Headlines 05.11.2012
Are Beer Sommeliers the Next Big Thing?
Talia Baiocchi
http://eater.com/archives/2012/05/03/are-beer-sommeliers-the-next-big-thing.php
May 3, 2012
Having an intimate knowledge of both wine and beer is becoming increasingly difficult; focusing on one or the other is becoming far more practical. With the rise of craft beer and the increase in artisan imports available, the beer world has become so vast and diverse that it’s difficult to both master it while maintaining an encyclopedic knowledge of wine. Craft beer has also presented new challenges that commercial beers did not. Craft beer, like wine, is prone to variation—in batches down to individual bottles—as well as flaws that are harder to detect if you aren’t familiar with how they manifest in beer. Ray Daniels, a longtime veteran of the industry, started to notice the term “beer sommelier” thrown around with greater frequency back in 2006 and dreamt up a certification program and a new name—Cicerone—that would help separate beer sommeliers from wine sommeliers. Since he founded the Cicerone Certification Program in 2008 the program has anointed four Master Cicerones, 400 Certified Cicerones, and more than 1400 Certified Beer Servers. It’s hard to imagine that less than ten years ago, beer was merely an afterthought on restaurant lists. Unless someone puts the brakes on the craft beer movement, we are likely to see more of this beer sommelier (sorry Cicerones, it sounds better).
Where Next for Natural Sweeteners?
Elaine Watson
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Special-edition-Where-next-for-natural-sweeteners/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK92R3CLGB%2FYAWWNFQjfIqD1P
May 8, 2012
Naturally-Positioned Sweeteners to Lead Market Growth
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Naturally-positioned-sweeteners-to-lead-market-growth-Report/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK931vTrhHLoGlLgWBHzv%2FuXN
January 5, 2012
MONK FRUIT: Premium-priced, but do you get what you pay for? It might not have garnered as much publicity as stevia, but monk fruit (luo han guo) has found a niche within the all-natural market. Dairy and beverages are proving the most popular application areas for monk fruit sweetener Purefruit.
OATS: New oat-based sweetener OatSweet is being marketed as more cost-effective than cane sugar, honey, or stevia without the negative associations of high-fructose corn syrup, and with flavor and texture characteristics that improve upon agave and rice syrups.
STEVIA: Sweet Green Fields plants its first commercial stevia crops in North Carolina and Georgia. Taste issues and high costs repeatedly have been raised as possible obstacles to widespread acceptance of stevia-derived sweeteners, but one of the many new suppliers entering the market claims that these are no longer the hurdles they once were. PureCircle released an analysis of it carbon and water use throughout the supply chain, which it claims could help food and beverage manufacturers to meet their own sustainability targets.
STEVIA AND BEYOND: While stevia is beginning to take off in a number of baked goods and snack categories in the US, Asian and South American markets, some other emerging ‘natural’ sweeteners look ready to take it on. A new market research report claims that the US alternative sweeteners market will grow by 3.3% a year to reach about $1.4bn in 2015—and naturally positioned sweeteners like stevia and agave nectar will lead the way. The report explores the market for sweeteners other than sugar and high fructose corn syrup, looking at historical market data to 2010, as well as forecasts through 2015 and 2020.
