[0:00] Broadcasting live from Roberta's in Bushwood, Brooklyn, you're listening to HeritageRadioNetwork.com.

[0:19] Fishes, fish. Hello? Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network. Every Tuesday from 12 to 1245 broadcasting live from the backyard of Roberta's Pizzeria inside of a cut up old container can. Joined, as usual in the studio today with Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez. How you doing? Check this out, people. Call in all of your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. The 1st episode of cooking issues where I have memorized the telephone number. How do you like that? Nice. I was thinking about it on my crazy bike right over here. I managed, even though I'm a little late, you know, I managed to bike here from my house in 15 minutes flat. which is why when I show up sometimes you hear me at the beginning of the show and I'm coughing up a lung. because I'm an out of shape 40-year-old guy, biking from Manhattan to Brooklyn in 15 minutes, right? No comment from the nastasia. Today's show, episode 58, by the way. is brought to you again by the modernist pantry. Today's show is sponsored by modernist pantry supplying innovative ingredients for the modern cook. Do you love to experiment with new cooking techniques and ingredients, but hate to overspin for pounds

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[2:49] and hydro recipes, I often use powdered. And Knox brand, by the way, gelatin is fairly good quality. It's like equivalent, I think, to gold or even higher. Anyway, whatever. If your recipe calls for gelatin, give sheet gelatin a try. Vans of cooking issues at place in order of $25 or more before next week's show. We'll get a free package of 160 bloom sheet gelatin. Simply use the promo code CI 58. That's cooking issues 58 when placing your order online at modernestpantry.com. Visit us, visit modernistpantry.com today for all of your modernist cooking meats. How was that? Good? Okay. So, remember, though, calling your questions because we would appreciate calling questions, we enjoy them too. 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128. All right. Now, uh, anything interesting happened this week, Nastasia? Do we do anything? I felt like we did a lot. Into the farm? Oh, yeah, this weekend we went to Cesare Casella, one of our

[3:42] good friends, favorite Italian and any kind of chef. Very good host. invited herself to a farm. that he has, what do we call it, like a partnership with? So the farm specializes. It's part of this Center for Discovery and the Discovery School, which is this great place in Sullivan County that it's basically a residence school slash place,

[4:06] home, really, for people who are either severely autistic or multiply

[4:11] disabled and basically need a constant amount of support. And one of the initiatives they have, uh, from a therapeutic standpoint, is a farm where they, Cesare grows his king into cattle there, which

[4:22] are which are fantastic, but they also have sheep, goats, chickens, uh,

[4:27] pigs. They're starting a dairy, and they grow a lot of their own vegetables. And so the idea being that, and Cesare got involved as a place for his cows, but also he's helping them ensure that the food that everyone there

[4:39] eats is a very, very high quality. The idea being that, the better the quality of food you eat, the better your life is. We certainly agree with that, right, nostasia? Yeah. So every year he has a fundraiser with a bunch of chefs. Mark Ladner from Del Posto, you know, Kevin Garcia, who else was there? Our own Marco from Roberto's was there. Marco Jesus Christ, Carlo. I call him that because someone there called him Marco and it sounded, oh, Jesus Christ. Carlo. Nastasia's giving me the squinky eye. All right, all right, come on. Anyway, who else? Who else was there? John Frazier? Oh, yeah, John Frazier was there. I feel like I'm missing a whole slew of people. I am. Anyway, it doesn't matter. anyway, it was a great event. Raised a lot of money for a good cause. I made a cocktail. It was a caraway mint julep, which I think we've mentioned on this on the air before the idea that spearmint and caraway. They was Dave's brothers. The chemical that makes them that makes them taste unique. The 2 chemicals and mirror images of each other. They're isomers. Anyway, Carvone is the chemical. So we call the drink. Tony Carvone, and we do it in a bunch of different varieties. This was a julep, carvone. We've done other kinds of carbones. Uh, uh, we, I like them. You like them? A lot of people are like, can we, me, me. You know, listen. If I if you come to an event that I'm working or anyone's working. If someone's making a cocktail, like, 1st of all, 9 times out of 10, the people who are running the

[6:03] event, don't give water to the cocktail guy. So don't walk up to the cocktail guy and ask the cocktail guy for

[6:09] water because odds are they don't have it, right, Nastasia? They don't have it. They just don't have it. Go to the wine station usually has it, right? Or there's usually a water station or something, but usually the cocktail guy, they barely gave that guy ice. They didn't even give him bar towels. He's wiping his hands off on his pants, right? Pretty much. Anyway. Another thing, don't just ask for a pour of the straight liquor unless you order the cocktail too. If you say, hey, can I have a pour of the straight liquor, they really, they don't like you anymore. They don't, right? Yeah. So just get the cocktail. Look, it's a sunk cost, right? It's not like they're going to charge you extra for the cocktail at the event. Just get the dang cocktail. And if you don't like it, put it down somewhere and then say, this is what you say. I enjoy the cocktail. Can I just have a shot of the straight liquor and then they won't dislike you, right? Yeah. Anyway. So, and it's like anything. When you choose a cocktail like caraway that is a polarizing thing, which I should never do, I should only choose kind of slam dunk ingredients. The people who like caraway came back for like a bajillion of them, right? We had a bunch of many multiple takers on that. Steepy Semi seemed to enjoy the cocktail show. He was at the event. But then, you know, a bunch of people just won't even try it. It's a real heartache when you do polarizing ingredients. Anyway, a good time was had by all, especially my kids who got to milk a cow. Um, Nastasia, did you go milk the cow? No, I was making the cocktail. You're not making the cocktail. You were picking mint. making the cocktail. You were picking mint. See, I demand accuracy from everyone I work with, right? True. True, accuracy. Anyway. Uh, this is interesting. And this has never before happened. We have, uh, the identical questioning from 2 different uh, listeners. One, Johnny Hunter, and the other, and I have to scroll down because they're not in the same one. Uh, Sam Kanson, um, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Nav, Ben. Banana. Okay, I don't know whether they know each other. But I'll read them both. The 2nd one from Sam is, how would one go about making a bagel cocktail? Obviously, the major challenge is transferring the base wheat bagel flavor into alcohol form, after which one would season with sesame poppy,

