des moines bacon festival

oh no, it doesn’t stop there. now i love pork fat as much as the next guy and i told my lady that if she rubbed a little prosciutto on her neck and wrists she’d be up for promotion at work in no time. in any case leave it to the fine folks in des moines, iowa to put together the greatest festival of all time: the blue ribbon bacon festival. now this isn’t just a bunch of people getting together to eat pork and sing songs relating to pork, no. this is just as much about pbr as it is about bacon.

here’s what’s in store for you at the blue ribbon bacon festival: a lecture on bacon, a bacon eating competition, $1 pbr pulls (that’s drafts for the uninitiated), a bacon tasting and other activities that the use of alcohol combined with bacon and local & state laws allow, each person gets a bacon bracelet and a t-shirt to commemorate the event. (though i think their next cholesterol test should serve that purpose)

i for one will be there should i be able to get clearance from my cardiologist, trainer, my lady and be able to find some other deranged people to join me. for complete details see the des moines register. hope to see you there. and if i am there i will hopefully throw caution to the wind (whatever the hell that means) and sack up for the bacon eating contest.

what to do with 143 million pounds of tainted beef?

see here. btw, big ups to michael ruhlman for bringing this to the food community on the 31st of january. to bring it all into perspective this equates to roughly: 6.6 acres of land (43,560 ft square per acre) stacked wall-to-wall and 10 feet high in nothing but ground beef. *assuming we use a specific gravity of 0.9 for meat and converted it to water-based volume metrics. i think i just vomited in my mouth a little in any case.

now this comes on the heels of an investigation by the humane society into a slaughterhouse in chino, ca. there’s a string of videos on the humane society website that sparked a whole lot of controversy of the mistreatment of animals and slaughterhouses as a whole. one video in particular shows a downed cow attempting to be picked up with a forklift so it can meet inspection and be sold. getting flashes of the jungle by upton sinclair?

for those uninitiated a cow must be able to stand on its own and walk in order to meet the most basic qualifications for inspection. these are some of the most basic qualifications, they are not what makes it a good cow. the videos show not just the forklift but cows being stung with electric prods and shocked to try and get them to stand. now, i enjoy cheap meat as much as the next guy but here’s the worst part of the whole story: most of this meat was sold to elementary schools. yeah, you read correctly, these went to our children and while the latest recall is the largest in u.s. history the sad truth is that it’s most likely too late. sources say most of the beef has likely been consumed!

i have said it before and i’ll say it again: there are certain things in this world that you should pay good money for. for example: don’t buy cheap shoes when you have to stand or walk all day, don’t buy cheap sushi (do i even need to explain why this is on the list?), and most of all don’t buy cheap meat. know your butcher, develop a good relationship with him or her. ask them questions, don’t be accusative, but ask them questions to develop that relationship. also, when possible, get meat from a local butcher; their quality trumps that of the mega-mart any day of the week and twice on sunday. know your product and know what goes in your body. with that said, who wants a cheeseburger? i got the grill fired up already.