artisanal thinking

So deeply do I care about fermentation—which, besides chocolate, is my other great food love—that somehow I cannot post on it. This again caused the silence in my blog, as I began what I hoped to be an epic description of several cultures I received some weeks ago and have been using to explore the underbelly world of Scandinavian fermented dairy products. However, no sooner do I get a couple paragraphs in that I am consumed by a desire to find verifiable statistics & research on raw milk consumption in the US, or a quest to identify which skin flora are responsible for personal scent…questions launching future research endeavors perhaps, but in the meanwhile, stalling my post.

So, sorry, perhaps the time is not yet ripe for me to write about bacteria, nevertheless, I am always able to eat them. Therefore, I would like to announce an event, the first in what I hope to be a series, that will make space for myself and all the other extant bacteriophiles out there, while hopefully, with the power of fermented foods, creating some new ones. The means by which I hope to alter minds is by offering up a meal composed of foods that have been lost, are no longer eaten, or are conflated today with substitutes that bear little semblance to their original character. Though some of the food is still eaten in other countries, sometimes other states, here even, perhaps a couple generations prior…we dub this antediluvian dinner party the ‘1000 year old food club’, signaling our intention to rediscover what sustenance felt like to millenia of humans.

On the menu will be: my dairy ferments, yogurt, viili, kefir. Sourdough bread with raw milk butter, good enough for a meal itself. Raw milk, spartan, unaccompanied to showcase its bare grassy, flowery appeal. Wonderful offals, headcheese. Tongue. Now stretching the theme a tich, chocolate (at least until I learn how to make Montezuma’s xocolatl). Finally, Homebrew beer.

About pleasure and adventure, this party will showcase the best in local artisan food and the best in human cuisine throughout the ages. Join me this Saturday, Feb 6th, anytime from 5-8pm at 407 S. Birch, Urbana, IL; Earth..

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 1:59 am and is filed under Events, Fermentation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.