Deep Food Immersion in San Fran’s Chinatown

Three of the things you must have to explore San Fran’s Chinatown are an empty stomach, an open mind, and billy goat calves.  Although the main drag is relatively flat, all streets leading to it are sloped.  Some of the steepest streets in San Francisco trapse through Chinatown.  It’s truly a testament to health and longevity to see 70 year old Chinese-American women carrying produce from markets uphill to their apartments, and passing your huffing-and-puffing self. 

It had been twenty eight years since I had last been in San Fran’s Chinatown.  The last time was my senior year in college with a bunch of friends to the nerdiest of conventions – the American Institute of Chemical Engineers National Convention. The Uni paid for it, or should I say supplemented the balance from what we made from a raffle of gift certificates we solicited from Clifton restaurants like Lenhardt’s, Skyline, and Adriatico’s Pizza.   All of us poor students saw it as a free vacation and we had a blast.

This time my visit was the front bookend to a wine weekend in Sonoma, Napa, and the Russian River.   Staying in Oakland the first day of the trip, we took the ferry to San Francisco and walked from the wharf up to the steep hills of Chinatown.    San Fran’s and NYC’s Chinatowns are the most famous of the many in the U.S.    But San Fran’s is the oldest, having been founded in 1848.   The Chinese immigrants who founded it came during the height of the Gold Rush to provide cheap labor for the Trans-Continental Pacific Railroad.    Then when the Panic of 1873 was blamed on the Chinese immigrant community, their Chinatown communities became strengthened as they banded together to lend support to each other.  Its not so different than the last several years of anti-Asian violence throughout America, instigated by tropes of our former crazy Executive in Chief.

The Transcontinental Railroad had been one of my grade school history projects, but I had not commented on how the railroad gave us Chinatowns and later Chinese food that are now ingrained in American culture.       The hotel where John Wilkes Booth stayed before murdering President Lincoln is now a Chinese restaurant in D.C.’s Chinatown.

Unknown photographer; Surviving Central Pacific Chinamen, Wong Fook, Lee Chao, Ging Cui, 1919; Gelatin silver print; Amon Carter Museum of American Art Archives, Fort Worth, Texas;

So, I was excited to dive in and explore the food and culture of this wonderful neighborhood.  In addition to the food, I love the décor and architecture.   The Dragon Gate at its entrance beckons travelers to explore the exotic borough.  Banks look like Buddhist and Shinto temples, with gold decorated carved columns and pagoda roofs.    On the main drag are row after row of red Chinese lanterns that drape across the street.   And, there are beautiful metal dragon electric streetlights.   Dispersed throughout painted on buildings are fantastic murals promoting the culture of Chinatown.

One of the first ‘exotic’ Asian dishes the Chinese brought to America was chop suey.    It was actually an adaptation of a common dish of stir fried meat and veggies served in a sauce.     When the Cantonese immigration in the 1880s brought small immigrant communities to Midwest cities like Cincinnati, their Chop Suey houses were usually placed in alleyways in the not-so-nice poorer neighborhoods of the cities.   It wasn’t until Chinese immigrant restauranteurs like Cincinnati’s Wong Yie saw the potential of their ‘exotic’ food and atmosphere and amped it up, giving Americans the new experience they were seeking.    And then even later when Trader Vic made Crab Rangoon and tiki culture popular, the modern American Chinese restaurant that we’re familiar with today, was born.

There are so many tea shops and noodle or dumpling places in Chinatown, it’s hard not to stumble into one.   And any of them are fantastic.   Two of our goals for this immersion were to find the Chinese bakeries and sample some sweets, and to House of Xian Dumplings, which apparently has a huge cult following.

On the way, we stopped in several tea shops, one of which specialized in dried sea cucumber.   That shop must have had tens of thousands in large glass pickle jars lining every square inch of shelf space.   Although the sea cucumber is considered the highest of delicacies in China, I’ve had it at a banquet for Chinese customers of mine, and the texture and flavor are not for me!

