Broth and Beyond with Marco Canora

Summary

Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

Episode: Broth and Beyond with Marco Canora
Date: May 19, 2026
Host: Dave Arnold
Guest: Marco Canora (Chef, Brodo founder, author)
Main Theme:
A deep-dive into the world of broth—technique, trends, commercialization, and culinary nostalgia—through a lively conversation with chef and broth expert Marco Canora. The episode explores practical kitchen techniques, the evolution of bone broth, scaling up from home to commercial production, and the sometimes maddening world of food trends.

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Episode Overview

This episode welcomes chef Marco Canora (Hearth, Brodo) for an expert exploration of broth, from traditional methods to scaling up for commercial kitchens. The conversation is a freewheeling, anecdote-rich ride through ingredient sourcing, kitchen hacks, why bone broth boomed, and what most people get wrong about making stocks and broths. There are practical tips, spirited debates over glassware and culinary gadgets, and frank talk about the culinary business.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Kitchen Storage, Mason Jars, & Practical Chef Talk

Timestamps: 02:05–06:30

• Mason Jar Obsessions: Both Dave and Marco confess their near-complete reliance on mason jars for food storage, citing pest resistance and practicality.
• Funnel Talk: Dave shares his 3D-printed dual-size funnel for easier jar use (05:00), emphasizing a chef’s need for functional, not fussy, equipment:

  "For someone like me... the majority of my life is putting things into them and then dumping huge quantities out. So wide mouth, good." —Dave Arnold (04:48)

• Deposit Funnels & Restaurant Smallwares: Both lament how good, expensive gear (“sauce guns”) gets treated poorly in restaurant kitchens.

  “It's like having kids working with people who don't respect the stuff that you bring in to work… until they have to pay.” —Dave (06:07)

• Owning Up to Mistakes:

  "Just come and tell us. Yes. Own it." —Marco Canora (06:23–06:27)

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Food Nostalgia, Cheap NYC Produce, and Cultural Differences

Timestamps: 08:35–19:39

• Kitchen Zen: John and Marco discuss the meditative (“zone”) effect of working the pass or playing music—forcing the mind to focus and relax.
• NYC Produce Stall Culture: The group laments produce quality/pricing paradoxes and celebrates NY’s cheap, sometimes excellent, cut-rate produce, like artichokes and avocados (17:00+).
• Quotable:

  "When the quality is bad and the yield is low, you pay more. And when it’s a bumper crop… price goes down. It's just bizarre." —Marco Canora (15:06)

• Vegetable Yields & Chef Pain: Discussion of the labor and waste involved in prepping favas, rhubarb, and others.

  "You pay more for something, and it's bad!" —Dave and Marco (16:52)

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Brodo Window, Greens Drink & The Science of Blanching

Timestamps: 19:54–24:42

• Marco’s “Green Drink”: Mix of 16-18 varieties of greens, blanched, shocked, and then pureed hot with lemon, roasted garlic, olive oil, and broth—a “vibrant” beverage that “AG1 wishes it could be.” (20:15)

  "It's what AG1 wishes it could be... incredibly vibrant and super tasty. It just feels like your body's very happy..." —Marco Canora (20:20)

• Blanching Greens: Why shocking greens in ice water is vital for color and flavor.

  "People fall down… not doing the cooling. They feel like it'll be fine. If you just take it off… 15 minutes. Nope. It's gonna go." —Dave (23:10)

• Ice Quality in Restaurants:

  "Whenever I’m cooking and I want stuff to get cold fast, I want small, crappy ice. Melt. Get the hell out of my strainer..." —Dave (24:19)

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Cocktail Science: Ice, Dilution, and Shaking

Timestamps: 24:34–29:03

• Ice in Cocktails: Dave demystifies “fancy ice,” noting most frozen water works for shaking; visual/texture matters, but overhype is common.
• Juice Shake Hack: Using juice cubes for chilling/diluting citrusy cocktails—a technique that creates “preposterously cold” drinks (26:38).

  "Drinks just get preposterously cold... our hands get so cold." —Dave (27:24)

• Precision in Dilution: Discusses how surprisingly consistent cocktail dilution results are, and how small changes are perceptible.

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Bone Broth Evolution: Trends, Misconceptions, Commercialization

Timestamps: 29:03–41:07

• Scaling Up Broth: Marco learned most about broth by commercializing Brodo, not from home cook evolution (30:27).

  "Everybody overcomplicates it... this is a very simple traditional thing... the possibilities are infinite and there’s no right answer. People need to stop overthinking." —Marco (31:29)

• Biggest Pet Peeve: The “marrow bone myth”:

  "Many people think beef broth should be made with marrow bones... it couldn’t be further from the truth. Marrow is pure fat... ends up floating to the top… just absolutely the wrong choice of bones." —Marco (33:17)

• Stock Quality: Length of cooking matters—overcooked (esp. 48-hour) broths taste "acrid" and unpleasant.
• Remouillage & Double Stocks: Discuss the decreased yields and intense flavors from double and remouillage stocks (51:31).
• Spent Hens: The secret to great chicken broth, now hard to find; most “spent hens” go to Canada or pet food (34:40–37:44).

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Commercial Challenges & Packaging

Timestamps: 37:45–41:14

• Massive Equipment:

  "Biggest kettle I’ve used? 300 gallons. Which is small… it’s just multiples." —Marco (37:53)

• Packaging Pain: Hardest parts aren't what you'd expect: emptying giant kettles, keeping bones out, and the paradox of shelf stability vs. flavor (39:30).
• Retort vs. TetraPak: Retort pouches (pressure-cooked bags) preserve flavor and color better than TetraPak cartons (40:02).

  "In TetraPak world, everything starts to taste and smell the same." —Marco (41:07)

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Broth Techniques: Fish, Lobster, and the Worst Broth Mistakes

Timestamps: 41:21–51:18

• Fish Broth Tips: Clean, rinse, and scrub fish bones thoroughly before making stock; otherwise, off-flavors and bitterness abound (43:49).

  "Open the fish, put it to your nose… If it smells like that iodine, death from the blood… scrape the inside of the spine… Water, copious…" —Dave (44:00)

• Shellfish Broth: Overcooked lobster shells release bad flavors; use the “core of the body” and legs for lobster broth, not the thick outer shells (49:44).
• Worst Broth: “A big pot of marrow bones”—bland, wasted, fatty (50:22).
• Overcooked Stocks: Long simmers extract minerals, turning the broth “acrid and weird.”

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From Hearth and Craft to Brodo & Italian Heritage

Timestamps: 56:29–58:59

• Cultural Heritage: Marco shares his Tuscan (Lucca) and Calabrian roots, the hyper-regional Italian mindset, and how far removed he feels from the tribal culinary attitudes of the homeland.
• Career Flashback: Opening Hearth (2003), early days of Craft with Tom Colicchio, and the famously “over-choice” menu that kept Dave away.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “No one was using the term bone broth… until you started doing that. And then all of the whole foodie… all the way down to Target level have this stuff now. You should be on a yacht called Bonehead.”
  —Dave Arnold (54:54)

• “You don’t make broth with clean white bones. That’s not what bone broth is.”
  —Marco Canora (50:34)

• “Intentional is right. The wrong is anything that’s unintentional.”
  —Dave Arnold (26:01)

• “It takes a microscopic amount of vinegar to pop a sauce… It’s a miracle. It’s like salt in cocktails—just a micro amount to be like, boom.”
  —Dave Arnold (59:34)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Mason jar logic & practical storage: 02:19–06:30
• Produce price paradox: 14:50–17:23
• Brodo’s green drink: 19:54–21:26
• Ice and chilling chef/bar differences: 22:39–24:19
• Juice shake cocktail tip: 26:38–27:45
• Bone broth misconceptions: 33:17–34:06
• Spent hens, supply, and broth: 34:40–37:44
• Commercial kettles & packaging: 37:45–41:14
• Cleaning fish bones in stocks: 43:49–44:37
• Overcooked & double stocks: 51:03–52:11

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Episode Takeaways

• Broth is traditional, simple, and forgiving—don’t overthink it.
• Marrow bones are a common trap; opt for meaty, connective bones for depth.
• Scaling broth for retail is a surprisingly tricky and labor-intensive process.
• Quick blanching and shocking greens are essential for color and flavor.
• Overcooking shells/bones (esp. lobster, fish) is a major pitfall—more does not mean better.
• In any kitchen, intention and care matter most (for stocks or cocktails alike).
• Food media and marketing warp perceptions; genuine quality stands out in the end.

