Matters of Taste

Food For Thought

“The salad days of organic salad are wilting in favor of high-tech tomatoes.”

Thus began a disturbing blurb in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that forecasts a future in which organic produce may lose out to genetically modified and mass produced foods.

“Gourmets’ fears of ‘frankenfoods’…seem to be taking a back seat to the growing global demands of feeding emerging middle classes in developing countries with limited natural resources.”

The article cites the dramatic earnings growth of Monsanto, the world leader in agricultural biotechnology. (The company makes seeds that produce insect-resistent, drought-tolerant crops.)

All of this is not to say that farmers’ markets and organic heirloom tomatoes are going away. Just that the current popular aversion to genetically modified foods “is turning into more of a luxury for the wealthy than a practical option for the masses.”

The stats posted by Whole Foods are a little scary to this fan of “real” food, locally grown, in a sustainable fashion:

“From 2001 to the end of 2006, the company’s (Whole Foods) earnings grew an average annual rate of 25%. In 2007, earnings were down more than 10% and they’re falling further.”

Columnist Karen Richardson doesn't go into the specific "whys" of Whole Foods' earnings downturn. Nor does the article say how meeting the increased food demands of the planet will immediately impact the supply of organic foods. But it is, for sure, food for thought.

The Electronic Shopping Cart

Throw away that tattered shopping list.

The Ikan is here.

According to a story in yesterday’s New York Times, this new contraption is out to revolutionize the art of grocery shopping by eliminating trips to the supermarket.

The Ikan features a color screen, a laser scanner and a Wi-Fi antenna that connects to your home wireless network.  Every time you’re about to throw away an empty container, be it a tub of yogurt or the dog’s favorite biscuits, you just pass it under the scanner and the product’s full name (and size) is added to your shopping list.

Keeping a grocery list on a piece of paper really isn’t all that difficult, you say? Well, the Ikan tempts with another important feature as well. When the list is complete, you click once and everything is delivered to your house at the time you specify.

Reactions to the $400 can’t-live-without gizmo are varied. Some folks don’t want to give up the “social” aspects of going shopping. Others are thrilled to let someone else battle the parking lot and lug the bags.

The green-conscious audience says the process consolidates many deliveries on a single truck, thereby removing a number of cars from the road.

Once it gets up and running in more markets, the machine supposedly will add more features such as how-to cooking videos and perhaps news and sports scores.

Read all about it….and let us know your take on this newfangled way to shop.

Bottled Water Update

Is it possible I was the last to know?

I mean, really, do all the rest of you already know about the K9 Water Co. that markets four types of “vitamin-fortified” bottled water for DOGS?            

That would be Toilet Water (chicken flavor), Gutter Water (beef), Puddle Water (liver) and Hose Water (lamb).

Trust me, I’m not making this up. My imagination isn’t that good.

During a recent panel discussion at New York University’s Fales Library – part of NYU's "Critical Topics in Food" series - I learned about the pooch hooch from my fellow panelist Alex Prud’homme.

Apparently, manufacturers want us to believe that it’s not just water they’re selling but a “beverage.” To that end, we now have Toilet Water, Tibet 5100    from Tibetan glaciers; Kona Deep from 3000 feet under the surface of the ocean around Hawaii;  Cloud Juice, which is rain water from Tasmania and, swear to God, Holy Spring Water said to be blessed by a rabbi, a priest, a monk, and a shaman.

Am I the only one that finds this sheer lunacy?

Pets owners who shell out big bucks for flavored bottled water was just one of the fascinating factoids dispensed by the group. Moderated by national restaurant consultant Clark Wolf,  the “Water: A Global Discussion of a Critical Topic” panel featured Marion Nestle, the author of  “What To Eat” and professor of Nutrition, Food Studies & Public Health at NYU; Chef Rick Moonen of rm seafood and r bar café in the Mandalay Bay resort,  Las Vegas; Prud’homme, who co-authored “My Life In France”  with Julia Child and who is currently writing a book about water; and myself.

