August 22, 2019 • 63 mins
All fruit come from flowers, but not all flowers become fruit. Once you start to see the two as the same, the world of both grow more interesting. Dates, honey and saffron: we’re gettin sweet and spicy with stories from Egypt to Iran.
In episode 3, we meet Leila Elamine of The Recipe Hunters, Gordon Hull of Heidrun Meadery, and spice expert Ethan Frisch of Burlap and Barrel.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And our host said, oh, oh, you know those are
actually those are the poisonous snakes that live in the
trees and at the base of the trees. And so
I'm thinking, like, what, okay, I'm going to walk through
this forest where there are sleeping snakes that I can't
see and if I step on what happens to me
if I step on them? I asked him, and he's like, oh,
well you'll die. Welcome back to Point of Origin, the
(00:29):
podcast about the world of food from around the world.
I'm your host, Steven Saderfield, and today's episode is a
sweet one. It is a lovely theme that we're calling
from a flower, which is a celebration of both fruit
and flower. And putting together this episode, we kind of
backed into a greatest hits from the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern kitchen.
(00:54):
So honey, dates, and saffron will all take center stage today.
One of the boy it says that you'll hear is
from an old friend of mine, Gordon Hall, who is
and has been for some time now, making one of
the most distinctive beverages you will ever taste. It is
a sparkling honey wine made in the style of a
fine Champagne. It's super good and you will learn all
(01:18):
about Gordon, all about his honey wine and how it's made.
We're also going to check in with one of the
coolest ladies in the game, Lela el Amine, of the
Recipe Hunters, and Lela is so very cool. She's just
like us, an origin forager who for the last five
years has been traveling around the world visiting and documenting
(01:39):
small agrarian communities, which she does remarkably well. And today
she's going to tell us a story that you will
not want to miss. It is a very harrowing harvest
expedition in the Seaway Oasis in Egypt. And last but
not least, ethan Frish stops by to talk to us
(02:00):
all about saffron. Hey, Hey, how are you Ben good?
I'm calling you from the iHeart Radio studios in Atlanta, Georgia.
(02:22):
Our next guest is Leela Elamine. She is an award
winning docu media producer with a concentration in photography, videography
and writing. She is one half of the Recipe Hunters,
who are frequent collaborators with Whetstone Magazine and we are
pleased to have her join us today to talk about,
(02:43):
among other things, one of my all time favorite stories
that has ever appeared in print. It is a story
of a date palm harvest in the sea. What oasis?
Leela el Amine, thanks for joining us on point of origin.
Thanks Stephen, I'm so I need to be here. Well,
we are thrilled to talk to you. Uh and before
(03:04):
we we talked about the aforementioned story, we should talk
about who you are, UM and how you got into
your current world of documenting stories about food and people
all over the world. I had like a very untraditional path,
you know. I graduated college, I decided I wanted to
be a doctor. I started doing research, and then I
(03:26):
read this book about cancer and I fell in love
with a science behind cancer, and so I wanted to
cancer research. And you know, I didn't really think about
the implications of working with cancer patients, but I ended
up working with specifically people that had three to six
months to live. UM. They were enrolling in these clinical
trials as like a last ditch hope to you know,
(03:48):
find a cure. And I formed really close relationships with
my patients, and it was it ended up being the
best thing that I ever did, but also the most
difficult I ended up, you know, spending a lot of
time with these people who were you know, essentially dying,
and and throughout my time at the cancer center, I
(04:09):
just kept hearing the same things. I kept hearing, like,
I wish that I'd lived my life according to my
passions and interests and not let society dictate who I am,
what I do, what I love, and what I value.
And I wish that I had traveled, and I wish
that I had, you know, been a dancer, and I
wish that I had really lived my life according to
(04:29):
what I wanted to do. And hearing that over and
over again, I kind of started to re examine what
I was doing with my life. And one patient in particular,
really he said, you know, Leyla, say yes to everything
and reach for the sky. And then he passed away,
and I just kept like hearing what he said and
(04:49):
you know, in my ear. And so I decided to
take a sabbatical from you know, school and work, and
I began saying yes to everything. So I moved out,
you know, to the Midwest. I started volunteering on a
cheese farm. I started working as a cheesemonger. I started
like working on goat farms and and volunteering at farmers
markets and just really like diving into everything that I
(05:13):
had ever been interested in. And along the way, I
brought my camera because I'd always you know, loved photography.
And around the same time, I met my business partner, Anthony,
who was kind of going through the same thing, like
trying to figure out what he wanted to do with
his life and what was important to him. So we
(05:33):
had this crazy idea, so crazy about six years ago too,
to start volunteering on farms around the world according to
what we were interested in. Like five and a half
years later, like we've volunteered in over seventy international communities,
learning about traditional food practices and recording them and documenting them,
(05:55):
and learning about endangered ingredients around the world, and and
he's endangered rust at Ease and working with some of
the most amazing people you can imagine, like people that
are so close to the earth and so close to
their culture and their history. And we we originally began
by recording the recipes and the stories of these people
and these cultures via photojournalism, and it naturally evolves because
(06:17):
of my interest in video to film, So you know,
we started making short documentaries about the the lives and
stories of these indigenous people really keeping their culinary heritage
alive through the practice of traditional food ways. And when
you were thinking about living your life after you've gotten
(06:39):
this really pointing advice, living your life in the way
that you saw fit? Um, what was it about agriculture
and farming? Like, I know for anyone the response to
that could mean many different things, but for you it
meant going to a farm. Where do you think that
inclination came from. I wanted to be closer to nature.
(07:02):
We were interested in agriculture to understand what we eat.
And then also there's just something so peaceful about working
on a farm and being close to nature and touching nature.
Have you had a particular agricultural experience that has made
you feel like maybe that is a way that you
would like to spend your life, or have you felt
(07:24):
more content that your role as a documentarian is actually
the better way to serve and satisfy your interest. Yeah,
that's such a great question, Stephen. I actually I do
want to have agriculture as part of my life and
on a day to day basis, Like if I am
somewhere for a period longer than you know, one month.
I already have my own sour dough yeast, and I've
(07:46):
planted seeds. I have like corn growing from Pueblo, Mexico.
Right now it's in my it's actually in my bones,
like and so right now I'm I'm young, I'm excited.
I have so much energy. I want to keep documenting food.
But I do foresee in the future finding a nice
patch of land and you know, growing my own food
(08:07):
and having my own animals on a small scale enough
to you know, serve myself and my neighbors. But it
is something that I do that dream about, you know, definitely.
So let's talk about how you ended up in Egypt,
or and specifically uh in an oasis called Seewa. So,
first of all, where is Siwa and how did you
(08:31):
find your way there? See what is in the northwest
region of Egypt. It's about thirty miles east of Bolivian border.
But what we've got to see what from Alexandria, which
is the ports city um in northern Egypt. And you
have to drive seven hours in the desert in order
to get to this oasis. It's incredibly secluded, I mean,
(08:52):
and for that reason, you know, it's still retains a
lot of its culture and a lot of it's you know,
a thousand year old traditions, just because it's so hard
to get to and what brought you there? We went
to see what on Actually the first leg of our journey,
I think we were gone for eight and a half
months with backpacks. We were we originally went to Egypt
(09:14):
and we were searching for traditional recipes. But we did
start up out at the Pyramids and we were volunteering
in a hostel there refurbishing furniture, and you know, while
we were there, we were learning about tamaya, like learning
how to make it's like Egyptian flawful, learning how to
make bread, learning how to make Egyptian malahia. And during
our time we went to Cairo, and we kept hearing
(09:36):
about this because we were living with food researchers that
we had found, you know, online, they were part of
the Slow Food Network. We decided to go to this oasis.
The driver picks us up and we drive for seven
hours in the desert. Actually we drive from Cairo to Alexandria,
then from Alexandria to see you, and I remember I
(10:00):
slept for a lot of the rye because it's pure desert.
I mean, you look around you and you can see
nothing but you know, sand and sky. So we're driving
in the desert, driving in the desert, and you know,
we passed by these orange dunes and everything. We see
bedwinds on their camels, and we all of a sudden
go up a hill and go down and you see
(10:22):
the most stunning glistening lakes and you see palm trees
and it's the most It's like, especially after being in
the desert for so many hours, you feel like you've
entered a paradise. And I have to say this, We've
been to so many different places around the world. This
is one of the most beautiful, surreal places. It doesn't
(10:43):
even feel real. So incredibly beautiful. Wow, incredible. So once
you got there, you did you already have a plan,
like a volunteering plan set up or did you sort
that out once you round? So Anthony and I sort
of bartered work for Roman Board a lot of times.
(11:07):
So in this instance, we contacted these farmers that we
found through the Slow Food Network that we're preserving an
endangered type of date and the tree of the date,
and so we reach out to them and we said, hey, um,
we're you know, we're documentary filmmakers, and at that point,
(11:28):
I think we were just doing photography, so we you know,
we said, hey, like, we want to come research or food,
take pictures of it, learned some traditional recipes. Can we
stay with you guys in exchange, will work on the
farm and will help you. And they're like absolutely, Like
we we definitely need help. Right now, we're actually doing
the pollination of the day trees. So if you could
come help us clear out the forest, will put you
(11:50):
up in our home. Up until this point, was this
your first encounter with the date pomp. It's funny. We
lived in Cyprus for about six weeks previous to going
to Egypt, and we had just missed the harvest season
um in Cyprus, so when we heard about the opportunity
to learn more about dates in Egypt, we jumped at it.
(12:12):
And I'm Lebanese American. I grew up eating dates. It's
like what you had at the end of a big meal.
It's what you know your mom gives you as like
an energy booster. So I had never I had seen
dates on trees, but I never really thought about how
the process was of you know, harvesting dates how they
(12:33):
did it, and it's actually absolutely phenomenal how people harvest
dates around the world, specifically in in Egypt. You know,
these indigenous seaweed men they you know, we are wearing
socks and they climb up these fifty ft trees like
it's nothing, like like you know, they're spiders or something.
(12:54):
I can't even We called the guy that was hiwing
us around and that was pollinating the day trees. His
name was Echo, and he climbed these trees like an avatar,
so we ended up calling him Echo the Avatar. It
was really unbelievable to see the amount of strength that
these men have, you know, as kids, they're they're climbing
these palm trees, so when they get to be men,
(13:15):
it's like it's like nothing. Yeah, and we we do
have a photograph of Echo in the magazine and is
it's really phenomenal to see and like the trees themselves.
You have to set the scene for us a little
bit more, because there's so much going on in this story.
Can we back up to the actual pollination of the dates?
(13:37):
How does it all happen? To give you guys a
little bit of a setting or context, but no US
Island is where the date tree forest was that we
were volunteering on, and it's on one of the lakes
in the oasis, and basically it's this massive grove of
(13:59):
date tree ease and they still have ancient Roman aqueducts
throughout the island. They also have vegetable beds where they're
like they have you know, chippeas and fava beans. But
at the point they were regenerating this this date tree
forest because it had gone kind of unwatched and unkept
(14:20):
for a while, so they were reclaiming it are our hosts.
When we got there, we we started helping them clean
the date tree forest. So basically, female trees are the
ones that produced the fruit. And because of that, throughout
the years, people have really taken care of the female
trees and kind of let the male trees, you know,
(14:41):
they haven't cared about them so much because they're not
the ones producing the fruit. But they still grow a
certain amount of male trees so that they can pollinate
the female trees. And basically in the old days, what
would happen is there would be enough male trees that
it would just the wind would pollinate. But now since
they don't have of, you know, so many male trees,
(15:02):
they have to actually climb the trees with the male
seeds in their hands and bring them and put them
into the female inflorescence. So basically Echo would would go
climb up a male tree, cut off the space which
holds the inflorescence, which has the germinating seeds, and then
(15:24):
he would bring it back to the tent. He would
cut it open and he would shake off the inflorescence
and he would um take all of that, all of
the germinating seeds, and he would climb up into a
female tree and he would you know, stick the male
germanating seeds into the female flowers in order to germinate them.
