Mantecatura

I may have fallen beyond the limits of the art of translation; but I have noticed that when conversation takes you down unexpected avenues and you continue willingly with it, you find yourself in a new realm of meaning, which is not where you meant to go but perhaps that is only because your sense of direction is not that subtle.  Case in point, Mantecatura, I was reading about risottos (a favourite past time, anti pasta time, of the gluten intolerant) when I found this word.

from Oggi

Having an Italian in my life I leaned against his kitchen’s doorway and asked for a definition of this word.   He described it as a bringing together, the final incorporation of flavour and flavours before you serve a dish, as he tossed the hot pan of pancetta, wine, pasta and freshly added egg and parmigiano-reggiano that would momentarily be served as carbonara, to demonstrate.

He more memorably defined it a few days later when I attempted to cook an Ottolenghi feta-fish stew. When pushed to give an opinion, “Well, did you like it?”, he responded, “it had nice flavours but it lacked….mantecare”. I had failed to bring Ottolenghi’s fabulous Mediterranean stew with a feta twist together.

And so I have come to think a little more of Mantecare, the combination of elements and those steps or points where you amalgamate parts into a greater whole. In a risotto, where the word is generally used, it is the last of a successful series of steps when you generously add Parmesan, maybe some butter, and if you are my Australian friend, a final drop of the white wine and mix it through.  

Mantecatura is more than parsley sprinkle or mint sprigs used to dress a dish, or salt to bring out the flavour. It is elsewhere to the foundation of good cooking, which is good ingredients; use a good stock in a risotto and the rest of the ingredients, bar the cheese, are food thrills.

The essence of Mantecare strikes me as being more than adding a bit of butter or cheese to risotto. Here is where I wander from translation, is mantecare the generosity of ingredients and thought when you taste something in the process and decide that it is good but something more is needed? Is it the hat upon which you stick your feather and then tilt it to a cocky angle? I made a cake yesterday, whiskey and chocolate and while the recipe stopped with sprinkling more booze upon the cake, I thought it could go further. If I stopped there it would have been attention, not love.  From a different angle, it is a creator standing before a work and not finishing until they utter, “it is good”.

And so the cake received a dressing, an icing of orange and sugar to set off the chocolate and whisky. While it is not beautiful, my cooking and dressing rarely is, I hope that this time I have approached mantecare.

Land of Kings and Butter

Before I came to Ireland, under the wing of my stepmother, herself being from Mohedian House in Croghan, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, I had been told that Ireland was the Land of Saints and Scholars. I had looked at Desmond Guinness and Jacqueline O’Brien’s book on the Great Irish Castles and Houses like the tale that it was, of a foreign land.

Castle Ryan, Lough Key, Co. Roscommon

I have since met and known some of those princes.  Those Georgian Houses I have loved but they are relics of the past, those living in them have to fight to hold on to them and to work very resourcefully in order to live in them with dignity; weddings, festivals, country hotels help span the difference.  It is easy to forget what makes legends legendary or to bring to mind the excellence of friends whom you have come to know so well, too well. Sometimes I forget.

Graceful Georgian Squares in the cities, countryside themes of large houses, long private walls, dignified parish corners and neat white washed cottages offer immediate satisfying charms as you survey the land. If you will forgive me, so much of this often reminds me of the presence of occupation and colonialism, and the subjugation and poverty of the Irish.

There are exceptions, but there is also a majority. This easily admired landscape locates the visual and historical wealth of the land on it and into it, more often than from it.

I am largely ignorant when it comes to the history of Ireland. I have heard of ancient tombs, Newgrange (and eventually Loughcrew), a Cattle Raid, Warp Spams, the Famine and the English, the Revolution, Yeats, the Troubles and the Church and now the EEU.

I forget how generous and sophisticated Ireland is and how its richness and its resourcefulness seep up from the earth and its past. While the Irish endured long attempts to subjugate their character, they were not without eminence.

Three points have recently illuminated my mental map. I have remembered what I should have known from Uí Maille, Cockagee and, go figure, Butter. 

