Joe Rogan Experience #1676 — Jesse Griffiths Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. Yeah, I can believe that. wild foods, you know, and,, and I heard you on the podcast, when someone's really into what they do. Thank you. I like to serve food. we're more craftsmen than artists. Now there's some chefs that are artists that are out there You know, we do something that's needed on a daily basis I mean, no offense to plumbers either.

4:07 But there's something about food that for whatever reason, I think until Bourdain came along, people didn't really look at it like an art. and they're composing these foods, these dishes, And so I do, yeah, I'll concede that yes, there is a bit of an art to dealing with food like that And whatever was available, that's what we'd do. It can be. And I saw in those two places that their cuisine was based on their local ingredients.

7:54 here we use walnut oil and duck fat as our primary cooking fats. And they base a whole cuisine on We have prairies. An austere man, okay, of living conditions or way of life, having no comforts or luxuries, harsh or aesthetic. I worked in restaurants all through high school. But I enjoyed being in the front of the house, but I knew that it wasn't a long-term thing for me.

10:28 it didn't work and, you know, they're, they're onto massage school next. I mean, it's a lot of hard work. And so the chef took me literally on a gondola. there's not much going on vegetable wise and he's got three sizes of arugula in there he's got small And he puts it in the window and a waiter comes and takes it. this is all you need. Right. And not think that you, you don't have to do anything to it. And

13:56 To not get your fingerprints all over it and just to know that as it stands, it's amazing. once you have those base ingredients, you really don't need to do that much. Yeah, just if it works out cuz there's like a wisdom in creating something like that comes through as you're eating it. There's so much going on there. I think that all those things are really important lessons that tie you to that whole, the source and then the whole system that it takes to get it to you.

17:02 I'd been a prep cook and a butcher in a restaurant. food, uh, with the, with the source like that with hunting or fishing or whatever, I think was seven months. And when you do it, would you do it on weekends? Like when do you? very little seats available to those. So it's really necessary. do this, you know, this is what time of day we expect deer to move, when we expect hogs to move,

20:38 I'm not going to touch the hog topic yet. to really value a resource. That time they killed a deer, because it's really hard, like, for me, critical for life. I mean, there's very few people Whenever I talk to someone, they go, Like how? And I've talked to people that go helicopter hunting. Because of the, you have to eradicate a certain amount of those pigs.

23:35 Let's explain the numbers too, because people need to know how fucking crazy it is here in Texas. And in the time we've been talking about them, you know, how many have been born. it's pretty precise like that. I bet women are very jealous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll be giving birth on Wednesday. Well, twice. So they came here in the mid-1500s. So if you're talking about the technical United States-

26:30 Yeah. Yeah. And now you have 253 out of 254 counties in Texas have hogs, feral hogs. It's a pig that's just on the wrong side of a fence. I mean, once they get out, Well, we should explain to people what happens to pigs, right? Correct. together you know the the the herds that were initially brought here for food, and then further domestic herds, and then you have escapees over hundreds of years of, you know, settling in this country,

29:51 but I believe it's just like a subspecies. Yes. It's not like a hybrid, like a liger where they can't. It's debatable whether the powder horn ranch population is purebred Russian boar. I've read But, you know, a fence doesn't mean shit to a pig. You know, pointy hats, long brown robes. I've seen that name before, jamon. hogs and was raising them because, I mean, purportedly, I mean, for their incredible

32:48 really high grade domestic pork in also. So they were small. They were like a medium sized pig that Certainly. it's a very strong, musty odor. And we deal with it randomly. I mean, when you're hunting wild pigs, they're going to put on a lot of fat and be very, very good. So one of the things that we address constantly is the disparity in quality for wild pigs.

