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[1:00] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from 12 to 1245 here in the studio with

[1:10] Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez, and special unannounced guest caller in, Harold McGee. So we're gonna, is Harold there? Good morning, Dave. Good morning, good morning. How you doing? So listen, I didn't tell any of you guys out there that he was going to be on. We're gonna... I actually told him, can you just answer these 2 questions? I'm going to try and keep them on as long as I can. So if you, if a caller calls in, will you take it? Uh, you know, I'd love to. If we can maybe get this the phone connection fixed, because I'm hearing like every other millisecond of your of what you're

[1:46] saying. All right, why don't we do this? Jack, why don't you reestablish that connection? just do the top of the show kind of crud, all right? We'll reestablish Harold's questions. Call on your questions too. 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Uh, and oh, Nastasia, today's going to be Texas themed, uh, songs in the middle because I just got back from Texas. Did you choose them already? I did choose them already. By the way, today's a show brought to you by City Chicken, right? Which is Nastasia's next band, I think, City Chicken, right? But on the subject of raising livestock in the city, Something I've been interested in a long, long time is micro livestock. The, I believe it's the FAO put out a book on micro livestock maybe about 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago. And I read it with much interest. Did you know, Anastasia, that there are breeds of livestock that, although not as efficient at producing meat or milk as the larger breeds of livestock, can be raised in situations where you don't have enough land to produce even

[2:45] one. So if you don't have enough pasture to raise even one cow, you can raise 2 micro cows, and those 2 micro cows will produce 13rd of the milk of

[2:53] a regular cow, but you couldn't even raise a regular cow, right? You like that? So what I want is if anyone is willing to raise some sort of micro livestock illegally in the city. I think we should chip together and buy them one, like buy it, like buy like a couple, people have pet pigs, but like, what if you had like a micro eating pig? You know what I mean? Or like, you know, and they raised it in their apartment. Do you think we should support that or no? No. Why not? Sure, take on another take on another project. Well, it's not a project. Someone else is going to do it. All we have to do is buy them the animal anyway. Something to think about. Do we have Harold back on the line? Harold back, yeah. Harold's back. Very good. Is that connection better, Harold? It is, yeah, so far. We'll hope that since it's my cell phone number. I hope that the connection stays here. Oh, yeah, yeah. Cell phone. I know, you are you are also a victim of AT&T as am I, right? Yes. Got an email from them yesterday saying, welcome to the new AT&T. I hope this one works. All right. Okay. So the 1st question we had in was about legumes. It comes from Adam Frost. And I guess he's out of the UK because he spells flavor with the UK kind of fashion, but he says,

[4:03] legumes and some grains have a slightly acrid vegetal taste when raw, but this dissipates after a certain amount of cooking, usually proportional to the size of the seed.

[4:11] Is this the work and or destruction of enzymes? Also, if you cook some starchy food, again, grains and legumes for far too long, approximately 12 hours, they can develop an

[4:22] off-flavor that is difficult to describe. If you know what I'm talking about, do you know what causes this? Now, I tried to figure out this answer on my own, but I realize this is really Harold's, you know, purview.

[4:32] Also, before I go, I didn't introduce Harold. For those, for like the 2 people who might have ever listened to this, who don't already know who Harold is, Harold McGee is

[4:40] the grandmaster of science as it relates to making things delicious, wrote the seminal book

[4:48] on Food and Cooking 1st edition, right? Which you need to go buy, even if you have the new one, you need to go buy the old one because it's quite different from the current on food and cooking. Both books have been, you know, since 84, I think. And the other one since when, like 2004. The things that you need in your kitchen, if you want to help explain what's going on while you're cooking. It's like, it's the reference work. If you get one book at that one. That's kind of how it works. But you should also buy the old one. I'm OG Harold, by the way. I had the original before the new one came out, so I consider myself OG OG Harold fan. You also need to go on bookfinder and pick up a copy of Curious Cook, which is going to teach you more, in my opinion, from knowing you for several years, kind of how Harold thinks when he's thinking about things, which is the most important thing to do when you're trying to observe food closely and figure out what's going on.

[5:40] And so that's like the more personal book and the newest book is the key, the keys to cooking, right? Key is a good cooking. Key is a good cooking. And what that is, is basically like short form, like how to get the answers quick on what's going on without having to delve into the depth of on food and cooking.

[5:57] Would you say that's accurate? Yes, I'm very generous. Thank you. And the new book, which it's not even scheduled, but the one I know he wants to

[6:06] write, is like the next magnum opus. I know if I'm allowed to talk about this, but the next magnum opus, I

[6:12] think, that's going to come out, is, and it could be, you know, a billionaires. I don't know, is something on taste and flavor, and it's probably going to be the most difficult. If I had to write it, it would be the most difficult of the ones so far because there's so much not known, and there's so much work being done. It's such a complicated subject. Would you say that's fair or no? No, that's absolutely right. And in fact, that, uh, that's kind of in the background of uh, these questions that you uh, sent to

[6:41] me, because they're both in in their various ways about flavor and about how complicated it is to figure out what's going on in real foods.