2012 James Beard Awards: The Big Winners
J.M. Hirsch
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/james-beard-awards-2012_n_1499238.html?ref=food
May 7, 2012
The James Beard awards honor those who follow in the footsteps of Beard, considered the dean of American cooking when he died in 1985. Monday’s ceremony honored chefs and restaurants; a similar event on Friday was held for book and other media awards. The James Beard Foundation named Christina Tosi as rising star chef of the year, an honor earned largely by her knack for crafting unusual sweet treats—including soft serve ice cream made from milk flavored by breakfast cereals—and the almost fanatical following they have generated. Tosi oversees desserts, breads and ice cream for David Chang’s Momofuku restaurant group, and is best known as the woman behind his Momofuku Milk Bar. The Foundation’s outstanding chef award went to Daniel Humm, the chef behind New York’s Eleven Madison Park. Eleven Madison Park is best known for its tasting-style menu that lists dishes only by key ingredients and encourages diners to work with the chef to create individualized meals. Boulevard restaurant in San Francisco was named outstanding restaurant of the year. Opened on the San Francisco waterfront in 1993, Boulevard’s cuisine blends regional American cooking with French style. The best new restaurant award went to Grant Achatz’s second—and wildly different—Chicago restaurant, Next, which has come to be defined as much by the food served there as by the way it handles “reservations”. You don’t reserve tables at Next. You purchase tickets, much as you would for a concert. The group’s Lifetime Achievement award this year went to Wolfgang Puck, the pioneer of California cuisine. Puck has won multiple honors from the foundation over the years and is the only chef to have twice received its Most Outstanding Chef award. The organization’s Humanitarian of the Year honor went to Chicago chef Charlie Trotter. Trotter was chosen for his work with children, including raising $3 million via The Charlie Trotter Culinary Education Foundation to help pay for needy students to attend culinary school. The Bear Foundation also named its top regional chefs around the country: Bruce Sherman of North Pond in Chicago (Great Lakes region); Maraicel Presilla of Cucharamama in Hoboken, NJ (Mid-Atlantic); Tory Miller of L’Etoile in Madison, WI (Midwest); Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern in New York (New York City); Tim Cushman of O Ya in Boston (Northeast); Matt Diullon of Sitka & Spruce in Seattle (Northwest); Matt Molina of Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles (Pacific); Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, AL (South); Hugh Acheson of Five and Ten in Athens, GA and Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta (Southeast); and Paul Qui of Uchiko in Austin TX.
It’s a Tie! Hopkins and Acheson Both Win Beards
John Kessler
http://blogs.ajc.com/food-and-more/2012/05/07/its-a-tie-hopkins-and-acheson-both-win-beards/?cxntfid=blogs_food_and_more
In the biggest surprise of the evening, Georgia chefs Linton Hopkins and Hugh Acheson tied for Best Chef, Southeast, at the 2012 James Beard Awards Monday night at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. The two have gone up against each other for the past five years for this coveted award, only to lose to other nominees from the region. Hopkins said he was thrilled with the outcome because it underscores the camaraderie among chefs. “This is a collaborative business,” he said. “In a sense there should be more ties.” For Acheson, it was his second James Beard Award this year. On Friday he was awarded a citation for his cookbook “A New Turn in the South” at the Book, Broadcast and Journalism Awards dinner.
James Beard Foundation Announces 2012 Book, Broadcast & Journalism Award Winners
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/james-beard-foundation-2012-journalism-awards_n_1495026.html?ref=food
May 7, 2012
The James Beard Foundation has announced the winners for its book, broadcast and journalism awards for 2012. Big winners include “Modernist Cuisine,” which won both the Cookbook of the Year and the award for Cooking from a Professional Point of View. Food 52 and Gastronomica both won for Publication of the Year. The judges for the book awards (more than 40 in total), broadcast media (more than 28) and journalism awards (more than 70) are comprised of various editors, authors, journalists and professors. All nominees were based on works published or broadcasted in 2011.
Pink Slime: BPI to Close 3 Plants Over Uproar
Grant Schulte
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/pink-slime-bpi-plants-close_n_1499231.html?ref=food
May 7, 2012
On May 25, 2012, Beef Products Inc. will close processing plants in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo, Iowa. About 650 jobs will be lost. A plant in South Sioux City, Nebraska will remain open but run at reduced capacity. The company suspended operations at the three plans in March amid public uproar over its meat product dubbed “pink slime.” The company paid its workers during the suspension. Company officials had hoped to recover but have since realized that doing so wasn’t possible in the near future. The public backlash against the product offers an important lesson to other food makers in the social-media age, said Marion Nestle, a nutrition and food-studies professor at New York University. She noted that past food controversies, such as criticism of trans fats, took years to surface as major public issues, whereas social media enabled the campaign against “pink slime” to quickly attract widespread public attention. Nestle also said BPI misinterpreted the public concern as a food-safety issue, instead of recognizing that critics were focused on not knowing what was added to their food and the belief that they were deceived.
