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For more information on Just Food, visit just food.org or call 212-645-9880. That's 212-645-9880. Let's keep making New York City a better place to live and eat. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from 12 to 1245 here in the studio with Nastasha the Hammer Lopez and special unannounced guest caller in, Harold McGee.
So we're gonna is Harold there? Good morning, Dave. Good morning, good morning. How are you doing? To listen, I didn't tell any guys out there that he was gonna be on.
We're gonna I actually told him, can you just answer these two questions? I'm gonna try and keep them on as long as I can. So if you we we if a caller calls in, will you take it? Uh uh you know, I'd love to uh if we can maybe get this uh the phone connection fixed, because I'm hearing uh like every other millisecond of your of what you're saying. Alright, why don't we do this?
Uh Jack, why don't you re re-establish that connection? I'll just do the top of the show uh kind of crud, all right? We'll reestablish Harold's questions. Call in your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-2497 2-28.
And oh Nastasha, today's going to be a Texas themed uh songs in the in the middle because I just got back from Texas. Did you choose them already? Uh I did choose them already. Uh by the way, today's a show brought to you by City Chicken, right, which is Nastasha's next band, I think City Chicken, right? But on the on the subject of raising uh livestock uh in the city, uh something I've been interested in a long, long time is micro livestock.
The uh the I believe it's the FAO put out a book on micro livestock maybe about 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, and I read it with much interest. Did you know, Nastasha, that there are breeds of livestock that, although not as efficient at producing meat or milk as the larger breeds of livestock, can be raised in situations where you don't have enough land to produce even one. So if you you don't have enough pasture to raise even one cow, you can raise two micro cows, and those two micro cows will produce one third of the milk of a of a regular cow but you couldn't even raise a regular cow, right? You like that? Wow.
So what I want is if anyone is willing to raise some sort of micro livestock illegally in the city, I think we should chip together and buy them one. Like buy it like buy like a couple people have pet pigs but like what if you had like a micro eating pig? You know what I mean? Or like eh, you know, and they raised it in their apartment. Do you think we should support that or no?
No. Why not? Sure take on another take on another project. Well that's not a project. Someone else is going to do it.
All we have to do is buy them the animal anyway. Something to think about. Do we have uh Harold back on the line? Harold's back. Harold's back.
Very good. Is that connection better, Harold? Uh it is, yeah, so far. Good we'll we'll hope that uh since it's my cell phone number, I hope that uh connection stays here. Oh yeah, yeah.
Cell phone. I know he you are you were also a victim of ATT and T as am I, right? Yes. Yes. Yes.
Got an got an email from them yesterday saying, Welcome to the new T A T and T. I hope this one works. All right. Uh okay. So the the first question we had in was about uh legumes.
It comes from Adam Frost. Um and I I guess he's uh out of the UK because he spells flavor with the UK kind of uh fashion. But he says, uh legumes and some grains have a slightly acrid vegetable taste when raw, but this dissipates after a certain amount of cooking, usually proportional to the size of the seed. Is this the work uh and or destruction of enzymes? Also, if you cook some starchy food, again, grains and legumes, for far too long, approximately twelve hours, they can develop an off flavor that is difficult to describe.
If you know what I'm talking about, do you know what causes this? Now I tried to figure out this answer on my own, but I realized this is really Harold's, you know, uh purview. Also, before before I go, I didn't introduce Harold. For those for like the two people who might have ever listened to this who don't already know who Harold is, Harold McGee is the uh is the grandmaster of uh science as it relates to making things uh delicious. Wrote uh the seminal book on food and cooking, first edition, right, which you need to go buy, even if you have the new one, you need to go buy the old one because it's quite different from the current on food and cooking.
Uh both books have been uh, you know, since eighty four, I think, uh, and the other one since when, like two thousand and four. The the uh the things that you need in your kitchen if you want to help explain what's going on while you're cooking. It's like it's the reference work. If you get one book, get that one. That's kind of how it works.
But you should also buy the old one. Uh I'm OG Herald, by the way. I had the original before the new one came out, so I consider myself OG, OG Herald fan. Uh you also need to go on Bookfinder and pick up a copy of Curious Cook, which is going to teach you more, in my opinion, from knowing you for several years, kind of uh how Harold thinks when he's thinking about things, which is the most important uh thing to do when you're when you're trying to observe food closely and figure out what's going on. And so that's like the more personal book and the and the the newest book is uh key the keys to cooking, right?
Keys to good cooking. And what that is is basically like short form, like how to get the answers quick on what's going on without having to delve into the depth of on food and cooking. Would you say that's accurate? Uh yes, I'm very generous. Thank you.
And the new book, which i it's not even scheduled, but the one I know he wants to write, is like the next magnum opus. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about this, but the next magnum opus, I think that's gonna come out, is uh and and it could be you know a billion years, I don't know, is something on take taste and flavor, and it's probably gonna be the most difficult if I had to write it, it would be the most difficult of the ones so far because there's so much not known uh and there's so much work being done, and it's such a complicated subject. Would you say that's fair or no? No, uh that's absolutely right. And in fact, that uh that's kind of in the background of uh these questions that you uh sent to me.
Right, which is both in in their various ways about flavor and uh how complicated it is to figure out what's going on in real foods. Right, which is why I knew you'd be on top of it. So what are your thoughts? Well, uh so on this question about legume and grain flavor, uh it does turn out that uh uh the the flavors of of legumes, especially dried beans and peas and so on. You know, it's very distinctive, and it does have to do with uh very high levels of uh enzymes in the seed that break down uh fats and fatty related uh molecules, oils, um phospholipids and things like that that you find in the membranes of the cells, breaks them down into smaller pieces.