35:33 Or a live deer. In my book, I call them opportunistic omnivores. it, it alerts a hog and a hog will kill and eat a rattlesnake pretty much with impunity. I have an... Well, it's a lot of things I have to do. much as they used to and so there's kind of an uptick in bites I personally don't I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I would imagine. and the white moth stood out really vividly against the black soot and birds started eating

39:28 But there is a great debate. Like when you see an octopus become a coral reef, like what the fuck is happening there? When you see that, when you see an animal that can literally become the ground, like it looks like it's the bottom of the ocean. deer. They can't see it. Yeah. It's trying to figure it out. But what is it seeing? And where is it seeing this?

43:15 and this is so they're so strange they're so uh it's such a alien creature like if you went Yeah. But it's also seemingly another way to blame the pigs for something right well there's a lot of like room I think they're cool. It's an invasive species. and they were absolutely delicious. generational mythology you know you can't eat that pig because it's too big you can't eat any boar

47:25 with taking, uh, someone from LA who was in the movies to go hunting. He'd never been hunting Pig went down. I mean, it just catches it around the torso. And I said no. And I just walked over and i shot it and killed it um because i just i was like it's and it was, to this day, the worst feral hog I've ever had. And so, I mean, I think that that's a very clear-cut example of what stress can do.

50:08 But what we try to do is approach hogs, and forgive me if I'm getting off topic, things like that. Some very simple approach to it, something that's probably going to be highly spiced. You wouldn't cook a ham off of it or anything like that? So you're probably yielding, you know. And then you do it all yourself, right? So you get domestic pork fat, or do you use any other kind of fat?

53:16 Really good. How come nobody does that? Yeah. use it a lot, but I think there's some applications that it works really well for, especially with Yeah, I was watching a YouTube video yesterday where this guy was cooked an inexpensive chuck steak and he sous vide it for 24 hours and then grilled it. and all this gristle and everything breaking down slowly

55:34 You know, they're like kind of technologically, and it's cooked you know it's like oh that elk shank that i had it was tough you undercooked it Is that correct how to say her name? on their sexual reproductive systems. The change from polyvinylidene chloride to polyethylene was for safety, but it did make the cling wrap cling less. And I have always been opposed.

58:36 No? You're hunting and then gathering up fresh local ingredients and cooking it. I'm really excited about them. You achieve a certain temperature? you know, duck quarters, anything like that, where you can take something and kind of cook it to and then when you get a taco on the street, it's just been cooked forever Really? they'll be a lot easier to handle. So I typically will go cold onto the grill.

1:02:40 be able to read a book through them sometimes. I mean, they can just be so thin. So if you want to par-cook them These are well done pieces of meat. I'm applying this more to things that I want to cook until they're like almost falling apart. If they're particularly lean, you just put them in water. And is this how you've always done it, then to order, I mean, because that process takes four or five hours.

1:05:37 Each one is a little different. Oak coals. And it's just because the flavor imparts? just the dish in the end, you know, it's just like how you made that and what, an abundant animal over abundant wood would make the most sense. there. And it's why we all stare at fires. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can't, you just stare at I think I've ever done in my life.

1:09:10 Something about cooking over a fire. what was happening on that table, whether it's on one side, they're making breads, you know, place all about? Right you see it right in front of you and it's so We have two. But there's still a little, I mean, there's smoke everywhere. Yeah. experience one time when i was i was down in the front and i was I was prepping and I looked up and there was this old guy, you know,

1:12:48 And he probably, hopefully, was thinking about the way his grandparents ate. demographic that is is it is it wide open is it a bunch of large spectrum um yes and no we have i for is, is, is learning about utilization. And then you've got your brand new hunters. to do some things that mitigate that. And we're just, we're trying to get more different people

1:15:40 was it was really rewarding and i think that as we as we move forward and we're educators, I think it helps. ways. Great. I mean, we have a lot of land stewardship and a lot of these natural places You got to make friends, you know. pigs or at least try and i i always urge people to start there if they if they want i mean this is And when you take a pig and you hunt it with someone, when you break it down, what is the first thing you do as far as like how do you – do you bring coolers with you?

