Published August 25, 2005

Editors Note:  Tom Rusert is the host of "The Epicurean Adventure" airing on KSVY 91.3 Sonoma.  The following is a partial transcript of his upcoming show with famed sausage maker Bruce Aidell of Aidells Sausage Company.  Tune in for more of this exciting interview, Thursday, August 25, at 10 am, only on KSVY 91.3 Sonoma.

TR: Bruce, what do you think about the new styles of meat cookery in America?

BA: The first line in my Pork Cookbook says I am a restless cook, which simply means I’m always looking for something new and different. From the beginning with my cooking experiences I started looking all over the world, basically because I enjoyed trying new things. What really helped me was when I was a graduate student we shared a house with another couple whose parents subscribed to Time-Life’s “Foods of the World.” So every month we got a different country. I was all of a sudden exposed to food I had maybe tasted and some I never had. We would basically cook through that book for that month so I got familiar with Middle Eastern, North African, Indian, Japanese — and it was fabulous. That series has been the most influential for me as a cook. I have always looked for the way, not just meat, but food is handled all over the world. Now that I am a little older, I actually get to visit some of the countries, but it’s basically a virtual trip through the Time-Life series when I was poor.

TR: A good butcher is like a good auto mechanic?

BA: I go even further in my Meat Cookbook — my advice is if you can find a good butcher, marry him! They are pretty few and far between, unfortunately. The way our grocery store industry has changed over the years they haven’t really encouraged high-skilled butchers, and nowadays, basically, meat departments simply have clerks that put out pre-cut meat. I think that a skilled butcher is like any skilled craftsman, a delight. Someone who knows their cuts can advise you how to cook it and can teach you some knife techniques so that you can make a nice presentation.
For instance, frenching out the bones on a pork rib roast or a rack of lamb. I believe that there will be a resurgence of small butchers who are going to sell something special, not the regular meat that you buy in a grocery store but special breeds like grass-feed beef and Berkshire pork and things like that, people want and are willing to pay a little bit more for.

TR: How do you ensure that you end up with a delicious tender cut of meat?

BA: I think the first and most important thing is to know the right cut to buy for the cooking technique you plan to use. You can end up with absolutely delicious and tender meat starting with something very tough if you know how to cook it properly. I think the best example would be something like the toughest cut of all, the shank meat which is the lower muscle of the leg which certainly gets a lot of work — those muscles have to support the weight of the animal. What tenderizes those types of cuts is long slow moist cooking. Those cuts you want to braise. You would never take one of those cuts and throw it on a barbecue and cook it two minutes per side and then try to eat it. Now, that said, some of the very lean and naturally tender cuts like the loin or tenderloin which do very little work, these are the muscles that run along the spinal column, you want to cook those with dry heat for a short period of time. If you cook those cuts for a really long period of time they will fall apart and eventually end up with this mass of dry string.

TR: What is dry heat?

BA: Dry heat means heat that does not involve a moist environment. That would be grilling, roasting and pan-frying.

Moist heat means there is some moisture involved and that would be stewing or braising, which simply means cooking in a small amount of liquid usually in a closed pot, and steaming. The moist heat method tends to be longer and slower.

TR: How about the color of meat when you go to a meat counter?

BA: Let’s take pork because that is the one that is the most misguided. The worst pork to buy is the really, really pale stuff. That’s what you don’t want. That’s a sign of poorly processed pork and especially if it is pale and there is a lot of liquid in the bottom of the package. That is actually flawed meat. So in pork I like to look for better coloring. There are no hard-and-fast rules because different muscles have different colors and different parts of the animal are different colors so I would not use color as the most important criteria for judging meat.
In dry-aged beef, which means it’s been hung in a refrigerator for three weeks, it's going to have more of a brownish red color then non-aged meat.

TR: How about marbleizing?

BA: That’s much more important. Marbleized meat means that there are little flecks of fat that are interspersed with muscle. It’s called inter-muscular fat as opposed to the fat that runs around the muscle, the trimmable fat which has very little impact on how juicy that muscle is going to be. In the case of beef, the higher the percentage of inter-muscular fat or marbling, the more expensive the meat is going to be and the most expensive meat is called prime. The actual grading of meat is based on several factors, but one of the most important is this marbling, and prime would have the most marbling. The inter-muscular fat has two results for the meat: Number one is flavor and two is tenderness and juiciness, and that is why people want to eat that kind of meat. So you don’t want to buy the leanest as far as beef.

TR: Is pork too lean?

BA: Absolutely! Our national pig supply got put on a diet starting probably in the ’70s and really became universal by the mid ’80s. Pork became probably one of the leanest meats you can buy, which is good for the waistline but very bad for the palate because as I was just saying, fat is flavor and juiciness and tenderness.

