Stay tuned as we post selections from Ari’s list in the coming weeks!

Marou Artisan Chocolate Bars from Vietnam

Made by a pair of Frenchman, Vincent Morou and Samuel Maruta, who, despite a complete lack of formal career training in cacao, have studied and struggled and finally successfully put together some of the tastiest chocolate bars I’ve had in a really long time. A quick look at their life paths early on would hardly have led you to believe that they’d be bringing these amazing chocolates to the world. They have backgrounds in banking and marketing, not food, and definitely not chocolate, and neither is from Vietnam, so their story is a rather unlikely one. Vincent and Samuel have been working for six years or so to put this project together. Cacao obviously is not indigenous to Southeast Asia. It originated in South and Central America and was taken to Europe, and then Asia and Africa, by Europeans. But South Vietnam, it turns out, is an ideal climate in which to grow cacao.

As Vincent explained to me, “The French colonialists had tested cacao in the 19th century with success but switched to coffee since they could not compete with the Philippines and Indonesia in the cacao market. What I realized initially,” he went on, “was that no one was making chocolate in Vietnam from the cacao that is grown within a 2 hour radius from Saigon. Almost all the Vietnamese cacao is sold to commodity traders like Cargill for export. What I realized later,” he said, “was that only a few chocolate makers in the world are making artisanal export quality chocolate locally from within the country of origin. Most mass producers or even artisans prefer buying from traders or farmers and shipping the beans back to their native country. This has been the tradition for hundreds of years. Some traditions,” he concluded, “are meant to be broken.”

We have three of the Marou bars at the Zingerman’s Deli. The first is the 75% cacao bar made from beans from Ben Tre province on Vietnam’s southeast coast. Remarkably cinnamon-y (and yet no cinnamon or other spice has been added) and also hints of cloves, or maybe nutmeg. Margot Miller, who used to manage the chocolates so well at the Deli, said the same thing. “It reminds me of a German spice cookie,” she said as we struggled to describe the bar’s
unique deliciousness.

The second bar is equally excellent. It’s made from cacao that
comes from farms in the Tien
Gang region, just a bit to the
north of Ben Tre. The Tien
 Gang bar is a touch lower in
cacao content and just a bit
sweeter as a result but both are
definitely dark chocolates and both
are definitely very good. This one is deep, dusky, sensual, long lingering with a lot more low notes and a finish that I swear is a bit smoky and that gets me thinking of Chinese green gunpowder tea.

The third, Lam Dong is made from cacao beans grown in the country’s Central Highlands. Lam Dong province is unusual in Vietnam because it doesn’t have a border with any other country. The region is made up of both mountains and plateaus and is the source of seven major river systems. The chocolate bar is, as are all the Marou bars, pretty majestically marvelous. 74% cacao so it’s quite dark, it’s very creamy, almost fudgy, on the tongue. The flavor is clearly cacao, but with hints of dark fruit. It has a touch of dark black cherry, so much so that it’s almost juicy and a sensual spicy finish with maybe a snippet of cinnamon.

Aside from all that, Vincent and Samuel have designed packaging for their bars that’s as unique as the flavors. Based on beautiful old Vietnamese rice paper designs, printed on silkscreen by a local print shop, they really are incredible. They’ve actually won awards for the packaging—the Academy of Chocolate called them “beautiful enough to frame,” and I agree. The chocolate itself as been winning awards as well, and for good reason—it really is terrific.

Poggio Lamentano Olive Oil from Tuscany

Fritz Maytag, founder of Anchor Steam brewery, once said, “There are a lot of good products out there, and there ‘s a lot of good stories. The challenge is to find a great product
 that’s also got a great story behind it.” I agree. 
Fortunately, we have more than our fair share of those here at Zingerman’s. I can happily report that we have one more to offer. Poggio Lamentano is a terrific Tuscan olive oil crafted by artist and farmer Michael Zyw. You can check out much of his amazingly colorful and wonderful work online. But, if you stop by the Deli you can see a bit of his work on the label of the oil. It’s a pencil sketch, a study in grays and whites, an arresting and complex image, which fits because the oil is equally complex. It has much of the bold pepperiness and flavor of fresh-cut grass and artichoke that are hallmarks of Tuscan oil, but as is often the case the location near the sea seems to bring a nice softness to the mix.

