School project came out good

School project I wrote for cultural anthropology nutrition cookbook.

This is one of many recipes in the cookbook.

I'm excited to see it finished.

This is my contribution.

Shawn Miles
Personal Connections
I grew up Philadelphia, in an environment where everyone would gather around the kitchen and socialize while they cook. I'm a social person and love to participate in many gatherings. I grew up eating foods high in calories and made with oils or creams that made the flavor heavy or what some would describe as rich. When I had a decline in good health, I couldn’t accept my favorite foods were making me sick. I was mad, but as my mother used to say…”get over it or get under it.
For this assignment, I wanted to prepare a meal for the class which was warm as well as inviting. It needed to have a rich flavor to delight the tongue and not too heavy on the stomach. It’s like the triple threat; to make foods that are fun to eat, healthy and taste good as well.
I have spent years learning how to make exquisite epicurean foods like Avgolemono, Greek chicken and lemon soup and Alfredo sauce, after all the famous Italian market from the first Rocky movie was on our weekly food shopping stop. Now I was finding anything that had meat, was causing all kinds of problems through out my digestive system. At first I thought the way the meat was processed (some of the frozen packages say sodium solutions on the back of the ingredients) or the lack of exercise was causing issues. Through lots of reading and research (my fall back book is Eat to Live by Dr Furhman) I was able to come up with a healthy way of eating and still retain my love of food. I became a vegan, vegetarian.
A Vegan is essentially those who don’t eat byproducts from an animal. That being said I’m not a true vegan as I have days when I just have a craving for cheese. In addition from time to time I enjoy free range eggs because sometimes I can’t stand the thought of eating another leaf of spinach. As spinach is my main source of Iron, eggs are also another good source of Iron. “Iron is found in food in two forms, heme and non-heme iron.” As discussed on The Vegetarian Resource Group’s web page, see cited information for link. The non-heme iron isn’t absorbed into the body as well as the heme iron is. About twice a month I just want to eat a dozen eggs and cheese, so I usually make a quiche (egg and cheese pie).
History, Diffusion, Cooking Methods, Preservation
These three dishes are three of the first dishes I discovered when I decided to go full on Vegainzed. Vegainzed is my diffused word for once a meat lover now a vegetable lover mechanized in the kitchen to be skilled yet delicious at the same time. Everyone, in my opinion, should have a fast efficient way of working in the kitchen. It should be set up to reach each tool with ease, reach each spice with effortlessness, and know what each and every spice, oil, and vinegar you have can do. This cuts down on wasted time, energy and supplies. This is a skill I acquired from watching my Mom, bless her heart, she would spend hours looking through her spice rack for that spice that she had no idea what it was to add to this or that dish. We would all look at her like she was crazy and didn’t want to eat whatever it was she was going to serve. My mom was my inspiration for picking up the collection of cookbooks I have today and reading through all of them, cover to cover, to learn how the ingredients work together.
First, let me talk to the "I don't want no cold stay away from me" salad. I started off with an organic spring mix, a grapefruit which is known for its lycopene and strawberries for natural iodine and both for vitamin C. The grapefruit and strawberries help fight off any free radicals that may be floating around a persons system from a cold or flu bug. Vitamin C does this “by donating its two hydrogens with their electrons to the free radicals.” (Whitney, Rolfes pg 338). Vitamin C also protects tissues from oxidative stress, enhances iron absorption, and serves as a synthesis of several other compounds. (Whitney, Rolfes pg 339).
I went with the pink grapefruit not because pink is my favorite color (well it is) but because of the lycopene. The lycopene is known to fight oxygen free radicals. It's best known for fighting prostate cancer, so eat your fruits that are red or pink guys. The nutrient-per-calorie ratio is much higher in fruit and I'd rather spend my calories on fruit then on empty calories like fatty salad dressings. The salad greens have the most protein per calorie, based on a study reviewed and analyzed then published by Dr Furhman in Eat to Live (pg 138). Through his analysis he discovered steak and broccoli have the same protein per calorie. If you were to eat a 100 calorie steak and a 100 calorie plate of broccoli it would have the same amount of protein. For a woman my age based on the RDA should consume 46g of protein a day (inside cover Whitney, Rolfes)
The last element I’d like to mention is the pink Himalayan salt. There isn’t much data collected on the Himalayan salt other then it’s a “fossil marine salt” that is harvested from high up in the Himalayan Mountains.
The second dish is my most favorite; it took a while to get this recipe just right! I played with the ingredients for a long time because the usual white mushroom just does not taste right. I use a combination of wild mushrooms, usually oyster mushroom and button mushrooms. After I chop up the mushrooms, sweet onion, and raw pumpkin seed, I toss them in a wok with some oil.
The oil is always important. I can use few different types; avocado oil, walnut oil for high heat, or grape seed oil. Cooking oils are delicate and if the heat is set to high temperature, they will burn; this is referred to as the smoke point. I prefer the light flavor of high heat grapeseed oil. For this recipe I used avocado. The nutty flavor from the oil complements the mushrooms. The wok lets me keep the delicate flavors of the mushrooms with out them turning to mush.
I've heard so many different good things about mushrooms, Washington State University have a whole database devoted to Pacific Northwest Fungi, http://pnwfungi.wsu.edu/programs/aboutDatabase.asp. This dish evolved the way it did through trial and error. I use to use Roma tomatoes and didn't like how under ripe they were so I switched to cherry tomatoes and found the burst of juice complimentary to the texture of the avocado. This can be eaten warm, hot or cold. I usually sprinkle pink Himalayan salt on it as well.
The tomato was once called the “Love Apple” in England in 1596. The English used it for an ornamental plant or for medicinal purposes. Before the tomato got to England it has to come from its origins in South America with the Aztec people. The tomato was brought back to Spain and Portugal then snubbed by most of Europe until eventually they were eaten in salads, according the the Dictionnaire de Trevoux of 1704, Introduction: The Early Modern Period, (pg 357).
The avocado has an interesting history also. There are three distinct types uncovered during archeological digs. The three distinct types are due to the locations they were found, now knows as Mexican, Guatemalan, and West Indian or Antillean. There were known in the Antilles before the Spanish conquest.

