To Protein... and Beyond! | Swamp Cabbage | Recipe: Cultured Butter
Issue No. 31
In this week’s edition, should we be so obsessed with protein? Also who wants to harvest some swamp cabbage? It might taste good with this week’s homemade cultured butter recipe.
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From Soylent to lab-grown meat, scientists and entrepreneurs are racing to find the proteins of the future. Last weekend, my sister Leah and I were both intrepid explorers on our own sci-fi protein adventures.
We went out for lunch, and she was in the mood for a cheeseburger. But the Beyond Burger — a vegan meat substitute — caught her eye. She was intrigued, but skeptical. Would it really satisfy her cheeseburger itch?
It turns out Leah absolutely loved the Beyond Burger. In fact, she was so transformed by the experience of eating it that she decided to become a vegan right then and there.
Just kidding!
She thought it was gross. She found it overly greasy with an unappetizing flavor that she just couldn’t put her finger on. It probably didn’t help that my father discouraged her choice from the start: “Don’t do it. It’s artificial! Filled with chemicals!” He’d be sticking with the natural choice. Meatloaf.
The next day I took my own protein-fueled risk and ate some bugs, in the form of an Exo protein bar, made with cocoa nibs, dates, almonds, and crickets. Sadly I also found it wanting. But I’m not blaming the crickets. Protein bars are disgusting, across the board.
Still, they sell like hot cakes because Americans are crazy for protein:
You merely need to visit a western supermarket today to see that many people regard protein as some kind of universal elixir – one food companies are profitably adding to anything they can… In addition to the ubiquitous protein balls, protein bars and protein shakes, you can now buy protein noodles, protein bagels, protein cookies and – wait for it – protein coffee. Even foods that are naturally high in protein such as cheese and yoghurt are sold in protein-boosted versions. Strangest of all might be “protein water” – clear, fruit-flavoured drinks laced with whey protein, as if ordinary water was insufficiently healthy. (Source: Bee Wilson, The Guardian)
Where did this lust for protein — particularly animal protein — come from?
Of course there is the whole caveman instinct to favor nutritionally dense foods like meat. A protein-heavy diet has economic undertones too. Initially, putting meat on the table on the regular was something to strive for — a way to signal wealth. As cheap fossil fuels, corn, and the CAFO factory farming system made meat affordable and ubiquitous, animal proteins went from special treat to mandatory staple. This transition was also due in large part to a steady diet of protein propaganda.
Truthfully, you’re likely already getting enough protein and don’t need to go out of the way to find more (although you’re almost definitely not eating enough vegetables). But so many of us still operate under the notion that a meal is not a meal without a hunk of meat at the center of the plate, even though scientifically we’ve moved on from that.
I personally prefer getting the majority of my protein from unprocessed foods like beans, nuts, and whole grains, but I really see the value of options like the Impossible Burger (which is tastier than the Beyond, imho) or insect protein. Options that sensorially satiate meat cravings can reduce overall dependency on the proteins being produced in the current animal agriculture system, which is toxic in so many senses.
While I do think everyone just needs to chill the eff out about protein, I’m excited by all of the innovative work being done in the post-meat arena. As a show of support, I’ll be enjoying Impossible Whoppers in moderation and ordering some cricket powder to whip into baked goods that actually taste nice. Maybe I’ll bring some to my sister too.
love,
Jackie
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IRL!
Chef Jackie, a newspaper star.
Look who got a write up in Fort Myers’ News-Press. Amy Bennett Williams attended Jackie’s fizzy drinks workshop on Sanibel Island, and got a first-hand look at some of the kitchen techniques that come up frequently in this newsletter. Here’s an excerpt from the visit, but of course you should read the whole thing!
As the small Sanibel audience looked on, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation's chef-in-residence reached into the fluid-filled jar, lifted off its pale top layer and held it up. Some raised their eyebrows or chuckled a bit at the dripping, tissuey substance between her fingers.
