Travel Tip: Internet Maps To Go, Cheap.

A friend of mine has a neat travel trick. He takes pictures of his computer screen Google maps with his digital camera, like this. When he needs to get directions he looks up the picture on the camera. Using zoom and scroll he can read the map really well. Neat, cheap option to owning a smart phone -- or buying maps!

Good Design: Hours of Operation

The days of the week abbreviations look strange because they're French. From Montreal.

True North

Eric Farrell recently observed, "It's weird to 86 a product because we prepped too many of one size and not enough of another."

It's a very plain, direct statement. It goes to the heart of lean philosophy. And it's worth a little thought. While the problem seems simple, the solutions are complex.

Before I get into why it happens and how to solve it the first thing to note: it's a common problem. When you shop for a small T shirt and all they have are mediums it's the same problem. When you want the mint green iPod but they only have black and white it's the same problem.

What's the root cause of the problem? In each cases a product is made ahead of its need. Whether it's in our kitchen, at the t-shirt factory, or in China, the need was forecasted and products were made accordingly. When we forecast need it's always inaccurate.

What's the root level solution to the problem? That's the hard part! It's so difficult Toyota puts it at the heart of its work, calling it True North: Make each product as needed, on demand. A customer asks for something then it's made. In other words--and here's where it always plays tricks in my head to write it:

the only way not to run out of something is to not have it,
to make it when it's needed.

If that sounds hard it's because it is. More like impossible. That's why Toyota defines it as a direction (true north), not a location. Toyota isn't there and will never be (though they're closer than other car companies). The pursuit of True North causes many problems and loads of interesting intermediate solutions, too. I'll go into more detail about them on a future post.

Nitrate Cured Salami

I spent a few minutes this week talking to Francois Vecchio, the man behind the crespone, finocchiana, cacciatore and felino salamis we carry. He gave me a chemistry lesson on salami making that I thought was worth sharing.

People are often worried about meat cured with nitrates. Is it a valid concern? I’ll get to that in a minute. First let me explain how nitrate cures meat. Welcome to a brief voyage through high school chemistry with apologies to mad scientists if I get any of the specifics incorrect.

Sodium nitrate NO3 is added to salami ingredients before they’re stuffed into the mostly air proof casing. Inside, the bacteria and microbial organisms live in an anaerobic environment—no oxygen.

Their activity sucks one of the three oxygen molecules away, turning sodium nitrate into sodium nitrite NO2. Sodium nitrite is unstable and aggressive to microbes. It’s the compound that does the real work of curing, making it safe for us to eat.

While it does its job another oxygen molecule is leeched off. What’s left is nitric oxide NO. This fixes the pigment color, keeping salami red. This molecule is safe.

Even though we started the cure with NO3 we ended up with NO. While Francois adds 150 parts per million of sodium nitrate to start the cure, only 2 or 3 PPM are left. The traditional thirty day curing process eliminates the substance.

So if cured salami doesn’t have any sodium nitrate or nitrite left, why are people afraid of it?

While traditionally cured meat doesn’t have any sodium nitrate/nitrite, non-traditionally cured meat may. During the middle of the last century, in between inventing Twinkies and Cheese Whiz, food scientists deciphered the chemistry that I just explained. Until then it’d been a two thousand year process that no one understood – people just knew it worked. The scientists correctly identified sodium nitrite NO2 as the money molecule. It did the majority of the curing work. NO3 didn’t seem to do much, so they experimented with adding NO2 directly to the meat, cutting NO3 out of the game. It worked. It saved time. Meat could be cured almost overnight. It could go to stores faster. It was a huge success.

Sort of. The problem is when the cure is rushed, NO2 doesn’t disappear like it does when you cure traditionally over thirty days. It’s still present in the meat. NO2 is a carcinogen.

That’s the reason people are worried about nitrate cured salami. Meats may be cured with sodium nitrite – not nitrate – and rushed to market when the nitrite carcinogen is still present. This isn’t true for the salamis we carry.

What about the “no nitrate” meat at supermarkets?

Nitrates are necessary for curing meat. You can’t cure without them and keep meat pink and safe. But if nitrates are necessary for curing meat, how can places like Whole Foods carry meats they say are nitrate free?

The trick is celery. It’s high in nitrates. Concentrated celery juice is used in the curing, instead of the naturally occurring mineral sodium nitrate. The FDA allows it to be called “Natural Flavor” instead of “Sodium Nitrate.”

The Chocolate Exhibition at Henry Ford

This installment of ZMO Journal
comes courtesy of our first guest writer,
Tim Miller. Take it away, Tim.

Annette and I visited Chocolate: The Exhibition at The Henry Ford the Saturday before last. It was fascinating, and we'll probably return again before it finishes it's run on September 7th. I strongly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in chocolate. Here are some of the highlights and things I learned.

As you enter the exhibit, there is a life-sized photo of an old-fashioned chocolate shop to set the mood. As you stroll further into the exhibit, you learn about the life cycle of cacao trees and their fruit. (You may notice that each display contains both English and Spanish versions of the text--very appropriate considering the origins of cacao.) There are several stations that allow a closer look at the cacao fruit along with associated trivia. In the center of this area stands a life-sized (though sadly artificial) cacao tree. It's interesting to see the flowers attached to the trunk of the tree rather than nestled among the leaves like most flowering trees we are familiar with. The flowers are pollinated by small flies or midges. When the fruit (or pod) ripens, it looks a lot like a large (think football-sized) papaya, which can get up to a foot long. Each pod contains about 20 to 40 seeds or beans, surrounded by a white pulp. (We sold a preserve made with this pulp, until we discovered how quickly it ferments!)

