potaufeu

It’s March. Hooray?

March may be home to the official start of Spring but, despite those handfuls of gorgeous, blue-skied days, it still gets cold, bitterly so (especially for those in the arctic zone formerly known as the Northern United States) and it certainly isn’t a month without its hardships.

I think this French proverb captures the mood of our current month best:
En Mars, quand il fait beau, prends ton manteau.
(In March, when it’s beautiful out, take your coat.)

Take. Your. Coat.

It’s a transitional month and one that can be confusing for mind, body, spirit and, as illustrated above, wardrobe.

Perhaps these are the founding qualities behind Fun-a-Day, a March tradition created by the members of a sweet community in northern Michigan. You choose a project for the month–haiku-writing, beer-brewing, bread-baking–that you do every day and at the end of the month you meet with the other participants and share your results.

I learned about this tradition in the summer, and, while I didn’t get to participate, I got to see some results of a few projects, and the sentiment behind this tradition–a way of combining personal new or challenging experiences with community and shared experience to cope with a month that can be trying–has stuck.

So much so that I’m declaring March a collaboration celebration on this here blog. Every week, I’ll post an entry from a friend as well as my own weekly entries featuring a recipe from, or inspired by, a family member.

This weekend keep your eyes peeled for the first collaboration, an entry that celebrates the approaching arrival of Spring.

For now, I’m taking my coat and posting a last winter recipe for these last winter days: Pot-au-Feu, the traditional, broth-y, vegetable-brimming version. It’s a simple recipe, one from Lulu’s father–Marco, or Papa Olive for those whom he gifts olive oil and honey to on the regular–, a wool-blanket-around-the-shoulders kind of meal, deeply nourishing and satisfying without a lot of fuss.

Peel Yr Potatoes

In fact, the only fuss in this recipe is the peeling of a few potatoes.

While it may seem like an anathema to some holistically-minded folk, yes, I peel my potatoes. Potatoes contain toxic compounds called glycoalkaloids, which function as a kind of natural pesticide, or protection, for the potato and are the reason why some folks avoid foods from the nightshade family (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) altogether.

Glycoalkaloids are especially concentrated in the potato’s skin. You’ve probably been told to avoid green-hued potatoes, or ones that have started to sprout. This is because the glycoalkaloid content is very high.

Glycoalkaloids are why potatoes can be said to be inflammatory and I often wonder if those who report symptoms (like headaches, bloating, swelling) would find the experience of a peeled potato better. (Anyone out there who can speak to this?)

In any case, I hope this recipe lends some brightness to you during these oft-rough first weeks of March.

Merci Papa Olive!

Papa Olive's Pot-au-Feu

Ingredients

1 pound beef shoulder
few marrow bones
2 carrots
2 leeks
2 onions
2 parsnips
4 potatoes, peeled
1 celeriac, de-bearded and peeled
2 turnips
1 rutabaga
2 teaspoons cloves
4 bay leaves

Directions

Slice beef shoulder into big chunks. Add meat and marrow bones to large stockpot and fill w/ cold water. Put on high heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, take off heat, drain water and remove meat and bones from pot. Wipe pot clean.
While meat and boils are boiling, cut all the vegetables, except the onions, into big chunks -- you want them to be roughly the same, big size (remember, they're going to cook for a few hours). Peel your onions and stick the cloves in the skin (the onion is your pincushion, the cloves are your needles).
Add vegetables, meat and bones into stock-pot. Cover with cold water. Place on stove and heat on high until comes to a rolling boiling. Skim surface for impurities, then lower. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2-3 hours, checking every so often to see if your meat is tender. Once tender, serve!

Serve with lacto-fermented pickles, grainy mustard, course salt and a chunk of sourdough bread.

It will keep in the fridge for 4 days, if well-sealed. Otherwise, it freezes well.

I had my first Suisse pot-au-feu last February while tucked away in the snowy mountains. This was the traditional version, with beef, bones and vegetables slowly simmered on the stove, carrots and leeks ladled from the broth then salted and slathered with grainy mustard, broth and tender meat sopped up with, not fork, but hunk of crusty bread. It was just the kind of cheek-flushing, sweater-no-longer-necessary, deeply-warming meal that the (witch) doctor ordered.

Pot-au-feu, or literally pot-over-fire, can be said to be France’s national dish. Recipes for pot-au-feu are as various as the country’s regions, the families living in those regions. The main point of pot-au-feu, from my vantage, is to gather honey from a weed: a low-cost (read: tough) cut of meat, some bones, some vegetables, a few sprigs of something green all turned tender, transcendently so, with the aid of heat and time. The perfect meal for the first truly cold early winter Sunday with an extra-special bonus for une femme comme moi.

