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Go to Rackiton.com or get the app. That's R A K U T E N. This episode is brought to you by Jewel, the emergent circulator for Sous V by Chef Steps. Order now at ChefSteps.com slash J-O-U-L-E. I'm Damon Bolti, host of the Speakeasy.
You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradio network.org for thousands more. 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 a little bit even later than normal, around 12 15 today, you know, to around 1245, like you know, one o'clock. From Robert's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Br br Brooklyn!
Join Joined as usual with Nastasia of the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Nastasia? So actually, Nastasia and I went on an adventure last week, which we'll see if we have time to talk about our uh our adventure uh to the great town of Saratoga Springs. But we have two guests in the studio with us today. We have Kitchen Appliance Engineer Joe Zukowski.
How you doing? Good afternoon. Yeah, and we have the uh the reigning uh current pr crown prince of the Museum of Food and Drink, uh Peter Kim. Here to spread hate and vacate. Yeah.
What kind of vacate? Number two? That's actually a ri uh line from Exhibit. I don't know if you remember that guy. I remember spell yeah, with the with the spelling X.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, good. Good strength. We got Dave in the booth. What up?
How you doing? Good. Speaking of Dave in the booth, uh so a number of months ago, uh Nastasia and I along Carlos in that too, right? In the w in the one we did for uh Johnny Walker, Dave. Oh, you I wasn't here that day, uh so I'm not sure.
But we do have the episode. Yeah, so uh we taped a uh well, I gotta admit it was like a shill thing. Like we were like, they were like, hey, will you do this episode for this new Johnny Walker product? And we're like, okay. But anyway, we actually taped a full-on episode.
And if you don't like the wine episode, you shouldn't go to this one. But we're gonna tweet out uh as the last of Nastasia and uh my contractual tweet and Instagrams. We will uh send out a uh a link like that's not in our normal uh cooking issues feed to a cooking issues episode where we talk to the rare the rare beast, unfortunately, in the uh in in the spirits world, but the the female master uh blender, uh which is uh which is awesome. You know what I mean? Ne need more of that.
It uh the the industry needs to uh shift to a more uh gender parity situation. What? Balance. Balance, yeah, balance. Uh all right, well, how are we gonna start here?
Peter, why don't you why don't you before before you just start throwing your hate and your vacate, why don't you just uh why don't you drop your uh drop your plug knowledge for the museum food and drink? Oh yeah, so uh we are working right now on Chow, the making of Chinese American cuisine. And uh basically, yeah, you've got this situation where there's I don't think they know I don't think we've talked about it because you haven't let us talk about it on air. What? All right, okay.
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna explain the exhibit, man. All right, geez. Um before you ask them for money, why don't you at least tell them so you've got this situation where you've got over 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the US. They're all over and look, so I I grew up in the Midwest, right? Um Middle Nowhere, Danville, Illinois.
Well, what are you insult insulting on your uh on your upbringing? It's true. I mean, so anyway, we we were one of the only uh Asian families in the town, and when we wanted to, you know, like I grew up eating like meatloaf and like green bean casserole, but also like you know, dried squid and other green stuff. But when we wanted to go out to eat, you know, you know what? Dried squid would be nice in the green bean casserole.
Yeah, sure. Um so when we wanted to go out to eat and we wanted to eat something that wasn't like Olive Garden, it was a Chinese restaurant. And uh and I think you know it was really the only option for going out to eat that to have something that was like you know, quote unquote uh ethnic. Um so uh that's actually the case in a lot of parts of the country. Um, so you live the Asian version of the Christmas story.
Yeah, basically. All right. Yeah, there you go. Um and so you have this like situation where these restaurants are all around the country, they're all serving they're all run by uh Chinese immigrant families. Uh they're serving a menu that um I think we all know is not a lot like food in China.
Um and it's one of these things that's become just such a central part of American culture. Um and uh so what's this you know I guess it's a sort of curious situation and you want to know, you know, what the story is behind that. And it turns out there is over a hundred, there are over 150 years of history behind this cuisine, and so we're gonna tell the story of that with the exhibition. All right. So like to to boil that down into like 30 seconds, the number, how many restaurants roughly?
Over 50,000. That's like three times the number of McDonald's, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's many more uh in fact, there's more Chinese uh restaurants in the US than uh Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's combined, right? Yeah.
Yeah, of course, because there's more McDonald's than any of those other ones, and there's three times as many McDonald's, so clearly more. Uh the other thing I think it's really interesting is uh we kind of take this thing for we take Chinese food for granted, Chinese American food, even though it's weird that you have this kind of ubiquitous and kind of monolithic cuisine. I'm not talking about like the new fancy stuff that like you know, we're not talking about your like your Danny Bowens or your anything like that. We're talking about like old school Chinese American uh cuisine. How d how did this happen that we have a cuisine that is neither cooked by the those uh the people who are making so people who own the Chinese restaurant, the recent immigrants, as you put it normally, not although some of them three, four generations have been having these Chinese restaurants, especially some of the older, more important ones.
