An Explanation of “Sell By,” “Use By,” and Other “Expiration” Dates

A recent study disclosed that a lot of people are throwing away a lot of food because they don't understand the freshness and/or safety labels.

My mother was one of those people. Let a product get within a day of its “sell by,” “use by,” “freshness guaranteed by” or whatever other date might have applied and that product was on its way to the trash. No questions asked.

But questions need to be asked because there is no standardization or regulation of these terms. People see “sell by” or “use by” on a label and they automatically assume that some benevolent government agency put it there for their health and well-being. Not always so. “Big Brother” might be everywhere else, but so far he and his cohorts at the FDA and the USDA are largely staying out of the pantry and the refrigerator. The only places the Feds jump into the labeling fray are in the areas of baby food and infant formula. Occasionally states may regulate dairy product labels. Other than that, it's all up to the manufacturer to decide.

Direct from the USDA website: “There is no uniform or universally accepted system used for food dating in the United States. Although dating of some foods is required by more than 20 states, there are areas of the country where much of the food supply has some type of open date and other areas where almost no food is dated.”

“Open dating” refers to an actual calendar date, as opposed to an alphanumeric code, regarding the freshness of a given product. It is not considered an indication of that product's safety, only of it's quality. I once came across some potato chips in a friend's pantry that were nearly three months “out of date.” My friends were still eating them. I tried a couple and they were godawful. Stale as a Borscht Belt comic's jokes. But if you were sufficiently palate-impaired, you could safely consume them.

“Closed dating,” by the way, is a reference to the aforementioned codes usually found on canned and boxed goods. They don't have anything to do with safety, either. They are just packing numbers used by the manufacturer.

So if Uncle Sam isn't behind the labeling, what do all those terms mean and what should we do about them?

“Sell by” tells the store when to pull the product. After the “sell by” date, the manufacturer will no longer guarantee that the taste, texture, or overall quality of the product will be as good as it was before that date. Is it still safe? Yep. Is it still “good?” That's up to your taste buds to decide. And the stores aren't really required to pull product that has exceeded the “sell by” date, although doing so is good business practice.

“Use by” indicates pretty much the same thing, except it's directed at the end user – you – rather than the middle man at the grocery store. What will happen if you use a product the day after its “use by” date? Nothing. Obviously, the older something gets, the less palatable it becomes, but with a few exceptions that we'll get to in a minute, you can still eat it if you've got the stomach for it.

“Best if used by,” “best if used before,” “freshness guaranteed until” – these are all phrases that relate to the product's taste, texture, and quality. None of them have any bearing on safety. If you can get those month-old muffins past your lips and tongue and down your gullet, your stomach will take 'em.

A lot of manufacturers of commercial baked goods operate “outlet” stores wherein the breads, cookies, pies, snack cakes, etc. that have been pulled from regular retailers for being near or slightly past their freshness dates are offered for sale at significant discounts. The products are still “good,” but the quality is often a crap shoot.

Now, the term “expiration date” is another matter. This one is usually more serious. If you have a product that actually “expires” on a particular date, then you need to pay attention to that date, lest you expire a day or two later. Things that “expire” are things that will become contaminated with bacteria or will be otherwise unhealthy after a set time.

Not a lot of things “expire.” I just did a quick glance around my refrigerator. My eggs and milk are “best by,” the heavy cream and cream cheese say “sell by,” my orange juice just has a date and a code number on it, and the packaged sliced ham says “prepare or freeze by.” The handful of cans I examined in the pantry either have “best by” dates or codes on them.

Here's the thing: all these dates apply to fresh, unopened packages. Once you open them, it's a whole different ball game. Let's say you've got some sandwich meat that, according to the package, is “best by” October 15. And today is October 14. But you opened it the day you bought it back on September 1. The color is a little gray, it feels a bit slimy, and it really doesn't smell so good. But it's okay, right? Because it hasn't “gone out of date” yet, right? Wrong.

“Oh-oh! My milk expired yesterday. I'd better dump it.” No, it didn't “expire.” It passed the “best by” date and it may be on the way out, but you need to check it before you just dump it. Give it a sniff. Does it smell okay? Give it a taste. Still acceptable? Now, if it's got lumps in it and it smells like old sweat socks, dump it without a second thought. But twenty-four hours or so won't usually make a big difference if the product was fresh to begin with and you've stored and handled it properly.

Here's a label a lot of people miss: “Refrigerate after opening.” It's there on the ketchup and the mayonnaise and the grape jelly and a lot of the things you'd expect it to be on. But it's also on the chocolate syrup. It's on the Gatorade bottle, too. Betcha missed that one. Why? Sugar! The perfect growth medium for all kinds of unpleasant microscopic critters. “So, if I guzzle down some Gatorade that I opened last week and it's been sitting in my car ever since, am I gonna turn up my toes?” Probably not, but depending on what cultures are growing in there, you might wish you had. Just sayin'.

Basically, there are two types of food products in the grocery store: perishable and shelf-stable. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out what “perishable” means but you never know, so here goes. “Perishable – adjective meaning subject to decay, ruin, or destruction; i.e. perishable fruits and vegetables.” So if the label on something perishable says “use by” or “best by,” you'd probably better pay attention to it. Or at least keep a closer eye on it than you would on something “shelf-stable” like cookies or crackers or potato chips. A cookie that's a month past its “best by” date may fall short of your expectations, but a similar piece of roast beef – “subject to decay, ruin, or destruction” – may cause you to spend a lot of time on your knees, if you know what I mean.

