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Cooking issues! Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from Roberta Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn on Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Joined as usual in the studio with Nastasia and the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas.
I figured I'd go full crazy today because on the way in, I s I like swallowed a bug and some concrete. And that was coffee and hacking. So you gotta go full. Like when you're not feeling 100%, you gotta do like 120, and then you come out at like 105 or 11. You know what I'm saying?
Joined in the booth with Jack, the Jackie Molecules. How are you doing? I'm good. Yeah, calling your questions too. 7184972128.
That's 718-497-2128. And if that was too fast for you, the number is 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Joined also in the studio with our favorite uh subject of abuse, other than ourselves. Peter Kim, the I don't know, director, president, you know, like head cheese.
Like the he's he's number he's the 601st Wisconsin cheese that's uh produced if you listen to the uh introductory printing 600 kinds of cheese in Wisconsin. Leave it to Dave the Diss's sponsors. Oh are you saying that you wouldn't make a delicious Wisconsin cheese? Do you know that there are several Peter Kim's that are not our Peter Kim? There is a whole army of us.
There's being Peter Kim, a blog. Yeah, there's Peter Kim Peter Kim. Who is an actor, right? Then there's all kinds of Dr. Peter Kim.
Lots of doctors. Yeah. Are your parents now okay with you not being one of those doctors? Boom! Boom!
Ouch. For those of you that don't know, Peter Kim, not a doctor. Uh uh lawyer, actually. Quit his lawyering job to start the museum of food and drink, much to his family's chagrin. But now they're on now they're on the side.
They you've proven that it's good, viable concept. Yeah, I think they're they're taking pity on me. So what a feel good story. Yeah, it's a feel good story of the week. Follow your dreams, get your parents pity.
Okay, Stas, Nastasia Lopez, was in Mexico for about five hours last weekend. Revisiting her roots. Nastasia, yeah. So bring the Lopez back in there. It's the fatherland, right?
Because it's on her father's side. Uh back to Mexico. And um, Stas, let me see if I get this straight. You flew out Friday morning at like 5 a.m. Six.
Right. But how many times did you play ping pong around like Raiders of the Lost Dark style before you made it to Mexico? Okay. Now, uh, then you left Sunday morning at also like so you were there for exactly one full day. 36 hours.
Some of my friends thought I was getting an abortion. Whoa. Wow. Whoa. Did you remind them you live in New York and you don't have to go to Mexico for that?
They know my salary. Oh. Wow. So nothing. So inappropriate on so many levels.
Speaking of uh bad salary and people who happen to be women, uh Dax has now watched nine to five twice in one week. Wow. The classic movie Nine to Five. Lily Tomlin, by the way, freaking amazing. You know, I wish that she was involved in food somehow, Peter, so that we could twist her arm to be involved with the museum somehow.
Lily Tomla is so freaking awesome. I mean, Dolly Parton also freaking awesome. Jane Fonda, you know, you know, fine, good. Anyway, Lily Tomman. Okay.
So why don't you talk to us about the food you had there? It was okay. There was a lot of like sushi. What? Hamburgers.
Like regular like American interpretations of Japanese sushi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like it's like three times culturally removed. Yeah, but I found a good Carnitas place and some other place, and then I saw a tortoise stand that said with pumpkin flowers. Yeah, the f sweet sweet florida calabaza.
I could do it with quesadillas, and they said no. Did you have one of the sandwiches with Florida Calabaza? No, that was not an option either. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So what they have?
Tortas. That's a sandwich. Oh well, it was not they weren't good Mexico. Like you saw that they were pre-made. Well how were they sauteed and then they threw them in the sandwich?
Yeah. And then they threw then they but why didn't you have the sandwich? I didn't want that. What did you think that they said tostada instead of torta? No, no.
So why did why when I said by the way, people torta is like the little folded up fried thing. No! Torta is a freaking sandwich. Sandwich. It's a freaking sandwich.
Well, I've got to be. By the way, Nastasia Lopez, half Mexican chick that grew up in LA, doesn't know a torta. Yeah, that's true. It's also really one of the finest sandwiches out there. Are we gonna go back into sandwich?
Every time Peter gives on people going to sandwiches. Yes, the tops of the list to me are Cuban. Uh oh, me too. Yeah, Cuban. Yeah.
Uh this is not in order, though. Patty melt. Patty melt. If it's not considered a burger, it's a sandwich, and it's one of the finest. It's one of the finest uh burgoloids, whatever you want to call the burger genre.
Uh torta. Torta. Bonnie? Yes, although it's not a single sandwich because you can have a variety of different bonies, but yes. Well, there's a format to it.
Yeah, yeah, it's a good format. Yeah. Um what else? Turkey club. Turkey club.
BLT. If done right. BLT. Yeah. Uh like BLT to me, superior to a turkey club.
Yeah. Well, and then for me, the egg and cheese sandwich is a classic, too. Yeah. Yeah. The day after Thanksgiving cold turkey sandwich.
That's also a good one. And then Italian cold cut sandwiches also. Also not a specific thing. You talking about like like Philadelphia style. I'm talking about like the the kind you get around where MoFat is.
Like you get, you know, there's like three or four different kinds of things. To me, this is classic, just liking what you're love the one you're with. Wait, did you say Ruben? Oh Ruben. Ruben's a good sandwich.
I don't know that it makes a top though. It's good. Yeah. In other words, like I don't know. There's so many.
If we're starting listing sandwiches, pastrami with mustard on rye. Yeah, it's excellent. I mean, please. Yeah. Please.
Yeah. Exactly. Standard crappy grilled cheese. Yep. Where does P B and J said?
Turkey wrap with alfalfa sprouts? I'll kill you if you ever mention that again. That is trying to mention all the poisonous things in one thing. Is there a way to make uh a flour tortilla without cooking it at all? Because that's that would be even worse.
