meat.pro is meat you can’t beat

Filed under: Pork, On the Blogs, America, Comfort Food, Meat, Artisan Foods, Guilty Pleasures

Gourmet’s Ian Knauer has bacon on the brain ever since a fateful foray into one of Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s omnipresent Polish groceries. The specimen in question is double-smoked, non-brine injected belly meat, has roots in the former Eastern Prussia, and is sold in Germany as Geräucherter Speck. Looks insanely delicious, no?

Mr. Knauer is also pretty certain that one’s personal selection thereof over all other bacon formats is a potential indicator of, well, he’s not entirely certain, but if nothing else, this meat-based emotional indexing is a lot yummier than the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator or the MMPI. Mmmm…delicious psychological profiling.

What does your bacon selection say about you?

[via: Gourmet.com]

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Filed under: On the Blogs, How To, Meat

I am a big fan of sausage, especially the kind you buy in bulk (as opposed to the stuff that comes in casing). I use it as the protein/flavor base for egg scrambles, pasta sauces and stews. However, despite my love for ground, highly seasoned meats, I’ve never actually tried to make it on my own (I like to leave tasks like that to the professionals).

On Monday, Culinate posted a piece by Matthew Amster-Burton that’s got me thinking that maybe I should change my ways and start experimenting with homemade sausage. I like the idea of avoiding all the perservatives that you find in commercial sausages and Matthew makes it sound so darn easy. He says you don’t need many tools (I would have to buy the meat grinding attachment for my KitchenAid mixer) and that there are recipes to turn to until you feel confident enough to create your own flavor blends.

I think I might need a bit more encouragement before I become a home sausage maker. Is this something that others of you have done? Any tips or tricks?

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To the Editor:.

To the Editor:.

The $5-plus hot dogs that will be sold at Yankee Stadium for the All-Star Game bear little resemblance to the ones sold long ago at Ebbets Field.

The $5-plus hot dogs that will be sold at Yankee Stadium for the All-Star Game bear little resemblance to the ones sold long ago at Ebbets Field.

A professor broke the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters to criticize the arrest of illegal immigrants.

A professor broke the code of confidentiality among legal interpreters to criticize the arrest of illegal immigrants.

Picnic foods need not be boring. With a little shopping, a little effort, and 20 minutes or less for assembly, you can easily vary the menu a bit.

Picnic foods need not be boring. With a little shopping, a little effort, and 20 minutes or less for assembly, you can easily vary the menu a bit.