The symbolism of the freakshake

I once watched a show where an assassin visits Times Square and Shibuya Crossing Tokyo and declares that the world is sick with capitalism. An understandable sentiment, if you look at the fact that millions of people and tourists throng to these city blocks that are just skyscrapers emblazoned with corporation advertisements that play 24*7 screaming consume, consume, consume. To some extent, this extends to food. Portions get larger, portmanteaus more ridiculous.

Which is where the freakshake comes in, I suppose. A freakshake can best be defined as diabetes in a sitting, a milkshake designed to fulfill half of your daily caloric value in sugar, an excess of the most decadent proportions. With freakshakes came a trend of food made for Instagram, meter-long pizza slices, cotton-candy burritos, each trendier than the other and more dense in calories than the other.

While many of these foods are snapped for the ‘gram, half finished and half wasted, it raises the question that if we focused on food insecurity rather than consumer gluttony, how far could we go?

The SOUFFLE SUCCESS

Souffle is a staple of many high-end restaurants. It’s airy and light as an appetizer with a lofty French name that gives it instant luxury status. However, did you know, souffle is awfully easy to make and only requires very few ingredients.

I think of myself as quite an intrepid baker, and one winter, i decided to see if i could make the souffle. We had ramekins, which are those little round dishes souffle’s are cooked in and my grandmother, who has diabetes asked for a savory baked good. Following this recipe from the internet I armed myself with a whisk and began.

A cheese souffle requires eggs, milk, butter, salt, breadcrumbs, seasoning and cheese. A chocolate souffle requires eggs, sugar and cocoa powder and milk and butter. The trick to souffle much like meringue is beating the egg whites until they are soft and fluffy, much of the novelty and soundness of a souffle depends on it will rise, and many a chef has rued over a sunken souffle. For that, I have a trick, which goes something like this: add half a teaspoon of baking powder to the mix. Guaranteed rise every time. With furthur ado, here is the recipe for an interchangeable cheese and chocolate souffle.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup breadcrumbs (can be substituted for Parmesan/ granulated sugar for a sweet souffle)
3 egg whites
2 egg yolks
1 cup milk
1 cup grated cheese ( cocoa powder in the case of a chocolate souffle)
Salt/ sugar to taste
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp baking powder
Herbs and seasoning to taste

METHOD
Preheat over to 350 F
Butter the souffle dish and coat the inside with breadcrumbs/granulated sugar. This helps the souffle cling to the sides of the ramekin and rise.
In a saucepan, boil and scald the milk.
Add the cheese/cocoa, salt/sugar, stir until uniform.
Remove pan from heat and stir in the egg yolks.
Stir in the baking powder.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into mixture.
Pour in dish and bake for 30 min.

And voila.

Meringue Science

Meringues are something I read about as a young child in Enid Blyton’s classic English novels of tea parties and children picnicking in forests. The name itself sounded French and foreign, sweet, light and airy like the dessert itself and I longed to try it. When I tried those baked whipped peaks of eggs and sugar, finally in Paris, my kid mind was boggled. How did they make these? How were they light and crunchy and chewy and air and melty all at the same time?

I did a little research into the science of meringues and found they are primarily of French Swiss origin in the Renaissance though that claim is disputed. The secret behind a airy, puffed meringue is actually the beaten egg whites.

Egg whites contain amino acids, which are proteins. When beaten, they create air bubbles fortified by a layer of protein. Adding sugar to bubbly egg whites gives them a glossy foam and gathers more proteins on the surface. often acidic ingredients such as lemon juice, cream of tartar are added to prevent too many proteins from linking together and making the mixture grainy. It is advised to whisk in a copper bowl, so the ions will prevent the proteins from linking.

When this foam is baked, the protein hardens around the air bubble and creates the light texture while the sugar melts in your mouth.

Sources:
http://explorecuriocity.org/Explore/ArticleId/3748/meringue-the-science-behind-a-wonderfully-fluffy-dessert-3748.aspx

A Short History of Iced Tea

Peach iced tea is my drink of choice. Sweet and refreshing in a way that is not cloying it has a long history in the south.

1795- South Carolina was the only place to have grown tea locally in the states. Tea was first imported by French botanist Andre Michaux to please rich Charleston planters.

