Book of Days Tales

Today is the birthday (1805) of Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps GCSI, French diplomat and later director of construction of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times between the West and the East. He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a Panama Canal at sea-level during the 1880’s, but the project was devastated by epidemics of malaria and yellow fever in the area, as well as beset by financial problems. His planned Panama Canal was never completed. Eventually, the project was bought out by the United States who changed the design to a non-sea-level canal with locks, which was completed in 1914.

At the age of 6 in 1957 I traversed the Suez Canal aboard SS Orsova with my family, emigrating to Australia from England – a memorable experience.  What I remember most is stopping at Port Said where the gilly-gilly man came on board. The gilly-gilly man was a magician whose main props were fluffy yellow baby chickens (and other people’s coins which he “borrowed” and made disappear).  He arrived at the performance space in one of the lounges wearing a fez and robe. He soon had the area around him swarming with chicks which he had pulled from people’s pockets, sleeves, ears, and his mouth.  He picked one of the chicks from the floor, held its beak to his ear, and announced, “chicken tell me, he broken his neck.”  Then he took the body of the chicken in one hand and the head in the other and made a motion as if to twist its neck.  But when he opened his hands instead of revealing the severed body and head, as I sickly expected, he showed a chick in each hand.  “Two chickens” he beamed, and let them run around the deck with their mates.

Here’s Chicken Port Said.  Most recipes call for simply hacking the chicken in small pieces and cooking by frying. I prefer to parboil the chicken first and then fry it to finish it off.

Ingredients

6 ozs butter
2 lbs mushrooms sliced
2 lbs chicken breast cut up into 1″ pieces
6 cloves garlic crushed and diced fine
2 tbs syrian pepper (see recipe below)
1 tsp black pepper
Salt to taste
Juice from 1 lemon
chicken stock

Instructions:

Put the chicken breasts in boiling chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove and cut into 1” pieces. Reserve (use the stock for other dishes).

Sauté the mushrooms in butter over medium heat for 3 minutes in a heavy skillet until they take on some color.

Add the chicken and sauté for 5 minutes.

Add the garlic, syrian pepper, pepper and salt. Sauté another 5 minutes.

Just before the chicken is ready to serve, add lemon juice and stir.

Serve over boiled white rice with lemon slices and chopped fresh parsley.

Serves 4-6

Syrian Pepper

3 ozs whole allspice
1 oz whole black peppercorn
5 whole cloves
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½  teaspoon grated nutmeg

Instructions:

Grind the allspice, pepper, and cloves in a food processor, coffee grinder, or blender.

Add the cinnamon and nutmeg and pulse briefly to combine.

Store in a covered container.