Food Week: Rambutan.

Wait a sec. That's food? It looks like a radioactive hairball, or a pompom that suddenly came to life, or - OK, insert your own here. Point is, if it wasn't growing on a tree, we would have trouble recognizing it as a fruit. Since it is, we must find out if it is edible. Whooo boy is this weird-looking thing edible!

Yes, those red, hairy fruits are called rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum).  They are extremely popular in Southeast Asia and Hawaii. Although the real native range of the fruit is not known (suspected Malaysia and Indonesia), nearly every place in SE-Asia has naturalized rambutan trees. It's related to other tropical fruits, the most common of which in the U.S. of A. is lychee. There is also a weird yellow version grown in Costa Rica, but this entry will focus on the SE Asian versions.

The word "rambutan" means "hairy" in Malay. Indeed, that hairy husk is the most prominent part of the fruit. It is peeled off entirely before eating. Don't worry, it's easier than it sounds. Here's a video if you don't believe me:

 

The fruit itself is almost like a white grape. Inside the meat of the fruit is a pit, again similar to a regular grape.  As with most foods with heavy pits, the pits are cast aside. Eat the translucent flesh however you like. It has a ton of vitaminsand antioxidants in there, but really, this just looks fun to eat.

Rambutan is quite popular in Southeast Asia. There are some 200-odd cultivars to choose from. Some are bright red, some are yellow, and some strains are just plain more awesome than others. Rambutan is also made into jellies and other flavored products. Almost all of the rambutan there comes from Thailand, so if you want it straight from the source, take a little trip to Bangkok. They can usually be found fresh on the branch, already ripened (because they only ripen on the tree).

Unlike tamales, I want to try this. This sounds just bizarre and tasty enough to be worth trying. How many people from the West can honestly say they've eaten a fruit that looks like a pom-pom?

Food Week: Tamales.

Confession: No matter how much I write about liking weird, exotic food, I cannot stand Mexican cuisine. Cumin does mot sit well with me. There's something about that culinary style, even without cumin, that just...bugs my taste buds.

Enter a food truck called Tamale Spaceship.  Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to try one...and had a hard time figuring out how to eat it. Even when I did finally figure it out, I was not particularly impressed. Maybe I was still doing it wrong.

For starters, the idea of wrapping food in leaves of any kind is weird to Americans. This is a shame; leaves are nature's convenient, recyclable wrapping and often less messy than plastic or wax paper in other ways. Point is, we aren't really used to seeing things wrapped in leaves, no matter how delicious they may be. It's pretty common elsewhere.

Tamales have been around since the ancient Mayans. They can be found from Mexico downwards as well as in Southeast Asia. They consist of meat, veggies, cheese, whatever you like, rolled into a dough called masa. Masa is a sort of starchy corn dough that tastes...like corn. The whole shabang is then boiled or fried in a corn leaf. Corn, corn, corn. Yep, there's a lot of corn in tamales. Sometimes, banana leaves are used instead, but when you have corn, use it.

That said, one of the thinfs I did wrong was trying to eat the thing with the leaf still on. Unlike Greek dolma or other leaf-wrapped yummies, you do take the leaf wrapper off of tamales. Not doing so means not enjoying them properly. I doubt the corn leaves will kill you, but it just plain won't taste as good with them on.

Unfortunately, I really can't recommend tamales outside of "try it if you like Mexican." If you like Mexican food already, then you'll probably think that tamales are really neat. If not, then avoid them; you probably won't be impressed. If you've never had Mexican, tamales are as good a dish as any to see if you like traditional Mexican cuisine. They're probably better than Taco Bell in any case.

Food Week: Crayfish Etoufee.

The friend of mine who suggested this whole food week happened to be from Louisiana. Lousiana's got plenty of unique cuisine, including gumbo, jambalaya, and a few other things with funny names. Among those was his personal choice for the week: Crayfish etouffee.

Etouffee ("stuffed" in French- yes, my accents suck) is basically any shellfish served over rice in a sort of stew. Vegetables and a tomato-based sauce are givens. common in both Cajun and creole cuisine. It is more popular in the southern parts of Louisiana than up north. The shellfish of choice in Louisiana is, of course, crayfish.

Crayfish is another one of those things that make me wonder, "who thought this was a good idea, again?" Crayfish are the smaller, more voracious cousins of the lobster. Put two in a tank and one of them will eventually eat the other. Then again, humans do eat anything.

These guys love food. They just don't like BEING food.

Another weird part of etouffee is something called roux. Roux is a thickening agent commonly found in French cooking. It's usually equal parts fat and flour. Depending on the kind of flavor desired, a blond or brown roux may be used in etouffee. Lighter roux creates a nuttier flavor while a darker roux enhances the flavors that are already there.

