Anatomy of Food

As promised, I said I would occasionally post up my #anatomyoffood projects here. Here’s what I did in 2021:

I’d like to start off strong with an excellent source of vitamin A, D phosphorus, and calcium, the chicken egg!
The shell is semipermeable and made of calcium carbonate while the inner and outer membranes protect the egg from bacteria. The size of the air cell is a good indicator of how old the egg is (larger = older egg) while the albumen (egg white) contains 40 different proteins. The chalazae and vitelline hold the yolk in place and if they are prominent and strong, it means the egg is fresher. The yolk is where most of the egg’s nutrition lies. You’ll find your vitamins and minerals and most of your protein in there.

Technically a fruit due to its seed-bearing, pumpkin is globally beloved. Our jack-o-lanterns stem from Irish folklore that actually involved a turnip-headed creature, but we took our native pumpkin and made it the star of the show. Everywhere from the Middle & Far East to our neighbor, Mexico has their pumpkin recipes. A local farmer gave me a bunch of pie pumpkins a few months ago and I went through the process of making puree for pumpkin pie, I now know the canned stuff has nothing on making it fresh!

It’s easy to forget that in one slurp you’ve consumed a whole live organism with a heart, spinal cord, circulatory system and digestive tract. In some way, I think this is what makes them so good and even energizing. They are also a rich source of protein, omega 3s, zinc, vitamins D and B12. Oysters weren’t always the pricey item on the appetizer menu. In the 19th century, working class New Yorkers regularly shucked and slurped down raw oysters. The oyster beds of New York Harbor became the largest source of oysters worldwide at the time. Oysters play a vital role in ecosystems for its been shown that along with filtering out plankton to feed on they also can filter out nitrates, ammonia and bacteria, greatly improving water quality.
We’ve been breeding them for a long time. Ancient Romans were collecting oysters from their shallow water reefs. One Roman, Sergius Orata was said to have perfected oyster cultivation so well that they use to say he could breed oysters on the roof of this house.

“Be sure to send me every year two cartloads of such cheeses” this is what Frankish Emperor Charlemagne purportedly said in 774 CE after ditching the rind and eating a bunch #brie paste. Over 1,000 years old, this cheese is named after an area within the Seine-et-Marne region just south of Paris.

Brie is traditionally made with raw cow’s milk. The curd is made by adding rennet to the milk and warming it to 98.6 degrees (at max) The soft cheese is cast into round molds and left to drain for almost a day. The cheese is then taken out of it’s mold and then sprayed with some bacterial cultures which eventually form the rind around the paste after 4-6 weeks of aging in a cool area.

The most well-known bries are the Brie de Meaux & Brie de Melum. Both are raw and have a protected destination of origin status. They say King Louis XVI’s arrest during the revolution can be blamed on him being preoccupied as he snacked on his brie. The Brie de Meaux was later dubbed “The King of Cheeses” after a European-wide contest with over 50 cheeses at Congress of Vienna in 1815.

It’s rich creaminess and mild flavor is a reliable warm hug IMO. Do take note the creamline. If there is a lot of semi-liquidness and you smell ammonia, your brie cheese is probably too old. Brie can be enjoyed simply, alongside fresh fruit or spread on crackers. A quick and fool-proof party pleaser is drizzling honey and sliced almonds on top and baking the wheel in the oven for a few minutes. For awhile late last year I had a bit of a “Baked Brie en Croûte” phase where before you bake it you wrap it in puff pastry dough.

Often associated with light, due to it’s lamp lighting abilities, the olive is one of the most cherished and celebrated foods of our human history. #Olives have been cultivated for over 6,000 years. When the Judeo-Christian God forgave his people, he sent Noah an olive branch via a dove. The Egyptians and Greeks believed #oliveoil to be sacred and used it in their religious ceremonies, and crowned the early olympians with olive branches.

The Romans cultivated and used olive oil so much, that In south Rome there is a curious little hill just east of the Tiber river. The hill is what remains of an ancient Roman dumping ground. Monte Testaccio is made entirely of broken amphorae or clay vessels used to hold olive oil.

