Every once in a while, I discover a book that I think could help make the world a better place.
This is one of those books.
Meredith Leigh makes a passionate yet well-reasoned argument for “mindful meat eating.” If more people adopted her views, I believe humans would be healthier, animals would have better lives, and our environment would be improved (including lower emissions of greenhouse gases). Beyond that, The Ethical Meat Handbook is an interesting book full of valuable information for small-scale farmers and their customers.
Leigh laments that the goal of low-cost production of a few select cuts (e.g., poultry breasts, steaks) drives the mainstream meat industry. Flavour, animal welfare and environmental concerns fall to the wayside. She offers solutions: use hardy breeds, raise them well and use all parts of an animal. She advocates for changes to what happens on the farm, in the butcher shop and in the kitchen. With poultry, for example, she recommends using breeds that are active foragers and “worlds different from the fat, white birds that lie beside feeders and bloat like feathered balloons.”
Leigh describes ethical farming practices in chapters on poultry, beef, pork and lamb. She mentions the advantages of hogget (young mutton) over lamb. When I raised sheep, I sold lamb and ate mutton -- at first because all my customers wanted lamb. Soon I realized hogget was more flavourful than lamb with better sized cuts.
When buying meat, Leigh suggests you buy whole carcasses or large pieces and butcher it yourself. This leads to less waste, a greater variety of cuts and lower costs. Detailed descriptions on how to cut up carcasses of various animals are well illustrated with colour photos, although Leigh does make the job seem easier than it is for a beginner (in my experience).
Even if you’re not going to butcher, the book is still worthwhile for its recipes and information on cuts. It also has tips on how to make your own sausage and charcuterie (including wiring a fridge into a “charcuterie chamber” for aging).
More significantly, I hope that readers will better understand and appreciate the work of small-scale farmers. They can learn how to support farmers (and a better food system) by asking for under-utilized parts of animals, including older animals. They might find they save money (and help the farmer financially) and end up with more flavourful meat.
As for the people who are awkward about the concept of death, I love Leigh’s reflection on eating pork while recalling images of the pigs lying in the sun: “If we’re really eating, we muse on whether the body is enough homage to the land. Whether we can taste the fog, and the seeds, and the fruit. For the better it tastes, and the better it feels, the better we know it lived.”
— Janet Wallace