So I hate to say it, but when it comes to labels, the onus is on you. The government has no standards – a statement that can be taken many ways – and manufacturer's standards are whatever they want them to be. Throwing away “good” food because of an arbitrary date is foolishly wasteful, but keeping “bad” food past that same date in order to save a few pennies is simply foolish. Just remember that, provided the product is properly handled on your part, nothing is going to kill you at 12:01 a.m. on the day after it “goes out of date.” But at the same time, that's a good point at which to start watching and checking and testing and using common sense.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean out my refrigerator.

The Ten (Or So) Commandments of Italian Cooking

Ever hear of the “Academia Barilla?” Yeah, I didn't think so. They didn't make the list as a party school and they don't have a football team, so why should you care?

Seriously, there is such a place. It's part of the Barilla Center located near downtown Parma. According to their website at http://www.academiabarilla.com, their mission is to defend and safeguard Italian food products made by reputable artisans and certified denominations from poor-quality imitations; to promote and spread the understanding of these products and their role in traditional, regional Italian cuisine; and to develop and support Italian gastronomy by investing in the restaurant industry’s understanding and application of Italian culinary philosophy.

I can get behind all that. As part of that educational effort, the Academia Barilla has just issued what it calls “The 10 Italian Cooking Commandments.” There were no burning bushes, golden idols, or stone tablets involved here, but to lend an air of gravitas to the presentation, just imagine them being intoned by Charlton Heston. (And I'm employing Roman numerals for added effect.)

1. YOU SHALL NOT SIP CAPPUCCINO DURING A MEAL! According to Barilla, coffee is to be served at the end of a meal while cappuccino is a breakfast beverage. “You can ask for a cappuccino at the end of a meal,” it says, “but just know that most Italians don't.” Of course, you have to understand that the Italian idea of “coffee” is not the weak, cream and sugar beverage Americans sip after dinner. No, no! We're talking about espresso, that wonderfully bitter brew that is the reason so many Italians have curly hair. My Neapolitan friends break out the little demitasse cups of espresso after every meal I've eaten in their restaurant regardless of whether I ask for it or not. So, while you “can” ask for cappucino at the end of a meal, at a well-mannered Italian table, you don't have to ask for espresso.
   

2. RISOTTO AND PASTA ARE NOT A SIDE DISH. True. But are risotto and pasta actually a dish? Or do they mean “are not side dishes?” Awkward translation aside, this is a good one to consider. In the unique construction of the Italian meal, the starch, meaning rice or pasta, is a course all its own. It's called the “primo” or “first” course. In America, you slap it on a plate next to a slab of meat and call it a “side.” Doing so in Italy is, as Barilla says, “almost a sacrilege.”
   

3. YOU SHALL NOT ADD OIL TO PASTA WATER! Preach it, brother! Can I get an “amen?” The only thing I can figure is that a hundred years ago American cooks hadn't the slightest idea of how to properly prepare pasta. They probably tried cooking a pound of spaghetti in four cups of water instead of four quarts, and when it stuck together in a massive lump, somebody said, “Hey! Let's grease the hell out of it!” No, no, no. Save the oil for the salad. Just use more water to cook the pasta.

4. KETCHUP ON PASTA: PLEASE DON'T. Okay. I won't. No problem. I never have, nor do I know of anybody else who ever does. But apparently the Academia folks think this is a biggie. They say it is “one of the combinations that most shocks Italians,” and brand it “a real gourmet crime.” So if I ever see anybody doing it, I guess I'm authorized to perform a citizen's arrest.

5. SPAGHETTI BOLGNESE? NO WAY, IT'S TAGLIATELLE! The Academia proclaims that “you will not find any restaurant in Bologna” that serves spaghetti Bolognese. Only tagliatelle is used in an authentic preparation. Works for me. The only thing I don't like about tagliatelle is the way Americans pronounce it. (It's “tah-lee-ah-TELL-ay,” not “tag-lee-uh-tell-ee.” And, by the way, “bolognese” doesn't rhyme with “mayonnaise.” The “gn” in Italian is kind of like the “ny” in English. (Think “canyon.”) And, other than “h,” there's no such thing as a silent letter in Italian. You actually pronounce that final “e.” So it's “boh-lo-NYAY-seh,” or something close to that.

6. CHICKEN PASTA: NOT IN ITALY. Barilla says there's no such thing. In fact, they say, when asked by well-meaning Americans for a chicken pasta recipe, “it's rather embarrassing to point out that in Italy there are no hot dishes featuring chicken and pasta.” I know this to be so because I once catered an event where the client asked for such a dish and when I asked my Italian cook friends for ideas, they just looked at me like I'd grown horns. Chicken Alfredo and such are all Italian-American creations. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not authentic Italian.

7. “CAESAR SALAD.” Come on. You didn't really think Caesar had anything to do with this one, did you? In spite of his imperial image being slapped on the salad dressing bottle? Sorry. An Italian immigrant chef named Caesar Cardini was working in Mexico and California when he came up with the idea. Asking for a Caesar salad in Italy will just get you confused looks.

8. THE RED AND WHITE CHECKERED TABLECLOTH IS ONLY A STEREOTYPE! I remember writing about some schmuck from Georgia who said he found the “perfect” Italian restaurant in Rome, right down to the red checkered tablecloth. Hello! Can you say “tourist trap?
   

