by Tom Stobart
MARSHMALLOW is an ingredient in American cooking. The original marshmallow sweet or pâte de guimauve, though, was a thick decoction of the roots of the marshmallow plant, sweetened with sugar and flavoured with orange flower water. The Marshmallow (Althaea officinalis), which is native to most of Europe and was used as a vegetable in Roman times, is a downy-looking, greyish-white plant with pink flowers, a member of the *mallow family. It was boiled and eaten as a vegetable in the eastern counties of Britain until fairly recent times; a syrup made from it was a remedy for coughs. The modern marshmallow no longer contains the mucilage from the mallow root. It is a spongy sweet made from gum arabic, white of egg, sugar, orange flower water and pure water. Other recipes replace the orange flower water by vanilla or fruit flavour.
Marshmallows
Dissolve 50 g (2 oz) of gum arabic in 150 ml (¼ pt) of water, strain it and put into a clean pan with 1½ teaspoons of sugar. Heat, stirring continuously until the sugar has dissolved, then boil until it reaches the firm ball stage (when a bit dropped into cold water forms a sturdy but pliable ball). Have ready the stiffly beaten whites of two small eggs. Flavour the sugar and gum mixture with orange flower water and work in the egg whites. Spread in a layer – as thick as the marshmallows are to be – on a bed of cornflour, cover the layer with coating of cornflour and leave to set till next day. Disinter and cut the layer in pieces. If they are to be used in recipes, marshmallows are most easily cut up with wet scissors.
[Marshmallow – French: guimauve, bonbon à Ia guimauve German: Lederzucker Italian: altea, bismalva Spanish: malvavisco]
MARZIPAN or marchpane might have got its name from panis martius (March bread), a confection of almonds made even in Roman times as an offering to the gods, but the derivation is dubious. There are many recipes. Essentially, marzipan consists of pounded blanched almonds and sugar, but egg white, whole egg, and gum arabic are often added, together with various flavourings. Decorative flowers and fruits may be modelled from it, and sometimes it is lightly baked. Here is a simple recipe from Italy:
Marzipan
Pound 500 g (18 oz) of blanched almonds to a paste with 2 eggs and 450 g (1 lb) sugar. Work in a little vanilla and the grated zest of 2 tangerines. Roll into small fruit shapes, sugar the outsides and bake at a low temperature for 20 minutes on a floured baking sheet.
[Marzipan – French: massepain German: Marzipan Italian: marzapane Spanish: mazapán]
MASA. A Spanish word for dough, especially the hulled maize dough used in Mexico for making tortillas, tamales and enchiladas. A modern dried version is sold in America as masa harina, instant masa, tortilla or tamale flour. It is made by first simmering maize in *limewater until the skin begins to flake off – for each 1 kg (2¼ lb) of maize, use 2 It (3½ pt) of water and 60 g or about 2 oz of slaked lime. The skins are rubbed off and what remains is washed white in fresh water. This is called nixtamal, which is pounded to a flour in a stone mortar (metate), slapped into a paste from which the tortillas are shaped, and baked on a terracotta girdle called a comal. Though nixtamal is not identical to *hominy, it makes a good substitute.
MASH. See black gram.
MASOOR or masur. See lentil.
MASTIC is a resin from various bushes of the genus Pistacia (to which the pistachio nut belongs). The best known is the lentisk (Pistacia lentiscus), a straggly bush with red berries, one of the most common plants of dry Mediterranean hillsides. When slashed, it produces a clear, gummy substance, sticky like pure resin and with a strange aromatic smell. This, and the gum from other species, is used for flavouring some dishes in Greece and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, in Turkish delight – rahat lokum – and for the Greek liqueur, mastika.
[Mastic – French: mastic German: Mastix Italian: mastice, lentischio Spanish: almáciga, mastice, lentisco]
MATÉ, Paraguay tea, yerba maté, or yerba. Maté is, after tea and coffee, the most important hot, stimulating drink, with the possible exception of cocoa. Although not much used in other parts of the world, it is the most common drink over much of South America, having been adopted by the colonists from the Indians who used it in pre-Columbian times. The plant is a species of holly (llex paraguayensis), and other species (l. gongonha and l. theezans) are also used in parts of South America for the same purpose. People have even used the leaves of holly (l.aquifolium) in Europe during wartime, and roasted the berries, which are emetic when raw, for coffee.
Maté leaves are oval or lance shaped, with rather toothed edges. The branches are first dried over a fire. The leaves are then beaten off with sticks, dried in ovens and finally powdered. Maté makes a greenish-coloured tea, slightly bitter and refreshing, when boiling water is poured over it. (There are darker double-baked versions for export.)
Methods of making and serving vary, but the traditional vessel is a gourd (the maté), which is passed round, and the tea is sucked through a hollow tube or bombilla which has a perforated bulb at the end to act as a strainer and may be made of silver, brass or straw, according to the wealth of the person. Maté is often drunk with lemon and sugar, sometimes with burnt sugar. Though it is a universal drink in South America, it is not popular in North America and is hardly known in Europe, although some drink it in the mistaken belief that it is caffeine or theine free, which it is not. Maté is a stimulant, but has less tannin than tea.
