OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. To keep you sated between episodes, 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 pineapple upside-down cake butter mochi.

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Last week’s dreary weather had us craving something tropical. Pineapple upside-down cake? Butter mochi? Why choose, when you can have both? Because coconut’s best friend is pineapple, we thought we’d take the butter mochi (a classic treat from Hawaii) in a new direction and add juicy pineapple niblets, roasted and tossed with Okinawan brown sugar. Roasting the pineapple concentrates the sugars and reduces the fruit’s weeping during baking (which creates a soggy top — arguably worse than a soggy bottom! Now you and the dessert are both weeping). There’s another reason you should pre-cook pineapple before adding it to a bake — do you know what it is? Read on to find out!

A spicy beef, bugging out in the kitchen, Little Bo Peep’s helpers and good things in markets, gardens and kitchens. Oh! And ‘Superabundant’ is coming to the silver screen!

Before K-Dot vs. Drizzy, James Beard beefed with ‘The Galloping Gourmet’

For fans of rap music, last weekend’s main event was not Cinco de Mayo — it was the battle that unfolded between Pulitzer Prize recipient Kendrick Lamar and former child actor Drake. But decades before the rap beef of the century, another spicy beef erupted among celebrity chefs, cookbook author James Beard and Graham Kerr (best known for his cooking show “The Galloping Gourmet”). Portland native Beard openly derided Kerr as a grandstander and was known to gossip about it to his friend and fellow cookbook author/TV chef Julia Child. (Kerr, who lives in Washington’s scenic Skagit Valley, never publicly deigned to return Beard’s fire.)

It’s a small ‘Koreaworld’ after all

“Koreaworld,” a new cookbook from chef Deuki Hong and author Matt Rodbard explores, among other things, some ways everyday Korean ingredients can become staples of non-Korean pantries, and that starts with language. Japanese food vocabulary tends to be more standard in the U.S., but “Koreaworld” implores readers to learn the difference between doenjang and miso; to see gimbap as a distinct dish that, while familiar, isn’t exactly the same thing as a sushi roll. “Korea isn’t just Japan’s little sister,” Rodbard said in a phone call. Surprisingly, the book shines a particularly bright spotlight on Portland; though the city doesn’t have a distinct Koreantown district, Portland does boast an especially robust representation of Korean food — Portland eateries Kim Jong Grillin’, Du’s Grill, Han Oak / Jeju and the Cameo Cafe each get propers in the book. If you’d like to meet the authors, the book tour stops at Jeju Restaurant on Monday, May 13.

The other other white meat?

In Chapter 9 of “Little Town on the Prairie” (the seventh book in the “Little House” series), the Ingalls’ corn and oat crops — their livelihood for the year — are overrun with blackbirds. Pa spends all day and night shooting them out of the fields, but to no avail. The crops are a total loss. The birds, however, are now as plump as prairie chickens and the Ingalls enjoy country-fried blackbird and blackbird pot pie for dinner. Now that fruit tree growers in the eastern and southern U.S. are facing a plague of cicadas over the coming weeks, maybe they’ll want a few recipes. Chef and agriculture advocate Joseph Yoon recently shared his entomophagy enthusiasm with NPR (though evidently tasty, cicadas probably do not taste like chicken).

Working doggos compete

When it comes to herding sheep, who is the goodest boy or girl in the Northwest? Find out next weekend, May 17-19, at the Northwest Championship Sheepdog Trials in Scio, Oregon. The event — which happens to be America’s oldest sheepdog trial — will be held as part of the Linn County Lamb and Wool Fair, and while you’re there, be sure to try Santiam Brewing’s Merlin’s Olde Ale, named after a beloved local sheepdoggo (proceeds from beer and glass sales benefit Whistle and Crook Stock Dog Services).

Good things in markets

Asparagus, rhubarb, favas, spring onions and green garlic: We’ll never tire of you. Of these ingredients, you’re most likely to encounter rhubarb in the “too much superabundance” category, but there’s so much you can do with it! Try our rhubarb meringue pie (or just spoon the rhubarb curd on scones). Bake a rhubarb yogurt cake, or make a batch of preserves for canning.

We found some really nice filets of Pacific cod earlier this week; these groundfish are in season year-round. While sockeye season usually starts late spring/early summer, we found some nice pieces of this salmon as well. Check with your local fishmongers and seafood counters to get the best deals (either fish will make an outstanding fish pie or chowder). Worried about the sustainability of eating salmon? The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch offers guidance.

In the ‘Superabundant’ garden this week

The cooler, damp weather has stalled the garden a bit, though the Purple Lady bok choy is growing lushly, and the Greek cress has begun to bloom. The ”slow-bolt” cilantro is also starting to send up its flower shoots, but they’re still quite leafy and tender — nothing like the woody wires produced by cilantro grown from coriander seeds out of the spice cabinet. All in all, an outstanding variety that we’ll definitely re-sow.

