Eight Flavors: Black Pepper and White Wine Snow Drops

snowdrop1An 18th century candy made with white pepper, brandy and sugar.

My first book, Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine will be released December 6th, but is available for pre-sale right now. To create the book, I researched the eight most popular flavors in American cooking: black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha. When I dived deep into each of these eight topics, I often found fascinating new information and recipes–some of which didn’t make it into the book. So over the next few months, I’ll be publishing this exclusive content on my blog! If it whets your appetite to read the whole book, make sure to get your own copy here.

In the 21st century, black pepper sits firmly on the savory shelf of our kitchen. We add a twist from our peppers grinders to finish a salad, or crust the exterior of a thick steak with cracked peppercorns. But as I was researching  Eight Flavors I discovered pepper was used to complement sugar, just as often as it was used with salt.

Last week, I got the chance to do some of my first public speaking engagements in California, including a visit to the Dallidet Adobe in San Luis Obispo, California. As part of my talk, I made “pepper-cakes” from the 18th century, a simple candy made of pepper, alcohol and sugar. Easy enough to make, with an intense, but pleasant flavor.

 

The History

An early American reference to pepper used in sweets is found in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747 in England. This book was an extremely popular import to America, and also went through several domestic printings, with an added chapter on the use of American ingredients. In the first American edition in 1805, Glasse uses pepper in her pickles, fish recipes, and in many, but not all, of her meat recipes, often in combination with nutmeg, mace, cloves, parsley, savory, and thyme.

But tucked in next to recipes for cookies and gingerbread is this recipe:

To make pepper cakes.

Take half a gill of sack, half a quarter of an ounce of whole white-pepper, put it in, and boil it together a quarter of an hour; then take the pepper out, and put in as much double refined sugar as will make it like a paste; then drop it in what shape you please on plates, and let it dry itself.

The recipe is more of a candy than a cake: brandy is infused with pepper, mixed with sugar and left to dry. Sack is an old word for brandy, and a gill is a measurement of four ounces. So this recipes calls for 1/8 ounce white pepper, boiled for 15 minutes in 2 ounces (1/4 cup) of brandy. I suspect Glasse choose white pepper so as not to discolor the brandy; white pepper was prized historically because it kept white sauces (or in this case, white candy) looking clean and white. I decided to give this unusual recipe a try.

 

The Recipe

My tiniest saucepan is actually a two-cup measuring cup, perfect for my quarter cup of brandy and smattering of white peppercorns. I set it on my gas burner, and turned the flame up to high to bring the liquid to a hard boil. But after about two minutes of heating–it ignited!! A jet of flames leapt an impressive three feet into the air, flickering blue and gold, almost igniting my eyebrows in the process. Oops. I wonder why Hannah Glasse didn’t warn me about that?

Rather than smothering the flames, I turned off the burner and let it do its thing. The flames would burn off the alcohol, as well as infuse the aromatic oils from the pepper. It burned itself out in a couple minutes, and I strained the brandy into a glass bowl.

At this point, the smell of the white pepper infused brandy was very strong: musty, like old attic books. I added 1 ½ cups white sugar and mixed it into a paste. Glasse says  “drop it in what shape you please on plates,” so I used a mini ice cream scoop that I normally employ for doling out cookie dough. I shoveled tiny mounds of pale, cognac-colored sugar onto parchment-lined baking sheets, and set them aside to dry.

 

The Results

peppercandy2

The next morning, the little sugar balls were crusty and shockingly beautiful. Since the sugar is not cooked, the candy isn’t hard and smooth; instead, it’s crisp, crumbly, and sparkly! It looked like the top layer of snow: slightly melted, glistening in the sunshine. These simple treats were breathtakingly beautiful.

But tasted terrible.

I popped one in my mouth. Imagine the taste of musk. Something musky. White pepper is awful. It’s awful.

I hated the taste but loved the concept of this candy. So a couple quick substitutions, and I had made a vast improvement: instead of brandy, I used a sweet white wine. To replace the white pepper, classic Tellicherry black peppercorns offered a complex and surprisingly pleasant flavor.

Give this candy a try for a unique treat and what will seem like a  totally innovative way to use pepper– that’s actually over 200 years old.

 

White Wine and Black Pepper Snow Drops
Adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, by Hannah Glasse, 1805 edition.

¼ cup sweet white wine
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 ½ cups white sugar

Yield: makes 40-60 candies

  1. Combine wine and pepper in a small saucepan; place on a stove top burner on high. Cover. Boil for five minutes.
  1. Add sugar, stir to combine. Drop into ½ teaspoon sized balls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.
  1. Allow to dry completely. This part of the process can be complicated on a humid day, resulting is a sticky, never-quite-dry candy. If you can, make this candy in the winter, or used a well-airconditioned room.

 

Podcast: The Rise of Chocolate

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Just in time for Halloween, a Masters of Social Gastronomy podcast all about chocolate!

