I knew very little about the Slow Food movement and nothing about the Ark of Taste so I was pleasantly surprised when I learned my neighbor’s daughter and new food friend, Margot, was involved with both and started her own web site selling some of the Ark of Taste products. I asked her to explain to me and you what these two movements are all about and she was kind enough to write this very informative article.

I trust if you didn’t know much about Slow Food and thought it was a way to cook food like I did, you’ll learn a lot from Margot’s article. If you want to learn more about some of the ingredients Margot talks about and even purchase some, I suggest you check out her web site at Heirloom Table.  - RG

A Little Introduction to Slow Food and the Ark of Taste
by Margot Weber

What is Slow Food?

First things first, Slow Food is not about “slow-cooked food” it’s a movement and a non-profit organization dedicated to helping make our food systems more full of food that is “good, clean, and fair”. It’s about better taste, better health, better communities, and better care for the environment.

For me, learning about the Slow Food movement was like finding my long lost food religion. I grew up in a family in which three generations get just as excited about summer’s first juicy, ripe local peach as we do about an eight-course meal in the Swiss Alps. Combine this with lessons from an early age about taking care of the environment and family nostalgia for the days when the green grocer knew my great-grandmother by name, and you can see how the menu at Mccy D’s left me feeling that something was missing.

The name “Slow Food” comes from its goal to be the opposite of “fast food” and it may sound like another buzzword, but it’s absolutely a good thing, and something delicious to get excited about. Slow Food is both a grassroots movement and a non-profit organization that takes action on the premise that food should be GOOD, CLEAN, and FAIR. Let’s break that down:

-    GOOD - It has to taste deeeeelicious, otherwise, what’s the point? Plus, it has to be nutritious and devoid of harmful preservatives or additives.
-    CLEAN – The food must come from farming and production practices that are dedicated to minimizing their impact on the environment and avoiding waste.
-    FAIR – The Slow Food organization and the grassroots movement participants are care deeply about making nutritious, delicious, local food available to everyone, throughout the world.

To summarize, Slow Food is about connecting the pleasure of food with responsibility to the environment and connection to the community. I want in, don’t you?!

Where Slow Food Originated

Slow Food originated in one of the bedrocks of fantastic cuisine, Italy. It all started in 1989 when Carlo Petrini founded Slow Food International. The inspiration to act came because fast food joints were popping up everywhere (even near the Vatican!!) and so many young people were consuming fast food, it was feared that the high-quality food traditions that bring pride, health, and personal connection were being lost. On top of these fears, Petrini and his supporters pointed out that fast food production greatly increases food waste and damages the environment.

Since 1989 Slow Food has expanded to have national chapters in over 150 countries with more than 100,000 members internationally. Thanks to increasing awareness about food production and the desire to create healthy communities, Slow Food membership continues to grow. Many supporters also include notable food professionals such as Chef Mario Batali, Chef Daniel Boulud, Jean Georges Vongereichten, and Rachel Ray.

Organizing with people who share your views is all fine and dandy, but the important part is what these Slow Food members DO. Slow Food has many wonderful programs aimed at preserving natural food diversity, educating adults and children about food, and most fantastically - helping people in developing countries improve nutrition through better farming practices. Here are a few examples of top programs:

• Terra Madre - a network of farmers, food producers, NGOs, cooks, academics, and students that come together each year to share Slow Food best practices and discuss how to further improve their ability to create foods that are Good, Clean, and Fair
• Slow Food Presidia – projects where the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity gets directly involved with helping artisanal food producers improve their businesses and thrive
• Earth Markets – community-run markets throughout Europe that embody the Slow Food philosophy
• 1000 Gardens in Africa – a project to create community fruit and vegetable gardens throughout 25 countries in Africa that will yield more nutritious food, income opportunities, and local pride
• Ark of Taste – (which I’ll explain in more detail below) is a catalog of delicious traditional foods from different countries throughout the world that are in danger of being lost due to industrial farming practices

What is the Slow Food Ark of Taste?

