by Tom Stobart
[Balm – French: amelisse, eau de melisse German: Bienenkraut, Melisse, Zitronenmelisse Italian: melisa, melissa Spanish: balsamita mayor, toronjil, toronjiña]
BALSAM APPLE and BALSAM PEAR. See marrow (Momordica charantia).
BAMBOO SHOOTS. Bamboo is a huge grass. There are many different species, some of which grow to 30 m (100 ft) with a width of 50 cm (20 in) at the base. Bamboo is one of the characteristic plants of eastern Asia, where it has an important role in the economy. The shoots of those species used for food are dug just before they come above the ground. They can be up to 10 cm (4 in) in diameter and 30 cm (1 ft) long, looking in that case rather like giant asparagus spears. Hungry travellers should not experiment with bamboo without guidance. Not all species of bamboo are edible, and those that are include some that have a hard outer coat or irritant hairs which must be removed; others contain the exceedingly poisonous prussic (hydrocyanic) acid, which is volatile and thus dissipated when the shoots are boiled. The season when the shoots can be dug is also variable. In northern countries, such as China and Japan, there is a definite spring and autumn, but in the monsoon tropical regions further south the season for bamboo is dictated by the rains. There are also great differences in the way in which the various sorts of bamboo shoots must be prepared. Some need only to have the scales removed and to be boiled for 10 minutes; others need boiling for several hours.
Bamboo shoots dry and conserve very well.They retain their flavour and crispness when canned. In fact, canned bamboo shoots are often used in the Orient in preference to fresh ones, as they are already cooked and ready for use. Canned bamboo shoots are exported from China and Japan (where they are called takenoko), canned either in water (usually best) or brine, in pieces or whole (best). They look like ivory-coloured spinning tops. If the whole can is not to be used at once, the shoots will keep in the refrigerator for up to 10 days if put in a jar of fresh water which is changed daily. Canned bamboo shoots are ready for use in Chinese or Japanese dishes. In most cases, they are cooked for 5 minutes, which just warms them through, but they may also be eaten cold.
Dried bamboo shoots have been dried in the sun and are even tastier than the canned shoots, but they require more preparation. Their colour varies from white to yellow and black. The thin, dark shoots are better flavoured than white ones. The white need to be boiled for an hour, cut up and cooked for a further half hour. The yellow must be soaked for 3 hours in water, then cooked for at least 2 hours before they become tender, but they are worth it for the taste.
Pickled bamboo shoots are steamed with beef or pork.
[Bamboo shoot – French: pousse de bambou German: Bambusprosse Italian: germoglio di bamboo Spanish: caña de bambu]
BANANA and PLANTAIN. Originally from India and southern Asia, the banana (Musa sapientum) is now cultivated all over the world in frost-free climates. In the warm, humid, windless tropics, it is both the most important commercial fruit and a home-grown staple for poor, subsistence-level farmers. The banana is said to be one of the first fruits to have been brought into cultivation. Documentary evidence suggests that it was being grown in the Middle East (e.g. in Assyria) over 3,000 years ago, but it must then have died out, as the armies of Alexander the Great were surprised at the sight of the strange fruit growing in the Indus Valley in 327 BC.A thousand years later, the Arabs brought bananas into Egypt and Palestine. In the 15th century, Portuguese navigators found bananas on the Guinea coast of Africa and established them in the Canary Islands, which had been discovered and colonized in 1402. They were taken to the West Indies by a Dominican friar in 1516 and within 25 years had spread throughout the West Indies and tropical America, now the world’s main banana-producing area. They had also, it seems, travelled in the opposite direction from Asia across the Pacific, because they were already growing in Hawaii when Captain Cook arrived in 1778. Bananas remained a luxury in northern Europe until the Imperial Direct Line started operations in the West Indies in 1901. Before the days of refrigeration and fast steam ships Europe had depended on the Canary Islands for bananas (and Canary bananas were the only bananas accepted by my grandmother who despised the rest as ‘plantains’).
The ‘hands’ of a dozen or so fruit (‘fingers’), in which bananas are usually marketed, are part of a larger bunch – up to a dozen hands arranged around a central stem – which grows on a plant which may be up to 10 m (30 ft) high, but is botanically a herb rather than a tree.
