Anything known as the “national dish of Texas” is going to be hardy, big and meaty, and beef brisket is the perfect choice to take on the honor. Cooked low and slow, this tough customer falls apart, tender and delicious. We’ll let you in on the some of the secrets of today’s best pitmasters…and they’re not just in Texas anymore.
First, a quick cut into the brisket’s beefy history. The name derives from “brjosk,” an Old Norse word for cartilage, a nod to the copious amounts of connective tissue contained in this meat from the lower chest of the animal. According to What’s Cooking America, in its earliest form, colonial ancestors covered brisket with salt crystals and aged them in a cool place for four days, creating corned beef. For decades, however, brisket was considered a useless cut of meat in the U.S., good only for chili, stews, or even animal feed. But thanks to German butchers in the early part of the 20th century, who put brisket in a smoker and cooked it over low, indirect heat, the juicy delight of Texas barbecued brisket was born. Even today, at legendary Texas places like Kreuz Market and Louie Mueller Barbecue, which started as German-American smokehouses in the last century, brisket is served on a piece of butcher paper and accompanied with sausage.
Although brisket has a reputation for being a challenge to beginning pitmasters, getting the meat to that tender place can be done, according to Ardie Davis, a member of Kansas City Barbecue Society’s Hall of Flame. “Cook it right and it is tender, juicy, and flavorful. Cook it wrong and it is like a wrangler's leather chaps,” warns amazingribs.com blogger Meathead Goldwyn. We’re going to share some tips from Davis, Goldwyn and other masters of the pit below.
• Start with a 10 to 12 pound untrimmed packer-cut brisket in a vacuum pack, well marbled on the interior. Pros like to trim it to 1 inch or as thin as an eighth of an inch. Many restaurateurs and bbq competitors prefer StockyardsAngus Beef because the specifications require the meat to be of choice grade or above; prime and Wagyu are even better, so go for those when you can, advises Goldwyn.
• Use very dry oak or hickory woods in the smoker because they taste best and burn clean, according to Aaron Franklin, named one of the best new pit masters in Texas by Food and Wine, owner of the cult Austin restaurant, Franklin Barbecue. He uses 20-inch logs of Post Oak that’s been cured for 9-12 months at his restaurant, because it creates very little soot when it burns and imparts a mild smoky flavor to the meat.
• Plan ahead. Good brisket takes lots and lots of cooking time—8 to 12 hours. If dinner is scheduled for 6 p.m., plan to arise with the birds and start smoking your brisket at 5:30 a.m. and while the briquettes fire up, lightly sprinkle all surfaces of the meat with pepper and salt, applying twice as much pepper as salt, says Davis.
• While the meat is coming to room temperature, put some kindling and paper sprinkled with vegetable oil in the firebox. Once they’re burning steadily, add logs, and hoist the brisket onto the grill, with the thicker end toward the fire and the fat cap facing up. To ensure a tender brisket and to prevent it from drying out, position the meat as far away from the fire inside the smoker, with the fatty end facing the flames, says Davis.
• Fill a foil loaf pan with water and put it as close as possible to the firebox, advises Franklin, then find a comfortable chair and read War and Peace! Cook it low and slow, at around 225 degrees for many hours. Unlike most cuts, brisket is not done when it hits a certain temperature, according to NY Times dining reporter Julia Moskin. Although the meat will be cooked through at 180 degrees, it will also be fibrous, and webbed with chewy, sticky collagen, she says. “A brisket needs to spend a certain amount of time — just how long depends on the individual cut — at that temperature, as the fat renders into drippiness and the collagen turns to gelatin. Meat that feels tough after 10 hours may be perfect at 12. Be patient.” Franklin considers his is done when the meat thermometer registers 195 to 203 degrees. Goldwyn agrees, saying “something magic does seem to happen at this number.” Old timers say they can tell when it is ready by literally ‘sticking a fork in it’—if the fork turns easily, it’s done.
• If you need to save some time, Goldwyn shares the “Texas Crutch,” a technique for speeding the cooking and moisturizing the meat. Smoke the meat for a few hours, and when the meat hits about 150°F, wrap it tightly in heavy-duty foil with a little beef broth, apple juice, white wine, or light beer, and let it braise in the foil in the cooker.
