The Cure for Misguided Food Laws
Thank you Peter Hoffman! Peter is the chef/owner of the Savoy in New York City, who has written an excellent op/ed in the New York Times about the silly laws that prevent restaurants and other establishments from curing their own meats without refrigeration.The best home-cured meats have always been made at around room temperature. If you've traveled in Europe, then you will know what I am talking about. The reason French charcuterie is so delicious is because of the process by which it is made. Is there a safety risk? No more so than there is in serving cheese, for example. The risk is not that there might be bacteria, but that there might be the wrong kind of bacteria. Trained chefs certainly know the difference. And there is no way you can convince me that my home-made organic charcuterie is less healthy than the mass-produced supermarket stuff, which are loaded with nitrates to ensure that they pretty much never go bad.
A lot of food safety laws are meant to protect us from the legitimate dangers associated with mass-production. The problem is that food inspectors (like the ones Peter mentions in his piece) aren't trained to understand how artisinal curing actually works. But just because they don't know, doesn't mean they have to say "no." The impetus should be on them to learn about emerging (or should I say re-emerging) food trends. As our local/organic/slow food movement gains momentum, government agencies are going to need to re-think how they are applied to the more artisanal side of the food industry. Hopefully, Peter's op-ed in the newspaper of record will get the ball rolling on this issue.
posted by Tony Maws @ 1:36 AM
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Excellent post and article! In Seattle, at Salumi, where Armandino Batalli and his family prepare many types of charcuterie, have to submit samples of their creations weekly to the F.D.A. before they can sell it. There is also many restaurants there that create their own as well and serve it to the public even after local press coverage of such artistry. The govenment needs to stop telling us how we should eat.
For almost two years I worked for Peter. One of the most interesting experiences I took away from my time there was watching and learning about curing meats. I will admit as a young cook, intitially the sight of hanging, netted meat in the basement struck me as disgustingly unsanitary, but once I learned about the process that opinion changed. Working in place like Savoy and learning how to cure meat was an amazing experience and is rarely experienced in restaurants today. Health inspectors need to back off or educate themselves. I will say, that it is possible to get people seriously sick if the chef does not know what he/she is doing.Personally, I would rather take my chances with the "homegrown" atuff than oscar meyer and nitrate city..blech!!
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