In the UK, Sally and Mat will be tweeting from Forest Pig in the Wyre forest; Struan with Ruth and James at Trealy Farm; Nick is with Northfield Farm; Jane in Norfolk Diet Country with Blakeney Deli, De-lish and Brays Cottage Pork Pies.

How will we stay in touch? By Twitter, of course-t he official meaty communication darling of the whole darn Charcutepalooza Charcuterie world! For a list of the SAF meaty tweeters see my new list at @KatedeCamont/saf-uk.

Peter Barrett's Rubber Boots

Bravo.

Bravo, Bravo, Bravo to you all!

And especially to Peter Barrett, the persistently innovative, mouthwatering edgy talent from cookblog who swept the votes to become the Grand Prize Winner of the ‘Year of Meat’ called Charcutepalooza.

Peter’s contemporary tastes on traditional charcuterie reflects a new look at the oldways of curing and cooking we are discovering across the globe. I like it. I like the slipping of a bit of dried duck breast into a bowl of noodle & soup and the shaving of an overcured bresaola to make dashi. His Lamb Pastrami was damn cute and on cue and the miso-ed bacon tarte renversée an invitation to jump the traditional Gascon ship.

But here in Gascony, I stay the course and preach the old Frenchways.  I stray not far from the classic French farm methods of salt, smoke and time. In this Kitchen at Camont, there is very little equipment a food geek could love but an 8ft-wide chemineé and an airy pantry. Clay cassoles, glass jars of confit and summer fruit line the open shelves. The focus is always on the pure product, the nearby producers and the authentic luxury of time to get it right. Keeping the door open to the past is my chosen job.

So, I breathed a soft sigh of relief when I spotted those rubber boots on Peter. There will be Gascon muddy March fields to tramp, pig farms to explore, rainy markets with dripping umbrellas to scour and duck farms to quack over. Pack your Paris togs for the Grand Ham Shindig with Cathy, TrufflePig‘s Jack Dancy and the rest of the Charcutepalooza gang.  But when you come here bring the boots, Peter, bring the boots.

Interested in a week’s charcuterie adventure like Peter will experience?  Click here to find dates and more information…

Red Deer- 160 lbs., estate shot, delivered to our Butchery training room door by a crew of gamekeepers in green oil-cloth coats and caps.

This is why I am at the School of Artisan Food. This is why the students are here, too. To learn the not-so-gentle arts of Butchery and the sweet salty side of Charcuterie.

I challenge anyone to find a location like this in which to learn: the camaraderie of a group of 20+ students, a willing staff and teaching team of 20+, the old stones anchoring us to the traditions of past, a new approach to define the Artisan Food trades of the butcher, the baker, and yes, the cheesemaker.

• From this hanging carcass, after a morning with master butcher and teacher Viv Harvey, we begin the thoughtful process of creating products with the terroir of Welbeck in mind:
• salt cured hind hams
• salted loin
• strips of venison jerky
• sausages
• meat for pies
• terrine & pates

If you are following that great global charcuterie project- Charcutepalooza either virtually or in your own kitchens, then here is a special cadeau from us admirers- here on the Gascon Farm.

Since this month’s November Challenge (as described on Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s site) is curing and since we are proud here at Camont to be offering the Grand Prix (along with Trufflepig travel company and some other French friends) I want to help you all out- need a little inspiration? a bit of Gascon guidance? than take a look at this short video on boning and trimming a big Gascon ham to make the famous little Noix de Jambon like we do at Chez Chapolard.

Noix de Jambon Video

Part 2 will be posted shortly. stay tuned…

No, not dinosaur ribs. Yes, a full rack of ribs from a Chapolard pig-  a sow. And these  two are the latest smiling butcher students, Bryan Rudd of Portland, Oregon and Renzo Garibaldi of Lima, Peru who are training here on the Chapolard family farm through our Artisan Butchery & Charcuterie program.

 Bloody Bryan

With a new nickname and head full of ideas, Bryan and partner Mike back in PDX are getting ready for a new look at making great sausage at  http://gorillameats.com/. While they may not be making  these fresh boudin noir/black pudding/blood sausages every fresh Monday morning like Bryan was learning here on the farm here in France, we may see a variation on their sausage menu in PDX soon…It’s been a great 3 weeks with Bryan here in Gascony. We wish him the best as he gets ready to leave (with a brief stopover at SAF), Dominique (here with younger brother Marc) send their best wishes back to all our friends in Portland. As we say here at Camont around the big round terrace table- here’s to those who show up!

This is one of my all time favorite photographs taken over the years in my kitchen at Camont by bon vivant photographe extraordinaire- Tim Clinch.  It a celebration of the marche au gras (the fat markets) in the Southwest of France, an homage to the honest cooking of Gascony, and an encouraging reminder of the season ahead. November is Confit Season.