Uh big molecules like fats and oil, they don't have intrinsic aromas of their own or flavors, but when you break them down into smaller molecules, then we can taste them and we can smell them. And so it turns out that uh characteristic flavors of those things uh do have to do with very high levels of certain uh fat breaking enzymes that generate lots and lots of um six carbon and eight carbon uh molecules that have the flavor of kind of grass and leaves and things like that on the one hand and mushrooms on the other hand. So in a way, the the flavor of legumes in particular is uh leafy greens plus mushrooms combined together. Um and so uh Adam's question about um that that flavor is there for for quite a while, but then it it sort of dissipates during cooking. Uh what what happens during cooking is that at first uh that encourages the action of those enzymes, so they actually generate more and more of these um uh flavor compounds.
But then with time the enzymes get killed by the heat, and then the heat also uh uh drives off those molecules, forces them to react with other molecules, and so those particular qualities kind of fade into the background. Ask Harold and ye shall receive. Right? Um have you ever experienced the cooking for a long time off flavors on starchy foods? I've never cooked just grains or uh beans by themselves for a long time.
I've certainly cooked in reheated uh pots of um uh bean dishes and that kind of thing, but that's different because you've got herbs and spices and other stuff in there, and that's gonna change the the equation. So I've never actually done the experiment of cooking uh beans for twelve hours to see what happens to them. Uh I I don't really know offhand what uh sorts of molecules you would get because you know that's essentially taking the process I just described and expending it for uh a long, long time. And uh so that's that's an experiment I have to do. Right.
I mean, I would guess the two choices are the water is s slightly alkaline and you're getting some sort of myd reaction that you perceive as an off-flavor because you don't want that breadiness, or two, you're getting some sort of fat oxidation on whatever fats are left over. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, it could be those. It could be that you're uh because at the same time that you're creating flavor, you're also losing it because you're cooking it for so long.
You know, uh the the more volatile molecules are gonna go away and you're gonna be left with the less volatile stuff. And so the balance of aromas is gonna change, and maybe it's just gonna be something that doesn't smell as much like beans or or grains as you expect them to. So you're like losing a masking flavor. Yeah, yeah. Uh but I I don't think, you know, uh Adam posed the question uh as um uh it having to do with the starchiness of these particular uh foods, but they're seeds, which do have a lot of starch.
Uh I don't think the starch has much to do with it, except that uh it's possible that starch might be with with the long cooking, uh the starch uh grains break open and you you end up with uh with free starch, which ends up in the cooking liquid eventually. Uh that stuff may be binding some of the aroma molecules. Um that certainly is is known in the food science literature that amylose and amylopectin can actually bind aroma molecules, which then means that they're not available to our noses to uh to smell. So that might be part of it as well. Right.
So you th you probably think it's not like uh a starch hydrolysis over time, that's and then the smaller things breaking down into something else. Uh yeah, I I I kind of doubt it, but uh but I don't know. Yeah. All righty. Well, uh again, you are the perfect man to ask these questions.
Uh the second one that I thought you were perfect for, being a San Franciscan or what do you call yourself? San Franciscans. What what are you guys? Folk from San Francisco? Yeah, yeah.
We we don't have a uh we we need to develop a good term for that. Rice Aroni eaters. Right. Um this question is on sourdough, which I know you've researched um quite a bit, uh uh, especially as r uh regards its uh flavor compounds. And so um this this one's for you from uh Christian uh Swanpole.
You think you pronounce that Swan pole? Swanpole? How do you think you can do it? Sounds like to me, yeah. Yeah.
Uh from New Zealand, and we love the New Zealanders and the Australians, especially because they have come up uh uh in force to say that the show today tonight or tonight today or whatever it is that was anti-miklu is a is a like tabloid farce. Uh maybe more on that later if we have time, I doubt we will. He writes, uh I've read quite a bit about sourdough starters and there seems to be a lot of different information about how temperatures and hydration levels affect the starter and also the final bread dough. Peter Reinhart, who's a you know well known author in the bread world, says that a firmer starter promotes the production of lactic rather than acetic acid. Well instructions that come with a starter I bought, because the one he raised himself died because he neglected it, join the cru uh club Christian, uh says exactly the opposite.
The instructions also say that warmer temperatures encourage lactic acid and cooler temperatures acetic. I've read elsewhere that putting the dough in the fridge halts yeast activity while lactobacilli continue to produce acid. Could you please clear this up for me? And uh he maybe you want to handle that one and then handle the second question, second pronged this after? Uh yeah, because it is that is a different uh different kind of question.
All right but uh so uh he starts his question by saying there seems to be a lot of different uh pieces of information about how temperatures and hydration levels affect starter and final red dough boy is that true that there's a lot of different pieces of information out there. So when I reviewed the literature uh back in the early part of the century, you know, 2000, 2003 or so for uh the second edition of my book uh the the lesson I drew at the time was that uh cooler temperatures are actually uh and and uh firmer starters are better for the yeast. Because you know, sourdough is essentially uh you've got yeast that are providing the gas for leavening, but you've also got bacteria that are generating a lot of the flavor, including acids, which is why it's a sourdough. And uh some acid is good for flavor um and for other properties of the sourdough. Um, but too much means that the yeast don't get a chance to generate uh enough uh uh carbon dioxide to give you a nice leaven loaf.
