Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram.

Today's program was brought to you by Catskill provisions located in a small corner of Northwest Catskill Mountains they specialize in creating raw natural handmade food products. For more information visit Catskill provisions.com You're listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn, if you'd like this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s more.

You Hello, and welcome to cooking issues coming to you live late in the back of Roberta's pizzeria on Tuesday in Bushwick baby training. All

right sounds like a Bootsy Collins Bushwick yeah

sharing a little Bootsy Baba Baba Bushwick baby. Yeah,

so what happened today?

Why am I late? Yeah. I always like my normal like it's normal. Okay, it was not because it was not because of last night's Booker and DAX one year anniversary party, which was crazy, crazy party we had we Booker and DAX which is the bar you know, that I have attached to sambar you know, the, the Momofuku restaurant of great repute. And anyway, we had our one year, one year we went up one year, so we cleared away like all of the chairs we had a pinata full of airline bottles of Saint Germain and Haribo. It was crazy. I beat it with our baseball bat, we have a baseball bat at Booker and DAX there that everyone who works at or has worked at Booker and DAX and he points signs the baseball bat and Sharpie, and it is, you know, it's up there. That's kind of a customer relations tool, but also also for pen Jada's which, you know, my dream is to have regular pen yadda service at the bar. We can't do it now because we don't have an area where we can just devote it to to pin Jada's. You know what I mean? Wow, you'd probably be the first I mean imagine if you could go this is my dream you go and you know, if you do it at your bar or restaurant all you got to do is say you know just give a little give a little props back because here's here's everyone would want to go to their on their birthday and and beat a pinata while they're drinking. That's full of cool things. Now Like necessarily the crap that you got when your kid although the odd Hot Wheels car would not be bad in an adult Kenyatta as well, you know, but, you know, kind of like adult candies doesn't have to be full of airline balls of booze it was provided by a booze company and that's why you know, ours was full of airline bottles of plastic airline bottles by the waves total wear safety conscious folk. But anyway, that's not the reason I was late. I was trying to find some information I couldn't find my copy of Lowery's meet science. And by the time I finally found it, I missed the subway that I normally get that's the actual reason nice yeah, but anyways, unfortunately today not joined in the studio with the hammer she is she has some non cooking issues that she has to take care of today so she won't be joining us. And so you know, Jack and Joe thank thank God are here with us today. But you know, I don't yell at them because they don't irritate me on a consistent basis. They don't they don't spend like, like their their entire Waking Moment figuring out new ways to get me bent out of shape.

Joe has been working on it. Yeah, he's been he's been doing some research, do some

research. Like, has he developed some sort of crazy, you know, food aversions? Or does he believe in some sort of nutritional BS hype? That's just gonna get me all spooled up and blasted out or now I'm shopping for shoes right now.

Man, are they like, are they cool shoes anyway? Really cool. Wait till wait till next week, I went up to New kicks.

Alright, cool. Well, if you if you really want to tick me off, like you know, buy him wear him once and return them. That's the that's the status stars jam right there. Although she ate I think she's grown out of it. Like we all have the things that we do, you know, when we're growing up, but sometimes it takes some of his longer to grow out of those habits and other people, you know what I mean? That's all that's what I'm saying. Cool. Your question love to say 184972128. That's 718-497-2128 follow up from one of our questions before we were talking I think a week or two ago on seasoning cast iron pans, a subject that comes up quite often. And I had mentioned that I'd read a blog by my mom, her name just went straight out of my brain. That's all right. Because you could go look it up on the last show, but she recommended using linseed oil, aka flaxseed oil foodgrade version of it, of course, because it's obviously from a patient's perspective, the drying oil power x amount, so it's going to polymerize much faster. And you know, I guess at lower temperatures, although I'm not I don't I don't have the numbers in front of me. It's going to make a nice coating in your in your pen. Now according to Dan, whatever it is 76 la blah, blah, blah. I don't know whether it also has good carbon residue content, right, which is not just adding to the polymerization but it's going to create the nonstick stuff. I'm not going to get into that again. All I'm gonna say is our good buddy Michael napkin from herba voracious. Rhoda wrote in with his two cents saying that he has tested that with with flaxseed oil and he says that it's complete baller awesome super hard awesome coding in his pants. So you know we trust him so take his advice I have not I have not tested it. I wanted to call him I wonder whether he'd be offended if I called him Captain vegetable anyone remember that? It was a little known Sesame Street character called Captain vegetable you guys remember this guy? I do not catch a vegetable like he's like a Sesame Street went through this phase where they're trying to get his kids to eat their vegetables and so they had this this vegetable guy is like it is our captain's vegetable but he's like never became popular like all the other like weird little Sesame Street craps like the like the two dudes with the clock get remember those guys?

