Living on the margins

A New Commons

2011-04-12T10:18:00.002-05:00

The reclamation of unproductive land by the poor is a concept that has been viewed in modern times as an area dominated by extremist of the Left, awkward programs that created a backlash by the wealthy that led to their demise, but in recent years these programs have been made more legitimate by some of the worlds create Capitalist powers. The UK recently has taken a fresh look at some of its history in the great battles for the Commons and come up with programs that have not only supported but financed thru special programs a new agrarian revolution. Providing for the development of communities that are able to turn land into productive, sustainable, and environmentally sound agrarian settlements; look at Lammas community (www.lammas.org.uk). This fresh approach to supporting the changes needed not only to solve the world environmental crisis, but to deal with the need to create sustainable food programs is a tremendous boon to the rest of the world looking for answers. The programs recall beautifully the thoughts of 17th century agrarian reformer Gerrad Winstanle who brutal oppressed movement declared, "we work in righteousness, and lay the foundation of making earth, a common treasury for all, both rich and poor, that everyone that is born in the land may be fed by the earth his mother that brought him forth according to the reason that rules in the creation." While the UK has made wonderful strides in these endeavours the question of how we can bring the same sort of programs to our shores still remains unanswered. The level of legislation needed, and the time taken to pass such programs for us to follow the same path would place us radically behind. While we should not abandon this route it is time for the poor, in classic fashion, to begin to reclaim the land owed to them by, "the reason that rules in the creation." This is not a cry for a peasant up rising, but for us to realize what is available. As you walk down your city street take note of any open patch of land. Even the smallest plot of land can be a beginning. Cracks in the pavement, corners of parks, or the great Boulevards of the city should be tilled and planted. The food grown hear can be collected and shared by a community. The modern system has removed us from our food system, but small action can help us to reclaim them. We do not all need to go out to be farmers, but any production that your community can take to alleviate the cost of food can lead to the liberation from poverty. Put up fliers, attend community meetings, and find a way that fellows in your community can come together to create means of survival.

Butchery Continued: The Pig

2010-02-28T14:24:00.003-06:00

Pork is my great love, holding in it some of the great wonders and mystic qualities of the culinary world. There are a few facts and ratios in food that give one glimpses into the cosmic, on of my favorites is that there is nearly perfect ratio of fat to lean meat in the pork shoulder for sausage production. There is nothing of the pig that is wasted in my kitchen. I will pickle the pigs tail to keep for wonderful stews or bean dishes, the skins is crisped for cracklings and used in a plantain dumpling, ribs (enough said), hams, sausage from every scrap, the feet used for enriching dishes or in hundreds of preparations of their own, the entire loan section is a treasure trove of chops and roasts, and the head we find jowl for bacon, checks for braising, tongue, or the whole head in glories of the world selections like head cheese or tete de cochon (a rolled deboned braised pigs head).

A quick reminder mentioned in the last butchery article, be prepared. If you are going to bring a whole pig into your home make sure you can work cleanly and be prepared to handle the massive amount of meat in a timely fashion. Do some research beyond this article and have a plan.

From here on out when it comes to butchery it is a lot of repetition, mammals that we eat are pretty much structured the same with only a few variations on the traditional uses of the parts. A lot of the variations come from the size of the animal. The pig is normal broken down into eight sections; the ham, ribs, belly, loin, butt or shoulder, picnic, feet or trotters, and head. Some additional pieces that can either be used for flavoring or eating portions are the tail and hock, and the head can be broken down into more sections; jowl, ear, snout, cheeks, tongue, and brain, or merely left whole. Outside of the cuts of muscle that are found on the pig there are a lot of good pieces of offal (organ meat) that the pig offers us; kidney, heart, stomach, intestine, spleen, and blood. The best way to insure that your pig comes with all of its lovely bits is to buy a pig before it is killed. You will be quoted a live weight prices by the farmer, this is the weight before slaughter that you will pay. To gain the maximum cost benefit it is good to get all of the part you can out of the pig, either way you get your whole pig you will find in the cavity one of the kidneys. This from the inspection of the pig, their will be a small cut in the kidney where the check the quality of the organ to insure the health of the pig, and is left for you to be able to do the same.

