To Meat or Not to Meat
Each term, super-butcher and all-around-great-guy Taylor Boetticher of Fatted Calf shows up at the front door of the school with half a pig over his shoulder — lord only knows what people passing by on Van Ness Avenue must think! When the students in the culinary class find out that they’ll be helping to cut up said pig, reactions range from trepidation and nervous giggles to curiosity and excitement.
But there’s a good reason for subjecting the class to this roller-coaster ride of emotional reactions, because in today’s culinary world, chefs and diners alike are confronted with decisions and choices that didn’t plague them in the past, when the world was a simpler but not necessarily better place, all the pork was raised on factory farms in Iowa and you couldn’t find an avocado in the Midwest to save your life: Where and how was this vegetable grown, and how was it transported? What hormones and growth stimulants were added to this milk? What breed is this animal, and how was it slaughtered? What was it fed, and what is its impact on the environment?
The choices aren’t black and white, but fall along a continuum, and an informed decision is much harder than a simple yes or no.
Budding cooks need to navigate a complex ethical landscape — their peers and customers demand it — and have to keep learning and researching all the time. So cutting up this pig requires more tools than just a boning knife and a saw, and that’s where Taylor comes in. He can break down a side of pork with the best of them, but he can also talk about the breed, the rancher who raised the pig, the characteristics of the meat, and its best uses. He’s a true nose-to-tail guy, as he proves when he comes back to the school a few days after the students break down the pig to help them put everything from the jowls to the hocks to good use, roasting, curing, smoking and drying the meat to create a vast assortment of charcuterie. Before the afternoon is over, the kitchen is festooned with bratwurst, fegatelli and chorizo; hams and hocks are soaking in herb-scented brine; pork bellies and jowls are curing under drifts of salt; and the students are feasting on maple and black pepper breakfast sausage.
For Taylor, as for many up-and-coming butchers and chefs, it’s all about showing respect to the animal by not wasting any part of it, transforming each cut with love and careful attention into something nourishing and delicious. It’s an eye-opening experience for most of the students — not only learning to cut up a pig, but also how to think about food as more than a commodity or ingredient but as part of a larger system necessitating ethical choices. We don’t tell the students what to think — if only it were that easy! Our mission is to give them the tools that enable them to make their own choices.
MAPLE AND BLACK PEPPER BREAKFAST SAUSAGE
Recipe adapted from Taylor Boetticher of the Fatted Calf
Ingredients for 5 pounds:
- 3 pounds pork shoulder
- 2 pounds pork leg
- 2 tablespoons sea salt
- 1 tablespoon black pepper, roasted and finely ground
- 3 allspice berries, roasted and finely ground
- 1/2 pinky nail of nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon cayenne
- 2 teaspoons chopped garlic
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup sage, finely chopped
Method:
Cut the pork into 2-inch cubes. Mix the salt, spices and garlic together and mix well into the pork.
Marinate for at least 2 hours, refrigerated. Grind once with the fine plate of the meat grinder, then mix in the maple syrup and sage. Mix well by hand for 2 minutes to develop the proteins and distribute the seasonings. Cook a small sample, taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Case in lamb casings and twist off into 4-inch-long sausages.
Do you eat meat? Why or why not?
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Catherine Pantsios is the founding Director of Culinary Arts at San Francisco Cooking School. A career chef and instructor for twenty-five years, Catherine retired in 2018 but joins us often as an invaluable guest instructor.
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