Scenes like this unfold regularly on stage and screen, usually in hospital or police dramas.  Someone in an official uniform, a handsome but somber-faced physician or a dutiful detective, has been tasked with issuing news that no family member ever wants to hear: There has been a horrible tragedy, and nothing will be the same ever again.  It is brutally heartbreaking every time, no matter how many of these same scenes you’ve seen.  And as punishingly emotional as they are, they never get old.  Recently, I was put into a similar situation, having to steel my nerves and muster every ounce of resolve I could to perform this timeless and devastating proclamation.

“I’m sorry,” I said to my friend, “I have some…bad news.”

“Oh my god,” she said, and I was certain that, by the detached and hesitant tone of my voice, she could tell that something awful had just happened.  ”What is it?”  she asked.  I exhaled, and as calmly and bravely as I could, I told her the truth.

“It’s the chili,” I replied.  ”It’s gone nuclear.”

* * *

There are very few foods that are distinctly American.  In our short run as a nation, most of the cuisine that the world associates with our country is derived from other places.  Hamburgers and hot dogs (frankfurters, wieners)?  Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Vienna, naturally.  French fries?  Duh.  We likely scarf down more pizza than any other nation in the world, and as much as it’s become an American staple, we can’t rightly lay claim; we have the Neapolitans to thank for that.  And even the Cajun food of my beloved Louisiana — no matter how distinct it is to traditional French cuisine — owes its roots to French “Acadians,” who immigrated to Canada, were thrown out, and eventually settled in the Mississippi Delta.

But chili, believe it or not, is a purely American invention.  No matter what ideas you might have about it making its way up from Mexico or Central America, the chili we know today is as American as apple pie made by your Mom, who is playing baseball with a bald eagle (and who, between innings, belts out John Phillip Sousa marches while she drinks Jack Daniel’s from the bottle and fires off a few rounds from her .45 Colt revolver, because dammit, that’s her right).  According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America:

Historians seeking the more modern roots of the specific dish called “chili” trace its origin to several possible sources: chuck wagon cooks on cattle drives, prospectors from the Southwest en route to the California gold rush, military field kitchens in the West, the kitchens of Texas prisons, immigrants from other countries who substituted local American ingredients in their own traditional recipes for highly spiced meat stews, and even a Spanish nun to whom the recipe for a chili-like dish was supposedly revealed in a vision. [Author's note: I like this last explanation the best.  Divine chili!]  Whatever its origin, historians agree that chili began as a peasant dish prepared by poor people using cheap, inerior cuts of meat cooked together with other inexpensive, readily available ingredients, primarily peppers and onions.  They also agree that chili is an American, not Mexican dish–although chili is associated closely with the Mexican population in Texas, and dishes similar to chili can be found in Mexico, particularly in the north.

Better still, the chili cook-off is a long heralded American tradition, as is evidenced by what might possibly be the best episode of The Simpsons ever created, from the eighth season, titled: “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer” (The Mysterious Journey of Homer).  Homer, a chili fanatic — which should surprise no one — finds his nemesis in Chief Wiggum, who, at the annual Springfield chili cook-off, concocts a dish featuring “the merciless peppers of Quetzlcacatanango, grown deep in the jungle primeval from inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum.”  When he is at first humiliated by the Guatemalan insanity peppers, Homer coats his gullet with candle wax and triumphantly returns to down several of the evilly luminescent chiles, after which he proceeds to, as the famous poet once put it, “trip his balls off.”  Also, Johnny Cash plays the voice of Homer’s spirit animal, a coyote.  Genius.  But more importantly, it highlights the cultural significance and pure American-ness of the chili cook-off.

A few years back, my friend Matt Timms, in that same, patriotic and epicurean spirit, started a series of chili cook-offs, called “Takedowns,” with his friends.  Why?  ”Because I like chili,” he says.  After turning the events into no-holds-barred amateur competitions, the Takedown gained steam, until today, Mr. Timms is somewhat of a cook-off celebrity (it’s also worth your time to check out his hilarious cooking quiz show, Mind Kitchen, on the Heritage Radio Network).  A couple of years ago, right after my book was published, Timms invited me to be a guest judge for one of his Chili Takedowns.  I was tremendously excited, as I love the thrill of victory and agony of defeat that are the quintessence of a good chili battle.  Unlike the stringent guidelines specified by organizations such as the International Chili Society — meat based, with no beans, hominy or similar ingredients — the Takedown is gloves-off and rules-free.  This, I thought, was going to be interesting.

Little did I know how interesting it would be.  Turns out, when you let people into a kitchen without constraints, sometimes their imaginations can run away with them.  Most of the 25 chilis we tasted were okay, and a few were clear winners — it always helps to start out with double-smoked bacon — but there were some bizarre entries, to say the least.  One guy poured six cans of Hormel and half a bottle of vodka into a bowl and called it a day.  Then a pair of eager young women created a “dessert chili” which, I have to say, was thoroughly gross.  But what really scared me was a pot of chili created by the president of the local chapter of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanatics, based on a recipe favored by one of the show’s popular characters.  It had raisins in it.  Now, I don’t mind raisins, but if there’s one place they do NOT belong, it’s in a bowl of chili.  I will go to my grave carrying this conviction.  Then, of course, was the task of actually attempting to taste twenty-five different chilis without having to go all Ancient Roman and shove a digit down your gullet halfway through to clear some space for the next entries.  It wasn’t easy; even with only taking one or two bites of each, one’s tank fills up quickly.  But I soldiered through, for such is the duty and obligation of an honorable chili judge.

The ultimate question was, what is chili?  Barring the draconian ICS guidelines, what, I wondered, was the one common element that made chili chili (or, in a philosophical sense, “chili qua chili”).  It wasn’t meat, because there are plenty of vegetarian chilis.  Nor was it beans, as mentioned above, or color, since green and white variations are both popular as well as the classic bowl of red.  Then it hit me: chile!  With an e!  Yes, the magical quality that binds all chilis together is, naturally, chile peppers.  If a chili doesn’t bring the heat, it can’t rightly be considered chili at all.  Which brings me to back to my own kitchen explorations.

The first time I ever created my own chili recipe, it was solely for the purpose of eating rattlesnake.  As part of my “month of meat” (attempting to eat 31 animals in 31 days), rattler was on the menu, and I had no idea how to prepare it.  Then I learned, in a cooking history book, that frontiersmen and rough riders would kill rattlesnakes and turn them into chili.  Perfect, I thought.  The whole experience was of mixed success: the chili tasted delightful (see photo at top), however I learned a little late that one should probably parboil the animal and pick the meat off the bones before adding it to the slow-cooker if he or she doesn’t want their guests picking snake ribs and chunks of spinal column from their bowls.  They didn’t rightly mind too much, however I owe this to the liberal flowing of good tequila throughout the evening’s festivities.  Also, there was an unfortunately hysterical episode in which I inadvertently snorted chili oil up my sinuses, but you’ll have to read my book to find out about that.

