Don't get me started on the politics of food . . .
You *have* made a lot of political posts lately.
A worthy topic, of course. I keep on thinking we should eat more locally grown stuff (all right, not counting spices. I am not giving up tropically grown spices.) but haven't got the time to make it happen.
And coffee. I'll live on cabbage and turnips all winter, nothing wrong with that, but I'm not giving up coffee.
I've read a bit about the local food movement, and while I think there's certainly an argument to be made about the cost of fossil fuels and the wonders of growing your own produce, I'm torn on this issue because I remember my grandmother saying when my dad was little, they ate a lot of cabbage and parsnips and wasn't it better that her grandkids could get fresh fruit in December?
I do like cabbage rolls, and the farmer's market in the summer here is great. They sell a lot of beets, though, and I don't know what to do with beets.
If you're me, avoid them. But there are plenty of other winter-available vegetables in a temperate climate; all the cabbagy stuff, spinach suprisingly early and late, onions, turnips and similar, potatoes (I actually don't know if sweet potatoes are grown up North -- I think they may want warmer weather, but I'm unsure.)
And the thing about December fruit is that it largely sucks. Buck has a nasty tendency to be seduced by winter strawberries -- as a result my children believe that strawberries are crisp.
I said don't get me started! Can you people not read???
That recipe sounds great, LB. Did the kids like it?
Interestingly, Peter Singer has come out against buying local in some contexts.
I just saw that someplace this morning, but didn't mark the link (or I suppose it might have been in the paper Times). He made the point that ocean shipping is fossil-fuel cheap, so for a Californian, China is a closer (from an energy point of view) source of rice than, e.g., Louisana (from which the rice travels by truck.) And the redistributive point that Third World farmers need the money.
10: Very much, and they're irritatingly fussy about new foods.
The link to the Salon interview is in my comment, but for some reason it is not underlined. You have to roll the mouse over it to see the link.
14 - doesn't work for me, and I've rolled the mouse all over the place.
The link is there now (it had a couple of typos.)
Mmmmm, ribs. I'm building a small backyard smokehouse this summer, largely so I can smoke my own hams and bacon, but slabs of ribs cooked slow and low are going to be a huge side benefit.
Can I come live with you, Chopper?
Home-smoked ham and bacon? Can Buck and I come visit?
I think I've told this story before, but my sister once met a girl at a party in Tennessee who said, as she dreamily gnawed on a rib, "Ah could be a veg-uh-tahriun if it twaren't fur pig." And I heartily sympathize.
I could be a vegetarian if it weren't for meat.
But especially pig.
My roommate has commented that she could be vegetarian if it weren't for bacon.
I could be vegetarian, and am pretty close to it most of the time, except that a good cut of steak is wonderful.
6: Blood for oil!!1! before I eat that stuff again.
Chopper, are you single?
I won't lie: I could not be vegetarian.
I was vegan for about 6 months as a self-experiment. What misery! A baconless life is not worth living.
I smoked a few pounds of slab bacon (as a precursor experiment) in my Weber grill a few weeks ago. Home cured and smoked bacon? With locally-produced, organic free range pork? That shit is good.
All are welcome to visit. If we ever get folks up for a Twin Cities meetup, I'll supply the location/meat products.
LB: Thanks.
I have found salty tofu products a perfectly good substitute for pork. I don't miss it a bit.
The thing about going vegetarian is that you have to relearn how to eat. You have to acquire a whole new set of habits for cooking, shopping for food, ordering food at resturaunts, etc. It takes more than six months to do it, and for a while, you won't be eating as well. But in the end it will seem as natural as breathing.
I also don't recommend going straight to being vegan. (I say that in part because I myself cannot keep to a strict vegan diet.) Because going vegetarian requires new habits, and because you may not be surrounded by people with matching habits. It is best to go slow.
At the very least, cut out pork. Pigs are such sensitive animals.
Got any tips on smoking bacon? I've never really given it much thought, but it sounds like a good weekend project.
If we ever get folks up for a Twin Cities meetup, I'll supply the location/meat products.
Now that would be a proper use of the term "meatup."
I just can't even comprehend going vegan. I could give up meat so much easier than dairy.
And the redistributive point that Third World farmers need the money.
Dammit, now you've done it.
The problem with this aspect of Singer's analysis is that a huge factor in driving Third World poverty and food insecurity is the focus on producing commodity crops for export. That's tied in with the huge disparities in land access and ownership in most of these countries.
(Actually, much of the above statement applies here in the States as well.)
25: At the very least, cut out pork. Pigs are such sensitive animals.
26: Got any tips on smoking bacon? I've never really given it much thought, but it sounds like a good weekend project.
That was a wonderfully delicious juxtaposition...
I can't think of anything to 26 except: "Be sure to pack the bacon in the bowl loosely."
Sorry. I hope that's out of my system.
I highly recommend this recipe, especially if you pat the skin side dry after cooking and crisp those fuckers up.
'Smasher, if I ever decide to smoke me some bacon, this is the recipe I was planning on using. There may be others.
