Saturday, June 18, 2022

Eater - All

Eater - All

This Juneteenth, Cook What Makes You Happy

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 06:00 AM PDT

Three women in brightly colored clothing hold three platters of celebratory desserts.
Every celebration needs dessert | Beatriz da Costa

A new cookbook from Nicole A. Taylor, the "queen of celebration"

A version of this post originally appeared on June 18, 2022, in Stephanie Wu's newsletter, "From the Editor," a round up of the most vital news and stories in the food world. Read the archives and subscribe now.

For as long as I can remember, all of my celebrations have centered on food. Some holidays, like Thanksgiving and Lunar New Year, revolve around large gatherings over a dinner table with a very specific combination of dishes. Smaller holidays, like the recent Dragon Boat Festival, are marked simply by enjoying a traditional Chinese food — in this case, zongzi, a pyramid of steamed sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. My association of celebrations with food is one of the reasons I was so excited for Nicole A. Taylor's new book, Watermelon & Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations. Juneteenth honors June 19, 1865, the day Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and told more than 250,000 enslaved Black Texans that they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. As Taylor writes in the introduction to her book, her Juneteenth celebrations were "a time to block out the extraneous noise of the workaday world and feast on food and freedom."

In honor of her new cookbook, I chatted with Taylor about Juneteenth celebrations big and small. Whether you have a big blowout planned — Taylor is hosting three days of events in her hometown of Athens, Georgia — or are honoring Juneteenth for the first time, I hope you find some way to gather with friends and family over food, traditional or not, and reflect on this important day.

Eater: How did the idea for a Juneteenth cookbook come about?

Nicole A. Taylor: I've been celebrating Juneteenth for more than a decade, and recently, after talking to so many of my friends, I realized that I'm the queen of celebrations. From my dorm in college to my house in Athens, and my apartment in New York, my place has always been the gathering spot for everyone, but particularly for Black people, looking to unwind, take a deep breath, and exhale. I always bring good food, good drink, and good conversation. Watermelon & Red Birds is about my Juneteenth celebrations and how I chose to celebrate for more than a decade. I hope this cookbook kicks off a whole slew of Juneteenth cookbooks.

What were some of the elements that you immediately knew you wanted to include?

I started off with the idea that a majority of the recipes would be rooted in the African American or African table. You'll find twists on classic African American foods. You see sweet potato, but not in a pie, in a spritz. Leafy greens, but in a pesto. Barbecue sauce, but a rhubarb one. And I was intentional about wanting this book to look and feel like summer, to be vibrant and bold. One of the first images on my Pinterest board for the book was Kerry James Marshall's Past Times. The colors, the images of Black people resting, enjoying themselves outdoors — I wanted to make sure that was in the cookbook.

A red book cover with two red drinks, one held by a person clad in a denim top and bold jewelry. Simon & Schuster
The cover of Nicole A. Taylor's "Watermelon & Red Birds" cookbook

How did regional variations on Juneteenth celebrations play into the cookbook?

Juneteenth's origins are in Texas. The beauty of Juneteenth is that during the Great Migration, Black people all over the American South left their homes and went to other places around the country. Black Texans went west and to the Midwest. Where people moved is where you see the largest public Juneteenth celebrations. The Great Migration is why I first attended a Juneteenth celebration in Brooklyn. The variations of Juneteenth are credited to the Great Migration for Black people, for better opportunities and not so in-your-face inequalities.

When you move, you adapt to where you're living. That's why you see variations. And people have to realize, Black people are not a monolith. What you tend to see is people cooking what makes them happy, people weaving their family traditions into Juneteenth, and people grounding themselves in traditional foods of Juneteenth — barbecue, summertime fruits like watermelon, lemonade, red drinks, and of course, desserts. I set up each chapter [in the cookbook] as an essential. Red drink, I feel, is an essential. Cookout or barbecue food is an essential. Sides, like a potato salad, are an essential. There are two chapters on desserts, because what is a celebration without a dessert? Emancipation Day celebrations are all over the South, but Juneteenth is the one that has stood the test of time and now is a nationally recognized holiday. Americans are given the opportunity to dig deep, to understand what Juneteenth is and how it plays into the freedom of Black people in America.

I'm all about the food, but it's important that all Americans really start the Juneteenth day — or the day after, if they want to use the national holiday — by grounding themselves in the history of it before we start digging into the growth.

With Juneteenth as a national holiday, how do you hope those new to the holiday honor it this year?

One of the things that people celebrating for the first time can do is recognize and honor and figure out how they fit into the equation. June 19, 1865 — say what it is. It's not the day that ended slavery, its when Texans found out they were free. For non-Black Americans interested in honoring Juneteenth in a tangible way, I would say, use my guide in the front of the book where I list Black, Indigenous, and people of color-owned food products. If you're not cooking from the book, buy those products and put your money behind a Black-owned business on that day. Lastly, I encourage people to use that opportunity to eat and gather with family and friends, and talk about the contribution of Black people to the United States and [to] America's history of freedom — what that looks like and what people are hoping for it to continue to look like. It's a good opportunity to have a dialogue around the table.

