WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT THE NORTHWEST? : THE FOOD : Mongrel audacity, or an openness to new experience? Cuisine with spunk.

A year or more ago William Rice, food columnist for the Chicago Tribune and defender of the Cuisine of the Heartland (whatever that might be--green tomato pie?), gave a keynote address in Seattle at one of those conferences draped around the non-issue, “Is There a Pacific Northwest Cuisine?” Rice thought not. He suggested that such a cuisine, at best, was contrived and therefore not relevant. He called it a mongrel cuisine and as an example he quoted the title of a cookbook recipe said to define the Pacific Northwest style: Sichuan pepper-broiled salmon with cilantro sour cream sauce. “I rest my case,” Rice told the tittering audience.

The dish is one out of the repertory of Greg Higgins, an intensely talented chef who cooks at the Heathman Hotel and the B. Moloch/Heathman Bakery and Pub in Portland. In Higgins’ salmon recipe he asks that Sichuan brown peppercorns, coarse cracked black peppercorns, butter, minced shallots, garlic, salt to taste and bread crumbs be mixed together and brushed onto salmon steaks that are broiled. He then reduces by half lime juice and Pinot Gris, stirs in bay shrimp as he removes the pan from the heat, then combines the lot with sour cream and chopped cilantro. This constitutes the sauce that is poured over the broiled salmon. Granted, the results are a far cry from corn pudding and ham balls. But Higgins’ mongrel audacity achieves a certain relevance for the way the fish tastes. And frankly, just about any new way to prepare salmon is welcome in the Pacific Northwest.

Rice argued that a willy-nilly application of a polyglot of ingredients and cooking techniques couldn’t be considered a cuisine in and of itself. And he is right. There is no Pacific Northwest Cuisine, if cuisine is a long-lived coherence of food that rises up out of the daily existence of the people, and is not something cooked up and smeared on a region by a handful of talented chefs like so much cake frosting. Like the so-called California Cuisine.

But there is a Pacific Northwest attitude about food, an openness to experience, a willingness to wallow in something new.

Consider my mother. She’s as Pacific Northwest as anybody. She comes from a family that settled in the Colville Valley of northeastern Washington State in the last quarter of the 19th Century (which in these parts is going way back). Her father was born in 1888, a year before statehood. Her mother came of Scots-Canadian stock and cooked on a wood stove, then a coal burning stove, then finally an electric range. She planted her garden each year on a spot of ground over which a livery stable had once stood.

Wild foods--venison, game birds and huckleberries harvested by the Colville Indians--were as relevant in the kitchen as foods the family produced itself or bought from a grocer or a butcher. Fresh salmon from the coast arrived by train, packed in shaved ice in wooden slat crates. My mother grew up with a Scots-Canadian taste for over-cooked meat, a frontier palate.

She is not a great cook, but she is good and she is solid. She has always turned to fresh fruit and produce in favor of canned and frozen goods. She has enough of a grip on her own identity as a cook and her range of skills that she is willing to go with cooking wherever she wants. About the time I was learning to tie my shoes, she incorporated Asian cooking ideas into the regular meals of the household, skating the Pacific Rim long before the dictates of food fashion. She did this not from the influence of a talented chef, nor from the pages of a trendy food magazine, nor even on the advice of a newspaper food columnist.

Her cleaning lady of the time was Japanese, Mrs. Mifune. My mother came home from shopping one day having found a ceramic bowl with a lid. She thought she would use it for flower arranging. Mrs. Mifune spied the bowl, became animated and said, “pudding soup.” Her English didn’t extend much beyond that at the time. She meant chawan mushi , which I know now but never knew then.

Mrs. Mifune beat an egg, added chicken broth, a little soy sauce, some chopped scallion and celery, some minced chicken, poured it into the bowl, covered it with the lid, then cooked what amounts to a savory egg pudding by placing the covered bowl in gently boiling water. My father was sick in bed at the time and the pudding soup was presented to him for lunch. It became the standard for sick bed comfort food in the Ingle house.

