by Tom Stobart
CAYENNE PEPPER. See chilli.
CELERIAC. See celery.
CELERY (Apium graveolens) is a strong-smelling umbellifer that grows wild through much of the temperate world. The cultivated variety (var. dulce) is grown as both a herb and a vegetable. As a herb, it has thinnish green stems; bundles, complete with leaves, are sold as a flavouring in European markets. It is much used in soups and tends to be rather bitter. Varieties selected for use as a vegetable have thick stems and a good heart. Some types are earthed up to make the stems white; others are self blanching. While green celery stems are generally bitter, there are also varieties which are green and sweet. Celery is eaten raw in crudités, with cheese or chopped in mixed salads, and it may be braised as a wonderful vegetable.
Turnip-rooted celery or celeriac (var. rapaceum) is a variety selected for its bulbous root. The skin is very fibrous and is covered with roots, so needs to be peeled deeply. Celeriac can be cooked – it is excellent in a purée with potato – but it is more often shredded and, either raw or lightly cooked, marinated in mustardy French dressing for a few hours to make a favourite hors d’oeuvre.
Celery seed is commonly used as a flavouring, but is rather bitter. When combined with salt, it makes celery salt, a popular flavouring with eggs.
[Celery – French: céleri German: Sellerie Italian: sedona Spanish: apio.
Celeriac – French: céleri-rave German: Knollensellerie Italian: sedano-rapa Spanish: apionabo]
CELERY CABBAGE. See Chinese cabbage.
CELSIUS. In 1742, Anders Celsius, a Swedish astronomer, described a scale for *temperature measurement which took the melting point of ice (or freezing point of water) as 0° and the boiling point of water as 100°. Measurements on this scale are known as degrees Celsius or centigrade (either way, °C).Apart from the convenience of having two easy-to-check reference points (although the boiling point of water varies with the atmospheric pressure), the Celsius scale became linked with the metric system in scientific definitions and, as a result, the Fahrenheit scale is gradually becoming obsolete. To convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, multiply by 9, divide by 5 and add 32. To convert Fahrenheit to centigrade, subtract 32 then multiply by 5 and divide by 9.
CENTIGRADE. See Celsius.
CÈPE or cep (Boletus edulis) is the most delicious member of a largely edible genus of fungi which are characterized by having tubes rather than gills under their caps. The cèpe has a brownish cap and a pale brown, usually very swollen stalk. It is found particularly in beech woods. It keeps its flavour better than any other fungus in drying or prolonged cooking. The Italians produce large quantities of sliced and dried cèpes, which they call funghi porcini (See mushrooms.)
CEPHALOPODS. The most advanced molluscs, including the *squid, *cuttlefish and *octopus. They are all marine and range over every ocean. Their common characteristic is that they have arms with suckers which surround the mouth, a beak like a parrot (but with the larger half below) and well developed eyes, which give them a savage, baleful glare. They all have ink sacs. A further characteristic, which has had an influence on cooks, is that their gills and internal organs are all contained in a hollow, muscular sac called the mantle (which the animals fill with water and contract to jet themselves backwards). It just asks to be filled with stuffing. Although these animals are much eaten in southern Europe and were relished by the Romans, who spread so many gastronomic habits about, they have never become popular in Britain or indeed in North America, except among people of Spanish, Italian or Greek stock. The Japanese probably eat more cephalopods than any other nation: about a fifth of their seafood consumption (including shellfish and seaweeds) is cephalopod.
CERAMIC GLAZES. Most ceramics, particularly *earthenware, are to some extent porous. Except where the porousness does not matter (as in flower pots) or is actually an advantage (as in old-fashioned milk coolers), pots are normally given an impermeable surface by firing them with a glaze. The reason that glazes are of concern to the cook is that they come into direct contact with food and drink but can contain such poisonous elements as selenium, chromium, cadmium, antimony and – commonest of all – *lead.
Glazes consist of substances that fuse together during firing to form, in effect, a glass. Lead oxides are excellent fluxes which work at relatively low temperatures to produce a fine, shiny surface. Unfortunately, glazes with a high lead content, especially if they have been fired at low temperatures, may have some of their lead still in a form that is soluble in weak acids. The danger here is not immediate lead poisoning, but something rather more insidious: lead is a cumulative poison. Improved techniques have made modern glazes almost entirely safe, and in Britain, the US and many other countries, there are strict regulations about the soluble lead content of glazes.