The 38 Essential Mexico City Restaurants

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 06:14 AM PDT

A restaurant interior, with tables full of diners, double height exposed brick walls covered with decorations, and a glass roof
Inside Páramo | Alejandra Arango

From a lunch tasting menu in a secret apartment in Roma Norte to famed fine dining destination Pujol, here's where to eat in CDMX

The first thing any visitor to the Mexican capital will take in — probably while staring out the window in awe as their airplane descends over the intense, urbanity-on-steroids sprawl — is the sheer size of this town, 573 square miles in total. It's densely populated and patchworked with distinct neighborhoods, each with its own culinary identity. It would take several lifetimes to get to know all of the street stands, holes in the wall, neighborhood favorites, and high-end destinations in this city.

Yet this list — 38 restaurants, dishes, and culinary experiences that define Mexico City's gastronomic identity — should offer a comprehensive starting point for any visitor. It includes the obvious and the overexposed; it also includes hidden gems. It covers longtime buzzing neighborhoods like Roma and Condesa, as well as newer destination districts like San Miguel Chapultepec and Juarez. There are tacos, tortas, tasting menus, and tamales. There are enough sweets to satisfy the most dedicated concha enthusiast and some old-school breakfasts for the nostalgists. Whatever the type of place, it provides standout food and a taste of something visitors can't get back home.

Updated, June 2022:

After two long years of the pandemic, Mexico City is buzzing with renewed spirit. Just as the city becomes a hot destination for international travelers again, restaurants are also playing host to a growing community of digital nomads who crowd cafes to take work calls during the day and fill every hard-to-get reservation by night. There's no sugarcoating the mixed feelings Chilangos have about these immigrants from the North, who have brought fast-paced gentrification, shifted the real estate market, and reshaped demographics in central neighborhoods. But the influx of customers has also been a boon to newcomers in the restaurant scene, and the established food community is determined to make the most of new opportunities as well.

Natalia de la Rosa is a Mexican food writer, mezcal collector, and culinary guide based in Mexico City.

HBO’s ‘Barry’ Restaurant and Bar Locations in LA, Mapped

Posted: 16 Jun 2022 03:24 PM PDT

Mason Hereford Brings Strong New Orleans Energy to the New Season of ‘Iron Chef’

Posted: 16 Jun 2022 10:39 AM PDT

Why a Chicago Restaurant Is Taking Their Most Popular Dish Off the Menu

Posted: 16 Jun 2022 06:55 AM PDT

The bing bread, topped with sesame seeds and sliced into pieces, on a white plate with a smear of butter alongside. A recipe book depicting the bread on the cover lays nearby.
Bing bread at Parachute. | Parachute

Breaking down the food, labor, and fixed costs of Parachute's famous bing bread

We often presume to understand restaurant economics because we know what a chicken breast costs at the supermarket. "I could make this dish at home for $5," goes the refrain. Could we? Here, Eater looks at all the costs in a popular restaurant dish to see what goes into it, and how much profit comes out.

Restaurant owners usually spend a lot of time working out how to make ends meet: how much to charge for a dish, how to choose ingredients, how to pay staff. For years that's what owners Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark did to offer the bacon-, potato-, and scallion-stuffed bing bread at their restaurant Parachute in Chicago. Fried and baked, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, the bing bread was beloved — and yielded just 63 cents per loaf sold, a 4.2 percent profit (at the very low end of the restaurant's overall 10 percent net). It was also incredibly complicated to make (the restaurant published the 21-page method in a single-recipe book co-written by Kevin Pang). But, as they reopen Parachute after a renovation and two years of takeout service, Kim and Clark are taking their signature dish off the menu, not just because of the slim margin — they want to do right by their employees too.

The owners feel the time is right to perform a major reset on staffing practices. They're getting rid of the subminimum wage, the (legal) economic framework that supports tipping and cements foundational problems within hospitality like wage disparity between front and back of house and systemic bias against servers by customers. "We've inherited a broken template," says Kim. "But we have to be careful about the new vision of how labor works. Until the consumer can understand the real cost of food and service, there's this disconnect between what people are willing to pay for food and what we need to charge in order to have the living wages and benefits that create a sustainable environment for people."

If Kim and Clark want to pay their workers fairly, it makes no financial sense to hold on to the bing bread. To understand why, it's best to look at the bing bread two ways: first, based on pre-pandemic costs that yielded a 4.2 percent profit. Second, by comparing that to how much more the restaurant would have to charge in order to maintain that same slim margin, while also factoring in both the current inflation of food costs, and Parachute's plan to raise server pay from the $9 subminimum wage to the $25 they typically make with tips.

Pre-pandemic menu price: $15

Labor: $4.65 (31 percent)
Fixed: $4.05 (27 percent)
Food: $5.67 (37 percent)
Total cost: $14.37
Profit: $0.63 (4.2 percent)

From the time Parachute opened in 2014, the bing bread was an instant staple and a default starter for tables to share, but the food cost of $5.67 was always too high for a $15 item. The dish required so much time and space to make: After a month of training on the recipe, one full-time employee had to come in early every day to produce batches of 24 orders. Even with strong overall sales, fixed costs (27 percent) and labor costs (31 percent) within advisable margins, the bing's ingredients were 37 percent of its menu price, resulting in a 4.2 percent profit of 63 cents.

