The American Meat Project Joins the 21st Century (ish)

Dear Readers:

You might have noticed some changes to The American Meat Project Blog.  As my father likes to say, “times change.”  With the changing of time comes excitement and loss.  I miss the style of the old blog, but I think this format will be easier for people to navigate.  At least, that’s what I’m hoping.  I originally built the website and the blog through iWeb, but I think now that Apple created software might not be that great.  It’s super pretty, but perhaps not so functional–kind of like George W. Bush.  Or perhaps it’s user error.  Let’s be honest here, my parents didn’t get a microwave until I was in college.  I am a huge fan of technology, but being behind the eight ball in usage abilities is in my blood.

More than mourning the stylistic changes, I’m sad about losing the comments that were on the prior blog.  I cannot figure out how to transfer them over to this format (see supra lack of skills).  So for those that commented, thank you, thank you, thank you for your comments, and I apologize that they don’t currently exist on this newly formatted site.  If I figure out how to migrate them, you can bet I will make it happen.

But, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.  If you all think this format sucks, then by god I’ll change it back.  Just let me know your thoughts in the comments.  In the meantime, there’s more excitement around here.  Thanks to the brilliance of Jillian Smythe who answered my Facebook query about solving my Twitter connection problem, soon 140 or less character gems could be coming your way.  Try to contain your excitement.

In other awesome news, you can become a fan of The American Meat Project on Facebook here.  I might even be able to link the page to the Twitter account.  Also, the U.S.’s budget deficit could one day be back in the billions not trillions.  I wouldn’t hold my breath for either one, but I might put five bucks on the former.

As always, thank you all for reading (and hopefully enjoying) The American Meat Project blog!

Twitter – WTF?

Ok, I apologize for the abbreviated obscenity.  This is a family website, despite what YouTube thinks of my film.  But seriously, Twitter, WTF?  Why can’t I get a Twitter account?  It’s not like I haven’t been trying.  I have, for over a month.  I try to access Twitter’s website every single day.  Do you know what I get?  This:

Safari can’t open the page “http://twitter.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.

Is the Twitter server busy every single hour of every single day for the last month?  I don’t think so, because I know there are tweets out there in the universe flying around.  I want to be a part of that.  I want to let you know in 140 characters or less how my shopping for dried intestines, aka casings, is going.  I’m going to try to make chorizo from the remnants of the Texas hog that are in my freezer, although I’m pretty sure I’ll have to kill another pig before this all happens so that I can add more delectable fat bits to the mixture.  Also, I’m not sure how frozen meat really works for sausage, but I guess we’ll find out.

The point is, why can’t I get a Twitter account?  My husband has a Twitter account.  Well, I think he still has it but several months ago he announced he couldn’t get to his Twitter account (he follows people, but doesn’t post himself).  At that point, I made fun of him for being on Twitter.  Is Twitter punishing me for making fun of their service?  If that’s the case, I’d like to say, Dear Twitter: I apologize.  I was wrong.  You were right.  I’m ugly.  You’re pretty.  I’m negative cool.  You’re totally awesome.

I’m starting to think it has something to do with using a Mac with Safari as my web browser.  The thing is, I can get to Twitter’s blog, status, and support pages, but not the actual about or create an account pages.  I even tried to submit a Twitter support request thinking maybe I could get some support about not being able to get to Twitter’s main page, but it turns out you need an account for that.  Has anyone else ever had this experience?  I can’t find anything about this problem through my standard Google searches.

Maybe those of you with Twitter accounts could tweet this for me: Twitter: No access w/ Macbook/Safari. Why? I Googled for help–nothing. I want Tiny URLs! Don’t make me Bing! Wait, your office is < 1mi from my apt?  See you tomorrow!

Tell Me Your Stories

I am so thrilled by the few comments I’ve received in the past couple days that I’m going to use an exclamation point to end this sentence!  Seriously, I’m pumped.  I want more – so much more.  So, I’m throwing it out there to all of you.  What’s your favorite or most memorable American Meat story?  The guidelines are totally flexible here.  In fact, there are no guidelines.  It could be a story about becoming a vegetarian.  It could be a story about the first time you met a vegetarian.  Anything goes.  Tell me your story in the comments.  I’d love to hear about it.

Fishing

It’s time.  The sun has started shining in San Francisco.  The clocks have been sprung forward.  We’re coming out of warming meat eating season and heading into cooling meat eating season.  It’s time to go fishing.  Growing up with an avid fly-fisherman for a father, I’ve been fishing.  I’ve waded through numerous streams and rivers throughout Oregon, Idaho and Montana.  I’ve caught rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, brook trout, and brown trout.  I went steelheading with my father last August, but we didn’t manage to catch anything—other than the food poisoning my husband got that left him vomiting by the river’s side while I lamely attempted 50-foot casts and showed off my horrific mending skills.

