by Bill McLain
Where was sourdough bread invented? (Was it the night they cremated Sam McGee?)
Although 6,000 years or so ago bread makers discovered that moistened flour fermented and expanded when exposed to air, sourdough bread as we know it today is associated with the prospectors who came to California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and later moved on to the gold fields of the Klondike.
To make a leavened bread, you need yeast. However, early prospectors did not have yeast, so they took advantage of natural airborne yeasts. These yeasts are living organisms that feed on dough and cause it to ferment. The by-products of fermentation are alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide gas makes the dough expand or rise.
Before the bread was baked, the cook would save a portion of the dough, which was already fermenting, and use it later to “start” a new batch of dough. The new batch was simply more flour and water that fed the yeast in the saved portion. This portion was called a “starter,” because it started leavening a new batch of dough. So, to make proper sourdough bread, you must have a “starter.”
At this point you might ask, “If I must have a starter before I can make sourdough bread, how can I possibly make it if I don’t have a starter to begin with?”
There are a couple of ways you can create a starter from scratch. One method is to simply put water and flour into a crock, cover the crock with cloth, and set it outside. Airborne yeasts will penetrate the cloth and start feeding on the flour and water mixture. In four or five days, the mixture will have fermented enough to use for making bread.
Another method is to make a paste of cooked potatoes, flour, and sugar, left outside until it is fermented.
When making sourdough bread, the general rule is “put in a cup and take out a cup.” In other words, add a cup of flour to the starter for every cup you take out and use.
You can use the starter to make bread, pancakes, and rolls. If you take care of your starter properly, someday your grandchildren might be making sourdough bread from it.
FACTOIDS
When prospectors invaded California during the Gold Rush, their main diet consisted of beans, pork, and sourdough bread. Men who carried a crock of starter in their gear were called “sourdoughs.”
Sourdough starters were treasures during the rugged frontier days, and some families handed down the starter through several generations.
The Hooch-in-noo Native Americans in southeastern Alaska took the liquid from the top of a batch of sourdough and let it complete its fermentation to produce a yellow alcohol. This potent mixture was said to cause a head-splitting hangover the following day. It was called “hooch”—a name still used today for homemade liquor.
Cooks on long trail drives kept their starter in five-gallon crocks. If it was a particularly cold night, they slept with their starter to keep the cold from stopping the fermentation.
Even today, some restaurants in San Francisco use sourdough starters alive since the California Gold Rush in 1849.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Canadian poet and novelist Robert Service lived and traveled through the Yukon for eight years. In 1907 he published a book of poems entitled Songs of a Sourdough.
One poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” gained international recognition. It told the story of a prospector who went to the Yukon in search of gold but found only frigid weather. Discouraged and cold, he felt he was about to die and made a friend promise to cremate his body.
When Sam McGee died, his friend put the body in the boiler furnace of a nearby abandoned ship. When the friend looked inside the furnace to check on the cremation, he saw Sam sitting in the flames smiling and saying it was the first time he had been warm since he arrived in the Yukon.
As Robert Service said in his poem:
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
We can find pleasure in eating tasty sourdough bread, and we can also be pleasantly amused by the hundreds of tales about the old sourdough prospectors.
How are the hulls removed from sunflower seeds? (Chew and spit isn’t a good method for commercial production.)
Removing hulls from sunflower seeds can be an elaborate process often requiring a variety of different machines. The hulls are typically removed with an air huller. Air is fed down the barrel of the machine at a high velocity. The high-speed air is propelled into a chamber containing the seeds. The force of the air hurls the sunflower seeds against a metal plate causing the husks to break free from the seed. Another machine is then used to separate the hulls from the seeds, while still another machine is used to clean the seeds.
If you enjoy eating sunflower seeds and can’t afford an air huller, simply get a coffee can and fill it about half full with sunflower seeds. Punch a small hole in the can just large enough for an air hose to fit in. Then shoot the air into the coffee can and it will break most of the hulls and separate them from the seeds.
Many sunflower enthusiasts prefer the “chew and spit” method of separating the hulls from the seeds. When you use this method, you simply put the entire sunflower seed, along with its hull, into your mouth. You then chew the entire seed and spit out the hull when you’re finished. It’s a tasty but messy method.
“Chew and spit” requires some preparation, however. It’s recommended that you cover the seeds (and hulls) with salted water, bring to a boil, and simmer for two hours. Drain them on a paper towel and then spread the seeds in a shallow pan. Roast in a 300°F oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Add one teaspoon of melted butter for each cup of seeds, stirring to coat them. Dry them on a paper towel, and salt to taste. Now all you have to do is find a wide open space and do your thing. Because these seeds can be very tasty, you’ll definitely want to chew them. Just don’t forget to spit.
FACTOIDS
When a sunflower plant is budding, it tends to follow the sun across the horizon.
Kansas is called the Sunflower State because the sunflower is so common there. In fact, the sunflower has actually become a serious weed problem.
