Chili Peppers

Spicy food has always been a companion of mine. Tabasco sauce and other spicy condiments have been in my day-to-day life since the first days of Jim’s Coffeehouse, during which I would watch in awe as my father showered his breakfast in the green pepper sauce. Ever since then I’ve always been fascinated with the stuff, and it later grew to the love of plain ole hot chili peppers, straight out of the jar. It was like a challenge, an adrenalin rush, not to let those tempting tears fall and never to reach for that glass of milk. The chili pepper has since become my friend, foe, and greatest competition.

Chili peppers haven’t always been identified with the kinds of food they are today, so getting there was also a challenge. Some of the most famous cuisines that star chili peppers are Mexican, Thai, and of course, Indian cuisine. According to J.S. Pruthi, the author of Condiments and Spices, chilies are native to South America and their cultivation in Peru dates to prehistoric times (41). So let’s think about this. Chili peppers, also known as capsicums, originated in South America but today are commonly prevalent in India. Talk about globalization! This plant had to go against the grain and travel to East Asia, against a strong westward current to the New World. Okay, so in reality, Amit Krishna De explains in the book Capsicum, that Columbus brought the peppers back to Spain, where they then quickly spread throughout Europe (4). So where does India play into all of this? It is later explained that Portugal introduced chili peppers to India around the turn of the 16^th century.

My attraction to chili peppers has always been, like I said, the challenge that comes with consuming them. In class we’ve talked about the sense of smell being one of the most powerful senses, like Raj Patel explains in Stuffed and Starved in his chapter on supermarkets. Patel discusses the way in which supermarkets highlight appealing smells (i.e. chocolate chip cookies) in order to make the customer hungry and therefore purchase more. If only the rest of the world were as susceptible to chili peppers as me, because just at the sight of them my mouth starts to water. Believe it or not, it’s actually not fully because I’m in love with this vegetable, instead, as Spices and Condiments explains, chilies “stimulate our taste buds and increase the flow of saliva,” that has an enzyme ‘amylase’ to help in the digestion of starchy or cereal foods (48). But who knew that chilies are not only used to accent the flavors of food, and, forgive my pun, spice it up; they also have nutritional value too! According to Practically Edible, the most amazing food encyclopedia out there, chilies contain six to nine times more vitamin C than tomatoes! Does that mean my entire family can stop bugging me because I’m the only one that hasn’t completely fallen under the spell of tomatoes? Once you get past the heat, chilies are healthy! Take that!

Over the past month, I have put much thought into what I can do to eat healthier and more ethically. I have ruled out vegetarianism thanks to The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Pollan’s brilliant ideas of killing animals humanely and watching their diets as much as our own. The next step is buying organic, but Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation proved that genetically modified food is everywhere because of the lack of labeling laws. Next solution? Grow your own. We learned an easy way to achieve this with sprout kits that even a college student in a dorm room can’t kill. My dad has always been experiment happy when it comes to growing food, so we have all sorts of fresh fruits and veggies growing around the perimeter (and in some cases inside) of our house. From a massive cherry tree to small but delicious carrots, I have learned from home that growing your own is the way to go. (He’s even succeeded at growing lemons inside!) He has recently added chilies to his garden, and there they have thrived. Practically Edible explains that there are many chili pepper plants that are perennials, so replanting is not necessary each spring, although bringing them indoors during the winter might be. It doesn’t take much to put that extra kick into a dish, so even if the plant only yields a couple of peppers you’re set! Practically Edible also explains that chilies can be stored in the freezer and then thawed and cooked without losing any of their spiciness.

Now for the good part. I am sharing with you my most wonderful creation, practically the best thing since sliced bread. My tuna melt recipe.

Tuna Melt Remix:

Let’s start with the bread. There are several options here; I usually use multigrain bread, a challah roll, or focaccia. Or you can be like Michael Pollan and bake your own bread, starting with the foraging of wild yeast (397). Now that we’ve got the bread down, set it aside. On to the tuna. If you’re a broke college student like me, go for the cheap stuff. Otherwise splurge on the non-dolphin killing kind, for the sake of the dolphins and poor college students around the world who can’t save them. Once the can is drained and a portion of it is fed to your very cute (and somewhat obese) cat, Albert, empty the rest into a bowl. I forgot to mention that I hate mayonnaise. So instead of mayonnaise to keep the tuna from drying out, I use Sriracha! For those of you who haven’t yet discovered the best stuff on earth, Sriracha is a Thai chili sauce. Add this to taste, because everyone has a different wimp level when it comes to spice. Next I like to add the peppers. I use Mazzetta hot chili peppers (yellow), but pepperoncinis are also good if you’re not up for the challenge. Slice 3 or 4 peppers into thin slices and add to the mixture. Add half of a diced kosher dill pickle either to the mix or place directly on the bread. What about the cheese? I’ve done a lot of experimentation with the cheese, and the top two so far are those little Babybel cheeses that come in the wax circles or just the simple Tillamook sharp cheddar will do. Cut the Babybel into long thing slices or grate the Tillamook. You can probably guess the rest; put all ingredients in between the two slices of the bread of your choice and grill. Panini makers are best, but the old fashioned frying pan technique works too.

