Nick Bergus

Today’s post isn’t news; it’s exactly 60 years old this month. But because of the blog’s name, it gets a lot of hits from people looking for E.B. White’s essay “Death of a Pig,” the forerunner of his children’s book Charlotte’s Web. It is rightfully held up as a example of how a writer doesn’t have to use flowery language to convey personality.

The opening paragraph:

I spent several days and nights in mid-September with an ailing pig and I feel driven to account for this stretch of time, more particularly since the pig died at last, and I lived, and things might easily have gone the other way round and none left to do the accounting. Even now, so close to the event, I cannot recall the hours sharply and am not ready to say whether death came on the third night or the fourth night. This uncertainty afflicts me with a sense of personal deterioration; if I were in decent health I would know how many nights I had sat up with a pig.

Anyway, I recently dug up a link to the full text for a class and offer it up — and implore you to read it. 60 years old and it’s still beautiful prose.

Two guys who left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina made life there unbearable, Scott Attias and Ben Halperin, have opened a restaurant called Augusta (after the street it’s on) in Oxford, Iowa. I have heard good things in the week and a half since it opened.

My friend Emily Grosvenor wrote a nice story about the latest piece — well, the only piece — of the Oxford dining scene. My impression is that it’s going for the same type of business and atmosphere as Mount Vernon’s Lincoln Café (locally focused food in a restaurant that they hope becomes “ a destination — but also be a place locals can come to for good food,” as Scott, a former co-worker of mine, told Emily) .

Good luck to them.

The sentiments expressed in today’s letters responding to last week’s piece on the importance some chefs place on animal slaughter aren’t surprising. (I had a similar discussion with a reader in the comments section.) The meat-eating debate often seems to be the gastronomic equivalent of the abortion debate: both sides so entrenched — and not even arguing over the same basic points — that there is no way to reach a middle ground.

Anti-meat-eating letter writer Kathryn Dalenberg is right: “Killing innocent life is killing is killing is killing.”

But so is pro-meat-eating Mary Hammett: “If you can not look a Mediterranean daurade in the eye, you have no right to eat it!”

The problem is that often we have a hard time understanding how someone can both respect an animal and kill (and eat) it. Doug Havel has been butchering for over two decades, beginning on disassembly line and now in his own small abattoir (and I’m glad that Heritage Food USA partner Sarah Obraitis points out that small slaughterers are the vital connection between family farms and consumers). The first pig he ever slaughtered his dad’s pet Fred: “Then he was Dead Fred.”

It is possible to respect animals and still kill and eat them. But yes, it is still killing. And killing is killing is killing, no matter how humanely or carefully or respectfully it is done.

John McIntyre, The Baltimore Sun‘s assistant managing editor for the copy desk (he does wear a bow tie but not a green eye shade), is a Kentuckian by birth. His blog usually deals with the precision of language, but today it offers an imprecise recipe for his mama’s fried chicken. The tricks, as far as he could tell (remember, he is a man of the copy desk, not a man of the kitchen), are small pieces of chicken, cracker breading and a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet.

I may just have to give it a try.

Does the guy make good points? Yes. But in the last week, since his book can out on Jan. 1, I have grown sick of hearing from him (NPR has had him on three times — wait — four, going out of its way to fit him in) and reading about him (Slate’s done him twice, Salon once, and Serious Eats has mentioned him three times). And that’s just from my RSS feed reader. Is he the only guy who can talk about this stuff?

He speaking in town this Sunday. I’m not sure if I will go.