One thing I’ve heard friends and family say over and over again this summer was, “remember how red and juicy the tomatoes at the farm stand were a couple years ago?  The ones this summer were flavorless and white inside!”.

What’s going on with the world – are tomatoes reacting to hard times too? Isn’t a jersey tomato a jersey tomato?

Something we may not realize is that that there are many different varieties of every fruit, vegetable, meat, grain, and farm animal. Some we’ve heard about like Golden Delicious apples or Black Angus cattle, but for more delicate fruits like strawberries and tomatoes, large corporations create new “improved” varieties every few years. Now, you would think taste and nutritional value are top priorities in breeding these new varieties, but higher value is often placed on resistance to pesticides and durability during shipping. Might be good for your stockholders, but it doesn’t sound very delicious or nutritious at all!

This is where the Slow Food Ark of Taste comes in. It is quite similar to an “endangered species watch list” for notable foods. The foods on the Ark of Taste are there because they are extremely delicious, a rich part of local history, and are in danger of being lost due to large-scale industrial farming practices. Foods on the Ark of Taste can be nominated by anyone and submitted to the Slow Food USA Biodiversity Committee, which is made up of Slow Food members from across the country. By learning about and eating these tasty foods we help make American food culture something to be proud of. If you ask me, eating something flavorful in order to save it for future generations sounds right up my alley!

The food varieties on the Slow Food Ark of Taste are similar in concept to heirloom tomatoes (i.e. breeds like Purple Cherokee, Green Zebra, etc.), but applied to all types of foods.  All the foods on the US Slow Food Ark of Taste are considered heirloom varieties or food traditions that were developed in the US from about eighty to several hundred years ago. There are over 70 other countries that have their own Ark of Taste that you can check out as well. Here are some examples of foods on the US Ark of Taste:

• Meyer Lemons – these made their debut in the US around 1908 when mandarin oranges were brought here by the USDA and crossed with a standard lemon; the result is a lemon that is much juicier and slightly sweeter than your typical lemon
• Mission Olives – a variety introduced to California in the 1700’s; it was nearly lost to years of co-mingling with other varieties until several untouched groves were discovered on the grounds of Catholic missions in California
• Colonial Shrub – the Tait Farms family revived what was nearly a dead colonial tradition when they started to make fruit shrubs  (cordials traditionally added to water for a sweet and tart drink) from a combination of fresh fruit-derived vinegar, cane sugar, honey, and spices

So this is all great, but what does it mean for you? Give yourself a chance to taste America’s gourmet heritage and seek out these products! This is our main focus at Heirloom Table (www.HeirloomTable.com), where you can buy delicious Slow Food Ark of Taste foods at fair prices and have them shipped to your door. Find your local Slow Food chapter by going to www.SlowFoodUSA.org and find out which restaurants, stores, and green markets they recommend as places that uphold the values of providing the most flavorful local food, getting involved in the community, and using eco-friendly practices.

Try it! One bite and we think your head, heart, and taste buds will be hooked on the pleasure of good food and a clear conscience.

Useful Links:

Heirloom Table – an ecommerce site dedicated to the Slow Food Ark of Taste
Slow Food USA – where you can find Slow Food-focused local businesses and learn how to get involved
Slow Food International – information on Slow Foods international programs
Slow Food USA Ark of Taste – a full listing and descriptions of all the foods on the USA Ark of Taste,

Information Sources:

The background information in this article was sourced from the Slow Food International and Slow Food USA websites and an article by Miguel A. Altieri, Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, all accessed in September of 2011.
http://www.slowfood.com/
http://slowfoodfoundation.com/.
http://slowfoodusa.org/
Altieri, Miguel A., Ecological impacts and the possibilities for truly sustainable farming. http://nature.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/modern_agriculture.html

Part of The Reluctant Gourmet Cookbook Challenge

This weekend we had friends over for dinner and Meg & I served this pasta dish as an appetizer along with incredible roast pork tenderloin and apple sage sauce that was delicious – moist with plenty of flavor. Might even register as a “Good As It Gets” recipe. I’ll post the recipe for the pork dish in the next week or so plus tell you where you can watch it being prepared via video.

