Wizard Recipes

PERHAPS it’s the weather, the twitter of springtime. But the approach of Easter has never inspired cooks to stay in the kitchen and light the oven with the fervor that accompanies the Christmas holiday season.

Decorating eggs and buying chocolate ones, not baking rafts of cookies and soaking dense fruitcakes, are what Easter is about.

Even in Italy, the country with perhaps the richest and most varied Easter baking traditions, some of the pies and savory pizza rusticas are meant for a picnic, the Easter Monday outing. And these specialties are often purchased in bakeries, not made at home

Fabio Trabocchi, the chef at Fiamma, who is from Osimo, a town in the region of the Marche in central Italy, recalled that as a child, he and his sister would go to the bakery to pick out the pizza al formaggio, a kind of rich, eggy cheese bread that was served with scrambled eggs seasoned with mint for Easter breakfast, and with salami for lunch.

”In the old days women would bake the pizza al formaggio at home,” he said. ”But mostly you buy it. Modern life is everywhere.”

In the limited Swiss repertory, there is a custard tart, with rice, lemon and almonds in the filling, which is served only at Easter. ”It was called gâteau de Pâques and I remember it very well,” said Gray Kunz, the chef who was born in Singapore but grew up in Geneva and Bern. ”There would be a bunny in icing sugar stenciled on top. It was something from the bakery.”

During Lent, Christian families traditionally did not eat animal products, even eggs, making these foods all the more important for Easter celebrations.

The cook was kept busy preparing for an Easter table laden with lamb and pork, cured meats and egg-rich dishes, often brightened with spring greens and herbs. Dessert was secondary to the indulgence of the meal.

Today, generous pastries and pizzas layered with meats, cheeses and vegetables meant to anchor a lunch emerge from Italian ovens. Breads golden with egg yolks, sometimes baked with dyed hard-cooked eggs embedded in them, are typical not just of Italy, but also of many other countries, including those that, like Greece, celebrate Orthodox Easter.

For cooks who insist on doing their own baking, cookware shops have lamb-, fish- and dove-shaped pans for cakes and sweet breads; flower molds for cupcakes; cookie cutters in the shapes of bunnies and chicks; and bakeware meant for hot cross buns.

But going beyond these clichés is not a challenge. Take that Swiss tart, for example.

The ingredients, including almonds, often show up for Easter, frequently in the form of marzipan. The rice might be the equivalent of the young wheat that is soaked and folded into an Italian Easter pie called pastiera di grano, from Sicily, the part of Italy where bakers are often busiest.

Dorothea Cvijanovich, a native of Bern who now lives in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she does catering and teaches baking, said the tart can be made with farina or even bits of brioche soaked in milk instead of rice, and that traditionally it was made with hazelnuts, not almonds.

”Hazelnuts are very much more Swiss,” she said. ”Maybe the rice or wheat are used in place of all nuts because nuts were so much more expensive.”

She also said that light or dark raisins can be added to the filling, and that her father liked it rich, with more eggs and some cream.

Nick Malgieri, the baking teacher and author, discovered the tart when he was in Switzerland and based his somewhat lighter recipe on several he found there.

A Finnish rye and wheat Easter bread, paasiaisleipa, which also calls for almonds, eggs, cream, raisins and lemon zest, is seasoned with cardamom and is baked in a milk pail.

One of the most famous of all Easter breads is the Russian kulich, a tall but delicate sweet yeasted bread that is sugared and decorated with the initials XB, which stand for ”Christ is risen.”

In England and Ireland, hot cross buns are typical of the Easter season, and remain popular in America, too. Simnel cake, a kind of light fruit cake that is made for Christmas as well as for Easter, is an English confection that dates back to Medieval times. It is blanketed with marzipan and decorated with 11 marzipan balls that represent all the Apostles except for Judas

The excitement of Easter morning creates the ideal environment for a simple, lingering brunch. A late-morning meal of rich pastries, savory favorites and fresh fruit fits perfectly between an early church service and an afternoon egg hunt. The following brunch food ideas are easy enough to make the day before or while the kids dig through the Easter bunny goodies.