26: Got any tips on smoking bacon?
First, buy this book before you try anything.
A rough outline, though, from memory.
1) Buy a pork belly (I special-ordered mine from a farmer I like at our Farmer's Market, but you can get them from a lot of butcher shops if you call ahead).
2) Trim it to a relatively squared-up rectangle. (Save the scraps for other uses.)
3) Rub in the cure (salt, curing salt (you may have to special order it, I did), black pepeer, brown sugar, maple syrup (if you like, I don't).
4) Seal in a large Zip-Loc bag. Let it rest in the refrigerator for a week, turning the slab over every couple of days.
5) At the end of the week, take out of bag, rinse off cure. Dry with paper towels and then let air-dry overnight in the refrigerator. (The air-drying is a critical step--it forms the pellicle, which besides being my new faovrite word is the gummy, gunky layer that forms on meat exposed to air that the smike sticks to.)
6) Build a small charcoal fire to the far side of your grill. Throw on soaked wood chips (I used apple chips this time). Place slab on opposite side of grill. Cover with lid. Cook for approximately three hours, adding chips and a little charcoal every little while (the idea is to have as smuch smoke and just enough heat to bring the slab up to 150 degrees over the course of three hours).
7) Take off grill. Let cool. Slice, cook, eat. (I actually ate a few chunks without cooking the sliced bacon further--it tastes like salty, very, very fatty ribs--cooking the stips of bacon just gives you the proper bacon texture.)
8) Freeze the remaineder in smallish bundles so that you can take out of the freezer in amounts appropriate that you can use it befor eit goes bad.
Note: I had a fair amount of trouble cutting the bacon into thin enough strips because I was too impatient to let the bacon cool long enough (I should have thrown it into the freezer until it was almost but not quite frozen.)
I am now very hungry for bacon.
Pigs are such sensitive animals.
This is true. Which is why I feel extraordinarily bad about the way most pigs are treated (on large American hog farms, at least). I try to buy pork that's treated reasonably humanely, which for an animal as intelligent and social as a pig, is actually a pretty high standard. I'll almost never buy pork in restaurants for this reason; it literally makes me sick to think about how the animals were likely treated.
Assuming they had reasonably happy little piggy lives though, I don't mind eating them.
At the very least, cut out pork. Pigs are such sensitive animals.
I think the word you're looking for there is "tender."
My sister has the book Chopper recommends, and I read through it a lot when I was in NYC. Has a great section on confits.
34 just moved up my lunch by a half hour... but why oh why is there no good bbq near my work?!? Life is so unfair...
I'm guessing 34 has most of us heading for the printer.
Assuming they had reasonably happy little piggy lives though, I don't mind eating them.
I knew a philosophy type who once, in response to this sentiment, quipped: "Now why do you think it's better to kill the happy pig?"
That said, I agree with Urple on this matter.
why is there no good bbq near my work?
Because you don't live in North Carolina.
Because you don't live in North Carolina.
Oh no you di'int!
Stop oppressing me!
But you seem to like it when FL is a-pressing you. Or is that just good acting?
I did complain that it wasn't special.
Yes, but in that case I didn't find your performance convincing.
If you all oppressed me in a special way, that would be different.
M/tch, you just don't know how jaded all FL's assgrabs have made me.
M/tch, you just don't know how jaded all FL's assgrabs have made me.
You and all the rest of the Mineshaft, honey. Get in line, take a number.
Now who's trying to suppress girlish glee with a facade of disinterest, M/tch?
Now who's trying to suppress girlish glee with a facade of disinterest, M/tch?
Your mom.
Your mom, on the other hand, knows it's hopeless to try to keep it contained.
Your mom, on the other hand, knows it's hopeless to try to keep it contained.
In apostropher's pockets.
Your mom, on the other hand, knows it's hopeless to try to keep it contained.
Yeah, I've told her it's not polite to laugh at you like that out loud , but she won't listen.
Have we reached one dozen yet?
Man, the longer she makes me wait, the more I fear her diabolical wrath.
the more I fear her diabolical wrath
I thought we would keep your pet name for the device private, M/tch?
I thought we would keep your pet name for the device private, M/tch?
As you wish, dark mistress.
Borscht!
So named for the noise you make upon tasting it. Ugh.
"Ah could be a veg-uh-tahriun if it twaren't fur pig."
I commented today to a friend that I could be vegetarian if it weren't for my grill. My grill demands meats. It needs them to live.
I've never understood how people can not like beets. Beets are great (especially in borsht).
OK, teo, I'm going there:
In Russia, in December 1994, I sat in the kitchen of my host-mother on the night of my arrival and noted the huge water-cooler basin sitting in one corner of the kitchen and 2/3 filled with a thick, purple liquid. It was cloudy and a little frothy and I asked what it was. She smiled broadly as though to let me in on a precious secret and said with utter delight, "The soup!" It was a vat of borscht she kept sitting around for months at a time. When she wanted some, she would heft into it with a ladle and fill a pot and heat and consume it.