• Not done quite yet…after cooking, all experts suggest letting the brisket rest for 20 to 30 minutes to seal in the juices. Then slice it—fat side up, against the grain, according to Daniel Vaughn, barbecue critic for Texas Monthly. No sauce is needed for traditional Texas style beef, he says. “In Texas we celebrate great brisket by not messing with it. If it's done right, then you slice it pencil thick and slap it on a piece of butcher paper. It's naked, quivering and vulnerable, so it has to stand on its own.”
• On the side, serve up some fire-roasted Hatch peppers, pinto beans or barbecue beans, slaw or fresh garden veggies. For an authentic central Texas accent, serve raw sliced yellow onions, dill pickle chips and saltine crackers, says Davis. Or go non-traditional, like New York’s Mighty Quinn’s, which has grown to a chain of four restaurants in the last three years with its superb, Texas-style smoked brisket. There, lighter fare prevails, with sides including roasted corn and edamame salad, buttermilk broccoli salad, and house-pickled celery, onions, cucumbers and chilies.
• To drink, pour a frosty beer, an iced tea, or a champagne-style sparkling wine.
Chef’s Line® has perfected the pit-smoking process and done most of the work for you. What you get is authentically prepared BBQ Beef Brisket
Monday, September 29, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Give it Up for the Ghost Pepper
Talk about a meteoric rise…to most Americans, two decades ago the ghost pepper was as invisible as its name. Now, thanks to a sky high Scoville rating that landed it a spot both in the Guinness Book of World Records and the weaponry division of the Indian military, this chili pepper is red hot. Read on to discover why the ghost pepper is burning it up at today’s best eateries.
Where did the ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia, originate? Sometime during its 16th century global trek, the chili pepper found a home in a remote area within the Assam region of northeastern India. The extreme temperatures, up to 130° F, of the region and its highly humid environment contribute to the escalating heat levels of ghost peppers, reports NBC News. In fact, the ghost pepper loses some of its pungency when it is grown outside of the particular climate of Nagaland and Assam. Used in local cooking for centuries ever after, it was also considered a cure for stomach troubles, and ironically, a way to cool off in the summer heat. For all its firepower, though, it was barely known in America, or anywhere else in the world.
The ghost pepper’s big moment came centuries later, at the dawn of the new millennium, when reports started to filter out of the Assam-based Defense Research Laboratory of the bhut jolokia’s heat – so hot the military planned to use them for hand grenades. Confirmation came in 2007 from New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute, where the seeds had been grown for six years, tested, and then re-tested by two independent labs. The results were astounding. At more than one million Scoville units, the scientific measurement for spiciness, it blazed into glory, anointed by Guinness as the world’s hottest pepper. In America, heat seekers lined up in droves to buy ghost pepper hot sauces - a single drop turning pasta sauces and Tex-Mex chili into fiery affairs. “An entire chili is an all-out assault on the senses, akin to swigging a cocktail of battery acid and glass shard,” warned NBC News.
Suddenly, it was everywhere, even a Ghost Pepper Spicy Sour Watermelon Candy, a deceptively sweet-looking candy, containing three to five granules of the dried pepper, and generous amounts of sugar to cut the heat. Urban Daddy.com described them as “looking like a Jolly Rancher, and tasting like a Hot Tamale turned up to 11. After a few seconds, your mouth will be alive with a long, lasting fire.”
Adventurous eaters rhapsodized over the intense heat, and the cult of the ghost pepper grew. A young Arizona Star writer gave this humorous, but accurate, account of his first taste of the legendary chili: “An eighth of a teaspoon sounds like nothing, but it is potent…I begin panting fast, then faster. It's hot enough to wring a single tear out of my left eye. I let the dry pepper reconstitute in hot water for about 10 minutes, and take a big bite…less than a minute into it, my eyes water and I can't speak in sentences. Again, one single tear. It is like a cloud of heat floating ominously in the back of my mouth. I continue to pant. Eventually my body settles down, but is wide awake. And still I want more.”
So we probably don’t need to tell you to use this culinary hottie sparingly and use citrus to cut the heat. Think of it as a sub for a habanero chili pepper, advises Specialty Produce, and feel free to pickle, spice up salsas, relishes and barbecue sauces, add to soups, and use in meat, seafood rubs and marinades. Try making a super hot Assam curry paste, a ghost chile & fresh wasabi Bloody Mary or Bhut Jolokia fish curry.