(15:49):
So yeah, exactly, he was acting as a beat. But
the most interesting thing that I learned, I think about
pollinating day trees and even harvesting dates, is that it
is incredibly dangerous, not only because of the height, but
also because at the top of the tree, in order
to protect itself, the tree grows these crazy long spikes
(16:14):
and if the spikes touch you, they will or if
they like, pierce you, basically they can infect you. So
you have to you first have to take a spike
out and then burn the area that has been touched
by the spike. So insane, And we see later in
the story an example of just how intense these spikes
(16:35):
are because on the floor there's a whole another dangerous
situation going on to right. Oh my gosh. Yes, So
when we first arrived on the this little island where
they have all the date date palm trees, we are
walking by and they're, you know, they're giving us like
a tour of all the trees. And I see something
(16:56):
kind of swaying in the winds, kind of like a ribbon.
And and then I look closer, I see a few
ribbons swinging in the wind. And as I walk closer,
I realized that there are snakes whose heads have been
smashed in by the by that same needle that you
find at the top of the tree. And they've they've
been hammered into the tree. These snakes are just hanging.
(17:19):
And then there's like a couple, you know, just token scorpions,
also hanging. So and I'm like, I, you know, you jump.
I jumped, and I was like, oh my gosh, what what? What?
Where did you why? What's going on? And our host said, oh, oh,
you know those are actually those are the poisonous snakes
that that live in the trees and at the base
(17:41):
of the trees. But don't worry, they're sleeping. But but
but don't step on them. You can't step on them.
If you step on them, they'll bite you, but you
won't really be able to see them. And so I'm thinking, like, what, Okay,
I'm going to walk through this forest where there are
sleeping snakes that I can't see and I step on
What happens to me if I step on them? I
asked him, and he's like, oh, well, you'll die. You
(18:06):
can imagine. And I'm in the midst of the sporting
Actually that's the thing. So I'm like, wait a minute,
I'm sorry, you're telling me that we'll we'll die and
what And he's like, you'll die. I won't die because
they put the venom in our milk as infants, so
we drink small, small doses of the venom so we'll
(18:28):
have the antibody or anti venom against the snakes. So
I'm just like, oh my god, I can't believe that
we have agreed to do this. I had known and actually,
you know, Steven, that's super dangerous. Like, there are things
that we have come across and actually informing a lot
of the most dangerous, I feel like have been snakes.
(18:49):
You know. We were in Mexico working in agave farm
and it was the same thing that's like, well, don't
step on the snakes there by pit vipers and they'll
kill you. And you're like, well, how do you know
if you stop snake? So um, Yeah, that was pretty scary.
That is incredible. So do you have a sense of
most of the dates there we're being exported or were
(19:13):
they being consumed on the island? Um, I'm actually I
did at one point of that, but I'm actually not sure.
I Mean, one thing I do know is that dates
and these palm trees are an integral part of the culture, history,
and identity of the Seawen people. It's one of their
main sources of sustenance. Literally, everything you could possibly make
(19:35):
with dates they make and with the trees and with
the leaves. I mean, they make baskets out of the leaves,
they make toys for the children out of the leaves.
They make their houses from the tree trunks. They make
date bread, they make date pudding, They make date juice,
they make date alcohol, I mean, anything you could think
(19:56):
of they make with dates. And the one kind of
a dish that really my attention is one that I
had never heard of, if we can call it a dish,
but to jela um, which is made kind of with
the state pudding that you just mentioned. Can you explain
that dish to us? Yeah? Sure so, And I'm just
going to take a step back really quickly to talk
(20:17):
about the society of see what if that's okay? Please? Yes.
So Seewa is a really really interesting place. It's segregated
by men and women. But when I say segregated, I
mean segregated. You you walk into this bustling, you know,
town of people and there are no women. So you're
(20:37):
completely surrounded by men. And the women they mostly you know,
do household work. They stay within the family. They are
completely veiled, so even when they are out, you don't
really see them. And the men mostly take care of
going into the city or the town and they do
a lot of like the working on farm. They you know,
they go out to the restaurants, they go out super
(20:58):
they're the ones that go out shopping. It's not primarily
the women Um. So while we were there for the
first you know, three days, I did not interact with
one woman. Um. Finally, after you know, volunteering on the farm,
I was like, hey, guys, I really want to learn
traditional recipes, Like can you introduce me to the women.
So they brought me to spend time with the women
to learn the traditional recipes. And it was at that
(21:21):
point that I spent a day with a group of
Seawee women and they taught me how to make their
traditional to jella. And to jela is basically a I
would say, like a date pudding, but it is a
very very special dish that is used to sort of
indicate how good of a cook a woman is. And
(21:46):
it's often said that you know when when when a
woman first marries, assigned to show that she's going to
be a good wife is how how well she makes
the tijella. So to jela is basically that you take
all of these dates, you deepit them, and then you
create a paste with with water and by heating the
dates up, and you stir the tigella for hours and
(22:09):
hours and hours, slowly adding a little bit of water,
a little bit of wheat that that has grown on
the island on the oasis, and it is just one
of the most simple yet intricate recipes I've ever come across,
because the trick is you have to have the perfect consistency,
(22:30):
and I would really liken the consistency too, maybe like
a I don't know if like a Semolina put in,
I don't know if you've ever had that, but actually
very creamy, completely consistent throughout. You don't feel any pieces
of dates. It's absolutely delicious. But the one thing is
that you know you don't whenever you cook with dates,
(22:51):
you don't add sugar because dates have so much inherent
natural sugars in them, so um, it ends up being
this dense, thick a me putting of dates. Yeah, and
it looks sort of like a caramel color almost. And
my favorite thing that you say in this story is
if strength had a flavor, it would be this. So
(23:14):
I'm assuming that just like the intensity and all of
the like almost distillation of all the sugar and sweetness
after many hours of stirring, it just must be like
really out of this world. It really is. After having it,
I've never tasted something before that after having it, you
immediately feel energy. I mean It is like a crazy
(23:35):
energy boost where you feel like you can take on
the world, you know, and it fills you up for
hours and hours and toe Jella. One of the most
interesting things about it is that you eat it with
olive oil and you can only have a little bit
of it because it's so filling, you know, it just
sits in your stomach and it's it's absolutely delicious, but
it gives you a sense of like what the people
(23:57):
ate in terms of, you know, being farmers and having
to work on the field and really needing a lot
of nutrients and a lot of energy. To Jella really
is the perfect dish too when you think of a
farmer that they would that they would eat to keep them,
you know, keep them strong and going throughout the harvest
and throughout sowing the seeds. Is the best place to
(24:18):
find you online at the recipe Hunters or is there
another place? Yeah, we post all of our content, including
the short documentary films, on the recipe hunters dot com
so www. Dot recipe hunter dot com. But we also
have an Instagram and I I check that you know
every day, so it's at the recipe Hunters and any questions,
(24:39):
you know, just shoot me a message on Instagram. And
that's one thing that Anthony and I we really want
to be there for our community. UM, So we answer
questions all the time. We encourage people to try our
recipes which are on our website, and it's great when
they send us pictures of you know, this endangered recipe
that they're you know, practicing at home. Um, that really
(25:00):
is why we're doing this. So it feels good. Yeah, definitely,
Thank you so much for your time and for all
of your really interesting and important work. Thanks ste when
you're the best. Okay, talk to you soon. Chow. That
is Leela el Amine of the recipe Hunters, friend of Whetstone,
(25:20):
documentary filmmaker, media producer Extraordinary. What next up. We are
(25:47):
in northern California in the idyllic town of Point Raise,
one of my favorites in all of California, with Gordon Hole,
the man who puts the bees in Bubbly. You're listening
to Point of Origin, a podcast from whet Stone Magazine
and I Heart Radio today. Our theme is from a flower,
(26:09):
delicacies and enjoyments that derive from the flower, and we're
talking to an old friend of mine, Gordon Holl who
is the only person of his kind that I know of.
He is a mead maker in northern California and he's
joining us this morning to talk to us about sparkling mead.
(26:30):
Thanks for coming on to Point of Origin. My pleasure, Stephen.
Great to hear your voice. Same same. So I have
to always begin in talking about your your product, um
as someone who grew up as Sammier uh and can
often be not really jaded but feeling very familiar with
(26:51):
you know, wine and alcoholic beverages of all kinds. The
first time I encountered your meat, it stopped me dead
in my tracks because I'd never tasted anything quite like it.
It's a really distinctive product, um. So before we talk
about what it is in particular, I think it's probably
worth us talking about where you're located, because it has
(27:11):
a lot to do with the overall flavor of the meat. Yes, certainly. Well,
we're located, as you said, in northern California and Point
Race Station. We occupy what at one point was a
small dairy farm, which we have converted into a metery.
And here we're producing wine from honey instead of grapes,
(27:34):
and we're using honey that we produce with our own
bees that we keep on the property and in other
locations around northern California. And then we also produced meat
from honeys that we procure from other beekeepers all around
the country. And our meads, as you alluded to, our sparkling,
(27:58):
and that's sort of a non traditional style for a
for a honey wine. So you've probably heard of mead,
but what Gordon is doing is altogether unique because his
mead is naturally effervescent, meaning that there is no forced
carbonation which you find in soft drinks or bottled water.
(28:22):
Before we talk about the bubbles, we've got to talk
about the bees. Honey bees, they extract nectar from flower
with very specific flavor compounds. And one of the best
parts about hydrants meads is that for every flower there
is a signature flavor compound that affects the flavor of
the honey and therefore the flavor of the mead. Got
(28:47):
it And how did you begin your journey to becoming
a meat maker. Well, it was a little bit by accident,
as many things are. My intention was to start a brewery.
I was working against a commercial brewer in Arcada, California,
and just learning the ropes well enough to start my
(29:08):
own business. But by coincidence, I happened to be experimenting
with honey fermentation. Yeah, I mean, and you conferment virtually anything.
What is it about honey that you were particularly drawn to? Well,
first of all, honey is one of the most beautiful
materials to work with. One of the most beautiful foods
that I can imagine is honey is quite literally the
(29:30):
nectar of flower blossoms that has been harvested by honey
bees and processed into this substance that is around eighty
four percent sugar water. And that each honey has such
remarkably unique flavor characteristics is just to me, is is fascinating.
(29:52):
And if you consider that there are conceivably hundreds of
thousands of different varieties of honey out there, there's a
lifetime of work to do to take these honeys and
drain takes them through a fermentation process, this process that
we've developed and reveal the essence of that very flower
(30:15):
that they come from. So beautiful, such a poetic way
to think about it, and it really comes through and
in all the different flavors of the meat. So once
you started making meat what what year was this? Well,
let's see, my first Batcher's Garage mead was the nineteen
(30:37):
and I spent two years developing the recipe and putting
together my business plan, acquiring the equipment I needed before
opening a company. And that was in Arcada, up in
Humble County, so just off of the Ark and border
on the on the Pacific Post. So you're making meat
(30:57):
in your garage in the mid nineties. Um, fast forward over,
you know, twenty or so years later, what has changed
for you, um, in terms of your your process but
also the way of the world the consumer. Well, A
good question, UM, I think the biggest change for us
(31:21):
came about really about twelve years into the development of
the company, when it became clear that we needed to
find a way to expose more of our community to
what we were doing. Look being looking it up in
Humble County was very remote and my my primary market
(31:43):
was in San Francisco, five hours drive away, and that
in itself presented the challenges. And also I realized that
in order to introduce consumers to the product we're putting out,
we really needed a destination for people to go to,
and that led me to begin looking for farmland closer
(32:05):
to the Bay Area, where we could in a sense,
developed the entire coology of the honey bee on our
farm in terms of keeping honey bees and throwing the
bee forage those those very flowers that the bees feed
off of. So moving to the farm has been our
biggest step and just exposing people to what we're doing.
