B-Kyu Newsletter - 20 December 2020
Zanzibar pizza, kueh, kaya, appropriation, new boozers from old, #savechineserestaurants, fugu, Israeli, bakmi, Filipino Christmas, couscous, Parisian soul food.
Hi folks
Welcome to the B-Kyuniverse for 20 December 2020. Feel free to share the B-Kyu love by sending this newsletter to all your good eating and reading friends and get them to subscribe for themselves. You can read past copies of the newsletter here and our blog here.
In each newsletter we search out articles for you the curious reader to broaden your eating adventures. We collect a wide menu of stories, blogs (including our own) or other media for you to digest, consume and hopefully, get out and feast on the wonderful world of food in Sydney and beyond. Links in the title, a $ sign after a story means you may have to go through a payment firewall if you’ve used up all your free hits.
Food and food writing
24 November 2020: Nige learned to cook in immigration detention – now he's teaching Australians his recipes (Oliver Pelling, The Guardian) At Free to Feed, a social enterprise and cooking school in Northcote, Melbourne they have been switching from their usually sold out cooking classes to meal kits named ‘All Together Now’.
As well as hard-to-find ingredients and recipe books, the kits contain conversation cards, access to online cooking films and stories from the chefs themselves. “This isn’t another high-flying chef teaching you how to cook,” says Loretta Bolotin. “You’re really reaching into this family with all of its heritage. These recipes are family secrets.”
Nigethan ‘Nige’ Sithirasegaram is one of the featured chefs, who learnt to cook the recipes of his homeland while in detention. He’s still waiting for the right visa class to be able to bring his wife and family to Australia, and until then he cooks and thinks of her and home.
16 December 2020: ACCC sues Gloria Jean's, Michel's Patisserie and Donut King for allegedly lying to franchisees (David Chau, ABC News) The owner of these franchises, RBG Food Group, is being sued for misleading potential franchisees that the stores they were buying were profitable. Claims of high fees and contracts for lower quality food and non existent marketing, and a churn and burn attitude on opening new stores and allowing older ones to struggle, have been raised in the past.
17 December 2020: Broadsheet’s Photographers’ Favourite Images of 2020 (Broadsheet) Here’s a best of with a difference, a favourite 2020 list by photographers. With a little bit of the back story, each photographer talks about their favourite shots and why they are a favourite. From Sizzler cheese toast to the Cafe Paci bake sale, there’s a mix of images here.
18 December 2020: Stephanie Izard Apologizes For a Poorly Received Representation of a Korean Dish (Ashok Selvam, Eater Chicago) Stephanie Izard, a Chicago chef, created a recipe and a dish as sponsored content. The problem here is the dish itself (bibimbap), the recipe (more a fusion of gyudon and bibimbap) and the lack of any cultural context from the author. She was called on it called out, in particular by chef Won Kim of Kimski in Chicago who tells it this way:
‘Kim says his concern isn’t about anyone cooking food from another culture. It’s just that white chefs with an audience have a history of mislabeling international foods, something that frustrates BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), like Kim, who grew up eating their favorite dishes almost in secrecy, trying to avoid racist bullying from classmates and other people who aren’t use to different ingredients and the smells that come with them. Typically, BIPOC chefs don’t have the same opportunities to share their stories, especially compared to well-heeled restaurateurs who have a platform and can share a dish without having a personal connection to it.”
Podcast news: The Home Cooking podcast by Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway is coming to an end. Starting as a lockdown project, the time has come for it to finish after 14 episodes.
19 December 2020: Alfalfa House Co-Op on Enmore Road have issued a message to members announcing the probability of Alfalfa House becoming insolvent in the first quarter of 2021. A decision will be made in the first quarter of 2021 on winding up the decades old community business. A combination of a drop in trade over 2021 and an unexpected back pay of staff leave entitlements has left them in financial stress. If you can shop there, please do, there are plenty of good food related gifts available and sustainable options for stocking up over the holidays.
Booze
10 December 2020: Taylor Square to get multi-million dollar makeover with a new 'super pub' complex (Alannah Maher, Time Out) Bye bye Courthouse and the Judgement Bar, bye bye Kinselas. A new ‘superpub’ is about the born on Taylor Square merging these two venues. We hope it brings a little oomph back to the area.
14 December 2020: Kinselas and the Courthouse Hotel at Taylor Square Are Merging Into One Mega Venue (Che-Marie Trigg, Broadsheet)
16 December 2020: Coming Soon to the Old Happy Chef Newtown Space: Odd Culture, a Two-Storey Craft Beer and Natural Wine Bar (Che-Marie Trigg, Broadsheet) Bye bye Happy Chef (and the porn shop next door?) After two years of closure after a fire gutted the restaurant, Newtown gets another bar and loses an institution where anyone and everyone was welcome.
16 December 2020: Barcaldine's Shakespeare Hotel is up for sale and comes with two ghosts, according to owner (Ellie Grounds, ABC Western QLD) An opportunity to fulfil the ‘buy a pub in the outback’ dream comes with a spooky twist. "The hotel has two ghosts, one in room 4 [a cheeky bugger who moves things around] and a gentle previous owner who sometimes walks the halls and sighs."
