Hill of Beans

In a fit of inspiration, I bought a bag of dried beans (cannellini), confident I was going to cook soup from scratch. So, that moment passed; now I have dried beans that I am scared of,  last time I tried to do cook dried beans it was a disaster: Scorched pan, ½ bean paste, ½ somewhat cooked beans. My friends still talk about this every time I try something new. Any advice? – I’m not as a bad of a cook as my friends would lead you to believe.

Plan, soak, go slow – 2 of the 3 can be difficult when you are in a hurry or set aside one day a week to cook and like me, and maybe like me, use the grocery store (rather than a list) as your cooking muse. You should be applauded for getting dried beans, they are about ¼ the cost of the can and save a ton of energy in terms of making the can, recycling and redistributing the metal back into a can. You also deserve props for revisiting your wipeout, it is brave to pick yourself up and get on the horse, even if the horse is dried beans.

You’ll be fine, beans aren’t complicated, especially if you plan ahead, soak the beans and put them on the back burner.

Bon Appetit, no really from the Mag. 

Plan – think ahead to which day you want to cook. Maybe even leave the beans on the counter so you don’t forget that you are going to make soup.

Soak – The skin of the bean is not porous. The legume rehydrates through a tiny pore called the hilum. An hour of soaking expands the seed coat, allowing the bean to absorb moisture more readily. Soaking has the bonus of reducing cooking times by 3/4 (depending on the type of bean). Wait there’s more…soaking the beans, draining the water, and rinsing the beans dramatically reduces the number of water-soluble carbohydrates, the very carbs that colon-based bacteria like to break down into gas.

The big question with soaking is to salt or not salt. Sodium displaces magnesium and calcium in the cell wall making it easier for the bean to absorb moisture. Cool, right? Except by displacing magnesium and calcium affects the final consistency, running the risk of mushy beans. The Standard Operating Procedure in the Saucykitchen is to never salt beans until right before serving.

Slow – Water boils at 212ºf/100ºc, the starch in beans converts to something soft, edible and possibly delicious between 160-170ºf – that is the temp inside the bean, not the cooking liquid - I know, it is hard to get the probe thermometer in that bean. Boiling the hell out of the pot and its contents really isn’t going to reduce cooking times. Low and slow, a crock pot or electric slow cooker is really going to reduce the temptation to speed things up, which you aren’t really doing anyway, since the bean is going to heat up and convert those starches as the water gets drawn into the center of the legume. 1 to 2 hours on moderately low heat depending on the size, type and age of bean (Lentils and split peas are going to cook much quicker). Check other tips here.

So, pick the day you are going to make soup and you can either soak the beans overnight or on your way to work in the morning. Then, drain, rinse and add to stockpot or slow cooker. Stir every once and while and make sure you use enough water or stock to cover the bean completely so the beans on top aren’t hard and the bottom mushy. Next time it comes up, tell your friends you have mastered the beans, and seriously all they have time to do is make fun of something that happened years ago, besides they should save their ridicule for people who never try, not those who do.

Way to go.

I Rather Be a Cheddar Than a Brie

Yes I would, if I only could.

Saucy, what makes a cheddar Cheddar – Casein Casum

A true, legal, terrior, EU protected ‘Farmhouse Cheddar’ must be produced in Dorset Somerset, Devon or Cornwall England – Most of this space occupies the little tip of land that reaches out in the Atlantic towards the US and Ireland. There you can find a village called Cheddar, but it isn’t ground zero for the Ur-Cheddar or a major producer of cheddar (there is only 1 current producer that meets the EU standards in the aforementioned counties), rather it the home to the Cheddar Gorge, whose natural beauty, if you are into that sort of thing, is purported to leave witnesses wordless, which is why so few have written about it. This gorge is also home to the caves that were first used to age the famous English cheese.

And then there is the other 99-point-something-percentage of cheeses that are called cheddar but are manufactured outside the UK. While the slow foodist will have you believe that a cheddar must be made of raw milk, traditional animal rennet and be aged in a cloth wrapping, I scoff. If they had their way and PETA is more reasonable about food issues than hardcore locoavores and slow food types we would just be eating something called yellow cheese. Because there is no national of international standard, for all practical purposes, anything can be called a cheddar: I can get cheddar in a squeeze can if I wanted to, but a true cheddar, a cheddar cheddar will follow some essential steps.