It is the interesting peasant pots, notably the low fired ones which can be used on a naked flame, that must be treated with some care. They should be reserved for braising and frying, which is what they are intended for, and for which they are perfectly safe. On the other hand, sour fruit, vinegar, wine and cider should not be left standing in them as the acid content will attack under-fired lead glazes – brewing and storing drinks in lead-glazed vessels used to cause many cases of poisoning.
Salt glaze is highly resistant to acids and was once used for pipes to carry chemicals. It is commonly used on *stoneware, producing a semi-matt, orange peel surface texture. Salt-glazed vessels are ideal, among other things, for brewing.
CERASELLA. See liqueurs and cordials.
CEREALS (from Ceres, the Roman name for the Greek goddess of the corn, Demeter) include any sort of grain derived from a grass. From the Old World come *wheat, *barley, *oats, *rye, *rice and *millets of many kinds; *buckwheat, though not from a grass, is usually included as a cereal crop. In the New World, only *maize was known to the civilizations before Columbus.
[Cereals – French: céreales German: Getreide Italian: cereali Spanish: cereales]
CERIMAN. See Monstera.
CERVELAS may once, from its name, have been made with brain. The English saveloy is descended from the same word in Old French. French cervelas is normally a rather short sausage made of pork and usually flavoured with garlic. It is usually slightly dried and is eaten hot after being poached in water. One variety is saucisson (-cervelas) de Paris.
CERVELAT is a large German sausage of minced pork and beef, usually smoked. It is a rather different item from the French *cervelas and is sliced and eaten cold. It can be rather like a very mild, fine textured salame.
CEVICHE or SEVICHE is a South American way of preparing white fish by marinating the fish in lime or lemon juice (or a mixture of both); the action of the acid in the juices ‘cooks’ the fish. The juice is poured over thin, raw pieces of very fresh white fish and is seasoned with a little salt and rather more pepper (or chillies) according to how piquant it is to be. Thinly sliced onions and finely chopped garlic are added, and the fish marinates in the juices for several hours; it will become opaque, like ordinary cooked fish. Ceviche is served with slices of tomato, sweet peppers, sections of hard-boiled egg, sweet corn, etc.
See caveach.
CHALK or calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Calcium carbonate is a white, odourless and tasteless substance, insoluble in plain water but soluble in acids. It dissolves in water which contains carbon dioxide, forming calcium bicarbonate, a reaction which is reversed by heating – hence the chalky scale which is deposited in kettles and hot-water pipes in places with hard water. Impure forms of calcium carbonate occur naturally as chalk, marble or limestone. Pure chalk (such as precipitated chalk, drop chalk, whiting or English whites) is sometimes used in the kitchen. In Britain, a pure form is compulsorily added to white flour. Chalk can be used to neutralize acids (such as fruit acids and acids used for hydrolysis) and forms a calcium salt of the acid concerned (e.g. calcium chloride, calcium citrate).
[Chalk – French: craie German: Kreide Italian: creta Spanish: creta]
CHAMOMILE. See camomile.
CH
ANNA, chana, Bengal gram or gram. A small Indian variety of *chick pea, and the most common pulse food of the masses there. Millions of tons are grown, making up more than half of the total pulse production of India. The *dal made from it is yellow, somewhat oval and rather larger than other dals. (A split pea, with which it is most easily confused, is round.) Much of the crop is roasted or parched, and some is ground into *besan flour. Channa is nutritious and easily digested, but does not have an exceptional flavour.
CHANTERELLE or girolle (Cantharellus cibarius) is a fungus of deciduous woodlands. It is distinguished by its funnel shape and the fact that it is not just apricot yellow in colour but smells of apricots as well. Fried in butter with onion or garlic and parsley, it is one of the very best of wild fungi. In The Mushroom Feast (Grub Street), Jane Grigson points out that chanterelles are always slightly chewy; they are toughened by overcooking. They can be bought dried or canned. (See mushrooms).
CHAR. See trout.
