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August 30, 2006
Tiny Bites for Tickling the Mouth
Today's Dining In section of the NY Times carried an article by Melissa Clark entitled "Tiny Come-Ons, Plain and Fancy" about the amuse-bouche--literal translation 'mouth pleaser'--as a prelude to dinner.
High-end, fashionable restaurants got back on board with the trend long ago (some never abandoned it) offering luscious artful little pre-dinner bites or sips designed to please both eye and palate and to make the diner feel special--sort of a lagniappe from the chef.
A few years back, another NYTimes columnist Ruth Reichl wrote this of the mouth ticklers offered by chef Marc Murphy at New York's La Fourchette:
This is a chef with an unabashed taste for lavish ingredients. On one night, his amuse-bouche was a bit of lobster in gazpacho; on another, a fillet of rouget with artichokes and capers. Little Parmesan toasts arrived with drinks.
and this
In keeping with its lofty ambitions, La Fourchette offers a small, but nicely chosen selection of cheeses. This is followed by a sweet amuse-bouche, a little creme brulee. And a few awesome desserts
A little spoon of a sweet lagniappe after cheese. Mmm--m--mmmmmmm. Probably wouldn't even need a full dessert after that.
Clearly the amuse-bouche isn't just a savory sip or nibble before the soup, salad, or entree at dinner. In fact, it can span all meals. To wit: Norma's, one of our favorite spots in Manhattan for breakfast, has for as many years as I can remember, offered a tiny verticle shot glass of their fruit smoothie du jour to each guest upon arrival. And I must say, it amuses my bouche every time.
And according to Ms. Clark, the practice of offerring little bites for tickling your guests' mouths has moved from the restaurant dining room to the one at home. A move that all we low-carbing crowd should applaud, since the tiny portions of such bites can offer us the opportunity to have just a nip of something we might feel perhaps too carby to enjoy as a full serving...at least without a measure of angst.
Say, the tiny bit of buttered corn soup served in an elegant popcorn-salt-rimmed espresso cup that Ms. Clark describes and gives the recipe for in her piece.
Or perhaps half a black fig topped with blue cheese or chevre and run under the broiler just before serving to warm it and bubble the cheese served up in a Chinese soup spoon.
But these bites lend themselves especially well to things that already fit into the low-carb lifestyle, but are too pricey to eat in abundance. Ms. Clark mentions a couple: Bigeye Tuna with MicroHerbs and Ginger-Apricot Aioli and Goat-Cheese Stuffed Boquerones (white anchovies.)
We offered a few small bites in an "Appetizers and Munchies" episode of our PBS television show CookwoRx; the recipes for these are available in the companion cookbook and in the recipe section of the show's website.
Here's one of my favorites:
Avocado-Caviar Spoons
Serves 8 (makes about 16 spoons)
1 large ripe Haas avocado
1 lemon
1 small jar (about 2 ounces) black whitefish caviar
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup half and half cream
1. Whisk the sour cream and half and half until smooth and have ready.
2. Drain the caviar into a fine mesh strainer; rinse with water and drain again. Put into a small bowl and squeeze the juice of half a lemon directly over the caviar and set aside.
3. Halve, seed, and slice the avocado halves across from side to side into 4 slices. Slice each half in two lengthwise to create 16 bite-sized pieces.
4. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the pieces.
5. Drain the excess lemon juice from the caviar and gently separate the eggs with a spoon.
6. Place one piece of avocado on each of 16 pretty teaspoons, top with a teaspoon of the cream, and top with a sprinkling of caviar or more to your liking.
Protein per serving: 1.4 grams
Effective carb per serving: 0.8 grams
Even with a liberal dollop of it on each spoon, you will very likely have some caviar left after you prepare the bites. If you're a caviar lover, feel free to do as I do: open another avocado, dump what's left in the hollows, top with what's left of the cream and amuse your own bouche before the guests arrive.
After all, why should they have all the fun?
Posted by mdeades at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2006
Dine Out for the Gulf
This coming Tuesday, August 29, 2006, is the national Restaurants for Relief2 dine out evening. Across the country, participating restaurants will donate a portion of their proceeds to Share Our Strength's Hurricane Katrina relief fund.
