The Escoffier Series, Ch 13, Vegetables and Farinaceous Products, Ep 283

The Escoffier Series, Ch 13, Vegetables and Farinacious Products

Oh, the ways to cook vegetables and the many vegetables to cook. Truly speaking, some fruits are added here, cucumbers and tomatoes, since they are more often considered veggies.

There is also added potatoes and some noodles.

This episode starts with some of the cooking basics. I’m going in alphabetical order as Escoffier lists the vegetables. We cover just a few here including artichokes and asparagus.

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The Escoffier series continues with chapter 13.

For many of us, and I include myself here, steaming fresh green beans or broccoli might be all the veg we eat. You who have kids know even that might be a challenge.

Sometimes it is just steamed frozen peas or corn kernels.

Those veg are fine. I add butter and salt and pepper. I have some habits in the kitchen that are carryover habits from my service days. I have more than a few stainless steel bowls here. Probably close to 20 of various sizes. They’re small and don’t break, are easy to clean and store, and light. I put some butter in a small bowl and wait for the steamed veg to be done. Tip the veg into the bowl, toss to coat in butter, season, and serve. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I usually overcook the green beans on purpose. I think they taste better and the way they’re growing green beans they are so woody it’s like eating twigs if they aren’t cooked enough.

I’m pretty sure that’s not a procedure to find in Le Guide Culinaire.

Escoffier lists some popular vegetables and presents some of his preparation ideas. Artichokes are first. I’ll not go through every vegetable. I will touch on a few, though.

Artichokes require labor and effort. If not before cooking then during eating. The leaves have thorny barbs on the end and the choke part can get everywhere. They’re a mess to clean and can take time. Those aren’t reasons to avoid artichokes. That’s just information for planning.

The best way I learned to prepare and keep artichokes was to clean them down to the heart and poach them from cold in salted lemon water. When they are just tender, remove them from the water and place them into extra virgin olive oil to cool. Once cooled, they’ll keep for a while in the cooler.

Extra virgin olive oil gets viscous when cold. To get those artichokes out, let the container warm up on the counter until you can easily lift out the ‘chokes with a spoon. Don’t put your bare hand in the oil since what’s on your hand, bacteria-wise may stay and grow in the oil.

Those cooked, preserved, artichoke hearts can be added to nearly any dish which takes artichokes. We used to add them to the risotto for a Grouper Picatta.

Perhaps the most popular way to cook and eat artichokes is to cut the thorns off the tips of the leaves, scrape out the choke, fill them with seasoned cheesy bread crumbs, and bake with a white cream sauce. They look impressive. The wee bit of artichoke meat at the end of the leaf isn’t motivating to me. I do like the artichoke heart and am happy to work to get that.

There is one other way I enjoy the artichoke heart. Clean it down to the heart. Scrape out the choke and cut the raw heart into thick pieces, maybe a quarter of an inch thick. Saute them in extra virgin olive oil until they brown then turn them over and finish cooking. They can be as a side alone or added to a pasta dish.

Asparagus is next. Escoffier identifies 4 kinds of asparagus: Argenteuil which is a typical French variety, the green variety, the violet asparagus of Genoa typical of Italian asparagus, and the white Belgian variety.

A quick Google search turned up one page discussing 15 varieties of asparagus. White asparagus is pretty rare in grocery stores. Asparagus is the first veg of the season and is pretty quick. By mid to late June it might already be done.

Asparagus can be quite woody at the bottom of the stalk. Asparagus can be woody, that is, have fibrous outsides that cooking doesn’t remove. Asparagus larger than my finger is peeled. It’s a bit of a challenge sometimes to peel, but well worth the result when it comes to eating it.

White asparagus is said to be sweeter. I have not found that to be so. When I ate it, I found it to be bitter. I cannot say that bitter and sweet cannot exist together in one food. Bitter is pH and sweet is not.

