Regional Eats Season 4 Marathon

welcome to regional season 4 marathon we spent the season connecting to culinary traditions at our doorstep like black and white cookies in new york city or cachucavallo cheese in southern italy we hope you enjoyed this marathon we'll be back soon with season five we're in loca rotondo italy and today we're going to see how ricotta is made ricotta is a very versatile cheese we all know it that can be eaten in very different ways and technically speaking it's not even really a cheese because it comes from the liquid way when the milk is curdled so today we're going to visit a small dairy here in the countryside to find out more about how it's made let's go ricotta is part of a family of fresh cheeses that are normally eaten the same day fresh dairy products are very popular in southern italy where each region will make its own version of ricotta depending on the milk used and its flavor profiles puglia the region we're in today favors a soft delicate ricotta made with liquid whey derived from cow's milk bigger dairy that make cheese often consider liquid whey just a leftover product and use it to feed livestock or even discard it but for smaller local dairies here in italy it is a great opportunity to optimize their resources and get something great out of them just like its sisters mozzarella and burrata ricotta is a game of time and chemistry [Music] is today giovanni is going to show us how he makes ricotta from 100 liters of milk out of this 100 liters only 10 will turn into curds that would then make cheese but cheese is not the star of the show for us today in reality as much as ninety percent of what's in here is liquid whey and that's all going to be turning into ricotta generally thank a [Music] when the curds have reached the desired texture and size giovanni will extract them and place them into molds which will go on to age and become cheese finally free from its curdled twin the liquid way is ready to be turned into ricotta salad giovanni then starts heating up the way to add milk and ferments to it if we have to judge a step but how loud it is i'd say this is definitely a crucial one thankfully for our ears it was also a pretty quick one cappuccino giovanni carefully removes all the excess foam we can see it's slowly starting to surface the ricotta we came for today [Music] um moment [Music] cheese curds can you name a more quintessential food in wisconsin wisconsin cheese curds have a signature orange color they have a unique flavor that can vary depending on the batch and most importantly when you bite into them they must must squeak which tells you the curd is a good one we're here in door county and we're about to meet chris rennard a third generation artisanal cheese maker who's been making cheese his entire life they're going to show us how milk turns into the savory squeaky snack [Music] the process itself takes four hours it starts with cheese makers releasing twenty thousand pounds of pasteurized whole milk into a large open fat all the milk that comes in today we'll make in the cheese tomorrow for every 10 pounds of milk you get about one pound of cheese on average luckily wisconsin is the perfect place to get all this milk locally the state has about 1.3 million cows and with that much dairy available they take cheese production seriously it's the only state in the united states that requires a special license to sell any cheese of any kind including curds chris gets his milk from 24 family farms in the area that work together with the dairy plant as a cheese making ecosystem depending on the milk that comes in that day a temperature outside what the cows have eaten at the time of the year every bag of cheese will have a slightly different flavor all that pasteurized milk gets mixed with just a little anatosy coloring to give it that orange hue wisconsinites prefer their curds orange while cheese makers on the east coast stick to white cheddar for vat that holds twenty thousand pounds of milk reynards adds only 29 ounces of coloring the seed comes from either south africa or south america it does not affect the flavor what does affect the flavor is the rennet unlike cheese makers in europe chris doesn't use animal rennet to make his cheese curds which together with the starter cultures breaks down the milk into cheese the renault we use is a microbial reddit we found it works the best with the cheese that rena does a really nice job of setting it up and the enzymes of the rennet help with the aging process and so we see over here just observing in the room it's getting really steamy we cook everything with a bath with steam so no matter what time of the year it is it's always warm in the cheese factory cooking it for a couple reasons one it's going to help firm that cheese up and take some of the moisture out but it also you want the starter to be at the optimal temperature what temperature we're going to cook this to 100 degrees what happens when the cheese mixture gets to 100 degrees we will shut off the steam so it doesn't get any hotter but what we'll also do is that we keep agitating the reason is we want to firm this turn up we want the nice squeaky cheese curd you're going to get if your starter if your starter cultures don't get to the right temperature you'll have enough flavor so once the cheese firms up the milk coagulates and it gets nice and firm then we'll take wire knives and we run that through and that is cutting it into curds and whey those wire knives are called cheese harps and they've been around since the 1960s once the cheese is cut it takes about two and a half hours until you see actual curds start to form cheese makers here aim for a nice even cut the more even the cut the more the whey is expelled and the cheese sticks together we're stirring it right now to keep it from clumping one of the reasons we do what we do with hands-on is we can watch and control all that we don't have to worry about a malfunction of equipment we're literally doing it what we're doing right now is checking to make sure the cheese curds are firm we want the right firmness to move on to the next process if you leave it too soft proteins calcium some of that's going to expel out in your way as soon as cheese makers like chris approve the texture and ph level whey is removed from the vat and pumped into a cream separator the cream is sold to pine river dairy to make butter while the whey is sold off to make whey proteins once the majority of the whey is drained cheese makers draw the curd to the sides of the vat and let the whey continue to drain down the center this process is called ditching we're pushing the cheese to the sides and we're firming and pushing it together so it's one solid piece you're doing it good yes push right there you go like that yep or too much now you're okay and then one more yep push it just so it firms up there you go oh so you don't have to push that hard [Music] big mass of cheese okay she's gonna get trimmed into slabs those slabs will be about 20 pounds okay and so what are you doing now you're cutting the we're gonna level it off okay and then we're gonna break up all this cheese on top so it all gets matted in the i world what do we do i just do this you can break it up yeah oh my god so we're breaking it up so that it can layer on top so it's going to knit all back in together as we roll it over and stack it up this is a good hand massage right now this moisture you're filling in here yeah it's probably in the 43 to 45 range so it's a higher moisture percentage we don't want too far too because you want to keep the squeak the moisture in it okay the rubbery texture hopefully i'm healthy you are and what are you doing now so your shower we're doing this we're going to take all the fines the smaller curds yeah we want to mill it in so we get as much of our yield as possible slide your hand on the cut side this way yep and turn it right over and then you're going to slide it nice and tight we want to mat and knit all the seams together one solid slab oh gravity will hold it hold it together yep now we're gonna flip it one more time and then we are gonna cut it and stack it like okay i'll let you get the first one i'll get the rest okay afterward chris checks the acidity level of the cheese and if it is in the correct range they will begin to mill it up into cheese curds and what if it doesn't fit your desired ph level we'll leave it set that's one of the things about being a small artisan plant we can leave the tea set if it's not where we want it we don't have to force it through the cheese is washed with warm water to expel any extra way then salted three times this is done to seal in and enhance the flavor and also control the ph of the cheese we're breaking up all the clumps just so we get the salt to distribute evenly the salt's absorbing into all the small pores on that piece so is this the final product this would be cheese curds what's the difference between a cheddar curd flavor and a plain curd one of the difference you'll notice like a young cheddar compared to a young colby in the first seven to ten days you're not going to taste much difference at all in flavor but after that 10 to 14 day range when the cultures start really getting a foothold in the cheese the flavors will start to differ fastly [Music] my cheese makers probably try one turn out of everybody oh my god can you try yeah [Music] i love the texture of your cheesecake thank you that's wonderful in total a plant like reynards can sell about 1500 to 2000 pounds of cheese curds a day some of the curds are sent to be breaded at restaurants to fry while others are packaged and sold fresh at stores chris wouldn't let me return to chicago without trying renard's myriad of curd flavors so we're going to try the different flavors of cheese curds that renard's has for us all of these cheese curds are their cheddar cheese curds but they have different seasonings on top all right let's give it a go can you hear the i don't squeaky if you're gonna hear it this is so squeaky it feels so fresh and it has a little hint of ranch as you can tell it's the ranch flavor it's a little bit moist but it's also in between a soft mozzarella and a hard aged cheddar it's basically smack dab in the middle where you get the softness of it but it's also it has a little bit of a bite not too much but it's super tasty and you can tell that this was salted and then the seasoning on top is really what i prefer i could pop these in like popcorn i have to come back to door county to try out these curds okay i'm doing it oh my god we did it our pants are still white with white pants look at that you can be fashionable and milk a cow you got it [Music] we are in robody puglia italy and today i'm going to meet with vincenzo and juliana who makes some of the most exquisite gelato in the country their story is as rich as the one of their hometown rubo that is renown for its architecture and rich craftsmanship for the two siblings it's all about keeping the craft of gelato making alive and the best way to do that is to take your family recipe from 1840 and never changing it let's