Flavor Forays and our food and beverage kingpins made a visit with charcuterie master Chef
Craig Deihl of Cypress. There was culatello, mortadella, country ham, bologna, spicy fennel bresaola - all of which are available from ArtisanMeatShare.com
What does a Flavor Forays immersive trip look like? Check out the video below.
The next time you're in Charleston, stop by Cypress - Chef Deihl and his team are doing amazing things.
So excited to see the new #Chefwear catalog. Front and back covers were shot during our #NOLA's Backyard Flavor Foray in October when the chefs mobilized to help feed AmeriCorps volunteers who were still cleaning up flood damage in Baton Rouge area.
Let's hear it for cover chefs John Folse and Leah Chase and the chefs on the bike: Brian Flagg @Stephen Bonin, @MarkWeber, @Brigid Wickham, @Jean-Marie Clement, John Storms, @AchimLenders, @BrittanyWolfe
We've got fins! Here's a shout out to all the chefs who helped with this story in FSR. Cody and Samantha Carroll of Sac-A-Lait in New Orleans and Nathan Richard of Kingfish in New Orleans cooked at our Louisiana Seafood Dinner at Houmas House during our second annual NOLA's Backyard in October. Jeremiah Bacon of The McIntosh was part of both of our Grits, Gullah and the Three O'Clock Dinner Flavor Forays in Charleston last May (2016) and more recently in February.
For the full story, click below
https://www.foodnewsfeed.com/fsr/menu-innovations/skin-fin-how-use-every-part-fish?utm_source=fs_insider&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170117
The Annual Championship BBQ & Cookout is celebrating its 20th and we want to make it bigger and better than ever. The BBQ will take place on Sunday, May 21, 2017 during the NRA show in Chicago. This year it will be housed in the Chicago Illuminating Company, one of the city’s premier event spaces.
Barbara Mathias, former Food Arts publisher, founded the event two decades ago and is continuing to produce it along with her colleague Beverly Stephen, former executive editor of Food Arts.
Great news! We’re excited to announce a partnership with Food News Media, publisher of FSR and QSR magazines, which will serve as co-host and send out invitations and spread the word. They will also follow up with stories both in print and online to provide much deserved coverage for our amazing chefs.
The Championship BBQ & Cookout is known to food industry insiders as a “must attend” high-powered networking event. You can tell those who ask that each year, the best chefs in Chicago face off over flames to feed up to 1,000 of the industry’s leading chefs and operators. It also attracts many high-quality sponsors integral to the event’s success.
As last year, we’re proud to announce that a portion of the proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen, an international organization led by chef José Andrés, which uses its network of world-renowned chefs to find sustainable solutions to end world hunger. The BBQ will also benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank which distributes the equivalent of 160,000 meals daily.
Talented people feeding people—what we all do best.
Adam Leonti mills his own flour and holds sold-out classes at the Bread Lab.
Scouting Brooklyn for possible Flavor Foray. Chef Adam Leonti is putting the new Williamsburg Hotel on the map with his stellar artisanal loaves made with freshly milled flour at the Brooklyn Bread Lab. Read the complete story here from Hotel F&B magazine.
Check out the latest flip book detailing our adventures on the second annual NOLA's Backyard Flavor Foray!
Black Cooks Matter
Sweet Home Café in the new Smithsonian African American Museum will celebrate culinary contributions.
By Beverly Stephen September 6, 2016
The Smithsonian’s African American Museum opening September 24 will explore and celebrate the history and culture of African Americans in the United States. Of necessity, the journey will begin in the dark days of slavery and segregation and progress through the tumultuous civil rights movement and contemporary issues. The museum which sits on five acres near the Washington Monument has been described as a dream 100 years in the making. The dream began to be realized when president George W. Bush signed a bill in 2003 and the Smithsonian Board of Regents approved it three years after that. Construction finally began in 2012. Congress agreed to provide half of the $540 million cost and the rest is being raised by private contributions.
Contributions in all walks of life including sports and music will be on exhibit but none bring a culture to life more vividly than food. What were the slaves eating? What foods did they bring with them? How did these foods become part of everyday life for slave and master alike? Visitors will be able to experience the culinary contributions when they taste the dishes that will be served in the 400 seat Sweet Home Café. A last minute name change from North Star Café (the star slaves followed to freedom) happened when the trademarked Northstar café in Columbus, Ohio raised objections.
“My biggest goal is to spotlight the incredible contributions African Americans made to American culture through the foods we eat,” says Albert Lukas, Supervising Chef, Mid-Atlantic region, Restaurant Associates. He has spent the last two years doing research for the café’s culinary concept and menu. The museum café is a joint project of Restaurant Associates and the minority foodservice company, Thompson Hospitality. Celebrity chef Carla Hall has been named culinary ambassador and Jerome Grant is moving over from the American Indian Museum to be executive chef. Noted author Jessica Harris was a consultant.
The menu will be divided into four sections: Creole Coast, North States, Agricultural South, and Western Range.
Most people probably think about the South and commonly known foods like fried chicken, collards, and cornbread when they think about African American foods so museum visitors will be pleasantly surprised by the variety of the menu and enlightened about the “depth of the contributions that African American cooks have made to the foods we eat daily,” Lukas says.
