Jakob's Bowl

The International School Of Sardines

In the worst-case scenario a salmon farmed on the Chilean coast could be sent by container ship to Dalian, China, to be filleted, then shipped back across the Pacific to Vancouver. From there it would cross Canada by truck, be processed and packaged in Lunenberg, (Nova Scotia) and go right back out the door. If it ended up in a supermarket in, say, San Diego, that salmon would have traveled 22,300 miles, a distance close to the circumference of the earth.

Bottomfeeder, 2008
Taras Grescoe

Long before I read Taras Grescoe’s enlightening book, I was well aware of the fact that many fish took to traveling internationally even more widely after they were caught and frozen. This, of course, is one of the challenges of doing a taste test of any type of tinned fish, or frozen for that matter. The others are the processed fish labeling laws for countries around the world, and the ever increasing ‘counterfeit’ labeling. In researching tinned ‘sardines’ on the Internet, I found the results of a few comparative tastings that seemed to take the labels on the cans as a fixed point of reference with little regard to the point of origin of the fish, which in turn does have an affect on the manner in which they are processed and the final taste and texture. So, aside from inaccurate claims made by the companies that market the sardines I chose to sample, I believe that I have taken these other factors into account. I’ll address my ‘inaccurate claims’ part in a bit, but first some background information.

Ain't No Black Turtles Here

The Bean Growers Association of Toulouse (Tolosako Babarruna Elkartea) website, informed me that the Basques did not soak their alubias de Tolosa (Basque Black Beans) before cooking them, or maybe it was a warning. Leaning on my primary culinary lessons, I ignored the advice and soaked a cup of the beans for about eight hours. Not even hesitating at this point, I proceeded to do what I always do and pour off the liquid, the gorgeous purplish-black liquid, compounding my problem - that was flavor I was pouring off. The soaked beans had gone from black with a purple tint to purple-black color. After a very carnivorous week last week, I decided that I wanted to try these beans with accompaniments lighter than the traditional pork, sausages, and cabbage.

I popped my organic Ayers Creek Farm Basque Black Beans in a pot of cold water with a bay leaf and a bunch of garlic cloves, and set them to simmer. I wasn’t really focusing this evening and I let the beans cook a bit more than I normally would when using them in a salad - freshly dried beans don’t take as long to cook as older beans. Now at this point, Basques would serve the dark, murky flavor-filled liquor with the beans, but I drained it into a bowl. My first bite told me that these black beans where in no way related to black turtle beans. They have a lighter texture than black turtle beans and an aromatic flavor a bit like roasted chestnuts with hints of baked potato. As a matter of fact their flavor and texture reminded me more of runner beans Phaseolus coccineus rather than the common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris - I must ask Anthony about this. They were delicious right out of the pot, and I could have finished them all that way, but I combined them with a can of Pacific Northwest Albacore tuna, a salad mix of young arugula and mustard greens, Aleppo pepper, Katz Chef’s Pick Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and a squeeze of lemon. The richness of the tuna went well with the beans and the peppery and tangy greens added a nice counterpoint. I think I'll do the next batch with some freshly made and cured sausages!

The Malvasia Family’s Questionable History

And I thought the story behind Trebbiano was confusing, well it’s got nothing on the wild, world of the Malvasia family of grapes. If you search the Internet you will find that there is much more of a to do about the history of Malvasia than Trebbiano, especially a seemingly relentless desire to trace it back to medieval Greece via the Venetian trading empire. While not as ‘big’ a grape as Trebbiano in terms of the amount of production, Malvasia is widely planted around the world, possibly in more countries than Trebbiano. Malvasia varieties are cultivated in Greece, Italy, Argentina, Portugal, Spain, California, and just about every region of Italy making it an important grape. Of course there is there is the problem of improper names confusing the issue - the Malvoisie grown in France and Italy’s Valle d’Aosta is actually Pinot Grigio, and the Torrontès found in Portugal and Argentina is actually a member of the Malvasia family.

Since it is such a ‘big’ grape, why am I bothering with it you might ask. Well, like Trebbiano, Malvasia has been around for millennia and there are family members that produce tasty wines with distinctive characteristics. Additionally, most of the Malvasia varieties grown in Italy are used either to make sweet ‘passito’ wines or to blend with other grapes to produce regional Vino Bianco - such as Frascati in Lazio. Dry, single varietal Malvasia wines are only produced in a few areas of Italy, from specific members of the family - hence, my interest in tracing its source(s).

The family member that interests me most is known as Malvasia Istriana in the areas of Friuli-Venezia Giulia where most of the cultivation in Italy occurs. Most of the Internet sources attempt to connect this grape to medieval ancestors in Greece, with sources divided as to the exact local, the village called Monemvasia on the Greek Peloponnese or a fortress on Crete called Malevizi, both wine producing regions and both controlled by the Venetians. While I can understand the regional pride of the Venetians, it would seem just as possible that this ancient grape made it to Italy over a thousand years before Venice became an international trading power. What makes this highly probable is the fact that the upper crust of ancient Rome actually preferred Greek wines and that there was a booming trade way back then…and of course, a lot of counterfeiting. The Malvasia Istriana wine producers seem to ascribe to the medieval timing of the arrival of this grape variety.

