Ginger, Ginger, Ginger!

Do you ever get annoyed by people in the grocery store who linger in a particular spot, oblivious to passers-by? That’s me. The annoyer, not the annoyee. I am the one blocking the shelf with my cart while I peruse ingredient lists and compare prices. Well, to be honest, the price comparisons are just a pretense; what I really care about is quality. I feign comparing prices because I know that’s what a good Mennonite should do. However, as long as a price is not unreasonable, I am generally willing to pay more for a better product. The only thing that causes me to tarry is not knowing which product is best.

I have performed this very ritual in the soda aisle revolving around ginger ale. It is strange that I should not know which ginger ale is best considering it is the only soda I keep around the house. It is useful to have on hand for mixed drinks, upset stomachs, or just a cool, refreshing beverage that is not water, juice, or milk. Most of the time I end up buying whichever of the “Big Three” ginger ales—Canada Dry, Schweppes, or Seagram’s—is on sale.

So when my brother, Danny, mentioned the idea of a ginger ale tasting, I was immediately on board. That was a few months ago, but the idea finally came to fruition on Sunday when I hosted a Ginger Ale Tasting and Football Party.

We may have gone a little overboard with the ginger theme; my sister-in-law, Meg, led us in a ginger trivia game with gingery prizes, I made Indonesian Ginger Chicken for supper, and we even had a bonus ginger snap tasting. However, the main event of the night was the blind ginger ale tasting, led by Danny. (The NFL playoff game, Ravens v. Patriots, pretty much faded into the background.)

Our tasting was divided into five categories: the “Big Three” Dry Ginger Ales, Other Dry Ginger Ales, Golden Ginger Ales, Ginger Beers, and Homemade. Danny made a tasting worksheet for us, complete with some notes on ginger ale history. You can check out Wikipedia’s ginger ale article if you want learn about its history and the different categories.

Before I get to the results, let me just say that I only have my notes, Cris’s notes, and my memory to go on. I will do my best to represent the consensus of all eight tasters, but my memory is fallible, and Cris used the word “grabby” in his notes more than once. Any dissent can be expressed via comments.

The “Big Three” Dry Ginger Ales

Until I tasted these ginger ales side-by-side, I never knew what a difference there was between the three major brands.

Our Favorite: Schweppes

Light, crisp, and just a little tart. A good all-around ginger ale. This was the clear winner in the category.

2^nd: Seagram’s

Mild and not too sweet. Nothing to complain about here.

3^rd: Canada Dry

Mild and sweet. Maybe a little too mild, and maybe a little too sweet. Still, overall a very passable ginger ale.

Other Dry Ginger Ales

Our Favorite: Northern Neck

Could it be that the Virginia palates of the tasters favor the local brew? Northern Neck Ginger Ale has been produced in Montross, Virginia since 1926. It might be hard to find outside Virginia’s Northern Neck, but do yourself a favor and take a trip there, not just for the ginger ale, but for the other attractions as well. This was my favorite of all the ginger ales we tasted. It was nice and crisp, not too sweet, and it had a stronger ginger kick than most of the other drys. Fantastic!

2^nd: Chill

Chill is a cheap store brand available at Red Front Supermarket. Cris’s notes simply said “good.” I liked the ginger flavor, but there were some other flavor notes that were so-so. I was slightly more reserved and rated it “pretty good.”

3^rd: Dominion

This Virginia brew did not fare as well as its compatriot. It was sweet and gingery, but unremarkable.

Polar

“More Ginger, Less Sugar” is the tagline for this Worcester, Massachusetts ginger ale. Alas, we found it lacking in flavor other than an undesirable aftertaste.

Golden Ginger Ales

Our Favorite: Reed’s Original Ginger Brew

Reed’s Inc. touts the natural ingredients in their ginger brews. The honey and pineapple sweeteners seem to work because Reed’s took the top two honors in the golden category. Our favorite was the Original. The unusual ingredients lend it a unique flavor. Gingery. Peppery. Tasty.

2^nd: Reed’s Premium Ginger Brew

Similar to the Original brew. Premium is mildly sweet with a good ginger flavor. Refreshing.

3^rd: Ale-8-One

The only caffeinated ginger ale of the whole tasting, Ale-8-One is a regional drink from Winchester, Kentucky. While I enjoyed the mild ginger flavor, I found this one overly sweet.

A-Treat

A-Treat is a ginger ale from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Cris’s notes indicate that it is “plain old good.” I found it lacking in flavor and just kinda blah.