This episode is a blend of culinary wisdom, practical hacks, and spirited storytelling, ideal for cooks and food nerds at any level.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City Newsstand studios joined as usual with John. How you doing, John?

[B]

Doing great, thanks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Are you in New York now or are you back in.

[B]

Yeah, Fully in New York. Yeah. Working at Marquette.

[A]

Working, yeah. Chefing it up. Doing it all. Yeah, Chefing it up.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

All right, behind me, I got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up? Hey, how you doing? Welcome to the show. And see, we do not have Quinn today. Unfortunately, he is under the weather. So everyone wishes Quinn to get well soon. But fortunately, if you go down to the Los Angeles area, we do have Jackie Molecules, Jack Inslee. How you doing?

[D]

Yo. Good.

[A]

Yeah, good. And of course, as usual, Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez, kpas. What's up?

[D]

Hi.

[A]

A ray of sunshine, as usual, and special guest in the studio. I think this is the first time you've ever been on the show, although, like, you know, we've known each other from the biz for a long time. Marco Canora, Mr. Lebroth, Monsieur Lebrodo, Mr. Bone Broth himself. How you doing?

[C]

Hello. Hello. I'm doing great.

[A]

Yeah. Good.

[C]

It's fun to be here.

[A]

Yeah. And so, all right, so this, you know, since it's the first time on your show. Oh, and by the way, should any of you be listening live and you want to call in a question to us or to Marco, call in to 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507. And John, why don't you tell them? Because they need to be a Patreon member to do that. Why don't you tell them why and how?

[B]

Go to patreon.com cookingissues you can find there a couple different membership levels. Each membership level, you get different perks, including access to the Discord. Some, you get access to the live stream. Yeah, a whole bunch of things. Discounts with the people that we work with, like Matt at KitchenArts and Letters, Nick at Grovenvine and just a whole bunch of others. So check it out. Patreon.com cooking all right.

[A]

By the way, you're supposed to be. Cause Quinn can't be trolling. You're supposed to be trolling the Discord now to see if anyone's.

[B]

I'm in the Discord right now.

[A]

I love it, by the way. Something. So as I was rereading, this is not part of the week in review, but As I was rereading the Brodo book, which is your most recent book, right? Yeah. A little over 10 years. Gotta talk about it.

[C]

Maybe 12 years.

[A]

So I was rereading that and. You're a Mason jar fella.

[C]

I'm a what fellow?

[A]

Mason jar.

[C]

Oh, Mason jar. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. You're a Mason jar fellow. I also am, as they say, living that Mason jar. Although, like, I don't. I'm not a Mason jar cocktail, like all those weird, like, things. But all of my stuff is stored in Mason jars because I hate. I hate pantry pests. And you know what? They can't chew through glass. You know what I mean?

[C]

What's the other brand, though, that's kind of cool with the glass lids.

[A]

Oh, let's see. There's another one you're talking about. Starts with like a.

[C]

What the heck is the name of that? I like those things.

[A]

Brooks uses those. They're fancier.

[C]

Yeah, they're fancy.

[A]

The glass tops, there's mason. There's anchor hocking, but those are. And then there's. It's not like Heckerling, right? Cause that's Amy Heckerling. I don't remember.

[C]

The metal clips aren't convenient, but you don't need it. You just set the glass on top and you don't need to clip it.

[A]

Oh, whack, whack, whack. Yeah, well, there's two, right? There's the old ones that have the flip top grill, she thingamajig. And then there's the one with the little metal clips. Yeah, but people don't trust. In fact, you're not supposed to screw the things down when you're working. You're supposed to rely just on the lid to seal. And then the other thing's just a backup. You know what I'm saying?

[C]

Oh, is that right? Yeah. Well, once it sucks in, you don't need to.

[A]

You don't need. Yeah, you're not supposed to. So, like, you know, we used to use. I forget who makes those. But the old style with the thick rubber and the pull. Yeah, yeah. With the glass top. And you're sitting there to open it. You know what I mean? And we used to use those in vacuum machines all the time. But now I have an attachment from my. A cheap attachment for my vacuum that just fits over a mason jar without the band. So it's just a lid and the band. And I suck vacuums on it. So anytime I get grain in. Especially rice. Like all the fancy rices you get are full of weevils. And you shouldn't be upset about it. You know what I mean? Weevils. Weevils. You know, little granary weevils.

[C]

Got it.

[A]

Don't get upset. You know what I mean? That's just what happens, you know? And so, like, you know, don't hate life. This is what life is. Why would you hate what life is? No choice, no problem, man. So I suck a vacuum on those suckers because I don't have the freezer space to kill them that way. You know what I mean? Yeah. And they die, you know, just leave them in there, eat them and they die. But what I do have, and maybe you can buy these, but I have. What I hate is that I wish every mason jar was wide mouth.

[C]

Yeah, I think I'd agree with that.

[A]

But fewer and fewer people stock the wide mouths and it's mostly people are doing the Nerima. And for someone like me, who's constantly. I'm not. The majority of my life isn't putting a knife into and getting jelly out of one. The majority of my life is putting things into them and then dumping huge quantities out. So wide mouth, good. But anyway, so I built a i3D printed a funnel that fits both wide and narrow, but in a flat way so it's not sticking way into the jar. So it's like a double lipped funnel. So it doesn't.

[C]

Do you need a funnel for a wide mouth?

[A]

Yeah, because I'm pouring like flour in.

[C]

Oh, got it.

[A]

Yes. And like grain out of, like big bags. So I'll get like 40, 50 pounds of grains in. Or even, like, you know, if you're pouring, I don't know, let's say broth out of a. You know, people are too stunned on a ladle. Yeah, right. And they're not taking a ladle and doing it like a human. They're not holding the jar over the stock and then ladling it in. They think that they can pour it from the pot in. I mean, you can't because it's 50 gallons at a time.

[C]

It's a lot. But I like using pastry bags too, because you just squeeze it into.

[A]

What are your feelings on deposit funnels? I love those things, the sauce guns.

[C]

Oh, yeah, Those things are cool.

[A]

I was given one by J.B. prince and I keep bringing it in to work. And then people. Yeah, and then they disrespect them. Like, that costs more than you think it does.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like having kids working with people who don't respect the stuff that you bring into work is like having kids who don't respect anything, obviously. You know what I mean? Until they have to pay, small wares

[C]

are constantly breaking in the restaurant. Dropping this, dropping that.

[A]

I can't wait.

[C]

And then it's like, nobody dropped it, but it's broken.

[A]

You know what? Just come and tell us.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

You know?

[C]

Yes. Own it. Yeah.

[A]

Did you grow up? You grew up in. You were born Elizabeth?

[C]

No, no, I'm upstate New York.

[A]

Upstate New York.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, the Wikipedia gets it wrong again.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

I was gonna say, though, but if you're Hudson Valley, you got New York City tv.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So you remember the Mormon commercials? So the church. I remember those Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints put out a whole bunch of commercials about not lying. I don't remember. Yeah. And they were constantly playing on Channel 5, which became Fox and Ch, which is WPIX Pix. Yeah. And so, like, it was.

