For starters, wala'au
is the Hawaiian term for speaking. As in having a simple conversation. Which is
what I've been doing for the past 10 years with you in Nichi Bei Land -
originally through the Nichi Bei Times and recently through the Nichi Bei
Weekly. I make no pretense of it, my column will never win a Pulitzer Prize nor
will it make Oprah's column of the month. Heck, it probably isn't even
referenced by other blog sites but it reads the way I would be speaking to you
over a plate of salumi, cheese and wine or poke
and beer under a shaded canopy with balmy breezes blowing. Walaau. But as I first penned this column back in January 2003, the
coming of the Year of the Snake marks a decade of The Gochiso Gourmet. And
reflection of the time that has passed in those 10 years.
Food in the Past
Decade
Somewhere in the early 2000s, America seems to have lost
its taste for carbohydrates. In fact, it became downright carbphobic with the
popularity of the Atkins, South Beach and Zone diets. Why? I have no idea. As
I've mentioned previously, calories and body weight DOES follow simple
mathematics. Burn more than you consume and you'll lose weight even if all of
those calories come from butter or lard. On the flipside, consume more than you
burn and you'll gain weight even if all of those calories come from carrot
sticks and granola. One plus one does equal two in the world of calories and
body weight. And from a personal standpoint, there's no way I can give up
freshly baked bread, pasta, sushi or pomme frites so I'm not even tryin'!
Somewhere in the early 2000s, El Bulli in Spain run by
the Adria brothers was named the top restaurant in the world. Of course, they
also closed the top spot again in 2009 though recently shuttered their doors
this year as the Adrias felt they had accomplished all that they had set out to
do with El Bulli. Along with El Bulli (5 times), the only other restaurants to
gain the top spot in the 2000s were The French Laundry (twice) in Napa, The Fat
Duck (once) in England and Noma (3 times) in Denmark.
I believe that sometime in the 2000s, chefs found foam.
Basically flavored air, foams consisted of flavor infused fat put through a
high pressure nozzle that created a subtle flavored foam. On entrees, they
usually were flavored with fresh herbs or savory fats like bacon drippings or foie gras or on desserts and libations,
they were flavored with fruit and sweets.
About this same time, chefs also started using
malto-dextrin in savory applications. Basically malto-dextrin is a flavorless
powdered starch that absorbs more than its own weight in liquid, especially
fats. So you could create olive oil powder or foie gras flavored powder or
even butter powder to garnish any dish. A little like what El Bulli had been
doing for several years. Molecular gastronomy.
And we also saw sous
vide as a popular method of cooking protein. Basically sous vide means
"under vacuum" in French and the process is pretty basic. Stick a
protein of your choice with or without herbs and oils in a cooking bag. Remove
any air from the bag then seal the bag. Place the bag in a water bath with a
controlled temperature and let it very slowly cook over several hours. Before
serving, remove the protein and flash pan fry on one side to crisp or brown.
Originally, these water baths (like you would find in an Organic Chemistry lab)
were only available to restaurants unless you were willing to spend several
thousand dollars and had enough counter space in your kitchen to accommodate
the contraption. Now, you can actually order you own for a couple hundred dollars
and they only take the space of a large toaster oven.
Wine in the Past
Decade
Domestic wine has primarily been in the same cycle 10
years ago as it is now. Specifically it's mostly about big, concentrated, fully
extracted, ripe wines. The type of wines that get those 95+ Robert Parker
scores. And who can blame winemakers, especially up and coming winemakers who
are leveraged up to the eyebrows with outstanding loans or answer to investors
wanting a quick return on their initial capital expenses. Make one 95+ Robert
Parker wine and oenophiles will be beating a path to your front door and
sending your sales through the roof. I mean certain grapes are meant to make
"big" wines like America's own; Zinfandel. And I do occasionally
enjoy a full throttle Cabernet Sauvignon. But Grenache, Syrah and Merlot
weren't really meant to be wines on steroids. And Pinot Noir definitely is
meant for finesse. But it's common to see these wines with 15 to 16% alcohol by
volume (abv). On top of this, younger European vintners are also following this
trend making fully ripe wines that were never produced a generation ago for the
same reason. The big RP score.
