A Hunger Artist

The Noble Pig

2012-01-24T14:28:00.000-05:00

Dans le cochon tout est bon from Iris Alexandre on Vimeo.

A Partial "How To Bake a Loaf of Hearth Bread" at Home Tutorial

2012-01-19T10:49:00.000-05:00

I was going to post about my reaction to Paul Deen's announcement that she has Type-2 diabetes, but instead opted to do something positive and antithetical to the dangerous style of cooking that has made her rich and, very possibly, sick.

The bread in the video is a variation of something that I've been making weekly since about 1999. It "starts" with wet starter that I keep in the refrigerator until I'm ready to bake. I don't keep close track of the age of my starters, but I think this one is about two years old. The starter is usually a mixture of whole rye and wheat flour, wheat berries, flax seeds and, of course, well water. Sometimes I rebuild it with more of all of the solid components. Other times, I'll use just one or something completely different like durum wheat flour. This week I rebuilt it with rye flour and wheat berries.

After an initial feeding, I let the starter ferment for about 8 hours before feeding it again, and then letting it go until the yeast and bacteria start making a ruckus. This later stage can take anywhere from 12 to 24 hours depending on a host of variables too numerous to mention.

Once the starter is cranking, I'll mix in the flour and water that will form the bulk of the finished bread, let it "autolyse" (absorb the water) for 30 minutes or so before adding the salt. I usually knead it with the dough hook in my mixer then let it proof for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. I stop the proofing when I think the "nose" or smell is where I want it to be and, of course, when I think the yeast and bacteria have produced sufficient gas to give the dough a good rise in the oven (oven spring).

Here is a "crumb" shot of the finished bread. Notice the whorl in the lower portion of the loaf? That is a clear indication that the crust hardened before the dough had finished rising in the oven. I'm not sure why this happened but I suspect it was caused by one or more of the following factors.

The water that I added to the oven dried evaporated before the bottom of the bread finished expanding
The dough was too cold before I put it in the oven
The oven was not hot enough

Water is added to the oven, in part, to keep the crust soft while the dough expands. If the water gives out too soon, the crust hardens inhibiting further expansion of the interior.
If the second instance the nethermost interior of dough that is too cold will not heat before the crust hardens. So any expansion of gases that occurs, happens too late to cause much inflation of the gluten cells.
Finally, if the oven is not hot enough (especially the floor of the oven) the crust will harden before the interior is heated sufficiently to cause expansion of the gluten cells.

Of course, this loaf is perfectly edible and I'm only mildly chagrined that it did not leaven perfectly. Hell, you can't nail a recipe every time you make it. Especially when you ware only doing it once a week with nonprofessional equipment and kids and dogs and other agents of chaos.

A Pork Terrine for the 21st Century

2011-12-18T17:17:00.001-05:00

Terrine of Pork with Chestnuts

Actually, the title of this post is totally hyperbolic. The only thing remotely modern about the terrine that I am preparing for the holidays is the Thermoworks temperature data logger that I'm using to track the internal temperature while the terrine cooks in a water bath. Otherwise the terrine is a perfectly traditional recipe made with ingredients that have been around for centuries. Even the concept of cooking the terrine in sealed vessel in a low temperature water bath is old.

I will apologize in advance to anyone who might want the recipe because I did not write down the amounts of spices and Cognac I used. I just added them "to taste" as I almost always do when I'm not cooking for commerce. However, I do remember the ratios for the meats, salt and pink salt (nitrite salt)

Pork 100 %

Chicken liver 20%

Beef 10%

Salt 1.7 %

Pink Salt .25 %

Update:
Here is the terrine after three hours of cooking in a water bath set to 165 deg F. I'll post the internal temperature data after I download it from the data logger. Stay tuned!

Cooked!

Shaping Dough

2011-12-13T18:06:00.001-05:00

Lately, I don't have the time or the will to write serious posts to this blog. But I hate the idea of just letting lie fallow. So, I'm going to try to post short items that may be interesting and, I hope, useful. Here is a short video of me shaping bread dough before it's last proof/ rise before baking. The dough is made from starter that built for two days. I've been making bread like this for a long time and it's never the same from one week to another. This dough is made from Hi-gluten bread flour, Graham flour, flax seed and raisins. It took three days to construct and bake. Note that after I shape the dough, I scrape out the bowl and put the leftovers into my starter jar which I keep in the fridge.

t.

Salt Cellar

2011-12-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

This salt cellar was given to us a dozen years ago by Inge, who at 17 years of age had come from Estonia to live with us and be "au pair." Since then, there has never been a day when it has not been on our table at dinner. Here, you see it being filled before being set out for dinner. Inge is now married and living near San Diego, Ca.

A Question

2011-12-06T09:20:00.001-05:00

Imagine you are a charcoal grill. What would you need to know about a sirloin steak in order to cook it to an internal temperature of 140°F or 60°C?