To Kim, the bing bread was not the heart of her Parachute menu, and she had plans to rotate in different Asian bread recipes like roti or milk bread. But it was a fan favorite and eventually became too emotionally important to customers to ever remove. (This is a common pitfall of successful dishes; for instance, Scaramouche, a restaurant in Toronto, has tried unsuccessfully to get rid of a coconut cream pie that's been on the menu since 1980.)

That reluctant commitment to the bread lasted through the early days of the pandemic. Over the last two years, the bing bread was available for takeout and delivery, alongside meal kits, cocktails to go, fried chicken, cross-state shipping through Goldbelly, a Korean pizza spinoff, and every other pivot the owners could think of. They increased the bing's price to $20, but despite the $5 jump, Kim and Clark didn't see dramatically increased profits. Labor costs also jumped to 53 percent of sales. Food costs rose too. Like many businesses, Parachute was just breaking even.

Reopening menu price: off the menu

Note: Estimates based on Parachute's projected goal of reaching sales where labor equals 40 percent and 27 percent for fixed.

If Parachute charged $22.80 ($19 + 20 percent service charge)
Labor: $9.12 (40 percent)
Fixed: $6.15 (27 percent)
Food: $6.50 (28.5 percent)
Total cost: $21.77
Profit: $1.03 (4.5 percent)

If Parachute charged $28 ($23.40 + 20 percent service charge)
Labor: $11.20 (40 percent)
Fixed: $7.56 (27 percent)
Food: $6.50 (23 percent)
Total cost: $25.26
Profit: 2.74 (9.7 percent)

Kim and Clark opened a second restaurant, Wherewithall, for service in 2021, allowing them to renovate the 100-year-old building that housed Parachute. While the space was being massively fixed up in ways most diners wouldn't notice (ripping up floors revealed rotted joists and 25 types of flooring), the restaurateurs decided to make more visible changes to the pricing, raising everyone's wages to reduce the need for tips. A note on the menu indicates an additional service charge, and the point is elaborated when it comes time to pay: "A 20 percent transitional service charge has been added to all checks in order to move away from the sub-minimum wage and allow us to pay a higher hourly wage to our entire team as well as providing health care benefits. We are calling it transitional because it will take time for the restaurant industry to adjust to the true cost of food and wages."

"Textbooks would say labor is 30 percent of sales," says Kim. "But this is based on subminimum wage labor. I think with paying out fair labor costs, the ratio is more likely our ratio, which makes sense because hotel restaurants run similarly, as they have higher labor costs than independent restaurants."

Minimum wage in Chicago is $15, but for tipped workers it's $9. A living wage in the city (for someone with no children) is more than $18. Kim and Clark increased house pay from $9/hour plus tips to $25/hour, while also bumping back-of-house staff from $14-$15/hour to $17-$18 plus benefits. (At Wherewithall, this system has yielded roughly the same amount for both groups when factoring in longer hours and regular overtime for cooks.)

The changes increase the restaurant's labor costs by 29 percent. Neither group is making a fortune. But it means raising the standard of living for cooks, while ensuring servers are still earning a living on slow nights, instead of relying on tips and the whims of customers. "Some weeks, it's so slow because of COVID," says Kim, "we're losing money and going negative by paying servers $25 an hour. But it's about building a culture that values and validates people as professionals. And I think we've done that. We have only lost one server in the last year." At the same time, a 20 percent service fee is effectively treated as revenue (and taxed as such, as opposed to tips, which traditionally are distributed amongst staff and not counted as revenue or as wages).

The first option for restaurateurs in this position is to find a way to make the dish less expensive to produce. If they can't pay people less, they look to cut corners on the method or ingredients, while hoping customers won't notice the difference in quality. They switch from one brand of flour to another, then the bacon, and the butter — until the final dish no longer resembles the cherished original. Kim and Clark weren't willing to do that.

The next option is to raise prices. With food costs up by 15 percent, on top of the added labor costs, the restaurant would have to charge $19 for bing bread, plus the 20 percent service charge, bringing the price to $22.80, in order to generate the same 4.5 percent profit they earned before the pandemic. And to be on par with the restaurant's overall 10 percent margin, the dish would have to be priced at $23.40 ($28 total with the service fee). "It's hard to just charge what you need to charge when every restaurant is basing their prices on subminimum wages," Kim says.

But raising prices isn't on the table for all restaurants. At New York's Babbo, $28 would be toward the low end for a pasta dish, which can go as high as $39 (not counting the $85 tajarin with black truffle). But thanks to well-established racial bias in menu pricing, Kim is nervous about charging more than $15 for this Asian American Korean bread no matter how much the ingredients and labor cost. (In an even starker example, a place like Eleven Madison Park can even raise prices and reap praise when they get rid of tipping — then reverse course, bring back tipping, and keep the inflated prices.) This price discrimination is "the bamboo ceiling," she says. "Attitudes toward pricing are not a reflection of the true value of the cuisine, but of the American perception of value of the cuisine's social and economic status."

The only option left is to remove the bing bread altogether, which is where Kim and Clark landed. While nixing it might anger some customers, the decision was ultimately about holding on to staff. With no way to mechanize the process and the human element so hard to train, it required a sous chef (plus a dishwasher) to come in during the morning when the kitchen was empty. Working alone, that cook never really became part of the crew, so there was a high burnout rate in the position. Kim and Clark often found that it was the last station a cook had in the kitchen.