Well, I think there are raw tortillas, yeah. They do it make it, don't they do it like anyone that would make a raw tortilla wouldn't put turkey in. Yeah. But they would have some sort of sprout abomination. Yeah.
Some sort of hideous sprout. Italian beef. The chat room says Italian beef. They want that to they want to mention. Well, if we're gonna go if we're gonna go hot, which I guess we did, we've gone hot several times.
Beef on wek, baby. For any bu any any Buffalo people here? No. Beef on Wec, you know why? They have the cumul buns, the car the uh salt and caraway buns, and then the the s thin sliced beef with the juice.
With the juice. Yeah. Yeah. I think what we're coming to realize is sandwiches are delicious. Yeah, they are.
I've been saying this for years, man. Peter, Peter, like uh you know, people are like uh if the bomb was gonna drop and you only had 15 minutes, which is like I can I can make a sandwich in 15 minutes. He would be eating a sandwich. I'd kiss my wife, make a sandwich. Yeah, well, in that order?
Yeah, it's or simultaneously. Yeah, honey, honey, yeah, yeah, okay. Enough with the smooching. I sandwiches, sandwiches, sandwiches. Uh what are your thoughts on the muffaletta?
Do you appreciate the mufflet or do you not appreciate the mufflet? I like the muffleta, yeah. It's very hard to get the bread to the to meats ratio correct in a muffaletta, I think. Here's a question. Do you do you like your muffaletta hot or cold?
That's an excellent question. Uh for those of you who don't know, it's the New Orleans sandwich. Uh I like them both, actually. I've had both styles be good. When I was a kid, I didn't used to so for tourists, right?
If central groceries like the classic tourist one, I like that now. Plain when I was a kid, I thought it was too much bread, but I'm good. I think uh whatever it is, Napoleon House, I think serves them hot. Well, how do you like them, Jack? Yeah, I go hot usually with that.
Really? Mm-hmm. I I don't love a muffaletta. I'm not like Ooh, why? You don't like the chopped up uh Jardinaire salad stuff?
Yeah, that stuff good. Yeah, I like it. You don't like them like it. No, I like having a sour element in the shrimp and oast oyster po-boys all day in New Orleans for really? Oh yeah.
Really? Yeah. I don't really like the po' boy bread. I'm gonna go on record. Wow.
Kind of gum. Yeah, but if you if you're in New Orleans and you ask for that particular sandwich. Right, yeah. Then you're getting that. I mean, then it's like that sandwich is what you're like, for that matter.
What are your thoughts on the all the various Philadelphia cheeses steaky things? Yeah. Oh, I mean. I love cheesesteaks, yeah. Why wouldn't you love cheesesteaks?
Why wouldn't you? What's wrong with loving a cheesesteak? You're giving me like it's a guilty pleasure. What's wrong with liking a cheesesteak? I don't believe it.
I mean, I the only reason I I said it with a side is because I feel like now the list is growing and growing where we were trying to come up with a tight list of like top sandwiches. Now we're just saying. I think from from a strictly sense of pure, pure, right? So let's let's take anything out that's served on a on a whatever you want to call it, a hoagie roll, a gr you know, a sub roll, whatever. Let's take all those things out for a second.
All right. Let's remove that crap. That gets rid of your eggplant parms. Yep, yeah. It gets rid of your meatball subs.
So sliced bread sandwiches on the bottom. Which by the way, are two things we didn't mention. Yes. Slice bread sets. Let's go on sliced bread.
That also takes out tortas. Yeah, yeah. And takes out no burgaloids, patty melts are served on freaking uh sliced bread. Yeah, I know, but like it's there's a not grilled. So you're saying not like no grilled cheese, is that doesn't count anymore.
You're saying like something served on regular or toasted sliced bread. Yeah, yeah. BLT straight. Yeah, I would go. That's God's sandwich.
It's gotta be the one. God came down and said, Oh, by the way, check this out, BLT. Yeah. In season. Tomatoes in season.
Yeah, yeah. Either that or the Turkey Club, I'd say. No, Turkey Club. Well, the best turkey club. I'm sure I throw this one out there because this is what I have m most often at the deli around the corner.
I do a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato. Yeah, it's yeah, good, but you've you've just grilled the cheese, dude. You just cheated. Yeah, I know I know. Nastasia doesn't like sandwiches because Peter Kim likes them.
Yeah. That's not we ate sandwiches yesterday. They were good. What's what's your worst nightmare of a sandwich, Sas? I don't know.
Biscuit with what? Do you what do you hate more? A biscuit based sandwich? We all know you hate biscuits, or a croissant based sandwich. They pick not everyone knows Nastassi also hates croissants.
Yeah. Really? You know what I hate are catering platter sandwiches. Oh, yeah. You just see that platter of the colour.
Okay, listen. That's the worst. Under lubricated sandwiches, yes, under lubrication. Like there's a rainstorm every time there's a dry sandwich out there and it's God crying. I know.
It's horrible. That's why I always go for the chicken salad or the tuna salad when I hit the catering sandwich. Except for what's the problem with all the tuna salad out there. Undersalted! Yes, no.
Salt your freaking tuna salad. Salt it. Um, like I like it when there's some texture in my tuna salad. Like, I like a little celery in mine. Me too, man.
Yeah. I like pickles in my chicken salad. Oh my god, good. Here's the thing. So for catering, first of all, if you're catering, there are always some D-bags out there who don't want salt on there.
So you should just put the salt out. Who's that person? They're the people who are in catered sandwiches. So what you gotta do is you gotta like put salt out there so that humans can salt it. Yeah, yeah.
And like catered sandwiches also do a really poor job of getting like uh filling coverage. So you always get like the one third of the edge of the sandwich, it's just bread. You know why? Like empty space in between. It's some it's some jerk.
