A Hunger Artist

Nose to Tail in BS

2013-05-19T11:16:00.000-04:00

This article about one woman's "crusade to spread the gospel of meat" in an April 7, 2013 special food-centric edition of of The New York Times Magazine got my brow furrowed thinking about how media outlets like The Times Magazine have been treating the increase in chefs and DIY'ers who practice whole animal butchery while sermonizing about the righteousness of utilizing every part of the animal for food.

Not to put too fine a point on it: but do any of these people realize just how wasteful it is to do the kind of butchering that they are touting? Don't get me wrong. I'm all about "field-to-fork" cooking. But I suffer from no illusions about how wasteful it is to do whole animal butchering on the scale being promoted by The Times article and- let's face it- A LOT of my friends and colleagues.

To get a sense of what I'm whining about, take a look at this photo from the lead page The Times article. Clearly it was set up to advocate the use of an entire pig for meals. Trouble is that what is on the table represents approximately 60% of the edible weight of a hog. Missing is the blood, lungs, liver, heart, stomach, intestines and sex organs -all edible and all MIA.

Assuming that what has been left out of the photo in not in a bucket in the kitchen being made into desert by a nose-to-tail cooking pastry chef, where did it all go?

Well, given that the pig whose parts adorn the table in this photo was most likely killed in a small abbatoir that was not equipped to process all of the parts into food (or any of the other useful products derived from pig parts), the best answer is that with the possible exception of the liver, most of it was shipped to a rendering plant where is was turned into pet food and fertilizer.

Where's the good parts Mommy?

And never mind about so-and-so chef or whoever who raises his own hogs and kills and butchers them on his own farm. I've seen enough on-farm slaughter to know that no one utilizes all of the parts of a pig -or any other animal- better than the big, vertically integrated slaughter house factories.
You want true nose-to-tail cooking? Have lunch at a Smithfield Pork factory. Otherwise, the next time one side of someone's mouth tells you that they are all about nose-to-tail cooking while out the other side they say they practice whole animal butchering, ask them what they did with the parts that are not on the menu.

Just be prepared for a nose-to-tail dose of shucking and jiving.

The bottom line(s) is that in it's current form, the nose-to-tail cooking movement is at worst, yet another feel-good inducing campaign by chefs et al out to exploit a market for artisanal food or, at best, an aesthetic movement peopled with folks who derive pleasure and a sense of empowerment from taking charge of a part of the food web that has, for better part of a century, been under the aegis of specialists.

But until nose-to-tail becomes nose-to-tail-to-guts and blood, it would be nice if the foodie media and the public would stop pretending that slaughtering an animal to make head cheese and fracking artisanal salame and dumping its guts into 55 gallon barrel so it can be trucked to a factory and turned into cat food is somehow an act of virtue.

Off (al) to the render!

An Apology and the Photographic Record

2013-04-25T13:44:00.000-04:00

I don't do a very good job these days of promoting myself and my interests on this blog or anywhere in on the web. The truth is that months ago I got bored with blogging while at the same time I got very busy with consulting work. And now that I'm teaching in the Culinary Art and Science program at Drexel University in Philadelphia, I have even less time to post. I'm sorry about that. I never got bored with my readers. You folks were really the only reason I decided to blog in the first place. What bored me -if bore is the right word- was the pressure of having to keep coming up with stuff to post.
Anyway, I don't know why I decided to break silence on this and post last week and again today but here it is in the form of the previous apologia and this...

... slideshow of some of the action at the butchery workshop I assisted in Lancaster Ky. Many thanks to workshop leaders Kate Hill, master butcher Dominique Chapolard, master stonemason turned state-of-the-art abattoir proprietor Richard McAllister and UK Ag's rainmaking Special Projects Manager for sustainable agricultural efforts Chef Bob Perry!

These are some impressive people working at the edge of the envelope of contemporary agriculture and gastronomy. In a domain that is loaded with fanatics who give the impression that they will float into the sky if they remove their shoes, these folks are the soul of sober pragmatism and I consider myself honored to have been invited into their cohort.

Some of these photos are beautiful, a few even appear to reach the level of art. Suffice it to say that I had nothing to do with making them.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Meat Me in Kentucky

2013-04-06T17:42:00.002-04:00

Between April 19-21 I will be assisting at a butchery workshop at the amazing state of the art Marksbury Market in Lancaster, Ky and cooking with Chefs Justin Dean of the Relish Restaurant Group and Napoleon Ridge Farm , Bob Perry of the University of Ky and other members of Chef's Collaborative 2013 at The Winter Kitchen at Shaker Village.