CHARCUTERIE. Literally and mainly the products of the pork butcher, the charcutier – hams, sausages, terrines, galantines, crépinettes, gayettes, boulettes, pies, boudins – or the shop itself. The charcutiers in France were first formed into a body by royal edict in 1476, a measure to protect the public from fraud and from bad meat. At that time, they were allowed to sell only cooked pork and raw pork fat, but not to slaughter the animals themselves. At the beginning of the 17th century, they gained the right to sell uncooked pork as well. From these beginnings has developed the French charcuterie of today, where sausages made of veal and terrines of game may be found in addition to the pork products. In English, the word charcuterie embraces all these things. Readers are referred to Jane Grigson’s Charcuterie & French Pork Cookery (Grub Street) for full information and recipes.
CHARD. See beet.
CHARQUI or jerked beef. The American equivalent of *biltong: beef cut in strips and sun-dried.
CHASOBA. See noodles.
CHAYOTE, custard marrow, pepinello, choko or vegetable pear (Sechium edule) is a squash from tropical America; it was a food of the Aztecs and the Mayas. The fruits, borne on a trailing vine, are irregularly ridged, pear-shaped, and often covered with prickly hairs. The colour varies from creamy white to dark green. In Mexico, three main types are grown – the small and light green, the cream, and the large, spiny dark green variety – of which the last is reckoned to be superior. Chayotes have begun to gain commercial importance in recent years. They need a warm climate and grow well in the southern states of the US, in Australia, and in Italy, Spain, Algeria and other Mediterranean countries. The fruit, the size of a large pear, contains one big seed. The flesh is firm, and the taste delicate. We usually peel the fruits, slice them thinly, dip them in batter and fry them.
This is a most useful plant because the shoots, when young, can be boiled and served like asparagus, the leaves can be eaten as greens, and the huge tuberous roots, which can weigh 10 kg (22 lb), are similar to yams in appearance and use. The chayote is a vigorous and heavy-yielding plant, growing in all sorts of conditions when asked to; no doubt it will be increasingly popular as it becomes better known.
CHEESE was an early discovery in the Old World the Sumerians are known to have made it 6000 years ago – but it was never discovered by the American civilizations, perhaps because they lacked sheep, oxen and horses. The story of David and Goliath begins with David being sent by his father, Jesse, to take parched grain and bread to his brothers, who were camped with the army confronting the Philistines. At the same time, he was charged to deliver ‘ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand’. We may speculate on what those cheeses were like. Possibly they resembled the Bedouin igt, which sounds like an exclamation of disgust, but is actually a sort of cheese made by boiling down sour curds until they are almost dry, then mixing the paste with desert herbs.
The ancient Greeks made cheese, and Aristotle wrote about it; the Romans were also cheese makers, and Virgil wrote about it. Indeed, the Romans were quite sophisticated about cheese and used it in cooking, perhaps starting the passion that Italians have for it to this day. Romans made a number of different types of cheese which were sold in the velabrum, the dairy market in Rome, and no doubt also in Britain, since the Roman soldiers carried cheese on the march whenever they were lucky enough to get it. Large Roman houses of the period had cheese rooms where the cheese was made, and other rooms for storage and maturation. Smoked cheese was also popular, larger towns had centres where the populace could take their home-made cheeses to be smoked. Some of the cheeses known today have been made for centuries. Gorgonzola, for instance, has been made since before AD 879. Italy remained the cheese-making centre of the world until after the Renaissance, but has now been overtaken by France, which heads the world, at least in the number of different cheeses and the interest taken in them. Italy still makes more use of cheese in cooking than any other country, and it sometimes seems that Italians put grated Parmesan, just for luck, into everything.
Cheese depends for its existence on a property of milk that the protein in it will coagulate and form a curd of casein when it is treated with acids, rennets, certain plant extracts or alum. It depends for its incomparable array of tastes on the combined effects of rennet and of the bacteria and (for some types of cheese) the moulds which attack it and cause chemical changes of unbelievable complexity, processes not understood until recently. During the last 100 years, cheese-making has gradually moved from the farmhouse to the factory, and a complicated technology has grown up around it. This need not intimidate the amateur cheese-maker. The technology is necessary to turn out thousands of uniform, average cheeses, without waste or failure, but the amateur, filled with enthusiasm, may make some bad cheeses, but with some basic knowledge and care, has the chance of making some splendid ones.