For openers these cheeses will go through the process of Cheddaring: heated, enzyme, piled on top of each other, cut pressed, milled, reheated and pressed some more. Other cheeses that aren’t cheddars can undergo the cheddaring process – Colby, Cantal, Cheshire are totally cheddarized.

Aged – All cheddars will be aged 3-24 months, 6 being the industry standard for most mass produced cheese but the cheese only starts to get interesting at a year and are utterly fascinating by 24 months. 

Colored? Most cheddars are artificially colored. Why, because back in the day when pastured cows produced milk in the spring and early summer, their milk would be tinted yellowish. This was the time of bounty and surpluses for milk and much of the excess would be turned into cheese. Winter milk, made from the milk of hay and silage, was a whiter shade of pale, so cheese was dyed to keep the product consistent. Annatto, a small reddish seed from the achiote tree is a popular food safe dye, but Kraft, the largest manufacturer of cheddar and cheddar style cheeses uses paprika – processed, of course, to eradicate flavor to color its cheeses.

California, is the largest producer of cheese in the US

Dyeing cheese is an old custom. Pernicious? Maybe, maybe not. Flipping through a couple books, a few editors excerpted Victorian era editorials denouncing the practice. And possibly there was more going into the cheese than annatto in the time before government standards and regulations, but the editorials still read like Old man McCain shaking his fist at kids. The Saucykitchen is not bothered by artificially colored foods, we are price whores, so when white cheddar was on sale a few weeks ago, it was white cheddar mac & cheese, which did end up looking like the white food one might find at a casino buffet, I should have added some paprika to help the color.

Cheddar is the most popular cheese in the US, while unaged Mozzarella is quickly closing the gap. As a culture, we are eating twice as much cheese as we did in the Reagan era, some attribute that to a greater understanding of cheese and a growing palate; I would attribute it more to our willingness to smother it in cheese. 

This Is Somewhat About Food

In a little over a month, my brother Carl's book will be out. While I understand setting a goal and working doggedly to its completion and more than willing to heap thanks and praise on Carl for working so hard, I don't understand why that goal has to be poems. Why can't it be the perfect dessert or affordable renewable energy.

In honor of brother Carl's book drop, I have been chasing my own grail: I want to understand poetry better. To that end, I enrolled in Matthew Dickman's Intermediate Poetry class at Portland State (Go Vikings!). Matthew promised that by the end of the term I would Love, Love, Love poetry. If Matthew had promised the more reasonable, that I would have a nodding respect for poetry and the women & men who write it, he would have already succeed. 

I am surprised I like the classic formulas namely, sonnets and odes. Surprisingly, the structure allows for more freedom and flexibility than I would have imagined. Sonnets were fun like a giant word puzzle or Mad Lib (What is a 10 syllable line for drunken revelry?). Odes have been a joy. In part because I am predisposed to feel it is right and honorable to name the good things in this world. 

Antiquity's First Jar of Mayo

In particular, I have really enjoyed the classic Greek Odes of Pindar. Neruda's Odes all read like an aging Lothario grasping...even his Odes to Common Things, it is like he is flattering just to get to screw the cap off the salt shaker. But Pindar, born in an area near Sparta, studied Lyric poetry in the rival Athens and wrote odes to Olympic victors is unique. His work is out there: heroic language, name-checking gods, conservative ideals like aristocracy & the virtue of the individual populate his work. His writing makes the most hyperbolic phrase I have uttered seem like a gentle allusion in comparison. Apparently, in the day, his day 5th Century BC, the poems were performed with music and interpretive dancing - He would have been a lethal combination of Glenn Beck & Lady Gaga, excuse the redundancy.

Embarrassingly, this is a reading and writing class and it isn't enough to know styles and authors, work must be produced. When Matthew assigned us to write an Ode to an enemy, I knew I would do an  homage to the bombast of Pindar and I knew thine enemy. So even though I claimed I would take a match to all the poetry, burning it away in a baby-bonfire, I would like to share my Ode to Mayonnaise. 

