Category: Food and Drink

News about eating and drinking

First Ramps of the Season

Seth Anderson0 comment

Look what I got today from Harmony Valley, WI, via Freshpicks.com

First Ramps of the season
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone1

Allium tricoccum — also known as the ramp, spring onion, ramson, wild leek, wild garlic, and, in French, ail sauvage and ail des bois — is an early spring vegetable with a strong garlicky odor and a pronounced onion flavor. A perennial member of the onion family (Alliaceae), the plant has broad, smooth, light green leaves, often with deep purple or burgundy tints on the lower stems, and a scallion-like stalk and bulb. Both the white lower leaf stalks and the broad green leaves are edible. The flower stalk appears after the leaves have died back, unlike the similar Allium ursinum, in which leaves and flowers can be seen at the same time. Ramps grow in groups strongly rooted just beneath the surface of the soil. They are found from the U.S. state of South Carolina to Canada. They are popular in the cuisines of the rural upland South and in the Canadian province of Quebec when they emerge in the springtime. They have a growing popularity in upscale restaurants throughout North America.

A thick growth of ramps near Lake Michigan in Illinois in the 17th century gave the city of Chicago its name, after the area was described by 17th-century explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, and explained by his comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel.

The plant called Chicagou in the language of native tribes was once thought to be Allium cernuum, the nodding wild onion, but research in the early 1990s showed the correct plant was the ramp. The ramp has strong associations with the folklore of the central Appalachian Mountains. Fascination and humor have fixated on the plant’s extreme pungency. Jim and Bronson Comstock founded The West Virginia Hillbilly, a weekly humor and heritage newspaper, in 1957, and ramps were a frequent topic. For one legendary issue, Jim Comstock introduced ramp juice into the printer’s ink, invoking the ire of the U.S. Postmaster General. The mountain folk of Appalachia have long celebrated spring with the arrival of the ramp, believing it to have great power as a tonic to ward off many ailments of winter. A ramp bath was featured in the film Where the Lilies Bloom (1974) about life in North Carolina.

(click here to continue reading Allium tricoccum – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

 

Footnotes:
  1. Lens: John S, Film: Kodot XGrizzled [↩]

Recipe For Chicken Soup With Matzo Balls

Seth Anderson0 comment

Whole Wheat Matzo balls in soup

Since you asked1, I’ll bore you with my matzo ball soup recipe. I’ve been cooking long enough that some of this is done by instinct, and may not be precise, but it seems close enough to what I did, and will yield a big pot of delicious soup to cure your winter blues…

Matzo Balls
3 eggs

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of baking powder (non-aluminum)

1 cup of matzo meal (used that organic whole wheat matzo I found at Whole Foods)

1/2 cup of water

minced dill

minced parsley

minced chives

  1. mix eggs, oil, baking powder
  2. add matzo meal, water, spices, mix well
  3. put covered in the refrigerator

Matzot Aviv from Benei Brak

Chicken Soup

meanwhile, make chicken soup. I used half a whole roasted chicken, including neck bone, simmered it all for nearly an hour, took out white meat (so it doesn’t get too dried out), left dark meat (wings, neck, etc.), and added vegetables. You may have other things you would add instead, this is what I used.

  1. 5 carrots (roughly chopped)
  2. 3 parsnips
  3. 3 stalks celery (roughly chopped)
  4. cup of minced shallot
  5. 3 garlic cloves (minced)
  6. 1 portobello mushroom (roughly chopped)
  7. 1 fennel bulb (sliced thin)
  8. salt/pepper/whatever else

Final Steps

Take out the matzo meal, wet hands, and form into balls. Key discovery: don’t pack the matzo balls as if you were making a meatball, barely use any force at all, just barely round them into shape. They won’t look like golf balls, but they will be much lighter.

Drop in a pot of salted, boiling water (as seen above), and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove, add to your soup and cook for another 5-10 minutes in the chicken soup.

Yummy. Feeds a bunch of people.

