Around the world, beekeepers are bringing to market exciting new honeys, experimenting with single-varietals, micro-climates and  sometimes partnering with chefs and meaderies to hone just the right flavor profile necessary for a specific preparation.  Chefs have heard the call and are experimenting more and more with honey in savory as well as sweet preparations.  For those who love honey, this is a sweet time indeed.

Honey is the oldest sweetener known to Man, and since at least 2,500 BC, we humans have been keeping bees.  Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in this ancient agricultural product.   

Single-varietal honeys

If you were raised on supermarket honey and have never tried the artisinal stuff, you are in for a surprise.  “Supermarket, pasteurized honey is completely flavorless – all you taste is sweet, nothing more,” explains Maureen Maxwell, owner of BeesOnline a New Zealand-based apiary, retail store and restaurant.  “In order to create liquid honey that won’t crystallize, mass producers cook their honey, which produces a clear liquid texture. But all the nuances of flavor are lost in the process.”

Maxwell, a chef by training, became interested in honey upon her return to her native New Zealand after several years cooking professionally in Europe.  Intent on settling in the countryside outside Auckland, she found a farm and began consulting in the burgeoning wine business.  Then she tasted the raw honey.  It was the madeleine of her Proustian moment.  She’d never tasted anything like it, and she realized what she had been missing.  And so, starting with a hive in her garden Maxwell began beekeeping.  She found there was a market for her honeys and in 1999 founded BeesOnline. 

With a background in wine, Maxwell describes honey in similar terms, “To me light-colored honeys are similar to white wines; they have a delicate flavor. They work well in desserts and baking,” Maxwell explains. “Dark-colored honeys are like red wines, full-bodied, complex and slightly bitter.  They pair well with strong flavored savory foods such as meats and chilies.”  Like single-varietal wines capture a pure essence of a certain type of grape grown in a particular place, single-varietal honeys reflect a magnified essence of one flower grown in one spot.  In a true orange blossom honey, for example, one can smell the orange blossoms before even eating the honey.

Like the viogner grape in Condrieu, some flowers are better situated to certain soils.  There are classic examples in the honey world of places known for single-varietal honeys. 

• The Western Mediterranean (Spain, Portugal, France and Italy) – Rosemary, Lavender and Chestnut
• Greece (especially Crete) – Thyme
• Yemen – Sidr
• New Zealand – Manuka
• Australia – Sugarbag
• US (Florida) – Tupelo
• US (California) – Orange Blossom
• US (North Carolina) – Sourwood
• US (Hawaii) – Lehua
• UK (Scotland) – Heather
• Pakistan – Carissa

Local micro-climate honey

In Napa Valley, Calif., Helene Marshall had a similar epiphany when she met and married a beekeeper, Spencer Marshall.  “Eating local is such a big thing around here, it made sense to do local micro-climate wildflower honeys,” says Marshall.  The San Francisco Bay Area is lucky to have such a variety of micro-climates, due to its unique landscape, between its mountains, valleys and sea.  Marshall’s Honey found a niche in producing wildflower honey from micro-climates all around the Bay Area.  H. Marshall likens the difference in wild flower honeys to chocolate cake, “Ten different chocolate cakes from different bakers might have similar ingredients:  flour, chocolate, eggs, sugar.  But the proportions, the way they’re mixed and the way they’re baked create ten really different chocolate cakes.  It’s the same with honey.  The flowers might be roughly the same, but the proportions will be different and the weather will be different which means the honey will be different.”  When Marshall empties a hive, the honey is like a snapshot of the season that passed.  It’s like a perfect postcard of a particular place and time.  Is there another product that captures terroir with this precision?

Chefs turned farmers, turned beekeepers?

From Europe to the US, chefs are more involved than ever with farmers, in some cases taking on a farming role themselves incorporating fruits, vegetables and herbs from their own working gardens into menu items.  Scott Boggs, Garden Chef at the French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, Calif., oversees the three gardens and orchards that provide some of the produce used at the French Laundry restaurant.  For the past year, he has also been working closely with Marshall’s Honey.  Boggs “I knew bees would be great for the garden,” explains Boggs.  “We were already buying Marshall’s Honey and since they were local we knew them well.”  Last summer, Boggs asked Marshall to install two hives in the two-acre vegetable garden across the street from the French Laundry.  Marshall makes frequent visits to check on the hive, and when the trays are full of honey, they are drained, jarred and sold back to the French Laundry.  “It’s hard to tell what impact the bees will have, since we haven’t had them long enough to say.  But last fall and this spring we’ve had most plentiful crops yet.  I think having the bees has really impacted our pollination rates.”  Boggs describes the fist batch of French Laundry wild flower honey as light-tasting with an anise finish. 

Cooking with honey

Honey is one of the most versatile pantry ingredient.  A little sweetness can compliment even savory dishes.  But unlike white sugar, raw honey adds more that just sweetness.  Its complexity will add depth of flavor to many preparations.  At Maureen Maxwell’s restaurant, on her farm outside of Auckland, New Zealand, she offers a varied menu where every dish includes honey.  She suggests using dark colored honeys for savory dishes and light colored ones for desserts.  When substituting honey for sugar, she offers these tips:

• Use about 2/3 the volume of honey for the sugar since honey is sweeter and denser
• Reduce the volume of other liquid ingredients, such as milk, by 1/3
• Reduce baking temperature because honey burns at a lower temperature

Chef Clint Cook at the Hotel Mac in Point Richmond, Calif., is completely hooked on honey.  “I’ve basically stopped using sugar, and use honey for everything,” he says.  “Not only does honey have more flavor, it blends easier and smoother than sugar.”  Another benefit of using honey for baking is that its hydrophilic properties mean it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere and baked goods stay moist much longer than with sugar.

Honey and honeycomb have also been making appearances during the cheese course at upscale restaurants around the globe.  In Crete, thyme honey is a classic accompaniment to the local Graviera cheese. 

What’s Wrong with the Bees?

With so much buzz surrounding honey varieties and cooking with honey, beekeepers are having trouble keeping up with demand.  But there is a disturbing question many honey producers are asking themselves:  What's happening to the bees?  All around the world, bees are leaving their hives and never returning.  Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is devastating hive populations and no one is quite sure why.  Silvia Caňas, Director of Vida Apicola , an organization of Spanish beekeepers, says, “The last three years we’ve experienced a very difficult harvest, with low production.  Beekeepers in Spain are loosing hives and substantial amounts of their bee populations.  We think pesticides are affecting the beehives in some areas, but the truth is scientists have not yet determined what is at the root of the problem.”  Maureen Maxwell of BeesOnline attributes problems to aggressive mites that have made their way to New Zealand from China.  Helene Marshall thinks CCD is also mite related.  “Mites are a big problem.  We have run out of ways to control them – the old pesticides no longer work.  The bees have weakened immune systems because we can’t control the mites, so they are susceptible to many illnesses.”  The issues surrounding CCD are vital to understand.  More that honey is at stake since pollination is a vital service bees provide crops.  Scientists are working hard to try and find an answer. 

For now, all honey lovers can do is hope the bees bounce back.  Meanwhile, buying honey from local beekeepers who produce raw honey is an great way to support the farming environment while enjoying a diverse, delicious and complex product.  

Photo credit:  The National Honey Board of the US, Marshall's Honey, BeesOnline