MATIE or Matjeshering. See herring.
MATJESSILL. See herring.
MATSUTAKE. See mushrooms.
MATZO. A thin, unleavened Jewish bread made of flour and water only. Although used by orthodox Jews, especially during Passover, it has recently become popular as a biscuit, in place of water biscuits, which it somewhat resembles. It is also available ground as the matzo meal of Jewish cooking. This meal comes in two degrees of fineness: medium, which has about the consistency of burghul and is used, for example, for breading foods to be fried and in matzo balls (knaidlach), and fine, which is called for in potato dishes, to bind gefüIIte fish and in Passover cakes. It can also be used to thicken soups, as it sometimes is in southern Spain.
MAYONNAISE is an emulsion of oil and vinegar stabilized with egg yolk. There are many theories about the origin of its name. 1) That it originated in Mahon (in Minorca and in sailing days regarded as the finest port in the Mediterranean) or may have been given the name by the Duc de Richelieu after he defeated the British there in 1756. 2) That it was named after Napoleon’s Irish General MacMahon by the General’s chef. 3) That it was derived from the French magnonaise (manier, to stir). 4) From the old French moyeu (yolk). 5) After the town of Bayonne in the Basses-Pyrénées – i.e., it was originally bayonnaise.
Whatever the origin of the French name, it is not likely that the sauce itself was created suddenly by an 18th-century chef, and if you see crowds of Catalans making ali-oli at a communal picnic (using the special glazed earthenware or china mortars they have for the purpose), you get the feeling that mayonnaise was invented south of the Pyrénées and worked northwards into France. Some old people in Spain say that ali-oli is correctly made with oil and garlic alone, without any egg yolk at all, and although it is rather difficult to make an emulsion hold without the egg, alioli means ‘garlic and oil’ as also does aioli. It seems most likely that mayonnaise was invented by peasants near the Mediterranean where the olive grows.
For some reason, mayonnaise has a reputation for being difficult to make. l remember asking a young chef, who was on his way to work at La Réserve, the famous restaurant at Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the Côte d’Azur, what job a beginner was given and was surprised when he said, ‘making the mayonnaise’. When I asked ‘Isn’t that supposed to be difficult?’ he answered, ‘Yes, but it’s easy when you start with 20 egg yolks. He had put his finger on the point. With 20 yolks, a beginner could afford to be careless in adding and working in the first few drops of oil, but with one or two yolks one cannot. (I do not know why it is that once the mayonnaise emulsion is started one can afford to be progressively generous with the additions
of oil, but it is so.) Mayonnaise may also be difficult to make in very cold winter weather, and certainly neither eggs nor oil should have come straight out of the refrigerator. They should preferably both be at room temperature. A little vinegar or lemon juice should also be added to acidify the yolks before any oil is added. Powdered mustard contains an emulsifying agent and is also a help, though not everyone approves of its use. There are many opinions as to the type of oil and the type of souring agent that should be used in mayonnaise – lemon juice, spirit vinegar and so on. Some oils emulsify more easily than others, but poor olive oil, and maize oil, give a nasty taste.
An old lady in Majorca, known to my family as ‘Madame at the shop’ showed me how to make mayonnaise in the local way. It involved beating with a rotary whisk until I dropped. This makes a fluffy mayonnaise. Those who use mayonnaise regularly become opinionated and with practice become so adept that... well, I used to make mayonnaise in 60 seconds with a thing like a Horlicks Mixer – a perforated plunger in a cylinder. The oil floated on top and it required a delicate hand to mix in the first few drops, but when the mayonnaise began to thicken – one could feel it – the stroke could be increased. However, if anyone spoke while I was making it, the mayonnaise would curdle, so now I use an electric gadget which is foolproof, but takes more washing up. To make aioli quickly, liquidize the garlic with oil first. Since (with practice) making mayonnaise is so easy, it horrifies me that many families prefer the sort bought in jars from the supermarket. The chefs employed by the manufacturers are experts at the art of flavouring, and add essential oils – such as rue – in minute and unrecognizable amounts to beguile the palate. Other permitted additives include spices, sugar, milk and milk products, mustard, edible gums and edible starch. The creaminess of commercial products may be obtained at home by beating a teaspoon of water into each 300 ml (½ pt) of mayonnaise.
MEAT is not an essential part of the human diet; the Japanese used to get along very well on fish. But for human beings, complete vegetarianism, in the sense of eating no animal product at all, is risky. A diet without even milk or eggs, results in a likelihood of vitamin B12 deficiency and consequently of anaemia or of nervous disorders. Especially in the rich countries of the West, far more meat is eaten than is necessary for health, because once people have acquired the meat habit, they find a diet containing little meat rather boring.
The ox and the ass were the first animals to be domesticated, but not for food; they were the beasts of burden for ancient Middle Eastern civilizations. Sheep and goats provided milk and clothing, and were sometimes eaten, though usually in connection with a sacrifice or festival. Day-to-day meat consisted of game, when it could be hunted. Later, the horse came down into the Mediterranean from Central Asia, and it was after this that the camel was domesticated. These animals were for the work of ploughing, pulling carts and carrying loads, and for riding – during several periods it was a serious matter, punishable even by death, to kill an ox or a horse for food.
