Taste of the Day in the Bay 

Tofu skins salad with cilantro and citrus dressing, Asian Pearl

K-Grill and Tofu’s “Four caviar with rice and quail eggs.”

I asked what kind of caviar. “Black, orange, green and yellow.”

Tortellini en brodo – 24 hours baked turkey thighs stock.

Hayes Street Grill Oyters Po Boy with bacon.

Pig leg on chard and garlic.  

 

Swordfish, mahi mahi, chard, roast root vegetables and five wild mushrooms.

Lotus root and chicken cakes – Yank Sing

Best & Worst of a Very Strange Year

Best Restaurant” & “Best Chef – Bistro Montage & Enosh Kelley

Kelley and Sous Chef Nick Illingworth

Bistro Montage became Des Moines’ best restaurant by staying focused. While most of the best chef-owners in town were opening second, third and fourth cafés, Kelley sold his second restaurant. In this 50 seater, all cooking is done by Kelley and his talented Chef de Cuisine Nick Ilingworth. Kelley is unmatched locally as a pastry chef and no kitchen introduced more superb new dishes last year.

Note – Kelley was named a semifinalist in February for James Beard Award as Midwest’s Best Chef.

Rising Star – Jesus Ojeda, El Chisme

Cordon Bleu grad Ojeda learned his trade on the line of Le Francais, sometimes called America’s best restaurant. He’s multitasking as owner-chef at El Chisme, with scratch made tortillas, pasta and pizza in a Mexican-Italian fusion delight.

Zeitgeist of the year – comfort food

From Café di Scala’s scratch pasta to Radish’s pan fried chicken, Boomer’s cookies and Phat Chef’s “economic stimulus menu,” comfort food became as stylish as Obamania.

Service Trend of the Year – reservation charges

Popular restaurants in big cities began charging fees to reserve tables at peak times. Skybox in West Des Moines has implemented the plan for the Hawkeye bowl game, reserving prime table for $50.

Best Wait Staff – Le Jardin

Tag Grandgeorge’s wait staff – Jenny Smith, – are as well informed as the chef. They know the farmers who raised your food, the method of farming and the method of marinating.

“It’s No Coincidence Award” – Chris Place

Chris Place was chef this year when two of the best new restaurants of the decade opened – Django and Proof.

Worst Service of the Year – Larsen’s Pub

One of Iowa Pork Council’s “best tenderloin” awardees, Larsen’s served their loin on cold, plain buns. When asked if it could be warmed, the owner replied “To do that, we’d have to light the grill, so we don’t do that.” Made us wonder, how they cook their burgers.

Best New Idea – Harvest of Hope winter farmers markets

These farmers donate a percentage of sales to a farm families emergency fund. The Des Moines event is January 12 at St John’s Lutheran (600 6th Avenue) from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m..

Top Chain Restaurant – Fleming’s

In greater Des Moines, Fleming’s has become the Warren Buffet of corporate restaurants – a big powerful player who behaves like a good neighbor.

Top Business Trend – independence

The ratio of new independent restaurants to corporate chain restaurants increased dramatically in the metro. Credit was given to credit – a sudden lack of it for heavily leveraged chains.

“Most Untimely Trend” – expensive burgers

It was a bad year for Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Ruby Tuesday and others as consumers flocked to places with $1 menus.

Best Commercial – Burger King’s “Make Out Point” by Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Boldly equating meat-eating with sex, jealousy and murder, this instant classic starred a jealous cow trying to murder a human male because he was eating the flesh of another kind of animal (chicken) If you missed it -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyAnD5S5Pmo

Corn & Soy Pioneer Award – Hang Mioki

After her personal supply of silicone ran out, this Korean plastic surgery junkie disfigured her face by injecting cooking oil. After appearing on TV, sympathizers donated money for more conventional plastic surgery.

Worst Food Commercial – National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA)

NCBA replaced their successful, “Beef – It’s What’s For Dinner” campaign for a weird new series that tried to make beef look like mountains and beaches. It didn’t last long..

Bright Idea of the Year – same store sales

After years of cannibalizing themselves, most chain restaurants (Starbucks) finally followed McDonald’s example and slowed down expansion.

Nip it in the Bud Award – “Corn Sweetener is Healthy” campaign

Cane sugar soft drinks gained market share, reversing quarter century of gains by high fructose corn syrup. The corn industry responded with defensive ads.

Book of the Year – ‘Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk through the Ages,’ by Anne Mendelson,Knopf

2008′s Best New Stuff

While tight credit and volatile markets stalled other economic sectors, Des Moines’ food scene birthed more excellent restaurants, world-class products and novel ideas than in any previous year. That made as much sense as fine dining in sports bars, a restaurant built around fries and French cuisine in the Corn Belt. We did all that too. After consulting my panel of food experts, here’s Food Dude’s 14^th annual list of the best things to hit Des Moines in this wild and crazy year.

Best New Restaurant – Django

George Formaro’s café headlines a marvelous list that also includes Le Jardin, Proof, Alba, Skybox, Sbrocco, Maverick and Jethro’s – all of which drew at least one “top new café” vote from my consultants. Django wins for its greater ambition – with long hours and multiple services. It deserves kudos for: introducing French classics (duck confit casoulet) that don’t condescend to American tastes; reviving historical French-American classics (sazerac); and providing a distinctive urban ambiance.

Note – James Beard Society agreed with us, they made Django the first ever Iowa restaurant to be named a semifinalist ( top 20) for America’s Best New Restaurant.  

Best New Pub – Skybox

Skybox edges out Jethro’s and GoodSons with extra touches – tablecloth dining, private rooms, a superb full entrée menu and personal service that recalls the hey days of Italian Des Moines. It’s so popular on big game days that customers pay $50 just to reserve tables.

Best New BBQ – Jethro’s

Jethro’s smokehouse work is as good as anyone’s while its side dishes rank with the those of restaurants charging triple the price. This place set new standards for sports bar food and it kept improving as the year moved along.

Best New Fast Food Joint – Ocean Beach Fries

For 40 years the fast food industry downgraded the quality of French fries in favor of reduced labor costs. Ocean Beach Fries’ hand-peeled, triple fried potatoes became so popular that the store moved up from a food court stall to a double-bay store in Valley West Mall – all in just one year.

Note – Sadly, OBF is closing their Valley West Mall store.

Best New Restaurant Bar – Graze

Graze wins with freshly squeezed juices, scratch-made mixes and syrups, ostentatious design and a contemporary disregard for traditional boredom.

Best New Wine Bar – Sbrocco

Sommelier Tim Grimes has no peer for discovering quality wines in all price categories. Chef Darin Sturgill is a risk taker who finds new applications for creative wine pairings.

Business Plan of the Year – La Mie & Le Jardin

Some restaurants only open for dinner, others only for breakfast and lunch. Rent never sleeps. So Joe Logsdon of La Mie offered to share his space with Tag Grandgeorge of Le Jardin. Two of the city’s best cafés now have a better chance of turning a profit.

Best New Product – La Quercia’s “Acorn Edition”

The Norwalk company introduced acorn-fed Guanciale, Pancetta, Lonza, Lardo, Spallacia, and Prosciutto. This slow food method of raising pigs had disappeared even in its Duchy of Parma homeland.

Best New Service – Old Castle

By reviving Chat Noir menu items and by building a rotisserie capable of handling three whole sheep at the same time, Old Castle edged out Florene’s new breakfast service, by a lamb’s tail.

Best New Idea – Jesus Ojeda

Equipment is expensive so El Chisme owner-chef Jesus Ojeda encouraged his tortilla machine to multi-task. First he developed recipes for thin pizza crust and calzones. Then he introduced scratch pasta – making his Mexican café the second place in town (after Café di Scala) to exclusively serve homemade pasta.

Best New Food Writer – Nick Bergus (http://deathofapig.blogspot.com)

This “new media” Iowa journalist wrote old fashioned rings around other young food reporters in traditional media – by practicing self examination without self indulgence and by teaching readers about his subjects.

Best New Food Photographer – Ben Gordon  (http://www.foodtourofiowa.blogspot.com)

This Grinnell College student and Phoenix Café line chef created a well researched, photographically splendid Iowa food journal.

Thanks for the Memories…

Mary Lemmo, Baker’s Food & Fuel, Coaches Corner, Crave, Big Daddy’s, DuBay’s, Lemongrass, New Saigon, Tedesco’s, Pho All Seasons, Bordo’s, Great Midwestern Café

We’ve Come a Long Way, Still Got a Long Way to Go

Iowa has been desperately seeking a unique niche in the national culture – something that attracts tourists, young professionals and investment capital. To that end, our previous governor endowed Vision Iowa and its subsidiary agencies. The good intention was to encourage farsighted thinking. But after a few years of award cycles, those agencies’ developed tunnel vision. Applicants’ stopped focussing on anything outside the periphery of previously successful grant proposals. So practically every town in Iowa queued up for state money to: 1.) develop river fronts; 2.) build sports complexes; 3.) expand their swimming pools; 4.) construct bike trails and pedestrian bridges; or 5.) to renovate libraries, museums and senior centers. Outside of a “Music Man” park in Mason City and an equestrian center at Kirkwood College, we mostly financed scores of copy cat ideas but almost nothing that was unique to Iowa.

