The Best Thing I Ever Ate

Ever wonder what the biggest food stars and chefs eat in their free time? Find out on The Best Thing I Ever Ate, the ultimate guide to the country’s most amazing meals, eats, and treats as told by the pros who spend their lives obsessing over food. From a BBQ Sandwich worth driving over 1,500 miles for to a canolli so good it completely healed a bad breakup. Don’t miss this new series featuring Food Network favorites, offering a taste of the things everyone must try before they die.

Premieres: Tuesday, June 23^rd at 9:30pm – SERIES PREMIERE!

“Bar-B-Que”

Food Network personalities get into the meat of things as they reveal the best barbeque they’ve ever eaten from Memphis to San Francisco, from pulled pork cooked in a basement to beef brisket smoked in a giant Armadillo! The Best Thing I Ever Ate heads across the country to find out where stars including Tyler Florence, Bobby Flay, Chris Cosentino and Ted Allen get bar-b-que at its best.

CHEFS VS CITY

Premieres: August 2009

Acclaimed chefs Chris Cosentino and Aaron Sanchez are pitted against two local foodies in a winner-takes-all race through a different city each week, through the most fascinating, unusual food locations. Each team begins with a clue leading them to their first food challenge. Challenges could include everything from wine stomping to the eating the spiciest chili west of the Mississippi to diving for sea urchins! The challenges take the two teams on an adrenaline-charged, food-lovers tour of each city, and once complete, it’s a sprint to the finish line to see if the locals can protect their home turf or if the Food Network chefs can conquer a new city.

photo of Omar courtesy of Michael Harlan Turkell

So first you heard Derek’s side of the story, now its Omar’s turn. One thing I have to say it was a joy to have both of them in my kitchen and they are both welcome to visit us anytime. I would like to believe that we all learned some things from each other on those 5 days. Thanks again for coming to play at my little gut party, I look forward to next year, to see who will take on the same challenge as these 2 did. Also who ever does get chosen, Derek will be showing you the ropes he has already committed to next year. So enough of my jibber jabber here is Omar’s experience below.

Head to Tail

From day one at Incanto I was getting my hands dirty. It was brief introductions and straight to the offal. Day one started with picking through over 600 calf testicles to find the perfect 200 tennis ball sized testicles that were needed for the dinner. The disturbing thing about this sorting project were the testicles literally the size of grapefruits leftover from our sorting. I would like to see the calf who bared those things, but before I could ponder this matter it was straight to blanching, peeling and soaking the testicles we picked out. This was all being done while Derek and I were blanching and shocking 80 pounds of goose intestines. Then we rounded off our day with shucking fresh fava beans, soaking tripe and caul fat. Not bad for our first day in San Francisco. Chris was right we came here to work our butts off and we were happy to oblige. Anyone back in DC who thought this trip was some sort of vacation for me was sorely wrong.

The next two days were filled with a ridiculous amount of offal. Venison hearts, tripe, more goose intestines, calf brains, lamb kidneys and, my penance for past culinary sins, 80 pounds of lamb spleen. Little did I know what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to take on the spleen project. I spent over 5 hours purging, blanching, pressing and then cleaning those spleens. The daunting aspect of this project was the cleaning. I don’t think I have ever stood that long in one spot working on one item. When I began to see the bottom of my bin I felt relief and then magically Chris pulled out another 20 pounds of spleen to clean. At that moment I proceeded to curse in Spanish to the delight of Chris’s powerhouse of a prep cook Hector. At least I know Hector approved of me since he called me by my first name instead of tortuga (turtle).

Come Monday it was show time, although there were still plenty of things to prep before 5 p.m. The big project before service was the cordetta skewers, which involved threading tripe, kidney, liver and spleen onto two wooden skewers. Everyone in the kitchen jumped on board for this project to form the cordetta line. My role in this line dance was wrapping the skewers with caul fat. To aid with the wrapping Chris gave me meat glue to help the caul fat adhere to the offal. Having never worked with this product I was a little generous with my first few dustings, which led to a nice caking of caul fat and offal to my finger tips. Being that everything was sticking to my fingers I decided to wash my hands of this mess. What everyone forgot to tell me was when trying to remove meat glue from ones fingers you don’t use hot water. Hot water activates the glue and makes it adhere even more. I was doing a great job. Needless to say, all went well with the cordetta wrapping. Come Monday’s service I was paired with Mr. Puti on the grill station with the cordetta skewer. Puti was a great wingman and our service on grill was seamless. Remember Puti, Papi will always have a special place in his heart for you.

