Veal or Real Veal

[John Coloccia]

The takeout/delivery menu for my local pizza place gives me a choice of sandwiches. I can have "Veal" or "Real Veal".

Discuss.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Anything to do with goats?
.

[Gene Howe]

WTH is just "veal"? Plastic?
I would be concerned.:eek:
I would be patronizing a different sandwich shop.

[Zach England]

Why do all the food topics here concern food I dislike?

[Mitchell Andrus]

Why do all the food topics here concern food I dislike?

We could discuss mountain oysters instead.

Philadelphia has it's cheese steaks, New Orleans has Mud Bugs (cray fish), New York has cheese cake, Chicago has pizza, San Fransisco has that rice stuff.... so what's SLC known for?
.

[Rick Potter]

When I was a kid (long, long ago), my mother would make "mock chicken" for dinner, because it was cheaper than real chicken. It was veal, formed into a drumstick shape, with a popsicle stick stuck in it. This was in Cleveland, and I have never run into anyone else who ever heard of it.

Maybe your 'veal' is really chicken??

Rick Potter

[David G Baker]

I don't do real or fake veal. I got educated on how they raise the calves and won't support folks that raise livestock in that manner.
Mitchell,
Depends on how high up the mountain the oysters were harvested. :D

[Jim Koepke]

Depends on how high up the mountain the oysters were harvested.

When I worked on a horse ranch it was about 3 to 5 feet depending on if they were Shetland's or Clydesdale's.

Also won't eat veal.

jim

[Neil Pabia]

The veal would probably be veal patties that are processed and breaded, real veal would be veal cutlets.

[Zach England]

We could discuss mountain oysters instead.

Philadelphia has it's cheese steaks, New Orleans has Mud Bugs (cray fish), New York has cheese cake, Chicago has pizza, San Fransisco has that rice stuff.... so what's SLC known for?
.


Jello with shaved carrots and "funeral potatoes" (ask your closest Mormon neighbor).

There is actually a pretty decent restaurant scene here--a lot of contemporary italian and californian cuisine. There are also a lot of fine tapas places.

Goat cheese pizza with kalamata tepanade, maybe? That's more my style. Or maybe some braised tempeh with wild mushrooms and polenta...

[Ray Bell]

"Goat cheese pizza with kalamata tepanade, maybe? That's more my style. Or maybe some braised tempeh with wild mushrooms and polenta..."

Other than pizza, and mushrooms, I have no idea what any of this is.....

[Jerry Bruette]

I didn't want to be the first one to say it, but I support David's take on veal. If you only knew...you wouldn't be interested in ordering any veal.:eek:

[Pat Germain]

I sure enjoy a good steak. But I draw the line at veal. It just doesn't seem right to me considering how the poor little calf is raised. But I certainly have no business telling others what to eat.

To veal or not to veal. That is the question.

[Zach England]

Foie gras, anyone?

[Belinda Barfield]

Neil is correct, unless cutlets are specified the "veal" will be ground and in patty form.

If I stopped to think about how animals are raised and processed I probably wouldn't eat any meat at all. I try not to think too much . . . it gives me a headache. :D I have difficulty eating any animal I've known personally with the exception of a chicken. Chickens don't seem to have as much personality as a pig or a cow.

[John Keeton]

Not much on veal anyway, but the original concept of veal is not offensive to me - taking a newborn calf.

I would have to agree on some of the current methods of raising veal calves. However, there are some pasture or free raised veal calves that are not treated in an inhumane manner, but produce the same low fat meat. The problem is, of course, how would you know that the meat is being properly marketed.

[Zach England]

Neil is correct, unless cutlets are specified the "veal" will be ground and in patty form.

If I stopped to think about how animals are raised and processed I probably wouldn't eat any meat at all. I try not to think too much . . . it gives me a headache. :D I have difficulty eating any animal I've known personally with the exception of a chicken. Chickens don't seem to have as much personality as a pig or a cow.


There's nothing wrong with not eating any meat. I eat very little, and if I felt compelled to eat none for ethical (or other) reasons it would be fine with me.

My chickens have lots of personality, but that has never stopped me from giving them the chop. However, when I do that I have to do it surreptitiously because my neighbors tolerate my illegal chickens but I have a feeling they'd be less tolerant of seeing my slaughter them. I don't exactly live in farm country.

[Tom Godley]

Maybe it is like fake seefood (spelling correct) that I see in some supermarkets :(

Without getting into any ethical debates on food production. Veal has a long history dating back to antiquity. Since only female cows can give milk -- what do you do with the males? Well -- you feed them the byproducts of the milk and cheese production occurring on the farm and slaughter them at a young age.

Same reason that most of the chickens available in supermarkets we eat are males.

[Zach England]

Maybe it is like fake seefood (spelling correct) that I see in some supermarkets :(

Without getting into any ethical debates on food production. Veal has a long history dating back to antiquity. Since only female cows can give milk -- what do you do with the males? Well -- you feed them the byproducts of the milk and cheese production occurring on the farm and slaughter them at a young age.

Same reason that most of the chickens available in supermarkets we eat are males.

