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From the Farmers’ Market to the Freezer – The New York Times

When the Manhattan chef Marc Meyer opened Rosie’s in the East Village in April, reports focused on the Mexican restaurant’s upscale tortilla-making station in the middle of the dining room.

But the more interesting feature may be the one hidden in the basement — a walk-in freezer left behind by the building’s previous tenants.

“The minute I saw it, I thought, ‘I’ve got to be taking advantage of this,’ ” said Mr. Meyer, who over the next few months plans to fill it with seasonal fruits, tomatoes and tomatillos, all bought from local farmers at their lowest price and at their sun-ripened prime.

While dedicated home cooks buzz over pickling, canning and curing projects, Mr. Meyer has joined a growing number of chefs who are quietly employing another time-tested method of preservation: the freezer.

Other techniques rely on sugar, brine or bacteria to conserve foods, said the chef Paul T. Verica of Heritage Food & Drink in Waxhaw, N.C., but freezing doesn’t change the way things taste.

via From the Farmers’ Market to the Freezer – The New York Times.

N.C. Barbecue Restaurant Responsible for 216 Cases of Salmonella – Eater

Those planning on grabbing some smoked meats in the barbecue-crazed town of Lexington, N.C., this week may want to steer clear of Tarheel Q. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, the barbecue joint is linked with a Salmonella outbreak that has affected 216 people to date, including a 20-year-old woman who is 27 weeks pregnant. That number includes people from 15 North Carolina counties and five different states.

The connection was made after the North Carolina Department of Health tested samples from the restaurant’s barbecue and a patient who had ingested its food, concluding both tested positive for Salmonella. Most of those who began experiencing symptoms dined at the restaurant between June 16 and June 21.

Not only did the restaurant have to close as a result, but it’s now facing seven separate lawsuits from customers who allege they became ill after eating there. Ron Simon, of Texas-based law firm Ron Simon & Associates, has filed six lawsuits on behalf of its clients and states, “The injuries range from pretty serious to serious enough to be hospitalized for several days.” Simon also confirmed plans to file more lawsuits in the near future.

Although the restaurant originally had plans to reopen on Sunday, it remained closed through Monday. While several diners were hospitalized, there have been no deaths in connection to the outbreak. The trouble comes a few weeks after a popular Charlotte restaurant was linked to several sick diners.

via N.C. Barbecue Restaurant Responsible for 216 Cases of Salmonella – Eater.

Greek villagers’ secret weapon: Growing their own food – Business Insider

Ilias Mathes has protection against bank closures, capital controls and the slashing of his pension: 10 goats, some hens and a vegetable patch.

If Greece’s financial crisis deepens, as many believe it must, he can feed his children and grandchildren with the bounty of the land in this proud village high in the mountains of the Arcadia Peloponnese.

“I have my lettuce, my onions, I have my hens, my birds, I will manage,” he said, even though he can no longer access his full pension payment because of government controls imposed six days ago. “We will manage for a period of time, I don’t know, two months, maybe three months, because I also want to give to our relatives. If they are suffering, I cannot leave them like this, isn’t that so?”

The production of food and milk gives villagers in many parts of Greece a small measure of confidence — and a valuable buffer. But that doesn’t mean the financial cut-off doesn’t cause headaches. Some in Karitaina have to pay 40 euros in taxi fares to get to and from the nearest banks just to withdraw 60 euros, the maximum daily amount for those with bank cards.

The bus to Megalopoli, the town with the bank, was shut down — a victim of austerity. Many of those who used to drive are now too unwell to do so. The majority who live here are retirees, shrouding the town in eerie quiet broken only by the constant birdsong and the sporadic shouting of people arguing about the financial crisis at a vine-shaded cafĂ© in the town square.

via Greek villagers’ secret weapon: Growing their own food – Business Insider.

 

Greece

Whole Foods Sued For Misleading Sugar Claims

When it rains it pours:

Whole Foods is in trouble again.

The supermarket chain, still reeling from the revelation that it had systematically overcharged customers for packaged foods for years, is now facing a federal class-action lawsuit for using the term “evaporated cane juice” as a euphemism for sugar.

