Like A Candle In The Wind

 

 By Alli Sinclair

Growing up in a country that is part of the Commonwealth, it was normal for me to see photos and hear stories about English monarchs. But when I walked through the doors of a tea house in Gaiman, Argentina, I hadn’t expected the Princess of Wales would be staring straight back at me.

Set in Argentina’s Patagonia region, Gaiman is home to the descendents of Welsh immigrants who arrived on these windswept plains in 1865. Back then, the Welsh were looking for a way to protect their lifestyle that had become endangered by the English. The Argentine government wanted to promote immigration to Argentina and offered the Welsh 100 square miles of land along the Chubut River in southern Patagonia. In exchange, the Welsh made a deal that the Argentines would respect their language, religion, and traditions. Who knew that years later, the Argentines would have their own issues with the English when it came to the Falkland Islands (or las Islas Malvinas, as the Argentines call it)?

The settlers arrived on a converted tea-clipper and found they had been given false promises. The supposed fertile land was arid, and little food was available. Floods washed away their crops and hampered construction of towns. The Argentine government introduced conscription and insisted the Welsh men drill on Sundays, even though it went against the Christian principles of the settlers. A wide rift grew between the Welsh and the Argentine government, but it wasn’t enough to stop more Welshmen from travelling to Argentina over the next 50 years. By the time immigration stopped just before World War I, approximately 2,300 Welsh had arrived.

As I strolled through the streets of Gaiman back in 2000, it was difficult to remember this was an Argentine town. The concrete block buildings found in Argentine suburbia weren’t common in this quaint town. Instead, Gaiman’s streets were lined with weatherboard houses with white shutters, lush gardens were in full bloom, and the air sagged with the scent of roses. Tea houses surrounded the settlement and Welsh tea, accompanied by pastries, cakes, and other delectable delights were on the menu.

In a hallway of the Ty Te Caerdydd tea house, Princess Diana of Wales is honored at a shrine of sorts. A large photo of the former princess in royal regalia is framed by bunches of roses and the original tea set she drank from when she visited the establishment sits under her picture. The day Diana visited, a children’s choir sang in Welsh, and she shook the hands of each child. She drank tea and ate pastries and when she left, despite being forbidden to accept flowers for security reasons (!!), she took a red rose from a bouquet.

On the 31^st of August every year, the anniversary of her death, the Welsh descendants gather to pay their respects to the Princess of the People. The Argentine Welsh have an undying love for an English woman, which is ironic, given they once had such contempt for the English. Maybe their adoration for Diana was a result of her charm, or perhaps it was because she appeared to be a thorn in the side of the “real” royals.

The Eisteddfod, a Welsh tradition, is held every year and plays an important role in Patagonian heritage. Choir singing, poetry, and dancing competitions are held during the Eisteddfod, and keep the Welsh tradition alive. The water channels the Welsh built were Argentina’s first man-made irrigation system and are now used all over the country. It is one of the reasons Argentina has thrived in the farming arena for so many years.

I’ve often wondered why my connection to Argentina has always been strong. When I discovered my own Welsh heritage and its connection to Argentina, everything fell into place. No wonder this invisible umbilical cord that attaches me to Argentina feels like it could never be severed.

How about you? Have you ever travelled somewhere and realized the bond with the place is because of your ancestry?

An Ancestral Gold Rush

By Edith McClintock

Addiction came on fast and strong this week. It started with the arrival on Saturday of my great uncle John S. McClintock’s 1939 book, Pioneer Days in the Black Hills. I’d known vaguely of his history: he’d joined the gold rush of 1876 in the South Dakota Black Hills, settled in Deadwood, and run a stagecoach line for twenty-five years.

But I didn’t know my uncle wrote a book until last month, or that my mom had an original copy. She mailed it to me and I dug in immediately, indulging in his first-hand tales of Wild Bill Hickok (“a man killer”) and Calamity Jane (drunk, kind, and wildly untruthful), stage-coach holdups, Indian scalpings (yes, bad, I know), gold mining, land grabs, confidence games, and corrupt and immoral city leaders. Pretty much what you’d expect of Deadwood in the late 1800s.

The book was fun, but it also stirred my appetite, which is where the trouble began. On Sunday morning, I logged onto Ancestry.com for a 14-day free trial, and have barely come up for air in days. I’d tried Ancestry.com about five years ago and found it a hard slog. But since then, my relatives have been quite industrious (as befits our Puritan heritage), starting with my Uncle Wayne who was kind enough to trace the McClintock line back to another John McClintock who arrived in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s, on back to Northern Ireland in the 1600s, then Scotland in the 1500s, where that line stops. For now.

The McClintocks, however, became irrelevant when I hit my own gold vein of sorts, this one spewing King Roberts of Scotland. I was so swamped with earls and kings and princesses, my arrogance turned heady. Until it turned complicated. Contested, in fact. My Virginia Alexanders were usurpers, fraudsters possibly, despite being American pre-revolutionary "aristocracy". George Washington was not enough for them. They wanted a king of Scotland. Or five. An emperor. Charlemagne himself. Embarrassed, I deleted the line.