1:19:12 Really? the meat. You're getting water in there. So water can be a vector for bacteria. And so that can it cold? What we do is the same exact thing. We wrap it really well in trash bags. We take unscented contractor bags and wrap that animal you can't eat pigs. You know, they're dangerous. They carry diseases. You know, that's the gaminess. There's no way to bring it back?

1:22:52 negative experiences with hogs a lot or game in general. And while I can't, you know, knowingly You know, I mean, fill it a third of the way up with ice, put your pig in there, and a real pleasure to cut on the board you know let's bleach it you know not like enough bleach to make us sick but you know enough bleach to just I can't even believe that,

1:25:28 and you only had 20 minutes to execute this after you killed it, I was like, I think the problem is not with gamey boars, but I think your problem lies in ranch managers. My unscented contractor bag seems a little tame now, right? You're like, okay, some merit. So no whitetail, but like axis and syca and fallow deer. current generating device to a freshly killed deer or antelope carcass and applying a surge

1:28:05 Muscles cut away from the bone during rigor mortis will contract and compact the meat I like it. and it's super high quality. Yeah. with cows too right don't they do it with with cow meat i'm not sure about the um like the beef So they stick like these acupuncture style needles. contracting and relaxing. mean we i'm i i to, this is very technical. Um, and I get asked that a lot. I, and it's just sheer laz no, I've never done that. And I get asked that a lot.

1:31:58 and as long as you cook it for a certain amount of time, Brucellosis, pseudorabies, tularemia. but just always have those. And I insist that everybody else wears gloves. Now on the butchery I have no idea why. man uh i do love axis i mean it's like that i mean in texas that's just like that's the king You know, I want to have some turkey in there and some pig and some whitetail and some axis and then a ton of fish.

1:35:11 I mean like ground. I've done a lot of rotisserie hogs, like whole pigs on electric rotisseries and in the smokers too. Yeah. Yeah. I rarely will take the time to skin, like, a hog's head out, but I will sometimes. You know, sesos is a somewhat common taco. Oh, you got to go to the legit spots. You know, barbacoa is a big deal. If you're in a legit barbacoa place, you're going to get, there's going to be cuts.

1:37:33 I think that's everything. Yeah I mean I don't know maybe they Right. Right. Or a dove. I'm like, each way? I drove, you know, two and a half hours overall. or it's like a chore, you know, like, oh, I got to do this. I'm not saying everybody, but There's something, a couple bites. people that don't hunt that are listening to this right now they're like what are you talking about

1:41:33 Is that true? just get outside of a suburb in any town in Texas on September 1st at around four in the afternoon. and that if you if i go out with a friend and we manage to get eight doves we're gonna both if Profoundly birdie? dance around the chicken um like a chicken thigh times but with a different yeah richness to it You've got to be very clear on that because there is a mode of response that people will have about sandhills.

1:45:01 crane? Very large. Um, they hunt them a lot in the panhandle and also towards the coast. Yeah. I'd say, well, it's maybe a deer or something like that. Really? It has a very- It's funny because a turkey you would think would be just as dinosaur-y as that, What do you mean? Like deep fry turkey and peanut oil? The whole thing? Yeah. No. Because I've done it, I always did it with turkeys.

1:47:18 Okay. You know, when I saw that people were doing this really kind of interesting, I got into a rabbit hole the other day where I was Googling something and I started watching videos about people hunting iguanas in florida It's got a very distinct kind of almost chickeny flavor to it, but like with just a little bit of extra robustness. Especially this one guy that made it in, like, this Asian dish over rice.

1:49:33 This lady, there's this one lady that I follow on YouTube and she's shooting these iguanas this is uh here's some people to catch them like yeah pull it like where she shows the one she Make pythons profitable. I'll eat it. I have not traveled to hunt, nor do I really, it's not very appealing to me. So like if, I mean, I'm going to Utah to help, Yeah.

1:51:59 also, I'd probably decline shooting a nilgai. And no guy's invasive, but it's also, like I said, But you do enjoy the meat. So you'd rather hunt small. No. That's when they were introduced. One animal is a ton of meat. Um, and I like it and then mean then yeah not to just come back like, they're blue. Yeah. It's really crazy. They're a wild looking thing with the horns too.

