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Anything goes.
Let it be officially known that all food is appreciated, welcomed and savored on MM. It's one of the fine pleasures in life. And while I (personally) do not have the means to do this particular bacon curing and smoking method, I savor it like I would an enticing story, or captivating picture of a pretty girl.
Bonus points for tomatoes, delicious breads, and trick and tips on how to make your own cheese.
I tried to make you own wine before. It was easy to make, but difficult to get the proper flavor. It was too light, without a "body".
Thanks MM. I hear that some folks on this blog have a thing for Heirloom Tomatoes. Turns out so do I, and I have spent many years growing them, learning about them, and enjoying them.
Please see a good example of a Mary Hill Brandywine and a Yellow variety whose name escapes me. I've grown over 40 varieties of Heirloom and am happy to answer any questions on seed selection, propagation, harvesting, as well as ripening and cooking/preserving techniques.
For those that have never had an Heirloom tomato I would explain it like this. First off, any "normal" red tomato you get in the store is basically a Hybrid (called an F1 Hybrid, which stands for "Father One"). They all have the same Dad, and they taste like SH*T. Once you eat a real tomato, or "Heirloom" tomato you will find out that you had never eaten an actual tomato before. If you find someone that hates tomatoes, often they will react with shock and surprise when they eat these babies. Even if they don't like your Heirloom Red variety, many people will be shocked to discover that Yellow and White varieties basically taste like a more traditional fruit (with low acid), and they will mow them down raw with salt (typically).
Fun Fact - We have Doris Sudduth Hill (And Others) to thank for preserving some of our Heirloom varieties during the dark days of the 19th/20th century when we tried to annihilate all variety in food. Thankfully many people rebelled and seed saved. Fun Fact 2 - Tomatoes come in every colour from Black to White, and they all taste radically different. Note - The most common historical tomato was BROWN! It is now extinct, unfortunately, but if you carefully look at pictures of tomatoes prior to around 1830 or so, you will notice the "red" tomatoes are.......brown! This is because they were by far and away the best. Red was a far second place.
Enjoy!
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I LOVE this. I wrote about tomatoes in my post HERE. I think that you are far more knowledgeable than I am about tomatoes. But I would like to hear what you have to say about my article. My article is titled "The re-engineering of the humble tomato", and I argued that it was remade and redesigned to be easily picked, shipped and sold. Not to taste better. Please kindly read and tell me what you think.
Whoa! Good article. You covered a lot of bases on this amazing fruit. I would love to expand on what you have already written and add a bit.
1 - We do have good lock-tight evidence that the original tomato was a small grape-sized thing, green, and totally poisonous. The delay between them being this way and beginning to adopt their redness in Mesoamerica was so fast its suspicious. Like, as in...."how did these people selectively breed this this fast?" we don't know. This is similar to the ancestor of corn, the Teosinte. It changed so quickly from Grass to Corn, you have to wonder "how did this happen?".
2 - You have done a really excellent job at discussing flavour and nutrients. Full disclosure, I have a background that does include some study of Terpene and Flavonoids (in other words, flavour). Flavour science is one of my many passions. Something I have learned is this - If a vegetable or fruit tastes better this is not just "hedonic", which is an infuriating term used by Busybody Buzzkills. This is simply wrong. The taste of food is a direct signal from your brain which says;
"HEY, this has a lot of phyto and micro nutrients that you can't necessarily distinguish, but I can tell they are in here. This is better for you. Eat more of this."
The effort to convince everyone that a tomato tasted "one way" is not in any way unique to the tomato. This can be extrapolated to many foods, including pork for instance. The narrowing of Pig genetics in the 50's is a huge issue, and almost finished off dozens of species (like the tomato and damned near everything else we eat).
Basic rule in Veggies and Fruits - Odour and Flavour (same thing actually) are KING. Nothing is just a tomato. Furthermore, COLOR matters! Once you know your colours and types you can understand which to eat fresh alone, stew with, can, or sandwich slice.
To get a retro view on a guy who actually realized that factory farming was destroying nutritive content in ALL foods read Jethro Kloss (Back to Eden). He knew early on that we were screwing up flavour.
Flavour is king. Do not compromise. Hold the line!
3 - Green Shoulders. I'm with you. Keep in mind that if you have a banana handy and nestle it with your Heirlooms (with green shoulders), then you can "finish off" the shoulders in 12-24 hours tops (since the banana gives of ethene gas). Furthermore, this will push the finishing of your vine ripened Heirloom "over the edge" and end up with impressive sugar and flavour profile.
4 - Please understand Tomato comes in every color in the visible spectrum. You can literally find varieties of Tomatoes that ripen GREEN! Grow these to floor your guests when they bite into a sweet fully ripened green tomato which doesn't in any way "taste" green. Not to be confused with Fried Green Tomatoes (fruit, not movie).
