Two Tooth And Stout

[Lecterfan]

I have an odd set of ethics when it comes to food. However, having grown up on a farm and having a lots of friends and family still countrified the end result is the meat I do eat is fresh, has lived a good life and was killed quickly and humanely (preferably with no transport and no commercial processing).

Tonight I finished the last of my awesome two tooth and stout casserole/stew/whatever. Hey I'm a 34 year old Uni student living alone, if I can't get all 5 food groups in one pot then I'm not trying hard enough...

First I seared about 3kgs of neck and loin chops (add onion and garlic unless you have fructose malabsorption or other iBS issues), removed, then added some fresh picked (peeled and cubed) pontiac spud, some grey pumpkin, celery, carrots, oregano, cumin, touch of ginger, a shake of cayenne for the excitable, some veg stock and then as much stout as you can bear to pour into the dish (I use about 600mls of a fairly dry, low hopped 1.050 - 1.016 stout). Drain the meat juices back in and put the meat on top of it all. Bring to the boil and then simmer OR place in oven on such a low heat that it'd barely produce steam on a Ballarat winters morning for about 2 hours.

No photos becasue I don't have a digital camera. I know it is maybe a little bit low brow as recipes go, but I tell you what...magnificent.

If you would rather drink the stout then a good cab sav or cab sav/shiraz blend works also...depends who you are trying to impress.

Funnily enough, I like to then drink it with a nice mild english ale...a hint of EKG and plenty of crystal overtones. the stout provides enough of a robust profile to the dish that it doesn't need to be reinforced.

Hope I finally managed to post something in the right forum.

Cheers.

 

[manticle]

Sounds tasty.

Good to know someone else in the brewing world besides myself and yum yum yum know about fructose malabsorption. I haven't cooked with onions for some time (partner is cursed with it) but garlic is a-ok.

I'm pretty rough about it but my take on the ethical consumption of meat is vaguely aligned. I'd like to move into a more settled life where I can pay greater attention to that but being a 34 year old uni student NOT living alone, I sometimes focus on other things.

 

[Lecterfan]

I hear you, the issue(s) are so convoluted that you could live 3 times without the answer (especilly when you love flesh like I do haha).

I am like a melancholic vampire with garlic...I yearn for it, it is my one true love, but once inside me it creates havoc haha.

Still, everytime I get upset about what I can't eat I thank f**K I'm not coeliac so can still drink beer...

 

[bum]

I have an odd set of ethics when it comes to food.

Soilent Greens will grow on you.

From you. Whatever.

 

[manticle]

I don't believe the issues themselves are convoluted. They're quite simple. People's lives and thinking and analysis and the way society runs is what gets complicated.

ISSUE: something has to die so you can live. RESOLUTION: accept or don't eat it. Find your own level - something living dies every time you breathe.
You draw your own lines where you think they should be.

ISSUE: The thing that dies might have a miserable life, be mistreated or have no life (as in the case of real veal)

RESOLUTION: accept or don't eat it. Find your own level. You draw your own lines where you think they should be.

ISSUE: deal with your own hypocrisy.
Resolution: OK.

I deal with mine. If I need/want to take steps to improve on that then it's up to me and me only.

Sorry for OT.

 

[Lecterfan]

I love your conviction. I am not going to engage on this topic as it can go on forever, despite the parameters you have established.

I am a philosophy nerd so will shut up, but it is great to find someone engaged in that style of thinking. I tend to get excited when people have put some thought into it, regardless of what sort of thinking or how sound the logic (that is not to say that your - manticles- logic is unsound, I am not so presumptuous, I am just saying in general, please don't attack me...).

I think that there are universals, but they are (by necessity) viewed through relative contexts and THAT is what tests them (i.e. the maxim is contextual but the categorical imperative is the lense through which the maxim must be viewed). I think some people get hung up on the relative context and then figure that anything goes...

And then there's utilitarianism... hahaha...I love the process, not the outcome (Can you tell???)

BUT, sheep neck and stout is friggin tasty regardless!!!

Thanks for the comments manticle.

 

[manticle]

I guess I believe the only absolutes are those you make yourself (which means there are none unless you're a solipsist).

I studied philosophy and enjoyed what it taught me (mainly the encouragment to think and question) but the conclusion I've reached (or current thinking as conclusion seems too final) is that the practical is preferred to the theoretical unless the theoretical has a practical application.

My convictions are only that sheep and stout are super tasty and are even tastier when they haven't been intensively factory farmed. If they have been intensively farmed and you still eat them (and I often do) then you accept that within yourself and deal with it. If you can't accept it, then change your habits. Change may happen slowly, over time, with a lot of doubt involved or immediately. Once again - only you have control of the events.

 

[bum]

only you have control of the events.

But surely this isn't true. There are events I don't have information about, let alone control over - such as how the animal lived and died - on which to base my decisions (if that is important to me). Your terms only relate to whether it is important to me or not - not what to do if it is. Unless, of course, you're suggesting that if it is important to me I should just not eat meat even if the product may happen to conform to what my ethics dictate is acceptable.

 

[manticle]

to clarify - only you have control over your decisions - not the events that may influence them. I meant events in terms of the way you choose to behave based on how you feel or think, not the events that occur around you.

Late, tired, bad articulation, apologies

 

[Lecterfan]

hahaha, I love it :blink: . I agree completely, practical application is ultimately what matters, and as you have suggested the theoretical exists for us to acknowledge that which is imperfect in the here and now. The only thing I have trouble accepting (no problem intellectually, but personally it disturbs me) is the potential nhilism that can come from solipsism.

Still, I am hungover and just had a bottle of balsamic vinegar fall from the fridge and cover my freshly mopped kitchen floor....then while cleaning up I found a dead rodent next to the fridge. The day can only get better.

 

[bconnery]

Still, I am hungover and just had a bottle of balsamic vinegar fall from the fridge and cover my freshly mopped kitchen floor....then while cleaning up I found a dead rodent next to the fridge. The day can only get better.

Wait wait wait... You're a uni student living along and yet you have a freshly mopped kitchen floor?
I call BS on one of these surely?

Anyways, sheep need to be eaten, we're outnumbered

 

[Lecterfan]

Wait wait wait... You're a uni student living along and yet you have a freshly mopped kitchen floor?
I call BS on one of these surely?

Anyways, sheep need to be eaten, we're outnumbered

Fair call...but that is what makes the spill so ironic...the kitchen floor had not seen a mop for about 6 weeks and in that time I have done about 4 brews. Walking through the kitchen in bare feet was becoming increasingly hazardous to your health as the the moment you stepped onto the carpet you picked up enough dog hair and dust mites to feel like you had socks on haha. SOooo I had some people coming over yesterday arvo and I gave the house a "silver" treatment (my version of house cleaning is based on an extensive number of items and ranges from bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Platinum is reserved for first dates or interstate relatives. I usually do a bronze treatment every couple of weeks...Uni student or not having a 45kg dog that lives inside requires some modicum of cleaning haha