A much better template was forged way back when we were the “It” state. In the last half of the 19^th century, “Iowa” was the password to a better life. Swedes, Germans, Danes, Norwegians, English, Irish, Italians, Scots and Dutch flocked here for affordable land of unparalleled fertility. Literature of the day described “waves of people,” as “magic towns grew like mushrooms.” Iowa’s black dirt produced incredible wealth and East Coast investment capital flowed here, building banks and the high tech industries of that era.

That boom peaked with Henry Wallace, who changed agriculture much like Bill Gates would change information processing some 80 years later. But Wallace’s innovations would eventually degrade farming, from a proud self-sufficient profession to one of abject dependence. By the last quarter of the 20^th century, the wealth wrought from Iowa soil had been transferred from farmers to the industrialists who supplied their dependencies – on genetically modified seed, fertilizers, insecticides, pharmaceuticals, heavy equipment and borrowed money. That’s the dark side of farm belt reality.

Still the origin of our once and future wealth remains. The black dirt of Iowa is still the richest on earth, still the source of amazing foods. Now is the time to build on this natural asset. Never have so many Americans been so interested in the culinary world. And foodies are now obsessed with simplicity, from “celebrity farmers” and “heirloom vegetables” to “minimalist chefs” and “comfort food,” Iowa should become a proud brand for the new culinary America, much like its Italian twin Parma is for the European Union. But we need to sow a few visionary seeds at the idea that we produce quality foods here, rather than huge quantities of agricultural produce.

Pieces are already in place to build. Thanks to visionary thinkers Bill Murray and Rollo Bergeson, Living History Farms is a bona fide tourist attraction. The World Food Prize is headquartered in Des Moines. Pioneer Seed, Henry Wallace’s company, is still here, with Dow‘s abundant resources behind it. Our state fair is, well, the one Rogers and Hammerstein wrote about. It draws a million visitors a year and runs the nation’s largest culinary competition. Its blue ribbons have meaning. We have excellent college culinary programs at DMACC, Kirkwood and Iowa State. Boone and Ames are the original home of Practical Farmers and the Loeb Institute. Seeds Savers in Decorah is a world bank for unique natural foods. The Des Moines Wine Fest is a totally sold out event that spot lights Iowa’s best chefs and food products. Meredith is in Des Moines, with more national food editors per capita than any city in America. Products and labels of national renown are sprouting across the state – from Niman Pork in Thornton to La Quercia in Norwalk, from Reichart’s Dairy Air in Knoxville to Becker Lane Farms in Dyersville. I could go on.

It’s time to start connecting the dots.

~First, Des Moines needs a real farmers market, not a 26 week circus with a few token farmers. The downtown market has morphed into something that disrepsects its founding farmers, who gave it both its branding identity and its reason to be. The recent flap over raising rents to farmers will drive the best farmers out of that market and open up the auctioning of their choice stalls to higher bidders. We will soon have the HyVee Outdoor Market, rather than a real market (meaning all vendors must personally be involved with producing the foods they sell) such as Madison (Wisconsin) has. That market is bigger than Des Moines’ in number of participants, number of customers and total sales. It works on a smaller budget than Des Moines’ Downtown Cultural Alliance says is feasible in Iowa.

To succeed year round, a real farmers market must combine warehousing and wholesaling facilities with an open air shelter for the six months when both fresh produce and customers abound. That means it must be located with easy 18 wheeler access to a main highway not on preciously cute, expensive real estate of Court Avenue.   

~Iowa needs to institute food quality standards worthy of a branding designation, like Parma’s and those of other European and California towns. That will require an authority that can bestow a meaningful aegis on good food and prevent it from attaching to crap. For instance, pork that is injected with double digit percentages of chemical water cheapens the name of pig meat and spoils the name of the “Iowa chop.” No one can do such things to cheese in Wisconsin nor to fruit juice in California. So, why should we tolerate the downgrading of Iowa’s great animal asset?

~We need a September equivalence of the Wine Fest. That is the month when our best-in-the-world tomatoes are ripe and the temperatures are cool enough again for our amazing greens. So, why not a giant Bacon Festival, when our BLT‘s would blow the bibs off worldly gourmets?

~We need to build quality whiskey distilleries. Organic and heirloom grains can add value to their harvest through distillation and aging. Cedar Ridge in Cedar Rapids is doing great things with organic grains – but in Wisconsin, hello? Templeton Rye has shown that you can creat a high end brand with good marketing. Former Iowan Fritz Maytag is also in the rye whiskey game, but in California. Distilleries can start up on the budget of brew pub too.

Mainly, Iowa needs a new attitude, one that chauvinistically acclaims the quality of our best foods rather than resuscitating tired rhetoric about record-breaking harvests and largest-in-the-nation hog populations. More than ever, travel is food oriented. Yet Iowans seem ashamed of their agriculture roots and do little to promote some of the best tasting things in the world. Iowa chefs are finding respect in the culinary world by touting Iowa’s best products in their kitchens. In the last two years, five different Iowa chefs have been semifinalists for the James Beard Award as the Midwest’s best chef. Before the “Fresh & Local” revival five years ago, the state never received more than one, token semifinalist. This year, Django in Des Moines became the first Iowa place ever to make the semifinals for the Beard Award as the nation’s best new restaurant.

The seed of a bone fide food media is here now. Since Relish and The Good Steward began publishing seven years ago, Edible Iowa Valley began publishing in Eastern Iowa, food radio shows popped up on IPB and KFMG and, most significantly, talented young food bloggers like Nick Bergus of Iowa City (www.deathofapig.blogspot.com ) and Ben Gordon of Grinnell ( www.foodtourofiowa.blogspot.com ) launched sites devoted to Iowa’s best foods.

There are troves of food wisdom, venerable presences and magical histories here. What’s missing is self esteem and the realization that worldly travelers are more interested in our Sibley squash than in yet another municipal aqua park.

      Fairfield’s Remarkable Diversity

Asian restaurants have been nourishing Iowans for over 100 years now. Their early days were colorful to say the least in both Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Des Moines’ first Chinese café opened in 1903 and several others quickly followed. Those owned by George Wee were frequently raided by police as scantily clad women scurried out windows. Wee would usually be arrested along with those the Des Moines Register & Leader termed “alleged actresses” and “patrons from fine families on self-described slumming adventures.” Crowds reportedly cheered the lawbreakers as they were ushered into paddy wagons.

Wee outlasted three Des Moines police chiefs before a city attorney convinced him to move his businesses to Chicago. The Register & Leader also wrote that the mysterious “heathen” white shoots served in “chop suey joints” were actually “a form of celery.” A century of soy beans later, Iowans now know them as bean sprouts.

Historian Mark Stoffer Hunter says that in downtown Cedar Rapids, where Prohibition began in 1915, Chinese restaurants were often veritable speakeasies. One Chinese café adjoined a wide elaborate alley that was accessible only through a secret trap door in its floor. On the same block, the Mandarin Inn used its upstairs venue and a convenient elevator shaft to evade getting caught with illegal goods. Hunter explained:

“I talked to the lady whose family operated the Standard Glass & Paint store beneath the Mandarin Inn and she said that they always knew if there had been a police raid because the elevator shaft would be littered with liquor bottles the next morning. That Mandarin kept a sign in its window that read ’The Mandarin Inn, where the lantern glows.’ Old timers here tell me that it was common knowledge that the rest of their slogan was ‘and the liquor flows.’” Stoffer Hunter said.

After Prohibition was repealed in 1932, Asian restaurants in Iowa operated without much controversy. In the same neighborhood as The Mandarin, The Dragon would become a family favorite between 1948 till 2005. Then it morphed into the Dragon Nightclub, the city’s first drag bar. Now all that remains of either business is an original neon sign and elaborate dragon head décor over the door.

Ugly History, Beautiful Food

Chinese-American writer Shirley Fong-Torres says it’s unfair to characterize the early days of Asian restaurants without considering an unfortunate context.

“The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 severely restricted Chinese immigration to America and the rights of Chinese-descended immigrants. In 1924, (American Federation of Labor founder) Samuel Gompers persuaded Congress to extend that “undesirable” status and its restrictions to people from Japan, the Philippines, Laos, Siam (Thailand), Cambodia, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Malaysia as well. No Asians living in the USA, even those born here, were allowed to become citizens, to own property outside of Chinatowns, to bring their wives or children to America, or to even return to America after visiting their families in Asia. When assimilation isn’t possible, people have no incentive to play by rules that are rigged against them,” she said.

1975 – a Whole New Yuga

The Chinese Exclusions Act was repealed in 1943 and the Immigration Act of 1965 allowed Asians into America without specific racial restrictions. Then in 1975 Iowa Governor Robert Ray led a massive re-settlement effort for Asians who had been displaced after the end of the Vietnam War. It would have wonderful consequences.

“We did it for the humanitarian need, to save human lives. We had no idea what rich rewards we would receive – the remarkable diversity they would bring to Iowa,” Ray mused.

The first of those rewards was coincidental, unless you believe in karma. That same year Maharishi University of Management (MUM) moved from Santa Barbara, California to Fairfield. Those two 1975 events would change the composite Iowan’s diet while treating the most recent third of the state’s Asian century to a remarkable diversity.

Today, almost all Iowans live within a short drive of an Asian restaurant. KIds grow up as familiar with chopsticks and pho as with hot dogs. The majority of buffets in contemporary Iowa are now Asian, appropriate perhaps since America’s first buffetwas Chinese too.

