PICKLED EGGS: THE NEGLECTED FOOD GROUP

I have a philosophy when it comes to food: if you want a happy belly, you need to try different things. Normally, I'd like to think I fit into the category of "the guy who'll eat anything," but I've also been known to lose that bravado from time to time. Usually, I discover my limits when forced out of my comfort zone, like I was recently with pickled eggs.

It all happened rather unexpectedly. About a week ago, I was asked if I had ever eaten a pickled egg. It's a weird and totally random question, right? The "obvious" answer for me was "no way, why would I do that?"

Moe The Bartender and his jar of pickled eggs. (The Simpsons)

The mere suggestion of pickled eggs conjures up memories of Moe's Tavern from The Simpsons, and that dingy jar with its putrid brine. So, when a colleague explained that he used down these things, one after another on bar nights, you can imagine my gag reflex kicking in. The thought of all these strangers dunking their sweaty, dirty palms into a jar and fumbling around for a "treat" is hardly appetizing. Then again, could so many people be so wrong? The short answer is, well, yes; lots of people can be collectively wrong about something. Still, I wondered: there had to be something to this foul snack . . . right?

Long story short, after swearing I'd never eat a pickled egg under any circumstance, I found myself at a grocery store that night buying a jar Strub's Pickled Eggs. Ingredients on the label: eggs, water, white vinegar, glucose-fructose (my favourite), and/or sugar, salt, spices, and sodium benzoate (a preservative). I wasn't impressed with my first bite, my disappointment coming from the texture of the egg - it was tough. I almost didn't want to continue after bite number two, but I persevered for you, dear reader. Then, the more I ate, the more I liked. A week later, I'm wondering how I'll get by without them.

My problem with the Strub's brand, as I mentioned, is with the texture of the egg white; maybe this has something to do with the shelf-life of the product. If you like pickles and eggs - individually - it shouldn't surprise you to find this combo is somehow satisfying. Maybe I need to eat more in order to get a better idea of what's out there.

What I'm taking away from the experience, overall, is that I see some great potential for what pickled eggs could be, if done with some care and thought. If you're feeling brave, here's an opportunity to try making your own pickled eggs:

As you can see from this random Youtube video, there can be good deal of attention paid to what goes into the brine, which is what makes or breaks your final product. When I see this jar, I see the potential to add flavour (though I don't think I'm the first to draw that conclusion).

CHEW ON THIS!

All this talk begs the question: why would anyone pickle an egg in the first place? From what I've read, the answer seems obvious. When you have a bulk quantity of eggs and no refrigeration, you must turn to preserving methods if you want to keep the food for an extended length of time. That's the explanation provided in an article on a website called British Food: A History:

With today’s farming techniques it is hard to believe that eggs were a seasonal food just like fruit and vegetables: the cold winter temperatures were not conducive to incubating developing chicks, nor was there enough food during those lean times to produce eggs in the first place.

I'll buy that answer, but how did they end up as a food staple in bars and pubs? For that, here's some history for you from a website called Punch Drink:

Eggs used to be standard fare at classic drinking holes throughout the Western world; in fact, they were often the free snack of choice, which likely sounds like an old-timey relic to most. At least, it did to me—milk used to come in glass bottles delivered to your door—but alas, the world of drinking back then was rounded out by far heartier snacks.

There is some well-founded nutritional logic to the pairing of eggs and booze: cysteine, a key amino acid in helping the liver function, is present in eggs, which is why that bacon, egg and cheese does wonders for your hangover. In fact, we humans are intuitively smarter in terms of our food pairings than we are in other areas of our existence. But food historians like to gangbuster into our instincts and give them a date, time and reason, and in the case of eggs and drinking, we may have copped it from the French. The tradition of serving free hard-boiled eggs “was reputedly born of a surplus amount of eggs [in France] and a requirement that establishments serving liquor also serve food,” The New York Observer reported back in 2011.

The hard-boiled egg was also a staple ingredient in the saloon “free lunches” of the 1800s. “Most of the foods offered up at free-lunch counters were mainly an enticement to attract people and, hopefully, get them to order a second beer,” says Christine Sismondo, the author of America Walks Into A Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops. Those lunches were so popular that one Chicago saloon reportedly went through 45 dozen eggs per meal, according to Sismondo’s research.

