Vermmmont: Barely Sweet Red Currant Tart

One of the things I look forward to during my annual two week gig in VT is the Dunbar's red currant bush. Lucky for me, the fruit ripens during my stay. Also lucky for me is that the Dunbars don't really like currants, so I'm always encouraged to take as big of a haul as I want.

In the past I've never had the wherewithal to do anything but eat them out of hand, but this year I got it together to whip up a crude tart.



As I prepared it, the berry topping somehow became a black hole for sugar; the more I added, the same it tasted.

I prefer barely-sweet desserts, but even for my palate I had to keep sprinkling on the cane dust. All the while a little devil sat on my shoulder, whispering "Just dump it in! People will like it better!"

Meanwhile, the little angel that, inevitably, sat on the other shoulder, meekly suggested: " Sugar is bad for you. Maybe your friends would enjoy a horribly sour tart and better health?"

In the end, neither won, as I compromised. But the tart was perfect for me, with a challenging level of tartness yet just enough sugar to walk you through it. I made one for the Dunbars as a thank you for years of free currants, but I'm told it met with mixed results. Some of them ate it straight up, some added more sugar, and some passed on it altogether.

Angel: "Even if they didn't like it that much, at least everyone had a healthy dessert."

Devil: "That means more for us! Rrrrrrrrrah! (<-- a devil roar)."

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Etymology for Karen:

"currant" origin: Middle English "raisons of Corauntz," translating Anglo-Norman French raisins de Corauntz, meaning ‘grapes of Corinth ’ (the original source).

Barely Sweet Brownie

Being barely sweet, you might say that this was barely a brownie. But you'd be wrong. A brownie can sing a much more complex song than that single note of sweetness that usually defines it.

So much of cooking, or any art, is innovation. An attempt to make you see the world in a new and different way, thereby shattering the shell of mundanity that normally surrounds you. A good painting, or even a good bowl of soup, can burn through the haze of your day to day existence and, with one glance (or slurp), return you to a childlike sense of awe and wonder.

I'm sure you've had this experience: you sit down to a dish that you've had countless times before but suddenly taste it in a new way. Maybe someone spiked your mac n' cheese with truffle oil, or maybe the chef bought the garlic from a farmer's market instead of from China. And so you taste whatever it is that you're eating as though it was the first time.

Sure we generally prefer comfort food, but every now and then you need a slightly bitter brownie to broaden your horizons. In making this batch, Elise did something which I'm hearing more and more of my baker friends say: "I found a recipe on-line, then halved the sugar."

Even a single ingredient, say a slice of watermelon, has several flavors: the sweetness of the tip closest to the core, the sourness adjacent to the rind, that distinctive melon thing throughout. Yet all too often desserts only taste like one thing, and that's sugar.

Call me crazy, but I don't want diabetes. Sugar is bad for you. That's why every native population that's exposed to it quickly declines in health. You shouldn't eat too much of it, so if you're going to have it, halving it isn't a bad idea.

With less sugar, this brownie was forced to taste like something. The chocolate had nowhere to hide, and so it stood tall, enboldened by its larger role. A heavy pinch of cinnamon was duly noted, and the salt level almost took things from sweet to savory. Not as salty as the sea -- more like blood.

For the sauce we melted a 70% cocoa bar and stretched it out by whisking in some of the red wine we'd been drinking. If the brownie was barely sweet, the sauce was downright nasty, intimidatingly sugarless, and the combo of the two made for an almost somber dessert experience.

Strong, bitter, salty and astringent, this brownie wasn't as sweet as I'm used to, but it reminded me that I'm alive.

Romanian New Year's Cake

Just moments ago I answered a gentle knock on the door to my apartment to find the little girl who lives downstairs (with her parents). She was clad in Nemo slippers and holding an intriguing napkin wrapped bundle. I desperately hoped it was some sort of holiday pastry from Romania, her father's country of origin. It was.