Musing on "Charcuterie"

2011-11-13T09:37:00.001-05:00

Galantine de canard aux pistaches
(by the author)

At its literal core, the word “Charcuterie” seems to be more concerned with the work of the hamburger jerk and rotiseur (roast cook) than it does with what we now understand to be the work of the traditional French charcutier

Charcuterie: 1858, from Fr. charcuter (16c.), from obsolete char (Mod.Fr. chair) cuite "cooked flesh," from chair "meat" (from O.Fr. char, from L. carnem) + cuit, pp. of cuire "to cook." (Online Etymology Dictionary)

So the literal meaning of the word “charcuterie” is something on the order of of the realm or place of cooked meat.

If we take the literal meaning to represent what people actually did when they said they were doing “charcuterie” then we would expect them to be engaged in cooking meat. By the same measure, a shop where meat was cooked for sale might be called a “charcuterie.” But like so many words, the literal meaning of charcuterie ceded importance to new meanings applied by practitioners and their clients and hagiographers and others so that nowadays the word is understood to mean

[Charcuterie] a delicatessen specializing in dressed meats and meat dishes; also : the products sold in such a shop French, literally, pork-butcher's shop, from Middle French chaircuiterie, from chaircutier pork butcher, from chair cuite cooked meat; First Known Use: circa 1858

(Merriam-Webster)

Those familiar with the contents of modern charcuterie shops know to expect to find mostly pork in the form of cured, fermented, air dried, cooked and smoked sausages, salami, pate’s, terrines, confit etc. all mostly identifiable as “French” in style but with a smattering of Italian and German style preparations. In other words, the French charcuterie (shop) like the word charcuterie is more or less synonymous with French, Italian and German prepared pork products.

Constructing the Language of Charcuterie

2011-08-26T16:04:00.000-04:00

South African Salt Cured Beef (Biltong)

Cure and Curing

Cure A chemical agent [Emphasis mine] placed in or on meat or poultry for use in preservation, flavor, or color. (USDA)

The USDA definition of cure seems reasonable until you examine some of the implicit assumptions made by the agency before its construction. For example, the language of the USDA implies that salt and sugar are not "chemicals"

Chemical Preservative Any chemical that, when added to a meat or meat food product, tends to prevent or retard deterioration thereof, but does not include common salt, sugars, vinegars, spices, or oils extracted from spices or substances added to meat and meat food products by exposure to wood smoke. (USDA)

By arbitrarily removing salt and sugar from their rightful place as chemical compounds, the USDA eliminates hundreds of products that are traditionally cured with one or both of these chemicals. So, in the obfuscating terminology of the USDA, an Iberico ham that is so well-preserved with salt that it can hang for two years is not cured while one that has added nitrite but can't last a week in the open air (e.g. Virginia ham) is cured ham.

Ridiculous.

And what about this definition of curing that states that only pork can be cured?

Curing Curing is the addition of salt, sodium nitrate (or saltpeter), nitrites and sometimes sugars, seasonings, phosphates and ascorbates to pork for preservation, color development and flavor enhancement. (USDA)

Add the same handful of chemicals to beef and it's not cured it's, what, seasoned? Given that the USDA's definition of cure allows it to be applied to "meat and poultry," the restriction to pork is probably the result of sloppy editing. Still, it's annoying and confusing.

I suspect that the USDA drew a dividing line between naturally occurring chemicals like salt and sugar to make a distinction between curing agents which are toxic only at very high doses (so high that no one would ingest food so treated) and substances like nitrite which can cause serious damage in small amounts (Nitrite in Meat). But really, for those of us who want to understand what curing is and how it occurs, this regulatory language is more shadow than light.

I think that those of us who practice the craft of charcuterie, while staying mindful of the law (and compliant if we produce commercially) will be better off thinking about cures and curing based on an understanding of what curative substances actually are and how they behave within and affect the foods into which they are introduced.

All of the substances that we use when we cure meat and other animal products (and plant products too, but we'll ignore them for now) have the following characteristics

They are water or fat or protein soluble or some combination thereof. In other words, they are chemicals that can pass thru cell membranes and dissolve in tissue.
They inhibit the growth of spoilage microbes limiting the bugs access to water (i.e. lowering the water activity on and in the food) or via intoxication (poisoning) or cell damage or some combination thereof.
In some applications they enhance water retention by the product cured
They alter the color of the cured product via chemical (nitrates) and physical (sugar) means
They change the taste and sometimes the aroma of the product

With these shared characteristics in mind, we can make a first rough draft of a new definition of cure) as in curing agent)

Any substance that is capable of dissolving in meat (or any comestible animal product) that has the effect preventing or limiting the occurrence of spoilage microbes and altering its flavor and color.

This definition seems to permit the full range of products that are used for curing to be accepted as curing agents. Salt, all the sugars, slaked lime (Calcium hydroxide, used to make cured Century Eggs) lye (Sodium hydroxide e.g. lutefisk), celery and cherry juice powder (both rich in nitrate) and synthetic nitrates and nitrites.

Objections?

Homo sapiens or Homo ingurgitate?

2011-08-25T11:40:00.000-04:00

As you can see from the graph, about 1.2 million years ago there was quite the big shake out in hominid affairs as the species of the genus Homo replaced all previous iterations of hominins to become the dominant hominid. I suppose that you don't need to look at the graph to know that the last species of Homo standing is Homo sapiens.