So you want the bacteria to do well, but you really want the yeasts to do well too. And the problem is that they the the acids of the bacteria inhibit the growth of the yeasts. So there is this delicate balancing act in general between the yeasts and the and the bacteria, even before you get into issues of the difference between lactic acid and acetic acid, which are both acids. Uh so on the question of the balance between the yeast and the bacteria, the lesson I took three, four years ago was that, uh I guess it's longer ago now than that, uh ten years ago, um, uh that lower temperatures, fermentation temperatures and firmer starters gave the yeast a better chance of um uh being there in enough numbers to give you a good dough. Uh I uh I took another look uh last night and this morning, and even that seems to be uh in question now.
So the the the basic problem with the whole thing is that uh it's such a variable system that depending on who's doing the experiment and what the conditions are, people are coming up with completely uh opposite um findings as to you know what's what are the best conditions for uh the growth of the yeasts or for getting particular sets of acids. And I just don't know who to believe. Right. Um I mean part of it is it's extremely complicated because it's not it's not anywhere close to a single system. You're dealing with with you know dozens at least uh you know, on the on the small amount of research I was able to do, dozens of different um lacto uh lactobacilli uh strains that are involved uh in different sourdough starters, multiple, multiple bacteria per starter, dozens that are that are commonly known, plus different uh yeast, some wild, and and the balance of those two things is affected by many things, including the type of flour, the ash content of the flour, the temperature, the hydration, all of it affects it, right?
I mean it's it's it's just an incredibly complicated system. Yeah, yeah. How often you stir it, um uh how much you aerate it during the stirring, so your stirring technique makes a difference. Right. Because uh oxygen uh something that's useful to remember in general, and this I think uh has not been contradicted by anything, uh yeasts uh actually do need oxygen to uh to grow well.
Um and of course, in a in a dough, um you're you're essentially forcing them to do with with very little, but when you're encouraging them to um to grow in your starter so that you start out with a good dose of them in your bread dough, uh it's really good to to whip that uh sourdough starter or knead it if it's a firmer starter a lot in order to get air in there to give the uh the yeast a leg up on the bacteria. Right. And uh, you know, there's a couple bunch of different kinds of the lactic acid bacteria, some of which, the uh most of which actually, the hetero uh fermentive ones will actually produce some CO2, and that's how they produce acetic acid at the same time if there's oxygen present or other things like fructose. There's like, you know, so adding air will also increase the amount of acetic versus adding oxygen rather will increase the amount of acetic versus lactic acid. I mean, it's just the whole thing's complicated.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and as the second part of Christian's question indicates, uh, just getting the thing to grow at all is such a challenge that I myself am happy not to worry about the lactic versus acetic balance, because but it's true that those are two different acids. One has an aroma and the other doesn't. One is uh your the the aroma of vinegar, and you want a little bit of that, but not too much. Uh and lactic acid gives you maybe a kind of cleaner tartness than acetic does.
But those are real fine points, and the the important thing to begin with is just getting something going and relatively stable so that you can then begin to refine the the results. Well, uh this has been very enlightening. Can you stay with us past the next uh past the first break or no? Yeah. Super.
All right, we're gonna go to our first break. Calling your questions to Harold McGee and cooking issues at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. They had a war of out for me all over the country. And I was trying to beat two wraps in Idaho.
I was breaking into a school house Sunday morning without warning. When I saw the sheriff coming for me, slow from down below. His deal gray eyes were blazing lay solid. His hand was on his gun when he rolled up. He said you kill that woman.
And oh, you shot her why you do it. I'm taking you to Austin that I'm gonna lock you up. Well, he tied me with the flour line the next morning. Oh god, I love that song. That's uh Johnny Cash, Austin Prison.
Using that song because I just got back from Austin from the IACP uh conference. Uh did a demo with Nils and Chris Young from the Modernist Cookbook, and then MC'd uh the awards with uh with Chris Young. We went to a lot of barbecue, but that's the only Austin song I know, even though it's like one of the biggest music towns in the city, Austin Prison. And then my favorite part about it is Johnny Cash goes a s a crazy screaming lynch mob waited in the streets of Austin, which we didn't quite get to, but great song. You a Johnny Cash fan, Harold?
I am gotta be gotta love Johnny Cash. One of my great musical regrets is I never got to see Johnny Cash before he died live. So I've seen many of my uh many of my idols, but not never got to see Johnny Cash. Anyway, um speaking of Chris Young and a modernist cuisine, uh, Nastasha, Harold, maybe Chris Young, and I, and Doug Duda from the uh ISCP, uh are all I think Doug's gonna go, are all traveling very soon at the beginning of July down to uh South Dade, Florida, to have a mango orgy. We're going to eat.
Well, come on, you can call it that. They have something like 400 varieties of mango, several hundred varieties of avocado, I believe upwards of seven uh no hundreds of varieties of avocado, upwards of seventy-five varieties of jackfruit. And we're gonna do a mega two-day tasting uh of the type that we have done with um citrus and apples, and then you know, Stasha and I did with pears. I'm pretty excited about it. You, Harold?
Very much, very much, yes. I got got to get into training, though. You know, those are high acid fruits. Oh my god. I know we should we should probably we always joke about it, we should probably carry some sort of antacid with us, right?
Actually, that's a that's a good idea. That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that. Although, you know, that's that's takes care of the stomach, but what about the taste buttons? Yeah, yeah.
