Another odd one, Hanging Pheasant

Recently ran across a different Blog about Hunting and found another long forgotten practice:

Hanging Pheasants, or for some Dry Aging Beef.

Basically once the bird is reduced to possession, it is left to err "age" until the tissue begins to break down (better known as rot slightly) in order to enhance the flavor of otherwise a nondescript version of Chicken.

I can recall reading about that practice in James Clavell's Shogun, but thought it was sort of created merely by a lack of refrigeration, apparently I was incorrect:


"

The great Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarindoesn’t give a timetable, but says, “the peak is reached when the pheasant begins to decompose; its aroma develops, and mixes with an oil which in order to form must undergo a certain amount of fermentation, just as the oil in coffee can only be drawn out by roasting it.” Sounds pretty hardcore.

Roy Wall wrote in 1945: “The flesh of either wild game or domesticated animals and fowl can certainly be improved by aging, but it is my opinion that there must be a limit to the aging process…aging in the open air for 10 days or a month, according to weather conditions, is, in my opinion, most beneficial to domestic and wild meat alike."

Hmm...well..mmkay...

As for the Alpha Strategy, right now prices seem to have stabilized, I would however point out that food producers sign contracts in advance, sometimes years in advance, with the decline in prices of commodities there will be less production of those commodities, meaning prices will rise sometime in early 2009.

Now the other thing to keep in mind is Government introduced scarcity, there are less then 50 days until the real possibility exists that items such as rifles and ammunition and magazines will increase in price even moreso then Alpha Strategists are seeing today, add in the real possiblity of precious metals becoming a safe haven until political leadership sorts out how much inflation they wish to introduce into the US and indeed World Economy...