Bonny Wolf

Why you shouldn't wrinkle your nose at fermentation

Bonny Wolf — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:23:17 +0000

It's delicious, it's nutritious and it's basically rotten. Fermentation is a hot culinary trend, and, as Weekend Edition food commentator Bonny Wolf explains, the preservation process gives food a flavor unique to time and place.

People you know may intentionally be growing bacteria in their homes — on food, outside the refrigerator. And they are doing it to make food safe, and nutritious.

They are doing what cooks have always done: fermenting food.

For decades, we have fought against bacteria in our food.

Prediction for 2013 eats: Kimchi and good-for-you greens

Bonny Wolf — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 11:23:11 +0000

Weekend Edition food commentator Bonny Wolf offers her predictions of what we'll eat in the new year.

Asia is the new Europe. It's been gradual: from pan-Asian, Asian fusion and Asian-inspired to just deciding among Vietnamese, Korean, Tibetan and Burmese for dinner.

Should we have the simple food of the Thai plateau or the hot, salty, sour foods of southern Thailand?

The new flavors of the year won't come from the kitchens of chefs trained at Le Cordon Bleu. More likely, they'll trickle up from Asian street foods.

Wild turkeys gobble their way to a comeback

Bonny Wolf — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 18:57:17 +0000

Wild turkeys and buffalo have more in common than you might guess. Both were important as food for Native Americans and European settlers. And both were nearly obliterated.

There were a couple of reasons for the turkey's decline. In the early years of the U.S., there was no regulation, so people could shoot as many turkeys as they liked. And their forest habitat was cut down for farmland and heating fuel. Without trees, turkeys have nowhere to roost. So they began to disappear.

By the early 1900s, there were only about 30,000 wild turkeys left in the whole country.

To find truly wild rice, head north to Minnesota

Bonny Wolf — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:54:36 +0000

Harvest season is upon us, but in the U.S.'s northern lakes, it's not just the last tomatoes and first pumpkins. Through the end of this month, canoes will glide into lakes and rivers for the annual gathering of wild rice, kick started with the popular Wild Rice Festival in Roseville, Minn., on Saturday.

Wild rice - an aquatic grass that bears a resemblance to the edible grain - has been the center of the Ojibway Indian diet and culture for centuries.