Spring Roundup of New Recipes

As I continue to keep track of recipes I'm cooking for the first time, it's clear that my list is a ringing endorsement for Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, a cookbook that has completely changed the way I cook vegetables. Although I am one of those fortunate eaters who likes just about anything, I don't always find an all-vegetable meal satisfying. Most of the time, I have default method for particular veggies--I saute greens with olive oil and garlic, roast root vegetables, and put lettuce in salads, but doing the same thing all the time can get very boring. The fruit and vegetable boxes I'm getting from Eden Farms are full of summery vegetables, so it's great to have new ideas for ways to prepare them. Each of the chapters focus on a particular type of food (vegetables, grains, salads, and so on). Within each chapter, the recipes are organised by individual main ingredient, which makes it very easy to use. If you're in a position to buy a cookbook for a new or reluctant cook, I would recommend you buy this one.

Standout recipes from this season of meals include Dunkler Kirschkuchen (Spiced-Cherry Chocolate Cake) from Classic German Baking; Spice Cookies from Jerusalem (I've been making one batch a month since April); Mushroom and Kale Lasagna with Blue Cheese from Cooking with Shelburne Farms (the first time I've ever made lasagna--so good!); and Ayam Lada Hitam & Gajus from Malaysia, delicious and quick chicken and cashew stir-fry. To thank you for reading this long post, I've included the recipe below. Enjoy!

Jerusalem spice cookies. So good.

April 2021

•  Spice Cookies from Jerusalem
• Vietnamese Caramelized Ginger Chicken from A Bird in the Hand 
• Dunkler Kirschkuchen (Spiced-Cherry Chocolate Cake) from Classic German Baking
• Chicken with Dill and Leeks from A Bird in the Hand
• Smoked Chicken, Lentil, and Sauteed Jerusalem Artichoke Salad from A Bird in the Hand
• Shiu-Min Block's Broccoli stir-fried with ginger and garlic (chow chia lan) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian  
• Stir-fried carrots with ginger and mustard seed (Gajar no sambharo) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian  
• Punjabi-style cauliflower and potatoes with ginger from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian  
• Red lentils with courgette (vegetarian dalcha) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian  
• Cheryl Rathkopf's Sri Lankan cashew curry (cadju curry) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian   
• Mushroom and Kale Lasagna with Blue Cheese from Cooking with Shelburne Farms 

A spring rainbow

May 2021

• Androche Markidis's Lentils with Rice (Moudjendra) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian 
• Cabbage Salad with Oregano (Curtido) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian 
• Spicy hash brown potatoes from  Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian 
• Mushroom and potato stew from  Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian   
• Allegra Antinori's Tuscan courgette pie from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian   
• Ayam Lada Hitam & Gajus (stir-fried black pepper chicken with cashews) from Malaysia by Ping Coombes

Poppies

 June 2021

• Carrot and Feta Potato Cakes from The Hungry Student Vegetarian
• Couscous Fritters with Beetroot from The Hungry Student Vegetarian
• Sauteed Potatoes and Zucchini from Heartland
• Nigerian Red Bean Stew with a Peanut Sauce from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian 
• Marios Mourtezi's black-eyed beans with Swiss Chard from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian  
• Mak Ki Dal from Masala 

Stork at Langworth Wildlife Park

Ayam Lada Hitam & Gajus  

from Malaysia: recipies from a family kitchen by Ping Coombes

• 2 skinless, boneless chicken thights cut into 1cm strips
• 2 tsp oyster sauce, divided (plus more to taste)
  
•  60g raw or roasted cashews
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns, coarsely ground in a mortal and pestle
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped (plus more to taste)
• 1/2 tsp caster sugar
• large pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp water

Put the chicken, which you have cut into small pieces, in a bowl and coat with the oyster sauce. Set aside to marinate for at least twenty minutes. Overnight is fine too.