If you get your pig in whole (the extra bits will come in already removed) you will need to remove the spine from the loin, hip, and shoulder, this will call for a saw. You can have this done by a butcher, but you will have less control on how you portion the animal, so let use assume that you pig is whole. I like to start at the end of the pig and work my way up. Like remove the chick thigh, move around the base of the back leg with you knife keeping as close as possible to the area between the loin and leg working yourself to where the hip and thigh bone meet. Here you have a chose of how to remove the leg. You can either just saw thru the leg bone, quick and easy, or work the ball joint out slowly with the tip of you knife. The leg will break down into three sections; the vast majority of the leg is your ham. After the ham is your hock, which makes up the ankles of the pig (wonderful simply salted and smoked to flavor dishes), and any thing that remains is your foot or trotter. The decision as to where to separate these is based on the location of the joints, or, if going thru with a saw, you can fudge this a little by deciding on how much of the pieces you want to use. If you plan on serving a trotter dish or make a trotter sausage you might want to make the cut a little higher sacrificing some of the hock. Moving on, you will now do the same on the other side. Move down to the other side of the pig, and begin removing the head. Find the area where the shoulder ends and the neck begin and cut just down to the spine around the top and sides of the neck. Follow your cuts on either side down to separate the jowl from beast; this will be the low hanging front of the neck. The only pieces holding on to the head is the neck bone, just take your saw to the neck and the head will come free.

The fore legs of the pig are comprised of the shoulder (pork butt), picnic (upper arm), hock, and front trotters. They are removed in the same fashion as the hind leg, search for the area where the large muscle mass attach to the shoulder blade, and work your knife behind the blade to remove the fore arm from the carcass, it is held to the body by just a few tendons and a simple joint. Afterward you identify its three sections and make quick work on them with knife and saw.

The belly or bacon is easily removed now. Returning to the hind section of the pig examine the cross section of the back end of the belly, this will be quickly recognized by the familiar pattern of meat and fat we know of as bacon, and determine the how far up the belly goes toward the spine. Begin your cut running parallel to the spine thru the belly till you reach the ribs, and continue your cut along the top of the ribs; cutting thru the belly on the top of the ribs. This gives you a guide for you next two cuts to fully remove the belly and ribs. First, start by running your knife along inside of your cut, pulling up on the belly, and scraping along the ribs to release the belly. Keep the knife at a 20 degree angle with the blade pointed to the rib to remove the belly cleanly without loosening too much meat to the ribs. Once the belly has come free repeat this cut on the other side. The now exposed ribs came be removed with a saw following your original cut giving you two sides of ribs.

Our big challenge comes in removing the loin sections. There is a lot going on in here, and since it has been two months since I have done this my visualization of the area may be a bit grey, so if you get lost here simple email me for clarification. We will start with removing the remaining neck bones and tail. The tail is easily recognized by its end, and its beginning is I mark by the remainder of the hip bone. I simple cut right thru all of this with a saw; afterwards I will cut this into one inch sections for use in rice or braised dishes. The mound of bone and small flesh that makes up the neck is treated just the same. I cut this off around the beginning of the ribs then saw it thru in center (along the spine) and into smaller cuts for braising. The loin itself is simple to break down once it is removed from the spine. You want to begin with a shallow cut to the side of the spine to reveal where the ribs and spine meet just under the skin and fat. Use your saw to cut thru these bones, while being careful not cut into the loin just below. Once the two loins are removed the spine can be cut into sections for stock production.

The loins them selves are made up into four sections, the tender loin (a thin strip of flesh found on the underside of each loin to the end), the end roast, center loin (where our best chops come from), and front loin. The two end pieces came be spotted by the bulging at either end, which give the whole loin a slight hourglass shape. You can take you knife between the ribs just to the inside of the bulge. The three sections of the loin can be keep whole for roast, or cut between the ribs to produce rough chops. To clean the chops just remove the area of fat and skin on the outside of the bone; even scraping down the bone for a cleaner presentation. If you are planning on clean chops you may want to remove the layer of fat and skin before breaking down the loin to give yourself a nice sheet of fat back for sausage production or curing whole for Lardo (a Italain cured fat).