(32:29):
Let's talk about how the sparkling mead is actually produced.
So we've been talking about the honey and the bee
and how it imparts a distinctive flavor on the mead,
But now let's talk about how the meat is made.
(32:51):
So the first step is to dilute the honey with water,
and that's because honey is about eight or percent sugar,
which is far too much to ferment on its own.
So in order to induce fermentation, the honey has to
be diluted to a volume that more closely resembles grape juice.
(33:13):
Like when making wine, and in the champagne method bottling,
you first add a very carefully measured quantity of cane
sugar and a new inoculation of yeast. You mix all
that together in the bottling tank, and then the the
(33:35):
wine is put into champagne bottles, and a beard cap
is put on each of those bottles, and the bottles
are put into something called garage bins. They're just storage
bins for bottles. They're put on their side in those
boxes and they go through a secondary fermentation. And what
happens is that second inoculation of yeast we put in
(33:56):
the bottling tank consumes thee came sugar that we've also added,
and it produces a little bit more alcohol, but more importantly,
it produces carbon dioxide. And since we do have a
beer cap on on the bottle, the carbon dioxide cannot escape,
and that's how we get our natural effervescence. After that's done,
(34:20):
there is a final process in the method Champion law,
in which the yeast is removed from the bottle by
using the process of riddling and discouragement. And then the
product is if a traditional champagne cork and fire hood
and goes through cleaning inspection and then get spoiled and
(34:41):
boxed up and it's ready to go. And the whole
product process takes about four months from start to finish.
And why do you think it is that we haven't
seen more producers getting involved and making such a an
interesting value added product like sparkling mead. Well, um, I
(35:05):
think who we're starting to see some producers attempting to
do this. I know that there have been instances meteris
making carbonated artificially carbonated needs in order to try to
create the same flavor characteristics. That's the champagne method is challenging,
(35:25):
to say the least, that it takes very specific equipment
to make it happen. That equipment can be expensive, most
of it comes from from Europe, and then there are
a lot of opportunities to make errors in the In
the sparkling wine process, it's difficult. It's about five times
the labor of making a still wine. So I think
(35:46):
it's a little bit daunting. I've got lucky, I think
in that when I first started making my sparkling Needs,
I made it in a bottle conditions style, which means
that the bottles we're going through a secondary fermentation to
create effervescence. That eventually I didn't remove the sediment, so
there was sediments in the bottom of each bottle. It's
(36:08):
like some of those bottle conditioned beers that you can
get at specialty beer stars. So I think I was
lucky to get kind of step by steps. Genesis is
my product and it helps kind of guide me towards
where I am. Now, what can you tell us about
the ways in which the different kinds of honey m
change the flavor profile of the meat. Every flower has
(36:33):
really a unique signature of aromatics and flavor compounds, and
these differentiations between flowers are are essentially that individual species
of flowers efforts to attract fallinators to to pollinate the
flowers so that the that the plant can produce more offspring.
(36:55):
We find that our meats sectrum flavors of our eats
can vary from a very extremely light, clear um, almost
grape wine quality of sparkling wine all the way to
flavors that are similar to a Belgian spaison, and and
(37:18):
everything in between. We have flavors that can be earthy, incense,
certainly very floral flavors, Some are of jasmine or rose,
some are very herbal. So the carrot blossom honey I'm
getting from Central Oregon and the peculiar flavors that it has,
(37:39):
it has this sort of vegetal quality that in a
honey is not really desirable. It's a little bit funky.
But what we found is that when we put that
honey through our fermentation process and allow the yeast to
metabolize that UH and to metabolize all of those flavor
compounds and make it into something of a wall line,
(38:00):
and we taste that wine, we find these flavors that
are I would describe as incense and sandal wood. They're
smoky and woody with a definitely a floral element as well,
and they're extraordinary flavors that are unique to that flower alone,
(38:23):
to carrot blossom alone. And we find that these flavor
characteristics of the flower are held within a kind of
a matrix of the flavor characteristics that come from the
honeybee herself. So if you picture what the honeybee is doing,
(38:43):
she's collecting nectar from the flower and taking it back,
She's ingesting it and taking it back to the hive,
and then she's putting that nectar into the honeycomb and
processing it with her own enzymes, and she's dehydrating it
from the high water content of a flower nectar down
(39:07):
to the very low water content of a honey She's
dehydrating it through heat and body heat and air circulation
and then storing it in bees wax, and all of
these efforts by the honey bee lend flavors to that
honey and those flavors, whether it be a flavor of
(39:30):
bees wax or of the propolists that is a part
of the hive, those flavors come through and each and
every one of our varietals as well. So we're really
talking about a wine experience that is, Um, it's very complex.
It is including both the botanical flavors of the flower
(39:53):
and the animal flavors of the honey bee. And it's
an experience really unlike any other. And it's one that
lends itself to a sparkling wine, and that by making
it sparkling and more importantly, by my making it dry,
you're able to taste those uh distinct flavors. And that's
(40:14):
what makes up our whole product line of all of
our different meat rivals. Yeah, and they're all amazing, and you,
I mean, have had so much experience sort of as
a in part farmer and maker. UM, I'm curious how
over the last two decades or so, the constraints on
(40:38):
the bee population and also the irregular climate in northern
California has affected your meat making. The honey bee situation
is really quite ridiculous right now. In fact, we had
this last winter our hardest winter on record in Marin County.
I think that holds true for most the country. Some
(41:01):
of the data on that is still coming out, but
it wasn't pretty. We lost something like our colonies over
the winter time, and it just by comparison. Imagine if
you were a cattle farmer and you lost seventy five
of your heard over over one season, over one year.
You know that kind of thing is devastating, and we're
(41:23):
not sure what to attribute those problems too. I think
maybe for northern California to potential contributors would be if
the smoke from the wildfires we had here last fall
created some problem with the honey bee navigation that may
have affected the health of the hives of the colonies.
(41:47):
That's certainly possibility, but I don't know of anybody who's
been able to verify that. We also had an extraordinarily
wet winter. I'm actually originally from Seattle, and I'm used
to a month or so of rain without stopping, But
since moving down to California, it kind of got used
to having these California rains that happened for a day
(42:08):
or two and then blow away. But this past winter
we had seattle rains down here and it would rain
literally for a week or two without stopping, and our
local bees aren't acclimated to that, and I think that
may have had an effect on them as well. And
then there are sort of the the other elements that
(42:30):
are affecting bees around the world, and that has to
do with things like, um, the lack of availability of
healthy nutrition that we don't have the the natural beef.
It's the flowers in nature that we used to have
in this country or elsewhere due to development and do
(42:52):
to monocultural farming. I think that's been a factor, certainly
on a on a national level. That you of pesticides
has got to be affecting the honeybee. And then bees
have not the strongest immune systems in the world, and
they're vulnerable to parasites and and viruses and infections the same,
(43:18):
even more so than we are. And they're fairly ephemeral
organism um, and so we need to expect that they
will the colonies will perish, but certainly not in the
numbers that we've been experiencing lately. And anything we can
do to improve that situation, I think is better for
the planet, quite honestly. Uh. And that's one of the
(43:41):
great things about the farm that we have here is
that it provides a wonderful opportunity for us to to
educate our visitors about the importance of the honeybee and
how exactly the honeybee works, what she's doing for the planet.
A lot of people are don't actually know exactly how
honey is produced. They may know that it involves the honeybee,
(44:06):
but understanding that process and greater detail and the ecology
of the honeybee, I think helps the public to know
how they can help to ensure that we have a
healthy ecosystem for pollinators in general. Yeah, and I know
that we talked a little bit about it in the
very beginning, but this is really important and useful. Would
(44:28):
you mind helping us um understanding more clear terms what
it is that the honeybee is doing for our ecology.
The honeybee in particular, performs a critical service for us
as humans, and that the honeybee is charged with pollinating
(44:50):
all of the food crops that require pollination in order
to produce the fruits and the nuts and the vegetables
that we eat on a daily basis, and there are
statistics on how reliant we are on honey bees, and
something like two thirds of all of the foods we
eat our only producible because we have pollinators to produce them.
(45:13):
So if you were to picture a world in which
we did not have the honeybee to pollinate those crops,
it would be a seriously different world to live in,
and our food choices would have would be extraordinarily limited.
And not only that, on a on a sort of
(45:33):
broader ecological scale, it would affect the biodiversity of the
planet because the honeybee and all of the other pollinators
out there are helping to ensure that our ecological cycle
continues and that all of the diversity of plant species
on the planet can can propagate and stay alive, and
(45:56):
so that biodiversity is is an essential part of the
health of our planet. Well, thanks for breaking that down.
Thanks for your important role in creating a inspiring sanctuary
for these bees, and UM also teaching many people about
(46:16):
difficult topics UM using alcohol. Kudos to you. Good thinking
with that. It's a great teacher can be And uh,
I think if anyone is listening to this podcast who
has plans to be in northern California or explore Highway One.
I can't recommend enough a visit to Hydrant Meterary. Um.
(46:38):
It's such a serene and beautiful place with some of
the most interesting and delicious fermented beverages you are sure
to try. So thanks again for your time today, Gordon,
and I will hope to catch up soon and take
my own advice and come drinking with you. Well, that's
for sure, Stephen as nothing better than getting you back
(46:58):
here to the farm and sharing a glass of meat
with you. I would love to do that. And um,
we have miles to go, both you and I and
our various projects, but let's just keep pranking away and
share what we do with everybody else. True. Indeed, I'll
take you up on it. Thank you so much, Gordon.
I appreciate it, you bet, Steven, take care of yourself,
(47:20):
all right, you too, Talk soon, Okay, all right, chow okay.
Our final story today, as I mentioned, was inspired by
the artist, photographer, and writer who goes by the name
(47:42):
of Karai Moreba. She is from southwestern Iran from a
province call Kutastan. She travels through old towns and villages
in Iran, and her travels are really informed by exploring
the local food traditions of the area. In her Saffron
story from wet Stone Volume three was really a standout
(48:06):
of all of the stories that we've ever published. Karay
has chosen to remain anonymous, So in light of that,
I will do the honor of reading an excerpt from
her story. Then right after that we will be checking
in with a spice importer to learn a little bit
(48:27):
more about this fabled flower. The women going straight lines,
picking whatever is in arms length. They hold their hand
down in a Vulcan salute, their fingers separated at the
ring and middle finger, grip each flower by the stem
and quickly pull, but not too hard to keep the
(48:49):
corm underground. They each carry a bucket where they throw
the flowers, but Hodge Conoms is the fullest, brimming to
the very top. They each carry a bucket where they
throw the flowers, but Hodge Knams is the fullest, brimming
to the very top at She's been doing this for
(49:10):
over five decades. She moves around the farm, squatting and
bent forward constantly, like one who has every inch of
the land etched deep into her working memory. Picking saffron
reeks havoc on your body, especially your back. It is
the joy of that blooming goal that keeps you going,
(49:31):
she later remarks, holding a handful of flowers in her palm.
