[0:00] Today's program is brought to you by Heritage Foods USA, the nation's largest distributor of

[0:05] heritage breed pigs and turkeys. For more information, visit heritagefoodsusa.com. This is Chef Emily Peterson, host of Sharp and Hot. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:29] Hello and welcome to Cooking Ages. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Users, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network from Bushwick, Brooklyn, at Roberta's Pizzeria, almost every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Not joined in the studio today with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez, no fault of her own. You don't have any weepy sad track on your thing, Jack? Let's see Wow. I got that. That's not like, oh, you're sad she's here. on her. It's really not her fault. No, like on the airline, maybe? On yeah, Turkish, yeah, on Turkish, yeah. She got delayed coming back from Istanbul. For some reason, her flight from Greece was connected through Istanbul. No one told those folks that that's the wrong way. That's the wrong way to get back to America to fly to Turkey by Greece. Uh, which is a shame because we, I wanted to, should I wait, Jack, for next time to talk about uh, grease trip? Yeah I think so. I actually made it to Turkey for a day because I was on the same flight, but yeah, but I came back a day early so that I could hang out in Istanbul for a day. Really cool food in Turkey. Really, did you know that Turkish cheese is really interesting, Jack? No, why? I don't I mean, I just hadn't expected it. They have this, um, I need to look up the translations because I, you know, I don't speak any, uh, you know, I don't speak anything other really than English

[1:49] in a smattering of German, and, you know, enough French to get me by in the kitchen, but, uh, I guess the same

[1:54] Spanish. Just enough to like, just kitchen. Anyway, the point is, they have this like crazy string cheese thing, but it tastes like beer

[2:03] almost, like it's yellow. They have like a white string cheese. It tastes fairly neutral, and then they have a yellow string cheese. It tastes kind of like fermented, yeasty, beer kind of a situation. They have a sheep's milk cheese that's aged, you get ready for it. Aged in a goat skin. What? Yeah. They have a, I'll say it again. They have a sheep's milk cheese aged in a goat's skin. Good, very good. It has some like incredibly light, like buttery cheese. They have some really, really good cheeses. Also, had some really, do you know that they had some very good cured fish in Turkey? Did you know this? I did not know that either. We'll talk about it later. They have this... I forgot the name. Oh, La Cerda is the name of it. It's this Bonito that comes through the Bosporus that they catch. And then they salt, they like salt it and lightly brine and serve it raw. It's like the most velvet with onions. It's like the most velvety textured fish like ever. It's awesome. Anyway, so big surprise. I didn't even get to go to any. I was in Turkey. I had this selepton derma. you familiar with that Jack? They stretchy ice cream. Yeah. Well, that's the 1st time I've had it actually there, you know, proper, which is nice. Um, and, you know, you can bring it home. It's not quite the same. They're lying. They say that it's going to be the same. It's not quite the same when you bring it home. I think it needs to be manipulated a little bit. didn't have quite the bite because I paid some ungodly amount of money to, do you also know that you can bring dry ice on an airplane as long as nobody asks

[3:24] you? Yeah, sure. You bring a lot of stuff as long as nobody asks you. Well, I mean, they sold it to me on the airplane. Oh, okay. And it's actually when I got home at JFK. is the 1st time I've ever been able to actually rationally talk somebody at customs out

[3:40] of anything. They're like, well, you can't bring that in because it's, it's, you know, it's not cheese, so it's not fermented. and, you know, may contain eggs. And I said, well, you know, it's cooked. And he's, and the straight-faced guy looks at me. when I make ice cream at home, it's not cooked. Really, he said this to me. I was like, we're going to get this conversation. I said, okay. I said, well, I said, I said there's 2 basic kinds of ice cream that we eat here in America. You got your Philly style ice cream. which is does not have egg yolks, typically, and is not cooked. And I was like, this is probably what you making at home. This is a briar style of ice cream. I said, the other and more typical kind of ice cream is something familiar to more like a

[4:17] Hagen Daz or a Ben and Jerry, which contains egg yolks, and it's, in fact, cooked and patrized before it's, before it's made. I said, this, I said, this particular ice cream that I'm bringing home from Turkey, not only was it sold at the airport for transport into into foreign countries,

[4:30] but contains a powder from an orchid that must be cooked in order for it to work. So I can guarantee that this ice cream has been cooked up to temperatures that are

[4:41] going to kill anything that's in it. You know what the guy said? Okay. Okay. Sure. Yeah, sure. All right. I mean you seem to know what's going on. That didn't save me the last time I tried to bring something through. Yeah, what was that? You got stopped last time. Well, that was different. So customs, right? Customs job, I mean, I guess they're supposed to ensure the safety. They have a couple things, right? They're supposed to ensure that you're not breaking the law. like you're not bringing in rhino horn or anything like that, right? They're also supposed to ensure that you're not going to bring any deadly new pathogens in.

[5:10] Like, you're not going to bring the next, oh, I don't know, Asian longhorn beetle or something like this, right? Or chestnut blight or citrus greening. You're not going to bring in the neck. By the way, speaking of blight, you have been hearing about the bird flu? Oh, just a little bit. Tell me more. 40, 40000000 birds so far. slot killed here in the U.S. with the birth of price of eggs going through the roof. price of eggs, which, you know, no one ever talks about. Everyone says, you know, talk about the price of eggs, like that's like the, you know, the standard, like, what's the bull crap, the price of eggs? right? Price of eggs actually now an interesting subject. For the 1st time in who knows how long? Yeah. So, uh, usually this bird flu hasn't struck kind of commercial, uh, uh, you know, hatcheries, not hatcheries, what's the

[5:58] word, like egg production things. Um, this time, yeah, 4000000 birds. I mean, we have a lot more than 40000000 birds, but the price of eggs has gone, gone, gone way up. Now, I was reading recently that they think they're going to get it under control by September, but that's

