#7 - chal lah noun \ˈḵä-lə, ˈhä-\

Like the "melting pot" of cultures that the City is, or whatever metaphor it is now identified with, cuisine and great food are no exception when it comes to her signs of diversity. Among the many influences and types of snacks, delicacies or simple local comfort foods there is surely and not surprisingly a strong Jewish signature. Yes, yes, there is of course the obvious bagel, the rather famous pastrami (which I will skip since I don't "do" meat) and many other things. But one thing that got me at first glance is the challah. 

Challah (klingersbread.com)

"Looking" tempting at me, from the windows of many bakeries and bagel shops (from the most rustic to the a bit too ubiquitous Hot & Crusty), there it was. This huge loaf of bronzed, tanned crust and a yellowish inside peaking out. With a little bit of a glaze (surely brushed over with eggs) and in sort of cluster of lumps. It looked just like... or well, it reminded me instantly of one of my forever favorite Portuguese sweet goodies, the folar-da-Páscoa or Easter bread. Every year I demand for its baking! Provided I am home of course to convince my mum to do so (which is not that difficult ;)) or to "treat" me because after all I happen to be home.

Folar-da-Páscoa ( tentacaodosabor.com)

It's a very slighty sweet bread, of an egg-containing bread dough spiced with ground fennel seeds. On top of the loaf there is a cross of dough and under it there are 2-4 hard boiled whole eggs, hidden like eggs in a nest.  It's such a simple and unambitious thing, but it absolutely drives my craving. In Old Amsterdam I found out, around Easter time, something similar named duivekater which was close enough to keep me happy but not enough to deter me from baking my own folar one Easter that I was neither home nor could "import" my mum to bake it for me.

The challah tastes similarly, but it is a bit lighter, fluffier in consistency and often it contains raisins or it's sprinkled with poppy seeds. The funny thing is the challah reminded me of folar, not only in taste and shape/color but also phonetically. Maybe the latter is kind of a mind leap, what would folar have to do with challah anyway? Nonetheless, old Portugal was an earlier "melting pot" which once hosted many Jewish people (that we infamously expelled and oppressed later on, thus furnishing the streets of Amsterdam and other metropoleis with some rather important Portuguese-Jewish entrepreneurs and thinkers). Maybe it is faint the possibility that challah and folar are relatives but I really like musing on the idea of that ancestral link... regardless, both breads make my taste buds extremely happy!

And in case curiosity takes over your own taste buds:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/challah-i/ 

http://www.portuguesegirlcooks.com/2012/04/portuguese-easter-bread-folar-de-pascoa.html

#4 - In search of a working fish market

In highly urbanized environments such as New York, or even more cosmopolitan and touristy spots such as the area around Pier 17, there is hardly place for what I had been dreaming about the whole previous day. I heard on the radio about a fish market “reopening”. However, I did not tune too accurately in on they actually were advertising. In my mind I was finally going to find, here in the big metropolis, a fresh fish market with enough offer I would visit as often as I liked so as to buy proper fresh whole fish. Well, I guess I had something in mind similar to where I used to go as a kid with my mum. A place where we would go buy us fresh fish for the week/coming weeks, a place down by the true fish docks.

It was rather naive of me to assume that WNYC would announce something less than hip and novel instead of just telling listeners about yet another place where one could buy cheap and have a lot to choose from. I mean, I love this radio station and a lot of what I try around here follows their suggestions but let's say that when it comes to culture they do serve certain groups of people. Which is fine and they did refer also that at that market there would be demos on how to cut and prepare fish. That alone should have given it a bit away that I wasn't going to meet the regular market by the docks, but it didn't click in my mind then. Indeed, I ended  in front of what use to be the old Fulton fish Market. The New Fulton Fish Market is actually located in the South Bronx and from the photos on the internet looks rather mass scale and industrial, to serve the best fish restaurants in the city I suspect.

Old Fish Market down by South Ferry

But back to Old Fulton. Although decrepit, it is a nice evoking building. It is pretty much falling apart and looking as abandoned as it could. Its architecture does remind me of the same type of coop-regulated markets I indeed was used to from going shopping for food with my mum. These are big bulky buildings divided in rows of shops/stands that circled around the ground and sometimes upper flours. Each vendor sold more or less similar fishes and seafood with the occasional rarity to be only found at specific stands. As a customer you would take a couple of strolls to probe where to get the freshest fish for the best price (the one with healthy eyes, that smelled like the seaside, salty water and algae rather than of the bloody long standing ones. At this New Amsterdam Fish Market, however, I ended up where there were but a bunch of fish stands, half of them selling actual whole fishes the other half selling ready to eat fish-based (very tasty) snacks (I ate an awesome sea scallop ceviche). The fresh fish stands were by far outnumbered by numerous artisan bread, farm greens, handcrafted cider sirup and all sorts of organic-made sweet stuff. I ended up at yet another cool and cosmopolitan "museum for food" to educate city people, rather than at a place where I would have gone to buy some fish to stuff my fridge and freezer with. I even had stopped at Duane Reade to get myself a cooling back in case I would take too long to get back home..."you fool" I thought.

The New Amsterdam Fish Market

As it seems I have to strongly improve my filtering of local markets for genuine food  so that I won’t end up at educating urbanites markets about sustainably produced goods. Goods which I would like to buy in any case but I could easily pass on the gloss that comes with all the fancy advertising and of course the price of it. The hunt continues.

"Food & awareness" stands

I guess I am only now realizing how as a young person I did not think at all about these places to where we went for food. I just took them for granted, the markets where we bought the edibles which were the ingredients of my mum's conscious and delicious cooking. For me such docks were naturally the places where to go for the proper real fish. There, men with sun-stained skin and a mustache, in a tank top and balding, and women with big hands and a scarf on their head, they were the ones that knew all about the Ocean and seafood. Far from the experience of the urbanites around me, I grew up where the small fishing boats, “traineiras” with their small but ever burpy motors, arrived loaded with mussels, octopuses, fresh sun shining scaly (and often still jumping) sardines and mackerels. And a few hours later with a crusty salted skin, with fresh olive oil poured over their fresh white tender meat and sided by a fresh tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad and boiled potatoes (in their skin) they would be the on my plate for lunch and take over both my taste buds and my brain circuits.