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Lactic Fermentation

I love fresh vegetables. It's one of the adult things I look forward to in the summertime. Sadly school days are long past, and Summer no longer holds its magical status as an untouchable time where I could drink in as much vacation as I wanted. Now I have alcohol... which is not what this post is about! The drinking kind anyway. OK, sticklers, I am patently aware of the use of lactic fermentation in brewing. Brewing discussions will come. B ut this is about food preservation. Ooh, pretty As usual, I have more things to do than I imagine. Will I take vegetables when offered? Of course I will! Of course I can use them! And believe me, I have every good intention to do so, but the reality is that I cannot realistically eat 8 pounds of fresh tomatoes and peppers and more in the time that it will take them to naturally ripen, over-ripen, and begin to ferment. No problem, I can use them for stuff!...

Out of Flour

I knew it. When I was at the store the other day, I said to myself that I'd get flour when I make my "real " grocery trip... certainly not now. I was only picking up a few things. So finally I got around to making my next loaf, and sure enough, I only had just over a cup of flour. So much for efficiency. My internal dialog of justifications is such a pain in the butt sometimes. As Oliver Hardy would say to Stan Laurel, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." I need bread. I'm tired of eating potatoes and rice for my starch component. I can't make a ham sandwich on crackers or potato slabs (I mean, I could). I have been experimenting with my bread recipe, tweaking it for lean times such as these. Do I really need 4 cups of flour? Can I make up for a reduction in diastatic power with something else or get by without it? Well, I had gotten some mixed sorghum-rice-millet flour a while back to cut into my...

A Word on Gamey Flavors

Strong. Wild. Distinctive. These are some of the more objective words to describe that particular quality of undomesticated game meat. As a matter of preference, it comes as little surprise to me that some people actually seek out this aspect of flavor as something desirable; I am not one of those people! Gamey flavor reminds me of the things that went wrong in food prep. It makes me fixate on one overpowering flavor and things other than what I should be focused on -- enjoying distinct, sometimes nuanced flavors, aromas, textures, and their combinations and contributions in a meal. The cause of gamey flavors, without delving too deeply into the science of taste and aromatics, indicates alignments on a matrix of butchering techniques, time, animal diet, food preparation, animal age, time of harvest, and bacterial action, in no particular order. In any case it does not always indicate meat spoilage . In fact, spoilage in my experience (thankf...

The Occasional Chef

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