In theory because I’ve caught trout, I could eat salmon.  After all, they’re all part of the Salmonidae family, which includes trout, salmon, char, whitefish and grayling.  This is something that’s lost on most people, including myself frankly.  Until today I had no idea whitefish were in the Salmonidae family.  This is interesting because I think it means that if I catch a salmon on the pacific coast, I can totally eat New York Jewish deli whitefish salad.  Although I’m not totally sure about this because Wikipedia, which purports to contain actual information, says here that the Atlantic Whitefish, which I’m just guessing is the kind of whitefish in the delish desired bagel shmear, “is a freshwater salmonid fish inhabiting the northwestern Atlantic ocean around the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, as well as some freshwater lakes within Nova Scotia.”  Last time I checked (which was two seconds ago because I was all like, wait what, I’m pretty sure I got an A in science but maybe I’ve misremembered all these years and there isn’t actually salt in the Atlantic Ocean) freshwater means no salt/low salt and ocean means salty, salty, salty.  But whatever, I digress.  If you want to learn more about the Salmonidae’s maybe this information is a little more trustworthy.

The point is, I’ve drawn a distinction between fish caught in rivers versus fish caught in the ocean because I think there’s a distinct difference in the process of catching each and that’s what I want to experience.  According to Sole Man, during the spring I can catch king salmon and rockfish on the SF coast and striped bass, halibut, and shark in the bay.  Sadly, my weekends are full for several weeks, but mid-April it is going to be on.  The only question I have is whether I can fish the coast and the bay in one day.  Actually, wait, I have another question: How do you cook shark?

P.S.  If you care about fish that are sensitive to environmental changes, as the Salmonidae family is, you should totally think about supporting Trout Unlimited.

Craving a Mobile Slaughter Unit

Lately I’ve been fascinated with mobile slaughter units.  In fact when I think about what I would buy if I won the lottery, a mobile slaughter unit is right behind a vast expanse of property where I would likely raise animals that could then be slaughtered in said unit.  Is this love affair wrong?  It definitely feels like something I might not want to mention at cocktail parties.  But, knowing me, if I spoke at all during said imaginary party I’d probably just bring it up, take the soon to follow “crazy lady” death stare and move on to discussing the intricacies of the unit’s water supply.

One of my favorite magazines to read is the Harvard Business Review.  I especially love their case studies.  If one could combine case studies and mobile slaughter units, I’d be elated.  It turns out, I am elated right now as I’m writing this because this awesome combination has already occurred and you can read it here.  Along with the Coast Grown “Mobile Harvest Unit” one can read about Kentucky’s Mobile Poultry Processing Unit and Washington’s Island Grown Farmers Cooperative.  Swoon.

Wait, did you think that was it?  Please.  The Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network (love, love, love the concept of “niche meat processors”) put together a three part series about the operation of mobile slaughter units.  Part I is here.  Part II is here.  Part III is here.  If you are at all interested in where your meat comes from and further how small local ranchers might process their meat, you should check this series out.  As an aside, I noticed they don’t have a warning on their videos, unlike mine, which makes me wonder even more why on earth my video appears to be the only one in the land cast with the scarlet “NSFM” (not suitable for minors) label.

“Could things get any better?” you might ask yourself.  Well sit down and slap yourself upside the head because true story, it gets better.  What, you might be asking yourself could this woman like any more than the myriad things she’s already named?  Spreadsheets my friends, the answer is spreadsheets.  And here you can download a totally cool, totally user-friendly Mobile Slaughter Unit Cost Calculator.  The feasibility spreadsheet was apparently created by Kathleen Painter who works at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University.

After playing around with the model for a while, what I found most interesting was the break-even discrepancies between animals.  If one doesn’t vary the standard variables within the spreadsheet, one finds that it’s impossible to break even killing only pigs.  It can be done with just 10 cows or 49 sheep, but you just can’t get there on pork alone.  If I hadn’t already squandered nearly all of Monday learning about mobile slaughter units, maybe I could figure out why that is.  As it stands, maybe one of you, my readers (albeit there might not actually be any of you) could explain it to me.

Did I or Did I Not Kill a Pig?

Sometimes we ask questions we know the answers to because we’re hoping for a different answer.  I think that’s the case here.  The short version of this story is that I went pig hunting with The Pig Master a few weeks ago in Texas.  When the time came for me to shoot the pig that was eventually killed, there was a man riding a horse right behind the pig.  And the man’s son was standing behind me watching the scene.  I was not about to shoot toward the pig with those two alternative characters in the scene given that it would about my twelfth time shooting the gun and I hadn’t yet won any first place accuracy medals.  I told The Pig Master to shoot it, which he promptly did.

