Weird food science

I love these kinds of Mr. Wizard questions about why food does what it does. Let's pretend someone has asked me the following questions:

Why are some of the potatoes in my bag green? Are they okay to eat? How do you keep honey from crystallizing? My guacamole turns black when I leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Wassup with that?

Well, kids, let me tell you. When raw potatoes are exposed to light, they can turn green. The color itself, which comes from chlorophyll, is benign. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story. A compound called “solanine” forms during this greening process, a compound that is both bitter and toxic. Avoid eating any potato skin or flesh with a green tint—just keep peeling until you reach snowy white potato. In order to prevent this greening process, store potatoes in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place, but preferably not in the refrigerator. In the refrigerator potatoes starches can turn to sugar, resulting in overly sweet potatoes and excessive browning during the cooking process. Don’t wash potatoes before storage (this hastens spoilage), and don’t store potatoes near stored fruit. Many fruits emit ethylene as they ripen, which in turn causes potatoes to sprout.

Honey is primarily made of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose. Those containing a greater proportion of glucose are likely to crystallize over time, especially at low temperatures—the glucose spontaneously precipitates out of the supersaturated sugar solution, leaving hard granules throughout. Most supermarket honeys have been filtered and cooked to decrease the likelihood of crystallization, but “raw” honey is especially susceptible. Store your honey in a sunny, warm spot, never the refrigerator or cold basement. If it does crystallize, all is not lost. Gently warm the honey in a double boiler to about 120 degrees F, stirring until the glucose crystals liquefy.

As per guacs, a vibrant green quickly turns to unappetizing brown when avocado is exposed to air. So how to shield your guacamole from oxygen becomes the challenge. The acid in lime juice retards the process—squeeze extra lime juice over finished guacamole to create an oxygen “barrier.” A swirl of olive or avocado oil achieves the same effect, as does plastic wrap nestled directly against the surface of the dip (not merely over the top of the bowl). Some avocado enthusiasts claim that storing the pit with the guacamole prevents browning, but it really only prevents browning in the guacamole it touches, again by shielding it from oxygen. Even after you’ve protected your guacs, browning will occur over time. Before serving, scrape the topmost layer of guacamole into the trash, revealing the still-vibrant dip below.

Guest blogger, we'll call him the earl of sandwich

a.k.a. Pete Couture:

Let’s face it: No matter our taste in food or our dietary philosophies, we all love sandwiches. Take Sirio Maccioni, the owner of the renowned Le Cirque restaurant in New York City. The New York Post reported recently that while at the Sundance Film Festival, Maccioni ignored the fancy restaurants in tony Park City, Utah, and had his driver take him to Burger King for a chicken sandwich. A man of simple tastes, after all. So Esquire magazine set out to identify the best sandwiches in America (and we refuse to call them “sammies”). Esquire obviously shares some of Maccioni’s passion for fast-food — why else would they include the McRib and the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich? Surely, we thought, the Tampa Bay area has a good chance of being represented, what with our grouper creations and our history of Cuban sandwiches. Sorry. The Florida entries are the Cubano at the Latin America Cafeteria in Miami and the Seafood Salad sandwich at La Sandwicherie in Miami Beach.

Alright, where are our best sammies, er, sandwiches? I'm tossing the offerings at Pane Rustica into the ring, but I had a mighty fine curried chicken salad today at the new Emma Rose's tea shop on Central Ave. in St. Petersburg.

Burger follow-up

Um, guess I touched a nerve there with the burger post. Who'd a thunk ground beef on a bun would prompt so much fervor? Dave Davisson did post a good list of top burgers here. Think I'll start plowing through some of them myself.

Also, in case anyone missed it, I got a thougtful comment about mercury in fish from Allan:

Actually not all pelagic gamefish are as bad. Fast growing but short lived species such as Mahi Mahi or Wahoo do not live long enough to accumulate the same quantities of mercury in their tissues as do tuna, swordfish, or sharks. The FWC continually monitors mercury content in fish caught locally in Tampa Bay.

Oooh, I feel so dirty

This is cheap and flagrant I-got-nothing-today-but-come-on-give-me-a-comment ploy. A few days back, Sean Daly got like five zillion comments on his pop music blog when discussing baby-name options for his impending progeny.

I thought I’d spend a little time talking about food words that make good baby names. There are, of course, celebrities who’ve already had this idea: Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s daughter), Chutney (Diana Ross’s daughter, but they flubbed on the birth certificate and spelled it with a “d”), Poppy Honey (Jamie Oliver’s daughter), and Saffron (Simon LeBon’s daughter).

