Tastes like Chicken

[Saucy] I was grilling chicken last week…I think that was the first time I REALLY ever thought about chicken and no I wasn’t high. Chicken can be good but the preponderance of the time it runs from not tasting good to not tasting like anything. So why chicken; why this one bird instead of all other birds; why is it everywhere; why don’t we eat other birds? Also how do you grill it without drying it out?

You wouldn't think it wouldn't have been the chicken: About 4000 years ago the Chinese domesticated ducks for egg production. Around the same time, the Egyptians began to exploit the duck's migratory habitat along the Nile to collect duck eggs. But it was the guinea fowl, relative to the chicken and native to Africa, that became a feature in the Pharaoh’s 2^nd dynasty. Egyptians built brick incubators that could hatch over 10,000 chicks at a time, a technology that has only recently been matched by modern man.

The conquerors of Egypt, the Greeks loved roasted birds of all stripes, but the Romans loved chicken. They also loved grain, which was largely imported. In an effort to save grain, a sumptuary law was passed forbidding the eating of fattened hens, which lead to the eating of fattened male birds, capons – the law of unintended consequences is something to think about as we eagerly wait to tax soda pop. Geese, swans, peacock, pheasant, were all popular foodstuffs well until the Middle Ages. Pouleteers, merchants who sold roasted birds (household kitchens did not really exist in urban settings, price of fuel, lack of ventilation, etc), would have made a roasted chicken as enticing and easy as those rotisserie chickens are today. Also worth noting, Pouleteers were not the part of any guild or trade association, making their product cheaper with fewer restrictions on how and where it could be sold.

The bible isn't full of ducks or chickens which is a clue to how popular they were in the Levant but they were popular in Europe. Through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, the roasted bird is a prominent feature in paintings. Chickens small size and ability to live on scraps made them ‘passengers’ on sailing ships that went around the world with explorers. Some reasonably make the argument the chicken reached the new world before Columbus. However the bird arrived, for centuries European settlers were more likely to exploit natural wildlife stocks than set up henhouses.

It wasn’t until the mid 19^th Century that a combination of Darwinian concepts of improvement, affordable education via the expansion of land grant colleges and agricultural entrepreneurship fueled what is called ‘hen fever’. The new breeds were prized more for their egg laying abilities than for meat. In 1928 when Herbert Hoover promised ‘a chicken in every pot’, US citizens were eating a ½ pound of meat per year and chicken cost more than steak or lobster in the store. At the end of WWII we were eating 5 pounds; by 1970 - 40 pounds, which is pretty close to the average today in the EU. In the new millennium, we consume close to 90 pounds per person per year in the States and chicken meat is cheaper than new potatoes in the store.

There are some pretty favorable policies that make chickens cheap, while price is related to consumption; on a certain level culturally we like chicken…In the US there are far more chickens than people. Culinarily - chicken is quick, cheap and easy, which outside of hardcore-foodist circles are pretty big answers to the question ‘What’s for dinner’.

Part 2: How to grill a chicken, will be answered next week

Really Love Your Peaches

Peaches are in season in Oregon - a blissful monthish long celebration of local bounty. Outside of of the state, peaches pretty much reflect the modern domestic market for all fruits - Callie is the home of most of the crop 80% of it. Georgia, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington make up the rest of the market. Like other fruits and veg; US farmers are dropping production as S. America is picking it up. Chile is the number 1 importer,  almost exclusively in the form of fresh fruits in the winter months (as opposed to flooding the market with preserved fruits). 40 years ago there were 14 pounds of peaches available for each resident, now we have 9 pounds each. We eat roughly the same amount of fresh fruit - canned has taken the brunt of the decline; 1977 was the last year we ate more canned peaches than fresh.

I like my peaches homegrown and they go almost exclusively to Oregonians, at least according to a published study by Oregon State University, most of Oregon’s peaches are sold directly to consumers.  The local market makes sense, The Department of Ag tells us in 2009, growers were paid on average about $800 per ton for fresh peaches and around $300 for processing grade fruit. If I pay $3 a pound at the farmers market and there are 2000 pounds in a ton…I am glad that that money is going to the local grower.