 

While large towns have many of these, they can also be found in smaller towns like LeMars, Hiawatha, Red Oak, Iowa Falls and Webster City too.

There were no Thai restaurants in the state until 1979 when Benichang Luangaram and Prasong “Pak” Nurack began serving Thai food at Little Joe’s diner in Des Moines. Now Thai restaurants cover the state with cafés in Panora, Grinnell and Pella as well as in every large city.

Vietnamese-Laotian cafés introduced Iowans to pho, the traditional beef broth and noodle breakfast of Southeast Asia. By doing so, they also introduced a new generation of Iowans to an old standard of scratch cooking. While almost every Vietnamese café in the state makes their stock from bones, only the high end bistros and a few traditional kitchens still do so elsewhere.

Indian restaurants, and even an Afghan café in Des Moines, have become popular particularly with vegetarians. Sushi can be found now from Sioux City to Burlington and from Dubuque to Council Bluffs. Korean restaurants have extended Iowan’s interest in pickling.

Asian chefs are some of the best and best known in Iowa: Miyabi Yamamoto (Miyabi9 in Des Moines), Hong Willer (Café Shi in Ames), Kumar Wickramasingha, Cy Gushiken (Ohana in West Des Moines),

Liam Anivat (Cool Basil in Clive),

 

Ephraim Malag (Oak Room in Polk City) and Mao Heinemann (King & I in West Des Moines) to name a few. For all this remarkable diversity though, nothing in Iowa compares with Fairfield.

Only In Fairfield

Entering from the west, one’s first impression of the Jefferson County seat is similar to most mid-sized towns in Iowa. One passes Taco John’s, Hy-Vee, Subway, Dairy Queen, Fairfield Diner, Burger King, KFC, Jefferson County Farigrounds, a livestock and land dealer. Then there’s a building shared by a sports bar and the Istanbul Grill. The latter is a three-meals-a-day café that serves American favorites alongside a Turkish menu of flame grilled chicken and lamb kebabs, gyros, falafel (fried mashed favas and garbanzos), hummus (a dip of mashed garbanzos, sesame seeds, lemon juice and fresh garlic), baba ganoush (roasted eggplant mashed and seasoned) and kisir (fresh salad featuring cracked bulgur wheat, olive oil and fresh lemon juice). Just as Istanbul is Europe’s introduction to Asia, Istanbul Grill preps visitors for the culinary mainland of Asian Iowa.

Even a window shopper on Fairfield’s square can see the place is flavored differently. Signs direct people to stops on the monthly Arts Walk, an unusual happening for a town of less than 10,000. Radio Shack’s window displays statues of Venus de Milo and paintings of Shiva and Krishna. A music store had as many tablas as guitars in its window. Multiple acupuncturists and massage parlors dot the square.

Thai Vegetarian Deli includes the Fairfield Museum of Renewable Energy. Asian Deli provides a dog and cat adoption service. Gupta Vegetarian Cuisine displays saris and mandalas for sale. One sign in their window explained “We do all kinds of bead stringing and wire linking.”

Holly Moore, Fairfiled’s Art Walk Director, put the scene in remarkable context.

“Fairfield has more restaurants per capita than San Francisco. We did the research and the math on that. What’s more, they are so accessible and so affordable that we don’t cook much at home. We eat dinner at Asian restaurants here at least three times every week,” she explained before pointing out the consumer of a legendary Fairfield meal.

“That’s ‘The Dog Who Ate World Peace.’ World Peace was the name of a sculpture made out of gingerbread. It was featured in the window of an art gallery and that dog was walked by it daily until he saw his chance and he took it. He was off his leash, the gallery door was open, he was dog. So he ate World Peace,” Moore related.

At least a dozen Asian restaurants serve less consequential meals in Fairfield, most of them within a block of the square. Some are organic and/or natural. Some are 100% Fresh & Local, meaning that everything served is raised locally and never frozen,processed or recycled as leftovers.

Some are Ayurvedic, meaning they adhere to strict prescriptions of an ancient philosophy-based life science. All use local organic dairy products from Francis Thicke’s Radiance Dairy. Most use organic vegetables raised at two local greenhouses: Maharishi Vedic Organic Greenhouses and the Maharishi University of Management Organic Farm.

ArtLife Society founder Stacey Hurlin sees the restaurants as key to the town‘s image.

“Asian restaurants are one of the elements that make this town because as much as anything else they draw attention to the amazing diversity of this place,” she explained.

Fairfield probably has the most cosmopolitan per capita population in Iowa. Hurlin, who moved here from Laguna Beach, California, said that MUM attracts students each year from at least 50 different foreign countries.

“It’s hard to find a Fairfield native who is over the age of 20,” said Moore, who moved here from southwestern Pennsylvania. Restaurant owners here come from at least six different countries.

Will Merydith, who moved from Seattle, brought the kind of economic development of which Iowa towns dream. He directs a new Development Center for California-based ScribeStorm, Inc.. They create interactive media asset management products in Fairfield for companies such as ESPN. Merydith explained how Fairfield’s restaurants contributed to the high tech company’s expansion here.

“When I came out last year to do some ‘recon’ on Fairfield to see if we could move here, the first thing I noticed was the number of Asian restaurants. To me this said, this is not your ordinary rural/small town in the Midwest. After visiting several of these restaurants, and seeing how crowded they could be, I concluded that Fairfield had a sizable population of people that were not afraid to try new things and in fact demanded them. Access to decent food was my single biggest requirement before moving and Fairfield fulfilled that,” Merydith observed.

Fairfield’s Asian Restaurants

Ching Dow

117 East Burlington Avenue, 641- 469-5858

Chinese-American favorite is Fairfield’s oldest Asian restaurant.

 

India Café

50 West Burlington Avenue, 472-1792

Paramjeet Singh’s café serves South Asian cuisine, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. His lunch time buffet features fresh dosas (lentil flour crepes).

 

Gupta Vegetarian Restaurant

51 South Court Street, 472-0548

Indian vegetarian meals feature fresh, home made organic paneers (cheese).

Mohan Delights

101 West Broadway Avenue, 469-6900

“Whenever I come home from traveling the first place we go is to Mohan Delights and it always brings tears to my eyes, because it is so comforting, so pure a form of nourishment,” Holly Moore testified to the delights of this Ayurvedic Indian café.

Thai Noodle House

59 North Court Street, 472-0222

One of the most popular places in town, Noodle House serves slow food fast.

Thai Organic Deli

120 W. Broadway, 472-3902,

www.thaideli.net
Sitti Charoenkul’s vegetarian and non-vegetarian cafeteria has been rated the best bargain in Eastern Iowa. Their home made pies sell out daily.

The Raj

1734 Jasmine Avenue

Maharishi Vedic City, 800-248-9050 www.theraj.com

This spa and resort has been praised in magazines as diverse as Healing Lifestyles, Town & Country, Spafinder, Elle, Spa, Healthy Living, Vogue, Fitness, Yoga Journal, Natural Living and Heathy Planet, among many others. Its mid day Ayurvedic buffet is open to the public.

Asian Deli

117 E. Broadway, 472-2649

The original Thai Deli owners moved two blocks down Broadway and opened a new place with similar fare, including pies to die for.

Istanbul Grill

50 South 2nd Street, Fairfield, 469-3050

Turkish native David Foraker moved here in 2000 from the culinary citadel of Napa, California, where he owned American Canyon Pizzeria.

After Fried Strawberries

Kumar Wickramasingha sold his famous Alpha’s on the River last year to take over seven Iowa kitchens for Sunny Brook Assisted Living Centers. Fans of his Fort Madison restaurant miss the fried strawberries that branded the place, and the Curry Vegetable Soup that took some time to get used to.

Elves & Sausage Epiphanies

An elf named Fritzie yelled at me from the windows of a 19^th century store on Milwaukee’s Old World Third Street. At first, I suspected an acid flashback, after all the elves’ store is directly across the street from Mader’s German restaurant where Liberace used to throw wild all night parties for his jet set pals. Then my sausage-seeking nose reassured me – these were the Usinger’s elves, as real and down to earth as bratwurst. 

Fritzie explained that, with the single exception of Santa Claus, Usinger’s is the world’s leading employer of elves. Led by this 100 year old leader, the Usinger elves use magical powers to create sausage of unsurpassed quality.

 

Inside their shop, tile floors, marble counters and wood beams have been in place constantly since 1880. The last cosmetic change took place in 1906 when German painter George Peters was commissioned to paint a mural depicting, what else? - elves making sausages.

Usinger’s story is now Milwaukee lore. Debra Usinger told it this way. “In the late 1870′s my great grandfather, a young Bavarian named Fred Usinger, arrived in Milwaukee with $400 in cash and sausage recipes he had learned as an apprentice “wurstmacher,” in Frankfurt.

He went to work for the widow Julia Gaertner, who operated a small butcher shop on Third Street. Within a year or so, he bought Mrs. Gaertner out and married her niece, Louise. The couple moved into living quarters above the store and worked eighteen hour days making and selling sausage.

“Their best customers were saloonkeepers who were in a very completive business where success depended on the quality of their free lunches. As long as their customers relished Usinger’s sausages, the saloons paid a premium price…At the turn of the last century, much of Milwaukee’s German aristocracy did their shopping on Third Street, and the store soon became popular. Before long, the Usingers were shipping sausage as far away as New York. Business became so good that more help was needed, but my great grandparents believed in keeping growth under control, so they could maintain the quality of the product. We have tried to maintain that philosophy ever since,” she said.