Tuesday was our day off and since it was my first time in San Francisco I wandered the city taking in the sites. In the evening Manny (please no more dirty pictures), Thomas and the Puti, took me out for some fine cocktails at The Alembic, where I had a great Sazerac. Then the boys from Incanto took me down to the Mission for tacos. At the taqueria it was more offal since I couldn’t resist the tacos de tripa (intestine tacos).

Wednesday was show time again with over 100 reservations and Mr. Bourdain dining in. After cutting our teeth on Monday’s dinner the kitchen crew was ready and our service was one of the smoothest services I have ever been involved with. Chris and his kitchen crew are an amazing group of individuals and they truly grasp the concept of working as a team. Everybody is motivated towards the goal of making great food, and that is exactly what they did during the Head to Tail dinner.

Incanto was everything that I had imagined and more. My experience at Incanto with Chris and his crew was one of the best culinary adventures that I have experienced thus far in my career. For me, Chris is a culinary genius who understands what and how he wants to cook. He attacks cooking like a child opening gifts on Christmas morning. He barrels through the kitchen at 100 miles per hour picking through every detail of every dish in the kitchen. With this sort of energy and zeal for food I can understand why his kitchen staff is so inspired.

I want to give a huge thank you to Chris and his Incanto team. Gentlemen, it was privilege working the 2009 Head to Tail with a great group of cooks and I hope to be “back to the Bay” sooner than later.

-Omar Rodriguez

When the folks at Upper Playground asked me if I wanted to do a follow up interview to the”hoof arted video series” I said where. So here it is me sitting at Four barrel coffee getting bombarded with questions from Evan. The questions were good, the coffee was better, my answers were well you decide. So now it is out there in “The Citrus Report”.  This Upper Playground newsletter, has nothing to do with a crop report like in the movie Trading Places. (see below)

photo courtesy of Michael Harlan Turkell

As part of the deal, the stages for head to tail had to write their experiences to share with the world. Here is Derek’s letter about his experience. Please mind that he is a Canadian ginger with a twisted sense of humor. But on a serious note it was a pleasure to have Derek with us an he has already asked to come back for next year, he will be in charge of next years stages.
Head to Tail…a recap

As the taxi took a left onto Church Street my first glimpse of Incanto was
a bright eyed, handsome Irish lad by the name of John Relihan. He didn’t
speak much English, but pointed to my luggage, then to the front door…I
assumed he wanted to carry my bags..I let him. A gesture I found quite
warming. After getting settled, I met Omar and the kitchen crew then got
settled into cleaning and blanching 60lbs of veal testicles, 80 lbs of goose
intestines and a couple of cases of fava beans. The latter being a welcoming
sight as I was coming from Montreal and there was still snow on the ground.
Near the end of service Chris invited us to sit at the bar and have dinner,
I had the fried testa….delicious.
The next couple of days were a blur of cleaning, blanching, peeling and
poaching. Brains, kidneys, heart, more balls, tripe, caul fat and liver.
Omar spent most of his time “relaxing” in the corner with 80 lbs of
spleen. By relaxing, I mean purging, blanching, pressing and peeling…a
daunting task that took up the better part of a 15 hour day. The whole time
we were entertained by the witty banter of the Incanto kitchen. A handsome
moustachioed cook who goes by the name Manny (who on a side note came to SF
to find himself and judging by the goatee succeeded) took us out for a
couple of beers and beef tongue tacos…delicious.
Things were coming together for the Incanto team and by the time Monday,
the first night of head to tail rolled around everyone was ready. I worked
the brain and testicle station, and it only seemed fitting that Omar work on
the spleens. The service was amazing and the food was incredible. Chris was
really happy and John Relihan said something.
Tuesday the restaurant was closed and I went to the French Laundry!
Wednesday was the big night. Forty more reservations and Mr. No
Reservations himself in attendance. Once again the service was flawless,
Chris runs a tight ship and his team really works great together. The
kitchen philosophy is inspiring and I wish more restaurants would take an
approach like this. The end of the night was here and so was our last day at
Incanto, Chris sat us down and we got the entire menu in 30 minutes. I had
my first offal coma. We had some celebratory drinks and then it was time to
head back to Montreal. Manny gave me a rather awkward hug and John Relihan
shed a single tear.
A big thank you to Chris and the entire Incanto team for sharing this
experience with me. It was truly memorable, hopefully we will see some of
you guys up here at my place some day.
Best regards, Derek Dammann

When I found this website I was shocked and couldnt believe it, but the documentation looks pretty accurate. All I am going to say is “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black”.

