Eating Locally; Tasting Globally

Northern Italian style soft-wheat pasta is not the first local food item one would think of when one is living in Ohio.

However, right in the heart of the small Ohio river city of Marietta, stands a locally owned pasta factory that creates twenty-one different flavors of Tuscan styled noodles, the kind that Marcella Hazan calls “silken” with a “plump” texture and “marvelous fragrance.”

Rossi Pasta, (which Zak and I have jokingly called for years Rasta Posse, because my dyslexia is endlessly amusing) is a locally owned and operated business that sells pasta to the gourmet food trade and to local grocery stores alike. Thier noodles, which come in several shapes, including no-boil lasagne, and pasta sauces have been local favorites for decades, but are also well-known across the country as a premier gift item, and have been sold in the Neiman-Marcus catalogue and used as corporate gifts by the Ritz-Carleton.

And that is the only problem with their pasta–it isn’t cheap. At $4.95 per twelve-ounce package, their noodles do not fall into the category of “frugal food,” but they do have several other factors working in their favor such that they have been staples of my pantry for years.

For one thing, the flavor and texture of the noodles is fantastic–they really are tender and silky, as lush as pasta fresh from my hand-cranked Atlas would be. The flavors are subtle, but quite present, and the pasta is as good simply dressed in a bit of olive oil and parseley as it is tossed with any number of mild or spicy variants on the standard Italian sauces. It also cooks very quickly–depending on the size and shape, the noodles can take anywhere from one to four minutes to cook completely once they hit boiling water, which makes them a boon for a cook who is too famished to spend a long time preparing dinner.

There is a bulk option when it comes to ordering; any single pasta variety is available in ten pound boxes for $44.95, which is an improvement on the price, and makes sense if one plans on eating a great deal of their pasta, but it is still significantly more expensive than even most imported durum wheat pastas.

But, for the local eating challenge, it is a perfect basis for a quick, locally-derived dinner.

While I boiled water for the noodles, Morganna sauteed a cut up chicken breast from Canaan Valley Farms which is just outside of Athens, along with some baby squash, onions, bell pepper and a tomato from Athens Hills CSA. I heated up some pesto I had made last week and put into the freezer–all of its components save the olive oil, pepper, parmesan cheese and pine nuts were locally aquired. We cooked a combination of three different flavors of fetuccini: jalapeno (my favorite), spinach basil garlic, and garlic, then tossed them with the pesto and topped it with the sauteed chicken and vegetables. Some quick shavings of parmesan finished the dish beautifully, giving us northern Italian flavors born from the bounty of southern Ohio.

And what is even more exciting–the entire meal took us about thirty-five minutes to cook from start to finish. Wow. I don’t think that Rachel Ray herself could have done it any better!

I’d like to reiterate once more that I don’t feel as if the eating local challenge should be a case of deprivation and sacrifice–it isn’t Lent. I see it more as a game where all the participants are trying to become more aware of our food, where it comes from, how it is grown or produced and what difference, if any, is there between non-local food and local food.

The Path of Pie

When you grow up among Appalachian folk, pie is important.

Cake, yeah, yeah, some people liked cake, but really, a woman was measured by the quality of her pies.

Pies were where it was at.

If a woman could bake a pie, she was the mistress of the kitchen, the queen of the hearth, the lady who ruled the roost, because, gosh darn it, everyone loves pie.

And both of my grandmothers were wonders with pie.

Gram made delicious pumpkin pies, and Grandma–well, there never was a pie that came out of her kitchen that wasn’t delicious. And, as a farm wife with four kids, nine grandkids, fourteen great grandkids and numerous friends, fieldhands and neighbors just passing through, she made a whole passel of pies.

I hesitate to estimate how many pies my Grandma made in her life. I would not be surprised to think it over a thousand or so. That is a lot for a non-professional baker, working alone, making them by hand. (And what is even more amazing–by the time I was born, Grandma was a diabetic, and never ate any of the desserts I remember her baking so beautifully. She never even tasted them to see if they were seasoned correctly. She just knew.)

And really, I hesitate to even try and figure out how many -types- of pies she made over the course of her life. I will list a few, and probably bore everyone to death, but I am going to do it anyway, just out of my own sense of curiosity and adventure.

