I purchase Organic Purple Corn from Nuts.com, and depending on how I mill it, I can make cornbread, cornmeal cookies, cornmeal waffles/pancakes..... anything I make using yellow dent corn. Purple corn is nutritionally superior to yellow or white corn. I even found a video of a guy making a cinnamon roll recipe using purple corn flour on-line. There is also a fermented drink - Chicha - you can make using purple corn, but I haven't tried it.

You could also use the Organic Purple Corn to make fresh masa and then they could be made into tamales for a "blue" meat entree.

Good luck with your food challenge.

-Grainlady

I think that sounds so clever! However, as to the entree, I would use a food that has blue in the name rather than something blue unless you want to do a Mexican type entree with the blue cornmeal/blue tortilla chips. I think it would be okay for your theme! They are named blue for a reason even if their flesh isn't blue!!!

I've done tomato teas and they're fun but never thought about doing anything blue!

Let us know what you decide and when you do it, pics please!

Martha

Red cabbage will be purply-blue when cooked unless an acid is cooked with it. You don't have to add an alkali.

It turns turquoise - and you need the teeniest amount or it turns to such a bright turquoise you wouldn't want to eat and tastes bad to boot. I think I used soda not powder when I did it.

The first protein that comes to mind is bluefish or blues as they're nicknamed. They're rather fatty and mostly "dark meat" so need a lot of citrus and spice to make them palatable. You could check if they're available in your area.

There are purple pod beans. I suppose you could serve them raw with a dip. I used to eat them directly in the garden. Unfortunately they turn a pale green when cooked. I have never considered adding acid or base to see if they might maintain original color.

You can garnish with edible flowers, for example blue pansies and purple hostas.

There are blue tomatoes (Indigo Rose) and purple tomatoes (Black Cherry, Black Krim, etc)

Cool! I use to organize theme potlucks for my office. We did a very successful "Green Grub" potluck.

How about purple cauliflower? They are plentiful at my veggie market now.

Here is a link that might be useful: Purple Cauliflower

Black beans can be dark bluish in color...a protein

For blue food, I use flowers, such as cornflowers or pansies, but the bluest edible flower is

Lars

I have not yet found blue tomatoes locally or mail order, but I've found blue tomato seeds. Ditto the purple pod beans.

Purple cauliflower would be fun - in a gratin with purple potato and blue cheese, maybe? I've not seen them locally, but probably could find some.

Black beans would work well with the blue corn masa.

Keep the ideas coming! This is sounding quite do-able.

What else should we do? Everyone wears some blue? Blues music in the background? Blue flame candles?

Don't forget dessert. Here's what you need...

Blue Moon Ice Cream!

http://www.wisconsinmade.com/gift-ideas/Blue-Moon-Ice-Cream-Sampler-2159.aspx

And don't forget about blue lobsters. :)

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Blue Lobster

John, let George Carlin explain to you why you're having problems finding blue food.

Here is a link that might be useful: Carlin -- where's the blue food?

I dunno, my widdle ears may be too delicate to click on a George Carlin link . . .

I made "Ugly Blueberry Scones" - just mixed in some whirred blueberries in a regular scone recipe and put it in a pie plate, sprinkled some whole blueberries on top, baked and drizzled with powdered sugar/milk icing while still warm. They are truly purple - tasty but "ugly". Purple and blue foods are not generally accepted as being visually appetizing while red, pink, white, green, and brown are.

How about some edible flowers for garnish? rosemary, borage (you must grow some from seed - they taste like cucumbers and are a beautiful plant!), lilacs (who knew?), anise hyssop, chives, lavender, spiderwort, chicory, pansy (not store bought), viola, and wild violets.

Nancy

Not to worry John, this is from early Carlin, before he dropped an f bomb every other word. It's almost innocent.

John, I grew the purple potatoes once, they turned a lovely lilac when mashed with butter and milk, and the leftovers turned into the strangest shepherd's pie ever, but the kids loved them.

I also grow the purple beans, I usually get Royal Burgundy but they do turn green when cooked, unfortunately. You can also get burgundy okra, but that seems more red to me. I've also grown purple Brussels sprouts.

I don't suppose blue-green algae counts? (grin) It was a big health food fad back when the ex and I were running the health food store...

