Argh, swamped today with other things. But here's some information on the benefits of grass feeding animals. "Animals raised on pasture live very low-stress lives. As a result of their superb nutrition and lack of stress, they are superbly healthy."
Also, there are some interesting comments happening in the If we want to save the animals we must eat them post. When I get a moment, I'll share my thoughts. Feel free to pop in with yours.
Heritage meat statistics
OK, it was a short day looking at heritage and heirloom links, so maybe I'll keep this going tomorrow, since I didn't really have time to dive into veggies at all really, nor enough time to dig into the meat (ha ha ha) of this issue. For those wondering what the big deal is, or why diversity matters, I'll leave you with this information from Sustainable Table:
In the US, a few main breeds dominate the livestock industry:
- 83 percent of dairy cows are Holsteins, and five main breeds comprise almost all of the dairy herds in the US.
- 60 percent of beef cattle are of the Angus, Hereford or Simmental breeds.
- 75 percent of pigs in the US come from only 3 main breeds.
- Over 60 percent of sheep come from only four breeds, and 40 percent are Suffolk-breed sheep.
More sobering information: "Within the past 15 years, 190 breeds of farm animals have gone extinct worldwide, and there are currently 1,500 others at risk of becoming extinct. In the past five years alone, 60 breeds of cattle, goats, pigs, horses and poultry have become extinct."
Modern commercial turkey varieties have also lost much of their natural ability to forage for food, fly, walk normally, and to escape predators. Wikipedia has lots of information about domesticated turkeys.
If we want to save them, we must eat them! "Just as the Bald Eagle and Panda Bear are on the brink of extinction in the wild, so are numerous varieties of livestock like Bourbon Red turkeys, Red Wattle pigs, Tunis sheep, Barred-Plymouth Rock chickens and Iroquois corn flour...Heritage Foods USA exists to help accomplish this goal by selling foods from small farms to consumers and wholesale accounts." You can buy Six-Spotted Berkshire pork, heritage turkeys, French Dewlap Toulouse Geese, American Kobe Beef, and even bison. It's strange to think that in order to save nearly extinct species we need to eat them, but if there's no market for these varieties, no one will farm them.
Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. It was started by a couple after the wife received seeds from her grandfather "that his parents brought from Bavaria when they immigrated to St. Lucas, Iowa in the 1870s." The seeds were for Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory and German Pink Tomato. You can learn more about their organization and order seeds for all kinds of stuff. Just check out the lists of eating beans they've got for sale. Wonderful. [thanks Jason!]
Today’s commercial turkey is selected to efficiently produce meat at the lowest possible cost. "It is an excellent converter of feed to breast meat, but the result of this improvement is a loss of the bird’s ability to successfully mate and produce fertile eggs without intervention. This means that turkeys marketed as 'heritage' must be the result of naturally mating pairs of both grandparent and parent stock." The definition of heritage turkey will help you understand what you're getting when you shell out the extra dough at Thanksgiving for your bird.
Heritage meats are like four-legged versions of the heirloom tomato -- old strains of rare breeds that are being cultivated anew by independent farmers using traditional methods, free of hormones and chemical pesticides. The Food Section's report from a heritage meats discussion back in 2003 at the French Culinary Institute has lots of information about breeds and tasting.
Heritage and heirloom day
Me about to enjoy some roast suckling pig at Daisy May's BBQ in New York City
Today's going to be a kind of heirloom/heritage day here on Megnut. One thing I never thought much about until I got into food and doing this site was the effect of industrial farming on genetic diversity. From tomatoes to turkeys, agribusiness selects breeds based on qualities such as rate of growth, color, and suitability for shipment. Hence giant California strawberries, beautiful red apples with mealy faint apple flavor, and chickens and turkeys bursting with breast meat that's dull and dry.
Though such practices result in consistent products and less expensive food, we are losing our culinary heritage. If you frequent farmer's markets, you can see a resurgence of variety. Potatoes and tomatoes are two very common heirloom products on the scene right now, and you can usually find six or eight varieties of each in season, from Green Zebra tomatoes to Russian Banana potatoes.
And then there's the issue of taste. I never cared for pork much, I always found it bland and dry. Then I tasted pork from small farms, places like Flying Pigs Farm here in New York who raise Large Blacks, Gloucestershire Old Spots, and Tamworths. And now pork is probably my favorite meat. So look for links throughout the day about the "new" old way of farming and anything interesting I can turn up about the issues.
The everpresent kids' menu
America is in the grips of a nefarious chicken-finger pandemic, in which a blandly tasty foodstuff has somehow become the de facto official nibble of our young. "Far from being an advance, I've concluded, the standard children’s menu is regressive, encouraging children (and their misguided parents) to believe that there is a rigidly delineated 'kids' cuisine' that exists entirely apart from grown-up cuisine."
I never understood this. When I was little, we all at the same thing for dinner. No one got a special meal. I don't remember having a different menu when we went out to dinner either. For those readers with kids out there: is it possible to get your children to order off the adult menu? Or do they resist?
Milk-fed chickens? But a bird’s not a mammal. Adding powdered milk to chicken feed produces a "richer flavor" and "softer, more tender flesh," depending on the breed of the bird.