The realities of the restaurant industry don't allow Parachute to produce bing bread in a way that serves everyone. Besides making great food, though, Kim says one of her goals is to leave the industry better than she found it. That work isn't done. "We have to start somewhere to move toward a more equitable system — toward compensating everyone better," says Kim. "If I have to make choices, like taking out the bing bread, in order to do this, then that's what I have to do."

Corey Mintz, a food reporter focusing on labor in restaurants, is the author of the recently published book The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, And What Comes Next (Public Affairs 2021).

The 5 Must-Have Sauces for Vegetarian-Friendly Grilling

Posted: 16 Jun 2022 06:30 AM PDT

A bowl of tzatziki, surrounded by cucumbers, lemons, and garlic.
Liliya Kandrashevich/Shutterstock

On the power of having a tub of tzatziki next to your grill

Sauce is the sauce of life. It adds depth to a good meal, complements or contrasts spices, and can sometimes be a meal in itself. And when it comes to vegetarian grilling, the right sauce or condiment can rescue even the saddest, floppiest veggie skewer. If you're grilling, here, according to the experts, are the sauces you should have around.

Tzatziki

Ok, by "expert" here we mean me, but my summer grilling would fall apart without a tub of tzatziki, which I make by stirring grated cucumbers, lemon juice, grated garlic, salt, and pepper directly into a container of Greek yogurt. The bite of the raw garlic livens things up if I've decided to go light with the seasoning on the vegetables, but the yogurt also cools and balances flavors if I've gone heavy on hot spices. Alterternatively, you can just eat tzatziki with a bunch of grilled pita. She really is that girl.

Pickled Onions

"Anything that's simple and bright is good," says Eli Goldman, the owner of Tikkun BBQ in Astoria, Queens. For him, that means pickled onions. Or honestly, pickled anything. Thinly sliced carrots and radishes also work, as do scallions, peppers, or a whole scoop of giardiniera. Making a quick pickle of red onions is as easy as adding them to a bath of salt, sugar, and apple cider vinegar for a few minutes, but Goldman says it's also an opportunity to layer on even more flavor. "You can toast mustard seeds and sichuan peppercorns and add it to the pickling juice," he says. "That sweetness and sourness adds a lot of vibrancy to vegetarian food."

Chimichurri

Chimichurri may be best known as a sauce for steak, but Goldman says he also likes to use it to dress up grilled squash and broccoli rabe, as its brightness and heat work equally well for rich, sweet vegetables and bitter ones. You could also stir it into Greek yogurt to make a creamier sauce, and even serve them side by side.

Ranch

"I have three restaurants now, and I use ranch at all of them," says Greg Baxtrom of Brooklyn's Olmsted, Maison Yaki, and Patti Ann's. The reason is simple, he adds: "People like ranch." You can't go wrong with buttermilk and spices mixed into mayo, and once again you can get creative with it, adding kimchi or ajvar or any other seasonings. Or you can just go with a bottle of Hidden Valley. No one will complain.

Multiple Choice

Whatever sauce you choose to use, serve it with at least one other sauce. Baxtrom says his move is accompanying a ton of vegetables with a ton of sauces, and letting people mix and match to their heart's content. "Having two different sauces is genuinely interesting," he says, and allows for creations you may have never thought of before. Black vinegar and tartar? Ketchup and mango chutney? Sure, why not?

The Queer Bar Is Dead, Long Live the Queer Bar

Posted: 15 Jun 2022 08:44 AM PDT

Veggie Dogs Have Come a Long Way (Sort Of)

Posted: 15 Jun 2022 08:30 AM PDT

A group of veggie dogs in buns, each with a little flag that advertises the veggie dog brand. Illustration.
Nicole Miles/Eater

From Beyond Meat to Field Roast, Impossible Foods to Morningstar Farms and Tofurky, ranking vegetarian-friendly hot dogs, from best to worst

I'm not willing to admit how many years ago this was now, but when I turned 15, I became a vegetarian. Predictably, because I was a teenager, I was sanctimonious about it, chastising everyone around me for not caring about animals or the earth or whatever else I could think of that they should care about in my extremely informed opinion. Being vegetarian and caring about the world thank you very much was a very outsized part of my personality.

Back then, especially because I was 15 years old with little income and worldliness, I defaulted to what I thought were the best options for a vegetarian to eat. Namely, fake chicken nuggets and hot dogs, with the occasional chickpea dish thrown in for health. I didn't know where to find these things — nor did I know there were any other places — besides my local Acme, a grocery chain in Philly that is basically fine. My hot dog choices back then were Smart Dogs and MorningStar Farms Veggie Dogs. And out of necessity, I loved them both.

Fast forward [redacted] number of years and the landscape for vegetarians has completely changed. The breadth and availability of products means that it feels easier than ever to forgo meat, even if the taste of meat is still your thing. Developments in mushroom-based meats, vegetarian burgers that "bleed," and brands getting into plant-based products of all kinds means that the hot dog section of the freezer or fridge aisle is no longer a sad, lonely place where bossy teenagers get their kicks. For a number of years now, barbecues haven't been the same.