13 Disturbing Facts About McDonald’s
Gus Lubin
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/04/30/13-Disturbing-Facts-About-McDonalds.aspx#page1
April 30, 2012
McDonald’s just reported its first quarter financial results on April 20. The global fast food chain generated $6.54 billion during the period and delivered earnings per share of $1.23. Global comparable sales increased 7.3 percent. The restaurant giant has grown through the recession and recovery. Here are 13 shocking facts about America’s most popular fast food chain:
Daily customer traffic (62 million) is more than the population of Great Britain.
Sells more than 75 hamburgers every second.
Feeds 68 million people per day, about 1% of the world’s population.
$27 billion in revenue makes it the 90th-largest economy in the world.
$8.7 billion in revenue from franchise stores alone makes it richer than Mongolia.
Hires around 1 million workers in the US every year. This estimate from Fast Food Nation assumes a 700,000 domestic workforce with 150% turnover rate.
761,000 employees worldwide; more than the population of Luxembourg.
According to company estimates, one in every eight American workers have been employed by McDonald’s.
Sharon Stone worked at McDonald’s before she was famous, as did Shania Twain, Jay Leno, Rachel McAdams and Pink.
It is the world’s largest distributor of toys, with one included in 20 percent of all sales.
For the next three years, McDonald’s is going to open one restaurant every day in China.
The only place in the lower 48 that is more than 100 miles from a McDonald’s is a barren plain in South Dakota.
Americans alone consume one billion pounds of beef at McDonald’s in a year—five and a half million head of cattle.
Local Food Index Ranks Vermont at Top, Florida at Bottom
Lisa Rathke
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/local-food-index_n_1499379.html?ref=food
May 8, 2012
MONTPELIER, VT—A committed “locavore,” Robin McDermott once struggled to stock her kitchen with food grown within 100 miles of her Vermont home. She drove 70 miles to buy beans and ordered a bulk shipment of oats from the neighboring province of Quebec. Six years later, she doesn’t travel far: She can buy chickens at the farmers market, local farms grow a wider range of produce, and her grocery store stocks meat, cheese and even flour produced in the area. A bakery in a nearby town sells bread made from Vermont grains, and she’s found a place to buy locally made sunflower oil. Nationwide, small farms, farmers markets and specialty food makers are popping up and thriving as more people seek locally produced foods. More than half of consumers now say it’s more important to buy local than organic, according to market research firm Mintel. But with no official definition for what makes a food local, the government can’t track sales. And consumers don’t always know what they are buying. A supermarket tomato labeled “local” may have come from 10, 100 or more miles away. Two of the more common standards used by locavores are food produced within 100 miles or within the same state that it’s consumed. A new locavore index ranked Vermont as the top state in its commitment to raising and eating locally grown food based on the number of farmers markets and community supported agriculture farms (CSAs) where customers pay a lump sum up front and receive weekly deliveries of produce and other foods. Vermont has 99 farmers markets and 164 CSAs, with a population of fewer than 622,000 (USDA and census figures). But the bottom of the index raises questions, Florida, which produces much of the nation’s citrus, strawberries and tomatoes, was in the bottom five with only 146 farmers markets and 193 CSAs for 18.5 million people. The locavore movement grew out of consumer concerns about how and where food is produced, following episodes of contamination in spinach, meat and other foods. People committed to it buy locally produced foods to support farmers because the food is fresher and to reduce the environmental effect of trucking it across country. “But there’s more to it,” said Jessica Prentice, a San Francisco Bay-area chef who coined the term locavore. “Really what it’s about is moving into a kind of food system where you’re connected to the source of your food,” Prentice said. “You’re buying from people that you know or can meet and you’re buying food grown in a place that you can easily drive to and see.”