It's all happening in the great State of Kentucky where the grass is blue and the true Bourbon flows through one of the most beautiful landscapes in all of creation.

Kate Hill

Dominique Chapolard (right)

The Butchery workshop is being led by author, educator and cuisinier Kate Hill of the Kitchen at Camont and Dominique Chapolard, a Gascon farmer and butcher who is the former head of Butchery & Charcuterie at the British School of Artisan Food, and the founder of the innovative and necessary Grrls Meat Camp.

Alas the Kentucky workshop is sold out. However there are still slots available at some of the other workshops that Kate and Dominque have scheduled for their Spring tour. (See below).

Dates & Locations: all events are open to the public.

April 12-14 2013 SPECIAL Grrls Meat Camp Butchery and Charcuterie for Women with Kari Underly & Kate Hill- http://grrlsmeatcampworkshop-es2005.eventbrite.com/ (check out the page on the toolbar above)
April 16-17 2013 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma- Francis Tuttle School of Culinary Arts in a brand new dedicated butchery classroom kitchen- http://francistuttle.edu/culinaryarts Book here: http://thefrenchpig.eventbrite.com

April 20-21 2013 SOLD OUT! Lancaster, Kentucky- Marksbury Farm. Book here: http://marksburyfarm.com/

April 23-24 2013 Woodbridge, Virginia- Stratford University School of Culinary Arts http://www.stratford.edu/culinary Book here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5692065120

April 27-28 2013 Montville, Maine- Claddagh Farm Cookery School For booking fill out form here: http://kitchengardenfoods.com/ask/

Go Pig or Go Home

2012-08-07T14:11:00.000-04:00

I'm re-posting this for my friend at Punk Domestics. I've got no interest in this other than getting the satisfaction of knowing I've helped. So please direct all questions about the trip to the good folks at Punk Domestics and Global Epicurean. Bob dG

Go Pig or Go Home 2013

Punk Domestics and Global Epicurean present

Go Pig or Go Home 2013

8-Day, 7-Night Culinary Experience with Cooking Classes

January 9 - January 16, 2013

Go Pig or Go Home

Intro

Join us in an exploration of Italy's preserving culture as we travel to the region that embodies more than any other Italy's culinary spirit, Emilia-Romagna. We will make our base on the Adriatic Coast and enjoy the many flavors of Romagna, while sharpening our knives and taking a stab at preserving a whole pig, from butcher to salami. This 8-day trip features:

Seven nights at the family-owned Hotel Sirena on the Adriatic Coast, in the heart of Romagna.
Hands-on cooking classes featuring the best local products.
All meals, including drinks and local wine selection.
A tour of Parma and Modena to discover the secrets of Parmigiano-Reggiano, prosciutto and balsamico.
An English-speaking guide throughout the tour.
A unique opportunity to learn the art of salumi, preserves and other local specialties at the seasoned hands of artisans in one of Italy's great culinary regions.

Price per person, based on double occupancy, is 3,500 USD. Single accommodation is available for an additional 250 USD.

Not For Foodies...

2012-08-01T12:58:00.004-04:00

who take dining very seriously. The rest of you: ENJOY!

New Farm Bill May Flip Ca Ban on Foie Gras

2012-07-19T15:38:00.002-04:00

Legislation that bans farming is bull

This news should give supporters of the abolition of foie gras farming pause to reconsider the strength of their political and moral arguments.

I'm not thrilled by much of what I have read of the new Farm Bill, but I'm even less in favor of laws that ban specific farming practices that cannot be proven to directly and negatively impact human health or that result in long-lasting environmental degradation that threatens public welfare. So legislate against the use of chemicals that are known to bio-accumulate and incite human cancers or other health problems and ban practices that result in flash flooding.

There are enough laws on the books to protect animals from obvious cruelty and that don't shut down entire farming industries.

Don't like the way a particular food is produced?

Then encourage a free and vigilant press to keep people informed about what the farming industry is doing and let the people decide for themselves what they want to eat.

Don't like gestation crates ?