Olives are a rich source of fat, particularly monounsaturated fat. They are often too bitter to be eaten raw due a compound called oleuropein. Olives are traditionally prepared by curing them in lye, water or salt and sometimes fermented. After being crushed and pressed the green sometimes golden oil can be separated and filtered and enjoyed for cooking, medicine and cosmetics. Extra virgin olive oil is considered the best because of it’s low free acidity and because of it’s “unadulterated” grassy, peppery flavor and fruity aroma. EVO is produced using little to no heat, hence why you may see “cold-pressed” on the label.

In recent years more and more consumers are becoming more aware of oil “cutting” where imported oils are cut with lower grade oils. I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago and started strictly buying California Olive Oil with COOC seal (California Olive Oil Council) which means it’s 100% Californian olive oil. While California is pretty local for me here in Texas, I wanted to see if I could find something even more local. Turns out the there is @txhillcountryoliveoil right down the street from where we happen to be staying. We’ve taken a mill tour and tasting, and it’s been great to learn more about this remarkable fruit and it’s oil. There is something very enjoyable about visiting the place where your food products get made. Especially if it’s makers are committed to quality.

The artichoke (Cynara Cardunculus) is treasured around the the world, but it might not be a straightforward plant to eat if your only experience with them is the spinach-artichoke dip at Applebees.🙋🏻‍♀️ The edible portion is actually at the base of the globe, referred to as the “heart”, which is covered by the inedible “choke.” This is covered by bracts, a type of leaf, which if cooked, their base is also edible, along with the stem.

Native to the Mediterranean region, The English word artichoke is derived by the sixteenth century northern Italian word “articiocco” (now known as “carciofo”) but the word can also be traced back through the Arabic and Hebrew languages. The plant has ancient origins, and is mentioned by Homer, Hesiod and Pliny the Elder.
Italy embraces the artichoke in it’s cooking, particularly in Rome, where “Carciofi alla giudia” or “jewish-style artichokes” is a common dish. The artichokes are deep-fried in olive oil with salt and pepper. While in Spain the artichoke is sprinkled with olive oil and left on hot ashes in a barbecue. In North Africa, they stuff the artichoke heart with ground lamb.

If you are an artichoke newbie like me, I suggest starting by just steaming them with some lemon and garlic, they are delicious even prepared this simple way. 🍋🧄 #anatomyoffood

Yes, its true- the #tomato is a fruit. It is the berry of the Solanum lycopersicum plant- despite the 1893 U.S. Supreme Court ruling classifying as a #vegetable, preventing producers from avoiding a tariff on vegetables.
The word tomato derives from the The Nahuatl word “tomatl.” Nahuatl is one of the languages of the Central American, Aztec people.

When the Spanish brought back the fruit from the “New World” Europeans did not immediately fall in love with the “pomp di oro” (golden apples). Wealthy Spanish and Italian aristocrats grew them in their gardens as beautiful ornaments. Like the potato, there was was initial hesitation to eating them because the plant itself looked like the Deadly Nightshade plant, whose leaves were know to be toxic. Some theories also point to the use of pewter in dish-ware. When pewter is exposed to acid, it leaches lead which caused lead poisoning. At the time, the “wolf peaches” got the blame. Tomatoes did not really appear in #italiancuisine until the late the 1800s as a new unified Italy said goodbye to millions of immigrants who came to the U.S. who further adopted the tomato into their cooking.

But despite the bumpy start, tomatoes have been embraced by cuisines all over the world. The ripe tomato’s sweet yet savory taste activates the taste receptors that respond to glutamates and nucleotides that are present in foods with umami flavor. Tomato paste and sauce is made from prolonged cooking of the mesocarp and placenta, while the exocarp and seeds are filtered out. In Sicily, they use the sun to dry out the sauce and let it thicken and dry on wooden boards. They are truly orbs of sunshine!