The plaintiffs allege that Whole Foods called sugar “evaporated cane juice” on the label of its Gluten Free All Natural Nutmeal Raisin Cookies in an attempt to make consumers believe that the cookies “do not contain as much sugar as they in fact contain.” Their suit was originally filed in a Missouri state court but is now before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

For a while, it seemed liked every food manufacturer interested in appealing to health-minded customers was citing “evaporated cane juice” on its ingredient label. It sounds healthier, and certainly more “natural,” than plain old “sugar” — even though there’s no actual difference between the two.

Whole Foods Sued For Misleading Sugar Claims.

DOH Announces Chilly Regulations About Freezing Raw Fish Before Serving – Eater NY

It’s not all bad news, thankfully — tuna and shellfish are okay.

The New York Department of Health and Mental hygiene just announced new regulations that will require restaurants to freeze many types of fish for a minimum of 15 hours before serving them raw, to kill off bacteria. The Board of Health approved these regulations in March, and they will go into effect next month. Presumably, these new rules were change how a lot of restaurants — especially sushi bars and any places serving crudo or ceviche — store and prepare their fish. It will no doubt also inspire some major menu changes throughout the city, especially at the pricey fish restaurants.

As the Times points out, many high-end restaurants freeze their best fish as a safety precaution. Sushi Zen vice president Yuta Suzuki tells the paper: “We purposely deep-freeze at negative 83 degrees, and we use one of those medical cryogenic freezers.” The amount of time the fish should be frozen to meet the code depends on the temperature and the storage method. The NYT notes that shellfish, fresh-water fish, and “certain types of tuna” are exempt from the rule. And James Versocki, a rep for the National Restaurant Association, tells CBS: “Most grade sushi that restaurants serve are not impacted by this…You know your yellow and bluefin and tuna, they’re allowed to be served raw because they don’t generally have these parasites in them.”

DOH Announces Chilly Regulations About Freezing Raw Fish Before Serving – Eater NY.

When You’re Eating Chilean Sea Bass, You’re Actually Eating Patagonian Toothfish

 

Have you ever heard of Patagonian toothfish? Well, chances are, you’ve eaten it — only when you ate it, it was called Chilean Seabass.

Yes, that’s right, Chilean Seabass is just a more “friendly” name for the Patagonian toothfish. The name under which it’s marketed was changed in 1977 by fisherman Lee Lantz , to make it sound more appetizing to the American market. Although the fish isn’t always caught in Chilean waters, and a toothfish isn’t technically even a bass, the term Chilean Seabass had “broad resonance among American seafood eaters.”

While the name change has certainly helped the Patagonian toothfish become more popular (there was a major Chilean Seabass boom in the ’90s), it has also led to overfishing of the species. Without strict government regulation, sustainability hasn’t been a top priority and many fishermen have been fishing in areas where they shouldn’t be. Had this fish not been renamed to make it more marketable, would the demand have been as high and led to overfishing? Probably not.

It may seem odd that a fish’s name was changed to make it sound better, however it is actually more common than you may think. Monkfish was originally called Goosefish, Sea Urchin used to be called Whore’s Eggs and Orange Roughy was Slimehead.

via When You’re Eating Chilean Sea Bass, You’re Actually Eating Patagonian Toothfish.

EDIBLE FLOWERS becoming more available and sought after

From our friend across the “pond”

In Issue NÂș6 we are celebrating the ingredient EDIBLE FLOWERS. We meet the wonderful Jan Billington, an organic flower farmer in Devon who believes that edible flowers should not just as a pretty addition on the side of a plate. The lovely Johanna Paget, communications manager at the Soil Association will be popping by to explain the importance of good/organic/healthy soil. The talented Matthew Mason, Head Chef at The Jack in the Green, talks about his love for good local ingredients and shares a couple of incredibly tasty summer dishes. Plus, barbecue expert Marcus Bawdon will be showing us how to cook up some tasty wood-fired recipes. We take a look at the Kitchen Table Projects, a brilliant new London-based initiative that is passionate about helping artisan food producers get their product out there. All this on top of the usual good stuff you’ve come to expect!

