Kitchen Disaster Stories from my Youth
During high school and college I worked a slew of restaurant jobs as either a prep cook, a dishwasher or a waiter, and in virtually each of these jobs some horrible disaster befell me. These experiences prepared me for running my own food business where being able to deflect unexpected setbacks with aplomb is a critical skill. It also taught me to deal with crazy people. Most chefs and restaurant owners are nuts. These are just two of many nutty but true stories I have.
Kitchen Disaster 1 – Nantucket 1981
Ever since I was a newborn my parents and my younger brother would vacation on Nantucket every August. I remember as a small boy the island in the late 1960s and early 1970s full of rambling moors studded with wild blueberry bushes we would gather fruit from by the grocery bag full. On Wednesday mornings pickup trucks would back up to the sidewalk of Main Street loaded with flowers and produce from the farms on the island. It was quiet, non-pretentious and everyone knew everyone else if not intimately then by sight. Mr. Rogers was a summer resident and would attend chamber music concerts (with his sidekick the Chef) and once I saw him cross Main Street with a large jar of jam he dropped mid street and spent considerable time picking up every tiny shard of glass. And yes, he was wearing his sneakers and cardigan sweater. Grocery stores in those days took credit and you could pay them off monthly. In the early 1980s friends and I would spend the entire day at beaches only accessed by four wheel vehicles lounging in the sun and surfing. I remember a bunch of teenagers my age would pull up on the beach an old milk truck, roll up the back door and sell cucumber sandwiches they made right in the back. Around this time the island became a popular tourist destination and slowly was mobbed with crowds of day trippers which have choked the island of most of its charms. Today the moors that held the ashes of my sister have been plowed over and hideous new homes erected as horrible substitutions of its wild landscape I loved as a kid.
My first job ever was when I was 14 in 1981 and wanted to stay longer on Nantucket after my family left for the mainland. I convinced my parents to let me stay with my friend John when his mom said I could rent a tiny cottage on the property and she would look after me. My parents were reluctant at first since this was the first time I had ever been out of their supervision but caved into my persistence. The one caveat is I needed a job to support myself and convince my parents I could be independent. Before I asked them if I could stay, I started to hunt for a job. Rumor around the island among the kids my age was there were a ton of jobs at a popular seafood restaurant that shall remain nameless since it still exists today. The owner had taken over control of the restaurant from his parents who ran it for decades. Apparently he had just been released from a mental hospital and had remodeled it so it was the most chic casual eatery downtown. I am not exactly sure if the mental institution side of the story is true but after what I tell you I think it has some credibility. I didn’t have a social security number so I had to apply for one when I was given the job as a waiter by the owner who for privacy reasons I will call Steve. Everyone hired was new. The prior wait and bus staff had been fired by Steve. How did it happen? He ran out of the kitchen in the middle of lunch rush hour into the dining area and screamed at the top of his lungs that everyone was fired and had to get out immediately. So based on this information (one of our friends had been in this banished crew) all us new hires were a little fearful to take on employment.
My first day on the job started horribly. The first table to sit down for breakfast ordered coffee. I went and grabbed the coffee pot off the warmer and returned to the table and served the man of the family first who was holding out his cup for me over his lap. I tilted the full coffee pot (the Bunn glass type) but nothing came out. I kept tilting and tilting it more and more as everyone at the table stared in disbelief why no coffee was coming out. With the pot nearly upside down all of a sudden the entire contents gushed out in an explosion straight into his lap. I immediately grabbed a napkin and tried to blot it up but he pushed me away screaming at the top of his lungs and ran to the restroom. I was sure Steve was going to run out and fire me, but nothing happened. I rushed back to the coffee warmer near the cash register and the cashier and her friend, who worked in the kitchen, were laughing their heads off. “What happened?” I screamed in distress. “Oh, no one told you about this?” the cashier said as she lifted out a small clear glass cup that was sitting completely flush in the top of the coffee pot and was virtually invisible. “We do this to keep the coffee warm.” Luckily the guy wasn’t burned and the rest of the meal went fine. They laughed it off after I explained it was my first day and what happened. I even got a tip – my first tip.
Steve was a really strange man. He wore the outfit of a bus boy with one of those paper almond-shaped disposable hats. His clothes were always rumpled since he slept in the basement on sacks of potatoes. He never left the restaurant! His hair was long and stringy and greasy as if he never took a shower. He chain smoked Now cigarettes and drank coffee constantly. From a considerable distance you could smell a strong storm of tobacco and black coffee emanating from his soul. Given his daily outbursts everyone walked on egg shells around him.
Then one day it happened – everyone was fired en masse. I cannot remember the context, but Steve ran from the kitchen screaming everyone was fired. This was in the middle of a weekend brunch when the restaurant was packed and there was a line out the door. “Out! Out! Out!,” he yelled hysterically – you’re all fired!” All the waiters and bus boys were stunned and just froze. “You heard me!” he screamed waving his arms shooing us toward the door, “Out! Out! Out!” Then he turned as we started to walk out and pointed to me “Except you! You stay here!” I was in disbelief and pointed to myself, “You mean me?” “Yes you!” All the diners were hushed and probably were in shock or too terrified to get up and leave. The fired employees all filed out saying goodbye to me and wishing me luck. The room was dead quiet and everyone was staring at me and Steve who walked up and handed me an order form. “You take orders and I serve,” he said. And thus for the next several hours the two of us ran everything until the dinner staff showed up.
Somehow he liked me for some reason. I even got a pat on the shoulder after I chased a large group of old lady day trippers out of the restaurant with a steak knife. Clearly the high pressure atmosphere of this job was rubbing off on me. It didn’t help the cook was a coke addict and was constantly having melt downs over messed up orders since half the wait staff was on MDMA or at least I think so. One kid my age told me during a quick break out on the sidewalk (Steve was really cheap and the only food we could eat was the oyster crackers we had to sneak) how he loved everyone in the world due to some drug he took. “What is it I asked?” “MDMA,” he said. I never had heard of it and was too scared to try it. But who knows maybe I should have taken some that day.
Yes, it was a busy day and I was working as host. A waitress came up to me with tears in her eyes about her table of around 8 polyester-clad old lady day trippers who was threatening to walk out because they had been waiting too long. Long waits were de rigueur at this place and all people when seated were told about this. The policy of the restaurant was if diners walked the waiter or waitress would pay for the meal out of pocket. Given the large party and all the food they had ordered this was an expensive tab. I waded through the crowded dining room to her table. All the old ladies were standing up in matching white and yellow polyester pant suits and starting to walk away from the table. I reassured them the food would be right out. They were fed up and were adamant on leaving. Just at that moment their food had arrived, but still they were fed up and started toward the door. Finally I could take it no longer and grabbed a steak knife off the table and screamed at the top of my lungs, “We don’t want you here! Get out! Get out or who knows what I will do to you!” They all screamed in a panic throwing their hands up in the air and rushed toward the door almost falling over each other. I continued in pursuit until they were out on the sidewalk and I launched into a tirade about how people like them were ruining the island. I still had the knife in my hand! When I finally was silent a round of applause erupted. Standing around the terrified grannies was a large crowd who had gathered. Apparently they liked what I had to say. The women ran off toward the dock screaming they were taking the next boat to Hyannis and would never come back.
