playing with fire and water

grapes

One of my earliest taste memories is of grapes. Not of the insipid seedless supermarket variety. The grapes that I grew up eating were the European Vitis vinifera, grown in my backyard.

Growing grapes was my fathers passion. As far back as I can remember, he would tend the vines; training, pruning and grafting them year after year, in hopes of producing the perfect grape. The goal, of course, was to produce a great wine. The wines, though perfectly drinkable, were never remarkable.

When he stopped making wine, there was an abundance of grapes for the table. Just a few ripe bunches in a bowl would fill the house with a complex bouquet of aroma compounds made up of alcohols (methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol), aldehydes (acetaldehyde, isobutyraldehyde), amines (methoxypyrazine), esters (ethyl, butyrate), thiols (mercaptohexyl acetate) and terpenes (linalool, nerol)--to name a few. Their flavor was amazing--a beautiful balance of acids, alkalies, tannins and sugars. 

Nature blessed these fruits with many great attributes, but she did not make them conducive for good eating. Unless you are a bird.

As with most fertile plants that cover our planet, the grapes loftiest endeavor is to go forth and multiply. In order to sustain the species, Nature designed the grape berry as a seed carrier. Only when the seeds are ready, do the fruits ripen-- making them attractive to the birds that will consume them and deposit the seeds.

 

Eating these grapes was a challenge. The skins, thick and tough, were unpalatable. Removing them was not an option, as they contained aromas and astringency necessary for a balanced flavor. The large seeds which contained the bulk of the tannins were completely inedible; Natures cruel joke to us humans.

As a child, I developed a slow, methodical approach to eating these grapes: First, the skins were split open to reveal the seeds, which were pried out with fingertips, and sometimes from impatience, with tweezers. Next, the tenacious skins were peeled, but only halfway, leaving them intact at the blossom end. Holding on to the end, I would insert the grape into my mouth, biting down on the skin to release the flavor and loosen the pulp, then remove and discard the masticated skin. Messy? yes. Attractive? no. It would take me nearly an hour to get through a small bunch.

Other members of my family did not have the patience (or neurosis) to eat them "properly" and would just eat them whole, or not bother at all. And yes, these grapes made an extraordinary jelly, but how many jars can a family consume or give away? 

Not that many, it turned out. And so, the grapes were left for the birds.

A few years ago, my father, tired of cleaning the mess and tending the vines, cut them down and installed an awning over the patio that was once covered with a flourishing grape arbor.

Every year since, come October, I get a craving for those old world grapes.

I miss them.

 

"Those things are better which are perfected by nature than those which are finished by art", said Cicero, a long, long time ago

Nature, with her infinite variations, has always been a primary source of inspiration, as well as aggravation, but I have to concur with William Blake, who said "Great things are done when men and mountains meet"

This is not a mountain...its just a grape. 

My intention here was to recreate the flavor and balance of the grapes, without the obstacles of seeds and skin. With my father's grapes no longer available, I turned to the the Concord (Vitis labrusca). The pulp was separated from the skins and each juiced separately. The pulp was set with agar and gelatin and molded. After a few trials, I found the best ratio was .85% agar to .35% gelatin. When the gelled pulp was unmolded, the grapes were marinated in the juice from the skin. Adria applies this technique in Gelatina Cru by vacuum sealing. I found that I had better control over the penetration and ultimate proportions of skin/pulp by simply allowing it to sit in the marinade for a few hours. 

For the first time, I am able to enjoy the flavor and texture of old world grapes with none of the distractions. This technique also opens up possibilities for other whimsies...grapes made of white wine, marinated in red. Or, other manipulations of flavor contrasts between pulp and peel...sweet orange gel, marinated in bitter orange.

Have I outwitted Mother Nature? Just maybe on this one...but she is still legions ahead.

For a philosophical take on Man vs. Nature in the context of food, read  "Cooking: The Quintessential Art" by Herve This and Pierre Gagnaire, a book that I forgot to include in my previous post. Chadzilla quotes from the book in a recent post, sparking an insightful conversation.

(I can't put up this post without a shout out to my friend, Uwe, who embraces the nicknames Uva and Queso [grape and cheese]. Check out his blog Gratifood. His food will make you drool. His language will make you smile.)

 

puff pastry

Flour. Butter. Water. Salt. No leavening. Or is there?

When these four ingredients are combined into a homogeneous dough, then rolled out and baked, you end up with a cracker or flatbread. Not much rise there.

