Wife of Jim Norris with canned goods, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940, by Lee Russel. Image from Library of Congress

Cranberries are probably the easiest fruit to jelly and preserve. Besides being high in microbe-inhibiting acid, they are also high is phenolic compounds, some of which are antimicrobial, and others antioxidant. The natural pectin in cranberries ensures the juice will gel, so there’s no messing around with store-bought thickeners and almost no failure rate. This pectin is so powerful that even a barely-heated puree will begin to thicken almost immediately, and given the right coaxing, natural cranberries can firm up into a jelly not unlike the notorious, sliceable, ridged cranberry-in-a-can.

Cranberries ripen and turn deep red in the fall and keep well for months for some of the same reasons they preserve well, so they are usually still in groceries well after the new year.

This recipe stews them with citrus (cranberries’ fellow cold weather fruit), brown sugar and winter-y spices. The jam can be used to glaze a roasting bird, but I use it more often as a cordial with sparkling water, mixed with a bit of vodka and ice cubes, or spooned over pound cake.

RECIPE
1 pound of whole cranberries
1 cup of brown sugar
½ cup of water
juice of 2 limes, peel of one (1 orange or ½ grapefruit can be used instead)
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon vanilla

Put the cranberries, sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat.

As the cranberries heat up, peel a lime as you would an apple — the peelings should be 2–3 inches long and half an inch wide. Cut both limes in half and squeeze the juice into the pot. Throw in the lime peelings and add the spices.

Simmer the mixture until it is thickened slightly, but still loose, about 5–8 minutes. Depending on what you prefer, the skins and seeds can be left in as part of the jam, or strained out through a cheesecloth.

Ladle the jam into jars and process them immediately to preserve the fruit. If you’re planning to eat the jam right away, there’s no need to go through boiling and sealing, just refrigerate the jam and eat it.

The Joy of Canning, 1917 (detail). Image from Shorpy.com

PREPARE FOR A LONG WINTER
Here are a few other winter canning projects that make use of winter’s modest bounty:

This is meant to be an campfire pie filling, but I’m sure it’ll taste as good in a homemade pop-tart. Carrot cake jam, Well Preserved.

Recipe after recipe, in case you wound up with a million pounds of carrots. Can Jam February Round-Up: Carrots, Tigress in a Pickle.

And because not everything in a jar comes from trees: stock is always handy, and this looks delicious. Dark duck broth, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

From the same cook, a walk-in-the-woods syrup. Spruce or fir tip syrup, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

FURTHER READING
Canning Safely, Weck
Home Canning, Kaumfann Mercantile Blog
Home Canning, Fresh Preserving
Recipes: Food in Jars
Homemade Yogurt, Food52

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From The New Joys of Jell-O cookbook (yes, some of those contain meat).

When unsaturated fatty acids are damaged by surrounding oxygen and the iron from the meat’s own myoglobin proteins, the vaguely-defined “off” flavors occur. This damage happens slowly in the refrigerator and more quickly when the meat is reheated. The meat hasn’t gone bad, it just doesn’t taste as good as it did the night before.

The most obvious solution is not to reheat meat. Cold chicken tastes fresher than warmed-over chicken simply because the fat-damaging reheating step is skipped.

Another solution is to reduce the meat’s contact with oxygen, either by blocking oxygen during storage in air-tight containers or by seasoning the meat with vegetables, herbs or spices that are high in antioxidants. Cranberries are probably nearby, or pomegranates for fancy eaters. Oregano is also high in antioxidants, as are dill, thyme, rosemary and peppermint.

Nothing can be done about the iron content already in the meat, but not storing the food in metal containers will keep the unsaturated fatty acids from having traumatic encounters with added iron.

If the meat must be reheated (which you probably should if it’s already been a couple of days), reheat it gently and maybe cook it in a flavorful sauce. Meat is more tender when cooked over low heat, and this is as true for leftovers as it is for something fresh from the butcher.

