Recent Events

This past week saw three items related to food that have got me thinking and concerned about the future. On Wednesday, an article in the food section of the New York Times discussed the latest changes the big food companies are making to their products to try and convince consumers of the health benefits of chemically adulterated offerings, on Friday a front page story in the Valley News introduced us to the FDA’s involvement in genetically modified meat and fish, and on Saturday, Rosemary and I attended the Farm Aid music concert in Marshfield, Massachusetts, a event that is in it’s 23rd year in support of the family farmer. To me, the confluence of these three events and their implications for food in our society, were almost as disturbing as the massive financial crisis that is playing itself out on Wall Street and in Washington.

Let’s start with the advent of nutraceuticals, a term so new my word processing program thinks it’s a misspelling, which is defined as meaning a food additive which is derived from one food, and purports to import the health benefits of that food into it’s recipient food. Previously food supplements like garlic pills or gingko tablets, which were popular for a while in the 1990s, would be a related example. Now Tropicana, famous for orange juice, will include anchovies in their juice so one can derive the benefits from the anchovies’ omega-3 fatty acids while having breakfast. They will market the product under the name Tropicana Heart Healthy orange juice. Of course, they will have eliminated the anchovies’ taste and smell, so you won’t even suspect its presence unless you read the label. Similar products are on the drawing board at the other major food companies (Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo) like Dannon, Kraft and General Mills. According to the Times’ article, a 1999 court decision giving makers of food supplements broad latitude in advertising the health benefits of their products is the gateway to the introduction of these “functional foods,” as they are being called.

‘Functional foods’ have been modified to enhance their nutritional benefits, like vitamin D fortified milk or iodine-fortified salt or enriched flour, all of which helped to eliminate certain diseases in our country like rickets, goiter and pellagra. The new “functional foods” aren’t aimed directly at disease eradication, as in the past, but more at delivering what are currently thought to be nutritional benefits of an under-consumed food to those actively consumed, with certain health benefits accruing to the one ingesting the product. While there is widespread scientific agreement on the benefits of calcium, fiber, folic acid, soy protein, omega-3 fatty acids, lactic acid bacteria, beta-carotene and others, it has not yet been proven that adding them in supplemental form actually works. Recent studies surprised the scientific community when the inclusion of certain antioxidants taken in supplemental form had no beneficial effect on cardio-vascular disease. Scientists do not yet know how compounds in food are made available to the body, so I would urge caution on these new offerings to consumers, and I know that none of them will make my shopping list. I want my food unadulterated and natural, grown locally, and raised or grown on a sustainable farm by someone I can talk with about it’s origin, cultivation, feeding and harvesting. The food we eat at our house doesn’t come with labels, encased in plastic and Styrofoam, or covered with wax or insecticide residues or nutritional sprays. In fact, the food at our house comes not from the supermarket, but directly from area farmers.

Equally upsetting was the Valley News story derived from a Los Angeles Times article about genetically modified salmon, cows, pigs and goats. The FDA, our “friends and protectors” in Washington, are developing guidelines for food companies to produce genetically modified animals as if they were drugs. These massive food entities want to raise salmon faster, produce mad cow resistant cattle, and omega-3 rich pigs. Some genetically modified animals, called ‘biopharm animals’ would produce certain drugs, like insulin. Of course, the FDA’s approval process, to be fair to the big companies at the expense of the consumer, would be highly secretive to protect proprietary processes from competitors’ eyes, leading skeptics like myself to urge rejection of the whole idea. Many have already raised concerns about the potential environmental impacts of these “Frankenstein animals.” The whole genetically modified food initiatives aren’t about healthy, nutritious food, they are about agribusiness profits at the expense of local farmers and consumers.

