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Don't read if you are veganitarian

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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Steve Maskery » 30 May 2022, 13:34

Oh, you've got loads there, you're fine.
I hope you have better end results than I did! :)
S
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 30 May 2022, 14:22

What was wrong with yours Steve?

The tales of woe online seem to be:

too salty
didn't get the blood out of the main artery so tainted the meat
insufficient cure so meat spoiled
quality of pig not as good as those Italian or Spanish ones.

It is a bit daunting, but I can't help thinking people have been doing this for centuries and it can't be that difficult surely?
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Tiresias » 30 May 2022, 16:25

[quote="AJB Temple

I might buy the River Cottage book as well if I find a nice cheap one :D

[/quote]

If all you want is the pig curing section (runs to maybe a dozen pages from memory) I'm happy to scan those for you from my copy.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 30 May 2022, 16:40

Ooh yes please.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Tiresias » 30 May 2022, 19:08

No problem. It’ll be Thursday or Friday, because all my print cook books are down in the Borders, and I am not just now.

For what it is worth I have tried the River Cottage method for salted pork belly. It is salty. Rimmat or rimmad fläsk analogue. Too salty for most modern palates. And for my doctor’s liking. I’m quite fond of it.

And, as an aside, if you are thinking of hanging your hams indoors, do be sure they are not dripping. I stayed somewhere (Landmark Trust perhaps) where the stone flagged floor of the storage/curing room had deep circular depressions beneath where each ham would have been. Eroded by ham juice I was told.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Steve Maskery » 30 May 2022, 19:11

AJB Temple wrote:What was wrong with yours Steve?

The tales of woe online seem to be:

too salty
didn't get the blood out of the main artery so tainted the meat
insufficient cure so meat spoiled
quality of pig not as good as those Italian or Spanish ones.

It is a bit daunting, but I can't help thinking people have been doing this for centuries and it can't be that difficult surely?


It just wasn't a very nice taste The flavour was the problem, not the saltiness.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 30 May 2022, 20:35

Thanks T. I think you already have my email. Quite a lot of people who follow the Hugh FW method say it is way too salty and that would put me right off as I have weaned myself off so much salt and my wife would not eat it.

In that context a friend of mine runs a former M* restaurant not far away (star lost due to lockdown) and we ate there recently. He's a superb cook but some of it was way too salty for me. Chefs can over season habitually, especially high end cooks. I cook for my wife and a female friend mostly, and they don't like it and tell me off.

The Serrano ham I am currently nibbling at constantly is firm, dark red and hardly salty at all. That's what I want. I don't care if I have to mature for 2 years rather than one. If it works I will do a production line of 2 or 3 a year so I can do one as a gift.

It's also interesting what knife is needed to get tissue thin slices. There is a definite knack to it, which I have not mastered yet. All the skin and fat trimmings are eagerly consumed by the garden birds. This includes, to my astonishment, a barn owl this evening.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby HappyHacker » 31 May 2022, 08:16

I can't help on the curing apart from noting that a friend used to cure meat from his own pigs and it was very nice, but he has moved to a different part of the country and we have lost touch.

Finding freshly butchered meat should not be too much of a problem however.
There are small holders all over the country keeping a couple of pigs. The problem with pigs is that if you breed from them you get a litter of approx 12 and then getting rid of 12 pigs can be a problem and expensive if you have to feed them until they are fully grown.

If you can search out smallholders, local abattoirs and butchers may be able to help, with pigs locally you may well be able to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement. The other advantage of smallholders is they often go for the rare breed pigs or crosses which take longer to mature and usually taste better that the commercial breeds that are bred for quick growth which minimises feed costs.

Local agricultural shows may well have pig classes where you may well be able to find suitable smallholders.

I know a couple locally who have the occasional pig for sale but they are the wrong end of the country to you and they usually have friends placing orders months in advance.

Good luck

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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Jar944 » 01 Jun 2022, 16:40

This might be a silly question, but do you not have "County ham" over there? That was usually the start of a good pršut. It just takes about 12 months.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Tiresias » 02 Jun 2022, 17:15

AJB Temple wrote:Ooh yes please.


Here you go, photos rather than scanned. From the original River Cottage Cookbook. Essentially the same info is repeated in the Meat book. This is more concise.

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Let me know if you can't read it, and I'll scan it properly. And I have a better haggis recipe than HFW. SO there.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 02 Jun 2022, 21:38

Thank you. Most kind.

