Clean out your fridge

www.stilltasty.com

This is Pretty Corny.

This post is inspired by Chris Bosh's decision to sit out yesterday's inter squad Raptors game, and munch on popcorn on the bench. It is also stolen directly from Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Big ups, Bosh and Pollan.

"Corn is what feeds the steer that becomes the steak. Corn feeds the chicken and the pig, the turkey and the lamb, the catfish and the tilapia and, increasingly, even the salmon, a carnivore by nature that the fish farmers are re engineering to tolerate corn. The eggs are made of corn. The milk, cheese and yogurt, which once came from dairy cows that grazed on grass, now typically come from Holsteins that spend their working lives indoors tethered to machines, eating corn

Head over to the processed foods and you find ever more intricate manifestations of corn. A chicken nugget, for example, piles corn upon corn: what chicken it contains consists of corn, of course, but so do most of a nugget's other constituents, including the modified corn starch that glues the thing together, the corn flour in the batter that coats it, and the corn oil in which it gets fried. Much less obviously, the leavening and lecithin, the mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the attractive golden coloring, and even the citric acid that keeps the nugget 'fresh' can all be derived from corn.

To wash down your chicken nuggets with virtually any soft drink in the supermarket is to have some corn with your corn. Since the 1980s virtually all the sodas and most of the fruit drinks sold in the supermarket have been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)- after water, corn sweetener is their principal ingredient. Grab a beer for your beverage instead, and you'd still be drinking corn, in the form of alcohol fermented from glucose refined from corn. Read the ingredients on the label of any processed food and, provided you know the chemical names it travels under, corn is what you will find. For modified or unmodified starch, for glucose syrup and maltodextrin, for crystalline fructose and ascorbic acid, for lecithin and dextrose, lactic acid and lysine, for maltose and HFCS, for MSG and polyols, for the caramel color and xanthan gum, read: corn. Corn is in the coffee whitener and Cheez Whiz, the frozen yogurt and TV dinner, the canned fruit and ketchup and candies, the soups and snacks and cake mixes, the frosting and gravy and frozen waffles, the syrups and hot sauces, the mayonnaise and mustard, the hot dogs and the bologna, the margarine and shortenings, the salad dressings and the relishes and even the vitamins. There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket, and more than a quarter of them contain corn. This goes for the nonfood items as well- everything from the toothpaste and cosmetics to the disposable diapers, trash bags, cleansers, charcoal briquettes, matches, and batteries, right down to the shine on the cover of the magazine that catches your eye by the checkout: corn. Even in Produce on a day when there's ostensibly no corn for sale you'll nevertheless find plenty of corn: in the vegetable wax that gives the cucumbers their sheen, in the pesticide responsible for the produce's perfection, even in the coating on the cardboard it was shipped in. Indeed, the supermarket itself- the wallboard and joint compound, the linoleum and fibreglass and adhesives out of which the building itself has been built- is in no small measure a manifestation of corn.

And us? "

Well put. I have nothing to add. Except, happy corn eating!

I Do! Let's Eat!

My friends Andrea and Colin were married last weekend (nice work!), and the food was just as beautiful as the occasion itself. The menu, like the entire affair, was tastefully elegant. The dishes were delicious and complex without being pretentious; simple ingredients expertly combined to produce interesting flavour and texture combinations.

The standout in my view was an Oka-stuffed phyllo pastry with microgreens and a cranberry compote. I have no idea who made it, but I am offering my inspired version of an Oka-stuffed pastry. I recently made some fig preserves, so I'll use them in place of a cranberry accompaniment.

Oka is one of the mainstays of Quebec surface-ripened, semi-soft cheeses. There's the original raw milk, longer-aged Oka Classique, and a pasteurized version, Oka Regulier, for softer palates and pregnant ladies. :) I use the raw milk because of the extra nuttiness it offers. I'm also a sucker for that lovely, raw, 'dirty sock' flavour.

Oka-Pine Nut Stuffed Phyllo Turnovers

200 g Oka Classique, grated

4 sheets of frozen Phyllo dough, thawed

6 tbsp melted butter

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup roasted pine nuts

1/4 cup chopped garlic chives

Preheat oven to 375°F . Stack the sheets of Phyllo dough together, brushing each with melted butter. Cut this stack into 9 squares.

Divide the grated Oka and pine nuts between the 9 squares, and place in the centre of each. Season with salt and pepper and half of the chives.

Fold the phyllo squares over the filling to form triangles. Seal the edges with melted butter and crimp with your fingers or the back of a fork. Brush each side with more butter.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, turning once, until golden brown.

Garnish with remaining chives.

Serve immediately with preserves of your choice, and microgreens, sprouts, or frisee to cut the richness.

Enjoy!

"Folly in the Getting of Our Food is Nothing New"

Now that I'm (temporarily) re-suburbanized, I try my best to be mindful of the above statement while walking through the botanical gardens and morbid zoos that are our supermarkets.

