Category Archives: Food History

Correcting the Corrections: The Search for Chardonnay Quality

21 Thursday Feb 2019

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chardonnay grapes 2The story of Chardonnay is in part a story of how new technology supports inventive approaches to winemaking. It’s also a story of how technology can send you down a rabbit hole of corrections correcting the corrections correcting the corrections.

Elaine Chukan Brown’s Story of Chardonnay contains many such vignettes that casts light on how and why wine styles change.

It’s doubtful that Chardonnay would have achieved it’s prominence without the invention of temperature controlled fermentation tanks, usually attributed to Mike Webb at Hanzell Winery in the early 1950’s. Temperature-controlled tanks allowed winemakers to ferment at lower temperatures thus retaining the bright fruit notes that California Chardonnay would become known for, and drawing a contrast with the earthy, more herbal expressions from France. Robert Mondavi picked up this innovation and applied it to his larger, more commercial operation in the mid 1960’s giving the technology a higher profile, and soon almost everyone was using stainless steel to make their white wines.

But that eliminated oak barrels from the fermentation process which had contributed body and flavor to the wine. Thus winemakers began leaving wine on the skins longer to increase extraction of more flavor before fermentation. However, that increased the extraction of harsh phenolic compounds as well and created more sediment in the wine which necessitated the use of centrifuges and other filtering techniques to remove these unwanted compounds. But this filtering along with the cooler temperatures created problems with fermentations which were corrected by using cultivated yeasts engineered to flourish in that environment. New oak aging increasingly became a popular technique for increasing flavor and body as well.

The result was a highly manipulated wine but one that had plenty of bold flavors and was ready to drink when bottled. It was this style that led wine writer Frank Prial in 1981  to call California Chardonnay “clumsy and overpowering” when compared to more subtle French wines.

As one might expect, this led many California producers to back off the winery tricks, helped out by a renewed interest in French winemaking, leading to lighter, fresher wines in the 1980’s, although a heavier style would return with a vengeance in the 1990’s.

Sometimes styles change not because of consumer demand but because tinkerers gotta tinker.

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The History of Chardonnay and Tasting Creatively

14 Thursday Feb 2019

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chardonnay grapesElaine Chukan Brown’s recent 4-part series on the history of Chardonnay in the U.S. is a fascinating read for wine lovers. Chardonnay is the most widely planted grape in California, the largest seller nationwide, and is now grown in almost every wine region in the world. Brown argues the popularity of Chardonnay is one of the unique contributions the U.S. has made to the wine world. But it’s striking how modest its beginnings were and it is a bit of a puzzle how it achieved such prominence.

Of course, Chardonnay has a long history as the main white varietal in Burgundy, France. But France did not label their wines with the variety and most Burgundy lovers in the mid-20th century probably had no idea they were drinking Chardonnay. In any case, as I described in this column, Americans in the 1950’s and 60’s were primarily drinking sweet wine and in the early 1960’s there were only about 300 acres of Chardonnay planted in California, according to Brown.

As Brown tells the story,

It was not until the 1970s, by which time three key events had occurred in the United States, that plantings of Chardonnay in the state really took off. Sales of table wines finally surpassed those of dessert wines; the price of grapes finally surpassed the cost of farming them; and clonal selections increased average yields.

On top of these conditions, the Judgment of Paris tasting in  1976, in which Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Chardonnay placed ahead of some famed Burgundian wines, was a key event generating publicity for this lesser-known grape.

But these factors don’t explain why Chardonnay instead of some other grape was able to gain prominence.

What I find interesting about the early history of Chardonnay was the fact that some winemakers and grape farmers acquired their commitment to it early on and persisted with it despite low yields and the utter lack of a market for the grape. The first cuttings were brought to the U.S. from Burgundy in the late 19th Century. Pioneers such as Ernest Wente, Paul Masson and Martin Ray maintained these plantings during the lean years of prohibition and WWII and began experimenting with new clones in the 1950’s, still without an established market. The McCrea family at Stony Hill Vineyards, Jack Taylor at Mayacamas and later James Zellerbach at Hanzell all commit vineyard land to Chardonnay long before its commercial viability was established.

