Michael Pollan, an author and journalist who writes about food, went on a three-year pilgrimage to learn about food associated with the four classical elements: fire, water, air, and earth. Along the way, Pollan consulted and cooked with masters in each field. In 'Cooked', Pollan shares culinary techniques he acquired, along with healthy doses of science, history, anthropology, and philosophy.
Michael Pollan
Packaged, processed, and fast foods have taken a toll on our well-being because these edibles contain large amounts of sugar, fat, and salt - as well as preservatives that aren't natural to our diet. To remedy the situation, Pollan posits that we should cook more, and notes that 'cooking is one of the most interesting and worthwhile things we can do.'
Fire
One way to prepare food with fire is to roast meat over burning wood. Traditional barbecue pork is prepared like this, from whole hogs roasted in pits. Pollan consulted some of the most skilled pitmasters in North Carolina - including the barbecue expert Ed Mitchell - and learned that the pigs are slowly roasted over oak and hickory coals. When the hogs are done, assistants wearing heavy gloves pull the meat apart with their hands - a hot and laborious process. The pulled pork can be served on plates or in sandwiches for a tasty meal.
Of course the earliest humans didn't cook their food. The English writer Charles Lamb (1775-1834) claims that all meat was eaten raw until the art of roasting was accidently discovered by a hapless Chinese boy named Bo-bo. Bo-bo liked to play with fire, and one day, when Bo-bo was home alone, he burned down the family cottage....incinerating a litter of piglets. Bo-bo - and then his family - tasted the burnt piglets, whose skin had crisped to delicious 'cracklings' - and they were good. After this, whenever the family sow farrowed, the cottage burned down - a practice that soon spread to all the neighbors. Eventually, a smarter head figured out that pigs could be roasted on a spit, and humans discovered the art of cooking.
The Scottish writer James Boswell (1740-1795) wrote that cooking is the 'defining human ability', the attribute that separates us from animals. Moreover, anthropologists postulate that cooking ALLOWED our proto-human ancestors to evolve into Homo sapiens because cooked food was easier to digest, and provided the large quantities of nutrients needed by our bigger brains.
Of course fire can be used to cook many things, and Pollan was especially impressed with Chef Victor Arguinzoniz at the Asador Etxebarri Restaurant in Spain. Chef Victor prepares everything on a grill, including dessert. The chef is known for his juicy prawns, chorizo tartare, and even his butter - which is eaten without bread, like a fine cheese. So if you're ever in Axpe, Spain, you know where to go.
Tasting Menu at Asador Etxebarri
Water
Cooking with water became possible when humans developed the ability to craft pots. Pollan - who lives in California - needed help to hone his braising skills, so he recruited a local Iranian-American chef and cookbook author, Samin Nosrat. Samin has big personality and a storehouse of food knowledge that she's happy to share. Samin says great cooking is about the three P's - patience, presence, and practice.
Michael Pollan and Samin Nosrat
Most braises start with sautéed onions, which must be chopped fine and cooked slowly to get things started. In fact onions (and garlic) contribute to the safety of food, because they contain powerful antimicrobial compounds that protect us from dangerous bacteria. After the onions comes the meat, which is seasoned with at least 'three to five times as much salt as you think you need.' This brings out the intrinsic flavors of the meat, and improves its texture and appearance. Once the meat is seared, everything goes into a covered pot with vegetables, spices, and braising liquid - which can be almost anything: wine, stock, puree, juice, milk, beer, dashi, tap water, and more - depending on the recipe and its cultural reference. The food is then slowly cooked until the meat is tender and (hopefully) delicious. Pollan writes, 'the one pot meal brings the family together, unlike individual microwave meals.'
Certain edibles - such as good stew - appeal to us because our 'tastes' have been selected by evolution for their survival value. The five 'flavors' human taste buds can detect are: sweetness - which directs us to sugar-rich foods that are good sources of energy; salty - because salt is an essential nutrient; bitter - so we don't eat toxic plants; sour - so we stay away from rotten food; and umami (the taste of savoriness) - so we'll consume nutritious proteins.
The revulsion we feel to bitter and sour foods can be overcome, however, and many people develop an 'acquired taste' for things like tea, coffee, dark chocolate, kale, grapefruit, 'stinky cheeses', and so on.
Air
Air, the element that 'puffs up' bread, helps convert wheat into usable energy. Pollan notes that he really loves good bread, and would rather eat a slice of fresh bread - with a rugged crust and a moist, tender, pocket-filled interior (called 'the crumb') - than a piece of cake. The gases in the crumb carry much of the 'roasty, yeasty, hazelnutty, and faintly alcoholic aroma' of the bread, which the author prefers to the smell of wine or coffee.
To become a home baker, Pollan decided to learn to make sourdough bread, which begins with a 'starter' - a leavening agent made from a flour-water mixture fermented by yeast and bacteria. For sourdough starter, bakers do not add microbes (such as store bought yeast), but depend on yeasts and bacteria in the flour, water, and air.
