Many people have talked and written about “shrinkflation”: packages getting smaller. This is merely annoying for something like cereal or ice cream, but when items are ingredients, the difference can matter. Luckily, the Ricotta-Walnut Sauce I make seems to be as good with 6.2 ounces of plain yogurt as with 8, but if they cut it much more …
I have a different sort of ingredient drift the other day, though. I had a recipe for “Vera Cruz Chicken” that I hadn’t made for a while. It came from back when jalapenos were grown mild for American tastes. So I don’t know whether it originally called for one jalapeno and I boosted it myself, or it called for four on the presumption they were relatively mild. But fast forward to the present day, when I get my jalapenos from a local farm that grows real jalapenos.
(You can see where this is going.)
Let’s just say that the resulting sauce with the four jalapenos was not so much “Vera Cruz” as “Super-Atomic”. I ended up making an arrabiata sauce by combining two tablespoons atomic sauce with a cup of crushed tomatoes.
Does anyone have other examples of ingredients that have changed over time?
Butter. The salt content in ‘salted butter’ has probably been the same since the 70’s or so, but nearly EVERY big deal baker will tell you to ONLY use unsalted butter because you can’t really tell how much salt is in salted butter…
Yes. Yes you can. In the US, the National dairy council says that “generally, each stick contains 1.6-1.7 percent” salt. This is about 17 grams. So go ahead and use salted butter for your cakes and brownies and just lower the salt you add by approx 1 tsp per stick.
Also, the salt amounts in modern butter are VERY VERY low, compared to the days before a complete cold chain was essentially guaranteed. Salt for preservation is WAY more than salt for taste.
The jalapeno thing wasn’t so much drift as deliberate tampering (by Tex A&M) to produce a reliably milder pepper for bottlers and canners to use to balance the hot ones. Apparently wound up being the most commonly available, I guess. I’m glad to hear it’s ‘drifting’ back .
Now I’ve got a beautiful bunch of cilantro, huge, so pretty, in my latest grocery order. I using it on and in everything trying to use it up before it goes. But it doesn’t have much flavor and I’m wondering if TAMU or some other tinkerers are trying to breed out the soapy taste or make it hardier in cold weather? GRRRR!
No matter what, you should always taste a jalapeño before using in a recipe. You may have a trusted grower but jalapeños can have a mind of their own heat wise.
I have a beloved recipe for corn pudding published in the early 90’s by Jane and Michael Stern from their Roadfood column. A can of this and a little of that just doesn’t compute and I can’t get it to work anymore. Makes me sad. It was a custard kind of thing, and towards the end of baking a cinnamon sugar topping was put on it and left to brown in the oven for awhile. I need to figure out the variables…it was a recipe from a restaurant in Virginia as I recall. So perfect with Easter ham…
There are so many examples of this very thing, and what a good topic. L&P Worcestershire Sauce is much different than it used to be - they changed the recipe/formula to dis-include anchovies, but may have added/omitted other things too. Still, it’s a workable product, mainly because it’s an ingredient and not a star, IMO. Still, I wish I could get the original. Velveeta changed their formula also - again serviceable, but with some differences. Yoplait Yogurt is a distant cousin to what it used to be, and I don’t buy it anymore. Many more examples, which I can’t think of right now, if the changes get too drastic, I find other products.
Oh I agree about the jalapeños, but usually they’re too mild for my taste, except for the occasional “atomic” ones. @Miss_belle has great advice to taste first, or, wearing gloves, remove all veins and seeds. Cilantro is heartbreaking to me, since it has almost no flavor, compared to what it tasted like many years ago. My theory for this, is since it became popular, it’s grown in hothouses for supply to many parts of the US. I’ve found cilantro bought in Asian markets to be much more flavorful, and it also lasts much longer, due to not being drowned by showers in the produce displays. Asian markets has it packed in little plastic baggies and kept cool, but not wet.
If you feel like posting that recipe, I’d be willing to tinker with it, albeit wouldn’t know what it’s supposed to taste like. Probably would be able to get close though!
That’s very kind of you. I will dig it out of my recipe box and post it for you. It’s really quite good and different from anything I’ve ever had. I’m from the midwest, and. know my way around corn LOL, but this is like a corn pudding/soufflé with a sweet topping.
Sauerkraut & bacon seem a lot less salty than I remember.
Agree with the cilantro, although my tastebuds may be much more used to it today.
Not really on topic, but close to it: I visited Thailand some time ago and their limes were real small, but real strong. Had to keep remembering this, so not to make things too sour. Same with their garlic
I only can take half doses because it wires me up, too, but sometimes…sometimes… it’s what I need for a killer sinus headache. The new formulation does nothing for me. Oh, and thank God for my neighborhood, non-chain pharmacy. I wish they were a grocery, too!
My shameful cooking secret … I use Pepperidge Farm stuffing, too, and broth that I either buy a box of or make from Minor’s base. I redeem my bona fides by adding sausage, apples, celery, onions and walnuts. And butter. Lots and lots of butter. Maybe extra thyme and sage, but sometimes I (gasp) even buy a container of pre-prepped chopped celery and onions. Onions I always have on hand, but I throw out entirely too much celery.
Interesting about the peppers. I grow jalapenos in season and find they vary greatly depending on neighbors. I try to intersperse them with hotter types so that they crosspollinate.
Regarding the cilantro, maybe depends on where it was grown? I think hothouse cilantro and basil is pretty tasteless, unfortunately. Basil, especially, needs that hot sun powering down to bring out the flavor.
I don’t lower the salt in almost any recipe even when I use salted butter. The amount is actually between 1-2 grams per stick, as a stick is 113 grams. This is about 1/4 tsp salt per stick. If I’m making shortbread, which has a high percentage of butter in relation to flour, no liquid ingredients (yes sugar is technically liquid, but not what I’m referring to), low sugar percentage in relation to flour, then salt gets reduced or omitted. If making something like pie dough with salted butter then I use roughly 1% salt rather than the 2% I would with unsalted butter. But if I’m making cake or bread then there is either no reduction or a minimal one because there might only be a stick or even less than that in there and that roughly 1 gram of salt in a recipe with eggs, liquid, lots of sugar/flour in relation to butter, is insignificant. Plus too many recipes are under-salted to begin with (financiers for example tend to call for no salt, and I both use salted butter and add salt).
Basically I calculate what 2% of the flour would be and then based on how much butter there is subtract only if it’s a significant amount. But something like bread with 2% salt and say 60 grams of butter for the whole recipe isn’t going to need adjustment because that’s not even a gram of salt being added and distributed among a lot of other ingredients.
I do find it silly when recipes stick with this convention for savory recipes with maybe 2 tbsp of butter for something that’s going to be salted generously anyway.
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