My next chili attempt was a slight step up from the ratter: I substituted alligator for snake, and used it to top a frank in a friend’s hot dog cookoff.  The finished piece, I thought, was a hands-down winner: A Wagyu beef frankfurter that I butterflied, grilled and stuffed with a three cheese blend, then topped with my three-bean, tequila-spiked alligator chili, and finished with sour cream, chives, and crushed Fritos.  Sadly, it didn’t take home the trophy that day, however a photo of my hot dog masterpiece did end up on This Is Why You’re Fat.

And now, I had to deal with my most current experiment in chili cookery, which had crossed some event horizon of spiciness and turned into a singularity, a black hole of tongue-searing heat from which not even light can escape.  For all I know, it was melting through the bottom of my Crock Pot like the acidic green blood of the title creatures in Aliens.  Maybe I should have known better than to trust my friend, the butcher Tom Mylan, who gleefully gave me some large, dried guajillo peppers to be the lynchpin of my dish.  But rather than ditch the whole batch (for shame!), I trusted my instincts, and hoped that, with time, the fat of the ground beef and pork would mellow out some of the heat, which it did.  I ate a whole bowl of chili two days later for breakfast, topped with a single fried egg.  While still searingly spicy, as I’d hoped the more insidious notes had subsided, and I considered my latest incarnation to be, if not a rousing success, then at least an edible one.  Sure, it had me sweating and red-faced, but isn’t that part of the whole ethos of what chili is about?

After all, if you can’t stand the heat…go back to Canada.

It was so beautiful, I nearly broke into tears.  Being an avid guitarist and a professional meat maven, I expected something to do with steaks or Les Pauls or Led Zeppelin or explosions, possibly all four in combination (my friend Katie suggested “Something with a pig shredding a guitar solo, with sausages for musical notes.”).  But what was set before me was just so… perfect.  My home state.  The black and gold fleur de lis.  And, my god, even an edible magnolia flower!  Of course, it was also delicious, a chocolate cake — my favorite since childhood — with peppermint buttercream frosting for a festive, wintry vibe.  If ever there was a moment where I was both heartsick with nostalgia and glowing with pride, this was it.

Being from New Orleans isn’t like being from most other places.  Whether you were reared in the Crescent City as a babe and raised on King Cake and po-boys, as I was, or you’ve adopted the city as your own at some point, there’s little doubt that NOLA, like some sort of hoodoo magic, gets inside of you, into your blood, your bones, and eventually makes a permanent nest in your heart.  And now that our beloved, historically beleaguered Saints will be making their first Superbowl appearance in history this Sunday (WHO DAT!!!), I couldn’t think of a better time to reflect a bit on what my hometown — and its food — mean to me.

When people speak of New Orleans, the cuisine always rises to the surface of conversation.  Since I’ve been living north of the Mason Dixon, I’ve noticed that every time I encounter another Louisiana native, it’s barely minutes before the conversation turns to food.  And when people ask me about my career as a writer and why I decided to focus primarily on food, I tell them where I’m from, and they usually say something to the effect of, “Well, that figures.”  And the wonderful thing about New Orleans cuisine is not that it’s the most haute, the most refined and exquisitely crafted food in the world — although, of course, some of it is.  What really strikes me most about my hometown and its dedication to gustatory delights, is that the word “foodie” almost never enters the local lexicon.  If you live in New Orleans, you love to eat.  Not just to stuff your face, mind you, but to really savor and enjoy.  There’s no pretense, no culinary elitism about the way we love food.  We just love food.  For us, every meal is a holiday, and we’re not shy to share the holiday cheer.  We love to eat and sing and dance and revel in the company of our friends and family, and usually strangers as well.  And everyone in town — from the little boys tap dancing in Jackson Square with bottle caps on their shoes to the chef de cuisine at Commander’s Palace — feels this way.  It’s just how we’re made.  The cloth from which we’re cut?  Probably cheese cloth.

Since this column is about meat, I couldn’t help but share a few of my favorite New Orleans delights with you.  Not all, of course; I’ll have to save that for a book, seeing as how long I could wax poetic about the gustatory offerings of my beloved south Louisiana.  It would be an understatement to say that people from my neck of the woods enjoy their meat.  In fact, not a few people in New Orleans consider raising a child in the city as a vegetarian to be nothing short of child abuse.  The impressive bounty of game and seafood indigenous to the area, not to mention the myriad culinary traditions — Cajun, Creole, Irish, Italian, Spanish, French, African, etc. — has stewed together over centuries to create the gumbo we enjoy today.  Take, for example, the swamp.  There’s probably nothing that swims, slithers, hops or crawls among the cypress knees and bog water of South Louisiana that its people haven’t cooked up at one point or another.  On a recent trip through the state, I insisted to my Mother on pain of adult temper tantrum that we must stop at Prejean’s restaurant just outside of Lafayette.  Sure, it might be a little on the touristy side, what with the stuffed 14-foot, 800-pound, 65 year-old alligator (nicknamed “Big Al”) that greets you as you enter.  But Prejean’s not only has the most insanely delicious duck and andouille gumbo, they also have the most insane seafood platter ever assembled: alligator tenders, oysters, shrimp, shrimp-stuffed crab, and catfish, all fried-up golden and served on a bed of french fries with sides of corn maque choux and dirty rice.  It’s as though someone one day decided to deep-fry the entire contents of the nearby bayou.  With fries.

Yes, I know, it’s a heart attack on a plate, but you know what?  Not a bad way to go, if you ask me.  And this, of course, is only a slice of the Cajun-influenced side of our cuisine.  Most people, when they visit NOLA for the first time, are somewhat surprised that the shops in which you’ll find the very best fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade or grouper amandine also serve pizza, lasagne and spaghetti with meatballs.  Italian immigrants have had a deep and lasting effect on the culinary landscape of the Crescent City, most notably with the muffaletta, our take on the classic Italian sandwich.  The Central Grocery in the French Quarter (ironically enough) is home to this classic combination of ham,  capicola, salami, mortadella, emmentaler, and provolone garnished with olive salad and served on a roll of bread roughly the size of a tractor tire.  Though a newcomer to the local scene, on my last trip I enjoyed a divine muffaletta at Donald Link’s Cochon Butcher, and I have to say, they nailed it.

Naturally, I could go on.  Get me a cold glass of Abita, and I’d be happy to spend hours regaling you with tales of food from the city and the swamp, from the ghettos to the Garden District.  Problem is, I’m making myself hungry, and I need to get something good inside my belly if I’m going to have strength enough to adequately cheer on my boys in black and gold this Sunday.  And you’d better believe that when I do, it will be with a hot bowl of red beans and rice with ham and sausage, crispy fried alligator tenders, and some very cold beer.  As for Peyton and the Colts, I wish you the best of luck.

