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Gastro Feet Have Got the Rhythm May 23, 2008

Posted by Hecubuster in : General mouthfuls , add a comment

As an in-class assignment for a recent lesson on short, smart, and snappy writing, the master’s students in the Food Culture and Communications program at Italy’s University of Gastronomic Sciences produced the following small gems. The exercise was to learn the value of rhythm and “hot” language to communicate an idea—in this case, a mini-bio about themselves as gastronomes. The form: limerick or haiku (or whatever).

chorophyll body
capturing squares out of the
circles of the sun

There was a young lady from Parma
Who defended herself with her armour
Little by little
They softened her middle
And found that she was quite a charmer.

There once was a Guido from Rhineland
Who wished to become a guideliner
He went to a school,
To learn some green rules
But returned to traditional lineouts

There once was a man who ate slow
Red hair both above and below
Stay out of the sun,
It’s never much fun,
But lets him keep his nubile glow.

There once was a Parmesan ham
Whose day came to give up a gam
She squealed and she kicked
Her perfection was licked
She lived on to fight against spam.

There once was an Artisan tramp
Who knew how to bake and to vamp
She hiked up her skirt
Got down in the dirt
And set up a gardening camp.

Dear Penelope:
My Odyssey led me here
strange place, strange food too

The fields have changed
called green revolution
nothing green about

Fast small return
need real food and real people too
Slow the brains work here.

When I drink outside
Animals steal all my booze
Birds don’t like whisky

The joke is on me
Even if the birds take it
The still give it back

With a dirty shirt
I will still finish my drink
Bird shit won’t stop me.

There once was a girl from the States
Decision to move, such high stakes
A southern expat
Would indulge, yet not get too fat
Good, clean and fair, what an idea.

Luxurious meals
Critiquing for a living
Someone else paying.

On my knees
Teach as Mother Earth guides
Fly bird, fly.

Sugar sweet as Adam’s Apple
Baker girl with butter, flour
Makes them tatter, tatter.

Flour, sugar, egg
together and taunting me
cookies for breakfast

yolks punctured seeping
therapeutic stirring think
nutrition is dead

Finally…the bartender is back on the books June 16, 2007

Posted by colesturzen12 in : General mouthfuls , 2 comments

Well, as it has taken this long to actually take to the idea, I feel that it is about time to introduce myself into the world of cibomatic. MJ and I had briefly discussed the idea of a drink of the week theme, and until now I think that I needed some sort of inspiration. We taste a lot of wine in our program, but I believe that we often leave out the more innovative beverages that are out there for our consumption. My plan is to personally explore beyond the cantina.

As I worked in bars for years in San Francisco, tequila was part of my job. I think that it was written in the Latin American Club handbook, that two shots should be consumed per shift, or maybe I made that rule up myself on a busy Saturday night. Far away from the Mission in Italy, I have found good tequila few and far between, but with the recent visit of Tobias, this deficiency has been alleviated. Today we will be tasting an El Conquistador Reposado for our pleasure, not yours.

It is a Saturday afternoon, and I am convinced that it is going to start raining any minute, so better to stay inside and conduct our research. By law reposados are aged for a minimum of two months, but some are aged for up to one year. This is usually done in oak barrels, which impart the typical smoky flavor to the tequila’s taste and smell. El Conquistador Reposado is composed of 100% blue agave plants and aged for a minimum of seven months in oak barrels. This is apparent from the second we pick up our glasses, and are immediately overwhelmed by its black pepper and anise scents, even with a hint of smoky peat on the nose. As Tob and I have learned, breathing in while tasting tequila to enhance the flavor in your mouth is a bad idea, as it can cause watery eyes and coughing, but if done correctly the tequila has a beautiful woody and spicy taste, balanced by a sweetness of honey and vanilla.

Overall we find this reposado a feisty, yet pleasant sippin’ tequila with a sweet finish, best consumed with a single ice cube in a Gibraltar glass on a hot humid night, or muggy Parma afternoon.

Bag waste May 22, 2007

Posted by Rhona in : General mouthfuls , 1 comment so far

Following up on Corrie’s observations about shopping bags, I’d like to concur with her findings: I too have been struck by how seldom you see anyone re-use shopping bags in Parma and was cheered to hear about San Francisco’s ban, an idea that’s been floated in Canada along with a proposal to charge for plastic ones - both of which have been contested violently by, well, bag manufacturers I suppose, and reluctant consumers. Not everyone knows that Leaf Rapids, Manitoba recently became the first municipality in Canada to ban single use bags. The move was swiftly followed by Tofino, BC - a town whose planning abilities came into question last summer when they ran out of water right before the Labour Day long weekend, kind of a problem for a very popular tourist town whose green leanings and main currency (unspoilt natural beauty) are challenged at every turn by developers, hotel owners and oblivious tourists.