This is not an oddball story in the Pacific Northwest. Housewives actually did (and presumably still do) listen to their cleaning ladies. None of that down-the-nose stuff. The Pacific Northwest is too egalitarian, too easy going.

Having grown up in this region of the country, when I hear the question, “Is there a Pacific Northwest Cuisine?” I think of pudding soup and of miso chicken noodle soup poured from a Roy Rogers Thermos. Or spiral noodles (OK, rotelli ) cooked in beef broth. Pacific Northwest Cuisine is found in back yard gardens. It comes home at the end of hunting and fishing trips. It is found with mushrooms in wet woods. It is picked with field corn and crisp apples. It is shared with friends and neighbors.

Pacific Northwest Cuisine is John Johnson, the stooped-backed, bandy-legged old carpenter, a son of Iceland and proud of it, dropping by my parents’ house (which he built) on a Sunday morning with fresh crab pulled from his crab trap and cardamom-laced pastries baked by his wife, a Swede. It is Ruthy Ericksen’s pickled herring from next door. It is spice cake and rice cake and fish cake and prune cake. It is sourdough bread and rye bread and banana bread and squaw bread. Pacific Northwest Cuisine, as I have come to understand it, is Croation and Japanese and Scandinavian and French and Chinese and Portuguese and Greek and East Indian and Mexican and Italian and Sephardic and Russian, and most recently, Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese.

How this all gets reflected in restaurants is another story. Chefs in the Pacific Northwest currently have an abundance of food product with which to create whatever they want. The consciousness isn’t so much one of fresh and seasonal (very few restaurants--maybe only one--stick to this dictum; Bruce Naftaly’s Le Gourmand) as it is of cornucopia: whatever grows here, whatever can be flown in. While Pacific Northwest home cooks always had access to this abundance if they were willing to garden, to hunt, to fish and to scavenge for wild foods like mushrooms and mussels--and many home cooks did just that, restaurants only recently (in the last 15 years) have had consistent lines of supply. As a result, markets have changed as well. The full range of high quality ingredients is now easily accessible in the Pacific Northwest to anyone inclined to bother. This, after all, is where wheat farmers head for the ocean to fish for salmon once the harvest is in.

Ingredients in and of themselves, however, a cuisine do not make. But they can make for a lot of fun, relevant cuisine or no.

Kathy Casey takes fresh bulbs of fennel and roasted peppers and makes grilled pork chops behave in a way to which they are not accustomed. Scott Carsberg created a yellow tomato soup with billboard-size flavor and the color the mother of all yellows. He worked in a particularly simple way where any slight misstep and it was Flying Wallendas time.

To be successful Carsberg had to start with the best food products possible, a side benefit of working in a Pacific Northwest kitchen. “The art of this cooking,” he said, “is being willing to leave the food alone, of knowing when to stop cooking.” His small filet of Angus beef on a pool of roasted, pureed garlic thinned with a vegetable fumet was like the breath of God. When Carsberg was in residence at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead (Atlanta), he arranged to have fresh herbs grown in the Puyallup Valley by Stephen Lospalluto flown to Atlanta, which doesn’t say an awful lot about the current state of herb farming in Georgia.

Tom Douglas, owner and chef at the Dahlia Lounge Restaurant in Seattle, is inclined to slow barbecue lamb shanks with an orange ginger glaze, then serve the same with a fresh peach and Sambal chutney. He calls it “love food,” usually followed by a booming laugh.

Douglas is joined in an eclectic approach to tackling the foods of the Pacific Northwest, the foods flown in and whatever can be scrounged in the many Asian specialty markets in the city, by Barbara Figueroa (The Hunt Club), Caprial Pence (Fuller’s), Diana Isaiou (Cafe Sport), Mark Manley (Union Bay Cafe), Marianne Zdobysz (Queen City Grill). Other chefs, like Susan Vanderbeek at Campagne in the Pike Place Market, intentionally eschew eclecticism to work a specific theme, like the cooking of Provence. Dominique Place (Dominique’s Place) and Bruce Naftaly (Le Gourmand) and Robin Sanders (Swingside Cafe) work a French menu from bistro on out.

