Reward Yourself ~ A Lascivious Treat
A refreshingly splendid yet decadent meal requires little more than a pile of puppy heads and a power drill. Take these down into your basement, bore out the goods, and in hours you can be frying up brains, tongues and cheeks to mash with potatoes and shallots for an exquisite “Puppy’s Head Shepherd’s Pie”. Secure some bones from the carcass and bake them in brine. Eat them as if excavating a tunnel: scrape out the roasted, jelly-soft essence with a spoon, inhale whiffs of truffle and tobacco, and then slurp it up. It’s primal and sensual enough to make you blush.
Puppy meat, otherwise known as “bulb”, is fast replacing veal and lamb as America’s food baby of choice. Some classic bulb dishes include: fried escalope, fried grenadines (small thick fillet steaks), stuffed “puppiettes”, roast joints and cherry dipped pawpsicles. As bulb is lower in fat than many meats, care must be taken in preparation to ensure that it does not become tough.
In addition to providing meat, the bones of pups are used to make a stock that forms the base for sauces and soups. The stomachs are also used to produce rennet, used in the production of cheese. The liver, sweetbreads, kidney, and bone marrow are prized. The head, brains, tongue, feet, and mesentery are also valued. The tail can be barbequed and smoked for a surprisingly tender appetizer.
The Life of Bulb
The life of bulb before it reaches your plate is fascinating in its own right, and the care and focus given by farmers in order to raise the choicest cut of tender meat is to be appreciated.
Bulb is a direct byproduct of the canine milk industry, which is sustained by a human diet preference of milk, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products. To produce milk, dogs must be lactating, and to be lactating, they must get pregnant and give birth. Approximately 50% of all puppies born in canine milk farming are male. Since female pups are used to produce milk, use of male pups is limited in the canine milk industry, outside of breeding, and thus male pups are segregated and sold to slaughter houses for food production.
Newborn pups are given a varied amount of time with their mothers, which can be anything from a few hours to a few days. While pups are young and most vulnerable to disease, they are kept in hutches in order to keep them isolated and restrict movement so as to prevent muscle from developing, as the taste of bulb raised in this manner is considered desirable. Individual housing systems are also important for disease control, and in reducing the possibility of physical injury. Such housing allows for farmers to provide more personal attention to the young pups, being in individual crates. House raised puppies require no housing, barns, or facilities aside from that of their owners. Puppies freely roam the home and the yard along with their mother and siblings. Sometimes the farmer prefers to keep the puppies outside in fenced-in stalls and/or tied to a tree or stake in order to better restrict movement.
Milk-fed puppies consume a diet consisting of milk replacer, formulated with mostly milk-based proteins with added vitamins and minerals to provide a balanced nutritional solution. This type of diet relates to infant formula and is also one of the most common diets used for pups in the food industry. Can-fed pups normally consume a diet of milk replacer for the first 6–8 weeks. The pups then move onto a diet of mostly canned food and kibble. Commonly puppies are provided a supplement of hormones or antibiotics along with their food in order to ensure a healthy stock, especially under circumstances of crowded living conditions where the spread of disease is more common and more devastating to profits.
Bulb, In All It’s Robust Flavors
For those new to the bulb scene, there are a few terms that you need to know. In particular, there are three types of bulb available on the market:
- Bob meat: from pups that are slaughtered when only a few days old.
- Formula-fed (or “milk-fed”) bulb: from pups that are raised on a milk formula supplement. The meat color is ivory or creamy pink, with a firm, fine, and velvety appearance. They are usually slaughtered when they reach 18–20 weeks of age.
- Non-formula-fed (“red” or “kibble-fed”) bulb: from pups that are raised on kibble or canned puppy chow, in addition to milk. The meat is darker in color, and some additional marbling and fat may be apparent. Usually marketed as dog, rather than bulb, at 22–26 weeks of age.
Though difficult to find in many supermarkets today, look to your local butcher-shop for finding cuts of bulb. Or, better yet, go green and purchase bulb locally from your farmer. If they don’t currently carry it, request that they do. I promise, after one taste of sweet and tender bulb, softer than the coat of the puppy from which it was ripped, and you will never go back to veal.
Parts of this article adapted from the following, none of which are affiliated with or in any way represented by the views of Biased Bohemian.
Winged Victory: With Little Bird, Le Pigeon’s Gabriel Rucker hatches another winner. by Karen Brooks. In the March 2011 issue of Portland Monthly…
and the 21st century scholar’s most credible resource, Wikipedia