We found the oldest Chinese bakery in the hood, called Eastern Bakery, which was opened in 1924 by the Lee family and is now owned by the Orlando Kuan family, who opened Golden Gate Bakery in Chinatown in 1976.  They only take cash, and have a variety of specialty items.  The first that they promote are the Dan Tat or the sweet custard tarts with the nearly neon yellow-orange filling.    Second is their sweet sesame ball with black bean filling.   The third dish is their lotus moon cake with lotus paste made in house.   And finally, is probably their most famous item, a crunchy cookie branded Smackles, which are called Ngo Yi in Chinese, which translates to Cow Ears.     They’re a super crispy slightly savory cookie that would most certainly go well with any green or plum tea you can find in any Chinatown tea shop.   Another signature dish is their Coffee Crumble cake, which descends from another famous San Fran bakery icon, Blums, which is also where Cincinnati’s Mecklenburg Mocha Cream pie hails from.

Also, infiltrating Chinatown is a street food dessert from Hong Kong called either egg waffles or egg puffs, depending on which place you choose to eat them.   They’re sheets of sweet waffle/crepe batter that look like oversized bubble wrap and come with a scoop of coconut or bandan-flavored ice cream and a scoop of sweet bean paste.

Finally we found the dumpling place, but decided instead to eat next door at another Chinatown icon, Peter Fang’s House of Nanking, which was packed with outside diners.      They have one of the best wonton soups I’d ever had – a yellow creamy broth with a dried shrimp seafoody taste and tender wontons.   It’s served in a flame-heated terrine for two or more.    We also had to try Mr. Fang’s famous pork belly buns and then the sesame chicken with paper thin sliced sweet potatoes and crunchy Chinese squash.   It was all supremely delicious.

We could have had dessert there but instead decided to cross the street to Café Zoetrope, the café in an historic flat iron building at the edge of Chinatown owned by director Francis Ford Coppola.     F. F and his wife Eleanor bought the vineyards of Finnish sea captain Gustave Niebaum in Geyersville in Sonoma County in 1975 and started making Francis Ford Coppola wines.   Accompanied by the best Italian service and the best limoncello and aperol spritz we dove head first into the best tiramisu I’ve ever had, a fitting, sweet, and boozy end to a great day in Chinatown.

Cincinnati Confectioners and Bakers Try to Out-Barbie Each Other

In the Bicentenial, the year my sister was born, my brother won a Barbie cake at school on a 2 cent chance for a Valentine’s Day raffle.   He carried the cake home on the bus from Corpus Christi Catholic School and my mom documented the occasion with a great photo of me and him smiling widely before we devored the bell shaped dress of white cake donned in pink icing and chewy red heart candies.    It was a foreboding of the Barbiness my sister would bring into our family with her Barbie dreamhouse, Barbie convertible, and finally her creepy Barbie head makeup station, which of course my brother and I littered with graffiti.

And in our house, Barbie dated both Ken and G.I. Joe, who all lived at my sister’s Barbie dream house.  It was a very woke throuple sort of arrangement.

This weekend is the premier of the new Barbie movie and Cincinnati is abuzz in Barbie-mania.   One of my nieces is doing the Barenheimer thing – her group of friends will be seeing the movies Barbie and Oppenheimer in succession.  The Tyler Davidson fountain has gone pink to celebrate.    And, confectioners, ice creamers and bakeries all over the city are trying to out-do each other with Barbie offerings.   It’s a Barbie World in Cincinnati.

It’s clear Barbie doesn’t eat dessert. Last weekend CNN reported that based on Barbie’s physical dimensions, her BMI falls into the anorexic range. Because of that, they also reported, if Barbie were human she would likely not menstruate. But despite that report, the confectionery industry is going gaga for special limited time offerings.

Let’s start with the BonBonnerie, who never misses a chance to lean into a special event. They will be offering  Barbie themed cutout cookies, whoopie pies, double fudge brownies and cupcakes to help you celebrate! They’ll be available today and Saturday only and the last day to order was last Wednesday by noon. They also have a Barbie Box, selling for $30 for 2 of each cookie – the vintage star sunglasses, zebra striped bathing suit and the pink high heels.

Schneider’s in Bellevue is offering  limited time Homemade Barbie Ice Cream made with Pink Cake Batter with Sprinkles.  You can also stop in one of the Bellevue businesses and get your photo taken inside a life sized Barbie box frame.

Busken is all in, making pink Barbie silhouette cupcakes and heart shaped cakes, and printed Barbie photos laid  on their famous almond shortbread cookies.

