Now listen up, you food snobs.
You can go on and bury your heads in barrels of sun-dried tomatoes. But there`s a whole world out there, a world that says there are plenty of good things to cook with that have nothing to do with extra virgin olive oil or white truffles.
Like Coca-Cola.
Just ask Alice Fisher of Atlanta. She has been cooking with Coca-Cola for years.
”I love it in baked beans,” said Mrs. Fisher, a homemaker. ”I like it over ham. And of course my favorite is the chocolate cake.”
She is not alone. Across the country there are countless citizens proud to cook with carbonated beverages, especially Coca-Cola, the best-selling soft drink in the United States.
Sally Vandivort, a wife and mother who teaches the 4th grade in Lakewood, Calif., has tried Coca-Cola in barbecue sauce. ”It gives a little tangier taste,” she observed. ”It`s always interesting when you tell people what you`ve put in it.”
Erlene Mitch, a bookkeeper from Paducah, Ky., likes it mixed with vegetables and Jell-O in a salad. ”It is delicious,” she said. ”Really.”
Jim DeParle, who owns an insurance agency in Jacksonville, Fla., stews chicken in Coca-Cola combined with equal parts of ketchup. ”I often prepare it for guests,” DeParle said. ”I just don`t tell anyone until after they`ve tasted it.”
Bob Buchanon, an evangelist from Bowling Green, Ky., combines Coca-Cola with ground beef, garlic, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. ”It`s sort of like a sloppy joe,” he said. He also uses Coca-Cola on top of roast beef and in brownies.
Coke partisans report that Coca-Cola Classic is the only version to use. Trial and error has determined that Diet Coke and other diet sodas don`t work, they say, imparting a bitter aftertaste.
When Sue Zorn, who works in a bakery in Lombard, tried her recipe for Coca-Cola cake some time ago with New Coke, ”it flopped.”
According to Phil Mooney, archivist for the Coca-Cola Co. in Atlanta, it is impossible to document just when cooks first took Coca-Cola in hand.
It appears to have started around the turn of the century, he said, and to have been a spontaneous event that evolved from the fact that Coke was on hand in many American kitchens, not unlike the way wine was in the kitchens of France.
Roger Nunley, director of consumer affairs for Coca-Cola, said it was not a company priority to push cooking with Coca-Cola.
But the company does offer a collection of recipes. Included in a brochure titled ”Cooking with Coca-Cola” are formulas for ”Fruited Pork Chops,” ”Matchless Meat Loaf” and ”Southern Belle Salad,” which calls for pitted sweet cherries, cherry gelatin and cream cheese. (A recent cooking promotion by Coca-Cola in Taiwan, where the company is trying to encourage consumers to drink Coke with food, included a recipe for ”Fried Frog Leg with Sweet Bean Paste” that calls for two teaspoons of Coca-Cola and four frog legs.)
The Coca-Cola Co. recommends that when using Coca-Cola in cooking, it is best to reduce foaming by using it at room temperature and stirring it rapidly so it can be accurately measured. But for many, the fizz is the draw as well as the chance to behave like a mad chemist in the kitchen.
Coca-Cola is not the only soft drink used in recipes. Undoubtedly fruit sodas and root beer all have their fans as well. Recipes for Dr Pepper and 7- Up abound.
Marilyn Ingram, a home economist based in Dallas, for example, was hired not long ago to test recipes for 7-Up and discovered that it is ”excellent” in appetizers, entrees and desserts.
A total of 150 recipes were tested for a new cookbook, she said, but three really stood out, including those for 7-Up pound cake, 7-Up baked beans and 7-Up pancakes, which uses prepackaged pancake mix and 7-Up instead of water or milk.
Indeed, Zelma Nagely, 77, who lives in Manchester, Kan., has been preparing apple dumplings with 7-Up for 30 years. ”I`m quite a recipe collector,” said Mrs. Nagely, explaining that she first saw a recipe for the dumplings in a community newspaper and has been preparing them ever since.
She has also cooked with Coca-Cola and strawberry soda.
Taking a rather dim view of this activity is the Pepsi-Cola Co., which does not encourage consumers to cook with Pepsi.
”Our customers prefer drinking Pepsi rather than eating it,” said Leigh Curtin, a spokesman for the Pepsi-Cola Co. in Somers, N.Y., a division of Pepsico Inc.
In their book ”Square Meals,” published by Alfred A. Knopf (1984), Jane and Michael Stern, two prominent writers about American food, chronicle the
”Cuisine of Suburbia,” with recipes for ”Duckling with Ginger Ale” and
”Dr. Pepper Baked Beans.”
They say that cooking with soda is exciting because ”there`s something fun about the fizz and about food that does more than just sit there,” Stern said. They wax enthusiastic as well about ”Pepsi-Cola Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting.”
However, the most popular recipe appears to be a chocolate cake that calls for Coca-Cola.
COCA-COLA CAKE
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Yield: 12 to 18 servings
2 cups each: granulated sugar, flour
1 cup Coca-Cola Classic
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup solid shortening, plus extra for greasing pan
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon each: baking soda, vanilla
1 1/2 cups small marshmallows
Coca-Cola frosting, recipe follows
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13-by 9-inch baking pan.
2. Sift sugar and flour into a mixing bowl. Set aside.
3. In a saucepan, blend the Coca-Cola, butter, shortening and cocoa, and heat to a boil. Remove from heat and add to flour mixture. Add eggs and beat with mixer until blended. Add buttermilk, baking soda, vanilla and
marshmallows. Mix well.
4. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Spread frosting on warm cake. Cut into squares.
COCA-COLA FROSTING
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/3 cup Coca-Cola Classic
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup each: small marshmallows, chopped pecans
4 cups (1 pound) confectioners` sugar
1. In a saucepan, blend the butter, Coca-Cola and cocoa and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Add marshmallows, pecans and sugar. Mix well and spread on warm cake. If frosting is too thick, add more cola.
THICK BARBECUE SAUCE
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Yield: 2 cups
2 medium-size onions, chopped fine
3/4 cup each: Coca-Cola Classic, ketchup
2 tablespoons each: vinegar, Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon each: chili powder, salt
1. Combine ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, stirrin occasionally, for about 45 minutes or until very thick.
APPLE DUMPLINGS WITH 7-UP
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Yield: 4 dumplings
4 medium-size baking apples
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided use
1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided use
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
1 can (12-ounces) 7-Up
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1. Peel and core apples, but leave whole. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Cut in shortening. Add milk all at once and stir until moistened. Knead into a ball. Roll out and cut into four 7-inch squares. Place apple in center of each square.
2. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon and sprinkle about one tablespoon of sugar mixture in the center of each apple. Dot each with 1/ 2 tablespoon butter. Fold corners of each apple package to the center. Pinch edges together. Arrange dumplings in a 9-by-12-inch baking dish. Set aside.
3. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
4. Combine 7-Up with remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar, remaining 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and the nutmeg in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Add remaining 1/4 cup butter and stir until melted.
5. Pour syrup into pan and bake dumplings for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm with sauce.
