A Restless Mind

In a wonderful article written in 2004, David Foster Wallace asked us to Consider the Lobster:

So then here is a question that’s all but unavoidable at the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, and may arise in kitchens across the U.S.: Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?

While much urban lore along with pamphlets from the Maine Lobster Promotion Council propagate the idea that lobsters do not feel pain, there is growing scientific evidence that this is simply untrue:

Ripping the legs off live crabs and crowding lobsters into seafood market tanks are just two of the many practices that may warrant reassessment, given two new studies that indicate crustaceans feel pain and stress. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that virtually all animals, including fish, shellfish and insects, can suffer.

 

Sadly DFW did not live long enough to see this little bit of science supporting his view as he so eloquently illustrated in that article:

However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around.

The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming). A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over.

There happen to be two main criteria that most ethicists agree on for determining whether a living creature has the capacity to suffer and so has genuine interests that it may or may not be our moral duty to consider. One is how much of the neurological hardware required for pain-experience the animal comes equipped with—nociceptors, prostaglandins, neuronal opioid receptors, etc. The other criterion is whether the animal demonstrates behavior associated with pain. And it takes a lot of intellectual gymnastics and behaviorist hairsplitting not to see struggling, thrashing, and lid-clattering as just such pain-behavior.

 

The idea that we had managed to convince ourselves that some species had evolved without a meaningful sense of pain seems ridiculous given that all life survives around the the response to the pain/pleasure dichotomy. It is primal. To assume the imperative of this experience is proportional to brain size is convenient but is impossible to know and unlikely given that evolution would have honed every creature’s desire to avoid harm.

The more important point here, though, is that the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable. It is, at any rate, uncomfortable for me, and for just about everyone I know who enjoys a variety of foods and yet does not want to see herself as cruel or unfeeling. As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing.

Categories: animals, art, culture, food, science
Tags: animals, David Foster Wallace, lobster

Here’s is a fantastic Margarita recipe that really packs a punch. Plus you can make it in advance so you always have a ready supply in the fridge. Once you’ve made the real thing, you’ll never go back to mixes or frozen.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup of sugar dissolved in 1 cup of water
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice + 1 tsp zest
• 1/4 cup orange liqueur (Triple Sec, Cointreau, Grand Torres)
• 1 3/4 cup tequila

Combine and leave in fridge at least 6 hours.
Serve over ice.

Warning: These are very potent – you may want to water it down if you don’t have a high tolerance for alcohol.

Advice: Your life will be easier if you buy the seedless limes and let them reach room temperature before juicing. Roll the limes with a bit of pressure against the counter top before squeezing to break the citrus fibres up.

Note: This recipe doesn’t work well with Calamansi limes. If you are in Singapore, I’ve found the limes at Giant to be cheaper and juicier than Cold Storage.

Categories: blog, food
Tags: Margarita, recipe

Embarking on the artisan art of sausage making in Singapore is not straightforward.

While loads of people are in to baking and cooking, few if any are in to making sausages. So there are no local shops which cater to this interest.

Hopefully my little foray will be helpful to those that follow.

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The two specialized items which create obstacles to the amateur saucissier are (1) the sausage stuffer and (2) the casings.
 

The Stuffer

A sausage stuffer is available as a supplement to the Kitchen Aid meat grinder attachment. Total cost for the two: S$174 from Mayer. This is 80% more than the Amazon price but they won’t ship to Singapore due to licensing agreements. Pick it up abroad if poss.

If you don’t have a Kitchen Aid, you can try your luck at Sia Huat for alternatives.

Note: It has been reported on the net that you can use a pastry bag (or simple plastic bag) to stuff casings by hand. This is an urban myth or at best a foolish and frustrating enterprise which will result in divorce if attempted by a married couple.

Also note: It’s not necessary to have a meat grinder as you can simply use ground pork but a grinder gives you more options for determining the meat and fat content of the sausages.

 

The Casing

The casing is a bit more problematic. I couldn’t find a butcher who would sell me less than 10kg of the stuff (for ~$80; enough for a lifetime supply of sausages). However one butcher did agree to give me a couple of feet of sheep casing because of my regular patronage.

The most popular edible casings are natural, meaning they are the intestines of sheep (0.5"-1.5"), hog (1.5"-2.5" diameter) or cow (2.5"-4"). These need to be sourced locally as online retailers won’t ship internationally. Synthetic casings are made of collagen and can be ordered online.

Natural casing is packed in salt and stored in the refrigerator or freezer. Properly stored it will keep for at least a year. Before using, the casing is soaked and rinsed to remove the salt and loosen the membrane.