In the poultry industry newly hatched cockerels are euphemistically referred to as "packing peanuts" because they are used to keep the pullets warm then abruptly slaughtered.

However, I doubt that most chickens in grocery stores are male. The chickens raised commercially for meat are very different from those raised for egg production. Meat birds convert food into body mass much more quickly and efficiently than layers. For most poultry operations it would be more cost efficient to "discard" cockerels of the laying breeds than to feed them to broiler size.

[Kent A Bathurst]

SWMBO does not eat meat - nearly always a vegetable-tarian. While she is a gourmet cook, that's over the top for everyday meals, and we enjoy stuff like salad w/"ground beef" - I like the occasional beans+franks (Especially with a mountain of diced Vidalia onions all over 'em, right Belinda?), etc.

The challenge is that while, for beans + franks 2 types of dogs get cooked, the communal items are always suspect to me. I refuse to eat tofu - she tells me that the "ground beef" is turkey, but I have serious doubts sometimes.

As to veal - Yuuummmmm!! Coupla very good Italian restaurants within walking distance - one modest, one very high-end. Veal marsala, scallopini, parmigian.....I could go on and on - like Bubba's shrimp receipes in Forrest Gump. And the home's gourmet cook - even though she doesn't eat meat, she can darn sure prepare it. Stuffed Veal Breast, and her incomparable Veal Crown Roast.

My offshoot branch of PETA - People Eating Tasty Animals.

[Tom Godley]

Zach -- Can't comment on all chicken production as things change all the time.

But I have a good friend in the duck/ chicken business in "chicken land" on the eastern shore of maryland -- this is what he told me.

[Charlie Reals]

I was raised on a truck farm in sight of steel foundries and Gerber's baby food lol. We sold to small butcher shops,chickens,turkeys,ducks,squab along with rabbits. I love veal cutlets butt you can keep the ground stuff. We had fried chicken, biscuits and gravy for dinner last night. One of the daughters didn't want to eat the chicken because it was just butchered a week ago and has never seen hormones. That lasted until she got one taste ;) she is taking 3 chickens home with her. Can't beat fresh.

As an aside though, much of my yute was spent cleaning chicken coops. I still hate the smell of scalding hot feathers.
Charlie

[mike holden]

Rick,
Mock chicken or city chicken is a delicacy from my childhood. SE Michigan, you could buy it in the Grocery as chunks of veal and pork skewered and with a strip of bacon wrapped around it. Breaded and fried with some greens and taters - yummm!
Mike

[Tim Morton]

I still hate the smell of scalding hot feathers.
Charlie

worst smell ever!!!

[Eric DeSilva]

Foie gras, anyone?

Yes please.

Had some Saturday evening, seared over micro-greens on one side of the plate, and little quarter sized discs of pate suspended in a sauterne aspic on the other.

[Rob Fisher]

Jello with shaved carrots and "funeral potatoes" (ask your closest Mormon neighbor)...


Uhhh...huh??!!?! Not many Mormons around here, just Amish. So spill...whats a "funeral potato"?

Rob

[Bonnie Campbell]

Uhhh...huh??!!?! Not many Mormons around here, just Amish. So spill...whats a "funeral potato"?

Rob

Google can even find 'Mormon funeral potatoes'.... sounds good, I'll have to give them a try :)

[Zach England]

Google can even find 'Mormon funeral potatoes'.... sounds good, I'll have to give them a try :)


it can be if you follow some simple rules:

no cubed ham
no potato chips

please do not use the frozen hash browns. Get out your food processor and shred some potatoes.

now the green jello with shaved carrots...there is no redeeming quality in that.

Also google "hawaiian haystacks". No ward event is complete without them.

[Zach England]

Uhhh...huh??!!?! Not many Mormons around here, just Amish. So spill...whats a "funeral potato"?

Rob

it is a potato casserole, usually topped with crumbled corn flakes.

You'd be surprised how well we (I use the first-person pronoun loosely here) can blend in. You are also close to a lot of Mormon heritage sites in that part of the country.

If you like I can arrange for some nice young men to answer all your questions. :)

[Belinda Barfield]

I can tell y'all about Southern "funeral potatoes". Sorry, Zach, we use the frozen cubed hashbrowns and sometimes chopped ham. The hashbrowns and ham get mixed with cream or chicken or cream of mushroom soup, onions which have been sauteed in butter (and the butter), sour cream, and lots of cheese, then baked.

[John Keeton]

The hashbrowns and ham get mixed with cream or chicken or cream of mushroom soup, onions which have been sauteed in butter (and the butter), sour cream, and lots of cheese, then baked.Sounds like a heart attack on a plate!!:eek: Straight out of Paula Deen's kitchen! Start everything with a stick of butter.... and somewhere along the way, add more butter!

[Belinda Barfield]

Sounds like a heart attack on a plate!!:eek: Straight out of Paula Deen's kitchen! Start everything with a stick of butter.... and somewhere along the way, add more butter!

LOL . . . isn't that the only way to cook, John? Actually, it is very close to a heart attack on a plate. There is a delightful book entitled Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. The book addresses funeral food customs of the Mississippi Delta. If your wife enjoys cooking, get a copy for her as it is full of great recipes.