Whether you are a vegetarian or vegan, hosting someone who is, or just generally interested in eating more plant-based foods, the new products on the market are almost too numerous to consider. What's a person to do? How to decide what to serve? How to even understand what your preferences may be?

There are a few ways to figure out where you stand on the vegetarian hot dog spectrum: Do you prefer a simulacrum of a hot dog and its smoky, meaty flavor? Or are you looking for something totally original in its taste? Is the semblance of health important to you or do you prefer to feel like everyone feels after eating a hot dog (like you need to lie down)? How do you top your dog and does that factor into how you assess the flavor? And, likely most important of all, how does it perform on the grill — does it blister, does it burn, does it fall apart?

In mid-April, I gathered an esteemed group of friends — vegans, vegetarians, and meat-eaters, even one professional chef — to assess 10 brands and varieties of vegetarian hot dogs for these exact qualities. The hot dog taste test (incidentally, also the name of an amazing illustrated book by BoJack Horseman's Lisa Hanawalt) was judged on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. Hot dog raters were then asked to provide tasting notes and a yes or no answer to whether they felt the vegetarian hot dog was similar enough to a real hot dog, in case that was something that mattered to them. So if you want add vegetarian hot dogs to your cookout repertoire, here's some guidance on where to start.

The Best of the Best

MorningStar Farms

All those years ago, MorningStar Farms Veggie Dogs (as well as MorningStar Farms Veggie Chik'n Nuggets) were the go-to for vegetarians looking for a standard veggie meat product that tasted adjacent enough to the real deal that it was actually worth eating. To my surprise, MorningStar's vegetarian hot dogs have really held up over the years. With the highest rating of the group, every single participant noted that the dog tasted similar to a real hot dog. "The inside was so hot doggy," one friend wrote. Others remarked on the sweet, tomato-y flavor of the dog, and that it had a nice smell and look, though the grill chef noted that it browned too quickly. The MorningStar dog also fits rather neatly into a bun, so when concealed with toppings, it could convince even the most dedicated meat-eater that this dog is no joke.

Ikea

Most people associate Ikea with furniture that's hard to put together, relationship-ending fights, and cheap, satisfying hot dogs. Nothing feels as good as buying a particle-board nightstand while stuffing a hot dog in your face and wondering if you and Jamie are really meant to be together. Not many people, on the other hand, think of Ikea and vegetarian hot dogs in the same way, likely because not many people know that Ikea makes them. A friend swears by them so deeply that he came to the party with his own in tow. And what a surprising result: The hot dog — which is actually more like an old-school veggie patty, with kale, lentils, quinoa, onions, and wheat protein, all smooshed together and visible — came in second place. "Nice to see the vegetables!" one friend wrote. "Kinda good. Looks and tastes like food," said another. "Like a healthy egg roll," chimed in a third. Though no one said it tasted anything like a real hot dog, that didn't seem to matter.

Field Roast

Among the fake meat varieties, Field Roast has historically been one of my — and many of my colleagues' — absolute favorites. The smoked apple and sage sausages are in my regular lunch rotation. But I hadn't ever tried their so-called signature stadium dogs, and on the list of veggie dogs, Field Roast ranked high for one specific quality that no hot dog should be without: smokiness. Almost every participant said that the Field Roast ballpark dog tasted like a real hot dog (save for one comment: "Meh"), but smokiness came up more than a handful of times. "Smoky, snappy texture," one wrote — just like a hot dog from the ballpark should be. There was a slight oiliness that didn't appeal to the crowd, but maybe that's just what you'd expect from a stadium dog. Or as one friend put it, "Compact but vaguely realistic, I guess."

Really Pretty Good

Beyond Meat

Say what you will about the difference between sausages and hot dogs (all hot dogs are sausages, but not all sausages are hot dogs, or something? I don't know) but when you're a vegetarian and have limited options, sometimes it's best not to quibble over the details. Though Beyond Meat's bratwurst sausages were unlike most standard hot dogs and more something you'd want to eat with roasted peppers, they were pretty damn good. They had a nice snap when you bit into them, and a fatty quality just like sausages normally do, though some disliked the greasiness. Many noted that they weren't comparable to regular hot dogs (a perhaps disqualifying offense, but once again, beggars can't be choosers), yet appreciated the "meaty, smoky" flavor. One friend mentioned their "breakfasty" taste. While they were perhaps too chunky for breakfast, they had a nice savoriness all the same.

Lightlife/Very Good Butchers

Tied for fifth place were hot dogs from Lightlife (the brand that makes the Smart Dogs I remember eating in my youth) and Very Good Butchers, a newer brand whose hot dogs are made from ingredients like navy beans, onions, and wheat gluten, and encased in must-be-removed plastic. The Lightlife dog, much like the MorningStar dog, hit some of the marks when it came to true hot dog comparison. "Neutral hot dog. Perfectly acceptable," one participant wrote. "Quite hot doggy," said another. The Very Good Butchers option was pretty salty to most, with a flavor confusingly similar to that of a corn dog — though that wasn't necessarily a turnoff. "Flavorful and moist," one friend noted approvingly.

