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Chefs vs City

July 13, 2009 on 3:41 pm | In Blog, Events, Press | No Comments

I have been getting asked alot of questions recently about Chefs vs City, I cant answer most of them since it won’t make it any fun for people to watch if you already know what happens. All I will tell you is that Aaron is a great partner in crime, we had a ton of fun, went to some great places and met some amazing people along the way. Thanks to everyone who was a part of this show in any way shape or form you are the ones who made it so great.

I hope you are a excited as we are for the premiere on Friday, August 7th at 10pm.

To get more info on when the show please take a look at our site by clicking the food network logo below:

Grub Street magazine Interview

July 13, 2009 on 2:38 pm | In Blog, Offal, Press | No Comments

Chris Cosentinos Cookbook Too Scary to Publish

Just back from the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival, offal ambassador Chris Cosentino cooked for Taste of the Nation last week, and is about to wrap up shooting on his new Food Network series, Chefs Vs. City. The rest of the time, he’s cooking at his restaurant, Incanto, the only one in the city to serve Certified Humane meats. He took a few minutes to speak with us about making disgusting meats delicious, his admiration for Fergus Henderson, and his new book idea.

Why the obsession with offal?
I don’t know. I’m just a smelly cook, that’s all I am. I’m just a guy who cooks cuts of meat that, for me, are more flavorful. I believe if you’re willing to kill it, you should be willing to eat it.

Fergus Henderson is the grand daddy. The mac daddy. He is, and always will be, the grandfather of the reintroduction of offal in England and the world. When his book The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating came out, we were enamored by that book. Someone had to stand up and do that. And to me that’s a big deal. I look to Fergus a lot for direction, I look to him sometimes when I feel a bit lost. I can reach out to Fergus. He’s become a very good friend

Why do you think people are more comfortable these days with kind of “weird” meats, like marrow or sweetbreads, than they have been in the past?
They’ve always been in high-end restaurants. You’re seeing a trickle-down effect now. In regards to why they’re becoming acceptable, I think it’s a new generation of diners. In World War II, it was the norm. Rationing stamps only got you so much meat. So offal cuts got you more meat for your stamps. We win the war, and now processed foods and canned foods become more available. You start to see a decrease in those meats now that we’re a prosperous nation. My grandmother and my mom won’t eat many of those things.

Now, our generation is more curious, wants to know where it’s from. We’re interested in sustainable living. [But] these foods, these techniques, they’re as old as time. I’m not reinventing the wheel here, I’m digging up the past. That’s all I’m doing. These traditional uses of these meats are everywhere in the world, except in the U.S., where they disappeared.

You’re working on a book?
The title is called “Odd Cuts and Guts: Rediscovering the rest of the animal.” It’s a how-to guide. It will have animal overlays, and I have a lot of little bonus stuff that will come with it. I’ve been working with a lot of people on this for years, but unfortunately U.S. publishing houses are too afraid. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. That’s why I’m trying to get the book published, so they will understand. If people learn how to use these cuts of meat at home, it will be more acceptable. It’s taking away the fear.

Back in March, you wrote on your site Offal Good about pressure you were getting from animal rights activists to stop serving foie gras. You said the confrontation would be “our Alamo.” What’s happened since?
What it ultimately boils down to is, whether I serve what every other place wants to throw in the garbage, whether I serve an animal that just deceased two seconds ago of natural causes, I’m serving meat. I firmly believe that if you’re willing to put down an animal for food, you should be willing to eat every bit of it. And I firmly stand by that belief. And I think we have to take into consideration, where did this animal come from and how was it treated. You can taste the difference. And a happy animal makes happy customers. Not everybody has to choose to eat meat, and that is everybody’s right, but to dictate that I cannot serve things, that’s not right, either.

Who will be in charge of the Incanto kitchen while you’re out filming your new TV show?
I have two great sous-chefs that are here. But I’m not gone that much. I’m only gone for two days a shoot. The more I’m here, the better it is… People come here because they want to see me here. Does the food change? No, not really, cause it’s the same guys cooking all the time. But they have to look at my ugly mug when I am here.