But they don't cook this food at home, right? For their family, typically. Typically, uh and y and yet yet here it exists. It's almost like a synthesized cuisine. It's super interesting, unlike Italian American cuisine, right?
Where Italian Americans actually cook that stuff at home. Everybody does. Who doesn't make like lasagna? Yeah, yeah, you know, a point bomb. Anyway, but like the but the point is that like that style of of food exists as a living home cuisine and as a restaurant cuisine.
Yeah, and it's not just that, but it's like everything around the menu too. You've got the whole sort of format of the meal, you've got the takeout box, you have fortune cookies, you've got sauce packets, you've got like the aesthetic. Um we're not gonna we're not gonna I mean I mean by my my point is like it's it's this whole thing that got developed, and like yeah, I mean it's just sort of like this crazy story behind it. Yeah, so the the the the thing is how'd that happen? That's the that's what this that's what the exhibit's about.
Yeah. How did this happen? Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And it's uh it's gonna be tied into a launch of our non-brick and mortar uh based uh web presence as well.
Right. Yeah, so we're gonna have uh beautiful menu collection, gonna have tastings, which is gonna be a first for us, actual food. Putting the food back in the museum of food and drink. Yeah, yeah. And then uh Peter's like, uh there'll still be pellets.
Don't worry, for all of you pellotized people out there, there will still be pellets. And uh we're gonna keep the stink machines going. Yeah, stink machines, some of the stink machines. Yeah, and and uh I saw that in the chat room, somebody had a problem with it last time with it all smelling like popcorn pyrazine, whatever, but we fixed that. So um sorry about that.
Yeah, it's like sometimes those those valves are literally there's just like a little valve. Listen, uh thank God it wasn't the butyric acid. You know what I mean? The cheesy vomit. Yeah.
But my point is is that uh sometimes those valves get stuck open a little bit, and so we'd probably need to open and reseal the valves and to stop them from uh actually the valves when they're going wrong make a kind of a warrant white noise. Yeah, that's true. Like a little like a little mini Yeah, that's what I was going for. Little toot noise. Yeah.
Well, anyway, so uh we have a Kickstarter going for Chow right now, and uh you know, when you back the campaign, you get tickets to we're gonna have uh a a weekend opening for two days. It's gonna be on uh fourth and the fifth of November. Uh like for eating, not like chow. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. Chow chow bella. Yeah. So not like that. Not like that.
Like chow. Like, I should make an ice cream called Chow Bella with like C H O W. Well, interestingly, something you'll learn if you show up at the exhibit is there used to be a uh um a uh a Chow Chopsui Sunday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was uh that was basically just hacked up little pieces of dried fruit on top of the ice cream, and I have to say that sounds pretty good.
Yeah, man. You need to bring that one back. Yeah. Nastassi, what are your feelings on chewy things on your ice cream? Uh that sounds good.
They gummy bears. Well, not that chewy, but yeah, like of that order. But in other words, like in general, like typically for me on an ice cream, I prefer things that like pop and break rather than things that chew. What about what about like Chendle or like Southeast Asian ice desserts? I can deal.
I'm not I'm never like I can deal, I can enjoy something like that. Or like for instance, like mochi. I love mochi. Oh, that's chewy ice cream. I got you.
All right, that's fair. But it's in your left and around. It's like a thing, but like like a big like like a big like grated ice thing with like the with like the cream and stuff and beans. I like it. I like it.
I like it. I I enjoy having them, but I'm never like, hey, you know what I'm gonna go out and get right now? Do you know what would really fix me up right now that. Right. For you it'd actually be a half a grapefruit and a block of cheese.
Uh sorry. Sorry. Five and a half grapefruits. I really, people out there, I really really don't know. I really, really like grapefruits.
You ever wake up in the morning and you're like, I need grapefruit. That's not what happens to you? No, yeah. I love grapefruit. Joe, you like grapefruit?
It's a high quality fruit. But anyway, let me just get this out. Well, it's strangely, like a lot of the ones you buy are incredibly poor quality. Like it's just like it's like it's not violently uh like nauseating the way that a bad pistachio is. But when you by the way, the way I eat grapefruits, I don't do that like, you know, I don't do that like American 50s thing, cutting them in half and stuff.
I just peel them and eat them. But like my point is is that like there's something very like just so disappointing about a bad grapefruit, the one where it's just thin, there's no sweetness, all acid, slightly bitter, too much pith. It's just so disappointing. Especially the ones that are not like juicy when they get dry. Oh my god.
Oh my god. And you can see the the segments kind of break apart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you just look at it and you're so sad. First of all, you paid two bucks for that thing.
Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And then you and you and you know, you're a reasonably smart person, right? I hope we're all reasonably smart people. So when you pick up the grapefruit, you you're picking one that's not too spongy, right?
I mean, you know, look bearing in mind that you know whether it's a California or a Florida grapefruit, so you know what the fundamental skin thickness should be. You're trying to heft the fruit itself to see whether or not it contains enough water and make that judgment. You make that judgment and you get home, and when you still have garbage, like with all of the thinking and the two dollars later, it's just so disappointing. Yeah. Yeah.
