Eater - All |
- Salad CEO Bravely Proposes Salad as Solution to Relentless Global Pandemic
- Portland Restaurant Workers Say Customer Attacks Are at an All-Time High
- Restaurant Workers Say Customer Attacks Are at an All-Time High
- Eleven Madison Park Isn’t Ready to Be a World-Class Vegan Restaurant
- We’re Getting Rid of Starred Restaurant Reviews at Eater
- The Best Vinegars, According to Chefs, Recipe Developers, and Industry Professionals
- A Hearty Lasagna Recipe That Swaps Ground Beef for Ground Tuna
- Where There’s Pie, There’s Hope
- When Did Vinegar Get So Cool?
- Baker Stacey Mei Yan Fong Makes 50 Pies for All 50 States
| Salad CEO Bravely Proposes Salad as Solution to Relentless Global Pandemic Posted: 01 Sep 2021 01:20 PM PDT  Sir, this is literally a Sweetgreen Shutting up is literally free, but then again, so is posting on LinkedIn, where Jonathan Neman, co-founder and CEO of Sweetgreen, recently published a post — which he then took down after Vice pointed it out — essentially blaming fat people for the ravages of the pandemic and calling on the government to create a "health mandate." (It's possible Neman is using a paid version of LinkedIn, but my point stands!!) The crux of his argument was as simple as it is stupid. "78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are Obese and Overweight people. Is there an underlying problem that perhaps we have not given enough attention to?" the salad-chain founder, who made his fortune selling $11-$15 dollar Guacamole Greens salads and Shroomami bowls, wrote. "No vaccine or mask will save us." /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22821012/Screen_Shot_2021_09_01_at_12.59.02_PM.png) While high BMI (itself a flawed, racist metric) was classified by the CDC as a risk factor for severe COVID, it's important to note that vaccines can, actually, save us. As reported recently by CNN, data from the CDC shows that more than 99 percent of fully vaccinated people have not had a breakthrough COVID case resulting in hospitalization or death; recent data gathered by the New York Times suggests that the unvaccinated make up anywhere from 95 percent to 99 percent of all COVID-related hospitalizations right now. I'm not a CEO or anything, but even I can see that's a pretty effective vaccine. Neman, who says he is vaccinated (I guess in case his thinness and unlimited access to kale Caesars doesn't protect him), has fallen for and perpetuated anti-fat bias. Weight and health are not synonymous, and to assume body size is a marker of health ignores the way in which anti-fat bias within the medical system harms fat people in the first place. Fat patients are routinely dismissed, their symptoms either ignored entirely or attributed to their size — a cycle in which these patients delay care, or at worst, end up without medical care, their real medical problems left untreated. It's not hard to imagine why fat people subjected to worse medical care over the course of their lifetime than their thin counterparts might be more susceptible to COVID-19. And while being overweight has been established as a risk factor, at least one study has found that COVID patients with moderate obesity actually had a lower risk of death in the ICU. But I've already spent more time thinking about fat people's health care needs than Neman had before posting his screed, so let's move on to his proposed solution, a "health mandate." His idea, now stick with him here, okay, because it's the kind of brave thinking that could only come from a man who co-founded a salad chain that praises itself for "thinking like a tech company" but really is a salad chain: "What if we made the food that is making us sick illegal? What if we taxed processed food and refined sugar to pay for the impact of the pandemic?" The argument mirrors that of fellow vegetable-peddler and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who argued in November 2020 against health care being an "intrinsic ethical right" because health care wouldn't even be necessary if only people would change the way they "eat, the way they live, the lifestyle, and diet." I can think of plenty of reasons why a person who makes their money (lots of it!) by selling salad would want to make things that are not salad illegal, and the companies who make foods that are not salad pay more taxes. And I'm sympathetic to it, honestly. Sounds like a great business strategy, but one that, sorry to this salad man, won't end the pandemic.  |
| Portland Restaurant Workers Say Customer Attacks Are at an All-Time High Posted: 01 Sep 2021 01:01 PM PDT  As diners seek a return to normalcy, servers and chefs are bearing the brunt of vitriolic responses to safety measures for the pandemic still in progress https://pdx.eater.com/2021/9/1/22652642/portland-restaurant-workers-harassment-2021 |
| Restaurant Workers Say Customer Attacks Are at an All-Time High Posted: 01 Sep 2021 12:25 PM PDT  |
| Eleven Madison Park Isn’t Ready to Be a World-Class Vegan Restaurant Posted: 01 Sep 2021 11:26 AM PDT   |
| We’re Getting Rid of Starred Restaurant Reviews at Eater Posted: 01 Sep 2021 10:54 AM PDT |
| The Best Vinegars, According to Chefs, Recipe Developers, and Industry Professionals Posted: 01 Sep 2021 08:14 AM PDT |
