Fresh whole wheat buns with slow cooked pulled pork, radish apple slaw, and pickled radish
Picture by Val

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I started this weekend off by making some quick pickled radishes.
I’ve really been into combining recipes lately, and well everything I made this weekend is a combination of two or more recipes I found.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNjmz4pcHi/?igshid=1w0tqpjfzr6de

For quick pickled radishes first start by boiling water, apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt, some fresh ginger, red pepper flakes, whole mustard seeds, and whole fennel seeds. Make sure the salt and sugar dissolve. Place your radishes, however you want to finely slice them up, in a container with a chili pepper, sliced in half if you want more heat. Let cool and place in the refrigerator.

Next I made a radish apple slaw to go on top of my bbq pulled pork I was making for dinner.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNjXVbpd9t/?igshid=5el1029orko9

I sliced up half a cabbage, handful of carrots, a bunch of radishes, and two apples. For the dressing I used mayo, apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper, Dijon mustard, ground mustard, and water. Shook those all up in a jar and poured over my slaw concoction.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNi55wJSuF/?igshid=4r7tn5pybu81

For my sandwich rolls I took a recipe I have made before and added the main ingredients to a roll recipe.

I created my yeast mixture with warm water, a little sugar, some brown sugar, warm milk, and yeast. I let that sit while I mixed the dry ingredients. I took some whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour and combined that with some soft butter. I added in the yeast and egg and mixed till a dough formed. I let that rise for over an hour, till it had doubled in size. I dumped out the dough and formed my little rolls. I scored them and let them sit for another hour or so. Once they had doubled again, I added an egg wash and placed them in the over at 400 for 15 minutes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNiBFHp4ka/?igshid=1vao5nwbg3h5k

For my slow cooked pulled pork, I placed my pork roast in my slow cooker with a little bit of oil on the bottom. I then added apple cider vinegar, beef broth, bbq sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, ground mustard, chili powder, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper, garlic, onion, and some orange juice. I then let that simmer for 6 hours, until it was falling apart. I then shredded my pork and stuck it back in the juices for a little while longer. Once I was ready to make my sandwiches, I plopped a bunch of pork on my bun and added some radish apple slaw and topped with a little pickled radish.

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Preparation

This week I watched:
Anatomy of a Scene prompt:  Jon Chu on Crazy Rich Asians
Kiss the Ground, Dir. Josh Tickell
How I Fell in Love with a Fish, Dan Barber
This week I read:
Daikon – Osborne Quality Seeds
Daikon – Johnny’s Select Seeds
Arugula – Osborne
Arugula – Johnny’s
The Cooking Gene ch. 3-4
Agroecology by Gliessman ch. 3
American Terroir p. 1-15

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How I Fell in Love with a Fish
The river that Dan Barber talks about is the Guadalquivir (comes from the Arabic word al-wādī l-kabīr, which means the great river) which starts in the mountains in Cazorla and runs through the Iberian Peninsula of Spain down to Cádiz, where it enters the Atlantic Ocean. The Guadalquivir is the only navigable river in Spain, from the Gulf of Cádiz to the port of Seville. Back in Roman times the river used to be navigable all the way up to Córdoba. Doñana National Park is the natural reserve Dan Barber was talking about, where he found the fish he fell in love with. The park is roughly 210 sq. miles and around 52 sq. miles of the park are protected. The park is situated between Seville and Cádiz. The unique biodiversity of this park is not found anywhere else. This park is a shelter for a large variety of animals including 20 species of freshwater fish, 13 species of reptiles, 10 species of amphibians, 360 non marine bird species, along with thousands of European and African migratory birds, and 38 mammal species, including the Spanish imperial eagle, Iberian lynx, Egyptian mongoose, wild boars, European badger, and Spanish red deer.
While I was in Seville I was planning an other trip down to Cádiz to visit the park, visit some sherry vineyards, and the Spanish riding school. I was planning this specific trip because of viewing How I Fell in Love with a Fish last fall. Unfortunately, Covid hit and I could no longer stay in Spain. Many of my trips I had planned were based on food and wine exploration.

