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!

Will Taylor Swift Eat Cincinnati Chili This Weekend?

Well, probably not.     We are in the midst of the Taylor Invasion, as the pop star is already supposed to b in Cincinnati.   It will be interesting to see what foods Taylor does indulge in while here in Cincinnati, and I’m a bit miffed she didn’t do a pre-trip consult with this Food Etymologist.  Her fave foods are chicken tenders, cheesburgers and chocolate shakes, but she has a whole list of other foods on her menu.     That menu definitely has a Southern comfort food vibe (even though she lives in Berks’ county’s Pennsylvania Dutch Country) and chili or anything Greek doesn’t appear to be on her menu.

Chicken tenders are pretty similar to our Germanic schnitzel.   Will she pay homage to our Germanic heritage by trying some of our best schnitzel out there at the Lubecker, Mecklenburg Gardens, or Kantene?  

She always has an indulgence food in her frig, so will she send someone out for some Graeter’s Ice Cream, like their new Hot Honey Crunch?

Her goto cocktail is vodka and diet coke and she likes coffee.    Will she try downtown’s super-popular Coffee Emporium, or maybe go a little outskirts and try Mom n Em Coffee in the Camp or Madisonville?

She loves her cat, so will she go to the only waving cat museum in the world at the Essex Studios in East Walnut Hills and maybe stop in at Fireside Pizza or the Pickled Pig for some good eats?

Taylor always has hummus in her fridge.    I’d recommend she try Kate Zaidan’s homemade hummus at Dean’s Mediterranean and give a big shout out to Dean’s.    She can watch her fans make friendship bracelets at Findlay Market today as she sneaks past them into Dean’s.

She loves sushi but she has a weird thing about it – she has it with soy paper rather than seaweed.   Why?  Well as a kid she ate some seaweed on a trip to the beach and it didn’t agree with her.   There are lots of sushi restaurants in Cincinnati, but I’ve never heard of any that wrap them in soy paper.

Her fave restaurant dish?   The sweet potato pancake from the Pancake Pantry in Nasheville, Tennessee.   But when it comes to breakfast her usual is buckwheat crepes, ham, parmesan cheese and a fried egg on top, and she washes it down with Orange Juice.    Maybe she should try the ‘cakes at Sleepy Bee Café, French Crust, or Libby’s – all of which have a goetta dish, which she could try too.   I’d love a Swift-report on goetta.

As far as her fave home cooked dish it’s her mom’s brisket and pot roast.    She has many BBQ options for brisket in Cincinnati.    At the top of the list are Bee’s BBQ, Lucius Q, and Just Q’in. 

And as a formidable chef herself, she likes to make chicken and dumplings for her family.    How does this girl stay so thin when eating like a comfort food champ?  Maybe, like all the Real Housewives of Orange County, she’s taking Ozempic.

The Warden Burger as Punishment Food

I am not a fan of the cowboy hat-wearing, hate mongering Sheriff Richard Jones of Butler County.  He’s definitely not an ally of an inclusive America.    One of his policies with the incarcerated in his Butler County jails is getting news and I have to comment on it.     As a ‘punishment’ for those who go into solitary confinement, he makes them eat what is being called the ‘Warden Burger’, three times a day, at every meal during their confinement.   

In a broad sense it’s a way of food bullying.    But he’s not making the incarcerated go hungry or giving them something unhealthy or even something that tastes bad.   It could be called the Everything But the Kitchen Sink Burger because of all the ingredients.   The burger includes ground turkey, beans, oatmeal, tomato paste, cabbage, carrots, potatoes and onions, along with flour and dry milk.    It actually doesn’t sound all that heinous to me, and it may be one of the healthier options served in the Butler County jail system.

So the punishment is not in the food itself, but the lack of variety.   Although the burger is controversial across the country I don’t think lack of food variety, as long as it’s nutritious, can be litigated.  The sheriff appeared on local Channel 19 last month donning his standard cowboy hat (apparently there are a lot of ranches and cowherding going on in Butler County) and asked if he would eat the burger.   He said he would and took one bite of it on camera and said it tastes pretty good.    I’m not sure he has the most refined palate in the world.

Jones, who reads as a cartoon character like Yosemite Sam of Looney Tunes, says of serving the burger, “This is jail.  You don’t get to choose. Your mommy and your daddy, and your Aunt Lily doesn’t (sic) get to make your meals. I’m your aunt. I’m your grandpa. I’m the one that gets your meal prepared, makes sure it gets done.”