For Mayonnaise, Cold Sauce of the Middle-west; 
Muse of the Salads, Lunchtime Warrior

Your skill was strong, and

as your opponent, I stood no chance. 

You defeated me with a bacterial maneuver,

while I thought it best to leave you as you were,

unattended for hours, glistening in the sun, 

my parents' wisdom dictated that we should not 

waste food, thus prodded me towards you, where you made

your strength known through your vessel, 

potato salad. This was the cause of my exile

to the hospital, where for 3 days hooked to an IV,

I contemplated your might. 

There I trembled and turned white, 

at the mere mention of your name. 

Your potency knows no bounds in any form you take.

You are the garland that glistens in 

the salads of tuna, chicken, and egg. 

You are regal in Remoulade, but your esteem

is paramount with buttermilk in Ranch.

Vegans debate your valor, but Baconnaise bends 

their will. Poseidon blesses the seas to deliver

a bounty of fish for your sauce tartare. 

While Demeter watches over lettuces growth

so it shall rejoice, smothered in 1000 Island.

A gift of the Gods,

as close to ambrosia as any food

mortals will taste. 

Like Persephone journeyed to Hades

your subjects will travel to lengths 

to hold 6 jars in their pantries during lean seasons.

For knowing when men hunger, you

will soften the bread of a BLT.

Egg, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper

are never as great, as when they serve in your command. 

Just a Tangelo

Now that Orange season is winding down, what is fruit is available until the local varieties are available?

Sure, why not

Considering those big, red, cottony things they try to pawn off as strawberries don’t count as fruit, a person could reasonably argue that it is right now chocolate season.

Except it is a little too soon to kill off orange season. Popular varieties like navel, blood and Florida Valencia (juice oranges) are available to late spring. Like all seasonal fruit the quality both wanes and becomes very hit and miss – one fruit sour and dry; the next sweet and Edenic. Even with consistency issues setting in, before we pronounce Orange season dead, let us give thanks and praise to oranges with some facts.

Oranges are Dicotyledonous, they have an embryo that contains two seed leaves and typically have broad, vein/netted leaves. 65% of the world’s citrus crop is made up of sweet and sour oranges;15% mandarin oranges; 10% lemon & limes and 10% dedicated to grapefruit production. Grapefruits are named not because they are the opposite of the tiny grape; using some sort of meiosis (as in the language trope, not biological despite talking about botany), grapefruits tend grow on branches in clusters. Oranges geographical ground zero is Asia and Indonesia, where they have been cultivated for 4000 years along with their cousins the mandarin/tangerine.

Legend has it that mandarin, the fruit, is named after the color of robes worn by the public officials of the Chinese Court. The fruit’s alternate name, Tangerine, the word, most likely derived from the where the fruit was first imported to Spain, the seaport of Tangiers, Morocco. In Spain they were/are called Tangerino.

Mandarins/Tangerines were slow to emigrate from Asia. They weren’t introduced to the US or the Mediterranean until the late 19^th century. The largest producers of the fruit are now Japan, Brazil and Spain.

The fruit seems to exist for crossbreeding more than eating if that seems possible. Tangelo, Ugli, Tangor, Satsuma, Page, Pixie, Murcott (sometimes honey), Fairchild, and Clementine all have been bred for qualities. Well the Ugli was a chance selection - the spurious offspring of the tangerine and either Pomelo or grapefruit – we have to wait for the all citrus version of Maury before deciding who the daddy is? The less than attractive fruit was discovered in Jamaica in the early 20^th Century. Tangerine is a mandarin and sour orange while the Tangor was born of the sweet orange-mandarin marriage.

Sour oranges, such as the Seville and the Bergamot have been grown since the medieval times. Prized for their scent they have been used to add aroma to Earl Grey tea, spice perfumes, and flavor brandies like Grand Marnier and liqueurs like Cointreau and curacao. One food economist believes the essential oils found in the sour varieties are more valuable than the juice from all the sweet varieties. Who knows how he did the math though.