My point is that some people could taste the promise of Chardonnay well before those three events and the Judgment of Paris launched Chardonnay’s popularity. No doubt, part of the commitment of these pioneers came from their fascination with France. They were trying to emulate French quality and it was natural to use the varietal at the heart of Burgundy’s success.

But as Brown points out there were limits to how well they could copy the French:

Although it was the wines of Europe that inspired them, there was little communication between wine producers in Europe and California and so there was little knowledge of, for example, Burgundian winemaking techniques.

I suspect it was ultimately the use of temperature controlled, stainless steel fermentation tanks, developed in the U.S. in the early 1950’s, that persuaded these pioneers that Chardonnay was capable of a range of expression beyond what other grapes could offer. Cooler fermentations enabled the pure fruit expression that was ultimately to set California apart.

But that promise has to be tasted before it can be developed. The ability to taste with creativity and imagination is at the heart of every great development in the wine world.

Americans Discovered Good Taste by Copying the French

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 3 Quarks Daily Column, Food History, Wine Culture

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chateau palmerAlthough we create new varietals, discover new wine regions, and develop new technologies and methods. these innovations produce minor deviations from a core concept that sometimes seems immune to radical change. There are, after all, only so many ways to ferment grape juice. Red and white still wine, sparkling wine, and fortified wine have been around for centuries and are still the main wine styles on offer. Every wine we drink is a modification of those major themes.

Nevertheless, sometimes wine styles change, often massively. In a community so bound by tradition how does that change take place? One example of a massive change in taste took place in the U.S. in the decades following WWII, where in the course of about twenty years American wine consumers changed their preference from sweet wine to dry. How did such a revolution in taste occur in such a relatively short period of time?

See my Three Quarks Daily column “The Borrowed and the New: American Wine and French Tradition” for the answer.

Americans Loved Their “Bum Wine”

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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bum wineI commented recently on how conservative and tradition-bound wine is. Wine is about nuance not large changes or dramatic shifts in style.

Nevertheless, sometimes wine styles change, often massively. One example of a massive change in taste took place in the U.S. in the decades following WWII, where in the course of about twenty years American wine consumers changed their preference from sweet wine to dry.

In the 1950’s and 60’s 70% of the wine sold in the U.S. was cheap, sweet and alcoholic. Yet, by 1978, 70% of the wine sold in the U.S. was dry or relatively dry table wine.

How did such a revolution in taste occur in such a relatively short period of time?

The short answer is we imported French traditions, spurred by improved transportation to Europe for American vacationers and soldiers returning from Europe who gained a taste for French wine and food.

I’m working on a longer essay detailing how and why American tastes changed. In researching what most Americans were drinking in the 1950’s and 60’s I came across some old friends—Thunderbird, Ripple, Richard’s Wild Irish Rose. Remember those?

I would like to say the memories were fond but these wines weren’t for making memories.

People called it “bum wine” because it’s what the winos drank. But really there were a lot of respectable people whose Saturday night tipple was soda pop with a monster kick.

Do Americans Love Food?

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Food History

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eating in front of tvThe food revolution has come to the U.S. The past several decades have witnessed the emergence of farmer’s markets and a focus on local food sources, high quality cheese and coffee producers throughout the country, a robust specialty food arena, Michelin starred restaurants in most major cities, and entire TV networks devoted to food. Very little of this existed 30 yrs. ago.

Yet:

  • The average U.S. household devotes the smallest proportion of its expenditures on food than almost any other country.
  • As women moved into the workforce throughout the 20th Century, men showed little inclination to take over household chores resulting in a massive loss of cooking skills and food knowledge as convenience foods became the norm.
  • The average U.S. adult spends 75 minutes per day eating, about 35 minutes a day in food preparation and clean-up, and 5 times that amount watching television.
  • We employ nearly 10 million people in food service and preparation—most of these jobs are low-paying, high stress, physically demanding, and insecure.