Later I moved to the kitchen where I did all the prep work – mostly mincing garlic for hours on end. Steve turned to me one day as I was chopping away and staring intently asked “How can you live with yourself?” I had no idea what he was talking about and just shrugged and resumed chopping. When it was time for me to leave the island that summer he handed me a $100 dollar bill and told me he couldn’t find any Now cigarettes on the island and wanted me to buy as much as I could and mail them to him from the mainland.
Yes, in 1981 an adult could easily expect a 14-year-old kid to buy cigarettes for them. Heck I smoked in those days now and then as did everyone else my age so it didn’t seem that strange since most of the time I could buy them without any trouble. Today it is criminal for good reason. When I got home I too couldn’t find his brand of cigarettes after scouring a few Cumberland Farms and 7-Elevens and called him up with the bad news. He said it was OK and I could keep the money. He wasn’t that bad of a guy after all and for all I know is still running that restaurant.
Disaster 2
One summer during high school I got a job working in a corporate cafeteria with the express title as being the salad bar prep. All day I would chop vegetables and put them in maroon plastic cylindrical containers that I would put on a large wheeled trolley and push out to the very 80s peach and brown hued dining room with too much gold chrome and glass. I worked with two older women who seemed to have been there forever. They were very proud of what they did and how they did it – slowly! They were always telling me to slow down. Of course I had the magnificent job of slicing onions. Hours and hours of slicing while they got to do the easy tomatoes and green peppers. I learned that after a while the tears and eye irritation of chopping onions goes away. This is why today I am so well prepared to make our bread and butter pickles when it comes to slicing the onions! Then one day I discovered a large industrial food processor on the opposite side of the kitchen and brought my sack of onions and proceeded to slice them in about 15 minutes. Normally this would have taken me an hour or so. When I returned with the massive tub of diced onions the ladies were astonished. “How did you do that so fast?” they exclaimed in shock. “The food processor back there,” I said pointing to my new best friend. “Oh no!” they cried. “You cannot use that! You have to do it slowly like us using a knife!” But since they were not my boss they had no control over this, and each day I would chop all my ingredients with the processor making the old ladies look very lazy and stupid.
My boss, the chef in the kitchen simply loved me. Due to my new found free time, he pulled me over one day and said I could help him out. Standing in front of two large deep fryers next to each other, he said I could make fried tortilla cups. He took a tortilla out of a bag, placed it flat on the surface of the bubbling hot oil, and then with a large ladle, he pushed down with the bottom of it onto the tortilla and partially submerging it in the oil so it would form a cup shape. “You have to be very careful,” he said with the utmost seriousness. “This oil is so hot it will melt your hand. Don’t get even a speck of it on you!” He stood by and watched me make about a dozen and walked away content I was OK to be by myself. About five minutes into making my tortilla cups, I was holding the ladle down in the oil cooking a tortilla when I felt a hot stinging sensation on the hand holding the ladle. I thought some oil had splashed on my hand and instinctively jerked my hand away, pulling the ladle filled with hot oil out suddenly and somehow a wave of oil swooned up out of the deep fryer and splashed onto my entire hand. It was the most painful sensation I had ever felt, and with images of it melting my hand into nothing, in a panic I turned around and stuck my hand into a sink filled with water immediately behind me. I must have had my hand in there for about 30 seconds when someone from the kitchen rushed up and pulled my hand out screaming “that’s boiling hot water!” Yes, the grease on my hand was so hot, even boiling water felt cool.
Then I looked at my hand being held in this other man’s hand. We both looked at my hand. It was bright red and two massive blisters the size of large concord grapes were on each my pinky and ring finger. I was rushed to the medical office in the building where I was told to lie down on an examining table. They turned off the light and told me to wait. The sensation was so insanely painful I had to fight back screaming. A doctor or nurse came in and applied some kind of cream and wrapped it up and told me to call home. I insisted I could drive myself and they let me go. When I went to see my doctor he told me I had second degree burns. I cannot even imagine what third degree burns must be like. I had two tiny burns on my hand and the pain was unbearable. People who get burned over their entire bodies – well I know why they usually die. It must be from the pain more than anything. I ended up going back to work after a week and trust me, to this day I never have nor will get near a deep fryer of any sort – even a skillet at home.
But the worst thing that happened to me at this cafeteria had yet to befall me. Since I was the salad prep guy, I had to load up the trolley with not only gallons and gallons of chopped beets, carrots, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli etc. but also about 20 half gallon containers of salad dressing. The dressing came in big plastic bottles and the first time I read the ingredients I was so grossed out. To this day I never eat prepared salad dressing. It is full of garbage. So, each day I would wheel out a trolley of the veggies and a separate trolley of just the dressing, set it up in the huge salad bar filling ice around the buckets of veggies and dressing and then putting decorative parsley and lettuce leafs to cover up the ice. And after the lunch rush hour, I would pack it all up and wheel it back to the kitchen and put it in the cooler.
One day I was pushing the trolley filled with the salad dressing back to the kitchen. There was a tiny kitchen where cooks stood at the ready and made on site some food for the diners. It was open to the cafeteria and that was the only way to get into the large prep kitchen where most of the food was made. It was just big enough for four cooks to work in side by side back to back and just big enough to fit my trolly. So I opened the door to this little kitchen space as usual and pushed my trolley past the door but it didn’t budge. Since I had done this before I had no idea what was the matter. I pushed harder and it still didn’t move. I looked down and there was a little lip where the tiles of the kitchen floor were higher than the floor of the dining area. So I gave the trolley a harder push and all of a sudden it must have been top heavy because the entire cart tipped over and crashed down into the kitchen, causing a massive explosion of salad dressing that literally coated every square inch of the floor, walls, stoves, ceiling – everything! I was stunned and just stood there in shock. People ran up and just stared. Blue cheese, thousand island, and Italian dressing dripped from the ceiling and flowed like lava out onto the dining room floor past my feet. “What happened?” someone asked. “I don’t know!” I said as I shook my head, and pointed to the lip. “It somehow happened!” Everyone in the kitchen was super nice and helped me clean it up. It took hours. Following this whenever I pushed my trolleys back through this space this nice guy would help pull it up the lip from the opposite side as I pushed and we avoided this disaster. I worked there a few more weeks and then quit. I wanted to enjoy my summer. I had had enough stress already!
