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[1:34] Hello and welcome to Cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network. Every Tuesday from, I don't know, like, you know, around 12, 12, 15, something like

[1:47] this, from a bird's Pichuria in Bushwick. Oh, yeah. Today we have already in the studio, as usual, Nastasia, the

[2:00] Hammer, Lopez. How you doing, Nastasia? Good. Yeah? You got David in the booth? What up? Nothing. Uh, we're waiting on, so, by the way, I was having one of my usual

[2:10] unpleasant uh, uh, text exchanges with Nastasia earlier this morning, and I was saying, I think we should change your name from the hammer to

[2:17] the to the pit bull because it's the biting for no reason. Look, oh, oh, I shouldn't go that way. Like, biting for no reason. I shouldn't make a joke at pit bull's expense. Yeah, because do you know that pit bulls like are like so discriminated against that basically in the New

[2:32] York, and this is what made me think of it, in the New York City shelter system, right? Almost, I mean, I don't know about the public shelters, but in like the private shelters, like, by the way, I just got another dog

[2:42] over they, over the weekend. Nastasia is doing her, her, uh,

[2:47] like moron headshake. Is that the moron headshake? The moron headshake. I mean, it's not a, she's not mad at me. It's not like a vegan face. It just a moron headshake. Anyways, so I went to go get this dog and apparently any small dog can get adopted here. any uh, it basically pits can't get adopted and pit mixes. And so, you know, if you can, you should adopt a pit mix. Why didn't you? I needed a like, look, I already have a dog, a large dog. The odds that like, I would, I would get the okay, get the high sign for adopting another large dog, roughly

[3:26] zero. You know, I think my kids like are old enough now to take on a dog that has some territorial, you know,

[3:33] like traits, whereas like when they were a lot younger, you know, you get a little nervous of having any kind of territorial dog

[3:39] around. So the lab was, which is also sheltered dog is awesome, but like, um, At this

[3:44] point, they can handle it, but I, you know, I couldn't handle the big. So it's this miniature, like they, I said, what do you think the mix is? The guy goes, Heinz 57? Because it's just like a mixed mutt. But anyway, if any of you are in the New York area and want to go to a shelter, I highly recommend Sean

[4:00] Casey Animal Rescue in Brooklyn. You can just go walk dogs. You know, you show them your driver's license and you just walk dogs, you don't need to take one. But if you're a dog person and you show up and you start walking dogs, be aware that there's a high likelihood that you'll end up with one. Do you know what I mean? Because they're cute. Dogs are dogs are cute. This guy looks like a little miniature version of my lab, even though it's like, I don't think there was any lab in it. So Dax, my young son, was walking the small dog, and I was walking the big dog, and it's like a mini, me walking a mini version of my other dog. was kind of, it was kind of crazy. Nutty. What is that called? Mini me? No, there's like a thing for that. There's a thing for a shrunken version of you and your dog walking next to you down the street. No. Man, they didn't teach me that in vocabulary school. Hey, Dave, we got a caller on the line. John Carson, who is Chef Emily Peterson's father. Has a question for you? Wow, nice. How you doing? Welcome to the show. What's up? I make cocktail sauce for shrimp and oysters and that kind of stuff. We use we use Heinz ketchup and used to use gold horseradish. And there's a assortment of other ingredients, which you may or may not need to know

[5:16] for this, but when you would make the cock, It would be about the consistency of ketchup. And you could put that in the refrigerator, overnight, and take it out the next day, and it would still be the same consistency change. Right? A friend of mine gave me homemade horseradish that he makes. And I did everything exactly the same. When you put the cocktail sauce in the

[5:44] refrigerator, 24 hours later, it has coagulated. It's as it's like as solid as Jell-O. And why is that happening? That is very interesting. I don't know. So go, so like goals, I haven't purchased goals in a while. For those of you that don't remember, golds is like it's the tall, skinny bottle, uh, and it comes in either with

[6:07] beat or without beat, uh, horseradish, uh, grated that you get in, um, in, in supermarkets. like the brand that like we all grew up with. I'm trying to remember the label on golds. Does is the gold have anything in it or is it just shredded horseradish? Do they vinegar it? There's vinegar in it. Emily actually read the ingredients, and there's nothing that, and she thought it could have something to do with the, and in the, and that the acidity level in the homemade, horseradish was different, but I don't, you know, I don't know, but this

[6:44] is, uh, the guy who makes the horse. He knew that was going to happen. And he said, it's not as bad as

[6:50] if you use Hunt's ketchup, but, you know... Why would you use hunts? for fire hide. Yeah, well, here's here's my here's my only theory. Does your friend not add anything? No offense to Hunts, but I mean, Heinz is the ketchup, please. Anyway. Right. Does your friend not add anything to the horseradish? No, it's his and his horseradish. It's very, it's horseradish. There's no beets added, so it's horseradish, vinegar, pepper,

[7:20] salt, and a little bit of sugar, and that's it. See, here's what I, here's what I'm thinking. My guess, and this is just a guess. is that there's a lower liquid content in your buddy's

[7:33] horseradish and straight up that if you add a little bit of vinegar when you did it, that it would all turn out. There are 2 things that I think could be happening here. I don't believe gold's horseradish is pasteurized, but I'm not sure. In which case, if it's like a pectin leaking thing, that could be an issue, but I don't know. Um, My guess is it's a liquid thing. Ketchup is very, very, is basically, it's what's called like a thixotropic, uh,

[7:57] liquid, so that under under sheer, uh, under sheer ketchup is acts like a liquid, and when it's not under