| A Hearty Lasagna Recipe That Swaps Ground Beef for Ground Tuna Posted: 01 Sep 2021 07:02 AM PDT  In his follow-up to "The Whole Fish Cookbook," Josh Niland treats tuna like beef or pork Josh Niland's first cookbook, The Whole Fish Cookbook, won two James Beard Awards in 2019, for best restaurant and professional book, and cookbook of the year — a title that introduced it to a broader audience than was perhaps anticipated. "It's one of those books where you pick it up and are like, 'Oh my gosh.' Every page is kind of intense, from fish offal through the aging and charcuterie and even the turducken. There's a lot in there that is a little bit in your face," Niland says. "But I did set out to write something somewhat provocative because without provocation you don't make inroads into effecting any kind of change." The change he had in mind: A nose-to-tail approach to fish. With his second book, Niland continues to implore cooks to use all parts of the fish but without the same level of professional intensity. "It was to approach this far more joyfully, less exhaustively, and to just make people hungry," Niland says. With photography from Rob Palmer, the finished work certainly does just that. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22815578/Take_One_Fish_TUNA_LASAGNEJosh_Niland_photocredit_Rob_Palmer.jpg) Rob Palmer As the title implies, Take One Fish focuses on the many possibilities that can arise from utilizing all the parts of a single fish. The chapters are divided by species; there are 15 of them, beginning with the extra-small, like sardines and herring, and ending with extra-large, including tuna and swordfish. They were chosen for optimal global availability (except for the very Australian coral trout; "That was more in there just for me," Niland says), and there are suggested substitutes for each. But even as it aims for accessibility, the book is also in keeping with Niland's broader mission of changing the way home cooks think about buying and cooking fish. "You can ask those who cut your fish to behave in a similar way to [meat butchers]," Niland says. In his ideal world, fish shops would create appealing products from the less salable parts of the fish so as to ensure every part of the fish is used, thus reducing the number of fish that get taken from the water. This is precisely why he calls the part of his Sydney restaurant that prepares and sells fish a fish butchery. "A butcher is somebody who dresses and prepares an animal in readiness to be consumed and bring desirability to that product, whereas a monger and 'fish mongery' is derived from someone who deals and trades in fish as a commodity. And for us to continue to view fish as a commodity is completely neglectful." The benefits of treating fish more like meat aren't only economical and environmental —Take One Fish proves that they're gustatory, too. This is exemplified in dishes like the tuna lasagna, which takes "the sinewy, muscly parts that sit on the sides of those more desirable, circular loins," grinds them up, treating the result like ground beef or pork, and layering it in between noodles and sauce. Niland has used the same technique for tuna koftas, mapo tofu, and laab. But it's also worth noting that there's more to Take One Fish than fish recipes. Within its pages you'll find recipes for Yorkshire pudding, blinis, an elegant potato tart, and more, along with the knowledge to cook confidently and thoughtfully with any number of primary proteins. First, though, here's that lasagna. Tuna Lasagna RecipeServes 4 Now, the thought of this might make you cringe but, trust me, this is one recipe you'll want to cook again and again. The texture and appearance of the tuna mince will have you second-guessing whether it is actually fish and will certainly break you out of the chicken/veal/pork loop. It should also be noted that I don't expect anyone to be mincing down sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna belly or the center cut of a potential tuna steak here — instead, you're looking to use the sinew-heavy area or scrappy chunks that come away from behind the tuna head at the top of the loin, along with any tail cuts and scrapings from the frame of the fish. These are the bits that often get tossed away at the markets because of a perceived lack of customer interest, so it's great to find a good use for them. Ask your fishmonger or market vendor for them next time you're shopping. Ingredients:8 dried lasagna sheets For the ragu:1⁄2 bunch of thyme For the bechamel:2 cups (17 fluid ounces/500 milliliters) whole milk Instructions:Step 1: To make the ragu, tie the thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns, and star anise in a piece of cheesecloth to make a bouquet garni. Step 2: Heat 5 fluid ounces (150 milliliters) of the grapeseed oil in a large heavy-based frying pan over a medium heat, add the garlic and a pinch of salt, and saute for 30 seconds. Add the onion and another pinch of salt and cook for 10 minutes, or until the onion is translucent and just beginning to color. Add the carrot, fennel, and another good pinch of salt and cook for a further 10 minutes until softened, stirring every few minutes to ensure nothing sticks to the base and burns. Step 3: Stir in the tomato paste and fry for 2 minutes, then add the bouquet garni and red wine. Bring to a simmer and cook until reduced and thickened to a glaze consistency, about 10 minutes. Add the crushed tomato and water and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to very low and simmer gently for 45 minutes, or until the sauce is thickened, reduced, and fragrant. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside. Step 4: Heat 21⁄2 fluid ounces (75 milliliters) of the remaining oil in a cast-iron skillet or frying pan over a medium heat to a light haze. Add half the tuna and fry, stirring to separate the strands, until colored. Season lightly with salt and pepper, then add to the tomato sauce. Repeat with the remaining oil and tuna, and stir everything well to combine. Leave to cool completely, then transfer to the fridge until you are ready to assemble the lasagna. Step 5: For the bechamel, place the milk and Parmesan rind in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to a gentle simmer, then reduce the heat to low and keep warm for 20 minutes, to allow the flavor of the parmesan to infuse the milk. Step 6: Melt the butter in a separate saucepan over a medium heat. Add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon to form a roux. Remove the parmesan rind from the milk, then gradually add to the roux, one-third at a time, whisking after each addition to create a smooth sauce. When you have incorporated all the milk, bring the sauce to a boil, then remove from the heat, stir in a little grated nutmeg, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Closely cover the sauce with plastic wrap or parchment to stop a skin forming, then refrigerate until completely cold. Step 7: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Step 8: To assemble the lasagna, spoon a layer of the tuna ragu over the base of a 1.5-quart baking dish. Cover with a layer of bechamel, then a layer of lasagna sheets. Repeat the process with the remaining ingredients, finishing with a layer of bechamel. Sprinkle over the grated cheeses in a generous blanket and cover with aluminum foil. Step 9: Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes until golden brown and bubbling on top, and the pasta is tender when tested with a skewer in the center. Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes before serving, perhaps with a fresh salad of green leaves and herbs. Recipes excerpted with permission from Take One Fish by Josh Niland, published by Hardie Grant Books, August 2021.  |
| Where There’s Pie, There’s Hope Posted: 01 Sep 2021 06:54 AM PDT  Stacey Mei Yan Fong's 50 Pies/50 States baking project is a love letter to the country she now calls home Stacey Mei Yan Fong is stuck on pie number 44. The funeral potato pie, rich as a block of butter and built with all the flavors of a classic post-funeral hot dish, was not actually headed for a funeral when Fong made it on March 10. This particular funeral dish was more of a celebration, of the near completion of a years-long pie-baking project that has taken Fong on a dizzying journey across America. Fong is the ambitious home baker behind a project she's called 50 Pies / 50 States. Spurred by the Singapore-born baker's desire to celebrate the country she calls home, Fong decided in 2016 to bake 50 pies, each inspired by the flavors of a state. To express her gratitude to the many friends who have welcomed her with open arms as she moved from one state to another, each completed pie would eventually find its way to a friend (or sometimes, a stranger), living in or from that place. The project is at once wildly ambitious, and extremely whimsical. Scrolling through Fong's Instagram, and reading her online pia-ary (that's her pie-focused diary), it's clear just how much research, care, and thought — not to mention travel — has gone into each of the 44 pies Fong has baked and given away so far. In South Dakota, Fong took cues from the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota tribes, and constructed a rice pudding pie, the pudding made with wild rice, fortified with homemade sunflower milk. Fong met the couple who would later receive her Oregon pie (it was marionberry and pear, topped with a salty hazelnut crumble) while the three were playing beer pong and listening to Springsteen at a mutual friend's house. Mississippi's pie, a chocolate graham cracker crust, pumped with chocolate fudge and covered in fluffy whipped cream and chocolate shavings, went to Rachel, who Fong met during a hazy night of Karaoke the day she graduated college. To read through Fong's blog and scroll her Instagram lends a window into the mind of someone who believes deeply — and beyond any cliche — in the power of food as a means to connect, bridge divides, and express love. But now, a pandemic grips the country, and Fong is stuck on pie number 44. She's decided to wait to bake and deliver her last six pies until travel is less risky. But during this pause, she's still baking up a storm, turning her attention to only slightly smaller pie-related projects. She's recently baked her way through a number of desperation pies, the sorts of desserts one might have made in the past when a harvest was slim, or work was scarce: Think pies made with vinegar to replace the tartness of fresh fruit, and others