Annie

John, I grew the purple potatoes once, they turned a lovely lilac when mashed with butter and milk, and the leftovers turned into the strangest shepherd's pie ever, but the kids loved them.

I also grow the purple beans, I usually get Royal Burgundy but they do turn green when cooked, unfortunately. You can also get burgundy okra, but that seems more red to me. I've also grown purple Brussels sprouts.

I don't suppose blue-green algae counts? (grin) It was a big health food fad back when the ex and I were running the health food store...

Annie

My purple potatoes also lightened up when made into mashed potatoes, which I didn't mind, but for maximum darkness and saturation I may try making the next batch with chocolate milk.

I may have mentioned before, we've served purple carrots dipped in chocolate before, they were very tasty.

Purple brussel sprouts, eh? I will look for those as well.

I don't know any algae eaters, although it wouldn't surprise me if it were popular here. Portland is an odd place.

I made such a beautiful fresh fruit and herb layered jello over the holidays. (not the sugared packets fake flavored) ...Three pale blue layers using fresh blueberries, one layer with a bit of yogurt, lots of lemon and rosemary...I even practiced a few weeks before to check the set-up time. So good. But nobody really tried it. They wanted the super sweet fake red with canned fruit. Oh well.

Bluefin tuna? Does the food have to be blue on the inside as well as blue on the outside?

Blue anywhere, in or out, is fine. But blue in only name or spirit isn't enough. So we can't eat bluebloods or Muddy Waters. Well, we can, but they'd have to be paired up with something actually blue (or black, or purple).

Nori? The stuff I have is more black than green, but definitely not blue or purple. Maybe it depends on the brand?

Annie

I have agreed to start a two week ultra low carb diet on Monday.

I think I'll try to organize this Blues Dinner for right after that, as a reward party. I will certainty be blue enough by then.

" So-called "blue meat" is just a term meaning severely undercooked meat."

Blue or bleu is in reference to the cooking temp, meaning meat served at the rare stage. Or as we say when ordering any beef dish when eating out...I want to hear moo in the kitchen.

A blue themed food event can be very unique, memorable and interesting, but I think it needs to be planned very carefully.

Because Blues music typically is about sadness, melancholy and disappointments, hardly can make a gathering cheerful.

Because Blue is an appetite suppressing color. ThatâÂÂs why you are not going to see blue used often in food establishments. Blue can make all food taste lousy.

In any case, there are not that many foods that are blue. I agree, edible blossoms are your best bet. As Lars pointed out, Clitoria Ternatea, (butterfly pea flower) is very blue. You can use it to make a wonderful blue jello. I use blue pansies often when they are in bloom.

I can suggest a few blue approaches to add to your planning flexibility:

You can get inexpensive color changing LED spotlights. They can go from red, green, yellow, blue to white. They come with remote control. You can spotlight the food in blue, then just before serving, you change the lights into a shade of white with red tint to make your food look delicious (The reason why meats look so fresh in the meat showcase, itâÂÂs all lighting).

You can also incorporate the visual science of âÂÂafterimageâÂÂ. Basically, âÂÂAn afterimage or ghost image or image burn-in is an optical illusion that refers to an image continuing to appear in one's vision after the exposure to the original image has ceased. â but in the opposite (complementary) color.

So if you have a lot of red in the environment, you will see blue thatâÂÂs not there. If you stare at purple, you will see yellow afterwards.

Here is an image, focus on the white dot in the center for a while, then look away at a blank spot, you will see an interesting illusion.

{{gwi:1519273}}

I think blue color background, instead of blue food, can make the food very attractive and you still have a blue theme.

I think it would be fun if you spray paint your shoes blue and do an Elvis impersonation of âÂÂBlue Suede ShoesâÂÂ

dcarch

dcarch, I've stared at that white dot in the middle of blue and black stripes for several minutes and don't see anything except a white dot and black and blue stripes. The blank spot is just blank, no interesting illusion or interesting anything else.

What am I SUPPOSED to see?

Yeah, I know. I never saw anything in those pictures where you stare for long enough and it turns into a 3D dinosaur or something, although other people swore they could see them.

Annie

How about Blue Moon beer?

