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Find us at heritage radio network.org. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you alive on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245 from a Bernard's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Not joined as usual with Nastasia De Hammer Lopez. In her place, we have the one, the only Johnny Hunter from Mad Town, Madison, Wisconsin.
You got your underground meats. What else you got there? Underground Butcher, four-quarter restaurant, underground catering. Just like all kind of underground. Yeah.
All kind of all kind of underground. And of course, we got uh Dave in the booth. How are you doing, Dave? I'm doing good. How about you?
Doing well. So uh this is the uh holiday meat curing meat tacular. So why don't you call in, please, all of your meat-related questions to 718 497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Did I get that right?
I wasn't even listening to myself. Uh I wasn't listening to you either. 718-497-2128. That's 71718-497-2128. Yeah, so Nastasia, I can't say exactly what Nastasia's doing, but uh like she look she is cooking for one of her dream, like her absolute dream client.
I said her dream's coming true, and Dave said, Well, you're still alive, so it can't be all of your dreams of country. Foxman Friends. Oh man. Oh, speaking of, like, uh, if you're listening to this uh later, today is the day of the Roy Moore election in uh in Alabama. And this is not a political show, so I guess we shouldn't get into it, but like we're just gonna see just what kind of a place we are, huh?
Yeah, make pedophilia acceptable again. Oh, gee. Wait, not a political show, guys. That's that wasn't political. That was just humanity.
I mean, that's that's just ain't that the truth? It's just crazy. Yeah, one one of the candidates like prosecuted the KKK, and the other one, you know, basically is part of the KKK. Yeah, you know what I mean? And like, you know, what I don't know I'm not gonna get into it.
I'm like, like, if you know, basically, a you know, a Democrat in Alabama is like a Republican to the rest of us anyway. You know what I mean? To a New Yorker? I mean, you know, uh again, not a political not talking politics. Yeah, we're we're gonna do a special show for that, right?
We're trying to, we gotta get some guests. If anyone out there, uh like what I need is like two people. So basically, any political person, right? Odds are I'm gonna disagree with them about something. This is the idea for the show that we somehow can't get off the ground, right?
Is uh we're gonna get some people in and we're gonna ostensibly be talking about food, but then we're just gonna like like you know, like hit them with some barbs about their political views and just have them argue back and forth. Because pretty much like, you know, almost anyone I can dis I can disagree with almost almost anybody. John Podesta would be a good one on that one, right? Uh I I mean like uh, you know the like Hillary campaign manager who all those email he's like I had these cooking parties and then they were like thought they were spirits and Satanism and you know the guy? Wait, what?
Do you know the guy? I mean like I don't know John DePeddett. I mean, like, that's the thing. Like, you know, I gotta I gotta get some into some. I think that would be a good person.
I mean, I don't necessarily uh yeah, I mean it'd be fun anyway. Anyway, so we want to do it, but we're trying to find like you know, a guest that we can get a hold of. I actually was at a Christmas party with one of Hillary Clinton's lawyers. Yeah. He was an interesting guy, but I don't know.
They might be able to get John Podesta for you. He would be the one because like the I don't know if you remember the scandal, but they they were searching his emails after they got hacked, and he decided he was gonna be cooking a spirit dinner. And uh, and so then this right-wing conspiracy theory about how he was like you know into Satanism and all these other things came out. Yeah, you know, but the duck recipe from the emails look delicious. Yeah, well, do you remember what it was?
Not exactly, but I'm sure we can look it up. By the way, we had a couple questions a couple weeks ago on geese. Do you have any advice on cooking geese as opposed to duck? Um can you cook a goose without without breaking it apart? No.
That's the thing, like that's the uh Jeffrey Steingarden article. Oh, he just wrote one? No, like uh in The Man Who Everything, he has a whole essay about that. I think it's very, you know, he was like taking you know packs of ice and putting it on the breasts as he was cooking it. Yeah, and yeah, I just don't think it can it's always gonna be dry.
Well, here's the thing, right? So the question is I mean, I don't know that much about the geese that we raise here in this country, right? I know for like an absolute certainty that if it was within my power, I would shoot and eat, figure out how to cook and shoot and kill every goose on earth. I think they're vile creatures. They are terrible.
I I hate them. You know what I mean? Like, which is sad because I love ducks and love to love to cook ducks, but I actually like ducks, the animal. Yeah, they're they're good animals. Yeah, they're they're friendly and they leave you alone, but geese will attack you.
Geese will attack the hell out of you with that. Like a duck's just like and then like a duck, like if you walk up to like a group of ducks, they're like and they walk away from you. You walk up to a goose, and the goose is like and like snapping at you, and you don't even have to walk up to it. If you pass by and go out of your way, they will still like be protective and push you. Yeah, plus like you feel like you're on the surface of a giant entamin's donut.
For those of you that you know, I don't know, entamans are they only East Coast? No, they have those in the midwest. Right. So you know the they they have the ones that have like goose turds on them. Yeah, so like, but like it's like that level of goose turding is what if you grew up in the east, like I'm sure the fly can Canada geese have their flyaway in the middle of the country too, right?
Yeah, yeah, we get quite a few Canada geese. Yeah, so there's a major flyway up the coast. And so, like, yeah, we have like someone's like if you have a field and a pond, I mean, forget it. You know what I mean? It's like you live on like an entamin's donut of goose poop.
It's like I mean, Madison is basically two lakes surrounding like an isthmus, and so we get geese everywhere. So you're saying it like you it originally was one lake, and then the geese pooped in it so much created created that's the foundation of the city is just goose poop. The isthmus of is it technically an well, I guess it's not too, it's not uh you can't have an isthmus between lakes, right? What do you call the little spit of land between they call it an isthmus? Really?
Yeah, that's a good word because it it it it sounds weird. Yeah, it's it's miss. It does sound weird. So my question is is uh so you know murder every goose, yes. Uh but the classic thing, like this in the same way that a lot of Americans would smack you across the face for breaking their turkey apart at Thanksgiving, like the Christmas goose was definitely a whole roasted uh bird.
Now it presents nicely. Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I guess, but like I mean, but they must have had a different goose, right? I mean, I would I'd imagine that the European geese are probably like fattier and more delicious just because there's a foundation of cultural heritage to coca those. It just has to be has to be a different.
I think it just has to be a different, like a different yeah, variety or something. Maybe also there is a you know a predilection to having dry breast meat, and then there's focusing on the leg meat more. Yeah. I mean you can't you just gonna get gotta give up one or the other. I mean, because also like even though like the geese I've cooked are physically a lot longer, I get less meat out of them than I get out of my ducks.
Yeah, such a small amount of meat. The breasts you tiny. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Like maybe they were just like focusing on the skin and you know, I don't know.
Maybe I don't know. I like I remember when I was a kid, my grandparents, that was like the one of my first culinary things was cooking a whole goose with the neck and no one knew how to eat it. Wow. It's kind of disgusting. Yeah, yeah, because it's greasy.