Bananas to be transported are cut when they are fully plumped but still green, and the bunches are packed carefully in cartons. They are kept at a temperature of 12-13°C (53-56°F) – never colder, as cold turns bananas black – during shipment; when needed, the bunches are hung to ripen in warmed rooms. Good though such bananas are, they are never quite as excellent as those sun ripened on the plant. The food value of bananas is high – from a nutritional point of view, they are better than apples.
Some species of the genus Musa are cultivated for fibre and not for fruit (the Manila rope used by mountaineers was made from these).There are some four hundred varieties of banana; in India and South East Asia, the multitude of different sorts in markets may be bewildering. Not only are there varieties grown to withstand transport or for climatic reasons (some will survive several degrees of frost), but some are grown for their fine leaves, which are used to wrap food for cooking (this gives the contents a special taste) or as throw-away plates for serving food. The leaves are used as a wrapping for food in Mexico as well as India. Passing the half leaf (with the midrib removed) over a flame to warm it thoroughly will make it more flexible.
Of the bananas grown for eating, some are intended for consumption raw, while others require cooking. There are even very nasty varieties with stony black seeds, on which you can break your teeth. Small bananas are often the most tasty and sweet (one of these is called Lady’s Fingers and is not to be confused with *okra). Fat, red bananas are particularly used as offerings in Hindu ceremonies. Cooking varieties, which are often referred to as plantains (M. paradisiaca), are not sweet at all, very firm, and excellent finely sliced and fried as chips. In India, bananas are frequently curried with their skins on.
In European and North American cooking, the role of bananas is much more restricted, being limited to sweet dishes (and those chunks embedded in imitation custard for school trifle). In the Caribbean, where bananas are used much more in cooking, a great favourite on the Spanish-speaking islands is tostones, slices of green plantain, partly fried, then squashed down and fried again until crisp. They are served as a vegetable and as an appetizer with cocktails. On the French-speaking islands, plantains are called banane, while the sweet, eating varieties are known as figues and are popular in a wide range of exotic puddings, usually flavoured with rum.
Dried bananas, which are also known as banana figs, have been peeled, spread out to dry in the sun, and turned daily until they are desiccated. Treated in this simple way, the bananas may darken very much and are inclined to be attacked by insects. A more sophisticated method is to treat the peeled bananas with sulphur dioxide (from burning sulphur) for 20 minutes, or to dip them in 1% citric acid solution, before sun-drying. Even more successful is artificial drying at 54-60°C (129-140°F) for 15-20 hours, after first soaking the bananas in a 1% sodium carbonate (washing soda) solution for 15 minutes, and dipping them in a solution of 1 *Camden tablet per 100 ml (3½ fl oz) water.
Cooking varieties are also dried in a similar manner and ground to make banana flour (plantain meal, pisang starch, banana meal etc.) which is very digestible, a good invalid food, and very sustaining. (The famous African explorer, Stanley, is reputed to have used it.) Finally, part of the flower, or the heart of the flower before it opens, is used as a vegetable, as also is the central part of the stem. Banana jam, banana wine and banana-flavoured liqueurs (often reinforced with synthetic flavourings) are made, but I have yet to meet anyone who likes them.
[Banana – French: banane German: Banane Italian: banana Spanish: plátano
Plantain – French: plantain, banane des Antilles German: Wegerich Italian: piantaggine, petacciuola Spanish: llantén]
BARACKPÁLINKA. See fruit brandy.
BARBARY PEAR. See prickly pear.
BARBE. See chicory.
BARBECUE SAUCE. The word barbecue comes from the Mexican Spanish barbacoa (barbacua), which originally described the grilling of meat over a fire on bars of green wood. Today it has come to mean almost any open-air party at which meat is grilled, and equivalent to the South African braivleis. This is perhaps the most primitive method of cooking, but delicious for all that. Barbecue sauces are spread on the meat before cooking, or used for basting. Many ready-made barbecue sauces are on sale. Home-made ones are usually based on minced onion, tomato purée, paste or ketchup, sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Many such sauces are apt to add a cloying flavour to the meat, and the simplest mixture, with probably the best of all tastes, is sea salt and lemon juice.