Fred Usinger died in 1930. Debra and “baby brother” Fritz are the fourth generation of the family to lead a company whose name is synonymous with superior sausages — in all 50 states. I was leery about taking a tour of the plant because I knew Lord Bismarck’s infamous warning – “If people knew how laws and sausage were made, they would never want either.”

But, I can’t resist elves.

Sausage 101

In an immaculate, cool environment, my tour group watched 2000 pound vats of meat being poured into a grinder, before going to a mulcher. Old German hands tested the consistency, as did scientific measurements. Then the meat moved to the stuffers. Fritz told us that his natural casings cost 53 cents a pound extra, plus considerable extra labor costs to hand pack each intestinal case onto the stuffing machine. The extra cost is exponential for the double “soda hog bung” casings for their signature braunschweiger. These must be imported from Germany and include both a cow and hog casing, sewn together.

 Later we followed the sausages across town to Usinger’s smoke house, which might well be the world’s largest wood burning barbecue pit. I could smell the bacon, ham, pastrami, et cetera from half a mile away. By then, I’d decided that if Bismarck had toured Usinger’s, we’d have a healthier legislative process today. What an epiphany, I had been afraid to see sausage made, for fear I wouldn’t want to eat it again. Instead everything I saw, even the first stages of the process, just made me hungry for sausage. Thank God, Debra and Fritz insisted that I try several dozen sausages and meat products. Let me count the ways I obliged, you should be taking notes now:

Mettwurst (minced pork), pastrama, Canadian (loin) bacon, corned beef, kishka (blood and barley), ring blood, Thueringer (blood), tongue blood, pepper blood, Hessische (heavily smoked) liverwurst, Strassburger liver sausage (with diced pork tongues and pistachios), Hildesheimer (mellow, goose style) liver sausage , blood-free kishka, Braunschweiger (Fred Usinger’s specialty since 1880, with the double casing), Thueringer summer sausage (peppercorns gave this extra tangy pork and beef summer sausage zip), Berliner Bologna, mortadella, yachtwurst (coarsely cut pork shoulder blended with finely chopped beef, pistachios, and garlic), veal Bologna, leona Bologna (smooth, finely chopped, mildly seasoned) , schinkenwurst (ham sausage), Black Forest (aged smoked) ham, Westphalia (dry cured and smoked) ham, Cajun brats, Stuttgarter knackwurst (pork, beef and garlic – a tailgate favorite in Wisconsin), smoked kielbasa (aka Polish), andouille (Cajun, but without the organs of the traditional version), veal sausage, Saucisschen (breakfast) sausage, bockwurst (white sausage of veal and pork), linguica (garlic and paprika), Weisswurst (Munich white with veal and bacon and Asian spices), smoked chorizo, Hungarian sausage and hot dog wieners.

Redemption for the Unholy 

Believe it or not, there were dozens of other sausage products that I didn’t have time to taste. Usinger’s makes every historical ethnic sausage they have heard about. Before going to Usinger’s, I had been convinced that two things defile the holy conception of sausage making – chicken and cheese injections. That was before Debra introduced me to post-modern sausage theology. Usinger’s makes chicken sausage, with cheese injections, in at least five styles – Chicken Cordon Bleu (with Canadian bacon and Swiss cheese), Italian (with mozzarella) and with apple, or with bacon and cheddar and with Romano. All use smoked chicken; the three that I tasted were among my favorite sausages, of any kind, ever.

A little apres-sausage treat across the street from Usinger’s at Mader’s.

I later accepted that my tasting circuits might have been operating in overload mode that day, so I determined to repeat the experiments in more uncontrolled environments. That’s easier in Des Moines now that Gateway Market sells Usinsger’s sausages. They can order any kind of sausage you read about here and have it delivered in three days.

Don’t you love the 21^st century? 

“It is a shame to grow crops and run them through animals for food because that black Iowa soil looks good enough to eat as it is.” Robert Frost 

 Robert Frost was bothered about corn being fed cows and pigs. It‘s a good thing the gentle poet didn’t live long enough to see Iowans feeding it to their sports utility vehicles. That would have likely knocked him off his road less traveled. Despite the best efforts of the ethanol industry, the future of corn-eating Hummers frosted over this year. First Jean Ziegler of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council’s blamed ethanol farmers for “unconscionable” greed which, he said, condemns 852 million people to malnutrition and starves 8 million children to death each year. Iowa’s initial reaction to the eminent diplomat’s charges made Ramona Cunningham seem saintly by comparison. Editorialists responded by attacking the messenger, often making false assumptions about Ziegler’s nationality, politics and sexual preferences. Internet bloggers turned his work at the UN into the second coming of Hitler, ironically since Ziegler made his name retrieving financial assets that Nazis stole from holocaust victims.

Ethanol Fraud

One can understand the bitter reaction though. Industrial agriculture had not been kind to Iowa’s family farmers in the last half of the 20^th century. In the new millennium, corn ethanol began looking like the savior of traditional values, rural lifestyles and state pride. We were going to feed the world AND free the nation from Arab oil dominion. Ethanol-driven corn prices would reverse a 60 year downslide for Iowa’s small towns and make us a wealthy state of proud producers again. It seemed to be working too. Local investors in some Iowa ethanol plants had already recouped their investments – just in dividends! Biofuel euphoria even convinced the Des Moines Register’s editorial board that ethanol could make Iowa “the Texas of the 21^st century.” Ziegler was polluting that dream and he had to be discredited.

Unfortunately, more bad news followed quickly. The peer-reviewed journal “Science,” the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy all released studies that exposed colossal accounting errors in previous reports about ethanol’s carbon dioxide emissions. None of those entities are known for rightwing, or pro-petroleum sympathies, so it was hard to discredit their studies. They project that greenhouse gas emissions from ethanol will actually be twice as much as from gasoline and that it will take 48 to 93 years to repay the “carbon debt” created by converting food grain into corn ethanol.

About the same time, food riots began breaking out on every continent as prices of all grains doubled or tripled. Because industrial corn is now diverted into so many links of our food chain, it’s hard to find a supermarket product that does not include some trace of it. So, expensive corn raised the cost of almost every processed food. Just when it appeared that the industrial food system was finally going to work in Iowa’s favor, our corn dream developed root rot.

That seems so unfair. When the 20^th century began, Iowa was a state of mostly farmer-producers who proudly fed the nation. The market valued their labor enough to make us a wealthy state too. When that century ended, the majority of Iowa’s counties had peaked in population – at least 100 years earlier! We were a mostly urban and suburban state and the farmers’ share of the food dollar had shrunk to 18 cents. Middling marketers, packagers, transporters, wholesalers, retailers, advertisers and bureaucrats all skimming off what the chemical companies, seed manufacturers, equipment salesmen and mortgage holders left behind.

Scraps of Logic

Those middlemen created an industrial food system that defied logic. While the world’s population doubled since 1961, the tonnage of food shipped between countries quadrupled. Central American bananas became cheaper here than Iowa apples. Yet, the dysfunctional system worked for the USA in strange ways. The price of American food, as a percentage of income, became the cheapest in world history. Between 1960 and 2006 it declined from 17.5 percent to 10 percent, freeing disposable income for the pursuit of other American dreams. Our food became cheaper despite some really absurd choices too. For instance, a pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than a pound of fresh potatoes, yet processed chips account for nearly half of all potatoes consumed in the USA. Throw in French fries and you have a super majority, big enough to pass another Farm Bill over Presidential veto.

Illogical systems have fatal flaws. The industrial food network depended upon cheap oil, government subsidies & tariffs, and consumers who remained willing to eat food that wasn’t really fresh. As the cover story of this issue of Relish shows, there’s a new anti-industrial food system in place now in Central Iowa. It allows us to eat logically, consuming fresh and local foods and beverages raised by farmers working outside the industrial complex. Other stories detail several mouth watering reasons why that makes sense. For an appetizer, here’s a philosophic reason: About the same time Robert Frost made his observation on farming, Iowa naturalist John Madsen defined Iowa as follows:

“A repository of traditional attitudes that are metered out through the root system in subtle but powerful ways. It is the region of the world whose soil base has lent the freedom and stability that men need to reach free and stable conclusions.”

Our free and stable conclusion: There’s no such thing as a cheap potato chip.

Tender is the Loin

The pork tenderloin sprawls over Iowa’s identity like the sandwich’s meat overlaps its bun. Adored in every county in the state, it’s pretty much unknown beyond the Twin Cities to the north, Indiana to the east and Iowa to the west and south. Tenderloins come to the table with more context than condiments; they’re served in some of the state’s most distinguished restaurants as well as in convenience stores, gas stations and ice cream parlors. As popular in our cities as in our rural areas, pork tenderloins the darling of some of the state’s finest ethnic kitchens and the backbone of some beloved drive-ins and taverns.

“It’s the food most identified with Iowa and with which most Iowans identify,” explains Iowa Arts Council Folklife Coordinator Riki Saltzman, who has spent years researching “place-based foods” in the state.