So despite these assaults on food reason and responsibility, there are people out there who are working diligently to restore the benefits of the family farm, the bedrock of our food society. Since the first Willie Nelson inspired Farm Aid music concert in 1985, 300,000 family farms have disappeared in America. As John Mellencamp told the audience, when the first Farm Aid concert was produced, they thought Washington would actually listen and reverse the course established by then-Agricultural Secretary, Earl Butz, to “Get big, or get out!” The Nixon administration encouraged the advent of the factory farm at the expense of the family farm, and we have “Tricky Dick” to thank for the state of agribusiness in America today. We have agricultural pollution, petroleum based fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides depleting our land and running off into our waterways, mono-culture factory farms with their horrific animal husbandry practices, genetically modified foods, irradiated foods, country-wide food recalls, tainted products from China and more, instead of locally raised foods from our friends and neighbors. It’s time America woke up to plight of the family farm and supported the people who act responsibly to their crops and animals, the environment, and consumers. It is your choice, dear reader, to go blindly to the supermarket, buying whatever is on the shelf or in the cooler, with out consideration of its origin, alteration or rearing practices, supporting the status quo of a massive food industry built on political influence and profiteering, or helping locally responsible farmers who value the environment, their crops and animals and you, their consumer. Fortunately, locally and all across America, more and more people are waking up to the benefits of local, sustainable agriculture, and our agricultural base is becoming more diversified, producing more products for our table. And let me add, these products are the real thing, not altered or ‘improved’ by science, but what evolution wrought. These products are natural as is your body and soul. So it only makes sense to use these goods in our daily life, and by extension, we support our environment, our family farms and our health. Do the right thing for your family and community…buy local from our family farmers. It’s an old concept that is new again!

Winter Squash

We’ve had a couple of chilly nights lately, and, it being mid-September, there’s talk of foliage and fall harvest happenings in the air, besides the first whiffs of wood smoke in the crisp mornings. At the farmers’ markets and farm stands and in many backyard gardens, the winter squashes and pumpkins are ripe, so it must be autumn. Fortunately we don’t have any frost on those pumpkins yet, and a good thing, too, because there’s a lot of good fall eating yet to do, and frost is the great interrupter of our feasting.

Winter squash differ from summer squash in a couple of different ways, the most obvious being that we eat summer squash with it’s soft, edible skin while the fruit is immature, whereas we allow the winter squash with its relatively tough, inedible skin, to mature on the vine before harvesting. It is traditional, as well as practical, to cut winter squash and pumpkins with about 2 to 3 inches of stem attached, and to allow them to cure in the field for a week or more if no frost threatens. This curing aids in longer keeping qualities of butternuts, buttercups, Hubbards, and others, but Acorn are a poor keeper, relatively speaking, and should be eaten within 5 or 6 weeks of harvest.

New Englanders have relied on winter squash as part of their fall and winter diets since the beginning of America. A member of the genus cucurbita, they should not be stored in the refrigerator as they will suffer from chill injury. Store in a dry, draft free place, like a cellar, at 55 degrees or so and they should last into January or beyond. Winter squash are rich in beta-carotene as well as starch and fiber. There are three major varieties; cucurbita maxima which include the buttercup and its many types, amber squash, Hubbard, turban squash and banana squash, cucurbita pepo which include acorn squash, delicata and carnival or festival squash, and cucubita moschata or butternut. All have firm, usually yellow-orange flesh surrounding a fibrous seedpod. The flesh is moderately sweet and lends itself to both sweet and savory preparations. Winter squashes also lend themselves to being used as containers for other ingredients and, after baking, being eaten along with their contents.

As far as pumpkins go, any field pumpkins are fine for carving and using as fall decorations, but don’t bother trying to eat them. They tend to be very fibrous and don’t have that much flavor. Pie pumpkins and little sweet pumpkins are fine, whether for pies or as part of a dish of roasted fall vegetables. And don’t forget the pumpkin seeds. Toss then in a hot skillet to toast and add a little salt. Eat in moderation as they are high in fat and calories, but they do include folic acid and iron and are great in salads.

One of our favorite fall meals includes a platter of roasted fall vegetables. You can use anything you can think of or have on hand. Just cube up some peeled butternut and/or buttercup squash, sweet pumpkin, potatoes (we like fingerlings and leave the skin on), carrots, turnips, onions, celery, parsnips, and/or celeriac, and add some shallots and garlic divided into cloves. Toss everything in some olive or vegetable oil with some salt and pepper, maybe some thyme, and roast on a half sheet pan lined with parchment paper for 30 to 45 minutes a 400 degrees until tender. Garnish with minced parsley. They’re delicious warm or at room temperature.

Of course, the classic is to divide butternut squash lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, and place butter and either brown sugar or maple syrup in the depression before sprinkling with salt and freshly ground black pepper and baking at 400 degrees until the squash is tender, 30 minutes or so. Mash it all up together still in the skin, and dig in.