Charlemagne, aka Charles the Great,
King of the Franks, Imperator Augustus,
and Holy Roman Emperor

But I didn’t like Charlemagne being ripped from my blood. My DNA screamed in protest. Plus, I’d notified my sister of our exalted status and she was already dialing Duchess Catherine to schedule drinks at Buckingham Palace. There had to be a way back to the crème de la 1% of history. In my denial, I went so far as to read the source material, to see if those naysayers (aka Wikipedia) could possibly be wrong. Instead it grew worse - my connection to the exalted Virginia Alexanders disappeared completely.

Could it be that my ancestor George Alexander was important for nothing more than accusing poor Mary Randall of witchcraft in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1691? Was that what my illustrious heritage had come to? Not even a Salem witch trial? Mary didn’t even get staked, just spent some time in jail, although I did get excited at the thought of a cursed bloodline. I decided if I couldn’t have a European emperor, it would have to be Jamestown or the Mayflower. American royalty. I had standards now, and I’d find those ancestors.

And so I set upon my quest to trace every direct line of my family (excluding my probably peasant relatives that hadn’t yet been documented by distant cousins and would involve actual research work). Line after line, branch upon branch, I crawled back with a click of my mouse, finding founding fathers of Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and even North Carolina (and yes, a few slave owners, sorry).

But it wasn’t until the bottom of my tree, the family of my maternal great-grandmother – the Parks of Farmington, Missouri – that I hit a new vein. It spread across Virginia: Puritans, Jamestown settlers, a colonial governor, a founder of the Virginia Company. A veritable panoply of Revolutionary Patriots (as I will henceforth refer to my family). But even better, a connection to the House of Plantagenet and all those King Henry’s of England though the Waller family who arrived with William the Conqueror and fought at the Battle of Hastings. Not fool’s gold this time. I’m quite sure. Charlemagne all the way.

So there you have it. My golden heritage. The hardest part will be deciding what coat of arms to nail above my bed. And if it’s all wrong, blame my fifth cousins thrice removed for their poor research and ancestral avarice, because they did all of the work. And although I’m not done, I have to stop. I have to stop. I will stop. Before I find out none of it’s true.

For my Uncle Wayne, who passed away recently. He had the fever.

For more, visit my author website and/or personal blog, A Wandering Tale. Even better, order a copy of Monkey Love & Murder on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the Book Depository (free shipping nearly anywhere in the world).

Learning to Cook in Farsi

By Heidi Noroozy

My introduction to Persian cooking came in the form of a cookbook called The Food of Life by Najmieh Batmanglij. If you’ve ever browsed the Middle Eastern shelves in the cookbook section of a well stocked bookstore, you’ve probably seen this volume. It’s a classic, filled not only with recipes but also cultural details about wedding and holiday traditions, even poems and folk tales. My Iranian-born husband brought The Food of Life home one day when he was feeling particularly homesick for the flavors and textures of his native cuisine. In preparing these recipes, I learned a whole new vocabulary: polo (rice pilaf), khoresh (a meat and vegetable stew served over rice), tadigh (the crispy crust at the bottom of the rice pot).

At first, I was baffled by the unusual combinations. Green beans and lamb mixed with rice and served with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon, a spice I’d previously associated with dessert; pastries and puddings scented with rosewater, saffron, or cardamom; stews packed with what seemed like an entire herb garden, in which the meat was the seasoning not the main event. This cuisine was like nothing I’d encountered before, and yet it thoroughly intrigued me. I tried out dish after dish. The best I can say about those early efforts is that the meals were edible.

Later, when I visited Iran for the first time and met my husband’s extended family, my culinary horizons burst wide open. I learned another culinary term: cadbanoo, an honorary title that literally means “the village chieftain’s wife” and is bestowed upon a woman of remarkable culinary skill.

Photo by Fabien Dany
(www.fabiendany.com)

My mother-in-law reigns as the queen of cadbanoos in the Noroozy family, due in large part to her instinct for the right combination of herbs. Her signature dish is koofteh Tabrizi: large globes of ground lamb, rice, yellow peas, and five different herbs (parsley, chives, savory, tarragon, and dill), with a dried plum (aloo), raisins (keeshmeesh), and caramelized onions (piaz dagh) at the center. These fragrant balls are braised in a tomato/saffron sauce and served with bread, yogurt, and pickles (torshi). Biting into a koofteh fills your mouth with layer upon layer of flavor and texture, from the knobby grains of rice and pungent herbs on the outside to the juicy, sweet fruit in the middle. Like the rest of Persian culture, where nothing is simple or straightforward, the cuisine is mysteriously complex.

I’ve also learned some wonderful tips from my sister-in-law, another family cadbanoo. One of her specialties is tah cheen, a dish whose name means “layered from the bottom of the pot.” It is a “sandwich” with chicken, eggplant, almonds, and dried barberries packed between two crusts of rice. Tah cheen is the perfect dish for a party, a feast for both the tastebuds and the eye.

