Tapioca and the Swamp of Sadness

Tapioca pudding is the premier pudding in my mind.  I like simple foods that allow you to taste the basic ingredients.  Tapioca pudding is as simple as they come with milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.  To me tapioca is like hummus, a uncomplicated food canvas on which you can paint your own masterpiece with additions like fruit, cocoa, spices, etc.  (Note: I don't put fruit on my hummus).  I often put a dash of nutmeg in my recipe to give it a warm autumn flavor, but you can really do anything you want to tapioca.

My dad, who likes adventure in the kitchen, uses a mixture of tapioca and vanilla pudding for something he eloquently calls "Pimple Pudding."  A dollop of this heavy pudding goes down on the dish first.  Followed by a big spoonful of homemade raspberry pie filling.  He tops it of with a little whipped cream on top.  Cream, red, white.  Pimple Pudding.  You get the picture.  A culinary treat.  I don't have a picture of the pudding, and for the sake of my reader (yes, singular), I digress from posting pimple pictures.  Here is an illustration to at least give you something to think about.

So being a tapioca guy, I decided to make my own from scratch.  And from scratch, I mean large tapioca pearls that require soaking as opposed to Minute Tapioca which I usually make at home.  At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to follow through.  Here is a comparison of the directions for each method.

The Instant Stuff

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons minute tapioca
• 2 3/4 cups milk
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Mix sugar, tapioca, milk and egg in a saucepan, let set 5 minutes.
2. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, til mixture comes to a full boil.
3. Remove from heat, then stir in vanilla.
4. Cool 20 minutes, then stir.
5. Serve warm or cold.

The Not-So-Instant Stuff

Follow this link for directions, they are too long to type.

So all that being said, I wanted to do some "real" tapioca the way the founding fathers of tapioca wanted it to be.  I started out on my adventure soaking the pearls overnight, slow cooking them in a make-shift double boiler, and slowly combining the eggs with my hot mixture.  I was like Picasso the way I was gingerly mixing my masterpiece.  I was almost done.  I had fluffed my egg whites to rigid peaks and was ready to fold them into my hot pudding for the final touch.  This is a very important step because the hot pudding will cook the egg whites, so my timing and technique needed to be perfect.

Right when I placed the egg whites on top of the pudding I hear "KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK."  Instantly, I remembered that I had some visitors coming for an important meeting.  I had totally forgotten.  Furthermore, because it was a hot summer day,  I was not dressed adequately to receive company. To be frank, my appearance like this in public would probably violate city ordinances.  Kristin couldn't answer the door because she was in my same situation with the addition of a hungry baby in her arms.  I was caught between my pudding and my guests.  I could finish stirring, but it would take another 3-4 minutes and then I would have to get dressed.  Considering the importance of my meeting, I dropped the spoon and ran to find some pants and a shirt.  I'm pretty sure I felt like Atreyu in Never Ending Story when his horse Artax succumbed to the Swamp of Sadness. (For full dramatic effect, please watch the video.

To make a long story short, my great pudding also succumbed the Swamp of Sadness.  When I returned from my meeting, my pudding was a mess.  The egg whites were not mixed in, yet they had cooked into a sea of nastiness.  The whole apartment smelled like boiled egg for days.  I tried to eat some of it, but it was destroyed.  Goodbye Artax.


I don't know if I can ever return to that tapioca battle field.  I have decided that minute tapioca pudding is a superb pudding, and I have no need to face the humiliating defeat that comes when you put it all on the line for fame, fortune, or just a really good pudding.  Next time you're at my apartment, ask for some minute tapioca, I'm sure I can oblige.

Death by Canning

History Lesson:  Canning was developed in the 1800's as a way to keep high caloric foods at the front lines for armies.  This method was originally done in glass jars but tin cans were soon used for better transport.  Canned foods soon became somewhat of a novelty and became heavily used in WWI and WWII.  As with any war, innocent casualties resulted.  The death of great food.

Take for example leaf spinach.  It is despised by anyone under 18 years old and many adults. When I was a kid the word spinach immediately brought images of tin cans and a super strong sailor.  I think canned spinach was purposely given a bad flavor to keep hostile armies from eating American provisions.  Needless to say, war killed spinach for a long time.  Luckily, we have rediscovered fresh spinach and it has made it way into our kitchens once again.

This history lesson was triggered while dining at our friends house this week.  As part of a Texas themed dinner, our host had prepared "creamed corn."  What?  Who eats creamed corn?  Well, apparently lots of people from the south.  And I quickly learned that, like most canned foods, creamed corn in the can was inspired at one point by an actual food.  This homemade version of a food previously extinct from my adult diet was absolutely delicious.  Find a recipe, try it.  Thanks Lori.

Creamed Corn Side by side:  canned vs. real (hint: the real cream corn is yellow . . . like corn)

My Message:  Not all canned foods are created equal.  I have discovered a number of foods that I prefer to use fresh over canned.  There are also some that I don't mind using canned.  Here is my breakdown of canned foods that may or may not be served to guests in my home:

1. spinach, creamed corn:  no
2. corned beef: no (especially not to Irish friends)
   
3. green beans: no (army green vs. vibrant green)
   
4. carrots, potatoes, mushrooms:  never
5. kernal corn: yes (but I prefer frozen)
   
6. legume beans: yes, but slow cooking dry beans is easy too
   
7. spaghetti sauce: maybe (once tried making my own, that deserves its own blog post)
   
8. water chestnuts: certainly
9. Tomatoes: yes
   
10. chick peas: always

Moral of the Story:  Most canned foods will save time but you give up flavor and texture.  Some foods give up way too much flavor and texture to be used.  Try replacing them with fresh foods or even frozen.  Remember, many canned foods are in cans not because they take a long time to prepare, but because they are easy to store and transport.  Luckily we have refridgerators and we don't pack our food with us.

As for chick peas (garbanzo beans), I tried making hummus by cooking the dried variety.  It took a long time and it made our apartment smell like eggs for days.  Canned chick peas will be used for hummus in our home from now on.

Note:  I am not a food snob.  I enjoy eating lots of foods from cans.  I have a secret love affair with canned ravioli.  This is merely my perspective on how canning has killed wonderful foods.  Lets bring them back to life.