Uh we're also gonna need I'm gonna need to sh I'll ship, I need to ship a fruit knife down there, or eat or else check luggage, right? Because we're gonna need a fruit tasting knife. Uh I'm gonna need uh I gotta figure out a way because we gotta pack the avocados. We can't taste the avocados that day. I need a good packing technique.
I was thinking maybe foam in place. I'm working on it. Anyway, it's gonna be it's gonna be an epic tasting, and no one's gonna be down there because who the heck wants to be in the very southern tip of Florida uh, you know, at the beginning of July. Uh it turns out I'm flying my family out after that for like the only family vacation we've ever taken via airplane, and I was gonna take my kids to the Everglades because my youngest son likes uh uh croc uh alligators. And then uh, but I forgot that my older son has a phobia of flying insects, like almost as bad as the girl from the movie Chocolate, but not quite that bad.
And uh and I was recounting to my wife last night as we were going to bed, how um the mosquitoes are like you know, you know, huge fat mosquitoes that swarm on you like like like I've never seen anything like it. Uh I read a quote yesterday from the Everglades, because I want to take them to the Everglades that you swing a quart jar and gallon uh and get a gallon of mosquitoes, and it's it's true. It's unbelievable. So my wife, my wife was like, Dave, you are an extreme idiot. What made you think we should go to the Everglades at the height of mosquito season?
So now we're trying to think of something else to do in South Florida on the way to visit my 92-year-old grandpa. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Um I'm just excited about the mangoes. That's all I'm gonna say about it. And the avocado.
Remember, uh, I don't Harold, I told you they have an avocado that's seedless and is shaped like a banana. Yes, yes. I I don't I still don't believe that. I think that's uh it's it's gotta be a mythological avocado. It can't be real.
Well, well we'll we'll find out. If it if look, if it's real, I I can't believe it hasn't been commercialized. It's absurd because she said uh it tastes good, and basically you just score it when it's you know when it's hard, and then you let it ripen and you peel it like a banana, which is great because most avocados I find difficult to peel like a banana, to say the least when they're ripe. Yeah. Um although that might be an interesting idea to pre-score an avocado when it's hard, let it ripen, and then just peel it off.
Of course, then what are you gonna do? You can't eat it with a seed like that. Dumb, dumb. Anyway, uh another thing, Harold. I had a I was doing some reading in Eric Bloch's uh garlic book, garlic and alliums, and uh, you know who has one of the foremost collections of alliums in the world?
New York Botanical Garden. New York Botanical Garden. Let's organize a tasting next time you're in New York, huh? If it's good, if it's a good season, right? Do you know those guys at all?
Uh I know a couple of people there, yeah. Yeah, I've got that'd be an interesting tasting. No one's gonna want to get near us. Right? Won't invite Nils to that one.
He hates he hates raw garlic, detests it, hates it. Um that's another good uh good thing to do when you have a kitchen handy because you're gonna want to cook some of them. Okay, back to the questions. Uh by the way, call in your questions to uh to us or to Harold at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128.
Okay, Ryan Santos writes in with a custard question. Uh he has an issue this week uh with uh a buttermilk custard panicata. He's doing an off-site catering event, not his forte, but it's in an air conditioned room, which will have no access to refrigeration during the event. The event is three hours. So is a cooked custard safe to sit that long at AC temp, or well, I have to ice bath it.
If it is safe, what would you suggest to use so that it stays set? I figure gelatin may get too soft over time. A mix of carrageenans, perhaps. Uh I would not worry about the safety, Harold, would you? I mean, and not um I would not worry at about it at all.
No, no, because it's been thoroughly cooked and uh it's air-conditioned room, so it's not gonna be that hot. And three hours, uh three-hour event, yeah, that sounds sounds safe. Yeah, um yeah, I'm I'm totally okay with that. Um you know, if if you if you're worried about the gelatin, which you might be, especially during transportation and whatnot, uh, I would uh use um you would use uh carrageenans. Um it the the reason to use carrageenans in milk-based systems is that it takes a preposterously small amount of carrageenin to set a milk baked system.
So you're gonna want to use a very little amount, otherwise it's gonna be too hard. Kappa is gonna be brittle and iota is gonna be soft. Um you could use a mix since most carrageans are mixed anyway. Iota is good because if it should break, it'll reform along that line, so it might prevent cracking or anything like that. If you you find that uh you're using just kappa carrageen and it's too hard, you can add a little bit of locust bean gum, which is gonna soften it up a little bit.
Uh any any thoughts on that, Harold? Uh that sounds good. Uh, you can also go the old fashioned way, use a little bit of uh starch or flour. See, see, old fashioned way. See why we need someone tempering this show.
You know what I mean? It's like, you know, all the simple stuff. I'm like, go get a bunch of carragain and mix it in. Um yeah. I uh also uh the one thing I always say with safety with hydrocolides, I don't know if it's been proven or Harold, whether you've done any further research, but a while ago there was some uh work saying that perhaps kappa carragenin w is not necessarily um a hundred percent uh safe to use uh from a car carcinogen standpoint in uh very acid systems, but I doubt that uh buttermilk is acid enough for it to really be a problem.
Your thoughts on that. Um yeah, I haven't looked at it recently, but that that sounds correct. Also, as you say, it's it's a tiny quantity and it's a dessert, and so people aren't gonna be getting a whole lot, uh, certainly a lot less than somebody's gonna get if they eat some seaweed. Right. Yeah, chew on some uh yeah, don't go out and get the seaweed, squeeze a bunch of lime over it and start uh start chomping on it.
