A Two Way Street: The Reciprocity of Education

A Two Way Street: The Reciprocity of Education Joshua Lewin

Originally appeared in Food Arts, February 2013 When I made the decision to get serious about my butchering education, I knew I was going to need a little help. Friends recommended I spend a weekend at Mosefund Farm in New Jersey. Mosefund, among other things, specializes in raising a breed of pork called the Mangalitsa. Once rare, but now increasingly common on American menus, Mangalitsa is an Austrian specialty, which is uniquely fatty and great for charcuterie.

While I could continue on about the Mangalitsa; this is really about education. On this farm, once a year, the president of the Austrian Mangalitsa Breeders’ Association visits to instruct and supervise a handful of students in the slaughtering, butchering, preparation, and consuming of his beloved hog. I learned an awful lot that weekend. My friend Rachel and I made a road trip out of it and learned a lot about each other, too, in between the slaughter and skinning of a 250-pound pig, the European style butchering of the carcass, and the enjoyment of several very fun meals.

That weekend inspired me to bring the spirit of discovery and appreciation to interested members of the public, inside the restaurant. Typically these programs are a one-day affair, which is somewhat abbreviated, but is still plenty of time to learn.

The group convenes on a Sunday afternoon, after brunch and before dinner service begins. At that hour, the restaurant is open, but slow. There is activity all around as the line cooks prep for dinner service. The small group of butchery students learn a few things, by osmosis, about working in a small space and staying out of the way.

A recent class quickly became a favorite of mine. A young couple purchased the space for 6 and brought along each of their parents as a gift. The family turned out to be fun and quite diverse. His father,

48 a gregarious, lifelong resident of Arizona; his mother, from South Carolina. Hers, a more reserved pair, both from Colombia. I knew this was going to be a surprise to both sets of parents, which kept me awake for a few nights before the class. It’s one thing to welcome a group of six individuals who come expecting to get their hands dirty, bloody, and slick as the raw fat melts on the board. It’s quite another thing to surprise two sets of in-laws with a dead lamb and hand them a knife. But the day came, and the group arrived. Thankfully no one was wearing high heels. They were all smiling. They must not know why they are here yet…right? But no, they did. They were excited and ready to get to work. Tom, from Arizona, was an avid hunter and a big believer in eating what he captures, and eating it well. He recounted stories — The one he left hanging in the garage because he’d hurt his shoulder and had to teach his wife to dress it. The one he left in the bathtub but forgot to warn the family about. Pedro, from Colombia, was a great lover of food. He enjoyed the growing “fresh” market culture in the United States and good cooking. But he sure missed Colombia, where you can eat a different fruit, fresh and local, every day for a month, any month, without any repeats. He wasn’t much of a hunter or a butcher himself, but was certainly comfortable with the idea. The lamb on the table reminded him of a favorite restaurant in Colombia that specialized in a sort of chicken stew, sancocho. At this particular establishment, you would place your order sometime in the mid-afternoon and then wait a long while. Hours? He seemed to remember it must have been hours. Perhaps they were out choosing the chicken, still live, before preparing it fresh. Whatever they were doing, he hadn’t forgotten that particular Sancocho,

and it was fun to remind him of it that day. Things started slowly, as the group became acclimated to the kitchen environment, and to each other. I asked the farmer to split the lamb, for the purpose of the class. I first demonstrated the cuts fully on one side, and had a little discussion about how they might be used. Halfway through, we grilled up the small skirt steaks and everyone had a taste of their work. Revitalized, we retrieved the second side from the walk-in and by then the group was really ready to dive in. I stuck close by, as the loin sections were cut, cleaned and portioned. And then I gave the students a little more freedom as the leg sections were cut for sausage making. We finished up the portioning, stuck a few things in their respective cures, and cleaned up our workspace. These classes end with a meal. We sit down for a few courses based around different cuts of the animal we were working with. In this case: Lamb shoulder and pistachio rillettes with Anadama Bread and Violet Mustard Ab Gosht, a Persian stew made with lamb shanks, potato and a tomato broth spiced with dried lime and saffron. And then a sheep’s milk cheese followed by gelato. What a wonderful way to see a family come together, first at the butcher’s block and then at the dinner table. It cost me a little time on a Sunday afternoon, but the work had to get done anyway. The cost to the restaurant was a few plates of food and a few glasses of wine. In return, we run a class that pays for a whole animal that is sold on the menu the rest of the week. My education, also, continues, as every time I instruct a class of beginners I am forced back to the basics and always learn something new. And if I’m lucky, we end up with a group like this one, and we can learn a little something about people too. And that is how, 3 hours of discussion, butchering, and eating; all about lamb… leads to a simple recipe for chicken. sancocho serves 4 1 large chicken, broken into quarters, breasts reserved for another meal 2 carrots, peeled and diced 2 stalks celery, diced 3 onions, peeled and diced 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 4 sprigs thyme 2 bay leaves 2 sprigs rosemary 10 cups chicken stock 6 ounces flour 6 ounces butter 1 teaspoon fresh ground cumin 12 new potatoes 1 bunch cilantro, picked from it’s stems but left whole (reserved for serving) Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a heavy, oven-safe pan, heat 1 tablespoon of cooking oil over medium high heat. Season the chicken leg quarters liberally with salt pepper and coriander and then sear on both sides.

Add 2 cups chicken stock, half the carrots, celery, onion and herbs. Cover the pan and cook in the oven until fork tender. 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Meanwhile prepare the soup base by heating a heavybottomed pot over medium heat. Add the butter and remainder of the vegetables, including bell pepper, garlic, cumin and a pinch of salt.

