As I spoke with the restaurant’s purveyors, the main thing that struck me was how many people had backed into their work—almost all of them had double lives. Charlie Akwa, a little dynamo of a woman who specializes in caviar and Mediterranean fish, first made a killing on Wall Street. Kathleen Weber, who bakes the French Laundry’s bread, was a nurse and then worked in women’s retail before she and her husband, Ed, built a brick oven in their backyard.
John Mood has lived a double life since he was a teenager and became infatuated with a neighbor’s banana tree. The infatuation blossomed into an intense love of tropical plants. He served in Vietnam as a pilot, and after the war, he continued to fly for the army. Then he quit the army, got a job as a commercial pilot, and bought enough land in Hawaii—about thirty-five acres—to turn his hobby into a business. His wife, Pat, became his manager.
Shortly thereafter, he met an American living in Brazil who hoped to plant an experimental crop that grew abundantly in South America, a variety of palm tree called the peach palm, or pejibaye. It has a hard fruit, high in starch and oil, that looks like an elongated peach. It can be boiled and eaten like a sweet potato, fermented into beer, or turned into vinegar, and it has long been a staple of Peruvian Indians. But its most valuable asset is its core, the soft white shoots of underdeveloped leaves known as hearts of palm. “Vegetable ivory,” Mood calls it.
Mood was happy to lend five acres to the American, and the crop flourished. John’s wife got the word out that they were now growing and selling a crop that had rarely been available before in America—fresh hearts of palm.
Sales began slowly, at 30 pounds a week to local restaurants. But word of mouth spread the news in the chef world fast. Within two years, the Moods were producing and selling 150 to 170 pounds a week 10,000 trees. A friend of theirs also started growing the peach palm, and he now sells to John and Pat when orders come faster than they can handle.
The peach palm is proving to be a financially viable business. But money’s not the issue, according to John, who simply likes to study fruits (not to mention a whole subsection of his hobby, the study, exploration, and growing of tropical gingers) and to search for new genuses. He’s quick to tell you that he’s got a decent job flying planes.—M.R.
MARROW BEANS
½ cup (4 ounces) dried marrow beans or Great Northern or other large white beans, soaked overnight at room temperature in 3 cups water
4 to 5 cups cold Vegetable Stock
Two 2-inch pieces carrot
Two 2-inch pieces leek
One 2-inch-long onion wedge
½ small tomato
HEARTS OF PALM
5 pounds fresh hearts of palm stems (see Sources)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs; see Sources)
Canola oil
MARROW BEAN FILLING
¾ cup cooked marrow beans (from above)
3 slices (2 to 3 ounces) Brioche, crusts trimmed
1 cup (8 ounces) mascarpone
Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper
3 tablespoons white truffle oil
SAUCE
1½ cups Truffle-Infused Mushroom Stock or ¾ cup truffle juice (see Sources) plus ¾ cup Mushroom Stock
½ teaspoon sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons finely minced shallots
1 tablespoon finely minced black truffle
¾ cup cooked marrow beans (from above)
¾ cup diced hearts of palm (from above)
¼ cup Tomato Diamonds
⅓ cup Brunoise
1 tablespoon minced chives
1 tablespoon minced Italian parsley
¼ cup white truffle oil
Chive oil, in a squeeze bottle
6 sprigs chervil
I’m always searching for new foods—it’s a constant quest for me. When I saw fresh hearts of palm on a trip to Hawaii, I was bowled over. Their nutty, almost artichoke flavor works beautifully with French cuisine. They’re delicious raw, but poaching them until they’re soft, with just a little bit of crunch, enhances their flavor.
FOR THE MARROW BEANS: Remove and discard any skins from the soaking beans that have risen to the top of the water. Drain and rinse the beans. Place the beans in a pot, add cold water to cover by at least 2 inches, and bring to a simmer. It is important that the beans do not come to a hard boil, or they will crack. More skins will float to the surface; remove them and discard. Remove the beans from the heat and drain. Rinse the beans under cold water until the water runs clear.
Place the beans in a clean medium saucepan and add enough cold vegetable stock to cover them by at least 2 inches. Add the vegetables and the bouquet garni. Bring the stock to a simmer and gently cook the beans until they are completely tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. The beans can be cooked a day ahead and refrigerated in their liquid, along with the aromatic vegetables and bouquet garni.
