The Real Deal

The other day I had lunch at a garden variety chain restaurant and ordered a cup of tea.  The server delivered it with milk and the customary sugar container.  As I spied the sugar holder I noticed it was stuffed with all the different colored packets of saccharine chemicals otherwise known as “artificial sweeteners.”

There, amongst all the kaleidoscopic counterfeits were two lone packets of real sugar.  With chemical dispenser in hand, I hailed the waiter.  As he approached he asked:  “Need some more Sweet & Low?”  “No,” I sharply retorted, “I need some real sugar!”   Five to be exact for my tea.  Interesting that he assumed I was a food neurotic.

I hate fake food.

What do I mean by fake?  I propose three general categories.  The first is when a facsimile of a particular food is referred to as the same name as the real McCoy.  Take caviar for example.  Traditionally, the term caviar denotes the roe of sturgeon, and more specifically sturgeon from the Caspian Sea.  But you can find sturgeon roe from America, or worse yet, roe from other fish such as salmon or lumpfish, labeled as “caviar.”

Another example is crème fraîche.  Real crème fraîche, as made in France, is unpasteurized cream thickened by the action of bacteria naturally found in the cream.  But in germaphobic America, unpasteurized milk products are a no-no, despite the fact that it’s obviously safe to eat, as evidenced by a lack of Frenchmen dropping dead in droves.  Thus in the US, crème fraîche is made with pasteurized cream and thickened by adding buttermilk or sour cream.

The wine world is replete with these misidentifications.  Champagne, Burgundy, and Chablis (from France), Port, (from Portugal) and Chianti, (from Italy), all refer to wines whose grapes and production methods are reflective of a specific geographic location.  There are no Italian Champagnes, American Chiantis or Australian ports, not real ones anyway, but there are wines labeling themselves as such.

This is not about snobbery.  It’s about the character and qualities of the product in question.  In a word it’s about taste.  The same biological product cultivated in two discrepant parts of the world will produce different flavor profiles.  The fact that there is a difference is indisputable.  Which tastes better is where contrary opinions emerge.

I could take the politically correct route and tell you that there’s no right or wrong, it’s all based on your own palate, go forth and revel in your subjective self-validation.  But I’m not!  I’ve had Russian and American caviar and the American isn’t as good.  I’ve eaten crème fraîche in France and it’s clearly superior to the sanitized American version.  And don’t even get me started on real Port from the Douro Valley of Portugal compared to those cheap jugs of Australian or American “port.”

Missing Ingredients

The second type of fake food is any product that has had any of its key ingredients reduced or eliminated:  decaffeinated coffee, light beer, low-fat mayonnaise, diet soda, you get the picture.  I find light beer most perplexing.  There’s not a huge difference in calories between real beer and light beer.  You’re already consuming alcohol and empty calories.  So for God sakes, just have a beer.

Phonie Baloney

The last category of fake food is the most egregious:  blatantly ersatz phonies such as artificial sweetener, imitation crab meat, margarine, non dairy creamer, and salt substitutes.  (Some salt substitutes are 100% potassium chloride, as opposed to mixtures of real salt and potassium chloride which are “category 2” fakes).  These products are an affront to everything I hold gastronomically holy.

Fake foods are routinely endorsed by those who have hang-ups about the substance in question or harbor dubious health fears.  I’m excluding of course diabetics, individuals with food allergies, or those who suffer from other genuine medical conditions.  Those are all a different story.  What I’m alluding to is the relentless, usually spurious, and frequently exaggerated paranoia about salt, sugar, carbs, fat, red meat, calories, and whatever other substance the latest food propagandists are alleging will cause cancer, environmental damage, immortal sin, political outrage and general Armageddon.

As a chef and unabashed hedonist, I champion the glories of food and not the shackles of deprivation.  As I’ve written many times before, food goes well beyond the momentary physical pleasure.  Not to minimize that pleasure but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Relishing in satisfying, real food, is about savoring life.  It’s about taking a much needed respite in the middle of a hectic day.  It’s about connecting with friends.  It’s about nurturing your family.  It’s about sharing a romantic interlude with your partner.  It’s about celebrating life’s most treasured moments.  Food and drink are about, or should be about, embracing and enjoying life.  Food should feed our souls as much as our bodies.  Personally I look forward to every meal, every day.

Last Friday night my wife and I had a wonderful dinner at an Italian restaurant with two of our closest friends.  We had a delicious meal, a good bottle of wine, (actually a little more than one good bottle), and chatted about all sorts of things.  It was a relaxing evening and it gave me something to look forward to all day.  These are the moments of my life I will fondly remember, not the bagel with low-fat cream cheese and rank decaf coffee.