One might conclude from these facts that typical Americans don’t care much about food as long as it is plentiful, fast, and cheap. The American way of eating is plowing through a bag of chips while watching celebrity chefs on the Food Network cook.

Why Not Just Admit It? Flavor is About Pleasure, Not Survival

17 Thursday May 2018

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pleasureMost cuisines can be identified by the characteristic flavors they use to enhance their dishes: Chili peppers, tomato, and lime in Mexico; soy sauce, rice wine, and ginger root in China; tomato, garlic, and olive oil in Southern Italy, etc. As Elizabeth and Paul Rozin point out in their well-known essay ”Culinary Themes and Variations”, (reprinted here) these flavor principles persist through the history of a culture and, in fact, are more persistent than the staples employed in a cuisine, which undergo more change. And people will overcome considerable obstacles to make sure they have access to these flavors. (Think of the resources Europe devoted to the spice trade in the age of exploration.)

Apparently, flavor principles are really important to human beings.

Why are they so important? Why do human beings spice their food? Animals don’t, and the practice doesn’t seem to serve a nutritional function. The Rozins argue that, nevertheless, there must be an adaptationist story to tell. Their hypothesis is that flavor principles provide a kind of identification system for safe food. As omnivores, we have a natural interest in eating a wide variety of foods and we get bored when variety is unavailable. Yet, we live in a world with lots of toxic substances and have a justified fear of eating anything unfamiliar. Thus, we need an efficient way of identifying foods that are safe to eat. That is the role of flavor principles. They mark food with a distinctive and familiar flavor as safe to eat. And whether new foods can be accepted or not depends on whether they are prepared with that familiar flavor principle.

Furthermore, by introducing rich and subtle variations of these flavors and modifying their combination, we overcome the boredom of eating the same thing all the time. Hence the attention paid in Mexican cuisine to the subtle differences in varieties of chili peppers or in Indian and Southeast Asian cuisine to varieties of curry.

This explanation strikes me as wildly implausible. If people are familiar with a food why would they question its safety if it is not spiced. And if they are unfamiliar with a food, why does adding a flavor principle overcome their fear. Surely the spices are not making their food safe. The use of flavor principles to mark food as safe just seems irrational. Furthermore, as the Rozins point out but don’t explain in this essay, some cultures, specifically the Northern tier countries such as Germany, England, and Scandinavia don’t employ flavor principles. Their traditional foods are largely unspiced. Yet there is no evidence they are especially fearful of their food.

There is a much simpler explanation for why we flavor foods—it tastes good. The aesthetics of everyday life are important because the small things we do to make ordinary life enjoyable and interesting—spicing food, decorating homes, celebrating holidays, etc.—make life worth living. In the absence of adornment and decoration, life would be drudgery much of the time. Small things like adding flavor to food thus become enormously important for beings capable of doubting life’s meaning. (There is another adaptive explanation at work. We are hardwired to seek pleasure in our food persistently throughout the day since that encourages us to take in the calories we need to survive.)

What about the northern tier countries that lack flavor principles? Do they not care about everyday aesthetics? The simple explanation is that most spices were historically unavailable to them—they do not readily grow in cold climates. Thus, northern cultures focused their aesthetics, not on flavor principles, but on the various textures and ways of presenting animal fats. The Germans especially are adept at conspiring to get as many types of animal fats on the plate as possible.

What I find interesting about the Rozins’ explanation is that they seem to ignore the obvious explanation—that the persistence of pleasure is fundamental to everyday life.

Might there be some residual Calvinism loose among food anthropologists?

The Creative Kitchen: A Brief Personal History of Macaroni and Cheese

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Food History, Main Dish, Recipes, The Creative Kitchen

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fanny farmerIf there is one recipe that according to my family defines my identity as a cook it’s this macaroni and cheese recipe. I don’t like my identity being so wrapped up in one dish, but I guess they do get a say in the matter. It’s the dish that really signifies for us the comforts of home. I started making it 40 years ago with an old Fanny Farmer recipe, updated it with help of Betty Crocker, and then reinvented the dish to put my own twist on it.