[6:50] Which is why I knew you'd be on top of it. So what are your thoughts? Well, uh, so on this question about legume and grain flavor, uh, it does turn out that, uh, uh, the, the flavors of, of legumes, especially dried beans and peas and so on,

[7:07] now it's very distinctive, and it does have to do with uh, very high levels

[7:12] of, uh, enzymes in the seed that break down, uh, fats and fatty

[7:18] related, uh, molecules, um, phospholipids, and things like that that you find in the membranes of the cells, breaks them down into smaller pieces. Uh, big molecules like fats and oil. They don't have intrinsic aromas of their own or flavors, but when you break them down into smaller molecules, then we can taste

[7:40] them and we can smell them. And so it turns out that uh, characteristic flavors of those things uh, do have to do with very high levels of

[7:48] certain, uh, fat breaking enzymes that generate lots and lots of, um, 6 carbon and 8

[7:57] carbon uh, molecules that have the flavor of kind of grass and leaves and things like that on the one hand, and mushrooms, on the other hand. So, in a way, the flavor of

[8:09] lightnings in particular is, uh, leafy greens plus mushrooms combined together. Um, and so, uh, Adam's question about, um,

[8:20] that, that flavor is there for, for quite a while, but then it sort of dissipates during cooking. Uh, what happens during cooking is that at 1st uh, that encourages the action of those enzymes, so they actually generate more and more of

[8:33] these, um, uh, flavor compounds. But then with time, the enzymes get killed by the heat, and then the heat

[8:41] also drives off those molecules, forces them to react with other molecules, and

[8:48] so those particular qualities kind of fade into the background. Ask Harold, and ye shall receive, right? Have you ever experienced the cooking for a long time off flavors on starchy

[9:03] foods? Uh, you know, not, uh, I've never cooked just grains or uh, beans by themselves for a long time. I've certainly, you know, cooked and reheated uh, pots of, um, uh, bean dishes and that kind of thing. But that's different because you've got herbs and spices and other stuff in

[9:25] there and that's going to change the equation. So I've never actually done the experiment of cooking uh beans for 12 hours to see what happens to them. Uh, I, I, I don't really know offhand what uh, sorts of molecules you would get because, you know, that's essentially taking the process. I just described and extending it for a long, long time. And uh, so that's, that's an experiment I have to do. I mean, I would guess the 2 choices are the water is slightly alkaline and you're getting some sort of myard reaction that you perceive as an off-flavor because you don't want that readiness. Or two, you're getting some sort of fat oxidation or whatever fats are left over. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, it could be those. It could be that you're, uh, because at the same time that you're creating flavor, you're also losing it because you're cooking it for so long, you know, uh,

[10:14] the, the more volatile molecules are going to go away and you're going to be left with the less volatile

[10:20] stuff. And so the balance of aromas is going to change and maybe it's just going to be something that doesn't smell as much like beans or

[10:27] grains as you expect them to. So you're like losing a masking flavor. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but I don't think, you know, uh, Adam posed the question, uh, as, um, uh, it having to do with the starchiness of these particular uh, foods, but their seeds, which do have a lot of starch.

[10:47] Uh, I don't think the starch has much to do with it, except that, um,

[10:51] is possible that starch might be with with the long cooking,

[10:56] uh, the starch, uh, grains break open and you, you end up with, uh, with free starch, which ends up in the cooking

[11:04] liquid eventually. That stuff may be binding some of the aroma molecules. Um, that certainly is known in the food science literature, that amylose, and amylopectin can actually bind aroma molecules, which then means that they're not available to our noses

[11:21] to um, to smell. No, that might be part of it as well. Right. So you probably think it's not like a starch hydrolysis over

[11:28] time, and then the smaller thing's breaking down into something else. Uh, yeah, I I, I kind of doubt it, but, um, but I don't know. Alrighty. Well, again, you are the perfect man to ask these questions. The 2nd one that I thought you were perfect for being a San Franciscan or what do you call yourself? San Franciscans. What are you guys? Folks from San Francisco? Yeah, yeah. We don't have a, uh, we need to develop a good term for that. Rice Aroni eaters. Right. Anyway, this question is on sourdough, which I know you've researched quite a bit. Uh, especially as regards its flavor compounds. And so, um, this this one's for you from uh, Christian uh, Swanopol. You think you pronounced that Swanpo? Swanpo? How do you think? Yeah. From New Zealand, and we love the New Zealanders and the Australians, especially because they have come up in force to say that the

[12:28] show today, tonight, or tonight, today, or whatever it is that was anti-Miklu is a tabloid farce, maybe more on that

[12:37] later, if we have time, I doubt we will. He writes, I've read quite a bit about sourdough starters, and there seems to be a lot of different information about how temperatures and hydration levels affect the

[12:45] starter, and also the final bread dough. Peter Reinhardt, who's a, you know, well-known author in the breadworld, says that a firmer starter promotes a production of lactic rather than acetic acid, while instructions that come with

[12:56] a starter I bought, because the one he raised himself died, because he neglected it, joined the club Christian, says exactly the opposite.

[13:03] The instructions also say that warmer temperatures encourage lactic

[13:07] acid and cooler temperatures, acetic. I read elsewhere that putting the dough in the fridge halts yeast activity, while lactobacilli continued to produce acid. Could you please clear this up for me? And maybe you want to handle that one and then handle the 2nd question, 2nd prong of this

[13:22] after? Uh, yeah, because that is a different, uh, different kind of question. But, uh, so, uh, he starts this question by saying there seems to be a lot of different, uh, pieces of information about how temperatures and hydration levels affect starter and final red dough.

[13:39] Boy, is that true, that there's a lot of different pieces of information out there? So, when I reviewed the literature, uh, back in the early part of the century, you know, 2000, 2003 or so,

[13:55] uh, for uh, the 2nd edition of my book. Uh, the lesson I drew at the time. was that, uh, cooler temperatures are actually, uh, and and uh, firmer starters are better for the

[14:12] yeast. Because, you know, sourdoughs, essentially, uh, you got yeast that are providing the gas for leavening, but you've also got bacteria that are generating a lot of the flavor, including acids, which is why it's a sourdough.

