Flutterby™! : Some food links 2009-10-08 19:17:04.608363+00

Some food links

2009-10-08 19:17:04.608363+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

Cockeyed: How much is inside a sandwich?

Word for Word: Paul Roberts and "The End of Food" at The Commonwealth Club (Thanks, Mark).

"If we're going to give food the priority it deserves, we're going to have to stop watching other people cook."

I've always wondered about the cost of homemade sandwiches. Of course, I usually use lots of organic products, so my sandwich cost is higher. It's hard to compare to store bought (and definitely not Carl Jr's). I also work mostly from home, so when I go into the office, I appreciate the break that going out for lunch provides.

FYI: Lunch today was two sunny-side up eggs and cilantro & green chile polenta (that's grits for y'all Southern folk). Eggs were about 25 cents each (we buy the high dollar, free range, high omega eggs). Polenta was about 75 cents.

Well, grits are polenta treated with a base (like lye or lime), which gives 'em a higher niacin content than untreated ground corn.

I'm sure you folks know about the Slow Food movement http://slowfood.com/ and if you didn't just nod your head like you did know and follow the link.

Idunno about grits = polenta the finished product is dramatically different. Kinda like risotto isn't the same as a bowl of rice. Maybe thats pedantic but we are talking about a passionate subject.

Grits is stone ground corn meal. Polenta is stone ground corn meal. The two are the same but are prepared differently. Most Southerners are most familiar with the white hominy grits which, as Dan has pointed out, is dried white corn bleached with lye or lime and then ground. Hominy, another Southern delicacy, is the whole kernel that has been rehydrated and cooked.

Grits, however is not limited to hominy grits. This morning I had yellow corn grits. The bag it came in was labeled both "Corn Grits (also known as Polenta)." I have version of grits that I make by starting out frying bacon cut in one inch lengths, sauteeing onion, garlic and celery until tender and then adding grits that have been hydrating in water and cream. After the grits start to set I stir in diced tomatoes. A not to be missed part of Southern port cities (like Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans) cuisine is their cheese grits with shrimp.

Of course my Guatemalan step mother makes a lot of the same grits dishes I make but she calls them polenta.

Polenta is what the high brow eateries call grits, so they can charge $4.50 for .10 worth of ground corn. Of course, with us much butter and cream as they cook them in.. (yummy) it might be worth it.

It is tomato season, and we don't have quite enough to get a night of canning going, so this time of year when I see "stir in diced tomatoes" my ears perk up.

One night while making the grits I mentioned above the bacon didn't render down as much fat as I thought I needed and I had quite a bit sticking to the bottom of the skillet. I grabbed a lime and squeezed the juice of it into the skillet to deglaze the bottom a bit before adding the onions, garlic and celery. That seemed to add a bit to the taste so I do it whenever I have some limes. I also use cumin and chili powder. If y'all are going to try it I might as well give you all the ingredients I use but I figure the people inclined to make it that are reading about it here will use my idea as a starting point for their own dish.

Let me add that I'm beginning to become a fan of bulgar wheat. It has about the same possibilities for making more complex dishes as grits and its a little more filling.