What did you prepare at last week’s Taste of the Nation?
I did a braised beef shank with horseradish crème fraîche and Michael Symon and I shared vegetables. He did a whole roasted fish wrapped in grape leaves, and I did braised artichokes, asparagus, with radishes and minutina (a green I smuggled into the country) and herbs. Just a nice light salad to cut the heavy richness of the beef.

Anything else exciting on the horizon?
I’m doing a demonstration at the national restaurant show in Chicago. I’m deboning a pig’s head and showing them in front of hundreds of people.

Photo courtesy the Food Network

Yum Sugar Interview

July 13, 2009 on 2:32 pm | In Blog, Offal, Press | No Comments

Catching Up With Chris Cosentino

Mon, 07/13/2009 - 1:04pm by partysugar

Since he competed in the Next Iron Chef two Summers ago, San Francisco’s acclaimed offal-chef, Chris Cosentino, has been a very busy guy. He’s worked nights at his head-to-tail rustic Italian restaurant, Incanto, opened a salumeria, Boccalone, at the Ferry Building in SF, and filmed a new television show, Chef vs. City, for the Food Network. Last week Chris took some time out of his hectic day-to-day to show me the graffiti-style “Shut Up and Cook” mural in the kitchen and to chat about everything from his 4-year-old son’s eating habits to why he actively tweets. Find out what the chef had to say and read more.

On the Aug. 7 debut of Chef vs. City: It’s very exciting, but it makes you nervous. We’ve already shot the entire show, but I don’t get to see any of the final edits. I am what I am.

On food trends: I don’t think food is trendy at all. I’m not reinventing anything here at Incanto. I’m just reintroducing. It’s a realization of the past. Folks are more connected to where their food comes from. People are more interested in food — they’re sharing with their neighbors, they’re joining meat co-ops. They feel more connected to food because it’s the ethical thing to do, not because it’s trendy. You could say that Korean food is trendy right now, but to me a trend is something that comes, gets really popular, and goes away. Korean food isn’t going to go away. It’s just that more people are aware of Korean food. It’s becoming mainstream, but it’s not a trend. It’s like bacon, people aren’t going to stop eating bacon. Ever.

On his love affair with offal: Working in restaurants you see all the meat come in. Sure, there’s always foie gras and sweetbreads, but when I came to work here [at Incanto] I wanted to cook rustic peasant food and the basis for this type of food is using every piece of meat. Using the whole animal. I’ve started harvesting my own animals and that changes your perspective.

On the one thing he won’t eat: I eat everything. The only item I ever disliked — it turned my stomach — was balut.

On what’s next for Boccalone: We just launched the mortadella hot dog. I like to do a hot dog during baseball season. We already make mortadella, but now we are just packaging it in a different way. I plan to continue rolling with what we are doing. I like to make really good consistent products. This is what we strive to do on a daily basis.

On how the Internet has changed the role of the modern chef: I have a lot of fun with Twitter. It’s only 140 characters, so you really have to think about what you are saying. These sort of things are important because people want to communicate. People want to be in contact with chefs. They want to know how to cook, they want to ask questions. With my website, I try to bridge the gap. It gives me direct contact with the people. The Internet, Twitter, blogs have broken down a barrier. There is more exchanging of information occurring. I try to answer all the emails I get.

On raising a foodie son: My son will eat anything. He’s had tripe, he’s had beef heart tartar. At the Ferry Building last Saturday, he ate a dozen oysters by himself and he’s 4 years old!

Source: Lisa Hamilton

Good Magazine Talks Offal

July 13, 2009 on 11:15 am | In Blog, Offal, Press | No Comments

The Offal Truth

Posted by: Adam Starr
on July 9, 2009 at 8:00 am

Chris Cosentino is using historical recipes to turn offal—the entrails and organs we usually discard—into a new American delicacy.

If you were cooking 2,000 years ago, you would have to use local, organic, and seasonal ingredients. And, because meat was hard to come by, you would use the entire animal, including the offal (literally “off-fall”)—the entrails and internal organs of your slaughter.

At San Francisco’s Incanto restaurant, chef Chris Cosentino is reviving old recipes that incorporate offal and other “odd cuts.” For reference, feast your eyes on just some of Cosentino’s unconventional ingredients: beef heart, cured tuna heart, lamb kidneys, lamb heart, candied rooster crests, pastramied ox tongue, and lamb spleen.