Footnotes:
  1. well, you might not have, but someone did [↩]

Q Tonic With Quinine

Seth Anderson4 Comments

Farmer's Gin
Q Tonic and Gin

On a lark, I bought a four pack of Q Tonic1 2 last fall, and it was delicious. As far as I know, only Whole Foods in Chicago carries the brand, but I’ll look. Will be good for spring gin and tonics on the roof…

One night in 2003, Silbert was drinking a gin and tonic in his Brooklyn backyard when his teeth started feeling sticky. He saw that the tonic’s “ingredients were identical to Sprite, with different natural and artificial flavors,” he says. Curious, he discovered that today’s tonics lack a key ingredient used in the original libation: quinine from Peruvian cinchona trees. It was replaced with a synthetic during World War II. Silbert ordered the bark for $10 online and found a recipe to extract the quinine. He added homemade seltzer and agave instead of sugar. He started making the tonic at parties, and his friends loved it.

Silbert started business school at Yale University in 2004 with plans to go into city development. He still tinkered with tonic, and a professor—an Honest Tea co-founder—encouraged him. Working on a business plan, Silbert realized he needed a bottling facility and found one in Worcester, Mass. Investors provided $3,000 for ingredients and bottles, and Q Tonic was born. Then he offered samples on foodie websites.

New York standard-bearer Gramercy Tavern was an early adopter, and farm-to-table trendsetter Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., signed on when Silbert ate there and brought Q Tonic with him. Downtown hot spot Bobo soon followed. “At first it was part of our competitive edge,” says Bobo owner Carlos Suarez. “Now I’d be surprised not to see it at a sophisticated cocktail bar in Manhattan.” Q Tonic has grown to six employees and is in more than 3,000 outlets, including Whole Foods Market (WFMI). Silbert calls it a start: “The goal is for every place serving Grey Goose or Tanqueray to have a good tonic to go with it.”

(click here to continue reading A Company Built on a Crisper Gin and Tonic – BusinessWeek.)

Also, totally agree with the premise of Q Tonic: tonic should have quinine, and not be sickly sweet.

Wikipedia:

Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic (fever-reducing), antimalarial, analgesic (painkilling), anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. It is a stereoisomer of quinidine which, unlike quinine, is an anti-arrhythmic. Quinine contains two major fused-ring systems: the aromatic quinoline and the bicyclic quinuclidine. Though it has been synthesized in the lab, the bark of the cinchona tree is the only known natural source of quinine. The medicinal properties of the cinchona tree were originally discovered by the Quechua Indians of Peru and Bolivia; later, the Jesuits were the first to bring the cinchona to Europe.

Quinine was the first effective treatment for malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum, appearing in therapeutics in the 17th century. It remained the antimalarial drug of choice until the 1940s, when other drugs replaced it. Since then, many effective antimalarials have been introduced, although quinine is still used to treat the disease in certain critical situations.

Quinine is available with a prescription in the United States and over-the-counter, in very small quantities, in tonic water. Quinine is also used to treat lupus and arthritis. Until recently, quinine was also a common “off-label” treatment for nocturnal leg cramps. This practice is now considered dubious by the FDA

(click here to continue reading Quinine – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

Footnotes:
  1. I thought I took a photo of a bottle of Q Tonic, but I guess not.  Maybe I took the photo and just didn’t post it to Flickr – that happens often [↩]
  2. updated to add a photo of Q Tonic [↩]

Goose Island No More

Seth Anderson0 comment

312 is golden

InBev aka AnheuserBusch has purchased the iconic Chicago small brewer, Goose Island. I’m saddened, but money talks louder than pride, and I hope John Hall spends his new cash wisely. I will continue to drink Goose Island beer, unless they start cutting back on quality, but it just won’t be the same to drink Budweiser in a fancier bottle. President Obama can now give politicians Bud Light instead of Goose Island without blinking.

Chicago-based Goose Island, one of the nation’s most respected and fastest-growing small brewers with sales concentrated throughout the Midwest, today announced it had agreed to be acquired by AnheuserBusch, its current distribution partner, in a move that will bring additional capital into Goose Island’s operations to meet growing consumer demand for its brands and deepen its Chicago and Midwest distribution.