Chinese
16 December 2020: The #SaveChineseRestaurants Campaign Is a Love Letter to Chinese Restaurants (Karen Shimizu, Food & Wine) Right from the start of the pandemic, Chinese restaurants bore the brunt of panic, fear and then shutdowns. In the US, Grace Young has started a campaign called #savechineserestaurants, to encourage people to order and eat at their favourite Chinese local. The razor thin margins, technical skills and low price points for meals have meant many haven’t been able to pivot to online or other means of staving off financial ruin. In Sydney, our Chinatown needs help, and anywhere your favourite is please get out and give them an order.
24 November 2020: Horrible Histories ancient Chinese cuisine skit sparks controversy in Chinese community (Bang Xiao and Toby Mann, ABC News) We saw this when it was aired a couple of weeks ago and really did wonder. The skit shows an Empress eating all sorts of foods once more commonly eaten - hornet larvae, camels hoof, cockroaches and bamboo rats. The problem is the stigma attached to the other in food choices, something the Chinese community has always suffered under. The call to ban the series is also a problem, as some Chinese-Australians don’t want to rock the boat in the current political climate.
Japanese
4 December 2020: The Appealing and Potentially Lethal Delicacy That Is Fugu (Ligaya Mishan, T Magazine, New York Times, $) Fugu is a fish romanticised and fetishised for the close encounter with death the eater takes with every bite. While deaths these days are low, there is still the tiniest threat of the danger. Some even claim there is a little of the toxin left in the cut fish to give the eater a little tingle on the lips and tongue. Farmed fugu could have minimal toxin levels, but the mystery and allure remains.
14 December 2020: Japanese airline suggests passengers skip meals to reduce food waste (Lilit Marcus and Yoko Wakatsuki, CNN Travel) Have you ever fallen asleep on a flight and missed the complimentary food service, or skipped it altogether? In order to avoid the food wastage that occurs when passengers don’t want a meal, JAL is giving passengers an option to skip a meal in the same way you would request a special kosher or vegetarian meal. While there are fewer passengers, they are trialing the service on some red eye flights.
18 December 2020: Iteration X - Vaughn Tan cooks Shizuo Tsuji (Vaughan Tan, Vittles) Japanese food is now seen as a high level cuisine, often mentioned in fine food lists and awards. But it wasn’t always so. In 1979 Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji was first published in the USA, leading to the rise and appreciation of Japanese food as fine dining. There are mysterious references to M.F.K Fisher and her role in the promotion of Japanese cuisine, and how ultimately Japanese food grew in prominence. The cookbook itself set new standards for the way it introduced a pathway to understanding another culture’s approach to cooking, alongside a detailed guide as to how to chop and prepare ingredients that doesn’t assume prior knowledge.
Singaporean
15 December 2020: How to Pretend You’re in Singapore Tonight (New York Times, $) For starters, the increase in humidity in Sydney over the last week has felt extremely Singaporean. Here’s some pointers on how to pretend you are there through cocktails, making some hawker style noodles or braised duck, Leslie Tay’s pandan chiffon cake, watch Bourdain on No Reservations or Street Food: Asia and watch the excellent films Ramen Shop or Shirkers, and of course, Crazy Rich Asians. We’d add a six pack of Tiger beer in an ice bucket.
17 December 2020: Singapore's foodie "hawker" culture given UNESCO recognition (Chen Lin, Reuters) Now added to the “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”, the hawker centres of Singapore will now have some protections. Their biggest threat comes from the ageing of the stall owners, who retire and close beloved stores when there is no desire to carry on the tradition.
17 December 2020: The Way of Kueh: Christopher Tan hopes to preserve Singapore’s culinary heritage (Susan Jung, South China Morning Post, $) Originally released in 2019, Christopher Tan’s recipes for kueh are a way to preserve culinary traditions in danger of being lost. He believes that homemade kueh is in danger of dying out, traded off for convenience. “Can businesses with bottom lines and sales targets truly replicate the personality and soul of kuehs made with grandma magic and auntie power?”
Singaporean / Malaysian
17 December 2020: Kaya Is More Than a Toast Topping (Clarissa Wei, Taste) Kaya toast is not just a replacement for British style jam, it has a history and presence in South East Asian food culture far greater than colonialism. As the base is a custard, the coconut, egg and sugar mix can be used in ice-cream, cocktails (vodka with cream and kaya for a White Russian), paired with brie, layered in parfait, chicken stew or cooked down into a dense cake. Oh, and on thickly buttered toast and soft eggs on the side, still so good.
Thai
18 December 2020: No… Eating loads of holy basil won’t protect you from Covid-19 (Caitlin Ashworth, The Thaiger) Fake news stories are spreading that eating 50 grams of holy basil a day will halt covid. While that isn’t true, what is true is the consequences - a whole lot of farting!
Vietnamese
The short film Stay Awake, Be Ready (2019, Mubi, by subscription) is a brief, 14 minute slice of philosophy and Saigon street life written and directed by Pham Thien An. While there are some ‘put you off your meal’ scenes and description of bodily harm, the rest is a beautiful one point of view filmed as a single shot, set at a bắp xào (sauteed corn) stall, with Leo beer girls, child street performers and an ốc (snail) stall in the background.