We drink wine with dinner and mostly what we buy is disappointing. Either it is too much new wood, too fruity or simply dull. I would say out of probably the hundreds of bottles we buy each year just a handful are worth remembering and rarely do we buy a second of the same wine.
It is not our goal to write about wine here and we probably never will again. However, now and then we get inspired by simple things and a wine we purchased by Pierre-Bise has proved a very drinkable yet substantial wine of rustic proportions with hints of delicacy.
The bottle we got was a Pierre-Bise Sur Schistes 2008 which we found at our Whole Foods in Noe Valley. It isn’t cheap at $16 but it isn’t expensive either for what you get. The grapes probably are Cabernet Franc which is the most popular red in this region. It is just good basic wine that isn’t overly fruity or overly woody. It seems to have a sense of place which is what the vineyard is famous for. It has an earthy quality we like.
Compare that for example to a 2006 vintage of Pinot from California’s Santa Barbara area we bought the same day. This offering that cost more than three times the price, was from a tiny production of a single vineyard of 200 cases and was simply undrinkable. We have purchased about 5 years ago a vintage from this vineyard we liked but maybe our tastes have changed or this year was different. It was full of super ripe fruit to a cloying degree. Tannins were there but meek. It was so bad a sauce reduction we make frequently using this wine was terrible. Drinking it was as painful as pulling a shard of glass out of your foot with a pair of tweezers while blindfolded. This is a good example of how for wine price means nothing. It also is pretty bad wine that can ruin a sauce. And it also illustrates why so much wine in California has a bad rap. While we love our native state too many winemakers go overboard.
Pierre-Bise makes many other wines we have yet to taste. They are located in the Anjou region of the lower Loire Valley not far from Nantes – where our beloved film director Jacques Demy (Bay of Angels, The Young Girls of Rochefort and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg grew up nearby. Note, the composer for these films was the super talented Michel Legrand, whose work we suggest you seek out.
Describing wine can be like a bad creative writing class on the day everyone has to read their poetry. Suffice to say, this is a powerful wine, a little rough around the edges in terms of tannins but with wonderful balance and complexity and after opening the bottle continues to evolve and tantalize.
For some information on the man behind the bottle, there are some good reference pages below. Apparently he is deeply committed to wines from specific regions and it would be interesting to try other offerings from this company.
In the world of cookware there are a range of cooking materials and some are faster to respond to heat (and taking them off heat) than others. What material is the Lamborghini of cookware? Today we will find out.
Years ago before we were professionals in the food business a bunch of pots and pans were purchased as a quick way to outfit the new kitchen in the house. All Clad was all the rage in those days and we got a big box full of different sizes at a good discount. Over the years we acquired more. They were easy to clean with the stainless steel lining which matched all the stainless in the kitchen (primary reason for purchase), but were supposed to be quick to heat up and free of hot spots due to the aluminum core. All the fancy cooking stores sold them and still do.
If you haven’t read our prior post about French pastry we can easily say we have been in a mini French food cycle. This was all started at the public library when we got some old Julia Child shows on DVD and were inspired again. While she cooked with some pretty cheap pans, she always pulled out a copper one as her preferred choice. Thus the copper pot obsession started along with acquiring some more obscure classic French cooking books.
The Saucier’s Apprentice: A Modern Guide to Classic French Sauces for the Home by Raymond A. Sokolov is one you should definitely have in your library since it is first off so funny and well written and second it harks back to the golden days of super reduced and complex sauces.
For making demi-glace you are supposed to splinter all the bones that go in the stock first to further extract flavor. When I asked a butcher at a very reputable meat market about splintering bones he said he had never heard of that. Of course he was in his 20s. I should have asked someone older.
We are going to check out other books by Sokolov, especially his book Fading Feast written in the early 1980s about disappearing regional American foods.
Anyhow, I began to spend my free time looking up used copper pots on ebay. I had heard horrible things about them with the tin lining always coming off and how insanely expensive they were. I also thought the copper finish was very dated and clashed with all the stainless in our kitchen. Yes primarily it was an aesthetic issue. But the more I read about them and thought about them the more I wanted one to play with. Were they really that good?
For those of you not initiated with the virtues of copper, it is supposed to be the best conductor of heat over iron or stainless steel or aluminum. It heats up fast, and when you reduce the heat, it cools faster giving you more control. Now, copper needs to be lined with something if you put anything acidic in it since it will cause a chemical reaction and not only tarnish the surface but can impart a flavor to the food. Tin has traditionally been used because it is an excellent conductor of heat and has non-stick properties. However, the melting point of tin is around 450 degrees and while that is very hot, pans left empty on the burner can cause the tin to bubble and melt. I have been told it is the best cooking material but the least forgiving. Also, getting a pan re-tinned can be expensive. Two good companies for doing this is East Coast Tinning and Atlantic Retinning.
Copper can be lined with stainless steel, but stainless is not a good conductor of heat. It is used for its amazing strength and anti-corrosive properties. If you get copper you must get tin. So I sprung for a small sauce pan made of 2 mm thick copper (you can get 2.5, 3, 4 etc.) by the budget copper pot company in France – Baumalu (no website).
I figured why spend money on an expensive Mauviel or Bourgeat pan and be disappointed. The thicker the copper the better but also it can be so heavy you cannot lift the pan. Which brings me to the other importance of material – weight. Aluminum is used in almost all restaurants because it is light weight and cheap. If you are tossing sauteed onions all day you don’t want a pan that weights as much as a small cow. Copper is not as heavy as cast iron but it is certainly more heavy than stainless or aluminum. That is a big drawback if you are working with it all day.
Now getting to the main point of this article. I began to wonder which cooking material really is the most responsive. So I did a simple little test that wasn’t entirely scientific since the pans were all not the same size or weight.
I put a cold pan on a cold gas burner, put a splash proof Thermapen instant read thermometer in the center of the bottom of the pan and waited until it read the ambient temperature along with the surface of the pan which was 62.5 F and recorded the temperature after 20 seconds of high heat. Note, this is a great kitchen tool!
The contenders:
All Clad Master Chef 9 inch skillet (aluminum with stainless steel lining)
Lodge cast iron 9 inch skillet
Baumalu 8 inch copper saute pan with tin lining
Revereware 8 inch saute pan (stainless steel with copper exterior bottom layer)
The results surprised me.