1800’s- Cookbooks show spiked iced tea has been around since the early 1800’s where liquor was heavily added to green or black tea and called punch. “Regents Punch” in England, and Georgia’s potent Chatham Artillery Punch.

1803- Iceboxes were invented, boosting the popularity of iced tea.

1879- The oldest sweet tea recipe was published in the community cookbook Housekeeping in Old Virgina which suggests ice, sugar and lemon.

1884- First published iced tea recipe using black tea on the East coast in the Boston Cookbook.

1900’s- Iced tea was a regular in cookbooks at the time. Due to import and trade from India and Ceylon the tea used was mostly black tea.

1904- Iced tea was commercialized and popularized at the St.Louis Worlds Fair. A cooling apparatus was created by Richard Blechynden.

1920-33- During Prohibition iced tea was popularized as a substitute to alcohol.

1941- World War 2 tensions cut off tea exports except British controlled Indian black tea

1995- South Carolina’s own grown tea was adopted as Official Hospitality Beverage by the South Carolina General Assembly.

2003- As an April Fool’s joke Georgia State rep and four co-sponsors wanted to introduce a bill over iced tea that stated:

a)  As used in this Code section, the term ‘sweet tea’ means iced tea which is sweetened with sugar at the time that it is brewed.

(b)  Any food service establishment which served iced tea must serve sweet tea. Such an establishment may serve unsweetened tea but in such case must also serve sweet tea.

(c)  Any person who violates this Code section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.

Source:https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IcedTeaHistory.htm

Doritos Nachos Bucket: Delicious or Disgusting?

I’m prone to Cheese Doritos from time to time. There’s something about that cheese salt that really satisfies your kid soul. Or adult stomach. I came across a video one day, probably a Buzzfeed Tasty or Tastemade one, which involved a steel bucket, large bags of variations of every Doritos flavor, cheese, ground chicken,tomatoes and onions cooked in taco seasoning, jalapeños, layered alternately between chips and chicken and cheese and eventually baked in the bucket. Topped by more cheese of course.

The resulting tower is then released on a baking tray, served with sour cream, more jalapeños and fresh, tomatoes, onions and cilantro, and to be fully honest it doesn’t seem half bad, if you removed the flavor of Doritos I didn’t like from the mix.

Hopefully when I have a larger oven I can recreate this recipe.

Chik-fil-a Politics

Chik-fil-A is my favorite fast food by far. It’s got the kind of taste that almost tastes homemade if you close your eyes and ignore the line of hungry people. Especially the grilled nuggets.

However, as most of the world knows, the owner of Chik-Fil-A is religiously conservative (obvious enough from stores being closed on Sunday, which seems religiously apt but economically a loss) having donated to organizations that oppose same sex marriages (Winshape Foundation run by Truett Cathy).

This brings us to an important question? Can we separate religion from food corporations, and food corporations and politics? Can we truly enjoy Chik-Fil-A while it exercises religious freedom yet contributes to oppression? Is it socially responsible to continue to enjoy chicken that could possibly be paying for homophobia?

For many people, the separation between what they enjoy and it’s ethical and social consequences is large. However, as consumers, we affect supply and demand and cannot pretend as if our choices do not affect market forces and the personal ideology behind them.

Recipe for Vegan Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake is an instant classic and is so versatile. This is an egg free recipe that I once I used at a vegetarian friends birthday party, and I swear the cake was gone in seconds.

Baking vegan cakes is really easy and just requires some basic chemistry. Egg is a binder, butter is a binder and can be replaced with vegetable oil. Milk has vegan options. Sugar has vegan options too, like coconut sugar.

What you need:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar of your choice

1/2 cup cocoa powder (Hershey’s)

1 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup almond milk

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp instant coffee powder (for flavor and depth)

Vanilla essence to taste

How to:

Preheat oven to 350 F/ 180 C

Mix dry ingredients

Add oil and beat mixture by hand or in blender

Add milk

Add vanilla essence

Bake for 30-40 min

Test by inserting toothpick and seeing if crumbs come out or batter.

Voila!

My Picky Roommate

My roommate Ari and I have lived together for 2 years now. We are very similar but also polar opposites in many ways, one of them being food.

Ari likes to play it very safe when it comes to food, and hardly experiments with her orders or her snacks and for the past two years, I have been attempting to get her to try something new, to failure every time.