Locals do not call it saffron, but simply goal a flower.
Our next guest is Ethan Frish, who is co founder
(49:52):
of Burlap and Barrel, a spice import company. He's based
in New York, and we're talking to him from New
York this morning. Ethan, thanks for joining us, Thanks for learning. So, Ethan,
you are a spice dealer and that's a pretty cool game.
Can you tell us how you got into the spice
(50:13):
game and what does it mean to be a spice
dealer in the year two thousand nineteen. Yeah, sure so,
so I'm the co founder, was comming called Burlapt and
Barrel were a direct trade, a single origin spice sourcing company.
As we worked with small producers in about a dozen countries,
setting farmers up to export their own crops, which hasn't
really happened in the history of the spice trade, and
(50:35):
then importing their spices to the US, which we then
supply to restaurants and manufacturers as as well as home cooks.
I was a chef and then an international aid worker.
I lived in Afghanistan for several years. I did credibit
of work in the Middle East, uh and I really
I just started bringing spices home in my duffle bag,
(50:56):
particularly from Afghanistan, where there's a wild human that we
started from the mountains but then also sat from, which
is something that Afghanistan has been famous for for for
probably thousands of years. And I just started bringing it
home and sharing it with friends in the restaurant industry
and slowly figured out how to turn it into a business.
(51:17):
Such a cool company, I want to talk about Saffrans.
So that's a wonderful segue. It sounds like that was
one of the very first things that you brought back
from your time in Afghanistan, Is that right? Yeah? It was,
really it was. It was a spice that I hadn't
really worked with a whole lot before. Um. You know,
I had cooked in in Indian restaurants and Italian restaurants
(51:39):
and Spanish restaurants. I've had a pretty wide exposure to
a lot of spices and worked in cuisines that used
a shout on account run in Spain and India in particular.
But I just hadn't I hadn't ever really looked into it.
And I think this is true in a lot of cases.
For professional chefs, you sort of so it heads down
in the kitchen, that you don't have a lot of
(51:59):
opportunity to think more deeply about where certain ingredients are
coming from, or any of the agricultural processes or the
supply chains or the people behind them. And so it
was really when I when I moved to Afghanistan and
started to to meet farmers or taste different varieties, or
start to think more about ter war origin in spices,
(52:19):
that that I realized there's this whole world that I
had just been missing. With saffron in particular, there is
a kind of cachet to it um that I think
people know about the idea of saffron or the price
point of saffron, more than they know about what it
actually is. So just in terms of the plant itself,
(52:43):
can you break down for us what is saffron? And um,
we can talk about the culinary uses afterwards. Yes, of course,
the saffron when you buy a saffron thread or a
little packet of saffron dread. But you're actually buying is
the top inch of the statement of a purple crocus flower.
The flower grows really close to the grounds. The petals are,
(53:07):
you know, three or four inches long and really really
beautiful purple and white color. And then in the middle
of the petals there are three threads that are the
statements of the flower that extend up from a longer
string that runs down through the stem of the flower,
and the top inch or so of each thread is red.
(53:27):
And then as you go down that thread where they
where the three of them come together, and then down
through the stem of the flower, they turn yellow and
then and then white, and they run all the way
down through the stem as a long, single white thread.
So when you're buying really high quality pures affront, all
you're getting is that top inch and one flower produces
three threads. You hardest it once a year. It's it's
(53:50):
incredibly labor and land intensive, especially in Afghanistan, will resource it.
It's the desert, so you have to the flowers open
pretty early in the morning before it gets too hot,
and you have to harvest them right away before the
sun drives them out. And so so as a saffron farmer,
you have a very tight window, usually a couple of
(54:10):
weeks in the fall in Afghanistan, that's from the harvest
season is in October November, and you have a few
weeks when you have to pick all of your flowers,
pick the flowers whole from the ground, and then in
in a little warehouse or some other kind of facility,
you're pulling the flowers apart, separating those three dreads from
the rest of the flower and drawing them. And the
(54:34):
actual harvest itself is it's not mechanized. It's done by hand,
Is that right? Yeah, done by hand mostly actually mostly
picked by women. Although unfortunately most of the staff from
kind of companies or the people you consider sort of
the farmer, the person who owns the land or owns
the production those, at least in Afghanistan, those people tend
(54:54):
to be men. And then the people who work in
the actual staffron harvesting and separating the same from rest
of the flour, those people tend to be with them.
And one of the things that Afghanistan is famous for
is it's saffron, and there's been a fair amount of
investment and and also kind of hope in in saffron
as a driver of economic growth in the country, and
(55:17):
especially in a country where a lot of farmers are
growing copies for opium, saffan has often been seen as
sort of replacement crop. And that's a whole a whole
bit or more complicated political conversation. But there's been a
lot of investment by the US, by other governments and
by the Afghan government into saffran production. And so there's
there's quite a lot of saffron grown in Afghanistan. It's
(55:38):
it's grown in the west right on the border with Iran.
It's the same variety, the same the same bulb, the
same corns that they're using imuran. So it's very similar
often to the running saffron and a very similar climate.
Right it's right on the border. So there's some Afghan
saffron gets exported from Afghanistan and it's labeled as Afghan saffron,
but quite a quite a lot of it gets trucked
(55:59):
a we're into the border, over the border into Iran
and then either sold as Irani and saffron, or often
what happens with Irani and saffran because of the sanction
that have been impost on by the US government. Um
Iranni and saffron is often shipped semi legally into Spain,
where it's re labeled, repacked and labeled a Spanish saffron
(56:20):
and exported under that label. There's also a huge amount
of fraud in saff run across the board. There's there's
some funny statistics. I don't remember the exact numbers off
the top of my head. That Spain, which you know
again it's famous for its saffrom grows something like a
ton of saffron a year, but they export something like
fifty tons. It's a big difference. And where's that other
(56:46):
forty nine cons coming from? Uh? Some of it is
is Irani and saffron, like I said, that's been smuggled in.
Some of it is safferent from other places like Morocco
or Greece, and people feel like the brands and the
name of the lay Spanish saffron is more valuable, and
so they just relabel it the package in Spain. And
then a lot of it is actually other parts of
(57:08):
the plant. So that that long thread that I was describing,
and there's some beautiful pictures in the west own um
article about it. That showed that whole length of the
saffron thread, but the rest of the thread, the part
that's naturally white. Often that will be cut into one
inch segment and dye bread and mixed in with the
actual statement of the flower um. And so a company
(57:31):
can legally claim that it's a hundred percent saffron, but
that it's not the part of the flower, the part
of the plant that has the most flavor and color,
and that's that's really sort of what's considered true saffron.
So if we want true saffron and keep it real
with us, just give us the truth. Do we need
to buy it from pearlap and Barrel, Well, you definitely could,
(57:53):
But I mean, if you're buying staff from uh, what
I would recommend is looking at the individual stamens um.
There should be a little kind of crown at the top.
It should open up into this. It looks like a
tiny little crown with a slight yellow tinge at the
top of the of each stamon. At the bottom, you
should see it taper down. And if it does start
(58:14):
to turn a little bit yellow at the bottom, that's
a good sign a lack of consistency in color. Is
actually generally good sign and saffron because it shows either
it wasn't dyed, it dyed it's all pure red, and
another you you'd have to buy it to be able
to do this test. But another way that you can
test it is by pouring some hot water over over
(58:34):
saffron threads a couple of threads in a little bowl
or a cup. Um. Natural saffron will will release its
color in a stream and it will almost come out
from this statement in a in a spiral. You'll get
this long, slow spiral of yellow color and you'll you'll
see it sort of spiral out in the water. If
it's been dyed, there will be a really quick kind
(58:57):
of puddle around puddle of bright yellow color are around
the thread. Um. Just if the color comes out too quickly,
if it comes out in a circle rather than along
the stream, that's that's generally a bad sign. And when
you pour hot water over the saffron thread you may
also see them start to unfurl a little bit, and
that's a bad sign. That means that somebody has taken
other parts of the plant and kind of rolled them
(59:18):
up to make them look like they're they're the real
saffron thread. But when you pour hot water where you
can see them kind of open up on the turl,
that is all super good. Intel as a former chef,
can you give us some of your favorite applications or
for saffron. Yeah, So saffon is a tricky ingredient to
(59:40):
team down. Flavor wise. It doesn't have the same sort
of intensity of flavor that another spice. Mike, I find
that it's more sort of a like almost a bouquet,
like a feeling in your mouth. It's not it's not
a flavor that that sort of sits on your tongue
in a way that that's something like cinnamon or black
pepper or another slice would um. And it infuses really
(01:00:04):
well into into anything that's cooking in liquid. So obviously
the classic recipes are are staff run and rice, whether
that's person traditions of stuff on rice or Spanish versions
of stuff on rice. But I also I love it
in tomato sauces. It adds this this huge amount of
death and complexity to a tomato sauce. It's great in
baked goods if you bluem it in a little bit
(01:00:26):
of butter or something like that um or or just
mix some threads into a batter or a dough that
you're making, and give it enough time to infuse. Um,
you'll get really beautiful sort of pockets of saffron aroma
as you as you bite into the cake or or
the bread. Um. Yes, it's a really it's a really
special ingredient. It just needs a little bit of time
(01:00:49):
to to infuse into whatever you're cooking. So it's not
something that really gets sprinkled on at the end. I mean,
you could sprinkle it on at the end, but it
wouldn't That wouldn't be the most effective way to pull
out the flavor. It's really something that has to be
drawn out through the cooking process. So does the heat,
because I know you talked about the hot water as
an indicator of quality, does it need to actually be
(01:01:09):
like you can't make a drink that's chilled or something
infuse with saffron. Does it actually need the heat? You
absolutely good. Actually, a scantic in the way that they
that they make that they make saffron rice often is
to take a couple of saffron threads and put them
in a little bowl with an ice cube um and
and let the ice melt and let the saffron absorb
(01:01:29):
into the water as the ice melts. I don't know
exactly why that's, but that's it. That that's that's a
pretty common way to draw out some of the flavor
or saffron and then put that melted ice to the
infused water into the rights that you're cooking, often adding
it at the very end as sort of a color
kind of you get these stripes of yellow in the rice,
but you've let the saffron infuse into the water, so
(01:01:50):
you get you get a really great flavor and works
great in cocktails. You can confuse it into into spirits
or into a simple syrup or something like that. Another
another mixture into the cocktail and and added that way
it has a beautiful kind of golden bright yellow color.
Incredible intel. We appreciate it, my man. That's Ethan Fresh,
(01:02:13):
co founder of Burlap and Barrel, a direct trade single
origin spice importer. Thank you so much for joining us
on point of origin. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'll
talk to you so women, all right. Chow h m
h m hm m h m h m hm m
(01:02:35):
h m hm hm hm hm. That was Ethan Fresh
giving us the lowdown on Saffron. We hope you've enjoyed
Point of Origin Episode three, Thanks for hanging out with us.
Thanks to our guest today, Leela el Amine of the
Recipe Hunters, Gordon Hull of Hydrometerary, and Ethan Frish of
(01:02:57):
Burlap and Barrel. Thanks to my partner What's Stone co
founder Melissa she who helped produce this podcast. Thank you,
mel Thanks to supervising producer Gabrielle Collins to Cat Hong
who edited this podcast. Point of Origin is a podcast
from my Heart Media and What Stone Magazine, executive produced
by Christopher Hassiotis and hosted by me Steven Saderfield. You
(01:03:21):
can listen to more Point of Origin on the I
Heart Media app or wherever you listen to podcast. And finally,
thank you to each and every one of you who
is supporting What Stone Magazine and listening to the Point
of Origin podcast. We'll be back soon.