[8:21] onion salt, or whatever their personal bagel preferences might be. Um, And then, uh, on a very similar note, from Johnny,

[8:30] I am trying to make a bagel flavored cocktail, and I was wondering if you have some tips

[8:34] onto, uh, how to achieve something of a bagel flavor in the cocktail. I was thinking of using a sesame bagel, toasting slices of it and infusing it into a

[8:41] malt-based liquor, and then adding in other flavors. Any ideas you have would be great. That's so freaking random. You think those guys know each other? No. Really? Is this just like the, like the, the week of the bagel cocktail or like the, it's like the bagel cocktail revolution? Well, uh, I will say that I have uh, never made a bagel cocktail before. We did do a burrito cocktail once. Remember that? It was disgusting. Yeah, it grew gross. incredibly bad. We took a I took a chipotle brand. This was as a joke, by the way. I wasn't intending to service, a Chipotle brand, I believe it was a bean burrito. blended it in a high-speed blender with beer, Chang beer, actually. And then Centrifugia, to get the solids out, and then chilled, got rid of the fat and recarbonated it. And it tasted like a subway Italian BMT sandwich, I believe, is what we decided it tasted like. It was awful. didn't have it. You were busy off sulking somewhere, sulking. Yeah, it was for a pilot we did for some stoner thing. Anyway, I think I might have mentioned in the year before. But bagels I haven't done. However, there is a lot of experience in the bartending and in the food world with bread and cereal infused liquids.

[9:51] So, uh, Sam Mason and, uh, you know, was famous for his

[9:55] cornbread, ice cream where he would soak cornbread and milk, I think, and then uh, and then used the milk for ice cream. Um, Christina Tozi does uh, a lot of cereal based uh, ice creams. She soaks cereal in the milk and then uses the milk to make ice cream, milk and cream. The closest in a cocktail world that I remember is Eben Freeman had a well-known pumpernickel, uh, pumpernickel raisin scotch, where what he would do is he would slice the pumpernickel raisin bread very thin,

[10:24] Lee. then he would toast it and he would put it into scotch in a basically a mason jar.

[10:29] And then after several days, he would decant it, and I assume, squeeze out the bread to recover the excess. Otherwise he'd be a wasteful, wasteful bastard. Maybe he was a wasteful bastard. I don't know. But, um, so that is exactly what I would do. So you could, as per Sam's thing, just do a plain bagel. and then infuse any other spices. But I think you'd be just as good choosing a bagel that you enjoyed. Um, like an everything bagel, let's say. And then, you know, slice it. If you want a toasted flavor, I think it's going to transfer better with a toasted flavor, toast it, although then it'll taste like a toasted bagel, not like a raw

[11:05] bagel. You could do it with a regular raw, you know, not raw, but you know what I mean? Untoasted. Slice it thinly and let it infuse. I would squeeze the stuff out, expect some loss because of the absorption of the liquid into

[11:15] the bagel. I would assume you'll get less loss if you dehyd, at least dehydrated it before you infused it. I mean, maybe if you don't want to toast it, if you don't want those brown flavors. I would at least dehydrated to get some of that water out so that you get a better infusion of the stuff into

[11:31] it quicker, quicker transfer the flavor to the alcohol. But that should definitely work. Now, the question is what kind of a, in other words, I wouldn't necessarily, as, um, I think it was Johnny's name, right? do a malt-based liquor, although you could. when we say malt, I assume you mean something like malt, like scotch. But I think something like scotch is going to be a little too strong. I'll go for a little lighter flavor to go with your bagel because I think it's, you know, it's not going to want a very heavy, heavy flavor.

[11:58] I mean, I mean, look, I would first, I mean, I know a lot of my listeners probably aren't vodka fans, but I would try it 1st in a high-proof

[12:04] vodka just to see what the kind of flavor transfer characteristics are and then move on because it's only going to be a couple of days it's going to take. it's going to take you a month to make this stuff and then switch over to, uh, you know, a flavor that you maybe like better with a bagel.

