Roskilde Festival

The Orange Stage, the center of Roskilde Festival a few days before opening.

I didn’t know what I was getting into. I first heard about Roskilde festival on my first trek into Denmark. From what I could gather from my Viking friends, it sounded like a pretty wild music festival where people dressed Amish-ish. Roskilde is, in fact, the largest annual music festival in Europe. Over 135,000 people travel to the old capital of Denmark for a week long non-profit festival dedicated to celebrating music, culture, and humanism. It spans over 8,000 acres, so that means an endless sea of tents, people, food, and music.

About a month ago, Michael Museth, owner of Folkets Madhus gave me a call. For the past five years, Folkets Madhus had been a food vendor at Roskilde Festival and this year he was short on volunteers. That's all I needed to hear. Within a week, my Old Gringo boots touched down in Copenhagen.

I didn’t have much time to catch my breath or unpack my backpack – my second day was spent in the kitchen preparing for a separate catering event for 250 people. In between, my good buddy Gustav and I finished prepping everything for the festival: over 100 kilos of minced meat for the famous “He-Man Chili" and another 100 kilos of Danish BBQ.

As far as Danish BBQ, remember, we aren’t in the Lone Star state.

Danish BBQ hanging in the cold smoker.

Danish BBQ is different from traditional Texas BBQ.  Michael and Gustav had started on a test batch before I arrived - beef short ribs were salted with copious amounts of paprika, chili powder, and other spices then cold smoked for days. The final product was slow-cooked in the oven.

Not "Aaron Franklin style"  but surprisingly was pretty damn good.

SUNDAY - DAY 1
Sunday was officially the first day of Roskilde Festival. Campers who numbered in the thousands and had been waiting for days to score the perfect site to pitch their tents were turned loose. Food vendors were given the green-light too, so the Folkets Madhus team moved in our equipment and setup our tents. Gustav and I broke away to the Northern countryside to pickup his "camplet"  which proved to be a lifesaver. Rain was forecasted, and I had heard countless tales of “Roskilde 2007" - the year, Roskilde received over 4 inches of rain, and the festival turned into a mud-bowl. 

One of the many campsites at Roskilde - over 130,00 campers!

MONDAY - TUESDAY
As a volunteer, I was required to work a minimum of 6 hours a day. In return, I was given a free pass to the festival's musical acts.  So everyday after our shift was over, we meandered over to the small stages to catch shows.  I ended up seeing Foo Fighters, Ice Cube, and Justice, and to my surprise, a band called CcSquele. As it turned out, one of Folkets Madhus's own food runners was "secretly" in the band.  

He "forgot to mention it," but he is a pretty big deal. He plays a total of six instruments, and he rocked the drums that night.

One of the smaller stages at Roskilde festival.

WEDNESDAY - Day 4
On Wednesday, the inner circle which included the Orange Stage and the main food court opened. I got into the kitchen for the second shift of the day and was tasked with making an atrocious amount rice and potatoes. Rico held down the other end of the kitchen by making He-Man Chili and doing great impersonations of Salt Bae. That night, the Orange Stage opened up with The Weeknd. 

The main food hall where we were stationed.

The famous "He-Man Chili" of Folkets Madhus.

Clever, huh?

Flæskestegssandwich, a true Danish treat.

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The history buff in me has to break out for a bit: The Orange Stage was originally part of the Rolling Stones 1976 European Tour. At one point, Queen used it until finally, the tent found its way to the Roskilde Festival. Its iconic color and shape have become the festival's logo ever since.

The Orange stage in action.

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This is what it looks like when the Amish Camp meets Game of Thrones Camp. 

By the end of the week, the fairgrounds were pretty muddy.

Tents for days!

Tent tearing down time.

That day, I worked the opening shift and just as I was scheduled to be relieved things got crazy busy and Michael asked me to stay for another shift. There was only one thing to say. This is the guy that has put a roof over my head and food in my mouth. He has done an incalculable amount for my career. Without a second thought, my apron remained on for another shift until festival goers started questioning if I ever left the stand!

Honestly, I didn’t mind.  I was having fun and learning more about this side of the meat business. 

It was a memorable week. We sold a bunch of He-Man Chili and BBQ, listened to some great music, and made memories that I will always keep with me. I am humbled by my Danish friends who allowed me to partake in this cultural experience with them. As always, they are the best of hosts. Check out my short Roskilde Festival video as well!