Most often restaurants simply put asparagus on the plate as is. Buttered and seasoned we hope and that’s it. There’s a lot to do with it. Escoffier offers a variety of ways to serve it and most involve placing the cooked asparagus in an oval dish, covering the tips with buttered bread crumbs, and browning that under a small broiler. Also, baking them in an oval dish in a cheese sauce and gratineeing that under a small broiler.

He also offers asparagus with Sauce Maltaise. That’s Hollandaise sauce with blood orange juice.

That’s pretty good. Blood oranges aren’t in season yet. Blood oranges have a robust berry citrus flavor. Usually, it’s strawberry and raspberry with the orange flavor. The color, too, is impressive and makes a nice sauce. Regular oranges will do nicely. Seville oranges are bitter which will go well with the rich of the Hollandaise and sweetness of green asparagus. Also, orange butter sauce, or beurre blanc. Similar fat levels and flavor profiles as Hollandaise.

Cooked and cooled asparagus is a nice summer treat. Serve with an orange mayonnaise or an orange vinaigrette and you keep the pairing of asparagus and orange, kind of a classic.

One suggestion I would offer for cooking asparagus is to tie it into bundles. The advantage is it is easy to lift all of the asparagus out of the water to shock it. That’s a good tip if you plan to heat it later or keep it cold. The other advantage is it’s easy to lift one bundle out of the ice bath. Hunting around in ice water for all the asparagus can get chilly.

Two more to mention.

Eggplant and carrots. We’ll pass over cardoons since I’ve only seen them once or twice in grocery stores and that was 15 years ago.

Eggplant is known to be bitter. That can be good or bad depending on what flavor profiles you like. It also works well for compatibility. Many recipes and many chefs suggest salting the cut side of eggplant and letting it rest for up to an hour to draw the water and with it, the bitterness. I’ve done this and I’ve not done this. I like bitter. I don’t notice much difference either way.

Eggplant Parmesan, eggplant parm, is pretty tasty. Escoffier even has a procedure for that. He calls it Eggplant a la Napolitane. He says Aubergine, of course.

Peel the eggplant and cut into 6 pieces lengthwise. You can make rounds if you wish. Salt them, dry them, bread them in the usual three-step breading procedure, and pan-fry over medium heat. You can deep fry them if you have a deep fryer. Arrange them in an oval casserole dish layering them with reduced tomato sauce and parmesan cheese and bake until fully heated throughout.

You can make modifications to this, of course.

Another procedure he repeats with alterations is cutting the eggplant in half lengthwise, scoring the flesh, deep frying, we would bake them, and scooping out the cooked insides. He saves the skin for a serving vessel which seems a clever idea. One procedure that interested me and one I’ve never seen before is eggplant souffle. Procedure 3996 if you are interested. I’m sure the Google will find it.

If you have a deep fryer or are familiar with deep frying on the stovetop, peel the eggplant, and cut it very thin on a mandoline or electric slicer. Being very thin is important. Thin as in 2 millimeters or so. Season them, flour them, and deep fry them. Basically, it’s the fried vegetables of the 80s. Eggplant chips are wonderful. They have to be cut thinly, fried crispy, and eaten quickly. The residual moisture will make them soggy pretty fast and then they are not amazing.

What Escoffier doesn’t offer about cooking eggplant is what happens when you saute it in large dice. Or even in small dice.

Eggplant is like a sponge for oil. Start with a hot pan, add a good layer of oil to that pan, and add your eggplant and you’ll say what happened to the oil? So, add some more because the eggplant will scorch. You add some more, then probably a bit more, and maybe a touch more after that. Your eggplant is now browning nicely, not scorching. You have started to toss the pan to turn the eggplant pieces or you’re using a tool for that then, Woooosh, all this oil just appears in the pan. It doesn’t actually make a noise; it just shows up.

The cells in the eggplant that absorbed all that oil start to collapse from the heat altering the structure of the cell walls. When that happens to the point where the cell walls give up, you get back a lot of that oil.

That oil can be used to then saute the rest of the ingredients for the dish. Suppose you’re making an eggplant pasta dish. Start with the eggplant. When the oil comes out, add onions and garlic, maybe a fresh herb. Some peeled cherry tomatoes and then the pasta. I would use a rigatoni or penne, but a long noodle would also work. Red pepper flakes for some heat and a decent amount of cheese and it’s time to eat.

