Toward A More A-peeling Future

(Eatright photo)

For several years we've been buying organic produce because they are supposedly raised without pesticides. When we do buy non-organic vegetables and fruits, we wash them thoroughly. However, washing does little to eliminate pesticides. [bold added]

In April, Consumer Reports released its data showing an "alarming" amount of pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables sold in American grocery stores. Those hazardous pesticides include organophosphates, which have been shown to have "neurodevelopmental effects," and carbamate insecticides, which also have "toxic effects such as interfering with the reproductive systems and fetal development." While this report was distressing on its own, a new study is showing that washing your produce does not remove all the pesticide residues found on food.

The paper, published in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters, was meant to showcase the research team's new process to detect pesticides in food — which is indeed a spectacular scientific step forward — the paper also unveiled that "the risk of pesticide ingestion from fruits cannot be avoided by simple washing." And even peeling may not be enough. "Notably, the distribution of pesticides in the apple peel and pulp layers is visualized through Raman imaging, confirming that the pesticides penetrate the peel layer into the pulp layer." However, the team noted that peeling is better than doing nothing at all.

"We believe that the peeling operation can effectively avoid the hazards of pesticides in the fruit’s epidermis and near-epidermal pulp, thereby reducing the probability of ingesting pesticides," the researchers wrote in their report. Dongdong Ye, a professor at China’s School of Materials and Chemistry at Anhui Agricultural University and an author of the paper, additionally shared with The Guardian, “Rather than fostering undue apprehension, the research posits that peeling can effectively eliminate nearly all pesticide residues, contrasted with the frequently recommended practice of washing.”

The "glimmer of hope" is that

the Consumer Reports analysis also noted that pesticides presented "little to worry about" in about two-thirds of the foods it tested, including "nearly all organic ones."

So, if you can, buy organic, which can have a costly premium today, but is likely to be worth the price in the context of your longevity.

Guacamole in my Future

Organic produce (blueberries, bananas, tomatoes, etc.) costs a few dollars more than the non-organic version at Costco.

However, a few days ago a bag of six organic avocados was going for $4.50, while the regular bag of six was $5.99. What was the catch (Costco never makes a pricing mistake)?

Simply squeezing the fruit yielded the answer. The organic avocados were soft and ripe--to be clear, not over-ripe or damaged--and Costco had to get rid of the inventory.

Although only one bag of six was on the shopping list, I bought two and congratulated myself on all the money I was saving.

A Premium Business That Didn't Tend to the Basics

2013: the $85 Meat Board
Top to bottom: Broccolini fried in lard, pork chops,
rib-eye steak, lamb chops, goat, tri-tip, Italian sausage

During our infrequent trips through the North Bay we liked to stop at the Belcampo Meat Company in Larkspur. In 2013 the quality of the food and excellence of the staff seemed to justify the premium prices:

The Belcampo Meat Company is "a farm, a processing plant, a butcher shop, and a restaurant [that manages] the entire production chain to bring you delicious, safe, healthy, organic, and humane meat"...

The chops and roasts were prepared skillfully. The beef centers were medium rare, while the other meats were cooked thoroughly without being dry. None of the cuts had thick marbling, but all were tender. Aging and light seasoning brought out complex flavors; a glass of house pinot complemented the dishes perfectly.

Our last visit was in 2018. The prices were higher, and the food wasn't quite as good as we remembered. (Experiences often do become exaggerated with the passage of time.) Maybe the decline wasn't a trick of memory, because the fall accelerated:

Belcampo, whose slogan was “meat you can trust — transparency from start to finish,” had been passing off lower quality meats as its own. Within six months of the controversy, Belcampo shut down in October 2021. Little public attention was paid to the Siskiyou County plant, where all of Belcampo’s popular products, from sausage to steaks, were processed...

The USDA released 81 pages of documents dating from January 2020 to November 2021, which paint a limited yet concerning picture of Belcampo’s plant: the discovery of a leaking, blood-covered box with “discolored” meat inside; mold growing on pallets; pork product giving off a “foul smell.”