Don't buy pork from farms that use gestation crates. If enough people do that, gestation crates will disappear and hog farms will morph into whatever it is the public and farmers believe should replace them.
Hate factory farms?
Well, buy your food from one that isn't. Or buy or rent a chunk of land and create an alternative. Lots of people are doing that and there's no reason why you should feel like you can't do it too. Just be prepared to see a lot of animal suffering that would have made you apoplectic with rage if you saw it happen on a "factory farm."
I should warn you that might take a while. Especially if you create a "true" non-factory farm where you control the animal's life cycle from birth to plate, but you don't horizontally integrate and set up specialized divisions to handle each phase of the animals life-cycle -especially the super-critical (for animal welfare and meat quality control) slaughter and meat processing part of your business. That's because it is very hard for one farmer to do all of that well and make any money. That's why we have so many factory farms now -they tend to be easier places to work.

And don't think you can just hand off the parts you can't manage to another business and walk away with a clean conscience. The most human slaughter facilities -the ones that can afford the Temple Grandin designed kill floors -are often the biggest. And unless you have a lot of animals to send to them they are not going to want your business. There are smaller kill-processing facilities that will treat your stock well, but there aren't many. So if the prospect of having total responsibility for breeding, feeding, managing and slaughtering animals, butchering them and turning them into meat doesn't scare you. Hell, then a sustainable non-factory farm is probably right for you.

Frankly, if I wanted to create and alternative farm, I would make it a factory farm with pastured animals. But then, I'm not a dyed in the wool hater of factory farming design or practice. In fact, I recently helped set up a kill and meat processing facility for a farmer who raises grassfed cattle and dairy cows on almost 10,000 acres of grass and forest. He also built a 50,000 sq ft dairy where he milks the cows and turns the milk into cheese and yogurt. It's a factory farm by ANY definition but all the animals are pastured, the fields are fertilized with manure spreaders, there are no hormones used. Bulls do the insemination....
But I digress.

You don't like it? Don't buy it, write about, complain about it publicly or build your own.

But as soon as you start banning specific farming practices you open up the gates to the banning of everything about farming that special interest groups don't like. Today it's force feeding, tomorrow it's going to be banding and surgical castration without general anesthesia or 'calf" pulling or induced abortions to save prized breeding stock and so on until killing animals for food is banned as "inhumane."

I sure believe that.

Inside Scoop SF » New Farm Bill amendment could overthrow California farm laws, including egg standards and foie gras ban:

'via Blog this'

Ban Foie Gras Farming in the US, and watch it Blow up in China

2012-07-17T09:36:00.001-04:00

One of the inevitable consequences of banning foie gras production in California and other places with enforceable environmental and humane farming practices regulations, is watching it move to places where there is even less oversight. Nice work California.

Geese Project - Creek Project Investments:

'via Blog this'

(It's About Time!) Ruhlman Wins A Beard Award!

2012-05-05T09:46:00.000-04:00

Finally! After At least nine food and cooking related books , countless articles and blog posts Michael Rulhman nails a James Beard Award for Ruhlman's Twenty! He should have gotten one for Ratio and Charcuterie, but hell, one is sure better than nothing!

CONGRATULATIONS MICHAEL & DONNA!

Sugar Mountain Farm Needs a Kickstart

2012-04-26T11:36:00.001-04:00

Anyone who has ever raised animals and sent them to a slaughterhouse understands the anxiety that comes along with not knowing how your stock is going to be treated once it leaves your sight. I've personally seen and butchered the carcasses of animals that shipped off-farm in perfect good health come back from the slaughterhouse with broken bones and bruises. And although I never had to personally transport and the animals to the slaughterhouse, I know it was big pain in the neck for the guy who did. So I have a lot of empathy for farmers who want to take charge of what undeniably one of the most difficult stages in meat production and do the slaughter themselves.

Now, I don't personally know the people at Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont. Their quest to raise money to build out a USDA inspected abbatoir on their farm was brought to my attention by a virtual friend on Facebook. But I think that I know enough about what they must be going through to offer them a hand by publishing their Kickstarter page on AHA. Check it out

Sugar Mountain Farm | Stories of Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids in the mountains of Vermont:

Your Food is Wrong

2012-04-18T15:54:00.002-04:00

Taking pot shots at food believed to be inauthentic probably feels good because it appears to validate the way the shooter believes the food should be prepared. But I doubt there has even been a single example of a claim of culinary "inauthenticity" that can withstand more than a few minutes of scrutiny.

