Baloney, thy name is not O-S-C-A-R!

Friend of Saucyman, Charles Seluzicki is giving us a bunch of baloney.

COLD CUT CHRONICLES I


It is a sadness that the branded pink industrial paste marketed pre-sliced and vacuum-packed in chain stores has replaced the delicately seasoned, lightly smoked sausage popularly known, since the end of the 19th century in America, as baloney.

Baloney (also boloney, bologna) is loosely associated linguistically with the Italian sausage mortadella whose origins are found in Bologna. As with many terms in popular American usage, this word appears to have migrated out of the flux and welter of immigrant experience into the American mainstream. As time progressed the word "baloney" would labor under slang associations with nonsense. Like its little brother the hot dog, questions and myths about the actual content of baloney would arise, a dark undercurrent of the process of democratization as portions of the emerging middle class either forgot or rejected their immigrant origins. Those who remained true to both their past and their experience of well-made baloney would have nothing of these characterizations. Faith in baloney was a working class faith, 100% American. It is the first cold cut of childhood. "You can't," said Archie Bunker scoffing at his daughter's visit to a natural food store in the second episode of ALL IN THE FAMILY, "get anything more natural than baloney."

Baloney, in its most widely known form, is very finely textured mixture of both pork and beef, pink in hue, subtly flavored with sweet spices like cinnamon and nutmeg and lightly smoked. Its national origins are German. And there was a time in the not too distant past when one did not have to go to little shops to buy good baloney. In downtown Baltimore, Esskay Meats (founded in 1919 when the firms of Schluderberg and Kurdle merged) was butchering its own animals and processing meats of excellent quality well into the 1960's. Currently, Boar's Head is making good baloney that is available on a national scale.

Beef baloney was once almost entirely the province of Jewish delicatessans. To this day, Attman's Jewish deli in East Baltimore tucks a piece of fried baloney in with their hot dogs, a tradition unique to Baltimore. Else, beef baloney appears to be particularly Dutch. At least two such great beef balonies are still made in America. Lebanon baloney (named after the county of its origin in Pennslyvania) is very dark with heavily smoke cured beef, finely ground, and Pella baloney, named after the little town in Iowa, also makes a dark beef baloney as well as a lovely traditional German preparation, both commonly available in the ring baloney style. In Germany, the ring style is associated mainly with garlic baloney, a fashion that is found primarily on the East Coast.

The deli counters in the majority of food stores where they actually (pre)slice meat offer mind-numbing varieties of flavored turkey breasts, roast beef and ham glossy with saline solution slowly robbing them of their texture, perhaps a generic salami or two. Packets of cold cuts-the baloney, cotto, olive loaf- hang in rows like wallflowers at a dance or lie in cases in resealable bags touting "deli fresh," "deli thin." In my mind's eye, I mark them exhibit A, exhibit B: mournful impostors, corporate cartoons of humble and artful tradition.

-Charles Seluzicki

Roll out the Pierogi

Today’s post was going to be about quinine, the magical alkaloid that flavors tonic water. However, this weekend is Polish Fest and there just was not enough excitement at work – colleagues were not only not planning to get their pierogi on, few even knew what a pierog was or cared. So, I thought we could use today’s post to further the understanding of pieorgi.

Pierogi is the Polish word for a stuffed dumpling. They are known by other names and spellings across central and Eastern Europe– pirogi, pyrogi, varenyky, derelye, vareniki. No matter the spelling or country of origin, the words refer to a half moon/crescent shaped dumpling - similar to the Italian ravioli, the angolotti. At its simplest, it is rolled egg dough – again like you would find in a raviolo - but the two part ways over the filling - A pierog (singular) is filled with fairly common ingredients – potato, cabbage/sauerkraut, onion, bacon, farmer’s cheese, quark/cream cheese and/or mushrooms.

There are sweet versions of the dumpling as well and meat filled varieties but when I think of pierogi, I think of one kind: filled with potato, farmer’s cheese and onion. These are apparently known as Russian pierogi, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me. In Russia the pierogi are known as verniki or if they are filled with meat, pelmeni. Since this style of dumpling is endemic to the Baltic States, this doesn’t appear to be a case of borrowing a noun from another language or a dumpling from another culture, they are just Russian pierogi.

