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Mini cows, courtesy of Flickr user florador

The other day, the Los Angeles Times did a story on the increasing number of ranchers and farmers raising miniature cattle to cut costs and produce meat and milk more efficiently.

These cows average 500 to 700 pounds, about half the weight of their full-figured counterparts, but they are not genetically engineered freaks. Rather, the article says, they are drawn from the original smaller breeds brought to the United States in the 1800s. Today’s bovine behemoths were bred in the 1950s and ’60s, when farmers were more concerned with getting more meat than using feed and grasslands efficiently.

It sounds sensible. The animals eat less in proportion to the amount of meat and milk they produce, so they give the farmers more bang for their buck. And because they require less land for grazing and producing feed (and, as a farmer in the article notes, produce less methane), they might also be kinder to the environment. According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, “the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent—18 percent—than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.”

But, I wonder, are these tiny Herefords and Anguses too adorable to eat? I’m probably not the best person to ask, since I haven’t had a bite of beef since 1987—like my co-blogger Amanda, I turned vegetarian in my teens, though I have gradually, and selectively, added some meat back into my diet. The reasons I avoid beef are many, but I’m sure cuteness factors into it. I feel a lot less guilt about eating a cod than a furry animal with big, sad eyes. And the only thing cuter than a big, furry animal is a wee version of a big, furry animal.

People like me are the reason People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched its recent campaign to rename fish as “sea kittens.” I must admit, it hasn’t worked on me yet, and I’m pretty much their target audience. Surely, they’ll have an even tougher time convincing the kind of people the fast-food chain Jack in the Box was going after with its commercial for mini sirloin burgers, which features “cows the size of schnauzers.”

Deep fried white asparagus, courtesy of Flickr user Foodista

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I’m addicted to asparagus. In all forms, really, but my latest obsession is a little embarrassing, since I like to think of myself as a healthy eater: Asparagus Fries. Or in other words…Fried Asparagus.

I blame an old friend for getting me hooked. A few months ago, she took me to Isabella’s, a tapas restaurant in Frederick, Maryland, and practically forced me to order their “Esparragos Fritos con Salsa Alioli Tomate,” aka “Crispy Panko Crusted Asparagus ‘Fries’ with Smoked Tomato Aioli.”

The asparagus was still bright green beneath the crispy batter, cooked enough to be tender without getting mushy, and the aioli had a powerful zing. The presentation was nice, too: Thick, golden-coated stalks arranged like a minimalist bouquet in a champagne flute, their bases bathed in creamy pink sauce. I ordered seconds.

Now, every time I visit that friend, she goes through the motions of asking where I’d like to go for dinner. I pretend to think about it, then, as nonchalantly as I can, suggest Isabella’s. “I think I remember eating something there I liked…was it asparagus, maybe?” (Because, you know, I can quit anytime I want.)

I’ve searched all over the Internet, and although I see many sites where diners sing the praises of Isabella’s asparagus fries (some with pictures), the closest recipe I can find is this one for “Asparagus Fries with Smoky Chipotle Mayonnaise Dipping Sauce” on Recipezaar. (It even mentions the champagne flute; could this be THE recipe?)

Here’s hoping we get more asparagus in our CSA share this weekend…

A half-share of fresh produce from our CSA program

It’s finally here! The first batch of seasonal produce we’ll be getting every week from now through October, through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. This is the first year that my fiance (who shall henceforth be referred to as Mr. FAT, because it makes me chuckle) and I have participated in a CSA, and we’re ridiculously excited about it. We’ve been counting down the days to our first pick-up with nearly as much gusto as we’re counting down to our wedding day (one month)!

For those of you not familiar with CSA programs, the idea is that you pay a set amount (usually in advance) to receive a weekly “share” of whatever’s in season from that particular farm. It’s like a grab bag of fruits and vegetables—you never know exactly what you’ll get, but you know it’ll be fresh and local (and in many cases, organic). Some programs deliver to people’s homes, while others ask members to pick up their shares at the farm. The benefit for the farmers, of course, is having a guaranteed market for some of their crops. It’s a “shared risk and reward” concept.

We chose Norman’s Farm Market, because it offered a nearby pick-up location and we liked its “half-share” option, intended for 2 people and priced at about $15 a week (full shares, for 4-5 people, are $25 a week). Norman’s gathers its shares from several small family farms in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, and distributes them at three farm stands in the DC area.

The farm’s newsletter warned us that a recent spate of rain and cool temperatures has slowed down the growing season, so our first batch may have been a bit light. But it still seemed like a good haul to me—a bag of spinach, a box of strawberries, a fistful of asparagus, a bundle of rhubarb stalks and two lovely tomatoes. (Perhaps I could have gotten all that for the same price at the supermarket, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fresh and tasty!) We’ve already devoured most of it, but we’re a bit bewildered by the rhubarb. The only thing I can think of is cobbler, and that’s certainly good, I’m just wondering if there are any more creative options…can you throw it in a stir fry, perhaps, with a sweet sauce like hoisin to offset its tang? Any suggestions?

