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[0:51] Rakutin. Join today for free. Go to racketon.com or get the app. That's RAK-U-T-E-N. This episode is brought to you by Jule, the emerging circulator for Sous vide by Chef steps. Order now at chesteps.com slash J-O-U-L-E. I'm Damon Bolte, host of the Speakeasy. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[1:27] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking, and she's coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network, every Tuesday from a little bit even later than normal, around 1215 today, you know, to around 1245, Brooklyn, you know, one o'clock from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Joined, as usual, with Nastasia, the Hammer, Lopez. How you doing, Nastasia? So, actually, Nastasia and I went on an adventure last week, which we'll see if we have time to talk about our adventure to the great town

[1:58] of Saratoga Springs, but we have 2 guests in the studio with us. Today. We have Kitchen Appliance Engineer Joe Zakowski. How you doing? Good afternoon. Yeah, and we have the reigning current crown prince of the Museum of Food and Drink. Peter Kim. Here to spread hate and vacate. Yeah. What kind of vacate? number two? That's actually a line from exhibit. I don't know if you remember that guy. I remember, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, with the spelling X. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Strength. We got Dave in the booth. What up? How you doing? Good. Speaking of Dave in the booth. So a number of months ago, uh, Nastasia and I, along, Carlos in that too, right? In the one we did for Johnny Walker, Dave? Oh, I wasn't here that day. so I'm not sure, but we do have the episode. Yeah, so we taped a, well, I gotta admit, it was like a show thing. Like we were like, they were like, hey, will you do this episode for this new Johnny Walker

[2:59] product and we're like, okay. But anyway, we actually taped the full on episode. And if you don't like the wine episode, you shouldn't go to this one, but we're going to tweet out as the last of Nastasia and my contractual tweet and Instagrams.

[3:15] We will send out a link, like that's not in our normal cooking issues feed, to a cooking issues episode where we talk to the rare, the rare beast, unfortunately, in the

[3:27] uh, in the spirits world, but the, the female master uh, blender, uh, which is uh, which is awesome. You know what I mean? need more of that, the industry needs to shift to a more gender

[3:43] parody situation. What? Balance. Balance. Yeah, balance. All right. how are we going to start here? Peter, why don't you, why don't you, before you just start throwing your hate and your vacate, why don't you just, uh, why don't you drop your, uh, drop your plug knowledge for the museum food and

[3:59] drink? Oh, yeah. So, uh, we are working right now on Chow, the making of Chinese American cuisine. And, uh, basically, yeah, you've got this situation where

[4:09] they're, I don't think they know, I don't think we've talked about it because you haven't let us talk about it on air. What? All right, okay. Why don't you explain what the exhibit is? Yeah, yeah, I'm explaining the exhibit, man. All right. Jeez. Before you ask them for money, why don't you at least... Tell them. Yeah, so you've got the situation where you've got over 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the US. They're all over. Look, so I grew up in the Midwest, right? Um, you know, middle of nowhere, Danville, Illinois. Whoa, what are you insulting on your upbringing? That's true. I mean, so anyway, we were one of the only Asian families in the

[4:39] town and when we wanted to, you know, like I grew up eating like meatloaf and like green bean casserole, but also like, you know, dried squid and other Korean stuff. But when we wanted to go out to eat... Fried squid would be nice in the green bean casserole. So when we wanted to go out to eat and we wanted to eat something that wasn't like Olive Garden, it was a Chinese restaurant.

[4:59] And I think, you know, it was really the only option for going out to

[5:03] eat to have something that was like, you know, quote, in quotes, ethnic. Um, and so, uh, if that's actually the case in a lot of parts of the country. So you live the Asian version of the Christmas story. Yeah, basically. Yeah, there you go. And so you have this like situation where these restaurants are all around the country. They're all serving. all run by Chinese immigrant families. They're serving a menu that, I think we all know, is not a lot like food in China. And it's one of these things that's become just such a central part of American culture. Um, and, uh, so what's, you know, I guess it's a sort of curious situation and we want to know, you know, what the story is behind that. And it turns out there is over 100, there are over 150 years of history behind this cuisine. And so we're going to tell a story of that with the exhibition. All right. So like to boil that down into like 30 seconds, the number, how many restaurants, roughly? Over 50,000. That's like 3 times a number of McDonald's, right? Yeah, yeah. So there's many more. In fact, there's more Chinese restaurants in the U.S. than Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's combined, right? Yeah, of course, because there's more McDonald's than any of those other ones and there's 3 times as many McDonald's, so clearly more. The other thing I think it's really interesting is that we kind of take this thing for, we take Chinese food for granted. Chinese American food, even though it's weird that you have this kind of ubiquitous and kind of monolithic

[6:22] cuisine. I'm not talking about, like, the new fancy stuff that, like, you know, we're not talking about your, like, your Danny Bowens or anything like that. We're talking about like old school, Chinese, American, cuisine. How did this happen that we have a cuisine that is neither cooked by

[6:37] the, those, the people who are make, so people who own the Chinese restaurants, recent immigrants, as you put it normally, not all those, some of them, 34 generations have been having these Chinese restaurants, especially some of the older, more important ones, but they don't cook this food at home, right, for their

