Spend A Day with the Butcher!

On January 22^nd Frank Meusel, the resident Master Butcher at the Weeping Radish, will open the doors of our facility and demonstrate to the participants how he applies his craft.

He will start by showing where the different meat cuts, which we are all used to seeing  shrink wrapped in a meat counter, are actually found. He will explain what to look for in an animal and how age and feed impacts the meat.

All primal cuts will then be vacuum packed and sent to the Executive Chef at the Sanderling Inn for use in the kitchen of the 4 star Left Bank Restaurant.

Then he will prepare meat for sausage making, using an emulsion process which is the traditional way to make high quality sausages. All his spices come from Europe and Asia and of course these ingredients will remain his secret.

Frank makes his job look very easy, so we give participants the chance to use the sausage stuffing machine. It's not quite so easy when you try it for the first time!

During lunch, the chef at the Weeping Radish prepares a tapas style sampling of the meats and guests will also get a chance to sample the delicious Weeping Radish beers. Also on the menu will be the Sweet Potato Liver Pate, which has just won a National award at the Good Food Award competition in San Francisco.

After lunch, Uli Bennewitz, the owner, will give a complete facility tour which encompasses such issues as Farmer to Fork, chemical free food and many of the regulatory challenges facing small business in this new food world. 

This will be a full day of learning, fun, sampling and most of all it will be an opportunity to see a real craftsman apply his trade. The cost is $100 per person, which includes lunch and beer samples. For reservation (space is limited) call 252-491-5205 ext 3 or email capwradish@hotmail.com.

New Year New Blogger

After months of persuading,  I have managed to convince Uli to start blogging! Enjoy his first post!

The land flight or brain drain in rural America:

Let me state upfront, I make a living from the trends of modern farming. Glistening green giants costing in excess of $250,000, GPS systems which plant, fertilize and harvest with guidance from satellites (the same satellites which may also guide drones and smart bombs), and genetically modified seeds so expensive that the bags state how many seed kernels you're buying. One farming operation is now capable of precision farming 20,000 acres with just five workers.

I have been involved in this industry for over 30 years and I am amazed how yields have gone up, not just what you may expect under perfect growing conditions, but I have seen 160 bushel corn yields in years when we had no rain during a critical growing period. 30 years ago this lack of rain would have been the end of the crop, now seeds are genetically bred to tolerate drought stress. It is an amazing system and of course in good years we can raise 200 bushel corn. We used to be happy with 35 bushel bean yield, this year I saw for the first time 80 bushel beans.

Instead of every farm having a few fields of crops, a few cows or pigs and an integrated natural fertilizer program, we now raise 300,000 hogs in one community and the other farms are strictly grain producers. So what is wrong with this system? It is the most efficient food production system we ever had. If you are the 10,000 acre farmer, working very hard you will fiercely defend this system, since this type of agriculture is the envy of most of the world.

However, I think there is another complication with this system completely unrelated to the issue of organic food, GM crops, subsidies, the patenting of seeds and a range of such issues. It is just what I would call cultural depletion of rural areas, a land flight and a brain drain.

There is no doubt that the bulk of the educational system has been moved to urban areas, the same is true about research, high tech, manufacturing, transportation, any form of entertainment and all corporate offices. The number of people who have moved to cities or suburbs from rural areas is staggering. The entire growth of suburbia is based on this trend.

Whenever there are winners, there have to be losers. We have always acted as if these trends never had losers, but there are real losers: Rural America.

I have been involved in the management of a large farm in rural Illinois and I have consulted in many rural areas around the country. I have witnessed the decline of small town (rural) USA: Schools have been closed, all kids who excel at High School or College move to urban areas, the average age of the surviving residents in these small towns goes up year by year. Many parents in small towns are anxious to see their kids off to college and the success of the kids is judged by the fact as to what jobs they have been able to procure "in the city". With this trend, the quality of rural life declines, the churches become more prominent for the older generations and politically rural America thus becomes a prime feeding ground for the fear mongering of Fox News and others. One interesting site to see in small town USA are the war memorials, which somehow have much more names on it given the size of the town as compared to urban or suburban areas. This seems to indicate a lack of opportunities for the remaining young people in these towns, and military service becomes not a choice, but an inevitable way of life due to lack of alternative employment and training opportunities.

So has the success of agriculture really benefited rural America? As so often the answer is yes and no. Politically this is a wonderful situation: The left can attack the horrors of modern agriculture, while the right praises the export opportunities and the wonderful benefits of corporate successes, from Tyson Foods, to Monsanto and Cargill grain. The tax payer subsidizes a lot of this system, just look at http://farm.ewg.org/summary.php. It is fascinating reading; 80% of all subsidies go to the largest operators.

