badthings

Well, as the Syndicat wrote to me: Since they did not list Berthaut, which is thermalized but not pasteurized, it appears that they are making the distinction between raw and cooked at a lower temp than "thermalization". Of course, as Ed Behr pointed out, it is not merely the rawness of the the milk that is at issue: EDIT to add that, luckily, Berthaut époisses is very delicious. It would just be nice to compare.

Lesley, are you suggesting that the cheese sold in Quebec as thermalized is not heated to 145 F or so? Or rather that the cheese sold as lait cru is actually thermalized? Listeria: les producteurs de fromage au lait cru inquiets pour leur avenir Pascale MOLLARD-CHENEBENOIT Agence France Presse March 1, 2000 [sorry about the accents, I pulled it off of lexis-nexis]

In Encarnacion Pinedo's 1898 El cocinero español (which was just delivered today -- Encarnacion was born in Santa Clara California in 1848) there are recipes for "spanish style" wheat tortillas as well as corn tortillas. Enchiladas are made with both (interestingly, corn are fried then dipped, flour dipped then fried). They are filled, folded or rolled, then baked. This should not, however be taken as a rule, since the name means only en-chile'd and is handled differently thoughout Mexico (as well as the part-of-the-US-formerly-known-as-Mexico). I think Bayless discusses some of these variations in Authentic Mex. There is no mention of either tacos or burritos (at least in the index), which is not surprising since those are street food more than home cooking. Steingarten wrote a good article on flour tortillas, which I believe had some specific geography of origins, in the last year or two -- too recent, I think, to make it into the most recent book. I hope we can all agree that, at least in the loose sense of tortillas served with eggs, "breakfast tacos" are pre-conquest. EDIT to add that most towns must have had at least one forno which served a communal role much like the european baker's oven.

Taking you literally: I don't have a copy of the AOC regulations but you can easily find lots of French pasturized-milk Époisses for sale in North America and Europe. Also, the Encylopédie des fromages doesn't list raw milk as a requirement, just whole milk. 2 of the 4 AOC époisses producers use raw milk, according to the Syndicat de défense de l'époisses. Berthaut époisses is "thermalized," not pasteurized. Further stories of bad époisses here.

FYI, the aglianico del vulture I got at Osteria Bianco last month had a sticker from vino on it. Thanks for the tips everyone. Sounds like I should save my money for the enoteca italiana next month.

from another thread: Maybe I should post it in the wine forum, but does anyone have opinions on the relative merits of Italian Wine Merchants (Bastianich's store, on E 16th), and Vino (on E 24th)? I might have to pick up some Italian wine on my next visit. Obviously, the answer, in the form of resounding silence, was that I should post it in the wine forum. Related: any suggestions for a place with good prices and a wide and/or quirky selection, particularly of sparklers? My sister is poor and lives in NY and loves Champagne, and I'm trying to explain to her the joys of cheap bubbly.

We went last month, the week after the Times article, and had a great meal. It wasn't even that crowded, then. Our waiter was a very nice kid, who was really from Romagna. It wasn't hard to find a good deal on the wine list. It was astonishingly cheap. I couldn't quite believe I was in NYC. Sadly, no grappa.

That's what one of your competitors told me. Apparently she is not as internet savvy as some of our egulleters! Diana Kennedy wrote somewhere that they were rare and expensive even in Oaxaca. Do let me know when you get them in. I will definitely visit you at Grand Lake.

Judging from a single trip to the Austin Central Market many years ago, the Bowl is better. I would still be pretty happy if I "had" to shop at CM. The produce may be fresher simply because we are closer to where much of it is grown (and because of the turnover), but it does not compare to the local farmer's markets. It is also, however, very cheap. On the other hand, shopping there is like Thunderdome. An ordeal that takes many days to recover from. Returning to dried chiles, I love chilhuacles, which are hard to find, though I know eGullett's Rancho_Gordo grows them. I am also on a quest to track down the rare pasilla de Oaxaca, which will probably require going to Oaxaca. And no, I'm not sick of chipotles, but I never buy prepared foods (because I get to shop at the Bowl), so that's not a problem. I am, however, tired of people pronouncing the word stupidly.

This is making me hungry. FYI, the PG in the picture is Alois Lageder, from Alto Adige. Very good. Maybe I should post it in the wine forum, but does anyone have opinions on the relative merits of Italian Wine Merchants (Bastianich's store, on E 16th), and Vino (on E 24th)? I might have to pick up some Italian wine on my next visit.

Whoa, where did you find pasillas de Oaxaca? They are hard to come by even in Mexico, and I've never seen one in the US. (because they're smoked, you can't bring one back and plant it; or you can, but it won't germinate). They are, for the record, a different variety than "regular" pasilla, which is a dried chilaca. In california, they call it chile negro (or, sometimes pasilla negro). Mark Miller's the great chile book [egulletized link!] is very useful for sorting out the different varieties. But this website might just do the trick. Further aside: Anyone ever used fresh chilacas?