FURTHER READING
Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner, Wired

Poultry Fat: Versatile and Good for You, from “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient” by Jennifer McLagen. Google Books

Pre-refrigeration instructions for keeping meat and various vegetables: Miscellaneous, from “Jennie June’s American Cookery Book” by Jane Cunningham Croly, Google Books

How Thanksgiving Got Its Turkey, Good

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Meyer lemons are less acidic than the standard lemon, and have bright, thin skins with an aromatic, almost herbal scent. The description hardly does it justice. Meyer lemons are delightful. As their season wanes, save a dozen or two to preserve.

Fragrance of the Lemon Peel by Ilya Zomba, Oil on Canvas, 1997, Courtesy of Zombart

Sugar preserves the lemons, and pectin is what makes it into marmalade, instead of just a glass of sugary juice full of peels. Pectin occurs naturally in the rind and seeds of citrus fruits, and there’s enough in the lemons of this recipe to keep you from having to supplement it with a store-bought thickener. The trick with marmalade is giving pectin enough time to develop and boiling the juice and sugar to 220° F so the mixture gels together as it cools. Unless you plan on immediately eating the whole batch, the jars must be sterilized and processed to keep bacteria from forming in the damp, dark recesses of the stored container.

This recipe has always worked for me, but don’t double it. Volume and proportion relative to heat is important for getting the marmalade right. Besides normal marmalade uses, you can also stir this into some bubbly water for an off-season lemonade or use it to sweeten cocktails.

Botanical Drawing of a Lemon, Courtesy of Botanical

PREPARATION

Put two glass plates in the freezer. Make sure you have a 5-quart non-reactive pot, 6 ½-pint sealing jars, cheesecloth or a coffee filter, and kitchen string.

Ingredients: 6 Meyer lemons (1 ½ lbs.); 4 cups of water; 4 cups of sugar

1.     Quarter each lemon lengthwise. Remove the seeds and collect them in the cheesecloth. Tie the little bag of seeds with kitchen string and place it in the pot.

2.     Thinly slice the lemons and scoop them into the pot. Cover the pot and let the lemons soak with the seeds on the kitchen counter for 24 hours.

3.     With the seeds still in the pot, bring the lemon mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 45 minutes. Stir in the sugar and boil over moderate heat for 15 to 30 minutes. At this stage, the sugar thickens and will not gel when cool until it reaches the right temperature. You can test this with a candy thermometer, or by putting a few drops onto the frozen plate. If the drops turn to jelly on the plate, the marmalade is good to go. The longer you cook it, the more caramel-y and solid it gets. I think the marmalade tastes best erring on the lighter side.

4.     While the marmalade simmers, sterilize the jars. The method differs depending on the jars you use, but the point is to boil off absolutely all the bacteria in the jars and lids before filling.

5.     Ladle the hot marmalade into the jars until they are ¼ inch from the top. Wipe the rims with a damp cloth and place the lids.

6.     Jars need to be processed in a water-bath canner to activate the rubber seal. This is essentially a large pot with a wire rack set at the bottom to keep the jars from making direct contact with the heat source. Water should be filled at least an inch above the top of the jars. Bring the water to a boil, and boil the jars for 5 minutes. Remove the jars with tongs and let them cool completely on a rack. The marmalade should gel as it cools, and opened jars should be stored in the refrigerator.

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Enamelware Cup, circa 1920

There are so many looks and uses for enamel: jewelry, desk lamps, outdoor grills, tiled walls and subway tunnels. However, we usually interact with enamel in our daily lives in the kitchen; enamel kitchenware products include pitchers, a plethora of bowls, coffee pots, plates, serving spoons and many more.

Brightly colored enamel housewares were mass-produced and appeared in the U.S. market in the late 1800s. These first collections of ladles, baking pans and colanders were stamped out of thin sheets of aluminum, steel or iron before being coated with enamel, giving a touch of porcelain‘s luxury to everyday items.  They were quite popular for being lightweight and durable, and housewives were pleased by how easy it was to clean the smooth, glass-like surface.

