From the Koyzis kitchen: spinach turnovers

Although this is not a cooking blog, I thought it might be nice to include a favourite from my mother’s kitchen. It apparently comes from an early effort of my father to communicate to her something his own mother used to make in Cyprus. I doubt she got it exactly right, but the result is delicious nonetheless. There may even be a subconscious influence from the Cornish pasties enjoyed by her immigrant Finnish forebears in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I hadn’t eaten spinach turnovers in probably more than two decades, but a few weeks ago I decided to try my hand at them once again, with great success. Nancy loved them. Here’s the recipe, using imperial measures:

2 pckg. frozen chopped spinach

2 pckg. ground meat (e.g., beef or turkey)

2 c. Uncle Ben’s^® rice or other long grain rice

1 small chopped onion

Salt to taste

Approx. 2 Tbsp. cinnamon

Biscuit dough (or use boxed, commercial biscuit mix such as Jiffy^® or Bisquick^® — amount to be used depends on the number of turnovers desired)

Cook spinach in as small an amount of water as possible. Drain well in strainer. While spinach is cooking, begin cooking rice per directions on package, using slightly less water than suggested. Turn off burner under pan for the last five minutes and let rice sit, still covered. Chop onion. Brown meat in skillet, adding chopped onion. Mix spinach, rice, meat and onion. Add salt and cinnamon to taste – probably ½ teaspoon salt; possibly as much as 2 tablespoons cinnamon. (Cinnamon flavour will lessen during baking.) Mix well.

Roll out biscuit dough thinly. Cut out using round circle 5 to 6 inches in diameter (e.g., the top to a metal canister). Roll the resulting circle even thinner. Put above mixture on one side of the circle, pulling the other side over the mixture to form a half circle. Pinch edges together, marking entire edge with the tines of a fork. Pierce top of each turnover with fork tines. Bake 15-20 minutes in a 375-400 degree oven until lightly browned. Brush with butter, margarine or extra virgin olive oil while still hot. Enjoy.


Spinach turnovers

Depending on the amount of biscuit dough you’ve prepared, you will likely have a large amount of the mixture left over. This can easily be frozen and used later. Altogether, making spinach turnovers from scratch takes about two hours. But with the mixture already prepared, the time is cut down to about an hour.

I remember as a child absolutely loving to drink a cold glass of milk with spinach turnovers. My tastes have evidently changed in the ensuing decades, because the milk didn’t quite go as well as I remembered it to. All the same, I would be hard pressed to recommend a good wine to go with it. I’ll leave the beverage up to you.

Koyzis' law revisited

I don't know whether Peter Leithart has read my 1990 essay, "Eet Smakelijk", in which I expand Max Weber's thesis into the field of national cuisine. But in his entry for today (he appears not to archive his entries) he has the following to say, recounting a recent discussion with friends:

One of the points of the discussion was whether or not high quality food, attention to artistry in making food, is a product of Christian culture. When I cited France to illustrate that good food can coexist with paganism, it was suggested in response that French cuisine is an after-effect of Christian civilization, some kind of leftover of a once-Christian nation. But that doesn't work: After all, America, England, and Scotland have been as profoundly Christian as France, and their food is hardly the model for the rest of the world. The cuisine divide in European nations seems to be between Protestant and Catholic countries, Protestant countries notable for the blandness of their food and Catholic countries noted for the richness and variety of their foods. I suspect that there is some connection here with Eucharistic doctrine, or the lack of it. Catholic peoples know from long training in the Mass that there is more to food than food, that food is not just biological fuel, while Protestants are trained by their Eucharistic doctrine and practice to regard food as something of a necessary evil. Catholics adorn the Mass, and also adorn the food on their home tables; Protestants do not adorn the Eucharist, and end up with haggis, kidney pie, and peas, lots of peas. Catholics spice up foods, while Protestant nations (especially in the UK) are noted for frugally using every last organ and giblet, even (especially?) the inedible bits.

Of course, he conspicuously omits reference to the Orthodox, which were a major focus of my essay.

Time to wash down that boerenkool with another glass of retsina!

Koyzis' Law

The following is an article that I wrote for the November 1990 issue of The Reformed Journal:

“Eet smakelijk”

When I was a child, I thought that all restaurants were owned by Greeks. My father did not himself own a restaurant, but whenever we would visit one, he would invariably strike up a conversation with the proprietor in their shared Hellenic tongue. So often did this happen that I thought Greeks must come, not so much from Greece or Cyprus, as from the kitchens of local cafés near Chicago. It wasn't until the end of my first decade that I began to realize that members of other national communities also made excellent restaurateurs. Italian, French, Lebanese, and Chinese establishments were readily available and well worth visiting. As an early adolescent I even developed a taste for Japanese sushi, that exotic and colourful ensemble of raw fish and rice.

But through all this I noticed something peculiar. I never saw any restaurants specializing in Swiss, Dutch, English, or Scottish cuisine. In my youthful imagination I figured this must be for one of a number of possible reasons: either these northwest Europeans were too busy doing other things that made them more money with fewer headaches, or they couldn't cook. Or perhaps what they did cook wasn't worth sharing with the public.

Some years ago the German sociologist Max Weber wrote a book entitled The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in which he argued that Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, provided fertile ground for the rise of capitalism. Those countries that had undergone the Reformation – such as Switzerland, Holland and England – were economic powerhouses, while those unaffected by the Reformation – such as Italy and Spain – remained economic backwaters.

I will neither dispute nor defend Weber’s thesis here, but I do wish to propose a corollary. After some 35 years of scientific observation, I believe it is possible to articulate a more or less iron law concerning the relation between religion and national cuisine, which I shall take the liberty of calling Koyzis’ Law. Koyzis’ Law holds that those countries influenced by the Reformation produce unimaginative (at best) and sometimes horrific (at worst) cuisines, while those lands bypassed by the Reformation originate highly interesting and varied cuisines. The Dutch, with their rugged Calvinism, are a case in point.

As a Greek American living and working in a largely Dutch-Canadian environment (Redeemer College and the Christian Reformed Church), I have adopted a “when-in-Rome” policy and have gradually plucked up the courage to sample so typical a Netherlandic delicacy as boerenkool. And I have actually come to like it. Yet, as I see it staring up at me from the platter I find myself thinking it would be vastly improved with a little vinegar and olive oil, and perhaps a hint of oregano.

But even the bravest of palates must draw the line somewhere. The Italian supermarket across the street from me contains, of all things, a small Scottish section in the frozen foods case. There, in all its Caledonian glory, one can find the notorious haggis, which only the most hardened Celt (or perhaps stoic Calvinist) could love. The thought of sinking my teeth into a sheep’s stomach filled with the poor creature’s minced lungs and liver (and who knows what else) is enough to make me run back for some more moussaka and Turkish coffee.

It has also caused me to wonder whether I really am a Calvinist at heart. I think so. My gastronomical proclivities have not as yet prompted a crisis of faith. Still, I sometimes feel a little guilty when I experience so much satisfaction eating those typical products of an unreformed worldview while dining with, say, the Eastern Orthodox. My divided loyalties become even more apparent when on family occasions I find myself seated at a table spread with lamb, stuffed vine leaves, and bottles of retsina, and blank stares greet my cheery “eet smakelijk.”

Still, I can take comfort in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Whenever I am tempted to forsake my Calvinism for another tradition boasting more culinary attractions, I have only to remind myself of the witness of generations of sturdy Calvinist saints who have had to endure much more than I have. Besides, who says I can’t wash down those croquettes with another glass of ouzo?