Sculptures of Rendered Fat and Wax Are Centerpieces at Army Bases
When nearly 800 soldiers arrive at Fort Bragg's Smoke Bomb Hill dining hall Wednesday, they'll be greeted by the Mad Hatter—carved out of tallow. (more after the break)
Two other tallow sculptures—of Alice with the White Rabbit and the Caterpillar, all made by food specialist Sgt. Laron Smith—will help transform the hall at the North Carolina Army base into the "Thanksgiving in Wonderland" theme Sgt. Smith envisioned while deployed in the United Arab Emirates earlier this year.
"Some soldiers can't go home, they just stay here, so we're going to put on a big show," says Sgt. Smith, who began sculpting when he joined the Army in 2004. Other motives will be at play too: The dining hall will be locked in competition with the base's other eateries to produce the tastiest, and most attractively presented, food.
"In the dining facility, most folks call it the Super Bowl for cooks," he says.
Tallow—a blend of rendered beef fat and wax—will be used for decorative centerpieces at military dining halls across the country at Thanksgiving, many of which stage similar culinary showdowns.
Stored at room temperature, tallow warms and softens in the hand, then hardens as it cools. Tallow isn't edible, but can be scraped, carved, poured into molds, dusted or melted down and used again. Unlike, say, an ice sculpture, a tallow carving lasts indefinitely.
"It takes a little technique, but once you've got it down, it's pretty easy to work with," Sgt. Smith says.
At this time of year, the U.S. military is the biggest customer for Culinart Inc., a Cincinnati-based supplier of culinary tallow, says its founder, Dominic Palazzolo.
Kristina Peterson explains why sculptures made from rendered beef fat and wax are showing up as holiday centerpieces.
Since January 1998, service members from 16 different bases from Fort Lewis in Washington to Fort Lee in Virginia, have purchased a total of 9,000 pounds of culinary tallow from Culinart, the company says.
Cruise ships, resorts, casinos and hotels have also bought 25- and 50-pound blocks of tallow since Culinart began selling it in 1997. Mr. Palazzolo, the grandson of a macaroni manufacturer and son of bakery owners, says he has made his niche product into replicas of Rodin's "The Thinker," the Statue of Liberty, flamingos, gnomes, firefighters and killer whales.
"We're talking about art," he says. "I precede that word with 'culinary,' but this is art."
Tallow's one drawback, Mr. Palazzolo says, is when someone asks what it is: "The only answer you've got is animal fat."
Unlike the tallow used for industrial soap-making, Culinart's tallow is made from a proprietary combination of purified, deodorized beef fat and five waxes, he says. First, the waxes are melted in a 500-pound stainless-steel vat, which circulates heated water through double walls, "like a Jacuzzi," Mr. Palazzolo says. Then he adds the fat, plus coloring agents such as 10-pound slabs of chocolate, which provide fragrance.
Tallow sculptures have likely been done by chefs since the middle to late 1800s, says Brad Barnes, senior director of culinary education at the Culinary Institute of America. Mr. Palazzolo says the practice could date to earlier.
Key to tallow's appeal is the ease with which it can be reworked and repaired.
Stafford DeCambra, a chef currently competing in the Villeroy & Boch Culinary World Cup in Luxembourg, shipped four Native American-themed tallow sculptures there 2 ½ months before the contest.
He spent about five to eight months on each piece. They include a hoop dancer balanced on one foot and a chief with braided hair. "Right now there's hairline fractures and things of that nature, so I'm bringing them all back to life," says Mr. DeCambra, speaking from Luxembourg before the competition. Briefly applying the heat of a blowtorch or a hair dryer to the tallow can melt nicks back into a glossy sheen.
Caribbean resorts like tallow because it doesn't need to be refrigerated, says Richard Alford, associate professor emeritus of hospitality management at the University of Akron. He often flies to island resorts to train staff in the art of tallow carving.
"The neat thing about tallow—and one of the drawbacks about tallow too—is it lasts," he says. His living room has housed a student's sculpture of a fairy for about a decade and it "looks new," he says, though it "needs to be dusted."
Carnival Cruise Lines uses tallow on all 22 of its ships, says corporate executive chef Peter Leypold. "It's very durable," he says. "If it's a little bit worn, we can melt it down and start it over again."
Cruise ships were Culinart's first major customer after Mr. Palazzolo started advertising tallow at food-industry conventions. His booth was fortuitously situated at one show next to a brewer's station, he says, so prospective clients had to pass him on the way to beer.
White and chocolate are the most popular colors but he also sells it in the colors of butter and cheddar.
Tallow sells best in metropolitan areas, he says in his office, decorated with a six-foot hibiscus plant and pair of Abraham Lincoln busts, one of faux marble and one of chocolate tallow.
At Fort Drum, N.Y., at past Thanksgiving buffets, chefs have created a four-foot tallow sculpture of a Native American headdress, horns of plenty, turkeys, a bald eagle and the flag of the 10th Mountain Division, says Paul Bursik, a spokesman for the base's food services.
This year's designs are kept classified ahead of the competition among dining halls, which are putting on a feast for 3,700 soldiers and family members.
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