Offal Good

Gourmet magazine loves pigs head

September 3, 2008 on 10:01 pm | In Videos | Comments

I was shocked when Gourmet Magazine asked me to butcher a pigs head for the video section of there website. This is a major push for offal exposure to the mass public, I give them huge credit for going outside the box.

11 Comments

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wow! thank you Chris and Gourmet…..remember having the real thing while in Italia…..I am here in sterile Rochester NY, but wish I could be at your restaurant to enjoy REAL food.
the pics of abbatoirs great, brings me back to when a child and you were allowed to see where your food came from and what it took to prepare.

Comment by mary ann — September 5, 2008 #
Monsterous, primative, barbaric…UNNECCESSARY! For health & heart - GO VEGAN

Comment by Bea Elliott — October 1, 2008 #
Bea - then don’t eat it, I respect your point of view but please don’t mock mine. The point you missed is that one can eat all parts of the animal. This is what I was taught at a young age. Respect mother earth and the food she presents. Excellent demonstration on breaking down a pigs head.

Comment by Gianni Sea — October 3, 2008 #
Wonderful, informative and well executed. An educational demonstration that I found helpful and cleared up a few mistakes I made last time I boned out a pig head. Wonder what was done with the brain? Speaking of which, I hear vegans have smaller ones.

Comment by Bailey — October 4, 2008 #
Thanks for posting such an awesome video. This year we’ll be buying our second annual organic whole pig from a local farm. I still have my split-in-half pig’s head from last year (which I guess I’d better take the jowls off of for us and make stock with the bones…), but this year I am definitely getting the head whole so I can make this. It looks so delicious!

Comment by Anne — October 13, 2008 #
your sub-human. Your a gross animal killer not a chef and I wih you the nothing but tragedy in your life.

Comment by colleen quinn — October 16, 2008 #
Coleen

Are you saying the same thing to people that cook steak? Because what he’s doing is virtually the same thing. Plus he never killed the animal. Just uses parts that actually look like the animal.

Comment by Gael — October 18, 2008 #
I’ve been dying to make this since I first saw the video. The heads I have access to are about 25lbs though so I need some help eating it all though.

I have traditionally peeled tongues before eating them because that’s what I was taught to do. The tongue in this video looks unpeeled short of the top front when its added to the rest of the head meat. Do you peel it all or just eat the tongue lining? Do you indeed remove the lining from the top of the tip of the tongue?

Comment by christopherpepe — October 29, 2008 #
Interesting. A revelation in fact. I recognised nothing but the presentation plate. I recall a gathering where a recognisable yummy roulade(?) was amongst the selection. Now I understand the textures. I believe I will do an alternative now with the always leftover lamb flap (when buying a side of lamb). I’d use alternate offal for this of course - can one use lambs tongue - to achieve something different in cold meats. Thanx. Susan.

Comment by Susan — November 12, 2008 #
I am shocked and disgusted by the closed mindedness of the vegan readers (wishing pain and harm to someone that they’ve never met???how primitive and barbaric is that???). How hypocritical albeit typical of their kind.

What they fail to understand is that the people who pursue this style of cooking are doing it out of a GENUINE RESPECT AND LOVE of the animal by making the best use of its sad sacrifice. Chefs like Constentino care deeply about the ethical treatment and farming that went into raising these beautiful animals.

You vegans who go out on witch hunts by picketing and crucifying honest, hard working chefs are completely misguided and should be ashamed of yourselves.

You don’t even know who your real enemy is.
Get informed and go after the people causing the cruelty and inhumane conditions, not the people who are championing what’s best for the animals that we eat.

Collen and Bea, I hope you can raise yourselves from the deep pit of ignorance that you’ve lowered yourselves to.

Comment by ciaran — December 2, 2008 #
[...] and although I considered chasing down a head to make guanciale or head cheese out of, after seeing this video of Chris Cosentino butchering a pigs head (actually, I couldn’t get through the video, the prospect of brains and eyeballs freaked me [...]

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