How to close a bag of chips without a clip. Handy video and instructions to perform chip bag origami so your snacks stay fresh without one of those clips. [via Lifehacker]
What Makes a Perfect Lobster Roll? “It should be all about the lobster.” Whether that allows for mayo depends on who you ask. I'm ok with a little mayo, but not too much.
Memorial Day
That's my Grandpa in a photo from April 1944, on or very close to his wedding day. He had just turned 24, and the photo was taken shortly before he left for sea during WWII.
I was thinking about him today, Memorial Day, as I thought about veterans in general. His ship, the USS Wasatch (AGC-9), was the flagship of the 7th Fleet, stationed in the South Pacific. Being the flagship meant that admirals used the ship as their command post, as Admiral Kinkaid did to command the naval forces of the 7th Fleet during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of all time. This log of movements chronicles the Wasatch from its departure at Norfolk, VA June 27, 1944 until its return to San Diego, CA November 28, 1945. I also found a more detailed description of the Wasatch's action in the South Pacific as I was looking for information.
I didn't know much about my grandfather's war experience -- he never talks about it, not when I was little, not now. But in less than an hour poking around online, I was able to uncover more than I ever knew about where he'd been and the battles in which his ship had been involved. And for the first Memorial Day in a long time, I actually did some good hard thinking and reading about the sacrifices men and women have made throughout history to ensure, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." To my grandpa, and veterans everywhere, thank you.
Originally published May 27, 2002
Confetti Cakes Cookbook for dream cakes
The Confetti Cakes Cookbook: Spectacular Cookies, Cakes, and Cupcakes from New York City's Famed Bakery by Elisa Strauss is one of those cookbooks that just astounds. I was not familiar with the bakery or this woman's cakes before, but color me impressed. As someone who's not only worked with fondant but actually made it from scratch (not recommended), my mind was blown by what this woman can do with cake!
The book features recipes for all kinds of cakes and cookies, including amazing stacked wedding cake cookies that look just like little cakes, and a sushi cake that looks just like the real thing. Strauss's ability to make cakes that look like baseball caps, sushi, and handbags is incredible. The book also contains basic information about techniques and ingredients that any baker will find useful, even if they don't undertake a week's worth of baking to create the "Sugar Stiletto and Shoebox Cake."
But perhaps what I like best about this book is the inspiration it provides. I'm not sure I'll ever make her exact cakes, but boy does it make me want to come up with my own crazy concoctions. With all the techniques and tips she provides, I have the confidence to do that. Now I just need a willing victim friend who's looking for a birthday or wedding cake.
The key to a good hamburger is to grind your own meat. Mark Bittman explains how you can control the quality of the meat this way, and its fat content, two critical factors in making a great burger. And of course he talks about the health concerns of buying ground beef as well. Makes me long for a grill!
Harold McGee will demonstrate the application of the scientific method to classical cooking techniques, ingredients and new technologies in a three-day class at the FCI. Drat! That sounds totally cool and right up my alley. Alas, the mid-July date is no good for me. And also it costs $1,200! I think I'll read McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen again instead.
Up to 10 small cups of green tea a day is fine but studies show that more than that can be harmful. This is important to note if you're taking green-tea-based supplements because they "can contain up to 50 times as much polyphenol as a single cup of tea." Polyphenols are helpful in small doses but in large doses can cause liver and kidney damage. Everything in moderation, as they say.
His cattle ration consists of about 17% "candy meal," a blend of chocolate bars and large chunks of chocolate. And that's not all, in this report about livestock producers feeding their animals human food because ethanol is driving up the price of corn. I'd love to read the whole article, but that damn Wall Street Journal is subscription-only.
How to keep cookies fresh
After all that perfect chocolate chip cookie baking, what's the use when your batch goes stale in a matter of days? Cookies are great out of the oven, but biting into a hard crumbly mass later in the week is no fun. That's why you need to understand the science of cookie osmosis, or How to Keep Cookies Fresh.
The trick is simple: place a slice of fresh bread in with your cookies a day or two after you've baked them, or whenever you find their texture has deteriorated. The moisture from the fresh bread will migrate to your cookies (through cookie osmosis, see diagram above), rendering them soft and chewable again. It will literally unstaleify them!
Special thanks to my mother-in-law Dee, who passed on this technique to her son, who introduced it to me.
Almost dining at the Waverly Inn
How We Almost Ate At Ye Waverly Inn. The Amateur Gourmet and his parents tried to have dinner at the Waverly Inn but there reservation was lost and the host was not accommodating, and well, you have to just read it. The whole tale of the "new" Waverly Inn just saddens me. I used to live down the block from the Inn and went there a few times for dinner. The food was so-so, but the building was fantastic, with cozy fireplaces and a great old bar. I always thought it could be something really special. Then a few years ago, I saw it was for lease, and for about one crazy moment, I fantasized about opening my own restaurant there.
Of course, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and some partners snapped up the lease and the rest is history. He opened an exclusive supper club for himself and his friends and those in the know. Their town cars block the narrow street. And what was once a nice neighborhood joint is now another "it" spot in Manhattan. And the food isn't even supposedly that good! I haven't been, though I might try at some point, just in the hopes that somehow, it's not as bad as everyone says. That somehow, it's become that neat little cozy local restaurant I always wanted it to be.
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