[6:49] family, typically, typically. And yet, yet here it exists. It's almost like a synthesized cuisine. super interesting. Unlike Italian American cuisine, where Italian Americans actually cook that stuff at home. Everybody does. It doesn't make like lasagna. Yeah, yeah. you know, eggplant palm. Anyway, but like the point is that like that style of food exists as a living home cuisine and as a restaurant

[7:14] cuisine. Yeah, and it's not just that, but it's like everything around the menu too. You've got the whole sort of format of the meal. You've got the takeout box, you have fortune cookies, you've got sauce packets, you've got like the aesthetic, um, and... Yeah, although we're not getting, we're not

[7:29] getting... No, I mean, but my point is like, it's this whole thing that got developed and like, yeah, I mean, it's this sort of like this crazy story

[7:35] behind it. Yeah, so the thing is, how'd that happen? That's what the exhibit's about. How did this happen? You know what I mean? And it's going to be tied into a launch of our non-brick and mortar based web presence as

[7:49] well, right? Yeah, so we're going to have beautiful menu collection, going to have tastings, which is going to be a 1st for us, actual food. Putting the food back in the museum of food and drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peter's like, uh, there'll still be pelets. Don't worry. for all of you pelotized people out there. There will still be pellets. And we're going to keep the stink machines going. Some of the stink machines. Yeah, and I saw that in the chat room. Somebody had a problem with it last time with it all smelling like popcorn, pierzine, whatever, but we fixed that. Sorry about that. Yeah, it's like sometimes those valves are literally there's just like a little valve. Listen, thank God it wasn't the buteric acid. You know what I mean? The cheesy vomit. Yeah. But my point is, is that sometimes those valves get stuck open a little

[8:34] bit, and so we probably need to open and reseal the valves and to stop them from, uh, actually the valves when they're going wrong, make

[8:41] it kind of a warrant white noise. Like a little, like a little mini. Yeah, that's what I was going for. Little toot noise. Yeah. Well, anyway, so we have a Kickstarter going for Chow right

[8:52] now, and, you know, when you back the campaign, you get tickets, we're

[8:57] going to have a weekend opening for 2 days. It's going to be on the 4th and the 5th of November. And that's how like eating, not like... Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Chow, Chow, Bella. Yeah. Not like that. Not like that. Like, chow, like... I should bake an ice cream called chow Bella, but like CHOW. Well, interestingly, something you learn if you show up at the exhibit is there used to be a, uh, um, a, uh, a chow

[9:26] chopsui Sunday, right? That was, uh, that was basically just hacked up little pieces of dried fruit on top of the ice

[9:34] cream and I have to say that sounds pretty good. You need to bring that one back. Nastasi, what are your feelings on chewy things on your ice cream? Uh, that sounds good. The gummy bears? Well, not that chewy, but yeah, like of that order. But in other words, like, in general, like, typically for me on an ice cream, I prefer things that like pop and break rather than things that

[9:55] chew. What about, what about like Tendo or like Southeast Asian ice desserts? We have the chewy noodles. I love that, man. I can deal. I'm not I'm never like, I can deal. I can enjoy something like that. or like, for instance, Mochi. Mochi. I love mochi. Oh, that's chewy ice cream. I got you. All right, that's fair. It's like a thing, but like a big, like, like a big, like grated ice thing with like the, with like the cream and stuff and beans. I like it. I like it. I like it. I enjoy having them, but I'm never like, hey, you know what I'm

[10:27] going to go out and get right now. Do you know what really fixed me up right now that? For you, it'd actually be half a great food and a block of cheese. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. 5.5 grapefruits. I really people out there. I really, really. Just so y'all know what the what the thing that he is saying. I really, really like grapefruits. Do you ever wake up in the morning? I need grapefruit. That never happens to you? I love fruit. Joe, you like grapefruit? a high quality fruit. But anyway, let me just get this out. Well, strangely, like, a lot of the ones you buy are incredibly poor quality. Like, just like, it's like, it's not violently, uh, like nauseating the way that a bad pistachio is, but when you, by the way, the way I eat grapefruits, I don't do that, like, you know, I don't do that, like, American 50s

[11:13] thing, cutting them in half and stuff. I just peel them and eat them. But, like, my point is, is that, like, there's something very, like, just so disappointing about a bad grapefruit, the one where it's just

[11:24] thin. There's no sweetness, all acid, slightly bitter, too much pith. It's just so disappointing. Especially the ones that are not like juicy when they get dry. Oh my god. Oh my god. And you can see that the segments kind of break apart. and you just look at it and you're so sad. First of all, you paid 2 bucks for that thing. You know what I mean? And you know, you're reasonably smart person, right? I hope we're all reasonably smart people. So when you pick up the grapefruit, you're picking one that's not too spongy, right? I mean, you know, look, bearing in mind that you know whether it's a California or

[11:57] a Florida grapefruit, so you know what the fundamental skin thickness should be. You're trying to heft the fruit itself to see whether or not it contains enough water and make that judgment.