I like Olive for a girl. Shad for a boy. Some of the sweet spices provide good options: Cinnamon, Cardamom. But how about Cayenne or Pepper? There’s a girl you need to watch like a hawk when she turns 15. On the other hand, you have to trust a boy named Basil.

Another guest blogger with an etymology riff

TBT's Peter Couture started thinking about Chef Robert Irvine's upcoming local ventures:

The names of celebrity chef Robert Irvine’s yet-to-open St. Petersburg restaurants — Ooze and Schmooze — got us to thinking about poorly chosen names. That eventually led us to a 2006 review in the London newspaper The Observer by critic Jay Rayner of a restaurant named ... Ooze. Rayner, it seems, shares our impression of the name. He writes: “Here’s what I want to know: why didn’t somebody stop them? Why didn’t one of their investors, hearing the name for the first time, say, for God’s sake no! Ooze is a bloody awful name for a restaurant. It’s a dog of a name. It shouts seepage. It bellows muddy outflow. Infected wounds ooze. Please try again.” Oh, and Rayner wasn’t that fond of the food, either. Chef Irvine, you might consider your countryman’s advice.

While we are playing the name game, The Guardian’s food blog has tackled the subject of the worst restaurant names in the world. One of the leading candidates must be that quaint spot for romantic dining known as Hitler’s Cross. The restaurant, in Mumbai, India, is adorned with images of the Führer. “We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok is quoted as saying by the Times of India. Table for two, please! Then there’s this Houston restaurant that sounds like it was lifted from one of Jay Leno’s humerous headlines: Crapitto’s. (Now that’s Italian!). And a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Lynn C. Hattendorf Westney, has done a study — “Onomastic Sobriquets in the Food and Beverage Industry” — on the subject. Her work includes a bunch of big words we don’t understand, but we got a kick out of some of the restaurant names. A sampling: Sir Loins, Pulp Kitchen, Grateful Bread, Pizzadelic, Aroma Borealis, The Angry Trout. Even some of Tampa’s finest are listed, most notably: Mad Dogs & Englishmen, SideBerns and the restaurant delivery service Dine One One.

World eats

I spent last weekend eating gobs of food and ruminating about my sartorial sense in Miami. I was working on a travel story about "what's new and hot" in the Miami dining scene. In fact, it got me thinking about how much of travel, more generally, is about food. MSNBC recently named culinary tourism one of the hottest trends in the food & beverage industry for this upcoming year, and Quantified Marketing Group included culinary tourism in their 2008 Restaurant Trend Forecast.

Gotta agree. I belong to the International Culinary Tourism Association, so I get their regular newsletter. Here are the culinary destinations they were amped about for 2008:

• Singapore - A high quality visitor experience, ease of accessibility and wide variety of tasty experiences resulting from the intersection of four major cultures.  If you go, be sure to try the laksa!
• Ontario, Canada - High-quality agricultural products, world-class wines and an orientation to providing excellent and friendly service.   
• Hungary & Slovakia - Hungarian wines are relatively unknown and most would agree, underrated. Slovakian wines are completely unknown outside the region.  Both can be best enjoyed with the hearty and flavorful local cuisines. 
• Barbados - The hot sauce capital of the world! Keep your eye on the really interesting fusion cuisine coming out of this island nation.   
• Louisiana, United States - Experiencing a culinary renaissance in the aftermath of hurricane devastation.  Check out the new New Orleans! 
• Mexico - True Mexican cuisine is something few Americans (or others) have truly experienced.  Now is the time to discover its moles (sauces), braised meats and unusual spices and flavorings!
• Western Cape, South Africa - One of the most interesting wine scenes in the world now (and affordable compared to other wine destinations like California or France).
• Argentina - Wine and gelato - two of the basic food groups! Also known for its beef; visit a steak house for the experience.
• New Zealand - Long known for its great wines, New Zealand has amazing fruits, dairy and even olive oil (another important food group!). And let's not forget the lamb.
• Sweden - A leader in the new Scandinavian cooking with fresh, high quality and frequently organic ingredients. In recent years, Swedish chefs have even taken top culinary honors from long-standing award-winning French chefs.

Heck, I could have predicted that about Sweden. The Swedish chef was always my favorite Muppet by a mile.

