Game Over Popover

I have childhood memories of this pastry, of my Mother's effortless ability to make a light fluffy bread stuff with a hard golden brown shell. I remember them as a treat, a once in a year delicacy that we enjoyed unceremoniously and without warning, delivered to our breakfast table as if from some other world. Up until about the last ten months I have never attempted to recreate this culinary feat, judging, as I had, from the memory of their heavenliness that they would be entirely too complicated for a mere galley slave to recreate. Growing in confidence however, and wishing to share this airy delight with my wife I have endeavored to pursue this breakfast Shangrila.

Here are the sad results. Popovers with no POP.

What went wrong? I have no idea. I've tried to make them about half a dozen times now and have suffered these same results. I asked my Mom what I might've done wrong and she suggested that I probably forgot to add the baking powder. Baking Powder? What baking powder? The recipe doesn't call for baking powder. It's all right there in black and white, page 42 in the Betty Crocker cookbook:

2 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

Being as Betty Crocker is the go-to book in our family for all things baking I was pretty sure that my Mom had been following that same recipe for all these years. When I told her that the recipe didn't call for any baking powder she just kind of scratched her head and laughed. "Well honey, I don't know, I guess it doesn't. Maybe you should try adding some."

I appreciated the advice but I was a little alarmed. I know that I've portrayed my Mom as a kind of conjuror of amazing comfort foods, but the truth is she isn't in touch with any kind of magical cooking ability at all. In my childhood minds eye I imagined her as a sort of witch standing over her cauldron, mixing together concoctions from the odds and ends of some netherkingdom. I have come to realize in my adulthood however that my Mother's cooking style is less like a freewheeling occultists and more like that of a research scientists. She is about the most obsessive recipe fanatic that I know. She doesn't just fling ingredients at a dish without having some peer reviewed document to back up her actions. Her expertise is in her attention to detail and the selection of equipment not the creativity she brings to it. So you can imagine my surprise at this sudden shift in her attitude. We don't just go around adding baking powder to failed recipes. For one thing that's not what Betty Croker says to do, for another thing it's not very scientific.

It's like when I was a kid I'd heard that flour was combustible. I wasn't privy to the conditions under which this was a danger but took the information to mean that if, say, I took flour, put it in a metal pipe and lit a fuse to it that it would blow up bigger than shit. As anyone knows who has tried this experiment at home flour pipe bombs are about as effective as smoking banana peels. I tried everything, I shoved a sparkler into the flour bomb, I tried firecrackers, I threw the whole thing in a fire and ran like hell. Nothing worked. I'd about given up hope when a neighbor kid told me that one of the key ingredients in gunpowder was sulfur. The year before I'd received my first chemistry set for a Christmas present and was fairly certain that sulfur was among the little white bottles in the case. I thought for sure that I'd cracked the code, that I would have my bomb and the elementary school up the hill would soon be destroyed. Yes, things were really beginning to come together. I took my flour bomb and mixed in a generous amount of sulfur, repacked it in the pipe and inserted a fuse. I carried it up to the school and set it next to the goal post on the soccer field for a test run. I lit the fuse and ran for cover. I was so sure that there would be a massive explosion that I'd worn extra clothing to protect from shrapnel and stuffed my ears with cotton so as not to blow out my eardrums.

You can imagine the results. And you can take this little anecdote as an object lesson on how the processes of baking are not effected by even the most creative of urges. At least in the observable Universe we are stuck with the recipe on page 42, unable to add or subtract for better results. Our failures are not inherent in the design of the recipe but in our own inability to accurately reproduce it. If my Popovers don't POP then by god it is not Betty's fault. The blame must be sought elsewhere. The ingredients might be old. Or the oven's thermostat might be faulty. Or perhaps the equipment I've been using is poorly designed for the project. Whatever the reason it should not lead me to doubt the science behind a hundred year old baking recipe. This shit is not witchcraft. It's science.

(I have to confess that at one point I thought that maybe my Mom's Popovers, and Betty's and my Grandmother's and all women I'd observed have success making these culinary conundrums had to do with some mysterious feminine quality. Like they were inherently more yeasty than men and therefor imparted more rise to their baked goods. This is a totally unscientific observation, but women are much more susceptible to yeast infections and that would lead one to believe that the two have some sort of natural connection. I'm sure this is just more of my flour + sulfur = explosives kind of calculus, but when your Popovers aren't popping you're prepared to believe just about anything.)

For a while I tried to put this Popover thing behind me. I'd run the gamut of problems and decided that the problem was me. I just wasn't cut out to make something that required such diligence and attention to detail. Then at Christmas time a miracle happened. My Mom, having stored this Popover frustration of mine in the cavernous region of her brain reserved for potential gift ideas, had thought to purchase me a genuine"Popover Pan" for a present. I knew that things like Popover pans existed but had always shied away from such products in favor of ordinary kitchen wares. I strive to be a low tech cook, but lately I've found my collection of odds and ends accumulating. I have a confession. I own a bunt pan. I also own a spring pan for making cheese cake, I have biscuit cutters, two biscuit pans, I have a zester, several contraptions to slice cheese, a melon baller, a dozen ramekins, a jello mold, all kinds of specialty equipment that verges on superfulous but for one possible utility. Some of it came from when my wife and I got married, but a lot of it came from the same woman who was now coming to the rescue with this Popover pan.

When will the madness end?

Should a man have to bow to these gadgets so that he can have what he wants, or is it unreasonable to ask oneself to go through life without enjoying a Popover now and then? In the science vs. nature debate I'm much more inclined toward nature. Nature seems less complicated and more comfortable to me. Besides that it doesn't shove math in your face at every turn. Of course technology has it's allures. Popovers are like the atom bomb of culinary achievements. You drop these little babies on your guests and you're sure to cement your place as a cooking superpower.