Look, especially if you don't know how to cook. Look, I I look we'll get we'll get back into into uh into geese someday, I'm sure, or I'll figure it out. But it seems like uh it's a cop out to to break it, you know, to break it down. I mean I understand why because you're being an enemy of quality if you ruin the whole goose, but there's gotta be some way to do it that doesn't involve like for instance like dipping its legs into into like you know geese goose stock for two hours and then pulling it, air drying the whole thing, and you know, yeah. I mean I maybe just cook it really low, like 175, cook it upside down.
For like a yeah, I don't know. Do you would you do the pecking duck thing? Would you do the the the the hot the hot water pour over, break the skin, puff it up, yeah. You'll have good luck. I mean, then you get crispy skin, that's delicious.
Yeah, everyone likes crispy skin. Well, no, I'm sure there's some jerk who doesn't like crispy skin. So anyway, so we have a question in from uh John Darragon. Uh wanted to call in, but not sure I'll be on my meeting. So here you are.
I ordered a whole uh bone out, so bone out, meaning bone removed. So what's the point? What's the b Yeah, bone out. You mean boneless is what you're looking to say here, John. But like uh so what could possibly be your problem if you already took the bone out of the if they've I mean the entire thing about a cured ham is how much it sucks to take the bone out.
I I just cooked a cured ham this weekend in New York. Whoa, whoa, whoa, why'd you cook it? Uh so w I we it was a country ham. Right. And so we we wanted to serve it Christmas ham.
Right. Old style, like you say you old style cooked. What temperature do you cook it to? Uh I you so we didn't have my friend didn't have a pot that was big enough to hold the pan in. Right.
And so we he had a we bought a we bought a trash can. And we souvie'd it in in the water. So we cooked at one sixty-five. How was it? It was delicious.
Yeah. So um a couple of things, like I haven't cooked a country ham in a long time because you know, I'm uh I've been for years pushing to like eating it raw. Yeah, like slice. But the thing about it is um did you soak it? Yeah, but it it didn't get much w salt out of it.
Yeah. I don't think that works that well. No, I mean that but that's just the way you know I grew up. You soak it. Yeah.
You know, but then you of course you're cooking it in excess water. You know the old old school way of cooking a country ham, right? You know? What they would do is they would get the um they would call them lard cans, because they're a five gallon lard cans, and you'd throw the the put the ham into the lard can, bring the bring the water in the lard can up to the boil, close it, like seal it down, and then just let it ride through, let it like average out in temperature. It's basically what we did.
Yeah. And then well the and the good thing about that is that the outside gets a little more, but I think that helps the water penetrate, pull some of the salt out, helps them moisturize a little bit. Yeah, the cold water just did not pull out any salt. Well, I mean, think about it. Like that meat is so dense.
Yeah. You know, I mean nothing's gonna get into the center of that that meat. Which which hand did you did you cook? We made our o we made our own. Oh you cooked your own.
You went through all the trouble of curing your own ham and then you cooked it. Yeah. Did you were you punching yourself in the face a little bit as you were doing it? Or no, were you made we made like twenty. All right.
So did you slice it super thin and put it on eggs or biscuits? Uh I did not put it on biscuits or eggs, but we did slice it very thin. Yeah. That's the other mistake people make. They cut they they do the big pieces, you know what I mean?
Thick cut. It's hard to cook a uh cut a cooked country ham because it's so friable. It like breaks up into like little shards. I actually think the shards I actually think it's delicious. Like I like I I do.
It wasn't pretty. No, but like the thing about it is is that uh first of all, the average like modern city style American person doesn't want to deal with that intense level of salt. They really don't understand the main meat course being a seasoning meat and not like uh uh a huge uh quantity of flesh meat. Yeah. You know, don't you think that's a problem?
Yeah, I mean I I mean I think that's what is amazing about cured meats in general is that they last forever and they're intensely seasoned and you know, lets you eat less protein, you know, from I think the the idea that the ideal is like a twenty-two inch, you know, steak for every meal. Well, I mean, you gotta remember there were certain periods in our history where like, you know, we were trying to yeah, eat as much as humanly possible. Like think about it. We we s we sl in our attempt, you know, in like among other the horri uh the horrific things that that you know uh we d we meaning white folk did uh in the eighteen hundreds, wiping out all of the bison. Yeah.
I mean, think of how much like I mean, I'm sure they let the vast majority of it just rot, but then you know, they just take the skins and the loins. Yeah, well, it ate, yeah, but ate an unconscionable amount of it. Just like a crazy amount. If you read the old accounts of eating buffalo, where they're like, a man can't eat enough buffalo meat, a man never gets his fill of buffalo meat. You ever read that?
Yeah, I mean, I've definitely read about the history of the and then some of the you know, kind of people talking about how they hunt it and stuff. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's awful. Yeah, it's it's it's like a hurry, it's like it just goes to show how terrible people can be to each other. Uh anyway, so back to this question.
Um, and to animals, people can be terrible to each other and animals. Because that's it, that's one of those stories where uh we were attempting to be terrible to both people and animals. Yeah, yeah, that was yeah, yeah, horrible. All around terribleness. Yeah, wretched.
Uh anyway, so uh not not not that kind of show. Anyway, I ordered a whole bone out Suriano ham. So, as everyone knows, I hope who listens to this show, uh Sam Edwards is back online uh and selling the Seriano hams. I have not yet had one. Uh Dave, you had one over there.
Do you want to over Heritage and had one of the new Edwards? I have not yet, no. Oh, you're so you're um which are you like low quality person? Like, what's the deal? You haven't had one either.
Yeah, but like I don't I don't work here, I don't go over there on a daily basis. I don't either. I never go over there. I'm here. You never go over to the main office?
That's not the office anymore. Where have you been? Here? We don't we don't share an office with heritage foods any longer. Really?
Yeah, we're up the street at uh 100 Bogart. Bogart? Yeah. All right. By the way, speaking of uh driving around this neighborhood, people in New York who are like renting zip cars, whatever in the hell else you're renting, and you don't know how to drive, at an uncontrolled intersection, pedestrians have the absolute right of way.
Absolute right of way. And people in Wisconsin, they know this, right? At an uncontrolled intersection, the pedestrian has the absolute freaking right of way. Yeah, but you know what I hate. I hate when I am a pedestrian, though, and I try to wave a car through because you know, you're in a car, you're gonna get through the intersection a lot faster than me.
And then they wave back, like, no, no, no, you go. And I'm like, no, you go, you're in the car. I'm saying it's okay, so go. Most of the time I just put my kids in front. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the stroller. Yeah, like remember movie speed? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
When the lady and she's like, anyway, uh, go watch speed and look for the baby care scene. It's a good one. Uh, but no, like I had this person, and like I'm walking across the street, and then they blast through an uncontrolled intersection, laying on the horn, like trying to brush me past, like I'm the jerk. I mean, they don't know that I'm the jerk. I mean, like, I might be the jerk, but they don't know that.
