It's Not That You're Bad at Chopping Broccoli
There's a spider in your ramen
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Broccoli Bred to Freeze
By Lela Nargi
Chop a head of fresh broccoli into florets and you’ll likely wind up with a pile of too-much-stem pieces in random sizes. Dump out the contents of a bag of frozen broccoli florets and each vibrant green piece might be a virtual 2-1/2-inch clone. It’s not that your knife skills are deficient. A head of broccoli for the frozen market is sliced inside an industrial floretting machine whose evenly spaced knives render the pieces almost identical. Which means that the heads entering the machine have to be pretty much the same size and shape themselves. That’s the work of people like Jim Myers.
Myers is a vegetable breeder at Oregon State University, one of a handful of public vegetable breeders left in the country. (Their work is available for the use of all farmers, unlike that of in-house private breeders at companies like Driscoll’s.) Myers has been breeding cultivars for broccoli and green beans for the frozen market for the past 25 and 35 years respectively. Frozen beans, he explains, “need a nice firm texture, a skin that stays adhered to the inner part of the pod instead of sloughing, white seeds,” and a color that doesn’t fade in the freezer, though processor color preference varies by region, with those in the Midwest preferring yellow-green and those in the West liking darker blue-greens, Myers says.
These days, demand for frozen green beans is dropping while consumers still reach for plenty of broccoli: it was named America’s “favorite vegetable” in a Green Giant survey in 2021. Processors want a smooth dome and tight beads on broccoli heads. But color, too, is essential. “I select for dark green stems as well as floret color,” says Myers, “And one thing that helps with that is for the broccoli to have a segmented head [while it’s growing] so the florets are separated from one another, and the sunlight can get down and penetrate to the edges.” Other essentials: breeding for reduced leaves around the stem, as well as shorter stems and branches, to help reduce food waste when florets are trimmed for packaging.
Most of Myers’ current work is breeding broccoli for mechanical, rather than human, harvest, and what Myers calls “excellent processing characteristics.” In past years the majority of broccoli grown by processors local to Myers was a variety called Emerald Pride, which looks and tastes the same harvest after harvest. Frozen veg processors “generally don’t like novelty,” Myers says. 🥦
Ramen and Its Vessels
By Chadd Scott
Your seemingly humble bowl of ramen belongs to an esteemed artistic tradition dating back hundreds of years, a history shared at Japan House Los Angeles during the exhibition “The Art of the Ramen Bowl.”
A street food brought to Japan from China in the mid-1800s, ramen – wheat noodles served in broth – has evolved into one of Japan’s most beloved dishes, and a complex culinary art form.
“What fascinates us most about this ubiquitous dish is the diversity of flavors, ingredients, and styles of ramen and ramen bowls available in Japan,” Yuko Kaifu, president of Japan House Los Angeles, said. “You never get bored with ramen because of its wide variety, and new types of ramen are always on the rise. The perfect bowl can vary by region, by flavor profile, as well as by the quality of the ramen bowls.”
The free exhibition highlights not just the soup, but the bowl as well, detailing how these utilitarian vessels can serve as works of art.
“Japanese food culture is not just about food that is served inside dishes – it is also the combination of the food, vessels and ambiance,” Kiafu said. “In that regard, the bowl plays an important part in enriching the experience of eating ramen.”
“The Art of the Ramen Bowl” includes imaginative porcelain donburi and spoons (renge) designed by 30 world-renowned artists who share a love for ramen.
One of the bowls on display is by leading postwar Japan pop artist Keiichi Tanaami and recalls a moment in college when a spider fell into his bowl of ramen and drowned in the hot soup. Traumatized by the experience, he gave up eating ramen altogether; the moment is powerfully conveyed by his vibrant skull-spider creation.
“The Art of the Ramen Bowl” can be seen through July 5, 2022, at Japan House Los Angeles (Ovation Hollywood; 6801 Hollywood Boulevard, Level 2 & Level 5, Los Angeles, CA 90028).
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