Here’s the Dec. 11 Four Bites Show, and related reading if you’d like to dig deeper

When Michael Parkot of Always Something Farm joined the Four Bites Show on Dec. 11, he shared his insider’s knowledge of the meat-raising business to tackle consumer questions. The discussion helped me – and hopefully audience members – learn more about how our food gets to our kitchens.

Here’s the show, if you’d like to watch it now. The introductory video, my second, was adequate but I managed to play it without sound during the show. So here’s the real deal, worth a watch just for the Parkot boy riding the sow.

Highlights include Parkot’s stories about livestock wrangling in 2023 and what he did when he discovered a restaurant with his farm’s name on its menu and none of his meat in its coolers.

Here’s more information on some topics of the night.

John Young opened the first chicken wing restaurant in Buffalo. John Young’s Wings and Things, selling fried whole chicken wings in mumbo sauce, a District of Columbia specialty, opened years before the Anchor Bar’s disjointed flats and drumsticks in cayenne hot sauce and butter were first served.

First eats after returning from afar: This Little Pig, in Clarence Hollow, and getting the Local Cheeseburger, whose goodness is related to its beef source: Belleview Farm, Corfu, N.Y., about 15 miles from the restaurant.

Things Parkot will never eat again include balut, a mostly developed duck embryo, steamed in shell and served warm. Click on the link to see it, if you like. I’m not putting a photograph of balut here to ambush unsuspecting readers.

From Wikipedia: Balut eggs are savored for their balance of textures and flavors. The broth surrounding the embryo is sipped from the egg before the shell is peeled, and the yolk and young chick inside can be eaten. All of the contents of the egg may be consumed, although the white albumen may remain uneaten depending on the age of the fertilized egg. This white albumen may have an unappetizing cartilaginous taste and is tough and rubbery in texture.

Choice for free dinner anywhere within an hour’s drive of Buffalo City Hall: Pearl Morrissette.

At a winery in Jordan Station, Ont., graceful coursed meals of all-Canadian cuisine are such an attraction at Pearl Morrissette that reservations are snapped up quickly when each month’s book is opened. For best results, get on the email list so you can try for a reservation at the deadline. Also ask to be placed on the cancellation list, to be contacted if another customer canceled. That’s how my girlfriend Jen Regan and I got in last year.

Parkot particularly enjoyed the celeriac course, a celery root sliced into a ribbon, rolled back up, roasted, served with a sauce of caramelized whey and chopped chicken heart garnish. So did we when visiting last year. Here’s my photo of the dish.

Rizzo’s House of Parm, Ft. Erie, Ont., opened by Ft. Erie’s favorite son, restaurateur-actor-fashionista Matty Matheson, costar of “The Bear” on FX.

Fat Rabbit, a new St. Catharine’s, Ont. restaurant that’s causing a buzz among chowhunters, also got the Parkot nod.

South Buffalo wing tour stalwart Nine-Eleven Tavern was Parkot’s wing pick: single hot, crispy.

#30#