[12:07] You make that judgment and you get home and when you still have garbage, like with all of the thinking and a $2 later, it's just so disappointing. I hate it. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, so go to child.mofed.org, child spelled C-H-O-W, not the Italian way. Um, and our, at our Kickstarter, you can get tickets to the uh, private opening of the

[12:28] exhibition, and uh, Dave, Dave will be there. I'll be there. Yep, exactly. Um, and uh, we'll have some fun surprises for people there. And then you get membership to the museum. And you get to help us out with building the next show. So, yeah, go to Chowdammofed Netor. Yeah, all right. So, and now you can just be hate filled. Emperor Peter from here on in. Strikeled operational. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, by the way, Peter and I almost always only talk to each other in Emperor Palpatine

[12:59] voice. Yeah, yeah. Which sometimes can fade into like stereotypical Jewish grandmother. Wow. I never really thought about it. could do that for me. I'm not going to freak out this fine. If you feel it. If you feel it later in the show, you can you can do it. But, I mean, I'm not, I don't want to, that's like a lot to put you on the spot for. So, you know, so, Joe, what are you working on now? So I'm just here to sport cooking issues. Oh, come on now. If you're on the show, you gotta tell, give us like, what are you working on? Anything you can talk about? Nothing I can talk about. have to kill you. Well, I'm sure many people would, many, many, many men wish death upon me to bring out you some, who's that? You don't know that song? Many men wish death pon me? Many, many men. Oh, yeah. Wait, you say we got a call, Dave? Yeah, you want to take call? Yeah let's do it. Oh, by the way, call in your appliance design related questions to Joe Zakowski. I believe this is souped related. Oh, here we go. Alright. how to do that. Hey. Yeah, um, 1st question I I just sent the recipe, um, uh, end of the heritage radio email address. It's, um, propo de clam. It's basically homemade chocolate pudding. But the recipe is, is how to do it without using the sous vide machine, and I just needed your best guess for a, um, time and temp to do it sous vide, because while it comes

[14:22] out, great. standing there and stirring for at least 20 minutes is just a more than a pain. Yeah, so... I mean, I don't have the recipe in front of me because it's on the computer, but most of those set custards are in the 80s range, Celsius, like,

[14:41] so, like, for instance, like when I'm doing, so, it depends on how much stuff you have in it, right? Like it all depends on the solids ratio, but so something that's very liquidy that you don't want to set, like a

[14:53] creme anglaise, I'll do it like 82 Celsius, but that that'll only be for like 15 minutes. And if you were to rock that that way for an hour, It wouldn't quite set, but it would be close to set. But you're going to have a much higher egg ratio probably in your custard. And so I would guess, my guess is you're going to want to be somewhere around 85C, and if it's in a small ramekin situation, I'm assuming when you made sous vide, do you mean like in a combi oven, like in a

[15:22] ramekin, uh, uh, that, or in a steam oven, which by the way, I hear, uh, who was it? I think Cuisinart makes a countertop steam oven now. That is correct. Yeah, and I hear it's pretty good. How low a temperature, Joe, can that go to? Do you know? It can prove. It can prove. So if you had one of those, you could probably steam set low temperature a pot de creme, and I would hit it in the 85C range, and depending on how thick it is, usually I'm doing them in relatively thin ramekins, I would probably go on the order of

[15:55] half hour to 40 minutes. But Joe, do you actually, have you done that recipe in one of those ovens? I have not. Maybe we can find out a recipe and get back to you. You know, John Daragon, formerly of uh, please don't tell the bar, uh, has one of those

[16:09] quiznard ovens. And he was going off on how it was the, you know, the greatest thing that's ever happened to him. You know what the MSRP on those things is? Roughly 150? That's cheap. It's cheap. That's my best guess. What are you, you fill it on the side, like a coffee maker? How do you put the water into it? It just comes with an infinite amount of water. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Anyway. All right. So is this answering your question, I hope? Uh, you, um, well, that's, that's pretty good. pretty clear for that 1st question. And then I have a completely separate 2nd question. All righty. Also, so be related. I'm working on a recipe to do a pork roast with pork and

[16:51] cranberry sous vide. And, um, the 1st try I made at it. I didn't quite use enough salt and it just wasn't really tasty. I also didn't pre brown it. The second try I used, what was clearly too much salt, but I also, uh, I ground the heck

[17:11] out before I put it in the bag, and it got that porky taste, like

[17:16] the, uh, that sort of unpleasant porky hint. Right. Now, are you vacuuming it? Are you ziplocing it? Uh, vacuuming it. Huh. Because I would usually, that porky taste usually is a fat breakdown oxidation kind of a situation, so I would have assumed that a vacuum bag would take care of that.

