It’s almost election day, a time for Americans to exercise the most basic mechanism of self-government by choosing our rulers. Nobody can have failed to notice that the stakes are high this year. Issues that once elicited some kind of consensus have become the source of bitter disagreements.

As a food blogger, I have a civic responsibility to ask tough questions about our candidates: what will our gubernatorial hopefuls do to ensure equitable access to healthy food in Minnesota’s public and non-public schools? What policies will they adopt to promote safe, sustainable agricultural practices that provide food for all Minnesotans? And, most importantly, if our candidates for governor could be any kind of breakfast food, what kind of breakfast food would they be?

Tom Emmer: Emmer Pancakes

The answer for Republican Tom Emmer is easy enough, since he happens to share his name with a variety of wheat, namely emmer. Emmer, if you are not familiar, is an ancient strain of wheat – one of the first ever cultivated. It was the wheat the Egyptians used for bread and beer and was the basis for the campaigning Roman soldier’s porridge. Although emmer (Triticum dicoccum) has been largely supplanted by more common bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) in the modern era, it is still grown throughout the world. Bluebird Grain Farms in Washington makes an excellent emmer pancake mix: just add milk, buttermilk, an egg and butter. The cakes cook up very hearty and rustic.

I suppose the following objection could be raised to emmer: emmer is a dinosaur, a relic of the past. Emmer was literally around during the Stone Age; what possible relevance could emmer have for modern-day Minnesotans?

Mark Dayton: Date Scones

Mark Dayton – or is that Date-un? – is helming the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party effort for governor, and if you couldn’t tell from the horrible pun a few words back I am relating him to dates, the fruit of the date palm. Since breakfast was the agreed upon theme, I made date scones:

• 10 oz white flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 tsp butter, diced
• 1 cup dried dates, pitted and roughly chopped
• ¾ cup cream
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 425ºF. In a food processor, pulse flour, baking powder, sugar and salt to combine. Add butter and dates and pulse until evenly distributed. Meanwhile, beat together cream and egg. Pour flour mixture into a medium bowl and fold in wet ingredients until just combined. Transfer to a floured board; form dough into rough square and cut into quarters. Cut each quarter in half to form triangles. Transfer dough to sheet pan and bake 15—20 minutes, until just browned.

If you’ve never had a date they are large, oblong and raisin-like in their dried form, which is what is commonly available. Some will complain that they are just way too rich for the average Minnesotan.

Tom Horner: Plum Cake

Independence Party candidate Tom Horner proved a bit of a spoiler since his name is not shared with a food-stuff nor does it lend itself to an easy pun. But Horner does bring to mind a familiar nursery rhyme:

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said “What a good boy am I!”

It turns out this association may be quite apt: this website claims that the true Jack Horner was a steward named Thomas Horner whose “plum” was one of the deeds to twelve plum manor houses that he was supposed to deliver to King Henry VIII at the request of the Abbott of Glastonbury. Horner’s descendants deny the story.

Mysteries about who exactly “Horner” is notwithstanding, the real question is “what the hell is Christmas pie?” Approximately 45 seconds of Internet search revealed that Christmas pie is a lot of different things, though most generally a pie served around Christmastime. With Christmas still months away, making Christmas pie would clearly be impossible. Instead I settled something with plums in it, specifically the Rustic Plum Cake published in the July 2007 Cook’s Illustrated.

I won’t say which of these breakfasts I preferred – that choice is up to voters – but I hope you appreciate my contribution to the heightening of the political discourse. Don’t forget to vote Tuesday!

Instead of trick-or-treating, Martha and I are celebrating this devilish night with a taste of Satan’s Whiskers.

Satan’s Whiskers
(From: Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh a.k.a. Dr. Cocktail)

• ½ oz gin
• ½ oz dry vermouth
• ½ oz sweet vermouth
• ½ oz orange juice
• 2 tsp orange curaçao
• 1 tsp orange bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist. (Or a lemon twist, if you don’t have any oranges!)

I wish I could tell you that what follows is my grandmother’s world-famous recipe for beef tongue, a treasured family secret passed down through the generations. It is not. While I expect my grandma has a beef tongue recipe – she grew up on a farm, after all – that recipe would never have made it past my dad, who would often tell us horror stories of being forced to eat tongue when he was growing up. Needless to say, tongue did not make an appearance on my childhood table.