BARBERRY (Berberis vulgaris) is a shrub that may be native in parts of England as it is over much of Europe. lt used to be cultivated for its elongated, bright red berries. They were candied, made into jellies or pickled for use as a garnish. Barberry is much less common than it was, because the discovery that it is an intermediate host of a cereal fungus, Black rust, led to its eradication in many areas.
[Barberry – French: épine-vinette German: Berberitze, Berbesbeere Italian: berbero, crespino Spanish: berberis, bérbero, agracejo, arlo]
BARCELONA NUT. See hazel nut.
BARDING. A bard was an armoured breastplate for a horse. In cooking, it is a breastplate of fat, salted fat or bacon, a thin slice of which is tied around meat or fowl to protect and moisten it during roasting. This is particularly necessary when the meat lacks its own fat; the bard also helps to keep rolled meat neatly in place.lt is usually removed when the retaining string is cut before sending to table.
BARLEY (Hordeum vulgare) was one of the first cereals to be cultivated by man and it was used even before wheat in making bread. A very hardy plant, it used to be the staple grain in many northern countries and still is in parts of the Near East. It was used in the form of unleavened barley cakes because it has insufficient gluten to be leavened like wheaten bread. The main culinary use of barley today is as pearl barley, which is the grain with the husk ground off. Barley with most but not all of the outside removed is known as pot barley.
Barley has an attractive and individual taste which goes well in soups and stews, but it is also excellent when boiled and mixed with plenty of thick cream, a taste I remember well from childhood. Most barley is used as animal feed. Much, however, goes for brewing, and for this purpose, what is most important to the farmer is its malting quality, which decides the price he gets for it (see malt).A high starch grain is superior in this respect and looks white when it is cut in half. Poor quality malting barley looks flinty, but is the more nutritious food. Barley meal is wholemeal ground barley, and can be made into a porridge or into simple barley cakes baked on a girdle. Barley water, usually flavoured with the zest of a lemon, is made by infusing pearl barley in boiling water and allowing it to get cold before straining off the liquid. (I part by volume of washed pearl barley needs to be boiled in 10 parts of water for 20 minutes.) It is a famous and very soothing drink for invalids. Patent barley is ground pearl barley. Barley sugar was originally made of lemon, barley water and sugar, now it is simply sugar boiled to crack and acidified, a sweet for children.
[Barley – French: orge German: Gerste Italian: orzo Spanish: cebada]
Pearl barley – French: orge perlée German: Perlgraupen Italian: orzo perlato Spanish: cebada perlada]
BARM. Brewer’s *yeast.
BARNACLE. Although the barnacles that are common on rocks on the seashore may look like molluscs, they are actually crustaceans. They are something like lazy shrimps which have taken to lying on their backs and kicking food into their mouths with their feet. The famous percebe, so popular in tapas bars in Spain, is the goose barnacle (Pollicipes cornucopia) found on the Atlantic coast (but not in the Mediterranean).It has a long, flexible ‘stalk’, which is the part that is eaten. Percebes are washed thoroughly, put into boiling brine – 2 teaspoons salt per lit (2 pt) of water – and cooked for 15 minutes, timed from the moment the water reboils. They are eaten cold, with or without a squeeze of lemon; the technique is to draw the stalk through your teeth and eat what squeezes out, discarding not only the hard shell but the tough skin of the stalk. They are expensive, much sought after in Spain and also eaten in South American countries. They taste a little like shrimps.
[Goose barnacle – French: pouce-pied German: Entenmuschel Spanish: percebe]
BASES. See alkalis.
BASIL or sweet basil. A very aromatic labiate plant (Ocimum basilicum) with white flowers and tender, light green leaves. Basil is extremely variable; the leaves may be small or half the size of a hand, but this herb is always recognizable by its smell, which is very scented and rather like sweet cloves. Basil is one of the most worthwhile herbs to grow at home, but it is a warm country plant, a native of India, and in temperate climates is better started in a heated glass-house. Even on the Italian Riviera, it is forced in glass-houses with a high humidity, even in the summer’s heat. That produces the most tender, delicately scented leaves. Basil is much grown in Spain and Greece, but mainly to keep flies away. Its greatest importance is in Italy, where it is the basis of the fabulous Ligurian spaghetti sauce with pine nuts, pesto alla genovese, and other delicious local specialities. It is also the basis of the French pistou, and is recommended as the best herb for tomatoes, salads and various sauces. In this context, it is sometimes used to excess.
