foodmuseumblog

Which Fish?

Having finally found two reputable fish markets near my rental in St. Pete, FL, now I stand paralyzed in front of their numerous offerings. We all knew about mercury in fish, right, but largely ignored it? Recent articles on mercury, by Marian Burros in the NYTimes, among others, have poked us into researching what fish we can eat, either on an eco-friendly basis or a health basis.

Char, bass, trout, croaker? Wild Pacific halibut? Striped bass? None of my personal faves in that list, save pink trout.  Then there's klip, a delicious firm, white fish we had last week. A rockfish from S. Africa, Google tells me. OY. NG.  Croaker? One website tells me this fish is "full-flavored." This could be an iffy choice, then. Char, too, is apparently "strong."

Clearly I need to find a local fisherperson and grill her/him as to what's coming out of FL waters. With a tad of butter and Meyer lemon from our own small tree.

Time for Tums?

Seems as if people of all sizes, shape, gender, hue and religious affiliation have been campaigning for assorted nominations in this country for at least two years, eating on the run the entire time or, even worse, forced to sit down at an official fundraiser and chomp down in a relaxed manner while people paying $2000 per meal stared fixedly at their table manners. Senator Clinton referenced pizza as the usual menu du jour, though she was photographed recently trying to get her mouth gracefully around a taco at East LA's King Taco restaurant.

The perils of political eating were well illuminated by President Gerald Ford whom older food freaks may recall munched on a tamale without removing the corn husk surrounding it. How could he know? It was 1976, he was running against Jimmy Carter, and he was from Michigan, for gawds sake.

A day or two ago master dieter and healthy guy Governor Mike Huckabee was asked by a reporter how he felt about fried chicken, after reports circulated that Governor Mitt Romney had been observed removing the skin from his portion of chicken before eating it.

According to CBS News reporter Joy Lin, " Going through the weight loss program I try to eat it more broiled and baked," Huckabee said. "But I can tell you this: any Southerner knows that if you're not gonna eat the skin, don't bother with calling it fried chicken."

In jest, Huckabee said: "I'm glad to hear that (Romney) did that because that means I'm going to win Alabama, Georgia, Tennesee, Arkansas, Oklahoma--all these great Southern states that understand that the best part of friend chicken is the skin."

Oklahoma is Southern?

(Taco pic found at http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/19444197.html)

Scared of Cooking? No Time?

Michael Pollan, author of several well-researched books on American food and eating, recently said in an interview that Americans are making cooking a "spectator sport." And thus many are becoming intimidated by the world's oldest nurturing activity, as if it is the province only of flashy chefs with obscure ingredients at their knife points.

BBC America carries a slew of Chef Gordon Ramsay's shows, including one in which he invites to his restaurant a big crowd of youngish women in an effort to "get women back in the kitchen." The dishes he does for that show are relatively simple and quick to do, especially if you are accustomed to working fast and efficiently in the domain that many women determinedly tried to escape for years. But...several women interviewed still felt that cooking takes much more time than they have available.

What a dilemma--from being tied to the stove in the olden days, with tiny kids awash in a probably cramped house, to today when many have mega kitchens in which they barely prepare coffee, women are....what? Continuing the rebellion?

Apparently this is where Rachael Ray and her 30 minute meals come in. I have not seen the show but have read it being put down in some of the foodie press because Ms Ray has been known to use the odd can of mushroom soup in a recipe, poor retro thing...

People have always been amazed that I regularly cook freshed mashed potatoes. How this simple food became complicated, I do not know. In the time it takes me to peel a few spuds, cut them up "small" and toss them in water, an acquaintance can still be kvetching away about the lack of time for such a gourmandish and outlandish undertaking.

Ramsay grills, steams or sautees much of his food, all quick cooking methods no matter what. Yes, one must peel and chop some veg, maybe even wash lettuce, but this can be done while yacking with one's kids, sipping a glass of wine. We're not talking about stuffing ravioli or baking bread, those these activities, too, can be speedily done with decent planning.( Not so much by impatient me.)

Maybe it's time for a reality cooking show featuring dozens of average unfamous mortals who are competent and swift in the kitchen--with the final 5 minutes always showing a family or group of friends at table, enjoying the food, community and conversation.

Who does not have enough time for that, at least once or twice a week?

ps One of my pet bugaboos and a huge timewaster, is the American habit of involving their kids in organized sports, and attending practices, snoozing through every game, weekend after weekend.We did it too, friends, until finally the light dawned--the kid was a decent goalie but was never going to be of those gifted and balding World Cup goalkeepers--so as a family we took golf lessons, signed up for racketball sessions at the gym and so on. Lifetime sports! What a notion. 