It's interesting to note that the invention of the Popover (and more generally the American quick-bread) coincides to the rise of the Second Industrial Revolution. English muffins and European breads are almost all leavened with yeast. What sets American quick-breads apart are that they are all chemically leavened, first in the late 1700's with pearlash, a refined form of potash that created carbon dioxide gas in the dough through an acid base reaction, and then in the 1850's with what we now know as baking powder, sodium bicarbonate. Both inventions allowed for the removal of unwanted fermentation flavors from some baking goods and cut down on the time required to prepare these products. Whereas European style leavened breads were formed into rising doughs these new inventions were of a wetter admixture and necessitated the use of special pans in which to contain the "batter". This is where we get the gem pan, or the cupcake pan. Incidentally the first reference to the source of my nickname, "cup cake" appeared in 1828 in a cookbook by Eliza Leslie. Before the mid-to-late 19th century these gem pans were not widely available. There were cast-iron varieties but their real proliferation began once the sheet metal press became more common place in industrial production. Before the gem pan people often used tea cups and/or clay ramekins for baking these quick-breads.

An early gem pan. This one looks to be some sort of casted piece, but you get the idea.

It wasn't until 1876 that the word Popover occurred in a cookbook by Mary Foote Henderson called "Practical cooking and dinner giving: A treatise containing practical instructions in cooking; in the combination and serving of dishes; and in the fashionable mode of entertaining at breakfast, lunch, and dinner" p. 71. I'd like to state for the record that there is no baking powder in Mary's recipe either, and confirms my suspicion that this particular concoction has remained unchanged for more than a century.

Mary like Betty offers the reader several options on what to cook their popovers in. In Mary's time, having formally introduced the recipe to the world, there wasn't the specialized equipment that is available in this age of the Popover pan and so could only offer roll and gem pans, or, as a last resort, tea cups. By press time in 1991 there were Popover pans aplenty on the market in the U.S. so Betty is all for using one. Well, alright then, lets give this damn thing a whirl. If this pan doesn't take my Popovers into outerspace then I don't think I'll ever deliver that atomic pay load.

Here are the results.

Damn you Oppenheimer. Another dud.

I've used the same ingredients, I've used the same equipment, even exceeded its rudimentary requirements, gone through the same procedures but still haven't been able to repeat the experiment.

I guess it's either back to the drawing board or it's time to put this chapter in my cooking history behind me.

Anybody want to buy a Popover Pan?

One last thing before I sign off. We've appealed to science for assistance and understanding, I think it's only fair to appeal to someone on the other end of the spectrum. Here is a recipe from King Arthur that claims to guarantee a never fail popover. On a Quest? Who better to turn to than King Arthur.

Why didn't I think of this sooner.

Fisher Poet's Gathering 2011

I'd like to start by apologizing for the infrequency of the blog these last few months. I suck in the one off blog department. I've tried in the past to just fire one off in an evening but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm addicted to revision and polish. I know it may not seem like it from some of my past entries but I swear I try, and try hard. I can promise you that I've been cooking up a storm at home though. Sadly between work, making dinner, chores around the house, bowling, drinking and wife, I've hardly had the time or energy to put fingers to keyboard and get this thing off the ground again. This will change. I'm looking at a potentially long lay-off so there will be time by god, there will be blogs, and they will be good damn it. You're just going to have to bare with me.

In the meantime I have a few selections from my poetry that I'd like to share with you. This weekend my wife and I will be attending the 14th annual Fisher Poet's Gathering in Astoria, Oregon and they have invited yours truly to read a few poems. This will be my first FPG so by no means will I be a headliner, but with any luck I will at least tickle the eardrums of some in attendance. I'll be reading Friday night at the Wet Dog Saloon, early, at about 5:30 pm. Hope you can make it, but if not, here is what I will be firing off at the audience.


Calluses (an Ode to Billy McGee)

It’s funny this fishing how it screws with your mind
How you’re sure that you’ll love it from now to all time
And you’d bet that your body and bet that your soul
Could take all its punishment and pay all its tolls
For the sea that you challenge and threaten from land
Hardly seems cause for worry from the place you now stand
But your talk in its largess and bold manly stripe
Disappears on the ocean as the land falls from sight
For once out on deck you are seized by this grief
That your head turns in terror and your heart’s lost its teeth

It’s been only three weeks or at most a mere score
Since your last season ended and your feet they hit shore
When you tied off the fat ropes to the cleats on the dock
And you wrapped all the capstans so the lines would be taught
And locked up the hatches and pumped all the holds
So you could return to the mainland and it’s warm earthy folds
Find rest for a while in a safe and snug place
Before resuming the grind at that impossible pace

And you said it yourself that night that you left
You were drunk on martinis and feeling your best
But thought to leave with a warning and a very fine oath
So promised to work out enough for us both
To do countless push-ups and a thousand knee bends
For one’s salvation and health it would surely depend
The season that’s coming, you remarked with a laugh
Would beat down the souls of all who proved chaff
And kill all the weaklings who’d loafed on their break
So it was best if I listened and didn’t make that mistake
If it was one thing, you said, that fishing had taught
Youth was the first thing that one’s body forgot
And though you weren’t twenty, and long past your prime
You’d built up some calluses at least on your mind.

I remembered those words as I watched you behave
As you sorted the crab and pushed pots like a slave
I could tell that you’d faltered and were feeling the pain
Of advice that you’d haltered but proved to be lame
Your limbs looked like jelly and your feet filled with lead
Your continence in great worry, newly back from the dead
That oath you’d stood by and impressed with great force
Had obviously left you and filed for divorce
Fed up with your drinking and your tom-catting around
Your strength was now sinking, your heart nearly drowned
Betrayed for the last time and stabbed in the back
They’d conspired against you in a suicide pact
And delighted in the spectacle of watching you writhe
Even though this satisfaction would mean both their lives