It's hard to imagine that a full year later, recovery from the devastation Katrina (and Rita) wrought across the Gulf Coast is far from complete. In some of the hardest hit areas, it's hardly begun. But when you consider the scale of the disaster--an area bigger than Great Britain demolished--it's clear just how much work must be done to rebuild (and more importantly revitalize) the coastal communities.
Although we're big proponents of the notion that one of the best things you can do for your health is to spend more time in your own kitchen, we also love to eat out; we relish the luxury of being served; we appreciate the change of venue. Still, more evenings than not, we prefer to eat in. This Tuesday, however, is one time that spending a little time out of your own kitchen can really be beneficial, particularly for others still in need. Choose wisely from what's offered and it can be a healthy win-win for all.
If just by dining out August 29, we can do a little more to help and have a good time and a good meal to boot, why not do it?
Click here to find a Restaurants for Relief2 participating restaurant in your area.
Posted by mdeades at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2006
Oops, Forgot Delovely Lavender
I realized that from my soapbox perch I had neglected to include the lavender dressing recipe the filing of which launched the whole World According to AARP blog the other day. Mea culpa!
In a Mediterranean climate, such as Santa Barbara, where we live part time, lavender grows everywhere--on roadsides, in gardens, in landscaped parking lot medians, in giant fields across the foothills in the Santa Ynez valley, everywhere--year round. With such lavender abundance, it's nice to have some new simple things to do with it, on which point a yummy sounding easy lavender dressing recipe qualifies.
Thus, my motivation for clipping the AP article, by Phyllis Glazer that got picked up by our local daily bugle. Entitled "Give fruit salads flair by making them savory" Ms. Glazer's piece contained not only the lavender dressing recipe, but a couple of other nutty, fruity, cheesy salads as well: Fresh Strawberry and Blue Cheese Salad, Lemons Stuffed with Piquant Fruit Salad and Lavender Dressing, and Fresh Fig, Feta, and Walnut Salad..
Here is the Lavender Dressing, or at least my lower carb variation on it:
6 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 1/2 tablespoons dried lavender leaves
6 packets Splenda
1 teaspoon ThickenThin not/Sugar (optional to thicken)
Mix water, lemon juice, lavender, and Splenda together in a small sauce pan and heat over low heat for 2 or 3 minutes to infuse lavender into liquid. Strain immediately to prevent dressing from becoming bitter. Stir in thickener while warm to dissolve and thicken slightly; chill dressing well. Splash over fresh fruit salad.
The recipe in Ms. Glazer's article called for a fruit salad made of diced apricots and plums, with just a bit of minced fresh jalapeno pepper and for serving the dessert-cum-salad in the hollowed out halves of lemons. Really a pretty presentation, I thought. And I just love playing off the sweet of the fruits with the hot of the pepper and the sweet/sour of the dressing. Yummm.
For the most part, all the recipes in the article were reasonably carb friendly recipes as they were or with a few minor modifications. For instance replacing superfine sugar with Splenda (or stevia) in the Lavender Dressing and using fewer figs, more bok choy, and a little stevia or Splenda in place of the date syrup in the figgy salad maybe.
What's ironic is that the recipe for the stuffed lemons onto which the lavender dressing goes contains fresh apricots. Yes, those very same apricots that turned up as #4 the AARP longevity list that happened to share the page above the fold with Ms. Glazer's piece. The very same apricots that--thanks to AARPs keen insight into apparantly unheard of (at least unpublished) research in lipid and cancer biochemistry--we now know are of paramount importance in keeping us healthier and letting us live longer by lowering cholesterol and reducing cancer risk...just so long as we don't eat them with any protein or fat at dinnertime, I guess.
Posted by mdeades at 1:02 AM | Comments (1)
August 21, 2006
Longevity: The World According to AARP
I clipped a good looking recipe for a Lavender Dressing out of my local paper the other day and as I was filing it away, I noticed a little blurb in the Food & News Notes with this headline:
AARP Shares some secrets to longevity
Say what? Silly me, I was unaware that the secrets to longevity had been fully worked out.