Flawed But Maybe They'll Work It Out

Impossible Foods

Given all of the attention lavished on Impossible Foods, it was inevitable that the company would one day unveil a veggie hot dog and sausage line to match its bleeding fake-meat burgers. Like Beyond Meat's sausage, Impossible's bratwursts felt a little like they snuck into a party through the back door. But unlike the former, Impossible's were more breakfast-y than a dinner or lunch sausage, with a pretty heavy herb quotient. "Herby but not synergistic," one friend wrote, which I still don't quite understand. They had an "overwhelming taste" to another, with a slight sweetness that many liked. The downside was there was a not-especially-nice aftertaste. "Tastes like a breakfast-y hamburger," said one. If that's a genre of food that you're into, this may be for you.

BeLeaf

On the lower-ranked end of the spectrum, taster commentary turned almost exclusively to the unnaturalness of the flavor, which is similar to the criticism sometimes leveled at meat hot dog brands. When does a tube of processed meat start tasting like a tube of processed meat? BeLeaf dogs had the appearance of a hot dog, but their flavor tried way too hard to mimic the real deal. "Can only taste smoke," one friend wrote. "Too smoky," said another. The texture wasn't bad and resembled that of a hot dog in some ways, but overall felt like a poor attempt to mimic a beloved barbecue staple. "Tastes like generic plant protein," one friend wrote. Others were less convinced: "Whoa. Appears to be a hot dog but is quite fucked."

Tofurky

Most vegetarians associate Tofurky with Thanksgiving: While everyone else is tucking into a bird, a well-meaning aunt presents you with a loaf of vital wheat gluten in the shape of a bulbous log. What happens, then, when this same log is made into a hot dog? To many, not much. "Cylindrical Tofurky," one wrote. "Bland but oddly peppery." Strangely, some noted that it tasted more like buttery pasta or matzo ball soup or corn than an actual smoky hot dog. The color, which was practically gray, also caused an uproar. It was so off-putting that it was hard to imagine the hot dog as anything other than a reconstituted Thanksgiving log.

Maybe Next Time

Yeah Dawg

Very few hot dogs received as much criticism as the Yeah Dawg brand, which is a shame because it's one of the few with a fun name. The flavor was more like savory lentils and the texture was spongy and nothing like a hot dog. While lentils are a fun and frequent meal for vegetarians, you don't necessarily want their flavor to show up in a hot dog — it's better saved for a dish with rice. Weirdly, several participants compared the taste to Stove Top Stuffing. Not a bad thing, but not a good thing, either.

Upton's Naturals

Finally, in last place, is the Upton's Naturals Updog, a truly salty hot dog with a texture that spoke to no one. "Maybe after an ultra-marathon," one participant wrote, which is confusing feedback when you really think about it. Nearly every hot dog taste-tester commented on the saltiness of the Updog — "salty as shit," one friend observed — and the fact that it tasted vaguely like Cajun seasoning. Like the Very Good Butcher dog, it also tasted like cornmeal, which makes you wonder if veggie hot dog brands should pivot to corn dogs instead. (Though for the record, it contains no cornmeal.) Eating vegetarian hot dogs all night long may not be most people's chosen activity (in fact, many tasters requested a real hot dog at the end of the night), but their range gave many of us something to think about — and also some options to bring to a barbecue. Updog, unfortunately, isn't among them. As one participant wrote: "why."

Nicole Miles is an illustrator from the Bahamas living in West Yorkshire, U.K.

Why Did Patagonia Get Into the Grocery Game?

Posted: 15 Jun 2022 07:15 AM PDT

Tinned fish and condiments served on bread, next to an open tin.
Tinned fish was one of the first food offerings from Patagonia Provisions. | Patagonia Provisions

The co-founder and head of Patagonia Provisions explains why the outdoorsy apparel brand wants to change the way we eat

Over the past few years, previously uncool and markedly dorky technical gear emerged from the tent and trail-ran into the mainstream. Hiking boots, well-insulated fleeces, and sweat-wicking shorts have since been seen on even the most fashionable and disdainful of athletics, and eventually, the trend was given a name: gorpcore, the clothes you wear when you're roughing it in nature. Or, well, not.

The explosion of gorpcore in street style proved to be fortuitous for Patagonia, the climate-conscious apparel and gear company that's been making technical clothes and outdoorsy gear since 1973. With the arrival of gorpcore, Patagonia's branded "Baggies" shorts were praised widely for both their versatility and vibey-ness, and fleece zip-ups in every color of the rainbow became improbably cool.

Though not as widely available as its fleeces and shorts, Patagonia's tins of smoked mackerel, dried mango, and breadfruit crackers — produced under the name Patagonia Provisions — have also begun to show up more on grocery store shelves nationwide. Though it launched 10 years ago, Patagonia Provisions has been able to use the popularity of hiking gear in the mainstream to boost an arm of the business that focuses on sustainability in our pantries.

In the spirit of Patagonia's mission to "use business to protect nature," Provisions started as a way to get sustainably farmed tinned fish, buffalo jerky, and camping snacks into the hands of its outdoorsy audience. But it quickly grew to something much bigger and more ambitious, establishing official certifications for regenerative organic agriculture and collaborating with sustainability nonprofits to help farmers transition to practices that were better for the environment. Provisions now sells 46 products with a range as wide as venison links, red bean chili, biodynamic baby food, and sake; sources a patented perennial grain called Kernza for its pasta, beers, and crackers; and is expanding rapidly into thousands of grocery stores across the U.S.

