Day 16: A Torrent of Tenderloin

For me, wasting food is criminal…in addition to the fact that leftovers are delicious; it makes me feel good that they aren’t going to waste.  In the case of meat, throwing leftovers out means the animal died for a less-than-whole purpose.  The practice of killing animals is never going to be pretty, but the less that is wasted, the more at ease you can feel about eating it.  Keeping this in mind, I’m not fussed about having tenderloin leftovers from last night at breakfast and lunch, only to be followed by some fresh tenderloin that was defrosting in my fridge.  I’ve said it before, pork tenderloin is a cook’s canvas, it lends itself to so many different flavours and preparations, and unlike its poultry counterpart, chicken breast, tenderloin isn’t dry and tasteless and generally shitty in the way that only chicken breast can be.

But I’ve digressed right off the top; breakfast was a small slice of spiced tenderloin and a lone fried egg (from my parents’ chickens).  I screwed up the egg and cooked it too much leaving me without enough runny yolk to dip the pork in; a tragedy.

I shared my pig head photos with a friend at work, a guy I respect and trust.  His reaction shocked me; he was disgusted at the prospect of cooking and eating a pig’s head.  He went so far as to call me a peasant, as if to imply that eating the head would render me some kind of uncouth and unrefined troglodyte.  The strange part is that I strongly suspect we come from similar backgrounds: the product of parents who grew up in relative poverty and made a better life for themselves.  While his attitude pointed to him looking on his peasant backgrounds with a measure of shame, I wear my lineage proudly.  There is no shame in ingenuity and creativity.  That’s what the pig’s head represents, an acceptance and embrace of my parents humble beginnings.  I love them for what they have given me; the lessons about life that that have taught me.  I am their eternal student.

Lunch was yet more tenderloin with a radicchio, endive and avocado salad.  Since sharing makes things taste better, I offered lunch to my lunchtime partner-in-crime, Alex.  But we both split our portions when yet another co-worker asked if there was any extra and made our smaller portions taste that much better.

As proof that pork brings strangers together, I was reminded of an elevator conversation Alex and I were having yesterday.  I was telling him about my pizza from the night before when a woman inside the elevator who was eavesdropping chimed in: “You should try the sausage lover’s pizza at Pizza Hut; it’s much better than hot sopressata”.  And just as quickly as she had made her comment, she left the elevator, turned to us, and smiled as the doors closed and she disappeared.  Alex and I and another woman whom neither of us knew all looked at each other in amazement.  What just happened?

For my final tenderloin course of the day, I turned to the barbeque: one piece with Russian hot sauce and the other with a wasabi horseradish mustard.  While dinner cooked on the barbeque, I indulged in a bacony snack, or more accurately a  fakony snack.  Some smoky bacon crisps (British for chips).  They hit the spot; my dirty junk food spot that I give into every now and then.  A few slices of each type of tenderloin accompanied a salad for a simple and satisfying meal.