The oil is unfiltered, which I believe helps enhance the complexity of the flavor. It starts soft with a bit of banana and green grass, the pepper pops up in the back and it finishes in a forcefully refined way. I’ve been eating the Poggio Lamentano on the Martelli family’s spaghetti, on fresh mozzarella, on simple salads of arugula with a bit of grated Tuscan pecorino cheese, a few chopped hazelnuts and a bit of roasted red pepper. Definitely great with beans. I’ve used it to finish off a few fish stews to great effect. Excellent for dipping steamed artichoke leaves. Maybe it’s best at its most basic—poured liberally onto toasted Farm or Paesano breads from the Zingerman’s Bakehouse.

Marqués de Valdueza from Merida

As a history major I have to admit to being
moderately biased toward this oil—you’d be hard-pressed to find any product that’s a whole lot more rooted in family and national history than this. The family, formally known as the House of Alvarez de Toledo, has been a fixture in Spanish history for something like ten centuries. I can’t tell you it’s some romantic rags to riches story—at least for the last nine hundred years, the family has been hugely successful. Best I can tell, quality and care have been a part of most everything they have done, and this oil is no exception.

The Valdueza oil is very well made and it shows. No defects, long finish, good complexity. It’s made from a unique blend of four different varietals that grow on the farm. By going in person last year I got to taste each of the varietals on its own, as well as the finished Valdueza coupage. Hojiblanca and Picual are standard varietals from southern Spain and are not uncommon out west as well. The former brings a soft, warm, nutty butteriness; the latter offers hints of artichoke, green asparagus, a bit of earthiness, and a touch of black pepper in the finish. Arbequina arrived in the region only recently, planted for its good yields and round soft flavor; here in Extremadura, at least on the Toledo de Alvarez family farm, it tastes a bit different than what I’ve experienced in Catalonia where it typically comes from—less appley, more olivey. Most interesting to me is the oil from the Morisca olives, which are unique to the area They offer a fair bit of pepper, and interesting fruit, almost apricot in a way, with a touch of green grass and green tomato in there, too.

For those of you who follow these things (and there are many!) I’d put the flavor profile of the finished oil
in about the middle of the range—less green than the Tuscans, less earthy than most southern Spanish Picuals. All told they produce about 30,000 bottles a year—huge by the standards of artisan friend Mariano Sanz, but relatively modest by comparison to any large-scale commercial producer. This past autumn, the weather was very dry—not great for yields, but generally, in my experience, very good for the flavor of the oil. As is true of all these high-end, well made oils, there’s a complexity and an elegance (and 
a commensurate higher cost) that will likely mean that you’ll want to use it for finishing—at the table to drizzle on great greens from the market, on top of a bit of roasted meat or vegetables.

If you’re thinking of this one as a gift, you’ll appreciate its beautiful light blue label. I like it, in part, just because I love the color, but also because I’ve never seen it on any other olive oil.

Desert Miracle Olive Oil from Morocco

An excellent, relatively new arrival from the Southern Mediterranean, the Desert Miracle is buttery, sweet and very delicious. An ideal match for vegetables or fish, the Desert Miracle oil is from olives grown at the Aqallal family’s El Bourouj farm. The fields are all at an altitude of a 1000 feet (higher altitudes like this generally have lower yields but more interesting flavors). The farm is actually located right in the desert, hence the name. It’s a bit of a miracle that trees are growing in this region at all. There are over 300,000 trees on the land. The added stress from growing in desert conditions (the trees get very little irrigation) also adds to the complexity of the flavor. The olives are Arbequina (of Spanish origin) and Dahbia (an old varietal that’s unique to Morocco). Part of what makes the oil so special is a system that the Aqallals have developed that allows the olives to be picked with gentle machinery and then pressed within 20 minutes of being picked. I had to check that stat about six times, but sure enough, the number is accurate—twenty minutes from tree to crush. The trees at the El Bourouj farm are on the younger (about 2—25 years old) side of things and can stand up well to the machine picking. The oil really is delicious. Delicate, mellow, sweet, a tiny taste of apple (typical of Arbequina olives), with a tiny bit of spicy pepperiness at the end. It’s great on new potatoes, with simple salads of the delicate lettuces from the farmer’s market, or on a piece of fresh fish.

