NEFF The Ingredient - "Water"

W H A T ’ S

N E W

I N

T H E

N E F F

K I T C H E N

MAKE A C AT C H

MAKE A FIRE

WAV E S

FISHING WITH HOR SES ON THE NORTH SE A CO A S T

HOW TO SMOK E, BAKE AND BR AISE OUTDOOR S

A NEW LIFE A S A SURFER AND CO O K

SE A RCHING FOR T R E A SU R E A n is sue ab o u t t he r iche s o f w a t er

M AY 2017

MAKE

T H E WAT E R ISSUE ― M AY 2 0 17 ―

EDITORIAL

COVER PHOTOGR APHY

___

REINHARD HUNGER, STYLING

___

CHRISTOPH HIMMEL; THIS PAGE PHOTOGR APHY

___

REINHARD HUNGER

― M AY 2 0 17 ―

We cook in it, the ingredients we use need it to grow or to live in, and we are made up of it more than of anything else: water. Water gives us not only life, but culinary richness – and also happens to be the most elementary ingredient in the kitchen. The fact that, in our part of the world, it flows whenever we turn the tap on and is generally clean is something we all take for granted; in many other countries, however, drinking water is a precious resource and access to it is fiercely contested.

Now that summer is here, now that it is hot outside, we start to feel how important water is to us on an instinctive level.

Not just to quench our thirst and to refresh us, either.

We are drawn to the sea, to bodies of water, back towards the element from which we all come. It is about feeling our way back towards the origins of life – and about celebrating the delectable lightness of summer.

And that is why this issue of The Ingredient would like you to join us at the water’s edge.

On the Belgian coast, for example, at the only place in the world where prawns are still caught on horseback in the age-old tradition. Or on the beaches of Mallorca, where we speak to Jo and Cozy, the cooking duo behind Salt & Silver, about living on the wave and at the stove. And on all those riverbanks, in all those parks, gardens and terraces where summer is lived most intensively. As ever, this issue is packed with ideas and recipes, offering proof that eating outside can mean so much more than a barbecued sausage.

We hope you enjoy this issue – and the summer!

Your NEFF editorial staff

3

CONTENTS

― M AY 2 0 17 ―

THE LAST OF THEIR KIND

16

The only place where people still go fishing on heavy Brabant horses is Oostduinkerke on the Belgian coast.

We sent Franziska Wischmann to meet one of the few horseback fishermen, Chris Vermote, and his trusty steed, Fritz.

BACK TO ZERO

CANNED CUISINE

32

62

For the last three years, Johannes Rif felmacher and Thomas Kosikowski, alias Salt & Silver, have been living their dream, travelling the world, discovering sur fing spots, and developing recipes for their blog.

We spoke to them on Mallorca about freedom and cooking.

Tinned fish is a delicacy in Por tugal, especially if the contents of the can is native sardine. The Ramirez family runs one of the countr y’s most famous canning factories, and their success stor y is tied up intimately with the humble tin can.

Read our por trait of the clan.

4

08 I N T R O Ever ything from fizzy water for gourmets through to the Cod Consensus: read our news, facts and stories about water – and water-based cooking.

MORE ARTICLES

26 I N V I S I B L E

WAT E R

28 S A V I O U R S

PHOTOGR APHY

OF THE SEAS

Three projects aiming to

free the oceans of plastic rubbish.

40

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

The best ways of cooking outside,

explained step by step.

WAT E R M E L O N S A L AT A N D G R I L L E D OYSTERS PLUS BOOKLET OF 13 R EC I P E S TO KEEP

50 S A L I N E

FLOWERS AND SEA SNOW

Sale marino, sel gris, lava salt – which one is best?

Our salt guide explains.

54

SUMMER MADNESS

58

URBAN FISHERMEN

Infused water: how to use berries, mint and lots, lots more to get flavour into water.

NICE TO EAT YOU!

A look at the astonishing comeback of angling by experienced fisherman Christian Lorenz.

64

I T TA S T E S B E T T E R O U T S I D E

Seven new products which will take your al fresco

___

K AT H A R IN A B O H M , R EIN H A R D H U N G ER , K A I W EI SE, M A R V IN TOM É K L A B AU T ER M A N N I M AG E S

How much precious water is actually in vegetables, fruits and other foodstuf fs? An infographic.

M A Y

Vorab_001-032 Rezeptheft_eng_.indd 1

dining up a notch or two.

1 7

28.04.17 KW17 12:28

Outdoor cooking for beginner s: delicious recipes for balmy summer evenings

66

I S WAT E R A P U B L I C G O O D?

Our columnist Helmut Ziegler gives clear answers to a quite complex question.

5

CONTRIBUTORS ― M AY 2 0 17 ―

CHR ISTIAN H E I N R IC H

HELMUT ZIEGLER

AUTHOR

AUTHOR

___

PHOTOGR APHY

___

REINHARD HUNGER, STYLING

___

CHRISTOPH HIMMEL

M IC H E L E AVA N TA R IO ___

AUTHOR

Likes his food wellseasoned – a preference he may well have inherited from his Apulian grandfather, who threw salt over every meal his wife put in front of him. The salt was from the Adriatic Sea, where Michele first saw the “salt gardens” of Margherita di Savoia in which the white gold is gleaned from the water.

Find out more about this “marine snow” and about “saline flowers” on page 50.

Has tried pretty much every type of water sport, from canoeing off the coast of Cuba through to surfing the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. While researching his piece on initiatives to cleanse the seas of plastic refuse (page 28), he realised just what a serious issue this form of pollution is. Finding out the figures for our graphic about “hidden water” in foodstuffs (page 26), he also learned a lot – and is now more convinced than ever before that going vegetarian was the right thing to do.

___

I NG A PAU L S E N ___

AUTHOR

Lives the country life with her family (including a dog and a horse). In this issue, the nutrition scientist and food writer worked on outdoor recipes (see the recipe booklet) – and, boy, did she work!

While digging out a pit oven, weather conditions turned nasty. But even her sons, originally sceptical of the scheme, had to admit that it was worth the effort when they got a mouthful of meltingly tender roast pork straight out of the ground.

7

Starts off the day with a glass of hot water.

What is more, his favourite dish is the Vietnamese noodle soup Phở, his favourite sport is swimming, and his favourite place is La Gomera (the island).

The man from Hamburg also likes to go walking in the rain and can’t help dancing whenever he hears Tony Brutus’ song Water Pistol.

So it’s no wonder that, as far as he’s concerned, access to water is a basic human right.

(See page 66.)

W

T H E WAT E R ISSUE REPORTS, INTERVIEWS, QUOTATIONS, STATISTICS, MEDIA ITEMS AND MORE

2017

AROUND THE WORLD WITH A WHALE The oceans used to be home to more than one million sperm whales, a figure reduced to few thousand in recent decades. Accordingly, there was a lot of interest in the plight of a beached sperm whale discovered during the night of 16 April 1981 on Long Island. Named “Physty” by locals, the marine mammal was helped back into the Atlantic.Taking Physty’s perspective, Dutch biologist and science journalist Kurt de Swaaf describes a journey through the world’s oceans, these immense bodies of water which give the earth its name Blue Planet, providing nourishment, storing carbon dioxide, regulating the climate, and acting as the linchpin of the water cycle.

Kurt de Swaaf, Spirit of the Ocean, Benvento Verlag, 240 pages, €24

O N E K I L O G R A M O F W H I T E B E L U G A C AV I A R C A N R E AC H U P T O $70 , 0 0 0 . K N OW N FO R I T S D E L I C AT E , C R E A M Y F L AVO U R , T H I S F I S H R O E CO M E S F R O M T H E E X T R E M E LY R A R E , G E N E T I C A L LY D E F I C I E N T A L B I N O S T U R G EO N . O N LY 20 K I L O G R A M S O R S O O F T H I S LUXURY PRODUCT M AKE IT ONTO THE M ARKE T E VERY Y E AR .

8

STARTER S

INTERVIEW

MYTHS

“ HISTORY IS W H AT M A K E S W AT E R INTERESTING. „

TRUE OR FA L SE? WA T E R M A K E S YOU FR E SH, BE AU T I F U L , AND SLIM. RIGHT? THE INGREDIENT FAC T C H E C K S THE CLAIMS..

A B R I E F TA L K W I T H L A R S H E N T S C H E L , WAT E R S O M M E L I E R AT T H E H O T E L AT L A N T IC K E M P I N S K I , H A M BU RG

What advice would you give to people buying bottled water?

When it comes to selling water, there’s a lot of emphasis on minerals, but you get most of them from the solid food you consume. It’s more about what kind of person you are and which brand you prefer.

ARTWORK

___

CHRISTINE KÖHLER

Do you recommend sparkling or still?

Generally still, especially if you’re drinking it with wine or during a meal. If you’re enjoying a nice white burgundy, for instance, and have a glass of sparkling water too, the bubbles can be quite a distraction. Carbonated water can also have a quite serious effect on the taste of food and drinks.

M Y T H N o . 1 : Eve r yon e s hou l d d r i n k t wo l it r e s of w at e r a d ay.

FA L SE .

Most adu lt s need one a nd a ha l f l it res d a i ly.

Sweat i ng st rong ly c a n i ncrea se t h is requ i rement by up to one l it re per hou r.

Respond to feel i ngs of t h i rst by d r i n k i ng water plent i f u l ly – bot h st i l l a nd spa rk l i ng a nd f r u it tea s.

Fr u it a lso conta i ns a lot of water, a s do vegetables a nd soups.

What are the skills a water sommelier needs?

You’ve got to be able to tell stories, and that’s the main reason we had up to 45 kinds of water on our menu at Hotel Atlantic: the international brands offer our guest a view into other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the whole media hype about “waters” has died down now: if people want to drink full-moon water or broken heart water, or drink from bottles with Swarovski crystals, is up to them. If they think it’s worth the price, they’ll pay.

What is your favourite water?

Chateldon from France. The Sun King Louis XIV drank it centuries ago and, as I said, the story behind it, its history, is what makes water interesting.

9

A THE COD CONSENSUS C ALL IT BACC AL A, HIMONO, OR JUST PL AIN COD: ONE SINGLE FISH, LOTS OF COUNTRIES, NAMES, AND ST YLES.

ICELAND: Porskur, dried cod, is worked into mashed potato to make Plokkfiskur.

FAROE ISLES: Toskarhovd or “cod head” is just that: a dish of boiled cod head, potatoes, and fried onions.

DENMARK: The Danes like to eat their torsk with boiled potatoes and mustard sauce.

NEWFOUNDLAND: Canadian cooks like to make cod sound pie.

NORWAY: Winter-caught cod, known as skrei, is considered a delicacy; the liver and roe are consumed. Cod is also preserved as lutefisk.

RUSSIA: Russian cod stockfish (Сушёная рыба) is served in strips as a beer snack.

IRELAND: Cod is popular in fish cakes on the Emerald Isle.

JAPAN: Dried cod („干物“, himono) is soaked, grilled, and then served with soy sauce and radish.

ENGLAND: Where would the British be without cod for their fish and chips?

PORTUGAL: Known for its dried, salted bacalhau cod, Portuguese cuisine has over 365 ways of preparing it.

GERMANY: On the Baltic Coast, poached Dorsch is eaten with mustard; by the North Sea, it comes as a fried fillet.

POLAND: Called dorsz, cod is often eaten in aspic here (dorsz nadziewany w galarede).

SPAIN: The Spanish also like cured cod, often dished up with bacon, tomatoes, and aubergines as bacalao en samfaina.

ITALY: Here too, cured cod begins with B. As baccalá alla vicentina, it is soaked and simmered with milk, herbs, garlic, and cheese.

A R T WO R K

10

_ _ _

M ON A

CROATIA: Across the Adriatic, stewed bakalar is a Christmas Eve favourite.

D ES S AU L

GREECE: As bakaliaros, cured cod is fried in breadcrumbs and served with mashed potatoes, olive oil, and garlic as bakaliaros me skordalia.

STARTER S

Sergio Gamberini: Italian entrepreneur from Liguria.

M Y T H No. 2 : D r i n k i n g w at e r m a k e s you l o o k you n ge r.

T RU E .

In a st udy for t he Un iversit y of Ha mbu rg , 50 pa r t icipa nt s d ra n k more t ha n t wo l it res of m i nera l water ever y d ay.

By t he end , t hey had fewer w r i n k les, f u l ler sk i n, a nd nea r opt i ma l sk i n pH levels.

V EG E TA B L E S F R O M NEMO’S GARDEN

M Y T H No. 3: C o l d drinks cool you d ow n m or e .

