Enlisting the Troops Against Invasive Species

One creative solution to invasive species:

Kvass: Old World Pop

I was exploring Toronto's St. Lawrence market this summer. Ambling past a Ukrainian deli, I came upon a bottle marked “KBAC”. Suspicious, I called over a Slavic friend who happened to be there and asked her to read it to me. “Kvass”, she said.

I've heard of that! in a book I once read about Mennonite foods. It was some fermented drink involving bread. It sounded weird (even weirder since I was confusing it with kefir, fermented milk.) Of course I bought it.

I've heard kvass described as low alcohol beer. I think it is more like pop. It has a distinctive flavor and yet reminds me of something familiar. I haven't yet put my finger on it, maybe plum.

Researching, I find that it comes in bread and beet varieties. It has been brewed for over a thousand years (though I wonder if the traditional recipes had sugar for the yeast.) Kvass is enjoying a resurgence in Russia and Ukraine lately. Coca-cola has developed a brand and a monastery near Moscow has started bottling its traditional recipe. Modern enthusiasts rave about its probiotics, which would have been important in the days before clean water.

You can make it yourself. It is basically rye toast tea. I have been trying a few batches at home based on Angelina's recipe. She flavors it with raisins. Others suggest lemon or mint. (Both inhibit bacteria growth.) I tried a batch with raisins, then with raisins and lemon (crushing the lemon and careful to capture the oils from the zest.) My current batch has raisin, mint and lemon.

Compared to Angelina, I make batches a quarter the size, only 2.5 liters. Remember, it is alive and will only last 2-5 days. Where Angelina emphasizes the need to burn your toast, I discovered that there is such a thing as too burnt. You want to see some blackening, but no charcoal. Mine has 2/3 the sugar. You can recover 20% of the liquid if  you put the bread in a colander after scooping it from the pot.
(Dec'14) I just tried Schweppes dark ginger ale. I wonder if it isn't kvass.

It's a Show...It's an Education...It's Dinner

In keeping with my easily distracted interest in cooking, let me speak of the Culinary Training Studio.
It looks like a kitchen surrounded by a bar. It has been described as being part of your own cooking show. You might call it a cooking class where you don't have to work and get to eat the food. Or you might call it a six hour dinner, with entertainment in the form of food talk.

Cooking is Science

Look at Amazon link to read the captions

At least, it can be: chemistry mostly (chemical reactions, changes of state) but also physics (temperatures, heat flow). [short videos]

There is a movement about that goes by the name "modernist cooking". It seems to be about analyzing the science behind cooking. (What is the reaction that changes my meat from "raw" to "cooked the way I like it" to "overdone" or "burnt".) then measuring it precisely and finding a process that achieves the exact conditions I wanted: nothing more, nothing less.

If you want your steak medium-rare, that means 55 °C. Now, how can we cook this thing so the whole steak is 55 °C, we keep all the juices and achieve any other properties we were looking for? The short answer to that puzzle seems to be found in sous vide cooking techniques. There are other puzzles to be solved.

It started in the 80's, but has flourished recently. The gold standard is called Modernist Cuisine and there is a home version and a simpler version (and tips). It is the pinnacle of a whole series of cooking science books. Finally, here is a feature-length promo from Harvard.