In London the grocery stores offer reuseable plastic shopping bags for sale (Waitrose will even replace them free when they wear out in their “bag for life” scheme) and give the crappy plastic ones away. You can imagine which option most shoppers go for, and see the evidence on garbage day.

A couple of stores in Victoria offer a cash reward for refilling your own bags (assuming the check-out clerk remembers): Country Grocer and Thrifty’s both give you a couple of pennies per bag that you re-use while shopping there, which is a good and under-advertised program. It’s not much but it’s a reminder of the cost to all of us down the line for using plastic. Even so, you don’t see a lot of people return with bags, though you see a lot more than you do in Parma. Both of these stores also stock locally-made cheeses and fair trade coffees, and - I miss this - let you buy spices and dry goods in bulk (most local grocers do) to buy only what you need and save on packaging, and have a bottled water refill service, so it’s part of their ‘good citizen’ positioning.

I also miss the bottle recycling program that is such a part of life in Canada we don’t make enough fuss about it: every drink you buy (water, soft drinks, juice, wine, beer) includes a recycling fee that you can reclaim by returning your bottles and cans; it has created a sub-industry for street people. I don’t know which other countries do this, but it always saddened me that England didn’t and has only lately become more conscious of recycling - an odd attitude for a country with so little room. London is so politically fractured (33 different borough councils with an over-arching London government the Thatcher government did away with, only revived in 2000) it’s been hard to get city-wide recycling measures in place, but I notice gradual improvements every time I return. There’s a lot of talk about composting at the moment: a difficult project in London where any edibles left out will be targeted by local pests which include tradtional ones like rats, but more recent and aggressive competitors are foxes and North American grey squirrels.

Bag it up May 21, 2007

Posted by Corrie in : General mouthfuls , 1 comment so far

Not to dwell on my Unes experiences, but another aspect of the Barilla Center’s food anchor that keeps getting my attention always happens right before I leave through those automatic glass doors with the cheery, exclamatory “u!” stickers. 

Bagging groceries is an exciting portion of my visits to Unes. Cashiers pile purchases on the slide behind them, and the race begins. It’s a bag-your-own system that’s not for the timid or the slow of hand. With a hinged paddle, the cashier can separate up to two customers’ purchases at a time. So there’s the social pressure to bag your stuff and clear out your side of the paddle within the next customer’s purchase to that there’s room again for the following customer’s groceries. Bagging pressure!

It’s a slight effect, but the bagging process makes me nervous, even to the point that I try to organize my items onto the cashier’s conveyor belt in bagging-appropriate order: heavy stuff on the bottom, cold things together, delicates last. (More like a laundry list than a shopping list, eh?) Usually, though, while sliding down the ramp on the other side of the register, any order is disordered, and I’m left to shove, shove, shove — like a game show contestant — and then lift a jostled bag before the next customer’s lettuce or oj rolls down the plank. 

Customers seem to deal with the bagging in different ways. Some mothers send a child ahead to catch the pieces and load the bags while they fish out the exact change for which the cashier will inevitably ask. Older women, usually shopping alone, tend to the most confident. They pack bags carefully and at their own pace, silently and subliminally reproaching anyone who’d rush them, crowd them, or question them. I watched as one young man tried to find a place for his baguette in the top of his crowded bag while he kept one eye on the pile of the next customer’s groceries teetering toward him. When he brutally bent and tore the bread in two and then shoved it between the bag’s handles, I read his stern, disinterested face as a cover for the real disappointment he was actually feeling. “Why? Why must my bread be so smooshed?” It was the bagging pressure. 

Beside the action, another essential piece of the bagging process is the bag itself. Unes (and most chain groceries here in Italia) charge about 5 centessimi per bag. They’re big and pretty study and nearly every customer ahead of me buys at least one bag. It’s not a bad investment since they’re designed to come in handy later. But as far as I’ve noticed, few Unes customers return with their used plastic bags, and I think I can count on two hands the number of customers I’ve seen in 6 months with their own canvas or cloth bags. 

I bought my first plastic grocery bag in Italia over eight years ago, so Italians must have been purchasing plastic grocery bags for at least the last decade or so. With this in mind, I wonder how San Francisco will fare now that non-biodegradable plastic bags are prohibited in the city’s groceries and pharmacies. It’s the first American city to impose the ban. I suppose other cities’ officials will be watching to see how the law affects citizens, grocers, prices, jobs, politics, the environment. 

While several factors could produce less than ideal results (more trees thoughtlessly harvested for paper bags? development of alternative plastics with harmful by-products? extra cheap cloth bags spur a sweat shop trade?), there’s the potential for great benefits (less waste, less cost, better environment, healthier people?).

 See you in the check out aisle.

