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[1:25] Cooking your shoes.

[1:48] Calling your questions, too! Cooking issue. Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold. Your hose of cooking. She's coming to the land from Aberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Finally, back in Bushwick. How you doing, Stas? Yeah, Stas back in the studio. It's been a full month since we've been live in the studio. Jack, how you doing over there? Yeah, I've been lonely. Let me tell you. Aw, now you're just making me feel good. You know, sad it was to do cooking issues just with you and Styles on the phone. Well, also, you know, what else I heard? we used up all of the all of the phone lines. someone tried to call in. I heard later, if someone tried to call in and they couldn't because of the whole, you know, we were just sucking up the

[2:33] phone. Hogging up the phone bandwidth. Just sucking that crap up. All right. Well, listen. So we also have with us in the studio today, Moses, what's your last name, Moses? Moses what? Moses Jerrena. Here, I'll get yourself a mic, was it? So, no one gets to, no one gets to hang out here without me pestering them. So what is it what is it that you do here at the Heritage Radio? I just take care of the social media stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, see, like, what does that, what does that mean? Well, like live tweeting during the show, taking pictures, you know, general PR stuff. Well, and you're on the Heritage radio? Yeah. All right, so listen, let's say you have a job. I don't know, but you're listening to this on earphones or something. Why don't you, instead of live tweeting your questions in, you can tweet a question to Moses at

[3:17] Heritage Radio. What's what's our full handle there? At Heders radio? Heritage underscore radio? At Heritage underscore radio. You tweet that in, and that's as good as calling, because, I don't know, maybe you can't call. Maybe you're somewhere where you can't call, but you want to tweet any question. You can live tweeting a question, and Moses will read it to me on the air, and then we'll go from there. Or you can call in your questions. 718-4972128. That 718-497-2128. Uh, so how you been, Stas? Good. Yeah? Anything good or bad happening? Nope. Nothing. Nope. Nothing. Alright. How about you? Yeah, what happened to you? Okay, so I've been gone for a number of reasons, but the reason we weren't in the studio last week is I was recovering from a

[3:55] minor, minor bout of this surgery, it all happens to us as we get older. But the good thing about, well, the bad thing about it, recovering from this particular surgery is that, uh, I was kind of laid up for a number of days, and I couldn't really do anything, and I, you know, you know

[4:11] how, like, your mind is kind of scrambled when you're recovering. So it's not like I could do real work. But what I could do is watch Netflix. And so, uh, what I ended up watching, Colombo, I watched like an insane amount of Colombo, and

[4:22] there's, there's an insane amount of Colombo actually on, on Netflix for you to watch. Ths. you ever watch Columbo? No? No? It's in LA. Rockford Files? Do you watch any of the LA based? Do you care about anything? Like, what did you, what did you, What LA stars, by the way, from the LA area? So this is like not what LA-based TV shows did you watch, if any? Melrose place. I never watched that kind of crap. Columbo, Columbo is a, Jack, Columbo? No, sorry. Jesus. Moses? Wasn't that during like the 40s or something? The 40s? The 40s. Oh my 1st of all, okay, for those of you out there, it's a little bit slower than modern kind of mystery things because, you know, back then people

[5:01] could, they had what, what do they call that thing? Attention span. People had attention spans back in the 70s. But Colombo is like the greatest character ever by one of my favorite actors of all time, Peter Falk, sadly dead.

[5:15] But Peter Falk, Glass Eye. I love any actor with a glass eye. Stas, you know I love a glass eye. Love a glass eye. Any who, Peter Falk has a glass eye. And by the way, he used to, like, he was hilarious, but he got his glass eye when he was a kid. I think it was an accident, and one of the things he used to do was he would play baseball, and like, if he didn't like the call, he would literally pop his glass eye out and hand it to the

[5:34] ump. How sweet is that? So sweet. Anyway, so Colombo, what's awesome about it is Colombo is like a study in 1970s kind of class

[5:44] warfare. So Colombo is this detective who's like, he's wrong, he's rumpled. He's got the he's got the coat on, he drives a really crappy Peugeot that like no one else drives. It's like all beat up and mangled. and he never and he has a really crappy dog that won't do anything that he says. And so he has this kind of real rumpled mess thing going

[6:02] on. And all of the murderers that Colombo deals with are kind of rich, either rich, really rich, really smart, really snooty, some combination of like upper

[6:11] crust. and he sits there and kind of systematically takes them down with his like insane like logic. He's like the detective version of a Socrates, who's also an ugly man, by the way, Socrates, ugly man and kind of, you know, like kind of weird, weird. Anyway. So, Columbo, amazing show, amazing. But, uh, there's kind of, there's one that I really want to focus on the reason I'm bringing it up on cooking issues. Because otherwise, why would I be talking about Columbo, right? is in season seven, I made it all the way through 7 seasons. Season seven, which is the last one on Netflix, 1978, there's an episode called Murder

[6:42] Under Glass. Now, if you're a cook, you got to watch Murder. Well, if you're a cook who cares about like old style, uh, old style cooking. You have to watch Murder under glass. Like, have we talked about who's killing the great chefs of Europe? All right, who's killing anyone, seeing who's killing the great chefs of Europe? Another great 70? That's a movie, a great movie from the 70s where the shtick is that this guy, I'm not going to ruin it for

[7:08] you about why, but all of these, the great chefs of Europe, duh, are getting murdered, but here's the awesome part. They're getting murdered using the techniques that are used to make their signature dishes, right? So I'll give you, I'll give you one of the signature dishes, press duck. Leave it there. Press duck. I'll give you another one. ice cream bomb. Great, great, great. Anyway, but like, so that's one of my favorite movies for like seeing a particular style of food manufacturer that you don't necessarily get to see anymore because they're putting it in