Last summer, I did a cooking demo at which I read some scenes of livestock death. I wrote about it here. Yesterday, from visitor Artfulhome, came this comment:

Big of you to want to have a connection to the poor animal who died painfully and fearfully for your “fatty, juicy and delicious” dinner. I hope it was worth it. Anthony Bourdain has disgusted me with his macho bullshit where he seems to think that watching an animal’s brutal, violent killing somehow elevates him, and the pleasure he takes in eating its remains. It is a radical idea in this country, that perhaps we should be more advanced than to torture and kill to live well, when we really don’t have to. I love eating and cooking too, but am this close to becoming a raving vegan. The meat counter at my local supermarket has begun to smell like death to me, no matter that they sell free range, organic meat; that the animal had perhaps a slightly healthier, more pleasant life than most in its place is scant comfort. Maybe it’s getting older and having a closer relationship to my own mortality, maybe it’s looking in my terrier’s eyes and realizing that she is sentient, and that she, but for a slight accident of birth, could have been your panicked, scared, tortured pork chop.

I have a few points.

First: It should come as not surprise that the meat counter smells of death. It is death. The problem is meat eaters for whom it does not have any meaning of death. My point is that understanding, as a meat eater, the meat-is-death connection is valuable and important. Recognizing the sacrifice (of both human and animal) can encourage more care and less waste.

Second: Torture is a tricky word to use when talking about the meat we eat, especially when talking about all meat.The amount to which an animal knows it is going to die when it goes to the slaughterhouse can be debated, but I caution against the over anthropomorphizing of livestock.

Third: I, too, look at my dog and think about the similarities — I’m fascinated by how pigs can seem so dog-like when given the chance to run around and play. It doesn’t stop me from eating meat, but it does make me care about who is raising my meat.

Fourth: There is something macho about publicizing your willingness to watch of animals die. I’m no Anthony Bourdain apologist, but if a reader learns a little more about the violence involved, I think it has a value.

On visits to Philadelphia (and southern New Jersey), I always look forward to scrapple. The ingredients are off-putting: ground pork offal such as skin, brains, tongue, heart and liver mixed with cornmeal and spices. It’s like pork-parts polenta.

Everything’s mixed together and then formed into a loaf that is then cooked and packaged (buy Habbersett if you can get it). Then the loaf is sliced into half-inch pieces and cooked again on a hot griddle for about ten minutes per side. The wait is agonizing and it is tempting to try to speed it up, but resist. The reward is a crispy exterior with a mushy interior.

Some people eat it with ketchup, the savages. It’s fucking breakfast.

Why it’s not available in Iowa — with its more than 17 million pigs, 12,600 acres of corn and fair share of Germans — has always stumped me.

(If you know of a place that has it, leave a note in the comments.)

This is not — nor will it ever be — a recipe blog. But whenever I want to use this recipe I cannot find it so I am putting it here so that I can always find.

What’s that? Put it in a recipe box, you say? Nah, too easy.

From Rick Bayless, it originally appeared in the June/July 2004 issue of Saveur (No. 76).

Barbecue Spice
Makes about ½ cup
Hickory House [his parent’s barbecue shop] used Cain’s barbecue spice blend, no longer made, as its dry rub. This recipe is author Bayless’s interpretation of that now unobtainable product.
2 large cloves of garlic; peeled adn finely chopped
¼ cup ground chile, such as ancho, New Mexico or guajillo, or paprika
4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons dried oregano, preferably Mexican
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Put garlic, ground chile, salt, pepper, sugar, oregano and thyme into a small bowl. Stir well, making sure garlic is thoroughly combine. If not using spice mix right away, store in a small clean jar, tightly sealed, in the refrigerator for up to one month.

Hickory House Mild Barbecue Sauce
Makes about 3 cups
This sweet, ketchup-based sauce is typical of the Oklahoma City barbecue style.
2 cups ketchup
⅔ cup dark brown sugar
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
¼ cup worcestershire sauce
2–3 tablespoons white or cider vinegar
1–2 teaspoons barbecue spice (see recipe above)
½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Salt

Put ketchup, surgar, garlic, ¾ cup water, worcestershire, vinegar, barbecue spice and pepper into a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir until well combined. Season to taste with salt., if you like. Simer over medium-low heat, if necessary, to maintain a gentle simmer, for 30 minutes. If not using sauce right away, allow to cool, then store in a clean jar, tightly sealed, in the refrigerator for up to one month.