9. “FETTUCCINE ALFREDO” ARE POPULAR ONLY OVERSEAS. Strictly speaking, “are popular” is correct because “fettuccine” is plural. Anyway, refer back to commandments six and seven. Yes, a real Italian guy named Alfredo Di Lelio “created” a butter and cheese pasta dish in his restaurant in Rome. But it was a toss away dish. Something he fixed for his pregnant wife because it was all she could keep down. American movie star honeymooners “discovered” it and now it's the most popular “Italian” dish in the world. Except in Italy, where nobody knows what you're talking about when you ask for it. And if you can convince them to prepare it, they'll run screaming into the night when you tell them to use lots of cream in the sauce. There is no cream in an “authentic” pasta Alfredo. Just egregious amounts of rich, European butter and tangy, salty Parmigiano-Reggiano, which, when combined with a few spoonfuls of starchy cooking water, form a delicious, creamy “sauce” when mixed with hot pasta. The thick, milky crap sold in jars – none by Barilla, by the way – is strictly an American aberration.
   

10. YOU SHALL RESPECT TRADITION AND WHAT ITALIAN MAMMA SAYS. The Academia says, “She knows from her mamma, who knew from her mamma who knew from her mamma and so on. It's been tried and tested. And what a mother teaches at her daughter while they are cooking? That love is the center of all. We must share Italian food with your loved ones. It is what life, love and family are all about.” And except for a little problem with the “mother to daughter” bias, I can't disagree with this statement at all.
    

I might, however, add an eleventh commandment, something along the lines of:

     XI.   YOU SHALL NOT PILE A GALLON OF SAUCE ON TOP OF A CUP OF PASTA. Sauce is a condimento. The pasta is the featured “star” of the dish; the sauce is merely a dressing. In the same way that you wouldn't pour a whole bottle of Italian dressing over the top of your salad, you shouldn't pour a whole jar of sauce on top of your pasta. Ideally, authentically, you would finish cooking your pasta in the sauce, mixing just the right amount of sauce into the noodles as you cook. Dumping sauce on top of noodles is another unfortunate American cooking technique that makes Italians cringe.

So, follow the “Ten Italian Cooking Commandments” – plus one – that your days may be long upon the land and that you may prosper and be in good health and all that other biblical stuff. And also so that you don't have pitchfork-wielding Italians storming your kitchen at suppertime.

Buon appetito!

Season Three of ABC's "The Chew"

It's been a few years since I wrote anything about ABC's daytime gabber/eater “The Chew.” (1 p.m. ET; noon CT) With the September 9, 2013 kick-off of a new season, Season Three, I thought I'd share a few new thoughts.

Yes, I have been watching. Nearly every day, actually. The show kind of grows on you. It's programmed on my DVR for two reasons: First, I can watch it at my convenience. Second, and more importantly, I can watch it without commercial interruption. This means that I really only have to invest about forty minutes instead of an hour. “The Chew” has to be among the more ad-packed shows on daytime TV, and if you can bypass twenty minutes-worth of crap touting the health and beauty products, cleaning products, and toilet paper pushed by the network, plus the allotted local spots for every car dealer and ambulance chaser in town and the interminable promos for network and local programming, the show itself ain't half bad.

The regular “Chew Crew” – Mario Batali, Michael Symon, Carla Hall, Daphne Oz, and Clinton Kelly – have really gelled into a nice ensemble. In the first couple of shows, it was obviously every man for himself. Nobody clicked. Everyone was doing their own thing and trying to find their own place. And they have succeeded nicely. You can tell they've established themselves as a “family” and they're having fun, which makes them eminently entertaining to watch.

The format itself has settled in as well. The opening segment is often the best part of the show as the hosts chat up everything from news of the day to sometimes hilariously personal anecdotes. This is where the “family” really shines through. Clinton and Michael's running gag about spanx, the digs at Carla for her frugality and her wanting everything cut into quarters, and the shots at Daphne for her psyllium husk fetish – as well as Michael's exasperated dislike of the “Baby vs Puppy” schtick – probably evade new viewers, but seasoned watchers get a real kick out of the banter and byplay. Again, it's like sharing an inside joke with the family.

Everybody needs a day off now and then, and the occasional guest hosts taking places around the table usually fit in pretty well. Some are just network plants sent in to promote whatever new projects are in the offing, but there are a lot of fill-ins with some respectable cooking credits, too. Curtis Stone comes to mind. Bobby Flay, Geoffrey Zakarian and other foodie favorites pop in from time to time and there are always celebrity guests like Jake Gyllenhaal, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jewel, and even Rupaul around to jump into the culinary pool. Agents have figured out that “The Chew” is legit and book their clients accordingly, the same as they would on Leno or Letterman.

But it's not all fluff and chatter. “The Chew” is a fairly good “dump and stir” show, too. There are a lot of tips and techniques imparted as well as some great recipes, all of which are available on the show's website and many of which are featured in cookbooks generated by the program.

There are still aspects of “The Chew” that annoy me. Even though he has carved a comfortable niche for himself, Clinton Kelly still bugs me. It's like he views “The Chew” as a daytime version of his “What Not to Wear” vehicle or something. HE'S the “star” and Batali, Symon, Hall, and Oz are there to be HIS supporting cast. When he doesn't like something the producers have foisted off on him, he lets it show in no uncertain terms. Admittedly, some of the bits and gags are downright silly, but his attitude screams “I'm only here for the paycheck and the exposure, people.” I can tolerate his over-the-top style and delivery in small doses. Unfortunately, he does nothing in small doses and I find the show easier to watch on the rare occasions when he's not there. He may find himself to be “freakin' fabulous,” but I consider him “irritatingly irksome.”