[8:06] sheer, it acts like a solid, right? And my guess is, is that the horseradish, is, um, is that horseradish with a certain amount of liquid, keeps that thixotropic balance the same. Because remember, horserash is also fibrous, so it's going to add some stability, uh, or could add stability, almost like fiberglass to it. And then if the liquid level is a little bit higher, It'll go liquidy very quickly, as ketchup does. And if the liquid balance is lower, then it'll set up even firmer. By the way, we now have, in the studio, can also win, weigh in on your question. Harold McGee, the master blaster of science in the as it relates to the delicious. So Harold, the question we have on, see whether you have anything else. I know you heard the tail end of what. I said, hey, hey, I heard here you heard the tail end of what I was saying there, but the question was we have a horseradish. We have a cocktail sauce made with everything else remains the same. Heinz ketchup and, you know, whatever other, you know, flavor adjustments are added to

[9:02] it. And either the store bought golds brand, which is the Easter coast brand, which you may remember, might be West Coast too,

[9:08] a prepared horseradish versus someone else's homemade horseradish, and homemade horseradish makes it set solid into a gel. And my guess is it's just that the cocktail sauce is extremely sensitive to liquid balance.

[9:20] Huh. Sets into a dell. That's a new one on me. Yeah, I mean, I don't know of any I don't know of any, um, uh, special hydrocolloid in horseradish that, uh, you know, may or may not be activated, although

[9:39] I could be wrong. I don't know about that either, but I do know that horseradish has very active peroxidase enzyme, and that might be doing something that allows cross-linking that wouldn't otherwise take

[9:52] place. About, is, is there store bought horseradish, um, pasteurized? That's the question. I bet. I mean, how else would it be shelf stable? I mean, it's horseradish. don't know. I mean, I buy... It's refrigerated, but when you buy gold, it's definitely in the refrigerated, but it may be pasteurized, and the pasteurization may, you know, stop some of whatever they are. The, the, the, from, and when it's gels, it gels. I mean, it's not, you know, it's just, it's not just like it's thicker. It, I mean, there's a, there's a chemical reaction going on here, but it, you know,

[10:29] it, it's, it's, it's a solid mass. Well, tomatoes are full of peck Dan. So, uh, you know, I don't know much about horseradish. But I mean, if there is some sort of cross linking going on. I mean that's plausible, I guess. So you're saying that that's, you know, you're lucky that Harold stopped by. You know? And that's got to be something what it is. I'm going to check and see if the gold is pasteurized. And if that's it, you know, and then the other thing is, do you care? I mean, I've experimented around with just adding a little water to it the next thing and

[11:02] mixing it up and it comes back and it's fine, but I was just curious, why, why that happened? you know, and it's got to be something like that, that the, it's some kind of reaction with depictant in the ketchup. Well, so yeah, so I would look, we could look into like Harold's thing. And so I guess but you do say you add a little bit of water and it comes back. Yeah, so that doesn't sound so much to me like cross-linking. Well, unless it just break, unless you just, unless adding liquid, you're literally just breaking it almost like

[11:31] you would be making a fluid gel, in which case you're taking a light gel and breaking it, you know, into

[11:37] a fluid gel. After you break it and it comes back, does it hold peaks better than

[11:42] regular, I mean, cocktail sauce holds a peak pretty well as is because it's, you know, it takes a tropic thing. So it's... I haven't really experimented with it that much. Hmm. It's one of those things. Now it's like, you can't scratch. I gotta figure this out. Yeah, well, uh, I don't know. I mean, I'll I'll try to remember over the over the week to do some searches on horseradish and pectin and

[12:07] geling, see whether I can figure anything out. You know, maybe Harold will too. I never know what you never know what's going to peak Harold's interest. This sounds very interesting. Yeah, I'll play around with it this weekend. All right, well, we'll look into it. All right, well, thanks. It's good one. All right, all right. If necessary. I could send you some samples and you can you can look at this. I could drop some off at the radio station. I go into Brooklyn about every other week and I've actually been there on Emily's show a couple

[12:35] of times. I can make it a point of I can bring you. I tell you what I can do. I can bring you the ingredients, and you can put it together, and then you can, you can watch it Joe. sounds great. I'll do it. Yeah. And then you get some cocktail sauce out of the deal. Yeah, all right. which is, you know, always good. I like, especially in the summertime. I know I like some cold shrimp and cocktail sauce. You like some cold shrimp of cocktail sauce, does? It's okay. Wait, you're not a fan of, wait, is it a fan? You're not a fan of cocktail sauce? You not a fan of cold shrimp? Both. I don't choose it. I would eat it. I'll eat it All right. all right well thanks. yet another thing. Although, this is better than normal nastasia. She's like, I'll eat it. So before we get into the meat and potatoes of the show. Harold's here, so I'm sure people are going to want to call in for some Harold McGee style questions. A couple of things. Harold was here last week for Impossible Burger, Erger, Erger, Erger, right? And you're actually here again for the impossible food group, right? right. Yeah, yeah, the sweet. And I don't know if anyone's going to want to call in and ask questions about GMO,

[13:30] heme protein, vegetable, coconut, you know, oil, burger Lloyds. more and more delicious. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, like it's interesting. I think it's like of the level of like, you know, a mediocre hamburger, which is saying a

[13:47] lot. Yeah, going from scratch to that is impressive. And the thing is that they've got, uh, they're they're scientists. So this is, you know, stage one and they're going to move on and on and on. Sure. It's like an incredibly impressive 1st effort, I would say. That's what I would say. And the, the, the, the blood note, the, the kind of sucking on iron note. Bueno. Did you taste it that time, Nastasia? You didn't go to that event with me? Okay. So that's one. Uh, two, uh, Harold was here last week and did not get to see the

[14:20] Amorphophallus, a Titanum. The giant, even Titanic, shapeless penis flower, the world's largest single inflorescence, the actual, the largest branched inflorescence

[14:33] nastasia is not from in the arms. It's actually in the Acaciae, the palm family, as I was told by someone at the botanical garden, which is interesting because one, the families sound very similar.