"Krenit Bowl" by the Danish Designer Herbert Krenchel (born 1922), circa 1950

Krenit bowl in red and white

If you’ve ever sipped watery hot cocoa from a blue and white speckled camping cup, you’ve experienced the more utilitarian side of enamelware and the casual pleasures of using a no-fuss product of the mass-produced domestic experience. Its first users had a similar feeling back in 1880. You many have also felt the cup becoming too hot to keep holding, this is thanks to the thin material’s heat conducive efficiency. Not great for keeping your fingers from getting too hot, but ideal for slow roasting.

Display with enamelware, 1923, courtesy of Shorpy.

Today enamelware is a bit more sophisticatd: it has a classic, yet modern look and feel, it is tough and colorful, sleek and presentable. The sheer number of high quality enamelware for sale at flea markets and vintage stores is testament to its durability: it is stain resistant and its nonporous surface keeps it nearly germ free.

Finel enamel percolator, designed by Antti Nurmesniemi (1927-2003), courtesy of H is for Home

If you’re a collector, you know that small cracks and rust spots are common on older pieces. Pieces exposed to heat, like teakettles and cookware, are less susceptible to blemishes because the iron bonds to the glass more and more with repeated heating. You may notice vintage spoons stamped out of steel have rust spots because steel is more likely to rust than iron.

Antique enamelware cup, circa 1920

It is recommended that you wash your enamelware by hand using hot soapy water and a soft cloth, do not use brillo pads or anything that might scratch the surface.  Washing by hand will also help avoid banging against other dishes, which can lead to chipping. Enamelware should be dried immediately after washing, as water can cause corrosion and cracks or nicks can rust.

FURTHER READING
“The Fisher Enamels,” The House Beautiful: The American Authority on Household Art. March, 1900.

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Image by Nina Lee, 1952, Courtesy of LIFE Magazine

Compared with the sourness of fermentation, the desiccated texture of drying, or the cloyingness of candying, canning altered the flavor and texture of preserved produce only slightly, a technological innovation that turn-of-the-19^th-century society went mad for.

Rogers Canning Co., Milton-Freewater, OR, 1941, Courtesy of The Library of Congress

In basic terms, canning is the heating of food isolated in hermetically sealed containers. The heat deactivates plant enzymes and kills off harmful microbes. Along with a tight seal preventing re-contamination, food properly tucked into a canning jar can be stored at room temperature without spoiling.

1858 was a watershed year for home-canning. Prior to this date, home-canners had to use ‘wax sealers’, which featured glass tops and bottoms sealed together with wax. It sounds quaint, but in practice was time consuming and error prone. And discovering just before dinner that instead of a jar of fresh from the vine tomatoes, you had in fact been storing moldering mush, is a sad error indeed. When the young tinsmith John L. Mason invented the threaded lip and two-piece sealing lid, home-canning became far more foolproof.

Indiana "Farmerettes" at a War Garden Exhibit in Washington, 1918, Courtesy of Shorpy

Mason jars are made with thicker glass than single use commercial jars, allowing them to withstand the boiling temperatures of the canning process without cracking. The sealing compound on the lids creates a barrier impenetrable to microbes, and the screw band holds the lid in place. After boiling to create the seal, pressure form outside on the cooling lids makes a taut indentation. Press down on the lid, and if pops, the jar hasn’t sealed and you know to either give it another shot, or put the jar in the refrigerator and get to eating it quickly.

From Great Aunt May's Cellar, 1967l Courtesy of Leader Jar

Hot on the heels of the success of mason jars, in 1882 Henry William Putnam filed a patent that combined the all-glass construction of ‘wax sealers’ with the gasket seal of mason jars. Called lightning jars, Putnam’s invention kept food from touching metal and had easy to open wire closures. Lightning jars were made for home canning up until the 1960s, and these more beautiful, decorative jars still use the wire clasp today and the aesthetic appeal of all-glass canning jars continue to maintain a strong following.