Obviously, Mario Batali is the main draw for me. That said, he's the one who takes the most time off. I realize he has a very busy and demanding life outside of “The Chew” studios, but besides his creative cookery, he brings a dry wit and humor to the mix that is sorely missed when he's not there. But questa è la vita. (That's Italian for "c'est la vie.")

Michael Symon is fun. Mario can project a sly, worldly sophistication even though he's clad in shorts and orange Crocs. Michael is just a jeans and flannel or t-shirts, blue collar Everyman. He's frequently cast in the role of stooge or foil, but he pulls it off with good-humored patience and grace. And his cooking skills are phenomenal. Okay, he “caramelizes” when he should “brown,” a fact I've belabored since Day 1, but beyond that irritant, I find him quite engaging and enjoyable.

Carla Hall has toned down the juking and jiving that used to drive me nuts – and damage her credibility as a serious cook. It's more choreographed now and has been scripted and incorporated into her persona, allowing her to spend more time sharing her culinary knowledge and less time acting out a silly stereotype.

Daphne Oz has come a long way from the vacuous bottle-blonde shoehorned into the cast for her photogenic looks and her famous surname. She apparently went to culinary school at some point and is now an actual presence in the kitchen segments rather than just a pretty prop. She'll probably never live down her “psyllium husk moment” from the inaugural episode – I don't think Mario will let her – but her POV has broadened and developed even has her personality has come forward and established itself. She's still kind of everybody's little sister, but she's got enough sass and bite to hold her own among her peers. And we learned on the first episode of Season 3 that she is pregnant with her first baby. Awwwwww! If her co-hosts truly did not know and were just acting for the camera when she dropped the “baby bomb” on national TV, they should all get Emmys for their performances. It was a fun moment.

All in all, “The Chew” launches into Season Three as a fit and trim ship, entertaining and informative and well worth the forty minutes of my day. (Thank goodness for DVRs.) Grab a bite of “The Chew.” It's become quite a tasty morsel.

Bad News for “Au Jus Sauce” Lovers

Say "No" to "Au"

I've got bad news for you folks who love those French Dip sandwiches with au jus sauce. There's no such thing.

I wrote a piece awhile back about TV chefs who inappropriately overuse the word “caramelize” when they actually mean “brown." I don't care how many famous cooks say it, you can't “caramelize” meat. Read the article here: http://ronjamesitaliankitchen.blogspot.com/2013/02/brown-dont-caramelize.html

An anonymous commenter on that post wrote the following: “THANK YOU!! I yell at the TV every time some “celebrity chef” says they are caramelizing meat, chicken, even seafood. Rachael said once that scallops are “just so full of sugar, they get that great caramelization on them.” But can we discuss “au jus?' Every time I hear a TV chef say, “now we'll make the au jus,” or “dip it in the au jus.” Aaaargh! It's JUS. Au jus means “with juice” (from the meat.) You cannot make a “with juice.” But you can serve something with juice “au jus.”

Thank YOU, Anonymous Commenter. I'm glad to know I'm not a lone voice crying in the culinary wilderness.

Anonymous is quite correct: you can serve a dish “au jus” – as in beef au jus – but you absolutely cannot serve a dish WITH au jus. If you order beef with au jus, you are not asking for beef with juice, you are asking for beef with with juice. And that's just silly. As silly as dipping your sandwich in a little cup of “with juice sauce.” It's like instead of ordering shrimp en brochette – literally, shrimp on a skewer – you were to go to a nice French restaurant and order up shrimp with en brochette. They'd probably bring you a shrimp and a stick. After they stopped laughing at your ignorance.

Let's face it, the only real difference between a “celebrity chef” and the person who cooks at your favorite local eatery is the “celebrity” part. (If you doubt this, check out Food Network's "Next Food Network Star.) They both do the same thing: they cook. Just because a good cook gets a lucky break and lands on the tube doesn't automatically make him/her infallible. There are a lot of celebs out there who barely made it through high school – if they made it through at all. They may be superior cooks, but don't look to them to be gifted linguists and educators.

And that's really the sad part because so many people do look to them for instruction and education. After all, if they're on TV, they must know what they're doing, right? That's why it drives me positively batso when they say things like “caramelize” instead of “brown” or “au jus” instead of just “jus.” Some home cook watching TV says, “Oooo. Rachael Ray says the scallops are caramelized, so I guess it must be so.” Then she turns to her husband and says, “Hey, honey, what do you think of the way I caramelized the scallops tonight?” And the error repeats and gets bigger and bigger.

Listen carefully when you're watching “Chopped” or “Top Chef” or some of the other shows that showcase cooks and chefs who don't have agents and handlers and publicists. “I basted the meat in jus,” or “I browned the beef and I'm serving it with a side of jus.” These are the people who paid attention in culinary school.

Alas, I'm afraid Anonymous and I are destined to be frustrated. “Au jus” has become ubiquitous through common (mis)usage. You'll find a hundred recipes for it online and you'll see packaged “au jus” mixes in the grocery store. But it's still not right. Just because a bunch of people – even “celebrities” on TV – say that one plus one equals three, that doesn't mean that one plus one actually does equal three, now does it? Repeating something wrong doesn't make it right and it only makes the person doing it sound – how can I say this politely? – stupid to people who know better.