[14:45] But the orders, I guess. Anyway, but the, yeah, so I saw it. When I saw it, it was not at max, by the way, so the interesting thing from a food perspective,

[14:53] the reason why you bring it up is that Amorphophallus, Titanum is or Titanum, I don't know, is like 1st cousin.

[15:02] And by the way, the flower in the wild gets to be about inflorescence is not a single flower, but it gets to be about 12 feet tall in Sumatra, where it comes from. And it's pollinated by carrion flies and whatnot. And so it smells. And this one smells a lot actually, like rotting mouse is what it smells like. It smells like rotting mouse. But it's like 1st cousin, uh, if you consider genus relations cousins. It's 1st cousin to conjak, like what you make conjak out of. the food stuff, which also smells, but it's apparently a much more heady brew of

[15:36] sense according to docs that you sent me, right, Harold? That's right. Yeah, I don't remember exactly what the mix is for conjac, but it's the inflorescence, right? So the root itself, does it need deodorizing before it's used? No, no, no, no, no. Literally, it doesn't smell until it opens up and it produces the stink in the inflorescence. And in fact, um, the inflorescence itself, uh, a portion of it will heat up, I guess, due to, um, you know, to metabolic activity will heat up a couple degrees above ambient to help release of the waft.

[16:11] Do you think you would have wanted to see that stuff? I didn't even invite you because I figured you wouldn't that's not your jam, right? You like flowers, but not rotting flowers. When I showed up at, they opened the Botanical Garden early. I showed up at 9 AM and Dax and I went, we just walked in. And then at 10 when I left, there was like the equivalent of a 3 block

[16:35] line trying to get in to see a stinky flower, just goes to show you the lengths that New Yorkers will go through to see a stinky flower. Not just New Yorkers. I mean, I was in from California. I saw that this was happening. I was watching the corpse flower cam regularly to see if it would open while I was here and was sorely disappointed. In fact, you and I were in touch. I was maybe going to delay my flight. I'm glad I didn't because it stayed closed for another couple of days. But anyway. Anyway. So, but you know, you should go check out. There's got to be someone. I think Davis has a couple. UC Davis has a couple, but I think they're held kind of privately. They don't necessarily put them on display. Yeah, and I heard that actually someone had one in Berkeley a couple of years ago. Well, maybe that's there's a yeah, there's a wiki list. Yeah. But did you, you didn't get to obviously see them. He about it after the fact. So listen, if any of you listening have in the San Francisco Bay Area or within, I don't know, probably

[17:36] probably a 100 mile radius or so, and you want Harold Nagee to come smell your flour, I'm sure he will come smell your

[17:42] flour, or if you're growing any form of carrying fly, or any sort of dung, dung, insect,

[17:53] pollinated, arum family flour, I'm sure Harold would love to calm smell. Am I wrong? You're not wrong, no. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, conjac. Look, the amorphophallus titanium, the corpse flower, has, you know, it has the problem that it only blooms. It doesn't bloom for at least 10 years after it's, you know, started and then and then it blooms once and then it doesn't bloom again for another like 4 to seven, 8 years. And so, you know. And the bloom is like 36 hours. Yeah, 24 to 36 hours and like to make it even harder, it's it's like a very picky, you know, it really just wants to grow in Sumatra and like

[18:31] nowhere else. So anywhere else you try to grow it. It's a huge kind of a, it's a cordal you. All right. So, speaking of gardening, I have some stuff. I brought Oh, do you want to do dump meals, now, or you want to do dump meals after the break? After the break. We'll do dumbness. Nastasia's sister, our dump meals correspond. By the way, Harold, a dump meal is where you just take, like, a short list of ingredients, throw them into a crock pot, walk

[18:53] away, and then eat it. hence, you dump the stuff into the crock pot, and then that becomes your meal. So Nastasia's recently college graduated sister is our dump meal correspondent. And she called in and I

[19:09] was, and apparently I was like horrifying to her. I was mainly horrified at the dump meal, right? fixated on her washing chicken. You don't wash chicken. anyway. USDA says wash chicken. Really? Oh, wait a minute. No, they say don't watch it. Yeah, don't watch chicken. Three, four years ago, they flipped. Yes, you know, and because it's going to spray... Spray salmonella everywhere. Spray salmonella all over the place. Uh, yeah. And my point is, is that, like, this is yet another reason why, like, most people's recommendations are garbage because people flip back and

[19:50] forth. People, you ask someone a question. You ask a USDA person. Hey, should I wash chicken? And they've never run the experiment. They've never run the freaking test. They're like, yeah, you should wash chicken, right? Me, it's just, why the hell would you wash your chicken? You know what I mean? Like, like, I'm not thinking about, like, this or that, a boop of people. You gonna cook the freaking chicken. Why are you gonna wash the freaking chicken, right? Here's why I wash my freaking chicken. All right. Because often when I buy a chicken. It kind of stinks. All right, this, I'm not. saying anything against your chicken. But listen, listen, Harold. I remember this was, oh, 2 decades ago, back before Duck was fairly common, right? As a thing you could buy in a Superman. you could buy it, but you know, I mean, it wasn't something that they sold a lot of. So I bought a duck. And it was in one of those classic like poultry tubes that they put like chicken and ducks in, right? That CLN stank, and they didn't used to be modified anything. They were just tubes. And then they would presumably freeze them in the tube, ship them, thumb out, and then they'd sit, God knows how long until somebody, some