[7:40] movie format. Now, the common movies that we look at to see kind of crazy over the top food stuff would

[7:46] be what, like LeGrand Bouffe, which has my man, Marcel Mastriani, where they all eating each other to

[7:51] debt. They eat, they eat themselves to death. But it's not really, I mean, it's not so interesting from a gastronomic standpoint, like what they're what they're eating necessarily. The Bad Bats feast, obviously, classic cook thief wife lover, but I'm not so into seeing someone like, you know, the Peter Eaters, which is, I

[8:04] guess, how you describe the end of that movie. You've seen Cook thief-wife lover, right? Do you like that movie? I don't remember it well. You don't remember? How can you not remember? You seen this thing, Moses? Jack? Sorry, man, we're striking out today. Hell. We don't have a lot of time. Oh, yeah. Oh, don't have a lot of, you didn't have a lot of time when you were, when you were 12 to watch a movie. I mean, what the hell are you talking about? I didn't have a lot of time the entire time I've been alive. to give that crap. I hate that crap. That's such New York crap. I don't have the time to go watch a movie. This movie's been out since before you were freaking boring stars. You had all of your freaking life to watch. I choose not to watch. All right, you choose not to watch it. Not that I don't have time. I choose not to watch it. That's much more reasonable anyway. The awesome thing about this Colombo. Oh, I watched Melrose place. I have the time for freaking Melrose place. Not time for freaking, you know, like, uh, like, uh, whatever, I'm not gonna get into it. But the, uh, Melrose Place, really time worthy pursuit right there. Anyways. If anybody wants to sponsor a viewing party, we can maybe facilitate this. I would love to do that. You know, like I was going to... I have to do this thing in Toronto Film Festival, uh, where the movie that, um, it's a food-based movie, and like all the good ones that like Willy Wonka, which is like one of my

[9:16] all time, or Charlie Chuck. not the depth one, the other one, although I love depth. like the Gene Wilder, which you've seen that

[9:22] one, right? Yeah, definitely, yeah. One of God's great movies. That's an amazing movie. life-changing movie. Chocolate, dwarves, amazing. Yeah, everything, everything you could want. It has. It has like kids turning into blueberries. it's classic, you know? Uh, it's got Gene. I know you love Gene Wilder stars. She's shaking her head up and down. She giving the happy styles face, which is rarely seen, but, gee, Wilder, I mean, come on now, G. Wilder? I mean, G Wilder. Anyway. So that was taken. I got stuck with Soylent Green, which I like Charlton Heston, right? But, I mean, I don't know, soil and green. you seen that movie? It's made of people. You familiar with the It's made of people line? You seen Saturday Night Live. No, yes, I, I, I, I'm familiar with that line. All right, yeah, it's made of, yes, because so the green, I don't know why I'm getting this, but so the green is like the idea

[10:05] is, is that everyone's eating this food and it's made, it's made of people and so they're crushing people up in this kind of futuristic thing and then turning them into food to feed

[10:11] other people. Hello, it's called perpetual motion machine that can't work. That can't work. It's like Ponzi, it's pyramid scheme. You can't crush people to feed people because, like, you know, all of, like, almost right away you would run out of people. Think of how much food you eat every day, you know what I mean? over the course of a year. I mean, like it's unsustainable, even a couple of years. What? said it wouldn't work wouldn't work. Not even for a couple of years, it wouldn't work. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, as a supplement maybe, right? I mean, as a don't waste, as, you know, as a, as a, you know, as a, don't waste the, the meat policy, maybe, but not as an actual, like, you know, regular staple component of your

[10:45] diet. It doesn't make sense. It's like when you see gerbils and you have too many gerbils in a cage and they start eating each other, no one makes it out alive. It's not a situation where, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I'll eat,

[10:55] you will, all 10 of us will eat one gerbil today and then tomorrow we'll quit. No, it doesn't work that way. Anyway. Back to Colombo. So in this murder under glass, the murderer is a restaurant critic in San

[11:05] Francisco in LA, I guess, uh, in the, um, in the 70s, in the late 70s, 1978. And Columbo is like, uh, because he's solving the murder of one of the great chefs of

[11:17] the of the community there, all the other chefs feed him amazing food. And the entire episode is one

[11:24] amazing long kind of food porn from the 70s. And it's kind of food that you don't see. Uh, you know, nowadays for the for the most part. And, uh, what's really awesome about it was, is just like the breadth of crazy stuff. For instance, they had Fugu in it. Now, who was thinking of Fugu back? Fugu's the poison pufferfish from, you know, in Japanese food. And who the hell in the 70s in the US was thinking about Fulu? Puffovich? But not only did they talk about it. Not only did they have a pufferfish there, but they served a

[11:54] full on Fugu course at this dinner that they had, and it was done right. I don't know if you guys ever seen a plate of Hugu? I've seen it on the Simpsons actually. And did they do it right? It's like they look like feathers almost. like the... So pufferfish is kind of stretchy, right? And so they slice it thin and it's almost like these kind of like feathered out. It's like on a, on like a large kind of circular plate and it's feathered out in almost like a, like a, like a dahlia kind of effect or like a peacock kind of effect where like the pieces are kind of overleafed on each other and feathered up.