[C]

Do you remember where your kids are? I love those old ones, too.

[A]

Be like, I am the kid, you jerk. TV is my best and only friend. Moron. Of course I know where I am, moron. Yeah. It's 5pm have you done your homework today? I'm like, no.

[C]

Oh.

[A]

Anyway, like, that's how it worked. But there was. You don't remember these Mormon commercials?

[C]

I don't.

[A]

Who broke my window?

[C]

I don't.

[A]

No. Who broke my window? And then the kid comes up. Cause they're playing stickball, and the kid breaks his window. And the kid just comes up and goes, goes. And he goes, like, you knew I'd be angry. Weren't you afraid you're going to have to pay for this mess you've made? But I'm proud of you, boy, for you have displayed honor. It's amazing, right? These commercials were great. You don't remember this one? How about, you tell one lie, it leads to another. You tell two lies to cover each other. You tell three lies. Oh, brother trouble up to your knees. Oh, man.

[C]

Dave, dude, my apologies, but no, it's not ringing bells.

[A]

Did no one watch tv?

[C]

And I spent a lot of time in front of that boob tube back in the day. What was it?

[A]

Gilligan's Island.

[C]

Gilligan's Island. Three's Company. I mean, all that stuff.

[A]

Three. His company, too.

[C]

Barney Miller.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Dude, no. Are any of those people still alive? Abe the Goat is gone. What about Hal Linden?

[C]

We're showing our age, bro.

[A]

Dude, dude, I don't care how old you are. Go listen to the Barney Miller theme song. Kicks. Boss I mean, look. Oh, yeah, dude. Anyway. All right, so back to the week in review. What do we got? What do we got for the week?

[C]

Food news this week.

[A]

Food news? Yeah. You're cooking. You started cooking a restaurant.

[B]

Yeah, I'm just. I don't know, I'm working the past. Expediting, plating.

[A]

Oh, so you're just in the zone.

[B]

Yeah, basically.

[A]

So your mind is this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's wild how it's just like. Is busier than most other restaurants I've worked at. And it's just such, like, a complete break from my personal life. There's no time to think about anything other than working. It's kind of nice.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

My expediting days are very much behind me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, like, I don't know how people, like, do anything that's, like, intense for a long time anymore, but, like, every once in a while it's nice to just erase your brain because your brain has to be erased.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

Right. It's like stuff is flowing in. That's why back in college when I, you know, and afterwards when I used to play out music, it's the same way. Like, what I. The way I always felt was that, like, I'm not even there anymore. It's just like. You know what I mean? Like.

[C]

Yeah. Zone. You get in the zone. Yeah. And you're meditative.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Anyway.

[B]

Yeah. No, exactly. Yeah.

[C]

So.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, you know, all the time is a lot.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's temporary until I open the next place.

[C]

It's a burnout job for sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. All right.

[B]

Only a couple months.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. Are you still. Do you have time to work on the same glitches on the side?

[B]

Not yet. Going to start that in about a month.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Sanguich is gonna be great.

[A]

You gotta. Are you gonna tell us? Are you gonna keep him a trade secret?

[B]

Fool, I don't believe in trade secrets.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Bingo. Yeah, bingo. You know why? Because if they're willing to do the work and make it, God bless. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Speaking of trade secrets. Before we get out. Well, we'll get into it later. All right. So, Stas, what do you got for me?

[D]

I'm thinking. Still come back to me.

[A]

All right, Mr. Molecules, what was the week in review in Los.

[D]

Stomach is killing me right now because last night Kevin from Noma and I and a few others went to Chengdu Taste and went hard on the Szechuan.

[A]

Yeah. You went Hard in the paint. Did you get. Now let me ask you a question. I've never been to Chengdu taste. But is it actually a taste of Chengdu because you've been to Chengdu?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, it is. It is pretty authentic.

[A]

Can you get fresh green in. In the United States? Do they ship it in frozen? The fresh green peppercorns?

[D]

I don't know how they. How they get it in, but we did have, like, the fish in green chilies.

[A]

Well, I like the green. You know, the. You know, the sauce they make that's like swimming in green Sichuan peppercorns. Oh, my God, I love that stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I've never had that in the States. I've only had it in Shenzhen. But I've never. Because I've never been to Chengdu. I've never been to actual Sichuan province. I've only been to Shenzhen, where, of course, you know, all the billionaires pay all of the good shifts from all the other places to go. But I haven't even been to Shenzhen in years and years. For all I know, Shenzhen's not even there anymore. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it's even bigger and better than it was in the past. All right, Stas, you got something for me? At this point,

[D]

No food stuff, but

[A]

doesn't have to be food, I guess. Yeah, everything's food adjacent. Because if you don't eat, you die. Did you know that?

[D]

Yeah. Oh, no, that was before. That was Brooks. No, I went to the Benjamin with friends. Supposed to be really good. It's fine.

[A]

Oh, man. Dude. Okay, so, like, who here actually uses fine to mean good? Has anyone you've ever met used fine to mean good?

[C]

No. No, Absolutely not.

[A]

I don't like. This is a. Here's another one that you'd have to know me to know this. In my family, tasty is also bad. Means has taste, not good taste. So my stepfather, Gerard, he's always like, that's tasty. I'm like, throw it out. You know, my mother in law says, interesting. Oh, yeah, that's the worst. That's the worst. Someone says a drink is interesting, I pick it up and throw it away. You know what I mean? It's like, no, interesting. Look, occasionally there's a product. Occasionally there's a product where you don't know what you think of it yet. And so you can't come down on it. It's like, again, showing my age. But back when you used to buy an album, you're like, don't ask me about it. Now I have to listen to it four or five times to see where it settles with me. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah. I mean, I think interesting could be fine. I put some anise hyssop into rhubarb for a rhubarb crisp, and it was interesting and it was also quite good, you know, So I think they could live side by side.

[A]

Hyssop?

[C]

Hyssop.

[A]

I have some. I just.

[C]

Anis. Hyssop is so cool. That thing came back from last year by itself?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Receded. Yeah.

[A]

Nice.

[C]

And it's pretty vibrant already.

[A]

No work.

[C]

Pretty cool. No work. Just came back. Yeah.

[A]

I love things like that, you know, what's supposed to come back all the time. But I always had problems with rhubarb. Rhubarb never grew well where I was.

[C]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But I love rhubarb. It comes back like crazy. Yeah.

[A]

How old is your rhubarb?

[C]

Well, my wife does the garden at her school where she teaches, and it's a pretty large garden and huge bushes that just come back. I mean, she brings home bunches of it all the time.

[A]

Nice. And fat and red.

[C]

Yep, fat and red. A lot of green, too.

[A]

It tastes okay.

[C]

But I love the.

[A]

I love.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I never forget when. Cause when I was at the French culinary, the demo kitchen was rather price sensitive. And so I would be. Harold, our stock person, he would get the regular rhubarb in.

[C]

I was like, no, like the imported red stuff.

[A]

You mean the extra fancy stuff that looks like a crayon? It's so beautiful and, like, you know, red and big, fat, juicy. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah. Where do those come from, though? They're like Holland, right? Like Holland peppers.

[A]

They came from the storeroom. From Baldur.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Where did they grow that?

[C]

Baldor.

[A]

Yeah. Balder's weird. Like, sometimes it has amazing stuff and sometimes they're like, no, I can't get it for you. What is that?

[C]

I mean, I had a conversation with my Baldor rep the other day, and he said something that really kind of blew my head off, which is. And it's kind of bizarre if you think about it. And I never heard somebody, like, actually put it into words, but in the world of, like, farming and produce, he's like, it's sad but true. When the quality is bad and the yield is low, you pay more. And when it's really a bumper crop and it's super great, the price goes down, which is just bizarre. It's like, pay more for the shitty stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And he's like, I hate to tell you, but, like. Cause I was moaning about the quality of the fava beans we were getting from California, and he's like, it's been really a rough year for favas, so they're very expensive and they're kind of shitty.