FA L SE .

C old f lu id s need to be broug ht up to ou r body temperat u re of 37 °C , a nd t h is requ i res considerable energ y.

T hat ’s why, i n t he world ’s hot ter reg ions, tea is a popu la r d r i n k : it is resorbed qu ick ly a nd sweated out , wh ich cools t he body.

I S T H I S W H AT T H E F U T U R E O F V EG E TA B L E FA R M I N G CO U L D L O O K L I K E I N T H E D R O U G H T- P L AG U E D M E D I T E R R A N E A N R EG I O N S? O N T H E L I G U R I A N COA S T, E I G H T YA R D S B E L OW T H E S U R FAC E O F T H E SE A , BE ANS, SAL ADS, AND HERBS G R OW W E L L , A S I TA L I A N E N T R E P R E N E U R S E R G I O G A M B E R I N I H A S C R E AT E D T H E P E R F EC T CO N D I T I O N S FO R T H E M U N D E R WAT E R . H I S S U B M A R I N E T E S T B A L L O O N C A P S U L E S A R E H E AT E D T O A N I D E A L 26 D EG R E E S; T H E R E A R E N O PA R A S I T E S A N D P L E N T Y O F F R E S H WAT E R T O K E E P T H E P L A N T S H Y D R AT E D. T H E F R E S H WAT E R , B Y T H E WAY, I S P R O D U C E D B Y T H E VA R I AT I O N S B E T W E E N DAY A N D N I G H T-T I M E T E M P E R AT U R E S; T H I S C AU S E S S E AWAT E R I N S I D E T H E B A L L O O N S T O E VA P O R AT E , L E AV I N G T H E S A LT O N T H E G R O U N D A N D C AU S I N G CO N D E N S AT I O N T O R A I N D OW N O N THE PL ANTS. SENSOR S ARE USED TO M AKE S U R E T H E R E I S E N O U G H OX YG E N A N D C A R B O N D I OX I D E I N E AC H C A P S U L E . FO R FO U R Y E A R S N OW, G A M B E R I N I H A S H A D T O R E A P P LY FO R H I S P E R M I T FO R E V E R Y G R OW I N G S E A S O N F R O M J U N E T O S E P T E M B E R – A N D E AC H Y E A R , H I S H A R V E S T TA S T E S D E L I C I O U S . N E M OS G A R D E N.CO M

M Y T H N o . 4 : D r i n k i n g w at e r w h i l e e at i n g f r u it g i ve s you a n up s e t s tom a c h .

T RU E A N D FA L SE .

Water w it h f r u it is r isk y i f t he f r u it concer ned is u nwa shed , leav i ng it s ex ter ior covered i n f u ng uses, bac ter ia , a nd v i r uses.

If you d r i n k a lot of water at t he sa me t i me, t h is d i lutes you r stomach acid s, leav i ng m icroorga n isms ac t ive a nd c ausi ng fer mentat ion.

11

12

SPORTY FISH A S O D D A S I T M AY S OU N D, S O M E P E O P L E G O T O AU S T R I A F O R FISH. NOT JUST AN Y FISH,

T H E AUS S E E R L A N D L A K E S I N T H E P ROV I N C E O F

T H OU G H :

STYR IA AR E TEEMING W ITH CHAR .

A L E X A N DE R S C H E C K , A 3 3 -Y E A R- O L D AU S T R I A N , U N DE R S TA N D S T H E P U L L O F S A LV E L I N U S : H E I S A M A S T E R O F S U S TA I N A B L E F I S H I N G T E C H N I Q U E S , W H IC H I S I M P O R TA N T T O P R E S E RV E S T O C K S O F T H I S R A R E ( A N D D E L I C I OU S) F I S H .

I T S F L AVOU R C O M E S F RO M T H E L AC K O F N U T R I E N T S I N T H E C L E A R WAT E R F RO M M OU N TA I N S P R I N G S ; AS SUCH,

CHAR

H AV E T O

S W I M E X T E N S I V E LY T O F I N D F O O D, W H IC H M A K E S T H E I R RO S É - C O L OU R E D M E AT S O F T A N D

C AT C H C H A R I N N E T S – A N D O N LY U P TO A M A X IMU M OF

1,6 0 0 K ILOGR A M S

A N N UA L LY.

SCHECK MAK ES SUR E T H AT T H E I N T E R E S T S O F F I S H E R M E N A N D M O T H E R N AT U R E A R E E Q UA L LY C AT E R E D T O.

___

TA S T E . O N LY P RO F E S S I O N A L F I S H E R M E N A R E A L L OW E D T O

CHRISTINE KÖHLER

T E N DE R , W I T H A DE L IC AT E N U T T Y

ARTWORK

B E FO U N D, T H AT T H E BIO T OPE I S I N TAC T.

T H AT T H E R E I S L IF E TO T R AV E L F OR M I L E S U N DE RWAT E R A N D S IG NA L I S E

AT T R AC T O T H E R ORG A N I S M S T O S E T T L E ON T H E R E E F. I T S S OU N D S

T H E AC OU S T IC S H E L P YOU N G F I S H T O F I N D T H E I R WAY BAC K HOM E A N D A L S O

T H E H E A LT HIE R T H E R E E F I S .

T H E L OU DE R I T S OU N D S ,

C I T I E S ; T H E I R C ON C LU S ION I S T H AT, F ROM A N E C OL O G IC A L S TA N DP OI N T,

L E V E L S I N C OR A L R E E F S W I T H T HO S E F OU N D I N T OW N S A N D

BIOL O G I S T S J U L I U S PI E RC Y A N D S T E PH E N S I M P S ON H AV E C OM PA R E D N OI S E

T H E S E R E NI T Y O F T H E O C E A N? F ORG E T I T. BR I T I S H M A R I N E

U N DE R WAT E R C ACO PHON Y

T

STARTER S

T H OU G H T T H E Y W E R E B E E R D R I N K E R S ?

G E R M A N S N OW G U L P D OW N

149 L IT R E S O F

M I N E R A L WAT E R P E R P E R S O N A N N UA L LY ( A S AG A I N S T

12. 5 L IT R E S I N 19 7 0). T H I S I N C R E A S E

H A S C O M E AT T H E E X P E N S E O F B E E R A N D VA R I OU S O T H E R T I P P L E S . P R E V I OU S LY, A N YO N E W H O WA N T E D A G L A S S O F WAT E R J U S T W E N T T O T H E TA P.

NOWA DAY S , C O N S U M E R S A R E G E N E R A L LY M O R E H E A LT H- C O N S C I OU S A N D S I N C E T H E 19 7 0 S , T H E D R I N K-D R I V I N G L I M I T S H AV E B E E N L OW E R E D. A L L O F T H I S H A S M A DE S PA R K L I N G M I N E R A L WAT E R M O R E AT T R AC T I V E T O G E R M A N S .

U PC YCLI NG

FROM TRASH TO TREND Nine years back, New Yorkers Tyson Toussant and Tim Combs, both 40, decided to try and do their bit for the oceans by setting up Bionic Yarn, a company which recycles plastic recovered from the sea into fibres that can be used to produce fabrics and other materials.

The company’s creative director is musician Pharell Williams (“Happy”), and his role is to help Toussant to reach as many people as possible with the company’s concept of upcycling plastic rubbish into stylish clothing. Bionic Yarn has already chalked up some notable successes and has been working with the Dutch denim giant G-Star Raw for two years now: their “Raw for the Oceans” concept jeans are made from Toussant’s yarn (and retail at around US $180).

M Y T H N o . 5 : Pe op l e w ho d r i n k l ot s l o s e we i g ht m or e qu i c k l y.

FA L SE – a nd cer ta i n ly not i f t hey ’re consu m i ng sweetened sof t d r i n k s.

Water, however, does help you stay sl i m.

Dr i n k i ng a la rge g la ss before each mea l ma kes you feel f u l ler fa ster a nd i ncrea ses you r metabol ic rate by 30% .

M Y T H N o . 6 : You c a n d i e of a w at e r ove r d o s e .

Yes, t rag ic a l ly, t h is rea l ly does happen.

T he Cl i n ic a l Jou r na l of Spor t s ha s docu mented fou r teen c a ses si nce 1981.

T he c ause is hy ponat rem ia , a severe lack of sa lt s c aused by ex t reme a nd prolonged sweat i ng combi ned w it h a h ig h i nta ke of tap water.

T hat ’s why endu ra nce at h letes shou ld d r i n k spor t s beverages conta i n i ng elec t roly tes.

M Y T H N o . 7 : P upi l s s hou l d n’t b e a l l owe d to drink in class.

FA L SE .

A lack of f lu id s c a n be a c ause of low concent rat ion. St ud ies show t hat f lu id i nta ke lead s to more menta l a ler t ness a nd i ncrea ses ac adem ic per for ma nce i n schoolch i ld ren.

13

E Willem Sodderland: Inventor of the sea pasta

S E A PA STA , SE A B ACON , SE A B R E A D T H E WO R L D ’ S P O P U L AT I O N I S G ROW I N G FA S T, A N D W H E N I T C O M E S T O P ROV I DI N G T H I S I N C R E A S E D N U M B E R O F H U M A N S W I T H F O O D, S C I E N T I S T S A R E L O O K I N G T O T H E S E A . A DU T C H C O M PA N Y C A L L E D S E A M O R E I S A L R E A DY O F F E R I N G S E AW E E D A S A PA S TA R E P L AC E M E N T: T H E I R TAG L I AT E L L E I S P U N N I N G LY N A M E D “ I S E A PA S TA”, A N D T H E I R R A N G E N OW E X T E N D S T O “ I S E A BAC O N ” ( A L S O M A DE O F S E AW E E D); S E A M O R E I S N OW WO R K I N G O N U S I N G M A R I N E V E G E TAT I O N T O M A K E T E A A N D W R A P S .

L O T S O F C O N S U M E R S A R E AT T R AC T E D BY T H E FAC T T H AT T H E C O M PA N Y ’ S P RO DU C T S A R E A L S O O RG A N IC , G L U T E N -F R E E , A N D L OW- C A R B ; A S W E L L A S B E I N G N AT U R A L LY H A RV E S T E D, T H E Y A R E A L S O R IC H I N O M E G A 3 O I L S . “ S E A” F O R YOU R S E LV E S : W W W. S E A MO R E F O O D .C OM

“ E V E R Y DAY, 1, 0 0 0 C H I L D R E N D I E D U E TO D I S E A S E S CO N TA I N E D I N O R T R A N S M I T T E D B Y WAT E R (…)

W E M U S T U R G E N T LY D E V E LO P A N U N D E R S TA N D I N G O F T H E N E E D FO R WAT E R A N D I T S F U N DA M E N TA L VA L U E FO R H U M A N I T Y.” P O P E F R A N C I S , 2 0 17, D U R I N G A W O R K S H O P AT T H E P O N T I F I C A L A C A D E M Y O F S C I E N C E S .

14

STARTER S

„ WHERE THE REAL BIG FISH ARE “ T H E L A RG E S T F I S H M A R K E T I N T H E WO R L D I S T O K YO ’ S 8 0 -Y E A R- O L D T S U K I J I . P L A N S A R E N OW A F O O T T O M OV E I T, BU T T H AT ’ S E A S I E R S A I D T H A N D O N E .

T E X T

_ _ _

A L E XA N D ER

EVERY DAY at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, the world’s largest for fish, visitors can enjoy what looks like a perfectly rehearsed theatrical performance. As well as seafood, the market – in operation since 1935 – also offers fruit and vegetables; tuna is its real speciality, though, along with crustaceans of all kinds, every conceivable species of fish, and even (controversially) whale meat.

With a workforce of 60,000 and a dedicated stop on the Tokyo metro, this sprawling wholesale market sees 1,900 tonnes of fish in and out of its halls daily. In an average year, around five billion dollars changes hands at Tsukiji.

For this to work, each and every process has to be seamlessly integrated into all the others.

Fresh produce comes in daily and some merchants have been working hand in hand with buying families for generations. First up, at around 2 a.m., the biggest customers get first pick of the catch; at 3 a.m., the first auctions start. From 5 a.m. onwards, it’s on to normal

R

PENZEL

transactions. The market has its special traditions, including the auctioning of the first tuna of the year: this year, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of a large chain of sushi restaurants and the self-styled “Tuna King”, bought it for close to US $700,000. The price tag was the highest since 2013, when a 222kg bluefin went for a sum approaching US $1.5mill.