[17:32] Unless, how do you, how do you brown it? Well, I just, um, I just, I haven't, I've had my baking still parked in my grill for forever, so I just got that as hot as it would get and hit it on,

[17:44] in all 4 of the major sides. That's unusual. I would guess usually, um, what's considered not pleasant animal flavors come from fat oxidation, um, and typically, I mean,

[18:01] I, And you did a hard vac on it? It was a hard vacuum. When I was, it's a food saver. Yeah. I mean, that should be enough to get rid of enough. I mean like that would be my guess. I don't know. Maybe someone in the chat room. Dave can has any sort of stuff on this happening. Like, how are the cranberries? Did you pre-cook the cranberries or we're using dried cranberries? Uh, no, I didn't, I was, um, so I, I put salt and pepper on it, let it sit for a day or two. Um, vacuum, uh, vacuum down for that. And then I, uh, opened it up, uh,

[18:37] brush whatever salt was with on the outside, which basically did all absorbed. Um, and um, uh, put it um, ground it and put it in a fresh bag with the port and cranberries. Oh, but the cranberries were pre-cooked. No, the cranberries were dried. Right. You know how they make those dried cranberries? They squish the cranberry juice out of them. And then they use the skins and then they mix the skins with a boatload of sugar. Well, I mean, I don't mind them. I love them. I'm just like saying, like, that's how they make them. That's always curious, yeah. Really work for several recipes we cook with. I mean, I realize they're not really health food. I don't really care about. I'm not a health food kind of a guy. I'm just saying it's like, it's kind of, it's like, it's, it's like one of those. actually, I think it's genius. These guys took what is fundamentally a byproduct, and they turned it into something that, you know, I enjoy eating. My kids enjoy eating. even rarer. You know what I mean? And I think that they are useful in restaurants. I understand picky children. Yeah, well, the only thing. Oh, God, I understand picky children. The other thing about those, if you were to use, even if you were to actually dehydrate your own cranberries, which, by the way, like, I've never tried to eat one of my Christmas strings before, but, like, Peter, you ever

[19:50] eating one of your Christmas strings? When you were a kid, did you do the cranberries and popcorn? Nastasia, did you eat cranberries and popcorn when you were a kid? No. Joe? No. None of you guys, Dave? Never heard of that. Never, you never, never heard of it. Took a needle and thread and popcorn and cranberries. Anyway, this stuff when it's left over is like worse than worse. I don't know. Anyway, the point is, is that the dried skins are good because they don't get all big and nasty. What are your guys' thoughts on inflated raisins and stews? Love. Love? When I was a kid, I was freaked out by him because my mom would put the raisins into the stew and then I was like, oh, raisins. I understand what a raisin is. And then it came out as a half grape. It wasn't like fully a grape anymore, but it wasn't a raisin anymore. And I was like, ah, ah. And so, like, my whole life, like, I've learned to like, because they taste good. Like, just, like, strictly speaking, they taste good. And so like, uh, but anyway, I don't know. Another weird mental problem I have, I guess. You know what I mean? You never had something shock you when you were a kid and it sticks with you for years? That's like, I feel like that's Nastasia's whole life. I never liked chocolate milk because I have this memory in elementary school of it being spilled like everywhere on the lunchroom table and being grossed out by that. By you? Did you spill it knife? No, it wasn't my fault. you still remember that to this day, huh? Yeah, just like pooling in the lunch tray. Like, that's nasty. I can remember biting... I can remember biting into a cream filled donut that was moldy and that I wasn't able to eat cream filling for almost a

[21:18] decade. I was very small, but I still remember, I remember where I was. I was in a waiting room next to the truck full of nuts at the 168th Street, Columbia Presbyterian

[21:29] Hospital, where my mom had gotten me something to eat while she was going to go do something for her internship. And I just remember sitting at this freaking chair at 168th Street and biting into this freaking

[21:41] moldy... This is horrifying. Well, as you know, I don't really care about their being mold on my foot. Yeah, he loves. I can remember my mom frying parsnip chips upstairs for some

[21:53] holiday, and I was violently ill at the time and associating the smell of frying parsnips with throwing

[22:00] up, and I still, to this day, like a lot of veg chips. I'm like, man, no thanks. No, thank you. You know what I mean? It's like they taste good, but it's still got that kind of violent association with them. Again, this is Nastasia's whole life, though. Like she'll associate whole cities with hanging out with a person she didn't like. I mean, I'm talking as an adult. I'm not talking about as a kid. whole, yeah, whole, yeah, whole, like, you know, there's a 1000000000 people. I need to go into more detail here. There's a there's a 1000000000 of you out there. If she met one of you and had a bad time. You're all you're all painted with the same brush. That's that's the... Well, not just the billion that exists now, but the 1000000000s that have existed before them as well. And the future billions, the future billions. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, yeah, very strong. Anyway, so back to this question. I don't know what's causing the porkiness. My assumption is that maybe you had a piece of pork with more fat and it was already slightly oxidized before it went into the bag. Um, I have also done stocks and sometimes they come out more or less porky, but I don't know whether it's having to do with the

[23:03] actual, um, uh, characteristics of the meat that went in. I think you're protecting it as well as you can by vacuing it. You want to chill it and vac it as soon as you can. I mean, what I typically do, What I used to do when I wanted to vac something right after is sear down was, I would put the, I would sear it, throw it into a bag, and then immerse that bag unsealed in ice

[23:28] water, to chill down the meat, and then I would, then you could seal it really quickly. Another thing is, is you might want to consider I mean, if it's a recurring thing, then it's clearly just you're getting some sort of uh, uh, reaction where uh, just the initial sear, maybe