Top Food Trends from the 2012 NRA Show
Bret Thorn
http://nrn.com/article/10-trends-2012-nra-show
May 7, 2012
Low pricing was not the top priority for restaurateurs attending the 2012 NRA Show in Chicago, May 5-8, said suppliers who were displaying their wares at the annual event. Quality, not price, was the first concern—a change in attitude from recent years—as those operators sought to distinguish themselves from the competition. Here are the top 10 trends for this year’s show.
Super-premium Ibérico de Bellota—Spanish pork from free-range hogs that had fattened themselves on acorns for at least 18 months.
Miniature or single-serving desserts. Slightly unusual flavors, such as ginger, pomegranate-berry or English butter toffee caught restaurateurs’ attention.
Indulgent desserts. Sheet cakes, premium ice cream and big cookies garnered interest.
Customizable coffee. Single serving, pour-over coffee and the machines that take out the guesswork and eliminate the need for trained baristas.
Southeast Asian flavors. From coconut milk to sweet chile sauce.
Sustainability. Restaurateurs wanted to know origins of everything from coffee to seafood and vegetables.
Molecular for the masses. Such as caviar-like pearls of balsamic vinegar or hot sauce that burst in your mouth.
Better-for-you items. Examples: Kefir, green tea-based sodas, juice drinks with “superfruits”.
Convenience solutions. Thaw-and-serve items—bread, pastry, potpie and proteins form pork to textured soy.
Hypoallergenic food. Products with virtually nothing controversial (nuts, eggs, dairy, gluten) in them.
Pet Food Recalled After Salmonella Outbreak
Sarah D. Bunting
http://shine.yahoo.com/pets/pet-food-recalled-after-salmonella-outbreak.html
May 4, 2012
Diamond Dog Food: Salmonella in Dog Food Sickens 14 People in US
Jeffrey Collins and Heather Hollingsworth
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/salmonella-dog-food_n_1496356.html?ref=food&ir=Food
May 4, 2012
Food Politics: The Latest Pet Food Salmonella Recall
Marion Nestle
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2012/05/the-latest-pet-food-salmonella-recall/
May 8, 2012
Fourteen people in at least nine states have been sickened by salmonella after handling tainted dog food from a South Carolina plant that a few years ago produced food contaminated by toxic mold that killed dozens of dogs, federal officials said Friday. The nine states with reported cases are Alabama, Connecticut, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The dog food, which is subject to recall, is distributed in as many as 16 states and Canada. This isn’t the first time kibble has caused an extended salmonella outbreak among humans, 2006 and 2007 saw salmonella passed around 70 people in 19 states thanks to contaminated kibble. Kibble by definition is cooked to the point of losing most of its original nutrients. If it’s cooked enough to be “kibbled,” how can it possibly still have salmonella? Canned pet foods are sterile. Dry kibble is not. It may be sterile at the point of extrusion, but it is a perfect growth medium for bacteria. It is nutritionally complete. Although some nutrients are lost during processing, the product formulas compensate for such losses. That is why dogs can survive on “complete and balanced” dry foods. If the factory is contaminated with Salmonella, the bacteria can fall into production lines and get packaged into the kibble bags. Dogs are relatively resistant to Salmonella and usually do not show signs of illness from eating contaminated kibble. But humans who handle the food or the dog can acquire the bacteria and get sick. This makes dry dog food a potentially hazardous product, one best kept away from people with weak immune systems such as young children and the elderly. If pet foods are not forced to be produced under strict food safety measures, humans and the human food supply are also at risk.
