Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Yerba Mate

     We're heading back to South America for this post.  Yerba mate is a plant whose leaves are used to make a stimulating beverage.  It's believed that this drink was first discovered and developed by people living in southern Brazil, although now it's popular throughout most of the continent, as well as Syria.  It's also making inroads into the U.S. and Europe.
     The traditional manner of preparing the beverage is fairly rough and rustic.  The leaves (and sometimes the twigs) are put in a hollow gourd, and hot water is poured in.  Sometimes cold water is used, and occasionally sugar is added as well.  Another common way of using the yerba mate is to mix an infusion of it with cold water, and sometimes combine this with fruit juices.  This is called, terere.
     As with many of the exotics I've discussed, there are many health claims for yerba mate.  Some assert it's good for combatting allergies, boosting the immune system, preventing diabetes, suppressing the appetite, and improving mental energy and mood.  However, these claims haven't been scientifically proven as of yet.  Conversely, there are evidently health problems from consuming this drink.  It appears that long term use can significantly increase the chances of getting oral cancer, as well as causing high blood pressure.  Less dramatically, many drinkers report that it gives the energy of coffee, but without coffee's negative "jittery" effect, and later dramatic "crash."  I was unable to find out if yerba mate has less or more caffeine in it than coffee--it seems this can vary.
     Clearly I didn't try yerba mate in the traditional way.  I saw it, pre-bottled and pre-canned, in Whole Foods.  I usually try to sample a variety of companies and brands, but here I was stymied.  Guayaki appears to have a stranglehold of the yerba mate, a monopoly, at least in in the Albany, NY area.  I bought the traditional terere, the citrus terere, and the sparkling cranberry pomegranate flavor.  Each container also listed the relative energy, as measured by its caffeine content, from a low of "light," up through "bright," "lifted," "glowing," and "mighty."  Both the tereres were "glowing," while the cranberry pomegranate was "lifted."
     I began with the traditional terere.  It tasted like weak tea.  It finished kind of weird.  In short, I wasn't a big fan.  The citrus terere was essentially the same as its plain cousin--I couldn't really discern a citrus-y flavor.  Finally, the cranberry pomegranate was by far the pick of the litter.  It was still tea-ish, but the cranberry tint really helped.  I don't think I have these again--maybe the cranberry pomegranate one for an occasional change of pace.
     As for the energy boost, I didn't notice any.  But, as I've stated in previous posts, caffeine doesn't seem to affect me very much.  And because I despise coffee, I can't really compare and contrast yerba mate vs. java.    

Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Sea Cucumbers

     After learning a bit about sea cucumbers, I came away quite impressed.  What a wonderfully bizarre creature!  In fact, I think the platypus may have some serious competition for the title of World's Weirdest Animal.
     As their name suggests, while there is variety amongst the species, most look like a cucumber that lives on the ocean floor.  However, despite their moniker, they aren't plants, but are marine animals. They're echinoderms, related to starfish and sea urchins, although they don't resemble either of these.
     So what's odd about them?  Pretty much everything.  Let's start with the brains.  Oh wait, we can't--they don't have any.  They do have a ring of neural tissue that helps them decide when to feed, when to move, when to fight, etc., but even this isn't that important.  If this neural ring is removed, they carry on just fine.  Then there's the way that sea cucumbers breathe.  They lack lungs, or even gills.  They extract oxygen using "respiratory trees."  These organs are located inside their rear end.  They intake water through the anus, and it then gets to the respiratory trees.  So they breathe through their asses.  But we're not done.  When their fellow sea creatures try to attack and eat them, they have a strange but effective defense strategy.  They expel internal organs at the would be predators, sometimes through their butt, sometimes through a tear in their abdominal wall.  These projected innards are often sticky, and occasionally even toxic to the attacker.  You might be wondering the obvious question, mainly, how does the sea cucumber then function without these organs?  Just fine, as it turns out.  They're regenerated within a few weeks.
     Sizewise, again there is quite a bit of variation.  They range from 3 millimeters in length to 3 meters (about 10 feet) long.  Although the average size is, not shockingly, about the size of a cucumber (10-20 centimeters long).  They can also live in extremely deep, pressure packed environments, as they've been found at depths of over 10,000 meters.
     Sea cucumbers are mainly an Asian culinary staple, and that's where I had them.  Specifically, at A La Shanghai, in Latham, NY (Thanks to Pat for the recommendation).  The appearance was, predictably, strange.  At first glance it resembled chunks of eggplant, but if one looked closer, you could see a blackish outer skin which had a circular pattern on it.  The texture was mostly soft and chewy, although every so often there was a slight crunch at the end.  Initially I found it mediocre, but it really grew on me.  The more I had, the more I enjoyed it.  I would definitely have this again, although I realize opportunities to do so will be limited.  For the record, the other dishes at A La Shanghai were very good as well.  My friends and I particularly liked the dumplings filled with soup.