[6:12] still, that's pretty far away, you know? Summer away. Yeah, although I was also reading, luckily, that this virus doesn't like it when it's hot out. much like me. It doesn't like it when it's hot out. And so the prevalence is probably going to go down over the summer. We'll see. And how did I get on that? Oh yeah, customs. So the other guy was when they I had all these powders that I had labeled, right? So, you know, I had citric acid powder, malic acid powder, all this stuff labeled. Guy comes up to me and says, uh, they didn't identify it, so they called

[6:41] an explosive expert who has this like little doodad that can actually detect kind of what products you have with you, and it was able to pick up the malic acid and the citric acid, uh,

[6:51] and, uh, I think one other. Tartaric acid. And it's like, yeah, that's exactly what he said. couldn't pick up. First of all, this guy is like super, super suspicious types. You ever meet these guys who like goes through their whole life super suspicious all the time. I understand it's their that's their job because they're trying to catch people who are doing bad things. You know what I mean? But, you know, in general, you know, who the hell wants to be like that? They walk through life treating everyone like they're a potential threat, realize it's his job. anyway. So he says to me, you know, acids, and then he couldn't identify 2 acids that I had, right? He couldn't identify lactic acid. I don't know why. And he couldn't identify Agar Agar powder, which is a seaweed powder. Obviously he can't identify it. It's a huge, like, you know, polymer, right? You know, sugar polymer, you know, a polysaccharide. Of course, you can identify. How the hell are you going to be able to identify that? So I said, I said, well, I said, okay, I don't understand this because half the stuff on my body you can't identify, but whatever. You know what I mean? Like, you can't identify a block of wood either, because it also can't identify cellulose, because it's a large chain powder. But okay. And it has something wood that you're letting bring through that you can't identify. But sure. And the other things that I label were the things I label. He goes, well. And he goes, well, you have to throw all of it out. I was like, all of it. But you were able to identify these things. He like, well, but I couldn't identify these, so I have to throw out everything that I couldn't identify. And the guy was just a freak, a freak. You know what I mean? It's like, how, because, because I was like, you know, look at, and he says, he looks at me straight faced, he says, acids can be used as oxidizers and explosive reactions. I was like, I can be used as an oxidizer in a freaking explosive reaction. Like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, where on your little computer database did they say citric acid should be regulated because of its potential use in explosives? And if so, where's all the other stuff that I'm going to combine with the citric acid to make

[8:37] into a bomb? But you can't even say those words in an airport. You know what I mean? Or you'll get you'll get instantly instantly annihilated. And the guy said to me, he goes, you have 2 choices. Surrender all of this or I'll just turn you over to the Port Authority police. I was like, turn me over to the Port Authority Police for what? For what did I do that I need to be turned over to the police? So, you know, typically you can't reason with, that's like the last time I tried to bring

[8:57] Medler jelly in to from England. And the lady goes, um, you can't bring that meddler, Jellian. It's a liquid. I said, oh, it is, huh? And I unscrewed I unscrewed the lid of the meddler jelly and turned it upside down and held it there for like 30

[9:11] seconds. Of course, nothing came out because in fact, it's a solid. And she's like, well, it can be melted into a liquid. And I pulled out a piece of plastic and I said, this can be melted into a liquid. Furthermore, I could be melted into a liquid. And she's like, and she's like, well, we have to let you on the airplane. We don't have to let the jelly on the airplane. I was like, you are bad human being. You're just a poor quality person. You know what I mean? It's just like, you know, because it doesn't make any sense. Like, I can't make solid things that can light on fire or explosives, but like somehow meddler, whatever. I dont even want to get into it. I already did. You did. I did. I didn't want to get into it but I did. The rules are so nutty bags. You know what I mean? It's like, whatever. I'm on pro safety. I don't want anyone to think that I'm anti-safety. You are pro safety. And pro safety. As much as, you know, I got, I got, hold on a second. I do with the mic for one second. We're filming in here and so they, you know, moving around in our spacious studios. I actually did get 2 really boneheaded because I wasn't being safe injuries this

[10:10] weekend, 2 separate ones. Two separate Memorial Day, stupid dad injuries. I hit my foot with an ax. Oh man. Yeah. Which was entirely my fault. I hit a punky piece of wood and it glanced the wrong way and guess what I was wearing on my feet instead of safety boots. Freaking sneakers. Oh, this wasn't sandals. Well, thanks for that, Jack. But yes, so I wasn't I wasn't, uh, you know, yes, I wasn't beach bum stupid, but I was incredibly

[10:38] stupid. And the other one, installing an umbrella. You know, I hate umbrellas, right? You know that, Jack? did not know that. I hate umbrellas. They're ridiculous. I get poked. They're all, like, umbrellas are like the prime example of I'm important crap on you. You know what I mean? It's like they're all about poking other people in the face or getting out of a subway and standing there at the entrance while someone else is trying to get out, fiddling around with your

[11:01] umbrella, or trying to walk into an entryway and poking somebody in the eye or dripping on someone's head under an overhang. Yeah, they're crap. you know, just deal with it. Wear a hat like I do. Get a raincoat. You know what I mean? It's like very few... a poncho. a lot. Yeah, poncho. There are many other, you know what? You're just as important as I am kind of situations to handle the rain, right? Don't get me started on parasols. What happened with the umbrella this weekend? Oh, well, this, you know, is a deck umbrella, which formerly I was for because I hate the sun. But, you know, this one aspire, you know, tried to try to kill them. But my fault, they walk up. like the umbrella's not fitting into its pole properly. I'm like, okay, let me turn this to it, rotate. So I rotate it. Took a big chunk out of my pinky. My fault. My fault. Stupid. So, I guess the point saying is that, is that it's the things that you don't think,

