Corn, carbon and hair

Sweet, creamy elote dip made from fresh summer corn

A friend of mine asked me to write a dip recipe for the 4th of July.  Oops. Well, it’s still July isn’t it?  I based this recipe on one of my favorite foods that I’ve been introduced to since moving to Texas.  Termed “elotes”, which simply means corn in Mexican Spanish, these delectable treats are served in Dallas at roadside stands and adjacent to taco joints.  In a Styrofoam cup, corn kernels are layered with butter, sour cream, cheese, hot sauce and lemon pepper.  Certainly not a diet food, but my husband and I fell immediately in love with this local fare and even asked our caterer to make a fancy version for our wedding which was a huge hit.

This dip uses some sour cream and mayo but the creaminess is amped up by the corn itself, half of which is pulsed through a food processor to make almost a corn pudding-like consistency.   The dip is topped with a thin layer of cotija cheese, a salty dry cheese, not unlike a high quality Kraft parmesan.  The whole thing is baked for a nice gooey texture and served with corn chips.

I was asking my friend Heather if she thought this was too much corn for an appetizer.  She made an interesting point about a documentary she saw, King Corn, in which scientists used radioactive isotopes to trace about 50% of the carbon that we consume as Americans to corn.  As carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are the basis for carbohydrates, fats as well as amino acids and thus energy, it is quite remarkable how corn dependent our food chain is. 

The scientific methods used to trace the foundations of humans’ diet are fascinating and use human hair as the tissue of study.  Hair leaves an excellent footprint of what we eat—it is metabolically inactive, is derived from what we consume and immediately reflects changes in diet. This excellent article in the UVA magazine biographies one of the major scientists, Stephen Macko who helped advance research in using hair to trace the origins of diets, even using mummy hair to deduce food consumption among ice men and paleo humans.  He also helped the filmmakers of King Corn use their hair to measure the amount of corn in their diet. 

Using various concentrations of variations of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur, known as isotopes, scientists can deduce the biologic origins of humans’ diets.  Corn is rich in the 13C isotope, thus allowing scientists to trace corn as it escalates in the food chain.  Scientists also use 15 nitrogen isotopes, which increase in an animal that eats a plant, then in a human who eats that animal, to track the amount of meat somebody is consuming in their diet. 

In the US, most livestock is corn-fed, thus meat is a large contributor to the corn carbon isotopes.  In fact, it has been demonstrated that when somebody moves from the UK to the US, their carbon isotopes from corn increase by approximately 3%.  A 2008 study from the University of Hawaii traced the carbon isotopes of various fast foods, and after a survey of various restaurants throughout the US, only about 5% of the chicken and beef were not solely corn fed; also many of the fries contained large amount of corn isotopes. 

The politics behind corn growth, production, alteration and consumption is a heavy debate--one that represents many levels of lobbying, industry and culture.  It cannot be denied that corn is pervasive and permanent in our daily lives.  Surely though, it is not corn in its unaltered form, such as this delicious elote dip, that calls for concern.  What is alarming however, are the ways that corn is manipulated and passed through the food chain and can produce potentially damaging effects on health, the economy and the ecosystem. 

Elote Dip

4 ears corn, grilled, roasted or steamed, or 2 cups frozen corn defrosted

¼ cup mayo

¼ cup sour cream

¼ tsp cayenne

juice of ½ lemon

¾ cup grated cotija cheese (or if you cannot find this anywhere, grated parmesan)

1 tsp black pepper

2 tbsp Mexican hot sauce, such as Bufalo (or substitute for 1 tbsp Louisiana hot sauce)

Preheat oven to 400.  Cut corn off cob.  In blender or food processor place half kernels, mayo, sour cream, cayenne, lemon juice, pepper, hot sauce, pepper and ½ cup cotija cheese.  Blend until smooth.  In heatproof dish, combine blended mixture with the other half of whole corn kernels.  Top with leftover cheese.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until brown and bubbly.  Serve with tortilla chips.

Macko, SA.  Engel, MH, et al.  Documenting the diet in ancient human populations through stable isotope analysis of hair. Philosophical transactions PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS- ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON SERIES B BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 1999, VOL 354; ISSUE 1379, pages 65-76

McCullagh, J et al.  Carbon isotope analysis of bulk keratin and single amino acids from British and North American hair.  Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. Volume 19, Issue 22, pages 3227–3231, 30 November 2005.