By the way, it’s not too late to sign up for a CSA program in many areas. Those of you in the DC area should check out this helpful directory from the Washington Post, while others could search the national directory on the Local Harvest site. Or, just go to your local farmers’ market and ask around.

Dannon yogurts namesake dies at 103; image courtesy of Flickr user JasonMcKim

I had a relative who lived to be 99, according to family lore, by eating yogurt every day. I’m starting to wonder if there might be something to that theory—last week, Daniel Carasso, the man credited with popularizing yogurt as a snack food in Europe and North America, died at the age of 103. Carasso was founder of the Danone company in France, known as Dannon when it came to the United States. If you were born in this country before about 1980, Dannon is probably the only brand of yogurt you remember from your childhood.

According to a press release from Danone, Carasso was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1905. His Sephardic Jewish family  sought refuge from persecution in Spain four centuries earlier. Yogurt was a popular part of the cuisine of Greece and a few other nearby countries, but was little-known elsewhere.

In 1916 Carasso’s father, Isaac, decided to move the family back to Spain, and was struck by the number of intestinal disorders suffered by children there. He was inspired by the research of Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist Elie Metchnikoff, who believed that the lactic-acid bacilli found in yogurt held life-extending properties.

Isaac started making yogurt in 1919 using cultures developed at the Pasteur Institute, and sold it as a health aid through pharmacies. He named the product Danone, for the diminutive form of his son’s name, Daniel, in Catalan. When Daniel grew up he went to business school, and then attended a training program in Paris at the Pasteur Institute to learn more about bacteriology and fermentation. He launched Danone in Paris in 1929, again emphasizing yogurt’s health benefits. Although it was the beginning of the Great Depression, his business thrived.

At a press conference in April celebrating the 90th anniversary of Danone, according to his obituary in the New York Times, Carasso said, “I barely realized that there was a financial crisis raging around me. I was too caught up in trying to find dairy stores to sell my product.”

Carasso’s success in France lasted until 1941, when the Nazis arrived and he was forced to flee to the United States. He formed a partnership with family friends and bought a Greek yogurt company in the Bronx. The business didn’t thrive, though, until 1947, when they added strawberry jam to the yogurt to make it more palatable to the American population. Sales skyrocketed, new flavors were added, and the company—with the Americanized name Dannon—was bought by Beatrice Foods in 1959. Carasso returned to Europe to restart Danone there, and eventually bought Dannon back, in 1981.

Today the company is the number-one seller of fresh dairy products in the world, with a revenue of nearly $19 billion in 2008. But it’s no longer alone on the dairy shelf. The average supermarket now sells at least half a dozen brands of yogurt in countless varieties. In an interesting twist, one of the latest foodie trends is the preference for thick, often unflavored, Greek-style yogurts.

Delicious miniburgers, courtesy of Flickr user chotda

Until I became a food blogger, I never noticed how many people write books dedicated to a single item of food or drink. New releases in the past year have focused on the history of the bagel, the doughnut, the potato, pizza, milk, orange juice, and chocolate, to name just a few. (Note to self: Look in fridge for book idea.)

So when a copy of Josh Ozersky’s The Hamburger arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, I admit, I didn’t exactly rush to read it. I finally dragged it out in the gym, of all places, hoping to distract myself from the tedium of the exercise bike. (Note to self: Fellow gym-goers glare at books with tantalizing food photos on cover. Remove dust jacket next time.)

Considering that I haven’t eaten a non-vegetarian hamburger in about 15 years, I found this book surprisingly interesting. It’s really a cultural history of America in the 20th century as much as it is a book about what Ozersky effusively describes as “sizzling discs of goodness,” and a “robust, succulent spheroid,” and, I’m not kidding here, “as artfully self-contained as a Homeric hexameter.” (Note to self: “Spheroid” is not an appetizing word.)

More seriously, he calls hamburgers “the most mobile, satisfying, and efficient sandwich ever devised,” and eventually, “the most powerful food object in the industrialized world.”

He writes about White Castle, McDonald’s, the birth of franchises, brand identities and standardized food production, and how these things tied into Americans’ ideas about themselves.

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, when many Americans fire up the backyard grill, here’s a VERY alternative hamburger recipe which Ozersky dug up in a 1763 edition of The Art of Cookery, Plain and Simple (actually, it’s a recipe for “Hamburg sausage,” which he calls a “proto-hamburger ancestor”):

Take a pound of Beef, mince it very small, with half a Pound of the best Suet; then mix three-quarters of a Pound of Suet cut in large Pieces; then Season it with Pepper, Cloves, Nutmeg, a great Quantity of Garlic cut small, some white Wine Vinegar, some Bay Salt, a Glass of red wine, and one of Rum; mix all these very well together, then take the largest Gut you can find, stuff it very tight; then hang it up a Chimney, and smoke it with Saw-Dust for a Week or ten Days; hang them in the Air, till they are dry, and they will keep a Year. They are very good boiled in Peas Porridge, and roasted with toasted Bread under it, or in an Amlet.*

Mmm…hungry yet? I think I’ll skip the suet and stick with quinoa or veggie burgers, thanks.

*Not sure what this word means, maybe an alternate spelling of omelette?