I always like a side order of perspective to go with what I'm eating. Ultimately, it seems that health code regulations eventually brought on the demise of this bar delicacy, which might be a good thing. Still, I'm a believer now, my conversion brought on by a random conversation about a food I thought no one had any business eating. As for that "food comfort zone" I mentioned earlier, I think I've expanded that about as far as I'd like it to go (for now). Any suggestions?

For more reading on how wooden eggs became a thing, check out this article from the Observer website.

OF STEAKS AND MARSHMALLOWS

The headline in The Irish Times piece asks: What do steak and marshmallows have in common? As the article suggests, this is a foodie question I never knew I had. The answer, it says, is something called "The Maillard Reaction" - that was going to be my second guess (don't ask what my first was). Personally, I like writing that makes you feel like a food-nerd. This is one of those articles. Bon appétit.

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, MICHELIN STAR: HOW I WONDER IF YOU'RE WORTH IT

(Image from: madeiraislandnews.com)

Extremely coveted. Deeply controversial.

The theory is that nothing expresses the height of culinary excellence like Michelin stars, but are they worth it? The consensus is divided. There's a widespread belief that the stars have "lost their lustre." For those (presumably) in the know, the Michelin Guide is the definitive source for the best places to eat in the world.

With that in mind, there are a couple of new 3-star restaurants in Spain, and you can read more about them in this article from the Rob Report. Very quickly, here they are: the Aponiente restaurant in El Puerto de Santa Maria and ABaC (a restaurant and hotel combo) in Barcelona.

Michelin Madness

For all the bickering over the true value of Michelin ratings, it's well known that a star not only inspires elevated levels of culinary quality, it also drives chefs into the depths of menu madness. The point is well made in this BBC documentary:

Michelin Stars: The Madness of Perfection (BBC - 2010)

The film is a must-watch for foodies and anyone else who wants to explore and reflect on what it means for a chef to be awarded with this accolade. It also leads one to feel discouraged and disheartened when seeing stories like this appear in The Washington Post:

People in Washington may balk at the pamphlet-thin weight of our recently released Michelin Guide, which includes only 108 restaurants. But in Seoul, some unhappy customers are saying they haven’t gotten their money’s worth — and that’s not just people who have bought the book.

Korean media are reporting that one politician has been speaking out against Seoul’s 2016 edition of the little red book, which has been described as being full of errors. This may be especially disappointing for him and other Korean officials because — twist! —  they paid Michelin to commission the book.

Many people in the restaurant industry may not realize that Michelin Guides can be commissioned for a price. (Emphasis added.)

Fake food

How valued is an "esteemed" ranking if you can simply purchase it? Where's the challenge and achievement in that? If you can commission your own Michelin rating, why work for it? What a tire fire. To put it mildly: this is disgraceful.

Still, from someone I've spoken with, who has visited multiple Michelin-calibre eateries, the experience is well worth the exorbitant prices. If you feel the same way, here's a list, by Forbes, of some of the top countries in the world for Michelin Star restaurants.

SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAMMITY SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!

(Photo from spam.com)

No, Spam is not "the foie gras of the grocery store."

Last week, Claudia McNeilly made this unfit comparison in the National Post and she was thoroughly wrong for doing so. One is a delicacy, the other is not. One might be found in high-priced Michelin-Star restaurants, the other belongs in dinners, drive-ins, and dives. One is made by forcing geese to gorge on unhealthy amounts of food to fatten their livers, while the other ... well, it's what you consume (by choice), in unhealthy portions, to fatten your stomach. Both are delicious, in their own ways, but they're simply not on the same level.

What I can agree with McNeilly about, however, is that Spam isn't gross, it's just grossly underrated.

Embrace the Spam!

I came up with my own Spam-creation about a month ago; I didn't mark the date on my calendar but maybe I should have. So, if you're craving something offbeat and out of your comfort zone, then you need to try this out:

The Penney Spam-wich Serves 1-2 1 can of Spam 4 pieces of bread 1-2 tbsp of butter 3-4 tbsp of your favourite mustard Freshly ground black pepper & salt Slice the Spam, lengthwise, into 4 square slabs. Toast the 4 pieces of bread until they’re golden brown. Melt the butter in a fry pan on medium heat. Once the butter stops bubbling, add the slices of spam and nicely brown both sides. Place the cooked Spam onto 2 pieces of toast. Add freshly ground black pepper and a dash of salt to the meat. To the other slices of bread, liberally apply the mustard and complete your sandwiches.