See the Big Red story? WKU's lawyer seems a little clueless:

also re: comals, many of the ones I've seen people use in mexico are made from the cheapest sheet metal you can imagine. I got the cheapest one they had ($3?) at my local mercado, made out of "blue steel" I think (like a french omelette pan, but flimsier), and it's still way more hardcore the the ones I saw there. Also, there's a very cool picture, from the Codex Mendoza, I think, showing a ceramic comal in action -- i.e., in the fire. I'll see if I can track it down somewhere. I too am leery about ceramic + direct flame but people swear it's no big deal if you're gentle.

Terminology rears its ugly head. This is, I suspect, what Bayless calls the "michoacan nomenclature predicament". Pasillas (long, thin, blackish) are indeed a common dried chile. But they are not as common -- particularly, I think, for enchiladas -- as the ancho (shorter, wide, red/brown), which is the dried form of the poblano. And the poblano is called a pasilla in California. So do you mean pasillas or anchos? Notwithstanding their current chain-y-ness, chipotles are a good dried chile to make salsa out of. Bayless has an excellent one with nothing but chipotles, tomatillos, and garlic. Also, Msk: I recommend a couple days thinking ahead for tamales regardless of how you make them. And fresh masa too, but that might be a problem if you have to mailorder the harina. You could also wrap them in banana leaves, which would be easier to come by if you have SE asian stores in your neck of the woods. EDIT: shit, I somehow missed two whole pages of this thread. sorry if that was redundant. Though since I now see that you're in france, I imagine that you should be able to track down some banana leaves. You would of course want to fill them with an appropriately tropical tamal, e.g., from the Yucatan.

Melkor, you're better off just flying to LaGuardia and taking a cab to Luger's. I went there for lunch the other day and had a hamburger -- who knew? Best burger ever, period, and it was like $7. Take that, Boulud. I am quite fond of the meat at Café Rouge in Berkeley, though it's no steakhouse. They dry-age Niman that they claim is prime (I think). Maybe they grade it themselves? Not Luger, obviously, but it will distract you from thinking about flying to NY for lunch for a few hours.

I noticed a complicated procedure for dealing with this in one of the Elizabeth Schneider books, but I don't remember the details. The weird thing is, I bought one once and made something pretty good out of it without any idea about the buds and the bitterness. I wish I could remember what I did.

That's funny, because today's SF Cron article devoted to bergamot features a recipe for bergamot Salmon. Carol, are you reading this?

Lulu Peyraud's recipe, as given by Richard Olney, is something like: grill whole sardines over vine cuttings, then eat with your fingers. She doesn't even gut them. That's a little hard core for me, so I usually filet, salt, fry briefly if I'm too lazy to grill.

yep. they can be pretty intense. but I've never had one intense like that. Tryska, are the wild ones in India Annona cherimola, or one of the many relatives or hybrids? info

David Karp, in fact, does this kind of journalism for the Times now, albeit not as rigorously as you seem to be suggesting. Although I would appreciate that kind of rigor, I'm not sure how much sense it makes in the context of a weekly newspaper section. But the point is well-taken. The problem that I think you are getting at here is total conceptual divorce between the production of food (agriculture -- mysterious, foreign, and dirty), and its consumption (lifestyle "choice"). One could talk of the alientaion of agricultural labor. There is of course a powerful countemovement, symbolized by Slow Food, which has penetrated the better food sections, including, of course, the Times's, more and more. There is an article in the new American journalism review on precisely this development: [link thanks to Bruce Cole's sauté wed.]

Cannelini are in fact a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris, "new world beans," meaning simply that they are native to the americas. The other main new world variety is P. lunatus. My question: does "butter bean" always refer to some kind of P. lunatus? Aside from fava and chick peas, other old world "beans" are lentils (genus Lens), soybeans (Glycine), and the various members of genus Vigna (black-eyeds, mung beans, cowpeas, etc.), which you may or may not consider beans. Fellow dorks can waste some time on the taxonomy of Fabaceae here.

Dave, you should schedule your winter Oakland visits on Tuesday, then leave early to go to the Berkeley Farmer's market (2-6). Easy to get to from the Ashby exit.

for some reason it is marketed as "dinosaur kale" or, rarely, lacinato kale in the US. I don't find the stuff from California bitter at all. It actually has a subtle sweetness. edit: spelling

Craig, I thought the same thing, but apparently bergamots are a cultivar of sour orange, Citrus aurantium ssp. bergamia, and sometimes called "bergamot orange" in english, though I usually just see them called "bergamot."

In Oakland, Genova delicatessin.