But then something happened just as your strength had retired
Just as your heart had collapsed and all your hope had expired
The Ocean reared up, a vision of doom
Of calamitous horror and icy cold gloom
Her rage blind with rancor her loins a tempest
Her fist frozen hatred and breath full of piss
She struck without warning, without mercy or cause
And laid out us deckhands as if smote by bear claws
Raked us to portside where we crashed ‘gainst the rail
Pushed us toward destiny toward that stark lonely pale
The boat pitching sideways such a force was her clap
That two of us greenhorns nearly fell in her lap
But for you, who I’d figured a goner for certain
Emerged out of nowhere to hold back the curtain
And snatch us both back from that forever embrace
From that sort of adoption that no mother could trace
And heaved on our boots the seeming strength of an ape
You ripped us from danger like you’d flung back a drape
“Get up,” you cried then, a giant smile on your face
“Stop lying around like some kind of disgrace.
There’s work to be done, another two strings to go
You say the Ocean’s pissed off, well let the bitch blow
She can try all she wants, to throw a wrench in the gears
But I’ll be damned straight to hell if she’ll bring me to tears.”
And you turned from us then rushing hard for the hook
Yelling “Bags on the bow,” with a crazed sort of look

The rest of the day I watched in great wonder
As you rose like a phoenix from the weights you’d been under
And took up the deck as if held in one fist
To squeeze out its juices, it’s blood and it’s piss
To drink back the strength that those boards thought to drain
As they’d sucked out your life and tried to leave only stains
But you’d risen above them and escaped from the snare
That you’ll admit you helped set now if we’re going to be fare
“Sure,” you said later, “I’ll take most the blame.”
I know what I did, you won’t hear me complain,
But the advice that I gave you should be taken to heart
It’s for every greenhorn whose just making his start
But for me and my habits it no longer makes sense
I’d rather bet on my calluses to provide my defense.”


Attack of the Angry Seamen

Oh lonely Sea what a mistress
You’ve been to me over the years
You’ve blown away all my distress
And absorbed all of my tears
But now that I’ve truly made landfall
Settled up for the voyage I’ve made
It seems futile to argue and forestall
That it’s about time I oughta get laid

I know that you’ve warned me against it
Of making traffic with their feminine kind
But be reasonable for an instant
Did you get a look at that woman’s behind?
Or how about those titties
Or how about those legs
I’ll wave my pride and say please
I’ll get down on my knees and beg

For these Angry Seamen aboard ship
Are aching for some kind of reprieve
And searching for any open slip
That will offer them some relief
And catch their lines in a hurry
Make them fast but not too tight
And won’t trouble them with any worry
If their affections are just for a night

So off they go down the gangplank
Hysterical, lusty and ripe
Destined to meet up with some scank
Destined to get in a fight
Blinded by powerful spirits
Emboldened by perilous states
They no longer comprehend what fear is
No longer think or hesitate

So a warning to all of you lawmen
Some advice to you virginal souls
These rogues are not merely pretend
And conversation not merely their goals
They’ll terrorize your village
And colonize your loins
Your decency they will pillage
And bastards they will coin

They were born of the Symplegades
Whose narrow channel barely released
The spawn of Gomorrah and Hades
The nightmare of Kings and priests
Men who were made of the Tempest
Men calling Ocean their homes
Men who live under their own crest
And write their own sacred tomes

For the Sea she has made their mettle
Strong tempered with lustrous brand
Not intended to be hen-pecked or settled
Collared or fed from one’s hand
But seduced after long adventure
Some of these do get caught and destroyed
By civilization and it’s censure
And the Siren’s its thought to employ

But fear not my beautiful mistress
For your lover will always return
He may be a wit and a sperm less
But his passion for you will still burn
And you can scold him with thundering rancor
Salt Peter his Profligate
But don’t expect that next time he drops anchor
He’ll sit tight and just masturbate

Expect another great Mutiny
Hatched down deep below decks
Where Adam is offered the whole fruit tree
And the devil fingers suspects
Where Angry Seamen cajole him
To make land on the next of high tides
But know that your love and your strength surely hold him
If upon the rocks his soul should collide.



Lay Your Anchor Down

Oh six hundred we idled in
To that morning mist and seagulled din
Atop the bow we stood against
A bitter breeze less stiff than tense
And braced ourselves against the lash
Of that squawking voice from metal gash
The hailer crackling as the skipper groused
A tiresome squelch down from the house
Four shots now boys free wheel away
And we dropped the anchor into that bay

The chain sang out as it went
Caroming across those rusty dents -
It’d left behind from those times before
When we’d let it out an untold score
In a thousand coves just like this one
It’d be a thousand more before we’re done

It seemed that way, at least, at last
As our futures mixed up with our pasts
And we stared into that thickly haze
And visions lost leapt through our gaze
Of happy times, of sun, of land
Of smiles and laughs and moistened glands
When times were good and worth remembering
Instead of poisoned, lost, and dismembering
Scattered round by wind and tide
On a hopeless voyage we now abide
Boredom broader than the seas
Loneliness that brings you to your knees
And doubt more crippling than the cross
A panic stricken tempest toss
When prayer no longer holds us fast
And we’ve dealt the devil down to our last
It’s hard just then to carry on
To not imagine your woman gone
Your plants dried up, your pets all dead
Oceans emptying inside your head
A scuttled ship, a year at sea
Flotsam floating like spirits freed
Your life evading in spindrift
Closed and fading in this rift
Swallowed up by two great waves
You grabbed the shovel and dug your grave
You married that anchor as it went down
The vows you spoke were what made you drown

And all because you hoped to seek
Some vague adventure and Sinbad chic
To tell your friends and swoon the girls
That you’d conquered the seas and its frosty curls
That you’d rode its monsters and combed its shores
That the life you’d led was not sold in stores
But genuine and tough to boot
A raucous, raging, authentic hoot
With anecdotes that bared repeating
And characters that life’s not cheating
Things that only you could tell
Like Dante bursting out of hell

It was this, this lie so self-convinced
That had made your life into this mince
And discovered you there upon that deck
A hapless tenderman on a rusty wreck
Stranded again in some nameless bay
With nothing to do but count the days
And share them with some tedious lot
Whose conversation is like dried blood clot
Whose antics have all gotten old
And stories are all thrice told
Whose powers of simple comprehension
Had suffered some great declension
And were worsening on toward some bitter break
Where God might be blamed for His mistake
And man might suffer in that blunder
To stand on deck and out loud might wonder

“What the fuck am I doing here?”