Goose Island’s legal name is Fulton Street Brewery LLC (FSB). Anheuser-Busch reached an agreement to purchase the majority (58 percent) equity stake in FSB from its founders and investors, held in Goose Holdings Inc. (GHI), for $22.5 million. Craft Brewers Alliance Inc . (CBA), an independent, publicly traded brewer based in Portland, Ore., that operates Widmer Brothers, Redhook and Kona breweries, owns the remaining 42 percent of FSB and reached an agreement in principle to sell its stake in FSB to Anheuser-Busch for $16.3 million in cash. AnheuserBusch holds a minority stake (32.25 percent) in CBA.

Goose Island sold approximately 127,000 barrels of Honkers Ale, 312 Urban Wheat Ale, Matilda and other brands in 2010. To help meet immediate demand, an additional $1.3 million will be invested to increase Goose Island’s Chicago Fulton Street brewery’s production as early as this summer.

“Demand for our beers has grown beyond our capacity to serve our wholesale partners, retailers, and beer lovers,” said Goose Island founder and president John Hall, who will continue as Goose Island chief executive officer. “This partnership between our extraordinary artisanal brewing team and one of the best brewers in the world in Anheuser-Busch will bring resources to brew more beer here in Chicago to reach more beer drinkers, while continuing our development of new beer styles. This agreement helps us achieve our goals with an ideal partner who helped fuel our growth, appreciates our products and supports their success.”

…

 

The two Goose Island brew pubs are not part of the deal, but will continue in operation, offering consumers an opportunity to sample Goose Island’s award-winning specialty beers and food selections.

…

Founded by John Hall in 1988, Goose Island Beer Company is one of the Midwest’s first small breweries. Located at 1800 W. Fulton St., Chicago, Goose Island is acclaimed for creating world-class ales, including 312 Urban Wheat Ale, Honkers Ale, India Pale Ale, Matilda, Pere Jacques, Sofie and a wide variety of seasonal draft only and barrel-aged releases, including Bourbon County Stout, the original bourbon barrel-aged beer.

 

(click here to continue reading Goose Island Selects Current Partner Anheuser-Busch for Growth Strategy; Chicago Small Brewer, Craft Brewers Alliance to Sell Stakes in Goose Island; Expansion of Chicago Brewery Planned.)

Goose Island Beer Company

John Hall explains

When I first started Goose Island Clybourn in 1988, drinkers were just beginnning to explore new beer styles and “craft beer” was a term that no one had even thought of. I couldn’t imagine the explosive growth that craft beer has had in the last few years, or the amazing creativity of so many new brewers, and the discovery of the amazing possibilities of beer by a whole generation of drinkers.

I am very proud of Goose Island’s contribution too this craft beer movement, of the many awards won by our brewers, our growing number of employees, our support of the communities and life of Chicago, and the friendship of so many beer lovers in Chicago and elsewhere.

Over the past five years our partnerships with Craft Brewers Alliance and Anheuser-Busch have enabled Goose Island to reach a growing number of beer drinkers. This has fueled our growth to the point that demand for our beers has outgrown the capacity of our brewery. Recently, we’ve even had to limit production of some classic and medal-winning styles. To keep up with growing demand from drinkers we’ve explored a variety of paths too secure new capital to support our growth.

Today’s agreement to consolidate ownership of Goose Island under Anheuser-Busch will provide us with the best resources available to continue along our path of growth and innovation.

I am more excited than ever about Goose Island’s future. With the support and financial backing of our new partner, we will continue to brew our authentic classic styles, develop new amazing beers, and serve our drinkers.

Yeah, well, we’ll see.

Epic Burger in West Loop

Seth Anderson0 comment

Seymour - Home of the Hamburger

Actually looking forward to trying this place.

An all-natural hamburger chain plans to open its third restaurant in the West Loop, part of an expansion that could bring 10 new locations to Chicago over the next two years.

Epic Burger, whose tagline promises “a more mindful burger,” signed a lease at 550 W. Adams St. for what is to be its largest outpost to date, at about 3,300 square feet. Founder and CEO David Friedman says he aims to open the restaurant in June or July.

