I Dont Know What to Make of This

I saw this:

 

and I just don't know what to think.

The Great Debate: Cuisine Cont.

If there is any question about the different aspects of the decline of "Cuisine", then let Bob del Grosso's latest post be a wake up call.

What he speaks of is one of the biggest part of the decline of Cuisine in this country. We do not heed our history, and the history of those who brought us great food for countless years.

The Great Debate: The End of Cuisine as We Know it?

For thousands of years humans have developed the style in which we lead our lives. Its ever changing, constantly adapting, sometimes falling backwards as our ideals, feelings, and lifestyles change.

Food is no different.

Since the rise of the first civilizations on the planet we've been adapting and changing the way we view food, cook food, and the social interaction of food.

The dictionary defines Cuisine as:

–noun

1. a style or quality of cooking; cookery: Italian cuisine; This restaurant has an excellent cuisine.

2. Archaic. the kitchen or culinary department of a house, hotel, etc.

While in a literal sense this is correct, there is so much more to cuisine. Geography, Terrior, Social Interaction, Religion, and Availability/Trade/Commerce all pay huge rolls in what makes cuisine.

Since the dawn of restaurants we've defined cuisine as what Chefs are making, what's hot and not, and what people are willing to eat. Gone idle by the intervention of interstate commerce, refrigeration, and preservation Cuisine has adapted and changed to fit our day to day needs.

Now on the preverbal twilight of Haute Cuisine, and the rise of the Fast Food Nations we stand at a very frightening time in Cuisines torrid history..

So my question to you is this.

Do you think Cuisine is dying out?

Do you think the ideal of Cuisine being strongly tied to the land, the environment in which we live and obtain our basic animal needs is giving way to something new, something different?

Poll added to the sidebar, Feel free to comment and vote!

Alot of people seem to be voting No to the question, please leave a comment as to why your voting yes or no.

Chili Cookoff Recipe

Well, The recipe has been submitted and now we await word if it qualifies for competition.

I did allot of reading up on different award winning chili's and comparing and contrasting them under a microscope for a couple of days over the weekend.

It took a little more research into traditional chili and the have/have not's of really good traditional chili to come to a conclusion. 

After talking with my roommate about what we wanted to accomplish we set to brainstorming and come up with this:     Keep in mind this is only a basis for what we want to do. It'll be tweaked and refined over the coming weeks if we get accepted

 

“Off The Wagon” Chili
Developed by:
 Stephen Carter
and
Dominic Joseph

Ingredients:

15# Beef Chuck, Cubed
5# Pork Butt, Cubed
1 T Veg Oil
1.5 oz Garlic, minced
5 # onion, medium diced
3 ea Dried Ancho Chilies, Diced
3 ea Dried  Pasilla Chilies, Diced
1 can Chipotle Chilies, Diced (Reserve Adobo Sauce)
Bourbon, To Deglaze
Cumin, TT
Ancho Powder, TT
Black Pepper, TT
Salt, TT
Dried Oregano, TT
1.25 Gallon Beef Broth
5 oz Onion, Chopped
4 oz Carrot, Chopped
4 oz Celery, Chopped
1 ea Dried Ancho Chili
1.50 gal water
1 # Roasted Beef Bone
4 # Beef Chuck

Method

Day Before:
-Cut meat into uniform cubes.
-Mix together dry spices.
-Make reduction of two cup Bourbon, chill.
-Mix dry spices with Bourbon reduction and rub onto meat.
-Hold, covered in fridge overnight.

-Prepare Broth, Chill and hold for next day

Day of:
-Heat Veg oil in large pot.
-Sear off meat in batches, making sure to get good browning on all sides. Drain excess fat.
-Keep roughly 1-2 T fat in pot and on low flame slowly sweat onions, garlic, Ancho, and Pasilla chilies.
-Deglaze pot with Bourbon, reduce.
-Return meat to pot, cover with Broth.
-Add diced Chipotle
- Allow to reduce slowly, adding broth as needed over the course of cooking time.
- Adjust seasoning with dried spices, salt, and black pepper.
-To finish add reserved adobo  for added flavor.

 

Id like to give special thanks to Gary Allen for his feedback and suggestions. They made a big difference in the choices we made for this recipe.

Shoutout Sundays: Recipe Edition

Normally I do Shoutout Sundays in reference to other blogs that may not be as known or offbeat. But tonight while enjoying the absolutely AMAZING weather I almost forgot to do this weeks segment!

I scurried around looking for a site to plug when I stumbled back onto Farmgirl Fare and noticed an amazing looking and sounding recipe for veggie tacos and cabbage slaw.

I think I’ve mentioned this site before but checking out the post is everything I love about it. Great pics (Man I want to reach through the screen and grab one of those tacos so bad right now) and well informed information lend me to love this site more and more.

I also should say that I’ve been digging around Leites Culinaria's recipe section as well.

So check them out!

Happy 1/2 Bday

A friend and co-operator of CriticalHits.com contacted me the other day to point out that he noticed this blog was "Doing well". Earlier I discussed the best place to track traffic on the site and he suggested Google Analytics, saying they were using it and were having some amount of happiness with it.

At the start of this month I signed up and started tracking and have been, well, very pleasantly surprised by the results. One of the most exciting aspects is seeing exactly where people are visiting from.

So a quick Hello/Bon Jour/Willkommen/G'day/Buenos Tardes to my friends across the globe who stop by to visit, glad to have you!

One of the other great aspects of seeing where people visit from is seeing the areas that have the most visits:

New York
Pennsylvania
California
Texas (Really?!)
Washington
Florida
Minnesota

I know I’m probably sounding a little off when I say it, but I’m excited to see all the repeat traffic from these locations. This will also give me a good standpoint on topics I could post relative to the areas viewing such as news, updates, happenings and the like.

But also it being the first of September this means:

The Foodist blog is 6 months old! *pops streamers and releases balloons*

We're getting basic motor skills down and starting to crawl so here’s to another good 6 months and thank you all for reading and participating!

Polls are Closed.

Well the results from my poll are in. Seems most (40%/6 votes) of you decided that if you were to look at a resume youd pick the person with more job experience.

Culinary School education came in very close (33%/5 votes) and a larger majority then expected (26%/4 votes) decided that they didnt see a difference.

By the comments to the Debate Post relating to this poll I would have to say the majority would want a good mix of both.

It came to light that I should have been more specific when I said "Job experience", and what I meant was job experience equal to that of a culinary school grad. In otherwords both bottom rung.

What I was hoping to see was how the general public saw culinary grads. Are we just a bunch of pompus rich boys/girls who were looking for an easy way in or devoted foodies finding another path other then the dreaded internship?

I think by the reactions and the polls that we still see a sense that one who fights in the trenches so to speak would seem to be the better pick to the one who sits behind a desk. But a overwhelming majority said that a perfect mix of education and hard work would make the best candidate for employement. I was glad to see that, feeling as though anyone who attends culinary school should have that experience in a real kitchen so they know what they are in for.

Thanks for voting all! I look forward to the next Great Debate.