Yeast Productions

2010-02-28T13:23:00.001-06:00

Bread is life, and when it comes to creating a reproducing food source in your kitchen there is nothing cheaper or more filling. The basic ingredients in bread are flour, water, salt, and yeast, and the only ones of these you need to buy is the flour and salt. Water we will always just chalk up to the cost of living, it either comes free or is with housing cost. Salt, despite it history as one of the most costly and desired kitchen items, comes to us very cheaply, and even though flour can be purchased very cheaply it is one of the items that I suggests exploring to find good bread flour that excites your palate. Yeast is the true free one, yeasts are a single cellular fungi that exist every where. Once I wanted to make bread for my sister for her wedding, so I called my father to give him my starter recipe. He argued the point that the recipe called for no yeast. I told him he had plenty of yeast floating in the air he just need to catch them, but he promised me that he keep his kitchen very clean and he had no yeast, but two days later he called to tell me of the bubbling alien life that was growing in a bowl on his counter. Yeast simply roams the world looking for a home, and our job as a baker is to give them a home in exchange for bread. Here is my ideal recipe for a yeast farm (I think the concept of a farm or home is better in understanding the nature of yeast then calling it a bread starter),

1lb flour

16 fl oz water

1 bunch of grapes (squeezed and strain of solids)

just like us yeast need food and water, and they live on water and sugar. They obtain the sugar from both the grapes juice, as well as eating the carbohydrates of the flour. It is the flour that needs to be replenished as time goes on to keep you farm alive. Now we have dealt with housing and feeding our yeast we must get into that all so unpleasant next steps when keeping a pet, cleaning up after its poo. Yeast, like any other critter, does two things; eats and shits, and the byproduct of all of it sugar gouging is carbon dioxide, which will be wonderfully helpful when we start making bread, and alcohol. Yeast make all of that wonderful alcohol we find in our wines and beers, and the reason that we don’t open up a aged bottle of wine and find it over run with yeast is that yeast dies after their environment reaches a 16% alcohol solution (to understand spend a week in your room till you room is filled up to 16% by your own waste, and see how you feel). So we need to clean the litter box ever few days to insure that our yeast live long happy life (which in fact is very brief, we are just creating an ever growing civilization of yeast). This can be achieved in two methods, both of which involves the removing a portion of the farm and replace it which an equal portion of flour and water equal to the amount of farm you have removed. The first is removing a third of the product and throwing it a way, but what a waste of the yeast that you have so carefully raised. The best solution is to bake a loaf of bread. Take that portion that is to be thrown away, add some more flour, water, and salt, and turn it into wonderful chewy crusty bread.

Butchery

2010-02-07T12:33:00.000-06:00

Home butchery is the one of the best method in controlling cost in your kitchen, as well as giving you a better relationship with your food. Though it does require some tools that you may not have in your kitchen, their will be some need to get through some pretty heavy bones, and, as any gruesome civil war movie will show you, the best method is a saw. A simple hack saw with a metal cutting blade will make quick work of a bone and give you pause to wonder how you have ever manage to break bone. A good sharp knife, and it is important to keep you knife very sharp for butchery, is a absolute necessaite and having a boning knife help a great deal (though I have taken apart a whole pig with just a saw and chefs knife, it is advisable to have a boning knife).

In addition to your equipment, before you even make a cut or bring the animal into your kitchen, a plan is a must. With a pig you are more than likely to be getting into some curing, so have all of you cures and brines ready to go. It would even to good to have some assistance, so that as the pieces come off they can be handed off to go straight to their cure. Pieces to be kept fresh should be place immediately on ice, keep a bowl of ice near by with another bowl on top of the ice to place chops, roast, or loins to be packet up and stored for later use. Nothing should come off the animal without you know where they are going and what they will be used for. In the end you will have plentiful supply of bones for stock and fat for sausage or rendering which should be start right away.

Chicken/Fowl

The basics of the break down of a chicken can be applied to any fowl with only a little tweaking, such as the trimming of fat from the duck, or some small fowl may come to you viscera intact. The fowl is either prepared whole or broken down into some basics components, breast, leg and thigh (either left whole, or separated for certain preparations), and some times the wings. The wings I will divide into to two parts. The first section, the drumette, I will leave attached to the breast. In the classical culinary cannon this is often done for appearance, but has the added benefit of flavor that bone-on-meats have. It also allows for the flavorful nugget of meat you will get in your hot wings left attach to the breast (the use of the wing for production of hot wings is a bit of a mess of logistics, since each chicken only provide a four pieces meal). The remainder section of the wing made up of the fore arm of the chicken and tip is called the wing tip, which will is reserved for stock. Though there is one good use for the wings, which is in the classic breakdown for the great eight piece chicken (a favorite cut of mine for fried chicken), in this style I will cut off the tip at the last joint and steel a little of the breast meat to give my wing portion a little more meat. I have little problem in sacrificing the breast since I find it to be typically a uninteresting section of meat its only real useful property is it is easily deboned, lean, and convenient for cooking, but has a lack of flavor and easily dries out.