go find out more [Music] this is a story of how one family took gerato to a small southern italian town 180 years ago and gave it a home the family recipe calls for only three ingredients has been made this way since well since 1840. it's all thanks to uncle luigi who brought the art of gerato making from the royal courts of naples to his hometown ruvo which has been synonymous with gelato ever since okay the original 1840 recipe which is called the king's cream has been joined by seven other flavors pistachio almond chocolate kinse nougat genduya and azernaut all ingredients are seasonal and that is why your go-to winter flavor here will never be say strawberry but almond this flavor in particular is made with a homemade almond butter which is actually grinding before our eyes as we speak [Music] bye [Laughter] we're now finally adding that third and final ingredient milk [Music] but we are not finished yet first we need to cook it and if you think that you could just skip this step please keep watching juliana feels pretty strongly about it [Laughter] it's now time to pour our cooked mixture in the gelato machine which will freeze the cream and transform it into gelato foreign [Laughter] you may have been watching this for only a few minutes but it actually took us five hours to make only one flavor and while i feel for juliana having to do this eight times every day for each flavor i can't wait to taste the one i worked for today so let's get to it will i be transported to 1840 with this gelato uniform claudia you know what i just said about making one flavor taking five hours well this tasting part was no joke either julian and vincenzo are very serious about letting me taste every single flavor juliana keeps scooping some more gelato for me and a special mention goes to [Music] pistachio i really thought we ended with a bang with pistachio which i loved but i may have a new favorite after all the king's scepter this one takes three days to make and is made from iranian saffron juliana serves it in a cone filled with cream and pistachio paste she then covers the gelato with some more cream and gold leaves is we're here in milwaukee wisconsin home to the world's largest concentration of frozen custard shops now frozen custard is not the same thing as ice cream and by law it has to have at least 10 butter fat and a lot more egg yolk and because wisconsin is home to dairy lots of dairy it is the perfect fit for frozen custard shops now what are we waiting for let's go see how frozen custard is made custard's more dense ice cream is a lot of air in it this does this has less amount of air so when you're eating it house fruit goes on your palate and it's going to stay there longer where ice cream it's going to melt quicker but before you even taste that rich frozen custard it starts as this liquid dairy mix kopp's mix is top secret but we do know that it is at least 10 butter fat and more than 1.4 percent egg yolk and these aren't just arbitrary measurements to officially be considered frozen custard the u.s food and drug administration actually mandates these percentages while your premium ice creams may have that same amount of butter fat your average ice cream probably isn't going to and it's even more unlikely for ice cream to have that much egg yolk instead consisting of more air like scott said cops gets its secret mix from galway a dairy processor that actually introduced frozen custard to the midwest during the 1933 chicago world's fair the dessert found a home in wisconsin its more than 100 000 dairy farms meant easy access to fresh cream and butter fat milk we pour it up in the hopper and then they'll start the machine up these machines are running at about 16 degrees ice cream is about temperatures obviously gotta be under 32 but not much under 32. they're so custard is running at a colder temperature this machine is what really does the work of turning the mix into custard as the machine freezes the custard it adds in as little air as possible while regular soft serve ice cream might be about 40 percent air frozen custard can range anywhere from 15 to 30 air giving it a thicker texture than ice cream as it thickens the machine slowly pushes the custard forward once the custard gets to the right consistency it pushes its way through the front of the machine [Music] how old are they these two machines were made probably in the mid to late 40s cops has a pretty unique way of keeping such old machines running if something goes wrong they actually call up leon's a competing frozen custard stand that also works on maintaining old custard machines he also has a business a machine shop he builds all the parts for us for all the customer stamps so if we need something we call them and they make parts that we need for our machines keep them going is it plain or is it vanilla we call it a plain most people would say it's vanilla vanilla is a plain until we add the vanilla extract to us it's not a vanilla custard that vanilla extract is what makes it the vanilla custard right now we're probably spending close to 500 a gallon oh wow uh it's the premier vanilla extract it's like comparing it to a volkswagen to mercedes we're using our mercedes you can taste that expensive vanilla in this custard this vanilla tastes so good it has a very creamy consistency there's there's so much more of the treat in one bite or one lick i should say this is definitely better than ice cream beer isn't what made milwaukee it's the custard we're in san diego garganico italy and today we're going to see how cacho cavallo cheese is made cacho cavallo is one of the most popular cheeses here in southern italy and it's famous for its elongated shape what we're going to see today is a special kind of kachokawalo the padolico kind which is made with the raw milk of podolica cattle a rare breed of cattle that is able to survive in the harshest conditions that we can find here these conditions make their cheese one of the most expensive in italy sometimes even more expensive than the finest of parmesans let's go find out more the potatoes that make this seaside cheese scatter all over as they roam making it hard to tell that you're actually on a farm meet virginia one of only a handful of producers making the cheese we are here to learn about he uses the recipe that his grandparents taught him though the most important element of this recipe is location here in sanikandra garganico we are only one kilometer from the sea and a hundred meters above sea level this is an important detail and was to know why [Music] uh [Music] only 3 to 6 liters of milk a day which is much less than 30 liters an average cow might produce today we're working with 50 liters the environment in which the cows feed gives this milk a rich earthy flavor the whole cheese making process takes five hours virginia heats up the milk to 40 degrees enough to warm it up but still keep it raw which is essential to make this type of cacho cavallo if the milk were to become too warm it would scorch and kill off the unique flavor that the podalika cow's milk brings to the special cheese he then adds rennet and fermented whey from yesterday's production and after 20 minutes he starts cutting the curd he aims for the size of a grain of rice to do that he uses this mushroom-looking tool which is called menaturo a word that as you may have guessed comes from the local dialect [Music] rather than slowly cutting the curd to make cacho cavallo virginia energetically slashes through it this breaks it up into the small pieces he's hoping to achieve we are used to seeing curd being extracted and then shaped into cheese right away but here it actually rests further with some of its own warm whey to allow for more concentrated flavor to develop keeping the curd nice and warm will facilitate its fermentation while some other cheese makers may use a steel bat for this process here virginia uses a maple vat to ferment the cheese this also impacts the flavor and the notes of acidity that tickle your tongue as you eat virginia tells us this takes about one hour but because it's winter we ended up waiting for three hours instead the curd is ready to be stretched virginia takes out a bit away to keep its ferments for tomorrow he then slices the curd in smaller parts which will then be needed in hot water in comparison to the stretch curd of mozzarella this one will be harder this is due to the waiting time as well as the size of the card when it was cut foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Laughter] virginia then adds some water to the curd he was shaped into two cheeses each weighing 2.5 kilos this process will be done completely by hand so let's get comfortable he tells me this water is a hundred degrees yes celsius and judging by the color of his hands and smoke around us idle mvm foreign each cheese goes through different shapes before reaching its final one virginia has its personal signature shape too when virginia is happy with the shape of the cactus cavallo he places it in cold water to set the shape and stop the fermentation he then adds a rope around the cheese's heads to tie the pair together [Music] see once paired the two cheeses move to bathing brine the time they spend here depends on weight every kilo needs 24 hours these two new entries weigh 2.5 kilos so they stay here for 60 hours and when that time is over their next destination is something unexpected hence the name of the cheese the tree is actually the only time the cheeses will see some sunlight as the pair will spend the rest of their aging days in caves the minimum aging is six weeks and the maximum two years today virginia has prepared a six-month-old catra cavallo for us to taste a cheese this old is worth forty dollars a kilo which translates into just over a hundred dollars apiece foreign wow [Music] we're here in wisconsin the birthplace of colby cheese it's one of the fastest growing varieties in the united states we're headed to springside cheese one of the longest running factories in northeast wisconsin and a family operation like most cheeses colby starts with a giant fat of milk a starter culture and rennet but after that things get a bit more unique what happened is when you had grass-fed cows the milk is a little bit more yellowish or darker in color the cows aren't fed a grass diet which means the milk they create is closer to white than the yellowish color colby cheese is expected to be this will turn it orange from an evergreen tree in south america it makes it orange yup it helps with that keeps it that orangish colors kind of appeal wisconsin is home to 1.3 million dairy cows and has about 25 percent of the united states dairy farms the state is the biggest producer of teas in the u.s in 2021 two wisconsin lawmakers introduced a bill to make colby the state's official cheese springside cheese has been making its colby here in wisconsin since 1982. the mild cheese gets its name from the town of colby wisconsin where colby cheese was created in the late 1800s after being stirred the coagulated mixture is given about 30 minutes to set into the perfect firmness for colby cheese