Eat This Podcast

Ah, the self-indulgent joy of making a podcast on one of my own passions.

“They” say that turning cooking from an enjoyable hobby into a business is a recipe for disaster, and while I’m flattered that people will pay for an additional loaf of bread I’ve baked, there’s no way I’m going to be getting up at 3 in the morning every day to sell enough loaves to make a living. But there are people who have done just that, and one of them happens to be a friend. Suzanne Dunaway and her husband Don turned her simple, delicious foccacia into Buona Forchetta bakery, a multi-million dollar business that won plaudits for the quality of its bread – and then sold it and walked away.

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Suzanne was also one of the first popularisers of the “no-knead” method of making bread, with her 1999 book No need to knead. Using a wetter dough, and letting time take the place of kneading, has been around among professional bakers and some, often forgetful, amateurs for a long time, but it was Mark Bittman’s article in the New York Times that opened the floodgates on this method. Since then, as any search engine will reveal, interest in the technique has exploded, both because no-knead is perceived as easier and because the long, slow rise that no-knead usually calls for results in a deeper, more complex flavour. I’ve had my troubles with it, and had more or less given up on the real deal. But I’m looking forward to seeing how a quick no-knead bread turns out, especially now that I know that in Suzanne’s case it was the result of a delicious accident.

Notes

1. If you created the graphic riff on Breaking Bad, or you know who did it, please let me know. I would really like to give proper credit.

Engage

The first episode of 2014 is a look back to some of the topics I covered in 2013, and for what I hope is a good reason. With a podcast, unlike a piece of writing or an image, it is very hard to decide quickly whether this is something I want to pursue further. Of course some things are an instant turn-off: really bad audio quality will usually send me packing, as will a pile of unedited ramblings no matter how good the audio quality. Aside from that, though, it takes time to listen to a podcast and decide whether I want to hear more. With that in mind, I put together this tasting menu from 2013, to give new listeners an idea of what Eat This Podcast is about.

So, what is it about? I’m not exactly sure. Looking at the world through a food lens, I sometimes say. As I was putting this selection together, though, some other themes emerged. I’m not really ready to share those in detail, but they might colour my selection of topics in the future. I should add, too, that I welcome any and all suggestions.

If you’ve been listening since episode 1, you have my permission to ignore this one. Or you could share it with someone who isn’t yet a listener. That would be good. And here’s to 2014.

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Apologies for the delay in publishing this podcast. One of the joys of not being tied to “proper” radio is the freedom to give a story the length it deserves. The downside is that nobody is cracking the whip to whip things into shape on time, so that sometimes, even with the best will in the world, the schedule slips. Maybe if this were my day job …

Bread, yoghurt, pickles: I do love my domestic microbiology. So does Ken Albala, of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. His enthusiasm outstrips mine, though, not least because he probably has more space for his experiments. One manifestation of that enthusiasm is a Facebook group dedicated to The Cult of Pre-Pasteurian Preservation and Food Preparation. For Ken, sterilising fermented food is a no-no. Who better, then, to explain how it is that “pickled” has come to mean “boiled in vinegar” rather than “naturally fermented”.

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Of course, the whole business of home fermentation has reached fever pitch, manifested by the pickle trend being the number one sketch on a trendy comedy series. Let us not, however, throw the baby out with the brinewater. It really is remarkably easy, and if you want to start, there are endless reams of advice on the internet. Just ignore anything that suggests you boil the proceeds. Emboldened by Ken, I do plan to try sausages some time in the New Year.

Notes

1. If you’re on Facebook, do check out Ken Albala’s Cult.
2. The current main man on fermentation is Sandor Katz; here’s what he has to say on facultative anaerobes (i.e. Lactobacillus species) versus obligate anaerobes such as Clostridium botulinum, and why you really have nothing to fear.
3. Katz also did a great interview with NPR’s Fresh Air.