“It was easiest to build menus around the agricultural South and the Creole coast because of the traditions that were established and continue to live,” says Lukas. “Look at what Sean Brock is doing at Husk and you can see there is a lot of continuation of that tradition and elevation of it into fine dining. Sean talks about Hoppin’ John and Sea Island red peas.”
And so does Gullah chef BJ Dennis who inspired Lukas to revise his menu. Lukas met Dennis on a recent trip to Charleston. “Each year on New Years Day countless Americans from all backgrounds hope to start the year off with wealth and good fortune by having a healthy serving of Hoppin’ John,” Lukas explains. “Instead of the commonly used white rice and black eyed peas, our version will be offered as Gullah Style Hoppin’ John, Carolina Gold Rice & Sea Island Red Peas, House Smoked Bacon and not just on New Years Day! I was so inspired by the Gullah flavors that we encountered I realized that their story must be told through the food that we serve.”
The Western Range was the hardest. “It’s a much overlooked part of African American history,” Lukas says. “As newly emancipated people started to move West immediately after the Civil War, they worked as ranch hands and ran chuck wagons. The concept of black cowboys was new to me.” He gives the example of the legendary Texas cowboy and rodeo star William “Bill” Pickett who was of African American and Indian descent. There were also the Buffalo Soldiers, the all black 10th Cavalry established in 1866, who were active in the Western expansion.
Out West, beef replaced pork. “But the primary cuts would go to wholesale,” Lukas said. “There were a lot of recipes using lungs, pancreas, etc.” He was faced with the task of making a dish like Son of a Gun stew palatable to modern diners. “So we took the idea of using short ribs as a secondary cut. Mexican and Native American influence such as chilies and sage also crept in.” There’s a BBQ Buffalo Brisket Sandwich on a sweet potato bun with charred peach and jalapeno chutney “using the famous Colorado peaches,” roast turkey and sage dumplings, pan roast rainbow trout, and a seven bean, butternut squash, and hominy chili with smoked poblano cream.
“The Northern states was also a tough one,” Lukas recalls. “We will spotlight Thomas Downing, the son of Virginia slaves who escaped to New York City, became an oysterman, and ran a restaurant on Wall Street. He was also a secret stop on the underground railroad.” Downing is the inspiration for an oyster pan roast. “We also wanted to touch on foods that black Americans ate when they migrated north to cities like Chicago and we wanted to show some Caribbean influences so we’re doing a pepper pot stew.
“There is no table service but this is far from a lunchroom cafeteria,” Lukas says. “It’s all scratch cooking and small batches. Beautifully designed food will be marketed at the four stations like in a food hall. There will also be a dessert station and a sweet tea stand with Bigelow tea from their Charleston tea plantation.” Entrees will be priced around $17 or $18. The North Café Star will serve lunch only. Breakfast and dinner menus will be available for catered events.
Sweet Home Café Working Menu
The Creole Coast
• Duck, Andouille & Crawfish Gumbo, Carolina Rice, Green Onions
• Gulf Shrimp & Anson Mills Stone Ground White Grits, Smoked Tomato Butter, Caramelized Leeks , Crispy Tasso
• BBQ All Natural Chicken, Alabama White Sauce
• Pan-fried Louisiana Catfish Po’boy, Smoked Red Pepper Rémoulade, Green Bean Pickles
• Red Beans & Rice
• Candied Yams
• House Pickled Vegetables, Okra, Green Beans, Chow Chow, Green Tomatoes, B&B
The North States
• “Smoking Hot” Caribbean Style Pepper Pot
• Smoked Haddock & Corn Croquets, Gribiche Sauce, House Made Brown Bread
• Smothered Turkey Grillades, Fried Apple, Sage Gravy, Johnny Cakes
• Thomas Downing Inspired NYC Oyster Pan Roast
• Yankee Baked Beans, Smokey Molasses Sauce
• Seasonal Salads To Include; Roast Sweet Potatoes, Cranberry Walnut Vinaigrette
The Agricultural South
• Original Brunswick Stew, Braised Chicken & Rabbit, Corn, Tomatoes, Lima Beans
• Buttermilk Fried Chicken
• Lexington Style BBQ Pork Sandwich, Slaw, Pickled Okra
• Gullah Style Hoppin’ John, Carolina Gold Rice & Sea Island Red Peas, House Smoked Bacon
• Slow Cooked Collards, Cornbread Sticks & Potlikker
• Crackling Cornbread
• The “Gospel Bird” Family Platter, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, Mac-n-Cheese, Greens & Buttermilk Biscuits, Serves 2-3 (pictured above).