Works Cited:

"Chile Peppers." Practically Edible. 2008. 17 Sep 2008 .

Krishna De, Amit. Capsicum. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Inc, 2003.

Ozeki, Ruth. All Over Creation. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2003.

Patel, Raj. Stuffed and Starved. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2007.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. New York, NY: The Penguin Press, 2006.

Pruthi, J.S.. Spices and Condiments. Green Park, New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1976.

Pizza Bake

For our final class period yesterday, we had an outdoor pizza bake at the UW farm. We had already prepared the dough the previous day in class, so all we had to do was roll it out and arrange all of our toppings. Pizza was a very appropriate food to end our class with because of its ties with two different cultures. This was something that was familiar to us all, but the way in which it was being made was somewhat foreign. We tested ourselves with the Italian route, by making the crust as thin as we could, and making sure not to pile the toppings too high. I was most surprised at how easy it was to make the pizza much healthier and more fresh than its distant cousin of Domino's. I don't think we even brought meat for a topping, so there was no greasy pepperoni anywhere. Instead we threw on everything from fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, and gorgonzola, to freshly made pesto put together by a couple of my classmates and yours truly. The zuchinni, tomatoes, and green onions were all fresh from the garden, and it definitely made a difference.

The pizza bake made for a good coming together of my entire class for a farewell to early fall start, but definitely not a farewell to food ethics. Food is something that is all around us, present in our every day, in every part of our lives. Taking a moment to think about what I'm putting into my body is one of the easiest things I can do to make a small impact on a very large issue, and the cool thing is that I will physically feel better for it. This is some food for thought that is definitely worth taking with me.

Fair Trade or No Trade?

If there is one thing that is imperative in the operation of this country it is coffee. Many Americans drink the stuff like water, and there are over 500 billion cups of coffee served worldwide. In addition to the "going green" craze that has hit this country in the form of alternative energy, the 3 R's (reduce, reuse, recycle), and many others, there has also been a huge boom of fair trade coffee. Wikipedia defines fair trade as "coffee that is produced by small coffee producers who belong to cooperatives; that guarantees these cooperatives a minimum price." In a nutshell, it means that the coffee growers in coffee exporting countries are beginning to get more bang for their buck.

In his book Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel discusses coffee growers in Uganda. Coffee growers in Uganda, at the time the book was written (2007) were able to sell at 14 cents per kilo. The price needed to live a comfortable life is at least 34 cents/kilo, and it used to sell at 69 cents/kilo. At the other end in the US, the price of coffee is $26.40 per kilo. How is it possible that these coffee growers are selling their coffee for almost 200 times less than it is purchased for in the United States? There is definitely a middle man profit in play here. This, of course is where fair trade comes in. Many coffee houses across the country are promoting fair trade including Starbucks, although according to an article I read, only 6% of their coffee to date is certified Fair Trade.

So purchasing fair trade coffee, that's all well and good. Go America, we rock, and all that. But here's my question. What happens to those coffee growers that for some reason are unable to play into the fair trade market? As Patel points out in his book, there is little else they can do to make a living (or somewhat of a living). When we buy fair trade coffee, are we putting these less fortunate coffee growers out of business completely? I understand that they are getting the short end of the stick in the first place, but not enough income is always better than none at all. So keep going to Peet's, keep purchasing your fair trade coffee, but remember that there might be more problems that the fair trade solution doesn't cover.

Mmm Mmm Good

Everyone has a guilty pleasure. Some are more common like Sex & the City or Gossip Girl, others are stranger and less heard about, keeping the definition of the word intact. Guilty pleasures can come in a plethora of categories, from trashy TV shows, to silly hobbies, to Harry Potter. My food guilty pleasure would have to be Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. Everyone to whom I confess my love for this canned wonder has the same immediate response: the real thing is so much better! It's true, I can appreciate the homemade kind, with the stock created from the chicken carcass and the vegetables slowly cooked and softened over a period of several hours, but the good stuff ultimately can't stand up to the 7 line ingredient list of Campbells. I know, here I am, writing a blog about the ethics of eating and I'm confessing that one of the things I love most in the world isn't organic or local, and is so processed it should have a different category other than food. But I'm allowed.