The hour-long discussion will soon be on-line at the NYU TV & Media Archive. In the meantime, consider these “sound-bites” from the discussion:

** “The consequences of bottled water have an enormous effect on the “social contract,” said Nestle.  “Water is supposed to be free and a mark of what a society does for its people.” But, she continued,  with the “privatization” of water today, the water fountains on the school playground are broken or turned off and kids are forced to buy water or do without.

** Dentists are reporting a significant rise in the number of cavities in Americans of varying ages. Instead of drinking the municipal water (that tax money typically pays to fluoridate), citizens are drinking bottled water that contains no teeth-protecting fluoride.

** Some bottled water companies are attempting to deflect criticism by “creating serious initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint.” Fiji Water claims to pump a percentage of profits (the exact percentage not revealed) into forest preservation of Fiji.  Icelandic Glacial sends a portion of profits to African villages in need of sanitation facilities. Starbucks’ Ethos water has a similar “altruistic” program. The panelists recognized these efforts, while expressing cynicism over the companies’ motives, and suggesting that the world would be a better place if those bottles of water hadn’t been manufactured, filled, transported, refrigerated, sold and dumped in landfills in the first place.

** “There’s absolutely no evidence” that humans need to drink eight glasses of water a day, said  Nestle, adding that there’s plenty of water in other things that we eat and drink, from coffee and tea to foods such as lettuce and, even, she joked, in vodka.

 

Lights, Camera, Action, Food

The Oscars of the food world, The James Beard Foundation Awards, were held Sunday night at Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center in New York City.  Like the famed movie awards, this extravaganza featured a red carpet, flashing cameras, celebrities, plenty of cleavage, and more than a few “I’d like to thank my beautiful wife” acceptance speeches.

But, unlike the Hollywood version, this event also featured spectacular food prepared by more than 30 of the country’s best-known chefs at the reception that followed the three-hour show.

Danny Meyer took the big award for Outstanding Restaurant of the year for Gramercy Tavern, which he opened with chef/partner Tom Colicchio in 1994. Meyer, who’s been making waves in the food world ever since he opened Union Square Café in 1985, also captured the medallion for Best Wine Service with his restaurant Eleven Madison Park.

Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali shared the Best Restaurateur award in recognition of their stunningly successful Babbo restaurant (which celebrated its 10th anniversary at a party earlier that day). At the podium, Joe sweetly thanked his mother, cookbook author/restaurateur Lidia, for teaching him to be a restaurateur, and his wife, for letting him be one.

Other top awards, introduced by super-chef Bobby Flay and "Sex and the City"'s Kim Cattrall, went to Gavin Kaysen of Café Boulud for Rising Star Chef of the Year (see yesterday's post below); to the effervescent Michel Richard (who literally danced onto the stage with his very “Fraaaaaanch” white scarf flapping in the breeze) for Best New Restaurant (Central Michel Richard in Washington, D.C.); and to Grant Achatz for Outstanding Chef. In his poignant acceptance speech, Achatz  (of Alinea restaurant in Chicago) thanked the food community for supporting him through his recent battle with tongue cancer. (For other award winners, see below.)   

When the ceremony concluded, it was party time. Guests, who included chefs, restaurateurs, journalists, publicists and other food-lovers who paid $450 for a ticket, strolled the stations on two levels of Avery Fisher Hall and even spilled out into Lincoln Center.

The theme of the evening was “Artisanal America: The Craft of Cuisine,” and each award-winning chef created a dish that showcased the goods of an artisanal producer (some of whom were present with the chefs).

Scott Peacock, who won the JB Best Chef Southeast award last year for his restaurant Watershed in Decatur, Georgia, created weensy southern buttermilk biscuits, brushed them with sweet butter, tucked a piece of Smithfield ham in each, and served them with homemade strawberry jam. Bill Telepan, whose restaurant Telepan is just a few blocks from Lincoln Center, offered delicious pork scrapple topped with a quivering poached egg and sweet pork sauce. (Photos are from Gothamist.com.)