Three Brunch Menu Tips

Since a brunch is a mix of breakfast and lunch, there is a great opportunity to serve a creative menu. Hosts are not limited to sausage and egg casseroles or a platter of fried chicken. Instead, choose a menu that contains foods that work for either meal. Here are three good tips to having a successful brunch on Easter morning.

• Planning a brunch menu is simple when thinking in terms of courses. Include foods that work as appetizers, main dishes and dessert just like any other meal.
• Stick with a seasonal theme. Many foods see to made for Easter, and some are actually holiday traditions.
• Keep in mind prep time and ease of serving. Food that can be made ahead of time prevents stress on a busy Easter morning.

Serve Traditional Hot Cross Buns

A springtime tradition, hot cross buns are easy to make the day before Easter. Bring the kids into the kitchen for an afternoon of baking these brunch treats that can easily become a family tradition. Hot cross buns is a classic recipe with slight spicy flavor and x-shaped frosting on top.

Slice a Baked Ham

Ham is a traditional holiday food, perfect when served any time of day. To make it special for an Easter brunch, make it with a fruity glaze such as pineapple or strawberry preserves. The fruit flavor mimics the freshness of spring and combines with the salty ham for an unexpected taste. Serve it already sliced as a delicious accompaniment to an egg casserole or warm bread.

Bake a Savory Vegetable Quiche

A warm pie-like recipe is a good balance to other brunch treats that tends to veer on the sweet side. Eggs, an easy Easter food, are the base of any quiche recipe. Mix with fresh vegetables such as asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes and spinach for a delicious and healthy addition to an Easter brunch menu.

Consider a Waffle-Making Station

If the brunch hostess does not mind working as brunch takes place, then a waffle-making station is a fun way to celebrate on Easter morning. Serve plain waffles or mix together different batters such as pecan or chocolate chip, and let guests choose their favorite. Set up a topping bar with flavored syrups and a variety of toppings. Good choices include plain and flavored butter, fresh berries, whipped cream and nuts. Make sure everything has the appropriate serving utensil and, for a special touch, use tags to identify all of the toppings.

Celebrating Easter with a delicious brunch is special for family and friends. Keep it simple with a good menu plan that includes make-ahead dishes and traditional foods.

In 1874, England increased taxes for the imported sugar, the price has fallen by half, and at the end of the nineteenth century, a part of calories in the British diet came from sugar, and the rest came mostly from refined flour.

Because of the pure and cheap sugar was now accessible to all, the human metabolism must face not only a steady flow of glucose, but also a higher amount of fructose, because sugar or sucrose is half fructose. (The consumption of fructose per capita increased by 25 percent in the last 30 years) In nature, fructose is a rare and precious element, which is found, depending on the season, in the ripe fruit, “wrapped” in a whole food product full of fibers (which slows the assimilation) and important micro-nutrients. No wonder that natural selection has programmed us to be attracted to sweet foods: in form that is found in nature-in fruits and some vegetables - sugar gives us a slow-release form of energy accompanied by minerals and all kinds of micro-nutrients essential to us that we can not get from other sources. (Even honey, the purest form of sugar met in nature, contains some micro-nutrients.)

One crucial change occurred in the American diet after 1909 (when the U.S. Department of Agriculture began to notice the phenomenon) was the increase of the percentage of sugar calories from 13 to 20%. Add to this number the percentage of calories from carbohydrates (about 40%) and it results that at least half of the American diet consists of various forms of sugars -calories which provides nothing but energy. There are two ways that the energy density of refined carbohydrates leads to obesity. First, we are consuming much more calories per unit of food, the removed fiber from the food is the one which would have give us the feeling of fullness, making us so stop eating it. Also, the sudden fluctuations of glucose drives faster to high insulin levels which, after glucose is assimilated drops sharply, creating the feeling of hunger.

If the accelerated spread of western diets has given us immediate satisfaction of sugar for many people-especially for those recently exposed to this system-the speed of this industrial diet overcomes the capacity to process insulin, the consequence being the appearance of type 2 diabetes and all other chronic diseases associated to the metabolic syndrome. As a specialist in nutrition said, “we actually participate in a national experiment of intravenous glucose administration”. And let’s not forget the flow of fructose, which might be a much higher evolutionary novelty, and therefore much more difficult to manage by the human metabolism than glucose. Probably not accidentally the rates of type 2 diabetes are lower in European populations which have had a longer period of time than other groups to adapt their metabolism to the quick release of refined carbohydrates: these changes occurred first in their food environment. The first contact with such food, as it happens in case of ordinary people who have traditional diets and come to America or if the fast-food comes to them is a shock to the body. A shock that is called by experts a nutritional transition and it can be fatal.