Blend the same ingredients together but stop while the butter is still discernible-- about the size of peas. Now roll out and bake. You have a pate brisee or a short, flaky pie crust with unevenly puffed layers that may have doubled in height.

Now, take the same four ingredients, blend the flour, water and salt to make a dough. Evenly layer the butter throughout the dough through a series of rolling out and folding. Stop when you have made 6 "turns", resulting in 1459 alternating layers of fat and starch. After a final rolling and baking, you are left with pate feuilletee or puff pastry. This time, the finished pastry leaving the oven has risen up to 6 times in volume from the raw dough that went in.

Three products...sharing identical ingredients in similar proportions...with significantly different results. Do you know why?

Lacking chemical leavening, the release of gases is not responsible for the differences between the three pastry products. And with the absence of yeast, it cannot be attributed to fermentation. 

What caused the puff pastry to rise to glorious heights and the pie crust to puff to a lesser degree is the steam created by the melted butter. As the butter melts and boils, the gluten matrix in the dough hardens, trapping the pockets of steam. The degree of rise in the three products varies with the distribution of fat and starch.

Understanding this was an epiphany. So was grasping the unfolding of egg proteins. And the destruction of sugar to make caramel. And so on. 

These were my AH-HAA moments. They allowed me to analyse mistakes and to not only correct them, but to control the outcome. They liberated me from bondage to recipes, and with this freedom came a broader one: the freedom to create.

Modern cooking places an emphasis on science, when, in fact, chemistry has been at play throughout the history of food and cooking. Does a strong knowledge of food science make us good cooks? If that were true then scientists, by right, would all be chefs.

What about technique? Consider the baker who gets up at 3 AM every morning to bake bread. After some time, he can turn out hundreds of perfect loaves even while half-asleep. He may even have a grasp on the chemistry of his craft through extended observation of cause and effect. His talent and dedication may move him onto the saute line, where through repetition he learns to turn out a perfectly cooked piece of fish every time. 

But would he know what to do with a salsify? Would he even know what to serve it with?

At ICC, Jordi Butron of Espai Sucre gave a presentation about the process of creating desserts. A lot of what he said resonated with me. In it, he stated (from my notes) "Pastry is techniques...but technique has to service flavor. Technique is easy--it only requires repetition, but a library of flavors takes many years to acquire."

As a baker, I have made puff pastry countless times. Through muscle memory, I could even make it while half-asleep. Because of my understanding of steam pockets and gluten matrixes, I was able to effectively teach it to my students, passing on the AH-HAA moments. My familiarity with this product allows me to play and ask questions:

Why butter? (because it is fat and for it's flavor)

What else is flavored fat? (oils..but they won't work, they're liquid and here, the fat needs to start as a solid)

What else is solid, flavored fat? (pork fat, bacon fat, foie, cheese...)

Cheese? Which cheese? (needs to be spreadable and have a high fat content...a triple cream)

Saint Andre? Boursault? Brillat-Savarin? (no...too subtle for the flavor to come through)

l'Explorateur? (a triple cream, assertive flavor...yes, it will work)

That is how I have come to make l'Explorateur puff pastry; a product that pleases me.

Will it please everyone? Is it ground-breaking? Life-altering? No. No. And no.

It is simply a token of where I'm at as a cook/baker at this moment in time and a synthesization of what I know about technique, food science and my own palate.

Do these things make me a better cook? I'd like to think so. What I do know for certain is that by relying on their guidance, I am free to contemplate and to think about food; what it is...what it can be. 

And that, I believe, is the starting point for innovation.

mozzarella balloon

Back in May, I received an email asking me what I thought about the newly launched Mosaic site from Alinea. Just as I began to fret about not receiving the required password, I found it in a junk folder. I spent the next few hours (and many since) pouring over the techniques and ideas contained in the sampling of the anticipated book.

One of these, the mozzarella balloon, was what prompted me to give fresh mozzarella another try. It was very rewarding to finally succeed at making a high quality cheese that had eluded and frustrated me, but it was really the viable curd that I was after.

A few days ago, while in NYC for the International Chefs Congress, I took a break to visit Kitchen Arts and Letters. I can never resist perusing through their trove of esoteric cookbooks that is full of surprising gems. The biggest surprise awaiting me on this visit was a trail copy of Alinea. I'm here to tell you that it's for real, and it is an opus of a book, more massive and beautiful than us mere mortal cooks had any right to expect. Those of us who pre-ordered it directly from Mosaic will have it in our hot hands as early as next week. Get ready folks--this book is going to change everything.

mozzarella balloon

 Break off a 4-5 oz. piece of mozzarella curd that has been acidified and ready to stretch. Place it in a bowl and cover it with water that has been heated to 71C (160F). Allow it to melt for a few minutes, then pull and stretch it to form a disc of uniform thickness that is roughly 6" in diameter.

