THE OMNIVORE'S DIALOG

Lend an Ear

Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn.
Garrison Keillor

Corn.
(seen here - beautiful, organic... delicious...) There’s a great deal being reported about the problems that have resulted from a reckless, thoughtless and greedy proliferation of corn production. The subsidies and the dumping; the misguided use of this grass as food for cow and car; and the ubiquitous presence of high fructose corn syrup – has put is at odds with  this grass which, in other eras, inspired poetry and was emblematic of high aspirations of culture and society.

Lend an ear to some critical thinking - searching for solutions:

Check Out Talking Turkey

Check out the article over on The Omnivore's Solution about a visit to the Ayrshire Farm in Loudon County, VA for a turkey tasting event sponsored by the wonderful American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

A Riddle of Sorts: What Do Tomatoes and Eggs Have in Common?

Other than havng a round-ish shape, in my humble experience, these two foods have, most notably, catapulted more people into exploring and appreciating the qualitative taste differences between organic, sustainable food and mass, industrial produced food.  I've seen many blind tests, and these two foods have changed people's lives.  They deliver an A-Ha moment like no other. Here's an article in support of the egg

The Cow Jumped Over the Moon

Why? Well, I don't know. But such gravity defying antics must have been divinely inspired, cause it has resulted in a growing number of small dairy farmers bringing to market delicious, impeccably produced, good for grass and the gander too products. This will surley whet your whistle for some whey

A Dash of Inspiration

Creating a schoolyard or community garden can turn a heart green. But,  to deliver  the full tonnage of constructive and positive experiences for all who participate -  beyond the terrific produce, takes careful planning and commitment.  Here's one garden project that swells with inspiration

Modern Organic Chemistry

I found where all those “organic” ingredients go, once they are concocted together into various gourmet blends resembling restaurant dining fare. I say resembling, because packaged food at the grocery has to meet a lot of standards for shelf life and storage that don’t apply to a restaurant kitchen.  Think of salad dressing. In a restaurant it is made right before your salad is served, or it would separate into layers in minutes. Not so those plastic “dressing on the side” cartons that come with a grocery store salad to go. They keep for days, which means an emulsifying agent, a soap-like chemical that dissolves oil in water, was added.  (A book about the physical chemistry of food called A Cookbook Decoder by Arthur Grosser is a very helpful and entertaining read for those with no college chemistry, or who slept through theirs. He explains how mayonnaise and Hollandaise work, as well as why boiled eggs turn green.) Of course if these artificial chemicals are extracted from organically grown plants, by a transmogrification of USDA rules they become organic products themselves, and may be legally included.

 

To get back to the original topic, I searched for processed organic prepared food in my grocery (Lucky’s) as well as a similar chain (Rally’s) and a Safeway. All these big chain stores have lots of organic produce (Lucky’s organic section is larger than the standard section, and a lot of products are only carried as organic, like the bean sprouts and salad greens), but I found very few examples of canned or frozen organic products, and no boxes of organic snack treats, cereals, etc. (In fact a total absence of canned organic vegetables says a lot about the demographics of organic shoppers, but another time…) I did find a couple of organic spaghetti sauces mixed right in with Barilla and Prego, which seems like a reasonable alternative, given organic tomatoes are supposed to be better. One of the brands was the same price as the premium Barilla and Newman brands, which surprised me, but it didn’t look as good. I’ll let you know.

 

So where are all these organic prepared food products hiding? I figured I’d check out a store catering to up-market shoppers interested in gourmet specialty services and convenience shopping. That’s right, Whole Foods is where it’s at. This (my first time, and I’m still in awe) is a temple dedicated to fine eating, and offering all the rare and exotic ingredients needed to make that special moveable feast. Whole Foods is about half restaurant/delicatessen for eating in or to go, and half specialty gourmet products store.  Surprisingly little of what they sell is what your grandmother would think of as groceries, but if you need powdered sand flies from  Sri Lanka to complete that special curry from the travel magazine, this place will have it.  And it is replete with floor to ceiling shelves of microwaveable pre-packaged dishes, duly sealed in plastic like military ration packs and kept refrigerated or frozen. About half of this stuff claims to be organic, or natural or in some way healthier than regular food.  A very large pastry shop advertises all goods baked on the premises are organic.  Yes, even the cheesecake, 500 calorie zucchini muffins, Valentine’s Day cupcakes, and egg and ham croissants are organic. More telling, the lactose free and soy substituted variations are still supposed to be organic – organic cheesecake with no dairy products – rriiigghht.