Jahren, A, Kraft R.  Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in fast food: Signatures of corn and confinement. PNAS November 18, 2008 vol. 105 no. 46 17855-1786

Petzke, KJ et al. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic composition of hair protein and amino acids can be used as biomarkers for animal derived dietary protein intake.  J Nutr. 2005 Jun;135(6):1515-20.

Oda a la papa/Ode to the potato

Chile was devastated last week.  The trembling earth ripped through towns large and small, tearing down buildings, separating roads, and crumbling bridges.  Many lives were taken, and infrastructure was destroyed.

I lived in Santiago, Chile for a year.  I originally went for a semester in college and then returned for six months on my own before I started medical school.   My friends tease me for obsessing over my experiences there, but there is a reason that I am in love. 

When I went for the first time, I made a pact to myself to meet Chilean people and assimilate.  I decided to take music classes. There, in the facultad de artes at the University of Chile, did I meet some of the most energetic, spontaneous, creative, life-loving people I have ever known. 

We would go to the beach and sing Chilean, Cuban, Argentine, and Brazilian folk music with a band of accordions, flutes, guitars, charangas, drums and voices until the sun came up.  We went to soccer games together, where I employed the most vulgar and colloquial of Chilean Spanish vocabularies taught only by the best of friends, swearing my head off, avoiding the riot control police that paced the area with batons, and screaming for the U to win.  I even learned how to make sushi there from my crazy, 80s loving, left-handed, mullet embracing, sweaty, guitar swinging, rockstar pal Alvaro, who was also a culinary buff in his own right.

When I woke up last Saturday to find that this place that had been my home, my playground, and my safety net had been shook up so significantly, I felt panicked.  I spent all day trying to call my best friend to make sure she was safe.  I finally reached her and my other friends; they are fine.  They said though that when the quake hit, it felt as though the ground was a ship in a storm, rocking and jerking heavily.  It was terrifying.

I think the best way for me to cope with this tragedy is to honor what is truly Chilean.  There is nothing more Chilean than the potato.  This nourishing, simple, rudimentary vegetable has supported the world’s hunger for hundreds of years.  The origin of the European potato, however, has been a widely disputed topic, especially between rival countries Peru and Chile. 

The two major potato strains originate from the Andean regions of Peru and Bolivia, and from southern Chile, from the island of Chiloe.  The potato was discovered by Europeans in these regions in the 1550s and was exported widely.  Genetic analysis of potatoes on the Canary Islands, which were some of the original export sites of potatoes from South America, gives some clues [1].  This research suggests that potatoes were exported from both the Andes and Chile, however, the Chilean potato was better adapted to the climate of Europe and became the dominant species, long before the potato blight of the 1800s.  (I am unbiased in this research, as it is highly contended.  I like Peru and Chile; they can both be the birthplace of the potato!)

The recipe today is for a pastel de papa, or a potato pie.  Pastel de papa is the ultimate Chilean comfort food, made of pino topped with mashed potatoes and baked.  Pino is a staple of many Chilean dishes made of ground beef, olives, raisins, onions and hard-boiled eggs.  Although pino might seem a bit strange, it is complex and rewarding to the tongue.  To me this dish tastes like home.  And, in this recipe, you only need ONE pot and ONE pan to make the whole thing!

Pastel de Papa

5 medium potatoes
3 eggs
¾ cups half and half
1 ¼ lbs ground beef
1 medium onion chopped
½ cup raisins soaked in ½ cup white wine
½ cup kalamata or nicoise olives rinsed and roughly chopped
½ tbsp oregano
½ tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp salt (plus more to taste)
Sprinkle red pepper flakes

For topping
¼ cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter melted
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Pinch of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.  Combine topping ingredients.  Peel and quarter potatoes.  Boil until fork tender about 15-20 minutes.  When potatoes have about 7 minutes left, add eggs to pot to boil.  In cast iron skillet or other oven safe pan, over medium-high heat, heat a splash of olive oil and brown ground beef.  Drain beef on paper towels, leaving a bit of fat to sauté onions.  Saute onions until soft, add oregano, cumin, red pepper.  Add raisins and wine, add olives, add beef, stir together.  Remove eggs and peel, they should be soft-boiled.  Cut into wedges and place on top of beef mixture.  In pot with potatoes, mash potatoes and add half and half.  Salt to taste.  Gently cover beef mixture with mashed potatoes.

On top of beef mixture, add butter/paprika mixture.  Bake pastel until golden brown and bubbly, about 30 minutes.  

Rios D et al.  2007.  What is the origin of the European Potato? Crop Science.  47.  May-June.  1271-1280