Not Just Another Piece of Meat – An Exploration of Whole Animal Sourcing
November/December 2007
By Kristina Hjelsand
“…people don’t want to know what meat is. For my neighbor (and my friends and me, too, for most of my life), meat wasn’t meat: it was an abstraction: People don’t think of an animal when they use the word; they think of an element in a meal. (“What I want tonight is a cheeseburger!”) Bill Buford, Heat
As food trends go, the subject of whole animal sourcing is rife with candy-coated cliches for ambivalent carnivores. Whole hog. Nasty bits. Variety meats. The cute turns of phrase belie a reality that is either grisly or gastronomic, depending on how adventurous the eater: brains, liver, heart, tongue, lungs, spleen, kidneys, and the regrettably nimble sounding “trotters” (pigs’ feet). While many would surely rather these meats remain a mystery, enjoyment of them has become perhaps the most extreme sport in fine dining since the tableside flamb.
Outside the U.S., offal has long been a mainstay in meat eating cultures. From sweetbreads, tongue and tripe in Europe to pork intestines, kidneys, ears and goat brains in Asia, using the entire animal, from nose to tail, is embedded in the culinary weave of many cultures and speaks as respect for the slaughtered animal. In the U.S., industrialization and economic prosperity in the 19th and 20th centuries led cooks to favor the muscle cuts that are still popular today, steaks, roasts, and the like, and to discard most everything else.
The offal craze was, indeed, ignited like cognac to Bananas Foster in recent years with publication of British chef Fergus Henderson’s The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. While the squeamish were vexed by visions of pig cheeks, ox tongue, and roasted bone marrow, the broader philosophy of sourcing and utilizing the whole animal is rooted more in home economy than haute cuisine.
The Art of Utilizing Meat
“The art of utilizing meat is leaving our culture,” says Will Harris, who owns White Oak Pastures, a grass-fed beef farm in Bluffton, Georgia that has been in his family since 1866. “I’ve got an 87-year-old mother who knows how to cook every single part of the cow. In those days, they had to eat every darn bit of the animal before they could kill another one.”
Independent butcher shops and grocery store meat departments used to dismantle animal carcasses into every conceivable cut, but today most meat is processed into only the most saleable cuts, typically at industrial meatpacking plants by low-paid, unskilled workers in psychologically and physically perilous conditions. The industrial meat industry, represented by approximately four U.S. companies, processes 83 percent of beef and 64 percent of pork that reaches that marketplace (Source: Sustainable Table).
According to Bruce Aidells, one of the country’s foremost meat experts and author of The Complete Meat Cookbook, a groundswell of interest in local food may spark a resurgence of neighborhood butchers. “There are very few real butchers around these days,” says Aidells. “Meat comes case-ready or in a box. If people are serious about buying local, butchers will come back.”
Throughout much of the past century, it was in fact the neighborhood butcher who possessed the expertise to sell the virtues of unknown or unappreciated cuts to his customers. He had to, because he had purchased the whole or half carcass wholesale. In the butcher’s absence, according to Aidells, many high-quality cuts often get put through the grinder simply because people don’t understand how to use them. “52 to 53 percent of trimmable meat ends up as hamburger,” says Aidells. “If you have an exceptional animal, it’s hard to get your money back from hamburger. It’s important to think about how to use the whole animal, how to turn the less-used parts of the animal into more valuable cuts.”
The Belly of the Beast
Getting chefs to embrace the lesser-known cuts is one thing, but convincing consumers to try them is quite another. “The art of cooking with the whole animal is making a comeback among chefs,” says Keith Latture, chef/owner of Local 11 Ten in Savannah. “But among the general public I think the art and even the interest was lost a long time ago. People are so used to being able to walk into any supermarket and have their meat all wrapped up in tidy little trays and portioned out just so. One look at what cuts are offered at grocery stores these days makes you wonder where the rest of the animal is going.”
Latture regularly puts things like tripe or pork belly on the menu and features fresh quail and quail eggs from poultry farmer Mickey Sanchez in Eden, Georgia, as well as heritage pork prosciutto from Emile de Felice’s Caw Caw Creek in Columbia, South Carolina. “I utilize the byproducts from all the animals we get,” says Latture. “The livers from our rabbits go into our country pate. The hearts and gizzards of the squab go into the tortellini we serve alongside the breast.”
Elliott Shimley, a Barnesville, Georgia, farmer who raises pasture-grazed, antibiotic and hormone-free young beef under the Epicuristic Products LLC label, says chefs who cook with the whole animal typically have a surplus of passion. “You’ve got to be creative and you’ve got to have that inner fire,” says Shimley. “Anyone can grill a chop it takes a chef to do a top-notch braise.”
