The Rake Magazine

Category: Food and Drink

  • Good for the Liver?

    What is it about Americans and guilt? Mr. Bush, it seems, may now be willing to admit that the world is warming up. But he would not have us think that the human race (let alone its industries and motorcars) is in any way responsible. Mustn’t feel bad about it, must we?

    This is strange because the sort of Christianity favored by President Frutex (Latin for Bush, don’t you know) used to be particularly keen to impress on people that all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God. Augustine developed the notion of original sin partly from a conviction that the world was actually by nature good (adjust your set, there is no fault in reality). Oliver Cromwell struck a chord with the Puritans of the Rump Parliament when he beseeched them “in the bowels of Christ, that ye may be mistaken.” John Wesley famously felt himself to be a brand plucked from the burning, and generations of evangelical preachers have striven to convince people they are sinners, so that they can then pull the redemption rabbit out of the hat.

    Cromwell’s political successors seem to feel that it is other people who make the mistakes. The axis of evil has moved elsewhere (though the only thing I can see that Iran, Iraq and North Korea have in common is that all three irritate the United States). Of course, politicians are hardly the only ones to deny guilt. We the People do so often, and avidly. I had pupils when I taught in California who seemed simply impervious to the mildest suggestion that a mistake might have been made (which is easy enough when writing Latin sentences); correction, as the Frenchman said, ran off their backs like a duck’s water. The word has even been verbed—as in the accusation, “You are trying to guilt me!”

    Such shunning of a sense of personal error does not ensure universal happiness. The whole horror of modern no-fault divorce is designed to ignore the possibility that sometimes fault is involved. The masterpiece of those who advocate the avoidance of guilt must be the doctrine of passive aggression. This holds that you may employ the patience of Griselda or of Job putting up with my nonsense, but mysteriously it all remains your fault; I am not responsible for the fact that I behave like a bastard.

    Admitting mistakes gives people the chance to put them right. Of course, eating humble pie is not a particularly pleasant pastime. The word “humble” as applied to “pie” does not actually derive from anything to do with humility; it comes from the same root as lumbar (as in lumbar pain), and the humbles (or numbles) of a deer are its innards. All the same, humble pie is the opposite of a delicacy, even if it was a dinner as familiar in the Middle Ages as haggis and chips in modern Scotland.

    Innards are something else Americans have difficulty with. All right, not everyone savors the scrunch of prairie oysters or the sliminess of cervelle. Cockneys can keep my share of tripe and onions. But heart cooked long enough (it is, after all, quite a tough muscle) is, well, heartening, and grilled kidneys on fried bread is one of the most toothsome breakfasts I know. Perhaps the best bargain at the butchers round here is liver. (Is life worth living? That depends on the liver.) Cut thin, dust with flour, salt and mustard powder, then fry fast with bacon and onions—it is one of the few cuts of meat that gets tougher the longer you cook it—and anoint with the pan scrapings transformed into sauce. The gritty flavor of liver is the perfect accompaniment for spinach cooked quickly in butter.

    And a good wine for both liver and spinach together is a red from California that is tough enough to take on any taste (even haggis). Better still, it sells for only about eighteen dollars locally. The 2003 DeLoach California Pinot Noir, from the Russian River valley north of San Francisco, is bright and honest. There is at first a sweetness and flowery charm, but then a delightful roar, as determined as a motorcycle engine, develops in the back of the throat. The sweetness turns into fine strong tannins and, as the wine goes down, aroma rises through the nose. This is wine that engages the attention on every level, like a really worthwhile woman; it has both immediate appeal and depth. But the real beauty of combining it with liver and spinach is the resulting symphony of bitternesses. Who knows, a patient appreciation of these may even make you sorry for your sins.

  • Pleasures of the Flesh

    Remember Cook’s Choice? It was the most dreaded day on your school lunch calendar. The lucky ones brown-bagged it; the rest of us stood in line for a meal we knew had been planned by a Lunch Lady surveying the walk-in cooler and reading expiration dates. As we bravely offered up our trays for a plop of this and a smear of that, there was always a special sort of dismay reserved for the grayish slice of undesignated meat that was served.

    At a time when your world safely revolved around beef, chicken, pork, and fish stick, taking a bite of the mystery meat might have been the first indication of an adventurous life to come: one that refused to remain within the confines of a TV dinner tray, one that might someday include oysters, blue cheese, and goat tacos. Or perhaps your childhood revulsion sealed the fate of your food life to nothing more daring than buffalo wings. And that would be a shame, because most of us, in the new protein-obsessed world, actually wish for some adventure in the meat department.

    Many a well-intentioned cookbook is devoted to making chicken exciting, but at what point do you break down and weep at the sight of another pale breast? Steak is no longer special, now that Taco Bell serves steak fajitas and chains are churning out steak platters faster than you can say “blooming onion.” And sure, you can always count on a good Asian restaurant to throw you for a loop—but let’s face it, for many of us, jellyfish might be going too far, too fast. What we long for is a mix of the new and the familiar—something easily identifiable as meat by its appearance and its texture, but that also delivers a strikingly (maybe not radically) new flavor. Something we can add to our repertoire without going too far out of our way or freaking out our loved ones.

    Ostrich was one of the first “new” meats that sought contemporary mainstream acceptance. In the early nineties, food industry insiders in this country began extolling its virtues, pointing to its traditional role in South African cuisine (in the spicy, dried form of biltong) and more recent appearances on trendy European menus (pan-fried with leeks and smoked bacon). While ostriches are indeed big birds, they don’t produce poultry-like meat, but rather a dense, red flesh that is healthier than beef. It’s also lower in fat and calories than even skinless chicken or turkey. Add to that ostrich’s high iron and protein content, and it’s easy to see why this meat is recommended by the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association.

    Serving up this huge, flightless bird still seems exotic, but ostrich farms are popping up all over the country. Blackwing Quality Meats, the best known name in the industry, has been selling fresh and frozen ostrich meats for twelve years. It shuns the use of hormones and additives, and, recognizing the need to gain fresh converts, its website offers helpful cooking tips and decent recipes for an herb marinade and ostrich scallopini. Ostrich meat doesn’t shrink like beef or pork when cooked, so a seven-ounce filet will remain at seven ounces from fridge to dinner table. It can be grilled, braised, smoked, fried, or roasted, but like any other red meat it’s best medium rare. Ground ostrich can be substituted for ground beef in any recipe, and it makes great burgers. Ostrich carries a delicate flavor, doesn’t have the fatty richness of beef, and has a soft, less grainy character that’s light on the tongue. The only thing ostrich needs is the patronage of some celebrity chef to elevate it into the cult of cool food. Locally, I’d love to see what Seth Bixby Daugherty of Cosmos would do with a heavy cut.

