Food Thread

Philboid Studge · 05-10-2007, 08:08 AM

Quote:

eva wrote

phil, i'm a simple person....never tasted truffles, or the oil....should i splurge? is it that good?

Oh it's good all right. Truffle oil smells like sex -- seriously. Now maybe that's not to everyone's taste but ... I'm not sure how to finish that sentence.

Fresh truffles (the season runs from Sept to Dec) are also tres expensive, and not every palate "gets it." The white truffles (which I think are slightly earlier than the black) are the more flavorful.

Adding just a few drops of truffle oil -- to an omelette, a risotto, etc -- is like cheating.

(Rocket, I was jerking yer chain re olive oil; I have the stuff coursing through my veins. :))

ubs · 12-03-2009, 09:57 AM

Hillybilly Truffles.

First we kicked their wine industry in the ass.....

Smellyoldgit · 12-03-2009, 10:12 AM

I've always been put off by the harvesting process.

How do you stop the ol' hog from munching the find?

ubs · 12-03-2009, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Smellyoldgit wrote

I've always been put off by the harvesting process.

See, this is what makes the deep south perfect for this industry. From the article

Quote:

Although the truffle possesses a pleasant crunch, it is treasured not so much for its taste or appearance but for its aroma, which has been likened to bedsheets after a night of abandon, slatterns who disdain to bathe, all that is dark and alluring about the human body and soul. In the middle of the winter growing season, they can be fruity and floral. Later, they become muskier…

Mmmm

Quote:

Smellyoldgit wrote

How do you stop the ol' hog from munching the find?

I'm guessing the same way you keep your retriever from eating your duck. You teach them that they get a treat for dropping it when they're still small and you can wrestle it away.

Philboid Studge · 02-20-2010, 08:01 AM

Quote:

ubs wrote

I'm guessing the same way you keep your retriever from eating your duck. You teach them that they get a treat for dropping it when they're still small and you can wrestle it away.

Not quite. The pigs are usually muzzled, and in any case they are used mostly for tourists or media events (and almost entirely in Europe).

Dogs are more widely used to find truffles, as they can be trained to find the buried treasure without eating it, whereas pigs go for the scent naturally: truffles contain steroids that are identical to steroids found in the saliva of boars -- which is why sows are used to find truffles. The lady pigs are attracted to the pheromone (boy howdy, are they), and when in estrus they go mental for them. They actually go into "present" mode when they find the truffle, put their ham hocks in the air in the hope of get their caves spelunked.

Those same steroids -- in both truffles and boar saliva -- is also a close match for one that is secreted in the human male underarm! I shit you not.

As you pointed out, truffles are redolent of sexy time. More than that, they come close to being actually aphrodisiac. An experiment at Buckingham U. showed that people who were exposed to the steroid had more positive responses to photographs of members of the opposite sex than those who breathed mere air. (I don't know how they controlled for teh gay.)

Ref: Jacobson's Organ by Lyall Watson

Smellyoldgit · 12-04-2009, 03:50 AM

Fairy nuff - training young pigs might be ok - but when a full grown oinker tries to shag your leg . . . . .

ubs · 12-04-2009, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Smellyoldgit wrote

Fairy nuff - training young pigs might be ok - but when a full grown oinker tries to shag your leg . . . . .

And then they can sell post cards as well.

Eva · 12-04-2009, 06:25 AM

as some of you know, i'm into cooking. so, we have this traditional dish that everybody eats during the solstice, but it is pretty complicated to make. they are called "pasteles", and i'll be making some to sell this weekend. (they are pricey). it's a masa made out of green bananas, pumpkin, green plantains and a potato like tuber that we grow here, stuffed with a cooked mixture of pork and chicken, with raisins, roasted bell peppers and green olives. think tamales but not made out of corn masa and without the corn husk wrapping.
got me some clients for them lined up already.
will also make smoked stuffed jalapeño poppers (20 bucks a dozen!) and posibly some prize-winning bbq ribs. (people are begging for them).

things are bad, gotta make some money!

Philboid Studge · 12-04-2009, 06:40 AM

In September I found a ginormous chicken mushroom in NW Connecticut -- had to weigh 10 kg. It took a couple days to cook all of it in several batches -- some with tomato sauce and peppers, others with garlic and olive tampanade -- and froze tons of it. Was a huge hit at Thanksgiving.

I have a couple quarts left in the freezer...

Eva · 12-04-2009, 07:10 AM

does it taste like chicken??

Smellyoldgit · 12-04-2009, 07:15 AM

it looks fowl.

Philboid Studge · 12-04-2009, 07:19 AM

It has the texture of chicken.

The italians call it 'penale', because of it's penile shape when it first emerges from the wood.

I said *wood*

Eva · 12-04-2009, 08:03 AM

like an aphrodisiac...

Professor Chaos · 12-04-2009, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Philboid Studge wrote

I have a couple quarts left in the freezer...

Looks like someone's going to have a very Mary Studgemas.

Philboid Studge · 12-31-2009, 01:03 PM

The chicken mushroom mentioned earler figures into tonights new years eve
meal. It's a basil pesto mélange. Also having a mushroom risotto and am about to start some bread. I inherited an old cuisinart which has cut my kneading and pounding in half. ( my advancing years have also taken it's toll on pounding)

anybody else doing gustatory magic in the kitchen tonight?