For those curious, crayfish etouffee was supposedly invented some 70 years ago in Beaux Bridge, Louisiana. Since then, it spread to New Orleans and cities across the state. It is consistently one of any given restaurant's most popular dishes. There are plenty of recipes if you click around online. A lot of people just use packaged mixes, but it still comes out great. I've never been to Louisiana, but will definitely give etouffee a try!

Food Week: Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza.

During local food week, I cannot avoid Chicago cuisine. Chicago is known for two foods: Steak and pizza. I cannot speak for the steak. Chicago pizza, however, I know very well.

Apparently, there are two kinds of Chicago pizza: The huge, party-size kind that is usually cut into squares, and the deep dish kind. Although huge pizza is convenient, I doubt anybody really wants to take credit for it's invention; it's not that impressive, taste-wise. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that there are apparently two (maybe even three?)  kinds of Chi-town pizza. Somehow. Usually, however, the term "Chicago pizza" is referring to deep dish.




Deep dish is impressive. Even though it's certainly not wider that the average pizza, it's thick. The fist thing one sees is a layer of tomato sauce laid in a cornbread crust an inch or three deep. It's almost like a reverse pizza in that the tomato sauce is on the ingredients. Beneath that layer of tomato sauce could be anything - meat, veggies, or just plain cheese.

Nobody really knows who 'invented' deep dish. Uno's was probably the first to patent it in 1956, although even there, exactly who at Uno's created it is up for debate. Since then, every pizza place in the area has been copying the idea of a pre-baked crust stacked with truckloads of toppings. Gino's East, my personal favorite, claims to be the 'original' like everybody else. It doesn't really matter who invented it except as a claim to fame; as long as you can handle inches of toppings on your pizza, you'll love deep dish.

Even if the veggies sound wholesome, if you're on a diet, avoid deep dish. It has a million calories. Those inches of cornbread crust might contain nothing but cheese.  You will be stuffed after eating it. Do not attempt alone, but try it at least once if you happen to be in Chicago. 

Bio-Art: El Bulli.

Welcome to Food Week, a week wholly devoted to "They Actually Eat That"-esque entries. No, Mother Nature has not run out of weird things; it was simply a friend's suggestion for the next theme week, and hey, who doesn't enjoy the occasional weird food column?  You'd think it'd be hard to integrate this into a bio-art column, but really, almost every nicely-prepared dish is a chemistry project.

Cooking is an art, no matter how much Dunkin' Donuts and Mickey D's would like us to forget. In many restaurants, presentation is just as important as taste.The Japanese show the rest of the world up in this regard by having artistic lunchboxes every day. There's also designer sushi, but that's a trend that will get its own entry later this week.

Then there are food artists who are so creative that they shut down just to think up 500 new dishes and serve 26+ courses. Yes, really.

The only one of its kind, El Bulli is the place for different cuisine. It's located in Cala Monjoy, Spain, but you'll probably have to plan a special trip to Europe just to go there - don't plan a tour of castles that you can visit any time. Only 1% of would-be diners actually get reservations. This place is the highest of high cuisine simply because they do things nobody has done yet. (The keyword there is 'yet'- the fruity caviar above has since been imitated insofar as I can tell.)

El Bulli is the most innovative restaurant on the planet. They are closed six months out of the year just concocting a new menu. If they've done it before, they will not do it again. As per the owner's own words, "We have one rule here: It has to be new."  Here are a few examples, which should be enough to pique one's interest if not incite a Pavlovian salivation response.

Without spoiling any secret recipes, El Bulli makes dishes that combine the scientific with the tasty. All your favorite foods have been puffed into spheres, liquefied, and sprinkled with only the finest ingredients. It's like eating a pre-taste-tested lab experiment that has also been made visually appealing. For those of you wondering, yes, this is the place The Simpsons made fun of in the episode centering around foodie subculture.

El Bulli's offerings are all about calculation and presentation. Food is decorated in gold caramel, puffed into a foam, and delivered in jewelry boxes. No forks needed; this place is all about sensing what they've done in the kitchen - err, laboratory. Many of the dishes are one-bite wonders that are to be eaten just-so, with each dish precisely calculated to leave enough room for the next. Dinner is a show for all the senses. Enjoy it to the end!

As with many of the entries this week, here's the big question: Is it worth it? There is no price listing, but even with the supposed high price, El Bulli barely breaks even. It sounds like it tastes great, but there is probably a reason that the prices aren't listed. If any of you go there, tell me what you had! :D