STILL HUNGRY?

A friend related to me that some time ago she and her man travelled to visit her sister (and her man), the sister being on a so-called "macrobiotic diet". But the food at the sister's was so meager and so unsatisfying that my friend (and her man) were compelled to drop into a fish and chip shop on the drive home to fill up on greasy potato and low-grade shark. She laughed. "We were famished!" she said. The only cure was a good dose of comforting junk food.

Similarly, another acquaintance reported to me recently that when she (and her man) were "into macrobiotics" years ago they were "always hungry" - the food just wasn't sufficiently satisfying. "All we could think about was food," she complained. Their "macrobiotic diet" left them feeling under fed.

 My response to such accounts is simply that, if macrobiotic food leaves you feeling hungry then you are doing it all wrong. For a start - as I insist in other posts - macrobiotics is not a "diet" - unless you are on some therapeutic regime because you are sick. Rather, it is a cuisine, and like any cuisine you should eat enough of it to feel satisfied. The idea that macrobiotics is some sort of starvation diet is wrong, although there are people who impose it upon themselves in this sort of way. Macrobiotics is, properly speaking, a mode of cuisine, an approach to food (and much more!) and you should eat your fill. If not, you're doing it wrong.

How much is a "fill"? That depends on numerous factors. There are no general prescriptions. Again, macrobiotics is not a "diet" in that way. It is an art form. There are guidelines but no set rules. One such guideline is that you should eat what you need. If you don't, then you will be left hungry. This is bad in all sorts of ways, not least because you are then likely to binge on junk food. How much do you need? It depends on your build, your metabolism, your occupation, your age, your climate - dozens of variables. The whole idea of macrobiotics is not to follow some "diet" but to develop sound judgment and a knowledge of your own true needs.

That, certainly, is my advice. Eat what you need. You should not feel deprived. Go ahead - have another bowl of soup or an extra serving of brown rice. Don't leave the table until you've had enough. At the same time, of course, be careful not to over eat - but don't ignore the dangers of under eating. It's no good if, like John and Yoko, you raid the refrigerator to gnaw on chicken drumsticks in the middle of the night. Meals should be planned and organised such that people are well fed and satisfied according to their needs.

One point to bear in mind, perhaps, is that the 'standard' macrobiotic meal is very Japanese inspired, yet Western people generally are bigger boned and fuller framed than the relatively petite Japanese. Europeans tend to need larger portions. This is quite natural, and meals should be adjusted accordingly. Don't under feed yourself or your guests. Macrobiotic cuisine is supposed to be a joy and a celebration, not a punishment. Eat as much as you like. It is all good and wholesome. Don't over eat or gormandize, but don't leave yourself empty either.

If you are sick and come to macrobiotics as a food cure then that is different. You may need to be on some controlled "diet" with particular foods in particular quantities. But for healthy people cuisine macrobiotique is a feast - the feast of the good earth - and you should feel satisfied and reenergized after every meal and not need to go looking for more. This is very important if you want to change your eating habits for the better long term. To avoid lapsing into bad habits and binges, don't under eat. Serve yourself - and your guests - generous portions such that no one goes wanting.

OHSAWA ON SUGAR

CARROT WAKAME SALAD

A carrot and wakame salad. Happily, carrots have been prolific in the garden this year and so have appeared in salads and all sorts of other dishes. This is a simple salad. Carrot and wakame make a very good combination. Reconstitute the dried wakame with boiling water. Let it sit for half an hour. Cool and wash under cold running water. Then combine with grated carrot and finely cut carrot tops. That is, use the whole carrot, tops and all. Use a combination of sesame oil and brown rice vinegar as a dressing, or some other suitable dressing, and top with a good sprinkling of gemasio, i.e. roasted sesame seeds ground together with sea salt.

Wakame is commonly referred to as sea lettuce. It is one of my favourite seaweeds. It is an excellent basis for summer salads.

MACROBIOTIC STOCKS

The father of modern European cuisine, Auguste Escoffier, began his Le Guide Culinaire with a codification of sauces and stocks - the bedrock of French haute cuisine. Stocks are foundational. This is true in cuisine macrobiotique as well. Stocks are the basis of most dishes and the key to flavour. A wise chef begins here. The first thing to do is to create a basic repertoire of stocks around which everything else is constructed. In macrobiotics, of course, whole grains are the true foundation of everything, and so stocks are relatively less important than they are in the meat-based cookery that Escoffier codified, but it remains true that making stocks is a primary activity for the macrobiotic chef - it is the groundwork for everything else.