Chicago-based Epic Burger debuted in May 2008 at 517 S. State St. in the South Loop with a menu that shuns processed cheeses and yellow mustard and champions fresh beef, eggs from cage-free chickens and locally grown produce. A Lincoln Park restaurant followed last June, at 1000 W. North Ave. The organic, fast-casual concept sprang from a road trip that left Mr. Friedman craving a better alternative to the standard burger joints.

(click here to continue reading Natural burger chain picks third location | News | Crain’s Chicago Business.)

Epic Burger says it provides “a better burger experience,” offering all-natural beef with an assortment of environmentally friendly toppings — cage-free organic eggs, nitrate-free bacon and all-natural Wisconsin cheeses.

Yummy Cadmium-Tainted Rice From China

Seth Anderson0 comment

Rice, Steam and Wine

Well, possibly. I wonder what percentage of U.S. rice is imported from China these days?

Move aside, melamine. Cadmium-tainted rice might be China’s new scare of the season.

In a recent study, researchers from the Nanjing Agricultural University found 10 to 60 percent of the rice sold in markets in six regions contained cadmium, a heavy metal associated with high blood pressure, fluid accumulation in the lungs and a potentially fatal softening of the bones.

In some samples, the cadmium level was found to be equal to five times of the legal maximum, the researchers said.

A China Daily report on the discovery is careful to include caveats.

For one thing, the report says, the pollution is confined to a few, mostly southern, regions. For another, the samples were taken in 2007 and 2008, according to the findings, originally published in Century Weekly magazine.

(click here to continue reading China’s Newest Food Scare? Cadmium-Tainted Rice – China Real Time Report – WSJ.)

 

F.D.A and Dairy Industry Spar Over Testing of Milk

Seth Anderson0 comment

R. J. Rous Wholesale Milk and Cream

Yet again, a federal agency chooses to let a regulated business make the decisions. Too bad there isn’t a consumer advocate that could demand the FDA be firm with industry.

Each year, federal inspectors find illegal levels of antibiotics in hundreds of older dairy cows bound for the slaughterhouse. Concerned that those antibiotics might also be contaminating the milk Americans drink, the Food and Drug Administration intended to begin tests this month on the milk from farms that had repeatedly sold cows tainted by drug residue.

But the testing plan met with fierce protest from the dairy industry, which said that it could force farmers to needlessly dump millions of gallons of milk while they waited for test results. Industry officials and state regulators said the testing program was poorly conceived and could lead to costly recalls that could be avoided with a better plan for testing.

In response, the F.D.A. postponed the testing

(click to continue reading F.D.A and Dairy Industry Spar Over Testing of Milk – NYTimes.com.)

The FDA even says, bluntly, that they don’t give a shit about consumers:

The F.D.A. said that it would confer with the industry before deciding how to proceed. “The agency remains committed to gathering the information necessary to address its concern with respect to this important potential public health issue,” it said in a statement.

Union Sushi on Erie

Seth Anderson0 comment

Transcended by Tea

I’d try this place, sounds interesting. Probably won’t like changes to the menu, but we’ll try anyway…

Working on business partnerships for Visa, Mike Schatzman journeyed all over the world. “I’ve been a traveling buffoon for the last seven years of my life,” he says. After eating at Japanese restaurants in London, South Africa, and, of course, Japan, Schatzman looked at the Chicago Japanese landscape and saw nothing like his forthcoming Union Sushi + Barbeque Bar (230 W. Erie St.). The 70-seater is scheduled to open in May with the chef/partner Worachai Thapthimkuna (known as Chao), formerly of Sushi Wabi. The barbecue in the name is kushiyaki, skewered fish, meat, and vegetables cooked on a robata grill. The sushi will include smaller rolls than the Godzillas we’ve come to expect, so that diners can try more items. The menu reflects influences from everywhere—which shows its own kind of authenticity. “People tend to think that in Japan, they are traditionalists, and that’s not the case,” Schatzman says. “There is more innovation than we imagine going on in Japan.”