Vernors

According to Wikipedia, Vernors is “America’s oldest surviving soft drink.” It was created in Detroit, Michigan in 1866. The first thing we noticed about Vernors was the aroma. Some said it smelled like vomit, perhaps due to the barrel aging. Despite the odor, the flavor was OK. However, many of us thought it tasted more like cream soda than ginger ale. It was sweet and lacking in ginger flavor.

Ginger Beers

Our Favorite: Reed’s Extra Ginger Brew

It was difficult to choose a favorite ginger beer, but I think we all liked Reed’s Extra. It was more gingery (gingerier?) than the ginger ales we sampled, though not terribly pungent. Like the other Reed’s varieties, it had a good flavor.

Goya Jamaican Style

By far, Goya ginger beer had the most kick. Memorable quotations include “hot sauce ginger ale” and “it burns us!” (in a bad Gollum impression). Cris’s notes suggest using it in short bursts or possibly as an industrial solvent. My review was slightly more favorable. If you can handle the burn, it has a nice sweet, gingery flavor, not unlike the ginger beer I had when in Jamaica.

Gosling’s

Gosling’s was visibly discernible from the other varieties due to its cloudy appearance. The flavor was sweet and moderately gingery. The only problem was that it was rather flat.

Homemade

Meg made two varieties of homemade ginger ale. They were so different that there was nothing blind about this portion of the tasting. Because they were both so good, I declare a tie in this category!

Fermented/Brewed

Meg used Alton Brown’s Ginger Ale recipe, and it was wonderful. The ginger ale was slightly cloudy with a mild ginger flavor and a hint of yeast. Not too sweet. Very enjoyable.

Syrup plus Club Soda

Meg used a recipe from Epicurious for this one. It had a fresh, clean flavor that could easily be adjusted, in both amount of ginger and sweetness, to suit your taste. So refreshing!

Ginger Snaps

I am a big fan of ginger snaps, so this category (with two sub-categories) is entirely my doing. And much to my surprise, I discovered I have been buying the wrong brand of ginger snaps for years. Sorry, Murray, you have been replaced!

Regular

Our Favorite: Stauffer’s

Sweet sassy molassy ... and ginger ... and spices! Just what you want in a ginger snap. Well, all that plus snap ... which Stauffer’s ginger snaps have. Oh ... and there’s red pepper in there too. What!? Perfection!

2^nd: Murray

While I must concede that Stauffer’s is the best, my long-time favorite, Murray, is a close second. Good flavor. Good snap. Just not as good as Stauffer’s.

3^rd: Nabisco

Not too shabby. Good flavor. Good snap. Just not as good as Murray. Furthermore, all the cookies are stamped with the same fake crinkly texture. What’s the point? I would prefer a more natural look.

Kroger (store brand)

Good snap, but lacking in flavor. The leftovers of these cookies are destined to be a crumb crust.

Gluten-Free

Our Favorite: Pamela’s Products Simplebites Ginger Mini Snapz

These cookies are right up there with Stauffer’s and Murray. Excellent flavor and snap. You don’t even miss the gluten (until you eat them side by side with a regular ginger snap). The best snap in its category by far!

MI-DEL Gluten-Free Ginger Snaps

Of all the ginger snaps we sampled, this is the only one that lacked snap, an essential quality. Danny, however, really seemed to like the soft texture. (He was the only one.) The flavor was OK, but not nearly good enough to overcome its lack of snappiness.

Conclusion

What a blast! A big thank you to Danny and Meg for doing most of the work, and to all the other tasters for providing their opinions and making the evening so much fun. My shopping habits are forever changed. From now on, Schweppes will be my everyday ginger ale, though I will always opt for Northern Neck when I can get it. And Stauffer’s has replaced Murray as my must-have ginger snap, except when Andrea visits and I go gluten-free with Pamela’s Snapz. Happy Ginger Ale-ing and Snapping to you all!

Quail Eggs, Part Two

Week: 12
Ingredient: Quail Eggs
From: Great Wall Supermarket, Falls Church, VA
Recipe: Deviled Quail Eggs

My first quail egg adventure left me with a dozen eggs. After seeing the incredible cuteness of the quail eggs as Lowell Eggs (quite a feat considering the brownish color imparted by the sausage drippings), I wanted to make something even more adorable: a plate full of teeny tiny deviled eggs. I found a recipe online, and whipped up a quick batch.

They looked exactly as I had pictured they would—absolutely darling. I can just imagine a bunch of ladies oooing and ahhing over them at a baby shower. Unfortunately the flavor was a little on the boring side. I was hoping the fresh chives would enhance the flavor, but they turned out flat-tasting. I was a bit disappointed. (Next time I will use my own recipe.)