Her food habits include, Cheez-Its, Beef Ramen, Cheese and Broccoli Instant Rice, Plain Rice, Beef or Chicken, Goldfish, Nilla Wafers, Broccoli and Pasta and Marinara Sauce. She hates chocolate, melted cheese and most flavored or spicy things.

The only thing I’ve had success with has been getting her to try a single sour cream and onion puffed potato crisp from Brandless. She didn’t like it.

It made me think, how do you get a person to be open to new foods? I am a picky eater but I enjoy trying foods with a few things I won’t eat (peas, string beans, avocados, papaya). It’s easy to get a baby to eat food by pretending his spoon is an airplane but how do you get an adult to try new foods?

Sociopolitics of Food

Food can have many connotations that go beyond just taste. It holds myth, power and history of the people who make it and consume it. So it comes as no surprise that food plays a role in the politics of many things. Take India for example, during its first struggle for freedom in 1857, a history I have studied from the 5th grade, food played an important political role in motivating the rebellion.

Primarily, Hindu and Muslim soldiers were lead to believe that the cartridges for their guns, (which they had to bite to use) were made out of beef and pork. The Cow is sacred to Hindus and pork is considered haram in Islam. This caused an uproar amongst the soldiers and also played as the final straw that lead to rebellion.

Another, more ambitious rumor, was that when messengers of the rebellion visited the watchmen of villages to pass along the flame of rebellion, instead of leaving instructions or codes, the messengers would leave a roti (a Indian flatbread) to the watchmen, and the watchmen were responsible for cooking more roti and passing them along to the next village as a message of the rebellion

My Favorite Sandwich

A sandwich is an easy go to meal, with so many options you can put between equally many options of breads. Everyone has a favorite sandwich, their go to, something from their childhood lunchbox or late night snack. Some of my favorite sandwiches are:

1) Grilled Cheese: Sometimes I’ll throw a slice of ham in there too.

2) Turkey, Pepper Jack Cheese, Spinach and Ranch.

3) Peanut Butter and Jelly, where the jelly can be strawberry or grape.

4) My grandmothers poached egg sandwiches, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, butter and poached eggs between white bread.

Recipe for Vegan Frosting

Once while baking for a large group of friends, I had to think up an alternative to conventional butter and milk frosting, and every baker half their worth knows butter is the key ingredient in frosting. Well, the alternative is very easy! After a short brainstorm, where I came to conclusion since vegetable oil replaced eggs and butter in vegan cakes, the solution would be vegetable oil or Crisco. So, without further ado, is my recipe.

Confectioners sugar: 2 cups
Vegetable Oil/ Crisco: 1/2 cup
(vegetable oil has the consistency of glaze, Crisco is thicker)
Vanilla Essence: According to your heart’s content
Almond Milk: 3-4 tablespoons
Equipment: Whisk/ Mixer

Whip the sugar into the oil or Crisco, adding the almond milk slowly. (By hand or mixer on low) Then add the vanilla essence. Mix thoroughly. Creates frosting or icing of spreadable or pour-able consistency depending on items used. Stores in the fridge for a week. You can essentially add cocoa powder (for chocolate flavor), strawberry jam (strawberry) or any other vegan flavorings to this recipe.

The Most Memorable Meal

I’ll admit, I’ve eaten a copious amount of delicious food in my lifetime. My mother enjoys cooking from different cuisines, ranging from quiche to khao- suey which is Burmese cuisine. I grew up around good, home made food, and was exposed to different foods through travel and culture. So picking a most memorable meal was a difficult process but also very illuminating.

By far the most memorable meal I ever ate in my life was in Rome. I was twelve, on an family holiday. It was my birthday. We were at the Sistine Chapel, my parents and I attempting to circumnavigate the throngs of other tourists to take in the beauty of frescos and other heights of Italian architecture. Even to an aesthetically inclined twelve year old, the crowds and endless walking through halls finally began to wear on me, and coupled with a ravenous hunger, I was ready to have a pre-teen meltdown. It was my birthday after all.

Taking note of this delicate situation, my parents and I escaped the tourist fare that lines the Vatican and into the side streets of Rome where we came across an osteria , (a small establishment serving food and wine in a casual setting) tucked into a corner of a cobbled street. It has been almost a decade but I still remember. the dimly lit interior, wooden benches, and offerings of Italian seafood and traditional bread dishes. Everything in the osteria cost 2 euros.

