Chances are, this past holiday weekend, you seared off a juicy quarter pounder, slathered sauce on some wings, or rubbed a nice looking rack (of ribs, that is). But beyond understanding how to cook your selected cut, how well do you actually know your meat?
At 18 Reasons, healthy eating and a healthy community begin with a hearty understanding of food. "We aim to teach people to take pride in how they eat," Rosie Branson Gill, 18 Reason's Curator, says. "To make food - from growing, to purchasing, to consuming - a celebratory and conscientious part of our lives."
With that mission in mind, the non-profit opened their Guerrero street doors in 2007, welcoming a diverse community of foodies - producers, growers, and consumers alike - to their social annex.
Their year-round programming covers an array of topics, from home jamming to a food-issue documentary series. And if you're ready to get more intimate with your meat, then they have classes for that too.
Morgan Maki, Bi-Rite Market's Butcher and Charcutier, has taught butchery classes at 18 Reasons for over a year, all of which have sold out quickly.
"The hands-on chicken butchering and sausage making classes bring in people that are interested in becoming more skilled in their home kitchens," Maki says. "And the demonstrations attract a mix of home cooks and people who are curious about the process, but not necessarily interested in getting their hands dirty."
But whether or not you're ready to wield a cleaver on your own, the lessons all have a significant local, if not global, impact.
"The process of butchering is so important, but often lost in the super market," Maki says. "Buying and selling carcasses proportionally puts the least amount of stress on our producers and if I can teach people how to prepare every part of an animal, then I'm improving our chances at maintaining a healthy local economy."
Gill adds that, "in order for us, as humans, to be healthy, we need to consume healthy food. Nowhere is this more paramount than in the meat we eat." And a deeper understanding of our food will in turn "allow us to respect our food, and from where or from whom it came from, in an entirely more complex way."
At the most recent demo class, Maki led over thirty students through three methods of chicken deconstruction: 1) with a cleaver, 2) with a poultry knife, and 3) with kitchen shears. After an hour of practice - and a few glasses of Bi-Rite wine - the participants all walked home with sanitized hands, a goodie bag of chicken bits (including the backbone), and a newfound respect for the butchery process.
Maki hopes that the lessons learned in this single evening carry on long after the legs, thighs, and drumsticks run out. "I want people to leave with an understanding and respect for the process," he says. "To be empowered to do it themselves and to go and share the things they have learned with their friends and family." And with summer BBQ's just beginning to fire up, the timing couldn't be more perfect.
Tip Jar:
If you're ready to take a bird from beast to breast, check out the upcoming class schedule at 18 Reasons. And in the spirit of sharing, check out some of Bi Rite's celebrity secrets to a perfectly cooked bird.
Morgan Maki, Butcher and Charcutier
"I like to start my chicken in a ripping hot oven for the first 20 minutes to get good color on the skin, then drop the oven temperature to 275 and let it ride until the leg and thigh are cooked through. Lately I've been dressing my birds with cracked fennel seed, coriander, and chili flakes."
John Lee, Assistant Store Manager
"If the chicken is whole, I'd want to roast it and serve with seasonal vegetables. Right now, I'd go with local asparagus and freshly foraged morel mushrooms. If butchered into pieces, I'd enjoy making a fricassee with baby artichokes and the aforementioned morels!"
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