that call for little more than sugar and water. This break from travel, research, and constant baking has also given Fong a chance to reflect on her adopted home, and the racism and hate that have become so prominent and noticeable this year. I recently called Fong, who's weathering the pandemic from her Brooklyn apartment, to hear more about her pie baking journey, and what she plans to do when her last six pies have been baked, boxed, and delivered. Eater: Before you were a pie-baking New Yorker, what was your life like? Stacey Mei Yan Fong: I was born in Singapore. Because of my dad's job, we moved around a lot: We moved to Indonesia for a couple years. And then when I was five, we moved to Hong Kong, which is where I stayed until I came to college in America. I went to college in Savannah, Georgia, and then after I graduated, I packed up a truck and drove to New York. When you move a lot as a kid, you don't really know where your home is. In New York, what do you do when you're not baking pies? I am a handbag and accessory designer. And then all other hours are focused on food. Food is a huge passion of mine, and it's the way I process my feelings. Growing up, food played such a major part in life, especially coming from a Chinese family. Everything is around a big dinner table. When I moved to New York, I worked fashion jobs with these crazy hours and were really terrible, and my moment of relief was definitely coming home and cooking for myself and my roommate. I would make roast chickens and cakes and just cry because I hated my job. I eventually found my way in fashion, but I've always kept food as my passion. From working a fashion job and baking after work, how did you get started on the 50 Pies project? In 2014, I was going through a really rough time, thinking about my life and where my home was. I was getting to a point where I had lived in America for about the same time I had lived in Hong Kong. My dad had just moved back to Singapore; one of my sisters was in Boston, about to move back to Singapore; my other sister lived in LA. Everybody I went to college with and everyone that I'm friends with, they can go back to their childhood home. I was just trying to discover what home meant to me. And during that time, my best friend bought me the Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. I was so lost and confused, and I was like 'maybe I'll just start baking from this, and that'll lead me somewhere. Or at least it will give me some relief because I'll be eating delicious treats.' Around 2016, I got my green card. That really marked my decision that this is a place I want to call home. I've met so many amazing people from college and from traveling, and I was trying to think of a way to give back to them and in turn, learn more about the country that I've chosen. I feel like pie is very synonymous with America, so I thought: What if I bake a pie for every single state in America, that includes state foods or regional cuisine, and then give that pie to someone I know from that state as a symbol of my affection for them? If I didn't already know anyone from that state, I could travel to the state and meet someone, or find someone in that state to give the pie to through a mutual friend. I wanted to interpret America in some way that would make sense to me. What were some of your most memorable pie-centric adventures for this project? For South Dakota, I realized I had never met anyone from the state. And it just so happened that my friend Matt, who got the Massachusetts pie, had recently done a graphic design project for a bunch of historians that live in South Dakota, that know everything about the Black Hills. I reached out to them, and I ended up going to South Dakota in January. They introduced me to Sean Sherman, the Sioux chef, and my South Dakota pie ended up being based on Native American cuisine. It was a wild rice pudding that I made with sunflower milk that I made myself. And then I made a maple-pumpkin sunflower seed crunch. It was one of those things where I would have never ever discovered this part of South Dakota or this part of Native American culture if I hadn't gone through all these weird connections. The biggest undertaking was for New York. I really thought long and hard about what I wanted to do, and how I could make the biggest gesture. I decided to make 150 mini pies. I made little cupcake-sized pies. I gave four to the staff at my favorite provision store, four to the people at my tattoo shop that I go to all the time, four to my bikram yoga studio. And then I threw a huge party at a beer hall, and all my friends came to eat pie together. I got to have all my friends in one place. I could not survive New York without them. it was my big grand gesture to them in pie-party form. My most challenging — but one of my favorite pies — was Nevada. I couldn't find a lot of state foods or fruits or vegetables that encapsulated the state. The first thing I thought of when I thought about Las Vegas was the all you can eat buffet, and I thought "how can I translate that into pie form?" I went on every casino's website, and I looked at what was featured on each of their buffets. The Las Vegas pie ended up being an all you can eat buffet pie. Half of the crust was savory