Second Place Bar in Northside on Spring Grove Avenue is offering a Barbie’s Berries and Cream slush until supplies run out.   It’s crafted with Strawberry Purée, Vodka, Vanilla, Whipped Cream, Edible Glitter, Barbie Head, and Gummy Bears.  How many Barbies were decapitated for this drink run is anyone’s guess.    Take the Cake Bakery in Northside used to offer creepy Ken and Barbie Halloween Cakes back in the day that were macabre and fabulous.

The pink covered interior of Aglamesis Ice Cream in Oakley is the perfect setting for a Malibu Barbie Freeze or a Barbie A La Mode. The Aglamesis family promises that these sweet creations will have you feeling fantastic.   Oddly, Graeter’s is not leaning in and has no special Barbie flavored ice cream or special sundaes.

The Pinkberry frozen yogurt franchise is hawking its new limited-time flavor, Barbie Land Berry Pink, which is currently available in participating stores and will stay on Pinkberry menus until August 11. Barbie Land Berry Pink is a tart frozen yogurt that blends the flavors of dragonfruit and strawberry in a swirl.

Burger King Brazil is all in.  This week they unveiled a Barbie-themed meal. The feature of the BK Barbie Combo is a cheeseburger with bacon bits and a smoky-flavored bright-pink sauce, The combo also includes a vanilla milkshake tinted pink with strawberry Nesquik powder, and Burger King tops off the milkshake’s straw with a pink frosted donut.

Ken is not left out of the Brazilian BK combo. “Ken’s potatoes,” which are just regular fries, complete the meal deal. But Americans who want to try the combo, they’re out of luck, CNBC says – U.S. Burger Kings will not have the Barbie-Ken promotion.  

To my knowledge no Cincinnati chili parlor has dyed their spaghetti pink for a Barbie Threeway.   But they should – Food Etymologist approved.

Hannah Weinberger, The Winemaker from Cincinnati Who Won the First International Wine Medal

In Cincinnati, we hear about all the male winemakers, but rarely do we hear of the female winemakers.    Nicholas Longworth does mention in his writings that the German wives of his vineyardists worked as hard or harder than their husbands in his vineyards.

One Cincinnati woman who has eluded history is Hannah Rabbe Weinberger.    She is celebrated as the first female winemaker in the Napa Valley.  Hannah was born Hannah Elizabeth Rabbe  on October 7, 1840 in New Albany, Indiana, but was living in Cincinnati, when she met and married John Christian Weinberger, born July 13, 1830, in Weissenburg, Bavaria, where he had apprenticed in the confectionery trade.   

John had emigrated to America in 1848. He first learned the wine trade working at Nicholas Longworth Vineyards in Cincinnati.   In 1869, John bought property in St. Helena from Charles and Carolina Krug for only $3,000.   After marrying Hannah, they moved west to California where John excelled as a wine producer in St. Helena. He also became president of the local Bank of St. Helena and was known as a close friend to two other German wine pioneers in Napa; Jacob Beringer of Beringer Vineyards and Jacob Schram of Schramsberg.  

Weinberger, Beringer, and Schram were probably friends through the German societies founded by immigrants in St. Helena, namely the St. Helena Turn Verein Society founded in 1881 with 30 members, eventually growing to over 100. Presidents have been Fritz Beringer, Carl Heymann, Max Schuneman, Heinrich Kirchweger, W.W. Lyman, Louis Zierngibl, Heinrich Rammers, Henry Lange,  and Baron Von They built their Turnhall in 1885 on Main Street (Lyman Park today).   And, in 1891 Sept 12-14 St. Helena Turn Verein organized the first Vintners Festival. Leaders were Fritz, Jacob, Karl Krug, John Thomann, Henry Lange, Conrad Meyer, Louis Zierngibl. The key note speaker was Fritz Beringer, once the president of the Arion Society of New York (German-American musical society founded in 1854), who spoke in German. Lunch for 500 was served and all the prominent German societies of Northern California were invited.

JC and Hannah settled in the Napa Valley in what would become the town of  St. Helena. On their 240-acre estate, they built the J.C. Weinberger Winery in 1876. The town had recently grown significantly and that same year it was incorporated. In the 1870s hundreds of people settled in the area and started vineyards,   The J.C. Weinberger Winery was said to have the first stone wine cellar in the area. The winery was capable of producing about 70,000 gallons of wine and it also produced grape syrup. Weinberger was one of the first to experiment with converting grape juice to syrup, which they sold.  This syrup product was probably a result of John’s background in confectionery.