[20:59] knucklehead who wanted to cook a duck, you know, because back then Americans cooking ducks, like,

[21:04] what, what, are you, French? You know what I mean? So, like, I bought the duck and I opened it up and it stank. I mean, it stank. It stank. And by the way, what stank means in this case is lots of bacteria are growing on it,

[21:18] right? And so like, I was like, it's still good. It's still good. I can fix it. I can fix it because it was dinner. You know what I mean? People were coming over. It was dinner. I didn't expect that all of a sudden my main protein, the centerpiece. This duck I had been thinking about was going to be garbage. So then what do I do? I attempt to wash it off to get the stink away. It still stinks a little bit. I put soap on the freaking duck to try to wash it off. And then I say to myself, oh, am I going to eat this freaking duck that stinks that's going bacterially

[21:49] wrong? that is garbage, that is like just like, no, no. I'm not. And that's kind of maybe when, like, my aversion to watching poultry started. When I realized that I was using it as an excuse to try to serve my family garbage. And when I realized that I was a severe enemy of quality in that, I probably overdeveloped a reaction in the other direction. You see what I mean? That's I'm just telling you like the analysis of where I come from on this on this poultry washing situation. Now. Actually, USDA, though, like it's like, you know, so that's the problem. It's like doctors. When you ask some advice on nutrition. They just say something that sounds good. They haven't actually run the test. Really, the USDA person would say, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's bad. Who knows? I don't know. Do it if you want. You know what I mean? It's like, in the absence of data, don't make recommendations. Yeah. Unless they're just personal preference. Or say, this is what we think might happen. So we think maybe it would be better not to. So if you have a chicken that you deem has like a little bit of smell, but maybe it's

[22:58] going to be okay when you want to wash it, I mean, I think that's fine. I'm fine with that. But just they, like, like, de-rigur washing your chickens when you open them. Why do it? Yeah. No, I agree. And usually when the chickens that I buy when they have a problem, it's on the inside. So I don't actually mess with the outside that much, I blot it, so it'll crisp up better, but

[23:23] I, but I do rinse the inside. Right. Well, there's also like a lot, like, you know how when they do like a bad butchering and they leave a bunch of lung on the inside, I'll rinse the lung out because, you know, it's just easier, you know, not a flip

[23:36] side. Some things have things that smell terrible in them or are tastings that aren't spoilage issues, and those things are rinsed constantly. Fish. Fish, you know, most of the time when you buy it a whole, they haven't cut the vessels along the spine and rinsed all that kind of blood out. I do that. You know what I mean? Yeah. And stuff just happens on the surface no matter what. I mean, missing fish makes a huge difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally pro rinsing fish. You know what I'm saying? I think, but the thing is like, you're rip. But USDA would say same problem, right? Bacteria. This is why you shouldn't listen to them. You should rinse it if it makes it taste better and not rinse it if it doesn't make it taste better. Exactly. Yeah. I mean I think we're in total agreement here. But like, I was, I apparently pissed off Nastasia's sister. So now she claims... She has a meeting or possibly... So it was quite a preamble to this whole thing. Yeah, she claims that, uh, that she's not calling in because she has a meeting, but really she doesn't want to, she like, now she's filing her report, her dump meal reports with Nastasia. But what makes it difficult is it's harder easier for me to, like, you know, go after things if I know exactly if I can query like why certain decisions were made or not. You know what I mean? Oh, so I have some stuff for us to taste. First of all, I brought the latest, for those of you that, longtime listeners, you will know that, uh, Nastasia and I, I think maybe, did Peter was there, was he there that time, had some of, uh, Harold McGee's delicious, uh, walnuts, Harold's,

[25:16] these nuts. But then we have a new version of McGee's nuts here that, uh, and you want to talk about

[25:24] them? I brought them. So Anastasia can sample them. She hasn't had them before, so she can, uh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. So I went to Turkey a couple of years ago. And one of the things I did in Istanbul was visit a place that made baklava, and we were given little samples of the things that they were making, and I was amazed at the flavor of the pistachios, which were compared to California pistachios, tiny and dark, dark

[25:51] green, and just incredibly aromatic. So I bought some and brought them back and shared them with you because I know you're a pistachio fan. And I also prevailed upon a friend who may have been on the show, Ariel Johnson. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

[26:10] a couple times. Yeah. So she at the time was at UC Davis. I was in San Francisco. I told her about these amazing pistachios, she said. Why don't you bring them up to the lab over the weekend and we'll put them on a machine that's not being used and see if we can figure out why they're so different from the California.

[26:26] So we did a gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, olfactometry test on these 2 batches of

[26:35] pistachios, and found that basically they have identical chemical compositions. It's just that the Turkish ones had like 50 times the quantity of the volatiles that gave the aroma. And they were so fragrant that they to me, they smelled like mangoes. Right. So they were fragrant, not in the way that like Bronte pistachios are. They were fragrant in a different way. Yeah, fruity. I mean, incredibly fruity. Now, bear in mind, for those of you that don't, you know, pay attention to the botany here, they are actually related to

[27:08] mangoes. I mean, distantly. They're all anacardaceae, right? Yeah. Anyway, so that was a wonderful experience. So a couple of weeks ago I was in Oxford for the Oxford Symposium on