Canning is a satisfying activity. Making a pile of produce into a neat line of shiny, filled jars can make for a wholesome Sunday afternoon. All sorts of fruits and vegetables can be canned, from oranges and plums, to kale and beets. In the winter months, I prefer my canned tomatoes to the tasteless out-of-season varieties, and I don’t mind the constant task of preserving or jellying the beautiful yellow jewels of my over-active Meyer lemon tree.

Odessa Dow Laboratory, 1923, Courtesy of Shorpy

Produce for canning is minimally processed. Lemon marmalade may need a few extra steps to develop pectin and candy the sugar, but tomatoes need only to be peeled and stuffed into jars. The majority of the work goes into sterilizing and processing the jars. In other words: boiling. You have to boil the glass and the lids before filling them, fish them out of hot boiling water (fix a magnet onto a stick to get the metal lids out, and get your tongs ready for the jars), then boil the filled jars again in a canner to create the all-important seal. Under-processing can result in spoiled food, and over-processing may overcook the vegetables. Pay attention to the recommended boiling times to get it right.

Of course the last thing you want to think about while you dream of canning is botulism, but it is important to be aware of its causes. Clostridium botulinum thrives in low-acid, airless conditions. Like most toxins, it is killed off by boiling. However, the spores are hardy and can survive prolonged boiling and proliferate into active bacteria as the cans cool down. Bulging caused by the pressure of gasses produced by the bacteria is a clear indicator, and those should be thrown out. Boiling the food again after opening will also kill the toxin. The high acid content of most tomatoes and citrus fruit inhibits the growth of the bacteria, but other vegetables with pH of 5 or 6 should be processed in a pressure canner for 30 to 90 minutes at 240°F to kill any possible spores.

Mason's Canning Jar, Patent Nov. 30th, 1858

FURTHER READING:

Jaime Gross. “‘Urban Homesteaders’ Are Farming in San Francisco”, The New York Times. April 23, 2010.

Food in Jars — A Canning Blog

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Charcuterie in Les Halles, Paris, 1962, Image by Tom Palumbo (Click on Image to Enlarge)

Across the plaza from my apartment in Madrid was a butcher. In the window were long, powdery sausages and waxy pork hindquarters hung with the black hoof pointing up at the ceiling, a stilettoed come-hither for the hungry. I heeded its call.

An obvious foreigner in a neighborhood of octogenarians, José, the garrulous, old charcutero, took it upon himself to introduce me to his repertoire of cured meats, cutting off paper thin slices and passing them over the counter along with a squirt from the wineskin. In this way I grew to love fuet, a humble sausage, thin and chewy, coated in floury dust. I was taught to appreciate jamón, the whole preserved leg on the bone. I started with the economical variety, then moved on to a fine jamón serrano, and finally jamón iberico de bellota, from the Black Iberian Pig. Fed on acorns, its meat was a deep purple, rich, earthy, and marbled with fat. I ate morcilla, blood sausage mixed with rice or sweet potatoes, until I was ill. I kept lomo, the mild, cured whole pork loin, always stocked in my refrigerator. And I still dream about chorizo, dry and deep red, with spots of fat stained with paprika.

Drying Fuet Sausages

Back in America, fear of the prospect of eating salami that tasted more of salt than meat was enough to make me resign myself to never eating sausage outside of Europe again. Luckily, I’d moved to California where the food-obsessed gather, and it did not take long to stumble into Boccalone‘s salumeri­a in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. In the tiny storefront hung meats that rivaled the taste and complexity of my beloved charcuteri­a in Madrid. Boccalone represents a growing movement towards artisanal cured meats in America. Cured in their factory across the bay in East Oakland, Boccalone produces meats in the Italian tradition. Close enough for me.