I hate it. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah. So go to chow.mofad.org.
Chow is spelled C H O W, not the Italian way. Um and our kick at our Kickstarter, you can get tickets to the uh private opening of the exhibition. And uh David will be there. I'll be there. Yes, exactly.
Um and uh we'll have some fun surprises for people there, and then you get membership to the museum and you get to help us out with uh building the next show. So yeah, go to chow.mofad.org. Yeah, all right. So uh and now you can just be hate-filled Emperor Peter from here on out. Strike for the operational.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, by the way, Peter and I almost always only talk to each other in Emperor Palpatine voice. Yeah, yeah. Which sometimes can fade into like stereotypical Jewish grandmother. Wow.
Wow. I never really thought about it. You could do that for me. I'm not gonna put you on the spot. If you feel it, if you feel it later in the show, you can you can do it.
Yeah. But I mean, I'm not I don't want to put that's like a lot to put you on the spot for. Yeah, yeah. So you know, so Joe, what do you what are you working on now? So I'm just here to support cooking issues.
Oh, come on now. You gotta if you're on the show, you gotta tell like give us like uh what are you working on? Anything that you can talk about? Nothing I can talk about. I'd have to kill you.
Well, I'm sure many people would many, many, many men wish death upon me to bring out you some who's that was it? You don't know that song? Many men wish death upon me? No. Many, many men.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh wait, you say we got a call, Dave? Yeah, you want to take a call? Yeah, let's do it.
Oh, by the way, uh, call in your appliance design related questions to Joe Zikowski. I believe this is sous vide related. Oh, here we go. All right, I know how to do that. Caller.
You are hello. Hey. Yeah, um first question. I I just sent the recipe um uh into the Heritage Radio email address. It's um for Poe Decram.
It's basically homemade chocolate pudding. Right, right. But the recipe is is how to do it without using the sous vide machine and I just needed your best guess for a um time and tempt to do it sous vide because while it comes out great the stir standing there and staring for at least 20 minutes is just a more than a pain. Yeah so I mean I don't have the recipe in front of me because it's on the computer but uh most of those set custards are in the 80s range Celsius uh like so like for instance like when I'm doing so uh it depends on how much stuff you have in it right like it all depends on the solids ratio but so something that's very liquidy that you don't want to set like a creme anglaise I'll do it like 82 Celsius but that that'll only be for like 15 minutes and if you were to rock that that way for uh an hour it wouldn't quite set but it would be close to set no but you're gonna have a much higher uh egg ratio probably in uh in in your custard and so I would guess my guess is you're gonna want to be somewhere around 85 C and if it's in a small ramekin situation I'm assuming when you mean sous vide you mean like in a combi oven like in a ramekin uh uh that or in a steam oven which by the way I hear I hear uh who was it I think Cuisinart makes uh uh countertop steam oven now that is correct yeah and I hear it's pretty good it's great how low a temperature Joe can that go to do you know it can prove it can prove so if you had one of those you could probably steam set a low temperature of a pot of creme uh and I would hit it in the 85 C range uh and depending on how thick it is usually I'm doing them in relatively thin ramekins um I would probably go on on the order of uh half hour to forty minutes. But Joe, do you actually have you done that recipe in one of those ovens?
I have not. Well maybe we can find out a recipe and get back to you. You know John Deragon, formerly of uh Please Don't Tell the Bar, uh has one of those Queznard ovens and he was uh going off on how it was the you know the the greatest thing that's ever happened to him. Do you know what the MSRP on those things is? Roughly 150?
That's cheap. It's cheap. That's my best guess. What do you you fill it on the side like a coffee maker? How do you put the water into it?
It just comes with an infinite amount of water. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah sure anyway. Alright so uh is this answering your question I hope? Uh um well that's that's pretty good um pretty clear for that first question and then I have a completely separate second question. Alrighty also sous V related I'm trying I'm working on a recipe to do uh a pork roast with pork and cranberry um sous vide I made at it I didn't quite use enough salt and it just wasn't really really tasty.
And I also didn't pre-brown it the second try I used what what was clearly too much salt but I also uh I brown the heck out of it before I put it in the bag and it got that porky taste like the that sort of unpleasant porky hint. Right now are you vacuuming it or are you ziplocking it? Uh vacuuming it. Huh because I would usually that porky taste usually is a fat breakdown oxidation kind of a situation so I would have assumed that a vacuum bag would take care of that, unless how'd you s how do you how'd you brown it? Well, I just um I just I haven't I've had my baking still popped in my grill for forever, so I just got that as hot as it would get and hit it on you know all four of the major sides.
That's unusual. I would guess y usually um what's considered not pleasant animal flavors come from fat oxidation. Um and typically I mean, I I i and you did a hard vac on it? It was a hard vacuum? Uh well no, it uh it's a food saver.