[12:24] And, damn it, they did it like dead on. They did it like dead. In fact, FUBU poison was the poison of choice in this Colombo episode. But then they had like this amazing looking panatone. They had like a bunch of foie gras stuff, which back in the 70s was rare in the US. Like, but then he goes to a dinner at a French restaurant and they bust out all of the sick,

[12:46] like, present presentation stuff from, like, some of my favorite books. So, uh, and this is what kind of, they, for instance, like, they do a rock lobster that's been eviscerated, cooked, and then the meat layered in aspic and decorated all down the, down the back of it with the sick presentations, like salmon, uh, you know, and I speak with truffles,

[13:03] like all, like all the old school, all the old school stuff. So you have to watch it just for that. But what it made me think of is old books. And have we done a lot of old book talking on here on some? Like what? What have we talked about? I don't know, you don't know, because you're reading another book right now, another old book right now, if we could talk about it, instead of paying attention. Even when Nastasia doesn't bring her computer. She cannot be bothered to pay attention to what's going on in the show. She's literally reading a book that I was reading on the subway on the way over here right now instead of paying attention to what's going on. Oh, all right. We'll get back to the old books on a minute call or you're on the air. Hey, Dave, how you doing? Doing all right. Very well. And my name is Antoine. in from Boca, John, Florida. Nice, Boca Raton. I'm, in fact, wearing Florida garb right now. I have on a linen Guaybera. Yeah. No way. Yeah, hell yeah. Hell yeah. I got my I got my Spanish boss hog. my El Jefe Deserto outfit on. I have a Panama hat. I was walking over here with my linen Guayabara. I'm all set. What's up? Yeah, I was going to have actually to a previous episode you had done where you had mentioned you went to Boca. I just wanted to see if there's any places you ever recommended here. That's one question. The 2nd is, I was like making sushi at home, but I don't like purchasing like expensive sushi

[14:14] grade tuna. And I was wondering what level of contamination do you think there

[14:19] is, if I was to go to Whole Foods and just buy there, fish and make it with that. Well, I mean, I'm sure, like, if you see a piece of tuna that, I mean, look, let me put it this way. The sushi tuna, the tuna that is used, the high-end tuna that's used out there for sushi, it has as much or more mercury as anything else that you're going to get, right?

[14:40] Because, um, they're all kind of unsustainably captured and,

[14:45] um, you know, for the 1st question is, is like, we're talking like real tuna, like bluefin, the 1st question is whether or not you want to actually deal in the market with that because it's seriously, seriously, seriously overfished right

[14:56] now. But in terms of the mercury, like the issue with any sort of top chain predator fish, like

[15:02] a tuna, is that as long as they're eating stuff in the wild, they're bioaccumulators. So the bigger they are and the older they are, the more mercury they're going to have in them. And that's why if you see these kind of low mercury or mercury free tunas and cans, all they're really doing is they're getting younger tuna, they haven't had the time to bioaccumulate as much mercury. So there's that on the mercury contamination. Now, As far as bacterial contamination. Also, there shouldn't be too much of an issue with a whole muscle fish because bacteria is only going to get into the inside of a fish where it's been jabbed or

[15:37] poked. So now you got 2 remaining questions. And that is the quality of the fish in general. And then the 2nd thing is the actual kind of taste quality. So what happens to fish as it gets too old is that it, um, you know, it starts oxidizing, it starts losing its textural properties. And that's where it's kind of, like, in terms of, uh, in terms of the muscle quality, uh, the actual taste, muscle quality

[16:00] texture and the kind of oxidative stress that the muscle's gone through. That's where the really expensive tuna is going to start breaking free from the less expensive tuna, right? So like a really, really fancy piece of tuna, not only is it like a high, high quality muscle, but it's been treated right. For instance, like tuna that is destined to become sushi,

[16:21] they usually they're in a farm, which is a misnomer. It's not really farms. What they do is they capture wild tuna and then they fatten them up in pens. But they what they do is they send divers out every day to dive around in the pools, at least they used

[16:35] to. I haven't researched it in a couple of years. They send divers to swim around in the pools with harpoons all

[16:40] day, every day so that these tuna get used to seeing these human divers like going around. And then, when it comes time to harvest one, actually, they use, yeah, they're electric stun harpoons. They would they would hit them with the thing, which gives them an electric jolt. The electric jolt is very finely tuned to not snap the spine because if it snaps the spine,

[16:58] or, you know, it's too violent on the convulsions, you can get blood spots in the meat, and that kind of ruins that section of the meat in terms of its marketability. Then they bring the fish on board and they perform Ikujime, where they put the needle through the spine. They do the bleed out and they put the needle through the spine. So all of those effects tend to increase the muscle quality greatly, but they also tend to increase the price. So they're only going to do that kind of work on tuna that's destined for a high-end kind of a sushi operation. So right away, the texture of the flesh is going to be a lot better in that situation. Also, when you're dealing with tuna, especially the fattier portions, which are, you know, kind of, you know, like underneath and forward on the tuna. Like those pieces, you want to leave them whole as long as possible because anytime they're exposed to oxygen, they go under oxidative stress.