18 December 2020: Wild black-jack flowers, an intriguing salad addition in Vietnam mountains (Nguyen Chi, VN Express International) A common plant in the northwestern mountains of Vietnam, this relative of the daisy is used as a crunchy salad ingredient or stir fried with beef, even buffalo meat.
Indonesian
17 December 2020: Ayam Penyet Ria, Randwick (Not Quite Nigella) Lorraine Elliot visits the Sydney outlet of Ayam Penyet Ria. Penyet is a cooking style that means ‘smashed’, and this Sydney outlet of the Indonesian chain has smashed chicken worth the crush. Cendol and extra durian, ayam bakar, bakso kuah and gado-gado are alos covered, lots of classic Indo choices.
20 December 2020: Satuco ~ Indonesian, Campsie Centre Shopping Mall (B-Kyu) Campsie Centre Shopping Mall, how we love thee. Every mall needs a Indo food stand, and this one is a simple, noodle focused stall. Bakmi with chicken and mushroom, specials of siomay, an occasional rendang - and always, always upgrade.
Filipino
17 December 2020: A very Filipino Christmas: Early starts, pigs and plenty of flan (Bron Maxabella, SBS Food) Filipinos need to start Christmas early because there is just so much celebrating to do! Visits from family and friends, religious observance, caroling and of course, the food. Food served includes keso de bola (large balls of edam style cheese), Christmas ham, bibingka (little cakes), pork embutido, pancit palabok, fruit salad, suckling pig and leche flan. You would need another three months just to get over it all.
Israeli
4 December 2020: The Unofficial Spokesperson of Israeli Food (Leah Koenig, Tablet) Way, way before Yotam Ottolenghi there was Rozanne Gold, a chef and later food writer who championed Israeli cuisine in the USA. Israeli food had a poor reputation, mostly from visitors subjected to bad hotel meals. There wasn’t an established restaurant scene, and most good food was either hidden away on small street stalls or served at home. Gold changed this by seeing the potential of the mix of “Jewish and Arabic food traditions with a particularly North African slant” and bringing it back to New York. Thanks to her, as well as the writer Joan Nathan, Israeli food had its perception changed.
14 December 2020: 'Abu Dhabi' doughnut a Hanukkah hit in Israel (Malay Mail) During Hannukah, doughnuts, called “sufganiyot” in Hebrew, are a popular fare in Israel. To celebrate the recent normalising of relations between Israel and UAE, this doughnut has been created with a date filling, a nougat crown and a little bit of gold leaf.
Moroccan / Algerian
14 December 2020: UNESCO adds couscous to list of intangible world heritage (Aljazeera) Couscous has officially joining the United Nations list of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. A joint petition by Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania helped seal the win and reduce the cultural rivalry for the essential dish, also known as seksu, kusksi and kseksu across the region.
French…or American…or African?
10 December 2020: The New Soul Food of Paris (Alexander Hurst, Eater) If you have read New Voices on Food (and we know you all have) then you would have read the piece about soul food by Tyree Barnette. There’s a fierce point about the difference between soul food and southern food, not to mention the tourist chef picking up a few recipes when travelling and opening a restaurant back home. The ‘soul food’ of Paris as described in this article has elements of this…
“The soul food served in Paris today is not immigrant cuisine. It’s closer to tourist cuisine — discovered on trips to the United States and often served to American travelers, or Americans living here — but served with a certain amount of nostalgia and admiration, rather than appropriation. While the term “soul food” can sometimes be nothing more than marketing (there are a smattering of places that use the reference but actually just serve burgers), at these three restaurants, there is a clearer desire to produce food that means something.”
However there’s a difference to these Parisian versions, with links to a West African diaspora in Europe rather than the US which has created an Afropean cuisine. While there’s still fried chicken and waffles sold as soul food, there’s also a desire to create something new and now.
Nigerian
14 December 2020: Iteration 9: Yvonne Maxwell "cooks" Yemisí Aríbisálà (Yvonne Maxwell, Vittles) Mucilage. Say it again - mucilage. There has not been a more thorough discussion on the subject of mucilage in food, ever. It is a textural quality that defines many dishes, from natto, Taiwanese oyster vermicelli noodles and okra, and one that has little love in the western food cannon. This article looks at the Nigerian ogbono soup, a goopy, moopy textural wonder that draws its mucilage from ground bush mango seeds and is a comfort food for many Nigerians.
Tanzanian
17 December 2020: The mysterious origin of Zanzibar pizza (Sarah Khan, BBC Travel) We have been suffering from fernweh of late, a German word for the travel ache to see far flung places. The author of this story had it for Zanzibar pizza, a flat dough filled with an assortment of vegetables, laughing cow cheese and meat. It has relatives across the globe in murtabak and is more linked to a soft filled crepe than pizza. And fernweh? Well, this newsletter helps a little with that.
It’s a B-Kyu world
Finally, it is that season after all.
As always, get out and explore the beautiful world we live in.
Alison and Shawn, B-Kyu