Other highlights of the most sophisticated “buffet” in town included an intense mixed berry sherbet with candied mint and rose petals from Chez Panisse; Ana Sortun’s (Oleana, Cambridge. Mass.) wispy green garlic pancakes with spring peas and homemade string cheese; a sweet-savory summer squash tart with Laura Chenel goat cheese and preserved strawberry tomatoes from Helene Kennan of L.A.'s Getty Center café; and Nancy Silverton’s (Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza, L.A.) amazing "mozzarella balloon" filled with ricotta and paired with a braised baby artichoke stuffed with pine nuts and currants.

But my favorite of all was the rich, crackly wafer topped with "Salt-Cured Local Foie Gras,"  warm strawberry-black pepper jam and arugula that came from chef Alexandra Guarnaschelli of NYC restaurant Butter.

Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards recognize culinary professionals for excellence and achievement in their field. The Foundation's stated mission is to celebrate, preserve, and nurture America's culinary heritage and diversity.

Other 2008 award-winners were:
Outstanding Pastry Chef: Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson, Tartine Bakery, San Francisco

Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional: Terry Theise of Terry Theise Estate Selections

Outstanding Service: Terra, St. Helena, Calif

Best Chef Great Lakes: Carrie Nahabedian, Naha, Chicago

Best Chef Mid-Atlantic: Eric Ziebold, CityZen, Washington, D.C.

Best Chef Midwest: Adam Siegel, Bartolotta's Lake Park Bistro, Milwaukee

Best Chef New York: David Chang, Momofuku Ssam Bar, New York

Best Chef Northeast: Patrick Connolly, Radius, Boston

Best Chef Northwest: Holly Smith, Cafe Juanita, Kirkland, Wash.

Best Chef Southwest: Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, Frasca Food and Wine, Boulder, Colo.

Best Chef South: Michelle Bernstein, Michy's, Miami

Best Chef Southeast: Robert Stehling, Hominy Grill, Charleston, S.C.

Best Chef Pacific: Craig Stoll, Delfina, San Francisco

Step One: Change Recipes

I loved New York Times' reporter Kim Severson's story in today's paper about recipe requirements that send the cook looking for another recipe.

In "Recipe Deal Breakers: When Step 2 is 'Corral Pig,'" Severson  shared the practical and psychological reasons that cooks will toss in the towel and the cookbook along with it.

One of the funniest is cookbook author Diana Kennedy's Mexican sausage recipe that calls for two quarts of pig's blood. "If you do not kill your own pig, order it through a butcher," she advises.

Less dramatic perhaps, but equally unrealistic is a Paula Wolfert recipe calling for 48 tender young grapevine leaves, freshly picked; and a dish in Mark Miller's Coyote Cafe cookbook that required "wild boar from the hills surrounding Santa Fe."

Severson interviews amateur and professional cooks alike and finds that no one really loves stuffing olives, cutting veggies into matchsticks or filleting fresh anchovies. Trussing and de-boning aren't favorites either.

And the terms “Serves 18” and “Remove all jewelry before proceeding” are also pretty good indications that the going will not be smooth.

I stopped to think what recipe demands cause me to flip the page fast.  #1 is anything that involves a candy thermometer. Making caramel and measuring the temperature of exploding sugar is just not in my DNA.

I also rush on past recipes that call for cooking baby artichokes – snipping, trimming, tugging out the insides -- though I love them and order them in restaurants every chance I get.

I know that the ghee in Indian dishes is simply clarified butter and easy to make, but its presence in a recipe is usually a deal-breaker as it implies (to me) hopelessly time-consuming and exotic, to boot.

Turn-off buzz words? “Smoke” is right up there, since I don’t have the equipment to do it and don’t feel the need to expand my horizons in that time-consuming and, er, smoky endeavor.

And “overnight” is usually a killer, too. If the beans soak overnight or the meat marinates overnight, that often means I’ll be looking for gourmet-to-go in the neighborhood since the “overnight” in questions was 12 of more hours ago.