You’re gonna need it.

There’s a television advertisement I remember from my youth: Two ranch hands are hanging out on the corral, snacking, when one of them, in an inept attempt to mount his steed, flips over the saddle and spills his treat.  “My chocolate!” he laments, to which the other counters, “is in my peanut butter!”  It’s not long before the two men realize that, as in the case of Newton’s apple, Archimedes’s bathtub, and Alexander Flemming’s famous mold, they’d landed in the lap of genius by way of pure serendipity.  Yes: Chocolate!  Peanut Butter!  Gadzooks, why didn’t anyone think about combining these things before?!?!

In the land of meat and drink, there are pairings that seldom fail to please: A robust Cabernet with a thick NY strip; bacon and eggs with coffee; spicy Texas-style chili with cold beer; a glass of sweet Sauternes and seared fois gras.  I love all of these, deeply and with gusto.  However, for me the ultimate pairing of beast and beverage, without a doubt, is bourbon and barbecue.  Amidst all the myriad combinations of food and spirits there’s something sublimely gratifying about a good glass of whiskey and a plate of expertly glazed Memphis short ribs, sliced Texas beef brisket or pulled pork with North Carolina vinegar sauce.  My love for all things bourbon and BBQ is as strong as the mighty Mississippi, even as strong perhaps as these fine gentlemen, who’ve compiled a comprehensive and finely harmonized guide to the various styles of barbecue throughout the Southern United States:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ubTQfr_tyY

I’ve thought about this delicious duo often and fondly, especially since I moonlight behind the bar at Brooklyn’s Char no. 4, a restaurant dedicated to purveying not only refined Southern American fare (including barbecue, naturally), but also its vast array of American whiskeys, upwards of 150 strong.  And after much meditation, I’ve discovered a number of reasons that the bourbon and BBQ connection is so naturally gratifying.  First is the regional connection.  Bourbon and American-style barbecue were both invented in the South, and, in the epicurean world, it’s almost always a good idea to pair food with drink that comes from the same basic geographical region.  Speaking of which, both of these delights are quintessentially American, especially bourbon, which was declared America’s dedicated spirit by federal law. (A resolution of the U.S. Congress in 1964 declared bourbon to be a “distinctive product of the United States.)  Hence, combining a nice glass of Pappy Van Winkle with a carefully tended low-and-slow pork butt, you’re engaging in something of a patriotic act.  God bless America!

Then, of course, is the matter of flavor pairings. Since it’s made up of mostly corn — a minimum of 51%, by law — bourbon has a characteristic sweetness to it that marries perfectly with taste profiles of many barbecue sauces.  More importantly, though, is the fact that bourbon is matured in a new, charred oak barrel.  Over time, the whiskey picks up color and flavor from the charred wood, so that the finished product possesses a richness and complexity that does nothing if not bring out the accents of maple and smoke that make truly great barbecue such a magical thing to savor.  Also to note: bourbon is traditionally a sipping spirit; one’s meant to take his or her time with a glass, to enjoy it langorously rather than just knocking it back like a shot of Jagermeister at the college sports bar, much in the same way good BBQ should be both prepared and appreciated: slowly, thoughtfully, and, yes, with love.  Shoveling it all in as quickly as possible?  We’ll leave that to the yankees, thank you very much.

Another wonderful thing about bourbon is that, unlike most other spirits, it functions splendidly as both an aperitif and a digestive.  A nice glass of something smooth, a wheated bourbon such as Maker’s Mark or W.L. Weller Special Reserve, say, kicks the appetite into first gear, so that by the time your rib rack arrives, you’re ready to go to town.  At the other end of the meal, once you’ve done your best caveman homage and left nothing left on your plate but skeletonized beef bones and a smear of sauce, a “hot” (ie. high alcohol content) bourbon, such as Booker’s or Buffalo Trace’s George T. Stagg (over 140 proof, weeeee, doggies!!!) does an amazing job of cutting straight through the meal’s considerable heaviness and helping one go about the business of digestion.

And ultimately, as much as those cowpokes’ faces were set alight by the discovery that chocolate and peanut butter are “doggone good!” any real rough riding rancher worth his salt would undoubtedly prefer a plate of hot ribs and three fingers of Kentucky’s finest at the end of a long day roping doggies.  That’s what I’d want.  Hell, that’s what I want right now.  Can you blame me?

Over the years, I’ve been implored by a number of earnest do-gooders to become part of their organizations, to join hands, fight the good fight and help make the world a better place.  Save Lake Pontchartrain.  Save the Wales.  Ban the Nukes.  Nuke the Wales.  Pave Lake Pontchartrain.  And so on.  But never before has a cause struck me so deeply, so frighteningly close to the bone, as the one I discovered last year, just before Thanksgiving:

Save Our Sandwich.

I leapt to attention, rattled to my very core at the thought of sandwiches in peril.  Dear heavens, I thought, what kind of heartless monster would threaten the existence of a poor, defenseless lunch item?  Was there any common decency left in this world?  Action was called for.  Nay, it was demanded.  And I responded as quickly as you could say “po-boy.”

That response, it turns out, was in the form of attending the 2008 New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival.  Nearly fifteen thousand people came out to Oak Street that afternoon to drink (outdoor consumption being not just tolerated by the NOLA authorities, but genuinely encouraged), dance to country, zydeco and brass bands, and sample sandwich offerings by dozens of vendors.  There were the old stand-bys: roast beef with gravy, fried oyster, shrimp and soft-shell crab, ham and cheese, even an award winning bread pudding po-boy from Ye Olde College Inn (whether or not this was created as an intentional dance atop Dr. Atkins’s tomb remains to be seen), all dressed with lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise and pickles, and served on classic New Orleans “French bread.”  I’d long thought that there was little that could surprise me in the way of po-boy technology, being a proud NOLA native, but the ante was upped by newcomer Mahoney’s with a “peacemaker” featuring the classic fried oysters, but with the shocking — and brilliant — addition of bacon and cheddar cheese (seen above).  This, it quickly seemed, was a cause I could really get behind.

So, now that I’d become a stalwart po-boy philanthropist, I knew that to do my part, I needed to revisit the Po-boy Fest the following year.  As I began to make my travel plans to the Crescent City, I had plenty of time to reflect on the impact the po-boy sandwich has made on my life.  The most important thing to realize is that you can only get an authentic po-boy in South or Central Louisiana.  You might be able to find a great Reuben in San Francisco, a killer patty melt in Shanghai, or a terrific banh mi in St. Louis, but you’ll find a decent po-boy sandwich in none of these places.  Even in New York, where many people assume that anything, if called for, can be produced.  Not so the po-boy — and believe me, I’ve looked.