If asked to explain why early humans ended up in the winners circle while our phylogenetic cousins were booted into oblivion what would you say? An evolutionary biologist would surely cite aptations like the ability to run long distances and precocious communication skills along with a host of other morphological and behavioral phenotypic characteristics.

But I wonder if anyone has considered the possibility that Homo sapiens won the race to now because we were able (aptated) to eat faster than other species of hominids? I'm ~~exasperating~~ exaggerating, of course, but there is abundant evidence that humans can eat a lot of food very quickly and it is not unreasonable to entertain the idea that it was, at minimum, a factor in our success.

Actually, what got me thinking along these lines was the discovery of the existence of an organization called the Major League Eating and International Federation of Competitive Eating. It appears to be an organization that organizes, promotes and manages events where eater athletes try to out eat each other. The very idea of competitive eating is completely disgusting but it may offer a hint about how, by being pigs, we ended up being the last hominids standing.

Major League Eating & International Federation of Competitive Eating

Do the Cure in Italy in 2012

2011-08-15T10:57:00.002-04:00

Sean Timberlake, a virtual friend of mine and the founder of the cooperatively blogged blog Punk Domestics (Great name, right?), asked me to let my readers know about a culinary tour- set of cured meat and fish classes he is hosting in Emilia-Romagna in 2012. Of course, me being the lazy blogger that I've become, I copied and pasted the details of the trip from Sean's blog with only minor edits.
Self-deprecation aside, I can say that it looks like a great trip.
I've been to Emilia-Romagna exactly once to visit Parma, Bologona and some relatives in Borgo Val di Taro -my father's ancestral village- and I can assure you that the cuisine of this region is superb. I also think it's kind of cool that the tour takes you to Casa Artusi, named for Pelligrino Artusi, the first guy to write a comprehensive book about Italian cooking from all of the regions of Italy and which was one of the books I used to teach myself how to cook. -Bob dG

Working with my friend Vanessa DellaPasqua, who creates and manages premium culinary tours, we have established an itinerary that we think will offer a truly unique experience. Stationed in the charming Adriatic town of Cesenatico, this seven-day, six-night trip will include:

Six nights at the family-owned Hotel Sirena on the Adriatic Coast, in the heart of Romagna;
Four hands-on cooking classes featuring the best of local products;
All meals, including drinks and local wine selection;
A tour of Parma and Modena to discover the secrets of Parmigiano-Reggiano and balsamico;
An English-speaking guide throughout the tour;
A unique opportunity to learn the art of salumi, cured fish and preserves at the seasoned hands of the DellaPasqua family and their trusted norcino in one of Italy’s great culinary regions.

We'll kick the trip off with a bang, working with a freshly slaughtered pig and getting to work making many traditional salumi: salami, salsiccie, ciccioli, coppa di testa, pancetta and more. Later, we'll learn about preserving fish with vinegar, oil and salt methods. And on our final full day we'll take oninfusions, jams and savor, a local jam with fruits and nuts.
Will we be learning at the hands of professional preservers who follow the ways of their ancestors, but all work and no play makes Johnny a dull punk, so we've peppered the trip with a few outings to allow you to experience the splendor of Emilia-Romagna's rich culinary history. We'll visit one of Romagna's musei del gusto , showcasing Italy's epicurean traditions; Casa Artusi, the museum of Italian home cooking; Cesenatico's fish market along the harbor designed by Leonardo da Vinci; learn about a local sheep's milk cheese that's ripened in pits dug in the soil; and of course Parma to see the production of Parmigiano-Reggiano and Modena to learn about traditional balsamico.
The trip will occur January 7-13, 2012. This is the period of time when the hog is traditionally slaughtered and cured, according to the age-old traditions of the norcino.

All this for just $2,500 (USD). You can download a comprehensive itinerary in PDF form here.Interested? You bet you are! We've already sold five spots, so now's the time to act if you're interested in joining us for this unique opportunity to learn about preserving in Italy's culinary heartland. Just contact us and we'll get the ball rolling

What Will Happen When Most Don't Cook?

2011-08-08T15:26:00.003-04:00

According to Richard Wrangham in Catching Fire How Cooking Made us Human, cooks are responsible for the changes that led to the development of modern humans from raw-food eating australopithecine ancestors. Wrangham argues that because cooking unlocks nutrients from food making them more nutritious, (Apologies to raw food advocates who are happy to get few nutrients per unit mass of food consumed.) natural selection favored the survival of individuals who understood how to cook and, since knowing how to cook also means knowing how to use fire, these individuals were crucial in the development of technologies that depend on the controlled release of energy (in other words, all technology).

If Wrangham is right, every one of us owes our human identity and genome to cooks. It also implies that people who don't cook are opting out of an activity that is as much a part of what makes us human as the ability to walk up right, speak, make and use tools, anticipate future events and recall and analyze the past. And since the number of people in Western industrial and post-industrial cultures have been abandoning cooking for decades in favor of food cooked by others and machines, one really has to wonder what the long term effect on human evolution is going to be if the trend continues unabated.