Take the sentiment expressed in the manifesto (above) which was posted on FaceBook by a representative of a restaurant in Mexico. The manifesto shows a plate of traditionally prepared tacos above an American version of the kind you might find at Taco Bell or a high school cafeteria. But instead of labeling them "American Tacos" the author describes them as "bulls**t." (see Chingadera)

Taken at face value, the message can be politely interpreted to mean "the tacos at the top are authentic while the version at the bottom is not." I disagree.

I'm sure there was a period in North American history where the concoction in the bottom photo would not be recognized by anyone as tacos (and therefore not tacos). But nowadays, chances are that if you order tacos in North America in anyplace other than a restaurant owned and operated by Mexicans or Non-Mexicans who are devoted to preparing "authentic" Mexican food, you will get something that looks like that. And I think that most N.Americans who eat tacos eat those kind of tacos and would probably be surprised to learn that Mexican tacos are prepared differently. In other words, for the majority of Non-Mexican taco-eaters in the US, the stuff on the bottom are authentic tacos and the dish at top is not.

I think both dishes are tacos and so the message of the manifesto is wrong.

Once a large group of people agree to call something by a specific name that is it's name, and unless you can show that some harm has resulted from the naming, I don't think there is much reason to complain about what they are called. To call something someone made "bulls**t" because it doesn't conform to the way that you think it should be made seems silly at best and at worst, nasty and pedantic.

People adopting food concepts from other people, changing or not changing them, while keeping or changing the name is what people do. It's something to accept and study, and not to be derided as bulls**t.

Okay, okay. I admit that when I pick up a restaurant menu and read "Napoleon of Sole" or order a ravioli and end up with something that looks like a 3D Frank Gehry doodle I cringe a little. But honestly, I don't care what the food is called as long as it "works."

Now getting back to those tacos in the bottom half of the manifesto; I'll bet they suck.

Are Recipes Necessary?

2012-03-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

So Scotty Harris posted a tweet on Facebook by chef and prolific cookbook author Sara Moulton citing a question (s) - first posed during a panel discussion by respected food-blogger Carol Blymire- that I've been turning over in my mind for at least twenty years:

"are recipes really necessary? do we need all that detail?"

It's pretty obvious to me now that the answer to these questions is "it depends." However, it was not always so obvious.

For the longest time I believed that recipes were only for novices and those who were too insecure to trust their memories and cooking skills. I believed that if you had a solid command of technique, a sound understanding of the physical properties of food and an ability to imagine how a dish will taste before you cook it, you could do away with written recipes and cook extemporaneously. Of course, I still believe this and, most of the time, that's exactly how I approach the process of cooking. I rarely look at recipes and don't buy or own very many cookbooks.*

However, there are many occasions when highly detailed written recipes are indispensable.

Recipes are essential in virtually any commercial context you can name. This is especially true in situations where the food is going to be mass-produced and where small variations in weight/color/shape/flavor can have big impacts on profits and customer experience. Imagine trying to produce 1000lbs of hot dogs everyday, 5 days a week without a recipe and someone to check the quality of the output against the recipe template. Nuts. Even at the "artisan" level of commercial production it's important to work from recipes. Whenever I make a batch of sausage, I write a recipe for the batch -even if I have made the same thing a hundred times before. That way if I make any changes I'll be sure to remember what I did.

Perhaps it is needless to say that highly detailed recipes are EXTREMELY important to me in my consulting business. I mean clients hire me to create products that they can reproduce. How is that going to happen if I don't give them an accurate recipe?

Anyone who puts together a restaurant menu without codifying the recipes for every dish is going to have serious problems controlling quality and costs. Unless you have a recipe for each menu item, you cannot calculate what it costs to produce the item nor can you accurately determine what to charge. It's not necessary to have all your line cooks looking at recipes before they prep for service however, it is much tougher to train new hires if they don't have a recipe to guide them.

So yeah, there are most definitely times when recipes are absolutely essential. But yet I think that some of us would do well to cook extemporaneously without bothering to look at a recipe or measure ingredients. If you are at the point where you feel you know how most ingredients taste and change as they cook. And if you know how to all of the basic cook's tools and know all the basic cooking techniques, there really is no reason why you need to be anywhere near a recipe during most casual cooking activities.

*I've been cooking since the age of 15 and have only managed to collect about sixty cookbooks in the intervening four decades.