With the Festival soon approaching, I’d have to look no longer to get my fix.  Given the success of the two previous years, the Oak St. Association, who organize the event, decided to push their efforts even further, hosting over forty local eateries to showcase their sandwich-craft and opening up significantly more street space for revelers.  And, in true New Orleans fashion, the NOLA Police Department was selling the hooch — not just beer, but actual booze — for open consumption, right there on the street.  Gotta love it.

Now, this long-cherished sandwich can be filled with just about anything under the sky.  I’ve had po-boys stuffed with everything from french fries to slow-roasted duck.  The key, of course, is the bread.  Here, what we call “French bread” bears only passing resemblance to a genuine French baguette, and, because of the humidity, it is all but impossible to find outside of South Louisiana.  Instead of possessing a hard, crusty exterior, a NOLA loaf is soft and pliable, with a crumbly shell that flakes off as you eat it, perfect for sopping up sauces or, of course, for loading up with po-boy goodies.  And there was plenty of that on this occasion, and then some.

Accompanied by my trusty research assistant (and brother) Colin, we first hit Mahoney’s to see what they cooked up this year.  A novel entry into the vaunted halls of po-boydom, they’d invented something quite brilliant: Fried chicken livers and Creole slaw, accompanied by a generous helping of Crystal hot sauce and chased with a strong bloody mary (it was 11am, after all).

Our next visit was a no-brainer.  Though not a po-boy, Drago’s restaurant was selling their famous charbroiled oysters.  These things are dangerously good – if no one stopped me, I would eat them until, like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life,” my entire torso exploded, and the police would have to use a shovel and wheelbarrow to get all of me to the morgue.

By now, Oak Street was packed with hungry p0-boy enthusiasts.  Even Santa Claus was getting into the spirit, posing with proud families behind a gigantic sandwich.  Because nothing says “North Pole” like Creole and Cajun food, right?  Our next stop was at the tent run by none other than King Bam himself, Emeril’s Restaurant, who decided upon an inventive take on the BLT: Smoky bacon, lettuce and fried green tomatoes topped with shrimp remoulade.  It was, for lack of a better word, a revelation of flavors and textures.  Things were really starting to get serious.

The problem, at this point, was one of internal capacity (the tank was beginning to fill up) and choice.  No matter how hungry we were, there was simply no way we could sample everything at the party, which was a dispiriting position to be in, as the vendors were eagerly dishing up po-boys filled with everything from BBQ ham to smoked chicken etouffee, bourbon shrimp, chicken-fried steak, “Quack L’Orange,” Creole hot sausage, stuffed mushrooms, cochon de lait (suckling pig), even fried oysters topped with brie fondue, red onions, spinach and tasso cream.  After much deliberation, we decided on a variation of the classic roast beef, in this case long-cooked prime rib “debris,” served with red cabbage and a spicy horseradish sauce.

At the end of the day, having sampled six different sandwiches and plenty of good music and drink, we waddled off into the uptown sunset, filled to brimming not just with amazing food, but with the knowledge that, in our efforts this day, we’d done our duty, a good deed that we could look back upon with pride.  So long as we, and the thousands of other New Orleanians who joined in the revelry that afternoon, continued to do our part, the humble po-boy has no fear of going the way of the dodo.  And with that knowledge, we went home and participated in the one activity that could possibly rival a gargantuan po-boy festival.

Nap time.

In my family, nothing represents both Thanksgiving indulgence and good, old fashioned Cajun cooking more than the turducken.  For those of you unfamiliar with this particular Louisiana delight — and I’ve been shocked to learn that even some of my relatives were in the dark on this as recently as three years ago — the turducken is a deboned chicken, filled with dressing, stuffed into a deboned duck with a second dressing, and then stuffed into a deboned turkey with, yes, a third kind of dressing.  Three birds, three dressings, baked in toto, like a loaf, so that when you cut into it, you get a cross section of triple-meat, triple dressing goodness, all in a single slice.  This, of course, is a glorious thing to behold, the kind of overtly egregious culinary invention that could only have been dreamed up in Cajun country.  So, you might wonder, how does one make a turducken?  Easy: He orders it from the Gourmet Butcher Block in Gretna, Louisiana, as the Gold clan has been doing for the better part of a decade.  Sadly, however, I’d never been to this hallowed ground of stuffed poultry until recently, when its proprietor, Glenn Mistich, graciously invited me behind the scenes of the world’s most popular turducken operation.

When Mistich opened up shop sixteen years ago, the turducken had long been invented, but at the time it was still known mostly to lucky South and Central Louisianians and their friends.

Enter an unlikely hero: John Madden.

According to Mistich, “”When he found us, in ’97, the turducken wasn’t very well known.  There were only a few places doing it.  And someone heard on the radio that John Madden was coming to New Orleans for a game, and maybe I should try and get him to try one of our turduckens.  We got in touch with some of the Saints guys, and they said ‘Sure!’  So we cooked it up for him and he loved it; during the game he kept talking about it – talking about the turducken instead of the game!  Since then he’s been getting it from us every year, and it’s become the official food for the all-Madden team.  We even have jackets!” After that, business was booming.  At present, the Gourmet Butcher Block sells about six thousand turduckens a year, shipping them nation-wide and internationally, even as far as Africa.  Walking into the company’s gigantic freezer, you’ll see hundreds of turduckens — stuffed, frozen, boxed and ready to go — stacked up to the ceiling, looking like nothing if not poultry masonry, making up a solid wall of stuffed birds (within stuffed birds, within stuffed birds).  But, Mistich is quick to emphasize, this operation is far from being a factory.  Each turducken, boneless stuffed chicken, stuffed quail, rabbit, pork chop and tenderloin is prepared by hand, from scratch, on the premises.  “What makes our products great is the time, the heart and soul we put into them,” says Mistich.  ”We don’t mass-produce; every single product is done individually, as if ordered by a customer right here in our shop.  We don’t cut any corners.”

Behind the store’s counter, chockablock with carnivorous delights, you’ll see hardworking GBB employees deboning birds, cooking the various dressings, and seasoning the final product.  By the time you receive your bounty, all that’s needed is to pop it in the oven.  “Everything is ready for you to cook,” he tells me.  “We have filet mignon, crawfish-stuffed potatos, shish kebabs stuffed and ready for the grill, stuffed pork roast, boudin, chicken sausage,” and a brand new product that caught me a little incredulous, what he calls a fowl de cochon.  “We use a 30 pound suckling pig, deboned, but with the head still on.  Then we stuff a turducken inside the middle of it with a different dressing on each side, then sew it back up so it looks like a whole, single pig.  It’ll feed about 50 people — great for parties.  That’s a real popular item.  We sell about thirty a month, sixty  a month in November and December.  I know that may not sound like a lot, but that’s 50 pounds of meat and no bones — it’s a real beast!”