Finally dessert, the most important part of a meal! When I had to consciously give up ice-cream for health reasons I started looking for alternatives. I know from studying food through the ages through various sources I could use almonds to create a cream. The most influential book in my studies from food through out history is Take a Thousand Eggs or More, a collection of 15th century recipes.” It has this recipe for making almond milk from scratch well it was labor some and produces little for the amounts I would need to make crème. Hope was lost, and then I stumbled onto the mimi cream. I already knew how yummy fruit was and at the current time I was eating a lot of frozen organic blueberries and mangos. I just poured the mimi cream over the top one day and made the best dessert I’d ever tasted.
I learned a lot about cooking with almonds from a book I bought called Take a Thousand Eggs or more. With so many people who are lacto cent intolerant, it’s handy to know some alternatives. This book talks a lot about foods and new world foods. It was because of this book I have been able to figure out the foundation of flavors, that's how I knew mango and blueberries would work well with almonds.
The last food I used that wasn’t regional was the mango. The mango is a fruit that’s just as old as the tomato and the avocado; it is originally from Malaysia, according to the poem found in “The Mango, its culture and varieties.” I can’t remember the first time I had a mango, but I do remember the first time I had one with my friend from India. She explained I was eating it wrong. Through cultural diffusion I’d learn to cut it like an avocado and take out the see. My friend showed me the way she ate the mango in her culture, they squeeze the fruit all the way around, leaving the skin on, until it feels like water balloon, then cut the top off and suck the juice out of it.
Although I find myself alone most of the time now, I still find it very important to pick out foods I eat with passion. Live each day with intent is a motto I picked up somewhere along the way and I try to bring that into every aspect of my life, including with my food. With that being said…who says passion and healthy living can’t go hand and hand. I will live my life proving that can be done and enjoying every moment of it.
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"I don't want no cold stay away from me" salad
2Pink Grapefruits
1 basket of strawberries
1 bag of spring mix
1 small bag of sprouts
¼ cup raw sunflower seeds (optional)