Last June, Restaurant Eugene showcased Shimley’s Epicuristic young beef for a dinner that featured kidneys, liver, and marrow as well as more traditional short ribs, osso buco, and tenderloin of veal. Shimley works with an old-fashioned, state certified abattoir in Thomaston, Georgia to provide custom meat orders for high-end restaurants such as Atlanta’s Restaurant Eugene and the Dunwoody Country Club. Buying Shimley’s dry-aged beef requires patience: it takes two weeks from ordering through aging to delivery. But the care that goes into raising his animals is evident in the meat’s flavor and tenderness. Alice Rolls, executive director of Georgia Organics, recalls the Eugene dinner as a revelation. “I wasn’t raised eating hearts and livers, but when I’m served these cuts as part of a five-course meal at Restaurant Eugene, you better believe I enjoyed it! That’s where chefs can play an important role in supporting local farmers, not only by buying the whole animal but in capturing the essence of the less-familiar cuts.” Shimley surmises that the culture of conservation that once shaped our communities has given way to a culture of convenience. “Somewhere along the line we got away from saving,” he says. “All I can remember all my growing up years is, turn off that light, turn off the water. People aren’t as mindful of thrift and frugality anymore.’”
Eating Locally
Georgia chefs are starting to get serious about sourcing locally and sustainably. “We’re trying to bring more common sense into the local food system,” says Patrick Gabreyel, executive chef at the Dunwoody Country Club. “It makes sense to work with what’s around you. Why are we importing products we can make right here?” Rolls sees using the whole animal as part of a systemic approach to sustainability that goes beyond organic. “Similar to eating seasonally, whole animal sourcing is part of the process of becoming an educated consumer, of being less wasteful,” she says. In September, Georgia Organics launched its statewide “I’m a Local” campaign to educate consumers about the benefits of eating local, organic and sustainable food from Georgia farms.
Charlotte Swancy, along with her husband Wes, raises and sells Berkshire pork and grassfed beef from Riverview Farms in Ranger, Georgia. She states the freshness is key to the flavor and quality of locally raised meat. “For a chef to be able to get this meat fresh, less than 24 hours from harvest, that’s incredible,” says Swancy. “It makes the difference between incredible meat and so-so meat that tastes like anything else.”
Sourcing the whole animal from local farmers is also more cost-effective. “The loin is a very important cut, but there are other delectable pieces that many diners haven’t tried before, says Swancy. “A chef can tempt them with a nice confit with a belly or other parts that are less well-known but are equally tasty.” Swancy’s customers, who include Atlanta chefs Ryan Hidinger of Muss & Turners, and Gary Mennie of Taurus, say that the quality of Riverview’s meat demands minimal fuss. “In ordering from Charlotte, the whole goal is that all you have to do is warm it up,” says Mennie. “All the hard work is already done, the taste, the quality, is already there.” Mennie and his staff break down the meat, removing cuts like the strip and tenderloin first, then remove the shoulder and legs, marinate them for 24 hours, then roast them overnight at 200 degrees. “We cook them low and slow,” says Mennie, “and the meat falls off the bone the next day.”
The connections farmers and chefs are cultivating serve more than our appetites for innovative food. The increased demand for local, organic and sustainable food also supports family farms, which by many reports are diminishing at a rapid rate. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 3,000 acres of productive U.S. farmland are lost to development every day (Source: Sustainable Table). Giving farmers a piece of the economic pie means chefs may need to think a little more like butchers when sourcing meat. “It is far more advantageous for the farmer to sell whole or half animals,” says Harris. “It eliminates inventory problems that can be crippling to a farmer’s business.”
Harris says competing in an increasingly globalized industrial meat complex is daunting but necessary for those who value local economies. “When you have made huge commitments to raising each animal, you can’t afford to sell them at commodity prices,” says Aidells. “If you’re a small producer producing something exceptional, it behooves you to find chefs willing to work with you and to form those relationships.”
Gabreyel, who buys meat from Riverview Farms and White Oak Pastures, says local and niche producers are well-advised to search out chefs who know how to work with their products. “We cut all of our meat,” he says. “These guys need to find chefs who know how to cook organ meats and shoulders properly. Most of the culinary schools don’t even teach meat cutting anymore.” Using whole animals sourced from local farmers takes extra effort, but as with other locally produced foodstuffs, many chefs say it’s worth it. “I don’t necessarily look at it as a challenge,” says Muss & Turner’s Hidinger, who makes bacon, ham, rillettes, and pate with pork sourced from Riverview Farms. “You’re presented with so many opportunities to change people’s minds about things and present them with something really wonderful.”
For more information on where to find local, humanely and sustainably raised meats, visit www.georgiaorganics.org.
Kristina Hjelsand is the founder and owner of Kitchen Communications, an Atlanta communications consultancy that specializes in food and lifestyle brands.
