Best Food Writing 2011

by Holly Hughes

  And journey the figs did, to a New World where only diminutive wild figs occurred along the faces of cliffs overlooking the sea, or perched high on the cuestas of miledeep barrancas. Likewise, the prickly pear set out for distant shores, appearing naturalized along the arid coastlines of the Mediterranean within a half century after Cristobal Colón carried it back from the so-called Mundo Nuevo to Lisbon in 1493.

  Within just a few decades the Indian fig prickly pear and its succulent sidekick, the century plant, were fixtures in just about every arid stretch of the Mediterranean, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Aegean Sea. In 1768 Linnaeus named two varieties Cactus opuntia—the spiny plant originating from Opus, Greece—and Cactus ficus-indica—the Indian fig cactus. Later, the scientific name for both of these forms became Opuntia ficus-indica, but many Europeans and Africans assumed it had come from the East Indies through Turkey. Like other crops (corn, tobacco, sunflowers, and squash) introduced from America through the Mediterranean trade routes of Moors, Arabs, and Sephardic Jews, it became a fig associated with the Turks—figo turco.

  Soon, the prickly pear became so ubiquitous and so abundant in the Middle East that some desert tribes claimed it had been there since the beginning. Curiously, the nickname now used for a Jew native-born in Israel is sabra, the term for prickly pears and their fruits. They are said to be desert-hardy folk with a prickly exterior but a tender heart. And, apparently, some believe that cacti were present at the death of the Son of God, who had become a desert dweller. In films such as The Last Temptation of Christ the prickly pear hanging from the stone walls of the Temple is flowering, just as Yeshua of Nazareth is hung from the Cross. Like the Mother of God, some prickly pears need not be fertilized by their kind to reproduce: Italian Catholics entranced by the Immaculate Conception called them fichi della Madonna.

  What has always struck me as curious is that when the fig and the prickly pear changed places and partners, they sometimes swapped names. The prickly pear, not just in Italian but in several other Old World languages as well, became some kind of fig: an Indian fig, Madonna’s fig, the Turk’s fig, or the Asian fig. And the Old World fig, when it reached what are now known as the Desert Borderlands of North America, was taken to be a succulent, treelike kin of the cactus. In the O’odham language of the Desert Borderlands, the fruits of the fig are called suuna, derived from tuna. It appears that when the term tuna arrived with the Spanish, missionaries immediately applied it to the domesticated prickly pears that they brought from Central Mexico to transplant in the Sonora-Arizona borderlands around 1650. At least among the Desert People, truly wild prickly pears were still referred to by ancient native terms such as i’ibhai. But by 1710, a sloughed-off version of tuna—or one with the s attached as an intensifier—became applied to Old World figs as well: s-uuna. In any case, figs and prickly pears came to be regarded as cousins, even though they are derived from different plant families, as well as from different continents.

  Down where I live near the Mexican border, the surest way to find an old homestead from a previous century is to look for an old fig tree, at least one old spineless prickly pear, and a patch of horehound, the Old World mint famous for its use in cough drops. It seems that fig trees outlast the families that plant them; extractive economies like mining, logging, and quarrying can go belly up, families can come and go, but the figs they leave behind somehow find a way to thrive.

  Most of them are Mission figs first planted in Arizona who knows how long ago; others are Smyrna figs that originally came from the Aegean coast of Turkey, where Sephardic Jews, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, and Turks first took their cuttings and planted them as they moved to other lands. A few Smyrna figs still grow around the rubble left from the razing of Smyrna in the struggle between Turkish and Armenian troops in 1922, and several still stand among the ruins of the ancient acropolis of Ephesus. Of course, in the American desert most of those that survive had been planted near springs and are soaking their toes down in some underground aquifer. The tenacity of fig trees outdistances political and social movements and defies probability statistics, for they continue to bear fruit even when other native and exotic trees have dried up and crashed to the stony ground.

  The first time I visited my grandfather’s village in Lebanon, my second cousin took me up the ridge edging the Beqaa Valley to show me a sheep pasture that had belonged to my grandmother Julia. On the edge of the pasture near a rock wall was an old fig tree where shepherds would sit in the shade while they watched their flock.