At the time, the JC Weinberger wines were considered equals to those of Beringer and Schram. The Weinberger brand and story are only forgotten today due to John’s tragic death in 1882, when he was gunned down in broad daylight on the platform of the St. Helena railroad station by a disgruntled employee.

Tragedy struck when on March 21, 1882, J.C. Weinberger was shot and killed. He was lured to his death by a trick telegram sent by a disgruntled former employee named William J. Gau. Gau had made advances on J.C. and Hannah’s daughter and J.C. had subsequently fired him. Gau then sent a telegram to J.C. pretending to be a friend, asking J.C. to meet at the train station. When J.C. arrived on the platform, Gau shot him twice in the head. Gau then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. The event became infamous in St. Helena and across Napa Valley. It’s remembered as the first recorded homicide in the town, and was on the front page of the The Napa County Recorder.

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Upon John’s death, Hannah took over running the winery. She also assumed John’s post as head of the bank. Hannah quickly established a national presence for her wines and successfully marketed them in major cities including St Louis, Cincinnati, and New York.

At that time, land and business ownership were seen as almost exclusively male roles. Women still weren’t allowed to vote nationally  and were discouraged from holding professional responsibilities, let alone running or owning businesses. The winery flourished under her management. In 1889, production expanded to 100,000 gallons of wine and  5,000 gallons of brandy.

 In 1889 her Cabernet Sauvignon , which was chosen by George Hussman, living in Napa at the time, was entered in the Paris World Expo. It won a silver medal, making her the first woman winemaker from the United States to be given an award on the world stage.

Hannah’s winery remained prosperous until 1920 when it was forced to close due to Prohibition.   She had run the operation for 38 years.  Her husband had only run it for six years.  After her death at age ninety-one, the property was parceled away to its existing 5 acres.

The property remained vacant until 1938, when the Harrison family of San Francisco purchased the estate. They commissioned famed architect Bourn Hayne to convert the top two levels of the dilapidated gravity-flow winery into a summer residence. In 1956, the Gonser family purchased the property and used it as a summer home until 1999 when William and Jane Ballentine bought the home and had it listed on the National Historic Register.

Today Hannah Weinberg’s vineyards are part of the William Cole winery holdings across Highway 29 from the Markham winery.  An 1889 ledger from Wines and Vines of California, noted Hannah Weinberger, along with 17 other women, on their list of cellar masters and vineyardists.  Hannah’s  award and the publicity that went with it helped to change minds within the world of wine regarding the value and quality of the burgeoning California wine industry.    

In Search of Wine and Norton Grape Pioneer George Husmann In Napa Valley

I finally planned a trip to California Wine Country, nearly three years after releasing my book Cincinnati Wine.    On the trip bucket list was to find the traces of George Husmann, the North German immigrant Grandfather of the Missouri and Napa Valley Wine Industries and of the Norton Grape in America.     I had written about his feud with Cincinnati Wine Baron Nicholas Longworth who badmouthed the Norton grape saying it was less prolific than the Catawba (the grape he and many Cincinnati wine barons leaned heavily into) and that it made an inferior wine.  The year of his death in 1863, Longworth reconsidered his statement and wrote to Husmann to obtain some Norton vines.   It appears Longworth’s winemaker who used the Norton had picked it too early and the berries had not ripened enough to make a good wine.

Husmann knew that the Norton was hardier than the Catawba in Midwest vineyards and made a fantastically unique red wine that is still made and lauded by a cult following today.   The Norton is the state grape of Missouri.  He had obtained Catawba, Isabella, and Norton vines from Cincinnati and built on that science and knowledge when he moved to Napa Valley, California.

I was part of the Norton harvest of Norton Grapes at St Clair Vineyards in Clermont County, Ohio last September. I made my own Norton wine and the rest went to the Norton being made by Skeleton Root in Over the Rhine.

It was a variety of circumstances that led Husmann toward a future in California, where he took the wine knowledge he had acquired from Cincinnati wine barons and acquired by his own experience in Missouri.   One of those circumstances was the tragic death of his 8-year-old son, Charlie, who was accidentally shot by a teenage boy. Adding to this grief was dissatisfaction with his role at Mizzou (a wine co-op in Missouri) and a sense that he was underappreciated by the Missouri wine industry. In contrast, California growers and winemakers had great interest in one of Husmann’s particular areas of expertise: Phylloxera.