READ ISSUE NÂș6: groweatgather.co.uk/

via EDIBLE FLOWERS on Vimeo.

 

Baseball Fans Will Consume Over a Million Pounds of Popcorn at This Year’s All-Star Game – Eater

What does it take to feed a few thousand people in a matter of hours?

Attendees will wash down all that popcorn with 301,000 gallons of soda.

Sure, sports are played in stadiums, but the real game is the eating. Stadiums are known for their no-holds-barred attitude toward gluttony, and Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game is no exception. The game takes place tonight in Cincinnati and coupled with the Home Run Derby that took place Monday night, concessions company Delaware North Sportservice is expecting to go through an insane amount of food. Here’s the predicted all-star consumption that will go down at the 2015 All-Star Game, as reported by NBC:

via Baseball Fans Will Consume Over a Million Pounds of Popcorn at This Year’s All-Star Game – Eater.

 

The Magic of Mushrooms | Lucky Peach

Even for people who don’t enjoy eating mushrooms, there is still intrigue in learning how they grow. There’s something mystical and magical—I mean I do get a lot of people asking about “magic” mushrooms but I always comment that I think all mushrooms are magical.

I really like being able to watch a culture start from a little piece of tissue. From one tiny piece you’re able to grow thousands and thousands of pounds of food. We start our cultures in petri dishes. To create that culture you can take a piece of a mushroom—you can take any mushroom out of a grocery store and put that into a petri dish—and it will grow an exact replica of the original mushroom.

Once I establish the culture on the petri dish, I put it into a test tube. The test tube is my master culture that I put into a refrigerator, and I can keep that for five to ten years. You want to keep track of each of your generations and how far you’ve separated it from the initial spawn; mushrooms, unlike plants, break down and cause genetic mutations really quickly if you don’t keep track. All of our bags are labeled.

We grow our mushrooms first in grain. I use barley or millet. We soak the grain in water then sterilize it in a pressure cooker for about four hours. After that it we cool it down and put it in front of hyperfilters that blow sterile air out at us so we can open up all the bags of grain without fear of things (i.e. competing fungi or bugs) flying into them. Then we take the mycelium—the fungal network of the mushroom from the petri dish—and add them to the sterile grain. That goes out on the shelves to grow. How long depends on the species; oysters usually take about two weeks on grain. Then from there, we break the mycelium back up into grain and put it into our next substrate, which is a sawdust mixture. That’s what will eventually produce mushrooms.

We set up fifty-pound barrels with stacks of forty sawdust bags each, and then steam-pasteurize them. We’re lucky to live in an area where there’s lots of wood substrate, so it’s easy to get cheap sawdust. We take the sawdust and mix it together with barley and oat flour, and that gives it the carbohydrates and sugars to make the mycelium happy. If we just put it in sawdust, it wouldn’t work—maybe it would produce one or two mushrooms. We go through three or four yards of sawdust every other week, and to see that sawdust turned into food for people, that’s really rewarding for us.

We have a regular greenhouse that we’ve tarped so we can control the sunlight and the heat. A lot of people think mushrooms need to grow in complete darkness, but that really isn’t true: they like a little bit of light. We just open up the bags in here and give them high humidity. They like 80 to 90 percent humidity. As long as they don’t get too hot, usually we can grow year-round. When the mushrooms are grown, we’ll do one long slice down the middle of the bag—then after a while, when the bag ages to about a month or so, we’ll do a second slice, just to try to get as much out of it as we can.

Every mushroom is different. Oysters usually take about four weeks from start to finish; shiitakes are about forty-five to sixty days. This is why the prices are different with mushrooms, generally; some take longer than others to grow. Maitake takes up to seventy days to get mushrooms, so that’s why they’re $18 a pound in the grocery store.

Ria Kaelin, Christian’s wife and partner in the business offers a concluding thought.

We so traditionally think of growing food as you put a seed in the dirt and nurture it and it will give you something. Whereas with this, you go, How does that even work? Almost like we’re not connected to that microbiological world. We are! But we don’t sometimes stop to see it.

via The Magic of Mushrooms | Lucky Peach.