[A]

So what's bad about a bad. What's bad about a bad fava? By the way, is anyone actually allergic to favas anymore? Is that still a thing? Favism had that on a ton of it.

[C]

I think it was like that. Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Allergic to fava.

[B]

Yeah, that's what they said. Yeah.

[A]

You sure they weren't just like pretending, being sure.

[B]

But that's.

[C]

Yeah, you can't be sure.

[A]

I always question that's a real thing, though.

[C]

It is.

[B]

I believe it.

[A]

Yeah. But you never hear about it anymore. That's like one of those ancient Greek maladies. Yeah.

[C]

Dried favas, too. It doesn't matter. Yeah.

[A]

Anything. You can't have favas. Yeah. So what makes for a crappy fava

[C]

other than having to and starchy and harsh, you know, I mean, they're just mealy and gross, you know?

[A]

So if you filled this whole room with in shell favas, this entire newsstand with in shell favas, was that two servings?

[C]

Yeah, exactly. The yield is so low. Yep. And that's why I was complaining. I was like, I'm overpaying and then I'm spending all this time and energy to double shuck them. And then the yield is shocking. And then what I have is also, and I'm paying a ton. And he's like, yeah, that's sad. Sad but true. Like, that's the way it is in that world of produce.

[A]

Sounds like you're winning on every front, man.

[C]

I was just like winning all day just to hear somebody say that. Like, you're gonna pay more for something.

[A]

Right. Well, there's something to be said, right? I mean, that's why, like, Nastasia used to shop there too, because she used to live in the. We never lived there at the same time, but in Hell's Kitchen we both lived. I lived in the garment district. She lives in Hell's Kitchen. And there's a couple of cut rate produce stands there. I have some cut rate produce stands down by me now. But by the way, New York City is an incredibly expensive place to live. However, we do have like cheap cut rate produce.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean? Because why?

[C]

And the fruit vendors.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Five beautiful mangoes for five bucks the other day. And they were incredible.

[A]

So it's the outdoor vendors that we have, which, by the way, if you want to know the history of it, why not go to the Museum of Food and Drink? Go to the Museum of Food and Drink and Empire Stores. Go learn about the history of vending. Because it's not just hot dogs. P.S. it's like, also, there's what we call hand foods, which are things like hot dogs that you eat, but also, like, groceries and vegetables. Used to be a lot of that was vended out because, hey, P.S. no supermarkets. Anyway, so back to what I was saying. Produce can be very cheap here and sometimes pretty good. Because it's those of you that remember when the secret life of groceries were on. Stuff is short coded. So we used Nastasia, and I used to go to a place called Stiles. Remember Stiles Stas? Yep, yep. Yeah. And they'd be like, they either don't have it at all or it's free.

[C]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

So you would go there and, you know, I know Nastasia is a lover of artichokes. And were they the best artichokes ever? No. But you could walk home with enough artichokes to kill everyone in your building for almost nothing. And, you know, prep them out, you know, you know, boil them all down and, you know, artichokes for days. Avocados. New York is the cheap avocado capital. Of not being in California. Of not being in California. Well, you're cutting up. What's those? Oh, no, nothing.

[D]

There's a huge delay. Oh, it's okay.

[A]

Wait, you used to get what?

[D]

I'm just saying that we can get artichokes here for cheap, but they're, like, delicious.

[A]

Oh, me, me, me. Have you ever let me know when you receive? Yeah, yeah, Me, me, me. My dad used to tell me, what is it? Castroville is where the artichokes are, but they don't have the festival anymore, right? Or is it Castroville Garlic? I can never remember which is which.

[C]

Gilroy Garlic Festival.

[A]

Gilroy Garlic, Castroville artichokes. We have them here. Cheap as well, but they're delicious. Oh, me, me. Yeah. Okay, listen. You know what it's like half of being in New York? 9/10 of being in New York is about taking the punishment coming out the other side. But it turns out you don't come out the other side. You come out in the box. You know what I mean? Good news is, the bad news is we're all gonna die. The good news is it's gonna happen. Stop worrying about it. You know, What?

[C]

I mean, yeah, it's coming for all of us.

[A]

Yeah. Ding, ding. No one's made it out yet?

[C]

Nope.

[A]

Yeah. All right. So, Marco, you were saying you had some stuff this week. What do you got for me? You're doing some Brodo related brodoness?

[C]

You know, this has been a couple years now that I've been obsessing over this little green drink thing I make at the Brodo window and Lonnie's at the Union Square Green Market. They have an incredible variety of sauteing greens, and I probably get like 16 or 18 varieties of them.

[A]

What's the worst one? Ms. Kaylee?

[C]

I don't love the red mustard, if I'm honest, but I throw it in there anyway. But the lamb's quarter is great, and they have a thing called vitamin greens, and they have all the chards and kales, and it's just extraordinary, those guys, what they grow and the varieties and. And I basically just blanch them all with stems and all. Even, like the Cavolonero, I use that stem, too. I use the entire thing end to end. Blanch the hell out of them in salty water, shock them, and then chop them up and toss them like a salad. And then fill a cup halfway with these blanched greens. Throw in a whole wedge of lemon, a big squirt of roasted garlic puree, a shot of good extra virgin olive oil, and some sea salt and some broth, and heat up the whole thing and then blend it in a blender and serve it hot in a cup as a drink. And I'd like to say it's like, it's what AG1 wishes it could be, because it's just, like, incredibly vibrant and super tasty. And it just feels like your body's very happy when you take that thing into your gullet, you know, and it's green. Super green, like you wouldn't believe.

[A]

So which broth are you using? Not a roasted broth or. The brown doesn't cover it up.

[C]

The brown doesn't cover it up at all. I mean, there's so much green matter in there. Like, nothing's gonna get rid of the green. And it's just. It looks like it's glowing green, you know, it's pretty wild.

[A]

You know what I think? People don't. People don't. You gotta shock those sons of guns. I don't still to this day, really, if I'm being honest, everyone's like, well, why does it set the color? I'm like, you know what? I don't know. So Part of it is in vegetables that aren't gonna be blended, that you're blasting the air out. The quick heating in the water kind of fills what would be air with liquid. So the green that's there, you don't degrade it because you shock it before the chlorophyll can break down, but you're somehow making it more present, almost like a fruit acid peel. You know how people with tattoos, they'll get the fruit acid peel so that their tattoos pop. It's kind of like that, you know what I mean? You're just removing this layer of air that stopped you from seeing it. And I understand that you're protecting the chlorophyll by limiting the amount of heat and you're also killing the enzymes that

[C]

would make it go brown.

[A]

Make it go brown. But I still don't understand why it's so much. What it is, you know what I mean? And how you can take it.

[C]

I mean, if you don't know, who knows?

[A]

I'm sure everyone. But I've just researched it enough. I'm sure I could figure, like, figure out a story where I actually felt like I understood 100%. Like, I understand what everyone says.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's not like I feel like I understand it 100%. But, yeah, the difference is incredible. Like, and the thing is, you know how, like, you're like, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. It's toast. You know what I mean? Like, it starts once it's going to go, it's going to go. And so I think people fall down. Where they fall down is not doing the cooling. You know what I mean? They feel like it's gonna be fine. If you just take it off. It's gonna cool down in like 15 minutes. It'll be fine. Nope. And it's gonna go. It's gonna. You're gonna lose it. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah. They're never filling the ice bath with enough ice and water. Like, I think people don't really understand the amount of energy, the cold energy required to like, really cool down, you know, A big batch of boiling greens is so hot, you know?