But we’ve not heard from the Butler County incarcerated what their thoughts are on its flavor or what it’s like to receive this three times a day for a full week or more of solitary confinement.

It’s made by Aramark, the food service who has the current contract for the Butler County jails.   It has been approved by their dietician and meets all state and federal dietary requirements.   It’s served with two slices of standard white bread.

Brown County Ohio uses the same recipe, but calls it the “Confinement Burger.”    One of the detainees in Brown county commented that the burger looks like meatloaf but tastes like cardboard.    Several other jails around the country have started serving the bland burger to their incarcerated who are sent to solitary confinement.     New York state, hearing of Sheriff Jones’ serving it is considering bringing it into their jails as well.

I’m wondering if Aramark will be marketing this to the non-incarcerated public as punishment food for parents with unruly children.

Nando’s Chicken and It’s Peri Peri Hot Sauce

Since the beginning of the pandemic there has been a war to determine which American fast food chain has the best chicken Sandwich.     The gold standard and the inventors of the American chicken sandwich is Chick-fil-A, whose signature pickle juice-marinated fried chicken breast consistently wins the taste tests.   Recently, Wendy’s released their Ghost Pepper spicy chicken sando, which looks like a heaping mess of a sandwich.    I prefer a cleaner, less stacked sando myself.

But a semi-recent chicken invasion from South Africa, Nando’s, has come in quietly.   They haven’t made it to Cincinnati yet, but there are several locations, which I’ve tried in Chicago, in the last decade.    Their signature spicy chicken sando uses a pepper sauce called peri-peri.    It’s actually a Portuguese-Mozambican style chicken, that’s flame grilled, not fried, that uses an African hot sauce called peri-peri, which utilizes the Birdseye Hot Pepper – from the same family as the Tabasco pepper.   Because of the similarities of the peppers, tabasco peppers are also grown in Mozambique for McIllhenny’s Tabasco sauce.    It has a Scoville heat unit range of up to 175,000 to 200,000 Scoville heat units, while tabasco and cayenne have a Scoville rating of about 50,000.

The Nando’s peri-peri sauce is readily available in the U.S. and Cincinnati and I have become a fan, after working with the chain a few years ago in my food equipment marketing days.     My great hot sauce tester is how well a hot sauce goes with scrambled eggs, and Nando’s stands up to this test very well.

The restaurant was founded in 1987 in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, South Africa, by Portuguese-born Fernando Duarte and South African-born Robert Brozin. Upon visiting a Portuguese-Mozambican takeaway named Chickenland and trying the chicken with peri-peri, they bought the restaurant for about 80,000 rand (equivalent to about £25,000 at the time). They renamed the restaurant Nando’s after Fernando’s firstborn son. By 1989, the restaurant had three outlets in Johannesburg and one in Portugal.  Capricorn Ventures International acquired the chain in 1992. 

 In 1996 a former Nando’s franchisee founded the Portuguese-Mozambican style grilled-chicken restaurant Galito’s which competes with Nando’s in multiple markets.   Galito’s also bottles and sells their variety of peri-peri sauce, which I have not tried yet.   Given the history, I’m sure they’re very similar to Nando’s sauces.

The first Nando’s in the U.S. was in Washington, D,C., but they now have locations in Virginia, Maryland and Chicago.   In addition to their Peri-Peri sauces, they also have also very smartly invented a product  they call PeriNaise – a spicy epri-peri sauce-laced mayo for French fry dippin.  I’ve not tried this yet, but It’s bound to be delicious.

Meet Barbados Style Hot Sauce

I have taught two Louisiana style hot sauce classes with progressive Scoville tastings this year.     Louisiana hot sauces are simple and use distilled white vinegar to combat the heat of either the tabasco or cayenne peppers used.   While I am a fan of the Louisiana style hot sauce, I am also a fan of the Caribbean Hot Sauces that mix in sweet tropical fruits to balance the heat of the pepper.

My fave of these is the sweet hot mango PIckapeppa sauce from Jamaica.   It’s a dark brown, lumpy sauce that delivers a fair amount of heat, but alsp has a mangoey tang that I love.   It also includes some exotic ingredients including raisins, ginger, cloves, and orange peel.   Other not so exotic ingredients are onion, tomato paste, salt, black pepper, thyme and can vinegar.  It’s made in Jamaica and the company was founded in 1921, the year after our Frank’s Red Hot Sauce released to the market.