Sweat until soft, careful not to brown the vegetables. Add the flour and cook until just beginning to color. Add remaining chicken stock and herbs as well as the potatoes. Bring to a simmer and cook until potatoes are done and soup is slightly thickened.

Serve over chicken thighs with a bowl of rice and cilantro on the side.

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Chestnut Dessert Soup Shan James

American chestnut (Castenea dentata) once made up a quarter of all trees in the native Eastern forests of the United States. Their nuts were an important source of nourishment for wildlife, native and colonial human populations, and the livestock these people raised. A single mature chestnut tree could rain an astonishing 250 lbs of nuts upon anyone waiting below to gather them, and by the 19th century, trains criss-crossed America carrying many tons of the sweet nuts to locations beyond the tree’s natural reach. Kitchens across the country served chestnut-based soups, stews, breads, and other baked goods through winter, and the nut became intertwined with festive wintertime traditions. Chestnut lumber, being a rot-resistant hardwood, was no less valuable than the nuts the trees bore. It was a preferred building material for log cabins and more refined structures alike, and its tensile strength and durability saw it used to produce the same railway ties that carried the trains distributing the tree’s own nuts. Sadly, in the early 20th century, a fungal blight introduced by an Asian chestnut that was planted in Brooklyn steadily spread across the entire American chestnut growing region. In a few short years 40 billion trees were decimated, and the thriving chestnut economy was brought to a halt. As child in Hong Kong, I grew up eating the nuts of the same Asian variety of chestnut that carried that blight to America. Like European varieties, Asian chestnuts are immune to the blight they can carry, and there, they had remained an easily sourced seasonal food. In Hong Kong, the appearance of chestnuts each year tolled the beginning of another sub-tropical winter because as soon as the temperature dropped, vendors roasting chestnuts in enormous vats of beaded charcoal appeared on street corners throughout the city. Even as a child, I understood that the cuisine of Hong Kong was made vibrant by the marriage of cultures mingling in the region, and by the availability of a multitude of exotic ingredients. All over the city, in restaurants as well as at make-shift cooking stations set up in laneways, perspiring cooks stood over huge black woks, throwing this and that into a complex swirl of meats, vegetables, noodles. But the men who roast chestnuts were different. Their task was not to create any harmonious blend of flavors, but to stand and shepherd flame and steam that coaxed the flavors already lying within those shiny brown shells to maximum intensity. The chestnut men’s sinewy arms were angular even beneath their woolen shirts and they stirred purposefully—burying and revealing and burying nuts nestled within an undulating blackness. You could smell it all from two blocks away. My father was an airline pilot, so we travelled extensively. I’d eaten little golden cakes with chestnut centers in Japan, and had greedily enjoyed the sticky vanilla luxury of candied chestnuts in France. But these men, with cheeks ruddy from smoke and heat, offered simple, unadulterated nature. In harmony with the seasons, they roasted and hawked their product, and their calls reminded you another year had almost passed. They seemed, to me, almost holy. I live in the United States now, in the same region where native chestnuts once thrived and then disappeared. The vast majority of chestnuts that appear in grocery stores in the fall are now imported, but I’ve learnt that this might not always be the case. Organizations like the American Chestnut Foundation are working hard to breed new varieties of blightresistant native chestnut, and a handful of farmers are already producing nuts from these new varieties. When I read of this, it led me to instate a new tradition: Every year, around Thanksgiving, when I buy a few little sacks of chestnuts to peel and store in the freezer, I’ll also make a small donation to the ACF to support their efforts. My stash of frozen chestnuts becomes a variety of savory and sweet dishes through winter and into spring, but the one I make most frequently, happens to also be the most simple—a Chinese-style chestnut dessert soup. Clear, sweet Chinese dessert soups are

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made with seeds, nuts or dried fruits, and are typically served at the end of a meal to cleanse the palette and aid digestion. In Chinese medicine, chestnuts are considered to be a stomach and spleen tonic, to aid circulation, and to lower blood pressure. I enjoy them only because they are delicious. Untraditionally, I like to flavor my chestnut soup with vanilla, which I think complements their earthy sweetness, and if there are store-bought chestnut-filled mochi balls lurking in my freezer, I’ll cook those separately and drop one each into the steaming bowls before serving. To Prepare Your Chestnuts I like to prepare 2 lbs at a time for freezing, but it’s quite a task, so if you don’t have an hour or two to spare, just prepare enough for a single dish. Wash and drain the chestnuts, then make a vertical slash on each one, on its flatter side, with a chestnut knife or other sturdy blade. Place the nuts in a saucepan large enough to hold them along with cold water to cover by an inch, bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Allow the chestnuts to cool in the saucepan until they are cool enough to handle, then remove one at a time to peel. It is important to leave them submerged until you are ready to peel them, so that the shells don’t shrink and make the task more difficult than it needs to be. When lifted straight from the warm water, the shells should peel off easily and beneath, you’ll find a papery skin. Carefully peel this skin off too, then transfer the peeled nuts to a freezer-safe container to store in the freezer. Once frozen, chestnuts will keep up to six months. chestnut dessert soup serves 4 1 cup peeled chestnuts (either defrosted or frozen) 3 cups filtered water 2 tablespoons raw sugar, or more to taste 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract 4 cooked chestnut-filled mochi balls (optional) Place the chestnuts and water in a small saucepan, then bring to a steady simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer very gently for 20 minutes. The chestnuts should be soft, but still hold their shape. After this time, the liquid should have reduced by about a quarter, but depending on the size of your saucepan, may have reduced more. Add a little more water if it seems necessary. Add the sugar and vanilla, stir gently until dissolved, and serve hot in four small bowls. If you have cooked mochi balls, add them to each bowl before serving. Alternatively, chill the soup in the refrigerator and serve cold the next day.

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mignardise

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