then it's time to cut it into curds this is done with harp paddles while they may just look like paddles with holes they're actually lined with extremely sharp blades what we're trying to do is we're trying to get it down to the ideal size okay so it can have uh again we're looking for fat retention we're also looking for moisture it's a little bit better curd will give you a little bit more moisture after being cut the curds are given time to form a skin you're building the skin on the outside of the conditioner okay after it's been cut you rip it apart now it's taking this time to heal itself back up you want to get be able to keep as much moisture as power possible in the product so we give it a lot longer to heal up than what you would normally do in other products that extra moisture is key to the colby making process the more moisture that goes in the sweeter and less acidic the final cheese will be as the curds are cut with harps they are separated from the whey after about 20 minutes it's time to once again cook the freshly cut curds when you first started out the curve was very fragile and soft and would pop very easily and it's actually getting pretty hot now i can feel it so we're cooking up to a target temperature as it stirs up it's slowly cooking the curd up so it's almost like searing a steak you're searing that moisture into the curd it's shrinking it up and it's stiffening to turn it off it's giving it more body after we get done cooking it we'll continue to stir it and it'll get stiffer and stiffer the curds are stirred and cooked for 20 minutes then it's time to check on their firmness how do you measure are you literally just going to scoop up the curds that's the only way to really do it is do it by hand when the curds reach the right firmness they are separated from the way once the whey has been removed the kurds are given about 30 to 45 minutes to settle into the right ph then it's time to add cold water to the vat but there's no set amount of water to add instead jesse and his team will stop the water when the kurds reach a specific temperature 92.5 okay 87.6 that 87.6 is key to the making of springside's colby cheese one we want to slow the starter down so it's not developing as fast we also want to add moisture so the curd will pick up moisture from the cold water slowing the acidification is also important as that is what makes colby sweeter and milder than other cheeses when the vat hits the target temperature the entire contents are drained into a basin it will be agitated some more to prevent clumping once the mix hits a certain ph it's time to drain the water and whey it'll all drain down towards the port as it drains onto the port we'll pull that we'll work it back in and then we'll start to work the cheese with the forks we're just staring we're trying to keep it from lumping together okay so the goal is to keep it as granular as possible lift it up yep just lift it up i have to do it this way i'm a righty it clumps really easily yeah it does but again that's part of the reason for adding the salt on that you all must be so strong all right so let's feel a curd oh wow i'm holding back on eating this right now but it's very soft and you're saying as we press it it's going to get even softer than this this will get soft this is kind of where it's going to be yeah but once we press it but it is a very soft cheese so normally it'd be a lot stiffer stouter cheese yeah you can tell it's like easily it's like moldable yep you see the moisture coming off here yeah it's very there's a lot of moisture i don't know if you can see it it smells very good yeah it honestly feels nutty how would you describe the smell it smells to me yeah i guess on a nutty side or a more of a dairy side of it it'll have a milder flavor be sweeter it'll also have a lot of buttery notes in it so butter it's a lot of butter yep that's why i like it i was like what is it about this that i like jessie and his team will keep agitating the courage to remove any excess whey and then begin to salt them you're salting the curds and what does that do to the curd mixture it helps with some clumping it also stops the bacteria from continuing to develop it slows down your ph so it slows down your starter development so you're not producing as much acid salt also adds flavor it keeps it on the sweeter side because you're stopping the starter at a higher ph once salted the curds are ready to be pressed into their final 13 pound longhorn form the longhorn will give the cheese its long cylinder shape when it's finally packaged it may be cut in half to resemble a half moon or a rainbow when it goes in a press it's going to lose some of the moisture away so we'll weigh it up a little bit heavier and then once it's all done it'll be 13 pounds and then we can see is that excess whey and water yep so that's crossing out of the cheese right now so that the only thing that remains are the curds [Applause] after being pressed the curds are removed from the horn sealed put back into the horn and placed in a cooler to age you want to keep it in the horn to maintain that cylinder shape how long does policies need to age for i do you be four weeks to six months is the ideal range for compared to treasure cheese what's the difference higher ph higher moisture and so how long do you have to age cheddar for sure you can use 30 plus years but that's that's wild that's like colby is a baby compared to a cheddar so while we wait for the cheese to age let's check in on the ones who made it all possible the cows springside gets its dairy from farms like jagiello farms where it actually picks up milk every day according to these local farmers wisconsin cows eat the best diet so they produce the best milk which makes for the best cheese the cows are fed a diet that includes high moisture corn in a protein mix the final feed is called tmr or total mixed ration and we have a nutritionist come in yeah he comes every two weeks he tests his feed out of the silos to tell you what you need and what they need to add to supplement to get it up to what the cow needs to melt the cows have to be milked twice a day producing about 50 pounds of milk each time is like a factory what you put into the cows that you get out of the cow if you're going to get quality milk you have quality feed going into a cow and this delectable looking cheese is one of the things springside gets out of these cows wow this feels more buttery than cheddar and it's a little it's mild it's not that strong i love mild cheeses i think mild cheeses are the best how would you describe it do you want to eat with me sure i'll eat a piece with you when it's so soft this is magnificent and how does it taste fresh versus old like does it get more mild or does it get softer i think once it's refrigerated it firms up a little bit more um the flavor with colby really gets stronger with age wow it was worth the wait you have to make all your reporters work they're gonna bother you for a day they should work yeah like you can you can film me but you have to work with me you may know it by the name of capocolo coppa capicola gabagol dozens of names to describe one italian delicacy a distinctive cured meat made from pork neck easy to spot thanks to its vivid red color and beautiful marbling unlike ham the fattine pork neck makes capocollo a soft tender and incredibly tasty cut we're in the countryside of martina franca italy and today we're going to talk about one of the country's finest capocolo capocolo di martina franca this type of capocolo is very special because it's made from pigs that feed only on acorns from a local tree franio and it doesn't stop there the tree is also very important in the making process let's go find out more [Music] you pet slowly [Music] the piece giuseppe works with is a big one about three or four kilos which at the end of the curing process will lose about 50 percent of its weight the meat is then seasoned with salt pepper and a touch of senescent chili pepper a variety of chili pepper coming from the neighboring region of basilicata that adds a sweet smoky scent to the meat the capicola then cures for 15 days and every couple of days it is rubbed by hand to ensure it absorbs all the flavors from the spices unlike other types of capocolo that will go straight to dry curing this one is also brined for 6 hours but this brine is not your average water and salt it's vincotto cooked grape must grape must is that thick fresh juice you get when crushing grapes to make wine its freshness also makes it high in sugar a perfect sweetener but also a drink martinez foreign see after casing it giuseppe pierces the capocolo to allow excess air out firmly tying a string to it to be able to hang it during the curing to make sure the capocolo has a perfect cylindrical shape he first wraps it with a sock and then puts it through a custom made funnel syndrome the goal now is to remove all the excess liquid from the meat this drying phase will happen gradually in three different temperature control environments the first one is a drying room where the meat will spend seven days and lose all of its liquids like grape mask and blood the second a pre-curing room is a room with high humidity levels to reintroduce some moisture into the meat liabilities after another seven days in the pre-curing room the meat reaches the final destination of its curing process the curing room it will stay here for 150 days at the end of the 150 days it's time to remove the socks to finally reveal the capocolo hiding inside foreign then it we still have another step to see the smoking to better understand just how much this step affects the final product we need to go back to the forest that is so dear to just happen while he removes all the socks his son andrea tells me more about the local oak tree martinez spreading from the balkans to turkey the itria valley is the only place in italy where you can find this type of oak the fertile soils of this hilly farmland together with the very italian practice of curing pork neck makes capocolo from martina franca a truly unique product after breeding the crisp air of the curt of franny i rejoined giuseppe in the smoking room or the black room as he likes to call it hey oh um see wow is hey we have a new project that we're really excited to show you here's the trailer so what are you going to show us today well i love wine this is a japanese knife what do you use this for at the restaurant we use it for of course meat steaks ducks roast it move and cut and cut and cut it's indestructible table yes great if you like the look of that subscribe to food insider and tune in tomorrow to watch the full episode the united states is the biggest producer of popcorn in the world and the majority comes from right here in the midwest the secret to the american popcorn people can't get enough of are these one-of-a-kind kernels which only grow in the midwestern region known as the corn belt there's kernel in my book this type of kernel is what you most likely eat in a movie theater in this type it's better for your caramel and cheese coating but no matter the type if