An Interview with Jesse Spitzack

Interview with Jesse Spitzack
Chef de Cuisine, Bradstreet Crafthouse (Graves 601 Hotel, Minneapolis, MN)
Note: Since this interview, Chef Spitzack can now be found at Common Roots Cafe, Minneapolis, MN
Held Thursday, December 2, 2010
Interviewer, John Seymour-Anderson

John Seymour-Anderson: Can you remember what your first memory of eating lamb is?

Jesse Spitzack: Uh, my first memory of eating lamb. When I think back, I believe it was… oh I have a really great memory! In the early 2000’s. 2001. Yeah, it was lamb chops, lamb chops. Yeah, they’re obviously very popular. Bone in, Frenched out.

What was that? Frenched out?

Frenched out.

Meaning?

Uh, meaning the bone was cleaned off. You’ve got the chop with the [exposed] bone cleaned off. I remember it because I had to clean those bones.

(laughter)

We cooked it whole as a rack. It was a seven-bone rack, probably. And, then we’d slice it after it was cooked, so, um, we’d cook it to medium rare. And it was just delicious. It’s got, you know… I love lamb, I’m a big fan of lamb… ever since.

Was that in one of your first jobs?

That was actually in Minneapolis. That was one of my first jobs. I’d never lived in Minneapolis [before]. The first time I lived here one of my jobs was at Alma Restaurant, and that’s where I first started cooking and eating lamb.

Did you prepare that lamb?

Yeah, actually I prepared it. Isn’t that funny? Yeah. Prepared it, and ate it. I might have eaten lamb before that, but it didn’t stick out in my memory. That was really the first time. A reason might be that [in the past] it wasn’t that good. Because it might have been poor quality lamb, or a different preparation.

You mean a prior experience?

Yeah. When I remember lamb, I remember Alma. I remember eating it there, cooking it there.

Do you remember having any like, meat and potatoes experiences with lamb as a kid or anything like that?

No.

Where it was not prepared with that kind of care [like at Alma]?

No, I don’t, actually.

Not like lamb chops, or…

No. Because my childhood was kind of all over the place. We lived in Malaysia, we lived in other parts of the country [US]. My mother had a strong influence after Malaysia of cooking Asian food, actually. So, we ate a lot of rice and Chinese, Malaysian sauces.

So, do remember watching the preparation of lamb-by another chef that was sort of a mentor to you?

Well, at the Jardin de Sens in Montpellier, I worked at… the chef there prepared lamb chops also. He would French them down to the meat of it-to the eye of it. It was just beautiful. He would prepare it with this reduction sauce. It was this gorgeous, gorgeous thing. Medium rare, of course.

Was that before Alma?

That was after Alma.

Are there things about lamb, as a cook, that are different from what you, as somebody who enjoys lamb… that interest you, or challenge you? What draws you to lamb?

As a cook… well, what draws me to lamb initially is the flavor. And I love the flavor of lamb. I love that it HAS flavor, you know. It’s like, comparing corn-fed beef and lamb would be like comparing Vodka and Bourbon. You know, it’s one of those differences… yeah, vodka is clean and pretty but it doesn’t have any character, sometimes.

[On the other hand,] I actually spent Thanksgiving at my uncle’s, who’s Russian. And he had vodka as he knows it-totally different from vodka as we know it. You can’t call it vodka when they import it [in the US] if it’s not clear grain alcohol.

Was his not clear?

His was not clear. It was aromatic, it was pine, liqueur it was all sorts of liqueurs and and spirits.

And we had a good tasting. It didn’t taste like our regular Stoli’s and Phillips.

But, going back to why I choose lamb, also, I think it’s very responsible. I mean it’s one of those meats where they can really graze and they actually profit on grazing. And, I think that’s how we should eat our meat-is through [meat fed on food] products that we can’t eat ourselves. Like Larry was explaining the other day, when he was in Mali, I believe, how the people only eat meat [when the animals eat the only other food available, which is something the people can’t eat]. It makes sense, and to me that’s so common sense, and I think we’ve gotten away from that a lot by feeding our animals corn and soybeans.

Plus, I mean, there’s the health benefits.