    Bison, too, has been on the cult radar for some time. (American buffalo and bison are the same animal, and in general their meat is referred to as bison.) Bison burgers are popular fare around the country—there’s even one on Ruby Tuesday’s menu, next to the turkey burger under the “Exotic” heading. Richly flavored yet lean, high-quality bison meat tends to be a touch sweeter than beef, although lesser cuts can be gamey or sharp. Beyond the ground meat, you can find steaks and roasts, as well as sausage and jerky.

    Locally, bison is big business. These naturally hearty animals thrive in summer heat and winter cold. Unlike cattle, which drift with the wind, bison turn their massive heads into a snowstorm, plowing drifts with ease in the search for food. Numerous ranches in the area have revived the tradition of bison grazing on thousands of acres of prairie lands, even though their herds are a tiny fraction of those that once thundered across the prairie. At places like Silver Bison Ranch near Baldwin, Wisconsin, bison are not given hormones or antibiotics, and feed only on native grasses that grow without aid of herbicides or pesticides. Prairie Heights Bison goes a step further into the past, inviting guests to take part in day-long guided bison hunts on its acreage in the Blue Mounds area of southwest Minnesota, which was a popular hunting ground for American Indians. Like those early hunters, Prairie Heights believes the field kill produces the finest meat and is most respectful to the animal.

    Rabbit is not an exotic meat by definition, but most Americans find it difficult to visualize their fuzzy bunny friends as good eats. They should meet Lenny Russo of Heartland, the St. Paul restaurant known for its fresh and seasonal Midwestern ingredients. Russo doesn’t hesitate to include rabbit on his menu when he can get it, even during Easter. Yielding a meat not unlike chicken, yet a touch sweeter, rabbit plays well with fresh fare from all seasons. At Heartland, it’s usually paired with whole grains, like an earthy barley risotto, to bring a heartier quality to the dish.

    Ready to banish chicken and have a go at hasenpfeffer? Clancy’s Meats and Fish market in Linden Hills has frozen rabbit, as well as fresh bison meat in its cases. A good glass of wine may help quicken the courage. A less tannic Pinot Noir with berry tones goes well with bison, while ostrich calls for a good California Cabernet, and rabbit loves a Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay. All it takes is that first leap of faith to widen your horizons.

    Blackwing Quality Meats; 800-326-7874; www.blackwing.com

    Silver Bison Ranch; bison@silverbison.com

    Prairie Heights Bison, Luverne, Minnesota;

    507-283-8136; www.buybison.com

    Heartland, 1806 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul;

    651-699-3536; www.heartlandrestaurant.com

     

    Herb-Roasted Buffalo Tenderloin With Blue Cheese Butter

    1⁄4 pound (1 cup) crumbled firm blue cheese

    1 stick (1⁄2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

    2 tablespoons port

    3 tablespoons olive oil

    31⁄2 pounds buffalo tenderloin, cut crosswise

    into eight or more 11⁄4-inch-thick steaks

    1⁄2 cup Dijon mustard

    3⁄4 cup packed freshly chopped rosemary leaves

    Salt and pepper to taste

    Preheat oven to 450 degrees; place rack in middle of oven.

    In a small bowl, mash together cheese and butter with a fork; stir in port until smooth. Form butter into a log on sheet of plastic wrap, roll up, secure and chill until firm, at least 2 hours.

    In a 12-inch heavy sauté pan, heat 11⁄2 tablespoons oil over moderately high heat until hot. Sear half of the steaks until browned, about 2 minutes on each side, and transfer to a shallow baking pan. Sear remaining steaks in remaining 11⁄2 tablespoons oil in same manner.

    When steaks have cooled enough to touch, spread tops and sides with mustard and sprinkle with rosemary, pepper, and salt to taste. Roast steaks in middle of oven eight minutes for medium rare (tops should just begin to brown). Transfer steaks to a cutting board and let stand about three minutes. Remove butter from fridge and slice into about twenty thin pieces.

    Cut each steak nearly in half horizontally. Tuck a butter slice between steak halves and top steaks with another slice.

  • Water of Life

    Every time I take the boat down Stranraer Sound, I think of Saint Brendan. A Celtic monk, Brendan set sail toward the setting sun with fourteen of his confreres in a whimsical endeavor to find the Island of the Promise of the Saints. Spoilsports (i.e., my academic colleagues) tell you his charming tale is an allegory for the development of the soul, like Pilgrim’s Progress. If so, then what, one wonders, is symbolized by the whale called Iasconius, whose back the monks mistake for an island where they can light a bonfire and cook up fish stew? Silly sooth, I would say.

    Saint Brendan was sailing away from Ireland into what we call the Atlantic, whereas Stranraer is the dour wee burgh on the bottom left-hand corner of Scotland, from which you get the car ferry across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland. The town is emphatically unromantic, though the corrugated countryside behind it, the land of Sir Walter Scott’s “Old Mortality,” is appealingly wet and green, and the inlet down which you sail after leaving the harbor is lined with long, low hills that feel they might well be the last of land before you pass, like Turner’s Fighting Témeraire, over the edge of the world.

    In Saint Brendan’s time there were, of course, other, more deadly sailors trekking westward. The Vikings got to Minnesota a bit later (1961, according to the team history), but they were certainly in Newfoundland a thousand years ago, where they lived in a seaside settlement now called L’Anse aux Meadows. If you fly Icelandair back from Europe, not only will you find that Iceland (at the right time of year) is green and Greenland is covered with snow, but you will see the rippling gray whaleroad in between them that they rowed over, laid out like a gelatin print.

    Less adventurous Vikings got no further than the hills of the Scotch-English border, where they started families with names like Nicholson and became noted for sheep stealing and cattle theft. They still sing ballads in the border country about the most vicious of these “reivers”: “My name is wee Jock Elliot and wha’ daur meddle wi’ me’” (in English, “who dares meddle with me”; and in straight Latin, “nemo me impune lacessit”).