and half of the crust was sweet. The pie ended up being a tiny tasting menu. It started with a Caesar salad, and then a shrimp cocktail, and then a prime rib, and it ended with an ice cream sundae. It was all one pie, with little triangular sections. This is such an enormous undertaking. Could you talk a little bit about what goes into creating each of these pies, from research to delivery? When I started this project, the first thing I did was put together what I call my pie chart. I wrote out all the states in alphabetical order, and did a bunch of research about each one. When I'm researching, I come home after work, make dinner, and then sit down and read books about pie, and read books about the state that I'm working on a pie for. I'll talk to people I knew from that state, or I'll look to recipes that are meaningful to my friends. For Ohio I used a recipe that my friend Meredith's grandmother passed on to me, so it's stuff like that — making connections and learning about everybody's home life. These stories give me energy to push the project forward. You've put a pause on 50 Pies / 50 States during the pandemic because you can't travel very safely. What have you been doing instead? I decided to pause because I couldn't travel to go see the person that the pie is for. So during the pandemic, I've looked at other great times of turmoil in American culture. And of course, the Great Depression comes up, and I came upon desperation pies. I first thought that all desperation pies had to do with that era, but it turns out they weren't just a product of financial burden. Desperation pies also have to do with seasonal depression. During winter months, you won't have a lot of fresh fruit in your larder, but you always have things like, flour, vinegar, sugar, and different ways to work around that. And even without a lot of resources, these pies were so regional. In Appalachia for instance, there is a vinegar pie to mimic the taste of apples. There were all these people who were coming up with amazing ideas to sub fruit for something else. I went into the desperation pie-baking project thinking it was going to be like when people try to make food from the '60s and it's all just weird aspics. But all the pies ended up tasting so good! A vinegar pie just sounds so odd, but when you eat it, it does taste like a tart apple pie! I find it so incredible that even during times of trouble, people were able to make the best of it. This project has clearly connected you to America in so many ways. Have the crises playing out across the country these past six months affected your view of America, and your plan for the project moving forward? It's super disappointing when you put something on a pedestal — which I did with American culture — to realize it actually isn't that perfect. What gives me hope is all the action and all the change, and that people in America aren't just giving up; they're taking matters into their own hands and trying to make a better future for themselves. I remember delivering the Florida pie on the day after the election in 2016. It was the saddest day, and I remember giving it to my friends from Florida who were so upset, so disappointed. I was like, "all right, everything does suck right now, but Florida is still a beautiful place. Florida has one of the only national parks in America that is a coral reef! You have Islamorada! You have like Disney World! You have all these beautiful things in Florida like marshes and crocodiles." There is a lot of crazy, but there is still a lot of good. And I only hope that me coming in with so much passion for learning all these new things about Florida or New Hampshire or Pennsylvania gives the pie recipient in that state a little bit of perspective that there is still good. I still have so much hope.  |
| Posted: 01 Sep 2021 06:19 AM PDT  These are the fancy-ish vinegar brands taking our pantries on an acid trip Our pantries are in the middle of an acid trip. Shelves are crammed with vinegars from around the world, from gently sweet Filipino sugarcane vinegar to aromatic black Chinkiang vinegar made from fermenting sticky rice. It's an ever-expanding condiment kaleidoscope — and thanks to increased interest in fermentation from chefs and home cooks bolstered by pandemic-era cooking, North America's artisanal vinegar industry has only begun to bloom. New wave vinegar is instantly recognizable. Its sleek packaging is designed to pop out in Instagram pantry tours, tricked out with lush illustrations and loopy lettered labels like "raw," "unfiltered," and "living." Unlike that distilled white vinegar probably stashed beneath your sink, these vinegars sell the fact that they're packed with probiotics, suggesting a slew of health benefits that come along with. Like other food-world trends, the hype is bolstered by collaborations with respected farms, pop-ups at popular restaurants, and on-point merch. But one sip of vinegar made from oro blanco grapefruit or funky-floral jasmine kombucha proves this trend isn't just about aesthetics. Is this explosion of small-batch vinegar brands the inevitable evolution of a customer base obsessed with gut health and fermented flavors? A response to cookbooks, like Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, that