Here's the received wisdom from the World According to AARP...as least at it pertains to longevity:
1) Add fish and low-sodium soups to your diet to improve your health and lose weight. 2) Each time you eat, chew at least 30 times before swallowing. Important nutrients will be absorbed more readily. 3) Avoid carbonation because many beverages with bubbles contain phosphoric acid, which can diminish bone mass and increase risk of osteoporosis. 4) Add apricots to your diet. They're high in antioxidants which help fight cancer and reduce bad cholesterol levels. 5) Eat protein and fat during the day, but avoid these items at night. Eating these foods at dinnertime tends to increase weight, blood pressure, and heart disease.
Oh my. Where to begin. Let's take it from the top.
I can't argue that eating more cold-water fish--and the fattier the better--for the omega-3 oils they contain is probably a good idea for health (questions of mercury, PCBs, dioxins, furans, etc. aside) as a part of a sugar/starch restricted eating program makes sense for longevity. But 'low sodium soups' to improve health and lose weight? Come on. Even if the point is to reduce high blood pressure, only a tiny minority of people who have elevated blood pressure have what's called "salt sensitive" hypertension. For the rest, cutting sodium has been shown not only not to help but possibly to be downright detrimental.
As to adopting a program of 'chewing each bite 30 times' ? Well, shades of the turn-of-the-last century. Back then, when J. Harvey Kellogg was promoting such beneficial remedies for overweight as milk and grape fasts, milk enemas, hydroshock therapy, and irradiation at his Battle Creek, Michigan sanitarium, a gentleman named Horace Fletcher was making himself a millionnaire travelling the world instructing people on how to 'Fletcherize' their food--ie, chew it until it basically dissolved. No doubt his claim that it promoted weight loss was a true one; afterall, if you had to chew every bite of food (or, get this, every sip of liquid) at least 32 times, your muscles of mastication would fatigue before you could get much in. Like radiation, it would probably work for weight loss, but would it be a weight loss you'd want?
But what of the AARP contention that it will make nutrients more readily absorbable to chew 30 or, as Horace himself would have had us done, 32 times? Certainly it will do so for starch; since saliva contains amylase, it will quickly turn starch into glucose for ready absorption. Does this mean they're recommending that speeding wads of glucose quickly into the bloodstream is a good thing?
Hmmmmm. None for me, thanks.
How about 'Fletcherizing' all the other nutrients? Easier absorption from endless chewing? Nah. All important nutrients, protein, fat, and the micronutrients in plant and animal foods get utterly liquified in the carnivore stomach's acid bath (pH of 2 to 2.5) into which they're dropped and churned for an hour or two, however many times they were chewed first. Even if they were practically whole going in. And, of course, actual digestion and absorption doesn't begin until the chyme (acid liquified stomach contents) exits the stomach and enters the small intestine, where equally strong bases and powerful bile salts converge to chew up and emulsify everything the acid didn't take care of.
On to number 3, the inclusion of which on a list purporting to impart a few key tips simply defies understanding: avoid carbonated bubbly beverages because of the phosphoric acid they contain that "may diminish bone mass and increase the risk of osteoporosis?" I can think of a lot better ways to preserve bone health than avoiding bubbles; work out with weights and get some sunshine for vitamin D spring immediately to mind. Likewise, I can think of a legion of reasons to counsel against drinking typical 'bubbly beverages' ...duh...HFCS and aspartame maybe? Risk of diabetes or memory failure, maybe? But the teensy amount of phosphoric acid they contain would certainly not top the list. As to how much is a teensy amount? Here's what the often quite humorous Urban Legends webpage has to say about the concentration:
Coca-Cola does contain small amounts of citric acid and phosphoric acid; however, all the insinuations about the dangers these acids might pose to people who drink Coca-Cola ignore a simple concept familiar to any first-year chemistry student: concentration. Coca-Cola contains less citric acid than orange juice does, and the concentration of phosphoric acid in Coke is far too small (a mere 11 to 13 grams per gallon of syrup, or about 0.20 to 0.30 per cent of the total formula.)
Besides, while it may be true that back in the heyday of the old time soda fountain, fruity syrups got their bubbly charge from phosphoric acid--hence, their name: phosphates--nowadays, the carbonation comes from, uh, carbonates or more correctly carbonic acid. The teensy phosphoric acid content, like the citric acid content, mainly serves to add zip or tang or bite to the flavor.