    When James VI of Scots became James I of England in 1603, he started to dream up schemes to make his kingdoms a touch more prosperous—Jamestown in Virginia was one of the less lucrative enterprises he chartered. Introducing a market economy to Northern Ireland was one that paid better (though, of course, at the expense of the Gaelic population). Among those transplanted from southern Scotland across the narrow sea to northern Ireland were quite a number of the vigorous folk who had made life on the Scotch-English border so exciting in earlier days, when men were men and sheep were afraid.

    Some of the settlers moved on further during the next few generations, especially to the more southerly of the Thirteen Colonies of North America. But plenty stayed. Like their Scottish ancestors, the Protestant settlers in Ulster had a talent for distillation. No surprise, then, that they soon got into the whiskey business (whiskey with an ”e” because it’s Irish). The first license to distill in the northern tip of Ireland, in the area around Bushmills in County Antrim, was granted in 1608. The present Bushmills business, which claims to be the oldest distillery in the world, is first mentioned in 1783. Nowadays it produces several different whiskies: a standard blend of malt and grain (Bushmills Original, with a white label); various single malts; and a superior blend called Black Bush.

    Black Bush is the one I like best, and can be had for less than $30 locally. It is mostly malt whiskey with a certain amount of grain whiskey to lighten the taste (not that it is as light as Cutty Sark and other blends of Scotch popular in the United States). It also has real bite—though, like Irish whiskey in general, it is innocent of the reek of peat that makes connoisseurs of Laphroaig, the Islay malt from the Scotch side of the water, gasp for air. Having been thrice distilled (unusual, though not unique), Bushmills is clean and clear. There are no frills, no superfluous sweetness. It must be something like this they drink in the Island of the Promise of the Saints.

  • Stronger Vines, Tastier Wines?

    The tradition of growing grapes is almost as old as the hills on which they’re planted. But when we picture those vine-covered hills, most of us would sooner conjure Tuscany, Bordeaux, or the windswept Carneros Valley of California than Hastings, Minnesota. Yet increasingly, places like Hastings, Putney, Vermont, and Long Island, New York, are being transformed into grape-growing regions, thanks to a driven and ambitious generation of viticulturists. These against-the-grain growers need more than just good weather and great marketing to be successful; they need science and, like Hastings’ own Nan Bailly of Alexis Bailly Vineyard, faith.

    It’s not that grapes won’t grow in cold climates—certain wild varieties, for instance, are indigenous to Minnesota—but rather a question of growing a grape worthy of eating, or pressing into wine. That goal came into focus around 1908, the year the University of Minnesota established its Horticultural Research Center, which was charged with finding ways to produce sustainable food crops from our short growing season and harsh climate. While grapes took a back seat to the more fashionable apple for decades, especially during Prohibition, exciting stuff started to happen in the late sixties. Elmer Swenson, who had been with the research center in the forties, returned with new findings from his own work with grape vines in Wisconsin. Shortly thereafter, a Minneapolis lawyer named David Bailly decided he was ready to take a gamble with his own love of wine.

    Bailly bought a few acres in Hastings and planted them with French grapes, including Maréchal Foch and Seyval Blanc. He took to heart the French winemakers’ belief that vines must thrive through adversity—wind, sleet, snow, drought—in order to produce superior fruit. The motto for the Alexis Bailly Vineyard became “Where the grapes can suffer.” Bailly’s gamble paid off, and he began producing enough good wine to satisfy his soul—his Maréchal Foch, in particular, remains a supple, medium-bodied red wine that seems to defy its Midwestern heritage—if not quite enough to quit his day job.

    David Bailly planted those vines more than thirty years ago, and every autumn since then, they have been buried in order to survive the winter. This fall, after the harvest, his daughter Nan plans to rip them out. Just as her father pioneered French grapes grown locally, she is leading the next charge in winemaking by using Midwestern hybrids.

    It seems those wild Minnesota grapes, which coil their tentacles onto anything that stands still, are very important to the future of grape growing. While the fruit from these aggressive vines is small and inky, not much for consumption, what’s significant is the fact that they not only survive, but also flourish in cold climates. Back in the eighties, as David Bailly’s Maréchal Foch was winning accolades and medals from American Wine Society competitions, the U’s research center jump-started its grape program by building its own winery on the grounds in Chanhassen. Then horticulturalists began the long process of cutting and grafting the hearty Minnesota grape with more refined and palatable varieties. Peter Hemstad, one of the center’s primary viticulturists, believed so much in what he was seeing in Chanhassen that he planted his own vines and opened the St. Croix Vineyard in Stillwater.

    Basically, it’s Hemstad’s job to think and drink: What kind of flavor components will emerge if he cuts a slice from a Burgundy vine and grafts it onto the unromantically named Number 1126 hybrid? Will it pick up the Burgundy’s tannic qualities or will it blend to form a completely different profile? Will the fruit hold on to the rich redness or will it mutate into a lighter or even gray shade? In 1995, the Horticultural Research Center released Frontenac, a red wine grape that can survive colder temperatures without being buried and is highly resistant to disease. Its garnet color and pleasant aroma (Bailly’s version of Frontenac has deep berry overtones and a smoky oak finish) put Frontenac grapes at the top of the list for Midwest growers.

    The U of M’s little oenology project has become a national leader in cold-climate grape research. The self-proclaimed wine geeks at the research center are having an impact all around the country—even as far north as Quebec, where those who see their French heritage as a God-given right to produce wine use the research center as the ultimate resource. (They probably also encourage the dreams of those people who see starting your own vineyard as the next coolest thing after starting your own restaurant.) The bigger question may be, why bother? While medals and awards are handed out to winemakers from all over the country, when’s the last time someone brought a Missouri wine to a dinner party? Will cold-climate grapes ever produce vintages that are as successful as those from Napa Valley? In such a specialized and, some say, elitist industry, is there enough commerce to support local growers and justify the research?