highlight acid's ability to unlock a new level of flavor? When did vinegar get so cool? Before probiotic apple cider vinegar shots dominated the refrigerated beverage aisles at Whole Foods and Erewhon, there was Katz. The Napa Valley farm and food producer helped pioneer California's olive oil industry in the 1990s, and began making artisanal unfiltered vinegars with grapes from nearby vineyards in the early 2000s. Instead of hiding behind the vague title of "red wine vinegar," Katz highlights specific grape varietals like pinot noir and late-harvest zinfandel. The laser-focused flavors weren't just uncommon — they were unheard of. "It took a while even for restaurants to build up a real desire to work with other things besides red vinegar, white vinegar, and fake balsamic," says co-owner Albert Katz. "I used to have to search out people to try our vinegar, but I haven't been able to keep up with production for years. It's been extraordinary." Katz says he hasn't needed to market his vinegars for the past eight years as customers have grown more knowledgeable about the importance of good ingredients, largely thanks to the internet and the long-simmering influence of food visionaries like James Beard and Alice Waters. Shoutouts in the pantry sections of cookbooks like Samin Nosrat's Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons helped raise the brand's profile, too. Then the pandemic turbocharged interest. Customers who used to spend money dining out shifted their budgets to invest in higher-quality ingredients for home cooking, and the versatile, shelf-stable nature of vinegar was a perfect fit. Demand has grown so high, Katz has largely stopped selling wholesale vinegar to restaurants to focus on selling directly to consumers online. These sales have a significantly higher profit margin and surged in the beginning of the pandemic, as people shifted their grocery shopping from crowded store aisles to online. Katz says that along with increased interest, customers have increased knowledge about artisanal vinegar, specifically the presence of a "mother," or strands of beneficial bacteria called Acetobacter aceti that turn alcohol into vinegar. "I used to get calls and emails about 'what is this stuff growing in the bottom of my bottle?' Many people would want their money back," he says. "Now people get a bottle and often they're wondering why they can't see the mother [if one isn't visible]. The sophistication level in general has grown exponentially." Tart Vinegar founder Chris Crawford counts Katz as her gateway into the world of farm-direct vinegar. After 20 years working in restaurants, she launched the Brooklyn-based brand in September 2019. Her first product was an intensely vegetal celery vinegar designed to evoke a sugar-free Cel-Ray soda. Crawford added other vinegars as she encountered farmers with single-origin products worth preserving, like wild-harvested kombu seaweed and floral (but not overly perfumed) lavender. "For me, it's about fostering those relationships directly from farmer to consumer to make a product that reflects time, soil, and harvest," says Crawford. "I'm looking for raw, natural flavors with very distinct palettes. There's so much vinegar I don't sell because it ends up tasting only like vinegar." Crawford's warehouse overflows with fermentation experiments, often using ingredients from other local artisans. She's currently playing around with peach wine from Brooklyn distillery Forthave Spirits and wild juniper berries foraged by Masha Tea founder Maria Geyman in Wyoming. These ultrasmall runs are frequently funneled into Tart's Vinegar Club: a quarterly subscription of core products and limited-run bottles capped at 50 members. It's meant for true vinegarheads, who also proudly rep Tart Vinegar tote bags and show up for the brand's periodic pop-ups. Earlier this summer, Superiority Burger chef Brooks Headley churned celery vinegar into sorbet. Crawford topped the scoops with Topo Chico for a tangy spin on the classic soda float, served alongside vegan focaccia sandwiches from Susan Kim's pop-up Doshi. /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22809417/DRINKING_VINEGAR_ART_3bottles.png) Vinegar-making is a time-intensive process, and Crawford is her brand's sole full-time employee. The limits of production on this scale shrink even further when considering the brand's ethos of working with small-scale farms with greenmarket cult followings of their own, like Pennsylvania's Campo Rosso and Lavender By The Bay in Long Island: The brand's iconic celery vinegar can only be made for the length of the celery season. As a result, Tart Vinegar's products are usually sold out online, and this scarcity inevitably breeds cachet as customers await Instagram announcements for the next drop. On the other end of the spectrum, Acid League is going big. The "living vinegar" brand began when Scott Friedmann, a food innovation consultant who created legume pasta brand Tolerant Foods, began brewing vinegar at home with his teenage son. He saw the business potential for unfiltered vinegar with turbocharged flavors and brought in designer Rae Drake and food scientists Cole Pearsall and Allan Mai to bring the brand to life. Last August, Acid League launched a