Carrot

I have always felt that cooking is the time to tell stories. In the sixties, when I learned to make this Passover carrot torte from Ruth Moos in Annecy, we talked about lots of things, but never about World War II. When I cook this torte now, after her death, I tell the story of how brave she was during the occupation. Not only did she help so many Jews trying to flee, but she had a narrow escape herself once. When the Annecy police warned the Mooses that the Gestapo was looking for her husband, Rudi, he went underground, hiding between the pork sausages and hams in a butcher’s smokehouse. Looking for him, the Gestapo went to the hotel where the Mooses had been hiding in nearby Talloires. Ruth, walking outside for a quick breath of fresh air while her tiny daughter was sleeping upstairs, turned around to see the Gestapo agents entering the lobby. In order to sneak past the guards, she grabbed some sheets from a chambermaid and, posing as a maid herself, climbed the stairs, passing the Gestapo. Terrified, she snatched her baby and fled to safety.

This sophisticated Algerian-Parisian carrot dish, another from Jacqueline Meyer-Benichou, goes perfectly with fish or roast chicken. The sweetness of the carrots marries well with the preserved lemon.

When I was in the southwest of France in mid-October, the farmers’ markets had an abundance of large dried white beans. These lima beans, which came to Spain from the New World, have now become an integral part of the Old World’s cuisine. Before the discovery of the Americas, only fava beans, chickpeas, and lentils were to be had. My cousin Richard Moos’s wife, Hélène, cooked her white beans with carrots in goose fat rather than lard. The day before, I had eaten the same combination in a soup at a farm nearby. Either way, this is a great fall dish.

At a recent Kiddush after a Bat Mitzvah service in France, the wine was French, unlike the sweet wine usually served at American synagogues. The food was elegantly prepared, as only the French can do it: spread out on a large table were thin slices of smoked salmon on toast, eggplant rolled and filled with goat cheese, a North African sautéed-pepper salad, squash soup served in tiny cups, and celery-root rémoulade. If you have never eaten celery-root salad, then start now! And if you’ve never made mayonnaise before, it’s an exhilarating and rewarding experience that I highly recommend. Any leftover mayonnaise can be kept in a jar in the refrigerator for a few days.

When Alexander Zbirou came to France from Tunisia in 1966 to study marketing, there were few good kosher restaurants in Paris. In 1976, he opened a French restaurant, called Au Rendezvous/La Maison du Couscous, in the Eighth Arrondissement near the Champs-Élysées. Four years later, he turned it into a kosher Tunisian restaurant, the only one of its kind in the quarter. Today, there are more than thirty-eight in the Eighth Arrondisement. “I saw Jews arriving in the quarter,” he told me over lunch at his restaurant. “They came, and I was waiting for them. It was home cooking for Tunisians and Ashkenazim. After all, there are lots of mixed marriages here in France.” In 1988, his mother, Jeanne Zbirou, immigrated to Paris, and is now directing the cooking in the kitchen. Well into her eighties, she comes to the restaurant every day to work with her son. His restaurant, although technically kosher, does not close on Friday night or Saturday. “I feel that we are rendering a service to kosher clientele, to give them a kosher meal for the Sabbath,” he said. Other restaurants, under the supervision of the Parisian rabbinical authority, the Beth Din, are either closed for the Sabbath or open only to customers who pay in advance. Sitting down at the restaurant, we were first served an array of kemia, similar to the ubiquitous mezze at Arab restaurants. We began with flaky brik, filled with potatoes, parsley, and hard-boiled eggs (see page 30). At least a dozen salads followed, served on tiny plates, all brimming with bold colors and flavors. Some of my favorites were raw artichoke slivers with harissa, oil, and onions; turnips with bitter orange; and this delicious carrot salad with harissa and caraway seeds. When I asked how much salt they used to cook the carrots, Jeanne said, “Enough salt to make a raw egg rise in water.” In my own kitchen, I prefer roasting the carrots, because it brings out the sweetness of the vegetable.

When I visited my cousins in Annecy, they served me this unusual salad. Its variety of colors and textures is stunning. As with many other cooked salads, it tastes even better the next day, making it a great dish for dinner parties or picnics. The kosher dill pickles came from shopping trips to Geneva and were a big treat.

When I first ate this Sri Lankan pickle, known simply as Singhala Achcharu, it was made with green beans and carrots, but it may be made with other vegetables as well, including green papaya, found in East Asian and South Asian markets, and cauliflower. You may combine all these vegetables if you like, cutting each of them so the pieces are more or less the same size.

Here is an everyday carrot dish. In India it is served hot, but I often serve it cold in the summer, almost like a carrot salad.

Somewhere between the famous Mulligatawny Soup of the mixed-race Anglo-Indians and the soupy lentil-tomato-pasta dish, dal dholki, of the vegetarians of the western state of Gujarat, lies this soup. It is made with red lentils and tomatoes and may be served with a dollop of plain white rice or with some cooked pasta (pappardelle, noodles, macaroni) added to the soup just before it is heated for serving. This soup, plus a salad, makes for a perfect lunch or supper. There are three simple steps to follow here. First you boil up the lentils. As they cook, you sauté the seasonings. Then you combine the two and blend them.

Here is a soup that is perfect for cold winter days, the ginger in it providing lasting warmth. The ginger also helps if you have a cold and acts as a stabilizer for those who suffer from travel sickness. Apart from all its health-giving properties (which Indians always have in the back of their heads), this is a delicious soup that can be served at any meal.

This soup, mellowed with coconut milk, is as delicious as it is surprising in its final blend of silken textures.

This lovely Persian polow is served with lamb meatballs buried in the rice (see note), or as an accompaniment to a roast leg of lamb (see page 233).

Candied tangerine or orange peel is the sweet element in this festive Persian rice with carrots. Persian shops sell the candied peel, as well as slivered almonds and pistachios. To make the candied peel yourself, see the recipe that follows this one.

Turlu is a Turkish dish of mixed seasonal vegetables cooked in olive oil. The winter turlu consists of root vegetables and beans.

A North African way of cooking carrots.

In Turkey all kinds of vegetables, including cauliflower and green beans, are dressed with a nut sauce called tarator. Here celeriac and carrots make a good combination of flavor and color, and yogurt is a refreshing addition to the sauce.

For this Tunisian salad, use old carrots and mealy potatoes.