Pat Ernst Dugan loves to cook, eat, travel and learn about regional foods. She's been doing it for 18 years.

Dugan, of Corning, shares her culinary knowledge with readers in a weekly food column. "Foodly Yours" covers cooking, dining and Finger Lakes foods, from locally grown produce, cooking gadgets and tools to a a new recipe each week, proposed by Dugan to be "quick-fix, limited ingredient and realistic."
 

Honey abuzz with interest
 

Pat Ernst Dugan
October 20, 2005

Dale Carnegie lectured, "If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive."

A great metaphor for winning friends and influencing people, Mr. Carnegie, but you might be surprised how valuable beehives and bees have become today.

With more than 300 varieties of floral-source honey in the United States, honey tastings are becoming as common as wine tastings.

Honeys differ by color, flavor, sweetness, viscosity and of course, geography. Tupelo honey (featured on "Oprah"), for instance, is light golden amber with a greenish cast, has a mild distinctive taste, heavy body, is "grown" only in northwest Florida, does not crystallize and costs about $1 per ounce.

Honeybees still collect nectar from flowers and blossoms, just as they always have.

Flavors of different honeys do not reflect the fruit of the trees or plants. So, a blueberry honey from Maine or Michigan does not taste like blueberries. Instead, it's described by the Colorado-based National Honey Board as "fruity with a lemony scent."

Honeybees still bring the nectar back to store in the honeycomb where its transformation to honey begins. By the way, bees do this because it is their food.

When reputable beekeepers extract the honey from these spectacularly engineered honeycombs, they leave enough honey for the bees to eat through the winter.

So what's the new buzz? It's the beekeepers who are getting smarter. Artisan beekeepers place hives close to the nectar of the flower variety they want to collect. Some beekeepers move hives and "follow the blooms." Others move hives to create well-balanced honeys. Still others take pride in the local variety their bees produce.

Available through Williams-Sonoma and Wegmans, Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey comes from one grove of kiawe trees, which grow on the "Big Island" of Hawaii.
Beekeeper Richard Spiegel explains his philosophy of raw honey on the label. He uses no heat to extract the honey from the comb. The approximate cost is $2 per ounce.

Chefs are pairing small pieces of honeycomb with soft cheese dessert plates. The comb can be eaten or disposed of, much like an olive pit.
Chef Gabriel Frasca of Spire Restaurant in Boston dices honeycomb and folds it into ice cream, adding also a touch of vanilla.

Magazine recipes are beginning to call for specific honey. Cooking Light (October 2005) presents six recipes featuring honey, each using a different varietal.

Honey Barbecued Chicken Breasts requires buckwheat honey — dark, pungent, molasses-like, available locally, richer in antioxidants than most light honeys and my dad's favorite for pancakes.

Check the label on your favorite barbecue sauce and you will probably find honey listed in the ingredients. It blends easily with other ingredients and "sticks" to the chicken, meat, even fish, being grilled.

Sage honey, a light cloverlike taste with floral accents, is recommended for the Honey-Ginger Glazed Salmon and is called for in the Honey-Hoisin Pork Tenderloin. Substitutions of alfalfa honey, another mild honey, are suggested.
The author, Marcia Whyte Smart, offers a new twist for honey butter. It's perfect for hot biscuits. She uses equal amounts of orange blossom honey, softened butter, grated orange rind and grated lemon rind.

Honey enthusiast Jaap Huibers describes honey as "condensed love" - perhaps that is the basis for the ever-popular term of endearment - "honey."

Nuts 'n' Honey with Cheese
Note: In a recent honey tasting, fireweed honey from the Pacific Northwest astonished me with its delicate, yet completely standout flavor. The sweet honey here balances the hot pepper very well.

1/2 cup fireweed honey
3/4 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne)
1/4 teaspoon ground chipotle chile pepper
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
4 ounces fresh goat cheese

In a small serving bowl, slightly warm honey in microwave so that peppers will combine more easily. Stir in peppers and toasted walnuts.

Serve nuts and honey alongside room-temperature goat cheese and thin crusty bread slices. Spread bread first with goat cheese and then with honey mixture.

Recipe adapted from Better Homes and Gardens (September 2005). Pat Ernst Dugan is a private chef, educator and food/recipe writer. E-mail her at foodlyyours@aol.com or send comments and questions to be forwarded to: Foodly Yours, Star-Gazette, Attn: Features Department, 201 Baldwin St., P.O. Box 285, Elmira, NY 14902.