As part of my Reluctant Gourmet Cookbook Challenge, I suggested looking for recipes from cookbooks you haven’t used in a while, but I just purchased the new Chef Marc Vetri cookbook, Rustic Italian Food, and couldn’t wait to give it a spin. This recipe for Rigatoni with Chicken Livers is served at Marc’s Osteria restaurant here in Philadelphia, and I have been told it’s their most popular request. I know I order it as a table appetizer every time we dine there.

I’m Not Eating Chicken Livers

I understand some of you may be turning up your noses with the idea of cooking and eating chicken livers, and I understand where you are coming from but this one is really worth a try. If you like liverwurst, liver pate (be sure to check out my Chicken Liver Pate Recipe also from Vetri), foie gras or any organ meat dishes, you are going to love this.

And if you don’t think you are going to like it because of the chicken livers, give it a try anyway to broaden your culinary repertoire.  Maybe start with a little liverwurst, muenster cheese and spicy mustard on a hard roll and go from there.

We doubled up Marc’s recipe since we had 7 adults to serve, and it was great. Everyone enjoyed it, but the dish was not as creamy as I remembered it at Osteria. Next time I would add a little more pasta water and Parmesan cheese at the end to make the sauce creamier as Chef Marc suggests.

What’s really amazing is how affordable a dish like this is. Chicken livers sell for less than $2 per pound and Marc’s recipe calls for ½ pound. Yeah, the cipollini onions are more expensive, but you could easily substitute yellow onions. Be sure to buy quality Parmesan cheese and grate it yourself to assure freshness. And of course you want to use fresh sage, not dried.

So for this Recipe Challenge, I offer you

Cipollini Onions - Great for roasting and very sweet

Cipollini Onions Sliced

Freshly grated Parmesan Cheese and Fresh Sage

Chicken Livers - Not much to look at but very tasty when prepared right

Ok, now it’s starting to look very delicious!

Rigatoni with Chicken Livers, Cipollini Onions and Sage
from Marc Vetri’s Rustic Italian Food
Serves 4

Ingredients

• 14 ounces dry rigatoni pasta
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus some extra for the sauce
• 8 small cipollini onions, peeled and thinly sliced into rings (I had a terrible time trying to peel the onions and did my best but because the skin was so thin, I didn’t get crazy trying to remove it all. See below for an onion peeling trick I just learned.)
• 12 fresh sage leaves
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 8 ounces chicken livers, minced
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese with extra to serve at table

How to Prepare at Home

Start by bringing a large pot of water to boil to cook the pasta. Many home cooks, including myself, underestimate how long it takes to (1) bring the water to boil and (2) cook the pasta. We end up with a finished sauce waiting for the pasta to cook.

Get the water boiling before you need to throw in the pasta. And don’t forget to season the water with a little salt.Add the pasta and bring the water back to a boil and cook until al dente (tender yet firm).

While the pasta is cooking, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter in a large fry pan (sauté pan) big enough to hold both the sauce and the pasta over medium-high heat. Now add the cipollini onions and sage and cook until the onions are lightly brown. This should take 3 to 4 minutes.

Season the onions and sage with salt and pepper and add the minced chicken livers. These cook quickly, about a minute or two. Add a ladle full of the pasta water using it to deglaze, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen up anything stuck to it.

When it’s time to drain the pasta and add it to the sauce, be sure to reserve a cup of the pasta water in case you need it when making the sauce. Pasta water, full of starch from the pasta, is a great way to help the sauce stick to the pasta.

Add the pasta to the saucepan and toss with the Parmesan cheese, some of the reserved pasta water and additional butter.  Judgment time. If you think you need more sauce or it is not creamy enough, add a little more of the pasta water.

You can also add more butter but don’t overdo it. I think restaurants are using way too much butter in their sauces, but that is another topic for discussion.