Still hot, just not hottest. The ghost pepper’s reign as the hottest chili pepper ended a few years ago, when the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion came on the scene, with a mean of more than 1.2 million Scoville units, and individual plants reaching more than 2 million units. But all records are meant to be broken, and in 2013, the Carolina Reaper took the crown from the Scorpion, with an average of 1.6 million Scoville units, and the hottest individual plant notching it up to an almost unimaginable 2.2 million units. Can things heat up even more? We don’t know, but just in case, be sure to have an ice cold pitcher of milk at hand when the next round of fire-eating favorites hits the markets.
Where did the ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia, originate? Sometime during its 16th century global trek, the chili pepper found a home in a remote area within the Assam region of northeastern India. The extreme temperatures, up to 130° F, of the region and its highly humid environment contribute to the escalating heat levels of ghost peppers, reports NBC News. In fact, the ghost pepper loses some of its pungency when it is grown outside of the particular climate of Nagaland and Assam. Used in local cooking for centuries ever after, it was also considered a cure for stomach troubles, and ironically, a way to cool off in the summer heat. For all its firepower, though, it was barely known in America, or anywhere else in the world.
The ghost pepper’s big moment came centuries later, at the dawn of the new millennium, when reports started to filter out of the Assam-based Defense Research Laboratory of the bhut jolokia’s heat – so hot the military planned to use them for hand grenades. Confirmation came in 2007 from New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute, where the seeds had been grown for six years, tested, and then re-tested by two independent labs. The results were astounding. At more than one million Scoville units, the scientific measurement for spiciness, it blazed into glory, anointed by Guinness as the world’s hottest pepper. In America, heat seekers lined up in droves to buy ghost pepper hot sauces - a single drop turning pasta sauces and Tex-Mex chili into fiery affairs. “An entire chili is an all-out assault on the senses, akin to swigging a cocktail of battery acid and glass shard,” warned NBC News.
Suddenly, it was everywhere, even a Ghost Pepper Spicy Sour Watermelon Candy, a deceptively sweet-looking candy, containing three to five granules of the dried pepper, and generous amounts of sugar to cut the heat. Urban Daddy.com described them as “looking like a Jolly Rancher, and tasting like a Hot Tamale turned up to 11. After a few seconds, your mouth will be alive with a long, lasting fire.”
Adventurous eaters rhapsodized over the intense heat, and the cult of the ghost pepper grew. A young Arizona Star writer gave this humorous, but accurate, account of his first taste of the legendary chili: “An eighth of a teaspoon sounds like nothing, but it is potent…I begin panting fast, then faster. It's hot enough to wring a single tear out of my left eye. I let the dry pepper reconstitute in hot water for about 10 minutes, and take a big bite…less than a minute into it, my eyes water and I can't speak in sentences. Again, one single tear. It is like a cloud of heat floating ominously in the back of my mouth. I continue to pant. Eventually my body settles down, but is wide awake. And still I want more.”
So we probably don’t need to tell you to use this culinary hottie sparingly and use citrus to cut the heat. Think of it as a sub for a habanero chili pepper, advises Specialty Produce, and feel free to pickle, spice up salsas, relishes and barbecue sauces, add to soups, and use in meat, seafood rubs and marinades. Try making a super hot Assam curry paste, a ghost chile & fresh wasabi Bloody Mary or Bhut Jolokia fish curry.
Still hot, just not hottest. The ghost pepper’s reign as the hottest chili pepper ended a few years ago, when the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion came on the scene, with a mean of more than 1.2 million Scoville units, and individual plants reaching more than 2 million units. But all records are meant to be broken, and in 2013, the Carolina Reaper took the crown from the Scorpion, with an average of 1.6 million Scoville units, and the hottest individual plant notching it up to an almost unimaginable 2.2 million units. Can things heat up even more? We don’t know, but just in case, be sure to have an ice cold pitcher of milk at hand when the next round of fire-eating favorites hits the markets.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Celebrate National Cheeseburger Day with the Trendiest Burger Topping
National Cheeseburger Day is September 18th, and consumers will flock to restaurants to celebrate. How can restaurants help them celebrate? With an endless supply of cheese, of course. Cheese is the most common burger topping, so it’s not surprising to learn from Datassential that a whopping 80% of restaurants that feature burgers include an option with cheese as a main ingredient. Cheese is an important part of every burger menu. But what kind of cheese gets consumers most excited?
