{"id":153,"date":"2020-06-02T02:27:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T02:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/?p=153"},"modified":"2020-06-02T02:43:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T02:43:56","slug":"burlap-funk-and-lost-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/burlap-funk-and-lost-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Burlap, Funk, and Lost Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
by Stephen Garfield <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

I began drinking coffee in earnest when I first started working in a kitchen, which, auspiciously, was when I started cooking. I didn\u2019t particularly enjoy either one. Coffee was the key to slinging heavy garbage bags into the dumpster with any kind of vigor at 2 AM on a school night, and cooking was the key to earning enough money to pay for all the gas I used up cruising around our tiny island. I drank cup after cup after cup, year after year after year, and what at first felt like a necessary task became a pleasurable experience. Now, I go out of my way to only buy my favorite coffee, and I relish each sip, trying my best to use every sensation at my disposal to appreciate the experience. I developed the ability to appreciate on my own\u2014or so I believed for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, this certainty has faded into\u2026let\u2019s say an awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Little me, age three.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Between the ages of two and eleven I lived on the Big Island of Hawai\u2019i, up the mountain from a small town called Honaunau, overlooking Kealakekua Bay. My father developed and operated a very small coffee farm, which he named after me: \u2018Ano\u2019i Farm. I grew up surrounded by coffee, but never drank it at that age, so I assumed that my preference for it didn\u2019t come from childhood. I have always longed for the ability go back in time and appreciate a cup of my father\u2019s homegrown product. And yet, though I may not have tasted the coffee as I could now, my very being was steeped deeply in the flavor<\/em> of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because\ntaste is a sense; flavor is a sensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My father’s homemade drying table <\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I can\nrecall with the utmost clarity the feeling of freshly pulped beans, soaking\nslimy in buckets of water, the smell of those same beans drying in the sun on\nour huge homemade table, the sound of the parchment flaking off as we husked\nthe dried beans, and the aromas of burlap bags and roasting rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pulping coffee cherries and loving it.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, though I never cooked as a child, I know that my mother would spend all day preparing recipes she had carried over in her mind and in her heart from another set of islands thousands of miles away, distant in geography and even more immeasurably so in culture. The smell of shrimp paste and dried cuttlefish, the horrifying appearance on my plate of chicken feet and fish eyes\u2014these were not things I saw on TV ads: foods that beckoned with the allure of popularity. It took years for me to develop an affinity for these foods. But back then, they would be prepared and often brought to Filipino gatherings in which the tables overflowed with foreign bounties, and I would observe in wonder as the women seemed to shout at each other with words I couldn\u2019t understand, crying and laughing in the same breaths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the\ntime, I never asked for coffee. I certainly never asked for fish\u2019s eyes, for\nwhich my mother never tired of ribbing me. She had spent her entire life in the\nPhilippines\u2014where they\u2019ll fight over the eyes\u2014prior to giving birth to me, and\nyet her one child only wanted chocolate milk, mac and cheese, hot dogs, and\ncake. On very special occasions, I might even get all three at the same time.\nDespite all of my heroic, thick-headed childhood efforts to avoid the tastes\nall around me, I am more beholden to them than I ever liked to think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Happy as always post-mac and cheese.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\nturned fifteen, and lost my mother to cancer. I turned sixteen, acquired the\nability to drive and with it the independence to be away from home as much as I\nwished. Shortly after this, drinking coffee became part of my daily routine,\nand I started working in a kitchen. Fourteen years later, I have come to\nrealize that what I had seen as leaps away from my past were really first steps\nin my long journey back to the tastes and experiences that still sometimes\nflash vivid in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Excitedly blowing out birthday candles.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Because\nI didn\u2019t<\/em> develop my love for coffee\non my own, and neither did my ability nor appreciation for cooking (and\ninherently, eating) spring forth immaculately from the recesses of my virgin\nmind. I\u2019ve found that satiety comes not from a tearing apart but a coming\ntogether. I\u2019m not satisfied eating a meal alone; not when all the turbulent\nemotions involved with the preparation and eating of a meal could be shared. I\nhave seen the power of commensality\u2014I\u2019ve shed tears over a meal, communicated\nsuccessfully, not with words, but with soft smiles and satisfied pats of bellies.