February 2021 – Indestructible Food

Kitchen Bouquet

The elusive glamour of brown…

Picture this: You’re cooking, and everything is going ok, but the food you’re making just doesn’t seem, well, brown enough. It tastes good. It’s well-prepared. But you worry that your guests will be disappointed at the lack of brown-ness. You are not alone. For nearly 150 years, cooks have been reaching for a preparation whose main purpose is to make food brown. Kitchen Bouquet is a browning sauce made of caramel, vegetables, and spices. It’s vegan. It’s kosher. And somehow, it makes foods seem meatier. Or at least more brown.

We know that our experience of food is largely tied to smell and taste, but color is another important factor. We are conditioned to believe that certain colors will taste certain ways. In nature, super bright colors can mean poison. In the grocery store? They tend to indicate sweets marketed to kids. Green tastes fresh, vegetal, or sometimes bitter. Yellow evokes lemon or banana. And brown? Brown tastes seared. It is rich. It has a savory, umami flavor. Brown is comforting and deeply satisfying. But only if it is brown enough. That can require some assistance.

The practice of adding color to food is an ancient one. Saffron, carrots, beets, berries, and turmeric were all early natural dyes that made food more beautiful. The trouble only began when folks started using lead, arsenic, and mercury to create synthetic food dyes. Not only were the compounds harmful on their own, they were often used to hide spoilage or low quality products. That killed people. It also led to a lot of laws that said you couldn’t put poison in food on purpose. Even if it looked great there. So food manufacturers spent a ton of time and money developing new artificial dyes with their own set of risks. Kitchen Bouquet, you’ll be glad to hear, is more natural and less artificial. Its brown-ness comes from cooked sugar and while there is a preservative added for shelf stability, it seems a heck of a lot safer than some of the foods we discuss in this series. And eateries across the country agree. You will find it by the gallon in restaurant kitchens, just waiting to make your gravy as brown as it can be.

Whether we dine out or at home, we’re more likely than ever to take pictures of impressive meals. It’s not about memory, really. Food does a great job of being memorable without documentation. We take pictures of great food so we can share our experience with friends. But what if the food in your pics doesn’t look as good as it tastes in real life? Food stylists have been grappling with this for as long as there have been photographs of food. You know what they have to say? Kitchen Bouquet! With a few drops, a chicken appears perfectly roasted. That grayish burger can become invitingly seared in seconds! And hey, what’s in that coffee cup? Why, it’s Kitchen Bouquet mixed with water, of course! Great coffee appearance without the oily surface! This product is an endless font of brown!

Your food being insufficiently brown may seem like an insignificant problem. It absolutely is. But insignificant problems with easy solutions are my favorite things right now, so I may just pick up some Kitchen Bouquet.

Jello

From royal banquets to hospital rooms…

People have been eating gelatin for ages. Foods suspended in gel were hallmarks of elite dining as far back as the 15th century. One of the reasons these dishes inspired such awe was that if they were on your table, it probably meant that you had a kitchen staff. Not just a someone-cooks-my-meals kitchen staff, but a I-have-enough-folks-working-for-me-that-I-can-spare-someone-for-hours-and-hours-to-boil-carcasses sort of kitchen staff. Gelatin jells due to collagen obtained from skin, bones, and connective tissue of animals. And obtaining that collagen took some serious time.

Over the centuries, gelatin dishes remained popular with wealthy folks. In 1845, a carpenter named Pearle in Leroy, NY was using some time-saving powdered gelatin to mix up cough medicine (as a carpenter generally does) and stumbled upon something closer to a dessert. His wife, May, was like, “That’s a dessert! Let’s call it Jell-O!” -because adding an -O to the end of words was really popular at the time, and May was brilliant. Anyway, Pearle didn’t have the money or experience to successfully market this new dessert, so he sold it. It changed hands a couple times because it wasn’t immediately popular.

“But why?” you may ask. “If people loved gelatin desserts, why weren’t they enraptured with an easy-to-make, beautiful, fruity invention such as Jell-O?” Because new stuff is easier to love if you know why you’re gonna love it. Jell-O’s new owners had a plan. They sent an army of salespeople out into the world to hand out samples. They brought Jell-O desserts to church picnics and town gatherings. They took out ads claiming that it was “America’s Favorite Dessert.” (It wasn’t.) And they thought of something new. They printed and distributed cookbooks filled with Jell-O-centric recipes. People could actually see all of the possibilities for the product in their everyday lives. It suddenly seemed incredible that they had been without this miracle food for so long!

Jell-O gained popularity throughout the early 1900s, allowing women to create “dainty” dishes cheaply and quickly. It also gave them a way to hide leftovers in something a little more refined than a goulash or a hash. That old tuna fish took on a new life when viewed through the lens of lemon Jell-O. This economy and the ability to stretch a food supply came in pretty handy during the Great Depression. When World War II hit and brought its attendant food rationing, Jell-O let families have something sweet without using up the precious household sugar supply. During hard times, the jelly really earned its place in the American kitchen.