[14:25] And uh, some acid is good for flavor, um, and for other properties of the sourdough. Um, but too much means that the yeast don't get a chance to generate

[14:37] uh, enough uh, uh, carbon dioxide to give you a nice leavened loaf. So you want the bacteria to do well, but you really want the yeast to do well too. And the problem is that they, that the acids of the bacteria inhibit the growth of the yeast. So there is this delicate balancing act in general between the yeasts and the and the bacteria, even before you get into issues of the difference between lactic acid and acetic acid, which are both acids.

[15:06] So on the question of the balance between the yeast and the bacteria, the lesson I cooked

[15:13] three, 4 years ago was that, or I guess it's longer ago now than

[15:17] that 10 years ago. Um, uh, that lower temperatures, fermentation

[15:23] temperatures, and firmer starters gave the yeast a better chance of, um, uh, being there

[15:31] in enough numbers to give you a good dough. Uh, I took another look uh, last night and this morning, and even that seems to be uh, in question now. So the, the, the basic problem with the whole thing is that uh, it's such a variable system that depending on who's doing the experiment and what the conditions are, people are coming up with completely uh, opposite, um, findings as to, you know, what's, what are the best conditions

[15:57] for uh, the growth of the yeasts or forgetting particular sets of

[16:02] acids. And I just don't know who to believe. Right. I mean, part of it is it's extremely complicated because it's not, it's not anywhere close to a single system. You're dealing with, with, you know, dozens, at least, you know, on

[16:16] the small amount of research I was able to do, dozens of different, um, lacto, uh, lactobacilli, uh, strains that are involved uh, in different sourdough starters, multiple, multiple bacteria per starter, dozens that

[16:30] are, that are commonly known, plus different uh, yeast, some

[16:33] wild, and, and the balance of those 2 things is affected by many things, including the type of flower, the ash content of the flower, the hydration, all of it affects it,

[16:43] right? I mean, it's it's just an incredibly complicated system. Yeah, yeah. How often you stir it? Um, uh, how much you aerate it during the stirring, so you're stirring technique makes a difference. Because oxygen, uh, something that's useful to remember in general, and this, I think, uh, has not been contradicted by anything, uh,

[17:05] yeasts uh, actually do need oxygen to uh, to grow well. Um, and of course in a, in a dough, um, you're, you're essentially forcing them to do

[17:16] with, with very little. But when you're encouraging them to, um, to grow in your starters so that you start out with a good dose of them in your bread dough. Uh, it's really good to, to whip that, uh, sourdough starter or knead it if it's a firmer starter a lot in order to get air in there to give

[17:37] the, uh, the east a leg up on the bacteria. Right. And, uh, you know, there's a couple bunch of different kinds of

[17:45] lactic acid bacteria, some of which, the most of which, actually, the

[17:49] hetero fermented ones will actually produce some CO2. and that's how they produce acetic acid at the same time, if there's oxygen

[17:58] present, or other things like fructose. There's like, you know, so adding air will also increase the amount of acetic versus, adding

[18:05] oxygen, rather, will increase the amount of acetic versus lactic gas. I mean, it's just the whole thing's complicated. Yep, yep. Exactly. And as the 2nd part of Christian's question indicates, just getting the thing to grow at all is such a challenge that I myself

[18:21] am happy not to worry about the lactic versus ascetic balance because, but it's true

[18:27] that those are 2 different assets. One has an aroma and the other doesn't. One is your, the aroma of vinegar, and you want a little bit of that, but not too

[18:37] much, uh, and lactic acid gives you maybe a kind of cleaner tartness

[18:42] than, than acetic does. But those are real fine points and the, the, the important thing to begin with is just getting something going and relatively stable so that you can then begin to refine

[18:52] the, the results. Well, uh, this has been very enlightening. Can you stay with us past the next past the 1st break or no? Yeah. Super. All right, we're going to go to our 1st break call and your questions to Harold McGee and cooking issues at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. They had a war about for me all over the country. And I was trying to beat 2 rap in Idaho. I was breaking into a schoolhouse Sunday morning without

[19:26] warning when I saw the sheriff coming for me slow from down below. His steel gray eyes were blazing when he saw. His hand was on his gun when he rolled up. He said, you'd kill that woman, and oh, you shut her, why you do it? I'm taking you to Austin that I'm gonna lock you up. Well, he tied me with the plowline the next morning. Oh, God, I love that song. That's Johnny Cash, Austin Prison, using that song because I just got back from Austin from the ICP conference. did a demo with Nils and Chris Young from the Modernist Cookbook, and then

[20:10] emceed the awards with Chris Young. We went to a lot of barbecue, but that's the only Austin song I know, even though it's like one of the biggest music towns in the city, Austin Prison. And then my favorite part about it is Johnny Cash goes, a crazy screaming lynch mob waited in the streets of Austin, which we didn't quite get to, but great

[20:27] song. You had Johnny Cash fan, Harold? I am. Yeah. gotta be. Got to love Johnny Cash. One of my great musical regrets is I never got to see Johnny Cash before he died live. So I've seen many of my, many of my idols, but not, never got to see Johnny Cash. Anyway. Um, Speaking of Chris Young and a modernist cuisine, uh, Nastasia, Harold, maybe Chris

[20:50] Young and I and Doug Duda from the uh, ICP. I think Doug's gonna go, are all traveling very soon at the beginning of July down to South Dade, Florida, to have a mango orgy. We're going to eat, well, come on, you can call it that. They have something like 400 variety of mango, several 100 variety of avocado, I

[21:14] believe, upwards of 7, uh, no, 100s of variets of avocado, upwards of 75 varieties of jackfruit. And we're going to do a mega two-day tasting of the type that we have done with, um, citrus and

[21:27] apples. And then, you know, Nastasia and I did with Paris. I pretty excited about it. you Harold? Very much, very much, yes. Got to get into training, though. you know, those are high acid fruits. Oh, my God. I know we should we should probably, we always joke about it. We should probably carry some sort of antacid with us, right? Actually, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that. Although, you know, that's that's, hmm, takes care of the stomach, but what about the taste buds? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we're also going to need. I'm going to need to. I'll ship. I need to ship a fruit knife down there, or else check luggage, right? Because we're gonna need a fruit tasting knife. Uh, I'm going to need, uh, I got to figure out a way because we got to pack the avocados. We can't taste the avocados that day. I need a good packing technique. I was thinking maybe film and place. I'm working on it anyway. It's going to be, it's going to be an epic tasting and no one's going to be down there because who the heck wants to be in the very southern tip of Florida.