My own craving for this wonderful beast of a meat was awakened after watching that classic Monty Python sketch - you know the one:

The "Spam" sketch - Monty Python's Flying Circus (1970)

This performance proved to be seminal moment in pop-culture history. Granted, British humour isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the "Spam" sketch transcends the boundaries of comedy, bending space and time, eventually working its way out of the Flying Circus and into the folders of your inbox. Anyone with an email account knows what I'm talking about, but I suppose few people think about the Pythons anymore when deleting their spam mail.

The comedy troupe deserves some obvious credit for defining the way we categorize our junk emails, but there's more to it than just a cafeteria full of vikings singing about specially processed American meat. Here's some brief history about spam mail from a Time magazine article in 2009:

Though it wasn't called spam until the 1980s ... the first unsolicited messages came over the wires as early as 1864, when telegraph lines were used to send dubious investment offers to wealthy Americans. The first modern spam was sent on ARPANET, the military computer network that preceded the Internet. In 1978, a man named Gary Turk sent an e-mail solicitation to 400 people, advertising his line of new computers. (Turk later said his methods proved so unpopular that it would be more than a decade before anyone would try again.) In late 1994, Usenet — a newsgroup precursor to the Internet — was inundated by an advertisement for the immigration-law services of Laurence A. Canter and Martha S. Siegel. Despite the ensuing outcry, the lawyers defended their practice, called their detractors anti–free speech "zealots" and wrote a book about the practice titled How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway. Pandora's Box had been opened.

Now spam comprises the vast majority of e-mail messages sent — 78% of the 210 billion e-mails sent each day, according to one estimate. And 93 billion of these manage to get past the technical defenses like spam filters and blacklists. E-mail programs have gotten smarter, but spammers stay one step ahead, using disposable e-mail addresses and sending messages from farms of different computers around the world to avoid being blocked. The garbled text spammers load their messages with to get past e-mail filters sometimes approaches poetry: sites like spampoetry.org chronicle lines like "Confirm you won fund/ You get it without paying/ Urgent attention."

It pays to be delicious

Despite the unpopular cultural narrative this product comes wrapped in, Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam, is doing OK.

In 2016, according to Fortune, the company has increased its revenues from $5.4 billion to roughly $9.3 billion. Admittedly, much of that growth comes from a diverse range of new products - including kale and quinoa - but Spam is by far it's most widely-recognized brand.

Here's something else for all the Spam-haters to chew on: the company first introduced the product in 1937. So, if it really was that awful, there's no way Spam would have lasted for as long as it has - free-market forces would have killed it off. Then again, maybe people just have bad taste in food.

The reality is, right or wrong, a lot of people have a lot of love for Spam.

According to Bloomberg, in an article from about a year ago entitled "Beyond Spam," the product can be found in cupboards and pantries around the globe:

Spam is an international food, a staple in some 44 countries from the Philippines to England. In Hawaii, it’s a substitute for fresh tuna. In South Korea, a little tower of Spam cans is a traditional holiday gift, a vestige of U.S. military rations during the Korean War.

Get cooking

Can so many people be so wrong? Well, yes, of course, but that doesn't mean they are. Your food preferences are entirely subjective and everyone holds the right to be particular about what they put into their bodies. That doesn't mean you should turn up your nose when passing by Spam in the grocery store. No, it'll never be foie gras, but Spam is quite comfortable being what it is.

If you can't tolerate the duality and inner beauty of this iconic food, then maybe that says more about who you are. In that case, it's time to let go of your prejudices and expand your dinner diversity. Meat is meat. Where you see repulsive, slimy, pink goo stuffed into a can, others see flavour, opportunity, and hope. The ingredients are as simple as its packaging: pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and (my favourite) sodium nitrite.