Deboning a chicken

Begin by placing the chicken breast side down and make a shallow cut along the back bone from neck to tail. Then locate the oysters, they are to marble sized ball just above the hip on either side of the spine. Create a second line, just above the oysters, about two inches long making a cross. With your knife point release the oysters without removing then by coming at them from the center of the cross, and sliding underneath them with a circular motion scraping along the bone basin they sit in. Take hold of the thigh with one hand and, with your other inside the cavity of the carcass hold on to the spine, bend the thigh back till you feel it pop out of sock, repeat with the other side. Starting from the cut to remove the oyster pull your knife around the inside of the thigh to the front; cutting down close to bone being careful not to remove too much skin from the breast. With this last cut you should be able to see the joint that you dislocated earlier, simply follow thru with the knife and fully remove the thigh. If you wish to separate the leg and thigh at this point place the piece skin side down on your cutting board and examine the area of flesh where the two pieces meet. You will see a thin white line of fat, if you cut thru just on the leg side of the line, with the cut running parallel to the line, you should cut cleanly without hitting any bone. Turn the bird on to its back with the point of the breast point away from you. With you fingers feel in the fleshy area of the breast where the meet the neck opening, you should feel a triangular bone, the wishbone, running along it. Carefully slide your knife just above the bone on either breast; just enough to reach in to the cut grab the bone. Give a firm pull and it should come out with minimal tearing to the breast (do not worry if it doesn’t come out whole, the bone is often broken during the process of butchering). Turn the bird around now so that the point of the breast is come toward you. Like on the back, make a shallow cut thru the skin down the line separating the two breasts. Follow thru with shallow cuts to the breast bone. Continue the cut on one side using the bone as a guide to your knife. As you continue the cut you will see the beast coming off of the carcass, there are two warnings here for you. First as the point of the breast comes off you will see that it is mostly attached by cartilage, be careful that you are not cutting thru the cartilage leaving part of it on your breast. Secondly, as you remove the front part of the breast (you will also see how easily this comes off thanks to removing the wishbone first) you will come across where the breast, carcass, and wing come together. First concern yourself with removing the wings from carcass by finding three tendons around the joint, once removed you should be able to follow thru with the cut removing the breast and wing still attached. From here you need to decide what will happen to the wing. If you wish to keep the wing whole as another portion cut thru the breast sacrificing some of its meat toward the wing, making it a little more of a substation portion. If the wing is not to be used as a potion I would leave the drumette attached to the breast by cutting thru the wing at its first joint past the breast. The remainder of the wing goes to stock, while you have a breast with the drumette attach as a flag, which makes a lovely and classical presentation.

The Importance of Sharing

2010-01-10T15:38:00.001-06:00

My friend Sarah speaks of this mythological grandmother that is capable of producing enough food for any number of people no matter the time or restraints of her larder. This is not legendary Greek figure of the harvest, but simply the long standing tradition of hospitality. In Tannahill's Food in History she spoke of the transformation that occurred in the twentieth century in hospitality. How people changed their perception that to take a person out for dinner was a reflection of you cooking skills and hospitality to the modern standard of treating someone to a restaurant was a gracious act. Today it is a show of financial security, but against us strapped the ability to feed our friends and guest is not just a gesture of kindness it allows us to relish in our own, even if small, bounty.

Siting in my pantry is a 25 lb bag of rice. It is an ever present reminder that no matter what happens I will not starve, I may come to resent the smell of a steaming bowl of rice, but it also means that whom ever may enter my house can be feed. When ever I cook dinner, which is normally a bowl of rice with onion, thyme, and jalapeno, with, ever other day or so, about seventy to eighty cents of pork, I always make sure to make enough for three. After taking my portion I leave the rest on the top of the stove, so that any who wish can take. Most nights this is packed away for the next few days, but their is always food for others.

On of the greatest struggles of poverty is not the lack of food, which can always be found, but the segregation from society. After bills and grocery this is nothing for social affairs that allow for meeting or entertaining. This keeps most of us restricted to the home outside of work, and the hope for company. The allure of food is our only hope to keep us social integrated. So here is my favorite recipe to feed lots of people, as well as the one dish that driven all of my culinary studies.