Terroir de Marrakech

A second superb oil from the same family, this one comes from a different farm that’s north of Marrakech. In the years before independence, the land belonged to the Rothschild family. The oil is really the Aqallal family’s point of pride—it’s made only from very old (all over one hundred years) trees, all growing at over 1200 feet. The age and great size of the trees dictates that picking must be done still by hand, and the olives are in the press in less than 24 hours (normally an impressive stat, except in this case when you compare to the miraculous twenty minute time span they’ve got working for the Desert Miracle).

The olives for this oil are primarily the French Picholine du Languedoc with some Menarz and Haouzia. The flavor of the Terroir de Marrakech is pretty marvelous and quite unique—the hallmark, perhaps, of what Moroccan olive oil is all about. Still softer in flavor than Poggio Lamentano, but with bigger fruit and more intensity than milder Desert Miracle. Nicely round, a bit sweet, elegant with hints of tarragon and green asparagus. Serve it on salads, couscous. Really good with roasted vegetables. This is a very special oil that shows the world just how good Moroccan oil can be.

Planeta Olive Oil from Sicily

The boldest oil on our shelves this season, Planeta is big, green, very grassy, and wonderfully peppery. It’s not for everyone but it is for me. Although it’s so green and so bold that it seems like it could well come from another planet, the oil is actually named for the Planeta family who produce it. They farm in the southwest Sicily, near the town of Menfi, and are probably better known internationally for their award-winning wines. The family has been farming the area for many generations. The olives are primarily a blend of the three main varieties of Sicily— Cerasuola, Biancolilla and Nocellara de Belice. The Nocellara are the biggest portion of the blend, and also the biggest in flavor. There’s a small bit of three other varietals in the mix—Giarraffa (by name at least, my favorite olive varietal), Santagatese and Ogliarola Messinese. All the olives are handpicked, usually a couple of weeks before others in the area. The extremely early harvest is a big factor in the boldness of the flavor, but again, keeps yields small. The oil is a certified DOP (a protected denomination of origin), which means that it must pass rigorous testing before it can be bottled and sold. The color is bright green and so is the flavor with notable hints of fresh cut grass, green tomato, green peppercorn, maybe a hint of citrus. I love it on toast, on beans, on beef, or on a simple bowl of pasta topped with nothing more than salt, pepper, Planeta oil and a bit of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. If you like your oil very big and very bold like I do, don’t miss this one—you won’t forget it easily!

Stay tuned as we post selections from Ari’s list in the coming weeks!

Standing Rib Roast at the Zingerman’s Roadhouse

One of Chef Alex’s favorite things at the Roadhouse right now, and for good reason—this prime rib is ridiculously good. We don’t have it everyday but will have it fairly regularly through the autumn and it’s on the Roadhouse Thanksgiving menu. The Roadhouse prime rib starts, of course, with beef from Cornman Farms, pasture-raised on our farm in Dexter, slaughtered for us, and then dry aged for four to five weeks. The dry aging is what most every good butcher would have done fifty or sixty years ago; you lose weight but gain a great deal of flavor. The aging process concentrates the natural flavors of the beef. Like so much of our beef, the ribs are prepared by our in-house butcher, Joel Kapp, and then rubbed with Worcestershire sauce, fresh thyme, rosemary, extra virgin olive oil, and salt. They’re roasted at 450° for 12 minutes and then slow roasted at 200° for four hours. All the roasting is done a on a bed of carrots, celery, onions (all from our farm) and bay leaves. When the beef is done we take those juices and add a bit of homemade stock to make the gravy. All, of course, served with a sauce of fresh grated horseradish.

Stay tuned as we post selections from Ari’s list in the coming weeks!

Askinosie Dark Chocolate from Tanzania

I love everything about this chocolate. The flavor is fantastic. It’s a bit on the softer end of the flavor spectrum than most dark chocolates, yet still intensely chocolatey because of its high cocoa content. It’s definitely more cocoa-y than most of our other dark chocolate bars, with a slight hint of cinnamon. Shawn himself says it has “hints of tobacco.” The main thing is it’s complex and well balanced, with a nice finish and it really doesn’t taste like any other chocolate that I’ve had. All of which makes it well worth checking out. Mouth watering. Clean finish. Makes me want to eat more every time I taste it.