Despite all this, however, the future of the market hangs in the balance. Its current site is far too small to accommodate its rapid expansion, yet property prices have rocketed. To add to the woes, Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Olympics and open land is sorely needed. In the neighbouring district, plots are going at over US $250,000 – per square metre. So the market will be moving across the water to Toyosu: the sellers have already invested upwards of US $250 million in the new site and were ready to move in November 2016. It didn’t happen.

The move is set to cause problems for the businesses that have settled around the existing site: tourists and visitors are an excellent source of income, and they’ll find it harder to get to the new market. Logistically, too, the current location is better. Just before the move, city governor Koike slammed on the brakes, citing environmental concerns. A decision is pending in mid-2017: until then, tourists can still witness a tuna auction in Tsukiji’s hallowed halls.

15

16

REPORTAGE

T

L

H

A

S T

T

H T E X T

_ _ _

O F

E FR A N Z IS K A

P H OTO G R A P H Y

K

E

I

_ _ _

I

R

WIS CH M ANN

K AT H A R I N A

N

B OH M

D

T H E R E ’ S O N LY O N E P L A C E L E F T I N T H E W HOL E WOR L D W H E R E SH R I M PE R S ST I L L F I SH F OR P R AW N S O N H O R S E B A C K : T H E B E L G I A N C OA S T. H OW T O C AT C H C RU S TAC E A N S T H E N A T U R A L WA Y. 17

REPORTAGE

Prawn fisherman Christian Vermote: The name of his horse, Fritz, has been engraved into the front of the saddle.

G E N T LY , the beach at Oostduinkerke rolls away towards the water; a strong easterly wind has pushed the sand back towards it in thousands of tiny waves.

Sat astride their Brabant horses, Stefaan Hancke and Chris Vermote are slowly making their way towards the sea: they are two of the dozen or so fishermen left who still go out to make their catch on the back of the famously robust Belgian heavy horses. Known for their extraordinary strength, these cold-bloods can draw long fishing nets through the water, catching prawns as they go. The result is a simple, authentic delight – and the complete opposite of industrialised fishing trawlers, whose dragnets dredge the world’s seas of fish and destroy the balance of the ocean environment. “I could never work like that,” says Chris Vermote, “because I love the sea too much.” He started fishing with his own nets when he was 13 years old, catching his first fish and prawns. “What par18

ticularly fascinated me about it? The way you can feel the raw power of the water, the pull of the currents and of the tide. And your catch just tastes so fresh, so unadulterated.” Later, he discovered another pleasure: the inexhaustibly meditative quality of the work – the rhythm of the waves, the ebb and flow. “It’s a nice contrast to everyday life,” says the 36-year-old, who runs a snack restaurant with his wife, Nele Vermote.

She is, incidentally, the only officially licensed female shrimper; in fact, it’s thanks to her that the family got itself a Brabant and started horseback fishing. It’s an age-old way of catching fish that goes back to the sixteenth century. Not that it’s enough for a livelihood in this day and age. As tasty as they may be, the catch of North Sea prawns is too light and the prices they command are too low to make a business proposition of it. At eight euros a kilo and with catches often under the 10 kg mark, the shrimpers can’t reliably supply a

HEAVY-DUT Y GEAR FOR HEAVY HORSES: The saddles are made of wood as the seawater would make leather brittle. Only the blinders are made of softer material.

19

REPORTAGE

BRABANT HORSES ARE COLD-BLOODED AND HAVE STRONG MUSCLES: Their compact stature allows them to haul hundreds of pounds at a time.

20

A TIDY HOUSE, A TIDY MIND: Each shrimper takes great care with their kit. Holes? Not one.

21

ALL-YOU-C AN-EAT SHRIMP? SORRY, NOT HERE. THE C ATCH IS USUALLY LIGHT: Stefaan Hanke and Chris Vermote size up the day’s catch. What it lacks in quantity, it makes up in quality.

THE FISHERMAN’S JOB DOESN’T END ONCE THE C ATCH IS LANDED. NEXT, IT NEEDS TO BE SIFTED: Mussels and small fish have been pulled out with the net, too, and will be used as sheep feed.

22

REPORTAGE

busy restaurant. Nevertheless, this method of fishing received UNESCO World Cultural Heritage protection in 2013, and both the regional authorities and the local population in this part of Belgium want to see it preserved as a ritual if nothing else.

For Stefaan Hanke, the progeny of a historic farming family, fishing for prawns is an important – and enjoyable – pastime. Whenever he can get away from the garage he runs for a living, he gets on horseback and rides out to sea. “My family have always kept Brabants,” he says, “and when I was a small boy, I remember being fascinated by their sheer power.” With lifespans of up to 20 years and weights of around a tonne, these cold-bloods can haul hundreds of pounds at a time.

And they have to every time they wade alongside the beach, up to their chests in water. They’re not just working against the water resistance, but also have funnel-shaped seines tethered to their shoulder harnesses which are opened up by two wooden boards attached to their sides, becoming deadly dead-ends for passing prawns. The current alone doesn’t send shrimp into the nets: that’s taken care of by a chain hanging from the front of the seines which is drawn over the sand, sending tiny shock-waves through the ground and flushing the prawns out, up, and into their doom – the 70 by 70 yard net.

Every 20 to 30 minutes, the fishermen head back to the beach to empty their nets and sift through the catch. That gives the Brabants time for a break while the shrimpers take the opportunity to throw unwanted by-catch back into the water. “Fishing prawns that are too young upsets the biological balance because they can’t breed,” explains Chris, “and we sift out fish and jellyfish, too, as they affect the taste of the prawns. Why should they die?”

Chris tips their pick into the baskets mounted on the side of the horses. The saddle is made of wood as

Nele Vermote is the only female shrimper. She shares Fritz the Horse with her husband, Chris.

the seawater would damage leather, making it brittle.

Another adaptation is that the horses’ tails have been docked so they don’t get caught in the nets and lead to injuries.

The shrimpers have a good three hours before the tide starts coming back in and they have to get out of the water. Now, it’s all about working quickly so that the prawns – which are still alive – get to the saucepan as fresh as possible. They are boiled in saltwater until their light grey colour has turned into a familiar shade of light pink and then enjoyed with friends and neighbours who have been invited specially to enjoy the last few hours of the day. This, too, is an important part of the ritual the Belgians call the garnalenvissers te paard: it’s about the feeling of community this custom generates, about stopping this historic practice – and, by extension, this region – from being forgotten. - TI 23

24 T E X T

_ _ _

FR A N ZI S K A

W I S CH MA N N

YO U CO ME FRO M.

N OT ? I S ON E PI N K A N D O N E B ROW N ? T H E A N S W E R TO T H AT D E P EN DS O N WH ERE

I S A S H R I MP S M A L L E R T H A N A P R AW N ? D O E S O N E H AV E C L AW S A N D T H E OT H ER

AN EXTRA SHRIMP ON THE BAR BIE?

REPORTAGE

This is not a specif ic species. Most come from warm Pacificwaters.

To A m e r i c a n s , i t ’ s “ j u m b o s h r i m p ”.

K I N G P R AW N

Generally from t h e Pe n a e i d a e f a m i l y, for Americans, thewhite Litopenaeus setiferus is thespecies sold generally as “ s h r i m p ”.

P R AW N

Crangon crangon i s E u r o p e ’s m o s t commercially impor tant form ofshrimp. U K spea kers ca ll it “ brown s h r i m p ”.

SHRIMP

Australians abroad are used to dealing with stereotypes in the kitchen: “Call that a knife?” Someone from Britain or America is bound to say that every time one of their Antipodean friends reaches for a spatula – or even a spoon. At least that Paul Hogan quote from Crocodile Dundee is factually correct, though. One of the more bewildering catchphrases that has found its way into international talk-like-an-Aussie parlance is this little morsel: “I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie!”

It’s strange because most Australians don’t really know what a “shrimp” is. The line comes from an Australian Tourist Board advert broadcast in America in the 1980s, and Paul Hogan (yes, him again) was actually meant to say “I’ll throw another prawn onto the barbie”. It was changed at the last minute, though, because a lot of Americans don’t know the word prawn. (“Slip” was another concession to Americans; Aussies prefer to “throw” and “chuck” food onto their beloved barbecues.)

Sit an American, an Australian, and a Brit down, put a few samples of Dendrobranchiata in front of them, and let the fun begin! For the American, almost all of them will be “shrimp”; for the Australian, almost all will be “prawns”, and for the Brit, it will depend on the colour and size: to a speaker of UK English, the smaller and browner the cooked crustacean is, the more likely it will be called shrimp; the bigger and pinker, the more it resembles a prawn.

What’s more, the discussion could go on for hours because none of them can be wrong: the words “shrimp” and “prawn” are absolutely meaningless in taxonomical terms. Matters a further complicated by outliers like “Dublin bay prawns” (they’re actually lobsters) and “crayfish” (also lobsters; not fish). Marine biologists prefer to talk about Penaeidae (which Brits and Aussies would definitely call a prawn) and Crangon crangon (which even Brits would call shrimp). All of them are part of the Decapoda crustaceans, however, and a sound knowledge the order of decapods is

crucial for anyone who is interested in shellfish in the kitchen, containing as it does prawn/shrimp, crabs and lobster, and crayfish.

Essentially, shrimp in the UK or Commonwealth countries almost always means Crangon crangon, which is found throughout the North Sea and neighbouring waters. Brown in colour, it is popular in northern Europe in salads, with eggs, or in rolls; in the UK, it is used to make potted shrimp paste.

In the US, the word most likely means white shrimp, Litopenaeus setiferus, found off the Eastern Seaboard and in the Gulf of Mexico. To British and Australian speakers, white shrimp looks like prawns, as does anything else from the family of Penaeidae – especially those species which take on a pink colour after cooking. King prawns or tiger prawns are not actually discrete species, but a gradation of size based on how many prawns come per pound. Australians get a lot of king prawns as the largest grow in tropical coastal waters.

One of the easiest crustaceans to recognise – and one whose name all speakers of English agree on – is the crab. Classic ways of serving it include dressed crab, in which the crabmeat is removed from the shell, mixed and seasoned, and then returned to it, or in crab cakes.

Although everyone thinks that lobster is an equally simple term, it isn’t. When something is listed on a menu as lobster, it should be one of the Homarus species: they are the classic, large lobster which are naturally blue but turn bright red after cooking and are considered to have the finest flavour of all shellfish.

Langoustines, however, are technically also lobsters – and are also known as Norway lobster to confuse matters. Other names for this far smaller subspecies of the lobster family include scampi (this generally refers to the prepared tail-meat) or – to add once again to the linguistic confusion, Dublin Bay prawns. Or should that be “shrimp”…? - TI 25

Highly prized for their exquisite f l av ou r, Ho m a r u s species are large and meat y below their shells.

LOBSTER

Langoustines aresmall, orangepink lobsters.

Their r a r e r, f r e s hw a t e r counterpar ts are k nown ascray f ish.

LANGOUSTINE

Crabs are decapods and t hus distant ly related to prawns.

There are over 6,800 dif ferent species.

CRAB

5,495

Producing grain as fodder

litres/kg

15,415

Slaughtering

10

Cleaning and animal care

35

Beef

in litres per kilogram

93

in percent

Virtual water type

Embedded water consumption

15.415

4

3

litres per cup of 125 ml

3

96

It takes around 18,900 litres of water to produce one kilo of coffee beans; that works out to a small fraction per individual cup, however.

Coffee

135

1

Even if the production of a certain foodstuff requires a lot of water, that does not always mean that it is ecologically unsustainable: the key issue is what kind of embedded water is necessary and what the water situation is like in the region of origin. That is why virtual water is divided into green, blue and grey water (see right) in order to gauge the real environmental impact of the overall water consumption.

Here is how much water is needed for each kilogram of beef: (litres):

9,755

Growing grass as fodder

Drinking water

120

OUR FOOD CONTAINS FAR MORE WATER THAN YOU MIGHT THINK. THAT'S BECAUSE OF THE EMBEDDED WATER CONSUMPTION ("HIDDEN" OR "VIRTUAL WATER" FOR SHORT) THAT A COW, FOR INSTANCE, OCCASIONS, NOT JUST BY DRINKING, BUT THROUGH THE WATER USED TO GROW THE FODDER IT EATS. THIS HOLISTIC APPROACH CAN BE USED TO PUT A FIGURE O THE VIRTUAL WATER ON EACH ITEM OF FOOD OR DRINK - AND MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, THE RESULTS SHOW THE IMMENSE AMOUNT OF INPUT IN OUR EVERYDAY FOODSTUFFS.