  “This tree,” my cousin explained to me, “was no doubt alive when your grandfather and grandmother were engaged to be married. Ferhat may have sat under it, or picked the tiine from it to give to your grandmother to dry in the sun. We say dried figs produce good dreams.” He winked and added, “A Lebanese man will always want his wife-to-be to dream wonderful dreams. In May, we say that when the fig leaves are the size of a raven’s claw, it is time to plant chickpeas in the garden. In June, we say that any fog which comes will cook the figs into a stew. In October and November, we say farewell to the last figs on the tree, and we begin to prune the branches for the next year. My grandparents told me that the figs mark the year for us with signs. They speak to us. It’s in the Bible too: the Phoenicians and Canaanites who lived in Lebanon centuries ago said the fig trees could speak. Perhaps this old fig tree spoke to your grandfather or to your grandmother.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember the face of my grandfather, Papa John Ferhat Nabhan, a face I had not seen in some fifty years. I pledged aloud—although it was probably not heard by anyone among the living—that I would make some room at home for the fig and for the prickly pear, and offer my neighbors the most tender of their fruit.

  And then I walked right up to one of those cacti and poked my index finger into its side.

  “Stick ’em up!” I shouted.

  And it did.

  GOING FULL BOAR IN HAWAII

  By Hugh Garvey

  From Bon Appétit

  Co-author of The Gastrokid Cookbook and the Gastrokid.com blog, and West Coast editor at Bon Appétit magazine, Hugh Garvey probably didn’t complain when he was assigned to visit the Big Island to report on the local food scene. He may not have known just how fresh the food was going to be ...

  On the road that cuts through the black lava landscape leading to the luxe resorts of the Big Island’s Kohala Coast, there’s a sign that reads “No Hunting.” It’s the first evidence I see of an outdoor activity besides surfing and sunning. No disrespect to my fellow tourists, but I haven’t come here to ride big waves or to get all bronzed. I’m here to hunt and eat wild boar, the latest ingredient in the booming Hawaiian locavore dining revolution. In recent years, island chefs have been incorporating Waimea tomatoes, wild honey, ho’i’o fern shoots, and other indigenous ingredients into their menus. And now, with the recent approval of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they can serve, more dramatically and, in my mind, more deliciously, wild boar.

  While the Italians braise boar to transcendent effect in the trattorias of Italy, and Michael Pollan recounts his California boarhunting experience in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the Hawaiian wild boar is unique. It feasts on macadamias, the rich tropical nuts that when roasted taste like some divine version of puff pastry and impart a sweet quality to the animals that feed on them. For the whole-hog experience, I have decided to follow Pollan and the other outspoken conscious carnivores who’ve joined the ranks of the 14 million Americans who hunt.

  Hawaii knows its game. You can eat wild boar sausage on stewed white beans at Kona Village Resort while the sun sets over the Pacific and you’re serenaded by a slack-key guitar player; you can enjoy a roasted wild boar chop while sitting near the latest hot Hollywood director on a family getaway at the super-luxe Four Seasons Resort Hualalai; or, if you’re in a more down-home mood, you can have pasta with wild boar sausage at the raucous Hilo Bay Café. Sure, there are other places where you can get in touch with the local foodways
, but when given the choice, I’d rather rough it in the islands.

  I question my decision when, at 4:00 a.m., I try to wake up with a grande Kona coffee in the passenger seat of Kona Village executive chef Mark Tsuchiyama’s truck as we bounce along a ranch road. We’re following Wade Cypriano, a meat cutter; his son, Wayne; and his friend Kalena Honda. They have dogs, a gun, and more than 50 years of hunting experience among them. “Why would I buy meat in a store?” asks Wade. “When I hunt, I know that it’s a healthy animal that’s totally organic and hormone-free.” This is the best time of day to hunt, as boars are nocturnal feeders. As the sun rises, they head back to shady spots in gullies and under fallen trees to bed down. For boars, it’s rush hour.

  After Wade drops a 120-pound male, we hunt for another five hours and see some 40 boars. But not one of them is big enough for me to take.