Big Chicken Leads to Big Problems

2011-07-28T16:50:00.002-04:00

News Room - Pew Environment Group

Pain de mie au Brioche

2011-07-14T13:51:00.000-04:00

This bread is terrific for canapes, croque monsieur or any preparation that requires a relatively water resistant firm substrate or envelope. The pores (gluten cells) are densely packed and tiny due to limited ability for the raw dough to expand when packed inside the covered baking pan. Since the crumb (fr. mie) is so rigid the bread can be sliced very thinly and once toasted will not warp or fall apart as easily as softer bread with larger, less densely packaged gluten cells. Finally, the large amount of butter fat in the dough, does a great job of coating the starch and gluten strands making them more resistant to water intrusion (and going slack or dissolving and falling apart) than bread with less fat.

I made this last Saturday for use later this week.

Here is the recipe with notes on the rationale for some of the stages and steps.

Sponge -one makes a sponge first to pump up the yeast which would otherwise be too challenged by the high fat environment of the dough. All ingredients are weighed.

Bread flour     2.25 oz         70g
Instant yeast   0.33 oz         12 g
Milk, warm    4.00 oz        112 g

Dough
Eggs                  8.25 oz            230 g (5 ea)
Bread flour       16.00 oz          470 g
Sugar           1.25                 11g
Butter, unsalted 12.00 oz         336 g    set out to soften!

Method

Mix the sponge and let sit covered 30 minutes to stimulate yeast growth.

Beat the eggs into the sponge then add the flour, salt and sugar (medium speed with paddle). Since fat inhibits gluten formation by coating and preventing the glutenin and gliadin proteins from combining with water to form gluten, the flour is added before the butter in order to develop gluten.
Cut up the butter and beat it into the dough (slow-medium speed with paddle) until it is completely combined and the dough looks smooth and silky.
Put it in a bowl, cover it, let it ferment (proof) for four hours. This is the minimum amount of time required for adequate yeast growth, flavor development and gluten relaxation.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The oven has to be hot for the bread to bake :-)
Turn it out on a lightly floured surface. Press it into a rectangle that is slightly less than the length but slightly greater than the width of your baking pan.
You can figure out how to shape the dough on your own. Because the thing is going to bak in a covered pan and it's seams will all be compressed and sealed as the dough pushes against the walls, floor and ceiling of the pan shaping is not that critical.
Put the dough in the pan and let it rise until it is within a cm or so of the top.
Bake with the lid until it done. I've no idea how long it will take. I wasn't paying attention when I made it. However, like all yeast bread it's done when it sounds hollow when you thump it with a finger or when an inserted skewer comes away clean and dry.

Cochon de Lait

2011-07-01T20:48:00.001-04:00

This is pretty slick, maybe a little too much so. But It's also a pretty good look at something you may have never seen before.

To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish from UM Media Documentary Projects on Vimeo.

Guest Post: I Went to Cooking School (and Don’t Regret It)

2011-06-17T09:26:00.002-04:00

Note: Michele, my dentist's assistant, knows what I do, loves to cook and, like so many of us, spends a good deal of time immersed in food and cooking media. So I wasn't at all surprised when she asked me if I had seen the book by a guy who wrote about going through The Culinary Institute of America. She didn't know the title or the authors' name so, I assumed that she had seen the book that Ruhlman had written ( The Making of a Chef) when I was still teaching at CIA. But after a few minutes of conversation, I got the impression that we were not talking about the same book. So when I got home I went online and, in like 2 minutes, discovered a blog post at The Culinary Librarian about a talk given by Jonathan Dixon, the author of Beaten Seared and Sauced: On Becoming a Chef at the Culinary Institute of America.
I left a comment on the blog and in a few minutes was exchanging emails with Jonathan. (The web is thrilling still!) Later, I downloaded his book to my Kindle and was so impressed by his story and writing style that I asked him to guest post so that I could support his work. Bob dG

by Jonathan Dixon

I am an author and a private chef. I am compensated for writing about food, and I am compensated for cooking it. I am also a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. I did not enroll there without a lot of thought and significant research. I weighed all the pros and cons. The essence of the positive side seemed to be the notion of a total immersion in the world of cooking and really, truly learning how to handle food. As for the cons...well, I found many, many screeds that took a negative point of view.

The crux of almost every argument against going to cooking school always comes down to this: the cost of tuition far and beyond outweighs the salary you’ll make in a restaurant kitchen. You (or your parents) will be slowly crushed under ten tons of debt while earning only a very little more than minimum wage. It’s when advancing this argument that anti-culinary school folk often start sounding like crotchety old codgers, explaining that they didn’t need cooking school—they did it the old fashioned way, beginning as a dishwasher and working their way up, and not wasting time with some fancy education that won’t ever pay off. This has always sounded to me like a variant on the old walking-to-school-barefoot-through-blizzards-uphill-both-ways trope and, even if there’s truth to it, whenever I hear the tales, my mind starts wandering and my eyes glaze.