Meat now effectively means the flesh of ox, sheep and pig, while camels, reindeer, horses, goats and even llamas are local foods; other animals are categorized as game, even if they are kept by man and no longer wild.
To begin with, methods of butchering were no doubt primitive. I am not talking about cutting the animal’s throat with a prayer, but about chopping it into joints. Even 25 years ago, village butchers in Spain more or less hacked sheep to pieces with an axe. It paid to reach the market early, because the butcher sold all the lumps, whether bone or meat, at the same price. Rather more knowledge was displayed in cutting up pigs at the autumn slaughter, when the hams, sausages and bacon were prepared for winter. There were professional pork butchers in ancient Rome, using equipment and cuts strikingly similar to modern ones. The way in which animals are cut up has evolved gradually, and is different in each country and even from area to area. And it is still constantly changing, because public demand does. Stock breeders produce smaller or leaner animals to satisfy fashion, but ultimately it falls on the butcher to market the meat in forms that suit his public. At the same time, he must cut with economy to make a living. With all the variations, simple translation from one language or country to another is impossible; cuts are rarely equivalent.
Suppose that many people have some idea of the cuts of meat in their own country; it is when they try to reproduce foreign dishes, as is the fashion now, that they are in trouble. lf they happen to be within range of a butcher who caters for French or Italian clients, then there is no problem. Some of the great food stores, like Harrods in London, employ butchers who can cut in the styles of several countries. But without such resources, cooks must turn to those puzzle pages, where British, American and French cuts are compared. Here, the impression is given that butchers cut the carcase up in straight lines with a band-saw (as they do these days in freezer centres). You should not take these diagrams too literally. They show only the general area from which the cuts are made, and are more to make the names meaningful than to be taken as serious indications.
Butchery depends on anatomy, and the cuts can be defined in anatomical terms. Travellers do best, I think, to forget what they did at home, and to accept the local cuts at face value. Only a few dishes, such as ossobuco, owe their existence to a special cut, and cannot be made with an approximation. While some parts of an animal are generally accepted to be better than others, a bad cut from a good animal is better than a good cut from a bad one. As for the quality of meat, whatever you may read, you finally have to rely on finding a good butcher. He alone knows the history of the animal. Butchers vary in the trouble they take to prepare the meat properly, and in the neatness with which they do it. (In France, bad butchers scarcely make a living.) Although it may cost a little more to buy meat in which the fascia and gristle have been carefully trimmed off, it is worth it.
The cook needs a good general idea of the anatomy of the three meat animals, and of the different types of tissue. You can get an idea of mammalian anatomy by looking in the bathroom mirror. Human and meat – animal general plans are similar. The neck, the shoulder blades, the ribs, which are attached to the back at one end and the breastbone at the other, are obvious. Below the ribs and down to the pelvic girdle is the loin (with the fillet lying underneath it), while in front is the belly, which is thin walled and – in the bathroom mirror view – preferably not too obvious. Finally, there is the pelvic bone and the hips, with the legs (the hind legs of a meat animal) and the large muscles of the thigh and buttocks.
Meat, red meat or butcher’s meat, is muscle. All red muscles have a fibrous structure, with the fibres running lengthwise. The more work the muscle has to do, the tougher and more fibrous it has to become. Muscles are often spindle shaped, fatter in the middle and with the ends attached by tendons to the bones they move. These splay out into the ends of the muscles and are built into them to take the strain. Therefore, the middle of a muscle is usually the tenderest part. In general, the muscles of the fore part of the animal are coarser and tougher than those of the hind part. The tenderest muscle is the fillet, but it is not the one with the best flavour.
Muscles are enclosed in fascia, tough elastic bags or sheaths which hold them in shape and allow one muscle to move on another. Fascia, tendons and connective tissue, form the gristle, which is rich in jellying substances, but needs long cooking to make it tender. The cartilage, which lines the bone joints, and the fibrous bursas and capsules, which hold the joints together, are also full of jellying substances. So are the skin and hooves. Pork rind gives *zampone its lusciousness. Knuckles and feet are used for aspics and jellies. Bones contain marrow, a fatty and tasty soft substance, and are either hollow tubes, like the thigh bone, or are filled with spongy bone for strengthening purposes, like the pelvic girdle or hip bone. The glandular organs – liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, etc – have no fibrous structure, but may be enclosed in tough, protective sacs and have mesenteries from which they hang in the body cavity and ducts or tubes of tough material
which may have to be removed by dissection. Stomach (tripe) and intestines are glandular, muscular and tough. They need long cooking. Heart is muscle tissue of a special sort, which is tough, because hearts work hard; they contain valves which need cutting out. Lungs, which tend to disappear from sight in Britain and the US, are tough, elastic and full of air, they need special cooking. Nerve tissue, like brain and spinal cord, is soft, even when coagulated by strong heat which would toughen other tissues. Fat, which is deposited particularly around the internal organs (e.g. *suet), varies in quality from one part of the body to another and is much influenced by the animal’s feeding.