 

If you are using raw cashews: when ready to eat, preheat oven to 180C (160C in a fan oven, or 350F) and roast the nuts for 10-15 minutes. To ensure even roasting, give roasting tray a shake 1-2 times during this period. [Cashews, like most nuts, go from 'roasting nuts smell nice' to 'burnt trash' in a few short minutes, so be extra vigilant from the time you start to smell them. Another thing that helps is to avoid using the highest shelf in your oven.]

 

When cashews are done or almost ready, start cooking the chicken. Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan, and when it is shimmery, add in the ground peppercorns. Fry for about 30 seconds or until you can smell them (which ever comes first) and then tip in your marinated chicken and garlic.

Stir-fry the chicken, garlic, and peppercorns over high heat for a few minutes, until the chicken starts to look cooked on the outside. Add another dollop of oyster sauce if you like it (the original recipe has you marinated the chicken in 1tsp of oyster sauce and cook it with the other; I love it so I used a lot more, but you might want to stick to the recommended amount). Also add in the sugar and a pinch of salt. Stir to mix well and tip in your cashews.

Stir-fry until chicken is fully cooked (you can take a piece out and cut in half to check) and then add in your 2tbsp of water to deglaze the pan. Let most of the water boil away, making sure to keep turning the contents of the pan so they don't stick. 

Serve on a bed of lettuce or rice; Ping Coombes also suggest you could wrap this in iceberg lettuce leaves.

Makes 2 medium-sized servings

W.H. Auden and Late Antiquity

In using this blog as a commonplace book of poems I find interesting or beautiful, I particularly enjoy collecting modern poems about late antiquity and the end of the western Roman Empire. Here is my most splendid find to date. Not only is it gorgeous but there are many delightful evocations of late Roman history. Behold!

The Fall of Rome

for Cyril Connolly

The piers are pummeled by the waves;

In a lonely field the rain

Lashes an abandoned train;

Outlaws fill the mountain caves. 

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;

Agents of the Fisc pursue

Absconding tax defaulters through

The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send

The temple prostitutes to sleep;

All the literati keep

An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may

Extol the Ancient Disciplines

But the muscle-bound Marines

Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm

As an unimportant clerk

Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK

On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or poetry,

Little birds with scarlet legs,

Sitting on their speckled eggs

Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast

Herds of reindeer move across

miles and miles of golden moss.

Silently and very fast.

~ W.H. Auden, in The Zoo of the New ed. Nick Laird and Don Paterson (New York, 2017), 110.

The outlaws in the mountain caves? Really existed. Meet the baguadae, a shadowy group of rebels in fifth century Spain and France, who have been seen as a group of lower-class freedom fighters against the tyranny of the late Roman state.

The tax defaulters? Upper class families in the empire's cities (scholars usually call them civic elites) opting out of their traditional social and financial responsibilities to fund the building of infrastructure and public buildings; host circuses, chariot races, and other entertainments; and serve in government positions was a well-known problem in the late Roman world; the imperial state's fading abilities to collect taxes (especially in the western Empire), has been one of the explanations put forward for its collapse.

The private rites of magic? One of the most fascinating and bizarre bits of Greco-Roman religion are the mystery cults. (I tell you, I cannot wait for someone to write speculative fiction based on the absolute gold mine of creativity that is the mystery cults.)

The literati with imaginary friends? Based on the letter writing that was going on, accurate.

The military mutinying for food and pay (or to get their general into a position of power)? Happened all the time.

The flu-infected cities? Waves of disease are known to have struck the late antique world, thought scholars have recently pushed back against the idea of an overwhelmingly destructive outbreak of plague in the sixth century Mediterranean.

And those are only the first things that come to mind! I can't immediately think of historical echoes for formal dress getting fancier, Cato, the clerk complaining about their job in the margins of an official document, but that's not to say they aren't there. Auden was professor of poetry at Oxford in 1956-1961, a time when Oxford was an important centre for late Roman studies--among other connections worth noting, during Auden's professorship the great late antique historian Peter Brown was just beginning his career. It wouldn't surprise me if there are more late Roman Easter eggs worked into the poem that I haven't spotted.

None of that matters for appreciating the poem as a poem, of course, but hopefully knowing these little details adds an additional level of enjoyment to your reading experience.

