Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
Saving a Heritage Ham
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Notice the smoke ring around the edges of the heritage ham, after I marinated it and smoked it with pork fat.
The marketing was effective, I must admit. It even convinced me. A large boneless ham, raised on a small farm, from a heritage breed, cured in a traditional manner, smoked over hickory wood. And at a bargain price! The ham was fully cooked, which meant I could reheat it slowly in a low oven. Easy.
When the ham arrived, and was thawed, I started to take off the reddish brown wrap. As I started to remove it, I realized that the wrap was clear. The ham itself was covered with a dried coating, reddish brown in color, which had the consistency of sawdust glued together. Netting lines were deeply sunk all over the ham, from the netting that was used when it was hung to smoke.
I began to realize that the coating around the ham was the ham itself, what the outside of the roast had turned into, with not a single shred of fat in evidence. In mounting horror, I came to realize that all fat had been trimmed off the ham before smoking. With no fat to keep it moist, the ham had dried out in the smoking process, and lost most of its moisture. I stuck a fork in the ham, it met a lot of resistance. The meat was tough.
I sliced off a small outside piece of the ham and tasted it. The outside meat tasted terrible, with a horrid texture of sawdust. The interior meat was dry, so dry. Hardly any smoke flavor. Chewy, not tender at all. Not good. But there was a hint of a good pork flavor in there.
My family was expecting a nice meal. I decided to save the ham.
A plan was needed. I decided to cover the ham in organic apple juice, and marinate it for a few hours. This should add moisture and flavor. Then, I would add fat and heat it slowly in front of a smoky barbecue fire, at very low heat. This would add the smoke flavor it should have had. And I would restore the fat to the meat, by putting some sliced pork fat from another roast over the top of the ham.
I did not know if this would work, but I was going to give it my best.
But first, that sawdust-like outer coating had to be trimmed off and discarded. I took a sharp knife and trimmed the whole thing, getting off every scrap of the outside. I placed the ham in a glass bowl, poured the apple juice over it, and set it to marinate.
A couple of hours later, I stated a barbecue fire, using some hickory. I brought the temperature up to about 225 degrees. I placed the ham on a rack in a pan, covered the top with sliced pork fat, and set it to smoke. Several hours later, I boiled down the apple juice used for the marinade, until three-quarters of the liquid was gone, and used it to baste the ham occasionally. I was encouraged when I stuck a fork into the meat—it felt much more tender than before. I continued cooking until the roast had been reheated.
Then I started slicing it in the dining room. The knife glided easily through the tender meat. There was a wonderful wood smoke smell. The ham was moist, tender, and so delicious that it was hard to stop eating it. A disaster had become a wonderful meal. The inherent wonderful flavor of the heritage pork had been unlocked deliciously, once fat and moisture had been restored.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday blog carnival.
Fat Meat, Lean Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Grassfed picanha with a nutrient-dense fat cap.
We are told to only eat lean meat, and avoid fatty meat. This is part of our culture’s fear of animal fat, due to intensive marketing of this view. The mistaken belief that lean meat is healthier has resulted in farm animals being bred to produce lean meat, and many animals are even given drugs to make their meat leaner. Butchers compound the problem by trimming off as much fat as possible.
The result is tough, often tasteless meat, with American factory pork being a great example.
Our ancestors would have been shocked by this preference, as they preferred meat with fat, the fatter the better. Our ancestors believed fatty meat was healthier and tastier, and would add large amounts of fat to meat that was too lean. Some even threw the lean meat to their dogs, while keeping the fatty portions for themselves.
When it comes to grassfed and pastured meats, this is how I see it:
The fatter, the better.
Traditional Animal Fats Contain Vital Nutrients
Contrary to popular belief, traditional animal fats have many vital nutrients that are important for human health and development. This is what our ancestors believed throughout most of history, and their belief has been vindicated by research. See The Skinny on Fats.
Factory Fat Is Different than Traditional Fat
It is important to know that the modern way of raising most meat animals, which is dependent on processed grains and other foods that are unnatural for these animals, changes the very composition of their fat. Grassfed animals, which humans have eaten for most of history, have a perfect balance of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids. Animals fed in modern feedlots and CAFOs have a huge imbalance of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids. See Health Benefits of Grass-fed Products. An oversupply of omega-6 fatty acids has been linked to many illnesses. Other vital nutrients are also much higher in traditionally fed meat.
Paleolithic and Traditional People Ate Animal Fat
While nobody truly knows what Paleolithic people ate, we do know some of what they ate. In fact, every cave dwelling that is believed to have been occupied by Paleolithic people had a pile of bones, which had been cracked open for the marrow. Bone marrow is almost completely fat.
We also know that traditional hunting peoples prized the fat of the animals they killed, and this fact was verified by the extensive on site research of Dr. Weston A. Price. Because the meat of wild animals is often lean, some believe that only lean meat was eaten by Paleolithic peoples. But nearly all wild animals store fat, but it usually located on the back, rather than in the meat. This back fat was often eaten by itself, and mixed with the leaner meat , which was never eaten without animal fat. For example, Pemmican, the famous survival food of the Native Americans who lived on the great plains, was one third bison fat. Organ meats, which are very fatty, were prized by all of these traditional peoples.