What remains unclear about the emerging Pacific Northwest Cuisine, if this is in fact what is happening, is what people will be cooking five or 10 years from now at home, in their back yards, in church basements. Because that’s where this region happens, and not so much in restaurants. There is a lifestyle, a gregarious, relaxed, outdoor lifestyle in the Pacific Northwest, and it is best displayed at home. If someone shows up at a potluck with a pile of freshwater crayfish cooked in the requisite Scandinavian manner, everyone will dig in. If he happens to include a Thai dipping sauce, well, so much the better.

The chefs who are able to move beyond the clutter of artifice, of letting an exotic spice rack speak for them rather than speaking themselves through their food, the chefs who in their own lives become part of the fabric of Pacific Northwest cooking, will ultimately reinterpret for us in a restaurant setting what we know from growing up and living here. They will settle down into something more natural, something likely to last through the years.

In the meantime the cuisine of the region may all be mongrel, as in the eyes of William Rice, but it ain’t dog food. You can take that to the bank.

Northwest Bounty by Schuyler Ingle and Sharon Kramis (Simon & Schuster: $18.95)

“Chef Tom Douglas specializes in the freshest of Pacific Northwest ingredients prepared in a straightforward and delicious way. His unique style weaves the Pacific Rim influence in our cuisine through the seasonal availability of products. “

BAMBOO-STEAMED KING SALMON CAFE SPORT

2 (7-to 8-ounce) king salmon fillets

1/2 cup dry Riesling

1 cup water

1 stalk lemon grass, sliced

3 star anise

2 ounces sliced ginger root

Sauce

Place salmon fillets in small bamboo steamer basket (or place on rack in shallow pan and cover). Combine Riesling, water, lemon grass, anise and ginger in 10-inch skillet or wok. Bring to boil. Place steamer basket over boiling liquid and steam salmon until medium rare, 6 to 8 minutes.

While fish is steaming, prepare Sauce. Serve salmon fillets with Sauce. Makes 2 generous servings.

Sauce

1 cup dry Riesling

1/2 ounce ginger root, sliced into julienne strips

1/4 stalk lemon grass, sliced

1 cup fish fumet or stock

2 tablespoons butter

Combine Riesling, ginger, lemon grass and fish fumet in 8- to 10-inch skillet. Cook over high heat until reduced to medium syrup. Strain. Blend in butter. Serve with salmon fillets. Makes 2 servings.

Pacific Northwest Palate, Four Seasons of Great Cooking by Susan Bradley (Aris Books: $19.95)

“I still remember my first bite of this remarkable cookie. A plate of innocent looking, subtly aromatic ginger cookies was offered. I nibbled one and thought, ah yes, this is very nice--and then, without warning, my entire mouth was on fire. I put the cookie down but found myself retrieving it only a second later. As I quickly learned, these are not only hot, they are also addictive.”

TRIPLE PEPPER COOKIES

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

Juice and zest of 1 orange

3 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

2 teaspoons freshly ground white peppercorns

1 teaspoon freshly ground black peppercorns

1 teaspoon freshly ground pink peppercorns

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon corase salt

Cream butter and sugar thoroughly in bowl of electric mixer. Add egg and beat until fluffy. Add corn syrup, orange juice and orange zest. Blend well.

Sift flour together with cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom, peppers, baking soda and salt. Add mixture gradually to batter and blend just to incorporate. Cover dough with plastric wrap and refrigerate overnight or longer (long chilling is important to taste).

Roll dough out very thinly on floured pastry cloth with cloth-covered rolling pin. Cut out shapes or rounds with cookie cutters. Arrange on lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees 8 to 10 minutes. Makes about 6 dozen cookies.