As I was setting the table at a friends I put down an extra place in case one more should arrive. It brought to mind a (most likely true) story of Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Mhaol) who, when refused hospitality by the Lord of Howth, kidnapped his son and asked as a ransom that the Lord of Howth should forever set a place at the table for an unexpected guest.  When he acceded she returned his son; the place is still being set.  

Known as the Pirate Queen of Mayo, Gráinne Ní Máille was not exactly a pirate or a Queen but she was a sovereign and, I think, she was simply operating on an earlier, different or exterior value system to the English. Your ship near her waters was simply fair game. Grainne was a head of her Clan and led them as such. She petitioned directly, in Latin or through interpretation, for the return of her imprisoned relations from Queen Elisabeth I and the removal of the local governor Richard Bingham.

Her request was (partially) granted. I wonder if the Queen did not have some time for this other woman leading in a man’s world. Her story is rather terrific and completely of this land - generous and independence, with negotiation.

Then there is Cockagee, a cider being made in Slane, Co. Louth. It is made in a manner similar to cidre-bouché.  Cockagee references goose turd (Cac a gheidh) and the small green apples of that name that

were delicious and highly valued for their virtues in cooking and cider making in the sixteenth century. That particular apple bite is most likely lost to us though the maker of Cockagee cider, Mark Jenkenson, has searched. He has however found and brought into Ireland the process of keeving. It is old and apparently Breton way of preparing cider. The pulp of the apple macerates in the pressed juice, thus releasing pectin that produces a gel which is siphoned from the pressing – leaving the juice ready for a long fermentation. Mark talks of a history of cider making in older Ireland.

I forget that Ireland made things, that it was not just the famine and a history of potatoes. Cider, mead - it is not just a pint of Guinness that we can raise our glasses too.

Finally, Ireland was not always known for its food but it has long been known for its butter. It suits us.  Butter did not suit the warmer, olive oil laden, more southerly, formerly unrefrigerated climates. Pliny the Elder mentioned butter as a delicate part of the strange barbaric northerner’s culture and discussed its medicinal qualities. This, I suspect was another way of saying that it improved bread.

Butter is rich in this lands history. We have bog people and we have bog butter. The ancient Irish were burying it in firkins in the bogs (for

preservation from enemies, time and post-raid munchies) thousands of years ago. 

It has been buttering our bread for a long time.  From maybe the 1750’s, the butter market in Ireland provided an income source for farmers and even moderate success to some Irish families. The Farm by Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, tells the story of the rare middle class Catholic family in the mid 19^th century; making and selling butter was part of their financial success. We even networked for it, Ireland had military roads for military movements and butter roads for butter – I know which road I’d rather go hitch hiking on.

From Cork Harbour butter was sent to different parts of the world: Spain, the West Indies even South

America. The Butter Exchange (1770-1925) in Cork was where the butter was graded and auctioned before it was shipped.  The best butter was graded as first and the least as bishop. I do wonder at the name selection.

Butter is not just to be found on the breads. Buttery, some of the soft washed rind Irish cheeses that I admire, Ardrahan, Brewer’s Gold, Durrus, Milleens, all remind me, to various degrees of sweet, salted or cultured butter. It seems appropriate that what makes such a beautiful flavour in the cheese should resonate so well with what else one knows to value in this strange and wonderful land.

Brewer’s Gold (from abitmoreveg.com)

It is easy to forgot how naturally rich and wonderful Ireland naturally is, until you set out a few things and places for supper - butter, cheese, cider and a setting for the unexpected.

Let’s not be too precious…

Let us not be too precious about things. They go to waste, they break, they seemingly miss their moment

(Kintsukoroi)

they are missed, or mistakingly opened, they spoil, they happen, they are no longer here.
When did you have them? What was it like? What are you like?

I brought home a sliver of a ripe Langres. A washed rind cheese, it has the texture of clotted cream

with addition of self settled curd resistance. The cheese was so delicate and rich that a sliver was all that was left of the tastings and the tower of Langres that had been behind it that day. I brought it home and was skipping through recipe books. The Langres was waiting for its fate when I surprised both it and myself by popping it on a cracker and into the oven for a minute, and then into my mouth. Amuse bouche, amuse gueule, amused fate.