GOOD chatted with Cosentino to learn about his historical approach to food, what sort of tastes we’re regularly missing out on, and how best to sell pig’s head in America.

GOOD: Why is history so important to your food?

CHRIS COSENTINO: History was the only part of school that I really enjoyed as a kid: history and English literature. I remember the food in The Great Gatsby and in Macbeth. I remember wondering what it was like to be Gatsby living in Newport, Rhode Island, wondering what the oysters tasted like at those parties, thinking about the feasts in Macbeth, about the wine in those goblets. Food is about a shared connection to time and place.

G: And you make a point of using parts of the animal they might have eaten in Macbeth’s time. Should we be less squeamish about these foods now?

CC: People don’t know that things that started out simply as byproducts of food preparation became cooking techniques themselves. Byproducts created braising, created pates, they created things like charcuterie and blood sausage. Look at Europe or Asia; the United States is the only place that doesn’t traditionally eat these things, we are the exception to the norm. Take beef tongue. Beef tongue is huge in Japan; it’s like ten dollars a pound for grass-fed beef tongue. Here in the U.S. it’s four dollars a pound. So do we eat it? No, we export this excellent grass-fed product and we make a lot of money. But who is winning? We win on money and they win on flavor.

G: Is offal a harder sell in America in general?

CC: When thinking about offal you have to think about what I call the culture of texture. In America it’s crispy: we love crunchy and fried foods. In China they love soft and gelatinous foods. Japan likes chewy, the Italians more al dente. Understanding the culture of texture is a big dynamic when I prepare these cuts of meat. Offal isn’t only about the ingredient so much as the texture. Tripe, for example, is much easier to sell when I deep-fry it. If I put “crispy” anything on the menu it sells faster. It’s easy for me to sell crispy pig’s head, it’s not easy for me to move soft pig’s head.

G: People are paying more attention to what they eat these days. Is that helping you find an audience?

CC: All of a sudden we are relearning how to eat. When I was a kid, did I see watermelons in the middle of the grocery store in the winter? Fuck no—it’s the magic of the airplane. Do we really need to put food in a plane and fly it 3,000 miles? I love ramps from the East Coast where I grew up. Sometimes I even get them at the market, but in the West we have nettles, wild onions, chickweed, wood sorrel, miner’s lettuce, and all this beautiful freeway fennel. Every area has something that is available. Eating regionally can be done—we have a rooftop herb garden and we harvest things from upstairs when they are ready to be eaten.

What I really love about the way food is going now is that we’ve had this huge push in both directions. Ferran Adrià has opened up an experimental inventiveness of food. There needs to be people who push forward and others that go backwards. There needs to be more than one style of food, more than one thought process. My process is historical.

G: Do you think offal cooking is more sustainable?

CC: If you buy a radish you eat the greens and the radish. You learn to use the entire thing. We have a tendency to just throw things away. If you’re willing to sacrifice an animal for food than you should be willing to eat the whole thing. If you’ve got bruised strawberries, make fucking jam. It’s not hard, just pay attention, and use all of your resources. Ultimately, what we need to worry about is getting people enough good food to eat. I’ve told kids I’m a chef and had them ask me “McDonald’s, Burger King, or KFC?” That’s fucked up.

G: Seasonal eating is more sustainable, too. Have we forgotten when to eat what?

CC: Find a recipe for the season and maximize what you have when you have it. When the season for a food is upon us, use the whole ingredient. Use all the tomatoes in the summer, use all the squash in fall. Instant noodles have been around longer than international air travel. Everyone wants convenience and ease. There’s nothing wrong with wanting these things, but there’s nothing wrong with working for something either.

Porchetta di Testa photo by Lisa Hamilton; Chris Cosentino photo by Michael Harlan Turkell; Pig’s Head photo courtesy Chris Cosentino; Incanto restaurant photo courtesy Incanto.

Learn more at Offal Good and Boccalone.

Whats going on!!!

