by Tom Stobart
SNOWY MESPILUS. See rowan.
SOAKING. In cooking, foods are often soaked to remove salt, to soften them, or to reconstitute dried products. Important considerations are to make sure that the soaking liquid gets to all parts, and to maintain the correct temperature, remembering that chemical and physical actions are in general speeded up by warmth, but the same warmth also increases the activity of micro-organisms that cause spoilage. Soaking does not necessarily imply the softening of tissues; that is *maceration.
SOBA. See noodles.
SODIUM HYDROXIDE. See caustic soda.
SODA may mean *caustic soda, *washing soda or *bicarbonate of soda (baking soda).
SODA WATER was originally a medicinal alkaline water made by dissolving small amounts of *bicarbonate of soda in water. Today, it is water containing dissolved *carbon dioxide, which has been forced in under pressure and consequently comes out again in bubbles when the pressure is released. Some brands are made slightly alkaline with soda. Soda water can also be made at home with one of the various gadgets on the market that use small capsules or cylinders of compressed carbon dioxide.
Producing soda water at home used to be rather more laborious, as is shown by the instructions offered by Cassell’s New Dictionary of Cookery (1904). ‘Sodiac powders: Take 5 drachms of citric or tartaric acid, pound it fine and divide it into twelve parts, folding each in a white paper. Take 6 drachms of carbonate of soda, pound it fine and fold it in [twelve] blue papers. Half fill two half-pint tumblers with water, stir into one a powder from the white paper, in the other one from the blue; when the powders are quite dissolved pour one to the other, and perfect soda-water will be instantaneously produced in its utmost perfection.’ The same article describes the gazogene, ‘a portable apparatus for aerating water’, in which the chemical process took place in one compartment and the liquid to be aerated went into another joined to the first by a tube. ‘By means of the gazogene, water, wine, ale etc. may in a few minutes be rendered brisk and piquant by means of carbonic acid.’
[Soda Water – French: eau de Seltz, soda German: Sodawasser, Selterswasser Italian: aequo di seltz, aequo gassosa Spanish: agua de seltz, aguo de soda]
SODIUM BICARBONATE. See bicarbonate of soda.
SODIUM CARBONATE. See washing soda.
SODIUM NITRATE. See saltpetre.
SOFT WATER. *Water with little dissolved mineral content, which in hard water is made up of calcium salts; it is sometimes slightly acid. Water from moorland and boggy mountain areas is usually soft.
SOJA. See soya bean.
SOLE. See flatfish.
SOLUBILITY. See saturated solution.
SOMEN. See noodles.
SONCOYA. See custard apple.
SORB. See rowan.
SORBIC ACID. See preservatives.
SORGHUM. See millet and sorghum.
SORREL. There are several species of sorrel, which belong to the same genus as dock plants. When cultivated, they look something like spinach. The three native European species are sorrel (Rumex acetosa), Round-leaved sorrel (R. scutatus) and sheep sorrel (R. acetosella). R. scutatus has been introduced in a few places in Britain; the other two species are common natives in Britain and North America. The cultivated forms are derived mainly from R. acetosa. As its acid-tasting leaves contain oxalic acid, it is not advisable to eat it in large quantities, particularly in salads, to which it can nevertheless be a delicious addition. As a sour and refreshing basis for soups, purées and sauces, as a flavouring herb in omelettes and as a stuffing ingredient for fish, sorrel is unbeatable. It is surprising that it is now relatively little known in Britain and America. However, this was not always so. Greensauce, made with pounded sorrel, vinegar (or lemon-juice) and sugar, was a popular accompaniment to meat and poultry until the 18th century, and the practice still survives, at least in parts of Yorkshire. Indeed, greensauce was the dialect name for sorrel in many parts of England; other names were sour dock and sour grass. An allied plant, Herb Patience (R. patientia), is eaten like spinach.