Yeah. Absolute right of way, people. Uh, anyway, back to the ham. Uh I ordered a whole bone-out ham uh and had some at a party the other day, but have about six pounds left over at this point. I'm going on a trip for the next eight days and want to store it properly.
Is the best way to store it just to vacpack it and keep it in the fridge, or is it better to keep it backpacked at room temperature? I know there are worse problems than having too much leftover ham, but at this point I won't eat it all before I leave on Saturday. I actually don't like to vacpack uh unless you're doing it professionally, like, because I've seen vacpack stuff get m mold on it if it's not vacpacked down well, especially in the holes of a boned-out ham. What do you think? Yeah, and there's gonna be mold on the outside of it too, and that's gonna get like a slimy texture.
I mean, yeah, this is not a problem. Just throw it in the fridge. Yeah, just like light a light, like a like a light plastic wrappage, if anything, in in the fridge, and it's gonna be a few years. I mean, you don't want to be a little bit more than a few. Actually, the solution is is buy 30 pounds of lard, melt it in the lard vat, dump dump it in there, let it cool down, put it in the fridge.
Well, Morris Burger of Burgers Ham House used to uh what their family did was they would keep their hams in the barn hanging from wires because rats and mice couldn't climb wires. Could climb string. And so they would hang them from wires and they would cut out their like their um you know their frying slices for like eggs and breakfast in the morning and whatnot. And then uh they would just wipe lard over the cut surface. Yeah, that's I mean So they wouldn't coat the whole thing, they would just coat the cut surface.
When we have to so sometimes we have to um take the water activity of the hams that we're doing. So we'll cut a section out and then we just put some lard on it and it continues to cure. Yeah, I mean like honestly, the only problem with keeping it outside, uh meaning in your kitchen, the only problem with it is that you might get uh mites or larder beetles, and if the beetles start boring into the thing, it's freaking I I was hanging hams in my uh in my apartment for years. Like I would always have ham hanging in my apartment, like right next to the pots and pans, like from my overhead. And uh, because I always have my pan, you know, my pans like o overhead, I bolt into the ceiling.
I make uh what I the cheap way everyone buys these racks, like the all-clad racks, it's garbage. I go to I go to like uh I go to a uh a like a fixture store because they're all over here, and I buy the chrome rods that they use for making fixtures for like uh stores, like you know, garment racks, and they are they pre-sell all of the little holders to hold the rods up and then it's bang bang anchored into the ceiling and put S hooks over it and I bend the S hooks a little bit so they can't pop back off. It's a blah blah blah. And this is how I've done every hanging pot rack. I've never paid the all-clad corporation.
I'll pay them for pots, but why would I pay them for these goofy overdesigned freaking pot hanging things? So you you you hang hams from there too? Yeah. So were they already finished? Or yeah, I mean uh yes, but like I would always like I would order them and have them around because I, you know, always want to have ham around.
And yeah, he's hang them, but the uh you know, even um sometimes like you know, uh, you know, some of the people they they send them in burlaps, but a lot of times I would just have them just you know there naked and naked. And um until one day, I would always occasionally have mites. Once you get mites in your house, you get mites, but mites don't bother me. I just dust off the you know the that pile of like fat and mite bodies off of the thing underneath the ham. It doesn't bother me much.
But like I I got uh larder beetle or uh some sort of boring ham beetle in in in the house once, and like that was it. They bored into all of the freaking ham. And I never I never went back and even though I've moved since then to a different apartment, I've never gone back to uh because I'm not what's the stuff that they used to spray in the cure houses to uh kill all of those things and they're not allowed to use anymore. It's like methyl something, something maybe something broma it's something. They used to put they used to have some sort of um making air quotes food safe uh fumigant that they would fumigate hands with, but I don't think it's allowed anymore.
Yeah, I don't know. We and we've never had boring beetles in never had a beetle problem? No, thankfully. No, do you have mite problems? You have to do you see mice.
Do you like what do you do like an alcohol? Brush them off. Yep, just brush them off. We don't some people put like alcohol, like some like small people, not like major producers, but like you know, home people like to wipe down with salt water or or like a little bit of rubber, uh not rubbing alcohol, just like some kind of alcohol. I mean, you're worried if at our scale or any other scale, you're worried about drying out the skin too much and potentially not getting it even.
So I don't I wouldn't want to put anything that has too much evaporation on it. Right. Do you know who uh do you know who um Dale de Groff is? Yeah. You know Leo de Groff, his son, also bar person?
Okay. So they're from Rhode Island. You know where Rhode Island is. I do know where Rhode Island is. So uh I don't know if you know this.
You might you might you're not like from around there, you're from Madison, right? I'm from Wisconsin, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So uh they have a a very uh probably not like nationally but locally known culture of um supersod. They call it soupy.
You know, in Massachusetts they call it supersod or down here supersod, you would probably call it so pressata or something like this. But you know what I mean? But like they call them soup soupy, but like their way that they do it is once they cure it down, they oil pack all of their cured sausage. Really? Yeah, and they store it for years oil pack.
Uh I mean that that makes sense to me. You ever tried that for an aging to see whether it's different? Like, because it does like what they're doing is they're basically saying, okay, I'm gonna let the enzymatic stuff keep going, but I am cutting off dehydration. Yeah. So they choose their dehydration point that they want, and then that's it.
Yeah, I mean the only thing I would be worried about in that situation is Ransidi of the oil. So if you can control that, yeah. Well, there's the thing, they bury it. So like bury it. So yeah.
Yeah, so it's like they'll they'll I think they use a lick do they use a liquid? I for I don't know. But yeah, they they have like these big crocs, and they just put push the sausage down, the soup, the you know, the superside down into it, and then overfill the entire thing. And then he's like, and I store it under my sink. I want I'm gonna have Leo de Groff on here one day with his like under the sink oil stored supersoncy.
It'd be kind of a pain to uh to slice that up afterwards. Well I'm sure he dries it and everything. I don't think I don't know that he puts it back in. I think once you crack one, it's like you eat the you eat all the way through it. Yeah, sure.
Caller, you're on the air. Caller. Can you hear me? Yes. Alright, cool.
Hey, um so sorry to not have a meat question. I have a spin book question, but a meat aside, we live here in Washington. We're getting some hams from Oregon, and it they just have an overabundance of hazelnuts. So there's a number of farmers that finish or like let all of their pigs go wild on hazelnuts for months before they slaughter. So it might be cool, pseudo-spanish style local nut ham stuff.
Have you purchased them? Um wait, have you purchased this meat yet? Do you have a website or someplace where, for instance, Johnny can purchase some of this meat and like cure some? Have you ever eaten have you ever eaten nut fed me nut fed meat uh uncured? I'll I'll send you a link.
I'll find it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I will, because it's it's pretty exciting stuff. They just have like so many hazelnuts here that the pigs go wild.
Oh I would I mean, I would eat the hell out of that. Johnny? Yeah. Yeah, we get some uh some not finished. There's uh one of the farms we work with finishes it on acorns and and nuts.
