Corduroy Orange

According to a fluff piece by AP writer Natasha T. Metzler on holiday entertaining plans at the White House, the menu for holiday receptions

will include golden and crimson beet salad with orange, fennel and feta; sweet potato souffle; herb roasted lollipop lamb chops; and chicken-fried beef tenderloin with white onion gravy — a particular favorite, the first lady said.

Everything sounds great (especially that beet salad) until you get to the last item on the menu: chicken-fried beef tenderloin? What would ever posess someone to so gravely mishandle such an expensive cut of meat? That’s like putting a snout on a lipstick model!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I have anything against chicken frying a steak per se. I actually really enjoy one if the cook at whatever roadside diner I’m in knows his stuff. It’s just that if you’re going to chicken fry a steak, 1) you shouldn’t be doing it at fancy state receptions (a hootenanny might be more appropriate setting), and 2) you should be doing it with something like cube steak, flank steak, skirt steak, or some other cut of meat that doesn’t necessarily roast really well.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the decisions this administration has made.

A recent article in The Economist has questioned the wisdom of efforts aimed at making agriculture more sustainable. A key passage from this article contends that chemical inputs help make the most out of available agricultural land by increasing yield per acre:

But not everyone agrees that organic farming is better for the environment. Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution”, winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.

The current state of large scale agriculture is, despite any claims to the contrary from Norman Borlaug or anyone else, disturbing. Admittedly, complete cessation of chemical fertilizer use is not realistic. Relying entirely upon them, however, is short-sighted and will only lead to compounded troubles in the future. Striving toward reduced synthetic fertilizer dependency is not only a realistic goal, but a desireable one, especially because chemical fertilizers show reduced efficiency the longer they are applied: each successive year of fertilizer use requires more of the chemicals to match the yield of previous years.

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I think so, but I’m probably biased

If you happen to agree, please visit the Well Fed Network and nominate Corduroy Orange for a 2006 Food Blog Award. There are a number of categories in which nominations are being accepted; the two that I most likely would qualify for are Best New Food Blog and Best Food Blog by a Chef. While the site does accept self-nominations, I feel like the only way Corduroy Orange would deserve victory is if someone else recommends me (even if they do log that nomination as a result of my shameless lobbying).

To nominate Corduroy Orange (or another blog that you like, but I’m not lobbying for them), simply leave a comment in the specific category field (e.g. Best New Food Blog) giving the website address and the reasons you think the website is deserving of an award.

There are already over 50 nominations for Best New Food Blog; somewhat fewer for Best Food Blog by a Chef. If you appreciate the breadth and the quality of the content that you find on this web site, please add me to the list. Then, we’ll see how Corduroy Orange stacks up against the competition. Act today! Nominations close tomorrow!

Hello Jesse,

I just stumbled upon your blog today through various clicks and it has been a real treat to read. I am currently living in rural China as part of World Teach, a volunteer program that sends willing participants to developing countries, teaching their little ones Spoken English. I have 23 classes a week, which translates to over 1000 students.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Chinese food is delicious, and I can guarantee you’ve never had real Chinese food (that stuff from the states is not!). I live in southern Hunan which is known for their spicy dishes, and let me you, they ain’t lyin. However, every once in a while you get sick, as a foreigner this is to be expected. Crops are grown wherever they can and are fertilized with the most natural of fertilizers (poop!) amongst other things. Who knows what it was? Either way, it only reinforced my plan to begin cooking more for myself. Stateside I’m an enthusiastic kitchen dweller with my own favorites. Yet, I’m homesick, and I can’t wait for the day when I can make a proper breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So, my question, I’m looking for a little advice in terms of what to cook for myself. As for implements, I have a two burner gas stove, which seems to have 2 settings, afterburner and not-so-afterburner, and a microwave which I haven’t fully learned how to operate. I have a wok and a frying pan, and two pots, both pressure cookers, however, one does not have a lid. They are maybe 3 quarts? It’s possible to find bigger pots, however, most are incredibly thin pounded sheet metal.

As for ingredients: Of course, rice, lots and lots of rice. Rice noodles as well. I have absolutely no cheese to speak of. However, the kids all drink some “milk” that’s never refrigerated. Vegetables include garlic, ginger, tomatoes, potatoes, red onion, pumpkin, white gourd, cucumber, eggplant, carrot, celery, mushrooms, numerous greens, cabbage, some other unidentified root vegetables, and of course, peppers. Fruits include apples, oranges, bananas.

Meats include pork, beef, duck, chicken, dog, rabbit, cat, boar, goat, and a ton of fish, amphibians, snakes, and I’ve even seen a badger for sale. Now, most of these are sold whole, cleaned, but whole. The pork you can buy by the half kilo, and there is no such thing as a cut of meat. You get whatever you point to.

There’s a plethora of other stuff, dried spices, dried meats, eggs, but much I cannot identify.

Peace,
Derek

Derek–

Surprisingly, I have had real Chinese food, though nowhere near as much as you have, and from Beijing, where I spent a few days in 1999. More often than not, I didn’t know what I was eating. Though some of the foods I tried were quite tasty, each sampling of a new dish took a great deal of willpower (I swear one of the foods I sampled was jellyfish, but I have no way of knowing for certain). My main impression of eating in China was that each meal was an adventure. It sounds like you have a more balanced and positive view of the local cuisine than my short stay provided me, but in any case I can understand why you would like to do some more cooking for yourself.