Boccalone's Salame, San Francisco, Image by Emily Heller

SWEET FERMENTED MEAT

The English word “sausage” like the Italian salami, and the Spanish salchicha, comes from the Latin word salsus — salted. Salt is key to the process of fermenting meat for two reasons: it controls the growth of microbes in the aging meat, and it dissolves myosin (a fiber filament protein) out of the muscle fibers and onto the meat surfaces, where it acts like a glue that holds the ground chunks of meat together, forming dense, stiff sausage.

Mark Pastore, co-owner of Boccalone, explains that the quantity of salt, along with the type of grind and the temperature at curing, is what separates the artisanal meats of small-batch producers from the industrially produced salami found in supermarkets. Lots of salt, a fine grind on the meat, and curing at warmer temperatures means a faster turnaround from raw meat to sausage.

Preparing Fresh Sausage Casings, Courtesy of Kitchen At Camont

THE TASTE OF TIME

Good sausage comes from good meat, and there is no sense in drowning delicious, sustainably-raised heritage breed pork in salt, even if it is fine Italian sea salt.

Hand-butchering, infinitely more skilled, slow and precise than throwing the whole hog in the grinder, ensures that only the best cuts and most appropriate fats end up in the salame. A coarse grind and lower temperatures mean that the salami ferments slower. Fermentation turns the sugars in the meat to lactic acid and lowers the pH level, preserving the meat during drying. High fermentation temperatures tend to produce volatile acids with a sharp aroma, a flavor that can be achieved in a mere 18 hours. The complex blend of nutty aldehydes and fruity esthers that traditionally mark a good salame requires time and a low temperature to achieve — two or three days, before aging for another sixty to ninety days.

Sausages Drying at Boccalone, Image by Emily Heller

Aging dries the salame to it final moisture content. It is during these months in the cool darkness that raw meat transforms to complex, tangy, aromatic cured sausage. The powdery white coating of harmless mold and yeasts may form on the surface of the casing. But fear not, these friendly microbes contribute to the flavor and help prevent spoilage, and are safe to eat, though just as easy to peel off.

YOUR BALONEY DOES NOT HAVE A FIRST NAME OR A LAST NAME

Cured meats in the American diet have often been found pre-sliced in bright yellow packaging, but there are hopes that a growing number of artisanal salumeri­a will change this. Just as pinot noir, syrah and cabernet has replaced jug wine in the American vernacular, nduja, salame, and soppressata may one day replace baloney.

FURTHER READING:

Charlotte Druckman. “We Made It Ourselves: Bresaola Before Swine”, New York Times T Magazine Blog. April 9, 2010.
Mike Sula. “The Charcuterie Underground”, The Chicago Reader. November 25, 2009.
Charcuterie Recipes, Wright Food

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Smoking & Barbecuing Fish Filets, 1893, Courtesy of Shorpy (Click on Image for Details)

Of course, the olfactory triggering of remembrances of things past is so ingrained in our collective consciousness, so parsed over and discussed in literature, that even the unemotional and detached ivory tower-dwelling denizens of science are in on the matter, with a number of papers and experiments on the subject. They hypothesize that odor induced memories enjoy a “privileged brain representation“

Butler's Smokehouse Beef Jerky

Looking like a pea pod and located within the inner depths of the brain, the hippocampus appears to be the scientific explanation for what the Madeleine munching Proust knew to be true 100 years earlier. While our senses of touch, hearing and sight make their way to our memory after passing through the thalamus, it is the hippocampus, which manufactures memory and influences spatial navigation, that harbors our olfactory responses to taste and smell.

From "The Old North Trail" by Walter McClintock, 1910

And while this certainly could prove a point of debate, there is something especially evocative about smell – and particularly about the smell of smoke. From the campfires of the old West and countless teen summer camps, to America’s carnivorous love of BBQ and all manners of meat, smoke is uniquely part of American memory, and a uniquely American flavor.

Now is the part of the article where a deep history would be launched, explicitly detailing the origins of smoking foods, for preservation and cooking and tracing its importing to this country built on imports. But whether the first caveman ate smoked Tyrannosaurus gristle or if it was the immigrant Europeans love of smoked fish, or the Native Americans’ tradition of smoking, its entrée into America is not a debate not to be had today.