Yeah. I mean, that should be enough to get rid of enough. I mean, like that would be my guess. I don't know, maybe someone in the chat room, Dave, can uh has any sort of uh uh stuff on this happening. Like uh how were the cranberries?
Did you pre cook the cranberries or were you using dried cranberries? Uh no, I usually I was um so I I put salt and pepper on it, let it sit for a day or two. Uh-huh. Um vacuumed uh v vacuumed it down for that, and then I uh opened it up, uh brushed whatever salt was with on the outside, which basically did all absorbed. Um uh put it um browned it and put it in an in a fresh bag with the pork and cranberries.
Oh, but the so but the cranberries were pre cooked? Uh no, the c no the cranberries were dried. Dried. You know how they make those dried cranberries? They squish the cranberry juice out of them and then they use the skins and then they mix the skins with a boatload of sugar.
Well, I mean, I you know I don't mind them. I I love them. I'm just like saying, like that's how they make 'em. They just really work for several recipes we we we cook with. I mean, I I realize they're not really health food.
I don't know. I don't really care about yeah, I'm not a health food kind of a guy. I'm just saying it's like it's kind of it's like it's it's like one of those actually I think it's f genius. These guys took what is fundamentally a byproduct and they turned it into something that I'm you know, I enjoy eating. My kids enjoy eating, that's even rarer.
You know what I mean? And I think that they they are useful in respirations. Yeah. Well the only thing I understand picky children. The other thing about those, uh if you were to use uh even if you were to actually dehydrate your own cranberries, which by the way, like I've never tried to eat one of my Christmas uh strings before, but like uh Peter, you ever eaten one of your Christmas strings when you were a kid?
Did you do the cranberries and popcorn? No. Nastasia, did you eat cranberries and popcorn when you were a kid? No. Dried squeeze out.
None of you guys, Dave? Never heard of that. Never heard you never heard of it. Took a needle and thread and popcorn and cranberries? Yeah.
Anyway, this stuff when it's left over is like worse than work. I don't know. Anyway, the point is that the dried skins are good because they don't get all big and nasty. What are your guys' thoughts on inflated raisins and stews? Love.
Love? Yeah. When I was a kid, I was freaked out by 'em because my mom would put the raisins into the stew. And then uh I was like, oh, raisins. I understand what a raisin is.
And then it came out as a half grape. It wasn't like fully a grape anymore, but it wasn't a raisin anymore. And I was like, ah, ah. And so like my whole life, like I've learned to like because they taste good. Like just like like strictly speaking, they taste good.
And so like uh but anyway, I don't know. It's a weird another weird mental problem I have, I guess. You know what I mean? You never had something shock you when you were a kid and it sticks with you for years. That's like I feel like that's Nastasia's whole life.
I I never like chocolate milk because I have this memory in elementary school of being spilled like everywhere on the lunchroom table and being grossed out by that. By you? Did you spill it dice? No, it wasn't my fault. Mm-hmm.
And you still remember that to this day, huh? Yeah, just like pooling in the lunch tray, like ugh. That's nasty. I can remember biting brown pool. I can remember biting into a uh cream-filled donut that was moldy, and that I wasn't able to eat cream filling for almost a decade.
Uh I was very small. But I still remember, I remember where I was. I was uh I was in uh a a waiting room next to the truck full of nuts at the 168th Street Columbia Presbyterian Hospital while my where my mom had gotten me something to eat while she was gonna go do uh uh something for her internship, and I just remember sitting at this freaking chair at 168th Street and biting into this freaking moldy This is horrifying. Yeah. Well, as you know, I don't really care about there being mold on my food.
So yeah, he loves it. I can remember my mom frying parsnip chips upstairs uh for some holiday, and I I was violently ill at the time and associating the smell of frying parsnips with throwing up, and I still to this day, like a lot of veg chips, I'm like, eh, no, thanks. No, thank you. You know what I mean? It's like they taste good, but it's just it's still got that kind of violent association with them.
Again, this is Nastasi's whole life though. Like she'll associate whole cities with hanging out with a person she didn't like. I mean, I'm talking as an adult, I'm not talking about as a kid. Civilization. There's a billion of you.
There's a there's a billion of you out there. If she met one of you and had a bad time, you're all you're all painted with the same brush. Yep. That's that's uh Well, and not just the billion that exists now, but the billions that have existed before them as well. And the future billions.
You know, it's like yeah. Yeah, very strong. Anyway, so back to this question. I don't know what's causing the porkiness. My assumption is that you maybe you had a piece of pork with uh more fat and it was already slightly oxidized before it went into the bag.
Um I have also done stocks and sometimes they come out more or less porky, but I don't know whether it's having to do with the actual um uh characteristics of the meat that went in. I think you're you're protecting it as well as you can by uh vacing it. You want to chill it and vac it as soon as you can. I mean, what I typically do, uh what I used to do when I wanted to vac something right after a sear down was um I would uh put the I would sear it, throw it into a bag, and then immerse that bag unsealed in ice water uh to chill down the meat, and then I would uh then you could seal it really quickly. Another thing is is you might want to consider I mean, i i if it's a recurring thing, then it's clearly just you're getting some sort of uh uh reaction where uh just the initial sear, maybe the sear was at maybe even I hate to say it's too high a temperature and you're getting some off flavors uh from it.