[22:20] you know, at the beginning of July. It turns out flying my family out after that for like the only family vacation we've ever taken via

[22:28] airplane and I was going to take my kids to the Everglades because my youngest son likes alligators. And then, but I forgot that my older son has a phobia of flying

[22:38] insects, like almost as bad as the girl from the movie Chocolate, but not quite that bad. And I was recounting to my wife last night as we were going to

[22:46] bed how the mosquitoes are like, you know, you know, huge fat mosquitoes that swarm on you like, like, like, I've never seen anything like it. I read a quote yesterday from the Everglades, because I want to take them to the Everglades, that you swing a quart jar and gallon and get a gallon of mosquitoes. And it's true. It's unbelievable. So my wife, my wife was like, Dave, you are an extreme idiot. What made you think we should go to the Everglades at the height of mosquito season? So now we're trying to think of something else to do in South Florida on the way to visit my 92 year old grandpa? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Um, I'm just excited about the mangoes. I'm going to say about it. And the avocado. I don't Harold, I told you they have an avocado that's seedless and shaped like a banana. Yes, yes. I still don't believe that. I think that's, uh, it's got to be a mythological avocado can't be real. Well, we'll find out. Look, if it's real, I can't believe it hasn't been commercialized. It's absurd because she said that it tastes good. And basically you just score it when it's, you know, when it's hard, and then you let it ripen and you peel it like a banana, which is great because most avocados I find difficult to peel like a banana, to say the

[23:54] least, when they're ripe. Although that might be an interesting idea to prescore an avocado when it's hard, let it ripen and then just peel it off. Of course, then what are you going to do? You can't eat it with a seed like that. dumb, dumb. Anyway. Another thing, Harold, I was doing some reading in Eric Block's garlic book, garlic and alliums. And, uh, you know who has one of the foremost collections of alliums in the world? New York Botanical Garden? New York Botanical Garden. Let's organize a tasting next time you're in New York, huh? If it's a good season, if it's a good season. right? Do you know those guys at all? Uh, I know a couple of people there, yeah. Yeah, that would be an interesting tasting. No one's going to want to get near us, right? Won't invite Nils to that one. He hates he hates raw garlic to test it. Hates it. That's another good thing to do when you have a kitchen handy because you're going to want to cook some of them. Okay, back to the questions. By the way, call on your questions to us or to Harold at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Okay, Ryan Santos writes in with a custard question. Uh, he has an issue this week uh, with a buttermilk custard panna cotta. He's doing an offsite catering event, not his forte, but it's in an air conditioned room, which will have no access to refrigeration during the event. The event is 3 hours. So is a cooked custard safe to sit that long at AC temp, or while I have to ice bath it. If it is safe, what would you suggest to you so that it stays set? I figure gelatin may get too soft over time. A mix of carraginans perhaps. I would not worry about the safety, Harold, would you? I mean, I would not worry about it at all. No, no, because it's been thoroughly cooked, and it's air conditioned room, so it's not going to be that hot, and 3 hours, a 3 hour event. Yeah, that sounds sounds safe. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm totally okay with that. Um, you know, if you if you're worried about the gelatin, which you might be, especially during transportation and whatnot, uh, I would, uh, use, um, you would

[25:52] use uh, Carraginan's, um, it, the reason to use carraginans and milk-based systems is that it takes a preposterously small amount of

[26:01] carragin to set a milk-based system. So you're going to want to use a very little amount. Otherwise it's going to be too hard. Kappa is going to be brittle. An iota is going to be soft. Um, you could use a mix since most kerrgeans are mixed anyway. Iota is good because if it should break, it'll reform along that line, so it might prevent cracking or anything like that. If you find that you're using just kappa carragin and it's too hard, you can add a little bit of locust being gum, which is going to soften it up a little bit.

[26:26] Any thoughts on that, Harold? That sounds good. You can also go the old-fashioned way, use a little bit of starch or flour. See? See? Old-fashioned way. See? This is why we need someone tempering this show. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, all this simple stuff. I'm like, go get a bunch of carragin and mix it in. Um, yeah. Also, the one thing I always say was safety with hydrocollage. don't know if it's been proven or heraldly you've done any further research, but a while ago there was some work saying that perhaps kappa carraginen is not necessarily um 100%

[27:03] uh safe to use uh from a carcinogen standpoint in uh very acid

[27:08] systems. But I doubt that buttermilk is acid enough for it to really be a problem. Your thoughts on that? Um, yeah, I haven't looked at it recently, but that sounds correct also, as you say, it's a tiny quantity, and it's a dessert, and so people aren't going to be getting a whole lot, certainly a lot less than somebody's going to get

[27:27] if they eat some seaweed. Right. Chew on some, uh, yeah. Yeah, don't go out and get the seaweed, squeeze a bunch of lime over it and start chomping on it. Although, you know what? Like I haven't seen anything on that research in a long, long time. So I'm wondering whether or not it's um, uh, whether or not it's even current research. Yeah, I'll take a look at that today. Get back to... cool. Speaking of current research. So, you know, the most recent post, although it's like 2 weeks old now, that I have on the

[27:57] site is my defensive translutaminates. And this guy writes in and and says, uh, you know, basically that his wife has had a whole bunch of uh, gastrointestinal problems and

[28:13] surgeries. And, um, and she really liked to eat chicken McNuggets, literally chicken

[28:21] McNuggets and cheap, cheap cuts of meat. And I can't guarantee that it wasn't TG that did it to her. And of course I can't. You know what I mean? I also can't guarantee it wasn't space people that did it. You know what I mean? I can't prove a negative, like it's crazy. You know what I mean? Um, But something I just want to say about this is that, uh, everywhere on the internet. And this is the, this is as much as I think the internet's literally the greatest tool that has ever been given to us in terms of anything, really, but cooking as well.