Sustainable Spirulina

It may not look like much, but that clump of blue-green algae has been hailed since the 1970s by the UN and others as a sustainable solution to global malnutrition and poverty. Sustainable not only as a nutrient and protein-rich food, but as a source of income for those living in both urban and rural poverty.

Small Spirulina ponds which can produce up to 200 grams per day can be financed with about a $500 micro-credit loan. The Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro Algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition (IIMSAM) claims it takes about one gram of spirulina per day for a few weeks to correct severe malnutrition in a child. While providing a valuable source of nutrients for the community, the Spirulina pond owner can profit from the worldwide demand for the product. Worldwide production is expected to be 250,000 tons in the next few years.

So what makes Spirulina so nutritionally beneficial? Firstly, the stuff is between 60 and 80% protein! It's also one of the few sources other than breast milk of Gamma Lineolic Acid, an essential fatty acid. As a unicellular orgamism, it's very easily digestible, and so provides a whack of vitamins and nutrients to the malnourished body without shocking the system.

For more information, check out www.iimsam.org and this nutritional analysis

Fried Seafaring Friends

I've got quite a penchant for fried sea creatures. On a recent trip to Australia, it took tremendous willpower not to pop into a corner take-away (it seems there's one on every corner in Sydney) and feast on the fried offerings at every meal. Shrimp and crab and lobster are nice every once in a while, but smelt are my favourite local fishy fare. Smelt are a very small fish, and they can be sustainably caught by net in the spring in our Great Lakes and rivers. They're also readily available frozen at the supermarket.

I like them whole, but you might prefer to clean them and remove the heads and tails. All they need is a light dusting of salt, pepper, and flour to be pan-fried in oil or butter. Dress them up with a classic flour-egg wash-breadcrumb peparation for deep frying. I like a squirt of lemon and some parsley to finish, but they're also great with a homemade tartar sauce. If you're really adventurous, eat them live like the Koreans do! Please let me know how that goes.

Tartar Sauce

• 1 cup mayonnaise, homemade or store-bought
• 2 shallots, minced
  
• 1 dill pickle, chopped fine
  
• salt and pepper
  
• juice of one lemon
  
• 1/4 cup capers, chopped fine
  

Combine all in a bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow the flavours to marry.

This simple recipe can certainly be augmented with Tabasco, horseradish, dry mustard, fresh herbs...

Recipe: Warm Shiitake and Asparagus Salad with Baked Goat Cheese

Shiitakes are a bit of a wonder food. The Japanese prize them for the virility they're believed to bestow on the eater. They're a great vegetarian staple at 20% protein- more than chicken coldcuts! I eat them for their bold flavour and texture. I got hooked on them when i worked on a farm down the road from a producer near Guelph.

Shiitakes are usually cultivated in hardwood logs, typically oak or maple. I think they're a great, albeit time-consuming crop for anyone with a bit of a woodlot they'd like to put to use. Through selective harvesting and thinning, one can select good, healthy logs and innoculate them with Shiitake spawn, which is often sold for very little by producers. The innoculated logs do require a lot of care- watering in dry periods, harvesting twice daily, and so on- but ten or twelve good-sized Shiitakes can fetch about four dollars at market. When I sold the abovementioned producer's fare in Toronto, I would sell out within the first hour. Of course, they're just lovely to have for home consumption as well.

Asparagus and Shiitake both have bold flavour and wonderful texture. I think the goat cheese in this recipe really smooths them out and helps them to coalesce. If you're really a flavour junkie, forget about the baked goat cheese, and crumble some nice soft blue cheese over the salad to finish.

Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Warm Shiitake and Asparagus Salad with Baked Goat Cheese

• 1 small log herbed or plain chèvre (soft goat cheese), chilled

• 1 tbsp fine dry bread crumbs

• 1/4 tsp paprika

• 1-1/2 lb asparagus, trimmed

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 3 tbsp butter

• 12 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced

• 1 red pepper, diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1/3 cup water

• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 2 tsp fresh tarragon, minced

• 2 tsp fresh thyme, minced

Slice goat cheese into 8 equal rounds. Mix bread crumbs with paprika, salt and pepper in small dish; coat each side of rounds. Place cheese on baking sheet; set aside.

Arrange asparagus on rimmed baking sheet; drizzle with oil, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast in 475 F oven for 7 to 10 minutes or just until tender. Remove from oven; cover to keep warm. Place goat cheese in oven and bake until hot, 3 to 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, red pepper and garlic; cook, stirring until mushrooms are lightly browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in water, vinegar, thyme, and tarragon.

Arrange asparagus on salad plates; spoon mushroom mixture atop. Top each serving with 2 rounds of goat cheese. Garnish with fresh herbs.

Welcome

Hello! Thanks for stopping by. I envision this little piece of the web as a discussion forum for food issues, politics, recipes, growing, and eating. I'd like to share my love of gently growing and eating good food, and have you do the same with me. Deal?