Form hand into a C-shape and drape the disc loosely over.

 

Half-fill a whipped cream charger with a mixture of salted tomato water and extra-virgin olive oil that has been set with 1.5% gelatin. Charge with NO₂ cartridge. Chill. Shake charger firmly and place tip of nozzle over the center of mozzarella disc. Gather the disc around the nozzle, wrapping thumb and index finger around to hold firmly in place. With nozzle facing down, slowly discharge foam into mozzarella. While maintaining a firm grip, slowly slide balloon off of the nozzle, pressing and pinching the ends together to seal. Cut off any excess.

Serve immediately.

 

fresh mozzarella

My first attempt at making mozzarella was a miserable failure. I was overly optimistic. I started with 5 gallons of milk and ended up with 5 pounds of ricotta. It was fine ricotta, but it wasn't the pasta filata that I had hoped for. My family ate lots of lasagna that week. 

My second attempt produced the same results. Ditto for the third. And the fourth.

I was obviously missing a piece of the puzzle. The recipe that I used was from a reliable source, complete with detailed, step-by-step instructions, but I could not make it past the second step where rennet was added to the inoculated milk. At this point, it was supposed to coagulate into a solid mass and separate from the whey, instead it formed small curds that would not "spin" or melt together. I tried different types of inoculants from citric acid to buttermilk to yogurt. I tried varying the amount of rennet. I tried different brands of milk--all to no avail. I'm not easily discouraged, but even I know when to let sleeping dogs lie.

I decided that it was time to revisit the mozz when a unique application recently caught my interest. More on that later. After further research, I found the missing piece: raw milk. While I found many accounts of mozzarella being successfully made from homogenized and pasteurized milk, I went directly to the source: real milk, straight from the cow, unhomogenized and unpasteurized. 

The real advantage of making fresh mozzarella from raw milk is that I can produce a product that is superior to anything that I can buy in terms of flavor, texture, and nutritional content. On a socioeconomic  level, it allows me to lighten my carbon footprint while supporting local farms. An added perk of raw milk is that in the summer, when cows graze on fresh grass and clover, the milk is rich, buttery, and yellow...pure sunshine.

Fresh mozzarella

yields about one pound

1 gallon raw milk

3 Tblsps plain yogurt

3 Tblsps buttermilk

1/2 tablet rennet

Step 1: Inoculation

Pour the milk into a large stainless steel pan. Set over medium heat and bring to 32C (89F). While milk is warming, stir together the yogurt and buttermilk. Add about 1/4 cup of milk from pan and blend well. Cover the pan and maintain the temperature at 32C for 10 minutes to allow the live cultures and bacteria to activate.

Step 2: Coagulation

While the milk is activating, dissolve the rennet in 1/4 cup of tepid water. Stir the dissolved rennet into the milk gently, but quickly. Cover the pan and set aside, undisturbed, for 2-3 hours in a warm, protected place until it coagulates into a solid mass that will pull away from the side of the pan. 

Note: I place the pan in a large bowl of warm water and monitor the temperature of the water, maintaining it at 32C. It is important to not disturb the curd while it is coagulating.

Step 3: Cutting the curd

After 2 hours, check the curd for a clean break by poking a finger into the coagulated curd and lifting. If the curd does not break cleanly, allow it to sit, undisturbed until it does. Be patient.

When a clean break is achieved, cut the curd with a long, thin knife into 1/2" cubes. Stir the cut curds gently, breaking up any large curds.

Set the pan over medium heat and bring the temperature up to 36C (97F) with constant, gentle stirring. The curds will continue to break up.

Step 4: Acidification.

In order for the curd to spin, or melt together and stretch, it must be acidified to a PH of about 5.3. To achieve this, cover the pan tightly and set aside in a warm place for 8-10 hours. After 8 hours, check to see if it will spin by removing a walnut-sized piece of curd and dropping it into a bowl of water at 71C (160F). When it is lifted out and pulled, it should stretch without breaking. If it breaks, allow the curds to acidify further.

Step 5: Melting

Once the curds spin, heat a half gallon of water to 71C (160F). Drain the acidified curds in a colander (reserve a quart of the whey to make a brine if you will not be consuming the mozzarella immediately). Break up the mass of curds and place into a large bowl. Pour the hot water over the curds.