[A]

Yeah. Because there's a lot of attendant water still stuck on them and they're steaming off. So how about this? When a chef agrees to get a cold draft machine because their bar program wants it, but then they realize it's their only ice machine, and then that's what they have to use to chill everything. The worse the ice is for a bartender, the better it Is for a chef. I mean, that's just what it is. You know what I mean?

[C]

Oh, is that right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, whenever I'm cooking and I want stuff to get cold fast, I want small, crappy ice.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, melt. Get the hell out of my strainer. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Cold draft things, even if they melt all the way down, you're always fishing the last little pebble out of the freaking. You're just like, oh, God damn. You know what I mean?

[C]

Anyway, is ice still having a moment? I mean, it really had a moment for a while. I feel like it's kind of gone away out of the conversation a bit.

[A]

Well, I mean, one of the things that I always kind of focused on was in my chunk of the bar world is kind of demystifying everything. Like, try not to get too hyped up on anything. Right. But I mean, ice needs to be. I think ice is visually important. There are technical aspects to ice that make some ice better than others. For certain applications, you need a big cube and a cocktail to get the texture where you want it. But in general, frozen water is frozen water, unless it's from really bad water. You know what I mean? Like, you know, you haven't changed your filter in a million years and your ice cubes are completely cloudy, or the water is, like, super hard. And I don't know, maybe you live in Florida and everything tastes like sulfurous swamps. No offense.

[C]

Curious about your take on a cocktail concept. Cause I love a shaken. I love something shaken like crazy.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And, like, as cold as it could possibly be, where if you pour it into my coop and there's little bits of ice floating on top, like, tiny, tiny. I love that. Is that acceptable for a cocktail geek like yourself, or is that a no?

[A]

No, it's a complete matter of opinion.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Right.

[C]

There's not a right or wrong there.

[A]

There is a wrong. The wrong is anything that's unintentional.

[C]

Oh, interesting. I like that.

[A]

Yeah. So it's like there are people who only double strain when by double strain people. So you're shaking. You have a hawthorn over the top and then through a strainer and then through a tea strainer. And there are people who do that because they hate ice crystals. Well, I just don't like when something looks messy on top and they don't look like they did it on purpose. That's when I'm like, no, not okay. You know what I mean?

[C]

I just get it. It's never Cold enough, and I'm like, shake that thing like crazy.

[A]

Okay, listen, you need to get your team on the juice shake. You know about the juice shake?

[C]

No, tell me.

[A]

So instead of using ice as your dilutant, you write the specs so that you can use ice cubes made of juice as the dilutant. Right? So you have to balance it differently because you're using, like, large quantities of juice.

[C]

You need some dilution, right? So you do both well.

[A]

So, no, you can write the spec however you want. So, you know, it'll contain less, like, syrup. It'll contain less. It'll contain less syrup, it'll contain maybe a little less acid. Depends on what you're freezing. And then you can freeze something like that. You juice fresh. And those cubes, they stay good for a long time. We pre weigh the amount that we need for the cocktail to get the dilution right. Usually we'll throw in one quote, unquote hard ice cube. Because the nice thing about frozen juices are they're soft. Like, you know, when you freeze broth or freeze anything that has a bunch of solids in it, the ice isn't very harsh. So when you put those in the shaker, they break up instantly. They go. They turn into a slush. They chill everything down. It's like, honestly, when we do juice shakes, we have to wrap our tins in towels because our hands get so cold. So the drinks just get preposterously cold.

[C]

How precise can you get with the notion of dilution, though?

[A]

Oh, very.

[C]

Really?

[A]

Oh, super.

[C]

Well, surface area of the cubes matter a lot, I would imagine.

[A]

Within reason. No, that's kind of the weird thing. It's like. It's just the most everything is just driven by the alcohol level of the cocktail when you're starting and the beginning temperatures. The main thing is if you have, like, really bad ice with a lot of water on the outside of it, like, that'll dilute instantly. It doesn't actually dilute more as you're shaking. The dilution happens right at the beginning. Or if you have one big cube with no small cubes, then the surface area is so small relative to the volume of ice that you're using that it takes a lot longer. So, you know, we recommend one big cube or something that looks like a big cube for texture and then a couple of small cubes so that the dilution rattles along. But anything between shell ice and a cold draft will dilute roughly the same in a shaken drink. Not stirring right.

[C]

And that becomes part of the Formula of building that recipe.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And it's remarkably consistent. You know, drink to drink. It's just one of those things that, you know, thank God. Otherwise imagine how much harder business would be.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean? And people can taste the difference between a couple of mills dilution. You really can. Which blew my mind. That's something I learned recently. Speaking of learned recently. So Brodo, the book that broke people's minds on broth, came out what, 12 years ago?

[C]

Yeah, 11 probably, because the window launched 12 and then it took me a year to get the book out.

[A]

Right. Isn't that crazy?

[C]

I know, dude. It's so fast. 12 years.

[A]

Speaking of which, did Michael Harlan Terkel shot that one?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Did he shoot all three of your books or just that one?

[C]

No, he did A good Food Day and then he did Brodo. And the first book was done by John Koernick, which is an old timer.

[A]

No, I haven't seen Michael in a long time. He used to hang out at the Voldemort network where, you know, we used to.

[C]

He teaches at nyu, I think now.

[A]

Yeah, he did. But on the photo side of it, I think. Right. But then he was starting a vinegar company. That's why I ran up.

[C]

That's right. He was early on vinegar. Vinegar, yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Very early on the vinegar.

[C]

Yeah. He's a good guy. I enjoyed working with him.

[A]

Anyway, so back to Brodo. So what? So for people. I'm sure people have read the book. What have you learned about broth in the past 12 years that is not in the book that you wish? If you were gonna buff it, if you were gonna buff it up, what would it be that you feel that you learned?

[C]

Change.

[A]

Yeah. Or not change. But listen, it's not that you were wrong. It's that you grow. Otherwise you'd be dead. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. You know, most of my learnings came around the process of like commercializing it. Cause like that's just so mind blowing like that. One of the best things about Brodo is the fact that I started learning again because I was trying to bring this to market in a bigger way. And like, you know, scaling up and doing it. Commercialization is like. That process is pretty wild in terms of like home cooking and making broth. I'm not sure. It's like it's a very basic traditional process. So it's like I haven't learned a whole lot. I mean, and everybody over complicates it. It's just like, what bone? And is it Stock and is it broth? And all these stupid questions that have come over the last decade that just frankly annoy me because it's just like, this is a very simple, traditional thing, making broth, and it's very forgiving, and you could do it with whatever the hell you want. There's no, like you said, there's no right or wrong thing. It's like, what's intentional or not intentional. And it's like, I'll make a broth out of anything at home. I'll empty all these rubbery vegetables into a pot, and maybe there's a carcass, and it's gonna be fine. You season it with salt and steep in some herbs, and it's just like, the possibilities are infinite and there's no right answer, and people need to stop overthinking it.

[A]

There are some wrong answers, though, right? There's not always a right answer, but there are some wrong answers.

[C]

Sure. Of course, you know, like, you could try to make a lot of broth with like, one carcass of, like, a Costco chicken.

[A]

Oh, the students used to do that all the time.

[C]

And it's just like, yeah, it's gonna be watery and it's gonna be gross, and it's not gonna show you gelatin, and it's not gonna have any, like, umami flavor that's gonna make you go, wow, that's so delicious. So of course you can mess it up.

[A]

But so the mentality of the crews at the time who were doing their overly water watery, especially veal stock. Right? Brown veal stocks are standard. Right. Not fully escoffiered out, like no tomato. Straight veal stock. You know what I mean?

[C]

White veal or dark roasted or.

[A]

They would do both. They would do both.

[C]

I always found white veal to be weird, pointless.

[A]

It's like white pork stock. What do you.