This is the first major change in the Western diet which may explain the devastating effects they have on people’s health, replacing the known relationships with whole foods whom we have co-evolved for thousands of years. The Western diet force our body to connect and to face some nutrients that are efficient delivered and snatched from their diet context. Our ancient evolutionary relationship with the seeds of cereals and with the fruit from plants suddenly gave up the place to a rather shaky marriage with glucose and fructose

In 1930, with the discovery of vitamins, scientists have understood what had happened and so the miller men began adding B vitamins to refined grain. So the obvious deficiencies have been corrected. More recently, scientists have recognized that many of our diets contain not enough folic acid, so in 1996 the public health authorities have imposed those from the milling industry to add folic acid to flour. But it will take a long time until the science will understand that this strategy of addition for the “wonder bread”, so as it was called by a nutritionist, will not resolve all issues generated from the refining of grain. Diseases caused by deficiencies are easier to follow and to be treated (the successful medicine in their treatment is an important element for the nutrition prestige) rather than chronic diseases and found that the refinement of carbohydrate is involved in the appearance of some chronic diseases- like diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancers.

The refined grain story is a parable about the reductionist science boundaries which are applied to something so complex as food. For several years, nutritionists know that a food rich in whole grains reduces the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. (The statement remains valid even beyond the indication that people who eat more whole grains probably have a healthier lifestyle and other point of view) Different nutritionists have attributed the benefits of whole grains to different nutrients: fiber of bran, folic acid and other vitamin B from the germ, antioxidants and various minerals. In 2003, “American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” published a non-reductionist study which demonstrates that benefits of whole grains can not be attributed to a single nutrient. The usual reductionist analysis of isolated nutriments could not explain the health improvement of whole grains consumers.

The epidemiologists David R. Jacobs and Lyn M. Steffen from the University of Minnesota has reread previous research and discovered ample evidence of the fact that a rich in whole grains diet reduces mortality which has different causes. Surprising was the fact that, after adjusting the levels of fibers, vitamin E, folic acid, fitic acid, iron, zinc, magnesium and manganese in food (all the benefits that we know about are found in whole grains) it has been discovered an additional benefit of consumption of whole grains, which couldn’t be attributed to any single nutrient nor their totality. So, subjects receiving the same amount of the listed nutrients, but from other sources were not as healthy as those who ate whole grains, “the analysis suggests that another element from the whole grains protects against death”. The authors concluded, somehow vague, but suggestive that “the various grains and their component act synergistically” and they have suggested to their colleagues to take into account the concept of “food synergy”. So here is an argument for a revolutionary idée in relation to the nutritional standards: it could happen that a whole product is much more than the amount of nutrients that it is made.

It is no need to tell you that the proposal was not enthusiastically received by the food industry and this thing is probably not happening anytime soon. Even while I write, Coca-Cola launches drinks full of vitamins, there is the concept of “wonder bread” for industrial food products in their ultimate state (wonder drink?). Since ever there have been invested large amounts of money for processed food and not in whole food marketing and probably the industry investment in a reductionist approach to nutrition is just one. The problem is that there is something in us that love carbs, and that something is the human brain. Human brain keens on to carbs that are reduced to their essence power, which is pure glucose. Once the industry discovered a way to transform the seeds of cereals in the chemical equivalent of sugar, there was no going back.

From this point of view, the refinement of whole food means not only an invention of new ways to make products more resistant and more portable, but also to focus their energy and in a way to accelerate them. The major leap in terms of acceleration was made around 1870, when in Europe were introduced the rolls (iron, steel or porcelain) used for grinding grain. Perhaps more than any other technology, this, which in 1880 replaced the millstones throughout Europe and America, marked the beginning of our food industrialization -reducing it to its chemical essence and accelerating its uptake. Refined flour is the first product of fast food.