direct-to-consumer site while simultaneously rolling out in Whole Foods nationwide. Their clear bottles showcase vibrantly hued vinegars like juicy strawberry rosé, while the labels lure customers with sans serif fonts and hazy color gradients that nod to aura photography and spore prints. The brand also sells sippable vinegar tonics bolstered with manuka honey and chaga mushrooms, and there's even the first edition of an Acid League magazine with deep dives on the science behind fermentation and an ode to Goan pork sorpotel. "The recent apple cider vinegar wave drove a lot of category growth, because people wanted a healthy tonic for their skin, hair, and gut," says Friedmann. Apple cider vinegar has become a wellness mainstay over the past few years, buoyed by purported benefits like boosting gut health or helping regulate blood sugar. Consumers can buy apple cider vinegar everything, from iconic bottles of Bragg to capsules and "wellness shots," and this interest is spilling over into raw vinegars of all flavors. It's undeniable that surging Western interest in fermented foods like kombucha, sauerkraut, and miso has pushed the flavor and health benefits of probiotics into the mainstream. "Gut health" is a popular wellness topic, and pandemic shutdowns encouraged fermentation projects like sourdough baking. Probiotic-rich products have a proven market, and raw vinegars are rising to meet the moment. Troy, New York, distillery Yesfolk Tonics has been quietly fermenting vinegar alongside its kombucha for years, with some batches dating back to 2017. "We'd never heard of kombucha vinegar before; we just realized it was really delicious ourselves," says co-founder Yiyi Mendoza. "It also helps with the ecosystem of our fermentation room. When we get a fresh barrel [for brewing], we'll fill it with vinegar to inoculate it with microorganisms, and get the fermentation going." Mendoza and co-founder Adam Elabd would also cook with the barrel-aged kombucha vinegar at their home, deploying a few dashes to lift a pot of beans or meaty braise. And around three years ago, they began selling some wholesale to chefs and bartenders. It wasn't until July 2020 that they added vinegar to their online store. "People have been digging it, so now we're intentionally making more to meet demand," says Elabd. Ultimately, the new wave vinegar explosion is right on time. After years of building interest in fermentation and chasing gut health, burnt-out home cooks are seeking new ways to supercharge flavors. Sure, any decent bottle of red wine vinegar can make a good salad dressing. But a great vinegar elevates the everyday into something bright, bold, and unforgettable. Why settle for the routine? There's a brave new world of vinegar to explore. Aliza Abarbanel is a freelance writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She loves compost, em dashes, and eating too many plums.  |
| Baker Stacey Mei Yan Fong Makes 50 Pies for All 50 States Posted: 01 Sep 2021 06:01 AM PDT  Using local ingredients and inspiration from regional dishes, Fong has made a pie to represent every state in the U.S. What does a Missouri-themed pie taste like? Or a pie representing New Jersey? Stacey Mei That's what Yang Fong started 50 Pies for 50 States, her project to bake a pie representing each U.S. state, to find out. Fong started the project in 2016 when she was in the process of obtaining her permanent residency in the U.S. "I was kind of at a weird point in my life, I didn't know where my home was," she says of being born in Singapore, growing up in Hong Kong, attending college in Savanna, Georgia, and now living in Brooklyn. Her pies are a dedication to her chosen home, and all of the friends she has made in it. In each baked good, she incorporates local produce and regional cuisines that each state is known for, then gives it to a person she knows from that state. Her South Dakota pie, for example, takes inspiration from the Native American cuisine that began in the area, and from chef Sean Sherman's cookbook The Sioux Chef. It starts with a blue corn crust, and incorporates other ingredients like wild rice, sunflower milk, maple sugar, berries, and more. "I don't think before this I would have even gone to South Dakota, and now I can say that I have been, and I've driven through the Badlands, and it was really amazing," says Fong. "I feel like there's not enough awareness of Native American cuisine, I've heard of none of the recipes that I read in The Sioux Chef," she explains, giving one of many examples of how this project has opened her eyes to different cuisines, ingredients, and baking techniques. The resulting pie's crust turns a deep purple, is filled with a rice pudding-like wild rice mixture, is topped with berry compote, and outlined in a mixture of sunflower seeds and pepitas in maple sugar. "Throughout the years as I've baked the pies, the most rewarding part is not the recipe development, it's not baking the pie," she says. "It's giving it to the person I care about and seeing them be like, 'Oh my god, this reminds me so much of a flavor of home.'" Check out the video to learn more about Stacey Mei Yang Fong's project, and see what other pies she's inspired to make.  |
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