[12:17] Like I don't think bagel and gin sounds good. you? No. I mean, if you're going to do bagel and vodka, then you could go bloody, bloody Mary-ish on it a little bit, you know what I mean? Some of the flavors that I like with a bagel, like tomato and things like that, or tomato water and a bagel, vodka might be nice. I'm trying to think of what else. I mean, the problem, you know, I think the problem with a scotch is

[12:34] that the oak is just going to be too intense and I don't know that it's going to mix. blow the bagel out, don't you think, stuff? You know, and any regular malt stuff's going to be like a regular malt liquor, let's say, like Colt 45 isn't going to have enough of

[12:46] a an alcohol, I think, to really get a good infusion on it. So I think you're kind of stuck there, using a lighter flavored product. Maybe, I mean, I don't think you'd want to go into something like a grandpa. I'm trying to think. What do you think? Any other ideas? liquors that might taste good with a bagel? I think vodka might work. I mean, I hate to recommend it necessarily, but look, just test it in vodka first. Yes? Yeah. Make sure you seal the mason jar. I don't think you're going to need to heat it. The reason for Mason jars just has got a wider neck on it. And so, you know, you're not going to have to try and shove it in and then get it out. Wow, that's the 1st time that's ever happened. Two, like, very strange questions that have never come up before coming out. I bet you those guys know each other. Please write in and tell me whether you guys know each other and you're having some sort of bagel cocktail off and you just didn't want to tell the other one that you were writing a desk, right? I mean, I mean, seriously. seriously. how's that possible? Okay, so starting with, uh, actually, you know what? You want to go to our 1st commercial break and come back, let's go to our 1st commercial break, call an order of your questions, 2718-497-2128. 718-497-2128.

[13:52] Stay tuned for a live broadcast. HeritageRadioNetwork.com.

[14:03] One, two, get down. They didn't call the Beatball.

[14:19] I made the call, beat the phone. Look at me. You know what, see? Feel bad, muck. Look at me. Nobody see. See a bad mother. Paid the car, beat the ball. Hey, the car, beat the ball. Look at me. Know what to see? See a bad mother. Hello, and welcome back to cooking issues, calling all your questions, too. 718-4972128. 718-497-2128. Going with Johnny Hunter's 2nd question. Uh, is it safe to make dry cured meats with beef if you don't have a heat step to kill

[15:22] E. coli at some point? I was wondering if there was another way to kill E. coli and still make good dry cured meats. Thanks, Johnny Hunter. Now, this is an excellent question. First of all, The question is, are you, what kind of dry cured meat are you trying to make? Are you trying to make a, like a sausage, like a dry cured sausage product, or a whole cut, dry cured meat, like a prasala or something like that? Now, uh, the problem is, there's a number of bacteria that can grow in dry cured

[15:52] meats. And the place to go for what the US government considers to be kind of the information on this, is the National Center for Home Food Preservation, and they have a guide in literature review series, and one is smoking and

[16:05] curing, literature review and critical preservation points. And they talk about all the different kind of nasty beasties that can grow in your meat, like botulism,

[16:15] uh, listeria, uh, staphylococcus, and E. coli. They go through all of them, but these are going to be the major ones that you have to deal with. Now, the issue with E. coli is, it's kind of the newer varieties of E. coli, like 0157 H7 that are very kind of, they can be virulent and difficult to, they can cause very bad infections if you get them.

[16:42] So here's the issue. Dry curing unheated meat products doesn't necessarily kill E. coli. Even if there is quite a bit of salt present and you have a significant dehydration. You will kill some of them, but it's not considered an ultimate kill step. The bad news is, is that it doesn't take that many living bacteria to necessarily cause

[17:07] an infection. There was an outbreak of E. coli in Washington State in 1994 that was linked to a dry fermented salami product that had been infected with E. coli. And they didn't think in the at the end of the studies that it was caused necessarily post cure. In other words, it was probably caused by meat that had been highly infected at the beginning of the cure process. And there was another study that was done, that a meat that was very highly infected, did show, basically, you know, a factor of, I believe it was either a 100 or a 1000 reduction in the quantity of E. coli present, but still not a total eradication over the course of time of the

[17:47] dehydration, the fermentation. So the acidity, and the salt and the dehydration aren't necessarily enough to obliterate

[17:59] E. coli. And the same holds true for meat jerky that's, especially meat jerky made out of ground meat, like ground meat strips that you then dehydrate, even though it's dehydrated quite a

[18:08] bit. Apparently, it's not enough of a kill step to necessarily assure that you've eradicated E. coli. Have you killed a bunch of the E. coli? Most probably. Now, on, so those guys recommend a heat, basically,

[18:20] the US government on meat, they recommend a 145 degree for, I think, like 4 or 10 minutes or something like that, kill step for their beef containing

[18:32] sausage. So a lot of people, to get around this, have removed beef from a lot of their

[18:36] mixes, like pepperoni and what, so it doesn't have to have that because strangely, unless it's gotten beef in it, they don't expect you to have E. coli in it. So they don't they don't ask for or require that. That said, 145 degrees for uh, 4 minutes is a, or whatever it is, 8 minutes is preposterously high temperature to kill E. coli. I mean, ridiculously high. You should be able to kill it at much, much lower temperatures. But I think the reason they do this, I don't know whether they do that step after they dehydrated or