Yeah, I got those guys. I thought they turned Cookie Monster into like the veggie monster though. Is that true? Oh, God.

Someone find out whether this is the case and get back to me. That's like, that's a deal breaker right there. Yeah, that's You monster. That's the worst. The Veggie you know what? Hell no. No, you don't I mean,

no. Unacceptable.

This is not right. Don Rollins writes in Hello cooking issues. I'm going to start working in a bar that uses thin half moon ice. What can I do to keep the ice from over diluting my drinks? All right, well, here's the deal. The half moon ice. I mean, it depends on the machine. I'm assuming if using a commercial machine that Well, here's the issue a couple issues. So I said dilution is related to a number of factors. If you're shaking, the main problem from the halfmoon eyes is going to be shards that are broken off in the in your shaker. And those shards that are broken off actually aren't going to deliver dilute your product right away. But when you string them through your regular Hawthorne strainer, which is the one with the spring going around it, those crystals make it through and those things will melt quite quickly and then they'll produce it in your glass right because normally when you're shaking a drink, you don't serve it with with ice. So the dilution is fixed from the moment it's poured out of the shaker except for these crystals that are going to melt out. And so the solution around that is to is to do dump it as you know, put it when you're pouring it, pour it through a double tea strainer, and that's gonna get rid of those crystals of ice, it will hurt somewhat that foamy head that you can get out of a shake and drink. But you know, there you have it. Also, when you're stirring, right, when you're stirring a drink, it doesn't really matter what kind of ice you're using, except for things look nicer or don't look nicer, as long as you realize that the smaller the cubes, and the faster you stir, the faster you're going to dilute. So all you have to do is adjust your, your your times your stirring times, according to the type of ice that you're using. So you can do a stirred I mean, we've used very, very fine ice when you're stirring they're chilling is so rapid that it's difficult to get a consistent stare out of it. But with any normal sized ice, it's possible to get a nice consistent stir. If it's, it's probably wet ice in which case, you should probably make it a practice to when you put when you pack ice into something you're going to start with put a strain or tarp over and shake the excess water out of it, snap the excess water into the sink before you do your stir. This can help alleviate some of the excess water of dilution you have on the outside, if that's a problem for your drinks, or just assume that you're going to use a relatively similar amount of ice every time and therefore the water load from the water on the outside of the ice is going to be the same. Every time you do it. It's all about consistency. With a stir drink. It's all about consistency. So as long as you can make it repeatable, you can make it good. With the shake n drinks, I really feel that a large cube is going to produce a better result. Actually, what you really want to do is a large cube with a small couple small cubes in there. And I think we've talked about it so I'm not going to go into it again unless somebody writes it and says Please go into it again. But you know, what you can do is usually in a bar or a restaurant, there is some freezer space. And depending on how many shaking cocktails you make a night, it could be economical from a space standpoint, definitely from a resource standpoint because it does cost very little to freeze ice cubes if you have the time space to go get the ice cube molds the two inch by two inch Ice Cube molds get the ones from cocktail kingdom which are made from I believe they're made from a poly urethane not from a silicone test that I've not verified myself but that were done by Eben Freeman, you know, famous bartender years ago where that certain silicone molds can impart a taste to the water that the ice cubes that when you freeze ice cubes, it can impart a taste to them. I've never done this test myself, but this is what he says. And so that is a feasible way to generate cubes for shaking. However, when it comes to beautiful presentation is my friend, you are s o l then you'll have to do some either like buy ice to have it brought in which is expensive, which is what we do. Or start a freezing campaign with igloo coolers and whatnot. We can talk more about that. If someone's interesting, but if you're just interested in over diluting it's not going to be much of a problem. Just make sure that you strain your shaken drinks through a tea strainer caller caller Oh reverb caller you're on the air.