[C]

It's just weird. I don't like totally white stocks. It freaks me out.

[A]

I mean, except for chicken, which you call out as yellow because it gets golden, though, right? If you use the stewing hens, which,

[C]

by the way, do you think, even unroasted bones in a chicken, it gets golden. And maybe because of the carrot helps that too. And if you put skins of the onion, obviously that helps as well.

[A]

Is that your next band? Skins.

[C]

Skins of the onion. Here's one of the biggest pet peeves of broth making that has been happening for a decade now, which is many people think beef broth should be made with marrow bones.

[A]

You're, like, wasted the marrow, and it's

[C]

just like, it couldn't be further from the truth because, well, two things. One, those bones, it's very easy to strip the meat off. So typically they're super clean and there's no meat on them. And then two, marrow is pure fat. So, like, you cook it and it ends up just floating to the top and getting skimmed off unless you do a rapid boil to, you know, incorporate the fat into the broth, which I don't love either. So it's just like absolutely the wrong choice of bones. And so many people think that it's

[A]

the right choice because it looks like a cartoon.

[C]

I'm not sure why, because I think they think marrow is healthy and bone broth means bone. And somehow they think bone broth made with marrow bones equals good, healthy broth. And it's just completely wrong.

[A]

Do you think that what they sell as stewing hens in the Chinatown markets is old enough to get, like an actual old school Jewish growth?

[C]

I don't know because I never got stewing hens from Chinatown, but there was an organic egg farm out in North Fork of Long island, and they reached out to me and they were like, do you want to buy all of our spent hens and. Oh, yeah, hell yeah, I do. And I think I bought like a hundred of them or something and put them in the freezer. Cause they freeze really well, but boy, those things are robust and they do make the best broth.

[A]

You joined them before you freeze them.

[C]

Did I do?

[A]

What you mean you hack them up before you freeze them?

[C]

No, I froze them whole. Yeah, and I cooked them whole too. Cause like, I cook them overnight and it's like they take a long time to release their. Their gelatin and break down.

[A]

So there'll be enough and go down. You don't need to worry about the extra air in the.

[C]

Totally. Yeah. The balloon concept. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I always, like, I never buy. I wish I had some spent hens to play around.

[C]

Yeah, it's hard. They're hard to get.

[A]

That's what Steingarten wrote that whole thing on chicken soup, like, I don't know, 20 something, 30 years ago or whatever.

[C]

Oh, I'll have to find. I'm not sure I know about that.

[A]

In the first Steingarden book, which I can never get the title of right, but because I always say it's the man who mistook his wife for everything in a hat or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like, I vaguely remember anyway, but like, it's the man. The man who had everything.

[C]

I Think that's right.

[A]

Yeah. Anyway, so, yeah, so one of those is like him trying to make an actual legit stock. Now back then in the 90s, you know, like this stuff was even harder to get because there was also no community. There was no Internet or no community. No way that you could find like minded individuals. You know what I mean?

[C]

Totally.

[A]

I mean, I think that's the thing that, you know, for all the ills of quote unquote ills of modern society, just the ability to find people is I think an unqualified good. You know what I mean?

[C]

I've been trying to get a. I've been trying to find spent hens for the actual production of Brodo because we go through a lot of bones and

[A]

people go through a lot of chickens.

[C]

Yeah. And I was thinking like the organic egg market in this country is massive and what's happening to all these spent hens? And I've been like, I've been really trying to find them and I can't manage to get a supply of them. And one thing I heard is they get sold to Canada and they get cooked and put into cans and they eat canned cooked hens, which is weird to me. But I just, I heard they're all going to Canada.

[A]

Listen, if anyone can hear, Marcos fool is here. He needs the Spence. He needs the Spence.

[C]

I need the spent hen.

[A]

Don't send him to Canada. Quinn's not here. We can talk crap about Canada.

[C]

And I also heard that it's too expensive to defeather them and to get the eviscerate them. So a lot of times they just go to like some kind of pet food something or other because they don't want to spend the money to process them to then sell them.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Which is a shame.

[A]

So speaking of commercial, what's the biggest kettle you've ever used for the production?

[C]

300 gallons.

[A]

Oh, man.

[C]

Yeah. Which is small.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So like, which is actually small. It's just multiples.

[A]

One of my craziest memories was a non working kitchen was I went to. Oh my God. The name of it just went out of my head. The famous hotel, the biggest one up in the Catskills starts with a C. The biggest hotel, like you know, a borsch belt hotel in the Catskills. They closed and I went to their auction and you saw some big kettles. Oh my God.

[C]

They're so cool. Right?

[A]

Oh my God.

[C]

It was like steam jacketed.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

But like those things are so powerful.

[A]

Like 15ft high.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[C]

And like there's like stairs to go. Look at them.

[A]

I was like, oh, my God. And that's what I was wondering, like, at a certain point, do you just like, you know, throw a whole cow into the kettle?

[C]

I mean, like, I mean, they're massive. And one of the, one of the co manufacturers in the early days, he didn't do tilt skillets because he said they always broke. So emptying one of those that if it doesn't tilt the spent bones at the end of a stock, it's like the yield is less than 50% of broth and then you're left with all this hot spent bone and vegetable matter. And getting that out of the pot is no small thing. It's a huge job.

[A]

Yeah. Spent bones. Their album was hot.

[C]

Yeah. And it's just, it's been fascinating because the things you don't think are going to be hard are actually the hardest things. Like putting the broth into a package is very difficult. You know, emptying the pot turns out to be very difficult.

[A]

Do you package hot or post pasteurized?

[C]

We cool it and then put it in. And then put it in a retort.

[A]

Yeah. Pain, huh?

[C]

Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, it's very manual.

[A]

I guess that's right. Because in the yields it has to retort. So what happens to the. How much darker does it get on retort?

[C]

Not very. I was surprised and partly because the inside of our thing is aluminum, so it conducts heat quickly and it's also a small amount. So the temperature, it rises pretty quick without a lot of intense heat. So it's one of the things that, that we're really proud of is like it goes up to temp, it gets washed with cold water and that happens really quickly. Unlike the boxes. I forgot what the boxes are called, but tetra.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Tetra pack. Thank you. Those require a lot more heat and a lot more time. And it has a negative impact on the aroma and the flavor and the color. And what's cool about the small pouch of brodo is that it just doesn't get affected by that process. And like, you could still look at chicken broth, hearth broth, beef broth and veggie broth. And if you look at them all side by side, they smell different, they look different, they taste different. And that's kind of rare because in tetra pak world, everything starts to taste and smell the same.

[A]

Right. By the way, people who don't know what we're talking about, retort is a fancy word for pressure cooking in an accurate way.

[C]

Yeah, like canning.

[A]

Yeah. To kill spore forming or ball jars, like you said.

[C]

My aunt used to jar tomato sauce.

[A]

A lot of people, tomato sauce, thankfully, fairly high in acid, but a lot of people, if you really want to be safe, you really should get a canner if you're going to do low acid stuff. Because the one thing that you got to make sure you do is vent all of the air out properly. So the real ones have that thing that go down in so that you can make sure you're purging all of the air from the top down through that tube. Just because, like, pockets of. You don't want to retort longer than you have to, because then you're affecting. You're not trying to cook it. Usually it's already cooked the way you want it, and you're. Unless it's beans. And then you're trying to get it up as fast as possible. So you're timing it. And if there's pockets of air that aren't fully steam that are left, which can happen if you don't do it right, then they don't get up to temp as fast. And so your numbers are skewed. But whatever. Arcane pressure cooking information. So where broth. Back on broth in your book, Fish broth. By the way, I love how you're like, here's a vegetable broth recipe. Okay. Literally, it's almost like I'm paraphrasing, but you're like, here it is.

[C]

I like vegetable broth.

