2014 Attack of the Puns

Happy New Year, dear readers. Hope you all received your midnight kisses. I did not, though I did receive my fill of drunks puking or peeing on the sidewalk, and I almost got in a fight while trying to keep a drunk friend from getting into a cab with four strange guys. But I like to judge things on their story value. Congrats 2014, you've started with quite the interesting story. Another time though.

I read through my past posts, and I've found that I've been progressively more informational, and less entertaining. While I value the importance of getting some kind of intellectual something something from things one reads, I'm a little bothered at my gradual increase in dryness. I never want this to seem like I'm lecturing in front of a chalk board, unless the chalk board has stick figures and diosaurs drawn on it. So, in this new year, I'm going to try and communicate more of my take on the information rather than just the information itself. Let's see if we can catch a few laughs while talking about…

Chapter 5: The Raw Ingredients

Meat

Yes, it's the new year and we're all on diets. What better thing to start with than juicy delicious dead animals (sorry veggies)? This chapter starts with the basics of where to purchase, pack, and store meat. In the next bit we find a couple interesting things. Heads up, this is gonna be full of meat puns, appropriate and not. I'll probably be milking them for all they're worth. You've probably herd them before, they're not really rare.

Firstly, something with which I've only been mildly acquainted, the quality grading of meats. 

First chart of the new year, woohoo!

So meat is graded on a number of things, most prominently (shown in this chart) the marbling and maturity of the meat. The marbling refers to the distribution of fat with lean muscle. Looks like marble, beautiful lines and squiggles running through a solid color. You know, but it was alive. Maturity doesn't exactly refer to the actual age of the meat, but rather the physiological age. There are a lot of other factors that steer a meat being categorized in maturity brackets ranging from A-E, but there's a lot of anatomy and such, so we'll skip it. Feel free to browse here if you'd like to know more about cartilage ossification and it's placement on the dorsal edges of individual sacral and lumbar vertebrae and spinous processes of the thoractic vertebraeyadayadayada. Interestingly enough, while the USDA requires inspections of farms/ranches/slaughterhouses etc. in order to make sure everything is kosher (but… not literally necessarily), the actual grading is not required. So theoretically not all meat is graded. But it's realistically the same as the Motion Picture Association of America not really being any kind of governing body whose approval is required, but if you want your movie shown in theaters, you'd better have them give it a rating. If you want to shove your meat in America's collective mouth, you'd better have it graded (phrasing… boom). 

After our grades, we have our cuts. Another concept full of terms we've heard but not really thought about. For your consideration, I've provided a chart with the cuts and where they come from… and I chose a chart without a face. You're welcome. 

We also have charts for pork, veal, and lamb, but we won't focus on those for now. I wouldn't want to boar ewe.

The beef industry is a pretty big deal. We in the states devote something like 600 million acres (probably more now) of land to pasture to raise livestock. That's a lot of cows, more than anywhere else in the world. And as we mentioned before in the last post, cows are especially talented at ripping ass. Have you ever been to another country and thought "Wow, the air is so much cleaner here?" There are a few reasons: cars, industry… but also cow poots. Of course there are some parts of the states that smell worse than others. I was in Porterville, CA awhile back, and the place is surrounded by cows… and therefore enveloped in one giant cow air-biscuit. I'd assume the rent is quite cheap there. 

Isn't this a cooking blog? *Sigh* I can never turn down the opportunity to talk about butt trumpets. Mooving on… 

Since I'm Jewish, I have to mention a bit about Kosher meats. For those of you who aren't acquainted with Judaism/don't have any Jewish friends, being Kosher is basically a bunch of crazy rules in the Torah (first five books of the bible), that dictate what Jews eat, how it's prepared, and when they can have it. Common rules include not eating pork (or any meat from an animal with a cloven hoof), shellfish, and not mixing meat and dairy. I'm… not Kosher. My sophomore year of college, in order to "Christen" (hehe) our new grill, my roommate (after winning a few rounds of rock paper scissors) prepared bacon-wrapped shrimp with provolone cheese. Pretty much as far from Kosher as it gets. Delicious. 

In order for a meat to be considered Kosher, it has to be specifically slaughtered, bled, and fabricated in compliance with the crazy laws in the Torah. I suppose they have to be pretty specific if God says so. Those are some pretty high steaks. In order to get the Kosher stamp on your meat, the animal has to be slaughtered by a Shochet, (from the Hebrew root Shin-Chet-Tav, meaning to kill or destroy) and he is akin to a rabbi of the butchery. The animal is killed very specifically with an obscenely sharp knife, and it is widely considered the most humane form of slaughter, the animal feeling no pain and unconscious in less than two seconds. If you'd like to read more about it… go for it.