Further on is a series of displays that document the history of cacao and its use by Mesoamerican cultures. The Mayan civilization was among the first to use cacao. The Mayans believed that cacao was given to humans by their gods after humans were created from maize. The Mayans eventually traded cacao with the Aztecs. Cacao was very valuable to the Aztecs since the trees were difficult to grow in their environment. The cacao beans became so valuable that they were used as currency among the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures. (In some areas, cacao beans were still used as currency up to the 1840s.) The displays include art of the Mayans and Aztecs, pottery and other interesting artifacts.

In 1519 the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, where they observed Montezuma consuming cacao in the form of a beverage. The Spanish returned to Europe with cacao beans and the knowledge of how to create this elixir. Cacao was a well kept secret in Spain for years, but eventually the secret was revealed and cacao spread throughout Europe quickly. In Europe the drink came to be called chocolate, a Western pronunciation of the word xocolatl (Aztec for "bitter water"). Both the Aztecs and the Europeans believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac and drank copious amounts. Europeans added sugar to the chocolate drink, making it even more popular. To keep up with the demand, Mesoamerican peoples were enslaved. Eventually the more reputable chocolate companies refused to deal with the slavers. A reproduction of a letter written by John Cadbury denouncing the slave trade is included among the displays of delicate chocolate cups and pitchers.

In the 1870s, the process of solidifying milk chocolate using condensed milk was invented. Chocolate manufacturers were very interested in milk chocolate since it was more affordable than other forms of chocolate. In the late 1890s, Milton Hershey invented a process to mass produce milk chocolate bars. The bars were successful and the Hershey Company grew accordingly. The displays include vintage advertisements and recipe books from Hershey's, Cadbury, and other popular chocolate makers. There are also some vintage chocolate molds on display.

Included among the displays is a description of the chocolate making process, from bean to bar. When the pods from the cacao tree are fully ripe they are harvested, the beans are removed and fermented for about a week and dried to prevent molding. The fermented beans are then roasted at high temperatures. The beans are hulled, the nib (the inner part of the bean) is extracted, milled, and a liquid called chocolate liquor is produced. (Despite it's name, this liquor sadly contains no alcohol.) The liquor is blended with varying amounts of cocoa butter, sugar and possibly milk, vanilla, nuts and other flavorings, then conched for up to 78 hours. The conche is an agitator that evenly distributes the cocoa butter and polishes the cacao particles producing a much smoother and more flavorful chocolate. The conching process was invented by Rodolphe Lindt in 1879. Prior to conching, solid chocolate was gritty (similar to the Bonajuto and Oaxacan chocolates we sell today at Zingerman's).

The largest cacao producer today is the Ivory Coast. The third largest cacao producer, Brazil, is the only country that consumes most of the chocolate they produce. (Brazilian cacao exports have suffered due to the effects of mixed weather patterns and infection by the witches-broom fungus since 1989.)

As you approach the end of the exhibition, there is a wall that looks like a giant box of chocolates standing on it's side. The wall contains a few monitors that feature interviews with various chocolate lovers waxing philosophical on their favorite treat. There are even seats that look like chocolate truffles sitting in their wrappers. Beyond the wall is a chocolate shop that has chocolate scent piped in and products ranging from chocolate candles and bubble bath to all kinds of chocolate bars including Mo's Bacon Bar! Outside the exhibit is a chocolate cafe featuring different kinds of brownies, and other delectable treats. Rumor has it that on certain weekends, their are free tastings from their sponsors in the lobby near the Imax Theatre. For more information, visit the website for Chocolate: The Exhibition .

Be sure to visit this exhibit before it disappears like all great chocolate does!

Tim Miller

Free marketing idea, worth repeating.

Why is gas so expensive?

Simple answer: it's because oil is expensive, right?

Pretty much. But why is oil so expensive?

There the answer gets more complicated. Are we running out? Is someone hoarding? Are India and China drinking it all? I'll leave those answers to others. But here's one answer that may make things slightly more clear.

Oil is always traded in dollars. No matter where you buy a barrel of oil in the world you have to pay the man in greenbacks. That means the value of our dollar has a direct effect on how we perceive oil's price. When the dollar devalues the price of oil goes up for us because it takes more cash to buy a barrel. Similarly, when the dollar increases in value the price of oil goes down for us.

As we know, the dollar has devalued--like crazy! Let's go back six years. In 2002, oil cost $25 per barrel. The Euro and the dollar were at parity (one dollar bought one Euro). Fast forward to 2008. Oil costs $125 per barrel. But it now takes $1.60 to buy one Euro. The dollar has devalued. The price of oil had to go up. How much of the oil price rise can be explained by the devaluation? Well, you can just look at Europe. They only pay 75 Euros per barrel. If we were still at parity that's what we'd pay, too. In other words, $125 - 75 = $45 of the price increase of oil--almost half the $100 increase--can be explained by the dollar's devaluation.

Removing dollar devaluation, the price of oil has tripled in six years. Sounds bad, sure. But historically it's not unique.