I N V I S I B L E WAT E R

is the amount of water involved in the production process which is rendered unusable as drinking water due to contamination.

grey virtual water

is groundwater or water from rivers and lakes.

This kind of water is used and not returned to its origin.

blue virtual water

is rainwater. From an ecological standpoint, this is the most sustainable form of water use as it occurs naturally.

green virtual water

The three types:

Virtual water

144

6

9

85

214

30

790

4

7

16

As with grains, the amount of water used in growing sweetcorn varies strongly from region to region. In the USA, one kilogram requires 760 litres: in India, that figure is 2,540 litres.

1,222

Maize 77

84

50

A large fruit weighing in at 200 g has around 160 l of water behind it. In India, the world's largest producer of bananas, water consumption runs at around 500 l per kilogram grown.

Bananas

12

It takes 520 litres to make one kilogram of ketchup - or around twice as much as for one kilo of raw tomatoes.

Tomatoes

20

Pint after work? In water terms, that's an expensive habit, with each pint glass requiring around 16 times its own volume in terms of water for irrigation and leaving around 10 litres contaminated.

litres per 0.5 l

Beer

1,849

14

2,277

55

4

2,497

20

68

41

One kilogram of unhulled rice requires "just" 1,670 litres of water; removing the hulls ups this figures to 2,497 litres. The percentage of rice fields with artificial irrigation varies from China (relatively high) to India, where rice is generally only cultivated where there is sufficient water.

Rice

11

Dates are primarily grown in tropical countries.

Due to the constant heavy watering their cultivation necessitates, they require particularly intensive artificial irrigation (blue water).

Dates

70

43

The boom in sales has led to an increase in industrial avocado farming; to keep harvests up, the use of pesticides and fertilisers is widespread on plantations in countries such as Mexico.

Avocado

1,981

43

Pasta is generally just wheat in another form; it takes one kilogram of wheat to make around 790 kg of pasta.

Pasta

(uncooked)

19

11

3,015

2

8

7

5,553

7

17,196 It takes around 1,720 litres of water to produce one 100 g bar of chocolate. Much of this huge sum, however, comes in the form of naturally sustainable rainwater.

Chocolate

11

While the rate of water consumption may look high, butter is actually not particularly thirsty when analysed on its fat content: at 6 l of water per gram of fat, it requires less than 5% of the water behind one gram ,of beef fat.

Butter

8

One 20 g slice of cheese contains more than 60 litres of embedded water.

3,178

Cheese

6% of all olives grown end up as olive oil; one litre of olive oil requires around 15,000 litres of water.

Olive

17

98

85

85

82

MICROPARTICLES OF PLASTIC Up to 13 million tonnes of plastic refuse end up in the sea every year, where they get ground down to microparticles by the elements and the tides.

28

BREWED UP

SAVIOURS OF THE SEAS E A C H A N D E V E R Y M I N U T E , T H E E Q U I VA L E N T O F A RUBBISH TRUCK FULL OF PL ASTIC GETS DUMPED INTO THE O CEAN – I N T H E F O R M O F N A N O PA R T I C L E S . T H A T ’ S H O W P L A S T I C GETS INTO OUR FO OD. OUR SCIENCE REPORTER CHRISTIAN HEINRICH PRESENTS THREE PROJECTS WHICH COULD H E L P T O S O LV E T H E P R O B L E M .

FOTOS

___

GALLERY STOCK /H. BAUMANN

OUR OCEANS ARE IN DANGER OF BEING S U F F O C A T E D B Y P L A S T I C . Plastic bags, pla-

stic bottles, plastic packaging, industrial plastic waste: by some estimates, around 6.4 million tonnes of plastic refuse ends up in the sea annually; 1.1 million birds and fishes die every year as a result. This rubbish washes up on the coasts and forms huge floating islands which make their way across the oceans; some experts even refer to the “eighth (plastic) continent”.

In the Pacific Ocean alone, there is a heap of plastic rubbish as large as central Europe.

Once it’s out at sea, plastic is almost indestructible.

Biodegradation is measured in decades, and as waves and UV light start to break it down, it essentially turns into powder: microparticles of plastic. These are an invisible danger, as the decay of the plastic structures release chemicals such as bisphenol A, phthalate, and styrene compounds into the water; these substances accrue in the food chain and can have effects on the genetics and hormones of marine animals – and of hu-

mans, who are, of course, at the end of the food chain.

Environmental activists have been warning about this growing issue for years now, a problem which could tip the earth’s delicate ecological balance over the edge once and for all. Three initiatives have formed aiming to save the seas: what are their proposals?

I . O C E A N C L E A N U P : The idea is to collect and

remove plastic by waiting at a point in the ocean where currents lead to a continuous exchange of water. There is just such a place between Hawaii and California, for example, and that is where 22-year-old Boyan Slat wants to start cleaning up the oceans in 2020 with a kind of gigantic sieve. It’s a simple enough idea, but rather complicated when it comes to the implementation.

The way Slat wants to do it is to deploy an array with two tunnels of around 50 kilometres in length, coupled into a large V-shape and floating on the surface of the water.

29

BREWED UP

These tunnels would filter out plastic particles of up to 2 mm, which would then be guided towards the middle of the V and gathered in a large container, which is regularly emptied. The plastic gathered would be sold on to power stations, which could burn it to generate electricity and heat. Although this method would not deal with microparticles already in the water, it would slow the rate at which they are building up by removing decaying material from the seas.

Boyan Slat, the project’s initiator, is from the Netherlands. In 2011, aged 17 and on a diving trip, he was shocked when, underwater, he saw more plastic than fish. Since then, his goal has been to clean up the oceans, and he is convinced that his project is the answer: if his 100 km arrays were posted at just 24 key points in the world’s seas, they would filter most of the plastic in the oceans out in relatively short order. He has even put a 100 m prototype out to sea with promising results, and a two-kilometre follow-up is due to be deployed off the Japanese coast before the end of the year. Slat can count on a lot of help, too: his company has 30 members of staff and 120 volunteers. www.theoceancleanup.com

plastic rubbish. The net has lots of holes to let out any fish who get trapped, and that helps us keep bycatch down.

I I . T H E S E A C O W : How a veteran

Why should fishermen use your nets, though?

Because a real change in attitudes will have to take place. Fishermen and people who live near the coast need to stop seeing plastic in the seas as rubbish and start using it as a resource. Using our nets, fishermen

entrepreneur has invented a water-going rubbish truck . An interview with Günther Bonin.

Mr. Bonin, how exactly does it work?

We called our boat “Sea Cow” and we use it to fish for 30

Given the sheer amount of plastic rubbish at sea, isn’t this approach somewhat pointless? Even if you had several of these catamarans, how could you have an effect?

It’s true that just collecting rubbish is not going to change much. Sea Cow has a range of highly sensitive instruments on board, however, which can measure the density of plastic rubbish and analyse the type of materials floating in the water. As such, Sea Cow is measuring the extent to which the sea is polluted, and we’ve had several requests from cities across the world to use our vessel. Before the year is out, we’ll be out in the bay of Hong Kong. To actually clean the seas, we need a dual-pronged approach. Firstly, the worst pollution needs to be tackled by influential organisations such as NGOs; in areas in which pollution is especially dense, however, fishing boats need to start manual clear-ups. We are happy to provide our nets for the job.

200 TONNES C E RTA I N LY A N OT IC E A B L E E F F E C T.

can get up to 200 tonnes of it out of the sea daily, all with very little bycatch. Soon, our “sea elephants” will be able to help here too. We’re working on a new design for 100 m long tankers which can turn the rubbish into sources of energy such as electricity, oil or gas.

This new ship will be able to process around 200 tonnes of plastic refuse a day – and at that scale, it will certainly have a noticeable effect.

Until you gave it all up to start your One Earth–One Ocean charity in 2010, you were a successful IT entrepreneur.

What triggered you to make the change?

I was captaining a large boat from Vancouver to San Diego and had a shift as a lookout one night. I saw this carpet of rubbish on the water’s surface leading back towards a freighter. Back on land, I read up on the issue and realised the scale of what we are dealing with. I decided to do something. Of course, the problem is ginormous, but that makes starting to do something about it all the more important. We’re taking the first step and hope that lots of other people join us. www.oneearth-oneocean.com I I I . P L A S T Y X : How bacteria can destroy

plastic at sea. „If your enemy is small, fight it with something small.”

That’s the strategy a group of eight Harvard students came up with last year to remove plastic particles from the world’s seas.

They’ll be working with a gigantic army of tiny little helpers – with bacteria. Under their professors’ guidance, the students have genetically modified Escherichia coli bacteria so that they can break down PET, a particularly frequent plastic pollutant, even generating energy in the process. To make sure the whole thing doesn’t get out of hand, the bacteria are kept in a container along with a battery and a GPS transmitter. The containers are then set afloat and make their way across the oceans, sending signals as to their whereabouts that show how much plastic is in the water around them.

This project won a gold medal at a competition last year and some of the students involved are now developing the concept further under the name plastyX. “Instead of electricity, however, we now want to start producing what are known as biomolecules: they are much more valuable and open up a path to the project financing itself in the future,” says biotechnology student Daniel Ulm, one of the founders of plastyx.

So now the projects initiators are trying to develop bacteria which can use microplastic to produce special proteins and a range of other molecules which could be of use to biotechnology companies or university and hospital research departments. If they succeed, plastyx will have turned a problem into a win-win situation: not only will pressure on the marine biosphere be reduced, but processing the plastic waste will generate substances of genuine use in research and medical applications. - TI https://i-lab.harvard.edu/meet/venture-team/plastyx/ 31

INTERVIEW

32

B A C K IN T E R V IE W

_ _ _

PH ILIPP

K O H L H Ö F E R­­

T O T H E Y U S E D T O WO R K AT A N A DV E R T I S I N G AG E N C Y – U N T I L T H E Y D RO P P E D I T A L L A N D S TA R T E D WO R K I N G A S N O M A D IC S U R F I N G C O O K S .

W E TA L K T O J O H A N N E S R I F F E L M AC H E R A N D T H O M A S KO S I KOW S K I A B OU T W H AT C O N N E C T S C O O K I N G A N D F R E E D O M .

Z E R O GET TING OUT OF OLD ROUTINES – AND INTO A NEW WAY OF LIVING: Kosikowski (centre left) and Riffelmacher on Mallorca with their surfing buddies.

33

INTERVIEW

LEARNING BY TRAVELLING: Johannes Riffelmacher is satisfied with his catch.

COOKING AT THE BEACH: Kosikowski and Riffelmacher are happy with their new life.

H E ’ S S A LT, A N D H E ’ S S I LV E R T homa s Kosi kowsk i (top lef t) a nd Joha n ne s R i f fel mac her a re l iv i ng t he d re a m : t h re e ye a r s a go, t he y qu it t hei r jobs at a n ad ver t i si ng a genc y, a nd t he y ’ve b e en t r ave l l i ng , c ook i ng , a nd su r f i ng e ver si nc e . I n 2 014 , t he y made t hei r way t h roug h S out h A mer ic a , finding out about the best surfing spots and tastiest treats between Cuba and Chile, doc u ment i ng t hei r d is c over ie s i n t he for m of a book , S a lt a nd Si lver. Wit h 141 re cipe s f rom eig ht c ou nt r ie s , t he c o ok er y b o ok pre s ent s t he c u i si ne s of e ac h c ou nt r y, fo c u si ng on d ishes as d iverse as ropa v ieja , a Cuba n beef stew, Mex ic a n f ish tacos , a nd a soup w it h

PHOTOGR APHY

___

MARVIN TOMÉ KLABAUTERMANN IMAGES

banana leaves from Nicaragua.

Thomas, Johannes, when did it happen?

When did you think: “Right, we’ve had enough. We’re dropping out?”

T: Although we have to admit that we never thought we’d be able to earn our living with our Salt & Silver project. . .

J: There wasn’t one particular moment.

It happened gradually. I was caught in the hamster wheel of a career in advertising and could feel how I was getting unhappier day by day.

T: I had just finished a work experience placement in a company producing advertising videos in Barcelona and the danger of falling into the same trap as Johannes set off a fight-or-flight reaction.

J: One day, when we were both feeling really down about the whole thing, we had a few beers in a pub and decided that we had to make some big changes to our lives. What we didn’t know, though, was where this decision would take us.

. . . a project that took you to some of South America’s best beaches and gave you a whole range of stories about the best surfing spots –plus a book full of street-food recipes.