I recently went back and recooked all the iterations to see how the dish evolved.

Macaroni and cheese has become a classic because it has all the markings of comfort food.  The fat, protein and bulky carbs are filling. The macaroni is soft and, with the cheese, forms a homogeneous mass that is uncomplicated and accessible. The salt and fat are intense enough to send plenty of stimulation to the pleasure centers of the brain.

mac-n-cheese-fanny-farmerThe Fanny Farmer recipe, which I think has been around since the 1947 edition of Fanny Farmer’s Boston Cooking School cookbook, surely qualifies as uncomplicated. The cheese is mixed into a béchamel sauce of cream and milk and is then mixed with the cooked macaroni, poured into a baking dish, covered with buttered bread crumbs and then baked. It is certainly soft and homogeneous but bland as reruns of the Partridge Family. The cheddar cheese sauce is creamy but has little bright cheese flavor since it’s cooked into the béchamel before baking which kills the flavor of the cheese. The bread crumb topping adds crunch but not much flavor.

So I eventually went with a Betty Crocker recipe from the 1970’s. This recipe adds some grated onion which adds sweetness and a subtle contrasting flavor. The cheese is layered over half the macaroni and then layered again on top. Then the béchamel is poured over the whole casserole. The layer of cheese is not fully incorporated into the béchamel so the cheese flavor is much brighter than the original. Instead of bread crumbs, the crunch comes from the macaroni, cheese and milk solids hardening and caramelizing at the top and along the edges of the baking dish. This forms some delicious “crusties” that will have you scraping at the baking dish with a knife to get every last bit long after the dish has been served.mac-n-cheese-betty-crocker

The problem? The flavor is still one-dimensional and the milk fats curdle adding graininess to the dish which now lacks the creamy consistency of the original. The graininess is made worse if you try to add flavor intensity by using very sharp cheddar. What I wanted was an exterior of crisp, caramelized cheese but an interior that is as creamy as I could make it.

So it was time to get creative.

I wanted some flavor contrast without adding too much complexity or fussiness to the dish since I wanted to preserve that “homeyness”. My solution was to add several 1/2 inch chunks of green apple mixed into the casserole. This adds sweetness and flavor and the apple of course really complements cheddar cheese. I eventually amped up the cheddar cheese flavor by keeping the layers of cheese but doubling the amount and adding that extra cheese to the béchamel. I now had an intensely flavored dish with just enough complexity. Finally, about 10 years ago, the texture problem was solved when sodium citrate became a cooking tool thanks to Nathan Mhyvold and his book on Modernist Cuisine. Sodium citrate, which can be ordered from Amazon, when dissolved in the béchamel keeps the fat and water in emulsion preventing curdling and causing the cheese sauce to thicken. Most recipes when using sodium citrate say you can eliminate the béchamel sauce and replace it with milk or water since you don’t need the flour to thicken the sauce. [The sodium citrate tastes salty and a bit sour. So don’t over-salt the béchamel.)

But remember those crusties? You need the milk solids and the flour to encourage that caramelization and browning on top. So I continued to use the béchamel/cheese sauce adding the sodium citrate just to prevent curdling and adding creaminess.

Finally this year, to create even more flavor contrast, I added pieces of cooked bacon. I didn’t use bacon fat and I didn’t cook the bacon with the cheese sauce because the bacon flavor would be too dominant. I didn’t want bacon flavored macaroni and cheese. I wanted some bacon accents.

mac-n-cheese-dfAnd so now I have a macaroni and cheese that maintains the appeal of the traditional versions but with several innovations that improve it.

It only took 40 years.

Wine Pairing: Many experts recommend pairing mac n cheese with an oaked chardonnay because of its buttery flavors. But this dish is too sweet. It made Chardonnay taste thin and tart. The only way to go is an off dry to semi sweet German Riesling with apple notes. The Nik Weis St. Urbans-Hof Estate Old Vines Riesling Mosel 2016 is affordable and available.