Two types of sunflower seeds are grown commercially. The oil seed, high in oil content, is used to produce sunflower oil. It’s also the seed preferred for most bird feeders. The non-oil seed, called confectionery sunflower, is larger, has black-and-white stripes, and is used in food products.
Although the sunflower is native to North America, Russia was the first country to produce it commercially.
Native Americans had many uses for the sunflower. They ground the seeds to make flour for mush, bread, and cakes. It was often mixed with other vegetables or eaten as a snack. A purple dye produced from the plant was used for textiles and other decorations. Other plant parts served as medicine. The stalks were even used as a building material. The sunflower was used as a hunting calendar: when the sunflowers were in bloom, buffalo were fat and the meat was tasty.
A single sunflower head can produce up to 1,000 seeds.
Russia produces more sunflower seeds than any other country, followed by Argentina and Eastern Europe. The United States is the fourth largest producer. We may not eat that many sunflower seeds but birds certainly do. The United States sunflower industry is estimated at $2.7 billion annually. Of that, about 15 percent, or $423 million, is spent on sunflower seeds to feed wild birds.
DID YOU KNOW?
More and more people are realizing that sunflower seeds are a healthy and fun snack. In fact, these tasty tidbits have even become a part of our national pastime, baseball.
Sunflower seeds now seem to be the snack of choice among fans and players alike. As one ballplayer remarked, “Seems like everyone’s either eating them or playing with them.”
In 1995, when the San Francisco Giants were playing against the Colorado Rockies on a brand new field in Colorado, the Giants outfielders weren’t sure where to position themselves on the unfamiliar turf. The Giants manager said
, “Just go where the seeds are.” He meant that the Rockies outfielders were munching sunflower seeds and the telltale hulls would mark the best spot for the outfielders to situate themselves.
A pitcher who shall remain nameless loved eating sunflower seeds and kept digging them out of his pocket while he was pitching. Unfortunately, he stretched his fingers too far, injured them, and couldn’t pitch for a while. He was the first known victim of SSF (Sunflower Seed Finger).
What is the difference between Cajun and Creole? (A matter of mispronunciation?)
Some 15 years before the Mayflower set sail for the New World, French settlers had already established a colony in Acadie, now called Nova Scotia, Canada. It was 150 years later when the English governor of Canada told the Acadians to forsake their Catholic faith and swear allegiance to England or be banished. They chose the latter and eventually settled in southern Louisana. Although called Us Acadiens by the French, some referred to them as le ’Cadiens. As other settlers arrived in the area, they were not able to pronounce either term very well, and started calling them “Cajun.”
The term “Creole” originally meant Africans born in the New World. No one knows for sure where the name came from. There are at least 30 different definitions, but one of the most popular is that the term came from the Portuguese word crioulo, which means “homegrown.” The Creoles were influenced by African, French, and Spanish cultures, and today the term has come to mean the culture native to the southern part of Louisiana.
Both Cajuns and Creoles have contributed appetizing foods to our culture. For example, jambalaya is a Creole dish, while gumbo is a Cajun/Creole dish. Either can be made with a variety of ingredients. The easiest way to tell them apart is that gumbo is a soup and jambalaya is more like a casserole.
Gumbo is typically a soup that has meat or seafood and vegetables. Okra pods are used for thickening. The word comes from the Bantu word for okra, kingombo. If you’ve ever heard the song “Jambalaya,” you’ve heard the term “filé gumbo.” If gumbo contains ground sassafras as a thickener, it is called filé gumbo.
Jambalaya is typically rice cooked with a variety of ingredients such as tomatoes, onions, green peppers, herbs, and some kind of meat, poultry, or shellfish. There seems to be as many varieties of jambalaya as there are cooks. No one know for sure where the name came from, but the most common theory is that it is derived from the French word for ham, jambon. Although some people make a similar dish with noodles and call it jambalaya, it has to be made with rice to be authentic.
FACTOIDS
The 700,000 Acadians living in southern Louisana comprise the largest French-speaking minority in the United States.
Only Death Valley, California, is lower in elevation than the swamps that surround New Orleans.
The Cajuns have lived isolated from other cultures and from each other. Thus, there is no single “Cajun” language. Numerous dialects are spoken, all derived from the original Acadian French.
DID YOU KNOW?
When people hear the word “jambalaya,” many of them think of the song of the same name. It was written by Hank Williams, a superstar at 25 and dead at 29.
Hiram “Hank” Williams, Sr., was born in Georgianna, Alabama, in 1923. He never received any formal music instruction and learned to play the guitar from a black street singer named Rufus Payne, or “Tee-Tot.” By the time he was 13, Hank Williams had a regular spot on WSFA, a local radio station. The station nicknamed him “the Singing Kid,” and Williams stayed with the station for almost 10 years.
In 1949, he performed at the Grand Ole Opry singing his song “Lovesick Blues.” The audience gave him a standing ovation and an unprecedented six encores, something not seen before or since. Within two years he was racking up hit after hit, including “Cold, Cold Heart” and “Hey, Good Lookin’.”