Judging from numbers 2 and 3 on their hit list, it looks like AARP must have found their treasure trove of tips in an abandoned storage closet at Battle Creek.
On to number 4. Add apricots to lower cholesterol and fight cancer.
Holy Moly!
Let me begin by stating categorically that I have absolutely nothing against apricots; I love them. I have an apricot tree in my yard. Taste-wise, they're one of my favorite stone fruits for jams, preserves, crostadas, tarts. I love to add them fresh to green salad or chicken salad. But in the antioxidant sweepstakes they aren't exactly the grand prize winners. Berries, prunes, and raisins are far higher up the ORAC list. Broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage far higher on the cancer fighting sulphorophane list. And, it could just be my own deficiency of knowledge, but I don't recall any significant study that hailed the apricot as a weapon in the fight (misguided though it is) to lower cholesterol. Or, to use Mike's pet peeve phrase: artery-clogging cholesterol. The apricot? Really? Who'da thunk?
And, saving the best for last, the World according to AARP turns to the meat (sorry) of the issue. The AARP list thoughtfully permits its disciples to eat protein and fat (although I must say it absolutely amazed me that they didn't feel compelled to add 'in limited quantities' after protein or 'heart-healthy polyunsaturated vegetable' before fat. They're slipping.) However, it then goes on to caution the elderly population to eat protein and fat only during the day, pronouncing that "eating these foods at dinnertime tends to increase weight, blood pressure, and heart disease."
Huh?
I'm not even sure how to counter such nonsense. Something unusual happens to our human biochemistry after 6 pm? Suddenly protein and fat cause heart disease and obesity, when they don't during the day? Am I understanding this right? I must have missed that day in med school.
Contrary to this bizzare compilation of nonsense, actual medical research studies (click here) done on living, mentally and physically fit octagenarians, nonagenarians, and even centenarians (those living to 80, 90, and 100 years and beyond, a benchmark of longevity that's hard to argue with) has shown three commonalities: low normal blood sugar, low normal insulin levels, and low triglycerides.
I'll leave it to you to determine what diet never fails to produce those three results.
Posted by mdeades at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2006
By Request: Warm Sesame and Ginger Spinach Salad
Several of you noticed in my Toast of the Town blog the other day the mention of an Asian -inspired warm spinach salad and inquired about the recipe. It's great as a summer side dish, but also makes the base of a fabulous entree salad, topped with grilled salmon or stir-fried shrimp, chicken, or beef.
Always, happy to oblige, I include it forthwith; it's up to you not to burn the sesame seeds.
Oh, and you'll note the carb count for a serving (about 1 1/2 cups of the spinach plus a share of all the rest) comes in at a hair over 8 grams. Much of that comes from the add ins (red onion, ginger, shallot) which you can cut back a little bit and not lose much in the way of flavor, if you choose, to make a little more room in an intervention carb budget for something else. In maintenance, it's plenty low enough.
Warm Sesame and Ginger Spinach Salad
Serves 4
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
6 slices pancetta, diced coarsely
3 tablespoons sesame oil
1 small shallot, diced fine
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 packet Splenda or Stevia (optional)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½" squeeze prepared wasabi paste
1 red onion, sliced thinly
1 packet pickled ginger, drained, rinsed, and sliced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
6 cups fresh baby spinach leaves
1. Toast the sesame seeds over a low flame until just turning golden; set aside.
2. In a skillet, fry the pancetta in the sesame oil over medium high heat until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Leave oil in skillet, but turn heat off or to the lowest simmer, depending on how long it will be until you plan to eat the salad.
3. In a small heat-proof bowl, combine the shallots, vinegar, sweetener, wasabi paste, salt and pepper and whisk to combine. Add the red onion slices and allow them to marinate in the vinegar mixture for at least 10 minutes to remove some of their bite. Remove onions from the vinegar with a slotted spoon and set them aside.
4. When ready to assemble (and eat) the salad, place the fresh spinach, pancetta, pickled ginger, and onion in a large salad bowl and have ready.
5. Return the skillet to medium high heat to get the oil hot, but not smoking. Turn off the heat and drizzle the hot oil into the vinegar mixture, whisking all the while.