[17:46] So if you have someone in Whole Foods who's planking the steaks out, like, you know, like, you know, the day before or something like that, then all of a sudden you get a lot more oxidation on that surface

[17:54] or the fish and it's not, the oils aren't going to taste, it's good. Not as big of a deal in like the leaner cuts of tuna, but a much bigger deal in the fattier cuts of tuna. That make sense? Yeah for sure. Yeah. So you can definitely do it, but another thing to do is to just, you know, find whatever kind

[18:09] of like local species, like so many species of fish are actually good for sashimi and for sushi, but they're just, you know, they're not

[18:18] used so widely because maybe they're not available in Japan. You know what I mean? And so, like, they just maybe haven't been used to great effect yet because there's not a culture of it. So, you know, I don't know what what's coming in right now in uh, in Florida that's considered like, you know, uh, good and and sustainable, but I would find something that comes in off of, uh, you know, a day boat there that, you know, is kept like on ice the entire time and

[18:46] then. Yeah, we typically get Grouper here. Like, that's a really good cut. I love I love Grouper, but if they start, they start. I love Grouper, but if they started getting grouper that they actually feel is like sustainable to harvest or no? Uh, well, I mean, like, they do all wild pot here, so no, it's not quite sustainable yet. But I mean, it is our precious catch that we get here often. And what was the other one? Um, no, no, that was the other one. I was just saying, I, I usually take on a, like, I, I'm usually more concerned about the contamination part, so, like, I'll often do, like, uh,

[19:20] provy and ceviche, you know, and then put that inside of a roll instead, so that I coax it more than anything else. Right. I mean, look, you know, if you, if you, I would just find like a fish, like a fish monger that you, you trust, especially if you can see the whole fish. Look, if you can see the whole fish before they, before they uh, chop it up, I mean, like, you know, what they, what they always taught me, and I still believe it, is that, you know, you can, if you, if you can look at the gills and the eyes, then you can trust a fish.

[19:51] You know what I'm saying? So if you, yeah, so it's like clear eyes and and bright gills. Once the gills start going, like that's when you know that you're, you know, you're not dealing with, you're dealing with something that's been sitting around a while. So, um, you know, although, I mean, that's generally what I look for. So if you if you have the ability to check out the gills and the and the eyes, you know, then, uh, you know, and obviously see whether or not you could tell also, like, I see a lot of fish that, uh, even though it's fresh, it got the hell beat out of it on the boat. You know what I mean? And so you can see that the body is like mangled and like, you can see like, like, damage from, like, literal impact damage on the sides of the fish. And, you know, that fish will be fresh, but it won't necessarily, the muscle in that area won't necessarily be as

[20:38] good, and it's also indicative of other stress the fish probably went through during catch and slaughter that might lead to deterioration of qualities.

[20:48] Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. So that's that was excellent. I also was wondering if you recommend any places to eat when you were in

[20:56] Boca, the South Florida region. You know, uh, we didn't. I didn't really eat out much. I was, uh, last time I was there. I did a dinner with or like an event with Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog, who's awesome. So, you know, obviously I like I like him. Uh, but we, we spent most, I spent most of my time. just eating as much kind of rare fruit as is humanly possible.

[21:18] And so, you know, down in South Dade, I was going to, um, I mean, the fruit and spice park, which I think is amazing. And then also trying to go to the Fairchild to eat as much of the mango stuff that they

[21:29] had as they had possible. And, you know, I even went to, what's that place called Styles Roberts? Remember that fruit Stanley went to? Robert's fruit? I saw the other day in a photo. I can't remember. Yeah, which is like, it's really expensive, but they have like all the cool, all the cool kind of fruit down there. So like literally, I was just soaking in fruit and then like my actual meals, because my family went down with me is like, you know, my wife, like when I'm, especially when my kids are there, when they're there,

[21:57] like, I don't really go out to any kind of fancy stuff, I go to what's easy for the kids and then spend most of my kind of research time on, uh, on like the rare fruits that you can't get.

[22:06] You know what I mean? Totally. Well, with that being said, I've called in before twice, and you've always been very helpful and you've given me such great free knowledge. I'd love to return the favor. So, I mean, if there's something I have my family in Peru. I'd love to send you another something from there or from here, just give me the request. I love to send it. Nice. Well, I mean,

[22:30] someday I'll someday I'll get to go to Peru. It's like, you know, one of the obviously great culinary, uh, It's like one of the great culinary stops in the world these days and, you know, it's just I haven't been able to go yet. Someday I'll go. I mean, apparently it's just, you know, everyone tells me that it's amazing and just getting better and better. I mean, if you listen. Well, as you go, I would love to recommend our my family just started one of the 1st craft breweries over there. Really? Well, shoot, shoot me over a tweet at cooking issues. And so, you know, so I have your handle and we'll we'll stay in touch on that. Please, like I said, I'd love to send you something, it's the least I can do for all the knowledge you've given me and everyone

[23:07] else, and it's the least I could do from one food each to another. All right. Well, I appreciate it, brother. Thanks so much You guys have a great one. you. Oh, you too. Hey Jack, should we go to commercial break? That sounds like a great idea. All right, we'll be right back with more cooking issues.

[23:36] We'd like to send a special thank you to our latest business member, Seersucker. Seersucker is a 40 seat neighborhood spot inspired by the food and hospitality of the South. Chef owner Robert Newton, who hails from Arkansas, has crafted a cuisine inspired equally by his childhood

[23:50] favorites and the Carroll Street grain market across the street. He relies upon small local farms and indie purveyors for many of his ingredients, so the menu changes frequently based on what's available and in season. Sear Sucker's beer, wine, and spirits list is all American, with an emphasis on New York State. Learn more by visiting their website, seersuckerbrooklyn.com. To learn more about becoming a business member, email us info at

[24:14] heritageradionetwork.org. Hey, see, Jack. Now, I thought, seersucker, I was going to like go buy some seersucker suits, and that's why I was even more grooving on the whole boss hog thing that I was

[24:24] wearing like, you know, the Guayabara because I thought we were going to like all of a sudden were like all going to be dressed in seersucker suits. We could go to seersucker dressed in seersuckers. You want to? I think we should. I mean, my most of my serious I have 2 serious sucker jackets, both of which were ruined. So for those of you that go to Tales of the Cocktail, which is kind of the New Orleans, like, you know, booze soaked

[24:45] debauch cocktail thing that, you know, we all have to go to every year if you're in the business.