Wish list for 2008

Janet Keeler, Chris Sherman and I spent a few idle minutes musing about trends we'd like to see in the coming year. Realistic things (as opposed to, say, "I'd like George Clooney to be my waiter at a naturist resort"), things that might actually come true if we put our collective minds to it. I'd be interested to see what readers wish for in terms of restaurant and food trends. Here's an interesting set of trend projections about the meat industry, sent to me by my buddy John (thanks, John) that corroborates a lot of what I've been thinking.

What say you, all? Restaurant trends on the horizon?

I can't believe it's not...

I'm of two minds about Brian Ries, the local restaurant critic for Creative Loafing. On the one hand, he seems to be knowledgeable about food and wine. On the other, he always manages to review the same restaurants as me, his reviews coming out a day before mine. What a jerk. But anyway, I was noodling on his blog last week and he had a delicious little harangue about olive oil. He's tired of the ubiquitous bowl of olive oil with little bits floating in it served with bread at restaurants. Maybe Italian restaurants get special dispensation, but he's pulling for the return of butter.

I have got to agree with him on this one. For about five minutes many years ago, I dated a French chef. He was nuts about butter. He made me taste butters from Normandy and elsewhere (nothing kinky), heaping big slabs on crusty bread. Good butter makes even bad bread taste pretty good. Butter matters. Some say sweet butter, some say salted butter, but either way many restaurants would be better off ditching the mediocre-quality oil in favor of a little bovine beneficence.

And now for something totally different...

Stepping away from food for a second, these toy recalls are really a killjoy, no? Here are some resources for you this weekend when doing holiday shopping for the young peeps in your life.

This is a site about lead and other toxic stuff in toys

This one is about recalls

And this is an online store where you can find safe toys (it tells you country of origin on each product)

For all you Food Network devotees out there

I just wrote a story for the paper about local restaurateurs, chefs and restaurants that have been featured on the Food Network. Not sure when it's running, but I came upon this in my surfing. It's a quiz that tells you which celebrity chef you'd be. Who are you guys?

Breaking out of the dining ghetto for a moment...

Hey, happy Thanksgiving, all! May you eat tremendous food with tremendous people in the next few days. If you're traveling, see below for some general travel suggestions.

Regardless of how you travel during the holidays, bear in mind that, statistically, the season is stressful to most folks, as is travel—a double-whammy. Whenever possible, extend to people the good cheer and empathetic spirit with which the holidays were intended.

Cigars have been on my mind.

Hey, not in a Freudian, weird way. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, remember? Anyway, reviewing Council Oak at the Hard Rock, where 93 percent of people smoke (the other 7 percent have a Skoal bandit tucked between cheek 'n' gum, I reckon), it got me thinking back to my own cigar-smoking days. That would be back when Demi Moore looked all glamorous puffing on the front of Cigar Aficionado.

I guess that aura of invincibility has worn off enough so that I reliably wear seat belts, I don a bike helmet and I don't smoke. It's called adulthood. Still, for a while, a cigar after a fabulous meal was a good thing. If you haven't ever understood the allure but have a little curiosity, click below to get some basics down.

Or stop by the Cigar Heritage Festival in Ybor City on Saturday (Nov. 17). Quite possibly the biggest and best cigar event anywhere in the nation, there will be more than two dozen cigar vendors, live music, a national broadcast by Cigar Dave and a variety of Cuban and other ethnic foods. For event details call (813) 247-1434.

Hold the phones

I'm back. I got in my car yesterday, obeying most essential traffic signals in my quest to worship at the altar of boutique-and-largely-organic-or-sustainably-grown-or-just-plain-fancy foods. I walked into Whole Foods and...

it was still, um, just like Wild Oats. The signage hasn't been changed, the house brands still say Wild Oats, the shopping bags emblazoned still with Wild Oats. I went straight to produce, hoping to encounter the vegetable-obsessed hirsute hippies that are a Whole Foods trademark. Not a one (although one smiley produce boy said I have nice hair, so that one can stay). The checkers, unfortunately, are still of the Wild Oats ilk (holding up a fennel bulb or a crookneck squash, furrowed brow, hoping for SKU illumination). The bakery: still Oatsey, not WF-ey (meaning, find me a baguette you'd want to put in your mouth).

I want Whole Foods prepared foods! I want the absence of this stuff! I want the cheeses and the wall of good vinegars and sauces. They say it will happen incrementally as the Wild Oats inventory runs down.

Alright, I'm not totally a slavering devotee. I understand that Whole Foods Market has had some dubiously ethical labor practices (anti-union). And that, essentially, WF is the organic food equivalent to Borders Books or Wal-Mart--meaning consumers benefit from economies-of-scale due to the juggernaut's vast purchasing power, but that a force that large can influence what gets made, how it gets made and what hoops the little farmer/producer/vendor has to jump through to be considered for the big league. That's a lot of power to wield.

Last supper

There's this new book I heard about on Zagat.com. Released on Tuesday, it's by photographer Melanie Dunea and it's called My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals. Why didn't I think of that? A cheap way to call up all those heroes and villains of the culinary world and weasel my way into their kitchens, maybe even their homes. We'd sit down, I'd ask some questions and they'd be charmed by my devilish wit, and as they formulated their dream last meal on earth, they'd decide to cook it up for me, right there on the spot....

Sorry for that brief reverie. Got a little lost in it. Anyway, it's got me thinking about what my own last supper would be.

I guess health concerns aren't an issue (who cares about saturated fat if you have six hours to live?), so I could have a big pile of saturated fat. But I'd need something spicy. And also something nurturing, like miso soup or chocolate bread pudding. Should it be ethnically coherent? Alright, here goes, my last meal:

Start with pan-seared foie gras on some little toasted brioche thing, topped with a sour cherry compote (maybe with a glass of Talley Vineyards Arroyo Grande Valley pinot noir).

Then tempura green beans with a spicy ponzu dipping sauce. No, that's stupid. How about a next course that pairs fried tofu with a really spicy peanut sauce and a pile of that Japanese sesame seed spinach (goma ae?). Add some noodles--those really wide chow fun noodles pan-fried so they get a little browned, with cabbage and snow peas and bean sprouts. No booze with this course, unless there's a little riesling laying around. Maybe a JJ Prum spatlese.

That's still just my second course. For entree, hmm. I'd need a stunning potato gratin, and maybe something classic and retro like a filet with a bordelaise sauce. And long, crisp stalks of asparagus that's been peeled at the bottom part. Hollandaise would be too much, right? Verging on gross? I want it anyway. I don't really feel like a cab or something and it's my party. A glass of big, fat California chardonnay. I don't care if it makes me a plebe.

For dessert, how about one of those individual chocolate cakes that ooze when you cut into the middle. With a big poof of unsweetened whipped cream. And a butt-kicking cup of coffee.

Alright, I'll go quietly.

Incidental food

If you look forward to going to the car wash as much for the free popcorn as to get your car buffed, you'll understand what I'm about to say. There is food that one encounters that makes life's little errands palatable. We bargain with our kids and with ourselves: If I finally return the Dust Devil to Costco, I'll treat myself to that chicken thing with the cheese in the middle at the snack bar. If the kids don't melt down in line at the electronics store, I'll buy them a smoothie from the cafe.

These are not restaurants, per se, but purveyors of food that are so conveniently and craftily located that we cannot help ourselves. We buy it because it's an emergency: We are starving, bored or in need of a little love. We may not give this food a second thought, but many of us eat at these places with more regularity and with more gusto than our most favorite restaurants. And some of them may serve up food that rivals that at our favorite restaurants.

What are your favorite incidental food venues?

Later-hosen!

I've flown the coop. Left on a jet plane to the moderate temperatures and dangerous bridges of Minneapolis, to commune with food writers from newspapers all over the country at the annual American Food Journalists conference. I'll be blogging from here: the Betty Crocker kitchens, a lecture on Native American wild rice, the state fair, a flour-milling museum. Hang on to your hats, you're going to love this stuff.

But first, I'd like to take a moment to complain about airplane food. Not in the way we USED to complain about airplane food: "Ooh, salisbury steak. How gross." "My lasagna was totally cold" "There were carrot coins in the vegetable medley." No, the complaining is different now.

There is no food.

You can travel on multiple legs of a journey, all day long really, and never get offered anything that might, even at a squint, be called a meal. As a new elementary school student, my daughter once took what was euphemistically called a "bistro bag" from the outstretched arms of the flight attendant. She peered into it and pronounced, with great disdain, "it's like snack time at preschool."

Truer words have never been spoken. And the multiple little plastic-encased things you do get are all carbs: crackers and cookies and chips. It gives me a buzzy, carbo-loading headache just thinking about it. What about the food pyramid, Fancy Airline Execs?

Eating Personalities: The PBS Eater

It's the last one, promise.