The Sappy Truth

I would say it’s a coin toss, the thought of our globe warming on one would lead you to believe that our treasured home grown sweetener, maple syrup, will be history in fairly short order - although, there will still be Canadian maple syrup. on the other hand the theoretical way in which global warming will manifest itself at first, wild swings in average seasonal temperatures and increasingly violent storm systems, suggest that we will alternate between record production, high and low, for some time yet. My suggestion is that we should all enjoy as much of it as we can while we can, and we should all remember that maple syrup is not purely a product of of Vermont.

The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service indicates that we’ve had two banner years in a row with a 25% increase in 2008 and a 22% increase in 2009 to an all-time record. We are approaching the end of the 2010 production season and an Associated Press report on Thursday might be an indication that this period of growth is over. This has been one of the mildest winters on record in New England, the source of two-thirds to three-quarters of our domestic maple syrup production in any given year. Vermont is our biggest producer by a wide margin and some producers there are down 50% from last year with other having no production at all!

Mad Men Turn To Bad Men

Anyone who thinks that people can be fooled or pushed around has an inaccurate and pretty low estimate of people - and he won't do very well in advertising.

Leo Burnett

I know that Madison Avenue advertising firms have been long blamed for manipulating people with words and images to manufacture demand for products that the public didn’t particularly need, but that’s not the ‘bad’ I am referring to here. I am not sure if they’ve run out of intelligent ideas, stopped hiring smart people, or just can’t reconcile the ‘facts’ about the way Big Ag and Big Food manufacture their products and the growing desire for a large segment of the public for ‘real’ food. This is leading to increasingly illogical and downright nonsensical ad campaigns.

Last evening I caught a Heinz Tomato Ketchup commercial on TV which had the tag line “Grown Not Made.” I did a double take, but then I thought maybe they are one of the Big Food companies that are eliminating things like high fructose corn syrup from their products. I went to the Heinz website to find out more, and to find an ingredients list for their tomato ketchup. They actually trademarked the phrase, and they have a section of copy about the “Total Transparency from Seed to Plate”, just about the tomatoes though, not about the entire product since I couldn’t find an ingredients list for the tomato ketchup on their website. Today I visited my local market to read the Heinz Tomato Ketchup “Grown Not Made:”

tomato concentrate made from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, and natural flavors.

Gee, if this was 1950, I might be able to assume that the ‘tomato’ is representative of the whole product, so that having “Grown Not Made,” on the label might make sense. Today, I’m not so sure, unless the Heinz farmers go out and tap the corn stalks so that they can collect the high fructose corn syrup each season, or all the farmers get together for the big corn syrup press in the late summer. No, this isn’t the case; high fructose corn syrup is produced in a complex industrial process as is corn syrup and ‘natural flavors’ for that matter. This is just another attempt, albeit a silly one, to direct the consumers’ attention to the image of the ‘traditional’ tomato farm, and away from the fact that its Tomato Ketchup is a highly processed food, and one that is almost 25% sugar by weight (4gr in a 17gr serving), industrially processed sugars at that, made from GMO corn. Right next to the Heinz Tomato Ketchup was Annie’s Naturals Organic Tomato Ketchup and I found its ingredient list on Annie’s Naturals website:

water, *tomato paste, *sugar, *distilled white vinegar, sea salt, *onion powder, *allspice, *clove powder.
*organic ingredients

and Annie’s Organic Ketchup has half of the sugar (2gr in a 17gr serving) that Heinz Tomato Ketchup has. I would have loved to have heard the rationale behind this campaign when it was pitched by their Ad Agency.

Everything But The Squeal

Who knows, maybe I was practicing over the last six months, and last night was the culmination, Pork Bone Tea with Rib and Leek Dumplings was a regular ‘pork-o-rama’ - Homer Simpson would have been delighted. When I tasted my first batch of Pork Ribs and Leeks last month, my initial thoughts were that it would make a good sandwich, and a tasty filling for Gyoza or pot stickers. That thought stuck in my head and when I cut up my two slabs (five pounds total) of Tails & Trotters hazelnut finished pork ribs to make stock, I knew that they would be the perfect test case, along with ½ pound of Pure Country Pork sirloin. I followed the general guidelines I posted in Pork Juice Reconsidered with a few modifications - I started with a bit more mirepoix (increasing the onions to 1-1/4 pounds, and the carrots to 3/4 pound), added one chopped medium-size leek, skipped the tomatoes, increased the amount of water to two gallons, and simmered for three hours.