But why would an apparel company get into the grocery game?

Eater spoke with Birgit Cameron, the co-founder and head of Patagonia Provisions, alongside Patagonia's original founder Yvon Chouinard, about why a clothing company would want to sell grocery provisions, what accessibility means when food costs are at an all-time high, and why emphasizing sustainability in the face of climate disaster still means selling meat and seafood, even with calls for vegan diets to protect the future of our planet.

Eater: What is the long-term mission of Patagonia Provisions? How did it come to be?

Birgit Cameron: I'm the co-founder of Patagonia provisions, and I've led it for the past 10 years. I wrote the business plan and built out what it is today with Yvon Chouinard, [founder of Patagonia]. The task that was really given to me was, "What would a food company look like for Patagonia?" And so I built out this problem, solution, and product model, which is really all about discovering the biggest things in the food industry that are contributors to the climate issues and other environmental problems we're facing today. So what are those things? What is out there in terms of science, consulting, and alternative paths forward that really consider people and the planet? Not everything that we can do is really the right thing to do, in terms of making our food. We've gone down the road of a lot of bad chemical agriculture that is really detrimental. So we are working with scientists and nonprofit entities to determine a better path, substantiated by science, and then making products that showcase the solutions.

What are some of the product examples of the results of that effort?

We created a buffalo jerky because there are no natural predators [for buffalo] anymore. [Farmers] need to cull the herd, keep that healthy, keep the prairie recovering. And so therefore, we created a product as a byproduct of that conservation effort.

Our wild salmon is really about making sure that we use selective harvesting rather than overfishing, so that wild salmon can be in our future. With our other tinned fish, that's about eating the bait — taking pressure off of tuna and these other things we default to that are bigger and eating more abundant species.

We know that less meat is the better way to go, but we also know that that's going to be an evolutionary process, that there's always going to be people who are eating these kinds of things. Can we show the better and more humane way of dealing with that side of our plate?

A person wearing Patagonia gear stands in front of a tent and holds out a piece of jerky towards the camera. There is snow on the ground and the mountains in the background are covered with snow. Patagonia Provisions
Much of the Patagonia Provisions line makes sense for camping, but it's not only for camping.

A lot of people who are thinking about the climate are thinking, "Well, isn't the best thing to go vegan? Isn't that the diet that we should all be pursuing right now?" Is the inevitable goal for the company to reduce the number of meat products and seafood that it's selling?

I think it's [about] a "re-architecting" at the plate. Helping people discover that plant proteins, plants, grains, and beans can become complete proteins, that's first and foremost. What we'd like to see is more of that on the plate and that if people are going to eat animal proteins, they are — like Michael Pollan says — eat[ing] less. Have [meat] as a side, so you are kind of revers[ing] it. If you're going to eat meat or animal protein, really understand what that supply chain is about. There's so many detrimental things happening in the way that the world has moved to just this abundance and treating animals like a commodity. It's terrifying what's happened.

It's bringing people along to be more considerate and thoughtful of where things come from, and then re-emphasizing the idea that you can find the proteins and the nutrients that you need in other ways. We've put together our chilis and our lentil soup and these wonderful protein-packed, nutrient-filled meals so that you don't miss having that other side of things.

What was the first product that you launched with and how did it align with these values?

The salmon was the very first product. We worked with the Wild Fish Conservancy and we created a peer-reviewed and published criteria that said if you're going to harvest wild salmon, this criteria will ensure that there can be wild salmon in the future. It was really an effort to highlight what changes could happen in the fishing industry to take pressure off of these wild salmon that are just being decimated by net-pen farms and horrifying disease.

Quality is such a huge thing as well — high-quality ingredients that are loaded with all the nutrients and polyphenols and enzymes and things that we should be ingesting, but we haven't because the industrial chemical way of doing things has just reduced them. It's almost like a ghost of a strawberry — yes, it looks like a strawberry, but it's void of what it would have had if it were grown in an ecosystem that it was meant to be grown in. I think this is an amazing moment in time to where we know enough about the science around the soil health. It's hard, once you know that information, to then accept chemical agriculture.

One of the recent initiatives you've been promoting is Kernza, a wheat-adjacent, low-gluten grain that shows up in your beer, pasta, and crackers. How did you develop those products? How did you figure out that was an ingredient you wanted to source?

It started with Yvon putting a bag of Kernza on my desk. He had been a longtime supporter of the Land Institute [the nonprofit organization that patented the grain] and he said, "Go talk to Wes [Jackson, the founder]. I did and I learned all about these giant roots that this perennial Kernza has because it can stay in the ground year after year. It helps hold onto nitrogen that would otherwise flow into the rivers, causing dead zones. It draws down carbon, it helps restore the soil. So there are so many benefits to growing it.

