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1972: Carole King, M*A*S*H and...Food for 2014?

I feel well enough to try Atkins induction again. The palpitations are gone, even without taking potassium. My energy level is back to normal--no more trucking on the treadmill early in the morning  to burn off nervous energy or emergency meat, cheese and mineral water stops after yoga. It's back to lounging around to Chopin and Debussy in the morning and stopping at the wine bar for pleasure.

I'm using the original Atkins book: Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution from 1972. While looking in the book for a way to make gelatin (which is allowed on induction, but Jello(TM) and products like it have questionable ingredients), I felt the earth move under my feet: those recipes from 42 years ago look delicious and they're mostly real food. It makes sense, though: the cooks who wrote the recipes probably didn't have had a palette used to low-fat food full of added sugar or a bag of tricks to make low-fat food edible. Anyone who writes a recipe called "Cottage Cheese and Sour Cream Salad" can't have a mental hook to hang a low-fat idea on. The meat, vegetables and fat combine to bring out each others' flavor. And wacky products like soy burgers, rice flour, almond milk and boneless, skinless chicken breasts probably hadn't come on the scene.

Can we take all the boneless, skinless chicken breasts and patch up faulty tires and repair the treads on shoes and replace missing asphalt shingles with them and declare the boneless, skinless chicken breast dead? I want something else! When I saw "breaded chicken" in the book, I read "dreaded chicken." It turns out the chicken called for wasn't boneless, skinless, or dreaded.

The recipes didn't call for ingredients so primitive that they're now exotic to most of us, though, like tripe or a boar's head. No, 1972 is just far enough back in time for low carb recipes to make now. I had to improvise with the citrus gelatin since I didn't know how much sweetener was in a packet of Sugar Twin and never heard of D-Zerta or Shimmer. But if the batch turns out well, I'll post the recipe.

Comments

tess said…
I make "jello" as a vehicle to get more gelatin into my diet. :-) first, I soften a tablespoon of gelatin powder in a small amount of water. then, in a saucepan, I heat two cups of water, a packet of unsweetened koolaid for flavor and 20 drops of liquid sucralose. when it comes to a simmer, I stir in the gelatin mixture -- that's it. a childish dish, but I enjoy the fruit flavor without the fructose burden.
Lori Miller said…
More than a tiny bit of fruit gives me acid reflux. The gelatin I made tastes like a mild slice of orange.

Stir 4 packets of Knox gelatin into a cup of cold water for a minute. Add 1T of orange flavor, 1t of vanilla, 1/2t powdered stevia. Stir in 3 cups boiling water for 5 minutes. Pour in a 9x13 dish and refrigerate for 3 hours.

Again, it has a mild flavor and color. Anyone who's used to standard American desserts probably won't like it since it's a lot like eating a piece of fruit.
horfilmania said…
I grew up in a household where home-made headcheese was a staple. Half of it was gelatin. I now eat headcheese almost daily and there is a lot of gelatin in it. In fact when I checked the nutritional database on it, it's actually slightly anti-inflammatory. But you have to like headcheese. Bone broths may help as will sugar-free jello in moderation.
Galina L. said…
What is wrong with the usual gelatin in a store? As far as I know, there is also a leafed gelatin somewhere - initial commercial product still used in many countries, probably it is sold in special stores for chefs. I am sure something is added to the gelatin powder to keep it from caking.

The best substance to make gelatin which is available in stores in US are pig feet. Animal heads contain too much meat. It takes many hours on a stove to extract it.
Galina L. said…
My comments disappear lately after I hit the "publish" button.

Anyway, I was writing about a pig head being not optimal source for a gelatin, the best source is animal feet - there is hardly anything else there except a connective tissue, but cooking time is significant - at least 8 hours, better 12. It suppose to be a leaf gelatin somewhere around (may be chief's shops), I guess something is added to a gelatin powder to avoid caking.

When I was young, we could buy only whole chicken without a possibility to choose animal parts, and the breast was the less desirable part - too dry and tasteless. I was collecting breasts in my freezer, when I got three, I made chicken patties using a meat grinder adding A LOT of sauteed in an ample amount of fat onions and extra skin from the neck.
Lori Miller said…
The plain gelatin in packets is fine, but some Jello-type packets and ready made Jello have carrageenan and I forget what else. After ending up in an ambulance a year or two ago from almond milk, I'm finished experimenting with strange ingredients.