Red Beans and Rice

Red beans and rice is what it says, when I hear red beans and rice is offered I know that their no promises of sausage or unique spices. The list of ingredients is as follows red beans, onion, fat, salt, rice and water. Many people have tried to play up the dish with a long list of ingredient in attempt to cover the blandness of the rice and beans failing to understand that a well salted bean develops massive flavour and a real butteriness. The addition of a nice bit of smokey pork either on the bone or as sausage is not damaging, in fact helps, but is by no means necessary to the dish.

3lbs Red Beans

1 Onion, chopped

Rice

Sweet the onions in a large pot (the fat is based on what is available, olive oil adds a beautiful richness to the beans, but I always have raw lard in my house). Once the onions have become clear, but not brown, add the beans and enough water to come two to three inches above the bean. More water can be added later, and if you add to much you can cook it down later (it only helps add to the fullness of the liquor)

Once the beans are fully cook and tender salt the dish; adding a little at a time and stirring till the salt fully dissolves in the dish before adding more. The goal is for you to push what you believe to be the proper salt level. It should taste salty, as opposed to most dishes where the salt should bring out the flavor with out being salty. To understand the balance of flavor taste a piece of well salted butter on bread. Let the pot sit and blossoms while you cook your rice.

Rice is cook at a 2:1 ratio, that is two cups of water for every one cup of rice. Bring the water to a bowl, add rice, and cover. Once the water returns to a bowl you will reduce the heat, and the rice will be ready in twenty minutes.

To serve spoon rice in bowl or plate and cover with plenty of beans and the liquor. The liquor is the term for the gravy or liquid that the beans are in, this is also used to describe the vinegary liquid around braised greens.

Review of Ratio by Michael Rhulman

2009-12-28T16:21:00.003-06:00

I thought it would be a good idea since in my last article I made a point to disagree with an idea presented in Ratio to take a moment to say what a wonderful book it is. The contridiction was more towards a phrase which invoked an idea of my own views of food not any thing that really represents the book in full, and since I was unable to put the book away, finishing it in just one day, I should point out that for the home cook, more importantly the poor cook, Michael Rhulman has created another companion to the kitchen, the first being Charcuterie co-aurthored by Brian Polcyn, this is an invaluable text.

One of the things that kills a food budget is the constant need to purchase items for each meal. Most cooks, not relying on prepackaged or conveinces foods, are often forced into daily trips to the market for one or two items to complete the meal. This, I have noticed, most often starts before they even get home. A quick search on the internet trying to find a recipe to match to most items possible in their pantry. In my attempts to limited the cost of my food purchases have maintain par stock of certain materials for easy maintenance of my kitchen. This comes from years of restaurant experience of knowing what I have and being able to improvises from it. For those without the experience or knowledge the kitchen can be a trap of cost and inconvenience. Ratio attempts, to a certain degree, to free people of the dependence of recipes. To create a kitchen system that is based on obtaining a rudimentary understanding of the interrelationships of ingredient. It covers the base of cooking knowledge; bread, pasta, and pastry, stocks, sauces, sausage, and thickeners. With the arsenal of culinary knowledge you can reduce your supplies to a bases of ingredients in which to constantly be able to cook without the need of completing an list for shopping. The freedom to create from simple understanding.

Food and Art

2009-12-25T07:11:00.003-06:00

I was reading the other day from one of my favorite food blogs (www.chadzilla.typepad.com the December 13th article) about food and art. Which led to some question about the nature of food. Coming original from an art background and finding myself into restaurant work as an necessity at first, and working to the point of dedication to food I have always attempted to create food that suited my artistic needs. What is then artistic food?