Belcampo opened a restaurant in San Mateo three miles away in late 2019. It closed during the pandemic, and we never did get to try it. Initially disappointed, we turned out to be lucky.

"‘Funky’ wines are out. ‘F—ed up’ wines are in."

Natural wines for beginners (Chronicle)

When natural wines came on the scene, "funky" was a term of endearment. Now the aficionados say that the word is so overused that it has become meaningless.

The obvious case against “funky” is that it’s too broad. Does it mean that a wine has a specific microbial flaw, like the spoilage yeast brettanomyces or the mysterious defect known as mouse? Does it mean that it smells earthy, like soil and mushrooms, rather than fruity, like apples and oranges? Does it describe sensations that recall cider or kombucha? Does it just mean a wine that tastes different, new, unlike what you’d find at the grocery store?

It's easier to describe natural wines by stating what they are not. [bold added]

“Conventional” winemaking — shorthand for non-natural wine — is defined by technical intervention. In the vineyard, that intervention comes in the form of pesticides and herbicides. In the cellar, intervention generally comes in the form of lab-grown yeast (to control the fermentation process and regulate flavor), acid (to increase the wine’s acidity, which in turn can help the wine age better), and sulfites added at the time of bottling (to preserve flavor). Many winemakers also add sugar, which doesn’t make the wine sweet but instead, through turning into alcohol, creates the perception of “body.” (It’s common practice in Burgundy, Lefcourt notes.)

On top of that, there are more than 60 approved additives that American winemakers can use to manipulate their wines without listing them on the label.

Your humble non-oenophile had assumed that natural wines were distinguished by their cloudiness and un-crispness, in other words, funkiness. Obviously, I was wrong.

Just because a wine was fermented with native yeast, unfiltered or treated with limited additions of sulfur dioxide doesn’t mean it will necessarily taste like a dirty dairy barn.

As with any niche product that explodes in popularity, definitions must become precise, and standards must be set because....big money is at stake.

So “funky” is on its way out. Yet it has a likely successor that may inspire even more vitriol: “f—ed up.”

Nelson, of Habibi Bar, said he hears this term a lot from customers now, as a way of expressing their preference for a natural wine. It seems to go one step beyond “funky,” which could be interpreted as merely describing an unconventional wine. “F—ed up,” instead, implies a desire for an all-out faulty wine, jacked up with bacterial defects.

"F--ed up", IMHO, is a descriptor that is even more imprecise than "funky," and its vulgar origin won't play in Peoria.

True, it will be tough for the wordsmiths to come up with a replacement for funky---cloudy, earthy, organic, etc. all have drawbacks.

But the wine industry is known for its pretentious vocabulary, and it will undoubtedly be up to the challenge. Meanwhile, dear reader, twist the cap off the bottle and enjoy!

Tastes Like...

(Chronicle photo)

San Francisco privately owned Eat Just has developed laboratory-grown chicken meat that has been approved in Singapore. [bold added]

The futuristic notion of grocery store butcher cases lined with meat grown in a lab is becoming a reality...

That makes the chicken — created from animal cells instead of a slaughtered bird — from San Francisco’s Eat Just the first of its kind in the world to be approved for sale.

Singapore is the first country to regulate this groundbreaking industry — often referred to as cultured, cell-based or cultivated meat production — and Eat Just’s chicken will debut at a yet-to-be-named restaurant there soon, though the exact timing is unclear. The product cannot yet be sold in the United States.

(WSJ photo)

We are familiar with Eat Just's predecessor company, Hampton Creek, whose plant-based mayonnaise tasted like the real thing. However, Hampton Creek was beset by lawsuits insisting that the product was not "mayonnaise" because, according to Federal regulations, it did not contain egg yolks.

Cultivated meat is yet another origination category that consumers will have to become familiar with, in addition to organic, non-GMO, and plant-based protein.

It's neither fish nor fowl. (Hey, write your own blog.)

British Foods That are Hard to Find Here

In America we don't serve these British foods partly because their names can't even be printed on the menu.