In one sense, though, it’s hard to argue against the point. Restaurants are notorious for exceptionally poor compensation. And this leads to the oft-leveled charge that cooking schools take advantage of students’ ambitions, telling them they could very well be the next Grant Achatz or David Chang if they get an education under their belts (it’s worth noting that both are culinary school alums). There are class-action suits pending right now on this issue. Interestingly, no one has ever sued, say, the Universities of Iowa or Arizona for letting its MFA writing students believe one of them could be the next Denis Johnson or David Foster Wallace (both of whom did, in fact, get MFA’s). I, for one, once wished I could be the third guitarist in the Grateful Dead, a goal which sadly failed to work out, but a failure which has not made me consider litigation against my one-time guitar teacher.

But the keystone of the whole discourse is wrong. The underlying assumption of the entire polemic is that every student will wind up in a restaurant kitchen. I’d venture that’s where most students see themselves. Look at Achatz and Chang and their presence in the media and culinary worlds, read the strutting romance of Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, and hell, where else would you want be but in a professional kitchen? Some will wind up there and it’s just where they are going to want to be. For a lot of people, that is precisely where they don’t want to be.

The food industry in America generates something like $900 billion annually. Restaurants contribute a good chunk of that cash to the revenue stream, but obviously not all of it. Where else does the money come from? Menu development, research, test kitchens, catering, writing, food styling, consulting, on and on and on and on. Someone needs to help write The Babbo Cookbook and someone needs to test its recipe for Beef Cheek Ravioli. The ribs and cornbread that got served at my girlfriend’s college reunion which we attended last week? Someone had to cater the affair. Okay, yes—none of these jobs is as swashbucklingly cool as being a renowned chef. No matter how great she may be, Abigail Kirsch lacks the star power of a David Chang. But not everyone can be—or even wants to be—a star, and most of these jobs pay a hell of a lot more than a restaurant does. I have a gig cooking privately for a family in Manhattan. This means that I’m missing out on some exciting stuff. I don’t get the adrenaline thrill of service in full swing. I don’t get the intense camaraderie that comes from working with others in that situation. If the many war stories I’ve heard are to be believed, I am not having sex in the walk-in, nor am I doing lines of blow off of a server’s breasts. But, in one night, I might make what a line cook in the city earns in a week. Being a private chef may, as Anthony Bourdain has written, get me laughed out of any bar he and his confreres drink at, but somehow I suspect I’ll live.

Jean-Michel Basquiat never went to art school. Cormac McCarthy did not get an MFA. Thomas Keller did not attend cooking school. There is more than one way for anyone to reach his or her personal endpoint. And there are a whole lot of different endpoints to reach. If a culinary education is going to put one them that much closer to your fingertips, then why the hell not take the plunge?

Ducathlon, the Video

2011-06-10T16:05:00.000-04:00

In which the silliness that was the D'Artagnan Ducathlon 2010 gets the montage treatment. The best part is near the end (min 4:35) when I appear during the awards ceremony. Well, the best part for my mother anyway :-)

The Difference Between Organic and Conventional Meat (mostly Beef)

2011-06-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

I'm not endorsing the conclusions of this review of the nutritional and organoleptic differences between organic and conventionally raised meat, but it feels right to me. The following is excerpted from the paper's conclusions.

Keep in mind that the study is an evaluation of the status quo and does not address advancements that might improve the quality conventional or organic meat.

"Beef animals raised organically grow more slowly and produce leaner carcasses. As a result the meat tends to have less marbling and is less tender. The profile of the fat is altered with organic production (or with grass feeding), with a higher content of PUFAs (in particular CLA) and is regarded as more favorable in terms of human nutrition. Similar findings have been reported with pigs and poultry, the research and consumer findings suggesting that the result is a slightly tougher meat but with an enhanced flavor that is preferred by some consumers (probably an age effect since organic animals and birds take longer to reach market weight). The main difference between organic (farm-raised) and wild fish is a higher content of fat in the organic fish, due to diet. The fat is considered desirable in the human diet."

Click Is Organic Meat Higher in Nutrient Content? by Robert Blair to read the entire paper.

May 1, 2011 D'Artagnan Duckathlon Meatpacking Madness

2011-05-15T16:23:00.001-04:00

Man, time flies. I meant to post about this over a week ago but between work and gardening and a trip to New Orleans for Jazz Fest I could not find the time. Two weeks ago I spent what was probably the silliest day in a year as a judge at an event hosted by D'Artagnan, the extraordinary purveyor of fine food. VERY loosely modeled on an Olympic decathlon, teams from NYC restaurants competed in events where they had to do everything from reassembling a suckling pig to trying a salami around their waists and, dressed in drag (for the men anyway), dip the salami into a pail.

Suffice it to say that I was very pleased to be a judge and leave the monkey business to the youngsters.

Apart from the aura of wackiness around the event, there were many pleasant surprises, especially for someone who spent most of his life living around and in New York City. For starters, the site of the event was the Meatpacking District which has undergone an amazing transformation. When I was a kid the place stunk, needles and used condoms littered the streets and NOBODY was on the street in daylight on a weekend who wasn't unconscious or dead. But on the Sunday of the Duckathlon the streets were teaming with tourists, bridge and tunnel kids and, I assume people who have actually chosen to live in what once was the very apotheosis of nasty urban America.

And The High Line park, built on the elevated train track that used to carry refrigerated boxcars full of carcasses into the district, is one of the most beautiful and crowded city parks I have ever seen.