Hey Dave, my name is Nick. I'm calling from Seoul Korea.

Oh Hey Nick. That's awesome.

My question is about cold smoking bacon. I've been cold smoking bacon in this large old file cabinet with smoke dairy attached to the side of it smoke that generates and pump smoke into the cabinet chamber and hence called smoke in the mean I suppose. It's been working pretty good actually. I've been able to produce fairly good bacon with it. What concerns me though, is that even with cold smoking, the word still combust. incinerated sending all sorts of undesirable nasty elements into the air and ultimately onto my bacon, I suppose. So I was wondering if there's a way to prevent or drastically reduce that?

Yeah, here's the problem is is that the smoke flavors that you know that we all love are due to the pyrolysis of the meat which is taking place at elevated temperatures, right. And so, I mean, there are definitely you know, if you go way over on temperature, then you can you produce more of those nasty things, then you get more also more of those burnt accurate, you know, those burnt acrid kind of flavors that none of us likes. So you definitely want to control temperature. But, I mean, the unfortunate truth is is that there are you know, what are, you know, deemed to be carcinogenic and unhealthful components that are generated purely as a result, while the same things that we like are being produced. Now you can filter the smoke right which is I guess how they do when they're making liquid smoke they can they can they we condensed the smoke back to a liquid and then they can fractionate that into its different parts. And then then then they can set braid out some of the things that are carcinogenic. But the, you know, very would be very difficult for you in the way you're doing it. However, you know, you? I don't know, I haven't done my research. You know, recently, I probably I probably should as what the current feeling is of the actual level of risk or whether anyone's done risk, you know, risk increased studies based on smoke in meats and consumption. I don't know if those studies have been done yet, because I haven't, I haven't read them. My feeling is, is that in the near future, and by that, I mean, like the next 10 or 20 years, that, you know, air quality is becoming a lot more important, not just food club, air quality in kitchens is becoming more important. And, you know, the research that came out, you know, several years ago on the deleterious effects of wok oil smoke in, in women in China, in particular, and increased cancer rates, because of it, I think, like more of those kinds of studies about kind of airborne, things in your kitchen are going to become important. So I mean, I would definitely invest in some good ventilation in any rate, but it's gonna be difficult to eliminate. I think all that stuff entirely, if that makes sense, or no.

I've looked at vaporizers I don't know if that's a step in the right direction,

or, yeah, I mean, the problem is the vaporizers are not I mean, the whole point of the vaporizer is to try and is there distilling, they're, they're, they're releasing things without the burning, right. So I mean, right, they're built for they're built for liberating THC from marijuana to be blunt. But the, you know, I don't, I've, I obviously have I put wood chips in them before I have one. But you know, but I haven't used it, it's in yours, it's packed away in my in my storage closet, I get one out, I can get one out and test it, you want me to test it, I just don't think it's gonna, I don't think it's going to generate the temperatures needed to make the smoke because I mean, the whole point of the vaporizer is to have controlled heat so that you're not getting that kind of combustion. And the flavor, the actual flavor components that we're making in wood are due to a high temperature pyrolysis, you know, reaction where that is taking place, in you know, not at like 400 F, but like a 400 C, you know, foreign Celsius, which is like was a lot higher. I can try to dredge up at some point, some literature on the difference in the relative things that are being, you know, released from, from woodsmoke at different temperatures. But the issue is, I think that I think that they're inherently linked that you're making the stuff that you don't want, while you're making the stuff that you do want that you get, you know that they come kind of hand in hand. But, and I don't know of any good way to filter it, except I wonder whether you could draw the smoke through water and get rid of some I don't know, I had to do some research. It might be, it might be possible. But I think you're not going to you're not going to be able to generate the flavor you want. without generating the unwanted stuff that you know that you don't want. As my feeling I could be wrong. I'd like to get some other input on it. I have to do some more research. Alrighty. All right. Well, listen. Should we back on Twitter with anything you find it? And if I if I can find anything interesting. I'll talk about on the next show. All right, thanks. Thank you for calling in from South Korea. You wanna take our first break? We have another caller, we have another caller or a caller, you're on the air.

