Travels with my garlic crusher

(c) Colette Copeland, from my travel-writing archives.


There's a man in Helsinki, Finland, who calls himself a friend of garlic. One day he had the bright idea to open a restaurant for the friends of garlic of the world (fiends of garlic might be a better description), and hasn't looked back. Every dish on the menu, a mixture of Finnish, French and Russian cuisine, has garlic in it; this is not as unusual as it may seem because the dishes are classical, like bouillabaisse, which take garlic anyway. What is unusual is that this restaurant, called Kynsilaukka/Garlic (the second word added for the benefit of the rest of us) has somehow got the reputation--all the way to New York--of adding garlic even to the desserts.
So when I found myself heading for Finland, I wanted to check out this curiosity but had no idea of the restaurant's name or location. In a karmic twist of events, a colleague from New York who had called on some other matter the day before my flight, gave me the name and address of a restaurant she highly recommended. It turned out to be the garlic restaurant.
The first thing I did when we arrived was to pull out a map and locate the place. The garlic karma was still working; it was as if the owner, Jan-Erik Berg, were waiting for me. I told him of the accidental way in which I'd found him.
"We've never advertised," he explained. "We don't need to."
"So you depend on word of mouth?" I offered.
"In a manner of speaking," he said, without missing a beat. "When you leave here smelling of garlic, you're advertising us."
Touché.
I decided he was probably a garlic health-nut and voiced my assumption that Kynsilaukka was born out of garlic mania. Jan-Erik Berg put me in my place with disarming honesty. "No. It was a great marketing idea," he said, adding that his experience until then had been in marketing and real estate.
Double-touché.
He opened the little jars that sit on every table and showed me their contents, made in their kitchens: a garlic/parsley relish and marinated whole cloves, for the fiends who want to add even more garlic to their food. Then he fetched his piece de resistance. "Garlic jam," he announced, placing a large ceramic jar in front of me. It looked like jam alright, but it smelled of lovely, spicy garlic. "We don't market it, and don't intend to, but I do ship it to two families in Sweden regularly," Jan-Erik Berg said. "They have to have it, apparently."
This "garlic jam" is what's given rise to the garlic dessert myth. The desserts are normal, not a whiff of garlic about them, but the odd maniac adds a dollop of "garlic jam" to his ice cream, and bingo, a rumor is born.
On the properties of garlic, Berg gets serious for a moment. He respects it, he admits; he has asthma and ever since he started eating garlic regularly, he feels his condition has improved.
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Along with leeks, onions and chives, garlic belongs to the allium genus of the liliaceae (lily) plant group, and for thousands of years it has been used as a folk remedy. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, doctors were prescribing it as a drug and an antiseptic. It is still thought of as nature's antibiotic; in fact, garlic contains a compound called allicin which, along with various sulphides, is released when it is crushed or cut. Nowadays its therapeutic qualities have begun to be accepted in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Garlic apparently thins the blood, helping to prevent clots and blockages in the blood vessels; it lowers cholesterol, helps to reduce blood pressure, and like Aspirin and olive oil, seems to have anticoagulant properties.
The Anglo-Saxon world, and the Irish, have tended to share the English aversion to garlic, but this is changing. A lot of the aversion probably comes from the fear of smelling, something that's easily corrected.
I come from a dynasty of garlic-eaters who rarely smelled of it. When cooked it doesn't smell anyway and it's still good for you, but we often eat it raw, crushed into a salad dressing of olive oil and lemon juice, or mixed into plain yogurt as a sauce for anything from rice to roasted vegetables. If your digestion is healthy, brushing your teeth is enough; if your toothbrush is out of reach, chew on some fresh parsley. If your digestion is not so healthy, try chewing an aluminium-free antacid.
The easiest excuse for eating garlic is aioli, the mayonnaise that originated in Provence, which uses large, juicy garlic cloves. (Once you taste your own mayo, you'll never look at the bottled stuff the same way again.) This aioli is lighter in texture than the traditional, and as delicious a sauce for cold chicken, fish, hardboiled eggs and vegetables as it is for bouillabaisse.

AIOLI
3-4 large cloves garlic, peeled
2 fresh egg yolks at room temperature
45 mL (3 Tbsp) milk
15 mL (1 Tbsp) lemon juice
2 mL (1/2 tsp) salt
1 mL (1/4 tsp) black pepper
75 mL (1/3 cup), plus 175 mL (3/4 cup) virgin olive oil
25 mL (2 Tbsp) fresh lemon juice
25 mL (2 Tbsp) heavy cream

Place the garlic, yolks, milk, vinegar, salt and pepper in a food processor (or blender) fitted with a metal blade and blend until thick. Now add 1/3 cup of the oil, drop by drop, while the machine is running. Continue with the rest of the olive oil adding it in a thin stream, then quickly add the lemon juice and cream, and blend. Turn the aioli into a bowl or jar, cover well and refrigerate. Use within a few days.

