More Modern Marvels
Apr 26, 2008 Television, offal watch
Last night the episode of Modern Marvels was titled “The Pig.”
Although I braced myself for a biased portrayal of the pork industry as it shifted from the lard type breeds of old to the lean “white” meat of the 80’s and 90’s; and they were a bit generous with their praise regarding the genetic engineering of hogs and made it sound almost like a good thing that you need to take showers before going into a CAFO operation; they did swing it around at the end showing an organic farm that raises Berkshire hogs and even fattens some of them on acorns in their final days.
Still, it was after showing some medcal uses for pig genetics like insulin and tissue repair that the episode steered into a direction I didn’t see coming: Chris Cosentino was on cooking offal at Incanto.
He cracked open a pigs head, poached the brain, and then sautéed it with mushrooms and capers.
The listing on The History Channel’s website also shows that Missouri’s Burger’s Smokehouse was also in the episode, but I missed the first ten minutes and it must have been in that segment as I didn’t see it.
It will air again May 7, and here’s the rundown on upcoming episodes of food-related interest:
- Whiskey – April 26
- Corn – May 5
- Farming Technology – May 6
- The Pig – May 7
Tags: Berkshire, Burger's Smokehouse, Chris Cosentino, hogs, modern marvels, offal, pigs, pork
That is so Offal
Apr 14, 2008 chefs, general food
In this video Chris Cosentino chats about offal and mentions a cookbook he’s been working on for four or five years stating that “nobody has the balls to put it out.”
(a) funny choice of words considering the topic
(b) book publishers are in the business of making money and a book about offal cookery for the American market is still–sorry to say–way ahead of it’s time.
(c) How much of what Cosentino does is to shock people? He seems to relish in freaking people out more and more, and while he’s doing a killer job raising awareness about where meat comes from, and I’m still eager to eat in his restaurant if I find myself in San Francisco, he’s starting to come off a bit condescending towards people that just don’t want to eat the nasty bits.
And how about this shot from Gourmet Magazine about a month back?
Apparently they have gotten a healthy dose of hate mail for this picture and have thrown up a poll on gourmet.com to get a consensus on how people feel about. I would link you to the poll except for the fact that I can no longer find it but, it pretty much boiled down to something along the lines of: “provocative or gross?”
While I don’t think it’s particularly gross it does strike me as being disrespectful in some way because the pig did die so that someone could consume it. It could have been used for something like the porchetta di testa Josh Galliano posted about a while back instead of just going into the dumpster.
I wonder if Saw got any royalty checks for this?
Tags: Chris Cosentino, gourmet magazine, Joshua Galliano, offal
The Other San Francisco Treat
Boccalone is shipping now. I want some of this stuff so bad.
SO BAD!!! (Mom, Dad, Betsy, Ellie)
Tags: Boccalone, Chris Cosentino, salumi
Porchetta Di Testa
Nov 18, 2007 chefs, general food
It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if maybe it’s time to move. And before I tell you what this is, if you can look at it and tell me you don’t want to eat it, it’s time for you to go…I’m through with you…we’re done…unless you’re Jewish.
That is Porchetta Di Testa which Chris Cosentino is making in his new Salumi shop Boccalone in San Francisco.
He detailed the entire process at his website Offal Good. I warn you in advance that it’s made from a pigs head. It’s not for the squeamish or the fence riding near vegetarian. So just remember I warned you, because I care.
They’re making a ton of other awesome stuff too, and the most interesting thing about it is that they’re selling it CSA style.
To bring our salumi to you, we’ve borrowed a page from our favorite small farmers to offer an ever-changing assortment of salumi through membership in our Salumi Society.
Offering two sizes of membership, they’re not shipping right now, but they plan to start in 2008. It boils down to about $15 per pound pre-shipping as the smaller size is $174 for three months with two shipments of about two pounds per month.
If shipping isn’t outrageous I think I’m going to have to do this.
Oh, and Ellie forbid me to bring home the head if I mange to acquire my own pig, but after seeing all these pictures, I’m totally not listening.
