Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: A Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

The current selection for Cook the Books is a book that is a bit outside my comfort zone, A Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang is a science fiction novel which was nominated for the best book in that category in the Goodreads Choice awards in 2023.

Our unnamed main character is an American chef of Asian heritage who finds herself outside of the US when all the borders close off around the world thanks to a worldwide food crisis. There is an intense, acidic fog that has spread around the globe which has the effect of destroying all the crops in the world. There is therefore no food for animals and so they have perished too, so there is no meat.  All that is left to eat is a high protein mung powder - gray and tasteless. It's not a good time to be a chef. The chef has applied to return to America, but is languishing on a list where she doesn't meet the most desirable requirements, and therefore never gets any closer to the point where she will be allowed to returned.

She applies for a new role which is advertised as a private chef for an "elite research community" which is on a mountain top near the Italian and French border. The research community is privately funded and is very exclusive. You have to be prepared to invest heavily to be invited to be part of the community. On the top of that mountain, they have worked out how to bio engineer the food that no longer exists anywhere else, both in recent history, and from the distant past.  In theory, they will be sharing their findings with the world. In reality, this is an enclave for only the chosen few, and the weekly feasts are ever more outlandish and extravagant.

The community is run by a reclusive man and his beautiful, very intelligent, driven daughter, Aida, who are always racing against time to try and develop the food that is lost for their use only. But there is so much more going on here as well.  Whilst this is a foodie book exploring the idea of what would happen if food shortages became world wide, it is also looking at the ultimate haves vs the have nots. It is a very sensual book. Here is a passage from very early in the book where she has just arrived at the mountain top.

On my second pass, I spotted a box behind the door. Impress me, this note said. Inside were flour, vanilla, eggs.

I'd expected a test, of course: a textbook omelet, or a flawless consomme to prove the French training the job demanded. Pastry, no. Giddiness abandoned me as I unpacked baking soda, sugar, milk. Even the voluptuousness of the butter couldn't distract from thoughts of my spotty experience in patisserie, and the precarity of my visa, and what would happen were I turned away - and then I was no longer at the bottom of the box I touched something as warm as skin, as yielding as a woman's inner thigh: strawberries.

The sensuousness is not limited to the description of food. There is also an LGBQ+ element to the story when our chef and Aida begin a relationship. But it is complicated because the boss has a very specific role that he is expecting our chef to play, the stakes are high, and so is the tension.

This book was a reminder to me that it is important not to take food for granted. It doesn't take much for there to be food shortages, even here in Australia, where we recently have had egg shortages due to bird illnesses. Our farmland is also shrinking due to the ever increasing size of our cities, and many of our farms are now owned by huge multinational companies. We are lucky that we are able to just go to the supermarket but the food chain is probably more fragile than we realise. Obviously there are also lots of places around the world, where you don't necessarily know where your next meal is coming from on a daily basis.

It's fair to say I didn't love this book, and I was glad when it was done, but sometimes that is what being in a book club is about right? You read the selection knowing that it might not be the kind of book that you would normally read. I did appreciate the way that the author wrote about food and I marked numerous passages.

I did find it interesting to see the intersection between the last three Cook the Books selections. Two books ago we read Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, so lots of honey, and then we read Crying in H Mart which is about Korean food, and this book talked about quite a bit of Korean food.

When deciding what to make I did ponder a number of options. Would it be Souffle Cheesecake,     something Korean or some woolly mammoth that I picked up from the supermarket? In the end I was inspired by the very start of the book where our unnamed cook was asked to impress their new employer, using the ingredients described in the passage above.

In the end I decided on Japanese Strawberry Shortcake because I had recently read The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai, which is the second book in the Kamogawa Food Detectives series. One of the stories in that book was where the food detectives were asked to recreate a Christmas Cake, which in Japan is Strawberry Shortcake. Between the description in the book and that story, I knew that was what I would make.

I am not sure that my cake was fluffy enough, and I ended up doubling this recipe to give it enough height, but my husband and I really enjoyed it!

A couple of other comments about the recipe. We can't buy cake flour here, so I made my own by mixing plain flour with cornflour. There are instructions on the internet on how to do this. I also just whipped the cream normally in my stand mixer.