Exotic/Disgusting Foods and Beverages Forum--Cherimoya

     It probably goes without saying that small towns usually have less diverse choices of food than large towns, or cities.  But every so often one will surprise you.  The tiny Pennsylvania town Wysox (population of less than 2000 people) did so recently.  Their local grocery store, Tops, had an exotic or two hidden away.  And thanks also to Alix (aka Panther) for alerting me to this food's presence, and serving it to the crew.
     Cherimoya is a fruit of slightly questionable heritage.  Some scientists claim it's South American in origin, specifically in the Andes region, while others point out it's closely related to several Central American varieties.  But whatever New World area it originally came from, it's since spread in popularity.  It's also now grown in South Asia, California and Florida, Portugal, and Italy.
     To be frank, it's not an attractive looking fruit.  It's a green color, with occasional black markings, and has diamond shaped dimples all over it.  It's fairly large, being a little bigger than a grapefruit.  The interior pulp is whitish, with about 20-30 black seeds.
     The cherimoya tree is fraught with danger.  The seeds, young fruit, and leaves serve as insecticides to certain insect species.  The sap is irritating, and can injure people's eyes.  A chemical in the bark can be used to induce paralysis, (at least in toads).  Finally, the seeds are poisonous.  Luckily, since it's fairly easy to accidently consume one, they can safely pass through a person's digestive system--they're only hazardous if the seed is broken up.
     Cherimoya certainly has its fans.  Famous author Mark Twain claimed it was the "most delicious fruit known to men."  Others compare its taste to a blend of pineapples, papaya, bananas, strawberries, and peaches.  It's also known as the "custard apple" because of its flavor.
     I had it twice.  The first time it was presumably not as ripe, since the texture was rather firm.  It was okay, but it did have a weird chalky tint.  The second time I let it sit for a few day before I ate it.  This aged fruit was much softer--I was able to scoop it from the rind with a spoon.  I liked it much better this way--it was mild, sweetish, and pretty good.  Although it did give me a mild stomach ache afterward--evidently it was a tad overripe.  I didn't notice all the blended fruit flavors mentioned earlier, but maybe my palate isn't sophisticated enough, due to years of canned pasta, gas station beef jerky, and White Castle burgers.
     Anyway, to sum up, I don't quite agree with Mr. Twain's assessment, but cherimoya was good when it was aged a bit.  I would have it again.  Finally, like many fruits, it's nutritious, having significant amounts of fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin B-6, and several antioxidants.

"Coming Back" Now Available

     I'm delighted to announce that "Coming Back" is now available from Thirteen O'clock Press.  This horror anthology includes a short story of mine, entitled "Next to Godliness."  This book is 180 pages, was edited by Dorothy Davies, and has stories from Evan Purcell, Ken Goldman, Shawna Rand, Michael B. Fletcher, Thomas M. Malafarina, and many others.