Pickapeppa falls into the larger category of Barbados or Bajan style sauces – all of which integrate a tropical fruit sweetness (of pineapple, mango, or papaya)  to counterbalance the heat of the pepper, which is usually the scotch bonnet pepper.     Sauce Barbade also typically integrates a prepared mustard, the spice turmeric, which gives it a hue of orange to yellow.     Like Louisiana style hot sauces they used distilled white wine vinegar, but also integrate rum as well, as this was a readily available product made from the many sugar cane plantations there.

Bajan hot sauce is designed to go well with barbecued meats and fish.   There are numerous ones on the market, made in Barbados and the Caribbean, but only two can be found in Jungle Jim’s humongous hot sauce section, which I find mind boggling.   I guess we are not as familiar with Barbados style hot sauces in the Yankee north.   I still have yet to try PIckapeppa or another Barbados style on Cincinnati style chili, but it will happen soon. I think the sweetness of the mango will go well with our hometown chili.

Buc-cee’s Beaver Nuggets: The Ultimate Summer Road Trip Snack

 Summer is the season of road trips to go camping, to the beach, to visit historic sites.   And one of the most important things about a road trip is being stocked up on easy to eat car snacks.     This week my sister texted me some pics of them stopping at one of the Buc-cees Roadstops on their way to Atlanta and the snacks they bought while visiting.   Buc-cee’s is one of the biggest gas station roadstop companies in the U.S. They’re stores are have a cult following for their deli food, snacks, and apparel. Many stores have a furry dressed Bucky the Beaver mascot on site for photo ops and you can take a cute stuffed Bucky the Beaver home with you.

Buc-cees, while known for their brisket sandwich, deli sandwiches, breakfast burritos, and tortilla dogs on a stick, are also known for a signature snack called Beaver Nuggets – a caramel corn like puffed corn snack.   I’m a huge fan of the puffed snack – Cheetos and Cheewees, which are mostly savory and spicy.   So I was intrigued to learn more.

Buc-ee’s was created and owned by Arch “Beaver” Aplin III, headquartered in Lake Jackson, Texas.  The chain was first founded in 1982 in Clute, Texas, and began expansion with its first travel center in Luling, Texas in 2003. The company began expanding outside of Texas in 2018 with the opening of a location in Baldwin County, Alabama, and has since opened locations in Georgia, Florica, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennesee – so they’re encroaching into Yankee Country.  They also have locations planned for Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

Many describe Buc-cee’s Beaver Nuggets  as very much like honey smacks cereal but with more caramel coating and flavor or like Kellogg’s Corn Puffs amped up to 11.   In fact, in addition to eating them as a dry snack, many put them in milk and eat them as a cereal.    They’ve been integrated into ice creams and sundaes, and one baker in Texas even used them as a crust for their key lime pie.

While the signature original flavor came out in 2003 with the opening of their Luling, Texas location, they also come now in an impressive variety of flavors including sea salt caramel, cinnamon, white cheddar, white cheddar jalapeno, chocolate dipped, and Bold and Sorta Spicy.   I wonder if they use Texas Pete’s hot sauce in that Bold and Sorta Spicy.

Although started in Texas, Buc-cee’s origin story is a Louisiana tale.  Aplin’s grandparents, Arch and Mae Aplin, owned and ran a general mercantile and gas station they dubbed the Biggest Little Store in Catahoula Parish in Harrisonburg in central Louisiana. While their son, Arch Jr., went into construction in Texas, their grandson Arch III had inherited the family entrepreneurial streak and convenience store bug.

Though Aplin, whose mother nicknamed him “Beaver,” grew up in Texas, he spent holidays and summers at his grandparents store in Louisiana.  It was there that he learned the basis of would become an empire. He came up with the name and logo by combining his nickname with the name of his beloved Labrador retriever,  Buck.     He was also a fan Bucky the Beaver the animated mascot of his favorite toothpaste, Ipana,  growing up.

Harrisonburg sits on the western bank of the Ouachita River, and back then the town was a hub for travelers. If you were heading east to Mississippi or west into the Louisiana Hill Country, you had to traverse the Ouachita, and the ferry that docked at the bottom of Main Street in Harrisonburg was one of the only ways to do that. The Aplins’ store stood on Main Street, just inland from the ferry. No one crossing the river in either direction could miss it.

