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Food Thread: "Unidentified Slime," My favorite Ingredient!

Before you say anything...they tasted really good, even though the photo makes them look better than reality!

Those are what are called "heirloom carrots" in food marketing jargon. They are just different colored carrots packaged in the same bag. They are dark purple and pale orange and yellow, and of course the typical orange carrot. I usually slice them the long way, then roast them in a hot oven. They taste great, and they look pretty cool on the plate too.

But I wanted to try something a bit different, so I blanched them, then sauteed them in butter and a splash of honey*.

Except...the blanching leached the pigment out of the purple carrots and tinted the rest of them. Man oh man they looked like crap... much worse than the photo. What the hell was I to do? Toss them? Absolutely not! Remember, I am a cheap bastard at heart, and besides, they tasted really good... nice and buttery and sweet.

But I turned the lights down so that they didn't look so awful.

*Does honey splash?

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Bombshell report details unsanitary conditions inside Boar's Head plants: Unsanitary conditions at Boar's Head plants beyond the one cited for deadly listeria outbreak

The headline says it all. Is anyone surprised that Boar's Head is running more than one filthy food production facility?

The USDA has released a series of non-compliance reports linked to Boar's Head following Freedom of Information Act requests from several news agencies, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The findings from inspections of Boar's Head plants in New Castle, Indiana, Forrest City, Arkansas, and Petersburg, Virginia, date back roughly six years and flagged numerous violations, the AP said.

The outlet pointed to multiple descriptions in the reports, including equipment "covered in meat scraps," "dry crusted meat from the previous day's production," "dark, stinky residue," and "unidentified slime" and "an abundance of insects."

I am confident that most of their plants are substandard. But...What the hell? the findings date back six years? Why is Boar's Head still in business? That is an abject failure on the part of the government agency tasked with holding food production in America to a minimum standard.

Apparently "dark, stinky residue" is just fine in our food!

I was avoiding Boar's Head already, but absent a complete turnover in its corporate ranks and a radical change in their corporate culture, I will never again buy any of their products.

But the government deserves accountability, and I hope Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Agriculture (Brooke Rollins) takes some scalps for this monumental screw-up.

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Well, this looks interesting! I love Scrapple, and I always order it any time I am eating breakfast in Pennsylvania. I have never seen it anywhere else, but there is always hope.

Except, it only has pork butt and maybe pork hocks or rib tips! No ring meat, no intestines, no eyeballs, no ears, no...

Harrumph!

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Okay! Sounds good. It's from a small supermarket chain that started as a dairy and always has good ice cream and butter and such.

Except...

WHERE IS THE COOKIE DOUGH?

Nothing...not a thing in the first few inches. I did find a small piece of cookie about three inches down. What a damned tease!

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There are a bunch of interchangeable chicken dishes that are common on the menus of Italian restaurants in America. I don't know enough about Italian food to explain the origins of these dishes, but Chicken Piccata, Chicken Francese, Chicken Florentine, Chicken Saltimbocca, Chicken Sorrento, and the one I usually don't order because someone (not me) is allergic to mushrooms: Chicken Marsala, are standards. And that is not a criticism. They are pretty simple to make and can be delicious. They are smart dishes to have on a restaurant menu because they start with the same base chicken, are a quick dish to make, food cost is low, and prep is easy. Nobody goes to the neighborhood Italian joint for a rarified culinary experience. We go because they are often family restaurants (at my favorite, the bartenders are the owners!), the food is tasty, they aren't ripping you off with expensive wine, and the waiters aren't sullen actor wanna-bes.

Anyway, back to mushrooms! I love mushrooms. Even the commodity white button mushrooms are fun, and some of the rarer (and more expensive) ones like Morels are absolutely spectacular.

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I was going to illustrate this section with a photo of "Balut," but I decided that I just don't want to look at it more than once.

I have eaten a bunch of these, but I absolutely draw the line at eating live vertebrates! And yes, oysters and clams are alive (or should be) very close to the time of consumption, but they are invertebrates with a rudimentary nervous system.

The 50 Weirdest Foods From Around the World

Carving the heart out of a still living snake and eating it, or frying a fish, but only half its body, seems gratuitously cruel.

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What the hell happened to all the vegetables? And send me garlic that isn't grown in heavy metals and human waste in China, well-marbled hanger steaks and elk chops to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Who are those poor deluded souls We know who shake their Manhattans! These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

$1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty of fifty years, but it is worth it!