Isn’t it Iron-ic?

I’ve said before that L & I really only eat meat once or twice a week, but this all changes for me during, borrowing my Ethnobotany professor’s line, my moon-time. (For the more literal friends and/or the men among us, I mean menstruation. Yep, just said menstruation on the internet. Girl power!) Us moon-timing women require 18mg of iron per day, as we’re losing 30-40mg of iron each month during our cycle. Iron is one of the most difficult minerals to absorb and, although iron absorption increases with increased need, it takes several months to completely replenish iron concentration in the blood so it’s important to keep levels consistent. (Haas, 188)

Iron is actually a micro-mineral, or an essential trace mineral, yet it receives way more attention than some of the big gun macro-minerals like sulfur. This speaks to two things: the first being just how important iron’s role is in our health. Iron helps to form hemoglobin. Hemoglobin carries oxygen molecules throughout our body. Red blood cells pick up oxygen from our lungs and distribute it to the rest of our tissues, all of which need oxygen to survive. To put it concisely: If we lack iron, we lack hemoglobin and therefore our tissues lack oxygen. More concisely: no iron, no energy. Even more: no Fe = no Fun. The second thing: although iron exists in many food sources it’s also damn difficult to absorb, and not just for us moon-timers.

Heme vs. Nonheme

Two forms of iron exist: heme and nonheme or, simply, animal and vegetable. Heme is found only in animal foods–it’s highest in liver and beef–and is the most easily absorbed and utilized form of iron. Nonheme is found in vegetable sources–like spinach and pumpkin seeds–and, as even my vegetarian-leaning nutrition book admits, is quite poorly absorbed and utilized by our bodies. (Haas, 188)

To further complicate matters for the herbivores amongst us, the highest sources of nonheme iron–whole grains and dark leafies like spinach and chard–contain certain compounds–phytates and oxalates respectively–that actually bind to iron, inhibiting its uptake and making it even less easy to absorb. Further still, soy, a common source of protein in many a vegetarian’s diet, has been shown to decrease iron absorption.

Absorbing it All

You can see now that the main concern with iron is absorption. The bad news is that there are other factors negatively affecting this besides the aforementioned ones. These include caffeine and tannic acid in coffee and tea, phosphates in industrial meats and soft drinks, antacids and the less easily remedied low stomach acid and fast gastrointestinal motility.

The good news is there are a few ways to positively affect iron absorption as well. Vitamin C (sauerkraut with pot-au-feu!), the use of iron cookware (cast-iron dutch-oven for pot-au-feu!), and the combination of heme and nonheme sources (a kale salad with a heap-load of seeds with your pot-au-feu!).

Before I get to the recipe, I’d like to quickly discuss supplementation. Elements of inorganic iron–such as those used to supplement refined flour–are dubious. In that form, iron can’t be utilized by the body and its build-up in blood and tissues is toxic. Elevated amounts have been linked to heart disease and cancer. (Fallon, 44) If supplementing, it’s best to use a supplement derived from whole foods rather than one synthesized in a lab.

Dimanche Roast: Pot-au-Feu

Ingredients

1 pound beef shoulder or brisket
2 pieces of oxtail or marrow bones
2 medium-sized yellow onions
handful of carrots
handful of turnips
1 leek
two handfuls of new potatoes
5 cloves garlic
bouquet garni with sage, rosemary and thyme
salt and pepper
knob ghee

Directions

Heat oven to 200F. Lightly rub your cut of beef with salt and pepper. Heat cast-iron dutch-oven on stove-top and add knob of ghee. Once dutch-oven is hot, sear beef on each side for 1 minute or so. Remove from heat immediately.
Place oxtail or marrow bones in dutch-oven with beef. Cover and place into oven.
While your meat is roasting, prepare your vegetables, roughly chopping them so they are more or less the same size. The turnips and potatoes we used were small, so we just chopped them in half. You can peel your vegetables, or not. Leave garlic whole. Prepare your bouquet garni by tying a few sprigs of thyme, rosemary and sage together with string.
After your meat has roasted on its own for about an hour, add vegetables and bouquet garni to dutch-oven. Keep roasting for another hour-and-a-half, checking on meat to see if it's tender.

Serve with grainy mustard, pickled things and a hunk of crusty bread (to spread your roasted bone-marrow on).

References:
Haas, Elson M, 1992, 2006. Staying Health with Nutrition. Berkeley, Celestial Arts.
Fallon, Sally, 1999, 2001. Nourishing Traditions. Washington, DC. Newstrends Publishing Inc.

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Papa Olive’s Pot-au-Feu

Dimanche Roast: Pot-au-Feu