So you went to South America. Why there, specifically?

T: The main reason was the possibilit y of travelling along thousands of miles of sur fable coast. All the way from Tijuana in the nor th of Mexico right down to southern Patagonia, it ’s one sur f spot af ter another.

J: We also felt that the culinar y traditions of South America are underrepresented in Europe, and that motivated us: with Mexican and Peruvian cuisine, South America has two of the world’s most exciting food cultures.

What ’s more, you can make yourself understood across the whole continent with just two languages: Spanish and Por tuguese.

When you got back from your journey, did you ever think of going back to your old jobs?

Riffelmacher and Kosikowski (simultaneously): Nope.

T: Exactly, we just let it happen – and gave it a little push ever y now and then if we had to.

How? J: What star ted as an idea we chatted about in the pub ended up as a real project that we developed an ambitious concept for.

We spent almost a year preparing, writing presentations, and making plans about how we could use social media to build an audience for our books. It all worked out even better than we had hoped it would.

T: What we didn’t think, though, was that we would end up on television, on the radio, and in magazines with it, and that we would reach so many people. That wasn’t par t of the plan: the whole thing just got bigger and bigger. . .

Why ever did you come back to Europe?

J: Ask a ship’s captain: the harbour it comes from is just as important as the ship itself. We’ve both been living in Hamburg for years. This northern German city is our home – and coming home is just as nice as leaving on an adventure.

T: We didn’t just want to laze about on the be-

ach, but to actually achieve something. We’ve 35

36

INTERVIEW

" FREEDOM ISN’T ABOUT S WA N N I N G O F F A N D THEN DOING W HAT YO U ’ V E A L WA Y S D O N E .

W E WA N T T O C R E AT E S O M E T H I N G N E W. " 37

GRUB´S UP, THEN SURF´S UP: On Mallorca, the best waves come with north and north-westerly wind.

The Alcudia Bay is where the "radest" breaks are to be found.

INTERVIEW

got a good network of people in Hamburg, and that ought to help us to make our vision realit y.

What is your vision?

T: We want to open a restaurant. That was always our dream, and we want to place it at the core of our project, to make it the place where everything comes together. Everyone can be a part of Salt & Silver; all they have to do is come and eat with us.

J: We’re going to shut up shop every winter and travel a new continent. In spring when we return, there’ll be a new menu reflecting what we’ve learned.

Freedom isn’t about swanning off and then doing what you’ve always done. We want to create something new.

T: That’s the plan.

How important is good planning if you’re trying to find freedom?

J: The most exciting things that happened on our journey through South America came about by chance. If you plan every detail, you miss the best stuff. So when planning our trips, we generally tend to limit ourselves to an overall direction: the rest can, as far as we’re concerned, be left to chance.

T: The thing about plans is that, more often than not, they don’t work out anyway. We familiarise ourselves with the food culture and everyday life of the country we’re traveling to. It’s never a bad idea to find out something about the history of the place and learn the key phrases in the local language, either.

If you market yourselves professionally in the way you two do, isn’t there a danger that “freedom” just becomes a hollow catchphrase?

J: Stories aren’t things that just happen in thin air: they are experiences. And once you’ve had an experience, why shouldn’t you tell people about it if they are interested?

T: Salt & Silver becoming more widely known is a nice side effect of what we are doing – but not the reason we are doing it. Our freedom and our adventures are not in any way faked; we live what we do.

in turn, makes you feel more confident in what you’re doing and we made the books to pass on these experiences if for no other reason.

J: Not that we think of ourselves as genius cooks!

We don’t even claim to be trained chefs. What we definitely are, though, is passionate – and that’s something that most other cooks have respect for.

Cooking as part of the adventure. . .?

J: In a way, yes. Then again, there are some adventures we’d rather forget. Like the time Thomas got arrested in Mexico, in the middle of the night, with a shotgun against his head. I was lying under a truck and could see the whole thing.

How did that happen?

T: We were spraying graffiti – which, in hindsight, may have been a bit stupid – and then the cops came.

J: Our experiences in South America have, on the whole, made us far more humble. We are grateful for everything we have in Germany: in lots of Latin American countries, none of the basic elements of prosperity and security that we enjoy in central Europe can be taken for granted.

T: That doesn’t mean we’re going to stay put, though; and we’d be very happy if we were able to inspire other people to break out of their cages.

Is there any way of keeping the feeling of freedom if you go back into the world of work?

T: We earn our living doing what we like doing best.

That, for me, is “freedom”.

What does coming back mean to you?

J: Coming back means getting ready to set off on our next adventure. - TI

How does feeling free influence the way you cook?

J: There was this one time in the Amazon basin when we went out with local fishermen. They and their families still live without electricity and other modern conveniences, and so they have no choice but to eat what they can find in the rainforest. We went piranha fishing with the village children, using a dead seagull as bait. Then we cooked with the families.

T: You learn to improvise and to limit yourself; that,

SURF’S UP – THEN GRUB’S UP: Kosikowski (left) and Riffelmacher (right) with buddies.

39

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

TECHNIQUES

JUST A GOOD FIRE AND G O O D I N G R E DI E N T S – YOU D ON’ T N E E D ANYTHING ELSE TO MAKE A TA ST Y OU T D O OR M E A L .

W E T A K E A S T E P - B Y- S T E P L O O K A T T H E B E S T WA Y S O F C O O K I N G O U T S I D E .

W HER E T HER E ’ S

SMOK E

T E X T _ _ _ IN G A PAUL S EN P H OTO G R A P H Y _ _ _ REINH ARD H UN GER ST Y L IN G _ _ _ CH RISTOPH H IM M EL

40

41

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

TECHNIQUES

42

B A R B ECUING ON T HE GR IL L W H E N V E R Y H O T A I R H I T S F I S H , M E AT A N D V EG E TA B L E S , D E L I C I O U S S M E L L S A R E T H E R E S U LT. T H AT ’ S W H Y B A R B EC U I N G I S T H E W O R L D ’ S MOST POPUL AR ME THOD OF COOKING.

{

{

P U R I S T S R E A C H F O R T H E I R C H A R C O A L while others plug in their gas grill or electric heating elements: the one thing they all have in common is a love of barbecued food. Why? One reason is that the only limit is the imagination: meat, fish, shellfish, vegetables, tofu, fruit. . .

The secret behind that special grill flavour is the way hot air causes the pores on the surface of the food to contract immediately, locking juices inside and creating a delicious crust – one which can be made to taste even more intensive by marinating or rubbing the ingredients before they hit the barbecue. One important point is that any food with a cooking time of 20 minutes or under can be grilled directly over the flame; for large pieces of meat, though, it’s best to use the indirect grilling method to get it cooked through. That means pushing the hot coals to the side of the barbecue and shutting the lid, causing the heat to circulate around the meat as it rises.

HOW IT WORKS:

1

2

Prepare the BBQ by piling the charcoal, lighting it, and leaving it to burn through completely until it is covered by white ash; a chimney starter will speed up this process noticeably. Alternatively, use the time the charcoal takes to burn in order to prepare ingredients for the BBQ. Shellfish such as oysters only need a few minutes and are grilled straight over the flame.

Start by cleaning the oysters and then use an oyster knife to open the shells; put the bottom half of the shell on the grill with the meat facing upwards. As soon as the mollusc starts to contract, add the lime salt and a drop of Tabasco to the meat and grill for another two minutes. Remove them from the grid and serve with mint mojo (see recipe booklet) and fresh baguette.

In case of rain, you can always cook the oysters on a hob-top griddle.

To open the oyster, place it with the arched side facing down on a folded cloth and bore the flaw between the two halves with the oyster knife (or a screwdriver).

The mint mojo is ready to serve in no time.

43

SMOK ING OV ER T HE FL A M E E A SY TO DO E VERY WHERE AND WITH A GUAR ANTEE OF TA S T Y R E S U LT S , H O T-S M O K I N G F O O D I S T H E O U T D O O R C O O K I N G TREND OF THE MOMENT

{

T H E S C A N D I N A V I A N S L O V E T O C E L E B R AT E M I D S U M M E R I N T H E O P E N

{

and when they gather to do so, you’ll often smell salmon cooking. In the festive tradition, whole sides of salmon are nailed to planks of wood soaked in water and then lowered vertically into an open fire. The warmth given off by the flames heats up the wood, leading it to give off essential oils and hot steam, which in turn work their way into the fish. This is only one of many types of hot-smoking, the core principle which unites them all being that meat, fish or shellfish is cooked for a short time at 45-80 ° C. The wood used gives the food a typically savoury, smoky note: apple, cedar, beech and alder have mild aromas and are perfect for fish; at a meatier barbecue cook-out, wood like hickory, cherry, or mesquite are good. For people who like fishing, the lack of specific equipment required is ideal, and the technique works just as well in a flame-proof pot or a barbecue with a lid.

HOW IT WORKS:

1

2

Smoking wood doesn’t have to be soaked before use, but if you’re planning to use a wooden plank or smoke directly on woodchips, these will need to be left in water for around 30 minutes beforehand.

While the wood is soaking, you can prepare your mobile smoking oven: all you need to do is to put the charcoal in a large pot or barbecue with a lid and wait until it has burned down to embers.

Then add either the woodchips (allow excess water to run off) or smoking wood to the charcoal.

Trout is the perfect fish for beginners.

Clean it and then season with sea salt, pepper and herbs. As a rule of thumb, once white smoke is coming from the fire, you can put the fish on the grill, on the plank (see photo, right), or hang it over the embers. To intensify the smoky flavours, close the lid after around eight minutes and leave the trout for another five to eight minutes.

Traditionally, the trout is nailed onto a beech plank. Tip: Beforehand it’s worthwhile it to filling the gutted and cleaned fish with lemon and edible wild herbs (e.g. stinging nettle, dandelion, sorrel).

44

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

TECHNIQUES

45

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

TECHNIQUES

46

B A K ING ON A STONE MANY T YPES OF STONE STORE H E AT V E R Y W E L L A N D A R E P E R F EC T F O R B A K I N G DELICIOUS CRUST Y BRE ADS

{

G R A N I T E , B A S A L T , F L I N T and a whole range of other stones can store a huge amount of heat energy, which in turn makes them perfect for grilling and baking – and that is good news for everyone who likes cooking outdoors, because you can always find a few stones wherever you are. All you’ve got to do is to light a camp fire to heat the stones through; then, you can put flatbreads or small, thin loaves onto the hot surface. The resulting bread is both crusty and moist. Check the online shops of manufacturers such as NEFF for baking stones so you can make bread and pizza like this at home, too.

HOW IT WORKS:

{

1

2

Build a campfire, collecting stones and placing them around a mound filled with small twigs and larger logs. Avoid wet stones as they may split at high temperatures.

Clean two or three of the flatter stones off with a towel – these will be the ones you bake the bread on later.

Now light the fire and, once the blaze has died down somewhat, place the stones straight into the embers for at least 20 minutes.

Divide up your prepared dough (see recipe booklet) and form oval flatbreads roughly as thick as your thumb. Brush half of one side of each flatbread with a paste – one made of herbs, capers, anchovies, onions and butter, for example, and then fold over the other half and press the edges down well.

Drizzle some olive oil over the loaves and then bake them on the hot stones for around 15 minutes on either side, turning them as they cook.

Even without a rolling pin, you can mould the dough with your hands into a round flatbread. The filling only needs to be spread evenly on one half of the flatbread dough as the second half will be folded over to create a nice pocket.

47

B R A I SING

IN

A

PIT

T H E P I T O V E N I S T H E O L D E S T F O R M O F O V E N O N T H E P L A N E T. GIVEN TIME, THESE HOT UNDERGROUND HOLES TR ANSFOR M E VEN TOUGHER JOINTS O F M E AT I N T O M E LT I N G LY T E N D E R FAV O U R I T E S .

{

B R A I S I N G I S T H E C L A S S I C W A Y O F C O O K I N G larger pieces of meat marbled with fat and sinews. The key to braising is a pot with a tight-fitting lid which allows cuts like pork roast and leg of lamb or all types of poultry to cook in their own juices at a low temperature for hours on end. Anyone who doesn’t want to limit themselves to braising in the kitchen can take it outside – and build their own pit oven (provided they don’t mind breaking into a sweat).

Interested? All you need is a spade, some stones, turf and soil. And if you think this all sounds a bit adventurous, in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, it’s a popular tradition enjoyed with friends and family – not least due to the fantastic flavours which develop.