Is it that place out of uh in the south, or is it or is it uh like in the middle? Where's the where's the core used? It's just west of us. So yeah. There's a there used to be a place in Tennessee that did mast fed uh hams all the way through.
They did their own, and then they went peaceful pastures, they went out of business. I uh I one time bought a ham from a Amish farmer that fed all the leftover yogurt to the hams from a dairy plant that was next door. Did it taste good? Smelled like yogurt. I'm sure.
Well that there, you know, the the you know pigs are interesting that way, right? The way that they incorporate things um into into their into their fat. But um, let's get the question first, then we'll go back to yeah. All right, so this I I called a while back about I tried to make nut milk from the spinz all right and tried running it slow continuous and to get the solids up, and it did the opposite of what I wanted it to. Yes, it totally clarified it, right?
It started filtering it. Right. So it started really nice and rich in the beginning, but by the end, as I recirculated it, it got thinner and thinner. Oh. And I have so yeah, I was just curious if you have any other thoughts.
So uh the way that I uh do the nut milks when I do them, and and honestly, like a lot of times for nut milks, nut milk bags they work pretty they work pretty well, right? And so, like um, you know, I haven't done that much on like heavy recirculation with uh with nut milks. I've done cold brew. I can get really I've like since I wrote the manual, uh my cold brew game, I don't like cold brews, so it's hard for me to come up with a good recipe, but like my cold brew game is getting much better in the in the spinzole, and someday I can give the spec for that or I can talk about that. But with nut milks, I think you're better off doing a single run with this caveat.
You want the you want the nut solids to be about the whole spinzall rotor's worth. Because what's gonna happen is all those solids are gonna stay in the rotor and you're gonna get out the liquids and the fines, and it's uh blended nuts with water don't form a compact enough puck for you to be able to get like a good um good kind of a separation. So usually what I'll do is I'll use like a very I'll use like 400 grams or five 450 grams of nuts, blend it with the hot water, and then take it through once. And the first stuff that comes out is kind of liquidy, usually in that case, and then it goes it goes nice and milky for a while, and then I cut it off. But I don't think I recirculate.
I have to go look at my go look at myself. I stopped experimenting with it. I should start again, but I stopped experimenting because I was like, would I recommend this necessarily over a nut milk bag? And my answer was if I owned a spinzall but didn't have a nut milk bag, I would make nut milk this way. But if I had a nut milk bag, I would probably use the nut milk bag.
Yeah. Um how about this? Like you, so I also want to try making the olive oil, and I would experiment, but I have four-year-old twins, and so my time is limited. Um, but like, so if I want to get the calamata olive oil off the top, right? You know, when the spinzall stops spinning, everything drops.
So would you like do it on ice so it solidifies? No, okay. So, first of all, Harold McGee thinks that you and I are enemies of quality because uh cured olive oil is the is the enemy to all lovers of uh fancy all olive oil judges would if they could press a button and wipe us off the face of the planet, they would do it. Um but the the way to do it is you blend the olives with um you blend the olives with uh Pectanex Ultra SPL, blend blend the hell out of them, and then uh you spin them, and you're gonna get uh you're gonna get a do you have a vacuum machine? Uh not a chamber.
Okay. But do you have a jar on on the vacuum machine? Okay. Yeah. Uh this is a a tip, by the way, that I don't know whether I've never published it, I don't think, but um anytime you're gonna do like uh distillation, rotary evaporation, or spinning uh batch where you're not gonna have like the the refiltering, so you're not gonna knock the air out of stuff.
A quick, first of all, the pectanex helps uh stop foaming if you're gonna do distillation. So nowadays, whenever I'm gonna do distillation and I'm blending stuff, I always hit my distillation runs with Pectanex Ultra SPL, not because I'm gonna clarify it, but because it gets a lot less foam out on the boil. So that's a little tip for all you rotovat people out there, if if there are any of you. Uh but then the the other uh thing is is that hitting any sort of blended stuff with a vac is gonna knock the air out of the floating particles. Because one of the issues is that olives are, as you say, a triple separation.
You're gonna have solids, liquids, and oil. Uh, but you're also gonna get floaty doodads. And the floaty doodads are what's gonna make it a pain to get your full yield of oil out because the floaty doodads are gonna mix with the oil. So if you can soak, uh if you can, sorry, hit hit it with a little bit of a vacuum just so that most of the solids drop uh and aren't floating at the surface, your life's gonna be a lot better. Then I would spin it for a long, long time.
You're gonna pour both the liquids, meaning the oil and the brine off of it, and you're just gonna have to let it separate old school. I mean, I think like a lot of us should have separate. I could do that. Yeah, that that's the way to do it. And then sit there and tap on it.
But any solids that are left in it because they were floating, stick to the sides of your sep funnel and like make it everything, make everything a pain in the ass. And use that olive oil right away because as Harold Nagy says, it's already it's already bad. It's already been oxidized. It's already he doesn't talk like that. But anyways, yeah, so good luck with that.
So back to the pig, back to the pigs. Yeah. Uh when you eat like uh when you eat it, do you like do you like eating nut fatters just for the hams? I mean the hams are like what I care about the most. I mean, obviously like in Spanish style, like the ibericos, like I love like all of the cured stuff, but do you really like lidding love love love just eating the pork that's that way?
I think you're losing a lot of the Yeah, I don't think you get as much flavor. I think people Yeah, like we we got half a pig that was that was uh he's not fed before. Right. And it it was delicious, but it like just using it as normal pork, it did not taste especially iberico y in any way. Yeah, God wants you to cure that.
I mean, I think the thing that's important to do. Yeah, I think the thing that's important though is you know, these ham these these pigs are on pasture, they're getting to choose what they want to eat, you know, and so I think they're gonna be selecting a diet that's gonna make more for a better tasting pig. I think some people too put too much confidence into the the exact diet of the pigs and less into like you know, diversity of diet and the animals choosing right, but the softness from the nut fat, like the like because there it's it's uh and I'm not saying this from a health standpoint because I could give a rat's behind about that. But it's like the like the the texture of the fat. That's why I think like a like you could never sell that to like Japanese.
Like you imagine like they love like a super hard fat, they're like want like a super saturated hard pig fat. They would be like, what is this garbage? You know what I mean? Oh, I bet they get a decent amount of Aberico hams. Oh, yeah, but that's yeah, but I mean, in other words, like if you were to sell them the fresh pork, yeah, they would be like, This is a this is a this is the garbage pig.
You know what I mean? Like it is, I mean, you're I think you're really right. It does have a real benefit for curing, but nothing for right. You know what I've never had, like uh I also think do you think Lardo's better off with a firmer fat pig? I mean I don't know.
I mean, most of the pigs we have have a softer fat just because they are eating more protein towards the end of their life cycle. But what size what size hands are you usually uh starting with when you're curing? Uh anywhere about 20, 25 pounds. So yeah, good size. Yeah.