[19:08] before, if they do it after, then it's a lot harder necessarily. There's not as much water, so it's probably not as easy to get the killing temperatures to the bacteria. Um, so that's the unfortunate, uh, the unfortunate of it. But if you're doing a whole muscle cut, like a prasala. It's assumed that unless you've needled or Jakarted the meat, that the inside is relatively sterile. And so basically you just need to make sure that the stuff on the outside is killed. And the extreme high salt that's on the outside of a whole muscle cut like a brasala, as it's curing, I think

[19:37] is probably going to wipe out anything that's present. In fact, I've never, I wasn't able to find any cases from a dry cured, like a prasala of

[19:44] a poisoning. There have been ham issues where you've had that, but I think they're mostly off of

[19:49] brines ready to cook hams, that they've had outbreaks of things like staff,

[19:52] um, uh, E. coli, uh, things of that nature. So those are things um, that I would, uh, you know, worry about. You could also go to the FSIS, a food safety inspection services, processing procedures for dried meat on the web, and it has a lot

[20:11] of, a lot of information on it. I'm going to get back because my study of that and I'm adding nitrates. Nitrites and nitrites, obviously, are added to control bacteria, like botulism and to give kind of a cured color to meats and a cured flavor.

[20:25] But while I was researching this for this question, I came up with an interesting kind of slaughter and anesthesia idea. But before I get into that, I'm going to read an update we had

[20:33] from, um, Andy in Chicago who asked us about bluefish. Remember who's going out in blue fishing? He actually texted this in during last week's show, but I didn't have time to get to it because I didn't see it because we were on the show. So he says, not sure if you'll get this in time for today's show. We didn't. That's why we're doing it this week, but wanted to let you know how the bluefish testing went. Now, for those of you that know, that listened a couple of weeks ago, whatever. Andy was going to go out fishing for blues, among other things. And I said, please do an Ikigime test on bluefish, Ikigime

[21:04] being specifically spinal cord destruction, where you stick a needle down the spinal cord of the fish, kill the spinal cord, and therefore stop the messages, you know, the electrical signals from going to the spinal

[21:15] cords of the muscles. This preserves the ATP and the muscles, which means it goes into rigor a little bit later and a little bit softer than it would otherwise, which preserves firmness and flesh. And since bluefish gets nasty and mushy. Um, I would assume that it would be a prime, and it's a strong

[21:30] swimmer, and usually it's the very strong swimmers that uh, uh, benefit a lot from spinal cord destruction. I thought it would be great, but I've never been able to run a test. And so Andy ran one for us. So I'm just going to read what he wrote. We caught 3 bluefish on our 1st night of fishing, one of which you can see my friend holding in the attached pick. You can't see the attached pick, but I can. We did not destroy the brain, but cut through the spinal column entail on all 3 spinal cord

[21:56] destruction, and on all of them. Okay, sorry. He cut through the spinal cord and the tail on all 3 fish. The spinal cord destroyed 2 of them and left all of them in an ice bath in the cooler to bleed out. Okay, so unfortunately, he did not get to listen to the show until after everything happened, so he didn't remove the gills and guts

[22:15] immediately. We did filet them, however, within about 2 to 4 hours of catching them. It's an interesting question of whether you should filet a fish before or after it goes through rigor. This is not what he's writing. I'm just telling you this as an aside. If you filet a fish before it goes into rigor, it tends to be more contracted and firmer because it never relaxes as much as if it's left on the

[22:34] muscles when it's going into rigor. The idea being that the bones and the structure of the fish hold the meat in place and don't allow it to contract as much. So they end up being kind of larger fillets. That said, it might make a firmer filet with less gaping in the flesh after it comes out of rigor, if it's

[22:51] filleted before it goes into rigor. interesting question. And I don't know whether it's gone under rigor. Nose and I, years ago, ran a couple of tests, but nothing conclusive, so I never posted on it, but it's very

[23:01] interesting, and there is some research on it because people want to filet fish as soon as they can after they catch them for economic reasons.

[23:07] Anyway, we did filet them within about 2 hours of catching them. The non-spinal cord destruction fish. We ate the 1st night. Very light cornmeal breading, pan fried, and a bit of canola oil, tasted a bit mushy but good overall. One of the spinal cord destruction fish. We ate the 2nd night after 24 hours of resting, also pan fried and light cornmeal breading. Definitely firmer, flakier and tastier. The last one we ate the 3rd night, cooked in a little butter, salt, and pepper without any coating. All 3 of us noticed a market improvement over the previous night's fish, meaty, firm, flaky, and delicious. After 15 plus years of eating bluefish. That was probably the tastiest piece of bluefish I have ever eaten, huh? Huh? Uh, we need to run some more control tests. I'd like very much to run this test again, but it'll probably be another 10 months or more before I'm back on the Gulf Coast. Nevertheless, I think this test can be considered a qualified success, qualified only to the extent it was only 3 fish and they were not eaten side by side. The darker flesh near the skin was present, was still present on all 3 fish, you know, that's like the bloodline near the thing, the

[24:00] KI. I don't mind a GI. I don't mind eating that part, but it looks a little funky. It is also pretty easy to cut out of the filet before cooking. Do you have any thoughts on how to treat that? Thanks so much. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, Andy, from Chicago. Well, I mean, look, the fact that you like the bluefish the 3rd day, I think is freaking awesome, especially if you were an experienced bluefish, bluefish eater, you know kind of the problems and tribulations