Before we go, for everyone bumming that all the good tangerine varieties are formal nouns and are Scrabble proof, here is a bone: The vesicules are the little pockets of juice embedded in the flesh of citrus. Now you have something to play when you draw a V, C and L.

You’re welcome.

If the Spirit Moves You, Let me Feed You

Last week a reader who signed her question ‘VD’ (Thank you for that, BTW). VD asked me how I plan to spend my Valentines Day. In what would have been the shortest post ever: attend Class (Matthew Dickman’s Intermediate Poetry at Portland State), Work and then around bedtime; a long, dog walk. Although this is the type of day that would send a character written and directed by the trice-married Nora Ephron into some sort of 90 minute movie quest for the ONE. You know the movie, where the neurotically lovable protagonist spends more time talking to girlfriends about her entitlements and needs than talking to guys only to wonder, wonder, be vexed and confused by the fact there is no man in her life.

For me VD (?), will be pleasant busy, eventful, obligation free day. Oh there have been memorable exceptions – a steamed artichoke with someone I crushed hard for. A fancy pants cocktail sipped out of newly gifted glasses followed by flirting with someone who I didn’t need to flirt with anymore – that is what made it fun. And it isn’t just the guys who want to avoid the trappings and expectations of the day; a former sweetie wanted it so low key it was like a watered down Liz Phair lyric: pizza and messin’ around. The latter, I was told, had nothing in particular to do with it being Valentine’s Day.

It is odd that the day should mean so little to me, since food is often a major part of the woo that I pitch. That is how Valentine’s Day and I are alike - Food and Valentine’s Day are closely connected. While the feast day of St. Patrick has cabbage and corned beef, St. Valentine has no historical association with a specific food.

Seriously, text me.

At first heart shaped cookies, cakes and sweets were given. As the price of sugar fell in the post Civil War United States, candy became a favored gift. In 1902 the New England Confectionary Company (Necco) began producing little heart shaped wafers with the words ‘Be Mine’, ‘Sweet Talk’ and ‘Quit Stalking Me’ stamped into the candy. Flowers were added to sweets and cards as Valentine’s day faves as hothouse flowers came into vogue around the same time.

Chocolate is now the go to sweet for adults. The heart-shaped box with individual chocolates dates back to either 1861 (US) or 1868 England's Cadbury chocolates. (My Farmers Market colleague, Nicolette Smith wrote a nice article about Portland’s Alma’s Chocolate here). Women buy 75% of the chocolate in any given year...the exception: Men purchase 75% of the chocolate in the days leading up to Valentine's Day.

I hope you all avoid going out tonight, stay in, be attentive to the ones you love and guys if you want to do something really hot, I am told a little vacuuming and a load of laundry is where it is at nowadays. 

Whole Different Spin on Scarface

Asparagus Production in Peru; looks sustainable

20 years ago the US 'encouraged' Peruvian growers have a little taste of asparagus growing. Well they got hooked and flooded the market with cheap, street rate asparagus. The result, in the 20 years since the Peruvian policy was promoted, the asparagus harvest in Washington state has dropped nearly 80%. An earmark in the current Ag appropriations will restore $15 million USD to growers who can prove they were hurt by this action. 

Thinking about giving a Valentines Day Chocolate treat? The Ivory Coast is a leading exporter of Cocoa and the country is having a difficult power transition. Not quite the scale of Egypt, but President in name only Alassane Ouattara has imposed an embargo on Cocoa in an effort to pressure, Laurent Gbagbo from office. Usually Cokie Roberts screeching "but the democrats" is enough to keep me off the NPR for months (I'd rather listen to subscription drives than her 'insight'. BTW, suspending programing to have people who make more money than me beg for money is far less invasive and annoying than commercials, how? Way to fight the power NPR!), but yesterday there was a good story about cocoa, elections and reaction from US companies who drive the market. Way to go NPR.

Finally, it is Ok to be in Oklahoma again. A meta-analysis lists the 10 states with worst eating habits and Oklahoma is still in the top 5 but they have been displace. Complete list here.