As it happens I have the meat book. Didn't think to look there.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby 9fingers » 03 Jun 2022, 09:00

Jar944 wrote:This might be a silly question, but do you not have "County ham" over there? That was usually the start of a good pršut. It just takes about 12 months.


I can't say Ive ever come across "County Ham" before. I do see Ham marked by a particular county e.g. Wiltshire Ham but that usually means it is just locally produced ham. Folks here are becoming aware of minimising food miles and anything looking local attracts them.

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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Lurker » 03 Jun 2022, 09:13

9fingers wrote:
Jar944 wrote:This might be a silly question, but do you not have "County ham" over there? That was usually the start of a good pršut. It just takes about 12 months.


I can't say Ive ever come across "County Ham" before. I do see Ham marked by a particular county e.g. Wiltshire Ham but that usually means it is just locally produced ham. Folks here are becoming aware of minimising food miles and anything looking local attracts them.

Bob


Nothing to do with the place of origin,Bob.
Wiltshire curing method is a thing though.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby 9fingers » 03 Jun 2022, 09:15

Ah - Every day's a school day here

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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 03 Jun 2022, 09:32

Surely it is "country" ham. Term used a lot in the US to mean home cured. (according to YT).
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby droogs » 03 Jun 2022, 10:49

Country ham is the term used across the pond when referring to hams made from whole pork shoulder on the bone that go through a dry cure and cold smoking and are then air dried over a period of 10 to 18 months. The process and seasoning in the cure is based on Bavarian/Saxon cures from the 18th C and is very different to the process mostly used in England at the time which used a wet cure and hot smoke before being hung to dry. The way to thin about the final result is to see the country ham as having a Black Forrest/Iberico texture and the old English as breaded or Wiltshire ham.

As an aside most Americans these days when they make one use a product called cold smoke to inject into the meat to give the smokey flavour ~(as used in factory massed produced smokey bacon) It is basically the smoke from wood fires that has been captured in a big funnel and passed through condensing tubes to give a liquid at the end rather than making and using a proper cold smoker. Cold smoking cools the smoke to below 20c before it enters the smoking chamber and flavours the meat without cooking it in any way
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 03 Jun 2022, 13:58

:text-goodpost:

And also Americans make cheese by taking soft plastic and colouring it yellow.

I prefer the Bavarian / Iberico style if that is dark ham. I'm not aiming for a soft British type. No books haev arrived yet and anyway it's not raining so I am painting the dratted house. :|
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Woodbloke » 03 Jun 2022, 14:39

AJB Temple wrote:And also Americans make cheese by taking soft plastic and colouring it yellow.


Some years ago there was a programme on the televisual where Stephen Fry toured the USA and at the end one of them he dryly commented to the camera..."bring your own cheese" :lol: - Rob
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Cabinetman » 03 Jun 2022, 14:56

Cheese from all corners of the globe available at Wholefoods all across the states, bit like Waitrose.
So they are starting to return to civilisation :lol:
Just about the only supermarket where it’s safe to buy meat as well. Ian
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby John Brown » 03 Jun 2022, 17:47

While I generally agree regarding American cheese, we once had some cheddar, in a tin, from WA, that ranked with the finest cheddar I've ever tasted. I think they can make good cheese, but there's not a lot of demand for it.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby spb » 03 Jun 2022, 18:02

I think that's a general pattern with American products, food and otherwise - there are small producers scattered around the country making things that are easily up there with the best in the world, but (as with many countries) the economy has been so distorted that the vast majority can't even think about affording them. Most of what's on the market, then, and what gets most associated with the country, is the stuff made to be as cheap and profitable as possible.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Phil Pascoe » 03 Jun 2022, 19:21

If you've watched the various TV chefs' tours of the U.S over the years they have excellent food. It is of course the best not the worst.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 03 Jun 2022, 20:20

I agree. By far the best meat I have had was in Japan, then when I worked in Argentina (which was easily the best before I got hooked on Japan), and after that pitmasters in the US. The yanks do a lot of things really well. OK, it might be genetically modified, but taste is all.
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby Cabinetman » 04 Jun 2022, 00:34

And there are so many craft breweries it’s incredible, but they brew much stronger beers than I am used to.
This is the brew list from the local in Pennsylvania, the lowest ABV is 5% and the highest a massive 16.9% - it’s an old pub transported from Liverpool btw. Ian
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Re: Don't read if you are veganitarian

Postby AJB Temple » 04 Jun 2022, 08:39

wow. 16.9% is stronger than a lot of wine. I would be newty after one pint.
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