SMORGASBORD: Cook like the Colonel ... Future food ... Sow Easy

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Cook like the Colonel

Want to cook like the Colonel?

Fans of KFC’s Facebook pages can access two of Colonel Harland Sanders’ recipes and other content from his soon-to-be-released autobiography. The manuscript was written by Sanders in 1966 and discovered more than 40 years later.

KFC says the recipes are for potato pancakes and upside-down peach cobbler. They’re among 33 never-before-seen recipes featured in the book.

The entire book can be downloaded for free at facebook.com/kfc. KFC says the book — “Colonel Harland Sanders: The Autobiography of the Original Celebrity Chef” — is not available in bookstores or through online book sellers.

The book provides a look into the life of the KFC founder. It includes dozens of rare photos and firsthand stories from Sanders.

Future food

“What’s for dinner?” is a question most of us ask every day in hopes of having the answer by nightfall. Josh Schonwald, a journalist based in Evanston, Ill., wonders what will be on the table in 2035 in “The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food” (Harper, $25.99).

His search of discovery takes him from his local farmers market to the fertile fields of California to an Appalachian fish farm in Virginia to a Dutch laboratory working on test-tube meat.

Food used to be fun. No one, really, thought too much about where their food came from or if something that tasted so good could possibly be bad for them. It was one big, heady, delicious binge.

No more.

Today seems to be one endless morning-after. Food is news, the stuff of grim political polemics. Schonwald examines the issues, the personalities and the trends in a fast-moving trip through the multibillion-dollar food business. The opening chapter’s title tells you where he’s going: The Next Salmon and the Bagged Salmon Moment. In exploring what we’ll be eating in 2035, he weaves a story of taste and technology, environmental demands and consumer desires.

This is a fun book. Promise. Schonwald has the talent to explain serious, complicated issues in ways the average reader will understand. He does it in an entertaining, often irreverent way that keeps you turning the pages. Laudably open about his beliefs and attitudes, Schonwald never strays too far into one ideological camp or another. He does not preach. The book offers not only his educated guess about what dinner will be in 2035 but also some dishes we can try right now to experience “the mouthfeel of the future.” These nine recipes range from Pamela Ronald’s mutant rice with genetically engineered papaya to Josh’s emu chili. It’s a witty capper to a provocative book.

Sow easy

Vegetable gardening doesn’t get any easier than direct-sowing lettuces and herbs outdoors — you can be space- and time-challenged and still produce a healthy crop of leafy goodness within a few weeks.

What’s more, you’ll harvest flavors and varieties that are nearly impossible to find at the supermarket.

Here are some of the varieties that caught our eye (it’s not too late to plant seed) in the 2012 catalogs. Some of the lettuces mentioned can be grown into full heads. (Some prefer to harvest the baby leaves for colorful salads.)

• Arianna Batavian lettuce ($3.25 for packet of about 700 seeds from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds; kitchengardenseeds.com): This French variety of Batavian lettuce is bolt and disease resistant. The leaves have a subtle nutty flavor.

• Aztec spinach ($2.50 for packet of 200 seeds from Bountiful Gardens; bountifulgardens.org): Also known as huauzontle (wah-ZONT-lay), this plant is related to quinoa and spinach. It’s not technically a lettuce, but it sprouts quickly for harvesting its red baby leaves. The seeds are heirloom and open-pollinated.

• Galiano lettuce ($3.25 for packet of 500 seeds from Veseys Seeds; veseys.com): This bolt-resistant oakleaf variety has dark red, ruffled leaves, a green stem and a dense head.

And a few herbs that can also be direct-sown:

• Christmas basil ($3.95 per packet of about 100 seeds from Burpee, burpee.com): The catalog touts this new basil as having a “sultry, mulled wine scent with a hint of pine taste” to complement those pine nuts you put in pesto. It can tolerate some cold weather and will persist later into autumn.

• Paramount curly-leaf parsley ($3.25 for packet of about 1,000 seeds from John Scheepers): This variety has dense, triple-curled, superfrilly leaves and can reach 18 to 24 inches tall.

• Cup of Sun nasturtium ($2.79 for packet of about 40 seeds from Renee’s Garden; reneesgarden.com): Nasturtiums aren’t just a bunch of pretty faces. Both the leaves and blossoms are edible, packed with a powerful yet pleasant peppery bite. This variety blooms in creamy orange and yellow hues.

• Wasabi arugula: ($2.99 for packet of 980 seeds from Renee’s Garden): Although arugula, that mighty, peppery herb, finally enjoys more familiarity nationwide, wild arugula is less known here than in Europe. It could be considered “super arugula,” because it has considerably more bite (consider yourself warned) and the plant has even more staying power. The catalog promises a taste inspired by the “complex, spicy flavor of freshly made wasabi paste.” Bring it on.

Hearty competition

The new-product folks at Quaker are really outdoing themselves. It’s a competitor for Cheerios. It’s called Whole Hearts.

On the package, the O in “whole” is replaced with a heart, and the cereal pieces themselves are little hearts each a tad bigger than the Cheerios little O. (Both cereals promote their use in heart-healthy diets.)

Besides the shape, there’s one very notable difference between Whole Hearts and Cheerios: A (1-ounce) serving of Cheerios has just 1 gram of sugar; the same serving of Whole Hearts has 6 grams of sugar (from brown sugar). Among the now many kinds of Cheerios, there is none that is simply sweetened Cheerios. The closest is Frosted Cheerios, which has sugar, corn syrup and brown sugar syrup, to total 9 grams of sugar per serving — plus corn meal.

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