Traditional Cuisines Call For Fat, Fat, and More Fat, when Cooking Meat
A review of older cookbooks and histories reveal the fact that meat-eating cultures, such as European cultures, greatly prized animal fat as a food and as a cooking medium. Fatty meat and organ meats were the prized cuts, and meat was always cooked with fat, usually animal fat. Fatty meat was valued in most of the rest of the world, with fatty pork being the most prized meat in traditional Chinese cuisine.
Our ancestors agreed, both in their words and actions, that fatty meat from grassfed and pastured animals is best.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
How You Can Help Save a Heritage Breed, the Guinea Hog
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Heritage breed Guinea Hogs.
Once, all of our meat came from heritage breeds, who were raised naturally and had many fine nutritional, farming, and taste qualities. Some of these breeds still exist, yet are threatened with extinction. The agricultural farming industry is not interested in heritage breeds, as they do not care about nutrition, or taste, or raising animals naturally.
All Big Ag wants are animals who they can raise as cheaply and quickly as possible, to increase profits. They have developed breeds for the feedlot, who gain weight quickly, eat whatever is placed before them, and can survive CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) conditions long enough to reach a high weight before slaughter.
I have eaten meat from heritage breeds, and it is so far superior to the factory variety that I cannot begin to describe it. It feels nourishing, and it tastes so much better.
Heritage breeds are well worth preserving. Cathy and Jon Payne, who own a small farm in Georgia, are trying to save an old American breed, the Guinea Hog. They are trying to raise the money to do so with an Indiegogo campaign. This is a very worthy cause. I had a chance to ask Cathy some questions about her farm, the Guinea Hog, and her fund raising campaign.
1. Tell us a bit about your farm, and what your goals are.
Broad River Pastures is a sustainable, heritage, pasture-based, 11 acre family farm in Northeast Georgia. It was founded 3 years ago when I retired from teaching after 33 years. My husband, Jon, and I left suburban Atlanta with no prior farming experience and a general dream of a healthier lifestyle. We’ve had to learn each operation from scratch, and have in many ways determined what worked best for us and our animals by trial, error, research, and observation.
At Broad River Pastures, we strive to be a homestead model that benefits not only our family, but others who want to be more self-sufficient and sustainable. Many of the projects we do on the farm can be adopted on much smaller or much larger scale. We use permaculture design, promote heritage animal breeds, promote biodiversity, and apply eco-agricultural and biodynamic methods to grow nutrient-dense food.
Our goals include:
- Leave our land in better shape than we found it.
- Educate the wider community about the importance of real food, raised humanely and sustainably, for vibrant health.
- Train young people interested in sustainable agriculture.
- Promote and breed heritage livestock for their original purposes and provide high quality breeding stock for other farmers with similar goals.
- Grow nutrient-dense food for our family and the local community.
- Supplement our retirement income.
- Leave the farm as a legacy to someone interested in carrying on the work we started.
2. Please explain the difference between heritage pigs and modern pigs.
I’m going to start with the difference between heritage livestock in general and then move to heritage pigs. Heritage livestock breeds are those that were traditionally raised by farmers before the advent of massive-scale industrial agriculture. They were raised to thrive in particular regions of the country and for particular farming styles. Many of the heritage breeds were adapted for pasture-based models. Modern breeds are developed for a factory farm model.
For example, most of the chicken raised for meat in the United States is a Cornish Cross hybrid bird. It is developed to keep its face in the feed bowl and eat all day, rarely moving, in confinement. I know several farmers who attempted to raise these birds on pasture. The result was a high mortality percentage and birds who stayed in one place with their faces in the feed bowl. They had no desire to walk more than a few feet from the feed or forage for bugs. Heritage poultry, on the other hand, are well suited for a pasture-based free-range setting and will happily seek out insects and young plants from dawn till dusk over a wide area.
Now on to pigs. Heritage pigs have traditionally been raised in dirt pens, in woods, or on pasture ranges in an outdoor, natural setting. They were processed in the fall and eaten “Nose to tail.†Some pigs were raised particularly for their lard, which provided cooking oil to the family as well as a main component of soap for washing. Modern pigs, those that produce “the other white meat,†produces a pale, lean meat that grows quickly in confinement on feed containing a plethora of antibiotics to keep them growing faster and to protect them from injuries in close confinement. Their tails are docked to keep frustrated pigs from chewing on each other, and the eyeteeth of the males are cut to minimize biting.
Jo Robinson, in Pasture Perfect, reported that confinement hog production requires an investment of $5 million and creates 40 to 45 new jobs. However, each factory puts 126 independent hog farmers out of business. In addition, health conditions for workers and for neighbors of the hog farms are abysmal due to high levels of dust, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and other gases. She also reported that pork from pigs raised on pasture have more vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids than pork from pigs in confinement. The taste is incomparable, with pasture raised pork having a much richer flavor and appealing mouth feel. Compared to dry, flavorless production pork, the pork from pastured heritage pigs tends to be more flavorful and juicy, like the pork chops and roasts of long ago. The meat of a heritage hog is red and richly marbled.