[11:51] like you're going out and you're splitting a little bit of wood. you don't think you're going to get damaged. Of course, when I was a kid, I was severely injured splitting wood. I don't know what the heck is wrong with me. I should be thinking about it. You know what I mean? Or, you know, installing an umbrella. It's not it's not when you're using a chainsaw or like using a deep fryer that you get hurt because you're on your

[12:06] toes. It's when you're doing something stupid. That's when you get tagged. know what I mean, Jack? Oh boy. Anyways, this does not have anything to do with cooking issues, so I should probably get off. Alvin, Alvin Schultz. you know, Alvin Schultz. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, good friend of the show. wrote in with another thing to add to our Vegetty monologues. He says, this is his quote. At cooking issues. Are you tired of getting things jammed up in your vegetti? And he goes, try this from the trusted folks at KitchenAid. KitchenAid now sells a spiralizer attachment for your KitchenAid, uh, for your KitchenAid. taking off, huh? It's more of an open air spiralizer, Jack, so you can't get anything kind of jammed into it. You know what I'm saying? do. Yeah. Because who's not tired of getting things jammed up in their veggetties? Um, Joe Hanley wrote in, hey, Dave, what's the best way to defrost hard frozen backpack, steak, and chicken? Easy, water. And if you have a backpack, you probably also have a circulator. So the easiest way is to set your circulator at like 4 or 5 degrees

[13:13] Celsius, and then just run it at 4 to 5 degrees Celsius, it'll keep heating the water and circulating it. That's the most gentle way. If you're going to cook it right away, you know, and you don't mind the fact that it's going to go into the, you know, danger zone for a little while, then you can jack it all the way to like 18 Celsius or something like

[13:29] that, and it'll take it up, you know, even quicker. But yeah, a circulator in water is by far the best way to thaw a product that's been

[13:36] backpacked. Like, ain't no question. You know what I mean, Jack? no question. You know what I'm saying? Can you think of a better way? Nope. No. You know what they used to sell for thawing things out? They used to sell large blocks of aluminum. You ever see those at the as seen on TV things? Actually, yes. Yeah, there are large blocks of aluminum with I think typically with fins on the other side, and it's a tip, but even that is not going to beat just, like, you know, sitting in a water bath, like circulating all the time. You know, just won't work. Just won't beat it. Anyways. Uh, okay. It's sad that Stas is not here, huh? We had to do it one other time. What was wrong with Stas the other time we couldn't do it. She was in California, maybe, on the phone? Oh yeah. She usually joins us by phone. Well, she can't because she's literally in transport. And that's like last week. I was spinning stuff in a centrifuge and couldn't do it. And someone's going to ask a question later. Hopefully I get to it about like centrifuge, so we'll get to that later if we're going. Simeon Priest wrote in and basically just said that they like the book and they like the show. Well, thanks. It's a very long. I don't like reading long, long praiseful things, so I'm not going to read it, but thanks. anyway. Uh, oh, and he says, uh, my wife and I will be traveling to NYC next week for a short vacation celebrating the end of the

[14:46] semester, and we'll most definitely be making Booker and Dax, one of our must sees. Can wait to get that 1st liquid nitro chilled glass in front of me. Well, thanks, and, you know, hopefully we'll see you there. By the way, Jack, did you know this? Istanbul, formerly Istanbul, I guess, formerly Constantinople, right? Familiar with this, from the, they might be giant song. Did you know that, for those of you that aren't from New York City, we have kind of an irritating habit of wherever we are, New

[15:14] Yorkers, and, you know, back me up anyone, New Yorkers, right? Yeah, New Yorkers. When you say that you're going back to New York, you don't say I'm going back to New York City. You just say, I'm going back to the city. It's super irritating for other people because you could be in a city as large as yours. You're like, you could be in Mexico City, which is like much bigger than New York. You know what I mean? And you could say, 0 yeah, I'm going back to the city like tomorrow. And you're like, what city? Which one? And you're like, what? The, the. And it's like super irritating New York habit. But strangely, I looked up that Istanbul or Istanbul is roughly translated as a

[15:49] variant just meaning the city. So they're the same way we are. They're like, they're the same thing. What, arrogant? I wasn't going to put it that way. Say extreme love of their city. Or that, or that, or that. Extreme, extreme love of their, of their city. I have a caller on the line by the way. Oh, caller, you were on the air. Hi, Dave, this is Justin from California. How you doing? Good. How are you? All right. A little sweaty, biked over, but all right. Also, inhale something on the street. It never fails. It never fails that when I'm biking, as soon as I go a little bit over the limit of what I can do, where I

[16:24] was breathing through my nose, I breathe once through my mouth and I suck some sort of particle into my lungs and spend the rest of the bike ride hacking and wheezing all the way

[16:31] over. Invariably. Anyway, go ahead. All right. So my cooking question. is uh, but I just got a centrifuge, the CR 412 uh, eBay. Nice. How much did you pay if you don't mind me? I paid about 400? Good deal. Good deal. Nice. With buckets. Good deal. It's 100% Oregon. At least from what I can tell, it sun is up to 48, 4500 RPM and it's working. beautiful. Um, the thing that I'm doing right now is I'm trying to disinfect the unit and, um, I put it through, uh, concentrated chlorine bath. Then I pressure cooked it. And I noticed that there, uh, when I poured out the concentrated, a lot of red or a purplish, uh, color, uh, was pouring out of the bucket.