[24:23] with bluefish after it sits around. I think, you know, obviously, there's nothing you can do about the bloodline, by the way, except for cut it out. I mean, that's it. There's nothing you can do with it. I mean, the Japanese with big tuna, they'll cut out the bloodline and they'll grill it separately over very high heat. I don't particularly like that preparation because it still has that kind of bloody metallic taste. They like it. you know, they really, I guess soy and stuff and they grill it and everything and they like it, but, you know, whatever. It's also kind of small. I like the taste when it's mixed in with the other parts of the fish. Now, the fact that you like that, I think this is a really a huge opportunity for further study for

[24:55] any fisher people who listen to this. I unfortunately don't have an opportunity to fish and my stepfather refuses to do

[25:02] Ikigime or spinal cord destruction on the fishy catches on Cape Cod, and he primarily gets a striper anyway. I don't know when the last time he got a blue was. But a bluefish, I think, is fantastic fish. It's a fish that, you know, I've always liked, but it's recently becoming more popular. It's our fish, it's there in abundance. If we can make this fish taste significantly better based on its post-slaughter treatment by doing spinal cord destruction. This is a huge opportunity for us to improve the quality of the fish that I already think is delicious. But I favor fatty fish anyway. Do you like a fatty fish, nastasia? She does. She does. She's not talking to the mic, so you might not be able to hear, but she says that she does. For those of you that, you know, can't hear the whispered tones of Nastasia leaning into the background and playing with her person. Anyway. doing something very important. Yeah, what? She can't say. Uh-huh. Yeah, all right. Great. Can't say. Super. All right. So, uh, Ryan Santos writes in, hey Dave, what's up with snails? That's a good question. It's kind of, I like an open-ed question like that. What's up with snails? I've had them both great and terrible. What's the best way to cook them? Is there a low temp- cooking solution? At what temperatures are snails and then, quote unquote, cooked? And is this all pointless as I only have access to canned snails? Thanks. Well, yes, if you only have access to canned snails, then all of this is pointless because those snails have been cooked at a very high temperature already.

[26:22] And, um, you know, they're basically, those snails are, uh, have been sterilized in water and salt, uh, and, you know, probably a court bouillon mixture in a

[26:32] can at at least 120 C for, I don't know, like 30, 40 minutes. They're they're cooked. I mean, they are cooked. But even if you don't have access to live snails. I know in Europe, they're available because I was looking at my, at my, the might be the worst translated book I own called Intensive Snail

[26:52] farming. It's from Italy. I went to a farm called La Chocula, which is a slang word for snail in the north of Italy.

[26:59] The other one's Lumaka, right? Lumaka is the real word, but La Chocula is the name of the farm, and it's, you know, it means snail

[27:07] in, like, Etruscan or some crap. anyway. So the, by the way, my son says I say crap too much. Daddy, you say crap too much. It is true. It's true. I say crap too much? Anyway, it's better than the rest of stuff, I say. Anyway. So, uh, I have this book, and apparently in Europe, and I've never seen it in the US. I sure it's available. You can get fresh packed frozen snails in like frozen block form, the way that you would get shrimp. And I don't think those ones have been high temp processed, so you could, you could cook with those. Occasionally in fish markets in New York, you will get created live snails. And the way that they're prepared is they take snails and they've been eating. And traditionally, if you catch snails, right, that you haven't been feeding yourself, you don't know what they've been eating. They could have been eating plants that are poisonous to you, but not poisonous to them. So the typical thing is you starve them out for 3 days. You put them in a cage with mesh so they don't get like done in their, you know, all mired in their own muck. And you just let them stay in that cage for 7 days. Uh, no water, nothing, and they'll they'll basically uh, they'll cover themselves. They'll go in to basically a hibernating mode. They'll cover their whatever that thing is called. what is that called? It's not a perculum, is it? whatever the flap is that covers the snail. They'll cover that up. It'll seal themselves and they'll go into hibernation. And then they'll last for a long time alive. So that's what they do. They prepare the snails like that and they shift them in a box. At which point they're ready to go. You wash them off. Uh, you know, with whatever vinegar, whatever, if they have any, stink them, be careful with them because the shells are often quite

[28:37] fragile. Then you boil them for like 3 minutes in salted

[28:42] water, whatever. This is basically just to kill them. After you kill them, you pick off the trap door. Uh, take the snails out, then you prepare them using any one of the normal

[28:52] techniques. The normal technique is to cut off the black foot, although I've heard that that's not necessary. Uh, you know, at the back, whatever that, like the guts are in the very back of the snail. Although, like I say, I hear that's not necessary. And then they're simmered in a court bouillon, which is like a flavored bouillon for a long time until they're tenderized, and then repacked in the shells with your butter, with herbs, whatever. A lot of Italian preps actually, instead of using parsing all that use mint. That'd be kind of interesting, right? Minted snails? anyway. In the North End, they use peppermint, apparently, in these recipes from Etruscop. Anyway, Etruscan recipes. Anyhoo, um, Now, uh, if you can obtain uh, live snails, right? I think that's the way to go. I've done it, but I've only done it maybe 4 or 5 times, and I haven't done it in probably 10 years because I used to have a fish market that had live snails on a seasonal