If there’s an ingredient or instruction that triggers the “No way, Jose” response in you, please share it with us here.

Food Fight

As if there isn’t enough fighting going on around the world, here’s Chile and Peru locked in a hot-headed battle over, of all things, the potato.

According to a story in yesterday’s New York Times, Chile’s agricultural minister recently claimed that “99 percent of the world’s potatoes have some type of genetic link to potatoes from Chile.”

Them are fighting words to Peru, where the potato is a source of national pride.

In response, Peru’s  Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcma Belaunde has cranked up a series of events organized around the International Year of the Potato, so decreed by the United Nations to promote the potato’s potential role in alleviating hunger in poor countries. Top chefs in Peru are developing new potato dishes. A Catalan artist traveled to Peru to unveil ”conceptual works” inspired by the homely tuber. And Peruvian President Alan Garcia is trying to increase potato cultivation by replacing white bread with potato bread in all schools.

Of course, the hot potato is only part of the tense status quo between the 2 countries. Peru is also mighty ticked off that Chile calls the “pisco sour” its own even though the town of Pisco is in Peru’s grape-growing country. (Personally, having tasted a couple pisco sours while visiting Peru a few years ago, I don’t know why anyone would want to claim the bitter brandy or slimy cocktail as his own.)

But it’s the spud spat that’s news today. And in honor of that, here’s a terrific recipe that takes advantage of both the lowly tater and glorious sweet summer corn.

SWEET CORN AND POTATO VICHYSSOISE
From  “The Union Square Cookbook” by Danny Meyer and Michael Romano
Serves 4

5 ears of corn
6 ½ cups water
1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1 tablespoon butter
¾ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne
1 ½ cups sliced leeks, washed, white and light green parts only
1 ½ cups sliced onions
1 ½ cups diced potatoes
¾ cup sliced celery
1 ¼ cups buttermilk, chilled
1 ½ tablespoons minced chives
Cut the corn kernels from the cobs and reserve. Chop the cobs into 1-inch pieces. Place the cob pieces in a  2-quart saucepan with the water and half the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook, covered, for 30  minutes. Strain and reserve the corn broth. Discard the cobs.

Melt the butter in the saucepan over medium heat. Add the cumin and cayenne and allow to sizzle for 1 minute, stirring. Stir in the corn kernels, leeks, onions, potatoes and celery. Season with the remaining salt and pepper and cook until the vegetables are wilted, about 7 minutes. Add the corn broth and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

While the soup is still hot, pour into a blender and puree until very smooth. It may be necessary to do this in more than one batch. Strain the soup through a fine strainer and chill in a bowl over ice. When chilled, stir in the buttermilk and adjust the seasoning to taste. Serve in chilled soup bowls, sprinkled with chives.

Water Water Everywhere

“If you could rack up frequent-flyer miles on ships, trains and trucks, a little square plastic bottle of Fiji water would be eligible for some big-time rewards.                  

Fiji hails from the island of Viti Levu in the South Pacific. That's about 5,600 miles, as the crow flies, to the port of Los Angeles and another 3,000 or so to East Coast restaurant tables and home fridges.”

These were some of the shocking statistics that I encountered last summer while researching a story on bottled water for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Since then, when I request sparkling water at a restaurant I always ask where it comes from. If the water on the menu needed a passport to get to my table –- or even a long journey from inside the U.S. – I go with a glass of club soda instead.

Since the article ran, restaurants throughout the country have started to confront the issue.

In San Diego, George’s California Modern and Barbarella now offer local spring water, both plain and sparkling, in re-usable glass bottles. They join such restaurants as Pacifica Del Mar, Jack’s La Jolla and Island Prime who spearheaded the move, as reported in the U-T article entitled “Pour Choice.”