Here is the ranking and temperatures after 20 seconds of heat:
1. Revereware – 155 F
2. Baumalu – 145 F
3. All Clad – 112 F
4. Lodge – 106 F
The explanation of the Reverware coming in first is because it is such a thin layer of material. It is about 1/3 the thickness of any of the other pots. So the poor heat conductivity of the stainless steel is compensated by the ultra thin steel. I am not sure how much the copper plating on the bottom helps but it probably evens out the heat source. One big problem with using thin pans is they do not distribute heat evenly and can have hot spots that can burn. Want to boil a lot of water? Get a thin stainless steel pot. I didn’t do a pure aluminum pan so that might be faster if it is thin enough. There has been a raging debate about Alzheimer’s and aluminum so we stay away from it (all restaurants use them unfortunately).
The copper came in a close second and from experience I know the heat distribution is very even so this would be the best pan to use out of the four when you need rapid temperature control – such as making a Hollandaise sauce. All Clad started off slow to heat up but rapidly raised temperature toward the 15 second mark. The Lodge was slow and steady which is why it is so beloved for slow cooking and simmering. You would never want to make caramel sauce in an iron pot!
So those are the results of my test. I looked online and have yet to see any other similar road test of different cooking materials, so hopefully someone devotes more time and does a better more scientific test – America’s Test Kitchen hint hint. In the meantime I think I might be on the market for a new copper pot – tin lined of course and probably used to save money!
Of course if you have some extra cash, Four and Twenty offers simply the best selection of the finest copper. Look at the beautiful cider warmer above
I was a lucky kid who grew up eating French pâtisserie while my neighbors thought Twinkies and Ding Dongs were the finest desserts in the world. This was wholly the fault of my parents who were more international than the neighbors. My first birthday cake when I was two years old was baba au rhum which for years was my favorite. This is a small spongy yeast-based sweet cake soaked in a rum syrup and glazed with apricot jam. They are topped with whipped cream or fruit. No wonder why I absolutely love to drink rum straight.
Then there was the Queen of Sheba cake that supplanted the babas as my birthday treat. This is probably the precursor to flourless chocolate cakes that are so ubiquitous today and is super rich.
Yes, I am of a generation who’s mothers were housewives and who watched Julia Child in her early years. It also helped my dad was Swiss and demanded to have French cuisine and desserts seven days a week. Luckily there was a French bakery that was run by a husband and wife from France in Providence, R.I. that supplied a steady stream of treats. I can still smell that bare-bones, super utilitarian bakery now – rich with the scent of butter and sugar wafting from the ovens. My all time favorite was the barquette aux marrons or chestnut boats as we called them.
These are a boat-shaped pastry shell filled with an almond pastry cream and a chestnut pastry cream in two layers and then topped with a shiny chocolate glaze and topped down the center with a squiggled line of a flavored frosting. I think this ranks in my top five favorite sweets. It is virtually unknown in the U.S. Once when we were in Paris we spent a lot of time stopping into pastry shops looking for these. We found just one – near the Villa la Roche by Corbusier and run by the Corbusier Foundation.
Unfortunately it failed to live up to my memory in terms of taste but it was better than nothing!
My early years instilled in me a love of the unusual and let’s just say more complex flavors than my American friends were used to. Which brings me to today’s topic of why American desserts are so one dimensional at times. I was a food critic in the early 1990s and what astonished me was the sameness of desserts at restaurants. Even today nearly 20 years later little has changed. You still have some type of flourless chocolate cake, all kinds of basic fruit tarts and pies, home made ice creams etc. Yes, super basic stuff any child could whip up with little training. But what about the types of desserts that take at least a day, maybe three to complete? Ones that are filled with ingredients and steps that yield truly complex flavors and textures that simply cannot be rushed or whipped up the morning before dinner service? I mean how often do you have chocolate, chestnut and almond creams mixed with a buttery pastry shell made with roasted ground almonds? Apple pie no matter how good can never live up to this.
Simplicity of food is definitely important when you have access to the finest ingredients. Some of the most delicious meals I have eaten were very basic and I do love simple desserts such as brownies and cheese cake when done right. But somehow locked deep into my subconscious is a love of more complex dessert flavors and I wonder if restaurants and bakeries will ever return to the day of pâtisserie for dessert?
I think the primary reason for the decline of fine pâtisserie in American restaurants and bakeries is economic. It simply does not make sense to spend a few days making a dessert for customers who grew up loving pie and ice cream and would probably not order any weird French sounding dessert. A friend of mine told me he knew a woman who opened a French bakery in Berkeley in the 1980s and had to close it due to lack of demand. I have heard this over and over and over. On the flip side here in San Francisco in the late 1990s La Boulange Bakery opened up on Pine street and offered a few more sophisticated offerings but they are definitely a minority. I hate to say it but simple rustic fare can sometimes be an easy out – especially in the dessert world. I know this is a controversial statement and don’t get me wrong, I love simple fare, but at the same time complex desserts are a dying art and need to be preserved.
Recently I dusted off my mom’s old Gaston Lenôtre Desserts and Pastries cookbook.
As I kid I marveled at the pictures especially of the strawberry one!
I decided to first try the Rolled Brioche with Candied Fruit which has a very tantalizing photo:
I had no idea what I was in for. Three days later it was finished. I hardly could believe how many steps and days went into something that looked and sounded so basic. But the flavor was so deep and rich it was really worth it. After this venture I got to thinking about the dearth of such desserts on the food landscape in a retail sense.
A few days later there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about three books dealing with French pastry that had just come out. Was this maybe a sign of a sea change? I surely hope so.
Now if only my molds for making the pastry boats I ordered a month ago and are still back ordered would only arrive I could begin on the odyssey of trying to master barquette aux marrons.
About a year ago I was looking for a doughnut or biscuit cutter to help us make our favorite fruit cookies.
Essentially a rolling pin with metal die on them you can easily roll it over a sheet of dough and presto you got a lot of the same shapes stamped out. Some like the one above have wood handles for small operations, and others fit into machines that do all the work for you:
However, in the doughnut and biscuit world, there are just a few shapes, and I was looking for more variety. You can also buy a hand squeeze cookie press but they don’t work as efficiently as the rollers.
I decided to check into our favorite little shop run by our friend Judy called Cookin’ in SF. It is on Divisadero Street and is jam packed with every imaginable cooking utensil, pot, cookbook etc. imaginable. She is an amazing resource for information.
courtesy of Marie N.
As luck would have it as soon as I walked in the door and told her I was looking for a doughnut cutter, she said she had just picked up some strange contraption that might work for me. It was loaded in the back of her van and looked like some old-fashioned torture device. It was in pieces, and she said I could take it home and see if I could figure out how it worked.