[17:25] And it seems like, um, if I take like a paper towel and I rub it on the inside of the cups. Um, there's like a purple-ish film. It's almost like the color rouge. Hmm. Very CSI. Huh. Well, that has not happened to any mine. Now, let's just make sure we're talking about these are black anodized aluminum buckets, yeah? Yeah. Okay. So there's some sort of like something busted in them once, obviously, and all the buckets or just some of the buckets. All the buckets. Do you know who had it before you had it, what they were doing with it? No, I don't. I was actually gonna call them sometime soon. or at least try and get in touch with them. I bought it from a thrift store, so. A thrift store? What the heck kind of thrift stores do you have? That unbelievable. It was on eBay and then I offered the person cash. since they're local and they just happen to be from a thrift store. It's like, hey, I'm gonna pick up some old t-shirts, an army jacket, a belt, and a centrifuge. It's crazy. Thrift store. Uh, yeah, and there's no tags on it. Like from like who repaired it before or anything like that? No. I mean, it looks like it's in good condition. Yeah, that's super interesting. I don't know what the red is. Look, don't use anything highly abrasive on the inside, but get a Scotch bright, wear gloves. Scrub it and see whether you can get that stuff to stop coming off. You've killed. With the pressure cooking and the bleach. You've killed pretty much every bio agent that I can think of, uh, Well, bleach do preons. I don't know, and you're soaking it and scrubbing it, but I would make sure that you get all of that, all of the gunk out of it. Can you see the gunk when you're just looking at it? Yeah, it's a, it's like a, kind of like a powder, pottery. It's like really stuck on there, but it's kind of like a pottery, uh, sheen that you

[19:21] see, if you put it up to the light. You can see like a purple haze. And purple haze, nice. strong. Uh, now I got that song going through my head. ruined me for the whole day. The, um, you know, some of the old Joans used to have, uh, uh, or they still

[19:37] do, uh, plastic inserts that go into those buckets to hold test

[19:42] tubes. And I wonder whether it's just like years of like that powdered of powdering those things up. Like, does it look like it could be plastic dust or it looks like a liquid, like it makes the whole liquid that

[19:52] color. Uh... Not sure. If it could be dust. I don't know. I would just take a scotch bright, okay? And just like gently scotch bright it, see whether you can get that stuff off. Use a mild detergent, like one that's meant to go onto aluminum. I mean, I obviously don't dishwash these things because the dishwasher detergent will eat the

[20:14] aluminum, the same way that they'll eat in aluminum pot. You don't want to weaken the surface. But see whether you can get that off and then, you know, a couple more good bleach soaks. The pressure cooking will kill anything bio with the exception of, like I say, preons. But scrubbing and uh, uh, scrubbing and um, uh, and maybe an extra bleef because the problem is also, you want to make sure that there wasn't anything hiding out underneath the gunk that the bleach couldn't get to the 1st time around.

[20:43] So once it's clean, you want to go with one last kind of bleacherama. There wasn't this red gunk or purple gunk around the inside of the stainless containment vessel, was there? Yeah, okay. So if that's if that's clean, like, you know, 11 good, uh, couple good bleachings on that propped open and let dry should, uh, should get you going. But yeah, I would get the gunk off because who knows what it is, especially. It's less of a concern if you're going to spin in buckets, but I usually spin, I mean,

[21:10] in, uh, sorry, in bottles in the buckets, but I usually spin directly in, um, the buckets, but you have to be super, super happy with the cleanliness of the

[21:19] buckets if you're going to do that.

[21:24] Yeah, but all in all, great find. Let's know what happened. Refrigeration still works. She said it was a CR, right? You said it was a refrigerated unit, right? You said CR? Yeah, is the fridge still work? Yes. Okay, here's let me, there's a couple pointers. anyone that has this, has this kind of centrifuge out there. Here's what typically goes wrong with it. It's going to stop spinning as quickly. It's because you probably need to replace the brushes. Make sure that you take like a non-gunking eraser or something and clean off the copper on the rotor on the on the on the motor before you put the brushes back in or you'll probably eat the brushes down again. You can get the brushes for a couple of bucks. Ozark biomedical stocks them, and you can get them also from, I think, Granger, if you happen to know the size. The other, um, maybe even McMaster. I'm not sure. I've had on those things, the brake units go on me and you can just clip them and not have the brake anymore, although it's nice having the brake. Sometimes the solenoids for the lids go wonky, but you can just take off the front, make sure you put it back on before you do it and fix that. And I've had the refrigeration go on me a couple of times. The actual controller for it, not the refrigerant, in which case you can put a separate controller on it or just put the refrigeration on manual. But they're good solid units should work for a good long time. Great. Great. Well, thank you. All right, thanks. Good luck with it. Hey, Jack, should we take a commercial break? Yeah, why don't I just read this text from Stas first? Just got out of airport. Hate everyone. That's like, like, except for the airport. That's every day. That's it, that's it. coming back with cooking issues.

[23:05] Hello out there. It's Steve Jenkins. I'm with Fairway Market, White Leghorn, Red Wattle, Bourbon Red, Navajo Churro. Wow, these aren't names you're likely to hear at a fairway butcher counter or any other counter today, but before the rise of factory farming, you would have. And at Heritage Foods USA, you still do. Heritage Foods USA exists to promote genetic diversity. Small family farms and a fully traceable food supply. You see, we believe the best way to help a family farmer is to buy from them, and

[23:44] Heritage Foods is honored to represent a network of family farmers and artisanal producers whose work presents an immeasurable gift to our food

[23:53] system and to biodiversity. The meat we celebrate, whether it's heritage, turkey, Japanese steaks, Berkshire pork, or Navajo churro lamb

[24:02] chops, is the righteous kind, from healthy animals, of sound genetics that have been treated

