bookcooker: The Hunger Games and Katniss' favorite lamb stew

I resisted the hype around The Hunger Games trilogies for a long time. My friend Kerry gave me the first book, I said thank you and then put in at the bottom of my book pile. Although I love the Harry Potter series, I did not want to get into reading Young Adult lit - I don't read Teen Vogue, I am not a Taylor Swift fan, I ignored the whole Twilight thing. Then I thought about the title (knowing nothing about the book) and said - for a blog about cooking and food, I doubt there is any dish I could tie in to a book called The Hunger Games. Kerry was quick to correct me there, telling me that there was actually a lot of food in the book and I would have many potential dishes to choose from when it came time to blog. As many of you probably know, The Hunger Games movie is coming out soon and I am sad to admit that it was the trailer of the movie that inspired me to pick up the book. The trailer showed a story that looked intense, scary and suspenseful without the sparkly vamp, hot werewolf cheesiness of Twilight. So, I picked up the book and was quickly TOTALLY consumed by it. Read the first book in a couple of days, then, like a junkie wanting her next fix, got the next book from Kerry as soon as I could. A week and a half after I started the first book I am through the third book, Mockingjay, and am bummed there are no more books in the series. I get the hype here - these books are well written, contain a unique and compelling story line, and have characters and relationships that you can get behind. The lamb and prune stew above was a dish that came up a lot in the first book. Katniss, the main character of the book, after years of struggling to feed herself and her family, is suddenly provided large spreads of beautiful food when she travels to the Capitol after she is selected to participate in The Hunger Games. Her favorite dish was a lamb and prune stew, which I recreated here.

The Hunger Games is the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins about a teenage girls experiences in the future. The future Earth that Collins depicts is a brutal, violent place that is the result of the environmental damage to the planet done by previous generations as well as the result of centuries of wars. Katniss Everdeen is a teenager who lives in the country of Panem, which is basically a smaller version of the United States (the country is smaller because of environmental changes and other man-made disasters). Panem is a dictatorial regime that is made up of a Capitol district (which is in the Rockies) and 12 districts that controlled by the Capital and used to supply the Capitol with the supplies it needs to live its excessive lifestyle (District 12 is the coal mining district, District 11 is the agricultural district, etc...) The people living in the districts essential live the lives of slaves - they struggle to find enough to eat and they live under authoritarian rule. All of this is a result of a civil war many years ago where the people of the Capitol district prevailed. At the end of this war, the Capitol (allegedly) obliterated the 13th district, which was a major source of rebellion. To remind the populace of the surviving 12 districts of the cost of rebelling against the Capitol, every year the Capitol stages the truly sick Hunger Games. Two teenagers (aged 12 -18) are selected from each district to be "tributes" to participate in the Hunger Games. This selection is called a "reaping" and every kid in the district has a certain number of chits that go into a pool that are picked at random. Once the tributes are selected, they are whisked off to the Capitol and put in a massive arena that is created by Capitol Gamekeepers (think of this arena like a sadistic real life video game world) and are then told to kill each other. The last surviving tribute is the victor of The Hunger Games and is given as much food and money as they want for the rest of their lives. And oh yeah, all of this is broadcast live on TV and the entire populace of Panem watches it, in the districts, they are forced to watch it. So, in sum, every year the districts are required to sacrifice two of their children for slaughter and this is the main form of entertainment for the Capitol. Pretty heavy stuff for a teen book. When we meet Katniss, she is a rough and tumble 15 year old who hails from the poorest and smallest district, District 12. She supports her mother and younger sister Prim by hunting in the woods with her best friend, the very handsome Gale. This hunting is illegal and conducted outside a fence that is sometimes electrically charged, so Katniss is used to some danger and breaking the rules. Katniss lost her father in a mining accident when she was a young girl, and has had to support her family ever since. At the reaping for District 12, even though the odds are against it, the name of Katniss' younger sister Prim is called. Katniss immediately volunteers to stand as tribute instead of her sister. This is tantamount to a death sentence. The other tribute called from District 12 (each year there is 1 male and 1 female chosen) is Peeta Mellark, the son of the District 12 baker. These two are quickly shipped off to the Capitol on a luxury train along with their mentor, who is the only living person from District 12 to have ever won the Hunger Games, a drunk named Haymitch. Along with their mentor, Peeta and Katniss get a handler, a garishly made-up and uptight Capitol citizen named Effie. In addition, the tributes get assigned a stylist and a trio of beauticians. Everything about the Hunger Games and the Capitol is about appearances. Once Katniss and Peeta head to the Capitol, this is where the novel really begins. Katniss quickly becomes a star in the capitol because of her brashness, and Peeta and Katniss are told to act like they are in love as a tactic for the Games. Only Peeta is really in love with Katniss and Katniss is not sure how she feels about Peeta. This is the love triangle part of the story - does Katniss love Gale or Peeta - that dominates all three novels in the trilogy. But, if you ask me, there is really no contest, Peeta, who is sweet, brave and totally different than Katniss but totally devoted to her was always the person Katniss was meant to be with. The love triangle is not what drives the books, and I think that is what made it so readable for adults. Once the Games begin, Katniss must survive brutal attacks from other tributes and from the environment around her. The Capitol game makers create horrors like killer wasps, floods, and animals that were breeded to kill. Katniss must kill to survive, and must figure out who to trust, especially whether she can trust Peeta. I really had a hard time putting the book down once the games began - Collins created a perfectly timed plot that kept you interested and anxious chapter after chapter. The future world she created was fascinating and fully fleshed out. The things that made the Capitol so awful - obsession with appearances, gluttony, the need to televise everything - were so clearly what would happen if the obsessions of our society today were taken to their max. Finally in Katniss, Collins has created a young female character that I am happy to think teenager women will read about - she is smart, independent, unconcerned with her appearance, resourceful and strong. I will not do a review of Catching Fire and Mockingjay here since that would involve some spoilers for the first book. I will say that I really liked the second two books in the series almost as much as the first, and would say the second half of each just as good as the first book. Together they make a chilling and immensely entertaining series that any adult would find a great read.

