FoodFunk.ca

War!!

This eclectic band put out some amazing stuff during their decades-long career (they still perform today) but their work from the early 70s is arguably some of their finest.   Starting with Eric Burdon and War’s 1970 semi-hit “Spill the Wine”, they put together a string a great records over the next several years.   The music is tight, funky and features soaring soulful vocals from the whole band.   Check out this live performance of the title track from 1973’s “Me and Baby Brother” LP to see the band in their prime.

War – Me and Baby Brother

Back in 1996, a friend of mine took my future wife and I to an Ethiopian restaurant in Toronto.  I didn’t have a clue what to expect be we fumbled through it with the guidance of our more Ethiopian-experienced friend.

We ordered our dishes and a couple of drinks, then minutes later, out came all of our food, arranged on one giant plate that was lined with what we would later learn was injera bread, a kind of puffy pancake.   There were no utensils in sight, so it was quickly explained that you tear off bits of injera in front of you, wrap it around bits of the spicy stews and chutneys and pop it in your mouth.   After a little while, you actually got to a point where you didn’t have a bunch of saucey food on your hands.   What started a little daunting quickly became a whole lot of fun, and the flavour was absolutely incredible.   Very earthy curries with loads of chili heat, served alongside some cooling chutney and vegetables.

Immediately after that meal I set out to find out how to make some of this food, especially my favourite dish of the night, Doro Wat, a tomato chicken stew.    On a later trip to Ottawa, I popped into an Indigo book store and found The Africa News Cookbook – African Cooking for Western Kitchens.   And there it was, the berebere paste that forms the magic flavour of the dish and a full recipe for Doro Wat.

Since then I have satisfied my occasional cravings for spice and heat with a pot of wat.  It’s even been known to be my birthday dinner because what else would you have on your birthday other than your favourite meal?

Last night I was on my own for supper so it was a perfect opportunity to fire it up in the kitchen and make some spicey chicken stew.   Here’s how the paste went together.   Get your hands on the Africa News Cookbook and try it yourself!

Toasting the spices.  Includes cardamom, pepper, fenugreek, allspice and cumin.

A heaping half cup of sweet shallots that give the curry paste great flavour and volume.

The finished berebere curry paste.  Includes the toasted spices,  shallots and about 50 dried hot chilies, along with a little dried ginger, turmeric and salt, all blended til smooth.

The finished dish, chicken and whole egg that has been stewed in the spicy sauce.  Simply served with rice in this case.

Years before Cherish, before Ladies Night, long before Celebration and long before Get Down On It, Kool and the Gang were actually really cool.  This group of super talented and funky musicians led by bassist Ronald “Kool” Bell, put together some amazing funk spanning from their self-titled debut album in late 1969 to about 1976, before they were consumed by disco cheese and bad decisions.

Following up on their solid debut, they put out two “live” albums in 1971, Live at P.J.’s and Live at the Sex Machine, both of which were only partially “live”, with the bulk of the material being studio tracks with added audience noise.   Despite that, the music is incredible.   Also check out Music is the Message from 1972 and Wild and Peaceful from 1973 (which contains classics such as “Jungle Boogie”, “Hollywood Swinging” and “Funky Stuff”).

From their now 40-year-old debut album, here’s Kool and the Gang with a classic breakbeat track, “Give it Up.”

And yes I promise, I’ll get back to cooking this week.

Oh man, why couldn’t this be what we know as 80s music?  This 1981 somewhat rare release by Conquest just oozes funk and is a killer dance tune.  The early 80s were great because disco had recently died (R.I.P.) and music suddenly had to be a lot more thoughtful, but it was before the industrial-strength, computer-generated drums came along in the mid-80s and stripped a lot of music of its soul.  That’s my take anyway….

Conquest – “Give it to me (If you don’t mind)”

It’s mid winter, an early morning and pretty grey outside.   Times like this, I’ll turn to groovy jazz funk to get my head noddin’ first thing in the morning.   Here’s one to get your day going, Forty Days by Billy Brooks.  Sampled to fame by A Tribe Called Quest about 20 years ago, this original gem was released back in 1974.   So many classic jazz instrumentalists of the 60s got into the funk in the early 70s and this is a prime example.  If there was only 40 days left for winter, that’d be cool.

This is a little feature I’ve been doing on my Facebook account for a few weeks and thought it would be great to base it here instead.

I got into funk about the same time I got into food back in the early 90s and the two passions are part of my every day. Back in my early 20s I’d head to Montreal on the occasional weekend to seek out great food and great funk and I found tonnes of it. Thankfully, loads of the stuff I’ve got on vinyl is now showing up on youtube.com. So each Friday I’ll share a little tune with you so you can be not only a foodfunk.ca reader, but a listener too. It just makes sense, if you ask me.

So this week, I’ve chosen Bobby Byrd’s “I Know You Got Soul”. This assertion from the James Brown sideman was recorded and released as a 45 rpm single on King Records in 1971. It’s been sampled a lot, most famously by Eric B and Rakim for their classic old school hip hop tune “I Know You Got Soul” from 1987, but the original I think stands the test of time better than any of the tunes that were inspired by it. This one still gets regular play in my DJ sets and I can’t see that stopping any time soon. Turn up the volume, get on down, I know you got soul.