[23:46] the sear was at maybe even, I hate to say it's too high a temperature and you're getting some off flavors uh, from it, uh, you could do it

[23:52] on on sear, but you're just going to have to put a hard sear on afterwards. And when you do it that way, you know you're not going to get any oxidation from the initial sear down. So typically, remember, uh, especially for things like beef or things like short ribs, uh, which is beef, uh, like, uh, I would recommend, um, the only one I

[24:10] never say never to sear beforehand is duck breast. Never, never see the duck breast beforehand because it it, you need it to stay flat so that you can crisp it up in the pan later. But, um, uh, I would say, uh, always here afterwards, always here afterwards. That was always part of part of the plans, I was trying to get a, I put a piece here on too, and, you know, you get more flavor of it actually in the meat. That's true. I'm a firm believer in that because, but the thing is, is that maybe this, maybe this

[24:40] sear, so I, I don't know, I don't have like which, which cut of pork was it? shoulder. Yeah, bone and shoulder. So, you know, I haven't done, uh, I haven't done a lot of whole, uh, bone and shoulder. Um, I've done some, but I'm doing the, I was doing those things mainly more like, uh, like, uh, imitating like uh, pulled pork or confit, just salted, like not like heavy seared because I would leave skin on and then crisp up the skin afterwards, so that more of

[25:07] like or more like kalua pig kind of a presentation of the shoulder. So I haven't had a lot where I do like a hard seal all the way around. It might be that just long storage in the bag is with that initial sear is causing it to happen. You know what I used to do that I don't do anymore. I used to, when I was, I would trim all all the meat that I was going to finally have is my portion, and then I would roast all the trim, just roast the hell out of all the trim, and then throw the trim in the bag to get the transfer of

[25:37] brown trim pre-cook flavor into the meat as it was going on on long cooks. But as I get older, I get lazier. So. Well, I'm planning to do this recipe for like a

[25:50] 40, 50 person party, so I was trying to make it as streamlined as possible. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, the good news about his shoulder. is that it can stand a good bit of crisping on the, on the, you're serving it whole or you're shredding your, what are you doing? You're you're going to pull the pieces. Is it skin on? Okay, so what I'm planning to do is get skin on, cook it whole, brown it whole, and

[26:17] then and then shred it. Okay. So you get so you get the little shredded bits mixed in with the rest of the pulled

[26:26] meat. Yeah, okay. So if you're going to pull it, people like a little bit of textural textural variation, and I would say to streamline this, make your life easier. I would just get your salt levels right. Uh, and then, um, I would, especially if you're going to have the skin on it, because the skin's going to pull and get all

[26:44] wonky, have a lot of fat there, and there's a lot of fat there that is relatively soft and prone to oxidation in the skin side of

[26:51] the, uh, uh, in the skin there. So I would, um, I would cook it whole without searing it. And then I would pull it and I would do a hard sear at the finish because that's going to crisp up the cracklings. You need a certain amount of time afterwards, even if you've pre-seered, you need a certain amount of time to crisp the crackling up on the outside that you're going to shred into

[27:10] it and you might, it's going to be more predictable. So like even if it's an effect where sometimes you see it beforehand and you get the porky taste and sometimes you don't, if it's

[27:19] like a, if it's a piece of meat specific kind of a situation, uh, you know, you can't predict it beforehand. The worst thing is to have it not taste the way you want when you pull it out of the bag. Do you know what I'm saying? Oh, Trust me, I do. At the event. So I would just do one more without it and then try like a slightly

[27:34] slower, like render crisp sear on the pullout. almost like sous vide for insurance. It's likely to be more predictable if I don't precede. Yes. Got it. That's well, that's also less work, so that's great. All righty. Let us know how it works. Thanks, sir. All right, cool. Dave, should we take a quick break? Yeah, we can do that. Let's take a quick break and come back with more cooking issues.

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[28:52] Browse, chef steps, amazing recipes, and helpful guides. Choose your perfect doneness for any meat and get notified when your food is ready. You know you'll get great results so you can focus on sides and sauces, or just pour yourself a cocktail and chill until you're ready for a delicious dinner.

[29:07] For more information and to order yours now, visit chefsteps.com slash J-O-U-L-E. And we're back. So I got some reaction for one of the shows earlier. Andrew writes in regarding my saying that I don't like sweet tea, because I was saying I don't like sweet tea. I mean, okay. Anyway, he says, a couple weeks ago, I wrote in about trying to get a honey flavor in a lavender cocktail. I took your advice and it's been working on perfecting my cocktail. I'll update you on how it's going pretty soon. My issue today refers to something that Dave said on the show while discussing sweet tea. He said, I hate that stuff. Dave, I understand that you have years of experience in food and technology. I know your palate must be outstanding, or at least it's mine. Your knowledge is obviously immense, but how can I, a child of North Carolina who, by weight, has consumed more sweet tea than flour and water combined, trust you. I'm just curious what your issue with sweet tea is. Do you dislike cold tea? Is it too sweet? Have you had a bitter glass that turned you off on it? What about cocktails? What about in cocktails or desserts? I also like to use tea flavor in meat marinades occasionally. I get it. There's bad sweet tea, but please help me change your mind. I'll do whatever I can, all the best, Andrew. All right. Here's what I don't like, Andrew. Like, I have no problem with cold. I like cold tea. I like cold tea with a modicum of sugar. I think the issue is, is that like, uh, let's say I was going to uh, North Carolina barbecue joint Eastern, of course, because I don't put tomato in

