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Butter & Garlic:
The Sweet Story of Two Favorites
Food writer Diane Weintraub Pohl, ICE® culinary graduate ’02,
is a contributing writer at Westchester magazine and freelances
for other publications, including The New York Times. We’re
pleased to have this savory contribution from her.
Some
foods we like, some we love, some we crave. Butter and
garlic belong to the latter, and we’re not the
only ones who have thought so. Odes to garlic’s vitalizing
powers are carved into the Giza pyramids. The Romans ate
it for courage as they strode to conquer the world. Odysseus
gulped down a head or so to escape being turned into a
pig on Circe’s island. And butter has its own virtues.
Abraham had Sarah serve it to the three angels who popped
in for a visit on the plains of Mamre. And ancient Buddhists
likened the 12 steps to refinement to the stages by which
the Asian clarified butter ghee is derived from milk (ghee’s
literal translation is liberation). And while the caramelized
ooze of slow-roasted garlic or the velvet intensity of
a beurre blanc might not signal enlightenment, they come
pretty close. Judging by the pervasive use of the two iconic
ingredients throughout the world, it seems that most cultures
would agree.
About 5 million metric tons of butter are melted,
spread, swirled and kneaded annually around the world,
with India
consuming the most, China and Japan the
least. (In Hindu India, it’s the only animal fat permitted.) France falls
right in the middle, somewhat below the United States. In case you wondered,
ICE®’s stockroom dispenses about 500 pounds of it each week.
Those of
you cringing in saturated fat-induced horror, take note: Himalayan tribesmen
routinely push 110 years thanks to a diet based on butter and yogurt,
and Nepalese Sherpas wouldn’t think of showing up for work without their
stash of yak-butter tea. Of course, their cows and yaks aren’t exposed
to growth hormones and antibiotics, which filter down from American cows’ systems
into ours. But eaten wisely, a little animal fat can be a good thing—much
healthier, studies show, than hydrogenated-oil-laden margarines and spreads.
And besides, there’s that flavor….
Over 120 different chemical compounds
meld to produce butter’s incomparable
taste and texture. The majority are found in milk fat, which accounts for over
80 percent of the product. Water makes up most of the rest, with a tiny percentage
of curd. Three USDA grades of butter are available: AA, made from high-quality
sweet cream; A, from lesser cream, which can taste slightly acidic; and B,
which can be crumbly and watery and is used mainly in manufacturing.
As with
wine, the concept of “terroir,” the taste imbued by the
earth, pertains to butter. Butter from cows fed on grass will taste different
from that of cows fed on grain. The taste of farmstead butters will change
from one pasture to another, most notably in Brittany, where salt-marsh pastures
produce butter with varying hints of salinity
But butter tinged naturally by
salt-marsh grass is one thing, and butter processed with a salt additive is
another. ICE® chef-instructor Michael Schwartz likens
our salted butter to self-rising flour: a convenience food that has no place
in the professional kitchen, where “ season to taste” is the chef’s
credo. But salted butter’s origins are more ominous.
“
Traditionally,
salt was added to cover up a lack of freshness,” says ICE® chef-instructor
Sabrina Sexton.
So keep it unsalted, but especially, keep it under wraps. Kept
covered in the refrigerator, separate from other foods whose aromas easily
taint its flavor,
butter will serve you long and well. But its downfall in storage is its gift
in cooking. All fats absorb and elevate the flavors they come in contact with,
and in the case of butter, the elevation can be stratospheric. Think of the
pedestrian onion, or, more pertinent to this article, garlic—sautéed
in butter, it becomes rhapsodic (just start your butter in a cool pan to keep
the milk solids from burning).
Butter, with its 120 compounds, and garlic, which
has hundreds more, make a brilliant and enviable marriage. “The richness
of butter plays nicely against the acidity and sweetness of garlic,” ICE®
chef-instructor Ted Siegel points out. “Garlic’s got a lot of natural
sugar and it caramelizes beautifully with butter.”
But like most complex
entities, garlic can be temperamental. Burned, it becomes acrid; left too raw,
its high acid content leaves it sharp and bitter. When
garlic is exposed to heat, size is everything. A fine mince will burn much
more quickly than a coarse cut. “Whether you mince or chop depends on
the length of cooking time and how high the heat is,” Chef Sexton advises.
ICE® alumnus Allison Vines-Rushing crushes it for her popular celery-root soup
at Manhattan’s new Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar, where she is executive
chef. “I cook a whole head of it, peeled and crushed, with celery root
and milk,” she explains. “The garlic gives the soup a depth and
earthiness it otherwise wouldn’t have. ” And all the chefs urge
caution when using it raw. “There’s only a few instances where
I would, and then I use it sparingly,” says Chef Sexton. And never pack
raw peeled garlic away, in oil or otherwise. Botulism is an avid opportunist.
Preparation
impacts garlic’s salubrious results as much as its culinary
ones. Heating it forms compounds that reduce blood pressure and cholesterol.
Crushing it incites an antibacterial frenzy. Our modern laboratories apply
it to cancer and AIDS, as ancient Egyptians did to plague and boils. A papyrus
from 1500 BC recommends it for 22 ailments.
With about 300 garlic types grown
worldwide, that’s very auspicious news.
Categorized as either hardneck (shorter shelf life, wide taste span) or softneck
(easier to grow, hotter taste), garlic comes in a profusion of colors and shapes
that gives flowers a run for their money. Some, like the scarlet-striped Arden
variety from Russia, even look like a flower, a Portofino tulip, to be exact.
Uzbekistan, Spain, Louisiana, Guatemala, China—you name it, they grow
it, and eat it.
And that’s actual cloves, not the processed variations
that Americans often substitute for them. Garlic salt, garlic power, the pre-chopped
stuff
in jars—all are collectively spurned by ICE® instructors. “They
don’t have very good flavor,” asserts Chef Sexton, conceding that
the powder could have use in a dry rub.
So crush it, chop it, slice it—just
eat it, at least one clove a day, health experts suggest. Even cooked still
swaddled in its papery skin, you
can’t keep a good clove down—as long as you remember to remove
the skins before serving, cautions Chef Schwartz. “You don’t want
to give your guests a big, nasty garlic skin to chew on.” But Chef Siegel
has another take. “I would serve the skins on,” he says. “The
guests can squeeze the garlic out themselves and use it as a condiment.” All
swoon at the notion of long-simmered cloves, a caramelized pillow of lush confit. “You
have these little golden chunks that are unbelievable,” Chef Schwartz
muses.
No wonder that 3,000 years ago, the Chinese seasoned a lamb with garlic before
sacrificing it to the gods. Now, if only they had added some rosemary and a
little red wine….
January, 2003
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