• Seasonal Salads: Green Bean, Tomato Confit & Benne Vinaigrette;
Heirloom Tomato & Soy Bean Salad, Creamy Buttermilk Dressing, Basil & Cracked Pepper
The Western Range
• “Son of a Gun Stew” Braised Short Ribs, Turnip, Corn, Potato, Sun Dried Tomato, Barley
• BBQ Buffalo Brisket Sandwich, Sweet Potato Bun, Charred Peach & Jalapeno Chutney
• Pan Roast Rainbow Trout, Cornbread & Mustard Green Stuffing, Hazelnut Brown Butter
• Black Eye Pea, Golden Corn & Chanterelle Empanada
• Sweet Tendril Salad, Shaved Radish & Crisp Carrot
• Skillet Cornbread
• High Mesa Peach & Black Berry Cobbler
Core Menu Offerings
• “Shoe Box Lunch” Cold Fried Chicken, Macaroni Salad, Pound Cake, Local Apple
• Baby Kale Salad, Black Eye Peas, Grilled Corn, Heirloom Tomatoes, Cornbread Croutons, Buttermilk Dressing
• Field Green Salad, Tomato, Cucumber, Carrots, Spiced Pecans, Choice of Dressing
• Hamburger / Cheeseburger
• Chicken Tenders
• DC Half Smokes, Chili, Onion & Cheese
• Simple Hot Dog
Bake Shop Sweets
• Praline Bread Pudding, Bourbon Caramel Sauce
• Banana Pudding Trifle
• Joe Froggers
• Key Lime Cup Cakes
• Pumpkin Spiced Cup Cakes
• Johnston County Sweet Potato Pie
• Wild Turkey Pecan Pie
• Deep Dish Pumpkin Pie
LIKE GRANDMA'S SUNDAY DINNERS
Piccolo Sogno partners re-invent their second restaurant
By Barbara Revsine. July 26, 2016
Second restaurants, like second children, present unique challenges. And as Piccolo Sogno partners Tony Priolo and Ciro Longobardo discovered, not all of them can be predicted. Nonnina, their recently opened restaurant in River North, is a case in point.
Cloning Piccolo Sogno was never part of the game plan. But at the same time, letting diners know the new restaurant was connected to the first was a priority. The name, they reasoned, should also signal a difference in format, since the new menu wouldn’t simply be an echo of the first. In the end, “Piccolo Sogno Due” seemed like the logical choice. But as the partners found out, what works in one neighborhood doesn’t always work in another.
Top: Timpano della “Nonnina”. Above: Shrimp “Fra Diavola” made with squid ink spaghetti and Pizza with prosciutto. All photos by Galdones Photography.
“Piccolo Sogno is all about leisurely destination dining,” Priolo explains. “Drop-ins are a rarity. River North is different, especially at lunch time when a lot of people are more interested in carry out, quick dining, and grab-and-go than they are in a lengthy meal. ‘Due’ wasn’t the right format for the neighborhood. Changes had to be made, beginning with the name.”
Priolo and Longobardo jump started the changeover by bringing Chris Macchia and Ricardo Brizuela on board, the first as chef/partner and the second as general manager/partner. The quartet’s search for the right focus eventually led to a discussion about the food their grandmothers made. It was a “eureka” moment.
Left: Veal chop alla Marsala. Right: Asparagus,egg and Parmesan.
“My grandmother lived with us,” Priolo explains. “She did most of the cooking, especially the Sunday dinners when the whole family got together. Those Sunday dinners are what Nonnina is all about. The dishes are updated, but their identity is intact.”
Working together, the two chefs developed lunch and dinner menus that read like a who’s who of regional Italian cuisine. Think of it as elevated comfort food Italian-style, and expect dishes like baked artichokes; shrimp with squid ink pasta; timpano stuffed with egg, sausage, pasta and meatballs; and a knock-out tiramisu.
Left: Blood orange meringue tart. Right: The Neopolitan with house-made spumoni.
With the in-house menus taking shape, the partners addressed the lunch time concerns, eventually opting to create a separate area for carry out and grab-and-go. Called “Nonnina to Go,” it’s available weekdays from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Going forward, the partners say the two restaurants will operate as separate entities linked by a shared ownership, a plus no one wants to overlook.
Nonnina, 340 N. Clark St. 312.822.0077 nonninachicago.com
Barbara Revsine, a Chicago based food writer, blogs at http:/Chicagonow/pantry-to-plate
http://www.foodshedexchange.com/744107-2/
Rita Dever, LEYE corporate chef, was a guest on our Grits, Gullah, and the Three o'Clock Dinner Flavor Foray in Charleston. Chicago writer Barbara Revsine wrote about Beatrix, a concept Dever developed in Chicago.
ALL DAY, YOUR WAY
Creators reveal the story behind the birth of a crowd pleasing everyday restaurant in Chicago.
By Barbara Revsine August 16, 2016
Photo Credit: Anjali Pinto
Credit Richard Melman, Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises’ chairman and founder, with laying the foundation for Restaurant Beatrix’s eclectic menu. “Much of the menu is based on the dishes the staff puts together when I’m working in the corporate office,” he says. “I’ll call when I’m on my way. They’ll ask what I feel like eating and then have everything prepped and ready to go when I get there.”
“Rich has a knack for pinpointing the kind of food people want to eat on an everyday basis,” corporate chef Rita Dever, a partner in various LEYE restaurants, observes. “That’s a real plus for a ‘something for everyone’ restaurant like Beatrix.”
