Tumminia and The Doomsday Vault

Tumminia with kale, leeks, garlic

It’s an obvious understatement to say that 2018 was a doozy, given its extreme weather events and its tectonic politics. The continual reports of natural and humanitarian disasters have been horrific. We have no idea what’s in store for the new year ahead of us but we can take comfort knowing that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault remains intact, at least for now. 

Svalbard Global Seed Vault Entrance (Time.com photo)

The melting Arctic permafrost flooded the ten-year-old storage bank in 2017, prompting the government of Norway to launch a multi-million-dollar upgrade to the facility that houses the future of the world’s food security within its walls. Bloomberg.com reported that the U.S., Germany, and Norway are the largest donors to the seed bank, with one participant in the 2018 tenth anniversary conference noting that there are no signs the U.S. will abandon the project, saying, “perhaps the new administration just hadn’t noticed it yet.” Fingers crossed for our Tweeter-in-Chief to remain unaware lest he pull us out of this agreement, too. 

The Dutch have a historically pragmatic attitude about the very real limits of available resources, natural and otherwise, and the importance of preservation. They have a longstanding reputation for ingenious solutions to problems. Experts have travelled to the United States from Holland to assist with infrastructure issues in the aftermath of hurricanes and flooding several times in recent years. This practical, (stereotypical) “thrifty” attitude applies to food sources as well, including progressive agricultural strategies employed by growers to maximize crop production in a country that’s about half the size of the state of Maine. Impressive. 

Amsterdam EV Parking/Charging Stations 

This culture of conservation in the Netherlands affects all aspects of daily living when every square inch of space is important. (That’s 645.16 square millimeters for those who prefer the metric system.) Michel brings his pragmatic Dutch approach to nearly every decision he makes, including installation of the solar panels that power our house and driving a fully electric car for short trips around town. It’s no surprise that the Dutch government has created a plan to make all cars emission-free by 2030. 

Clean air and water are essential worldwide (duh) but finding safe food options here in the U.S. is becoming increasingly challenging. Here’s an example straight from the  fishmonger’s mouth: The salmon labeled “wild-caught” sold at the Whole Foods we frequent is actually caught in the wild—but—it’s flown to China for processing and then flown to the U.S. for consumption. That amount of mileage necessitates freezing the fish at least once, so it’s not as fresh as we are led to believe. (Also, never-ever-ever eat tilapia. Despite its quasi-exotic name, tilapia is one of many kinds of farmed fish raised on an unthinkably nasty diet, which means you’re ultimately ingesting whatever the tilapia eat. Ugh.) 

We’re lucky to have access to fresh foods at farmers’ markets and locally-owned groceries. It’s also a bonus to have industrious friends who share their summer garden bounties. Heirloom “Safe Seed Pledge” startups are plentiful and the farm-to-fork designation has become a point of pride among chefs and restaurateurs. Awareness is increasing and that’s a good thing. I guess those of us who don’t grow our own veggies or tend our own fancy urban chickens must now acknowledge that our mothers were right to say, “Don’t put that in your mouth! You don’t know where it’s been.” 

Our collective need for sustainable, unadulterated food resources is critical, prompting researchers and agri-nerds (yes, that’s a term) to look for “ancient grains” that are hardy and tolerant of environmental variables. Names like quinoa and farro are familiar by now but you may not know about tumminia—yet. It’s an indigenous variety of wheat grown on the island of Sicily. 

Michel found this odd-looking pasta via the Gustiamo website (gustiamo.com), which is a good place to poke around if you’re looking for special Italian ingredients. Disclaimer: Subscribing to the Gustiamo email newsletter can lead to unintended online purchases and acute pasta cravings. 

Tumminia pasta has a long, corkscrew shape called busiate. Its slightly nutty taste and hearty texture make these noodles a satisfying main dish for whatever ingredients you choose to add. Michel’s easy recipe below is vegan but he has since made other iterations using mushrooms, pancetta, etc. Grated parmesan makes a delicious topping, too. 