After pondering the incalculable taste explosions a fowl de cochon might offer, Glen kindly fills a shopping bag for my family: A deboned chicken stuffed with oyster dressing (a Louisiana favorite), turducken sausage — that’s all of the elements of a traditional turducken, including spices and stuffing, squeezed into a natural casing — crawfish-stuffed potatoes, even a T-shirt.  And, sure enough, cooking was easy as (crawfish) pie.  We simply placed the chicken and the sausage on a baking sheet in the oven, and roasted.  Upon removing, here’s what we were treated to:

[Everthing is stuffed, and soon I will be, too: Boneless, oyster dressing-stuffed whole chicken accompanied by turducken sausage]

[It's a turkey, it's a duck, it's a chicken, it's dressing, it's...turducken sausage!]

Luckily, you don’t have to make a trek to Gretna yourself to be availed of such fine Cajun cookery.  You can find the Gourmet Butcher Block online at www.cajunturducken.com, or just give them a ring at (504) 392-5700.  Do it.  It will make you happy.  And isn’t that something worth being thankful for?

It started a couple of weeks ago, subtly, just before waking up on a rainy Saturday morning.  I couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but I didn’t feel quite right.  My skin seemed to be a little sensitive to my bedsheets, and I felt a little flushed.  Not long after, my joints and muscles started to ache.  By the time I rose and put myself in the shower, I knew for certain that I was coming down with something.  Little did I know that it was coming down on me.  And hard.  Within the matter of a couple of hours, my body  aches intensified.  That flushed feeling turned out to be a steadily rising fever — up to 104 degrees at points — and soon enough I’d be wracked with sweat and chills, not to mention a horde of stomach-marauding gastrointestinal symptoms that, for the sake of decency, I’ve decided not to share in graphic detail herewith.  Let’s just say that there was some sort of thermonuclear apocalypse going on in my digestive tract.  Oh yes, I was sick.  Really sick.  The kind of sick that permits you only one activity between trips to the bathroom: lying in bed, praying for death.  And there, in my darkened bedroom, fever dreaming, shivering in my own sweat and hoping against hope that I’d turn the corner soon, I tried to trace back this horrible illness to its root, to the vile culprit that, as it seemed at the time, was trying to destroy me from the inside out (and doing a pretty good job, I felt).  The doctor asked me a number of questions, one of which now started looking most relevant: “Did you eat or drink anything out of the ordinary in the last 24 hours?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “I had a hamburger at Wendys.”

* * *

Now, obviously, I can’t say for certain that the classic single with cheese I’d enjoyed the previous afternoon was at the root of all this GI devastation, and since I failed to keep a sample of my sandwich for bacterial testing purposes, it will forever be unknown whether that simple little burger was the criminal element.  However, my degree in philosophy leads me straight to the law of parsimony, otherwise known as Occam’s razor: all things being equal, the simplest solution is probably the right one.  Yup, I thought, the Wendys burger was probably the bad guy.  I think the more troubling question was, “Why on Earth would I, a food writer and a proselytizer of all things organic, local, unprocessed and wholesome, be eating a fast food hamburger?  Especially after everything I’ve learned about where this meat comes from?  Broken down old dairy cows that are fed chicken poop, for heaven’s sake!  What the hell were you thinking?”  Two reasons here.  First, they call it “fast food” for a reason.  I was out all day running errands, and was starving for a quick bite.  And if I’ve learned anything about myself, it’s that I get irritable when I’m hungry, and will usually look for the easiest solution to my empty stomach available, within reason.  Second is the nostalgia factor.  I grew up mere minutes from a Wendys restaurant, and ate there more than a few times throughout my early years, enough so that even the sight of a Wendy’s hamburger brings back pleasant memories from my youth, whether it was eating there on a road trip with my family, or hanging out for hours with my buddies after rehearsing with our band, mooching free refills of Dr. Pepper.  Hence, despite my fear and mistrust of industrialized beef, I caved.  What’s the worst a burger could do, right?  Little did I know.

Luckily, I got off easy.  After several days of antibiotics (G-d bless you, Xifaxan!), I’d turned the corner and was starting to eat solid food again.  Some people haven’t been so lucky.  Over 900 people were sickened by the tainted beef traced back to Cargill recently, among them a poor young woman named Stephanie Smith, who wound up suffering both brain damage and paralysis from a bad batch of beef.  No two ways about it, this is absolutely terrifying stuff, the things nightmares are made of.  I am not, of course, the first person to cover the horrors inflicted by our Kafka-esque industrial beef processing system, and I’m sure I won’t be the last.  Faster Times food politics correspondent Hannah Wallace has been doing a magnificent job weighing in on the situation.  So, being the Meat guy, I felt that it was my time to step in and let you know what I really think.

First, it’s crucial to know that just because the system is broken and scary and people are being poisoned, you don’t have to give up beef.  You don’t even have to give up ground beef, for that matter.  If you continue to indulge in bovine delights, however, you do need to be smart about it.  Indeed, there are safe ways to enjoy meatloaf and meatballs and all of  those other comfort classics.  In fact, there’s  basically just one extremely important rule you can follow to ensure that your next burger isn’t your last:

Don’t buy ground beef. Seriously.  To paraphrase that old Nike ad, “Just don’t do it.”  When you purchase ground beef in a store — unless that store is a quality butcher shop, and the proprietor can avail you of every last bit of information about his product — there’s no way for you to know what you’re getting, and what kind of bacteria you might be exposed to.  If that plastic shrink-wrapped package just says “hamburger meat,” it can come from any part of the cow, usually not the good parts, and I guarantee you that the animal providing that meat isn’t USDA Prime.  It’s a crapshoot, and I mean that literally; who knows how much fecal matter — the source of e.coli bacteria — is in that creepily anonymous package?  So stay away from that junk.  Don’t touch it with a borrowed hand.  Absolutely, the system needs to be reformed and more closely regulated, but there’s no telling when that’s going to start happening.  It’s basic economics, supply and demand: As soon as we stop purchasing this garbage ground beef and demanding a better, safer product, the sooner companies like Cargill will get the picture.

In the meantime, I implore you to make ground beef yourself.  Fact is, processed ground beef has exponentially higher rates of bacterial contamination than whole cuts.  All you need to do to ramp up your food safety at home while still enjoying a hearty hamburger is to grind the beef yourself.  I know, I know — grinding beef seems like a daunting chore, but it isn’t.  You don’t even need one of those intimidatingly huge commercial Hobart grinders you see in the butcher shop to do it.  Nope, all it takes is a few good cuts of steak and a food processor.  You can even use one of those nifty little jobs if you don’t have a bona fide Cuisinart.   Buy a couple of pounds of whole beef cuts — I like combining chuck steaks with sirloin to get the right blend of fat and lean — and slice them into one inch cubes.  Place them in your food processor, and within a few pulses, voila: ground beef.  Naturally, it’s not going to come out in those nice, long ribbons indicative of a top tier grinder, but who cares?  It’s just going into your hamburger, after all.  A hamburger, I’ll add, that’s significantly more likely to be free of nasty bacteria.  All this at a minimum of extra effort on your part.  And isn’t that little bit of additional work worth it to know that you’re doing your part to end this tainted ground beef nonsense for good, as well as ensuring that you won’t wind up wallowing in feverish pain for days?