    Here’s where the larger purpose comes in. Maybe growing local grapes and producing local wines will make wine in general less intimidating to the average Joe—and so maybe there’ll be more average Joes drinking wine with their burgers. Maybe a Cedar Creek Syrah from Wisconsin would be an easier or friendlier choice for a first-time Syrah drinker than a bottle with a name he can’t pronounce. It doesn’t hurt that this wine’s big flavors of blackberry and plum and its spicy finish have earned numerous gold medals from the International Eastern Wine competition.

    Imagine picking up a bottle of wine at the farmers’ market along with your locally grown and crafted produce, cheese, and meats. Wouldn’t it be a boon for grape growers everywhere if wine culture in this country began to grow because of people supporting their local vineyards? Nan Bailly certainly hopes so. That’s why she’s replacing her French vines with Minnesota hybrids. If the wine industry and the rapidly growing numbers of fledgling oenophiles who support it could lay down their snobbish beliefs that only grapes from perfect coastal conditions can make drinkable wines, there could be a beautiful future for Nan Bailly’s tiny Hastings vineyard, and others all around the region. Now might be a historic time to visit one of them.

     

    Chasing Grapes

    Alexis Bailly Vineyards is open on weekends and offers tastings for two dollars. (www.abvwines.com)

    St. Croix Vineyards celebrates the harvest with a Grape Stomp festival on September 10 and 11. (www.scvwines.com)

    Fieldstone Vineyards celebrates its harvest the last two weekends in September. (www.fieldstonevineyard.com)

    Morgan Creek Vineyard is known for its gorgeous landscapes; its annual grape stomp is October 1.

    (www.morgancreekvineyards.com)

    For more Minnesota wineries, see the list on the

    U of M’s Enology website: http://winegrapes.coafes.umn.edu

  • Shimmering Surfaces

    The three best reasons for being an academic, as is well known, are June, July, and August. Especially on the occasions when the University of Minnesota conspires with the McKnight Foundation to allow one to spend those months reading and writing about a really genial poet for instance, a character from the Later Roman Empire called Ausonius.

    There is a serious side to this enterprise, of course. Ausonius is a wonderful case study of an intelligent Roman who went Christian at around the time most Romans were going Christian, during the fourth century A.D. Watching him integrate ancient science (astrology, for instance) into Christian cosmology is as interesting as considering the relationships between religion and Darwinism. (Am I alone in wanting one of each kind of fish symbol to stick on the back of my car?)
    But there is also a fun side to old Ausonius, something agreeably fin de sircle. Sometimes I fancy I can hear him calling to posterity in the way that James Elroy Flecker appealed to a poet a thousand years hence:

    But have you wine and music still,
    And statues and a bright-eyed love,
    And foolish thoughts of good and ill
    And prayers to them that sit above?

    On one level, then, a poet who promises a summer of roses and wine. Which is as it should be. Roman emperors in those late days lived not at Rome, but on the frontiers of Empire, where they could face down their Germanic neighbors, folk who spoke limited amounts of Latin and smeared butter in their hair instead of scented olive oil (a little dab will do ya). Ausonius was tutor to the son of one such emperor and so spent much of his adult life at Trier on the Moselle, then as now famous for its vineyards. His roots, however, were in Bordeaux, and to this day a well-known wine chateau in Saint-Emilion on the right bank of the Gironde is named Chateau Ausone in his honor (but you know what they say about the wines of Bordeaux—if you have heard of a claret, you can’t afford it).

    For a poet so associated with wine, Ausonius was singularly fascinated with water. Icarus falls into it and Christ walks on it. Ausonius enjoyed looking through and across its shifting, shimmering surfaces since, like many a poet, he was interested in fishing; he was amazed, too, at the speed and ease with which a boat could carry him back and forth between his country villa and the city of Bordeaux. In fact, his longest poem is a dreamy description of the Moselle: The river cuts a canyon through the landscape, barges pass up and down, the bargees exchange badinage with men cultivating the hillsides. And in a contemplative passage, the poet wonders at the way fish cannot breathe out of water, while fishermen cannot breathe in it. I have a theory that Ausonius’ interest in water has to do with his shifting sense of himself, and so with the sort of Christian prayer that formed in his heart as he stood before the Most High God of the philosophers.

    But that is another story. More immediate is the fact that he would certainly recognize the modern Moselle, its vertiginous hillsides still planted with lines of vines and crowned with country mansions. And I feel sure he would enjoy, as I did the other night, a white wine made from the Riesling grape, available locally in the characteristic slim green Moselle bottles at around twelve dollars. (I do not know the exchange rate for denarii, but I do know a good story about a long-haired barbarian chieftain exchanging his daughter for an amphora of Roman wine.)

    This Riesling is the 2001 vintage of Robert Eymael’s Mönchhof estate. The name Mönchhof (monk court) comes from the Cistercians who owned this vineyard from the twelfth till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon annexed all of this border region for France and the Eymael family acquired the vineyard. The result of this long history of cultivation is a wine that is on the sweet side, but would be pleasant with many sorts of cheese, fish, or poultry. The color is a consistent pale yellow, but each sip recalled a fresh sort of fruit. I thought I had it down as reminding me of pineapple juice when the next mouthful recalled apples.

    Plus ça change, shimmering surfaces indeed. There is also a clear, uncloying aftertaste. What is it about this grape that makes it so infinitely various in its flavors? There’s a question to talk over with Ausonius on an August afternoon.

  • Cheese Wizards

    There are people who would rather die than give up chocolate, and there are those who can’t imagine a day without television. For me, a life without cheese is simply not worth living. How can you get through the day without a dense bit of manchego, a smear of Humboldt Fog, or a downy shaving of Grana Padano? Why on earth would you have people over for dinner, if not as an excuse to stand around a platter of new cheeses and say, “Wow, try that one”? The mysteries of cheese compel me. Gorgonzola tastes like one thing when piled on a cold slice of pear, and a completely different (and rather malodorous) thing when melted onto a thin-crust pizza. How can simple cow’s milk be turned into radically different cheeses like cheddar, blue, and Camembert?

    I often wonder if my love of cheese comes from our neighboring state, where at every road stop on the way to and from college, a cheese store beckoned. I have many foggy memories of the Cheese Pavilion in Neillsville and odd pictures of me with Chatty Belle the Talking Cow. That’s Wisconsin, nearly drunk on the love of cheese, and happy to admit it. Yet there is a movement afoot—one that might lead to a smackdown over the very hearts and minds of cheese lovers everywhere and the highly coveted title of “America’s Dairyland.”