It's some jerk filling the sandwiches with an ice cream scoop. Exactly. With a dose of it. And the person's like, everyone gets the exact same amount of tuna salad. Yeah.
So like you scoop out like that amount of tuna salad, because this person doesn't care. It's like they've never eaten a sandwich. It's either they don't care about you as a human being, or they've never eaten a sandwich before in their life, or some combination of those two, and they just go, Yeah. They put that tuna salad scoop right in the middle of that bread, smack the next piece of bread, do the diagonal cut. Exactly.
Next. Yeah, yeah. It's really horror show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really is a freaking horror show.
That's the worst. Well, and also those things aren't designed to sit around for a long time. So then the moisture migrates into the bread and it turns to a gum gum it's either too garden. Well, this is why you need to listen to the British. This is one of the times I'm gonna tell you, you need to listen to the British tea sandwiches.
Tea sandwiches. Those are the best catered sandwiches, man. When I need to do a picnic, I do tea sandwiches. Oh yeah. I love tea sandwiches.
Of course. This is the classic thing that people do. With i even professionals, when they move into catering or people when they order catering, here's a classic mistake people make. What they do is they say, what sandwich would I like to eat if I made it fresh right now? Right.
And then they make that. That's why you get all those rancid buffalo fake buffalo milk and tomato sandwiches at airports on that bread that has that wavy line of like water migration and the top's too dry and it's undersalted and you want to die and you're gumming that thing down and you're waiting for it to get on an airplane. You know what I'm talking about? No, I don't know. So rather than that, any like person should think, okay, here's the problem.
I'm gonna make a sandwich that's gonna s either sit on a platter for like hours. Yeah. Or I'm gonna wrap it and it's gonna sit for hours. So what do you do? The Brits the Brits have that nailed.
Yeah, yeah. Just make the British and then like, so what? If an American's like, man, I don't want a cute kind of sandwich, then don't eat. Jerks. Right?
Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. I'm right there with you, man. How the hell do we get on this? Uh by the way, next week we have on the program, super exciting. So I want you guys to think about questions for the guest we have on next week.
We're having on, right? This is confirmed stuzz? So far. Yeah. We have Richard Rangham coming on, uh, esteemed uh professor uh at Harvard University, who wrote the book Catching Fire, How Cooking Made Us Human.
And it's very topical that he's uh uh on uh next week because very recently a letter was published in uh Nature by uh two other people at Harvard, Catherine uh Zink with a K, not like the metal, Zinc uh and uh Daniel Lieberman. Daniel Lieberman, well known for writing uh uh books about the head, the human head, uh including his theory that uh humans um have a much more uh wide variety of taste uh sensations because we're one of the few animals that have retronasal olfaction that's one of his shticks. Anyway, they came out with an article in Nature saying that uh Rangham's hypothesis might not hold water. So briefly put so that you don't you should go out and buy his book anyway. It's very interesting read.
Uh you can buy it on Audible.com and listen to it on the way to the to the work but um which is actually what I did. But his basic theory is this that um the human brain takes up a very uh large amount of energy right relative to other primates. Uh how can we afford to have such a kind of a large and sophisticated brain how can we afford to be the way we are and he says that if cooking came very early in our split off from uh being uh regular primate to being uh human then then the availability of a denser um easier to digest and more efficient caloric intake right actually allowed for all of the other um all of the other developments evolutionary developments to take place so that actually cooking is intertwined with human evolution and what makes us human what allowed us to evolve into humans is our uh ability to cook foods that's the in a nutshell and it's been months since I've read it, slash listen to it, but that's his theory in a nutshell. And I think it's super interesting and and I I want to have him on, and also to address this new article by uh Zinc and Lieberman basically saying, look at you don't need to cook to actually uh I happen to think that their letter is not accurate. We'll get into it, but uh you don't necessarily need to cook things uh in order to get those benefits that just pounding the ever loving crap out of them can uh can do that as well.
So Rangham's his actual thesis is super interesting, and he's done such things as hang out with chimps for months on end, trying to chew chimp food, uh, et cetera, et cetera. Done a lot of interesting stuff, super interesting character. Other things in it, uh you know, in his one of his prior books is about um kind of male, male, female uh relations. I haven't read that one yet. Hopefully I'll get to it by next week.
So the there's lots of interesting sociological things about like who did the cooking, how early that split off happened between um like uh uh gender relations as it relates to food, super interesting. Also, he has some choice words about raw food diets, so I'm sure we'll get into that as well. So please save up some awesome questions for Richard Rangham on next week's show. That'd make a good exhibit at the museum too. Interesting topic to explore.
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Uh and so the the real question for a museum exhibit based on this is i i mean, as it's a relatively new theory, you have to present it. I don't know, I don't know how we do it, but it is super interesting.
Yeah, yeah. You know, everyone's like, what is it that makes us human? It's our language, it's our this, it's our that. He's like, it's our cooking. But what's what what I like about his argument uh is the the style of presentation is look it.
Uh if you just use Occam's razor, like what's the simplest way to figure out, like we all know we have cooking now, right? He's very difficult to figure out exactly when cooking happened from the from the record, from the archaeological record. Um but he said Occam's razor shows that the simplest explanation for how we got to where we are is cooking. And so like any other explanation is actually more convoluted. And so until someone comes out with a simpler explanation that fits the data or finds data that contravenes this theory, this is the theory you should work with.
And I like that kind of that's that's my mode of my mode of thinking. Before Peter has to leave, let's talk to him about his stuff. Oh no. Let's do it's do the call. Call our caller on the air.
Dave, uh this is Jeffrey in Costa Mesa. How's it going? All right, how you doing? Doing well. Uh I I recently mentioned uh your book, Liquid Intelligence to uh uh uh an associate, not a friend, uh not a friend.
