Dead Man Gnawing: Man Made Maize and the Gods Made Man (3,700 B.C.)

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Writing about genetically modified food last week got me thinking about Humanity’s history of mutating the plant world to its gastro-nutritional whim.  It is those directed mutations that created civilization itself.  For instance:

This Mayan maize god was, among many diverse roles, the partron of scribes.

In the beginning, the gods of the Maya created humans out of mud.  But the mud men squinted at the world, and could not take it in.  They could not move to chase game or to seek shelter, and their thoughts were clogged.  The rains washed them away.

The gods then made humans out of wood.  These men could speak and see and move.  On all fours, they climbed through the jungle canopies and rambled over the valleys, but they failed to honor the gods as the gods saw fit.  Perhaps their taste of freedom was too complete.  Perhaps they razed the jungles where their flesh was found.  The gods thus destroyed them.

And so the gods tried a third time.  They made Man out of maize.  And this Man was in harmony. Continue reading →

Casey’s Grub Match Pick, Café Luluc

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Casey's Grub Match Pick

Cute baby = Grub Match secret weapon

This week’s pick for the Brooklyn Brunch Battle comes from sports development exec, supermom and peanut butter aficionado Casey Romany. Café Luluc, in Carroll Gardens, won her heart with its “simple, reliable deliciousness.” Here’s more from Casey on how one brunches in style, even with a baby on board.

Have you ever worked at a restaurant? Three food service experiences.  I worked at my uncle’s fish store on Friday’s when I was 15 selling fish fry. My family did not appreciate the incredible fish stank that lingered after I got home.  When I was in high school I worked at Brueggers Bagels; I will love bagels forever.  And in college I was a waitress at an Irish pub, but I barely made enough tips to cover my parking expenses.

Do you have any food pet peeves? When a restaurant does not have decaf coffee…there are a few Brooklyn Brunch spots out there that have no love for the caffeine free!

Continue reading →

Lunch at the End of the Line: Making Frankie and Albert Proud

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Sinatra's MugI’d heard Morris Park, near the end of the Eastchester-Dyre 5 line, was sometimes called the Little Italy of the Bronx. Given that, there were certain things I expected to find there (pizzerias, Italian bakeries, cigar shops with young Sinatra’s mug shot blown up and displayed prominently), and I was not disappointed. When I spoke to a couple of Morris Park natives, they gave me some tips about the longstanding neighborhood favorites like Patricia’s (a classy Italian joint famous for its Spaghetti à la Frank Sinatra), Emilio’s (a pizza place that they assured me was “cheap but really good”), and Hawaii Sea (an Asian fusion restaurant where one of them had worked as a busboy when he was sixteen).

What I hadn’t anticipated was that the entire eastern side of the neighborhood would feel like an urban university campus because it was home to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Students are notoriously good at ferreting out good and inexpensive lunch spots, so I did some asking around. A young man of imposing size and thoughtful sincerity told me that “everybody” went to the pizza place named Coals. Several others had mentioned the same place, and when I walked past, the fragrant promise of copious amounts of garlic coaxed me inside.

This, perhaps, is a good time to address the problem of pizza snobbery that is rampant in New York. Continue reading →

Community News: Chief Justice Roberts on Your Fruits and Veggies

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The hubbub over Chief Justice John Roberts deciding in favor of the Affordable Care Act—specifically, the way he found it constitutional on the basis of taxation rather than the power of the federal government to regulate commerce—got me thinking about our gardens and dinners.  See, a shocking amount of American law that I think essential to an equitable society rests on the rather narrow Constitutional text “The Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce.”  A significant aspect of the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for instance, depended on the Court’s determination that the Commerce Clause gave the feds the power to regulate businesses that served mostly interstate travelers.  Thus motels and restaurants across America could not discriminate against black Americans. Equality through Commerce.  Crazy, right?

