Good Meat: The Complete Guide to Sourcing and Cooking Sustainable Meat

719 Pages·2010·12.03 MB·English

by  Deborah Krasner

Published in 2010 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of ABRAMS
Text copyright © 2010 Deborah Krasner
Photographs copyright © 2010 Marcus Nilsson
Illustrations copyright © Elizabeth Krasner All rights reserved. No portion of
this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Krasner, Deborah.
Good meat : the complete guide to sourcing and cooking sustainable meat /
Deborah Krasner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58479-863-7 (alk. paper)
1. Cookery (Meat) 2. Cookery (Poultry) 3. Sustainable living–United States. 4.
Meat industry and trade–Environmental aspects–United States.
I. Title.
TX749.K68 2010
641.6′6–dc22 2009047925
Editor: Luisa Weiss/Natalie Kaire
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“Husbandry is the name of all the practices that
sustain life by connecting us conservingly to our places
and our world; it is the art of keeping tied all
the strands in the living network that sustains us.”
Wendell Berry
This book is deeply rooted in my life in Vermont for the past twenty-odd years
and reflects the values I’ve learned here. It is a privilege to be part of a
community that honors farmers who grow good food.
Many of those farmers have given me information, opened their farms to me,
and provided meat and/or animal husbandry advice. These include Rod Hewitt,
Lucas Fletcher, Ping Ting, and Asa Goodband. Some of my sources for local
meats include Fowl Mountain Farm and Rabbitry, who raise rabbit and pheasant;
Martha Miller of Dwight Miller Orchard, who raises pastured chicken; and Judy
Sopenski of Not Your Ordinary Farm, who raises lamb. I have also learned from
Bekah Murchison of Fair Winds Farm, who hosted the poultry-processing
workshop; and Lili Bookwalter of Ledgewood Farm Icelandics, who breeds the
lambs I raise for meat.
Four authors have influenced much of my thinking over the last few years:
Wendell Berry, who has written so movingly about place, agriculture, personal
responsibility, and sustainability; Eric Schlosser, who illuminated the
connections between industrial food and factory farming; Michael Pollan, whose
writing introduced me to Joel Salatin and taught so many of us about feedlot
beef; and Barbara Kingsolver, who, along with her family, walks the walk.
During the process of writing this book, a number of people read parts of the
manuscript and offered their help. I am most grateful to Michael Gourlay, owner
of Hardwick Beef, for reading the beef chapter, making suggestions and
comments, and getting me some of the harder-to-source beef cuts I needed.
Thank you as well to Shannon Hayes for reading the lamb chapter and
commenting most helpfully.
Adam Tiberio was invaluable in helping me create the cut sheet guides that
offer consumers a logical series of choices, primal by primal. Jake Dickson, of
Dickson’s Farmstand Meat, graciously allowed us to photograph Adam in the
shop, breaking down meat to illustrate this book.
Chef’s Choice gave me a meat slicer and sausage grinder, and both were
extremely useful pieces of equipment in the creation of this book. KitchenAid
has long been a great source of support, and I am glad once again to
acknowledge their help with equipment large and small.
My friend Jessie Haas and her parents, Bob and Pat Haas, have offered