The Last Ratatouille

Pica harvested the last of the zucchini and eggplant the other day. The one green pepper she added to it turned out to be quite picanté.

Lure Of Soy

The Department of Food Science and Technology here frequently sets up five-minute taste studies outside of the Coffeehouse, the main eatery in the student union. I lingered a little bit too long looking at their sign advertising soy product tasting and got roped in by one of their enthusiastic student workers.

First, the form — age, sex, status and department on campus. How often do I eat soy products? Every day or nearly so. What sort? I check three things: tofu, soy milk (right now I am addicted to unsweetened chocolate soy milk on my breakfast porridge), and soy-based veggie burgers (which was dinner last night).

Then the taste test. Three soy bars, apple, mango, and berry: rate them 1 to 10. I am partial to such bars, but these were dry, so overall I gave them a 6 (“like slightly”). I think the food technologists need to go back to work on those bars.

Tomorrow’s dinner is tofu-cilantro with rice. And we have lots of chili and green peppers from the garden. Yum.

Slow Food

Fernanda came over today. We had nectarine crisp from the new solar oven and nectarine ice cream she’d made. (It’s nectarine season here in the Central Valley.) Fernanda blogs mostly about food, now, though she’s a veteran Brazilian blogger from back when everyone knew everyone else, from back way beyond when anyone I knew was blogging.

We were talking about the Slow Food Movement — how it has done wonderful work promoting good, locally produced food eaten with friends or family while, gasp, sitting down — but we both wish it weren’t quite so elitist. (The upcoming Yolo Slow Food event costs $65 — out of range of most people, even though it’s a fundraiser..)

Solar Upgrade

Our new solar oven arrived today. In the picture it is on top of the bricks, above the old cardboard solar cooker, which is definitely showing its age (note the water damage from being left out in the irrigation). The new oven should get much hotter than the old one — they say up to 400° F.

Salsas Of Yore

While on the topic of chili peppers, a study to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined food remains found in two caves in southern Mexico dating from around 1500 years ago. The scientists found parts from at least 10 different cultivars of chili peppers, which were used both fresh and dried (fresh and dried peppers show different breakage patterns). As the lead author Linda Perry puts it: “You don’t grow seven different kinds of chilies unless you’re cooking some pretty interesting food.”