Fifteen minutes later I was home and asked Phineas to help me carry it into the house. “What did you get this time?” he said with an air of exacerbation in his voice since he was just getting ready to go to work. It looked like it had been in a musty garage for 30 years.
So I disassembled it and scrubbed every nut, bolt and odd-looking part. Three hours later I reassembled it and presto – I had a cookie making machine which a search online revealed was the industry standard Kook-E- King!
These are called cookie depositors, because they form the cookie and deposit it on a bake sheet. They work the same as a hand cranked pasta maker works. You dump the dough into the hopper on top, and when you crank the handle, the two grooved rollers sitting on the bottom of the hopper push it through various shaped die you can attach. Lucky for me I got six different shapes, and decided on using the Easter egg.
There is a gear mechanism that stops the cranking after the cookie dough has pushed through the die to a certain thickness (the thickness you want your cookie to be) and a long wire slides along the bottom of the die cutting the cookies away. Gravity makes them fall onto a cookie pan you place under the machine. So I whipped up some cookie dough and after some adjusting got it working. Basically you put the pan under the machine and start cranking, Four cookies will fall neatly onto the pan, and then you slide it forward a bit and four more. You can put about 50 lbs of dough in the hopper, so you can make a lot of cookies! Here is a video of how it works.
These machines were designed for small neighborhood bakeries and the number of die they made for different sizes and shapes for cookies is dizzying.
Of course for people with more money or bigger operations, you can get an automated machine such as this.
Now for the bad news. Our Kook-E-King is sitting disassembled in our commercial kitchen waiting for the day for our oven to get hooked up. We do lots of baking daily at home and the baking phase of the business is on hold until we can get the bakery portion of our facility up and running. We need to run about 100 feet of gas line into our unit and then have the utility company install a meter. Three years ago we bought a Gemini rack oven
and a 60 quart Hobart mixer.
Some day it will all be up and running and then the Kook-E-King will be cranking out cookies.
I had a eureka moment a week ago that hand-cranked coffee grinders (the correct term is mill) have been around much longer than the electric models we are used to.
So I decided to dive into the past and give them a spin. No pun intended.
Of course I had to get a vintage one since this is all about getting in touch with the olden days of cranking for coffee. I snagged a used one from the 1950s in virtually new condition made by the Italian company B.G.
When I opened the box it came it I could hardly believe how small it was!
It is designed for grinding enough beans for one cup of coffee at most. Basically you pivot the top lid open and add some beans, close it up and start cranking. The beans fall into a cute little scooper/drawer you pull out when you are done.
After some trial an error I figured out how to adjust the grind size. You start by removing the top nut on the handle crank and a locking pin, you then spin the handle up or down the crank shaft (which moves the grinding burrs so there is more or less space for the beans to pass through) and then you reinsert the pin into a notched wheel or washer, and fasten the bolt on top. The higher up on the shaft, the finer the grind, and the lower the bigger it is.
It took some time but I managed to get the right grind for my vacuum coffee brewer.
These type machines are burr grinders which are all the rage these days because unlike blades that thrash around the beans and make them hot from all the friction, burr grinders crush the beans instead of chopping them, and they don’t heat them up as much.
Heating up the beans before brewing them affects the flavor. Burr-style mills have been around a long time, and pepper grinders are essentially the same thing though smaller.
Inside you can see the burr grinding wheel which is probably made from carbon steel:
First off, these are not as easy to use as an electric, but the force required isn’t that much. The finer the grind, the more turns required and the more force. This particular grinder isn’t as consistent in grind for espresso, but it is perfect for French press or a vacuum. I bought it thinking it would be quiet, but it does make some noise, so don’t get one thinking it will be whisper quiet. It is quieter than electric models. The hardest part is trying to keep the cranking consistent. Every now and then a bit of a bean will slow you down and you have to apply more force to keep a steady cranking motion. I am getting more used to it and am beginning to enjoy this better than just pushing a button.
These old fashioned mills came in many styles, such as my tiny personal one, the flywheel listed below, and then wall mounted ones such as this vintage model:
Manual coffee mills are definitely off the food radar. You never read about them, let alone see them in kitchens or magazine spreads. But I bet they will have a resurgence given their long history.
If you want to buy a vintage one keep in mind the grinding components could be worn and parts impossible to find. It is better off getting a new one. There are several being manufactured today and based on some online reviews the general consensus is they are best for courser grinds. Forget about grinding espresso for your expensive machine. Some say to grind enough espresso for one shot takes 500 turns on one machine!
The appeal is the physical aspect of grinding your own coffee. It is fun and the machines look cool. They are also cheaper then electric machines.
Apparently the king of current production mills is by an Italian company called Tre Spade, and the style is the old fashioned flywheel crank, which apparently is very consistent with grind and easy to turn due to the large cranking wheel in relation to the small grinding gears. These cost around $300.
Then there are smaller ones like mine which from what I have read are also best for course grind coffee. Hario, the maker of the vacuum coffee brewer I use every morning makes this little baby for around $40 on Amazon:
And then similar to mine, is a lap model (you hold it between your knees for stability) by the well-respected German company Zassenhaus which makes many different styles. This one you can get for around $80.
Of course there has to be a society about coffee mills if you want to get very serious about them. If so, check out Association of Coffee Mill Enthusiasts, who focus only on American models.
Livingston & Adams, 9/25/1840, Patent number: 0001795
Thinking of building your own coffee mill? Well check out all the different patents. There are lots of great original patent drawings and diagrams. Amazing how many variations there are.
Left: Calvados made by a friend of a friend in France. Right: Peach liquor given to us by a girl who works at one of the farmers’ markets we do.
Do you know someone who is obsessed with making kimchee? Or maybe beef jerkey? A wine-loving uncle who makes his own supply that consumes all his free time? An aunt who spends all her free time baking and giving away the goods to various church functions?
When we started our jam making, it was purely a means to use up all the fruit from an old backyard Blenheim apricot tree we had. Never in those early days did it ever occur to us that it could become a full-fledged business.
There are so many people around the world who are intimately obsessed with some sort of food or alcohol production that is a sideline, seasonal, or simply (as in our case) necessary hobby.
And yet, if you make something that causes friends and strangers who taste your creation to swoon, the question always is: what next?
While there are some like us who have devoted tremendous time, money and resources into transforming a hobby into a profession, there are others who deliberately avoid this path.
For them, their secret passions are deliberately underground.
We will be focusing on the coming months on underground specialist producers. To meet the criteria, these people have to give away what they make and yet spend a significant amount of time and money on this passion. In terms of alcohol production, which if unregulated, is illegal, we will be very careful to shield their identities.