In the introduction of Ratio by Michael Rhulman he discuss hollandaise sauce as it applies to his discover of ratios. He states, "Take away the vinegar, pepper, and lemon and you still have hollandaise. Take away yolks or butter and it ceased to be hollandaise," (Rhulman xxiii) what he was discussing was in reference to the old Dean at the C.I.A. and his conversation of ratios, and that an understanding of the fundamentals of cooking is necessary in understanding food. But this is a backwards approach to understanding food. To understand the fundamentals, I believe, you must understand food. Make hollandaise and place it in a bowl what is it? It is not a meal, despite the friends who would claim they could eat by the spoonful I would challenge them to eat a whole bowl, nor is it a sauce. When studying sauce making in a culinary school your are given several criteria as to what is a sauce. You may been told about consistency, or classifications, but these are just label and points of qualities. The one criteria is that it is a liquid that is used to enhance a meal. A English Muffin, ham, and poached egg is a fine meal, but to add hollandaise to elevate, to improve it. It is not because it becomes Eggs Benedict, this is just a name of a dish and one that, in the contemporary since, has little to do with traditional ingredients, it is because the sauce works well and enhances. The acid, the fat, the moisture, these qualities create something new out of what was already there. So to the point of without vinegar, pepper, or lemon, but with just butter and egg you have hollandaise I will have to say no. Butter slowly whisked into egg yolk is emulsified butter, butter slowly whisked into egg yolk with vinegar, pepper, and lemon is emulsified butter with vinegar, pepper, and lemon. It is the intent that makes it Hollandaise Sauce.

There was a great moment in modern art where somebody decided that it was the intent to create that was the art with the end product being the manifestation of that intent. This idea is as fundamental to cooking and eating as it is to the visual arts. What makes a Christmas dinner different than any other dinner other than intent. It is an idea that every cook should be asking their self when they begin creating a new dish.

This discussion of sauce, intent, and art in food my seem to stray in subject away from the purpose of these collection of writings, but what makes a good meal different from one survival. It is rare that in the quest for survival that purpose, intent, and fulfilment come into our meal, but art is life as much as food is life. Suffering as well has a place in all of this. In my attempts to create a gallery worthy conceptional food piece I stand on one principal of art that artist use cultural language as the medium for their work and message, and almost no human action, save love and religion, has more cultural meaning than food. The lack of food, not to link myself with the minimalist, has a much impact than its presences. To eat rice everyday, as I am prone to do, is to experience life is some form, and it is with these understanding that we must approach solving issues of poverty; thru an artistic understanding of food, cultural, and emotional impact. The food and assistance must have the same impact delivered on a person as a chef deliveries with a sauce. Ask questions of those we seek to help, not just are you hungry, but what do you want, what did your parents eat, where do you come from. The key to solving the issues of hungry, and the desperation that it comes with is to find the impact. For me it has been a life long pursuit for a perfect red beans and rice. A quest introduce, possibly with the realization of its impact on me, by my parents. So how to feed someone like me, give me beans, I have all of the rice I can take.

Food History

2009-12-15T19:54:00.007-06:00

As Christmas approaches I began pouring over classic recipes in the hopes of a good feast (which looks do able with recent offers of donations), so I thought it would be a good time to look over a few texts of food history to give my feast the sort of traditional depth necessary for creating an atmosphere that goes beyond just seasonal fare. This act of research is something that is miss by many cooks, and home cooks. We are very aware of comfort foods, and the sense memories that come from the smells of certain baked goods and roasting meats. It is also necessary to reach into a deeper history that we may have no previous connection to. This is not only for a branch into an ancestral connection, but into understanding the weight of our food history. As a poor person it is necessary to find this link to the meager fare from generations past to give us guidance toward a more fulfilling diet. In the modern world of convenience things like $.99 items at a fast food joint or cheaply produce frozen meals can be seen as a boon to our ever shrinking food budget, and in the immediate perception of handing over one dollar for a bit of warmth and protein the logic seems to hold. Today I spent a few hours with a friend reading to her from the book, "Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking," and she was amazed by two things we saw in the section on Medieval Britain. First was the shocking numbers on grain consumption by the people (I believe her words were, "Wow, they real did live on bread."), and, secondly, the descriptions of the meals that the peasantry eat seemed lavish and inviting. Yet to the people of the times these were meager meals brought together with what little that had; rye breads, oat cakes, stewed cabbage and baked apples. Her comments where coming from one, though passionate about food and very knowledgeable about food preparations, that saw the ability to eat like that to be something outside of her schedule and means. I have been a huge advocate that this great food revolution that we are currently in (local, sustainable, organic, what have you) needs to be claimed and used for the poor by the poor. Their was a time when the effort to produce bread was not only seen as an necessity to survival, but no idea would have come to them of buying bread to save time. We must looking back to these roots of culinary tradition and reclaim practices of bread and cheese production, curing meats, and learning to cook for our selves.