Hi, Dave. This is Nick from Denver. How's it going?

Going? Alright, how's Denver doing?

Good. Good. So I had a question about it was Nathan Myhrvold new book is modern cuisine for home, right. And I was going to do his short ribs recipe. And he commented on using zip top bags for, I think, a long period of time with low temperature cooking. And he mentioned that for safety and reliability issues. He recommended only using a vacuum sealed bag. And I was just wondering if you could comment on that mostly for the safety issue.

Well, why did he say it was unsafe? Do you remember I don't have the book.

So he he just mentioned that it was unsafe. And then he on his on his recipe page. And then he referenced another page in the book, but it didn't really go into any more detail on what on why it would be unsafe, what temperature it was going to be 60 degrees Celsius for about two days.

Yeah. So it's an it's an interesting point. I've heard other people say that there is some sort of a safety issue with it. Now here's here's something I know for a fact. Grandkids, maybe four years ago posted a video online using Ziploc bags and got an angry call from SC Johnson wax, a family company and saying that They're not, they're not set up to be used for that. XYZ XYZ because they haven't tested it right. And so I don't know where this the safety issue on zippers came in regards to cooking because they're rated for reheating. They're made from polyethylene without plasticizers. So, and they're rated to be in constant contact with your food at normal ambient temperatures indefinitely. And they're rated for reheating the food. I don't know of any, any published data saying that there is anything that's leaching in or out of polyethylene Ziploc bags. And by the way, if you smell a Ziploc bag as opposed to smelling polyethylene film, polyethylene film has to have the thin stuff like Sorento does not Saran, but you know what I mean, the plastic wrap, they have solvents in them to help them, get them into thin sheets and roll them out quickly. And those have an odor almost always, whereas zippia do not. So you know, I always consider them relatively neutral, I don't really understand where the safety issue comes in. So long as your temperatures are down, like 60 and 50, where, as far as I can tell, polyethylene is fine in those service ranges for continuous duty, right, continuous duty. Now, I could be wrong on this, because I haven't looked at the studies right now. But this is my feeling. Here's the issue on on polyethylene is it is polyethylene, unless you have one that has a special vapor barrier in it like a multi multi layer, film technology in it. Polyethylene not such a great vapor layer. That's why I use the by the way, the the ones that are rated for freezer because they're supposedly a better vapor barrier. But you can get oxygen migration through a ziplock bag because they're not as depending on which one you use. Because they're not as they're not as gas impermeable, so there could be perhaps a quality issue over time. Also, remember, there is residual oxygen inside of a Ziploc bag more so than in a vacuum. But you also have to remember that when I'm vacuuming down a lot of products, I mean, red meats, not so much, but like on other things, I'm not sucking a hard vacuum anyway, because I think it's deleterious to the meat quality. So I don't really like it, there is an issue where, you know, someone could take a Ziploc bag and put the temperature too high, and then you get melting right at 60. I don't really see that that's a problem. Also, there could be an issue with residual oxygen in the bag. However, over a two day cook period at 140 degrees Fahrenheit 60 Celsius, ain't nothing growing in that thing. Do you know what I mean? You know, perhaps it might be deleterious on on on its capability to be stored for a long period of time. But if you're not using it for extremely lengthy, lengthy storage, right, I don't see that it's that big, big of a deal, you might get, perhaps slightly more oxidation in there than you would otherwise. But again, not a safety issue. So I don't, I don't really understand where this comes from. And I've heard other people talk about it unless it's like, and Nathan is not the kind of guy who says there are many books and I won't, I won't name them in particular. And authors, people in general, who there when they write they say things that are untrue. And they know it's untrue. If you go and you call them on it, they say because well, it's too complicated to explain what's really going on to the average cook. Right? And, and I don't want them to make a mistake and do something if dangerous. So I'll just tell them it's unsafe to do something even though it's not true. And I've had this conversation with authors with chefs and with teachers. And I think that's a crazy thing. It's a crap way of working. You know what I mean? I think it's just, I think it's doing a complete disservice. Nathan's not that kind of guy. So for all I know, he has a reference somewhere about it being unsafe. But I'd love to see it because I consider low temperature. And by that I mean kind of 60 even up to 63 and below in a zippy to be fine practice. I only do it on short term cooks, but I don't and he I know is fine with it on short term cooking in the range of several hours. But I don't know, I don't know what study he's referencing to say that it's going to be bad for longer periods. It's long winded answer. I'm sorry, but it's kind of an important subject. Yeah. Then I feel like I didn't answer your question at all. But