Mad Cow Disease Investigation: USDA Quarantines Two Farms, Offspring Euthanized
Tracie Cone
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/mad-cow-disease-investigation_n_1477400.html?ref=food
May 2, 2012
FRESNO, CA—Investigators looking into California’s first case of mad cow disease say they have tracked down at least one of her offspring in another state. Since there is no live test for the disease also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the offspring was euthanized and brain samples were sent to the national laboratory. The test was negative, officials said Wednesday. The dairy where the diseased cow was found and another associated with it are under quarantine, which is standard procedure. The USDA has declined to name the dairies or the state where the offspring was found. USDA officials also said on Wednesday that within the last two years, the diseased cow gave birth to a stillborn calf. They did not say how that carcass was disposed. Officials also are investigating the calf ranch where the diseased cow was raised before she was sold into dairy productions.
When He Dined the Stars Came Out
Pete Wells
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/dining/craig-claiborne-set-the-standard-for-restaurant-reviews.html?_r=1&ref=dining
May 8, 2012
On May 18, 1962, readers of The New York Times woke up to learn that of all the Chinese restaurants in the city, “there is probably none with a finer kitchen” than Tien Tsinm in Harlem. The same article praised four other places to eat, including Gaston, on East 49th Street and Marchi’s on East 31st Street. The author of these judgments was Craig Claiborne, the newspaper’s first food editor. Some American writers had nibbled at the idea of professional restaurant criticism before this, including Caliborne who had written one-off reviews of major news restaurants for The Times. But his first “Directory to Dining,” 50 years ago this month, marks the day when the country pulled up a chair and began to chow down.
2012 Daytime Emmy Award Nominations Announced
Raphael Brion
http://eater.com/archives/2012/05/09/2012-daytime-emmy-award-nominations-announced.php
May 9, 2012
The 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Award Nominations were announced today. Here are the nominees in the foodosphere: Giada De Laurentiis’ Food Network show Giada at Home leads the pack with five nominations. Rachael Ray has three nominations (including Outstanding Talk Show Host and Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling). Sandra Lee has two (including one for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup). The Martha Stewart Show was nominated in the Outstanding Lifestyle Program category. The Food Network’s Thanksgiving Live! Hosted by Alton Brown received a nomination, and Chicago chef Rick Bayless has two (including Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host) for his PBS series Mexico One Plate at a Time. Up for “Outstanding Culinary Program” are Bobby Flay’s Barbecue Addiction, Giada at Home, Guy’s Big Bite, and Sandwich King. Up for “Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host” are Giada De Laurentiis, Rick Bayless, Nate Berkus, Paula Deen and Sandra Lee.
Chefs and the Charcuterie Gap
Cathy Barrow
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/chefs-and-the-charcuterie-gap/2012/05/07/gIQAZIRqAU_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend
May 8, 2012
While restaurant chefs enhance their menus with house-made, artisanal meats, culinary schools are just beginning to respond with the broader kind of training required. Most of the schools in the States educate students on the cuts of meat, portioning and buying, as well as garde manger, literally “keep to eat,” which includes pâtés and fresh sausages. But one chef said that a chicken was the only animal he learned to break down at culinary school. Neither charcuterie nor whole-animal butchery garner much, if any, class time. At the CIA, certain instructors are known to add to the prescribed curriculum here and there. Should a group of students wish to study charcuterie, for example, they are likely to learn through experimentation as part of an unofficial “club,” with a faculty adviser looking on. When there is no such club, student chefs are left to create their own opportunities. And those, due to economics and demand are few and far between. Asked why the CIA does not offer charcuterie classes, chef Mark Erickson, provost, replied that “schools expose the students to cuisine and technique. We’re talking broad coverage versus deep knowledge. European apprenticeships are the place for this deeper study.” In the US there are few nationally revered, deeply cultural or established roads to artisanal cured-meat production, although Virginia’s country ham tradition is one notable exception. The road to cured meat begins in the butcher shop where bits and pieces are destined to become charcuterie. Yet neighborhood butcher shops seem to be closing, coincidental with cutbacks in the meat industry. Beyond trendiness, savvy restaurant chefs are motivated to butcher whole animals and make their own charcuterie because it makes plain economic sense. Chef-restaurateur Deihl, nominated for a James Beard award this year, bought hams at a very good price because his farmer told him it’s the hardest part of the hog to sell. In fine dining, ham has no real application, and it takes forever to cure; so he turned it into salami, sopressata, mortadella, speck, using an abandoned walk-in freezer that he cobbled into a curing chamber. In a perfect world, Deihl would “open a butcher shop working with whole animals, use the trim and buts and pieces for an American ‘junk food’ restaurant, serve the most amazing hot dogs and bologna sandwiches, then take the center-cut meats and use them in a fine-dining restaurant,” he says. “Yeah, that would be perfect. And then I would send all the compost and scraps right back to my farmers.” Consumer requests for more local, grass-fed, pastured meats are driving a resurgence in butchery in some independent groceries.