Melman also has a knack for names. Both his mother and his wife Martha’s mothers are named Beatrice. So Beatrix includes both of them.
What a lot of diners don’t realize is that Beatrix is housed in the Aloft Hotel, which is steps from the Hyatt Place Hotel and the Marriott. Do the numbers, and it’s a potential market that’s sizable, eclectic and-given the proximity to the hotels- weather proof, which is a boon in Chicago especially in winter months. Visitors aside, Beatrix gets kudos from locals and critics alike.
Dever says Beatrix’s menu is more concerned with taste than trend. “The food is diverse, yet well-balanced, and timely, and well within most diners’ comfort zone.”
The various divisions within LEYE work as a team, each one complete with a corporate chef who’s responsible for fielding chefs’ suggestions as a prelude to recipe development and testing. For Beatrix, Rita worked with fellow chef/partners Susan Weaver and John Chiakulas.
Beatrix’s breakfast menu exemplifies the restaurant’s game plan. A sizable percentage of the Aloft’s guests eat breakfast at the restaurant. Guests who stay more than one night are likely to eat there several times during their stay, so a variety of options is a must, as is a really good cup of coffee. To insure the latter, Beatrix offers locally roasted coffees from two artisanal purveyors–Metropolis and Intelligentsia.
LEYE’s company-wide commitment to offering healthy and allergen sensitive choices is readily apparent. Included in the mix are a breakfast sandwich made with egg whites and two egg white omelets, one done with organic kale and spinach, the other with organic turkey bacon and white cheddar.
One of the most popular breakfast entrees is made with quinoa cakes, a dish originally used as a passed hors d’oeuvre. At some point, Dever realized the cakes would make an interesting base in a revamped version of eggs Benedict. In the finished dish, a lighter, egg-based sauce is used in lieu of hollandaise and an equally light tomato sauce is spooned around the quinoa cakes. In addition to being healthier than a traditional Benedict, the dish is also gluten-free.
On the heartier side of the breakfast menu, there’s a braised pot roast and egg sandwich, steak chimichurri with eggs and grilled shishito peppers, sides like brown sugar bacon and chicken sausage, and a Belgian style waffle partnered with strawberries, vanilla syrup, and cream. Rounding out the menu, there’s a selection of made –in- house baked goods and numerous gluten-free options, along with dishes for vegans and vegetarians alike.
Beatrix has two locations, one in River North and the other in Streeterville, which given the proximity to Northwestern Hospital, has a substantial grab and go market.
Streeterville: 671 N. St. Clair 312.642.0001
River North: 519 N. Clark Street 312.284.1377
Barbara Revsine is a Chicago based food writer who blogs at http://www.chicagonow.com/pantry-to-plate/
http://www.foodshedexchange.com/all-day-your-way/
CORN WHISPERERS
Chefs are intent on teasing every last drop of flavor out of ingredients. But when it comes to corn they’re downright fanatical whether they’re grinding their own grits or making masa.
By Beverly Stephen, May 17, 2016.
I hear America grinding. From the out buildings of stately Southern plantations to the basements of restaurants in Manhattan, the whirring of grist mills and stone corn grinders can be heard as chefs engage in this latest DIY project. They’re grinding corn for grits, for polenta, for masa to fashion into tortillas.
Proponents believe it’s worth the time and trouble—not to mention the expense–for both the nutritional value and the flavor profile.
“It retains the germ,” explains John McConnell, executive chef of Clif Family Winery and the Bruschetteria food truck in St. Helena, California. “In the commercial process, they will either soften the corn by steam or water and remove the bran’s outer layer. In this case you get the whole enchilada. It’s whole grain.”
Lines form for the ethereal polenta he serves at the Buschetteria. “The guests say it’s one of a kind,” he reports, but the journey is a long one. First the Floriana corn seeds are brought over from Italy and grown on the Clif family farm. Then the corn is dried and milled with a hand turned grinder. The polenta is cooked in water. “Then we add a little bit of cream after the polenta is thickened and finish it with grated fontina or with pecorino infused with black truffles.” In short order, guests were returning and “bringing friends along to taste it and share the story.”
In Louisiana, chef John Folse is grinding mostly yellow dent corn and some blue flint for grits and meal. “Grinding my own grits allows me to have more control over the product,” says Folse. “If I want my grits to be larger or finer I can do that to distinguish my product from what else is out there. Also when you grind your own grits from whole corn, the oil from the corn remains in the mixture. You lose that when you buy grits from the store. This gives it a creamier texture and higher flavor profile.” Folse buys his corn in 50 pound bags and grinds about two tons a month for use in his R’evolution Restaurants in New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi and his catering operation at White Oak Plantation in Baton Rouge where his two mills are housed. “My prize is a 1922 antique stone mill that I bought from a farmer who had been grinding grits for years in that mill handed down from his grandfather,” explains Folse who is a history buff. “But with the volume of grits I now need, I required a more efficient mill that could automate the process. My new model has multiple sifters so that I can make four different products from the same grind.”