[24:50] Uh, like one of the things you're supposed to eventually do is wear a seersucker. It's happened to me twice that someone has poured a freaking, like, staining cocktail on me during that, during that event. So both my, both my, both my seersucker jackets are uh, they're kind of kind of ruined. Stas won't let me wear them. Was that the one stars where you said, I thought we agreed that you weren't gonna wear that anymore. Remember I had one jacket that had been too stained that I really loved? And you were like, I wore it to some chute and Stas is like, I thought we had agreed that you would not wear that anymore. All right. Actually, so I was going to get into some books. Oh, I do have one request, though. It's not Peruvian. If anyone out there, you guys familiar with the sweet gum tree, sweet gum, anyone? No one from New England over here. Jack, where'd you grow up again? Sweet gumtree, dude. Sweet, you know, sweet grunt tree? Okay, it's the one that it's the one that drops the little balls that look like they came from Minesweeper. I'm looking at this, yep. Yeah okay. It's got a leaf that looks a little bit like a maple, but not, and it drops a little minesweeper balls on the ground. There's a lot of those sometimes. Yeah. Well, the tree, the sweet gum tree. Dax loves sweet gum trees because he sucks on the on the leaves. it has a taste. It has a flavor. Would you like some flavor? Have a sweet gum leaf, and he starts eating them. He doesn't really talk like that because he's a little, so he, you know, his voice is a little more, but it's kind of like that. You've heard Dax. talks like that. Anyways. So the sweet gumtree, which everyone knows I can't pronounce things. So in, uh, it's a liquid liquid umbar, a styracaflua is the, uh, is the, uh, name of that thing. But you can harvest resin from the sweet gum tree that's supposed to be sweet and like good to kind of chew, but I don't have the ability to harvest any of it because I don't have land with my own trees that I can kind of, you kind of, you know, you cut away a section of the bark, you let it

[26:35] drip and you harvest it and it dries out and think it turns into this kind of sweet thing. But if anyone who can hear the sound of my voice has access to some

[26:45] sweet gum resin, I will gladly buy some because I'm dying to try it. And it should have already happened by now, because I think they probably do it in May, uh, you know, March, April, May, who knows what the season that we've had now, but it should be similar season, I would guess, to win, um, to win Maple

[27:04] flow is, although I don't know, because I've never made it, but, you know, or if you have access to it, you know, call me and like, you know, call in and tell me like how you make

[27:12] it, because I just want more information. It's one of those like weird ingredients that I really just have a Jonesing to try, the same that

[27:18] I did with hickory nuts, you know, a couple years ago, which I still love. Oh, hickory nuts. And, um, you know, and some other, like, you know, I've never had an actual American persimmon, you ever had one? The wild American persimmon. Anyone that has access. I would like some. I will pay for them. Another one is, I don't know if there are any, but I'd love to try like an actual American chestnut. Are you familiar with the chestnut, the destruction of the chestnut tree? Did you know that the chestnut American chestnut was favored over all other chestnuts in terms

[27:46] of, in terms of its taste? And the wood, it was one of the most common forest trees in all

[27:53] of, in all of the United States. And in the span of 30 years, both the chestnut and the elm, the American elm, which was the most common street tree in

[28:05] the United States, were wiped out due to imported diseases from, you know,

[28:09] from, across, you know, from either China or Europe or some combination of China and Europe. And so the American chestnut tree is wiped out. I mean, wiped because the fung, what the fungus would do is the fungus would attack the tree and then girdle it. So like the fungus would literally like go underneath the top bark layer around to where the growing and the fluid transportation was

[28:28] in the xylum, grow all the way around it, plug the tree up so the tree couldn't get food

[28:33] anymore, and then die out. Now, chestnut trees are interesting because they ground sprout a lot. So what you'd happen is that the main tree would die, then you'd get little trees that would come up, they would survive for 10, 15 years or something like this,

[28:45] and then they would die. That would happen again and again and again. So there are American chestnut trees, but now they're kind of an understory trees. They're a real one, but I don't know if any of those produce nuts. If anyone has access to an American chestnut. I will gladly pay you for it. Also, butternuts, American, it's not the season. When it comes to be nut season, we'll talk more about the nuts. anyway, I don't know what I was talking about, but if you have the liquid M bar, if you have the sweet gum, please let me know. So before we talk about the books, which, because who knows whether I have time, you know how it gets does. You know how I get. Why don't we get to some of the questions? Chris wrote in. I tried fitting the Moses, we got anything on the Twitter yet? these people, these people. I tried fitting this query into a tweet, but could not provide enough info. So I called in, but it turns out you're on travel today, so I'll try an email. I'm hosting a Scandinavian dinner and trying to channel some inner red Zeppi. I do a 10% brine. This is the one I missed last week. Remember? I do a 10% brine 1st for texture and prevent protein ooze,

