The Most Important Tool is Communication

In the second session of class, we further explored the white mother sauces and experimented with some of the different thickening agents. This was quite a feat, since there were only three people in class. We had to work together and improve the communication from the previous class or it would have been a complete failure. Before each step, we discussed who would be doing which task and set our expectations. I believe that we improved 100% from the previous night. Not only did we achieve all the items assigned for the session (with Chef’s help), but we also finished early.

We used each of the four stocks that we started in the first session to make chicken soup. As we strained the stocks, we found that the one made in the steam kettle was almost clear, due to the low even heat releasing fewer impurities from the bones. The stock made in the tilt skillet had a lot of spume on top and was still rather murky when it was strained, since that piece of equipment is not capable of retaining the lower temperatures. The aluminum pot with the spigot also had very clear stock, due to draining from below the spume instead of pouring it through a chinoise. I was also curious if this pot would give the stock a slightly metallic taste, but we did not taste the straight stocks. It was not noticeable in the soup. The stock made in the stainless steel pot was not as clear as the steam kettle.

Each of our chicken soups was made with a different thickening agent. The soup using reduced chicken stock had a very powerful chicken flavor. The soups using the roux and the corn starch slurry did not have quite the chicken flavor, but they were both acceptable in flavor and mouth feel. This is just further evidence of the argument that has been going on for over 100 years that a roux is not necessarily the best thickening agent out there. The soup using the chicken base was rather fake tasting, like a condensed soup out of a can.

Overall, I think that we improved greatly from the previous session, and I can only hope that we continue to improve!

I’m a Midwesterner, but I spent sixteen years in the west, ashamed of the giant block of cheese and butter cow of state fair fame. Ah, the state fair, where every foodstuff is served “on a stick” as if that were a regional translation of a la carte.  But the state fair is a microcosm of Midwestern cuisine: we joke about chocolate-covered bacon on a stick while we buy enough to make it a caloric homerun. It also demonstrates our sense of community and food.  We work together, we eat together, and in the company of our neighbors, we modestly accept our blue ribbons.

This cuisine we love is called “comfort food,” a predictable warm quilt. Rather than look at this cuisine quilt as fatty squares of ethnic food, it makes more sense to me to divide our cuisines into two sides, the plain side loved by the country mouse and the fancy side favored by the city cousin.

 In this fable, I’m solidly country. I grew up in the poorest county in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula where “eating local” and “farm-to-table” did not exist as labels for the hunter-gatherer behaviors in which we engaged. I grew up eating more venison than beef because the former was essentially free--free but for our Midwestern labor…another source of our self-effacing pride.

The change of rural seasons meant labor in the form of strawberry picking, blueberry season, blackberry pie, and apples from homesteads that my grandmother found though they’d ceased to exist years before I was born. As a child, my canning season job was to count the pop of the sealing jars, and all summer, to weed a row in the garden before going anywhere.

And now, back in the Midwest, I go to the state fair, eat the whatever-on-a-stick,  and am modestly proud that we were a community before slow food was cool.

The Case of the Missing Butt

Session 8 (Barbeque) has been and will more than likely be my favorite class in soup stocks.  Unfortunately I had to name the session “The Case of the Missing Butt” because we could not locate the nicely seasoned port butt the when class started.  To this day (several weeks later), it still has not reappeared.  Amazing!

Team 2 or AKA Team Woodchuck (Christina, Greg, Linda, and myself) started class as we normally do. 

The first 15 minutes of class we use for preparation for the class.  Linda obtained all/most of the equipment, Christine started cutting the necessary vegetable, Greg retrieved the cold storage  items and I retrieved the dry storage items.

Around 5:45 or so, the class gathered for presentations.  This day, Christina and I both were presenting and I must say that hers was the most interactive and entertaining.  You will read more about Christina’s presentation in her blog.  As for my presentation, I began my lecture with the origin of Barbeque along with the different meanings of the word.  The next topic was about the different types of meat and the regions they were most common for barbequing.  I ended my lecture by listing the many types of wood used for barbecuing, the proper temperatures, and the proper way to setup a grill or smoker for barbecuing.

After the presentations we started cooking.  The menu for Team Woodchucks was Caldo De Res, Carolina Pulled Pork, Lower Carolina Barbeque Sauce, Cole Slaw and Team 1 (Kay and Kelly) prepared Tortilla Soup, Memphis BBQ Pork Ribs, Memphis BBQ Sauce, French Fries.  Both teams finished and presented their food to be critiqued to our alternate Chef for the day as Chef England wasn’t able to be with us.  Too bad too because the food pretty darn good. 

Last but not least, we all prepared our plates and gathered around the family table for Chef to describe and explain the many dishes and then we were entertained with the video of the BBQ song for us.  I must say that it was a pretty nice way to end a meal and a class.