[28:54] Um, there's so much crap that gets uh, propagated,

[28:59] like, continuously propagated uh, on the internet. Uh, and I guess the same thing happened actually back in the, uh, in actual literature. Like you've traced like the searing myth, famously traced the searing myth, and it just keeps on getting propagated, you know, writer after writer after writer until somebody squashes it. Everyone says that Chicken McNuggets are made with translutaminates. And the fact that the matter is, chicken the chicken McNuggets were 1st released onto the scene in 1980, before microbial transglutaminates was available, and I guarantee you they weren't using guinea pig liver transglutaminates because it's too expensive and

[29:38] it needs calcium to work, you do not need transgutaminates to make a chicken McNugget.

[29:44] Nowhere have I ever been able to find any reference that even obliquely says that McDonald's uses transglutaminates in their chicken McNugget formulation. Now, I'm willing to... they could use it. That's a way to do it, but it's by no means necessary. And so, I wish people would stop saying that, you know, TG is the reason, you know, McNuggets, how McNuggets came to

[30:10] be, because it's just not true. Even if there is TG in the formulation now. Um, you know, these people just get all bent out of shape about stuff that they have no data

[30:19] about. You know, what do you have you ever heard of TG being used in a McNugget? Um, I have to confess, I haven't read a lot about Chicken McNuggets. Uh, uh, either way. Um, but, you know, people have been sticking odd scraps of meat together for millennia.

[30:40] Uh, and I mean, that's essentially how sausages work, right? You, you salt chunks of meat and that draws some of the myasin out of

[30:49] the, um, the meat and myasin is a sticky protein and things stick together and it's as simple as that. Yep, boom. No TG required. You know? Uh, and it's, uh, you know, it's called uh, the primary bind when you're making sausages and it's how it works. It's how it's always worked. Um, you know, and I'm sure that they have a chicken McNugget batter, that they have like some kind of blended chicken with salt, some pieces, and they just keep folding it until the, until, uh, you know, the

[31:20] myosin's developed, and then it'll stick in whatever shape they want. I mean, no problem. Uh, and it's a lot, uh, cheaper than using transglutamines. And from a production standpoint, they don't have to worry about setting times or setting rates.

[31:35] So it's probably easier for them to not use it in that in that application. So, you know, that's one of those things I wish people would just do a little bit, like even like a tiny bit of

[31:46] research. But if you look everywhere, it says nuggets. Now, an interesting one is Sirimi. So Sirimi, right, is uh, like fish, like basically it's kind of, if you read about how Sirimi is made, it's kind of horrific. Wouldn't you agree, Harold? I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of just horrible. like they deflavor, uh, they de-aromatize and and, you know, wash any normal kind of flavor out of like whatever kind of fish

[32:12] scrap, crap they have lying around. And then, you know, uh, basically regell it again in uh, kind of serimi

[32:20] shapes, and they're formally were made without transgutaminates, um, although there's evidence that there's endogenous, meaning, uh, you know, already occurring

[32:31] transglutaminates, it might have some that add to some of the gelling capability of the fish mix.

[32:36] But there is true that in current serimi applications, an attempt to use fish that don't have a high enough gelling power to make an adequate serimi on their own, that they are adding transplutaminates to it, but don't blame

[32:51] serimi on transgutaminates, just, you know, the attempt to extend it even further.

[32:55] Yeah, are you a big Cirimi guy, Harold? You know, I actually kind of enjoy it every once in a while. It's got that nice kind of bouncy texture to it. Um, so, you know, a slice on top of some ramen with, with, uh, the other stuff. I I kind of like that a lot. Also, you would have no California roll without the serimi, right? That's right Yeah. Because if you just use avocado and if you were to use shrimp instead of serimi, it wouldn't be right, right? That's right. And I couldn't eat it. Oh, right. Yeah. Wait, that's an interesting question. They do they only use fish in Serimi or do they ever put the, do they ever put other things like shrimp into it? And if they did, is it so thoroughly washed? that any protein that's causing you a problem is washed away from it? Well, I think the, uh, the protein that causes me, the problem is actually a component of the muscle, um, uh, the set of muscle

[33:54] proteins. It's tropomyosin. So I have a feeling it would stick around, uh, even through the the streaming processing. But the whole point of the stream is that you use really, really cheap, uh, like

[34:06] pollock or something like that to make something like crab or shrimp. And, um, so I think it's, uh, the idea of actually using crab or shrimp or some kind of crustacean in the servee is just, uh,

[34:19] it's against the whole idea of streaming in the 1st place. Again, again good insight. All right. Can you stick around for one more cycle of this? All right, calling your questions too. 718-497-2128. It's 718-497-2128 cooking issues. Guitars are too good and firm feeling women. I don't need my name in the marquee lights. I got my son, got you with me tonight. Maybe it's time we got back to the basics of love. Let's go to look in my Texas, wailing in Willie and the boys. This successful life for living, not as futile like the headfields and macaws. Between Make ribs, paint songs, Newberries, train, songs, and blue eyes, crying in rain. I'm looking by text. Ain't nobody feeling nowhere.