Then there’s the story. Shawn Askinosie, after two decades as a very successful trial lawyer in his hometown of Springfield, Missouri, decided he wanted to spend the second half of his work life doing something he was passionate about, some- thing that also made a difference for people in need. He chose chocolate, which he’d loved for his whole life. He succeeded on all counts. Askinosie chocolate is some of THE best I’ve had anywhere in the world. Every one of his bars is fantastic—whether it’s the Honduras, the Davao from the Philippines, or the bar made from Ecuadorian beans, each has its own unique flavor, and all are delicious. I’m very high on the El Rustico bar that he’s been doing for us, to our recipe, for many years now—dark chocolate, more coarsely ground than usual (more in the old style of the Aztecs), studded with snippets of Mexican vanilla bean. In each case he works very closely with the growers, getting to know them, teaching them about quality, paying bonuses to them based on the overall financial performance of the Askinosie Chocolate Company. He does an exceptional job of spec’ing super high quality cacao, which contributes enormously to the quality of the finished bar.

At the top of my list right now is this Tenende chocolate bar from
 Tanzania. On this project, Shawn really outdid himself by stacking up so many good deeds it’s even more inspiring than his other
already inspiring activity. The work to make this bar started with a
project Shawn initiated with the inner city high school that’s located
not far from his plant. “It was literally a bunch of high school kids
that we assigned a project to figure out what country of origin we
should use for our next bar. The class was actually also sponsored
by Drury University and the college students were mentoring the
high school students. The students met once a week for a year to
work on it, and at the end of the project they picked Tanzania as the
country we should source beans from. Then we worked together to raise money to send the high school students there. I told them from the beginning that we weren’t just going to go there to travel, but that we were going to do something good for the people there. We raised about $70,000 to pay for the travel and to dig a deep water well for the village.”

This summer, Shawn went back to Tanzania for his annual trip to meet with the growers. Among other activities, he decided to put the visioning process that he’d learned here at Zingerman’s to work with the growers. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time anyone in the world has done visioning work of that sort with a group or rural cacao farmers. Here’s what he wrote after the session:

We had an afternoon session on a 10-year vision plan for the Mababu Cocoa Farmer Cooperative. I spent the morning touring farms with them on bicycle, then taught them how to make hot cocoa on open fire. By this point I knew them pretty well. I posed the following question to them: When I come back here 10 years from now, what will I see? They started with an enthusiastic discussion right away. After much discussion they listed the following areas of visioned improvement: electricity, housing, trucks to help transport beans, learning about the world thru TV and media. Interestingly, it is not their goal to grow in size but they would like to diversify into other businesses. I asked them to write me a letter in Swahili by the time they ship our beans in October and that they all sign it. They will write it in present tense as if it is 2013 the way Zingerman’s does it. When the group was finished, Mr. Livingston, one of the growers, spoke aloud to the group: ‘I’m an old man but this discussion makes me feel young again.’”

For more on the visioning process that inspired Shawn and Mr. Livingston, see Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1; A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business. Or better still, come to ZingTrain’s 2-day Creating a Vision of Greatness seminar on March 20-21, 2014 or June 9-10, 2014. I’ll be leading and we’ll be providing plenty of Tanzanian chocolate to everyone there to stimulate your creative energies!

Stay tuned as we post selections from Ari’s list in the coming weeks!

Ortiz Sardines and Mackerel from Spain

Prepared and packed by the Ortiz family on Spain’s north Cantabrian coast, these little jarred fish are pretty exceptional. Ortiz have been Spain’s premier producer of tinned and jarred tuna, anchovies and other small fish for over a century, and is currently being run by the fifth generation of the family. Their products are recognized by pretty much everyone who pays attention to these sorts of things among THE best anywhere!