I also got to spend the day hanging out with someone who I listened to on WNYC almost everyday for 20 years, Leonard Lopate. Leonard, who has won two James Beard awards was absolutely delightful company. And why not? Just Terry Gross, another extraordinary NPR personality, Leonard has interviewed thousands of people over the years, many of whom have made major contributions to American pop and political culture. He's someone you could talk to for a month and never run out of fresh subjects to gnaw.

Of course, I spent a good deal of time with the host of the Ducathlon, the indefatigable Ariane Daguin, founder of D'Artagnan and a woman who has done as much to elevate the quality of American fine-dining as anyone you can name. Duckathlon is the second D'Artagnan sponsored event I've been smart enough to attend, last year I attended D'Artgnan's 25th Anniversary Party, which was a hoot as well.

Finally, I cannot fail to mention how cool it was to have King Phojonakong as my judging partner. I first met King at The Culinary Institute of America where he was a student in two of the classes I taught. In the intervening years he has gone on to become a great friend and colleague (we are both involved in an ongoing symposium at NYU) and a master of Philipino cuisine with two terrific restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn. (Check out Kuma Inn and Umi Nom, you will love them).

Frankly, I cannot believe that events like this have something to do with what I do for a living. One is not supposed to have this much fun at anything that has to do with work. (At least that's what my Puritan muse tells me ;-)

"You Make Me Hungry" and Other Metaphors for What you Really Mean

2011-04-30T10:21:00.001-04:00

It seems like a lifetime has scudded by since Gary Allen and I worked at The Culinary Institute of America. I met Gary there in 1994 during an orientation session for new faculty. I knew Gary was cool the moment I set eyes on him. He had the mien of someone who had been there, done almost all of it, knew everything, understood he knew nothing, and thought that his ignorance was amusing.

I'm not sure when Gary became interested in exploring the philosophical and linguistic aspects of people eating people . But what I do know is that he and I began an ongoing discussion about the nature of human appetite and the language that we use to express it very early on in our friendship. Given that my first teaching assignment at CIA was in Gastronomy, it makes sense that the subject of anthropophagy would come up right away. But what surprised the hell out of me was when I discovered that he had taken the subject so seriously, that he'd begun to write a book that explored the way that the idea of people-eating had taken root in the language of everyday speech and other forms of human expression. So a few weeks ago when Gary told me that he'd just recently handed over the manuscript of "How to Serve Man" to his publisher I invited him to write something of it at A Hunger Artist -which not at all coincidentally takes its title from story about a man who does not eat and so slowly consumes himself in an act of autoanthropophagy. Bob dG

I recently completed editing a book I've been writing for over a decade. It's now in the hands of the publisher (and the scholars who review such books for the publisher). I can only imagine the look on their faces when the see its working title: How to Serve Man: On Cannibalism, Sex, Sacrifice, and the Nature of Eating.

Yes, it really is about all those things -- and a lot more.

Over the milennia, we humans have accumulated a lot of irrational notions about sustenance, procreation, life, death, and our relations with divinity, real or imagined. Just because we are modern and scientifically-minded, now, doesn't mean we've abandoned those notions. As each of us ages, we do not shed our younger selves, like snakeskin -- the children and adolescents we once were still live inside us. We merely add layers of experience and, at best, temper our childish urges with more mature behavior.

Our cultures mature in similar fashion; the cannibals and human sacrificers we once were, still exist within us. We merely keep them in check with a veneer of civilization. However, if we look closely, we can still see traces of earlier stages of our evolution. Our language provides just such a glimpse of what we were, and the following excerpt from the book is one such peek.

What's Eating You?

Ambrose Bierce once defined a cannibal as "A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period."

Of course, we're much more civilized today -- we no longer actually tear into our enemies with our teeth. We prefer to do it symbolically -- with our tongues -- but we reveal our ancient cannibalistic tendencies by using metaphors from the kitchen. To be verbally "roasted" by a superior is be "raked over the coals," and "basted." In French, the verb cuisiner (to cook) also means to interrogate with the help of torture.

Sometimes, if we deserve the hot treatment, we are merely left to "stew in our own juices" or "fry in our own grease." The Spanish equivalent is quemarse en su propia salsa, "burn in our own sauce." Once we are thoroughly cooked, our colleagues may properly describe us as "done to a turn." Likewise, someone who has been (or is about to become) totally defeated is "dead meat" or "gobbled up."

When someone's in trouble at the office, they're said "to be in a pickle" or "in hot water." In Italian, they're essere in un bel pasticcio, "in a lovely meat pie" -- and when an American might say that the boss is going to make "mincemeat" out of such a person, the Italians say that he fare polpette di qualcuno, "is going to make meatballs out of him." To "have someone for breakfast" or to be "chawed (chewed)" or "chawed up and spit out" is to be completely destroyed -- or at least demoralized -- by such a tongue-lashing. A worse insult, that is only implied, is to be "chawed" and not spit out -- because that means the hapless victim is digested, reduced to the status of "used food," (the stuff we flush down the toilet).