To read the article continue after the break.

Whole-Hearted

Chris Cosentino turns his nose-to-tail wisdom to seafood

San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino is known for using every last vestige of the animals he cooks at his Italian restaurant, Incanto, where head-to-tail specialties such as pig’s trotters, beef heart and lamb brains fill the menu. But anyone who’s sampled Cosentino’s famous Chilies and Bones dish (made from meaty ahi-tuna spine) knows his offal mastery also extends to seafood.

The Rhode Island native grew up clamming and eating local catches; he believes the whole-animal approach is the best way to treat a threatened food source like fish. Plus, he says, we’re missing out on some of the best parts (linguini with grated tuna heart and cod-sperm crostini have appeared on his menu).

But when it comes to cooking a whole fish at home, Cosentino eschews organs and innards in favor of no-nonsense recipes like this roasted striped bass with salmoriglio, a tangy herb-based Sicilian condiment. Making a whole fish isn’t only an easy way to feed a crowd, Cosentino says, it’s also easy on the cook. In other words: less guts, more glory.

Roasted Whole Striped Bass with Salmoriglio
Adapted from Chris Cosentino, Incanto
Makes 6 servings

Salmoriglio
¼ cup thyme leaves, coarsely chopped (stems reserved)
¼ cup oregano leaves, coarsely chopped (stems reserved)
1 cup parsley leaves, coarsely chopped (stems reserved)
2 garlic cloves, passed through a garlic press or mashed with a mortar and pestle
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Zest of one lemon
½ cup fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Fish
One 5-pound striped bass, cleaned
4 each reserved stems of thyme, oregano and parsley
8 bay leaves
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lemon, thinly slices
1 medium red onion, sliced in ¼-inch rings
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1. In a bowl, mix the herbs with the garlic and olive oil. Add the lemon zest and juice and stir gently. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 500°. Grease a baking sheet with olive oil.
3. Rinse the fish and pat dry. Trim off the fins.
4. Scatter the herb stems, bay leaves and garlic on the baking sheet. Place a row of lemon slices down the center of pan; reserve one slice. Place half of the onion slices over the lemon slices. Place the fish over the onions and season liberally with salt and pepper. Place the remaining onions on top of fish. Drizzle with olive oil and place the remaining slice of lemon on top of fish. Cover with foil and bake until the fish is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Serve the fish whole, with the salmoriglio sauce on the side.

THE OFFAL TRUTH

The Offal Truth

Once a staple of peasant cooking, variety meats are becoming the heart of high-end cuisine.

BY AMY ZAVATTO

COOKING IS AN ART FORM—and like some of history’s finest masterpieces, some of today’s most sought-after dishes incorporate seemingly unusable materials. What old newspapers and tires were to Robert Rauschenberg, jowls, en-trails and little piggy tails are to modern-day chefs.

But are these parts really what haute cuisine is made of? As a matter of fact, they are. Gone are the days when the word “sweetbread” incited a wrinkling of the nose, or eating a terrine made from a slow-simmered hog’s head was the feat of a culinary daredevil. Chefs across the country are boldly bringing the offal truth to fine-dining enthusiasts—and it appears they’re eating it up.

The word offal—or variety meats—actually comes from the simple but direct description “off-fall.” After an animal was butchered for all its choice skeletal-meat cuts, this was the stuff that was left over, or literally fell off.

“Right now, we’re going through anywhere from 50 to 75 pounds of pigs’ feet a week,” says Chef Chris Cosentino of San Francisco’s Incanto (www.incanto.biz; 415-641-4500), regarding his customers’ love of offal. “And nervetti [tendon] sells very well for us, too.”

For Cosentino and an army’s worth of other chefs around the country, using the entire animal is partly about respect and a desire to get away from wasteful decadence, and partly about the challenge, since it isn’t easy to turn innards into enticing dishes. One thing it’s not about: shock value. This might make for good episodes of “Fear Factor,” but even during the gross-out moments of “No Reservations,” Chef Anthony Bourdain has an admiration for food and the cultures that have long embraced the tenet of waste not, want not.

