It's a Mighty Good Food

Over the weekend, I spent some time at the 2006 Convention of the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors. It was held out at the Marriott West in Middleton and I don't think there was a vegetarian/vegan within a mile of the joint. Although it was a four-day affair, I only had a brief amount of time on Saturday morning to check out all things fleshy. In addition to the meat tasting competition, there were to be seminars on food safety and promotion of products. AND a sausage sculpture competition for kids!

I parked my car around 9:30 and walked into the Convention Center. Other than a trio of men standing in the hall chatting, there was no one else around; no people milling about nor any concierges attending to the needs of the conventioneers. But the pungent smell of meat hung heavy in the air. Not of any one variety mind you, but rather a metaaroma of pork, poultry, and beef that was raw, cooked, cured, and smoked. It was the smell of all meats. And none. I was to meet my buddy Ed, who was judging, out in the lobby. He'd get me into the judging area which was closed to the general public. I didn't immediately find Ed but, as I was enjoying a smokey treat outside, he found me. He was clutching a nice, clean white lab coat which I promptly threw on. We went into the Mendota Room where some judging was going on and I realized that I didn't register and thusly had no ID card. So we moseyed to the registration desk. I filled out a form and Ed remarked that I was a judge helper type from DHFS. Voila! An ID badge for free! With all the hoo-had squared away, we went back to the judging room.





The smell was absolutely mouth-watering! There were a couple dozen folks clad in similar lab coats to mine scattered throughout the room. Most hovered over tables whose tops were covered with packages of meat of one kind or another. Other folks were scurrying from a microwave with plate in hand to their table. Ed was judging whole muscle jerky with a gentleman named Franky from Green Bay.



The outside edge of their table was strewn with packages of the stuff. In the center was a pile of sheets of paper that they used to record their findings. They judged flavor, texture, color, uniformity of shape, blemishes, et al.



They began judging each sample by looking and smelling. Ed had the clipboard so he'd record their takes on each. Then they'd rip off a bit to sample. As they chewed, they would talk to each other describing the flavor and texture before settling on a numerical score for each quality. When done, they spit out the meat, cleansed their palates with something to drink, and moved on to the next contestant.



Since I didn't want to disturb them too much, I wandered around with my camera in-hand. The first table I hit was the large diameter jellied loaves.





There were tons of categories and I was only in one of the tasting rooms. Here's a sampling:

Smoked bratwurst


Smoked/Cured Beef


Smoked Poultry


Hams: bone-in, semi-bone-in, and processed


Traditional Sanck Sausages
>

Liverwurst


My buddy Pete was also a judge on Saturday. He got paired up with another guy to determine the best natural casing wiener. That's him on the right. Just after I snapped this picture, he said, "That was awful!"



This is the Summer Sausage table:


These are the judges for pre-cooked Brats, if I recall correctly.


Now these two pictures are from a miscellaneous category. From L to R it looks like a slab of bacon, a pastrami, and a rack of ribs that had been smoked. I'm not sure it the middle hoolie is pastrami or not. It was covered it what appeared to be mustard seeds.


Here's a close-up of a smoked pork loin:


I stopped back to see how Ed and Franky were coming along. They showed me this sheet of jerky that was like a roofing shingle. Ed explained that it was cut with the grain of the meat instead of against it as it's supposed to be. This thing was rock hard. They were none too impressed with this year's contenders. One tasted like a really sweet teriyaki roll-up - couldn't taste the meat. Another variety was like biting into a slab of smoke. Ed remarked that the best ones weren't really super-great but at least they could taste the meat.



While my mouth watered the whole time I was there, my salivating became a flood of Biblical proportions when I got to the bacon table.





Oh...my...fuck! It was like being in heaven. Just looking at the tasty slabs sent curious thoughts through my head - wrapping doughnuts in bacon, slathering bacon in butter - you know, all the Homer Simpsonesque artery-clogging measures. I am sorry to report that I did not have the opportunity to sample any of the bacon. It pains me still. For a brief time, I cogitated upon stealing one of the slabs. How would it have looked to have had one of them underneath my lab coat? Would anyone have noticed? Presumably, the moment I stepped out the door of the convention center, I would be beset upon by dogs from miles around and chewed to death as they tried to get their maws upon my bacon.

I have even shot a wee video of the action on the floor. It is here. (QT)

I returned to see how Ed and Franky were doing and they actually put me to work. So I grabbed a pencil and a calculator and set out to tally the totals for their jerky scores. With this complete, we headed to the product show to check out some wares.

Now here's something I'd like to have:



I'm not sure what it's called officially so I just call it a super-vacuum marinator. You slap your meat inside with a marinade and the air gets sucked out causing the liquid to get sucked into the flesh. Ed boasted that it could cut an 8-hour marinade job down to 20 minutes. Better life through technology, I tells ya. I also ran into a purveyor of knives and this guy had a sweet 12" chef's knife that I coveted. It may be a birthday present to myself. There was a meat tenderizer that Ed warned me about. He remarked that they're quite good at tenderizing hands. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association had a big display up:



I managed to snag some interesting literature from their table. In addition to illustrating which cuts of meat come from which part of the cow, the pamphlet described the latest in beef research:

Researchers discovered that several tender and flavorful muscles in primals and subprimals could be extracted and turned into new cuts of beef that offer greater consistency and tenderness. More options for steaks and roasts - which can be prepared in a variety of ways - equals less product going to the grinder.

Inventing new cuts of beef - now that must be quite a job.

I also spent some time checking out the booths of various companies that sell spices, sauces, and marinades. Basically any and every type of seasoning mix was there. I ended up leaving with a few pounds of seasoning. If anyone needs a glaze for hams, drop me a line and I can set you up with a pound or two of the stuff.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to stick around and check out the children's sausage sculpting competition as I had to head downtown for a lecture.