While Iowans can be possessively provincial about this state icon, the tenderloin travels the world under other names. It barely differs from Lombardy’s cotoletta di miale, Emilia-Romagna’s orecchia d’elefante, Japan’s tonkatsu, Austria and Germany’s schwein schnitzel and the Czech Republic’s smažený řízek. Other parts of America know it as breaded pork cutlet or chicken fried pork but Cooks.com refers to it as the Iowa tenderloin and several Milwaukee restaurants call it the Iowa skinny. And that’s not even the most confusing thing about its name.

“Most ‘pork tenderloins’ aren’t even made with the tenderloin,” says partner-butcher John Brooks of the 87 year old B & B Grocery, Meat & Deli in Des Moines’ Sevastopol neighborhood.

“That’s why we advertise ‘real pork tenderloin.’ We only use real tenderloin from pure pork. Other places just tenderizes the entire loin and a lot of them use pork that’s been chemically injected, like the stuff is at the big supermarkets,” Brooks explained.

B&B’s whacked and stackey tenderloin

A pork loin has three parts: a fatty blade end closest to the shoulder; a bony sirloin end closest to the rump; and a lean tenderloin from the middle which is the smallest and most expensive part. Most pork tenderloins weigh three quarters to one and half pounds and yield four to five servings. Brooks says he usually only gets three. That’s why most “pork tenderloins” are made from the entire loin and why they need to be tenderized – so that textures remain somewhat consistent.

Czech or Hoosier?

In Indiana lore, Huntington’s Nick Frienstein invented the breaded pork tenderloin in 1904. However, Nick’s Kitchen’s website says that Frienstein didn’t even begin his pushcart business until 1905 and that he didn’t open a café until 1908. Still, Indiana’s claim

has been repeated by national writers. That rankles folks from the Czech parts of Iowa. Cedar Rapids’ Charley Krejci scoffs at the idea pork tenderloins were a Hoosier invention. He says that he was eating them in Iowa’s largest Czech community as long as he can remember.

“And that’s a long time, I was born on Labor Day 1909. My mother was born in America, in South Dakota, and my Dad came to Iowa in 1894. It cost less to raise and feed hogs than it did to raise cattle, in Iowa and in Czech country too. So pork was the mainstay. Mom was a great cook and I always remember her making pork tenderloins. It’s best with potato dumplings and sauerkraut. All Mom’s recipes were handed down from her mother and they all go way back in history,” Krejci said on behalf of all territorial Iowans.

Iowa’s pork tenderloin uses recipes similar to Austrian schnitzel and Czechs have always used more pork than Austrians, so Krejci’s belief that pork tenderloins were common in Cedar Rapids in the late 19^th century seems likely. Besides, Iowa can’t have an icon that was invented in Indiana. Former Iowan Jon Yates of the Chicago Tribune elaborated .

“ We Iowans love our pigs, and we love our small-town diners. The tenderloin is the quintessential intersection of the two. It’s a point of pride which diner sells the largest tenderloin. Why? Because Iowans don’t go for ritzy, expensive entrees where the plate is huge and the food tiny. We like things the other way around. We fail to see why anyone wouldn’t,” Yates explained in Tempo magazine.

Some of the best tenderloins in Iowa are served in places with long histories. In the Mount Pleasant area, The Brownstone, once an Underground Railroad stop, has been decked out in Victorian splendor. It’s a place one expects, and finds, little old ladies lingering over tea and cards. But they don’t order crumpets so much as tenderloins. Just outside Mount Pleasant, in free spirited, unincorporated Oakland Mills, Butch’s River Rock Cafe takes over a former rail station on a state park, by the Skunk River. The flood-plagued river drove out the towns button factory, it’s grist mill and even the railroad, but locals like Butch Bittle, long time chef at the much loved but long gone Iris Cafe, stuck around.

Butch’s tenderloins are wide and thick.

Fighting Words

In Iowa, towns argue over which restaurants serve the best pork tenderloins too. Realizing that such arguments were good for marketing, the Iowa Pork Producers (IPP) threw their aegis into the ring. IPP has declared at least one “best pork tenderloin” every year since 2004. Nelda Christian, who heads up the judging panel for that distinction, explained how hard it is to pick a winner.

“A place can win twice, just not in consecutive years. But no place ever has. There are so many good places,” she said. So far, IPP “best” distinctions have been won by Darrell’s Place outside Hamlin, Dairy Sweet in Dunlap, Townhouse Supper Club in Wellsburg, Suburban Restaurant at Gilbert Corners on US 69 and Larsen’s Pub in Elk Horn. Winning has been a marketing bonanza.

“The place in Wellsburg went from selling 3500 a year to selling over 15,000 the year after it won,” Christian explained.

Taste in tenderloins is obviously subjective. A Des Moines Register readers’ poll cited 26 different best places for tenderloins. Former Register columnist Chuck Offenburger, who probably has tried as many different tenderloins as anyone, says that ToJo’s in Jamaica makes the best.

“It’s as big a sandwich as it is a good one, and you barely have room for French fries with it,” he declared.

At least two writers have web sites devoted to Iowa tenderloins. Tyrgyzistan describes himself as a “part-time amateur tenderloin anthropologist hoping to gain widespread critical and academic recognition for pork sandwiches.” At our press time, the tenderloin at Indianola’s Crouse Café rated higher than any other place on his blog (http://www.xanga.com/FoodIowa/691072380/item.html). Marketing creativity consultant Allen Bukoff of Michigan published “Stalking the Wild Breaded Pork Tenderloin” (www.allenbukoff.com). He admits that “the last breaded pork tenderloin sandwich (or the next) I had in my hand is my favorite,” before explaining why tenderloin judgments are fickle by nature.

“Part of the appeal of a breaded pork tenderloin – to those of us who love them – is it’s quirkiness. How far is this one going to stick out of the bun? How irregular will its shape be? Is it going to be juicy or dry? How thin is this one going to be? How bumpy and wavy? What’s the breading going to be like (crunchy, thin, even or clumpy)? It’s all part of its great unique personality,” Bukoff told us.

Susie’s in Stanton grills them on a flat top and serves them on homemade rye

With tenderloins, status is easier to determine in other categories. Joensy’s in Solon and Center Point has been advertising “the biggest pork tenderloin in Iowa” for decades and it’s hard to imagine a wider loin. Their Solon bar has surely done the most to proselytize for the sandwich as its location near the University of Iowa helped it introduce generations of out-of-state students to their first tenderloin. Baker’s Fuel & Food at exit 96 on Iowa Highway 5 undoubtedly serves the best hand breaded gas station tenderloin. At Stanton’s Susie’s Kok, they are served “home style,” which in that Swedish town means double breaded and grilled on the flat top. Their grain is longer than any other I found in Iowa, similar to that of flank steak, and their texture is marvelous. Susie Johnson serves them with home made rye bread, a signature item.

Porky’s in Des Moines promotes the biggest tenderloin special events. That 1950’s style drive-in built its business around motorcycle nights and ten different styles of pork tenderloin. Des Moines chefs Enosh Kelley (Bistro Montage) and George Formaro (Centro) have done the most to take the tenderloin upscale. James Beard Award nominee Formaro prepares them only with Niman Pork’s free range loins. Kelley has made them a special at his stylish bistro. Gateway Market in Des Moines leads the state in upgrading loins for home cooks by selling ready-to-fry Niman tenderloins, breaded with Formaro’s recipe, in their butcher shop.

The Tenderloin Corridor

Amidst all the disputes surrounding the sandwich, one thing seems clear – Iowa’s tenderloin culture is geographically centered in Audubon, Guthrie and Carroll counties roughly between state highways 44 and 141. Here hand cut, hand breaded tenderloins completely outnumber the frozen, mass market cutlets that predominate in the rest of the state. Within twenty one miles east to west and the same distance north to south, one can find eight different tenderloin outlets that have been highly praised by experts – Larsen’s Pub in Elk Horn, ToJo’s in Jamaica, Darrell’s Place outside Hamlin, Shack’s Lounge in Bayard, Fifth Avenue Diner in Coon Rapids and three places in Panora – The Links, P.J.’s Drive-in and Coyote Grill. Saltzman thinks this “Tenderloin Corridor” might have sprouted from ethnic roots and a livestock tradition of good stewardship.

“That area was traditionally a German and Danish part of Iowa. It’s always been good hog and pork country,” she offered, reminding us that area companies AMVC and IPP-II are heavily involved with farrow-to-market hog farming and sustainable agriculture. Those are both lost arts in a state that now imports 17 million weaned piglets a year for finishing in giant confinements. There is a direct connection. Darrell’s Place owner Jeff Munch and Larsen’s Pub owners Brenda and Neil Larsen all worked many years raising healthy, happy pigs for AMVC.

 Brenda Larsen thinks that the stiff local competition keeps everyone‘s tenderloin game sharp.

“Particularly because we are so close to Darrell’s Place, we get people coming in all the time to compare us,” she said.

ToJo’s owner Tommie Jo Scheuermann agrees that the competition is positive. She sells 200 tenderloins a week, in a town with a population of 275.

“That’s the first I thought of it that way. Someone’s holding out I guess,” she joked.

Tenderloin 101

Pork tenderloins are quite simple. Take a piece of pork loin (usually 4 ounces, though Shack’s reach 10 ounces), pound it to a tenderness and shape that suits your fancy. Dip it in egg wash and then in seasoned (or unseasoned) flour and/or cracker or bread crumbs. Fry it in vegetable oil or lard. Serve it on large (Tojo’s insists on corn-dusted) buns with a choice of condiments.