“Jus” is a noun that means juice. It's pronounced “zhoo.” Kind of like “shoe” with a “z.” Or even “jew” is acceptable if you can't make your lips and your tongue and your sinuses do weird things like the French do. “Au” is a masculine singular contraction. It literally means “to” or “to the,” but it is most frequently used to connect other words. Kind of like “di” in Italian. “Di” can mean “of,” “to,” “by,” “for,” “from,” “in,” or – you guessed it – “with” depending on the circumstances. So, in French, “au” is frequently used as “with.” And it's pronounced “oh.” When you say “jus,” you're saying “juice.” When you say “au jus,” you're saying “with juice.” Thinking of it in English will make a lot more sense because you know better that to say, “I'd like me some of that there with juice sauce.” Don't you?

Or maybe you're one of those people who call an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) an “ATM machine” for which you need a PIN (Personal Identification Number), which you refer to as a “PIN number.”

To quote my new best friend, Anonymous, “AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!)

Okay. I will now cease flagellating the expired equine. I think I'll just go brown some meat and make a nice, well-seasoned juice to go with it.

Baconfest: A Great Place to Make a Pig of Yourself

Bacon....It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore!

I'm fortunate to live in a place with a great local butcher shop. I've got a good relationship with my butcher. He appreciates that I never purchase meat anywhere else, and I appreciate that because of him I don't have to. With one little exception. I will blatantly cheat on my butcher with Allan Benton every chance I get. My local guy knows it and he doesn't really care because I also bring him a pound or two of Benton's Hickory Smoked Country Bacon whenever I stop at Allan's place in Madisonville, Tennessee to stock up.

So I happened to mention to him the other day that I'll be heading off to Baconfest in Johnson City, Tennessee next week, where they'll have a supply of Benton's bacon on hand. To my great surprise, he had never heard of Baconfest. Not just of this relatively modest event but of Baconfests in general. Where's he been?

Baconfests and/or bacon festivals are taking the country by storm. Formerly the province of big cities with big epicurean populations, celebrations of bacon are now turning up in hamlets – sorry, but I had to go there – across the nation. Sometimes these paeans to pork are day-long events and sometimes organizers just pig out and pack everything into a few hours. Occasionally a bacon festival will be held as part of a larger food event and once in a while you'll find one paired up with beer or an equally compatible comestible. Baconfests can be held for the benefit of a particular charity or community cause or they can exist just for fun and porky pleasure.

So what happens at a baconfest? Well, people bring in these chickens.........C'mon! It's all about bacon! In general, baconfests are made up of three elements: an exhibition of bacon and bacon products by national, regional, and/or local artisans and vendors; a sampling menu of bacon dishes provided by area chefs and restaurants; and a selection of bacony beverages. Usually the exhibition area is open to the public for a nominal fee with access to the food and beverage areas granted to those who choose to purchase a “V.I.P.” upgrade.

Chicago began praising pork bellies back in 2009 with what it describes as a “humble beginning” to a now world-class event, one that was featured on the Travel Channel in 2012 and included 120 participating chefs and restaurants in 2013.

New York and Washington, D.C. boast a Baconfest and so do San Francisco and San Diego. In between the coasts are events in DesMoines, Kansas City, Atlanta, Boston, and Orlando. But smaller venues like River Falls, Wisconsin; Littleton, Colorado; Grand Forks, North Dakota; and Ann Arbor, Michigan also see queues of rabid bacon lovers lining up to party.

Dayton, Ohio hosted its first Bacon Fest in 2013, an event that caught virgin vendors off guard and resulted in nearly everybody at the sixteen participating restaurants running out of bacon. After the social media backlash organizers promise to be better prepared next year.

Another fledgling pork party happened in Coconut Creek, Florida this year. They also underestimated the appeal of bacon to the approximately 2,500 folks who showed up and ate them out of a literal ton of bacon. They're planning to double the size of their event next year.

Twenty local restaurants and more that twenty craft beers were highlighted at Richmond, Virginia's inaugural Bacon Fest this year. Elsewhere in the Old Dominion, Roanoke will get its bacon on on Labor Day weekend in honor of International Bacon Day, August 31.

They're planning a Bacon Bash in Hoboken, New Jersey on September 7.

Also on September 7, the aforementioned Johnson City will host its 2^nd Annual Tri-Cities Baconfest at VENUE downtown. The event sort of evolved from an attempt in Knoxville that was short-lived because of conflicts on the part of the initial organizers. A local non-profit revived the East Tennessee festival, bringing it to Bristol, TN/VA last year and broadening the scope and range by relocating to Johnson City for 2013. A big plus is that this will be an indoor party. Another selling point is the all-inclusive nature of the tickets. On the downside/upside, tickets are limited, but such limitation insures that attendees get their money's worth. Nobody leaves hungry or unsatisfied because of shortages. And it's all for a good cause. Proceeds benefit Special Spaces, a San Francisco-based charity that creates dream bedrooms for children with life-threatening illnesses. And there'll be Benton's bacon. What more could you want? Information? http://tricitiesbaconfest.com.