To preserve basil for winter use, it is best to deep freeze it after dipping it quickly into boiling water. It may alternatively be preserved in the Italian way, packed in jars with each layer of leaves sprinkled with salt, and covered with oil. The jar is best kept in the refrigerator. The leaves go black, but the taste remains almost unimpaired. The same cannot be said for dried basil, which acquires a curry-like taste. Bush basil has much smaller leaves and an inferior taste.
[Basil – French: basilic German: Basilienkraut Italian: basilico Spanish: albahaca]
BASS. The word has no exact meaning and is applied to different fish in different parts of the world; cookery writers sometimes fail to specify which bass should be used. Many forms of bass are sporting anglers’ rather than cooks’ fish – for instance, the Large-mouthed black bass (Micropterus salmonoides), a fine freshwater sporting fish of up to 10 kg (22 lb) introduced from the US into Europe, will not be seen on fishmongers’ slabs. There are a great many species of American freshwater bass, which are known locally but would merely cause confusion if listed here.
The various sea bass are gastronomically more important. The Black sea bass of the US east coast (Centropristes striatus) is an important food fish, as is the Striped bass or Rockfish (Roccus saxatilis), which occurs on both sea-boards and often weighs 10 kg (22 lb) but can reach 50 kg (110 lb). But the most famous of all to gastronomes is the Common bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) under its French name of bar or loup (de mer). This is among the best of all fish, with firm, delicately-flavoured flesh and no trouble from bones. It is fished in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast of Europe as far north as the English Channel; in France, it is sufficiently valued to be the subject of fish farming in the maritime part of the Vendee. The Mediterranean name of loup (wolf) does not indicate relationship with the wolf-fish (Anarhichas lupus) of northern seas which the French call loup marin – an ugly and savage relative of the blenny, excellent eating but not to be compared with the Common bass.
Although always costly, Common bass are most plentiful from January to May and in September and October. They should be handled with care as they bruise easily. Gut them through the gills and by a small incision in the belly. Do not scale them if they are to be poached. If they must be scaled, do so gently to avoid tearing the skin.
Closely related to sea bass are the groupers, of which there are many species, some of them reaching an enormous size. We used to catch 250 kg (550 lb) monsters with shark-hook and rope in the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia, but only for crocodile bait, as the flesh was far too tough to be palatable. However, the Mediterranean grouper or mérou (Epinephelus guaza), often shot in caves by spear fishermen, is delicious. Though it does not go outside warm waters, it is sometimes imported into Britain.
[Bass – French: bar, loup (de mer) German: Seebarsch Italian: spigola, branzino Spanish: lubzna, róbalo
Grouper – French: mérou Italian: cernia Spanish: mero]
BASSWOOD. See lime.
BASTING. The main purpose of basting is to prevent the surface of food from drying out during cooking, as when basting meat while it roasts and becomes hard.lt may also be a method of coating surfaces with flavouring substances or juices, as when basting foods with a marinade.
[Basting – French: arroser German: begiessen Italian: spruzzare Spanish: pringar]
BATAVIA ENDIVE. See chicory.
BATH CHAP. A chap is the fleshy part of the jaw – the jowl – and a Bath chap consists of half the lower jaw meat of a pig, salt-cured, boiled, boned and rolled into the shape of a miniature ham. Bath chaps are usually served cold, cut in slices, but sometimes are eaten hot. Being fatty, they are best when combined with other cold meats. They must be taken from a lean, long-snouted breed of pig. Although they are usually bought ready cooked, Bath chaps can be prepared at home.
Bath Chap
Take the lower jaw of a pig and split it into two. Salt the halves for 3 days in *brine. lf chaps are bought ready salted, soak them in 600 ml (1 pt) water, skin side downwards, overnight. Simmer them gently for 3-4 hours, depending on size. Remove the skin and bones, trim the meat and tie it up in a bandage, thus setting it into a nice shape as it cools. Then remove the bandage and cover the Bath chap with toasted breadcrumbs.