I opened the napkin to find the thick slice of marbled cake pictured above. When I asked her what it was called, she said something that sounded like "Koozelnacht," and when I asked her to repeat it she said it faster and angrier, and therefore even less intelligibly. From a brief google search, I'm guessing that it's cozonac, also called Romanian walnut panetone.

The cake is light and faintly sweet, the crust a gorgeous, smooth golden brown. I'm not sure of exactly what is in the marbling, but I taste walnuts, spices, liquer, and perhaps cocoa, and it's faintly reminiscent of charoses.

It's fantastic, and serves as a reminder of the many culinary traditions that sometimes bubble up in our culture's otherwise corn syrup filled melting pot.

In exchange for the cake, she stuck around to play with Oli, who recently fell asleep on my face.



My New Year's resolution: more shamelessly cute pictures of my dog that have nothing to do with food.

In Defense of Persimmons

The Times Op Ed section didn't want this piece, so now it's yours:

I was surprised to read this sentence in a recent NYT article on persimmons:

"Their mild, undistinctive flavor, vaguely reminiscent of pumpkin, means that it is hard to find a leading role for them."

While I'm a regular reader of the author, the enlightening Harold McGee, I do find his perspective on persimmons somewhat lacking. My most obvious objection is that I think persimmons do have a distinctive flavor, and thereby occupy a valuable niche in supermarkets that might otherwise carry only mealy, tasteless, red "delicious" apples and pithy oranges.

The sweet, musky taste of a persimmon is unusual and complex, and the gooey texture unique amongst the miniscule variety of fruits commonly available in the U.S. A supermarket persimmon is often the best fruit in the supermarket.

When ripe, persimmons are wonderful to eat raw, and require no adulteration, even to serve a "leading role." If you have your own tree and are simply up to your ears in the fruit, then make a pudding, and consider your position extremely enviable. If not, I suggest you enjoy them au naturel.

Besides the issue of taste, what concerns me most about the article is its failure to mention the indigenous American persimmon. While the author does describe the commonly available persimmon as an "Asian species," there is no reference to the native species which can be found growing even in Manhattan.

Of course it isn't possible to include every last detail in a piece subject to a deadline, set length, and the whims of an editor, but the article's failure to mention the persimmons growing right under our noses is indicative of a larger disturbing trend: our society's ignorance of its native foods.

We Americans have a serious handicap when it comes to utilizing our indigenous, edible flora. When Europeans arrived on this continent, they encountered a wealth of delicious biodiversity never before experienced in their homelands. Some items, like chocolate, tomatoes, and turkey, became all the rage.

Others, like persimmons, were generally disregarded as soon as settlers had grown enough of the stuff they'd brought from home. As a result, the plants that had fed indigenous populations for thousands of years were plowed under to make room for cauliflower.

Thankfully, Americans are finally grasping gastronomic concepts such as terroir and the emphasis of simple preparation to showcase the quality of a well grown ingredient. As a result we can begin to see how foolish it was to replace plants that had evolved perfectly to survive on this soil with those which often require genetic alteration, pesticide, chemical fertilizer, and the razing of native habitats. When you eat such a food, you can taste that it belongs here.

On my way back to Boston from a Thanksgiving road trip to Missouri, I traveled with a disposable baking tray full of the fruit in question. I had gathered these outside of St. Louis, and happily handed them out to wild persimmon virgins along the way. Everyone who ate one was converted, their eyes crossing in pleasure, and there was nary a pudding in sight.

I have no doubt that, given the opportunity, McGee would have the same reaction.

Poached Quince

For anyone who was ever called "fruity" in middle school, if quince was there, it would have beaten that bully up. Quince is fruit, but it's tough.

But while a fresh quince is as tough as wooden apple, with a little heat and sugar, quince can turn into a real peach. Well, not a real peach.

The fact that quince is a fruit that can't be eaten raw has always intrigued me, and some gorgeous specimens at the Union Square green market in NYC convinced me to finally give it a go. The smell alone was worth it: just from sitting out on the kitchen table, they made the whole apartment smell like perfume.