Why do I like it? This was something we tried to figure out in class today when we had an activity in which we slowly and thoughtfully sampled top ramen and diet coke. We had a free write about what it tasted like, our reactions to it, and so on. There were a few grimaces at the sight of the coke and a lot more with the ramen, so I felt a little out of place when I had to pay attention to keep my mouth from watering. Who could blame me? Here we go again, the whole food connected to memory thing. How can I not love ramen, when it is the first warm thing that is introduced to my body after hours of freezing my butt off at the start of a ski race? Anyways, the taste of the coke surprised me, because in drinking it slowly I realized that all I was tasting was corn syrup. Count me out. And the ramen, although liquid based, did make me more thirsty after tasting it than I was before, but I've got a soft spot for the sucker. The Campbell's has the same way of creating a warm oily film over my mouth, keeping the fatty taste lingering and leaving me wanting more.

I'm not usually one to advocate severely processed food, especially after this class, and in most cases I try to stick to the shorter ingredient lists. Alison Leitch talked about the importance in reconstructing the palate to appreciate "slow cooking" in her article Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat, because in our society we have become so used to recognizing fatty and salty flavors as tasty. At the same time, because of our fast food nation we have developed a fear of any fat, even good fat, such as lardo, which in Italy is used as "an essential daily source of calorific energy in the quarry worker's diet." The problem in the United States is our fast food is made with fat to taste good and not for nutritional value. It's definitely important for us as a society to attempt to connect what tastes good to what feels good and is good for us. But, remember. Everything in moderation. I can still have my guilty pleasure over the real thing every once in a while.

Over the Hedge

Last night I watched the most random of movies: Over the Hedge. The basic plot involves a scheming raccoon who tricks a group of animals to work together and gather a massive amount of "people food" in order to feed an angry bear. It was very strange for me to watch it because my perception of the movie was noticeably different than the people around me that haven't been submerged in a food ethics class for three weeks. Although the movie was quite blatant in criticizing American suburbia, I noticed many very minute details pertaining to the food system. I recalled in one part of the movie the raccoon was handing out samples of potato chips to all the animals, praising the MSG for giving it that extra kick, not to mention the caffeinated soda that sent the animals bouncing off the walls (er, uh, trees?).

In the beginning of the movie, the raccoon was portrayed as a sort of an entrepreneur of the processed food industry, advocating the consumption of modern amenities of processed food like caffeine and high fructose corn syrup. The interesting thing was the way in which the writers created a moral by having the ultimate food source be the nuts gathered by the squirrel. It was refreshing to see such a lesson being taught in a kids movie, although most kids were probably caught up in the hilarity of the animals downing potato chips, not to mention how appetizing it all looked.

One of the more subtle aspects that the movie touched on was the convenience factor in deciding what to eat. That sneaky raccoon convinced the other forest animals how much easier it would be to get people food than spend a long time gathering the food that they would normally eat. This concept is directly reflected in society today because although Michael Pollan might spend a couple weeks creating the perfect meal composed completely of food hunted, foraged, and cooked by him, the typical American would much rather crack open a box of hamburger helper. The end of the movie, however, was somewhat unrealistic because it created a happily-ever-after situation in which the squirrel used his power of caffeine to quickly gather enough nuts to feed the whole family. This portrayed organic food as being superior to processed food, but providing the viewer with no realistic means by which to arrive at that point. But, hey! It's just a kid's movie, right?

Pig Fat

Everybody needs a bit of soul food in their life. Today I got my share when we made collard greens and hoppin' john for our food activity. The recipe for collard greens is fairly reminiscent of cooked spinach in that it is a similar leafy vegetable that cooks down to less than half its volume. After frying bacon that is added at the end, the greens are cooked in the bacon grease and chicken stock is later added. The whole process took me back to some good ol' home cooking that frequented my household. It reminded me of the (fairly successful) creamed spinach experiments my mother and I had combined with my father's love of bacon.

My dad will always be known in my mind for his love of pig fat. I was my father's daughter today when I fried those fat slices of pork earlier today. Talk about a Madeleine! Everything about bacon, from the overpowering ham-like smell, to the greasy texture, to the alternatively crunchy and chewy delicious taste, brings back such strong (and delicious) memories for me.