6. Immediately pour the hot dressing over the spinach salad and toss quickly to coat evenly and slightly wilt the leaves. Sprinkle on the toasted sesame seeds and give another quick toss to distribute them throughout.
7. Enjoy immediately.
Protein per serving: 11.4 grams
Effective Carb per serving: 8.3 grams
Posted by mdeades at 7:38 AM | Comments (2)
August 15, 2006
Toast of the Town
No, this blog isn't about booze! Remember, I swore an oath to abstain from alcohol-related bloggery until after Labor Day. Rather, it's about a great little gadget--called a Spice Toaster--that I saw on the FoodfStuff pages of the NY Times a few weeks ago. It's sort of like a cross between a tiny old-fashioned popcorn popper or antique bed-warmer and a fine mesh strainer.
I have a keen appreciation of clever kitchen gadgets, especially the small ones, as the jam-packed drawers in my kitchen will attest. I don't especially like cutesy 'one-off' kitchen appliances--hot dog centers or rice steamers come to mind--that take up a lot of space on the counter or cupboard for a single purpose. But a gadget that makes easy (or easier) work of something you do often that's tedious or messy can win a place in my heart and my drawers.
Sometimes gadgets seem better in the abstract than they turn out to be in fact. Hence the several types of really high quality vegetable peelers that I use often sit in my drawer, nestled beside the hardboiled egg/mushroom slicer and the garlic press that I use never.
What never? Well...hardly ever. (Sorry, need to shoo the Gilbert and Sullivan muse out of my brain.)
Toasting whole spices/ingredients, such as pinon nuts, cardamom seed, mustard seeds, or sesame seeds, can sometimes be both: tedious, in that they're easy to burn unless you watch them with an eagle eye, and messy, in that especially the mustard and sesame seeds tend to pop out of the open skillet as you toast them. As was the case when I was making a little Asian-influenced take on a Warm Spinach Salad last night and over-toasted (okay, burned) the sesame seeds. And, of course, there is no rescue for burned sesame seeds; you simply have to throw them out and start again. Fortunately I had more in the freezer.
Thus my thoughts turned to the glaring lack of a spice toaster in my kitchen armamentarium. Funny how that works. Before I'd seen the article, I'd not have known the gadget existed, and there could be no lack or at least no perception of one on my part. But now that I know about it and more to the point have needed it...instant lack! Positively metaphysical.
If a gadget is absent but there's no one in the kitchen who knows about it, is there a lack?
So, now I feel the lack and fear I'll have to do something to amend it. I took a look online at the one mentioned in the little blurb in the Times, the Williams and Sonoma one for about $14. I'm going to make a beeline to W&S tomorrow and take a look at it in the flesh...er...steel and see what I think.
Then, if it looks like a must have, I'll just have to figure out if there's a place to wedge it into the gadget armory.
Posted by mdeades at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2006
As the Worm Turns: To Sushi or Not to Sushi
The title of a recent article in the Health & Fitness section of the New York Times immediately caught my eye: Tale of the Tapeworm (Sqeamish Readers Stop Here)
There is no living human (particularly not 'a medical man' as my darling husband calls me) more horrified and repelled than I by the thought, let alone the sight, of anything remotely wormy. I made it through the required medical school curriculum in Parasitology with a high grade only by an act of sheer will and a most excellent ability to memorize what I hear without having to look at it much. The sight of anything that motates with a wriggling, writhing motion--be it snake, worm, caterpillar, or lowly slug--instantly sends electric shockwaves coursing through me that travel down to the very tips of my fingers and toes. It's a deep, primal thing that cannot be countered by any sort of fact, logic, or rational thinking. Mike, who doesn't have a squeamish corpuscle in his body, can't relate, thus, my horror is usually met with his "Get a grip; you're a 'medical man' philosophy."
That worms abound in the world I can (and surely must) accept. That they might abound in me, horrifies me to the bone. And yet, I adore sushi and sashimi. I could eat it two or three times a day. My mouth waters for delicate fresh chunks of hamachi or ahi, dipped in soy sauce and wasabi. Mmm-m-m-m-mmmmm!
But certainly, there are some risks inherant in eating raw fish...picking up fish-borne broad (tape) or round worms among them.
Eeeeeeeeek!
