OT: Meat curing and aging.. fav resources

Rivermute

I was late posting this on the Spoiled Brisket thread which has since been buried. Thought I would pass on the following books I have found useful on the topic of Meat. Pretty sure I most of these books will be preaching to the converted around here.

"Everything in the grocery stores these days is just too sterile and picture perfect. I think alot of us forget what real food looks like. I have been doing a lot of meat curing and cheese making so have picked up on what is an acceptable risk and what is likely to kill me. I remember the first time I made dry cured salami being freaked out by sheer amount of white fuzzy stuff growing on the casings.. the first few attempts at blue cheese were even scarier!!

Here are a few books that some of you may find enlightening if you are curious about meat in general. I won't post the links but you can look them up on Amazon.

- The River Cottage Meat Book: I don't like his recipies so much (better ways out there to cure meat) but his philosophies on ethics, quality, aging and drying meat are well worth the read.

- Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman, Brian Polcyn: Excellent book on the science behind curing and drying meat

- The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating: Really fun read about meat and the so called nasty bits which shamefully we can't even get in North America.

BTW!! If anyone here happens to know of a company that sells and ships freeze dried pigs blood let me know!!"

mikeb6109

freeze dried pigs blood ?? why would you want that when you can get it fresh from your local butcher??
i am assuming you will doing blood pudding with it....

Rivermute

Really rare to get it from a butcher. Even the abitoirs now are unwilling to have it anywhere on their premisis. The small abitoir I take my pigs to used to collect it for me if I stuck around to collect it right away but have since changed their policy.. Yet another knee jerk reaction by the agricultural sector. Sadly you really can't buy good black pudding around here.

Essex County

I agree that you've got to work to get much flavor out of supermarket meat. I get most of my meat (beef) from my father in law who raises Devon beef on a 50 acre farm in central PA. This beef has much less fat than regular beef which makes cooking a bit of a challenge. On the other hand, it has a lot more flavor; grass-fed and grain finished. I have a local source for chicken, North Reading, MA, which is good as well and am looking for a local source for pork.

stike gave me a copy of the Charcuterie book you mention. It is a great read and a well written "how to" book. When the fall comes, I'm making my own hot dogs!

Paul

stike

i still think the four of us need to get together, open some wine, and make linguica and chorizo. that would be a hell of a time

hahaha

good god, imagine what that would be like

stike

i think this frigging "anti-bacterial" soap crap has turned us into a nation of absolute pVssies.

my mother would take a hunk of beef out in the morning and let it thaw out all day. she'd cook it around five at night. we'd eat most of it, and then the rest sat on a platter for about two or three hours while we sat and jawed.

no one ever got sick. hhahaha

the problem with food safety today is less with the meat industry, and more with produce
the river cottage meat book is on my short list, and is well overdue. i got "charcuterie", and gained ten pounds just reading it

damn good book

Rivermute

I highly reccomend the river cottage meat book just for the manifesto. If you can get your hands on it Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery by Jane Grigson is AMAZING! I am pretty sure you can order it through Amazon.uk or Alibris in the states.

I agree with you 100PCT Stike.. not only do I think this germ free fad is nonesense but I think by sheltering ourselves (especially children) we loose a bit of natural immunity and hardiness. I really would have to wonder what most people would think if they saw a real air dried ham.. complete with moldy rind.. or REAL soft cheese. Not to be Mr.Conspiracy but alot of this nonesense about premature spoilage is about getting all of us to buy more food..

IMHO the slow food movement and the BGE are a match made in heaven.

stike

the healthiest people on earth have always been farmers. covered in dirt and swimming in animal sh!t.

...never knew a farm kid that had an inhaler.

AZRP

I made my own hot dogs, had a whole lot of trouble with sheep casings, didn't have a small enough stuffing horn. -RP

AZRP

Charcuterie is a great book. -RP

stike

from what your wife has told me, your stuffing horn is actually TOO small....



(booYAH!)

AZRP

-RP

AZRP

Stike, too bad you're not closer, you and the boys could come over and improve your health wallowing around in our manure pit. We don't need no stinking swimming pool when we have this. :P -RP

stike

you should be happy. better to be too small like you, than too big like me....