[John Coloccia]

That will be the name of my first cookbook:

"Heart Attack on a Plate - Everything is Better with Bacon Fat...Including Bacon Fat" by John Coloccia.

So, no takers on the fake veal, eh?

[Mike Cruz]

How about when Paula made corn on the cob and SMOTHERED them with mayo! uuuuuuugggggghhhhhhH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, I love Paula, how can't you, but mayo on corn on the cob? C'mon ya'll.......

[Mike Cruz]

Hey, Mitchell, you forgot that Maryland has crabs!...

[John Keeton]

Thanks, Belinda, for the cookbook tip! I grew up in eastern KY and EVERYTHING started with lard! Biscuits started with it, gravy started with it, etc., etc. So, actually, Paula's switch to butter may be a health conscious choice!!!:D;)

Since we have drifted along the way with this thread, do you southern belles still do red-eye gravy?

[Belinda Barfield]

Thanks, Belinda, for the cookbook tip! I grew up in eastern KY and EVERYTHING started with lard! Biscuits started with it, gravy started with it, etc., etc. So, actually, Paula's switch to butter may be a health conscious choice!!!:D;)

Since we have drifted along the way with this thread, do you southern belles still do red-eye gravy?

As best I recall I haven't made red-eye gravy in about 15 years, but I'm sure I could whip up a batch if necessary. :D I prefer cheese grits and red-eye gravy just doesn't work with cheese grits.

[Jerome Hanby]

I didn't want to be the first one to say it, but I support David's take on veal. If you only knew...you wouldn't be interested in ordering any veal.:eek:

Enclosed in a stall or crate, pumped full of antibiotics and force fed milk or grain, then slaughtered and delivered to a shop or restaurant near you. Yummy.

You can take the sentence , If you knew how they handled ______, you would never... and fill in the blank with anything. If thinking about how they produce veal makes you squeamish, then don't ever, ever look into how a chicken processing plant works. If you carry all of this to its silly extreme you'll end up sitting in your garage, strumming your guitar, singing "It's ok to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings"

[Jerome Hanby]

I can tell y'all about Southern "funeral potatoes". Sorry, Zach, we use the frozen cubed hashbrowns and sometimes chopped ham. The hashbrowns and ham get mixed with cream or chicken or cream of mushroom soup, onions which have been sauteed in butter (and the butter), sour cream, and lots of cheese, then baked.

In my spot of the south, we top it with Pepridge Farm herbal stuffing mix instead of corn flakes. Those are yummy topping squash casseroles too (the non eggy type).

[Kent A Bathurst]

[QUOTE=John Keeton;1435696]Sounds like a heart attack on a plate!!:eek: QUOTE]

Ya oughta try a dish called Southern Benedict. Like eggs benedict, except it isn't much like it. Biscuits. Then bacon. Then the poached eggs. In a small casserole-type dish. Fill dish with sausage gravy.

[Mike Henderson]

Veal is a by-product of milk production (so if you buy milk, you're supporting veal production). A dairy cow's milk production starts to decline at about one year since her last calf. To bring the production back up, the cow has to be "freshened", which means to have a calf. In the really old days, the calf was taken from the mother and given a severely restricted amount of milk (because the farmer wanted the milk from the cow).

The marketing of veal gave value to those calves, and not just the male calves. A dairy herd generally produces too many female calves for all those calves to be used for milk production - many wind up as veal.

When I was a boy living on a farm, the dairy farmers often bred their cows to a beef bull (through artificial insemination) so the calf was half dairy, half beef (maybe a Holstein bred to a Hereford). These calves would be sold to other farmers (non dairy farmers) who would raise them to about a year old, then slaughter them for meat for the family. But if they couldn't be sold, they often were not fed very much. More than once we bought some calves from dairies that were in pretty bad shape, but they recovered when fed commercial milk formula with a nipple bucket.

Regarding chickens, there's two basic kinds of chickens: broilers and layers. Layers are raised for egg production and are not very beefy. Laying chickens are generally kept for only one year for egg production, at which time they are slaughtered. Back in my time, we sold the old layers as stewing hens.

Broilers are bred to be very fast growing, with large breast. I don't remember the time from hatching to slaughter, but it's pretty quick, maybe eight weeks. Your KFC chicken comes from broiler chickens.

All this was fifty years ago but I expect it's still much the same.

Mike

[Oh, one more thing. When you buy baby chicks, you can get them "sexed", meaning that they are examined and you only get the hens (if you want layers). The people who do the sexing are pretty good because out of 100 baby chicks, we wouldn't get more than one or two roosters (if you order 100, you would usually get 102 to 103 to account for shipping mortality and roosters). If you don't specify "sexed" chicks, you usually get mostly roosters (the rejects from the layer chicks). And male leghorns (for example) are not of much value.

I never asked what happened to the male chicks but they were probably discarded by the hatchery.]

[Leigh Costello]

Great, now I have to go to bed and dream about tasty potato dishes, cheesy grits and corn on the cob sans mayonaise. Then face good old fashioned oatmeal for breakfast! Sorry, but I do eat veal parmisan on occasion.