[29:41] basis, and I would just buy them from them and make them, and they were delicious. We tried to cook some snails that hadn't been purged out properly. Um, when, uh, when I was in Italy a couple years ago and it wasn't 100% success. So, I mean, if you can get ones that have been cleaned out and we also tried to feed them, which didn't work because you're supposed to fatten snails and the Romans used to fatten them on milk and they, but you need to know what you're doing. I've had horrible luck. About 15 years ago, I tried to fatten snails on rosemary,

[30:08] because apparently paella, you know, they fed them herbs, the snails, they'd feed them herbs, and then they would taste like the herbs, but I think that's horse hockey. And I talked to Steingarten. He thinks it's BS2 because these snails, not only did they not eat the rosemary, they died in my in my house and in my apartment on 38th

[30:25] Street, and they stank up the entire apartment, I tried to take the few live snails that were left and cooked them and my wife was like, are you nuts?

[30:31] Are you freaking nuts? Who the hell is going to eat those snails after they've been smelling up our bathroom for the last, you know, week? Anyway. So I wouldn't recommend doing that. But they are fairly easy to cook. Now, as for sous vide or low temperature, I couldn't find any recipes on low

[30:45] temperature cooking of snails, that said, the issue with snails, when you cook them, is after you do your kill step with them, you take them out and you're supposed to boil them either a couple times or rinse them in something acidic to get rid of the

[30:57] mucus. Snails produce a lot of mucus, and you want to rinse the mucus off before you work with them. So if you're going to do low temp, I would try to do the kill step initially, pull them out, rinse them off, you know, with in water,

[31:11] salt, and vinegar, like get the, and then do a low temp prep. But I don't know what temperature you'd use. Like, would you do similar to an octopus? And so Keller for that does like 5 hours at 77 C. I do it usually like just a regular simmering water for like 3 hours in a bag, or Keller has his cuttlefish recipe at 64 degrees Celsius for 10 hours, which he says is good, but I have no experience with.

[31:31] The one I'd really like to try is whatever Nathan Mirville does for Gooey

[31:36] Duck, which is, if you're looking it up and you don't know what it is. It's spelled Geoduck, and it's the porn star's clam. looks like, well, it's, yeah, just look it up and you'll see what it looks like. It's crazy. It's like, you know, and he made, I think, the best tasting gooey duck that I've ever had at his modernist dinner that he did, you know, at his

[31:56] lab, and he did it a very low temp and not that long, basically just warm through in a CVAP oven. But I don't have a copy of modernist cuisine. I couldn't look it up. Anyone that has it out there. Uh, not a write in or call in right now. 718-4972128 and tell us what their cooking technique is because I'd like to give that. I think that would be useful. Anyway, let's go to our 2nd commercial break and we'll come back with the last questions.

[32:30] Oh, yeah Come on.

[32:48] yeah Two, one, two, one, two, one, two.

[33:26] walking down dr

[33:48] Too funky in here. Open the window, let in some air. Put a little air freshener under the drums, open up the window, let out some. I love some live James Brown. Thank you, Jack. Is that yours, Jack? That's not mine. Who knows whose call was that? Oh my call, yes. Yeah nice. Any live James Brown is good. You know, we used to play, was it was it always James Brown for the center, right? For our middle track was always James Brown, and someone started complaining. Exactly. Who the hell complains about James Brown? Look, look, if you don't like James Brown, There is something wrong with your funk motor. I think it's because they liked when Jack and I put on Phil Collins that one time. right. That was it. Phil, was it Sasudio? It was a little bit of Genesis and a little bit of Phil. I can't remember. Phil's style Genesis. Like, uh, that's all, like really bad Genesis. No, I'm not saying that's bad for all you Genesis lovers. By the way, you know who's a big Genesis lover? famous violinist. Stop. Let's not talk about that. No? Let me just say, there's a guy who owns a $3.50000000 violin whose only rock music that he likes is Genesis. music other than class. Other than classical, he likes his genesis. And I won't say that his last name is Bell because I can't say that. But when confronted by, you know, I don't know who, let's say someone whose name is Nastasia,

[35:04] really, she literally said, really? Phil Collins, that's all, which is, you know, one of their later and, you know, whatever, weak songs. He's like, oh, no, no, no, no, early Genesis. Okay, getting in trouble. All right. So the other question from San Kansen, Ben Navev, Ben Navev. Sorry, Sam, that I can't get your name right. Someone calling it. If you pronounce it to me 3 times in a row, I should be able to get it. And by the way, he's at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madtown, which everyone who's from there loves it more than they love anything. You know, I've never I've never been. The closest I've been is to Oshkosh. The International Agriculture and Natural Resources Community and Environmental Sociology. That's a hugest name for a department I've ever heard in my entire life. Anyway, he also asked about the bagel cocktail. And his other question, though, was, what is a secret to a crispy pickle? We do lots of pickling with a variety of vegetables. However, once the product is canned, they become mushy, albeit delicious. The most I have found is to salt, use ice baths, and even some recipes that claim grape or oak leaves will help keep the product crisp. Any thoughts? All right. Okay. So the grape leaf thing is really about, um, cucumbers. So in cucumbers, there is there are enzymes in cucumbers. And there's a huge long list of them that I got off of a website. Um, a lot of, like, well, they're basically, um, they're pectinace enzymes, like pectin, um, Esterace and, uh, like lots of really random ones. I not going to try to pronounce. Okay, exopolygalactteronace, uh, endopolygalactteronace, which, you know, endosylonace, basically a bunch of aces that uh, enzymes that break down, um, pectin, and even cellulates that break down like