“Some of us refer to it as the Fifth Quarter,” says Chef Michael White of Convivio (www.convivionyc.com; 212-599-5045) and Alto (www.altorestaurant.com; 212-308-1099) in New York. White—whose practical Midwestern upbringing and seven-year cooking stint in Imola, Italy, greatly informs his nose-to-tail view of the culinary world—is fond of taking the food of the people to a higher level, serving slaved-over dishes like crostini of porchetta terrine made from slow-braised pig’s head, frito misto of calves brains (“They’re like cream puffs,” he says) and grilled, spiced lamb heart.

“It’s the kind of meat that the Romans were using after the wealthy people took away all the good stuff. They were left with the brains, the sweetbreads, the lungs, the spleen. It’s really the heart of Italian peasant cooking,” he says.

Actually, it’s the heart (and brains and kidney and thymus) of most peasant cooking. From fragrant, steaming bowls of Vietnamese pho, rich with beef tendon, to Southern American chitterlings (despite its cute-sounding name, it refers to pig intestine), the powerful farm-to-table movement has brought a variety of ethnic culinary traditions to the formerly squeamish, who are now clamoring for alternative cuts of cow, pig, lamb and even fish.

Ten or so years ago, you may have found the occasional sweetbreads and seared foie gras on a menu, but today, these items are as ubiquitous as steak, since demand and curiosity have grown like an overstuffed duck liver. Today, it’s dishes like Chef April Bloomfield’s cod milt (you don’t even want to know what this is) at New York’s The John Dory (www.thejohndory.com; 212-929-4948) that are winning critical raves.

“I think people have palate fatigue,” White says. “New Yorkers eat out every night. The people who are coming to my restaurant don’t cook at home; they’re foodies, devotees. Or they like to eat out a couple of days a week and cook at their own house the others. So they want to try things that they’re not apt to try on their own.”

But this trend isn’t limited to finicky New York gastronomes: Boston’s Eastern Standard (www.easternstandardboston.com; 617-532-9100) has a daily rotating offal menu, featuring dishes like lamb kidney stroganoff and seared veal liver over sunchoke purée with Vidalia onion rings, giving a whole new dimension to the blue plate special. Sweetbread and swiss chard risotto is served at Indianapolis’ L’Explorateur (www.dinelex.com; 317-726-6906), while Chef Jennifer Jasinski’s decadent seared rabbit loin with rabbit kidney mousse can be savored at Denver’s Rioja (www.riojadenver.com; 303-820-2282). And at the beloved little Zazu (www.zazurestaurant.com; 707-523-4814) in Santa Rosa, CA (55 miles from San Francisco), Chef John Stewart makes a pig heart sandwich with mustard-seed aioli that even managed to convert his formerly-vegetarian chef and wife Duskie Estes to an offal lover.

“You now have new flavors, new textures, new variation with the underlying flavor of that same animal,” Cosentino says. “It’s like a painter who just went from using five colors to 40.”

LAWFUL OFFAL

BEFORE YOU DIG IN, BE AWARE THAT SOME VARIETY MEATS ARE LEGALLY INEDIBLE.

While there is a veritable smorgasbord of offal from which to choose, some parts are deemed unfit for consumption by the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the public health wing of the USDA. The language can be tricky because, as FSIS public affairs representative Roger Sockman says, “Different cultures consume products that are not typically consumed by other cultures.”

Pigs’ feet, for example, are “generally” not edible, but because many cultures consider trotters to be downright delicious, you can find them for legal purchase in some stores or eateries. As a rule, however, Sockman notes that the following items generally are not considered edible: Hide or hair; hooves/feet; lungs; and spleen.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

WHAT ARE LIGHTS? DON’T KNOW YOUR TROTTERS FROM YOUR GIBLETS?
HERE’S A HANDY GUIDE TO SOME VARIETY-MEAT MONIKERS YOU MAY BE LESS FAMILIAR WITH:

CAUL: The webby, fatty membrane around the stomach. Chefs generally take a cue from its original purpose and use it as a wrap or casing around other foods.

CHITTERLINGS: Also known as chitlins, these are the fatty small intestines of a pig and are very popular in deep Southern cooking.

GIBLETS: Remember mom’s Thanksgiving gravy? It got its great meat flavor from boiled, chopped up giblets—the heart, liver and, sometimes, gizzard of a bird.

HEAD CHEESE: Made from the slow, long braising of a pig’s head. After overnight cooking, the skin slides off and you are left with the various bits of meat and gelatinous residue. These are formed into a mold and usually served cold and sliced (and, no, there’s no actual cheese in it).

LIGHTS: For the haggis-loving public, this term means lung. In the US, though, the FDA outlawed serving lung to the public in 1972. However, some still try to slip it onto their menus.