The dumpling, by any name, is prepared, usually by boiling – Ukrainians deep-fry their dumpling, the varenyky - the root of the word means to boil, which makes deep-frying odd (though not technically ironic). After cooking in water the dumpling can be sautéed in fat for extra flavor – bacon or goose are both popular and tasty but butter also does the job .

Pierogi ruskie – are delicious. The beauty of ravioli, filled with the comfort of mashed potatoes, topped with the indulgence of sour cream. Seriously, a plate of them will cost $5 dollars at St. Stanislaus this weekend. Or a person who isn’t in north Portland or isn’t inclined to make them could go to polana.com and order 3 - dozen for $29 plus shipping and handling.

Enjoy your weekend, Saucyman will return next week full of pierogi with an entry on Quinine, Charles Seluzicki gives us a bunch of baloney and the week will close out with a question about expensive versus cast iron pans.

Later in October, Saucyman will feature its first ever Sauthors Week™ profiling newly minted Author Matthew Dickman; Stegner Fella and first time author Mike McGriff and other treats including an interview J.D. Salinger – just about food, not about what he has been doing for the last few decades - the event will be enough to make Oprah and her book club jealous.

Bitter, Like my Soul

Saucyman, How can you abjure Gin and like Campari? Isn’t Campari just red Italian Gin? - Tonic

Careful there, sailor, you only got 2/3 of it right. Yes, Campari is Italian and it is unmistakably red but it isn’t Gin. Easy to understand the confusion though, it is often served with gin, most notably in a Negroni – equal parts gin, Campari and vermouth. Campari contains quinine, the bitter substance that both ameliorates symptoms of malaria and flavors tonic water – which on occasion has accompanied gin.

Campari was formulated in the late 1860s in Milan, Italy. Gaspare Campari opened a café/bar in the fashionable Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. His drink was known as bitter all’ ollandese – bitters in the style of Holland. In the modern era where all things Italian are affixed with a halo of beauty and artisan/artistic quality, it is hard to fathom that 150 years ago Italians, in fashion capital of Milan would view all things Hollandish (okay, Dutch) as the epitome of elegance and distinction.

Campari is a product that would never find traction in today’s market; where everything is made to be sweet, it is unapologetically bitter. Produced from 60 separate ingredients, the exact combination of ingredients is a secret, according to legend and PR materials only one person – IN THE WORLD - knows the precise recipe. Campari contains the alkaloid quinine along with, most likely, bergamot oil, bitter orange peel, rhubarb and ginseng. Originally, its hue was set by pulverizing the bodies of a cochineal insect/beetle, now the company, Gruppo Campari (who also own, produce, market and distribute SKYY Vodka, Cinzano Vermouth), uses artificial colorings to produce the desired red color.

Even if you can’t get around the taste, there are other reasons to like Campari: As cultural shorthand; when ordered by name in a movie, Campari always signifies its drinker is casually worldly in a way that those surrounding them are not. Campari turns up frequently in the work of Hemingway – it is nearly a minor character in A Farewell to Arms and perhaps because of the anti-malarial quinine, the drink turns up here and there in short stories set in Africa. Campari’s print advertising has been stunning, eye-popping, innovative and iconic for over 100 years – featuring such artists Fortunato Depero, Enrico Sacchetti and more recently Ugo Nespolo.

Besides the Negroni, Americano and the Campari & Soda, Waverly Root writes that marriage of Campari and eau de vie forms a drink called the Perfecto Amore - perfect love. Maybe not perfect and maybe not love but Campari, Soda and the juice from half an orange makes a really good and popular aperitif here in Saucyland. At 41 proof, about half the alcohol of whiskey or vodka, it is light. That along with the bitter flavor that really gets the salivary glands going, Campari is really is a good thing to enjoy before a meal even if the food isn’t Italian.