It would be wise to familiarize yourself with quince, as I'm sure we're going to see more of them as heirloom fruits and vegetables continue to reemerge from the shadows of our past. And what sounds like a better winter fruit fix: fossil fuel guzzling imported oranges or succulent, locally grown, poached quince? Unless you're a member of OPEC, I think I know which you'd prefer.

Always eager to find ways of preserving without using sugar, I poached a few in just water. These sucked. When I used sugar, the syrup turned a gorgeous, rosy color, and the fruit was fantastic.

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Recipe: Poached Quince

water
sugar
quince

Peel, seed and quarter as many quince as desired. Be prepared for them to be much tougher than you think fruit can be.

Dissolve a little less than 1/4 cup sugar per each fruit in as much water as needed to cover the quince.

Simmer until the quince becomes tender, reaching the consistency of a poached pear. Enjoy warm with toasted walnuts and a splash of the cooking liquid.

You might be able to can them at this point, but mine didn't stick around that long, so I can't say for sure.

Finally, The Pawpaw

As I write this, the outdoor thermometer reads 14 degrees. Inside, I'm eating fresh, local pawpaw. How? I don't quite understand it myself.

At long last, my search for this remarkable fruit has come to fruition, and I thank those who have helped along the way. I had all but given up until last week, when I received a hot tip from where else but Ithaca, the Kansas City to my Fats Goldberg. There pawpaw were for sale at the Cornell Orchards store.

In addition to growing heirloom apple varieties with names like Sheep's Nose, Cornell has also raised pawpaws since the 1950's. By some accounts, the pawpaw season doesn't last longer than September, so you can imagine my surprise when the woman working the counter handed me several fresh specimens for fifty cents a pound. Pawpaws are equally famous for being delicious and perishable, so the fact that I got them this late in the season is truly confounding.

The fruit itself was everything I had hoped for. Just as I'd been told, despite the fact that the pawpaw is native to North America, everything about it seems downright tropical. It looks like a mango and tastes like a combination of banana and guava or cherimoya. Yet the pawpaw grows right here, in a region where the temp regularly dips below freezing, as it has at this very moment.

Through the ice on the windows I can see barren trees swaying in the wind, but I've got sweet, ripe pawpaw for my mid-morning snack. I'm certain that these are the only pawpaw still available anywhere in the world. If you live in Ithaca, rush to get the last few. If you live anywhere else, rush to Ithaca.

Brennan's Bananas Foster

Thanks to my dad for snapping this somewhat demonic pic of Brennan's Bananas Foster during a recent trip to the Big Easy. (I think they call it that because it's easy to feel big after eating there.)

I was surprised to learn that the world famous dessert was named after an awning salesman. The dish has since become so popular that "foster" is the second thing that google fills in if you type "bananas." The first being "in pajamas."

For a more comprehensive look at eating New Orleans, check out this post from the newly created Internet Food Association.

Kill and Eat: Autumn Olive

The autumn olive is a handsome shrub with silvery, pointed leaves and, at this time of year, scads of gorgeous, plump, red berries. While the autumn olive is found in many U.S. states, there are two things that most people don't know about it. First, it's highly invasive, so much so that in Massachusetts it is illegal to plant or even transport. Second, the berries are delicious.

I can't go into too much detail as I'm in the process of writing a full article on the subject, but I did want to share some info as the end of the autumn olive season approaches. If you've got a bush in your neighborhood, strip it of its fruits before the birds get to them and poop the seeds all over tarnation. Eat them raw, cook into jam or do what you will. Then, kill the tree.



We made a tart with a puree of strained pulp from the fruits, using Mark Bittman's crust. The result was fantastic, the flavor familiar yet exotic and difficult to place. The fruits remind me of currants for their size and shape, and their taste has been compared to green grapes.



We also reduced some excess water that the berries had simmered in and drank it warm. While the tart was good, this blew our minds. It was something like a sour cherry cider, yet unlike anything I've ever had. It tasted like Fall, and it tasted wild.