Last weekend I (generously) invited a friend and myself to supper at my mother’s home. He went to pains and displayed ingenuity to twice decant the wine he brought; he only looked at the main course when he settle the readied bottle near the warmed

plates. Tuna and Brunello di Montalcino anyone? At least the tuna was fresh but Brunello is a stud thoroughbred of the Tuscan wine world. My friend just found out he had entered his horse into a beach ride. The gesture was generous; the wine dry and rich, its restrained presence like a withholding but near friendly handshake from an aristocrat. Perhaps it was not the best moment for a Brunello but it was a great one for me.

Montalcino, Tuscany

I don’t know if I believe in special occasions or perfect moments. I do believe that we make occasions special and that if we wait for the right moment, there will almost always be factors that supersede the gift that you are bringing to it. Judge Roy Bean (aka blue eyed Paul Newman) buys his lover the music box she once asked for but arrives with it to find her on her deathbed- not to be dramatic or anything. Our gestures are never lost though their meaning might become a contributory to, rather than the whole.

Don’t make too much of the thing, it has been said that when Louis XVI was fleeing Paris for Austria with Marie Antoinette and family, he delayed to stop for some wine and a piece of Brie de Meaux (French legends, I add). This hunger, together with the accurate likeness of the king upon the 50 livre assignat allowed time and opportunity for him to be recognised, caught, brought back to Paris and duly guillotined. Perhaps he should have skipped lunch.

What follows are some recipes that show no awe for their ingredients, just understanding and appreciation.

My decadent Aunt occasionally makes a, 'She loves this guest' Veal and Mushroom dish and uses Delamain Cognac. This was the closest I could find to her recipe – that is from Martha Stewart makes me laugh.

  

Two separate acquaintances (who in their moment of sharing nearly become untrustworthy) spoke of Appenzeller Cheese as a topping for their pizza. Strong and scented and a little expensive, I doubted their rational and their taste. Now I just question my imagination.

By all means, trade around the ingredients for Heston Blumen-No-Budget’s recipe, but Macaroni and Cheese can be elegant, not just comfort food. Thank you Heston. Apologies if I have mentioned this before, I like it that much.

Finally, Remember our Latin forebears…. They have beautiful cheese, they make beautiful things with it and sometimes they just eat it. Parmigiano-Reggiano, Taleggio, Mozzarella di Bufala, they are all able to stand by themselves but each are also such excellent companions and company. Parmigiano-Reggiano on pastas always but also on a cheese boards, maybe with honey or a balsamic reduction. Taleggio or taleggio on polenta crust (from Ottolenghi). Mozzarella di Bufala with salt, graduate to Caprese or squished into a rubbed garlic toastie.

Precious but not...

Americans Say Cheese

When you think of the USA you may not immediately think cheese. You may not even think food - after all the infamous twinkies are predicted to live beyond doomsday. 

It is a strange thing to consider that many US citizens were raised on “cheese products”, where the usual line up of ingredients for cheese is more colourful, imaginative and a little more exploratory of your scientific culinary cupboard. I am a little biased and prefer homemade terroir to Frankenstein terror. As with most topics in the U.S, there is an increasing pull going both ways.

US companies have put cheese in a can (Gee Whiz it’s Cheese Whiz), made it sprayable (Easy Cheese, do you believe it is cheese?), they’ve wrapped up the cheese equivalent to a hot dog in plastic packs (cheese slices with an ‘attractive’ light orange hue, Kraft ’singles’, single for ever more). The shape is, in theory, convenient for sandwiches, in practice, for folding it into cheese chimney stacks. Most essentially, the 1928 miracle of Velveeta, a nutritional cheese product that does the opposite to cheese when heated: it does not melt.  It, like a good face-lift, stays soft and supple under a variety of tested conditions.  How convenient. Oh convenience.