And uh his his response was too science-y for me. What? And and it reminded me of the the reviews that you read on Amazon uh years ago, just muddle-headed fools. Uh and and here's so here's the thing. Even if I, God forbid, never have access to a rotary evaporator, I still benefit from understanding what what vacuum and distillation uh can achieve, what kind of flavor extension you can get.
Uh if I never have access to, or if I don't have access to a centrifuge, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. I get I get your point.
We're coming so as soon as we can. I can't get I can't get the centrifuge. I have to make it good enough for for release. That's the thing. Nastasia, vouch for the fact that we're working hard on it.
Working hard. Working hard. All right, go ahead. That's fine. We're we we can wait.
But yeah, so even though I don't have a centrifuge, I still benefit from understanding the various clarification techniques and what you can do on different products. So the the book is useful no matter whether you have access to all of the equipment or not, because it makes you a better a better cook. I hope I hope so. This this bartender probably still can't even make a proper uh and just in Manhattan because they they think that you can chill a drink harder with large ice cubes without simultaneously uh diluting because they don't know the fundamental law of cocktails. Dirt.
Well, okay, let me ask you this. You can be very, very wrong and still make good drinks as long as your actual pri a lot of times people's practice doesn't jibe with their uh with their m mental representation of what what they're doing. Uh are is this person's drinks are they good? They're they're okay, but they're not consistent. Yeah, of course.
Okay. Yeah, I mean like it's more, I mean, w whether they can make a good drink or not. It's more just it's sort of like skimming the book and then deciding whatever those reviews were like too much information that just doesn't even make make sense. I know, but look, look, uh uh uh I have a very particular attitude and sounds like you also have a very particular attitude. Some people just don't respond well to like analytical thinking.
You know what I mean? They just don't they just don't respond. Uh so it's not for the section on just the section on apples is worth the worth the sticker price, and that's not as analytical, you know, it's just a more interesting read. I uh anyway, people should buy the book. Uh well thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much. And tell your friend very gently, just be like, your drinks are good. I'm not saying that you have to do all sciencey stuff, but uh maybe you can work on the consistency. Maybe.
Yeah, yeah. Gent gentleness is is key when when interacting. Yeah, unless unless he's gonna go full Japanese, in which case it's like you don't want it consistent. Every drink should be like a journey from beginning to end. A drink should take 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
Um, you know, it should cost $30. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. There's that whole there's that whole genre as well. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Well, my question is about cocktails. Um I planned to for my future sister-in-law's bridal shower, uh, I plan to force carbonate a French 75 and bottle it. So I've done this in the past just by by uh clarifying lemon, chilling down gin and water, uh for carbonating that, and then just popping the bottle down.
Right. Does uh does Nastasia like a French 75 or is that just ruining champagne with with gin? She's not a huge gin fan. Stasmani, you yeah, I don't like it. No, good.
Yeah, okay. Yeah. Uh so my question is it uh pouring twice into those little 187 mil bottles is kind of a pain. And I'm wondering if there's a wine that could reasonably reasonably approach uh a champagne type note if if carbonated at a lower PSI. If I could just do the whole thing, dilute it, chill it down, and carbonate.
I don't even know what pressure champagne usually likes to sit at. Hi. But remember, once you turn it into a French 75, it's got so the classic French 75 is not very carbonated at all because it's just uh champagne added to the to the drink. Um I did I diluted it further than I I normally would if I was just shaking and I went up to like sixty percent water for that original base. Yeah.
I have to do some c I I mean I don't have uh my numbers, I'd have to do some calculation. I once did some work, in fact I was gonna have a sidebar in the book on French 75s, but I never uh did it and I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head. Um I mean champagne is obviously a very good carbonated wine and it's gonna add its own kind of uh yeasty notes to it. But you could use it. I mean, yeah, you could use anything.
I mean, I would use something that doesn't that uh you just have to test it. You know what I mean? Like I wouldn't use anything that didn't that tasted, you know wildly different. You wanna do it for you don't want to do you don't want to re you don't want to use champagne because of the of the price. I no no no.
I'm just wondering if I just pouring into those little bottles because I'm gonna make a bunch of these uh is just a pain and then I have to do it twice because I'm force-carbonating the gin mixture. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Just for like dump the entire whatever wine you use, just dump the entire mixture together, throw it in the freezer take away.
You know, you can't carbonate all the nucleation side. But you're gonna recarbonate it. You're gonna recarbonate it, right? So the actual hit hit the whole thing recarbonate it then with the original champagne. Yeah, yeah.
I like whenever I do uh this stuff, I I batch everything, including the stuff that's like originally carbonated. That original carbonation, that foaming that happens actually helps to kind of get some of the other gases and crap out of your mixture. Then you take that whole thing. Now you can taste it to make sure it's completely homogenous, chill it down until it's almost uh frozen, and then just re-carb the whole thing and pour it into bottles much easier and much more consistent. So but then when you you did mention price when you're buying champagne, are you paying for for the bubbles at all?
Is that gonna be a good one? Well, it's just a different you're paying when you're buying for champagne, you're paying for a you're paying for the f the fact that it's champagne, you're paying for the amount of time it takes, the process it goes through, right? So they're very they're typically uh relatively uh uh acidic um grapes. Uh they have to go through like uh you know the long you know long process, they then they get they get uh disgorged and then you know dosage and all this other stuff. So you're you're going through a big rigmarole to produce but I'm sure you can make a delicious uh you know s you know French, you know, 74 or 76 uh with a di with a different um, sniping for prosecco and lower the lower the sugar or something, something that's a uh per seco.