But there is a new light on the horizon. There also are a
group of vintners making wine according to inherent characteristics in each
grape variety. Pinot Noirs with finesse. Syrah with terroir. Chardonnay that
isn't overly oaked. Gavin Chanin of
Chanin Wine Co, Ted Lemon of Littorai, the Varner brothers of Varner and Neely.
Making wines not for huge wine scores but making them the way they feel those
wines should be made. Of course, the list is longer than just these three
vintners but they are out there. You just have to seek them out for yourselves
as they won't get any of the wine press as the big boys. And there also is a
change at Wine Advocate. Robert parker has passed the reigns of his publication
to Antonio Gallioni who doesn't seem to favor the huge, fully extracted wines
as his boss. Or at least to a lesser degree. Which means wine making may slowly
be swinging back to the old days.
And if you haven't run into Stelvin closures, get used to
it. They weren't as pervasive on the market 10 years ago but now most white
wines and a good deal of red wines meant to consume young are sealed with
Stelvin caps. What's a Stelvin cap? For lack of a more sophisticated
explanation, it's a screw cap. Almost like the screw caps on Boone's Farm and
Thunderbird. Why seal with a screw cap? Well, it cuts down on the incidence of
"corked" wines to virtually nil unless your winery already is tainted
with tri-chloro-anisole or TCA. I've noticed that many Australian wines
including high end bottles like Mollydooker's Velvet Glove employ Stelvin
closures. I guess I'll list my Laguiole corkscrews on Craigslist sometime in
the future as they may be rendered obsolete.
Nutrition in the
Past Decade
Of course every couple of years people need to find a new
fad diet. The carb haters are still out there though it's not as mainstream as
it was a decade ago. There seems to be more dietary supplements on the market
that supposedly help you burn extra fat and calories. Hydroxycut used to be the
darling until they noticed that it might cause liver failure... though it seems
to be back again with a new formulation.
Ten years ago, hcG was simply the hormone detected in
home pregnancy tests. Now it's supposed to help you shed unwanted fat while
maintaining lean tissue on low calorie diets. I don't know about you, but I
definitely don't want my doctor to inform me that me red count is okay, my
cholesterol is up and that I'll be due in another 24 weeks. And something tells
me that just being on a low calorie helps shed fat.
I'll just stick with the time tested method of consuming
less than I burn to loosen my waistline. And while I'm at it, I'll simply try
to get my proteins, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals from loads of
veggies and fruits supplemented with whole grains and lean animal and vegetable
proteins. Not the sexiest diet and definitely not trendy but time tested and
proven. Yes, I'll still indulge on special occasions especially since calories
and cholesterol don't count on your birthday, holidays and vacations but for
the most part, I'll stick to a sensible diet for the better part of the year.
The Next Decade
What does the next decade hold? Well if I knew that
answer, I would have already selected the 6 winning numbers to the next
Powerball. I hope that someday in the near future direct shipping of wine will
be a reality in all 50 states. I hope that farm to table and the locavore
movement is embraced in every community. I hope that having the family collect
around the dinner table to bond becomes something more of the future than
something that simply existed in the past. I hope that major food
conglomerations produce foods with real taste and are nutritious and not just
produced for extended shelf lives and
only "flavored" chemicals, salt and fat. And though it's been a
pretty long ride thus far, I hope that the Nichi Bei Weekly and Nichi Bei
Foundation continues well through the next decade. As you're probably well
aware of by now, it's not easy continuing any type of print media. Gourmet
magazine already folded. Hawaii lost one of its two daily newspapers. Newsweek
is eliminating the printed format. And the Nichi Bei Weekly faces the same
challenges. So subscribe. Get all of your friends and family to subscribe.
Donate to the Nichi Bei Foundation. So maybe we can wala'au just a little bit longer.
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