Potpourri: on the edge of cannabis cuisine
Cooking with marijuana, like cooking with basil and oregano, or even salt and pepper, can add pizzazz to a familiar, favorite recipe. Marijuana can also give cooks a pleasurable high if and when they smoke in the kitchen. Then, too, eating foods prepared with marijuana can be hazardous to one’s health. Eat too many hash brownies — or even one small cookie baked with potent marijuana — and you might have a panic attack or blank out. If and when that happens, call 911. Or just sleep it off.
Years ago, in Mexico City I ate a whole pot brownie and lost almost all sense of time and space. One dark street unfolded after another and time seemed to stand still. I’ve never again eaten a whole pot brownie.
Everyone’s different; what might be harmful for you could be harmless for someone else. The good news is that no one has ever died as a result of ingesting cannabis.
Not surprisingly, there are no restaurants or cafes in California with menus that openly proclaim, “Made with Pot,” “Baked with Cannabis” or “Stir fried with Grass,” though underground chefs ignore the law that prohibits cannabis cuisine in public places. As one marijuana industry maven put it, “If McDonald’s were to add weed to its fries, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would surely investigate.” Still changes are coming and Colorado is pointing the way.
In November 2016, Denver approved a resolution that would allow citizens to bring weed to restaurants and to consume it on the premises, even though the Colorado Restaurant Association expressed strong opposition on the grounds that pot and alcohol together spells big trouble. The combination can create problems, but in Sonoma and Napa citizens sip wine and smoke cannabis together, sometimes at meals.
A few weeks ago, I spent two days at the Emerald Cup in Santa Rosa — which is part trade show and part county fair — hoping to find cannabis cuisine. This year, the 13th annual, was bigger than ever before, with more competition for the best marijuana in every category, from indoor to outdoor, and flowers to tinctures. At the event, I snacked on tacos, falafel and hot dogs. But I found not a single vendor who served real food prepared with the leaves, the seeds or the flowers of the cannabis plant.
At the first Cup in 2003, there was no food at all and not even a poster to promote the event, just newly harvested marijuana buds and a handful of intrepid pot farmers who gathered in Laytonville. The Cup has come a long way since then. So have I.
This Christmas a friend gave me a homemade chocolate chip cookie with organic Sonoma County cannabis. A few small bites provided a pleasurable psychedelic experience. Colors were brighter and the whole day seemed clear and sharp.
After Christmas, I met Gaston, who works for a cannabis company that owns and operates a large, legal pot farm in Sonoma County and that also runs a licensed dispensary in San Francisco where edibles are for sale, along with buds and joints.
Gaston made lunch five days a week for the company’s employees. They were mostly Mexicans and would have enjoyed tamales, tacos and tostadas, but instead ate traditional Argentinian cooking, which meant a lot of meat and potatoes and no jalapenos. Gaston was born and raised in Buenos Aires. By the end of the season he’d learned to prepare basic Mexican dishes, such as chilaquiles, which is made with tortillas, red or green salsa, cheese and sometimes beans and eggs.
In his tiny kitchen, where I watched him work, Gaston explained that he adds dried cannabis flowers to bottles of extra virgin Italian olive oil, then lets the THC — the main psychoactive ingredient — infuse the oil for several days and uses it as needed for salads, soups and to sauté vegetables.
“For me, food and cannabis go together naturally,” he said. “One of the dishes I love to make with cannabis is carbonara, the Italian classic that’s prepared with pasta, eggs, bacon, cheese and black pepper. In the kitchen, a little bit of marijuana-infused olive oil goes a long way.”
When California restaurants do serve food with cannabis they will be closely regulated, like everything else in the brave new world of legal marijuana. Perhaps no one knows that better than Tim Blake, the founder and the driving force behind the Emerald Cup.
“Sonoma will be the epicenter for cannabis in California,” he told me. “It has just about everything we want and need, including the location, midway between the marijuana fields in Mendocino and Humboldt and the Bay Area which is the gateway to global markets.”
Did Blake have advice for cannabis cultivators, entrepreneurs and wannabe chefs? “Be patient, especially with Sacramento bureaucrats,” he said. “People might remember, too, that the old days weren’t as free and easy as they might seem. Growers suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). For years, they’ve been afraid of arrests, rip-offs and have had all the worries associated with any kind of farming. These days, when you feel distressed, you might sit in a corner, breathe in and out and meditate. It works for me.”
Indeed, the brave new world of California cannabis might see a spike in meditation, massage, yoga and every variety of New Age spirituality and therapy. That’s the way Tim Blake wants it.