    Cheese making in the U.S. is as old as the European immigrants who traveled here with their techniques. As they settled around the country, they began producing cheeses from their homeland. Italians brought the recipes for mozzarella and provolone, the English gave us an American version of cheddar, newly arrived French produced their Bries and Camemberts, German-Americans went on making Limburger and Muenster, and the Swiss, well—you know. Until the mid-1800s, all American-produced cheeses were farmstead cheeses—as, indeed, were all cheeses everywhere—handmade with milk exclusively from the cheese maker’s own animals. As cheese became a successful product at home and abroad, and with more automated forms of year-around agriculture, making use of silos, modern cooling trucks, and cooperative creameries, food factories sprang forth from the land to make cheese in bulk. By the turn of the last century, farmstead cheeses were becoming a thing of the past.

    Wisconsin, with its rolling hills and wide pastures, drew a large share of northern European dairy farmers and cheese makers. The first state to grade its cheeses for quality, it quickly became the center of the national dairy industry, producing about five hundred million pounds of cheese per year by 1945. Today the state widely known as “America’s Dairyland” produces more than two billion pounds of cheese each year from the milk of more than a million cows. It would seem that residents of the state with more licensed cheese makers than any other should feel safe in their identity, secure enough to call themselves “cheeseheads” and wear those ridiculous foam hats to sporting events.

    But anyone who watched this year’s Super Bowl, wearing that foam hat or not, watched what amounts to a bigger insult than cow tipping. It was a TV commercial featuring sunbathing bovines prancing in the California sun, with the tagline, “Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California.” Although this campaign has been around for some time, when it aired during a Super Bowl commercial break, it basically amounted to a gauntlet thrown.

    It seems California has its sights set on claiming the title of “America’s Dairyland.” The Happy Cows campaign is part of a long-term strategy to shift American dairy consumers’ thinking away from Midwestern fields and toward coastal pastures. Faced with a milk surplus in 1982, the California Milk Advisory Board approached the pointy-heads at Stanford University for help. After extensive study, they found that everybody loves cheese, and that cheese making had huge profit potential for the state. California milk producers took the cue, and between 1982 and 2004, statewide cheese production increased 609 percent, with a projected two billion pounds being produced in 2005. What’s up, Cali? Aren’t you happy enough being the state of towheads and surfers? You already have David Hasselhoff and Robert Mondavi—can’t you leave the Midwest any national props?

    The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board isn’t scared. It has launched a campaign aimed at reminding Wisconsinites to be proud of their heritage, but is that the right fire to light? One very successful part of the California’s plan is to nurture the growing artisanal and farmstead cheese producers. Through well-targeted public relations, the stories of these specialty cheese makers have received tons of media attention and a national following. Just check out the well-stocked cheese case at any Kowalski’s, Lund’s, or Byerly’s and count how many Cali cheeses you find.

    True, specialty cheese makers don’t fuel the industry. Processed cheeses made by big factories are what the masses buy and eat daily. Be assured that the California Milk Board also has a plan to woo such companies (including our own Land O’Lakes) to bring their business to California, but as the board itself has stated, it’s all about image. Since the Happy Cows campaign started airing, cheese with the “Real California Cheese” seal has achieved national distribution from Costco and Kroger, with expanded distribution at Wal-Mart and Safeway. I think the Wisconsin Milk Board might be missing the signs: The future is knocking and California is trampling over Wisconsin to answer the door.

    There has never been a more food-centric time in America than now. The food revolution has created a whole generation of people who care about what food means, where it comes from, and why they should eat it. With all the national attention paid to their artisanal cheeses, the “great cheese” association will trickle down to the big yellow blocks of “American” cheese as well. California is trying to give its cheese a pedigree, thereby providing people with what would seem to be an educated choice rather than the same old blind pick. The state might have had some experience in this before, with a wine industry that took the laughable “American wine” category and verily crushed European expectations.

    Don’t get me wrong: I love California cheeses. I pay well for Humboldt Fog because, as an aged goat cheese covered with a fine dusting of ash, it delivers a creamy, sharp flavor I can’t find in anything else. But I don’t subscribe to the fact that it’s better just because it’s from California. I know there are equally amazing and even better cheeses within a short drive of the Twin Cities. For example, LoveTree Farmstead in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, just over the state line, ages its goat cheese in caves on cedar boards. The result is a full-bodied cheese with a hint of the northwoods. The winner of the 2004 Best of Show title from the American Cheese Society competition was Sid Cook’s Gran Canaria of Carr Valley Cheese in La Valle, Wisconsin, about a three-hour drive from here.

    This isn’t a time to reflect on heritage and muse dreamily on the past. Okay, so Wisconsin was the birthplace of Colby, but have you tried California’s award-winning Fiscalini San Joaquin Gold, a farmstead cheese that has a mellow richness and grates like a dream? This is a time to celebrate the beauty of true-blue Wisconsin cheeses while encouraging innovation from young cheese makers wherever they might live. Wisconsin cheeseheads should be focused on creating new generations of cheese eaters who understand why they should choose Wisconsin cheese—because it’s excellent and beautifully crafted, not because it comes from “America’s Dairyland.” Seeking out and drawing attention to its high-quality small producers is one of the best ways Wisconsin can equal the call.

  • Pinot Noir for Picnics

    How I hate modern motor roads. Come let me count the ways. First there is the intimate shame of personal inadequateness. I know my reactions while driving are not swift enough to be safe at fifty-five miles per hour—in fact, they are unsafe at any speed, as my family says. All too often I will barrel up Highway 100 (Highway 100 is the worst), having missed my turn, heading unwillingly for Manitoba, and knowing that the only solution to my plight is to barrel right on down it again. Heraclitus knew a thing or two; the way up and the way down are one and the same, and they are equally terrifying.

    Then there are the other idiots, whose reactions are surely no swifter, but who lack the self-knowledge to admit it. These are the ones who drive as though the rapture has already occurred, or at least as though they have lost all fear of death. (In case of rapture, can I have your car?) Other folk suffer from what the amiable Augustine termed superbia and the late and somewhat less amiable Andrea Dworkin called phallocentricity (sed de mortuis nil nisi binkum).