Apple, Dutch apple (that is apple with a struesel topping), apple-raisin, banana cream, blackberry, blackbottom, black raspberry, blueberry, blueberry-peach, caramel, cherry (sour), cherry (sweet), cherry chiffon, cherry-cheese (it was like a cherry-cheese danish in pie crust instead of sweet yeast dough), chess, chocolate creme, coconut cream, custard (plain and with any number of kinds of fruit), lemon chiffon, lemon chess, lemon meringue, mincemeat, peach, peanut butter, pecan, pumpkin, rhubarb, strawberry, strawberry chiffon, strawberry-rhubarb, sweet potato, and winter squash.

That is just what I can remember off the top of my head–I am sure if I asked my family to think about it, we could come up with another handful of pies that I forgot about. Also, those are only the dessert pies. She made savory pies, too–and quiches, but she called them pies, because a pie is Anglo-American (just like my Grandpa), and thus is good, hearty, stalwart food that can be trusted. Quiche is fancified French food and is not any good, nor to be trusted. But even if she called it pie, it was quiche, full of eggs and cheese and ham and asparagus and whatever else she felt like putting in it. She made a pie that was just her incomparable lard crust with sauteed onions, shredded sharp cheddar cheese and scallion tops baked to a bubbly browned perfection. Oh, that was good.

She even made something she called “succotash pie,” which had the ubiquitous mixture of fresh corn cut from the cob and lima beans baked with onions, a bit of bacon and some egg custard in a pie shell, then topped with cheese. I remember loving it, though I think that Grandpa sniffed at it, because I only remember her making it once.

Gram–she is my Dad’s mom–made lard crusts or lard and butter crusts. She had no use for Crisco or margarine. After having to use margarine during World War II, she swore off the stuff because she said, “There’s just something wrong with it. It ain’t natural to take something that is meant to be liquid and do something funny to it to make it solid. I bet you any old thing that it is worse for you to eat that then butter or lard.”

I was happy she lived long enough to hear the first findings that artificially hydrogenated vegetable fats are worse for the body than naturally hydrogenated animal fats. I remember her grinning at me and saying, “I told you so.”

Last night, while Dad was eating my blackberry-raspberry pie with the lard/butter crust, he said, “This crust has lard in it–I can tell–it is really flaky.” When I said, “Yeah, it is half lard and butter,” he nodded and said, “Your Gram used to make all lard crusts. In the summertime, when it was hot like now, she used to take a big bowl and fill it up with ice, and then set her mixing bowl down in it. She’d freeze the lard, and then put the flour in the bowl to chill down. Then, she’d cut the lard in in that really cold bowl, while the lard was still basically frozen. Then she’d add water and mix it together into dough, and chill it more before rolling it out.”

I had never thought of putting the mixing bowl down in a bowl of ice, but considering how hot it has been, and the fact that lard melts basically at body temperature, I might give it a go. I’ve never read about it in any of my cookbooks, either, so I suspect that it was a Gram innovation–if it makes the lard/butter dough easier to manage–I will certainly report on it.

So, this summer, I decided I wanted to live up to the family legacy of being good pastry makers. I have been making pie–one a week or so–with whatever fruit is available. I have made three sour cherry pies, one sour cherry and blueberry pie, two blackberry pies, and one blackberry-raspberry pie, and I have come to some conclusions.

One–a combination of butter and lard make the best pie crusts. Lard is hard to get–but I buy home-rendered lard from the farmers I buy pork from–but it really does make the best, flakiest crust.

Two–lard makes the dough that much harder to handle, because it is so soft and apt to melt or become gooey, especially in summer, when all that delightful fruit is in season, begging to be made into pie. This is the time to put your marble slab in the freezer, and chill your dough and utensils and ingredients at every stage of the operation. Trying to rush a lard-based or partially lard-based dough is a huge, ugly mistake.

Three–using kitchen shears to cut the edges of the pie crust after the pie has been filled results in the most even and nice looking edge.

Four–lard or partially lard crusts will not hold a tall fluted edge; use a different finishing technique that isn’t quite so showy. The tall flutes that will hold in an all butter crust, and harden, will droop in a partially lard crust.

