Culinary Conversations

[Amateurinawe]

Any talk about bacon is enough to turn any veggie. I know as my son is, and he can't where bacon is concerned. Is this primeval ?

[worth1]

Any talk about bacon is enough to turn any veggie. I know as my son is, and he can't where bacon is concerned. Is this primeval ?

Probably ya just cant resist bacon of any kind.
English back bacon, Canadian bacon or USA side bacon or any other bacon.
One of my favorites is jowl bacon and fat back.

[worth1]

So I get this text from my friend yesterday thanksgiving at our house no if and or buts.
Told not to bring anything not for sure about that but I know how they eat, just like me but I just have to bring something.
I have awhile to decide what sort of thing I will bring.
What ever it is they wont have it, that's for sure.

[worth1]

Video Break.
Doritos.

[karstopography]

Bacon has gone nuts since I was a wee lad. Used to be it was a couple of name brands, Hormel or Oscar Meyer, and a cheap brand or two that were available at the market, all thin sliced, and now there’s all kinds of slices, brands and woods involved and seasonings, cured and uncured. I consider this a positive trend.

Growing up in Texas where and when I did, it seemed like the food markets were pretty dismal back then. There wasn’t 1/20th the fresh produce now available. Fresh lettuce meant iceberg, period. Maybe a limp head of romaine if you were lucky to find one. Apples, Red or golden delicious, take it or leave it. Or some ghastly mealy Rome apple. Is the Rome apple variety even still available? People here back then, unless you had a garden, ate a lot of canned vegetables. Canned green beans, canned peas, canned corn, canned fruit cocktail. Beans, those were invariably pinto, were dried. Whole casseroles spun up based all on canned vegetables. Margarine, people almost universally ate that instead of real butter. I wish I was kidding. I know some still do here locally and maybe elsewhere eat and prefer margarine. I just can’t understand it. Butter is infinitely better and pretty inexpensive.

My parents always had reconstituted lemon or lime juice in the fridge. Why didn’t they just have the real deal, the actual lemon or lime? I think it was because the actual fruit then was either pretty bad and/or pricey. Same for vegetables, so we ate canned stuff. Fresh squeezed orange juice was unknown and no one seemed to have orange trees in their backyards back then like they do now. Orange juice was made from frozen concentrate.

I developed a taste for the commercially canned green beans doctored up with bacon and onions, but otherwise it is hard to imagine a scenario where I’m willingly eating canned peas or canned asparagus these days.

I am likely a terrible food snob, but I have found few redeeming features of the local East Texas cuisine I grew up with. It’s interesting that just a few miles to the east, our Louisiana neighbors spun up fantastic dishes. Same climate essentially, same ingredients available at least in theory, vastly different results. Or just travel 100 miles west and there’s the great Czech and German influences on food, or move a little more towards the border with Mexico, more great results.

I grew up in a culinary black hole.

[worth1]

Dont get me started on the un cured bacon thing.
One of the biggest food lies in years.
All of it has celery powder a natural source of nitrates.
The USDA or FDA won't let them say its cured because of the inconsistency of the nitrates in the powder or juice.
That meat is pink because of the nitrates not the smoke.

[pepperhead212]

Dont get me started on the un cured bacon thing.
One of the biggest food lies in years.
All of it has celery powder a natural source of nitrates.
The USDA or FDA won't let them say its cured because of the inconsistency of the nitrates in the powder or juice.
That meat is pink because of the nitrates not the smoke.

Actually, it's not that the FDA / UDSA won't let them call it cured, but they will let them call it uncured, even though it has all those nitrates in it, from the celery seed. (They can test those and know exactly how much nitrates are in them, and put a "safe" amount in them). And charge a ridiculous price for it. They can be smoked well, and actually taste as good as any. But they still have nitrates, so "all natural" or "uncured" means nothing for your health.

[Amateurinawe]

You telling me soylent green isn't real food !

[worth1]

We have all heard of a float where you put ice cream in some sort of soda pop like root beer Coca cola or some such rot.
One of my favorites is vanilla with orange soda pop or mandarin orange soda from Mexico.
Well later tonight I am going to try a new one on me at least.
It will be Blue Bell Butter pecan ice cream with mango nectar.
It seems to me that even a flat coke or soda works well or maybe even better because you dont get all the foam.
Mango nectar has no carbonation.
Some people like the foam I don't for the most part or at least to me is a good way to get rid of flat sodas.
What ever the way you like them lets bring back the floats and do some experimenting.
Nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Now lets get that glass mug in the freezer.

[worth1]

Anybody ever try or use, Gochujang.
Just heard of it from Sam The Cooking Guy the other day and got some at the store.
Cant wait to try it out on something.

[worth1]

Gochujang is not only a red chili paste but much more.

[worth1]

I just taste tested some new Sambal Oelek it's a ground red chili paste.
Did this first thing in the morning, what an eye opener.

[pepperhead212]

Those are two of the many Asian chili pastes I always have in my fridge.

I had an okra/long bean sambar this morning - a traditional S Indian breakfast, and that's another thing that will wake you up faster than coffee!

[worth1]

I have invented a hybrid bread.
1/2 biscuit and 1/2 flour tortilla.
Calling it the bisctilla or maybe a tortiscuit.
What ever is, it is really tasty.

[pepperhead212]

So how do you make it? With some of the butter from the biscuit, sounds like it would at least have more flavor than flour tortillas, something I've never been a fan of.

[worth1]

Butter, 'lard or tallow, flour salt and some baking powder.
Add water as needed.
Not really flexible like a tortilla when it is cooked but tasty.
I have yet to become a huge fan of the flour tortilla either.
They are also deceptive as to how much flour you are eating.

[worth1]

Has anybody had the Popeyes chicken sandwich, spicy or not??

[worth1]

My life is ruined.
I just ate two whole habanero peppers in a sandwich and I didn't feel hardly any heat at all.

[worth1]

Just when you think you're out of whole cloves you find another 1/4 pound.
Yes folks I like cloves.
Buy them for pennies on the dollar at a middle eastern market in Austin Texas.
Men were killed and died over cloves way back when.

[pepperhead212]

I'm another that uses a lot of cloves, mostly in savory dishes, and that's another thing I never run out of! I always have a Foodsaver bag of whole cloves in my spice tub in the pantry, and when I need to refill the smaller jars, I snip the corner off and remove some from there, then re-vacuum seal it, stopping before it gets too tight, as the cloves can pierce the plastic. Keeps forever this way, and when I get down to maybe a half cup, I grind the last ones, and I make a note to get some fresh ones, at the Indian market, where they are cheaper than anywhere else, and also freshest, due to the turnover.