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Nov. 1st, 2019 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Fois Gras Banned in New York Restaurants or why I won't ever eat it again, not that I'm in the habit of doing so and I haven't had it since...hmmm can't remember the last time I had it
Lutèce served it seared, with dark chocolate sauce and bitter orange marmalade. Le Cirque offered it in classic terrine form, but also served it with rabbit and bacon and made it the scene-stealer in a ravioli dish.
But Lutèce closed in New York in 2004. Le Cirque shut its last Manhattan location in 2017. And foie gras, the calling card of fine French dining, is about to follow suit.
The New York City Council overwhelmingly passed legislation on Wednesday that will ban the sale of foie gras in the city, one of the country’s largest markets, beginning in 2022.
New York City will join California in prohibiting the sale of foie gras, the fattened liver of a duck or goose, over animal cruelty concerns.
Sign up for the New York Today Newsletter
Each morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and more.
“New York is the mecca of dining in the world. How is it possible that New York doesn’t have foie gras?” said Marco Moreira, executive chef and owner of Tocqueville, an acclaimed French restaurant near Union Square, which offers an appetizer of foie gras from the Hudson Valley. “What’s next? No more veal? No more mushrooms?”
Most foie gras is produced through a process known as gavage; ducks are force-fed a fatty corn-based mixture that engorges their livers. The process requires tubes to be inserted into a duck’s throat for a 20-day feeding regimen, swelling the liver to up to 10 times its normal size. The procedure can leave ducks too big to walk or even breathe before they are slaughtered, animal activists say.
Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan councilwoman who sponsored the foie gras legislation, said her bill “tackles the most inhumane process” in the commercial food industry. “This is one of the most violent practices and it’s done for a purely luxury product,” she said.
Foie gras farmers say that the forced feedings are not cruel, and that the claims of torture are exaggerated. They say there is a bias against foie gras because it is a luxury product.
Other countries, including India, Israel and Britain, have banned the sale or production of foie gras. Whole Foods stopped selling the product in 1997, citing cruelty, and Postmates stopped delivering it in 2018.
But New York was seen as a critical battleground, where an expense-account culture of extravagance has fed demand for foie gras for decades. That tradition, however, gave way to an increasingly progressive City Council.
The bill bars the sale of foie gras produced by “force-feeding birds,” with each violation punishable by a $2,000 fine. But not all foie gras comes from ducks or geese that have been force-fed, and determining whether foie gras was illegally produced may present an enforcement challenge.
After reading this article, I decided I'm never having this ever again. I also won't have veal any longer. Granted, can't anyhow, most of this stuff is served with gluten products.
2. In the Future Everything will be made of Chickpeas? (I hope not, they don't really agree me -- and kind of give me gas.)
3. She Invented Banana Ketchup and Saved Thousands of Lives, Why Have We Never Heard of Her?
I’ve seen the look on my friends’ faces when the words banana ketchup are uttered. Confusion, maybe even disgust. How can two things with such different flavor profiles exist in one product? Despite its seeming incongruity, banana ketchup is a pantry staple that rings nostalgic to many Filipinos all over the world.
Magdalo V. Francisco, Sr. is credited with mass-producing banana ketchup in 1942, thus making it a fixture in the Filipino household. To this day it’s used as a condiment that accompanies many popular dishes such as tortang talong (an eggplant omelet), fried chicken, hamburgers, and Filipino spaghetti (pasta with banana ketchup and sliced hot dogs).
You can even find some refined versions of banana ketchup in modern Filipino cuisine. At Toyo Eatery in Manila, Jordy Navarra makes a “Banana Catsup” using fermented bananas, banana peel vinegar, banana blossom, tomatoes, and spices. True to tradition, he also serves his alongside tortang talong.
But to truly understand the roots of banana ketchup, it’s important to understand the person behind the innovation, as well as the environment in which it was produced.
Her name? Maria Orosa.
As Chef Navarra says, “Growing up in Manila, we always knew the name of Maria Orosa as a pretty famous and busy street. After getting into food and learning about the history of banana catsup, we stumbled upon her story.”
A food chemist and innovator, Maria saw that the Philippines was heavily reliant on imports like tomatoes. At the same time, she understood and envisioned the vast potential of a great many products endemic to the island nation that, when used properly, could make the country more self-sufficient. She was passionate about a self-sustaining Philippines and made it her life’s work to study native food, and the use of fermentation and various preserving techniques to educate and uplift people in need. She would eventually become a war heroine through her food innovations.
