therese

These remind me of a Hostess snack cake from the 1960s called Sno-Balls. They were chocolate cake wrapped in a vanilla-and-coconut frosting. But I'm sure that these are not those. So what are they? BTW: Chain trivia questions! Cool. ← Black sesame buns, part of the stash of steamed buns I laid in for the kids' lunches this week. My daughter had her first swim meet of the year (the practice meet, actually, so I didn't go) and she and my husband were gone by the time I got home from work, and both ended up eating at the pool. So my son and I just ate whatever we felt like, and I went to bed early. I'm hoping we can manage to have a reasonable dinner as a family this evening. Usually Wednesday night is a bit frantic, as my son's chess instructor comes to the house to give him a lesson, but since school is out he plans to come over at 4:00 and so will be finished in time for us either cook and eat together, or go out.

This was my second peach. I ate the first one before taking a photograph, so I had to have a second one so that I could show you all how nice it was. I did make a bit of a mess with the juice, but it was worth it.

Post war someplace, anyway. I actually had France in mind. So far as I know jerusalem artichokes weren't a big part of the diet in the rural southeast U.S. even after the Civil War, at least not in the parts I'm familiar with.

I can't help you with a U.S. source, but here's a picture of a spritz from Venice:

Yep. Although I wan't around, chicory root and jerusalem artichokes evoke a certain time and place for me. What is it?

Feeling much, much better. These taste nicer than they look.

Wondering where my lunch is? Well, I didn't eat lunch today, that's where it is. And boy, am I ever grumpy.

Any fiber that humans can't digest but bacteria can will produce the problem. Although inulin is present in high amounts in jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes and topinambours) it's commercially isolated from another source. What is it?

Yep. Seems like Champlain had something similar to say, but I can't find it on line just now. I may have confused Champlain's first reports of it (it's a New World item) with Goodyer's disparaging report.

So, yes, inulin has zero glycemic index because humans cannot digest it. Even if it's injected directly into the blood stream we cannot metabolize it, and it moves directly into the urine throught the kidneys (assuming your kidneys function well---there's actually a test in which inulin actually is injected into a patient's blood and the recovery of inulin in urine measured as a way of looking at the GFR, or glomerular filtration rate). Because inulin stays in one's gut it will act as dietary fiber, holding water there along with it. The wall of the gut stretches and responds to the increased volume of its contents, and well, everybody's generally happier. tryska points out: So, yes, some bacteria can utilize inulin, as they have the enzymes required to break it down into usable smaller carbohydrates. Providing this "probiotic" may be a means of changing the type of bacteria that live in your gut, or at least the relative amounts of the different sorts of bacteria (of which there are bajillions). Some of them are likely to produce gas as part of the metabolism of inulin, and your gut will stretch and respond in a manner similar that resulting from increased water volume. This may all sound a little, well, ick, and in fact there is a well-documented early report of an unpleasant encounter with inulin. The report dates from the early 1600s, and is of French provenance. Who wrote about his upset tummy, and what unfamiliar, inulin-rich food did he eat?

Okay, back in the blogosphere after most of a really draining day. I do want to go ahead and point out that I don't mean to be even a teeny tiny bit crude or insensitive with the whole finocchio/fenouil question. I was just struck by the coincidence (or was it planned? The Sopranos is very well-written), and noted that eGulleteers had already identified the Le Grand Vefour.

And just how is it that finoccho ever came to be pejorative slang for homosexual? This term is not confined to Mafia sorts, or even to Italians in the U.S., as it's used in Italy (northern Italy in my experience as well).

Bingo. Or maybe "badda bing" would be more appropriate here. Finocchio (finook or fanook) = fennel = fenouil That Carmela's fennel is served with duck (remember Tony and the ducks in his swimming pool) is surely coincidence.

Busy day at work today, so probably not too much interaction on my part. Breakfast of Fiber One with skim milk and tea. I won't make you look at it. Feel free to play while I'm away, and maybe somebody who watches The Sopranos will figure out the answer to that question from upthread.

Oh, nearly forgot: yes, it was Rapunzel. Rapunzel (for whom the girl was named) was clearly some sort of lettuce, and the version of the story that we had when I was a child included a footnote that suggested several options, including arugula.

This one is chestnut cake? Very gelatinous, and unless the chestnuts in question are water chestnuts a very curious texture to the little bits as well, much more like apple or firm pear than chestnut. The outside texture seems to result from it having been rolled in something to keep the pieces from sticking together, not from frying.