[29:42] rabbit, and birch bark seats. Uh, then uh, uh, boil to soften and kill the nasties in the birch bark, then sous vide to 50 C for 30 minutes. It makes a nice presentation when served on the unwrapped bark and adds a little earthy note. Um, and I'm guessing it's cod, uh, because he says he wants to double down on the cods. Anyways, um, I want to double down on the cod, so I want to create a buckalao cream. This is where we left off last week because turns out Stas, what is it that you hate? Everything? Warm fish foams? What about what about like a seafood, like canal of seafood moose? What? Seafood moose, like Canella seafood moose? like what could be more delicious? What about a seafood sausage? Holy crap. You mean, if I, if I took, yeah, I need it. No, I would eat it because I didn't want to hear it from you, but I wouldn't like it. You've had it before. I don't like it. Yeah, yeah. I don't like it Like a put on a taste moose. What does Mark say about you not liking poached fish moose? How is it that you don't like it? What does he does? seriously What is it you don't like about it? I don't like cooked fish very much. And I don't like it whipped and I don't like it hot. You don't like cooked fish very much. But you like cooked fish as an ingredient like anchovies. All right. Well, so salt cod, can you think of salt cod as more of an ingredient? Yeah, I guess. So have you had the fritters, the bacalaitos, fritters? It's like salt cod dumplings that are fried. It's good. Real good stuff delicious. So you might be willing to try that because the fish is more of an ingredient and less of a main thing. So you might also be okay then with like a brandad, where the salt cod is like mixed into, you're not like my son, booker,

[31:27] you don't like mashed potatoes, are you? For real? Okay. So you might also be okay with like a brand dod where the salt cod is mixed into mashed potatoes, but it's not about being fish. It's about being like an ingredient. All right, so now we're getting a little more reasonable here. Now, a fish moose, you're feeling that it's going to be too much like a cooked fish. Yeah. But you've had it before. All right, so we'll, we'll, I'll leave it there. How the hell did it even come up? How does that come up that you don't like cooked fish? What about what about fish sticks? No. Wait, you don't like fish sticks? Did you ever like fish dish? Yeah as a kid. And then what made you stop? At what point? They're gross. They're they're not gross. You can make them gross. There can be gross fish sticks, but like fried, delicious fried battered fish done is like a revelation. It's one of God's great foodstuffs, battered fried fish. I mean, Moses, Jack? Yeah, we're just saying in here, there's not much better than like fried fish. pretty easy. Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's damn simple. I'm not talking like, yeah, maybe you don't like fried tilapia because tilapia is garbage. It's swimming garbage, you know, or maybe, you know, you've had like a bad fried catfish that

[32:37] tastes like dirt. I can't tell, but like a well done, like battered and fried. I don't know, pick your whitefish, like, you know, like, uh, like, you know, cod or place from his, no? No. Because you think it's de classé? No. But you used to like it when you were a kid. I just don't like fried fish. All right, okay. Back to the question. The show's over. Yeah, it's like, I'm too depressed to go on. I'm too depressed to continue the show. I mean, I don't even understand that. Like, how do you... Erica Wydes is in here and she doesn't really like any kind of product like that? But she even likes fried fish. Of course. I mean everybody. fish sticks too. Yeah, because all they are is a not quite as good version of a fried fish, right? So you can knock it on a quality basis, but not conceptually. Do you know what I'm saying? Look, what I don't understand is how do you grow up liking something and then all of a sudden not like it

[33:31] anymore? Like, did a fried fish beat the crap out of your boyfriend at prom? What the hell happened? You know what I mean? It's like, how do you stop liking fried fish? It's not that she's a vegetarian, my friends? Because that would, I could say, okay, she just gave up fish altogether. But this lady pounds sushi in Crudo, like, like she could take the whole freaking ocean down if she wanted to. So it's not a question of that. You know what I mean? don't get it. Back to the question. I want to double down on the cod. So create a bakalao cream, 250 mils of heavy cream, 250 grand salt cod, rehydrated, and chopped. 250 grams, russet, potatoes, cooked, blended vitamix, and strain well. You better strain well if you're going to put it through an EC because anything can clog an EC, even like

[34:13] little like, you know, too much vanilla seeds. You know, if you get it, clump can clog and easy. For service, I want hot whipped cream texture from this. So I strain into an EC and charge with N2O. I hold it a 50 degree Celsius or 70 no change in texture. It comes out well enough, an attractive film somewhere between shaving foam. I like that word, you like that word it says? Shaving film. Shaving foam. Shaving foam and whipped cream. It sounds like it when I put a bunch of H's in it, whipped, whipped cream, but rather quickly defates into an uninspiring blob. Stas hates blobs, right? What do you hate more, an uninspiring blob or a leaf fungus? Oh, God, you know. leaf fungus. If I dispense from the EC at cool room temperature, it holds its shape well. So the heat is causing the foam matrix to destabilize and collapse. Any suggestions how to stabilize this? I expect gelat will be too soft at 1570. How about Agar Agar? I've also got Xanthan, but that's the extent of any of my monitor's pantry. Thanks, Chris. Either one will work. If you're going to do the agar, what I recommend you do is you make a fluid gel of the agar just a little bit in water. Do a one% fluid gel in water, and dope that in. You're only going to need a little bit to stabilize what you're doing, most likely. Or if you want, you can make an agar fluid gel with the cream itself, but don't make it too stiff in that case. You want it like kind of a like a lighter fluid gel somewhere in the in the in the range of like uh, oh, like

[35:33] uh, 7 tenths of a percent, 6 tenths of a percent, something like this. Yeah, not even. Maybe like, because it's already holding, right? So you only need a little bit of holding power. So I would say maybe like 5 grams per liter on the cream, 5 to 7 grams per liter. Try somewhere in there of agar agar. Xanthan will also do it. You can also do a light fluid gel on the Agar, and then add a little xanthan to it to firm it up. You just want to, here's the big issue. Whenever you're doing an ISI with a fluid gel. Remember that it will hold itself in the ISI. First of all, whenever you do fluid, I'll blend the crap out of it in the VitaPrep, because it needs to be smooth. Otherwise, it's not a fluid gel. just a bunch of little shards of crystals that don't look good. Also, put your finger over the uh, over the dispenser, on the EC whip every time you're going to dispense, flick down, and that'll make sure that all of the fluid gel gets slapped down to where the dispensing nozzle is so that you can dispense properly.