June 19, 2009 on 1:44 pm | In Blog, Press | 5 Comments

I wanted to tell everyone why I haven’t written in a while. For the past few months I have been working on a few things and I can share them with everyone now. This has been a crazy time. I have been traveling and filming around the country as well as in San Francisco. On top of that, working at Incanto and Boccalone to keep up with the well received release of our new product Nduja, which was featured in the New York Times. The food network programs are slated to start running starting next Tuesday with “The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Then my own series “Chefs Vs City” premiers in early august, I hope. Then be on the look out for us on No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain later this summer. So, I hope you all understand. I have included a bit of info on both the food network shows after the break.

Continue reading Whats going on!!!…

Head to Tail stage report 2

April 28, 2009 on 12:59 am | In Blog, Offal | 1 Comment

photo of Omar cortesy of Michael Harlan Turkell

photo of Omar courtesy of Michael Harlan Turkell

So first you heard Derek’s side of the story, now its Omar’s turn. One thing I have to say it was a joy to have both of them in my kitchen and they are both welcome to visit us anytime. I would like to believe that we all learned some things from each other on those 5 days. Thanks again for coming to play at my little gut party, I look forward to next year, to see who will take on the same challenge as these 2 did. Also who ever does get chosen, Derek will be showing you the ropes he has already committed to next year. So enough of my jibber jabber here is Omar’s experience below.

Head to Tail

From day one at Incanto I was getting my hands dirty. It was brief introductions and straight to the offal. Day one started with picking through over 600 calf testicles to find the perfect 200 tennis ball sized testicles that were needed for the dinner. The disturbing thing about this sorting project were the testicles literally the size of grapefruits leftover from our sorting. I would like to see the calf who bared those things, but before I could ponder this matter it was straight to blanching, peeling and soaking the testicles we picked out. This was all being done while Derek and I were blanching and shocking 80 pounds of goose intestines. Then we rounded off our day with shucking fresh fava beans, soaking tripe and caul fat. Not bad for our first day in San Francisco. Chris was right we came here to work our butts off and we were happy to oblige. Anyone back in DC who thought this trip was some sort of vacation for me was sorely wrong.

The next two days were filled with a ridiculous amount of offal. Venison hearts, tripe, more goose intestines, calf brains, lamb kidneys and, my penance for past culinary sins, 80 pounds of lamb spleen. Little did I know what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to take on the spleen project. I spent over 5 hours purging, blanching, pressing and then cleaning those spleens. The daunting aspect of this project was the cleaning. I don’t think I have ever stood that long in one spot working on one item. When I began to see the bottom of my bin I felt relief and then magically Chris pulled out another 20 pounds of spleen to clean. At that moment I proceeded to curse in Spanish to the delight of Chris’s powerhouse of a prep cook Hector. At least I know Hector approved of me since he called me by my first name instead of tortuga (turtle).

Come Monday it was show time, although there were still plenty of things to prep before 5 p.m. The big project before service was the cordetta skewers, which involved threading tripe, kidney, liver and spleen onto two wooden skewers. Everyone in the kitchen jumped on board for this project to form the cordetta line. My role in this line dance was wrapping the skewers with caul fat. To aid with the wrapping Chris gave me meat glue to help the caul fat adhere to the offal. Having never worked with this product I was a little generous with my first few dustings, which led to a nice caking of caul fat and offal to my finger tips. Being that everything was sticking to my fingers I decided to wash my hands of this mess. What everyone forgot to tell me was when trying to remove meat glue from ones fingers you don’t use hot water. Hot water activates the glue and makes it adhere even more. I was doing a great job. Needless to say, all went well with the cordetta wrapping. Come Monday’s service I was paired with Mr. Puti on the grill station with the cordetta skewer. Puti was a great wingman and our service on grill was seamless. Remember Puti, Papi will always have a special place in his heart for you.

Tuesday was our day off and since it was my first time in San Francisco I wandered the city taking in the sites. In the evening Manny (please no more dirty pictures), Thomas and the Puti, took me out for some fine cocktails at The Alembic, where I had a great Sazerac. Then the boys from Incanto took me down to the Mission for tacos. At the taqueria it was more offal since I couldn’t resist the tacos de tripa (intestine tacos).

Wednesday was show time again with over 100 reservations and Mr. Bourdain dining in. After cutting our teeth on Monday’s dinner the kitchen crew was ready and our service was one of the smoothest services I have ever been involved with. Chris and his kitchen crew are an amazing group of individuals and they truly grasp the concept of working as a team. Everybody is motivated towards the goal of making great food, and that is exactly what they did during the Head to Tail dinner.