Katniss' favorite Lamb and Prune Stew
This Lamb and Prune Stew actually shows up in all three of The Hunger Games novels. When Katniss volunteers for the Hunger Games, the Capitol provides her with all the rich, delicious food she could want (until she gets into the arena). Katniss, who has lived all of her life hungry and struggling to fill her and her families belly, is a voracious eater. Her favorite dish she receives during training is a hearty lamb and dried plum stew. She even gets this stew in the arena from one of her sponsors. I recreated it by doctoring a lamb and prune tagine recipe from the amazing middle eastern food expert Claudio Roden which is in one of my favorite cookbooks, Arabesque. I added some ingredients to make it more stew-like, adding some beefstock and sweet potatoes. This stew takes a lot of time but it is worth it - the flavor is out of this world.

Ingredients
2 lbs lamb stew meat (from shoulder would be good)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 and 1/2 cups prunes
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup beef stock
2 sweet potatoes peeled and chopped into chunks
1/3 cup red wine
2 tablespoons port (optional)
1/2 cup blanched almonds (for garnish)

Directions:

Heat the oil in a dutch oven. Add the lamb, onions, garlic, ginger, saffron and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
Cover with 1 cup of beef stock and and water.
Simmer gently over low heat for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours, until the meat is tender. Add water to keep the meat covered if it gets dry.
Add the prunes, sweet potatoes, the remaining cinnamon and the wine.
Simmer for another 30 minutes. Towards the end of this time, add the port. [Note: if you find the stew broth is too thin, add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch dissolved in 1 teaspoon of water towards the end of the 30 minutes to thicken the stew up].
When the stew is almost ready, heat some oil in a small saute pan over medium heat and fry almonds until lightly browned.
When serving the stew, sprinkle with the fried almonds and serve with some hearty bread to sop up the broth!