My recent “Viking Five” was quite a difficult one to narrow down, and to be honest there are a few other styles that are probably just as good with food as the ones I chose. Hefeweizens come to mind, as do witbiers, tripels, oatmeal stouts, altbiers, and pilsners. But if I had to choose just one candidate for honorable mention, it would probably have to be porter.

The humble porter is often overshadowed by its mutant commie cousin, Baltic porter, and by its stocky younger brother, stout, a style derivative of porter in form as well as name: stouts started off as “stout porters” back in the day. Don’t get me wrong, I love stouts, and they’re good with food, too – especially desserts and red meat – but porters, which are just a shade lighter in color and flavor, cover more ground than stouts. Here’s a Venn diagram to illustrate, because hey, I can’t remember the last time I made a Venn diagram, so why the hell not?

I don’t drink a lot of porters, partly because I’m a sucker for the up-front bitter chocolate and coffee flavors of many stouts, but also because there is something of a dearth of porters on the market. In America, they are increasingly common, but even though London is the birthplace of the style, they are notably hard to find here.

So it didn’t really dawn on me that porters are awesome with food until I chanced upon a porter at – where else? – the Market Porter in Borough Market. The Market Porter is a haven for ale aficionados, with at least a baker’s dozen of casked beers to choose from at any given time. Most of these beers come from British microbreweries and encompass a range of obscure styles, like dark milds, real lagers, oyster stouts, and fruit beers. The clientele, mostly suits taking long lunches, culinary tourists, and CAMRA members, are jovial and unpretentious, as are the beer-savvy barkeeps. The inside is austere and plastered with ale paraphrenalia, while the façade, though cluttered with smokers, is impressively decked out with pretty flowers and ivies hanging from the second floor.

It’s a great pub in and of itself, but its location in Borough Market is what really makes it a personal favorite. You can grab a pint in a plastic nonic, then hungrily wander off into the stalls to try your beer with all manner of fantastic fare on offer in the market proper: Thai green seafood curry, Middle Eastern confections, British venison burgers, Toulousean cassoulet, Swiss cheeses, Spanish charcuterie, and the list goes on.

This is exactly what I did with my pint of Wickwar’s toffee-sweet, moderately hopped, satiny smooth Station Porter. It was brilliant by itself, and seemed to meld effortlessly with just about everything I ate with it. Its buttery character and roasted sweetness found a happy home in the cozy cheese and potatoes of Raclette. Its caramel notes and lightly spicy hops linked up nearly perfectly with the peppery pork fat of a chorizo and arugula sandwich. It brought forth hidden mocha and dark fruit notes for an encounter with a chocolate-covered raisin and shortbread bar. The only thing it didn’t work with was a Cornish oyster on the half shell, but overall I was extremely pleased to have such a versatile brew in my hand as I perused the market. The porter, and the Market Porter, are indeed very lovely companions to food.

The Market Porter
9 Stoney Street
Borough Market
London
SE1 9AA
020 7407 2495

Monday to Friday: 06:00-08:30 and 11:00-23:00
Saturday: 12:00-23:00
Sunday: 12:00-22:30

November sucks (and pardon my northern hemisphere/temperate climate-centrism here) because that’s when winter really hits. You can feel winter coming in October, but there are still leaves on the trees, the days are reasonably long, and it isn’t too cold just yet. But when November rolls around, it’s full-on winter: all grey skies, lifeless landscapes, and unpleasant wetness. But it is a month of adjustment; by December, I’m used to it. By February, however, I’m sick of it; it is the nadir of the year. February isn’t the darkest month of the year, and in most of the places I’ve lived, it isn’t the coldest and it isn’t the wettest, but it sure does feel like it (surprisingly, in London February is actually the least wet month on average). Even sunny Los Angeles is not immune to the climatological ills of February:

(Color altered for effect.)

So what to do to cope with February, Old Man Winter’s loathsome last hurrah? I offer three solutions:

1. Draw anthropomorphic squirrels ad nauseam. Works for me!
2. Celebrate St. Valentine’s Day. If you’re single, just take it as an excuse to drink Scotch and eat chocolate.
3. Try your hand at baking. I don’t bake very often, but now that I’m unemployed and have easy access to a convection oven, I have no excuse not to. Baking is meditative, time-consuming, and fun, and it fills the kitchen with delightful smells and warm air. And did I mention that when you’ve finished, you get baked goods?

Here are a couple of easy recipes I made last week for a party. And I say they’re easy because even I, a complete novice to baking, made them without any trouble. The main inspiration behind them both was the always delightful Borough Market.