Incanto was everything that I had imagined and more. My experience at Incanto with Chris and his crew was one of the best culinary adventures that I have experienced thus far in my career. For me, Chris is a culinary genius who understands what and how he wants to cook. He attacks cooking like a child opening gifts on Christmas morning. He barrels through the kitchen at 100 miles per hour picking through every detail of every dish in the kitchen. With this sort of energy and zeal for food I can understand why his kitchen staff is so inspired.

I want to give a huge thank you to Chris and his Incanto team. Gentlemen, it was privilege working the 2009 Head to Tail with a great group of cooks and I hope to be “back to the Bay” sooner than later.

-Omar Rodriguez

The Citrus Report

April 22, 2009 on 11:47 pm | In Blog, Press | 2 Comments

When the folks at Upper Playground asked me if I wanted to do a follow up interview to the”hoof arted video series” I said where. So here it is me sitting at Four barrel coffee getting bombarded with questions from Evan. The questions were good, the coffee was better, my answers were well you decide. So now it is out there in “The Citrus Report”. This Upper Playground newsletter, has nothing to do with a crop report like in the movie Trading Places. (see below)

head to tail stage experiences

April 21, 2009 on 12:26 am | In Blog, Offal | 3 Comments

photo courtesy of Michael Harlan Turkell

As part of the deal, the stages for head to tail had to write their experiences to share with the world. Here is Derek’s letter about his experience. Please mind that he is a Canadian ginger with a twisted sense of humor. But on a serious note it was a pleasure to have Derek with us an he has already asked to come back for next year, he will be in charge of next years stages.
Head to Tail…a recap

As the taxi took a left onto Church Street my first glimpse of Incanto was
a bright eyed, handsome Irish lad by the name of John Relihan. He didn’t
speak much English, but pointed to my luggage, then to the front door…I
assumed he wanted to carry my bags..I let him. A gesture I found quite
warming. After getting settled, I met Omar and the kitchen crew then got
settled into cleaning and blanching 60lbs of veal testicles, 80 lbs of goose
intestines and a couple of cases of fava beans. The latter being a welcoming
sight as I was coming from Montreal and there was still snow on the ground.
Near the end of service Chris invited us to sit at the bar and have dinner,
I had the fried testa….delicious.
The next couple of days were a blur of cleaning, blanching, peeling and
poaching. Brains, kidneys, heart, more balls, tripe, caul fat and liver.
Omar spent most of his time “relaxing” in the corner with 80 lbs of
spleen. By relaxing, I mean purging, blanching, pressing and peeling…a
daunting task that took up the better part of a 15 hour day. The whole time
we were entertained by the witty banter of the Incanto kitchen. A handsome
moustachioed cook who goes by the name Manny (who on a side note came to SF
to find himself and judging by the goatee succeeded) took us out for a
couple of beers and beef tongue tacos…delicious.
Things were coming together for the Incanto team and by the time Monday,
the first night of head to tail rolled around everyone was ready. I worked
the brain and testicle station, and it only seemed fitting that Omar work on
the spleens. The service was amazing and the food was incredible. Chris was
really happy and John Relihan said something.
Tuesday the restaurant was closed and I went to the French Laundry!
Wednesday was the big night. Forty more reservations and Mr. No
Reservations himself in attendance. Once again the service was flawless,
Chris runs a tight ship and his team really works great together. The
kitchen philosophy is inspiring and I wish more restaurants would take an
approach like this. The end of the night was here and so was our last day at
Incanto, Chris sat us down and we got the entire menu in 30 minutes. I had
my first offal coma. We had some celebratory drinks and then it was time to
head back to Montreal. Manny gave me a rather awkward hug and John Relihan
shed a single tear.
A big thank you to Chris and the entire Incanto team for sharing this
experience with me. It was truly memorable, hopefully we will see some of
you guys up here at my place some day.
Best regards, Derek Dammann

Stiring the pot !!

April 6, 2009 on 5:59 pm | In Issues | 12 Comments

When I found this website I was shocked and couldnt believe it, but the documentation looks pretty accurate. All I am going to say is “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black”. Continue reading Stiring the pot !!…

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