Allow them to soften for a few minutes, stirring gently, until they begin to melt.

Step 6: Molding

When the curds melt and fuse together, pull off a lemon-sized piece and with two hands, pull and stretch like taffy. Fold it onto itself and continue the stretching and folding until it is smooth, glossy, and elastic. If it begins to stiffen while working, let it soften in the hot water before molding.

Roll the sheet of stretched curd upon itself, working it into a smooth ball.

If you do not intend to consume the mozzarella immediately (I recommend that you do), the balls can be stored for up to two days in brine. 

To make a brine: dissolve 1/4 cup of salt in 1 cup of hot water. Mix in the reserved quart of whey. Cool.

culinary discussions

If you will be in or about New York City next month, there are two events hosted by the New York Public Library that may interest you:

On October 10, Ferran Adria will be discussing his book A Day at elBulli, scheduled to be released at the beginning of October. 15$ will buy you an hour and a half with The Man.

On October 29, Grant Achatz and Nathan Myrvold will hold a discussion moderated by Mark McClusky titled The Cutting Edge: Tales from the Culinary Frontier.

See you there?

raclette potato

I have a confession to make:

I am a sucker for babies. They reduce me to a pile of cooing, quivering jelly. When I encounter a neonate, i have to fight the urge to stuff their pudgy cheeks, fists, and feet into my mouth. This may seem bizarre, but I'm willing to bet there are some of you that are nodding in recognition.

This same compulsion applies to baby vegetables (just ask Sid Wainer). These, I recognize, are OK to put in my mouth.

My first vegetable garden was largely dedicated to the cultivation of baby root vegetables. I planted miniature varieties of white turnips, red and yellow beets, cylindrical and round carrots, and red and white pearl onions in neat rows. It was a garden fit for a dollhouse. 

I also planted Yukon Gold potatoes that were intended to be full size, but when I prematurely dug them up, I was delighted to find tiny, marble-size potatoes clinging to the roots. Within minutes, I was in my kitchen, rinsing off the still-wet earth, their skins so thin that the force of the water nearly peeled them away. After a few minutes in boiling, salted water, they went into a saute pan with fruity olive oil, smashed cloves of garlic and sprigs of thyme. Heavenly, they were; creamy inside, crisp and earthy outside. Later that day, I made a simple dinner of roasted baby potatoes with melted raclette cheese, good bread and wine. I will never forget those humble meals; they rekindled my love affair with the potato. 

Nowadays, I seldom grow potatoes, mainly because I don't want to sacrifice the space in my garden required to grow and hill them. At this time of year, I am on the lookout for new crops of spuds that appear at the market and will rummage through bins and baskets, picking out the tiniest specimens. 

The newborn fingerlings that I found, just hours old I was told, were prime for simple preparations. But, of course, I had to play. 

raclette potato

Methocel SGA forms a firm gel when heated and reverts to it's original state (here, a soft puree) as it cools. For best results, allow it to hydrate overnight.

160 g hot potato puree

75 g milk, cream, or buttermilk

15 g butter

salt

100 g water

5 g methocel SGA150

raclette cheese, cut into thin slices.

To make potato puree: Peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Drop into boiling, salted water and cook until very tender. Drain and pass through a ricer, tamis or sieve 2-3 times or until a very smooth texture is achieved. This is best made just before proceeding with recipe, while still hot.

Combine hot potato puree with milk, butter, and salt, stirring vigorously until butter melts.

Add methocel to water and blend it in with an immersion blender. Combine gel with potato mixture, stirring until well blended. Cover and chill overnight in refrigerator.

The next day, preheat oven to 250F. Fill molds with potato mixture and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until firm. Remove from oven and unmold onto baking sheet lined with silpat. 

Lay slices of cheese alongside potatoes and return to oven just until cheese softens and begins to spread. 

Peel cheese off silpat and drape over potato. Lift potato and mold the cheese around the bottom, pressing into place.

If desired, the raclette potato can be painted with strongly-brewed, finely-ground coffee. Serve warm.

instant chocolate cake

At Madrid Fusion 2008, Ferran Adria demonstrated a black sesame cake baked in a plastic cup in the microwave. It took 40 seconds.

As a card carrying member of the National Society of Cake Whores, the technique tickled my C-spot. Recreating it in chocolate is...well...let's just say it's good. Toe-curling, basking-in-the-afterglow good.

