For the past year, I’ve been chronicling the progress of Lauren and Brandon Sheard, an amazing young couple from Seattle, Washington. They founded their company, Farmstead Meatsmith, with the goal of laying one more step on the path to a new food culture by reviving the traditional practice of homestead meat provenance.
What a concept … proper butchering right in your own backyard or that of a friend or local farm the way it has traditionally been done!
Most consumers have sadly never even met a real butcher, someone responsible for the respectful slaughter and traditional meat processing of locally raised livestock. USDA approved slaughterhouses have put an end to all that with the processing of animals located as far away from the consumer as possible so that the horrific practices of factory farming of animals can be kept hidden.
Livestock harvesting is clearly a missing link in the chain of sustainable agriculture as even organic and locally produced meats are required to be processed at USDA slaughterhouses which can effectively negate much of the health and nutritional benefits of local sourcing of meat!
Through Farmstead Meatsmith, Lauren and Brandon Sheard aim to change all that and I am excited to let all of you know that the third and final video in a series of free butchery instruction films has recently been released and is featured below: On the Anatomy of Thrift: Fat & Salt.
For those of you who have become fans of Lauren and Brandon over the past year like I have, you will be excited to learn that Brandon will be a speaker at the Wise Traditions Conference 2012 in Santa Clara, California this November , so you can meet him in person and learn firsthand from someone who is actively in the process of bringing back the time honored tradition of homestead meat provenance!
*Click here to view their first film: On the Anatomy of Thrift: Side Butchery.
*Click here to view their second film: On the Anatomy of Thrift: Harvest Day.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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Sarah, thank you so much for featuring these folks. We live an hour south of Seattle and raise our own meat. We use local slaughter houses and support local businesses that way. But when I saw the first of these videos, I was so inspired to look at our meat production more closely. Last fall, when we butchered, I pulled out my old Joy of Cooking to find pate recipes to use the livers. And out came video 2 with a very similar pate. My husband and I are now discussing signing up for one of their classes. Thank you so much for bringing them and their great work to our attention.
Thank you for sharing that story! Lauren and Brandon are a very inspiring couple .. I do hope you can make it down to Santa Clara in November to see Brandon’s presentation there. I am really looking forward to it myself. Please be sure to say hello if you are able to come
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist\’s last post: Farmstead Meatsmith Releases “Fat & Salt”
Chicago also has a butcher that uses all sustainably raised meats from small local farms: http://thebutcherandlarder.com/. They also teach class on butchering and sausage making! And they sell fabulous pates!! I used to go there for odd cuts I couldn’t order. It’s also great to get your meat in butcher paper instead of plastic.
A friend told me of his grandfather’s instructions on being self-sufficient. Step one was “Know what to do with a chicken.” The first time I butchered one of our chickens was a remarkable experience. As expected, I didn’t particularly appreciate being the one to kill it, and I was quite concerned about doing it humanely and quickly. But when it was all done, I’d proven to myself I could in fact turn a live chicken into soup, a goal I’d had for quite some time.
I wish we had this kind of place where I live. Having a butcher shop with great meats remind me of when I was a kid.
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We raise and process our own too. I would like the rabbit recipe. I struggle with preparing tasty, non-dry bunny/
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