Inulin and pectin are both added to Stoneyfield. I'm pretty sure that pectin's used in a number of U.S. yogurts (as a gelling agent, although it's also a dietary fiber), but inulin's unique (the last time I checked, that is). Why does Stoneyfield add inulin to its yogurt? The week is young.

I really don't know, and it might be different reasons in different places. DFM has historically used staff that might have some immigration issues and so might be camera shy, but I think it's mostly the whole "industrial espionage" issue.

Dinner quandary solved by not entirely satisfactory compromise involving picking up daughter from friend's house (where she'd already dined) and having her run into Panera buy some of the worst bread on the face of the earth. Panera does have a decent sourdough, but their French baguette is atrocious, and so although my daughter had been instructed to buy sourdough she had to make do with French. This was served with pate (of undistinguished origin), taramosalata (similarly undistinguished), and tomato and arugula salad. Oh, and remember the potato salad from Publix? I didn't have to offer it to my husband (and thereby feel cruel), he asked for it. So it all worked out very nicely. Hideous work day tomorrow, so I'm hitting the hay early, but I'll leave you with a trivia question: The first time I ever heard the word arugula was in the context of a fairy tale. Which one was it?

There isn't one, at least not once you get out of the mountains. We're in the piedmont of the Appalachians, literally right at the edge, with the northern suburbs of Atlanta being hillier than the southern ones. My grandmother (whose farm was in Appalachia proper, in the Blue Ridge of Virginia) could grow it, but farmers I've talked to here at the Morningside Market never seem to have it and say that it doesn't grow well. The rhubarb in my picture was purchased at DFM, labeled as organic, from California.

Is this due to better genetics? Has it come at the expense of flavor? In the midwest, a number of boutique organic farms produce a variety that is often called 'cipollini' that is very similar to what you describe as the Vidalias from years ago. Flat and small with a very nice round sweet flavor. Excellent grilled. They are most often sold field fresh as opposed to storage onions. ← I don't know if "better" is quite the term, and I'm not in a position to say whether the Vidalias today are as good as the Vidalias from way back when. I don't eat raw onions too frequently, and that's where the difference will be the most marked. The term "Vidalia" basically means that the onion is grown in a particular part of Georgia, so there's an element of "terroir" involved. I do know that Vidalias were seen as pretty odd back when they were first being shipped. A friend of mine is a vegetable broker (yes, a vegetable broker) and he apparently had trouble with a load of them being turned away by Canadian ag inspectors who thought there was something wrong with them.

A topic that comes up pretty frequently on eG is yogurt, specifically the difference between European (particularly Greek) and U.S. yogurts. The biggest difference, I think, is that U.S. yogurts generally have added gelatin or other "stiffeners" that give them a creamier texture. The added gelatin will bind up some of the water that yogurt otherwise gives up. The other way of dealing with extra water is to drain it, and Total Greek yogurt is a good example of this type product. I tend to prefer U.S. style yogurt for sweet applications, and Greek-style drained yogurt for savory ones. I also like goats milk and sheeps milk yogurt for savory things. I don't like commercially-flavored yogurts, and make my own. Anyway, I've generally got two different sorts of plain, fat free yogurt on hand: Apart from the differences listed above (as well as price, packaging, name brand, provenance, and specific bacterial cultures), there's something else about these two yogurts that's different. What is it?

Dinner quandary ahead. I was planning on grilling corn on the cob and okra and Vidalia onions and eggplant, and serving it all with tomato and basil salad. Not only would this have been a great means of processing the contents of my fridge, but I'd have leftovers for lunch this week. Unfortunately my husband is presently lying supine on the floor of the kitchen, resting up before returning to finish our two-thirds stained deck. So not only will the grill not be back in service in time, but the entire outside smells like a solvent factory. Documentation of the work in progress: Husband has just cast a vote for "take out." I don't think he cares too much what sort of take out. Hmm, maybe I could get him to eat that nasty potato salad he brought home from the Publix the other night. Oh, hold it, that wouldn't be very nice, would it?

Those 7 year olds can come in pretty handy. Does that include a brand name? Can she manage an approximate word by word translation?

Meant to give credit to melonpan for this purchase. She (he?) describes making shikhye from scratch on the Elsewhere in Asia forum. Not that I was not inspired to make it myself, as it looks like rather a lot of work, but rather to purchase a bottle (after tasting it---it was featured at the Asian Food Festival extravaganza yesterday).