[Sca-cooks] Verjus

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org> wrote:

> Nota bene: the blooms on the plum tree directly
> behind my window are 
> beginning to sag, but I can see the grapevine
> from here, and there's leaves 
> sprouting- maybe the size of a teaspoon, but
> soon bigger! Can anyone say 
> dolmades? ;-)
> 
> 'Lainie

Dolma, more correctly.

According to the Oxford Companion to Food [and
this entry was written by Charles Perry];
 
Dolma : vegetables stuffed in the East
Mediterranean style.  There are two main
categories: those with meat stuffings (usually
extended with grain), which are served hot, often
with a sauce such as broth thickened with lemon
juice and eggs; and those with rice stuffings
(often enriched with nuts, raisins, or pulses),
which are served cold, dressed in oil.  The
latter are also known as yalanji dolma (Turkish
'yalanci' or 'counterfeit'; namely meatless.)

In Turkey, a distinction may also be made between
dolma ('stuffed thing') made from a hollowed-out
vegetable (aubergine, courgette, sweet pepper, or
tomato; less often potato, artichoke, cucumber,
carrot, or celery), and sarma ('rolled thing'),
where the filling is rolled in an edible leaf,
such as vine leaf or cabbage.  A sort of sarma
may also be made from separated layers of boiled
leek or onion rolled around a stuffing.

Dolmas are vernacular food in Turkey, the 
Balkans, the southern Caucasus, Iran, Central 
Asia (where the word differs in form according to
the Turkish language: dolama in Turkmen, tulma in
Tatar), and in Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, and
Arabia.  Kaldomar ('cabbage dolmas') have long
been part of Swedish cuisine also, as an 
unplanned consequence of Charles XII's sojourn in
Turkey after his defeat by the Russians at the
battle of Poltava.  When he returned to Sweden in
1715, he was followed by his Turkish reditors
--and their cooks--who remained until 1732.

This distribution, as well as the name dolma
itself, indicates that this dish belongs to the
court cuisine of the Ottoman Empire.  Vegetables
had been stuffed before Ottoman times, but only
sporadically.  For instance, the ancient Greek
'thrion' was a fig leaf stuffed with sweetened
cheese, and some medieval Arabic cookbooks give
recipes for aubergine stuffed with meat (and 
also, curiously, for the reverse; chunks of 
cooked aubergine coated with meat like a Scotch
Egg.  However, it was in Istanbul that stuffed
vegetables were first treated as a regular
culinary genre.

The Ottoman origin is somewhat obscured by the
fact that in some countries stuffed vegetables
may be referred to by a native name meaning
'stuffed', such as 'yemistos' (Greek) or 'mahshi'
(Arabic).  Indeed, some Arabic dialects rarely if
ever use the word 'dolma'.  Nevertheless, the
signs of Turkish origin are clear.  In places as
remote as Kuwait and Damascus, instead of "mahshi
waraq'inab" (stuffed vine leaf) one may say
"mahshi yabraq" (in Kuwait, "mahshi brag") which
comes from the Turkish 'yaprak' (leaf).

Huette

=====
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they 
shall never cease to be amused.


	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html