Folse reminds us that “grits were known for centuries as ‘po’ food but now this poverty food is being raised to elegance.” He mentions some of his dishes that bring grits to this new level: “short ribs grillades and grits Creole style, BBQ Gulf shrimp and grits, Creole tomato grits…it’s not just mush to fill you up. Some other ground corn dishes include blue and yellow cornbread, hushpuppies, corn fritters and breading for fried seafood.”
At Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, Cassidee Dabney, executive chef of The Barn, grinds corn grown in their gardens.
“It’s kind of like grinding your own coffee beans in the morning. Every minute after it’s ground it loses some flavor. We grew about 20 bushels of corn this season. So it was possible to have it on the menu about every third day.”
“We have an old fashioned Wolfgang Mock grain grinder we attach to a table,” she explains. “It does about a quart of raw corn which yields about a gallon of product. We can do anything from corn flour up to coarse ground grits.” Her menus are likely to feature grits with pickled ramps or polenta with farm cheese topped with white truffles. She also serves a smoked chicken breast with a poached farm egg on grits sprinkled with crushed salted peanuts. “That’s really good. I’m not gonna lie to you.” she says. “We make fantastic cornbread too.’’
Anson Mills founder Glenn Roberts is not convinced. “I don’t see a whole lot of advantage to making your own polenta or grits in house. You can’t scale enough to get oxygen,” he explains. “I challenge them on the oxidation factor. He sells his cold milled grits to some 4,000 chefs worldwide, “fresh-milling their stuff to order.” He mills two and a half days a week, following the weather to always use new crop corn and mills under a CO2 envelope so it can’t oxidize when he’s milling, and vacuum seals. Perhaps a blind taste test challenge is in order.
CORN FIELDS TO TORTILLAS
On the Mexican front, grinding corn to make fresh masa for tortillas adds yet another labor intensive dimension. In this case, you’re dealing with wet dough so there’s no question there’s an advantage to doing it on the spot.
Charleston chef Sean Brock straddles the divide between Southern and Mexican fare. At Minero, his Mexican restaurant, he gives the Charleston signature shrimp and grits a south of the border twist by making the grits out of masa and calling it a “liquid tortilla.”
Brock can be obsessive (“it’s a character flaw,” he says) and is not deterred by complexity or cost when he’s searching for the perfect ingredient. To him a perfect tortilla “tastes like sunshine.”
Manhattan’s Alex Stupak, a former pastry chef who’s now the chef/owner of a growing empire of Empellón Mexican eateries, is equally fanatical about making his own masa. He believes that once you’ve tasted a fresh tortilla nothing less will do. “A tortilla isn’t a background player,” he writes in Tacos: Recipes and Provocations. “It isn’t goddamn Muzak.”
The quest for a perfect tortilla is daunting. The beginning is sourcing dried field corn, rather than sweet corn. The next step is nixtamalizing the corn–treating it with an alkaline solution of water and calcium oxide, which is sold as pickling lime or culinary lime. Most restaurants cook it for about an hour and then let it soak overnight although each chef has his own preferences. This dissolves the pericarp, a thick hull around the corn kernels. And it makes it possible for our bodies to absorb vitamins such as niacin. Remarkably, the Aztecs and Mayas figured out nixtamalization some 3,500 years ago. When the Conquistadors took corn back to Europe they left out this vital step and as a result many of the poor who relied too heavily on corn suffered from severe vitamin deficiency diseases like pellagra.
Next one must grind the wet nixtamal into masa fine enough to make tortillas. Even Stupak admits that isn’t easy. “To do it at Empellón, we use a high voltage, five horsepower, 1,200 pound hunk of metal fitted with hand-chiseled volcanic stones. It can grind about 50 pounds of masa in five minutes,” he explains. He had the grinder custom made. He also commissioned a corn oven that forms and cooks the tortillas.
Even so his workers grind in the wee hours to make enough dough to produce an average of 1,500 tortillas daily, although there are days that require 4,000 to 5,000.
Marc Meyer, chef/owner of Rosie’s, also had a grinder custom made to fit into his typically small Manhattan basement. The output there is about 1,000 tortillas a day.
Brock has two employees making tortillas at both Minero locations every day. The labor costs are high. “When you decide to make your own tortillas, it’s insane. It costs at least ten times as much but it’s ten times more delicious too. It’s our responsibility as chefs to chase deliciousness.” So what’s his advice to any chef thinking about embarking on the tortilla process? “Be ready not to make any money!”
A similar process takes place at Cosme, the New York City sister of chef Enrique Olvera’s Mexico City flagship restaurant Pujol. Cosme buys heirloom Mexican corn in a rainbow of colors to feed its demand for 3,000 to 4,000 tortillas a day. Chef de cuisine Daniela Soto-Innes says each corn has a different taste as she shows off bags of blue, yellow, and purplish kernels in the cold walk-in. The different varieties are a bonus surprise for customers who never know what color tortillas to expect in their baskets.
Out in Sonoma county California, Karen Taylor Waikiki is also a devotee of masa made with organic dried corn stone ground daily at her El Molino restaurant for tortillas, tamales, and chips. She describes the difference between tortillas made with fresh masa and masa harina like the difference between instant and homemade mashed potatoes. Restaurant critic Patricia Unterman waxed even more poetic. “The tamales here taste like buttered fresh corn.” El Molino turns out some 5,000 tamales a day as it’s also supplying a wholesale market.
