Tyler Florence

Beef Brisket

April 25, 2010 by Charles Leave a Comment

In 1969, Georges Perec published La Disparition, a mystery novel of sorts. The book centers around the disappearance of Anton Vowl, and traces his winding path through the various chapters of his life – though chapter five is omitted. La Disparition, or “The Disappearance,” is a story and not a story. The novel tells a tale, but also functions as an exercise. Which captures the essence of Georges Perec.

Georges Perec belonged to OULIPO, a workshop of famous French authors. The workshop for potential literature (Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle) was both a place and a style. One of its co-founders, Raymond Queneau, published Exercises de Style, in which he wrote the same story ninety-nine different ways. This was hardly unusual. Perec, Queneau, and the other members delighted in wordplay. They wrote …

Blue Cheese Souffle

November 9, 2009 by Charles 3 Comments

No one would ever accuse blue cheese of being timid.

With its blue veins and pungent smell, blue cheese is not hiding from anyone. And yet, for centuries, it was. That is, blue cheese developed when farmers left the cheese in damp and cold caves, letting the bluish-green mold create the distinctive flavor we now know.

This soufflé was not intuitive. When I first unwrapped the Roquefort, half of me wanted to return the cheese to that far-off cave. But somehow,…

Banana Bread

January 11, 2009 by Charles 4 Comments

The modern banana may be a dying breed.

Unlike apples and oranges, supermarkets only carry a single variety of banana – the Vietnamese Cavendish. And unlike other fruits, domestic production of bananas is virtually nonexistent. Instead, the vast majority of our bananas come from Latin America; Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Colombia represent three of the four largest banana-exporting nations.

The concentration of a single banana variety in a single area helped popularize the banana by creating large economies of scale with respect to harvest periods, and shipping and distribution routes. These economies of scale made the banana the cheapest fruit in the produce section – a modern miracle considering that the banana has traveled thousands of miles, in cooled containers, and has a shelf life of but a few weeks.

This concentration and homogenization may, unfortunately, also lead to the banana’s demise. In the early 1900s, the banana of choice was the Gros Michel – a banana superior in taste, size, and texture to today’s Cavendish. Sadly, the Gros Michel was all but wiped out by Panama disease, a resistant fungus.

Today, the Cavendish is threatened …