For the readers who want to take the plunge, you can learn more about some Spam-inclusive recipes by clicking here and here. And if you have any Spam-creations of your own, I'd love to hear about them.

By the way, in case you missed it, Spam turned 80 this year. Happy birthday, Spam.

GRAZIE, ANTONIO

Chef Antonio Carluccio - Photo: antonio-carluccio.co.uk

When people call you the "godfather of Italian gastronomy," it implies you can do a little more than just boil some pasta and make a pizza. Antonio Carluccio was certainly deserving of that title and had a special way about serving up his native country on a plate. While some people simply cook to eat, others cook to live, and that's the kind of man Antonio will be remembered as following the news of his death on Nov. 8.

Admittedly, I didn't follow his career too closely. My first encounter with "the godfather" was when my wife and I discovered the BBC programme Two Greedy Italians. This is a fantastic series for anyone who wants to learn more about Italy through its culture and (some might say "more wonderfully") through its food. Starring Carluccio and his long-time associate, Gennaro Contaldo, the show follows the two men as they roam across the country of their youth, filling their bellies while examining the psychology and passions of modern Italians. Here is one of my favourite episodes, entitled "Lazio and Machismo":

Two Greedy Italians (BBC) - Binge-watch the series while you binge eat!

These two men had a long history together, actually, and while they might have shared some great moments as friends and professionals, they weren't always migliori amici. Back in the 80s, Carluccio became owner of Neal Street Restaurant in London, that's where Contaldo worked as his assistant for some 15 years. From my own experience in the business, I know you can learn a lot about a person during the heat of a dinner rush, so I can imagine they knew each other quite well. Eventually, Contaldo would leave to start his own eatery. The parting led to some hard feelings that Carluccio finally opened up about during a 2015 interview he gave while visiting Australia.

“I thought he [Gennaro] had done a bad thing going away from Neal Street," Carluccio said. "So for many years we didn’t talk to each other, because he had done it badly, really badly.”

He also told the interviewer that he would have helped his friend start his own restaurant, believing Contaldo wasn't "entrepreneurial enough":

I said to him ‘I know I can cook, and do everything around it.' Then I delegate to everyone else for the business because they know more than me. Money and things.

Whatever differences existed between the two, they seemed to get over them enough to make their BBC series together. For the sake of both individuals, I sincerely hope they did overcome those tensions. However, in that same interview, Carluccio did accuse his co-host of pilfering his lines during filming:

Everything we do is without script. I was hating Gennaro.

Before the scene, I would say ‘Gennaro, I am going to say this and this and this.' Come the scene, he goes, bang, and steals my line.

I don't think you can make good TV without some big personalities, so that kind of a story doesn't surprise me. Clearly, the two found a way to co-exist and - hopefully - as friends. Along with their Italian heritage and passion for food, these two greedy Italians had something else in common.

Jamie Oliver embarked on his professional career under Carluccio at the Neal Street Restaurant before becoming Genarro's protégé. Oliver never forgot his old boss, though, working with him later in life and including him on his popular Youtube channel. Here's a great recipe by Carluccio, courtesy of Food Tube, for the best Spaghetti Carbonara you'll ever eat outside of Italy, with a "minimum of fuss and maximum of flavour":

Spaghetti Carbonara (with Eggs and Bacon) Serves Serves 2 (good portions) 220g Spaghetti or Spaghettoni (the largest spaghetti) 25g  Guanciale (the cheek of the pork) or pancetta (Italian bacon) cut into small cubes. 2 tbsp olive oil 2 eggs 50g Parmesan cheese (or aged pecorino) freshly grated. Freshly ground black pepper. ... Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water until al dente. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan and fry the guanciale or pancetta until crisp. Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl with the grated cheese and pepper. When the pasta is ready, drain and add to the pan with the guanciale. Then mix well to coat everything. Take off the heat. Allow to cool slightly. Then add the egg and cheese mixture. Stir to coat the pasta and serve immediately. (NOTE: This list of ingredients and instructions is taken from Antonio Carluccio's official website. It also appears in the book entitled Antonio Carluccio’s Southern Italian Feast, which can be purchased at Amazon by clicking here. I've included the recipe - a personal favourite - as a tribute to the late chef.)