I remember getting a calzone, a proper traditional Italian fromaggio calzoni , that i had only eaten pale imitations of from generic pizza corporations in India. Also being a connoisseur of seafood from a young age, I adventurously ordered the octopus salad. This, was the defining moment in my career as a traveler and not a tourist, similar to Bourdain’s realization. This was the moment where I realized the small establishments you see locals at are the real ‘fine dining’ in a new city.

The calzone and salad offset each other beautifully. Even at that young age, the softness of the cheese, and flaky bread struck me, and the zest of the lemon in the octopus salad provided the perfect palate cleanser. When I returned to Rome, eight years later with study abroad, I attempted to retrace our steps but I unfortunately could not find the place again.

My Favorite Cheeses

Being an only child meant having to always sit at the grown ups table at dinner parties, and it also meant being extremely picky but also acquiring a taste for some typically “adult foods” at a young age. I enjoyed blue cheese, olives and pâté starting age six and my parents have also indulged this taste through travel and cooking, so here is a short but comprehensive list of my favorite cheeses and why.

1. Brie. Brie was the first “proper” cheese I have a memory of eating, ever present next to the crackers and grapes on cheese platters, I remember cutting myself a slice of cheese the consistency of thick jello expecting myself to be grossed out but instead enjoying the salty brilliance that coats your mouth in cream. It felt oddly “grown up” to me, eating the rind along with the cheese.

Brie

2. Babybels. Most of our exotic cheese in my childhood was supplied to us by a salesman who went door to door with surplus export cheeses from international airport and airplane stockpiles. Babybels were always a treat and the sharp soft cheese was always a pleasure to eat, more than peeling the rind like a Hubba Bubba gum roll.

Babybel

3. Blue Stilton Cheese. I’ve enjoyed this more in dressing form over buffalo chicken in the states, more due to the fact I’m actually terrified of putting an actual stinky cheese in the common fridge, but I have always enjoyed blue cheese and its extremely sharp taste. I find it pairs well with celery and harissa sauce, especially the rich and crumbly texture that pairs well with most spiced meats.

Blue Stilton

4. Pepper Jack. I didn’t really eat or know about Pepperjack Cheese until I came to college. I usually get it on my turkey burgers and sandwiches as an alternative to regular old American or cheddar, or as a simple cheesestick from 7-11. I enjoy it as it combines cheese and a little spicy kick, one of my favorite flavor combinations.

Pepperjack

5. Saint Marcellin. I bought this cheese at a Paris supermarket and it came packaged in a clay pot. It had a strong smell and a soft buttery texture and flavor. You’re supposed to bake it in its clay pot and dip bread in it. The melted cheese is really delicious with some French bread crusts and cherry tomatoes. It’s a strong flavor so I’d only recommend it if you’re really into cheese.

Saint Marcellin

Twinkies

The first time I ever saw Twinkies was in the parody movie “Zombieland” where Woody Harrelson’s survivalist character searches high and low during the zombie apocalypse for Twinkies, suspected to never go bad. I’d never eaten a Twinkie back then but I never really understood the obsession in the film, until I actually ate a Twinkie.

There’s something oddly comforting about that extra squishy sponge cake and artificial vanilla cream, the way it turns into an easy sweet mush inside your mouth, the illicit thrill of eating something so childish and sugary but in a way that doesn’t feel guilt inducing. I try and keep them to a minimum, once a month perhaps, but the sweet treat has a rich history on its path to an iconic American snack.

Twinkies were invented in the 1930’s when James Dewar filled shortbread cake baked in flat pans with sugar and cream, apparently naming them after an advertisement billboard for “Twinkle Toes Shoes” The flavor used to be banana cream, but during WW2 banana imports ceased and the flavor switched to vanilla. Post WW2 when flour and sugar rationing ended, Sno-balls were created using marshmallows and coconut flakes, especially marketed towards kids. Twinkies fed America’s sweet tooth for a long time until charges of false advertising about the health content of Intetstate Products as well as fraud racked the company and sales began to drop. (NYT)

Twinkies became very popular in the news as they were used in the “Twinkie Defense” when Mr. Dave White’s lawyer defended him against charges of murdering the mayor by saying his judgement was impaired by his sugary diet of Twinkies. The jury did, in this case convict Mr. White of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder. (NYT)

Interstate went bankrupt in 2004, when fad health diets were catching up to sugar. They re-emerged and rebranded themselves as Hostess in 2009, refiling for bankruptcy in 2012, until they were bought by investment firms in 2013, returning the treat to the shelves.