This left much more time for whipping up cranberry walnut bread and making scalloped spuds.

Lettuce-Loving Sirens

O the sirens of Florida, the graceful behemoths that lie like gray logs just under the surface of the water. We recently examined manatees up close at the Tampa Zoo, where those under repair and rest after injury from boat propellers and other human hazards, chomp down barrels-full of lettuces. They and their gizzard-possessing fish friends, the local leaping mullet, are vegetarians of reknown.

From manatees.net--"Manatees eat over 60 different species of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. Their diet includes manatee grass, turtle grass, various species of algae, mangrove leaves, and water hyacinths. They may consume 10% of their body weight daily in vegetation. Their digestive system allows the bacterial breakdown of cellulose in the hind-gut. To accommodate the great volume of high-fiber food they eat, manatatees have intestines up to 150 feet long."

Fresh Food's Tiny Space

Just a quick thought--my local ( this winter) Publix supermarket is gigantic yet its produce area is tucked into a tiny space way in the far corner of the joint. Here lie the "fresh" fruits and veggies that are supposed to make up the bulk of what we Americans are urged to eat, far too many of them packed and sealed under cellophane, the food, that is. The rest of the store is stuffed with acres of processed foods, some cleaning items, some pet food, and so on. Yet the produce arena is pathetically small.

ps The produce section backs up to the bakery, for which Publix is favorably known, apparently. Hydrogenated fats still are rampant here. No thanks.

So When Is A Fish Too "Fishy?"

The other night I bought sea trout at the local fish market, a steal at $3.99 a pound. A friend had suggested it, having had some once, well-seasoned and tomatoed and cooked fresh from the water. I cooked it in an iron skillet, with lots of chopped garlic, some oil and butter,  a dash of white wine....cooked just right, dare I say, in terms of texture and so on.  It was a somewhat "assertive" fish said one guest, yet very tasty. But another found it way too "fishy." So much so that she ate only one bite.

Mind you, by "fishy" here we mean with more inherent flavor. A fish that stinks is not a fresh fish, period! Fishy fish are more oily than, say flounder or halibut, and usually cost less than the rest--mackerel is a good example. Smoked mack is $7.99, smoked salmon, $15.99 at Ted Peters Smokehouse.

It had been so long since I dived into the uber fishy I wasn't even sure how I felt about sea trout. I think it would be better a second time with a real tomato-rich Provencal style of preparation.  Sea trout definitely did not remind me of the ( dreaded) catfish, a critter that too me always has a bizarre texture and a "soapy" aftertaste.

Choosing Eggs

In the olden days of my childhood, people simply bought eggs, choosing whatever was the best bargain. Others, of course, plucked fresh warm eggs from steamy nests recently exited by obliging hens, as we did many years later living outside of Brussels in rural Belgium.  And thus it had been for eons ranging back to when the first hens leapt down from the trees in Indochina and began crossing available roads, or ox paths, more like.
In any event, recently I was hunkered down in the egg department of a supermarket. Eggs fed vegetarian diets!  Eggs with enhanced Omega 3’s!  Bad eggs laid by chained up slave hens. Good eggs deposited by happy hens who scratched in the dirt on a daily basis. 
I read the following: “ 4 Grain Cage Free Eggs are produced by hens who perch, scratch and nest in an all-natural environment and are fed only the purest all-natural grain feed.” There were 2 web addresses stamped on the 100% reclaimed paper carton. One was for 4 Grain, the other  something called the United Egg Producers’ Animal Husbandry Guidelines.
Yes-- but notice the hens are not described as being outdoors...

Maybe that's an archaic and unrealistic notion when contemplating hens raised for real commercial gain. I think I read in one of Michael Pollan's books that birds given access to the outside-- a small open door--rarely if ever go through it, as they have been together in a mass since chickhood and only an aberrant Truman-type would break loose from the crowd.

Spuds on NPR

On New Year's Eve we donned our potato skins and did an interview with Melissa Block for All Things Considered on National Public Radio. Her producer called us in line with the United Nations' dubbing of 2008 as the International Year of the Potato.
For those of you who do not know our story, we started out in the food history biz focused on the powerful potato. Tom began The Potato Museum in 1975 as a classroom project for his students at the International School of Brussels in Belgium. It grew as word spread, its pioneering  museum about a food effort turning up a few years later as part of two major exhibitions--the Smithsonian's Seeds of Change event for the Quincentenary and Canada's remarkable Amazing Potato exhibit at Ottawa's National Museum of Science and Technology.
The FOOD Museum On Line and this Blog is an offshoot of that venture. Listen below...