(no subject)
Pink slime. The whole noise around pink slime really comes down to labeling decisions. Label your product truthfully and let the consumer decide.
G and i were just reading a news story about a governor's tour of a 'pink slime' plant. Rick Perry defended pink slime, and THAT is the type of thing that challenges my typical political stance. Everyone is influenced by the issues that they are most passionate about; abortion rights, gun control, etc. For us, it's food supply. Rick Perry may be a nice Christian man, but if he accepts money from corporations bent on controlling my food supply, I could never vote him into office.
Ammonium hydroxide wasn't meant to be ingested. Rick Perry's God didn't tell Adam and Eve in the Garden to eat all of this but only when when it's been treated with chemicals. Gross.
We rarely buy meat at a grocery store. We have a local butcher who smokes the most amazing bacon, just a few miles down the road. Bacon is a glorious gift to cooking, and smoked bacon is even better. One or two slices, diced fine, add exquisite flavor to a pot of lentils. This stuff is thick sliced, and you have to render the fat off first.
Of course I keep the drippings! There's a jar next to my stove. There's a few things next to my stove, actually. A bottle of organic olive oil, fitted with a pour spout. A bottle of organic apple cider vinegar, also fitted with a pour spout. A bottle of balsamic vinegar and a little pottery pot I keep full of sea salt. And the jar for bacon fat! Usually it renders off the bacon so finely that I end up with a jar of snowy white almost-lard. My favorite way to use it is in cornbread.
No, it isn't disgusting. Baked goods need a fat present. It's part of the alchemy of baking- that precise mystery that everyone loves. When it comes down to it, I'd rather have lard that I rendered as the fat instead of hydrogenated vegetable oils, or trans fat. The body knows how to process animal fats. Artificial fats? Not so much. One of my sisters has been eating 'real food' long enough that she's now starting to have allergic reactions to the mono and diglycerides that are the result of hydrogenation.
Anyway, it comes from a local butcher, who proudly advertises their use of local, hormone free meat. Every other week we go down for a pound of bacon. As soon as you walk in the door, it's amazing, filled with the most glorious smoky aroma. They have smokers onsite for the cured meats they make, and the smell is just incredible. We ask for our pound of smoky bacon, and they wrap it neatly and precisely in white butcher paper.
I love that paper whenever I cook with it. Tactilely, it's a very satisfying experience to unwrap the paper, remove one or two slices to dice fine, then neatly roll it back up. It rustles with a fulfilling organic whisper that vacuum sealed plastic will never give you.
I like to add the diced bacon to pots of beans - navy beans baked for hours with molasses and sugar, canellini beans tossed with lemon and arugula and little bit of parmesan. That little whisper of smoky pork is amazing. Last night a little went into a gratin of potatoes and asiago, with a sprinkle of panko on top. Half a slice sauted with shallots and brussels sprouts, finished with balsamic and brown sugar is enough to make you weep with delight.
You want fresh brussels sprouts, though. When they get old they start to get this horseradishy pungency that hits your sinuses as you eat them. I find that sensation overwhelming.
Obviously, the point of all of this is pink slime isn't meant to be eaten. It's cartilage, not muscle, which means it's not meat. No amount of lobbying will change that.
G and i were just reading a news story about a governor's tour of a 'pink slime' plant. Rick Perry defended pink slime, and THAT is the type of thing that challenges my typical political stance. Everyone is influenced by the issues that they are most passionate about; abortion rights, gun control, etc. For us, it's food supply. Rick Perry may be a nice Christian man, but if he accepts money from corporations bent on controlling my food supply, I could never vote him into office.
Ammonium hydroxide wasn't meant to be ingested. Rick Perry's God didn't tell Adam and Eve in the Garden to eat all of this but only when when it's been treated with chemicals. Gross.
We rarely buy meat at a grocery store. We have a local butcher who smokes the most amazing bacon, just a few miles down the road. Bacon is a glorious gift to cooking, and smoked bacon is even better. One or two slices, diced fine, add exquisite flavor to a pot of lentils. This stuff is thick sliced, and you have to render the fat off first.
Of course I keep the drippings! There's a jar next to my stove. There's a few things next to my stove, actually. A bottle of organic olive oil, fitted with a pour spout. A bottle of organic apple cider vinegar, also fitted with a pour spout. A bottle of balsamic vinegar and a little pottery pot I keep full of sea salt. And the jar for bacon fat! Usually it renders off the bacon so finely that I end up with a jar of snowy white almost-lard. My favorite way to use it is in cornbread.
No, it isn't disgusting. Baked goods need a fat present. It's part of the alchemy of baking- that precise mystery that everyone loves. When it comes down to it, I'd rather have lard that I rendered as the fat instead of hydrogenated vegetable oils, or trans fat. The body knows how to process animal fats. Artificial fats? Not so much. One of my sisters has been eating 'real food' long enough that she's now starting to have allergic reactions to the mono and diglycerides that are the result of hydrogenation.
Anyway, it comes from a local butcher, who proudly advertises their use of local, hormone free meat. Every other week we go down for a pound of bacon. As soon as you walk in the door, it's amazing, filled with the most glorious smoky aroma. They have smokers onsite for the cured meats they make, and the smell is just incredible. We ask for our pound of smoky bacon, and they wrap it neatly and precisely in white butcher paper.
I love that paper whenever I cook with it. Tactilely, it's a very satisfying experience to unwrap the paper, remove one or two slices to dice fine, then neatly roll it back up. It rustles with a fulfilling organic whisper that vacuum sealed plastic will never give you.
I like to add the diced bacon to pots of beans - navy beans baked for hours with molasses and sugar, canellini beans tossed with lemon and arugula and little bit of parmesan. That little whisper of smoky pork is amazing. Last night a little went into a gratin of potatoes and asiago, with a sprinkle of panko on top. Half a slice sauted with shallots and brussels sprouts, finished with balsamic and brown sugar is enough to make you weep with delight.
You want fresh brussels sprouts, though. When they get old they start to get this horseradishy pungency that hits your sinuses as you eat them. I find that sensation overwhelming.
Obviously, the point of all of this is pink slime isn't meant to be eaten. It's cartilage, not muscle, which means it's not meat. No amount of lobbying will change that.