    These include the sort of tow-truck operator, from what is so aptly named a wrecker service, who can blithely remove your car from its appointed parking space without cause in the middle of the night (and in serious contravention of the Fourth Amendment protection against search and seizure), and heave it down the highway to a fastness on the far side of Lyndale, whence it is released after a whole day spent on the telephone, with the barest minimum of apology.

    I suppose I should be thankful that American drivers are at least predictable. If the other idiots are British, things are twice as bad; the way that my fellow countrymen demonstrate their wit and originality by tailgating on the M4 at seventy-plus miles per hour is enough (in the expression of my father, a medical man) to cause a rush of cold faeces to the left ventricle.

    But worse than the horrors of driving on them are the effects of freeways on the countryside that they carve up, the way they turn the ups and downs of a real journey into a blind swoosh of naked concrete. Imagine, then, my joy to find recently, returning from delivering a lecture in the deep south (that is, halfway to Iowa), that it is possible to pick one’s way across the landscape on one of the original roads of Minnesota. This particular road has its origins in an Indian trail stabilized in 1853 by navigators under a militia officer called Dodd. Little is known about Captain Dodd, but he liked a drink and lies buried in the churchyard of the Episcopal Church in St. Peter (where three or four are gathered together, so Episcopalians say, you will always find a fifth).

    It took the gallant captain and his crew a whole Minnesota road-building season (the time of year elsewhere known as summer) to build the Dodd Road. In some places, alas, the fruit of their labors has been turned into six-lane highway; elsewhere, in some southern suburbs, it is pleasingly bordered by McMansions and the sort of lawns that seem to imitate Astroturf. (When will this happy landscape find its Betjeman?) Yet there are stretches where Dodd Road is a real country lane with grit, ditches, and dandelions. I look forward to teasing further reaches of this thoroughfare out of the Minnesota terrain—it will be quite like looking for Roman roads at home.

    Not least among the joys of the jolly film Sideways were its roadside vistas, particularly those with vines marching up and down the California hills. More so than any of its human characters, this film’s truly Big Star, as far as the wine trade is concerned, is the Pinot Noir grape. All of the ambient publicity ensured that this variety, the grape from which the famous red wines of burgundy have been made since the Middle Ages, became the next grape that everyone wants to drink, following in the wake of White Zinfandel, Chardonnay, and Merlot.

    There is a snag. Pinot Noir is hard to grow; not all of it turns into wine as grand as the great vintages of Burgundy. It may well be as mellow as Merlot (and a lot mellower than Cabernet Sauvignon), but it can sometimes lack body. Allow me, then, to recommend a real pleasure, Mark West Central Coast Pinot Noir 2003, a pellucid red made by people who have long specialized in this variety. Costing just around ten dollars locally, it has a fruity flavor leading to a taste of black pepper and then to a rising aroma of elderflowers (the fresh ones you smell by the roadside, not the more sugary sensations of elderflower cordial). It gave tomato and basil soup an added mileage ingredient. And the following morning, the little that was left over had a noble structure, even after the more evanescent scents had evaporated. Take some along on a summer picnic.

  • Pickled Tink

    How is it that so many of us draw no association between the salty, crunchy tidbits from Granny’s relish tray and fresh cucumbers that came from the earth? Is it possible to get so far away from a once-common practice that we no longer even recognize the result? Pickling used to be a seasonal activity that families undertook to ensure a decent food supply once the growing season was over. Generations gathered around a harvest and, using age-old recipes, created a tradition. Balancing salt levels, choosing spices, painstakingly cleaning and processing jar after jar—all of this was simply assumed to be necessary for survival. Now there’s no need to pickle; when it gets cold, we go to Arizona. So it is that another domestic art falls by the wayside, while companies who can do it faster and cheaper—if not necessarily better—take on production.

    So stands our relationship with pickles, whether you have a lonesome jar lurking in the back of your Frigidaire, with one or two thick greenies bobbing in their murky water ever since who knows when, or whether you excitedly grab a jar at the market and bring it home to three other jars that you were once equally excited about. Nevertheless, there is a level of pickle passion that runs deep in this country, even in our own state. For proof, one need only visit the Creative Activities building at the State Fair to see that the pickle-packing process has been passed on to a new generation. What drives someone to willingly spend hours up to their elbows in brine, cramming jars with cucumbers and closely guarded spice mixtures and briny liquids? They must share something with the alchemists of legend, turning what is plain and ordinary into gustatory gold. Moreover, this passion for pickles is not limited to state and country fairgrounds. Boutique brands and innovative pickling practices are surfacing in the food world, on stylish shelves and restaurant kitchens around the country. For as long as pickling has been going on, there is no other renaissance more deserved.

    Cleopatra believed that pickles contributed to her legendary health and beauty, while Julius Caesar found them invigorating, if you know what I mean. The men who built the Great Wall of China sustained energy for their long workdays by snacking on pickled cabbage. Pickles found their way to the New World with Columbus, as they were known to last for long journeys and, like the more commonly known but also far more perishable citrus fruits, to help prevent scurvy. (By the way, the businessman who stocked Columbus’ ship with said pickles dreamed of becoming an explorer himself and leaving his pickle-packing days behind. Amerigo Vespucci would eventually realize his dream and be the first pickle man to have a continent named in his honor.)

    When we say “pickles” in the United States, we most often are referring to pickled cucumbers, whereas for the Brits, it’s pickled onions. Gherkins, or cornichons as the French call them, are simply immature, midget cukes that have been pickled. But there’s a vast world of pickles beyond cucumbers and onions. Koreans pickle cabbage to make kimchi; you’ll find pickled duck eggs in China and herring (sil) in Scandinavia. Japan’s astounding array of misos are basically pickled soybeans. Peter Piper had nothing on the Italians when it came to pickling peppers, and American colonists had a grand old time pickling everything from beans to mushrooms and asparagus to get them through the winters.