 

If you wonder whether I’m poking fun at this yuppie institution, the answer is “maybe a little”. Whole Foods knows my demographic, the Frazier/Niles wealthy baby boomer, and it lures us in like dog pheromones. I’m not immune, and I was very glad I hadn’t brought a credit card, just a notebook. It’s a farmer’s market bazaar at a world’s fair, but with a planet sized environmental footprint to match, and the emperor is missing a few other garments as well. There is way too much emphasis on letting Whole Foods do the cooking, and the prices, starting with the $9 premixed salads, single serving with 300 calories, are beyond restaurant outrage. They choose to put very odd weights in their packages (e.g. 12 ½ oz) to discourage price comparisons, and prices vary from slightly higher for vastly superior goods, to outlandishly higher for the same goods, which are displayed with more attention to detail than a cruise ship buffet line. You really feel like you are shopping in a restaurant (or Candyland or Willy Wanka’s). But they still have a lot of great stuff, especially specialty meats and exotic fresh produce. We just need someone to drive the money changers from the temple.

 

Warning - this is the market place where Joel Salatin meets Wall Street, and it is an uneasy partnership. 

 

 

Organic Insanity

I came across an interesting article about organic food ingredients that demonstrated important differences between the thinking at the USDA where they certify things organic, and the kind of food philosophy epitomized by sustainable agriculture and traditional cooking methods, as advocated by this blog.  This came from another food blog called TheDailyGreen.com, and was submitted by Karen Berner on 1/24/08.  The article was entitled 38 Non-Organic Ingredients Found in “USDA Organic” Foods, and listed 38 exemptions from the usual organic rules that have been granted to food processing companies.

I reviewed this whole list, which was pretty technical and boring, because none of the exemptions was truly a food.  All were organic alternatives to “traditional” food additives including colors, preservatives or nutritional additives, and were for use in precooked or prepared organic snack foods, cereals, pizzas, baby foods, etc. I actually had no idea that these sorts of products were ever considered organic, and I certainly plan to check this out more carefully, but there is supposedly a booming market in organic junk food, candy and even organic health food, which seems like a double entendre. 

I’m going to mention just a couple of USDA exemptions to convey the flavor, and then back to the point, which is ‘what is the point to organic food, anyway”:

1. Celery powder – this is a wholesome sounding extract of celery, which currently has no producer using organic celery as the starting material.  I was shocked to see this was not a cooking herb, but a “natural source of nitrate for curing meat” and used in the manufacture of organic hot dogs, which are clearly labeled “nitrate free”.  Is this a sleazy loophole, or what?  The FDA lets them use non-organic celery as a starting material, but more to the point, lets them extract and use a preservative without telling the buyer.
2.  Sausage casings from natural mesentery – there is currently no manufacturer of these from organic cows, so they can use non-organic ones in the meantime. Why not, if they let them use nitrate… 
3.  Chia – the seeds of Salvia hispanica. There is not currently an organic grower, and this product is needed as a supplement for omega-3 fatty acids, to make organic health food.  What?
4. Fructo-oligosaccharides  -  you guessed it, Greensgal, this is an “organic” version of HFCS, and is made by a slightly less chemical “fermentation” process, but not yet from organic vegetables.  I suppose if we have to have organic health food, they have to put organic corn syrup in it.

So what is the point?  The point is, organic food is not supposed to be about processed, pre-cooked, convenience oriented junk food, made to look and taste exactly like bad commercial food but somehow “healthier”.  There are not supposed to be organic hot dogs, frozen pizza, Fruit Loops, Snickers, cheesecake, Power Bars, or for all I know, Big Macs. So all these companies asking for exemptions are attempting to recreate all the worst things in American grocery shopping; an entire organo-alternative to exactly the same thing that’s wrong with traditional food. They add calories, preservatives, sweeteners, texture enhancers and even nutrients to “improve” a starting material that was once wholesome and nutritious. There is something deeply wrong with making baby food that involves vegetables “sweetened” with an HFCS substitute, to make it especially attractive to an innocent child, but destines him to have weight problems, lousy teeth, and even lousier food habits. The people who turned away from Gerber for just that reason don’t know that their organic alternative is made the same way.

And I refuse to say more about a company that wants to add omega-3’s to organic vegetables “for the health conscious”. That’s for the health plain crazy. And the USDA.

The Cost of Everything and the Value of What?!??!?

My Cortex Made Me Buy It reveals a pesky truth about ourselves – many of us don’t know what we like.  Embarrassing, but true, yet – it’s also an understandable failing.  After all, some of the best and the brightest are paid big bucks to manipulate our taste and our desires to capture our money and our loyalty.  It’s a friggin’ battle being waged between the forces which want to divert and seduce your attention from what pleases you, to be  replaced with  what they think  should please you.