Iowa’s pork tenderloin has many relatives. Schnitzel is German for a fried cutlet, usually veal. Wiener schnitzel refers to the style of Vienna where the meat is pounded thin, breaded in flour and bread crumbs and fried in lard. In the Czech Republic, this is known as smažený řízek except that it is made with pork or chicken and almost always served with mashed potatoes. Cotoletta is Italian for cutlet and cotoletta alla milanese is a classic preparation of Milan, usually made from suckling calf loins fried in butter with the bone-in and then served with fresh squeezed lemon. Cotoletta di maiale means pork instead of veal.

Pork tenderloin’s closest relatives are: cotoletta a orecchio di elefante (“elephant ear cutlet”) which uses a large, deboned cut of meat that is tenderized prior to frying; and tonkatsu, a tenderized Japanese pork cutlet that is coated in Panko and fried.

The following styles are applied regionally to pork tenderloin’s foreign cousins.

Alpenschnitzel - topped with a mushroom gravy and melted Swiss cheese.

Jägerschnitzel – hunter-style includes a dark mushroom sauce. In the Amana colonies, it’s on the menu at Ronnenburg restaurant.

Zigeunerschnitzel – gypsy-style means with tomato sauce.

Holsteinerschnitzel - Holstein-style is topped with a fried egg, anchovies, capers and lemon slices.

Naturschnitzel – “natural” means unbreaded and sautéed.

alla Marchigiana – style of Le Marche means natural but heavily salted.

Parmo – from northeast England, this amounts of deep fried pork and chips smothered in Bechamel sauce, topped with grated cheese and finished in a pizza oven.

alla Toscano - Tuscan-style means cooked in garlic, fennel and olive oil and served with bell peppers reduced in white wine.

alla Siciliano - Sicilian-style means garlic, parsley and Pecorino are included in the breading.

Tenderloin Corridor Contacts:

Shack’s Lounge

306 Main St, Bayard, 712-651-2451

Coyote Grill

108 W Main St. Panora 641-755.3255

The Links at Lake Panorama National Resort & Conference Center
5071 Clover Ridge Rd., Panora, 800-879-1912

PJ’s Drive-in

600 E. Main St., Panora, 641-755-4264

Darrell’s Place

40101 1st St., Hamlin, 712- 563-3922

Larsen’s Pub

4206 Main St., Elk Horn, 712-764-8026

ToJo’s

408 Main, Jamaica, 641-429-3007

Fifth Avenue Diner

Highway 141, Coon Rapids, 712-999-2281

An original version of this story was first published in The Iowan magazine.

 

Dubuque: Where the Buffalo Roam

Behold, this dreamer cometh. Genesis 37:19

Driving his golf cart into a herd of buffalo, Gary Lenz popped the top on a can of Miller’s Lite, and spoke of dreams.

“When I was little kid, my father farmed near here. We drove by this place one day and I told him that this was my dream farm. He laughed at me, ‘That land isn’t any good for anything, it’s too hilly to clear or to plant,” he told me.

Lenz decided to try to buy the land soon after his father died.

“I wanted it for the lay of the land. I love hills and valleys and springs. I hate flat land. I don’t want to grow crops; I buy crops and hay. I wanted pastures. So I found the owner in Costa Rica, and he said ‘OK,’ just like that. So suddenly, I owned my dream property, but it took me awhile to figure out what to do with it,” Lenz said, recalling another dream.

“To me, buffalo and elk represent the ultimate American romance. This place was all rose bushes then, so I had to clear them out to make pastures and I had to fence them. At first, I bought Texas longhorn and elk. I bought my first buffalo because I thought they’d be neat to have,” he said, adding that when he and future business partner Dan Palmer heard that 100 animals separated “a hobby” from “a business,” they bought enough to be businessmen.

That’s how the Iowa Bison Company was born. Lenz ranges buffalo on several ranches, including one that turns heads along US Highway 52. His Buffalo Ridge ranch rolls over steep hills, between St. Donatus and Dubuque. Just down the bluff from Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, it is a surreal dream. On a summer weekend, between 100-150 cars will cruise by with cameras and “I told you so’s” protruding from windows.

Lenz indulges the curiosity of others, inviting school groups to visit and giving each student a T shirt and buffalo lunch. Despite the majesty of bathing elk and stampeding bison, the main attraction is Bogie, Lenz’s five year old, full ton “baby.”

A buffalo mother will disown one calf when she has twins. Dan Palmer, who ranches 582 idyllic acres near Maquoketa, told us that he once bought a goat nanny for such a buffalo.

“That goat led him around and they became inseparable friends. The goat would curl up and sleep on top of him until he got too big. One time a school group saw that curled up goat and asked what it was, so I told them it was my white buffalo. I wish,” Palmer mused, considering that a rare white buffalo can fetch a million dollars at auction.

Bogie was a similar orphan, having been bottle fed to maturity by Lenz and his family. He’s also a Kobe-style buffalo, with a taste for an occasional beer. He can hear a pop top pop from half a mile away and runs to a gate where he can lap it up with his tongue. Now a couple years past slaughtering age, he’s more family than livestock. He used to have the run of the entire ranch until he ate the flowers.

“He’s a big baby, but he’s a mighty strong baby, so don’t mess with him,” Gary reminded us, adding that Bogie’s also a gourmet.

“One school group wanted to feed Bogie apples. Now Bogie loves apples, but he’s strictly organic, from trees in the woods. The kids had supermarket apples, so Bogie spit them out in disgust,” he laughed.

Maneuvering his golf cart between pastures, Lenz explained other gourmet instincts of buffalo. “They only go for short sweet grass, which is where the high protein is. So we have to cut it short and put up a lot of hay after it rains. They eat grain and hay all winter so they can’t wait for the Spring pastures,” he said.

The ranch is divided into 10 acre pastures in which a herd grazes for 2-3 weeks, before it’s rotated. Buffalo are segregated by age, six months apart. Each time Lenz passed between pastures, he reminded us that gates have dire consequences if left open.

“Buffalo won’t go where you want them to go unless they want to go there too. Yet, I have never had a buffalo mess with me, unless someone left a gate open. Once a buffalo leaves the herd, he’s scared to death. You can’t get him back without shooting him. and they can jump like deer. One cleared two fences while we were chasing him. We had to chase him for two hours after someone left a gate open,” he recalled, throwing buckets of culled oats and grouts over the field.

A herd sauntered over and a pecking order was established. Young orange colored calves were last, then older brown calves, the meeker moms, the ornerier cows, and the bulls. Gary keeps ten cows to each bull and though the meat industry recommends the Woods Bison, he is partial to the more romantic looking Plains Bison.

As the herd surrounded us, Roger Miller’s famous admonition seemed wrong. You could roller skate in a buffalo herd.

“You’re safe as long as you don’t cut between a calf and her mother, or between a bull and his cow. They aren’t mean at all if you keep them fed, but you can never domesticate them. They are majestic and wild and yet, amazingly, they put up with you.

“This is why I do this. Look, we’re surrounded by a breed that was 60 million strong (in the 19^th century) and a few years ago it had been reduced to less than 1000. This is the biggest rush of all. To think they will be my friends as long as I take care of them,” he said while counting cows.

“If I don’t see a cow for two or three days, I know I’m about to have a baby. That is the only time they ever leave the herd. Cows are incredible, in a drought they will hold a calf that is ready to be born, until there is enough water or grass. I leave them to their own designs, and I get 90% calving rates that way. I tried the industry controlled way once and that got reduced to 70%,” he laughed.

The count revealed a surprise. There were 32 heifers where there should have been 20; someone had left a gate open again, but with minimal consequences. “I hate fences, but they are necessary. I want this to be as natural as possible. We never castrate a bull. That wouldn’t be right. They do that in the industry, but I feel it’s wrong. I want the buffalo to be proud because they are proud creatures. I never cut their horns either, most guys do, so they won’t scar each other, but that isn’t natural. I got into this for the romance, not the bottom line,” he concluded.

When Lenz and Palmer took up buffalo in the 1990’s, it was an expensive hobby. Then the fickle winds of nutritional science created a market for buffalo meat, which is nutrient dense, low in carbohydrates and bad cholesterol, and high in antioxidants, iron and essential fatty acids. That market grew so fast that Iowa Bison can no longer supply their demand and need to buy buffalo from other ranchers.

“It never occurred to me back then that people would ever want to eat bison. Now, there’s money in the product. We sell every part of the buffalo, the hide, the head, intestines, the testicles. Zip’s Tap in Andrew has a Buffalo Testicle Feast each year. We make leather jackets from the summer hides and winter hides go the taxidermists. I fertilize my corn with buffalo manure and that corn grows twice as tall as the corn that gets chemical fertilizers.

“When I first bought buffalo, people looked at me as if I was dumb as a rock. After a few years, the same people were asking what it takes to raise them,” he said, breathing in the pleasures of a last laugh.

Kim Wolff – The Buffalo Queen

Beyond nutritional motivations, bison sales have soared because of its distinctive flavor, if cooked correctly. Jerky and sausage products, of which Iowa Bison has several, are no-brainers for cooks. Raw meat is trickier. The low fat means it should be eaten rare or medium rare. Slow, low temperature cooking is a general rule that yields spectacular results.

At Iowa Buffalo Company in Mediapolis, Craig Murguia says that buffalo meat loaf, ribeye and burgers turned his restaurant into a dinner destination for drivers within a 70 mile radius. He sells all Iowa Bison products in his grocery store too.