I do not like my complexity to come from a can. The US had some promising farmhouse cheese at the

turn of the twentieth century. Anne Pickett of Wisconsin would pool neighbours milk together to make cheese and then share it back out. Women making cheese and homestead industries were common. It was farmhouse, it was community, there was taste, it was real… and then came industrial innovation, railroad and war with unperishable needs. Won over to this new exciting technology and promises of science, fashion and convenience, farmhouse cheese failed to prosper amongst the general american public.

Thankfully convenience is not as attractive as it used to be, subtle taste buds are returning with travel and, one suspects, the rise of other better quality products raising palates and tolerance. With a greater vision, style arrives.

U.S. artisanal cheese is once more on the up.  Cheese with perishable nuances is now a good thing. There are limitations but there is much progress, massive like. If ideas are contagious, this is one that has caught on from coast to coast.

Everona creamery, on the East side, in Virginia, produces some subtle, delicately rich, Ewe’s milk cheese. It began when a doctor got a sheep dog at a fair and needed some sheep to keep it busy. Now they produce over five types of cheese, the soil is flourishing, the practices, medicinal and food health, continue, the sheep have multiplied and the original dog has retired.

Cypress Grove of west coast California import and make cheese. Mary Keehn began with a few goats gathered from a neighbour’s farm for milk and a decision to turn her excess milk into cheese - little did she know. One Humboldt Fog later she persisted through palates unaccustomed to goat cheese and produced, until she sold the business in 2010, one of America’s most well known farmhouse goats cheese. 

There is an element of invention that I admire in the US. Americans often have a, (in Irish) “give it a go” attitude. Americans like experiments. Everona Creamery once had an interesting cheese that was made by grating the older cheese into the young curd, thus having two ages in one. Or there are experiments like Rogue River Blue, a cave aged blue wrapped in grape leaves, which have been soaked in a local pear “eau de vie". As the saying goes and sometimes applies, It will knock your sock off. American are inventing micro traditions.

On Brie, US does not allow raw milk cheese under sixty days but pathways to soft cheese taste have been forged. Cowgirl Creamery of California have some delightful ones. The washed rind Red Hawk and the bloom rind Mt. Tam., both triple cream, have flavours that settles like a pioneer on young tongue. Complexity? Perhaps. Character? Plenty.

 The end justifies the means or the means explains lead to a particular finish..

More temptations:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/03/serious-cheese-whats-the-deal-with-raw-milk-cheese-safety-plus-five-recommendations.html

Let us be fair to the history and the use of American Cheese, there is a comfort factor that is behind comfort food.  Martha Stewart, the blonde Mary Poppins of the kitchen, may never buy Velveeta, but she is not above sneaking a slice of it.  The best comfort food in the US reminds me of its vast landscapes. They incorporate a few major elements – Big Sky of Texas, Prairies of endless grassland,

Suburbs or pavement. lawns and houses, New growth Forests, New York (it is also a state though sometimes we forget); a few strong elements but rarely many at once. Macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, Pimento cheese, sure as hell sharp cheddar, and the cheese burger.

It is a lot of comfort food – there are the easy tastes in generous amounts but there are also the smaller producers coming forward with cheese that speaks of the land and the invention and resilience of the people living on it.

When visiting the US,

Say cheese…Real cheese
Please.

Going Dutch. Going for Gold.

It is a strange thing this air we breathe and the soil under our feet. We do not, initially know what is in them; they are just firmly or transparently there.  Eventually we learn that the air contains nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, wind, perfumes redolent of the world, memories and complexities and that the soil is rich with the past, with hummus, stones, so many stones, clay, worms, mycelium, roots and lost treasures. 

What therefore one wonders, goes into our cheese?  We accept and hope that there are usually milks from cows, ewes and or does (female goats), seasons, grass, sunshine, midnight raids into neighbour’s garden plots, moulds, bacteria, linen wraps or wax seals, the differences of the processes of production. But beyond processes and terroir, there is still more. Like trees to Carbon Dioxide and into fresh air; there is a strong element of Dutch that goes into making that Irish farmhouse cheese. 