My Roksilde/Folkets Madhus crew - Thanks for the great festival guys!

The Proof That Even Slaughterers Can Become Pop Stars Today

By Laura Ewert | WELT Iconist | Berlin | August 2017 | © WorldN24 GmbH. All rights reserved.

The modern butcher blogs and goes on educational journey

At least as beautiful as the meat products from his hands: The blogging butcher Jack Matusek

(Translated from Deutsch)

The butcher is often thick in movies, a bit angry. Sometimes bald. Chabrol rather thick-haired. He is wearing a white apron or white rubber boots and has reddened skin. He saws animals apart and leaves them on large hooks through the slaughterhouse. A place for psychotherapists. Battles are not nice.

Jack Matusek is beautiful. He is wearing a cowboy hat, long brown hair, sometimes green cowboy boots, sometimes a jeans shirt. A soft face. There are many photos of him, because he is a blogging butcher, in English, it sounds as nice as it looks: blogging butcher. He has large pieces of meat in his hand, he shows swine-ear terrines, or how to rouse a whole animal. On his "Raw Republic Meats" page, he writes about his travels, where he wants to learn everything about the craft. The 26-year-old is the proof that even slaughterers can become pop stars today - it helps of course if they look like this.

The slaughterer's new star potential is well explained by the rules of modern gourmets, who eat his bread only artisan and carrots grow blue or crooked. For him, food must be fresh, easily prepared with effort, best self-cultivated. And, of course, ethically correct. This is a tedious business, particularly in meat. One that moves the minds tremendously, in the face of animal protection, in which cow eyes look sadly from truck slits. In the case of conscious eaters, it is, therefore, a good idea to try to find out whether you can kill your food yourself (see the book "Eating Animals"), or at least making a few sausages yourself.

This explains why the butcher is so interested.

“The humble craft of the butcher is definitely coming - worldwide”, says Jack Matusek, who has found his model in Italy. ”I’ve seen videos of Dario Cecchini cutting meat, while he heard AC / DC .  I was excited. Then I understood that it was more than cutting meat. It was art. ”

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Traveling around the world all over the world

This craftsmanship charmed Matusek. He is a Texan, seventh generation.

“If I could wear my hat in the bed, I would do it, he says. ”

Texas is known for one of the most important economic sectors in the country, the cattle breeding. In 2011 the US produced more than one billion kilos of beef . "I grew up on a ranch. As a child, I enjoyed playing in the kitchen and refined my childish cooking skills, says Matussek. Combining cooking and cattle seemed to me a suitable idea."

At first, he studied history and business administration, where he also developed a business plan for a delicacy butchery. This idea grew more and more in him. "So I canceled the job offers after my graduation and decided to learn everything about the butcher's trade." That was 2015. Since then, he has been on an educational journey with regard to meat.

Jack Matusek first researched, wrote e-mails, and asked at various companies if he could learn from them. He enrolled at the best Fleischer school in the USA, Fleishers Craft Butchery in Brooklyn, New York. Because there was no free place for him, he worked in the next slaughterhouse to learn the basics.

At the same time, he began writing his blog. "I wanted to create a way to teach people about good meat with recipes and video tutorials." That's how you see how he cooks his steak. Directly in the fire. He calls it "Dirty Steak", and the video, in which he explains that you have to leave it four minutes per side in the fire to enjoy it "medium rare" is underlined with action music.

Finally, he moved to Europe. "If you want to learn to surf, go to California, if you want to learn something about sausage, go to France," he had read somewhere. So he sold his car, grabbed his backpack and went to France together with a cowboy hat and a good finish.

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Learn from the best butcher

There he worked at the slaughterhouse, on a farm, in a restaurant, ate a lot and learned a lot about French sausages. He spent his 25th birthday at the "Le St. James", a Michelin-starred restaurant in Bordeaux.

Then he went on to Panzano in the Chianti, where he worked with his hero Dario Cecchini, the most famous butcher of Italy. Bill Buford, a New York journalist, was already working as a butcher's assistant. Cecchini sells the self-cut meat in his restaurant "Officina della Bistecca" (Italian for steak workshop). 

Matusek then went to France again. In the Gascogne, he was introduced to the secret of national sausage specialties such as Pâté de Tête. He learned how to make the boneless ham Noix de Jambon from a pig's leg, and that any excess blood can cause the meat to rot during drying.

