Strangers on Our Plates -- Wondering Where Our Food Comes From

“Terrior” seems an unfortunate choice for a word to describe the environment in which a food is raised. Search engines will often suggest that the word is misspelled, you should check “terror” or “terrier.” Seek synonyms and you may be told the word is untranslatable.

I am learning about the subject from a book, American Terrior by Rowan Jacobsen, issued in 2010 by Bloomsbury publishing house.

   Mr. Jacobsen has done a book on a subject some term untranslatable. In an informative and entertaining way, he touches on a handful of food items drawn from a vast field of possible examples. All grown food traces to “terrior” of some sort.

   Once upon a time, for millennia, we knew where food came from – our farm, field, garden, or one nearby. Today the source is often a guessing game. A hamburger from Sam’s Club, according to a New York Times analysis, contained “fresh fatty edges from Omaha, lean trimmings from old cows in Texas, frozen trimmings from cattle in Uruguay, and heated, centrifuged, and ammonia-treated carcass remnants from South Dakota…”

 

Foxfire Says Mountaineers Ate Real Food

A while back I wrote about a restaurant chain that claims a menu inspired by Appalachian cooking. What’s that make you think of? A big black kettle bubbling with something called applejack beef stew or, maybe, good ol’ burgoo.

A Farm in the Great Smokies

   Well, think again. A lot of what was offered by this restaurant chain, so it seemed to me, was cutesy food that would be more at home in a high-priced New York City eatery. I mean, really, I can’t see grandma gussying up her flank steak with a blueberry chipotle glaze. Say what?

   So let me introduce the real thing, real mountaineer chow, as found in The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery. The book is part of that grand collection of mountain lore, the Foxfire magazine and book series.

   As good examples of real Appalachian cooking, allow me to pass along for your consideration just two of the possible supper menus mentioned. They’re not elaborate like Sunday dinner or holidays, just regular everyday good eating:

Tips from a Scientist in the Kitchen

I’m not sure what the term “close-minded” means but it sounds like what happens to me when someone mentions “science.” Raise the drawbridge, draw the curtains, turn out the lights, we done. 

   And, anyway, what business does science have in the kitchen? Well, according to Robert L. Wolke, “Cooking is chemistry.”

Mining Sea Salt

 

Hammer, Pliers, Screwdriver ... Let's Cook!

Workshop tools adapt for kitchen use?

There may come a time, maybe you are vacationing at a camp or for some other reason have gone remote, or maybe it is too late to go shopping, when you need to improvise kitchen tools. Being a clever person, you just might turn to a standard toolbox in search of what you need. Very good, because in some cases the workshop tool will out-perform the kitchen tool.

   

Backyard and Woodsy Dining: Let's Eat Weeds!

“What is a weed for Monsanto is a medical plant or food for rural people.”

-Food activist Vandana Shiva

Knowing which wild plants are edible seems to me a survival skill, knowledge that might be useful in the event of catastrophe. But for some, foraging is an aspect of fine dining.

Old Homestead Meadow - US Forest Service

 

What Becomes of Pumpkins After Halloween?

Back in the good old days in Pennsylvania Dutch country, a shortage of meat meant frying up pumpkin as a substitute. That's according to the Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook by Gerald S. Lestz.
   Those were days of "waste not, want not."
   Pumpkins have quite a history, according to those who dig into such things, going back 9,000 years as domesticated in Mexico. In the US, Native Americans taught the colonists to stew pumpkins -- a type of squash -- with beans, corn and peas.
 

At the Bottom of Many a Stew: Roux

It could be called the soul of Cajun cooking. Time and again, a recipe will tell the cook to start with a roux. The popular roux of today is a dark concoction promoted by Paul Prudhomme, the chef who revitalized the culinary art of New Orleans. 

   Roux is often described as a thickener but, in modern manifestations, it is very much a flavoring as well. In classical French cooking it is generally just a simple white sauce made by whisking flour and butter.