Christine Otis – Professional Writer

Sesame seed encrusted tuna steak with roasted Israeli couscous and steamed spinach © Christine Otis

Many different cultures have impacted this great city of Philadelphia which can be seen in the available foods at the market and in restaurants. It has opened my food palate and cooking skills. Crisscrossing different cuisines to create something new, I have made dishes like Israeli couscous with a Mediterranean flare served with tropical-style salmon.

I’ve combined my Greek cooking knowledge with Mexican cooking skills and added a Hawaiian flicker creating something distinctly my own. Friends, family, co-workers and neighbors can attest to my culinary skills. I have taken from one culture and combined it with another to mix and match. It’s called fusion, but I’d like to think it of more as a paint palate: finding what compliments, what works and what doesn’t just like painting a canvas.

I’ve dared to tread where others would think not wise to combine certain ingredients. Case in point: Combining rose petals with sesame seeds, pounding them down into a paste with a mortal and pestle and adding other ingredients into the mix creating a sauce served over pasta that my guests savored.

My background? It comes from being a vegetarian for a number of years when it wasn’t en vogue. What I found is that there weren’t many places that catered to my non-meat eating habits. With few choices at restaurants, I began to cook at home.

I learned by trial and error, one of the best possible ways to learn how to cook. One of the things I quickly learned and understood was how spices and herbs combine to create flavor. This is where I really learned the trick of the trade.

Most culinary schools are meat focused. Solely relying on meat for their stocks, sauces and other bases, they forget about the non-meat eater. They also don’t necessarily know how to have flavor in soups without meat. It stumps them. I know because I’ve come across many chefs in my life. Try to find a truly vegetarian chef. They’re out there, but they’re harder to find.

Some of my soups I create: 17 bean, lentil, green pea and pumpkin.

I’ve learned how to fool the palate making meat eaters thinking they are eating meat and no, it’s not from a tofu product. It’s understanding the texture of vegetables and how you can manipulate them.

I’ve had people say to me: “It’s going to be tasteless without meat.” Or one of my favorites: “I can’t eat that. It doesn’t have meat in it!”

What is the big deal? A lot of our American cuisine is influenced by Mediterranean cuisine, which has a lot of vegetarian dishes. It’s the American culture that has gotten meat crazed forgetting how wonderful food can be without a bone in it.

I recently visited Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York that serves food that is solely vegetarian, including the desserts. The widely known restaurant usually has a waiting list to get in. And guess what? Meat eaters go there, too!

And you might be surprised that I do cook with meat. This is one of the most puzzlingly things for people who eat my cuisine. They love it, but I have no idea what it tastes like.

There’s something else about being a vegetarian that’s different. What I smell. I can tell the quality of meat by the way it smells. My sense of smell is also a bit keener than a meat eaters.

Learning how to cook also takes time. Sometimes it takes me years to get things right. I don’t know why, but learning how to properly cook rice took years of practice.

I know that may make some laugh, but it’s the truth. What was my problem? It wasn’t part of my culture, so I didn’t know how to cook it right. I asked people with Asian and South American backgrounds. That’s when I started to get it. They told me how to cook rice and taught me the difference between rice grains.

Korean rice is not the same as Chinese rice or Japanese rice, nor is jasmine rice the same as basmati. All of it is different, consisting of various textures and flavors.

Just like with couscous. Moroccan couscous is not the same as Middle Eastern couscous nor is it like Israeli couscous. Each has its own texture, flavor and aroma. Similar, but not the same.

Just look at the potato. Is a red bliss potato the same as an Idaho potato?

Is a filet mignon the same as a hamburger?

Okay you get my point. 

And yes I’m ignorant, too. There are many cuisines I want to taste and some I’m less willing to, but I want the new experience, the adventure into a realm I don’t know that I’m just dying to try.