Five–pie isn’t so hard as all of that, if you are patient, breathe deeply, go slowly and just do it.

Six–there are a whole arsenal of tricks and tools that can make rolling out the pie crust easier–I will outline them in a series of posts–do them. Try them. What works for me will probably work for anyone, because I was so utterly awful at making pie that if I can do it, anyone can do it.

Seven–fillings–use fresh or frozen fruit, never canned. Canned is gross. I am firmly of the belief that canned cherry pie filling is what convinced Dan that he hated cherry pie, which I know he doesn’t because I have seen him gobble down my cherry pies with no fuss, and then ask for more. Also–do not be afraid to add a few little flavor enhancers to your fruit fillings. I use lemon zest and rosewater for blackberries and raspberries, and either almonds and almond extract or the contents of a vanilla bean in sour cherries.

Eight–have fun and be whimsical. The path of pie is a long and winding one, full of twists and turns and surprises behind every corner. Enjoy the process. The journey is as important as the result.

Nine–if you are going to eat your pies, take up an exercise program. Pie crusts are fattening, being as they are made of fat and flour. Walk an extra mile or two, or take up swimming. Or, do like I do and take a pie to every gathering of friends and family so you can have a piece and everyone else eats the rest. Give pies to the neighbors, take them to church, to school, everywhere. No one will refuse pie. You will make new friends and save your waistline at the same time, while still mastering the art of pie baking.

Ten–and this is just to make it an even number–never be afraid of pie crust. I was scared of it for years for no good reason, because really–it is fat and flour. If you screw it up a few times, so what? The world will not end. The sky will not fall. You will not have to slit your belly with your chef’s knife from the dishonor. Loosen up, relax, go with the flow and just do it.

There is my pep talk on the subject of pie. Look for a couple more posts this week with recipes and step by step instructions on how to make the lard-butter crust that is, in my opinion, the best tasting and flakiest crust you can make, and then with instructions on what to fill that crust with once you have it all made and shaped.

I cannot help but think that my two grandmothers are somewhere or another in the afterlife, sitting on a creaky porch swing, smoking cigarrettes, and nodding.

“Well, Deana–looks like she got over herself and learned how to make pie,” Gram would say with a toss of her white locks and a cackle.

Laughing, Grandma would nod her bandana-wrapped head. Exhaling a wreath of smoke from her nostrils she’d say, “Yep, Dolly, looks like she did. And she put a vanilla bean in with cherries. Have you ever seen the like?”

“Nope. But I bet it was good.”

Calico Salsa: It is All About the Tomatoes

I wait the entire year for summer tomatoes.

The rest of the year, I don’t bother eating any fresh tomatoes. There is no point. The hothouse or hydroponic tomatoes in the grocery store do not even deserve the name, “tomato,” they are so unlike the real article–they completely lack the flavor, texture and juice of a ripe tomato, even if they manage to be beautifully red.

Genetic engineering can do wonders with plastic fruit.

From July to September, when tomatoes are at their peak, I make gallons of fresh salsa, and have been known to eat it three times a day: with huevos rancheros for breakfast, on a quesadilla for lunch and on grilled fish for supper. Zak didn’t used to really like salsa much, until I first ran into heirloom tomatoes and started making salsa with them. Before that time, he would eat the juice from the salsa, but would not consume the tomatoes–he hated the flavor and the texture.

I discovered heirloom tomatoes about seven years ago at the farmer’s market in Columbia, Maryland, and was instantly enchanted. I bought probably ten pounds of them, in a mad array of colors, shapes and flavors. While lugging them home, I realized that there was no way I could eat all of them myself, so I plotted to make a salsa that used every color of the rainbow, and while it utilized chills, the wickedly hot peppers would carry the backbeat and let the tomatoes step up to the mic and sing lead, with onions, garlic and cilantro harmonizing. Lime juice, salt and a touch of cumin would finish out the rhythm section.

Because of all the colors, I named it, “Calico Salsa,” and with its inception, I convinced Zak that he really did like fresh tomatoes.