Like the poultry mentioned earlier, the “improved†commercial breeds are not suitable for free-range models and would not be as likely to thrive.
3. Why is it important to preserve heritage breeds?
Every year, there is less biodiversity in our food system, as large corporations seek to become more profitable. In fact, only 15 mammal and poultry species produce over 90% of livestock production. Monocultures in either livestock or produce are vulnerable to disease. This puts us in danger of situations where a single outbreak could shut down the country’s entire operation of beef, pork, or poultry production. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture organization, at least 1,500 of the world’s 6,000 livestock breeds are in imminent danger of extinction. We are losing an average of 1 to 6 livestock breeds each month. A full 50% of the breeds that existed in Europe in 1990 are already extinct. This lack of biodiversity can have dire consequences if we have an oil crisis that impacts commercial production. The good news is that in the United States, there has been a resurgence of pasture-based farms and a concentrated effort to conserve American breeds through the American Livestock Breed Conservancy (ALBC). Because the heritage breeds have been such an excellent fit on sustainable farms and because of conservation efforts, no American breed has gone extinct since 1985. That is very encouraging, but it does require that heritage farmers like me continue to register and improve and breed their stock. To do that, they must have customers to keep them in business. Your readers can support them by purchasing some of their food from small farmers and specifically seek out the heritage breeds.
4. Tell us a bit about Guinea Hogs, and why they are a good choice for a small farm.
Guinea Hogs are a small, black, hairy lard hog. Lard hogs are the ones you see in very old art work depicting English pigs. They are very round. The longer pigs are developed to have a lot of “belly†which is used to produce bacon. Other pigs in between, are produced more for hams and pork chops. Of course, every pig produces the same cuts, but we are talking about proportion here.
Thomas Jefferson owned Guinea Hogs, and they were very common on small Southern farms until the late 1800s. They are ideally suited for the South, where their dark pigment and hairy coat protects them from sunburn. They are extremely gentle and friendly hogs that were often tethered outside the family home to glean acorns and windfall fruit, small rodents, and snakes. Shelter needs are minimal, and they easily farrow (give birth) without assistance. They are able to produce meat and lard with very little grain inputs, making them more affordable to keep. We are currently raising heritage pigs without soy, but they do require a lot of grain in addition to pasture and windfall fruit to help them gain weight. With the Guinea Hogs, we hope to raise them with pasture, hay, root crops, and small amounts of barley and milo.
5. Please explain the goals of your fundraiser, and how you will use the funds you raise.
We’ve invested our savings and retirement income into the farm to install fencing, train and obtain working dogs, and develop infrastructure to allow us to do pastured production. Now we need some help to maintain our momentum. We have set a goal to raise $6,000 to provide needed items for our heritage breeds.
This includes about $2,100 toward travel, cost of livestock, fencing, and housing needed to start our Guinea Hog herd. In the event that we do not meet our goal, it is likely that all of our funds will go to the Guinea Hog project.
We need another $650 to install an automatic watering system for our heritage rabbits, to purchase replacement cages, and to improve drainage from rainwater to prevent anaerobic bacteria from growing in the barn.
We need $3,250 to modify our sheep housing, build additional sheep housing, and build a shed to keep our hay dry and free from mold and mildew that can harm livestock.
If we raise the full $6,000 goal, we can accomplish these tasks. However, if we exceed our goal we can do even more:
- $1,000 will provide a feed storage shed close to the rabbit barn.
- $2,000 will provide additional fencing and water lines to expand our pig production into a wooded area currently unfenced.
- $3,000 will build a permanent shade area for livestock during handling such as shearing or hoof inspections.
- $5,000 will purchase a used farm truck for hauling livestock, hay, manure, etc.
If contributors are very supportive and generous, we will be able to do so much more with the items listed here.
6. Please explain how this Indiegogo fundraiser works, and how people can contribute to your cause.
Indiegogo is easy to use! It is an International platform to raise money, and you can find it at www.indiegogo.com. My campaign is listed under the entrepreneurial: food category. You can find it at this link: Help Save Heritage Livestock Breeds with Broad River Pastures, or by typing in the city of Elberton or the title Help Save Heritage Livestock with Broad River Pastures. Anyone with a valid bank account can use Indiegogo to either raise money or contribute to other people’s passions. Since our farm is an LLC and not a non-profit, your contributions are not tax deductible. However, each level of contribution is rewarded with a perk, if desired, that gives you a nice remembrance of your participation.
The amount we actually have to use with our livestock will be reduced by costs of shipping, the costs of our perks, and the commission paid to Indiegogo. Since we are using the flexible campaign plan, we get to keep donations even if we do not meet our goal. However, the commission is 9% if we do not meet our goal and only 4% if we meet or exceed our goal. So it is very important to meet or exceed our goal to remain sustainable. We have some fantastic perks in our campaign, including organic cotton tote bags and t-shirts, Guinea Hog hat pins, and copies of Stanley Fishman’s Tender Grassfed Barbecue. We will be releasing new perks throughout the campaign so be sure to check back and see what might be new and different.
