The Culinary Institute of America has many student groups that focus on some aspect of the industry. We have the Slow Cooking Club, The Modernist Cuisine Society, The Baking and Pastry Society and much more! This past week, two of the said clubs, Charcuterie Club and Slow Cooking Club, joined forces and organized a whole hog fabrication demo for the student body.
FUN FOOD FACT #728
Charcuterie, from chair 'flesh' and cuit 'cooked', is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products that include but not limited to bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, head cheese, pancetta, and prosciutto.
So this past Monday was a Special Projects Day, which means students get the day off to work on special assignments while chef instructors and professors work on some academic planning. After meeting up and finishing the assignments assigned to us, some friends and I headed over to the DK Theatre to check out this Whole Hog Fabrication we've been hearing about all week. BEE TEE DUB, fabrication is just a fancy word that means to butcher, clean and portion meat. We walk in and and in front of us at the demo kitchen was....
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| TA-DAAA... |
It's name was Charles. The next hour and a half or so was then occupied by two awesome chefs that teach here. Using one half of the pig, one chef demonstrated the classic American fabrication methods, the ways one would fabricate the hog if one were to use it to make classic American style food. Loin, hock, fat back, bacon, etc. Then the other chef, using the OTHER side of Charles here, showed us how to fabricate the hog using traditional Austrian cuts.
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| Taking half of Charles to chill in the back. |
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| Boning the Ribs... |
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| Austrian Method for the Charcuterie Club. |
It was kinda cool to see how differently they could slice up this pig, depending on what they planned on using the pig for. For example, the American style had special cuts just for the different segments of the ribs because I mean c'mon...who doesn't love a plate of delicious, melt in your mouth, fall of the bone ribs? The Austrian method however, just boned the ribs out entirely. They don't do ribs! Luckily they make up for it with delicious cured meats. We're going to sample those later on this month...jealous? >=]
Banquet Meal
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| Mache (Lamb's Lettuce) and roasted eggplant salad with prosciutto and salami |
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| Seared Strip Steak with pomme purèe and sautèed string beans |
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| Vanilla Panna Cotta, orange supremes, and a oranger ginger sauce. |
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Charles Looks delicious!
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