Paches

Assembling the paches

Yesterday I learned one more traditional Guatemalan dish, Paches, or tamales de arroz. These tamales are a traditional Christmas treat, though they are definitely available throughout the rest of the year, however they are more reserved for special occassions.

This cooking lesson was led by my former teacher, Ana, a great cook with whom I've exchanged lots of recipes. Essentially our Spanish classes always seemed to morph into descriptions of our craziest kitchen exploits, favorite foods, market trips etc. It is thanks to her that I learned correct Spanish words for describing specific kinds of baking pans, stirring spoons, the difference between simmering and boiling and other details that might not emerge in most students' intermediate Spanish classes.

Paches can be made for the vegetarian, but to truly embrace this food, you must embrace a favorite ingredient of mine, bacon fat. Luckily, Ana's husband's aunt (aunt-in-law?) has pigs and sells fresh, fresh mantequa de cerdo. If you can't find lard/bacon fat or for some reason have ethical/health/religious objections to using it, you can substitute vegetable shortening. I asked if butter would work, and it will, but shortening is aparently better.

The other great thing about this recipe is that if you've mastered it, you've essentially mastered another classic Guatemalan dish, Pepian. The only difference between the sauce in this recipe and pepian is the addition of a lone chile.

I think I've decided that paches are definitely not my favorite Guatemalan food (my stomach is in accord on this one--perhaps all my years of pseudo-vegetarianism didn't quite prepare me for the meatiness of these tamales). However, they're a classic and everyone else seems to love them. This recipe makes about 30 large paches. Enough for a great fiesta. Give it a try and enjoy!

Ingredients:
1/3 lb lard
2 lbs ground rice
3 oz. sesame seeds
3 oz. pumpkin seeds
1 chile guacaye (dry, spicy pepper)
1 chile pasa (dried bell pepper)
4 plum tomatoes
1 in. cinnamon stick
Salt to taste
Pinch of saffron
3 lbs chicken (or 2.5 if it's already de-boned, fileted etc.)
1 white bread roll (pan frances here)
2 red peppers, juliened
1/2 C. olives
1/2 C. dried plums
1/2 C. raisins
3 manojos de ojas de Maxam (roughly translates to three bundles of these big green leaves of the Maxam tree. You can subtitute banana leaves. In total about 50 leaves)

Directions
Bring 2-3 litres of water to boil in a very large pot and add lard.
Add the rice and saffron and stir constantly until rice is cooked through, adding heated water as needed. (The final consistency should be like cream of wheat). Season with salt (about 2 tbps) to taste while cooking. Set aside to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds until lightly browned. In a pan, roast the tomatoes until browned on all sides and softened. Soak the bread in water until thoroughly moistened. Put the seeds, tomatoes, cinnamon stick, salt (about 1 tbsp) and 3/4 C. water in the blender and blend until smooth. Remove the sauce from the blender and add the bread and a little more water. Blend the bread to absorb all the remaining contents of the blender and add to the sauce. Season with additional salt if necessary. Clean and wash the chicken and cut into large-bite-sized pieces. Stir the chicken into the sauce.
To assemble the paches
Place one small leaf inside a larger leaf. Place about 3/4 cup of rice in the middle of the small leaf. Spoon the sauce and a piece of chicken over the center of the rice. Add one piece each of pepper, olive, plum and raisin to the rice and press in firmly. Roll the leaves up (hard to describe without demonstrating--fold up the two sides of the paches to meet in the middle and then roll these pieces together until they meet the rice. Then fold in the two ends so you have a nice tight package of rice. Repeat with the outer leaf). Repeat until all the ingredients are used up.

Cooking the paches

To cook the paches
Place a rack or pieces of maxam leaves on the bottom of a very large pot and cover with water. Fill the pot with the paches in concentric cirlces. Cover the top layer with a plastic bag, sealing in the sides to ensure that no vapor will escape. Trust me, the bag doesn't melt. This remains a mystery. Cook over medium heat for approximately 1.5 hours. The maxam leaves will turn a darker shade of green and when done, the cooked paches will sound hollow when tapped. Or, remove one, taste it, and decide if you think it's cooked through.

Tasting the paches

Buen Provecho!

