Mallet

Here's a link to the original press release, including links for the actual data Interesting that Darienne mentioned sugar above, I wonder if there is a direct trade-off between salt and sugar content in these products across regions.

Apparently, many of the same processed foods are sold with more salt in Canada http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/07/2...ood-cereal.html I was already aware that processed foods contain a lot of salt, but I had no idea that there was such a strong geographical component, from products made by the same manufacturer!

My mom makes a rosemary and chanterelle cream sauce to serve with pork.

Oysters are attached to their shells at two points, at the hinge (via the hinge ligament), and at the adductor muscle (there is a third muscle, but it is so weak that we can pretty much ignore it for now). The main thing you're trying to do at the hinge is to sever the hinge ligament, which takes surprisingly little force. If you find yourself really forcing at any point your knife is probably in the wrong spot. Once you've inserted your knife and severed the ligament, twisting the knife slightly to give your knife some room to work up to the adductor muscle should be relatively easy. Without taking your knife out of the shell, you can then work your way up to the adductor muscle making sure to follow the top shell with your knife to avoid damaging the meat as described above (if the hinge is facing you, the adductor muscle is on the right hand side of the oyster so make sure you run your knife along that edge). PS: Don't bother sniffing. I find it looks ridiculous (as well as potentially unsanitary), and wastes precious time. If an oyster is dead, believe me, you won't need to stick your nose in it to smell it!

I wonder how much of an affect age plays in taste? In colder waters, a lobster will be older for a given size. Many people prefer the taste and texture of larger, older lobsters (Martin Picard in particular champions the 6-lbs category), and I would be curious to compare a Fourchu lobster to a lobster from different waters but similar age, not size.

In general, I would say that most of these dishes are home dishes, but with the CMA 2009 this summer I would expect that alot of these dishes will be popping up, especially at the major cultural events.

It was a great find to be sure (they say chance favours the prepared mind, and I have been thinking of morels an awful lot). I simply sautéed them with butter, salt and pepper. They were delicious and what I especially noticed was their meaty texture and quality. One thing was that there was a lot of grit left in them. I initially didn't want to soak them or run them under running water, but I think that will be necessary in the future.

I was gone on conferences during what I thought was the core of morel season. I'm assuming it's all done now? In between trips, I was in Toronto with some friends and we found 4 morels growing on the lawn! It was my first time eating fresh morels and they were delicious. I also discovered wild leeks this year (although I didn't forage them myself). They are my new favourite spring green. They seem to significantly enhance everything from sandwiches to stirfys!

I wonder how such a set of restrictions would affect processed foods that are supposed to be ridicously salty. Low-sodium salt cod? Magnesium-salt packed capers?

OK I tried it, it's not that bad, but the name has to go. I'm calling it a dirty burger from now on.

I was wondering why you bothered to gut and behead them, then. If you're just looking for the fillets, a lot of people seem to just cut them off the sides of the whole fish, and discard the rest. Based on your pictures, you should be able to do that without losing any yield while saving a lot of time.

Do you keep the bodies for anything?

Sounds like it's definitely worth experimenting with wild specimens, thanks!

Taking this thread back to cooking for a bit, has anyone experimented with SV mushrooms? slkinsey did some SV shiitakes (they were in a bag with chicken and scallions), but other than that I haven't been able to find much in the way of guidelines/recipes. For example, Under Pressure has not a single mushroom preparation sous-vide, as far as I can tell. Is it just a waste of time? Perhaps proper browning of mushrooms is too integral to their flavour. Wild morels are coming up soon, and I don't want to waste any (assuming, of course, I manage to find any!).

I would argue that stability is just as important as accuracy, actually it's probably more important (you can always correct for systematic error ).

And St-Simons have been served at TK restaurants as well (not that I keep track of these things... ) !

I use a Lauda analog circulator for SV, and always check the final temp with a Thermapen. Unfortunately the thermapen only reads to the nearest 1F, but they always match up within that range.

My understanding is that the driver involved in a roadkill in Ontario has dibs on the carcass. After that, the OPP often takes care of finding someone to salvage the kill. From the Ontario Out of Doors forum's "Would you eat roadkill" thread (stumbled on through Google): And it goes on. I guess there's a whole network in place! In Alaska, salvaging roadkill moose is very common, and the state police keep lists of local charities to whom the meat is donated. Once you have received a kill, your name goes to the bottom of the list, thus ensuring fair distribution (it is a public resource, after all). I have no idea what the practical etiquette/rules are like. For example, if my friend and I showed up at a deer carcass and part way through salvaging, some other people show up and claim they were called in, would we have to cede our prize? As for the actual salvage, I have zero experience dressing anything larger than a porcupine, so I can only speculate. As far as I understand it, you basically just carve off the chunks of meat that haven't been destroyed by the collision. If you're lucky, the animal will have been struck in the head, in which case you can proceed as normal. I think the exact details of the procedure highly depends on the nature of the kill and the age of the carcass.

There is a casing, it's stuffed in large chunks in beef middles (in the picture, you can see the outline of a cube of pork, covered in seasonings).

Thanks, I'd really appreciate it!

How is it made? Is it something that could be done at home?

I have what appears to be the beginning stages of mold for the first time, on a "coppa" that was been drying for 2-weeks now. I have consulted previously posted images, but couldn't find one that corresponding to a stage this early. Is it likely to be good mold? At what point, if at all, should I consider a pre-emptive strike?

Today, my friend came down to the lab looking a little more excited than usual. A friend had spotted a fresh roadkill deer on the way to work! We agreed that if she saw the deer on the way home we would rush over to the scene and salvage what we could (of course, documenting everything for educational purposes). A quick scan of Ontario hunting boards revealed the unlikeliness of this situation: apparently, the Ontario Provincial Police actually keep a phone list of people they can call to salvage deer and moose that get reported! Sure enough, it was gone on the way home...

Just the McChicken patty, or the whole thing?

I don't have very much experience foraging for anything (except chanterelles, which are so plentiful in NB that no skill/effort is required save the ability to withstand the onslaught of mosquitoes). It's something that I've always wanted to learn more about, though. What's a good starting point?