[30:40] my, in my, uh, pork, whatever. Anyway, I'm not going to get off. I want to get you upset because I don't know where in North Carolina you're from. But the stuff that I enjoy the most. I enjoy all North Carolina barbecue, which is, of course,

[30:52] pork, and, of course, with thin sauce, vinegar base. I enjoy it all, but I enjoy mostly the more coastal variety that is fundamentally just like

[31:03] pepper, vinegar and meat. Like that's like my style. Now, if you're going to go to one of those kind of restaurants in Raleigh or wherever you're going to

[31:12] go, and they have those kind of, I'm looking at them right now, those kind of amber colored plastic pebbly glasses, everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? With those things. And they have a jug of what amounts to simple syrup with tea in

[31:26] it, and they pour it, and there's not even any acid, because some of these places will not. I know, I know, I know. Now, some of these places won't put it like lemon, even like next to it or with it, and you're just consuming simple syrup tea.

[31:39] I'm like, because I am a thirsty man. I am a thirsty man. Like, that is something that I could enjoy, like, take, for instance, I like overly sweet mint tea, like, uh, like Moroccan

[31:52] style, or like, you know, like, you know, in Paris, they have those, uh, like those Moroccan

[31:56] tea mint tea joints, Peter. Yeah, you like those? He's he's shaking his head as though you can see his headshake on a microphone. But like the point being that I like sweet tea things in tiny

[32:08] amounts. Like, same way that I like sweet beverages in tiny amounts. That's why cocktails, which are relatively small, can have some sugar in them without freaking me out, but when I am thirsty, I want to pound

[32:20] huge Trump style quantities of liquids. And so I require them to be not sweet. So, iced tea that's a lot lower on sugar. I'm okay with. I like it with a little lemon in it. That's just me. So it's not, I should say, it's not the idea of cold tea that I have a problem with. It's overly, overly sweet tea, Joe. What are your feelings on this? I agree with you. I don't like it too sweet either. But do you find that a lot of places will serve it too sweet? Way too sweet. Way too sweet, right? Too much sugar. Too much too much freaking sugar. Too much sugar is not good for you. Well, I mean, like I said, I've said before, my health, you know, you know, I just don't like it. That's my thing. Styles, do you like cold, you like iced tea? No not really. Wow. Well, Andrew can hate on you. but what do you not like about it? I don't prefer it. I prefer drinking it. Don't prefer drinking it. Yeah. What does that mean? Like I wouldn't choose it. Like over nothing? Over nothing sure, I'll drink it. All right. Peter, sweet tea? Ah, not my, not really my jam. Deep, but like, look, I can appreciate Andrew's position here as a cultural thing. It's like, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, when I, when I, you know, not too sweet. That's all. You like okay, whatever. guys are the worst. Brandon writes in. Hi, Nastasia. Follow up. I sent my last email before listening to the episode that. I shouldn't have read that because you don't know what he's talking about. Something to add to the discussion about tropical tasting fruits that grow in temperate regions. So this is, uh, we were talking about the may apple, which is the jelly I make where, actually, that jelly was delicious. Did I bring the jelly in or just the raw fruit for you guys to taste? I think it's just the raw fruit. Nastasi wouldn't taste it because she got no stones, no stones, not willing to risk her life for good tasting materials. Anyway, this episode is really, this is really, like, comment, considering that episode is in June, but I figured that Nastasia and Dave and the

[34:13] gang did not mention the pawpaw tree. If you have not heard of it, The pawpaw is native to a large portion of the United States, and as to my knowledge, one of the only truly tropical like fruits that grows in the temperate regions of the

[34:25] U.S. In size, shape, and texture is similar to a mango, but the taste is kind of a cross between a mango and a banana. Pretty delicious but very difficult to find. Well, I do know about them, but I haven't really had a lot because they're very hard to ship. I am only fortuous enough to have tried it because my architecture and landscape firm specified it in one of our

[34:43] projects. I don't have any questions. I'm just writing to share and figure you all be interested in one of the most under the radar delicious fruits

[34:48] that is native to the US. So look, about a month ago, I didn't know you were doing this. I call this guy who has these pawpaw nurseries, but the problem is, is that I couldn't find someone who had

[34:57] ship me a good pawpaw tree because I'm planning on planting some to see how they, to see how they work. You have paw paws, Joe? No, in Connecticut, are you doing that? Yeah, yeah. They grow in Connecticut. They grow, like, like, you know, like Brandon was saying, they grow in most of the temperate regions. They don't ship very well. Like they're very soft and they don't chip very well. And I think they're relatively polarizing, and the cultivars are relatively different. So it's kind of hard to get