The founding fathers are turning in their graves as to what we have done to our rural areas, and I am not talking about Yellowstone or any of our national parks. I am talking about our real rural areas, where there are no job opportunities, no educational opportunities. There is nothing for residents to do but to live in trailer parks, live of welfare and food stamps, and produce children to continue the cycle. The counties have low property taxes, high crime rates. We are allowing all of this to continue while we dish out millions of dollars through dozens of agencies in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to teach illiterate populations how to have a US style legal system, school system and police force.

My mother told me a long time ago, charity begins at home.

FRESH Opinions

Two weeks ago we were delighted to host Beach Organics, a local organic store, for a screening of the movie FRESH and the opportunity to meet local organic vendors. The fascinating and frightening topic of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and their effects were also discussed. At the Weeping Radish, we are strong advocates for local food, knowing who your farmer is and how they raise their products, rather than only buying Certified USDA Organic, so an evening on USDA Organic was an interesting experience for us.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think organic growing practices are better for consumers and the environment, but I do not think USDA certification, or any certification from large corporations, guarantees these benefits. There are many people, however, who believe in the power of that seal as much as they believe in the benefits of truly organic products. It has been my experience that when blind faith in certification and buzzwords takes over the consumer ends up looking foolish and local farms get hurt.

That Sunday evening, for example, I was having an intelligent conversation about regulations in the food industry with a very nice lady when she asked about our products. She was practically heartbroken when I said they weren’t organic. My response to her “I only eat Certified Organic,” was to show her a bag of USDA Certified Organic frozen broccoli. Slightly to the left of the certification seal was written in small letters “Made in China.” It was definitely a shock to this lady to know that the organic standard she held dear was being given to products from a country that exported poisoned baby formula. How can a local farmer compete with products like that? More importantly why would they want to? Why would a farmer submit to an expensive and irrational inspection process when the integrity of the certification is questionable at best?

Another woman’s response to “organic” vegetables from China was that the really important certification was Non-GMO. The short film on GMOs was more thought provoking and inspired less cynicism in me than the longer FRESH movie; almost everything in FRESH was portrayed with more impact and detail in Food Inc. The other film described how easily GMOs could be spread from one field to another and the horrible mutations occurring in lab rats fed GMO foods. What they didn’t mention was that close to 80% of all corn, beans and cotton in the US is now GMO seed with the majority coming from one company (Monsanto). Some people might dare to call that a monopoly, but monopolies lobby very hard to keep their existence quiet. I have to wonder though, as concern over GMOs grows, and with a powerful monopoly already in place, how long before that certification process becomes just as unreliable as USDA Certified Organic and with much worse consequences?

It's Official!

Our Christmas Bier has been brewed and is aging nicely in the tanks! A staff and customer favorite, the Christmas Bier is a doppelbock with a rich malty flavor. It was also the first beer we ever brewed that took advantage of the "Pop the Cap" movement - the group that repealed the 6% alcohol limit for beers. Now hovering comfortably around the 8.5% level the Christmas Bier is the perfect brew for the holidays! It hits the shelves Thanksgiving Week and if the finished product is anything like my early sample it's going to be a very Merry Christmas!

New Blog

Welcome to the new Weeping Radish blog! Technical issues plagued us with our old site so here we are! I've brought most of the older posts to this new address, but if you are feeling nostalgic you can hop over to www.weepingradish.blog.com to see all the posts in chronological order.

And now that I don't have computer and internet glitches as an excuse, perhaps there will be more posts about what's going on at the Radish!

"Oh Give Me a Home, Where the Buffalo Roam!"

Fun Fact: In America, the terms buffalo and bison are interchangeable. There are different more distinct varieties in Asia and Africa, but in North America the names refer to the same animal. And, while historians debate details, no one denies the vital role they played in life on the American grasslands.

Another Fun Fact: Ted Turner is the largest individual landowner in North America. Of his fifteen ranches spread over seven states, fourteen of them are used to raise bison. These bison herds supply his restaurants with fresh free-range bison meats.

Bison played a huge role in the early food chain of our country and today they’re just as valuable. But don’t be daunted by Ted Turner’s large-scale operation; you don’t have to have two million acres of land to be a successful bison farmer. We attend a brilliant farmer’s market in Virginia Beach (I may have mentioned it before!) and once a month Don Edmonds and his wife Kim bring their bison meat to Old Beach Farmer’s Market.