For anyone without a valid bank account or who cannot afford the minimum $5 contribution, you can still help us out by using social media to tell your friends anywhere in the world about what we are doing. Share this blog post, link to our Indiegogo site, shout us out to your friends on Twitter and Facebook, etc. We appreciate you getting the word out!
Thank you, Cathy, and I wish you complete success in this worthy venture.
If you wish to contribute to Jon and Cathy’s campaign to save the Guinea Hog, you can do so via this link:
Help Save Heritage Livestock Breeds with Broad River Pastures
Grassfed Hamburgers Are Not Boring!
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Hamburger with Kebab Flavors—ready to cook.
I used to hate hamburger, and ground beef in all its forms. Factory beef makes terrible hamburgers, in my opinion. But that all changed when I switched to grassfed ground beef, and found that I loved it.
As one of my favorite grassfed ranchers once said, “These are hamburger times, not steak times.” Many people think hamburger is boring and uninteresting. Yet many cultures celebrate traditional ground meat dishes, and often prefer them to more expensive cuts.
The beauty of ground grassfed meat is that you can do so much with it. You can add all kinds of ingredients, and the variety is limited only by your imagination and research ability. I have found that traditional ground meat flavor combinations can make the plain hamburger into a delicious, nutritious, delight.
Traditional Ground Meat Delights
I first learned of the value that other cultures give ground meat mixtures when I went to an ethnic restaurant with a friend who wanted to introduce me to his native cuisine. There were many grilled items, and I asked him what he liked best. I thought it might be the lamb kebabs, or the marinated chicken kebabs. Instead, he enthusiastically recommended the ground meat kebabs, which he said were the best thing on the menu. I took his recommendation, and was astonished by how flavorful and good they were.
Many cultures have their own unique traditional ways of preparing ground grassfed meat. The meat is almost always mixed with other ingredients. In Germany, the meat could be mixed with eggs, breadcrumbs, cream, and a little nutmeg. In Poland, a ground onion might be mixed into the meat, with some bread that was soaked in milk, squeezed dry, and incorporated into the burger.
Armenians could mix finely chopped parsley and onions into the meat, along with various spices. In India, curry spices and other ingredients could be mixed into the meat. The combinations are endless.
Turning Grassfed Hamburger into a Delicious Masterpiece
The key to having a flavorful variety in burgers is to mix other ingredients into the meat.
I have tried traditional flavor combinations with grassfed ground beef, grassfed ground bison, grassfed ground lamb, and pastured ground pork. I have used olive oil, all kinds of minced vegetables, eggs, egg yolks, toasted sesame oil, milk, cream, fish sauce, and a huge variety of spices from all over the world. By using traditional flavor combinations as a guide, I have come up with a variety of wonderful burgers that are very distinct in their taste and flavors. The ground meat recipes I have published in Tender Grassfed Barbecue include:
- Great Plains Cherry Bison Burger
- Balkan Burger
- Transylvanian Garlic Burger
- Cinnamon Burger
- Curry Burger, and
- Cajun Burger, to name a few. They are all different, yet delicious.
My upcoming cookbook will include many new recipes for grassfed ground meat, including this one that I have already shared on the Internet:
Ground grassfed meat need never be boring, and can be delicious in so many ways!
This post is part of Fat Tuesday blog carnival.
The Traditional American Right to Eat Good Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: Gerry Dincher
We live in a time when the eating of all meat, any meat, is under attack. We are constantly told we must eat less meat, especially less red meat, or should eat no meat at all. We are given many reasons, which are false when it comes to grassfed meat. The attacks on meat never distinguish between the pure, grassfed meat of eaten by our ancestors, and the very different factory meat that eaten by most people.
Yet restrictions on eating meat are not new, and go back thousands of years. In most human societies after the advent of agriculture, meat eating and hunting were heavily restricted. Only the ruling classes and some of their servants were able to get enough. Before the founding of the United States of America, this was still true for most of the world, including Europe.
While most people think of well known American freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, most never think of a freedom that is just as traditional and possibly even more important—the right to eat enough good meat.
The Old Restrictions on Meat, and the American Difference
In Europe, most people ate very little meat. The policies of the governments prohibited most people from hunting, as all game was considered to belong to the crown or the nobility. People who killed a rabbit to feed their hungry family were guilty of the crime of “poaching,” and were often executed for that “crime.” While peasants and farmers would often raise animals, they would keep them mainly for milk. The surplus animals would usually be sold so the peasants could pay the high rents and taxes to the nobles and other landowners. In fact, in Ireland, the pigs raised by families were known as “the gentleman who pays the rent.”
The result was that most Europeans had to survive on a diet consisting mainly of grains, vegetables, seasonal fruits, with some dairy products and some fish. The result was a population so stunted and malnourished that a man of 5 feet 4 inches was considered tall, even into the nineteenth century.