Kim Wolff, owner/chef of Dubuque’s Pepper Sprout restaurant (www.peppersprout.com/main.htm), sells 70 pounds worth of 8 ounce buffalo filets in a good week – at $36 a pop!. She and Lenz both guranteed me that I would like her bison filet better than a prime beef steak. I doubted them and soon admitted they were right. Flavor is the difference, rich as the best grass-fed beef in South America. Even the texture was surprisingly agreeable – but it’s flavor, not texture that makes prime beef eaters switch. Wolff, incidentally also makes a fabulous bison meat loaf in marsala sauce.

  In a charming 19^th century building, Pepper Sprout is an heirloom showcase for this indigenous Iowa meat. Wolff changes her preparation seasonally, using fresh ingredients from a family of local suppliers. She gets wild mushrooms from a Bellevue ‘shroomer, domestic shiitakes and oyster mushrooms from a Dubuque grower. A sister-in-law grows her squash, while an aunt brings her edible flowers, fresh herbs and mixed greens. Onions and snow peas come from her octogenarian grandfather. She also uses 3 organic growers from the Dubuque Farmers Market.

Iowa Bison products are also sold retail at Hy-Vee stores and Haun’s in Dubuque. Restaurants serving Iowa Bison include Kalmes’ in St. Donatus; the Crow Valley Golf Club, Thunder Bay Grills and The Filling Station in Davenport; Circle C in Lamotte; plus Kalmes’ Breaktime and The Yard Arm in Dubuque.

Other Iowa Buffalo Ranches

Iowa Bison Association reports 43 members in 33 counties that market buffalo meat. Two of them present unique experiences.

~Dreesman’s offers trail rides and hunting experiences besides their line of meat. It is sold at The Metro Market in Des Moines, Julie’s in Grinnell, Crossroads in Toledo, Farmer Nick’s at I-80 & Hwy 21, Silver Dollar in Chelsea, New Pioneer Coop in Coralville; and directly from the ranch at 3575 L Ave, Tama, IA 52339, 641-484-6725 dreesman@iowatelecom.net.

~Hawkeye Buffalo Ranch, on a 150 year old family spread in northeast Iowa, offers hunting experiences in addition to their products. Contact: Dan McFarland 3034 Pembroke Ave., Fredericksburg, Iowa 50630 563-237-5318

Testimonials

~At their first White House black tie dinner, President Bush & Mrs. Bush served buffalo to Mexican President Vincente Fox & Mrs. Fox.

~Bison hot dogs are served at the Atlanta Braves’ & Milwaukee Brewers’ baseball parks.

~When professional golfer, Chi Chi Rodriguez came to Des Moines on the senior tour he brought buffalo meat with him as part of his post heart attack diet.

~The USS John F. Kennedy serves 500 to 600 pounds of buffalo meat a day.

~Reader’s Digest cited bison meat as one of the “Top 5 Foods Women Need Most,” citing its high iron and low fat numbers.

~Muscle & Fitness magazine touted bison meat for “as much B6 and iron as beef, but has a richer flavor and half the fat!”

~Weight Watchers Magazine added bison meat to their “winning point program.”

~Farm Bureau’s Farm News wrote “Buffalo meat contains shorter fibers making the meat more tender. Protein analysis of the buffalo meat shows that it has an excellent distribution of amino acids, giving it more complete protein that other red meats.”

Buffalo or Bison?

The North American buffalo is not a true buffalo. Its closest relative is the European bison or wisent and the Canadian woods bison, not the Cape buffalo or water buffalo of Africa and Asia. The scientific name for the American buffalo is bison. It belongs to the bovidae family of mammals, as do domestic cattle. American history has used the word buffalo so long that it has romantic connotations that help marketing, although “bison” is the correct name. The words are interchangeable, whether speaking of the animal or the meat it provides.

This story originally published in The Iowan magazine.

      

BLT: The State Sandwich

BLT. They are the most recognizable initials in America, better known than CEO, POW or even the ABC‘s. These days, people think more about sandwiches than reading or writing and in Iowa the BLT defines the high art of layering foods on bread.

Just as geography and climate merged to serve the ultimate clam chowder in New England, and the best chili verde to New Mexico, Iowa is uniquely placed to create the best BLT’s in the world. By late July, the happy coincidence of hot weather, rich glacial soils, small town lockers and free-ranged hog farming turns the state into Canterbury for sandwich pilgrims. For here between the valleys of the Missouri and the Mississippi, the best smoked pork bellies meet the best heirloom tomatoes and lettuces on earth, while artisan bakers make breads worthy of killing pigs.

Though it has been proposed, the BLT will probably never be proclaimed Iowa’s official food. Half of the state doesn’t like to identify with rural traditions like pigs and things that grow in dirt. For the other half though, the BLT possesses all criteria of gourmet extravagance. Simultaneously salty and sweet, soft and crunchy, its hot bacon meets its cold mayo and lettuce. Serious gourmets add the bite of arugula. A full rainbow of colors dance between slices of bread. What other dish provides so much diversity?

To appreciate this gorgeous gift of summer, we visited two Iowa artists who celebrate the tomato in both their gardens and their canvasses. Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen are the state’s digital couple, having worked in that medium for decades, long before David Hockney made it cool, and digital cameras made it popular.

“Karen at the Flow” by Bill Luchsinger

As producer and star of the syndicated TV series “The Perennial Gardener with Karen Strohbeen,” the couple is used to getting their hands dirty creating things from seed.

“I love tomatoes, not just because I am an artist and they are amazing to look at either. I save their seeds. I have to save seeds, to plant them in winter, then transplant them in Spring and weed them in Summer. It’s an entire year’s cycle of anticipation, and it’s one that never disappoints me,” explained Strohbeen.

“Tomatoes are like lobster and sweet corn. There is such a narrow window of opportunity to enjoy them, so we eat them every day when we can,” added Luchsinger, going on to explain that they won’t eat typical supermarket tomatoes, which are picked before they ripen, usually in Mexico, waxed and shipped north to be exposed to gasses that assimilate ripening.

Normally Bill and Karen grow their own heirloom tomatoes, but last summer they were so busy working on a large art commission in Holland that deer ate their plants in rural Macksburg. So we met them for a BLT workshop at Arthouse, the Des Moines gallery which represents them and doubles as a restaurant so supportive of fresh and local foods that it hosts a farmers’ market.

Pie aficionados, Bill and Karen once spent months exploring Iowa lockers for the best rendered pork lard to make crusts. For our BLTs, we visited several of those same places, plus a few others that produce bacon from hogs that are free ranged and treated humanely. That means: the pigs have access to pastures and to hoop houses with dirt floors and deep straw bedding; They are given no hormones, nor antibiotics and are not force-fed. Unlike confinement pork, no free range pig’ tail is ever eaten by neurotic pigs crammed behind it.

 “Karen” by Bill Luchsinger

Still, Luchsinger and Strohbeen stressed they prefer free range bacon for culinary, as well as humane, reasons.

“It tastes infinitely better,” Luchsinger summarized.

To complement heirloom tomatoes, we baked: traditional bacon from Ireton’s Perry Creek, plus a leaner one that farm makes from pork shoulders; both cured and uncured bacons from Niman Ranch of Thornton; a double smoked bacon from Polehna’s in Cedar Rapids; an Audubon Family Farms’ free range bacon; a Sheeder Farm’s free range bacon from Guthrie Center; and bacon from Lewright’s in Eagle Grove. In addition, we brought two unique bacons, also from Niman Ranch – a pancetta, or Italian style bacon, and guancialli, which is made from pork jowls.

Bill and Karen brought foccacia, ciabatta and baguettes from George Formaro’s brick ovens at South Union Bakery, plus a loaf of Steve Logsden’s ciabatta from Basil Prosperi and a rye bread from Joe Logsden’s La Mie, all in Des Moines.

“If we can’t find La Mie, or Basil’s or George’s bread, we have to bake our own,” explained Luchsinger. “And we only use Paul’s Grain flours and wheat berries when we bake,” added Strohbeen, referring to an organic farm and mill in Laurel.

Karen began explaining her BLT philosophy.

“Both my grandparents were food people. Grandfather on my mother’s side was also a homeopathic doctor and he grew incredible numbers of tomatoes, with confidence they did good things. So I am a tomato optimist. I once tried to draw a slice of tomato. It was so unbelievably complex. So BLT’s are utterly individualistic – not only does everyone make their own, but each one is totally different. They only seem the same, because we have similar memories of eating them. I make mine totally differently every time. Bill’s are more the same,” she said.

“I only believe in minor adjustments,” Bill explained while building a sandwich with a little unsalted butter, some rye, a big thick slice of rainbow tomato and a little arugula.

“Because its fairly mild and this sandwich is about the bacon,” he crumpled guancialli on top of the tomato, “Call it a meat lovers’ salt,” he explained.

Karen had a different approach.

“I am going to deconstruct my BLT, because that’s how I want to perceive it today,” she explained, selecting slices from five different tomatoes of various colors, laid circularly on her plate. She added some Perry Creek, some of Sheeder‘s, some Lewright’s, plus pancetta and uncured Niman bacon. She sprinkled a little sea salt and buttered a slice of ciabatta.