Bison or Beef, livestock farmers run into the same problem of what to do with non-primal cuts of meat. This is where we step in. Our Master Butcher takes meat destined for hamburger, which is hardly profitable for farmers, and turns it into sausages, pastrami, ham, etc., that the farmers can actually sell. Frank Meusel, our Master Butcher in Residence, was particularly excited to make bison sausages, the meat being exceptionally lean and flavorful, so we picked up several hundred pounds of meat and got ready to work. Or so we thought…

Did you know that according to the United States Department of Agriculture bison, an indigenous species, is “exotic” meat? Clearly the regulators failed their history classes because in reality bison were in America long before cows! We are already well aware that common sense does not apply to federal regulations, however we had no idea they were reaching a new low with this instance. In order to work on this meat we had to submit a form to the state office in Raleigh. Once “officials” approved this form, an inspector would be sent down to evaluate our facility and recipes. If he found our procedures (which are already USDA approved and inspected) acceptable then we would be able to process the “exotic” bison meat under the supervision of our regular inspector. The final insult was that we would have to pay for this supervision: $43.64 an hour!

What else could we do? The form was filled out and submitted to Raleigh and for nearly three weeks Frank and Mr. Edmonds wondered if we would be making Bison Brats or not. Not one for sitting still, Uli started making phone calls. He got in touch with the State Director of NCDA’s Meat and Poultry Inspection Division. Mr. Director was surprised we were jumping through all these hoops. He told us the inspector had a column on her time sheet where she could record hours spent on “exotic” meats and we would be sent a bill when she turned it in. And just like that we made bison brats! To this day we do not know where our inspector, who was just as confused as we were, got her list of requirements or why the State Director said we didn’t have to follow them.

The truly sad thing is that our goal of helping small farmers has taken quite a blow with this latest regulatory roadblock. How are we supposed to keep costs low for exotic meats when we have to pay an inspector a higher hourly rate than the Master Butcher. It is a sad state of affairs when our government considers inspector training more valuable than true artisan craftsmanship. That even makes labeling a native American species “exotic” seem rational.

Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray

(Originally posted March 2010)

No, that’s not what I did before starting this post – although it’s been so long since I’ve written I am hoping for a miracle. “Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray” is what the food production industry nicknamed the HACCP regulations when they first came out. The HACCP system, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, is what almost all food wholesalers must comply with and what I spent three days studying at NC State. It was definitely an eye opening experience. But first a little background information.

Since we began production under USDA inspection we’ve been following the HACCP plan I wrote with help from NCDA officials. However, no one was actually certified to approve this plan so I enrolled in the Introduction to HACCP Workshop hoping it would make life at the Radish just a little bit easier. For over two years we have been struggling with our federal meat inspectors, the Battle of the Unstamped Hogs is legendary and the Prosciutto Wars are ongoing, and the conclusion we’ve reached is this: the federal regulations are not written for small plants like ours. Living with this conclusion is not always easy or pleasant and if you visit our bar we’d be happy to regale you with war stories while you nurse your shock with a pint of our excellent beer!

I could have done with several pints before I even started my HACCP class (lovingly referred to as Meat School by friends and family). Being ridiculously anxious about arriving late on my first day, I was 40 minutes early for class. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one with first day jitters and I passed the time talking with a woman from a chicken processing plant near Fayetteville. That doesn’t sound too awful does it? Nothing to send me screaming for a pint of Black Radish? Wrong. HACCP is basically the list of steps to make a particular product with a Critical Control Point (CCP) where an infection/adulteration may occur. As the Weeping Radish Butchery is so small, the Butcher and I work together to create and monitor complete HACCP plans for nearly a dozen products. My new chicken friend spends her days monitoring one CCP! Their operation is so large that they have 12 inspectors that work full 8-hour shifts; our inspector normally finishes his assignments in a few hours. Upon hearing this, my first thought was “Why on earth are we taking the same course?” 

There is a massive difference between our artisan butcher and the meat hackers that need HACCP plans to tell them what to do. This point was hammered home again when the class divided into groups to write HACCP plans for fictitious products. I questioned the use of sodium nitrate in the product, pointing out that a growing number of people are unwilling to buy products that use nitrates as a curing salt (I don’t necessarily agree with this, but that is a blog for another day!). I think the look they gave me was close to pity, “Poor confused girl thinking about public opinion instead of mass production.” When I explained that our operation consisted of one Master Butcher who only worked with whole animals they looked at me like I had two heads! What is this strange creature doing in HACCP School with Perdue and ConAgra (makers of Slim Jim and Chef Boyardee)? Excellent question! Any answers USDA?