that's pretty helpful. It's really helpful. All right. All right.

Well, let's try to find it in Twitter, your tweet on into the cooking issue, see if you can find his reference for that or where he references it from. Because this is a discussion I'd love to have either with him or anyone else on it because it's something that I'd like to get to the bottom of because the ziplock bag is a fantastic tool for all of those people who can afford a circulator, especially at the lower price. point now to make your own but don't have the several $1,000 it takes to make a vacuum machine and zipties are still the best way to cook things like fish that you don't really want to vacuum or poultry that you don't really want to vacuum. Or if you don't have time to chill down your meat after your initial sear and you want to use hippies to cook a steak music zippers are great. I love them. Even though the St. John's wax family company does not want me to use them for this purpose. I find them incredibly useful. So I'd really like to know if I'm doing a bad thing. Sounds good. All right. Yep, sounds good. All right. Thank you brother. Thanks for calling in. And let's go

to I want to take a moment here to thank Joe Gargano for the cooking issues theme song at the top of the show and our friends the meat ballers for this beautiful version of fish is fish is vodka. You're listening to cooking issues on heritage Radio network.org.

Catskill provisions has Valentine's Day literally in the bag with their seal the deal gift bag. Start with chocolate honey truffles and then move on to breakfast in bed with their traceable organic pancake mix a New York State maple syrup. Sure to satisfy any rd locavore check out the Catskill provisions seal the deal package at WWW dot Catskill provisions.com You think of that seal the deal Valentine's Day package seal

the deal you know that is that is an admirable name seal the deal? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like even just buying it implies that you know you're going to seal the deal right? So it's like if you have any if you're wondering are you going to seal the deal you get to seal the deal package your like deal is sealed right i mean that's it deal is sealed you know I will not name any names but you know, again, I have a bar and one of the functions of a bar is to take to people who are looking to find other people to do other things with and to meet them to kind of grease the social wheels as they say and and let them go off right. This is one of the functions of a bar and you know, I was playing some hardcore seal the deal music last night I was busting out you know ignition Yeah, I mean like I was doing we did we did about a two hour kind of like debt like dancey dancey kind of like rap anthem set, like you know California Love and all that kind of stuff. And then you know, afterwards I broke into like, a couple I went ignition and then a couple other songs like that. And then then Barry White at the end of the night when after we did the last call into Marvin Gaye and I'm not going to come not gonna call you out. You know who you are. We're not sealing the deal. Why do I go to work? Why do I get up? Why do I eat breakfast and work and breathe air if I cannot help you seal the deal. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, man, Barry White into Marvin Gaye's like that's like level five seal the deal.

I know it and you know what, you know what the problem was? The individual who I'm talking to, maybe you should have gotten the Catskill provisions sealed situation because then, as we say, here are cooking issues. It's pre sealed. Right.