Selling directly to consumers is one way to fetch a premium for a crop. Another way is grow exotic varieties. White fleshed peaches and nectarines are something you will see more and more at the markets – not a new variety, actually this low acid variety hearkens back to the 1850s, when yellow varieties took over (the color looks better coming out of a can)(really). And before the US was a glimmer in Americo Vespucio’s telescope, white fleshed peaches were prized in China. Flat, donut or Saturn peaches are another variation on what was once old is now new – these varieties were purportedly grown so Chinese Emperors would not suffer the humiliation of having juices spill into their beards.

China is the ancestral homeland to the peach even though the fruit’s Latin name persica means Persia, which is probably where they came to the attention of the Roman Empire; Romans liked fresh foods more than their Greek predecessors. The trees came to this continent with the Spaniards in the 16th century. And just to close the circle - a breeding frenzy close to the 20th century, not that dissimilar to the dot-com boom a century later, had nursery men, the entrepreneurs of that era, importing trees and seeds from China looking for the next killer fruit.

The story of how the Elberta peach, born of this fruit bubble, became the most popular peach in the world and the peach-daddy to almost every cultivar and landrace in the US is a post onto itself. And that will have to wait, because I have peaches to eat.


Share

Tonic For Your Worries

Ideas for drinks of the adult variety for a croquet party? We need the drink to be refreshing, won’t aide getting drunk in the midday sun and are unique and is easy to prepare - Please don’t say beer

The trick is offer something refreshing but not quenching - Sweet and cold on a hot day is a recipe for drunkenness - Avoid champagne cocktails like a Kir Royal, but the archaic Royal would be a good. I am going to say beer in this post, but in the form of ginger beer, a soft drink that is sharper in flavor and less sweet than the comparatively tame ginger ale. For a Royal, ginger beer along with bitters and brandy are stirred in ice, strained and served up. Chose a cognac like Brillet’s Blanc, which weighs in around 17% alcohol, only slightly stronger than wine - it will take some work to get drunk on that, even in the hot sun.

Pimm’s is a gin-based alcohol flavored with quinine, citrus and spices and it is a traditional lawn beverage, (it is to Wimbledon as a Mint Julep is to the Kentucky Derby). In a Jefferson Pimm's Cup, Pimm's is mixed with ginger beer, a slice of cucumber, mint sprig, an orange wedge and maraschino cherry, then served in an ice-filled glass. The Jefferson has the twin advantages that ginger beer is guzzle-resistant because it has a bite to it and Pimm’s is lower in alcohol – 50 proof as opposed to vodka, bourbon and rum’s 80 proof minimum. As a bonus, like croquet it is tres English.

Gin and tonic can be quite refreshing and very English. In addition to being the devil’s water, Gin is 80 proof; tonic is sweetened, so doesn’t this negate everything I have said up to this point? A good strong tonic water like Fever Tree is sharp enough that even the thirstiest malleteer will pace himself. Plus the addition of finely diced cucumber in the glass will do wonders for the flavor and people chew the cucumber, it slows down the drinking to a respectable pace.

Campari is also low in alcohol. I think summertime is all about Campari and soda the same way I think the winter is about all spaghetti carbonara and wool sweaters. Campari, detailed here is bitter: quinine, bitter oranges and ginseng are the base for the Italian aperitif. I love Campari with chilled soda or mineral water. Campari with Pellegrino – either lemonta and orange/aranciata and you know, the sweetness mitigates some of the sharp flavors of Campari but it does make the drink more accessible to a wider audience. There are responsibilities to hosting, you can nudge your guests in a certain direction and make it easy to try new things but getting all Henry Higgins on your guests and teaching them the proper way to do things is a bit boring.

You don’t have to have a full bar to your guests: 1 or 2 thoughtful offerings, along with 2-3 non-alcohol substitutions and plenty of water. Offer food, real food - cucumber sandwiches and/or Dorritos won’t cut it if people are drinking. Happy croqueting.

Share

Sweatin Weather

I am supposed to ‘sweat’ some onions. Huh, how, to what purpose?

If stir-frying is 11 on the amp that is cooking, then sweating is about 2 ½ - Total Greg Brown action.