Talking about food and identity today in class made me realize how much bacon has formed my identity. Every Sunday and some Saturdays growing up I would wake up to the smell of bacon creeping under the crack of my door. The problem with cooking bacon, though, is that the smell lingers, so sometimes after waking up I would race upstairs only to find an empty greasy plate. It didn't take me long to learn the first come first serve rule in the world of bacon, although it later failed me in my not-so-early riser high school years. It was interesting to make collard greens that had bacon as a huge role because it was like combining something so familiar with something completely foreign. Collard greens are definitely not something that I would normally identify with, but with the addition of the bacon it felt just like home. In Ruth Ozeki's book All Over Creation, one of the main themes is the lifestyle that is created by the role that the potato plays in the Fuller family's life. Making collard greens and hoppin' john today made me realize that I don't have to be a farmer in southern Idaho to feel a close connection to food. Even if it is food like collard greens that I don't necessarily identify with, any inkling of a similarity can turn it into comfort food. Food will always play a central role in my life, regardless of if I'm the one riding the tractor or frying the bacon.

Three Cheers for Madeleine

Marcel Proust redefined the meaning of a Madeleine in his short writing The Madeleine. This tasty treat is a small cake in the shape of a shell, made from flour, eggs, butter, and sugar. Essentially, all things delicious. At least that is the first definition. Proust has created the Madeleine to have a completely separate definition, creating a symbol for something that triggers a memory. He paints a beautiful picture of a powerful flashback that is catalyzed by this tasty complex treat. It is astounding to me how many connections can be made between food and memory, and how powerful it can be. Whenever I smell a salty chicken broth smell, I will always be reminded of the rainy passover week in April when I eat Matzo Ball Soup, no matter where I am. Even when I eat soups that have that similar saltiness, I get an overwhelmingly familiar sensation, and it takes me a while to realize what it is.

Everyone has at least one food that triggers memory, many have more than one. In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes the Chicken McNugget as "a madeleine in the making." He describes going to McDonalds with his family, and how the McNugget is his son's taste of childhood. It is very generous even to say that the Chicken McNugget resembles chicken, with its bland flavor and 38 ingredients, 13 of which, according to Pollan, are derived from corn. How is it that something as beautifully constructed as a Madeleine can even be put in the same sentence as a piece of fried "chicken"?Products like the Chicken McNugget have diminished any possibility to persuade kids to eat healthy. Burger King is trying, with their new apple fries, which are slices of apples shaped like french fries. Really? Has it really become necessary to shape something into a completely unnatural form for it to appeal to kids? And where did those apples come from anyway? Were they in the same refrigerated truck as the nuggets, getting cozy on the several thousand mile trek to make it to the consumers plate? Let's do the Madeleine some justice and create memories of fresh, homemade foods, not corn fried corn!

Vegan Lentil Soup

I had a roast chicken dinner tonight. I was served mashed potatoes and gravy, a side of summer vegetables and half of a chicken for the main course. Yes. I said half. Now I consider myself an athlete, but I'm no Michael Phelps, and I certainly don't need half of a chicken for dinner. Between my two roommates and I, we were responsible for the consumption (or attempted consumption) of a chicken and a half. As I walked to my table to eat, trying to pick my jaw up off the floor, I put myself in the position of a vegetarian or vegan and pondered the ethics of my huge meal. In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan explains that many people have no problem with eating meat, just as long as it is a block in a package. He points out that there are more people against hunting because of the principle of killing an animal than are actually against eating meat in general, when really the animal that was hunted is probably a lot better to eat and had a better life than the meat that comes in a supermarket. The thing that struck me as strange when I was eating dinner was how much food was being wasted. How is it that I was served a huge amount of chicken without the choice to have less? Thinking about it made me realize a whole different set of ethics with eating meat versus vegetarianism, and that is the waste factor. It's definitely surprising to think about how much of an animal is actually being consumed compared to how much is simply thrown out.

In class on Thursday, we made vegan lentil soup. Learning how to make such a wholesome meal out of only vegetables was a pleasant surprise. Very little waste was generated, and what waste we did have was easily compostable. It certainly didn't convert me to veganism or even vegetarianism, but from now on I know I will be more conscious of the types of meat I eat and the impact that it has. I really should have saved that chicken I couldn't finished for dinner, it would have made a mean stock for soup!