Now, he waits all year for the first big bowl of Calico, and we eat it with everything, though he is most apt to eat large amounts of it with quesadillas.

Most salsas are either cooked or raw; this one is both. Some of the tomatoes I leave uncooked so as to show off their lovely colors and fresh flavors to maximum advantage; others I roast in order to bring out the sweetness and caramelize the juices, while breaking down the pulp into a thick paste, which gives body and depth to the salsa. I leave the small chiles raw, along with the onions; the thick-walled chills and any red or yellow bell peppers are roasted. If I can find purple or chocolate colored bell peppers, I leave them raw and cut them up finely in order to preserve their color. The red onions I use raw, and garlic is used raw, though I have used roasted garlic in the salsa to good effect.

You can use any mixture of heirloom tomatoes to make the Calico, but there are a few things I will insist upon. One–I really highly suggest that if you can get Green Zebra tomatoes, that they go in the salsa. For one thing, they are gorgeous little fellows, as you can see from the photograph–kiwi green on the inside and lime green striped with yellow on the outside. Because they are so lovely, I do not cook them, but cut them up and add them to the salsa raw. In addition to being pretty, the Green Zebra has a spicy, tangy flavor that really rounds out the sweetness of the other tomatoes.

I also like to use yellow, orange or red Roma or paste tomatoes in this salsa, and these I roast. The reason is simple–first of all, roasting them deepens the flavor–it intensifies the sweetness of the tomato, and when you roast a Roma tomato, it makes the pulp break down into a thickening paste. I let the skins char and blacken completely, and then, after they are cool enough to handle, I squeeze them out of their skins and cut off the core. The rest, I mince up by hand–a few strokes of the chef’s knife and the tomatoes fall into a thick pulp that adds body to the salsa.

Other favorite tomatoes for this salsa include the Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Green German and Hillbilly. Each one has a different color and the flavors are all quite interesting and unique. The Brandywine has a flavor that is very balanced between sweet and acidic, while the Cherokee Purple, which is a burgundy-plum color with green shoulders, has a musky note to it. The Green German is quite acidic and somewhat fruity tasting–like a plum almost, and the Hillbilly, which is a big yellow beefsteak with streaks of red running through the flesh is heavy, full of juice and very tangy, with a sugary finish.

I always add minced up lime zest and fresh cilantro for a floral, herbal top note and balance the acidity with a squeeze of lime juice.

Canning this salsa isn’t a very good idea; it cooks it down as you process it in the hot water bath, and it completely changes the character of it, such that the myriad textures, colors and flavors are lost, and it becomes just another salsa. Freezing is equally fruitless, so this salsa is a summer tradition in our house. We know that the hottest days of summer have come when the first huge bowl of Calico appears in the fridge, and then feeding frenzies ensue.

Morganna’s favorite way to eat them is with tortilla chips; in order to eat locally this month, we are buying only Jose Madrid Brand chips which are made in Zanesville, Ohio, along with some really fine bottled salsas. Jose Madrid salsas are what we have in the wintertime, when the voluptuous tomatoes of summer are but a dim memory, but our tastebuds long for an echo of their flavor. I first discovered their products at the North Market in Columbus, but was thrilled to find that they also sell at the Athens Farmer’s Market.

I have no idea if the corn they use in making their tortilla chips is grown in Ohio; at least for the red and blue chips, I sincerely doubt it. Both of those varieties of corn, which were traditionally grown by different tribes of Native Americans, tend to be desert varieties with very specific cultural needs; one of my goals after we terrace our backyard and put in a garden is to try and grow some grinding corn so I can make my own tortillas and tamales, and while I would love to grow blue corn, I am not certain it would work out.

But, it is good to know that when we bring Morganna back to live with us, she can enjoy locally made tortilla chips with her favorite salsa in the world.

Needless to say, everything used in this salsa came from the farmer’s market, except for the lime, the salt, pepper and adobo seasoning. Everything else is local and very, very fresh.

