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Food Thread: Pork Pie... Hat Or Food? You Be The Judge.

A plain old pork pie. It's on most pub menus, and for whatever deeply disturbed and perverse reason, they serve them cold. We have all read passages in Dickens or other 19th century writers in which the protagonist grabs a pork pie and shoves it in his coat pocket before rushing out the door to do whatever they did in 1843.

But it's 2025, and I want my pie nice and hot, or at least warm so that the fat in the crust isn't congealed.

To be fair, it was pleasant, and the cask ale I drank with it was delicious. That dish of stuff is some sort of chutney, which was weird, but it wasn't bad!

But still, how backward and archaic do we have to be in the interest of authenticity?

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I'm not sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of this story, or take it seriously and point out that 3D printers aren't designed to make biological matter, and even if they were, why would you use a printer when the raw material is right there in the tank?

Campbell's says it doesn't use '3D-printed chicken', fires exec who allegedly made shocking remarks

Campbell's says that its soup is made with real meat — not "3D-printed chicken" — and said it has fired an executive who allegedly made the explosive claims in a bombshell recording that trashed the company's products and customers.

Campbell's VP Martin Bally was caught describing the soup as "bioengineered meat" and saying, "I don't wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer", according to a suit a former employee filed last week in Michigan.

But the larger issue of so-called "lab-grown meat" being used in processed food is a non-starter. So what? As long as they reveal the origin of the "meat" on the label, if that's what people want to spend their money on, whose business is it to disturb that transaction?
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That's from "scampydog," who has decided that his function on this planet is to plague me with photos of beautiful sourdough bread that his SiL makes.

My sourdough is tasty, but it is usually a bit lacking in the looks department.

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I was on a flight yesterday, and the second meal (yes, it was a long flight!) was a choice of some insipid and boring sounding crap, and vegetarian Biryani. What the hell...why not? And it was pretty damned tasty, even taking into account the boredom factor of flying which makes even the most mundane events a wonderful thing. Biryani is just flavored rice with whatever stuff you want to put in. But the spicing tends to be vibrant and different in comparison to most things we eat in America, and it was a nice change from steam-table chicken and dried out "steak." Here's an easy version of Chicken Biryani from "The Spruce Eats," which is a solid website and one that I have linked many times.
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Long-time commenter, stabbing weapon enthusiast, and denizen of many of Virginia's toughest houses of corrections, Bluebell has refused to come to my house and make pie crusts. So I am left with the thoroughly depressing alternative, which is crappy commercial ones. They aren't quite big enough, the edges always crack, and they just aren't buttery enough. I suspect they use other, cheaper fats, and that rarely works.

SEE?

On the other hand, the filling leaked out of that (and the other one on the other side) and toasted and caramelized on the baking sheet.

Yes, that stuff was delicious! Like caramel candy with the bonus of crispy pecans. Amazing stuff, and something that I might try to make next year!

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Speaking of baking...how do you people get the last bit of thick syrup out of the container? Man oh man! That stuff is thick! I warmed the container in hot water to make the syrup less viscous, and that worked ...okay, but if there is a better way, I am all ears! Of course I could have opened another bottle of the stuff, but remember, I am a cheap bastard!

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[Hat Tip: Weasel]

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A friend graciously gave me some genuine grown-in-the-USA garlic, and I am going to taste one clove and plant the rest, because my pathetic failure last year is an anomaly...right? I hope so, because It's in the ground (actually, a large pot), and it had better work this time!

Send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! 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 or fifty years, but it is worth it!