And, in New York City, where one’s choice of bottled water is likely to be as critical in “defining” a person as one’s choice of designer handbag, several big name hotels have joined such eateries as Mario Batali’s Del Posto and Gemma in nixing bottled water. Moreover, the city spent ¾ of a million bucks earlier this year in an ad campaign to get New Yorkers to drink from the tap.

But jet-setting bottled water – and the 41 million barrels of oil that are said to be used to make, transport and refrigerate bottled water each year – is only one aspect of the water “crisis.”

This week at New York University, a series entitled Critical Topics in Food will deal with the many aspects of what some call the central issue confronting the planet this century.

“WATER: A Global Discussion of a Critical Topic” will be held at the New York University Fales Library on Thursday, June 5, 2008  from 4 to 6 pm. Suggested donation is $10. Seats may be reserved by calling (212) 992-9018 or emailing rsvp.bobst@nyu.edu.

Panelists include
** Rick Moonen, creator of RM restaurant in Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas and author of soon-to-be-released cookbook “Fish Without A Doubt.”
** Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies & Public Health at NYU and author of “What To Eat” and “Food Politics: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism.”
** Alex Prud’homme, author of “The Cell Game” (about the ImClone scandal) and “My Life in France” which he wrote with Julia Child.
** and Yours Truly

The panel will be moderated by Clark Wolf, founder of Clark Wolf Company, a well-known food, restaurant and hospitality consulting firm, and will deal with issues ranging from sustainable seafood and ocean conservation, to the drowning of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina, the impact of looming droughts on agriculture around the world, and on bottled water – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The “Critical Topics in Food” series has already hosted panels on “Sustainable Agriculture vs. Industrial Food” and “Cooks Who Grown Their Own: A More Direct Route from Earth to Table.”

Thursday’s panel, as well as past presentation, can be seen on-line at NYU’s Media Archive.

Wardrobe Malfunction

Gimme a chocolate cruller, coffee with cream and two sugars, and a heaping side of conservative craziness.

That’s been the order du jour at Dunkin Donuts stores across the country this week, as the company buckled under an assault by right-wingers in the blogosphere.

It all started with Rachael Ray. Yup, none other than that perennially-perky pusher of meals in minutes.

Turns out that Rachael wore a lovely black-and-white paisley scarf in an on-line ad for DD’s iced coffee.

Blogmeister Michelle Malkin, who the Chicago Tribune says “scours the world’s hot button issues hoping to raise the heat” took to the Internet with rants about the scarf resembling a keffiyeh  - a “jihadi chic keffiyeh” to be exact – and wondered aloud if Dunkin Donuts should be boycotted because of this “blunder.” The implication - and the ensuing chatter on the net - was that the garment was synonymous with terrorism and that DD and RR were somehow sending a message about Islamic terror organizations.

At first, DD issued a statement saying there was no hidden symbolism behind the scarf. It was simply the wardrobe choice of the stylist working on that particular ad.

But in response to an apparent frenzy of fear-mongering posts on the Internet,  the company pulled the ad a couple days ago.

I guess there’s plenty to debate here.

Is the keffiyeh a symbol of terrorism or simply the traditional garb that most Palestinian men wear to work in the fields and walk their kids to school?

Was Dunkin Donuts weak-kneed to pull the ad or just protecting its stockholders?

Heck. You can even debate whether Dunkin Donuts' iced coffee is as good as the new one from Mickey Ds.

But, to me, the more important question is why the heck does Michelle Malkin get so much play? I don’t know how this woman gets up and faces that first coffee-and-cruller each morning. If I had to make my living peddling paranoia, I’d wrap a stylish black and white keffiyeh around my neck and pull real hard.

Berry Berry Weird

Question: Who takes a pint of Guinness, plunks in a scoop of lemon sorbet, belts it back, and rhapsodically calls it a “chocolate shake?”

Answer: The guy sitting next to the girl who’s shaking Tabasco straight from the bottle onto her tongue and insisting it tastes like “hot donut glaze.”

Welcome to the newest game of culinary one-upsmanship, the “flavor tripping party.”