(click to continue reading Union Sushi + Barbeque Bar Coming to River North – Dish – January 2011 – Chicago.)

The Meal that Ended My Career as a Restaurant Critic

Seth Anderson0 comment

Waddle

Funny tale from a former professional food critic, Steve Silberman, which begins:

It’s easy to imagine that being a restaurant critic would be one of the best jobs on Earth — particularly when millions of people are eager to churn out lengthy reviews for free on sites like Yelp and Chowhound.

As someone who was the food critic for a glossy magazine in San Francisco in the 1980s and quit, however, I can tell you that being a roving palate-for-hire is a mixed blessing. While dining out is one of life’s most enduring pleasures (and is certainly a rare privilege on a planet where one in six people are starving), having to eat in restaurants several nights a week, while manufacturing an opinion about every bite, can get to be a drag.

Of course at first, being a critic in one of the great restaurant cities on Earth felt like getting paid to have sex with someone you love.

That's Medium Rare?

takes a detour through some well told anecdotes, and leads to a moment I can relate to:

I returned just as the chirpy waiter brought the coup de grâce, which looked like evidence from a crime scene: a dish of angry red flesh with a knob of pale bone jutting out of it. This, apparently, was my “grilled veal chop with wild forest mushrooms.”

I had ordered the chop medium-rare, but it arrived bleu, as the French say; ultra-rare, chilly in the center (calf sashimi, if you will), with crimson blood pooling on top, drowning the chanterelles, porcini, Hen O’ The Woods or whatever they were in the unmistakable taste of pennies: copper-laden hemoglobin. This was like veal à la Dexter.

Having only recently re-embraced meat-eating, it was as if all the gluttonous karma of the West took its revenge on a lapsed vegetarian in a single meal. I feared that if I tried to choke down all that raw meat, I’d end up strangling — spewing bloody chunks of calf, clots of cream, and skeins of raw fettucine across the starched tablecloth as a horrified busboy tried to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

Enough! Check, please.

(you should certainly click to continue reading The Meal that Ended My Career as a Restaurant Critic | NeuroTribes.)

 

Starch Made Us Human

Seth Anderson0 comment

Wheat

Sure, and don’t forget that psilocybin gave us language.

Traditionally, when scientists spared a thought for our hunting and gathering forebears, they focused on the hunters and the meat they brought in. But it may be that it was our ancestors’ less glamorous ability to gather, eat and digest roots, bulbs and tubers — the wild versions of what became carrots, onions and potatoes — that increased the size of our brains and made the hunt and the territorial expansion that came with it possible.

In a paper published in September in Nature Genetics, George Perry, a graduate student at Arizona State University, Nathaniel Dominy, an anthropology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and their colleagues demonstrate something significant: unlike our fellow primates, modern humans have many copies of a gene that makes a protein in our saliva that is crucial for breaking down starch into glucose. Our brains run on glucose. DNA and saliva samples taken from populations all over the world — from locals in Arizona and Japan to the Hadza, hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, and the Yakut, Siberian animal herders and fishermen — showed that if you have more copies of the gene amylase 1, you have more of the protein. Groups like the Japanese, who eat diets high in starches, have on average a higher number of copies of the gene. “In human evolution, starch may have played a particularly important role,” Perry says. After all, if you possessed the ability to efficiently convert starch into the glucose that fuels your brain, “you’d have a big advantage nutritionally,” Dominy says.

[From Starch Made Us Human]

House Passes Overhaul of Food Safety Laws – Devil in the Details

Seth Anderson0 comment

Carrots in Soho square

So the House finally passed the food safety bill that we’ve discussed dozens of times previously, but

The House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to a long-awaited modernization of the nation’s food safety laws, voting 215 to 144 to grant the Food and Drug Administration greater authority over food production.

(click to continue reading House Passes Overhaul of Food Safety Laws – NYTimes.com.)

…the devil is in the details1. For instance, some of the implementation doesn’t start until five years from now, some not until 18 months from now, and with the risk that the whole thing will get changed by then since our country inexplicably elected Republicans to be the majority party in the 112th Congress

Meth Leaves

“The F.D.A. asked for and was given a very long lead time for implementation,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “But it’s still a vast improvement over what we have today.”

