Re:Experiment # ?? Plain dry-aged duck

[Scott Mark]

RRP wrote:

quote :

got it! BTW you must have a lot of refrigeration and freezer space available…isn’t a 45 pound box of frozen duck with bone in a pretty size-able box?

Yes. Pretty large box. 18″x24″x6″ I’m fortunate to have friends and relatives in the food industry who are willing to indulge me with some extra freezer space and some advice on what to do with bulk food. And they like my stuff, so it’s a good two-way street.

I’m a little — sad isn’t the right word. Nor disappointed. Regretful? I wish that my favorite duck supplier also did foie gras. But they don’t. Straight duck, and I think they supply a good portion of the restaurants in USA. But for foie gras, I have to go to D’Artagnan. Consider that I could buy 10 ducks for the price of a single foie from D’Artagnan. Owch.

Getting back to the “experiment” theme — I’m still concerned about the thinking that dry-bagging is only for beef. (And this is a very ironic thing. Dry-baggers are a fringe element, and now I’m talking about aging other meats: a fringe WITHIN a fringe.) I’ve got venison and pork and duck aging. I’ll be doing lamb when I have space.

I feel like we, as a group, aren’t pushing the envelope, the boundaries, enough. I agree that the scientific literature indicates that some kinds of aging are not a good thing. But I feel that restricting ourselves to beef is overly limiting. The Compart-Duroc people are aging pork – they wouldn’t be doing it if people didn’t like the result. So I’m aging a pork loin. Someday, I’ll probably be aging a “T-bone” / “Porterhouse” bone-in pork sub-primal. Someday. They can make a profit so I can probably enjoy the same thing.