And last but not least, this is my wife's favorite poem and my little PSA against abusing our sea going friends. I know you can get frustrated out there on deck, the long hours, the gruelling pace, and I know that when people get tired and uncomfortable they have a tendency to lash out at things around them, but please, don't take it out on the seagulls. Some species of gulls on the Bering Sea live to be sixty years old. So remember that you little greenhorn punks before you start kicking them around on deck. Don't hate the player, yo, hate the game. (That's my attempt to reach out to the Young Urban Cod Killers, or any other of those dosche bags that think their tough guys because they fish on the Bering Sea. Reality check asshole, seagulls are way tougher than you'll ever be!)


Guts

Would I had a seagulls guts
To carry on through life’s hard ruts
And raise aloft in any weather
Smooth and light and tough as leather
Its eye so keen and always looking
Body lean but never brooking
Always searching for a tiny scrap
Of wood, of meat, of any crap
To swallow whole and add to nourish
Its meager soul will surely flourish
for every bit however small
takes wit and strength from every gull
to claim for self what others want
their gift of life comes from no font
but is won from strife, and hard learning
they stoke a fire that’s always burning
and fly and fly for what seems like days
and try and try in so many ways
to eke a living out in the foam
over endless ocean they endless roam
and hardly blink as if it’s all so easy
as if the gale we face to them’s just breezy
and the giant waves that crash on us
to them too small to raise a fuss
and the rotten bait that would make us wretch
seems a delicious meal they’d love to catch
and the winks of sleep we so desire
leave them wondering, why so tired?
It’s in their eyes this dogged streak
Compared to them our souls are weak
so when I take them in my hand
For on the deck they can not stand
I try to treat them with respect
For though their life looks like a speck
Their example helps me endure the pain
The bitter cold and icy rain
The long and terrible monotonous hours
My cramping legs and fading powers
I release them gently to join their kind
And hope to god that they’re strength I’ll find.


Skater demonstrates the proper way to handle a gull.

(Picture of Skater used without permission. Don't hurt me.)

Frankenfoodaphobia - Irrational Fear or Substantive Argument

There is a fable from the Physiologus of the 2nd century A.D. about a mythical beast called the Fastiticalon. Known in ancient times as the Asp Turtle this creature would float on the surface of the sea waiting with its mouth wide and exuding its sweet smelling breath until enough fish were lured into its great jaws for it to sate its evil appetite. Reputedly the model for the Whale who swallowed Jonah and the Christian image of the Mouth of Hell, the Fastiticalon also, in its spare time, would deceive weary sea travelers into mistaking it for a safe moorage. Once ashore, secure in their landfall, the sailors would unwittingly lay a fire to cook their victuals and thus awaken the slumbering beast causing it to sound and take them to their watery grave. Each of the Physiologus’ tales of various creatures comes with a moral and the leviathans’ moral is this, “such is the way of demons, the wont of devils; they spend their lives in outwitting men by their secret power, inciting them to the corruption of good deed[s]…”

There are several other noteworthy myths and legends that provide cautionary tales that speak to our growing dependence on GM foods, but I’ve chosen to use the Fastiticalon because I think it best illustrates our belief that Genetically Modified Food amounts to some auspitious landfall on the banks of Food Security. GMO is often wrapped in this fleece of “Feeding the World” and Biotech in general is given the status of Silver Bullet not only to the economic woes of the United States but the food and health woes of the World. It promises us in the U.S. a renewed Economic Relevance in the World Marketplace and also plays upon an old saw in our National mythology that America will, not unlike the Lone Ranger, come riding to the World’s rescue. Feeding the world is no mean goal, and it would be laudable if it weren’t just another part of the false promise of GMO food. The fact of the matter is that world food production is already operating at a surplus. There is enough food to feed the hungry. So we have to ask ourselves. Why GMO foods? Will they be cheaper to produce? Will the surplus grow to such an extent that farmers will be forced to give away what they can’t sell?

It’s a confusing issue, and I want to apologize now for the bookish feel of this post. I want to try to get this right and somehow my usual off the cuff screeds don’t seem to promise much chance of that. So I’m going to be a little more analytical and a little less pissed off, though this topic is far from calming or reassuring to me. If you haven’t noticed already, I love food. I love fishing and I love gardening and I love everything about a wholesome, natural diet. So the idea that some scientist is going to sit in his sterile little lab and form my future food choices kind of irks me. Who the fuck asked him anyway? I mean, I haven’t exactly seen a line of picketers outside my neighborhood grocery store demanding more GMO foods. On the contrary, I think people on the whole are a little wary of them and would like nothing more than to at least know when they’re eating something Genetically Modified. That seems reasonable doesn’t it? I’d like to know what I’m putting into my body. I do read the labels and contrary to what the big wigs at Food Production Central (i.e. Monsanto, ADM, Kraft) say, I am not confused by them. I understand things like Milk, Sugar, Tomato, Carrot, Salt, etc… I have issues with some of the weirder compounds they’ve introduced into food like pyrophosphate, xanthum gum, sodium metabisulfite, calcium disodium EDTA, and the like so I just try to avoid processed foods containing them. I don’t think consumers (I hate referring to myself as a consumer, but that is the catchall for human these days so I may as well own up to it) should be deemed stupid for not holding an advanced chemistry degree. The onus should be on the food corporations for explaining their process and the chemicals they use to make their products. This however is not the way our marketplace operates.

Corporations are shielded from disclosing how they produce their food concoctions by citing proprietary concerns. They wouldn’t want their competitors finding out how they’ve managed to slip all this useless garbage into our food for fear that they might mimic them and drive up the price of their chemical fillers. Plus the chemical companies who produce the additives can’t chance having their processes discovered for the same reasons. What if someone just started producing pyrophosphate in their garage and undercut their business?

It’s all very absurd when you consider that most of the food production in this country is owned and operated by a very few corporate entities and many of their processes are industry standards. Who isn’t using high fructose corn syrup, or modified corn starch these days? Why can’t we see how that shit is made? They all know, so why are they still hiding it from us, the consumer?