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#3a Tasting Lab: Review + Arugula and Radish

Resources/Required Reading:

Why Your Food Will Taste Better in 2035
Daikon: The great radish of Japan
The Secret Jewish History of Arugula
Daikon-and-Arugula-Tasting-pp-1

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Lab Practices: Arugula and Radish Flavor Evaluation

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Val’s Notes
Daikon
Radishes most likely originated in the Mediterranean around the Black Sea over 4,000 years ago.
Daikon radish is a member of the Brassica family and is classically long, wide, and white.
The daikon is currently the most cultivated vegetable in Japan. It is grated and used as a garnish to dishes, pickled and sundried, added to rice dishes as a compliment, and it is used in herbal teas to aid in digestion and upset stomachs.
Some varieties of daikon include Artemisia, Einstein, Minowase, Red Meat, KN Bravo, and April Cross.
Arugula
Not only is arugula a popular leafy green, a chefs favorite, but it is also an easy to grow cash crop.
It is a popular salad green, the sharp flavor can bring zest and pizazz to a lot of recipes.
Arugula comes in lobed and serrated leafs.
Some arugula varieties are Surrey, Uber, Roquette, Astro.

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I had a heck of a time finding radishes and daikons at any of my many farmers markets throughout the week. I was able to find a locally grown red radish and an organic red heart daikon at my local co-op store. I did find organic colorful radishes at Trader Joes too. For arugula I was only albe to find them prepackaged, one was from Trader Joes and the other was from my small local grocery store. I had another bag, but when I opened it up it smelled very bad so I opted out on tasting that one. In general I hate radishes, but I actually really liked my quick pickled radishes that I made. For the arugula, I honestly did not taste much difference between the two and overall it tasted like a creamy, nutty, grass to me.

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#3b: Foodoir: Your Story of Tasting Place

“Traditonal African religions have a complex understanding of food in the service of faith. Food is often a necessary vehicle between ones ancesstores or the spititual forces that guide their destiny.” Page 59
“To know who you are you often have to be able to see outside yourself. To look beyond the bubble you were born in doesn’t come easy to all of us. In the world of my childhood, I constantly left my bubble for the sanctuary of other cultures.” Page 65
“I listened to the way people talked about their food, the poetry and power of what it meant to them, and I absorbed it as if it were my own.” Page 66
“Familiensinn: German, the feeling and sense of family connection. I longed for it. I cultivated it despite the pain it has often caused me- family is not easty to seek or create.” Page 66
“It’s as if by cookking you have crossed a boundary, and the dance of pounding, kneading, sweating, choking, and smelling connects with something timeless, all of the movements that came before you become you.” Page 71
“She was the keeper of the family recipe box, which had belonged to her in-name-only mother-in-law and her partner, who recently died of bresat cancer.” Page 77
-Micahel Twitty

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Growing up on several different types of farms in rural Wisconsin means that my family wasn’t close enough to visit all the time. I was an only child for nine years, so I spent much of my time hanging out in the barn. I also spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I started off as my dad’s helper and taste tester and eventually was granted the reins to do my own baking. It didn’t take long before certain parts of holiday meals became mine to make. When family did get together, we were always centered around food. Who was going to bring what and who was going to make what was a big deal on both sides. A majority of pictures where we are all together has some sort of food in it, whether it be us around the dinner table or us grazing on snacks before the main course.

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I always remember Mimi baking all the time, well that was before the Alzheimer’s set in. She had a recipe box that she kept all her hand written and cut out recipes in. Eventually we inherited that box of recipes. It was not until I moved back to Wisconsin that I found out there was another whole recipe box that my mother had also gotten. Now that my mom really doesn’t cook much anymore, they have become mine.

I really wish that my other side of the family wrote down more recipes. I have a few, one is a Minnesota chocolate cake, another is a lemon meringue pie, there is our family bread recipe that my father worked hard at writing down a recipe by just watching my great aunt make bread every weekend, and the last is our family pastie, which is another recipe that my uncle created by just watching my grandma and great aunt make it. Like most Finnish people from the other country no one ever wrote down recipes on my dad’s side, because of this many family recipes have disappeared.