We brought it back to my Aunt and Uncle’s ranch, strung it up, peeled off the skin, and cut off the most edible portions of the meat (hindquarters, forequarters, and back strap, which is essentially the tenderloin).  I helped with all of that, with the exception of removing the skin from the boar’s genitalia, which is an incredibly delicate operation that The Pig Master insisted on doing given his masterful skills and the possibility of ungodly smells and meat ruination should anything go awry.

I brined the meat.  Then cooked it to a shockingly pleasurable state according to my Uncle.  I even brought some of the meat back as a second checked bag that was, not unexpectedly, examined by the Transportation Security Administration, but surprisingly not confiscated by them.  We are in fact having ham tonight.

While I feel comfortable eating this ham because it was killed on my watch and I participated in the deconstruction of the animal, I don’t think it officially counts as a pig kill.  Which is kind of sad, because pork is delicious and I miss it from my diet.  But also kind of exciting because this means ahead (and hopefully not too far ahead because I’m not kidding when I say I want pork back in my diet bad) there’s another pig to be killed and the possibility of hanging hams, bacon curing, and massive sausage making.  So, if you know of someone with a small pig for sale and perhaps a little bit of land for a brief period of use, then I’m interested—very, very interested.

Urban Farm Architecture

The other day I was reading this article in Fast Company about the creation, from scratch, of totally new cities to house the influx of people in the coming years.  New Songdo City in South Korea is one of those cities.  The article focuses on Cisco’s contract to wire the entire city, stating:

Cisco is expected to wire every square inch of the city with synapses. From the trunk lines running beneath the streets to the filaments branching through every wall and fixture, it promises this city will “run on information.” Cisco’s control room will be New Songdo’s brain stem.

Together with 3M, United Technologies, Kohn Pedersen Fox architects, and Gale International, Cisco plans to enter the instant city market to house the projected 3 billion plus people coming our way in the next 40 years.  But what I’m wondering is where’s the agriculture?  How will all these people get food?  If we’re talking about these new, cool, “green” cities, we can’t even begin a decent discussion without discussing where all the inhabitants will get their food.  If it’s all shipped in from far away rural farms, how new, cool, and green is that?  While Cisco is busy wiring every inch of the city, maybe somebody should be taking on turning roofs and walls into gardens.  Perhaps the skyscrapers could be built around farms that residents could lease, obtaining a certain food return for their lease.  Or perhaps the farm lease could just be a cost of rent.

If we already raise animals in giant warehouses where they can’t move, why not add multiples levels?  Let’s put pigs in parking garages, stacking them up level by level.  Now, I certainly don’t really want that.  If this experiment has taught me anything it’s that I now really care about where my food comes from and I think we should as consumers should create the demand for more humanely raised and grown food.  But I don’t think that such humane raising needs to take place in only rural areas.  If Cisco is prepared to take on this potential $122 billion smart architecture market opportunity, then maybe some other people should too.  We need people who have great ideas like these for urban farming.  We should demand these ideas get incorporated into all the instant cities and frankly, into all the current cities as well.  Because while TelePresence is cool, eating is way, way cooler.

Three Piece Suits and Generational Mirrors

I love three-piece suits.  I love their sophisticated presence, paired with the quirkiness that comes from taking the jacket off and sporting just the vest for a bit.  They say to me, “I’m hardworking, thoughtful, I’m here for the long haul.”  I love that they go in and out of style, but never become extremely popular.  If someone wears one you know that person is really committed to the three-piece suit and everything it stands for and he didn’t just pick it up because GQ said it was in this season.

That’s why I was so excited when I met Mr. G.  He was sporting a navy pinstripe three-piece suit along with his cane.  Mr. G used to work with my Aunt at Goldman Sachs.  He was a tremendous banker.  At this point he is fairly old, but still goes to work every day, dressed to the nines, and plays cards with the gentlemen at the country club.  He was a delight to meet, but the best part of meeting him was when we discussed my pig hunting. Mr. G told us how he used to watch his father skin hogs when he was growing up in Georgia.  He told us about packing the meat in salt to create hams, just as I’d read about in The River Cottage Cookbook (my favorite cookbook of all time – seriously, if you don’t have it, you should buy it.)

“Did they get moldy?”  I asked, since I’d read that often happens and then you have to scrape off the mold.

“Oh yes,” he replied, “You just scrape off the mold.”