It’s been suggested that the absence of truthful labeling (namely for GM products) and the secrecy surrounding the food industries additive addiction has to do with tracking the physical effects on the consumer. Since testing is largely in the hands of the companies who are petitioning the FDA for approval there really hasn’t been much objective study on these products and compounds. If there were accurate labeling then a connection might be made say, to a spate of ailments linked to a certain products consumption. This of course would not be beneficial to the companies producing these products. If say a GM food were to cause birth defects or unforeseen allergic reactions or any number of other poor outcomes then that company might be liable for damages. Instead they aren’t expected to be held responsible for the experiment they are conducting on us with their futuristic foods. Their word that the product is safe is good enough for the FDA, the USDA and the EPA, so why shouldn’t it be good enough for us?

Personally I’m a little skeptical of our government’s rubber stamp. I find it curious and a little frightening that the heads of many of these government organizations are former Food Corp executives. Most of them hail from Monsanto, who incidentally has the biggest stake in GM foods, on both the seed patenting side and the herbicide.

Just the idea that life can be patented, the human genome for example, or a specific type of seed, galls me.

Companies who engage in this patent process (Monsanto has over 11,000 separate seed patents) seek to make life itself their proprietary concern. This to me is the biggest absurdity, and the fact that our courts have allowed this to happen (Justice Clarence Thomas was once the head counsel for, you guessed it, Monsanto) should be reason enough to throw them out on their ears. No judge that deems this process a fair and reasonable standard of business should be sitting on our highest court, or any court for that matter.

Many of the patents now held are of unmodified organisms, meaning essentially that all that is required to take legal control of a thing is to describe it and enter a patent before anyone else.

Mapping the human genome was not a form of creation. The process of mapping is perhaps, but the subject matter, the actual thing described was already in existence long, long before it was ever “discovered” by man. It is in fact Man. To me this is reason enough to distrust the logic of anyone who would argue that our genes should be subject to patent law.

Often in our history “discovery” has been an automatic justification for ownership. We are finding however that this argument breaks down on certain levels. Columbus “discovered” the New World and claimed it for the Portuguese. Later other European nations sent explorers and they claimed portions of it for their kingdoms. Their ownership did not however go unopposed and they sought, despite their believed god given rights to the territory, to mollify the indigenous population by either buying the property from them or directing their attention toward other concerns, such as neighboring tribes who held more desirable property. Usually these contracts were drawn up in the “discoverers” favor and used terms and principles the natives were unfamiliar with. If the contracts were honored at all by the “discoverers” it was only on account of some provision that guaranteed that their ultimate ownership was legitimate and justified.

Now I’m not running a give back the land campaign for my friends the Native Americans or anything, I only bring this up to illustrate and draw parallels to what is happening today. Contracts on our lives have been drawn. Patents on our genes, on the food we eat, on the animals we hunt and raise for food threaten to put us under the same subjugation our European ancestors had the Natives and Slaves. I know that’s a strong statement but let’s look at some simple examples.

In the United States Monsanto has the right to sue any farmer whose crops can be shown to contain genes identical to the ones they have under patent. This may sound reasonable on the surface but take for example a farmer who resists using Monsanto’s products and has saved his own seeds for replanting. If his crops get cross pollinated or contaminated by neighboring crops carrying the Monsanto genes then Monsanto has the right to drag the farmer into court and sue them for damages. Farmers who resist Monsanto are often targeted by their agents who routinely trespass on their property to gather samples in the hopes of being able to sue them as a means of intimidation. Monsanto alone is involved in over 5000 of these cases a year.

And even if you have given in to Monsanto and bought their seed and it’s corresponding herbicides you are subject to penalties for saving and trying to replant seed from the resulting crops. Monsanto and other GM seed manufacturers have sought to make it part of the contractual agreement that seed only be used once and then repurchased every year. Unable to enforce this agreement in every case Monsanto and others have come up with something they refer to as a Terminator Gene that in effect makes it impossible for the resulting plant to reproduce.

And as if this Terminator Technology weren’t scary enough I come to find out that the co-owner of its US patent is our own friendly United States Government. Where is George Orwell when you need him?

There are also GM seeds in the works that will have to be sprayed with a proprietary chemical in order to germinate.

Wow!

By now you must be asking yourself, is it really the goal of these companies to feed the World?

We’ll get back to that in a minute. First I’m curious just how they do it? How is this amazing science performed? If you listened to the GM Food Corp spokes it’s all just as simple and natural as the original process of seed selection and cross pollination. It’s what farmers have been doing for thousands of years only better. It’s Agriculture “on steroids”. This I’m afraid is disingenuous to say the least. Fortunately for us the process by which plants and animals are genetically modified is not a proprietary issue and we’ve been able to see just how suspect and frightening it really is. For a more complete rundown I highly recommend Deborah Koons Garcia’s documentary “The Future of Food”, but in a nutshell here’s how it works.

A genetic trait from one plant or animal is inserted into the cell of another plant or animal using a vector, like a virus or bacteria, which are joined with the genetic material and used to penetrate the cell wall and change the composition of that plant or animal at the cellular level. Where do the virus and bacteria go once they’ve accomplished their task? How are they controlled in the process so as to make their presence wholly innocuous? We don’t know. Or at least that much wasn’t explained.

This to me seems like a very risky business. And one not to be undertaken with such a cavalier attitude. Man has never been known for his abilities of foresight. Typically he is a capricious and venal creature, more apt to favor the short money than the long view. He may profess all kinds of laudable goals but often his motivations are base and angled more toward his own enrichment.
Ronald Stotish chief executive of Aqua Bounty Technologies claims his product, the genetically modified salmon is a response to the threat of overfishing and increased demand. He says that by creating a fish that can grow at twice the rate and three times the size of the natural stock his company hopes to provide the “healthy kind of diet that Americans are used to…” (1) and hopes to counteract some of the stresses put on wild stocks by overfishing and industrialization. Faced with concerns about the possibility of escape into the wild his company promises to keep their facilities inland and further guarantees that their fish will not breed in the wild by making them all sterile.

