As we put the summer garden to bed and our thoughts turn to winter meals of slow-cooked stews and roasts, a welcome guide to cooking and sourcing sustainable meat has arrived from Deborah Krasner.
Good Meat: The Complete Guide to Sourcing and Cooking Sustainable Meats, published by Stewart, Tabori and Chang, combines all the information needed to understand what sustainable meat production is, where to find it and – most gloriously – how to cook it. With over 200 recipes and photographs, the James Beard Award winning author of The Flavors of Olive Oil has opened a window on the world of delicious meats – kept on the farm for far too long for the private enjoyment of farm families. Guinea fowl, lamb shanks, pig’s tails, rabbit hearts, livers, tongues and kidneys of all sorts. In addition to the uncommon, Good Meat is replete with the standard steaks, ribs, loin roasts, sausages, chops and hams. Rounding out the platters of meat are complimentary side dishes, deserts and salads.
The opening section provides an insider’s view of what sustainable meat is and where it comes from. It is this picture of the farmers, the farms and the animals that separates sustainable meats from meat produced in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and industrial meat processing plants. There is a reason you won’t find a cook book that combines pictures of industrial meat production and preparing food for dinner: Nobody would come to the table.
From the animal feed to the slaughtering techniques, Good Meat introduces us to a way of producing and preparing food that benefits the farmer, nature and those who eat the food. Krasner has included a substantial resource section, which we are proud to say includes the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy as a source for information about good, safe and local food.
With the apple harvest nearly over and the cider press waiting, I was easily drawn to a recipe for roast chicken with apples, sausage and cider on page 302. My only suggestion is to follow the meal with glass of Calvados and to start planning what new fruit trees to plant in the orchard next spring.
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