In Praise of Shepherds and Goatherds

If necessity is the mother of invention, then loneliness and hunger must be the mothers of discovery. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 by a bored Bedouin goatherd named Mazra who was throwing rocks into a cave near Qumran, a dusty spot not far from the Dead Sea. The crash of shattering pottery led him to investigate the cave. Like Mayberry’s Opie Taylor throwing rocks into his fishing pond, Mazra was Palestine’s post-war Opie, doing the arid alternative.

Coffee was legendarily discovered by Kaldi, a goatherd who noticed his goats acting more frisky than usual after eating coffee cherries. Although scholars might consider the former discovery more critical to Civilization, the latter is more critical to my daily well-being.

Having covered boredom, let’s move on to loneliness. Roquefort cheese was discovered by a French shepherd who saw a pretty girl in the distance. Stashing his lunch of cheese and bread in a cave, he set out to follow her. The bad news is that he never caught up to her. The good news is that he eventually found his lunch again, which by this time had become covered in blue mold. In the “mold” of true adventurers through the ages, he took a bite, didn’t die, and actually kind of liked it. Thus an artisan cheese was born. Roquefort cheese, now one of the world’s best loved blues, is still made the same way, in the Combalou caves near Roquefort-Soulzon, just northwest of Montpellier on France’s Mediterranean coast. The only difference is that Lacaune sheep’s milk is purposely inoculated with Penicillium roqueforti and left to age naturally, and neither shepherds nor pretty peasant girls are involved in the process. As far as we know....

I adore blue cheese, yet I have only enjoyed them one at a time. As any professional taster will assert, the true measure of food or drink is how it measures up to its competition. In the spirit of trying to pick a favorite, I lined up Stilton, Roquefort, St. Agur and Gorgonzola. There are many more out there, but I chose four well-known, commonly available cheeses.

Stilton
I started with the most familiar, a wedge of Stilton. This English cheese from the villages of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire (and not Stilton, curiously enough), is recognizable for its tendrils of Penicillium roqueforti the color of spruce needles that weave their way through the parchment-colored cheese like lichen across granite. It has a pleasant, balanced saltiness and nice complexity. Its texture is very solid, a little crumbly and not particularly creamy.

Roquefort
Roquefort was one I had been looking forward to with anticipation. It is the cheese that baffled me when I was a child. Back in my salad days, the dressings I chose were fairly mundane, and my Grandpa Ted’s dousing of innocent iceberg lettuce with Roquefort was fairly-shudder inducing to my Thousand Island sensibilities. I’ve grown to love it since then. This sample didn’t disappoint. Creamy white with pockets, rather than veins of blue, it was the most intensely blue of the four. The texture was crumbly and slightly moist. The flavor was amazingly complex, with a sturdy saltiness and a slightly sweet fruitiness.

Saint Agur
Next up was the newcomer to my palate, Saint Agur. It is a pasteurized cow’s milk cheese from Monts du Velay, a village in the Auvergne region of France. It has a soft white base with blue-green veins of Penicillium roqueforti. Its 60% butterfat content makes it a double-cream cheese, beautifully spreadable. It is milder and less salty than Roquefort, with a subtle blue flavor.

Gorgonzola
Moving from Britain and France to Italy, the last cheese tasted was Gorgonzola. Made from cow’s milk, it comes from the village of Gorgonzola, near Milan in Lombardy region of Italy. Tradition says that the making of this cheese began in 879 A.D., in a process that uses the bacteria of Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus along with mold spores of Penicillium glaucum and Penicillium roqueforti. My sample was smooth and buttery, with a milder blue character than the others. It was also more delicate and less salty than the others.

All four cheeses were delicious, especially for a blue cheese fan. Overall, Roquefort was my favorite. Its intense yet complex flavor won me over. I put Saint Agur second, due to its wonderful creaminess and delicacy of flavor. Gorgonzola was a close third. Surprisingly to me, Stilton came in last, which might come as a shock to my companions in our Friday night dinner group that I have attended regularly for years. One of the merry men, John, has the crucial responsibility of bringing cheese every week. Invariably it is Stilton, his favorite. After this unofficial taste panel, Stilton may have to relinquish its champion’s belt to Roquefort.

Thank goodness for shepherds and goatherds. These bored loners have been responsible for some of civilization’s greatest discoveries (and one of its most delicious). It just goes to show you what a pastoral setting and a lot of time on your hands can accomplish. So after all that dues-paying, getting the pale-pink-coated-little-girl in “The Sound of Music” is certainly their well-deserved earthly reward. And they no longer have to lose their lunch over her.

