When Columbus brought chile peppers to Europe from the Caribbean after his second voyage in 1493, they were first grown in monastery gardens in Spain and Portugual as curiosities. But soon the word got out that the pungent pods were a reasonable and cheap substitute for black pepper, which was so expensive that it had been used as currency in some countries.

It is believed that chiles were introduced into the Nive Valley by Gonzalo Percaztegi in 1523, but it wasn’t until the 17th century that it received its own genus and not until the 19th century that it achieved its status as one of the most loved peppers worldwide. In 1999 AOC was granted to Espelette peppers, or “Ezpeletako bipera” in Basque language, giving it the same protection as more famous names, such as Champagne sparkling wine. Only ten communities are allowed to use the name Espelette.

Piment d Espelette is often used as a substitute for black pepper in the Basque country and is wonderful with eggs fried in extra virgin olive oil or scrambled! Available in our pantry…

 

The bite and aroma of the horseradish root are almost absent until it is grated or ground. During this process, as the root cells are crushed, volatile oils are released making its taste hot. Vinegar stops this reaction and stabilizes the flavor.

While Beaverton Foods of Beaverton, Oregon is the largest producer of horseradish in the United States, its roots can be traced back to the Egyptians, circa 1500 B.C. Early Greeks used it as a rub for low back pain and as an aphrodisiac, and Jews still use it during Passover Seders as one of the bitter herbs. Additionally, horseradish syrup can be used as a cough medicine, and then there’s the belief it’s a cure-all for everything from rheumatism to tuberculosis.

Early settlers brought horseradish to North America and began cultivating it in the colonies. It was common in the northeast by 1806 and grew wild near Boston by 1840. Commercial cultivation in America began in the mid-1850s, when immigrants started horseradish farms in the Midwest.

In 1929, Rose Biggi (pronounced Bee Gee) founded Beaverton Foods as a way to make money for her family during the Great Depression. She lived on land that produced horseradish root so it was put to good use. Her husband wasn’t particularly interested in the business, and even though Rose never acquired a taste for horseradish, the business still flourishes today with 72 full-time employees.

Esther, the first employee to work at Beaverton Foods, stayed for 63 years. Rose didn’t drive and  the then 14-year-old Esther, who had been working in the farm fields, was hired on-the-spot to drive the horseradish root to the processing plant.

Beaverton Foods’ first customer was Mrs. Fred Meyer, of the Pacific Northwest’s Fred Meyer one-stop shopping fame. “Freddie’s” still sells it today, along with 90% of the grocery stores in the U.S.

The business has been kept in the family—Rose’s son, Gene, is President, and grandson Domonic is Vice-President. He hopes to pass down the business to future generations.

With 150 specialty condiments sold internationally, Beaverton Foods is headed to the 16^th Annual Napa Valley Mustard Festival March 13-15 to accept eight awards to add to their vast collection of honors through the years.

One tablespoon of horseradish has only six calories, no fat and is recommended as part of a healthy, low-fat diet because of its fat-free, high-flavor qualities. So if you’re looking to add a little zip to your palate, hotsy-totsy horseradish just might hold the key. Or, for the faint of tongue, horseradish can always be mixed with sour cream or plain yogurt.

Beaverton Foods, Inc.
7100 NW Century Blvd.
Hillsboro, OR 97124
(800) 223-8076

The price of truffles continues to skyrocket (last year’s depressed prices were, I believe, an anomaly). Each year brings news of new record per ounce prices at the famous white truffle auction in Alba, Italy, and world-class chefs buy up pounds and pounds to utilize in pricey truffle-tasting degustation menus that often clock in at upwards of $200 per diner.

So they’re a luxury, to be sure.

About 10 years ago, however, one began to see the word “truffle” appearing on more and more restaurants, even in more reasonably-priced restaurants. This was due to the preponderance of truffle oil, which, one would assume is oil that’s been infused with truffles. Unfortunately, almost all truffle oils found on the market contain no truffle whatsoever. A look at the ingredients listed on the bottle tells you that what these oils contain is “truffle aroma”; also known as 2,4-dithiapentane. That’s right—the flavor contained in truffle oil is an artificial flavor that is produced in a lab and the oil most chefs happily spritz into your mashed potatoes or over your pasta has never, ever been in contact with anything even vaguely resembling a tuber melanosporum. In other words, truffle oil is fake. In the exact same way that cherry Kool-Aid contains no natural cherry flavor and is, therefore, fake.

Yet foodies and chefs alike continue using it. This is an interesting phenomenon, and San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson wrote a really great, thought-provoking 2007 article about it for the New York Times.

If you actually sit down and taste truffle oil and compare it to the flavor of truffles, the difference becomes readily apparent. The flavor of truffle is difficult to describe, because there are really very few similar foodstuffs with which to compare them as a reference. They are musky, heady, and possess a funkiness found in some of the stinkiest cheeses. Truffle oils, like other artificially-flavored foods, take a food that possesses hundreds of flavor notes in a very complex array and reduce the “flavor” down to a single note (or, most, a few notes).

The best way to explain it is to compare the flavor you get when biting into a perfectly ripe strawberry with the flavor you get from strawberry Jell-O. Or the flavor you get from eating a banana compared to that artificial banana flavor found in banana candy. The fake flavor bears almost no resemblance to the real deal.

