Offal Good

A Carnivores Cookout at Prather Ranch

A full year after we shot the story its here in the august issue of Food and Wine Magazine.

There are so many stories that could be told from that day at the ranch: the sheer beauty of the ranch, the history and stories from The Ralphs, and The Rickerts. Even the morning I spent in the slaughter house helping the Rickerts process cattle, I just got the cow hide back from that day, its been tanned and turned into a carpet. Ultimately I am honored to have a story of this quality and caliber, Thanks Tom for expressing that day so well and Emily for going to bat for my beliefs.

Pork week on Salon.com

Pork week on salon.com was a whole week of glorifying the pig in all its splendor. Giving this magical animal its rightful due from bacon to all its lost cuts. They interviewed a few chefs and producers on their thoughts and beliefs on pork usage and production as well as there addiction to the meat of this delicious animal. I feel very fortunate to have been interviewed for “A Magical Wonderful Animal” since pork is my favorite in so many ways.

Head to Tail in NYC!!

The idea of taking the Head-to-Tail on the road is a daunting task but when Leslie from the Astor Center asked me to bring it to New York I jumped at the chance. There are so many things I could say about this event from the early arrival to the procuring of product I have to say I had a great time working with my friends Jonathan, Aaron, Rolando, and a whole slew of volunteers-without them I couldn’t have done this dinner. Picking up and cooking a dinner from scratch in a whole new kitchen is a huge task, especially when you don’t know what the products will be like when you get there, or if they even got there.

The great commentary from Michael Rulman who not only spoke but also got me to spill my guts on guts. Thank you all for all your help it was a great success.

Take a look here at the different links with videos and photos.

My Photographer Michael Harlan Turkell

slash food

grubstreet video

starchefs

more intelligent life

Michael Ruhlman:1

Michael Ruhlman: 2

Forbes Traveler on offal

Forbes traveler wrote a piece called:

Deluxe Nose-to-Tail Meals

Joshua M. Bernstein 2008-05-12 11:30:52.0

© Heath Robbins Photography

LAUNCH SLIDESHOW
Offal-y good ox hearts, lamb spleen and more

Colin Alevras, chef at New York City’s Tasting Room, recently unveiled a luxury burger that blew diners’ minds. While the $23 price tag is chump change compared to the $75 foie gras-stuffed, black-truffle-topped burger at NYC’s DB Bistro Moderne, what sets Alevras’ meaty masterpiece apart is not decadent toppings but the meat itself.

The Old MacDonald burger, as Alevras dubs it, blends a grass-fed cow’s heart, liver, bone marrow, tongue, flatiron, brisket, shank and clod. It’s topped with raw cow’s-milk cheese and “mushroom ketchup,” and it’s served on a beer-bread bun. Fries are, incidentally, extra.

“I haven’t seen anybody reconsider the burger from the cow up. We don’t hide behind its casualness. We are remaking the world’s most overlooked food,” the chef recently told NYmag.com’s food blog, Grub Street.

Is Alevras’ creative hamburger a weirdo anomaly? No way. Nowadays, chefs are branching out beyond meaty ribs or tender filet mignon to embrace a nose-to-tail eating ethos.

“If you’re going to kill the animal, it seems only polite to use the whole thing,” British chef Fergus Henderson famously wrote in his book “The Whole Beast,” which touted the tastiness of tripe, trotters and internal organs. While many diners prefer to forget their flank steak was carved from a mooing creature, high-end dining now features a new face. Plus some hearts. And, occasionally, intestines.

“Organ meats don’t have to mean Mom’s overcooked liver,” explains Andy Nusser, head chef at New York City’s Casa Mono. The tapas-style small-plates eatery, which is owned partly by Mario Batali, offers unusual cuts—such as lamb’s tongue, duck hearts and cock’s combs. The latter is the fleshy red cap atop a rooster’s head; at Casa Mono, it’s simmered with red wine and porcini mushrooms until fork-tender.

“We’re returning to using the whole animal,” says Nusser, who has taken to sourcing entire organic pigs. “You’re not just picking up a phone and ordering parts. This makes you want to use every last bit. You don’t want to throw anything out.”

Especially not the noggin. “I really enjoy cooking a pig head,” Nusser says. “I like slowly simmering it and pulling the meat off the head, then taking the liquid it was cooked in and turning it into gelatin. It’s a journey to look at an ugly pig’s head and turn it into a beautiful terrine.”

Nusser’s adoration of long-overlooked animal parts has company. At Portland’s Le Pigeon, diners can opt for “foot and tail” croquettes or duck-duck-pigeon—roast squab with duck confit salad and duck-liver vinaigrette. Boston’s KO Prime slings sautéed calves brains and bone marrow with oxtail marmalade. Philadelphia’s Ansell Food + Wine fashions a fine, crispy lamb’s tongue served with mint.

But perhaps America’s most adventurous nose-to-tail restaurant is San Francisco’s rustic-Italian Incanto. On offer are lamb’s necks, pig trotters and a five-course nose-to-tail tasting menu perhaps including venison kidneys and chocolate-blood panna cotta. For executive chef Chris Cosentino (who also runs www.offalgood.com), it’s not about Fear Factor-style extreme eating. “It’s about viable cuts of meat that we have thrown into the trashcan for years. There’s been lots of talk about sustainable eating, and offal is sustainable eating. If you buy leeks, do you just throw away the tops? Or do you use them to make broth? When it comes to food, we’re very wasteful.”

Historically speaking, America wasn’t always so wasteful. During World War II, thrifty cooks stretched their ration stamps by buying cuts of tongue. In the South, pig’s hooves, fried pork skin and chitterlings (a fancy word for pig intestines) have long been integral to Mason-Dixon Line cuisine.

“We’ve gone away from our history,” Cosentino says. “Years ago, a slaughter was a neighborhood affair. One guy would come around and slaughter one or two pigs, then someone would make blood sausage. And the casing was made from the pig’s intestines. People always ask me, ‘Why do you serve poor people’s food?’ That’s really disrespectful to the animal.”

For squeamish eaters, Cosentino suggests a “gateway” meat: beef hearts. “It’s a muscle, not a filter”—like liver or kidneys—“so it’s very rich and has lots of minerals. It changes people’s perceptions.”

Harder to alter are USDA guidelines. The government bans numerous victuals like lungs that Cosentino would love to toss into a skillet. “Cow’s udder is absolutely delicious—it’s a shame I can’t serve it,” he says. “Flavor-wise, it’s a mammary gland, so it’s very rich and fatty.”

Such is the crux of whole-animal eating: Creating luxury where it’s least expected. For this reason, “cooking nose to tail isn’t a fad; it’s never going to go away,” says Casa Mono’s Nusser. “The bottom line is that people that are trying hearts and organs are surprised to find that they’re delicious. Anyone can cook it. To cook a pig’s head, you just need a big pot. Just go to a butcher and ask them to split the pig head in half, then you’re halfway there.”