And, there’s the health benefits-to the animals.

Well, then they pass it onto us.

And, they pass it onto us. You are what you eat!

The fats from animals that were meant to graze [when they have a pasture diet], the fats in their meat are far better for us than anything from animals that have grain in their diet.

That makes sense.

What is the most unique preparation of lamb that you can remember? And, that can include yours, so don’t be humble.

Well, I’ve been doing my lamb dish for a while. So, it’s not so unique. I saw Hakan upstairs in Cosmo’s did a lamb belly that he smokes at the table. Which I find is really cool.

Smokes at the table?

Yeah, he actually smokes wood chips and rosemary, apple wood chips and rosemary, collects the smoke-this is right at the moment-collects the smoke in a dome. Puts it over the cured and braised lamb belly. At the table they lift it up so you can get the smoke aroma.

For how long? I mean how long does it smoke?

Well, oh it’s just smoked for the time it takes to get to the table.

Wow!

Well, really, its initial odor, you get. And, of course he’s not the first one to do this. But, I have heard of other people doing ‘smoking at the moment’, and stuff like that.

So, what’s his name?

Hakan.

Hokan?

Hakan Lundberg.

H-o-k-a-n?

H-a-k-a-n, with those little dots, which I find really confusing.

Yeah well, I don’t know what they are and I’m Swedish, partly anyway.

I think you kind of talked about this before we put on the recorder, since the recorder wasn’t on I’ll ask you again. What do you look for lamb to do in the spectrum of tastes you offer here at Bradstreet?

It needs to CONTRIBUTE taste. It needs to hold its own. It is what it is… Different producers will have slightly different flavors, different times of year, obviously. A lot of different fat contents. I expect it to hold its own, you know. And it does that very well. Lamb has a distinct lamb flavor. I love it, I love it.

Do you have any impressions or knowledge about the nutritional qualities of lamb?

Not more than that, not more than just impressions.

I don’t either. I just thought I’d ask.

Do you have any favorite lamb eating experiences from the four years in Europe?

Oh, favorite lamb eating experiences. Let me think. Hmmm. I ate a lot of cheese and ham.

Gruyere?

Yeah, Gruyere. Oh, I believe I did have a cured lamb.

Cured ham?

Like a lamb… oh, I know it sounds weird.

Oh no, not really. I wouldn’t know.

Like a cured loin of lamb that’s been dry aged.

Wow!

That was interesting. Yeah!

Did you like it?

Yeah. I loved it. I love…

You love lamb.

I love lamb.

Any favorite lamb cooking experiences that you had in Europe?

In Europe I did leg of lamb, which I was very fond of doing. I did mutton. I like to use mutton. It was a 3-year old mutton. It was very tasty. I don’t know what they did. But, sometimes you get mutton that’s just really strong. This wasn’t that strong. And the butcher explained to me, he said to me, “No, this is really good mutton, they grow it on grass, they treat it really well.” Maybe it’s from the food they feed it. I’m sure that has a lot to do with it. Maybe it’s the breed. I’m not sure. But, it was very good. So, I put it on a skewer, put in there-celery root, apple, red cabbage. And I put it all on a skewer and I seared it.

Now how did you put those other ingredients… like on a shish kabob, next to it?

Like a shish kabob, exactly. Some had to be pre-cooked, some were fresh. You sear it, pan sear it. And I also served it with uh Cepes, uh porcini.

Ooh.

Yeah. Boulot!

What’s Boulot?

That’s the technical term I believe for the mushroom. I guess in English, I guess they call them Cepes, and they call them porcini. They’re similar. There are so many varieties they’re probably not the same. But, I served it with a little soup of that.

A little soup?!

It was a kind of a soup, yeah. I made my own bread, my fresh walnut bread, and I’d serve a side of that, too.

It keeps getting better.

It was tasty. People liked it. It was a… a hit.

How do you view the importance of local ingredients here at the Crafthouse?

Local ingredients… I mean how did we stop doing local ingredients is what I want to know?! Who ever came up with that idea? (laughter)

Good answer.