Sounds terrific! When can we start? Honestly I just can’t take this guys word that all of these miracles of science will work out in the flawless, wholesome, American way that he’s cooked up. I mean, won’t the run-off and waste from his fish farms be contributing to the very industrial degradation that has caused the decline of wild fish? And should they escape, god forbid, and reproduce, won’t his fish pose a threat to wild fish by out-competing wild stocks for the limited resources in the already depleted industrial estuaries? And lastly, won’t his fish, should they gain a strong foothold in the natural environment be exactly that, his fish, making commercial salmon fishing some kind of trespass against Aqua Bounties patented property?

You can see why I’m having my reservations. Not only do I not want to see another form of industrialized farming come to prominence (genetic or otherwise) but I don’t care to see agriculture and civilization destroy one of the last truly valuable natural resources. Instead of trying to nullify the effects of industrialization by using science to artificially replicate the fruits of nature maybe we ought to try knocking down a few dams. Maybe try not to pollute our rivers and streams. Or try favoring the food that comes to us naturally to a pile of gold we might find at the end of some rainbow upstream (No Pebble Mine!).

We’ll leave off now with a word from the bible; “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil…” 1 Timothy 6, verse 7-10

It’s important to remember when you hear these stories about Feeding the World, these faith based pronouncements about how Science will save us from our bad behavior that the people promising these things are often doing it to some cynical purpose. Or maybe they’re not being cynical. Maybe they’re swept up in the faith themselves. Who knows. Just try to remember that this idea of speed, a faster growing fish, a bumper crop, etc, is not of a humanitarian origin, but of an economic one. Convenience, mass production, these things were not contrived for an egalitarian purpose, but rather in the service of numerical increase. Its money lust that drives these inventions. Believe me, Mother Teresa would never have captained a factory trawler, nor headed a multi-national Food Corporation in the hopes of doing some ultimate good for mankind. It’s bullshit. Don’t fall for it.

The best we can do short of Saving the World is to stay away from GM foods. We’re not going to get any help heading off this natural catastrophe from our government so we have to defund the operations by refusing to consume their products. We can eat wild fish. We can buy organic. We can patronize local farms and farmers markets. And we can get out the hoe and plant a garden ourselves. Do like they did in WW II and have yourself a Victory Garden. We’re fighting against the same forces here people, they’re just wearing lab coats and dollar signs this time instead of swastikas.

(1) Reuters

Food Pornography: Wet and Wild

This is something I made a while back but I was struck by the picture today while going through some old photos of things we've eaten. I call this Blackened Wild Sockeye Salmon over Spanish Rice Salad. I can't really describe how good this was. Blackened fish is probably our favorite but Salmon in general is hard to screw up. I'm preparing an experimental dish as I write this, a Salmon dish with tomatillas and chipotle butter. I'll be working on getting a post up with the recipe and details in the coming week or so. I'd also like to touch on the controversy over genetically modified Salmon, so-called Frankenfish. So stay tuned, and eat right. Always eat Wild fish!

Food Pornography Series: Morning Wood

Welcome to a new series I'm putting together called Food Pornography. I take a lot of pictures of the food my wife and I eat at home (and sometimes at restaurants too) and would like to begin sharing those photos with you. This is just a taste of how we eat and how, with a little effort, you can eat too. For my first offering we have this mornings breakfast, coconut and chocolate chip pancakes with agave syrup, bacon, berries and fried plantans. The plantans were fried in regular veggie oil and then drizzled with honey and a sprinkle of powdered sugar. For a Saturday this is pretty typical. Breakfast is around 9:30, then maybe a little nap or an outting. Today we're going to Oktoberfest in Deming.

Love your Food and it will Love you back

My wife and I went out to a Mexican restaurant in town the other night and I thought I'd try one of their "traditional" entrees instead of playing it safe with an enchilada or burrito. I ordered the Pollo Chipotle, a chicken dish made with peppers and onions and these really amazing smoked peppers. I was all excited about it because I really love chipotle but when the food reached the table I thought I was staring into a steaming plate of dog vomit. Over in the corner of the plate were a smattering of pale milky looking beans and some rice that looked like it was some kind of revenge for the Alamo. I could see my wife looking over the table at the viscera on my plate and shaking her head. "You're not going to eat that are you?" Honestly I didn't think I should. But being as I was a little buzzed and hate wasting food I made a good show of it and tried a few bites. I won't lie, it wasn't half bad, but it wasn't half good either. It was obvious to me that this entree had not been put together with any sort of love. Now I realize that 12.95 is not going to get you very far in the love department, but come on people, how long are we gonna stand for this? We're not hogs. At least I don't feature myself a hog and don't expect to be fed like one. Not at any price.

Don't accept it. There's no reason to eat soulless food. I promise you, you can do better. Even if what you cook lacks flavor, or gets burnt, or borders on repulsive it will at least have something that no McDonald's hamburger, or shitty Mexican entree is ever going to have. And that something is love. I know that sounds a little gay, but I can assure you this idea is not the result of some new vaginal growth. I really believe that you have to sort of make love to your food for it to give you any health benefit. Now I'm not saying you should go around raping your morning fruit or sticking your dick in the mash potatoes. And I'm not suggesting that the love you put in to your food is necessarily going to turn your can of Chef-boy-ardee into something fundamentally nutritious. For that you'll have to buy better ingredients. But what it will do is change your psychological relationship to your food.

Fishermen are notoriously bad eaters. I think I've touched on the "it'll make a turd" paradigm in other posts, but I want to point out that this mind-set is more the result of cultural influence than the restraints that we face as a niche community. A lot of times we don't have adequate refrigeration, or the time necessary to prepare a good meal, or access to fresh foods like fruit and vegetables. On a Bay Boat you may not see a green vegetable for two or three weeks. Everything you eat may come out of a can or over the gunnel. Which is fine if necessity requires it. But here on land there really is no excuse. And you kind of gain an appreciation for that when you can't get a clove of garlic or a head of broccoli to save your life. You also gain an appreciation for the advantages of counter space and for the equipment you find in a normal kitchen. Small boats don't generally have the kind of storage capacity that allows for double boilers and crepe pans or any other "specialized equipment". A lot of them rely entirely on two pans and a diesel stove to do all of their cooking, if they cook at all. I've heard stories of so called "sandwich boats" where all they ate for the entire season (four to five weeks) were peanut butter and jelly or bologna sandwiches. That kind of diet could drive anyone into the arms of McDonald's. I don't care who you are.