Okay, so what does this have to do with food?  Well, the House is currently considering the next Agricultural Appropriations bill, which happens to contain a rider, known as “the Monsanto rider,” that has received, curiously, little to no coverage in the national press.  This rider requires that the Secretary of Agriculture grant a farmer or industrial agri-giant a  permit to plant genetically engineered crops (GMO), even if a federal court has ordered the planting halted for safety or environmental impact studies.  You can read it here.

Monsanto, DuPont, etc., only have to ask, and every ruling by a federal court or enforcement of current consumer protection laws on the part of the White House or a federal regulatory agency is overridden and they can plant whatever crop they chose.  Even state congresses become powerless: if they try to create local or state laws to protect eaters and farmers, they are in violation of federal law, a federal law that is written to override all other pertinent federal laws. Continue reading →

I’ve Always Depended On the Ryeness of Strangers

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ryeness of strangers“This – this is the Blanche DuBois of beer! Do you know who that is?” My aunt looks at me, disbelieving, and then wheels around to look at my father, “These ‘young people’ don’t get the reference!” She has just finished her sample of beer number three and sits on the floor in mock indignation. I’m embarrassed that I don’t immediately recognize the name and smile back idiotically. My aunt has spent the entire day visiting with her older sister and her elderly mother and has a well-deserved jump on the rest of us in terms of beer sampling. She lays on her back. “There’s one more, right?” I answer that there’s two. “Oh, Jesus.”

Today we’re tasting rye beers. Why rye, you ask? Because they’re hip, dammit, and like most hip things I know of, they’ve been hip for a while but I just noticed them. Rye beers are simply beers that have some rye brewed in the mash along with the traditional barley.  They’re dry, bitter, sour, and stick with you; there’s a Woody Allen joke waiting to be made here and I’ll let you do it. I have found them a welcome addition to the brutally hot afternoons of Ohio in the summer – perfect for those of us tired of hefeweizens and sangria.

The tasting starts off with a bang as we all say cheers and take a swallow of Founders Red Rye PA (6.6% abv). Right off the bat we get to play with the word “mouthfeel,” as this is positively sparkly. Continue reading →

Melinda’s Grub Match Pick: Peaches

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Melinda's Grub Match PickNew Yorkers are not only notoriously opinionated, but also stalwart in their efforts to raise weekend brunch to a higher art form. This month’s grub match has three Brooklyners squaring off over their favorite neighborhood brunch spots. In the Borough of Fortitude and Fisticuffs, the match promises to be a fiery one.

Our first contender is Texan belle and pickle expert Melinda Evans, and her brunch pick is Peaches, a haven of Southern flavor in Bed-Stuy. Here’s more from Melinda:

You’re headed to a deserted island to live on grass and coconut milk–what’s your last meal before you go? A seriously Southern spread that includes real BBQ: brisket, chopped beef, stuffed baked potatoes (fully loaded), potato salad, white bread soaked in BBQ sauce, pickles – lots of pickles. For dessert – an ice cold key lime pie. With a spiked Tiger Woods (my husband’s name for an Arnold Palmer) to wash it all down.

Do you have any food pet peeves? I have a drink pet peeve. I find it incredibly difficult to find a properly iced drink in NYC. When I order a soda (and yes, I order sodas Bloomberg), I want it to be heavy with ice. I want the glass to be sweating with the effort of keeping my drink cold. I want the absolute bottom to be as cold as the top. I want to stick my straw anywhere and be properly refreshed. A few cubes floating on top does not an iced drink make.  Continue reading →

Dead Man Gnawing: Stealth DNA and One Stubborn Old Man (1970 & 2005)

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Canola is also known as Rapeseed. Its seeds are crushed to make vegetable oil.

Since we’re only a few days past Independence Day, I thought I’d take a look at the borders between the dominion of the public and the gated garden of the private.  In 1998, multinational industrial agrichemical giant Monsanto discovered that a Canadian farmer named Percy Schmeiser was growing its Roundup Ready Canola in his fields.  The seeds that grow into our food have generally been considered public property.  That is, our foods are held in common by allhumans; no one person or company can own the seeds that sustain civilization.