According to Datassential, 40% of restaurants serve at least one burger with Cheddar. Swiss and American are the next most popular, with jack and bleu cheese rounding out the top five varieties on burger menus. The fastest growing cheeses are goat cheese, queso, Brie, sharp Cheddar, feta, Gruyère, Gouda and aged Cheddar. If this impressive cheese list seems a little daunting or expensive, no worries. There are plenty of resources available to help chefs make the best of their cheese offerings. Many award-winning U.S. cheeses can be sourced through distribution channels restaurants are already using.
Looking for ideas? Try topping a cheeseburger with a slice of Cheddar and calling it your “Best-in-Class Burger”. Try using a local prize-winning mozzarella with your burgers, or venture across your menu and switch out the cheese you’re using for mac n’ cheese or pizza. If you want to make the most of the cheese you’re already using, try incorporating it in new ways, and go beyond National Cheeseburger Day. Make “skinny” burgers with Brie or truffle oil, which will appeal to health-conscious consumers. 33% of patrons are willing to pay more for foods described as premium, and cheese can help create that perception.
Cheese is no longer a restaurant commodity. It’s a source of inspiration for the chef and a source of excitement to the consumer. National Cheeseburger Day on September 18th is a great time to promote cheese offerings and bring consumers in to enjoy an indulgent meal.
This article was written by your sandwich pros at Sandwichpros.com
According to Datassential, 40% of restaurants serve at least one burger with Cheddar. Swiss and American are the next most popular, with jack and bleu cheese rounding out the top five varieties on burger menus. The fastest growing cheeses are goat cheese, queso, Brie, sharp Cheddar, feta, Gruyère, Gouda and aged Cheddar. If this impressive cheese list seems a little daunting or expensive, no worries. There are plenty of resources available to help chefs make the best of their cheese offerings. Many award-winning U.S. cheeses can be sourced through distribution channels restaurants are already using.
Looking for ideas? Try topping a cheeseburger with a slice of Cheddar and calling it your “Best-in-Class Burger”. Try using a local prize-winning mozzarella with your burgers, or venture across your menu and switch out the cheese you’re using for mac n’ cheese or pizza. If you want to make the most of the cheese you’re already using, try incorporating it in new ways, and go beyond National Cheeseburger Day. Make “skinny” burgers with Brie or truffle oil, which will appeal to health-conscious consumers. 33% of patrons are willing to pay more for foods described as premium, and cheese can help create that perception.
Cheese is no longer a restaurant commodity. It’s a source of inspiration for the chef and a source of excitement to the consumer. National Cheeseburger Day on September 18th is a great time to promote cheese offerings and bring consumers in to enjoy an indulgent meal.
This article was written by your sandwich pros at Sandwichpros.com
Monday, September 15, 2014
Veggie Burgers
Hard to believe now, in our produce-focused, locally sourced world, but in 1982, the idea of a commercially produced veggie burger was brand new, and appealing only to a micro audience of committed vegetarians. This week we’re going to dial it back even further, to the swinging ‘60s, where the veggie burger was born, in a trendy London restaurant.
The seed was planted in 1969, when Gregory Sams opened a macrobiotic diner located in the basement of London’s Paddington neighborhood. At the aptly named SEED, he offered then-exotic items like seaweed, unleavened bread and miso, reports Smithsonian Magazine. His original concoction--a meatless patty made from seitan flavored with tamari and mixed with adzuki beans, oat flakes, dried herbs, tomato and onion—drew customers in, among them, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who became regulars. With the vegetarian revolution well underway by the 1970s, Sams created a dry mix version of his star patties, and kicked it off commercially in 1982, and followed it up with a frozen VegeBurger in 1984. Not to be outdone by the Brits, Paul Wenner created an original veggie patty at his Oregon restaurant, the Gardenhouse, in 1981. Customer demand proved so strong for the burger, made with large chunks of real grains and mushrooms and lots of cheese, that he closed the restaurant in 1985 and founded Gardenburger, Inc. By 1992, his company went public, and in 1993, was named the fastest growing publicly traded company in America, the same year Boca Burger Inc. came on the scene. The veggie burger had officially come of age.
Two decades later, Gardenburger is owned by the Kellogg Company, Boca Burger is a subsidiary of Kraft, and the veggie burger is a mainstay on American menus. Its inherently healthy ways appeal to vegetarians and vegans, yes, but also flexitarians and even meat eaters. Food writer and cookbook author Melissa Clark confides: “I turn to veggie burgers when I crave the hamburger experience (soft bun, chewy protein, lots of spicy condiments) but would, at that moment, rather consume vegetables than meat.” The challenge however, is that while making a pretty good veggie burger is pretty easy, she says “Making a great one is a lot harder.”
