We’re not afraid to tackle the big questions here at The Butcher. Just such a question has recently arisen over what exactly is Pulled Pork? There are two sides that have been taken in this debate, and the arguments are below. We’ll be appealing to some higher powers for a definitive answer, but in the meantime please feel free to consider, contemplate and weigh in.

Pulled Pork is BBQ. End of Story
Occasionally at The Butcher, we come across folks who are grossly misinformed about meat and its provenance. We found ourselves in just such a position this past weekend when we were confronted by an individual who made the specious claim that (to paraphrase) “pulled pork need not be barbecued, it simply must be pork that is pulled from any cut of the pig prepared in any cooking manner.” To wit, went this argument, “pulled pork” is not a cooking technique involved in barbecuing a pig, but instead is a method of preparing any pork cut.

Our bile was up at this suggestion as it is our contention that “pulled pork” is barbecue—end of story. And yes, there are any number of pretenders to the “pulled pork” genre and Paula Deen will happily tell you how to make pulled pork in a slow cooker. But this is no more accurate than calling sparkling wine from the Finger Lakes region of New York, Champagne. All sparkling wine is not Champagne just because it has bubbles, and all pork that is pulled is not pulled pork strictly because it’s been pulled. Sabe? Then there are people who will just call any old artificially carbonated white white champagne (they’ll even drink the stuff). But don’t get us started on Sandra Lee.

Pulled Pork is NOT Necessarily BBQ
I sense that over the course of this debate, I have somehow become positioned as a dilettante of barbecue. Admittedly, I am no expert in this arena, but as one who certainly appreciates the tender juicy goodness of slowly cooked pig, I feel that I am entitled to assert my humble opinion. It’s true that in some circles in the South Eastern United States, pulled pork is synonymous with barbecue. I just don’t think the story ends there.

I’d also like to state that the act of pulling or shredding pork (or any other meat) is dependent upon the cut of the meat as well as the cooking technique employed. Obviously, grilled pork chops don’t lend themselves to being pulled. Besides, why would one want to violate a perfect package of meaty goodness? But, I digress…

After a fair amount of contemplation,I have realized that the root of this contention lies plainly in the semantics of the term barbecue. The term itself can be used in a variety of ways: as a noun to refer to the meat, the cooking apparatus itself, or to a party that includes such food or such preparation methods. The term can also be used as an adjective to refer to foods cooked by this method, or as a verb for the act of cooking food in this manner. With all the flexibility of usage, it’s no surprise that this type of debate crops up from time to time.

Bottom line: It is completely reasonable to say that pulled pork is barbecue. Moreover, it is reasonable to say that pulled pork does not have to be barbecue. It is pork that is pulled apart prior to being served. There are many traditions around the world that employ the technique of slow cooking various cuts of meat by braising, or by traditional or convection baking, or by utilizing a slow cooker whereby the meat is pulled apart before it is served. I shudder to think of the reaction by any persons of Caribbean or Mexican heritage if referred to as “pretenders” of deliciously and authentically prepared dishes such as Pork Carnitas, or Ropa Vieja.

So there you have it readers. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. sit on a sprawling grassy campus formerly occupied (and still owned by) HP. Behind the main building is a basketball court, which if today’s menu is any indication, employees had better start using.

Today, the day of Facebook’s hot-anticipated press conference coming off it’s lockdown period, the court hosted not a game of 3-on-3, but three folding tables laden with hamburgers, barbecue ribs, collared greens, mac and cheese, and cookies. The ribs had just a hint of the slightly sweet tang of Korean BBQ, and the mac and cheese clotted above the canned heat. And, save the buttery greens, there was not a vegetable in sight.

In short, the meal will take a great deal longer to digest than today’s announcement.

Ryan Farr couldn’t find his ribs. Basically an entire side of beef — grass-fed and dry-aged Highland  beef courtesy of Long Meadow Ranch — either hadn’t arrived or had gone missing. Farr, of 4505 Meats, was preparing to demonstrate long-rib butchering at Primal Napa (the double meaning of the name refers to the obvious as well as the primal cuts, which comprise every animal), a day-long celebration of open fire cooking, sustainable meat production, whole-animal utilization, and bacon. A ridiculous amount of bacon. (“There’s bacon EVERYWHERE” one happy attendee posted on Twitter.)

But at that particular moment, enjoying the bacon was far from the mind of Chef Dave Varley of Bourbon Steak in DC, one of the many talented chefs who traveled to Napa to help put on this carnivorous tour de force. Varley kept whispering to butcher Kari Underly of Range Inc in Chicago, who was cutting a different side of beef, hung precariously from a chain in a tree overlooking the vineyards of Chase Cellars in St. Helena, Calif., Primal’s home for the second year in a row. Underly, a third generation butcher, laughed at the prospect of what her butcher father would have to say about butchering an animal from the vantage from which she currently worked.

Chef Varley and Underly at work

If the Highland couldn’t be found, Varley, whose task it was to cook the beef Underly was butchering, said they’d stop at the ribs and share the side with Farr, meaning they’d miss some important sirloin cuts. Just as Underly got close to where she’d need to stop, word came that the Highland had turned up (and what a beauty, dark and well-marbled). Underly grinned. “Let’s have some fun with them,” she said, getting into the choice cuts and swinging them over onto the table where she separated the cuts.

