New Pope's Favorite Drink Tells His Life Story

The crowds gathered in St Peter's Square in Rome were amazing when Vatican officials announced on Monday that the new pope would be, wait for it, an Argentinean.

Yes, that's right, an Argentinean - not an Italian, not even a European! Shock and surprise. So who is this man?

He is Jorge Bergoglio, the very different Cardinal of Buenos Aires. To begin with he speaks Spanish as a first language and is also a trained biologist.

But the differences go far further than that for this ascendant to the throne of Peter. Bergoglio is a Jesuit with a lifelong dedication to the poor and his whole lifestyle, including diet, is an indication of that commitment.

He has for many years lived in, not a palatial palace, but a midsized apartment in downtown Buenos Aires with another elderly priest. There he has cooked his own meals, crafting them from fruits and vegetables purchased at local markets with only an occasionally accent of meat for flavor. (What amazing dietary discipline in the land known for its fabulous and very large stakes).

After dinner he was known to often stroll on the streets of the Capital pausing to talk and listen to the needs, not of the high and the mighty, but of the everyday person. He never hesitated to enjoy what they enjoyed and that included a gourd of yerba mate, Argentina's national drink.

And therein lies a tale for mate is also known throughout South America as "Jesuit Tea". During the 1600s and 1700s the Jesuits established many missions throughout Paraguay and Argentina. In addition to sharing European skills with the local indigenous people, the Jesuits also simultaneously protected them from enslavement by the nearby Portuguese. 

While working together, the Jesuits and the free native population were able to cultivate the tea-like wild mate plant. Soon this new-world produce was competing with the English and Dutch marketed tea and producing significant revenue to support the Jesuit missions. 

In 1750 all this, however, came to a stop. The Treaty of Madrid, as captured in the film, The Mission, redrew the map of South America to satisfy the wishes of the rich and powerful.

This redistricting forced many of the once free native people under Spanish rule into Portuguese territories and into slavery. The Jesuits protested such an injustice while the native people could only flee back into the jungle and so sense of safety.

Without care, the mate producing farms were soon overgrown and absorbed back into the tangled undergrowth leaving no trace of the renaissance between cultures that might have been.

The new pope is surely aware of this tragic struggle between obedience to authority and unalienable human rights because he has chosen "Francis" ("Francisco" in Italian) as his papal name.

St. Francis himself, as shown in the film, Brothers Sun, Sister Moon, struggled with this same conflict. Born into wealth and comfort, he came to understand that nothing can be rebuilt by exclusion, by indifference.

Like Francis, this new Pope is a man of simplicity, entering a world of marble palaces and rigid hierarchy. He is being called upon to address such vast issues as the ever widening child-abuse scandal and possible money laundering by the Vatican bank as well as the needs of the poor and the demand for universal womens' rights.

Pope Francis has in the past preferred public transportation over riding in a limousine, carried his own luggage, bought his own groceries and even danced the tango when he was younger.

Like St. Francis, he will find himself in need of that humility if he is to decline the seductive trappings of papal glory and remember the value a gourd of yerba mate drunk with the very people that Christ himself called, "My Brothers and Sisters".

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Timberlake and SNL Invite Everyone to Visit Veganville

Once in the land of mass produced, high calorie foods, vegetarians were considered, well, just strange and marginal. But no longer.

Today veggies are seen as good and normal - part of an informed lifestyle choice. We should, of course, thank such culinary leaders as Alice Waters and Michelle Obama, who among others have helped to change the way we think about food.

As of last weekend, we can also thank Justin Timberlake and the creative team at Saturday Night Live who helped their millions of viewers to laugh and so take a trip to that once forbidden destination - Veganville.

Chefs will surely cheer (and so will the diners' doctors) - because now we can all "live longer and prosper".

 Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Batman Gets It Right while Rush Limbaugh Gets It WRONG

Take heart Batman! A recent study at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab found that when children were asked if the Caped Crusader would eat apples (good) or fast food French fries (bad), they overwhelming said their hero would choose apples!

Wow! Pow! Bang!  So move over film critics who of late have negatively reviewed the most recent Batman film, The Black Knight Rises, as having little merit.

The movie’s talented director, Christopher Nolan, has even gone on record to defend the many fans who have responded to the critics’ negative reviews by storming the Internet.

The resulting digital wave was so massive that the popular cinema info site, Rotten Tomatoes, closed down the viewers’ comment area. Rather sad.

But possibly the strangest of the strange was Rush Limbaugh’s seeing sinister political plots by President Obama and Hollywood, where none existed, by confusing the film’s villain’s name, Bane with Mitt Romney’s controversial firm, Bain.

With just a little study (no apple from the teacher for Limbaugh), this extreme conservative radio host would have learned that the movie’s hateful character was actually created by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan (both lifelong conservatives) back in 1993, years before Romney began asking Americans to consider electing him president.

So at this point, the children in the Cornell Test Lab seem a whole lot smarter than this ill-informed commentator who often advances his career through hateful speech on a wide range of topics, including labeling those who advocate healthy food choices for children as "Food Nazis".

His comments are not just sad thoughtless speech, but rather the hazardous habit of substituting hate for truthful useful information.

Post Note, July 20, 2012: The staff of YourCulinaryWorld.com arrived at the office greatly saddened today by the tragic news from Aurora, Colorado where many people were killed and many more injured by a masked shooter during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.

The question that comes to mind as we discuss this horror is "Why?" Why must our world be like this? Why must be the innocent suffer?

We do not have the answer. We wished we did, but we do know that we must seek to understand the source of such violence, no matter how ugly the resulting answers may be to us or about us. 