Here’s an acorn squash recipe called Zucca al Forno, which we have enjoyed and involves cooking the squash whole with a stuffing.

7 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 onions, cut into fine dice
3/4 pound fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cups mascarpone cheese, or use cream cheese
3/4 pound Emmentaler, grated or use Swiss cheese
1/4 pound Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated
3 whole eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
8 slices white bread, cut into 1-inch squares
2 large acorn squash, top cut off and seeds and strings removed, caps reserved or 4 festival or carnival squash prepared the same way.

In a medium skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the butter, add the onion and mushrooms, and saute until they soften and the onions release their juices. Add salt and pepper, to taste, and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine the mascarpone, Emmentaler, Parmigiano-Reggiano, eggs, and nutmeg, and stir well. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the onions and mushrooms.
In a skillet, melt the remaining butter and toss in the bread cubes, cooking over high heat until they are crisp.
Place the squash in a baking dish and, using a total of a third of the cheese mixture, stuff the bottom of each of the squash. Using a total of half of the bread cubes, place them in even quantities into each of the squash. Top the bread cube layer with more of the cheese mixture, then the remaining bread cubes, and the remaining cheese. Replace the top on the acorn squash and roast 1 hour in the oven, until the flesh is very soft. Remove from the oven, let cool for a few minutes and scoop out the cheese and flesh to serve, or if using the festival or carnival squash, serve individually.

My personal favorite is the buttercup squash, especially when their flesh is nice and dry. They roast and mash beautifully. Hubbards tends to be overly watery for my taste, but they sure are impressive with their knobby skin and immense sizes, up to 300 lbs. The buttercup roasts or steams well and has nice flavor, so it tends to be used a lot in my fall kitchen. The acorns, delicata and the small, colorful festival squashes are sweet and tender right now and should be enjoyed at their peak.

Potatoes

At your local farmers’ market these days you will find a growing variety of potatoes are now available. Russets, Red Bliss, Kennebunks, Yukon Golds, Green Mountains and other varieties are now appearing, and, dug fresh from the ground are delicious to eat. Usually potatoes are cured for a short period of time to allow their skins to thicken as this benefits their storage capabilities, however “new potatoes” with their thinner skins have a delightful flavor and should be enjoyed now while their season lasts. Anyone who grows their own potatoes enjoys slipping a few new potatoes out from beneath a growing plant to accompany their evening meal.

The potato is a starchy, tuberous plant originating in South America. It was long grown by the Incas and other South American tribes eons before the Americas were discovered in the 16th century. There are still 3,000 varieties of potato grown in South America, every shape, size and color imaginable. The Spanish brought the tuber back to Europe where it met with mixed success early on. In Ireland, of course, it became widely grown and counted upon by the masses as a staple in their diet as it supplied a ready source of protein. In fact, British social scientists raised the alarm that the potato would be the scourge of European civilization as it provided the impoverished masses with a ready dietary supplement that met their safety and security needs, allowing them to move up what would become Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” pyramid to sex. The result was a population explosion that actually commenced as the Industrial Revolution was beginning, allowing capitalists to find eager workers for their factories, with the eventual evolution of the modern middle class.

A member of the nightshade family, the potato, Solanum tuberosum, is actually a perennial plant grown worldwide. While it produces a flower and seeds, it is most commonly cultivated by planting pieces of the potato tuber containing “eyes”, an asexual practice known as “vegetative propagation.” The Colorado potato beetle is it’s natural predator, and as such has developed a resistance to commonly used insecticides, none of which I would use in my garden anyways. It is best to remove these orange/red pests by hand, dropping them into a can of kerosene or gasoline. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan tells his story of growing a Monsanto potato variety where the plant has been genetically engineered with a beetle pesticide incorporated into its DNA, giving it resistance to it’s nemesis. While Pollan wrote that the plants grew beautiful potatoes, he could never bring himself to actually eat these mutated tubers, thus they shriveled up, and started to sprout, while sitting in a box on his back porch. I think it is best to resist easy fixes from the Monsanto “frankenfood” wonder-scientists and stick with naturally developed varieties.