My mother always claimed that eating hot peppers killed parasites and, for that reason, she ate them plentifully. (She, too, had the primal worm-o-phobic gene, which I suppose is where my own originated.) I can remember her taking whole, hot, canned jalapenos and popping them into her mouth, biting off the stems, and chewing them up. If she broke a good sweat across her brow, she declared them fit. If she got a really, really hot one, she'd remark that one day she probably be carried off by a lethal jalapeno, but better that than worms!
I'd also heard, that along the same line, wasabi, the hot Japanese horseradish-like substance, always served alongside your sushi or sashimi did much the same thing.
With the rise in popularity of eating sushi in the USA, a couple of curious scientists actually researched the issue and, lo and behold, it appears that the soy and wasabi actually do some good, particularly in reducing potential bacterial contaminants. (If you'd like to read the abstract of the article, click here.)
But I can't think of sushi and wasabi in particular, without its calling to mind a scene that played out before us once between a couple seated next to us at a sushi bar in Boulder, Colorado.
From the gist of their conversation--which we couldn't help overhearing in such close quarters--they were on a date, perhaps even a first one. The gentleman was clearly trying to make a good impression and prove how avant garde his palate truly was. The female of the pair, an attractive, slender, blonde woman, much younger than he, seemed to be the sushi veteran of the pair; in fact, we guessed it to have been the guy's first sushi experience.
She ordered for them, giving him pointers on ordering, what she liked, didn't like, etc. and he was lapping up her every word with rapt attention, while slurping his miso soup. In due course, the sushi chef set before them a selection of rolls and nigiri tidbits, which, of course, had the obligatory blob of green wasabi on the side of the plate. The novice pointed to the blob and asked her 'what's this?' She sagely replied, "They always put a little bit of guacamole on the plates; I don't know why, but I never eat it because it's so high fat."
Mike and I almost burst out laughing, but masked it by stuffing chunks of yellow tail into our mouths.
We sat quietly there in the weeds next to him, hoping (unkindly, I must admit) that he'd pop that whole glob of 'guacamole' into his mouth. What a show that would have been, watching him break the sweat and try to sit there unmoved in front of the fair damsel as the wasabi put the sear on his mouth and sinuses. Unfortunately, he was so keen to impress her, he avoided the 'guacamole' altogether.
Pity, too, since according to the science, by doing so he increased his chances for picking up something far less desirable than the blonde he was wooing. Something that might hang around longer, too.
Posted by mdeades at 12:00 AM | Comments (2)
August 6, 2006
A Cut Above
The New York Times Sunday Magazine a while back carried an article entitled "Super Cuts" in its cooking feature "The Way We Eat" by Daniel Patterson. (Try though I might to find it elsewhere on the net, I could only come up with the NY Times archive, which can only be had free to subscribers, though there is a 14-day Free Trial Offer available.) The piece detailed the rising trend among top chefs of offering off-beat, oft-neglected, less expensive cuts of meat on their menus: pig's feet, beef and veal cheeks, lamb's neck, pork belly, and others. The great wide world of meat out there beyond steaks, ribs, and shoulders. For those who complain that a meat-based diet is just too expensive, they offer a reasonable (and flavorful) solution.
I recall as a child being absolutely horrified at my parents', especially my mother and her family's, love of pig's feet and calf brains. What could they be thinking? Then, again, I tended to be a sort of picky eater--no liver, no lumps (nuts) no strings (coconut) no thighs or drumsticks, no giblets or tongues, and for sure, no cheeks or tootsies for me, thanks.
But that was then, when I was young and foolish, before I had yet acquired the taste for (as I admonished my own children to say in place of 'I don't like that!') and a willingness to try almost everything.
I think fear of mad cow disease has effectively quashed the likelihood that Brains and Eggs (one of my mother's favorites) will be turning up on many menus nowadays, but more and more the others seem to be making a bigger splash than ever in restaurants from New York to Napa.
Lower priced cuts of meat, such as beef cheeks, pork belly, chicken necks, and pig's feet, have always held a place of honor in rural Southern and Soul Food cuisines in great measure for just that reason--they were an inexpensive way to put meat on the family's table. For just the same reason, they were eschewed by the more affluent regions, who disparaged them as 'poor folk's food.' More's the pity for the high fallutin, since despite their humble origins, these cuts offer some of the richest, best flavor on the animal.