[But Wes said], "I think we're 20 years out from growing it." And I said, "Can you show me how much seed you have?" He took me down to his storage area and the walls were lined with Kernza. I said, "Wes, I think you're ready. Let's do this. Let's get it into the ground." You've got to tease out the science that people think is going to be 20 years down the road, but we don't have a whole lot of time to be making maneuvers [when there are] planet-saving ingredients coming in and ways of thinking that are better for the planet. It was time for us to make an effort. So we had to put together infrastructure, find farmers who were willing to take a flyer and grow it, and we actually subsidized it and set incentives. We currently have a nationally distributed beer with Dogfish Head called Kernza Pils and that's creating really nice market pull for it. That's incentivizing farmers to realize there's a market for it and they will grow it.

Two cans of Patagonia Provisions Dogfish Head Kernza Pils sit against some rocks in a shallow pool of water. Patagonia Provisions
The low-gluten grain kernza shows up in the brand's beer, pasta, and crackers.

Have the pandemic, supply chain issues, or labor shortages affected the possibility of doing that work?

The inflation is going to affect everybody. I've heard everything from a 6 percent to 20 percent rise in costs. And so we're going to see that impact on food across the board. Has it affected us? Absolutely. We are having to definitely revisit what that looks like for each and every product, each and every ingredient, manufacturing costs, supply chain issues. We've had containers full of food just sitting on the water waiting to come into port for six months.

It's really important to make sure that we cannot increase [prices] too much. I think we're going to see that that's going to happen for us and everybody else. But being mindful of accessibility, that's important.

Something the food industry really struggles with is wanting people to have access to organic products that are made with regenerative agriculture, but those things are more expensive to produce. Is this a consideration that comes up in your work?

All the time. Our dream is absolute price accessibility. We have moments where we discount and try to pass on savings to be able to introduce people to [our products]. The problem really stems, though, from subsidizing the wrong thing. The cost of food right now is not really the true cost of food. That's why you can get a bag of chips for a third of what it really, truly costs. But we have to go with the real price with those things, so the system has to change. We are working with policy, we're working with organizations that are helping to bring light to these issues within governmental entities that end up providing those kinds of subsidies. But that's a slow road. It's an evolutionary process — the more people who adopt organic, the more it's readily available, the more the price will go down.

It's really a shame. That's where I think these other governmental entities could come in and say, "We support organic. If you're an organic farmer and you're not polluting the waterways and the air by using chemicals, we will provide incentives."

Patagonia has historically been a brand that appeals to an outdoorsy person, but in a lot of ways it has more recently evolved to be a brand for everyone. Is that also the goal with Provisions? For these products to be staples in kitchens, not just to be taken on camping trips?

Patagonia is known as an outdoor company, so it's a natural place for people to say, well, then it must be outdoor food. But it's so much more than that. We need good, nutritious food. We need to feed our families in the healthiest way possible. We really wanted to make sure that the impact could be there by having a wider offering because food agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to the climate issues we're facing today.

In the past couple of years, tinned fish has become a really trendy food. There's a new cookbook that's coming out about it, there are all kinds of boutiques that are selling it. Tinned fish is a huge part of Provisions' products. How is the trend impacting that?

It was never really [our intention] to [sell it] because it's a trend, but more because we are saying, "Eat the bait; eat the smaller, more abundant fish." Why do we always default to tuna? There are these amazing, yummy, delicious mackerel and Spanish white anchovies and mussels. Mussels have a lower footprint than a lot of vegan foods. We add things like lemons and capers and garlic and sofrito.

How do you develop these recipes? Are you working with chefs? Is there an in-house test kitchen?

We have an in-house test kitchen. We have chefs. One of the Patagonia chefs, Tracy On, she's involved a lot. I myself am directing and bringing different aspects to the development of the product. Yvon [Chouinard, founder of Patagonia] has always been very vocal how things could taste and what we could do here or there. He loves to cook; he's an amazing cook himself. And then we have food science involved, and then we work with facilities that are really good at what they do as well. So it's this collaborative effort — from chefs to founders to myself to others in the organization that really create the final product. It's fun!

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The Trick to Harvesting the Most Delicious Seaweed in the Ocean

Posted: 15 Jun 2022 07:00 AM PDT

Song Cheol Soo believes gamtae is the most difficult thing to harvest in the ocean.

Song Cheol Soo and his daughter Song Joo Jyun harvest gamtae, a special Korean seaweed, in the Garorim Bay in South Korea.

"It's the best quality here. First, because it's not polluted, it produces high quality gamtae," says Song. "Also, the water in the Garorim Bay is deeper than other places."

He says that gamtae, known for its scent of the ocean and unique savory flavor, is quite possibly the most difficult thing to harvest in the sea, and that's where the value comes from.

"The water comes in and out twice a day. You need a good mudflat to yield good gamtae," says Song.

Due to the fact that it is a wild plant, the supply is unpredictable. Song follows the lunar calendar to learn the ebb and flow of the ocean to determine when good times to harvest gamtae are. He knows what time and date the water comes in.

"The weather decides whether it's a good year or a bad year," says Song.

Once it's harvested, Song and his team wash and clean the product before making around 400 to 500 sheets of it per day to be roasted and shipped out. Their goal is to spread the word about gamtae and make it more popular worldwide.

"When it comes to gamtae, one thing I take pride in is, even though we didn't make a fortune, we are the greatest contributor who brought gamtae to the forefront and commercialized it," says Song. "I hope it will be widely known to the world."

Watch the full video to see how the two sell their product to chefs, and why more and more chefs are putting it on their menus.

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