Calico Salsa

Ingredients:

3½ pounds multi-colored heirloom tomatoes
1 medium poblano chile
1 large jalapeno chile
1 small bell pepper (purple if you can get it, yellow, red or orange if not)
1 medium red onion
2 cloves really fresh garlic
1 serrano chile pepper to taste
juice of one lime
zest from one lime
large handful of fresh cilantro, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1/8-1/4 teaspoon Penzey’s Adobo Seasoning (or use ground cumin and coriander to taste)

Method:

Wash tomatoes, peppers and chilis. For green and yellow striped tomatoes, and pale yellow tomatoes, roughly chop and place in a bowl, scraping into the bowl as much juice as is possible.

Roast other tomatoes, poblano and jalapeno (and bell pepper if it is red, yellow or orange). Set the broiler in your oven on high, put a rack up close to the heat, and set up a roasting pan with a V-shaped or flat rack, and place vegetables on this rack. Roast, turning once or twice, until the skins are charred and blackened, then remove from the broiler, and allow to cool. Reserve syrupy juice in the bottom of your roasting pan. These caramelized juices are filled with flavor.

While veggies roast, dice red onion and bell pepper (if you didn’t roast it) into a fine dice (brunoise, for you culinary nerds out there), and mince serrano, garlic and lime zest. Add to chopped tomatoes.

Skin tomatoes,chillss and bell pepper. Mince poblano and jalapeno and roughly chop/mash roasted tomatoes. Dice the bell pepper finely. Add syrupy goodness from bottom of roasting pan to the bowl, along with poblanos, tomatoes and garlic.

Add cilantro, adobo seasoning or cumin, and salt and pepper. Add lime juice to taste, balancing the sweetness of the roasted vegetables with the acid of the lime.

Note:

This salsa is best served chilled–I like to allow it to chill at least five or six hours before serving in order to let the flavors settle in together and get friendly: overnight is even better, but I seldom can wait that long.

When it is just made, it is like a group of people, all singing different songs at their own paces and in different keys. You can tell it is music, but you are pretty sure it isn’t very good. But once the flavors all settle in together, the salsa becomes a choir, every voice discernible and present, but all singing in close harmony.

Hello, August: Time for the Eat Local Challenge

Hail and welcome, all of you regular (and irregular) readers of Tigers & Strawberries! It is the first day of August, and that means it is time for me to set out my parameters for my own personal August Eat Local Challenge. (Honestly, it is the 2nd of August, and I am recreating the post I wrote and posted yesterday that for some reason disappeared when I posted this morning about the salsa. I think Blogger farted or something, so here I am rewriting what I had already written. Yeesh.)

So, here are my ground rules, with commentary on what I am and am not likely to do while participating in this challenge, put on by the Locavores with much blogger-wrangling, cat-herding and organizations and promotion by the very passionate and committed Jen at Life Begins at 30.

Rule Number 1: I will try to have my household consume as many calories from local sources as possible by obtaining as much vegetables, fruits, meats, grain, eggs, fish and dairy products from local (Ohio) producers as possible. I will give preference to locally grown organic produce when I can, but if it is between locally grown conventional vegetables and organic, shipped in from who knows where vegetables, I will choose local every time. (And this is standard operating procedure in my shopping habits anyway.) I will also try and use as many Ohio-produced processed foods such as pastas, tortilla chips and bottled sauces as possible, but only if I would use the product in the first place. I won’t start using jarred spaghetti sauces produced in Athens, for example, when I make even better sauces from scratch.

Rule Number 2: When it comes to sweeteners, I will use local honey and maple syrup where applicable, but I will not mess up my baking by randomly substituting liquid sweeteners for granulated raw sugars. This is something I am fussy with. Since I have worked so hard learning how to bake beautiful pies this summer, I am not going to give up on that endeavor or bugger it up by trying to substitute liquid sweeteners for granulated in my pastry crusts. Sugar cane was never native to Ohio, it is never going to be grown here, it has always been imported and so I will use it, though I will try to give precedence to local sweeteners when possible.