Some of these people immigrated to the British, French, and Spanish colonies in North and South America. There were very few nobles and rich people there, especially in the British colonies. But there was a huge supply of wild game, and no one to restrict hunting. The early settlers learned a lot about hunting from the Native Americans, who were expert hunters, and much taller, stronger, and healthier than the first European immigrants. Anyone who wanted to hunt could, and meat immediately became a huge part of the colonial diet. In addition to wild game, pigs and cattle were imported, and quickly thrived on the almost unlimited grazing of the new lands, multiplying in huge numbers. Keeping animals for meat was cheap and easy, and these immigrants were able to eat their fill of good, grassfed and pastured meat for the first time.
The Benefits of Good Meat.
The research of Dr. Weston A. Price established the fact that people need animal foods, especially animal fats, to thrive and be healthy, and grassfed and pastured meat are perfect animal foods. The benefit of these foods was shown by the history of the United States.
The population of the English colonies in North America exploded, as people thrived on the meat-heavy diet. A number of people immigrated to these colonies just because they heard that even poor people could afford meat there. In fact, the diaries of immigrants, even in the early twentieth century, reveal that one of the most important motivations for moving to the Americas was the ability to afford and get good meat.
Not only did people live longer, but they were taller, stronger, healthier, and more independent. British visitors to the thirteen colonies were astonished at the height, strength, and health of the Americans, who often towered a foot or more above their English relatives. The genetics were the same, the difference was in the diet, and the Americans ate huge amounts of good, natural meat. A diet that only the wealthy and privileged could enjoy in England.
Good meat and fat nourish the brain, and these tall, strong people were very independent minded, would not just do what they were told, and took pride in thinking for themselves and making their own decisions. “Yankee ingenuity” became a byword in Europe. Eventually, these well nourished people founded the United States of America, defeated the greatest military power on earth in a bloody, yet completely successful revolution, and founded one of the best systems of government the world had yet seen. A system that had many flaws, yet allowed more freedom and personal responsibility than any system existing in Europe at the time.
These ideas were exported to Europe, and eventually resulted in the freeing of most Europeans, giving them a degree of freedom that they never had before.
The right to eat good meat has been a basic American freedom, and it is a right that everyone on earth deserves to have.
Switching to grassfed meat, using the grazing practices pioneered by Allan Savory, would greatly increase the supply of good meat and increase the amount of grasslands and water throughout the world.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
The Goodness of Grassfed Meat and Real Food
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
The deep orange color of the yolks shows that these are pastured eggs, rich with nutrients.
Grassfed meat and real food are more expensive, and much harder to get than factory food. Why should we pay the higher cost? Why go to the considerable trouble of finding real food and quality grassfed meat?
The answer is simple, yet profound.
- Because it makes me feel so much better.
- Because it enables the natural functions of my body to function better, keeping me healthy, with every part working well, from mind to toes.
- Because it tastes so good, and makes me feel so satisfied.
- Because eating properly prepared grassfed meat and real food makes me happy and content.
In a world that sells convenience above all else, it is important to remember that easy is not always best. Quality really matters, especially when it comes to food.
Good Health
Our bodies were not designed or evolved to live on pills and supplements, or on food raised with chemicals that did not even exist until they were invented in a lab. Humanity has eaten grassfed meat and real food for most of our history, and our bodies have adapted to use this wonderful fuel.
It is not just the individual nutrient that matters, it is the combination of nutrients, many of which have yet to be discovered. When we eat a balanced traditional diet of real food and grassfed meat, we need not worry about whether we are getting good nutrition that our bodies can easily absorb and use—because we are.
Factory foods raised with chemicals, GMOs, foods that have been irradiated, foods with chemical additives, are all new to humanity, and are different from the foods that have nourished us since the beginning.
How do we know if we are well nourished? We feel good, clear, with lots of energy. We experience a great deal of satisfaction and contentment. There is a wonderful feeling of satisfaction that comes after eating a good meal of real food, that can never come from eating factory food.
The chemicals they add to factory food can make it taste good, and can make us crave it, but it does not satisfy. In fact, one of the telltale signs of factory food is that you can eat a great deal of it and never be satisfied, always craving more. That is why people will eat whole quarts of factory ice cream, drink a gallon or more of factory soft drinks in a day, eat huge quantities of candy, and still be hungry.
With real food and grassfed meat, you eat, and your body knows when you have had enough. Then the desire to eat ends, and you enjoy the wonderful satisfaction that only real food can bring.
Better Taste
Real food and grassfed meat, properly cooked with traditional ingredients and methods, tastes so good it is hard to describe. The smell and taste of a grassfed beef roast cooked over smoldering charcoal is good beyond belief, as are countless other traditional dishes.
And it is not hard to cook this kind of food to the point where it is wonderful. It is not complicated. If you have great ingredients, you can enjoy wonderful, tender grassfed meat, and utterly delicious real food, with just a few ingredients and simple cooking methods.