Food System Change Not Coming From the Top

Yesterday President elect Obama nominated his pick for the Secretary of Agriculture, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Like many other people, I have been watching the nearly daily announcements of cabinet nominations with some degree of excitement, waiting to see if any nomination points towards actual change. To date I've been pretty uniformly disappointed (though not altogether surprised) and the nomination of Vilsack marks another disappointment.

If you think the Department of Agriculture is a small department without much influence on the average American, think again. The USDA operates on a $97 billion annual budget, is responsible for administering all of the food and nutrition programs (including the school lunch program, which feeds over 25 million young people each day), all agricultural subsidies, conservation programs, the forest service etc. etc. We are all food consumers, and as such, USDA policies affect each and every one of us. Unfortunately, in his acceptance of the nomination, Vilsack failed to mention the words "food" or "eaters," instead, promising to protect the interests of farmers and ranchers, who represent less than 5% of the American population (for a concise review of Vilsack's nomination, listen to this NPR interview with Michael Pollan).

The past several weeks have been quite full of outreach and organizing within the sustainable food and nutrition communities around the appoinment of a new Secretary of Agriculture. Most prominently, Michael Pollan wrote an 9-page piece in the New York Times magazine, an open Letter to the Farmer in Chief, imploring the president elect to recognize the centrality of food to influencing many of his key campaign pledges--addressing climate change, the health care crisis and energy independence. This article is a great introduction to understanding how we got where we are today with our agricultural system, and how we cannot make meaningful change in energy use, climate change or health status without dramatic reforms in the way we produce food.

Unfortunately, few major reforms are likely to be driven by the Department of Agriculture with Vilsack at its helm. As Governor of Iowa, Vilsack ardently embraced the production of corn and soy-based ethanol, one of the largest contributors to the worldwide spike in food prices. He supported legislation which stripped the rights of local governments to regulate confined animal feed operations (CAFOs) or regulate the production of genetically modified foods. He has been a leading voice for pharmaceutical crops and was named Governor of the Year by the largest biotechnology industry group, the Biotechnology Industry Organization. For those of us who seek an end to the dominance of agribusiness in the US food system and a return to regionalized, family sized farming operations, we do not have a champion in Vilsack. However, there are a few areas in which he may support important reforms, including a cap on farm subsidies for those farmers earning more than $250,000 ($250,000! Yes, apparently in the world of US farming, that is the benchmark for "low-income". Incrementalism at its finest.) Additionally, Vilsack has indicated support for livestock market reforms, one of the most obvious instances of agribussiness abuse in the food system.

The sustainable food and farming communities are at odds for how best to provoke change in the next administration. The Organic Consumers Association and Pesticide Action Network are calling for an opposition to the nomination of Vilsack. Other groups such as the Center for Rural Affairs argue that the key is not to oppose the nomination, but to organize strongly to influence the policies that the USDA supports, including regulation of anti-competitive behavior in the agriculture industry (particularly consolidation in the meat industry), safety nets for family-sized farms, regulation of CAFOs, support for new (young!) farmers, and incentives for local and organic agriculture.

In the lead up to this nomination, many groups came together to propose more sustainable choices for Secretary of Agriculture. Unfortunately, our thousands and thousands of emails, calls etc. were not recognized. However, the sustainable agriculture and nutrition infastructure was clearly strengthened in this effort. What is clear is that we cannot wait for change to come from above. We must continue this organizing and creating sustainable food solutions quite litereally from the ground up. While a champion of intelligent food and farm policy at the presidential level could do wonders to change the current food system, individual farmers, community organizers and most importantly, eaters, will continue to serve as the true advocates for a sustainable food system.

Cookies All Around

This week I'm not studying and I am supposed to be finding myself a job. I am doing a lot of research on that front, but also realize that everyone is about to go on Christmas vacation and whatever I do will not begin until the new year. Today I did help pack 250 lbs of fair trade coffee to mail to buyers in the US, for Omar's organization, Cafe Conciencia, but I must admit that the past two days I have largely been baking (and eating) Christmas cookies. It turned out that Eloisa had never baked cookies before. Ever. This amazed me because she is a wonderful cook. When Ruth found this out, she decided we had to make and decorate Christmas cookies, a tradition she has carried out with her mother her whole life. I think originally the idea was to decorate the cookies with Eloisa's sons, who both love sweets and like to paint. We figured this would be a great activity to do together, but it turns out they're staying with their grandmother this week. Alas, we decided to bake anyway. And when we couldn't find a gingerbread man cookie cutter, we decided to make a gingerbread house. I'm not sure I've even made one before, but how hard could it be? We made the walls and roof today and will do the assembling tomorrow. It sure wasn't hard to find any number of candies, marshmallows, sprinkles etc. to decorate with.