[Sorrel – French: oseille German: Sauerampfer Italian: sauro Spanish: acedera]
SOUR CREAM is a delicious ingredient of Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Rumanian and German cooking, and is becoming popular in Britain and the US, where it can now be bought easily. Yoghurt cannot be used in place of sour cream, as it is less rich in fat and different in taste. If sour cream is not available, it can be made from fresh cream kept at 30°C (86°F) or thereabouts, but only if a starter such as cottage cheese is added. Pasteurized cream may merely go bad and taste very nasty. A little yoghurt or some sour milk may also be used as a starter. Otherwise, it is better to make imitation sour cream by adding lemon juice or a drop or two of vinegar (not enough to recognize) and then stirring. It will thicken rapidly. The sourness will, of course, be due to citric and not lactic acid .The drop of vinegar (and it must really be very little) is not essential, but soured cream does naturally contain a tiny amount of acetic acid.
*Smetana in Russia is a mixture of sour and sweet cream.
[Sour cream – French: crème aigre German: sauere Sahne Italian: panna fermentata Spanish: jocoque]
SOURDOUGH is a natural leavener used as a ‘starter’ for bread -the result is sourdough bread. To make sourdough starter mix 1 cup each of flour and water with a dessertspoonful of sugar, and leave it in a warm place for 3 days to ferment. The bread is subsequently made by using a mixture of this sourdough starter and yeast.
That is a sophisticated modern version. Originally, sourdough was indeed just sour dough. A piece of a previous batch of bread dough was kept moistened with water as a starter- it contained yeasts as well as acid-producing bacteria acids that stopped the dough from going bad. It could also be mixed with water and fed with sugar and more flour to keep it going. Prospectors in the Alaska Gold Rush got the name sourdoughs because they kept a pot of the starter going and took it with them up country. Exactly the same thing happens today in Australia where the cattle drovers and remote farms use ‘hops’. Sourdough is an old country technique of bread-making that was very widely used in the days when yeast could not be so easily bought. Today, with dried yeasts, it is not necessary to use sourdough any more, but many people like the taste, especially in rye breads. In the US, it is possible to buy ready made sourdough starters, which make quite good sourdough bread. San Francisco is renowned for its sourdough French bread, which owes its particular taste to a particular strain of bacterium that is unique to the city. The bread is at its best when made just with sourdough starter and no added yeast.
[Sourdough – French: levain German: Sauerteig Italian: lievito naturale Spanish: levadura]
SOURING AGENTS are acid substances and are very important in cooking. Today, the usual ones used in Europe and America are lemon juice and vinegar, both of which are easily added and usually ready to hand. Yoghurt, sour milk, and butter milk are other useful sour products. Sour and unripe fruits (such as sour apples or sour grapes), and the *verjuice which can be squeezed from them, are other possibilities. So also are sour *pomegranate seeds, dried *mango powder (amchur), *tamarind, roselle (which is a *mallow), *sorrel, wood sorrel and *rhubarb. The use of different souring agents, because of their flavour overtones, can make very interesting and subtle changes in salads and other dishes.
SOUR MILK has many uses, provided it has gone properly sour and is not evil-tasting or bitter, as will be the case if the milk has been pasteurized, which prevents the preservative lactic acid from developing. As virtually all milk is now pasteurized, it is safer to use cultured buttermilk whenever sour milk is called for in recipes. In British cooking, sour milk is typically used in scones, but it can with advantage be used in mashed potatoes, soups and gravies or be allowed to curdle thoroughly for making cottage cheese. Unpasteurized milk and cream can be soured by the addition of yoghurt, cottage cheese or any other soft cheese and holding them at 25-30°C (77-86°F).
[Sour milk – French: lait caillé, lait aigre German: Sauermilch Italian:
latte acido Spanish: angola]
SOUR MILK PRODUCTS. Milk of all kinds contains *lactose which can be fermented by many species of bacteria with the formation of lactic acid (sometimes yeasts also ferment it to alcohol). During the souring, other substances are produced in the milk- creamy flavours, buttery flavours, fruity and vinegary flavours (acetic acid) – and these are important. They dictate the type and quality of the finished product. The bacterial activity also causes the coagulation of the milk- the formation of curd. This may be firm or watery, ropy or slimy. Some bacteria attack fats and proteins; they may result in bitter, rancid, fishy and putrid flavours. (Prolonged action of micro-organisms has other effects, which lie more in the sphere of*cheese-making.)