A Day at the Market

Yesterday, I spent part of my evening at Phinney Farmers Market, a local farmers market in north Seattle. Normally, my main goal at farmers markets is sampling. It's a lot like the weekly Costco trips I used to take with my mom, just for the free food, but this is even better. The farmers market system in Seattle is quite a shock to me, because coming from Boise, I'm used to a more commercialized farmers market, every Saturday in downtown Boise. Think of the donuts at Pike's Place with lots of arts and crafts things and a few fresh produce booths thrown in. Although some people make use of it, a lot of it is for show. Not so with these small but productive markets around Seattle. To my surprise, people were going to the market as if they were going grocery shopping; buying all their fresh organic produce for the week, and perhaps getting a pizza to go or some grass fed beef for dinner.

In class the other day we had a discussion dealing with the importance of buying organic versus genetically modified foods. Since labels are not required for GMO, how do we know if what we are putting in our stomach has been genetically altered? At the farmer's market, however, there are many small businesses that are still producing the old fashioned way, and their business depends on it. The first third of the book The Omivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan deals with the production and uses of corn. I was appalled to find that corn is used for almost every foodstuff, including the use of corn to produce the shiny surface of cucumbers. Since when are food cosmetics normal?! Buying organic can be considered a luxury for a lot of people, and many can't afford to do so. In that case, buying as local as possible is key. Any bit of effort is a step in the right direction.

The Upside of ORT

The summer I turned ten years old, I packed my bags and headed off to Camp Merrowvista, in New Hampshire. I was thrilled by the thought of a new place to explore, but less so about the matching bright yellow raincoat and pants I was forced to wear in the downpour on the first day. Can you say quack quack? Nevertheless, at the end of the two weeks when I returned to Boise, I was eager to tell my parents all about what I'd learned and the experiences I'd had.

That first year of camp was very valuable to me. I learned how to live and work together with other people, cope with homesickness, and I even became more environmentally aware. At camp they not only taught us the joy of composting, but we became conscious of the waste we generated. We called it ORT, short for Our Remaining Tidbits. This included all the food items that we couldn't compost, like meat and dairy. We became aware of how much food to take at meals, learning to take less and come back for seconds. The ORT that was generated at every meal was collected into a bucket to be weighed after the meal. If the ORT for the entire dining hall was under 1 pound, the counselors would perform a song for us. We would each strive to be ORT free, because those who were got to identify themselves by slapping their hands over their heads and yelling "ORT! ORT! ORT!" like a seal, similar to the way my father used to cheer us on at soccer games.

Until last week, the experience at camp pretty much defined my perception of garbage, simply waste as little as possible. Over bread, juice, and chocolate salvaged from a DUMPSTER, our guest speaker spoke to us about the beauty of dumpster diving. Yes, that is collecting food from the waste stream and eating it. Of course, there are boundaries on this concept. Dairy would probably not be the best bet to consume because it is extremely perishable without a refrigerator. But when executed reasonably, dumpster diving can actually be a viable food source!

During our discussion, we defined trash as being at the end of its social life. That is, trash is something that nobody wants, needs, or for which has any use. Taking this definition into consideration, a surprisingly significant percent of what gets put in a dumpster can not be defined as trash. Bakeries constantly throw out perfectly good bread, because they have to keep up with the promise of nothing but fresh products, so the day old stuff gets kicked to the curb. The same thing goes with juice. Supermarkets must discard expired juice, even if it is only minutes past the expiration date printed on the container. Sometimes the juice isn't even expired, it is simply older than the other products that need room on the shelf. Some precautions must be taken, of course, such as ensuring the seal is intact, washing the food thoroughly, and doing a small taste test before consuming large amounts of the product. It is this concept that makes the phrase "One man's trash is another man's treasure" so literal!

The entire concept of eating waste was inspired by what is called punk cuisine. Dylan Clark explains it beautifully in his article The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine, when he talks about how the ethics of eating processed food change when it goes into the trash. Food is put into three categories: raw, cooked and rotten. Punk cuisine is composed of mostly raw foods, because many cooked foods are thoroughly processed. The exception to this is the rotten foods, because "by bathing corporate food in a dumpster...punk food is, in a sense, decommodified."

Whatever the reason for dumpster diving; whether it be for principle like the punks, or simply to reduce waste , what a perfect solution to the ORT problem! Of course, people are still going to generate inedible waste, yes, but a lot of it is edible. By combining this concept of reducing waste and rescuing what is still good, we can kill two birds with one stone. Instead of falsely stimulating the economies of supermarkets by buying them out of canned food for food drives, why not feed the homeless a day-old but yet perfectly safe dumpster meal? We can turn the burden of trash and hunger into a blessing with a bit of resourcefulness!