HOW IT WORKS:

{

1

2

Use a spade to dig a hole in the ground that is roughly 50 cm deep and twice as wide as the roast. Line the bottom and the sides of the hole with stones and then make a wood fire in the pit which burns down to produce sufficient embers.

While the fire burns, prepare the meat (see recipe booklet). You can wrap the meat in banana leaves or soaked parchment paper, or use an oven-proof cooking pot.

Once the fire has burned down, take a few of the hot stones out, place the meat or pot on the embers and then cover it with the rest of the hot stones.

Close the pit with cut grass and earth.

A kilogram of meat will be ready around two hours later. If it rains, transfer the whole thing into the kitchen and use a clay pot to braise the meat (two hours at 200 ° C).

For building an earth oven you need a spade and some field stones.

Keep the strip of sod to close the hole afterwards. Tip: A fireproof roasting dish keeps the roast nice and clean.

48

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

TECHNIQUES

49

OF SALINE FLOWERS AND SEA SNOW L AVA S A L T , S A L E M A R I N O , FLEUR DE SEL: W H AT EV E R T H E T Y PE , SE A SA LT H A S BECOME AN ESSENTIALIN A L MOST EV ERY HOM E KITCHEN. DOE S I T TA ST E BET T E R T H A N RO C K SA LT THOUGH? A N D HOW IS IT M A DE?

50

HOME-MADE

S A L T T E X T

PHOTOGR APHY

___

GALLERY STOCK, THINKSTOCK

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN THIS MUCH SALT. Worldwide production of

“white gold” is currently at 200 million tonnes, yet the vast majority of it never finds its way into the kitchen or onto the table, but is used for industrial, medical or cosmetic purposes. Around a third of salt used globally is harvested from the sea, yet in much of Europe, sea salt was, until recently, something of a gourmet secret. Now several types are available in most supermarkets, mostly from the Mediterranean, a sea whose coasts can look back on thousands of years of salt tradition.

I. PRODUCTION

Seawater has a salt content of roughly 3.5%. Getting this percentage out of the water is much easier in the right climatic conditions: low humidity, frequent wind, and high

_ _ _

M IC H ELE

AVA N TA R I O

temperatures all help to evaporate water and are therefore the most important factors in setting up a coastal “salt garden” (once known in English as a “saltern”).

First, seawater is pumped into shallow, man-made pools. As water evaporates, the concentration of salt dissolved in the water goes up, and this brine is then pumped into a crystallisation pan in which the remaining liquid evaporates away, allowing the salt crystals to be scraped out of the pan and piled up to dry off. This is an age-old way of harvesting salt which has been practiced in the Mediterranean since ancient times.

In northern europe, salt works ran on a different method: the Vikings heated North Sea water to get salt, hanging huge cauldrons over fires or embers until all of the water had boiled away, leaving behind sea

salt. Producing salt this way required a lot of skill and patience – and quickly proved to be unprofitable.

II. QUALITY

Besides small quantities of other chemical compounds and trace elements, both sea and rock salt are essentially made up of sodium chloride. Nevertheless, sea salt is widely considered to be the better of the two – an assumption for which there is hardly any proof from a nutritional science point of view. Whether salt is healthy or not depends more or less entirely on the amount consumed: a good diet should not be too high in salts, but not too low either. The question of where the salt comes from is quite secondary, and so whether the salt you eat was harvested from the Adriatic or mined in the Himalayas is of little importance.

51

1

2

so that the salt crystals – which still contain up to five percent water – don´t clump together. Fluorine and iodine are often included, too. Yet some producers, generally organic, leave their sea salt unrefined in its natural state and without additives.

III. PROCESSING

There is always some form of impurity in raw salt harvested from the sea, so most sea salt is refined before it hits the shelves as cooking or table salt. The process is broadly comparable with washing: the crystals are dissolved and then put through a centrifuge in which the unwanted substances are separated from the salt. This process can, however, lead to important minerals and flavours being lost.

Some manufacturers use artificial bleaching to make the finished product whiter; separating and anti-caking agents are added 52

F OR H A RV E S T I NG S E A SA LT.

Neither do rock and sea salt taste any different from one another. The additional aromas that make many salt products special, can come from anywhere: nuances in flavour are down to things like residual algae or minute amounts of clay. The way the salt is processed determines to what extent these aromas remain in the salt.

A N D H IG H T E M PE R AT U R E S A R E C RUC I A L

SEA SNOW This salt is produced by boiling salty groundwater in large iron pans hanging over open fires until the salt crystallises on the bottom. The crystals are then shovelled into big baskets and left to drip-dry.

This technique was already in use in Viking times.

L OW H U M I DI T Y, F R E QU E N T W I N D,

SALE MARINO This coarse-grained, premium sea salt is especially suited to salt mills. Its intensive aroma means that it tastes great with pasta dishes and plenty more besides, including fish and roasted meat recipes and as a salt crust for chicken.

IV. TYPES

Sea salt is available in fine grains or larger crystals. One of the best known sorts is sale marino from Italy (although some salts which carry the name are harvested from the Atlantic). Scandinavian producers have even brought the old Viking techniques back to life, selling the salt they get by boiling water from the North Sea as “sea snow”.

Sel gris is another well-known type of sea salt. The name is French for “grey salt”, and it is produced on France’s Atlantic coast by harvesting salt crystals from the water at an earlier stage than other salts.

This makes its grains large and

HOME-MADE

3

4

layer of fresh salt forms on the surface of the water in the evaporating pools, from where it is carefully harvested using wooden spades and ladles. As it does not undergo any further processing, the water for fleur de sel must be as clean as possible. The “flower of the salt” comes in small flakes or platelets and, due to the high water con­ tent, should only be ground in ceramic salt mills or in mortars. Fleur de sel is produced in a lot of places – where you would least expect it: Slovenia or the north German island of Sylt. Regardless of where it is harvested, it is almost always sold under the French name for marketing purposes. The poetic turn of phrase was coined by Pliny the Elder, who, although he did not invent the process of harvesting it, first used the term flos salis in his writings. So for all the hype around it, fleur de sel is actually something of a classic.- TI

A QU E S T ION OF T H E A MOU N T C ON S U M E D.

means they have a higher residual water content; the “salt of the Celts”, as it is also known, retains a grey or reddish tone and has a savoury taste. The additional flavours come from various solids suspended in the water which are shut into the crystals as they form and are not cleaned out by refining processes. With its unique character, this kind of salt is ideal for finishing dishes with a little extra kick, or for fish and meat saltcrust recipes.

Another salt recognisable by its colour is dark black lava salt. The crystals in question start off life white when they are harvested in Hawaii and have volcanic ash added in the final stages of processing. The resulting product has a smoky flavour – and a far lower proportion of sodium chloride than other forms of sea salt.

The most prestigious sea salt is fleur de sel, or the “saline flower”.

These crystals come about on hot days when a gossamer-thin

I S H E A LT H Y OR NO T I S AC T UA L LY

SEL GRIS This “grey salt” is harvested on the French Atlantic coast and takes its name from its colour.

Sometimes sold as “the salt of the Celts”, it is still hand-produced today using traditional saltworks in Brittany.

S E A SA LT OR RO C K SA LT ? W H E T H E R SA LT

LAVA SALT Prized by home gourmets and top-flight chefs for its smoky flavour, this Hawaiian sea salt is created on the island of Molokai from filtered seawater.

Its black colour comes from added volcanic ash.

53

HOME-MADE

WAT ER

COLOR S

SU N, FRUITS AND AL FR ESCO COOKING: H E R E ’ S H O W T O M A K E D R I N K S T O M A T C H . T U R N P L A I N WA T E R I N T O A N E X P L O S I O N O F F L AV O U R W I T H J U S T A FEW SIMPLE TRICKS.

T E X T

B E F R A N K : water is not a particularly exciting drink.

Yes, it might quench thirst and it’s certainly refreshing, but it’s hardly a taste experience. Which is one reason why the trend for home-made infused water is gaining so much ground. The principle is simple: fruit, herbs and vegetables such as cucumber are used to give water flavour without loading it up with calories. As such, infused water is a genuine alternative to sugary soft drinks and fruit juices.

With their aromatic notes, these DIY drinks help to make sure that people drink more – and, while they’re at it, they look so good that they’re sure to make something of LET’S

54

_ _ _

J AN A

GLOISTEIN

a splash at the next garden party.

As good as a jug of infused water might look, it couldn’t be easier to make. You take aromatic fruit, herbs or vegetables, add some water, and away you go.

TIPS FOR MAKING I N F U S E D W AT E R

You can mix up an aromatic infusion in any conventional water jug you happen to have to hand. It’s important to cover the neck of the jug if you’re planning to keep it in the fridge for any length of time, however, as the water can take on other flavours if left open. If you’re infusing in a plastic bottle, check

that it doesn’t contain bisphenol A (“BPA”), as this substance can become detached from plastic and is suspected of having an effect on the body’s hormonal balance.

Remember to wash all ingredients thoroughly before adding them to the water; peel any citrus fruits which are not organic to avoid pesticides getting into the water.

Although many fruits, herbs and vegetables transfer their flavour to water quickly, it’s usually best to leave the mix to infuse for around eight hours – preferably overnight in the fridge.

A long infusion time allows the flavours to really develop, but you shouldn’t keep infused water

55

PHOTOGR APHY

___

REINHARD HUNGER

for longer than 24 hours, as the ingredients will start to become mushy in the first stages of decay; citrus fruits will begin exuding bitter flavours, too. If more guests come than you expected, it’s easy enough to stretch the infused water with extra plain water, or add more water to the ingredients. One thing to remember is that citrus fruits transfer their flavour particularly quickly, so it’s easy enough to just add a few slices of lemon, lime or orange; you can also squeeze the juice out of the fruits and mix it with the water, of course.

Berries, on the other hand, take quite some time to infuse water

GE T T ING

with their flavours: select riper fruits and then make small incisions in them or give them a slight squeeze to speed up the process; alternatively, you can slice them before adding to the water. Cutting the berries neatly is certainly the option that gives the most aesthetically pleasing results – and infused water is as much about aesthetics as it is flavour.

On the matter of aesthetics, berries don’t just infuse water with flavour, but with their fantastic shades of colour, too. A word of caution about dried herbs, by the way: they tend to be far stronger than in their fresh form, so make

F L AVOU R S

sure to use them very sparingly.

Another thing to remember is that herbs part with their flavours more readily if they are given a quick drenching in hot water – i.e. in the same manner as when making herbal tea. Use a little hot water and then add the rest of the water and other ingredients and leave to infuse in the fridge.

You can use sparkling water in your infusions, of course, but then it’s best to make them with ingredients which give off their flavour quickly so as the bubbles don’t all pearl away, leaving the infusion tasting somewhat stale. - TI

IN TO

WAT E R

FRESH

SWEET

FRUITY

SPICY

LIME, CUCUMBER,

APPLE, PEAR AND

ORANGE, MANGO AND

LIME, GINGER,

MINT

CINNAMON

LEMON VERBENA

AND BASIL

This infusion mixes three of the most refreshing ingredients out there, making it the perfect recipe for hot summer days and warm evenings. If you use mineral water, the cooling menthol hint of mint is even more intensive on the tongue.

Infused water doesn’t always have to be about fresh, sharp tastes: use apple, pear and cinnamon to add a sweeter note and get a drink that slakes thirst and goes perfectly with desserts.

This mix brings together the sweetness of orange and mango with the fresh, aromatic notes of lemon verbena.

It tastes delicious with savoury dishes such as grilled meat and with fruity desserts.

This is basically the cold cousin of a hot lime and ginger infusion, with a little basil bringing in a peppery note to an already spicy mix.

SERVES 4

1 lime, a scant dozen leaves of mint, half a cucumber, 1 litre of water (still or sparkling)

SERVES 4

SERVES 4

Half an apple Half a pear 1 stick of cinnamon 1 litre of still water

Half an orange Half a mango 2 sprigs of lemon verbena 1 litre of water (still or sparkling)

HOW TO MAKE IT

Cut the apple (use a sweeter sort) and the pear into wedges and then add to the jar of water with the stick of cinnamon.

HOW TO MAKE IT

Slice the lime; remove the pips from the cucumber and then cut it into lengthways strips.

Put them into a jug with the mint and pour over the water.

56

HOW TO MAKE IT

Cut the orange into slices and the mango into small pieces.

Remove the leaves from the sprigs of lemon verbena and put them into the jug of water along with the fruit.