  “Let me know if you haven’t gotten a boar yet. If you haven’t, just say the word and I’ll take you hunting.” That’s a voice mail from Allen Clark Hess, the chef at the Waimea outpost of the classic Hawaiian regional cuisine restaurant Merriman’s. Hess is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, a Big Island resident, and an avid hunter. He orders his wild boars from Tom Asano, the man who along with his boss, Brady Yagi, is responsible for getting USDA certification for Yagi’s meat-processing company, Kulana Foods. That pork gets sent as far afield as Craft in New York and Cleo in Boston. I decline Hess’s invitation to hunt, but ask him to cook me some of Kulana’s macadamia-laced boar instead. At Merriman’s Waimea, I have a tasting menu that includes thick-cut smoked boar bacon, garnished with local asparagus and tomatoes spiked with vinegar; boar pâté on loco moco, the Hawaiian diner favorite typically made with rice, egg, and hamburger; boar sausage in fried sage leaves; and, best of all, unctuous braised boar cheek with hand-cut cavatelli and fresh goat cheese from a nearby goat farm.

  Time is running out, so I head for Parker Ranch, a sprawling 130,000 acres of rolling pastures, gullies, and hills stretching up the slopes of 13,796-foot Mauna Kea, where grass-fed cattle are raised and wild pigs thrive along with feral sheep, game birds, and deer. This time I go with James Babian, the executive chef at the Four Seasons. Though a hunting novice like me, he’s game, so to speak. Our guides are Shane Muramaru, a police officer for 15 years and now the ranch’s director of safety and security, and Jesse Hoopai, a third-generation chef-cum-paniolo (cowboy). Shane gives us pipikaula (Hawaiian beef jerky) to snack on. It’s salty-sweet and still warm from the oven. Chef Jim is happy to be out of the kitchen: “Perfect pipikaula, an ex-cop with a truckful of ammunition, a dog named Bullet. This is good.”

  We drive for a while, see another 30 pigs or so, and then one that’s ideal to take. A handsome thing, all black and tusks, its back is turned to the trough in a standoff with the dogs. Jesse calls off the hounds. I’m holding a Marlin. .30-30, a classic cowboy rifle. It’s a how-the-West-was-won sort of gun; it’s how the western side of Kona keeps its pig population in check today. I ask Shane about the firearm’s recoil. “When you’re killing something, you don’t feel the gun kick.” As I aim, I realize that in all of my 40 years this will be the first time I’ve killed my own meat. I laugh at the preposterousness of that. Next thing, I find myself silently thanking the pig. I’ve tried thanking a hamburger before, but it felt false. Not this time. I steady the gun, pull the trigger, and watch the pig fall. Shane was right. I don’t feel the kick. I feel relief. We head back to an old cowboy homestead to skin, clean, and butcher the pig. As they break it down into quarters, it is transformed from a wild animal to primal cuts you’d see in an artisanal butcher shop. “Now it’s starting to look like dinner,” says chef Jim.

  The next day, there’s no swaggering pride in my heart, but something approaching gratitude as I hear what the Four Seasons kitchen does with my quarry. The members of the kitchen staff, many of them experienced boar-hunting locals, are excited by the quality of the meat, pale pink with a half-inch layer of snowy fat. What follows is the locavore meal of my life. Almost every ingredient on each plate is from the Big Island: grilled wild pig skirt steak with local goat cheese, tomatoes, and microgreens; pork chops with macadamia cream sauce. And then, as an homage to my Filipino heritage, a salty, tangy wild boar adobo, spiked with lashings of vinegar.

  When I bump into chef Jim the day after the feast, he tells me his staff is going to use the other half of the boar at a Fourth of July barbecue. The word’s out at the resort that we went hunting, and waiters and other staff make a point of sharing their own stories of hunting boar. Walking along the beach, I look past the guests jogging or sunning, and I focus on Big Island locals gill-net fishing, carving edible limpets off the rocks where the surf crashes, or coming up for air after spearfishing. True locavore eating is everywhere here, often on resort menus that formerly depended on imported ingredients. Pig supplier Tom Asano told me that on the other side of the island there are wild pigs in the mango, banana, papaya, and avocado plantations. I make a mental note to come back next summer. Or, even more sustainably, given the carbon footprint of my overseas plane ticket, maybe I’ll just move here.