Because their vineyards were full of vinifera vines, the same louse from which Husmann had helped to save France just a few years earlier, was also a problem in California vineyards. A few bold California growers had purchased Phylloxera-resistant rootstocks from Husmann’s Sedalia nursery, as the French growers had done, and now his knowledge was in high demand. This combination of push and pull factors led Husmann in September of 1881 to move to Napa Valley, California.

Sadly, even though Husmann played a pivotal role in saving the European rootstocks, his German name is not listed on the monument in Montpelier, France,  which praises other American vineyardists who sent phylloxera mite resistant rootstocks to save the European wine industry.  There was still a lot of Franco-Germanic hatred from the Franco Prussian War and his German sounding name probably brought up those feelings.

James Simonton, one of the early buyers of Husmann’s  phylloxera resistant rootstock, took Husmann on as manager of his 2,200-acre Talcoa Ranch. During a five-year stint at Talcoa Ranch, Husmann wrote his 1883 book, American Grape Growing and Winemaking. With Several Added Chapters on the Grape Industries of California.

While at Talcoa, Husmann grew and sold seedlings of phylloxera resistant American natives Norton, Cynthiana, Ripara, Elvira, Taylor, Clinton, Missouri, Uhland, Lenoir, and Herbemont.     He also sold phylloxera mite resistant European vinifera vines of Zinfandel, Queen Victoria, Chasselas, Black Burgundy and others. 

In 1884, Husmann and two of his sons, George and Fred, bought land in the Chiles Valley which would become the site of Oak Glen Winery and leased it. In Hermann, Missouri, there is a winery named Oak Glenn in honor of Husmann’s California vineyard. 

The move to Napa was a wise move for Husmann.   His career and influence continued to grow. In 1886, he was appointed the State Statistical Agent for California. During his tenure he wrote his third and final book, Grape Culture and Wine Making in California. During that time, he also attended the first National Viticultural Convention in Washington, D.C., which chose California wines to send to the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris (winning California 34 awards), and served as a delegate for the California wine industry to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

While living on the Talcoa property in 1883 Husmann wrote, “I do not fancy so called sweet wines or liquor wines such as angelica, port and sherry, and while they can no doubt also be made in Napa and Sonoma counties, and are made (by such as Korbel near Russian River and winemakers like Weinberger in St. Helena was making), I think that our climate and soil are especially adapted to furnish fine light wines, hocks, and sauternes and clarets (with Norton and Cynthiana).   These I believe, will yet furnish as fine a quality as any country, if the proper skill and care is applied to their manufacture, and we may as well eave the making of sweet wines to the southern portion of the state, where the climate is adapted to them.”

The property that used to be Talcoa Vineyards, is now Hudson Ranch Vineyards, owned by Lee Hudson.   The majority of their wines are Chardonnay, but they also make Grenache and Merlot.  Unfortunately, when I tried to set up a tour of the vineyards, the young event planners had no idea who George Husmann was and his significant connection to the property.   I cancelled my tour.

In 1887, Husmann left Talcoa vineyards and moved to his own property, Oak Glenn in the Chiles Valley of Napa County, north of Talcoa.   He quickly built a stone barn-house-wine cellar in the same style as the one he had built in Hermann, Missouri, in 1865 on his winery.    Here he grew his Norton, and experimented with other varietals including the one cultivated by Texas viticulturist Munson, and named Husmann in his honor.   

So I tried to find if any remnants of the Oak Glenn property were standing and what winery existed on the land today.

I found that this property was part of approximately 800 acres Louis P Martini purchased in 1968 from Henry Chiles, the grandson of Chiles Valley namesake, Joseph Chiles.  He called the entire property Ghost Pines.  In 2002 Louis M Martini sold his winery to the Gallo Family.   Louis’ granddaughter Carolyn Martini and her family kept an approximately 200 acre rectangular piece of land in Chiles Valley, site of their own home (the ‘castle’) and also 33 acres of vineyards.   Then Carolyn renamed their remaining parcel to High Valley Vineyards in homage of the High Valley Schoolhouse which was located on the property in the 1880s.  