Potatoes are either “waxy” or “floury.” Waxy varieties boil well and don’t fall apart, lending themselves to potato salads and dishes like gratin dauphinois, a French scalloped potato dish made with milk and Swiss cheese. The floury varieties, like our russets or Idaho potatoes, are best for baking, mashing or making into French fries or potato chips. Fingerling potatoes have become more popular and common recently, and sweet potatoes, long a staple in the south, have their place, even if not directly related to the “Irish” potato, a common term for white potatoes. One can also find some of the colored varieties, like Peruvian blue potatoes, which are heirloom breeds.

As potatoes are eaten all over the world, the variety of recipes available for the adventuresome cook is almost inexhaustible. Even in America we see the potato in omelets, in stews, chowders and soups, as hash browns, as dumplings (i.e. gnocchi), potato pancakes and latkes, fried as fritters or croquettes, mashed, fried a chips or fries, boiled, steamed, baked and as toppings for other dishes, like Shepard’s Pie. They are the most common starch in the American diet, so preparing them in a large number of ways is requisite for the home cook to keep the hungry hoards from grumbling about the diversity of their repasts.

The potato is best known, nutritionally, for its carbohydrate content. While that content is primarily in the form of starch, the potato contains a number of vitamins and minerals important to our health. Much of the potatoes’ dietary fiber is contained in its skin, or just below the skin, however over half of the potatoes’ nutrients are contained within the potato itself. So peel them or not, as you choose or the application calls for, but remember as you discard the skins that you are throwing away a lot of goodness. Potato skins are now a treat all by themselves.

While you can use a microwave to “bake” a potato, and your machine probably has an “baked potato” button on it, you won’t get the nice crispy skin you can achieve in your oven when you lubricate its skin with butter or oil, and salt and pepper before baking, although you will save time and energy, both important considerations in today’s world.

While I was cooking at Balducci’s in New York, I used to make these “smashed fingerling” potatoes every day, and they flew out of the prepared food case and were frequently called for on the catering menu.

Smashed Fingerling Potatoes

1 lb. Fingerling potatoes, unpeeled
2 tsp. Lemon zest
1 tbl. Flat leaf parsley, minced
2 ea. Garlic cloves, sliced thin
Salt and pepper
Canola or vegetable oil for frying

Cook the whole fingerling potatoes in boiling, salted water until done, 10 to 15 minutes depending on their size. Drain and allow them to cool completely. When cool, take them individually and place the flat side of a cleaver or large chef’s knife atop them, giving them a blow that squeezes out some of their insides while keeping most of the skin intact.

I use a Japanese mandolin to get very thin, uniform slices of garlic. Take the sliced garlic chips, place in cold oil to cover, and turn the heat on beneath them. They will sputter as the oil heats up and their moisture is cooked off, which will take a few minutes, but watch them closely as they turn golden brown quickly and should be removed and drained at this stage.

Bring a pot half full of oil up to 360 degrees to 375 degrees and add the smashed fingerlings. Cook until they are golden brown and delicious, season with salt and pepper, the lemon zest and garlic chips. A dusting with parsley completes the dish.

Ratatouille Nicoise & Minestrone Soup

We are at the height of the growing and gardening season, so let’s talk about what to do with all those vegetables that are locally available right now. I have a couple of recipes here that combine a large number of those vegetables and make for some mighty fine eating, at a very modest cost. Given today’s high prices for gas and food, these can provide a modicum of relief for the home cook. In fact the two recipes that follow are part of what in Italy are known as cucina povera, literally “poor kitchen,” which generally describes a recipe arising from the days of intense poverty which existed until recently across much of the Italian peninsula.

The first is actually a French dish known as ratatouille nicoise, a vegetable stew which originated in Nice, France, whose cousin is the Italian caponata, a combination of eggplant, onions and olives usually served as an appetizer. Ratatouille, either a main dish or a side dish, is a combination of eggplants, zucchini (traditionally, but one can also include yellow squash), onions, tomatoes and sweet peppers, either red, orange, or green, or a combination of all three, along with olive oil, garlic and herbs. The name is derived from the French words ratouiller and tatouiller, two words derived from the verb touiller, meaning to” stir up.” There is some debate as to whether one cooks all the vegetables together or each vegetable separately, combining them afterwards to fuse their flavors. I personally like to cook them separately so I can control the cooking of each ingredient, otherwise you can end up with a thick stew where the vegetables become indistinguishable from each other. In the recipe below, I actually choose to grill most of the vegetables before combining, so this is a non-standard version, but very tasty. Ratatouille can be as a stand-alone dish with salad and bread, but it is traditionally served with roasts, chicken or other meats.