If you can't make the Tri-Cities event, fear not for there is likely a celebration of bacon coming to a city near you. Bacon Today, the online source for everything bacon, keeps track of such things at http://bacontoday.com/bacon-festivals-2013. Events still on the horizon as of this writing include:

The San Diego Hormel Black Label Bacon Fest, San Diego, CA – August 31, 2013
Baconfest VA, Roanoke, VA – August 31, 2013
The Camden Riversharks Bacon Fest, Camden, NJ – August 31, 2013
Tri-Cities Baconfest, Johnson City, TN – September 7, 2013
River Falls Bacon Bash, River Falls, WI – September 8, 2013
Alferd Packer Bacon Party, Littleton, CO – September 14, 2013 (And, yes, “Alferd” is correct.)
The Orlando Festival of Bacon, Orlando, FL – October 5, 2013
Happy Harry's Beer and Bacon Festival, Grand Forks, ND – October 5, 2013
Baconfest San Francisco, San Francisco, CA – October 11, 2013
Ozarks Bacon Fest, Springfield, MO – October 12, 2013

And organizers of the Chicago, St. Louis, and DesMoines festivals are already gearing up for 2014.

The biggest problem I foresee here is how I'm going to make San Diego, Roanoke, and Camden all on the same day. Same for Orlando and Grand Forks in October. But I'm working on it.

Bringing Home the Benton's Bacon

I just had another wonderful visit with the Bacon Whisperer, Allan Benton. I stopped by his

The "Bacon Whisperer"-- Allan Benton

establishment in Madisonville, Tennessee to see how work was progressing on repairs after the recent smokehouse fire. And I also really needed to get some more of the world's best bacon, Benton's Hickory Smoked Country Bacon.

Allan is an amazing man. He greeted me warmly as soon as he saw me standing in his shop drooling on his bacon. I mean, this is a guy who counts lauded and applauded celebrity chefs among his customers and yet he drops everything to recognize and chat with a hack food blogger like me.

Construction on the building appears to be coming along well. Allan downplays the fire, saying only, “It could have been worse.”

We talked about quality. “My daddy told me when I got in this business to never cut corners on quality,” Benton says. “Always make it the best way you can no matter what it costs.”

Allan alluded to nearly “starving to death” in the early years of his business partly because of his dedication to quality. “I was aging hams for up to twenty-eight months and was up against people aging them for eighty days. I was selling to people who just wanted it as cheap as they could get it and was about starving to death because of it. If somebody came in and undercut my price by two cents a pound, buyers would just drop me and go with the cheaper guy.”

Fortunately, a sea change in food culture over the past twenty years or so has brought about a greater emphasis on quality. People are learning that “cheap” and “good” are often mutually exclusive. More and more, cooks are seeking out less processed, higher quality food to meet the demands of more educated consumers. This is true both in the home kitchen and at the restaurant level, where the “farm to table” movement continues to expand and move forward.

But for Allan Benton, a man ahead of the curve, it wasn't always an easy sell. “When I first started out, I tried calling these chefs to tell them about my product and they hung up on me before I even got finished telling them my name.” Not anymore. Nowadays, Allan Benton's name is on “speed dial” in Michelin- starred restaurants across the country. It's even indexed in David Chang's Momofuku cookbook. And how did this transformation come about? It started right in Allan's metaphorical back yard.

You wouldn't think it really likely that you'd find a profusely acclaimed luxury resort tucked away in the hills of East Tennessee. But Blackberry Farms, near Walland, is a really unlikely place. Called “Eden in the Tennessee foothills” by Gourmet magazine and dubbed “a Ritz-Carlton in the woods” by Country Inns, Blackberry Farms' list of accolades from James Beard, Zagat, Fodor's, Wine Spectator, and a host of others is nearly endless. It would be easier to cite the awards the place hasn't received. And when former executive chef John Fleer was developing his renowned “Foothills Cusine” at the resort, he turned to local sources for as much product as possible. Since Madisonville was just a stone's throw away, that, of course, included incorporating Allan Benton's bacon.

In case you weren't aware, big time chefs kinda pal around together. They visit one another's restaurants and “borrow” one another's recipes and concepts. They sit around and talk food. And so it was that Tom Coliccho happened by Blackberry Farms one day and was turned on to Allan Benton's bacon. Colicchio immediately began importing Benton's porky ambrosia to his multi-award-winning Craft in New York. David Chang was in Colicchio's kitchen in those days, and he immediately went gaga over Benton's bacon, ultimately making it a staple in his evolving Momofuku restaurant empire. (Chang now has his own rack in the smokehouse.) Soon Charleston's Sean Brock, Chicago's Paul Kahan, Napa Valley's Thomas Keller, New Orleans' John Besh, and a score of other cutting edge chefs were all featuring this spectacular but humble ingredient spectacularly produced by a very humble man. “Some writer once called me a 'rock star'”, says Benton. “I wish he could have been here a little while ago when I was sweeping out the back.”

Indeed, Allan Benton presides over one of the most unprepossessing food empires you're ever likely to encounter. The cinder block building squatting beside Highway 411 a few miles out of Madisonville does nothing to scream “success.” It looks like an old-timey meat market, an image that continues once you pass through the door. With its old-fashioned display cases and handwritten signs, except for a modern POS system, it could be a time machine trip back to the 1960s. The only thing that betrays the fact that this is not just some little hole-in-the-wall country store is the underlying bustle of a large number of white-coated employees working at peak speed and efficiency to keep up with the increasing demands of what has become a national business.

As we chatted about bacon, I mentioned Neuske's bacon as being worthy of consideration. While Allan agreed, he quickly pointed out what separates his bacon from the Wisconsin-produced variety that is also quite popular with chefs. “Mine's a dry cure. Theirs is wet. It's good for a wet cure bacon, but mine is totally different.”