Conclusion: I do not have much to add to my prior conclusion about quail eggs. As far as I could tell, they tasted pretty much like chicken eggs. To me, the primary reason to use them is presentation. Somehow being miniature equates with being special, and there is an instant wow-factor. Maybe little and cute isn’t your thing, so I will leave you to make what you will of this list of purported benefits, straight from the package:¹

Rejuvenate whole body regardless of age
Depress allergy symptoms
Enhance sexual potential
Improve heart functioning
Lower arterial blood pressure
Improves digestion and gastric acidity
Improve memory
Have positive impact on children’s growth
Lower and stabilize blood sugar level

¹There was very little identification on the package, so I can only cite the distributor: QPL-LLC.

The Black Cocoa Experiment

Week: 11
Ingredient: Black Cocoa
From: King Arthur Flour
Recipe: Dark Chocolate Shortbread

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

I always get excited about holidays that give an excuse to eat something special. Therefore, I find it a little strange that I have never celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day with an Irish feast. Mmm ... colcannon and soda bread and ... Guinness? OK. I admit I do not know much about Irish cuisine. Unfortunately Saint Patrick’s Day crept up on me this year, and there was no time to plan an Irish meal. So, I decided to settle for something (at least semi-) Celtic.

The first element of my (at least semi-) Celtic adventure was a shortbread mold decorated with Celtic knots. It arrived last week in a very exciting package from King Arthur Flour. I did not order it with Saint Patrick’s Day in mind, so the Celtic design was a happy coincidence. And what do you do with a shortbread mold but make shortbread? Shortbread is typically regarded as Scottish, and Scotland is a Celtic nation, so that was a happy coincidence as well. But how could I make shortbread adventurous?

The not-so-Celtic part of my adventure also arrived in the very exciting package from King Arthur Flour: black cocoa. According to its package, black cocoa “will make the darkest chocolate cake or cookies you’ve ever seen.” I like dark chocolate, so dark chocolate shortbread seemed like a good idea. And to make a good idea even better, I decided to turn this into an experiment. I would make two batches of shortbread: one with regular cocoa and one with black cocoa. That way I could really see what a difference the black cocoa makes.

See for yourself:

I was pretty astonished at the difference between the two shortbreads. When I looked at the regular cocoa shortbread on its own, it looked very chocolaty, but placed beside the black cocoa shortbread, it looked kind of weak. In addition to the difference in appearance, the shortbreads differed in texture. The black cocoa produced a soft shortbread while the regular cocoa shortbread was crumblier. What was most astonishing, however, was the taste. You would expect something that dark to be intensely chocolaty, but that was not the case. In fact, I would not even say the black cocoa had a stronger flavor; it was just different. The regular cocoa shortbread tasted like chocolate, and the black cocoa shortbread tasted like the cookie part of an Oreo. It pains me a little to compare my homemade confection to a mass-produced cookie, but that is the best way I can think to describe it. You can decide for yourself if an Oreo-like flavor is a good thing or a bad thing.

Conclusion: I really like the color the black cocoa lends, but I am not thrilled with its flavor. Because the black cocoa package warns that using it alone “will produce a very strong-flavored baked good,” I (more or less) heeded its advice and made my black cocoa shortbread with a 2:1 ratio of black cocoa to regular cocoa. In the future when I want the dark color of black cocoa, I will probably try a ratio more like 1:1 or 1:2.

Bonus: If I ever decide to embark on an adventure to unlock the secrets of the Oreo, I have a really good lead on what gives them that black color.

Macadamia Nuts

Week: 7
Ingredient: Macadamia Nuts
From: Martin’s, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Macadamia Coconut Tart

If you believe my past food experiences, the only way to eat macadamia nuts is in White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies. Of course, that is ridiculous. With the versatility of other nuts—almonds, walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts, to name a few—macadamias must be more than a one-hit wonder. So, when I decided to cook with macadamia nuts this week, my only goal was not to make White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

My cookbooks were lacking in macadamia recipes, but the internet was quite accommodating. Most of the recipes I found seemed to follow a theme; if they did not include white chocolate, they had some tropical ingredient. Banana, coconut, pineapple, and citrus were all common. However, I did find some interesting oddballs, like Cream of Macadamia Nut Soup. Unfortunately, I did not have all the right ingredients to make that, so I opted for something more mainstream: Macadamia Coconut Tart.