It is worth noting that, while there lots of food-based slurs, ethnic or otherwise, for others considered to be inferior (for example: "bagel-benders," "frijoles," "frogs," "fruitcakes," and "krauts"), completely different food-names are applied to superiors. Food terms can be used to indicate flaws in our superiors -- which allows us to treat them (if only surreptitiously) as our inferiors. Almost always, the descriptive insults suggest that superiors eat too much. Consider terms like "the big cheese," "the big enchilada," "old lard-ass" or "lard-bucket" or "tub-of-lard," or the "top banana," or the "big potato." In Spain, the preferred term is el pez gordo, "the fat fish." None of these terms (with the possible exception of those containing the word "lard") would be used for someone we actually believed to be more powerful but less qualified than ourselves. For sure, we don't want to be caught using one of these expressions -- lest we "get our goose cooked."

When someone asks, "what’s eating you?" they're suggesting that some imaginary, corrosive, consuming evil is the source of our discontent. What's really surprising that no one ever asks "who's eating you."

Gary Allen is the author (and/or editor) of: The Resource Guide for Food Writers; The Herbalist in the Kitchen; The Business of Food: Encyclopedia of the Food and Drink Industries (with Ken Albala); and Human Cuisine (with Ken Albala). His latest book, Herbs: A Global History, from Reaktion Press, is scheduled for release in Spring 2012. You can read more of his stuff at his website is On the Table and his blog, Just Served.

Ferment This! Northeastern Thai Sour Sausage

2011-04-23T11:12:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I stumbled over a post about fermented pork ribs at the Thai Home Cooking blog SheSimmers. I was impressed enough by the quality of the writing and photography -to say nothing of my chargrin when I realized that I knew almost nothing about Thai cuisine- to briefly post about the this example of Thai "charcuterie," here. Then in what feels like a few nanoseconds, I became a virtual collaborator in a couple of fermented food projects with Leela, the author of the blog. One of these is described in this neat article about another form on fermented Thai food, a sausage known as Sai Krok Isan. Please welcome Leela to A Hunger Artist and be sure to scoot over to her blog at SheSimmers.com for more of her carefully executed and informative posts about Thai cooking. Bob dG

One of the many misconceptions foreign visitors often have about Thailand is that the best foods it has to offer are found primarily on the sidewalks, that the shoddier a food stall the more ‘authentic’ its food, and that anything that comes via street carts is always made in a more ‘artisanal’ manner than what one would find at a supermarket or a sit-down eatery. Exceptions exist, of course, but, in my opinion, such a notion is misguided. Take for example this Northeastern Thai sour sausage (Sai Krok Isan). It is a good example of food products that are often slaughtered by street vendors yet mastered by nationally-recognized manufacturers and restaurants whose expertise is in Northeastern cuisine.

Though not all sour sausages found on the streets are unacceptable, many make you heave a sigh of disappointment after a first bite. Inside the glistening, perfectly-charred casing is very little meat and lots of garlicky rice, still in whole kernels. Some rather disturbing versions contain abundant cooked rice that tastes strangely of artificial limeade – a telltale sign that the vendor has added citric acid, or something similar, to the paste to create instant sourness without having to ferment the sausage naturally. Getting this type of sausage when you expect a well-made one is akin to being handed a cup of milk which has been curdled with bottled lemon juice when you expect natural yogurt.

Great sour sausages as made by premium brand names and respectable vendors have one thing in common: the emphasis is on the meat as opposed to the rice. It makes a lot of sense as cooked rice – a basic household ingredient in Southeast Asia – is traditionally used to promote the growth of lactic bacteria; its primary function is to act as the catalyst for fermentation. In other words, we’re souring the meat with the rice in order to get the taste of soured meat; we’re not aiming for a rice-filled sausage that tastes of rice wine.

Most Sai Krok Isan recipes follow the traditional method, i.e. they don’t call for any additives. However, in consulting with Bob, I have learned that it is best to use a pure bacterial culture as the curing agent. This method can get the pH of the paste to drop through fermentation to the generally-accepted ideal range of 4.5-5.0 in roughly 48 hours as opposed to 4-5 days in a warm climate as directed by the recipe. The whole process would be just as natural. Tinted Curing Mixture #1 (Pink Salt / TCM #/DC#1) is also added for safety reasons.

For ease of sourcing and use, Bob has recommended Bactoferm LHP (Pediococcus acidilactici & Pediococcus pentosaceus) as the bacterial culture for this particular application. This freeze-dried culture only needs to be diluted with water before being added to the paste and spurred into action by regular table sugar (in addition to the catabolism of carbohydrates via cooked rice in the recipe).

We then played around with different formulae until the Goldilocks of Sai Krok Isan was achieved. After precisely 48 hours of fermentation at approximately 65°-70°F, we have a traditional Northeastern Thai sausage that is not too salty, perfectly soured; it has just the right texture and level of moisture retention. In other words, it is perfect.