World’s Most Expensive Ingredients
http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/8-world-most-expensive-ingredients-slideshow/-photo-2332498-192300653.html
May 3, 2012
Most Expensive Fruit: Yubari King Melons. Yubari is to melons what Kobe is to beef. This particularly tasty melon cultivar is a cross between two cantaloupe varieties. Yubari melons are often sold in perfectly matched pairs. The choicest melon pairs have been auctioned in Japan for as much as $26,000, but a standard Yubari melon costs between $50 and $100 in Japanese department stores. The melons must be grown in Yubari to bear that name, and the small town produces only a limited number of these cult items each year.
Most Expensive Fungus: White Truffles
The white truffle is found almost exclusively in the forests of northern Italy between the months of September and December. They retail for $7 to $11 per gram, or $3,000 to $5,000 per pound. No one has succeeded in cultivating white truffles, so the supply is extremely limited. The only way to source them is to forge within their limited natural habitat with the help of specially trained pigs or dogs.
Most Expensive Poultry product: Swiftlet Nests
More expensive by weight than any single bird are the nests of the high-flying swiftlet species, who forge these small, cuplike structures from strands of their saliva. The nests dissolve in broth to create the gelatinous texture of bird’s nest soup, a Chinese delicacy, and are touted as valuable sources of nutrients. Swiftlet Nests retail for approximately $1,000 per pound, which is roughly $20 per nest. Nests must either be foraged from the hard-to-reach interiors of caves or culled form custom-built houses that require a significant up-front investment.
Most Expensive Pantry Staple: Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale
Genuine traditional balsamic vinegar, or balsamico tradizionale, is made from late harvest white Trebbiano grapes that have been boiled down to form a concentrated must. The must is then placed in a series of cloth-covered barrels, allowing water to evaporate over time. The product must be made in either the Modena or Reggio Emilia provinces of Italy. Each province has its own consortium of experts who approve the balsamic before sealing. The best balsamicos will typically set you back around $200 for 100 milliliters, more $60 per ounce. Balsamico tradizionale must be aged for a minimum of 12 years, and the best are aged for 25. Due to all the evaporation and concentration over the years, it takes a very large volume of Trebbiano grapes to create one small bottle of elixir.
Most Expensive Coffee: Kopi Luwak
Kopi luwak, or civet coffee, is coffee that has passed through the digestive system of a nocturnal catlike animal called a civet. Wild civets, found predominantly in Asia and Africa, eat the fruit of the coffee plant as part of their natural diet and then excrete the beans in their dung. These beans, having fermented by the animal’s stomach acids and enzymes, are purported to produce smoother, less bitter coffee. Kopi luwak retails for as much as $500 per pound. Not only must each bean make it through the digestive tract of a civet, but it must also be collected by a forager then cleaned and roasted.
Most Expensive Meat: Jamón Ibérico de Bellota
Jamón Ibérico de bellota refers to the cured leg of a pata negra pig that has been raised free-range in the old-growth oak forests of western Spain. The pigs eat a diet rich in acorns wild mushrooms, herbs, and grasses, yielding meat that’s richly flavored and low in saturated fat. Each ham is cured for a minimum of two years. A 15-pound bone-in leg of jamón Ibérico de bellota retails for $1,300, or $87 per pound. The acorn-rich forests of western Spain make up an ecosystem that exists nowhere else in the world, and each pig requires at least 2 acres of land for ample foraging.