“Heirloom Tomatoes” by Karen Strohbeen

“I like the Aunt Ruby’s Green, the Bonanza and the Green Zebra for their color texture and taste. The third one lives up to the promise of the first two,” she explained of the green tomatoes.

“This is a great hot weather food. For one thing, bacon doesn’t get cold in hot weather and it’s not good cold. Plus, tomatoes are a low fat food that fit’s the season,” she said, adding a confession.

“Because I grew up on Miracle Whip, I might eat BLT’s differently in the privacy of my house than I do in public.”

The Perry Creek bacon struck Strohbeen in that part of the brain where Proust set his table. She explained with family history.

“On my father’s side, my grandparents always had bacon from Brandenburg’s (Locker in Conrad) and BLT’s were a great summer event for me as child. They would even send us Franzenberg bacon after we moved away from Iowa. Perry Creek is the closest thing I have found and Bill and I searched all over for it, too. Frazenberg’s is gone, but this helps me remember it, ” she explained.

Niman Ranch’s Paul Willis offered an anecdote that might explain the resemblance.

“Each year, we set up a stand at the Farm Aid concert and serve free ranged pork. Invariably, someone asks us what marinade we used. I have to tell them they just learned what pure pork tastes like and that it doesn’t need a marinade to cover up its flavor.”

Bringing Home the…

B

Ron Muth of Ireton raises free range hogs to animal welfare standards for his Perry Creek bacons that are smoked at Babcock Locker in Alton. Also available at the One Stop Meat Shop in Sioux City.

Niman Ranch bacons, from free ranged and humanely raised hogs, are mostly raised in Iowa and cured and/or smoked in Webster City. Their uncured bacon contains no nitrites or nitrates and thus turns color faster than other bacons. Many chefs prefer their slab bacon because it insures a deliberate curing process. Niman guancialli is made from unsmoked pig jowls, thus the saltiest and fattiest bacon we tried. All Niman products are sold at the Downtown Des Moines Farmers’ market, or directly from larryclev@aol.com. Their pancetta is sold also at both Graziano’s and Taste of Italy in the Des Moines area.

In the same Eagle Grove family since 1937, Lewright’s won so many blue ribbons that they quit entering contests decades ago. Owners Barbara and Paul Bubeck even hand pick the hickory logs used in their smoke house. Available at Dahl’s, Randall’s, Lewright’s Deli in Eagle Grove and by mail order: 317 West Broadway Street, Eagle Grove, Iowa, (515) 448-3300.

Polehna’s Meat Market, in Cedar Rapids’ Czech Village for 74 years, uses hickory and cherry woods to double smoke bacon from the Preston Locker. We are praying they recover the floods of 2008. Check them out on line: www.polehnas.com.

Vic and Cindy Madsen free range Berkshire hogs according to animal welfare guidelines. They plant no GMO seed corn and they only feed their hogs the corn they grow. The use both the Irwin Locker and Henningsen’s in Atlantic for their bacons, both marketed as Audubon County Farms. Also sold at the downtown Des Moines Farmers’ Market. Special orders and winter schedule: 712-563-3044, vcmadsen@metc.net

Sheeder Farms bacon is smoked at Irwin Locker for Mike Sheeder of Guthrie Center. Sheeder’s cross of Large White and Landrace hogs are free ranged and fed no hormones nor antibiotics. Sold at the Downtown Des Moines Farmers’ Market.

L

Lettuce used to mean iceberg in Iowa. Now that flavorless hunk is just the tip of the possibilities. Variety lettuces like those of Cleverley Farms of Mingo and Sunstead Farm in Waukee are sold at farmers’ markets all over Iowa. Red romaine, red oak, lolla rosa and radicchio are all gorgeous with green tomatoes. Greens ranged from the mild, such as butter lettuce and mache, which tolerates high temperatures, to slightly tangy like mizuna or tat soi, to the sharp taste of arugulas like roquettes and sylvetta.

T

Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah collects, grows and shares the seeds of heirloom plants. So Iowa farmers’ markets are a lycopersicon universe of colors and tastes in late summer. We used Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Jaune Flammee, Peach, Evergreen, White Queen, Hawaiian Rainbow and Dixie Gold from Sunstead; plus Green Zebra, Red Zebra, Ponderosa, Strawberry, Big Rainbow, Cherokee Purple and Purple Calabash from Cleverley.

Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen’s art can be found at www.moberggallery.com

 Note – The Second Annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival  will be held January 14, 2009 in Des Moines.  At least 13 different bacon purveyors will be on-site at the event sampling their bacon including Vande Rose Farms, Iowa Farm Family, Hormel, Tiefenthaler Quality Meats, Applegate Farms, Coastal Vineyards from California and Django.

Mr. Baconpants returns from Pittsburg  to document the event for his website  www.mrbaconpants.com. Other websites who have featured the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival include www.baconunwrapped.com and www.baconfreak.com.  

Site & time : High Life Lounge and el Bait Shop – 200 SW 2^nd – Downtown Des Moines from 10am – 4pm.

Cost : $32.50 and space is limited to 280 bacon fans. Entry fee includes a commemorative t-shirt, bacon bracelet, a menu of 7 bacon items, one free drink, unlimited samples at the Bacon Showcase, and a seat in the “Baconology part II” lecture.

Website – www.blueribbonbaconfestival.com

 

Schedule of Events [Bacon Showcase open throughtout event]

10:00 a.m. Registration – Bacon Bloody Marys are served

11:00 a.m. Bacon Invocation

11:15 a.m. 1st Bacon Lecture “Baconolgy part II”

12:30 pm. 2nd Bacon Lecture

1:00 p.m. Frozen Hosen on the patio [Free Beer on the patio while it lasts!]

2:00 p.m. 3rd Bacon Lecture

3:30 Bacon Eating Contest

Menu (will be served in a flighted fashion throughout the day)

Bacon & Egg breakfast sandwich

Bacon Lettuce & Tomato sandwich

Bacon Cheeseburger Slider

Bacon wrapped Hot Dog

Brooks Bacon Popper Pizza from Fong’s Pizza

Candied Bacon Ice Cream

2 additional items, which will be revealed the day of the event

 

  Perry Como Fans Eat Here

Food Dude recently declared that eastside restaurants breed a greater sense of community than those in any other part of Des Moines. Readers quickly complained that our point of view had a blind spot for the charms of Beaverdale. This column and our ink brother at Relish have both praised the legendary Christopher’s as well as Chef’s Kitchen, but to clear up our overall vision of the Beaverdale food scene, we heeded readers’ advice and headed to Michael’s.

Our first impression was similar to what one feels when opening a time capsule. Stylish diners seem to take their fashion cues from magazine and album covers, such as Golf Digest circa 1960, or “Perry Como’s Greatest Hits.” Whenever we visited, Hogan caps and cable-stitched cardigans were de riguer with Michael’s lunch crowd. Dinner time was less masculine, but no less Kennedy Era. Ladies still powdered their noses here and hostesses anticipated their questions by greeting guests with “Don’t worry, your regular table is still open.” Breakfast brought a huge, more diverse crowd, equally divided between a younger set that filled the entire dark bar room (smoking) and a family set that packed the bright dining room (no smoking).

Like most neighborhood cafés with significant bar business, this is an everybody-knows-your-name atmosphere. Waitresses (we never saw a male waiter) also seemed to know everyone’s drink of choice and favorite grandchild. They were quite patient with newcomers too. Daily specials spark the dining room business – catfish Monday, rib Tuesday, prime rib Wednesday and New York strip Thursday all presented full dinners for under $15, including salad or soup and side dishes. Our prime rib and New York strip were both perfectly executed and that’s a rare thing even in more expensive steakhouses.

The superstar of this kitchen though is the great food icon of Iowa – the breaded pork tenderloin.

 

A little perspective – this sandwich was invented in Cedar Rapids’ Czech community in the late 19^th century, not in 20^th century Indiana as Hoosier propaganda asserts. It’s so important here that the Iowa Pork Producers (IPP) now declare a Tenderloin of the Year and nominations for that award rose from 90 in 2004, to 274 last year. The original winner was Darrell’s Place in Audubon County, which is also the home turf of Michael’s owner. The second IPP winner was Dairy Sweet in Dunlap. Joensey’s in Solon has been advertising the best tenderloin in the state for decades. We’ve tried all of those places and Michael’s is better. It ranks with 25^th Street Café’s as the best we’ve had – crunchy, thick and huge.

Nice dinner touches included: fresh vegetable medleys, such as zucchini and sweet peppers rather than the ubiquitous carrots and broccoli; good gravy (hey this is the 1960’s isn’t it?), excellent hand made burgers; and home made soups. Salads were more regrettably stuck in the sixties, even a “vinaigrette” dressing was horribly sweet, which probably suits the mostly iceberg lettuce. Breakfast was highlighted by some good apple cakes and an “Audubon county” sausage gravy with biscuits. Mike’s potatoes were a welcome scratch-made alternative to standard frozen hash browns.

Desserts were ordinary and the wine list was more of a wine post’em note, but the bar was a fun, full service place with $2 bloody Mary‘s. And in sixties mode, Michael’s is one of the few restaurants in town where smokers and non smokers are treated “separate but equal” respect.

 

4041 Urbandale Ave., 255-9894
Dinner from 5, Mon. – Fri.

Lunch from 11, Mon. – Sat.

Breakfast from 9, Sat. – Sun.