Cooking and Human Evolution

Last night, my wife, daughter and I watched the second installment of the superb PBS documentary "Becoming Human" about human evolution. It focused on Homo erectus, the first human ancestor that resembled modern man.

One key leap forward, according the program, was cooking food, especially meat. This allowed homo erectus to have a shorter digestive system so he could more easily take in the huge amount of calories he needed to function and survive. In discussing this development, the program suggests that sharing a meal around a campfire was key to development of one of humanity's defining characteristics, our intensely social nature. In essence, cooking helped make us human.

It's an interesting theory with the ring of truth. What is more social than a shared meal? The dinner table is where friendships, marriages, families are often born and certainly nurtured and strengthened. When a young man or woman is serious about a member of the opposite sex, they bring them home for dinner. Our most important holidays, Christmas Passover, Thanksgiving, center on shared meals.

An interesting aside: In searching for the "Becoming Human" website, I typed "Evolution" into Google. The first hit was the site for a multi-part PBS series done in 2001. The next five were articles or sites attacking the series and the science of evolution, including an interminably long article on World Net Daily, the lunatic website that claims the president was born in Kenya and commie Nazi aliens are threatening to eat Glenn Beck's brain (Wait, they already have).

Sad.

No such hits appeared on the same page as PBS' "Becoming Human." I will venture cautious optimism and take this as a sign the anti-science lunacy of recent years is perhaps waning somewhat.

Good Bye Gourmet Project: Kale Soup Disaster

Last weekend, I set fourth on my Good Bye Gourmet Project by making the November issue's Portuguese kale soup recipe. Sure looks good in the picture above. But don't let appearances fool you. It was tasteless and greasy, borderline gross. It would have been truly disgusting if I had followed the directions to a "T."

I figured this would be a good one, a hearty soup for a bracing late autumn day. It would fortify me for leaf blowing that afternoon (I have enough oak leaves to wall paper a McMansion). In preparation, I bought a bag of organic kale and a stick of chorizo, a spicy Portuguese sausage.

I followed the directions, browning the chorizo in olive oil, removing it and then browning onions and and garlic in the rendered fat and oil. So far so good. The sausage smelled so delicious it got my daughter out of bed. Bacon, she thought. Poor deluded soul.

I added water and potatoes and brought the soup to a simmer. My wife walked up and glanced in the pot.

"Are you going to keep all that grease in there?" she asked.

She was right. A film of grease globs nearly covered the surface. I checked the recipe and confirmed that I was not to drain or skim off the grease. Sorry, Charlie. This is way too greasy. I took up a spoon and began skimming. I soon had a quarter cup of grease in a bowl. How appetizing.

I finished up the dish, mashing some potatoes when they were done, adding kale and returning the chorizo to the pot. Amazing, the recipe calls for another tablespoon of olive oil. I love olive oil, but more of it on top of all of that sausage fat? I'm sorry, but the very idea is gross.

Still, what stared up at me from the pot looked pretty good. I ladled out soup for me and my daughter and we tasted. Bland, bland, bland. Salt helped a little, but not much. Even the chorizo, which tasted great right after I browned it, had lost much of its flavor.

You could try simmering longer before adding the potatoes, but to paraphrase the boys at Mythbusters, this one's busted. A deeply disappointing, borderline disastrous recipe. Interestingly enough, the recipe is not on Gourmet's website. I think someone figured out it sucks.

So the score is: Disaster: 1, Good Eats: 0. On to the next one.

Quick Raspberry Sauce

Earlier this fall, my mother-in-law suggested that my daughter and I go raspberry picking with her at a local farm. It was a smashing success. About two hours of pleasant work yielded us about five pounds of raspberries. The cost: about $25. Considering that you pay $3 or more for a small container of inferior berries at the store, a bargain.

