OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for carbonated fruit (yes, it’s fizzy).

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Though the worst of the heat wave is behind us, let’s be honest: it’s still pretty darn hot out there. (You know it’s dire when the 90s are a reprieve!) Even though some of us have the luxury of air conditioning, it seems prudent to not strain the electrical grid any more than we have to, right? Step back from the stove and let the sun do the cooking! Or even cooler (ha), employ the powers of dry ice! It’s not just for spooky Halloween effects anymore — you can use it in a variety of culinary applications (and unlike liquid nitrogen, budding molecular gastronomists can find it at mainstream grocery stores). Best of all, it leaves no watery mess — the solid just vaporizes into thin air. What’s this process called? Read on to find out!

Coquille Indians celebrate, where to buy Oregon seafood, stores to be sold, shutting down a dirty mega-dairy and good things in markets, gardens and kitchens

Coquille Indian Tribe celebrates 35 years of restoration

A few weeks ago, the Coquille Indian Tribe held a First Salmon ceremony and feast in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the restoration of the federal government’s legal obligations to the Tribe. The trust had been broken when Congress passed the Western Oregon Termination Act in 1954, which essentially stripped reservation lands, hunting and fishing rights and other treaties. Nika Bartoo-Smith covered the story for Underscore Native News.

Oregon seafood now easier to source

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to find locally caught seafood in Oregon — especially on the coast? A recent study revealed that around 90% of the seafood eaten at the coast is from somewhere else, and that’s why Oregon Sea Grant has compiled a list of restaurants and markets selling Oregon seafood around the state.

Kroger-Albertsons merger to offload these stores

The list of all stores to be sold under the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger was released this week; it includes 62 stores in Oregon and 124 in Washington. Though it’s uncertain what will become of the stores once they’ve been sold, the list does happen to name every single Safeway and QFC store in the city of Portland.

Dirty dairy is decommissioned

OPB’s Alejandro Figueroa reports that after more than 200 environmental violations, a mega-dairy site in eastern Oregon will be decommissioned and the Oregon Department of Agriculture is seeking public comments about proposed remediation efforts.

Good things in markets 🛒

Now is the time for Oregon’s holy trinity of fruit: berries, cherries and now, the first Robada apricots! We’ve been seeing other beautiful stone fruits — peaches and plums, mostly — but these California-grown specimens just don’t smell like anything (the luscious fragrance is like 75% of the charm of stone fruit). We’ll wait a few more weeks for the superior local product to arrive.

If you eat meat, just a friendly reminder that rotisserie chicken is a really handy addition to your weekday meal planning — it’s versatile, good warm or cold and costs about the same as a whole raw or frozen fryer. After you’ve picked all the meat, chuck the carcass (right in its sealable bag!) into the freezer for later stock-making.

In the “Superabundant” garden this week 🌱

The loganberries have weathered the heat wave, but the golden raspberries are all done for now (once the worst of the heat had passed, we pruned off the spent flowering canes to let the plant put energy into the floricanes that’ll produce next year’s crop).

The persimmon dropped a lot of fruit in the heat, but the fig, plums and peaches held up. We mulched the vegetable beds with straw to help retain moisture, watered a little heavier than usual, and other than a little crispy sunscald here and there, it looks like the plants are unscathed.

We’re adding edible flowers to all sorts of things now — the nasturtiums, garlic chive blossoms, lovage flowers and marigolds are dressing up cold noodle salads, lavender is going into syrups for perking up frosty glasses of lemonade, and we harvested the first squash blossoms for quesadillas.

Lately, in the “Superabundant” kitchen 🍽️

✨ A friend brought over a can of Cougar Gold cheese so we threw a little snacky dinner party with lot of various pickles, tinned fish, bread, crackers, dried figs and spiced nuts, and it felt very chic and “European Vacation” even though we were huddled indoors near the fans.

✨ Coincidentally, the “Superabundant” cheese drawer was so full that the evaporator fan couldn’t pull cold air into the “Superabundant” refrigerator. In an effort to mitigate the problem, an additional cheese-centric snack tray meal (or two) was required. This time, with the addition of mini pepperoni sticks, sliced cucumbers, apples and a hunk of olive ciabatta.

✨ We made a large Vietnamese rice vermicelli bowl, but to avoid the heat we used rotisserie chicken instead of grilling pork (shredded and dressed in nước chấm with a little lemongrass) and we “cooked” the noodles using our simplified solar cooker (it is just a metal pan with a glass lid but admit it, you can’t beat the thrill of free power).

Recipe (non-Recipe): Fizzy, frosty fruit

Did you know that solid, fresh fruit can be carbonated like soda? It’s true — if you encase it in an airtight container with dry ice, the carbon dioxide gas that sublimates from the solid, frozen block will enter the fruit, going straight through the skin of cherries, berries and grapes. We recently saw a how-to video of this process on Chef Steps and thought we’d give it a try.

It didn’t go exactly as promised in the video, though; we accidentally let the project go closer to 18 hours, so even with a ton of plastic wrap (which we don’t feel great using in the first place), the cooler couldn’t stay airtight enough to hold in the bubbles. Alas, our berries had only a hint of Pop Rocks-y fizz and the fruit was frosty.

See, you’re supposed to insulate the fruit from the sub-freezing temperature of the dry ice or you end up with fruit that’s half-frozen and only a little bit fizzy.

But wait, what if you did that on purpose?

In our version of the experiment, the results were almost more like the fruit had undergone what we might call “the Coca Cola Slurpee effect” (or what happens when you forget a bottle of soda in the freezer) — they were slightly carbonated, semi-frozen flavor bombs. We’re not sure exactly how to describe it, but the minute amount of fizz and slight freeze made both the fruits’ acidity and sugars brighter and more intense. (“Pointy” was the first word that came to mind.)

Anyway, don’t take our synesthetic fever dream of a word for it. Fizzy, frosty fruit is our new favorite way to eat our way through summer, and next we’ll be trying this on melon balls and pineapple. Maybe cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices? Summer has just begun. Makes 6 cups

Ingredients

A couple of pounds of dry ice (enough for a few 3-inch chunks)

A couple of pounds (around 6 cups) of various small fruits and/or larger fruit cut into bite-sized pieces (the juicier the better)

Instructions

1. Scatter the dry ice chunks into the bottom of a cooler. Note: this would probably work best with a plastic foam cooler, but we don’t recommend buying one just for this purpose. However, if you have one kicking around the garage (from ordering seafood or other perishables on the internet, say) this is perfect.
2. Lay a couple of kitchen towels over the dry ice, then place the fruit in the cooler — it’s fine to leave them in their pint baskets or if you leave the grape clusters intact, and no need to remove cherry pits or anything.
3. Close the cooler lid and wrap it tightly with enough plastic wrap or shipping tape to make it more or less airtight. Set it in a cool place overnight, and it’s OK if you forget about it a few hours longer than you mean to. Anywhere from 14-18 hours later you will have fizzy and/or frosty fruits. Eat it while it’s cold!

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