Those who have had the good fortune to partake in real truffles shaved over buttered fresh tagliatelle can attest to the difference. Truffle oil misses all of the subtlety of real truffle flavor and simply knocks you out with that stinky-feet funk to the point where it almost doesn’t even resemble the complex, dizzying aroma of real truffles. The fake stuff also lacks the staying power of real truffles. When I lived in Bologna, we bought a small white truffle to shave over mashed potatoes as part of our Christmas dinner. The vendor we bought it from gave it to us wrapped in damp newspaper placed in a few plastic bags. We put this package in the back of our fridge, and within half an hour, our entire apartment smelled like truffles—you could smell it in the hall outside our front door. Spill some oil on the counter and, sure, the smell will knock you upside the head for a few minutes, but it will quickly dissipate.

Real truffle oil does exist, but it’s outnumbered in the marketplace by probably 100:1 and, since most people seem content paying ten bucks for a bottle of what they perceive as a luxurious ingredient, bottles of oil infused with real truffle scraps and shavings that cost much more and deliver a more subtle flavor are simply not very popular.

If you’re interested in buying oil that’s been infused with real truffle flavor, you can look for a few things; first, it’ll seem expensive. It should. Truffles are expensive. If it seems like a good deal, it’s probably fake. Second, you should see some pieces of truffle floating around in the bottle, although this is no guarantee that you’re not getting artificially-flavored oil with a speck or two of real chopped truffle. And, third, the label should indicate that this is an “all natural” product, and should contain among the listed ingredients, either the latin name (best) or the provenance (winter Perigord truffles) for the actual truffles used to infuse the oil. If you see stuff like “truffle essence”, “truffle aroma”, or “truffle flavor”, it’s safe to assume that’s the fake stuff.

Truffle salt, thankfully, along with other products such as truffle butter and truffle paste, is much more difficult to fake. These products feature prominent flecks or pieces of actual truffle, so you can literally see that there is some real truffle involved. They can be faked, of course—when stuff gets to be this expensive, people get really enterprising. The most common way that’s done is that they’ll use Chinese black truffles, which look just like the real deal, in conjunction with the aforementioned “aroma”, but this kind of thing is much less common in the salts, pastes, and butters.

I’ve had good luck with a lot of different truffle salts. The real, complex earthy flavor of the truffles are present and the salt is usually very high-quality fleur de sel-type stuff to boot, so they’re nice products to use for finishing—a sprinkle of truffle salt over sliced beef tenderloin, buttered popcorn, french fries, or buttered pasta is a wonderful, revelatory touch—but be careful of over-salting.

 A few things to know when cooking with truffles or truffle-infused products—don’t cook the truffles. The complex flavor notes present in truffles quickly dissipate when exposed to heat. You’ll smell them when they’re cooking, but the aromas will be gone by the time your dish is served. For best results, dishes are finished with truffles, allowing the heat of the dish to heat the truffles just enough to soften and melt them, sending the scent wafting through the air.

Stay simple. When using truffles, they should be the star. Use them on neutral, familiar flavors like bread (thinly-shaved truffles over warm, toasted, olive-oil drizzled bread is an amazing indulgence), potatoes, plain buttered pasta, risotto, eggs, or beef.

As much as you might love the flavor of truffle, save it for special occasions. The real deal is just so much better than the fake stuff. It’s better to splurge on $100 worth of real truffle products that you use over the course of two or three special meals than to buy a hundred bucks worth of artificially-flavored truffle oil and drizzle it over everything in sight. One of the travesties of artificial flavors and processed foods is that our palates become accustomed to the fake or inferior flavor and, over time, we start to forget what the real thing tastes like, causing our standards and expectations to be lowered.

This phenomenon, caused by the mindset that we should be able to buy and eat any product at any time of year, regardless of season, and eat as much of it as we want, is a much larger and more pervasive issue than just as it relates to truffles. The movement towards better, more seasonal, more local, and more flavorful foods has been building momentum for the last 20 or so years here in the US, but those of us that care about the integrity of food are fighting against some very powerful and well-funded entities, and the mindset that we, as Americans, are entitled to eat strawberries in January is deep-seated. Never mind if they’re crunchy, white on the inside, and flavorless; many people think that’s how strawberries are supposed to taste.

But they’re not supposed to be flavorless, of course, as anyone who’s eaten a small, perfectly ripe fraise des bois knows (and that group is growing in numbers all the time). Most foodies, then, that are in the know, wouldn’t buy a big clamshell of Chilean strawberries, knowing how they compare to summer farmer’s-market strawberries. And we won’t even mention strawberry Jell-O.

But many in this same group wouldn’t hesitate to use Bis-(Methylthio)methane oil in their mushroom risotto. Partly, I believe, this is due to the fact that the difficulty and expense of getting to know the flavor of real truffles makes it difficult for most people to taste the difference. But it’s also partly due to the desire to indulge in a “luxury” ingredient more often than our budgets allow.

So it’s time to re-think truffles and truffle-related products. You wouldn’t drink Two-Buck Chuck Cabernet and call it Screaming Eagle, but there’s a time and a place for each and sometimes an inexpensive bottle of wine is entirely appropriate. The important thing, though, is that your palate knows not to expect the good stuff. The same applies with truffle oil; it’s fine for when you want the flavor it provides, just don’t fool yourself into believing that what you’re tasting is truffles. Save that expectation for when you decide to splurge and buy products that contain the real tuber magnatum pico, or, even better, for when you peel back the layers of damp newspaper and rain down paper-thin shavings of the real deal over warm, softly scrambled eggs or grilled crusty bread drizzled with good olive oil.

 Chef Eddie Lakin comes to us with an extensive culinary background, having worked one year in both Spain and Italy. Eddie has worked at the four star “Tru” in Chicago, and with chefs such as David Bouley, and Nobu Matsuhita. Eddie will offer his insights on a wide range of cooking and culinary topics. Visit his blog: Cooking and Eating in Chicago