One day, she created a banana sauce with mashed bananas, vinegars, and spices. The brownish-yellow color was not very appetizing, so a little red dye was added, turning it to what is today known as banana ketchup. But her story is far vaster than her most popular invention.
Maria moved to the United States at the age of 23 (some accounts say she was a stowaway). She was a government-sponsored scholar at the University of Washington in Seattle. There, she earned a bachelors and a masters degree in pharmaceutical chemistry, as well as one in food chemistry. During her education, Maria would spend her summer breaks working in the Alaskan canneries.
In the end, she earned a position as an assistant chemist for the state of Washington, but instead chose to return to the Philippines in 1922. Upon her return, she taught home economics at Centro Escolar University and would later transfer to the Bureau of Science organizing the food preservation division.
Photo by Wikimedia Commons
A humanitarian at heart, Maria had a vision of empowering the Filipino family. She launched Health, Heart, Head and Hand (4-H) Clubs. This organization brought herself and other educators into rural areas and barrios to teach women how to raise poultry and preserve food, as well as how to prepare and plan meals. By 1924, the organization had over 22,000 members. Part of her initiative was to introduce one of her inventions, the palayok oven—a clay oven intended for people who did not have access to electrical appliances.
She used her background in food chemistry to run experiments in fermenting, dehydrating, and preserving native plants and animals. The innovations that emerged are said to still be used in laboratories today. The ultimate goal? Make the Philippines more self-sufficient and sustaining.
Local fruits like tamarind, santol, and calamansi provided her with foundations to make wine, jams, and jellies. Cassava and green banana flour would replace the need for wheat. Coconuts would yield vinegars; she was the first to preserve macapuno, a jelly-like product of coconut that is used in Southeast Asia to this day. She was also the first to freeze mangos, enabling distributors to send the famous Filipino fruit throughout the world.
The Bureau of Science recognized her efforts and promoted Maria to head of the Home Economics Division and the Division of Food Preservation. Her work with the bureau would send her all over the world to research canning and preserving technologies.
4. The 9 Most Important Things I Learned in Cooking School
Most of these I knew already, a couple I don't do either due to time, space constraints or a misguided attempt to eliminate as much sugar from my diet as humanely possible.
5. Discussion with mother over the phone about Costa Rica lead me to the following article on Costa Rica Ethics & Environmentalism. My parents belong to a lecture series called "World Affairs" -- which brings in high profile lecturers from around the world, who are specialists in various fields, and held prominent positions in those fields. They go to the lectures, and afterwards, my mother regales me with everything they learned -- or provides a very detailed Cliff Notes version.
What she told me can pretty much be found HERE. They had a lecturer who was a prominent leader in Costa Rica.
The challenges are clear. Global environmental indicators all seem to be going in the wrong direction, while the population continues to grow and carbon emissions spiral to record highs. There is, however, considerable room for optimism as impressively positive trends continue to emerge from Costa Rica, a small nation in Central America.
At first, the story of Costa Rica’s forests seems like a tragedy. In the 1940s, over 75% of the country was covered in indigenous woodland, mostly tropical rainforest. In the subsequent decades, however, rampant and unchecked logging ensued as the nation’s valuable forest resources were transformed into cash profits. By 1983 only 26% of the country retained forest cover, and the deforestation rate had risen to 50,000 hectares per year.
At this point, something amazing started to happen. By 1989 the annual deforestation rate had dropped to 22,000 hectares per year. The figure dropped even lower to 4,000 hectares per year by 1994 and in 1998 the deforestation rate had dropped to zero. Today forest cover has increased to 52% (double 1983 levels) and the government has set the ambitious goal of further increasing this figure to 70% and achieving carbon neutrality by 2021.
But how did Costa Rica achieve such an astonishing reversal of trends? And how is it that over this same timeframe Costa Rica has shown such impressive gains in social indicators like education level and poverty reduction? And is there a way that other countries around the world that are currently being devastated by deforestation, desertification and rampant biodiversity loss, can achieve similar results?
The right combination
The answer seems to lie in a combination of ethics, environmentalism and effective policymaking. The readiness of key decision makers in Costa Rica to think outside the box may be seen in their decision to disband the country’s standing army in 1948. At a recent presentation on 9 November 2011 at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan, Costa Rica’s Ambassador to Japan, H.E. Mr. Álvaro Cedeño Molinari, described how at the time this was principally an ethical decision.