Northeastern Thai Sour Sausage (Sai Krok Isan)

3.5 pounds/1590 grams pork shoulder, ground
1 pound/460 grams skinless pork belly, ground
1 pound/460 grams cooked long grain rice, ground to a coarse paste
4 ounces/112 grams peeled garlic, puréed to a paste (Note: the original recipe calls for half the amount of garlic. This is because the garlic cultivar that is commonly used in Thailand is much stronger than that commonly used in the US. If you use Thai garlic, reduce the amount by half.)
1 ounce/30 grams kosher salt
0.8 ounce/20 grams granulated sugar

0.8 ounce/20 grams Bactoferm LHP, dissolved in 4 ounces/112 grams water

0.12 ounce/5 grams ground white peppercorns
0.12 ounce/5 grams Curing Salt #1

8 ounces/227 grams hog casings

1. Mix all ground pork shoulder, ground pork belly, rice paste, and garlic paste together.

2. Sprinkle the remaining ingredients all over the surface of the meat paste; mix very well.

3. Fill the paste into the hog casings; follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your sausage stuffer.

4. The filled sausage should be approximately 1.5 inches in diameter. Twist the filled sausage at 6-inch intervals or 2.5-inch intervals.

5. Hang the sausage links to dry and ferment in a well-ventilated area for 48 hours. Alternatively, the sausage links can be arranged in a single layer on a cooling rack with a tight grid; make sure you allow at least 2 inches of space between the countertop and the bottom of the rack.

6. The sausage is ready to be cooked after 48 hours of fermentation. The most ideal cooking method is to grill it over low coals. The 6-inch links can be separated into individual pieces and grilled on a stick; the 2.5-inch links can be grilled in a large coil and cut into individual balls when served.

Yield: Approximately 5.5 pounds/2.5 kilograms of cooked sausage.

Leela

SheSimmers

Dairy Calf Horror

2011-04-21T06:19:00.000-04:00

Authorities investigates animal cruelty at E6 Cattle Co. in Hart, Texas | www.pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth

And Now for Something Really Tasty

2011-04-12T16:12:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be making hot dogs this week and was doing a bit of research into some of the methods of production when I ran across this horror. It appears to have been filmed in 1973 and I know that this type of plant is not very common any longer. However, like Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" it still worth viewing as an historical work and an indicator of how far we've come and how the past was almost never any better than the present. Bon appetite!

The Most Influential Chef of The 20th Century

2011-04-09T09:22:00.001-04:00

Fernand and Maire Louise Point and the brigade of La Pyramide

A few weeks ago I attended an event at The Astor Center in NYC where Ferran Adria, the guest speaker, was introduced as "The Most Influential Chef" of the 20th Century. While there is no arguing that Chef Adria has been tremendously influential, a chance encounter with the words "La Pyramide" during a search for something else, reminded me that if there is one chef who deserves to be called "The Most Influential Chef of the 20th Century" there are many more.

Auguste Escoffier was a giant: Alice Waters is a giantess. No one did a better job of inspiring Americans to take up French cooking than Julia Child while Paul Bocuse made it very clear that the epitome of the chef de cuisine was a highly polished professional who is as passionately devoted to commerce as he is to craft. And looking ahead, I think that when the votes are cast for most influential chef of the 21st Century, anyone who has ever heard or read his explanation of how he constructs his cuisine will have to agree that one of the clear winners is going to be Grant Achatz. The man is a brilliant culinary theoretician.

But out of the gaggle of the most influential chefs of any century, my personal favorite is the chef who was the mentor of many of the great chefs who emerged from the devastation of WWII into a newly globalized culture and who brought to us that radical elision of Haute Western & Asian cooking and dining modality, La Nouvelle Cuisine. It was Fernand Point who inspired Paul Bocuse, Alan Chapel and countless others to put quality of ingredients and technique above all other culinary considerations especially, and most significantly, the classical culinary coda the specified what went with what, and in what order, and what they should each be named. There is so much hyperbole about chefs in the media these days that it's pretty difficult to take any praise of anyone seriously. But ask any of the current great chefs what they think of Fernand Point and you will hear of a dieu de la cuisine.

Not bad hyperbole for a Saturday morning, eh? BdG

Larry's, The Real Deal

2011-04-08T17:38:00.004-04:00

Logo by Blue Farm Graphic Design

This is by far the most impressive portrayal of slaughter that I have ever seen. It pulls no punches but the way Larry and his crew carry out their work is so quick and efficient that the cringe factor (which is a normal component of all slaughter videos)has been severely diminished.

I should also point out that these fellows appear to have exactly the kind of attitude that we want to see in those whose job it is to convert living creatures into food. There's no swagger in their body language, no cynicism in the language with which they tell the story of what they do and how they do it. I know I could not do what they do without becoming undone and careless, but I don't get the sense that we need to worry that they are going to get sloppy.

CADE (Part 2): The Good Slaughter: A Proud Meat Cutter Shares His Processing Floor from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.http://www.bluefarmdesign.com/

You Can Buy this For Me. Thanks!

2011-04-06T19:19:00.001-04:00

It's pricy, but it looks like it will do everything I Primo 778 Extra-Large Oval Ceramic Charcoal Smoker Grill need a grill/oven/smoker to do. My current charcoal grill is a little welded sheet metal job I bought at Wal-Mart a couple of years ago for $40.00. It still does the job but the grills are buckled, the casing is rusting out and I'm starting to daydream about a replacement.