Serve in a large bowl family style or divide among individual bowls and serve with the extra Parmesan cheese as a garnish. It is also a great idea to warm the bowls before adding the pasta to keep everything warm.

I hope you give this one a try even if you are not a big fan of liver. There is tons of flavor and the chicken livers do not overpower the dish.  And of course, be sure to check out Chef Vetri’s new cookbook Rustic Italian Food.

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Cipollini Onion Peeling Tip

To peel cipollini onions, which can be a bit of a royal pain sometimes, cut an X on the bottom of each one and blanch for about a minute in boiling water. Shock in an ice bath. The skins will slip right off.

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Don’t forget to post what you are cooking as part of The Reluctant Gourmet Cookbook Challenge.

Flounder Fillets à la Moutarde - Cookbook Challenge #1

Moussaka - Cookbook Challenge #2

Colston Bassett Blue Stilton

You know how much my wife and I love cheese. Most Saturday mornings we head to the Farmers Market to buy some ingredients for the weekend and pick up a tasty cheese with a loaf of Italian bread for our morning breakfast. My new friend Bill, whom I affectionately call Bill the Stinky Cheese Guy, is my new cheese mentor who turns me on to new cheeses every week. This week I want to talk about Blue Stilton.

Blue Stilton, also called the King of English cheeses, is one of the most spectacular cheeses to come out of England and is the only English cheese that enjoys trademark protection. In fact, there are only five dairies located in three counties licensed to produce Blue Stilton. They include:

• Colston Bassett Dairy
• Cropwell Bishop
• Long Clawson Dairy
• Tuxford & Tebbutt Creamery
• Websters

It is such a fantastic cheese that it even inspired a sonnet!

Sonnet to a Stilton Cheese

Stilton, thou shouldst be living at this hour
And so thou art. Nor losest grace thereby;
England has need of thee, and so have I -
She is a Fen. Far as the eye can scour,
League after grassy league from Lincoln tower
To Stilton in the fields, she is a Fen.
Yet this high cheese, by choice of fenland men,
Like a tall green volcano rose in power.
Plain living and long drinking are no more,
And pure religion reading “Household Words”,
And sturdy manhood sitting still all day
Shrink, like this cheese that crumbles to its core;
While my digestion, like the House of Lords,
The heaviest burdens on herself doth lay.

–G. K. Chesterton

Blue Stilton In Short

Type: cow’s milk
Origin: Nottinghamshire, England
Process: blue mold, Penicillium roqueforti, is introduced at the outset; new cheese is drained, salted, molded and drained some more. Pierced after four to six weeks of aging to allow the mold to grow.  Cheese is mature and ready for sale approximately ten weeks after starting the process.
Texture: unpressed, semi-firm blue
Shape: cylindrical
Color:  pale straw with delicate bluish-gray veining
Rind: rubbed, thin, mottled orange
Flavor: buttery, salty, rich and creamy, pungent and peppery veining

The Rest of the Story

You might ask yourself - I know I did

What’s the difference between Stilton cheese and blue cheese?

Blue cheeses are produced in many parts of the world using many different types of milk. For instance, Gorgonzola is a blue cheese made in Italy of sheeps’ milk.  All blue cheeses rely on the mold Penicillium roqueforti for their characteristic bluish-gray veins and sharp flavor.

Much like Champagne is a sparkling wine made in the Champagne district of France, Stilton is a particular type of blue cheese only licensed to be made in three shires (counties) in England–Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.  Interestingly, Stilton is not licensed to be made in Stilton, the town for which it is named, because Stilton is not in one of those three shires.

The natural question, then, is why is it called Stilton? While the town of Stilton produced a type of cheese (possibly blue), in the mid-1700’s innkeeper Cooper Thornhill of The Bell Inn in Stilton began “importing” this cheese from the surrounding counties. Over time, Stilton production localized in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, while Stilton was sold and exported primarily from the town of Stilton itself.

To read more about the history of Stilton, click here.

What Helps Make Stilton Stilton?