The new recipe lasts longer on shelves and is probably more processed than it’s original but it’s a little indulgence of the heart rather than of the stomach. Dessert goes to the heart, always.

Source: New York Times, The Rich History Of Twinkies

Tacos in Tulum!

Thanks to my great friend Sabrina who acted as host, interpreter and tour guide on this trip to Tulum, we had an informed culinary experience in Mexico. My first brush with Mexico and Mexican culture has been overwhelmingly positive. We avoided a majority of the tourist spots and tried to stick to cheaper local eats. In-fact to quote myself, “This is like a nicer cleaner greener India with great spicy food.”

We had the wonderful cooking of Teré, the brunch cook at our home, who would prepare us a Mexican breakfast most mornings, huevos rancheros, frijoles, fruit platters with tajin (I miss the mangoes already) and fresh fruit juice.

However, to accommodate the entire group, this meal was usually without any meats, which me and my fellow carnivores began to crave as soon as we passed by the roadside taquerias and pescadorias and the warm smell of roasting meat hit us. Dinner was usually tacos of some sort, at some different establishment or the other. There are too many to count but some notable places were $21, a cerveseria and taqueria where everything was 21 pesos. I ate a spicy pork there on a soft flour tortilla bed, the only crunchy combination to be found was a tostada.

The place I was excited to write about was a roadside establishment, Taqueria el Carboncito open air, with dinky plastic tables and chairs that seated the seven of us. The menu was a simple laminated sheets with meats and “con queso” plus 3 pesos. I ordered beef tacos con queso of course and a classic Mexican coke in glass bottles (reminded me of home). Service was quick and my tacos arrived with glistening beef and queso, onions and bell peppers. It was the perfect balance of heavy oily meat and queso, blanketed by the flour tortilla.

Throughout our meal local performers came and went: a Spanish rapper practicing his flows, a clown with balloons and a beatboxer. It seemed to be a local hotspot. A general rule of thumb is food gets more expensive the closer you move to the beach, this was very true in Mexico and I enjoyed the local street eats: mangos with tajin and chamoy, green coconuts with a straw, elotes with lime and mayo, the 15 peso tacos grabbed on the go, more than the proper sit down establishments in playa del Carmen.

Maggi

Instant ramen noodles are a staple of every culture, at this point. So it should be no surprise there are variations on the instant noodle itself according to country and cultural tastes.

On the south-eastern subcontinent of Asia, Maggi is king. Manufactured by Nestle, Maggi is a staple of snack foods, comfort foods, special treats and hangover foods alike. The lurid yellow and red packaging is recognized by all as well as the funny and heartwarming advertisements that are watched by children across the country, of mothers preparing vegetables and rice to the disappointed faces of children, then suddenly surprising them with a steaming bowl of yellow noodles.

While I’ve known it for most of my life as the instant noodles, the Maggi brand has expanded to sauces, bouillon cubes, soups and other instant pasta products. In India, Maggi can be found prepared in many different ways, at many different socio-economic levels; the way families cook Maggi at home (watery/dry/with sliced carrots & peas/ in my family’s case a scrambled egg thrown into the noodles right before the spice-water evaporates), college campus food trucks offering inventive twists ranging from cheese Maggi to Maggi sandwiches to the roadside “Maggi Points” on the hill roads in the lower ranges of the Himalayas who add spices, eggs and onions and offer crisp chai for the crisp weather, with tiny viewing decks jutting out of the mountain edge.

So what does Maggi taste like? It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never tasted it. The flavor packet inside lists the following ingredients: Onion Powder, Coriander, Chili Powder, Turmeric, Garlic Powder, Cumin, Aniseed, Fenugreek, Ginger, Black Pepper, Clove, Nutmeg and Cardamom. A light curry of these flavors, salty and spicy, served over soft but glutinous wheat noodles, stronger in flavor if the noodles were allowed to simmer for longer. A flavor reminiscent of a 2000’s childhood.