Dump and Dumplinger

Saucyman – Why Dump(ling) all over chicken? I thought home cooking was supposed to be good. – Doughboy

Despite being represented by chewy half-cooked versions offered up on cold days, dumplings have a rather virtuous lineage. The dumplings of the dim sum cart are believed to be progenitor - the alpha-dumpling: Gnocchi, tortellini, matzo balls and kreplach are all descendants and depending on how loose you want to get with the word both the noodle-like spaetzle and kluski could be classified as dumplings.

Maria Polushkin, author of Dumpling Cookbook, divides dumplings into 2 categories - dropped and filled. Filled dumplings, be they ravioli, wonton or pieorgi have been served in broth or fried in fat for time and eternity or something pretty close to that timeline. The objectionable chicken & dumplings comes from dropped branch of the dumpling family. Strictly utility, this dumpling is believed to have evolved from the practice of dropping bread dough in simmering stock or soup.†

Cookbooks use the words ‘feathery’, ‘light’ and ‘airy’ to describe drop dumplings, I don’t know if this is wishful thinking but I would be more likely to use ‘sodden’, ‘glutinous’ and ‘leaden’ before any delicate adjective. ‘Huge’ would also be a good descriptor of the dumplings I have known and this might be part of the problem.

An Inconvenient Ingredient

We might think of yeast or baking soda as leaving agents but these ingredients work by creating carbon dioxide, which in turn does all the lightening. In the new millennium, the baking powder is the tool of choice. Each manufacturer uses a different formula, so depending on the exact composition of chemicals; baking powder needs to reach a temperature between 100 – 140ºƒ (38-60 C) to fully activate. Since rapidly boiling liquid will break apart dough, the dumpling needs to be simmered - for a big drop dumpling, 5 minutes in 180ºƒ stock isn’t going to get the leavening done and if kept in the liquid too long waiting to heat up, the dumpling becomes saturated, loosing any desirable texture along the way. Perhaps there is a bit of mastery to a good dumpling.

Marilynne Robinson addresses the dumpling paradox in her novel Home. Here are the thoughts of Glory Boughton as she reflects on dinner she has prepared and is readying to eat:

She, also, had eaten some terrible dumplings. It occurred to her to wonder if they were ever good in the ordinary sense, if at best they were not just familiar, inoffensive. They were too inoffensive. It might have been the word “dumpling” she liked rather than the thing itself.

†Dumpling, the noun, was created in about 1600 when the English suffix, ing was married to its linguistic cousin, the Low German (Geography, not hierarchy) word dump - meaning damp, moist, heavy. Usage in Colonial America began with dumperlin’ and the word as we know it now, appeared in print for the first time in the 17th century to describe a ball of steamed dough.

Puns to Avoid

Saucy, Is there any place you wouldn’t eat at? Reservations

The closest thing I have to an dining aversion - is never order meat from a food service establishment that is on wheels. But that isn’t ironclad, I will make exceptions, like San Francisco’s diesel powered chicken masters, Roli Roti. Brined, salty, crispy, fragrant chicken from a truck that is clean enough to eat/cook off of/on.

My brother won’t eat at a restaurant that is a pun. This is a good proscription for avoiding the fallout from a hard night of Woking and Rolling, but as a prohibition it excludes many Thai restaurants: Thaipod, Beau Thai, Thaiger are no longer options. Thaiphoon is off the list but Typhoon is okay, actually Typhoon is really good, maybe that is why. Thaiphoid is understandably verboten but this anti-pun prejudice does nix the rather intriguingly named Thai Me Up. Occasionally, I run across an eatery like Citizen Cake or a cart like the bento/comparative lit sensation, The Riceman Cometh, and wonder if my brother would eat there.

Most of my fast food comes in the shape of pizza or the form of falafel. I haven’t been to a McDonald's in 14 years (my absence from Hardee’s, even longer) but one morning a coworker brought me a McGriddle and a black coffee and it not only wasn’t bad, it was pretty good. I hate to think about what combination of manipulated foods and artificial flavorings made it that way, but as far as taste goes, they nailed it. I do like Popeyes, but it isn’t that chicken I love: An anonymous friend has been known to make the occasional drunken run for the borders of Taco Bell, while I prefer the batter-dipped fries.

