A HARTE APPETITE: SMOOTHIE OFFERS CYCLONE OF FLAVORS AROUND WORLD

Perhaps you've seen the promo on the Weather Channel (at our house we affectionately call it MTV for old people) in which a meteorologist makes a smoothie to teach students about tornadoes. First, he fills a blender container with yogurt and milk and blends it on low speed. "This is an F4," he says. Then he turns up the speed and announces, "This is an F5." Finally, he throws a bunch of strawberries into the blender and says, "This is an F5 with tractors." Ultimately, a student in the class blurts out, "So a tornado is Mother Nature's way of making a smoothie!"

I don't know how apt the comparison is for meteorological purposes, but from a culinary standpoint, there is no question that a smoothie offers a veritable cyclone of flavors. Moreover, smoothies have become so popular they are popping up as frequently as tornadoes in Kansas during May.

Newsweek reports that smoothies have become a multimillion-dollar industry, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle predicts the market for them could reach $1 billion in revenue by year's end. No wonder Restaurant Business magazine suggests the smoothie may well be "the most promising new beverage item since specialty coffee."

Certainly its proponents think so. Martin Sprock, founder of the Atlanta-based Planet Smoothie chain, plans to rival Starbucks within 10 years. According to the Chronicle, he's off to a good start with 60 shops already in operation and half again that many in the planning stage for sites around the world. And he hasn't even been in business five years!

His biggest rival, Louisiana's Smoothie King, who pioneered smoothies for the mass-market some 25 years ago, has nearly 200 stores in its chain. And then there's the Power Smoothie chain in Florida, the Jamba Juice chain in California, and Freshens, which supplies smoothies to, among other places, selected Mrs. Field's cookie stores. Even Baskin-Robbins has jumped on the smoothie bandwagon, and Ben and Jerry's offers a frozen version.

The modern precursor of the smoothie might well have been the Orange Julius of the 1970s, but its origins probably go back further. Smoothies no doubt owe part of their heritage to the Mexican liquados, a blend of milk and fruit, the Cuban batido, a sort of tropical fruit milkshake, and the traditional Indian lassi made with yogurt and fruit. Having visited the spot in Puerto Rico where it was invented, it seems to me that the pina colada is simply a smoothie with a kick, so maybe it had some influence on the drink's new found popularity. Stephen Kuhnau suggests that a pivotal event in the history of the smoothie occurred in the 1960s when, because his dairy allergy would not allow him to enjoy an ordinary milkshake, he whipped up a concoction of banana split and sundae ingredients while working at Hopper's Drive-In in Louisiana. On the basis of this experience he launched his Smoothie King operation.

Strictly speaking, because a smoothie is something of a new age milkshake, its roots really go back to the rise of the soda fountain and the mass production of ice cream around the turn of the century. As Deborah Gray points out in her book "Shakes, Sodas, & Smoothies," the first soda fountains were found only in drugstores because only the druggist knew how to handle the gases and acids essential in the production of carbonated water, a process that could be dangerous. Explosions in drugstores were not uncommon during that time. With improved refrigeration technology, ice cream became the major focus and feature of the soda fountain. Aided by prohibition, the soda fountain grew in popularity and became something of a community center. By 1930, there were more than 100,000 of them in the United States. Three years later when prohibition was repealed, the popularity of the soda fountain began to decline, but Americans' taste for shakes did not, and the drink became a staple at restaurants, drink stands and ice cream parlors. Recent concern about the relationship between health and diet and the resulting emphasis on ingredients such as fresh fruit and yogurt (either plain or frozen) paved the way for the prevalence of the smoothie.

Not all smoothies are healthy, however. In fact, if you're not careful you can end up with something every bit as high in fat and calories as an old-fashioned malt. But with the proper ingredients a smoothie can be just as delicious and downright nutritious as well. Indeed, some body builders and other athletes rely on so-called power smoothies to keep them going. Smoothie King, for example, makes daily deliveries to the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees when they are in training.

As Liz Applegate, who teaches the largest nutrition course in the country at the University of California at Davis, observes in the current issue of Runner's World, we should ideally eat two to four servings of fruit a day, and the average smoothie, she reports, contains three! Furthermore, you can slip healthful ingredients into a smoothie (wheat germ or tofu, for example) and make them more palatable in the process. As Gabriel Constans, who has written a book on the subject, notes, "Ingredients that many children would shun if they were presented separately are eagerly devoured in smoothie form."

