The chork and the pork; Ionic tonic; Mike and Ike; Pie on high; Sack jack; Maple staple; The bard of lard

The Chork: If Chopsticks and Forks Had a Baby

Steve Graves, Meat and BBQ consultant, Ask-a-Butcher, Newsvine, A.s the Q. -

What is the difference between a Pork Butt* and a Pork Picnic?

The 'whole' pork shoulder (15-20 lbs) consists of the upper part (Boston Butt) and the lower part of the shoulder (the Picnic). You can purchase it whole, however most times it is found in the store separated into the two pieces mentioned above. The difference between Picnics and Boston Butts are the bone structure......the butt has a small shoulder blade bone and the picnic has the front leg bone and joint.

The picnic is normally sold with "skin on", whereas the Butt only has a small fat cap. Both have excellent BBQ meat, but the Boston Butt is the better value. The meat from the Picnic seems "sweeter".

* a/k/a Pork Shoulder Blade Roast

Make Your Own Greek-Style Yogurt "Follow these simple steps to make amazingly thick and creamy Greek-style yogurt at home, from skim or 2 percent milk." Mixed-Berry Conserve "This thick raspberry-and-blueberry sauce is the perfect topping for yogurt, ice cream and even a piece of toast."

Mike and Ike separating

Best Pizza Places in the U.S.

Cooking with Testicles!: "The author is Serbian testicles chef (his title not mine) Ljubomir Erovic, who is also the 'organizer and creator of the annual testicle cooking champion here in Serbia.'"

Crescent Manufacturing Company Mapleine exhibit in Boston, 1911
Customers at Amazon.com and at in the 70s swear by their otherwise hard-to-find Mapleine (est. 1905) for homemade syrup at a 2012 penny an ounce before the sugar.

From a full-page advertisement in the monthly magazine The Coast: Alaska And Greater Northwest for September 1909; the Crescent Manufacturing Company of Seattle sold Mapleine in the 1980s to McCormick, which sells it on a limited basis:

"In putting this new flavoring upon the market its makers have given the consuming public a square deal. They have never advertised it as anything more than a substitute, frankly admitting in the label of every bottle that it contains no particle of maple, and no attempt has ever been made to deceive anybody concerning its composition. In the controversy of the company with the government last April, which was given prominence in the press reports throughout the United States, there was no question of the purity or harmlessness of the product, but simply the propriety of the labeling of the containers. The government agents contend that when a suffix such as 'ine' is added to the name of a food product to designate some prepared food product which contains no part of the product bearing the name to which the suffix had been added, the derivative name cannot be legally used. At the hearing of the case before the United States district court at Chicago last May the meaning of the suffix 'ine' was the sole question at issue. The government admitted that the preparation was harmless. During the hearing cakes and candies made from the product were passed to the jury and eaten with relish, and the attorneys for the government admitted that the products were the equal in taste and appearance to genuine maple products, and could not distinguish from them."

On the diet and health habits of the C18-C19 United States, see Berton Roueché, "The Talk of the Town: Comment, Pt. II", The New Yorker, June 25, 1990:

"The meat was bacon and ham and sausage and chicken and beefsteak, and they ate it fried in lard. Potatoes were usually fried, and served with fried onions. They ate fresh fish (fried) and shellfish when the weather permitted, and at other times they ate salt cod and smoked eel. They drank whole milk and used plenty of heavy cream and butter and eggs and cheese. They ate the local fruits and vegetables in their natural season. They shot and ate migrating ducks and grouse in fall and spring. They ate pancakes and johnnycake and samp and doughnuts and plenty of rye bread (made of stone-ground flour) and biscuits and pies and cakes and cookies, all baked with lard."
Lard: The New Health Food?: "Startled by news about the dangers of trans fats, writer Pete Wells happily contemplates the return of good old-fashioned lard":

"After hanging out in your mouth for a minute, though, a lard-fried crust becomes soft and creamy, as voluptuous as a Rubens nude but not as heavy. All my kitchen slipups didn't stop me from recognizing that lard is the most elegant fat I've ever met. Even the absence of pork flavor, which at first struck me as a flaw, only made lard seem more delicate and refined. 

My euphoria lasted about 10 minutes. Then I wanted to hunt down the villains who'd kept me away from my beautiful lard all these years. When I find them, though, I doubt I'll have the heart for revenge. When McDonald's swore off beef tallow in 1990 and started crisping its fries in vegetable oil, plenty of decent, honest people believed lives would be spared. But the oil they were using was partially hydrogenated. Now there's a crusade against trans fats; the company is under pressure to switch to nonhydrogenated oil. Animal fat has been around a lot longer than the FDA. Why were we so quick to toss lard overboard?"

High on the Hog by Corby Kummer: "The stage might be set at last for the comeback of the great misunderstood fat: lard":

"Every baker knows that despite lard's heavy reputation (it is pig fat, after all), nothing makes a flakier or better-tasting pie crust. Lard also makes the lightest and tastiest fried chicken: buttermilk, secret spices and ancient cast-iron skillets are all well and good, but the key to fried chicken greatness is lard."


Cracklin’s, fresh lard, and buttermilk biscuits—what a treat!

Cracklin’s by Linda Gabris: "An irresistible snack that you can’t stop sneakin’":

"All of grandmother’s recipes for biscuits, pies, fried fish, and birds called for the use of lard and I can vouch for the fact that her pastries were light and flaky and her grouse as finger lickin’ as any chicken. And grandpa and grandmother—even in old age—were a fast-footed pair hard to keep up with."

Suet 101 by Beth Kracklauer: "Mincemeat pie made the traditional way is unlike any other pie you'll ever eat. Why? Beef suet":

"Suet has a high melting point, so in order to keep a mincemeat filling fluid and luscious, it's best to serve the pie piping hot. At that temperature, with aromas of spice and citrus hovering all around, a good mincemeat pie is nothing short of intoxicating."