  FRUITS OF DESIRE

  By Mike Madison

  From Saveur

  Ever wonder what the vendors at your greenmarket think of their rotating cast of customers? Here’s a view from the other side of the stall, from California fruit-and-flower farmer Mike Madison, author of the 2006 memoir Blithe Tomato.

  Each summer, I grow six or eight varieties of melon to sell at the farmers’ market in Davis, California, outside Sacramento. Over the years, I’ve grown about 60 different kinds, trying to discover which ones will thrive in the growing conditions I have to work with.

  One year I grew a small, smooth-skinned, golden melon from the Crimea, in southern Ukraine. I found these melons to be disappointing, but I brought them to the market anyway. A portly older customer spied a few on my table and asked me where they were grown. “I grow them a few miles west of here,” I said, “but the seeds came from Ukraine.”

  “I’m from Ukraine,” he said. “They look just like the melons from home. Let me take a few.”

  The following week, the man was at the market an hour before it opened. “Do you have those golden melons?” he asked.

  “A few,” I said. “Maybe forty or fifty.”

  “I’ll take them all. They are exactly the melon we have at home. There are many people from Ukraine living in Sacramento. They will be amazed!”

  For the rest of the season, he was there at the start of each market and bought all the little golden melons. He confided to me, in a low voice, “Everyone is crazy to know where I get these, but I won’t tell them. Only you and I know.” He winked at me, and I wondered whether this guy was now in the melon-selling business himself.

  Some customers stand before the display of melons almost in a trance, with dreamy looks in their eyes and smiles on their faces as they caress and fondle the melons, perhaps holding one against their cheek. And why not? All fruit evolved largely with the goal of being so attractive that you would want to put it into your mouth. The buxom shapes, the sensuous surfaces, the alluring fragrances, the promise of sweetness—these are the classic tools of seduction. The melon knows exactly what it’s doing.

  And yet, there are many customers who handle the melons unkindly, squeezing and poking them, frowning, searching for imaginary flaws, suspicious that the farmer is trying to cheat them, digging around in the crate to see if there is a better one underneath. It is the old Puritan heritage: a distrust of pleasure. As a fondler and caresser of fruit, I am mystified by the pinchers and pokers—such unhappiness they choose for themselves.

  A woman in her late fifties, with helmet hair and a Midwestern accent, comes to my stand and pinches and pokes the melons, frowning. She says, “I’m looking for a classic, old-fashioned cantaloupe. No one seems to grow it here.”

  “Describe it for me,” I say.

  “It’s about this big”—she holds
her hands several inches apart—“and has sort of salmon orange flesh, very firm.”

  “I think I know what you’re looking for. Talk to Eric down there on the right.” The melons that I grow are sweet, sloppy, juicy, aromatic, perishable, best eaten at the temperature of an August night, standing over a bathtub. What she’s after is a melon that would be described in the wholesale seed catalogues as a shipping and storage melon. It is harvested much too green and stored at much too cold a temperature and then shipped to a city thousands of miles away, where it will be served at the breakfast buffet of an airport hotel. All in all, a miserable excuse for a melon. And yet, this is probably what she has known all her life, and people search for what they are accustomed to. When it comes to judging food, lifelong familiarity is worth three or four points on a ten-point scale.

  A couple approach. The husband, a fondler and caresser, picks up a smooth, yellow-skinned Charentais melon, inhales its fragrance. “These smell fantastic,” he says. He turns to his wife. “Let’s get a couple of them.”

  The wife pinches the clasp of her purse with both hands. “No,” she says, “we couldn’t eat that much. Remember, we’ll be away on Saturday.”

  I’m thinking to myself, the two of you couldn’t eat a pair of these little melons in three days? I eat one by myself in about three minutes, standing in a muddy field with my pocketknife in my hand, cutting off slices and tossing the chewed rinds in every direction. And 20 minutes later I eat another one.