Ultimately, the agency’s ability to carry out and enforce the law will depend on how much money it has available to pay inspectors and maintain or increase its staff. Republicans will gain control of the House next year and have vowed to cut spending on many domestic programs. Deep cuts could hobble the F.D.A. just as it gains the new authority.

“It’s going to be crucial for the next Congress to recognize that F.D.A. can’t fulfill the promise of this new law without the resources it needs to do the job,” said Erik D. Olson, who heads food policy for the Pew Health Group, an advocacy organization.

Footnotes:
  1. whatever the frack that means [↩]

Lion’s Pride Organic Dark Rye Whiskey

Seth Anderson0 comment

My local grocery store, Green Grocer, had a bottle of this whiskey, and a companion, the light rye. Rye is my current favorite sipping spirit, so I took a chance, and bought this bottle.

Lion's Pride Organic Rye Whiskey
Distilled in Chicago by Koval. Allegedly the first Chicago (legal) whiskey since Prohibition era. Charred oak barrels, and no caramel coloring added. Powerful flavor.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone1

lionspridewhiskey.com/ has tours of the Koval facility – I’d love to go on one. Add it to the tourist list!

Organic? Why not?

Koval is dedicated to using organic raw ingredients because we want to support agricultural practices that are sustainable and respectful of the soil. We also think that organic food tastes better and is more nutritious than conventionally grown produce. Choosing only the best organic ingredients is the first step in making the best spirits possible. Adhering to kosher standards is another way we maintain strict levels of purity and quality control. We also like to think that it makes us a bit more spirit-ual.

(click to continue reading Lion’s Pride: Organic and Kosher.)

Lion’s Pride Whiskey is Chicago’s first whiskey. Aged in new Amerian Oak barrels. Distiled by Koval Disitllery! All whiskey is single barrel and available in limited quanities, so get yours while you can. The first release consistes of 2 barrels of Oat and Rye and a very limited amount of Dark Oat and Rye. Only 1 barrel of each Dark Oat and Rye have been released. Keep your eyes out for millet, wheat and spelt to be released shorty! Enjoy!

The Lion’s Pride whiskeys will have notes of vanilla and some fruitines, while the Lion’s Pride Darks will have notes of butterscotch and caramel.

Footnotes:
  1. Lens: John S Flash: Off Film: Ina’s 1935 [↩]

Coffee is top source of antioxidants

Seth Anderson0 comment

Running on empty

Sounds good to me, fill me up another cup, will ya?

 

Coffee provides more than just a morning jolt; that steaming cup of java is also the number one source of antioxidants in the U.S. diet, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Scranton (Pa.). Their study was described today at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

“Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close,” says study leader Joe Vinson, Ph.D., a chemistry professor at the university. Although fruits and vegetables are generally promoted as good sources of antioxidants, the new finding is surprising because it represents the first time that coffee has been shown to be the primary source from which most Americans get their antioxidants, Vinson says.

…

Besides keeping you alert and awake, coffee has been linked to an increasing number of potential health benefits, including protection against liver and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, according to some recently published studies. But there’s also a downside: Java can make you jittery and cause stomach pains, while some studies have tied it to elevated blood pressure and heart rates. More research is needed, particularly human studies, to firmly establish its health benefits, Vinson says.

 

 

(click to continue reading Coffee is number one source of antioxidants.)

Mid-morning jolt

Farmer’s Gin

swanksalot0 comment

Farmer's Gin

Organic botanical gin, at that. Hadn’t heard of this before yesterday’s sojourn to Whole Foods, but I like it.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Ina’s 1935

in this age of everything artisanal and organic, you now have Farmer’s Gin. It’s a small-batch production from the people who make Crop Harvest Earth organic vodkas, based on grains from organic farms in the upper Midwest and infused with classy herbs like elderflower, lemon grass and angelica, besides the required juniper.