In making sour milk products, it is important to keep a few general principles in mind. Everything should be clean – preferably sterilized by boiling and nothing should be left uncovered for long; you do not want the milk to be contaminated with lots of the extraneous organisms which are always in the air. The culture you use to start your sour milk product may be bought specially, or it may be a pot of yoghurt, sour cream or buttermilk from the supermarket (as long as it is not sterilized), or it may be part of the last brew kept back specially as a starter. Remember that in all cases it will be a mixture of organisms, not a pure culture, and that the control you have over it is exercised via the temperature at which you incubate it, which is critical. It is best to buy a thermometer reading from 0-100°C.The quantity of starter you use is important. For several reasons it affects the relative numbers of organisms, and so the end product. Too much starter often causes over-sourness. Electric yoghurt makers are not necessary, though they can be convenient; people made sour-milk products long before electricity was heard of. A saucepan, a suitably-sized stone-ware jar and a means of keeping the jar warm (an expanded polystyrene box, keep cool picnic bag, tea cosy, muff, lined box or even blanket) are all that you really need.
Milk can be from cow, goat, sheep, buffalo, reindeer, camel or mare. Some milks, like mare’s, contain more sugar than others and are suitable for alcoholic fermentation. There are dozens of different variants on the theme of sour milk or cream, but they seem all to have originated with the ancient tribes of Central Asia. Yoghurt, for instance, reached the Middle East via Persia. It was known as ‘Persian milk’ in 13th-century Arabia. Sour milk products are now well known in northern Europe (the Lapps use reindeer milk): there are local sour milks such as the Finnish piima or viili and Scandinavian ropy sour milk, called rangmjolk or täte, which is slightly alcoholic and may be clabbered and flavoured with butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris),that insectivorous plant of northern bogs. North Russian sour milk is prostokvash, which is soured at 30°C (85°F).A very hot day will do it, and the same temperature is used to make *sour cream in Russia, Hungary and Central Europe generally.
*Yoghurt (variously spelled) is by repute the sour milk product of Bulgaria and Turkey, but is made in local ways in the Middle East and through Iran to India. In Persian, it is called mast and from it comes mazoon in Armenia and matsoni in Georgia in the USSR, as well as masturad in Sicily. It is Ieben in Egypt and the rest of North Africa, and laban in Syria and Lebanon. Almost the same product is called dahi in India, where the best is made from buffalo milk. In the Balkans, the most delicious yoghurt is made from sheep’s milk, sometimes from goat’s milk; cow’s milk yoghurt, which is the commonest further west, is considered as inferior. Yoghurt is a hot-country product and uses thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria which grow best at 40-45°C (104-113°F).It plays an important role in the cooking of the Middle East and India, and is mixed with sweetened or well-salted cold water and flavourings to make wonderful hotweather drinks (doogh, ayran or lassi).
Of the more exotic products, acidophilous milk has become a new health fad and is readily available. This is a culture of Lactobacillus acidophilus, a common inhabitant of the human gut, which, unlike the yoghurt bacterium (Lactobacillus bulgaricus), can survive inside the human digestive tract but will continue to grow only if it is given milk or milk sugar to feed on. Acidophilous milk is much used in Russian sanitoria, but its flavour is not as good as that of yoghurt. The Russians also have *kéfir made from cow’s milk and *koumiss from mare’s milk, which are both alcoholic, as is *kyrynga, which is made in Central Asia. Another Asian sour milk product, chal, is made from camel’s milk.
SOUR SOP. See custard apple.
SOUTHERN LOBSTER. See langouste.
SOYA BEAN, soybean, or soja bean. Surely one of the most depressing statements ever made is that the world could support a population of sixteen thousand million people if everyone ate soya beans instead of meat. An acre of these beans can keep a moderately active man alive (but not necessarily contented) for 2,200 days, while the same acre could keep him for only 75 days if he lived on beef. The soya bean is the richest natural vegetable food known to man – and one of the dullest, a typical example of the perverse sense of humour of the Creator, who never seems to make anything without snags. Why should the soya bean not have been delicious as well as full of oil (18-22% in the dried beans) and protein (35%), not to mention carbohydrate? We read of special varieties of soya with a delectable taste – there are over a thousand known varieties – and seeds that are black, chocolate, brown, reddish, greenish or yellow, but they never seem to reach the shops. No wonder, then, that they were not taken seriously outside the Orient until research was able to show their outstanding food value.