Chef Varley surveyed the slabs of beef, some of which were so tender Underly could rip the cuts away with her bare hands, and wondered at how he might cook them. “This,” he said eying a roast, “we’ll put in a salt oven.” Salt oven?

Now would be a good time for us to explain that all of the cooking at Primal is done in a field over open fires. The chef got to work, tending a fire surrounded on all four sides by cinder blocks. He dropped an iron plate on top of it, sending flames shooting from the holes in the blocks. Next he began building another layer over the plate with more cinder blocks, which he then began to fill with salts and spices. Oh, that salt oven.

Avia Hawksworth of Long Meadow Ranch and Ryan Farr

The crowd watching Josh Applestone prepare a pig

Meanwhile, on the main stage, New York’s Joshua Applestone of Fleisher’s Grass-fed Meats sawed through a whole heritage-bred pig (a sirloin roast from which we had the pleasure of grilling the next day) while Jessica Applestone explained to the crowd what he was doing and why, saying that this (and not very long ago) once went on in every community in America and wasn’t an oddity at all. You might take, as a start in understanding the type of conscientious carnivores who take part in Primal the fact that when the Applestones (now partners at Fleisher’s) first met, Joshua was vegan and Jessica a vegetarian (“With,” she says, “a bacon exception.”)

Applestone and Harrison breaking down a lamb

Sure there was plenty of education spiked into the mix, but, of course there was also flash and showmanship, much of it courtesy of San Francisco’s Dave the Butcher. Dave brandished his two scimitar knives on stage, crossing them as Jessica Applestone pointed to each in turn, one from the 1890s and one from 2010. She urged the crowd to practice the art of meat cutting at home, and said, “You don’t need a knife from 1890 to do this; that’s just cool.”

In the end, the dino-sized ribs Farr sprinkled with chipotle-dust were enjoyed by all — former vegans and those who came mainly because they were enticed by the “Bacon Hall of Fame” alike.

Tia Harrison, Kari Underly in front, and Jessica Applestone with Dave the Butcher holding up his scimitar knives in back

And there were plenty who came with no preconceptions whatsoever, generally they were under the age of eight, though, many possibly seeing where their food comes form for the first time. They watched wide-eyed at the demonstrations, but happily for the future, never reacted with the squeamishness one might fear. One dad, toting a tow-headed boy, walked up to San Francisco’s Tia Harrison as she broke down a lamb on a table. “He just wanted to say, hi.” And the boy did, peering over over the edge of the table and waving. “Hi,” Harrison waved back with her knife.

Butchers on stage at Primal Napa

For videos of Primal Napa demonstrations and more information visit ProteinU on Facebook.

Now, people, we don’t much like the show Lost, and scratch our heads and make the excuse that we have to leave to continue marinating a skirt steak or something whenever someone tries to expound on the virtues of the show to us. But today, we realize that you are probably feeling a little dazed, a little angry — like a woman who has just learned that her husband has a whole second family with an albino pygmy wife in Cincinnati or something. But we digress.

We’ve always kind of felt that JJ Abrams’ goal was just to mess with as many people’s heads as possible. That there were no “answers” to be had in his psuedo-mystic-spiritual-sci-fi-adventure mindfuck. And whether the whole thing was all just one character’s dream or all of the characters were dead and in purgatory or if Abrams just wanted to be super-cute and claim it’s not purgatory because that would be Judeo-Christian mythology and the show’s great spiritualism is something else so they were in a purgatory-like place, but not “Pugatory,” well, reader, we just don’t care.

But there is one thing we do care about. Pork. And barbecuing it. Wait, that is two things.

Regardless, as much as we would never allow Kraft barbecue sauce within a distance roughly outlined by a legal restraining order of any meat we had supervision over preparing, we were tickled by Target’s Lost-themed ad of a boar running through the jungle on the island advertising said sauce. And we can’t help but concur with the commenter on New York’s Vulture who said, “At least the ads had closure.”

With Memorial Day, the official kickoff to summer barbecuing, right around the corner.  Mark Bittman, writer of the popular Minimalist column for The New York Times, reminded readers of a column he wrote a couple of years ago about grinding your own hamburger meat.

Why bother with such an endeavor? Because, he argues, when you buy pre-ground meat “you have no way of knowing whether the meat came from high- or low-quality animals. It could come from dozens of animals, and they could all be poor-quality animals — old dairy cows, for instance, rather than cattle raised for beef.” Not everyone has access to high quality butchers in this day and age unfortunately, and many end up getting their pre-made patties at the local King Kullen. Of course, Bittman does not expect you to get a meat grinder (although you could). Instead, give the steel blades of your food processor a taste of red meat.

With a 12-cup processor, Bittman says you can do a few pounds at a time. Not bad.