Before the millstone revolution, wheat was grounded between two stone wheels and white flour could not be a perfect white because the millstones were removing the bran from the wheat grain (and therefore most of the fiber), but could not remove the germ or embryo that contains essential oils rich in nutrients. The stone mills were only crushing and releasing germ oil. The effect was the gray-yellow shade of the obtained flour (the yellow color is given by carotene) also the shelf-life was shorter because, in contact with air, oil, and rust quickly, that means it grows rancid. People saw and smelled these things and were not satisfied. But what their senses were not perceived was that in the seeds were the most valuable flour nutrients, including most of the proteins, folic acid and other B vitamins, carotenes and other antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids which quickly grown rancid.

The insert of rollers which could remove the germ by grinding only the endosperm (the starch and protein package from the seeds) has resolved the issue of conservation and color. Now, almost everyone could afford to buy immaculate white flour, which could now be preserved for several months. There was no need for each city to have its own mill, because from that point flour could be transported for long distances. (In addition, it can be ground throughout the year by large companies in big cities: heavy stone mills based on hydraulic power depended on watercourses; the new shafts could be maneuvered whenever and wherever steam engines) And so, one of the basis food product from the Western diets has escaped the space and time limitations, it was sold by appearance and not on the criterion of nutritional value. From this perspective, white flour was one of the first modern industrial food products.

The problem was that beautiful white powder was null or almost null in terms of nutrition. The same was now in the case of corn flour and white rice, whose refining (i.e. removal of the most nutritious parts) was introduced around the same period. In all regions where there were introduced on a large scale, the new refining technologies appeared in a short time, devastating epidemics of beriberi and pellagra. Both diseases are caused by vitamin B deficiencies which were contained in seed. But probably because ot the sudden disappearance of other micro-nutrients from bread, and also the omega-3 fatty acids, affect health, especially that of poor townspeople in Europe, for whom bread was a fundamental food product.

The organic vision over eating and over food open an entirely new perspective on Western food: it appears as a set of radical changes and, at least in terms of evolution sudden changes have occurred in the last 150 years not only on our food, but also on our trophic relationships, from the soil on the meal itself. The ideology rise of nourishment is a incorporate part of this change.

Usually when we think of “environment” of a species, we take as aiming points the geography, predators, prey and climate. But one of the essential elements of the environment of living creatures is the nature of food available to it and its relations with the species they eat. The interfered changes in the feeding way of a living creature can have extremely serious consequences.

The first major change to man came with ten thousands of years ago with the invention of agriculture. (And it destroyed our health, generating a series of deficiencies and infectious diseases, which we manage to keep under control only in the last hundred years). What is the most important change in the intervened in our food environment? The appearance of modern food. To see better the nature of these changes we must understand how we can change our relationship with food -how we could improve it, so that we can improve our state of health. The changes were numerous and profound, but we propose to start by analyzing the following five fundamental transformations that have affected our food and the way we are nourishing.

All are reversible, maybe not in the global food system, but certainly in the live and in the consumed diet of any individual and, I hasten to add, without having to revert back to Savanna or hunters or gatherers.

The case of maize is highlighting one of the key features of the modern food: adopting food from increasingly refined, especially carbohydrates. The refining of grain is at least since the industrial revolution, the white flour and white rice is preferred over the other ones, even at the cost of losing nutrients.

On one hand, the motivation was given by the social standard: because for a long time, only the rich people could afford to buy grain refined, they have gained a sort of aura of prestige. The process by which grain is refined, prolongers their life of conservation (precisely because they are less nutritious to pests which compete with us for the calories) and make them more easily to digest by removing the fiber that normally is slowing down the release of sugars.

In addition, the more the flour is milled fine, so much greater will be the surface exposed to digestive enzymes, accelerating thereby the transformation of starch into glucose. A big part of the modern industrial food can be considered an extension and an intensification of this practice, because of the processors that are inventing new ways to deliver glucose- the brain’s favorite fuel- is increasing faster and much more efficient. Sometimes this is the purpose, for example when corn is turned into corn syrup, but, sometimes, that what results is just an unfortunate by-product of food processing that was actually for other purposes.