So, in defense of Your sense of taste -  heighten your awareness and take good notes. No need to be shy if you find yourself drumming a different beat or not agreeing with the pros – so what!   After all, it’s your American imperative… to pursue one’s happiness.  And in the process, an unintentional byproduct is a vote for diversity of ideas and biodiversity of food choices, as well as  a dynamic stand against the industrial processes of all things gastronomic.

As a wise teacher once told me, “Knowing what you like – it’s half the battle.”

 

Who's in Control: Humans vs. Corn

We, as members of the human race, have the audacity to think that we can manipulate nature.  In a typically Pollanesque point of view, Michael Pollan turns things around to see this from the other side - nature being the controller. In a speech entitled "The Omnivore's Next Dilemma", Pollan enlightens us on the true role of mother nature and describes a farm which abides by these principles.  We are most fortunate in this Mid-Atlantic region to have access to the products of Polyface Farm and the visionary behind it:  Joel Salatin.  Joel continues to be one of the most influential and inspirational farmers in the permaculture arena.   For more Pollan wisdom:  The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, The Botany of Desire.

Biodynamic Viticulture

Flower heads of dandelion fermented in a cow’s mesentery. This could be an ingredient from an ancient alchemist’s formula, or a recipe from a 7^th Century Scottish cookbook, but it happens to be a recipe for one of the nine “biodynamic preparations” used by those vineyards who apply for biodynamic certification to “stimulate the relationship between silica and potassium so that silica can attract cosmic forces to the soil”. Biodynamic farming is completely inaccessible to modern scientific analysis, and is an eclectic mixture of eastern philosophy, homeopathic medicine (a since completely debunked 19^th century therapeutic system), and biochemistry as it was thought of 150 years ago.

I’m not going to say whether I do or don’t think there is value to it. Like religious belief, it’s outside the arena of rational analysis, but some very serious and respected winemakers do believe in it, and believe in it fervently enough to risk large sums of money and valuable reputations testing the concept in American fields. Companies like Benziger, and Grgich Hills and Napa’s premier estate, Opus 1.

I recently spent a very pleasant hour discussing the principles of organic and biodynamic winemaking with the very knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff of Grgich Hills Cellar in Rutherford.  I want to thank these folks for their patience on a busy day. To the extent that biodynamics is a religion, their tasting room was staffed by converts, and they can harangue, pleasantly, like doorbell ringing missionaries. I was shown how to pack cow horns with cow dung (they have to be organic cows) to be buried in moonlight. It’s easy to picture a druid Bacchanal complete with naked pouristas.

Biodynamics was first introduced by Rudolf Steiner, a turn of the century Austrian who published an influential book in 1924. It was rediscovered and gained popularity in France, where Nicolas Joly began to communicate the ideas more widely abroad. Persons interested should consult the Demeter Association web site, or www.biodynamics.com, to get the best references. My knowledge is way too superficial. There are also much less arduous organic standards for making wine, and all biodynamic operations conform to them. There is as yet no expert consensus on whether biodynamic methods make better wine, but you bet complying with the standards runs up the price, so they won’t be around long unless the public becomes convinced it’s better.

I tried to get specific information about what effects the various standards have on production, but the Grgich folks demurred, saying only that the yields per acre would “obviously” be a bit lower. Of course they have to cut down the vines on the edges of fields that border other vineyards, to plant buffer zones of “pest resistant” foliage, here olive trees, so that can’t help. One comment they did make was that shifting to a certified organic operation is relatively easy, and consists largely of switching fertilizer and pesticide brands to allowable ones, and composting the leaf trimmings. I didn’t ask a burning question, namely how we know an allowable fertilizer or pesticide is safer than the ones used on the field up the street. It would be argumentative, and would go back to “the FDA says so”, which of course they also say about the non-organic ones.

One brief word about Grgich Wine. They still offer a Fume Blanc, a style of Sauvignon Blanc not seen much since my college years, and something I’ve sought for everywhere. At $22 a bottle this is a pricey offering, but the taste is exactly as I remember, crisp, tart and very refreshing without a hint of malolactic change. Indeed, it is a one-step fermentation. It turns out Mr. Grgich invented this wine style along with the folks at now defunct Almaden. His descendents are clearly still the masters.

And another thing about Grgich. So far they haven’t even used their certification stamp on their labels, and their web site barely mentions the process. One doe-eyed young lady behind the counter said “You wouldn’t do all this, just for the money”. And maybe Grgich wouldn’t, but Benziger now has a $15 tram ride touring their biodynamic operation and explaining the process in detail. They tout biodynamic souvenirs. We’ll see.