The Meat Market

2012-03-13T15:17:00.001-04:00

Jeremy Stanton
owner of The Meat Market

This past weekend I was up in Great Barrington, Ma with Mike Pardus on a much needed break from routine. One of the places we visited was a meat market that specializes in meat from locally raised animals. The meat looked great, but what really impressed me was how nicely the place was laid out and the vibe from the owner and staff. These are genuinely nice people who take a lot of pride in their work.

The business is a "no stone unturned" operation with lots of "value added" products derived from the animals they butcher. They also do VERY cool catering menus with stuff like spit-roasted steamship rounds (whole hind legs of beef) and whole fish baked in salt.

There's lots of great looking and tasting charcuterie and salumi and frankly I'm envious. I'm also thrilled to have seen tangible proof that there really are people out there reinventing the American butcher shop.

The Meat Market 389 Stockbridge Road Great Barrington MA 01230 | The Meat Market | The Meat Market 389 Stockbridge Road Great Barrington MA 01230:

'via Blog this'

Best Method for French Fries at Home

2012-02-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

The standard method for making french fries whereby the fries are cooked twice, blanched once at 350°F and fried at 375°F, works brilliantly in a commercial setting but is a nightmare at home. Boil overs are common and even if you don't end up with oil all over your stove top (or a grease fire!) you can count on a mess as you transport the blanched potatoes from and back to the oil. Honestly, making fries at home was such a pain in neck that I almost never did it before I had kids. After kids, well, I had to do it.

Of course, I tried everything to keep the process safe and under control. I used a fry thermometer to monitor the temperature and kept a sheet pan nearby to catch the drippings from the fry basket. That same sheet pan also served as a "dam" upon which to put the pot if it started to boil over. At one point my kids got me an electric fryer which worked well enough but when that (and a second one) died I went back to doing them in a pot on the stove top -and hating it.

Then in 2010 Edward Schneider became my hero when he published an article in the New York Times fetchingly titled An Easy Way to Make French Fries . I'm not sure why I almost immediately overcame my skepticism of his description of the method, I guess I was so sick of cleaning up oil spills and worrying about setting the house on fire that I was disarmed. Also, after running the science of how stuff fries through my head I realized that I could not think of any reason why it would not work. Anyway, I tried it and was so impressed by the results that it is now the only way I will make French Fries at ho;me.

Here's the basic method:
1) Cut the potatoes;
2) Put them in a pot with oil making sure they fully submerged and are not stacked parallel so that the oil touches all the major surfaces;
3) Turn heat onto low;
4) Raise the temperature slowly until the fries are at the surface and crisp.

(How long the potatoes take to cook will be a function of how or whether or not you cut them.)

Last night I made some and recorded the process with a camera and the Thermoworks temperature data logger I use for my R&D work. You can see from the graph (above) that the fries took about 50 minutes to cook and that they were ready at a temperature of about 257 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words they were cooked and ready to eat at temperature that was about 100 degrees cooler than standard blanching temperature. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but at temps this low boil overs (and burns by oil) are much less likely. Here is a link to a spreadsheet with most of the data from the data logger.

The method seems to have at least one drawback: It appears to work better with fries that are pretty thick. Skinny "shoe string" type fries tend to break up during the initial heating phase. But I'm not prepared to say that it cannot be made to work. Hell, twenty years ago I would have scoffed at the mere suggestion that there was anything even remotely redeeming about cooking fries in any way other than the way I learned to do them as a teenaged short order cook at McCann's Luncheonette. Live and learn, no?

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

A Hunger Artist

Nose to Tail in BS

An Apology and the Photographic Record

Meat Me in Kentucky

Dates &amp; Locations: all events are open to the public.

Go Pig or Go Home

Go Pig or Go Home 2013

Go Pig or Go Home 2013

Not For Foodies...

New Farm Bill May Flip Ca Ban on Foie Gras

Ban Foie Gras Farming in the US, and watch it Blow up in China

(It's About Time!) Ruhlman Wins A Beard Award!

Sugar Mountain Farm Needs a Kickstart

Your Food is Wrong

Are Recipes Necessary?

The Meat Market

Best Method for French Fries at Home

The Noble Pig

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

A Pork Terrine for the 21st Century

Shaping Dough

Salt Cellar

A Question

Musing on "Charcuterie"

Constructing the Language of Charcuterie

Homo sapiens or Homo ingurgitate?

Do the Cure in Italy in 2012

What Will Happen When Most Don't Cook?

Big Chicken Leads to Big Problems

Dates & Locations: all events are open to the public.