#98 | A Summery Vegetarian Green Borshch
Alt-Meat Blotter
Hello!
THE INVENTION OF CUISINE
Imagine for a moment the still life of our meals, meat followed by yellow cheese, grapes pale against the blue armor of fish. Imagine a thin woman before bread was invented, playing a harp of wheat in the field. There is a stone, and behind her the bones of the last killed, the black bird on her shoulder that a century later will fly with trained and murderous intent. They are not very hungry because cuisine has not yet been invented. Nor has falconry, nor the science of imagination. All they have is the pure impulse to eat, which is not enough to keep them alive and this little moment before the woman redeems the sprouted seeds at her feet and gathers the olives falling from the trees for her recipes. Imagine. Out in the fields this very moment they are rolling the apples to press, the lamb turns in a regular aura of smoke. See, the woman looks once behind her before picking up the stone, looks back once at the beasts, the trees, that sky above the white stream where small creatures live and die looking upon each other as food.
—Carol Muske-Dukes, from Skylight
We’ve been delivering our latest issue around town, and by the end of the weekend, you should be able to find a copy at your usual pickup spots; but the best way to secure a copy is to subscribe!
Full rack at Rainbow Grocery ☝️
Premiering in this issue is Anna Voloshyna’s new column: Anna’s Ukrainian Kitchen. First up is her recipe for a summery vegetarian borshch (the Ukrainian spelling).
By the way, I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. If you’re new here, welcome to EAT.DRINK.THINK., a newsletter spotlighting seasonal recipes, the latest SF Bay Area food news, poetry, and more!
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from last week’s newsletter was our poll:
Thanks to everyone who participated!
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A Summery Vegetarian Green Borshch from Ukraine: For my first recipe for Edible San Francisco, I wanted to choose a quintessential Ukrainian dish that would set the tone for my column and give a spotlight to the wonderful San Francisco summer produce. For Ukrainians, borshch is not just a dish. It’s a part of our culinary history, a true symbol of Ukrainian hospitality, and a bridge that brings a family together around the table. In Ukraine, we have a saying that every hostess has a unique borshch recipe and that no two borshches taste the same. Meaty red or bright purple borshch is something that most people are accustomed to, but there is also another less familiar version: green borshch, made with tart sorrel, luscious spinach, and chopped hard-boiled egg. With its pale broth and vivid green and yellow inclusions, green borshch looks distinctly different. But like any other borshch, it has a signature sour note and is served with a generous dollop of sour cream and fluffy garlic bread rolls, or pampushky. Get Anna’s recipe: Summery Vegetarian Green Borshch.
Another End Of An Era: Cowgirl Creamery, the renowned Bay Area cheese company known for its iconic Mt. Tam cheese, often described as Brie’s quirky Californian cousin, is closing its last remaining retail store. Founded by Sue Conley and Peggy Smith in 1997, they sold Cowgirl to the Swiss dairy company Emmi and then retired in 2021. The good news is, according to the SF Chronicle, the company’s cheese will still be available at grocers nationwide.
National Farmers Market Week! August 7-13: Visit your neighborhood farmers market this week and support the farmers and producers who play such a vital part in every food community:
“Running a small business can be kind of isolating, but being part of the farmers market has plugged me into a community of food makers and farmers from whom I’ve learned so much. Being part of this world of creative people all dedicated to reinventing the food system, to making it better for us and for the earth—that means a lot to me.” Aruna Lee, Volcano Kimchi
Why Farmers Markets Matter to Local Farmers and Chefs, Foodwise
Wine Bottles Are Not Climate Friendly: As we noted a couple of newsletters ago, glass bottles are at the root of wine’s massive climate change issues. Eric Asimov of the New York Times notes:
Making glass bottles demands an enormous amount of heat and energy, and bottled wine, with all the necessary packing materials to protect the fragile containers, are heavy loads that require lots of fuel to ship. The heavier the bottles, the more fuel burned and the more greenhouse gases produced.
And sadly, most wine bottles are thrown away without being recycled. We dutifully put ours in the blue recycle bin (but what happens to them next is anyone’s guess).
Robert Parker Deep Dive: Parker’s 50-100 point scale for rating wines so dominated wine marketing in the 1990s that it led to the term Parkerization, which described wines that were manipulated with reverse osmosis, juiced with oak extract, colored with “mega purple,” etc., all to appeal to Parker’s preferred taste profile, which were the wines he awarded the highest scores to. But it turns out that Parker was, in fact:
Originally an advocate for lower-intervention winemaking, going so far as to rant at winemakers for daring to filter their wines, in the 1990s Parker began to award high scores to wines, which he tasted blind, that had been manipulated.
And the rest is, as they say, history: Sympathy for the Devil: Robert Parker has long been the wine world’s favorite villain, by John McCarrol in Punch.
“Meh, So basic.” Preeti Mistry on the typical approach to pair Indian food with sweet, fruit-forward wines. Mistry, who is collaborating with J Vineyards & Winery for “Shifting the Lens,” a chef’s residency program featuring a different BIPOC woman as a guest chef each month, wants to “counter the narrative that food and wine pairing is an art that only applies to white, European cuisines—and not to, say, Chinese food or Mexican food or soul food.” KQED
Alt-Meat Blotter:
Cracker Barrel added Impossible sausage to the menu and faced immediate blowback from customers. “Oh Noes … the Cracker Barrel has gone WOKE!!! It really is the end times … The Washington Post
Beyond Meat shares have fallen almost 50% in 2022 as the brand has failed to prosper with some of the world’s biggest restaurant chains, including McDonald’s. Layoffs ensued as analysts say the company is burning through cash. Bloomberg
Helena Bottemiller Evich’s new food policy newsletter (we highly recommend subscribing) notes: “Beyond Meat is arguably the biggest name in the space, and its struggles to catch on with customers and investors alike could spell trouble for the broader plant-based meat movement.” Food Fix
Related: Why we love to eat animals but hate to think about what it means. Vox
Calling All Cookbook Fiends:
(Disclosure: Omnivore Books is an Edible SF advertiser)
In Sausage News: A French scientist apologized after tweeting a photo of a slice of chorizo, claiming it was an image of a distant star taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Via CNN:
EAT. DRINK. THINK. AUGUST 2022: From Edible SF, the playlist on Tidal that we listen to while cooking dinner every night. New tracks from Vieux Farka Toure with Khruangbin, Your Grandparents, Cool Calm Pete, Amanda Shires, Madison McFerrin, and a yodeling tune from the A's!
That’s all for this week.
We’re outta here. Be well and take care,
–Bruce
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"Despite its artistic intentions and its many accomplishments, humankind owes its existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains." —Anonymous