FOR THE HEARTS OF PALM: Put the hearts in a large pot and cover with heavily salted water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes. Drain, reserving the cooking liquid, and place the hearts of palm in an ice-water bath to cool; drain again. The hearts can be cooked ahead and refrigerated in the cooled cooking liquid for up to 2 days.
Cut the hearts of palm into sections about 1½ inches long. Punch out the center of each to leave a wall about ¼ inch thick (to resemble a beef marrow bone). You need a total of 12 pieces. Cut the “punched-out” hearts of palm into ¼-inch dice. If there are not enough to make ¾ cup, use other scraps or trimmings.
FOR THE MARROW BEAN FILLING: Drain the cooked marrow beans, reserving the liquid, and discard the vegetables and bouquet garni. There will be about 1½ cups of beans; set aside ¾ cup for the sauce. Reheat the remaining marrow beans in their liquid in a saucepan until hot. Meanwhile, in a food processor, grind the brioche in three to four batches to create very, very fine bread crumbs. It is important to do this in batches to ensure even processing; if there are any large pieces of brioche, your filling will not be smooth. Then return all the crumbs to the processor and process one last time to combine. Transfer the bread crumbs to a bowl.
Drain the reheated marrow beans and discard the liquid. Place the hot marrow beans in the food processor and process, stopping often to scrape the sides of the bowl, until perfectly smooth; this could take up to 5 minutes. (If there is not adequate room in your processor to keep the beans below the top of the blade, process them in batches until completely smooth.)
Once the beans are perfectly smooth (if you’ve processed them in batches, return all the beans to the processor and process to blend), add a handful of the bread crumbs to the processor. As the bread crumbs are added, the mixture will take on a rough dough-like consistency and begin to pull away from the sides of the processor. At the proper consistency, the mixture will stick together when pinched but won’t be too wet; you may not need to use all of the bread crumbs.
Add the mascarpone to the mixture in thirds and process to combine. As you add the mascarpone, the mixture will loosen to a smooth, thick purée. Blend in salt and white pepper to taste.
With the machine running, slowly pour in the truffle oil to create an emulsion (as if you were making mayonnaise). It is extremely important to add the oil slowly, or the emulsion may break. If the mixture begins to look grainy or broken once all the oil has been added, continue to process it until it is a silky-smooth purée. There will be about 1½ cups of purée. It can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days.
TO FILL THE HEARTS OF PALM: Stand the hearts of palm on a level work surface. Using a pastry bag with a plain medium tip, pipe the filling from the bottom of the cavities to the top, evenly distributing the purée so that there are no air pockets along the inside edges. Fill each piece to the top and use the back of a small knife to remove the excess filling from the ends. Refrigerate the filled hearts of palm for at least 3 hours to allow the purée to chill completely.
TO COMPLETE: For the sauce, place the stock or truffle juice and stock in a saucepan, add the vinegar, bring to a boil, and reduce by half. Add the shallots, black truffle, and the reserved cooked marrow beans and diced hearts of palm and heat through. Keep warm.
TO COOK THE HEARTS OF PALM: Place the flour, milk, and panko crumbs in three separate shallow bowls. Generously coat each piece of heart of palm with flour, tapping lightly to remove the excess flour. Dip in the milk, then evenly coat the hearts of palm with the panko crumbs, tapping to remove any excess crumbs.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat about ⅛ inch of oil over medium-high heat. The oil should not be hot enough to burn the panko crumbs: It is ready when a few crumbs placed into the oil turn golden brown almost immediately; if they turn black, the oil is too hot. Stand the hearts of palm on end in the hot oil and brown for about 5 seconds, or until the ends are golden brown; turn each piece and brown the other end. Lay the pieces on their sides and roll them in the pan for about 10 seconds, not long enough to brown the crumbs, but long enough to remove the raw taste. Remove the pieces to paper towels to drain.
Add the tomato diamonds, brunoise, chives, parsley, and truffle oil to the sauce and gently heat through (the sauce will look thicker from all the garnishes but should still have some “movement” to it).
Place a 4-inch ring mold (see Sources) on a plate and squeeze a ring of chive oil around its interior. Spoon a layer of the sauce into the ring mold. Be careful; if you add too much of the liquid, it may break through the ring of chive oil. Lift off the ring and repeat with the remaining plates. Stand two hearts of palm side by side in the center of the sauce on each plate and garnish the top with a sprig of chervil. Serve immediately.
makes 6 servings