That’s a challenge accepted, and flavorfully won, by veggie burger producer and author Lukas Volger in his lively best seller, “Veggie Burgers Every Which Way,” featuring novelties such as tofu and chard burgers, Thai carrot burgers, baked falafel burgers and corn burgers with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. His advice for great veggie burgers: focus on the protein, with one or two main ingredients; use a binder, such as egg and breadcrumbs; go big and bold with flavors, and mix in generous amounts of fresh herbs and spices; and top it off with strongly seasoned ingredients like pickled onions, olive tapenade and spicy relishes. His cooking method consists of searing the veggie burger over high heat on the stovetop and then finishing it off in the oven, for a crispy crust and beautifully cooked inside.
Using Volger’s book as a primary source, Clark also experimented with ways to build her perfect veggie burger and found precooking the vegetables before blitzing them in the food processor and adding mayonnaise made for a succulent, juicy final product. Her ideal ingredient mix includes tempeh and ground nuts for a meat-like texture, mushrooms and cheese for a savory umami flavor, grated roasted beets for the slightly pink look of beef and pimentón for spicy, smoky notes.
One of the newest and tastiest New York veggie burgers ever made sizzled onto the scene this summer, courtesy of the pastry chef at Del Posto restaurant, part of the Mario Batali-Bastianich fine dining empire. According to Grub Street, Chef Brooks Headley created the “next level veggie burger by taking a risotto-like approach to overcooking and undercooking some ingredients to achieve a meaty texture.” Topped with crunchy iceberg lettuce to better mimic a fast-food burger, plum tomatoes and some melted Muenster, the burger achieved the highest accolades from all who sampled it. David Chang termed it “the best veggie burger I’ve ever had,” T Magazine critic gushed, “It’s a squishy little sandwich that delivers some intense, umami-entangled satisfaction” and many diners told Headley they would never have guessed it was a veggie burger.
Other veggie burgers with cult followings, according to Tasting Table.com: at The Plant in San Francisco, a healthy dose of caramelized beets and mushrooms is mixed with lentils, bulgur and cashews; the falafel burger at Thistle Hill Tavern in Brooklyn, made with chickpeas, onions and parsley, as well as toasted cumin, coriander and cardamom, slathered in homemade tzatziki sauce; the black bean and corn patty studded with brown rice at Hopdoddy in Austin, crowned with avocado, goat cheese and arugula; and the black bean burger at The Mill Northeast in Minneapolis, blended with wild rice, mirepoix, nuts, mushrooms, shredded jack cheese and panko breadcrumbs, topped with melted provolone. VegNews, a leading vegan magazine, calls out its favorite at Comet Café in Milwaukee—the vegan Big Luck Burger, “everything about this burger screams perfection, the burger patty is even encrusted in hazelnuts!”
Introducing - the US Foods® 2013 Next Top Product® winner: the Black Bean Burger. It's full of black beans and a little kick, compliments of winner Chef Jerrmy of Greenhouse Grille, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The seed was planted in 1969, when Gregory Sams opened a macrobiotic diner located in the basement of London’s Paddington neighborhood. At the aptly named SEED, he offered then-exotic items like seaweed, unleavened bread and miso, reports Smithsonian Magazine. His original concoction--a meatless patty made from seitan flavored with tamari and mixed with adzuki beans, oat flakes, dried herbs, tomato and onion—drew customers in, among them, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who became regulars. With the vegetarian revolution well underway by the 1970s, Sams created a dry mix version of his star patties, and kicked it off commercially in 1982, and followed it up with a frozen VegeBurger in 1984. Not to be outdone by the Brits, Paul Wenner created an original veggie patty at his Oregon restaurant, the Gardenhouse, in 1981. Customer demand proved so strong for the burger, made with large chunks of real grains and mushrooms and lots of cheese, that he closed the restaurant in 1985 and founded Gardenburger, Inc. By 1992, his company went public, and in 1993, was named the fastest growing publicly traded company in America, the same year Boca Burger Inc. came on the scene. The veggie burger had officially come of age.