Two days ago, we had a grassfed beef roast cooked in front of a hardwood charcoal fire, seasoned with no more than three ingredients. Cooking it was simplicity itself, being just a matter of a very simple marinade, timing, and adjusting the temperature of the fire by adjusting the vents once. Yet this beef was so good, so delicious, absolutely mouth-watering as it came off the grill with that heavenly aroma that only barbecued meat can have.
Yesterday, we had a pastured pork roast, marinated with a traditional combination of four ingredients, then roasted in the oven with one change of temperature. We sliced it thin, and enjoyed the incredible flavor and tenderness of the meat, enhanced by the traditional spicing. This meat was so good it was hard to imagine anything better, and most of the dinner conversation involved praising the goodness of the pork.
Yet, when we had enough, in both of those meals, the desire to eat ended, and we experienced the wonderful sensation of satisfaction.
My cookbooks, Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue, contain detailed instructions on how to cook wonderful grassfed meat—the easy way.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
The Joy of Grassfed Barbecue
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Mediterranean Pork Roast from Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Barbecue season began for me yesterday. I opened Tender Grassfed Barbecue to the recipe for Roast Pork with Mediterranean Myrtle, in the Style of Sardinia. I marinated a pastured pork loin with traditional ingredients. I took the barbecue out of the garage, set it up, arranged the coals, lit the fire. I watched the first coals catch, and spread the fire to the others. I watched the flames as the hardwood charcoal burned down, filling the air with the fragrance of wood smoke.
When the coals were ready, I placed the pork loin in front of the fire, added some Mediterranean myrtle leaves to the coals, put the cover on, and inhaled the fragrant smell, feeling great satisfaction.
I adjusted the vents to control the temperature, added coals when called for, and enjoyed my mastery of the fire. The smell of the burning coals, fragrant leaves, and roasting meat made me so hungry.
I was enjoying one of humankind’s oldest experiences, cooking real meat in front of a real fire.
It got even better when the meat was finally ready, and I cut thin slices of fragrant pork, and tasted the flavors of the meat, the herbs, and the wood. So good. So satisfying. So old, yet so new. And utterly delicious.
The Goodness of Barbecue
Barbecuing meat has been associated with health risks, based on various studies. Yet our ancestors, and the peoples studied by Dr. Weston A. Price, cooked most of their meat in front of a fire, without developing the diseases indicated by the studies.
A review of the studies on the subject led me to realize something important. The risk factors were always associated with cooking the meat over direct high heat. While most Americans associate barbecue with cooking directly over a hot fire, whether charcoal or gas, our ancestors rarely did this.
By cooking their meat in front of, but never directly over, the fire, they avoided scorching their meat, and avoided the risk factors identified by various studies.
Concern has also been expressed about some chemicals that are released from burning wood, such as creosote. Our ancestors had this one covered as well, as they invariably burned their wood down to coals before placing the meat in front of it. By the time the wood burned down to coals, the chemicals had burned off. Our ancestors often cooked with natural charcoal, which was and is made by partly burning wood. This process also burns off the toxic chemicals.
It is just about certain that most of our ancestors cooked their meat in front of the fire, and that this is the oldest human way of cooking meat. Our bodies have no doubt adapted to the combination of meat cooked with wood coals. I cook grassfed meat in many delicious ways, and enjoy all of them, but real barbecue has always been my favorite. Grassfed meat is humankind’s oldest food, and wood coal fires are humankind’s oldest way to cook it. The meat and the method go together in delicious perfection.
The Taste of Barbecue
Cooking with fire gives grassfed meat a flavor, texture, and tenderness that cannot be matched in any other way. I usually cook with charcoal, as it is much easier than burning wood logs down coals, and is the oldest cooking fuel after wood itself. I only use lump charcoal, or briquettes made from 100 percent hardwood charcoal with a starch binder. This helps recreate the traditional flavors, and makes for a fire that is very easy to control.
I barbecue grassfed beef, grassfed lamb, grassfed bison, pastured pork, and sometimes chicken or even wild fish. No matter what I make, I love it.
Barbecuing can be very difficult, or very easy. I prefer easy, and have perfected a simple method to cook meat in front of the fire, not over, control the temperature, and produce absolutely delicious barbecue meats. This method is detailed in Tender Grassfed Barbecue, along with more than a hundred delicious traditional recipes for many kinds of barbecued meats. I am getting hungry now.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Animal Fat for the Winter
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
This delicious roast duck is perfect for winter.
Our ancestors usually ate their food in season. This did not just apply to fruits and vegetables, but also to meats which were available all year round. In Europe and America, this used to mean that a great deal of animal fat was eaten during the winter. In fact, the people who lived in cold climates, all over the world, prized animal fat and ate a great deal of it when the weather was cold. This enabled people to survive and thrive in some very cold climates, even within the arctic circle.
This was not just done for cultural reasons, but because of an important fact I just learned for myself—animal fat makes winter better—much better.