Most Expensive Spice: Saffron
Saffron is derived from a type of crocus that grows most extensively in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Its brightly hued threads are graded for quality by the Switzerland-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which ranks the product on a scale from 0 to 250 based on color, fragrance, and taste. “Coupe” saffron, which carries an ISO grade of 190 or greater, retails for $10 to $15 per gram with the highest-grade coupe saffron reaching almost $30 per gram. The labor-intensive picking, cleaning, sorting, and toasting of these tiny saffron stigmas is top blame for the staggering price tag. It takes a football field-size plot of saffron crocuses to produce just 1 pound of saffron threads, which must be picked immediately upon blooming.
Most Expensive Seafood: Sturgeon Caviar
Sturgeon caviar is the salted eggs, or roe, of the massive sturgeon fish. The world’s most expensive caviar comes from the beluga species of sturgeon, but imports of this variety have been banned form the US since 2005 in order to protect the endangered fish. Farmed osetra sturgeon caviar is currently the highest-end sustainable option on the U.S. market, prized for its firm, juicy eggs and nutty flavor. Osetra caviar retails for up to $12 per gram for the choicest grades, which translates into roughly $500 per serving. It takes the female osetra an average of 10 years to produce her first eggs, at which point she may weigh hundreds of pounds, which means that farming the roe is a long, expensive undertaking.
Thebraiser.com Launches Next Week
http://thebraiser.com/
May 10, 2012
Launching next week, this new platform from Dan Abrams–of Mediaite fame–promises to cover the “facts, feuds and food” of the culinary scene (read: Page Six in chefs’ whites). The site will feature mostly chefs who are already household names, including Mario Batali and Bobby Flay, from a lifestyle point of view. Don’t expect recipes, but keep an eye out for entertaining mudslinging.
Domino’s Launches Gluten-Free Pizza Crust, With A Catch
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/dominos-gluten-free-pizza-crust_n_1496408.html?ref=topbar
May 7, 2012
Domino’s Pizza has launched a gluten-free pizza crust available at all of its nearly 5,000 stores in the US. It is the first major national delivery chain to offer a gluten-free crust. Because the gluten-free crust is made in a facility where there is gluten present (like in the ovens), the company doesn’t recommend the crust for those with severe cases of celiac disease.
Preparing for Sodium Regulation
Lisa Jennings
http://nrn.com/article/preparing-sodium-regulation
May 7, 2012
Sodium in the diet is a likely next target of federal regulation, but research that points blame at the restaurant industry may be somewhat exaggerated. In an educational session at the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel show in Chicago on Saturday, NRA dietitian Joy Dubost and Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research, questioned whether regulation of sodium on restaurant menus would help more people meet the daily recommended limits—a goal very few appear to reach currently. Some researchers point to a statistic that the restaurant industry share of the average American’s food dollar is about 48 percent, but that doesn’t correspond with calories. Americans are believed to consume about one-third of their daily calories outside the home, but that figure also includes a host of non-restaurant sources, such as vending machines and convenience stores. In one long-term study that looked at 19,000 people under age 20, only 9 actually met the recommended guidelines of 2,300 milligrams. Research on sodium levels in certain foods also fails to consider how frequently people eat those foods as well as portion sizes. CDC in Atlanta, for example, estimates that about 40 percent of sodium in the diet comes from 10 commonly eaten foods. The Top five are bread, cold cuts, pizza, fresh poultry and soups. The CDC estimates that only about 25 percent of sodium and calories in the average American’s diet come from restaurants, where 66 percent comes from grocery stores. Still, Dubost said the US Food and Drug Administration has called for comments on regulating sodium in restaurants. “This is on the government’s radar,” she said. The NRA has responded by arguing that any efforts should be made voluntary, and that any approach to reducing sodium on menus should be incremental, to allow consumer palates to adjust to less salt. Education is critical said Dubost. “Consumers aren’t necessarily concerned about sodium the way government and public policy is,” she said. Should restaurants be working to reduce sodium on their menus? Yes, said Dubost. Public health may be getting ahead of the science, but regulations are coming down the pipeline.