Jamie Oliver said his goodbyes to Carluccio with a heartfelt statement he released online via Instagram:

He was my first London Boss at the Neal Street restaurant 25 years ago which was an institution and Mecca of wild mushrooms where I had the pleasure of working for him. He was such a charismatic charming don of all things Italian!! Always hanging out the front door of the restaurant with a big fat Cigar a glass of something splendid and his amazing fuzzy white hair. ... I also had the pleasure of making and producing his TV show the “Two Greedy Italians" with his life long best friend and partner in crime @gennarocontaldo who were hilarious together!! He was an amazing food ambassador that will be sorely missed.

Like Oliver, Carluccio was a heavy-weight food-star in his own right, even if he wasn't fond of the idea of celebrity chefs. During the interview from Australia I referenced earlier, he was highly critical about idolizing them on television:

I have seen this grow up over three decades. I am afraid that increasing the status of chefs to something more special hasn’t been very good because they do two or three recipes well, perhaps a bit strange, and leave the rest to others. For me, being a chef is a very heavy job.

It's fair to say Carluccio tasted more than just a dash of success. In addition to his multiple restaurants and television work, he also wrote some 20 books on Italian cooking and was bestowed with knighthood, receiving the Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic) in 1998.

There were dark times alongside those great achievements, too, but that wasn't something he openly discussed. In this article on The Telegraph website, written by Sir Terence Conran, we're offered a glimpse into some of Carluccio's inner struggles, from the perspective of a friend:

[Q]uieter moments were rare and the only real glimpse most of us ever saw of the demons that troubled him on such a deep but private level. He was able to hide them very well – too well, sadly. None of us will ever really know what Antonio faced up to in those darker times and I am no expert in such matters, but I do know it was very painful for those close to him to deal with. It didn’t make any of us love him any less though, and I will confess to missing the depth of our friendship in the years after Priscilla separated from him.

It was only later that Antonio himself was able to speak openly about battling depression. “I didn’t want the burden of people asking me what I, a successful man, had to be depressed about,” he confessed. “I concealed my real feelings, and I survived by telling jokes. I wanted people to know that I was jolly.”

There are many reasons why one might struggle with depression. Antonio went through three divorces, for example, which can scar a soul in ways known only by the individual and God. There was also the death of a brother that weighed on his heart and the time he tried to end his life by stabbing himself with a pair of scissors. One can only imagine the depth of sadness and pain in his life during those moments.

I'm not claiming to fully understand his personal turmoil, nor am I saying he was a wreck as a person, because we're all wounded in our own ways. These peeks into his personal life merely serve as reminders of our own fragile humanity. Maybe this story will inspire us to greater empathy for those around who are struggling with their own difficulties and demons.

Reports say Carluccio died from complications after a fall at home. He was 80. Antonio, riposi in pace.

THE PERFECT FRIED EGG ... THE FRENCH WAY, OF COURSE!

Why is it that the French are so good at cooking everything?

I'm no Michelin star chef myself, but I thought I could at least do a half-decent job of frying an egg - then I watched this video. You'd be surprised at just how bad you are at cooking something so simple as an egg. (Breakfast will never be the same.)

For what it's worth, I highly recommend this Youtube channel - it's called The French Cooking Academy. As you might guess from the name, it's all about French cuisine. There's an official Facebook page you can check out. There's an official website, too, where you can find more recipes and an assorted menu of other goodies. Here's a little blurb from the site about its creator:

Stephan is born in France near Versailles, where his life-long love affair with the French cuisine began. Originally a home-taught chef, his techniques were further developed by reading French Culinary school books and travelling through France tasting the hundreds of specialities his country has to offer. Many of the recipes gleaned from this source are demonstrated on his YouTube channel: The French Cooking Academy.

A neat little story there, for sure, and I like the hook: Here's an everyday guy, who is basically a self-taught chef, sharing tips and techniques that are used in French cooking schools. Stephan might not turn you into the next Jacques Pepin or Fernand Point, but at least you'll be able to impress the people around your table with dishes like Bœuf Bourguignon, Ratatouille, or even a hearty Cassoulet.

The French Cooking Academy is a great resource for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step introduction to the Frenchiest food you'll ever eat ... unless you're in France (or maybe Quebec).