Why is Boston butt called Boston butt? That and more on the pork shoulder cut in this week’s Root Source.

With its bands of fat, Boston butt is ideal for long, slow cooking. This whiled away this past week working on a basic pulled pork, Coconut & Lime’s smoky mango pulled pork and the Italian stuffed porchetta.

Next week, we’re featuring chives, so be sure to send in your recipes for the Root Source Challenge.

Being from the South, I’m used to ordering “pulled” pork at the barbecue joints. But you also come across “shredded” pork recipes and menu items. What’s the difference between pulled pork and shredded pork?

In a little Paris bistro, I was once served a delicious cantaloupe soup that I have been making ever since, right down to the presentation.

They brought us shallow soup bowls scattered with diced prosciutto and minced chives. Next they brought a tureen filled with bright orange, frothy chilled cantaloupe soup that they ladled into the bowls for a refreshing first course.

I love melon and prosciutto together—who doesn’t?—but it always seems too obvious to serve at a dinner party, when I try to avoid things that people probably make at home. But this deconstructed version is elegant and surprising and takes less than five minutes to prepare.

I asked them how they made it and they claimed it was just ripe cantaloupe whizzed up in a blender. This works. But I like to add either a splash of lime juice or a bit of sweet Muscat wine to give it an extra dimension. The saltiness of the prosciutto and the fresh taste of the chives gives it a lift.

Make the soup ahead so it is very chilly when served. You can also chop your prosciutto and chives, load the bowls, and put them in the refrigerator along with the soup to chill so that you can assemble the first course in seconds once your guests arrive.

Recipe: Chilled Cantaloupe Soup With Chives And Prosciutto (Cookthink)
Recipe: Jamon Serrano And Cantaloupe Salad (Cookthink)

Considering that I have an interest in the intersections of food and music, the latest Daring Bakers Challenge on Opera Cake should have been a perfect challenge for me. I loved the idea of a complex structure, a multi-layered and textured cake, and something that takes hours and hours to make being named after opera.

But I suffered the same downfall of so many a performer—lack of preparation. I started the cake two days in advance of the posting date, basically hoping that everything would go smoothly the first time out. I should have known better.

It was a series of mishaps—imagine a performance where the prima donna gets her braids tangled in her horns and the conductor is a bit tipsy. Too coarse almond meal made the joconde base far too crumbly. I tried to make a butter cream from a sugared syrup, which immediately solidified on the beaters of my hand mixer, turning them into enormous lollipops. I did manage to salvage enough for one minature cake, which at least looks good (even though it didn’t taste good). The critics would have panned me.

Ah well. I learned my lesson: the only way to get to (the bakery next to) Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice.

Check out some of the more successful attempts at the Daring Bakers Blogroll. If you dare to try the recipe for yourself, it can be found here. Thanks to the organizers, as always.

Except for spices, oils and condiments, I don’t keep a well-stocked pantry. I don’t have the space, and it’s not in my nature to gather nuts for winter. Also, since I work from home, I like to create daily excuses to get out of the house, like walking to the market to buy just enough food for dinner.

I’m not sure if it’s the lack of a regular paycheck, my New England upbringing, eco-guilt or my stingy half-Greek blood, but I am virtually incapable of throwing away food. To me, it has become a moral weakness to buy more than I can use (or be obliged to eat more than I need because I’ve done so).

But even careful shopping can yield unexpected scraps—good scraps, the odds and ends of fresh and well-chosen ingredients. Today I looked at the motley assortment of leftover bits occupying my refrigerator and decided to use them up in one fell swoop. I decided to make what I call “Scrap Soup”.

I boiled leftover shrimp shells from this orzo salad to make a light shrimp broth, which I skimmed and strained. Then I added chopped cilantro stems, the very top green parts of the green onions that usually get tossed, leftover broccoli stalks chopped fine (the flowers long gone), leftover stubs of ginger, and the seeds of red chiles that I had used in another dish.

I let this come to a boil, then turned off the heat and let it steep until it was completely cool. I checked it for seasoning, and then reheated it briefly with the carcasses of some limes that had been stripped of zest and squeezed of juice. This gave the soup just a hint of lime flavor. (Don’t leave them in too long or it will turn your scrap soup bitter.)