     Here's the official blurb: 
        Coming back from--that's the point at which the authors in this varied and fascinating anthology take off in all directions.
        Zombies through to returning parents, coming back proves to mean many different things to many people.
        Coming back to Thirteen O'clock Publications' premier authors and sample some dark, dark stories.

     My story is about a weird group which investigates and celebrates existence in all of its forms, and what happens when one of these searches goes horribly awry.
     You can find out more, and order this book at the following address:
     http://www.lulu.com/shop/thirteen-o-clock-press/coming-back/paperback/product-21883784html

Coffin Hop Results and Farewell

     Well, Coffin Hop 2014 is dead.  But much like a horror movie monster, it will never stay that way--we'll just have to wait until next year.
      As always, thanks to Axel for orchestrating this theater of the morbid.  And thanks to all the other writers and artists who participated.  Finally, thanks to everyone else who took the time to stop by all of our blogs.  I'm sure we all learned about some interesting books, poetry, artwork, and films.  I hope everyone had as much eerie fun as I did.
     The winner of my blog contest was Julia Floyd, for her knowledge of horror movie trivia.  Congrats, Julia!  Just decide which of my ebooks you'd like to receive a free copy of ("Dead Reckoning" or "Kaishaku," info on both was posted on October 27th and October 31st), and drop me an email at:   paulccstansfield@gmail.com    and we'll make the arrangements.

Blurb and Excerpt for "Kaishaku"

     Below you’ll find the blurb and excerpt for my second ebook, “Kaishaku.”  Winners of the Horror Author Trivia contest and the Horror Movie Trivia contest will be able to get a free copy of either this book or “Dead Reckoning” (see October 27^th post for more information on that book).  Kaishaku is also available on the Musa Publishing website (www.musapublishing.com) and on Amazon.  The cover is on the right border of this blog.

  Kaishaku Blurb:

     After receiving a DUI, Dustin Dempster is working off some community service hours at a hospital.  While there he’s asked to do some amateur counseling of sometimes difficult patients.  He thinks this a waste of time, but he reluctantly agrees.

     One of these difficult patients is Levon Howard, a man paralyzed from the neck down because of a car accident.  He’s initially uncooperative, but after being charmed by Dustin’s brutal honesty and willingness to break some small hospital rules, he agrees to participate.  Soon he’s revealing his biggest secrets to Dustin…

     For Levon is an obsessed and unrepentant killer of the worst sort, only with a personal quirk.  Despite his revulsion, Dustin finds himself intrigued by Levon’s story.  Soon he finds himself doing what was once unthinkable, and realizes that he’s being affected by what he’s learned.  Will Howard’s madness claim yet another victim, or even another perpetuator?

Kaishaku Excerpt:

     Dustin pulled up his chair, and listened intently.

     “For starters, my name is Levon, so call me that.  Not big on ‘Mr. Howard.’  Fort is right in a way—I do want to talk.  Just not to someone like him, or his flunkies, or a nurse.  What I’m going to tell you I’ve never told anyone—but I figure, why not?  My life—my real life—is over.

     “You never told anyone?  Why not?”

     “Shut up and listen!  You’ll see.  But anyway, the most important thing in my life is that I’m obsessed with killing.  With a catch—I’m not a murderer.  I’ve never been arrested, never went to jail, and never even broke the law.”

     Levon paused to catch his breath, and Dustin just stared at him, and resisted the urge to laugh.  Come on!  This guy’s gotta be fucking with me!  Or was he?  He looked pretty sincere—could he be serious?  Maybe he would have been better off not talking to him.  But, on the other hand, Levon could hardly attack him even if he wanted to, and besides, Dustin was a little curious.  So he waited for the paralyzed man to resume.

   

Pumpkin Beers (Updated)

     (Regular readers of this blog might be saying, “Wait a second, this post sounds awfully familiar.”  And they’d be right, this is a reprint from a year ago.  However, I have updated it a little bit, as I was able to try some more pumpkin beer offerings.  Essentially, I needed another Halloween-related post for the Coffin Hop, and couldn’t think of anything else in time!  New updates are marked with an asterisk (*) in front of them.)

