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News and Views:
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The Very Latest Food Trends
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Five international trends that might blow right past you if you didn’t read this newsletter:
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1.
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Water-cooler sales in the Middle East are up 48 percent. (Could this be good news for the peace talks? Let’s hope so.) |
2.
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In Japan, hot cocoa is "in" as a health drink. In Europe, green tea from Japan is the favored healthy hot drink. |
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In China, candy and gum sales have increased more than 200 percent since 1994, and energy bars and drinks are zooming. Chocolate, however, has not caught on. |
4.
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What the food industry calls "savory snacks" (and the rest of us call "junk food") are eaten mostly to accompany aperitifs in France, Spain, and Italy; in Britain and the United States, these addictive "full fat" items are eaten as meal replacements. This must drive the marketing people crazy. |
5.
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Perhaps the biggest international trend of all is the fascination with "functional foods" (learn this term — you’ll be hearing it more). Functional foods, sometimes called "nutriceuticals," are fortified "quick-fix" health foods designed and marketed as shortcuts to a balanced diet. Globally, this is now a $35 billion a year industry, prompting many producers to give regular food products a health make-over by adding psyllium or calcium to cereals, getting endorsements from medical associations, or simply repackaging the food with an emphasis on nutrition. It remains to be seen whether the "dashboard diners" of the world (i.e., most of us) will actually be healthier if our candy bars are inoculated with calcium and our ginger ale is spiked with ginseng. |
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Grow
Your
Own . . .
Ginger!
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Freshly grated ginger root is a common and essential component of Asian cooking and to your own adaptations of everyday recipes. The next time you see plump, young-looking roots in the produce section, buy an extra one to plant at home. The rhizome will sprout lovely narrow green leaves that have their own spicy, delicate flavor, and in a few months you can dig the root and harvest baby ginger. Here’s how:
Choose a succulent root with a few promising-looking knobby buds. Lay a 2" piece of root (with buds) horizontally in a large pot of rich potting soil (a mixture of potting mix, compost, sand, and peat moss would be great). Cover with 1/2" of soil and water thoroughly. Place the pot in an east or west window and keep the soil damp. In about a month, you will see bright green shoots that look like the first leaves of corn.
You can harvest about a fourth of the leaves at a time to use in cooking. You also can lift the rhizome at any time, but if you wait for five or six months, you’ll be able to harvest part of the root and replant the rest. When the weather gets warm, transplant the ginger directly into the garden, and bring it in again before the first frost. Ginger makes a good houseplant, and if yours flowers, which might happen, you can eat the blossoms!
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What to Eat on February 27
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(It’s Shrove Tuesday, so get out the maple syrup)
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This year in the Christian calendar, Lent begins on February 28, called Ash Wednesday. Traditionally a period of fasting and penitence, Lent (the word means "spring") has been observed since about the 4th century A.D. The days preceding Lent usually get more press: they are a time of last-minute feasting and merry-making known as Mardi Gras or Carnival.
Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, is the climax of Mardi Gras and perhaps a logical time to confess and to be "shriven," or forgiven. Medieval housewives, anxious on this day to use up all the eggs and fat in the household in anticipation of the more ascetic diet of Lent, made small mountains of pancakes. This custom immigrated to North America, where some churches still sponsor pancake suppers on Shrove Tuesday.
For those who like to eat the right thing on the right day, or who simply love pancakes, here is the best recipe I can come up with. (It’s worth the extra effort to separate the eggs.)
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Shrove Tuesday Pancakes
4 tablespoons butter, melted
4 large eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk, or 1-1/2 cups milk plus 1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
dash of salt
Combine the melted butter, egg yolks, and buttermilk (or milk/yogurt mixture) in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir with a whisk. Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until flour is moistened. Fold in egg whites. Heat a heavy griddle or skillet until hot; test by flicking drops of water onto the surface (the griddle is ready when drops dance and evaporate instantly). Spray lightly with cooking oil if griddle tends to stick. Spoon pancake batter onto hot griddle; turn pancakes when bottom is golden brown and edges are beginning to look dry. Cook on other side and serve with plenty of butter and warm maple syrup. Do not grease griddle again after the first round.
Makes about 12 pancakes, depending on size.
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How to Tell a Fruit from a Vegetable
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(no, this is not a "corny" joke)
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What exactly is a fruit? Just when you assume you know what you’re talking about, you realize that you don’t. We were browsing through www.thefruitpages.com, and read the definition of fruit: "the fleshy, seed-bearing part of a plant used as food." Sounds reasonable if you list apples, raspberries, grapefruit, or kiwi. But what about cucumbers, tomatoes, and even string beans? They all are fleshy, and all bear seeds. Are they fruit? What about avocados?
To botanists, vegetables are more generic than fruits. Vegetables include any herbaceous plant grown for its edible parts. This includes some plants that are technically fruits (tomato, squash, pepper, corn, eggplant, pea, cucumber) as well as plants like potatoes, parsnips, broccoli, and others whose seed-bearing parts are separate (and often not eaten) and are therefore not fruit.
To most cooks, a vegetable is something eaten (cooked or raw) during the main part of a meal, while a fruit is often eaten between meals or as dessert. Gardeners tend to distinguish between plants more in terms of light and space requirements, whether they are annuals or perennials, and other qualities.
Most of the time, it doesn’t really matter. But in 1893, the botanical status of the tomato was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court! A food importer tried to avoid a tariff on vegetables by claiming that his tomatoes were fruit, and not subject to tax. After considerable expert testimony, the Supreme Court (in Nix v. Hedden) allowed that while tomatoes might technically be fruit, "in the common language of the people" they were lumped with the vegetables of the world. The tax was collected.
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