For most world cultures, meat is the
most satisfying food and its consumption correlates directly with wealth and
power. Humans naturally crave meat and only moral or environmental reasons can
minimize its consumption
Most of the guests you have invited
for a festive dinner are unconsciously expecting that the main dish will be
some kind of meat or poultry. Recipes for these dishes provide the essential
part of most cookbooks.
Meat and poultry have been
globalized and industrialized the world over. Most people buy their meat at the
supermarket where it is cheaper and “good enough.”
The relentless cost cutting needed
to satisfy this price tropism has led to all kinds of dubious practices with an
overuse of hormones, antibiotics, corn and corn derivatives and even
protein-based diets.
We all know that a high fat content
makes the best, most tender, most delicious meat. But fat does not sell, and
the industry has tended to move to leaner, tougher, less tasty meat that health
experts can condone more readily. As always, there is a fine line to walk
between pleasure and risk, and no free lunch.
On the positive side, in the US as
well as in Europe, we have seen the development of premium segments, from
grass-fed to organic, allowing us to eat less of a much better meat for the
same budget. In France, you can still find the old style of small, high quality
butcher shops. In the rich Bay area of the US, there are enough interested
customers and enough devoted cattle and poultry farmers to support the growth
of new “boutique” butcher shops.
Meat lends itself to numerous
cooking techniques, most of them designed to reach the internal temperature at
which we customarily say the meat is cooked, increase the aromas either through
the way the meat itself cooks or the way it is permeated by other components of
the dish and maximize the visual and gustatory effects of browning (the
Maillard reaction, which we also relish in many other food types. See Odds and
Ends). (1)
For fast cooking methods, used for
the most tender meats, the outside of the piece is always higher in temperature
than the inside and cooks have to find the right balance between a cooked,
moist interior and an exterior that has not dried out too much and started
losing some of its flavor.
Long cooking techniques are adapted
for tougher cuts that will benefit from that process and become more moist and
tender in the end.
Spit-roasting i.e. regularly
exposing every part of a piece of meat to radiant heat until fully cooked, was
the first obvious and basic way to cook meat or birds before we invented new
improved techniques and it is still a wonderful way to extract the best taste
of most meat cuts.
In terms of flavorful results and
pure cooking enjoyment as well, spit-roasting is unmatched. It can work for
squab as well as a pork roast… or a full cow! However it is not adapted to our
urban lifestyle. It requires space, time (cooking a chicken may take an hour
and a half, but cooking a lamb may take 4 or 5 hours) and commitment.
It can still be done if you have a
large fireplace and if you accept the unavoidable mess which goes with using
it. Actually, it offers the health advantage over grilling in that the heat
source is on the side. Thus the fat spilling out from the meat does not drip on
embers, creating harmful carcinogens. (2)
Grilling, over an open barbecue or
an open fire is much easier, but you should be attentive to the medium you use.
Natural fruit tree wood embers are better than natural charcoal, itself better
than most briquettes (follow what your nose tells you on the chemical smells
that accompany the starting process).
Meat being static and close to the
fire or embers, you have a higher risk of burning your meat, creating these
blackened bitter-tasting carcinogen-laced sections that, unfortunately, too
many people seem to relish!
Are there any instructions to do it
right? Brillat-Savarin famously wrote that “you can become a sauce-maker, but
roasting experts are born.” By this, he meant that, beyond experience, you must
be gifted for this activity, intuitively know how much time has elapsed since
you checked last, appreciate the visual and tactile changes in the meat, and
what is still needed before completion, manage the distance from the fire or
rekindle it to accelerate. Only experience, passion and confidence can help you
with that. And once you know, you will know forever.
Using an oven to roast your meat is
going to be much faster and can deliver appetizing results, though not as
perfect as a spit-roast for the balance between a nicely browned appetizing
outside and a juicy, moist inside.
With experience, you will choose
your favorite balance between time and temperature which might be different for
different types of meat. Poultry presents another difficulty as white meat
cooks faster than thighs: You will either have to protect the breast with
aluminum foil after a while or to detach the thighs from the body slightly so
that all sides are exposed to heat. Some oven roasting can be quite long on low
heat if you are looking primarily for tenderness, for a turkey, for example, or
the famed “Gigot de 7 heures”, a leg of lamb which will melt in your mouth 7 hours
later if you have the patience for that.
Oven-roasted meat and poultry can be
served with different vegetable accompaniments, from string beans to potatoes
to a zucchini/tomato tian.
This is probably the most frequently
used method for quickly cooking meat, whether it is a tender sirloin steak or
chicken legs. It offers a very efficient heat transfer and allows Maillard
browning to take place.
Stewing is adapted for most tough
meat cuts but also for chicken which can be safely overcooked. In this process,
after a quick browning, cooking is switched to low heat, in general in the same
pot, with some vegetables and most of the time some liquid (wine or stock)
added. This type of cooking may take more time overall but requires less
attention and leads to appetizing flavor exchanges and sometimes entirely new
tastes which you will want to share with friends. (3)
A stew will be a meal in itself with
the addition of white rice, pasta, or some other complementary cereal.
(1) Again,
the underlying chemical and physical processes associated with cooking
different kinds of meat (and fish) are extensively described by Harold McGee in
his book, On Food and Cooking.
(2) This
would not go well in most of the kitchens you see in architectural magazines,
which look so sleek and clean that only microwaving can be allowed.
(3) Most
stews use white wine or some variation. Red wine confers its specific flavor on
two famous French stews, Boeuf Bourguignon and Coq au Vin.
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