Yeah, we got big pigs. And then how long how long you let them go? Yeah, Dave, what do you got? I was gonna say we gotta take a break real quick. Oh, take a break back with more cooking issues.
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This is garbage for anyone who's a longtime listener, will say, where the heck is the Hearst Ranch grass-fed beef song? That's a new ad. They didn't include the song this time. That's unacceptable. Take it up with Brian Kenny.
That's the do you have that song somewhere? Can I actually I don't even know what you're talking about? Oh, really? Yeah. Do we have it on the computer somewhere?
Can we find it? Yeah, maybe on a backup drive. I'll have to look for it. I mean, like, I'm happy that you know, they're sponsoring the show, but Hurst Ranch Don't Fed. Well, I mean, look, we have we have various people that I like for various things.
Like, I like it when that guy says abattoir. And I like the Hearst Ranch grass-fed beef song. I don't think I'm the only one. Play the hits, play the hits. I don't think I'm the only one.
Oh, speaking of uh longtime listeners, uh, Joel Gargano opened a restaurant in uh Chester, Connecticut. That I, if you guys are in the Connecticut area, go check it out. I haven't been there yet, but I hear great things. Grano Arso, which is a you know part, you know, cooked grain, uh, opened in Chester, just had his one-month anniversary, so shout out, and I hope to make it up there soon. I was in Chester, but there was a big snowstorm, so I couldn't.
I couldn't uh it wasn't actually a big snowstorm, but my driveway is very long, and so like the idea of going out and then driving back not knowing is like you know so I'm a I'm a bad person. I'm basically I'm just a useless bad bad human being. Well on one second we we have a call call we'll take the caller and then we'll talk about our caller you're on the air. Hey how's it going? Going all right I have another ham question.
I think it was already asked by the first caller but I couldn't quite make out what the answer was but I just got a whole bone in Benton's ham. Right. And my question is storage because it's like 15 pounds. I'm not gonna eat all of it right away but I could freeze it, I could refrigerate it, but is it safe just to keep at room temperature? Yeah what do you um what are you planning to how are you planning to use it?
Um I'm just gonna eat it, just slice it off like charcuterie style like prosciutto or something. Yeah I mean I think the only I mean I think pest is an issue if you're gonna just leave it out room temperature. I I mean Dave's idea of hanging it or every Spanish bar has you know loads of hanging ham. But you know I think in general refrigeration is probably a little bit easier just as far as containment and you know if there's a wide variation of temperature, you know you could see some rancidity in the fat. Something that people don't know the I know the the Bentons like the piece of paper that comes with it says to refrigerate it.
They have to hang them providers like Edwards say not to refrigerate it. Yeah so those hams have been sitting at room temperature more or less for you know nine months. So the going back into the refrigerator is only a step that they're saying because of food safety. Yeah, they don't want to deal with it. Some some inspector once said something and they don't want to have to deal with it.
Let me, but let me ask you this more to Johnny's question, how are you're gonna use it? Because I think one of the issues is let's say you buy an American style ham. American style hams are hung differently and have a different shape than uh European style ham. So they're they're uh typically, and I'm Benton's is to my knowledge is this way, is hung to be plump in the in the like in the cushion of the of the meat. And what that means is the interior of it is softer at a given age than in the equivalent longer stretched out European style ham.
And uh translation is is that if you try to put it into a holder and do the horizontal long slices that you would do for like a uh Spanish style ham cutting that you might run into some issues, Johnny, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I don't I mean it's gonna be fine. Yeah, yeah, everything's always fine. It's not gonna kill it anymore. But like it's just but you're not it's gonna be hard to get those like Yeah, it's a little wetter, yeah, a little wetter.
And slicing wise, but I don't know. We've we we hang it like that traditional the traditional American style, and you know, you see right at the bone that it's a little softer, but and do you do Spanish style cutting on it? Um we debone it. Yeah, and cross-cut it. Yeah, and cross-cut it.
So are are you a fan? Like, like, okay, for many years I was like, I'm an American, I like cross-cut ham. Yeah. And then, and then I was like, you know what? I like both.
I I like as I've aged, I've become less of a because at first I was like, don't let these traditional who are these people to tell me, you know, so what? Like, you know, they've been eating it for hundreds of years, but like each individual person hasn't been alive hundreds of years. What the hell do they know? You know what I mean? And so, like, you know, lots of people do things that are stupid for hundreds and hundreds of years.
But I actually now I've come to like the traditional like long cut. Yeah, I it definitely has its benefits. You know, you get it's it's I think it tastes a little bit nuttier, richer, and then you kind of get the like more salt intensity from the crosscut, and then the long ways, I don't know. So caller, what are you gonna do? You're gonna try to bone this out?
The only knife I've ever broken in my life, I broke on a ham. Um I don't know yet. That's a good question. So far I've just been slicing it with a bone in, I guess lengthwise. Yeah, I mean, if you slice off, yeah.
I mean, I guess like you could slice cross section to the bone for a while, and then that would be an easier way to debone it rather than trying to get in there and yeah, we definitely need to get some sort of uh boning knife, because I just have a Masono UX 10 and it's really, really uh thin. I don't think that would do the job. Man, the the Masono, the UX 10, that's an old school. That's your old old school high-end. I like that.
That's the old school like chef's choice there. Um yeah, I mean, we I just use that actually just a butcher little curved thin knife to do it, and then just like follow the bone and just like make the indentation and come keep coming down. You ever you you ever purchased one of those old school like like gouges, like boning knives that are for hams that are like look like like wood gouges? Yeah, to test it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do they work? I mean, you basically just push it in and turn, and then you take a core sample out. Is it well? They have, but if there's the core sample for testing, but they have to take, yeah. Yeah, they have like a giant one that's meant for to help remove the bone.
I've I've never seen one. I've never seen one. I've seen a video of one. I mean, you seem like you lose a lot of meat. Probably, but then I guess they sell the bone for soup or whatnot.
Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, I want the meat for eating. It's so it's so valuable. I want the meat for eating.
What are you a fan of cutting the cushion off and then and then take taking care of the face? Because the face is harder anyway, physically harder anyway. Yep. So, you know, I used to, whenever I was boning, I would try to bone it and you le I would leave the bone hole in it, I would have it whole. I don't know why.
It's just that's what I stupidly, I guess, thought was a thing to do. And then someone was like, well, why don't you just cut off this like set of muscles, slice that, and then slice all the parts separately. Are you a fan of that for I am a fan of that? It's just a lot easier to separate out the I mean separate out the basically the bottom round from like the sirloin. So you know what else makes life really easy?
Bansaw. Yeah, that's my favorite. Yeah. So caller, like I'm not saying you should go buy a bandsaw, and I'm definitely not saying that you should go into your garage and use your wood bandsaw to cut your uh your ham. I will tell you this, it works, but uh uh uh or in a pinch of sawsaw.
Oh my god, Johnny, you're such a badass. That is an awesome recommendation. Use the because you can get a fresh blade. Yeah. Now the thing is, now here's the question.