[36:27] Otherwise, kind of no love. But either of those 2 things should work without too much

[36:32] trouble because all you're looking to do is hot stabilize and Agar will hot stabilize easily up to 70 degrees

[36:40] Celsius. I wouldn't go much higher because the agar is going to start to melt in around the 85 in the 80 range. But like if you literally are using a circulator to hold it at 70, it's going to be no problem so that

[36:51] should work. Yeah. You like that, says? Yeah, good answer. She doesn't care. Alex in Toronto rides in. Dear Dave, Nastasia, and Jack. And now Moses. Uh, I stumbled across this video, uh, which there's a link, which you can't see because you're listening to this on the radio, but maybe we'll put it on the uh, we'll put it on the thing. I stumbled across. I'll say a video. How about that? I stumble across a video which describes making a rapid infusion sangria using a cheap, using the cheap vacuum wine savers. Trade name vacuum van. I would assume this will never suck a vacuum powerful enough to compare with the machines you are used to, but I was wondering if you could give me some sense of how this technique could be used by an extremely frugal home

[37:30] cook. The video claims to create an infusion in about 5 minutes, similar to a 24 hour infusion at atmospheric pressure. If this is true, this would be only slightly slower than easy rapid infusion. Any insights, thoughts, or ideas. And here is the link, and this will be useless to you. HTTTP, HTTP, colon forward, forward, slash EDLP, U-L-B-M-U-J-W. Well, it turns out I watch this video and Stas, you will not believe who did the video. It's our boy, Clifford Endo Gulebert, who's awesome. I love that guy. He's like, he's like our, he's our giant pullout friend. And he works now for the Food Network. So if you look up Food Network, Food Network, like, you know, I don't know, vacuum van, Sangria, Clifford, you should be able to find this video. And Clifford actually was one of our interns back at the French culinary institute, and even though Stas was incredibly mean to him when he started to, I believe Stas's exact words when

[38:33] when the, because like 3 or 4 people came that 1st day when he was there, right? And Cliff, like, loves to, and by the way, Cliff is mentioned in the cocktail book because the

[38:42] cliff old fashioned is, you know, was his idea to use that coriander syrup to do the old fashioned. And so he's actually in the cocktail book because we have the cliff old fashion in the cocktail book. Anyway, Stas was like, Stas was like, just like my grandma. we're letting everybody in Literally, what you said. First of all, why are you calling about saying, you feel bad for Cliff or you feel bad for your grandma? Cliff. Whoa. So like still, still throwing some, still throwing some slut down on your grandma. No, no, no. She would like take people in and help, you know, help bore people and stuff. Oh, that wasn't the implication that you gave at the time. He gave the implication that like any guy shows up and it's community chess grandma. That's that's the way Cliff took it. That's why Cliff was like double horrified. Oh geez, no. The clip was like double horrified because his 1st time he's meeting you and it's like, I can't believe that this lady's dogging her grandma this way. And which I frankly couldn't believe either. And then at the same time, like being so mean to him before. And by the way, Cliff, extremely awesome guy, like, you know, artist and like, you

[39:45] know. For the 1st like 3 months, we just had him move boxes. That is not the case. That is not the case anyways. So, yes, so the, uh, using the vacuum van as an infusion technique is a technique developed a long time ago at the French culinary,

[40:00] and, but Clifford is using it to good effect to make a sangria, and he actually, I looked at the video, he's got

[40:04] some, uh, elaborations on the technique that, uh, I don't know. I like his style because similar to, like, the way I was saying things, like, if you see, the average person, like, doesn't pay attention, right? Right? Obviously, like Stas is not paying attention right now. Like, literally right now, so I's not paying attention. That is the biggest crap. Oh, I hate that argument that people say they can multitask. You can't multitask. That's why, like, that's why last week on the radio is, like, say studies, you're like, oh, I don't know, I didn't hear you because I was trying to do an email. You know, you're not multitasking. You're null tasking. People who multitask actually null task. they're getting nothing done It's called 0 tasking. It's a new thing that I want people to be aware of in the world nowadays where people try to do so many damn things that they actually do nothing. Like the fact that people are buried in their freaking phones, which I hate. They're buried in their freaking phones. And when you're burying your phone, right? I guarantee you that the person that you're now texting, when you're with them, you're buried in your phone texting me. It makes no damn sense. No tasking. Do some damn work. This is why people get frustrated with me. They hate me because I don't ever answer emails. I don't return telephone calls or any of this stuff. And the reason is, is because when I'm with you, I'm with you. You know what I'm saying? Anyways, it's because I'm old. It's because I'm freaking old. Back to Clifford. So, uh, so he does a sangria where he puts the uh, the wine and some fruit juice and some sugar, back in the wine bottle, and

[41:26] the, the trick, the whole trick when you're using the vacuum van uh, to infuse things is to chop things small enough so that they can fit into the wine bottle and so you can shake them back out

[41:33] again. And then he then, what I like about it is he basically beats you over the head, which I think is wise, because as I said, people aren't paying attention. So he tells you to suck, suck some more, suck some more, sucks some more. And then, you know, you know, with a vacuum man. know what I'm talking about, Stas? Yeah, what am I talking about? Vacuum man, sucking the wine in. All right, man. So like a 2nd I have to test her like this, like a little child. Like, like my 10 year old. Uh, so you're sucking all sucks anymore. And then he says, and when you're done sucking, sucks some more, which I appreciate. This is good advice from Clifford. But then he has this technique where he says to lay it on its side to