“It looks like a lung,” one whispered
And in a way, this stuff does what lungs do: It transforms one thing into another, more nourishing other thing. From this slick blob, a living community of microorganisms, comes kombucha, the increasingly popular drink that’s been appearing on the chilled shelves of local produce sections for the past few years.
But Chef Jackie’s presentation wasn’t really about saving money (although that’s a decided bonus); she was showing those gathered in the pavilion at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation’s Bailey Homestead how to take more delight and nourishment from their own kitchens, with their own hands. And thanks to that morning's presentation, and a snipped-off piece of Jackie's mother SCOBY, I now have a baby SCOBY of my own doing its thing on my kitchen countertop.
By the way, here’s the Sunshine + Microbes recipe for kombucha. And yes Jackie plans to squeeze in more workshops around Florida in 2020. If you’re interested in attending a workshop with Jackie, send us an email at sunshineandmicrobes@gmail.com. We’ll keep you updated about what’s on the horizon.
Fresh links
🥗 What is Swamp Cabbage? How to Eat a Florida Nuisance and Help the Environment | Atlas Obscura
True card-carrying Floridians (and snowbirds), it’s time to prove your love for the Sunshine State — by eating the official state tree.
Cabbage palms are visible all along streets and highways in Florida, and have been the state tree since 1953. But the native species has started to crowd out other species that provide habitats for endangered species like the Florida panther.
One way biologists and wildlife preservationists try to raise awareness about the challenge is by encouraging Floridians to harvest the cabbage palms, cut their hearts out and eat them.
Heart of palm has been a part of “historical Seminole, Miccosukee, and Calusa tribal diets” and has a similar taste as cabbage, according to the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida At events like the Swamp Cabbage Festival in Labelle, Fla., vendors offer snacks like heart of palm fritters.
Swamp cabbage can be found in cans at grocery stores or on top of salads in restaurants. Or some people do the harvesting themselves. Just be careful with that chainsaw.
🥘 The Diet Industrial Complex Got Me, and It Will Never Let Me Go | NY Times
Sarah Miller has been on a diet her entire life. As a chubby kid, she made it her mission to get thin, and in doing so, saw her relationship to the world turned upside down. People that ignored her or were cruel to her now treated her with kindness, respect, and admiration. But somehow it never left like enough. There was always 10 more pounds to lose.
While Sarah never felt satisfied with her weight, about a decade ago, she started to notice that “beautiful” no longer seemed synonymous with “skinny”. The Body Positivity movement had started to reach the mainstream.
I started seeing fat, beautiful models and actresses in catalogs, and on television shows. I would like to have seen more, but I was pleased to see them at all. I was and remain in awe of their confident beauty. I feel tenderness for them as well, for what they endured, and still endure, to achieve it. I sometimes choke up with love for them, and for the idea of how I could have lived if I had allowed myself to just weigh what I weighed.
I don’t actually think beauty is restricted to certain types of women at all. I don’t think you need to be thin to have sex or find love.
But after a lifetime of dieting, Miller can’t seem to apply this big tent philosophy of beauty to her own body.
It is too late for me, and it’s too late for pretty much everyone my age. We are so brainwashed...There is no happy ending to this part of my story. They got me, and they will never let me go. I will die with my fat-free Cool Whip in one hand and my gym pass in the other and a drawer of size 29 jeans that I will never fit into again. It is fine. Just let me lie here. I beg you, if you can, to go on ahead without me.
This deeply personal account of dieting, beauty, and self-worth should be required reading for all of us.
🗾 Rejecting a Life Consumed by Plastic | Japan Times
Like in the United States, recycling plastic has become ingrained in Japanese culture over the past decades. But like the U.S. and other countries around the world, most plastic doesn’t actually get recycled. In fact, Japan trails only the U.S. in plastic waste per capita.
In Japan, despite the government saying 86 percent of plastic waste gets recycled, the true total is closer to 13 percent (the rest of the plastic is either exported or burned for heat and electricity, known, perhaps euphemistically, as “thermal recycling”).