    While the choice of food to be pickled is nearly unlimited, it is the process that calls for exactitude. Pickling may be one of the trickiest forms of canning. The journey from raw food to skillfully flavored and preserved delicacy is seldom recognized as the art form that it is. At its most basic, pickling a vegetable (or some other food—pigs’ feet, say, or salmon) in an acidic, biting liquid—either brine or vinegar—kills off the “bad” bacteria that makes food rot. This may sound simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. Those who decide to join the elite order of picklers must be prepared for a long journey to perfection. The type of solution, the addition of herbs and spices, the amount of soaking time, and even the temperature of the room will all have an effect on the final product. These variable elements impact the process of curing, during which colors and flavors will change as acidity increases. Not all pickles go through a rigid fermentation process, however. Fresh-pack or quick-process pickles (as in the recipe here) use an initially high-acidity vinegar or brine solution to preserve the food.

    Maybe that dual nature of the process is the thrill that is driving the food-obsessed to rediscover pickles. In one sense, pickling poses a challenge for would-be kitchen masters, and yet Granny did just fine, so it can’t be too hard, can it? Another factor to consider is how the pickle, with its longstanding reputation as a plain-Jane food, is just ripe for glamorization, like a sweet Norma Jean Baker waiting for someone to unleash her inner Marilyn.

    Sure enough, chefs and artisans have responded with jalapeno-lemon pickles, red-hot cinnamon cukes, saffron-infused pickled asparagus, and pickled beets in rosemary brine. Rick’s Picks, one of the new faces in the pickle game, has concocted what it calls Windy City Wasabeans—green beans in a soy-wasabi brine. The Indiana-based Sechler’s is raising eyebrows with sweet pickled orange and lemon peels, and Mad Pat’s Hot Fire & Ice Pickles start out with a hint of sweetness but end with a habanero-worthy burn. Locally, the 112 Eatery and Tryg’s both offer zesty house-made pickles on their charcuterie plates, a natural setting for pickles (as a snappy starter, pickles aid in the digestion of other foods). Stella’s Fish Café has overnight pickles as a side dish, a prime opportunity to shun the carbohydrates and grease of fries and crunch into some salty freshness instead.

    Since future grannies will be more likely to teach their progeny about spreadsheets and conference-calling than pickling and canning, the practice will be left to enthusiasts of all types who seek it out and make it their own. Be they chefs, small-batch artisans, or gardeners overwhelmed by a bumper crop of snaky cucumbers, those who excel at the art of pickling will most likely find it addictive.

    112 Eatery 112 Third St. N., Minneapolis;
    612-343-7696; www.112eatery.com
    Tryg’s 3118 W. Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-920-7777; www.trygs.com
    Stella’s Fish Cafe & Prestige Oyster Bar 1400 W. Lake St., Minneapolis, 612-824-8862; www.stellasfishcafe.com
    Rick’s Picks 212-358-0428; www.rickspicksnyc.com
    Sechler’s www.gourmetpickles.com
    Mad Pat’s Hot Stuff www.madpatshotstuff.com

    Zippy Refrigerator Pickles

    12 pickling cucumbers
    2 cups water
    13/4 cups cider vinegar (at least 5% acidity)
    11/2 cups packed coarsely chopped fresh dill
    8 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
    1 cup finely chopped red onion
    11/2 T coarse salt
    1 tsp. mustard seed
    1 tsp. crushed bay leaves
    1/2 tsp. turmeric
    11/2 tsp. fennel seeds
    1 tsp. dried crushed red pepper

    Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Stir, let stand at room temperature two hours until salt dissolves. Transfer four cucumbers to each of three sterilized 11/2-pint wide-mouth jars. Pour pickling mixture over to cover. You may wish to place a few dill sprigs in each jar. Cover jars with lids and close tightly. Refrigerate for a minimum of seven days; go ten days for real zippiness. Pickles will stay crispy-fresh for about two months. Keep refrigerated. Makes three 11/2-pint jars.

  • A Passion of Patience

    Watching people in museums is often as absorbing as studying the displays. Some years ago, my old tutor was standing under the great sixth-century dome of the Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, lecturing to a rather tweedy group of English country gentry. His audience was starting to suffer from museum leg, when a pigeon detached itself from the marble cornice and flapped in a leisurely way across to the gallery where once Byzantine empresses worshipped, encased in pearls and purple. Instinctively, one of the tweeds lifted his umbrella to his right shoulder and sighted along its shaft. He nearly dropped it in surprise: “Good God,” he said, “bloody thing’s out of shot.” After that, the party had a healthier respect for the grandeur of this great fane.

    Other museum-goers are moved by a hunger for information rather than an atavistic instinct for field sports. See how some people spend substantially more time reading the didactic label on the wall than they do confronting the complexity of the work it interprets. Such folk should find joy if they go to see the St. John’s Bible, numerous sheets of which are on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (until July 3), together with plenty of explanatory props: quill pens, penknives, even photographs of the sheep-surrounded scriptorium in Wales where the scribes commissioned by St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, penned this, the first handwritten Bible in half a millennium.

    For at this exhibition, the urge to read rather than to look leads the eye not to the (excellent) supporting information but to the texts of the Bible pages themselves, written in real time to be read in real time. The pleasure of contemplating these great creamy white sheets (about two feet high and two and a half feet wide when spread out) is like the pleasure of watching an artist sketching in the open air; you are drawn to take part in his art, though in this case you fall into the rhythm of his work not by actually seeing him marking the regular black text with his goose quill, but by following with the eye the dance of the text across the page. Such watching induces a passion of patience.

    Of course, too, there is looking in addition to reading, for it is the illuminations that catch the eye. They light up the text with multiple colors and associations. Alongside the Parable of the Sower is a figure who might have walked straight out of a Byzantine Gospel-book with his round halo and imperial purple tunic, except that this nether man is clad in something that looks mighty like the blue jeans of a Stearns County bachelor farmer. The butterflies are delightful (as butterflies always are), and gold leaf makes Christ at the Transfiguration appear to be entirely made of light.

    But for all their glory, it is to the text that the pictures bring you back. One visitor was overheard to say she had found the exhibition so interesting that when she got home she was going to find a Bible and read it. If the manuscript has this effect on many people, the monks of St. John’s will surely feel they were right to commission it.

    Scripture, said Gregory the Great, is a stream where lambs may wade and elephants may swim. A friend was telling me the other day about the meetings of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars whose assumptions I do not entirely share (why assume that miracles do not happen?), but who had the admirable aim of analyzing the Gospels to work out what Jesus actually said and did. They also had the good sense to set up their headquarters in the Sonoma Valley north of San Francisco, so that after a hard day’s analyzing they could visit the venerable vineyard of Gundlach-Bundschau, in existence since 1857 (though it grew pears during Prohibition).