On Becoming A History Lecturer

Last week, a student asked me for advice about pursuing a career as a history lecturer. After I replied, I kept thinking about what I had written. Here is an expanded version of my thoughts.

Most people know that a PhD is essential.

But not everyone knows a lot about the application process. History Lab (a postgraduate network which does events on PhD applications and preparing for an academic career) is a resource I wish I'd known more about during my PhD. In the transition between my masters' and PhD, I remember being surprised by how early the deadlines were--it felt like I'd barely got started on my MA before I was applying for my next degree. If you want to go straight on from the MA to the PhD, it can be worth speaking to your programme leader, or a lecturer whose module you are enjoying, within the first few months of your studies because application deadlines for doctoral scholarships are often very early. Taking a break between the two degrees could help you save money, explore options, or find the right fit. 

Speaking of fit, some people stay at the same institution for MA and PhD and some people move around. Some people will stay at the same school for their BA, MA, and PhD. The right choice depends on your project and circumstances. In my view, choosing the school that is truly the best fit may require moving. Your PhD supervisor should be someone you are genuinely excited to work with and someone who will be supportive of your research and career. Making contact with a potential supervisor several weeks before any deadlines, to discuss your project and get a feel for the institution is expected and helpful. When I was considering moving to Leeds for my PhD, I found it incredibly helpful to talk to my supervisor's students too.

To explore what doing a PhD is like, I recommend The Thesis Whisperer, an approachable website on how to do a PhD, which is also a valuable source of information about doctoral students' needs and experiences.

So after you get your PhD, you become a lecturer. Right?

Well, not exactly. In the humanities, you get a string of temporary research and teaching jobs first. Getting one of these jobs is the first challenge: once you've gotten one, you're more likely to get others, but your good luck can run out at any point. The longer you go without getting your foot on the first rung of the ladder, the harder it is to get anywhere. And even people who do have a string of prestigious temporary posts can fall short in the end. To get a permanent job as a history lecturer, you need an outstanding record of research, publication, and teaching, and to be in the right place at the right time. Lots of people have the first but not the second.

As a fan of distance running who currently follow the careers of several elite American marathoners, I see several similarities between academia and sports. Many people want a professional career but very few make it to the top level. Athletes and academics can wreck themselves spending their twenties and thirties trying to get their big break, but there are always just enough success stories to make it seem worth trying. 

A wonderful intersection of the two is the story of McKale Montgomery, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University who competed in the trials for the US Olympic marathon team. Her story, while amazing, is wildly, wildly atypical of most academic careers. Getting a position at the same university where you did your postgraduate degrees is extremely unlikely, especially in the humanities. There are many more aspiring lecturers than there are jobs and securing a position is even more difficult for people of colour (especially black women), people with disabilities, and people from working class backgrounds. 

Additionally, the employment landscape has changed radically over the past twenty years. One has only to look at a site like the Academic Job Market Support Network to realise how difficult it has become, and the Professor is In blog is especially good (and grim) about jobs in North America. As this moving essay by Mateusz Fafinski emphasises, opportunities are simply not available in the way that they were for scholars of previous generations.

But I can beat the odds, some people say.

And of course, some people do beat the odds, otherwise we wouldn't have any history professors. But you have to be prepared to make a good life if you don't beat the odds. I advised my student that they use their MA and PhD to explore lots of different sorts of projects and opportunities. Someone who is most excited about the idea that a lecturer teaches might explore an advocacy group for their subject like classics for all or apply for a job working with tutoring group like the brilliant club. 

Those who are most excited about the research side of things should apply for small grants to fund conference or library or archaeological site trips (building a record of getting people to give you money looks good on an early career academic CV). Now more than ever, aspiring history lecturers are expected to have publications coming out as they finish their degree and start applying for their first jobs, so learning how to write for academic audiences is very important. Getting started might see daunting but there are a lot of great resources out there. Rowena Murray's Writing for Academic Journals was the book I used to write my first article, and the blog Patter is a wonderful source of wise advice about academic writing.  