For whatever reason, though – the trendiness of tongue tacos, foodie cred, etc. – I recently felt a strong compulsion to cook a tongue. With no recipe from either of my real grandmothers, I turned to my surrogate grandmother: the Internet. A quick survey of the top four or five search results for “Tacos de Lengua” revealed consensus on the cooking method: place the tongue in a pot with aromatics and water to cover, bring to a boil and then simmer a few hours. When the tongue exhibits some signs of tenderness, allow it to cool in the braising liquid, then remove it from the pot, peel off the white skin with a sharp knife and slice. Fun and delicious!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: before doing any of that I needed a tongue. As of this spring there has been a new meat vendor at the Midtown Farmers Market – Hilltop Pastures Family Farm – who among many other delicious offerings listed tongue for sale. I was offered a large tongue or a small tongue and opted for small. A minute later on the counter before me was a 1.58# beef tongue, frozen and plastic-wrapped, for $1.54. That’s right – I paid 99¢ per pound. Damn those chi-chi farmers market prices! (Incidentally: this Saturday – October 30 – is the last Midtown Farmers Market of the year.) I’d advise you to get these great deals while you can before beef tongue is the new flank steak, selling for $12.99/lb.

Having been denied (or spared) tongue as a child, I didn’t know what to expect as I let the meat thaw in the refrigerator over the next few days. Well, what I should have expected was a giant cow tongue, because that’s what I got. This was not meat sliced up and plastic wrapped on a neat foam tray from the grocery store! My tongue came complete with the rough skin familiar from a cat’s tongue and a black spot at the base that was just enough to remind me of a cute little black and white spotted cow in the field. I could almost hear it mooing at me.

As perhaps you can tell, I was slightly grossed-out at this point. But hey, I eat animals, and animals have tongues, so I pressed on, placing the tongue in a pot with cilantro, half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, some peppercorns, dried oregano and a couple of dried chiles then filled it with water to cover. After bringing it to a boil I left the tongue to simmer for three hours, adding water as necessary to keep the tongue submerged.

The raw tongue put me a little ill-at-ease; that in no way prepared me for what the tongue would be like when it emerged from the pot. Cooking had contracted the muscle, so when it was removed the tongue was arched in perfect tongue-like position: it was not hard to imagine this thing sitting in the mouth of a happy heifer. As if this weren’t disturbing enough, I was now expected to peel the skin off with a sharp knife. But again, the cow had been killed, and what could be more respectful to the animal at this point than making best use of all of its parts? So I donned my best Hannibal Lecter face, selected a sharp paring knife, and began peeling off that rough skin in large pieces. Too bad fava beans are out of season.

Although I wouldn’t describe peeling skin off of a cooked tongue as one of the most pleasant experiences in my life, the reward when the job is done is that the tongue begins to look like any other piece of cooked beef. Slicing it makes the meat even less tongue-like. Since I was preparing the tongue the night before, I stored the slices in the refrigerator and cleaned up the rest of the evidence.

Before putting the container away for the night, I did sneak a taste of the tongue. Hopeful though I was that this 99¢/lb meat would be delicious enough to eat on a weekly basis, I didn’t love the flavor. Although there was some beefiness there was also a strong mineral taste – the kind you sometimes get from organ meats. I am willing to admit this is probably due to the way I cooked it – is anything at its best boiled for three hours? If I make tongue in the future, I will try braising it for longer in a more flavorful, thicker sauce.

To finish the tacos the next day, I cut the slices of tongue into a medium dice – a step Martha appreciated for its further obfuscation of the origins of the meat – and fried the dice in a little oil to produce some flavorful browning. Before serving the tacos, I mixed the meat in the pan with a little salsa verde (recipe follows), which I also served on the side. With sour cream, cilantro, fresh radish slices and warm corn tortillas, I think even my dad would try one.

Salsa Verde

• 1.5# tomatillos, husked
• 1 medium red onion, peeled and cut into quarters
• 1 poblano chile, halved and seeded
• Several bunches cilantro
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
• Salt
• Fresh citrus juice (lime is ideal but I used the juice of 1 lemon because I had it on hand)

Heat the broiler. Place tomatillos, onion and chile on a sheet pan and broil until brown spots start to appear, about 5 minutes in my broiler. Place onions, chiles, garlic and cilantro in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to chop roughly. Add tomatillos and process until consistency is as desired. Transfer mixture to a bowl and adjust seasoning with citrus and salt.