Side note: one of the crazy theories for why Jews were (are?) so hated around the world draws from their being Kosher. Back when the black plague ravaged Europe, the Jews lived outside of the cities, and were so persnickety about what/where/when/how they prepared and ate their food, that relatively few died of the mortal disease. From this, many drew the conclusion that the Jews had sent the plague. Though, realistically there are plenty of reasons why Europe had beef with the Jews. This story might be total bull.

Poultry

We will now be switching from meat to poultry puns. Hopefully they'll be just as eggsellent. Hope you're ready for some fairly free-range punning.

To be perfectly honest, most poultry is roughly the same but in different sizes. A squab is smaller than a guinea hen is smaller than a hen is smaller than a duck is smaller than a capon is smaller than a goose is smaller than a turkey. Couple of terms in there one might not know:

• Guinea hen: kind of like a little pheasant.
• Squab: sounds fancy… but it's a pigeon. That doesn't fly.
• Capon: A castrated male chicken. Apparently castration makes it taste better. Sound's pretty fowl to me.

Poultry all pretty much have the same cuts, as shown here:

"Draw me like one of your French girls"

More poultry trivia:

• More Jewish stuff: Schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat, is a common ingredient in the Jewish kitchen. Sometimes it's just served plain on toast.
• Alektrophobia is the fear of chickens
• In the Middle Ages, it was believed that chicken soup was an aphrodisiac. Pretty original, that's thinking outside the boks.
• Ben Franklin was a major advocate for the turkey being the national bird instead of the bald eagle. He made a very strong case, and he wasn't chicken about it. But in the end, like thanksgiving leftovers, he was foiled. Speaking of founding fathers…

John Hand-Cock

Some puns from the "Terrible Thanksgiving Pun Turkey"

Fish.

Once again we'll be changing the theme of our puns. I'll do my best, let minnow if I'm floundering. Personally, I'm getting hooked.

Ok so when purchasing fish, there are a few things you want to look for. First, smell it. If it smells fresh, like the sea, it's good to go. If it smells super strong, well then… there's something fishy going on. Next, feel the skin. It should be slick and moist, with the scales firmly attached. Also look at the fins and tail. If they're looking pretty ragged, that fish is probably reely bad. Flesh should be firm and elastic, the eyes should be very clear and full. As fish age, their eyes get weird, and if you've got cloudy eyes, then it's a red herring. Check the gills, they should be red to maroon color with no gray or brown. The belly should have no sign of "belly burn," which is when the stomach enzymes begin to eat the flesh because the guts are not removed properly. Hey, cleaning fish is hard, but you don't have to be a brain sturgeon. And of course if you've got shellfish, make sure it's moving or not moving depending on the type (lobster/crab should move, clams/mussels should be super closed). 

We've had so much Jewish stuff... just evenin' it out

Now, as I read through this part of the chapter, it's amazing the scale of fish listed that we eat. So instead of listing each fish and it's family tree, I've decided to show a few of the weirdest fish we eat. 

Yes... we all know what it looks like.

Now, not native to the sea, we have the Geoduck (pronounced gooeyduck, it's some kind of native american something something). Now that large appendage is NOT what you think it is. Basically it buries itself in muddy lakes and sticks that thing out and collects food. It's akin to a mollusk and it's a delicacy in many parts of the world. I don't think I've ever haddock-ray-ving for this one though. Lets… not look at it anymore. 

That's a tall, frosty glass of NOPE

Speaking of phallic terrors, we have one of the ultimates: the Lamprey. This thing latches on to other fish with its rows of scary teeth and sucks out their guts. We actually eat this demon tube? Well, not so much in the states, but in Portugal, it's popularly eaten by boiling it in it's own blood. Rice on the side. Not sure if I'd eat that… have to mullet over.

Bringing sexy back

The Monkfish is quite the looker as far as seafood. But, it is actually "slimy yet satisfying." It has a texture and flavor very similar to lobster, so it's fairly widely used in the cheffing world. At Pike's Place Market in Seattle, they have a very famous Monkfish prank, it's pretty funny in person. 

Well I'd like to say the first offishial post of the new year has gone quite swimmingly. I've had a whale of a time. I'm glad to have have the op-perch-tuna-ty to share this info with you all. If you have any more meat/poultry/fish puns, please feel free to leave them in the comments just for the halibut. Next week we'll continue with fruits and stuff. 

Pun Count: 37

Happy New Year

Cheers