If you have been following along or creating the wonderful Charcutepalooza challenges posted by Mrs. Wheelbarrow here for the Grand Prix finale, then you know I hold these traditional cooking and preserving methods dear to my heart.  I am listing some of the archives on making duck confit, the traditional Gascon way- here:

• http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/01/30/confit-de-canard-duck-confit-part-1-how-to-buy-a-4-headed-duck/
• http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/02/04/confit-de-canard-duck-confit-part-2-like-meat-loves-salt/
• http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/02/10/confit-de-canard-duck-confit-part-3-7-french-tips/
• http://kitchen-at-camont.com/2009/01/26/fat-ducks-everything-you-need-to-know-from-confit-to-foie-gras

Grrlchef Sarah Wong dreaming up a little duck confit at Chez Bernard Daubin. Montreal-du-Gers.

• Foie Gras & Lotte cassolettes- oven baked Foie gras & monkfish on a bed of julienned aillets & carrots
• Foie Gras en Chemise Verte- spinach wrapped poached foie gras
• Confit de Canard
• Rillettes de Canard
• Paté de Foie Gras
• Terrine de foie gras
• Confit de Oie- goose
• Cassoulet Camontw/ saucisse de Toulouse,
• Grattons or cracklins- Gascon popcorn Piment d’Espelette
• Magrets seché fumé
• Magret Chemineé
• Huitres Roti (for a little duck relief)

I call it the Meat Museum.

The old scale in window on the ice box,

the red and white striped awning,

the yellow posters rallying the troops for bingo and angainst the new LGV- Ligne Grande Vitesse,

the bottles of very good, very local wine to go with a cote de boeuf; all point to the quality of an artisan butcher.

A man, a knife and his meat.

Welcome to my world.

Pork Belly by Tim Clinch

I swim in a sea of charcuterie every week as I plow the waves of good food produced by the neighboring farms of the Lot-et-Garonne: salted hams, meaty saucisson, head cheese, terrines, patés, and other cured and confited parts of the fatted pig. As a cook, I began my sea trials in meat here as I discovered the extraordinary flavors of each cured piece of the pig. I started to learn my hind leg for jambon from my forward leg- shoulder for fresh saucisse de Toulouse. Then it was loins and chops, ribs and collar. Next came the innards…

Like all novices, I worked my way up and down the coast of liver, kidneys, brain, lung, and blood. I watched as pigs were slaughtered and butchered on family farms, one at a time, with care and respect for the ‘year of meat’ to come. Then I began to help- trimming meat, carrying ourt orders from the grand-mères as whole pigs were put up in jars- canned, sterilized in a water bath and stored, or salted, peppered, and hung to age in a corner of the barn.  But it wasn’t until I barged into the life of a small pig farm that I learned the most important past of this ocean of charcuterie. It’s the pig. Just simply the PIG.

Imagine the first visit to the Chapolard farm in 1997 with my good friend Elaine Tin Nyo. She wanted to do a series of photographs and videos for one of her edibly inspired art exhibits. I had already begun cooking my way through the pig with the market advice of Marc Chapolard, who selling me a piece of pork a week talked me through the process of cooking boudin, salting a tail, or roasting a collar. There is an image of that first visit to Baradieu- Marc holding out his hands full of ground grains- grain that they grew on the farm to feed their pigs.

Oh, Pigs eat too. I want to know what I am eating eats. What? What do pigs eat?

lil'pig by Tim Clinch

My brain was moving slowly forward. These pigs eat wheat, barley, corn, oats, sunflowers, favabeans, soy… How big are they? Oh, big. Very big as these meat growing pigs are intended for charcuterie as well as fresh meat. Twelve months old, 400 lbs+ of solid red meat and firm flavorful fat. The Chapolards know that their mature pigs’ meat is fully developed in both flavor and structure. Here in Gascony, we believe that the best charcuterie is not just from certain types of breeds finished on fancy diets, but rather from a well balanced diet fed its entire life and a ‘grownup’, fully mature animal. Oh, this pork meat is like beef. Not veal. Can you imagine making corned veal, veal jerky, or veal bresaola? The meat cells must develop sufficiently to be able to cure properly both in flavor and in texture.

There are technical reasons behind all this, but for us amateurs of good meat our best chance to getting good pork is to ken your pork producer or artisan butcher and learn as much as you can, piece by piece. I have the luxury of, after 14 years, knowing the Chapolards well.  Baradieu is not a pigshit-free showcase farm; but they raise their Large White/Pietrai/Duroc pigs with the sort of care over 12 months from birth to slaughter that produces delicious and tasty meat. Like this slab of pork belly I used for my ventrèche géante.

“THE PRESENCE OF A BUTCHER IN A DISTRICT SAYS AS MUCH FOR ITS INTELLIGENCE AS FOR ITS WEALTH. THE WORKER FEEDS HIMSELF, AND A MAN WHO FEEDS HIMSELF THINKS.”

H. De Balzac- “The Country Doctor”