If you took pecan pie, converted it into a tart, replaced the pecans with macadamia nuts, and added coconut, you would have Macadamia Coconut Tart. It is pretty simple—and delicious. Macadamia nuts are buttery on their own, and with all the butter in the tart, I experienced buttery bliss. With the delicate flavor of the nuts and coconut, keeping the ingredients simple was the right thing to do. Some brown sugar and vanilla rounded out the flavors nicely. I would definitely make the tart again.

Conclusion: Macadamia nuts are creamy, mild, and a little sweet. I tend to find lots of uses for different types of nuts, and I am sure macadamias will be the same. They are slightly more expensive than some other varieties, so I will not keep them on hand all the time. Still, I think they deserve a place in my nut repertoire—and not always beside white chocolate or a tropical ingredient.

Pancetta

Week: 4
Ingredient: Pancetta
From: Martin’s, Harrisonburg, VA
Recipe: Spicy Spaghetti with Fennel and Herbs

Food Network is the main reason I have cable. It is not the only channel I watch, but it is the one I would miss the most if it were gone. I do not regret all those hours—mouth-watering, hunger-inducing, experiment-inspiring hours—spent watching Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, and the others. I have learned so much about cooking and about food from them. How else would I ever have been inspired to try pancetta? Sure, maybe I would have stumbled across a recipe calling for pancetta someday, and maybe I would have cared enough to find out what it was and where to find it. But even then, would I have been willing to fork up $12 a pound for “Italian bacon,” as it is frequently described?

I have made recipes calling for pancetta before, but bacon always seemed like a reasonable substitute. I was not even sure I would be able to find pancetta in Harrisonburg. After all, the first time I went looking for hazelnuts, I tried at least three different stores before finally finding them (at Sharp Shopper, of all places!). Since Martin’s came to town, certain ingredients have been easier to find, and I have known for a while now that they carry pancetta in the deli.

When I found a recipe recently that was (1) spicy and (2) called for fennel, I was immediately attracted. I love both those things! I did not even notice the recipe called for pancetta until a week or so later when I was making my grocery list. The Food Network chefs must finally have gotten through to me because this time I decided to go for it. I came home from Martin’s with a fatty little spiral of pork (and a little bit of sticker shock), and I set out to cook ...

The Spicy Spaghetti with Fennel and Herbs recipe started with sautéing the pancetta. It is hard to beat the smell and taste of sautéed bacon, but the renown of the Italian meat, the high price tag, and the fat that would soon render its succulent gift—they all told me that I was about to experience some gastronomic phenomenon. The aroma of the sautéing pancetta did not disappoint. Though not smoky like bacon, the pancetta filled my house with a lovely scent—meaty with hints of spice.

I could not wait for the dish to be complete before sampling the pancetta. Once sautéed, I stole a little tidbit from the pan. It tasted ... salty. So salty, in fact, that I could discern little other flavor. However, the pancetta was for flavoring, not for eating alone, so I was unperturbed, and I finished up the recipe more or less as written, changing the amount of hot peppers (more for more spiciness!) and substituting Parmigiano-Reggiano for the Romano cheese.

Now, a short digression about fennel ... If you have never cooked with it, you really should give it a try. It is an aromatic vegetable with a pleasant anise- or licorice-like flavor. Do not be dismayed, all you haters of black jellybeans! I am with you there. However, I find that fennel as a vegetable has a much more subtle flavor than the licorice candy I eschew. Also, I think that fennel or anise is much more appealing as a savory flavor than a sweet one. If variety is the spice of life, having fennel in the arsenal is a great way to spice up that thing we all need more of in our diets: vegetables. Well, that is my two cents. You will have to decide for yourself.

Now, back to the dish at hand ... First impression: it did not look as pretty as the picture from the recipe. It was a little too dark in color. Maybe I over-browned the pancetta. Maybe my homemade chicken stock was too dark to use as the broth. Maybe the dish in the picture was prepared by a food stylist and was completely inedible. In any case, it smelled delicious, and I was not serving it for company, so the appearance was merely disappointing, not a disaster.

And what of the taste? It is hard to say what the predominant flavor was. They all complemented each other so well. The pasta was a perfect backdrop for all the other strong flavors. The fennel lent its aromatic punch. The chiles gave it a spicy kick. The cheese gave it a nice tang. The lemon and parsley balanced it out with some freshness. Oh yeah, and the pancetta ... The pancetta gave it a meaty richness. I don’t even know how to describe it. Pancetta tastes like it smells—meaty with hints of spice. So rich ... and porky ... and delicious. Insert contented sigh here.

Conclusion: Pancetta is certainly delicious, but it is not more delicious than bacon. I will use pancetta again in the future, but considering the price tag, I will stick with bacon for everyday use.