Not all Mexican restaurants are able to invest in expensive grinding equipment or the labor needed to make fresh masa. “Until I purchased an industrial corn grinder for Empellón, we didn’t make our own masa either,” Stupak admits. “We bought it from a tortilla factory and if you live in a city with a Mexican population, you can probably do the same…. And if you can’t buy fresh masa, there’s still hope, masa harina.” He compares this solution to “Folgers versus coffee made with freshly ground beans” but believes it still tops store-bought tortillas.
No matter how you make the tortillas they have the added timely advantage of being gluten-free. There’s nothing in the dough but ground corn and water.
Until recently, it was difficult for chefs to source heirloom Mexican corn. But all that changed after 2014 when Jorge Gaviria launched Masienda and began importing landrace (locally adapted open pollinated cultivars) maize from small farmers mostly in Oaxaca. He was inspired to launch the company after meeting Enrique Olvera at a G9 Chefs Summit at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Olvera convinced him that there was a market for these endangered heirloom varieties. He started with two truckloads containing less than 40 metric tons. In 2015 he imported 80 metric tons and this year he estimates he’ll bring in 400 metric tons. Could heirloom corn be the new quinoa?
With chefs like Brock and Rick Bayless, the chef who brought authentic Mexican cuisine to Chicago, on board, word will spread. Masienda is currently selling 17 colorful varieties—purple elotes, yellow chalqueno, red elotes conicos. Brock tasted through all of them as carefully as a sommelier tastes vintages. “Thinking about the subtleties of each one is a lot of fun. Once you taste the right one, it kinda hits you in the face,” he explains. White bolita is his favorite. “You really taste the grain flavor you associate with eating grits and cornbread,” he says. “And I love the incredible aroma. When you get out of the car and walk toward Minero, the smell hits your nose. It’ll knock you down.”
The learning curve is high. Brock can attest to that. “It took me six months to learn to make tortillas that I could stand behind,” he recalls. “Holy cow! It’s so much more work that we ever could imagine.” The first time he tried to make a tortilla it was a “complete disaster”—to add insult to injury it happened at his mother’s house using a corn grinder he had smuggled in from Mexico. “I went out into the yard and texted my partners. ‘Are you sure we want to open a Mexican restaurant?’ I shot them a picture of my terrible tortilla.” Who knew making tortillas could be more complicated than making croissants?
Gaviria is sympathetic. “Anybody trying to get into this has to understand how to work a mill and how to maintain the stones and clean the machine properly,” he explains as well how to obtain the perfect consistency and texture of masa and learn about the varieties of corn.
But Gaviria believes making scratch tortillas could become as common as making pasta in house is for high-end Italian restaurants. “Twenty five years ago in New York City pasta programs were rare,” he points out. “Very few restaurants were making pasta from scratch and enjoying the luxury and prestige that came with that. But fast-forward and who even thinks twice now about making pasta in house. I’m hoping the same thing happens with corn.”
He’s eager to make the corn and the process accessible to restaurants beyond the avant-garde. “We also have higher volume materials we’re sourcing to accommodate those customers who are eager to differentiate themselves but might be working with a clientele who may not want to eat a blue or red tortilla,” he explains. “Color is a factor. Some yellow varieties have so much beta-carotene they are almost orange. Not all tortillas are created equal. Some starches are lighter and you get a more aerated masa and light puffy tortillas. Others are more toothsome and stand up more to sauces.”
“Cosme was a wonderful first client because they just said give us what you find. I didn’t know what I would be able to aggregate. They wanted to play around and exemplify the potential of the Mexican landscape. Not every restaurant is able to do that.”
It helped that Olvera had already been through this laborious process at Pujol in Mexico City and wrote about it in his book Mexico from the Inside Out. He described tasting about 20 varieties of corn, nixtamalizing until he got elegant texture, buying a small metal mill “assuming it was the eighth wonder of the world but it was useless. Finally, we found a supplier with a stone mill.”
“We then tried to make our own masa. Kneaded with water, it should be soft and compact and shouldn’t stick to your hands or break and fall apart…We still keep samples of the corn at the restaurant that constituted the beginning of this story—a reminder… that we had to defend each time we… served tortillas instead of bread.”
“At Pujol, we don’t see the tortilla as a mere base for the taco, but as edible tableware, tailoring the tortillas to what we will top them with,” Olvera explains.
SAVING THE WORLD ONE KERNEL AT A TIME
These obsessive chefs have paved the way so that now the knowledge, the machinery, and the maize are more readily available.
Not only will increased demand for this corn help preserve the 59 heirloom varieties grown in Mexico and maintain the strictures against growing GMO corn, it will also help preserve the small family farms.
“Most of these families are below the international poverty line,” says Gaviria who’s currently sourcing from about 1,200 farmers. “They are subsistence growers. We only purchase their surplus after they’ve fed their families. Most of these folks are operating below capacity. Some have even sold land. They’re missing out on the commercial use. We’re trying to provide additional incentives by working with the community, using their storage facilities etc. and providing off-season work.
