New math for locavores

Eating locally grown food is great for all the reasons that have been endlessly debated with fervor of a gospel choir.

But even those of  us who think we understand the health, economic and environmental benefits of the locavore crusade sometimes chafe at the “we’re right and all the rest of you are wrong” attitude that often is served up with lettuce, beets, spinach, beans and other fresh-from-the-garden goodies at the closest farmer’s market.

Check out this OP-ED piece in the New York Times today by noted liberal curmudgeon Stephen Budiansk.

He says the local food movement now “threatens to devolve into another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas.”

“Arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis, are repeated as gospel by “locavores,” celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations. Words like “sustainability” and “food-miles” are thrown around without any clear understanding of the larger picture of energy and land use,” he wrote.

For instance, he writes, it is sinful in New York City to buy a tomato grown in a California field because of the energy spent to truck it across the country; it is virtuous to buy one grown in a lavishly heated greenhouse in, say, the Hudson Valley.

Budiansky offers some pretty specific stats on the real energy savings and environmental harm, but smartly stays away from the which-tastes-better debate.

Andrew Schneider

Fast-food fantasies: Someday we’ll find some good news about junk food. Or die trying.

The wonderful thing about us, the overweight, inactive, sodium and high fructose corn syrup-slurping Americans, is that we put so much energy into figuring out which forbidden food is really, truly the worst.

Yet another case in point: Atlantic’s current article, “McDonald’s vs. Chipotle: Does the Big Mac Win?” by James McWilliams. As the headline indicates, it’s a two-meal comparison of the fat grams, fiber, calories and all those other mysterious measurements we now track.

Bottom line: The Mickey D’s Big Mac edges out the burrito from Chipotle slightly. (And no, McD’s doesn’t own Chipotle anymore.)

We know that just about everything we like to eat is wildly unhealthy. Why do we continue to revisit the bad news by comparing it to…different bad news? (If you’re presently going on a lot of blind dates, you have already asked yourself a version of this question.) (more…)

The 2010 Xtreme Eating Awards go to…

If you were at Woodstock (or could have been if your parents weren’t such Fascists), you’re old enough to remember when high school yearbooks used to routinely award the “Most Likely to Succeed” title to the biggest pothead in the senior class. Wink wink.

The Xtreme Eating Awards of 2010 are sort of like that. Folks at The Center for the Science in the Public Interest know that railing about junk food doesn’t change anything, but humor might. So they sent out their best (undoubtedly thin) investigators to discover which restaurants in this country are the worst, most “Xtreme” offenders in the calorie war. (more…)

LudoBites: The hot-hot-hot LA eatery that roams

How often have you said of a restaurant: “Love the food, but the atmosphere stinks!”

Well, celebrity chef Ludo Lefebvre has solved that problem with his pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles.  It’s simple, really. He’s the master of the wandering chew…he’s a restaurant chef without a restaurant.

The Los Angeles Times profile by Betty Hallock is the biggest rave I can remember reading about a pate de foie gras slinger:  To wit:

“Reservations at his pop-up restaurant LudoBites — several-week stints of Lefebvre cooking at various locations, including a bakery and an art gallery — sell out overnight. And if he’s serving fried chicken from a food truck, the line of customers/fanatics will be an hour (or two) long…”

“There is, of course, Lefebvre’s French-accented charm, his telegenic looks, his bent for cutting-edge cuisine… And don’t forget — there is also his attorney wife, Krissy Lefebvre. If he’s the creative talent, she’s the organizational and marketing force behind him. He’s concocting foie gras powder while she’s scheduling his next photo shoot.”

(more…)

A slice of history

Imagine my good luck while searching for prices on a new toaster. Instead I found Toaster.org, better known as The Cyber Toaster Museum. This non-profit organization is all about preserving and promoting toaster history.

