As we spread the word about the amazing foods that we will offer at The Meat Market, I am reminded that many people don’t have a direct experience in their past of shopping at a butcher shop, or of the assistance that a butcher can offer them in terms of meal planning, cooking instruction, and even shopping within a budget. For these people, the advantages of such an amenity are mysterious, and they may even have arguments against the necessity of such a shop in the era of the supermarket. I will use the next few postings to attempt to explain the whys and offer another perspective against the why nots.

Ten Promises

1.  PROVENANCE: We will know exactly where our meat comes from and be proud to tell you all about the farm, the animals raised, and the farmers who raise them.

2. AGING: We will know how long the meat has been hung, and be happy to hang it longer for you if you ask.

3. COUNSEL: We will advise you on the right cuts for particular dishes, and give you as much assistance as you desire in the preparation of those dishes. We will help you select cuts and offer cooking instruction to match any budget.

4. TASTE: We will encourage sampling and prepare a small taste of the meat you are purchasing so you can taste what you are bringing home.

5. SOURCING: We will order special things for you, and do custom preparations with some notice, so that you can create the dishes you long for.

6. SERVICE: We will prepare the cuts of meat to your specifications, and grind meat to order.

7. PACKAGING: We will not pre-pack our meat, and advise you how to store it once you get it home.

8.  ARTISANAL: We will make a variety of our own fresh sausage and cured meats. We will have a brine tub, and a smoker.

9. CULINARY: We will make a variety of stocks, stews, and demi glace, as well as ready to cook meals such as pot-pies and soups for when you are too busy to cook.

10. HOSPITALITY: We will create a friendly, clean, and welcoming environment with happy professionals ready to assist you.

(the list is modified from the very helpful list in The River Cottage’s Meat Book, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)

Shopping for food should be a wonderful experience. The Meat Market will be a meeting place, a place of discussion, of wonderful aromas, and of tasting. We seek to reconnect people to their food through flavor, texture, and sense of place that eating perfectly raised, properly aged, and expertly cut meat makes possible.

A wonderful aspect of the holidays, most would agree, is gathering friends and family around the table. We can be culturally, regionally, and religiously defined by the dishes we share on the days between late November and mid January. Jeremy’s education and travels have engendered in him an intense curiosity about and passion for these meals, which are so incredibly specific to the homes they are made in. For the next several weeks we will explore the world for holiday food traditions which we hope will inspire your menu plans and whet your appetite for The Meat Market, which will be ready to provide you with all the ingredients, advice, and preparations you seek during the next holiday season.

The Classic Standing Rib of Beef Roast with au jus

This is a quinesential Christmas dish that my family has served for decades. We always have my grandmother’s Yorkshire Pudding recipe and au jus, the vegetables vary year to year, brussels sprouts being a favorite.

Jeremy’s Prep:

Rub with excellent quality olive oil, minced rosemary and garlic, salt and pepper. Place roast bone side down either on a rack or in the pan with a few sliced onions and cloves of garlic. Jeremy does not advocate adding a lot of vegetables to the pan, because they create steam as they cook, preventing the outside of the meat from caramelizing.  Roast at 350F for 45 minutes, turn heat down 325F and cook until internal temperature is 120F for a rare roast, 135F for medium.  Rest the roast for 20 minutes before slicing.

To make the au jus: deglaze the pan with a rich beef stock (which you can get at The Meat Market) bring to a simmer, adding salt and pepper to taste, and a splash of Calvados, strain and serve with the roast.

My Grandmother’s Yorkshire Pudding: Pour enough drippings from the roasting pan into a 9×12 oven-proof dish so that it is about 1/4 inch deep. Place the dish and drippings in the oven with the roast to heat the dish. Sift together 1 cup flour, 1/2 TSP salt, make a well in the center into which pour 1/2 cup of milk, stir in. Beat 2 eggs until fluffy and whisk them into the batter. Add 1/2 cup of water and beat until very smooth. Make sure the batter is at room temperature, and pour the mixture into the hot baking dish with the pan drippings. Bake 1/2 hour or until golden brown.

The Crown Roast of Pork with chestnut and fruit stuffing

A beautiful and dramatic presentation, which has the wonderful advantage of having a central cavity for stuffing!

Jeremy’s Prep:

You need at least 16 ribs to complete the circle needed to form a full crown, allow about 1 pound per person. You need to ask your butcher to remove the chine and feather bones, which comprise the vertebrae attached to the rib. In addition, the ribs should have all the sinewy connective tissue removed to create the proper elegant look of the dish. Make an olive oil dressing out of rosemary, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and rub onto roast. With a boning knife make an incision behind the 1st ribs on both ends of the roast. Tie the two ends together by threading butcher’s twine through the holes and fastening them into a crown. Place the roast on a foil covered rack. Stuff the center of the roast. Cook at 375F until it reaches an internal temperature of 155F (about 1 3/4- 2 1/2 hours.) Rest the roast for 20 minutes before carving.

Chestnut and Fruit Stuffing: Your favorite stuffing will work with this roast, but here is one that we suggest. 1 Baguette cubed the size you prefer, 1 cup The Meat Market chicken stock, 1/4 cup of white wine from the bottle you are already drinking, 2 eggs, 4 tbs butter, 1 onion diced, 2 cloves garlic minced, 4 celery stalks diced, 2 crisp apples peeled, cored, diced, 4oz dried apple or pear diced, 24 prunes pitted, 12 roasted chestnuts* peeled and chopped, salt and fresh ground pepper, 20 parsley sprigs chopped, 8 sage leaves chopped.