Brock is an enthusiastic supporter. “That’s everything,” he says, “helping small farmers.”
Sources
Grits
Mexican corn
Masa harina
Friend of the Farmer
Charleston’s Sara Clow is on a mission to save one small farm at a time by providing a conduit for their produce to chefs and retailers.
By Beverly Stephen July 19, 2016
The idea of a farmer showing up at the back door of a restaurant with a bushel of heirloom tomatoes is romantic but not very efficient for either farmer or chef. A central location where farmers can bring their produce and chefs can purchase it, is much more practical. Such a place exists in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s called Grow Food Carolina and it’s headed by Sara Clow a dynamic career changer who has found her niche at the intersection of conservation and farming. It’s one of some 300 “food hubs” around the country that, as Clow says, “are making local easy.”
She’s the first to admit it’s not possible to supply everything a chef needs. “Every kitchen has to have a lemon in house every day,” she says. “We don’t grow lemons.” Neither do they deal in proteins. The focus is on fruits and vegetables. “We’re getting something fresh almost 12 months a year but we also a have freezer program. Now we’re in blueberry season and we’re freezing them.”
It’s not always easy getting to the locals. “When we started in 2011, I was the only full time employee and I had only convinced five farmers to join,” Clow recalls. It’s a testament to her entrepreneurial spirit and unflagging efforts that there are now eight employees working with 80 producers. Last year Grow Food did $1 million in sales. The non-profit retains a 20 percent operational fee. Revenues are reinvested into the program.
“We meet farmers, often reaching out at an event. A lot of farmers hear about us through word of mouth. After we make contact we make a farm visit,” she says. “We explain what we do and we get a feel for what they grow.”
Local small farmers deliver produce to the warehouse where it’s aggregated into coolers. Then the staff does sales and marketing and distribution. “We send an availability list twice a week to restaurants and once a week to institutions,“ Clow explains. “We send the list to hundreds of people but probably really only have 150 super active.” The customers number well regarded Charleston restaurants and super market giants like Harris Teeter and Whole Foods.
In Charleston, May and June are the busiest months. But the list of products is longer in the winter there than in colder climes. July and August are prime times for tomatoes, melons, butter beans, figs, okra, squash and peppers, and stone fruits.
“We opened a market for the farmers,” Clow believes. “We just expanded their wholesale market opportunities and they increased their acreage. I don’t have a poster child farm–no one specific story I can point to. Our goal is to create economically sustainable farms so they won’t be sold and developed.”
She explains that diversity and consistency of local products in quantity is a huge need for chefs. “Produce has to come in the volume they need. “We do crop production planning with farmers. “We’re a service organization for farmers, taking the demand information we have and filtering it through individual farmers to create a production plan and schedule.”
Clow did not grow up saying she wanted to run a food hub. She did get early exposure to the food business because her mother was a caterer. But she went off to college at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and majored in psychology and sociology. She wound up as a statistical analyst for a hedge fund in California. But the realm of finance didn’t suit her. So she took off for New Zealand joining the corps of Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and worked on small farms for six months. Unbeknownst to her at the time, it was experience that would serve her well. She quickly learned how hard it is to dig potatoes by hand and how stinky the kelp compounds used to fertilize kiwis are. “They stink to high heaven!” she says.
Back in California, a friend of a friend got her a job with an organic grower that eventually led to a job with Pacific Organic Produce. This allowed her to gain experience working with growers around the world and with retailers such as Safeway and Whole Foods. So it was a natural fit when a former college roommate got in touch about the Grow Food job being created by the Coastal Conservation League. Here her love of food and agriculture and her experience with organics and marketing and her organizational skills all combine into a dream job. What’s more her hands-on farm experiences make her a believable ally. Though she’s petite, she has the look of someone you might meet on a hiking trail in California who would know how to take care of herself should she meet up with a bear.
“My goal is to create economically sustainable farms so they won’t be sold and developed,” she says. “I believe in slow and consistent change. My belief in organic has less to do with pesticides than the systemic destruction to soils and water. We are just not rebuilding our soils. So we constantly lose our top soil and that’s what feeds us.”
Clow is on the side of the small farmer in what is often a David and Goliath battle. “All of our laws were created for really big farms and I believe we need to focus on small and mid size local farms. They are the ones growing our food,” she explains. “The big ones are growing fiber fuel, not growing a vegetable.”
She steadfastly believes that the small farms need to be part of the conversation and she has a reputation for working tirelessly to put them in it. “Americans have an increased desire to know where their food comes from and it’s a trend that isn’t going away,” she says.
For herself, she says she would “like to spend more time with my hands in the dirt. I just bought a house so I have basil and flat leaf parsley.”
Boudin and Beyond in Cajun Country
By Beverly Stephen
“Jambalaya, a crawfish pie, filé gumbo….
Son of a gun we’ll have big fun on the bayou”
--Hank Williams
Fun on the bayou always involves food. And plenty of it. One of the most ubiquitous treats, boudin balls, can be found everywhere from gas stations to fancy butler passed hors d’ouevre trays. I was on a road trip called NOLA’s Backyard with a dozen or so food and beverage executives and corporate chefs from major hotel and restaurant chains. We sampled our first boudin balls of the trip at Tony’s Seafood Market & Deli on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Boudin is typically a seasoned pork and rice sausage and the balls are made by rounding the filling, breading it and then deep-frying it.