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe I can continue the journey back to understanding the tastes of my childhood through the study of food beyond the hot line of a commercial kitchen. I\u2019m looking forward to learning from the members of my community from whom I\u2019ve fled much of my life. I\u2019m looking forward to ingesting the same food that has passed through the bodies of my ancestors for generations past, and learning just how these foods serve to build and strengthen a community that thrives in pockets around the globe. The ability to conduct research, to eat new foods, and learn what is, in a way, my own history is a privilege for which I will never cease to be grateful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStephen,\nhow would you compare coconut aminos to soy sauce?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great question, Martha<\/em>. Oh boy. Is my professor asking <\/em>me to describe a flavor? I\u2019m terrible at this! Think!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\npondered for a second, standing there in the Sustainable Agriculture Lab (SAL)\nas we prepared to put on one of our weekly cooking labs. I was about to teach\nmy vegan \u201clentil meatball\u201d recipes to classmates in an academic setting\u2014I\u2019d\nnever done anything like it before. I was nervous, but I also knew that I had\nspent days with these recipes. I had fine-tuned, deleted, sprinkled, smeared,\nburned, balled, dropped, zested, picked, plucked, and peppered my way to what I\nthought would be functional\u2014and, hopefully, palatable\u2014vegan versions of the\nmeatballs the other tables would be making that day. I tasted, tested, and\ntasted again until I finally had presentable Greek, Italian, and Chinese\nversions of the lentil-based, falafel-esque balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Italian lentil ball by peer Chefs Lauren, Katie, and Annie<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately,\nI have done so much work with so many different foods that I wasn\u2019t starting\nthis development process from scratch. I can taste lack, and I can taste\nexcess, and I\u2019ve built an embodied knowledge that whispers to me while I\nscratch my head wondering what to toss in to really tie it all together (pro\ntip: it\u2019s probably lemon zest).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
We make it up as we go.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So\nreally, despite my deep-seated reflex to say, \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d it didn\u2019t take\nmuch more than a pondered second to answer Martha:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d\nsay, coconut aminos are definitely much less of a salty, umami-ey punch in the\nmouth than soy sauce\u2014and a little bit sweeter, too. If we\u2019re talking about\ncooking it into something, though, it can basically serve the same function.\nThe average eater probably won\u2019t pick up that you substituted the soy sauce for\ncoconut aminos, although you might want to add a dash more salt to the recipe\nthan you otherwise might have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthere it was, like that, a jolt from the blue: maybe, just maybe, I\u2019ve got some\nof it. That embodied knowledge I\u2019ve heard so much about, what makes\ngrandmothers able to decipher Spartan ingredient lists and turn them into\nsybaritic feasts. The fluid and rhythmic dance that seems to summon dishes from\nmy fingertips; clearing my mind, lulling it into a trusting vegetative state,\nonly to come alive again when someone takes an eager bite and says, \u201cwow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think less<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s talk about funk. Not like the emotional state I sink into when the rain hasn\u2019t let up for three months, nor the Rick James, Curtis Mayfield, and Chaka Khan brand of danceable, elastic beats. I\u2019m talking about funk<\/em>\u2014that strange, rich, sharp, musty, undefined, and usually fermented flavor that is either detested or adored the world over. It might be bright and tangy, like sauerkraut, or it might be deep and earthy, like the aroma of grated truffles. The United States has typically fallen on the \u201cOh, yuck! What is<\/em> that!?\u201d side of the funk chasm (aside from our intimate relationship with alcohol). However, recently we have been playing catch-up with much of the rest of the world, as we as a popular food culture have discovered \u201cnew\u201d foods like kombucha, fermented hot sauces, or even funkier versions of familiar ferments, as in the proliferation of \u201cfarmhouse\u201d ales and saisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nbring all of this up because as I reflect on the last academic quarter of\neating, and try to recall which eating experiences have been my favorites, I keep\ncoming back to the flavor profiles and dishes that appear under that dank umbrella\nthat is funk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nsecond lab of the quarter, I faced a dilemma. Emily and Gillian of Wildflower\nBaking had come up from Portland for the Cascadia Grains Conference, and had\ngraciously agreed to give an enlightening presentation on the nature, quirks,\nand benefits of baking with and growing alternative grains and flours. Their\npresentation was both engaging and deeply informative\u2014and yet, I was having\ntrouble focusing. How could I, when just inches away from my notebook was a\nplateful of cookies? And not just any cookies, but ones that bore alluring\nnametags like \u201ctoasted rye,\u201d \u201cspelt,\u201d or \u201cbuckwheat.\u201d I had gone into the day\nknowing we would be making chocolate and buckwheat brownies, but what I was really<\/em> curious about was what buckwheat\ntasted like. I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d be able to taste much aside from chocolate in\nthe brownies (I was right), but here in front of me, in this array of\ndifferently-floured cookies, I had the chance to not only eat cookies (one of\nmy favorite pastimes) but to actually taste a side-by-side comparison of\nflours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