Recipe:

Macaroni and Cheese with Apple and Bacon

2 strips good quality bacon, cut into 3/4 inch pieces

8 oz small shell macaroni

3 Tablespoon grated onion

1/4 tsp pepper

3/4 lb  shredded sharp cheddar cheese

3/4 lb good quality aged sharp cheddar cheese

2 Granny Smith apples, cored and peeled, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

2 teaspoons sodium citrate

2 1/2  Tablespoons butter

2 1/2 Tablespoons flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp dry mustrad

2 1/2 cups milk

1 T butter

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Cook bacon until crisp, place on paper towels to drain and reserve.

Make white sauce:  Melt 2 1/2 T butter over low heat.  Blend in flour, salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and dry mustard.  Cook until smooth and bubbly.  Remove from heat and stir in milk.  Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Add sodium citrate and then gradually add young cheddar and whisk making sure all of the cheese gets incorporated.

Cook macaroni; place half of macaroni in ungreased 2-quart casserole.  Sprinkle with 1/2 of onion, 1/8 tsp pepper, 1/2 of  aged cheddar cheese and 1/2 apple.  Pour 1/2 cheddar cheese/white sauce over macaroni. Then repeat adding the rest of the macaroni, onion, pepper aged cheddar cheese, and apple.  Pour remaining white sauce/cheddar cheese sauce over casserole, insert bacon pieces throughout casserole, and dot with 1 T butter.  Cover and bake 15 minutes.  Uncover and bake 30 minutes longer or until you’re happy with the caramelization on top and sides of casserole. If the casserole is cooked through and you want more browning on top, place under broiler watching carefully to get desired level of browning.

Serve.

The Taste of the Finger Lakes: Cornell Chicken with Salt Potatoes

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Food History, Travel

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cornell-chickenOne of the paradoxes of seeking out traditional regional foods is that restaurants often don’t serve them. If a dish has been around a long time and it’s prepared often at home, the locals prefer something more trendy when they go out to a restaurant. Such is the case with Cornell chicken, a style of BBQ chicken developed at Cornell University in the 50’s. It’s standard fare at state fairs, little league games, and home barbecues in central New York, but finding a restaurant that serves it would require a lengthy car trip.

So I made it myself along with another dish endemic to these environs—Syracuse salt potatoes.

Cornell chicken was developed by food scientist Dr. Robert Baker, who is also responsible for chicken nuggets and poultry hot dogs. It’s a simple, very effective marinade and basting sauce that gives the chicken a briny flavor with a subtle vinegar essence that penetrates below the meat’s surface. If you’re not a fan of sticky sweet gloopy barbecue sauce, this recipe is for you.

Salt potatoes are another simple, effective recipe that originated in the Finger Lakes. Syracuse has a long history of producing salt the traditional way. Brine from salt springs was placed in large trays and heated. When the water evaporated, the salt residue was harvested and packaged. In the 1800’s salt miners would bring potatoes to work and boil them in the brine for their lunch.

Today 5 lb. bags of small white potatoes with packages of salt included are sold in grocery stores here, and salt potatoes are a staple at cook outs and clambakes. Use a ratio of one cup of salt to six cups of boiling water and stir until salt is dissolved . Boil the potatoes with skins on until a knife slips easily into and out of the potato. Drain and return the potatoes to the pot. Add butter according to preference and gently stir until the potatoes are coated. Then serve. These potatoes have a wonderful creamy texture with a salty crust on the skins.

 

Bob Baker’s Cornell Chicken Recipe

Makes enough marinade for 2 chickens, halved, or cut up

1 egg

1 cup cooking oil

2 cups cider vinegar

3 tablespoons salt (I used 2 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon poultry seasoning

½ teaspoon pepper

1. Beat the egg, then add the oil and beat again forming an emulsion similar to mayonnaise.

2. Add vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning and pepper and stir until well mixed

3.  Place chicken in a container suitable for a marinade (I use freezer bags) add marinade and marinate for 24 hrs. if you have the time.