I am not a picky eater, more of a selective diner but traveling relaxes my natural instincts of where to eat, both out of necessity and sense of adventure. I have had no reservations about eating street food in Mexico, raw food even, like mango sprinkled with chili powder but I pretty much have a stainless steel intestinal track. I ate a slice of pizza at a Sbarro’s in Barcelona, something I would have never done closer to home, but you know it was 2 euros (Then, about a buck ninety three, Now = $7.85), I was hungry, over my per diem - which is actually budgeted over 7 days, more of a per weekem, and it did the job.

The only places I work to avoid are the casual dining outlets, the chains who advertise on TV – Applebee’s, Red Lobster, TGIF/Fridays, Olive Garden – the food has been fine each time I get roped into going and because I am not going to be that guy – If the movie has Hugh Grant or the menu has bloomin onions - I am not going to be the one to hold up a group activity. My objection here isn’t badness or goodness, it is what you strive for: An industry dedicated to a dietary standard based on the marriage of Nike and the Hippocratic oath – just do no harm - this offends me. Be horrifically bad, fall on your face trying or be really, really good at what you do but don’t set your sights to mediocrity.

Blessed Are the Peachmakers

The availability of ripe peaches is a bittersweet moment in Saucyland. One day it is all Gershwin and the livin’ is easy and then autumn sneaks up, especially here in the northwest where summer starts a little late and lingers on. Calendars matter little to the season here, but the appearance of fresh, local peaches mark the climacteric period of summer and things like warm, dry days are not to be taken for granted.

The peaches that I love, adore and think fondly of during the damp days of winter are Maryhill peaches. Grown in the sunny Columbia Gorge, the fruit travels about 100 miles from the east, crossing the river from Washington into Oregon. Even with the designation of most favored peach (MFP) and additionally factoring in that Seattle residents The Presidents of the United States lyrically referred to the fruit as nature’s candy – Washington isn’t really up there in terms of peach production: With only 2,600 acres (2-ish % of total US acreage) dedicated to growing the crop, making it improbable that there are millions of peaches and it is not theoretically possible those millions of peaches are for free, since the state values the crop at about 10 million USDs annually.

Georgia may be the Peachtree State, but it lags behind South Carolina and California in terms of overall production. California is again the winner, growing about 50% of fresh peaches and as a state they pretty much rule the processed peach market. 97% of jams, concentrates (think baby food or fruit in the yogurt container), frozen and canned peaches are produced in Callie.

The USDA lumps Peaches and Nectarines together for tracking purposes (Ballpark figure: nectarines account for about ¼ the total crop). In 2006, peaches were a ½ billion dollar crop and each US resident averaged 8.1 lbs of peaches/nectarines. Roughly speaking -

• 4 ½ pounds of those were consumed fresh.
  
• 3 of those 8 pounds came from a can.
  
• A little under a ½ pound were previously frozen.
  
• Less than a 1/4 pound were preserved in a dried state.
  

Until 1978 people ate more canned peaches than the fresh kind and although consumption is down from the high water mark of 1980, when the typical US resident consumed 13.1 pounds of peaches each, at least we have the canned versus fresh thing figured out.

Peaches are native to China despite the taxonomic classification of Prunus persica. Less botanically and more practically - peaches are classified either freestone or clingstone. This binary designation marks whether the fruit sticks to the pit or not: Also, this grouping indicates how the fruit will be sold in the market – freestones whose flesh breaks easily from the pit are meant to be eaten fresh, while the clingstones are grown pretty much to live in a can. In the last 10 years growers and purveyors have marketed white, yellow, donut (the shape, not the texture) peaches as well as attempting to brand some varietals such as Gold Dust, Spring Lady and Flavorcrest with less success.

As a cousin of almonds, any form of baked peaches taste better with amaretto, almond extract or toasted almonds cooked along side them. Peaches are good with brandy, less good distilled into it and completely wasted in the form of schnapps. I have no idea how one earns the classification of Diva, but 3 different books described Nellie Melba, the woman who put the Melba after Peach as a Diva, although I doubt any of the authors knew her well enough to make that assessment. Unless of course one becomes a Diva when there is a dessert named after you - Holy crap, Cherry/Jerry Garcia is a Diva.