It was viscous. It was like clotted, alien blood.
The mere sight of a beet still makes my stomach flutter for just a moment upon encountering one.
Well of course, you're not supposed to heat it. Sheesh.
I had a bad experience with beet gnocchi once. I was pregnant, and just wanted a plate of spaghetti carbonara, but the restaurant didn't have it, and I didn't hear the specials properly -- I just heard 'gnocchi' -- and then they were made out of beets. It was very sad.
Seriously, what's wrong with beets? I can see RMcMP's distaste stemming from his traumatic stay in Russia, but why the hating on even non-borsht beet products?
I have trouble with things that are the wrong kind of sweet. Beets exemplify the wrong kind of sweet.
See, I think beets are the right kind of sweet. And I hates me some sweet.
I'll eat pretty much anything else. I'm just not fond of beets.
I think a lot of people are prejudiced against magenta, teofilo.
On beets: I think a lot of people have had their first impressions of them from either really bad borsht or horrid canned beets. That was the case for me, at least. Plus, a food that stains clothes and, unlike red wine, doesn't compensate by getting you drunk, has a strike against it. Though I would drink me some beet liquor and not care if at some point during the night I spilled it all over my shirt. At least, not for a while.
Beet greens are fine, though. Like most greens.
Beets are the only vegetable I don't like. The greens are fine, though.
72: That must be it. Racists.
73: I guess, but I'm just wondering what makes bad borsht or bad canned beets so bad; I've liked all the borsht and canned beets I've ever had (and I've eaten a lot of borsht and canned beets), so either I've just been lucky to not encounter the horrid type or other people are reacting to the taste differently. I'm leaning toward the latter explanation.
This, from a man who doesn't like pineapples.
beets are great, silly people! take smaller ones, a mix of red and golden is nice, and boil them whole, or cook in the oven. peel and cut into little cubes. now you take some brown sugar and garam masala and use it to caramelize some walnuts in a non-stick pan. cut a log of goat cheese into little rounds and heat them in the oven for 5-8 minutes. now you toss your mesclun with some dressing, and arrange the beets, warm goat cheese round and caramelized walnuts on top. you can skip the warming of the goat cheese and just put crumbled bits. or a salad of just beet cubes, pieces of feta and mint in a nice vinaigrette. or cooked and cut in cubes and then glazed with butter and honey. or put some grated ones into your latkes for crazy pink tasty latkes! you can divide the batter, 1/3 plain potato latkes, 1/3 with some carrot, and 1/3 with some grated beet. they lok real purty that way. mmmmm, beeeeets.
I suppose the latkes mightn't be bad -- I can see the beet taste being lost in the friedness of it all.
I don't remember much of beets. I ate them when I was a baby in baby food, so I'm told. And my grandfather liked them pickled, or whatever they are when they're in a jar and very pink, and if you put hardboiled eggs in the pickle juice they turn bright pink but then they taste like beets.
alameida's recipe sounds neat, though.
I like beets. Not just the taste, but the texture. You'd have a hard time selling me on cold soup, though.
65: Speaking of spaghetti carbonara, and the experiments in charcuterie I mentioned above, last night I took down the pancetta I'd had hanging in my basement for the last couple weeks, sliced it into quarter pound chunks, and froze it. I didn't have an immediate use for it, but I diced up a couple ounces and cooked it to eat right out of the pan. It was at least as good as the bacon mentioned above.
Damn you and your homecured artisanal pork products.
Um, that is, that sounds really good. You said you buy your pork from a guy at your local Farmer's Market -- what are his pigs like? The modern hyperlean factory hogs, or does he have old-school fatty pigs?
I wouldn't call them hyper-fatty, but they're definitely not as lean as today's pork. I haven't asked him about the breed.
Also, today's lunch: home-cured and dried garlic salami with a nice sharp cheddar, crackers, and a Granny Smith apple.
This "make you own high-end meat products" thing is awesome.
I should note that later this summer I may do something silly like order a back leg from each of the pork producers at my market (there's like 4) and do a side-by-side cure, smoke, and age, so that we can do a breed-by-breed taste comparison.
Easiest possible beets: Fold tightly in aluminum foil with olive oil, garlic cloves, balsamic vinegar. Bake 450 degrees until fork-tender. Mmmmmmm.
"For there to be a problem here, you're basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software," he said. "I don't believe these evil elections people exist."
I'm willing to accept nominations for adjectives other than "stupid" and "evil" to describe this quote, Idealist.
"Breathakingly naive"? "Disingenuous"? "Flabbergasting"? "Mendacious"? "Bumsquizzling"? "Nefarious"? "Utterly fucking ridiculous"?
And, uh, you'll invite us all out, right Chopper?
82: I notice you took the pork down *the day after* I left town. Greedy bastard.
Darlin', if you want a piece of meat from me, all you have to do is ask.
Nice that you let me know once I'm safely far away.
Indeed. Some mighty good meat in the TC.