In conventional cookery we have beef stock, fish stock, chicken stock, and so on. Animal based. As you'd expect, macrobiotics is different in that it is based upon a range of (mainly but not exclusively) vegetable based stocks. Here, for the record, is a repertoire of the main ones. Learn to make these:

THREE FAMILY BROTH

A vegetable broth using the three main family of vegetables, the celery family, the cabbage family and the onion family.

GINGER BROTH

A broth with intense ginger flavour.

KOMBU BROTH

A subtle clear broth prepared from kombu seaweed (kelp).

MUSHROOM BROTH

The strong flavours of dried shiitake mushrooms.

SPRING ONION BROTH

Essence of spring onions.

VEGETABLE BROTH

A general all-purpose vegie broth from mixed vegetables and kitchen scraps. Similar to, but more ragged than, three family broth. Endless variations.

DASHI

The classic Japanese fish broth using kombu and benito shavings noted for its smokey flavours.

These are the main ones. There are others. I personally include a light chicken stock among them, and a seafood stock prepared from the heads and pieces of prawns etc. I prepare all of these - except dashi - in a pressure cooker. The pressure cooker produces the fullest and deepest flavours - an essential item of equipment in a macrobiotic kitchen, in my opinion. Acquire and learn how to use a pressure cooker.

All of these broths can be enjoyed on their own or, more commonly, with the addition of miso of which there are many different varieties. Miso soup is foundational in itself; it is part of most well-prepared macrobiotic meals, except perhaps in the heat of summer. But miso is not a broth in itself. It is added to one or other of these broths to make a basic soup which usually functions as an entrée.

Otherwise, one of the most common uses of these broths is as a liquid base for whole grains. Typically, for example, we have precooked brown rice, or millet, or some other grain. It is reheated, ready to eat, in a pan with the addition of a small quantity of stock in which other ingredients, such as vegetables and leafy greens, are simmered as well.

There is the temptation to meld all of these different broths and stocks into one common product. The key to success is to keep them quite distinct. Don't go adding ginger to the spring onion broth, for example. Make the spring onion broth most decidedly onion-y. Make the ginger broth gingery. In any cuisine the chef should labour to create a distinct spectrum of flavours - this is also the case in macrobiotics.

All of these stocks are seasoned with a quality sea salt. As well, I like to add ground black pepper to the all-purpose vegetable stock. This helps to differentiate it from the others. It is more peppery with more complex flavours.

JOHN DOWNES - NATURAL TUCKER BREAD BOOK

Wandering through a secondhand store the other day I picked up an unscuffed copy of John Downes' Natural Tucker Bread Book for the grand sum of $1. What a bargain. This is the third copy of this culinary classic I have owned - I gave the other two away to people who I thought needed them more than I did.

I really had no idea about home baking until I read this book. Downes initiated the sourdough revolution in Australia sometime in the late 1970s. For some time he ran various bakeries and introduced wholegrain sourdough bread to the Australian public - a great achievement. I remain a great fan of Mr Downes. With macrobiotics as his inspiration, he has been a true pioneer in wholefoods in Australia and singlehandedly changed the landscape of Australian cuisine.

It is only a short book. 128 pages. But it is packed with recipes, instructions and advice all replete with the author's undoubted expertise and wide experience. Throughout he is guided by an unerring commitment to classical authenticity and the best of traditions. A sure sign of his expertise is his endorsement of Demeter Brand biodynamic products in Australia. It is remarkable how many wholefood "experts" I come across who do not know the difference between biodynamic quality produce and produce that is merely 'organic'. I take it as a tell-tale sign as to whether someone really knows their stuff or not. Downes clearly does. Australian grown BD flour and wholewheat is a superior product for dedicated home bakers.

This is a great book. Although written long ago it remains the best introduction to homebaking in this country. But its value is not limited to Australia. Anyone anywhere who is interested in genuine bread baking should have a copy of this classic.

Here's the basic leaven instructions from page 40:

INGREDIENTS

2 cups good quality wholewheat flour
3 cups water

METHOD

Mix flour and water into a medium batter. No lumps.

Place in a glassware bowl and cover with a cotton cloth.

Leave for two to five days until bubbles appear and the batter is obviously active.

Mix this with the same quantity of flour and water and let ferment again.

The leaven is now ready to use.

Store in the refrigerator.

Catch a wild yeast. Simplicity.