Monsanto had the U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 at their back, though.  That law gives companies the right to exclusively own the DNA of the plant varieties they develop.  That right of ownership includes the sole right to “reproduce” the plant, i.e. to generate the seed from which the plants grow.  That means that a farmer or gardener is forbidden to save the seeds produced from one year’s crop in order to plant the next year.  Schmeiser was growing Monsanto’s genetically-modified (GM) plants without paying for them. Continue reading →

Now I Can Say I’ve Done It

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hot dog contest

Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, at left, and his closest competitors

It was long before high noon, but the sun was blisteringly hot, the smell of cheap beer and vomit was already in the air, and I was watching Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis as he dove into a fifteen-foot-wide apple pie. I was back at Coney Island, awaiting my very first Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. The original competition at Nathan’s was supposedly held in 1916, but the annual spectacle as we know it today didn’t really take shape until the 1970s.

Spectacle is really the only way to describe it. Long ago, ESPN decided that hotdog eating alone does not a televised special make, so it is now embellished with trampoline artists, Brooklyn Cyclones cheerleaders, men in hot dog costumes, and pie-diving events while college-aged boys in sequined Uncle Sam hats and Captain America suits look on and yell obscenities at anyone Canadian. And Greg Louganis? Even if he was doing it to raise money for the ASPCA, I really didn’t want to see a sports star from my childhood reduced to wiping globs of caramel and nuts from his eyes. We live in a very strange nation, one in which eating food is not enough; rather it must be gorged upon…or dived into.

“Why are you here?” I asked a middle-aged man standing next to me. (The younger gentleman on the other side of me was too busy opening a can of Coors with his teeth to be bothered with my existential crisis.)

Continue reading →

When You Just Can’t Get That Garden Going ’til July

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A reader in North Carolina posted this comment last week:

Love the articles! I’m buying a house and will finally have a yard to start a garden. I’d love to get your opinion on the best times of the year to plant certain foods and some that would be easier for a first time gardener.

Thanks!

So we’re going to oblige.  Because we’re cool like that.  And believe that if you have the means to buy a house, you most definitely should rock a garden in the backyard.

This is a cool photo that has nothing to do with the content of this blog post

The best way to find out what plants will succeed when planted mid-Summer is to check with a local plant nursery or find region-specific info on the internet.  Since a plant’s suitability to your garden depends significantly on the temperature and on frost, the answer to your question varies depending on where you live.

Also, a good rule of thumb for less experienced gardeners is to buy seedlings, rather than seeds, to plant.  Doing this will give you an added advantage in that you’ll save time that you don’t want to spare since we’re already well into the season.

So, some recs…

Tomatoes! Good, homegrown, heirloom tomatoes are about the best thing you’ll ever taste.  They typically take up to two months to produce fruit, but if you pick up some seedlings at a nursery and get them into the ground, you’ll probably be able to start harvesting by mid-September, only about a month beyond when the “normal” tomato crop comes in.  The plants will keep producing well into Fall; I routinely continue to harvest tomatoes in Brooklyn in mid-October. Continue reading →

Independence Food Contest Victor!

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It was PitchKnives’ 4th of July challenge, but that was nothing new to me.

Two summers ago, my wife and I threw a 4th of July party and asked everyone to bring some food to share. Most people brought the usual stuff — pasta salad, guacamole, beer — but one friend arrived with a loaf of homemade “Red, White, and Blue” bread, which looked as though it had just been lifted from the display window of a European bakery. It was delicious, filled with chopped sundried tomatoes and topped with slabs of Zingerman’s blue cheese.
I assumed she’d spent hours in her kitchen, kneading the thing herself, put she told me confidentially that she’d only put a half an hour of work into the process. The secret? Jim Lahey’s “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method,” a cookbook that allows you to bypass the difficult parts of the bread-making process. All you need is time (for the bread to complete its slow rise) and a cast iron pot.
To be specific, you’ll also need the following:

3 cups unbleached bread flour

1 and 3/4th cup water
3/4th cup teaspoon active dry yeast (Fleischmann’s is a good brand)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatoes (you can use olives, too, in which case you’ll probably want to omit the salt)

Continue reading →