You know what may not seal the deal. I love we've got we got an audition video in from Joel Gargano. I wish I wish I could play this. I mean, it's radio obviously we can't see the video. But we've got Joel just standing here with a guitar kind of looking at the camera, and he's playing an acoustic version of the cooking issues theme song. So let's, let's give that a quick run before we move on. Alright, let's do it. One second here.

What's Joe's group again?

I don't think he has a name for it.

Cooking issues instru go Two cards with just questions Jenko Jade Stassi Jackie Jo two they're all here

I think I think we've got like an American Idol show we can put together now.

And thank you for finally given Joe some props. Yeah, Joe in the song. You know why, you know I fellow frontman, fellow frontman frontman always give each other props my right Joe. It's it's hard work, man.

It is it's hard work being the frontman,

right? I mean, cuz you have to be you have to be on all the time. I mean, you do get you get all the benefits as well but you always have to, you know, pretend that you're like, you know, all juiced up, right? Yeah, there's,

there's lots of, you know, just pretending you're pretending that you're actually excited when you're not. Yeah, like, like, you're ready to rock but you're actually really ready to go to bed. Well,

I tell people this all the time. And it's the same with cooking, doing demos, like being here. It's like, you know, the average person, like they're there to see you perform. They don't care whether you've had a bad day. What does that what does that matter to them? They don't they don't give a rat's behind whether or not you know, you know, your foot just fell off or you know, you know, your your puppy fell in your meat grinder. That's not important to them, what's important to them, they came to see a show, you agreed to provide a show. They came to see the show. So you got to get amped up. That's all there is. That's why you know, even as much as I love why I'm not going to get into discussion of you know, Axl Rose, and the old Guns and Roses shows I'm just not gonna get into it. There's not gonna get into it right now. But right, you know, you're not that you're not the kind of like, Joe, you're not the kind of like hat over your head, stare at the floor kind of a frontman or you know, no, not at all. Yeah, good. Good. I mean, there's a show. It's a show. Yeah, there's a certain place for that. There's a certain kind of music where everyone's like, hey, let's that's all that's all. You know, let's go see someone who doesn't care whether I'm alive or dead. It's just be sad in a room together. Yeah. No, let's not do that. Yeah, that was never me like it was. Well, obviously, that's not how I like to work, obviously. Anyway, okay. So what's the story Joel is going to come in and serenade

is going to come in and Marsha is gonna do the song live. We're going to record it here. And he he said, he really wants to do some commercials like the tech serve one because he feels it may be a life changing experience. So I'm not going to deny him that opportunity.