[35:37] The following is a public service announcement from Heritage radio network. Every Sunday at 4.30 PM, tune in to Burning Down the House. Architecture is the laser focus of burning down the house, a weekly discourse on all things built, destroyed,

[35:51] admired, and despised. Each week, Curtis B. Wayne, your host, invites a posse of authors, critics, builders, designers, and other architecture themes to reflect on various topics related to perhaps the most functional of all art forms.

[36:06] Again, that's every Sunday at 430 p.m. on the Heritage radio network. Jack cued that song just right. Waylon Jennings, Lucenbach, Texas, another classic, right? From our Texas theme thing, that song is great. In fact, Whalen, you know, Jennings unfortunately died way too young, but the person I used to play bass with in my high school band is in his

[36:31] son Shooter's band. Pre cool, right? Shooter Jenny. I've never seen Nastasia look so excited on the show. Jeez. okay. You know, Nastasia doesn't really much. Nastasia doesn't like stories, really, or people. So she doesn't like country music much. Is this accurate, except for Merle. Now you like Merle. I just don't like hearing the story over and over and over. the same story. Harold, can you believe this? You know, what am I? People, this is, this is, this is what I, this is what I put up with people. This is what I put up with. anyway. Okay. A question actually posted on, and I'll rip through this one quick, but it's of interest to some people. KDHP wrote into the blog, actually, has a question hoping we can give the answer. I received a country hand for a Christmas gift. I was told you can store them almost indefinitely. So I put it in my refrigerator. Now I'm told I should have stored it in the cupboard. My question is, did I ruin it and have I stored it too long? Any answers would be appreciated? Well, I don't know how long you stored it. Christmas, right? Oh, Christmas gift. No, no, no. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. If you've already cut into it, you might get some mold. Here's the problem. American country hams are a little soft in the middle, because of the way they're cured typically, unless they're really, really aged. So if it's already been cut into, you might get some kind of unfriendly green mold or some kind of like

[38:00] Brie like Candida mold right on that face. And unless it's penetrated so far into the meat that you get an off flavor on the inside, you can just cut a little bit of that off, scrub any other mold off the

[38:10] offside outside of the meat, and I'd be more worried about the fat picking up flavors from the fridge. Next time, freeze it or if you want to age it more, hang it. I wouldn't put it in the cupboard because mites really like

[38:24] dark kind of cool places to chew on ham. And I've had that happen. What do you think, Harold? You ever stored meat for a long time? Uh, yeah. I kept the country ham for like a couple of months, downstairs at my place. You know, I'm in San Francisco, which is uh, cool to cold year round. So I don't have, uh, some of the problems you'd have other parts of the country. But, um, yeah, in, in the cool, in, in the not completely dark, but sunny dark, um, kept for months for fine. Yeah. Yeah. I had one that I stored literally in a cupboard, and when I opened up the bag, it was like might, might central. You know, once you, I once had like 10 to 15 hams in my house and one of them had a mite problem, which is common, but they usually

[39:15] they, they do a, uh, they gas the mites out, um, in, um, in production. And, uh, uh, and once you have them in your house, like, it's the next time you bring a hand in, it just chews up the hand. But I would not worry about that ham other than any sort of, I mean, the fridge is problematic from an aroma standpoint, right? And that's pretty much it. Uh, yeah, yeah. But speaking of ham mites, I've never experienced ham mites, did they do anything interesting

[39:43] to the flavor, the way cheese mites do to cheese? Uh, interesting question. Um, I've never thought about it that much because I usually trim away the mighty

[39:56] area. I've never done like just a tasting of it. They say it makes it bitter, but of course they say the same thing about cheese mites. There's the famous mite cheese. I think from Austria, Austria or Germany where they take

[40:09] Fark, and they let it age in mites, until it's basically a big pile of might. Have you ever tasted that stuff? The mite cheese? I haven't tasted that, but in France, there's a, uh, you know, a tome de savoir, uh, kind of dry, uh, long aged, uh, cow's milk keys from the mountains uh, in the eastern part of the country. There's a version of that called Tomme de Savoie, Cyronay. Uh, uh, Cyranay means, uh, eaten by mites. And I went to some farmers markets when I lived in France, and you could, you know, approaching the market from the parking lot. You could smell it. From uh, from the edge of the lot. I would just follow my nose and I actually find that that aroma delicious. So, I know some people can't stand it, but there are people who do appreciate it. So I wonder whether you can get the same kind of effect from am. Huh. Is it was it is it bitter at all? Is it part bitterness to the cheese? Um, yeah, I don't think so. No, I don't, I'm thinking back now to the times I've had it, which are many. And, uh, it's, it's mainly an aroma thing. And, um, you know, you don't want to actually eat the, the frass, you know, the,

[41:24] the stuff that the mites have actually chewed on, but they, they

[41:29] produce this compound. I think it's a pheromone. You know, they use it for signaling, signaling each other, and it gets into the meat of the cheese itself,

[41:38] and it's delicious. Huh. Well, you know, the one from either Austria or Germany that's done with Clark, you actually, I think, eat the mites. Like it's basically, it's like mites all the way through. Um, I'd be interested to try. I want to try both now. Isn't Nastas, is this your worst nightmare? It is. Yeah, yeah. Nastasia, another, this should just be like the Nastasia Quirk show. She can't look at leaves that are deformed. She can't look at deformed leaves. Spore. Spore. Yes. Okay. Hey, Harold, I don't know whether I've talked to you about this, but I think I did briefly. The last time I did the sous vide low temp class. I had a bunch of big crew from South America. We had a couple from Brazil and, you know, did different countries. I forget where else did. Anyway. But they said that there's a tradition down there of storing raw meat under