“There is something quintessential about this straightforward fresh raspberry tart. The simple elements in coming together become more than the sum of their parts: a truly wonderful taste experience. The tart must, however, be served soon after it is assembled. At the most, it will tolerate the refrigerator for two hours or so. “

JEWELLED RASPBERRY TART WITH TOASTED HAZELNUT PASTRY

4 ounces cream cheese

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 cup whipping cream, well-chilled

2 tablespoons raspberry liqueur

3/4 cup red raspberry jelly

1 baked (9-inch) Toasted Hazelnut Pastry Shell

2 cups raspberries, rinsed and gently dried on paper towels

In mixer, blend cream cheese until very smooth. Add lemon zest and powdered sugar. Blend again. With machine running, pour whipping cream slowly onto cream cheese and blend until soft peaks are formed. Add 1 tablespoon liqueur and blend lightly.

Melt raspberry jelly in saucepan. Remove from heat and add remaining 1 tablespoon liqueur. With pastry brush glaze cooked pastry shell with thin coating of jelly. Put cream cheese mixture into pastry shell and spread until smooth. Dip raspberry bottoms, 1 at time, into very warm jelly.

Arrange berries on top of whipped cream mixture in concentric circles until entire surface of tart is covered. Glaze each berry and white areas between berries with jelly. Chill 1 to 2 hours before serving. Makes 6 servings.

Toasted Hazelnut Pastry

1/4 cup hazelnuts

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in pieces and frozen

1/4 cup shortening, chilled

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons ice water

Arrange hazelnuts in shallow pan and toast at 275 degrees 20 to 30 minutes, until fragrant and lightly browned. Remove from oven. Rub hazelnuts in clean dish towel to loosen and remove papery skin. Discard loose skin (some skins will remain).

Using food processor, pulse nuts, flour and powdered sugar together until finely chopped. Add frozen butter pieces and shortening. Pulse until very fine and evenly mixed.

Whisk egg yolk and ice water together well. Pour evenly over top of flour and butter mixture then pulse times just until dough begins to mass together. Add few more drops water if necessary but do not overmix. Pastry should be malleable but not too wet.

Place dough between 2 sheets of plastic film wrap and flatten. Chill 2 hours before rolling out. Freeze 45 minutes.

Using pastry cloth and rolling pin cover, roll out dough to 12-inch circle or square. Line 9-inch tart pan (with removable bottom) with circular pastry or cut square pastry into 12 (4x3-inch) rectangles or “tiles” and place on baking sheet. Chill 30 minutes. Pierce evenly with fork and line dough with foil; fill with pie weights, dried beans or rice. Pierce pastry rectangles evenly with fork.

Bake pastry at 375 degrees 10 minutes. Remove foil and pie weights from pastry shell. Continue baking another 10 minutes until nicely browned. Cool on wire rack. Makes 1 (9-inch) pastry shell or 12 pastry tiles.

Tastes of the Pacific Northwest by Fred Brack and Tina Bell (Doubleday: $16.95)

“No one has done more to draw attention to the Pacific Northwest cooking than Jimella Lucas and Nanci Main. Their restaurant, The Ark, on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, is a destination for visitors from across the country who appreciate fresh local ingredients and culinary creativity.

This simple appetizer features two of Lucas and Main’s loves: oysters and garlic. If you have a shallow baking casserole large enough to hold the oysters, use it instead of a baking sheet and serve the oysters directly from the casserole.”

BAKED OYSTERS WITH GARLIC-PINE NUT BUTTER

3/4 cup pine nuts

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

3 shallots, minced

6 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped

1 small bunch chives, coarsely chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons brandy

Pepper

36 extra small oysters on half shell

Rock salt

Toast pine nuts in dry skillet, then chop. Reserve 2 tablespoons for garnish and combine remaining with butter, shallots, garlic, parsley, chives, lemon juice, brandy and pepper in blender or food processor. Process until butter is smooth but still displays bits of dry ingredients.

Place oysters on bed of rock salt on baking sheet or in shallow baking casserole. Place dollop of butter mixture on top each. Bake at 375 degrees just until butter melts and oysters firm slightly. Garnish with reserved pine nuts and serve immediately. Makes 6 servings.

Platter from Cookin’ Stuff, Torrance