1:56:29 Like it looks like a fake animal. So weird. So it's a kind of antelope, right? overnight and get a crust on it what is that about well? Well, just to dry out a little bit. Um, temperature, but we just didn't have it. Which is, I mean, commonplace when you're processing once that vac sealed, I mean, soft yeti coolers full of all the meat and fish that they could possibly carry and it wasn't like

1:59:38 And so, yeah, when we were back sealing all that, to the trickle-down effect from Rinella. Yeah. I mean, I had to do like a legality check real quick. Correct, correct. Don't spear the redfish. And their designation as a game fish came at great political cost. In the 1980s, came in and got them designated as a game fish. Farm raised. So redfish survive really well in brackish and fresh water. So there's lakes around San Antonio that have redfish in them, Calaveras and Bronnick.

2:03:25 Interesting. And isn't that the fish you're using for fish and chips? Why a little piece of wood? And do you prefer that for fish and chips? Thank you. But also right around fall when it starts to get cool, you probably ask me that question. Yeah. Yeah. Are you using something novel? mayonnaise based which is you know fried fish mayonnaise. And are you using locally sourced potatoes when you're doing the chips?

2:07:17 mashed potatoes and French fries. And we made a shift, a conscientious shift to organic potatoes that aren't necessarily from Texas. Is it like Idaho or whatever where you get the best potatoes? Yeah. Not for that dish, but we have done lots of fried sweet potatoes, lots of thin cut chips. But, I mean, my preference would probably be I love beef fat for frying.

2:09:52 Yeah. I'm really – I'm so happy to, like, talk about it, though, because it's like if there's anything about our restaurant, it's like transparency. And it's like, but those are two things that we have definitely become flexible on over the years Texturally, it can make some differences. Yeah. it's not like you can regulate for years oh wow like six years you know it's just a big old dutch oven full of rendered beef fat

2:13:22 You know, it's just like because our restaurant's not flashy and it's definitely not the cool place to work anymore. I mean, if you can't like perfectly cook that pork chop, then you don't really need to move on to the next thing. It's kind of cool. so excited it's like oh the fucking blueberries are here you know, why is Jesse so excited? He's like, oh, the fucking blueberries are here, you know, for the first time.

2:15:27 And these days we're trying to really like to kind of control waste more. And so what that enables us to do is have a dish with green beans on it And I need to have some consistency to it, too. I mean, no. And I think that a lot of the food system exists on those relationships. Yeah, they do rotational pasturing. And so she's able to do that. is it only invasives that you can sell on menus?

2:18:57 It's just not native to Texas. And so ostensibly it's just been purchased as a livestock. onto a trailer and processed at a at a slaughtering facility you know like we've we've had elk before state lines, it can be state. And so we use a state inspector The snare. it to be because the hog, the feral hog meat that we get in is never gamey like that experience I had with the snared pig or have

2:22:43 and it's not something that i like and it would be something that I would like to be addressed. They're just feeding them until it's their time. But why are they capturing it and then holding them for a few days and feeding them? Correct. So, I mean, that just, that brings up a much wider topic in how do we get feral hogs into how are you going to manage it? It's going to be really tricky, but I think that

2:25:30 Why don't we capture a couple of them and breed them? though do they do they retract back to domestic looking? They're typically, like if I see pork in a grocery store, them. They'll, they're like street kids, you know, they're like, oh, I'm going to eat. I'm not going You can't hunt any bears in Texas? I was looking at. You know, if it was like low light, I'd be like, you know, that's a giant

2:28:33 Is it because of the impact it'll have on local fawns and calves and things along those lines? So it was climbing into the thing with alpacas and it just couldn't resist. Like, you don't even have to have a tag. Yeah, me too. terrified and forced to wear three masks and stay indoors no matter what. And it's really and what what shapes like geographic regions to have i mean almost a personality it's interesting