Louis P Martini initially experimented with growing a number of grapes on the property, eventually reaching the decision that Cabernet Sauvignon grew particularly well here. Today the property is primarily planted to Cabernet Sauvignon with smaller sections of other Bordeaux red varieties. The vines are managed by Martini family friend Mark Oberschulte, president of  T & M Agricultural Services, a vineyard management company.

According to Carolyn, her father Louis P recalls remnants of the old winery when he purchased the property in 1968 and years later, he used to refer to it as, “a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark” in reference to all the rattlesnakes that lived here. Soon after his purchase he cleared out the remnants of the old building and the site of Husmann’s winery is now a shallow water storage pond for irrigation use in the vineyards.   Unfortunately there are no grapes being grown on the property today.

George Husmann’s son, George Charles Husmann also played an important role in Napa Valley’s viticultural history; the hallowed ground of To Kalon Vineyard in Oakville is where Husmann conducted a variety of grape experiments in the early 1900s, assisted by others including his brother Fred. George senior’s sons also owned a small cooper in Rutherford; a Napa Valley Register article dated December 1, 1893, references the Husmann Bros’ Cooper Shop and one special 32-stave miniature barrel made of walnut and maple holding, “some of Napa Valley’s choicest wine”

Husmann’s other son Fred made his career as a viticulturist in California and also worked as a Viticultural Superintendent in the USDA.

Even the Husmann’s family home in downtown Napa City on the corner of Second and Seminary is no longer standing.

The only thing that remains of George Husman is his burial stone at the Tulocay Cemetery in Napa Valley.  He died in his own bed at his downtown Napa Victorian home in 1902.    So I made a pilgrimage and found the beautiful plot near the entrance to the hilly cemetery.  It’s a beautiful stone with a winding grapevine on the side under the shade of an ancient tree.

Today, there are no California Norton wines being produced and many in the industry are not familiar with George Husmann and the viticultural science he contributed to the development of one of our nation’s most popular wine regions.

The Cult of Southwest’s Brownie Brittle

If you’re a Southwest flyer, like I am, you have heard of the elusive in flight snack called Brownie Brittle.   It’s normally only available to first class passengers, on long flights over 2 hours, or when they’re trying to passify pissed off delayed flyers.   I have been catching up on using the miles I accumulated that I was not able to use over the pandemic.   So, for the last two years I have been flying free on miles and needless to say, I am not flying first class.      As Southwest has open seating, based on a scheduled hierarchy of boarding lineup, they put the miler fliers in the last check in group, usually putting you in a middle seat or at the very rear of the plane.   I have no problem with that if I’m flying for free.     But what that separates me from is the Brownie Brittle.

The notion of first class has always amused me in flying.    And on Southwest, first class is even more amusing.  There’s no small wall with curtains sectioning off the first few seats, we all share the same bathroom, and there’s really nothing separating First Class flyers from regulars, other than that they payed more and are at the front of the plane.

I have to say I’ve had some pretty spectacular dinners in business or economy class on long flights.    Air France, Air Nippon and Lufthansa have some great meals.     And I will say one of the weirdest packaged snacks I’ve had on a flight has been Air Nippon.   They have a snack mix similar to that served on Southwest, with crackers and pretzel sticks.   But it also has these mini dried fish thrown into the mix that are both surprising and jarring if you didn’t see them on the front of the package and are not expecting them.

 Well, last week I tasted my first brownie brittle after being delayed and rescheduled four times in one day.   Luckily, I made it to my destination out West, but only after a long grueling day that I could have flown to Europe for in the time I spent in the air.      The Brownie Brittle was only a small compensation for the terrible travel day.

The Brownie Brittle is made by a company called Sheila G’s and are these cheese cracker sized crunchy brownie bites that actually taste very good.   If you’re looking for an ooey goeey chewy brownie experience, you’re not gonna get this.    But if you want a crunchy bite of chocolate brownie flavor, this is it.   For those of you that like the crispy corners of the brownie, this mildy approximates that experience.

And the funny thing is that the Brownie Brittle is ‘healthier’ than the snack mix that they give to the plebian flyers.    It has 70 calories vs. the 90 calories of the pretzel/cracker snack mix.   And it has less carbs for those of us watching that – 12 vs 14.   It has less sodium as well 40 vs. the 210 of the snack mix and is all around I think a more gratifying snack.