Of all of the most well-known varieties of blue cheese, Stilton has the lowest water content, the lowest salt content and the highest fat and protein content. This means that is the richest and creamiest of all the blue cheeses, which might be one of the reasons that I like it so much.

Making Stilton Cheese

To make Stilton, cows’ milk is first pasteurized and then cooled to 86˚F (30˚C).  It takes 17 gallons of milk to make one 17 lb  Stilton cheese. It is then mixed with rennet and the Penicillium roqueforti mold.  Once the curd forms, it is sliced both vertically and horizontally into long, thin pieces, kind of like julienne cuts.  The curds are milled, drained and salted by hand.  Once thoroughly mixed, the curds are placed in cheese molds, or hoops.  The curds continue to drain and the hoops are turned once a day to ensure even draining of the whey.

After five days, the cheese makers remove the hoops and then smooth the outside of the cheese with regular kitchen knives. The smoothing step not only makes the outside of the cheese look more finished, it also seals it so no air can get inside the cheese. This is important because the cheese is then aged for four to six weeks before being pierced with long stainless steel needles.

Piercing introduces air to the interior of the cheese, allowing the mold to start growing.  While some blue cheeses let the mold begin growing at the beginning of the cheese making process, the makers of Stilton want the cheese to mature for a certain amount of time before the mold begins to grow, hence the smoothing of the cheese.  The piercing step is repeated a week later, and then the cheese is allowed to ripen a further three weeks before being graded and passed for sale.

If you want to learn more about making Stilton and see photos, click here.

Characteristics

Colston Bassett Stilton has a brownish rind that can be dry and rough. The interior paste has an ivory color with it’s trademarked greenish-blue veins. It definitely has a strong smell, some may call it a stinky cheese, but I call that a compliment. It also has a strong taste that I love but the kids wouldn’t touch.

According to Steven Jenkins, one of the most knowledgeable cheesemongers in America who wrote Cheese Primer about Stilton, “The flavor of a great Stilton cheese is full, rich, and creamy, as complex as that of any other great blue. It reveals layers and folds of the flavors of honey, leather, tobacco, and molasses.”

Doesn’t that just make you want to go out and buy some and taste for yourself?

White Stilton

At the Colston Bassett Dairy, one of only five dairies licensed to produce Stilton cheese, they also make a white Stilton.  This cheese is made exactly like blue Stilton, but it isn’t pierced so the mold doesn’t grow.  White Stilton is mild and creamy and is often mixed with fruits and honey to make seasonal dessert cheeses, usually around Christmastime.   Like its more well-known sibling, white Stilton also has a Protected Designation of Origin and can only be produced in the same six dairies licensed to produce blue Stilton.

Serving Stilton

Like most really excellent cheeses, Stilton should not be used in cooking. It pairs very nicely with crisp apples, and it is often served with a luscious port or sherry. As I mentioned above, I like to serve this cheese on a fresh French or Italian baguette for breakfast.

The other day I was making cheese quesadillas for my girls using a generic American cheese but decided to make one for myself with a little Stilton Blue. It was fantastic and took quesadillas to a whole other level for me. I could also see cutting a thin slice and topping a grilled steak with it or using it in one of my demi based brown sauces. I know I said it shouldn’t be used for cooking but if it’s sitting in the refrigerator, why not?

Buying Stilton

There are a lot of great blue cheeses on the market and I hope to talk about many of them, but if you can find a Colston Bassett Stilton or one of the other name protected dairies version, give it a try and let me know what you think of it. Saying that, Stilton is not cheap. I think I paid around $28 per pound for it so I  purchased about 1/3 of a pound but this is strong stuff so a little goes a long way.

And be sure to buy Stilton from reputable cheese shops that know how to handle cheese and sell a lot of it. You don’t want to spend that kind of money expecting an incredible cheese only to be disappointed because the cheese purveyor didn’t know what they were doing. As I always suggest, ask for a taste. If you don’t get it, buy your cheese somewhere else.