• Wash strawberries, greens, sprouts. dry off (I have a salad spinner)
• Mix greens and sprouts
• Cut off the leafy tops of the strawberries and quarter
• Cut of the skin of the grapefruit (they look better and you get all the seeds)
• Mix all of it together
Serve
A-T-M Salad
(Avocado-Tomato-Mushrooms)
2 ripe avocados
1 8oz container of cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup of shiitake mushrooms
1/2 cup of button mushrooms
1/2 of crimini mushrooms
1/2 a sweet onion
1Garlic clove (optional)
¼ cup Pumpkin Seeds
1 tablespoon oil (avocado or walnut or grapeseed)
Salt to taste
• Brush mushrooms clean of all dirt and any other unsavory looking characters.
• Slice
• Rinse off onion
• Peal, mash, slice garlic
• Toss into Wok on low to medium low heat with oil
• Rinse off tomatoes, cut in half and put in bowl
• Half avocado, remove seed, cut into squares and put in with tomatoes
• Add Pumpkin Seeds to wok
• Add a pinch of salt
• Don't over mix or mushrooms will turn to mush
• When Onion turns translucent remove and add to the tomato mixture.
• Lightly stir and serve
Fruit and Crème
1 bag of Frozen Fruit of your choice
Mimi Crème
Serving size 1
1 cup of fruit
1/4 cup of creme.
Works Cited

Mangels, Reed, Ph.D., R.D. “Iron in the Vegan Diet” Heme vs. Non-heme Iron http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm, last updated 26 Apr 2006, 25 Apr 2011

Jane Higdon, Ph.D.,Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University, Written in April 2003. Victoria J. Drake, Ph.D.’Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University, Updated in March 2010. Elizabeth N. Pearce, MD, MSc., Associate Professor of Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition, Boston University School of Medicine, Reviewed in March 2010., “Linus Pauling Institute Micronutrient Research for Optimum Health” http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/iodine/ , 10 Mar 2010, 25 Apr 2011

Henley, E C, & Kuster, J M. (1994, April). Protein quality evaluation by protein digestibility-correlated amino acid scoring. Food Technology, 48(4), 74. Retrieved April 25, 2011, from Platinum Periodicals. (Document ID: 7207457).

'Eat a rainbow' path to health. (2011, January 24). The Providence Journal,D.2. Retrieved April 25, 2011, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID: 2246857231).

Whitney, Ellie, and Sharon Rady Rolfes. “Chapter 10.” Understanding Nutrition. 12th ed. California: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.

Sean Kane. (2010, September 8). Tomatoes hold key to prostate cancer cure [Eire Region]. Daily Mail,23. Retrieved April 25, 2011, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID: 2132605461).

Jean-Louis Flandrin (Editor), and Massimo Montanari (Editor), and Albert Sonnenfeld (Translator),”Part six”, The Europe of Nations-States Introduction: The Early Mondern Period, Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present [Hardcover], 1999. Print.

Antony William Whiley, B. and Schaffer, Bruce A. Schaffer, B. and Nigel Wolstenholme, “History, Distribution and Use” The avocado: botany, production, and uses 2001. Print

G. Marshall Woodrow, F.R.H.S.,”The Mango, it's culture and varieties.” publisher by appointment to the late queen Victoria H.G. COVE, 1904 Print, pamphlet

CHERYL PICK SOMMER. "BEHIND THE COUNTER: COMMON CONDIMENT HAS GLORIOUS HISTORY. " The Santa Fe New Mexican 19 Apr. 2006, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.