ChefTalk.com › ChefTalk Cooking Forums › Cooking Discussions › Food & Cooking › spoiled meat recipes?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

spoiled meat recipes?

post #1 of 16
Thread Starter 
i was wondering if anyone know of any recipes for spoiled meat (i.e., to prepare a meat gone rancid for consumption)? i have heard of such a thing, but thus far have been fruitless in my search for any.

to be honest, my interest lies more in the domain of history rather than culinary arts but i thought this would be an excellent place to throw out my query.

anyone with any serious information can email me at worker11811@hotmail.com .

thank you very much!

dave
post #2 of 16
Ok, you have piqued my interest.

What and why are you seeking rancid meat recipes?

As history goes, preserving meats was the interest of most, although there must be something out there in regards to rancid meats, perhapes HACCPs web page can help :D
Baruch ben Rueven / Chanaבראד, ילד של ריימונד והאלאן
Reply
post #3 of 16
You would want to read on the Inuit people and Eskimo culture as they practice the consumpution of rancid meat.
Thanks,

Nicko 
ChefTalk.com Founder
All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking
All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking
Bacon (I made)
(26 photos)
Reply
post #4 of 16
Hi vinacava.

I will see what I can do for this I have a book in mind. In the mean time I am asking any of our members that have info to post it here apart from e-mailing vinacava, I am sure that everybody wants to learn. :)
"Muabet de Turko,kama de Grego i komer de Djidio", old sefardic proverb ( Three things worth in life: the gossip of the Turk , the bed of the Greek and the food of the Jew)
Reply
post #5 of 16
Thread Starter 

wow

i'm glad to see some response to this! to answer cape chef's query, yes, meat preservation has always been a foremost concern throughout man's culinary history. however, there were many opportunities in our earlier times for meat to go bad and no other option to get fresher replacements. specifically, in times of famine and drought.

where i first heard about the possibility for a recipe to exist was in the context of homesteading in the american west. oftentimes, these families were left with only what was in the pantry, or rather, the root cellar; while they had to wait to go to town, which was usually 2-3 days ride for these folks. although it's more likely that they would just go without meat for a few days, there is the remote possibility that some developed a way to essentially "re-cure" their meat once it had spoiled.

enough for now, but it is quite fascinating. thanks again for all your help!

d

oh, and about the eskimo peoples, i believe that may be more myth than fact. although they are the only known culture to have a completely meat diet, eskimos generally cured their meats immediately upon acquiring it. the myth may stem from foreigners unused to their curing methods, which i've tasted for myself and do have a stronger, more bitter flavour.
post #6 of 16
To respond to Nikos post well yes , the Inuit or Eskimos do have a practice of eating rancid meat ! Some people swear to the health benefits of eating this meat as it is a festoon of spoilage bacteria and they feel this helps them ! Who knows ? All I know is that when you are sick and dying most people will try anything to stay alive . Ill pass on the practice myself ! But it is true if you have been in the biz long enough . As Bourdaine said in his book watch out for fish on mondays , and specials !
The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity !
Reply
post #7 of 16
There are many cultures that use "controlled spoilage" as part of curing. My grandfather talks of curing hams, then burying them, digging them up months later, cutting off the outside and having beautifully cured ham. I believe that other cultures have similar recipes.
From Man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the World-Saint Arnoldus
http://www.onceachef.com/
Reply
post #8 of 16
Remember the maggoty cheese? :eek:
Moderator Emerita, Welcome Forum
***It is better to ask forgiveness than beg permission.***
Reply
post #9 of 16

I sure do

I remember reading about the maggoty cheese, Mezz. Gross! I also remember reading a newspaper article a few years back that stated that if people ate raw or spoiled meat from infancy, it would never make them sick in adulthood. I won't have any, thank you:) But it did make me wonder about dogs. Animals eat spoiled meat all the time and don't get sick. A dog has a lot in common with humans as far as digestion and health needs are concerned. They even take a lot of the same medications.
Laughter is the medicine of life
Reply
post #10 of 16
The northern Thai make sausages out of rice and pork and then ferment them... actually come to think of it.. shrimp paste and fish sauce are both fermented products.
"Language is the dress of thought."
Reply
post #11 of 16

Cooking with rancid meats

:chef: While we no longer used spoiled food in most modern cooking, many classic reciepes evolved out of the practice of the chef/cooks trying to use up spoiled foods. American Chili for example--the cooks of the wagon trains heading west would use up rancid beef by adding spices (to hide the rancid taste & smell) and beens to made the chili. Creamed Chipped Beef has a simialar origin. :eek:
Chef Al The Independent Chefs Federation: www.geocities.com/chefsfederation
"Trust a Chef who licks his own fingers"--William Shakespeare
"Only the pure of heart can make good soup"--Ludwig van Beethoven
Reply
post #12 of 16
My grandmother was Scottish... being from a poor family and in the depression... often the cheapest meat to get was the toughest/chewiest cut and she often cooked rancid meat... particulary beef and chicken... I can remember seeing it hanging in the larder... waiting for it to turn a pretty greenish colour... and then it being used for stews and soups, watching her wash and clean it and toss it in the pot...