[24:07] humanely, and allowed to pursue their natural instincts. It's a simple fact. Animals raised according to this philosophy, taste better. And as we like to say, you have to eat them to save them. Visit us at heritagefoodsusa.com for more information. And we are back. You know what I didn't noticed before, Jack? Steve Jenkins calling off fairway a little bit. He's like, you're not going to find this at the fairway butcher counter. Whoa. Yeah, whoa. Whoa. Calling him out. Now that's what makes an ad effective, though. Yeah, when someone's like, hey, you know what? You know, like, you know, Fairway, like the place that I put on the cheese map. Remember them? They don't have this stuff. Shame on them. Big callout. Have you noticed that before? Yeah, I did. Powerful stuff. Heritage Foods USA, the only place to get it. Yeah. Wow. The only place. I like the way he says red wattle. The way he says Navajo. Navajo. I know, well, we talked about when I tested all of the, um, all the

[25:04] lamb, not all of them, but I tested like 4 or 5 lamb breeds for the Easter. We talked about that, right? Yeah. Delicious. Oh yeah. Delicious. In the tandor, world's greatest cooking. Well, my favorite current cooking implement. I'm like, look, some point I'm going to have to do a big study on, on,

[25:20] like different kind of cooking implements for, like, different, like, I'm going to have to do a lot of work. It's gonna take. Maybe I should write that in my next book. You know, I still haven't figured out what my next book's gonna be about, Jack. Really? Yeah, I got to figure out my next book. should crowdsource that. speaking of which, I have a caller on the line. Oh, really? Oh, call or you were on the air. Yes, I know you're great. great love of cured meat products, and I have, I wanted to hear your personal, just what your personal opinion would be,

[25:45] such a convoluted argument between nitrates and

[25:50] nitrate and whether or not we should eat them in our cured products because carcinogenic, what have you? Um, there's a ton of stuff out there that doesn't have that, but they have to up the celery,

[26:01] whatever, to get it to those levels. Do you have any issues or seeing nitrates or nitrates or state? Oh, yeah, they're safe. I just want to hear your opinion. They're safe. Yeah, they're safe. Look, the fact of the matter is, is that all the stuff that's labeled uncured with big old quotes that you get at the Whole Foods, some of which I enjoy, like, like, uh, Nyman

[26:19] Ranch bacon. I enjoy it. I purchase it. Mainly because, uh, you know, uh, I like the way that they, um, source the, and, you know, have the pigs, pigs

[26:28] race. That's mainly why I buy it. I think that the, um, the nitrates,

[26:33] uh, uh, and nitrates um, argument is complete bunk. First of all, if you're getting, if the bacon is pink, right? If it's pink and stays pink when you cooked it, i.e. i.e. if it is bacon, right, it has nitrites in it. So then the question is, where are you getting the nitrites from, right? Are you getting it from actually the sourcing nitrates or are you taking celery or some other green thing that is

[27:02] like just soaking up a bunch of it from the ground and then concentrating it from that form to add it? Either way, same effect. Same, same product, really? same effect. It's just hocus pocus. It's more, it's more BS on the label of, on the level

[27:18] of, uh, saying that a flavor is all natural just because they haven't synthetically created a new compound where there wasn't

[27:25] another. Do you know what I mean? It's like, you're dealing with functional equivalents, both as far as the meat is concerned and as far as your body is concerned. And, you know, the nitrites are there to provide cured taste, cured color, and to prevent botulism, frankly,

[27:46] you know, and, um, you know, so bacon is one thing because it's cooked at high levels. So the argument in bacon is one of against, you know, nitrosamines, right? whatever. I don't know what the current state of causing cancer with nitrosa means it is. I really don't. But, uh, like I said, if it's pink and if it's bacon, then it's got that stuff in it

[28:07] anyway, and I don't care how it got in there. And furthermore, if you, I don't, I don't think that there's, you know, any research that I think is decent that shows that there's a high enough level of worry

[28:16] in eating. Because frankly, you're not you're not your great grandpa or great great grandpa going off to the California gold rush in the

[28:25] 1840s. And the only thing you can freaking survive on is dried cured meats because that's all you can carry in your backpack, right? I mean, I'm presuming that's not the light view lead, which means that, you know, the vast majority of your food intake is not

[28:38] from cured meats. And so you're eating a relatively small, especially because as opposed to your great great grandpa, all this stuff is fairly highly titrated now. So they're not adding a boton extra of this stuff than they used to. In fact, we're using for everything except for country hams, you're using nitrites instead of nitrates. The nitrites dissipate even more quickly using in smaller amounts. So, really, your overall risk level, even if there is a risk, your overall risk level is relatively low, and I would

[29:08] say, don't worry about it, especially if you're eating a lot of cured meats that don't require a lot of cooking, like or any

[29:15] cooking, for that matter, like salumi or whatnot. But it's one of those things that I think is really overblown and the whole uncured pink stuff with the celery really just gets

[29:24] me. It gets me ticked off because the problem with it, I think,

[29:29] is that consumers believe that they're getting something that they're not. Consumers believe that they're somehow buying health and they're not. You know what I mean? They're just, they're just paying extra for someone to have to jump through a hoop to get a label that looks friendly for the exact same

[29:42] result. You know what I mean? And that is irritant to me. Yeah, it's interesting for me as well. Yeah. I hope that helped. Oh, that was a fantastic summary. Yeah, my grandpa would be way more sodium than I do. Of course they do. Because he did all that stuff. Because they didn't have a fridge. You know what I mean? exactly. Or my great, my grandfather had, my great grandfather didn't have one. You know what I mean? So but it's like, I don't know. And, you know, luckily, I think we're coming off of these things go in waves. Like, like particular hatred for any, uh, any one of our normal food stuff comes in waves. And I think hopefully the anti-salt wave is crested and crashed and we're, you know, back into reality, although you never know. Big food companies still spend a lot of time and energy, um, trying to reduce, uh, reduced sodium for, for one