[42:33] oil. Have we talked about this? No. Yeah, have you ever heard of this? I haven't, no. So raw meat, uh, just submerged under oil and any kind of oil. I guess. And then, and then afterwards, they cook it as a storage technique as kind of a pre-refrigeration kind of storage technique, but I said, is it cured like a

[42:57] Cecina, you know, like Mexican salt beef? Uh, and they said, no, it's not

[43:02] cured. And then, I mean, maybe there was a language barrier. I said, is it cooked? And they said, no, it hasn't been like a, you know, like a, like a reiet or a confit. And they said, no, it hasn't been cooked. And I was like, well, do you die when you eat it? And they said, no. But, I mean, a couple of things, I guess, is that, I mean, I don't know if they actually do salt before they put it under. But if you're going to cook the bejesus out of it, I mean, you're going to kill most everything that's going to grow in there is going to be heat labile, right? And it should ferment anyway before anything else happens because it's such a high water content, it should ferment and get kind of lactic, which should also knock back

[43:43] the, uh, the botulism and all that crap, right? Yeah, yeah. Very interesting though, yeah. I've never, never heard of that before. And my other weird South American question for you, is, are you aware of the, of the,

[44:01] the, traditional freeze dried, uh,

[44:07] like Inca potatoes? Yes, uh-huh. Yeah. You ever try that? Remind me of the name? Chai Chunio Blanco? Chunio, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, for those of you that aren't aware of it. I want any recipe that doesn't taste like a goat's, a goat's private parts because this or how I imagine it

[44:29] goats dirty private parts to taste. It smells like a barnyard, but like, like, hay that's been pooped on, like goat. Anyway, could be sheep. I haven't been around a farm enough to really distinguish goat from sheep, aroma alone. And the um, uh, the way they make this is they take potatoes, these special, I

[44:50] think, somewhat bitter mountain potatoes. They let them freeze overnight, then they thaw. I think they do that a couple times and then they throw it in a sack in a well for like 30, 40 days. Then they pull it out and then they let it dehydrate a couple of times with a couple more free star cycles. And I was really excited to try them. You just boil them and then like put cheese over them and eat them like that. But God, were they horrible? They've got to be they've got to taste better. People like them, there has to be a way to cook it so that it's good. Only the Japanese fermented soybean nato is, it's the only ingredient I've ever come across that I can't imagine being used to good effect somehow. Oh, no, no, no, no. I had the greatest nato just a few days ago, actually. Yeah. You haven't had the fresh stuff. Right? I, I need to bring that next time we get together because there, there's now a company here in Northern California who's making

[45:43] it, uh, everything we get in this country essentially comes from Japan and it's frozen and it's weeks old and it's not that

[45:50] good. But there's somebody here now making it fresh and it's, it's really wonderful. Okay, so it doesn't taste like coffee grounds and garbage. Uh, it does not. No, no. So I will, I will rescind my judgment. I've never had that particular version of Chuno. I have had a version that I think is not sort of anaerobically fermented like that. Um, you know, it's just been essentially, uh, freeze, freeze dried over, you know, several repeated cycles and left in the sun. And that's, it's got a, you know, distinctive kind of flavor, kind of old, um, you know, a veteran potato flavor, but it doesn't have

[46:35] off flavors that you're describing. So maybe there are just different versions of 2 nails that, uh, and it sounds as though that, that wasn't

[46:42] just too, no. there was some of prefix on the front of that. Uh, well, I think it was just like white, white chunio. I think it was just Chunio Blanco or something like that. Oh, okay. But it sounds like we need a Chunio expert, huh? Yeah, yeah. I think there are other versions of it. Yeah, it's hard to do hard to do the research on that on the webs. There's not that much information out there. All right, so let's. Oh, yeah. Oh, she's right across the river. Maybe next time, maybe next time you're in, we can see whether she can produce it for us in a way that's, you know, good. Yeah. All right, so let's round out today with someone sent in a, um, uh, Eddie

[47:25] Denell sent in something from The Daily, which is, I guess, a new iPad-based news service, uh, written, um, and I can't

[47:32] pronounce uh, the person's name, so I'm not going to mangle it, but it's called the other white meat, and it's a story

[47:38] about uh, Zeimer's Meats in Illinois, uh, and they're serving lion. And it's basically an expose on this company. And the reason, I guess it was sent to our blog is because, you know, a year and a half ago or

[47:54] so we did a, uh, we did a piece on, uh, cooking exotic meats, right? So yak was delicious, lion tastes like pork, beaver is delicious. you know, et cetera, et cetera. raccoon. We didn't like so much. I didn't like bear, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, uh, so, um, basically, uh, this guy, uh, Zeimer's, if you call him, like, he says it's all legit, which is why we ordered from him, uh, uh, further research has shown that he, um, basically served, uh, sold endangered animals

[48:32] illegal, endangered animals, tigers as lions, uh, knowingly and went to jail for it. And he says that he just copped a plea because that's what his lawyers told him to do. But if you call him up, uh, and you talk to him, his attitude isn't, I try to be extremely vigilant to make sure this doesn't happen and something

[48:50] slipped through. His attitude is much more like, um, well, I don't do a DNA test on the

[48:57] animal, and, you know, you know, I don't, I don't want to get into this other guy's business who's handing me the animal. So if he says it's lying, it's lying, right? And when you're dealing with things that are right on the edge of what are going to get you death threats from people on the telephone, like it pays, I think, be a little more

