Apr 20, 2022Why don’t we eat peacocks?https://salutethepig.com/why-dont-we-eat-peacocks/ Ever wondered why chefs don’t have much peacock on their menus? Because they’re “difficult to cook” and in addition “its flesh is so hard that it scarcely putrefies” so asking for it in the restaurant is “hard hearted” on the kitchen team. What’s that? You thought maybe it was because they’re difficult to get hold of? Not according to “Bestiary” by Richard Barber. So, now you know…1 min read1 min read
Apr 6, 2022Food is community.https://salutethepig.com/food-is-community/ Asturian chef José Andrés setup World Central Kitchen in 2010 and since has regularly partnered with local cooks and restaurants and suppliers to feed people who are hungry, starving, in need to comfort and warmth, inc. in Haiti, Puerto Rico and, most recently, Ukraine. You can and should donate…3 min read3 min read
Mar 13, 2022“If I had known the world was ending, I would’ve brought better food…”https://salutethepig.com/if-i-had-known-the-world-was-ending-i-wouldve-brought-better-food/ OK, I confess to a teenage crush on the leather clad Suzie Quatro in the ’70s. This is her running through “Can The Can” nearly 50 years later… I was reminded of the track when I came across a graphic from the Can The Can restaurant in Lisbon…5 min read5 min read
Mar 11, 2022IDGAFhttps://salutethepig.com/idgaf/ I know I’m not alone — Val concurs — in finding this whole “carry on as normal, work, eat, sleep, repeat” shit a little hard to pay attention to. A little tricky to whip up any enthusiasm for much of anything, you know what I mean? My grandson sports…6 min read6 min read
Mar 10, 2022“Bad day at the office, dear?”https://salutethepig.com/bad-day-at-the-office-dear/ My suggested “go-to” is a congee, here via the estimable @madamehuang, which soothes the soul. From her excellent “The Dim Sum Field Guide: A Taxonomy of Dumplings, Buns, Meats, Sweets, and Other Specialties of the Chinese Teahouse”…1 min read1 min read
Feb 25, 2022Smoked mushroom garum?https://salutethepig.com/smoked-mushroom-garum/ Am I interested in trying this one? Yes, of course. It’s a garum after all and one made using koji, not the kinda canonical fish guts. Interested enough to pay the £18 they’re extorting plus whatever horrendous shipping charges the courier will impose plus a 20% UK import tax…2 min read2 min read
Feb 14, 2022Always here for Valentine’s Meat Juicehttps://salutethepig.com/always-here-for-valentines-meat-juice/ This morning, it seems kind of apposite to mention this American Bovril clone that was invented around 1870, so pretty much synchronous with ‘Johnston’s Fluid Beef’. More background on Valentine’s tonic here and an earlier piece by me on Bovril here.1 min read1 min read
Feb 13, 2022Has anyone seen my Niederlassungserlaubnis?https://salutethepig.com/has-anyone-seen-my-niederlassungserlaubnis/ I mean, how hard can it be? Come on good people of Germany. I need you to say “Ja!” to a residency application… To encourage you to bring this fine mission to a rapid and happy conclusion, you should remember that we Bülow’s have a Wiki page that shows…2 min read2 min read
Feb 12, 2022Once upon a time, via Anatoliahttps://salutethepig.com/once-upon-a-time-via-anatolia/ Until I read this 2021 Vittles London “What Is Kurdish Food” piece, I’d not (consciously) heard of Musa Dağdeviren. That’s on me of course, as he’s possibly the most famous extant Turkish chef — ‘the saviour of Turkish cuisine’, or so at least claims his publisher Phaidon — as…8 min read8 min read
Feb 10, 2022It’s Big. It’s Green. It’s kinda egg shaped.https://salutethepig.com/its-big-its-green-its-kinda-egg-shaped/ Today I read, via @JamesWhetlor (of Cabrito Goat fame), how the Big Green Egg is produced. Including why it has those dimples… A single ‘matrix mould’ is produced by hand, even the etching in of each dimple, with the ceramic slurry poured into moulds made from that one matrix…2 min read2 min read
