Eat This Podcast

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.

When you’re on holiday, or just away from home, do you seek out the “authentic” local food, or look for a reassuringly familar logo? Backpackers, keen to distinguish themselves from the vulgar hordes who are merely on holiday, seek out the authentic, at least to begin with. Dr Emily Falconer has been studying women backpackers. That’s her in the photo, doing a little field research over a bowl of something exotic in Thailand. And she says that while they start out seeking the grottiest places to eat, after they’ve been on the road for a while, their thoughts stray guiltily to familiar, comforting foods. I know the feeling

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Emily Falconer didn’t set out to study backpackers and food, but soon discovered that no matter what the subject, the people she was talking to sooner or later brought up food. I’m no exception, and although I’ve never been a great backpacker myself, I do prefer to seek out reasonably local eating places where I can, and I’ve had some memorable meals as a result. The most memorable of those was in Kunming, China, where I detached myself from the group I was with and went in search of something to eat. I didn’t find it at the food fair that was on at the same time, but in the end I fetched up in a place so authentic it didn’t even have photographs of the food. I indicated to the waiter that I was hungry and he brought me food. I had no idea what any of it was, and aside from one soupy dish that was almost too hot even for me, it was all delicious. Next time I might take with me a book, this book.

Notes

1. Emily Falconer is a senior research assistant at the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research at London South Bank University.
2. Her paper is Transformations of the backpacking food tourist: Emotions and conflicts.
3. She also mentioned Food in tourism: Attraction and Impediment, by Erik Cohen and Nir Avieli.
4. Intro music, as ever, by Dan-O at DanoSongs.com.
5. While Jimmy Buffet – and how appropriate is that? – provided the outro music.

The Guadalupe River that flows through Texas used to be known as The River of Nuts, a fact that Wikipedia does not confirm. The nut in question is the pecan, Carya illinoinensis, and the pecan tree is the state tree of Texas. The groves of wild pecans that lined the rivers of Texas are, however, threatened by the very popularity of the nuts they bear, and in particular by the fickle global nut market. The Chinese, you see, have gone nuts for pecans, increasing their purchase of American pecans from 3–4% in 2006 to 30–40% today. And if they abandon the pecan as quickly as they took it up, the wild pecan groves might be abandoned too. All this, and much more, I learned from James McWilliams, professor of history at Texas State University. His new book is one of those delights that looks at the global sweep of human endeavour through a little lens, in this case the pecan.

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Why it was the Chinese, rather than the French, the English or some other country, that chose to absorb the pecan surplus, I guess we’ll never know. McWilliams told me that Chinese people he spoke to believe the nuts prolong life; irrational as that may seem, no American grower is going to say they don’t. And while the high prices are good news for growers, they’re not so good for people who want pecan-containing industrial food.

Notes

1. James McWilliams’ book is The Pecan: a history of America’s native nut. There’s an extract in Texas Monthly online.
2. iTunes artwork photo by Melanie McDermott
3. Outro music Pecan Pie by Golden Smog.