Often the long nearness between various food and those that are consuming them creates complex communication systems along the food chain, so that the creatures come to know that certain elements are edible guided by taste, smell and color. Very often, even foods emit these signals, because it is in their interest to be eaten.

The fact that a fruit is ripe is signaled by a specific odor (a seductive aroma that reaches quite large distances), color (a shade that stands out from the green mass) or taste (usually sweet).

Usually, maturity, is when the plant seeds are ready to unwind and to germinate, is the period when the fruit has the highest concentration of nutrients and therefore the interests of plants (spreading the seeds) coincides with (the feeding) of the consumer. As a result of the previously received signals from various fruits and vegetables, our body has established that a fruit is edible, it occurs for enzymes and acids required for its decomposition. Health depends largely on the body’s ability to decode these biological signals: this fruit seems ripe, that there seems altered, that cow looks good.

This process is much easier when you know for a long time a particular food product and much more difficult if the food that you have to deal with was created just to fool your senses, using, for example, artificial flavors or synthetic  sweeteners. Food products that are fooling our senses are difficult issues of Western food to manage. It is important to note that the ecological relationships involve, at least in the first instance, those creatures that eat whole foods, not the nutrients or chemical elements contained in them.

Even if, eventually, once they have reached in our body, food is decomposed into simple chemical elements such as maize, for example, is mostly reduced to simple sugars, the whole food qualities are not unimportant. For example, the quantity and the structure of corn fiber will determine the speed with which will be released and absorbed the sugars that it contains, this is an essential aspect for the metabolism of insulin. A chemist will tell you that once in the blood the corn starch will turn into glucose, but such a reductionist view overlooks the complex and variable process that it assumes this transformation. Despite the nutritional labels, not all carbs are equal.

In other words, our body has an old and lasting relationship with maize, but not with the corn syrup with high fructose. Perhaps at some point humans will create this type of relationship with corn syrup with high fructose (as people will develop superhuman insulin systems to cope with the regular flow of pure fructose and glucose), but for now, this interaction make us sick because our body doesn’t know how to deal with all biological innovations.

In the same way, the human bodies that can handle chewing coca leaves - an old relationship met between indigenous and coca plant in some parts of South America -can not cope with cocaine or crack cocaine, even if those are three substances containing the same active elements. Maybe that reductionism, as a way of understanding, is a harmless vision or even required vision in terms of food and drugs, but the applied reductionism means to reduce food or narcotic plants to the chemical elements that they contain, and this can create problems.

What would happen if we begin to consider food is less a thing and more a relationship? In nature, things have always been like this: eating meant in fact interacting whit species in the systems that we call food chains or tropic networks, which include everything up to the soils. Species co-evolved with the other species that eat them and very often, among them develops a relationship of interdependence: I’ll feed you, if you spread my genes.

Following an evolutionary process of mutual adaptation, the apple or the pumpkin turns into a nutritious and delicious food product for certain animals. Over time and through processes of trial and failure, the plant becomes tastier (and often more visible) to answer the needs and desires of the animal, and so that the animal can develop various digestive tools (eg, enzymes) needed to exploit the plant as good as possible.

Thus, at first, the cow milk was not a nutritious product for people: in fact, it even harms them that until the people who lived around cows developed in adulthood the ability to digest milk. The gene responsible for producing lactase, the enzyme that make the digestion of milk possible, was disabled by humans shortly after medical ablation, but now five thousand years, people have suffered from a mutation where the gene which remains active throughout life, the mutation that quickly spread through a population of pastors in north-central Europe. Why? Because people which suffered this mutation have access to a new extreme nutritious food source and therefore they could multiply more easily than those who had not undergone the mutation that we are talking about. This adaptation was good for those who consume milk but also for cows that have multiplied and expanded their habitat (and have improved their health status) all because of this new symbiotic relationships.

Among other things, health status is determined by the type of relationships within a food chain extreme varied relation in the human case which is an omnivorous. So, when a link from the food chain health is affected, this can be passed on to all other living creatures that make up that food chain. If the soil is sick or suffering from certain deficiencies so will be the gras growing on it and the cows grazing grass and the people who drink their milk. This is what Weston Price and Sir Howard was thinking when they were trying to establish a connection between these apparent distant spheres: soil and human health. We can not separate our own health from the entire health chain.