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In Episode 34, Brandon and Lauren discuss how to overcome your child’s reluctance to eat the meat you’ve raised.  In doing so, they provide some helpful strategies to employ, and explain why time is on your side.  They also explain: why it is no contradiction of the tenderness with which you raise your animals, to kill them; the inescapable truth that our lives come at a cost; and the belief that we should endeavor to deserve the gift of an animal’s life, as well as honor it in the way we cook its meat.

Other topics include: blood: its shelf life and whether you can freeze it; and a few stories from Brandon’s recent slaughters of a large sow and a bloated sheep.

Episode 35 is all about butchery rationale.  Learn about: the physiology of the pig and why “Butchery is the servant of cookery”;  when to braise, roast or pan fry a cut of meat; how to use the whole animal and keep trimming to a minimum; British-style butchery and cooking and what makes them unique; and the diversity of what you can get from a carcass. Finally, Brandon and Lauren will also teach you how to cook the extremities….. and how to use up all that offal!

Looking for more Meatsmith knowledge? Join our online membership or come to an in-person class:

  • Hands-On Harvest Classes – Come to one of our harvest classes on our homestead in Oklahoma. We offer pork, beef, lamb, and goose harvest classes in the Spring and Fall. Spots are limited to just eight students per class to keep the hands-on experience undiluted. Jump on this chance and sign up today! Farmsteadmeatsmith.com/upcoming-classes/
  • Meatsmith Membership – We created an online community and resource for homesteaders and farmers. It serves all those who want to cook and eat well. We offer the fruit of our labors (and our kitchen) from more than fifteen years of experience, and our Membership community of more than six hundred is an invaluable digital resource. The only one of its kind in the country, Meatsmith Membership provides an earnest and winsome approach to domestic livestock raising, slaughter, butchery, curing, cookery, and charcuterie. Join today and partner with us in growing your home around the harvest. Monthly memberships are $17.49/month plus a $29.99 signup fee. Or purchase an Annual membership for $189.49/year with no signup fee, saving you $50.38. There’s a 7-day free trial for Annual memberships. Farmsteadmeatsmith.com/product/membership/

Part 1 Show Notes:

  • Discussion on “use-by” date and freezing of blood, 3:54
  • Notes on Brandon’s recent slaughters:
    • Sow, 7:52
    • Bloated sheep, 11:51
  • Overcoming your children’s reluctance to eat the meat you’ve raised, 14:39
    • Help him to understand that it is no contradiction of the tenderness with which we raise our animals to kill them, 15:27
    • Have patience…
      • Tastes may change with age/maturity, 24:50
      • In time, the philosophy of the kill may come to be understood, 29:46
    • Start off with the more mildly-flavored cuts
    • Attach the idea of the killing and eating of animals to more positive things, 38:19
    • Help him understand that our lives come at a cost and that we should endeavor to deserve the gift of the animal’s life
      • Meat has become divorced from its origins
      • “My life has no terrestrial cost”

Part 2 Show Notes:

  • Our approach to butchering a whole animal – “Butchery is the servant of cookery.”, 1:03
    • Physiology of the pig – pot, pan or oven?, 9:40
      • braising – leg, shoulder, shank, Boston, picnic, sirloin, chuck, sirloin, rump, round
      • pan fryers – long muscles along the spine
      • roasting (dry heat) – needs fat or you can add fat, can do tough meats this way
  • How to use the whole animal, 17:46
    • Sausage is forgiveness
    • Anatomy of Thrift – how to quarter a quadruped
    • Be docile to the physiology of the pig
  • Trimming the animal,
  • British-style butchery and cooking, 27:33
  • Diversifying what you get from your carcass, 32:14
  • Cooking extremities, 46:40
  • Using offal, 1:00;25

Links for Episodes 34 and 35:

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