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

Cake

2 egg whites
2 egg yolks
60 g white caster sugar
½ tsp lemon juice
60 g cake flour sifted
20 g unsalted butter melted + extra to grease the cake pan
1 tbsp milk

Syrup

20 g white caster sugar
40 ml water
1 tbsp your chosen liqueur (optional) 

For assembly

300 g cold thickened cream
3 tbsp icing sugar
3 drops vanilla essence of half the amount of vanilla extract
12 medium strawberries
mint leaves (optional)

Measure out the sponge ingredients, separate the eggs and leave everything out to reach room temperature for about 20-30 minutes. (Cover the eggs to stop them from drying out).

Grease the cake tin with a thin layer of butter over the base and sides and line it with parchment paper. Start preheating your oven to 180 °C (356 °F) (170 °C (338 °F) for fan assisted).

In a clean, dry glass mixing bowl, add 2 egg whites and ½ tsp lemon juice. Set your electric mixer to a medium-high setting and whisk until foamy and doubled in size.

Add the caster sugar one third at a time, making sure it's fully incorporated before adding the next third.

Continue to whisk on a medium speed until the meringue is smooth and glossy with stable, stiff peaks.
Add the egg yolks one at a time, whip using the electric mixer for about 10-15 seconds for each yolk and stop as soon as they're incorporated into the meringue.

Sift cake flour twice into a separate bowl. Sift once more, this time into the egg mixture, adding it one-third at a time and folding it gently with a silicone spatula. Repeat until all of the flour is incorporated into the mixture, being careful not to over-mix.

Mix 20 g unsalted butter (melted) and 1 tbsp milk in a small bowl. Add about 2 tbsp of the sponge batter and whisk them together to temper them. Pour the tempered mixture into the cake batter and fold in gently with the spatula. Once combined, pour the mixture into the lined cake tin and smooth the top and drop the cake tin twice onto a hard surface from about 10cm (4 inches) high.

Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes. (Check the cake after 20 minutes and remove once it's golden brown.)

Once the sponge is fully cooked, take it out from the oven and drop it on a hard surface from about 20cm high (8 inches). This will help prevent sinking and shrinking.

Turn upside down onto a wire rack and remove the cake tin. Leave to cool for about 1 hour.

For the syrup, in a small pan, add the caster sugar, 40 ml water and the liqueur if using. Bring to a boil over a medium heat while stirring continuously. Once it starts bubbling, stop stirring and boil for 1 minute before removing it from the heat.

Once the cake has cooled, cut off the top (as thinly as possible to not waste too much) and then cut in half horizontally.

 
Brush the top of each half generously with syrup and save any leftovers for later.

Prepare the strawberries by washing and then dry them thoroughly with kitchen paper and remove the stems. Save 7-9 of the most beautiful ones for decorating and slice the rest for the filling.

To make the whipping cream take a large bowl and add a few handfuls of ice, then take a smaller glass or steel bowl (preferably chilled) and place it on top of the ice. Pour in the cream and add icing sugar and vanilla essence or extract.

Use an electric whisk (or balloon whisk if you’re whisking by hand) and whip until the cream has peaks and becomes spreadable.

To assemble, place 2-3 spoonfuls of whipped cream in the centre of each half of the sponge. Spread it out to the edges until even and arrange the strawberries on one half.

Flip one half onto the other so that the strawberries are sandwiched between two layers of cream. Brush any leftover syrup on the top of the cake and place it on a easy-to-turn surface (e.g. cake board, paper plate etc.)

Add about 4-5 scoops of whipped cream to the middle and spread it out thinly over the edges. This is a crumb coat (to smooth down crumbs) so scrape off any excess into a separate bowl so that crumbs don’t mix in with the rest of the cream.

Whip up the cream a little bit more to make it a bit thicker and then add 3/4 of it to the top of the sponge and the other 1/4 to a piping bag. Place the piping bag in the refrigerator while you're icing the cake.

Spread out the cream using an icing spatula, making sure the whole cake is smoothly and evenly covered on the top and sides.

Finish the cake by piping swirls around the edge and placing the strawberries in the center. Decorate with mint leaves if using.

The next Cook the Books selection is Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten. This isn't available for me to buy at a reasonable price or in my local libraries so I will probably sit it out, but I will be back for the April/May selection. Maybe I will try one of her recipes in lieu of reading her book.

I am also sharing this post with Foodies Read hosted at Based on a True Story

Weekly meals

Saturday - Pork ribs, coleslaw, potato salad
Sunday - Beef and Broccoli Noodles
Monday - Away
Tuesday - Away 
Wednesday - Away
Thursday - Pressure Cooker Spaghetti Bolognaise
Friday - Out for dinner

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page