As Friday’s first #NationalBeefTallowDay approaches, Coast Packing Company and Tasti Burger will mark #FRYdayThe13th with a completely yummy French fry “Taste the Difference” experience, on stage at the Orange County Fair.
At the Fair, attendees will sample French fries prepared with beef tallow and peanut oil, and—guided by Coast Packing Corporate Chef Ernie Miller and Tasti Burger’s Lori Southerlend—explore the delights, nuances and flavor profiles of each. Tasti Burger, family-owned for 44 years and a fixture on the Southern California fair circuit, offers the only fresh made-to-order burgers on the Fairgrounds. The fun starts at 6 p.m. on the main stage of the Culinary Showcase, in the OC Promenade.
An initiative of The Healthy Fats Coalition, #NationalBeefTallowDay, Friday, June 13, is a celebration of a traditional healthy animal fat—pure beef tallow shortening—that is now enjoying a resurgence within America’s food culture, in restaurants, fast food operations and home kitchens.
For those who can’t make it to the Fair, there’s always Twitter. Coast has put out a call for the public’s most poetic/ecstatic/witty/tasty tweets, proclaiming their hunger for beef tallow fries, in the first-ever #BeefTallowFrenchFries “Tweet-to-Win” Contest (http://coastpacking.com/beeftallowfrenchfries/). It’s an opportunity for participants to take home some serious bling (nothing less than a hand-crafted, life-size, 22ct gold-plated sterling silver French fry ring from GoldieRox.com). The contest kicked off on July 5 and wraps up on the 13th.
The contest’s expert judge is blogger/columnist/beef tallow fries lover Kevin Drum. “Nobody makes fries the old way anymore,” Drum lamented in Mother Jones a few years back. “They used to be so good. These days—phhht. There’s no taste at all… Fries made in beef tallow are unquestionably better.”
“For consumers, the message of our ‘Tweet-to-Win’ contest is, ‘capture the deliciousness in 280 characters and you may take home the bling,’” Chef Miller says. “Artificial trans fats are out, and minimally processed animal fats like beef tallow—for superior French fries and a host of other cooking and frying applications– are making a comeback, big-time.”
“In terms of freshness, flavor and texture, there really is no comparison to beef tallow French fries, which is exactly why we’re so delighted when consumers can taste for themselves, as they will at the OC Fair,” adds Eric R. Gustafson, Coast Packing CEO. “Toward that end, we at Coast Packing are continuing our efforts to demonstrate that healthy animal fats like tallow are tasty, traditional and amazingly palate-pleasing.”