We gorged ourselves for a day or so. I used some to make raspberry-peach pie, which was superb, a near perfect balance of sweet and tart. Using my mother-in-law's system, I froze the huge surplus on cookie trays without washing them and stored them in plastic bags. I've been having a bowl for breakfast every couple of days ever since.

This weekend, my daughter had the idea of making another raspberry-peach pie after I spotted some peaches in the store. I unthawed a cup, but when we returned to the store, the peaches were gone.

Left to her own devices, my daughter added some sugar and cinnamon to the raspberries and stirred. The peaches, already soft from having been frozen, quickly broke down. The result was a pleasingly tart, slightly cinnamony raspberry sauce. Excellent. We'll have it tonight on ice cream or perhaps with our cream puffs.

The recipe is simple. Take one cup of unthawed frozen raspberries (you can buy them in the frozen food section), add sugar and cinnamon to taste and stir.

A Jamee

I love the Jameson Irish Whiskey commercial that seems to run continuously between segments of The Daily Show (guess they're trying to hook the younger crowd). It's a playful yarn that both satirizes and plays to classic Irish stereotypes (impulsiveness, love of stiff drink, foolish bravery in the face of danger, triumph against all odds). It's like an updated "The Quiet Man" with a dash of early 21st century irony.

My first Jameson was a memorable experience. I was 21, fresh out of college and hitchhiking through the west of Ireland, a beautiful and desolate place dotted with the ruins of stone cottages abandoned when much of the population fled the Potato Famine for America. My traveling companion, a Dublin native and not an especially heavy drinker, decided it was time for a mid-afternoon "Jamee."

We stopped at an Irish pub out of central casting and had a glass. It was wonderful, warm and smooth. I'd like to think that a peat fire was raging in the fireplace and someone was playing a harp and singing Irish folks songs, but I think that's in my imagination.

In spite of the pleasantness of the experience, I didn't acquire the habit. I'm not much on hard liquor with the exception of a once or twice yearly tequila shot or brandy. In fact, I don't think I've had a "Jamee" since.

The Good Bye Gourmet Project

I've written before about my sadness at the death of Gourmet magazine, which I subscribed to for years. Leafing though my final edition, a magnificent, perfectly roasted turkey gracing its cover, I hit upon an idea. Why not cook every recipe in the final edition of Gourmet and write about? By my count, there are 56 recipes. None require obscure, outrageously expensive or hard-to-get ingredients or specialized equipment, belying the charge that the magazine failed because it was too phoufy and impractical for the home cook.

It might take a year, but why the heck not? Not only is this a fitting tribute to a much beloved friend, but also an opportunity to branch out and challenge myself as a cook. I've traditionally tried only a smattering of recipes in each issue, usually entrees and deserts. The last issue has soups, stocks and a plethora of vegetable dishes. I will have to cook them and hopefully learn something in the process.

Stayed tuned for the first post of The Good Bye Gourmet Project.

Let the Battle Begin!

Iron Chef is doing a show highlighting the White House garden and spreading the gospel about fruits and vegies for the young. Once again, bravo Michelle Obama. I can't wait for the episode (It's one of my daughter's favorite shows).

Looking forward to the Beck rant on this one: Glenn will probably blow up pictures of the chefs picking produce from the garden and, using a pointer, solemnly direct viewers to the plethora of RED vegetables. And if you look closely at that cucumber, what do you see? Hitler's face. And isn't that arugula, tell me if I'm wrong, look closely, it's that arugula?

I mean, it's all perfectly clear, isn't it? (Glenn stops speaking. Tears well from his eyes. His voice lowers to a weepy whisper) We're not just losing our country. (Glenn pauses, fighting back tears). We're losing our diet. We have to stop them, my friends, I beg you, we have to stop them.

Food Story in Three Parts

Salt and Pepper Shakers, a piece of Halloween candy and a digital camera. Using those items, my daughter composed the following food story:

Salt and Pepper find a candy bar.

They fight.

Pepper Wins!

The End