The Problem with Winter
Cold weather had always been difficult for humans. In fact, many people counted winters rather than years when describing someone’s age. To these people, surviving the winter was a real accomplishment. It has been more common for people to get sick and die during a cold winter. There are several reasons for this. There is little sunlight, which means much less Vitamin D. Vitamin D is crucial for the proper functioning of the immune system. The cold is a strain on the body, which is made worse by rain and snow, much worse by freezing weather and blizzards. Most people just try to stay warm and dry.
But our ancestors did not consider shelter to be enough. They had another remedy for winter that was very important to them—animal fat.
Traditional Winter Foods
Many European peoples would eat fattier foods during winter. Even the game they hunted put on fat for the winter, so older, fatter animals were prized at that time. Rich pork dishes from fat pigs, using lard and the skin, were winter favorites. Fatty lamb roasts and stews were a winter favorite. In fact, every kind of meat stew was made in winter, always with plenty of animal fat. Geese and ducks were usually eaten during the winter, because of the fat they carried. Winter was the most likely time for people to have meat, and many animals were slaughtered and salted, often in the form of hams or fat sausages, in preparation for winter.
All of this animal fat was pastured, as factory foods did not exist at this time.
In old Russia, fat foods for winter were so prized that poems were written about them, praising the virtues of the various kinds of fat, including lamb fat, beef fat, butter, and the favorite, real pork lard.
Eating animal fat during winter was considered vital for health. Unfortunately, many people were too poor to afford enough fat and fatty meats, and were unable to get the benefits. But for those who could afford it, fatty meats and animal fat played a crucial role in winter survival.
The Benefits of Winter Fat
The benefits of good animal fat have been documented by the Weston A. Price Foundation, as shown in this excellent article The Skinny on Fats.
Pastured animal fats are particularly valuable in winter because they are rich in Vitamin D, especially the fatty organ meats, and butter. Pastured animal fats are wonderful fuel for the body, providing perhaps the best source of energy, with none of the negative effects of sugar or too many carbs. This helps the body to function better.
Recently we were hit with a spell of unusually cold weather, and I decided to up our intake of real animal fats. We ate fatty roasts and stews, used more real lard, butter, beef tallow, and other such fats, and enjoyed fatty ducks and organ meats. The results of this experiments is that my energy increased, and I felt strong and eager for the work of the day. The tiredness I might feel from the cold and gloom disappeared with a nice bowl of fatty stew, or hot broth made from real bones and meat scraps.
This is just my experience, but it helped me to understand why my European ancestors valued fat in the winter so much.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Real Lard, Great Food
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Real pork lard.
Most Americans are horrified by the very thought of eating lard. Some seem to think that even a small amount of lard will stop their hearts, or make them obese, or both. Yet lard was once the most popular cooking fat in America. Lard was also the most popular cooking fat in China.
Lard was demonized so margarine, hydrogenated oils, and other creations of the processed food industry would sell. The artificial fats created by the food industry taste and feel much worse than the traditional fats of our ancestors. This means that the only reason people would buy the factory fats is if real fats are believed to be unhealthy. There are no shortages of scientists and studies that the food industry could and can buy to scare people into giving up real food. Lard, and all saturated fat, was blamed for heart disease, and countless other illnesses.
The truth of the matter is that real lard, from healthy pastured pigs, is very healthy and nutritious, and one of our best sources of vitamin D.
Real lard is one of the very best cooking fats, having a high smoke point, and being unlikely to spatter in most circumstances.
And food cooked with real lard can be incredibly delicious.
The Two Types of Lard
Nearly all the lard you will find in the supermarket is hydrogenated, which means that the very molecular structure of the fat has been changed to something that never appears in nature. This lard almost always comes from pigs that have been kept in confinement, may never see the sun, and are fed almost totally on GMO soy and GMO corn. This lard does not need to be refrigerated, which means that it has been processed to the point that it will not spoil. But lard like this has a horrid, greasy, slimy texture, and a truly disgusting taste, at least to me, and many others. It will, in my opinion, ruin any food cooked with it.
Real lard, the lard enjoyed by our ancestors, is not hydrogenated. It comes from pigs raised in the open air, who forage for a great deal of their own food, and see plenty of sun. It is hard to find, but it tastes and feels a thousand times better than the hydrogenated abomination. You can get this kind of lard at some farmers markets, though it can be very expensive. My favorite Internet source is U.S. Wellness Meats, which sells rendered lard from pigs who spend most of their life in the open, foraging for a large part of their food. The price is also quite reasonable.
The Benefits of Real Lard
Real lard gives incredible flavor to food. It is great for basting meats, and has been used for that purpose for thousands of years, from Sardinia to China. Meat basted with lard is more tender, retains more of its juices, and tastes fantastic.
Real lard is also great for baking, and played a huge part in traditional European and American biscuits, pies, cakes, and breads. It gives incredible flavor and texture to these dishes, one that is unique and wonderful.
Real lard is perhaps the best fat for frying and sautéing. It has a very high smoke point, spatters rarely, and adds its own wonderful flavor to the food that is cooked in it. We do not have French fries or fried chicken very often, but when we do, it is usually fried in real lard. It is the fat of choice in most of our stir fries. Not only is frying easier, safer, and smoother, but the taste benefits are immense.