The last one today is carrots. Escoffier does note that some carrots are very tough, woody almost. We might call them horse carrots. The carrots you buy in 1-pound bags are not going to be too tough.

The most popular French carrot dish is probably Carrots Vichy, named after the town Vichy, known for pure water. Carrots Vichy is substantially the same as glazed carrots, except Carrots Vichy is garnished with chopped parsley. I’ve seen online recipes add lemon juice to Carrots Vichy. That’s not how Escoffier wrote it. However, if it improves the dish, he would be the first to approve. Carrots Vichy is rich and sweet from both natural and added sugar. A touch of acid seems a good idea to break that up a bit.

Cut carrots into uniform pieces so they cook mostly at the same time. Put the cut carrots in a pan and just cover with water. Add half a teaspoon of salt, an ounce of sugar, and two ounces of butter. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and cook until the water is almost a syrup. Shake the pan once in a while to ensure even distribution of glaze. When they are done, carefully taste for seasoning. Stir to coat all the carrots with the glaze and serve.

Glazed carrots will be Escoffier’s basic method of cooking carrots regardless of the final use. Vichy is simply adding the parsley. I add the parsley while the carrots are still in the pan. The residual heat boosts the green color a bit and opens the aroma. If you decide to try the lemon juice, add that a minute before you decide the carrots are done.

That’s pretty basic. I find them a touch too sweet. I cut back on the sugar. Also, no one here likes cooked carrots so it’s mostly a moot point.

What else is possible with that basic process? Parsnips respond very well to glazing. No one here likes parsnips either, so that’s all me. Turnips and beets would work. Beets would make a great colored sauce. So might pearl onions. You might have to remove the onions before the glaze develops and then add them back to coat them.

Rutabaga might work. They break down pretty quickly after they are cooked.

Sticking to carrots, you can add spice to the water. Coriander or cumin will create a warm flavor profile. Add chopped cilantro or scallions at the end.

Remember that caramel is flavor. Let those glazed carrots develop a small amount of color and that really opens up the flavors.

Instead of butter, use coconut oil and add curry powder to the water. I just thought of that. Should work. You can really play with flavors and heat on a dish like that to come up with your own specific recipe.

The FDA still hates you and so does Big Confection Episode 282

The FDA hates you and now, so does Big Confection.

Big Food, which is those mega-corporations, seem not to like you too very much. They’ll take your cash, for sure, but don’t start thinking about what the ingredients are in those “foods” they sell.

The food additives mentioned in Episode 278 are the source idea for this episode. It goes deeper than just food additives since the problems with our health goes deeper than just additives.

One question is who should be in control of banning certain products? The several states or the FDA? Considering the FDA’s lackluster record of drug approval then removal, are they really the first best choice for making sweeping decisions about human health?

The final authority is the individual consumer, of course. If you aren’t informed, you are not making good choices. As it happens, Big Confection doesn’t want you to be informed.

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Links from the show

Elizabeth Flood’s piece

“The Truth About Diabetes” debate on BBC

The FDA Hates You episode

Episode 278

Dann’s cookbook on Amz

Cooking For Comfort

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I subscribe to a few food emails. One email had an article about the California bill to ban 4 specific food additives. Back in episode 278, I addressed some of this.

There’s a bit more to reveal about the bills. What became interesting as I started digging into the article, I found some rabbit holes and then the issue blew up into complicated and complex issues and politics, both governmental party policy and individual convictions. With this came misinformation disguised as a difference of opinion. That’s probably a good topic for another show—sorting out right from wrong information.

Today, I want to talk you through the articles I read and where I ended up just by following the writing.

This might be a good place to sidebar that no article can be thorough. At some point, the reader has to fill in the blanks by digging deeper.