you're eating popcorn there's a high probability it comes from here we get an inside look at both the making and planting process of the popular crunchy snack we visited preferred popcorn in indiana in the spring when popcorn kernels need to be planted so they can be harvested in the late summer or early fall the company plants 100 million pounds of popcorn kernels a year for all those kernels to turn into the best american popcorn it all starts with the soil farmers here say conditions in the midwest create soil that produces near perfect kernels first of all because of temperature if you go too far south in the growing conditions it gets too hot and popcorn does not like a lot of heat so southern indiana to northern indiana and out through nebraska is some of the best areas to grow corn it's the it gets cooler at night the higher expansion we'll have out of it in southern indiana here we get over 60 inches of rain a year as our normal season so it's mother nature takes care of us this extra rainfall allows the soil to be fertile and rich the moisture in the soil provides the corn the nutrients it needs to grow the flat land also makes it easier to plant and harvest crops when you pick up the soil and and it crumbles like that between your hands or your fingers that is it's ready to plant okay versus if it would it would clump together and clay then then it won't the seeds can't germinate through it so you want it to be mellow like this is what it's called it's just it's just perfect to plant today there they are right in there ready to grow i'll cover that one back up we need it in about seven days these seeds will germinate and three days later they will emerge from the ground and as they grow there's a telltale sign to know if what you're looking at is actually popcorn or another type of corn the only way to tell the difference between popcorn and field corn as you're driving down the road popcorn tassels hang down like an umbrella where field corn tassels stay erect popcorn is one of six types of corn it's a variant of flint corn called ze may zeverta or corn turned inside out it's the only maze that pops the kernels are generally smaller and harder and can come in about 100 different strains farmers breed the popcorn plant to enhance taste texture and pop ability we have two different types of popcorn you have butterfly popcorn which blows apart and makes like a butterfly and then you have mushroom corn that makes like a ball the difference is in that we plant different seeds in the ground in order to get that to look at the kernels themselves you really can't tell a difference between the butterfly kernels and the mushroom kernels at the time of the harvest the corn is picked and fed through a combine which strips the ear from the stalk and removes the kernels from their crops the kernels are then taken to a storage bin okay we're looking at our storage bins we can hold uh there's about 25 million pounds of corn here in the big bins that's where we're going to go to first yeah let's get in is this good oh wow yeah there's kernel in my book there's kernels in your boots all right so where are we right now brian we're in bin number 110 it holds it holds 3.2 million pounds of popcorn so what we have a hold of here is a temperature cable that we have cables in the bins because we've talked about how important the moisture is but what this does is every three foot there's a moisture sensor on this so when the bin is completely full then it's it's checking the moisture throughout the bin and it's turning the fan on and off depending on the outside conditions if it's if we need to add a little water when the humidity is high or it's raining a little bit it'll turn the fans on automatically to keep that moisture content perfect all throughout the whole bin between 13 and a half and 14 and a half percent that's what makes that kernel blow up the highest potential so i'm touching this kernel right now can you by feel know the moisture content no i wish we could the way it flows it is in good it's in perfect condition if corn is a little wet it doesn't flow good like when we step in this and the corn slides down that means it's in good condition it's just nice big kernels of corn we can keep it for four or five years four or five years oh wow that's what's good about popcorn it has that real hard outer layer a pericarp on it so that protects it so as long as we can keep the moisture in and check on it then it'll keep for a long time you could put field corn in in an oven and try to heat it up and it will burn and just kind of explode a little bit i tried to do that when i was a kid it will not work but we need to try it and that's why because that corn is way too soft the kernels are too soft for it to actually pop yes [Music] that's what fills the bin oh that's what feels about there and it goes to the top we're going up a silo correct yes all the way to the top oh my wow we're on top of a silo with brian over here holy moly we're going down yeah so we're on top of we're on top of there's about two million pounds of corn in this bin that we're standing on top of we gotta imagine if we sunk in yes so so two million pounds two million pounds of popcorn holy moly oh so if it i guess if this popped up it would be 48 times the size of this bin popped so i think think of that wow so imagine 48 of these silos these sand boxes all right we're coming back up i'm gonna try to unload all the when the kernels have reached the optimal moisture level they go through a series of sorting machines where size shape color and cleanliness are taken into consideration while foreign materials like cobs are eliminated through an air generation system during this step teeny tiny kernels are separated if for example they don't meet probability requirements these lighter kernels unfit for human consumption are separated through a gravity table and transported to a bin for cattle feed for the lucky kernels it's time for packaging the bags are on a conveyor belt here and it goes down and then it slides them down the corn is in a bin above us they hold about six thousand pound each and as they fill that's weighing the exact amount out and then dropping the corn down into the bag a normal load is 900 bags 900 yes and we try to do 10 loads a day so we we process approximately 9 000 bags per day here at preferred popcorn kernels are packed shipped and sold to high-end clientele movie theaters and grocery stores brian and his team take out one bag out of every first and fifth pallet dump it out on a table with bright lights and check the kernels by hand as a final test we're looking for anything that would be not popcorn in here like a weed seed or a stick something that would be introduced from the farmer's field into the co into the combine as he's harvesting what we're doing is double checking our cleaning equipment making sure that it was thorough with getting everything out and having a very nice finished product to be ready to ship out of that corn we take out 250 grams of popcorn we're going to add a half a cup of coconut oil and put it in an mwbt tester and what it is it is testing what the percentages of expansion is from the weights so we have to let the temperature get up to 480 degrees and that's why this is a special popper it's different than what you would see in a movie theater because it has the consistent temperature of 480 degrees where a movie theater popper will heat up and cool down this will stay consistent so with the popcorn that we're testing today how many times more than the kernel should it expand to mushroom corns will pop about 30 to 33 times and butterfly corns will pop 42 to 48 times expansion so it means you're going to get more servings that popped really good off to about a 35 34 to 35 which is really really good looking for is a round ball with no wings on it this would be a mushroom kernel but it has wings on it so we're trying to get this round balls and then we we have a farmer that gets this and feeds it to his chickens once the test is complete 2 500 popcorn bags are shrink wrapped with nut and plastic and stacked onto a pallet leaving the farm preferred popcorn ships about three and a half loads of its monster mushroom variety to chicago's nuts on clark once a month they're known for adding classic toppings like cheese and caramel which are best made with the round shaped popcorn that comes from the mushroom kernel the way you get popcorn is there's moisture in each kernel so when it heats up and it steams and then it pops that's how you get popcorn most popcorn will pop when the kernel's internal temperature reaches 400 to 460 degrees fahrenheit the thicker pericarp or hull of the popcorn allows for pressure from the heated water to build and eventually forces it to rupture when heated the natural moisture inside the kernel turns to steam the inside starch becomes soft like gelatin and when the skin bursts the gelatinized starch spills out cools and literally turns inside out forming the fluffy mushroom popcorn shape as we know it okay yes well of course you can try it real quick we're all vaccinated that's yummy yummy isn't the word it's delicious delicious i'm gonna try to unload all the you will spot it in a crowd thanks to its circular shape but the reason why you will forever remember this sausage is the taste with a coarser juicier texture than other sausages and a flavorful aroma from the generous amount of spices cumberland sausages are favorite in the uk but there are only 12 butchers in the country making the original traditional sausage that's been granted a protected status we're in baron furnace cumbria england this county has been the home of cumberland sausages for hundreds of years and today we're going to learn more about the traditional method to make cumberland sausages a method that will take us back to the times of the british empire let's go find out more to make traditional cumberland sausages butchers would have originally used a local breed the cumberland pig which is now extinct so now they use rare breeds outdoor pigs like today's british lob and what you find is because they live longer the flavour is in the meat and with a little bit of spices and herbs the sausage is fantastic so here we have the half of the pig this is the shoulder this is the middle and the belly so we have the loin which is the loin chops and the belly pork and then we have the leg and we make a combination of the leg and the shoulder together because in the leg it's lean and if you only just use the leg you need a little bit of fat so we need to combine the both all right and when we cut this you will see that the the the combination is the best so the knife skills in taking off the meat from the bowl they've got to separate any sinew and skin okay believe it or not any skin like this in a commercial machine can be made into a paste and could end up in a sausage we don't want that and we haven't got the machine so it's important that every little bit of sinew bone cartilage is removed so we end up with really nice meat yeah [Music] and depending on profit we need as much meat from the bone as