The Urban Forager. Elisa Callow

      With Gratitude to My Community

      A DEFINITION:

       ur·ban adj.

      In, relating to, or characteristic of a city or town. “The urban population.”

      Synonyms: town, city, municipal, civic, metropolitan, built-up, downtown.

       for·age v.

      1. The act of looking or searching for food or provisions.

      2. To wander in search of food or provisions.

      3. To conduct a search; rummage.

      4. Informal: To obtain by foraging: “foraged a snack from the refrigerator.”

       urban forager

      1. Searchers for provisions in towns and cities.

      2. Those who uncover the rare and wonderful.

      I created this book with novice and adventurous cooks in mind, in the hope that it teaches, inspires, and leads to a new trove of food memories. There is no better place than L.A.’s eastside to begin a cooking journey. In my mind, its food culture is one of the most interesting and exciting anywhere—a culture jump-started and sustained by a growing corps of fearless chefs whose techniques, ingredients, and tastes are challenged and refreshed by our increasingly diverse community.

      While many cookbooks drop the reader into the middle of intensely complex and arcane recipes, I designed this one as a bridge to the unfamiliar—beginning with basic techniques and building-block recipes, some of which reappear in subsequent chapters as key ingredients. The Urban Forager sets forth recipes from my own kitchen along with beloved recipes from great cooks, friends, and family; provides a carefully curated list of our region’s one-of-a-kind neighborhood food shops offering quality ingredients and inviting culinary exploration; and suggests ways to expand your own cooking repertoire.

      With the exception of baking and its exacting requirements, I see recipes as open-ended guides. The more you cook, the more secure you become in trying something new. Variations come from both imagination and desperation—and may also be inspired by an emerging commitment to use food wisely and without waste. I call similar ingredients from familiar or different cooking cultures “flavor cousins,” and identify ways that an item in your refrigerator or pantry or an experience with a new taste or cuisine can find its way into your cooking. Think the sweet Chinese sausage so much like pepperoni (but even more delicious), beet greens that can be exchanged for kale or chrysanthemum greens, a fat slice of Oaxacan egg-infused bread spread with butter and sugar that is equivalent to a brioche, a tiny dollop of tamarind paste that could double as dried apricots or plums and adds umami to a chicken marinade or baked winter squash. Watch for the Try This key to recipe variations throughout the cookbook.

      As a centerpiece, I profile five of the eastside’s most inspiring and creative food makers: Sumi Chang, master baker and founder of Pasadena’s Europane; Minh Phan, inventive creator of porridge + puffs in Filipinotown; and brilliant home cooks Mario Rodriguez, Rumi Mahmood, and Jack Aghoian. I hope that the sampling of their recipes, ingredient resources, and food journeys throughout this book will inspire your cooking repertoire as they have mine.

      Cooking has led me to connect with new neighborhoods and cultures, and it is this sense-filled passage that has continually energized me on my journey to become a confident and proficient cook. L.A.’s eastside is truly an area rich in deeply-rooted cultures, and its food echoes this variety, yielding an amazing number of choices, from an emerging small-farms community in Altadena to several high-quality Armenian, Mexican, and Asian markets. There are elegant cheese stores, excellent bakeries, and a fair share of farmers’ markets. Most are one-of-a-kind businesses where the owner’s pride is evident in the quality of the merchandise.

      I also understand that to be a true urban forager, deep curiosity must override fear and self-consciousness; the desire for learning takes precedence. I find myself in the optimum state of the beginner’s mind as I push myself into markets where ninety percent of what I see is a mystery. In many foraging expeditions, my puzzled face becomes an invitation for acts of kindness and welcome in the stores I enter. Without fail, I am approached by a variation on the nonna/grandma/bà nội, whose knowledge of a particular cuisine is