He also studied in Peru, Argentina, and Mexico. "Each country has its own style, which depends above all on local products. But also the climate and the weather influence the way of preparation and storage." A bit like the wine. The Germans, he says, are very exact at slaughter. They would hardly leave meat on the bone. The French cut rather elegantly.

Jack Matusek: "What did the animal eat, how did it live, how was it slaughtered - all that counts for the taste"

Like a cook, a butcher always has his knives, he recommends that of F. Dick. Matusek's favorite sausage specialty is the Italian Coppa of the Schweinenacken. And he loves Hanger steak, the tail of a long bison loin. He likes to work, the boy from the cattle country, but now with pig. "I just know the most about it now." And his favorite vegetable? This is the potato: "So versatile!" The best sausage is made from fresh ingredients, he says. Naturally. He is enthusiastic about Chorizo: "With different types of peppers, smoked, spicy or bittersweet." In addition, only meat from animals, which had grown well. 

“What did it eat, how it lived, how it was slaughtered - all that counts ultimately for the taste.”

With extreme vegetarians , he had so far no problems. "Vegetarians love the welfare of the animals, just like me. Animals have to live a happy life, and they have a right to pain-free and decent slaughter. "

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Battles, Blogging, and Travel

Matusek is currently working in Denmark, where he is working for a few months. At the end of August, he will come to Germany and look at some pig farms and abattoirs. For the future, he has nothing less than to produce the best sausage specialties in the world. For this, he has to found a company in which he can control everything - from the breeding of the animals through their rearing to their slaughter. "I hope I will return to my ranch in Texas and build an ethically correct slaughter house, with pig farming. And a school for the butchers."

In the meantime, he wants to travel further, to continue writing, to continue learning, to continue, as in Copenhagen at the annual "Butcher's Manifesto Summit". There meet Fleischer from all over the world, to formulate goals for the craft and to exchange ideas about what the world's foodie now calls charcuterie : Superstar meat products.

American Kid

I’m certain sausage making and music go hand in hand.

When working with meat, I’m always jammin’. In the Italian macellerias, Dario Cecchini's butchers preferred  AC/DC while carving up their massive steaks. When I arrived in Denmark, David Bowie populated everyone's playlists, so I decided to give them a taste of Texas Country music while we toiled in the kitchen – surprisingly, they liked it.  The next day the Danes returned and followed up my playlist with one loaded with Garth Brooks tunes.

I can dig it.

One day, I noticed an Instagram follower of mine, Rich O’Toole, played Texas Country. The next morning in the kitchen, I mixed in a few of his songs into the rotation. They were catchy. I felt like I had heard his tune “Robert E. Lee” before, or maybe that was just was just the history major in me. Eventually, Rich was my go-to artist.  I'd throw on my headphones and go to work - singing and screaming about Robert E. Lee or "Uncle Hank." Eventually, the Danes started asking questions about this Robert E. Lee fellow, so I had to give them a history lesson.

Flash forward a couple of months…

I’m helping throw an event just outside College Station, Texas and needed a band. I was to do a sausage making workshop, and it was to be followed up with BYOB and a band. Something clicked in the brain and the next thing you know, Rich O’Toole is lined up to play an acoustic show after my sausage demo at Jake’s Saloon in Calvert, Texas.

On the day of the event, everyone was digging in and getting their hands dirty making sausage. Rich and Matt (his guitar player) rolled up their sleeves and jumped right in. 

Rich O’Toole is a liar.

The man said he had never made sausage, but honestly, I think he’s been moonlighting as a butcher while rockin' the Texas Country Music scene.  He and Matt turned out some nice consistent links – Rich even tackled a second batch of meat and produced a killer sausage coil! 

Rich and his guitar player, Matt, cranking out some links.

After some fresh-cooked links and some libations, Rich and Matt pulled out their guitars and plugged in their amps to put on a stellar acoustic performance.  We had a blast.

Sausage Slingers

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Brother Rich just released his new album, American Kid. It’s taken over my car radio and headphones for the past week. Check it out here. 

Folkets Madhus

Copenhagen is an expensive town. The Butchers’ Manifesto week did some real damage to my wallet.