[30:29] or some reasons valid, some reasons not not valid. But, um, Well, isn't it the same thing like with, with, you know, salt products, because they get all these, like, high pollutants, supposed to be better for you, salt products, and it's still, still the sodium compound, is the sodium

[30:43] compound, minus whatever minerals or whatever else they want to treat it or harvest it with. Correct. Soodium comes out. That is correct. Now, there are, so the, so the things that they can do. So let's say there are people, right, who are sensitive to salt and should cut down their salt because they're prone to have blood pressure spikes as a result of salt intake,

[31:06] right? People are right. Okay. And so what they can do, like milligram per

[31:12] milligram, salt is going to affect your body the same way no matter how, no matter what. I don't care. You know what I mean? If it's harvested by Tibetan monks in, you know, in the Himalayas, whatever. It doesn't matter. You know what I mean? version of Tibetan Monk. Yeah, exactly. Well, exactly. You know, although Tibetans, interestingly, Buddhists still eat meat, right? Because you have to at those high altitudes, right? You need the fat. So these guys are still eating yak and whatnot, plus yak, whatever. But there's a whole separate discussion. What I'm saying is the salt is the salt. However, there are people that can engineer salt delivery systems and salt to make the equivalent amount of salt taste saltier to you

[31:50] by altering the way, for instance, on a potato chip, which is a dry salt application. They can form salt into shapes like spheres that taste saltier for a given level of salt just

[32:05] because, because a lot of the salt that you eat, you like you might not even ever taste. You know what I mean? It might just go into your body without it actually hitting your tongue in a way that you can taste it. So they can they can do things like that. They can add also other things to augment your perception of saltiness in the food

[32:20] without there being salt in there. They can also add, so salt, aside from being salty. Clearly, increases your perception of other flavors. It's a flavor. It's not just its own taste, tasting on the tongue. It's an enhancer of other tastes and flavors. So they have other things that can do that that are not salt,

[32:41] right? Um, you know, they can boost, for instance, um, savory umami and get some of the similar kind of like flavor enhancing techniques you can with salt. So there are things they can do. Um, to alter the salt in there that aren't kind of hokum. I think that, look, all, what's hilarious about this is, is that most people who are anti-salt

[33:01] are anti- or anti-nitrites are somehow anti-processed, anti-processed foods, right? But what they don't understand is that the amount of processing that actually goes into creating products that are lower in

[33:14] that, but are still package goods is higher than if they had just used the normal crap to begin with.

[33:20] know what I mean? Yeah, to get the amount of celery you have to have to perform that same ability that a regular nitrite would

[33:28] do would be, it's a lot. Yeah, I don't even know what the concentration levels are or how the exact kind of process is, but it's it's just one of those things that people, uh, they believe, you know, they, they just want, they want to believe something, and, you know,

[33:41] yeah, whom, honestly, whatever you do next for a book would be a lot of fun to get some of those myths and write on

[33:50] them, would be, I would enjoy reading. Well, there's a lot of books out now. They coming out now. It's a tough subject. In general, kind of like the psychology and the kind of science of what we eat in this realm

[34:03] is, there's a lot of books being written from multiple sides. So like there's a book called the Dorito effect that just came out that has a, yeah, I mean, I have my issues with it. But yeah, I just, I just read it and, um, uh, you know, a couple of years ago there was a sugar fat salt, which I had a lot of problems with actually, because my,

[34:22] my, I thought the basic tenet of that book was, they were like, food companies are trying to make their food as delicious as possible. Stop it. You know, which doesn't make sense to me. But the Dorito effect kind of picked up where that took off, right? And kind of the argument of that is showing, um, the argument of the book. It just came out, right, Jack? Yeah, did. Yeah. And the argument of that book is more that they're making stuff taste good, but that's messing with your biology because it doesn't have the nutrients that those tastes

[34:51] would normally signify. Anyway, there's a lot of work on that side. The problem is a lot of the work that is kind of calling BS

[35:00] on movements like the anti-salt movement or this or like the fake nitrites are written by people with a real axe to grind. And there's very, it's hard to kind of write something that hits in the middle road that doesn't piss everybody off. You know what I mean? Yeah, and they're always selling you the alternative when they grind the axe. Exactly. That's why they're grinding, yeah. Exactly. So, like, for instance, like, the genetic, the genetically modified, you know, the anti-GMO lobby. Let's just take that for for an example. Like, uh, now, look, from a scientific standpoint, uh, it's pretty damn clear that there

[35:39] is that it's that there's no problems with it, right? And that in fact, people are pushing to regulate something that is much safer than other processes that they might wish to regulate first.

[35:48] For instance, people are pushing for GMO labeling on GMO products,

[35:52] but, and I'm not saying that, I don't want anyone to get mad at me, right? If you want, like, whatever you want, you want. This is fine. I'm just presenting kind of what I think, but there's the people who want GMO products labeled, maybe what they don't realize is that in a genetic modification,

[36:09] you're putting a specific gene in to an organism, because you think that that gene will help do something, and it's a gene that has a known function in another organism, right? That's what we're talking about. Now, you know what doesn't ever need GM labeling or can be labeled as GMO free. Here's something that can be labeled GMO free. You take and you bombard seeds with high intensity radiation or mutagens, straight up mutagens. Now, I'm all for this too, by the way. I'm not against this. I'm just saying that the people who are anti-GMO, you'd think they'd be anti-this. You can bombard these things and cause spontaneous mutations that may do something you like. They may do something you hate. But here's one thing they are freaking unpredictable because they're spontaneous mutations due to mutagens and radiation. You grow these things and you get something that you like and you don't have to label it at all. You can label it organic and you can label it GMO free. Now, that makes no freaking sense. And it's not really what the the anti-GMO lobby wants. If you actually talk to the GMO anti-GMO lobby, which, you know, I have in various kind of in the MOFAD debates that we've done and over the years, what their argument actually really boils down to is their anti-big corporation.