Uh although you know what? Like I haven't seen anything on that research in a long, long time, so I'm wondering whether or not it's um uh whether or not it's even current research. Yeah, I'll I'll take a look at that uh today. Get back to you. Yeah, cool.
Um, speaking of current research, so you know the most recent post, although it's like two weeks old now, that I have on the site is uh my defense of transglutaminase. And this uh this guy writes in and and says uh, you know, basically that his wife has had a whole bunch of uh gastrointestinal problems and surgeries, and um, and she really liked to eat chicken McNuggets, literally chicken McNuggets and cheap qual cheap cuts of meat, and I can't guarantee that it wasn't T G that did it to her. And of course, of course I can't, you know what I mean. I also can't guarantee it wasn't space people that did it to me. You know what I mean?
I can't prove a negative like that's crazy, you know what I mean? Um But something I uh uh I just want to say about this uh is that uh everywhere on the internet, and this is the this is as much as I think the internet's literally the greatest tool that uh has ever been given to us in terms of anything really, but cooking as well, um there's so much crap that gets uh propagated, like continuously propagated uh on the internet. Uh, and I guess it it the same thing happened actually back in the uh in actual literature, like you've traced like the searing myth, famously trace the searing myth, um, and just keeps on getting uh propagated, you know, uh writer after writer after writer until somebody squashes it. Everyone says that chicken McNuggets are made with transglutaminase. And uh the fact of the matter is trickin the chicken McNuggets were uh first uh released onto the scene in 1980 before uh before microbial transglutaminase was available, uh, and I guarantee you they weren't using guinea pig liver transglutaminase because it's too expensive and needs calcium to work.
Uh you do not need transglutaminase to make a chicken McNugget. Uh nowhere have I ever been able to find any reference that even even obliquely says that McDonald's uses transglutaminase in their chicken and McNugget formulation. Now, I'm willing to I mean they could use it, that's a way to do it, but it's by no means necessary. And so uh I wish people would stop saying that um that you know TG is the is the reason, you know, McNuggets how McNuggets came to be. Because it's just not not true.
Even if there is TG in the formulation now. Um, these pe people just get all bent out of shape about stuff that they have no data about. You know, what do you have you ever heard of TG being used in a McNugget? Um I uh have to confess I haven't read a lot about uh chicken McNuggets. Right.
Uh uh either way. Um but you know, people have been sticking odd scraps of meat together for millennia. Uh and I mean that's essentially how sausages work, right? You you salt chunks of meat and that draws some of the myosin out of the um the meat, and myosin is a sticky protein and things stick together. And it's as simple as that.
Yeah. Boom. No TG required. You know? Yeah.
Uh and it's uh, you know, it's called uh the primary bind when you're making sausages, and it's how it works. It's how it's how it's always worked. Um, you know, and I'm sure that they have a uh chicken and McNugget batter that they have like some kind of blended chicken with salt, some pieces, and they just keep folding it until the until uh you know the myosin's developed, and then it'll stick in whatever shape they want. I mean, no problem. Uh and it's a lot uh cheaper than using transglutaminase, and uh from a production standpoint, they don't have to worry about uh setting times or setting rates, so it's probably easier for them to not use it uh in that in that application.
Um so you know, that's one of those things I I wish people would just do a little bit, like even like a tiny bit of research. But if you look everywhere, it says nuggets. Now, an interesting one is surimi. So surimi, right, is uh f like fish, like basically it's it's kind of if you read about how seremi is made, it's kind of horrific. Wouldn't you agree, Harold?
I mean it's kind of it's it's kind of just horrible. It's like to like they deflavor uh they de-aromatize and and you know, wash any normal kind of flavor out of like whatever kind of fish scrap crap they have lying around, and then you know, uh basically re-gel it again in uh kind of seremi shapes, and they're formerly were made without transglutaminase, um although there's evidence that there's endogenous, meaning uh you know already occurring transglutaminase that might have some that add to some of the gelling capability of the fish mix. Um but there is it is true that in current surimi applications, an attempt to use fish that don't have a high enough gelling power to make it adequate seremi on their own that they are uh uh adding transglutaminase to it. But don't blame Cerimi on transglutaminase, just you know, the attempt to extend it even further. Um yeah, are you a big suremi guy, Harold?
You know, I actually kind of enjoy it every once in a while. It's got it's got that nice kind of bouncy texture to it. Um so you know, a slice on top of some ramen with with uh the other stuff. I I kind of like that a lot. Yeah.
Also, you would you would have no uh California roll without the surimi, right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you were just using avocado and if you were to use shrimp instead of surimi, it wouldn't be right, right?
That's right. And I couldn't eat it. Oh, right. Yeah. Wait, that's an interesting question.
They do they only use uh uh fish in sarimi, or do they ever put the uh do they ever put other things like shrimp into it? And if they did, is it so thoroughly washed that any uh protein that's causing you a problem is washed away from it? Well, I think the uh uh the protein that causes me the problem is actually a component of the muscle um uh the set of muscle proteins, it's tropomyosin. So I have a feeling it would stick around uh even through the the sere me processing. But the whole point of ceremony is that you use really, really cheap uh like pollock or something like that to make something like crab or shrimp.
And um, so I think it's uh the idea of actually using crab or shrimp or some kind of crustacean in the surimi is just uh it's against the whole idea of ceremony in the first place. Again, again, good insight. All right, can you stick around for one more cycle of this? Sure. All right, call in your questions to 718-497-2128.