[36:59] a hemicellulose and cellulose that destroy the structure over time, unless the enzymes are destroyed. Uh, so you can either destroy them or you can inhibit

[37:10] them or you can remove them. So in a cucumber, right? The grape leaves that are added apparently have something in them that can inhibit the activity of those

[37:20] enzymes. And I don't know what that something is. I didn't have time to figure it out, but I've seen it done that listed, not just in kind of like home nut job sites, but also in some university agricultural extension

[37:31] site. So I'm assuming that there is some validity to that, although, you know, I don't know specifically what the ingredient is. The other thing is, is that those enzymes are concentrated in the blossom end of the cucumber, which is why they say to cut off the 16th inch,

[37:49] a 16th inch or so slice at the blossom end of the cucumber. The blossom end is not the stem end. The blossom. So if you, like, think about a zucchini flower, when you see it, you get those baby zucchinis with the flower coming off of them,

[38:01] right? So the blossom end is actually the other end. the end it sticks out of the plant. And from the research that I was able to do, that is where it's mostly concentrated. So taking a small slice off of that section will get rid of

[38:14] a lot of where those enzymes are. Also, if there's any flour material left that flakes off at that end, that can cause because the flowers maintain that enzymatic activity, basically, even if they are dried. So, and there's a bunch of studies done in the 50s where they put flowers, even into pickles that had already been done, and it softened those pickles. So you really want to get rid of those enzymes. Okay? So that's one way is to cut that off. That's gonna lower the enzyme. Use pickles that are made for pickling because they have a lower concentration of those enzymes to begin with, are more uniform, usually thinner, and are usually kind of denser and don't have any

[38:48] air voids, which are also going to lead to better pickles. So choosing your right variety. Pickling them right after you pick them so that they don't start softening up so that

[38:56] they're, because they basically start getting worse a minute they're taken off the plant. So you want to pickle them soon after they've been harvested. Choose the correct variety of pickle, uh cucumber, rather. This is cucumbers only, by the way. And then trim off that stem end. Hey, sorry, trim off the blossom end. The other thing you can do, if you notice most recipes, they have you pouring hot liquid over the pickles.

[39:19] This is for quick pickling, that is. Uh, you know, with vinegar, not like lactic acid pickles. Pour a hot mixture over it, and then heat it to like 180 or just below for a certain period of time. The reason they start with hot is because they don't want those ends. They want to kill those enzymes right away before they can do any softening. So you hit them with that hot water, and you keep them high enough to kill the enzyme, but below 185 where the

[39:43] pectens are going to start breaking down due to heat, and you wipe out the enzymes, and this is going to create a firmer pickle. If you go over 180, really, you're shafted because you're going to soften the pickle, the cucumber. So those high temperatures can, like high but not too high temperatures inactivate the enzymes and cutting off that blossom and reduces the load of enzymes in there anyway.

[40:03] Aside from that, high salt levels are going to make it so that it stays crisper. going to get more will to do to osmosis, but it's going to stop the, uh, those enzymes from from working. So those all work. In a traditional lactic acid cucumber, uh, you know, like racial sauerkraut style, you know, lactic acid

[40:19] bacteria, the high salt level, I think, uh, stops the enzymes from working and so leaves to having a crisp pickle. The other thing you can add, now, go to regular vegetables. I wasn't able to find much on, um, kind of pecked and breakdown enzymes and other things like cauliflower and whatnot, which make delicious pickles, but, uh, that said, I'm assuming high salt will work. But if you really need want to keep it crisp and you're having problems, uh, try, certain things are just going to get all wilty because of the salt and there's nothing you can do about it. Um, but, uh, try um, lime, pickling lime, no one uses alum anymore. I don't know why because they don't want to put aluminum in because people are freaked out about aluminum, but you

[40:59] can use pickling lime, and the calcium in that strengthens the pectant in the cell walls and makes it such that they stay

[41:05] firm, basically, no matter what, you know, even if you cook them. So what they'll do is they'll make a lime solution with salt and lime, you can get pickling lime, you can get cow from a Mexican store, you can get Thai lime paste, you can get anything. Make a solution of lime. It'll settle out, salt, and then put the cucumber or whatever vegetable in. Let it soak. I don't know, a couple hours overnight. There's a couple of recipes online, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. Then you have to get once it does its calcium thing, you have to soak it in a couple of regular clean water

[41:36] baths to get the excess calcium out. I once packed in heavy calcium water, cucumbers, and over the course of a couple days, they were the most disgusting things in the world. They had the most bizarre texture. So you don't want to overlime them. Right? But then they'll stay crunchy for a long, long time. That'll work with other with anything, basically. Your last resort and you can't get this. I don't even know why I'm telling you this. You can buy pectin metholesterase, which is the an enzyme that actually strengthens the cell walls of

