Two weekends ago Katie and I were in Kingston to meet our friends’ new baby. At some point during our deliberations on what kind of interesting meat dish we should try to make we decided to use the two pork livers hidden unused and unloved in his freezer to create a pate. Now, for the most part I’m a very adventurous eater, but I have never gone out of my way to eat organ meat and aside from some commercial pates that I’m sure I’ve tried over the years, I don’t think I’ve eaten too much liver. I remember finding it really odd as a child when my grandfather willingly ordered liver and onions at restaurants. I guess one of my parents doesn’t like liver as we never had it at home. My friend and I searched the internet, found a You Tube videos demonstrating how to make a pate and we set about making a bacon heavy pork liver pate – it is really easy once you assemble the ingredients.
The reason for my recent inclination to try organ meats is that I’ve been reading through The River Cottage Meat Cookbook for a new cookbook reading group some of my friend started. As the idea developed we decided to meet once a month at one of our homes and to try and cook some of the recipes out of that month’s selection to eat while we discuss the book.
The first liver pate we made in Kingston was so good that I decided I would try and make it again and bring it to the first meeting last night. Not having any liver hiding in my freezer, I ended up buying duck liver from the local Healthy Butcher. Everyone was inspired to try new things having skimmed through the book and watched clips of the author Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s TV show on You Tube. Hugh expounds a ‘nose to tail’ philosophy and argues that thrifty meat consumption helps off set the increased cost of sustainably raise animals. I believe almost everyone in the group tried the liver pate and most seemed to enjoy it.
Another friend brought some beef tenderloin and prepared an amazing beet root and raw beef Carpaccio. I’ve tried a few Tartars over the years, but this was the first time I tried Carpaccio. It was really amazing and wonderfully tender. Finally our hosts made a great stew with the much more affordable and therefor plentiful chuck cut of beef, nicely complementing the delicate but limited Carpaccio.
As we enjoyed the meal and a glass of wine we talked about Hugh’s food politics and the challenges of finding affordable and sustainable meat in Toronto/Canada. We assessed the strengths and weakness of the many butchers around town and shared advice on where to buy pork belly or whole chickens. The cookbook reading group model was a great way to bring together a diverse group of friends to not only cook interesting food for each other, but also to talk about our approaches to buying, cooking and eating food.
I have wanted to figure out a source of ethically raised and organic local meat for a few years now. The problem is that Katie, my lovely wife, is a vegetarian and she shows little interest in pork, ethical or not. So I have been restricted to buying small amounts of meat from farmers markets or organic butchers, which is not cheap. Months ago, we had a group of friends enjoying the spring weather on our back deck, eating some “Naked” sausages [meaning they were flavoured only with a bit of onion, salt and pepper] I’d bought
The folks at KEG developed an interesting network of farmers, butchers and chefs to raise, kill and process pigs. An older, mostly retired farmer, who has been organic longer than label, keeps a couple of sows and one boar from a collection of heritage breeds Berkshire, Tamworth, Hampshire, Yorkshire, and Landrace. He does the farrowing, or pig birthing, for KEG. The young pigs are then passed on to one of two farms who finish the pigs, feeding them locally grown grains and legumes and allowing them to forage around outside. Once the pigs are ready for slaughter, they are sent to a multigenerational butcher in Lindsey for custom small scale killing. The final leg the journey and the one that is really interesting in my mind, is the kitchen of a high-end restaurant in Toronto. The chef and KEG came to an arrangement to process pigs. He then converts the lesser meat into excellent sausages and sells them back to KEG. These are the very same sausages that my friends and I were eating when we decided to found the Wilbur Collective back in May. On Thanksgiving Sunday the chef allowed me to join him in his kitchen and we spent the day making sausages, pork chops, smoked hawks, head cheese, bacon, pancetta and a huge ‘city ham’. After a few dozen emails we found a night that we could all come together and despite my poor defrosting plans, the ham tasted amazing.