Now take the food neurotic.  They dread each and every meal.  For them, every food encounter is an opportunity to gain weight, erode their health, or consume something morally or politically prohibited.  Every impending meal begins a cycle of rumination about fat, calories, animal products, heart disease, and a myriad of other anxieties.

For them food is something fraught with peril that must be managed and negotiated.  My Friday night dinner with friends would have been tortuous for the fake-food-fanciers.  They would have agonized over the politically incorrect veal, the saturated fat in the cheese, and the sodium content of the sauce.

They would have struggled with or eschewed the sweet dessert.  They would have felt guilty about the calorie and alcohol consumption.  The next week they would have deprived themselves to make up for the “indulgence.” As for myself, it’s a week later and I’m still basking in the glow of the evening.  You tell me who has a better quality of life.

In closing I must admit that you can sell me on the idea of moderation.  But as Julia Child once said:  “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”  And always remember…………..keep it real.

Chef Mark R. Vogel
FoodForThought.com

Here’s a new contribution from Chef Mark Vogel talking discussing how to handle friends who insist on knowing what we think about their cooking. - RG

Tell’em What They Want to Hear

I’m always amused when some public figure is in the limelight and being queried about possible misconduct or impropriety, or is simply avowing the quality of his product or services.  Almost universally, their answer is the one that places them in the most favorable light.

This is because either the image-preserving answer is actually true or they’re lying to eschew aversive consequences.  Yes there are a few rare instances where people actually fess up.  But overwhelmingly their answer will be the one that either exculpates them or exalts them.

Former President Bill Clinton’s promulgation that “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” is a classic example.  What else could he have said?  I mean, did anyone REALLY expect him to go on national TV and announce to the country that the married head of state is getting his freak on with an intern?

Or how about the commercial for Saturn automobiles asserting that “we make cars that people want to buy.”  Obviously not, for shortly after this commercial aired GM announced it was shutting down the line.   Again, did anyone think Saturn would actually pay for a commercial outlining the advantages of Japanese cars and admit that this was a last ditch effort to prompt people to buy Saturns?

The point I’m driving at here, (pardon the pun), is that in these situations we can never trust the message, because there’s basically only one message.  Be it truth or mendacity the answer/affirmation is always the one which serves the speaker.  When someone claims they’re innocent, they could be either innocent or guilty.  When someone claims they’re product is superior, it could be superior or inferior.  Only the rare self-incriminating responses have a reliable validity rate.

Do You Like My Blood Pudding?

There’s another scenario where people uniformly dispense the “correct” answer:
At a social gathering when the host questions if you like their food.  In this case we often preserve the other person’s ego to avoid the social/emotional repercussions.

Many years ago I was at a dinner party, hosted by this Bavarian woman fiercely proud of her homemade blood sausages.  Knowing my culinary background she was particularly intent on procuring my approval of her “blood pudding” as blood sausages are also known.

Even before the event she began extolling their virtues and fervently anticipated my sampling of them.  When the moment of truth arrived I will never forget the pressure.  As I placed a forkful of the sausage into my mouth, she sat there, intensely peering at me, bringing all of her senses to bear, hypervigilantly awaiting the first discernible sign from me as to my opinion.

And now ladies and gentlemen, this year’s winner for best actor in a repulsive food situation goes to…………(envelope crackling)………..Chef Mark R. Vogel!   (Audience cheers!)

What else could I do??????  My revulsion for her horrid sausages was only outmatched by her dire need for my approbation of them.  Was I to insult my host and create an air of tension for the rest of the night by opining that her blood sausages tasted like a different part of the pig’s anatomy?  Of course not.

Even a diplomatic appraisal of the food would have painfully smitten her and caused disharmony to the bonhomous atmosphere.  Therefore, I reached into the bowels of my psyche and with all the personal discipline I could muster, ignored the vile sensations erupting from my mouth, and produced one of my best feigned performances of gastronomic pleasure.

Naturally, we all want people to enjoy our food and drink.  We want our guests to be pleased, our efforts appreciated, and our perceived successes validated.  It’s also natural for most people to feel at least a modicum of disappointment when their offerings are rebuffed.  Of course this reaction varies from person to person.  Some of us are more sensitive than others.  But no matter who the host is, and no matter how delicately you put it, expressing your disapproval of their victuals is usually not conducive to a congenial miasma.

So in light of all this allow me to suggest the following.  At your next dinner party, don’t even bother to ask your guests if they like the food.  You might as well ask your local car dealership if they truly perform all those tasks in those heftily priced service packages.  You’re merely going to receive the “correct” answer.