[A]

Yeah. You're like, I like vegetables as much

[C]

as I'd say I do mushrooms, seaweed. These things make great broths.

[A]

Yeah. Well, that's the one you. In the beginning of it, where you do an overview of broths around the world. The one quick broth you bring up, I always think it's fascinating is dashi, where you're shifting. You're shifting the burden of time from the stock to the ingredient. Right? So, like, the Katsuo ibushi takes forever, you know what I mean, to make.

[C]

And so, like, then a thin shaving and a quick steep and you're done. Yeah.

[A]

There's always time somewhere. It's just where you're gonna do it. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[A]

That's interesting. Here's the one I was thinking of. So in step one of your fish stock, right. You know, clean the bones. But, like, I would have made that step one, step two, step three.

[C]

Yeah, that's all.

[A]

And step four, and I feel it, like, if you've ever, like, watched someone not clean the spine. Yeah.

[C]

Like, it's a lot of blood and weird.

[A]

Yeah. Like, listen, people, when you have the fish, just put it to your nose. Like open the fish, put it to your nose. If it smells like that iodine, death from the blood that's on the back. Or God forbid, someone popped the bile sack into the thing. It's got that yellow smear in it. Cut the yellow thing out. But take a knife, A knife. Scrape. Scrape the inside of the spine. Scrape it. Water. Copious. I have a scrub brush I use and I scrub it.

[C]

I chop, you know, I chop them up small, put them in a big 22 quart bucket and just run cold water over it for probably too long of a time. I'm wasting water, but, man, just like letting that cold water run over it for, you know, over an hour until it runs clear. That's. That's how we. We've been getting beautiful stripe. Stripers are running now and we're just getting these massive striped bass and it's so fun to break those things down and.

[A]

You ever get an infection from the. You ever stab yourself?

[C]

I have stabbed myself. Not for a while because now I'm super, you know, super conscious of it.

[A]

For those of you who don't know, the back fin on a striper is sharp.

[C]

So sharp.

[A]

It went right through a. It went right through a glove. I had like a big, thick silicone glove. Just shredded it right off the. If it had happened a minute earlier, I would have been coated in fry oil. It would have been the worst. But, yeah, they're nightmares. But they're beautiful.

[C]

Oh, stripers are my favorite fish.

[A]

Really?

[C]

By a long shot.

[A]

Yeah, like sofa.

[C]

The cheeks. I mean, the collars, the cheeks I found the other day I was butchering one and, like, it's hard to explain with words, but, like, the collar goes like, into like, the bottom of your chin. And they typically cut them like right here. And there's this little nugget that came out of the thing. It looked like a blowfish. I'll show you a picture later. But it looked like a blowfish tail because it was the very end of one and the very end of another connected to, like, a bone that's, like, in the middle of the bottom of the mouth. And I excavated this thing. I felt like that crazy fish butcher guy. Oh, yeah, whoever that guy is.

[A]

There's a couple. The one from Australia whose name escaves me.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

John knows that's escaping me as well.

[A]

Come on, man.

[B]

Anyway, Paddington's is the name of the restaurant, I think.

[C]

But yeah, this little nugget of meat that I mined out of the bottom of the chin of the striper. It was just like, it was very joyous event.

[A]

Oh, man. So like, our stripers. I know that for a while the fishing limits were. They're on slot limits because, like, they were having some issues. Is it back up now? Is it good this year so far?

[C]

I mean, look, I'm not. I don't. I don't know. I'm not tethered to that community. And I don't really follow what the. What those, you know, what that's all about.

[A]

Right. Because they went from. For years it was just a minimum, and then because they were doing really well, and then they went to these slot limits where, you know, had to be between certain numbers.

[C]

Size wise or volume? Both. Right. Volume and size.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know about from boats, but I know from surf casting, you know what I mean? But, man, I haven't cooked a whole striper in a long time. I love striper, though. I also love blue.

[C]

I love blue fish too. Especially smoked, as in a pate.

[A]

I used to do shad, my favorite local fish, shad.

[C]

Oh, really? Hudson river shad.

[A]

Shad roe. Well, I don't. I think the roe is fine, but we used to get it from the Connecticut.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

And. But did I say this on here already? The guy. So, like, they had a person at this place that used to go River Provisions, which is right on the Connecticut, like maybe 15 miles up from the Sound and right by the Goodspeed Opera House, right near where the S16 train goes. And I would wait. Every year, even after I moved out, I would go back and get shad and the person retired and they're like, we can't find anyone else because it's the hardest fish to fillet.

[C]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Impossible to fillet.

[C]

I don't think I've ever filleted a shad.

[A]

It's got an extra set of bones.

[C]

Weird.

[A]

Yeah. So you can't. Like no normal human can fillet. That's why everyone just takes the roe and pitches the fish. But they're delicious.

[C]

The bone structure of cod is pretty weird to butcher. I remember back in the Gramercy days butchering whole cods a lot. And, like, the structure of that bone was odd. It wasn't your typical flat fin fish structure. But yeah, butchering fish is one of my favorite things to do.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Love it so much.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Is that so rewarding?

[A]

Yeah. Do you?

[C]

It's so zen. You know, it's just like. It's the best.

[A]

It makes me nervous because it's like, it's such a high value thing and it's so ev. Easy to f up.

[C]

Yeah. We're doing Spanish mackerels now. And that. That meat is so, like, buttery and soft and, and those are very tricky and difficult to do well because the, The. The muscle is. Is kind of. It just. It's really soft and it tears very easily and it's also sticky. So you got to always keep your knife wet so you could slide through it instead of creating, like, muck. But yeah, that's been my fun time in the past couple weeks butchering fish.

[A]

You must smell great when you get home.

[C]

Exactly. It is hard to get that off.

[A]

Oh, dude. So we have a couple questions in the past on lobster broth, and I have opinions on lobster broth. So you cook the shells, you cook them off. I feel that if you cook lobster shells too long, that it goes over a hump and gets bad. Do you notice that?

[C]

Well, to be honest, like, I don't even. I just like using the. The core of it. Like, you know, you. You pull that outer shell off.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And there's not much to get out of that outer shell, in my opinion. And I think that if you use a lot of the outer shells to your point, that stuff breaks down and it starts adding, like, minerality and weirdness, and it's just like, I just want to use the legs and the core of the body that the legs go into, scrape the gills off. And that's where the magic is.

[A]

What's the worst broth?

[C]

Oh, that's a funny something made with a big pot of marrow bones.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[C]

It's the worst.

[A]

Yeah. Well, is it the worst because it's actually the worst or because it pisses you off the most?

[C]

Well, both, but it is actually the worst.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

It has no flavor. It's just like, you know, you don't make broth with clean white bones. That's not what bone broth is.

[A]

Yeah, well, that's the other thing. So it is interesting. Mentally, we're used to thinking about it's okay to basically cook an animal bone as long as you want a mammal or a foul bone. But that's my point. I don't think think things like lobster shells work the same way. They're not the same structure.

[C]

I would argue same with bones. Like, you can't, you know, this idea of like, I cooked my broth for 48 hours. It's like, bad idea jeans, man. No, it's not good. It starts tasting weird, acrid, and you break down the minerals in the bone, and it's not what you want.

[A]

All right, so what about this one? Because I 100% agree with you. You're like, don't over water the stock at the get. Right. And by the way, use of the word Remy for remouillage, everyone.

[C]

I love a Remy.

[A]

Yeah. And I also. And that's not what this book is about, but do you also like a fortified doing, like a base stock and then another stock on top? Like, dump your squab into your chicken stock or whatever?

[C]

Oh, my God, yes. But, you know, it's very. You just have to be okay with, like, the yield on stock already is awful. You know, it's like a ton of work, and you get very little, and then to take that very little and then do it again. So you just have to be really committed to getting that concentrated broth if you want to do, like, a double stock. But, man, it is phenomenal. I love it.