One of the interesting aspects of specialized food production is how these individuals found their calling. For many it is carrying on a family tradition, or perhaps learning a skill from a friend that somehow compelled them to master it.
If you know of someone who falls into the category of making a food or beverage with the utmost care and skill for perfection, and yet, they shun it as a money-making venture, or maybe they want to, drop us a line so we can profile them.
At the end of the day we want to learn more about the people and artisanal food and beverage products off the grid that is delicious, healthy and loved.
drop us a line: contact@welovejam.com
Food Additives. Why is Pectin in Jam? Citric acid? Why are some additives not listed?
Under the current FDA and USDA food labeling laws, certain additives have to be listed and some not depending on what is deemed safe levels and what are known allergens. There is a wide spectrum from safe additives such as say pectin or citric acid in jam to additives that have mixed opinions on their safety such as Senomyx, which can get away with just being called and “artificial flavor.”
In the world of jam, pectin and citric acid are the primary additives. They are quite harmless but the question is what are they doing in my jam? Neither are used to flavor the jam, but are used like other substances in food to preserve or cause the food the have a certain texture.
A million years ago. Ok. Let’s back up. Maybe a few hundred years ago someone threw some fruit in a pot, some sugar and tried to make jam. It turned out as runny and thin as water.
What is the secret to thicken jam? Pectin!
The same goes for making gravy. You just roasted that Thanksgiving turkey (sorry all you vegetarians!) and got all these drippings. What do you reach for to thicken it? Well, flour or arrowroot powder.
Pectin does the same thing. Of course we don’t know. We never have touched the stuff.
In the world of jam, pectin is everywhere. It is the easy way to make anything thick as a jello mold. This explains why when you are in the supermarket all the jams are so thick you can shake the jar and nothing moves inside. It is frozen. It is as thick as set concrete. You gotta cut it with a knife. A jack hammer. Yuck.
We have never used pectin since we are purists and try to add as little to our products as necessary.
Pectin is derived from other fruits – primarily the skin of apples and pears. It is a naturally-occurring element in some fruits that can be extracted. Pectin can be made from scratch or you can buy it in the store in powder form. Essentially, pectin does the same as flour to sauce. It thickens it. It is basically the same as gelatin, but is not derived from animals.
Pectin usually requires sugar to create the proper chemical reaction to thicken whatever it is added to. Citric acid is also an important element for this ‘chemical magic’ to happen. This explains why you see one or both ingredients listed on commercial jam.
Well, over here at welovejam.com we shun added thickeners. Even those you can make yourself. Why?
Go buy a bag of pectin in the store and taste the powder. Is this something you would sprinkle on your fresh fruit before serving it to company? Didn’t think so. Or what about citiric acid (lemon juice generally) would you spritz it on your ice cream? What we are trying to say is everything, just about everything you add has a taste, contributes to a texture or reaction to other ingredients. In essence, it alters the fruit you are using to make your jam. So when you see a strawberry jam that contains citric acid, it really should be called Strawberry Lemon jam. And if you were to take the citric acid out of the strawberry jam it would taste more like strawberries and not as tart. The addition of pectin and citric acid to thicken jams requires the addition of more sugar to compensate. Seems silly to us.
So why do so many people make jam with pectin?
First off, we only make jam from fruit that has natural pectin in it. Some fruits do not, and will turn into a watery mess. Try making grape jelly or jam without pectin and you will see what we mean. Stone fruits, some berries and some citrus have high concentrations of pectin. These are fruits that can gel or thicken naturally.
To further complicate matters, fruits in different stages of ripeness have different concentrations of pectin. To master the art of jam, only time and experience will teach you what to do.
So why are jams that have natural amounts of pectin still have pectin added? A common reason pectin is used for jam is virtually all jam made commercially is from frozen fruit. Have you even frozen a bag of fruit and then thawed it? What happens? It turns into a disgusting watery mess. Pectin is the answer, It can solve so many problems. I am being ironic now. But in truth, commercial jam makers simply cannot make jam from fresh fruit since the time it will last in the refrigerator is limited to a few weeks. That means a big company like the brands you see nationwide in the supermarket cannot make global volume in a few weeks. To solve the problem they buy frozen fruit and can make it 12 months out of the year. The downside? Have you ever tasted supermarket jam compared to home made jam from fresh fruit?
When you freeze fruit, whether it be a slow freeze like you do in your home freezer, or a commercially fast freeze like they do so you can get your organic blueberries in December in the frozen fruit section of the supermarket, the fruit when it thaws is dramatically different than fresh fruit. On the molecular level, all fruit when frozen causes the cells of the fruit explode. Water expands when you freeze it. So when you freeze fruit, the water in the cells expands and breaks the walls of the cells. What was once a coherent structure, say a blueberry that was once nice and firm, after freezing it and then thawing it, becomes soft. There are some flash freeze techniques called IQF that don’t cause as much damage to fruit, but still, freezing anything causes a change in flavor and texture.
This molecular murder wrecks havoc on flavor as well. While some things like bread and leftovers can be frozen and thawed, they had the advantage of already being cooked, and having their molecular structure changed. When you deal with fresh fruit, once it is tampered with, either by freezing or cooking, it has been altered. The more you tinker with it the more the flavor changes. So using frozen fruit and than heating it to make jam, has twice removed it from its natural state.
Now we don’t want to give the frozen fruit business a bad rap. All over the world, frozen fruit is critical to supplying people healthy fruit they normally could not get fresh. It also is a huge advantage to farmers who sometimes cannot sell all their fresh fruit, and don’t want to deal with the short period of time fruit can remain in refrigeration. One of the industries that most benefits from freezing is cherry growers.
Cherries we all know have pits and on a commercial scale once you pit a cherry it has a very short time it can stay refrigerated. Freezing freshly pitted cherries is a terrific solution. Yes, they do get softer, especially the high sugar varieties like bing and ranier, but tarter cherries, that are IQF and that are used for pie fillings or even added to jam survive much better. First off they are extremely tart and people do not eat them by themselves (or few do), and due to their very strong flavor, the freezing doesn’t dilute the flavor as much as more delicate fruits like peaches, berries and apricots.
But back to pectin. It is perfectly OK for big companies to use pectin for the reasons explained. They really have no choice if they want to make a product year round and at an affordable cost. On the flip side, a jam made from fresh fruit without the addition of pectin or citric acid is more of an art form and thus more expensive to make and purchase.
Shoppers should be educated on what they buy and the ingredients in their foods. There is a long resistance by large food companies to reveal the finer details of how their products are made and the trace ingredients since customers might not buy their products if they knew these details.
For example, the wine you buy has an extraordinary amount of ingredients in trace amounts not on the label. Normally you think wine is just fermented grape juice, but in fact most commercially made wine has many things in it that are not required to be listed on the label.