OK, now that I've regained my composure, let me tell you why this cake has me purring. If you've ever made a sponge cake, souffle, or any hot egg foam, you have witnessed first-hand the unfolding and bonding of egg protein molecules. If your attempts have been successful--Congratulations! (maybe you would like to join the NSCW?). If you have failed, it may be because you didn't follow one of the many rules: overbeating, under beating, introducing fat, sugar, salt, acid at the inappropriate time, folding, not stirring, cooking too slow or too fast.

Reason #1 why I love this cake: Forget all the rules. This is egg foam anarchy.

Reason #2: Taste & Texture. Don't let the pale color fool you...it's because of the aeration. While it's true that eggs mask flavor, the taste of chocolate does come through and lingers. And just look at the structure. Have you ever seen air pockets that large in a cake? I haven't, and I've been making them since I've possessed the motor skills required to put a spoon in a bowl and stir. The only thing that can expand a batter like that is yeast. Or Nitrous Oxide and a microwave.

Reason #3: Ease & Speed. This cake goes from pantry to tummy in less than 10 minutes. The lengthiest part is melting the chocolate. If you use the microwave for that step, it's even faster. How can instant gratification be bad when it's this good?

Instant Chocolate Cake
makes 12-15 individual cakes

Put 8 whole large eggs (400 g.) plus 1 yolk (17 g.) into a bowl with 160 g. sugar. and 3 g. salt. Whip with a whisk or electric mixer for 1 minute.

Add 42 g. flour, followed by 210 g. melted, semisweet chocolate. Mix just until blended.


Pour mixture through a fine mesh sieve.


Pour into a whipped cream charger. Fill only halfway. You will have enough batter left to make another batch. Charge with 2- N2O cartridges. Shake firmly 2-3 times. Dispense foam into a 9-oz. plastic cup, stopping when it is 1/3 filled.


Place cup in microwave. Set to bake at 900watts (for standard 1000w microwaves, set at 90% power or power9). Set timer to cook for 40 seconds. Watch it rise before your eyes.


Unmold and dig in.


Yum

 

blueberry pie

It's been awhile since I've watched a movie. Aside from lack of time, finding one that my husband and I both agree on begins to feel like an enterprise. He likes the kind that entertain with fast cars, impending doom, guns and blood. I like the kind that dig in and stick. Our common ground is the ones that make us laugh.

That's what I thought I was getting when he dropped a DVD into my hands with a grin on his face. I was nonplussed that he had handed me a romantic film by Wong Kar-wai, a Chinese director known for visually stylized films. Looking over the cast, a name jumped out at me and it all made sense...if there's one thing that he likes more than cars and guns, it's Nora Jones.

The movie, My Blueberry Nights, was almost forgettable despite the stunning melancholic atmosphere created by Wong through roving shallow lenses and lush chiaroscuro. The minor key mood was a good fit for Nora, but Jude Law never convinced me as a marathon runner wannabe who settles for running a diner where he makes blueberry pies that no one ever eats. It was the pie, and the way that Wong committed it to celluloid that I will remember: tight macro shots of ice cream salaciously melting into mounds of lurid blueberries. It was so deliciously lascivious that I wanted to avert my eyes.

In the end, it was blueberry pie that brought the characters together and endeared Wong to me as a film maker and food pornographer. And it inspired this dish.

 

Blueberry Pie

blueberry cheese

When I put raw blueberries through a juicer, something unexpected happened: the juice began to thicken and clot as it poured out of the spout. As it began to turn brown, I heated it to set the color and noticed that the soft clots had broken down into small, firm curds that reminded me of ricotta. I decided to treated it as cheese and let it drain overnight in a cheesecloth-lined sieve. The next day, I had a firm mass that could be sliced or molded and retain it's shape. After some research, I'm still not clear what caused the blueberry juice to behave this way. I initially attributed it to pectin, but 73 g. of fresh blueberries only contain 0.3 g. of pectin, making them a  low-pectin fruit. However, blueberries do contain a significant amount of fiber, which in combination with the pectin, may have caused the juice to clot and form curds

blueberry sauce

Use the juice reserved from draining the blueberry cheese. Ultratex 8 is a modified food starch derived from tapioca that thickens liquids without applying heat.
150 g. reserved blueberry juice
8 g. agave nectar
2.5 g. ulratex 8
Place all ingredients in a bowl and blend with whisk or immersion blender until starch swells and juice has thickened.

