Book Review: The Butchers Guide to Well Raised Meat

I read quite a few books. All of them are about food, cooking etc. I don't ever really read any books for "fun". If I can't learn anything from them I'm really not that interested in reading them. It does take me a while to get through the book. One, I'm not a very fast reader and two, I always end up reading things I have to for homework instead of the books that I want to read. Not that the homework books are bad. Actually some have been great and this one that I had to read for a class was what really got me back into beer. But I would always have another book to read.

The book that I just finished was The Butchers Guide to Well Raised Meat by Joshua and Jessica Applestone and Alexandra Zissu. This book defintely gets a high grade from me. It is very well written and if you really want to learn why you should want and eat properly raised animals this book is for you.

This book had a ton of information in it about pastured animals and really gave you a feel the philosphy of the Fleishers Butcher Shop. One of the things that I really enjoyed about the book was how candid they were about the whole business of meat from how they source their products to the reasons and challenges of using and practicing whole animal butchery.

This book is really more of a guide though. It shows some butchery and explains how to do others but its value is more than what it tells you about how to Butchering but the value is in what they tell you about purchasing and sourcing animals.

One of the highlights from the book for me was the human cut chart. I heard in an interview that they had to fight to get that in there and I'm glad they did. I think it is a great learning tool for people to use to help understand how and why the muscles are what they are. I also liked how they do the "driveway pig roast." I think they way they built the pit out of cinder blocks is a great idea and one that I plan on using in the near future.

Beer Drank while writing this post: Tumbler by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. out of Chico, CA.