Trying to keep up with the butchers and chefs and their penchant for fine-dining, left this student financially strapped.  Luckily, Michael Museth opened a door and offered me an opportunity to work for him at Folkets Madhus. Remember, Folkets Madhus (People's Food House in Danish) is a catering house and butcher shop. I would be assisting Michael with his catering events and meat experimentations. 

A new adventure in meat means a new adventure in accommodations.  The staff at Folkets Madhus lost their conference room to me, my small wooden frame, and mattress.  It wasn't bad, my new sleeping quarters had a killer view of the garden and bomb shelter, and after a couple of nights, it felt like home. 

My Danish digs.

Showering, on the other hand, was a different ordeal. Folkets Madhus didn’t have shower facilities - after all, they are a butcher shop. However, the city of Copenhagen rented the floor below the shop and used it as a locker room for their sanitation workers. The first few times I tried to shower there, I got chased out by garbage men shouting obscenities in Danish. The only chance to use these facilities verbally unscathed was when it was unoccupied: between the hours of 1-4am. 

Did I mention the lights were usually working on a timer? 

Yeah, I showered in the dark a lot.

My shower facilities.

One of the reasons Michael asked me to stay back in Copenhagen was to assist him with some approaching catering events. In just three days, he was expected to feed 175 people at a food festival in Copenhagen's meatpacking district. While Michael recouped from the Butchers’ Manifesto, I dove into the kitchen and began prepping for our first event. 

On the morning of the event, Michael assigned tasks. We started with the most exotic ingredients first – wheat worms and crickets. Neo-Nordic cuisine integrates insects into the food – something I was not familiar with.

Frozen organic wheat worms.

Michael got the worms and bugs smoking in an outdoor shed he had converted into a makeshift oven. While they smoked, I watched them from the kitchen window as I peeled 50 kilos of potatoes.  After a half hour into the potato peeling, I glanced out the window – puffs of smoke gingerly curled out of the shed’s exhaust pipes, signaling what I thought was a good smokin’. Another 15 minutes, and this time I saw large clouds of smoke billowing out the pipes.  

“Fire- Fire!” 

We scrambled down the stairway and out to the shed. Flames leaped as we opened the shed doors. After extinguishing eight fire extinguishers, the fire calmed enough to make easy work for the local fire department once they arrived. 

Gustav and Jonas sprang into action and went through 7 fire extinguishers before the Copenhagen Fire Department showed up.

While we were being checked out by the medical crew for smoke inhalation, the professionals extinguished the last of the flames.

In total, our fire brought over three firetrucks and an ambulance.

Those Danish firefighters sure got a kick out of us smoking bugs! 

It was this firefighter's last fight - he was retiring the following day, so he ask for pictures with one of the worms - before jokingly gesturing he was going to swallow the burnt one.

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The outcome of the catering event?  

Michael quickly procured another batch of bugs.  Gustav, a fellow butcher, and I began built a new smoke oven, and a few hours later,  we rolled into the Meat Packing District with a car loaded down with Neo-Nordic cuisine.

Views from the Food Festival in the Meatpacking District. This table stretched on for what seemed like three quarters of a mile. Each caterer was assigned a 12 table section so there was a ton of kitchen staff running around!

Michael Museth and I with our "Smoked Honey Bug Salad." Those smoked wheat worms and crickets turned out to be pretty good. I will forever be indebted to Michael for the opportunity he gave me in Denmark. 

Another Open Door

Throughout my travels, I continuously ask the Lord to open and close doors for me. Every time I think I’m in control and have my next step planned out, He gives that door a kick shut and nudges me in another direction. Each time, His door is more than I could have envisioned - without fail.

 As I sat at the table in our Copenhagen Air BnB with my friend and charcuterie teacher, Kate Hill, one of those doors slammed shut and another slowly opened.  By chance, I had heard about a prestigious butchery position opening up in Portland, OR.  Kate thought I had a good chance at it.  I thought I was a shoe-in.  I was by now imagining myself in a clean white apron working under a top chef, in a private club, and ordering the day's meat. 
DOOR SLAM.

Earlier in the day, I was asked if I would consider staying back in Denmark. I could work in Copenhagen at Folkets Madhus, with the possibility of apprenticing on a self-sustaining farm on the island of Funen.  I would have the chance to work in a "seed to sausage" environment, where the animal is taken through the complete life cycle in one place - The farmer, the butcher, and the chef all sitting at the same table.

OPEN DOOR.

After talking it over with Kate and saying a little prayer, I turned the doorknob.