Often at my google homepage they have 3 or 4 stories per hour that are “trending” (or, I believe, they are 3 or 4 stories that they want to you believe are “trending” so that they actually become “trending”; to continue turning people’s minds into pudding). Today I clicked on 2 of them to see what they were about.
This one—
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/d75jza/why-is-brooklyn-barbecue-...
is about the Brooklyn BBQ. I stopped reading this “journalist” after his second use of the F-word in talking about food and restaurants... it is amazing how foul some mouths / minds are.
This one (it is so over-the-top that I had to be likewise in my commentary)—
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/pgxkg8/this-guy-gets-paid-thousa...
is about Iberian hams. I don’t doubt that someone who wants to violate God’s Law and eat a unclean animal, that an unclean animal that lives in the wild on acorns and grass and gets exercise, and which is a natural wild species of feral pig, not one bred for certain characteristics, will have a different flavor (and it is aged twice as long 18-36 months). However, that’s the only type of unclean animal that existed at the time that God gave the Command—and the command hasn’t changed. Unclean is unclean. Put a wedding dress and lipstick on the pig, it is still a pig.
However, the “idiot factor” about this story is that one specific “ham carver” is supposedly the cat’s meow of pig slicers and get’s paid $4000 just to slice a ham! The sycophants rave over him (and he is self-taught! maybe he lived for years among the pigs, like Jane Goodall did among the apes, and he learned all their secrets). The king of Spain, Obama the Third-world sweet potato digger turned world leader (cough, cough, I mean African banana republic dictator) and art connoisseur and gourmand who thinks flying around the world for meals that cost thousands of dollars is “the only way to live” and the hell with his carbon footprint, the rest of the people in the U.S. should “tighten their belts” and make less of nasty a footprint on sacred earth so that he can run barefoot and wild (once his entourage of jumbo jets land), and the actor Robert DeNiro... all think that this Porky Zoro is a pig-slicing superhero!
I would love to blind-fold those people and have Jeffrey Dahmer, the convicted cannibal, carve up some of the ham and then have someone who works at the local butcher who grinds hamburger, and someone who works at Golden Wok, then maybe Steven Segal and Jackie Chan, as well as this Jamon Maestro El Zoro Puerco—have them all carve up for these people a portion each and see if they can, blindfolded, tell us who carved up a ham for which the slicing alone is worth $4000 (or is that 4 sows and bucks?); and that it was really worth all that money rather than merely eat a few slices of pig served up by a run-of-the mill $25 buck pig sticker (or someone who is only used to carving up humans, but you know they say human is “the other white meat”, well, I guess if they are Nordics it is, and we may soon be on the menu, so that is even more reason for everyone to go on a diet and get lean and trim and not eat wild acorns).
Of course, the total bill will be more than the mere carving for this “Dine: Swine and Wine”—you have to pay for the ham itself, and the restaurant ambiance, the waiter, the Sangria or should that be a Chablis? (and does someone get paid $1,000 do decork, decant, and pour the bottle of wine too...? hmmm...). Add in also the price of the expensive au natural wild pig entre, the side dishes, the coffee and desert, the violin player, the Spanish opera singer and belly dancers or whatever drunk Spaniards do for entertainment (maybe an impromptu running of the bulls in the streets without giving the locals any former notice, that’s always good for excitement)—and don’t forget the price of having a reservation, as well tips for everyone! All I can think of is, “I’m not going to pay a lot for this muffler”... while these socialites (and wanna-be socialites) spend money so mindlessly.
It is amazing that these deluded people will spend so much money on a mere lunch (not counting the air fare to fly to Spain—unless they pay to fly the pork carver to them) and yet some of them (like most actors) complain about taxes while supporting the corrupt politicians that raise the taxes (of course we are not talking about the king of Spain or Obamama; but others like DeNiro; and they act like they are so humanitarian, and they throw their money (which they made off milking the common man) wastefully on culinary “rock stars” for a $5000 lunch rather than supporting the working class whom they claim to care about.
DeNiro even tried his hand at the carving, being given a few tips by the Maestro; but DeNiro was modest and claimed that his own slicing could not even come close to the Master’s (or something to that effect)—at least, that’s what he said for the camera. What he may have said on the ride home may have been completely different (with a generous sprinkling of the f-word in each sentence).
This chef / carver actually says that it is not merely knowing how to carve the pig, you practically have to follow it throughout its life cycle and be its therapist and tell it bedtime stories (and know the last words it squealed just as its throat was being slit). To carve a pig, you must think like a pig; you must become that pig. I am being facetious, of course, but he claims to need to know the actual environment where it was raised (like a homicide profiler), its exact age in curing, temperature, relative humidity, etc. in order to carve it right. He’s not doing brain surgery he’s sticking a dead pig carcass with a fork and a knife. Does he give it an x-ray or two and massage it first, like a chiropractor?
Idiots truly amaze me... and those who fawn over them. And what is the parsley garnish on this thinkly sliced stupidity...? —some “journalist” got paid to fly to Spain and research and write this story!
I can see DeNiro when he’s at home and wants a snack, “What? We’re out of the $5,000 ham. Well, I just lost my appetite, there’s no sense eating anything. I was going to share some with the dog and cat because they refuse to believe me when I tell them just how good it is and they said they’ll believe it once they sample it for themselves. Someone fire up the jet we’re going to Spain. Bring the cat and the dog too.
Oh yes, and I must end with Zoro’s own words, who considers himself an “ambassador” to the (wealthy elite of the) world for all things gastronomically ridiculous. He said,
“I travel the world attending events where I can educate people about Iberian ham—one of the four gastronomic jewels of cuisine alongside truffles, caviar, and foie gras*.”
[* —pronounced fwa gra, this is the inhumane practice (banned by many countries) of force feeding a goose corn by shoving a long funnel down its throat into its stomach and then force-feeding it, stuffing it beyond capacity several times a day, often leaving the goose bloody after its delightful snack. A percentage of geese even die from the feeding. However, the forced overfeeding causes the liver to grow about 6x the normal size and it is supposedly oh so buttery.]
By the way, I specialize in spreading peanut butter and charge by the jar: $400 for domestic, $800 for imports (the imports can be a bit temperamental and I must spread each according to its unique personality which I must learn through channelling and the use of coconut butter and Irish grass-fed cow butter while trying to get into the mind of the southern wooden-shelled legume as it ripens under the balmy, sandy southern soil). I will only spread the peanut butter on organic whole grain medium of your choice; anything less is barbaric and an insult to all peanuts—for the peanut butter should not have white bread competing for the central spot of sticking to the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth). To schedule an appointment for a private spreading dial, “1-800-yea-right”.
Have you ever heard of anything so stupid?
$4,000 just for carving a ham. Imagine if he’d been a diamond cutter!