For some reason that I haven’t yet ascertained, these special sardines fell out of the Ortiz’ production for many decades. Last year, the family restarted the
sardine packing. Aside from
looking really beautiful, the
sardines taste terrific. They’re
produced according to an old
French recipe that dates to 1824—the earliest years of preserving fish in jars or tins. As with their tuna and anchovies, the Ortiz family are very finicky about the fish they select. They use only true pilchards, the most prized of the many species of small fish that are canned around the world as “sardines.” They cook and pack only fresh sardines, hence production is seasonal—they have only about three months to pack sardines for the year.

The freshly landed fish are taken from the dock directly to the plant in the village. There they’re cleaned, fried in extra virgin olive oil then left in a to stand for a few hours in order to drain the naturally occurring water that they still have in them. (By contrast, most middle-of-the-pack commercial canneries—though nothing we carry—use frozen fish) This changes the texture and flavor significantly and they cook them with steam once they are put in the tins; then they add the oil, tomato or other sauces. All the water that was inside the sardines remains in the tin, reducing quality and the eating enjoyment.) The Ortiz family prepares them a la ancien. They cook skin and bones still on—you get the traditional soft, tender but meaty texture and also all the calcium and Omega 3s as well. Finally they’re hand packed with extra virgin olive oil in glass jars.

I put them on salads with great frequency. I eat them on pasta. Try ‘em with either a fennel scented tomato sauce, or equally excellent, with a few spoonfuls of olive or caper paste and some grated breadcrumbs over top. They’re fantastic on the traditional insalata pantesca—the traditional salad of the caper growing island of Pantelleria off the coast of Sicily. Cooked potatoes, cherry tomatoes, a bit of slivered red onion, a handful of black olives, and of course, plenty of capers. Toss the lot with a bit of your favorite wine vinegar (I love the Txakoli vinegar that hails from the Basque Country, not far up the road from the Ortiz factories), a touch of sea salt, a little crumbled dried oregano and plenty of extra virgin olive oil and let stand for about half an hour so the flavors come to together. Lay the sardines over top and serve.

Mackerel is far less known in the US but it’s equally delicious. Texturally it’s more like tuna I suppose than sardines, but it’s more full-flavored than tuna. And you can do anything with it that I’ve already listed for the sardines. I’ve watched fish lovers ooh and aah over these two Spanish treats too many times to count. In fact, just writing about them is making want to go open a jar right now!

Stay tuned as we post selections from Ari’s list in the coming weeks!

Paw Paw Gelato from the Creamery

How can you not be biased in favor of a Native American fruit with a name like paw paw? And who doesn’t like ice cream? Gotta love that they’re also known as the Prairie Banana, the Hoosier Bananas, or the Poor Man’s Banana. How about a Prairie Banana Split with toasted black walnuts and whipped cream and a little chopped fresh paw paw?

The paw paw is my kind of underdog—it’s hard to grow and, like a lot of the old fruits, the yield isn’t all that great. It doesn’t ship well nor can you keep it indefinitely in the cooler. From a growing standpoint, it’s challenging because it’s got a long taproot so it’s hard to transplant. On the upside, once you get a paw paw successfully planted it’s apparently low maintenance. If you’re buying for nutrition they’re really high in vitamin C, riboflavin, niacin, and magnesium. Apparently paw paw stems and leaves are great natural pesticides, and they’re easier than many fruits to grow organically. And you know, there’s a town named Paw Paw right here in Michigan.

Paw paws look a bit like mangos but with pear skin-colored flesh. Paw paws are ripe when their skin gets a bit darker and the perfume is more pronounced. It you get some that aren’t ripe, just leave them lie (or put them in a paper bag) for a bit to ripen up. When they are ripe, you take the skins off and mash up the pulp. Like avocados, the pulp will brown up pretty quickly so keep refrigerated and away from air. One challenge is that you have to get the seeds out. (Thanks Josh!) Seeds look a bit like lima beans and you don’t eat them. You can make the puree into custard, pastry cream, paw paw pie, or… gelato.

Slightly citrusy, kind of custardy when ripe, the paw paw’s flavor’s not strong. Rather it’s smoothly persuasive, never intrusive. It’s got a hint of lime, a little vanilla, papaya, maybe a touch of ripe pear. Ask for a taste for sure next time you see us!

We’ll continue to post excerpts from Ari’s list over the next few weeks. 

You can download the entire list in the November/December Newsletter!