Faggots and groaty dick: Why some foods travel and others don't

Faggots are a kind of meatball

Michelin starred chef Glynn Purnell...said the recent surge in "nose-to-tail" eating - a movement which looks to cook the whole animal rather than focus on choice cuts - has seen faggots popping up at eateries across the UK. "It is estimated that tens of millions of faggots are eaten every year, so they can't be that unpopular"...

Groaty dick: firms up after cooling

The thick meat porridge - sometimes known as groaty pudding - found its way to the Black Country, where it is still made at the Black Country Living Museum's bonfire night.

Made from oat husks, leeks, onions stock and cheap cuts of beef, its appeal once lay in the fact it was "calorie heavy, cheap to make and could be left on the range for hours while out at work or looking after children," said curator Grant Bird....

"In the olden days they'd cook this so thick, let it get cold, then cut it like a cake...the man would take a slice of this in his satchel to work and munch on it."

Both dishes have British working-class origins and are the antithesis of the low-carb plant-based organic foods that the educated folk are eating. If I could find them in the Bay Area, I'd give them a try.

Counting and Carving the Chickens

Only whole chicken, but at least it's organic

Nearly three months ago Costco shoppers picked clean the chicken aisle because of the Fear of Running Out. Recently it looked like FORO had subsided because chicken---not only whole birds but also drumsticks, wings, breasts, and thighs as well as boneless, skinless, organic versions of the same--were back on display.

Over the past week we've noted that only whole chicken was available. That brought back memories of the 1970's and 80's when shoppers bought whole, the same price as two skinless boneless breasts.

Map from meatpoultry.com

As meat processing became more efficient and trustworthy (remember the warnings about salmonella, tapeworm, and mad cow disease?) we lazily began buying only the parts called for in recipes.

The current paucity of chicken parts is likely not due to panic buying but the number of meat- and poultry-processing plants that have closed due to COVID-19.

Now we have to sharpen our knives and bone up on our chicken carving. Gordon Ramsay shows how it's done.

Bourgeois, C'est Moi

I chewed very slowly

A few specifics on that overpriced dinner last Saturday: your humble blogger ordered a 100-day Dry-Aged Burger for $28(!) because at that price it had to be pretty special, right?

While both the texture and the flavor were excellent, I've tasted similar excellence in burgers a third that price. Well, the problem could be me---I'm also unable to tell the difference between $15 and $50 cabernets.

There's a certain je ne sais quoi about not only affording to live in Marin County but also genuinely preferring what Marinites consume (eco-friendly, sustainable, exclusive, expensive). I cannot escape the truth: bourgeois, c'est moi.

Kirkland

Kiplinger Personal Finance says Costco's store brand has three "best bets". We already buy the Kirkland Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil.

Bacon. In a taste test of bacon brands, Consumer Reports bestowed an “excellent” rating on just one product: Kirkland Signature Bacon ($10.99 for four 1-pound packages).

Liquor. You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with the Kirkland Signature Tequila Añejo ($19.99 for 1 liter) and the Egg Nog Liqueur ($9.99 for 1.75 liters),

Clearly we need to expand our sights beyond the healthy-food aisle.

At $2.75 a pound, how could I say no?

There May be Leftovers

For last night's St. Patrick's Day dinner our in-house advocate of organic ingredients insisted on buying everything at the local Whole Foods Market. The corned beef cost $10 a pound, and the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots enjoyed a similar multiple over the offerings from other supermarkets.

Preparing the corned beef was extremely simple: simmer in the pot for three hours, glaze with mustard and brown sugar, then roast for 30 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees. All was consumed.

This weekend I'm going to try again with the cheaper name brand (pictured) purchased at Costco. We'll see if the diners detect a difference. Even if they don't like it as much, at least this time there will be leftovers.

Related: corned beef and cabbage "have little or nothing to do with Ireland."

The Poor Dears

"Organic" eggs normally have been 50% to 100% more expensive than non-organic eggs. (Language observation: science bifurcates matter into organic and in-organic substances. With food the opposite of organic is non-organic.)

Recent regulatory changes have caused a temporary upending of the pricing relationship. With the bold COMPARE above the egg cartons, Costco is steering its customers to the cheaper and supposedly better organic product.

Costco---good products, good prices, and it even does the thinking for its customers, the poor dears.