     Since it’s the Halloween season I thought I’d do a post about the brew of the season—pumpkin beers.  By doing so I may be risking alienating (or boring) any non-American readers, because pumpkin beers appear to be a nearly exclusive American beverage.  Also, these beers are probably pushing the “exotic” title, as due to their type’s popularity explosion in the past decade or so they’re probably more like “slightly unusual.”  But what the hell—I want to post about at least one food or beverage with a tie to Halloween this month, so let’s get on with it.

     In researching pumpkin beers, I was surprised to learn that their history is extensive.  Like before the U.S. was even a country.  One website I consulted noted that America’s first folk song, written in 1643, was a satire about eating (and drinking, in the form of pumpkin ales) nothing but pumpkins and parsnips.  The lyrics I viewed weren’t that funny to me, but humor can be culturally and time period bound, and this song is over 350 years old, so I’ll give it a break, and not mock it.  During this period, evidently malt was hard to come by, so early European colonists looking to brew beer turned to a local plant that was a good source of fermentable sugars, the humble pumpkin.  As a result, pumpkin ale was quite popular, especially in the 1700’s, along with regular porters and ales.  A recipe for making it survives from 1771, even.  However, this popularity took a major hit in the early 1800’s.  Pumpkin ale was seen as passé, and apparently malt sources weren’t such a problem to easily locate anymore.  Regular grain ales, porters, and then lagers especially came to dominate the U.S. beer scene in the mid to late 1800’s, and up until the present day.

     However, in the early days of the craft, microbrewing movement, in the late 1980’s, a brewer decided to experiment, and reintroduce the pumpkin beer.  This brewer, Buffalo Bill’s Brewery (out of the Pacific Northwest) even used one of founding father George Washington’s personal recipes for their prototype (although the commercial version was apparently different, and used pumpkin pie spices in place of actual pumpkin to make it).  Over the next couple of decades pumpkin beers steadily grew in popularity, and now hundreds of U.S. breweries offer them.

     And this in itself produced surprising information.  I didn’t realize how polarizing an issue pumpkin beer is.  People seem to mostly love it or hate.  I read a particularly vicious quote about the style from a Washington City Times beer writer, Orr Stuhl:  “Even picking a favorite is like picking a favorite airborne disease.”  Looking through some comments in the websites and blogs I looked at, I saw some similar opinions—how much they hated pumpkin beers, and in some cases, how they hated that they were sold, and how those that enjoy them are not “real” beer drinkers, etc.  These were balanced by comments defending pumpkin beers, many of whom extolled (or at least appreciated) the style.

     I myself, not shockingly, love to try new types of beer (and meat, organs, cheeses, vegetables, fruit—you get the idea), and I’m not adverse to all the fruit-flavored beer types, either, like lambics, krieks, winter seasonals—some are quite tasty.  Although I have to say that even the good ones, like decent ciders, are usually so sweet that I can only have one or two in a sitting, and can’t drink them all night.  But as a switch up, I can appreciate them from time to time.  Over the years I’ve tried the occasional pumpkin beer, and recall liking some, so I went into this project with enthusiasm.  But enough history and chatter, let’s get to the rankings.  I deliberately chose a mix of larger, macrobrewery offering, and smaller, local microbrews.  And these are listed, worst to best, using the school A(excellent) through F (failure) rankings.

Southampton Pumpkin Ale (New York State): D.  Very nasty, and astringent.  Not good at all.

Starr Hill Boxcar Pumpkin Porter (Virginia): D.  I like that they tried a different beer style—most pumpkin beers are ales or lagers—but the result was tremendously disappointing.  It was tasteless, like water.  Akin to a light beer—that’s how watery it was.

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale (Colorado): D.  Thin, tasteless, and not worth it.