Like I said, hopefully I'll have more on this controversial food before its season ends.

Eating Vermont Part 1: Rhubarb Crisp

Turns out rhubarb is not solely the Spring crop that many a specialty market would have us believe. As my gracious host recently informed me during my stay in Thetford, VT, if you keep cutting back the flowers, you'll have rhubarb up to your ears all Summer. Why I didn't learn this until age 27 is both a mystery and infuriating.

Each summer I spend a month in Vermont teaching at a Shakespeare camp, and this crisp is a perfect example of what I usually eat while there: food that is simple, incredibly fresh, and consumed a stone's throw from where it grew. That's because the backyards often look like this...



We topped it with Strafford Creamery vanilla ice cream because it might just be the best ice cream on Earth, and because Vermonters aren't physically able to digest anything unless it's taken with dairy. (More on that to come.)

In Further Praise of Rhubard

Like Brendan and TheJewAndTheCarrot, I too cannot get enough of "the pie plant," aka rhubarb.

While rhubarb is perhaps best known in combination with strawberry, the season in which that blessed union is possible is surprisingly brief. When rhubarb first pops up, sometimes out of the snow, strawberries might be months away. When strawberries are finally plump and red, many rhubarb plants have already turned into Godzilla and gone to seed. So if you're eating strawberry rhubarb pie in Massachusetts in May, you're also eating strawberries from Mexico.

This knowledge, combined with my statement in the first sentence, has led me to consume many pure rhubarb-on-rhubarb pastries, such as the one in the photo above. It's a turnover, which in my kitchen is bake-speak for having had extra dough after making a pie.

Remembering Spring, Pt. 2

Superman had kryptonite, and I have rhubarb--my great weakness. In the presence of rhubarb I lose all sense of modesty and proportion. I just harvest and/or buy it until there isn't any left. Last year I trundled across town in an April snowstorm to follow up rumors of the season's first stalks. One day I will look back on my family's rhubarb patch as a formative experience.

I've cut rhubarb through July, and maybe later, but in the markets it's an early season item--probably because people inevitably associate it with strawberries. Fanatics like myself stock up, and freeze.

Last week I laid in my annual supply of strawberry rhubarb jam and hardly made a dent in the rhubarb. Next up was rhubarb ginger, a genius concept I first tasted in Killarney. Liberal amounts of diced ginger lend a warm spice to the jam without detracting from the rhubarb's killer tartness. I started with a double batch, in case the proportions weren't right, but they were spot on--the jam is neither gelatinous nor mushy. For better or worse, I've run out of jars, so the rest gets frozen. In October, when I find that I've somehow eaten all my jam, I'll thaw it out for a rhubarb crisp. Ladies, gentlemen: to rhubarb.

Eat to Beat the Heat Part 1: The Mochi Monster

In this installment of my latest series, I'll be posting about my efforts to cook despite the disconcerting temperature in which the East Coast has been baking.

Last night I decided to fight fire with fire and do some baking of my own. How could turning on the oven when it's 85 in the house help beat the heat? Well, I baked everything for the week in one fell swoop. Doing so not only consolidates your heat into one session, but it also uses less gas. And any time you cut down on your fossil fuel consumption, you help reduce your carbon footprint, thereby combating global warming and keeping such freakish weather at bay. (I hope.)

As a result of my efforts, the oven was stuffed with a carnivalesque array of foods. A half chicken marinated in soy sauce roasted next to slices of eggplant, which sat above a tray of pastries, which in turn were next to the baked (baking?) potatoes. Everything was going well until something went awry. Then everything starting going really well...

Examine the introductory photo. Besides the fact that a rhubarb turnover and mochi puffs make strange bedfellows on a single cookie sheet, nothing seems out of the ordinary. Unless you look at it from above.



Because the landlord at my new apartment has yet to install an oven dial with any numbers on it, the temp was running high, so the slightly eggy filling in the turnover seeped out before the pastry had cooked enough to retain it. Like a broken off piece of the bad Terminator from the second movie, it reached out for the nearest thing like it, grabbing hold of a helpless little Japanese rice cake. When I finally pulled out the tray, I couldn't tell mochi from turnover, and the result was delicious.