SERVES 4

1 lime 3 pieces of ginger (roughly thumbnail size) a dozen dozen basil leaves 1 litre of water (still or sparkling) HOW TO MAKE IT

Peel the ginger and slice it finely, adding it to the jug of water with the basil leaves and the lime (sliced).

The younger the basil leaves, the more intensive their flavour.

HOME-MADE

DIFFERENT TO THE LAST DROP T H E AV E R AG E E U R O P E A N D R I N K S U P T O T H R E E L I T R E S O F WAT E R EV E RY DAY. W HAT I S T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N T H E C O N T I N E N T ’ S VA R IOU S T Y P E S O F WAT E R , W H E R E D O T H EY C OM E F R OM , A N D HOW A R E T H EY P R O C E S SE D ? O H Y E S : A N D W HAT I S I N T H E M ?

T E X T

_ _ _

J AN A

The European Union has strict criteria for anything calling itself natural mineral water. Not that mineral water is much different from rain water: what it does have, though, are the minerals in the name, such as sodium, magnesium and calcium. As rainwater filters through the ground, it is purified and picks up trace elements and carbonic acid (which is what makes it fizzy). What the EU directive lays out is how the water may be tapped, bottled, analysed, and labelled. Any mineral water imported into the EU or tapped in its member states needs an official seal and must offer specific information on the label: its component elements, its place of origin, and the name of the source, as well as any treatments it has been through. All producers are allowed to do, is to regulate the amount of carbonic acid in the water and to remove iron and sulphur.

Spring water, meanwhile, is similar, but the criteria are laxer; this term may only be applied to water which is bottled at source in its original form; its chemical composition has to keep to the same maximum allowances for specific substances as other water under the EU drinking water directive.

The same is true of table water. In contrast to mineral and spring water, however, table water is not a natural product, but rather the result of industrial processing: tap water is blended with seawater, brine (i.e. saline solution), and minerals and then carbonated.

Healing or curative waters are a specific case. In Germany, Austria and a few other European countries, their composition is a matter for laws governing pharmaceutical products or for by-laws defining the status

GLOISTEIN

of spa towns. In these medicinal waters, the minerals and trace elements have to be present in such a high concentration that they have a restorative, preventative, or alleviative effect. Healing waters high in calcium, for instance, are recommended against osteoporosis as bone-strengthening tonics; fluoride is used to prevent tooth decay, and sulphate waters are prescribed against complaints of the digestive system.

Many curative waters are drunk on a daily basis, but can also form part of an intensive treatment in acute deficiencies.

In many European countries, people who would rather avoid bottled water can drink tap water safely. In general, tap water is made up of around two parts spring or groundwater to one part surface water from reservoirs, rivers, or lakes. Before it is piped into homes, it is processed in the waterworks. A word of caution, however: the EU water quality directive defines the standard of water for human consumption – but only as far as the house connection. That means that old lead piping or sullied pipework can still make tap water undrinkable.

As a rule of thumb, in countries such as Germany or Belgium, it’s always safe to drink from the tap. In Spain, though, and other southern European states, it’s best to ask a few questions first. Many consumers are concerned about residues from antibiotics and fertilisers in water, and indeed the agrichemical products applied to farming soil in western countries are appearing in tap water in ever higher concentrations. Nevertheless, the strict EU quality standards mean that, after processing, the amounts of toxins remaining are so residual that they pose absolutely no risk to health whatsoever. - TI 57

ESSAY

URBAN FISHERMEN ONC E C ON SI DE R E D A HOBBY F OR L ON E R S , F I SH I NG H A S NOW BE C OM E S OM E T H I NG OF A SP ORT S T R E N D I N T OW N S A N D C I T I E S AC RO S S T H E WOR L D. T O F I N D OU T J US T W H Y T H AT I S , W E A SK S OM E ON E W HO OUG H T T O K NOW.

T EXT

FISHING is a mysterious business.

The bait on the end of the line disappears into an invisible world and, with any luck, comes back out with a living thing on the end of it – a living thing you would never come across if you didn’t go fishing. It could be a pert little perch, or a pretty little rudd; it might even be a feisty pike or a slippery eel.

Among children, it’s generally the boys that are the most fascinated by the mystery of fishing, perhaps due to archetypal characteristics.

A father can win immediate respect from his son by drawing a large specimen out of the water, out of this wet, dark, somewhat uncanny element. Like all early fascinations, however, this one tends to disappear with age. Nevertheless, the primeval experience of having caught and perhaps killed and eaten another living thing gets lodged in children’s memories early and can be recalled at any point afterwards. There are indeed plenty of opportunities to call on these 58

_ _ _

C H RISTIA N

LORENZ

THE TROUT IS A DE S C E N DA N T OF THE SALMON FA M I LY. I T L I V E S IN MANY RIVERS AND LAKES FROM S PA I N T O I C E L A N D THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF EUROPE AND WESTERN RUSSIA AS WELL AS THE NORTH A N D BA LT IC SE A S .

memories nowadays. As it turns out, fishing suits the world’s various trend hives rather nicely: it’s an authentic, natural pastime requiring quite a bit of DIY effort; it’s also an outdoor sport (fishermen actually tend to move around quite a lot) and, to top it all off, you get a nice organic fish at the end of it which you can cook however you like.

Yet why the sudden comeback of the hobby fisherman? And what types are now out there?

On a global scale, most fisherman are in it for the food. In Europe, you can see them in their hundreds on the Baltic coast in spring when the great shoals of herring swim past. Some of them even put out to sea on small fishing boats and come back with a few dozen cod or mackerel to put into the deep freeze. This quiet, often reserved type of traditional angler is generally a country dweller who prefers simple kit – and likes to drink a tin or two with his mates while they wait

THIS TREND IS REACHING MORE AND MORE YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ONCE WOULD HAVE CONSIDERED F I S H I N G T O B E S O M E W H AT FUDDY-DUDDY;

for something to bite. He’s not the type to make a fuss about every catch; he’s also often a member of the local fishing club; not least because, in small communities, it’s the done thing.

Urban fishermen, on the other hand, of the type you now see along many of the world’s great urban rivers, tend to arrange to meet using Facebook or fishing forums.

They’re in it for action, adventure, and advanced technology – and, as a hobby, fishing does actually offer all of that. It’s not just the expensive outdoor gear that distinguishes this type from traditional anglers in their second-hand combats, though; they are so networked that they give each other live updates about where their “targets” are currently situated.

They also like to try out new forms of bait from America or Japan “that are absolutely guaranteed to get fish biting” – and that are also absolutely guaranteed to be pretty pricey.

This trend is reaching more and more young people who once would have considered fishing to be somewhat fuddy-duddy; as such, marketing experts have come up with a cool name – “Street Fishing” – and even more cool gear to cater to them. All you need is an impressive sporting rod to get respect at the nearest “urban fishing hotspot” – usually a canal or a

pond. After all, since bodies of water in Western cities have become cleaner, there’s nothing to stop people trying out their angling skills near where they live, rather than going to all the time and trouble of finding a country fishing spot.

The urban fishing scene has developed the slang to match its surroundings, too: instead of “Good catch!”, street fishermen wish each other “tight lines” and have their own, sometimes military, sometimes hip-hop influenced ways of talking about various bits of tackle or species of fish. People who really get into it go really deep on one specific technique, like fly-fishing, or start to “hunt” their preferred catch, travelling far and wide on their quest – Spain is good for catfish, Norway excellent for cod, and Austria a Mecca for trout.

Out of all these various aficionados, it’s probably the carp fan who is the oddest. People who specialise on carp end up more engineers than they are anglers, becoming ever more enamoured of technique to the detriment of the fish. For outsiders to the scene, the reaction of a carp specialist when he actually catches a fish is hard to understand: softly, with the greatest care for the fish’s wellbeing, he’ll pick it up, measure it, and get a photo with it (the tripod and shutter release are already adjusted). Then the carp is allowed to

swim free. Yes, really. As someone who likes cooking, I can see why, actually: carp is rather oily and only really tastes good smoked. Then again, putting fish that have been caught back into the water – called “catch and release” and trumpeted by many a fishing hobbyist – is actually forbidden in many countries, along with organised trophy angling, as animal cruelty.

Personally, I only angle for fish I like to eat – and that I can either consume myself or pass on to someone who can. I don’t like the idea of putting an animal through torture just for my own personal pleasure. By the height of the summer season, my wife’s usually had it up to here with all the pike and perch I bring back, so I try to get creative in the kitchen to make up for it: quenelles, fish soup Portuguese style, Thai plan nam. I smoke some and souse others. And, of course, there’s the chest freezer: that way, we get enough healthy fish in winter, too. - TI

Christian Lorenz, 48, won a local angling championship for non-predatory fish in the former GDR, and has since gone on to catch almost every fish native to Germany. He also likes to angle in the Caribbean. His other great hobby is cooking. He writes about both – albeit in German – at www.draussenküche.de 59

CANNED CUISINE I N M A N Y PA R T S O F T H E WO R L D, T I N N E D F I S H I S N O T C O N S I DE R E D M U C H O F A DE L IC AC Y. I N P O R T U G A L , H OW E V E R , S E A F O O D I N A C A N I S VA L U E D H IG H LY. W E TA K E A L O O K B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S AT T H E C OU N T RY ’ S M O S T FA M OU S C A N N E D F I S H FAC T O RY.

T E X T

_ _ _

P H I LIPP

W H E N , I N J U L Y 1 9 6 2 , the humble can became part of the world’s cultural heritage, the Ramirez family briefly shrugged their shoulders, and then continued doing what they and their staff had been doing non-stop for the last 100 years: putting fish in tins.

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans is now the bestknown example of pop art and draws crowds to the New York museum in which it hangs. Yet in Matosinhos, a town a few miles to the north-west of the Portuguese city of Porto, things haven’t changed much since the 1960s. Sure, the factory is a bit more mod-

K O H L H Ö F E R­­

ern, and the tins look prettier, but “the secret of our success is continuity,” says Manuel Ramirez Jr, head of the family firm Ramirez. Founded in 1852, it is the oldest and the largest fish-canning factory in Portugal, and Manuel represents the fifth generation of this seafood dynasty whose philosophy he sums up as follows: “Yes, we put fish in cans.

It might not seem much, but what we do, we do well.” Tinned fish is a popular food in Portugal, a country with one of the world’s highest rates of fish consumption – and one with a long tradition of

PHOTOGR APHY

___

K AI WEISE, STYLING

___ KERSTIN RICHTER

BREWED UP

61

TREAT IN ANTIQUE CHIC What was once an everyday item has now become a gourmet delectable.

preserving fish as, in its hilly hinterlands, not everyone had access to fresh seafood. On average, a Portuguese person eats 56 kilograms of canned fish annually; soldiers’ survival rations issued by the nation’s army always contain a can.

Almost everyone in Portugal has grown up eating canned fish, and it’s certainly a healthy form of fast food. Producers use very high-quality olive oil and the fish matures in the can, allowing it to melt into the oil. “The looser the sardines are in the tin, the better they absorb the oil,” says Ramirez. As the process of jellifying progresses in the can, the fish’s bones and skin soften up to the point where they can be eaten without concern; by this stage, the fish tastes very strong – and contains around ten times as much calcium as fresh catch.

“The Portuguese have a great deal of confidence in the product”, says Joao Reis. Working with the country’s association of canned fish producers, he has set up the Loja das Conservas in Lisbon, a shop with metre after shelf-metre of tinned fish on sale. There are hundreds of options to choose from, with lots of sardine, but also tuna, mackerel, needlefish, eel, squid and stockfish (cured cod), all preserved in various types of cans featuring hundreds of designs. Besides Loja das Conservas, a school of other canned fish delicatessens has opened up, concentrated primarily in Lisbon and Porto. With Can the Can, Lisbon’s old town now even has a restaurant which serves tinned seafood with a gourmet twist.

Canned fish is also one of the most popular product categories in Portuguese supermarkets, a fact that 62

doesn’t surprise Joao Reis one bit: “Fresh fish with olive oil is very healthy, and that’s all there is in the tin – unless you choose one with tomato sauce, of course.” The design of the cans is also indicative of the role of canned fish in Portuguese culture, with many of the products packed in bright paper decorated with golden florals and images of female faces, soldiers, sometimes with coats of arms, fishermen’s nets and boats, the Portuguese navy, and indeed men preserving fish.