possible otherwise he's a very bad butcher it's okay so this one has been skinned pretty well yeah that's pretty good once the meat is the boned and the gristle these are the chops that will later be turned into cumberland sausages rather than going through a more commercial ball chopper and being emulsified the meat is thickly minced to retain solid chunky pieces [Music] so those are nice chunky pieces of mints that we in a mouth texture would be really good yeah that's true i can see the fat but is not as dominant as you would think we call that atvl so 80 pieces are red 20 pieces are white it's called visual lean we can see this yeah yeah it's true it's true because you never want to get rid of all the photos no no no no no you still need a bit too inflated too much fatty in then it comes it fills up the pan and that's yeah i'm good and then yeah but with this the sausage will stay the same it may sound obvious but high meat content in a sausage is never a given more commercial butchers will use bread or cereal which is something peter feels pretty strongly against the bread or cereal will soak up some of that extra fat which will in turn alter the structure and flavor of the sausage we want a high meat content sausage we want a proper cumberland sausage to be recognized because it's different and so we applied to the european union for protection of our regional sausage and that took 10 years 10 years 10 years so this is what they call bureaucracy 10 years now that we're all set on the importance of the meat we are ready to learn more about another distinctive feature over cumberland sausage it's spices these are added by hand before the whole mix is encased in the pig's natural intestine so most of our spices go into cumberland sausages what do we have here in here we've got salt and pepper we've got a little bit of sage and nutmeg that are finely ground we've got potato starch and rice flour okay and this mixes the meat and the combination together then we've got some herbs which is a little bit of sage um you could use a fresh sage but with a dried sage it gives a little bit of better shelf life because it's nice and and clean yeah and then we've got the rusk which is a pea starch which is not bread right not bread no now it's going a little bit dry so we have to have a bit of water because all that has to come out of this nozzle this specific spice blend wasn't random according to peter back in the 1800s german slate miners moved to cumbria for work and brought their sausage recipe with them but instead of the spices they were used to they used spices they could get locally which weren't actually that local spices were being imported to cumbria from the caribbean thanks to the port of white heaven the second biggest port in the country at the time so there was always a little bit of spice sometimes you might even find ginger but predominantly nutmeg mace pepper and these were the spices that made the cumberland sausage very different if you were working hard in the slate mines and you wanted to have a nice strong sausage the local spices were fantastic wow but really the real component was the meat yeah yeah so all together makes something quite unique i take the the intestine of the pig has been cleaned okay so this is interesting yeah this is this is the intestine and basically we put this on to the nozzle of the sausage machine all right and this is very important that we use a natural casing a natural intestine as opposed to the the cowhide synthetic which commercial sausage makers are now tending to use so it just gives you a better uh a better texture at the end of the well exactly when you cook it that natural texture it isn't chewy or rubbery or plasticky like sometimes you find on some sausages yeah so how how long is that this is one intestine from one pig no because it has it's continuous in victorian times it was 19 yards now it's 21 meters okay so now i know how long that is and that's that's interesting because as we've improved the commercial viability of our pigs the intestine has got longer and probably the ability to absorb more food it's just one of them things but yeah there is definitely 21 yards 21 meters [Music] oh they have this coil yeah this thing coil and why is that i don't know no probably because we couldn't tie knots really maybe it came with the germans because they make the rings of sausage okay yeah so you know maybe they were making a sausage with a ring you know like a ring like the sausage sometimes in germany yeah type of sausages we don't know and it's quite it's quite pink no that's a nice traditional cumin sausage you can see the white bits you can see the 80vl you can see a little bit of the herbs you can see where the fat is which also makes you makes you realize that there's not that much of it sometimes i think you see sausages in italy like this don't you yeah in my origin we have one that's served like this that's called zampina champina yeah it means it means little pole oh right but it's served in a coil like this yeah and it's like the grilling sausage once in a coil a proper cumberland sausage needs to be left overnight to let the spices and herbs blend into the meat peter grilled some from yesterday's production for us to taste here claudia have a taste of our sausage thank you here you go chef got to remember the camera but then he gives you my best yeah yeah so the thickness is important the coarse texture is important but above all else the taste in the mouth yeah cheers that crack that you feel when you bite into the natural casing natural cake yeah natural ingestion yeah you're also tasting meat definitely that's prominent a little bit of influence with the seasoning pepper pepper pepper there yeah obviously with a nutmeg can you taste it yeah with that as well and to be cooking this on the barbecue on the grill in the oven fantastic yeah yeah it's very good it is yeah you can taste the meat like it is it is quite meaty how do you if you own a rolls royce put cheap oil in the engine don't put bad food in your mouth this is fantastic yeah so how would you recommend eating this i mean apart from this way like on a steak traditionally oh huh in the ring ah cumberland sausage a good meal i mean maybe a meal nowadays for two oh i'll eat that [Laughter] hey we have a new project that we're really excited to show you here's the trailer this is the largest free kitchen in the world open 24 hours year-round this food hall fit a hundred thousand people for free each day just one of these huge bowls is enough to feed around 10 000 people we visited amritsar in india to find out everything that goes into feeding such a large crowd and to see just what it takes to make such big batches if you like the look of that please subscribe to food insider and tune in tomorrow to watch the full episode the more you give to claudia the less you have you know i love it yeah have you had a bit sorry saltwater taffy is synonymous to summer days and this chewy soft candy is the pride of jersey shore we're headed to ocean city new jersey to see how this treat is made jersey shore may have a bad rep but its most redeeming quality is quite possibly its salt water taffy it's an old school carnival snack that became popular in the late 1800s recipes that combined molasses or sugar water and butter were transformed into gummy ropes that were pulled by partners at each end founded in 1898 shriver's saltwater taffy is the oldest business on the boardwalk in ocean city this is the taffy cooking machine i wish it had a more glamorous name but it doesn't candy makers add ingredients such as invert sugar corn syrup and fats like butter to a copper kettle and cook them at a temperature of 250 degrees once the mixture is warm enough it is sucked through a pipe and dropped into a lower bin our saltwater taffy comes in three different bases one's chocolate molasses will make peanut butter and our plain flavors are the big array orange grape banana when saltwater taffy is poured from the cooking machine we would never be able to touch it like this it would burn us to keep the taffy soft it's moved to a hot box you think that this is a fridge but it's actually just like a warm cozy sauna this is where we keep the taffy after we cook it if we didn't keep it warm it would turn into a brick oh wow so right now what temperatures are we at we're about at 95 and what does it feel like right now oh wow it's very soft once the taffy is set candy makers dump it onto a cooling table and knead out any air bubbles oh it's so pretty this is a cooling table it's filled with cold water and the taffy is warm so it helps the taffy to cool off before we pull it you know it's sticky right now if you were to put this in your mouth it would stick to your teeth and is this a process that people have used in the past the the technique of having cold water running tables absolutely yeah next candy makers like merrell add citric acid to taffys that are fruit flavored so citric acid why is that important to put in for the lime flavor because it gives it the little tartness that you would get if you were eating a lime and then we just kind of fold it over and help you and settles into itself the machine operator they have a particular feel for when it's ready so this is the color not the flavor this is just the color and why don't you add the flavor on this step and why just the color because the process of pulling it allows the flavor to spread more consistently throughout the piece of taffy so you need to have some muscle to work this job a little just to make it consistent they'll take the piece and they'll flip it oh my god so this is 50 pounds do you mind if i try this one should i turn this one over this is a battle between taffy and me and i have lost show them what you do and then show them look how he just does it so quick casual just casual now for the most important part the taffy bullying historically candy makers would pull the taffy by hand with the assistance of a hook these days the taffy is stretched with machines this process is also adding air to the saltwater taffy and he's adding the flavor right now what flavor is that that's going to be strawberry and as you can see it really allows for the flavor to get mixed in it really looks like something you just want to pull off and eat and i can already smell the the lime flavor after the taffy is pulled it's headed for a batch roller here the taffy is elongated and rolled into a log okay speedwalk okay so we're just taking the air bubbles out of the pizza top okay that one has to be better then you make it seam this is actually pretty difficult because the the tool itself is like sticking into the taffy it's still chewy and sticky you can tell but it is a little harder than it was on that table four mechanical rollers called sizers size the candy down to get the rope of a candy to a certain diameter the taffy tapers down through a second set of sizers until it resembles a snake the machine at drivers can cut wrap and seal about 300 to 400 pieces of taffy per minute there's actually fingers that are closing the piece of coffee oh right there