California Rancho Cooking is a modestly titled cookbook I first encountered in a public library nine years ago, by Jacqueline Higuera McMahan, a food writer and eighth generation California native. This important chronicle of local food among California's Mexican settlers has been reissued and kept in print by a small West Coast publisher, and is a culinary treasure whose value is even greater today than when I first read it. Any Californian interested in slow food and local food needs to
get a copy
of this book and read it cover to cover. I read the book in its
earliest, self-published edition a couple of times and vowed to buy it
one day, although it was not at the time in print. Today I received it as a birthday present - thank you Celeste!
Rancho Cooking gives not only recipes but history of a particular California family, the Higueras, who owned a 4,000 acre Spanish land grant ranch in the East Bay Hills. In it you will find methods for curing olives, for barbecuing
lamb and pork, for making tortillas and countless chile sauces. You
will discover what native and European herbs the Californios (Mexican/Spanish settlers who arrived before Anglos took over the
state) cultivated
or wildcrafted. You will read the story of a family and its
relation to the land and the changing political history of California.
You will learn about the Spanish and Mexican roots of native Californio
cuisine, as successive waves of colonizers crashed upon our shores and
were swallowed up.
McMahan writes that the olive, the fig and the chile were emblematic, sacred foods to the Californios. I love this combination of plants, not least because the olive and the fig were brought to Spain by Arabs. I'm thinking of designing my whole garden,
front and back, around plants mentioned in this book.
The Arabs and their gardens and food crops profoundly influenced the Spanish, as is well known, and because of this I have always felt a great love for "Spanish-style" California architecture and gardens. With this book I get to trace Arab ingredients like raisins, almonds, and apricots as well as olives and figs in the indigenous cuisine of my neighborhood. How about grilled lamb marinated in pomegranate juice, finished with rosemary branches thrown upon the coals? That's about as Middle Eastern/Mediterranean a dish as you can imagine. Higuera McMahan's family ranch was located thirty-five miles from my current home, and almost the same distance from San Mateo where I was born.
Monument Peak, Milpitas, CA, near former Higuera ranch.
The culture of the asador or barbecue expert is another revelation of this book - I knew of Santa Maria style barbecue (farther south on the coast) but clearly there were Bay Area asadors whose skills with spice rubs and outdoor grilling were legendary. Varieties of peppers are also discussed in great detail, with many recipes given.
The descriptions of farming and cooking on the Higuera ranch show how we in the Bay Area could reclaim a sustainable way of life today in the face of water and energy crises. Any Californian who cares about eating locally, about permaculture and
sustainable ways to live on this land needs to read this book.
Non-Californians who love "Southwestern" food and culinary history will
also find this book fascinating. Includes family photographs.
One thing I noticed about Sami Quntar is that he was seventeen years old when he took part in the terrorist action in Israel for which he was convicted. He had been living as a child soldier, fighting with the militias in Beirut, since he was thirteen; he was from a broken home and being raised by a stepmother before he left to become a “fighter.”
I don’t like this propaganda blathering over Quntar either, and I am not trying to excuse the action of killing a father and child. I am pointing out that like many other juveniles involved in fighting during Lebanon’s civil war, Quntar in 1979 was out of control and fatherless and almost feral. War is grotesque, and strife like what we saw in Lebanon and what we see now in Iraq produces people who commit actions that are beyond belief. I think it’s situational, and that if such lost souls were not in the middle of civil disorder, they would be stealing cars and getting into fistfights. To make him into a towering monster or a valiant hero is to lose sight of who he really was in 1979 when he killed (or did not kill -see his story) those people.
The bigger picture is - if you want to get emotionally caught up in the propaganda stories of the different sides, then you will find plenty of reasons to confirm your beliefs - that your enemy is evil, barbaric, brutal and sub-human, that he worships bloodshed and butchery, that he has no mercy for you or your children.
This view is natural, but somewhat unevolved and does not include enough information about how humans operate.
I prescribe that all of you (at Syria Comment arguing about the reception of Quntar in Beirut today) take a deep breath and step back from the TV and the computer. Remember that all political leaders will use almost any barbarity to promote their own agendas. They will use the flag and patriotism and worship of their own fallen to push their followers to do things that defy common sense. Don’t fall for it in your own leaders, and don’t take it too seriously in the leaders of your enemies.
(Prime example: G.W. Bush using 9/11/01 to lead America into war against Iraq.)
Regarding visiting or not visiting Lebanon (not that Lebanese are weeping because of AIG’s snub): I live in America even though my government and its proxies have committed many, many crimes against people everywhere. What am I going to do, leave the country of my birth to become homeless, stateless? I plan to visit Lebanon and Syria even though all kinds of criminals live there, many of them leaders. I will drive through Ain el Helweh on my way to my village, even though somebody in that camp knows who killed my grandmother and how. In fact I might even meet residents of Ain el Helweh and shake their hands, not knowing who was involved in the death of my grandmother and the sack of my village in 1985. And in my village I will surely shake the hands of neighbors or even distant relations who collaborated with Israel, or beat up Palestinians, or invited right-wing Christian militia in to start the problems that led to 1985.
A Semitic prophet once said “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I have learned that human beings are profoundly fallible, as I am, and whatever darkness I see in someone else’s heart also lurks in my own.
I hope, with humility and a bit of despair, that this rant might persuade at least one of you to question your belief that your enemies are profoundly evil and not like you or your side at all. I’m sorry, but what you accuse your enemy of is too often true of your comrade, your countryman, your president as well.