The same can be said for food. The FDA and USDA has a cutoff limit whereby certain trace chemicals and such if they are below a certain percentage, do not have to be listed on the ingredients list of food since they are deemed safe in this low concentration. Think about the orange juice you buy from fruit that has been sprayed with pesticides or contain trace amounts of fertilizers. Are these ever mentioned on food labels? Of course not. The food and chemical industry has fought hard to prevent this from becoming public knowledge. But it makes perfect sense fruit grown with fertilizers and pesticides simply has to have some trace amounts in them. As consumers, don’t we have the right to know?
Of course many people choose organic for these very reasons. Organic produce generally has about 1/3 less pesticide and fertilizer residue than commercially grown. But even with organic there are problems. Most pesticides allowed within the organic community are heavy metals, such as copper sulfate. This can leech into the soil and into the fruit. Who is to say there are no adverse affects from this? A completely truthful labeling standard would list trace chemicals that are or could be in the food you eat. Ever look at the ingredients of a multivitamin? Even the smallest trace of things are listed. Vitamins are perhaps the most accurate product in terms of food labeling laws. But then you could take it even further. Why not list all the traces of pesticides etc. in the vitamins? If you were going to be that truthful, that means the organic pear juice you buy would have an ingredient list like:
Ingredients: organic pears, organic apple juice from concentrate and organic sugar.
Trace elements: copper sulfate, nicotine sulfate, rotenone.
One of the obstacles to extremely accurate food labeling isn’t just resistance from big companies that want to hide these things, it is also the difficulty in accurately reporting all these trace elements. First off, that would require each food ingredient to undergo extensive lab tests to measure these chemicals which alone could turn up a dizzying array of information. Then there has to be some sort of cut off point, whereby any substance below some tiny amount does not have to be reported. Finally, making room on food packaging for all this additional information is also a problem.
Another law few people know about is that small companies are exempt from listing the nutritional information on their products. We fall into that category. Food manufacturers who make less than 500,000 units of any particular product do not have to include nutritional information since the cost for lab work is expensive and most small companies cannot afford it.
So you see this is a very complex issue, but we figured it would be nice to at least raise the subject in reference to the gray areas of additives that have mixed scientific opinion on safety. These should be listed after a certain concentration in food is agreed on. Also, additives that have some people concerned about their safety such as Senomyx, should be listed on products and not hidden in ingredients as “artificial flavor.”
Here are some links about food and personal care additives that are not listed on food labels:
The European Crop Protection Association
About Organic Produce
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Organic Farming
Hidden Chemicals in Perfume and Cologne
Senomyx: New additive not listed on ingredients
Center for Science in the Public Interest
USDA
Hidden Food Additive “Inulin” May Cause Stomach Ache
The Truth in Food Labeling – Food Additives to Avoid & Hidden Sources of MSG
Hidden Phosphorus Food Additives
Toast gets a bad rap. It is usually served at diners with massive egg dishes and is hardly eaten. Almost all of us have toasters around somewhere, and everyone has a parent with an old toaster either sitting on the counter or in some kitchen cabinet. Yet one of the most luxurious and delicious snacks is toasted bread with either/or jam and butter smeared on top. Toast is usually a side note for breakfast and many people don’t even eat it, but we feel it needs to be elevated in rank to a culinary destination and highpoint.
Apparently ancient Romans toasted bread before fire to preserve it. They also would drop it in their wine thinking the charcoal would lessen the acidity. The Latin word tostum means to burn and apparently the idea to give a toast with wine originates from this concept.
There is an interesting article about toast and its evolution over time here.
I once had a roommate who swore his favorite food was toast. At that time this puzzled me. How could toast be that big of a deal?
Of course toasting or roasting things always makes them more flavorful. Think of toasting coffee beans, toasting meats, making caramel is the same concept, and bread always tastes better when it has been toasted. Even the worst tasting, mass-produced bread is more palatable once toasted.
As owners of a jam company we have to love toast. But usually when we sample our efforts it is just with a spoon so there are no other flavors to affect it. And at farmers’ markets we don’t offer any bread for people to taste our jams since it would require wearing disposable gloves and we think that is environmentally bad until a biodegradable disposable glove is invented.
However, at home toast is king. My favorite is our extremely limited feijoa jam on toast. And to be honest, even though we can be sort of elitist about food sometimes, when it comes to bread for toast we don’t make much of a fuss. Whatever is on hand will do.
My eureka moment for toast happened recently to be quite honest. We were at a diner having a massive breakfast before a long day of making apricot jam. It had been quite a while since we were out for breakfast and the ubiquitous plate of artificially buttered toast appeared next to my egg scramble with the equally ubiquitous single servings of jelly.
At first I scoffed at the idea to eat any of it, but for some reason I was still hungry after breakfast and sampled a nibble. I selected the concord grape jelly since I do love these grapes (we have a vine of them we make syrup from each summer for making sodas). And despite the humble bread and jelly it was downright delicious.
So the next morning I toasted up some Anna’s Daughters Sourdough bread we had (this stuff is amazing) and put on my beloved feijoa jam and I nearly had an orgasm. Since then I have become a toast fanatic. I would like to preface this pronouncement by saying when it comes to toast I am partial to very rich breads to toast such as brioche, pain de mie or croissants since you don’t need to add any butter – just jam.
This toast relevation led me naturally to think of toasters – specifically vintage toasters. We have a newish one that works just fine, but what exotic treasures are lurking out there I mused? A quick survey on Ebay revealed so many fabulous toasters picking out just one would be difficult. I immediately worried I could become some crazy toaster collector.
First off, I could get one for making toast in the fireplace which is a neat idea except:
lighting anything in your fireplace in San Francisco these days is illegal.
Or I could spring for a Universal Electric from 1906 that looks like a bridge and would probably burn our house down:
These open toasters while no longer in vogue due to safety issues, are quite brilliant since they allow you to constantly watch your toast and stop the machine once it gets to that perfect toasty moment you crave. New toasters hide everything up and it is trial and error to find the right setting.
Here is another open toaster made by Pan Electric with an iridescent finish that must be pretty rare since it was for sale for $1600:
Another from this period is by a company called Pelouze in a glamorous gold finish what was probably designed by someone who had fantasies of toasters in Versailles:
After enough houses burned down and fingers were disfigured, toasters closed up. The first style allowed the sides to open up where you inserted your bread seen here with an erotic Knapp-Monarch:
Apparently the first automatic toaster was by Toastmaster and from then on most toasters were top loaded and had a timer for popping up your toast:
Around this time, the 1930s, toasted sandwiches must have been all the rage because I found several sandwich toasters from this period. Check out this beautiful sandwich toaster by Hostess:
And then there was an unusual open top toaster which is quite fetching and was made by Armstrong. Heck, you could cook up a meal on that thing – albeit just for one person.