[27:22] food and cookery. And my Turkish friend, Island Tan, was

[27:27] there, and we knew we were going to see each other, so she wrote me from Istanbul. This is like, you know, a week before the coup, uh, coup attempt and said, anything I can bring you. So I said pistachios and pistachios and some pistachios. So she brought me 2 different batches, which we've got here. One is the standard Turkish pistachio, which are larger. Do you like nistachios? Do you like pistachio? Do you like pistachio, nuts, nastachio? Yeah, all right, all right. So smell these. These are the standards. They smell like nuts. And then the special ones for baklava making, which apparently are not sold on in the market generally. They're sold only to manufacturers. You get the difference? Yeah, this one smells more. Taste smells more. Nastasia, the poetry of your descriptions is... Remember not to chew on the mic, people freak out. know. If they freak out. What do you think? Good. Really good. Taste, taste, taste a little mango in there. Something? I mean, they're super fruity. nuts, but they're fruity and not nutty. But they're, you know what? I think I told you, I had some black walnuts, American black walnuts that I think had gone rancid and fruity as a result of rancidity.

[28:50] Like, so it's like rants and fruity notes. But these are not like that. are good fruity notes. Yeah, these are, so rancid, uh, aromas are like fatty acids and alcohols and aldehydes and things like that. These are terpenes. So they're formed by the plant early in the development of the

[29:09] nut and I guess they get diluted as the nut gets bigger. I guess they're there to protect the nut, and so they're really concentrated to begin with, and then as the nut gets older, and the shell gets hard and that kind of thing. Maybe it doesn't eat as much chemical protection, so the flavor gets milder. So when you're young, you protect the nut. You got to protect your nuts when they're young. when you're old like me, you don't need them anymore. Useless. You're going with the dog. Is it a Wu-Tang B side, protect your nut? protect your nuts. Oh, it should be. It should be. Yeah, so these are now the reason they don't harvest you normally is just are more expensive. to do because you lose out on the harvest. Yeah, so they're they're apparently not for general sale. They're only sold to baklava makers. And why do the baklava people care that much about, like, the quality difference of their nuts? I guess to make a better bakala. don't know. See, but why don't they, but they must. Friends of quality. friends of quality, but they must actually believe that the other ones are better eating

[30:13] nuts. Maybe because they have them both. They actually much believe that the bigger ones are better eating nuts and these are better pastry nuts. Could be, could be. Yeah. Because otherwise there'd be a market. just charge more. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good question. Maybe maybe in a place that has pistachios galore, people are not willing to pay a whole lot of money for

[30:35] them, just as a general eating nut. Yeah. Not eating. Oh, speaking of young seeds. nuts. Uh, so I had this uh, pumpkin. So it turns out that I have this garden patch up in Connecticut and

[30:50] it's it's like cucurbit fantasy freaking land. So like cucumbers go freaking bananas. And I didn't know this because I hadn't ever planted a pumpkin before. Pumpkins go frigging nuts. And I planted like a pumpkin that's actually a Connecticut variety. I forget the name of it, but it's from Connecticut. and it's one of the ones that's designed to become giant, like a couple £100 and uh, and I was gone for a couple of weeks, I came, I came back and looked at

[31:17] it, and it's like Jack and the Beanstalk, the sucker had punched through both sides of the

[31:21] garden and, uh, one of the pumpkins on. I have to thin them out so that they get big, right? But one of the pumpkins that I was going to consider keeping in the span of 2 weeks, it had grown through a fence. It was the size of like a tennis ball or a racquet ball, and it had grown into £10 pumpkin over the course of like 2 weeks. And it snapped itself off because the vine could no longer hold it through the fence.

[31:46] It was like through a, like a, what is that? you know, like chicken wire fence. It was through it. It snapped it off. And so I took it, right? Because I'm going to harvest them anyway. But they, like, there is almost no information on the internet about, uh, young pumpkins. Even though I'm sure everyone who tries to grow big pumpkins is thinning pumpkins out, there's

[32:06] nothing, there's nothing on them. And what's interesting is the skin is very, very thin and delicate because you haven't curated at all, right? When you cut it open, the pith between the seeds hasn't

[32:17] fully, it's like still kind of solid, so it's kind of hard to scoop it out. The flesh is actually really good. I made a, I made a, like a, a pumpkin parmesan with it. You know, like I cut the pumpkin, roasted it down a little bit, but was gentle with it, so it didn't get all smashed up, and then layered it

[32:34] like you would for like a lasagna or something like that. But I did it Mexican. I did it with Oaxacan string cheese and cotija because that's what I have in my fridge. know what I mean? So, it's not bad. You know what I mean? Look, Parmigano's Parmigiano, Cotillo, but it's good. It's more of like, you know, like a Mexican, Italian pumpkin casserole. You know what I mean? Anyway, yeah. And then, uh, pumpkins, pumpkins, New World anyway, right? Yeah, and then, and then later, I took the rest of it because, again, it's 10 pounds. I'm not going to eat it in one day. I actually did hack it up with a pasta and rehydrated

[33:07] Shiitakis and more of an Italian style with a, you know, with Fusili and, you know, actual Parmigiano. It's delicious, but delicious. But, so, and you can actually eat them raw. And they have the texture of a melon, but they don't have melon taste, and they don't even have that much pumpkin taste. They very light. They're like the watermelon of pumpkins when they're like that. So there's a there're a lot. They're more refreshing, even raw. They have a lot of latexy stuff. So you know how when you cut pumpkins, your fingers get that like 2nd skin on them, that gross 2nd skin when you're cutting pumpkins? It skins the hell out of your hands. But, you know, I just peeled it with a veg, uh, veg peeler, uh, chopped it

[33:48] up and it's, it's nice. It refreshing. It good. Yeah, I mean, so it's a lot less pumpkiny even than like a

[33:55] Calabaza melon, which is like pretty mellow in flavor.