And real lard is healthy, to the great surprise of most people. The Weston A Price Foundation, which I consider to be the most knowledgeable food organization on earth, recommends the use of real lard in cooking. Not only does real lard provide a valuable balance of essential fatty acids, it is one of the best sources of natural Vitamin D, and other nutrients.
Today, following the suggestion of a seventh generation English butcher, we fried eggs in real lard for the first time. Awesome.
We use real lard in cooking all the time, and enjoy it immensely.
This post is part of Monday Mania, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.
I Am Thankful for Grassfed Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: Andrew Morrell Photography
Every year, I follow an old American custom. When Thanksgiving comes around, I think about what I am thankful for.
The list is very long, but there are some things that really stand out. This year, I am particularly grateful for grassfed meat and grassfed fat. These wonderful traditional foods are so good for our health, and so delicious. There was a time when I could not get them. And there was a time that I did not know how to cook them.
That has changed, and I am thankful for that.
I Am Thankful for the Good Farmers Who Raise Real Grassfed Meat
Few people realize that it takes much more skill, knowledge, trouble, time, and effort to create grassfed meat. It is much easier, cheaper, and faster to raise a factory cow, and ship it off to the feedlot to be turned into factory meat.
Raising a grassfed cow is something different. It takes a knowledge of what breeds will fatten on grass. It takes an understanding of the magic of soil and pastures, and how to graze and when to graze, and when to rest the soil. It takes knowledge of the seasons and weather patterns, of the needs of the cattle, of the unique peculiarities of the land used for grazing, and the plants on that land. It takes an ability to adjust to changing conditions, which can change the whole dynamic. It requires creativity, intelligence, ingenuity, and decisive action. It is as much an art as it is a science, and the parameters are always changing.
I have talked with some true experts on raising great grassfed cattle. Ranchers like Chris Kerston of Chaffin Family Orchards. John Wood of U.S. Wellness Meats. Lee Mora of Humboldt Grassfed Beef. Ed Wimble of Homestead Natural Foods, and others. I am amazed by the great intelligence, know how, practicality, determination, and creativity of all of these ranchers. Every day is a challenge, and they always manage to meet it, raising some of the most wonderful food in the world. They know the magic of pasture, the ways of their cattle, the impact of the weather, and a thousand other things that are vital for raising great grassfed beef. They know how to improve their land by managing the grazing of their herds, and how to make the soil richer and better.
The meat they raise is healthy and delicious, being some of the finest food we could ever hope to put in our bodies. I can only hope that they will pass on their special knowledge, and that it will not be lost. We have a desperate need for good grassfed meat in a world where inferior factory meat dominates the market.
I am very grateful for the meat they raise, and for the fact that I am able to get it and feed it to my family and myself.
I Am Grateful for the Cooking Knowledge of Our Ancestors
It is not enough to be able to buy grassfed meat. You also have to know how to cook it. I learned this the hard way, and I mean that literally. You would be able to break windows with some of the first grassfed meat I ruined.
The first grassfed meat I cooked was good meat, and I ruined it. It was tough and tasteless. Everything I knew about cooking and marinating factory meat failed, when I tried to apply it to grassfed meat. After many failures that resulted in tough, bad tasting meat, I gave up.
But I still wanted, I still needed the many health benefits of grassfed meat. My body needed to rebuild after many years of illness, and factory meat just was not doing the job. It occurred to me that our ancestors must have known how to cook it. And they must have enjoyed it, because the histories and novels and legends were full of accounts of wonderful feasts of meat. And that meat was grassfed, through most of history, everywhere in the world. It was only in modern times that factory meat became available.
An old memory came to me. My Dad grew up on the prairies of Canada. When he was ten, he and his younger brother were put on the train, and given money to buy food in the dining car. They would be going a long way, to stay with relatives. My Dad and his brother had heard stories of the wonderful steaks in the dining cars of the railroad, which were very expensive. They decided to blow most of their food money for the trip on a steak dinner. That steak was so wonderful that my Dad never forgot it. He remembered it eighty years later, when he was dying, and that memory brought one of his last smiles. I realized that this magnificent steak had to have been grassfed.
This inspired me to read hundreds of old cookbooks, novels, and histories. While most of the recipes assumed that the reader already knew how to cook, and gave very vague instructions, certain themes were repeated over and over. I began to experiment with them, and the time came when I learned how to cook grassfed meat, and make it tender and delicious every time. I focused on easy methods, as I did not have the time or interest for the more elaborate ones. I also learned many other things about ancestral cooking, especially about how to combine different foods to create a very nourishing meal. This knowledge became the foundation for my cookbooks, Tender Grassfed Meat, and Tender Grassfed Barbecue, and the basis of so many wonderful meals.
I am thankful for the cooking knowledge of our ancestors, and how it enabled me to learn how to enjoy the benefits and awesome taste of grassfed meat.
This post is part of Monday Mania, Real Food Wednesday, and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
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