Andrew McKirdy examines the single-use plastic problem in Japan, while also trying to live a week without the material. It’s not easy. He has to make his own homemade toothpaste (instead of buying a plastic tube) and struggles to find sustenance with even supermarket veggies coming pre-wrapped in plastic. There are cool innovations for relying less on plastic like an app, “which maps places where people can drink water or fill up their water bottles for free, including cafes and restaurants.” (Has anyone tried a similar app for this in the United States???)
Although giving up plastic is a fine effort, says Greenpeace Japan’s Hiroaki Odachi, it’s probably more helpful to fight the system than worrying about your personal behavior. He explains:
“You can do a lot of things in your daily lives but if the government or the business world doesn’t change, when you go to the supermarket, you won’t have any choice but to buy what’s there,” he says. “If you’re out and you’re thirsty, you won’t have any choice but to buy a drink in a plastic bottle. ... People have to express their opinions.”
👨🔧FIXIN’S👩🔧: By mistake an old link was provided for an article in last week’s Fresh Links. Here is the correct link for The Strange-But-True Story of Natural Wine’s Ascent (New Yorker)
Cultured Butter
Butter — called “coagulated sunlight” by the poet Seamus Heaney — is one of life’s great luxuries. By fermenting cream before churning it, we can produce butter with an incredible depth of flavor, plus a healthy dose of beneficial bacteria.
Making butter is easy peasy, but it’s useful to understand the science behind the transformation taking place in your food processor. Butter is the solid fat that separates from cream when it has been churned or agitated. By agitating the cream (basically just jostling everything around a bunch), the membranes of the butterfat are ruptured, allowing the butterfat to stick together and form large fat globules.
Ingredients and Special Materials
heavy cream (the nicer the cream, the nicer the butter, so stick with local, pastured, or organic)
a small amount of yogurt
salt (optional)
food processor
mesh sieve
an incubator (Don’t be scared! This can be as simple as a thermos filled with warm water. See below for details)
Step-by-step
To culture cream, mix together a tablespoon of yogurt for every 2 pints of cream in a glass jar. Thoroughly mix and incubate for 6-24 hours. (See incubation tips below.) The cream will thicken a bit and taste pleasingly sour. Stick it in the fridge and allow to chill for at least 12 hours
Incubation:
In order for the cream to ferment, it must incubate at a steady temperature of 110°F. There are several ways to do this. Here are a few:
In an insulated cooler. Place container of cream in the cooler. Pour 110 °F water about 3/4 of the way up the jar. Close lid tightly and wrap the cooler in a blanket. Check every couple of hours, and replace the water if it gets too cool.
In a slow cooker. Program a slow cooker to 110°F. Place the container of cream inside. Wrap the slow cooker in a towel and let it incubate. Instant Pots also have an incubating function.
In a gas oven with the pilot light lit. A gas oven, turned off but with the pilot light lit, maintains a temperature of approximately 110°F. A fancy electric oven may be able to set the temperature to 110°F.
Once cream is fully chilled, place in food processor and blend until the solid butter separates from the liquid buttermilk.
The cream will go through several transformations, first rising and turning into whipped cream, and then sinking a bit and getting grainy, before fully separating into butter and buttermilk.
Place a mesh sieve over a bowl and pour in the contents of the food processor. The solid butter will remain in the sieve while the buttermilk will drain out into the bowl below.
Over the sieve, knead the butter to remove as much liquid as possible. To do this, press a blob of butter between your flattened palms, fold butter in half, press again, repeat until little to no buttermilk weeps out. Repeat with remaining butter until everything looks smooth (like buttah!)
Mix in salt and other flavorings with the butter. Be sure to save buttermilk for cooking, baking (pancakes, biscuits, or DIY hair conditioner).Jackie and Matt meeting up in the year 2070:
Now say… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! 😱
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is the current Chef-in-Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a freelance reporter based in Colombia. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.