Uh you could do it on unsear, but you're just gonna have to put a hard sear on afterwards. And when you do it that way, you know you're not gonna get any oxidation from the initial sear down. So typically remember, uh especially for things like beef or things like short ribs, uh which is beef, uh like uh I would recommend um the only one I never say never to sear beforehand is duck breasts. Never never sear the duck breast beforehand because it it you need it to stay flat so that you can crisp it up in the pan later. But um uh I I would say uh always sear afterwards.
Always sear afterwards. They that was always part of part of the plan. I was trying to get it uh put a pre-sear on too, and you know, you get more flavor of it actually in the meat. That's true. I'm a firm believer in that because but the thing is is that maybe this maybe the sear, so I I don't know, I don't have like which which cut of pork was it?
Uh uh shoulder. Yeah. Bone and shoulder. So, you know, I haven't done uh I haven't done a lot of whole uh bone and shoulder. Um I've done some, but I'm doing them I was doing those things mainly more like uh like uh imitating like uh pulled pork or confio just salted, like not like heavy seared because I would leave skin on and then crisp up the skin afterwards, so that more of like or more like Kaluapig kind of a presentation uh of the shoulder.
So I haven't had a lot where I do like a hard sear all the way around. It might be that just uh long storage in the bag is uh with that initial sear is is cause causing it to happen. Um you know what I used to do that I don't do anymore? I used to when I was try I would trim all all the meat that I was gonna uh finally have as my portion, and then I would roast all the trim, just roast the hell out of all the trim, and then throw the trim in the bag to get the transfer of brown uh trim precook flavor into the meat as it was going on on long cooks, but as I get older I get lazier. So I I'm I'm planning to do this recipe for like a a 40-50 person party, so I'm I was trying to make it as streamlined as possible.
Yeah, yeah. I mean look, uh the good news about a shoulder is uh that it can stand a good bit of crisping on the on the you're serving it whole or you're shredding you're s you're what are you doing? You're you're cook you're gonna pull the piece is it skin on? Okay, so what what I'm what I'm planning to do is get skin on, cook it whole, brown it whole, and then and then shred it. Okay.
So you get so you get the little shredded bits mixed in with the rest of the pulled meat. Yeah, okay. So if you're gonna pull it, people like a little bit of texture textural variation, and I would say to streamline this, make your life easier, I would just get your salt levels right. Uh and then um I would, especially if you're gonna have the skin on it, because the skin's gonna pull and get all wonky, and you have a lot of fat there, and there's a lot of fat there that is relatively soft and prone to oxidation in the skin side of the uh uh in the sk in the skin there. So I would um I would cook it whole without searing it, and then I would pull it and I would do a hard sear at the finish because that's gonna crisp up the cracklings.
You need a certain amount of time uh afterwards, even if you've pre-seared, you need a certain amount of time to crisp the crackling up on the outside that you're gonna shred into it, and you might you it's gonna be more predictable. So like even if it's an effect where sometimes you sear it beforehand and you and you get the porky taste, and sometimes you don't if it's like a if it's uh a piece of meat specific kind of a situation, uh you know you can't predict it beforehand, and the worst thing is to have it not taste the way you want when you pull it out of the bag. Do you know what I'm saying? Uh trust me, I do. At the event.
So I would just do one more without it, and then try like a slightly slower uh like uh like render crisp sear on the uh on the pull out. Almost like sous vide for insurance. Um it's it's it's likely to be more predictable if I don't pre-sear. Yes. Got it.
That's well that's that's also less work, so that's great. Alrighty. Let us know how it works out. Thank you, sir. Alright, cool.
Dave, should we take a quick break? Uh yeah, we can do that. I'll just take a quick break and come back with more cooking issues. This episode is brought to you by Jewel, the immersion circulator for Sous vide by Chef Steps. If you're listening to this show, you're probably a pretty good cook.
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Anyway, he says, uh, a couple weeks ago I wrote in about trying to get a honey flavor in a lavender cocktail. I took your advice and it's been uh work been working on perfecting my cocktail. I'll update you on how it's going pretty soon. My issue today refers to something that Dave said on the show. Uh while discussing sweet tea, he said, I hate that stuff.
Uh Dave, I understand that you have years of experience in food and technology. I know your palate must be outstanding. Well, or at least it's mine. Uh, your knowledge is obviously immense, but how can I, a child of North Carolina who, by weight, has consumed more sweet tea than flour and water combined, trust you. I'm just curious what your issue with sweet tea is.
Do you dislike cold tea? Is it too sweet? Have you had a bitter glass that turned you off on it? What about cocktails? What about in cocktails or desserts?
I also like to use tea flavor in meat marinades occasionally. I get it. There's bad sweet tea, but please help me change your mind. I'll do whatever I can. All the best, Andrew.