Sautéing is a little closer to my domain, in the middle of the road. My brother Carl previously defined sauté here as a jump-leaping action. If sautéing is to fry food purposefully in a fat, sweating takes a more desultory approach to the task at hand. Italian cookery employs the soffritto where aromatics – celery, onion, garlic, parsley are slowly heated together with olive oil to concentrate and intermingle the flavors. This flavor becomes the foundation for sauce, soup, rice or a braise. In Spanish, both the language and country, the term is Sofrito and the technique is the same although ingredients will vary region to region. In Portugal it the same variation of Iberian ingredients cooked slowly is called refogado. In Puerto Rico it is sofrito even though salt pork and peppers are items being sweated together.

Mentioned maybe once, possibly twice, on this very blog, high heat is the # 1 impediment facing home cooks in the States. The ability to get your stovetop hot enough to forge brass is cool and all, but it doesn’t really help prepare meals faster, only in a very particular style – one that caramelizes food. The resulting flavor is a rich, dark caramel flavor we gravitate towards in the States (coffee, cola, etc.) but it is the antithesis of sweating.

Sweating takes place a temperature low enough to prevent browning but high enough to extract moisture from the ingredients in the pan. If this action were taking place in a pot of water, it would be akin to a low simmer, about 150 -160 degrees. It is so much more difficult to measure the temperature at the bottom of a frying pan and say this happens at X temp. Instead you need to keep your cooking all low and slow.

If you tool around the kitchen at all, you have sweated onions whether you have called it that or not. Cookbooks instruct cooks to heat the onions until translucent, sometimes even a recipe will flat out state to sweat the onions. Sweating is exactly how a person would want to cook onions and garlic for the base of a tomato sauce, which is the way you will find me using the sweating technique in the Saucykitchen. Although that could change, last week I read towards the end of his life, Picasso was fond of the uber-Catalan dish (or the Catalan language equivalent of uber) consisting of haricot beans, garlic and aged chorizo sweated together. Apparently, bread and wine goes real nicely with that, I will find out soon enough.

Share

Tryence of the Lamb

 I’m thinking about trying lamb (I have never had any before). How should I have it? – Not a vegetarian; grew up in a beef-chicken-pork place with only the occasional shellfish and pasta sauce came from a jar.

Sheep were probably the first livestock to be domesticated as much for their milk and wool as meat. They arrived in the North America with the Spanish settlers. And they came to the US on the Mayflower (take that bluebloods). In colonial days, costal Massachusetts islands were cleared of predators and turned in to low labor sheep farms. Despite this, the US has never been a sheep-centric culture - there have been an estimated 61 million sheep grazed across in the US; the peak years were in the 1940s - the demand for wool was at its greatest during WWII. Since then it has been a slow steady decline for herds – over 60%. (Comparatively, Australia is currently home to 100 million sheep.)

As synthetic fibers have replaced wool, reducing herd sizes, lamb became more expensive. Coupled with the ascendance of milder, less-fatty, cheaper pork and inexpensive/lean chicken have translated to less mutton and lamb in the American diet. Oh and a generation of Americans who were only able to eat sheep during wartime rationing turned their back on it when other dietary choices became available. Currently vague fears about mad cow disease, anthrax (for real) and a constant theme in American Foodways; traditional foods are one of the first things sacrificed on the road to assimilation. (Lamb/mutton eating is a little warped since the British still love them some sheep and many of our accepted food customs are based on the supposed diet of the Edwardian gentry, but this strange bit of Anglophilia isn’t for me to untangle. 

If lamb consumption is low and falling, with US residents eating less than a pound per person annually, eating mutton isn’t even tracked. Little pieces of data indicate two notable exceptions in mutton eating – Middle Eastern and Latin American populations are still big consumers. Or at the opposite end of the spectrum and you are old school and like your martinis pink and your golf courses green - one survey of menus found steak houses are the most likely place to offer a mutton chop, you a real one not the retro-hipster facial hair kind.

Roasted leg with Gremolata is good, but that can be a little intense especially for a lamb novice, a lamvice. That being said, you might want to try any of these 3 ways to taste lamb:

1)    Shank; like Ossobuco only without the veal. A shank usually braised in red wine, served with white beans, polenta, risotto or lentils tastes good. Plus the meat is the sideshow in these preparations, you can pick and taste to get started. 