I'm sure you can get pickled pigs' feet at an ethnic market. I wouldn't even know where to shop for an animal head.
Lori Miller said…
I'm thinking of taking regular broth (the kind out of a box) and adding powdered gelatin to it as a thickener.
Lori Miller said…
I get Knox plain gelatin at Safeway in powdered form. My butcher sells chicken feet (but says most of them go to China) and ground chicken, which makes wonderful patties. As you say, they must skin in there since the meat isn't dry and tasteless like ground chicken from the supermarket.
Lori Miller said…
I'm not sure what the deal is with comments. I haven't changed any settings lately.
Galina L. said…
So far anywhere I lived in US and Canada pig feet were available in regular groceries stores. Most of the time I buy pig feet from a Wall Mart. Sometimes it even sells a pig head meat, it is called a "jowl meat" there. May be in Florida stores take into a consideration a large Latino population in our area, and it is also a South, and I believe pig feet it is a South Cuisine ingredient.
Galina L. said…
Actually, skin is not the must - sauteed onions add a lot of moisture and fat, I was just using all what I had, and blobs of fat in a cavity and extra skin were very good candidates for a meat-grinder treatment. Sometimes I even staffed a piece of a liver pate or sauteed green onions with chopped hard egg inside, all in order to make more patties out of less meat.
Chicken feet are very good for a meat jello, except they will get disintegrated into very small pieces which are hard to fish out. Feet have an amazing amount of bones.
Couple comments went missing when I was trapped into the useless discussion with Jane, and I mistakenly though that one of my comment on your blog was missing too, but it was a mistake on my part. Jane is such a clinging burdock! I hope she will stay away from me in a future after reading what I had to say to her. I tried not to talk with her since I had read her discussion with Anthony Calpo, but got trapped several times anyway. She is worse than any troll, however I can't help but to feel sorry for her circumstances.
Lori Miller said…
The part of Denver I live and work in is very white. There's plenty of highly processed low fat "health foods," lean meat, dairy alternatives and the like. I'm sure if I went up to North Federal Boulevard, though, I'd find cuts of meat I've never seen before. I could make my own menudo!
Anonymous said…
I give up. I have tried so many times to post to this blog that it's too frustrating and I'm going to stop. I have no trouble posting to WordPress blogs (I even have one - cripes, if I can do it it should work for anybody). All I wanted to say (if by some miracle this one makes it through) was this:

Knox gelatin is pork from CAFO pigs. At least look at Great Lakes' stuff, which is from range-fed beef, although they are in Argentina.

Tuyrannocaster
Lori Miller said…
Sorry about the trouble with comments. I'll look into it.

If I get more gelatin (so far, results have been just so-so), I'll get some non-CAFO product.
Anonymous said…
Well, what do you know - that one made it through! I use a Mac, not a Windows OS, so maybe that has something to do with it, although it really shouldn't. And I have only been able to post using Safari (not Firefox or even Opera), which is a browser I really dislike. But none of that really matters.

I have used the Great Lakes and it pays to look around, pricewise. The stuff costs more than the cheapo gelatin, but I couldn't bring myself to eat CAFO gelatin. I make my own broth and it has so much gelatin in it that we just give the Great Lakes to the dogs now - it's great for their joints. (See http://canine-epilepsy-guardian-angels.com/gelatin.htm for some really interesting stuff on gelatin and epilepsy )

Tyrannocaster
Lori Miller said…
I'm sure homemade broth is best, but I'm not home enough to tend a pot for several hours. If I stumble upon a recipe that makes me say, "How did I live without this?" I'll get some non-CAFO gelatin. I don't like CAFOs.

I changed one of the comment settings, so hopefully all your comments will get through.
Galina L. said…
I forgot to mention - I now add a powdered gelatin to my raw ground meat - it makes it even juicier after it cooked into patties or meatballs or whatever - creates a place for the juices to go.
Cooking pig feet is the main reason I own a pressure cooker - two-three hours is usually enough.
Lori Miller said…
The gelatin in patties sounds good--I'll give it a try.

I never imagined I'd get so much information on gelatin. Thanks, everyone!
Anonymous said…
Lori, you can make bone broth in a slow cooker and not worry about unattended heat sources (unless the idea of the slow cooker itself is a problem). I used to make mine "manually" on the stove but since we have a gas stove and I like to simmer the broth for two days I was not happy with the open flame, which has to be turned quite low. It was blown out a couple of times by drafts, and that was too scary. My solution was to buy an eight quart slow cooker for the broth. It seems to work fine; the only thing you need to do is add some water a couple of times a day to replace water lost through evaporation.

Now, whether all of this means that you HAVE TO HAVE the gelatin in your life is a different issue. :-)

Tyrannocaster
Lori Miller said…
I have a gas stove, too, and don't want to leave a pot untended. The problem with a slow cooker for me is counter space and plug-ins; I have an old house with a small kitchen and I don't know where I'd put it.
Anonymous said…
Same problem. I put mine in the garage.

-Tyrannocaster

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