For someone to say, “Look, I can get this ingredient WAY over …here. Stop growing it! Stop growing it! Don’t worry about it!” …I don’t understand, so… I think it came about with the need for choice, people wanting choice-people wanting more and more and more and more. And, people don’t understand the more choices they have the more difficult the choice is. I think you’re happier if you get good quality, a good amount of what you need, basically, what you need to get by.

As a buyer of food products, how does locale figure-apart from the idea that it just makes elegant sense-are there other considerations other than it’s just logical?

Well yeah, definitely. Cuz I can call Larry [Shepherd Song Farm] if I’ve got a problem, like I’ll call him and talk to him personally. He’s not far away. If I doubt his raising techniques or anything else, I can just go check it out and see for myself.

It’s good to work chef to grower. I really like that. To really shake someone’s hand, and say, “Hi, how are you, how’s your day going? Oh, you really look tired.” “Yeah, we’re really busy!” That’s one of the biggest reasons we go with Shepherd Song, because they’re local. I personally believe in a strong community, I believe in supporting people around you and building a strong community. The only way you can do that is if you work with them, and you’re not working off of people all the way over in other areas of the world.

I think it supports, obviously, the local economy. That’s a fiscal reason for it. An economy that’s kind of circular. He [the farmer] might not come to my restaurant, but his kids might, or his friends might, and the people he buys stuff from might. You know, it all circulates, the closer you are together, I think, the better, cuz you’re going to kinda grow as a group. It’s a group thing. Everyone kind of works together to make a community stronger.

It was far more like that in France, right?

It was very like that, yeah.

But you told me they had supermarkets…

They had supermarkets, but there were so many more markets, just open markets, and local food markets. And small businesses, they had smaller businesses. There weren’t so many big businesses. It was nice to go down the road to the butcher. If you got in a fight with him, you’d go to the butcher next to him. (laughter) You know, if you owed him money or something, you’d go to the guy next to him. So, it was a little bit more personable. Amazingly, they all got different stuff. They all kind of had their market.

Obviously, I went to the best butcher.

And he thought so, too.

And he thought so, too. He was a great guy.

Do you buy anything at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market?

Personally, yeah. Here, for our accounts receivable and payable it’s kind of complicated. I would love to. I’d go to the Farmer’s Market every day in the summer. That would be awesome.

How did you learn about Shepherd Song Farm?

On the internet. I was searching for quality lamb. I wasn’t happy with the lamb I was getting.

Was it lamb from the area?

It was from Iowa. Then I tried some from Colorado, Niman Ranch. And, just the travel of it… First of all, it took special order to get it in. And then I couldn’t return it if it wasn’t to my liking, or if it was cut wrong. So, it was just so much more practical to find someone close by. And his lamb is so much better. It is so much better. I don’t know what he feeds them. Well, I do know. He just kind of lets them eat the grass, which is important.

Have you been to their farm?

Not yet.

What about the lamb itself distinguished it when you chose it over the others you had been using?

The color, the red, nice deep color. The fat, the color of the fat wasn’t yellow. I don’t know how to explain it, kind of yellowy like that wall there. (laughter) No, it was bright, it was clean looking, there was good separation.

Of the meat and fat?

Of the meat and fat. Then, flavor-wise you could tell it was quality. Now, I mean I’m looking at lamb ribs, and ribs are supposed to be kinda where they store all the fat. And, [if they’re not raised on pasture] a lot of the chemicals, a lot of the ,,, I don’t want to say… the toxins, really, are stored in the fat. And, so when you’re eating something that is really fatty, you might not necessarily want to. You want something really good and natural, it’s just better. I don’t know, it was more the flavor, and just the quality. The quality was great. The technique of their butcher must be really good, their slaughterhouse must be really good. Because they do a really good job. Everything is well packaged. I never get loose bags, you know.

Meaning?

Their cry-o-vac bags.

Oh, with air in them?

Yeah, with air in them. And [with other producers/slaughterhouses] sometimes they’re punctured, and this and that. And that’s all about how they’re processing, just someone who doesn’t care that much. And, their [Shepherd Song Farm] bags are always tight, and never a burn on there, never freezer burn or anything.

How would you compare flavor and texture of Shepherd Song Farm’s lamb with others?