sous vide blueberries

Cooking blueberries at a low temperature leaves them firm and intact, yet taste cooked.
1 pint raw blueberries
60 g. reserved blueberry juice
30 g. unsalted butter
10 g. agave nectar
Place blueberries in a vacuum bag and seal. Cook in a water bath at 63C (150F) for 1 hour. Make a glaze by heating the blueberry juice and agave nectar over low heat. Whisk in butter until melted. Remove bag from water bath and toss berries in glaze. Serve warm or at room temperature.

roasted flour nuggets

Roasting flour is a technique introduced by Pierre Gagnaire and Herve This in their collaboration, Art et Science. Cooking flour in this way brings out the toasty aroma and flavor of wheat but it alters its starch and gluten molecules, causing it to lose much of it's elasticity. While roasted flour may not be suitable for baking bread, it's perfect for baked goods with sandy textures such as sables.
40 g. all purpose flour
8 g. confectioners sugar
.5 g. salt
13 g. tapioca maltodextrin
30 g. unsalted butter, melted
Preheat oven to 325F (160C). Spread flour in an even layer on a baking sheet and roast in oven for about 45 minutes, stirring often until fragrant and golden. Cool completely. Toasted flour can be made ahead and kept in a sealed container.
Preheat oven to 350F (180C) Place the flour, sugar, salt and TM in a bowl and toss to combine. Slowly drizzle in melted butter while tossing with a fork. Remove rounded nuggets as they form and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes and allow to cool completely before handling.

lemon balm frozen yogurt

Greek yogurt makes a sublime frozen product that rivals the best frozen yogurt boutiques. If it's not available in your area, plain yogurt can be drained overnight in a cheesecloth-lined sieve with similar results. I've found that the best way to infuse ice cream (or any sweetened cream base) with herbs is not in the cream, but by processing them with the sugar. The hygroscopic property of sugar draws out the essential oils in the herbs, making them more available.
30 g. fresh lemon balm leaves
100 g. sugar
50 g. heavy cream
300 g. greek yogurt, well chilled
Place lemon balm and sugar in a food processor and process with 10 pulses or until lemon balm is finely chopped. Working quickly, as lemon balm begins to oxidize and turn brown, empty contents of food processor into a saucepan and add heavy cream. Set over medium heat and cook gently, just until sugar melts.  Remove from heat and pass mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. Chill until cold, then fold in yogurt. Freeze in an ice cream machine according to manufacturers instructions.

 

blueberry cheese

ser·en·dip·i·ty  n.

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.

Blueberry juice, when extracted through a juicer, forms large, soft curds that quickly begin to oxidize.

Smaller and firmer curds form after a brief cooking to set the color.

An overnight rest in a cheesecloth-lined sieve drains excess moisture and leaves a firm mass that can be molded or sliced.

benzaldehyde

                            peach leaf blancmange
                            peach whipped gelatin
                            coffee fluid gel
                            sour cherry
                            toasted mahlab
                            coffee oil

Benzaldehyde is the essence of bitter almonds (Prunus Amygdalus var. Amara), which unlike sweet almonds (Prunus Amygdalus var. Dulcis) contain hydrogen cyanide, a potentially lethal toxin. It is a fragrant volatile molecule and a by-product of cyanide production. Pure almond extract is pure Benzaldehyde, without the cyanide. It is used in the making of marzipan, maraschino cherries, amaretto liqueur, and amaretti biscuits and occurs naturally in the fruits, leaves, flowers and bark of stone fruits. It is the eminent aroma compound in the complex flavor of peaches, apricots, and cherries. The highest concentrations can be found in the kernels of these fruits, which must be heated in order to destroy the toxin. Benzaldehyde is also present in beer (216 ppm), apple juice (294 ppm), roasted coffee (2008 ppm), tomato (8501 ppm), and white bread (40903 ppm). [ppm=parts per million]
 
The leaves of the peach tree, when very young, taste of Benzaldehyde. As they mature, they take on an unpleasant acrid pungency. It took me several growing seasons to figure this out. This year, I got it right.
The only reason that I know this is because I have a habit of tasting plants as they grow--not just the familiar parts-- all parts: flowers, leaves, roots, bark. I do this out of curiosity, not hunger, though it feeds my sense of discovery.
All plants are fair game--be they weeds, shrubs, flowers, or trees--if they are not harmful and taste good, then they have culinary potential. I rely on my knowledge of plants to steer me away from the toxic ones but I sometimes think that if I should die an untimely death, it could be attributed to having put something in my mouth that had no business being there in the first place. I could think of worse ways to go.

I also wanted to tell you about the fun I'm having making molds from silicone, but let me just say... get some. Trust me.