I'd also say that any aspiring academic who is attracted to the profession by the opportunity to research and write should pursue every opportunity to write or speak in different styles and for different audiences. My current favourite publications which publish history writing for general readers are Public Books, JSTOR Daily, the Public Domain Review, and Contingent Magazine. 

It is important to share your work, publicly and often.

But it's also important to keep your eyes on your own paper. Let me explain.

Another thing academia and athletics have in common is that it's all too easy to fall into a comparison trap regarding someone else's accomplishments and your own. When I was a PhD student and met someone whose work I admired, I would Google them and read their university webpage and CV. Through this I found out about a number of small research grants in my field. And at that time, I found it useful for understanding what a successful academic career could look like. 

While I'm increasingly confident in the shape of my career and don't feel the need to look at other people's achievements to decide what opportunities to pursue, I still find it incredibly helpful to listen to other scholars talking about their work. Especially for aspiring lecturers, it is important to go to as many seminars and talks as possible. This gives you a sense of the key figures and developing research areas in your field, which can be inspiring and useful.

 

Presenting to an audience becomes an important part of an aspiring lecturer's journey fairly early on. Typically, people who want to become a lecturer will give their first conference presentation as a masters' student as part of a student conference hosted by their university or degree programme. A robust record of presentations at nationally and internationally significant conferences is critical for anyone who wants to become a history lecturer. Most of the time, these opportunities are gained by application--you submit an abstract, a short summary of the work you will present, and sometimes also a CV. When I started doing this, I found this post on writing abstracts exceptionally helpful, and I still refer back to its' formula when I'm writing new abstracts.

 

One of the best parts of a conference is meeting new people and hearing about their work. Shortly after I started presenting at conferences, I created a profile on the researcher networking site academia.edu.  Other sites include ResearchGate and Humanities Commons (there are some academics in LinkedIn, but it tends to be more useful for other careers). A basic profile on one or more of these sites (Academia and Humanities Commons are the best for historians) helps you keep up with new work by people you are interested in. Many aspiring academics also use Twitter for sharing news and information.

 

But I prefer mailing lists.

It might be old fashioned, and it certainly fills up my inbox, but I'm still a sucker for a good listserv and mailing list for finding out about new publications, ideas, and opportunities. My current favourites are:

• Ancient Jew Review: a great to go place for imaginative teaching ideas 
• Late Latin Poetry Network: a terrific source of information about this wonderful area of Latin literature
  
• Later Roman Empire Listserv: a lot of cool things get advertised here, including funding for PhD projects, conferences, and new publications
• Mary Jaharis Centre: nominally Byzantine, but also brilliant for news about publications and conferences on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
  
• Society for Classical Studies Blog: concise and informative essays about the field
  
• Virtual AHA: an online platform sparked by the pandemic, which has consistently hosted interesting talks and content

Final Thoughts

Given that the academic job market is and will remain extremely difficult, anyone who gets a PhD has to face the very real and likely possibility that they will not achieve their goal of becoming a history lecturer. I intended to become a history lecturer but I am now a history librarian, who is lucky to work in a place where I am allowed to teach on the side. I have a number of advantages that make my own level of activity possible, not least that I work in a university, have a generous amount of paid leave, and am willing and able to research and write in my free time. Even if they want to continue to research and publish outside of academia, many people do not have the time, resources and energy to do so. In preparing to become a history lecturer, you have to be ready to pursue other careers, too.

On the Shoreline

I have come to love the fisherman's upturned boat,
sea-weed darkened. I walk on the shingle.
A tree without branches grows on the shoreline--
further inland the dog-rose.

"Acadia National Park-6250139" by landscapes through the lens is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

 

I've forgotten a truth I once knew--

at a harp without strings the harpist flounders.

The music is there in the ache of my body,

in words beyond this night.

 

"Sunset from Cadillac Mountain (Bar Harbor, Maine)" by @CarShowShooter is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

~ Wendy French, in Seductive Harmonies: the Poetry of Music, ed Deborah Gaye (Avalanche Books, 2012)