[A]

What we used to do again, like, we didn't. We didn't have to serve huge groups of people, so it was kind of, you know, I'm not gonna say a stunt, but it was good, right? Is like, when we would. Would bone out, like, small birds, like squabs, we would roast off those bones, but then we would bag them in stock so that you weren't having to use a lot of extra. And you got really good contact with the bones.

[C]

Nice.

[A]

And so you got, like, a high level of extraction out of the bones, even though you were only using the squab that you were cooking. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yep. I just did that with. I just boned out two whole rabbits to make rabbit balantine and then chopped up the rabbit bones, poured hearth broth over it, and then brought that down and make a jelly out of it and cut it into cubes and served it with the slices of the cold rabbit balantine and like. Yeah, like, super dense, and it just feels like candy in your mouth. It's like super. Like a gummy bear, but in a good way.

[A]

Before the show came on, you were telling me that what's the new trend with gummy bears that's no good.

[C]

Just like this. It's like all these vitamins, and it's like. It used to be you buy a powder that would check all the boxes of everything you need, like the AG1 world. It's like, if you Just do a scoop of this powder and drink it with water. It like, checks all the boxes. It'll give you all the vitamins and all the probiotics and all the protein and all the everything you need as a human in this one powder. And now it's everything you need as a human in this one pack of gummy bears that taste like sweet candy. Yeah.

[A]

I don't know. I've never tried these gummy bears.

[C]

I'm sure it's just insane.

[A]

You know.

[C]

Groons it's called. And they were like, just acquired for like one and a half billion dollars because God bless, everybody's obsessed and they need to get their candy flavored gummy bears as a health food.

[A]

Speaking of a billion dollars, how does it feel to be completely co. Opt. Opted? Oh, man. Because honestly, like, you should be on a yacht like, called Bonehead right now, just like sailing around doing whatever you want, you know what I mean? In the book in Brodo, I said I wasn't gonna. Last week I said I wasn't gonna do this, but here I am doing it in the book. It's like in some small way I've contributed to. The hell with that, dude. No one was using the term bone broth like on the regular until you started doing that. And then all of like the. The whole foodie arowani and then all the way down to like freaking like Target level and like, you know, shoprite level. Places, like, have this stuff now.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And if there was a. If there was someone over watching, you'd be on that boat. You have a private jet, money. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah, not quite.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. So like, gratifying, but also irksome.

[C]

What? Building. Building the broth business or like, or

[A]

like, like not like somehow being able to protect a wave that you still. You know what I mean?

[C]

It's like watching all the competitors come in.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, you know, I don't mind that. The frustrating part is just like the marketing world around it and it's just like, like, it's the wild west with like, labeling and like, you know, so much broth is made with like pa. It's just there's so much weird shit going on in the broth space and you can't expect a consumer to be able to understand it or navigate it. So it's a little. It's a bit of a. It's a bit challenging to like, have people say the same thing that you say, but yet you know that it's done really differently. You know, but ultimately, it's like, whatever. People like our product, and they taste it, and they could taste the difference, and that's what we're hoping is going to make the difference. And despite all the marketing claims, and this is called bone broth, and that's called stock, and all this nonsensical madness out there, there's no solution to that stuff. So we just keep on doing what we do, and hopefully it works.

[A]

So a couple stupid questions before I answer the actual questions. People have anything in on the discord, by the way?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, so your family. Mom's side. Tuscan, right?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Lucca.

[A]

Yeah. Beautiful town.

[C]

It is so gorgeous. I love it.

[A]

I had an amazing time when I went there. Like, crazy stupid, like, in that piazza. And then, like, we had just gotten back from Pisa, which was terrible. Overrun with. Towards, like, a nightmare, a complete freaking nightmare. I was like, get me out. I didn't even have time. Yeah, I didn't even have time to get their chickpea pizza thing, because I wanted to get it, but I was. I must leave right now. So we left. We went back to Luca. Sun was going down over that piazza, a bunch of birds taking off, and some dudes, like, singing opera in the thing. I was like, get me a glass of wine and call it a day. You know what I mean?

[C]

Totally.

[A]

Get me a chief albergo. I am done. You know what I mean? But amazing place. So what's it. Do you hang, like, with the southern most of the Italians? I know, like, my family. Southern Italian. Like, did the southern Italian diaspora and the Northern Italian diaspora hang? Or are you, like, nah, crap on

[C]

those guys, you know? My dad's side is Calabrian.

[A]

Okay. So that's. Yeah,

[C]

I don't. I mean, look, they're. They're very.

[A]

You fight each other, you fight yourself.

[C]

I mean, the Italians seem to be very. You know, they're tribal. You know, it's, like, from Florence. You know, they're very, like, specific to where they're from. And, like, it's the only. It's the only place, you know? But, like, I'm so far removed from that. I mean, I visited there a lot. I mean, my mom emigrated here when she was younger, and it's just, like, I'm no authority on, you know what it's like over there.

[A]

Well, except you cooked there professionally. I did, yeah. All right, so it looks like we're not gonna have time to get into, you know what I'm gonna. So chef here was on the opening team, started crashing all the craft things with Colicchio. Yeah.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

You know, I never have been to a craft, and here's why. It freaked me out. I hate choice. And I was told that there would be too much choice, and I was like, I can't. I can't do choice. They're like, you're gonna make me choose what sauce goes on this? No, you choose. And so I never went.

[C]

But that changed a lot. That was the opening year. Yeah. By the way, Quickly, really.

[A]

Because I was around for that. People were telling me this. It made me nervous. Nervous. Yeah. And then I stayed away.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But I should have gone.

[C]

Yeah. It was. It was fun back then.

[A]

You should go to Hearth, which is, you know. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Go to.

[A]

Go to Hearth. Because it's fantastic. I've been there. I've been there many times. Crazy. A long amount of time to have a restaurant.

[C]

2003.

[A]

Yeah. So let's answer a question from Spasco. I'd like to lift the acid on my pizza sauce. Lift meaning increase. I primarily run blitz. Canned tomatoes with dry garlic, oregano, a small amount of sugar, salt, and MSG or fish sauce for a Chicago style pan. I cook the sauce. I like to add the acid. I use a small amount of white vinegar. I like the effect, but it can add a bit of sog. What do you suggest? What's the answer, John?

[B]

Cook it more.

[A]

Yeah, cook it more.

[C]

And don't put sugar in it.

[A]

Yeah. But, you know, the thing is, like, people add too much. People. It takes a microscopic amount of vinegar to pop a sauce, you know, or to pop a soup. And that's why, like, I mean, I'm

[C]

a squeeze a lemon guy. I mean, same thing, right?

[A]

Yeah, but it's a light hand.

[C]

Yeah, Tiniest.

[A]

It pops.

[C]

It.

[A]

It's a miracle. It's like salt in cocktails. It just takes a micro amount to be like, boom. And people are like, what'd you do? Why did it suddenly get better?

[C]

Sherry vinegar is my favorite for that.

[A]

You know, super bright. You know what I dump into. I dump Sherry into everything. But just because I love Sherry. Sherry is delicious. All right, Sasha wants to know the recipe for what we called a bodega cocktail on Eater in 2012. Dude, Sasha, that was never on the menu at BDX. Maybe it was for a day. I literally just made that off the top of my head. I do not remember. I'd have to go find the Eater video. And it a. It was like a Michelada take, you know, but with a lot of clarified stuff in it. Aaron S. Wanted to know. Oh, gosh. Aaron S. Has been asking about this drink forever. I'm gonna. I. I have the specs in my hand, Aaron. Maybe we'll put it on that discord.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anyway. All right, chef. Thanks for coming on. Come back anytime. Cook.

[D]

Sam.