Indeed. In a dry cure process, a cure mixture – usually consisting of salt, sugar, curing salt and other flavoring ingredients – is applied to the surface of the meat. Dry cured bacon is then hung on racks in cold rooms and allowed to age and cure for several months, being “overhauled” (flipped and rotated) at regular intervals to ensure uniform curing. Excess salt is rinsed off and the meat is allowed to air dry before being smoked by either a cold-smoke or hot-smoke method.

Wet cured bacon is immersed in a brine solution for up to two weeks and is sometimes injected with brine in order to achieve deep penetration and to shorten curing time.

Dry cured bacon tends to be...well...drier when you cook it, so you have to be careful not to get it too crispy. As Allan puts it, “It has to have a little bend in it.” But there is virtually no shrinkage in a dry cured bacon and the flavor is generally more intense.

Wet cured bacon, on the other hand, is, by definition, full of water. The more you cook it the more water it exudes and the more it shrinks up. Wet curing usually results in a milder, less salty flavor. A lot of premium bacon producers use a combination curing method that kind of gives you the best of both worlds.

Most commercial bacon, however, is cured by another method – a variation of wet curing that involves pump injecting the meat with brine and then tumbling it in big drums to distribute the curing solution. Pump injecting bacon adversely affects the quality of the finished product. Supermarket bacon is cured in this manner because the process allows manufacturers to make a lot more of it in a much shorter period of time. Bacon produced this way is usually ready for the smoker in twenty-four hours or less.

Watching commercial bacon production is like watching a Detroit assembly line. Pork bellies come in on trucks. They get run through a machine that slices off the skin. Rollers flatten the bellies out and they move into another machine where more than a hundred tiny needles inject a blend of chemicals into the meat. This blend is usually made up of water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate, and sodium nitrite. Then the meat is heated, smoked, and cooled for up to 72 hours before it hits yet another series of machines that press it into uniform slabs, slice it into uniform slices, and vacuum-pack it into uniform packages.

so exquisitely, exuding a rich, unctuous fat that is almost totally absent from water-laden supermarket bacon. Many chefs and cooks – including yours truly – reserve these decadent drippings for use in other dishes. (I pour the fat directly from my cast iron griddle into my cast iron skillet and cook my seasoned breakfast potatoes in it.)

Benton's Hickory Smoked Country Bacon

Allan doesn't do any of that. All of his machines and processors have two hands and experienced, discerning eyes. The slices are rustic, thick, and decidedly non-uniform. But they cook up

Comparing Benton's bacon to supermarket bacon – especially the cheap, off brand stuff – is like comparing fine Swiss chocolate to the waxy brown substance produced by Hershey. There simply IS no comparison. Ever ready with an analogy, my wife likens the difference to driving a stripped down Yugo versus driving a tricked out Cadillac SUV. They'll both get you there, but you'll enjoy the ride a lot more in one than in the other.


The first thing I said to Allan when I saw him the other day was, “Five hundred miles is a long way to go for a pound of bacon.” But, you know what? It's worth it.

Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams
2603 Hwy. 411 North
Madisonville, Tennessee 37354-6356
Phone: (423) 442-5003
http://bentonscountryhams2.com

A Few Things Italian Cooks NEVER Do

Nearly everybody loves Italian food. Survey after survey shows it to be one of the world's most popular cuisines. Not only do people like to eat Italian food, they like to cook it, too, largely because of a basic tenet of Italian cooking: simplicity. Italian food is tasty and easy to prepare. What more could you want?

Italian food came to American shores in the hearts and souls – and occasionally in the luggage – of Italian immigrants in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. And it caught on like wildfire. Americans couldn't get enough of the stuff in neighborhood Italian restaurants. They wanted to be able to cook it at home, too. Italian cook Ettore Boiardi – the real life “Chef Boyardee” – got the ball rolling by packing up take out containers of his sauce for customers in his Cleveland eatery. Pretty soon, everybody in America was cooking like an Italian. Sort of.

Along the way, American cooks developed some horrible habits that make Italian cooks cringe. Unfortunately for the culture, Italians are, by and large, too polite to correct mistakes they observe in those trying to imitate them. Unlike the French, who spare no effort in reaming you a new one over the slightest infraction, the Italians have a “whatever” attitude toward everything from proper pronunciation of their language to correct preparation of their food. "You want to screw up our language by saying 'mare-uh-NARE-uh' and 'broo-SHET-uh' instead of 'mah-ree-NAH-rah' and 'broo-SKET-ah'? Whatever! You want to screw up our food by employing all manner of bad cooking techniques? That's okay, too. We're Italian. We don't mind."

Here are a few random things you will never see an Italian cook do.

Putting oil in pasta cooking water. I've been trying to find out how this awful habit got started and I just don't know. I even contacted the folks at the National Pasta Association. They don't know, either. It's just one of those things your mother told you to do because her mother told her to do it that way. Unless your mother was Italian. Putting oil in the water is one of the things you will never see an Italian cook do.