right there right there the inner layer surrounding the taffy must be wax paper to maintain its soft texture and deter the candy from sticking together do you mind if i untwist this no but you have to do it the right way how do you do it the right way okay so the right way to open a piece of taffy is to pull both sides there you go and then we get that's what we're looking for with a piece of cabbage oh amazing so you may be wondering why the heck is it called salt water taffy if there's no salt the story goes like this there was a man named mr bradley who sold taffy from a stand on a beach one evening the water came up and washed over his taffy he thought his taffy was ruined but a little girl approached him and asked if she could have a piece of his saltwater taffy and since then the name stuck shriver's saltwater taffy went from having 17 flavors to 60 flavors in the summertime which is their busiest season so every single day you're going to get a fresh piece of taffy every single day we are making fresh taffy what what's your favorite my personal favorite yeah they're all my favorite they're all you don't have one i have one that i'm not crazy about but that's just because i'm not crazy about that flavor which one i can't tell you is it grapes absolutely not everybody loves grapes wait i hate grapes so i'm okay so that's your one that you're taking off like sour apple bubble gum i don't know which one i want the most that's the whole idea right yeah i feel like i want them all all right so i'm gonna take your recommendations i've never had saltwater taffy i've had like laffy taffy cherry two of those pineapple one of those tangerine one of those yeah i could take it don't worry baby taffy baby banana chef i'm going crazy in the family of smelly cheeses there are probably only a few that will really make you go well i have no doubt for me stinking bishop beats them all crowned the smelliest cheese in the uk stinking bishop gets this distinctive smell thanks to perry which is a pear cider used to wash the rind of the cheese the result a moldy exterior a squidgy texture and an everlasting pungent smell we're in the pear orchards of dimmuck gloucestershire england at the home of stinking bishop it is from the fruits of these trees that the infamous perry cider is made but while the perry gives the cheese its distinctive smell i'm curious will the cheese taste as strong as it smells we're here to find out there is only one farm in the world that makes this cheese charles martell and son and just like stinking bishop is a semi-soft cheese its recipe is semi-secret we know it starts with pasteurized cow's milk that is left in a vat for 4 hours with ferments and rennet we also know that the rennet used is a vegetable rennet this helps coagulate the milk without interfering with the flavor of the cheese which an animal rennet will do the milk comes from the local grocer cattle the milk from this breed is particularly suited for cheese making because during the coagulation process its cream doesn't rise to the surface and get lost within the way rather it stays down in the milk and it will make the final cheese much richer when the curd has reached the size of a nut it is transferred into molds this is the first secret step of the process at the end of the molding this tower of empty molds that you see behind me will be full of curd and after a certain amount of time that is also secret the cheeses will be moved to the maturing room okay this is the moment of truth let's see smelly oh it wow well it's not as bad as i thought it doesn't smell bad it just has a strong smell yes yeah that's pungent lots of people describe as old smelly socks oh disgusting but actually when you eat the cheese it's really nice yeah and you can't taste the smell you can just taste the cheese which is nice and smooth it fills up your nostrils and just stays there with that smell still very much up in my nostrils justina talks me through the most important step of the making of stinking bishop washing it impair it this is done when the cheese is one day old old enough to hold its shape but young enough to absorb the flavors of the parry how often do you do this often do you wash it in perry only once only once only once oh and that's enough just to you know make everything that the juices all right but it's uh alcohol yeah and also you can you can smell the aroma of the parry so you don't want uh to have this too strong at the same time and this washing is their method to it or it's just you know caressing the cheese yes and enjoying the work putting my words today's work yes the molds around the cheese are made of beechwood you may ask why we don't know that's another secret that the makers wouldn't share my guess is that this helps the cheese keep its shape of course without being too rigid and thus allowing the cheese to retain some moisture like other semi-soft cheeses and this we know for sure stinking bishop wheels age for two to three weeks and they are turned regularly to ensure both sides mature equally so this is the finished cheese that still smells even though it's yes the cheese always smells yes so this is the ready cheese oh wow oh that's quite oh it's beautiful actually you know it's uh it looks like one of those like eyeshadow palettes yes yeah he has nice shades of uh yellow and red yellow edges a bit of orange yeah it's kind of sparkly you know yes so all this is because of the washing in in perry plus your cigarettes you know yes yes and i mean is it a coincidence that the perry itself it's kind of reddish yeah it's probably coming a bit from the ferry itself so what's the deal with this perry well around gloucestershire there are over a hundred varieties of perry pears which are smaller than your average pair i know these are blossoms but pears were not in seasons when we visited anyway turning them into perry is quite a common thing here the pear the stinky bishop baits in is called stinking bishop unlike what you might think this pair doesn't stink most perry pears are little hard things like that you know if you throw somebody and hit them they hurt because they're so heavy and dense little tiny things but the stinking bishop pair is more pear-shaped and more juicy and makes a good early perry because it's got high sugar it ferments very quickly and so it's got a reputation of being a very strong pair all right named after mr bishop mr bishop was rather an unsavory character so he earned his name the name stinking bishop all right so it has nothing to do with actual bishops yeah but bishops love it lots of bishops give each other presence of stinking bishop because they it comes back yeah they think it's funny and it is yeah jokes secrets and smell aside the story of stinking bishop is not really about making a cheese that will make headlines rather it is about making something that could save its very source the milk from gloucester cattle which risks disappearing notice she got a black head and black legs but her body is brown okay and they've got this white stripe and a white tail okay so all gluster cows have a have a white tail white tail yeah a little white sweep and a white white belly well uh when i started here 50 years ago there were 68 left in the world in the world and i thought gosh you know they can't be let to become extinct how can i help them i managed to get hold of three which i milked by hand and i thought i know they're originally a cheese making breed would make cheese it was my way of helping the breed survive not just by breeding them but by using them and that's the way they'll survive if we use them oh thank you so do you eat the rind yes that's where the most intense part of the flavor is oh all right so they just have oh a bit cold i love it it's really nice it's gone in isn't it yeah no smell at all no no i mean i'm supposed to say that yeah you know like when you say you can't you can't taste the smell because the smell can put you off but this taste i really love it i don't know it reminds me of some cheese i used to eat when i was when i was a child it's just the texture in my in your mouth a bit creamy but not too not too runny so not too messy the flavor goes in from the rind obviously because on the rind is the culture which is where you get the flavour the building where we're tasting the cheese is a distillery and yes you guessed it this is where perry is made charles tells me that his distillery is 400 years old he even showed me some property documents from 1810 built in 1650 so it's the oldest original distilling house still working at the british isles oh yes is it we know of no other older the pear cider or parry that is used to wash the rind of the cheese is later turned into the sweet pear spirit called poirot which is made out of perry and fresh pear juice cheers sweet it's sweet but not sugar sweet that's no no no sweet so peaceful here yes those are the peace this machine is called a pickling injector and it's directly injecting a salt water brine into this cut of beef infusing it with flavor it's one of the first steps that turns this into this traditional pastrami that new yorkers have been eating since the 1900s we take a closer look at the meat itself and see how traditional pastrami is made [Music] pastrami is a classic new york deli meat that comes from the navel of a cow these days it's most common to use beef brisket what makes it distinctive from other meats like corned beef is its brining process and it all starts here at a warehouse in the bronx first you have to start with the best cut of meat this identifies that it's choice meat which is a higher cuts of meat choice beef is known for its tenderness juiciness and flavor and is well suited for dry heat cooking with the demand we've been able to produce almost every day of the week new york city is home to a couple dozen jewish delis so it's no surprise that the warehouse goes through so much brisket so this is part of the reason why our pastrami tastes the way it is because it has a perfect blend of the the fat and the lean meat content we could go through all between 10 and 15 000 pounds a week of this of the brisket do you say 10 to 15 000 pounds yes oh wow the meat seen here is kosher as many old school delis in new york city are jewish to be labeled kosher animals have to be slaughtered in a certain way so that they cannot feel any pain and the meat must be soaked and salted for meat to remain kosher as it's shipped from a manufacturer to a facility like this amash kayak or supervisor must inspect the establishment to ensure it meets kosher standards my job is to make sure that when these products come in that they are kosher you'll see this box that says northland kosher beef and in addition right here in hebrew it says kosher meat kosher means fit for use and the bible tell us that uh the jewish people must keep kosher and so what if like let's say you do find something then we gotta start from zero the product is no good we've got to throw it away the meat is actually labeled with a k you see the kosher okay the meat also has a plumber and lets you also know that that is kosher the meat