No hamburger on the planet is worth that.  Trust me.  I’ve been there.

A friend recently forwarded me the above infographic, a nifty little chart illustrating some of the larger and smaller meat consumers in the world, and exactly how much animal flesh we devour (or shy away from) per capita every year.  According to the fine folks at GOOD:

An increase in the consumption of meat is directly correlated to an increase in a country’s economic development.  As a country becomes richer, its citizens generally eat more meat, a much denser source of protein than is available in poorer countries.  But the range of the amount of meat eaten in different countries around the world is truly astounding, from being barely enough for a few hamburgers to the weight of several people.  This is a look at which countries are eating the most meat every year, on a per capita basis, and which are eating the least.

It’s a slick graphic, not necessarily political, but one of those images that pops up on the Internet to get your gears turning upstairs.  I particularly enjoyed the way the authors gave us a frame of reference by listing the average weight of everyday objects, then totaling them up for us (apparently, I ate a pig, twenty-five chickens and a hot dog last year).  On the other hand, I quickly took umbrage at the notion that, if you’re going to use the classic USDA beef primal cut chart to illustrate your numbers, why give the USA the bottom round?  Butt steak!  I thought that, at 275.1 pounds, we’d at least warrant the brisket, if not the ribs.  So let’s take a look at who gets the short loin, that most coveted of primals, filled with glorious T-bones, porterhouses, strip steaks and tenderloins:

Luxembourg?!?!? Oh man, you’ve got to be kidding me.  Luxembourg?  Really?  Their army is like only eight hundred guys!  It’s not even really a country, anyway, but a “Sovereign Grand Duchy.”  A freakin’ duchy!  And they’re beating us in meat consumption!  The hell is going on here?

To distract myself from that harrowing discovery, I turned my attention to some of our neighboring high meat consuming nations.  Spain (261.5 lbs/yr) makes sense, seeing their rightful adoration of everything porcine, and of course New Zealand (313.3 lbs/yr) is a no-brainer, since it’s an island country pretty much built out of sheep.  [I mean that literally, too; you didn't hear it from me, but New Zealand is actually just topsoil and mountains on top of a gigantic bed of six billion live sheep.  Keep it on the down-low, kay?] And sure, French Polynesia (247.4 lbs/yr) and St. Lucia of all places (274.6 lbs/yr) were a bit of a surprise, but they seem exotic and pleasant enough for me to appreciate their underdog status.  But what really got my juices roiling was when I discovered the undisputed victor of the per capita annual meat consumption race: Denmark.

Denmark.  You don’t say.  I never really thought of the Danes being huge carnivores, to tell the truth.  Maybe that’s because all I know about Denmark comes from  Hamlet, a play whose protagonist is so indecisive and angsty, I always kind of figured him to be the progenitor of the modern emo-vegan.  But at 321.7 pounds of dead animals in each of its citizens diets each year — represented here by one pig, one goat, five human skulls, a full rainbow trout, two human hearts, thirteen T-bone steaks and a hot dog — Denmark really is up to some formidable carnivorous consumption.  Bravo, Denmark.  Bravo!

So I decided to take an active interest in these findings and figure out what’s afoot here.  I skimmed through all the basic, boring facts — demography, GDP, geography, geology, exports, whatever they were up to during the Iron Age — to see if I could find out what was going on with all this meat eating.  Then, lo and behold, I discover that the Danes, aside from being global kings and queens of carnivorism, have been officially named the happiest people on the planet.  Granted, it seems that they tend to drink a hell of a lot, as well, and some folks (from chagrined neighboring countries, perhaps?) claim that the reason so many Danish respondents replied so positively on their questionnaires was that they were actually drunk at the time.  And if that’s the case, I say: So what?  Hey, you gotta find happiness somewhere, right?  Food, booze and national health care seems like a good start to me.

Even though I knew that the correlation was tenuous at best, I still couldn’t stop myself from marveling at the fact that the people who eat the most meat per person every year are the happiest men and women on the face of the Earth.  Did they live the longest?  Nope.  Is the cuisine even that spectacular?  Not really.  But they eat a lot, and they drink a lot, and by gum they’re happy about it.  Really happy about it.  Maybe this is all my mind getting wrapped around statistics and variables that probably have nothing to do with each other, I’ll readily admit that; I  do have a fertile imagination.  At the same time, I can’t help but wonder if the Danes have  discovered the true secret to living a full, happy life, and it’s been staring us in the face all along:

Eat meat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Speaking of which, what the hell am I doing here, writing?  Who’s up for a burger? No, TWO burgers.  And beer…and whiskey! I  just found the key to happiness!  Who’s with me?

Some weeks ago, I was startled by a surging news item that I thought couldn’t possibly be real. There was this video — a YouTube video, in fact, and we all know how reliable those tend to be — that someone took of a television advertisement. It’s grainy and the sound is high-pitched and tinny, but still, there it was: If this ad was to be believed, Kentucky Fried Chicken was now going to sell a bacon and cheese sandwich that featured two thick slabs of fried chicken instead of bread. They call it the “Double Down.” I assumed the name to be a playful take on what happens to your lifespan after eating one of these monstrosities. It was outrageous. It was hilarious. It couldn’t honestly be real…could it? I was dubious, but then again, this is KFC we’re talking about here. This is the same restaurant chain that comic Patton Oswalt scathingly lampooned, likening their most popular dish — a tub filled with seemingly every KFC menu item covered in cheese and gravy — to a “failure pile in a sadness bowl.” But a bowl of food I can understand, if not order for myself. A mountainous double fistful of fried chicken, bacon, cheese and sauce, on the other hand, seemed so egregious as to defy human comprehension.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfan5MacmsI

I was convinced that this must be some sort of comedic hoax. After all, it wasn’t long ago that we saw Saturday Night Live’s introduction of the “pizza crepe pancake taco chili bag” at the fictitious Taco Town. Even closer to the bone was Tracy Morgan’s character on 30 Rock attempting to make some quick product endorsement cash by hawking the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine, a Foreman Grill-type appliance that melts any three meats together into “one delicious food ball,” assuring that you won’t ever again “have to suffer through the bread portion of your meal.” Of course the Double Down, like the Meat Machine, was a goof. Or could this actually be one of the most spectacular moments ever of life imitating art? Either way, something crazy and maybe a little unsettling was going on here.