It’s fragrant, a bit floral and not as bone-dry and piney as a typical London gin. You might spike lemonade with it, and appreciate the 93.4 proof. I like it neat, on the rocks, with a generous squirt of lime

Via Florence Fabricant of The New York Times.

Actually, after I took this photo, I added a splash of Vya red Vermouth

bonus: Onion video that caused a bit of a ruckus at the Chicago Tribune, and got Chief Innovation Office Lee Abrams suspended:
VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes In California Causing Major Slut Spill

Whole-Grain Pastas That Taste Good

Seth Anderson0 comment

Especially as the season turns cooler, into fall, and winter, I crave pasta. Big steaming bowls, coated with lots of freshly grated cheese, and a sauce, washed down with gallons of red wine. I don’t recall eating any of the brands of whole wheat pasta mentioned in this article, but I am going to seek them out.

Penne Pasta with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Rapini - Vivo

Melissa Clark writes, in part:

Unlike the gluey, good-for-you-but-not-your-tastebuds pastas of yore, the best whole-grain brands are firm-textured and tasty. I like the toastiness of whole-wheat spaghetti from Garofalo, which Emma Hearst, the chef and a co-owner at Sorella in Manhattan, compared to Grape-Nuts when we tasted it together. The gentle, honey-like flavor of Gia Russa whole-wheat fettuccine makes it a perfect “kid pasta,” said Anna Klinger, chef and co-owner at Al di Là in Park Slope, Brooklyn. My favorite is Bionaturae, which has a mild, clean flavor and an elastic texture that comes closest to that of regular pasta.

The warm, nutty flavor of varieties like these is robust enough to stand up to intense, complicated sauces, yet satisfying with just a little butter and Parmesan shaved over the top. Some were so good that I would happily eat them for their own toasty sake, even if their high fiber and nutrient count had not been lingering in the back of my mind.

According to Lidia Bastianich, co-owner of Felidia restaurant and of the new Italian-food megaplex, Eataly, with growing numbers of people trying to eat more healthfully, the demand for higher quality whole-grain pastas has gone up. Manufacturers big and small are working hard to create products with the springy texture and sweet flavor that once was obtained only through refined flour.

For the most part, Ms. Bastianich said, they are succeeding. Eataly makes fresh whole-wheat and farro pasta daily, and carries nine shapes of dried whole-grain pasta, including Garofalo’s fusilli and Alce Nero’s farro penne. She says she enjoys eating whole-wheat pasta at home.

“There are times when I prefer something less starchy and more nutritious, but I also like its nutty, grainy flavor,” Ms. Bastianich said.

She suggests pairing whole-wheat pasta with heartier pestos, like one made with spinach and walnuts. Anchovies and bread crumbs also go nicely with full-flavored whole grains, she said, as do wilted greens.

To that list, I would add spicy tomato sauces, meat sauces, and chunky vegetable sauces with plenty of garlic. Delicate cream sauces, however, tend to come up short.

(click to continue reading A Good Appetite – Whole-Grain Pastas That Taste Good – NYTimes.com.)


"bionaturae Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti, 16-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6)" (bionaturae)

Bionaturae, Garofalo, Alce Nero, Rustichella d’Abruzzo, all were mentioned by name by Ms. Clark as not-sucking.

And a little history of humankind and noodles:

The reason these grains make good pasta, said Andrea Brondolini, an ancient-wheat specialist at the Italian Agricultural Research Council in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, can be traced to the early history of agriculture. As ancient types of wheat were hybridized into modern varieties, they were bred for a higher yield.

“Higher yields are detrimental to the quality because when you improve the yield, you lose nutritional values, including iron, carotenoids, vitamin E, microelements and proteins,” Mr. Brondolini said in a telephone interview.

Ancient grains are less hybridized and therefore retain more nutrients and proteins, he explained, including glutens that help pasta hold together when it’s cooked and give it a firm bite.

 


Encyclopedia of Pasta

The first pastas ever boiled to al dente perfection were made from whole-grain flour, according to Oretta Zanini De Vita, author of the Encyclopedia of Pasta. They must have been good, or pasta would have gone the way of garum and gruel instead of evolving into one of the most beloved foods on the planet.