itself is washed every three days when all is inspected the meat can move on to the pickling or the brining process gone are the days of the industry where meats like pastrami are brine for two to four weeks now machinery like this speeds up the process by injecting the brine solution directly into the meat this allows the meat to retain the same amount of flavor it would get from brining the old-fashioned way all in just 24 hours so i honestly came in here assuming that we would have the meats in the brining solution and you'd have like a ton of refrigerators of like just them soaking up right but this is the this is this is the fastest way and is this a standard across the board for the volume that we're doing we wouldn't have the time to wait the two to three weeks we need to get it in and get it out the cuts of beef are pickled one at a time and injected to ensure the juices and flavors penetrate the meat thoroughly the brine and the solution that we use is is a proprietary just for us we created it it took many years to get it right but after years and years in the making we got it down this is the solution we use no one else has anything like it there's some salt there's some pepper there's garlic there's herbs there's spices but it would all be in a powder and a liquid form that we turn into it it's just the perfect flavor so when you eat our pastrami it's like wow so now that the meat is brined yes what is the next step what we're gonna do is obviously we're gonna seal each individual piece cryovac sealed and then that's it within by the next day tomorrow could be sold to the stores for consumption mark's team aims to brine and vacuum seal 5 000 pounds of pastrami at a time and after 24 hours the pastrami is headed to delis like pastrami queen this is a brisket this is the stomach part of a cow it's the most fatty and meatiest part of a cow if you didn't have the fat or as much fat as you need it will dry out as it cooks slowly the fat burns away and melts away slowly into the meat bringing the flavor further into the meat and therefore keeping it tender and juicy what happened if you kept more of the fat on the meat you would damage the tenderness and the quality of the meat the balance is very important what do we want to taste with the final product it has to be juicy it has to be savory you have to taste the fat the meat all the flavor that goes into it to get the pastrami ready for the smoker cooks add a dried rum it's been 14 days remove the meat from the brining process you add the salt the pepper the brown sugar to balance out the salty sweet flavor and then caramel we actually have caramel so you could be able to rub it and it's evenly around the meat which causes the perfect browning of the meat while it's being cooked and make sure the whole meat is covered so you brine it in these ingredients then you're also rubbing it yes you keep the flavor so as the meat breaks down and the fat breaks down the flavor continuously is being reinfused into the meat which makes the perfect pastrami and that's why you do twice like a brine in a dry rub yes two tons is always better than once the meat is then placed into a smoker for two to four hours at 225 degrees fahrenheit next comes the steam the piece of pastrami lies in the steamer for four to six hours this is what a final pastrami brisket would look like at pastrami clean yes sure you see all the seasoning and everything is still together it has a good consistency when you slice it it stays together so when you get a bite it's a fulfilling savory salty sweet caramelized flavoring that looks salivating holy moly it's hard not to take a bite of this meat right now i know this is our version it works best proof is in the pudding my customers have been customers for decades and decades depending on where you are in the world you will find a different version of bacon in the u.s you will have a savory piece of pork belly that's been cured and smoked as an italian my go-to bacon is pancetta dry cured dices of pork belly here in england your bacon will be a leaner but still juicy cut of meat from the back of the pig cured to perfection today we're in south cern in gloucestershire and we're at the batz farm a farm that specializes in rare breeds what we're going to see today is bacon made from gloucestershire old spots they're one of the oldest breeds here in the uk and they're known for having a tender marble meat so what better way to taste it than in the form of bacon thank you hello friend compared to more commercial pigs that feed on high protein and cereal an old spot follows a low protein diet complemented with grass worms and whatever they can match away at here at the farm the cholesterol spots also have a lot of fat on them naturally that's good you don't have to eat the fat but when you cook it you've got the fat running through the meat which gives you the flavor this is what we're going to be working with yeah this section is cut from the top of the leg to the fourth rib and on the other side the first flat bone across the thigh and the leg card pierces the skin a few times to allow the salt to get right into the center of the bacon he tells me that the best bacon is one that is cured within the first week after slaughtering the pig this is to avoid tough skin which the curing will make even tougher and will take all the moisture out of the meat drawing most of the moisture out is however our way to go with our dry cure today carl uses fine sea salt which he prefers as it gets right into the meat much quicker than coarse salt so you want to get all the cure mix into the center and when they're not having the nitrates in it does take that little bit longer to cure you want the salt to have contact first because that would just give you the right the right way to cure oh wow that's quite a lot of salt it is so so how many kills is that that's five for this much you'd probably only need two two and a half kilos of salt but it cures better if you just get that caked insult all right it doesn't really absorb more of it it just seals just get nice and covered so that provides the base of the cure so that will instantly start drawing out the moisture changing that product from pork into the baking products carl leaves a little bit of salt for later in the curing process after a few days the meat will be repacked with salt to drain the excess moisture that has come out the next ingredient to be added is unrefined brown sugar just like salt sugar will draw out moisture but it will also add a light sweetness to the meat and get rid of the sharpness of the salt just like salt a bit of sugar is safe for later the cure continues with pink and black peppercorns bay leaves and juniper berries the berries will bring lightness and sweetness with the sugar to the edge of the bacon and lots of color which is good be nice to have a big pestle of mortar and liquid yeah so you're just going to crush them yes i'm just going to gently just just to get some of the powder out of the peppercorns oh and the juniper berries are still they're still slightly wet because they're a berry as we break them there's just a little moisture still it's a little bit like doing making your gin and having the botanicals it is like that you can pick you can pick savoury and and strong flavors in your botanicals i've seen people do rosemary bacon and things like that oh hmm just trying to infuse different flavors in yeah you can you can just personalize it i think so i mean yeah i wouldn't want to see people experiment too too much well it's up to them i guess if but yeah bay leaves acts almost like a set stability for the flavour oh you just give them a little bit of a crush because they're fresh they're yeah they're very they're a very nice green i like the dry ones let's just give those a little rip nice having them grown on a nice smell yeah in the garden by one of our ladies in the office asked for some bay leaves she bought me half of her tree very good that looks fantastic already after 14 days and after removing the bones this is the end result of our curing process so we've got the back bacon and this is where it went from the shoulder that's where we came in from the leg so we generally take the back bacon off with a little tail so a small amount of the streaky remains on the back bacon yeah just because that's that's the shape we normally use plus it gives that little bit of fat yeah for sure do you just separate that down like that and that will give you streaky and you're back bacon oh butchers refer to dry cured unsmoked bacon like this here as green bacon or green back this is nothing scary and is completely natural it's just the salt slightly over curing the edges of the bacon a little trim and our gloucestershire all spots bacon is ready to be revealed if we then look at the center of the bacon that's when you've got that oh nice beautiful cure nice flavor going through there's a bit of marbling as well yeah so where you've got the really nice native breeds and the finish is really good on judy's picks it just starts to build up just a little bit of fat in the mussel which then cook for cooking makes it amazing just like it would yeah a ribeye steak the fat will always disintegrate first because it reacts to heat and and reduces so it just breaks the meat into part so your bacon is then quite tender which is quite a nice way to do things and so that's that's the speciality of like yeah yeah definitely you can find out yeah well you get your pork chops and there's not just fat on the outside you've got actually a nice bit of taste and flavor going through it which is really good wow so yeah so that's uh traditionally dry cured nitrate-free bacon so my first question is why did you put this in the oven rather than frying it well because it's got so much of its own lovely fat and we love fat around here we love food around here but we love fat as well especially especially you don't need to fry it in oil or butter and you wouldn't even need to turn it over which is why it really suits cooking in the oven especially me as a farmer you know the animals can get up to a dinner and i bang it in the oven and and i got sort of 20 30 minutes to go and sort out any crisis that might be on the farm and um and there you go it's ready without having to do anything okay and this is the most like traditional way around here too it is the most traditional way the the tradition is that you cook your bacon you fry your eggs in the fat and then you do your fried bread in the fat from the bacon all right so the bacon is the base for everything exactly and that is a traditional breakfast all right let's have a taste then oh let's have a go shall we hi lovely just like that so why is it that black bacon is more popular in here i think ready probably because you've got more meats of fat ratio yeah you know you've got all that that lovely eye muscle it's called there um the eye muscle you can relate to a pork chop on maybe loin and um and then and then the nice bit of crispy fat but the there's great you don't love fat quite as much as i do um then maybe you have got a bit more meat there