[35:23] people to, you know, get into it as

[35:28] a commercial fruit. But yes, I plan on, uh, sampling, uh, paw paws. You ever, what about you, Peter? You got any paw paws? Your parents are now in tropical fruit land? Not tropical, like California style subtropical fruit. Where they live now? Outside San Diego. Of course me. Weather's nice, me. I told you, there are studies that show that after 2 years, you don't give a crap about the weather anymore. Like if someone asks you, is the weather nice where you are? You'd be like, yeah, I love it. But like, you don't rate yourself as happier because the weather is nice. Nastasia, do you hate? do you hate good weather because it makes people soft. Is that why you don't like, is that why you like it here? Or is it that you just don't like the people in California? And that's why you moved over here. I don't like the people in California. Wow. All you Californians out there. I like you. But Nastasia, not so much. Right? Yeah. Anyway. Uh, and she's from there. So it's like one of those things where, you know, I always think self-hate's a little weird, but, you know, you can't get down on someone for the self-hate. Can you? Are you allowed to make fun of someone for self-hat? don't know. Peter, what are you? what are your feelings? I feel that you're allowed to have a lot of self-loathing like when you're in college. I feel that's what college is about. Like teenage years, the adolescence is about like becoming a better person through self-loathing, but I think I feel you should grow out of it.

[36:48] What do you think, Peter? No, Joe, self-loathing? I think it's more like after college you go through that phase, you know, when you're trying to find yourself or whatever. Yeah. Well, then you come out of it. Then you self-loathe for self-loathing. and that's... multi-layered. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, why am I 36 and still self-clothing? No, you tell me. You tell me. I'm sure it has something to do with the museum of food and drink. Zing. It's funny because it's true. All right. So I guess Davey just answered the question. It's okay to make fun of people who self-loath. Learn by doing. How do you feel now? You've got a big smile on your face. So there's the answer. Hey, look, you know what? Peter can take it. That's why I like working with him. I don't like working with people who can't take it. Do you know what I'm saying? What do you think, Stas? What do you think about people that working with people that can't take it? I don't like it. don't like it. crying thing, the whole, like, I need therapy thing. Oh, man, no, that's not right. If someone needs help. Yeah, that's not right. I just like working with people that can give and get. I don't like people that can ditch it out and can't take it. God knows I take enough. God knows I dish enough out. Right? Stas is shaking her head up and down. All right, listen. So we had some more information on the butter question we had before. So to, to, you know, tell you what happened. we had a James from Cafe Bezalou in, I think, Seattle. was having a problem with batch to batch. His butter was brittle, you know, his butter was brittle. So he couldn't make like puff pastry or croissant or anything like this because as he was stretching the dough, the butter would shatter into pieces and wouldn't stretch along with the dough,

[38:40] right? And so, uh, you know, he had thought that it had something to do with, um, maybe the feet of the animal

[38:48] or, or, you know, the crystal size. So I wrote to Professor Doug Goff, who is like, you know, one of the big wigs does the ice cream stuff at the University of Guelph. Is that how you pronounce that place? Guelph? Guelph? Guelph, Guelph, Guelph, Guelph, Guelph. Anyway, they have great dairy pages. And I've read them for many years. I really enjoy them. And so I wrote him and I gave him the question and here's what he wrote. He wrote, hey, Dave, I forwarded your question to one of our faculty members with expertise in lipid technology, which is a fantastic thing.

[39:21] I did not hear from the lipid technologist, which would be a fantastic

[39:24] title, lipid technologist. So you may see a reply from him, but he tells me, which I did not. He tells me that from his experience, this is not uncommon. brittle brittle butter problem. Say that with a stupid voice, Peter. You're good at that. I'm not doing Chap, man. Come on, man. Say it in your in your, I'm announcing the puffing gun voice. Brittle butter. Do you have a good, like, weird announcer word? I do. You do. You know what I'm talking about, Nastasium. That's more like me at the beginning of the top of the show. Yeah I know. You know what, Dax, every once in a while, like, it's like, uh, do the do the beginning of the show? I'm like, no, I'm in the middle of, like, the house. I can't scream. We have neighbors. Anyway, he tells me from experience that this is not uncommon. It is most likely related to fat crystal size and structure within the butter rather than composition variation. When butter is manufactured. One of the objectives of cream tempering, churning, and working is to achieve very small fat crystals, which then relates to smoother texture,

[40:31] consistency and pliability. The exact temperatures and times of these stages does relate to composition, and that can vary by feed, etc. After manufacture, many factors, including temperature variation during storage, delivery, and or the age of the butter, and that's also important, the age of the butter. And I'll get more on that later, can cause an increase in fat crystal size. As this happens, butter becomes progressively more coarse in texture and brittle in structure. Think about melting butter to oil and then putting it in the refrigerator to recrystallize. You get a very hard, brittle lump because it was not properly churned and worked. This would be the extreme. So the variation in quality is structure slash texture

[41:09] related and not really primarily uh, difference in the different kinds of triglycerides that are in the uh, butter. So he says, I hope this helps. Doug off. It did help. So I wrote Emma and said, thank you, professor. And then I said this. I said, I'll let you know if I hear from your colleague, which I did not. I'm pondering your response, in pondering your response, this is me. I wonder whether mechanical manipulation could help. Whenever I'm going to use butter and biscuits or cake and don't have time to let it temper. I beat it repeatedly with a rolling pin. I've always noticed it just plasticizes the butter. How much of that change is frictional heating, probably only a small amount. I do not know. Could the effect of beating the cold butter help these folks, i.e. uh, you know, you guys, a

[41:51] cafe bezelou, um, Or is the effect too macro and wouldn't help them on the smaller scale of a puff paste?