For someone who basically refused the meal as a teenager, as an adult breakfast has captured a special place in my heart. Part of the reason for this must be my discovery that breakfast needn’t involve sickly sweet grains swimming in milk – I prefer butter and salt to jam and honey on the breakfast table. It might also have something to do with my only-three-years-ago decision to start eating eggs. Breakfast is the ovophobe’s worst enemy. But I don’t credit an adult love of omelets with my rediscovery of breakfast: that honor belongs to the breakfast sausage.

The only problem with breakfast sausage is finding a good one. Too often they have some funky off flavor, are too dry, or the texture is just off (we once had a package of links with the texture of hot dogs). Martha and I have made something of a quest of finding good breakfast sausages locally but so far haven’t found a keeper. But with my newfound sausage-making capabilities, a new possibility has opened up: I will make the perfect breakfast sausage.

I wish I could say this is the definitive recipe for breakfast sausage, the culmination of our quest. In truth its flavor was a little lacking. For one thing, the sausage was underseasoned – for once I needed a heavier hand with the salt. I also thought the fennel flavor should have been stronger and would have loved a little spice. Any maybe the garlic was a little strong (or, more likely, not strong enough). Let’s call Breakfast Sausage #1 a valuable learning experience that is hopefully a step toward the ideal sausage, be it Breakfast Sausage #2 or Breakfast Sausage #47.

Breakfast Sausage #1

• 2.5# pork shoulder (boneless)
• 92 g onion, minced
• 19 g garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
• 11 g fresh sage, minced
• 6.5 g fennel fronds, minced
• 12.7 g sea salt
• 3 g black pepper, coarsely ground
• Sausage casings

Cut the pork into ¾” cubes. Place on cookie sheet and freeze for 20 minutes, to firm the meat.

Spread onion, garlic, sage and fennel over meat chunks. Grind using coarse plate. Lightly toss ground meat mixture with salt and pepper to distribute evenly.

Stuff the sausage into casings (if you plan to case the whole recipe, you will need about 4′ of large casings). Leave enough room to twist smaller (3″) links. Twist, cook and serve.

Last night was one of those “too lazy to go to the store, guess I’ll make fresh pasta” nights. When this involves breaking out the pasta machine and its requisite rollers and cutters the idea that I am saving any work by avoiding the store is patently ridiculous; with a more free-form shape like corzetti, shaped with a quick pinch and press of the fingers, the labor savings are only highly dubious.

Corzetti, according to the Encyclopedia of Pasta, are a Ligurian pasta shape made from wheat flour, eggs and water. Traditional corzetti, corzetti stampato, require the use of special wooden molds that press the pasta into a disc shape with decorations, like a coin of pasta. For those of us not so fortunate as to own a Ligurian pasta stamp, there are corzetti tiae co-e die – corzetti rolled with the fingers. To form this shape, one pinches off chickpea-sized balls of dough and presses them down to the board with both index fingers to form a rough figure eight. This process works best with a partner – one person to pinch off the dough and the other to press it – I daresay this would be a good opportunity to involve a child, should you have one readily available.

I’d like to throw in a quick plug here for my preferred method for making fresh pasta dough using the food processor, which I learned from Cook’s Illustrated. It is so easy: two cups of flour in the processor pulsed to distribute evenly, add three eggs and process until a dough starts to form. Add water by the tablespoon until the grains of dough join together in a ball. Knead a couple of times on the counter, let rest 30 minutes and you’re ready to start shaping your pasta. Yes, it will make your Italian grandmother cry, but fresh pasta on a weeknight is worth it.

Assuming nobody wants to offend their Italian grandmother further, some discussion of the proper sauce for corzetti is in order. Oretta Zanini de Vita suggests corzetti are sauced “traditionally with a tomatoless sauce flavored with marjoram, or with the classic Ligurian pesto, but also with different local sauces.” Pesto was the reason I found this shape in the first place – I’ve had a tub of it sitting in the fridge since high basil season practically screaming for a quick weeknight dinner.

Lightly sauced and accompanied by bread and salad, corzetti make a satisfying meal: the roughness of the hand-shaping lends an interesting variety as well as a toothsome quality to the dish.