Tags: Chris Cosentino, pig-head, Porchetta-Di-Testa, salumi
Symon Says
Nov 17, 2007 chefs, general food
Michael Symon has a blog now, and it’s titled exactly what you’d expect it to be: Symon Says.
And as I can’t mention Symon without people instantly thinking about his recent claim to fame, I might as well comment on that too.
Honestly, I hate Iron Chef . Maybe that’s a little strong, but the silliness that surrounds it annoys me. The few episodes I can stand are the ones with Jeffrey Steingarten judging because really, how could anyone be more of a hilariously jaw dropping asshole?
For me, as I’m a big Tom Colicchio fan, my personal choice in the realm of reality based food programming is Top Chef. But don’t think for a second I’m not aware that it’s equally annoying for a totally different set of reasons. The over-the-top product placement is incredible, and I love watching Padma Lakshmi try to keep a straight face as she says more and more ridiculous things with each passing week. The big reason I like though, and especially so this year, is that many of their challenges show whether the chefs involved have real culinary chops; even when they’re silly.
So it came as a surprise when The Next Iron Chef reeled me in and flung itself forcefully into the number two spot. I knew I’d be watching from the start because if you look over on the right, in the list of blogs I like is Chris Cosentino’s Offal Good.
But I knew even though I’d be watching the show, it came as an especially big surprise when I was actually lured into liking the show.
Unlike Top Chef there appeared to be no ringers chosen for personality over skill. Every chef on the show was outstanding, and while some had TV friendly personalities, it was more of an added bonus than their main reason for selection.
More importantly, the challenges were well conceived (mostly) and did an excellent job showing who amongst a cast of great chefs was the truly outstanding one.
And there I was rooting for my man Cosentino until a couple episodes in it was pretty obvious that although he was putting up some killer food, it would be coming down to Mr. Southern, John Besh, and the seemingly insane Michael Symon. I made the the only logical decision and quickly jumped ship like the true fair weather fan I am by realigning my cheers with Symon. You should know, however, that although Ellie and I chose to go to Kansas City in September for our anniversary, Cleveland was our second choice, and specifically so we could eat at Lola and Lolita; Symon’s restaurants.
In the end Ellie was right all along proving to be an admirable alternate .
You can tune in Sunday for the first Symon battle royale, and as you would expect, with so much ridiculous Thanksgiving program cluttering up FoodTV right now, it’s the Thanksgiving special. I’ll actually be watching for once, because let’s face it, Symon makes good TV — he’s insane. Plus, it should be interesting to see what they’ll be giving them to work with. Turducken anyone?
Tags: Chris Cosentino, Michael-Symon, Next-Iron-Chef, Tom-Colicchio, Top Chef
Knowing Your Meat
Oct 26, 2007 farming, general food
I’ve inquired recently with a few farmers about whether I could see their slaughtering facilities and specifically the slaughtering itself. Generally, when I discuss this with most people (non-farmers), it is met with looks of horror, and is quickly followed by a question along the lines of “why would you want to see that?”
I guess I want to see it because I feel, at least on some moral level, that if I can’t watch say — a pig being slaughtered, then I don’t really have the right to eat it in the first place.
While catching up on my Next Iron Chef reading tonight after finally watching episode three this afternoon (go Cosentino!) Michael Ruhlman had also posted about this sentiment saying:
“…one of five things you should eat before you die is the meat of a freshly slaughtered animal, preferably having witnessed the slaughter.”
He then linked to this great essay at the New York Times about raising pigs for slaughter.
Barbara Kingsolver made what I consider to be a phenomenally great point in her book about people using different names for the commonly eaten meats than they use for the actual animal. (e.g. beef is cow, pork is pig)
What do you think? Is it important to understand where your meat comes from?
Tags: Chris Cosentino, farmers, Iron Chef, Michael Ruhlman, nytimes, pigs, pork, slaughter
From the mountains of Panama and Ethiopia, to the urban-jungles of Portland and Chicago, journalist Michaele Weissman takes us behind the scenes for a look at the world of third-wave specialty coffee. How did we get to Starbucks, and where we go from here?