A few of his rules:

Fat equals flavor. “If you start with meat that’s 95 percent lean, you are going to get the filet mignon of burgers: tender, but not especially tasty. If you use chuck or sirloin, with 15 to 20 percent fat — still quite lean by fast-food standards, by the way — you’re going to get meat that is really flavorful, along with the good mouth-feel that a bit of fat brings.”

Take it easy, twitchy. As satisfying as grinding may be,”you want the equivalent of chopped meat, not a meat purée. The finer you grind the meat, the more likely you are to pack it together too tightly, which will make the burger tough.”

Don’t treat it like a piece of meat. “Handle the meat gently. Make the patties with a light hand, and don’t press on them with a spatula, like a hurried short-order cook.”

Spice it up. “The burger is the cousin not only of the steak — which often takes no seasoning beyond salt and pepper — but also of the meatloaf and the meatball, both of which are highly seasoned.” He suggests the basics like minced garlic, onion, parsley and Worcestershire sauce, but encourages experimentation: “It’s hard to go wrong here.”

And now the most exciting part, for rare-meat eaters, at least: “If you grind your own beef, you can make a mixture and taste it raw.” (Salmonella isn’t killed until 160 degrees and rare meat is usually cooked at 125.)

Now all you need is the charcoal.

The Hill Country Feed Your Face Challenge ended this Sunday as the restaurant posted to its Twitter feed this weekend.

The challenge (PDF) was to eat a full-on Hill Country feast in under 60 minutes and then the meal was free. The main obstacle (to us at least) was the cupcake required for desert. Our first thought, when we heard the challenge was open to anyone who asked for it, was, why don’t the homeless storm the restaurant?

The tale of the tape for the meat was as follows:

1⁄2 lb. of Moist Brisket
1⁄2 lb. of Lean Brisket
1⁄2 lb. of Beef Shoulder
1⁄2 lb. of Prime Rib

Throw in a couple of sides and a soda and it seems like a pretty easy feat to get your Polaroid up on HC’s gluttony wall of shame “Wall of Cue.” The “winnner” would also receive a hat and T-shirt.

So what happened? Was it too easy?

Consider this: This week’s New York Mag has an infograph comparing the pounds of smoked meat one would need to finish (2) with the fastest time an especially amped up patron finished the challenge (8 minutes).

While it might take some sort of performance enhancing drug (such as a package of  Perky Jerky) to achieve such a spectacularly disgusting time, the challenge seemed flawed, and we said as much to Hill Country. What was needed as part of the challenge was a beer component — perhaps two pitchers, or a pint of everything the joint has on tap. This would truly have upped the anti.

There’s still time, Hill Country. Do it right.

We could have just pointed out this wikihow story on how to make a BBQ hat and apron. We could easily have suggested a few materials you could make your hat and apron out of. We could have said use those pig sheets you’ve had since you were 7-years-old that you’ve only soiled once or twice. We could have pointed out that it’s pointless and ridiculous and wonderful all at the same time and makes us want get the knives out. We could have said wear your new outfit this weekend to the second annual 3rd Ward Pig Roast and Dance Party in Brooklyn on Sunday where Tom Mylan will personally butcher a 200-pound hog that will be turned into pork tacos and a base to soak up your PBR.

We could have said all these things, and not said anything about the fact that the word “hat” in the title of the article triggered a contextual ad for “hats for cancer patients.” (Do they really need special hats?) We could have done all of those things. And yet we didn’t. Because what fun would that have been?

If only this were an ad for a real place.

Sort of. The Hog Pit on 9th Avenue did, in fact, shutter for good last week, and the relocated Hog Pit, across the street from Hill Country of all places, still sucks, but at least the venerated shithole will not become a Steve Madden shoe store. (Maybe the vitriol the shoe chain engenders every time it announces a new store has something to do with this.) There’s still hope. Sure the owners of the Pit said they were they done with neighborhood anyway (which probably just means that Hogs and Heifers was out shitholing them), but maybe someone can keep meat alive on the corner. Our money is on the guys from Fatty Crab, who took top honors at Cochon555 in NYC this weekend with a heritage Berkshire garnished with a can of Hog-Pit-favorite Pabst in its mouth (pics to come). Could the pulled pork masterpiece be a subtle hint that the Crab has designs on the Hog Pit space? A secret message of sorts? If the sticker below, which is actually affixed to the lips of the Hog Pit logo on 9th Avenue, counts for anything there is hope yet.

Occasionally, here at The Butcher, we’re required to get down on our knees and pray before a spot so extraordinary, so exceptional, so thoroughly perfect, that it makes us remember why we bothered to launched this blog in the first place. Blue Ribbon Bar-B-Q (locations in Arlington and Newtown MA) is hands down, among the best BBQ you’ll find north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Beyond the prices ($8.25 for a pulled-pork sandwich—with at least 8-ounces of slightly-vinegary-sour pulled-pork—plus two sides and a lemonade), the BBQ is otherworldly good. We’ve basically spent the past few weeks wondering why we can’t get BBQ this good in NYC. It makes no sense. But it is at times like this that we have to eschew expectations and embrace reality. Rarely do we make absolute statements. But this one is desreved: Blue Ribbon is the best BBQ in the northeaest.