And our host said, oh, oh, you know those are
actually those are the poisonous snakes that live in the
trees and at the base of the trees. And so
I'm thinking, like, what, okay, I'm going to walk through
this forest where there are sleeping snakes that I can't
see and if I step on what happens to me
if I step on them? I asked him, and he's like, oh,
well you'll die. Welcome back to Point of Origin, the
(00:29):
podcast about the world of food from around the world.
I'm your host, Steven Saderfield, and today's episode is a
sweet one. It is a lovely theme that we're calling
from a flower, which is a celebration of both fruit
and flower. And putting together this episode, we kind of
backed into a greatest hits from the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern kitchen.
(00:54):
So honey, dates, and saffron will all take center stage today.
One of the boy it says that you'll hear is
from an old friend of mine, Gordon Hall, who is
and has been for some time now, making one of
the most distinctive beverages you will ever taste. It is
a sparkling honey wine made in the style of a
fine Champagne. It's super good and you will learn all
(01:18):
about Gordon, all about his honey wine and how it's made.
We're also going to check in with one of the
coolest ladies in the game, Lela el Amine, of the
Recipe Hunters, and Lela is so very cool. She's just
like us, an origin forager who for the last five
years has been traveling around the world visiting and documenting
(01:39):
small agrarian communities, which she does remarkably well. And today
she's going to tell us a story that you will
not want to miss. It is a very harrowing harvest
expedition in the Seaway Oasis in Egypt. And last but
not least, ethan Frish stops by to talk to us
(02:00):
all about saffron. Hey, Hey, how are you Ben good?
I'm calling you from the iHeart Radio studios in Atlanta, Georgia.
(02:22):
Our next guest is Leela Elamine. She is an award
winning docu media producer with a concentration in photography, videography
and writing. She is one half of the Recipe Hunters,
who are frequent collaborators with Whetstone Magazine and we are
pleased to have her join us today to talk about,
(02:43):
among other things, one of my all time favorite stories
that has ever appeared in print. It is a story
of a date palm harvest in the sea. What oasis?
Leela el Amine, thanks for joining us on point of origin.
Thanks Stephen, I'm so I need to be here. Well,
we are thrilled to talk to you. Uh and before
(03:04):
we we talked about the aforementioned story, we should talk
about who you are, UM and how you got into
your current world of documenting stories about food and people
all over the world. I had like a very untraditional path,
you know. I graduated college, I decided I wanted to
be a doctor. I started doing research, and then I
(03:26):
read this book about cancer and I fell in love
with a science behind cancer, and so I wanted to
cancer research. And you know, I didn't really think about
the implications of working with cancer patients, but I ended
up working with specifically people that had three to six
months to live. UM. They were enrolling in these clinical
trials as like a last ditch hope to you know,
(03:48):
find a cure. And I formed really close relationships with
my patients, and it was it ended up being the
best thing that I ever did, but also the most
difficult I ended up, you know, spending a lot of
time with these people who were you know, essentially dying,
and and throughout my time at the cancer center, I
(04:09):
just kept hearing the same things. I kept hearing, like,
I wish that I'd lived my life according to my
passions and interests and not let society dictate who I am,
what I do, what I love, and what I value.
And I wish that I had traveled, and I wish
that I had, you know, been a dancer, and I
wish that I had really lived my life according to
(04:29):
what I wanted to do. And hearing that over and
over again, I kind of started to re examine what
I was doing with my life. And one patient in particular,
really he said, you know, Leyla, say yes to everything
and reach for the sky. And then he passed away,
and I just kept like hearing what he said and
(04:49):
you know, in my ear. And so I decided to
take a sabbatical from you know, school and work, and
I began saying yes to everything. So I moved out,
you know, to the Midwest. I started volunteering on a
cheese farm. I started working as a cheesemonger. I started
like working on goat farms and and volunteering at farmers
markets and just really like diving into everything that I
(05:13):
had ever been interested in. And along the way, I
brought my camera because I'd always you know, loved photography.
And around the same time, I met my business partner, Anthony,
who was kind of going through the same thing, like
trying to figure out what he wanted to do with
his life and what was important to him. So we
(05:33):
had this crazy idea, so crazy about six years ago too,
to start volunteering on farms around the world according to
what we were interested in. Like five and a half
years later, like we've volunteered in over seventy international communities,
learning about traditional food practices and recording them and documenting them,
(05:55):
and learning about endangered ingredients around the world, and and
he's endangered rust at Ease and working with some of
the most amazing people you can imagine, like people that
are so close to the earth and so close to
their culture and their history. And we we originally began
by recording the recipes and the stories of these people
and these cultures via photojournalism, and it naturally evolves because
(06:17):
of my interest in video to film, So you know,
we started making short documentaries about the the lives and
stories of these indigenous people really keeping their culinary heritage
alive through the practice of traditional food ways. And when
you were thinking about living your life after you've gotten
(06:39):
this really pointing advice, living your life in the way
that you saw fit? Um, what was it about agriculture
and farming? Like, I know for anyone the response to
that could mean many different things, but for you it
meant going to a farm. Where do you think that
inclination came from. I wanted to be closer to nature.
(07:02):
We were interested in agriculture to understand what we eat.
And then also there's just something so peaceful about working
on a farm and being close to nature and touching nature.
Have you had a particular agricultural experience that has made
you feel like maybe that is a way that you
would like to spend your life, or have you felt
(07:24):
more content that your role as a documentarian is actually
the better way to serve and satisfy your interest. Yeah,
that's such a great question, Stephen. I actually I do
want to have agriculture as part of my life and
on a day to day basis, Like if I am
somewhere for a period longer than you know, one month.
I already have my own sour dough yeast, and I've
(07:46):
planted seeds. I have like corn growing from Pueblo, Mexico.
Right now it's in my it's actually in my bones,
like and so right now I'm I'm young, I'm excited.
I have so much energy. I want to keep documenting food.
But I do foresee in the future finding a nice
patch of land and you know, growing my own food
(08:07):
and having my own animals on a small scale enough
to you know, serve myself and my neighbors. But it
is something that I do that dream about, you know, definitely.
So let's talk about how you ended up in Egypt,
or and specifically uh in an oasis called Seewa. So,
first of all, where is Siwa and how did you
(08:31):
find your way there? See what is in the northwest
region of Egypt. It's about thirty miles east of Bolivian border.
But what we've got to see what from Alexandria, which
is the ports city um in northern Egypt. And you
have to drive seven hours in the desert in order
to get to this oasis. It's incredibly secluded, I mean,
(08:52):
and for that reason, you know, it's still retains a
lot of its culture and a lot of it's you know,
a thousand year old traditions, just because it's so hard
to get to and what brought you there? We went
to see what on Actually the first leg of our journey,
I think we were gone for eight and a half
months with backpacks. We were we originally went to Egypt
(09:14):
and we were searching for traditional recipes. But we did
start up out at the Pyramids and we were volunteering
in a hostel there refurbishing furniture, and you know, while
we were there, we were learning about tamaya, like learning
how to make it's like Egyptian flawful, learning how to
make bread, learning how to make Egyptian malahia. And during
our time we went to Cairo, and we kept hearing
(09:36):
about this because we were living with food researchers that
we had found, you know, online, they were part of
the Slow Food Network. We decided to go to this oasis.
The driver picks us up and we drive for seven
hours in the desert. Actually we drive from Cairo to Alexandria,
then from Alexandria to see you, and I remember I
(10:00):
slept for a lot of the rye because it's pure desert.
I mean, you look around you and you can see
nothing but you know, sand and sky. So we're driving
in the desert, driving in the desert, and you know,
we passed by these orange dunes and everything. We see
bedwinds on their camels, and we all of a sudden
go up a hill and go down and you see
(10:22):
the most stunning glistening lakes and you see palm trees
and it's the most It's like, especially after being in
the desert for so many hours, you feel like you've
entered a paradise. And I have to say this, We've
been to so many different places around the world. This
is one of the most beautiful, surreal places. It doesn't
(10:43):
even feel real. So incredibly beautiful. Wow, incredible. So once
you got there, you did you already have a plan,
like a volunteering plan set up or did you sort
that out once you round? So Anthony and I sort
of bartered work for Roman Board a lot of times.
(11:07):
So in this instance, we contacted these farmers that we
found through the Slow Food Network that we're preserving an
endangered type of date and the tree of the date,
and so we reach out to them and we said, hey, um,
we're you know, we're documentary filmmakers, and at that point,
(11:28):
I think we were just doing photography, so we you know,
we said, hey, like, we want to come research or food,
take pictures of it, learned some traditional recipes. Can we
stay with you guys in exchange, will work on the
farm and will help you. And they're like absolutely, Like
we we definitely need help. Right now, we're actually doing
the pollination of the day trees. So if you could
come help us clear out the forest, will put you
(11:50):
up in our home. Up until this point, was this
your first encounter with the date pomp. It's funny. We
lived in Cyprus for about six weeks previous to going
to Egypt, and we had just missed the harvest season
um in Cyprus, so when we heard about the opportunity
to learn more about dates in Egypt, we jumped at it.
(12:12):
And I'm Lebanese American. I grew up eating dates. It's
like what you had at the end of a big meal.
It's what you know your mom gives you as like
an energy booster. So I had never I had seen
dates on trees, but I never really thought about how
the process was of you know, harvesting dates how they
(12:33):
did it, and it's actually absolutely phenomenal how people harvest
dates around the world, specifically in in Egypt. You know,
these indigenous seaweed men they you know, we are wearing
socks and they climb up these fifty ft trees like
it's nothing, like like you know, they're spiders or something.
(12:54):
I can't even We called the guy that was hiwing
us around and that was pollinating the day trees. His
name was Echo, and he climbed these trees like an avatar,
so we ended up calling him Echo the Avatar. It
was really unbelievable to see the amount of strength that
these men have, you know, as kids, they're they're climbing
these palm trees, so when they get to be men,
(13:15):
it's like it's like nothing. Yeah, and we we do
have a photograph of Echo in the magazine and is
it's really phenomenal to see and like the trees themselves.
You have to set the scene for us a little
bit more, because there's so much going on in this story.
Can we back up to the actual pollination of the dates?
(13:37):
How does it all happen? To give you guys a
little bit of a setting or context, but no US
Island is where the date tree forest was that we
were volunteering on, and it's on one of the lakes
in the oasis, and basically it's this massive grove of
(13:59):
date tree ease and they still have ancient Roman aqueducts
throughout the island. They also have vegetable beds where they're
like they have you know, chippeas and fava beans. But
at the point they were regenerating this this date tree
forest because it had gone kind of unwatched and unkept
(14:20):
for a while, so they were reclaiming it are our hosts.
When we got there, we we started helping them clean
the date tree forest. So basically, female trees are the
ones that produced the fruit. And because of that, throughout
the years, people have really taken care of the female
trees and kind of let the male trees, you know,
(14:41):
they haven't cared about them so much because they're not
the ones producing the fruit. But they still grow a
certain amount of male trees so that they can pollinate
the female trees. And basically in the old days, what
would happen is there would be enough male trees that
it would just the wind would pollinate. But now since
they don't have of, you know, so many male trees,
(15:02):
they have to actually climb the trees with the male
seeds in their hands and bring them and put them
into the female inflorescence. So basically Echo would would go
climb up a male tree, cut off the space which
holds the inflorescence, which has the germinating seeds, and then
(15:24):
he would bring it back to the tent. He would
cut it open and he would shake off the inflorescence
and he would um take all of that, all of
the germinating seeds, and he would climb up into a
female tree and he would you know, stick the male
germanating seeds into the female flowers in order to germinate them.