Here's the question for you, right? So bones aren't very uh hard, right? And my problem with sawzole blades is the paint. So either you gotta get one that has that doesn't have paint. I don't know if they make unpainted saws all blades.
Yeah, yeah, we I've had them. Really? But if you don't, you can just burn the paint off because you don't need the temper. Yep. Because I mean, even an untempered steel sawzole blade is eight jillion times harder than the bone.
So you just friggin', like, you know, torch off the paint off of your cereizal. This is the smartest thing I've heard all day. You know what I wanted to do one one time? I wanted to buy a uh, so I I I've never really experimented with uh electric knives, like Queas Nart. You ever experiment with electric knives?
Uh use them a couple times, but not experimented. Yeah. So I've always wanted to experiment with the handheld band saws. You ever seen these? Like they make like small narrow throat.
You ever mess with those breaking animals down? No, but I mean just they have them cordless now. Oh, really? Yes. So you can walk around with a cordless, like small throat bandsaw and you can boof, boof, boof.
Have you ever experimented with the rotary wheel chicken cutters? No. You ever seen them? No. So if you go to the live poultry joints here, like the the person whose job it is to break down the chickens sits at a bench, and then they're given the plucked chicken after it comes out of the plucker.
And there's just this rotary knife, high spin spinning rotary knife, and they just grab the chicken. If you could see me, you'd see me holding the ascent of the chicken, and it's go, and just like that's it. The chicken just goes away. But there's all sorts of fabric cutting equipment that I thought would be awesome to task for meat. Been cutting.
Yeah. Yeah. Like for like large slabs and stuff, like just. But I've never had it. But the sawzall is my my new favorite concept of uh of use taking a sawzall to a ham.
Because the hardest part is where the joint is, right? To bone out. And if you could just knock that joint off with a sawzall, cut the face straight off and then rip the bone out. Yep. Yeah, definitely take off the head of the bone there.
Oh, don't you hate that? Yeah. I mean, like, I mean, you're a professional. Imagine, imagine if you're only doing like one or two a year, or even worse, like one or two every 10 years. Imagine what a pain in the pain in the behind that is to get that done.
Guys, I me tell you, if you've never done anything we said on the show ever, like boning, like like breaking a ham down with a see uh sawzole, that's it. That's that's the advice right there. Uh yeah. We got time for one more call. Oh, caller you're on the air.
And then I have one question again, because it's meat related. Caller, you're on the air. Uh hey Dave, uh, this is Jesse Kramer calling from Maker's Kitchen. How are you doing? Doing all right.
Um I'm finally I'm at the vegetti episodes. Uh, so you guys entertain me on my ride on my ride every day. Um don't go shoving things into your vegetti, it's bad. Go ahead. Um I'm calling in because I do uh remote cooking classes at clients' house, and um I've done the Michael Roman hot smoked duck ham at home, and I use a half hotel uh perforated, and after you brine the duck uh breath and then dry them out in the fridge, you cook them in the oven and try to get it to about one sixty feet.
And I was gonna try and redo the recipes so that I could use the circulator, uh hit the temperature with perfection, and then use a smoking gun. And I wasn't sure if that would hurt the end result or not. Johnny. So um so one thing that happens when you smoke something is if you smoke it with a heat source versus cold smoking, it's a pretty different flavor. And I think that the proteins react with the you know, the hotel p perforated hotel pan.
So you'll get a smoke flavor, but it will be it'll be subtle and it won't have like that any type of ham kind of flavor. Grab it. Yeah also sm like the smoking gun is also like what I like to call like a static smoke. It's like you apply smoke and then you walk away and then the smoke settles down. It's not the same.
I mean like so what are your thoughts for like let's for someone wants to do experimentation just getting like a a little chief or something like this. Yeah or just like you know take a tube and like s you know put an offset fire or just like give yourself enough heat and just do you know smoke it like you would over a fire. Are you what do you think about the old double hotel pan trick? It's hard to not get it too hot and have it get kind of acrid right? Yeah it's in I think I think that's right.
And then the you know the chips just burn off in a really awkward way. But I mean did you know that did you know that the internet is a series of tubes? It's a series of tubes. Uh anyway so so caller do you get you get it getting uh good suggestions here or no like what do you what do you think? Yeah yeah yeah I I was just trying to make it a little cleaner and and more travel friendly and I don't have to babysit it but um most of the things I feel like I it's gonna compromise uh the flavor.
M most of the smoking gun stuff is more like putting smoke into things so you can see it like for an actual like smoking something is like live smoke is very different from I don't know I I call it static smoke but I don't know like what you would I don't know I mean I would say just do like an offset Weber. You know you're gonna get yeah you know and that's gonna I mean do you think do you think that there's a way I mean I don't know if the circulator's the appropriate tool to get the internal temperature to what I want, but do you think that there's a way to uh use the circulator just to cook it to my exact temperature and then somehow um maybe put it in the oven with that perforated pan at a lower temperature but hot enough that the smoke might still penetrate? I mean, yeah, the circulators, I mean, I don't know, Johnny, you have your own, I mean, like you wouldn't I wouldn't want to do like a lot of it that way, maybe, but but for insurance purposes, circulator is always good for ensuring that you hit your internals, and then all you're worried about is the smoke flavor. You're not worried about cooking it anymore. So I think it's gonna be great.
Um, it's just gonna be different. Okay. The other problem, yeah. I mean, it's it's hard anyway, so you're not worried about the texture's not gonna be a problem. Part of the problem with cooking a duck too long is the texture, but that's on on mead rare rare, not on uh not on a hard cook.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Uh then I'll stick to the uh the the tried and true method then. All right, cool. Hey, Dave, can I do one more quick thing?
No, there's a show coming in. Uh all right, so listen, I'm going to I'm going to answer Matt Hall had like he legitimately wrote in a question on sausage, and I'm gonna get maybe I'll record Johnny's answer and we'll just play it next time off my phone. Yeah. All right. I mean, feel free to contact me on any meat questions.
So I think Dave retweeted or tweeted out about uh my Twitter handle. So Johnny D. Hunter. All right, Matt Hall, I'm going to get this answered on my phone, and then we will somehow broadcast it next time. Next time, cooking issues.
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Thanks for listening. Hi everyone, I have two questions related to sausage making. This is from Matt Hall. Uh I recently made a batch of roasted garlic sausage using a mix of pork tenderloin. It's all I had at the time, so no judgment.
No judgment. Uh, and back fat. The nominal fat concentration should have been in the range of 25 to 30 uh uh percent by weight. I salted the mix about one day in advance of grinding. Uh I froze my grinding equipment, the standard KitchenAid accessory, and kept the mix refrigerated until it was time to grind.
The resulting sausage had a slightly mealy texture. Could you comment on what might have gone wrong? I'm wondering if I underestimate the fat content of the tenderloin and or should have had slightly frozen the mix in advance of grinding. And two, thinking about the issues of the first question led me to consider historical sausage making. Everyone seems to stress keeping your equipment mixed and mix cold.