Improvise. Add whatever you like to these accommodating pasta curls. It’ll be delicious. 

You will need:

1 pkg. of Tumminia pasta

6-8 stems of fresh kale, leaves removed and chopped

½ an onion, chopped

2 leeks, thinly sliced (tops removed)

3-4 cloves garlic, chopped

olive oil

thyme

oregano

white pepper

salt (sea salt)

Boil water for pasta in a large pot. Add a little salt. Tumminia should reach al dente status in about ten minutes. 

While you're waiting for the water to boil:

Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet.

Add chopped garlic and onion.

Sauté 2-3 minutes, then add leeks.

Cook together until leeks begin to soften, then add chopped kale.

Add salt, pepper, oregano, and thyme to taste. 

Drain the pasta (don't rinse it!) and add it to kale mixture, stirring gently to coat the  noodles. 

Mangia, mangia! 

Do blogs have birthdays? The Expat Epicure is five years old this month.

It's obvious this is a stock photo, right?

True story: A few years ago as I walked across the school campus I overheard a student declaring to her friend, "I just had a birthday party for my Twitter account." So many questions came to mind in that moment and now here I am wondering how to celebrate a blog's birthday. I'm pretty sure there's a Pinterest board for that--probably multiple Pinterest boards. 

Here's hoping the new year is bringing good things your way. Thank you for reading the blog posts about Michel's cooking and for following us on Instagram (@the_expat_epicure). Last year we spent a lot of time on some non-food writing and music recording projects, which makes me wonder if there's a term for the guilt one feels about blog neglect. I'm happy to report that plans are already in the works for some new posts about new dishes in the new year from The Expat Epicure. 

In the meantime, merci et bon appétit! 

De Gustibus...

Bourdain Confronts Roasted Iguana Tamales ("Cook's Tour" via YouTube)

Long before we knew about “hate-watching,” Michel and I fully embraced the practice when we saw Anthony Bourdain for the first time. We were irretrievably sucked into the gory spectacle of his conflicted consumption of a roasted iguana. This was early “Cook’s Tour” Bourdain in his first television outing, years before he became the Anthony Bourdain of “No Reservations” and “Parts Unknown.” We derived a sense of affirmation (with a dollop of schadenfreude) upon reading Jay Rayner’s like-minded book review in The Guardian describing Cook’s Tour as “punctuated by morose and thoroughly tedious diatribes about how awful it is being Anthony Bourdain and, especially, Anthony Bourdain being followed by a television crew.”  This tiresome Tony-the-Iguana-Eater-Bourdain was the wannabe Hunter S. Thompson of food writing. He was looking for a means to capitalize on the success of his gonzo-inspired first book, Kitchen Confidential, wherein the aspiring Bourdain attempted to emulate the iconoclastic success of Thompson’s 1970 exposé, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.”  

Note: The Kentucky Derby is, in fact, decadent and depraved, with drug-addicted jockeys and grooms, gambling-addicted patrons, gluttonous personages and stargazers of all stripes showing up at the track and all over town. And don't get me started about what they do to the actual horses. 

So we followed Mr. Bourdain’s media transitions from gig to gig, all the while being fed a smorgasbord of inane programming from The Travel Channel, The Food Network, etc., featuring humans who eat/drink/inhale unthinkable amounts of anything that won’t kill them on TV. Along the way, we developed an intense dislike for the man we’d never met. We couldn’t handle his jaded, singsong-y delivery nor his pretentious literary asides. We didn’t understand his need to offer pseudo-philosophical commentary or to share his opinions about rock and roll, nor did we understand that weird (drunk) Russian guy who tagged along with him far too often. But—we had to admit to ourselves that, despite our aversions, we agreed with most of the culinary principles Bourdain stood for. 