Manchas (Eloisa and Furio's dog) was very jealous...

For an illustration of the whole day, check out Ruth's photos. I'll post a photo of the finished product if it can actuall stay standing up long enough.

What may have been one of the most valuable parts of this adventure was discovering Tienda Emanuel up at the main market, La Democracia. Tienda Emanuel is a cake supply store and they sell 25lb bags of flour! Sourdough here I come...

Tamales con Chipilin

A few weekends ago, I had a wonderful time learning a few traditional dishes from my neighbor, Eloisa. I have been meaning to write about it for a while now, and finally got around to asking my friend, and cooking partner, Ruth, for the photos she took during our kitchen adventure.

Eloisa is a wonderful cook. In addition to many traditional Guatemalan foods, she's become an expert pizza maker. It probably helps that she's married to an Italian, but she does all the prep and it really is delicious--a nice thin crust, a mix of cheeses, and whatever fresh vegetables she can come across, piled high and wonderfully seasoned. In addition to tamales, we made sweet ayote. This is essentially pumpkin boiled in a simple syrup made from panela, an unrefined sugar that's dark with a taste mildly reminiscent of molasses. It was flavorful, but a bit too sweet for me. Perhaps it would have been better spooned over some tart, plain yogurt. The tamales were the real winners of the day. We ate that that evening with vegetables and chicken, grilled in the courtyard. Hairdryers work wonders when the grill is taking a long time to warm up....










Chipilin (Crotalaria longirostrata), a plant native Central America is used as both herb and vegetable. The leaves can be boiled much like spinach. But much more common is the incorporation of finely chopped leaves into tamales. You probably won't find chipilin to widely available in the US. It turns out that chipilin plants produce many, many seeds, which, coupled with the fact that few animals eat chipilin plants, has led to its classification as a noxious weeds. Australia has even banned the import of chipilin seeds. That being said, it's pretty tasty stuff. Maybe it wouldnt be considered invasive if we just found more uses for it and kept it under control by eating more of it. So, to that end, here's the recipe for tamales with chipilin.

If you've never made tamales before, it turns out they're not too difficult to make-especially when you live next door to a corn mill. Most of you probably aren't so lucky, so try using a commercially available masa, or corn meal, widely sold in the "ethnic foods section" of grocery stores. I believe a common brand is Maseca. The other ingredient that might be slightly difficult to come by if there aren't any ethnic groceries nearby is queso fresco. In a pinch, you can substitute farmers cheese, or another soft, mild, moist cheese. But try and find some queso fresco. Vale la pena. Eloisa buys her from a woman who sells door to door every Wednesday in our neighborhood. So far I've just purchased cheese at the market, but I think I have to try and get in on the home delivery. It's the freshest I've had. This recipe makes about 40 tamales, enough for a feast, or to eat for a few days. They're pretty tasty warmed in the toaster oven or directly over the oven flame.

Ingredients:
2 lb masa
1/2 liter vegetable oil
3 C. water
1-2 cups chopped chipilin
1 lb queso fresco
Salt to taste
Corn husks-soaked in water until flexible

Directions:
Mix the masa, oil, water and salt in a large bowl with your hands. The dough should have a smooth consistency, like a moist pie dough. Add the queso and chipilin and mix until well combined. Form tight, ovals of dough about half the size of your fist. Wrap the dough in corn husks. Place a metal rack at the bottom of a deep pot. Place the tamales on top of the rack in concentric circles. Put a few inches of water in the pot. Cover the pot and place over medium heat. (Eloisa covered the tamales with a plastic bag before placing the lid on top. This helps keep in the moisture, but be careful the bag doesn't melt to the pot). Cook for approximately 1 hour or until tamales are firm and cooked through.