What did people do prior to modern cooling technology to achieve sausages with acceptable texture? Thanks for your advice, Matt. Uh okay. I would I would assume on the mealiness that the um the tenderloin is gonna be a problem there because it's too lean and it's gonna it's not gonna emulsify well with the with the fat. And um and so as it cuts through.
The other thing is is that no one ever has really good success with those kitchen aid. Yeah, they're just like inherently there's something about the uh there's something about the throat on them that is just like they they clog, they smear. Yeah, I mean it's just the the equipment, nothing is like tight and compact and it's all plastic and stuff, but they do make there is a third-party add-on for uh stainless steel all pieces, and that is great. I think that works as a really good sausage maker. So for real.
Yep. And is it just like a like a bigger, like a bigger like what do you think about the old Czechoslovakian guy, the hand crank like table mounted Czechoslovakian cask guy? Yeah, I mean, those again, I feel like the equipment like the the blades and the and the plates, they don't like fit up really close to each other, and you gotta keep those things really sharp and such. But I mean they can work, but it's still I see a lot of smearing when we use one. So, what do you think about historical sausage making?
Is it just because they were hand cutting in the fish? Yeah, I was gonna say hand cutting. Um he did mention something else about freezing in the meat or slightly freezing it, and that will cause it to be mealy too. Really? Yeah.
Because everyone recommends par freezing for kitchen aids or even par freezing for everyone freezes their their knives and everything. That's important. But the the uh issue with freezing the meat is that it's a you know, you're dehydrating, you're pulling moisture out of the protein, and so going back into the grind is gonna be problematic. What about the um post-grind, like doing the bind? Do you think that's also an issue?
Like uh do you buy I mean like we're gonna cure something, obviously that you need the bind, but like on a fresh sausage, do you worry about the bind too much? You sit in there doing a lot of manipulation afterwards with your hands? Uh normally it's it depends on like what the coarseness that you want is, but the easiest way to do it is just do two grinds. So uh this is leading into, and I hope the levels are okay, guys, because we're you know, I have no idea how to use this equipment. But this leads me into uh my favorite Johnny Hunter topic, which is what have you put through your meat grinder?
Yeah. Because you you put everything through your meat grinder. Meat grinder is a great piece of equipment that is can be utilized for all kinds of processing. And it is on industrial processing. They use auger systems with blades for all kinds of vegetable and cheese and things like that.
So give me some interesting ones that you might people might not. You've done masa in it, right? Yeah, so we make masa in it and you get a really nice masa. How many passes? Uh twice.
Fine plate? Fine plate, yeah. With blades. With blades. Always with blades.
Do you ever do anything without the blades? Uh I've never I've never been able to get it to really work without the blades. What about like like what's it like what about what happens when you try to put mashed potatoes through the nightmare? I've I've not put I would imagine that it'd get a gummy. Get gummy, yeah, it wouldn't be like what else do you think?
That's a lot of so I make hot sauce. Oh so like we put all the peppers through. And it's kind of nice because it filters out some of the seeds. And uh I mean we have like a grinder that does 110 pounds a minute. And so we ground we ground 600 pounds of peppers this year through that grinder.
And it's just like and fine plate, one grind. Fine plate, one grind, yeah. Yeah, you couldn't get a second plate, you couldn't get a second grind through it because it's becomes liquid. Well, how does it filter the seeds? Where do the seeds stay?
The seeds stay in the auger, so you have to like remove it all every couple passes. Can you use it like like uh like a tomato strainer for doing sauce? Yeah, so I do process tomatoes through a meat grinder as well. Does it hold back the skins? Because that's what sucks in the tomato sauce is the skins.
Will it hold any of the skins back? It does not, but my favorite way to do tomatoes to get the skins off is to freeze them. And then what? And then you just drop them into warm water and the skin comes right off. You like that better than the old school score and score and boil?
Yeah, that's I think that's a lot more libro intensive. Yeah, I've never tried it. I'll try that, that's a good tip. That is the way my grandmother made all of her tomato salads was she would score it, boil it and then take the skin off and serve. Yeah, uh I have to say that uh like uh texturally I understand why to remove the skins, but it was only after I started building the spinz all that I realized how bitter tomato skin is.
Because I started eating concentrated tomato skins because I would buy like, you know, I'd buy grape tomatoes because that's what they had that tasted okay to make tomato water and the tomato water is fine, but God, because it remember, the like a grape tomato has so much more skin. You know what I mean? And so like I would eat the the concentrated skins. I was like, this is terrible. This tastes terrible.
You know what I mean? So it was like a big shock to me that tomato skins are that bitter. And so now I'm like, yeah, you should take those things off. You know what I mean? Or use the old school like Yeah, hand nails and stuff.
Yeah, we ever I've never actually I own one, but I've never made tomato sauce that way. You know, the big conical passer that I mean it's a meat grinder, basically. It's just the auger slash, it's a mechanical chicken deboner. You know what you should do is we should we should build you a uh like a cone to go over your meat grinder so that it just holds the skins back in the cone. I could totally build it.
Because the the back pressure from the stuff coming out of the auger will stop it from going through. But like, I mean, if you send me the diameter, we can I'm sure I could run a test. I'm not sure whether it's food grade or not, but I can run a test. We can run a test. Okay, yeah, yeah.
That would be great. Yeah, I mean, I think that you know, if people had more uses for meat grinders, then they wouldn't have to use the shitty kitchen aid ones. What about if you do if you try to do alternative mosses like rye is really hard because it's gummy, really, really gummy? Will it get gummed up or is it okay? And here's I mean it's a little so we have an eczema and um and I we I did the rye one with you here.
Um and I've done rye through the meat grinder. It's a little bit better because it's not quite, it's not the plates aren't as close and it's a sharper blade, so you do get a nice, you get a nice uh dough that comes out of it, and it's a little bit less of a pain in the ass to clean because you're not clean, you're cleaning stainless steel, not a rock. Right. What about uh nut butters versus a champion? Um well so the nut butters you need a little bit finer of a of a dye, so you get a pretty you get a pretty loose grind.
Even with a couple of passes. You could do it twice, yeah, for sure. So one of the issues I have when you're gr you know how like when you grind nuts, if you add sugar to the mix before you grind, it seizes everything. Yep. Can a meat grinder handle that?
Yes, it won't seize. Yeah. It's a it's a better it's a better pass through than you know, a you know, than a kitchen aid or a 'cause that's a surefire way to destroy your Vitamix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like sugar and nuts is sure what I mean, like look in a food processor, everyone puts the sugar with the nuts just to stop it from oiling up, but they're not getting it to the point where it's good the it's gonna like gum up.
They're not actually releasing the the oil, but like if you put it through a serious grinder, like I don't uh I think I told you I almost burnt out my next magic. The smoke came out of the back of the unit because I sugared my mix when I was grinding nuts. Stupid. Um, I like to push stuff to the uh limit limit well. So what else what else in the uh in the uh meat grinder?