In spite of his talent, Hank Williams had serious problems during his life. He went through a divorce in 1952 and was fired from the Grand Ole Opry a few months later. After hurting his back on a hunting trip, he took morphine for pain and became addicted. Even so, he released five hit songs that year, including “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Jambalaya.” Unfortunately, his life went downhill from there.
The following year he was scheduled to play a concert in Ohio. The weather was so bad that he decided not to fly and hired a chauffeur to drive him there. Hank Williams died in the backseat of his car while on the trip. His hands clutched a piece of paper with the words “We met, we lived, and dear we loved, then comes that fatal day, the love that felt so dear fades away.” The autopsy report listed the cause of death as alcoholic cardiomyopathy.
The last record that was released before he died was “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.”
What are the different types of caviar and why is caviar so expensive? (Roe, roe, roe your boat.)
Caviar is salted fish eggs, called roe, from the Turkish word havyar, meaning “bearing eggs.” True caviar is made only from sturgeon roe. There are 26 species of sturgeon in the world, but only a few are commercially important as a source of caviar. In the United States, any fish eggs can be called caviar provided the name of the fish precedes the word caviar.
Many parts of the world produce caviar, but only the Caspian Sea has the unique combination of ideal water temperature, climate, and in-flowing rivers conducive to producing the finest caviar. In fact, almost 95 percent of the world’s caviar comes from the Caspian Sea.
The sturgeons in the Caspian Sea are the beluga, osetra, and sevruga. Beluga caviar is the most prized and the most expensive. The eggs are larger than other caviar and their color ranges from dark steel to light gray. One reason for the cost is that at least 20 years must pass before a beluga sturgeon is mature enough to produce eggs.
Osetra eggs are smaller and golden yellow or brown. Although sevruga caviar is the cheapest of the three, it is also the most delicate. The eggs are small but have a strong flavor and are light to dark gray in color.
Prices of caviar vary according to market conditions. To give you an idea, beluga caviar sells for around $55 an ounce, while the least expensive sevruga caviar sells for about $27 an ounce. In some instances, demand has pushed the price of beluga caviar as high as $75 an ounce.
If you plan a party and decide to serve caviar, it’s normally recommended that you plan on one ounce per person. If you only invite eight people besides yourself and your spouse, that means you would spend around $550 just for the beluga caviar.
Other countries produce inexpensive caviar from such fish as lumpfish, salmon, and whitefish.
With the overfishing taking place today and the increased demand for quality caviar, it’s doubtful if the price will ever go down, but it’s a good bet prices will rise in the future.
FACTOIDS
Caviar contains acetylcholine, which increases a person’s tolerance to alcohol. Russians often drink caviar oil extract before drinking alcohol, believing it will prevent hangovers.
Up until the late 1800s, the United States produced 90 percent of the world’s caviar from sturgeon in the Great Lakes. By then, overfishing had made the lake sturgeon virtually extinct and production of caviar was stopped. Today lake sturgeon caviar is only available in Canada. The Caspian Sea fisheries did not begin producing caviar until 1925.
It’s rumored that when a wealthy Hollywood mogul had an affair with a young actress, his wife bathed in caviar because she thought it would keep her skin soft and young looking. She used her husband’s credit card to pay for the caviar.
Sturgeon can live up to 100 years and grow to 20 feet in length.
Prior to Prohibition in the United States, there was such a large supply of caviar that New York bars gave it away to encourage people to drink more beer.
DID YOU KNOW?
Producing quality caviar is not a simple task. If the fish are caught in the open waters before they return upstream to spawn, the roe still has bite and texture. If they are caught in the tributaries just before they spawn, the roe te
nds to be soft and is likely to burst. Catching sturgeon is hard work. Some weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Some are hauled into the boat, while the heaviest ones are towed to shore.
The sturgeon is then taken to the fishing station. Everything that will touch the sturgeon or the caviar is sterilized. The fish is laid on a marble slab, cut open, and the roe carefully removed from its stomach and placed in a steel bowl. Because the ovaries are in a fine tissue, the roe is passed through a strainer to separate the roe from the ovaries and is salted and graded.
Grading is accomplished by lightly rocking the caviar back and forth in the steel bowl and inspecting the color, firmness, and size of the individual eggs. It is then packaged.
There is a great deal of labor involved in producing caviar, from catching the sturgeon to extracting and grading the roe. That is another reason for the high cost.
If you have a chance to eat some quality caviar, savor every mouthful, knowing the amount of work it took to get it from the Caspian Sea to your plate.
Why is coffee often referred to as “Joe”? (It’s easier to say than Englebert.)
Although no one knows for sure, most people accept the naval legend. The U.S. Navy used to serve alcoholic drinks on its ships, typically wine. When Admiral Josephus “Joe” Daniels became secretary of the Navy, he made a number of reforms, including letting women into the Navy and abolishing wine from the officer’s mess. Alcohol was outlawed on ships except for special occasions. Instead of drinking alcoholic beverages, the poor sailors had to drink coffee. Possibly out of sarcasm they referred to their coffee as a “cup of Joe.”