2)    Chop. Grilled or roasted a lamb chop is so very good. Aioli or pesto spooned on a warm chop is very good.

3)    Burger. Yes, a lamburger. Or even a sausage, both are familiar yet different, allowing you to be comfortable as you ease into your new food.

Other thoughts for your lamb adventure, lamb would be the more traditional meat in Massaman Curry. Many Indian foods feature lamb. A shoulder can be used in pot roast of pot-a-feu. Mexican Style BBQ lamb with cumin and garlic. Or if you like, ease into the situation with a gyro – half beef/half lamb all spices - it is a good way to get started. Oh and good for you for being adventurous and trying new things. 

Share

Of Beer & Burgers

“It’s like your lunch and 2 other people’s lunches are having a 3-way in your mouth” - Stephen Colbert.

Mr. Colbert was referring to Friendly's Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt. 8 oz of ground beef nestled between two grilled cheese on white bread.

1500 glorious calories. I don't know what surprises me more: The 4 grams or sugar (could I get the insulin on the side please), 2 grams of salt (that is a teaspoon of salt, your entire Recommended Daily Allowance in one serving) or 9 grams of dietary fiber - Where does it come from, the Iceberg lettuce and tomato are there for color contrast - having surrendered all their nutritional value when they climbed under the beef patty.

Friendly's is a chain of restaurants located along the Atlantic seaboard in these United States. There are roughly 500 of them but if you live west of Ohio, you are out of luck and will have to find your own local variation of the literal grilled-cheese-burger. Consumer Reports, the magazine known for encouraging people to create spreadsheets in order to buy a freaking toaster, is often viewed as humorless, but on their blog side, the consumerist.org, adroitly notes, "The Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt appears to be inspired by similar "Fatty Melts" and "Chubby Melts" that have been served in the South for a few years now". Beat the subtle humor out of the intern before its too late...

Here in Portland, there is a similar entree, The Cheesus Burger available from the Grilled Cheese Grill, a cart or more accurately, a school bus. The Cheesus Burger is only to be ordered ironically (even if you sincerely enjoy it) and not too often or the skinny jeans will cease to fit the hipster. And speaking of skinny jeans, hipsters and appreciating things ironically - Pabst beer was sold last week to C. Dean Metropoulos.

Metropoulos, both a person and a company, takes over Pabst from Kavlmanovitz Charitable Foundation, which makes sense because the flavor of Pabst always felt like you had to be doing someone a favor by drinking one. Unfortunately, the IRS ruled that a charitable group could not run a for profit business - A shame too, Pabst's a half-billion dollars a year in sales, sweetened their endowment quite nicely.

Pabst whose brands include Old Milwaukee, Stroh's and Old Style is a company that doesn't advertise, unless of course that is its advertising strategy, in which case they are total marketing Ninjas. They also don't make beer: having closed their breweries between 1996-2001, turning the brewery buildings into lofts (cool right, they are located in Milwaukee, available to renters) and contracting the actual work of brewing to MillerCoors - who will continue to do so contractually through 2014. Although Metropoulos is indicating MillerCoors can keep on brewing while they hope to do for the Pabst brand what they have done previously in takes overs of such iconic foods as Chef Boyardee, and there is a bastard who needed a complere makeover.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Thought for Food - Kentucky Tuna & Grilled Cheese Burger Melt<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Locally Devoted to You

I accept I am supposed to eat locally and seasonally but really, apricots? What do you do with apricots? What The Fruit

The 2 biggest uses for apricots are drying them or preserving them (jam, crystallizing or distilling) - these activities do not speak well for the flavor of the fresh variety. California and as with so much else grown in California, is the US crop – producing 94% of the US harvest, most of it in the San Joachim Valley. The remaining production is located in Washington and Utah with all other states producing a negligible crop that is sold fresh, locally. About 2/3 of the Cali harvest is processed, much of that is dried, and much of that dried fruit is exported, while the US imports dried apricots from Turkey and other countries. Go figure.