Go into a cheese shop to taste some of the locals and you would be hard pushed to avoid either a gouda or a Dutch hand, we even have a half-Dutch (at heart) cheese monger where I work. But let us be efficient, let us be appropriate to our topic, let us begin.

Marion Roeleved, cheese maker of Killeen Farmhouse, is a woman whom I admire as much as I enjoy. Last time I saw her she walked energetically and purposefully into the shop saying, “I have come to see my cheese.” Yes, we are taking good care of your children. 

Marion came to visit Ireland and met a goat farmer named Haske. Need we suggest more? Marion now makes a number of different cheese; she uses the milk from their own goat herd, from local cow herds and on behalf of a few milking sheep farmers. Her cheese are consistently good; they remind me of a well done cheese and ham sandwich – simple perhaps, but simply so satisfying. I also like that she branches out beyond the traditional wheels of gouda. I wonder if it is the affect of being in Ireland or an off-shoot of the adventurous spirit that moves to rural Ireland. Along with her multiple Gouda’s and some fresh cheese, Marion also makes a raw milk goat’s cheddar, Kilmora (‘Irish Emmental’ style) and Cais na Tire, a sheep milk cheese that reminds me of a delicate and textured young Manchego.

Onto the Willems family of Macroom Co. Cork... and that Ireland is a small country. In the 1990’s my brother’s (Dutch) French teacher drove around with wheels of his compatriot’s cheese in his boot, stopping between jobs to promote it to restaurants. The next generation of Dicky Willems has taken over but the tradition rocks on. The Willems left their nightclub business in Rotterdam to pursue idyll rural life in Ireland. A chance acquaintance with a dairy cow and vacuum of goudas available locally (Cork countryside in the1970’s), along with a Dutch attention to detail led to the development of Coolea. The Willems now concentrate on the cheese making and trust, with an attentive eye, their neighbours for the milk. This is what clearly happens when efficient adventurous people of a Dutch background look for a change in scenery.

Goudas I have known; if the people are not Dutch, their cheese style certainly is. Clonmore is a goat gouda made by Tom Beggane in Newtownshandrum, Co. Cork with milk from his herd of very privileged goats. Organic Mossfield Gouda comes from Irish, German descendent, Ralph Haslam of Co. Offaly at the grateful foot of the Slieve Bloom Mts.  Rose Van de Graaf and Roches Van de Vaart of the Oisin farmhouse in County Limerick (I am not sure where they are from, but I do wonder) import Dutch cheese (including some organic goat and blue goat gouda see On the Pig’s Back in Cork) and a few Ages Gouda Rounds for the laugh.

Ireland’s famous Cashel Blue owes a fair bit of its blue veined backbone to the labour of Geurt van denDikkenberg who took over for Jane Grubb in the early 1990’s as the master cheese maker when her own back began to tire.

No mention of the Dutch should go without homage to the makers of Mine-Gabhar and Mine-Croghan, goat cheeses (not Goudas) made by the Van Kampens, from Ballinadrishogue, Co. Wexford. Homage because it was an adventure of twenty plus years and a fantastic cheese It is sorely missed by those who have had it, missed like the Irish in America

who, every morning, must miss our salty rich butter and real unsweetened bread. In a land without much spare money, people still knew it was worth saving their pounds for a round of the perfection of mine-gabhar. Luc began it all as a hobby while pursuing being an artist and minding a woman’s goats; as you do. Their processes were scrupulous and the cheese gold. 
Doubt the writer? Homages here: 1 2 3 4

And so in Irish cheese we have a canal of Dutch history. Even the industrial Dubliner cheese (note it is not labeled cheddar) has a Gouda starter culture. Is it the Nederland’s people's hundreds of years of eating cheese?  The former mercantile empire continuing to spread their riches? The plain good practicality of these wax sealed curds? Or the fine attention to detail and simply good processes that Holland and the Dutch are replete with? …. Or is just the luck of the Irish?