Persian food is meant to feed a crowd. It’s almost impossible to prepare a recipe in small quantities and have the dish taste right. Even a laden table feels oddly incomplete unless it’s covered with three different kinds of rice dishes, several meat and vegetable stews, a mixed salad, a platter of sabzi khordan (mixed fresh herbs), and bowls of yogurt, olives, and pickles. Of course, you also need a horde of guests to eat it all.

Here’s the recipe for my sister-in-law’s version of tah cheen. Give it a try and let me know how it turns out.

Filling:

2 chicken breasts or 4 thighs, on the bone, skins removed

1 cup water or broth

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

pinch ground saffron

2-3 Italian eggplants, peeled and sliced lengthwise

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

Salt to taste

Place the chicken and half the onions in a pot, add the water or broth, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cook over medium-low for 30 to 40 minutes until tender. Remove the chicken from the pot, debone, cut into chunks, and return to the pot with the tomato paste, some salt, and saffron. Add more water if necessary. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Sauté the rest of the onions and bell peppers separately with a bit of salt and set aside. Fry the eggplant slices until soft.

Rice:

3 cups rice

1 cup yogurt

4 egg yolks

4 tablespoons oil or melted butter

1 teaspoon ground saffron in 3-4 tablespoons hot water

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup dried red barberries (zereshk), soaked for a few minutes in water to remove grit

2 tablespoons each slivered pistachios and almonds

Bring eight cups of water to boil in a large pot. Add the rice and cook until al dente, about ten minutes. Drain and rinse with cool water (makes the rice fluffy).

Beat egg yolks, mix in yogurt, oil or butter, saffron water, and season with salt and pepper. Add rice and mix carefully until blended, being sure not to break up the rice kernels (or you’ll end up with mush).

Layer half the rice mixture in the bottom of a greased oven-proof glass baking dish. Arrange eggplants, chicken chunks and peppers/onions on top. Sprinkle barberries, pistachios, and almonds over filling. Layer the rest of the rice on top.

Cover dish with tin foil and seal edges well to keep steam from escaping. Bake for 45 minutes to one hour at 375 degrees until the bottom crust is crispy and golden. Place the plan in cold water for a few minutes to loosen the crust and turn out onto a serving dish.

Garnish with more barberries and nuts, if desired.

Noosheh jaan! Enjoy!

Remembering Rosemary

By Patricia Winton

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.... Ophelia in Othello

I first encountered rosemary in a little red, white, and blue metal container. It didn’t—and doesn’t still—sit on my mother’s spice rack. When I opened my own kitchen, I began widening my culinary horizons, and rosemary became an early experiment. I hate to admit it, but I produced the worst meatballs ever to be consumed by humankind, and my enthusiasm for rosemary cooled considerably…until I first came to Italy and encountered it fresh.

I visited my friends John and Enzo in the village of Riparbella, not far from the Etruscan town of Volterra. Enzo prepared roast chicken by sticking slivers of garlic into the flesh, placing more garlic, half a lemon, and a large sprig of rosemary in the body cavity, and coating the skin with olive oil. He placed it in a large baking dish surrounded by quartered potatoes. These were coated with more olive oil and anointed with additional garlic and rosemary. My reaction to this dish was akin to Julia Child’s introduction to sole meuniére, her first meal in France. I’ve been a fan of fresh rosemary since. Variations of this dish still dominate the Italian dining table for Sunday lunch.

Rosemary, common throughout the Mediterranean, has long been an integral part of the culinary scene on the Italian peninsula. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Etruscans used rosemary to flavor their fish and meat as early as 700-300 BC. The Italian word rosemarino comes from the Latin ros marinus, meaning “dew of the sea.” The Romans spread the plant to England during their occupation, although it needs protection from the cold in that climate, and Italians took it with them to the Americas when they emigrated there.

When I returned to the US after that first experience here, I grew rosemary myself. It can survive outdoors in the Washington, DC, area, where I lived, and rosemary graced my community garden for ten years. When I left the garden, I transplanted it (with the owner’s permission) to an area behind the building where I lived. It was an enormous plant by this time, and I had to rent a car to transport it. It thrived that summer, and when winter came, I gathered sprigs to hang in my kitchen, but I always clipped a fresh bit for cooking. Imagine my horror the following spring when I went out to gather rosemary to find the gardener had hacked it down. More than ten years later, I still get an empty feeling when I think about it.

Here in Rome, I have rosemary in a pot on my fifth-floor terrace. I still haven’t gotten the knack for growing it in a container. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to like Rome’s summer sun, which is intense. But come autumn and winter, it will thrive again just in time for all those winter stews, roast chickens, and legs of lamb that I’ll enjoy.

This is my last essay on Novel Adventurers. Beginning today, I will be posting weekly on Italian Intrigues.