Hey, man, it's not it's not my money. Talk to the tech serve people out for it. That's right, right. Right. All right. So how do you everyone would why would you choose one method of applying Aktiva RM over another by the way Aktiva Rm is the brand name for a gene Emoto. The MSG people's meat glue, trans contaminates the enzyme the miracle enzyme that's used to glue or weld bond meat together. And so it's transglutaminase and by Egina, Moto is a company Aktiva is the is the brand name for all their trans contaminates is an RM is the one that's most commonly used and it's a mixture of enzyme casein which milk protein and, and maltodextrin okay, and you can either sprinkle it on to things or you can make it into a paste and paint it on okay. And which is a slurry it's called the slurry technique, just so you guys know, in case you don't know, is a slurry better for some app and you can buy it from modernist pantry.com Even though they're not sponsors anymore. Okay. Is a slurry better for some applications and a sprinkling better for others? Have you done any tests with commercial? Okay, that's the first question. Look, Neil's who, you know, I got my first meet glue from Nils Noren and from Wiley because they were the two first people in New York to use it. And I think Wiley might use slurry sometimes, but nose always hated the slurries because he didn't want to put a lot of liquid into the meats that he was gluing. So he always did sprinkle. Sometimes a slurry is okay, but I you know, 99.9% of the actual gluing of meats together that I do I do with a sprinkle technique. You know, the pace thing is, you know, fast I guess it's easy to dose out but I just never big proponent of it so much. Okay, and then second Have you done any test with commercial grade beef cook cvwd I was reading up on beef grading recently and never knew commercial grade beef is basically be from older animals that are marble that are marble like prime beef that technically like in other words, primer choice I think if any of those are commercial couldn't a great deal of money be saved and deeper flavor realized by cooking commercial beef Subianto tender, so where would a consumer find the lower grades beef? Okay. This is a very interesting question. I have never actually run the tests. I don't have any personal experience cooking older meats but the way meat grading works is me grading is bizarre because it's based solely on the goal. The sole goal of beef grading is tenderness. That's it. They don't care flavor or anything like that, except for they also grade much higher for fat, right? So the way it works is if you look at the beef grading charts and you see that they're on, there's an age range, and then a fat marbling range and you have to be in certain things. So older cuts of meat, older animals have in general, tougher meat and 100%, they will have tougher meat, the same animals beat will get tougher as it ages, right? And so at a certain point, after I think, you know, 24 months, or it's no longer really labeled as either prime or a choice, and but it can be extremely highly marbled, in which case, it is sold as commercial, right? So standard is what's lower Mark, I believe standard beef is lower marbled than choice, right? But young, right? Whereas commercial can be very highly marbled. In fact, I think it has to be more highly marbled in order otherwise it would be you know, canned or beef or whatnot. But it's from an older animal, and it's going to be tougher and to be able to but I don't know a good source of getting it. I will say this. Jeffrey, both Jeffrey Stein garden and Harold McGee have taunted me taunted me by going to Spain and having going to a restaurant whose whose specialty is old, old meat, like seven year old meat, and they said the flavor of it was fantastic. Now, as you point out low temperature cooking might be a good way to tenderize these cuts of meats that are older, here are the caveats. And what I think in general, what I think you're going to want to do is get a well finished highly marbled, older piece of meat, and then dry aged, you know, these older cuts of meat, I think you're going to want to dry aged them to increase attendance, because my feeling is if you try to tenderize the meat just by doing low temperature cooking, that you might have a tendency over time because remember, when meat gets older, not the it's not just the college and changing and the muscles changing the enzyme components are changing the, you know the darkness of it, the flavor of it. And so I have a feeling that the older the meat is, the more it might get a kind of livery or gamey taste as it's cooked for long periods in a bag. So I might say that a dry aging of it might be a better way to do it, get like a primal and then dry aged. And then do you know one of your normal low temperature cooking because, you know again, I find that low temperature cooking to tenderize tough meats that aren't tough because of collagen, but are tough because the muscle fibers themselves if toughened up tends to produce mushy meat when it's cooked for a long time. I really, no one ever gets into discussions with me about mushy versus tender. But I think it's something that really wants to be talked about. Just to note, if you're going to buy muscle meat that's from animals over 30 months of age in the United States, you need to make sure that that all of the spinal material and any nerve material has been removed because that's, you know, precautions that are taken for BSE, a bovine spongiform encephalopathy. jaquess Critchfield new variant, the deadly disease known as Mad Cow, okay. That makes sense, guys? No, no, they don't care. They're like they're now they're being like the Stasha. Guy. They don't care if they're okay. Okay. Anna from Budapest writes in, dear Anastasia, Dave, and Jack, Joe, you got shafted on this one again? I mean, Joe, yes. I've listened to your show for over a year now. And in the meantime, I'm trying to listen to old episodes as well. I still have 14 left. So I'm hesitant whether my question has already been mentioned, but I'll give it a go. If you only have 14 episodes left. I mean, we've had like 100 episodes 100 and change episodes, right? I mean, we can we can we can double up on a question, but I don't think the events is one yet. In October, we were lucky enough to get an invitation to an Oregonian wedding. And during a two week when Osiris or a trip we had a great time my fiance had been obsessed with Dusit he by the way, I love to call it Dolce delay SE and DOS sorry Dolce delay, che and piss off all my all my Spanish friends. But so I won't do that though to say that he before I got hooked as well. While I was there, we had a chance to stay with locals who actually make their own dosage ha from scratch. And they told us the recipe but for some reason it does not work for us. We don't get the right consistency, and ours is running instead of thick and creamy. I was wonder if you could tell me what we were doing wrong. Or if we're missing something or have had a recipe if I have a recipe that really works. Our recipe is two litres of milk. Two liters of water one kilo of sugar, one teaspoon of soda. We're told to heat the milk the water sugar together. Once the liquid boils, we should put the soda in it and let it simmer for two hours during once in a while. I use whole milk from the farmers market the second time I even add some golden syrup. Because I thought the sugar might help the consistency. But there was no difference. In fact, the one with the sugar syrup got runnier we tried cooking for four and a half hours and only two hours to see if it thickens. But it didn't liquid turns dark I guess because of caramelization but doesn't get thick. Should we put butter in at some point? If yes, when should we cover the pan with a lid? Should we stir it or let it simmer? Where does the soda do etc etc. All right, look, I don't know what the water is in there for I want you know, my typical way of making the making the dosage Ha is to use the sweetened condensed milk and put it in a in a pressure cooker for 15 psi between 45 minutes and an hour. I know that's cheating. The first time I ever saw someone make the real stuff. And of course they call that a key pay but you know, was in Colombia, up in the mountains over there in Colombia. They this like little old lady, you made it by just pouring milk in a pan. I was like, oh, whoa, you can do that. Here's, here's what's going on with it. Now, if you look at Indian sweets, they have boiled milk, the solids but they're not as brown as adults, it'll ha because they're not adding that baking soda. Now I've heard some people say the baking soda is not necessary. However, I think it is what the baking soda is doing is it's not really criminalization that you're looking at, you're actually doing my hard reactions to it the high heat, right and that is accelerated by adding the baking soda which is alkaline. So the Alkalyn stuff is there to help the Browning along as it cooking the thickening of the pulsatile he is strictly due to the concentration of milk solids. And as the milk solids get more concentrated in the presence of the the alcohol and baking soda. It's gonna get Browner and browner and thicker and thicker. To give you an idea standard a standard practice would be to take I think your main problem. Yeah, on you need the lid off, by the way, because you need to evaporate water. I think your main problem right there is the water. I don't know why the water is in the recipe at all. I mean, typical thing would be to take for every liter of milk to take with add sugar, baking soda, take it down to about 250 mils. And I think that's going to be your main problem. Do it on a volume basis. Not on a time basis. What's it What's up yet?