[49:14] vigilant. Um, but, you know, uh, I don't know. And so I guess, Eddie, I was aware of that, which is why we don't order from that supplier anymore. We don't have a supplier actually right now of those kinds of meat. Lion does in fact taste like pork, but it is, it's hard. It's hard to cook, actually, because it, uh, even though it has very little connective tissue in it, it's extremely

[49:41] tough, and I don't know why, uh, even if fairly, fairly low temperatures. But maybe we can round this out with an ethical discussion of eating things like lion

[49:49] meat. I don't, I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, Harold, but if the animal is not endangered, I don't understand why any one living creature has more dignity than any other living creature. Um, you know, uh, we have certain feelings for animals that, you know, have served as well, like horses and dogs over the millennia, but pigs have also served as well, are incredibly smart, and we slaughter them by the by the bushel. Do you know what I mean? Um, So I don't know, what do you have any thoughts on this kind of moral ethical question or is it too deep to bring

[50:21] in? You weren't expecting to get put on the spot with this kind of thing or? Well, no, I would, I guess I would agree with you in general,

[50:29] that the animals we already eat are, uh, uh, they, they have a lot going for them too. And so unless we're going to sit back and kind of re-examine, uh, things from, uh, from scratch, uh, as long as we're a meat eating

[50:47] culture, and these animals are not endangered, um, then I think it's, it's fair to, uh, to taste them as long as they're not, you know, um, that they haven't been obtained in, in,

[50:59] um, in shady ways. Although you bring up an interesting point, which is the animals get something out of it too. And there's the kind of classic argument that domestic animals that are raised for food have, you know, somehow entered a bargain with us, you know, where we take care of

[51:15] them. We provide them shelter and forage in something that is approximating approximating, you know, something that's good for their well-being in exchange. We kill them early, but maybe not necessarily earlier than they would have died anyway in the wild. And this is the argument for one of the arguments for why factory farming is

[51:33] horrible other than taste, which is the argument, you know, taste and humanity, which is, you know, the ones I argue, usually in that order. Uh, but against factory farming versus uh, old style farming. But, you know, maybe there's also something to that and people's reaction in that typically these lions haven't been stored in the best kind

[51:50] of, uh, uh, situations. They're usually like penned up and they're kept for various crazy reasons by various crazy people. And then, uh, you know, afterwards or basically, uh, executed for their, uh, for their fur and then the meat becomes a

[52:06] byproduct, which we then use. So you know, maybe there's something there. I don't know Yeah, no, it is complicated if the animals are being kept and slaughtered for other

[52:16] reasons. Um, then, you know, it's kind of like the argument for, uh, for use, for using all of the animal when you slaughter

[52:25] a pig or a lamb, uh, if the meat's going to go to waste, otherwise, then why not put it to

[52:32] use? Why not nourish someone with it? Right, exactly. Exactly. And to me, you know, once you accept the fact that

[52:39] we, as a median culture, are allowed to kill the animal, then, you know, you've entered into, you've entered into a zone where you're allowed to kill the animal to eat it. Right? And so, um, you know, uh, I don't, and like I said before, I don't see a lion as a, as a more august entity, you know, from from a, you know, a brain standpoint than a, uh, than a, than a

[53:05] pig, just because we grew up admiring lions and not pigs, uh, doesn't really change that in my

[53:11] book. But, um, Anyway, uh, Harold, thank you so much for being on. You have any last things that you want other than we're going to eat the heck out of some mangoes in about a month? No, I'm really looking forward to that. And was very glad for this. I mean, you, you, uh, texted me, what, uh, 10 hours ago? Yeah, and it was a lot of fun. Anytime. Oh, really? You shouldn't say that because we'll take you up on them. love having you on the show. No, it was great. A lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you, Harold, and thanks for listening to cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage Radio Network. You can find all of our archived programs on Heritage Radio Network.com, as well as a schedule of upcoming live shows. You can also podcast all of our programs on iTunes by searching Heritage

[54:09] Radio Network in the iTunes Store. You can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for

[54:15] up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening. Oh, twisted. And I guess can't get it straight. Vicious, fish. This is behind the scenes food news with Katie Kiefer. All of the trade papers are just buzzing with the information that

[54:37] Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has decided that he is only going to eat food that he himself has killed, as in proteins. So thus far, he's killed a goat, a pig, and some fish, but he's

[54:53] going to start hunting, he says, so that he can, you know, basically be more mindful of what he is putting in his mouth and into

[55:01] his body. And um, to quote a CNN money article. He says this year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat.

[55:10] I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat. So my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that, and being thankful for what I have. This year, I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm going to eat, is from animals I've killed myself. And thus far, this has been a good experience. I'm eating a lot healthier foods, and I've learned a lot more about sustainable farming and the raising of animals. This has been behind the scenes food news, with Kate and Keeper.

[55:42] Aaron Fitzpatrick and Brian DeMarco host unfiltered Heritage Radio Network's very own wine program. 's a small clip. I will say that I tasted a lot of wines, and I went to Bollinger, and it was the special Couveé, which is, and I'll explain the difference between that and rotor in a minute, but the special Couveé was the most three-dimensional wine that I'd had in my mouth up until that and it was actually pretty much one of the only ones of the day really spectacular. And it's made, I'll just say, in a different style, from rotor, because it is a certain portion of the blend every

[56:23] year. and their style is aged in barrels and it gives it more of a toasty, fuller style. And it's really, you know, it's a big sham. masculine champagne. I tried to get away, stay away from that, but it's true. James Bond, the whole thing. But it's a it's a big wine. It's a great food wine. Want to hear more? Well, tune in every Tuesday at 4 p.m. live to unfiltered or check out the old episodes in our archives. Also, make sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Thanks for listening.