A Q UE ST I O N O F P R ACT I C A L I T Y The history of Portuguese preserved fish is a success story. Can production was one of the country’s first industries; its roots go back to the middle of the nineteenth century and to Ramirez. Today, the company turns over €55 million annually and employs 195 people; it produces tinned fish under fourteen brands for 40 different national markets, including all major European countries, North America, China, and the former Portuguese colonies. Ramirez churns out around 40 million cans a year – or around 15% of the national production of tinned fish. As the country’s largest company, Ramirez is, regardless of its history, a metonym for the entire industry. The 152 factories and thousands of staff once at work canning fish up and down the country in the 1980s have now been reduced to around 20 and 3,500 respectively, mainly concentrated in the north of the country.

Ramirez, too, originally founded in the southern Algarve as a specialist for preserving tuna, quickly upped sticks and headed north, switching to sardines.

“As well as the quality of the ingredients, we place an emphasis on the can itself,” says Ramirez, explaining the idea behind its new design as an attempt to strike a balance between an everyday commodity and a luxury treat. For while it was once looked down on as a poor man’s meal, some canned fish is now being marketed as a speciality product in cans with a vintage look. “The label is crucial,” continues Ramirez, “because it helps us to reach all sorts of target customers.” The result is that tinned fish is back in fashion – and Ramirez is pretty happy with the way things are working out.

Then again, cans are, in and of themselves, a simple matter of practicality, not invented to look good or be easy to market. The impetus to develop them came

BREWED UP

YES, WE PUT FISH IN CANS. IT MIGHT NOT SEEM MUCH, BUT W H AT W E D O , W E D O W E L L .

MO D E R N CULT UR E H A S CO ME TO J UD GE T H E C A N S FRO M W H I C H I T SP R UN G

from military necessity. In 1795, Napoleon offered a prize of 12,000 golden francs to anyone who could come up with a way of preserving food. With armies thus far having been dependent entirely on what they could plunder in the territories they occupied, food supplies were unpredictable; more of Napoleon’s troops died of malnutrition and food poisoning than did on the battlefield. That changed, however, when baker Nicolas Appert heated up fruit, vegetables and meat and then sealed them airtight, thus inventing a method of sterilising food. In 1811, he published a book entitled The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years in which he explained the secret: “It is necessary to be very precise in sealing all of the containers” before “subjecting them to the effects of a heated water bath.” While the core elements of the technique have not changed to this day, at the time, the invention was only of limited use to the army: Appert used old champagne bottles to preserve food, and they proved too fragile and too heavy for the battlefield. He won the prize nevertheless. One year earlier, however, British merchant Peter Durand had filed for a patent on tine cans. At the time, preserved foods were produced by hand and were very expensive. Even an experienced workshop could only make one tin an hour – and no-one really knew how to open them again: bayonets, cleavers, hammers and chisels all came in handy. It took another 50 years for someone to invent the can opener: five years after Sebastian Ramirez had opened his fish-canning factory, British inventor Robert Yeates had his design for a “a lever knife for cutting or ripping open preserved provisions cases” patented.

By this point, Ramirez had already worked out how to make good canned fish. On that point, Manuel Ramirez Sr explains how important it is to get the fish into the can as fresh as possible so that they don’t start to become brittle. First, the fish are put into a salt brine, before being gutted, cleaned, and then briefly heated.

After that, they are packed into the tins by hand with as little air as possible between the top layer and the lid; the cans are sealed loosely so that any air left is not trapped and then heated again to sterilise them. As they cool, the contents of the cans contracts, creating a vacuum which holds the lid. That is how the can stays germ-free.

While this standard method of tinning is the same the world over, the fish preserved is not. Near the Azores, for example, the water is rich in nutrients, meaning that sardines caught in the fishing grounds here are larger than their counterparts elsewhere. The olive oil added to them is better quality, too. So while labour costs in Portugal are higher than in Asia, making the country’s products at least twice as expensive, “our canned fish is also twice as good, and twice as tasty,” says Ramirez. “Quality has its price, and our tins aren’t popular with tourists for nothing. The can is something they take home as a souvenir, a piece of the country.”

It’s quite possible that, without the tin can, the world today would be far less marked by Europeans: the continent’s explorers in the nineteenth century never left home without canned food. Without the option of being able to preserve meat, the production lines in Chicago’s abattoirs would probably have never reached their level of perfection and the history of industrialisation would have taken a different path.

And had beer in tins not been such a success from 1935 onwards, it is unlikely that health policy today would be battling the effects of soft drinks, whose worldwide rise did not really get going until they could be marketed in cans. Today, tinned food is generally considered a lower-quality form of fast food. That isn’t the case for Portuguese canned fish, though: the quality of the product is, according to the manufacturer’s association, so good that tinned sardines are the country’s ambassadors abroad. They are, after all, available in almost every country in the world. - TI 63

This special fish pan by Fissler will have s e a f o o d - l o v e r s w e e p i n g w i t h j o y. W h y ? I t s o v a l f o r m i s j u s t r i g h t f o r s o l e , p l a i c e a n d f l o u n d e r, a n d it,s also ovenproof. What,s more, it,s presentable enough to be placed on the table in front of guests. € 1 4 9 . 9 5 , w w w. d e s ig n - 3 0 0 0 . c o m

O VA L A N D O V E N P R O O F

P R O D U C T S // O U T D O O R

IT ’ S CRUNCH TIME Every time with the Drosselmeyer shellfish c r a c k e r. D e s i g n e d b y S w e d e E r i k v o n S c h o u l t z , these handy tongs are comfortable to hold and will help you crack through shells on crabs, lobsters and the like without breaking a sweat.

T h e y c o s t € 4 8 , h t t p : / / d r o s s e l m e y e r. s e

P

A L F R E S C O D I N N E R S! T H E S E N E W P R O D U C T S W I L L R E A L LY TA K E YO U R I T ’ S T H AT T I M E O F Y E A R AG A I N : P I C N I C S , B A R B E Q U E S ,

O U T D O O R E AT I N G E X P E R I E N C E U P A P EG O R T W O.

Design label 17;30 uses screen printing to turn simple tea towels into decorative kitchen accessories.

This luminous orange lobster on a robust cotton background is a fine example. €9.95, as seen at w w w. d e s ig n - 3 0 0 0 . c o m

Q U I T E T H E E Y E - C AT C H E R

64

BEAUTIFIED

THE PIKE FLASK When this stainless steel, guaranteed no-leak hip flask comes out, it,s not just hobby fishermen who,ll be wanting a s w i g . € 2 9 . 9 0 , w w w. d e s ig n - 3 0 0 0 . c o m

M E D I T E R R A N E A N K I T C H E N S TA R

“ G I V E Y O U R WA T E R A H O M E ”

W i t h i t s d e l i c a t e p i q u a n c y, s t r o n g a r o m a s and notes of apples and nuts, just a few drops of this extra virgin olive oil produced by the Mallfrè family in Catalonia are enough to make a feature of a salad, a n a n t i p a s t i p l a t t e r, o r a f i l l e t f r e s h from the pan. € 1 4 . 9 5 , w w w. n e f f . d e / e S h o p

The y ’re the stylish, sustainable answer to plastic bottles: Soulbottles, made of Italian glass and fitte d with a swing top to keep liquid safe and s o u n d . Av a i l a b l e i n a r a n g e o f d e s i g n s from €24.90. ht t p s : / / w w w. s o u l b o t t l e s . d e / e n

SMOKE – WITHOUT FIRE

BBQ – TIMES T WO

W h e n i t c o m e s t o B B Q c o o k e r y, g r i l l i n g fish on a plank of water-soaked cedar wood is all the rage: the result is fish that is perfectly done with a light touch of smoke. These Landmann cedar planks are just right and cost around €12.

Information about shops Europe-wide at w w w. l an d m ann . d e

A warm and gentle breeze, a chilled bottle of wine, a plate of tapas – what more do you need for a romantic p i c n i c ? T h i s . I t ’s a t a b l e t o p g r i l l m a d e

by Eva Solo. As functional as it is a t t r a c t i v e , i t ’s g o t p l e n t y o f s p a c e f o r a BBQ for two. €249. w w w. e v a s o l o. c o m

65

FINAL QUESTION

I S WAT E R A P U B L I C G O O D? Y E S . M O R E T H A N T H AT, AC C E S S T O WAT E R I S A H U M A N R I G H T, S AY S O U R C O L U M N I S T H E L M U T Z I EG L E R . E AC H A N D E V E R Y O N E O F U S C A N D O S O M E T H I N G T O H E L P E V E R Y O N E G E T WAT E R .

IMPRINT CONCEPT AND EDITORIA L : Philipp und Keuntje GmbH Bei St. Annen 2 20457 Hamburg Tel. +49 40 28 00 70-0 www.philippundkeuntje.de MAN AG ING DIRECTO RS: Dominik Philipp, Hartwig Keuntje, Torben Hansen, Wolfgang Block Amtsgericht Hamburg, HRB 69344 VAT DE 812628667 ED ITOR-IN-CHIEF: Oliver Zacharias-Tölle D EPUT Y EDITOR-IN-CHI E F: Vito Avantario AR T DIRECTOR: Christine Köhler MAN AG ING EDITO RS: Dominik Fahrholz, Kai Weise EDITORIAL STAFF: Michele Avantario, Jana Gloistein, Dr. Christian Heinrich, Philipp Kohlhöfer, Inga Paulsen, Franziska Wischmann, Helmut Ziegler VISUAL EDITO R: Kerstin Richter AR T WORK: Ela Strickert, Christine Köhler FOOD S T YLING: Christoph Himmel POS T-PRO DUCTION: FOAG & Lemkau GmbH Joseph-Wild-Straße 13 81829 Munich PROOFING : Kathryn Tolson COMMIS SIO NED BY: BSH Hausgeräte GmbH Carl-Wery-Straße 34 81739 Munich www.neff.de PR INTED BY: BLUEPRINT

66

A nice refreshing shower after training. An invigorating leap into the waves of the Atlantic Ocean on a hot summer’s day. Fresh tomatoes on the balcony. And let’s not forget those one to two litres a day we all need just to live.

Water? Water is life. Water is, however, also scarce.

Only 2.5 percent of the water on Planet Earth is fresh water; of that, two thirds are frozen as ice at the poles. Meanwhile, population growth, climate change, industrialisation, intensive agricultural practices, pollution, and urban migration all mean that, by 2030, two thirds of human beings will no longer have access to enough clean drinking water. “The planet”, summarises a United Nations report from 2015, “has never been this thirsty.”

In 2010, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 64/929 declaring access to clean supplies of water to be a human right. This resolution is lacking a legally binding effect, however, so it can’t be used as grounds for a court case. Everyone without a source of fresh water in their home is faced with the question of where to fetch it from.

Depending on where they are, either the state or private companies will offer access – with one big difference: the state, while sometimes inefficient, sees water as a public good; the private sector sees it as a product (and is currently buying up land around sources of it accordingly).

To this very day, there is no proof whatsoever that existing water distribution systems are improved by privatisation. When London’s waterworks were sold off in 1989,

for instance, the new operator decided to save money by cancelling necessary maintenance. The effect is that the system’s piping is now in such a bad condition that around one third of water supplies leak into the ground and that the impure water has to be treated with chlorine. Buenos Aires, La Paz, Johannesburg, Pittsburgh, etc.

Whereever you go, the story is similar. What’s more: private investors have never made water cheaper, either. In London, rates went up by 40% in the first year alone. In Portuguese districts affected by privatisation, that figure is 400% over six years.

If you don’t like the idea of billions being earned by international companies who make water both worse and more expensive, you should be trying to help get water classified as what it actually is: the most valuable resource humans have and, as such, one that should belong to one and all.

If you want to make sure you use water responsibly on a personal lev-el, there are – beyond the usual tips for saving water (https://www. edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/ water-saving-tips) – three very effective things you can do. Firstly, wear cotton garments for as long as possible: a pair of jeans uses 6,000 litres of water before it gets to your wardrobe. Next, reduce your consumption of beef (15,000 litres per kilogram). And finally, don’t buy water in plastic bottles.

Beyond the environmental issues around plastic, in most European cities, a litre of water from the tap costs a small fraction of what the supermarket around the corner charges for it in a bottle. - TI

CELEBRATING 140 YEARS OF CREATIVITY

MORE SPACE TO PARTY WITH OUR SLIDE & HIDE® OVEN DOOR Since 1877, we at NEFF have been putting people and their creativity at the heart of the kitchen. So this year we’re raising a glass to our 140th birthday.

As we’ve produced one million Slide&Hide® oven doors, we’re also celebrating one million kitchens with more space for creativity, ideas and inspiration.

Now that’s a present you’ll want to open over and over again.

T H E WAT E R ISSUE ― M AY 2 0 17 ―