That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues. Guitars do good and firm feeling women. Got you with me tonight. Maybe it's time we got back to the basics of love. Let's go to Lupin Bactics.
Willing will be in the boys. The successful life for a living got us few black head feels and because Williams pain songs. Blueberry's train songs and blue eyes crying in the rain. The following is a public service announcement from Heritage Radio Network. Every Sunday at 4 30 p.m.
tune in to Burning Down the House. Architecture is the laser focus of burning down the house. A weekly discourse on all things built, destroyed, admired, and despised. Each week, Curtis B. Wayne, your host, invites a posse of authors, critics, builders, designers, and other architecture themes to reflect on various topics related to perhaps the most functional of all art forms.
Again, that's every Sunday at 4 30 p.m. on the Heritage Radio Network. Whalen Jennings, Luke and Vach Texas, another classic, right? From our Texas theme uh thing. That that song is great.
In fact, uh, Whalen, you know, Jennings unfortunately died way too young, but um uh the person I used to play bass with in my high school band is in his son shooter's band. Pretty cool, right? Cool. Shooter Jennings. I've never seen Nastasia look so excited on the show.
Jeez. Okay, you know, Nastasha doesn't really much Nastasha doesn't like stories really or people, so she doesn't like uh country music much. Is this accurate? Except for Merle, you now you like Merle. I just don't like hearing the story over and over and over.
It's the same story. What yeah, Harold, can you believe this? Yeah. You know, what you know what what am I Yeah? People.
People, this is this is this is what I this is what I put up with people. This is what I put up with. Anyway. Okay. Uh a question uh actually posted on um and we'll I'll rip through this one uh quick but it's of interest to some people.
Katie HP wrote into the blog actually has a question hoping we can give the answer. I received a country ham for a Christmas gift. I was told you can store them almost indefinitely so I put it in my refrigerator. Now I'm told I should have stored it in the cupboard. My question is did I ruin it and have I stored it too long any answers would be appreciated.
Well I don't know how long you stored it. Well Christmas right? Christmas gift. No, no. It's fine.
It's fine. It's fine. Uh if you've already cut into it you might get some mold here's the problem. American country hams are a little soft in the middle uh because of the way they're cured typically unless they're really really aged. So if it's already been cut into you might get some kind of unfriendly green mold or some kind of like brie like candida mold right on that face.
And unless it's penetrated so far into the meat that you get an off flavor on the inside you can just cut a little bit of that off, scrub any other mold off the off side uh outside of the meat and uh I'd be more worried about um the fat picking up flavors from the fridge. Next time freeze it or if you want to age it more hang it. Uh I wouldn't put it in the cupboard because uh mites uh really like dark uh kind of cool places to chew on ham and I've I've had that happen. Uh any what do you what do you think, Harold? You ever stored meat for a long time?
Uh yeah. Uh I've I kept a country ham for like a couple of months um downstairs at my place. You know, I'm in San Francisco, which is uh cool to cold year round. So I don't have uh some of the problems you'd have other parts of the country, but um yeah, in in the cool, in in the not completely dark, but semi-dark, uh kept for months for fine. Yeah.
Yeah. But I had one that I stored literally in a cupboard, and when I opened up the bag, it was like mite, mite central. You know, once you I I once had like 10 to 15 hams in my house, and one of them had a mite problem, which is common, uh, but they usually they they do a uh they gas the mites out um in um in in production. And uh uh and once you have them in your house, like it's the next time you bring a ham in, it just chews up the ham. But uh I would not worry about that ham uh other than any sort of uh I mean the fridge is problematic from an aroma standpoint, right?
And that's pretty much it. Uh yeah, yeah. Uh but but speaking of ham mites, I've never experienced ham mites. Did they do anything interesting to the flavor the way cheese mites do to cheese? Uh interesting question.
Um I've never thought about it that much because I usually trim away the mitey area. I've never done like just a tasting of it. They say it makes it bitter, but of course they say the same thing about cheese mites. There's the famous mite cheese, uh I think from Austria, Austria or Germany, where they take Kvark and they let it uh age in mites uh until it's basically a big pile of mite. Have you ever tasted that stuff, the mite cheese?
I I haven't tasted that, but in France, there's a uh you know, a tome de Savoie, uh kind of dry uh long aged uh cow's milk cheese from the mountains uh in the eastern part of the country. There's a version of that called Tom Tom de Savoie Syronnay. Um eaten by mites. And I went to uh some farmers markets when I lived in France, and you could, you know, approaching the the market from the parking lot, you could smell it from uh from the edge of the lot. I would just follow my nose.
And I actually find that that aroma delicious. So I know some people can't stand it, but there are people who who do appreciate it. So I wonder whether you can get the same kind of effect from ham. Huh. Uh is it was it uh is it bitter at all?
Is it impart bitterness to the cheese? Um I yeah, I don't think so. No. I I don't uh I'm thinking back now to the times I've had it, which are many, and uh it's it's mainly an aroma thing. And um, you know, you don't want to actually eat the the frass, you know, the the stuff that the mites have actually chewed on, but they they produce this compound.
I think it's uh pheromone, you know, they use it for signaling signaling each other, and it gets into the meat of the cheese itself, and uh it's delicious. Well, you know, the the one uh from either Austria or Germany that's done with Quark, you actually I think eat the mites. Like it's basically it's like mites all the way through. Um I'll be interested. Is Nastash is this your worst nightmare?
It is. Yeah, yeah. Uh Nastasha, another uh this this should just be like the Nastacha's quirk Show. She can't look at leaves that are deformed. She can't look at deformed leaves.