Only then can we change the future and genuinely leave these darkened days behind us, rather than endlessly repeat the past, complete with all its senseless clubs and stones, guns and bombs. Then perhaps the seemingly ceaseless stream of tears that floods our world might stop.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2012

Full Text of "An Open Letter to the Chefs of Tomorrow" from Lima

Per many requests from our readers, here is the entire “Open Letter to the Chefs of Tomorrow’ signed in Lima, Peru on September 10, 2011 by Ferran Adriá, Yukkio Hattori, Massimo Bottura, Michel Bras, René Redzepi, Gastón Acurio, Alex Atala and Dan Barber at the 2nd Summit of the International Advisory Board of the Basque Culinary Center: 

Dear Chef,

In relation with nature

1. Our work depends on nature’s gifts. As a result we all have a responsibility to know and protect nature, to use our cooking and our voices as a tool for recovering heirloom and endangered varieties and species, and promoting new ones. In this way we can help protect the earth’s biodiversity, as well as preserve and create flavours and to elaborate culinary methods.

2. Over the course of thousands of years, the dialogue between humans and nature has created agriculture. We are all, in other words, part of an ecological system. To ensure that this ecology is as healthy as possible, let’s encourage and practice sustainable production in the field and in the kitchen. In this way, we can create authentic flavour.

In relation with society

3. As chefs, we are the product of our culture. Each of us is heir to a legacy of flavours, dining customs and cooking techniques. Yet we don’t have to be passive. Through our cooking, our ethics, and our aesthetics, we can contribute to the culture and identity of a people, a region, a country. We can also serve as an important bridge with other cultures.

4. We practice a profession that has the power to affect the socio-economic development of others. We can have a significant economic impact by encouraging the exportation of our own culinary culture and fomenting others’ interest in it. At the same time, by collaborating with local producers and employing fair economic practices, we can generate sustainable local wealth and financially strengthen our communities.

 

In relation with knowledge

5. Although a primary goal of our profession is to provide happiness and stir emotions, through our own work and by working with experts in the fields of health and education, we have a unique opportunity to transmit our knowledge to members of the public, helping them, for example, to acquire good cooking habits, and to learn to make healthy choices about the foods they eat.

6. Through our profession, we have the opportunity to generate new knowledge, whether it be something so simple as the development of a recipe or as complicated as an in-depth research project. And just as we have each benefited from the teaching of others, we have a responsibility, in turn, to share our learning.

In relation with values

7. We live in a time in which cooking can be a beautiful form of self-expression. Cooking today is a field in constant evolution that includes many different disciplines. For that reason, it’s important to carry out our quests and fulfill our dreams with authenticity, humility, and above all, passion. Ultimately, we are each guided by our own ethics and values.

Post Note, September 23, 2011: From the writers of Your Culinary World: Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

Recent Culinary Trends Are Back to Basics from the Caveman Diet to Better Butter

The hottest new culinary trends now include both the very old to the newest of the new.  Just consider, for example, the newest dietary trend – the caveman diet. Yes, that’s right, the caveman diet.

Called the “Paleo Diet” by academics such as Loren Cordain of Colorado Sate Univeristy, it focuses on a return to the 10,000 year old diet of Stone Age hunters and gatherers. As a result, it is heavy on meat, restrictive of most modern grains and devoid of processed or cultivated foods.

Initial reports suggest the diet can assist in alleviating such modern health issues as obesity, Tyoe-2 diabetes and an assortment of coronary problems. But there’s just one problem – you have to have the physical activity level of a caveman to burn off the accumulated calories from so much protein.

Ouch! In our far more sedentary modern lifestyle, few of us have the time to equal the effort of a bison hunt via exercising at the gym.

In addition, few individuals from the Paleolithic era lived past 30 years of age. Maybe the short lifespan made eating all that very rare meat and gathered berries bareable.

Also making a return from the past is better butter.  For a long time the best butter came, like so many things culinary, from la belle France where it is revered like fine wine and cheese with its own AOC classification, based on region and butterfat content. 

Sadly, America has suffered through margarine and over-commercialized butter with reduced butterfat and added salt and water. The result was higher profits for the manufacturers and poorer pastries for the consumer.

If you doubt this is a serious matter on the food front, just consider that embattled US dairy farmers staged a “Margarine War” in a valiant effort to limit the sale of the butter substitute.  They gladly prosecuted and sent any bootleggers of fake butter that they encountered to jail!

But it’s the French who literally declared war on margarine. During World War I French soldiers were so enraged at supple officers, who forwarded margarine instead of real butter to the front lines, they loaded it into their 75mm howitzer cannons and shot it over to the Germans! (The famed 75 Champagne Cocktail was created in Paris to honor those very guns and was a favorite of the young American reporter Ernest Hemingway).

America, however, can now take heart. With the rise of artisan cheese has come the availability of better butters, many matching the famed butters on France in butterfat (83% and above) and flavor.

Hurray and congratulations to these fine producers.  All is not lost. But take heart, if you long for the modern. Jean-Louis Hecht, a baker from northeast France has invented and installed a 24-hour automated baguette dispenser.

Yes, yes, it does allow access to “fresh” bread during the evening, over a holiday or when many of France’s 33,000 bakeries take their August vacation. But is this really what we want? Bread from a machine, not a bakery – a place traditionally filled with the heavenly smell of all that’s best?

Perhaps absolutely ancient and equally so hip modern, are extremes too far.  Humanity has struggled for endless centuries to reach enjoyable cuisine.  Let’s not throw away the best for over simplification or excessive modernization.

Here’s to cheese, bread, butter and all at makes life enjoyable!

 Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011