In the past, I’ve improved on this basic scrap soup by first sautéing the vegetables, drizzling in some fish sauce, cooking rice in the broth and/or adding shrimp or pork dumplings.

Was this scrap soup the most delicious meal I have ever eaten? No. But it was satisfying in many ways.

Related: How to make vegetable broth
Related: Leftover shrimp tacos
Related: Don’t throw away your leftover green onions either

I once saw a cocky young French TV chef berate one of his guests for admitting that she cut her chives with scissors. He used the opportunity to condescendingly broadcast that she was taking the amateur’s way out.

Using scissors, he said, was something permitted at home, but it would never be allowed in the kitchen of his (fledgling and overrated) restaurant. With that, he began to show off his knife skills (which were much quicker than his wit). That I found myself yelling at the television is one reason I no longer have one.

Anyway, the point here is that there is more than one way to snip a chive. Kitchen shears became a good friend to me in the kitchen during lean years when I could barely afford a pot to boil spaghetti in—they helped me get more out of my ingredients. Now I reach for scissors to chiffonade herbs, to snip bacon slices into smaller strips and to trim the tails off radishes. After seeing an Italian do it in Tuscany one summer, I even use scissors cut pizza into slices.

You? Do you use scissors in the kitchen? If so, for what?

Some neighbors down the street have a huge patch of rhubarb. This time of year, it’s understood that when you walk by their place, you yank out at least a few stalks to take home with you. (”Otherwise,” one of them said to me, “we’d be eating it until August.”) Maybe there are fewer takers this year, because they’ve put it down in writing.

Reference: Can I eat rhubarb leaves? (Cookthink)
Recipe: Apple And Rhubarb Shortcake (Cook & Eat)
Recipe: Rhubarb Soda (Coconut & Lime)
Recipe: Coconut, Strawberry, White Chocolate And Rhubarb Mousse Cake (Canelle & Vanille)

Last year, I wrote about my first (and only) experience with currywurst, how I lived off of it for a cold, snowy week at the Berlin Film Festival. Several people who’d been stationed in Berlin at one point or another left comments with remembrances of and recipes for currywurst.

This morning, skimming William Grimes’ review of a new book called 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, I came across this exciting passage:

“Uwe Timm, a contemporary German writer unknown to me, now flies very high on my mental Amazon rankings. The Invention of Curried Sausage (1993) is an offbeat quest novel. The narrator, seeking the origins of currywurst, a German fast-food specialty, quizzes an elderly vendor and winds up with a big, fat history lesson. The issues are big, the prose brilliant, the execution deft.”

A book about currywurst! Echt geil!

Has anybody read this?

It’s beautiful where we are. Hope it is where you are, too. A last-minute, live-all-afternoon-at-the-grill menu:

Recipe: Grilled Sardines (Cookthink)
Recipe: Wong Ah Wah Grilled Chicken Wings (Rasa Malaysia)
Recipe: Grilled Zucchini (Cookthink)
Recipe: Grilled Eggplant (Cookthink)
Recipe: Bourbon- And Maple-Grilled Acorn Squash (Grill Every Day)
Recipe: Grilled Leg of Lamb With Rosemary And Garlic (Cookthink)
Recipe: Grilled Pineapple With Buttered Rum Sauce (Coconut & Lime)
Recipe: Strawberry Crostata With Cornmeal Crust (hogwash)

For me, the most undeniable sign of summer is a warm, ripe strawberry. Its juicy sweetness is as sunny as the rays at the beach and as cooling as the saltwater spray. Share your strawberry secrets with us by entering your recipe to Root Source Challenge #17: Strawberry.

Our favorite recipe featuring strawberries will be featured in the Root Source and published on Cookthink.com. The author will also receive a copy of V Cuisine: The Art of New Vegan Cooking, by Angeline Linardis.

Submissions are due by 12pm EST Tuesday, June 10. Send us an email to rootsourcechallenge [AT] cookthink [DOT] com with your name, email address, blog URL and a permalink to the recipe. Please put “Root Source Challenge #17: Strawberry” in the subject line of your email. Click here for the complete rules and to see past winners. Good luck!

(Thanks to The Lisa Ekus Group for providing us with books for the Root Source Challenge.)