[41:59] And he said, that might help, Dave, could be worth a try at least. So I would try taking some of the butter that is not working properly and beating

[42:07] the beating the bejesus out of it. But then I saw an article which is available free of charge on the

[42:14] internet that you need to read called the effective factors. Get ready, write this one down. The effective factors on the structure of butter and other milk fat-based products by

[42:24] Stein, I guess, how do you pronounce the L with a slash through it? Oh, right? Roon Holt. R, over the slash through it, N-O-L, uh, N-H-O-L-T. September 2013. This article is terrible in the sense that what they really care about is producing lower fat butter,

[42:42] which, as we all know, is a horrible idea, horrible, horrible. But it's a good article in that it talks about every stage step by step in what it does to fact crystal

[42:52] size and it has the extreme advantage of being available on the internet.

[42:56] So as you store butter and the temperature goes up. Like, let's say it's been tempered up to 20 and then recooled and done a bunch of

[43:04] times. The, um, the, a lot of the smaller crystals and the ones with the, um, lower melting points will melt out to a liquid, even though the butter maintains its solid

[43:14] state, and then on recrystallization slowly in the fridge will get progressively larger crystals, which may be

[43:19] causing uh, some brittleness. Crystal size just increases with time as butter ages in the fridge. So maybe the brittle butter is older butter. But maybe beating the heck out of it actually might help. So they're going to kick us off the air in a minute, but Nastasia and I, actually, I think Nastasia actually enjoyed this trip, which is unusual. Nastasi usually hates most everything. We went to Saratoga Springs. Joe, you ever been to Saratoga Springs? for the horse racing or for the water. I've been there during the horse racing time, but I didn't go to the horse. What were you doing there? Just with my wife and children. Did you try the waters? Did you go to the spa state park? I did not go to the spa state. Oh my goodness. Peter, have you ever been to Saratoga Springs? No. I'm going to go back because so here's the deal. They have, in Saratoga Springs, their naturally carbonated water comes out of the ground. I want that to sink in for a minute. Naturally carbonated water comes out of the ground. So, uh, And the naturally carbonated water is actually very highly mineralized in sailing.

[44:19] So Nastasia, Ariel, who was on the show last week, and my brother-in-law, Travis, who was

[44:25] shooting, shooting it for, because we're supposed to write something for Lucky Peach. We went and tasted every one of the natural springs in Saratoga. The one in the race course was closed. We couldn't go to it. which was the other one. Lake. Oh, yeah, there was one in a lake. I went back there later this day afternoon with bathing shorts on and I just couldn't bring myself to wade in. long were you there? I stayed. I figure, how often do I get to go there? I went and retasted a lot of the waters. Uh, anyway, so like this water is pretty amazing because, uh, it's very old, very deep groundwater that is super heavily mineralized

[45:00] in saline and it gets forced up to the surface, close to the

[45:04] surface through a fault, uh, that runs down through Saratoga that's relatively

[45:08] recent. The fault has a CO2 coming all the way from the mantle that goes up and pushes the stuff up and charges. And as it comes up, it's mixing with more recent, like, kind of recharge rainwater, meteoric water. And there's a, the interesting thing is there's a shale layer at the top of the ground there that caps it all

[45:27] in. So it's all under pressure. So when you bore down in, itself pumps itself up. So it's not, strictly speaking, an artesian well, like you would get, where you're actually digging a well where the head of the well is below the water table and you're recharging from a mountain, let's say, it's literally getting forced up and carbonated from below, but unlike a lot of carbonated springs, it's also

[45:47] cool. It's at 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And I think they're delicious. Stas, you liked it too, right? I brought your bottle, by the way. I think they're delicious. They're super highly mineralized. I made a margarita with the strongest of the waters yesterday. I want to go back, but I have a plea for any all 99, almost all. In fact, maybe all in the United States, naturally carbonated springs are in the West, where there's more thermal activity. But if anyone here, I know there's some in Colorado. I know there's some in California, if any of you live near a naturally carbonated spring, and for some reason you like us, just get a seltzer bottle, like a water, like a carbonated water bottle, fill it up all the way, all the way, because otherwise you lose too much

[46:30] food, partial pressure, cap it, and send it to us, and we'll taste and talk about your water on

[46:34] the air. I'm super interested in tasting just various naturally carbonated waters from

[46:39] all over the country. But more on Saratoga when I write it up for Lucky Peach and go visit Saratoga. Good place. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Peter. See you next time. Cooking issues.

[46:57] 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. Heritage Radio Network as a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.