Knowing that I love all things meat, Mrs. Stephenson graciously passed this link on to me. Not technically about heritage cooking techniques unless one considers cannibalism as a heritage food tradition. Gruesome, yes, but likely very tasty.
Check out the aptly named “not martha” post and very thorough documentation.
Here’s an article on eating at the source – in a field, on a farm, where the food came from.
A couple of questions developed in my mind as I read this. Does this event lead to a more direct connection to the food or is it a piece of dinner theatre with the field playing the lead roll? Or both? Is this a case of truth in fiction?
On the one side, I can see that this event introduces the audience to an encounter with their food that is informative, tasty and “novel”. On the other side, does paying big bucks to eat at the source really achieve a direct connection to the food – or does it import a fine-dining restaurant aesthetic and politic into the field?
As an urbanite, I think that its possible to achieve a better relationship with food by buying from farmers at the market, participating in a CSA vegetable or meat share, and learning about ways to prepare these foods. This is to say that I think that a good connection to food is about competency to procure, handle and prepare the food.
I’m quite sure the fine-dining-in-a-field was excellent, fun and memorable. I am suspicious of the idea that physical proximity, in the case of the fine-dining-in-a-field, equals a more direct connection to the food. I do, however, think that it has potential value as a piece of theatre that might inspire further investigation of and engagement with food.
Home made pizza is one of those things that I think is difficult to master. There’s the 500+ degree oven and the whole pizza stone thing. There’s also the question of the dough. I just perused a very interesting methodology for making pizza dough that dives deep into all of the variables.
If one was quite serious about making the best possible pizza, one could play with all the variables – liquid, fat content, type of flour, salt, yeasts, tempurature, rising time, resting time etc – to come up with a formula that works well, not only for your tastes, but also for your setting (IE your kitchen, your oven.)
This is something that comes up again and again when Mr. Duess and I discuss cooking with friends. They often wonder about recipies. Our response is that you use the recipe as a starting point to figure out the principals and then the rest is about tailoring it to your tastes, your cooking style and your cooking context.
The article is full of really good information and a method that I think Mr. Duess and I often take for granted, which is to try something, take measurements, and then revise based on how it turned out. Cooking is like anything else in that respect. The important part is to consider how it could have been done differently. This is not only about considering the recipe, but also your ingredients, your tools and your style.
When trying something new, we often will come up with something that just does not work. (One of my favorite things that Mr. Duess will say to me is that he’s glad to take a risk when I’m around because if it doesn’t work, we’ll eat it anyways – unlike, perhaps, our wives or a dinner party guest) Many times we have taken a risk and fallen flat on our faces. Its always, without fail, better the next time – even if by a little bit.
I found this article fascinating in that it discusses playing with all the vairables to come up with the best recipe to suit your own very specific situation. Its a method that will allow you to come up with your own version of things. This will bring you and yours a great deal of pleasure.
The source is a bit unlikely and not at all our thing (its some kind of management/personal actualization consultancy – funny place to find good info about cooking pizzas), but the information and method are great.
This is a fantastic article that reminds me of our endevours to create cured meats in the city. Lucky for us, Mr. Duess has a nice cool basement for drying our pancettas and guanciales so we do not need to look “out of house” for a place to hang these to dry. Its interesting to note that the author did not use curing salts, just salt. I must say that the thought of a nice carbonarra made with guanciale is making my mouth water right about now.