A Tattoo Good Enough To Eat

I’m posting this tattoo to show my friend Michael, who’s a chef at a top restaurant here in Toronto. He doesn’t have any tattoos himself, but I’ve met quite a few modified chefs — this one, the wearer of this veal demi-glace half sleeve (by George at Shelton Tattoo in Shelton, CT) explains,

“To me one of the differences between a regular restaurant and a great restaurant is whether they make their own stocks, and demi-glace is the ultimate stock. It has to be done right from the beginning because all of the flavors — or mistakes — are magnified when the sauce is finished.”

Elements of both the tattoo and the stock include a wine bottle, ladle, stock pot, carrots and carrot tops, leeks, onion, water, spices, celery, veal knuckle, and tomatoes. Anyway, I see tons of computer geek tattoos, so maybe it’s time for a food geek tattoo…

29 thoughts on “A Tattoo Good Enough To Eat

  1. food-tattoos are awesome. though i have to say i loved the godlike “vegan sleeve” even more.

  2. That’s fantastic, ha ha! And I’m pleased that I watch enough Food network to actually nod semi-knowledgeably in understanding about the demi-glace being the ultimate stock. 🙂 Food porn tattoos are tops!

  3. But, but, what about the poor baby cows?!? Sorry, I had to say it first. hahah! Nice tattoo. Is demi-glace technically a stock or a sauce?

  4. Tom For Real: It appears to be the lighting of the room causing that greenish color.

    I must say I’m hooked on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares lately as well as “The Chopping Block”…Sadly though I found myself watching them last night while eating, bad choice, cuz I was critiquing the Thai food I ordered in lol

  5. great tattoo but…does anyone else see a penis in the first pic? maybe its just my perverted imagination.

  6. Very well done but veal is gross and horrifying but I know, each to his own.

  7. #11, now that you mention it…there IS something that looks very much like a peen! Perhaps that’s not a knuckle lol.

  8. to #7… technically demi-glace is a sauce but to me it is also a stock because it is cooked in a stock pot and will yield like 12-24qts but a bechamel i cook in a sauce pan and will only make 2qts for the night. Oh and I am a food geek i have read on food and cooking and larousse gastronomique so many times its rediculous

  9. E-rich: I saw the knob too.

    And I too, can’t help feel for all the calves used in veal production. I’m sure the stock/sauce is amazing, if I ate meat, but is the great taste worth the suffering? Luckily there seems to be more people producing ‘kinder’ rose veal, especially organic farmers.

    I think this would look great in colour, but I’m all about the high-colour. I gushed about the vegan sleeve!

  10. i love tattoos about things that people love. when i’m finished with culinary school, i want to get pastry tattoos. then again, i might gnaw my arm off, so i might leave the awesome food tats to other people.

  11. Really beautiful. Theres just something missing without the colours of the foods…

  12. yeah its salt and pepper shakers for both my wife and my cooking…my initial is P her intial is S so S&P salt and pepper…she has them on her feet in colour though…I see these foods all day everyday in full colour so to have them tattooed black and grey its a nice change of pace I guess to me

  13. with all the joke tattoos that have been on modblog lately maybe I’m just looking for somthing to laugh at in them these days =/

  14. I want to mention that veal doesn’t have to be cruel in production, though mass-market stuff unquestionably is. In our grandparent’s day, veal was simply the meat from unwanted/needed calves from family milk cows. They weren’t penned, force fed or any of that. It was simply very young beef. I’m sure somewhere ouside of the supermarkets, it still is as there are pletny of people still keeping livestock on a small scale for their own use and a little profit.

  15. Any way the veal used to make a demi-glace (which starts as a stock which is then reduced) are pretty much leftovers so in some way it makes the act of killing the animal a bit less cruel since at least you’re using everything from the animal… At home I keep the leftovers from when we eat chicken in the freezer and when I have enough of it I make a chicken stock (and it tastes so much better than what you can buy in groceries, I suggest that you all try it at least once, it’s really easy to do). Culinary school is so far away… Good times, it makes you appreciate your kitchen so much more (well, the act of making food at least… when you have access to everything you have in a professional kitchen it’s pretty boring to go back in a “regular” kitchen…)

  16. Oh man, don’t even get me started on store-bought stocks. Blech! Is ModBlog officially a cooking discussion now too? Hahah…

  17. yeah super market bought almost anything sucks…unless its a mom and pop place the quality is low and the price is too high…when i have to cook for holidays at home i just buy everythingrough my restaurant

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