(15:49):
So yeah, exactly, he was acting as a beat. But
the most interesting thing that I learned, I think about
pollinating day trees and even harvesting dates, is that it
is incredibly dangerous, not only because of the height, but
also because at the top of the tree, in order
to protect itself, the tree grows these crazy long spikes
(16:14):
and if the spikes touch you, they will or if
they like, pierce you, basically they can infect you. So
you have to you first have to take a spike
out and then burn the area that has been touched
by the spike. So insane, And we see later in
the story an example of just how intense these spikes
(16:35):
are because on the floor there's a whole another dangerous
situation going on to right. Oh my gosh. Yes, So
when we first arrived on the this little island where
they have all the date date palm trees, we are
walking by and they're, you know, they're giving us like
a tour of all the trees. And I see something
(16:56):
kind of swaying in the winds, kind of like a ribbon.
And and then I look closer, I see a few
ribbons swinging in the wind. And as I walk closer,
I realized that there are snakes whose heads have been
smashed in by the by that same needle that you
find at the top of the tree. And they've they've
been hammered into the tree. These snakes are just hanging.
(17:19):
And then there's like a couple, you know, just token scorpions,
also hanging. So and I'm like, I, you know, you jump.
I jumped, and I was like, oh my gosh, what what? What?
Where did you why? What's going on? And our host said, oh, oh,
you know those are actually those are the poisonous snakes
that that live in the trees and at the base
(17:41):
of the trees. But don't worry, they're sleeping. But but
but don't step on them. You can't step on them.
If you step on them, they'll bite you, but you
won't really be able to see them. And so I'm thinking, like, what, Okay,
I'm going to walk through this forest where there are
sleeping snakes that I can't see and I step on
What happens to me if I step on them? I
asked him, and he's like, oh, well, you'll die. You
(18:06):
can imagine. And I'm in the midst of the sporting
Actually that's the thing. So I'm like, wait a minute,
I'm sorry, you're telling me that we'll we'll die and
what And he's like, you'll die. I won't die because
they put the venom in our milk as infants, so
we drink small, small doses of the venom so we'll
(18:28):
have the antibody or anti venom against the snakes. So
I'm just like, oh my god, I can't believe that
we have agreed to do this. I had known and actually,
you know, Steven, that's super dangerous. Like, there are things
that we have come across and actually informing a lot
of the most dangerous, I feel like have been snakes.
(18:49):
You know. We were in Mexico working in agave farm
and it was the same thing that's like, well, don't
step on the snakes there by pit vipers and they'll
kill you. And you're like, well, how do you know
if you stop snake? So um, Yeah, that was pretty scary.
That is incredible. So do you have a sense of
most of the dates there we're being exported or were
(19:13):
they being consumed on the island? Um, I'm actually I
did at one point of that, but I'm actually not sure.
I Mean, one thing I do know is that dates
and these palm trees are an integral part of the culture, history,
and identity of the Seawen people. It's one of their
main sources of sustenance. Literally, everything you could possibly make
(19:35):
with dates they make and with the trees and with
the leaves. I mean, they make baskets out of the leaves,
they make toys for the children out of the leaves.
They make their houses from the tree trunks. They make
date bread, they make date pudding, They make date juice,
they make date alcohol, I mean, anything you could think
(19:56):
of they make with dates. And the one kind of
a dish that really my attention is one that I
had never heard of, if we can call it a dish,
but to jela um, which is made kind of with
the state pudding that you just mentioned. Can you explain
that dish to us? Yeah? Sure so, And I'm just
going to take a step back really quickly to talk
(20:17):
about the society of see what if that's okay? Please? Yes.
So Seewa is a really really interesting place. It's segregated
by men and women. But when I say segregated, I
mean segregated. You you walk into this bustling, you know,
town of people and there are no women. So you're
(20:37):
completely surrounded by men. And the women they mostly you know,
do household work. They stay within the family. They are
completely veiled, so even when they are out, you don't
really see them. And the men mostly take care of
going into the city or the town and they do
a lot of like the working on farm. They you know,
they go out to the restaurants, they go out super
(20:58):
they're the ones that go out shopping. It's not primarily
the women Um. So while we were there for the
first you know, three days, I did not interact with
one woman. Um. Finally, after you know, volunteering on the farm,
I was like, hey, guys, I really want to learn
traditional recipes, Like can you introduce me to the women.
So they brought me to spend time with the women
to learn the traditional recipes. And it was at that
(21:21):
point that I spent a day with a group of
Seawee women and they taught me how to make their
traditional to jella. And to jela is basically a I
would say, like a date pudding, but it is a
very very special dish that is used to sort of
indicate how good of a cook a woman is. And
(21:46):
it's often said that you know when when when a
woman first marries, assigned to show that she's going to
be a good wife is how how well she makes
the tijella. So to jela is basically that you take
all of these dates, you deepit them, and then you
create a paste with with water and by heating the
dates up, and you stir the tigella for hours and
(22:09):
hours and hours, slowly adding a little bit of water,
a little bit of wheat that that has grown on
the island on the oasis, and it is just one
of the most simple yet intricate recipes I've ever come across,
because the trick is you have to have the perfect consistency,
(22:30):
and I would really liken the consistency too, maybe like
a I don't know if like a Semolina put in,
I don't know if you've ever had that, but actually
very creamy, completely consistent throughout. You don't feel any pieces
of dates. It's absolutely delicious. But the one thing is
that you know you don't whenever you cook with dates,
(22:51):
you don't add sugar because dates have so much inherent
natural sugars in them, so um, it ends up being
this dense, thick a me putting of dates. Yeah, and
it looks sort of like a caramel color almost. And
my favorite thing that you say in this story is
if strength had a flavor, it would be this. So
(23:14):
I'm assuming that just like the intensity and all of
the like almost distillation of all the sugar and sweetness
after many hours of stirring, it just must be like
really out of this world. It really is. After having it,
I've never tasted something before that after having it, you
immediately feel energy. I mean It is like a crazy
(23:35):
energy boost where you feel like you can take on
the world, you know, and it fills you up for
hours and hours and toe Jella. One of the most
interesting things about it is that you eat it with
olive oil and you can only have a little bit
of it because it's so filling, you know, it just
sits in your stomach and it's it's absolutely delicious, but
it gives you a sense of like what the people
(23:57):
ate in terms of, you know, being farmers and having
to work on the field and really needing a lot
of nutrients and a lot of energy. To Jella really
is the perfect dish too when you think of a
farmer that they would that they would eat to keep them,
you know, keep them strong and going throughout the harvest
and throughout sowing the seeds. Is the best place to
(24:18):
find you online at the recipe Hunters or is there
another place? Yeah, we post all of our content, including
the short documentary films, on the recipe hunters dot com
so www. Dot recipe hunter dot com. But we also
have an Instagram and I I check that you know
every day, so it's at the recipe Hunters and any questions,
(24:39):
you know, just shoot me a message on Instagram. And
that's one thing that Anthony and I we really want
to be there for our community. UM, So we answer
questions all the time. We encourage people to try our
recipes which are on our website, and it's great when
they send us pictures of you know, this endangered recipe
that they're you know, practicing at home. Um, that really
(25:00):
is why we're doing this. So it feels good. Yeah, definitely,
Thank you so much for your time and for all
of your really interesting and important work. Thanks ste when
you're the best. Okay, talk to you soon. Chow. That
is Leela el Amine of the recipe Hunters, friend of Whetstone,
(25:20):
documentary filmmaker, media producer Extraordinary. What next up. We are
(25:47):
in northern California in the idyllic town of Point Raise,
one of my favorites in all of California, with Gordon Hole,
the man who puts the bees in Bubbly. You're listening
to Point of Origin, a podcast from whet Stone Magazine
and I Heart Radio today. Our theme is from a flower,
(26:09):
delicacies and enjoyments that derive from the flower, and we're
talking to an old friend of mine, Gordon Holl who
is the only person of his kind that I know of.
He is a mead maker in northern California and he's
joining us this morning to talk to us about sparkling mead.
(26:30):
Thanks for coming on to Point of Origin. My pleasure, Stephen.
Great to hear your voice. Same same. So I have
to always begin in talking about your your product, um
as someone who grew up as Sammier uh and can
often be not really jaded but feeling very familiar with
(26:51):
you know, wine and alcoholic beverages of all kinds. The
first time I encountered your meat, it stopped me dead
in my tracks because I'd never tasted anything quite like it.
It's a really distinctive product, um. So before we talk
about what it is in particular, I think it's probably
worth us talking about where you're located, because it has
(27:11):
a lot to do with the overall flavor of the meat. Yes, certainly. Well,
we're located, as you said, in northern California and Point
Race Station. We occupy what at one point was a
small dairy farm, which we have converted into a metery.
And here we're producing wine from honey instead of grapes,
(27:34):
and we're using honey that we produce with our own
bees that we keep on the property and in other
locations around northern California. And then we also produced meat
from honeys that we procure from other beekeepers all around
the country. And our meads, as you alluded to, our sparkling,
(27:58):
and that's sort of a non traditional style for a
for a honey wine. So you've probably heard of mead,
but what Gordon is doing is altogether unique because his
mead is naturally effervescent, meaning that there is no forced
carbonation which you find in soft drinks or bottled water.
(28:22):
Before we talk about the bubbles, we've got to talk
about the bees. Honey bees, they extract nectar from flower
with very specific flavor compounds. And one of the best
parts about hydrants meads is that for every flower there
is a signature flavor compound that affects the flavor of
the honey and therefore the flavor of the mead. Got
(28:47):
it And how did you begin your journey to becoming
a meat maker. Well, it was a little bit by accident,
as many things are. My intention was to start a brewery.
I was working against a commercial brewer in Arcada, California,
and just learning the ropes well enough to start my
(29:08):
own business. But by coincidence, I happened to be experimenting
with honey fermentation. Yeah, I mean, and you conferment virtually anything.
What is it about honey that you were particularly drawn to? Well,
first of all, honey is one of the most beautiful
materials to work with. One of the most beautiful foods
that I can imagine is honey is quite literally the
(29:30):
nectar of flower blossoms that has been harvested by honey
bees and processed into this substance that is around eighty
four percent sugar water. And that each honey has such
remarkably unique flavor characteristics is just to me, is is fascinating.
(29:52):
And if you consider that there are conceivably hundreds of
thousands of different varieties of honey out there, there's a
lifetime of work to do to take these honeys and
drain takes them through a fermentation process, this process that
we've developed and reveal the essence of that very flower
(30:15):
that they come from. So beautiful, such a poetic way
to think about it, and it really comes through and
in all the different flavors of the meat. So once
you started making meat what what year was this? Well,
let's see, my first Batcher's Garage mead was the nineteen
(30:37):
and I spent two years developing the recipe and putting
together my business plan, acquiring the equipment I needed before
opening a company. And that was in Arcada, up in
Humble County, so just off of the Ark and border
on the on the Pacific Post. So you're making meat
(30:57):
in your garage in the mid nineties. Um, fast forward over,
you know, twenty or so years later, what has changed
for you, um, in terms of your your process but
also the way of the world the consumer. Well, A
good question, UM, I think the biggest change for us
(31:21):
came about really about twelve years into the development of
the company, when it became clear that we needed to
find a way to expose more of our community to
what we were doing. Look being looking it up in
Humble County was very remote and my my primary market
(31:43):
was in San Francisco, five hours drive away, and that
in itself presented the challenges. And also I realized that
in order to introduce consumers to the product we're putting out,
we really needed a destination for people to go to,
and that led me to begin looking for farmland closer
(32:05):
to the Bay Area, where we could in a sense,
developed the entire coology of the honey bee on our
farm in terms of keeping honey bees and throwing the
bee forage those those very flowers that the bees feed
off of. So moving to the farm has been our
biggest step and just exposing people to what we're doing.