Looking back, after 63 years without a military, such a seemingly unconventional decision has proven both brave and useful in channeling additional investment into the country’s social and environmental programs. This same forward-thinking set of ethics guided the country to amend its constitution in 1994 to enshrine the right of “every person […] to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment”.
Costa Rica’s success in slowing and ultimately reversing the deforestation trend is due to recognition by policymakers of the value of the country’s ecosystems. Success can also be attributed to a decision to use payments for environmental services (PES) as a tool for poverty reduction, particularly in rural areas. At the core of Costa Rica’s PES program is an understanding that healthy ecosystems provide a wide range of services including carbon sequestration, water filtration and the provision of habitat for genetic resources that can potentially be used in pharmaceuticals and natural medicines. By providing financial incentives to landowners, the so-called Tragedy of the Commons — according to which free resources shared by all gradually degrade over time — can be averted.
The gist? They got rid of their defense or army, and invested instead in sustainability and environment. They also according to the lecturer...refused not one but two multi-billion dollar deals to drill oil off their coast or build an oil refinery. The first was an American Oil Company who offered to give them lots of money for oil drilling rights. Costa Rica said no. The second was China, who offered them billions to set up an oil refinery. Costa Rica said no.
Costa Rica is completely free of fossil fuels. They've put their money towards building sustainable crops, coffee, tourism, and a sustainable and collaborative eco-system.
Lutèce served it seared, with dark chocolate sauce and bitter orange marmalade. Le Cirque offered it in classic terrine form, but also served it with rabbit and bacon and made it the scene-stealer in a ravioli dish.
But Lutèce closed in New York in 2004. Le Cirque shut its last Manhattan location in 2017. And foie gras, the calling card of fine French dining, is about to follow suit.
The New York City Council overwhelmingly passed legislation on Wednesday that will ban the sale of foie gras in the city, one of the country’s largest markets, beginning in 2022.
New York City will join California in prohibiting the sale of foie gras, the fattened liver of a duck or goose, over animal cruelty concerns.
Sign up for the New York Today Newsletter
Each morning, get the latest on New York businesses, arts, sports, dining, style and more.
“New York is the mecca of dining in the world. How is it possible that New York doesn’t have foie gras?” said Marco Moreira, executive chef and owner of Tocqueville, an acclaimed French restaurant near Union Square, which offers an appetizer of foie gras from the Hudson Valley. “What’s next? No more veal? No more mushrooms?”
Most foie gras is produced through a process known as gavage; ducks are force-fed a fatty corn-based mixture that engorges their livers. The process requires tubes to be inserted into a duck’s throat for a 20-day feeding regimen, swelling the liver to up to 10 times its normal size. The procedure can leave ducks too big to walk or even breathe before they are slaughtered, animal activists say.
Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan councilwoman who sponsored the foie gras legislation, said her bill “tackles the most inhumane process” in the commercial food industry. “This is one of the most violent practices and it’s done for a purely luxury product,” she said.
Foie gras farmers say that the forced feedings are not cruel, and that the claims of torture are exaggerated. They say there is a bias against foie gras because it is a luxury product.
Other countries, including India, Israel and Britain, have banned the sale or production of foie gras. Whole Foods stopped selling the product in 1997, citing cruelty, and Postmates stopped delivering it in 2018.
But New York was seen as a critical battleground, where an expense-account culture of extravagance has fed demand for foie gras for decades. That tradition, however, gave way to an increasingly progressive City Council.
The bill bars the sale of foie gras produced by “force-feeding birds,” with each violation punishable by a $2,000 fine. But not all foie gras comes from ducks or geese that have been force-fed, and determining whether foie gras was illegally produced may present an enforcement challenge.
After reading this article, I decided I'm never having this ever again. I also won't have veal any longer. Granted, can't anyhow, most of this stuff is served with gluten products.
2. In the Future Everything will be made of Chickpeas? (I hope not, they don't really agree me -- and kind of give me gas.)
3. She Invented Banana Ketchup and Saved Thousands of Lives, Why Have We Never Heard of Her?
I’ve seen the look on my friends’ faces when the words banana ketchup are uttered. Confusion, maybe even disgust. How can two things with such different flavor profiles exist in one product? Despite its seeming incongruity, banana ketchup is a pantry staple that rings nostalgic to many Filipinos all over the world.
