Pitmaster Daniel Castillo Brings Central Texas BBQ To L.A. Communities In Need
While Daniel Castillo was working as a corporate chef for Whole Foods in California, he held weekend barbecue popups in Orange County. Soon, his Heritage Barbecue venture became so popular that Castillo quit his dayjob to pursue his barbecue dreams. The coronavirus threw a wrench in the works, but Castillo still plans to open this July and in the meantime, he developed O.C. Smoke Kitchen to serve hospitality workers who are out of work due to COVID-19. At one event, Castillo and his team prepared 800 smoked pulled pork tortas, smoking 360 pounds of pork butt to get the job done. When Castillo received a full packer’s cut brisket, his team turned it into a brisket roulade stuffed with a mixture of mushrooms, caramelized onions, rosemary, garlic, thyme, parsley, and bourbon. Castillo says, “Being one of the few craft barbecue destinations in southern California, I want to push the boundaries of what American barbecue can be.” Castillo even bakes cheesecake in his smoker, a dish unique to Heritage Barbecue. Bourbon smoked ham is another specialty, featuring ham cured for 14 days in a bourbon barrel from Texas, then smoked and glazed with Texas bourbon.
Cheese Prices Swing From Near 20-Year Low To Record Highs
When restaurants and schools went under lockdown, demand for cheese plummeted and the market price of block cheddar dropped to near 20-year lows. Shortly afterward, consumer demand for cheese skyrocketed, and market prices followed suit. By June 8, cheese prices reached a record high when a 40-pound block of cheddar went for $2.585 a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a 160% turnaround from mid-April when the same block of cheese sold for just $1 a pound. Block cheddar prices influence the entire wholesale and retail market for all types of cheese, and according to Phil Plourd, president of Wisconsin dairy consulting firm Blimling and Associates, “It’s the most volatility that we’ve seen in the cheese market ever.”
After cheese prices reached their low point in April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its plan to spend $3 billion to purchase food from farmers, including $100 million a month on various dairy products. Analysts say the decision put a floor under prices, preventing them from dropping precipitously low. Meanwhile, consumer demand has remained relatively high with consumers buying 20 to 30% more cheese at stores compared to last year, according to market research firm IRI. Restaurants reopening around the country has further increased demand, and cheese prices have now begun to climb again, remaining just 3% under the record high levels of early June.
Rocket Scientist Traces History Of Black Barbecue
Dr. Howard Conyers’s day job is designing testing facilities for rocket engines at NASA’s Stennis Space Center outside New Orleans. But Conyers has another vocation: documenting the history of Black barbecue in America, something he’s been working on for the past six years. Conyers grew up in South Carolina, cooked his first whole hog when he was 11 years old, and still considers whole-animal cooking to be the most foundational part of American barbecue. “People talk about ‘no waste’ like it’s something new,” says Conyers, “but that’s what Black pitmasters have been doing for centuries.”
Conyers has visited and interviewed as many Black whole-animal pitmasters as he could find across the South, compiling their oral histories of a traditional method that dates back at least 400 years. From Grady’s Barbecue in North Carolina to Campbell’s Quick Stop in South Carolina to Jones Bar-B-Q Diner in Arkansas, every Black pitmaster he spoke with explained how digging holes or building cinder block pits has always been the standard because that’s what was available to slaves. Even the classic vinegar-pepper barbecue sauce dates back to slaves who mopped the sauce over barbecuing whole hogs because ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce hadn’t been invented yet.
Conyers says there are less than a dozen Black whole-animal pitmasters left in the country, including a few younger ones like Bryan Furman at B’s Cracklin’ BBQ in Atlanta and Rodney Scott at Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston. Conyers began documenting the oral histories of these traditional pitmasters and telling their stories at universities to help make sure that the story of barbecue includes its roots in African American foodways. Conyers is turning his years of research into a book about Black barbecue and says, “Barbecue is an evolving process, and it’s going to continue to evolve, but you should always keep a road map to the past.”