Yeah, I mean a proseco cava or even like uh maybe even a cremant might be nice. I mean like I would just I would just get like a bottle. Look, it's it's not a hard as long as you're getting uh uh you know something that you like drinking, it's not a hardship to you know open a bottle, make one seventy-five with it, feel how you feel about it, and then drink the rest as bubbles, right? Especially if you're gonna make a bunch, and then once you lock it down, then um once you lock it down, then now you have something in your pocket that you can do inexpensively. Like I used, I don't use it anymore, but like when I got married, because it was 20, you know, 22 years ago, uh, you know, I f I we went on a side buy, we tasted like a billion kavas side by side, and I stuck with that cheap kava for like 15 years.
Do you know what I'm saying? I think it's kind of gone downhill, so I'm not gonna recommend it, but you know what I'm saying? Like once you get a good thing in your pocket, then it's there for a long time. And what what pressure range would you uh would you try at least at first? Forty-five.
Forty five PS forty f for uh four, forty-five at four or five. Yeah, four or five. No. No, no, that's what typically it depends on what your alcohol content is. If you're getting your alcohol content down to like th like between thirteen and fifteen percent on your final batch, then forty-five Psi at at cold temperature is gonna be is gonna be good.
All right, I'll give it a try. Alrighty, let us know how it goes. All right, cool. Okay. All right.
Here's some uh here's some stuff in for wait, what were we gonna talk about with Peter again? Oh yeah, Peter's back. Are you are you staying for the rest of the uh time period? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so let me let me give me let me get some stuff written there and then we'll talk about Peter's.
We'll talk about uh have you ever heard of the um I want to hear this now. The House Guest Olympics. It's something that that my wife and I, Jen, we used to do it's called the House Guest Olympics. Nobody knew they were participating in the house guest Olympics. But we would rate people after they came based on like how good of a house guest or how bad of a house guest is a house guest.
Well, this changes every time I go over to your place now. Yeah. How bad was I? House guests have to sleep over, by the way. How bad am I?
You're you're fine, Stas. You're fine. I can't rate you on the house guests, and you're basically like, you know, almost like a family member at this point, so it doesn't count. Yeah. But um you know, we've known each other for how many that's not true.
I've rated people that I've known for like over a lot of people. But it's a question of like how you've been rated because I I love snacks. Snacks is good. No, but also it's like house guess Olympics is most normally when they're staying there when you're there. So it's how they interact with you.
So if someone shows up at your house, right, and then is like, and I don't want to be a bother, I don't want to be a bother. So they bring like their own like milk and stuff. That's weird. Like that like knocks me down in the House Cap Olympics. When people like leave crap in your bathroom, House Gaf House Guest Olympics way down.
With someone like Nastasia, like leaves wine and snacks in the thing, that's very good on the House Cats Olympics. When I thought that she blew up our fireworks, that knocked her down a couple of pegs. But the fireworks, they were found. Yeah, so like, yeah, so the fireworks, so that knocks her back up on the House Guest Olympics. And plus, when you came with uh Mark, you guys brought tons of uh awesome uh uh Italian products, so you're doing quite well in the House Guests Olympics.
Wow. So but anyway, so so Peter has some House Guest Olympic stuff going on that we'll talk about after we get into some questions. I don't want to get into it. She doesn't look like a cliffhanger over. This is from well, we assume not.
This is from uh Mark Powie uh in uh the District of Columbia. Uh Dave mentioned that he wanted to investigate the contents of cooked versus rotovapped maple syrup. I did say that. Sap, actually, maple sap. So the theory being that if you're if you're doing it at low temperature, that you're not uh going to have the same flavor.
There's already some work in this area, but with more of a focus on human health than on deliciousness, of course, of course. See uh Navindra uh serum's work at the University of Rhode Island. Cooking the sap does in fact result in new process derived molecules, like a polyphenol named Quebecal, like Quebecois. Why do they name it after it has a weird voice? Hey Dave, what's the what's the Alex Tribex?
What did you want to make? Oh, uh Trebecois. Trebaqua, yeah, his own nationality. And and if you're a Trebecois, you not only pronounce French in a weird way, no offense, Quebec folks, but you uh also try to pronounce everyone else's language like Alex Trebek does. That's what it takes.
Do you like Alex Trebek, Peter? No. What are your feelings, Jack, on Alex Trebek? Neutral. I don't know.
Well, what's with the no? Why? Like, what's wrong with Alex Trebek? I don't know, man. You know what it is?
It's seeing him in taxis that pisses me off. It's like before I was like, oh, Alex Trebek, he's an intellectual guy. He's intellectually curious. You know, he seems to be a good arbiter of the truth. And then you see him in the tax and you realize he's just another like show.
Well, he became really self-aware and got all kind of like a parody of himself. Yeah, exactly. When I was a kid, when I was with my grandma, we used to sit and we would watch Wheel of Fortune with Pat Sajak and Van A White, and then Jeopardy with the Alexander. Oh, yeah, same. I was a huge fan.
Huge fan. And then, like, you know, just after a while, like him like pronouncing all the Spanish words with that freaking lisp, even if this person was freaking Mexican or from South America. I'm like, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's a big peppy of mine.
Like, that's where he's like, I see a Marquez. Like, listen, like the regional lisp, what the hell? If you if if it's a Spanish person, fine. If you're gonna pronounce someone What if he learned his Spanish in Spain? From like Ecuador, from like Colombia, from Mexico, then you don't pronounce Spanish that way.
Just pronounce it like an American or a Canadian, then. You know what I'm saying? If you're gonna mutilate, if you're not gonna do it like the person who would if they were alive, right? But that's how he learned to speak Spanish was Spain. What?
Yeah. Oh, really? I didn't realize he was a Spanish professor in Spain. Yeah. I was wrong.
Here's the other thing. Also, like how he like, he's like, oh no, the answer was blah. Like, or the question was blah. Of course he knows. He has the answer in front of him on a card.
I don't know, man. Trebek. Yeah. Tribequa. Trebicoa.