So, naturally I needed to learn more about the site’s creator, which led me to founder Eric Norcross, who started the valuable archive in a former life as proprietor of a Seattle cafe/gallery. He’s moved on, but fortunately for all of us, his curatorial triumph lives on in both real and cyber space

Yes, that’s the really good news: Norcross’s collection of 500-plus actual toasters is now among the exhibits of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

Photo courtesy of Toaster.org

What I like best about Toaster.org’s approach is the experts’ obvious willingness to admit that toaster history is a fluid thing, subject to interpretation and rethinking:

Q. Who invented the toaster?

A. … There is evidence now that either an inventor at the Pacific Electric Heating Co. (later Hotpoint), someone at the Simplex Electric Co., or Hoskins Manufacturing came up with the first American electric toaster, but there is no known patent coverage so we don’t know the date or the person. And, we’ve heard rumors that there is an 1893 English toaster that was the very first electric, but we haven’t tracked down any info yet…

The toast historian adds:

“Of course, there was toast before electricity. The ancient Egyptians are credited with first making bread as we know it today (leavened, with natural yeast), and probably made the first toast by placing bread near fire.”

I’ve whiled away a good part of the morning learning ways to determine the value and vintage of my toaster, as well as care for it properly. I’m seeing it through new eyes now. I’m keeping it.

–Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett

Mmmmm…that old Vietnamese recipe for….crawfish?

A suburb of Boston, of all places, has a vibrant example of a trend that the folks down on the bayou never saw coming: Viet-Cajun.

“This could easily be a crawfish boil in Cajun country, until you notice the spring rolls, fried rice, and coconut drinks. The 25-seat spot is the first to bring the growing Viet-Cajun food craze to Boston: Cajun cooking and crawfish served with a Vietnamese twist,” writes Denise Taylor of the Boston Globe.

Taylor’s piece on Brother’s Crawfish is a tidy little lesson in culinary history as well as a review: She quotes Jerald Horst, a fisheries expert and co-author of “The Louisiana Seafood Bible: Crawfish.”

“The cuisine has roots in Louisiana, where Vietnamese immigrants who had been fishermen settled. The delta of south Louisiana is very much like the Mekong Delta geographically and natural history-wise. As they prospered in the fishing industry, the Vietnamese took land jobs, many as seafood retailers.”

Horst remembers that 35 years ago when he started in the business, most of the industry was in the hands of Sicilian market owners. Now, he says, its over 90 percent Vietnamese owners.

Taylor reports that Viet-Cajun places are springing up throughout the country, as far west as (of course) Las Vegas.

Prepare to salivate as you read this article, which moves into lyrical praise for the magic worked on crawfish when the traditional “mustard seed, coriander, bay leaf, dill, allspice, and a lot of cayenne” get shoved aside for the likes of “ginger, lime, lemongrass, or the salty fish sauce nuoc mam.”

As the late Hank Williams would have said, me-oh-my-oh.

Local berry makes good

The açaí berry, that gotta-have-it antioxidant, has a very different rep back home in the Brazilian Amazon.

Seth Kugel writes an enlightening piece on the purple fruit (say “ahh-sigh-EE”) in The New York Times. He reports that the açaí craze here amuses the locals, who have long been chowing down on the berries as cheap, filling meals.

He writes:

Açaí’s international reputation as an energy booster and diet aid tickles those who grew up with it as a caloric side dish.

“I find it funny,” said Letícia Galvão, a psychologist who was having a lunch of seafood and açaí with her husband and 1-year-old daughter at a restaurant called Point do Açaí. “Generally, when you have açaí here, you take a nap. There, it’s an energy drink.”

Check out the whole story, here.

–Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett

Step away from that brownie…

New York City’s public schools want to nix the sale of homemade baked goods to kids–what better way to get a handle on childhood obesity? A new set of rules being considered would, however, allow some packaged snacks, like that well-known health food, Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts.

A New York Times blog item includes this description of the proposed food rules:

“To qualify as an approved item, a snack must meet 11 criteria developed by the city. For example, all products must be in marked, single-serving packages with a maximum calorie count of 200. Artificial sweeteners, like Splenda, are banned. Less than 35 percent of the item’s total calories may come from either total sugars or fat. Grain-based products must contain at least 2 grams of fiber.”

In other words, pretty much everything they eat at home is banned. Good luck, New York.

Check out the whole story, here.