Celebrating Eid al Adha

It’s lambs to the fore again
By Nehal el Sherif in Cairo

WHEN livestock sellers start putting their sheep on show on the streets of Cairo, people know that the Eid al Adha festival is upon them once again. Eid al Adha, or the Greater Feast, is a four-day event associated with the sacrifice rituals and the Haj pilgrimage. It also means new clothes, new movies in the theatres, and more family meetings.

But it is the lambs that remain the centre of attention — at least until their slaughter early on the first day of the feast, after the Eid prayers. The sacrifice aims at reminding Muslims of the Prophet Ibrahim’s (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail to Allah as an act of obedience and submission. When Ibrahim dreamt he was sacrificing his son, he decided to do as ordered, in the knowledge that God inspires the dreams of prophets.

So when both father and son showed their obedience to God, He saved Ismail and replaced him with a ram. Ever since, those Muslims who can afford to do so are asked to slaughter an animal such as a sheep, camel or goat. “Buying the lamb is a good opportunity for my children to know their religion. When I brought it home for the first time, my daughter kept asking me questions about it and I told her the story several times till I was sure she understood it,” said father-of-two Ahmed Shaker.

A third of the meat should go to one’s immediate family, a third to the poor and the last third to members of the larger family. “It also allows our small family to reconnect with other branches of the family, those whom we would not have the chance to visit throughout the year,” added Shaker, who works as a teacher. Shaker, like many Egyptians, has to work all day in order to provide a decent living for his family. It leaves him little time for social activity.

Shaker’s daughter Salma Ezzat remembers how she learnt the story of sacrifice when she was only three while sitting on her father’s lap watching the lamb. Salma, now a 19-year-old student, remembers how she would grow attached to the lamb her grandfather got every year. “I would go to my grandparents house in the few days that preceded the Eid to play with it. Yet, it was not love at first sight — my mum told me I got really scared, and was watching it from a distance for the first few days,” Salma said.

Each year she and her cousins would play with the animal. “We used to bring him his food and ride on his back,” said Salma, adding she still likes to have the sheep around. “Unfortunately, I can’t ride on its back anymore.” Year after year, prices of meat go up and more struggle to buy their lamb. Many families can only buy a few kilos of meat for the Eid feast.

But people still try hard to buy an entire animal. “It’s not just about eating meat. Buying the lamb means a lot to my family. It’s a tradition I was brought up to, and I want to bring up my children to it as well,” said Ahmed Ezz, a 40-year-old engineer. This year, Ezz has been saving up for months to buy a lamb, which costs an average of 1,500 Egyptian pounds (around $275).

Mona and her husband, a taxi driver, are among the many who have to make do with sharing a small cow with the family. “We regret our children cannot enjoy being around the sheep like we used to, but our only relief is that we get God’s blessing for our sacrifice and the kids get to see the cow before it is slaughtered in the morning,” she said. Eid al Adha, falls annually on the 10th of Dhul Hijja, the last month of the lunar Islamic calendar. — DPA

Umami, the 5th taste
By Andrew Shanahan in London

UMAMI — the so-called “fifth taste” (after the Western traditional four: sweet, sour, salt and bitter) — is 100 years old this year. It is unlikely, however, that anyone will make an umami-flavoured cake to celebrate. While the word translates from Japanese as “deliciousness”, umami is characterised by a satisfyingly meaty, savouriness. There was a birthday party of sorts though; the New Frontiers of Taste Umami Symposium, which was held in San Francisco, saw gourmands and Michelin-starred chefs from around the world gather to discuss the merits of the flavour which, despite being old enough to receive a telegram from the Queen, has only recently started to gain culinary credence in the UK.

The term umami was first coined in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese scientist who was researching the taste of dashi, a stock made from seaweed and used in many Japanese dishes. Ikeda discovered that the secret to the taste was the presence of high levels of an amino acid called glutamate in the stock, which gives it its unique brothy character.

Later it was discovered that other organic compounds — inosinate and guanylate — also produce the umami taste. However, it was Ikeda’s discovery of the flavour in glutamate — he subsequently learned how to mass produce this in the form of monosodium glutamate, (MSG) — that laid the groundwork for a theory that wouldn’t be scientifically verified until 2000 when the specific umami-sensitive taste buds on the tongue were identified.