Food is used here as an educational tool, and not in a Pavlovian way. Eaters use dining as a means of exploring the climate and mentality of far-flung lands. If it's exotic, new, ethnically significant, they're there. These people are happiest when sitting on the floor eating things that look like Dinty Moore beef stew wrapped up in sheets of squishy bread. They keep Udipi busy every night and stop into the nearby First International Asian Market on Dale Mabry for a tub of Filipino beef blood or a frozen packet of candlenuts (highly toxic when raw, so they freak me out). They leaf through "Mennonite Foods and Folkways from South Russia" and at Thanksgiving forgo turkey and concentrate on perfecting Native American piki breads.

Eating Personalities: Two More

Alright, before you get bored of this game, I've got another couple types I've observed in my years of restaurant-going.

The Groucho Marx Eater

"I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member" is the mantra of this diner. The snooty hostess makes them wriggle with pleasure as they are escorted to a bad table. In fact, anyplace with imperious service and inflated prices qualifies as a prospective date/break-up/proposal locale. The Kobe at Chateau France is good in part because it costs slightly more than a Dodge Neon. These are the people who would take a bed & breakfast over the obsequious service of a fine hotel any time, relishing the chance meetings at the bathroom with a disapproving spinster owner. These people maintain that a little bit of attitude is a mark of quality and authenticity, like the detailing on the greenbacks they are wont to fork over.

Only Chumps Pay Retail Eater

These people believe in the GREAT $2 Chardonnay (Two Buck Chuck, anyone?). They circle the farmers' market stalls three times finding the best deals—eight ears of corn for a dollar, the world's largest zucchini, gratis if you can cart it away. They are not afraid of slightly dented cans or Hungarian liqueurs stripped of their labels. They know which nights of the week their favorite Chinese restaurant does inexpensive Peking duck, when they can take advantage of two-for-one specials, where the best happy hour snacks are. The thrill is in the chase.

Eating Personalities: The Chicken Eater

This is not a person with a marked propensity for poultry, but a person for whom eating is a test of endurance, strength, cojones--a game of chicken. This is the person who wrestles with the hottest chile, braves all organ meats, unflinchingly consumes goose webs and sea urchins, who lip-smackingly sucks the green stuff from steamed crabs. This is the Sir Edmund Hillary of food. When asked, "Why did you eat that?" The answer is always a gravelly, "because it was there." They order the kimchee hotpot at Sa Ri One and take a Scoville scale rating of 1 million as a personal challenge.

Eating Personalities: Lotus Eater/Absinthe Drinker

Or, the Sensualist. These are people who seeks out restaurants and shops that traffic in the strange, sandy flesh of ripe figs or the silken slither of pan-seared foie gras. These are eaters who wax rhapsodic when reminiscing about the unctuous pleasure and salty pop of caviar washed down by an icy, astringent vodka. Their tastes aren't always highbrow; a platter of sticky and smoldering baby-back ribs gnawed with abandon at a splintery picnic table in the sun works nicely as well. These people think wistfully of the peacock feather and the Roman period of insatiable voracity. Indeed, satiation is but a small part of the driving force behind this consumption. They finger the thin bottles of trockenbeerenauslese at B21 Fine Wine & Spirits in Tarpon Springs, trek to buy blood oranges at Whole Foods in Sarasota and order the molten chocolate dessert at Roy’s.

Eating Personalities

On the other hand, a restaurant critic can’t help but also develop opinions about the people who eat. Forget the National Geographic special on the yam-pounding rituals of aboriginal tribes. I just have to hang out in my favorite restaurants to see the archetypal eating personalities that make up our tribe. 

First, there’s the Big-As-My-Head Eater

For them, the greatest restaurants are staffed by stooped waitresses, their legs bowed from years of staggering under the weight of platters. Prime rib languishes limply over the edges of a plate, dwarfing the absurd parsley garnish. Veal chops look like baby grand pianos and have to be angled gingerly through doorways. Sheer girth is the stuff of legend, made all the sweeter in the retelling if there is an inverse relationship between price and size. These stories are satisfying as they have a wider purchase than the fisherman's Big Fish story.

A sub-category here is the All-You-Can-Eat Eater (think Homer Simpson at The Frying Dutchman). Diners feel they've outsmarted the system if they can eat their weight in steamed shrimp or Alaskan crab legs. They lovingly heap those little salad bar plates with enough three-bean salad, macaroni and bacon bits to airlift to Malawi.