Then came the confirmation. The KFC Double Down was being test marketed in two American cities: Omaha, Nebraska and Providence, Rhode Island. It was real! Depending on your point of view, we had finally reached either the apex or the nadir of fast food. I know there are more than a few people out there, much like the three (athletic and trim for some reason) hungry guys in KFC’s ad that have just been waiting for someone to unleash a twelve hundred calorie fried chicken nuclear weapon unto the American masses, but I got the feeling that somewhere, in a cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, Colonel Harland Sanders was spinning in his grave like a dervish on meth.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLwEZRf3www

Please note: I’m not naive. We’ve all known for a long time, much before Super Size Me gave us Morgan Spurlock nearing liver failure because of an all McDonald’s diet, that fast food isn’t particularly good for one’s health. And I’m not going after eateries either for sophisticated culinary maximalism, or for the kind of crazily ambitious food architecture that wins you a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records (like this recent addition). Those are separate subjects, entirely. What I’m talking about is the shift, in recent years, whereby the big fast food chains have begun inventing, marketing and promoting bigger, badder and more insanely calorific sandwiches than at any point in American history. It’s kind of like a Cold War arms race, only instead of intercontinental ballistic missiles, we have sandwiches with enough caloric content to nourish the entire population of a modest-sized, mid-Pacific archipelago. When Ray Croc opened his first McDonald’s hamburger restaurant (and for many years after), the signature hamburger was the size of the one we still see on the menu today, which seems ludicrously tiny compared to its brontosaurus-sized cousins, notably the double quarter pounder with cheese, weighing in at a beastly 730 calories, whereas the original burger, even with cheese, clocks in at a skimpy 310. And that, friends, is nothing compared to the BK Quad Stacker, Wendy’s Classic Triple with Cheese, or the infamous Hardee’s Monster Thickburger. Forget food porn; this is food weaponry.

My question, seeing this insane exercise in hamburger escalation, is: What the hell is wrong with us? In no other country, on any other part of the planet, will you find such egregious stockpiling of low-quality protein in a single menu item. I mean, even amidst the Spurlocks and the Michael Pollans and Eric Schlossers out there showing us how we’re destroying ourselves by eating not just bad meat, but doing so in epic proportions, there’s still both a demand and a supply for a 1400 calorie sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, I adore hamburgers. Even the president and the First Lady enjoy a good burger — a FLOTUS, I might add, who advocates whole, healthy foods and even set up an organic vegetable garden on White House property. But why can’t people realize that a hamburger the size of your head isn’t necessarily going to be as tasty as a more modest sized sandwich? Because we’re Americans, dammit, and if we’ve learned anything by being the most powerful nation in the world, it’s that quantity will always trump quality. Some egg-head tells me I should eat only four or five ounces of meat at a meal? Must be a socialist! A freedom-hating, pinko queer! He can eat his tiny tofu Commie salad in Canada; but me, I’m a patriotic, flag-waving American, and I’d sooner go to war than put down my artery-destroying quadruple cardiac detonation burger. You can pry it out of my cold, dead hands along with my assault rifle, my Hummer keys and my porn. Or so the rationale goes.

Here’s a thought: Do you know how much meat a terrorist in the mountains of Afghanistan probably gets to enjoy? I’m guessing very little. Yet here we are, advertising sandwiches big enough to choke a manatee. And we wonder why the terrorists hate our freedom? Maybe it’s because this is what we’ve thought to do with it.

But enough political philosophy for now. All of a sudden, I’m hungry for chicken.

The Nelore is a species of Zebu (Bos indicus) that originated in India over 2000 years ago and bred for extreme weather conditions. Since 1868 the Brazilians have been selectively breeding it to be the best beef cow for the tropics. Its white coat reflects harmful sun rays; its thick black skin resists ticks, mosquitoes, and flies; its disposition is calm. Its grass-fed meat is highly palatable, especially as the public is being won over by leaner meats. In fact, a purebred Nelore steer won the “Best Overall in Taste” contest at the 1991 Houston Livestock Show.

But here was this gorgeous cow with the loopy ears in front of us, and she could no longer conceive. She would become dinner for the pantaneiro families and us.

Cowboy country in Brazil–the Pantanal—is half the size of France and is an isolated landscape of winding rivers, forest, and grasslands. For over 200 years, small-scale cattle ranchers have successfully grazed their herds here along side of native rheas, caimen, anacondas, capybara, giant river otters, and jaguars. To supplement their income some farmers have opened their doors to eco-tourists like me and my husband.

Having flown in on a prop plane delivering mail, we were staying at Fazenda Barranco Alto with owners Marina and Lucas Leuzinger. Pretty much self-sustaining, the Leuzingers had their own garden of cashews, mangoes, bananas, and lettuces. They managed a herd of 50 horses and mules along with a few brown Swiss cows to provide fresh milk for our daily yogurt, butter, and cheeses. They also had about 2,000 Nelore cattle.

We had a front row seat early one morning when we found pantaneiros Fernando and Edson, toned and bronzed, already on horseback in the corral separating the sterile cow from the herd. The cowboys nudged her to the gate and into the pasture where they lassoed her neck and brought her to her knees on the grass. There was no struggle. Edson tied her ankles together, and Fernando pulled out his .45 pistol and put one bullet to her head. Then he slashed the jugular. Both men cradled her head to the ground, where blood streamed red into the soil. They glanced at each other and stood up. Fernando wiped his knife off on his thigh and placed it back into the sheath he wore at his waist. Every cowboy carried a lariat, a pistol, and a long knife.

By then Sula, another cowboy, arrived with a tractor, hoisted up the cow on a crane, and drove her off, swaying like a sling, to the edge of the pasture to the carving platform. The platform was a low stage, a 20-foot circular concrete area with a pole in the center–to anchor the cow–and a water faucet and hose off to the side.

Fernando and Edson sawed off her legs at the knees and leaned them like stilts against a caranda tree. Starting with the head, the pantaneiros peeled off her hide which they’d later soak, tan, and eventually turn into lariats, halters, holsters for guns, and sheaths for knives.

With an artist’s precision, Edson carved out the two prized tenderloins on either side of the spine. It took little imagination to see future rib roasts, braised briskets, seared steaks. Nothing is wasted in the Pantanal. The head—with eyes wide open—was tossed into the grass where black vultures pecked it clean.

Rather than recoiling, I was utterly fascinated to watch how cows are cut up. I did wonder, though, what part of the cow we’d have for lunch.

After the quartering, we loaded the fresh hunks of beef onto a Toyoto pickup and drove off to the workers’ farmhouses to distribute the meat. Families live in roomy concrete two-bedroom houses equipped with running water, gas-powered stoves, refrigerators, and TVs. Edson’s wife Romona and 19-year-old daughter Adriana waved and belted out a “bom dia” (good morning) and then helped unload their hunk of cow onto the back porch by the tomato plants.

To live in the Pantanal one has to love nature, tolerate isolation, value self-sufficiency, and maintain traditional roles. Women are the homemakers. Men are the protectors. Children attend a one-room school 12 miles away. On Monday we drove the kids there in the fazenda’s pickup, and on Friday we picked them up. For young people exposed to television, city life is very appealing. Parents who have chosen this life style worry that their way of life may not last forever. Even Sula, who has lived in this region for most of his 45 years, says that the “Pantanal is the plants and animals’ land. The people here are always foreigners.”

