A wonderful dinner celebrating Fergus Henderson at Manhattan’s Savoy 6

Comments View as Threaded

1. 

   PermieWriter Posted 9:48 am
   15 Oct 2007

   BravoWonderful. I imagine that in the coming years we sustainability-devoted omnivores will have to develop a taste for innards. Thank goodness for chefs like Henderson who can make them palatable.
   I've tried to eat rabbit livers after hearing them highly praised, but they simply taste like -- well, like organ meat. I've felt bad about wasting such a large chunk of protein, but not so much recently -- the chickens adore it.
   Don't mind the hysterical vegans. Religious zealots are just that way. Eventually the ones worth working with will realize that sustainable husbandry is the way to create decent lives for the animals with which we share both globe and karma.
   
   Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

   Permalink

2. 

   Biodiversivist Posted 2:18 pm
   15 Oct 2007

   Nice pieceHow was the wine?
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

   Permalink

3. 

   caniscandida Posted 9:12 pm
   15 Oct 2007

   "hysterical"?Vegans are "hysterical"?  Well, not unnaturally a bit of frantic indignation can take over from time to time in the minds of vegans and supporters of animal rights, living as we do 24/7/365.25 with the bitter awareness that the great majority of the human race have little or no concern for the sad fates of those non-human animals for whom we care very deeply, and that they think us mad and bothersome just for caring.
   On the other hand, it hardly inspires confidence in his utterly non-hysterical sobriety, rationality and normality, when a spokesman for carnivory can presume to slip by us so ill-considered a sentence as this:
   <<
   
   As we gaily munched the appetizer of crispy deep-fried, battered rabbit legs (quiet, vegans) and "little anchovy buns" -- small, olive-oil-redolent rolls stuffed with garlicky anchovy paste -- Hoffman addressed the room with a brief, eloquent account of how he'd known Henderson for years and the importance of eating the whole animal.
   
   >>
   Has he banished Fish from the Animal Kingdom?  Or, does he believe that those obstreperous silly vegans, focused exclusively on their beloved Mammals, have banished Fish from the Animal Kingdom?  Either way, this is clearly not a man who is paying attention.
   (Well, in fairness, he has more on the ball than that cheerleader for Iowan agriculture, Kurt Michael Friese, who asked in the linked "wonderful piece" thread what he apparently thinks is a trenchant rhetorical question, "If we all go vegan, what would happen to all those animals that we now keep in CAFOs?"  OK, KMF, ask yourself, what sorts of things might happen to them?  Really, we in the East did that fellow a grave injustice by allowing him to return to Iowa with his dense Midwestern livestock mentality intact.)
   Then, by way of impressing us with the "facts of life" of agri-eco-economics, the sort of "facts" that no vegan can be counted on to have thought about, our author writes:
   <<
   
   If we are going to feed a growing global population with small-scale, local-oriented agriculture, then we're going to need to keep livestock, which boost farm productivity by turning food scraps and inedible (by humans) plant matter like grass into high-quality, soil-building fertilizer as well as nutrient-rich food.
   And if we're going to eat those livestock in a way that's sustainable, then ....
   
   >>
   Can he not recognize, that to start with "It is a good thing to keep some animals around on our farms," then at once to leap to "So of course we must eat them," is logically questionable?
   
   
   "Should we, who wish to support an eco-friendly and sustainable agriculture, eat animals?"
   "Yes, because small-scale farms need to have animals around, first to eat and poop, and then to be killed and be eaten."
   
   
   Whoa!, that is way too fast.  It rather begs the question.
   If I understand what C4nier was writing in the earlier KMF thread, I fully agree that it is always good, and deserving of praise and support, for farmers and chefs to encourage a treatment of animals that approaches as closely as possible the ideal of being humane, as well as to encourage us all to consume less meat and other animal products.  KMF and Tom Philpott seem to be doing that, after their fashion; and for that at least they should be thanked.
   We very much need to hear the thoughts and experiences of such friends of small-scale local-oriented agriculture as Tom Philpott.  So it is regrettable, and not at all helpful, in the course of describing an intentionally carnivorous meal, for him to launch a pre-emptive strike on vegans and supporters of animal rights -- as though we all think the same thoughts, and pass the same judgments, and as though those thoughts and judgments are equally despicable.
   Two small requests:
   
   
   Let us consign the term "livestock" to that list of words which should never be uttered in polite society.  There are far better, far more honest ways of referring to animals who are kept in captivity on farms with a view to exploiting them.
   Let meat-eaters who wish to gush about the joys of eating meat do so in private, amongst themselves, in closed rooms, and not in public.
   
   
   
   Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

   Permalink

4. 

   Pangolin Posted 12:33 am
   16 Oct 2007

   Sausage, tendon, brains & bitsI must say that a reminder to eat the whole beasty once we commit to killing it is laudable. I pick up my local, grass-fed, lamb carcass this week. Unfortunately I could not convince the processor to wash out the intestines or give me that head.  
   Outside of the skin, bones and contents of the alimentary canal mammals are edible. Those familiar with Vietnamese Pho restaurants know that tendon, cooked properly, is quite the treat. Anything that you might be hesitant to eat goes into sausage quite well and the few things that are left mix will with rice or barley for pet food.
   It's all good.
   Millions of people live in landscapes where only a meat based diet allows their existence at all. Where traditional land management systems have failed due to interventions of Western technology overshoot is likely. Exhorting people to convert to diets that are not culturally or environmentally supported is futile.
   Vegetarianism is suited to temperate climates and well-watered river valleys. In Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Kazakhstan, Australia, Tibet or many other like environments it is suicide.
   
   Locally the mule deer and wild boar are feasting on a bumper crop of acorns and the geese are flying in from Alaska to fertilize the rice fields. Rissoto anyone?
   Eat what's available in your environment. Support planned parenthood also because no matter what we eat if we keep growing our population we will destroy the ecosystem that we depend upon to live.
   
   Put the Carbon Back

   Permalink

5. 

   amc89 Posted 3:06 am
   16 Oct 2007

   Agreed, CanisCandidaThanks CanisCandida, well put. I think it's important to cover chefs like Fergus who are working to reduce the amount of animals that are killed for food.  I agree that if you eat meat, you should eat all the parts. Luckily I'm vegan so I don't have to ponder the thought of eating rabbit liver or pig's feet. Yuck.
   But Tom, if you want vegans and vegetarians to respect small scale and sustainable animal farmers, then you need to respect us too. Yes, some vegans may not argue in the most reasonable of manners, but neither do a great deal of omnivores.  Your snide comments about vegans and vegetarians are really off-putting sometimes, and often I find what you're writing about very interesting, until I get to the vegan insults.  

   Permalink

6. 

   Tom Philpott Posted 2:21 am
   29 Oct 2007

   True enough, AMCI shouldn't take gratuitous pokes at vegans. I am convinced that we need to eat less animal products, and I salute them for leading the charge. But we do need to eat some animal products, and the challenge is to do it as efficiently and humanely as possible. The great Fergus shows a way forward.
   
   Victual Reality

   Permalink