“Eat a couple of these and you’ll die—but with a smile on your face,” quipped chef John Folse, our tour guide who describes himself as “Bayou born and crawfish fed.”
The f&b guys were on a mission to digest as much Cajun cuisine and culture as they could in a couple of days. If you see alligator nuggets on your pizza any time soon, it’s possible the idea was hatched here.
Food and family are the dominant themes in southern Louisiana. Family owned and operated Tony’s was started by Tony Pizzolato as a small produce store with 10 employees and is now one of the largest seafood markets in the south with 100 employees. They boil 25 tons of crawfish a day in season. The market which promotes “catfish swimming on one end, fried up on the other,” also sells head-on shrimp, red fish, black drum, red snapper, oysters, and alligator every which way. Louisiana is the second largest producer of seafood in the U.S. after Alaska and most of the species are sold here. The deli section cooks up popular local specialties such as jambalaya, crawfish etouffee and bread pudding—all of which the chefs were happy to take out and sample.
We would overnight at Houmas House (Darrow, La), an elegant antebellum Gone With the Wind style sugar plantation turned hotel, which bills itself as “the crown jewel of Louisiana’s River Road.” Historical house tours are given regularly and the guides never fail to mention that three quarters of the nation’s millionaires lived in the area before the Civil War. Here chef Anderson Foster holds forth with Gulf crab cakes with chipotle remoulade, chicken and Andouille gumbo, and grilled hare. Flambéed bananas foster sauce lights up caramelized bananas sandwiched in creole cream cheese ice cream for dessert.
Next morning a wake up call at the crack of dawn had us on the bus driving through mist shrouded sugar cane fields toward LSU’s Rural Life Museum (Baton Rouge), which is devoted to artifacts depicting the lives of ordinary folk and slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries. There on the grounds of this 430-acre property chef John Folse’s catering arm, White Oak Plantation, had laid out an elaborate planter’s breakfast. We’re not talking a doughnut and a cup of coffee here. Back in the day, people went into the fields before sunrise and came in around 10 a.m. to a hearty meal. We were greeted with eye openers—brandy milk punch, bloody Mary, and mimosa. Stations featured eggs a la crème with crawfish tails and Louisianachoupique caviar, cathead biscuits (pinch the dough and throw it on the pan so it looks like a cat’s head) with cane/pecan butter and persimmon jelly; samplers of Acadian bacon and Creole sausages, blue corn grits and grillades, French toast, calas cakes (sweet rice cakes), Community coffee and Bigelow teas.
This meal was hearty enough to last the day if not the week but by lunchtime, we arrived at Poche Market & Restaurant in Breaux Bridge, another family owned outfit which is often touted as the best place to find boudin in Cajun country. Floyd Poche started the market in 1962. His slogan says “everything on a hog is good from the rooter to the tooter.” Cafeteria-style dishes include smothered rabbit, pork backbone stew, fried catfish, crawfish etouffée—you get the picture. Cajunboudintrail.com lists 10 other places closer to Lafayette to find boudin and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Where can you not find boudin is the question.
Next up was Riceland Crawfish (Eunice, LA), which is also a leading alligator processor. Chef Folse gave us a heads up that owner Dexter Guillory is one of the leading spokespersons for the growing alligator industry and speaks internationally on the subject. Swamp People sparked an initial surge of interest but national chains are experiencing sustained success with it. Alligator is processed in a number of ways, most popularly for nuggets that are breaded for deep fry and used as appetizers with dipping sauces. Folse noted that he uses a cut from the loin, slightly pounded in the fashion of veal scaloppini, as well as cubed leg meat for stews, chili, soups or gumbo. “The great neutral flavor of the snow white meat of the alligator fits well into most classic cooking methods and the subtle flavor of the meat, similar to veal, adapts well with most dishes including ethnic cooking styles,” he said. “Additionally, we in the south love cookouts and large family gatherings. Normally a pig is roasted over pecan wood fires as a centerpiece for the outdoor table. We are seeing many more 4 to 6 foot gators alongside the roasting pig, adding ‘seafood’ to the party.”
Before sundown we were on the grounds of Folse’s White Oak Plantation (imagine if Tara was a venue for weddings and other celebrations.) Folse was showing off his pigs, beehives, and gristmill and demonstrating how to make cracklin’. The grand finale was an outdoor Fête de Boucherie with lively zydeco music. Tables were heaped with fire-roasted alligator, sassafras and pecan wood smoked cochon de lait (roast pig), French fried frog legs Atchafalaya, Acadian seafood gumbo, sugar cured wild boar ham. Oh, lordy! And yes, there was a salad in there somewhere.
Are you hungry yet?
Take a tour of World Central Kitchen's projects with founder José Andrés. World Central Kitchen is an international nonprofit that uses the power of food to increase education. For more on the 19th Annual Championship Barbecue and Cookout, check out our Events page.