Red Currant, Pine Nut, and Cardamom Oatmeal Cookies

In the United States, currants are eaten rarely and almost exclusively dried. I don’t know why – it’s not like we can’t grow them there. In England, and I think in much of central Europe, both black and red currants are a favorite flavor in baked goods, candies, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages as well as savory dishes. The red ones are perky and sharp, with a cranberry-like sourness, while the black ones have a richer, plummy, pruney taste. This recipe would work well with both; red is what I found, so red is what I used.

I liked the way the fresh berries popped open in the oven; when they came out, the heat had turned them into little patches of sweet red goo. They still hung on to their tartness, which complemented the buttery pine nuts and spicy, aromatic cardamom nicely.

If you can’t get fresh currants, you can use chopped cranberries or cherries, or you can try it with dried currants. This is based on a recipe from Bon Apétit.

2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup fresh currants
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups (packed) dark brown sugar
2 cups oats

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Whisk eggs and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Stir in currants.
3. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and spices into medium bowl.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add sugar and beat until smooth.
5. Add currant and egg mixture and whisk to blend.
6. Stir in flour mixture, then oats.
7. Butter and flour baking sheets. Drop batter by spoonfuls onto sheets, spacing 1 1/2 inches apart. Using moistened fingertips, flatten cookies slightly.
8. Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are golden brown, about 13 minutes. Cool on sheets.

Chestnut and Ginger Brownies with Kinako Frosting

Cravings for Japanese junk food, rediscovering one of my favorite blogs, and my inability to leave recipes alone led to this recipe. Laura has a Marie Claire cookbook with a good brownie recipe in it, but I knew I wanted to tweak it somehow – originally I was thinking mochi brownies with black beans and kinako frosting, but I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, and besides, we were out of mochi.

Enter Borough Market, where I happened to stumble upon a pack of prepared chestnuts. Later I spotted a bit of ginger chocolate at Sainsbury’s, and I had my new recipe (I’m rewriting it here with simply ginger and chocolate). The kinako frosting recipe is from Delicious Coma, which has always been my favorite Japanese food blog, and it’s becoming one of my favorite Los Angeles food blogs since the author moved there last year. The frosting is amazing, by the way.

150 grams butter
250 grams dark chocolate
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup prepared chestnuts or marrons glaces, chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 generous tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Melt 150 grams of chocolate and butter together in a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir until smooth.
3. Beat eggs and sugar together until mixture is pale and thick.
4. Fold in chocolate mixture, followed by sifted flour and baking soda, ginger, chestnuts, and remaining chocolate, chopped.
5. Butter an 8″x8″ square baking pan and pour in batter. Bake for 30 minutes or until brownies are set.
6. Allow brownies to cool for at least 30 minutes, then spread evenly with kinako frosting and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Cut into squares and serve.

I don’t have a photo of the brownies, but please enjoy this picture of what I made for lunch on Valentine’s day instead:

Mmmmmmm.

For those of you who feel that your desktop just ain’t quite cluttered enough, here’s an I am a viking photo collage to spice up your monitor! Available in antiquated (800×600, below right), medium (1024×768, below left), and PowerBook large (1280×854). Click to view or right-click to download.

And for the sophisticated viking fan, here are a dozen more rendered in highbrow grayscale! (One size fits all: 1600×1200.)

This, I later learned, is the “spinning top” model for a healthy shokuseikatsu 食生活 (“food lifestyle”) published by a non-governmental organization called the Zaidan Houjin Shokuseikatsu Jouhou Saabisu Sentaa 財団法人食生活サービスセンター (the “Information Service Center for Food and Foodways”). The foundation draws its support from a long list of corporations, including Kikkoman, the Calpis Company, Kewpie Mayonnaise, and all four of the major beverage producers in Japan – Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo, and Suntory. These guys are big. Real big. So I guess that explains why the glass of liquid forming the axis of the top is labeled as water and tea (not that Japanese people don’t drink plenty of tea as it is). It’s also interesting how far down dairy is. Sure, there’s not much of a history of dairy culture in Japan, but I wonder if it may also have something to do with the fact that out of the forty-some companies listed as cooperators in the foundation, only two are dairy producers: Meiji and Morinaga.

For comparison, here is the American food pyramid, both its classic form and the hopelessly ugly – but functionally improved – new edition:

Note how much more important dairy products are in the American models, especially in the new one. They’re given just about the same weight as vegetables, more than fruit, and almost as much as grains. Hmm. Do American nutritional scientists know something about milk that the Japanese don’t? Or did dairy lobbyists just work a little harder last year?

Anyway, I got to thinking: what would a food pyramid look like if sponsored by the Japanese government? Based on my dim knowledge of Japanese agricultural domestic policies and trade laws and on my own observations of Japanese food and foodways, I’ve drafted a modest proposal:

Are you reading this, Abe?! You can thank me later!