Grilled Ratatouille

2 ea. Eggplants, small or the thin Japanese eggplants, sliced ¼” thick
2 ea. Zucchini, sliced ¼” thick on the bias
2 ea. Yellow summer squash, sliced ¼” thick on the bias
2 ea. Red peppers
2 ea. Yellow, orange or green peppers
2 ea. Sweet onions, sliced ¼” thick
4 ea. Garlic cloves, minced
2 lb. Vine ripened tomatoes, cubed
¼ cup + 2 tbl Olive oil
Salt & pepper
2 tbl. Fresh basil, chiffonade
2 tbl. Fresh flat leaf Italian parsley, minced

Salt the eggplant and allow it to exude its liquid for 30 minutes while you light the grill and allow it to preheat. Wipe off the salt and droplets of liquid from the eggplants and toss with the rest of the vegetables in a large bowl with the ¼ cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Grill each vegetable until marked and cooked through, but not mushy. The peppers should be grilled until the skin is black, then placed in a plastic bag to steam for 10 minutes. This will allow you to peel the skin off (don’t rinse under running water as you’ll wash away some of their sweet flavor). Remove the peppers’ seeds and cut into pieces.

In a skillet, place 1 tsp. of olive oil and sauté the minced garlic for a minute or so. Cut the grilled vegetables into bite-sized chunks and combine them in a large sauté pan with the remaining olive oil and cooked garlic. Cook about 5 minutes to combine the flavors, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and dress with the basil and parsley. Serve warm, at room temperature or even cold. It always tastes better the next day.

Minestrone is an Italian vegetable soup usually containing pasta, rice, or potatoes. There is no standard recipe as it is made year round with the vegetables that are in season at the time of it’s making. It may contain small quantities of meat, like pancetta or bacon, or not. It may be made with meat stock, vegetable broth or water. It can have green vegetables like string beans, peas or broccoli, leafy vegetables like spinach, chard, cabbage or kale, summer or winter squash or pumpkin, onions, garlic, leeks, tomatoes, corn or whatever you have on hand. I usually include some beans, either fresh cranberry beans, barley or dried cannellini, ceci or borlotti (Great Northern, chickpeas or kidney beans). An Italian trick is to include a piece of the rind from a wheel of Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese. A delicious addition is to add some pesto, a combination of basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, as they do in Genoa and in the French soup known as Soupe au Pistou.

Some general rules on making a Minestrone are that soups that simmer for a relatively longer time tend to be creamier as the starches in the beans or barley are released more than if added just as they are cooked through. The rice or pasta should be added toward the end of the cooking, or they will suck up all the liquid and make the soup overly thick. Some nice ways to finish the soup is to drizzle each serving with some good extra-virgin olive oil, add a grating of Parmiagianno-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese to each bowl, grate fresh black pepper over the soup, add a tablespoon or two of red wine to each bowl or some garlic croutons or toasted bruschetta brushed with olive oil.

I’m not going to include a specific recipe, but will outline the general technique and allow you to include whatever is available in your pantry.

If using meat, and it’s always pork, sauté it, be it salt pork, bacon, pancetta, or guancile (cured pork jowl) in the soup pot. When the pork has rendered it’s fat and it has crisped up, remove it to a paper towel to drain. Add your onions or leeks, cut up into dice, chopped celery, carrots and/or garlic and sauté about 5 to 10 minutes until translucent. Add your diced pumpkin, winter squash, potato or turnips along with a pig’s foot, if you have one. The pork trotter has a lot of gelatin in it and will give the broth more body than if not used. Pour in your liquid, be it stock or water, to generously cover the vegetables and add our cheese rind, if using. Cook slowly until the vegetables are soft. Add any green beans, peas, chard, spinach, cabbage, or corn and cook slowly about 5 to 10 minutes. Add any rice or pasta and cook until done, 10 to 15 minutes more. If adding pesto, stir it in at the end or send the soup to table with a cruet of extra-virgin olive oil, the grated Parmesan cheese, black pepper grinder and/or croutons or bruschetta. Garnish with the pork bits.