Learning to cook them, like learning to cook anything new, just takes a few good recipes and a little effort, but the payoff in flavor (not to mention the pocketbook) will more than justify. For those interested in giving it a try, click here and here for a couple of recipe options and here and here for a couple of sources.
If you're a novice cooker of 'lesser parts' this should get you started. If you're on old hand and have other favorite recipes for eating 'low on the hog' as it were, and would like to share them, please feel free to do so in the comments section.
Bon Apetit,ya'll!
Posted by mdeades at 11:40 AM | Comments (2)
August 1, 2006
Popcorn Snacker Alert: Pop Goes the Diacetyl
A recent article in the LA Times (registration required, but free) gives us yet another good reason to eschew microwave popcorn: the flavor agent, diacetyl, widely used to give microwave popcorn its buttery flavor has been tied to the development of an irreversible lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans that's been cropping up with alarming regularity in the workers at popcorn factories.
The article hastened to add that at this point consumers are not thought to be at risk. Right. I don't know about you, but based on the track record of the food toxin watchdogs in this country, I wouldn't be betting my lungs on their timely notification/admission that the stuff DOES put consumers at risk, if such were to prove the case.
Anyway, the whole diacetyl mess is just one more example of the law of unintended consequences. Had 'they' not gotten their britches in an unjustified and unnecessary twist over the use of real butter in the first place, there would never have been a need for using diacetyl to impart an artificial 'real butter' flavor to popcorn (and other products) and none of these workers victimized by inhaling the chemical would have succumbed to this awful disease. So sad and so preventable.
Now, off my soapbox and back to popcorn...
While popcorn may seem like an odd topic for a carb conscious person, such as I, to be riffing on, it's actually not too bad a carb bargain. A 1-cup serving popped in oil has 55 calories, 28 of them from fat, 1 gram of protein, 6.3 grams of total carb, 1.1 grams of fiber, and therefore, an ECC of only 5.2 grams. Not a bad snack. The problem, of course, is that it is an antigenic grain that many people do not tolerate, but that's another blog. For those interested, see our discussion of wheat and corn and various autoimmune and inflammatory disorders in The Protein Power LifePlan (Warner 2000).
Over the years in our practice, we had many patients who enjoyed a little popcorn snack. One gentleman comes to mind, in particular, who ate a measured cup of popcorn every evening during his successful weight loss endeavor under our watch. Fortunately, it was airpopped, not microwaved, that he craved.
Suffice it to say that until 'they' can prove to me there's not a health risk from eating the aritifically flavored microwaved form, my feeling is that those people who just must have a bit of popcorn would be better served to do it the old fashioned way. For those who grew up in the age of microwave popped corn, here's how to do it:
Put a heavy bottomed pan on the stove, add a a bit of good high-temp stable oil, such as coconut oil, turn the heat to medium to heat the oil. Then cover the bottom of the vessel with (untainted) popping corn, put a lid on it, turn the heat to medium high, and wait for the pop...pop...popping to start.
Meanwhile, melt some real honest-to-Pete (preferably organic) butter in the microwave (the only proper use for this kitchen appliance in making popcorn, for sure!) and have it ready.
When the popping starts, shake the pot vigorously intermittantly to prevent kernels on the bottom from burning, because nothing smells worse than burned popcorn and, besides, it ruins the flavor of the whole batch. One bad apple may not spoil the whole bunch, girl (apologies to Wacko Jacko) but one burned popcorn kernel sure does.
Conversely, nothing sets a mouth to watering quite like the smell of freshly popped corn. It's an aroma so enticing that at our clinic we forbade the staff from popping popcorn on the premises during business hours, since it sent the poor patients in the exam and waiting rooms into a Pavlovian dither.
When the corn is fully popped, crack open the lid, pour on the real melted butter, sprinkle on a touch of salt and enjoy your cup. If you made a lot more than a cup, be sure you invited friends over to help consume it. Beware! If you're like me, left alone with a big bowl of hot buttered popcorn, your measured 1 cup will become 4 cups before you can blink and a reasonable 5 grams will become 20.
Caveat Popcorn-eator!
Posted by mdeades at 11:52 AM | Comments (9)