Well, I mean, the test is in where I get my lamb, you know. And that’s where I buy it. And I’ve tasted a lot of lamb in the area. And, I don’t want to name any names.

And I don’t want you to.

Like I was telling you about, the color [of Shepherd Song Farm lamb]. The flavor, it’s just a clean flavor. It’s just a really meaty, meaty animal. I mean, there’s not too much fat on it, But the fat on it is really good. Really, the other lamb I’ve had-I’ve had lamb that’s been way too fatty. When I got here our purveyor sourced these lamb ribs for me, initially, and they were seriously like that fat – 2/3” of an inch of meat and 1” of fat.

First of all, I was losing so much. What do you do with all that fat, and it’s bad fat, too. And then the flavor wasn’t there. I was like, ‘I gotta change’. So, I started searching other purveyors. They were …fine… You know, it was okay. I don’t have anything bad to say about it. But, I sat back and I’m like, ‘why am I going to Colorado for this?’ It was so hard to get my purveyor to get in new lamb just for me. And, they’re only ribs, so they’re not that expensive and [the purveyor is not making that much money on it] he’s getting bored. I’m like, ‘man, this is such a hassle – all to get ribs, from Colorado. There’s gotta be lamb producers here in Minnesota’. I had just moved back from France, so I wasn’t so familiar with all the purveyors, all the farmers all around. So I had to do my research. I found a few and tasted them. And I liked Larry’s.

Is there anything notable in terms of texture [with Shepherd Song Farm’s meat]?

Texture-wise?

Of course, you gotta keep in mind [in terms of what you’re using at Bradstreet] one’s ground and one is the ribs.

You know, we get some fat meat on those ribs, you saw the ones you had today.

Yeah, but they looked like medallions. They were beautiful.

The meat on the ribs is very moist, it’s very moist. Tender, once you cook it. Obviously, ribs take a while to cook. But they’re just tender, but they don’t fall apart. They’re not just all fat. There’s meat in there. You’re braising a meat, not just a fat. So, that’s what I like about it, yeah.

Is there anything different about Shepherd Song Farm lamb in how you cook it?

I don’t think so. Not terribly different, no.

Are there things you could use to describe the flavor of lamb, like you do wine or coffee – to kind of pull out the notes in comparing…

That’s a good question. In wine you get a lot of animal flavor, and that comes from the leathery flavor. I get that out of lamb more than I do in beef. But, I would use more general terms-it’s got more aroma. It’s got more body, but that depends on the cut, because if you’ve got a fattier one or leaner one you’re going to have less body or more. It’s hard to pick out certain flavors like cloves or you know. I guess a lot would depend on what they eat. If they are eating a lot of different herbs and stuff, I think it would come out in the lamb, in the meat itself. It might be difficult. You’d have to have a really good sense of taste to get that.

…Actually I get a little mushroom. A little like grandma’s basement, in a good way. I guess you could call it robustness.

What do you think the 100% grass fed approach to SSF’s lamb farming contributes to what you’re seeking and finding in the meat?

I think it’s more in tune with the seasons. Obviously it’s more ecological. You don’t see a lot of people out there eating grass. It’s just smarter.

If you live in really hostile environments, like really hostile winters, for example. I think lamb and goat are really good to have, because they can actually dig for it [their food] a little more [even in the snow]. I think it’s good not to get too far away from what actually keeps us alive. Just in case. You know. It’s good not to get too far from that, keep it natural. You know, if it’s working don’t fix it. It works.

As a purchaser, what are your experiences with Shepherd Song in terms of the consistency of flavor, texture and cutting?

I think it’s very consistent. The cutting’s really consistent. The flavor has always been very consistent.

Even with the seasons?

Even with the seasons, yeah. I think he does a good job of … keeping them fed.

What could SSF do to improve your experience with them as a buyer, preparer and diner of their lamb.

Uh, boy, discounts, a lot of discounts. No, I’m just joking. No they have very fair prices, very fair prices. Do farm tours. Invite us out there. I’d love to go. I jut need the opportunity.

I’ve seen the pictures on Shepherd Song Farm, on their website. Their animals have that alive look to them, which you don’t get in stockyard animals.

Thanks a lot for your time, Jesse.

Sure.