Churros Are Having Their Moment

The Latin American Churro is having its moment this summer.   And I understand why. What’s not to love about puffy – crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside – fried dough doused in cinnamon sugar and presented with even more sugary dipping sauces?  

The churro is easier and less messy to eat while walking than say its festival cousins like the Elephant Ear, Beaver Tail, or Funnel Cake.   June 6 is National Churro Day, and Hershey is releasing this month their new Churro Flavored Kit Kat.   It’s said to evoke that nostalgic memory from having one on the boardwalk, at the beach, or at the county fair.    If there were to be a cute churro mascot he’d not be wearing a sombrero anymore, but maybe a backwards ball cap, meaning he’s now been appropriated into the American mainstream.

The interesting thing about the churro is that it is probably a result of Moorish cuisine from Muslim Spain.  The churro’s origins go at least as far back as the Middle Ages, where it was found in Arabic cookbooks and adopted throughout the Iberian Peninsula.   Cinnamon is certainly not a common Spanish spice.   But it is in Middle Eastern and Arabic cuisine.   The name is likely a more recent vintage, tracing its roots to late nineteenth-century Spain.    The churro with its chocolate dipping sauce is still a popular breakfast food in Spain – apparently one of the only things that survived the Spanish Inquisition.   We’ll take your delicious cinnamon pastry, but convert or die!

Three California fast food chains El Pollo Loco, Jack-in-the-Box, and Del Taco have offered churros for several years now. They’re all about the same, as if they came from the same supplier.    But Del Taco leaned in and offered innovative strawberry cream filled churros.

Churros are jumping from the taco into the mainstream.     Earlier this year, Dairy Queen introduced their churro candy coated soft serve cone.   I’ve tasted it and its pretty damn good.

They’re not only for the grab-and-go, fast serve markets.   Locally, they’ve been amped up at places like Nadas which serves them tubular, but rounded along with two dipping sauces: cejta caramel (a Mexican goat’s milk caramel like the candy Glorias from Monterrey) and abuelite chocolate (a very popular Mexican brand of chocolate meaning “little grandmother”).   Agave and Rye serves them in a savory version covered in black truffle and grated cheese, with a spicy pepper cheese dipping sauce.   Mazunte Tacos in Madisonville are said to have the best authentic churros in Cincinnati.

One restaurant in Chicago, Tabu, offers a flight of churros dunked in sauces in shot glasses.   It’s served in a round lazy susan type of thing and they call it the Churroulette – brilliant!

Burger King is currently testing churro fries in some markets.    Church’s fried chicken has introduced mini churros with a dipping sauce.   Sonic has introduced a new churro shake along with churros.   About four years ago, Chuck E Cheese introduced multicolored unicorn churros as their entertainment pizzerias.   Within the last year another West Coast taco chain, Taco Cabana introduced their brilliant Oreo Churros.

Taco Bell used to offer churros, but now they offer the more Americanized Cinna-bites – round mini cinnabons.  You can order them in your Crave Box this summer, but they just won’t have the crunch of a churro.  

When McDonald’s introduced their donut sticks about four years ago, all the online haters came out and said they were really churros in disguise.   Given the popularity of churros it’s kinda perplexing why McDonald’s wouldn’t have embraced the Latin American market and overall popularity and just called them Churro Stix.

As expected, churros have made it to the cereal market as a specialty of the brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch- only the shape was modified.    Nestle has a churros cereal also in the shape of the mini cylindrical churros.   Post has a mini Churros cereal too, but they are the in the shape of cheerios – round, not cylindrical.   And of course the instagrammers and social media foodies have gone wild with all sorts of dessert bars made from these cereals.  

So, a little about the dipping sauces.   Mexican chocolate, spicy or not, is the go-to.   Then there’s caramel, dulce de leche, and a variety of fruity dips like mango.   Crème anglaise or cream cheese sauce is a fourth on the list of popular sauces.     They’ve even started finding their way into dessert bars at parties and weddings as Churro Stations, with different varieties and a multitude of funky and gourmet dipping sauces.

As a convenience food, filling the churro takes the dipping mess out of the game and puts it all in one convenient grab-and-go sugary treat.