The common sources of umami that most of us will be familiar with are Chinese takeaways, snacks and ready meals thickly laced with MSG. In part this is because it enhances other flavours so much that manufacturers can get away with using fewer costly ingredients. But, despite having been repeatedly cleared for human consumption by the US Food and Drugs Administration and classified as safe by the World Health Organisation, MSG has been dogged by health concerns. Recent studies have linked high consumption of it with both retina damage and obesity. So the chefs who are now enthusiastically investigating umami are keen to emphasise the differences between the ingredients that they’re working with and MSG.

“Monosodium glutamate got a bad press because it was seen as not being natural, whereas umami is a completely natural thing,” explains Alexis Gauthier, executive head chef at the Michelin-starred Roussillon restaurant in London. “They’re two different things. It’s like comparing the natural high you experience when watching the sunset with a loved one.”

Gauthier has a number of umami-rich dishes on his menu such as green asparagus rolled in Parmesan, brown butter and chicken jus, or crispy cured pancetta, purple artichokes, baby onions and confit tomatoes with red-wine vinegar dressing. “It usually only takes the addition of one ingredient such as parmesan or veal jus,” he says. “You know when umami ingredients have been added. There is no word for it but ‘exquisite!’” According to Gauthier, despite the fact that the word ‘umami’ hasn’t been flying around European kitchens much until now, most chefs understood the concept of the flavour, regardless of whether they knew about the science.

“Even though it was a Japanese professor who put a name to it, the French have been using foods that are high in umami for centuries, such as veal stock to add flavour to a dish — it just never had a name before. I think the understanding of it is still a relatively new and exciting thing in the UK, unlike places such as New York where diners now go out looking to score umami hits.”

It certainly is a sensationally moreish flavour. “I came across it about two or three years ago when I was doing some research into taste for a documentary about umami where we tested how it could be practically used in kitchens,” says Chris Horridge, Michelin-starred chef from The Bath Priory. “We made two plates of a red mullet dish and two of a venison dish. They were identical apart from the fact that one from each had a higher umami content — there was extract of mushroom in one and parmesan in another, hidden among the rest of the food. Then we had professional tasters come in to see which version of the dish they preferred. Every single one went for the dishes higher in umami.”

Part of the reason why the palette responds so favourably towards glutamate could be our early exposure to it — breast milk has very high levels, 10 times higher than cow’s milk. However, as with all good tastes, umami guides our appetites towards foods with optimum nutrition. Just as sweet foods signal that there are sugars in foods, salty tastes indicate the presence of minerals, and sour and bitter tastes keep us away from foods that could potentially poison us, research suggests that umami-rich foods alert us to the presence of proteins.

How did umami avoid detection for so long? The answer, it seems, lies in its subtlety. One of its strengths is in enhancing other flavours in a dish. “Even if you taste monosodium glutamate in its purest form,” says Horridge, “it doesn’t really taste of anything. The best that you can say is that it makes things seem more “meaty”. We do cep breadcrumbs, which are very high in umami, with a grouse dish at the moment, and they are so moreish. It doesn’t have to be in your face but your palette picks it up without really registering that flavour.”

If you want to experiment with umami in your kitchen at home, you won’t have to look hard to find ingredients that can up the glutamate content of your dishes. Research has shown that combining different elements that deliver umami (ie mixing sources of glutamate, inosinate and guanylates) can enhance the flavour of a dish by a factor of eight.

Key common ingredients rich in umami include fish, such as sardines (glutamate 280mg/100g and inosinate 193mg/100g) or mackerel (inosinate 215mg/100), meats and vegetables including ripe tomatoes (glutamate 246mg/100g). Sauces such as Bovril, soy sauce and anchovy sauce will all provide over 500mg of glutamate per 100g and parmesan cheese contains small white glutamate crystals, providing about 1200mg/100g.

However, when you compare these values with some varieties of kombu (the seaweed used in dashi stocks) which can give up to 3190mg of glutamate per 100g, you can see why it was this particular foodstuff which drew Dr Ikeda’s attention, leading to his identification of the ultimate elusive flavour. — Copyright: Guardian News & Media 2008

Hand-crafted shoes kick financial crisis
By Katia Dolmadjian

IF you have to ask, you can’t afford it, and the well-heeled still go for hand-crafted Italian shoes, whatever the price, even in dire economic times. Dal Co’, with a list of illustrious past and present loyal clients including Rita Hayworth and Sofia Loren, has yet to see sales fall off, and its python and crocodile models find ready takers among the rich and famous.