Food Brands Revise Their Racist Names And Images
As America confronts its racist history, PepsiCo’s packaged foods unit announced that it will retire the Aunt Jemima brand of syrup and pancake products. The Aunt Jemima brand was created in 1889, inspired by a song called “Old Aunt Jemima,” which was often performed by a white man in blackface in minstrel shows. A new product name and packaging are slated to roll out in during the fourth quarter of 2020.
Within hours of the announcement last Wednesday, Mars Inc. also said it will be changing its Uncle Ben’s brand to remove the racist image of a black chef. Several other leading food companies have recently followed suit, vowing to revise the packaging on their products, including B&G Foods Inc.’s Cream of Wheat, ConAgra’s Mrs. Butterworth’s, and Dreyer’s ice cream’s Eskimo Pie. These announcements follow the early lead of Land O’ Lakes, which declared in February that it will remove the kneeling Native American woman from its logo on Land O’ Lakes butter and other products. .
Study Finds Most Avocado Oil Is Rancid Or Adulterated
In a new study published in the journal Food Control, researchers found that 82% of the 22 domestic and imported oil samples tested were either rancid or blended with other oils. Some samples contained no avocados at all, despite being labeled “pure” or “extra virgin” avocado oil. Three samples with such labels contained 100% soybean oil (no avocados at all), and six samples contained large amounts of sunflower, safflower, and soybean oil. “Because there are no standards to determine if an avocado oil is of the quality and purity advertised, no one is regulating false or misleading labels,” said Selina Wang, PhD, who led the study.
“These findings highlight the urgent need for standards to protect consumers and establish a level playing field to support the continuing growth of the avocado oil industry,” added Wang. In the meantime, make sure your virgin avocado oil is green in color, smells fresh, and tastes buttery and grassy. A harsh aroma reminiscent of Play-Doh is a sign of rancidity.
Padma Lakshmi’s Taste The Nation Explores Immigrant Roots Of American Cuisine
In her new 10-episode Hulu series, Taste The Nation, Padma Lakshmi explores the history of American food through modern-day cooks around the country. Each episode features a “hero dish” made by an immigrant community, and the show emphasizes indigenous people such as the Navajo in Phoenix, Arizona. The show delves into personal experiences of immigration and assimilation in American food culture, tracing the lineage of iconic dishes through wars and colonization. Lakshmi, who is also a host on Bravo’s wildly popular Top Chef show, immigrated to the U.S. from India at the age of four. She had the idea for Taste the Nation while working as an ambassador for immigrant issues with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Five Uncommon Steaks For Summer Grilling
Most backyard cooks are familiar with T-bones and ribeyes. But there are more interesting and flavorful beef steaks to be grilled, especially when common cuts may be less available at your local supermarket.
Zabuton means “pillow” in Japanese, which describes this cut’s rectangular shape and its tenderness. Also known as the Denver steak, the zabuton is a supporting muscle residing under the blade of the chuck (shoulder) area. It has the deep, beefy flavor of the chuck without the toughness. From $34 for 8 ounces at Mishima Reserve.
Picanha (a.k.a. culotte or rump cap) is often skewered into a C-shape on a sword and served tableside at Brazilian steakhouses. It comes from just above the top sirloin and rump area on the steer and is cut with its thick cap of fat cap intact. From $55.59 for a 2 1/2-pound steak at Gaucho Ranch.
Bavette (a.k.a. flap or flank) is a small, relatively thin steak that comes from beneath the bottom sirloin. It is extremely flavorful, and according to Texas pitmaster Aaron Franklin, “the apex of the flavor and price ratio.”$19.75 for 1 1/4-pound sirloin flap at Crowd Cow.
Rib-Eye Cap (a.k.a. deckle) has the intense flavor of ribeye steaks but with a little more tenderness. The muscle is often referred to by its Latin name, spinalis dorsi, and since it’s relatively thin, it only needs a hard sear over the hottest part of the fire. $89 for 18 ounces at Snake River Farms.
