Home-grown feasting...

Only three days remain in Cuisine Across Cultures, and the cycle is coming to the close with food that really hits close to home-- American food.

This is one of those food cycles that is such a hodgepodge it's tough to define. Apple pie? Sorry, French. Soul food? Nope, African. Hamburgers!? Those European butchers had to find a way to make the less-than-best cuts of meat available to them edible.

If anything you have to go regional. You want steak in America? See you in Texas. Gumbo? Louisiana, obviously. That Maine lobster is going to be stellar in Maine and expensive as all heck in Alaska. That ham and pineapple pizza you got last week? Aloha, Hawaii.

Think comfort food. That's American food to me. Chances are one of the dishes in the above slide show was on the table at your last Thanksgiving, if not last week.

Anyway-- the rundown: Scalloped Potatoes, Fried Scallops, Beef Stew, Cheese Grits, Pot Roast (don't know where the pic of that went), Swiss Steak...you've seen and eaten these products in your life so I'm not going to badger you with the details. As we all know, they're delicious. I mean I can't eat a Swiss Steak in any capacity without immediately comparing it to my mother's.

The Codfish Cakes were tasty. You start with very heavily salted cod that has been soaked in water for a few days to cut the intense salt flavor. I'm not going to lie, when the fish was finally cooked and being shredded for the dish...it smelled like a foot. But through the miracle of cooking (and the right spices), foot fish became tasty fish. That's weird to say, sure, but it's true.

Brunswick Stew was a new one for me, and honestly it was pretty similar to the Beef Stew. The main ingredients received a bit of a face lift, however, as chicken and rabbit were used in the variations we made in class. Hearty, satisfying-- perfect for those cold Midwest nights.

Side note: I got to fabricate my first rabbits (sorry if anyone was a huge fan of Thumper in Bambi). There's not a ton of meat on the little guys, but I'd say the process is a hybrid of boning a chicken (for the legs) and a fish (for the loin and tenderloins). I must also say that rabbit is delicious. The other, other woodland creature meat I suppose.

Gumbo has been a mixed bag when it has popped up on kitchen menus this year in school. In month three, it was 50/50 if it was any good. In Catering and Buffet, the Gumbo made for the final buffet was *terrible* to say the least. And the first day or so in this food cycle, I still wasn't impressed. It's not hard to make, really, it's just easy to screw up. For some reason people go a little heavy-handed on an ingredient (be it the roux preparation or the hot sauce), and what you get is a one-hit wonder...and we're talking Aqua's "Barbi Girl" here. Yuck.

As I frequently seem to do on this blog, I'm going to rave about *my* preparation of the Gumbo. Why? People were raving about it to me, so I must have done something right. All I can modestly say is that, for once, the flavors were balanced. I didn't get bitter, ingredient, salt, burn, bitter. It just tasted like a hearty stew, and it was especially delicious over rice.

Every now and then I seem to pull something out thin air and make it delicious. I think it's because when I keep tasting something and it lets me down, I work extra hard to make it succeed when i have a crack at it. Granted this is my opinion here, but let me make one thing clear-- you don't have your peers or Chef rave about your food every day. You're lucky if you get it once a week.

The Shrimp Etoufee is similar to the Gumbo, just spicier. The "Trinity" (celery, onions and green pepper) are all mixed into a very dark roux, and after that it's time to get heavy-handed with the Cajun seasoning and Tobasco. Very tasty, I must say, but I like spicy.

I don't do pineapple and ham on a pizza, so the Pork dish had very little appeal to me. There's sweet (like say, a Honey Baked Ham), and then there's weird-sweet. I do love me some grilled pineapple though. All vegetables and fruits should be grilled whenever possible.

Succotash may be a new side dish for me. Think Creamed Corn with Lima beans and red pepper in the mix. We're talking five ingredients here, put them in a pot together, stir and boom-- Succotash. Makes a great side at your next family get together.

We end today with the Mushroom Stuffed Chicken. Honestly, I didn't care for it. That's a very weird thing for me to say --I love chicken and mushrooms-- but for some reason this dish didn't do it for me. All signs have to point to the sauce I guess, or perhaps there was a sauce on the mushrooms. Stuffing chicken is a new obsession of mine, but I think I will steer clear of this take.

OK-- all that's left before a four-day weekend starting Thursday is a BBQ in kitchen and a couple of tests/projects here and there. I'd make a point to stop back for the BBQ pics, as we're going all out (Pulled Pork, Ribs, BBQ Sauces from scratch, etc).

I will also wrap up this month of class by finally producing a list of NAME THAT MEAT MASCOT finalists, because I know there's five of you who care out there.