The simplest cheese is exemplified by ordinary soft or cottage cheese, in which milk curdled by natural souring is hung in a cloth to drain. Although the curd is acid and mixed with salt, the cheese is very moist and so will not keep well. An even more elementary cheese is the Indian *panir, which is almost tasteless and has a rubbery texture but can be cut into cubes, fried and made into curry (usually in combination with fresh peas). Similar cheeses are made in many countries (e.g. requeson in Spain); they may be eaten with quince paste (membrillo) or used in cakes.
For what we might call ‘real’ cheese, milk is soured to develop acidity and the curd is ripened with the help of bacteria and sometimes moulds. If milk is pasteurized (and usually also when it is not), the souring bacteria are added as a starter culture. This contains the correct proportions of organisms needed for the cheese being made. A cheese is to be looked on as a developing community. If the rind is thick, it may be almost a closed community, but in a small cheese, such as a Camembert, the centre is ripened by enzymes diffusing in from aerobic moulds which need oxygen and thus grow on the surface. When first made, the young cheese is acid, but later bacteria which feed on the acid come into prominence, and the cheese becomes sweeter. At the same time, organisms attack and break down the casein. These protein-splitting organisms make the curd into a digestible substance which melts when heated. Concurrently, certain compounds are formed which give flavour. In cheeses such as Emmentaler, special bacteria form gas which cannot escape and so make ‘eyes’.
The important thing to realize is that a cheese contains living organisms; the various operations of the cheese-maker are intended to guide its evolution. Development is influenced by temperature, since there is an optimum temperature for each type of micro-organism. It is influenced in surface mould types by the humidity of the air, which controls the drying of the rind on which the moulds are growing. Some types are washed with beer or wine, or treated by scraping, oiling and so on. Size and shape determine whether or not enzymes produced by organisms in the rind can diffuse to the middle. Major factors in the ripening are the amount of moisture in the curd and the quantity of salt.
At each stage in making a cheese, there are a large n
umber of choices, and many combinations of factors are possible, which is why there are some thousand named cheeses, with more being constantly invented.
The milk. In theory, cheese can be made from any sort of milk, but in practice, cows, goats, sheep and water buffalos are the most usual sources, although perhaps some of the earliest ‘cheese’ was made from ass’s milk or mare’s milk. The composition of the milk from different animals varies considerably in the amounts of protein, sugar and fat. Cow’s milk usually contains some 4% of butter fat, but the fat level can be adjusted to anything from skimmed milk to thick cream and used as a basis for cheese. Since the cow is now the most common source of milk, it is used in many cases to make types of cheese that were once made from the milk of sheep or goats. While the cheeses are roughly the same, they lack the flavour of the original, since the fat of sheep’s milk and that of goat’s milk are different from cow-milk fat. A Mozzarella made from buffalo’s milk, as it was originally, no doubt tastes richer than a modern cow’s-milk version.
The composition and flavour of milk also depend on the time of year and the sort of pasture on which the animals have grazed. An animal fed artificially in winter and one fed on grass leys or a summer Alpine pasture full of flowers cannot be expected to produce the same milk
Pasteurization. All factory and much farmhouse cheese is now made from pasteurized milk. This makes sure that any disease organisms are destroyed, and enables the cheese-maker to start with a more or less clean slate, although the milk is not sterile. To sterilize milk, it would have to be heated to boiling point at least, and this would make the calcium salts insoluble. Since soluble calcium and some acidity are necessary for rennet to act, cheese cannot be made from boiled milk in the usual way. Even pasteurization destroys some of the enzymes which are present in raw milk and so influences the final result.
The starter. Carefully devised cultures or starters are now always used to introduce the right types of micro-organism in the right proportion. This removes some of the chance factors. The starter is added when the milk is warm and contains special souring organisms, because the first consideration is to develop acidity. This is necessary for good curd formation by the rennet. The acidity and the rennet act together to shrink the curd, to promote drainage, to prevent the growth of putrefying organisms, to encourage the matting of the curd and to affect its elasticity.