(32:29):
Let's talk about how the sparkling mead is actually produced.
So we've been talking about the honey and the bee
and how it imparts a distinctive flavor on the mead,
But now let's talk about how the meat is made.
(32:51):
So the first step is to dilute the honey with water,
and that's because honey is about eight or percent sugar,
which is far too much to ferment on its own.
So in order to induce fermentation, the honey has to
be diluted to a volume that more closely resembles grape juice.
(33:13):
Like when making wine, and in the champagne method bottling,
you first add a very carefully measured quantity of cane
sugar and a new inoculation of yeast. You mix all
that together in the bottling tank, and then the the
(33:35):
wine is put into champagne bottles, and a beard cap
is put on each of those bottles, and the bottles
are put into something called garage bins. They're just storage
bins for bottles. They're put on their side in those
boxes and they go through a secondary fermentation. And what
happens is that second inoculation of yeast we put in
(33:56):
the bottling tank consumes thee came sugar that we've also added,
and it produces a little bit more alcohol, but more importantly,
it produces carbon dioxide. And since we do have a
beer cap on on the bottle, the carbon dioxide cannot escape,
and that's how we get our natural effervescence. After that's done,
(34:20):
there is a final process in the method Champion law,
in which the yeast is removed from the bottle by
using the process of riddling and discouragement. And then the
product is if a traditional champagne cork and fire hood
and goes through cleaning inspection and then get spoiled and
(34:41):
boxed up and it's ready to go. And the whole
product process takes about four months from start to finish.
And why do you think it is that we haven't
seen more producers getting involved and making such a an
interesting value added product like sparkling mead. Well, um, I
(35:05):
think who we're starting to see some producers attempting to
do this. I know that there have been instances meteris
making carbonated artificially carbonated needs in order to try to
create the same flavor characteristics. That's the champagne method is challenging,
(35:25):
to say the least, that it takes very specific equipment
to make it happen. That equipment can be expensive, most
of it comes from from Europe, and then there are
a lot of opportunities to make errors in the In
the sparkling wine process, it's difficult. It's about five times
the labor of making a still wine. So I think
(35:46):
it's a little bit daunting. I've got lucky, I think
in that when I first started making my sparkling Needs,
I made it in a bottle conditions style, which means
that the bottles we're going through a secondary fermentation to
create effervescence. That eventually I didn't remove the sediment, so
there was sediments in the bottom of each bottle. It's
(36:08):
like some of those bottle conditioned beers that you can
get at specialty beer stars. So I think I was
lucky to get kind of step by steps. Genesis is
my product and it helps kind of guide me towards
where I am. Now, what can you tell us about
the ways in which the different kinds of honey m
change the flavor profile of the meat. Every flower has
(36:33):
really a unique signature of aromatics and flavor compounds, and
these differentiations between flowers are are essentially that individual species
of flowers efforts to attract fallinators to to pollinate the
flowers so that the that the plant can produce more offspring.
(36:55):
We find that our meats sectrum flavors of our eats
can vary from a very extremely light, clear um, almost
grape wine quality of sparkling wine all the way to
flavors that are similar to a Belgian spaison, and and
(37:18):
everything in between. We have flavors that can be earthy, incense,
certainly very floral flavors, Some are of jasmine or rose,
some are very herbal. So the carrot blossom honey I'm
getting from Central Oregon and the peculiar flavors that it has,
(37:39):
it has this sort of vegetal quality that in a
honey is not really desirable. It's a little bit funky.
But what we found is that when we put that
honey through our fermentation process and allow the yeast to
metabolize that UH and to metabolize all of those flavor
compounds and make it into something of a wall line,
(38:00):
and we taste that wine, we find these flavors that
are I would describe as incense and sandal wood. They're
smoky and woody with a definitely a floral element as well,
and they're extraordinary flavors that are unique to that flower alone,
(38:23):
to carrot blossom alone. And we find that these flavor
characteristics of the flower are held within a kind of
a matrix of the flavor characteristics that come from the
honeybee herself. So if you picture what the honeybee is doing,
(38:43):
she's collecting nectar from the flower and taking it back,
She's ingesting it and taking it back to the hive,
and then she's putting that nectar into the honeycomb and
processing it with her own enzymes, and she's dehydrating it
from the high water content of a flower nectar down
(39:07):
to the very low water content of a honey She's
dehydrating it through heat and body heat and air circulation
and then storing it in bees wax, and all of
these efforts by the honey bee lend flavors to that
honey and those flavors, whether it be a flavor of
(39:30):
bees wax or of the propolists that is a part
of the hive, those flavors come through and each and
every one of our varietals as well. So we're really
talking about a wine experience that is, Um, it's very complex.
It is including both the botanical flavors of the flower
(39:53):
and the animal flavors of the honey bee. And it's
an experience really unlike any other. And it's one that
lends itself to a sparkling wine, and that by making
it sparkling and more importantly, by my making it dry,
you're able to taste those uh distinct flavors. And that's
(40:14):
what makes up our whole product line of all of
our different meat rivals. Yeah, and they're all amazing, and you,
I mean, have had so much experience sort of as
a in part farmer and maker. UM, I'm curious how
over the last two decades or so, the constraints on
(40:38):
the bee population and also the irregular climate in northern
California has affected your meat making. The honey bee situation
is really quite ridiculous right now. In fact, we had
this last winter our hardest winter on record in Marin County.
I think that holds true for most the country. Some
(41:01):
of the data on that is still coming out, but
it wasn't pretty. We lost something like our colonies over
the winter time, and it just by comparison. Imagine if
you were a cattle farmer and you lost seventy five
of your heard over over one season, over one year.
You know that kind of thing is devastating, and we're
(41:23):
not sure what to attribute those problems too. I think
maybe for northern California to potential contributors would be if
the smoke from the wildfires we had here last fall
created some problem with the honey bee navigation that may
have affected the health of the hives of the colonies.
(41:47):
That's certainly possibility, but I don't know of anybody who's
been able to verify that. We also had an extraordinarily
wet winter. I'm actually originally from Seattle, and I'm used
to a month or so of rain without stopping, But
since moving down to California, it kind of got used
to having these California rains that happened for a day
(42:08):
or two and then blow away. But this past winter
we had seattle rains down here and it would rain
literally for a week or two without stopping, and our
local bees aren't acclimated to that, and I think that
may have had an effect on them as well. And
then there are sort of the the other elements that
(42:30):
are affecting bees around the world, and that has to
do with things like, um, the lack of availability of
healthy nutrition that we don't have the the natural beef.
It's the flowers in nature that we used to have
in this country or elsewhere due to development and do
(42:52):
to monocultural farming. I think that's been a factor, certainly
on a on a national level. That you of pesticides
has got to be affecting the honeybee. And then bees
have not the strongest immune systems in the world, and
they're vulnerable to parasites and and viruses and infections the same,
(43:18):
even more so than we are. And they're fairly ephemeral
organism um, and so we need to expect that they
will the colonies will perish, but certainly not in the
numbers that we've been experiencing lately. And anything we can
do to improve that situation, I think is better for
the planet, quite honestly. Uh. And that's one of the
(43:41):
great things about the farm that we have here is
that it provides a wonderful opportunity for us to to
educate our visitors about the importance of the honeybee and
how exactly the honeybee works, what she's doing for the planet.
A lot of people are don't actually know exactly how
honey is produced. They may know that it involves the honeybee,
(44:06):
but understanding that process and greater detail and the ecology
of the honeybee, I think helps the public to know
how they can help to ensure that we have a
healthy ecosystem for pollinators in general. Yeah, and I know
that we talked a little bit about it in the
very beginning, but this is really important and useful. Would
(44:28):
you mind helping us um understanding more clear terms what
it is that the honeybee is doing for our ecology.
The honeybee in particular, performs a critical service for us
as humans, and that the honeybee is charged with pollinating
(44:50):
all of the food crops that require pollination in order
to produce the fruits and the nuts and the vegetables
that we eat on a daily basis, and there are
statistics on how reliant we are on honey bees, and
something like two thirds of all of the foods we
eat our only producible because we have pollinators to produce them.
(45:13):
So if you were to picture a world in which
we did not have the honeybee to pollinate those crops,
it would be a seriously different world to live in,
and our food choices would have would be extraordinarily limited.
And not only that, on a on a sort of
(45:33):
broader ecological scale, it would affect the biodiversity of the
planet because the honeybee and all of the other pollinators
out there are helping to ensure that our ecological cycle
continues and that all of the diversity of plant species
on the planet can can propagate and stay alive, and
(45:56):
so that biodiversity is is an essential part of the
health of our planet. Well, thanks for breaking that down.
Thanks for your important role in creating a inspiring sanctuary
for these bees, and UM also teaching many people about
(46:16):
difficult topics UM using alcohol. Kudos to you. Good thinking
with that. It's a great teacher can be And uh,
I think if anyone is listening to this podcast who
has plans to be in northern California or explore Highway One.
I can't recommend enough a visit to Hydrant Meterary. Um.
(46:38):
It's such a serene and beautiful place with some of
the most interesting and delicious fermented beverages you are sure
to try. So thanks again for your time today, Gordon,
and I will hope to catch up soon and take
my own advice and come drinking with you. Well, that's
for sure, Stephen as nothing better than getting you back
(46:58):
here to the farm and sharing a glass of meat
with you. I would love to do that. And um,
we have miles to go, both you and I and
our various projects, but let's just keep pranking away and
share what we do with everybody else. True. Indeed, I'll
take you up on it. Thank you so much, Gordon.
I appreciate it, you bet, Steven, take care of yourself,
(47:20):
all right, you too, Talk soon, Okay, all right, chow okay.
Our final story today, as I mentioned, was inspired by
the artist, photographer, and writer who goes by the name
(47:42):
of Karai Moreba. She is from southwestern Iran from a
province call Kutastan. She travels through old towns and villages
in Iran, and her travels are really informed by exploring
the local food traditions of the area. In her Saffron
story from wet Stone Volume three was really a standout
(48:06):
of all of the stories that we've ever published. Karay
has chosen to remain anonymous, So in light of that,
I will do the honor of reading an excerpt from
her story. Then right after that we will be checking
in with a spice importer to learn a little bit
(48:27):
more about this fabled flower. The women going straight lines,
picking whatever is in arms length. They hold their hand
down in a Vulcan salute, their fingers separated at the
ring and middle finger, grip each flower by the stem
and quickly pull, but not too hard to keep the
(48:49):
corm underground. They each carry a bucket where they throw
the flowers, but Hodge Conoms is the fullest, brimming to
the very top. They each carry a bucket where they
throw the flowers, but Hodge Knams is the fullest, brimming
to the very top at She's been doing this for
(49:10):
over five decades. She moves around the farm, squatting and
bent forward constantly, like one who has every inch of
the land etched deep into her working memory. Picking saffron
reeks havoc on your body, especially your back. It is
the joy of that blooming goal that keeps you going,
(49:31):
she later remarks, holding a handful of flowers in her palm.
Locals do not call it saffron, but simply goal a flower.