We’ll track the history of chocolate from its roots as an ancient Mesoamerican beverage to its current world-championship status. You’ll learn how a yellow, football-shaped tropical fruit transforms into high-end dark chocolate and what “Mexican Hot Chocolate” actually has in common with what Montezuma drank. Burning questions of modern confectionery will be answered: What’s better, milk or dark? Why does Hershey’s have its own theme park? Is imported European chocolate worth the price? Why does white chocolate suck?

What to do With That Leftover Etrog

citron1This fruit is a etrog. This fruit is a citron.

Last week was the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a harvest festival that also commemorates the 40 years the Jews spent wandering in the desert. The festival centers around the sukkah, a temporary structure that the family “dwells” in over the week of the celebration –primarily eating and sleeping there. As part of this festival, you need “four species” to bless your sukkah: palm, myrtle and willow branches as well as an etrog.

One day, I wanted to figure out what the hell an etrog was. So I googled it, and found this charming article about the “etrog man,” a non-Jewish farmer who grows them in California. To my surprise, I found out that etrog is the Hebrew word for citron.

Ok, what’s a citron? A citron is a member of the citrus family. Instead of eating the pulp, you eat the rind and the pith. It has a lovely scent, distinctly different from any other citrus. Today, it appears in the candy fruit mix for fruit cake and panettone. In 18th and 19th century America, candied citron was folded into all kinds of fancy cakes— we even made a substitute from watermelon rind. And in medieval Middle Eastern cooking, it was used fresh, like in this recipe for Bazmaawurd: chicken, walnuts, fresh herbs and citron rolled up in a lavash.

citron2Dice it up!

So when Sukkot was over, I put out a call for leftover etrogs. The etrog/citrons used ritually are quite expensive–since they have to look perfect and be holy. But much like a Christmas tree, they just get chucked in the garbage when the holiday is done. My boss handed me her used etrog and I took it over to Jill’s – author of The Savage and the Sage–who candies her own citron for homemade panettone. Sweet and tart, my candied citron will simply return to work as a treat for my colleagues.

citron3Citron, candied.

***
Candied Citron

Adapted from Ehow.com by Jill Paradiso

1. Slice citron in half and remove pulp (if it has any). Dice or slice into evenly sized pieces.
2. Add to a medium sized saucepan. Cover citron with water. Bring to boil, lower to simmer and cook 30 minutes.
3. Drain.  To saucepan, add citron, 1 cup sugar and 2 cups water. Cook 30 minutes on medium-low heat.
4. Turn off heat and let citron steep in sugar solution for 1 hour.
5. Drain (reserve sugar solution for other uses). Spread citron on drying rack with baking sheet covered in parchment underneath. Dry 12 hours.
6. Toss in sugar, if desired.

Fall Events: Rationing, Candy History & Funeral Foods!

I’ve got an event in Long Island this Sunday and a Halloween food double header at the Brooklyn Brainery at the end of October!

ration_book4_insideSorry, No Sugar Today
Sunday, September 28th, 2pm
The Long Island Museum, 1200 Route 25A  Stony Brook, NY 11790
Free with museum admission.

Have you ever wondered what rationing during WWII was really like? Promoted as the ultimate patriotic duty for those on the home front, it also represented one of the real drudgeries of the War. Food historian Sarah Lohman explores the challenges that Americans faced throughout WWII as a result of wartime rationing and recreates some favorite wartime recipes to demonstrate necessary ingredient substitutions. She’ll use real ration books from the time, as well as period newspaper articles to explore the ins and outs of the ration system and explain the reasoning behind it. You’ll get to try two types of cakes, a decadent recipe that would have used several months of ration books, and another, frugal recipe that made many substitutions and used few ration points. You can decide which one is best at this fun, hands-on talk.

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candy_corn_blog_bioCandy: From Early History to Halloween
Wednesday, October 29th,  6:30-8pm
Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave. Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
$16 Tickets Available Here!

Isn’t it weird that one day a year it’s appropriate to threaten people into giving you candy? Where did the Halloween tradition come from? And actually, how did we come up with candy in the first place?

In this class, we’ll cover a brief world history of candy, from the botanic roots of sugarcane, to the first processed confections from the Middle East, to the magical candy medicines of medieval Europe. Then, we’ll sort out the origins of Halloween, along with modern myths like the “razor blade in the apple.”

And, what would a talk on candy be without lots and lots of CANDY: historic candy samples will abound to help you learn.

***

Food of the Dead: A Culinary History of Funeral Food
Wednesday, October 29th,  8:30-10:00pm
Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave. Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
$16 Tickets Available Here!

At the end of an early American funeral, participants were often given a cookie: spiced with caraway, and stamped with a special design, they were often kept for years as a memento of the departed.

Although mourning traditions have changed over time, and vary from place to place, what they often have in common is food and drink. From the home parlour to the funeral parlor; from Irish wakes to sitting Shiva, consumption offers comfort in a time of grief.

In this talk we’ll look at the culinary traditions surrounding funerals throughout American history, and we’ll taste beer from Midas’s tomb, funeral cakes, and Mormon funeral potatoes