What I'm about to present may not exactly be the antidote for anyone suffering from four weeks of sandwich boat, but it is an example of how the Norwegian fishermen of old used to put love into something as simple and disgusting sounding as "salt cod". I learned this dish from my old crab boat captain Leif, who would wax so passionately about this particular meal that you'd have thought he'd stolen the recipe from the gods.

Before I begin I have to disclose that when I first prepared this meal I had the advantage of an expansive galley with all the pots and pans I could possibly desire. You can however make this same concoction with one frying pan and a stock pot.

Salt Cod

16oz. salted cod (rinsed and cut into two inch sections)

one rutabaga (skinned and cut into two inch pieces)

two turnips (washed and cut into two inch piece)

one parsnip (washed and cut into one inch pieces)

two carrots (washed and cut into one inch pieces)

four red potatoes (washed and halved)

one onion (sliced)
two cloves garlic (coarsely chopped)

one salt pork or four pieces of thick bacon (cut into small chunks)

butter

salt and pepper

Your very first step will be to salt some cod. This can be done in as little as a couple of hours or up to a year or more. All you need is cod (previously frozen or fresh) and some course salt, preferably rock salt like you use for making ice cream or pickling. I've done some rush jobs on salting before but personally I think the only way to get the true texture and firmness in your cod is to salt it for at least forty-eight hours. I think I had this salting on my counter for about five days. Don't worry this is not going to go bad people. Trust me, before refrigeration this was how they kept food from spoiling.

Next you will need to rinse your cod to remove the excess salt. I run it under the sink and then put it in a bowl of water. Look closely at my watch. That's 7am. During the course of the day I changed the water twice. This long of a soak is not necessary if you've only salted the fish for a couple hours, but anything over two days you should prepare yourself for a few rinses.

There's really not much else to it from there. Peel your onions, garlic, turnips and rutabaga. Chop everything according to size preferences. I like the rooty vegetables to be approximately the same size as the potatoes so that things cook evenly.

Once you get a couple of pots of water boiling you can start to drop your potatoes and veggies in to start cooking. I usually put the potatoes in first, cook them for a couple minutes, then add the rutabaga and carrots. Turnips and parsnips don't take nearly as long to cook so you want to save them to near the end. Contrary to some opinions you can cook the potatoes and the other root veggies together. Some salt cod snobs may disagree but don't listen to them, odds are they aren't doing the dishes.

In your second pot of water you will want to drop in your salt cod. These should be fairly big chucks and they should be started shortly after the potatoes. Salt cod should cook for about 35 to 45 minutes depending on how long you've salted it. There is a danger that on a short salt the cod will start to disintegrate slightly in the boiling water. The only thing I can recommend is not cooking the cod at such a rolling boil and also not cooking it quite as long.

Once the cod and the potatoes have been cooking for about twenty to twenty-five minutes you can go ahead and throw in the turnips and parsnips, and get the salt pork (or bacon) and sauteed onions going. It's important when cooking the bacon that it be cut in small chunks and that it produces a good amount of grease.

This may gross some people out but it is an integral part of the meal and should not be omitted no matter how bad your cholesterol.

In a second skillet add a little of the bacon grease or use butter, at this point it won't matter, and begin to saute the garlic and onions. My wife complained that I turned them to mush by over caramelizing them, but this is not a stir fry people. I can assure you this is how it is done. Really, do it however you want. But don't sit there and criticize how I did it if you expect me to cook for you again. You be the judge (but a silent one), doesn't that look delicious?!

O.k. now that that's settled here's the most important part of this entire meal, the assembly. You don't have to do it this way but I think for the sake of argument I'm going to say this is by far the best way. I'm missing one piece of the puzzle here and if you can find it you're a better man than me, but I've given myself fits trying to locate Norwegian flat bread. At first I thought the guys on the boat were just giving me shit, sending me out on a snipe hunt because everyone I talked to had never heard of it. They even tried to convince me that I could make the stuff by cutting the crusts off of white bread and rolling it flat with a rolling pin. To my credit I wasn't dumb enough to fall for that one but I'll be damned if I've ever come across the real thing.

As a substitute I just use plain old rye bread. No butter, no toasting, just plain and pure. On the plate you put a healthy portion of root vegetables, a nice pile of sauteed onions, a few pieces of salt cod and over the top of everything you sprinkle the salt pork (or bacon pieces) and drizzle grease over the whole thing. Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy.

If that's not love then I don't know what is.

Take that Mexican Restaurant.

Fakes and Snakes

I was doing a web search of The Deadliest Chef the other day to see what kind of visibility I was getting on Google and Yahoo when out of the blue comes this asshole from Anchorage calling himself “Alaska’s Deadliest Chef”. Where does this guy get off? Doesn’t he know that that was my idea like three or four years ago, that while I was crabbing in the Bering Sea and getting my ass kicked by brutal weather and harsh living conditions, preparing gourmet cuisine in gale force winds and twenty-five foot seas I was nurturing this idea, carefully planning my marketing strategy, dreaming of book deals and a better life. What does he think I’m just going to let some sourdough crumb bum swoop in on all that? Like just because he’s some Alaskan fossil with a little bit of cooking cred he can come waltzing in on my million dollar idea and stake his claim. I don’t think so.

Something has always bothered me about doppelgangers and people sharing my same name. My first instinct is to kill them. I get this weird feeling that as long as they are above ground, circulating and respirating in the same world that I am that somehow my life is diminished, my identity sullied by some lesser version of me. I realize that this is totally irrational and I would never act on these crazy feelings, but pushed far enough, encroached on by interlopers and hacks, I might be forced to at least kick a little ass.