The theory behind the silly practice is that adding oil to the cooking water will magically keep the pasta from sticking together. But think back to Chemistry 101. What happens when you pour oil on water You get water with a film of oil on top. The only thing you need to pour into pasta cooking water to prevent sticking is more water. You need at least a gallon of water to cook a pound of pasta. If you try to dump a whole box of spaghetti into a two-quart saucepan half full of water, it's gonna stick. Pasta releases starch as it cooks. That's what gets sticky. The oil you pour on top just floats around up there and never gets down to where the stickiness happens. And by the time you pull the cooked pasta up through the layer of floating oil, the stickiness has already happened. And, no, stirring it in doesn't help. Unless you really stir it in enough to create an emulsion, the oil is just going to drift lazily back to the surface as soon as you take your spoon out of the pot. If you have enough water for the pasta to swim around in, the starch disperses and the noodles don't stick. No oil needed.

Some people say the oil helps prevent boil overs, and there is something to that. But I've got an even better, more foolproof way to prevent boil overs: lower the heat and watch the pot! That's how an Italian cook does it.

Cooking pasta without salt. Salt has become the universal culinary villain in recent years. To listen to the “experts,” you'd think that everybody who even looks at the stuff risks dropping dead of a stroke or a heart attack. But you know what? There are some foods that just absolutely need salt. Eggs, for instance. There is nothing worse than an unsalted egg. Pasta is the same way. In and of itself, it is fairly bland and flavorless. I mean, dried pasta is made of flour and water, okay? How much flavor can it have? So you have to salt it to make it taste like anything and the salting has to be done during the cooking process. In order for it to taste right, it has to be cooked in – as Mario Batali puts it – aggressively salted water. An Italian cook would never use less than one or two tablespoons of salt per gallon of water. The salty flavor is absorbed into the pasta as it swells during cooking. A long-time chef of my acquaintance suggests that cooking pasta in unsalted water actually leeches what little flavor there is out of the pasta, leaving it even more dull and bland. The salt also helps reduce the gelation of the starch released by the pasta. And, no, it won't give you an instant heart attack because the pasta will only absorb so much salt. The rest is drained away. If you wait until after the pasta is cooked, you can dump salt on it to little avail. There is no substitute for salting the water.

Rinsing cooked pasta. Another thing everybody's non-Italian mother taught them to do was to rinse the cooked pasta. “It gets all that starch off there.” No, no,no! You want all that starch on there. It's what helps the sauce adhere to the noodle. If you're ever served a nice big bowl of pasta where the noodles are bright white and naked and sitting in a pool of sauce, you can bet somebody listened to his non-Italian mother and rinsed the pasta. An Italian mother would never think of rinsing the pasta, so it's another thing an Italian cook would never do.

Oiling cooked pasta. Same thing goes for oiling the pasta after you cook and drain it. Like rinsing, you would only do that in a pasta salad or some other application where you don't want anything to stick to the pasta. Otherwise, you're gonna make that pasta as slick as a bambino's bottom and all the work you put into opening that jar of spaghetti sauce will be wasted because it'll just slide right off the noodle and back onto the plate. Or onto the front of your shirt. So, okay, I can't say Italian cooks never oil pasta, but they only do it in specific instances. Never for spaghetti or fettuccine or linguine or anything you serve hot with sauce.

Breaking up uncooked pasta. Don't break the pasta. What did it ever do to you? The Italian ear is very sensitive to the screams of spaghetti noodles as they're being viciously and cruelly snapped in half before being tossed into a pot of oily water. If you don't like or want long pasta, don't buy long pasta! Italians are artists at twirling up long strands of pasta on a fork and if you ask one, he'll be happy to show you how to do it without staining your shirtfront or resorting to breaking the noodles into bite-size pieces that you could eat with a spoon. An Italian cook never breaks up the pasta.

Overcooking pasta. I'll let you in on a little secret: In spite of what you get in a can of Chef Boyardee's eponymous product, pasta is not intended to be soft and mushy. The perfect pasta is cooked to a perfect chewy firmness – something Italians call al dente. Al Dente is not the name of the Italian guy who lives down the street, and for heaven's sake, it's not al DANTE. No doubt Dante was a great Italian poet, but his name has nothing to do with the proper texture of pasta. He may have, however, reserved a ring in hell for people who overcook it, something an Italian cook simply never does.

Cooking with “cooking wine.” Cooking with wine is very common in Italian cuisine. What is not common is so-called “cooking wine.” You've seen it in supermarkets. It's usually labeled “Italian Red Cooking Wine” or “White Italian Cooking Wine” or some such. Don't be fooled. An Italian cook would never cook with this stuff. It barely qualifies as wine, being made from the cheapest, thinnest base wine to which a ton of salt, colorings, and other substances have been added to make it resemble wine. Rule of thumb: never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink. And believe me, you wouldn't want to drink “cooking wine.”

There are numerous other things Italian cooks don't do. Popular notions to the contrary, they don't cook with egregious amounts of garlic and they don't serve everything swimming in seas of red sauce. And they don't put twenty toppings on a pizza. These are all stereotypes and adulterations brought about by years of misinformation coupled with the inherent Italian inability to say, “No! Che non è giusto!”

So, forget what your mother taught you. Stop oiling, rinsing, breaking, overcooking, over-saucing and all the other things an Italian cook would never do. You will be amazed at the difference and your home-cooked Italian food will start looking and tasting like the delicious food you love at your favorite authentic Italian restaurant. (Olive Garden and Pizza Hut don't qualify.) Take some classes, get some books, interact with some real Italian cooks. If nothing else, watch Mario and Giada and Lidia and Mary Ann on TV. Cook and enjoy beautiful, simple Italian food the way it was meant to be cooked and enjoyed. Those are things Italian cooks always do.