Welcome to What's for Dinner, where tonight there shall be no mention of a certain fowl associated with our country's annual harvest festival.
No sandwiches, salads, soups, enchiladas or any other variation of that, by now, tired old bird. Instead, let's explore the history and cuisine of the world's most perfect food. . .
That's right, Homer. We're talking about beer. Refreshing, filling, loaded with life-giving carbohydrates and B-vitamins and not a spec of fat. Shereen Jegtvig offers the nutritional lowdown on mankind's oldest and finest prepared agricultural product:
Beer is actually a good source of folate, magnesium, potassium and niacin.
* The folate found in beer may help to reduce homocysteine in the blood and lower homocysteine levels mean a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
* Lab studies have found constituents in beer that lower triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol in mice.
* Drinking one beer per day reduces blood clotting so some studies found that cardiovascular patients who drank one beer per day also lived longer.
A good article, and well worth the full read, though Ms. Jegtvig is a bit of a stickler for the "one a day and no more" rule, honored more in the breech in our house.
Did I say oldest ag product? The debate has raged among archaeologists over whether beer or bread was the original reason for the domestication of grain, but beer has been around about as long as writing, city-building and the rest of the blessings brought to you by the denizens of the Land Between the Rivers.
Harry Turtledove's cleverly bi-cameral novel Between the Rivers gives an archaeologically-accurate view of daily life in Mesopotamia, and reminds readers that, while wine was certainly expected when important guests came by, no meal was complete without beer (though you had to drink with a straw to make sure you didn't quaff too much yeasty sediment from the bottom of the cup).
In 1989, Fritz Maytag, president of San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Co. and Prof. Solomon Katz of the University of Pennsylvania teamed up to reproduce the Sumerian recipe beer related in the cuniform tablet "Hymn to Ninkasi." For a description of the process (and an acedemic rehash of the "which came first--the bread or the beer" debate and the reasons for making the barley/honey/date brew), see Don Sharp's Brewing an Ancient Beer. Another account, including a cool, 6000-year-old picture of a beer-drinking Sumerian, can be found at Anchor's web site.
As Sumerians and Babylonians gave way to Hittites and Israelites, beer was never far behind, and can be found referenced throughout the Old Testament. Pastor Walter Snyder believes that biblical injunctions against "strong drink" refer to beer and follows the citations cautioning against excess.
(Note that "Beer" in the Old Testament is a place name, so don't get the wrong idea when you read in Judges, chapter 9, that, "Having delivered his warning, Jotham fled to Beer from the vengeance of Abimelech." Gideon's son wasn't drowning his sorrows, just blowing town.)
Throughout history, beer has relieved and sustained humans through times of war and peace, want and plenty. Michael Jackson (no, not that one), the famous "Beer Hunter" related that Trappist monks referred to beer as "liquid bread" and used their strong ales to maintain sustenence throughout their Lenten fasts:
The notion of specialising in strong brews dates from the time when these beers were regarded as "liquid bread" to sustain the body during Lent.
Even in the rest of the year, beer was once "absolutely necessary to balance the diet", a brother at one of the Trappist monasteries told me recently. "Trappists would have died without it." Traditionally, Trappists did not eat cheese or fish. Those rules have now been relaxed and several of the monasteries make their own cheese, usually in the style of Port Salut, but the Trappists still, in mock derision, dub their Cistercian cousins "meat-eaters."
Our own republic would hardly have been possible without beer. As Barbara Holland notes in her slim but lively history The Joy of Drinking, nearly the first order of business once the Pilgrims had landed the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock was to send back to England for more beer.
And, despite the impression one might get from staring, well, beerily, at the label of one particular brew, Samuel Adams wasn't the only Patriot and Brewer among America's founders. George Washington was known to keep a ready supply of porter at Mount Vernon and his "small beer" recipe from his notebooks--in his own hand--survives. (Note that the recipe yields a powerful brew with an 11% alcohol content, so imbibers are advised to keep their portions "small.")
A comprehensive history of brewing in Colonial America can be found at the North American Brewers Association website. You can also learn more about the history of beer in America on the DVD The American Brew, available free when you subscribe to All About Beer Magazine.
As we shook off our British masters, beer steadied our first baby steps as a new republic (well, sort of). As William J. Rarabaugh reminds us in his far-reaching history of alcohol in America The Alcoholic Republic, An American Tradition,
"Patriots viewed public houses as the nurseries of freedom. . . seed beds of the Revolution, the places where British tyranny was condemned, militiamen organized and Independence plotted."