Magdalo V. Francisco, Sr. is credited with mass-producing banana ketchup in 1942, thus making it a fixture in the Filipino household. To this day it’s used as a condiment that accompanies many popular dishes such as tortang talong (an eggplant omelet), fried chicken, hamburgers, and Filipino spaghetti (pasta with banana ketchup and sliced hot dogs).
You can even find some refined versions of banana ketchup in modern Filipino cuisine. At Toyo Eatery in Manila, Jordy Navarra makes a “Banana Catsup” using fermented bananas, banana peel vinegar, banana blossom, tomatoes, and spices. True to tradition, he also serves his alongside tortang talong.
But to truly understand the roots of banana ketchup, it’s important to understand the person behind the innovation, as well as the environment in which it was produced.
Her name? Maria Orosa.
As Chef Navarra says, “Growing up in Manila, we always knew the name of Maria Orosa as a pretty famous and busy street. After getting into food and learning about the history of banana catsup, we stumbled upon her story.”
A food chemist and innovator, Maria saw that the Philippines was heavily reliant on imports like tomatoes. At the same time, she understood and envisioned the vast potential of a great many products endemic to the island nation that, when used properly, could make the country more self-sufficient. She was passionate about a self-sustaining Philippines and made it her life’s work to study native food, and the use of fermentation and various preserving techniques to educate and uplift people in need. She would eventually become a war heroine through her food innovations.
One day, she created a banana sauce with mashed bananas, vinegars, and spices. The brownish-yellow color was not very appetizing, so a little red dye was added, turning it to what is today known as banana ketchup. But her story is far vaster than her most popular invention.
Maria moved to the United States at the age of 23 (some accounts say she was a stowaway). She was a government-sponsored scholar at the University of Washington in Seattle. There, she earned a bachelors and a masters degree in pharmaceutical chemistry, as well as one in food chemistry. During her education, Maria would spend her summer breaks working in the Alaskan canneries.
In the end, she earned a position as an assistant chemist for the state of Washington, but instead chose to return to the Philippines in 1922. Upon her return, she taught home economics at Centro Escolar University and would later transfer to the Bureau of Science organizing the food preservation division.
Photo by Wikimedia Commons
A humanitarian at heart, Maria had a vision of empowering the Filipino family. She launched Health, Heart, Head and Hand (4-H) Clubs. This organization brought herself and other educators into rural areas and barrios to teach women how to raise poultry and preserve food, as well as how to prepare and plan meals. By 1924, the organization had over 22,000 members. Part of her initiative was to introduce one of her inventions, the palayok oven—a clay oven intended for people who did not have access to electrical appliances.
She used her background in food chemistry to run experiments in fermenting, dehydrating, and preserving native plants and animals. The innovations that emerged are said to still be used in laboratories today. The ultimate goal? Make the Philippines more self-sufficient and sustaining.
Local fruits like tamarind, santol, and calamansi provided her with foundations to make wine, jams, and jellies. Cassava and green banana flour would replace the need for wheat. Coconuts would yield vinegars; she was the first to preserve macapuno, a jelly-like product of coconut that is used in Southeast Asia to this day. She was also the first to freeze mangos, enabling distributors to send the famous Filipino fruit throughout the world.
The Bureau of Science recognized her efforts and promoted Maria to head of the Home Economics Division and the Division of Food Preservation. Her work with the bureau would send her all over the world to research canning and preserving technologies.
4. The 9 Most Important Things I Learned in Cooking School
Most of these I knew already, a couple I don't do either due to time, space constraints or a misguided attempt to eliminate as much sugar from my diet as humanely possible.
5. Discussion with mother over the phone about Costa Rica lead me to the following article on Costa Rica Ethics & Environmentalism. My parents belong to a lecture series called "World Affairs" -- which brings in high profile lecturers from around the world, who are specialists in various fields, and held prominent positions in those fields. They go to the lectures, and afterwards, my mother regales me with everything they learned -- or provides a very detailed Cliff Notes version.
What she told me can pretty much be found HERE. They had a lecturer who was a prominent leader in Costa Rica.
The challenges are clear. Global environmental indicators all seem to be going in the wrong direction, while the population continues to grow and carbon emissions spiral to record highs. There is, however, considerable room for optimism as impressively positive trends continue to emerge from Costa Rica, a small nation in Central America.