The convenience and utility was super, but there was a problem. In the 1950’s, women were valued as homemakers. And making a home just kept getting easier. Appliances made chores quicker. Processed foods cut down on prep time and the skill required to make something tasty. Some women started avoiding (or feeling guilty) about buying convenience foods. Luckily, the big food brands had a solution: View our products as a shortcut, but always add your own spin! Only you can create something unique and beautiful! Your family and friends will be stunned!

And so a classic era of foods that should never have been suspended in Jell-o was born. Hard boiled eggs, olives, ham, celery, shrimp, PIECES OF HOT DOG?!… Nothing escaped the enterprising homemakers. A select few were rewarded for their gelatin-powered prowess when their recipes were published on packages and in cookbooks. In the 60s, Jell-O even released a line of savory gelatins for use with meats and vegetables (it didn’t last very long).

By the 1970s, Jell-O sales were falling. Folks were no longer all that enamored with jellied salads. They were eating plain vegetables again. While the company tried to reinvigorate the brand (Jell-O pudding pops! Bill Cosby! Jell-O Jigglers!), it was never really the same.

But if it isn’t the sweeping success story it once was, Jell-O certainly hasn’t vanished from the national plate. In hospitals, prisons, and school cafeterias it is standard fare. It’s Utah’s state snack. Jell-O shots are a rite of passage for countless teens and young adults. Today, surveys suggest that 1 in 4 Americans still has a box of Jell-O in their pantry, which means that the next round of gelatinous culinary innovation could be just around the corner.

Canned Oysters

A can of oysters sits in a decorative ocean teeming with schools of fish. They are truly an indestructible food.

A Valentine’s post about oysters and sex…

You can feel however you want about love and sex (“Yes, please!” “No, thanks!”) but the relationship between food and desire is pretty interesting. Since the beginning of civilization, folks have been looking for ways to have more sex. Foods, rituals, love potions… anything to grease the wheels of love. In the second century AD, the Roman physician Galen wrote that certain “warm and moist” foods had an aphrodisiac effect. Which kinda makes sense, I guess. But he also thought that foods that caused gas were good because somehow that’s how erections worked. (This hypothesis slays me, and I could make a ton of sexy fart jokes but I will not.)

The list of foods thought to be aphrodisiac is long: Chocolate, asparagus, figs, caviar, carrots, chiles, honey, onions, okra, sausages, and yes, oysters. Oysters fall squarely into the group of foods thought to be desire-inducing because they resemble genitals. They are wet and foldy and salty, and we’ll leave it at that. In an earlier post, we talked about how Italians eat lentils at New Year’s because they “look like coins” and will make them rich. The lesson to learn here is that eating foods that look like the things you want will maybe help you get the things you want.

It used to be a fortunate few living near the coast that had access to oysters for sexy reasons or otherwise. But in the 1820’s factories started canning them. Over the next several decades, oysters became a huge fad, were over-harvested, caused environmental destruction, and there is no evidence that anyone’s sex life improved. In fact, there has never been any scientific evidence that aphrodisiacs work at all. Which is kind of a bummer because food superstitions are way cool.

If you want to have better/more sex, communication is good. Consent is key. Self-esteem is rad. And hey, a can of oysters can’t hurt. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.

Cucumber Pickles

A giant jar of pickles sits next to niagara falls. Two folks go over the falls in barrels. This Indestructible food is at home anywhere!

“Are you gonna eat that pickle?”

Cucumber pickles have been around for a really long time. Like, they’re mentioned in the Bible. Twice. And they gained global popularity for good reason. Pickling preserves foods. Cucumbers are great, but they have a very short growing season and they spoil really fast. So if you wanted to save the million pickles from your garden for later, throwing them in salt water brine was a great way to go. And it worked out well, because if you were poor, and had to eat bread and potatoes for every meal during the long winter months (I’m looking at you, Eastern Europe) a pickle would provide a much-needed bit of variety to your everyday fare. If you were rich, chances are you still wanted delicious, piquant side-dishes. Pickles are for everyone.

While pickles were and are an egalitarian snack, in the USA, pickle prevalence really picked up speed with the arrival of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 19th through early 20th-centuries. They introduced the dill pickle, which was a sensation. Soon, NYC became a pickle hot spot. Vendors appeared on every corner selling pickles for a penny a pop. Anyone with a barrel on wheels could become a businessman! Elsewhere in New York, (Niagara Falls to be exact) people were putting pickles to use in a different way, launching themselves over the falls in pickle barrels to varying results.

People were eating more pickles because they liked them. But also because a tradition had begun whereby if you ordered a sandwich in a deli or restaurant, the default side dish was a pickle spear. You might get chips or fries, but you would definitely get a pickle. Which made sense, because when you are eating something fatty and delicious (say, a pastrami sandwich…. or even a grilled cheese) cleansing your palate with a bite of something acidic as you go makes it all the more enjoyable. This tradition upped pickle consumption, and gave us a new way to classify our friends. Those who leave their complimentary pickle spear behind and those who eat every unwanted pickle at the table.

Nowadays you can eat fresh cukes year round. And you get a big fine if you go over Niagara Falls in any kind of barrel. But pickles persist. That is, after all, what they were invented to do.