…or mushroom-esque?<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I gave\nin and directed my attention to the plate. I chose the regular flour one first,\nof course, as this was a scientific cookie-eating experience, and I needed a\ncontrol. Then, the buckwheat. Whoa, what\nwas that?<\/em> I took another bite: slowly, rocking the cookie bits from side to\nside in my mouth, paying attention to my breath on its way in and on its way\nout, feeling<\/em> what set this apart from\nthe regular cookie. It was deep. Earthy\u2026nutty? What does this remind me of?<\/em> And then it came to me: mushrooms! It\nreminded me of mushrooms, specifically the sort of big, savory, funky<\/em> flavor of a shiitake. But, I liked\nit. A lot. It turned out to be my favorite of the bunch, and the eating\nexperience that stood out to me most from that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But,\nwhy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast-forward\na week, and instead of eating cookies and smoothing pans of brownie batter,\nwe\u2019re slapping small ovals of pasta dough repeatedly on the counter until they\nstretch\u2014amazingly\u2014to arm\u2019s length \u201cbelts.\u201d The leader in this little exercise,\nprior to showing us how to make these belt noodles, had said, \u201cNow we\u2019ll make\nthe Chinese noodles. Much<\/em> more simple\nthan Italian pasta.\u201d Really? <\/em>I had\nalways thought of Chinese cuisine as being much more complicated than your\nbasic cacio e pepe<\/em>. I had just read a\nbook that discussed at length the intricate, consciously-applied complexities\nof high Chinese cuisine, which told stories upon stories of Chinese art,\nculture, and history with each bite. Simpler than linguine? We\u2019ll see<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
All the flavor you’ll ever need.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Of\ncourse, she was right. It was shockingly easy, in fact. And once the noodles\nwere cooked, the procedure for making the sauce was also shockingly easy. Not\nmuch more complicated than just throwing it all in a bowl. Simplicity all\nthroughout. Then, eager to see how my particular belt had turned out, I took my\nfirst bite, and forgot about the noodle entirely. Whoa.<\/em> I looked over the ingredients again\u2014garlic, chili powder, sesame,\nsoy sauce, vinegar. I knew these flavors, and I knew them well. The flavor\nprofile of what I cook at home is almost entirely drawn from this list, to the\npoint that I\u2019m almost certain my partner must<\/em>\nbe sick of it. But, what was I tasting? This was on another level; something<\/em> was standing out, making this\nbowl of simplicity a blindsiding, momentous experience. I looked over the\ningredients a third time, and hit on why this bite might prove to be\nunforgettable. This was my first time tasting Zhenjiang vinegar, a condiment\nthat in its particular production process sets it apart from any other vinegar\nthat I had tried previously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncomplexity of flavor in my little bowl of noodles felt like more than the sum\nof its parts, as if I had taken a well-known road only to round the final bend\nand discover a completely unfamiliar destination. It had <\/em>to be that vinegar. So, I tasted it by itself. I expected that\nfamiliar\u2014and beloved\u2014tang and tongue-tightening that always follows a sip of\nvinegar. Something different, something entirely new confronted my palate\ninstead. It was thick, almost syrupy, with flavor notes cascading one after the\nother, none of which made me think of vinegar, until at the very end: a\nsuggestion, a whisper of tangy acid. Deep, dark, rich\u2014these were the words that\ncame to mind; and when I squeezed the bottle to get a smell of this magical\nliquid on its own, raisins<\/em>. I had\nfallen in love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But,\nwhy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving\nforward another three weeks, we come to Portland, Oregon and the Culinary\nBreeding Network\u2019s Variety Showcase. I had three hours to shuffle from table to\ntable, sampling the deliciously inventive dishes served up by combinations of\nbreeders, growers, and chefs\u2014and to try to fit some semblance of conversation\nin between bites, each seemingly more provocative than the last. It was a tall\norder. Baroque arrangements of lumpy squashes, arrestingly kaleidoscopic\ncarrots, inexplicably beautiful cabbages, and blue<\/em> turmeric roots littered the crowded space; a sensory overload\nfrom which I had to fight the urge to turn and flee. Instead, I ate, and I\ntalked, my spirit buoyed by the excitement each table had to offer. This\ncontinued for the full three hours, and at the end, my head swam trying to sort\nout the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich\nwas your favorite?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid\nyou like one thing the best?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCome\non, if you had to pick just one\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nI\nwas asked this over and over, and I struggled to find a response, submitting a\ndifferent answer each time. The event sat with me for several days, turning\nover in my mind like a washing machine in slow-motion, and still I struggled.\nIt wasn\u2019t until I was going through the photographs I had taken during the\nevent\u2014camera in one hand, bag and food in the other, focusing with my little\nfinger\u2014that one experience in particular crystallized and set as the clear\nfavorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