SWEETBREADS: It is commonly thought that these tender nuggets are exclusively thymus glands in the neck, but the pancreas is another option.

TRIPE: Sponge-like in appearance, this is the stomach lining.

TROTTERS: As the name plainly suggests, feet.

After much request I would like to introduce the winners essays. Enjoy them as much as I did, I look forward to spending more time with both of them in the kitchen.

Derek Dammann
Chef
DNA Restaurant
Montreal Canada

Good afternoon Chef, my name is Derek Dammann and I am chef of DNA restaurant in Montreal. I saw that you are offering an opportunity to stage for your annual Head to Tail dinner. I would like for you to consider me as a candidate. I admire your style of cooking and find that my approach is very similar in the way that you need to take a few steps back before you can move forward. Thinking in an old world way, and bringing back the artisinal traditions that have been forgotten. The “whole animal” philospohy is something that we practice at my restaurant as well. Using the entire animal, is both respectful to the beast, and exciting for us cooks. As well as having the opportunity to allow the customer to try somethings that they may never have had the chance to try before. I find that places with the approach that you have at Incanto offer a dining experience rather that a dinner out and I believe that is the direction that the food world is heading. Having a menu that is interesting, local, interactive and educational, that allows the guest to have fun and not just watch each other eat. That being said, I hope I get the chance to take part in this event. Best regards, Derek

Omar Rodriguez
Sous chef
Oyamel Cocina Mexicana
Comfort Food

Some of the fondest memories from my childhood were derived from my parents cooking. I remember standing next to my father on a hot south Texas summer night as he grilled fajitas, chicken and mollejas (sweet breads). As hungry as I would be for the mesquite grilled meat, the true reward for standing by my father’s side and waiting was getting the first hot off the grill pieces of mollejas. I remember taking a sizzling hot piece in my hand, blowing on it to cool it down and then crunching through the crisp mesquite smoked crust and into the warm juicy, buttery center. That was complete heaven for me.
The point I am trying to make with this story is that my childhood has been filled with offal eating. Growing up in a Mexican household meant eating many atypical dishes from most American households, especially offal. For me there are several offal that are comfort food, especially dishes like mollejas, lengua (beef tongue), menudo (tripe stew) and tacos de tripas (intestines).
Another favorite childhood dish was my mother’s lengua. She would place the lengua in the oven in the morning, and would not pull it out until she got back from work in the afternoon. I loved coming home from school those days and smelling the rich roasting beef scent permeating throughout the house. My mom would shred the lengua meat and stuff it into corn tortillas with shredded lettuce, chopped onions and my grandmother’s home-made salsa.
With the time I have spent in the culinary world I have had many opportunities to learn more about working with offal. Some knowledge has been passed on by other individuals or gained through my own research. I credit the book Charcuterie, as well as any one of Diana Kennedy’s books, as inspiration for many of my offal adventures. At Zaytinya in Washington, DC, I had the opportunity to work with Chef Mike Isabella. He demonstrated how to work with items like lamb tongue and brain. He also pushed me to pursue my love for charcuterie, which led me to create a merguez recipe for the restaurant. Last year I left Zaytinya and transferred to one of our sister restaurants Oyamel Cocina Mexicana. Under the tutelage of Chef Joe Raffa I have continued to pursue my love for offal and develop Mexican inspired offal dishes. I have been involved with creating an in-house chorizo recipe, lengua torta (beef tongue sandwich) and my favorite, queso de puerco (Mexican head cheese).
When I discovered Offal Good last year I was so excited that a chef had dedicated a restaurant towards the preparations of offal. It inspired me to experiment more with offal dishes at my restaurant and reconsider what can be cooked for dinner. There is still so much more to learn about offal cooking and I hope to continue to educate myself on the subject. I hope that part of this continuing education will involve the opportunity to assist you and your staff during Incanto’s annual Head to Tail dinner.

Just 1 week ago I received a letter and video telling me I need to stop serving Foie Gras. I read the letter and watched the video: all things I had heard and seen before. What came next was very interesting. A phone call asking whether I had received their package and if I would stop serving Foie Gras at Incanto. I said “NO!!”

The response was an angry, “We are coming to protest be prepared” . After a few conversations with my business partner, Mark Pastore, we have come to agree that this will be our “Alamo” if they come to fight. But here is something to mull over, after tons of research, Mark has made our argument in a much more educated and thoughtful way than I ever could, in our “letters from Incanto”.