American greatness--and love of beer--didn't end at Yorktown, either. The noble brew has oiled the wheels of progress and democracy ever since, and it can be reasonably argued that the most foolish domestic policy ever promulgated in this country was the futile attempt to take away our beer, that horrible nightmare of crime, violence, poisoning by unscrupulous brewers and distillers sandwiched between the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Amendments.
Now, in more enlightened times, Americans are free not only to drink beer, but to eat it as well, so let's get cooking.
Cooking With Beer
While everyone know the simplest and most satisfying beer recipe ("Open bottle. Upend over mouth. Repeat as neccessary."), beer can be used in cooking countless declicious foods.
Lucy Saunders' exhaustive beercook.com is a great resource, providing a wealth of beer recipes, tips and a list of professional beer chefs and their dishes. Bryce Eddings at about.com also has a section on beer cooking with some worhy recipes.
The Beer Institute offers a good number of recipes online, and they helpfully point out the value of beer in baking. Want a light, fluffy loaf? Use a liquid light and fluffy to bake it. Check out their recipes for Beer Rye and Beer Raisin breads.
Beer is an excellent companion to meats and stews and, mixed with the juice from cooked meats, or with beef stock, makes the perfect base for your favorite gravy. Try it and you'll never go back to Kitchen Bouquet, trust me.
Beer is often the basis for some of the finest soups as well, one of my favorites being Beer and Cheddar soup. Bound to warm your heart on these cold, autumn evenings:
Basic Beer and Cheddar Soup:
quart of beer (use pilsner or lager--dark beer can make the soup bitter)
quart of chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup cream or half and half
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups medium sharp white cheddar
ground black pepper
Mix beer and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Beat egg yolks and slowly add cream, still beating. Slowly add some of the beer/stock, beating constantly to avoid curdling. Slowly add the beaten eggs/cream to the stock and beer, stirring constantly. Add cheddar. Heat a few more minutes until cheese is fully melted and mixed. Serve with bread.
Some great variations to the basic Cheddar and Beer Soup can be found at the Cooking Light blog.
But nowhere does the goodness of beer shine quite like the grill. Whether in a marinade, side sauce or simply sprinkled over your grilling meats, fish or veggies, beer is the natural bride to all things grilled. Here's what I was serving up this week:
Crashing Vor's Thanksgiving Salmon Marinade:
juice of 1 lemon
small ginger root, grated
2 1/2 tsp. maple syrup
2 tsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. sesame oil
1 tblsp. vegetable oil
2 tblsp. amber beer!
(suggested: Abita Amber. Alter amounts to your taste. Marinate salmon about 20-30 min. before grilling. Best grilled over mesquite on water-soaked cedar planks.)
My pal Finney swears by this steak marinade. It sounds weird, but Finney's a smart dude. An ace audio engineer, plus he actually understands string theory and the arguments for and against a doughnut-shaped universe. He didn't specify proportions, so you're on your own:
Finney' Steak Marinade:
Guinness stout
orange juice
salsa
(Finney says marinate steaks for up to 24 hours before cooking.)
No discussion of beer and grilling would be complete without Beer Can Chicken aka Beer-in-the-Butt Chicken (this recipe c/o Derrick Riches). The basic premise: marinate as you wish, stuff an open can of beer up the chicken's ass, grill upright.
Perhaps the most common beer-prepared food is fried, beer-battered whatever (onion rings, shrimp, fin fish, chicken, etc.). Beer batter is a simple as dirt and infinitely variable. Amounts are 1x warm beer to 1.5x flour. Season to your taste with salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika, curry, hot sauce, coconut, whatever. Roll your chosen victims in flour, dip in beer batter and into the hot oil they go.
Before I turn over the floor, table and bar to my fellow kossacks, there is one final thought to ponder: where do we beer from here? If we can somehow hold this tired, old world together, beat this global warming demon, silence the guns of war and the shouts of hatred, whither beer?
It has been with our civilization from its dawn, and it is my fervent hope and belief that beer will likely follow us off of our nursery planet as we embrace our destiny on other planets and solar systems. That's right, though yeast growth and fermentation are markedly different in microgravity and zero-G environments, we can still look forward to Suds in Space.
Make it so, Number One.
Special thanks for this diary go to PsiFighter37, whose comment back in July started the whole barrel rolling.
Home-brewing kossacks will definitely want to follow bobbybittman's Saturday Morning Home-Brewing Blogging. Here's to ya, bobbyb!