Chili Verde Loves You. Don't Play Hard To Get.

I get regular cravings for Mexican food. Especially for the kind that I can’t have. Having lived in Colorado and California, and having tooled around the rest of the Southwest over the years, there are Mexican/TexMex meals that I still remember. Chili rellenos in Santa Fe. Tamales in San Antonio. Street tacos in Tijuana. One place I keep returning to, both physically and in memory, is Santa Barbara. We have friends there whom we regularly visit. And when we visit, there are two pilgrimages I make.

The first is to the Rose Cafe, where I take communion of the house rice. It has a beautiful balance of tomato, spice and roasted garlic. Everything there is incredible, but I could live on the rice alone. The second is La Super Rica, an unassuming storefront that can be identified by the lines of people waiting to get in. Everything on the menu is just spectacular.

Both restaurants have this in common: delicious chili verde. There is something about chili verde that is so simple, so memorable, yet so hard to do well. It is basically pork, green chili peppers and spices. Getting it right is a culinary journey. By way of contrast, red chili has more ingredients and is easier to make--you can almost throw everything into a cast iron Dutch oven and let it go for half a day. Green chili is hands on, requiring more tinkering.

The first part of the chili verde journey is choosing the peppers. Ideally I make it with a variety of green peppers to add complexity of flavor and texture. The artistry is in the proportion of peppers and spices.

I like to use large, meaty Anaheim peppers, squat Poblano peppers, fiery Jalapeno peppers and mild bell peppers. Look for peppers that are large, fresh and juicy. You are going to be roasting these and removing the skin. Little skinny peppers won’t leave much after the seed pod and skin are removed. Leaving the skin on makes the stew a little acrid.

What follows is a starting point. Your mission is to run with it and make it your own. An idealist’s chili verde, this recipe assumes that you have access to authentic ingredients and an afternoon in which to work your magic. If you don’t, work with what you have. It will still be good. Chili verde loves you and is very forgiving of your sins.

Ingredients:
2lbs. Pork Loin, 3/4-inch cubes
1 cup chopped fresh Cilantro
1 large white Onion, diced
1 head of Garlic, chopped
6 Tomatillos (or green tomatoes)
Enough large meaty Green Peppers to make 2 cups of chopped pepper flesh after roasting, peeling and seeding (Anaheim peppers, Poblano peppers, Jalapeno peppers and Green Bell peppers)
1/4 cup Olive oil or Vegetable oil (enough to brown the pork)
2 cups Chicken broth
1/2 tsp. White pepper
1 tsp. Cumin
1/2 tsp. Coriander
1 tsp. Salt
Optional: Jalapeno powder, raw jalapeno peppers or pickled jalapeno peppers in a jar
Optional: Corn tortillas
Optional: Sour cream

Process:
Remove the husks and scrub the tomatillos until the slippery residue is gone. Set aside. Chop onion and set aside. Chop garlic and set aside. Chop cilantro, discarding the stems, and set aside.

Cube pork & then brown over high heat (until medium rare) in a little oil in your chili pan. Set aside meat and pan juices.

Meanwhile, roast peppers. A barbecue grill works easily for this. You can even hold each pepper with tongs and sear them one at a time over the flames of a gas rangetop. A regular oven and a cookie sheet will work for this, just place them on the top shelf and crank the heat to 400 or 450. Once roasted, toss peppers into a paper bag, close the bag and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Roast tomatillos (or green tomatoes) until soft and slightly browned. Set aside.

In chili pan, saute white onions in olive oil until they start to become translucent. Then add the chopped garlic. When the garlic starts to soften, add back pork and juices. Set burner to low heat. Add spices and salt. Add 1 cup of chicken broth.

Pulse the tomatillos in a food processor until slightly chunky. It’s important to do these separately because they breakdown much easier than the remaining ingredients. Add to chili pan.

Peel skin off the roasted peppers and discard. Carefully remove the seed cores and discard. Chop the roasted pepper flesh.

Combine cilantro and 1/2 cup roasted pepper flesh in food processor until it is a bright green liquid. Add a little liquid (chicken stock) if needed. Add to chili pan. Add remaining roasted pepper chunks to chili pan.

Add remaining chicken broth. Let simmer for 30-45 minutes. Don’t cook it for too long or the pork will become dry. Adjust spices and salt as it simmers, to taste. If you need more cilantro freshness, add a little coriander, which is the seed from the same plant.

If not spicy enough, add jalapeno powder, diced fresh jalapeno (seeded), or diced pickled jalapeno to taste.

Serve with warm tortillas. Add a dollop of sour cream if you like.