We liked it when he took on the  made-for-television “celebrity chef” phenomenon, calling out people like Paula Deen for her ridiculous butter bomb recipes and Sandra Lee for her vapidity. We liked it when he poked fun at Ruth Reichl. 

We agreed when he addressed the ugly aspects of the restaurant business, including his recent comments about the #MeToo movement. We liked him for exposing systemic injustices and corruption. Also, he earned our sympathy for stopping short of the grotesque exploits of his “Bizarre Foods” friend and colleague Andrew Zimmern (in our house a/k/a “The Yutz”).  Zimmern’s implausible “If it looks good, eat it!” tagline was a deterrent in and of itself.

We’ve read and watched the tributes pouring in, from former President Obama’s tweet about our collective pop culture loss to some astonishingly personal accounts in the New York Times Letters to the Editor. We have mused over Ruth Reichl’s comments in the Times’ official obituary, wherein she called young Anthony Bourdain “awkward and withdrawn” in his early years and a “tortured shy guy.” (Thanks, Ruth—you can run along now, maybe tweet some more haiku.)

Anthony Bourdain famously said of his success, “I feel like I’ve stolen a car—a really nice car—and I keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights.” Now we are left to wonder what horrors he foresaw through the windshield of his metaphorical stolen car, even as we quietly welcome the change of topic from the regular onslaught of the nightmarish reality that is the U.S. Presidency these days. Yes, we too are victims of the incessant media pileup of all the things we think we want to know about: Mr. Trump, his current wife, his children from serial marriages, his lawyers, and yes, even his blatant and habitual lies. We’re hooked because our lives literally depend on it. 

During one of his interviews, Anthony Bourdain claimed that he wanted to try anything once, as long as the risks involved were manageable. It’s possible he found himself in a situation that put him, especially as a CNN “personality,” in the midst of an adventure with risk factors that neither he nor anyone else could manage. For someone whose celebrity sprang from his exposure to the repulsive underbelly of the culinary establishments of the world, an anti-hero who sometimes relished joining in the scuffle for outcasts and underdogs, Bourdain’s proximity to the fragile cognitive fault line between sanity and madness rendered him just like the rest of us--an outcast, an underling, a victim of the present American circumstance.  President Trump has a zealous determination to prove to the world he is as powerful as the make-believe oligarch in the television commercial—the one with the tiny giraffe—who proclaims, “Opulence, I has it.”

Could it be that this tsunami of grandiose tastelessness wrought by the leader of the free world is what ultimately compelled not only Anthony Bourdain to end his life but all the other nameless suicide victims being tracked by experts in the field? Is it possible to draw a direct line from today’s news headlines to the increasing number of suicides in the U.S.? Americans who are far less visible than Mr. Bourdain are drinking lead-poisoned water while citizens of color are ignored in times of desperate need. Funding for children’s healthcare is under attack while many of our “elected representatives” are busy looking for the next handout from corporate lobbyists. Our life-giving planet is in terrible distress, threatening our very existence. Depressing? Hell, yes.

It’s not hard to visualize Anthony Bourdain in a very old and exclusive French hotel, preparing for yet another CNN “Parts Unknown” episode near the town of Strasbourg. What caused him such deep despair? Did he dread filming the force-feeding of the geese that keep the Alsace pate fois gras industry alive? Was he overcome with the futility, monotony, and loneliness of constant travel? Or had life become an unmanageable adventure spun out of control? How else could anyone be so utterly despondent in such an idyllic place? He posted food pictures from his stay in the village of Kaysersberg on social media within hours before the breaking news about his suicide. 

We secretly wonder how he did it. Did he have a Hunter S. Thompson obsession about needing to know he could commit suicide at any moment? Bourdain clearly imitated the original gonzo journalist (a Louisville native, by the way), perhaps too much.  Among the things the two men had in common was their worldview of so-called Positive Nihilism. It’s a term that’s new to this writer but an uncannily apt way of describing our dodge-the-wrecking-ball lives these days, succinctly summarized in text-speak: LOL nothing matters.