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Milne
Alumni April Newsletter Dear Milne Alumni and Supporters, In this issue: * Share Your Milne MiniMester Story! * My East Asian Kitchen, by Bert Sackman, '51 * Sad News SHARE YOUR MILNE MINI-MESTER STORY! From Andy Scherer, '74: In May 1972, after a winter with too many snow days, Milne students were offered a two-week “Mini-Mester” in order to fulfill the required number of school days. Our faculty created an array of unusual and, in some cases, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. If you were there, share your story:
From the March 29, 1972, Crimson and White: The original is available here (scroll down to page 2). Mini-Mester Courses Revised! Many students have complained about the courses to be offered for Milne's first Mini-Mester, and the fact that they were not consulted when the courses were first drawn up. Also, it seems that many teachers did not have much of a say in the course plans either, and have decided that they'd rather "let it all hang out" and teach something interesting for a change. Therefore, a new committee consisting of six faculty members and twenty-six Seniors (who prefer to remain anonymous) has met and agreed on an entirely different set of courses, here listed according to the teacher who will be involved: Mr. Bowler: Walking down the long aisles of Page Hall; the complete guide. Mr. DeLong: How to be cheerful in class. Mr. DeLong's lone experience in this field is his best recommendation. Miss Dunn: Grimmar. Mrs. Dupuis: Cannibalism. A banquet will be given at the course's end; whoever is interested in lending a hand, please stop in at the Home Ec Room after school one day.,/p> Mr. Kraus: Methods of Teaching—the Student as Vegetable. No preparation necessary. Mr. Lamanna: Italian Studies, with special emphasis on the Mafia. Learning by doing will be stressed; students will put "contracts" out on undesirables among themselves and the faculty. Immunity from prosecution will be guaranteed by Mr. Lamanna and his "friends." Mr. Lewis: How to live your life without changing the expression on your face more than once or twice. A three-day segment of the course will be devoted to chin-rubbing. A possible alternate: how to annoy politicians, teachers, administrators, etc., with importunate letters every time they turn around. Mr. Neiderberger: Third world. fourth world, fifth world, sixth, etc. Prerequisite: must be able to count. Mrs. Peters: An investigation into the stimulation of sports. The boys are invited. Mr. Pruden: Long-distance bicycling. An excursion to Asia is planned. (We tried to tell him that he could not possibly get past San Francisco without a boat or plane, but he just laughed.) Mrs. Schrader: Advanced Quantam Mechanics and Other Puzzles. Mr. Smith and Miss O'Conner: In keeping with good Milne tradition, the French Department has decided instead of bothering to go to France, to bring France here. Inquiries are being made to Georges Pompidou and to the Ace Trucking Company. Mr. Spielman: Models of Man, Part Three: Sociological Manifestations of Seniorities. No one is expected to show up. MY EAST ASIAN KITCHEN BY BERT SACKMAN, '51Beginning with Chinese food, the foods of East Asia - Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam – have been favorites of mine since my early childhood. When I was a small child, in Brooklyn, NY, my family went out eat in a local Chinese restaurant almost every Sunday. Chinese food is the most popular ethnic cuisine (in America, there are more Chinese restaurants than Macdonald’s restaurants). And, since the 1920’s, New York’s Chinatown has rivaled that of San Francisco. The Chinatown in Queens, NY, probably exceeds San Francisco or greater Los Angeles, or anywhere other than Sichuan Province, in the number of restaurants serving truly Sichuan cuisine. We Jews, more than any ethnic group (other than Chinese), have embraced Chinese cuisine as their favorite restaurant food. I used to refer to Chinese food as ethnic Jewish cooking. The bond between Jews and Chinese restaurants is such that Jews typically repair to a Chinese restaurant to eat out on Christmas Day. Restaurants, owned by Christians, were generally closed on Christmas Day, Chinese restaurants, owned by non-Christians, remained open. Other evidence for the love Jews have for Chinese food is the joke that says that since it is the year 5776, according to the Jewish calendar, and Chinese recorded history only goes back some 3500 years, Jews had to do without Chinese food for more than two millenia. So, while I have been eating Chinese food since 1938 or 1940, I had to wait until I was a grown man before I experienced other Asian cooking. After I graduated from college and went to work in Virginia, I had my first taste of Japanese food in Washington, DC, in 1957. My wife, Marlyn, and I discovered tempura, beef teriyaki, tsukemono, and miso shiru. Tempura, lightly breaded, crispy deep-fried shrimp and pieces of vegetables, are served just out of the fryer with a savory sweet and salty dipping sauce. It is delicious and despite what some writers for Savieur and Bon Appetit proclaim, excellent tempura is difficult to make at home. Getting the coating just right and keeping the oil temperature just right is a challenge that keeps the cook from sharing in the eating experience. Miso shiru, or simply, miso soup, is my favorite beginning to a meal in a Japanese restaurant. But not at home. In order to make a proper miso shiru, you have to first make dashi, the broth that is the basis of many Japanese dishes and condiments. To make dashi, you need kombu (a dried stick of a particular seaweed) and dried albacore flakes. And you need a container of miso. To obtain these, you must