For Mother’s Day, Honoring These Women of Culinary Substance and Sustenance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/mothers-of-substance-and-sustenance/2012/05/08/gIQABdRDBU_print.html
May 8, 2012
Whether you learned kitchen craft at the elbow of a family matriarch or have come to understand the significance of food through the printed word, chances are good that women you’ve never met have imprinted on your culinary DNA. Here are just a few of the many, some perhaps lesser known these days, who continue to inspire us.
Florence Lin. Lin, born in the port city of Ningbo near Shanghai, is America’s doyenne of Chinese cooking. In 1968, Lin was one of the principal consultants for Time-Life’s groundbreaking “Cooking of China” volume in its “Foods of the World” series. During the 1960s she co-founded the Chinese Cooking School at the China Institute in New York. Her classes were so famous even Julia Child attended. She also poured her knowledge into five other cookbooks. At age 92, Lin continues to disseminate her vast culinary knowledge, teaching her granddaughter to cook a few of her favorite classic Chinese dishes.
Marion Cunningham. Cunningham contributed recipes to the Food section of The Washington Post, published on Wednesdays and Sundays. Her recipes were grounded in common sense and American tradition. Cunningham didn’t transition from full-time housewife to cooking teacher until she was almost 50. She went on to famously revise “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook” (1996) for a new generation of readers and to become an advocate for simple home cooking.
Maida Heatter. Virtually unchanged since 1956, her kitchen has been the scene of baking, exhaustive recipe testing and writing for her 10 books about baking. Now 97, Heatter credits her mother, Sadie, as a source of culinary inspiration. She was discovered by Craig Claiborne in 1968. Her first book contract soon followed. Her style has been characterized by a delightful mix of down-home favorites and classic European cakes and pastries, many of them new to American readers. Her clear, detailed directions have made more than one critic observe that her recipes make readers feel that she’s standing beside them.
Rachel Carson. Every time we eat organic, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables, we owe a small debt of gratitude to Rachel Carson, a one-woman firebrand who took on the government and powerful agricultural interests to break the dark spell that chemicals had on a postwar America. With her groundbreaking book “Silent Spring,” written in 1962 two years before her death, Carson wanted us to understand one thing: Humans, no matter how evolved, are not separate from nature.
Sharon Herbst. She wrote cookbooks, but her most important book didn’t include any recipes. It is a thick, paperback guide that has helped standardize the culinary lexicon of newspapers, magazines, television shows, and Web sites since its first edition in 1990. The book is now in its fourth edition, the updates for which were finished by her husband Ron after Herbst’s death from ovarian cancer.
Madeleine Kamman. A rabid perfectionist, Kamman was the real deal: a French chef. Yet she never achieved the popularity of Julia Child, an American who cooked French food. Brought here from France by her American husband, she set out in the early 1960s to teach culinary arts to home cooks. By the year 2000 she was running a celebrated cooking school in Napa Valley for professional chefs who came from all over the country to learn at her side, had eight books to her credit and had hosted a cooking show on PBS from 1984 to 1991. Now 81 she lives in Vermont.
Betty Fussell. Fussell understood early on that people have deeply personal responses to food, and that writing about food would be a significant contribution in the realm of American culture. The list of publications her work has appeared in speaks to the quality of her prose, which is wonderfully vivid and well researched. Her 2008 book, “Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef”, was well ahead of the pendulum swing toward renewed interest in that topic. By next year she hopes to finish her 12th book, “How to Cook a Coyote,” which has to do with being at the bottom of the predator chain. She will turn 85 in July.