The Ethical Meat Eater

by soffiagudrun

I´ve been postponing this post because there is so much I could write about.  The workshop itself, ethical eating, sustainable living, recipes, food politic and KOJI, that´s a topic I need to explore.  So I´m making this post mostly about the photos I took during the class… I might do separate posts about different topics later.

So many people are going vegan these days.  I´m not going to talk about that or defend myself for eating meat. What I want to talk about today, on the other hand, is a class I took a couple of weeks ago called Charcuterie Intensive – Ethical meat workshop with Meredith Leigh.

This class was held at Bragginn, Studio in Flúðir.  They have more classes coming up.  You can follow them on facebook if you are interested in food-related classes.

It was a very informative and interesting workshop where we worked with a half hog and deconstructed it into sausages, pates, salamis and more.  A class I wouldn´t have taken if it weren’t for my friend who is a butcher and a farmer of grass-fed Gallaway cattle.   I have a passion for anything food-related:  Food politic,  what I eat, cooking, cooking shows, recipes and last but not leas sustainable living as I live in the country.  Therefore I decided to join her on this 2-day class in the countryside.  We made a weekend trip of it where we stayed in a beautiful guesthouse, ate good food and went swimming in a natural hot spring.

We also went out to dinner in Flúðir, in a great company of couple of classmates, at an Ethiopian restaurant called Minilik, a place I totally recommend.

Back to the class…  Meridith is a very knowledgable and informative teacher.  She knows soooo much about curing food and how to truly use almost every part of the animal, so nothing goes to waste.  That´s ethical cooking.

The only beef I eat comes from my farmer friends.  I know them and I know how well they take care of their animals.  The cattle are only grass-fed (I think the only grass-fed cattle in the country)   I wish people who don´t eat meat could show more respect to omnivores.   Things are not black and white.    (The way Indian women working in nut farms are treated because of high demand on cashews because so many people are turning vegan… )  Like I said, this post is not about that, so enough about it.

I will most definitely do more of my own curing, patés and sausages in the future after everything I learned.

If you are interested in cured meat, fresh sausages or smoked ham you can learn more about Meridith on her website http://www.mereleighfood.com/

Now, I´m going to let the photos speak for themselves.

Paté in the making

Lunch is served

 

Koji Bresaola

I need to talk more about Koji later… Google it in the meantime!

Amazing sausage in the making with apricots and habanero.  More about that later.

I was very impressed by the Mortadella, or Malakoff as it is called in Icelandic.