QUALITY SALT

Salt is a lot more than sodium chloride. If it was just sodium chloride then there would be nothing to choose between different brands. I have encountered this point of view often. People will scoff at the idea that one brand of salt might be better than another and say, "Bah! It's all just sodium chloride anyway!" 

This might be true of standard commercial salt to some degree. Most of them are industrial grade sodium chloride packaged along with free flowing agents, anti-caking agents and other adulterants most of which are by-products of the aluminium industry. Such cooking and table salts are very harsh on the tongue and are indeed essentially industrial chemicals. But in nature there are many different salts and sodium chloride is only one constituent in them. Almost always, sodium chloride is found in combination with a wide range of other mineral salts, and consequently different combinations have different tastes and different properties. Good chefs know their salt. Quality cookery deserves quality salt. The industrial grade stuff won't do. 

The best general purpose salt I've found is macrobiotic sea salt. Locally it is available under the Lotus Brand label. (See picture above.) This is a high grade sea salt that has a complex flavour on the tongue. By analysis it contains magnesium, iron, potassium, calcium and other trace minerals as well as sodium chloride. It is an unrefined sea salt that has been extracted from sea water by the natural processes of sun and wind. The drying process is gentle and leaves about 5% moisture by weight in the finished product. It has no additives whatsoever: no flowing agents or other chemicals. It is slightly grey in colour. It hasn't been bleached. This is always a good sign in salt. Avoid salts that are stark white.

What about pink salts and others? Much depends on where it comes from. Very often novelty salts are just scams carrying a high price. The popular pink salt comes from salt mines in Pakistan and is not really worth the money. It is attractive but it is 99% sodium chloride and is coloured pink by iron oxide. You should certainly question anything labelled "organic" salt! But there are local salts in various locations that may be worth trying.

It is important to learn how to use salt. Many chefs don't know how to do it - they throw in huge handfuls of poor quality cooking salt into just about everything they cook. Salt is used to cover a multitude of sins. Conversely, many health-conscious or science type of people fear it and regard it as a demon based on simple-minded science thinking. In perspective, salt is the most ancient, most traditional and most universal of all flavouring agents in human food - using it properly is a lost art in our times. It is especially important in grain-based diets because it makes our wholegrains more digestible, as well as acting as a catalyst for flavours. It renders food more alkaline. The traditional Japanese diet is high-sodium and yet the Japanese are among the longest lived and healthiest people on earth. Macrobiotics is generally regarded as high-sodium cuisine, but it is undoubtedly healthy, especially regarding cardio-vascular health.

It is impossible to make generalisations regarding salt. Meat eaters generally eat too much common salt - refined from inland deposits - to compensate for high meat consumption. This type of salting is no doubt very injurious to health. Moreover, adding salt at the table, rather than in cooking, has a very different outcome - it is always best to add salt to food during cooking because of the transformations that occur at higher temperatures. Covering food with salt at the table is no doubt a bad business. Then there is context. Salt is best taken, in most contexts, combined with sea vegetable (kelp) or sesame seed (gemasio). It is an art. I will add more posts about salts and using salt in the future.

KALE TEMPURA

A successful tempura experiment. I have, at present, several very healthy and prolific plants of kale growing. My son grows it in abundance somewhat south of here, so I don't usually grow very much. But this year, this spring, I decided to put in some kale in amongst some zucchini plants. As it happens, they have grown very well and keep on putting out. The challenge then becomes what to do with all the fresh kale.

These days, of course, it is a much celebrated leafy vegetable that finds its way into almost everything in the belief that it is some sort of super vegetable. Chefs and home cooks everywhere seem to think it is now necessary to put kale into every dish they make. This is not a bad thing, but I think we should drawn the line at the kale smoothie - the latest in many silly health fads.

The great thing about kale - and the reason for its great health benefits - is that it is relatively close to wild cabbage - i.e. it still contains much of that 'Origin' principle of which Alan Chadwick spoke. It is close to the wild plant and has not been over-bred. In terms of cultivation it seems to respond very well to deep, double-dug beds, liberal quantities of compost and a generous sprinkling of blood and bone. Here it is growing in my summer garden:

Anyway, I experimented with kale tempura. It worked very well. Dip the whole leaf into batter and deep fry. This was a one part white flour/two parts wholemeal flour batter with a dash of sea salt. The batter moves into the many fine crinkles of the leaf and the over-all effect - as numerous people commented when I served them - was like fillet of fish.

I have tried tempura-ing green leafy vegetables before, with varying success. Kale works especially well. A recommended way to add kale to the menu. Serve with a little soy sauce.