Your available equipment, of course, puts some limitations on what you can make, the most notable being nothing roasted or baked. Still, with some creativity, there’s still a fairly wide range of what you can accomplish with two burners.

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This recipe generally makes enough for two people, though if I’m really hungry, I’ve been known to gobble down an entire batch by myself from time to time. It’s also easy to add fruit inclusions to this recipe. Suggestions include: a mushed up brown banana, a finely cut apple tossed with a little cinnamon and sugar, or some frozen blueberries.

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Cooking Terms to Make Your Food Sound Fancier
Sometimes, part of a food’s appeal is what it’s called. “Sweetbreads of Veal,” for instance, (which incidentally are very tasty) sound much more desirable than “Thymus Gland of Calf.” You don’t have to be cooking varietal meats to be able to spice up your nomenclature, though. Much of the art of menu writing lies in describing dishes to make them sound more desireable than they would otherwise. There are a wide variety of ways to refer to ingredients you already use in hoity-toity terms. Just by using these words to describe dishes you already make, you can turn your casseroles into haute cuisine. It’s a fun game to play at home with your family or at potlucks, dinner parties, and the like.

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Hey there Corduroy–

I was wondering what exactly happens to maraschino cherries to make them maraschino? I’ve heard rumours that they get bleached so that they can be dyed to uniformity. Is that true? And also, is the ’sch’ in maraschino hard like it is in ’school’ or soft as in ‘Schlitz’?

Thanks!

Schirley Temple

Dear Skirley ,

Truth is, the cherries are bleached, but not with bleach and not in order to be able to dye them uniformly. It happens as a side effect of the preservation process. The cherries are soaked in a brine of sulfur dioxide (to keep them from rotting) and calcium salts to maintain their texture. Though the brine ensures that you won’t get a mushy, rotten cherry, it robs the fruit of not only its color, but also its flavor, thereby leaving the preserved fruit a bland template onto which any flavor and color combination could theoretically be imposed. The most popular, of course, is the bright red maraschino which is dyed with FD&C red #40 and flavored with benzaldehyde, a flavoring derived from almonds. Josh Sens writes for Salon that “Orange, yellow and pink maraschinos have all been produced for niche consumers. And a few years back, the Omni Hotel Group commissioned a cherry of red, white and blue.”

An alternative to artificially dyed cherries has been developed that uses radish skins and black carrots as a source of pigments[1, 2], but cherries of this type are neither well known nor widely available. Most cherries on the market follow the artificial route toward re-infusion.

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Big news: I got back in my kitchen yesterday for some low-impact cooking—yeast bread! Yeah, I needed Aurora to pull the mixer out for me, help me gather the ingredients, and put it into the oven; but, a single batch of bread is small enough and has few enough ingredients that I could assemble it on my own. Not only that, but I measured how much of the extraneous stuff I put in (read: herbs and spices), so if you want to make my bread, you’ll be able to.

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The more I visit them, the more amazed I am at the amount of information available on various U.S. government web sites. They can be somewhat convoluted and often tough to navigate, with many lists of links to various publications whose very titles invoke a yawn (Thermally processed low-acid foods packaged in hermetically sealed containers, anyone?). On the other hand, if you poke around long enough, you’re bound to find something that’s at least curious, if not downright enthralling. Two such examples found within the FDA’s information labyrinth detail what is permitted to go into your bottled drinking water and what level of defects (amount of rodent fur, mamalian excreta, insect matter, etc.) are deemed intolerable for your food.

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My friend Shaz emailed me the other day to tell me, “I have a treat for you from Amsterdam—and no it’s not what you’re thinking.” U.S. Customs laws being what they are, I knew it wasn’t what she thought I thought, but I had no idea to expect Kanjers Extra Grote Stroopwafels, mainly because I had no clue that they existed.

The Extra Grote Stroopwafels (translated by Babelfish as “Extra Large Stroopwafels,” with no indication of what sort of modification on waffle “stroop” indicates, even when entered by itself) are a tasty confection consisting of caramel sandwiched between wafer-thin waffles. Exceedingly sweet, these aren’t exactly breakfast waffles. Really, they’re more like a cookie and they match very well with a mug of hot (unsweetened) coffee. I was rewarded when I set my partially-eaten stroopwafel atop my mug for a few moments to take a break from it (like I said, they’re incredibly sweet). When I returned to it, the stroopwafel was warm and the caramel filling had melted a bit; it was a pleasant variation on the theme.

My friend Tom tells me he saw Stroopwafels for sale at Craig Street Coffee here in Pittsburgh (305 S. Craig Street), and a quick phone call to Mon Aimee Chocolate, which specializes in imported confections, confirms that they’re usually available there, too (2101 Penn Avenue in the Strip District). These cookies are definitely something worth checking out when you’ve got a sweet tooth screaming to be satisfied.

It’s nice (though, in a way, it can also be disheartening) to realize that the food products widely available in the U.S. don’t represent the entirety of what’s popular on the world market. Many new tastes are out there (albeit in a niche, foreign-import market) that can help you break out of the mass-market box, if you know where to look for them. One of the more satisfying ways to find out about these things is to travel outside of the country. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the more difficult methods, as well. If you’re on a more limited budget and/or timeline, search out the specialty shops in your city. You might not find what you’re looking for, but you’re bound to find something that you didn’t know to look for, which means you’ll still be expanding your horizons, even if you don’t need a passport.