5 - The EU wants to ban Heirlooms? Ezra Klein? I am actually angry.
6 - Many people talk about how Heirlooms are harder to grow. Well, maybe Ive got some tomato magic in me, but that is mostly a total myth. If by "harder to grow" we mean you can't just plant them, spray them and bugger off, well sure. I've grown them for a long time and never sprayed once, never had crop loss, and so on.
6a - Why? Its because one needs to understand co-planting as well as enzymatic in-soil interactions called Allelopathic Interactions. You can tell that virtually no one talks about these critical interactions since it doesn't even show up as an English word in auto-correct (irritating). In other words, never plant stuff by itself as a monocrop (big no-no) and know what each plant secretes into the soil. But that could be a totally separate article.
Great article!
You have so many good things here that I am overwhelmed. So much that I did not know. But I can easily see that we are "on the same page" in this issue. I will write more later when I get a chance.
In other words, never plant stuff by itself as a monocrop (big no-no) and know what each plant secretes into the soil. But that could be a totally separate article.
I also believe that you should plant things in a garden so that the plants synergistic benefit each other. Like adding garlic to ward off insects and such. But that does not help massive big-corporation farming so isn't practical right not for industry. But for us little guys is critical.
I once read about an island in the Pacific that was dying off. The island elders decided to kill all the pigs, and then planted tress, bushes and plants so that there would be a very dense gardening effort.
In one square Km you would have trees that would bear fruit, shrubbery that would bear fruit, and then vegetables underneath wile chickens and other foul would walk around proving substance to the people there.
When they implemented this they were able to eliminate starvation, and the entire nation prospered. But it took strong leadership and an iron-fist to stop those "I can do my own thing" attitude what worked against the changes.
Yes, you are describing in many ways the general spirit of Permaculture. Although in current factory and large scale farming it CAN be impractical mostly this is because Nation States haven't yet adopted the multi-story approach to having under-story, mid-range and climax food-bearing plants of different sizes and co-operating species. Secondarily their equipment isn't set up to handle the complexity of the planting.
Its a tough go to avoid mono-crop, it really is, particularly at our current population level. I don't have all the answers but I do know that over the course of centuries of time-line, mono-crop usually results in some kind of soil collapse.
Ladies and Gentleman,
I bring you Beef Brisket. This is an applewood smoked brisket. Smoking instructions are identical to my previous low-brow smoking instruction for bacon. Same thing. You keep your fattiest side upwards for self basting, then make sure during your process to put it top-side down and watch it while you generate the grill marks and colour. Then flip back for the remainder. Want to flip it several times? Sure, just make sure you watch it. If you will slow cook this (as you should) after smoking, try not to overcook it in the grill/smoking process yes?
This smoking for beef brisket is to-taste. I like 6 to 8 hours and as you can see I've brought this piece to rare/medium rare. Naturally, this is still a tough piece of meat. What do you do next? You put this in your slow cooker with chopped onions/whole garlic and a little liquid (stock) and slow cook until disintegrating or whichever doneness you prefer.
Note - Smoked Brisket freezes perfectly fine. You can do what I do and smoke these pieces, then freeze any remaining meat left over that you don't eat (which is usually none). Then when you need to eat them, you toss them into the slow cooker for smokey tender perfection. Yes, some people are religious about 14 step processes and clicking heels and praying to BBQ Gods, but I prefer the simple way. Plus, everyone always says "This is the BEST XYZ I've ever had!" You will love that....its like music to the Chefs ears. Also, a frozen piece of smoked brisket is, as it turns out, a ridiculously popular gift. For the record, the piece you see in this picture was recently thawed prior to taking the pic. Pretty fresh looking hey?
Enjoy!
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MM & The Time-Line Crew,
I heard a rumour that some people here might have a taste for beer. I brew it, in all colours and flavours. I also have grown hops. See this beautiful girl here? This is a Golden Comet hop, and its just lovely.
The beer pictured is a perfect home-brewed Grolsch. This tastes nothing like the "brand" Grolsch. Indeed, home brew beer is so dramatically different from store beer that it is NOT POSSIBLE for a store beer to taste like a proper home brew. This is similar to the comparison between an F1 Tomato (Horrendous Abortion) to an Heirloom Tomato (Product of Divine Guidance) *joking*.
There are lots of rumours out there that home brew means "sedimentation" and so on, but in reality its not hard to get it right. Its easy. It takes I would say 3 to 5 batches of beer to get one that will impress you, sometimes even the first one. If anyone wants tips and guidance, I am happy to help as always.
Enjoy!
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