Two decades later, Gardenburger is owned by the Kellogg Company, Boca Burger is a subsidiary of Kraft, and the veggie burger is a mainstay on American menus. Its inherently healthy ways appeal to vegetarians and vegans, yes, but also flexitarians and even meat eaters. Food writer and cookbook author Melissa Clark confides: “I turn to veggie burgers when I crave the hamburger experience (soft bun, chewy protein, lots of spicy condiments) but would, at that moment, rather consume vegetables than meat.” The challenge however, is that while making a pretty good veggie burger is pretty easy, she says “Making a great one is a lot harder.”
That’s a challenge accepted, and flavorfully won, by veggie burger producer and author Lukas Volger in his lively best seller, “Veggie Burgers Every Which Way,” featuring novelties such as tofu and chard burgers, Thai carrot burgers, baked falafel burgers and corn burgers with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. His advice for great veggie burgers: focus on the protein, with one or two main ingredients; use a binder, such as egg and breadcrumbs; go big and bold with flavors, and mix in generous amounts of fresh herbs and spices; and top it off with strongly seasoned ingredients like pickled onions, olive tapenade and spicy relishes. His cooking method consists of searing the veggie burger over high heat on the stovetop and then finishing it off in the oven, for a crispy crust and beautifully cooked inside.
Using Volger’s book as a primary source, Clark also experimented with ways to build her perfect veggie burger and found precooking the vegetables before blitzing them in the food processor and adding mayonnaise made for a succulent, juicy final product. Her ideal ingredient mix includes tempeh and ground nuts for a meat-like texture, mushrooms and cheese for a savory umami flavor, grated roasted beets for the slightly pink look of beef and pimentón for spicy, smoky notes.
One of the newest and tastiest New York veggie burgers ever made sizzled onto the scene this summer, courtesy of the pastry chef at Del Posto restaurant, part of the Mario Batali-Bastianich fine dining empire. According to Grub Street, Chef Brooks Headley created the “next level veggie burger by taking a risotto-like approach to overcooking and undercooking some ingredients to achieve a meaty texture.” Topped with crunchy iceberg lettuce to better mimic a fast-food burger, plum tomatoes and some melted Muenster, the burger achieved the highest accolades from all who sampled it. David Chang termed it “the best veggie burger I’ve ever had,” T Magazine critic gushed, “It’s a squishy little sandwich that delivers some intense, umami-entangled satisfaction” and many diners told Headley they would never have guessed it was a veggie burger.
Other veggie burgers with cult followings, according to Tasting Table.com: at The Plant in San Francisco, a healthy dose of caramelized beets and mushrooms is mixed with lentils, bulgur and cashews; the falafel burger at Thistle Hill Tavern in Brooklyn, made with chickpeas, onions and parsley, as well as toasted cumin, coriander and cardamom, slathered in homemade tzatziki sauce; the black bean and corn patty studded with brown rice at Hopdoddy in Austin, crowned with avocado, goat cheese and arugula; and the black bean burger at The Mill Northeast in Minneapolis, blended with wild rice, mirepoix, nuts, mushrooms, shredded jack cheese and panko breadcrumbs, topped with melted provolone. VegNews, a leading vegan magazine, calls out its favorite at Comet Café in Milwaukee—the vegan Big Luck Burger, “everything about this burger screams perfection, the burger patty is even encrusted in hazelnuts!”
Introducing - the US Foods® 2013 Next Top Product® winner: the Black Bean Burger. It's full of black beans and a little kick, compliments of winner Chef Jerrmy of Greenhouse Grille, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
The Graham Cracker
The Reverend Sylvester Graham was an American dietary reformer, best known for his emphasis on vegetarianism, the temperance movement, and his invention of graham bread, graham flour and the graham cracker. He died this day in 1851.
Graham was a Presbyterian minister before becoming a leading figure in the temperance movement, advocating lifestyle choices that included eating fresh fruits and vegetables and decreasing sex drive.
Speaking of sex, in 1721 Rudolph Jacob Camerarius died. He was a German botanist, that showed the existence of sexes in plants, and identified the stamen and pistil as the male and female organs. He described his findings in the form of a letter that he stamped and mailed to a colleague, De sexu plantarum (1694; “On the sex of plants”), and in Opuscula botanica (1697; “Botanical Works”).
Speaking of stamps, on this day in 1959 Representative Lenore Sullivan of Missouri successfully championed a legislative amendment to launch a pilot food-stamp program to be run by the Agriculture Department.
Graham was a Presbyterian minister before becoming a leading figure in the temperance movement, advocating lifestyle choices that included eating fresh fruits and vegetables and decreasing sex drive.
