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Friday, October 14, 2005
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Yeah, I can cook |
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Welcome back Chefs |
| I cook a variety of tasty things. I don't much like European served mayonnaise on French fries. I don't really cook whatever they call them anyway. If I do then I add the ridiculous American thing named either Ketchup or Catsup.
What else do the French chefs cook that are interesting?
I've always kind of been a wild guy and I don't plan on apologizing for that but if you ever happen to end up on a weekend peregrination more than fifty miles from any MacDonald's then you might find yourself in those ever increasingly rare "wild places".
It is also very difficult to stalk any wild animal. Most of the United States' are populated with deer. Rare people with vegetable gardens have also spotted some rabbit occurrences. In Hawaii, we don't have those animals. We do have pigs or what people might call wild boars. Those animals didn't swim or fly to Hawaii. No, they were brought by another horrible animal which are both eliminating this wonderful environment. |
| It is challenging to figure out what either wild or cultured animals like to eat. The pigs are mainly vegetarian; corn, oats or wheat - those kinds of things. But wait a minute. When I was a kid my mother grew something called an oleander. I was instructed not to eat those. Well, it's almost Christmas time. What about Mistletoe, Poinsettia or the Christmas Rose. Don't eat those either. |
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Just a note: Skip this paragraph if you want to. When you visit this section of any grocery store that I call the "expensive" aisle then just do what I usually do - put your wallet away somewhere. The following Greek flower (I believe originally from) which we call the "Crocus Sativus Linneaus"  contains only three stigmas. We might call this stuff saffron. First, one is forced to pick 75,000 of these flowers' stigmas in order to produce a pound of this spice that is unbelievably expensive. Strangely, it isn't the most expensive product in this section of any grocery. |
| Let get back to joining a few things: The French, the pigs and something called either Tuber or Terfezia. Let's call them mushrooms or perhaps in this case even simpler; truffles. |
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Some historical people have used either pigs or dogs to aide in search for these underground mushrooms. Most people choose dogs. Give them a potato chip and a pat on their heads and everything is cool. The pigs actually have better snoozes. If you want to hunt for these things, choose the female pig. I'm not even going to mention to readers why you should but they are much better than any other animal or their own sexes. Oh yeah, the pigs love these expensive mushrooms. Dogs don't prefer them.
These days a kilo costs US $750 in French markets. By the time we get them in North America the price may be as high as $1,250 to $1,500, pending on store location, and fame of the establishment. Dean and Deluca in New York will not part with a kilogram of truffles for less than $1,400, and Fauchon in Paris is likely to charge $1,000.
I would love to farm these mushrooms. The agricultural trials haven't been very successful in places like California or Oregon. (Or some others)
Are these things found in Hawaii? I'm not telling. Generally, look under sycamore, beech trees, and certain species of European oak or even pine trees from some states. If you own a pet pig and you might find these mushrooms, don't tell anyone else where you found them. That same mistake would make you look like the same idiot that said, "I found a huge gold nugget right up there..." (Heh heh). |
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| Remember something called Fungophobia (sic - maybe I made this one up) that occasionaly some have mentioned. As far as I can find, there are about 10,000 mushroom species that are to be found anywhere in North America. Who knows? There are about 200 common poisonous varieties among these. You probably won't die but you might have wished that you had. There are a dozen or so that exist that might be deadly. How do we know? Get real chemists! The vast majority of mushrooms are harmless. My grocery store has about five varieties. Okay, my stores aren't that great. Maybe you have a better selection? Can you tell the difference in any mushrooms?
The animals that I previously mentioned will love some mushrooms and avoid others. How do they know? Are their noses really that much better than ours are? These are some "shrooms" that popped up the other night in my very own front yard. They look very inexpensive. Do I chop these up and throw them into my latest beef stew? Whadaya think? None of my witnessed animals have ever touched them. |
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9:37:10 AM 
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