Yeah. Uh anyway, uh polyphenol named Kebacal. Given that there are amino acids and a lot of sugar in the sap, I expect some Myard products as well. I wonder if any volatile components can be pulled off and collected from maple syrup. I think I've tried.
It's hard. I mean, like, there is a volatile note to it, obviously, but I can't. I think I've tried distilling uh syrup, but I don't um I can't remember whether I got good results or not. I don't think I did. I don't remember.
I also wonder about separating some of the flavorants from the sugars. I'm thinking of trying a recrystallization from ethanol. Uh Mark Powie. Uh man. And then they he links to some of the papers.
I can't uh access the the full articles, but um, you know, it's on uh University of Rhode Island's uh website. That's super interesting. Thanks for writing that in, and hopefully, if you you know do anything interesting with it, you'll write back and tell us more. Um I'm interested. Were we ever gonna get some maple sap and do a demo at the museum, Peter?
Uh no, I don't remember. I don't think so. Maybe we should be great. Maybe we should a little late in the season. Yeah.
Do you know that uh the NPR did an April Fool's joke a long time back saying uh that if you that trees were exploding because people weren't tapping them, and if you don't tap the maple trees that they would explode, they did it, and people actually believed it. It's pretty hilarious. The best NPR April Fool's joke was when they did uh uh the headline was studies show that nobody reads head, nobody uh people only read headlines and not the actual article. And then there was like thousands of comments and people like, you jerks, I read the article, I read the article. Of course I do.
And then the body of the article is This is his name for food's. This is an April Fool's joke. That's that's pretty that's that's awesome in meta. I have a good April Fool's joke, the best one I ever did. If we have time at the end of the show, you can have me tell it because it is our April Foods.
Tomorrow is Dave's birthday. Tomorrow is my birthday. How old are you going to be? Uh 45. Hey, it's Jeremy from Seattle.
Hope all is well on your thing. Hope all is well on your side of the world. Uh have a quick question for the show finally. I brined and water bath a three-pound. This is late, by the way, because obviously this is no longer uh relevant to Jeremy, but I brined and water bath a three-pound pork loined at 145 Fahrenheit for 3.5 hours last night.
Someone give me that number in Celsius, please. Uh I pulled it out, dried it, and seared it. Uh after ate a few slices at about 9 30 p.m., all right. Popped it back in the bag, uh, displacement sealed it, and tossed it into an ice bath. So he didn't really do a vacuum on it, so there's probably, you know, not 100% oxygen free.
Then I promptly passed out on the couch. I am familiar with this problem. Uh woke up about 12 30 a.m. and having completely forgotten about the pork, crawled upstairs and got ready for bed. Got up around 5 30 and remembered, book.
And ran down and checked the water temp. It was 61 degrees Fahrenheit, so I threw it in the fridge to chill, hoping it's okay to eat tonight or tomorrow. Any suggestions or warnings? That's from last week. So if you're alive, Jeremy, I would eat it.
Like, I would just reheat it. You're probably looking you killed all of the uh aerobic stuff. I don't think uh, you know, I'm not an expert in this. I didn't have time to look it up too much. I don't think there's a lot of spore forming uh aerobic bacteria.
I don't think you made an anaerobic enough environment to cause uh the spores to germinate during that period of time. And anything you did, you could just do a quick kill on the outside. Remember, you cooked it and totally killed everything, then you seared it, then you put it back in a bag. So to me, it's like similar to like a deli meat that's been sitting out, even though it wasn't cured. It was brine, too.
So it was salted on the outside. So my feeling is that if you know if you ate it, you're probably safe. And if you didn't eat it, you probably would have been safe, especially with a light sear to make the family less quee and nervous about it. The thing is like uh the I always use the same uh thing. Would I feed it to my family or not?
Yes. Bang. You know what I mean? That way you can't say Dave says it's safe. I'm just saying, what would I do?
Just in a similar way to what would Brian Boitano do. Uh Ben wrote in about salmon. I have a question about locks slashed smoked salmon. I love this stuff, and I'm happy to patronize its local purveyors. Uh patronize is a weird term because it it's either very good or very bad.
How did that happen? I don't know. Local purveyors. That's patronizing them. Oh, look at your little locks.
Yeah, yeah. Uh anyway. No, patronize, give them money. Very good. See what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. Could go either way. Uh shout out to Shelski's and Russ and Daughters. You been to Shelski's yet? Nope.
I haven't either. Uh I mean Russ and Daughters. I have to go like I hear it's good. I have to go like I go to Russ and Daughters probably once a week because Booker and Dax forced me to go. I mean, I would go anyway, but they forced me to go.
Anyway. Trout caviar is on the Dave Bingo game that Nastasi and I play. What's that? What's that? Well, there's like stories that you bring up here and there.
So if we I didn't even mention it. You mentioned it. No, I know. See, see how you self-perpetuate things. I wasn't gonna go that.
I know. I'm just saying. You were about to go there. I wasn't. I would very much like to see the bingo board.
No bingo board, it's in our heads. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. And they add to it, whatever. Nastasia is the queen of this.
I knew you were gonna say that. Well, then why didn't you say it beforehand so you could prove it? Why didn't you write it on a piece of paper folded in half and hand it to me after I said it? See, that would be that would be like the amazing Randy moves. Let's build an actual board.
No, it's because they can't put their freaking money where their mouth is because they're jokers. We can. We can. Jokers. That, by the way, is also a bingo item.
Jokers? Jokers? Jack, when's the last time you heard me call someone a joke? I've never heard you say the word joker. Boom.
Putting us down is definitely on the bingo board. No, that that's just because it needs to happen. That's not a bingo. That's like saying, oh, Dave, do you need to breathe? Yeah, or you die.
You know what I mean? Okay. Uh caller on the line. Also on the bingo board. All right, call, caller.