Speaking of sex, in 1721 Rudolph Jacob Camerarius died. He was a German botanist, that showed the existence of sexes in plants, and identified the stamen and pistil as the male and female organs. He described his findings in the form of a letter that he stamped and mailed to a colleague, De sexu plantarum (1694; “On the sex of plants”), and in Opuscula botanica (1697; “Botanical Works”).
Speaking of stamps, on this day in 1959 Representative Lenore Sullivan of Missouri successfully championed a legislative amendment to launch a pilot food-stamp program to be run by the Agriculture Department.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Tech at the Table
Foodservice may have arrived late at the tech party, but now that we’re here, we are rocking the house. From digital apps that help diners reserve a table, summon a server and pay the tab, to software that allows restaurateurs to streamline ordering, track sales and build customer loyalty, tech has assumed its well-connected place at the head of the table. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share some of the ways it’s transforming the dining experience as well as BOH operations…extra points if you’re reading this on your tablet or Smartphone!
Tapping into the ubiquitous presence of technology is good business. Consider this latest research from the National Restaurant Association (NRA): 36% of consumers say they are more likely to use technology options in restaurants now than they were two years ago and more than three out of five adults used some form of restaurant technology in the last month. In large numbers, they say it enhances convenience (8 out of 10), speeds up service and increases order accuracy (7 out of 10), and a full one third say tech options are the reason they choose one restaurant over another, as well as dine out or order takeout and delivery more often. Operators are listening—at least half of restaurateurs across all segments told the NRA they plan to devote more resources to customer-facing technology this year.
Tablets. With pay and play applications that are easy to use, multi-functional and very entertaining, tablets are becoming a must-have for progressive operators. At Applebee’s, guests will be able to order items, play games and pay without a server with the planned installation of 100,000 tablets. Chili's diners have rapidly adopted the restaurant’s Ziosk tablets to interactively peruse the menu, order beverages and desserts, play games, share real-time feedback, and pay the check at the table. During its six-month trial run, Chili’s CEO noted improvements in guest satisfaction and engagement, and increased participation in the chain’s loyalty clubs, according to Restaurant News. At Buffalo Wild Wings, the BEOND tabletop tablet from Buzztime is being rolled out to all its locations by end of 2015 fully loaded with music, multi-player and arcade-style games, and a few hands of multiplayer poker. More features are being added to allow users to browse a menu, order and pay their bill. The device also enables operators to harvest a ripe crop of preferences from consumers who register, and follow up with personalized offers and invitations to special events. Pizza Hut’s touchscreen table lets sit-down diners custom order a pizza, play games while they wait for it and then pay their bill. Other restaurants use tablets in the kitchen as well, such as Tex-Mex chain Taco Bueno, which uses the devices to push recipes to its line cooks.
Kiosks. The high-tech kiosk offers another type of interactive, customized experience for diners, enabling diners to peruse the menu, add or subtract ingredients, save their preferences for the next visit, and swipe their credit card, before moving on to pick up their meal. Panera is a main player in this field, and White Castle and McDonald’s are jumping on the bandwagon. “Remembering how a customer likes his favorite meal helps create stickiness among guests — and that’s what this is all about, increasing retention, frequency and average check size,” the chief marketing officer of Tillster technology, creator of tech platforms for dozens of well-known restaurants, told the NY Times. University of Southern California made headlines earlier this year as the first campus to install a burrito vending kiosk—Burritobox—featuring an interactive touchscreen that displays the day’s five fresh burrito options; guacamole will run you an additional 75 cents.
Mix your own by phone. The Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, capturing the ‘customize your own’ culture with more than 100 choices of beverage mixes, went one step further with its new app, enabling the thirsty to craft their own concoctions on their Smartphone’s. The Freestyle app lets users choose up to three flavors for a specialty mix, scan the app at the Freestyle machine, and dispense; a location finder is embedded that directs users to the nearest venue. Not be outdone, Pepsi has jumped in with the Pepsi Spire, consisting of three different touchscreen fountain unit models for creating personalized beverages. The most elaborate, Pepsi Spire 5.0 will feature a 32-inch touchscreen that allows consumers to create more than 1,000 beverage combinations, according to Kiosk Marketplace.
In two weeks, we’ll boot up some of the latest apps that are paying the check, eliminating the wait, and in some cases, even the server.
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