Super Bowl Weekend
February 1st, 2008
Hey, you over there, put down the Lays and jar of onion dip. Yeah you. I know it’s Super Bowl weekend, and the football fan in me knows that such an event allows, nay demands, a certain type of food. We call it Football Food. But you can make your own. And it will be better — much better — and more bacony.
Simply Recipes has an authoritative round-up on Super Bowl recipes featuring everything from classics (potato skins, hot wings, various and sundry dips) to the truly frightening. Okay, so I was honestly curious about the Beer Cheese Cupcakes with Bacon Cheddar Frosting — if that’s not a manly dessert, what is? — but then I saw the “beer” in question: Budweiser Select. What’s a sell-respecting beer drinking to do? Guiness cupcakes, of course.
Bitter chocolate keeps your heart healthy
January 15th, 2008
The American Heart Association’s journal Circulation recently published a study in which it would appear that dark chocolate it good for the heart, specifically the flavanols, which are essentially the bitter anti-oxidant compounds you find in cocoa and tea.
Hot on the heels of this research, an editorial in The Lancet points out that some of the most delicious “dark” chocolates have had all of the good stuff (flavanols) removed and are instead just loaded with delicious sugar and fat. Both of which will cause your heart to seize like the 1.5L engine in a ‘85 blue Honda Civic run for 600 miles without any oil… While there’s no good, consistent way to tell if the heart healthy goods have been removed, chances are that if the words “milk” or “sweetened” appear anywhere on the packaging you might as well just inject a syringe full of beef fat right into your heart. On the bright side, if you do have a weakness for truly dark chocolate you can eat it knowing only the fat content is causing the hardening of your arteries and that the flavanols are doing there best to keep you alive.
Fermented Cacao
November 18th, 2007
In Tyler’s post about the origins of chocolate, he wonders about the nature of fermenting cacao. The comments resulted in some salivation over Dagoba Xocolatl. Now, the New Yorker’s food impressario Bill Buford tell us about both. Ostensibly a profile of Dagoba’s founder Frederick Schilling, the his article leads the reader through expositions, alchemistry, assassinations, plantations, sex, mythology, history, and finally into a steaming vat of steaming cacao:
“Badaró then removed his clothes. He landed with an awkward splash. Three of us were in a trough that might comfortable accommodate an adult pig, and the fermenting cacao was up to our necks. Badaró had taken to invoking some god, humming in his deep voice. “We must immerse ourselves and connect to the Aztec gods,” he said. He disappeared, sinking below the surface.
Unfortunately for the eager reader, Extreme Chocolate: the quest for the perfect bean, from the October 29th magazine is not available online; and those unable to find this work of gonzo gastronomy in print must content themselves with NPR’s interview with Buford and a few pictures.
Chocolate delicious accident from beer byproduct
November 12th, 2007
National Geographic News has summarized new research on the emergence of chocolate from beer-making — placing the use of chocolate 500 years earlier than previously thought.
The researchers seem to think that people saw these useless, discarded cacao seeds, roasted them and then made a horrible bitter drink that then took off and has become the fantabulous variety of chocolates we have today—which seems reasonable enough. The end of the article is a little bizarre with a random chef discussing how this research could:
… fuel creativity and spark the imagination of chocolatiers and chefs. … As a result, we get new ideas about using chocolate in savory as well as sweet dishes and about pairing the flavors of chocolate with other flavors, too.
I really don’t see how the discovery that chocolate was found earlier than previously thought will change the way we experiment with chocolate. I suppose it would be interesting to see someone do something like oh, say, a savory sauce made with chocolate and peppers. What I want to know is what this fermented cacao fruit drink tastes like.