But the Aplins  took pride in their store. They called it Arch Aplin’s Biggest Little Store in Catahoula Parish, and they offered travelers products they couldn’t get anywhere else. The Aplins stocked turnip greens they’d harvested on their farm, and they sold syrup they’d made from their own sugarcane. Arch raised cattle and hogs, and he’d built a smokehouse on the family property to cure the meat he produced. It became famous throughout their corner of the Deep South.    It was from his grandparents that he learned how to make his famous brisket and how to caramel coat corn and puffed snacks with the abundance of sugar cane.

I think I may have to try out their Hot and Sorta Spicy Beaver Nuggets this summer.

Strawberry Cola Becomes a Secondary Character in the World Premiere of SHANE at Playhouse in the Park

I love it when food becomes another character in theatre.   In the case of the world premier of the new western, SHANE at Playhouse in the Park, that new food character is strawberry cola.    SHANE is no bleached spaghetti western where all the good guys are white males and all the bad people are black or brown.    In this case the main hero is Shane, a mulatto former slave from Louisiana, whose father/owner sells his mother away when he is only 7.   

SHANE could easily be and maybe should be renamed  BEEF.  Based on the 1949 book of the same name by Jack Schaefer, it’s the same story as HBO’s 1883, or the Paramount Plus series Billy the Kid.    Set in the 1880s, SHANE is the common story of the beginning of Big Food in this country, where large cattle ranchers are pushing out the small homesteaders in the Western Territories for more grazing land for their huge herds.   The homesteaders and American military had pushed out Native Americans like the Lakota from these lands before that.     What develops is a diverse cowboy culture of survival and revenge.    Shane defends the homesteading Starrett family against the encroaching big rancher Luke Fletcher, but not without sacrifice.

In SHANE strawberry cola plays as a peace offering, a saloon weapon, and a refreshment in this amazingly staged piece.   And the symbolism of it in this racially diverse and historically accurate Western, is not lost on this food historian.   Cola was one of the American industries that brought the South out of the post Civil War depression and defined our food culture.   And, strawberry cola also became a symbolic food at Juneteenth celebrations across the country, which celebrates emancipation from slaver.   The drink symbolized the blood, toil, and survival experienced by enslaved African Americans and their African culture, where red hibiscus and red kola nut drinks were served as a sign of hospitality.

There are regional differences in the strawberry sodas served at Juneteenths.   Faygo is the way to go in Detroit, where Nesbitt’s is popular in the South.   In Cincinnati, we had Barq’s Red Pop.

At early Juneteenth celebrations in the 1870s and 1880s, the red drink of choice was red lemonade, made with either cherries, crushed strawberries or food coloring.   Then the favored punch transitioned to soda pop, when carbonated beverages became more readily available.  In the 1920s, powdered drinks became the faves, with the invention of Poly-pop and Kool-Aid.   These  red drinks moved out of just the Juneteenth celebrations into African American homes and soul-food restaurants, as a bookend of soul food.  Derogatory slang terms like “jungle juice” and “ghetto pop” became synonymous with any sweetened red drink, some even making it into hip hop and rap songs.

The fact that the mulatto former slave, Shane,  is the one who brings strawberry soda to the young Bobby Starrett  certainly cements this red pop symbology into the drama for me.     Also that this play is making its world premiere in the month of June in which we celebrate Juneteenth is significant.

Although strawberry cola is the  main food character, there are also some minor food characters mentioned in this piece.  As we find in America today, there are onion thin layers upon layers of racial diversity in this play.    For example, there is an interesting conversation between the Mexican American Marian Starrett and the Lakota woman Winona, both products of the beat-the-Indian-out-of-the-child U.S. Government schools.      Marian’s young son Bobby, who narrates the play as an older man, asks his mother if Mexican means Indian.    Winona the Lakota woman says, yes, at the same time Marian says no.   Marian explains that’s what we were taught at the Laredo school for girls.   Marian was born into a Mexican ranch family who lost their land and everything in the Mexican American War and instantly became Americans.        Winona explains that Americans hunted their buffalo to extinction and now the only meat they have is from government cattle contracts with shady large ranchers.       The language play is great here too – Marian calls her son Mijo, while Winona calls him kesapola – a Lakota word meaning smart young boy.

Marian serves Shane tortillas and beans when he first arrives at their homestead.   At that first shared dinner, Marian’s husband Joe – a Mexican-American with an English last name – mentions his wife cooks with flavor, adding peppers and spice.

Food is such a great character in our lives.    Great playwrights, like SHANE’s Karan Zakarias, recognize that and write with it.