Place cubed bread on baking sheet in warm oven (250F) to crisp slightly.  Whisk the stock, wine and eggs, set aside. In a large skillet melt butter, add onion, garlic apples, dried fruit, and chestnuts. Cook over medium heat for about 6 minutes, until beginning to soften. Combine all the ingredients: the cooked onion/fruit, the bread from the oven, the stock/wine/egg mixture, and the salt pepper and herbs until well mixed. Place the stuffing in the center of the roast, and proceed as described above.

A fruit chutney would be a really wonderful accompaniment to this dish. We one featuring rhubarb last spring that we will use for this dish on New Years Eve.

Herb Stuffed Roast Leg of Lamb with green peppercorn sauce

This flavorful dish is simple to prepare and yet very elegant, it will fill your kitchen with mouth watering aromas!

Jeremy’s Prep:

You need to ask your butcher for a boneless leg of lamb, not tied.

Filling ingredients: Mix together 1 bunch parsley chopped, 3 mint springs chopped- leaves only, 6 cloves of garlic minced, 1 onion minced, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 3/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Open the leg of lamb and make small cuts in leg, being careful not to go to deep, the purpose is to create surfaces in which your filling will collect. Rub the herb mixture to coat all of the surfaces of the inside of the roast, and gently roll the meat to form the roast. Rub the top lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary. Tie the roast with butcher’s twine and  roast in a 325 degree oven for  about 2-2 1/2 hours (for rare, internal temperature is 125F, for medium 135F.) Rest the meat for 20 minutes before carving, pour off the fat from the roasting pan- use the pan for the peppercorn sauce.

Green peppercorn sauce: 1 3/4 cups beef stock from The Meat Market, 3 tablespoons butter, 1/4 cup chopped shallots, 1 cup whipping cream, 3 tablespoons Cognac or brandy, 2 tablespoons drained green peppercorns in brine

Boil stock in small saucepan until reduced to 3/4 cup, about 7 minutes. Meanwhile, pour off the fat from the roasting pan once the lamb is out of the oven and discard, melt the butter in the roasting pan over medium-high heat, add chopped shallots and sauté 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Add reduced beef stock, 1 cup whipping cream, 3 tablespoons Cognac and green peppercorns. Boil until mixture thickens to sauce consistency, about 6 minutes. Season sauce to taste with pepper.

Check back soon for the next installment!

There is a movement afoot that looks at investing in small local businesses as form of activism. Slow Money is an organization, founded by former venture capitalist Woody Tasch, whose mission is to build and test the concept of something he calls “nurture capital” — a healthier and more sustainable alternative to venture capital for funding new businesses. It’s time, he says, to shorten the distance between investors and their investments. It’s also time, he says, to create new economic models that deliver a return but that also put community, soil fertility and the environment into the calculation of the bottom line.

In May 2009 Jeremy was invited by the Slow Money Alliance along with farmers, other entrepreneurs and investors to participate in one of a series of research and exploratory conferences to inform the the Alliance as to the most helpful direction they could take to further their mission. Though we had already determined our fund raising plan for The Meat Market, the Slow Money conference discussions this conversation validated our plan and deepened our commitment to raise money in ways that include and in fact depend on, community involvement.

We are raising funds in two ways: Founding Supporters and Partners. We will raise $50,000 through smaller investments by Founding Supporters, members in our community (geographical and personal) who, with their investment, are pre-purchasing products and services offered in the shop. Founding Supporters, in addition to raising capital, also act as direct marketers for the business. We know that once people taste the foods The Meat Market will offer, they will be enthusiastic customers: the Founding Supporters are our core customers, and they are heralds of the business as it gets off the ground. We are also seeking individuals as Partners , larger investors in the project, to share our mission of taking the goals of taste, quality, service and respect for the local environment into a brick and mortar reality.

The nature of investing in this way is in alignment with the principals set forth by Slow Money.

Soil fertility, carrying capacity, sense of place, care of the commons, cultural, ecological and economic health and diversity, nonviolence — these are the fundamentals of nurture capital, a new financial sector supporting the emergence of a restorative economy. And these are the fundamentals of the Slow Money Principles.

We are living in a time when large markets are revealing their problems, the issues of food safety, environmental degradation, and unstable markets make large scale farming in the United States obsolete.  We are fortunate that the tide is turing in favor of small and sustainable, more options are available to consumers who are looking for products that are healthy to eat, promote environmental heath, and support small farms.

A 2006 New York Times story- The Range Gets Crowded for Natural Beef- concluded:

“Organic meat is the fastest-growing segment of the $14 billion organic food business, even thought it represents only 2 percent . Last year, organic meat sales which includes poultry and fish, soared 55 percent, to $256 million from 2004, far faster then the overall organic food industry’s 15 percent annual clip, according to the Organic Trade Association.”

“George Chivari, president of Coleman Natural Foods, one of the largest producers of pasture raised meats, estimates that organic meat will account for as much as 25 percent of its sales by 2010, up from 12 percent this year, and 7.5 percent in 2004.”

Become a Founding Supporter, your taste buds, your body, and our farmers will thank you!