Sweet Toastable You

Saucyman, what can you tell me about pop-tarts? Cereal Killer

Kellogg’s introduced their foil wrapped toaster pastries to customers in 1964, after borrowing an idea from historic arch rival, Post. Kellogg's rushed pop-tarts to market - developing, testing, naming and marketing in only 6 months after Post showed a product called Post Country Squares – a toastable jelly and pastry breakfast food - to reporters in 1963. Country Squares claim to fame was that it was a developed by using crossover technology adapted from Gaines, the dog food company, who had previously engineered a system to wrap individual servings of dog food that would remain moist on throughout its shelf life.

Pop-Tarts did not fare well in tests with adults, at least according to Carolyn Wyman in her book about the foods that shaped baby boomer’s palates, Better Than Homemade. Complaints ranged from ‘the pastry was too hard’ to ‘It doesn’t fit in my toaster’. It was a Kellogg’s employee, the curiously named Bill Post, who tripped upon the best marketing info money couldn't buy, test or focus-group, discovering his children couldn’t get enough of them.

With the target audience identified, Kellogg’s - a company seeped in the history of the vegetarian health food ideas of Seventh Day Adventist doctrine – ran commercials targeted at the under 10 set featuring the likes of Hanna-Barbera’s Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear. Later the cartoon toaster ‘Milton’ was created to adorn packaging and sell pop-tarts to youngins. Personally, I think a talking toaster offering sweet treats to children is creepy in a big way = total stranger danger.

Frosting was added in 1967, which had the net effect of amazingly adding more sugar to the product and doubling sales within a year. Sprinkles were soon embedded in the frosting soon after that, the only real changes to the product have been in the flavor department.

Kellogg’s website lists 36 different flavors of pop-tarts currently available‡, Canadians only have access to 8 flavors but they do have better prices on prescription drugs, funny priorities. There are now whole grain pop-tarts – the whole grain goodness is augmented by corn syrup, trans fats and contain enough salts that one pastry, and who eats just one, accounts for 7% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of sodium. It is funny how people choose healthier diets. Rather than trying to health-up a bad habit, Saucyman recommends indulging in the occasional donut - also titularly for breakfast, also jelly filled but whole grain pop-tarts, a product that offers 12% of RDA of fiber to the broccoli adverse might not be as awful as it first seems.

Besides bombs, the US has dropped over 2 million pop-tarts in Afghanistan. With the want of food in wartime and a 9-month shelf life, maybe this is truly humanitarian aid. That pop-tarts are the food of hardship is proven out by New York Times reporting that Wal-Mart’s sales data found that along with batteries and flashlights, those hunkering down in the face of a hurricane loaded up on strawberry pop-tarts (and beer). It would be more than interesting to contrast that data with the products Whole Foods customers hoard in the face of impending danger.

The early 1990s brought about a spate of lawsuits alleging pop-tarts were the cause of house fires. This outraged Andy Rooney, who more improbably than a pop-tart fueled fire is still on 60 Minutes shaking his fist and telling the kids to get off his metaphorical lawn. 70% of pop-tarts are heated in toasters or microwaves. The other 30 % are consumed straight out of the foil, usually over keyboards by computer programmers: Observers have suggested that computer innovations and internet fortunes were fueled by the caloric burn of pop-tarts. Despite their cultural saturation, neither Don DeLillo nor David Foster Wallace has written a novel contemplating the role pop-tarts play in the lives of baby boomers or Gen-Xers, maybe a millennial novelist will write the work threading a single working parent, a microwave, a pop-tart and a killer ap into one impressive narrative.

‡ Just for the sake of comparison - not counting sorbets and frozen yogurt Ben and Jerry’s offers 45 different kinds of ice cream.