So I’d forgo putting your guests on the spot.  Unless you plan to stare them down, meticulously analyzing their reaction for disingenuousness.  If that’s the case, then I’m afraid you have a bigger problem than you’re cooking.  Ooops.  Sorry.  That wasn’t what you wanted to hear.

Chef Mark R. Vogel
FoodForThought.com

Do The Twist

Pretzels. Can you even think of a more inane victual?  I don’t think even condiments are taken as much for granted.   Pretzels are practically an afterthought.  A bag of something you throw into a bowl at a party to increase the appearance of hospitality.  Of course I’m referring to the workaday, bagged pretzels indigenous to every American supermarket.  However, the average American consumes 1 ½ lbs. of pretzels a year.  That translates into a $550 million a year business.  Not so inane after all.

Nevertheless, I doubt many people ever contemplate the origins or meanings of this voluble little snack.  No problem.  It’s my job to do that homework for you.  You’d be amazed how convoluted the history of the pretzel is.   Pardon the pun but get ready for a lot of twists.

To begin, there are a number of claims to the pretzel’s origin.  These include 1) the ancient Romans, 2) the Greeks of 1,000 years ago, 3) Italian or French monks in the year 610, and 4) German bakers in the year 743.  Trying to identify the specific birthplace of a food product like a pretzel is like asking when the first chicken appeared on earth.  It’s not like on one Monday millions of years ago there were no chickens and on Tuesday there were.

Chickens and pretzels are entities that develop over time with multiple influences.  Not to mention the fact that certain food products can be “discovered” by more than one independent source contemporaneously or at different times.  As for the pretzel, there were probably many “prototypes,” i.e., similarly baked items from various parts of the world that eventually morphed into the barroom nibbler we know today.

OK, so somewhere over the last 2,000 years in Europe the comestible we now call pretzels were “invented.”  Let’s twist some more.  How did it get its shape and what does a pretzel symbolize?

Well, first there’s the notion that an ancient cult of sun worshippers formed a circle of dough around a cross but this was too fragile a configuration so it was amended into the current form.  The monks who supposedly created the pretzel in 610 allegedly crossed the dough strands to represent children with their arms crossed learning their prayers.

Pretzels were popular with Christians at lent since they were devoid of any forbidden ingredients.  Moreover, the three holes came to signify the trinity.  In Germany, Catholics would form palms into pretzel shapes for Palm Sunday.  Pretzels were thought to bring luck, prosperity and spiritual wholeness.  They were considered particularly lucky on New Year’s.

Finally, some accounts claim that the marital expression “tying the knot” emanates from the pretzel shape and denotes everlasting love.  Love struck German boys would paint a pretzel on the door of their beloved.  In Luxembourg, on “Pretzel Day,” it is customary to give your inamorata a pretzel or pretzel shaped cake.

So it appears then that the meaning of the pretzel shape is as multifaceted as its origins.  Tired of drifting through all the twists?  Let’s straighten out a little by discussing what is clear cut.

A pretzel is a baked pastry product made from dough that can be soft or hard, (although originally it tended to be chewier).  Cooking time and the amount of moisture in the dough determines its hardness.   The name pretzel comes from the German bretzel which in turn comes from the Latin brachium which means arm.  Some cite this as evidence for the “crossed-arms” theory of the pretzel’s meaning.

The pretzel was introduced to America by German immigrants in the 18th century and flourished in the areas populated by the Pennsylvania Dutch.  The first commercial pretzel enterprise in America was the Sturgis’ Bakery in Lititz, Pennsylvania which began in 1861.  Pennsylvania currently produces 80% of our country’s pretzels.  While pretzels are traditionally salted, there are also sweet varieties coated with glazes and other flavoring elements such as chocolate, yogurt and fruit.  But I think nothing beats a traditional New York soft pretzel with lots of salt and mustard.

An intriguing aspect of both pretzel and bagel making is that they are poached in water before they are baked.  Many people are surprised when they first learn this.  Indeed, the average person doesn’t equate a pot of boiling water with baked goods.

The reason bagels and pretzels are poached first is to set the outside crust.  This renders the final crust thicker and crisper.  It also adds density to its interior.  Too long in the hot water however and the crust becomes too thick and the interior lightens.  Typically pretzels and bagels are only poached for 30-60 seconds.

One final interesting anecdote about pretzels occurred in 16th century Vienna.  The city was under siege from the Ottoman Turks.  As the story goes, because the walls of the city were so well defended, the Turks attempted to tunnel under them.  Pretzel bakers working at night heard the commotion and informed the authorities.  The city was saved and the Emperor awarded the bakers a coat of arms.  The pretzel is indeed a microcosm of the twists and turns of history.

Chef Mark R. Vogel
FoodForThought.com

RELATED TOPICS

Best Ever Pretzel Recipe