[42:06] infuse. Now what you're doing there, by the way, with the vacuum van, is you're just, uh, vacuum van is not very good at sucking a vacuum, like in terms of the actual absolute level of vacuum that it can suck, but the advantage that you have, if you suck for minutes at a

[42:16] time on it, is that you're constantly drawing air out of the

[42:20] fruit. In this case, he put apples into the sangria. constantly drawing air out the entire time you're doing it. And so even though you never get a very good vacuum, you're constantly removing

[42:29] air from the bottle and therefore you're sucking more and more air out. This is what's allowing the infusion to happen is the fact that you let the air out. So then he rested on its side. And I don't really know why next time I talk to Clifford, I don't know why he tells you to rest a bottle on its side, that's kind of like the elaboration that I didn't, I hadn't thought about before. I don't really know why he did it. We used to agitate it shaking back and forth, but I don't know why he laid it outside. Anyways, I'm sure he's got a good reason. It has to, he tested it maybe, or it's better for surface area contact ratio, something like this. too many warning. All right. So then you pop, then you pop it, which he didn't show. When you pop it, that's when the actual sangria stuff is getting injected in. Uh, and then if you want, you can actually suck another round on it, but I guess the Food Network didn't want to do that because

[43:09] there was too much instruction, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But anyway, yes, that is a technique we can use. No, it's not quite as good as a commercial vacuum machine, but it sure beats nothing. And it's not also quite the same as ISI, which you can use. In fact, we did a sangria Vita vacuum machine. We didn't, but Mara from Booker and Dax did it at the NRA, not the gun version, the National Restaurant Association

[43:31] Show. But I'm sure at the, at the Rifle Association. They would also appreciate a vacuum infused sangria, right? Because what goes better with shooting guns and some sangria, right? I guess beer. I guess like your 1st choice is beer, but then in the summer, if you didn't want a beer, like if you'd already had a beer or you wanted something else and you were going to shoot guns, sangria might be a nice choice. Jack, what do you think about guns and sangria for it? I'm a huge sangria guy. Really? Or a gun guy. Yeah. You don't like... Well, after that shooting that happened this weekend. I don't really think we should talk about that. Stas, Jesus Christ. That's a whole nother show. It's a whole nother show. That's another show. Like the fact of the matter is, is that I'm not going to get into it now because now Stas is trying to make

[44:09] feel bad. Uh, but we will talk about it uh, later. Like, the fact of the matter is, is that Target shooting is fun. No? I've just never done it. Yeah, it sounds fun. Yeah. never done it. I would want to if I had a chance. Yeah. But again, I hadn't even thought about that because I haven't been watching the news, so probably a bad time to talk

[44:31] about it. Now, in the one minute I have left, the books that I was talking

[44:36] about that the Colombo episode reminded me of were the modern French culinary art, which is a version of the

[44:43] Pella Pratt book. Pella Pratt was one of the was one of the great cookbooks. He was the guy who started the Court and Blue Cooking School in the 1800s, and he wrote this book, which I think came out in the 20s or 30s at the end of his career, and it's kind of one of the key kind of cookbooks. It's awesome. In fact, Jacques Pepin listed that as one of his favorite possessions, was his Pella Pratt when he was an apprentice in his book, The Apprentice. It's an amazing cookbook, fantastic. And the best edition for English speakers that I've ever seen is the one that was put out in the 70s by Virtue and Co. And I bought it back in the day at the Strand. Strand, bookstore, you know, like 15, 20 years ago, wasn't air conditioned. And so you walked in there and everyone was viciously mean to you. And but there also wasn't a lot, like things were really cheap. They were like half price off the cover and there wasn't a lot of searching about and trying to figure out the true value of a book unless it was a real collector's book. So you could get things ridiculously cheap, ridiculously cheap. And so I was there looking for, uh, LaRusse Gestron on me, because one of my one of the cookbooks that everyone coveted back then, books that everyone coveted back then. So I would go to the strand and search out good editions of LaRusse because all the editions are different. And I bought, without really knowing, Peloprat,

[45:49] and this this issue, this edition from Virtue, and it is freaking amazing. It's got all of those pictures in it. And all those pictures were shot in the 70s. So it's kind of this amazing window into this book that was written in the 30s, 20s and 30s with like all of the color pictures that you get from a book that was

[46:04] printed in the 70s, but it hadn't been mangled very much because it was not, it hadn't bent to the will of like Nouvelle cuisine or any of the other stuff

[46:10] that, you know, was had or was going on. So it's an amazing record of that time. I then saw there are other books, buffets and receptions, which is, oh my god, ridiculous. And some of the stuff in Columbo also in that is like, you have to see this book from the 70s. Uh, and then uh, the new international confectioner. These are the 3 kind of books from them, and they're still ridiculously cheap. I recommend going out and buying them. And then in advance of this, I went out and bought just this

[46:37] morning because these books aren't, most of these books aren't collectible yet. So they're still extremely cheap. They're fat, fat, fat books. And if you love looking at old, like, awesome, like, like continental and French books, which you should, if you like anything that's kind of interesting, because they're just sick records. meat dishes meat dishes in the international cuisine. I just bought that for 2 bucks, cost me $11 to ship it from England, garnishing and decoration. I don't know if that one's as good, but I bought it, fish and shellfish, the complete book of meat. And the only one that so far is collectible. Herring's dictionary of classical and modern cookery, which you can still get cheaply, for Virtue and Go, this is cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes

[47:25] store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info at heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network as a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.