That is a Bunch of Tripe

September 27th and 28th marks the annual Polish Festival of St. Stanislaus Parish. Located about a half mile from the Saucyman World Campus, the festival is so much more than a tribute to pierog/pirogi and beer. There is music, cultural stuff, every sort of John Paul II memoribilia a person could want and up until a few years ago there was tripe soup. Friend of Saucyman, Charles Seluzicki has the story...

The old ladies, I prefer the Polish term of respect pani, I was told, were not cooking anymore and with them the great pot of flaczki - Polish tripe soup - was gone as well. Though I had grown up with many of the foods prepared by my immigrant Polish grandmother, I had never tasted tripe soup before having it at the Polish Festival held annually at St. Stanislaus Church in Portland. It was a revelation – The tender tripe in its beefy broth and simply flavored with onion, garlic and fresh herb belied the unhappy caricatures of tripe's "rubbery" texture, and its poor standing as a food.

In truth, the status of tripe has never been very high. Maria Dembinska's FOOD AND DRINK IN MEDIEVAL POLAND (1999) talks of farmers retaining it for their own use after selling off choicer cuts and preserving it for winter in barrels of sauerkraut in the same manner that wealthier classes held pork and corned beef. This preserved tripe, she reports, seems to have been eaten by all classes as a "cold weather emergency food." Jane Grigson, speaking of the breakdown of the system of strict divisions applied to meat preparation in later 19th century France, says: "Only the tripier seems to have lost prestige, supplying poor families and shabby hotels..."

Verbally tripe is rubbish, nonsense, specious reasoning. To diners, tripe doesn't enjoy a great reputation either. It is the stomach of any ruminant (grazing, grass eating) mammal, most commonly a cow. Anatomically, this stomach is a configuration of three stomachs, each with its own purpose, all edible, though the familiar honey-combed second stomach is the most popularly prepared. These days tripe is available cleaned and blanched, freeing the modern cook of the elaborate rituals of soaking and cleansing once, in centuries past, the sole province of the tripier who was exclusively licensed to prepare the innards of animals.


Tipplers and tripiers from Mexico to Europe to Turkey to the Pho loving Vietnamese universally agree that tripe soup, in widely various combinations of herbs and meats, is an effective hangover cure. The better Mexican restaurants here in town routinely have a pot of menudo (traditionally made with sheep's tripe) bubbling away on Saturday mornings. The hydrating function of soup is an obvious value to any bleary-eyed sot who can navigate his spoon into his mouth (the "other" drinking problem.) But tripe is very rich in collagen as well. It is the drinker's collagen, all of that connective joint tissue, that is particularly effected by alcohol, producing the resultant achy, robotic articulation of limbs so perfectly attuned to diminished brain function. If the science is still out on this one (and it appears to be), the drinkers of the world have spoken.

Charles Seluzicki

Highway From the (Food) Danger Zone

Saucyman, I went to make soup this weekend. Every cookbook, each recipe instructed me to heat the contents up to a boil and then reduce the temperature. What is the logic in this? – Simmering

There are two reasons for instructing cooks to hurry up and wait. The first is to move food quickly out of the food danger zone. Heating liquids to a boil is like pasteurizing cream - by heating contents the threat from the icky stuff has been neutralized.

Bacteria love temperatures between 40º - 140º ƒ (5-60 C) – organisms will multiply in this temperature range. By bringing the contents in your pot to a boil - 212º ƒ (100 C), you are most assuredly killing off things like the 2,300 different strains of Salmonella, who abhor temperatures above 165ºƒ (75 C). E. Coli is mostly taken care of when temperatures reach 155ºƒ (68 C); the possibility of Trichina Spiralis a.k.a trichinosis is negated at 150ºƒ (65 C); Listeria doesn’t like it above 160ºƒ (70 C).

The second purpose for having cooks boil first then reduce the temperature has to do with the vagueness of the term simmer. For what it lacks in nuance, English is usually more precise than Romance languages. An exception to this rule is in the kitchen: For those who cook in French – language not cuisine – there are 2 separate words for cooking liquids below the boiling point. Mijoter is the equivalent of simmer - the point that small bubbles rise to the surface of a pan. If a simmer/mijoter was too rough and tumble for a dish, those working a la Francaise would be instructed to fremir, which is something between a poach and a simmer, where the cooking liquid is kept low enough so no bubbles form.

