This affair with food is lifelong

By Christine Barbour

February 5, 2003

I never ate at the Windows on the World, on top of the World Trade Center, but I always loved the restaurant's name. Food, after all, is a window on the world, a most intimate, earthy glimpse into how life is lived in another place, be it a country halfway around the globe, or a house just around the corner.

Some people learn about the world with their eyes or their ears, gazing at art, listening to concerts, reading romances and histories. Others of us learn about the world with our mouths wide open, tasting our way across cities, towns and countrysides. When I travel I walk the grocery stores, the small food shops and the open markets, looking to see what people eat. I read menus, magazines, and books to see how they prepare their meals. And I taste the food — the street food, the home food, and the restaurant food. I do my sightseeing on a plate, as it were, and if it isn't quite as highbrow as a day at a museum, still, it fills me up and it sure tastes good.

This love affair I have with food began on a cold fall night in 1965, at the very moment I saw the Belgian waffles at the New York World's Fair. In my mind's eye they are bigger than life — giant, puffy, golden brown waffles, covered with billows of whipped cream, red berries cascading down the sides. To the child I was, for whom a pop tart was a coveted treat, it was as extravagant and beautiful a food as I could imagine.

The food world of my 1950s and 1960s childhood was circumscribed mostly by the kind of recipes found in our red-checked Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, recipes that took full advantage of the miracle of "convenience foods" — canned soup, processed cheese, and frozen vegetables. But other influences crept in too, to stand with the Belgian waffle as a reminder that food had possibilities I hadn't yet grasped.

I remember the incredible food cooked by my Lebanese grandmother, for instance. At a time when ethnic food at home on Long Island, NY, meant spaghetti, chop suey, and gefilte fish, Lebanese food marked our family as pretty peculiar, but I loved it all the same. And I remember leaning over the sink in our kitchen one summer noontime, juice running down my chin as I ate a tomato sandwich — the tomato, warm from my father's garden, on white bread with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. I was stunned that something so simple could taste so good, so much like the essence of itself.

What I do for a living has nothing to do with food, really. By day (and many nights) I am a political scientist, writing and teaching about American politics and citizenship. I am passionate about this job — I can't think of a more important one, since the unprecedented freedoms we enjoy depend largely on an educated citizenry vigilantly keeping watch over our democratic republic. But I am also passionate about food, and while I do teach a course on politics and food (after all, according to the great French gastronome, Brillat-Savarin, "The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they feed themselves"), I wanted another outlet for all the foodlore I've crammed into my head (and into my mouth) over the years.

In that spirit, last fall I proposed a food column to the editors at the H-T, one in which I would write about the wonderful food here in southern Indiana (think morels, persimmons, pork tenderloins), the top foods in our local restaurants (who makes the best french fries in town? The best barbecued ribs?), the foods that I read about and that I've met on my travels (olives and truffles and cheese, oh my!) They agreed, and so, here I am, and here I will be twice a month, sharing blissful food moments, exploring lucky culinary discoveries, following quirky gastronomic trends, and hoping you will be my guest on this epicurean adventure.

E-mail Christine about food at cbarbour@heraldt.com. Her column next week will visit Paris and its Valentine's Day connection to her family's palates.

February 5, 2003

Belgian Waffles

1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast

3 cups milk, divided

4 eggs, separated

1/2 cup sugar

4 cups sifted flour

10 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoons vanilla extract

butter

whipping cream, whipped and lightly sweetened

fresh berries

Heat 1/4 cup milk to lukewarm, add yeast and stir to dissolve.

Mix egg yolks, sugar, and yeast with flour. Beat in remaining milk butter, oil, salt, and vanilla until mostly smooth (some lumps are okay). Whip egg whites until they make soft peaks. Fold into batter. Let batter rest in a warm place for one hour, stirring once or twice. Bake waffles in a Belgian waffle iron, according to instructions. Serve with butter, whipped cream and fruit.

Makes about eight (double) waffles.

Note: This recipe calls for a Belgian waffle iron, which is deeper than a regular waffle iron and produces the characteristic Belgian waffle--crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. If you use a regular waffle iron the waffles will still taste good, but the texture will be different.

Adapted from the recipe of the Belgian Tourist Office.