Personally, I like the idea of filling them, especially with some sort of cream cheese – like a Latin version of our Cincinnati Cheese Crown, or a much crunchier version of the Italian cannolli.    Maybe some exotic flavored tropical fruit creams – mango, pineapple, prickly pear cactus blossom – would be in order.

And, lastly, how do we Cincinnati-ize them?   Maybe Graeters would collab with a bakery to fill a churro with their Black Raspberry Chip, or their new Hot Honey Crunch summer flavor ice cream.   Or, what about Cincinnati Chili Churro Fries – replace the spaghetti with churros.  I mean Skyline had funnel cake fries and both contain cinnamon, so why not?

Indiana Jones and the Science of Moroccan Chewing Gum

Dial of Destiny, the new and supposedly last of the Indiana Jones series is amazing.    It gives you everything a true fan wants, brings back many characters from the past , many of whom are elderly, and reprises some of the great lines and scenes from other movies.   Harrison Ford himself, is 80 years old.   And although the production team use new de-aging digital technology for the early flashback parts of the  movie during his Nazi-fighting days in World War II, as his later self he shows off his svelte octogenarian torso, which if not digitally altered, shows that he is kicking ass physically, and may be the  most fit of any working male actor today.

There is a particularly  moving scene for me at the end, and I think one of the best love scenes in film, where Indy reunites with his wife after a separation due to the death of their son Mutt, offscreen, in Vietnam. Marion – crows feet and wrinkles clearly visible – and Indy redo the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where he asks “Where does it hurt, and he kisses her on every spot.”    Only this time, the hurt is not from the after affects of a fight with an evil enemy, but from a lifetime and the inevitability of the progression of life.

But for this food etymologist, what makes this such a movie great is the attention to detail of the set designers and stylists, particularly the food stylists.     Dial of Destiny clearly had a team of food historians who know how important it is to a movie.     There is a great scene in Rome where a group of rich American tourist kids are ordering fruit syrup laced ice balls and one kid says in the background, “I want mango.”   There’s also a great street scene in Rome that pans past a gelateria – in my opinion one of the most important institutions in Italy (pizzaheads will be after me for this statement), with a list of four special flavors.   And the final scene of the movie pans out on a great New York streetscape with a hugely prominent sign of Hoffman’s Delicatessen and Restaurant, giving homage to the great Jewish delis of New York, that like Indiana Jones, are becoming rare artifacts.

After a tuk-tuk chase scene in Morocco, which I think is one of the best chase scenes in the Indiana Jones universe, there is a great foodie scene.   Indiana Jones gives us a good bit of food history and science rolled into one line.

After the chase scene, Indy is repairing the tuk-tuk  he Helena and Teddy used to retrieve the dial of destiny and escape their two groups of chasers.   The radiator has over heated and has sprung a leak.  Indy’s goddaughter , Helena, has with her a sort of adopted son called Teddy, offering us reference to Indy’s side kick in Temple of Doom, Short Round (played by Ke Huy Quan).    Indy reaches into Teddy’s mouth and steals his chewing gum, placing it over the leak in the radiator.   He says – “Moroccan gum is made from the sap of the mastic tree, Pistacia lentiscus.   It’s heat resistant.”

Above image: Indiana Jones explains the benefits of Moroccan chewing gum to Helena and Teddy.

I nearly stood up in the theatre and cheered for this reference of science and food history.     Meska is not to be confused with Gum Arabic or Gum Acacia, which is also a tree resin, but from the acadia tree.   The meska Indy alludes to, also referred to as mastic, is not native to Morocco. Meska comes from Africa, but Gum Arabic is imported from Greece and Mediterranean basin.    Like Gum Arabic, meska is used as a flavor and binding agent in a lot of Moroccan food especially confections and pastry.  Meska, however, and not gum Arabic is used in Moroccan chewing gum.   It is incredibly more sticky than American chewing gum, and thus makes an excellent putty and leak stopper as Indy shows us in a very Macgiverian way.    

Back to Medieval days, Moroccan merchants made a huge business of the import of meska from Niger and Mali and shipping it to areas of Europe.    It and gum Arabic are still hugely important imports to the rest of the world, one of the most important from Africa, third only to, as many would argue chocolate and chili peppers.

So, my fellow foodies, make haste and go see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny this rainy 4th of July weekend!