Here is a cute one from Kenmore with red bakelite that is in the traditional open top design we still have today:
Some toasters had grills you could insert so you could toast sandwiches such as with this sleek, pink gold and chrome early 1960s Burg-O-Matic:
And in the 1960s you got the popular daisy motif which makes an appearance on this flirtatious little Toastmaster:
Toastmaster even made one with a handle! Why? So you could carry it into the bedroom for breakfast in bed?
Then moving up to modern times there is a wonderful toaster designed by Russell Hobbs – a company famous for making kitchen appliances since 1952 which cost around $300 (they are only 70 pounds in the UK where they are made):
Of course I refrained from buying anything, but I have a fantasy of having a toaster on the table when I do farmers’ markets so I can offer complimentary toast with the jam. Or who knows, sell a slice with jam for a buck. Of course that would require a few car batteries or a solar panel. Hey that is a good idea… But wait, the biodegradable glove problem…
But if I did pull this toasty extravaganza off, I would need to get a new commercial grade machine that could stand up to lots of abuse. The two industry leaders are Waring for around $500 which is my choice (it is dishwasher safe too):
And of course, Toastmaster in the same price range:
Are you intrigued? Even mildly? Perhaps estatically?
To read more on toasters you can always turn to Wikipedia.
For some innovative toaster designs today, check out Top 10 Toaster Designs.
You know there just has to be an association for toaster collectors!
And a museum just devoted to toasters located in Seattle! This site has an online gallery of all kinds of beautiful toasters, but I am afraid to even look since it surely would lead to my downfall.
Here is a page of a guy in NY who specializes in selling vintage toasters.
Anyhow, I hope you now will reconsider the importance of toast, and will choose your next toaster armed knowing there are so many styles and periods to match your every mood and aesthetic. And when you need jam for your beloved toast, you know where to buy it. I still haven’t developed a taste for plain toast – though I know that just might be the next step toward toastmania.
There is a long standing association between worms and apples, though in modern culture today we never see worms in our produce. It probably had to do with the days when fruit was grown with no pesticides and you never knew when you bit into an apple if there would be a worm or not.
Most food grown with the help of pesticides are completely uninhabitable to insects. They won’t even go near it or they will drop dead. We have all grown up with perfectly unblemished fruits and vegetables thanks to the big chemical companies. Marketing campaigns between big farmers and these chemical companies have over time led people to expect perfect-looking produce. To make matters worse, farmers and grocery stores sort fruit and vegetables and toss out anything that doesn’t look pristine.
I used to know someone who worked at a fancy natural food store here in San Francisco and was the produce manager. He told me they would open up crates of apples, oranges, lettuce and only display those that looked perfect. Anything with a mark or blemish was taken home by the employees or put in the garbage. This is still common practice today – everywhere.
So when more organic produce is becoming available why does it still look so perfect? I mean no pesticides are used but the fruit generally looks great. Why are there still no worms in the apples like the olden days?
Blenheim apricots being sorted
Sorting. Yes, people still sort. And those who do it are very good at identifying the signs of possible entry by a worm. Small holes, dark spots by the stem (an easy entry) etc. Keep in mind by the time you see that apricot or plum in the grocery store, or in a wood crate at the farmers’ market, many eyeballs and hands have inspected the fruit to make sure you are getting the best. Here are the best Blenheim apricots that have been sorted being weighed in containers destined for supermarkets.
pristine apricots being weighed
Now if you grow your own fruit and vegetables you know there are always the ugly ducklings so to speak. And there always is fruit that looks weird and that has been nibbled on, and worse yet, penetrated by hungry insects. That is life. And we just cut out the bad part and that is that. For example the Blenheim apricots we use are famous for being ugly. This is why traditionally they are sun dried. They get big black spots on them and for us we have to remove them which is time consuming. Why? Because when cooked into jam, the fruit gets translucent but the black spots get darker and look horrible in the jar. We can’t catch them all but we try. So for Blenheim apricots there are the good, the bad and the ugly. Here are the good and the ugly:
good apricots
ugly apricots
But what about organic prepared food? The company that makes that organic frozen pizza, or tomato sauce or yikes – jam – do they sort? Not as much.
Yes, the sad fact is far less sorting is done on an industrial scale of produce that is processed compared to raw produce presented to the buying public. I will never forget when I was in high school I was reading some magazine in the library and there were some statistics published about gross things you normally don’t know about. One that was burned into my mind was the FDA allowed a certain number of maggots – yes maggots – in a certain amount of canned mushrooms. Then there was a certain amount of rat poop allowed in cereal. To this day I refuse to eat canned mushrooms or cereal. And what really bothers me is I have a fondness for hot and sour soup and all Chinese restaurants always use canned mushrooms. Why? What is the matter with fresh?
Anyhow, flash forward 20-something years and I know the reality of this. The organic apricots we use to make our jam have worms in them. I would say 1 out of every 30 apricots has one this summer – more than normal for some reason. We can generally tell since we hand inspect and cut open each apricot. There are tell tale signs, but now and then a perfect looking apricot is split open with a huge fat worm inside – and all these brown bits – yeah, their poop. Talk about gross! And yes, we toss these apricots in the compost bin. These are the bad apricots. Very bad!
bad apricot
But when you get organic food that is produced on an industrial scale, where you can’t have people inspect every piece of fruit like we do, the FDA has created allowances for the worms, maggots, spiders, bits of rat poo that can be in the food. Why, because once you start manufacturing at a high enough volume, it is impossible to keep everything bad out. Even our jam, that is done so meticulously by the two of us, we are sure a few worms must slip by.
Of course, if it is cooked there is no harm. If you ever find a worm in our jam, first it is an organic worm and second it was cooked at such a high temperature it is just as safe to eat as the bits of apricot. Yeah we know, it still is gross. But we know our food has far less bad things in it than stuff made by bigger companies.
So when you are eating any type of prepared organic food you have to keep in mind you will unknowingly ingest worms and other bugs. But look on the bright side. If the fruit or vegetables were safe for these bugs to live on or in, it is much safer for you to eat than produce that is saturated with chemicals that would kill those insects.
Ugly apples, lettuce with nibble holes and spiders between the leaves, apricots with big black freckles, worm holes, worms inside, ants swarming over banana blossoms – this is all perfectly natural with natural fruit and vegetables. These insects know a good thing too – and love to eat just as well as we do. Today, we have to rethink our priorities on what is normal again. And normal is a worm in your apple – or apricot now and then.