A Special Southwestern Treat: Pumpkin Corn Bread From an Out-of-Print Book

Now Out of Print

You could call Southwestern dishes sensuous because they are so often full of warm spicy flavor. Southwestern recipes seem influenced mainly by Spanish American and Native American cuisines. But the menu may well include Anglo American (chuck wagon) and African American (Southern) fare and – judging by entries in the Arizona Republic recipe contests – Asian American and even Pacific Islander influences.

   The special recipe presented here is from Savory Southwest, a grand collection of prize-winning regional recipes from the Republic contests. The book is unfortunately out of print. A few copies were spotted on Amazon.

 

Kitchen Table Tidbits #4

KITCHEN TABLE TIDBITS #4

1. OKAY TO EAT IT OFF THE FLOOR? THE FIVE SECOND RULE: Do you ever invoke the five-second rule? Anthony Hilton, described by Business Insider as “a germ expert from Aston University,’ says food dropped to the floor is usually safe to eat. He says there isn’t likely to be any problem -- though it is not entirely risk free. The article noted that a survey of 2000 people found 79 percent said they had eaten food from the floor. HealthDay News cites a Rutgers University study indicating that food in contact with a floor for one second can pick up bacteria. Food dropped on carpet fared better than food dropped on tile. Dry food and dry floor would be “ideal” conditions, the contaminants might be just stuff from the bottoms of peoples’ shoes (bacteria need wet environments and cling to wet surfaces like watermelon). A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champlain study reported by WebMD found that people were more likely to eat cookies and candy off the floor than broccoli or cauliflower.

2. OPRAH’S FAVORITE?: The Smokehouse of New York uses Oprah Winfrey’s face on its much of its packaging because she included one of its products on her 2014 “My Favorite Things” list. But according to Food Safety News, a U.S. Attorney’s office is seeking to shut the company down until it solves problems with Listeria monocytogenes, a potentially deadly pathogen. Possibly fatal to the young, elderly and infirm, in healthy individuals the bug may spark only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. The company's problems have been going on for a while. A variety of salmon, sturgeon and whitefish products were recalled in April. Those products had been sold in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Alabama, Minnesota, and Montana. The company has retail locations in New York and sells its products nationwide on the Internet.

3. WHERE’S THE BEEF? REPLACED BY MUSHROOMS: Some Sonic restaurants will be offering a Slinger in August, it is a beef burger that’s made partly with mushrooms. The burger is made with beef, 25-30 percent mushrooms, and seasonings, and served on a brioche bun with mayo, onions, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and melted American cheese (another option comes with bacon, mayo, and cheese), according to the Fast Company site. Chefs say 20 to 30 percent mushroom in beef is about it to maintain beefy flavor. Advantages of the mix include cutting calories, fat and lowering costs. The idea isn’t new, but Sonic is the largest outlet to try it. It also seems to be catching on with school and corporate cafeterias. The Washington Post offers this recipe from reliable sources.

Kitchen Table Tidbits #3

1. BE KIND TO MUSHROOMS. Food writer Robert L. Wolke, upset by a common error, wishes to call to your attention that there are two "i"s in shiitake.

2. WHAT TO DO WITH 30 TONS OF RAVIOLI? The only problem with the Sam's Choice ravioli at Walmart is that it could contain milk, a possible allergen not mentioned on the label. Did you ever wonder what becomes of recalled food? Disposal depends on severity of the problem, in some cases it might be incinerated but the milky ravioli will probably just go to a landfill.

3. BEAT THE HIGH COST OF KITCHEN HARDWARE. A butcher’s saw is quite an expensive specialty item. Those who work with bone-in meat can use a hacksaw, just buy a hacksaw blade rated safe for bone use. The package should state acceptable uses. Scroll down on my blog site to the item labeled "Hammer, Pliers..." for more tips.

Kitchen Table Tidbits #2

1. AMERICANS NOW EAT MORE (PROCESSED) CHEESE FOOD THAN NATURAL CHEESES, according to Discover magazine. Don’t you love those orange rubbery slabs of whatever they are, called “American” cheese? They’re great for slapping together a grilled sandwich or cheeseburger. Nothing wrong with that, so long as you accept that it is illegal to call the stuff cheese, it is pasteurized processed cheese product. So, nothing wrong with that so long as you don’t mind ingesting manufactured food. Processed cheese is concocted from various chemicals and cheap ingredients (typically 15 or so) added to some cheddar (and perhaps Colby). “Overall, processed cheese products are an unholy mess of chemicals and additives, one worse than the next. When so many things must be added to make it taste good, is it really worth eating?,” asks the Alternative Daily news site. Right. So what is the alternative? Spend some money, they say, go for Swiss cheese, Parmesan cheese, Edam, feta, goat’s cheese, ricotta, mozzarella, and Brie, etc. “The place to find good cheese is at your local farmer’s market or specialty food store. Many large supermarkets also carry higher quality cheeses in the delicatessen area, as opposed to the main dairy case.”

2. FOLLOW UP: PROBLEMS WITH IMPORTED BEEF: We mentioned a suit going on at present to make known to consumers where their beef (or other imported meats) come from. There are good reasons why you would want to know. For example, Food Safety News tells us the US has joined with other countries banning Brazilian beef due to export of rancid raw meat – a practice exposed in a huge scandal involving presidential bribery and over $65 million in fines to meat packing executives. Point of interest: Sonny Perdue, President Trump’s Agriculture Secretary, opposed the ban until presented with more facts by his staff.