Back in English, writing a recipe that instructs soup makers to “Simmer” causes a couple problems. There is there isn’t a common definition for a simmer. Although most people accept 180ºƒ (82 C) as a simmer, some consider 160º ƒ to be simmering – things like a 10% difference in temperature matter in cooking.

Along the same lines, if a recipe states to simmer for 90 minutes, how quickly you reach a simmer makes a difference. Not all kitchens are created equal - A spiffy copper/clad/anodized pan heated up on medium over a gas burner is going to get hotter quicker than a cast iron pot placed heating up on a medium setting over a small electric burner. The fancy pants equipment might get the contents of a pan to 180 degrees in tens of minutes, while the combination of a heavy pan cooking on a small heating element could take hours to reach a simmer. Telling cooks to first bring a pot to a boil, then reducing heat and cook for ‘X’ amount of time erases any discrepancy in equipment – everyone is working on a level playing field.

Being safe and consistent might not be the most exciting way to live life, but it isn't a bad thing when making a pot of soup.

Bring Me Some Figgy Goodness

For the next few weeks it will be fresh fig season here in Oregon. I never tasted a fresh fig until I moved to the west coast, I am not alone is this deprivation. California, which is pretty much the domestic producer for the States, only harvests an estimated 10% to 20% of its fig crop to be sold fresh. Delicate and soft, they are not really suited for long transit. The USDA doesn’t even track per capita consumption of fresh figs, their website offers data for dried figs, which worked out to about 3 oz per resident in 2006, down by half in the last 25 years. The USDA website informs us in 2006, each American was served over 7 pounds of the more prevalent raisin – although between cereal and cookies getting picked over, I am not sure about how many of those raisins actually go down the gullet.

Figs are part of the mulberry family. Cultivated for over 6000 years, they were known to the empires of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Despite this long history, the fruit of the fig tree is described as pryiform or pear shaped. Perhaps the non-Mediterranean pear, domesticated at a later date, should be described as fig like in appearance.

The plant itself is a bit of an oddity; Harold McGee states the fruit of the fig is more flower than fruit, the body is like a flower folded in on itself: If you look close, what appears to be the fig seeds are actually the tiny and multiple florets of a flower. Equally as strange, some species (471 according to a study cited by Russ Parsons) will self-pollinate: These varieties include the Mission, Turkish and Kadota figs. Others like the delicious Calimyrna need a special co-evolved tiny wasp to aid the fruit’s fertilization process. The process of luring the wasps to pollinate a given fig tree is done by tying fig boughs in a fertile tree or by growing a hermaphrodite fig tree in proximity. This practice is called caprification, which sounds like a verb meaning ‘to taper pants at the knee’.

Culturally, figs figure prominently in cusses and curses. A sycophant is literally one ‘who shows the fig’ in order to win favor. People claim ‘not to give a fig’ - this might seem like a sanitized stand-in for a different ‘F’ word but the phrase is quite old and the sentiment is more along the lines of Rhett Butler’s apathy at the end of Gone with the Wind. By thrusting their thumb between their index and middle fingers, Italians give people the fig - this is akin to giving the finger, which really isn’t a gift at all in the housewarming sense, although like many housewarming gifts - lots of people instinctively regift the finger right back. According to Mark or his gospel anyway; Jesus, hungry, came upon a fig tree with no fruit upon its branches. Despite it not being fig season, he cursed the tree so that it would never bear fruit for others – I know, a better miracle would have been to make the tree bloom fruit in winter. Instead, we have be the largely forgotten parable of the low blood sugar.◊

The best way to select a ripe fig is to look for the plump ones. They should smell alluring, slightly exotic, evoking memories of something sweet on the lips and tongue. Watch out for a fermented smell and spots of mold. Some peel their figs, though there is no need to do this, if the skins are thick, cut in half and you can scrape the fruit with your teeth – the more demure might want to use a spoon, but use either a grapefruit spoon or one that has taken a few spins in the garbage disposal in order to separate the skin from the pulp.