Oh, well, you you saw it. You saw me get animated on it. You need to say anything. I have a question for cooking issues, actually. All right. So we spoke with Harold McGee on Friday. We're doing this this series of recordings and he was one of our featured guys kind of telling his life story. Which by the way, really interesting. He's he's got Indian heritage. I didn't know that. But he sort of spoke about avant garde cuisine. And modern cuisine is two separate things. I was wondering how you see those as different?

Well, Harold, you know, you know, Harold and I have been having this discussion for a long time before, you know, Myhrvold and Chris, and you know, maximum that whole crew proposed Modernist Cuisine is the title of their book. And, you know, the title of that book was proposed, specifically, because specifically, because, you know, no one wants to use the term molecular gastronomy, because everyone hates it, you know, everyone who does that kind of work hates it pretty much in the US. And so prior to that, you know, you know, McGee and I, a lot of times, you know, he would say avant garde or kind of cutting edge or new or, or whatnot, you know, avant garde is always, you know, it was good, because it always just means new and it doesn't imply technology. I mean, the important thing is that, you know, a lot of what's going on isn't technology related. Do you know what I mean? A lot of what's going on in terms of new creativity and food isn't necessarily technology. Dino Daniel Patterson doesn't use a whole crapload of technology necessarily, or even hydrocolloid anymore, but you would definitely consider his cooking to be part of the avant garde cooking. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so I think, you know, a lot of it has to do with the focus, I think modernist was, you know, you know, that crews stab at a word that they thought they could get to stick that they, you know, my feeling is like, every word that describes this is loaded. Avantgarde is loaded term. modernise is a loaded term, you know what I mean? So, they're all They're all loaded. In I prefer any of them to molecular.