Alright. Here's what I don't like, Andrew. Like I have no problem with cold, I like cold tea. I like cold tea with a modicum of sugar. I think the issue is is that like uh let's say I was going to uh North Carolina barbecue joint Eastern, of course, because I don't put tomato in my in my uh pork.
Whatever. Anyway, I'm not gonna get off it. I don't want to get you upset because I don't know where in North Carolina you're from. But the stuff that I enjoy the most, I enjoy all North Carolina barbecue, which is of course pork, and of course, with thin sauce vinegar base. I enjoy it all, but I enjoy mostly the more coastal variety that is fundamentally just like peppered, vinegar, uh, and meat.
Like that's like my style. Now, if you're gonna go to one of those kind of restaurants in Raleigh or wherever you're gonna go, and they have those uh kind of I'm looking at them right now, those kind of amber colored plastic pebbly glasses. Everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? With those things. And they have a jug of what uh is amounts to simple syrup with tea in it, and they pour it, and there's not even any acid because some of these places will not.
I know, I know, I know. No, some of these places won't put it like lemon even like next to it or with it, and you're just consuming simple syrup tea. I'm like, oh yeah, because I am a thirsty man. I am a thirsty man. Like that is something that I could enjoy.
Like take for instance, I like overly sweet mint tea. Like uh like Moroccan style, or like you know, like you you know, in Paris they have those uh like those Moroccan tea mint tea joints, Peter? Yeah, you like those? He's like he's shaking his head as though you can see his head shake on a microphone. But like the uh the point being that I like sweet tea things in tiny amounts.
Like same way that I like sweet beverages in tiny amounts. That's why cocktails, which are relatively small, can have some sugar in them without freaking me out. But when I am thirsty, I want to pound huge quant huge Trump style quantities of liquids. And so I require them to be not sweet. So iced tea that's a lot lower on sugar, I'm okay with.
I like it with a little lemon in it, that's just me. So it's not I I I should say it's not uh the idea of cold tea that I have a problem with. It's overly, overly sweet tea. Joe, what are your feelings on this? I agree with you.
I don't like it too sweet either. But do you find that a lot of places will serve it too sweet? Uh way too sweet. Way too sweet, right? Too much sugar.
Too much, too much freaking sugar. Too much sugar's not good for you. Well, I don't like I said, I've said before, my health, you know, you know, I just don't like it. That's my thing. What do you do you like cold?
You like iced tea? No, not really. Wow. Well, Andrew can hate on you, it's alright, but what do you not like about it? I just don't prefer it.
Don't prefer drinking it. Don't prefer drinking it. Yeah. What does that mean? Like, I wouldn't choose it.
Like over nothing? Over nothing, sure, I'll drink it. Alright. Peter, sweet tea? Uh, not my not really my jam.
Do you but like I look, I can appreciate Andrew's position here as a cultural thing. It's sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, when I when I, you know, just not too sweet, that's all. Yeah.
You're like, okay, whatever. You guys are the worst. Brandon writes in, hi Nastasia. Follow up. Uh I sent my last email before listening to the episode of that.
I shouldn't have read that because you don't know what he's talking about. Uh something to add to the discussion about tropical tasting fruits that grow in temperate regions. So this is uh we were talking about the Mayapple, which is the jelly I make where actually that jelly was delicious. Did I bring the jelly in or just the raw fruit for you guys to taste? I think it's just the raw fruit.
Nastasia wouldn't taste it because she got no stones. No stones. Not willing to risk her life for good tasting materials. Um, uh this episode is really uh this uh is really late comment considering that episode was in June, but I figured that uh Nastasia and Dave and the gang uh did not mention the pawpaw tree. Uh if you have not heard of it, the pawpaw is native to a large propor a large portion of the United States and is to my knowledge one of the only truly tropical like fruits that grows in the temperate regions of the U.S.
In uh size, shape, and texture, it is similar to a mango, but the taste is kind of a cross between a mango and a banana. Pretty delicious, but very difficult to find. Well, I do know about them, but I haven't really had a lot because they're very hard to ship. Uh I'm uh only fortuitous enough to have tried it because my architecture and landscape firm uh specified it in one of our projects. I don't have any questions.
I'm just writing a share and figure you all be interested in one of the most under-the-radar delicious fruits that is native to the U.S. So look, about a month ago, I didn't know you were doing this. I called this guy who has these pawpaw nurseries, but the problem is is that I couldn't find someone who would ship me a good pawpaw tree because I'm planning on planting some to see how they uh to see how they they work. You have pawpaws, John? No, in Connecticut, are you doing that?
Yeah, yeah. They grow in Connecticut. They grow, they're like like, you know, like uh Brandon was saying, they grow in most of the temperate regions. They don't ship very well. Like they're very soft and they don't ship very well, and I think they're relatively polarizing and the cultivars are relatively different, so it's kind of hard uh to um get get people to you know get into it as a as a commercial fruit.
But yes, I plan on uh sampling uh pawpaws. You ever what about you, Peter? You got any pawpaws? Your parents are now in tropical fruit land, not tropical, like California style subtropical fruit. Where they live now?