Bife de Chorizo de Argentina (a.k.a. striploin) is not related to chorizo sausage. It is essentially equivalent to a NY strip steak. But to enjoy the authentic Argentinian steak, buy grass-fed beef from cattle raised on the Pampas. $24 per pound at La Carniceria Buenos Aires.
Bon Appétit Editor In Chief And Condé Nast Video Programming VP Resign Over “Racist Culture”
Things are shaking up at the popular cooking magazine Bon Appétit. Adam Rapoport, its editor in chief since 2010, resigned after a 2004 photo of him wearing a racially insensitive costume resurfaced on social media. The photo prompted several BA staffers to speak out about personal experiences of racism at Condé Nast, the media company that has been nurturing an audience of elite readers since 1909 in magazines such as Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Glamour, Architectural Digest, and Vanity Fair. BA Staffers cited several examples in which people of color at the company have been treated unequally and paid less than white staffers in similar positions. After resigning from Bon Appétit, Rapoport acknowledged his shortcomings in an Instagram post, saying “From an extremely ill-conceived Halloween costume 16 years ago to my blind spots as an editor, I’ve not championed an inclusive vision.” Amanda Shapiro, the former editor of BA’s companion publication Healthyish, was named acting deputy director. Shapiro took the job on a temporary basis only, urging Condé Nast management to name a person of color as the new Bon Appétit editor in chief.
Two days after Rapoport’s departure, Condé Nast vice president Matt Duckor tendered his resignation as well. Duckor was in charge of Bon Appetit‘s wildly successful video programming, including its popular “Test Kitchen” YouTube videos, which have more than 6 million subscribers and had 76.7 million views in the month of March alone, according to company data. Several current and former BA staffers said that Duckor failed to feature people of color in BA video content or fairly compensate them for their work. Reporters for Business Insider spoke with fourteen former or current BA staffers or contributors who identify as people of color and said there is a pervasive “toxic” culture of exclusion at the company. Some of those interviewed said that people of color are included in videos only as tokens and that few of them have the same lucrative video contracts as their white peers.
After the high-level departures, Bon Appétit and its sister website, epicurious, issued an apology acknowledging that “At times we have treated non-white stories as ‘not newsworthy’ or ‘trendy.’ Other times we have appropriated, co-opted, and Columbused them.” The apology also said that “While we’ve hired more people of color, we have continued to tokenize many BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] staffers and contributors in our videos and on our pages.” After citing specific changes that will be made, the statement went on to say that the company vows “to be transparent, accountable, and active as we begin to dismantle racism at our brands.” .
Local Food Boxes Deliver The Flavor Of Place To Your Door
As summer travel remains constricted due to the pandemic, local food companies across the U.S. have begun shipping food boxes that capture a city or state’s unique identity. Interested in tasting the local specialties from Alaska, New Jersey, Kentucky, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Philadelphia, or Maine? Each box offers different tastes from the area such as hot sauce made from Alaskan kelp, New Jersey’s blueberry butter, and New Mexico’s official state cookie, the cinnamon-sprinkled biscochito.
Portland Chef Demonstrates Beeswax Curing Technique For Fish
Chef Jacob Harth, owner of seafood-focused Erizo restaurant in Portland, Oregon, lightly ages his fish with beeswax, an ancient preservation method. This gentle curing technique coats the fish in melted beeswax, which lets some oxygen in and out, allowing the fish to dry slowly while protecting it from spoilage. The fish texture concentrates a bit and the beeswax adds a unique aroma and texture to the skin.
At Erizo, Harth makes extensive use of this preservation technique to ensure a year-round supply of high-quality fish. He first coats the gutted whole fish in a paper thin layer of melted beeswax, then hangs the fish to dry for about a week. After removing the beeswax and beheading the fish, Harth often grills butterflied whole fish or trimmed pieces and serves them with a simple sauce to highlight the cured fish’s unique texture and flavor.