Uh we'll get we'll get back to your salmon question. Caller, you're on the air. Okay, yeah. I hope your uh retina has not detached, but I'll quickly get to my question. I uh I had a curious uh idea.
You know, they have like that debate in barbecue where some people cook things hot and fast and some people cook things low and slow. What do you think of that, number one? And the other question is how does that relate to regular brazing? Like some people like to braid stuff at like a 350 degree temperature, and some people like to braid stuff at like a you know a 280 degree temperature. Is there really that big of a difference?
And what do you think? Here's the thing. To me, when it comes to barbecuing, hot and fast is really just like some variant of grilling. You know what I mean? So uh the it's just gonna be it's gonna be different.
You're not gonna get like a like what you consider barbecue from a pit standpoint is like you have to do a lot of uh tissue breakdown, and that just doesn't happen quickly. You know what I mean? That happens. I know there's just so many people that do that. Like, not, you know, garbage web blogger people like major people that do that, and they don't think it matters.
Like how fast? Yeah, like I mean, like Ed Mitchell cooks it like 3150 degrees. But like open or like c or like wrapped and closed. Yeah, no, I mean like for a temperature for a time of you know four hours or it's a locked and clo and closed. And then several other big barbecue guys, they they cook stuff at like plus 300 degrees.
They're also doing whole he's doing whole hog, right? Ed Mitchell's doing whole hog. Yeah, whole hog, but I've seen him do other things like the same exact way. Smaller stuff? Yeah, like ribs or anything like that.
I mean the bigger the bigger something is. You know, for that amount of time, and they seem to be kind of doing that same temperature on a on a smoker. Right. Look look, so let's look at it this way. When you're let's go to brazing first.
If you're brazing, and and remember, like, you know, if you like Ed Mitchell's product, then obviously they're doing something right, whether or not it whether or not it fits with kind of what we theoretically think, right? If you like their product, then they make a good product, and so you have to investigate what they do to figure out like why it works the way it does. I'm just gonna say that uh off the top. Now, when you go to brazing and you're looking at uh a brazing phenomenon, um the biggest difference in a braze is whether or not the lids off or lids on, right? So if you if you're if your lid is on, then the braze is getting up to two twelve, right?
You're not really building any pressure. Anyone who says that you're building pressure, it's nonsense, it's horse crap. You know what I mean? Unless it's in a pressure cooker. Because even a very slight over pressure on the order of, you know, decimal PSI would be is enough physical force to make the lid fly off of anything that you would have on there, right?
Uh so that whole thing about like pressurizing it that people used to say like, put aluminum foil and then push it down and you form a pressure. No, crap. You know what I mean? But you are getting it up to 212 or higher, actually, depending on how not much higher, but higher, depending on how thick the goop is that you have the thing brazing in. With the lid off, you're getting evaporative cooling, and so the temperature is significantly lower, like uh, you know, somewhere probably in the you know high eighties or nineties, right?
Uh is Celsius. Um McGee knows the exact answer because he's done these things, but um so with the lid off, as long as you keep the liquid level right, I don't know that you're gonna have that much of a difference whether your oven is above two twelve or not. It's just gonna you'll probably increase the evaporation rate if you have a higher oven, but you're not probably gonna d materially affect uh uh what you're doing. Now, when it comes now, let's let's let's transfer this over to barbecue land now. So let's say you're doing uh let's say you're doing something at like 350, right?
So what's the difference to the meat at the very inside of uh a whole hog when you're doing 350? Answer? Not a whole hell of a lot, right? Because still locally where you are in the meat, assuming that you're a tiny trichinosis worm on the inside of a piece of pork, right? Assume right.
If you're in there, you are never gonna get above uh two twelve. Ever. You know what I'm saying? Until all of your moisture is out and the and that and the temperature then can rise above the boiling point of water. So a high temperature on uh on what would typically be a brazing cut or something that's going to cook for a long period of time is just going to affect the amount of meat that uh can be uh desiccated on the outside right and so what I assume that he would get would be a much higher uh portion of um of uh desiccated dried out overcooked crunchy bits and maybe he likes that yeah exactly you know what I'm saying uh but that's why I asked on smaller cuts of meat it would seem to be a lot more detrimental because you could dry out a significant portion of it before the inside is uh tender enough for your for your feet for your you know hopes and desires does that make sense I would say I would think so yeah I just remember you know on the braising side I remember reading you know like in the French laundry cookbook where they they talked about brazing everything under 300 degrees because they thought it was more gentler but if you're if your water temperature is never getting over a significant thing it doesn't seem to matter.
I don't think it yeah I don't think it matters much. You know next time we get McGee on see if you can like like we like he loves to talk about this stuff so we can uh we'll we'll have that debate I'm sure he you know he'll he'll go on a tear as much as McGee goes on a tear which is not you know he's not like a I don't know he's not like a rant well he doesn't rant in public much. It does seem it does seem to it does seem to take longer when you braze things in liquid at a lower temperature than versus at a 350 even smaller even small changes in um temperature affect uh by a bit how long it takes uh collagen to break down. And that's what I'm really wondering about is it more of a collagen thing or a you know yeah, collagen breakdown, but the difference in the in the texture of a protein at uh you know 85 Celsius and at 100 is like you know, it's the freaking same. You know what I mean?
It's like it's overcooked, you know what I mean? Well, that's why you have to have other flavors or things or a lot of collagen to break down. And one of the reasons why I am not the biggest fan of whole hog, because then stuff you're doing that rancid overcooking to stuff like the loin. Now what? You know what I mean?
It's like you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know why people like it. Because they hack the whole freaking thing up, and you have some stuff that tastes really good and some stuff that's overcooked, and so you average it out to being something that that's good. But I, you know, I in my book, why not like cook the loin exactly the way you want it, then cook all the like the low and slow stuff the way you want it, hack it up and have it all be better, right, Peter? Well, there's the ceremony to it, right?