Mr. G told us about keeping potatoes under the house all winter and how they’d eat pork and potatoes so often that he never really likes to eat pork anymore.  He told us about the week the bank closed down during the depression and if people didn’t have cash in their pockets, they couldn’t get any for a week.  Many just sat in the street bewildered or crying.  His father tried to buy gas from the man he always purchased gas from, but the man wouldn’t take credit, only cash.  So his father bought his gas from the German man down the road who gave him credit and that’s where he always went forever after that.

After we left lunch that day my Aunt turned to me and said she’d never heard any stories about Mr. G growing up.  She’d never heard anything about his life before he wore three-piece pinstriped suits and traveled the world and drank fine spirits and had done so very, very well for himself.  These are the stories I love hearing about on my American Meat Project journey.

If you ask someone under fifty years of age for a story about food, or where it came from, or what they ate growing up, they usually talk about grocery stores, restaurants, or local organic food production.  If you ask someone over fifty for such a story, almost everyone has a tale about their mother, father, grandmother or grandfather and how he or she killed some type of farm animal.  Or how she and her siblings plucked the hundred chickens their mother bought for the family to eat that year.  Or the time he was told to wait patiently in the car while his mother picked up the rent check from a farm tenant, except he picked up a chicken while he was “waiting” and when his mother got back the chicken was dead.

“What are you doing with a dead chicken?” she asked.

“It wasn’t dead when I started playing with it,” he answered.

These stories are fascinating.  They’re about people’s basic connection to the foods they ate and often how they survived during a time in our nation filled with economic and agricultural destitution. It is said we are in an economic crisis now.  Yet, I see lots of people at restaurants.  I know they’re there because I’m there too.  It is also said that great innovation, resilience, and rebirth comes during times of crisis.  These stories make me think that if Mr. G can go from scraping mold off ham all winter to playing cards at the country club and my starting point is eating out at restaurants, then to be transformative I really need to step up my game.  I think sometimes the Mr. G’s of the world and all their stories serve as a mirror for us to look in and ask ourselves, do I or do I not want to step up to the three-piece suit?  If looked at right, I think we’re forced to come up with our own vision, to step up our own hustle, and to force ourselves to really be transformative – maybe just a little bit, maybe every other day or so.

John: The Pig Master

Like so many things in life, it matters who you know.  Luckily, I know my aunt and uncle who have a ranch in Hill County, Texas and they know John, The Pig Master.  When I told my aunt over the holidays that I was looking to kill a pig, we got into the car, drove down to John’s workplace, and strolled in.

Aunt: “John, this is my niece Katherine.”

John: “Nice to meet you.”

Aunt: “She wants to kill a pig.”

John: “Ok, when?  Not right now, right?”

BAM – game on.  We’re not in San Francisco any more friends.  Although, in SF we do butcher pigs and steers in bars, so I guess we’re not straying that far from home base.  I went back to visit John in February and bag me a hog.

At first I didn’t realize John was the Pig Master.  I was naive to his power over Texas’ feral hog population until I learned about their aerial eradication program.  This is where the city or county pays people to fly over in helicopters and shoot the feral hogs.  Last year’s blockbuster results: 300-400 pigs were killed for $30,000-$40,000 dollars.  I’m giving estimates because I can’t recall the exact figures they shared with me, nor can I find the results online.  But, if we give them all the benefit of the doubt and suppose 400 pigs were killed at a cost of $30,000, that’s $75 a pig.

How many pigs did John hunt and trap last year on his own time, without receiving a penny of government money?  1,400.  No joke Sherlock, that’s a lot of pigs.  Which made me wonder, why didn’t the government just pay John to handle the problem?  He’s obviously extraordinarily good at what he does in his spare time.  Why not reward talent that already exists in the area?  I mean, what is the deal with our government spending twice as much as it needs to do something half as well as it could potentially be accomplished?

The whole things reminds of this story in California where TechCrunch contributor Vivek Wadhwa called for bids to rebuild an unemployment check-processing system that California State had budgeted $50 million to upgrade.  Jeff Whitehead, CEO of Real Time Matrix and Scott Broomfield, CEO of Veeple both threw down $5 million bids.  Will it work?  Is it a good idea?  I have no idea.  To be honest, I think they both probably low-balled it a bit.  But given what I now know about Pig Master John and Hill County’s feral hog eradication program, I have to say if John and/or Scott are half as good as the Pig Master, I think we should give them a shot.

March Resolution: More Posts

An Open Letter to American Meat Project Readers:

I hereby pledge to make March 2010 the official American Meat Project month.  In celebration of this glorious month, I will be contributing daily posts.  As you may have noticed, I’m already a week behind.  As a token of my sincere apologies, I leave you with this image from my boar hunt in Texas:

Tomorrow, we’re talking about pigs.  Get excited.