Food for Thought Blog
A bi-weekly journal of Meaty thoughts about cooking, eating, raising, and buying better meat, featuring musings on the greater food system and issues of social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.
Safe Charcuterie, or How to Not Make People Sick at Parties
Determining how to safely store and serve charcuterie can seem overwhelming. Some meats need to be refrigerated and some are shelf stable. Boards get left on tables for hours. But, with a basic understanding of how the products are made, you will become a safe charcuterie expert and be able to enjoy your boards with ease!
Frozen Meat? Yes, You Should Be Eating It!
Push past the freezer burn fear.
Frozen meat gets dragged because of freezer burned pork chops and mystery packages. But that’s just one side of the coin. Frozen meat also means beautiful steaks, chops, and roasts from local farmers. At Meaty, we think that frozen meat needs some reputation rehabilitation and we are happy to assist.
Where Does Meat Come From?
Everyone knows that something happens in between the farmer raising the animals that become meat, and that meat showing up where we shop in neat and tidy packages, however the specifics of that something are often unknown. However, small-scale processing, that middle step, is critically important because it’s what enables small local farmers to provide us with the option of better meat.
The Not-So-Secret Story Behind Our Superbowl Chicken Wings
Do chickens really have six wings??
As we dig into a bucket of wings on Superbowl Sunday, most of us probably won’t be thinking about how our meal contributes to the 1.42 billion wings consumed or how the chickens they come from were raised. But, it is worth pausing to consider whether our game day feast is making big corporations bigger or whether it’s helping a small farmer feed their family and continue raising better meat.
Steak and The Patriarchy
Eating meat (or not) as an act of social justice
As Valentine’s Day approaches, we wonder why is steak the quintessential meal on this holiday of love? It’s not because meat is an aphrodisiac; you’re eating steak on Valentine’s Day because of the patriarchy.
Our New Year’s Resolution? Eat Better Meat!
Not all meat is created equal
You may have heard that all meat is bad, especially for the environment. However, such statements gloss over the fact that meat is not all created equal. There is an alternative to factory farmed meat — you just have to look for it.
Holiday Meat
A guide to a stress-free centerpiece
We get it: hosting a holiday meal can be stressful. But before you abandon your [COVID-tested] family gathering for a tiny isolated cabin upstate, let one of our favorite butchers, Sam Masler, help assuage some of the most common holiday meat conundrums, and assist you in making the holiday meal as smooth as the whiskey in your eggnog.
Better Meat in a Pandemic
Changing sourcing practices towards more local meat
In early 2020, the COVID-induced threat of shortages and attention on the horrible practices in the industrial meat industry led many consumers to reconsider where their meat was coming from. Now, as we enter yet another stage of the pandemic, the question becomes ‘how do we continue to support local meat farmers and expand on this growth?’
Point or Flat?
The Meaty guide to brisket cuts
Brisket and Hannukah go together like latkes and applesauce. For many Jewish families the holiday is not complete without a big platter of braised beef. But the cuts of brisket can be called almost as many names as ways Hannukah can be spelled. Why is that? And how do you know which one to get?
Meaty’s Turkey Tips
How to ace Thanksgiving, from sourcing to carving
Let’s be honest, the turkey is the highest stakes part of Thanksgiving. Your pies are probably going to be ok. The mashed potatoes can always get some more butter and no one will notice the lumps. Even the gravy is a relatively low stress proposition. But that turkey…