yeah but i like i like the taste of the meat as well exactly yeah yeah and this is a great compromise between two yeah i love it yeah yeah i mean it tastes of pork doesn't it it shouts pork yeah you know you know what you're eating yeah and and you'll notice also that we're eating the rind it it's edible um and that that is because it's what's called supple first and this really just cured in a traditional way and you can eat all of it yeah right it's not chewy no no not at all i just i really like the fact that you can taste the fat but there's also a bit of that as carl was saying a little bit of that juniper berries oh definitely yeah yeah yeah so they are something you know yeah the one flavor complements the other you're not getting a dominant flavor though at all really good isn't it really good yum josephine it's over here darling and this here is dolly pig princess joan oh that's her title good boy gerald come on come on piggy wiggs he is such a poser oh that's it ecstasy this is a pig in ecstasy and it's so sweet just love them this is a black and white cookie topped with dark chocolate icing on one half and vanilla on the other it's a classic dessert that is only made right here on the east coast if you grew up in new york chances are you've seen black and white cookies at shops dotted across the state today we visit zara's bakery a company that ships its cookies nationwide to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making process bakeries like zarros can sell 100 000 cookies each year while recipes may vary from shop to shop the cookies are always slathered with rich chocolate icing on one side and vanilla on the other here in new york city you're likely to find a flatter denser vanilla cake-like cookie with a smooth shiny fondant icing meanwhile in upstate new york massachusetts and connecticut don't even think about calling them black and whites the cookies here are the half moon variety and although these cookies have made quite the footprint it's the new york city style that's made its claim to fame grabbed a couple of black and whites and a black and white cookie for me the recipe is simple it starts off with ingredients like oil eggs and lots of sour cream we use sour cream it's it helps to tenderize the cookie and keep it moist and soft and it also gives it a little bit of sour flavor is the purpose of the sour cream also to make it that sponge like texture yes it will it helps it certainly helps with the texture doing great good okay we did it it's messy and fun next comes the whole milk we're adding milk again more fat keeping it creamy keeping the cookies soft and helping to maintain that cakey texture the dry ingredients consist of baking soda baking powder salt and natural vanilla flavor but the key to black and whites is to add enough flour so the batter holds shape what ingredients in this make it more like a cake consistency versus a cookie consistency so we'll use a combination of ap flour and cake flour up next gonna be 40 pounds of sugar the sour cream is a big one we do use honey but those are the ingredients that we use to really keep it moist and fluffy like cake why it's something we've used honey for a long time honey does help cake and cookies to retain moisture better than just regular sugar while it smells really good this mixer is it's got to be 50 years old at least and it's one of these machines that you know they don't make them like this anymore for some reason when we've tried to mix our black and whites and some of the other mixers we've not gotten the result we like and what's that result a soft airy well-mixed beautiful cookie as soon as the flour mixture is complete and has zero clumps bakers move on to the making of the fondant it's icing sugar and water for the most part and then the chocolate is icing sugar water and cocoa powder for color and chocolate flavor there are some slightly different ingredients within the icing sugar that help it to set up we've used the fondant as long as i've been alive our great grandfather decided that was how he was making them i do think it was more of a new york city east coast way to make the cookie maybe new yorkers don't have time to carry around a black-and-white cookie with um with buttercream on top it would make too big of a mess it could be all right do you need help i would love some help oh yeah it's about 50 pounds it's a little smoky so we are going to mix the icing sugar for about four minutes at a very low speed to beat out any lumps and make sure it's nice and smooth and ready to take liquid i am setting up another timer now for four minutes and on that four minutes we are going to pour the water through the grate into here as it mixes slowly on first speed it's getting there you can see in the center see how it's starting to get shiny yeah that's what we're looking for throughout and so if it was a chocolate fondant you would put cocoa powder as the last step correct you get a different flavor but they're the same base what do you prefer chocolate yeah me too i'm a chocolate lover it kind of has a sticky texture to it it does it will be very sticky it will have a stringiness to it we're looking to get a very nice coating you're not seeing the bottom of the cookie and how long did this process take your great grandfather to develop when he came from poland he came from poland as a trained baker so somebody in poland trained him and taught him how to bake once the icing is at its optimal thickness bakers store the icing at ambient temperature in small buckets it's naturally cool at this point we keep it at room temperature the ambient around here stays at about 68 degrees we make about uh 400 pounds well sadly during during the the times the pandemic we're making about 100 pounds a week before the pandemic we were probably making 500 pounds of icing a week this is fun so you can see the consistency right yes very nice it looks like frosting but you can tell that if it stayed on a cookie it has more of a sticky consistency the longer we wait to do this the harder it will get to get out of this bucket how long can the fondant last it can last a couple weeks it's it's basically just sugar and water so it can sit out oh my god it's all these things are much harder than they look yes it's very true i'm sure at every place you go they usually are yeah it looks heavenly to eat and it does have a thicker consistency than frosting and it's definitely stickier this just came out of the mixing bowl and as you saw when we were pulling it out it was still pretty viscous and liquid it had flow to it you could see the flow is now stopping and it's starting to solidify oh yeah and this will get it will never get hard but it will get to a point where it's set up and dry and you could you could touch it and it won't it won't leave fingerprints it won't leave marks um and then underneath you'll have a little bit of kind of tender more tender icing underneath and so that's why it has it's time sensitive to get it out of the bowl because if we left it in the bowl from the top down it will continue wherever wherever's in the air will continue to harden okay so we are making the chocolate icing and i can already smell the cocoa can you talk about the chocolate fondant anything special oh my god my desire to bathe in it is that acceptable to say on television what we're doing right now is warming the fondant so that we can we can manageably spread it because the longer you wait that same setup process will happen again so it will cool down it will get harder and then you'll get inconsistent spread on each cookie you know full transparency i'm not good at this that's okay um but but with the basics of it always we're gonna scoop up some fondant yeah you're gonna wipe it across this way you're then gonna come back this way toward you to get a nice clean line you wanna get a good line right down the center and then you go back one more time and you clean the edge it's really important we put the white fondant on first and we let the white fondant go on it sets up and the reason we do it is so that you get a really nice clean line if you try and put them on at the same time this line tends to bleed and i only get a little bit right that's that's perfect okay so you can go that's fine go toward you okay now keep it the same way and then go away from you again like this and you want to spread out like here if you can yeah yeah i go back one more toward you and spread a little further that way not bad spread there a little it suits it's not bad no it's hey for your first time it's pretty good i'm very impressed thank you so much very impressed there you go why is it important to frost the bottom of the cookie the cookies bake this way so they get deposited and almost like a cake you get this little kind of crown on top of them that's how they bake you just don't get that really pretty edge and that beautiful separation between the two it's much harder on the round side of the cookie we believe in the tradition of this and we like doing them by hand the vanilla fondant has hardened and now we're adding the chocolate and it's a little bit more of a test because we got to get that perfect line i think that line is solid yeah but i put two there's a little too much on but that's okay it's gonna taste really good all right so go for it do you want me to do something yeah absolutely okay if you were to bake all this again what part of the process would you enjoy the most i would go with the eating part i never heard of black and white cookies prior to coming to new york where did you grow up i live in midwest like chicago that makes sense but i read online somewhere that the midwesterners call them harlequins really yeah and then do you know of the german version of this the mary connors yes i have read about them and it's very similar yeah it was brought over there with the soldiers during world war ii and they brought over this cookie and so the german soldiers were like oh it's the american cookie our family law is that our great grandfather and that a customer would come in with two small children who couldn't afford to buy two cookies one like vanilla one like chocolate my great-grandfather started doing icing one-half vanilla and one half chocolate your brother actually was telling us everyone has a different story on how they eat the cookie yes i generally take mine and if i'm gonna eat the whole cookie i'll kind of work from here as i prefer the chocolate if i'm sharing the cookie i usually break off the vanilla and give it to somebody else and i ate the chocolate like my wife loves the vanilla and i like the chocolate and so we're a good black and white pairing down up we'll get as much as we can in here oh my god it's trying to try and get low on it all of these things are much harder than they look yes it's very true i'm sure at every place you go they usually are yeah

Channel: Food Insider

Views: 244,522

Rating: 4.8209925 out of 5

Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER, regional eats, marathon

Id: sDuWx5iMENI

Length: 126min 47sec (7607 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021