Text 11672, 185 rader
Skriven 2014-04-01 01:51:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JIM WELLER
Ärende: bovicultural 416
========================
 JW> The Inuit feel the same way about meat. In 1979, the first year in
 JW> nearly a century that the western Inuit had a legal commercial
 JW> muskox hunt, meat was offered for sale within the NWT, frozen, in 10
 JW> lb boxes, delivered by air freight. I called for details and was
 JW> told everything was the same price so I ordered tongue and
 JW> tenderloin. After roasting the first tenderloin I called for another

Surprised that they didn't immediately recognize the
additional value of the tongue at least and keep it
for themselves.

 JW> box and was told that they only had chuck (they called it shoulder)
 JW> stew meat and burger left, for some strange reason. They were
 JW> mystified but the next year they had differential pricing so that
 JW> everything sold.

I hope you bought the second box anyway.

 JW> Sales were limited to the NWT only as there was no federal meat
 JW> inspection done at a licensed abattoir, so no export sales.
 JW> That was the same year Early Shelsby went on a hunt in the eastern
 JW> Arctic as the canny Inuit there realized that guiding rich Americans
 JW> paid more than selling frozen meat semi-locally.

The thing is that that source of income would force one
to deal more frequently with middlemen such as travel
agents and the government. But I suppose the Inuit in the
east were canny enough to be represented by lawyers and
agents.

 -=> Jim Weller said to Burton Ford <=-

 > "Montreal Meat" but I can't remember what was special about the
 > meat...
 JW> Montreal Smoked Meat is similar to pastrami. Schwartz's is one of
 JW> a handful of famous Jewish Kosher-style restaurants specializing in
 JW> really thick smoked meat on rye sandwiches, the way the Carnegie
 JW> Deli in NYC is famous for its pastrami.

I'd say that R(o)umanian pastrami and Mo(o)ntreal smoked meat
have more in common than the Montrealers admit. Some of the
best Montreal smoked meat I ever had was sold at Elsie's in
Cambridge, Mass. under the label hand-cut Roumanian pastrami.

I had recent experience with Schwartz's and the Main and
discover that the latter has changed its recipe since I last
visited, and the smoked meat is now pretty mediocre, making
Schwartz's the winner again. I also sort of liked Deli Snowden
but made the mistake of ordering it medium, which meant a sad
compromise and thus half inedible. I'll go back in the next
year or three and order it fatty, as I should have.

 JW> MSM is hard salted, not brined, brisket that is hot smoked, then

Not so sure about that. I'm pretty sure that most of the
MSMs I've had recently have been brined - Deli Snowden
for sure, the Main most likely.

 JW> re-heated by steaming. Proper pastrami is plate (navel beef) that is
 JW> brined, and so has some sugar in it, before smoking and steaming.

And that's not universally true, either, though it may
be a preponderance of the evidence thing.

 JW> Both methods are based on Romanian Jewish pastrama.

I like point cut brisket best; plate and a couple other cuts
are also fine. But just say no to round.

 JW> Of course one can make corned meat, smoked meat or pastrami from all
 JW> sorts of meats including goose breasts, turkey thighs (quite lean)
 JW> and beef eye of round (very, very lean) but it doesn't taste quite
 JW> the same.

None of these merit the name, except possibly pastrami round
(which I obviously don't favor). I've seen and eaten coriander-
and-pepper-cured goose and turkey "pastrami" so labeled but
would not consider them the real thing. That way chaos lies.

 > a whole pig. / Later I think the two Daves and Michael tussled
 > over who got to eat the eyes.  Afterward I was sorry I didn't try
 > to join in.
 JW> Bodle got one of the eyes. You didn't miss much; eyeballs are not
 JW> all that tasty a food plus there is the squick factor.

Michael was off in trouble at the time and did not get to
fight over eyeballs.

 JW> That was Native Dene (Indian) dry meat, something like jerky but
 JW> just air dried and smoked, not brined or spiced. And up here we
 JW> don't have decent fruit and nut hardwood for smoking so the Dene
 JW> must make do with birch or willow which is quite acrid. We were
 JW> peeling the meat off of the silverskin membrane. There was not
 JW> supposed to be any hair on it, but it was not very good quality. I

Didn't taste excellent, either, though I was too polite to
say so at the time. You can simulate the flavor of willow
smoking by soaking your meat in root beer before smoking it
in the ordinary way.

 JW> wanted to bring some nice wild game jerky but got stuck picking that
 JW> up at the last minute (it was a barter of meat for cash with an
 JW> older Native lady in the parking lot behind a bingo hall where she
 JW> needed admission money.)

Interesting. I never operated well under such systems, being
tonedeaf to such things as relative valuations - real estate
certainly would not be for me.

 jw-> ... My beer had a molecule of water in it that was once dinosaur piss.
 > I assume you're quoting Michael.
 JW> I'm certainly quoting somebody but the original person is long lost
 JW> in the mists of time.

Probably not me, because I wouldn't care a rat's butt about
piss of any sort, just so I can't smell or taste it - its
presence just doesn't bother me. though I've made similar
observations regarding molecules of air. 

 > Toronto in the clean, very safe Subway system.
 JW> A lot of movies where the story setting is NYC are actually shot in
 JW> Toronto. There's a story going around that a movie producer leased a
 JW> subway station from midnight to 6 AM to shoot a crime scene. To make
 JW> it look authentic they spray pained graffiti on walls and spilled
 JW> garbage cans over the floors. They took a meal break around 3 AM and
 JW> when they returned at $ AM to finish the shoot the night janitors had
 JW> shown up, cleaned up and even painted over the graffiti!

Likely apocryphal, but I wouldn't put anything past
the Canadians.

 > When we went to the Canary Islands, as a intelligent Traveler I
 > was very careful not to drink the water. As a unthinking Eat I ate
 > quite a bit of nice clean, well washed Salad, and was introduced
 > to Montezuma's Revenge ...just in time for the flight home.
 JW> One even has to consider the source of the water in the ice cubes in
 JW> one's cocktails.

Not if the cocktails are strong enough!

 JW> The people from the Canary Islands get sick when they visit us;
 JW> their immune systems are not used to our endemic bug culture!

That's the thing. Everyone tends to get sick from everywhere
they're not used to. But Americans are loudest about it, so
the world gets the impression that everywhere but the US (and
their own country of course) is a germ-ridden cesspool.

Steak and chorizo chili
cats: main, crowd
serves: 100

15 lb top round cubed
10 lb chorizo sausage
2 lb New Mexican red dried chiles
1 lb anaheim dried chiles
8 md onions - diced
4 bn celery - diced
8 qt water
2 lb dried kidney beans
5 lb fresh tomatoes - diced
28 qt beef stock
3 lb tomato paste
2 oz ground cumin
2 oz ground thyme
4 oz ground oregano
2 c fresh lime juice
2 lb fresh garlic - chopped

Cook kidney beans in two gallons of water until tender, drain. Cook
both kinds of dried chilies in the beef stock until soft, about a half
hour. Puree the chile and stock and pass through a strainer to remove
stems and seeds. In a large kettle, cook the chorizo sausage and
remove the meat - leaving just the grease. Saute the top round until
brown. Add the onions, celery, garlic, and tomatoes. Add the chile
stock, all spices, and beans. Let simmer for half an hour. Add the
tomato paste, the lime juice, and chorizo meat. Season with salt and
black pepper. Serve with fried corn tortillas.

http://www.ckspizza.atlantabest.com

M's note: I ate here once. Nothing special
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