Lately, in the ‘Superabundant’ kitchen

✨ We turned a couple stalks of rhubarb into a jam by chopping and simmering them in simple syrup with a sprinkle of cardamom, then we stirred in dried tangerine segments from the cupboard.

✨ A jar of roasted tomatillo salsa verde (canned last fall) went into a pot of shredded rotisserie chicken for tacos, garnished with handfuls of cilantro and chopped scallion.

✨ We baked a batch of bierocks topped with poppyseeds and pretzel salt; while these toppings are not canon, why not? Like all culture, cooking evolves. They were delicious with dill pickles and an herby radish-carrot salad.

Coming soon to the silver screen!

Mark your calendars — “Superabundant” is coming to the big screen! Join us on Sunday, June 2, for a delicious double feature of the coffee and hops episodes at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland. The afternoon event will even have an extra special pre-func for our “Superabundant” newsletter readers. Full details in next week’s dispatch.

Recipe: Pineapple upside-down cake butter mochi

One of our favorite aspects of the foods of Hawaii is that they’re a true melting pot, representing the ingredients and cooking styles embraced by Indigenous Pacific Islanders, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Portuguese cooks. In Hawaii, tropical fruits are at home with SPAM; thin noodles swim in bowls of clear broth studded with swirly narutomaki fish cake; and bright fuchsia hot dogs are glazed with soy sauce and sugar. In this dessert, Japanese rice confections are enriched with creamy coconut milk and rich melted butter to create a bouncy-chewy QQ treat we can’t stop craving.

Butter mochi is typically a pretty straightforward affair, with all the flavor coming from vanilla, coconut milk and butter, but we find it to be an ideal blank slate to invite thoughtful experimentation — hence, pineapple upside-down cake butter mochi.

For this recipe, we roast the pineapple ahead of time. Why bother? Pre-cooking doesn’t just concentrate the fruit’s flavor, it’s also because fresh and frozen pineapple contain bromelain, an enzyme that’s used in meat tenderizers and digestive aids (it’s also why you can’t taste much after eating fresh pineapple or end up with your tongue feeling weird and tingly). Bromelain basically turns the proteins in cake batter to mush, preventing a proper crumb from forming. Heat deactivates the enzyme, but baking alone doesn’t do the job fast enough before a layer of unappetizing goo forms around the pineapple, which is why most pineapple upside-down cake recipes call for using canned pineapple.

Speaking of maraschino cherries, it’s history lesson time! Maraschino cherries were invented in Oregon — Queen Anne, the dominant cherry variety grown in the Willamette Valley in the early 20th century, has a short shelf life and doesn’t take well to common preservation methods like canning. Demand for preserved cherries was high, though; European brands like Luxardo produced maraschino cherries that were wildly popular with American tourists, but the firm texture just couldn’t be accomplished with a Queen Anne. Shortly after Oregon State University hired professor of horticulture Ernest Wiegand, they set him to the task of solving the mushy cherry problem. It took him six years, but in 1925, Wiegand did eventually find the answer in a calcium salt added to the cherries’ soaking solution (this is the same product we recommend for cucumber pickles — it keeps them crisp even after boiling water bath canning). Oregon is still the global leader in maraschino cherry research and production. (If the lurid red color worries you, you can try making your own or buy a brand that uses vegetable dye instead of artificial colors.)

As the name implies, pineapple upside-down cake usually has the fruit on the bottom, to be revealed once the cake is inverted. Since butter mochi is more like a sheet cake or bar to be served straight from the pan, we think it makes more sense to put the fruit on top. Makes 2 dozen pieces:

Ingredients

1 lb fresh or frozen pineapple tidbits

2 tbsp piloncillo or brown sugar

4 cups mochiko (glutinous rice flour)

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp fine sea salt

3 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 12-oz can evaporated milk

1 12-oz can coconut milk

½ cup maraschino cherries, drained and halved

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375º and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. Spread the pineapple in an even layer and roast until sticky and browned on the edges, about 1 hour for frozen pineapple and 30 minutes for fresh (stir with a spatula about halfway through roasting). Transfer the pineapple to a small bowl and stir in the brown sugar until evenly coated. Set aside to cool.
2. While the pineapple is cooling down, grease a 9″ x 13″ baking dish with butter or cooking spray. Reduce the oven temperature to 350º.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except for the cherries, whisking or beating until thoroughly combined (don’t be afraid of overbeating; since there’s no gluten you don’t have to worry about it getting tough). Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle the roasted pineapple and halved cherries over the top of the batter.
4. Bake the butter mochi until puffy and golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry, about 1 hour. Cool in the pan until lukewarm before slicing.

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