Scotland the Brave meets Kansas ;)

Photo: Arthur's Seat. Article and photos (c) Colette Copeland

EDINBURGH
(article published some years ago, so it's out of date)




The first time I saw Edinburgh I was smitten. Until then, it had been the same old story: a view of Scotland put about by foreigners of drafty castles, wild men in kilts, a wee beastie called Haggis, and other calumnies.


Scotland, as I discovered on that first visit, was more of a land of undulating, heather-clad landscapes, serene lochs fringed with purple foxgloves, and a wonderful sense of humour behind the dour reputation.


I first laid eyes on Edinburgh while standing at one end of Prince’s Street, a grand boulevard that sweeps through the city centre, looking towards Waverley Station and the majestic North British Hotel. The buildings of the Royal Mile loomed to my right, the suddenness of Edinburgh Castle at one end and the jolting Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano, at the other. It was small for a city, highly negotiable but overwhelming in its architectural grandeur, and we parted on affectionate terms.

Years later, fuzzy images but affection undiluted, I found myself in the North British Hotel, now The Balmoral. I drew the curtains and caught my breath. There, outside my window, was Arthur’s Seat, so close that I thought if I reached out I’d be able to touch it. The Royal Mile rose before me like a Medieval Manhattan. I could almost hear the horses’ hooves clattering down the cobblestones and a faraway voice warning “Gardy loo!” (from the French gardez l’eau, or “watch out, I’m about to throw out the slop”).


Instead I heard voices more like Sean Connery’s, himself a native of Edinburgh. It was fall, the weather crisp, perfect for tweeds, woollens, and a wee dram. And so priorities were set, and I found myself in a knitwear wonderland, from a myriad small shops to the majestic Jenner’s department store, of sweaters, scarves, wraps, cashmere coats, tweeds, and kilted skirts. This is where I learned that women wear “kilted skirts”, while the kilt proper is worn only by men; it takes up far more material, has countless pleats folded exactly so, and is cut so that it needs no hemming.

As for the wee dram, Edinburgh’s pubs and restaurants (this city has more restaurants per capita than any other city in Britain) all offer single malt lists in the same manner as wines. Forget the haggis jokes and know that when you eat here, you eat extremely well. Fresh fare in the hands of great chefs makes for a fine cuisine. There are no pubs on Prince’s street, but just behind it, Rose Street has more than its share, with the famous Café Royal in the vicinity.

If Edinburgh’s Old town is Medieval, its New Town is Georgian, and both are very walkable, The Royal Mile especially so. Starting at Edinburgh Castle, you can wind your way downhill to Holyrood Palace to meet up with the ghosts of Mary Queen of Scots, her hapless young husband, Lord Darnley, and her secretary, Rizzio, both of them dispatched by murder. Holyrood Palace enchanted me; it’s no Versailles, but I wanted to move in and live there. Historical landmarks dot your progress, like the 19th-century High Kirk of St. Giles, Parliament House (now the law courts), the 15th-century Mowbray House, 16th-century John Knox house.

Of course, I had to take the Witchery Tour that began at the foot of Edinburgh Castle. It took place at night and was guided by Adam Lyal, deceased. Lyal, himself executed in 1811 for dastardly deeds, escorted us in and out of dark closes and alleyways to sites of erstwhile tortures, murders and supernatural happenings (a hint: Drs. Jekyll and Hyde were created here). It's best to go with a friend. Despite the highly entertaining Lyal, the sudden apparition of a mad monk or a shuffling figure screaming “Gardy loo” can make you jump out of your skin. And there was the ominous physician’s bag he carried around. To my utter shame, as he prepared to reveal its contents, I hid behind one of my friends, face buried in his coat and trying not to scream.

The next day, I recovered my calm, and my dignity, at the Scottish National Gallery, the finest of its size in the world, housing European and Scottish masters, followed by the neo-classic Royal Scottish Academy, the National Portrait Gallery and the magnificent Royal Scottish Museum.

In this country you’re never very far from a golf course and Edinburgh is no exception. A number of those are municipal, costing very little in fees: that’s so your everyday schoolboy, toting his granddad’s saw-down clubs, can also afford it.



Democracy on the green. And fitting for one of Europe’s great cities.