[42:02] plants enzymatically. And you can buy that. The commercial brand, it's from Nova Zimes, it's called Novo shape. And I can take a blueberry, a raspberry, soak it in novo shape for a couple of hours,

[42:15] novo shape and water, and then boil it and it won't even break because it stays firm enough. So it's really, it's cool stuff. So those are basically your range of things. Heat treat to kill any enzymes that are present, but not at a high enough temperature to soften. On a cucumber, cut off the blossom end, not the stem end, although I might as well cut them both, though, doesn't matter. And then, and discard. Um, use fresh uh, ingredients that haven't had a time to break down. And if you need to use pickling lime, and Alan really isn't, even though it does the same thing as calcium isn't necessarily recommended anymore. What does that sound like good advice or no? Yes. Oh, and higher assault levels. If you do a low salt pickle, it's going to get softer. I think, no matter what. Even though salt, like I say, osmotically is going to make it shrivel up a little bit. Apparently it stops any sort of enzymatic breakdown. And also stops bacteria from growing, which can otherwise make things soft. Yes, yes? Okay. Now, the last thing, as I was researching, um, uh, nitrites for today's uh, thingamajig when I was doing cured meats. I came across an interesting an interesting thing. You familiar with the blue people of Kentucky? No? So there used to be a famously a family. I believe their name was the Fugets of Kentucky, the Blue Fugets of Kentucky, and they had a congenital or they have still a congenital disease called, what's it called? I'll look it up. Basically, the idea is that their hemoglobin is an oxygenated enough because they don't have the proper enzymes to take deoxygenated hemoglobin and

[43:49] reoxygenated at the same rate that we do. And so here we go. It's called Met Hemoglobinemia. And so they were blue because their blood didn't have as much oxygen and they were very pale people and they lived in Kentucky. So they had this whole thing and they were known as the blue fugates of Kentucky or the blue people of Kentucky. They since figured out how to cure that. So they're not they're not blue anymore. But where does it, where does that, where does that bring me? Because it turns out, that there's, in Australia, they're researching a technique to induce

[44:22] met hemoglobinemia in wild pigs by feeding them sodium nitrite, which is the same thing that we cure meets with.

[44:31] And pigs have a very low level of uh, the enzyme that uh, that basically convert, it's called um, methemoglobin reductase that uh, converts methemoglobin back to oxygen carrying hemoglobin.

[44:45] So they have a much lower level of this enzyme than we do. So basically they feed them sodium nitrite pills in hog baits, and they're called the baits, check this out, are called hog

[44:55] gone. Hog gone, hog gone baits. There are 20 grams of microencapsulated sodium nitrates spread throughout, you know, basically baits that they put in the forest. And what's awesome about this, hog bait, is that they eat it, and their blood no longer carries oxygen, right? Because they have too much met hemoglobin in, but they don't feel distressed. They go into basically, they get woozy and they fall asleep, they pass out, and then they die. So, uh, yeah, and like I said many times, is that

[45:28] you, I don't know whether I've said it here, but many times, I can't remember why they say here or not. Your body doesn't sense in pig's bodies. They don't sense lack of oxygen. They sense excess carbon dioxide. So the pig is not going to feel stressed. They don't freak out. when they're being killed with sodium nitrite. Um, So I was thinking, because we've been thinking a lot about anesthetics for fish.

[45:50] I've done a lot of work with anesthetics for fish, anesthetics for crustaceans, and with proper slaughtering

[45:56] practices, but this is basically only being used for killing wild hogs in a humane manner. You know what they've been feeding them before, rat poison. How nasty is that? Feeding them rat poison, which basically causes you to bleed out internally, which can't be pleasant.

[46:10] Um, and um, I'm wondering whether or not, like, this can be used for a, uh, for humane slaughter practice, basically anesthesia for regular pigs that are going to

[46:22] market. They pass out and die within one hour without any noticeable.

[46:27] There's a spike in certain biological markers like cortisol, which are normally added with stress, but the other biological markers weren't changed, and it could just be due to the fact that

[46:36] of the increased, the shift of oxygen in the blood. Anyway, so I'm going to leave you guys this week with that idea of is there a possibility for more humane slaughtering of pigs by basically putting them to sleep with what amounts to a food grade,

[46:51] anesthetic, sodium nitrite, and can this be feasible? I'd like any feedback from our readers, listeners, rather? And this has been cooking issues.

[47:05] Vicious fish, vodka. Oh, you did.

[47:17] Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage Radio Network. You can find all of our archives programs on Heritage Radio Network.com, as well as a schedule of upcoming live shows. You can also podcast all of our programs on iTunes by searching Heritage Radio Network in the iTunes

[47:35] Store. You can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening. Today, we'd like to send a special thank you to the following restaurants for supporting no goat left behind, Sambar and Mopesh. Show your support at these restaurants by ordering one of the menu items featuring Goat. Goat is the most eaten protein in the entire world, yet in the US we import most of our goat. Our dairy farms are forced to kill some male goats at birth because there's no market for them. Help make a change, support no goat left behind. As a part of National Food Day, St. John's Bread in Life, Brooklyn's innovative and life-saving food service program based in Bedford Stuyvesant is inviting Brooklyn chefs and purveyors to learn about how the organization is marrying the procurement of

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