Marlene Parrish - What Einstein Told His Cook 2

(A historical note: Although the New World’s capsicum peppers found favor here and there in Europe after Columbus brought them back, it was the Hungarians who picked up the ball and ran with it. Still renowned today for their use of paprika, they reputedly adopted it when King Carlos V of Spain sent some pimentón to his sister, Queen Mary of Hungary, who thought it was great stuff and spread the word. Hungarian paprika doesn’t have the rich, musky flavor of pimentón , however, because its peppers are dried without smoke.)

Inevitably, much of a commercial smokehouse’s smoke eventually finds its way up the stack to pollute the atmosphere. And in today’s environmentally conscious society, where there’s smoke there’s ire. Liquid smoke to the rescue!

To make it, one first generates real smoke by burning moist hardwood chips or sawdust. The moisture partially deprives the fire of oxygen to ensure maximum smokiness. The smoke is then blown at chilled condensers, where many of its chemical components (hundreds of different chemicals have been identified in wood smoke) condense to a brown liquid, which is then purified to remove undesirable—and toxic—components. What remains is usually mixed into acetic acid (vinegar) and can be added in that form to your barbecue sauce.

The FDA doesn’t permit a food to be labeled “smoked” unless it has been exposed directly to real smoke from burning wood. Read the label on the package of your favorite hot dogs; some are only “smoke flavored” by having been sprayed with or dipped in liquid smoke.

Now, you have undoubtedly been unable to forget what I said earlier about smoke’s having toxic components, and you’re wondering whether liquid-smoke-flavored foods are safe. Well, what should I say?

Nightmare scenario: I say they’re safe. You eat some and get a headache. An opportunistic lawyer tells you, “You have a case.” He sues me and the food company, stuffs a jury box with migraine sufferers, and wins a $2 million settlement from the company plus $500 from my threadbare writer’s pockets. He takes $1.5 million for himself and runs off after another ambulance, while after paying court costs you’re left with the price of a bottle of aspirin.

So should I say that smoked foods are safe? Okay, I’ll take the plunge.

Yes, the smoke chemicals in purified liquid smoke are safe in the small amounts you’ll encounter in smoke-flavored foods. So sayeth the FDA. Sue them.

Real, gaseous smoke, however, can be quite another story. The decomposition of wood (and tobacco and grilled steaks and hamburgers) by intense heat, a process called pyrolysis , can produce highly carcinogenic 3,4-benzopyrene and other so-called polycyclic aromatics (PCA’s). But none of these chemicals has been found in commercial, purified liquid-smoke products. On the other hand, liquid smoke, like its gaseous parent, contains bactericidal and antioxidant chemicals, such as formic acid and phenolics, that may even make a positive contribution to your health.

THE RIGHT STUFF

A friend who owns a Japanese restaurant told me that the green paste you get in restaurants (including his) isn’t real wasabi, but only a green-tinted horseradish. Was he making excuses?

Nope, he was serving you the real scoop, if not the real stuff. I, too, have a friend who owns a Japanese restaurant, and he confided the same to me.

Most Americans who order sushi in a Japanese restaurant will recognize the condiments on the platter. One is a tangle of thin slices of pickled ginger, intended for palate-cleansing between bites, and the other is a glob of fiery green “wasabi.” Genuine ginger, yes, but real wasabi, probably not. Most people outside of Japan have never tasted real wasabi.

So what is that ball of green paste on your plate at the local sushi bar? It’s a blend of horseradish, mustard, cornstarch, and yellow and blue dyes, packaged as a dry powder to be made into a thick paste with water. Put more than a dab on your tongue and the incendiary stuff will clean your sinuses, make your eyes water, and nearly take your head off. The experience of real wasabi, on the other hand, is surprisingly refined.

True wasabi is a green-hued underground stem, or rhizome, known botanically as Wasabia japonica or Eutrema japonica , among other names. And it’s not pretty. Long, stringy roots grow out of its sides, and even when cleaned up, it looks like a knobby sweet potato on a bad hair day. Wasabi is extremely hard to grow, requiring highly specialized conditions in icy waters, and there are only about five growers worldwide. It costs anywhere from $20 to $80 a pound wholesale and about $100 a pound retail. That’s why it’s rare to find the real thing outside of Japan.

But I was lucky enough to find some.

Andy Kikuyama, owner of KIKU, a Japanese restaurant in Pittsburgh, set up a taste comparison for Marlene and me. He placed two tiny saucers on the table. In the one on the left, a knob of the familiar bluish-green impostor. In the one on the right, a knob of pale yellowish-green, genuine wasabi. It was hard to tell them apart by their appearance.

With a chopstick, we picked up a tiny bit from the familiar mock wasabi in the left-hand dish and placed it on our tongues. The texture was a bit gritty and chalky, and the experience was one of intense heat, with no flavor to speak of.

Next, we tried the real thing. The texture was that of a finely grated vegetable. The taste was slightly nutty, slightly sweet. The heat was instant and bright, more of a brief kick than the long burn of chili peppers; it subsided into a very pleasant, mild vegetable flavor that even people normally averse to hot food might enjoy.

“Americans use much more ‘wasabi’ than the Japanese do. They seem to want punch, not subtlety,” Andy says. “We keep both kinds in the restaurant, but we always serve the real wasabi with white sashimi—thin slices of raw fish eaten as is, usually yellowtail, snapper, and flounder. When there are many flavors in a dish, such as in cold soba noodles or intricate forms of sushi, we serve the horseradish type, because when mixed with soy sauce the subtlety of the real wasabi is wasted.” He added that wasabi is never used in cooking because it loses its flavor when heated. (I explained that isothiocyanates, the pungent chemicals in wasabi, are thermally unstable, but I’m not sure Marlene and Andy were listening.)

Until a few years ago, all true wasabi came from a small number of growers in Japan. But now an American company, Pacific Farms, in Florence, Oregon (http://www.freshwasabi.com), grows the real thing and markets it in paste form.

GRATE AND NOT SO GREAT

It is a tradition in our house for my husband to grate horseradish (the traditional bitter herb) for our Passover seder. He usually makes a lot, enduring burning eyes and sinuses to prepare that delightful condiment. However, the leftovers lose their potency and become quite mild after a couple of days. How can we keep it spicy and potent for the whole eight days of Passover, instead of shredding the root daily?

The pungent and tear-producing (lachrymatory) compound in the essential oil of grated horseradish is allyl isothiocyanate , commonly known as mustard oil. (It’s in black mustard seeds also.) It is created when the plant cells are cut apart by the grating, which releases an enzyme called myrosin and a compound called sinigrin. These two chemicals were previously isolated from each other in different parts of the cells, but when released together in the presence of water, they react to form the allyl isothiocyanate.

Once the oil has been produced, it begins to vaporize, releasing its strong vapors into the air. The vapor, however, is not very stable and dissipates after ten or twenty minutes.