(Almost) everything you want to know about meat
Butcher Gertjan Kiers champions real meat. And we wholeheartedly agree. What you need and want to know about: beef, veal, pork and lamb.
The Meat Bible is yet another book in a delightful series of reference works that are published regularly by Carrera Culinair. Earlier, we saw the Fish Bible (with fish guru Bart van Olphen), the BBQ Bible (with Julius Jaspers) and the Baking Bible (with ‘Rutger Heel Holland Bakt’). All are worthwhile books to read, packed with practical how-tos, explanations and background information, covering a subject from A to Z. Written by experts whose claims you are happy to trust as being fairly accurate. Handy for looking things up when you can’t quite remember them, or for deepening your culinary knowledge.
Butchering as an art
The Meat Bible fits seamlessly into this series. ‘Butchering is an art’ is the motto of (catering) butcher and author Gertjan Kiers. Online, he is also known as ‘Demoslager’, and for his almost daily Facebook poems in which he professes his love of meat in poetic terms. With The Meat Bible, he fills 495 pages on a mighty subject: meat.
Cutting against the grain
The most important types are covered: beef, veal, pork and lamb. With particular attention paid to beef. What does cutting against the grain mean (cut across the long muscle fibres so you don’t have to chew as hard – especially important with beef with a coarse structure, such as bavette and hanger steak)? How long should you let meat mature (a maximum of 2 to 6 weeks; after that, meat really doesn’t get any better)? Which cut makes the tastiest hamburgers (the so-called cap of the rib roast, first minced finely with a 3 mm plate and then coarsely with a 5 mm one)? And what is the best meat for beef carpaccio (not the commonly used tenderloin, but, according to Kiers, flank steak)? Which is tastier? Grass-fed or grain-fed (Kiers belongs to the grass school: less marbled meat than grain- and corn-fed, but, he says, more natural and purer in flavour). Good tips and background information that will make you wiser.
From bratwurst to porchetta, and from rack of lamb to lamb burgers. The home cook can get started right away.
Recipes
Another nice feature: a manageable number of recipes is included for each type of meat. Around 15 to 20 recipes per animal, all classics. From steak tartare to marrow bones; from veal tongue to veal sweetbreads (from the heart, first rinsed, then poached and finally fried until crisp); from bratwurst to porchetta, and from rack of lamb to lamb burgers. The home cook can get started right away.
Conclusion
One downside? Almost 200 (!) pages are devoted to explaining, with the help of detailed photographs, how to cut, say, a flank from the carcass or divide a neck and lower rib. This means that at times The Meat Bible veers a little too far—even for the most confirmed carnivore (such as myself)—towards a modern version of a butcher’s manual. There will not be many (home) cooks who feel the urge to cut a topside or rump steak from the top round or silverside themselves. Or to embark on an anatomical session in search of the coachman’s cut (a kind of imitation stewing steak with a tendon). It does help you understand what kinds of meat there are. But that detailed explanation, page after page, could easily have been a little leaner. Simply asking your butcher remains the advice (and make sure it’s a good butcher who still knows their trade).
Bravo to meat advocates like Kiers, who stand up for carnivore enjoyment.
It is telling that there are hardly any butchers in the Netherlands (including catering butchers) who still buy and debone entire carcasses themselves. In practice, contemporary ‘artisan’ butchery is largely limited to portioning meat delivered from the abattoir in almost ‘ready-to-eat’ cuts. The butcher reduced to a display stylist, primarily concerned with decorating the meat in the shop display, including plastic green decorations. A practice far removed from the rugged romance with which Kiers passionately presents his fine profession in his book.
Fortunately, The Meat Bible still contains more than enough wonderful reading material with which the carnivorous home cook can expand their knowledge. Kiers pays a deserved tribute to real meat and the craft of butchery. Bravo to meat advocates like Kiers, who stand up for carnivore enjoyment. Especially in a world where meat eaters increasingly risk ending up in the dock.