No, it's like growing spores. Okay. Hey Harold, I don't know whether I've talked to you about this, uh, but uh last I think I did briefly. The last time I did um the Sous Vide Low Temp class, I had a bunch of uh a big crew from South America. We had uh a couple from Brazil and um and you know did different countries, I forget where else did we have a anyway.
Uh but they said that there's a tradition down there of storing raw meat under oil. Have we talked about this? No. Yeah, you uh have you ever heard of this? I haven't, no.
Yeah. So raw meat uh just submerged under oil and any kind of oil? I guess. And then and then afterwards they cook it as a storage technique, as kind of a pre-refrigeration kind of storage technique. But I said, is it cured like uh Sesina, you know, like uh like Mexican salt beef?
Uh and they said, no, it's not cured. And then I mean maybe there was a language barrier. I said, Is it cooked? And they said no, it hasn't been like a you know, like uh like a Riet or a confit. And they said, No, it hasn't been cooked.
And I was like, Well, do you die when you eat it? And they said no. Uh but I mean, a couple of things I guess is that uh I mean, I don't know if they actually do salt before they put it under, but if you're gonna cook the the beejesus out of it, I mean you're gonna kill m most everything that's gonna grow in there is gonna be heat labile, right? And it should ferment anyway before anything else happens because it's such a high water content, it should ferment and get kind of lactic, which should also knock back the uh uh the botulism and all that crap, right? Yeah, yeah.
But uh very interesting though, yeah. I've never never heard of that before. And uh and my other weird South American question for you is uh are you aware of the uh of the the traditional freeze dried uh Peruvian uh like Inca potatoes. Yes. Uh-huh.
Yeah. Uh you ever tried one? Remind me of the name Chunio Blanco. Uh yeah yeah. Yeah.
Uh well for those of you that aren't aware of it, uh I want any recipe that doesn't taste like a goat's uh a goat's private parts because this or how I imagine a goat's dirty private parts to to taste. It smells like a barnyard but like like hay that's been pooped on like goat. Anyway, uh could be sheep. I haven't been around a farm enough to really distinguish goat from sheep uh aroma alone. And the um uh the way they make this is they take potatoes, these special, I think somewhat bitter mountain potatoes, they let them freeze overnight, then they thaw.
I think they do that a couple times. Then they throw it in a sack in uh in a well for like 30, 40 days, then they pull it out and then they let it dehydrate a couple of times with a couple more freeze thaw cycles. And I was really excited to try them. You just boil them and then like put cheese over them and and eat them like that. But God were they horrible.
They've gotta be they've got to taste better. If people like them there has to be a way to cook it so that it's good. Only the Japanese fermented soybean natto is it's the only ingredient I've ever come across that I can't imagine uh being used to good effect somehow. But uh Oh no no no no I I had the greatest NATO just a few days ago, actually. Yeah?
Uh you you haven't had the the fresh stuff, right? I I need to bring that next time we get together because there there's now a company here in Northern California who's making it. Uh everything we get in this country essentially comes from Japan and it's frozen and it's weeks old and it's not that good. But there's somebody here now making it fresh, and it's it's really wonderful. Okay, so it doesn't taste like coffee grounds and garbage.
Uh it does not. No. No. All right. So I will uh I will rescind my judgment.
Um I've never had that particular version of Chuno. I have had a version that I think is not uh sort of anaerobically fermented like that. Um you know, it's just been essentially uh freeze freeze dried over you know several repeated cycles and left in the sun. And that's it it's got a you know, distinctive kind of flavor, a kind of old um, you know, uh veteran potato flavor, but it doesn't have the off flavors that you're describing. So maybe they're just different versions of tuneo that uh and sounds as though that that wasn't just tuneo, there was some kind of prefix on the front of that.
Uh well I think it was just like white white chunio. I think it was just chunoblanco or something like that. Uh okay. But uh sounds like we need a chunio expert, huh? Yeah, yeah.
I think there are other other versions of it. Yeah, it's hard to do hard to do the research on that uh on the webs. Just not that much information out there. All right, so let's sell Priscilla. Oh yeah.
Oh, she's she's right across the river. Maybe next time uh maybe next time you're you're in, we can see whether she can uh produce it for us in a way that's you know, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Alright, so let's round out today with uh someone sent in a um uh Eddie Donnell sent in something from the daily, which is I guess a new iPad based news service, uh written um and I can't pronounce uh the person's name, so I'm not gonna mangle it. But it's called The Other White Meat and it's a story about uh Zymer's meats in Illinois uh and they're serving Lion and it's basically uh an expose on uh this company and the reason I guess it was sent to our blog is because uh y you know a year and a half ago or so we did a uh uh we did a piece on uh cooking exotic meats, right? So yak was uh delicious, um lion tastes like pork, beaver is delicious, um, you know, etc, etc. Raccoon we didn't like so much.
I didn't like bear, blah blah blah blah blah. Anyway, uh so um basically uh this guy, uh Zimers, if you call him, like he says it's all legit, which is why we ordered from him, but uh further research has shown that he um basically served uh it sold endangered animals, illegal endangered animals, tigers as lions, uh, knowingly and went to jail for it. And he says that he just copped a plea because that's what his lawyers told him to do. But if you call him up uh and you talk to him, his attitude isn't I try to be extremely vigilant to make sure this doesn't happen and something slip through. His attitude is much more like, um, well I don't do a DNA test on the animal and you know I you know I don't I'm not I don't want to get into this other guy's business who's handing me the animal so if he says it's lying, it's lion.