AussieKris
post #13 of 16
Guys you beat me to the rancid whale meat.....but also there was garum which was the base of a lot of Roman cooking...this is fermented fish guts n stuff & acted as an all in one spice,not unlike the nampla of oriental cooking today.
champagne for my bad friends
& bad pain for my cham friends
(Francis Bacon)
Reply
post #14 of 16
I just have to throw something in here- before anyone gets any ideas. Once meat has spoiled, there is no way to "cook out" the bacteria. Spoiled meat generally contains staphylococcus which is in fact killed when meat is cooked above 165 degrees, however, a spore forms around the bacteria which is toxic and heat stable.

I had to add that because I remember as a kid working in kitchens where the cooks would tell you if you cooked spoiled meat that it killed the bacteria. These were the same guys who rinsed off spoiled fish with vinegar.
Michael
Reply
post #15 of 16

From 1929 to 1939 the great depression lasted. I am not instructing you to eat anything, just an attempt to answer to your question Some people lived better than others during this 10 year period. Just as we now do. Our society has always had class, my mother once had some meat that had spoiled and just as I was about to throw it in the garbage, she asked "what are you doing"? She was born in 1938 and just because the GD was said to last 10 years don't believe people started drinking champagne the next year.! She said let me show you something: she then took the meat and salted it well then covered it with water and allowed it to sit. Afterwards she rinsed it well and cooked it! you couldn't tell if it had been overdue for the can or not...Just how bad it was I don't know? but I recalled  her doing this. some of the people in these forums have never seen a difficult day in their lives. If things continue at their present course we all just might need some salt...Not an instruction just answering your question..

post #16 of 16
Quote:
Originally Posted by UniChef View Post

I just have to throw something in here- before anyone gets any ideas. Once meat has spoiled, there is no way to "cook out" the bacteria. Spoiled meat generally contains staphylococcus which is in fact killed when meat is cooked above 165 degrees, however, a spore forms around the bacteria which is toxic and heat stable.

Yes, i was wondering the same thing - i knew this as well.  Nevertheless there are plenty of periods in history when people ate meat that we would consider inedible and dangerous. 

My inlaws were married in Italy during the war - there was little food, and they went on their honeymoon to Venice.  My mother-in-law's mother gave them a (raw) chicken to take with them in case the restaurants had no food, and she could give it to them to cook.  So they took it on the train, stayed a couple of days in hotels, and then took the chicken, which wasn;t refrigerated and had begun to smell, to the restaurant and they cooked it up for them.  Their only fear was that they may have kept the chicken for themselves and served them cat!

Also as a kid i remember the roast on sunday, chicken or beef, was kept in the unlit oven until supper when it was eaten, and my inlaws did this till they died.  So i guess that the danger is great, but probably more rare than we think. 

Washing the outside of meat before cooking was done a lot in my inlaw's family - the external blood would sometimes have an off smell, and it was a shame to throw it out - that's also because they had experienced both the depression and the war and couldn't bear to waste anything. 

 

Many people are talking about fermented meat, which is certainly different from staph infected meat.  Maybe some fermenting agents are protective against dangerous bacteria? 

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pastachef View Post

I remember reading about the maggoty cheese, Mezz. Gross! I also remember reading a newspaper article a few years back that stated that if people ate raw or spoiled meat from infancy, it would never make them sick in adulthood. I won't have any, thank you:) But it did make me wonder about dogs. Animals eat spoiled meat all the time and don't get sick. A dog has a lot in common with humans as far as digestion and health needs are concerned. They even take a lot of the same medications.

We were on a trip with a friend and his dog, and he would buy the dog meat and leave it in the trunk for a couple of days because if it was fresh,. he said, it would be hard for him to digest. 

 

One thing i did read was that if you grew up with a certain diet that was the natural diet of your area (aboriginal diets of various parts of the world, including insects, larvae, meat only, or vegetable only or whatever it was) and you moved to a place with a more modern and varied industrial-society diet like ours, you would be much more subject to all the modern ills - high blood pressure, heart attacks, cholesterol, etc.  But bringing them back to their original diet brought back their health, no matter how restricted and unhealthy that diet seems to us (e.g. all meat).  I guess those who couldn't tolerate that diet all died off, and those who flourished in these restricted diets survived. And at the same time, your body develops the enzymes to handle the foods it's used to receiving.  (Some people can't digest milk if they stop having it for too long, but if they start having it and keep it up, they eventually re-develop the necessary enzymes.  Or so i read).

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Food & Cooking
ChefTalk.com › ChefTalk Cooking Forums › Cooking Discussions › Food & Cooking › spoiled meat recipes?