Outside San Diego. Of course, me, weather's nice, me. I told you there are studies that show that after two years you don't give a crap about the weather anymore. Like if someone asks you, is the weather nice where you are, you'd be like, Yeah, I love it. But like you don't rate yourself as happier because the weather is nice.
No. Nastasia, do you hate do you hate good weather because it makes people soft? Is that why you don't like is that why you like it here? Or is it that you just don't like the people in California and that's why you moved over here? I don't like the people in California.
Wow. All you Californians out there, I like you. But Nastasia, not so much. Right? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Anyway. Uh and she's from there, so it's like one of those things where, you know, I always think self-hate's a little weird, but you know, you can't get down on someone for the self-hate, can you? Are you allowed to make fun of someone for self-hate? I don't know.
Peter, what are you how you what are your feelings on the self-date? I feel that you're allowed to have a lot of self-loathing like when you're in college. I feel that's what college is about. Like teenage years, the adolescence is about like becoming a better person through self-loathing. But I think you I feel you should grow out of it.
What do you think, Peter? No? Joe? Self loathing? I think it's more like after college you go through that phase, you know, and you're trying to find yourself or whatever.
Yeah. Well then you come out of it. Then you self-loathe for self-loathing. And that's multi-layered. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Like, why am I 36 and still self-loathing? No, you tell me. You tell me. I'm sure it has something to do with the Museum of Food and Drink. Zing, it's funny because it's true.
All right. So I guess Davey just answered the question. It's okay to make fun of people who self-loathe. Learn by doing. How do you feel now?
You've got a big smile on your face. So there's the answer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, look, you know what? Peter can take it. That's why I like working with him. I don't like working with people who can't take it. Do you know what I'm saying?
What do you think, Sas? What do you think about people that are working with people that can't take it? I don't like it. You don't like it. Crying thing, the whole like I need therapy thing.
Oh man, you no, that's not right. If someone needs thesis. Yeah, that's not right. I just like working with people that can give and get. I don't like people that can dish it out and can't take it.
God knows I take enough. God knows I dish enough out. Right? All right, listen. So we had some in more information on uh the butter question we had before.
So to to to re you know, tell you what happened. Uh we had uh uh James from uh Cafe Bezzalou in I think Seattle uh was having a problem with batch to batch, his butter was uh brittle h you know, his butter was but butter was brittle. So he couldn't make uh like puff pastry or a croissant or anything like this because as he was stretching the dough, the butter would shatter into pieces and wouldn't stretch along with the dough, right? And so uh, you know, he had thought that it had something to do with um maybe the feet of the animal or or uh you know the crystal size. So I wrote to uh Professor uh Doug Goff, who is like, you know, uh one of the big wigs does the ice cream stuff at the University of Guelph.
Uh is that how you pronounce that place? Guelph? Gelf? I have no idea. Guelph?
Gelf, Guelph, Gelf, Guelph. Anyway, they have great dairy pages, and uh I've read them for many years. I really enjoy them. Uh and so I wrote them and I gave him the question, and here's what he he wrote. He wrote, Hey Dave, I have forwarded your question to one of our faculty members with expertise in lipid technology, which is a fantastic thing.
I did not hear from the lipid technologist, which would be a fantastic title. So you may see a reply from him. But he tells me, which I did not, uh, he tells me that from his experience, uh, this is not uncommon. Bit the brittle britter brittle butter problem. Hey, say that with a stupid voice, Peter.
You're good at that. I'm not doing I'm not following this chat, man. Come on, man. Say it in your in your uh I'm announcing the puffing gun voice. Britter brit brittle butter.
You have you have a good like weird announcer voice. I do that, like I roll the eye. You do. You still you know what I'm talking about, Nastasia. Brrr brittle butter!
That's more like me at the beginning of the top of the show. Yeah, I know. You know what Dax every once in a while is like uh do the do the beginning of the show. I'm like, no, I'm in the middle of like the house. You can't scream, we have neighbors.
Anyway, uh he tells me from experience that this is not uncommon. It is most likely related to fat crystal size and structure within the butter rather uh than composition variation. When butter is manufactured, one of the objectives of cream tempering, churning and working, is to achieve very small fat crystals, which then relates to smoother texture consistor uh consistency and pliability. The exact temperatures and times of these stages does relate to composition, and that can vary by feed, etc. After manufacture, many uh factors, including temperature variation during storage, delivery, and/or the age of the butter, and that's also important, the age of the butter, uh, and I'll get more on that later, can cause an increase in fat crystal size.
As this happens, butter becomes progressively more coarse in texture and brittle in structure. Think about melting butter uh to oil and then putting it in the refrigerator to recrystallize. You get a very hard brittle lump because it was not properly churned and worked. This would be the extreme. So the variation in quality is structure/slash texture related, and not really primarily uh difference in the different kinds of triglycerides that are in the uh butter.
So that he says, I hope this helps. Doug Gough. It did help. Uh so I wrote him and said, Thank you, Professor. And then I said this.