Smoked Chicken, Courtesy of Odua Farms

Instead, what is it about smoke that is so alluring? Is it the atavistic infusion of the earth and wood into the foods we eat? Or is it our continued love affair with sugar and salt re-written?

Naturally, wood is the main ingredient in the smoking process, and as would be expected, different types of wood, often in the form of chips or sawdust, impart different flavors. Commonly used woods in America are Wild Cherry, Sugar Maple, Red Oak, White Oak, Ash, Northern Hickory, and Eastern Alder (Beech). These hardwoods are made of three main components, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Those two celluloses are essentially sugars, and when burned caramelize, producing the sweetness and the color. The far more complex lignin, with its vast array of flavor-lending compounds, creates the varied other nuances: whether that be spice, smoke or vanilla essences depending on the individual wood.

Smoked Mackerel, Courtesy John Ross Jr.

Historically, smoking was combined with curing or drying to preserve meat, as the smoking process only adheres to the outer surfaces of the food and doesn’t penetrate the core. In more recent times, the issue of smoking has been one of flavor.

Noting this development of flavor over function, in 1895, a pharmacist named Ernest Wright revolutionized the world of smoking with his invention of liquid smoke. Using a proprietary distillation process similar to that of whiskey, he was able to manufacture, (at first) hand label and sell bottles of condensed liquid smoke. When he moved Kansas City to launch his product, he gave new meaning to the term “grassroots organizing” and started giving bottles to farmers who came to his drugstore. They, and their friends, and friends’ friends kept coming back for more, and the Wright company still makes liquid smoke today.

Traditional Smoking Pit

Liquid smoke remains a feature in kitchens and imparts its subtle flavors in the manufacture of meat, fish, cheeses, tea, salt, pepper and other spices. Not to mention the memories of us all.

FURTHER READING:

Marcel Proust. Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time, Penguin Books, 2004. (An excellent translation by Lydia Davis of the Proust classic)

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Fratelli Carli, Italian Olive Oil

MYSTICAL ELIXIR FROM GOD HERSELF

According to legend, the olive tree was a gift from Athena, the wise warrior-deity who also recognized the power of peace. Gray-eyed Athena competed with Poseidon for the affections of the Greeks, and had offered the versatile olive in response to the sea god’s gift of a saltwater well. The olive proved the better gift, offering refuge from the harsh sun, crowning the heads of champions, anointing warriors and athletes with its splendid golden tone.

Athena Holding an Olive Branch, by Tavik František Šimon

To the Greeks, this was no mere tale to tell small children. When athletes rubbed it over their bodies before competition, it protected their skin from abrasions and the elements. According to Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, olive oil could heal numerous ailments, among them mental illness, and what Hippocrates charmingly referred to as “the diseases of women”. It offered light when burned and was used by priests to consecrate the dead. The trees were so sacred that those who cut one down were condemned to death.

Oil Vendor from Portugal

Though it’s difficult to pinpoint the beginning of man’s relationship with the pitted fruit, popular use most likely began in the southwest Mediterranean. Olive pits and wood fragments have been found in tombs throughout this area, some dating as far back as 5000 years.

Olive Branch, by Franz Eugen Koehler

OLIVE OIL ARRIVES IN ITALY

Brought to Southern Italy by the Greeks, the Romans aped their predecessors in admiration for the oil. The Roman Empire’s prodigious growth and colonial expansion brought trees to Spain and other colonies in the Iberian Peninsula, and was already in use by the Berber of North Africa when the Romans arrived. Today, Italy and Spain remain the epicenter of olive oil production and appreciation.

With the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, olive cultivation declined for a thousand years. Olive oil steadily regained its role in the Middle Ages, however, when the Roman Catholic Church used it in rituals and anointings, namely the Oil of the Catechumens and Oil of the Sick, and to consecrate priests. The name Christ comes from the Greek word Kristos — the anointed one.

