The Green Keys

Hey Stankass, How about a "piece" on key lime pie? Where can one find key limes in Portland, anyway?

There wouldn’t be a key lime pie without key limes, so let’s begin with the fruit. Limes are the most acidic citrus fruit; 8% citric acid by weight (lemons are 5%). Key limes, in particular, pack a wallop not because of extra acidity, rather less sweetness. Because of the pucker to sweet ratio, key limes are used in Rose’s Lime Juice and are the preferred fruit for Rickeys and Margaritas, so much so they are thought of as “barman’s” lime.

They are also referred to as “Mexican limes”, which is a bit of a misnomer, since the epicenter of limes is Malaysia. Unlike the Meyer lemon that was transplanted directly from China to California, limes almost universally migrated west. First north & west to India then to Persia, where they followed the Islamic empire to al-Andalus – Muslim controlled Spain. From there they hitched a ride to the New World where limes were grown on plantations in the Caribbean and Mexico and spreading into the wild.

Limes had been grown in the Americas for 300 years before they became known as ‘key limes’, so how did that happen? 2 things: First, the bigger, juicier Persian or Tahitian Lime (known as Bearss in California), a cross between the key lime and citron gained enough popularity that grocers and sellers would have needed to distinguish the two fruits. Around the same time, a hurricane destroyed the pineapple industry in the Florida Keys, leaving a 10-year period where limes were ascendant. When another hurricane in 1923 destroyed most of the key lime trees in archipelago Florida, growers replanted and grafted the increasingly popular (bigger, sweeter) Persian limes.

Key lime pie is a dish that evolved in very localized conditions. Before the overland highway connected the Keys to mainland Florida, there were no regular milk deliveries, no dairy industry, sporadic electricity, not a lot of ice or refrigeration – so sweetened, condensed milk would have been about the only affordable option for dairy in the Keys. Likewise, the shelf life of a Graham crackers would have made for a more viable option than a butter or even lard pastry crust. Although some argue sweetened whipped cream is authentic top for key lime pie, that is doubtful for all the reasons listed above. And a meringue topping would have made use of the egg whites left out of the custard base, plus meringue would have the added bonus of lasting more than an hour in tropical conditions. 

As for where to find key limes in Portland, had you waited for my answer, I would have suggested stores that specialize in Mexican or Asian/Indian/Persian goods. My second choice would have been mixing the juice of kaffir limes with Perisan limes. Like a great or horrible manager, I delayed my response and left you to your own industriousness: You found key limes at Fred Meyer, I would have never guessed that.

How I Spent My Summer

True to the great indoorsman that I am July and August were spent inside. Not just my usual laying on the couch reading, poking around the kitchen, dithering self...no this time I was inside for a purpose or a reason anyway...I was getting to know the video editing program Final Cut Pro a little better.

My goal was to shoot videos for Portland Farmers Market. My first installment, Wag Eggs, is a reminder that we are incredibly sophisticated media consumers. Watch a season of the Wire or Mad Men and you know story, editing, sound design better than the most hard core movie enthusiast from 50 years ago. Take that viewing acumen, which you'd think would be a bonus, then try to make your own short film and you quickly realize the difference between doing and watching. It's harder than it looks even with a supportive and knowledgeable instructor and super-fast equipment.





The other short was a student film in which I play a charcter named Douchebag. Student Film, Douchebag, enough said:

Locally In Season: Sweet Onions

Ready for your Cliffy Claven fact of the day? Sweet Onions actually have less natural sugar in them than regular brown onions. What! Sweet onions are 8% sugar compared to the 12%, than what consumers call brown onions, but are usually grown, traded and sold as storage onions.

There are 4 factors in making an onion sweet: variety, soil, water content and growing temperature. Most sweet onions, wherever they are grown come from a Grano/Granex variety, for Vidalia’s there are 17 approved strains that can be grown, the sweet onion exception is Walla-Walla (more on that in a moment). Climate, micro-climate and soil conditions are always a factor in growing, the French concept of terrior does the best job of explaining this phenomena: The soils in  sweet onions fields are low in sulfur compounds, the low sulfur characteristic gives the onion its namesake sweetness. What little sulfur can be found is watered down - when comparing to storage onions, you’ll often hear people drop the adjective ‘juicy’ to describe the profile of a sweet onion. It is true and accurate; also worth noting, the strongest onions have the least water stored in their root.

Another paradox of sweet onions is they are associated with warm weather, Vidalia, Maui, Texas’ Sunbrero or the high desert fields of the Walla-Walla, yet cooler weather produces milder flavors. The answer to this paradox is most sweet onion seeds are sewn in the fall, slowly growing in the cool months netting a milder flavor.

Closer to home, Pacific Northwesterners have Walla-Walla onions. Geographically, Walla-Wallas have many of the attributes needed for sweet onions - located on the dry side of the Cascades in what would normally be a very dry climate, Walla-Walla onions are grown in region that has access to irrigation from river flow and benefits from ample snow pack. Unlike other sweet onions, our local variation comes from a different strain of seed than the Granex. In the late 1800s, a French soldier, Peter Pieri, brought a strain of onions from Corsica and introduced the varietal to the veg loving Italian farmers in the region - The birth of multi-culturalism in the Columbia basin or progenitor of fusion cooking? Selective plantings and adaptation to local growing conditions have produced our own branded sweet onion, whose season, like our summers, starts and stays a little late.

The fact of the matter, a Walla-Walla or Vidalia Onion could be grown in Iowa if not for the treat of a lawsuit. Vidalia’s were one of the first branded agricultural products in the US, eventually receiving State designation and Federal recognition in the 80s. Vidalia’s have transformed from the byproduct of a warm climate, first-to-market, spring crop into a premium agricultural product available 9 months a year. This was accomplished by use of aggressive marketing and Controlled Atmosphere (CA) technology, the same kind of low oxygen environment used to prolong the life of apples and pears.

So while Vidalia’s are a nice but extending the brand and season have diluted the quality.  Walla-Walla’s are better (seasonal/local), but I am not brand loyal. Give me the sweet onion that came out of the ground yesterday, a stick of butter and some chèvre and two hours and we can all enjoy a sweet onion tart.