have access to a market that sells Japanese food products. Of course, while you’re in that market, you may notice packets of dehydrated miso shiru on the shelf. It’s an okay thing to make a cupful for yourself, but it is not dinner party worthy. So, unless Alton Brown is your kitchen god, reserve miso shiru for the next time you visit a Japanese restaurant. Some ten years later, in a Cambridge, MA, restaurant, we discovered sukiyaki, the dish that became a weekly meal in our home. In 1979, I set out to sample every Asian restaurant in Los Angeles. Of course, I failed in my quest. But I did discover Chung Woon, an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue restaurant on Western Avenue. I fell in love with the flavors and aromas of grilled beef, galbi and bulgogi, the addictively candy-sweet chicken wings, and the myriad of vegetable and noodle side dishes they called banchan. Unlike the other East Asians, Koreans made little effort to introduce White Americans to their foodways. Thai restauranteurs altered their signature dish, making it sweeter, and White Americans were introduced to Thai cuisine by first tasting, and loving, pad Thai. It wasn’t until almost a hundred years after Koreans immigrated to America that Roy Choi hooked Angelenos with his Korean taco. David Chang got New Yorkers’ attention with his Korean-inspired fusion cooking at Momofuku. And Marja Vongerichten, the wife of Jean Georges, exposed us all to Korean food through her PBS program, “Kimchi Chronicles.” Barbecue, in the forms of galbi and bulgogi, captured our palates and led us to the flavors of Korea that are exemplified in the myriad of kimchis and banchans that make our mouths water. Marie Wilson published the first English language Thai cookbook, Siamese Cookery, in 1965. Her book, both memoir and recipe collection, was based on her experiences while living in Thailand from 1952 to 1960, when she moved to Los Angeles. A goal of hers was to provide recipes that represented the true flavors of Thai foods, but using only the ingredients that were available to a cook in Los Angeles in 1960. Two ingredients, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass, that were critical to Thai taste were not allowed to be imported from Thailand to America. Sixty miles east of Hollywood, where virtually all Thais in California lived, is Riverside, California. The UC-Riverside campus maintains an important collection of citrus botanicals. Among the many citrus trees growing in that collection is the Kaffir lime tree. Kaffir lime leaves are a critical ingredient in the Thai chile paste called nahm prik pao. So Thai residents of Hollywood would journey to Riverside to pick the Kaffir lime leaves from the UC-Riverside trees and return home where they packed the leaves in plastic baggies and froze them. At the same time, they also collected lemongrass shoots from the campus gardens and brought them home, too. Wilson also provided a recipe for a sauce that closely approximated the flavor of Thai fish sauce and also recommended substituting sour cream for coconut cream. Subsequently, when authentic Thai fish sauce and canned coconut cream could be imported from Thailand, it was no longer necessary to make do with these approximations. Importation of Thai foodstuffs originated with Pramorte Tilakamonkul who opened a market and import company, Bangkok Market, on Melrose Avenue, in Hollywood, in 1971. Bangkok Market was the first Thai market and it is still in operation at the same location. Tilakamonkul and a few other Thai immigrants collected plants, fruits and vegetables used in Thai cooking and smuggled them into the United States. After numerous trials and failures, he found that the best place to successfully grow these transplanted products was in Fresno County, California. Since they couldn’t grow enough of the fruits and vegetables to satisfy the Southeast Asian population’s needs, they expanded production to Mexico in order to have year-round growing conditions. Because of Tilakamonkul’s efforts, it became possible to obtain lemon grass, Thai basil, galangal, green papaya, and jackfruit, to name just a few ingedients, on a year-round basis. So, in a sense, I owe Pramorte Tilakamonkul a debt of gratitude. He made it possible for me to discover satay, angel wings, and general’s noodles at Sanamluang Café in Hollywood in 1979. I have to admit that Chinese food is my favorite of all cuisines. I’m sure we’ve all played the “last meal” game. You know, “If you knew this was going to be your last meal, what one dish would you choose?” My choice would be Beijing duck … no, maybe it should be shredded pork in Peking sauce … no, how can it not be potstickers or, if the mood is right, Brooklyn chow mein? Actually, I need to have nine lives to play this game. But I do know that at the end of most of those lives, I would be ending them with some kind of Chinese food. It is generally accepted that there are four distinctive Chinese cuisines, designated Northern (Beijing), Eastern (Shanghai), Southern (Guangdong), and Western (Sichuan). Each of these cuisines is often subdivided to make a total of nine or eleven categories of Chinese food. To these may also be added the offshore Chinese cuisines associated with Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and America’s pre-1965 Chinese immigrants. I have favorites from among the four classic Chinese cuisines. And the American-Chinese food of my childhood is fondly remembered by me. If you're interested in further information, including recipes, contact Bert. SAD NEWS None of which I am aware. ________________ Thanks to all of you for your interest in Milne Alumni activities. Judy (Koblintz) Madnick, '61 For contact information, see the Milne Alumni homepage: |