This is all very necessary for the working and struggling classes to pull out of the dependence on convenience foods, but we must be able to find a emotional connect to these dishes. If we are to eat rice every day in order to survive it helps to know that their is volumes of history of peoples that with little more than rice to live on have aided in the development of civilizations. Several years back I was in a little worse off than now (which isn't saying to much, but with the benefit of mild Southern winters), and living on a diet that doesn't differ to much from now, the exception was a little less cooking knowledge to help stretch out the food, it consisted mostly of black beans and some masa for my tortilla. Around that time I came across the book, "Don't Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks From the Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado," Elvia is a labour organizer and activist first brought to US attention during the eighties, in the book there is a wonderful description of the average meal of the compasinos in the area where she was organizing which was, to the letter, the meal I was waiting for to finish cooking. After that I never look grudgingly at my pot of beans or my tortilla, I had a deep connect to the poor on a global level with every smear of bean wipe up with my tortilla, every mouth full of rice, with the cracked coating of dough on my hands will I made my bread. The great problem with programs to help us it that it is often coming from people with a disconnect from our lives and needs. Every food drive calling for canned goods for the poor make me sad; give us flour for our bread, corn to mill, beans to wash and cook. Let us have a connection to our food. If you want to give us something, give us land. Le us look to people like Ledonna Redmond as an example on how we should bring food to our tables.

Arepas

2009-12-13T13:59:00.003-06:00

Today began as nearly everyday for me begins with the question of what will I eat today. This question can be, and in determining what I eat it is rephrased several times before I settle on a meal. The choose of the word "will" in "what will I eat," demand that I will be eating something. This sort of assurance that substances will be coming my way is a word best left up to those with money. My day starts off with two questions, "What can I eat," and "What could I eat?" The former is in the realm of fantasy where images of plump sausages, fruit, and cream try to distract my appetite from the meager state of my larder. All this occurs while I ponder the first question of what can I eat. I know coming into the kitchen that there is always basics of salt and sugar, along with various dried herbs and spices. Then there are some of what would be called the basics, but with the struggle to feed oneself they are common place but hardly standard; flour, masa, and render pork fat (raw lard). Today was a special day because beyond the basics I had meat. Generally speaking when I say there is meat in my home it is normally pork, and when there is pork more than likely it is pork belly (I shall, at a later time, discuss the wonders of the belly). The belly, which is now cured for bacon, I decided to save for later in the week, so today I make use of the other components that the belly provides; bone and skin. The other day I had removed the rib bones from the belly and slowly braised them for six hours, they then became part of a wonderful rice dish. Later that night I took the sheet of pig skin off the belly and allow it to cook slowly in the same liquid from the ribs. The skins spent the night steeping in the liquid till this morning, where I pulled, dry them off, and cut them in pretty little ribbons to fry off for delicious crispy bits of fried skin. These little ribbons became the filling for my arepas.

The arepa is one of those holy little items of the culinary world that gives meaning to a impoverished meal. Arepas are masa cakes the come from South America, they are often the bread for small sandwich like creations, sliced and filled with a variety of goodies. I first came across arepas while working a the Chicago restaurant Coobah where they produced a sweet variety that I have adopted for my home. The version given here is similar to their version but with a few variations, such as the use of a filling, they simple made the cakes as a base for their Eggs Benedict variation. The measurements are approximated, since I do this mostly to feel.

2 c. Masa

2 T cilantro, chopped

TT Salt

1/8 c. sugar

2 T Rhum, optional

1 can coconut milk, optional

Toss you masa, cilantro, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Place the sugar in a heavy bottom pan with enough water to give a wet sand feel, and place it over high heat. As the water cooks away the sugar will have enough time to melt, and then begin to caramelize. Once the sugar reaches a nice amber color you will turn it in to a caramel sauce of some form. The options here are adding about 2 cups of water to the caramel while whisking, or adding the Rhum will whisking followed by the water or coconut milk. While the sauce is still boiling pour it into the masa mixture. Stir quickly to evenly mixt the dough till it forms a stiff dough that is pliable and holds to together, if needed add more water. Pull off about 1 oz. balls of the dough forming them into round discs. Place your filing in the middle, and cover with a second disc and seal the edges. After all of the arepas are formed fry them in a little hot lard until they are nicely browned on the outside.

They filing can vary, but should be able to hold up to the sweet dough. For this meal I used the salted fried pig's skin I mentioned earlier. The final verison of this dish was served with sofrito made with tomato, culantro, cilantro, scallion, onion, jalapeno, lime, and shredded smoked fermented fish.