Fresh fillets of fish = processed food? May 11, 2007

Posted by The Sicilian in : General mouthfuls , add a comment

I guess I should have known this before, but frequently when we purchase ‘fresh fish’ from the grocery store, we are getting more than a cut-up whole fish.

Our fish quality instructor, Valentina Tepedino, opened my eyes quite a bit with her descriptions of what can be in fresh fish fillets you purchase.  These include things such as additives to add weight, colour and shelf life to many fish.  These can be polyphosphates, animal and vegetable proteins.  The phosphates can be found easily by inspectors, but the proteins are far more difficult to detect.  Adding polyphosphates can make fish retain 20 percent water.  (our classmate Daniel says this happens with scallops quite a bit)

So in a sense anything other than a whole fish could have artificial ingredients in it.  And a whole farmed fish, for example, could have antibiotics or artificial colour, and in Canada, we never see this labeled.

Shrimp is another story…widespread environmental destruction of mangrove forests is linked to shrimp farming.

When I go home to Canada…wild prawns and shrimp, wild salmon, Dungeness Crab, and pieces of halibut and sablefish from reputable fishmongers.

“Holy Smoke!” May 10, 2007

Posted by fabi in : General mouthfuls , 2 comments

Mrs. Müller is angry. Her eyes are flashing. She opens and shuts her mouth like a big fish out of water. “Can you see the river?” she shouts out. Mouth shut.
And honestly, no, I can’t. I am standing just a few meters away from the giant river Rhein that crosses Germany but I can’t see it. The majestic river is hidden behind a wall, a wall of uprising smoke.
The German barbecue-season has started. And that means a season of pain for people like Mrs. Müller. She lives close to the river (and by the way this area is expensive as hell), but for the next month she can’t enjoy the spectacular view. All is covered with barbecue-smoke.
As Germans love their sausages they love their barbecues. Obviously one is strongly related to the other. Or can you imagine a good barbecue without a German sausage?
And I am no exception. The first thing I saw, when I arrived in this world was the delivery forceps. A signal! They look exactly like barbecue tongs! From there on I made my way to be a barbecue-maniac. And every time I pass the wall of smoke that covers the Rhein, I know that I am not alone out there.
It is like entering the Paradise – a world of barbecue. One barbecue next to each other and they all look different. The tiny one next to the giant one, charcoal meets briquettes. And as the barbecues, also the chefs behind them are different. Well, they all share that focused look upon their face. Don’t miss the right point to turn the sausage…
Fritz is one of these chefs: he reigns over a giant barbecue, black all over, used a thousand times. Fritz is a specialist. “Sprinkle them with beer” is his master tip. “The sausages need beer to develop a unique flavor!” And he lowers his voice, nobody should here his secret: “Don’t do it once” he whispers “do it twice!”
Next to Fritz, Annika is at work. Annika is a proud vegetarian among carnivores. She barbecues little feta-cheeses and vegetables wrapped in aluminum foil. “Don’t forget the herbs! It tastes delicious!” she insists “Even without dead animal!” And she looks triumphantly to the people barbecuing around.
These days, Germany is ruled by the barbecue. A nation leaving their musty homes to work outside with the barbecue tongs. A nation suffering from the barbecue fever. A nation united - except for Mrs. Müller.

Jammy waste May 9, 2007

Posted by Rhona in : General mouthfuls , 2 comments

The waste tally this week was mostly fruit. Some plums that I’d bought turned out to be hard and tasteless when I got them home, so I let them sit hoping they might soften, then when they didn’t, I trimmed the rotten bits and poached the rest with predictably poor results. They looked nice but tasted old. Ultimately inedible. About two-thirds chucked. Where were they grown? How far did they travel to get here? Who buys them? Who eats them?

And I have decanted but haven’t yet disposed of some blood orange marmelade that we received during the Marche stage. A disappointing memento of a disappointing visit; waste of all kinds there: the half hour drive to the Cedroni factory where there was absolutely nothing going on, so we toured a large clean space and looked at nice clean vats and empty smokers and were on our way out of there - souvenir jars in hand - in 20 minutes flat.

The marmelade was not even good to eat: after I had opened the beautifully-designed, expensive-looking and ultimately awkward jar, the contents separated into a glutinous blob of less than exciting orange-flavoured condiment sitting in a watery sugary puddle: syneresis strikes again. My experience with jam making suggests there was perhaps badly balanced pectin/acid, or else the jam was just plain old (the best before date was certainly looming). Anyway, it didn’t taste good and there was no way to know if it might have been better in its increasingly distant youth.

The difference was that much more marked by my having bought a jar of gorgeous orange preserves, not so very long ago, from the excellent Hosteria Giusti in Modena: the orange chunks were sweet and flavourful and came in a thick jam that never, in its brief stay in my fridge, separated. And that jar was reusable.