Funny thing the author of this article wrote this paragraph towards the end:

 "It is worth mentioning again how complex and local the obesity and eating habit problem is. This does not    mean that the problems are insoluble, but nearly so. The issue of fat Americans is one that almost needs to be addressed house-to-house."

What an oddly thoughtful, cautious and wise commentary to place in a salacious Top 10 that calls out people for slurping soda and not taking care of themselves? Conflicted much?  

Cook as I Say, Not as I do…

The thing about best practices...it isn’t knowing what is best, it is practicing. So, if I were to advise people about what and how to cook, something I have been known to do, I would tell them:

• If you are cooking for others - people you like and/or wish to impress, do a test   run and make adjustments the second time. This will relieve anxiety and give the cook a chance to test recipes and techniques with less pressure.

• No last minute surprises, no wild improvisation; err on the side of caution.

• Never tart up a simple dish by adding fancy or expensive items to a humble food. That is more likely to distract than enhance. 

• Visualize the end result and if you are going to the trouble of visualizing, you might as well imagine yourself successful. 

So let’s say, amazingly I never have made rice pudding. I have never had any interest in rice pudding, which is odd because puddings are my second favorite category of eatables, right after the Dumpling Phylum of small food stuffed into bigger foods. When I indulge in desserts, odds are it will be baked bread pudding, pie or custards.

Bad Rice, What you gonna do, Bad Rice.

After finding my beta recipe, I researched the Saucytorium to discover every cookbook has a rice pudding recipe in it – Thai, Viet, French, English, American, Spanish, Lithuanian, Jewish, Chinese – who says there is no common ground? Except the contentious issues of – is it served hot or cold; raisins, brandy? Eggs?  Milk, cream or coconut milk - skin or no skin, how to spice, bake or stovetop – Arborio, basmati or short grain, these are the issues that keep us apart.

I choose to make a Thai style rice pudding. Short grain ‘sticky’ rice, cooked in coconut milk and finished with coconut cream. My problem or as I like to call them, problatunities; was that rice pudding wasn’t enough for me. I was going to use rice pudding as a variation on banana pudding, the recipe needed to be fancier and because it was going to line a baked pastry, it needed to do something it wasn't designed to do.

I followed none of my advice: I saw a recipe then decided the prudent thing I could do when making a dish I have never prepared was make willy-nilly substitutions, shortcuts and additions. The best thing I can say, it wasn’t a disaster. But here is what I learned:

• Parboiling the sticky rice, a step outlined in 12 of the 12 books I looked at, was probably pretty important to the texture and consistency (mine wasn’t quite right).

• The addition of bananas turn rice pudding gray, not slightly yellow like a custard.

• Because of the axiom things that grow together go together – you’d think the last second, casual addition of keffir lime leaf would have added a complex layer of flavor. But it ended up adding a subtle (and distracting) Lime Pledge taste.

The great thing about kitchen and cooking it can be an arena to experiment; try new things; theorize and it’s bookend, test. The worst that is going to happen is that you are going to have to pick up the phone and order something or rush to the store to buy a substitute if all your work doesn’t pan out. My big problem wasn’t the trying it was serving the dessert. And I know what I would do different next time, practice my best advice. 

A 4 C Note

3 Years, 400 Posts

As artificial as anniversaries are, it is good to occasionally glance backwards and look forward and see how those views align. 3 years ago this month, I launched Saucyman: The blog was an extension of my willingness to converse on the subject of food and either serve as an expert or (more accurately) a Cliffy Claven about all things related to the table. Instead of doing this at dinners, parties and barbeques for select friends and acquaintances, I began posting this 'service' on the internet for everyone; sharing my expertise for anyone who could google a key phrase.

My original conceit, to answer questions people ask, has been somewhat displaced by information being readily available on wikipedia. So my book-based, government/public database scrubbing, double verified research is a tad anachronistic in an age where opinions carry more weight than moderated thought. At this point the blog has shifted from its original goal: Rather than a how to, I have gravitated to the about; enjoying my self-defined role as an Ethnofoodstorian, an amateur Ethnofoodstorian, but who doesn’t love an autodidactic?