The star of the party is miracle fruit (aka Synsepalum dulcificum), a small red, berry-like fruit that contains a molecule called miraculin that binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing bitter and sour flavors consumed after eating it to taste sweet.

That means goat cheese tastes like sugared cheesecake, limes like candy, vinegar tastes like apple juice, and pricey Bordeaux wines like Manischewitz.

According to a recent article in The New York Times and a not-so-recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the unassuming fruit (which looks a lot like a cranberry and is said to have a mildly sweet tang) is a native of West Africa. Researchers have known about its “miraculous” properties since the 1700s, but it’s only been in the last year or so that bored foodies latched onto it as a natural follow-up to Pop Rocks.

The Times article chronicles a “flavor tripping party” in Queens (NY) last week, where host Franz Aliquo handed each guest a single berry and led them to a table laden with citrus wedges, mustards, Brussels sprouts, dark beers, pickles and cheap tequila that he promised would taste like top-shelf Patron after they chewed on the berry for one minute.

“Not mind-blowing, but very, very cool” is the way blogster Jacob Grier described the experience when he attended a similar party a year ago.

But miracle fruit isn’t just a culinary curiosity. There’s also a cloak-and-dagger aspect to the story. That’s because in the 1970s some clever entrepreneurs sought to isolate an extract of miraculin that could be sold as a sugar substitute. The FDA squashed the efforts. Entrepreneurs cried foul, claiming the FDA was in bed with the sugar industry, which clearly doesn’t want any competition from upstart berries.

You can find plenty about that nasty row on line. I’d give you a bunch of links to stories here but I'm busy chasing down a local source for the fresh berries.  Failing that, I guess I’ll turn to the on-line seller MiracleFruitMan.com, where you can buy seeds to grow your own miracle fruit ($1 a seed, plus shipping and handling) or a package of 30 highly-perishable berries shipped overnight for 90 bucks (S&H included).

Yes, that’s ridiculously expensive. And yes, that’s one helluva lot of weird berries in the fridge. But something tells me that sitting around by yourself playing with miracle fruit isn’t nearly as much fun as chomping them with 29 crazy friends.

What Goes Around

Most Baby Boomers vividly remember the "poor hungry children in China" who were, somehow, growing hungrier just because we brats wouldn't clean our plates at the dinner table.

Now, it turns out, those kids in China are not only eating tons of America's favorite sandwich cookie, the Oreo, but a fancy-schmancy Oreo created exclusively for them.

According to a story in today's Wall Street Journal, Kraft has "reinvented" the iconic cookie to make it sell better in the world's most populous nation. It's not a sandwich anymore. And it's not round. Instead,  the Chinese Oreo is made of four layers of long, thin, crispy wafers, filled with vanilla and chocolate cream, and coated with chocolate. I guess you'd call it the culinary version of re-inventing the wheel. (I don't quite understand, by the way, why the wrapper shows a round cookie if the product inside is rectangular.)

I will give credit, however, to Kraft for "going with the flow."  The world's second largest food company is currently undergoing what Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld sees as a kind of "entrepreneurial transformation." That means giving the Chinese market a wispy,  four-layered wafer cookie if that's what the Chinese market wants. (Seems to me that's what the Kit Kat is for.)

I'm particularly impressed with Kraft's grassroots marketing campaign in China to "educate" the consumer about Oreos. Apparently 300 students were hired as "brand ambassadors" to ride around Beijing on bicycles with wheel covers that resemble the real Oreo. Other students have held Oreo-themed basketball games to reinforce the American notion of dunking cookies in milk.

I'm certainly willing to taste the reinvented Oreo...you know, in the interest of international cultural understanding, etc. But I'm pretty sure it won't be as much fun as the traditional experience: Take one sweet-smelling Oreo. Twist ever so gently 'til the sides pop apart. Dunk the plain side in milk and eat.  Then s-l-o-w-l-y scrape the creamy white stuff off the other half with your teeth and bask in the feeling of being 10 years old again.