The Cedroni jars are badly shaped for refilling and difficult to empty or clean, having many awkward nooks and crannies. In my case, the jar will go straight to the recycling bin. Less conscientious consumers will tip them into the landfill.

The contents? I ate what I could on yogurt, but frankly, it was just not very good. Had I been someone else I would have chucked the lot after the first taste - but it’s a tricky substance to dispose of. Not quite liquid, not quite solid. Flush it down the toilet? Let it dissolve over the drain in the sink? Make a puddle in the garbage bin?

Whose waste was this? What do we do about it? How much of this kind of waste are we perpetuating in our role as passive consumer, or in this case, helpless gift recipient, and what can we do about it?

“C” is for the way you Comfort me. May 6, 2007

Posted by Jenn in : General mouthfuls , 2 comments

I can’t help but wonder if coffee’s universal success is more of a result of the distant memories and emotions it resurrects in its drinkers than its actual flavor.  Growing up neither of my parents drank the stuff.  In fact, the only times I was around steaming pots of coffee were when I would spend a few weeks and holidays at my grandparents’ homes.  And yet, in spite of these infrequent exposures, through the years, whenever I smell a pot of brewing coffee I am transported to my grandparents’ homes.  Its rich, enveloping aromas always make the mornings seem a bit more familiar and gentle.

 

I didn’t pick up the habit of drinking coffee regularly until just a few years ago, most likely as a reaction of moving away from my family.  I loved to wake early for work and lazily start my day while the aroma from a brewing pot filled my small apartment. 

 

Already I have the foresight to know how much I am going to miss my Italian cafés when I return to the States.  Inevitably I will be appalled at the ludicrously excessive options offered at most cafés, and long for the simple days of café, café macchiato, or cappuccino.   Then, of course, I will do the only sensible thing, and go home and brew my own cup of espresso and feel for just a moment that once again I am here.

Wasting away May 3, 2007

Posted by Rhona in : General mouthfuls , 1 comment so far

As waste is to be my general theme, I thought a good way to focus would be to think about what I myself waste from day to day.

My parents were frugal to an extreme - we were a family of hoarders, rewashing tinfoil and ziplock bags, saving toffee tins and yogurt tubs; wrapping Christmas gifts in last year’s artfully re-taped paper. I sometimes felt that without charity shop pickups or recycling bins we would have been buried alive.

They described themselves as Depression babies and were unapologetic about keeping their impact on consumer culture to a minimum. But I too was a child of my time and growing up I felt only embarrassment for behaviour that to my set seemed like old fashioned eccentrism - and there is no worse insult to a peer-ruled teenager than parents who don’t behave Like Normal People. They drank from cracked cups and darned their socks and got after me for draining the sink when the plum tree could have used the water (they were on a well that always risked running dry in the summer).

That was long ago and in the interim I have supposedly grown up — and begun to see the many ways in which I am my parents’ child. In this wasteful culture there is also waste in my life; but with the sound of their voices in my ear, it makes me feel sick to throw food away, or to discard any useable item.

Today in the hall of culinary learning that is Alma, doubling as our university cafeteria, I practiced waste and tipped most of my lunch into the big plastic bowl that I can only hope is going to a second life as compost. My fish - not for the first time at Alma - was raw in the middle, but some student chef had reached a whole new level of achievement and managed to get it also tough on the outside. The boiled potato was uncooked, almost crunchy. The redcurrants were irritating ornaments. I ate the salad, the bland and fatty dessert, and chucked the balance without much personal involvement. Is it waste when I have no way of redeeming or re-using the food, and little control over what size portion I take?

I have come to hate throwing food away because the food itself represents something to me. This year is making me even more entrenched, more self-righteous. As I learn more about food, food producers, food traditions, the less I want to be wasteful, because it is an insult to the food itself - which was planted, nurtured, harvested, packaged and sent to me to prepare. The waste is not just what’s in my hands, in my bin; I feel an almost spiritual impact sometimes, that I’m wasting the work of a whole chain of people, a whole way of life.

Over Weight No Longer Equates Wealth

Posted by cmallet in : General mouthfuls , 1 comment so far

Overfed and undernourished is the sense we get of the American diet. Adults and children alike spend their food allowance conjesting their stomachs on highly processed foods which fill them up like a hot air balloon. Eating becomes soley an act of ending hunger rather than an act of pleasure and obtaining the nutrients to keep the body running…properly. At this rate, children will die before their parents. Unfortunately , this is becoming a global issue. The UK and France are quickly following the Americans in the race of obesity. I want to discuss the causes, issues, and solutions for changing this outcome. Co-producer responsibility, trust in government policy, values, nutritional education, nutriecuticals, mcdonaldization, sociology, knowledge VS action are just a few areas I would like to address. The counter-race is on…