The plant (Glycine max) is a legume from eastern Asia and has been in cultivation in China for thousands of years, the first written mention being in The Heavenly Farmer by Emperor Sheng-Nung in 2838 BC. Confucius fans will like to know that he called it shu.The first news of the soya came to Europe when the German botanist, Engelbert Kaenfer, came back from a visit to Japan in 1692. The beans were grown in Kew in 1790. Later still, the American expedition to Japan led by Commodore N.C. Perry in 1854 brought back two varieties (Japan pea and Japan bean), but still nobody, it seems, liked them.
It was not until the 20th century that scientific research revealed the great nutritive wealth hidden in the seed. Today, the US produces more even than China, indeed a third of the total world soya output – one of the most important changes in agricultural economy that have occurred this century. It is not grown in more northern latitudes as the climate is too cold for it. It looks like a typical bean, but it has not been much eaten in Europe and America because it can have a peculiarly gelatinous texture which some people do not like. lt is also very inferior in flavour when compared, for instance, to Lima or kidney beans. Perhaps it is its oiliness which prevents it marrying well with other flavours, such as tomato sauce. More often it is used in the form of a flour (sometimes treated to remove any bitterness) to pad other foods; most people who were around in Britain during World War II will remember with as much horror as gratitude those traumatic ‘pork soya links’. Unlike most other flours, soya flour is high in protein and low in carbohydrate. lt is often used by bread bakers as a dough improver. Soya beans can be *sprouted and used in the same way as mung bean sprouts, but they have a much more beany flavour and are not nice raw- they need steaming to make them palatable.
Soya oil, possibly the world’s most important vegetable oil and the basis for margarine, is used as a cooking oil and is cheap, but it is one of the least attractive of all the vegetable oils. However, from soya beans come a whole range of other products. The beans can be mixed with cereal and fermented to make *soy sauce. They can be made into a milk which, with certain additives, can be used to feed babies, and the milk can be used to make approximations to vegetable yoghurt and vegetable cheese, as well as the soya bean curd that is known as tofu in Japan, but is of Chinese origin. The Chinese even dry the curd skin, and it is commonly sold in Chinese shops. Finally, of the Oriental products there is miso from Japan, an ingredient made of soya beans and cereal grains fermented with water and salt for use in soups and sauces; its residue, tamari, the liquid that rises to the top durin
g fermentation is probably the inspiration for *soy sauce. There are various types of miso, which will be specified in Japanese recipes. Miso dissolves in water, if it is used in soups, they should boil after it has been added.
With modern Western technology, we enter a new field, the field of the soya-protein isolate. The simple form is sold in the form of granules or grits, and is used – as was the earlier soya flour – for adding to manufactured foods, sausages, mince, savoury pies, etc. (In most countries, it has to be mentioned on the label.) More sophisticated food technology has produced Textured Vegetable Protein – *TVP – a fibrous substance which can be formed into fake chicken, steak, ham, and bacon. lt has been forecast that TVP will become to meat what margarine has become to butter. Textured and flavoured soya is also used in sweets, where it stands in for coconut.
Tofu
Mix 1 cup of soya bean powder with 4 cups of water and let it soak for half an hour, giving it an occasional stir. Then put the mixture on the heat and bring it to the boil, stirring all the time. As soon as it boils, lower the heat to simmer for 5 minutes. Then turn off the heat and add 4 tablespoons of lemon juice. Stir until the protein begins to curdle. Finally, after giving it time to curdle properly, tip the curd into a clean cloth and hang it up to drain, as if you were making cottage cheese. When it has drained, the tofu should be a compact curd, white and with very little taste. It can be preserved under water in the refrigerator for several days.
Recipes for using tofu will be found in Japanese cookery books, and sometimes in health food or vegetarian books. Like the Indian *panir, which is made from milk, it has almost no taste of its own, but is nice cubed, fried golden and mixed with other things. It makes a very good curry treated in the Indian way, as for curried panir and peas.