What’s starting to happen again is some of these specialty butchers are starting to find old breeds of pork that were bred for flavor like Berkshire and Duroc and so those are starting to come back into the supply. They have a little more of that inter-muscular fat, or marbling. That said, you can still deal with very lean pork by knowing how to prepare it properly. One of the best tricks is actually to soak the pork, and I’m talking about your pork chops and your pork loins — soaking those in a light brine, which is a solution of salt and water. Pork is as lean as turkey is, so it works as well.

TR: Do you like to sweeten your brine at all?

BA: Yes, I usually add a sweetener, whether it is a molasses, brown sugar or apple cider. I have even done brines with sweet tea, which is good, too. These are not your traditional brines. These have much less salt which are more for flavor and texture.

TR: We are seeing the word “natural” to describe meat.

BA: Well, as the government defines “natural,” it’s a pretty loose term and wouldn’t use that as a criteria for much. Simply, it means minimally processed. Certain companies have taken that word to mean a lot more — and when I say a lot more, I mean that the animal itself has not been tampered with which means its hasn’t been given any external hormones, which affect growth, or antibiotics, which affect growth also.
The most famous of those natural meat companies would be Niman Ranch but that’s not the government’s definition.

TR: USDA graded meat versus butcher’s choice or five-star prime?

BA: It doesn’t have to be confusing. Ignore any other terms except the USDA graded terms. All the rest of those terms are marketing terms that grocery store chains have developed and have nothing to do with the actual grading system that we were talking about earlier with “prime” being the finest beef — highest marbling — and the next category being “choice” and the last category being “select,” which has the least amount of marbling and tends to be the toughest and driest, especially if you cook it much beyond rare.

TR: How much heat matters when you are cooking beef? Some people who grill like to keep the cover on all the time.

BA: I’m going to have to be nasty here. I would think for most people who are not accomplished cooks, less heat is better than more, especially on the grill.
I think I would like to concentrate on the grill because this is the grilling time of the year. Too much heat means you burn the outside and you end up with raw insides.
I would rather see people work with medium high heat and turn their meat frequently and get nice, even caramelization. I personally cannot stand black, charred meat. I don’t like the taste of carbon. I’m not a big fan of super-high heat, and the only time I would recommend super-high heat is for very tender cuts that are very thin and you literally just want to sear those babies before they get cooked on the inside.
For instance, very thin pork chops. Maybe one minute on each side but you still have the risk that they are going to be overdone in the center. Fish works very well on a high temperature grill but you have to use common sense more than timing.
If it’s burning you have to move it to a less intense heat area of your grill. As far as cooking with a lid on or off, I pretty much the follow instructions of companies like Weber who designed their covered grills to be used with the cover on which has one huge advantage for people who do tend to burn food — it tends to slow down the cooking time, which is good, but it also adds to capture the heat instead of it going out into the air because it sits more like a oven.

TR: How do you feel about this skinless, boneless craze?

BA: The only thing I can think of is chicken breast and you would sear it really quickly and hope that didn’t overcook it. It’s not my favorite thing to cook. Probably better to marinate that. As far as bone in or bone off, I am just a fan of meat with a bone in it. First of all, the meat right next to the bone always has a little fat and that obviously is going to contribute to the flavor. When it comes to braising meat, having the bone in as part of the braising liquid, it contributes to the overall flavor profile.

TR: Storing leftovers, any advice?

BA: A lot of time it is better to eat that leftover meat, especially if it’s a roast or something that has been dry cooked because re-warmed meat has a very distinct flavor and I would eat it cold. If it has been stewed or braised, re-warming is wonderful. I do have a microwave and that’s what I use it for.

TR: Speaking of cooking, your wife, Nancy Oates, is at Boulevard Restaurant in San Francisco. Does she affect your creativity in cooking at all?

BA: I wouldn’t say my creativity. We can’t cook in the same kitchen. We even have trouble making coffee. When you have two head chefs and they are used to getting their own way and you put them both in the same kitchen you have created a horn-locking experience.

We have very different styles. My wife’s food is way more progressive and in touch with what’s currently going on, and mine is more rooted in peasant styles. My way of cooking is to platter the food in big piles; Nancy’s is to nicely arrange it on plates and decorate it so.

I bow to Nancy when we have dinner parties because essentially what she tries to do is bring Boulevard home, but I think it would be cheaper if we just brought our guests to Boulevard.

TR: And being the king of sausage, do you have favorites that you just can’t live without?

BA: I still love just a plain breakfast sage patty, which is so easy to make on your own. You just buy some ground pork or you can chop some pork in a food processor and add a little sage, black pepper, salt and a pinch of nutmeg, or I’ve got recipes I’ve published in my various books.

TR: And finally Bruce... is there a hot dog that’s worth a damn?

BA: Absolutely. I think that the scourge of hot dogs in our country is this tendency to stress “all beef” and I don’t think beef is the ideal meat for making hot dogs. I like a mixture of pork and beef, so I look for some of the old-fashioned hot dogs. When I say old-fashioned I mean they are still in the casing, so you get that real pop, and these are a blend of pork and beef or pork and veal and I think it just has a much better flavor.