Read Up On It – March 9th, 2012
This week’s edition of Read Up On It is a love letter to butchery, a kooky ice cream parlour and a stocky southern chef who believes in the preservation of seeds, stories and more.
- Men’s Health has a rather meaty (pardon the pun) story about the current resurgence and love for butchers and butchery. Predictably,it’s all about men talking about how good their meat tastes.
- Speaking of butchering, Gastronomica invites Edward Lee to talk about his recent experience at an abbatoir. “You don’t hear “slaughterhouse” in the farmer’s vernacular. You hear euphemisms like “harvest my pigs” or “process my cows” instead. Stockyard signifies mega-processors like Swift or Smithfield. Small, independent processors are called abattoirs, which sounds so much more civil.“
- Over on the other side of the plate, the cultivation of fruits and vegetables – and the people who pick them – is the topic over at The Atlantic.
- The New York Times’ Mark Bittman shares his love for the umami factory that is miso.
- Forget Micheal Pollan and disregard Alice Waters. The person who talks the talk and walks the walk when it comes to food security and heritage is Sean Brock. Eater has two videos of him this week, one eating and cooking pigs’ ears with Andrew Zimmern, and an interview with Charlie Rose, where he talks about such things as his seed archive. This is my kind of guy.
- Eater also posted a teaser video of an ice cream book I need. Ever hear of Humphry Slocombe? If you haven’t – and especially if you have – check out this video.
- I need to see this movie. You need to see this movie. We all do. Then we can all dream of sushi.
- This last story is a little sad. Milk Thistle, a farm in upstate New York that supplied Momofuku Milk Bar with their dairy (and was subsequently immortalised in their cookbook) has shut down its operations due to financial troubles. The story in Edible Manhattan is an example of the problems that many small farmers face, and an example of how difficult it can be to farm.