It was always you potato terrine. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was\na purple potato terrine, layered sliver by sliver with obvious love, adorned\nwith a smooth, off-white, creamy-looking emulsified sauce and topped with a\nsingle cured anchovy filet. It was a beautiful thing\u2014both to the eyes and on\nthe tongue. It was texture defined, both in body and taste; silky, slippery,\neach layer of potato sliding away on its briny sauce like little boats in a\nharbor. This was the striking image that came to mind as I ate: that of gently\nrocking sea-faring vessels, redolent of seaweed, fins, and salt. It was earth,\nwith its sweet starchiness, but more than that, it was the sea<\/em>, somehow crystal clear and briny, fishy, and funky all at\nonce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nsoon as I recalled the experience, I knew that of all the wonderful tastes that\nday, this was the most transcendent for me, hands-down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But,\nwhy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted chocolate milk, mac and cheese, hot\ndogs, and cake.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember that? That was me, and my preferred flavor profile before I ventured out into the uncharted waters of the world of taste. So how could it be that not so many years later, I might instead say, \u201cI want kimchi, fish sauce, and dried squid?\u201d I think the answer to that question lies in my roots, in the flavors I internalized as a child. I am constantly learning\u2014and every second I\u2019m alive, I learn a little more about how much I have yet to learn. Instead of being daunting, it\u2019s encouraging, giving me the motivation I need to always take the next step, because I\u2019ll know that much more about the world around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, recognizing what you already know has its place, too. When I look back at the experiences of this quarter\u2014the eating experiences in particular\u2014one of my most important pieces of progress has been acknowledging what I know. Like when I found myself answering Martha\u2019s question about coconut aminos, or when I was able to answer all of my classmates\u2019 questions regarding my lentil recipes, or when, in writing this very piece, I surprised myself with my description of eating a potato terrine. Having gotten the opportunity to eat so many different things, and to learn the historical, social, and environmental contexts in which each of those foods was situated has not only given me the gift of new information, but also put into perspective those things that I already know. I feel as though I trust myself a little more after having experienced the last two months, and that all the work I\u2019ve put in over the years has imprinted not only on my mind, but on my body as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The kitchen in the midst of preparing a meal<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Those cognitive and embodied knowledges, like the greens of a carrot, only grow and develop as extensions of the subterranean taproot made up of my places and my people. The burlap sacks of coffee and the pungent aromas of dried fish are still with me, informing who I am, what I know, and how I taste<\/em>. Why did I like that funky, almost savory buckwheat cookie so much? Well, it might have something to do with growing up in Hawai\u2019i, inundated in sweet and savory, where I often devoured packages of Japanese teriyaki crackers with sugary icing. And I\u2019m fairly certain my mother\u2019s liberal use of patis<\/em> (Filipino fish sauce) has wound its way, snakelike, through the years to give me an affinity for the complex flavors of aged Zhenjiang vinegar and the brininess of an anchovy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Not much to go on.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’ve often thought of myself as being by<\/em> myself. I thought I built a skill set in the kitchen on my own, and I thought I built a library of taste preferences and a vocabulary for describing those preferences on my own. But, how could that possibly be true? Who would I be without those who gave me my first tastes in life? Without the mentors who fed me and showed me how to hold a knife and how to tell stories about food, both on a plate and on a page? I thought of myself as an island, like those I grew up on, standing stolid in restless seas. As I\u2019ve come to understand, that kind of isolationist thinking isn\u2019t good for me. In fact, when it comes to myself, my skills, and my food, I have to try to remember one thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think less.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Stephen Garfield I began drinking coffee in earnest when I first started working in a kitchen, which, auspiciously, was when I started cooking. I didn\u2019t particularly enjoy either one. Coffee was the key to slinging heavy garbage bags into the dumpster with any kind of vigor at 2 AM on a school night, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}