Engage

One week jam, the next global hunger and malnutrition. That’s the joy of Eat This Podcast; I get to present what interests me, in the hope that it interests you too. It also means I sometimes get to talk to my friends about how they see the big picture around food. Dr Jessica Fanzo, Assistant Professor of Nutrition at Columbia University’s Insitute of Human Nutrition, Special Advisor on Nutrition Policy at the Earth Institute’s Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development, also at Columbia, and much else besides, is one such friend. She was in Rome recently for a preparatory meeting for a big UN conference on nutrition next year, so I took the opportunity to catch up, and to ask some very basic questions about global hunger.

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I confess, I have very little time for the global talk shops that meet so that, somehow, magically, the poor can eat. And having attended a few, there does seem to be a dearth of people who have studied malnutrition and hunger first hand, and made a difference. Jess Fanzo has been promoting the idea of nutrition-sensitive agriculture as a way to make a difference locally, while recognizing that there can be no simple, global solutions. You have to see what works in one place, and then adapt it to your own circumstances. There are no simple global solutions. The primary point – that governments have some responsibility for ensuring that their citizens at least have the opportunity to be well-nourished – seems often to be lost in the din of governments talking about other things. And interfering busybodies declaring war on hunger don’t seem to have much luck either. I don’t have any solutions.

Notes

1. Check out Dr Fanzo’s credentials at the Institute of Human Nutrition and the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development.
2. She was also the first winner of the Premio Daniel Carasso; there’s a video about that too.
3. She’s written about her fieldwork and how it informs her global view. (And, as an aside, how come big-shot bloggers don’t care about spam? Come on, people. Your negligence makes life worse for everybody.)
4. The Integration of Nutrition into Extension and Advisory Services: A Synthesis of Experiences, Lessons, and Recommendations reports on ways to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture. And the research extends to social media.
5. The paper I mentioned, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, is Comparative impact of climatic and nonclimatic factors on global terrestrial carbon and water cycles.
6. Photo of Jess Fanzo in Timor Leste by Nick Appleby.

Engage

What is jam? “A preserve made from whole fruit boiled to a pulp with sugar.” Lots of opportunities to quibble with that, most especially, if you’re planning to sell the stuff in the UK and label it “jam,” the precise amount of sugar. More than 60% and you’re fine calling it jam. Less than 50% and you need to call it reduced-sugar jam. Lower still, and it becomes a fruit spread. All that is about to change though, thanks to a UK Goverment regulation that will allow products with less than 60% sugar to be labelled jam.

There’s nothing like a threat to the traditional British way of life to motivate the masses, although as an expat, I had no idea of the kerfuffle this had raised until I read about it on the website of the Campaign for Real Farming.

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Changing the rules for what is labelled jam may seem like a tempest on a teacake, but it is symptomatic of the growing distance between what were once simple methods of food processing – in this case to preserve it – and the industrial version of a similar product. And making jam at home isn’t that hard.

There is, though, the problem of getting it to set properly. I had a little read to remind myself of what Vivien Lloyd called the magic of pectin, and it isn’t simple. Pectin is a long string of a molecule, present in the glue that cements cell walls together. Some fruits have loads of it, others less. The long strings bind together and form a mesh that traps any liquid inside the spaces between the pectin molecules, but they bind together only under specialised conditions. Acid reduces the tendency for pectin molecules to repel one another, while sugar attracts water, and so allows the pectin molecules to come together. And fruits supply acid and and sugar. “Sounds like a cinch,” says Harold McGee …

“But as anyone who has tried knows, it’s anything but a cinch. Making preserves is a tricky business because the necessary balance between pectin, acid, and sugar is a very delicate one. Food scientists have found that a pH between 2.8 and 3.4, a pectin concentration of 0.5 to 1.0%, and a sugar concentration of 60 to 65% are generally optimal, but you would have to be cooking in a well-equipped laboratory to measure the first two condition (sugar content is easily measure by boiling point).”

That’s one reason I asked Vivien Lloyd to share her recipe for raspberry jam, which she kindly did. Download the recipe for Raspberry and Vanilla Jam.

Notes

1. More science of pectin.
2. Photo of Vivien Lloyd by Robert Walster.
3. Music – in and out – was, of course, Strawberry Jam, by Michelle Shocked. And no, I don’t understand what she’s been saying lately; this is not an endoresement of any kind, it is just good music.
4. I make good jam.