Many famous foods are said to have been created by accident. Among these are Wheaties and American Cheese, which I'm guessing came into being when a fifth grade class on a field trip to a cheese factory all accidentally dropped their retainers into a vat of cheddar at the same time, giving us that plasticky non-cheese we all know and do not love.

In this case, the strange, new thing that lay between the two baked goods was absolutely divine; fluffy yet crunchy, sweet yet still tasting of whole grains and rich egg. I'll do my darndest to play with it again some time soon and keep you posted, because I really think I'm onto something. Mocheggy, anyone?

Heat: 0, Aaron: 1.

Oreo No-No

In my book, Oreo starts with a few strikes against it. First off, it's one of the many freaks of modern food science designed to disguise as much government subsidized GMO corn as possible. I also have never liked the texture, at least outside of ice cream. But now I have a new reason to hate the Oreo: it purports to be a tool for racial healing.

In a commercial I recently saw before the unfortunate experience of watching Iron Man, a white man shares an Oreo with his apparently mixed race, Spanish speaking son. The father dopily tries to follow along as his son describes how to eat an Oreo in Spanish, eventually speaking a few shaky words himself. They then share the cookie, thereby closing the cultural gap between them as though it were nothing more than vanilla "cream," which of course is actually sugar and hydrogenated oil, or until recently, lard.

I found two things unsettling about this commercial. The first is the fact that they now subject you to full commercials before a movie. The second is that the advert fails to mention that foods like Oreos are in large part responsible for the plague of diabetes and obesity affecting many lower income, often Spanish speaking families.

Forget local, sustainable and organic; households such as the real life equivalent of the family in the commercial have less and less access to anything that isn't heavily processed. For instance, vegetables. What do they have? Oreos. And now anyone from such a community who saw Iron Man will be that much more likely to eat one.

Also, does Nabisco think their cookie has the validity to become a symbol of racial harmony because of its color scheme? Guess Seinfeld was right.

(photo courtesy of Steve Gorlin)

Last Chance for La Tene

Stay tuned for a longer post on the tale of La Tene, but for the time being, know that this incredible, local to Boston, artisanal chocolatier has only 10 boxes remaining of its final batch. This despite the fact that it is hands down the finest chocolate I've ever tasted.

Tea and Food contributor and La Tene founder Brendan Gannon recently sent out an e-mail with the following message:

"Sad to say, la tene chocolatier is closing its doors. The last batch of chocolate is done and being boxed up. It has been a tremendously rewarding experience, and I look forward to continued involvement in the fine chocolate world. Thanks for your interest and support, and thanks for being a chocolate person."

But what would be really sad is if you don't hurry up and order one of those ten boxes here:

http://www.latenechocolate.com/

My Mom's Banana Bread

I recently received the following comment: "Aaron, I saw your post on "bitten." Can you share your mom's Banana nut tea bread?!!" Well, Anonymous, your wish is granted:

(From BETA SIGMA PHI INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK)
1 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 c mashed bananas
1/2 c thick sour cream
1/2 c chopped nuts

Sift flour soda,salt together. Combine butter,sugar,eggs, flavorings. Cream until smooth. Add bananas, sour cream, nuts and flour mixture. Beat until well blended. Turn into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 for one hour. You can substitute 1/4 cup buttermilk for sour cream.

If you think you've had better banana bread than this, you're wrong.

Margarita Pie

No, that's not a term of endearment for my girlfriend. The name is in no way misleading: it is in fact a pie made from a margarita.

I had it after a show in South Paris, Maine last night where it was listed on the Cinco De Mayo menu of the local watering hole.

This drink was also offered, but for some reason the name put me off:



The pie was basically a frozen key lime with crushed pretzels in lieu of a graham cracker crust. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, which isn't saying much.