[37:23] But no one wants to ha- Yeah, no one wants to have that conversation, right? It's not really the genetic modification because if you're like, what about this genetically modified plant? They're like, well, that didn't work. Like, okay. Yeah, they're particularly against one large corporation, but that's part of the issue. Yeah, but you know, the thing is, is like, what we should do is we should just have the conversation about Monsanto

[37:43] or, or, you know, whomever. There is a couple other ones, but we should just have that conversation. But for some reason, no one is willing to have very few people are willing to have, there

[37:52] is, there are some, I forget the name of the author. I don't know why it went out of my head, but basically he wrote a book that said, you know what? The problem is, is that food is too important to have in the control of big corporations,

[38:05] right? That's the tenet of the book. I was like, okay, finally, someone who's just being honest. This is that they're anti-big corporation controlling the food supply. But once someone makes that argument, well, then you can have a reasonable discussion about what the alternatives are. You're like, okay, are you really willing to abandon kind of like the system that we have now? what would the alternative be? That's a reasonable discussion versus the GMO, which does, it seems to me to be kind of a, uh, like you're trying to squat, Monsanto would still be in business if there was no genetic modification. Let's be clear on this. Monsanto would still be trying to run the seed trade in the

[38:39] U.S. with or without genetic modification. Like we could talk about patent laws being problematic. There's all these things that can be talked about as being problematic, but very few people are having an honest discussion. And I don't know whether or not it's possible to write a book that deals with that or even partially deals with that without just falling into a flurry of crap from both sides to have access to grind, the

[39:03] corporation, pro corporation side and the anti-corporation side. It's a kind of a weird space to be in. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's every documentary and blog post you read on the subject. It's just a torrent of crap, both sides. Right, right. So when you have a torrent of crap from both sides. Like, where's the market for the middle? And I don't know, because, you know, it takes a long time and a lot of energy to write a book. Well, there is no there is no market for the middle. That's not what sells. It's either the, you know, the cheaper where they're complaining about Gmail products to sell or the non-Gmail products that they can, you know, save

[39:33] their, save their bodies like they would want to save their souls by ingesting holy foods. That's their mindset. Right. Any of the problem, the real problem is if you read, if you read books on either side, and even I'm saying the reasonable books on either

[39:46] side. So, like, uh, take, uh, um, oh, I forget the one written by, uh, by the, uh, there's

[39:53] written by a, a genetic, uh, uh, you know, a person who does genetic engineering and her husband who's a farmer, uh, organic farmer. interesting book, or Mendel in the kitchen, which is pro, uh, obviously pro, that was written by, uh, what's her name, Nita Federoff, you know, well-known, uh, uh, a GMO expert. Or if you read on the other side, any one of the number of books that everybody reads, you know, it's, you can see kernels of good arguments in both sides, not really so much on the hatred of GMO in

[40:24] general. I really don't, I don't see the teeth in that, but, you know, but it's just, they always bring their BS baggage with them. You know what I mean? And that's the problem, but you're right. There's no market for the middle, at least not that I can see. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, I appreciate the lively lunchtime discussion. Oh, well thanks. Thanks for calling it. And I've got one more caller here. All right, caller, you are on the air. Hey Dave, good afternoon. I have a friend who really loves mimosas, and I was wondering if you had any kind of like interesting ideas for variations, like doing anything clarified or like

[40:58] forced carbonating. Like, do you ever try to force carbon and white wine or kind of anything like that? Yes, okay. Uh, so you're crinkling you're crinkling up a little bit, but here's the problem with the mimosa. So your friend already likes mimosas, right? So here's the thing. You can't change the fact that they already like a mimosa. So a mimosa is lightly carbonated because the orange juice and it can't be carbonated that highly. right? Also, I mean, they're not making mimosas with actual champagne, right? Are they rich? Are these friends of yours rich? Not quite. Okay, so they're probably using cava Prosecco. I'm just guessing. Um, the easiest way to do this. Here's the other problem, though. Now, you can clarify, you can straight clarify orange juice, but if you straight clarify orange juice, Uh, it turns, uh, it tastes, and I always say this, even though I haven't had it in years, but it tastes like sunny D or tang. It no longer tastes like orange juice. It tastes like orange drink, right? Right, right. So what you're going to look for is more of an Orangina kind of carbonation level. And so with that, what I would do is I would just put your orange juice through the finest filter you can.

[42:05] First of all, obviously, if you're going to fresh squeeze it, then put it through a fine

[42:09] Shinois, and then if you can get it through a paper towel or something just to get rid of almost all the big particles, right? Chill it down hard, and then carbonate just the OJ,

[42:21] and obviously if you're buying it, the supermarket, just buy a no pulp guy. Uh, and um, just carbonate it like, like 5 times. And what you're doing there is, so particles do 2 things. Particles in your in your juice are their own nucleation sites, right? Which is problematic. Also, the pectin in the OJ is, you know what? You probably could reduce the pectin by putting SPL and not clarifying it and still have the taste be right. Huh? That's an interesting idea. I've never tested that. Huh. Just thought of it. anyway. But so there's pectin in there, which is causing foamy, but also particles have air trapped on them. So you're not going to get away change the fact that the particles themselves are nucleation sites. But by carbonating like five, six, 7 times, you'll be blasting the air that's trapped on those particles off of

[43:05] them and making it easier for you to get good carbonation. But then I would have a bottle of carbonated juice, and I would have your bottle of bubbly, separate, and I would pour them together. And this way, for those of you who don't want it to be emosified, it doesn't have to be mimosified, and you're not throwing away a bunch of bottles of bubbly at the end of the

[43:24] day if you don't finish it all. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's cool. I'll give that a try. All right. And then some other things, if you can clarify, they are really good with champagne. In fact, I just did it in Greece and haven't done it in a long time, clarified strawberry juice and champagne. Then you carbonate the strawberry juice, clarify strawberry juice, tastes delicious, and carbonates well. You're probably going to have to add a little bit of extra sugar, depending on what time of the summer it is and what the bricks of your strawberries are when they come in.

