As soon as Andy and I started thinking seriously about this butcher shop concept, we did what all good MBAs would do; we started researching. As I look back on this (very much still ongoing) research phase, we've had three major tactics. Good old-fashioned book reading, market survey field trips, and hands on butchery experience. They've all been really helpful, but for those of you who will be following along and want to know where the heck we came up with these ideas or just want to learn more about the meat that you're eating, here are a few of the first books we've been reading to educate ourselves:
The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
So - this book is considered to be a bit of a bible for meat lovers. It's about as thick as the real Bible, and it takes as much dedication to get through it in its entirety, but there are so many lessons you'll learn that if you're a meat fanatic, I'm sure you'll consider it worth the investment. He starts with a philosophical discussion about the morality of eating meat in the first place, before getting into detailed descriptions of each breed all the way from raising them to eating them. He makes the natural, slow raised animals sound like they taste SO much better than what you can buy at the supermarket. I'm not sure I've ever really had the kind of meat he's talking about!! The book ends with a section of recipes that will make your mouth water. My Dad has been talking about the Coq au Vin recipe for weeks now. I'm thinking maybe I'll surprise him with some for his birthday.
Honesty Note: I have not finished this book. I'm telling you. It's really long.
A Butcher's Guide to Well Raised Meat; How to Buy, Cut and Cook Great Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry and More by Joshua and Jessica Applestone and Alexandra Zissu
Awesome Freaking book. Joshua and Jessica were some of the first to kick off this re-emergence of the nose to tail butcher. They tell the story of how they started their butcher shop in the Hudson Valley of NY, and share their values-based but pragmatic approach to sourcing and using the entire animal in their butchery practice. This book is a fun, easy read and is a bit of a handbook for what Andy and I are going to try to do. We may even try to apprentice with Fleisher's to get the hands on experience in how to cut meat and run a business like theirs.
Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman, Brian Polcyn, and Thomas Keller
Did you know that you could make your own bacon in just a few days at your own home? Seriously! I was shocked to see how easy some of these recipes were. Now, I haven't executed any of them yet, so I guess I"ll brag about how easy it was once I've done it successfully, but if you're a bit of a bacon fiend, or can never find guanciale for your spaghetti carbonara, maybe you can just make your own and vary the spice mixes until it's the best you've ever tried! Now that I have some free time on my hands I'm going to start in on these recipes. I'll defnitely be posting my results!
I'll tell you about our market surveys next time. Off to San Francisco for one as we speak!
PS - I'm new to this whole blog thing, so please excuse my lack of technical knowledge. I guess on my first post, the link to "subscribe" wasn't really working for a lot of people, so I added a new link on the bottom of the page where you can either "Join this Page" or "Follow by Email." Otherwise you're welcome to just follow the links I post on Facebook!!
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