In the meat grinder, uh I made verju. Oh yeah? Yeah. And it held the skins in the auger or no? Yeah.
And uh I mean I filtered too, but you know, we were able to keep most of the skins and the seeds out. Um I was pretty happy with that. Did it crack the sea? So in other words, like if you're using like uh one of my problems when I'm working with, let's say uh concor grapes or something like this is I always worry about crushing the seeds too much because then the bitterness and tannins and stuff. So do you if you use a c if you're using a coarser plate with grapes to get the initial crush, yeah, are you do you then find that you aren't ruptured that you're not getting as much tannin out?
You do get some tannin out, but I mean at some point it does the the seeds kind of create a barrier on the outside of the auger and then just the juices is coming in. So Right, because it can't be nearly as tannic as blending in a Vitaprep. Oh yeah, definitely way less. Yeah, because like you know what, well, like typically I hate working with them because what I'll do is I'll throw the enzyme in. Yeah.
And then I'll just hand I'll like smash it with my hands like sit there like just like you know smash the hell out of it with my hands. And it's like irritating if you have to do a lot of it. Yeah that's what's nice about a meat grinder is that you know with a lot of equipment you put something in you blend and then you have to pour it out. But a meat grinder you're just it's you know faster you you know continually do it. So um so what about cheese?
You said cheese what happens to cheese in a meat grinder. Yeah like you know if I have to like shred a bunch of cheese and you know so you know instead of like using a vitamin uh a Roboku and I'll just like throw it through the Vitamix and so if you used a coarse plate do you think you can like one pass make rotel? No throw in the tomatoes the hatch and um does anyone not like Rotel Rotel's delicious amazing I love Rotel. I love queso. Yeah queso is delicious too uh we should talk about Oscar Meyer.
Oh yeah so uh and the other last thing you were telling me is that right near you in Madison tell me what happened. So we have an Oscar Meyer plant owned by Kraft they closed it um this year and uh I've been waiting for the auction because you know there's just equipment and I knew and I I knew people who worked at Oscar Meyer. I had been in the plant before um I'd never been in the plant I had been in the offices. So did you walk through and tag what you want about this yeah well there was 1400 pieces no 2100 pieces in the auction and uh it was a three-day auction and you know live? Live auction.
There was online too, but mostly live. And so like I have been to a lot of auctions. Like almost all the equipment that I own, I've purchased at restaurant restaurant grocery store. I like I prefer grocery store auctions. Why, because the restaurant dealers aren't there?
They're there, but you get the meat processing department there and you have your baking. Right. You know, like at a restaurant equipment, you maybe get like an oven or a fryer in it at a at a at a grocery store. They got like 14 ovens that go up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, so I didn't know what to expect. They put the catalog on, we like kind of searched through it. You know, some of these meat grinders are like the size of you know, a room, and like they can handle something like 10,000 pounds an hour. Which is not our size. They feed employees, yeah.
Uh but you know, so we spent three days there, but one thing that I thought was really cool, um, is that there they, you know, Oscar Meyer have been doing sous vide for you know 40 years. Cause they yeah, because like they're industrial, they'll do whatever's best. Yeah, and they're so they had these vats that were the size of a dumpster, and they had all this mechanical um pumps to circulate the water, and then they had these like heating elements running along the bottom in order to like give it indirect heat to the water. And so you had basically, you know, sous vide was developed for industrial food way before it ever hit like you know, the restaurants or chefs or stuff. So it's pretty funny to see the size of the room that was.
Um they didn't auction that piece off, but there was some interesting pieces. Were you like 50 bucks? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but then you have to pull it out.
But I did get um, I got a bunch of carts and you know, these two thousand dollar carts, you know, 100 bucks each. Really? Yeah. You're familiar with the the old old story about the uh armor factory and the meat carts, right? Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. I had thousands of carts. Yeah, yeah. So like what like how many did you get? How much did they cost?
So they cost me a hundred bucks each. Right. I got f forty. Forty. Yeah.
That's a that's still like a good bit of money. Yeah. But I mean it would have cost me $80,000. If you were gonna go bur were you were you in the market for a hundred cars? These are these are exactly the cars that I needed to buy.
You should have just bought them and then sold them to other people. Going to like underground cart collective and just like sold cards to people. I haven't known to flip equipment for an auction. Why not? Yeah.
Like the fact of the matter is is that uh, you know, a lot of people don't have this the skill or the desire to like go cherry pick the good stuff out of an auction. I used to do it back when I was allowed to buy equipment. And uh there's an art to it. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Like knowing which auctions to go to. You always size up your crew too, because you have your restaurant dealers and you get your scrap guys. Yeah. And you all and then you have like a couple people who are just like there to check it out. You know, there was like a bakery and you know, a couple other my mushroom farmer was there.
A couple farmers. And so yeah, you always see the strap guys and they go over to the piece of equipment, they kind of like lift it up just a little bit, and then they stop bidding at an exact price. They will not go above that. Yeah, yeah. And uh and then your restaurant dealers sometimes they're there just to mess with you, you know.
Well the restaurant guys like my in New York, restaurant, New York City restaurant auctions, it's like it's always the same group of folks, and it's like I if they thought they could sell it again, you can't you can't you can't beat them. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like you don't want to beat them. You know what I mean? Like, whereas if you get something that they don't want, then you can get it for free.
We don't really get a lot of scrap guys here because I guess no one has a scrap truck. So it's it's more like uh you know, like the first fryer I ever bought wasn't a stainless kettle fryer, it was uh a plain steel kettle fryer, and literally nobody wanted it. Because like they they there's no resell on it, like all you only resell a stainless fryer. Yeah. And so I was like, yeah, like 25, 50 bucks, something like that.
You know what I mean? It's like, and that's how like I got everything. Like uh it was just a little too crappy for the restaurant folks, you know. It was a little because it's standard restaurant, uh restaurant procedure here is you buy the used equipment, you keep it out on the street, and you like power wash it down on the street, you take everything that looks crappy and you paint it with spray paint to make it look like metal, and then you wheel it and sell it. Yeah.
So like that's like you see them on the street constantly like washing the grime off of it and then spray painting it, you know. Well, I find with auctions that you can get your best deals if you just wait the longest. You know, just stay the last. Right. The last like hour.
Because it was so long. The auctions are so long. But you know the thing is like you have to have a truck because here in New York, it's like always like you have to take it out today. It's like you buy it today in cash today and you leave with it today. Yeah, you have to have the capabilities.
One of my favorite experiences, I've started going to uh vegetable auctions. Ooh, there's never bought food at an auction. Yeah, so there's an Amish vegetable auction in Wisconsin that I go to, and uh, you know, it's hilarious. I mean the produce is really nice, it's all locally grown, but then it's just like a bunch of people having really different needs bidding on you know, thousands of pounds of squash. And then you're like, if they don't need the squash, you're like, I have a meat grinder, I'll take it.
Alrighty, awesome. Well, uh Johnny, thanks. This has been the supplementary cooking issues.
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