boudreaulicious wrote:I would suggest purchasing a long, long extension cord and moving that crock pot to the furthest spot on your property that you can. Then pray for neighbors with a strong sense of humor or no sense of smell.

Right, yes, the thinking behind the crock pot was that I could cook outside and some distance from the house.

pairs4life wrote:
Bro. David, you, or someone, is doing way, way, more than rinsing those chitterlings prior to serving them at the picnic.

That's a banner quote right there.

For your recipe, Mr. Hammond, we always had some whole peppercorns for the cook, and if I had to guess, chicken stock seemed to be part of the liquid. Never a heavy chicken flavor in the liquid, and never too salty. Maybe like half water, half stock. Ours always had some more savory flavors going on than vinegar, and red pepper. If you wanna get the basic, unfiltered, unadulterated, pork ass flavor though, your recipe is prolly good.

seebee wrote:

pairs4life wrote:
Bro. David, you, or someone, is doing way, way, more than rinsing those chitterlings prior to serving them at the picnic.

That's a banner quote right there.

For your recipe, Mr. Hammond, we always had some whole peppercorns for the cook, and if I had to guess, chicken stock seemed to be part of the liquid. Never a heavy chicken flavor in the liquid, and never too salty. Maybe like half water, half stock. Ours always had some more savory flavors going on than vinegar, and red pepper. If you wanna get the basic, unfiltered, unadulterated, pork ass flavor though, your recipe is prolly good.

Ava, who else would be cleaning them if not me? Oh, right...The Wife. Highly unlikely. Whenever I bring up the topic of my chitterling adventure, she looks at me askance and I get the glare that says, "my god, what have I done?"

Seebee, I'm going to soak and clean the chitterlings and get them going right now. I like the idea of using broth, and I may try that...though I am also eager to achieve "basic, unfiltered, unadulterated pork ass flavor."

Lot of potential banner quotes in this thread.

Hi,

I would also look at youtube to watch others process their chitterlings. Whenever I am doing something new, I check out demos there. I learned from their mistakes sometimes, too.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I would also look at youtube to watch others process their chitterlings. Whenever I am doing something new, I check out demos there. I learned from their mistakes sometimes, too.

Regards,

I did watch one with Chris Koetke from Kendall. In that video, they added BBQ sauce, which I think might be a good idea.

David Hammond wrote:I did watch one with Chris Koetke from Kendall. In that video, they added BBQ sauce, which I think might be a good idea.

No disrespect, but I'm guessing Chris K from Kendall is not African American. BBQ sauce sounds so, so wrong. However, that got me thinking. Cooked chitlins, then charred on a grill, with some BBQ sauce glazed on might be interesting.

seebee wrote:

David Hammond wrote:I did watch one with Chris Koetke from Kendall. In that video, they added BBQ sauce, which I think might be a good idea.

No disrespect, but I'm guessing Chris K from Kendall is not African American. BBQ sauce sounds so, so wrong. However, that got me thinking. Cooked chitlins, then charred on a grill, with some BBQ sauce glazed on might be interesting.

Here's the video with Chris K...but it wasn't actually his recipe; it was Dwight Evans' from Moo & Oink:

http://livewellnetwork.com/Lets-Dish/re ... gs/8886567

Had no idea preparing chitterlings would be so labor intensive. Pulling the membrane off was hard (with broken back ribs, I couldn't hunch over the sink that long), then I double-washed off any, ahem, product (though Mario's chitts were very clean), and clipped them into bite-sized pieces. Then I added some chopped onion, celery and red pepper (mostly for color), s/p, and started them boiling on the stove (no one is home except me). Once they were hot (and kickstarted), I transferred them to a crock pot, which is set up in the garage, about 60 feet from the house.

I truly wish I could have been there to witness every step of this process. Priceless. All but the broken rib part which I'm sorry interfered with what must have been a very interesting experience

boudreaulicious wrote:I truly wish I could have been there to witness every step of this process. Priceless. All but the broken rib part which I'm sorry interfered with what must have been a very interesting experience

Oddly, and perhaps most disturbingly, the raw chitterlings actually started smelling kind of good.

Beauty is in the nose of the beholder don't ya know!

seebee wrote:

David Hammond wrote:I did watch one with Chris Koetke from Kendall. In that video, they added BBQ sauce, which I think might be a good idea.

No disrespect, but I'm guessing Chris K from Kendall is not African American. BBQ sauce sounds so, so wrong. However, that got me thinking. Cooked chitlins, then charred on a grill, with some BBQ sauce glazed on might be interesting.

Agreed. BBQ sauce sounds dreadful.

Hi,

I'm not Chinese, though I cook it rather well.

If you had both watched the video, Dwight Evan's of Moo & Oink is a brother. The source is reliable to your thinking.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I'm not Chinese, though I cook it rather well.

If you had both watched the video, Dwight Evan's of Moo & Oink is a brother. The source is reliable to your thinking.

Regards,

Girl, "every brother, ain't a brother" and BBQ on chitlins sounds gross. Unfortunately, I won't be able to taste them to know.

pairs4life wrote:Unfortunately, I won't be able to taste them to know.

You could, though you won't, so all you can do is wonder!

Update: so after I put the chitterlings in the crock pot (which is going to go another 60 minutes or so), I put the stainless steel pot that I used to boil the chitterlings (briefly, before going in the crock pot) and the culinary shears I used to snip the chitterlings into the dishwasher. I set it to "heavy wash" and "sanitize." Then I cleaned off all the counters with Lysol and made sure to clean up any stray threads of pig intestine.

When the wash came out, I swear, I could still smell the chitterlings in the pot and on the shears...and even on the plates and cups that were also in there. I made myself a cup of coffee in one of the cups and, damn, I could TASTE chitterlings in the coffee -- and that cup was just in the dish washer with two items that came in contact with the chitterlings but which I washed BEFORE putting in the dish washer.

It is the funk that will not die.

Now, it's possible I'm just hyper-sensitive, being savvy to scent after spending the day with these chitterlings. It will be interesting to see if anyone else in the family notices it (and we have my daughter and her husband in the house, and they're largely, though not strictly, vegetarian) .

Well now when your wife comes home and says "This coffee tastes like shit" you'll know why.

zoid wrote:Well now when your wife comes home and says "This coffee tastes like shit" you'll know why.

The coffee is always pretty bad when I commandeer the coffee maker.

This was really strong coffee, and to the last drop, I could still taste pig guts.

David Hammond wrote:

zoid wrote:Well now when your wife comes home and says "This coffee tastes like shit" you'll know why.

The coffee is always pretty bad when I commandeer the coffee maker.

This was really strong coffee, and to the last drop, I could still taste pig guts.

I often encounter the same phenomenon after a long BBQ cook. I swear that everything smells and tastes like smoke. I've found that a good shower, with special attention to the nasal area, will make it go away. Give that a try. Also try that Cat Butt soap that I posted about in the peach thread.

pairs4life wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I'm not Chinese, though I cook it rather well.

If you had both watched the video, Dwight Evan's of Moo & Oink is a brother. The source is reliable to your thinking.

Regards,

Girl, "every brother, ain't a brother" and BBQ on chitlins sounds gross. Unfortunately, I won't be able to taste them to know.

The issue for me would be the texture. Chitlin texture doesn't seem like it would go well with bq sauce. It just sounds so, so, wrong. Plus, the sauce sweetness plus the funk from the grays doesn't seem right. As someone on here once said, I want to be able to TASTE my offal. Simple hot sauce is just my way to roll with wrinkles. I don't easily turn my nose up at food / flavor combinations, either.

seebee wrote:The issue for me would be the texture. Chitlin texture doesn't seem like it would go well with bq sauce. It just sounds so, so, wrong. Plus, the sauce sweetness plus the funk from the grays doesn't seem right. As someone on here once said, I want to be able to TASTE my offal. Simple hot sauce is just my way to roll with wrinkles. I don't easily turn my nose up at food / flavor combinations, either.

Sweetness plus funk doesn't sound good, I'd agree, but isn't the TASTE somewhat covered by the hot sauce?

David Hammond wrote:

seebee wrote:The issue for me would be the texture. Chitlin texture doesn't seem like it would go well with bq sauce. It just sounds so, so, wrong. Plus, the sauce sweetness plus the funk from the grays doesn't seem right. As someone on here once said, I want to be able to TASTE my offal. Simple hot sauce is just my way to roll with wrinkles. I don't easily turn my nose up at food / flavor combinations, either.

Sweetness plus funk doesn't sound good, I'd agree, but isn't the TASTE somewhat covered by the hot sauce?

I'd use the term enhanced, but that's me.

Better be looking for a new crockpot my friend...

David Hammond wrote:

seebee wrote:The issue for me would be the texture. Chitlin texture doesn't seem like it would go well with bq sauce. It just sounds so, so, wrong. Plus, the sauce sweetness plus the funk from the grays doesn't seem right. As someone on here once said, I want to be able to TASTE my offal. Simple hot sauce is just my way to roll with wrinkles. I don't easily turn my nose up at food / flavor combinations, either.

Sweetness plus funk doesn't sound good, I'd agree, but isn't the TASTE somewhat covered by the hot sauce?

It's the sweetness of the BBQ that I picture fouling, yeah I said it, the delight of chitlins. Yes. The smell is acquired. No I would have dumped all equipment into a sink for a soak 1st with bleach. Then household white vinegar. Then soap. And no, I would not have washed anything else with them.

David, you didn't have a garden this year, but I swear if there's some dried sage in the house, or nag chaampa, light it fast & I suspect your windows are already open.

Good Luck!

Respect for Chitterlings

So this week I had my first experience preparing chitterlings, the super-smelly hog intestines that are clearly beloved by a significant portion of the American population, most of them south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

This food, because it comes on so powerfully in the nose and on the tongue (though much more so the former than the latter), tends almost inevitably to become the butt of jokes because, you know, the stuff smells and tastes exactly, admittedly, just like what you definitely should not be eating. When I woke up early this morning, however, the seemingly unavoidable mockery this food receives struck me suddenly as deeply unseemly and unfair.

Chitterlings are beloved in spite of themselves by people who’ve been eating them since they were kids. They’re especially popular at holiday gatherings when, probably because they take so much time to prepare, the whole family can join in the cleansing, the cooking, the careful clean-up of the kitchen and also, of course, the consumption of these relatively rare food items.

Much like the stinky tofu of Taiwan or the currywurst of Berlin -- neither of which I much care for -- chitterlings possess an enduring cache because they’re so much a part of some people’s upbringing. Those who grew up with chitterlings cherish this frequently disdained food in part because it played a powerful role in their early culinary and cultural education. Recognizing that, I’m uncomfortable holding this food up to ridicule, even though these odoriferous shreds of “meat” seem to invite it. Perhaps, though, that ridicule says as much about the eater as the eaten.

I try chitterlings every decade – and they’re getting better. So either my taste buds are maturing or they’re dying. Either way, I intend to continue this tradition, recognizing that the die-hard regard for chitterlings is interwoven into a larger tradition of which I’m not a part but to which respect seems rightfully to be paid.

Or at least that’s the way it seems to me slightly before dawn this morning.

If you want to try chitterlings, I intend to bring them to the LTH Picnic. If you’ve never had them, I think you might want to give them a try, not because you’re necessarily going to like them, but because so many do.

I personally have always wanted to try them deep fried. When I made them, it was a simple simmered recipe which you served with some vinegary hot sauce (or vinegar and hot sauce.) I'd bet deep fried I'd enjoy them more.

Out of curiosity, what is it you didn't like about currywurst? It's basically just a smoked sausage served with curry ketchup and a bit of generic curry powder. I find it interesting to lump that in with stinky tofu and chitterlings.

Binko wrote:Out of curiosity, what is it you didn't like about currywurst? It's basically just a smoked sausage served with curry ketchup and a bit of generic curry powder. I find it interesting to lump that in with stinky tofu and chitterlings.

No doubt, currywurst goes down much easier than either stinky tofu or chitterlings, but I found the combination of flavors in this German folk favorite to be, while not unsettling, just not very pleasant. More to the point, this relatively recent culinary creation represents what is to my mind a fairly mediocre food that is much beloved, particularly by those in Berlin, because it is part of their post-war culinary heritage.

Still, I dug the Currywurst museum, and I find the love of the curry ketchup wiener fascinating even though I found the food item not particularly tasty.

This is, of course, an argument that came up in the White Castle thread. No need to restart that one, but what we have in these cases is food that seems (to me, to me) somewhat lacking in deliciousness though much beloved because, you know, people had it when they were kids and what they're loving in it is memories of their childhood...or their drunken nights with buddies.

Interesting. I guess it was one of those things when I discovered it in Germany (though first in Munich before having it later in Berlin), loved it from the first taste, even though the idea of putting a ketchup-esque sauce on sausage should have been revolting to me. It was interesting, as when I saw "currywurst," I was actually assuming that it was going to be a sausage spiced with curry-type flavors on the inside, not basically a knockwurst in curry-flavored ketchup. So that was a big surprise to me. But, in any case, it was really good and something I mimic here when throwing kielbasa on the grill, and something all my friends and family enjoy, so I don't think it's really weighed down with much nostalgic baggage. But that's another thread, like you said, and we've already done it.

Binko wrote:when I saw "currywurst," I was actually assuming that it was going to be a sausage spiced with curry-type flavors on the inside, not basically a knockwurst in curry-flavored ketchup.

And a "sausage with curry-type flavors on the inside" is the way it's presented at Paulina market and elsewhere in Chicago.

David Hammond wrote:

Binko wrote:when I saw "currywurst," I was actually assuming that it was going to be a sausage spiced with curry-type flavors on the inside, not basically a knockwurst in curry-flavored ketchup.

And a "sausage with curry-type flavors on the inside" is the way it's presented at Paulina market and elsewhere in Chicago.

Thanks for the tip. I'll check out Paulina Market's version when I get a chance. I do like the curry ketchup approach, though, because it's a quick way to doctor up a regular ol' smoked sausage with some extra spicing.