A Christmas cookbook by Jennifer McLagan, an Australian born writer and chef, provoked me to begin thinking of preparing food as more of an art and science. I will share some valuable lessons I have learned from her writings on cooking with bones and fat.
http://www.jennifermclagan.com/
Chefs including McLagen explain with a bit a practice and patience cooking with bones is quite simple. Both bones and the marrow containing bones added to broths and sauces add an incredibly nutty and rich flavor that’d be worth eating even if it were devoid of nutritional value. Current nutrition analysis have yet to confirm specific vitamin and mineral content of bone marrow (NCI -U of Michigan, 2014). Yet, searching for tidbits on bone marrow in my health science text conceptualizes its particularly advantageous components. Marrow is comprised of osteoblasts, osteoclasts, which form bone cells and promote mineral absorption and fibroblasts, which are essential for connective tissue formation in all mammalian bones (Sherwood, 2015).
A surge of anxiety began after the beginning annual recommendations published by the USDA. Governmental policy and USDA guidelines planted an unsubstantiated notion that Americans eat an excess of red meat. A Senate committee in 1977 established a set of “dietary goals” warning Americans to reduce red meat, egg and fat consumption (Pollan, 2006). The decrease in demand for red meat likely explains rapid rise in red meat retail prices rose by 53 percent from 2006 to 2016. This may explain why industrial poultry farms answering to the demand for convenience chicken products, such as boneless and skinless products (Binnie, Barlow, Johnson, & Harrison, 2014). However, government data also shows that Americans continually consume their recommended daily protein intake but not all Americans are consuming sufficient levels of other minerals and vitamins.
Human bodies are complex. Human health necessitates a wide range of nutrients, minerals and vitamins as well as fat. I recall emphasis in my university biochemistry, nutrition and physiology courses consistently supporting the importance of at least some fat as it is essential for vitamin delivery. Essential fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin A, D, E and K are stored in the liver and fatty tissues. The temperamental balance between science, industry and consumerism surrounding dairy-based diets for improving bone health yields concerns over lactose intolerance and reported amounts of synthetic hormones associated with raising dairy cattle (Park & Haenlein, 2013). Bone is living tissue that should regain some strength through cooking. High levels of calcium, collagen and phosphorus make-up allows bones to repair, grow and stretch. Bone marrow is the most nutrient dense animal source with even greater amounts of fat-soluble vitamins (Wright, Wang, Kennedy-Stephenson, & Ervin, 2003).
To reap the nutritious goodness from the entire animal we can make our own broths. Chefs in the media and at one of my local coffee shops and café suggest the first step to try homemade stock is to not throw the bones away! The cook at Night Heron Café in Laramie, Wyoming started selling cups on bone broth or even being given them from the local butcher explains instead of discarding the remains and washing the roaster she simply continues roasting her pork shoulders, and whole chickens in the roasting pan then continues to slowly roast the bones overnight. She continues with the slow simmer the next morning and has great success selling mugs full bone broth. She mentioned she cringes to think of serving chicken she did not independently peel from its bone. It is evident when you roast meat, you have an entire animal that can make a contribution.
American cuisine should not sacrifice dietary traditions and succulent flavour for speed and convenience. Meat products merit much more than parts of lean meat. Beyond the paramount importance of flavor and nutrition, the logical presence of bones forces us to acknowledge what we eat. As the famous British chef, Fergus Henderson proclaimed “It’s only polite really if you knock an animal on the head to eat it all: tripe, heart, feet, ears, head, tail. It’s all good stuff.”
After doing my research and skimming my books, I was pleased to discover Laramie’s sourcing of quality marrow bones at the Butcher Block. I have roasted the butcher’s bones this semester for stocks, soup and marrow. I look forward to purchasing corn beef cuts in the coming month!
https://www.facebook.com/TheButcherBlockLLC
Bon appetite tout le monde!
-Claire Dinneen