At first, the story of Costa Rica’s forests seems like a tragedy. In the 1940s, over 75% of the country was covered in indigenous woodland, mostly tropical rainforest. In the subsequent decades, however, rampant and unchecked logging ensued as the nation’s valuable forest resources were transformed into cash profits. By 1983 only 26% of the country retained forest cover, and the deforestation rate had risen to 50,000 hectares per year.
At this point, something amazing started to happen. By 1989 the annual deforestation rate had dropped to 22,000 hectares per year. The figure dropped even lower to 4,000 hectares per year by 1994 and in 1998 the deforestation rate had dropped to zero. Today forest cover has increased to 52% (double 1983 levels) and the government has set the ambitious goal of further increasing this figure to 70% and achieving carbon neutrality by 2021.
But how did Costa Rica achieve such an astonishing reversal of trends? And how is it that over this same timeframe Costa Rica has shown such impressive gains in social indicators like education level and poverty reduction? And is there a way that other countries around the world that are currently being devastated by deforestation, desertification and rampant biodiversity loss, can achieve similar results?
The right combination
The answer seems to lie in a combination of ethics, environmentalism and effective policymaking. The readiness of key decision makers in Costa Rica to think outside the box may be seen in their decision to disband the country’s standing army in 1948. At a recent presentation on 9 November 2011 at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan, Costa Rica’s Ambassador to Japan, H.E. Mr. Álvaro Cedeño Molinari, described how at the time this was principally an ethical decision.
Looking back, after 63 years without a military, such a seemingly unconventional decision has proven both brave and useful in channeling additional investment into the country’s social and environmental programs. This same forward-thinking set of ethics guided the country to amend its constitution in 1994 to enshrine the right of “every person […] to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment”.
Costa Rica’s success in slowing and ultimately reversing the deforestation trend is due to recognition by policymakers of the value of the country’s ecosystems. Success can also be attributed to a decision to use payments for environmental services (PES) as a tool for poverty reduction, particularly in rural areas. At the core of Costa Rica’s PES program is an understanding that healthy ecosystems provide a wide range of services including carbon sequestration, water filtration and the provision of habitat for genetic resources that can potentially be used in pharmaceuticals and natural medicines. By providing financial incentives to landowners, the so-called Tragedy of the Commons — according to which free resources shared by all gradually degrade over time — can be averted.
The gist? They got rid of their defense or army, and invested instead in sustainability and environment. They also according to the lecturer...refused not one but two multi-billion dollar deals to drill oil off their coast or build an oil refinery. The first was an American Oil Company who offered to give them lots of money for oil drilling rights. Costa Rica said no. The second was China, who offered them billions to set up an oil refinery. Costa Rica said no.
Costa Rica is completely free of fossil fuels. They've put their money towards building sustainable crops, coffee, tourism, and a sustainable and collaborative eco-system.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-02 04:56 am (UTC)On the other hand I like chickpeas, and I like banana ketchup.
9 ways: High heat is the way many restaurants cook quickly and save money. At the other end you have smoking which isn't high heat and does wonders for some cuts of meat. Restaurants frequently sear steaks at high temperatures then put them in the oven to virtually roast at a lower temperature to finish. It all depends. I found to keep things from burning at high heat requires more oil which I don't need.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-02 02:11 pm (UTC)The difficulty with high heat -- is it depends on your equipment and appliances. I use it with an electric hot pad -- because honestly the other settings don't quite work and take forever and a day. Gas? I vary, and don't. Also all ovens and stoves, I've discovered, are not created equal or do the same thing. Some cook faster than others, some distribute heat more evenly, some don't.
So when I get tips from cooks -- I think, okay, how big is your kitchen, what appliances do you own, and what does your storage space look like?
My brother for instance has more storage space, better counter space (for the most part) and better appliances than I do. He can do things, I can't.
He also has a working electric range -- while at the moment I only have a hot pad, a microwave and a tiny little george foreman style grill. We aren't going to be able to cook the same things. I'm cooking steak on a tiny grill that has one setting -- high heat. But when I did it in the broiler -- I could adjust settings a little better and it was different.
Although I wouldn't say one was better than the other. Just different.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-02 03:25 pm (UTC)Yep, you can only cook with what you have to the best of its abilities.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-03 12:32 am (UTC)