Our next guest is Ethan Frish, who is co founder
(49:52):
of Burlap and Barrel, a spice import company. He's based
in New York, and we're talking to him from New
York this morning. Ethan, thanks for joining us, Thanks for learning. So, Ethan,
you are a spice dealer and that's a pretty cool game.
Can you tell us how you got into the spice
(50:13):
game and what does it mean to be a spice
dealer in the year two thousand nineteen. Yeah, sure so,
so I'm the co founder, was comming called Burlapt and
Barrel were a direct trade, a single origin spice sourcing company.
As we worked with small producers in about a dozen countries,
setting farmers up to export their own crops, which hasn't
really happened in the history of the spice trade, and
(50:35):
then importing their spices to the US, which we then
supply to restaurants and manufacturers as as well as home cooks.
I was a chef and then an international aid worker.
I lived in Afghanistan for several years. I did credibit
of work in the Middle East, uh and I really
I just started bringing spices home in my duffle bag,
(50:56):
particularly from Afghanistan, where there's a wild human that we
started from the mountains but then also sat from, which
is something that Afghanistan has been famous for for for
probably thousands of years. And I just started bringing it
home and sharing it with friends in the restaurant industry
and slowly figured out how to turn it into a business.
(51:17):
Such a cool company, I want to talk about Saffrans.
So that's a wonderful segue. It sounds like that was
one of the very first things that you brought back
from your time in Afghanistan, Is that right? Yeah? It was,
really it was. It was a spice that I hadn't
really worked with a whole lot before. Um. You know,
I had cooked in in Indian restaurants and Italian restaurants
(51:39):
and Spanish restaurants. I've had a pretty wide exposure to
a lot of spices and worked in cuisines that used
a shout on account run in Spain and India in particular.
But I just hadn't I hadn't ever really looked into it.
And I think this is true in a lot of cases.
For professional chefs, you sort of so it heads down
in the kitchen, that you don't have a lot of
(51:59):
opportunity to think more deeply about where certain ingredients are
coming from, or any of the agricultural processes or the
supply chains or the people behind them. And so it
was really when I when I moved to Afghanistan and
started to to meet farmers or taste different varieties, or
start to think more about ter war origin in spices,
(52:19):
that that I realized there's this whole world that I
had just been missing. With saffron in particular, there is
a kind of cachet to it um that I think
people know about the idea of saffron or the price
point of saffron, more than they know about what it
actually is. So just in terms of the plant itself,
(52:43):
can you break down for us what is saffron? And um,
we can talk about the culinary uses afterwards. Yes, of course,
the saffron when you buy a saffron thread or a
little packet of saffron dread. But you're actually buying is
the top inch of the statement of a purple crocus flower.
The flower grows really close to the grounds. The petals are,
(53:07):
you know, three or four inches long and really really
beautiful purple and white color. And then in the middle
of the petals there are three threads that are the
statements of the flower that extend up from a longer
string that runs down through the stem of the flower,
and the top inch or so of each thread is red.
(53:27):
And then as you go down that thread where they
where the three of them come together, and then down
through the stem of the flower, they turn yellow and
then and then white, and they run all the way
down through the stem as a long, single white thread.
So when you're buying really high quality pures affront, all
you're getting is that top inch and one flower produces
three threads. You hardest it once a year. It's it's
(53:50):
incredibly labor and land intensive, especially in Afghanistan, will resource it.
It's the desert, so you have to the flowers open
pretty early in the morning before it gets too hot,
and you have to harvest them right away before the
sun drives them out. And so so as a saffron farmer,
you have a very tight window, usually a couple of
(54:10):
weeks in the fall in Afghanistan, that's from the harvest
season is in October November, and you have a few
weeks when you have to pick all of your flowers,
pick the flowers whole from the ground, and then in
in a little warehouse or some other kind of facility,
you're pulling the flowers apart, separating those three dreads from
the rest of the flower and drawing them. And the
(54:34):
actual harvest itself is it's not mechanized. It's done by hand,
Is that right? Yeah, done by hand mostly actually mostly
picked by women. Although unfortunately most of the staff from
kind of companies or the people you consider sort of
the farmer, the person who owns the land or owns
the production those, at least in Afghanistan, those people tend
(54:54):
to be men. And then the people who work in
the actual staffron harvesting and separating the same from rest
of the flour, those people tend to be with them.
And one of the things that Afghanistan is famous for
is it's saffron, and there's been a fair amount of
investment and and also kind of hope in in saffron
as a driver of economic growth in the country, and
(55:17):
especially in a country where a lot of farmers are
growing copies for opium, saffan has often been seen as
sort of replacement crop. And that's a whole a whole
bit or more complicated political conversation. But there's been a
lot of investment by the US, by other governments and
by the Afghan government into saffran production. And so there's
there's quite a lot of saffron grown in Afghanistan. It's
(55:38):
it's grown in the west right on the border with Iran.
It's the same variety, the same the same bulb, the
same corns that they're using imuran. So it's very similar
often to the running saffron and a very similar climate.
Right it's right on the border. So there's some Afghan
saffron gets exported from Afghanistan and it's labeled as Afghan saffron,
but quite a quite a lot of it gets trucked
(55:59):
a we're into the border, over the border into Iran
and then either sold as Irani and saffron, or often
what happens with Irani and saffran because of the sanction
that have been impost on by the US government. Um
Iranni and saffron is often shipped semi legally into Spain,
where it's re labeled, repacked and labeled a Spanish saffron
(56:20):
and exported under that label. There's also a huge amount
of fraud in saff run across the board. There's there's
some funny statistics. I don't remember the exact numbers off
the top of my head. That Spain, which you know
again it's famous for its saffrom grows something like a
ton of saffron a year, but they export something like
fifty tons. It's a big difference. And where's that other
(56:46):
forty nine cons coming from? Uh? Some of it is
is Irani and saffron, like I said, that's been smuggled in.
Some of it is safferent from other places like Morocco
or Greece, and people feel like the brands and the
name of the lay Spanish saffron is more valuable, and
so they just relabel it the package in Spain. And
then a lot of it is actually other parts of
(57:08):
the plant. So that that long thread that I was describing,
and there's some beautiful pictures in the west own um
article about it. That showed that whole length of the
saffron thread, but the rest of the thread, the part
that's naturally white. Often that will be cut into one
inch segment and dye bread and mixed in with the
actual statement of the flower um. And so a company
(57:31):
can legally claim that it's a hundred percent saffron, but
that it's not the part of the flower, the part
of the plant that has the most flavor and color,
and that's that's really sort of what's considered true saffron.
So if we want true saffron and keep it real
with us, just give us the truth. Do we need
to buy it from pearlap and Barrel, Well, you definitely could,
(57:53):
But I mean, if you're buying staff from uh, what
I would recommend is looking at the individual stamens um.
There should be a little kind of crown at the top.
It should open up into this. It looks like a
tiny little crown with a slight yellow tinge at the
top of the of each stamon. At the bottom, you
should see it taper down. And if it does start
(58:14):
to turn a little bit yellow at the bottom, that's
a good sign a lack of consistency in color. Is
actually generally good sign and saffron because it shows either
it wasn't dyed, it dyed it's all pure red, and
another you you'd have to buy it to be able
to do this test. But another way that you can
test it is by pouring some hot water over over
(58:34):
saffron threads a couple of threads in a little bowl
or a cup. Um. Natural saffron will will release its
color in a stream and it will almost come out
from this statement in a in a spiral. You'll get
this long, slow spiral of yellow color and you'll you'll
see it sort of spiral out in the water. If
it's been dyed, there will be a really quick kind
(58:57):
of puddle around puddle of bright yellow color are around
the thread. Um. Just if the color comes out too quickly,
if it comes out in a circle rather than along
the stream, that's that's generally a bad sign. And when
you pour hot water over the saffron thread you may
also see them start to unfurl a little bit, and
that's a bad sign. That means that somebody has taken
other parts of the plant and kind of rolled them
(59:18):
up to make them look like they're they're the real
saffron thread. But when you pour hot water where you
can see them kind of open up on the turl,
that is all super good. Intel as a former chef,
can you give us some of your favorite applications or
for saffron. Yeah, So saffon is a tricky ingredient to
(59:40):
team down. Flavor wise. It doesn't have the same sort
of intensity of flavor that another spice. Mike, I find
that it's more sort of a like almost a bouquet,
like a feeling in your mouth. It's not it's not
a flavor that that sort of sits on your tongue
in a way that that's something like cinnamon or black
pepper or another slice would um. And it infuses really
(01:00:04):
well into into anything that's cooking in liquid. So obviously
the classic recipes are are staff run and rice, whether
that's person traditions of stuff on rice or Spanish versions
of stuff on rice. But I also I love it
in tomato sauces. It adds this this huge amount of
death and complexity to a tomato sauce. It's great in
baked goods if you bluem it in a little bit
(01:00:26):
of butter or something like that um or or just
mix some threads into a batter or a dough that
you're making, and give it enough time to infuse. Um,
you'll get really beautiful sort of pockets of saffron aroma
as you as you bite into the cake or or
the bread. Um. Yes, it's a really it's a really
special ingredient. It just needs a little bit of time
(01:00:49):
to to infuse into whatever you're cooking. So it's not
something that really gets sprinkled on at the end. I mean,
you could sprinkle it on at the end, but it
wouldn't That wouldn't be the most effective way to pull
out the flavor. It's really something that has to be
drawn out through the cooking process. So does the heat,
because I know you talked about the hot water as
an indicator of quality, does it need to actually be
(01:01:09):
like you can't make a drink that's chilled or something
infuse with saffron. Does it actually need the heat? You
absolutely good. Actually, a scantic in the way that they
that they make that they make saffron rice often is
to take a couple of saffron threads and put them
in a little bowl with an ice cube um and
and let the ice melt and let the saffron absorb
(01:01:29):
into the water as the ice melts. I don't know
exactly why that's, but that's it. That that's that's a
pretty common way to draw out some of the flavor
or saffron and then put that melted ice to the
infused water into the rights that you're cooking, often adding
it at the very end as sort of a color
kind of you get these stripes of yellow in the rice,
but you've let the saffron infuse into the water, so
(01:01:50):
you get you get a really great flavor and works
great in cocktails. You can confuse it into into spirits
or into a simple syrup or something like that. Another
another mixture into the cocktail and and added that way
it has a beautiful kind of golden bright yellow color.
Incredible intel. We appreciate it, my man. That's Ethan Fresh,
(01:02:13):
co founder of Burlap and Barrel, a direct trade single
origin spice importer. Thank you so much for joining us
on point of origin. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'll
talk to you so women, all right. Chow h m
h m hm m h m h m hm m
(01:02:35):
h m hm hm hm hm. That was Ethan Fresh
giving us the lowdown on Saffron. We hope you've enjoyed
Point of Origin Episode three, Thanks for hanging out with us.
Thanks to our guest today, Leela el Amine of the
Recipe Hunters, Gordon Hull of Hydrometerary, and Ethan Frish of
(01:02:57):
Burlap and Barrel. Thanks to my partner What's Stone co
founder Melissa she who helped produce this podcast. Thank you,
mel Thanks to supervising producer Gabrielle Collins to Cat Hong
who edited this podcast. Point of Origin is a podcast
from my Heart Media and What Stone Magazine, executive produced
by Christopher Hassiotis and hosted by me Steven Saderfield. You
(01:03:21):
can listen to more Point of Origin on the I
Heart Media app or wherever you listen to podcast. And finally,
thank you to each and every one of you who
is supporting What Stone Magazine and listening to the Point
of Origin podcast. We'll be back soon.
Host
Stephen Satterfield
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