From Carcasses to Culinary Masterpieces:
EcoFarm’s First Ever Butchery Skills
Seminar
Story and Photos by Camilla M. Mann
I have never had any illusions that meat just appears in the grocery store, headless, legless, and wrapped in paper or plastic. My circle of close friends includes hunters and fisherman, so I often get emails with photos of successful kills held aloft next to proud grins. And I relish getting deliveries of homemade sausages, cuts of wild boar and venison, whole crabs, and more. But until the EcoFarm’s 2013 Butchery Skills Seminar, last week, I have never seen a whole carcass broken down into saleable cuts.
Master butcher Rian Rinn, who will be opening his own shop
in Santa Rosa later this year, and Marsha McBride, executive chef and owner of
Café Rouge in Berkeley, led the all-day demonstration punctuated by lively
discussions with the audience. Attendees hailed from all over the country – as
far away as Illinois and as close as Carmel Valley – and our experience with
raising and butchering livestock ran the gamut. We were a crowd comprised of seasoned
ranchers, enthusiastic consumers, and everything in between.
Shae Lynn and Kevin Watt of Early Bird Ranch in Pescadero
provided a forest-raised pig for our first demonstration: half-hog cutting.
Pointing at the pig, Rian instructed while we repeated,
“Shoulder.” Shoulder. “Loin.” Loin. “Belly.” Belly. “Leg.” Leg. Then,
armed with only a chef’s knife, a flexible boning knife, and a saw that he used
sparingly, Rian skillfully guided us through cutting the pig into primals while
offering suggestions for profitability. Marsha contributed cooking tips, including
how to use the ears – blanched and atop a salad, the skin – in cotechino, and the leaf lard – for
flaky, tender pastry dough.
Chef and restaurateur Jesse Cool of CoolEatz and Carlos
Canada, executive chef of Jesse’s Flea Street Café, whisked some of the freshly
cut meat into the kitchen for our appetizers and dinner at the end of the day.
Rian brought out the second half of the pig and focused on
custom cuts and creating value-added artisan products. He detailed how to dry
cure and age the leg to make prosciutto.
When he demonstrated how to cut, roll, and tie a porchetta from the loin and belly of the pig, Marsha revealed that
she stuffs the porchetta at Café
Rouge with quince and various aromatics. One of the other attendees asked what
I’m sure we were all thinking: “Where’s Café Rouge exactly?!”
Following a lunch break upstairs
at the Cannery Row Brewing Company, we reconvened to watch Rian segment
a grass-fed lamb from Doniga and Erik Markegard of Markegard Family Grass-Fed out
of San Gregorio. Rian demonstrated techniques for frenching the rack of ribs, creating
English-cut lamb chops, and deboning the leg two different ways – first by butterflying
it and, second, by tunneling the bone out.
Rian’s partner Jenine Alexander coached us through a
double-layer freezer wrap and a cone wrap. The former would be sufficient to
keep meat fresh for at least a year in the freezer. Longer, even. We all had
the chance to give our wrapping techniques a try.
The final cutting demonstration of the day involved a trio
of chickens that were also provided by Early Bird Ranch. Rian depanned, shoving
his knives back into the case strapped to his hip, “Just sell your chickens
whole.” Still he chopped one of the birds using the four-piece cut and another
using the eight piece cut.
To conclude the educational portion of the seminar we heard
from Andrew Gunther, Program Director of the Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) program,
and Marilyn Noble, Program and Communications Manager of the American Grassfed
Association (AGA). Both organizations are focused on consumers’ growing
interest in how farm animals are raised and the desire to know from where their
food is coming and how it is produced. AWA certifies and promotes family farms
that raise animals according to the highest welfare standards. AGA is
advocating for stricter USDA guidelines on grassfed marketing claims which
currently allow producers to claim “grassfed” when animals have only been “grass-finished.”
The AGA, in stark contrast to the USDA, defines grassfed products from
ruminants – including cattle, bison, goats and sheep – as those products from
animals who have eaten nothing but their mother’s milk and fresh grass or
grass-type hay during their lifetimes.
When I was recounting the seminar to a friend, she asked if
seeing the process of butchering animals – severing heads and sawing limbs – made
me want to become a vegetarian. On the contrary, what I saw and the discussions
I had were illuminating and inspiring.
Jeremiah Stent and Bill Milliot, both of TomKat Ranch and
LeftCoast Grassfed, described how they were developing a working ecosystem by
balancing the relationship between the grass and the grazers. They rotate their
livestock – a complementary mix of grazing animals – through a series of
paddocks to allow the grasses to recharge; for example, they follow the cattle
with chickens who scratch through the cow patties, eating the larvae and naturally
controlling fly populations. Pastured pigs are also part of their multi-species
grazing plan because pigs have different grazing patterns than cows. The idea: a
mix of dietary preferences and grazing behaviors results in greater plant
utilization, a better ecological balance among plant species, and increased
production from a single unit of land.
Another ardent land steward, Mike Irving of Fifth Crow Farm
in Pescadero strives to produce nutritious food while maintaining the health of
the soil and surrounding ecosystem. His farm yields a dizzying array of crops,
including Hopi blue corn that they sell as a corncake/cornbread mix; heirloom
dry beans that are still-life worthy with their vibrant shades and patterns; twenty-four
varieties of apples; brassicas, alliums, bunching greens, salad greens, root crops,
and more. On the livestock front, Mike raised two pigs for his own use last
year and was curious about butchering pigs in-house in the future.
With our heads crammed full of carcass diagrams, different
meat cuts, and recipe suggestions, we were ready to enjoy some of the meat from
the day, crafted into seasonal dishes by Chef Jesse and Chef Carlos.
While we continued to mingle, we noshed on tender cubes of
lamb in a verdant pool of pesto. The meat was incredible – probably because it
was cut from a carcass only a few hours prior and due to expert preparation by
the chefs. Still I was motivated to purchase some of the lamb that was offered
to us at better than market rates to try my hand at some lamb dishes.
As we settled down to dinner, the chefs addressed the group.
Having been dedicated to sustainable agriculture and cuisine for nearly four
decades, Chef Jesse is a fervent advocate for local, sustainable, and organic
food production. She raised a glass in appreciation to those to whom she
referred as her heroes, the farmers, the first real environmental pioneers.
Chef Carlos described our dinner as a pork grab bag; not
everyone would be served the same dishes. Exchanging glances with my tablemates,
we made a tacit pact to share so that we could taste all of the culinary
masterpieces.
To end our day at the first ever EcoFarm’s Butchery Skills Seminar,
we dined on delicious pieces of pig – pork chops and pork belly – that Master
Butcher Rian Rinn had cut earlier in the day. Chefs Jesse Cool and Carlos
Canada topped the pork with a peach mustard and plated it with heaps of winter
vegetables. Roasted turnips and carrots, sautéed Brussels sprouts, and a creamy
potato gratin rounded out our feast. From carcasses to culinary masterpieces,
it was quite a day!
