Recently, I was teaching a hog butchery class, and we had half a locally-raised hog laid out on the butcher block table in our teaching studio. Six students were gathered around, surveying the carcass with nervous curiosity. “So, what part of this is meat?” a student asked, a bewildered look on his face. I had never been asked exactly that question before, and it’s stuck with me over the past few months as a great question to ask when faced with a whole animal. Endeavoring to give a simple answer on the spot, I realized that the question took me straight into the complex web of anatomy, culinary art, and ever-changing cultural norms of which butchery exists at dead center.
These days, brand names like “Impossible Meat,” “Beyond Meat,” and cultivated, or lab-grown, have complicated the answer while seizing on an expectation that the meaning of the word “meat” is obvious to all who encounter it. So, what is meat after all?
In my experience, butchers in English-speaking countries use the word meat to designate the muscle of an animal, as opposed to its organs, blood, fat, or bone. There are some instances where our culinary categories don’t quite align with anatomy - for example, heart and tongue are muscles (though the heart is made of a different type of muscle tissue than skeletal muscles), yet they are often lumped in with the odd bits, highly valued in some culinary traditions, and almost completely forgotten in others. In the instances of the animals we regularly consume, and the way we consume them in most Western cultures, what we consider meat can often be directly contrasted with offal. “Meat” is the muscle part of the musculoskeletal system, and offal is everything that “falls off” the carcass - blood, and all the goodies in the body cavity, including the organs of the respiratory, circulatory, and gastrointestinal systems. The word offal itself evokes this distinction - coming from the Middle Dutch words “af” or “off,” and “vallen” or “to fall,” offal is that which falls off the carcass (I learned this in a recent conversation with my friend Janine, who provides great resources for cooking with the most nutrient-dense parts of the animal over at her site, offally good cooking!)
Peter Coker, “Butcher Shop,” 1955.
Beyond the butcher shop, we employ meatiness to denote something of substance, something that requires some chewing. The central thesis of an argument might be the meat of the matter. You could have a meaty concept, or a meaty role in a play or movie. We equate meat with things that are integral and important, rather than superfluous, things that are complex and ultimately satisfying, not light or inconsequential. Meat is expensive to produce, expensive to buy, requires the sacrifice of a life, and provides some of the most nutrient dense foods we have access to, foods that helped humans develop bigger brains. If being able to cook and preserve meat, and eventually to raise animals for food, helped put humans on top of the food chain, ready access to meat and the ability to afford to eat it often continues to convey status for individuals and societies.
There is no straightforward equation for determining value, in particular in the case of something as complex as meat. What we in the US might view as the “meatiest,” most desirable cut has changed over the decades, from the iconic T-bone steak to the rarified filet mignon, among others. These days, I’d say that honor (and onus) belongs to the ribeye. The metric that many American meat consumers use to determine the quality of a piece of meat is the USDA grading system, which places carcasses within one of eight grades, prime and choice being the highest quality, ending with cutter and canner, which usually go towards processed foods (only beef is graded in this way). Though these terms may sound all encompassing and absolute, they actually take only two variables into consideration - marbling, or intramuscular fat content, and the physiological maturity of the carcass, which should indicate tenderness. These two metrics reflect (and help to perpetuate) the American palate, which tends to prefer meat that is mild, marbled, and tender.
A cartoonish excess of red meat on Tom and Jerry, from episode 118, “High Steaks,” 1962.
Beyond USDA grading, you might see any number of terms slapped on packages of meat at the grocery store, such as “all natural,” “uncured,” “certified humane,” “organic,” and “cage free.” This litany can often feel like it needs a glossary to be deciphered, and many of these have no real meaning or overseeing authority to back them up. Some, such as organic, refer to certain farming practices but make no specifications regarding animal welfare. It takes a savvy consumer to know both what they value in the meat they choose to eat, and how to find products that check most, if not all, of those boxes.
