp cumin, crushed 

1 tsp sumac 

sea salt, to taste

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

crushed red pepper flakes, to taste

2 tsp dried mint 

1/2 c fresh mint leaves, torn 

1/4 c shelled roasted pistachios

Instructions

1. Carefully cut the squash into half . Scrape off seeds, pulp and strings with a spoon and discard. Slice them in to 1/2 inch thick wedges.Remove the skin if you want, or you may want to leave it in if you find difficult to peel. I usually peel them with a sharp knife before I cook.
2. Combine 2.5 tablespoon olive oil, honey, lemon juice, cumin,, sumac, salt, red and black pepper and dried mint leaves and whisk it.
3. Preheat oven to 375 F. In a baking tray, place the squash wedges, pour the whisked oil and lemon mix and toss well for the wedges to be well coated. Lay wedges on their sides, in a single layer on a baking tray. Roast, and carefully turn halfway through, until golden brown on both sides, about 30 – 40 minutes.  When the squash is done baking and is tender and golden brown, remove carefully from oven and toss the seeds and the chopped fresh mint leaves over the squash, toss the slices carefully to evenly spread the seeds and the mint, and bake at 300 F, for about 5 more minutes. Serve warm, with a sprinkle of red crushed pepper, sumac and more mint if you want.  Serves 3-4 as a side.