But the most intriguing drop-off place was out in the forest where Antonio, Sula’s father-in-law, and two other buddies had been camped out for days cleaning brush. Their mud-floor cabin with caranda palm thatching for roof and raised platforms for sleeping bags looked comfy but not comfy enough for an inquisitive jaguar or fox.

These men were ravenous. To speed up the delivery, Sula hacked down a couple of saplings with his razor sharp machete to construct a chest-high “table” where the men fell to slicing and dicing the beef. Sweaty Fernando threaded two red slabs onto a stick to roast over the wood fire for lunch. Other slabs were thinly sliced, salted, and strung high to air dry out of reach of the forest carnivores.

For our lunch that day back at the lodge we didn’t have any of the fresh beef. Just rice and beans with smoked pork along with a chopped beet and arugula salad. I confess I didn’t spend much thought on how that pig had been chased and shot. By dinner, when he had grilled bananas and chicken with mango salsa, I didn’t spend much thought on how that chicken had been cornered and dispatched either. And the next day’s beef stew, rich with sautéed onions, garlic, and homemade red wine, was glorious.

It might have been yesterday’s cow, and she tasted delicious.

Every summer since I was a toddler, my family has spent a week at the beach.  Though the location has changed over the years — Destin and Perdido Key, Florida; Gulf Shores, Alabama — it’s always been on the beautiful Gulf Coast, with sand as white and fine as confectioner’s sugar, brown pelicans skimming over the water looking for a meal, and seafood and produce so fresh it was either caught or pulled from the ground the same day we eat it.  Yes, the beach is great, even for a frog-belly-white gentleman such as myself, but it’s always the food I’ll remember, and rightfully so.  To say that my family cares about food is kind of like saying the Manning family cares about football.  Serious understatement.  In fact, this past year we managed to fill two cars to the brim for our one week vacation, and it wasn’t until we’d arrived at our destination that I discovered we’d packed significantly more refrigerator and pantry provisions than actual luggage.  Hey — we can wear the same swimsuit day in, day out, but we’re not going to eat the same meal twice, not if we can help it.

Cooking at the beach — in the early evening with the sun hanging low, a cool breeze off the Gulf of Mexico, and my father dutifully occupying a rocking chair on the deck with his martini, cigar and novel — has always been a particular joy for me.  And for my mother, as well.  As soon as she realized that I was learning how to cook, I was quickly put to work dicing vegetables, rinsing lettuce, peeling shrimp and the like.  Eventually, it fell to me to become the grill man, which is only natural.  I’m the meat guy, after all, and Mom soon came to trust my judgment with the doneness of our marinated beef tenderloin or seasoned grouper fillets, while she stuffed the twice-baked potatoes, steamed Silver Queen corn, sliced baguettes and sauced the broccoli amandine.

On our most recent summer vacation, she trotted out a new recipe that she’d found in Gourmet magazine: Lamb merguez patties with golden raisin couscous.  I’d always been a fan of this spicy, North African sausage, so it was a delightful surprise.  “But you’re not going to squeeze them into a casing?” I asked.  She looked at me with the chagrin only a mother in the kitchen whose judgment has been called into question can affect.  “Scott,” she said, elbow deep in ground lamb and spices, “do I look like have time to make sausages right now?”  With that, I deferred to her expertise (and time management), and made my way out to the deck to sip my Planter’s Punch and check on the grill.

The patties were delicious, of course.  As they say sometimes in the South: “Momma don’t mess around.”  But I couldn’t seem to get around the fact that it was merguez, yes, in all its exotic, savory glory, and yet it wasn’t a sausage.  I thought about this for some time.  “If it’s not in link form,” I later told Mom (after noting how tasty it was, of course), it’s just a meat mixture.  It doesn’t even have to be formed into a patty.  You could bake it in a pan and make a meatloaf.  Or roll it into little merguez meatballs as an appetizer.  I mean, hell, you could even pack the mixture into a cupcake tin and…”

Ding!

Thus was born the idea for Lamb Merguez Cupcakes.  We discussed this on our drive back from the coast to New Orleans.  It was actually kind of neat, now that we thought about it — individual sized portions, like little mini meatloafs disguised as cupcakes.  Would you frost them?  Not with sweet icing, of course – that would be a thousand ways wrong.  Something savory, then…maybe mashed potatoes?  No, we decided, too pedestrian.  How about a white bean puree?  That could work — after all, it’s a classic French appetizer, usually served on sliced bread, and France is known as a haven for some brilliant North African cooks.  Let’s see, what else…maybe decorate the top with some paprika or a few dots of ketchup?  Again, still too plain.  “How about a single grape tomato on top, masquerading as a maraschino cherry?” suggested my mother.  “Now we’re getting somewhere!”

It took some time before this fanciful creation would find its way into existence.  After all, I’m kind of famous for not having a real oven in my apartment, so I had to enlist the aid of my friend Amanda, who graciously volunteered her more than amply stocked kitchen as testing grounds for this novel dish.  Also, it turned out that she had a fantastically heavy cast iron cupcake pan, which was perfect for cooking the meat, since every person would, in effect, get an “edge piece” of the meatloaf.  It was all coming together.

I seasoned the ground lamb — beautiful grass-fed, heritage meat from Marlowe & Daughters (expensive, but I don’t like to sacrifice quality when it comes to my meat…plus, my friends were worth it) — with ground, toasted fennel seeds, coriander, cinnamon, cumin, harissa and garlic, all the flavors and spices you’d expect from a good Moroccan dish, then mixed gently by hand (yes, you can play with your meat too much).  After packing the finished mixture into the cupcake pan and setting it in the oven, I put the finishing touches on the white bean puree, which was a cinch.  All I really had to do was add a can of cannellini beans, some Herbes de Provence, salt, olive oil and lemon juice to my food processor, et voila.  Savory frosting.  Finally, I whipped up the couscous with cilantro and golden raisins, the latter adding some welcome sweetness to an otherwise spicy and rich meal.  I was a little nervous when I removed the tin from the oven, but the lamb had browned perfectly.  Better still, the melted lamb fat reserved nicely in the little cupcake dishes,  much like the galic butter in an escargot dish, which made it easy to baste the little “cakes” before plating.

When all was said and done — and I mean “done”…there wasn’t a bite of lamb left in the house — my friends all declared this little exercise in culinary whimsy a success.  Even Patrycja, who’d claimed that she didn’t care for lamb, and who I invited over by carefully omitting the central protein of the evening.  “Wow, I really do like lamb,” she said after finishing her cupcake, taken a little aback that something she’d avoided for years could be so gratifying.

“Yes,” I said.  “I do, too.  And how!”