Pureed figs in balsamic vinaigrette are way good. For those who don’t have the time to puree, figs cut in 1/2 or 1/4s and tossed in a salad produces the same net result. In either case use bitter greens to contrast the sweetness of the fig. A fig (or two) spread on toasted bread makes for a fine crostini, but the same combo with soft goat cheese exists on a higher plane. Figs wrapped in a slice of prosciutto shame the similar melon appetizer with their greatness. Speaking of pork, figs first halved then laboriously worked with roasted garlic into a pork tenderloin, which is then grilled on top of rosemary branches is good; Sliced, broiled figs accompanying roasted quail is better. Fig ice cream or gelato = way good, Fresh warm figs with a Port or Madeira zabaglione is a great desert.

Go, enjoy your fresh figs while the season lasts.

◊ Also biblically, Judas hung himself from a fig tree and Adam and Eve covered themselves in fig leaves.

Sterling Pound Cake

Saucyman – Cupcakes come in a cup but Pound Cake doesn’t weigh a pound, please explain? – Metrics

Historically, Pound Cake was produced with a pound each of flour, butter, sugar and eggs – which actually produced something more akin to a 4 Pound Cake. Also historically, I once told someone at a party a Pound Cake was “A pound of flour; a pound of butter; a pound of sugar; 8 large eggs - which is about a pound and a pound of yeast.” I had a beer in my hand, a smile on my face - I don’t take myself seriously when I say things like that, I have no idea why anyone else would, but the subsequent cell phone call from the grocery store asking if she really needed 32 packets of yeast set off a chain of mutual embarrassment that our acquaintanceship was never able to overcome.

Just for future reference: Saucyman, the internet based food Q & A website, is researched and double-sourced for factual accuracy. The other Saucy-man, me at a party, is not always the most credible source of information - even if the subject is well within my wheelhouse - like baseball statistics, my beloved Blazer’s, what John Kerry should have done differently in 2004 or surprisingly food. Be careful of the circumstances we encounter each other.

Pound Cakes are butter cakes, whose taxonomic genus includes - 1234 Cakes, which consists of 1 C. Butter, 2 C. sugar, 3 C. Flour, 4 Eggs; the French, Quatres-quarts; The German, Sandtorte and the Cupcake. Butter cakes differ from cakey-cakes both in ingredients and technique. A cakey-cake - like a sponge cake, use less butter, more eggs and relies on a matrix of air and protein, usually in the form of whipped eggs to leaven the cake.

Butter cakes are combined in what is called the 'creaming method': Softened butter and sugar are mixed together – this is also how cookies begin their life. This mixing of fat and sweet forms little air bubbles, the addition of chemical leaveners (usually in the form of baking powder), enlarge these nascent bubbles which raise the cake. That’s right, baking powder does not form bubbles, rather expands the bubbles that already exist. This is why adding extra baking powder doesn’t help make things lighter – adding more baking powder will either create big bubbles which detract from the overall texture of cake or worse adding more powder runs the risk of expanding the bubbles until they pop, resulting in something the exact opposite of lighter.

A true Pound Cake, made with equal measurements of the four principal ingredients, would be so dense it would make a Christmassy fruit cake seem like an Angel Food Cake in comparison. The great Rose Levy Beranbaum’s aptly named, The Cake Bible, includes a recipe for ‘Perfect Pound Cake’. Eggs, flour and sugar are called for in equal measures but only in 5.25 ounce increments – making for something more like a 1/3 of a Pound Cake. In this recipe, butter is allotted a superior 6.5 ounces, meaning it would be Prime Minster if the cake were baked in a Parliamentary system.

Although they are relatively cup-shaped, the name Cupcake has nothing to do with their physique – they are more like a wee pound cake, using the diminutive measurement of a cup for the principal ingredients. Doesn’t make them any less good, but does help explain why they are smaller.

Saucyman returns Thursday with an all new post. Next week we will return to our thrice-weekly posting schedule, including Charles Seluzicki’s thoughts on tripe.