If you're going to eat dessert at a place like the Smiling Moose, your odds are much better with a classic than with a gringo bastardization of a Mexican dessert that doesn't exist. In fact, their gingerbread was great. Just look at that foamy, melty whipped cream*!


In the end I definitely got the dose of local color I was looking for. Especially when I and my traveling companions were accosted by locals upon leaving, being asked repeatedly "where's the party?"

*By "cream" of course I mean ultra pasteurized, homogenized milk plus stabilizers, preservatives, growth hormones and antibiotics

The Donut Wars

I was in Leominster today, picking up some chocolate equipment, and seized the opportunity to visit Dippin' Donuts. Not because of anything inherently good about their donuts, or their blueberry muffins, but because Dippin' Donuts is all about giving the finger to the Man. According to my friend Hillary.

Hillary (who has family ties to the Birthplace of Plastics) told me long ago that two brothers opened up a donut shop in Leominster. In time, they came to disagree about the future of the business. One sought to expand and create a national chain...and Dunkin Donuts was it. The other wasn't interested in a franchised empire, and stayed right where he was...Dippin'.

Apocrypha? Maybe. But there is no doubt that Dippin' Donuts is giving a hearty "f@#$ you" to Dunkin. The font on their sign is conspicuously similar, the color scheme the same, and the signs on the donut racks more or less identical. Moreover, the selection of donuts is a page right out of DD's three ring binder. Conspicuously absent: the "NO TIPPING" sign seen increasingly at Dunkies. And my favorite thing of all--in response to DD's Milky Way Hot Chocolate--was the handmade sign on the front door extolling their Almond Joy Hot Chocolate. These guys don't miss a trick. Coincidentally(?), Almond Joy is licensed to the Hershey Company, while Milky Way belongs to their archrival Mars.

Dippin's donuts are pretty much what you expect from Dunkin'. Which is a step up; in my experience when you get a donut at Dunkin' Donuts it actually turns out to be significantly worse than you expected. Here's to Dippin', and the legend of a small business shamelessly ripping off a shameless national franchise.

The Best Hamantaschen I've Ever Had

Hamantaschen are one of the few foods that I know I've eaten every single year of my life. Others include bread and, until age fifteen, pixie sticks. But these were by far the best I've ever had. Sorry, Mom.

I was doing a show for the Hillel of the University of Vermont when I discovered these gems. Standing out amongst the typical college function food, including cold fries and jalapeno poppers, I could tell right away that these were special. That careful pinching of the edges, the rustic dusting of flour, the visibly excellent crumb. I was right. Both the dough and filling were of the finest caliber, and they burst with honey sweetened, firm poppy seeds like an all tobiko sushi roll.

Before I could thank whoever had made them, he or she had vanished like Vashti. But that didn't stop me from stealing all the leftovers like Haman.

Honey Syrup Revani

For centuries, fans of the semolina cake known as revani, or ravani, have asked: why bake a moist cake when you can make a dry one and then soak the sh*t out of it?

A revani marries the coarse texture of semolina with a deluge of tooth-aching syrup. I followed Joyce Goldstein's recipe from her book "Sephardic Flavors," in which you bake the cake by folding in whites, yolks, butter, semolina and a touch of "regular" flour. Goldstein then juices hers up with a syrup made from sugar, water and lemon, but I opted for warmed honey with tons of fresh lemon juice.

I suspected all the separating and folding might be excessive, but apparently it wasn't enough. The cake turned out a bit tough and dry, the syrup not quite penetrating to the core. Still, it was mesmerizing to watch the inch-deep golden fluid slowly disappear into the cake.

Hazelphants

The other night I spotted this small herd of Hazelphants on the table and was able to get a couple photos before they lumbered off. Few are now seen in the wild, caught as they are between diminishing habitat and the rising cost of hazelnuts. Some of the Hazelphants appear to be juveniles, which is encouraging in terms of the future population. While chocolate shops are rife with their chief predator (humans), the shop is also known for its tendency toward speciation. Within a few generations, these Hazelphants could be another flavor altogether.