Your typical prime ribeye steak in the grocery aisle or at a steakhouse most likely came from an animal that was finished on a feedlot, which often (though not always) means it spends its final months among many other animals, with limited acreage, eating grain (generally corn and soy). Ribeye is a fattier cut, and the fact that it sits atop the American value system of delicious meats at the moment tells us a little bit about where we are as a culture. Maximalist, nostalgic American steakhouses are increasing in popularity, and fatty cuts like pork belly, ribeye, and brisket have been making a comeback for years. None of this is necessarily good or bad. On some level, our cultural embrace of fat after decades of obsessively removing it from our diets is a step in a positive direction, since fat is necessary for the absorption of many vitamins and minerals, and is far better for us in moderation than sugar, for example.
But even for a fatty cut like ribeye to achieve prime grade marbling, the animal needs to have good genetics and a high calorie diet. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, with the feedlot being by far the most efficient in terms of time, space, and cost. I’ve seen ribeyes from farms that raise their animals on open pasture land for the duration of their lives, allowing them to graze and supplementing their diet with only hay and minerals/salt, that display a prime-level of marbling (the USDA grading takes place at the slaughterhouse and represents an added expense for the processor and in turn the farmer or rancher, so not all plants offer the service). But these animals are usually harvested at around 28-32 months, rather than the typical 12-18 for most conventional cattle ranching. Raising animals this way requires access to hundreds of acres of rich, productive, healthy pastureland. Managed properly, ranching this way can also improve the land’s water retention, resilience, productivity, and capacity to capture carbon. Unfortunately, the economics make this approach out of reach for most ranchers, especially those who don’t come from a generations of landowning.
The question “what is meat” comes into play at the economic level, as well as the cultural level. Logistically when you buy a whole animal, you pay a price per pound on the hanging weight of the carcass, which sometimes includes the head and certain offal. Effectively, you’re paying the same price for the eyeballs as you are for the tenderloins. Labor costs and market demand play a big role in determining the final price of cuts that hit the butcher shop case or grocery aisle, and this is where the role of the butcher really comes into play.
Screen shot from Vice youtube video of Chef Kono, linked below.
While we might consider brisket a tough cut that needs to be slow cooked or smoked, all over Asia brisket and other tough cuts are sliced super thin, rendering them tender and versatile. You’ll see these cuts in pho, Korean bbq, shabu shabu, hot pot, and many other regional dishes. In Japanese culinary tradition, a yakitori master will utilize the entire chicken, creating a range of diversely delicious skewers. Through skilled butchery technique, the grill master prepares each part in such a way that it can be successfully cooked on a skewer over binchotan coals, in approximately the same short amount of time, whether it’s a chicken wing, gizzard, skin, cartilage, or heart. In Chicago, we often consume beef top round in the form of thinly sliced roast beef on an Italian beef sandwich. In parts of Mexico, that same muscle is cut paper thin with a specialized technique, then salted and dried in the sun to make cecina. Many of these techniques not only add value by making the desirable qualities of the meat really shine, they also offer the consumer an economical way to enjoy a moderate amount of protein. There’s a big difference between buying and smoking a 12 pound packer’s cut brisket and buying a pound of thin-sliced brisket for hot pot, to be enjoyed with a flavorful broth and a host of other vegetables and proteins.
Screen shot from Munchies video of carniceros in Mexico cutting cecina, video linked above.
Looking at half the carcass of a locally-raised hog that we’re about to break down almost muscle by muscle, my first inclination is to say, “this is all meat!” All of this matters, has substance, has the capacity to nourish us. In our whole hog class, we average about an 80-85% yield. Most of what we discard are glands, blood vessels, connective tissue, and excess soft fat from the belly. Bones, skin, fatback, and whatever offal we receive from the processor get trimmed, packed, and dispersed among the students. Part of what we aim to teach at the CMC is how to use all of that goodness. Subscribe to the Meat Maid substack to get more recipes and tips for how to navigate the world of meat for a more delicious and nutritious life, and if you’re in Chicago, come take a class!