The tissue looks and feels very delicate but is obviously robust enough to hold a well packed sausage. This all makes it incredibly difficult to avoid thinking of how sheep intestine has been used  throughout the ages as a prophylactic. I wonder if men used to brag about having to use beef intestine? I digress.
 

Note: If you are really stuck for casings then simply make "sausage patties". This isn’t exactly the real thing but it will let you perfect your recipe until you get hold of the good stuff.

 

The process

1. Grind the meat
2. Mix with spices by hand
3. Refrigerate overnight to blend flavours
4. Stuff into casing

It’s a no brainer.

 

What I learned

1. Use the best meat possible for the best sausages. Duh. Any ground meat in a casing looks nice but the taste can be terrible. It may be necessary to add extra fat to the recipe (typically pork belly or back fat).
    
2. Season and cook a sample before stuffing. Refine as necessary. Once the sausages are stuffed, it won’t be possible to adjust the seasoning.
    
3. Do all the meat grinding first then remove the grinding plate when stuffing. The grinding plate can get gummed up with connective tissue making it harder to press the meat through. Once you get to the stage where you are stuffing the casing, you don’t want any resistance to the meat coming through the stuffer.
    
4. The nozzle of the Kitchen Aid stuffer is about 8 inches above the counter top so you need to guide the sausage as it comes out. This makes it difficult to do the job solo (ie pushing the meat in on one side and guiding the sausages out the other). It is important to guide the sausage carefully to ensure the casing is filled completely (a very lose sausage looks quite sad). Ideally this is a two person job.
    
5. It is not necessary to create the sausage links while the sausage is coming out of the machine. Squeeze out all the stuffing in one long strip then tie off the links afterwards as shown here.

 

The Result

My sausages looked gorgeous but tasted lousy. I just used some meat that was on special at Cold Storage (a combo of beef and pork) and I didn’t cook test samples before I got carried away with the stuffer. The sausages were dry and tasted more like burgers than anything I’d hoped for.

Plus the place was a complete mess because I was trying to simultaneously jam meat in the grinder while guiding the sausages out of the the business end of the stuffer. The meat didn’t go in easily because there was connective tissue clogging the grinding plate which I should have removed during the stuffing stage. By the time I was done, there was meat everywhere.

Despite my failure, I’m quite excited to do it again and do it right. But it means (1) first eating through a lot of lousy sausages and (2) trying to score more free casings from my butcher.

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Links
• Making Sausages: A novice’s first attempt – another Montreal native
• Making Artisan Sausages – great pics. What is it with Canadians & sausages?
• Homemade Sausage – A to Z by About.com
• Photo Tutorial – these people are not fooling around
• Sausagemaker.com – Online shop
• Fresh Sausage Recipes
• Natural Casings – everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask
• More

 

Basic Recipe
1 kg pork shoulder
1 kg belly pork
4 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp mustard
pinch of ground nutmeg
pinch of cayenne pepper

 

 

Categories: blog, food
Tags: cooking, food, howto, pigs, sheep, singapore

Some tips from around the web.

General:
• Each time a cheese is opened, it should be rewrapped in new wrapping.
• Cheese wrapped in plastic wrap should be opened and allowed to breathe every few days.
• Wrap the cheese in wax paper, parchment paper, or butcher paper, then overwrap with plastic or foil.

Soft-ripened and washed-rind cheese:
• These prefer a humid, cool environment. Fridge air can dry them out.
• Store in your refrigerator’s produce bin, which has higher humidity than the designated cheese bin in refrigerator doors.
• Alternatively, refrigerate the wrapped cheese in a cardboard box or in a plastic container with the lid slightly ajar.
• Add a small, damp towel to the bottom of the container or refrigerator drawer in which they are stored. Change the towel every two days.
• Soft-ripened cheeses, such as Brie, can be wrapped as above, or can be placed on a small plate and covered with plastic wrap. A small plastic food storage container also works.

Hard Grating Cheese (eg Parmesan):
• These cheeses have little moisture and do not need to breathe.

Blue Cheese:
• Because of their strong smell, they should be stored away from other cheeses.

Fresh cheeses (Feta, Mozzarella, Ricotta):
• Highly perishable so should not be left out in the open.
• Should be stored in container in which they were sold.
• Keep covered with whey (mozzarella) or brine( feta) as appropriate.

More: Avoid a Bad Wrap | Storing Cheese

Photo By fd

Categories: food
Tags: cheese

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