2:32:06 Well, it's so defining. Have you had that? Just to know what the fuck is up. It was good. I had a sausage in France one time. I wonder what that would be. anything we got too lucky the bounty of food here yeah you know yeah i remember watching i watched How are you getting your cow so fat? They look nothing like a ribeye here in the States. And it was marbled like that you'd be like what the fuck is wrong with this animal

2:36:03 That's what we prefer. a GMO corn and they just fed it nothing but corn, which is, I'm sure the pig was happy. part of the loin was about two inches, and it had about eight or nine inches of fat on top of that. um and secondly this is not good stuff to eat it didn't taste good it tasted great it did oh it I mean, it's unhealthy. And as we're dicing the meat, like this is for sausage, we had a pile like two feet high of just white, pure white fat on one side.

2:39:18 we, uh, we shot it on this hill. It was like, uh, on the side of a very steep hill and as i shot it it died and We have to hang this thing because I was going to break my neck. to it. It had an clay new yeah have you ever had that no no remember I've never tried bear oh Like, it's not just what tastes good. Yeah. like their salad, it's one thing. And when you're in Texas and somebody doesn't like their steak,

2:42:56 goes to a feedlot which is i mean key for us i don't want that animal to be 90 days just on corn know she's awesome i mean she's so good at it mariana peeler i mean just just creating amazing You find them in the cornfields. I mean, think corn feeders. meat, it's a great way to do it. But there's something that's what your goal is, just gather up some meat. It's a great way to do it.

2:45:13 It's that time that we have and that we're able to give to this vocation Yeah. I'm like, what I think about pigs and their senses is that, I mean, it's scent. If they smell you, they turn around and run away. I mean, it's just out of the question. We happened to have the wind in our faces. I backtracked and I was like, you know, like, hey, Larry, we got to go get a rifle. He's like, what? I'm like, there's a pig right there. And I just backtracked. The wind was blowing at me. I backtracked. And I was like, hey, Larry, we've got to go get a rifle.

2:48:04 The wind was bad. Like when they get excited, particularly about two things, there's nothing that's going to pull them away from those two things. There's feral hog problems around the world. Well, it's been in England particularly, England, like they have a very different take on hunting for the most part than we do. Whereas carp for us are just thought to be like sort of a junky fish.

2:50:14 If I catch one and it's like nice, perfect, On the coast, there's so many fish to eat on the coast. Right. And it's just you know, he said that And then you drive it to another part of the lake and then you let it go. Right? I've had bass, but I haven't had it since I was a teenager. Yeah, it's very good. It has a larger flake than either of those fish. It is a sunfish.

2:53:42 It's weird. Yeah. where I can go and catch all the sunfish and catfish that I want Yeah, people love those little tiny trout for like lunch. and just, It's just interesting that there's not a shortage of bass. Yeah. I just don't see myself doing that. I would imagine. about flatheads they're good they're really even the giant ones yeah what are you what's your

2:57:23 They're very predatory. And I think that's what translates into them being so delicious. We were just in Arkansas. And it's just really incredible. it too. You know, he's African-Americanican and he's got he knows the history of this area the finest eating fish out there. of catfish in England. like they eat dead things. Well, you know what we were using in bait in Arkansas?

3:00:37 Oh, it got away. I know there's other fish that like do target birds. but when we were in Arkansas, Why soap? One of the guides had sworn by it, and I thought it was a one-off. It smells like soap, and the catfish love it. good on rod and reel though does that make any sense to you um it it will probably dissolve as You know, the hog looked like this.

3:04:18 And then the recipes, the subsequent recipes that you can prepare from that specific size. And it kind of I addressed that. You change that to wild boar and then people want it. yeah i get it but it's and i'll i'll be i'll be very uh clear that it is it's a marketability Yeah. There's so many of them. You don't? Are you going to do that at all? Probably not. We self-published and are

3:07:35 It's the first I appreciate it, man, and thanks for having such an awesome restaurant, D-A-I-D-U-E. Bye.