Busy weekend.

Madison.

It's been a big weekend for the food hobbies.

• A quick trip to the Wine & Hop Shop netted me most of the makings of a new batch of beer. Due to work conflicts, next weekend's a wash, but I can get the yeast starter going that Sunday for a brewing session the weekend after. This one's going to be something akin to an India Pale Ale, American-style. That means a clean profile, without too much maltiness, and an alarming quantity of hops. Nine ounces for five gallons, with somewhere around ninety-plus IBUs.
  
  The inspiration for this is Dan Savage's ITMFA campaign. Rather than rely solely on t-shirts and buttons, I've decided to slap that acronym on a batch of beer. Genuine, American beer, brewed with all-American hops: Centennial, Willamette, Glacier and Vanguard. Be a brewer and a patriot!
  
  
• Today's major endeavor - at least to judge by the mess made in the kitchen - was to make my own scrapple. It's nigh impossible to find when you're any significant distance from Pennsylvania Dutch country, and I haven't had any in years. A conversation with my friend Jared, a few weeks back, somehow wandered onto the topic. He's from Maryland, not far from where I grew up, and he's got a hankering for it, as well.
  
  Scrapple, for those unacquainted with it, is the sort of food that sounds repulsive when most folks describe it, like the average person's understanding of cheap hot dogs. Traditionally, it's been a way to use up the leftover meat scraps of the pig, after making bacon and sausages and whatever else, and isn't drastically different than a rustic French pâté. You grind up the leftover trimmings, boil them, then add cornmeal and spices, and cook slowly over low heat. The mixture is then spooned into loaf pans to cool. To reheat it, cut slices and fry on a griddle until the outside is browned and crispy, the interior still a little soft.
  
  In my case, I've used pork shoulder and liver, mixed with some buckwheat flour and cornmeal, and spiced with nutmeg, coriander, thyme and black pepper. The traditional method might use the heart, tongue, brains, or even the entire head, boiled and scraped¹. You make use of what you have, especially if you're trying to get by on exclusively what you can produce on your own little patch of land.
  
  
• Also in process from the pork shoulder is some salt pork. (I guess this is really the weekend of nearly-abandoned pork preparation techniques.) Basically, it's a way to preserve chunks of pork with loads of salt. After sitting for nearly two weeks in a mixture of salt, dextrose, and sodium nitrite, it'll be set to last more or less forever. At least a year in the freezer.
  
  Salt pork is esssentially a flavoring ingredient, meant for tossing into stews, or a rich tomato sauce, in the same way you might add bacon for some extra richness and depth. The key difference here is that it's all kinds of salty. You'd never try to eat salt pork on its own.
  
  Or, you wouldn't make that mistake a second time.
  
  
• I'm thinking of taking half of the salt pork, after it's done curing, and smoking it for some extra flavor. Yesterday, I went to the hardware store and picked up most of the necessary bits and pieces for my homemade smoker: a hot plate, extension cord, cast-iron skillet, etc. I'll raid the basement for some cardboard boxes, hunt around for a small fan to pump the smoke between chambers, and I'm essentially there.
  
  I only ran into one little snafu, when I realized that the medium-base plug adapter is only rated for 660 watts. The hot plate takes 1,000 watts at full power, so I'm stuck running an extension cord from inside. It'll take a little extra creativity to make that happen without filling the apartment with bugs.
  
  Despite that, the smoker's nearly set to go. Some hickory sawdust and sodium nitrate ought to be arriving in a week or so, and the toughest part should be deciding what to use for the test run. Smoked salmon? Scallops? Pork chops?
  
  Such difficulties.

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¹Boiling a pig's or calf's head is how you make headcheese, or fromage de tête. Sounds disgusting? It isn't. I had the pleasure of having a delicious headcheese, Alsatian-style, when I was in Strasbourg. It was like a savory jello mold, rich, delicate on the tongue, with delicious meaty bits and lots of spices.