This annoys. Granted, Dr. Claw was a little bold with his clandestine operation, calling a lot of attention to himself online and on various food television outlets, even, on one occasion, giving a Facebook tongue lashing to a similar guerrilla operation that uses his delivery method (They’ve since made nice, it appears). But in a time when there really aren’t so many jobs to be had, and what cooking jobs there are have mostly been spoken for by an immigrant population who’ll work for next to nothing, people have to do SOMETHING. Just ask illegal immigrants who walk the streets selling empanadas out of baby strollers.

The concern for public health standards is well understood in this kitchen-office. There’s some specific knowledge required to safely produce and deliver food. Some people do not know what they’re doing, and they should not be doing it. But Dr. Claw is no stranger to the food business. He began his lobster roll operation as an experienced culinary professional, not a hobbyist. And then, there are those who do know what they’re doing, blatantly ignore what’s best for the public’s health, and are allowed to remain in business on a very large scale. Case in point:

Since being served with a notice, Dr. Claw has begun selling t-shirts proclaiming “Lobster Rolls are not a Crime” on the internet to his loyal fans. In any case, here’s a video depicting Claw doing what he does best. There is NOTHING happening in this video that should scare you. Dangerous transgressions are aplenty in fully licensed, Grade A approved industrial kitchens.  Now, with the “economy the way it is,” some regulations on small food businesses should perhaps be changed to allow for properly maintained home kitchens to serve as headquarters for knowledgeable, experienced culinary professionals. But even if the laws don’t change, this sort of thing is going to continue to go on. It’s a way of life for culinary artisans all over the world, and has been since time immemorial. Should we now expect a “war” on underground food entrepreneurs? Or even worse, reality food television that follows underground chefs, blurring out their faces and disguising their faces? Perhaps Dr. Claw’s brashness was part of a bigger picture. Whatever the plan is, let’s hope he keeps his fingers out of his mouth in front of the camera.

Eating is advisable, and can even be enjoyable. Maybe it’s that I’ve been a culinary professional for my entire working life, but food as fetish spanks my rosy red bottom the wrong way, and a little too hard. I know that Adam Richman is an actor, employed by a television network to entertain, and I’ve read that he offsets the effects of the ridiculous food challenges his whip-crackers put upon him with a regimen of exercise and… water. But when he’s getting all amped up about the excesses of some local American greasy spoon’s “fortuitously famous fodder”, he starts sounding like a coked-up Chris Farley. And then I’m unable to pry from my head the image of said deceased comedian shoveling pound after pound of twelve different kinds of pork from a BBQ buffet into his cavernous maw, braying like an ass that got into the cider barrel about how amazing everything is, and articulating assinine alliterated assessments of the indiscernible glop mounds under assault while the gravy from six different animals sets to the oozing from every orifice on his head. And you might find his gushing praise believable if it didn’t sound like he’d just quaffed a gram of 100% pure Colombian (cocaine, not coffee), which has rendered his tastebuds impotent. He cannot taste a single nuance of what’s clinging for dear life to his poor fork, the sniffer and palate fried from the drug and acid reflux. He screams a hoarse, unintelligible ululation and falls to the floor in a quivering, gelatinous heap. Cut to commercial…

[A naked Paula Deen is smeared with viscous brown goo, bellowing, "I just love my puddin', y'awl!" from within her backyard jacuzzi running over with the chocolate variety. "And I'll be jiggered if I just can't wait fer y'awl to join me on my next episode, where we're gonna have all kinds o' puddin' out here in the hot tub! I'm even gonna show you how to make my grandmawmaw's puddin' pie, God rest her soul up in heav'n..."]

Food is terrific stuff. Sensuality and dining are fantastic. But, friends old and new, food obsession is just gross. Compulsively watching people have food-gasms on television is one molecule away from compulsively reading trashy novels for want of true intimacy. They don’t call it food porn for no reason, and excess in this regard is every bit as sexy as living through the recessions and depressions of an empire crumbling under the weight of its own corpulence and greed. If you don’t see the connection, please return to your television and darken my kitchen no more.

There is perhaps no word in the culinary lexicon of American English that sets mouths to watering and arguing as profusely as barbecue. You probably know what it is, and what it is not. We all know that when at its best, barbecue is an apex of achievement in American gastronomy. It is the art of coaxing deep flavors from meat through the application of slow, indirect heat and wood smoke. Hickory and mesquite are the most commonly used woods, but apple, cherry, alder, maple, oak and others also find their way into the mix. There are various dry and wet seasoning techniques utilized before and during the cooking process, and an array of sauces can be had as condiment. Most aficionados of the Southern U.S. style of barbecue agree that sauce should never be applied to the meat until after the cooking is finished, and then only according to individual taste. The über-purist will maintain that if barbecue requires any sauce at all, it’s simply not that good. Suffice it to say that the variations on technique and composition are myriad, and that pride in regional barbecue styles is generally quite strong. Though none of us should need reminding that there is glee to be gotten from outdoor cooking of any sort, or that we are wealthier for the variety.

Most etymologists agree that the word barbecue comes to us from the indigenous Arawak people of the Caribbean by way of Christopher Columbus. Barabicu - which became the Spanish barbacoa – refers to a framework of wood or sticks built over a pit for cooking meat. In the Arawak tradition, the meat was typically a whole goat or pig wrapped in leaves and placed on the framework, then buried in coals to roast slowly for hours. Fittingly enough, it is the Arawaks who also gave us the hammock.

Esteemed culinarians opine that in proper American usage, barbecue is always a noun referring only to the finished dish, and never a verb. This doesn’t seem to stop Americans from saying, ‘Let’s barbecue,’ or ‘We’re going to a barbecue.’ It is perhaps best to leave the grammatical and etymological argument to scholars. We know that they are often not half so happy, nor half so wise, as us blissful dullards who prefer chewing delicious food to pedantic debate. However the word is used or misused, its utterance will almost universally indicate that a fire will be lit outdoors, and that the flesh of an animal will be cooked on or near that fire. For our purposes here, barbecue will refer to the dish, not the activities or events which produce that dish. With this set in place, we can move on to the question of regional barbecue styles…

Pancetta, if you didn’t know, is quite simply Italian bacon. Pork belly is cured with garlic, herbs and aromatic spices such as nutmeg, clove and cinnamon, then hung to dry. Often the belly is rolled and tied before drying for an attractive spiral effect when sliced, but not always. Most commercial pancetta you’ll find in the United States comes as thin slices of the rolled variety. My decidedly un-commercial pancetta (pictured above) is not rolled.

Pancetta is excellent as a foundational flavor for sauces, sauteed with vegetables for frittata (such as this one I made a while back), or simply sliced and fried for breakfast or sandwiches.

My most recent batch of country pancetta was finished yesterday. It’s officially gone, but I’ll start another batch in a day or two. If you’re in Portland and you’d like to get hold of some of my pancetta, simply contact me to inquire about becoming a client.

If I haven’t mentioned achar before in another post, I’ll take this opportunity to proclaim Achar Pachranga from Pachranga Foods as one of the best spicy oil pickles on the market. I’m especially fond of the lotus root and Indian gooseberries in their signature blend. You can put the stuff on just about anything, or merely eat it straight from a fork.