Rule Number 3: I am not giving up on coffee, tea, granulated cane sugar, rice, tofu, soy sauce, fish sauce, coconut milk, citrus fruits, vanilla, or chocolate. This sounds like I am not giving anything up, and that is because I am not. This is not Lent. This is not about removing foods from the diet, this is about adding foods and changing your shopping habits. This is about preferring items grown in Ohio to the same items that are grown elsewhere and shipped into Ohio. Coffee, tea, cane sugar, rice, tofu, soy sauce, fish sauce, coconut milk, citrus fruits, vanilla and chocolate have never been, nor ever will be grown or produced in Ohio, therefore, they do not count in this exercise.
Let me explain. Since I try to eat locally as much as possible anyway, I have a pretty-well developed philosophy on the matter, which can be summed up fairly simply:

What is grown, produced or created in Ohio, I will eat in preference to the same items shipped in from elsewhere. I do this for several reasons. One: the products grown locally are almost always fresher and better tasting. Two: local products are often cheaper. Three: eating locally supporst local farmers, with whom I hold familial, political and social solidarity. Four: eating local produce is better for the local economy and environment.

The other products, those which have never been and will never be grown or produced in Ohio, I will continue to eat, but I will buy as wisely as possible, by choosing organically grown, free-trade products that have been grown or produced with the welfare of the environment and farmers in mind. In other words, the vanilla beans I bought on ebay the other day are organically grown. The coffee we buy is fair-trade, shade grown organic from Mexico. The tofu I buy is made in California, from organically grown soybeans that may well have been grown in Ohio–soy is our second largest cash crop after corn.

While I am discussing philosophy, let me point out that humans have been trading food items for as long as humans have been able to travel farther than they can walk in a day. Food commodities have always been big items in commerce; a good look at any ancient Chinese, Roman or Greek cookery text will illustrate this. Trade has always influenced and changed the diets of local human communities, often for the better.

With the discovery of the New World, these changes became global and irreversable as foods flowed back and forth across the oceans while cuisines evolved and adapted to the new foodstuffs. Tomatoes and cornmeal came to Italy, changing the cuisine forever; it is hard to imagine Italian food without marinara sauce or polenta. Chiles came to China and India, displacing the peppercorn as the sole source of heat in their fiery cuisines. Beef and dairy products came to Mexico, along with the pomegranate and various citrus fruits; can we imagine northern Mexican foods without crema, cheese or lime juice? Without pomegrantes, there would be no chiles en nogada, a classic dish of stuffed jalapenos sauced with walnuts and garnished with pomegranate seeds. Where would Switzerland, Holland or Belgium be without chocolate?

While I am a strong proponent of eating locally grown produce, I am also an unashamed globalist. I have studied Asian cuisines and make part of my living teaching the cookery of Thailand, China and India–how could I not have a global culinary worldview? The sharing of culture, in my opinion, is best accomplished through the sharing of food, so, even as I cook and eat locally, I am still cooking and eating globally.

So, there we have it: my own rules and regulations for the Eat Local Challenge.

May the local, global eating begin.

Yes, it is Time: More Weekend Cat Blogging!

Yeah, I am early again, because today, I have to run off in the morning to drive to Salem West Virginia where my daughter, Morganna, is head woman dancer at a powwow. This will be the first powwow I have gone to where she has been so honored, so I am very excited and want to try to get there in time for the opening ceremonies.

So, enough about myself! Let’s get to the KITTIES!

Here, you get to see Ozy, Jack and Gummitch all in one chair, with Princess Minna asleep up above. Gummi is washing Jack, while Ozy sleeps, completely oblivious to his surroundings.

That’s our Oz. He’s our very alert attack cat. Trained in killer martial arts. Yep.

Right.

You might get the idea that all my cats do is sleep. That isn’t true.

It just isn’t true.

They also eat.

And use the litterbox.

And they do play, and insist upon affection, and get into things they shouldn’t be into and cause destruction, hate and discontent and all sorts of other things.

But they are easiest to photograph when asleep.

And then here, we see that Gummitch’s vigorous washing has awakened Minna, she she looks down in disgust.

Not long after this she jumped down from the chair, pausing only long enough to cuff Gummi as she went by.

She is so friendly.

Check out Kiri at Clare Eats, looking sleek. Minnaloushe looks to have a twin at Norjus–what a beauty! Boo’s neighbors have kittens at Masak-Masak. At Min Tea Say So, Jasmine’s kitty shows off. A dreamy cat at Belly Timber. And at Farm Girl Fare, a cabin cat.