James Beard Award Side Note
May 3, 2009 farming, missouri, sustainable agriculture
And as a little side note…
The specific James Beard Award Kristen Hinman won was Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes. Two other people were also given the award, and I think it’s a particularly telling thing about where we are at the moment as a nation of carnivores, that another one of the winners, Monica Eng, won for an article she wrote for the Chicago Tribune that also dealt with humanely raised pork. Even more telling: it was another Missouri farm, Newman Farm, she mostly wrote about.
Amongst the horrors of confined pork in the Midwest (and to be sure, there is a lot in our state) Missouri has a group of smaller farms going out of their way to make sure things are happening the right way.
Monica Eng’s article, Morality Bites, about her personal need to face the death of her food head on, is also worth reading if you find yourself with a little free time.
Also, some of us will soon be able to taste products made with Newman Farm pork as Mark Sanfilippo has purchased some for his Salume Beddu guanciale.
Tags: James Beard Award, Mark Sanfilippo, Monica Eng, Newman Farm, pork, Salume Beddu
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
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?