After staring, try closing your eyes instead of looking at a blank area Annie.

dcarch,

Your image of the flag reminds me of being back in art school - color theory class. :) We looked at hundreds of those images. I remember staring at pictures of silver lines that would start to wave like moving water after a few seconds. Made me dizzy. Needless to say, I don't like today's decorating trend of painting horizontal stripes on walls. :)

/tricia

Annie, try what chas045 suggests.

Basically, you wouldn't see a 3D dinosaur (LOL) but you will see the flag in its correct colors. The graphic is the afterimage of the complementary colors of the flag, if you stare at the real flag long enough.

dcarch

Well, thanks to chas, I did see something. A red square and some white dots, although not a flag. Maybe that's why my glasses are so thick and my prescription is 5+ and I just can't see anything!

dcarch, my dentist had some of those pictures hanging in his office. One was supposed to have a golfer, one had sharks. I did get a headache a couple of times, but never saw the figures. I think he's probably kind of sadistic, or he wouldn't be a dentist. (grin) Or have those pictures.

Now that we're entirely off topic, back to blue food. Could you maybe mix a green food and a red food and get a blue food, or is that cheating?

Annie

Annie

When you mix green and red light (but not pigments), you get yellow, which is the complement on the light color wheel from blue. The color wheels for pigments and light are different because they mix differently, but what we see is light. Some pigment color wheels have been revised to remove orange as a secondary color because doing so makes the color wheel appear a neutral gray when rapidly spun. Otherwise, it appears with an orange tint. In this scheme, there are essentially five primary/secondary colors - red, yellow, green, blue, and purple, but this color wheel is a sort of hybrid between pigment and light.

I took classes in Perception and Color Theory (audited the Color Theory class only because of scheduling conflicts), and at the time I took the Perception class, I was taught that they eyes have two sets of receptor cones - the red/green cones (which recognize whether something was red or green) and the blue/orange cones, which only recognize blue and orange (or yellow) light. In the 1950s, some semi-color movies were made using only blue-green and orange (besides black and white), and this somehow was supposed to simulate the rest of the colors. People who are colorblind generally lack the red/green cones, but are able to see blue/orange combinations. Therefore, red and green appear to them to be the same color, which probably looks like a type of brown to them, which is what you get when you mix red and green pigments. I think it is very difficult to say what someone else perceives, as everyone's eyes are unique, and there are many colors/light waves that we cannot see at all without help.

Blue is supposed to be an unappetizing color, and so using blue plates is supposed to help curb your appetite, but I've been using blue plates for decades with no decrease in appetite that I could discern. Using smaller sized plates has been more beneficial for me. We went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch today after seeing Iron Man III,and the plates were extremely small, and so we brought home leftovers but did not eat them. I'll see if they are still good tomorrow, but there really wasn't that much anyway.

Lars

Lars explained the additive/subtractive color perception well. If you take a magnifying glass and examine the monitor right in front of you, you will find it generates only three colors, blue, green and red. The combination of these three colors can give you all the other colors.

Which, (quickly going off-topic) makes you think the visual afterimage perception phenomenon, does it also happen in a similar way with our senses for taste? (Pairing of foods?)

Back on topic: Think Blue Man Group for more blue ideas.

dcarch

I was thinking of you today, John, when I cooked some purple cabbage. I added both white basalmic vinegar and molasses and it stayed about the same dark purple as the outer cabbage leaves.

So what's your objective of this newest diet?

Squid ink...squid ink pasta, risotto, rice.....? More black than blue, I guess.....

ruthanna, it is an experiment in weight loss. A friend recommended it as a way to break through a weight plateau. (A few of us are doing an informal weight loss and fitness challenge.) I won't keep it up long - seems pretty unhealthy - but for just two weeks I think it will be at least interesting. Turns out the list of things I can eat are very limited. Meat, poultry, fish, tofu, eggs, a limited amount of milk/cheese, almost no fruit/veg, no grains at all. And a daily heap of vitamin supplements . . . None of which are blue.

John, you will lose "weight" on that diet. It will be water weight. Keep it up long enough and you'll lose muscle as well. Fat? Well, not so much. You're forcing your body to go into starvation mode and it will naturally hang on to fat to keep you alive. :(

/tricia

Yes, I can see the water weight effect already, because the scale is falling too rapidly to be real weight loss. Interesting.

Chicken Cordon Bleu?