    You can enjoy a vicarious visit by drinking their Bearitage, Lot no. 11, a red wine available locally for about $12. They call this “California claret,” because like the great reds of Bordeaux it is a blend of several grapes. The analytical palate will detect the round sweetness of Zinfandel, the blandness of Merlot, the long slow tannins of Cabernet Sauvignon (which will give this wine the capacity to keep, though it is also nice now). Analysis is enlightening but not necessary. This wine is more than the sum of its parts; with a steak it told a coherent and convincing story, one which I think would please anyone who has red wine running in his veins.

  • Pruning for Fun and Profit

    How does one achieve a legacy? In the American landscape of opportunity, it seems almost a requirement that we leave something behind to influence succeeding generations—something that symbolizes our struggles, something that tells a story of character and risk and ambition. In nineteenth-century Hastings, that idyllic river town south of St. Paul, William Gates LeDuc aspired to pave his path to glory—with fruit.

    Back then, the frontier mentality was in full flower. LeDuc was one of numerous folks who were as ambitious as they were idealistic, seeking both to forge an identity and tame the land. William and his wife Mary may not have been moneyed, but they were educated and driven. Having attained an admirable social standing in St. Paul, the LeDucs turned their gaze to Hastings. There they would build their dream home and cultivate the land, leaving a genuine legacy for years to come.

    Like so many others in the burgeoning middle class, the LeDucs had become smitten with Andrew Jackson Downing, the Martha Stewart of his day. Described as an “apostle of taste,” Downing had a keen understanding of the desires of these people, reaching out to them by publishing “idea books” that were inexpensive yet attractive. These provided models for living, complete with detailed instructions—for example, the house plans for which he is now best known. At the center of Downing’s philosophy was the ideal of harmony between the natural world and the domestic world. One embodiment of this ideal was the ornamental farm, with beautiful plants, picturesque landscapes, and, of course, agricultural products.

    Mary found the architectural basis for her family’s dream house in one of Downing’s most influential books, Cottage Residences. After a lengthy construction phase in Hastings—not to mention the interruption of the Civil War, in which LeDuc attained the rank of brigadier general—the LeDucs took up residence in their stunning Gothic revival home around 1865. But it was behind the house, in the apple orchard and fruit groves, where the LeDucs’ legacy in Minnesota would truly take root.

    LeDuc has been described by a Minnesota historian as a man of “positive convictions, fertile expedients, restless brain and unbounded energy.” He apparently also had great inspirations for business ventures, but was never quite as successful with them as he wished to be. He seems always to have been looking for the next way to make a great fortune, and to leave his mark on the frontier. Investments in railroads, mining, milling, and manufacturing , however, failed to bring the kinds of riches and fame to which LeDuc aspired. Facing the costs of building his dream home, he found himself turning his opportunistic eye toward the ornamental orchard in his own backyard.

    Orchards were an emblem of nobility in East Coast society. The cultivation of fruit was considered a sign of “country civility, independence and republican virtue, an enterprise for enlightened gentlemen,” according to a document from the Minnesota Historical Society. On the frontier, practicality and economy were paramount, yet it was hard to deny an Eastern upbringing rooted in civility and enlightenment. In the late nineteenth century, many of these gentleman farmers experimented with growing fruit, as is evidenced by a horticultural record dominated by fruit growers.

    By the 1870s, LeDuc was heavily into the foundation of his own horticultural nursery. Having left his Ohio family farm as a young boy to seek higher education, he felt no love lost for the labors of farm life. But his orchard in Hastings held more promise. More than a simple source of food, the apples were a means to be creative—and entrepreneurial. LeDuc’s eye for opportunity sought a way to produce a viable apple crop in this harsh climate with a short growing season. He imported the hardy Russian Siberian varieties of apples and crab apples that were being grown in the East: the Charlamoff, the Red Astrachan and the Orange, among the known varieties that flourished in Midwestern weather.

    The science of planting and growing apples was seductive to LeDuc; cutting plants and cross-breeding them was itself a new frontier. Within those rows of beautifully twisted boughs, LeDuc may have seen the chance finally to make his mark on the soil, to bring forth something from the land that hadn’t been there before.

    LeDuc’s legacy may well have blossomed with the continued survival of his cutting-edge crops, but President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him the commissioner of agriculture in 1877, calling the family to Washington, D.C. LeDuc abandoned the laboratory of his orchard for the glittering city and the possibility of fame on a national level. Mary, having had plenty of Minnesota winters, bloomed in the warmer southeastern clime, and thrived socially as well. William saw the appointment as an opportunity to make the department a meaningful agency in Washington; he truly believed in agriculture as the generative source for the future. Despite his enthusiasm, he unfortunately championed American independence from foreign tea and sugar, spending public funds on crops of tea plants and sorghum, which ultimately failed to gain popular backing. Politics were not to be a part of LeDuc’s legacy. He was not reappointed, and the family regrettably returned to Hastings in 1881. The dream home and its orchards never again held quite the hope and potential that they once had.

    Bequeathed to the Minnesota Historical Society, the estate has been restored and reopened last month. One wonders what might have happened had LeDuc not gone to Washington, and continued instead with the development of his orchard. Would his legacy have been a delicious LeDuc variety of Minnesota apple? His name has faded from memory, but with the reopening of his home and revival of his story, LeDuc’s hard-won legacy may come through after all. The vanished orchard, which once symbolized the ideals of economy, science and beauty, is slated to be replanted. However indirectly, LeDuc has another chance to impact our landscape.

    Crab Apple Bread

    ½ cup butter
    1 cup brown sugar
    2 eggs
    2 T milk
    2 cups flour
    1 tsp baking soda
    2 tsp salt
    1 tsp cinnamon
    1tsp nutmeg
    2 cups chopped red crab apples
    ¼ cup chopped crystallized ginger

    Cream butter and sugar, adding eggs one at time, then add milk. Combine flour, soda, salt and spices together in separate bowl, then slowly add to wet mixture. Fold in crab apples and ginger. Dough will be sticky; press into greased loaf pan and bake for 350 degrees for one hour, or until inserted skewer comes out clean.