The source article, the one that started this journey, was written by Elizabeth Flood on April 4, 2024, and posted on Fooddive.com. The opening paragraph gives a good clue about where this article is going. She writes, “Food industry executives argue the proposals lack scientific standing and could wreak havoc on the industry, while opponents link consumption of the food substances to serious health problems.”

Food execs argue. That can’t be good for the consumer. They argue there isn’t scientific standing. This is going to be slightly relevant later for dismantling the argument, such that it is.

Elizabeth offers the necessary reminder information that several states, CA, MO, WA, IL, and NY are writing or have written legislation banning bromated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye 3. She also offers that erythrosine, red dye 3, is banned in the European Union, Japan, China, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Red dye 3 is a petroleum derivative so of course it has to be healthy.

Rabbit hole number one. Elizabeth quotes Chirs Gindlesperger, a senior VP of public affairs and communication at the National Confectioners Association in an interview Food Drive conducted with him. He stated, “There’s been a flurry of activity in certain states, but there’s only one law in the books, and in fact, more states are walking away from this baseless, emotionally driven campaign that lacks scientific backing.”

That’s a pretty bold statement. Baseless and emotionally driven campaign. I checked. Food-Safety.com posted an article that refuted the idea that the claims are baseless. They write, “multiple studies have demonstrated red dye 3 to cause cancer in animals at high levels. Other studies have shown that red dye 3 and other artificial food dyes may lead to hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral effects in children. CR has also highlighted FDA’s own findings indicating that U.S. children ages 2–5 consume twice as much red dye 3 per bodyweight than the general population.”

Not all states are on board with banning these chemicals. Indiana, Maryland, SD, WA, and WV rejected proposals to ban food additives. KY went as far as saying that food additive decisions should be made at the FDA level. Gindlesperger agrees. “Our position is that the FDA should be making these decisions, not people who can’t sleep and are googling things in the middle of the night.” In other words, you are too stupid to know what’s good for you. Listen to your overlords.

Gindlesperger’s job is to advocate for the chocolate, candy, gum, and mint manufacturers. His chief complaint is retooling to meet the proposed requirements will be too costly to the industry. He offers this, “We’re gonna end up with a state-by-state patchwork of laws that do a couple of things: increased food costs, create mass confusion for consumers, and reduce and decay consumer confidence in our food safety system.” Once again, you are so stupid, you can’t read a label so trust the manufacturer to know what’s best for you. 

Decay in the food safety system and the trust in manufacturers seems to be tanking. That’s a good thing from where I sit since it requires the industry to earn back trust through better practices. It seems Gindlesperger prefers the special pleading for the industry to be held unaccountable. When people vote with their dollars, that’s the real impact. By people I mean you sleepless folks with nothing better to do than Google ingredients at 3 in the morning. Seems informed consumers are what the industry wants to avoid.

Rabbit hole number 2. If they do away with red dye 3, what will they replace it with? That’s always a good question to ask. Is the cure worse than the disease?

There’s a better-than-even chance you are already eating the substitute if you consume commercial yogurt or some candies.

The color, which can vary from pink to lavender, comes from cochineal. Okay, so what? What the heck is cochineal anyway? Good question.

Bugs.

Specifically, “Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus) are immobile scale insects native to tropical and subtropical South America, as well as Mexico and Arizona. These insects live on the pads of prickly pear cacti, feeding on the plant’s moisture and nutrients.”

Did you ever think about the first person to eat a mushroom or a crayfish? What must have been the circumstance behind looking at those scaly insects and thinking Hey, we could make color out of that. Proponents of cochineal coloration will point out that color for fabrics from cochineal is almost an ancient practice.

This same scaly bug is used to create two ways to color food. Cochineal extract and carmine which is carminic acid which has gone through a laking process. I looked up what laking is or means and I can’t repeat it since I don’t understand it. It is a process. That is about all I can say that I understand.

Plainly color from bugs is as old as time. That’s no big deal. What seems a big deal with timing is the demand from at least one German billionaire that you will eat bugs and be happy. Perhaps it was my internal monologue reading more glee into the article favoring bugs for food coloring than was actually there.