[33:59] You know what I mean? And when it cooks up, it holds its flavor and doesn't hold its shape and doesn't mush out. So it stays well, it's soft as hell, but it stays intact. It doesn't instantly pulp out. But the most interesting thing, which I brought for you guys to taste, is the seeds. The seeds are almost the size of full grown pumpkin seeds, but I salted these a little bit, but they're soft, and you can eat them like cucumber seeds. These are totally uncooked, but they're almost full size, like pumpkin seeds. I just put add a little salt, but they're otherwise uncooked unseasoned, just rinsed out of the pumpkin. That's good. They're great, right? Yeah, yeah. A little crunchy. Very refreshing. They're chilled, which helps. Yeah, but like I would mix these into a salad any day. You know what I mean? I also roasted some and they were good, but they lost some of that snap and texture. What do you think, Nastasia hater of things? Yeah, they're good, right? So people out there who are growing pumpkins. I looked on the, like I say, on the Internet, I couldn't find any good information. Someone was like, throw them away. They're useless. Put them in compost. feed them to, you know, feed them to rabbits, feed them to pigs. The fact of the matter is, is there's a lot of delicious stuff to do with these young pumpkins, and it's not insubstantial. I fed my family for 2 days, including when guests came over on this one freaking pumpkin that would have been called

[35:17] to toss it to a ditch by most people. Yeah. Young pumpkin. Chat room is suggesting a pumpkin dump meal. Pumpkin dump meal, pump dump, pump and dump. You know who Mark Ladner, Mark Ladner, that's his favorite cooking term? He's, like, when you, when he's doing an event? Like, hey, Mark, what'd you bring to the event? No, no. Pump and dump. Pump and dump. It's like, right? It means like, it means something that's easy to do at events. You know, you pump out of like whatever, bottles and dump. Obviously, he's doing it at a very high level. All right, I brought some more crap to taste. Do you want to taste the poisonous stuff 1st or last? Last. Last? Uh, you you stage it how you like. All right, well, just in case we die, let's start with the non-poisonous stuff first. Can we take a call then after the tasting? I'll take a call. Well, I'm saying, let me say what it is. And then while I'm pouring it, we'll take the collar, all right? So I have, uh, uh, I'm testing centrifuges out,

[36:17] and uh, I don't think we're going to talk more about the centrifuges today, but I'm testing centrifuges out. And what that means is I have a whole boatload of clarified orange

[36:26] juice, like around my house, right? Because I can just go buy it, right? And it clarifies rough in a roughly similar fashion to other citruses and things, which is a big thing that we're clarifying,

[36:37] a centrifuge. So I have like gallons of clarified OJ in my house. And so I was like, hey, I start fermenting it. So I've been fermenting it. This is my 1st fermented batch. Now, I actually, interestingly, like, um, I think it tasted better when I 1st made it. I think this is like a month old now. So I think it tasted a little better when I 1st made it. Uh, but and this one was, I have a batch that I just made, but it hasn't bottle carved up yet, but

[37:05] uh, this batch was made with uh, orange juice, which is about 11 bricks uh, taken up to about 15. And it got shaken up on the ride over, taken up to about 15 with white sugar. But I have one with honey as well. But this is just pouring all over the ground is what it's doing. I was like... Don't worry, it's sticky. No I'm kidding. It's very dry. It's like super dry. And what's interesting is, is that even though I don't really like clarified orange juice because the bitterness of the orange pulp is gone, right? Uh, when you're when you're using it, I actually quite like this because the bitterness, uh, after all the sugar is fermented out uh, comes back. All right. So while I'm waiting for this thing to stop, let me put it this way. The bottle was a little, shall we say, excited? Uh, why don't we take a caller? Well, I'm pointing, can I have a glass and style? You're just sitting there looking at me like it's like some sort of like, All right, call her, you're on the air. Hey guys, this is Tyler from EC Davis. Hey. How's it going? Yeah, go impossible foods. Oh, possible foods, yeah. Hi, Tyler. Nice to hear your voice. I was wondering if there's a scientific reason for scalding milk or cream in

[38:16] the pastry recipe, since usually they're pasteurized. Huh? Ah,

[38:25] scalding milk or cream. Um, well, even when they're pasteurized, they're they've still got stuff in them. And, um, you know, back in the old days, um, it may not have been pasteurized. They may not have been pasteurized. At this point, you may not know how old it is. So I guess it might just be a way of sort of standardizing the microbiological quality.

[38:52] Wait, scalding? I always, I was tuning out for 12nd because I had this, I had that was pouring stuff and getting stuff dripped all over me, but anytime I see

[39:02] scalded milk in a recipe, I think it's a throwback recipe, right?

[39:08] Which recipe are we talking about here? Pastry cream and things like that. Any kind of... I mean, I think

[39:17] this, I think it's like a throwback, right? Could be. I mean, has anyone done a side by? I always follow recipes just because it's easier to follow a recipe than it is to have a failed recipe

[39:29] afterwards unless you're specifically testing out a theory. Yeah, yeah. I mean, something else that it's going to do is change the flavor. Uh, for sure. The question is whether at the end of the process of making whatever you're making, you're going to notice that flavor difference or not, but scalded milk,

[39:51] scalded cream tastes very different than plain pasteurized either one. What about UHT pasteurized? Um, yeah, I think if you scald that, it's going to taste different too. I mean, the amount of time and the temperature that any milk product reaches, the longer it stays at that elevated temperature, the more the flavor changes. And the more the proteins are messed with and the more X, Y, and Z. So in general, when you're selling something in a store, you mess with it the least amount that you can. Uh, you know, in, you know, to have it sell before it spoils. What about Parmala? You think Scalding Parmlot's gonna do anything? Hmm, Parmalot. Yeah, that tastes pretty cooked to begin with, doesn't it?