Roman Gold Coin from 36 A.D. with Pax Holding an Olive Branch

In the 16th century, Spanish explorers and missionaries introduced the olive to the New World, planting trees in Mexico, Argentina, and California, where it continues to grow today. Its real success in the New World, however, has been in Americans’ consumption of olive oil, which has increased dramatically in the past decades and made America the second largest market outside of Europe. Nearly all the olive oil consumed is imported from Europe, as America only produces 0.5% of world olive oil demands. The industry in America is gaining more attention, with California growing particularly delicious and complex varieties.

Cheap Oil: Olive Oil Extraction with Hexane. Thanks Shell!

COPY FROM THE 1947 SHELL ADVERTISING:

“Like other sources of edible oils and fats, olives now play in “the Majors”. Every drop of olive oil is in demand. How many drops can an olive produce? That chemical symbol making the put-out represents a Hexane – which extracts more oil from the olive. When Shell scientists first got Hexane from petroleum, there was little reason to think that as an “extraction solvent” it might add directly to the food supply… But that day has arrived. Shell is principal supplier of Hexanes for olive oil extraction. (…)”

FURTHER READING:

Tom Mueller. “Slippery Business: The trade in adulterated olive oil”, The New Yorker, August 18, 2007.

Peter Garnsey. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

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Yacón Chip

Of particular intrigue to health food shoppers are the quasi-comically named subcategories of “superfoods”, foods not simply content with being edible and delicious, but ones that go above and beyond the call of duty: valiantly fighting off ferocious free radical foes, miraculously moderating malicious moods and boldly beautifying badly blemished skin.

A sort of native-chic and indigenous aura exists around these, as they often originate far back, from the native inhabitants of the land. But once that level of artifice is peeled away and the foods are examined for what they actually offer, it is remarkable to see the interaction of nature and nutrition achieved.

Yacón Tuber

One of the more exciting and effective superfoods to have been revisited and revised to modern needs is the Yacón root. While native to Peru and stretching back in history to the Moche era (100 – 700 AD), its caught on and currently cultivated through North America, from Maine to New Mexico and even Oregon, to the rejoicing of diabetics worldwide. Why? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The yacón is a distant relative of the sunflower. But while sunflowers are known for their seeds, it is instead the delicate yacón tubers that are prized. Hiding beneath the ground, these engorged white storage organs look a bit like an ugly albino potato, a homely exterior that belies their tasty sweet flesh. Crisp and juicy, the longer they stay in the ground, the sweeter they get. With texture like an apple and a full flavor redolent of melon, legend places their origin high in the Andes with uses ranging from the ceremonial, linked both to Day of the Dead and winter solstice Inti Raymi, Festival of the Sun, to thirst quenchers, dug from the ground during long bouts of travel for refreshment.

Yacón Chips

Early gastro anthropologists wrote the root off as merely a lump of sugary nothingness, but in recent years, examinations of the chemical compounds making up these sugars have lead to exciting new low-glycemic uses.

While other roots and tubers store their carbohydrates in the form of glucose, yacón stores them as inulin. The human body lacks the enzymes to process inulin, so it simply passes through the body un-metabolized, with almost no calories, of particular interest to diabetics. This type of sugar also feeds the healthy pre-biotic bacteria in the large intestine, leading to increased absorption of a number of vitamins and foods, elimination of toxic compounds and clinical studies have even shown increased bone density, of particular interest to almost everyone.

Dried yacón slices are perhaps the most delectable preparation, the sweetness is diminished through dehydration and they serve as a nice snacking alternative to chips. A tea is also made and works to moderate blood sugars and, in the same vein, yacón syrup is a low-glycemic sweetener a bit like molasses.

The indigenous people of Peru have proven a prodigious source for foods in the past, namely myriad varietals of potatoes, and the recent utilization and supply of superfoods from there, Maca, Camu Camu, Sacha Inchi, provide an valuable case study in the integration of indigenous foods to the modern menu.

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