[43:50] Usually I like to take strawberry juice up to about 16 bricks somewhere around there.

[43:56] And like sometimes they come in as low as like 12, but if you get them up like 16, 18, and then you do like

[44:01] either a one to 3 or one to 4 with bubbly. It should be pretty good. awesome. Thanks so much. All right, give it a shot. Let us know how works. Thank you very much. All right, bye-bye. Okay. All right. Running out of time. Just a heads up. Just a heads up. Oh my god. Oh, geez, really? Yep. All right. So Uriel wrote about in about glycemic load. We going to have to get to that next week. Jim Guaniri wrote in about cocktails for a wedding for that he has to do for his sister. Now the question is, I don't have time to get into it now, Jim. Can it wait another week? Tweet us in, otherwise, I'll try to put some stuff over on Twitter. It doesn't like carbonating stuff. And also, I need, he kind of calls Nastasia out, so I need Nastasia here so I can call out, but let's make

[44:46] sure, make sure we can go another week, have, you know, have him right in. Michael wrote this in. Hello, lovely people. I did some inside round in large ziploc freezer bags at 50 C, 56 Celsius, which is not that hot for 24 hours. The bags broke. Is that time temperature combo too much for ziplocs? Also, do you need a puffing gun to make puffed rice cakes, the white, light, airy, bland, dry, tasteless style of food item? Michael. Uh, one, um, they should not, that time temperature is not too much for the ziploc, not at all. Look, if they broke on the side seams. You have a faulty bag. If you, if make sure you're not using the one with a fake zipper pull thing. Make sure it's just a regular seal on top. The other one's always leaked, but if you had leakers in that or punctures, you got faulty ones, the ziploc freezers, which are the only ones that I

[45:31] use should never fail like that. Shame on you, S.E. Johnson Wax, a family company. Um, who I think is a manufacturer. Russ Bryan wrote in, and he had some coffee roasting questions. And how do you get good coffee out of a popcorn popper? I'm not going to have the time to get into that, but go to sweetmarias.com, which is where I get my beans, and they have list after list of how to use a whirly pop, which is what I use. I assume you meant a whirly pop and not an air popper. Air poppers are totally different. But luckily, Sweet Maria's has good advice on both. They're going to give you much more detailed advice than I can give you. If you read that and you have more questions. Ask me specific questions on that and I'll get back to you. Franklin wrote in on puffing millet, I want to puff my own millet. Can I use a popcorn machine, assuming also you mean a whirly pop and not a an air popper because millet is too tiny to pop in

[46:17] a, an air pop. just spray out all over your kitchen, be an embarrassment, like little babies all over the ground. Can I take it from dry? Can I do it without oil? Is there a machine that can purchase that it's not expensive that will do it perfect for me, frankly? Okay. Millet's a bunch of different there's a bunch of different kinds of millet, right? And I don't know whether millet will puff on its own. What you should do, just as a test, is take some of the millet you have,

[46:39] don't try to do it dry right away, puff it in oil, like you would popcorn. You don't even need it. You can just do it in a pan with a lid on it and oil and see whether it pops.

[46:48] If it pops, then you're good. If it doesn't pop, uh, then you can uh, cook it, uh, you know, cook it until

[46:55] it lets soak it, then cook it, then dehydrate it slightly. If you dehydrate it too much, it won't pop. If you don't dehydrate enough, it'll pop. You just have to get a feel for it. Then you should be able to pop it either in hot air, microwave, or in

[47:09] oil like popcorn, either way, but like, one of those should work. And get back to me and let me know if you need more information. Do I got another 30 seconds or so? Okay, Owen, wrote in. Huge fan without wasting any of your time. I'm curious before I buy. What are the advantages of a larger rotary evaporator, say 4 liters versus a smaller

[47:27] one, say 2 liters. Also, what is an ideal centerfuse size to get for bartending applications is 750 milliliters? Okay. Oh, and I'm going to miss a question on Kaylee Bennett about Jell-O shots. I'll get that next time. Okay, Owen, here's here's what I'm going to say. Larger flask means you can put more in before it boils over. I would always get the 4 liter flask. Your biggest problem with a road of app is going to be the amount of product that you can put through it. That's going to be the biggest limitation when you have it. Now, every time you have to break open the machine to clean out the flask. You're looking at another 10 to 15 minutes of trying to get another product. So if you can get a 4 liter flask, you're going to be able to put a lot more into it than a 3 liter

[48:04] flask and it's really going to increase your throughput. And in general, it's just the glass that you're changing out because the unit that can handle a 3 liter flask can also handle a 4 liter flask, right? Depending. It's not always the case, but especially if it's not that much more, the 4 liter flask is going to be a lot better. Also, get the largest neck on the flash that you can get and the vapor duct, the largest that you can get because it is a pain to clean that stuff out. On the centrifuge, 750 milliliters is marginal. If you're going to do bartending applications for large groups of people. It's fine if all you're ever going to do is lime juice and if you're only ever going to make like half a bottle of Hustino at a time. But for larger applications, you're going to want to get a 3 liter benchtop fuse with swinging buckets that can do

[48:44] 4 the 4000 G's or so. Or if you can wait, I'm not saying that I'm working on something, but I might be working on

[48:52] something, 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 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 with questions anytime at info at heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network is a 501c 3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.