Uh I said I'll let you know if I hear from your colleague, which I did not. Uh I'm pondering your response in pondering your response. This is me. I wonder whether mechanical manipulation could help. Whenever I'm going to use butter in biscuits or cake and don't have time to let it temper, I beat it repeatedly with a rolling pin.
I've always noticed that this plasticizes the butter. How much of that change is frictional heating, probably only a small amount, I do not know. Could the effect of beating the cold butter help these folks, i.e., uh, you know, you guys at Cafe Bezzalou, um, or is the effect too macro and wouldn't help them on the smaller scale of a puff paste? And he said, that might help, Dave, could be worth a try at least. So I would try taking uh some of the butter that is not working properly and beating the beating the bejesus out of it.
Um but then I I saw an article which is available free of charge on the internet that you need to read called The Effective Factors. Get ready. Write this one down. The effective factors on the structure of butter and other milk fat based products by Stein, I guess how do you pronounce the O with a slash through it? Oh, right?
Runhut. R O with a slash through it, N-O-L uh N uh H O L T, September um 2013. This article is terrible in the sense that what they really care about is uh producing lower fat butter, which as we all know is a horrible idea. Horrible, horrible. Uh but it's a good article in that it talks about every stage step by step and what it does to frat fat crystal size, and it has the uh extreme advantage of being available on the internet.
So uh as you um store butter and the temperature goes up, like let's say it's been tempered up to uh 20 and then re-cooled and done a bunch of times. The um the s a lot of the smaller crystals and the ones with the um lower melting points will melt out to a liquid, even though the butter maintains its solid state, and then on recrystallization slowly in the fridge will get progressively larger crystals, which may be causing uh some brittleness. Crystal size just increases with time as as butter ages in the fridge, so maybe the brittle butter is older butter, uh, but maybe beating the heck out of it actually uh might help. So uh they're gonna kick us off the air in in a minute, but Nastasi and I uh actually I think Nastasia actually enjoyed this trip, which is unusual. Nastasia usually hates most everything.
We went to Saratoga Springs. Joe, you ever been to Saratoga Springs? Yes, I have. For for the horse racing or for the water? I've been there during the horse racing time, but I didn't go to the horse races.
Did you what were you doing there? Sh just with my wife and children. Did you try the waters? Did you go to the spa state park? I did not go to the spa state park.
Oh my goodness. Peter, have you ever been to Saratoga Springs? No. I'm gonna go back because uh so here's the deal. They have uh in Saratoga Springs, their naturally carbonated water comes out of the ground.
I want that to sink in for a minute. Naturally carbonated water comes out of the ground. So uh and the naturally carbonated water is actually very highly mineralized in saline. So Anastasia uh uh um Ariel who was on the show last week, and my brother-in-law Travis, who is shooting uh shooting it for because we're supposed to write something for Lucky Peach. We went and tasted every one of the natural springs in Saratoga.
The one on the race course was closed. We couldn't go to it. Is that the two? Which is the other one? Lake.
Oh, yeah, there's one in a lake. I went back there later this the afternoon with bathing shorts on, and I just couldn't bring myself to weigh it in. How long were you there? I stayed, I figure I how often do I get to go there? I went and retasted a lot of the waters.
Uh anyway, so like this water is pretty amazing because uh it's very old, very deep groundwater that is super heavily mineralized and saline, and it gets forced up to the surface, close to the surface through a fault uh that runs down through Saratoga that's relatively recent. The fault has uh CO2 coming all the way from uh the mantle that goes up and pushes the stuff up and charges, and as it comes up, it's mixing with more recent, like kind of uh recharged rainwater, meteoric water. And there's a the interesting thing is there's a shale layer at the top of the ground there that caps it all in, so it's all under pressure. So when you bore down in, it self-pumps itself up. So it's not strictly speaking an artesian well like you would get where you're actually digging a well where the head of the well is is below the water table and you're recharging from a mountain, let's say.
It's literally getting forced up and carbonated from below. But unlike a lot of carbonated springs, it's also co cool. It's at 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And I think they're delicious. Stasy, you liked it too, right?
I brought your bottle, by the way. I think they're delicious. They're super highly mineralized. I made a margarita with the strongest of the waters yesterday. I want to go back, but I have a plea for any all ninety-nine, almost all, in fact, maybe all in the United States, uh, naturally carbonated springs are in the West, where there's more thermal activity.
But if anyone here, I know there's some in Colorado, I know there's some in California. If any of you live near a naturally carbonated spring and for some reason you like us, just get a seltzer bottle, like a water like a like a carbonated water bottle, fill it up all the way, all the way, because otherwise we'll you lose too much food partial pressure, cap it and send it to us and we'll taste and talk about your water on the uh on the air. I'm super interested in tasting just various naturally carbonated waters from all uh all over the country. But more on Saratoga when I write it up for Lucky Peach and go visit Saratoga. Good place.
Thanks, Joe, thanks, Peter. See you next time. Cooking issues. 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.
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