Plus I found a deep, satisfying pleasure in doing the research, answering questions as they arise, working on varied subject matter and by sitting down everyday, I have learned how to write better sentences, communicate more effectively and work on the craft of being funny/entertaining. Even if the ground has shifted, I still labor under the pretension that one day I will be the Dan Savage of food.

Things are going to slow down a little here, not because I’ve run out of subjects to write about - rather due to the success and discipline I have experienced through this blog, I now have the  good fortune of having more demands made on my time. I'll be reducing my work load about 25%, down to 8 to 10 posts a month and some of those posts will be news roundups, links to old posts and I will crosslink to other work that I have done for different websites. Like a hipster with Indy rock pretensions, I just can’t have one band, so in the near future I will begin linking to a new blog (details soon). Finally, I will occasionally, post more personal subjects rather than just limiting myself to food. Don’t worry about the last point too much, I am still at heart a good, polite Midwesterner who thinks emoticons are dangerously close to talk therapy; I truly understand feelings exist to be repressed, not spoken out loud.

Thanks the dozen or so you for being with me from the beginning, hello to all the people who check in every once in a while and to all, please stick around for the slight shifts in content. Now to make this the happiest Blogiversary! ever - people could you start sharing your favorite posts with your friends on Facebook.

A Philadelphia Story

Is there a particular kind of cream cheese you like? Whipped, foil package or some [fancy pants] artisan brand?

Ah, cream cheese, my new secret weapon: It has slowly inched into my regular shopping list, taking the place historically reserved for butter and heavy cream. Cream cheese has found a home in pasta dishes, desserts, piecrust, and sandwiches (mixed with mustard). As much as it frightens me that maybe, possibly the LTR butter and I have been involved since I was a wee one is not what it once was, but rather than worry about what is past, I rest knowing I still have heavy cream and a treasure trove of memories.

Cream cheese is thought to be one of the first dairy products, made in what is sometimes called the cow belt, those stepped lands of the Caucasus where animal husbandry first arose. The product was made by draining heavy cream until it is a thick enough consistency to be cut with a knife or the proto-agricultural equivalent of one - think of a shale spork lashed to a polished bone.

Like a sorority member in Arizona, cream cheese doesn’t have too many distinguishing characteristics. It is white (see above sentence) and by US law it must be 33% fat (black-balled in above simile). Other countries require higher standards: the UK mandates a fat content of 45 - 65% and the French set the minimum at 55%. Beyond the fat content and pasteurized, cream cheese can be free to be anything: cultured, whipped, free of preservatives, full of preservatives, flavored, organic or any other conceivable permeation. The product really is kind of a dairy cipher, described by the author of Milk, Anne Mendelson as  “[A] bland, rich textured fresh cheese”, and I don’t think she means to offend with that assessment.

Kraft, makers of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, are selective with their history - the fact that the ancient and modern Greeks loved fresh cheese and sold them as cakes means nothing. Then they pretty much ignore centuries of queso fresco, fromage blanc, petit Suisse and English double creams, deciding instead to opt for the story of American Industry, claiming it was invented by a Northeastern farmer in the 19^th century and named after a food loving city. (Watch me bring it home), but what do expect from a marketing department made up of ASU sorority members.

Just to add a little more insult to Kraft, the method for creating the cheese inside foil, packed inside a box, found on the dairy display, wasn’t really perfected until the 1920s. The hot pack method - made by liquefying curd at a temp higher than boiling, running through a fat separator, mixing with binding agents (so the water doesn’t separate or weep in the packaging) and pumping the still liquid product into the foil, where it cools into its recognizable form.

As to your question, while I normally gravitate to fresh, local and that slippery word, natural – Regionally, Gina Marie makes an all dairy cream cheese, one that actually seems closer to ricotta. But my quest for a chemical free diet are held in check by the fact I want to leave a well preserved corpse and more practically at issue is that the fat separates from the solids in fresh cheese at 130ºf.  Considering the microwave at work where I reheat my lunches creates pockets higher than that before my whole lunch is warmed, those binding agents and gums that hold it all together, so I vote for the foil package of Philly or the cheaper generic equivalent.