*Long Trail Unfiltered Pumpkin Ale (Vermont): D.  Bad.  Metallic-tasting.  Not pumpkin-y at all.  What happened?  Long Trail is usually a quality brewery—a rare miss.

Buffalo Bill’s Brewery American Original Pumpkin Ale (Pacific Northwest): D+. You may recall from above, this was the one that reintroduced the style back in the late 1980’s.  So I expected it to be exceptional, since so many copied it, or at least the idea.  But no, for me.  I found it only slightly pumpkin-y, and a lot astringent.  

Lakefront Pumpkin Lager (Wisconsin): C-.  Disappointing.  Only a hint of pumpkin flavor.  Watery and weak.

Post Road Pumpkin Ale (Brooklyn Brewery, NY):  C.  Okay, not great.  Slightly bitter in an unpleasant way.

Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat (Missouri):  C.  Mediocre.  Had slight cinnamon taste.

Shipyard Brewing Pumpkinhead (Maine):  C.  Drinkable.  Not very pumpkin-y.  Rather bland and inoffensive.

*Wolaver’s Pumpkin Ale (Vermont): C.  Just average.  Kind of bland-ish.  Not bad, just not a very compelling flavor.

Ithaca Country Pumpkin (NY):  C+.  Okay, weakish.  Not great.

*Great South Bay Splashing Pumpkin Ale (Long Island, NY): C+.  Pumpkin-y at first, but ends a little weakly.

Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale (Massachussetts):  C+.  Slightly better than average, but still not very special.

The Traveler Beer Company Jack-o Shandy (Vermont)  C+.  Really different—it’s a shandy (lemon peel) mixed with pumpkin.  Weird.  Flavor pairing is a little off-putting and strange, but somehow is not terrible, and is oddly drinkable.

Uinta Punk’n Harvest Pumpkin Ale (Utah):  B-.  Nice odor.  Okay, a tad blandish.  Still a marked improvement over most of the others.

Harpoon Pumpkin UFO Unfiltered Ale (New England): B-.  A bit weak, but better than average.  Slightly more pumpkin-y.

*Harpoon Imperial Pumpkin (New England): B.  This was a surprise, as I usually do not like stouts at all.  Tastes very heavy and strong (it’s 10.5% alcohol!).  Slightly spicy.  Weird.  Has sweetish, vanilla-y burn at end.  Really grew on me.

* Southern Tier Pumking (NY): B.  Sweet, vanilla-y.  Good.  Hides alcohol content (8.6%) well.  To be fair, it didn’t taste very pumpkin-y, but it was tasty all the same.

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (New Hampshire): B+.  Nice odor, very good.  Spicey.  Tastes normal at first, than pumpkin flavor really kicks in nicely.

Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale (Pennsylvania): A-.  Very good.  Blend of spices was well done.

    In conclusion, looking at my rankings, I’m struck that I’m apparently an exception to the “love it or hate it” dichotomy.  Almost half (7, now 9) I found to be mediocre and average (“C” rating), and I disliked (“D”) 4 (now 5), and really enjoyed (“B to A”) 4 (now 6).  And even the 4 (now 5) lowest ranked ones weren’t terrible, weren’t drain pours or anything.  So it appears, if I generalize, that I kind of like the style, but only slightly.  Also, I should note that I wasn’t able to get my hands on two of the acknowledged superior pumpkin beers—Dogfish Head’s Punkin and Southern Tier’s Pumking (obviously, I did find this one—it’s ranked above).  If I can locate them I’ll add them to the list.

     * Furthermore, I’ve been a little puzzled, and amused, by the recent furor over “pumpkin spice.”  It appears that some people are really upset over this flavor being added to coffee/lattes, doughnuts, cakes, candy, candles, etc.  I get that many people don’t like pumpkin spice flavoring, or are a little annoyed that it’s being offered in tons of products, and you see the words everywhere, but it still seems like an overreaction.  It seems pretty easy to just not order the offending flavor, and just ignore the fad for a few weeks.