Bacon Shopping & Fat Washing

I often get asked what I do on days off—swine shopping. Inspired by the best domestic prosciutto I have seen to date, I went to procure good bacon.

Pigs are, by many anthropologists, considered to be the first animal domesticated by man in Ancient Egypt. Others will argue chickens because they only take ten weeks to mature as opposed to many months with pigs. Pigs are naturally foragers, love acorns, and when left to free range become delicious!

A large prosciutto ham was delivered to the restaurant from Caw Caw Creek Farm located in South Carolina. It took Chef Rhyne several months of persistence to get it here. www.cawcawcreek.com It is the best ham this sommelier has ever tasted. It is perfectly cured and marbled. The ham literally melts in your mouth from the intense marbling and has a pronounced salinity. It pairs perfectly with a dry Madeira or Sherry. At the restaurant the Rare Wine Co. Charleston Sercial Madeira is perfect.
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I set out to some local markets to find bacon and I found Nueske’s Bacon at Casey’s Market in Naperville. www.caseysfoods.com They arguably have the best local meets and butcher shop in the area. Nueske’s is bacon from Wisconsin and is perfectly smoked, meaty, and fatty. With my newly procured treasure I began collaborating with the staff.

At the restaurant we rendered off a couple pieces of the bacon, cut off some Caw Caw Prosciutto and gave it a bath with vodka. This is our first attempt at fat washing—a technique of infusing alcohol with fats. (Special thanks to Mixologist Mike Ryan for explaining the technique to us.) We let it marinate for several days, strained it, and placed it in the freezer. Since alcohol freezes at lower temperatures then water and fats, the fats and impurities solidify, and are then strained off. There are little or no added calories to the vodka, just the flavor essence of swine.

The elixirs we will create from this vodka are still in their infancy. Some classical flavor pairings with pig are apples, rosemary, maple syrup, and pineapple. With this as a reference, we will begin to experiment with cocktails. A Bacon Red Snapper (Bloody Mary) is in the works as well as an after dinner cocktail with maple syrup that can be paired with dessert.

More swine essence to come…TEP

Food, Wine, & Drink (Gastronomic) Foundations

(1) Gastronomy is the study of food. (2) A restaurant is a reflection of democracy on a local and cultural level. (3) We utilize our dexterous talents to minimally transform foodstuffs into a symphony of flavors, textures, and experience.

The purpose of these writings is to share the creative process involved with food, wine, and drink. It’s not that we just wake up on any random morning and come up with creative ideas, but we continuously study how food has evolved over the millennia. Not to be too serious, it is just food. We have a sense of humor and like vegetable gardens.

We study how man began to eat and discovered fire. Through history and anthropology we gain perspective of hunter-gatherers arising into an agrarian society domesticating crops and livestock. We then begin to understand how cooks, servants, and sommeliers came to be in the feudal and guild systems.

A restaurant, as we know them today, have only been around a few hundred years. With the onset of the French Revolution, many of the top cooks, sommeliers, and vineyard owners were taken to the guillotine! They were not viewed favorably by the commoners. They fled their masters, started cooking for the peasants (especially pheasant) and started the first restaurants. They served mostly stews and table wine, printing the first a la carte menus. They served regional foodstuffs that could only be procured within the local community--mostly within a day’s walking distance. (There wasn’t much refrigeration back then and fresh apples were not available in the spring!)

With an Aristotelian view of where restaurants, food, and drink come from, our foundations are set. With strong edifice we begin to cook with the dexterity of all five senses. The bounty from the fields is manipulated minimally to express the true essence of nature. We observe the optimum-instant of when products are at their best, serving them with sincerity, respect, and passion.