3. CONTAMINATED BABY FOOD: We’ve all been worried about lead in the water supply, but apparently the problem goes beyond that. An alarming new study from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), reported by TreeHugger News, has found that food is a surprising source of lead contamination – in particular, baby food, which showed higher levels of lead than regular food. The worst baby food culprits were grape juice (89 percent of samples contained lead), sweet potatoes (86 percent), and arrowroot cookies (64 percent). Lead is considered unsafe at any level, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, because it hurts neurological development and can cause behavioral problems, ability to focus, and lower IQ.

The Search for Honest Olive Oil

It might interest you to know that olive oil could be termed fruit juice. That seems to be so, technically speaking. The olive is a fruit, the oil comes from the flesh not the seed, same as orange or grapefruit juice.

The Olive -- A Bitter Fruit

On the other hand you may not give a hoot about that so long as it does what it is supposed to do, dressing your salad or searing your vegies – or maybe you use it for a body rub.

But you might care if that oil isn’t what it claims to be, right?

Kitchen Table Tidbits #1

1. WHERE'S THE BEEF FROM? USA beef producers are suing the US Department of Agriculture because they want better labeling for cheap imported beef and other meats. “Consumers understandably want to know where their food comes from, and proper labeling would not only allow consumers to make informed choices at the market, but would also be a boon for American farmers,” David Muraskin, a Food Safety and Health Attorney at Public Justice, told Food Safety News.  “With this suit, we’re fighting policies that put multinational corporations ahead of domestic producers and shroud the origins of our food supply in secrecy.”
2. DON'T TRUST NUTRITION LABELING. "The nutritional content stated on the label is at the time of harvest," warns food expert Ross Golden-Bannon, head of the Irish Food Writers Guild. His advice appears to apply to markets everywhere. "So as soon as you harvest something, the nutritional depth begins to collapse. If it's been harvested 2,000 miles away and shipped over a two-week period, the nutritional content in some cases has fallen by 90 percent." The expert says food shoppers should buy local and organic to the extent they can. He was commenting on a proposal for better labeling of food produced by big agrifood businesses in an effort to combat food fraud. According to studies in Europe, food fraud rakes in more loot than heroin and illegal firearms sales combined. "The further and further you move away from where you're growing and consuming your food, the more risks there are for health, and for fraud to take place," concluded Golden-Bannon in a talk with NewsTalk podcast.

3. WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WEEDS? “Never guess about whether a plant is poisonous,” warns Tom Oder of Mother Nature Network. The guesswork is best left to knowledgeable experts like those at Conscious Cuisine – who will be happy for a price to lead you on weed walks and provide cooking classes. Weed walks? Well, you wouldn’t want to go gathering plants in areas heavily treated with pesticides, or industrial waste disposal sites, or along busy exhaust-fumed roads or beside polluted streams. A further consideration is legality. The plant or the site may be protected, or you may be trespassing. As the reality TV shows demonstrate, you don’t want to go trespassing on someone’s ginseng patch in backwoods West Virginia. You’re more likely to be serenaded by a shotgun than by a banjo. You can learn more by scrolling down to my blog entry titled "Backyard and Woodsy Dining: Let's Eat Weeds!"

The Buzz About Genuine and Corrupted Honey

We Need Our Busy Bees

If the honeybees die, we die. That’s the story told on various internet sites but it is an exaggeration. There is however no doubt we would suffer greatly as a result of a honeybee extinction.

   Due to human dependence on honeybee pollination of food crops, we would lose or experience serious reduction in foods from apples to coffee to lemons and limes. Not to mention watermelon, among many other menu mainstays. Probably 70 percent of our grown food supply would be affected.

  

Community Cookbooks Preserve the Country Kitchen

Community cookbooks preserve the country kitchen of the past. There are thousands and thousands of titles. These books have been issued by churches, schools, civic groups, various auxiliaries, families, and in support of any number of charitable causes. 

Featured Book as Found on Amazon

 

Would A Mountaineer Order From This Menu?

I'm not a big fan of couscous. It reminds me of what is left of an old log after termites are done chewing it up. 

   But surely the authors of the Tupelo Honey Café cookbook would argue this point -- because they believe a dolled-up couscous concoction is among “new southern flavors from the Blue Ridge mountains.”

Please pass the couscous?

   We are talking about the same Blue Ridge Mountains near where I was born in Appalachia? There are flavors there, all right, traditional flavors that inspired songs about cornmeal baked into hoe cakes, possums cooked golden brown, and illegal whiskey made in copper kettles hidden  back up among the mountain laurels.  

   But this Café isn’t particularly into that sort of thing. Yes, we get an introduction going on and on about plain, wholesome mountain foodstuffs passed down through generations, but what follows are recipes such as “Sunny Orange and Cilantro Couscous.”

   Now, my grandmother was raised on a farm and in later years she supervised a kitchen that fed a herd of high school students in my northern Appalachian mountain hometown. My guess is, she might recognize 25 percent of the recipes in this book, and I’m including ordinary gravies and common fruit pies in that assessment.