Recently someone suggested that this guy’s emergence might be seen as an opportunity and that by having a little competition might be a healthy thing. Maybe this would spur me toward achieving my goals in a more timely fashion. Perhaps we could have some kind of publicized cook off. All of this is well and good, but why should I suddenly have to defend my trademark just because some toothless wash-out wants to clever up his cooking pilot, “Alaska on a Platter”. He’s all about down to earth straight talk, about promoting Alaskan Cuisine. From what I’ve read he seems like a nice enough guy but sounds about as interesting as a lovable train bum that keeps telling you the same story over and over again on a fourteen hour haul through the Nevada desert. And this idea about Alaskan Cuisine, what the hell is that? Alaskan Cuisine makes about as much sense as Alaskan Fashion. There are only three elements you need to know; flannel, sweat pants, and rubber boots. Yes there are some endearing qualities about the food you might find in Alaska. There’s a whole lot more game, and the fish is extremely fresh, but let’s not kid ourselves here, Alaska is no Mecca for haute cuisine. Unless you’re eating seal blubber straight off the ulu you aren’t doing anything they didn’t do in France or Disneyworld first.
With that said I would like to warmly encourage Mr. Stryjewski to cease and desist. Stop fooling yourself. There is nothing Deadly about your biography. And nothing that would warrant you calling yourself “Alaska’s Deadliest Chef”, unless of course you’re referring to your current post in the cafeteria of the Chester Park Senior Center.

Irish Cuisine, yet another oxymoron

I hope that last part didn’t come off as too defensive or bitter. I don’t want it to diminish this next part of the blog because in all honesty what I really care most about is writing about food.


I know I’m a little tardy but I wanted to discuss our traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of Corn Beef and Cabbage. How exactly this became an Irish thing is not entirely clear. My Grandmother who is 100% Hillbilly Irish (from the hills of Kentucky and Indiana) tells me that in Ireland they don’t eat Corn Beef on St. Patties Day. I did a little digging and found out that in fact Irish immigrants began to substitute Corned Beef for their traditional Irish Bacon around the turn of the century because it was cheaper and more widely available. They learned of Corned Beef from their Jewish neighbors in New York and Boston. I could never figure out why Rueben sandwiches became so popular for the Irish holiday. The Rueben always struck me as something you’d get in a Jewish Delicatessen not an Irish pub. I know it’s not kosher but with a name like Rueben it’s definitely not Irish either. I guess the beauty of St. Patrick’s Day is that anyone and anything gets to be Irish for a day. Irish seems to crawl from the woodwork, to seep from every crack and ooze from every hole in a person’s genealogy. Just like Cherokee, but on a less permanent basis, people want to be Irish for some reason. Maybe it’s that they have always been underdogs. Maybe it’s their cute accents and their penchant for drinking and brawling. I don’t know.

Recently my wife and her mother travelled to Ireland to visit their ancestral home. They had both been granted Irish citizenship because of their direct matrilineal link to the homeland (Cat’s grandmother immigrated to the U.S. in the late forties). I can’t say I’m not a little jealous. I’ve always fashioned myself as a bit of a Mic. Unfortunately I’m a too much of mutt to make a strong claim on my Irish heritage. If you ran across me in the streets of Dublin you’d probably think I’d taken a wrong turn at Bucharest.

I still really enjoy St. Patrick’s Day no matter how cobbled together it’s meaning and customs. I, for instance, have always celebrated it as a kind of a pagan wake for that bastard St. Patrick who came and ruined all the cool druidic traditions of “primitive” Ireland. People always say that St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland, but the truth of the matter is that there weren’t any snakes there until he arrived. Religious and symbolic feelings aside I still think St. Patrick’s Day is pretty awesome. And I think I like Corn Beef and Cabbage primarily because on that particular holiday you don’t necessarily want to be bothered with cooking some complicated meal. You want to go out and get drunk. You want to raise hell, have sex and party. Corn Beef and Cabbage affords for all of those execesses and quite honestly never disappoints. Only a complete idiot could ruin it. I mean really. How hard is it to dump a slab of meat in a pot, cover it with water, turn on the range to medium low heat and walk away for several hours? In the time I had our corn beef on the stove Cat and I went out for a couple drinks, came home, had a few more cocktails, had sex, showered, and watched some tv. About an hour before we were going to eat I halved a few red potatoes and added them to the pot, threw in a few whole carrots and a half an onion. Half an hour before dinner I cored a cabbage, cut it into six wedges and set it on top of the other ingredients in the pot and put on the lid so it could steam. Nothing could be simpler. In my opinion no other meal even comes close to facilitating the consumption of large amounts of alcohol. And really, isn’t that what St. Patrick’s Day is all about?

Recipe

Corned Beef and Cabbage

One corned beef in a bag (brine and seasoning packet included)
6 quart pot or larger
Enough water to cover meat by two inches
Four whole carrots
Six to eight whole red potatoes
Half an onion
One small to medium cabbage

1. Open packaging and dump corn beef into pot. Fish out the spice packet and set aside. Rince excess brine from bag and add to pot. Cover meat with water to two inches.
2. Add spice packet and turn stove to medium heat, or medium low if you will be leaving the house.
3. Cook for several hours. If water gets low add more.
4. About an hour before you want to eat add the carrots and potatoes (halved or whole) and half an onion. Cook about another half hour to forty minutes.
5. Twenty minutes before you eat core and wedge the cabbage and place it on top of the rest of the ingredients. Cook twenty minutes or until tender.
6. Serve and enjoy. Horseradish is optional. Mustard is good to, and some people even eat their corned beef with catsup but personally I think those people suffer from the same kind of brain damage that most lovable train bums and lifelong Alaskan residents do.

Recipe

Guinness and Black

One Guinness Draught
two ounces of black currant juice

1. Pour Guinness into a glass
2. Add black currant juice

This is something that the Irish drink in Ireland. When my wife came back she raved about the drink and said she ordered it everywhere she went. At first she kept asking for Irish Car Bombs but apparently they don’t have such a great sense of humor about that as we do here in the States. Honestly I can’t say much about Guinness and Black other than it seems to me like a woman’s drink or something you might find Irish puffs drinking in the gay part of Dublin. It makes me feel a little weird thinking of an Irish pub as being a gay bar but in Ireland it must be pretty common.

Anyway, there you have it. Until next time. Eat well and have fun.