4. Grill over indirect heat at 325 degrees turning the meat several times and brushing with the marinade.

5. When the dark meat reaches 155 degrees, grill over direct heat to crisp the skin.

6. Remove from the grill and serve when the dark and white meat reaches 165 degrees.

Importing Local Cuisine

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Food History, Philosophy of Food and Wine

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fried spamAs the virtues of eating local food have gone from a radical idea to a commonly accepted norm in the food world, it has systematically distorted our understanding of the history of cuisines. The “romantic” idea is  that, in our pre-industrial past, food was based on what the land could provide. Historically, cuisines developed locally from peasant dishes in the country-side to more complex high cuisine in the cities. That idea now sits comfortably alongside the notion that truly authentic food must have a pure origin in local foodways that resisted the bastardization of outside influence.

As I argued in American Foodie, nothing could be farther from the truth. The mixing and matching of ingredients, cooking methods, and recipes has been going on ever since humans could move about the globe. (The habit of calling border food inauthentic is one of my pet peeves.)

But if you want a more authoritative source for what’s wrong with this idea of authenticity along with a fascinating tour of the fascinating cuisine of Hawaii, check out this paper by food historian Rachel Laudan. (H/T Gary Allen)

Using Hawaiian cuisine as an illustration of her more general thesis, she argues that entire food systems have been transplanted from one region to another and that many of the world’s best known “local” dishes were invented to serve tourists.

Laudan argues that cuisines are held together by culinary philosophy not agricultural resources and specifies different meanings of the word “local” which show the idea of a “homegrown” cuisine to have only limited application.

The article makes me hungry for some fried spam.

For Cooks, the Good Old Days Weren’t so Good

31 Thursday Mar 2016

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cooking_in_the_pastFood historian Cynthia Bertelsen wonders if food writing relies too much on nostalgia, distorting our relationship to food in the process:

Seeking the “perfect” French experiences of M. F. K. Fisher and Julia Child or the Venetian raptures of Marcella Hazan and Marlena di Blasi buries certain truths:  producing food is hard, hard work, from the first sowing of the seed to the harvesting, and then finally the cooking.

Our current fascination with hands-on, farm-to-table-cooking-from-scratch encourages us to assume that our grandmothers (because it was always women who did this work) enjoyed the drudgery of getting meals on the table three times a day without any of the modern conveniences available to cooks today. Surely that is a distortion of reality.

Nostalgia simplifies history in another way as well:

Other food writers out there falling into the fallacious column include those who propose – without rigorous adherence to scholarship – that one group or another deserves credit for a whole body of cuisine, as in the currently popular assumption that slave cooks created Southern cuisine almost single-handedly and spiced it all with the aromas of Africa . And who decry efforts to publish material with which they don’t agree.

The linked article is about the controversy over a book that falsely depicted a commodious relationship between slave owners and the slaves who cooked their food, again a misreading of the past encouraged by our current fascination with home-cooked meals.

I devote a lot of attention to this issue of nostalgia in American Foodie. Given the nature of food and the fact that food is always embedded in traditions, I doubt that a certain degree of nostalgia can be avoided. Each of us has an eating history that explains our preferences and that resonates through every dish we encounter. Food is about traditions and the pleasure they bring and so it stimulates the imagination in a way that encourages the selective editing of the past that buries the bad parts. Nostalgia is by necessity a work of the imagination; the danger is in confusing the actual past with the imagined one.

Bertelsen is right to be concerned about these distortions when they are used to reinforce harmful prejudices. There is no easy solution to reigning in the imagination; the best we can do is to be reflective enough to distinguish fact from fantasy.

It’s important to realize that our nostalgic yearnings regarding food are not really about the past; they are about our future. It’s via nostalgia that we re-enchant modern life and try to imagine new ways of eating less beholden to the food industry and a form of resistance to the time compression of modern life.But our current attitudes cannot be decontextualized to provide an understanding of the past. We should leave history to the historians and be skeptical of the potted histories our imaginations concoct.

But don’t hold breath that such self-reflection is poised to penetrate culture. Surely that is a distortion of reality.