I mean it's the reason why we do whole turkeys for some. Well, that's why you want to do like a whole turkey. You're right, you're right. Okay. Oh my god.
Okay. The high pitched voices of bingo. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah.
Can we get to Peter's story? No, there's no. All right. Yeah, we have to, because we're wrapping up. Well, hold on a second, I gotta finish the salmon question.
Justino, hold on a second. All right. So um, I'm happy to patronize local purveyors. Shout out to Shelskis and Russ and Daughters, but I was wondering if it was worth making this stuff at home. I would also be curious to hear the cooking issues team thoughts uh on uh the product.
We all like smoked salmon, right? Locks and by the way, in my in my world, lox is lox, i.e. not smoked. Salt, salt, and sugar cure either wet or dry, and then you know, allowed to dry off a little bit and sliced. To me, that's locks, right?
And and the smoked salmon, like Nova style, gas bell, all that stuff, smoked salmon. Okay? Boom, bump. And we're talking cold smoked salmon here, not hot smoked, all right? We're all on the same page?
Okay. Uh I think basically I need a primer, but here are my questions. Any thoughts on reliable books slash recipes, especially for traditional Jewish appetizing styles, i.e. Nova Locks, Belly Locks, etc. Uh thoughts on the curing step, dry versus wet, and equipment.
I have a backyard and a Weber charcoal grill, but I assume I'll need to invest some sort of cold smoking rig, yes. Do you have any recommendations on makes styles, etc.? Are there any that do double duty as a hot smoker that are worthwhile? How about wood? Thoughts on the species, pellets versus chips, others, etc.
And fish, how high a grade do I need to go? Should I be looking for the stuff I'd make sashimi with, or is my usual pricey NYC supermarket salmon okay? Thanks in advance. Been a listener since day one, and the show has seriously helped me up my cooking, eating, mixing, and drinking game. Ben.
Okay, first of all, let's start on salmon, because we're gonna we're gonna run out of time here. And we got to get a Peterson. So if we start on salmon, uh definitely salmon's gonna make a huge huge freaking difference in this, and you're gonna want to choose what you want based on the fat variety. So I would go to Russ and Daughters and I would ask them what kind of salmon things are made out of. So for your first choice is Atlantic salmon versus Pacific salmon.
And then if you're gonna go either of those, uh you you really should either buy stuff that's sushi grade, uh, which has been frozen, or you should freeze it hard in your in your freezer for uh over for over a week to uh kill any uh worms, anascus worms or tapeworms that are in it, because the curing step may not kill it, especially uh cold smoke step. But investigate this so Chinook obviously has the highest fat content, king salmon. So if you want a very high fat content, and this is like um the salmon that you would get from New Zealand, New Zealand King salmon, or a gold, like that's the stuff that they make the New Zealand King salmon that you get at uh Russ and Daughters. I think that's that stuff's fantastic. It's super high in fat.
It's got a very nice texture because it's been uh anesthetized before they kill it, so it stays very firm. So over, you know, uh, you know, that stuff is uh is good. I think the salmon's gonna make a huge uh difference. Uh I also called up uh Nils, Norrin, to get his regular gravadlocks uh recipe. And oh my god, I can't.
Oh, here it is. Uh I'm trying to find it. I wrote it down, but I guess it didn't get pasted in. Should I do that next week? Should I talk about salmon recipe next next week?
Uh and versus cold smoking, like I'm sure other people have a lot more experience with different cold smokers. Typically it's done with like pipes and uh ice over the things to make to make it done. But the the people on the internets will will will help us out, and we'll talk about it more next week. So, Ben, we're gonna get back to your question uh more next week. Peter, uh Nastasi, why don't you go?
Why don't you say what the story is? Uh Peter had a terrible house guest. All right, that terrible house guest, what did they do, Peter? First of all, they were there was an Airbnb person. Peter had an Airbnb person come over.
So uh and they stayed there. They are a med school student, and they drank all of his liquor. Yeah. Without saying anything. They drank all of his freaking liquor.
Including, and I don't know why you had a bottle of this, a whole bottle of Malibu. Look, there are things that people bring over who are low on the house guest Olympics. So this lady was doing you a favor. Those things sit in the bar. So this lady gives you a favor.
And she had bottles, magnum bottles of yellowtail lying around empty, lying around her her her room in the Airbnb thing, and she never had house guests over. This is some nice and Harold McGee. Yeah, it's she she blamed Harold McGee because Harold McGee did stay there once. All right, so listen, on the way out, I'll tell you quickly uh my my April Fool's joke uh that we did. So this was in 1990.
This was before uh we had uh anyone, we had one guy on the floor. This is in college, uh my freshman year, uh had a laser printer. He was a senior. No one had a laser printer, no one even no one laser printer, right? So what we did for April Fool's Day is all the freshmen lived in specific entryways in in our college, in our college dorm.
Uh and we wrote uh a letter, and I can still remember it to this day. We faked Yale Stationery, which is where I went to college. We faked the Yale Stationary, faked everything, and printed this letter out and gave it to every single freshman. Due to the unusually high number of matriculating transfer students, we will not be able to offer a place in the sophomore class to all of our current freshmen. Please find below an application for sophomore standing uh to be filled out and handed in to your um RA by the end of the week.
Wow. And we folded it up along with an application and put it in everyone's cubby hole on like laser printed. And our state our fake stationary looked better than Yale's real stationary at the time. We got the linen paper, we got everything. People flipped out, and all of the saw uh all of the freshman counselors, right, played along.
They all played along, and we didn't even talk to them about it. They just all played along. We like had people flipping the hell out. And that is the roughest April Fool's joke that I've ever been uh involved in uh playing on somebody. Wow.
Cooking issues. Happy birthday! Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at heritage underscore radio.
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