[40:41] Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, as with all questions like this question, what I would do is

[40:51] a side by side, right? Just make the same recipe with and without scalding and see whether anybody notices any difference, whether you notice any difference during the process of the making, you know, whether it makes a difference to the

[41:05] process. My guess is that there are small differences, but they're not going to be that significant. Right. And especially for things like that, that you're not really relying on the chemistry of the milk. So I think like small amounts of heat difference and small amounts of changing the conformation of the ingredients in milk can make a huge difference in things like

[41:29] cheesemaking. You know what I mean? Even yogurt making. I mean, you get a much thicker set if you scald the milk first. Right. But here you're, but there you're relying on the chemistry of the caseine, and, you know, and the myself to

[41:51] to what you're working on. In like a pastry cream, you're not. You know what I mean? I mean, I wouldn't guess. I don't know. It's my theory. Sticking to it. Cool. Thanks so much. All right, thank you. All right, to taste us, what do you think, guys? It's just orange juice. Yeah, it's kind of weird. You have a weird... orange juice. I'm washing, that noises me washing the, uh, the, the orange juice of my, But is it drier than you thought? Yeah. It's really dry. That bitterness at the end is from the orange juice. That grapefruit bitterness at the end of it is present in the OJ completely masked by the sugar. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I like it. The bitterness to me is refreshing, like beer bitterness. It's almost like it's got, like, a bitter in it. Yeah, and the and the fruitiness is toned down. I think because there is so little or no sugar. So there's just not that kind of reinforcement from the taste. Yeah. Interesting stuff. I like it. I'm pro. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Sunday morning brunch. Yeah, yeah. This thing's right now clocking in, probably somewhere between 8 and 10%. Alcohol. So, higher than beer, but lower than almost anything else, like lower than, you know, any normal wine or anything like

[43:25] that. All right, so what? Should we, oh, should we, should we take our quick break and then come back? No, I would just go through. You gotta get to that guy's question. All right. So, uh, may I answer the question before we eat the poison or have you guys distribute the poison? So I brought some poisonous stuff. So the pot of, what's it called? Potophylum, the American mandrake, the May

[43:51] apple, is an awesome looking leaf. You ever seen that leaf? It looks crazy. The leaf looks awesome, Nastasi. It's like super green, big leaf. They're really low, and each plant only has like a couple of leaves, like 2 leaves, and

[44:04] they, they, they, um, they grow by underground runners, so they kind of self-propagate themselves, and they produce, the entire plant is poisonous. And so, it was, it's been used uh, as poison, uh, by Native Americans. It used as a medicine as a huge cathartic and small amounts. Uh, the resin, which is obtained from the uh, rhizome. I think it's a rhizmatic thing, uh, is used as a topical wort remover, but uh, there's been uh, people who've over-applied it and uh, they, and they die. So this is my lead up to having you eat it. But the fruit of the May apple. is incredibly delicious once it's ripe. Once it's ripe. It's incredibly delicious. The problem is, very hard to get them, because as soon as they ripen, they, uh, they're eaten by all the animals. So, uh, last week, I harvested them all when they were still a little green and then I wrapped them in plastic in case they self-produce ethylene so that they would, uh, you know, increase their ethylene production. And the question is, is the May apple a climacteric fruit? Will itself ripen after it's been removed? Answer, yes, it will soften and it will yellow. And so, uh, my theory is, is that if it smells tropical and is soft, then it will not be poisonous. Now, you don't want to eat the seeds because the seeds are also poisonous. Well, it's thought that the seeds are poisonous. So if you guys want to inspect these, uh, I brought 2 of them with me. If you guys want to inspect these while I get to the questions that we have. All right. All right. Rich McDonough wrote in. Um, by the way, we had a, we have a question in about uh, cocktails for Burning Man, but we're saving that for next week when Jordana Rothman, who has made cocktails at Burning Man, is going to be on the show to discuss it because we figured it's better to just have someone on the show who's actually done it so that,

[46:01] and, and uh, I'm the only person apparently who gets sassy with Jordana. Yeah, right. Yeah. True. Yeah, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, okay. Thanks for doing the show. And by the way, he calls out Nastasia, Peter, who's not here,

[46:18] but you know, you can stand in for Peter Harrell, so you're a new engineer, that's David, and the ghost of Jackie Molecules. So nice. It goes to Jackie Molecules. I have enjoyed doing pressure infusion in the EC or ISI depending on what era you're talking about. So this is a, we're talking about nitrous infusion where you use nitrous oxide to inject liquid into an item under high pressure and then you boil it back out and you do fast infusions.