“We’re not really having any problems yet, even if the Americans who usually order from us might think twice now,” said Silvia Petrucci Dal Co’. In the heart of Rome’s luxury shopping district, Petrucci Dal Co’ welcomes her customers to a boutique where dozens of dream shoes share the limelight with models designed decades ago by her grandfather Alberto Dal Co’, who founded the business as World War II was ending. “In the 1960s and ’70s, our clients were mainly from the world of entertainment or Cinecitta actresses like Sofia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Brigitte Bardot and Rita Hayworth,” Petrucci Dal Co’ said.

“Over time the clientele has changed, and now we work for example for the wives of Greek shipping magnates, the Agnelli family,” said the pretty, dark-haired woman of about 40. “One of our most loyal customers is Nancy Kissinger,” she said, referring to the wife of former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. Ordering her shoes by fax, “she takes only flats, which she also gives to her friends as Christmas presents,” Petrucci Dal Co’ said.

We don’t have the craftsmen of the old days
In the nearby workshop, time seems to stand still as six craftsmen ply their trade, meticulously cobbling the hand-sewn shoes amid rolls of leather and a jumble of heels, watched over by portraits of the late pope John Paul II and Alberto Dal Co’. Every regular customer has a wooden or plastic last (foot form) stored in a small room nicknamed the “cemetery.” “Once a style has been chosen, we use the last to make a paper pattern, from which we cut the various pieces of leather,” said one of the cobblers, Emilio. “We build the shoes and the customer tries them, and if necessary we make alterations,” he added.

“Customers are looking for the unique, for creativity, for something special that they won’t see on other women’s feet, like Chanels or Pradas,” Petrucci Dal Co’ said, adding that orders can be filled in five days. Dal Co’ creates about 30 new models each season, most carrying a woman’s name such as Demetra, Nausicaa, Calliope or Amanda.

Other names are more surprising, such as the “Paparazzo” (1953) with spurs mounted on both the heel and toe “to use against intrusive photographers,” according to the company’s website. For those who do have to ask, the starting price for a Dal Co’ creation is 400 euros ($500), Petrucci Dal Co’ said. “After that, it depends on the styles and the materials used, and the time it takes to create them. All of course is 100 per cent Made in Italy.”

The company currently has about 2,000 clients around the world, she said, while preferring not to give an idea of the family-run company’s turnover. If there is a crisis, it is not related to the collapse of the US mortgage market that brought down several US Wall Street titans in September and led to an abrupt economic slowdown and rising unemployment across Europe. It is rather that the craft of making fine shoes is dying out, said Bruno, who began working at Dal Co’ 17 years ago. “We don’t have the craftsmen of the old days, and hardly anyone is learning to do what we do anymore,” he said, turning back to work on an exquisite pair of black suede boots. — AFP

Mind-mapping software opens
up organisation possibilities

By Dirk Averesch in Hanover
THE creative process is full of potential pitfalls. Handwritten notes are sometimes illegible and can be misplaced, reappearing days after they were needed. But now there is mind-mapping, a new software designed to help people build and track their ideas when working on projects or learning something new.

“Now I keep notes that I would normally have kept on paper on the computer, where I can move them around until I’m happy with the results,” said Juergen Tausch, a professor at the University of Braunschweig.

An instructor of behavioural biology, he’s become a great believer in the technology and remarked: “I no longer use note pads.” In a mind-map, key words are laid out along branches, linked by colours, pictures, shapes or symbols. The idea is to engage both hemispheres of the brain by using verbal, logical, intuitive and visual cues.

At first, the main idea is laid out in the centre. From there, the primary and secondary thoughts branch out and are positioned on the branches according to their importance. Many mind-mapping programs have

similar functions. New branches are created at the press of a button. Typing without a plan results in the creation of a parallel organiser. Hitting the insert command generally creates a new, subordinate branch. The golden rule is to use one key word per branch. There are about a dozen mind-mapping programs available. Some are free, but others can cost 350 euros ($449).

MindGenius 2 Business from Gael costs 200 euros, MindManager Pro 7 by Mindjet sells for 300 euros, a Mac version goes for 150 euros and OpenMind 2 Business by Matchware proved the best options, according to a test by c’ t, a Hanover-based magazine. But there are plenty of cheaper academic versions. “Before spending a few hundred euros, check whether Freemind meets your needs,” advises c’t.

The freeware program functions with Windows, Mac and Linux. Adding links is easy, but exporting Maps from the Office suite is not part of the programming. Nevertheless, some elements can be copied and pasted manually. Mind-maps can be used for brainstorming and planning projects. And they are a useful study aid for people with a photographic memory, said Tausch. While there are indications that it is easier to learn with mind-maps although there is as yet no proof. — DPA