Right? Uh and when you're dealing with um things that are right on the edge of what are gonna get you death threats from people on the telephone, like it pays to I think be a little more vigilant. Um but you know uh I don't know. And so I guess uh uh Eddie I was aware of uh of that which is why we don't order from that supplier anymore. We don't have a supplier actually right now of of uh those kinds of meat.
Lion does in fact taste like pork but it is uh it's hard it's hard to cook actually because it uh even though it has very little connective tissue in it, it's extremely tough and I don't know why, uh even at fairly fairly low temperatures. But uh maybe we can round this out with an ethical discussion of eating things like lion meat. Um I don't I mean I don't know how you feel about this Harold, but um if the animal is not endangered, I don't understand why any one living creature has more dignity than any other living creature. Um you know uh we have certain feelings for animals that you know have served us well, like horses and dogs over the millennia, but pigs have also served us well, are incredibly smart and we slaughter 'em by the by the bushel. You know what I mean?
Um so I don't know what do you uh you have any thoughts on this kind of moral ethical question or is too deep to bring in you weren't expecting to get put on the spot with this kind of thing or well no I would I I guess I would agree with you in general that uh the the animals we already eat are uh uh they they have a lot going for them too and so unless we're gonna sit back and kind of re examine uh things from uh from scratch uh as long as we're a meat eating culture and these animals are not endangered, um then I think it's it's fair to uh to taste them as long as they're not, you know, uh that they haven't been obtained in in um in shady ways. Right. Although you you bring up an interesting point, which is the animals get something out of it too. And there's the kind of classic argument that uh domestic animals that are raised for food have you know somehow entered a bargain with us, you know, where we take care of them, we provide them shelter and forage uh in something that is approximating uh approximating you know something that's good for their well-being, and in exchange we kill them early, uh but maybe not necessarily earlier than they would have died anyway in the wild. And this is the argument for uh wh one of the arguments for why factory farming is is horrible, other than taste, which is the argument, you know, taste and and humanity, which is uh you know, the ones I argue it usually in that order, uh but against factory farming versus uh old style farming.
But you know, maybe there's also something to that in people's reaction in that typically these lions haven't been stored in the best kind of uh uh situations, they're usually like penned up and they're kept for various crazy reasons by various crazy people, and then uh you know, afterwards are basically uh executed for their uh for their fur, and then the meat becomes a byproduct which we then use. So, you know, maybe there's something there, I don't know. Yeah, no, it it is complicated. If if the animals are are being kept and slaughtered uh for other reasons, um then you know it's kind of like the argument for uh for use for using all of the animal when you slaughter a a pig or a a lamb. Right.
Uh the if the meat's gonna go to waste otherwise, then why not put it to use? Why not nourish someone with it? Right, exactly. Exactly. And it to me, you know, once you accept the fact that we as a meat eating culture are allowed to kill the animal, then you know you've you've entered into you've entered into a zone where you're allowed to kill the animal to eat it.
Right? And so um, you know, uh I don't and like I say before, I don't see a lion as a as a more august entity, you know, from a from a um you know a brain standpoint than a uh than a than a pig. Just because we grew up admiring lions and not pigs, uh doesn't really change that in my book. But um anyway. Uh Harold, thank you so much for being on.
Do you have any last uh things uh you want other than we're gonna eat the heck out of some mangoes in a in about a month? No, I'm really looking forward to that. And and was very glad for this. I mean you you uh texted me what uh ten hours ago. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh and it was a lot of fun. Oh any time. Oh, really? Well, you shouldn't say that, because we'll take you up on it.
We love having you on the show. No, it was great. A lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you, Harold, and thanks for listening to Cooking Issues.
Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage Radio Network. You can find all of our archived programs on Heritage Radio Network.com, as well as a schedule of upcoming live shows. You can also podcast all of our programs on iTunes by searching Heritage Radio Network in the iTunes Store. You can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening.
And I guess can't get it straight. Vicious Vicious. This is behind the scenes food news with Katie Kiefer. All of the trade papers are just buzzing with the information that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has decided that he is only going to eat food that he himself has killed, as in proteins. So thus far he's um killed a goat, a pig, a chicken, and some fish.
But he's gonna start hunting, he says, so that he can, you know, basically be more mindful of what he is putting in his mouth and into his body. And um to quote a CNN Money article, he says, This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat. So my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm going to eat is from animals I've killed myself.
And thus far, this has been a good experience. I'm eating a lot healthier foods, and I've learned a lot more about sustainable farming and the raising of animals. This has been Behind the Scenes Food News with Katie Keefer. Here's a small clip. I will say that I tasted a lot of wines and I went to Bollinger.
And it was the special couvet, which is, and I'll explain the difference between that and Roter in a minute, but um the special couvet was the most three-dimensional wine that I'd had in my mouth up until that point, and it was actually pretty much one of the only ones of the day really spectacular. And it's made, I'll just say in a different style from Rotoru, because it it is a a set a certain portion of the blend every year, and their style is aged in barrels, and it gives it more of a toasty, fuller style. And it's a it's it's really you know, it's a big champagne. It's a masculine champagne. It is.
I I tried to get away stay away from that, but it's true. I mean James Bond, the whole thing. But it's a it's a it's a big wine, it's a great food wine. But then there was a lot of things. We'll tune in every Tuesday at 4 p.m.
live to Unfiltered, or check out the old episodes in our archives. Also make sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Thanks for listening.
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