[46:41] I've just got a hold of a large tank of medical grade nitrous oxide. Now, listen, listen. And 2.5 and 5 gallon corny kegs, which will take up to 130

[46:49] PSI plus a high-pressure regulator, which will manage around 120 PSI before the safety valve kicks in. You've mentioned pressure infusion in a keg was possible in liquid intelligence, but didn't go into details, as this is still much lower pressure than an ISI. assume I need to address recipes and let it sit for longer, but how much longer should I go without risking bitterness

[47:07] for materials such as cacao nibs? Any other tips and tricks you can share would be great. Cheers, rich. Okay, okay, so listen, it's actually not that much. It's not that different. So if you go on Amazon, look inside, Nastasi, can you get Amazon? Do you have that on your phone? don't have the app. Uh, if anyone. Actually, hey, David, can you do liquid intelligence, look inside, and then look up pressure chart, and see whether it's there. I thought I had it on my phone, but I don't. But in Liquid Intelligence, my book, which you can buy on Amazon. Uh, the, um, there's a chart of the uh, pressures inside of an ISI bottle uh, and it literally lists directly what your particular recipe will produce inside of the bottle for a given fill

[47:51] amount uh, at a given ethanol concentration with a given number of chargers. Now, there are 2 numbers there. I think I gave both numbers. If not, I'll have to go and find it. I'll try to post a picture of it The number is the initial pressure, which is important, but not the most

[48:05] important, and 2nd is the final pressure, which is what you're not going to be able to achieve the initial

[48:10] pressure, but you probably will be able to achieve the final pressure. So the issue is, is that if you have a 5 gallons quite a bit. I would do it in the 2.5s because it's not, like unless you are a gorilla, it is not easy to vigorously shake a 5 gallon container under pressure.

[48:29] It's just not. You know what I mean? Oh, oh, another thing. I forgot to mention, oh, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. listen. The difference between an ISI. And a keg is that when you're doing a ISI, all of the gas is delivered at once at a high

[48:44] pressure, and then that pressure drops as you shake it. In a corny keg, you are delivering the pressure at the pressure, and you must shake it until you get to an equilibrium pressure inside.

[48:54] So you have to keep the valve hooked onto the keg as you're shaking, which adds to the difficulty of

[49:01] doing it. So you have to keep the thing on as you're shaking. You have to shake vigorously. Do not turn it upside down or stuff will leak back into because those things, like I say, don't have check valves in them. So you have to hold it and shake the ever-loving hell out of it, up and down, up and down, up and down until you stop hearing gas come out of the tank. Then you know you've reached equilibrium, relatively close to equilibrium. And then you let it sit for your predetermined amount of time, and then you vent it. Now, if you can't get pressures close to the ones that you get in the eyes eye. But my feeling is you can. I don't know if David has found the relevant document or not. I have, but where am I looking? Let's just prefer for craps. Like, look at the final pressure on, uh, I think I gave 40% ethanol in a half liter whipper with 2 chargers. Is that on that chart? Where is the chart exactly? Oh, you have to just ask for a pressure chart and it should find it somewhere. Okay, one sec. Yeah. Uh, so anyway, uh, you should be able to get to it. So as long as you, with that caveat that you shake it until you stop hearing a lot of gas go in, which means you've reached

[49:57] equilibrium, everything else should be the same. The venting, everything else should be the same. One more note of caution. Do not, do not, do not. I don't care if you do whip it balloons with it or whatever. The way people die with nitrous oxide once they have the tanks, is they put a mask on their face, then they pass out, and there's not oxygen supply. They won't kill you. If you had actual, if you had a proper oxygen mix going in with the nitrous while you were breathing it, you would pass out and you wouldn't die. And if you remove the mask, you revive very quickly. The real danger is people asphyxiate themselves with the mask and it happens more often than you'd think. So, do not, under any circumstances, ever put a mask over, like, attach a mask to this and, like,

[50:42] go and do mask shots of nitrous with your

[50:47] bodies. Just don't, just don't do it. All right. So, uh, we'll see if David can come up with this stuff. And meanwhile, you want it, Harold, are you down for tasting or not? Does this smell tropical? have a question. Yes. Have you tasted one? Last year. Let me tell me see this one. This... I tasted last years. Last year's, but fully ripe. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So this really is, we really are guinea pigs here. Oh, yes, that right? Oh, it smells very tropical. I see here. Oh yeah, smell that. Even if you don't taste it, smell that. I'm gonna taste a little bit because, come on.

[51:31] Yeah, describe, describe the flavors. The aromas, rather. Uh, actually, to me, it smelled a little like cherries, like benzaldehyde, kind of...

[51:42] plus passiflora. It's got passionfruit note, too. Okay, so a little sulfur action. It's good. It's really good. It might it's one of my favorite fruits. And this tastes like what you tasted last year? Yep. It's one of my favorite fruits. It's got tropical, it's got banana notes. Don't eat the seeds. Spit them out if you get any. It's got like banana notes. It's got like passionfruit notes. It's got like, That is good. Yeah. That is freaking delicious, right? Stas, you up for it or no? Oh thank you. No thanks. All right, so listen. These seeds, everyone should do these. Everyone should do the seats. Okay, we got one minute. All right, we got one minute. give us a dump meal report. Oh, she made, she made root beer pulled pork, pork butt, root beer, soy sauce,

[52:28] salt, and pepper. I said all together, she said, yes, how else? I said, what was the, what was the, uh, said, I didn't like it. Why? She said, tasted like ass. It just tastes like root beer, but the pulled pork really pulled easily. I said, but it tasted bad. She said, wasn't great. That's it. Tasted like ass, huh? That's a technical description because it was pork butt? Or because she was an aficionado of ass tastings. Yeah. Anyway, hard to know. So listen, I had a question I didn't get to. Uh, I was going to talk more about uh, our 23-year-old friend's espresso machine problems, but I guess we'll get to that next week when Jordana is on. And she'll, I'll be rate her for her

[53:09] cocktails and she'll be rape me for my espresso machine uh, advice. Um, anything anything you want to add, Harold, to this tropical fruit, uh, temperate, temperately grown tropical fruit taste? We need to grow more may apples. Yeah, may apples is freaking delicious, right? It's freaking delicious. cooking issues.

[53:36] 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 questions at any time at info at heritageradionetwork.org. HeritageRadio Network is a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.