To perfect his starter Pollan consulted a number of bread experts, including Chad Robertson from San Francisco's Tartine Bakery - a bread guru renowned for his sourdough creations. Watching Chad shape his breads, Pollan saw a 'blur of fingers that looked like they were swaddling an endless row of infants at warp speed.' Pollan brought his starter to the Tartine Bakery in a Tupperware container, wanting to get some pointers on the care and feeding of the concoction - and hoping to secretly snag some microbes, because the bakery 'must be crawling with them.' 😊
Sourdough starter
Pollan also acquired flour milled from specially grown wheat, and - with much practice - made some very tasty loaves. It's important to use WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR - including the bran and germ - because this is where the vitamins and antioxidants are. Unfortunately for our ancestors, there was a historical preference for white flour, since it made bread that was sweeter and airier - but much less healthful. Because of this, the government requires nutrients to be put back into baked goods, which is why Wonder Bread and the like have a slew of artificial ingredients.
A 'whole grain' renaissance began in the 1960s, and many of today's artisanal bakers have embraced whole grains, so - even if you don't bake - healthy breads are easy to find (even on supermarket shelves).
Sourdough bread
Earth
Bacteria and fungi are everywhere, just waiting to decompose things. While organisms are alive, their cells are protected by membranes or walls, but - as soon as living things die - bacteria and fungi start to break them down. This is a good thing, because it keeps the planet from being covered with dead plants and animals, poop, debris, trash, and so on.
Bacteria are beneficial in many ways. In fact our bodies are largely composed of bacteria. Microbes in our gut are essential to life, since they maintain our intestinal wall, help us digest certain carbohydrates, crowd out harmful pathogens, produce antibiotic compounds, and activate the immune system. In the vagina, bacteria help maintain a pH low enough to resist pathogens. Moreover, bacteria evolve right along with us. For instance, Japanese people have specific microbes that help them digest seaweed.
Microbes also ferment foodstuffs - that is, they produce chemical changes that preserve foods and change their flavor. Early humans (probably accidently) learned to ferment foods, and people have been doing it ever since. The earliest impetus for 'pickling' (a word that refers to ALL vegetable ferments, not just pickles) was preservation. Until there was a way to preserve food, humans could not advance from hunting and gathering to agriculture.
Fermentation, along with smoking and drying, allowed farmers to survive the long months between harvests. As an additional bonus, fermentation creates useful molecules - like B vitamins, vitamin C, amino acids, and anti-cancer elements....AND breaks down chemical compounds that interfere with nutrient absorption. So fermentation has many advantages.
On the downside, fermented foods are a culturally specific 'acquired taste', so fermented foods of other ethnic groups often strike us as 'rotten.'
The list of items prepared via fermentation is impressive, and includes bread, coffee, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, beer, cheese, yogurt, soy sauce, kombucha, kefir, miso, natto, and more.
Pollan acquired pickling recipes from 'fermentation revivalist' Sandor Katz, who teaches fermentation workshops around the country. Katz is a 'fermento', a group of dedicated brewers, cheese makers, picklers, and 'post-Pasteurians' - people who fight for the right to drink unpasteurized milk and eat unpasteurized cheeses. One of the country's foremost raw-cheese makers is a nun, Sister Noella Marcellino, who helped the author learn the art of cheese creation. Sister Noella, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology, has government permission to use her old wooden implements rather than the stainless steel instruments mandated by law.
A VERY COMMON use of fermentation is the making of alcoholic beverages, which began at least 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. Wine, beer, or mead have been used in religious rituals for centuries, in the belief that 'intoxication' gives people access to the gods. Fermented drinks were beneficial to early humans because they were safer than water (since alcohol kills pathogens) and contain extra vitamins, minerals, and proteins.
Pollan relates that his first experiment with wine-making occurred when he was ten years old, and intrigued by alchemy. (He'd already tried to convert a lump of coal into a diamond. 😎) The youthful Pollan gathered grapes, squashed them up in an orange juice container, screwed the lid on tightly, and put it on a table in the living room. He apparently didn't notice the container starting to bulge.....and came home with his parents one night to find the living room smelling of wine and completely splattered with purple stains.
As an adult, Pollan and his son made beer - dubbed 'Pollan's Pale Ale' - which he says is quite drinkable.
Since completing research for this book, some of Pollan's culinary routines have fallen by the wayside. However, he still spends Sunday afternoons preparing braises for the family; makes ale once in a while; bakes bread every couple of weeks; and roasts a pig on his lawn every year - a ritual enjoyed by family, friends, and neighbors.
The book is long, and my review merely skims the top of what's inside - including tips for preparing a variety of foods and beverages. I enjoyed the narrative, though some of the philosophical musings are a bit overdone (IMO). Still, even if you're not a cook - or a foodie - there's a lot to enjoy here.
Rating: 4 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment