I picked up a new cookbook last week, and I’ve been trying some of the recipes in it, with varying success. The cookbook is called Cheater BBQ: Barbecue Anytime, Anywhere, in Any Weather, by Mindy Merrell and R. B. Quinn. The basic premise of the book is that you can bypass hours of slow roasting over a fire, using wood to create smoke and flavor, all by using a bottle of liquid smoke.

(If you are a bbq purist, I’ll wait for you to finish screaming now.)

Ok. Here’s the deal. I don’t think the premise is completely true. I think that long, slow roasting over a flame with natural wood smoke produces really great results that you really can’t replicate in any way. That being said, if you live in an apartment building, or just don’t have the time or inclination to wait around for 16 hours while your hunk of meat gets from raw to succulence, then this book just might be something that might interest you.

My first foray into the world of bbq bogosity …
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“You’ll need to begin preparing the ham two days before you will get a bite of it.”

One of the most delicious meals you can serve in many areas of the South is a country ham.  Salt or sugar cured, hickory smoked or not, Smithfield or Kentucky, peanut fed or otherwise, there ain’t nuthin’ like a country ham.  It comes in a cloth bag and is wrapped in paper, not in a can or wrapped in plastic.  It’s big, solid and heavy, like a short baseball bat (or a small bellhousing).  It smells musty and smokey.  And it takes some planning to prepare and serve.

We New Englanders grew up eating canned ham and not liking it all that much.  But one year, according to legend, our grandmother (yankee through and through) once received a very special gift: a country ham from Smithfield Virginia.  Finding no cooking directions on the bag, she glazed it, baked it in her oven, and served it.  Finding it inedible, she threw it out, saying she could not understand why Virginia hams had such a reputation.  “Not fit for a dog,” claimed she.

Our grandmother had no clue about Camille Glen’s (Heritage of Southern Cooking) admonition that ”you’ll need to begin preparing the ham two days before you will get a bite of it.”  Day 1: scrub the ham, soak it in water for 12 to 24 hours (possible to use a cooler for this operation). I have heard the fable of soaking your ham in tea instead of water, but I’ve never tried it. My guess is that tea is a “fancy” way of doing it that most people just plain skip (why would you want to flavor your ham with tea?); more fundamental is whether or not to soak and if so for how long (some folks who sugar cure hams say don’t soak at all) Day 2: put the ham in a large roaster, cover completely with water, bake 2 hours; turn, bake another 2 hours; leave in the water overnight (some say boil in a big ole’ pot).  Day 3: remove ham skin and fat (an entertaining process); baste (I baste with brown sugar, maybe with some corn starch, a typical ham baste), bake 20 to 30 minutes; allow to rest for 1 hour, then slice exquisitely thin. Serve with pickled watermelon rind, baked yams and other delicious stuff.

For several years I painstakingly prepared Virginia country ham for my germanic midwesterner inlaws at Easter.  Finally growing tired of the incessant criticism about it being too salty, not moist enough, took too long to cook, made a mess, etc. (note: these are the same folks who claim stone ground grits taste like warm wallpaper paste), I stopped bringing the extraordinary hickory smoked Smithfield ham.  “Where’s the ham?” they asked.  “I left it at home,” I replied. ”You all said it was too salty.”  “Didn’t mean we didn’t like it,” they replied.

Posole is a thick soup that’s made with pork, hominy, garlic, onion, chili peppers, cilantro, and broth, from the Pacific coast of Mexico.

My brother made this two weeks ago over a camp fire. He used pinto beans, but suggested I try making it with hominy instead. I’m not sure how authentic my version is, since I’m pretty much not allowed to cook anything too spicy if I expect my wife to eat it. Also, both of us hate the taste of cilantro, which is a dominant flavor in most of the recipes I’ve come across. I brined my pork before starting, but if you’re strapped for time, just season your pork with salt and pepper before starting. As with all dishes like this, it’s always better the second night. Serves 6-8 hungry diners or 12 normal ones. (Weight Watchers, 1 serving : 10 points.)

2-3 lbs. pork shoulder, trimmed of excess visible fat
2 T oil
½ bottle beer
4-6 cups water
1 large onion, diced
1 large green pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
4 strips bacon, diced
2 cloves garlic
½ T ground cumin
1 t chili powder
2 t smoked paprika
pinch cayenne pepper
3 T flour
1 can diced tomato
2 cans hominy, drained

Heat up a dutch oven with oil, and brown the pork shoulder on all sides — about 5 minutes a side. Remove the pork, discard the grease, and deglaze the pot with the beer. Return the pork to the pot, and cover with the water. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 45 minutes, skimming off any foam that forms. Remove the pork to cool, and reserve the broth, skimming off excess fat.

Without the broth, in the same pan, brown the bacon until the bacon fat is rendered. Remove the bacon bits with a slotted spoon, and save with the pork. Augment with olive oil if necessary, and cook the chopped vegetables until transluscent. Add the spices, and the flour, and stir until moistened. Add the tomato with the juice, plus 4 cups of the reserved broth. Cut the pork shoulder into 1 inch cubes, removing any bones and large chunks of fat, and add back into the pot along with the bacon. Stir in the 2 cans of hominy, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

If you want to make this spicier, you can add some diced jalepeno when you add the onions to the pan.

Anyone (even a New England Son like me) who has ever spent even a little time in East Texas knows how much pride East Texans take in their barbecue.

For incredible flavor, great service and a terrific eating experience, it would be hard to beat Lufkin Bar-B-Que in Lufkin Texas, self-proclaimed “Best in Texas.” There you can get a wide variety of BBQ including mouthwatering beef brisket, chipped beef, pork, ham, “hot links” (a kind of homemade sausage with a spicy hot finish), chicken and turkey and a full array of sides including some of the best beans you ever ate. But if you like pork ribs, the ones you get at Lufkin BBQ are to die for. The meat is tender and falls off the bone, the collagen is so soft it has practically dissolved, and the spices are perfect – complementary but sufficiently gentle that you can taste every bite of pork.
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This recipe will make your house smell wonderful, and you’ll be salivating for the hours it takes to cook.

Preheat oven to 325. Mix in a food processor :

6 cloves of garlic
2 california dried chilis, bloomed over an open flame, the stem and seeds removed
2 chunks of peeled fresh ginger
1 T smoked paprika
1 T mixed dried green herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary)
2 t salt
1 t pepper

Score the fat on a boston butt roast, and rub the above mixture all over the roast, especially into the fat.

Slice a white onion, thick, and layer the bottom of a cooking vessel with high sides. Put the roast on top, along with any left over rub. In a small bowl, mix equal amounts of ketchup and yellow mustard, along with half that quantity of molasses. Pour the wet mixture over the pork roast. Cover tightly with a lid, or with a layer of parchment under a layer of foil (tomato and aluminum foil don’t mix). Put it in the oven, and cook for 4 to 8 hours, or until the meat is literally falling off the bone. Once you get close, remove the cover 30 minutes before the end, and let the crust brown.

Remove the roast to rest. Shred with a pair of forks, and serve in the cooking liquid with the onions, and perhaps some good cole slaw, on hamburger buns/kaiser rolls.

Senators Ted Kennedy (D., Mass) and Olympia Snowe (R., Maine) must have read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, because he recently introduced a bill to limit the use of antibiotics in chicken, beef, sheep and pork farms. According to the book, modern industrial cattle farms force the cows to eat something they normally wouldn’t touch — corn. As a result, cows are prone to acquire all kinds of illnesses that normally wouldn’t be an issue, and so industrial farmers feed their animals large doses of antibiotics to keep infections down, even if a particular head of cattle isn’t showing any signs of needing them. Critics claim that this abuse of antibiotics contributes to increased antibiotics in humans. In the book, an industry insider flat-out admitted that if government were ever to step in and ban the use of antibiotics in farm animals, all of the modern industrial farming practices that have been in vogue for the last 30 to 50 years would cease to be profitable, and farmers would have to go back to raising livestock the old-fashioned, but more natural (and humane) way. This would have an impact on consumers at the check-out, doubling the cost of beef.

Other benefits of doing away with the modern industrial farm practices include making the food supply safer from e-coli contamination, and less risk of bovine spongiform encephalitis, aka “mad cow” disease.

Interestingly, corn farmers probably won’t be too upset about the passage of this bill, since the US government pays them a certain amount of money for a bushel of corn, regardless of market prices or demand. You can expect big opposition bill from industrial agrifarm giants like ADM and Tyson’s Food, though. Until the bill’s passage, you should probably stick to only buying meat with the green “USDA Organic” seal.

Say what? Most of us have heard of “Shabu Shabu” (onomatopoeical Japanese term describing what meat and vegetables sound like when you swish them in a boiling broth). But what’s yuba? Yuba is like the cream of soy milk – it’s the thin layer formed on the surface of hot soymilk.

Can you really make Shabu Shabu with hot soy milk! You betchum! It’s unlikely you have ever eaten quite like this before, and it’s delicious.

If you have had Shabu Shabu before, you probably ate beef. Soy Milk Shabu Shabu can be made with very thin slices of pork – which can be purchased pre-cut in some very Asian groceries, or otherwise prepared by cutting partially frozen pork tenderloin with a very sharp knife.

To do this right, you need a donburi (glazed clay cooking pot) or a mongolian (cast iron) hot pot, and a very hot heat source (electric hot plate or gas burner) you can place on your table (usually after heating on the stove top). Heat soy milk to boiling, and then have each diner swish meat and vegetables in the hot soy milk until fully cooked. Also swish mushrooms, bok choi (or “Shanghai Tips”) and yuba. Dip the cooked ingredients in a sesame-based shabu-shabu sauce. After you have gone through all your swishing ingredients, mix cooked rice with the remaining hot (now flavored) soy milk. Delicious.