One unexpected impact on cochineal is price instability. Turns out the bugs, being parasites, can harm the host if they are not effectively managed. Cochineal is also impacted by weather and “other issues” but that’s never explained.

Rabbit hole number 3.

Chris Gindlesperger seems to reject that there’s a legitimate health issue with red dye 3. He seems to also reject that there’s a health crisis in the US. This topic goes well beyond only food additives. Food additives are a consideration in the health issue, but not the only one. There is the added sugar in many many foods, the abundance of calories in many restaurant meals, and the proliferation of processed foods in the stores at price points favorable to consumers. A lot is going on all at the same time. Chris is fond of focusing on the calories. I’ve read a few of his articles and listened to him on a debate called the Truth About Diabetes. His focus remains only on the calories. Not the source of calories. Too many calories is the issue and his solution is for the industry to make smaller portion packages. He’s starting to sound like one of those profits-over-people kinds of folks.

One bright spot of that debate was Dr Aseem Malhotra, who rightly understands food is medicine and that the right food choices can fix what the poor food choices caused. 

This rabbit hole goes a long way and has many splits. It’s also a pretty good illustration that one problem, food additives or diabetes, is not a stand-alone issue. Somewhere along the way in commercial food production, someone decided petroleum-based food additives were a good idea. For you getting ahead of me about medicine and medical schools, it might be the same guy or guys. If I’ve gone too fast, that was Rockefeller. That’s more than this episode can handle. It’s also well worth finding out more. You probably think that’s crazy talk. No one man could alter the medical schools all by himself. 

The main points as I see them are these. The more processed the food the better it is to avoid it. I know that the term process is even a bit sticky. Butchering is processing. It is transforming something mostly inedible into something edible. Butchering is an age-old skill. What I mean by processing is taking a bunch of ingredients, maybe none of them actually found in nature and combining them in a way to make something loosely called food. The more it starts to look like something Walter White might have concocted, the more you should avoid it. 

Calories as the only metric of food consumption is going to give you bad information. You can eat your daily calorie intake with Skittles and doughnuts and not eat any actual food. 

I read somewhere that food has gone up so much that the grocery bill for the average household has increased by $11,000. It sure feels like it. I don’t know if that is exactly right, but that groceries went up more than a little bit is plain enough. That means food purchasing decisions get more restrictive. And the cheap stuff is usually the crappy stuff. There are maybe a dozen different actions in play that lead to frustration in the grocery store and at the checkout. I usually shop at three different stores just to get the best prices. I’m in those stores a lot so I know who has the deals. Not everyone has multiple grocery stores to shop. It takes time to do that. It costs gas to do that. And I’m still more than certain food additives made from petroleum are not what I want in my food at any price. I’ve even not bought dog food because it had canola oil in it. Garbage in food means poor human health. Not tomorrow. A King Don today probably won’t hurt. Much. But Kind Dons for breakfast every day for a year is gonna leave a mark. Ingredients are cheaper than ready-to-eat foods. I know that opens a whole new set of time troubles and skill issues. There is no perfect solution to a very imperfect problem. What is very clear is thinking the agent of the Empire, the FDA, is going to make good decisions for you is folly. This is a great place to pitch my cookbook, One Pot Meals You Can Make.

I’m risking getting didactic, which I wish to avoid. Just to spite Big Confection, read those labels and Google the ingredients. The FDA seems only slightly concerned about your health and wellness, but I still say they mostly hate you. Now, BigFood and BigConfection seem to, as well.

The diabetes issue isn’t specifically a food additive issue, but the foods with those additives are also, generally, high in sugar which is a main source of the diabetes problem. Big Confection and Big Pharma don’t want you to know you can impact your health for the better by eating different foods. They want you to keep spending your cash on pretty colored poison and then take a pill.

It seems like a big step from a bill from one particular state to ban 4 food additives. CA might do a lot of things badly, but they seem to have this one right. States should make the decisions for their citizens. Of course, we prefer those decisions to be for their health, wellness, and happiness. It doesn’t always work out that way.