The USDA statistics claim we eat about .2 pounds of fresh apricots per person. On average US residents consume 3 times more dried apricots than fresh variety and we eat twice as many canned/frozen apricots as the fresh kind. And that doesn’t take into account things like the 4 pounds of apricots from a friend's tree I will process into about a pound of jam. (That means I am taking the quota for 20ish people, adding sugar to it and freezing the excess, but this still counts as fresh fruit consumption).

All this kind points to the issue that apricots aren’t really the best-tasting, sweetest fruit with a longest storage capacity in the world. And this digs down into the enigma of fresh, local, seasonal ideals: Is fresh a food fetish, a return to a more Edenic time or an anachronism in a fast food world? Suppose that apples were planted in abundance in the US and grown for cider, hard cider and the edible, storable varieties had as much to do with temperance as keeping the doctor away…

Let’s also suppose that despite the best efforts of plant breeders, transportation systems and agricultural marketers, the best use of an apricot remains the same as it has been since antiquity; dried. The act of drying condenses the sweetness of the fruit, concentrates its mineral and vitamin contents (Even canned apricots contain more vitamin C than an apricot that was picked under ripe or stored too long). Plus drying preserves the abundance of the crop - making apricots available year around. Over the centuries breeds and varieties have been selected for their ability to be dried and stored, not picked off the branches and eaten. Maybe fresh apricots, really only available on the west coast and then only to a self-selecting group of fruitophiles willing to pay a premium, really aren’t at their best fresh.

Then again most of the cherry crop is preserved and there are some varieties that taste great fresh off the tree. I have been eating my apricots with yogurt. My apricot grower friend likes them in oat pancakes. On the savory side - roasted apricots with lamb and curry seems to be a standard bearer. Almost universally, apricots are used to make a simple syrup glaze that is brushed on almost everything with fresh fruit in the pastry kitchen. Split in half, stuffed with an almond and sprinkled with ground pistachios was the best idea I unearthed looking at recipes. Generally cookbooks, at least the ones in the Saucytorium, recommend doing all the things you’d do with peaches or plums: sorbets, ice creams, clafoutis, galettes, pies, and one book calls for a tart (with an almond flavored pastry cream. Bonus - the roasted kernel of the apricot is what gives the bitter almond flavor, the noyaux, to Amaretto and amaretti cookies, it is not a breed of bitter almonds used to produce these scents. The thing is, you don’t have to like fresh apricots, there is plenty of other fruit around to enjoy.

Share

Mint Basilica

Saucy, Basil? Other than I like it, I don’t know too much about it. – Pestoed

Basil is a member of the mint family and according 5 different books, all published within the last 10 years, each dependable, claim basil originated in Turkey or possibly Iran or definitely India and probably Africa.  Although the herb has been collected and cultivated for over 5,000 years, it has only been within the last 30 years the herb has become known outside the Mediterranean. It is quickly on its way to being the most popular herb on the planet and might be if the metric is the value of crop rather than acreage culitvated.

Basil is best fresh, while some herbs notably oregano remain pungent after being dried, basil doesn’t hold up especially well. Actually, it dries fine in the physical sense but its flavors dissipate in the drying process - leaving a bland to grassy flavor with little of the fresh variety’s noticeable character. For storing bumper crops, some recommend blanching the herb in simmering water before freezing it - the Saucykitchen skips that step preferring to chop and adding to olive oil before freezing. For pure basil flavor: Infuse chopped leaves in vodka. An idea that isn’t all that original, the liqueur Chartreuse, employs basil for some of its color and flavor.


Preservation techniques aside; the herb is best used, really, really fresh - within minutes of chopping or if you are a purist, ripping or pounding. When the leaf’s cells are broken open that its aroma; that anisey, sweet, fresh aroma escapes. The flavor is comprised of some of the same flavors as with cherries, linalool and eugeneol - clove the flavor up; while eucalyptol, the same compound that flavors laurel/bay leaf rounds out the palate. And of course these flavors apply to Ocimum basilicum, more commonly called sweet or Italian/Genovese Basil. Not to the Thai, Holy, Cinnamon or Lemon basil that are favored in SE Asia.