And as the recipes in Constans' book demonstrate, there is hardly a limit to the creative additions that can be made to a smoothie. For example, his concoctions call for, among other things, sunflower seeds, raisins, cooked oatmeal, granola, peanut butter, coconut, marshmallows, cocoa powder and even chocolate-chip cookie dough. (I once contemplated adding a couple of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to a smoothie at the last minute, but thought that might be self-defeating.)

In its simplest form, of course, as Sharon Tyler Herbst notes in "The Food Lover's Companion," a smoothie is a blend of fruit and yogurt, milk or ice cream. If ice cream or frozen yogurt is not used, often ice cubes are added to thicken the drink. A banana is also a good thickener. It's best to use a blender and not a food processor, especially if ice cubes are an ingredient, because a processor will generally not produce as thick a result. As Constans notes, a good blender beats the manual alternative, which involves placing ingredients in a large container with a tight-fitting lid and jumping up and down for several days.

Now, with summer fruit at its peak, is the perfect time to lug out your blender and prepare a refreshing smoothie, but with frozen fruit you can make smoothies year-round and, what is more, using frozen fruit leads to an even thicker finished product. Whatever time of year you whir up a smoothie, I think you'll agree Constans only slightly overstates the case when he says, "Smoothies put a little spark in your life. If your life is already sparked, they help ignite it! And if your fire's been lit for some time, they keep it burning."

Orange Julius

This drink from the 1970s still tastes great today, especially when you cut the amount of sugar by half as I have done here. The basic recipe is from a wonderful cookbook put together by the Junior League of St. Louis, "Saint Louis Days, St. Louis Nights."

Ingredients:

1 can (6 oz.) frozen orange juice concentrate

1 cup milk

1 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

10-12 ice cubes

Directions:

Blend all ingredients together for 30 seconds at high speed. Serves 4.

Raspberry-Banana Batido

This recipe, from the sadly defunct Eating Well Magazine, originally called for blueberries, which work great, but I find that raspberries make a wonderful drink, too. You might try experimenting with other fruits as well.

Ingredients:

1 ripe banana

1/2 cup frozen raspberries

1 tablespoon sugar

4 ice cubes

1 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Cut banana into chunks and add to blender container with other ingredients. Blend until smooth. Serves 2.

Frozen Mint Lassi

Lassis are popular in India and may be made in a variety of flavors, though mint and yogurt is a classic combination. This recipe for an iced lassi is a variation of one in Deborah Gray's book, "Shakes, Sodas, & Smoothies."

Ingredients:

8 mint leaves

1/2 cup low-fat milk

2 scoops plain frozen yogurt

sugar, to taste

Directions:

Put the mint leaves in the blender with the milk and blend until leaves are finely chopped. Add the frozen yogurt and sugar and blend until smooth. Pour over ice, top up with extra milk, and serve decorated with mint leaves. Makes one serving.

The Great Pumpkin Smoothie

This recipe, adapted from Gabriel Constans' book, "Great American Smoothies," might give pumpkin pie a run for its money at Thanksgiving. I suppose you could even top it with a dollop of whipped cream if you like.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups low-fat milk

1 1/2 cups frozen yogurt

1 tablespoon chopped crystallized ginger, optional

Directions:

Put all ingredients in blender and blend at high speed for 30 seconds or until smooth. Makes 41/2 cups.

Iced Mochaccino

This drink might be the ultimate in trendiness: the uniting of the coffee bar with the smoothie bar. Inspired by a recipe from "Smoothies and Other Blended Drinks," by Elsa Petersen-Schepelern, which used chocolate syrup and vanilla ice cream. I set out to develop something similar but easier to make and with less fat and fewer calories. After numerous experiments and many sleepless nights, this is the result.

Ingredients:

1 package hot cocoa mix, such as Swiss Miss

1 cup skim milk

1 heaping teaspoon instant coffee

8 ice cubes

Directions:

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until thick and slushy. Serve topped with whipped cream if desired or dusted with cinnamon or cocoa. Makes 1 generous serving.

Corfu Smoothie

On a recent trip to the Greek islands we discovered that smoothies, or fruit shakes, are just as popular there as they are in this country. Thus, the inspiration for this smoothie served at Boston's Everyday Caf82 whose owners used to run a restaurant on the island of Santorini. The recipe is adapted from a version printed in the Boston Herald.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup frozen strawberries

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 cup frozen vanilla yogurt

2 cups orange juice

Directions:

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Serves 2.

Got a culinary question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to see treated in this column? Send your suggestions to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.