Asian basil is used extensively in Thai, Vietnamese, Lao and Indonesian cuisines. All are a little different in taste and flavor but basils used in Asian cooking are generally thought to be bolder: Thai Basil is a cultivar of Ocimum basilicum. Holy Basil, sometimes Thai Holy Basil occasionally Kra phao or it you are Vietnamese húng quế, comes from the Ocimum tenuiflorum variety. While Lemon Basil, so named for its strong lemon flavor, has narrower leaves and is a cross Ocimum basilicum and O. americanum.

St. Basil, 4th Century monk, bishop, theologian and raging anti-simoniac seems to be named after his father rather than the plant. Basil’s heart shaped leaves have long been linked to romantic love – historically the Romans and now the Italians, see a love connection in the leaf’s shape. Greeks, or at least Greek Orthodox Priests, use basil to prepare holy water. Also in that tradition, historically women were forbidden from picking it at all and not allowed to cook with it when they are menstruating (no word on who policed this). Possibly the herb was once the reserve of the ruling class; basilikos, translates as royalty. In the western cannon, basil is most commonly served as pesto, from the Italian pestare – crush/pound. Across the sea and France, basil is served ala pistou in Provence, which probably not so coincidentally means pound. Some gardeners claim tomatoes and basil grow well together; the perfume of the basil is thought to keep pests away. I’m no pest, but the stink of a tomato leaf is more than enough to keep me at bay…whether that assertion could survive the Mythbusters gardening show is speculative, but recent studies have found basil’s scent deters mosquitoes - amazing because they aren’t slowed down by the napalmy sweet smell of OFF.

Share

If Its Not Too Late, Make it a Cheeseburger

It could be because I spent this week writing about and promoting a grilled burger fundraiser.  Possibly the very the thought of a warm flame on a freaking drizzly day, in the low 60s, in July makes me think of scenarios where ark building isn’t included (See sidebar, FU Weather for a greater understanding). Maybe it is cultural zeitgeist, as an estimated 1 of 4 Americans will cook something over the flame on the 4^th of July weekend. Whatever it is, I have burgers on the brain = I have been craving the bun, meat, cheese all week.

When you use a word over 200 times in a 4-day stretch, burger starts to seem odd; kinda like you have really heard the word for the first time (man). Burger, as we use it contemporarily evolved from the term hamburger; before the meat in a bun definition, burger was a truncated version of borough in middle English (See Pittsburgh or don't see Pittsburgh - I hear it is nice). It wasn’t until 1939 that burger made it into the dictionary in the-patty-of-ground-beef sense of the word. Previously, Hamburg steak had been used to describe a chopped-beef steak: Delmonico’s offered it on their menu as early as 1834. 50 years later, the term ‘hamburger’ was used in a Boston newspaper as a stand-alone word.

By 1904, hamburgers were being served and marketed by that name at the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition in St. Louis but whatever gains the hamburger made on the national consciousness were wiped out by the publication of The Jungle, 2 years later. A novel which turned a hungry nation away from ground meat for awhile (The rising popularity of religious vegetarianism and xenophobia - only foreigners ate ground meat also fueled the anti-burger sentiment).  It wasn’t until the rise of the White Castle in the 1920s that hamburgers established themselves as a iconic American food.

The word ‘cheeseburger’ beat plain old ‘burger’ into the dictionary by about a year…The entertaining and a tad fussy Waverly Root gets his scold on over this usage. Writing in Eating in America, Mr. Root proclaims, “The fact that ‘hamburger’ has given rise to senseless words like ‘cheeseburger’ is one of the many signs which betray the increasing degeneration of the American language.” Funny, I find our language charming because of this playfulness and adaptability. Although I do cringe every time someone says veggie-burger, it has more to do with the veggieness than the burger part.

So while many cooks will choose to throw sausages/ hot dog (July is national hot dog month) on the barbie this weekend. I will be at work dreaming of a hamburger on the grill, well cheeseburger actually, charcoal cooked beef, cheddar sharper than my wit and a cold lager and hot dog! – An exclamation that dates back too the…Okay, enough with the Cliffy Claven for now, enjoy you cookout. Enjoy your weekend.

Share