The Meat Whisperer
by Kathryn Dean
A short ferry ride from the modern, frenetic city of Seattle recently took me to an island where more rustic ways of life hold sway. Here, the brightly colored paint and white trim of beach homes stand in stark contrast to the peeling earth tones of inland farmhouses. In one of those unassuming homes, I would find a revolution underway.
There was a time in our recent history – much of the last century — when the artisanal crafts and agrarian lifestyle so familiar to early American settlers were relegated to hobby status, while people went to cities and factories for ‘work.’
Time and money became the driving force behind product development. Blankets manufactured on an assembly line could be produced quickly and sold for a reasonable price, while the time and labor that went into a handmade quilt gave it a much higher value. So, most people bought the factory blanket.
The same held true in the food industry. Huge industrial farms produced larger sellable quantities of meat and produce than a local farmer could, making them the primary supplier to our grocery stores.
The ferry to Vashon Island.
(photo by Kielen Simons)
However, in the 21st century, mass-market meats and assembly line products have lost their appeal to many. A creative insurgency has sprung up around the world, advocating a return to our artisanal past.
Thus my trip to Vashon Island — the largest island south of Admiralty Inlet in Puget Sound — whose remoteness (no roads connect it to the mainland) has made it an attractive hub for what some have termed the ‘agrarian renaissance,’ an informal movement that draws more and more people to leave the cities and supermarkets behind and attempt a more self-sustaining lifestyle.
As the ferry approached shore, the vividly colored beach homes stood out against a gray February sky. The narrow highway along Vashon’s rocky shore blends with the beach in places where the edges of the road have been washed away by rain and saltwater. I soon turned away from the water toward the inland area of woodlands and farms and made my way down a narrow muddy road shrouded with trees to the home of Brandon and Lauren Sheard — headquarters of Farmstead Meatsmith.
The Sheards live in the heart of the movement on Vashon Island, teaching traditional meat production methods to farmers all over Puget Sound. After all, the move towards a sustainable food supply needs a sustainable and local method of slaughter and butchery.
Farmstead Meatsmith’s mission involves the whole process of animal husbandry. ‘Husbandry’ refers not just to the care, cultivation, and breeding of crops and animals, but also their management and conservation.
What Brandon teaches requires no advanced degree, but simply the natural processes every peasant would have needed and known for survival. He brings meat production out of the mechanical hands of industry and back into the hands of the farmers who have carefully raised animals to feed their families.
Though such values may seem medieval, Brandon bears no grudge against technology. In true 21st-century fashion, he shares his methods for butchering, preserving, and cooking pork in a series of well-produced video tutorials at www.anatomyofthrift.com. These videos offer a complete education in not only the methods of butchering and slaughtering, but also the historical significance and stewardship of animals raised for sustenance.
The videos also highlight the joy of neighbors and friends coming together for the work of preparing meat and the celebration in sharing the abundance God has provided through the labors of their hands – all with an uncommonly erudite level of vocabulary.
Brandon Sheard reaches for a slice of artisanal prosciutto.
(photo by Kielen Simons)
That’s not too surprising, though, if we consider that Brandon and Lauren’s personal renaissance began in graduate school. A professor in southern California introduced the couple while they both were finishing master’s degrees: his in Renaissance literature and hers in religion and theology.
Lauren says of their first date to Catalina Island, “It was pretty much love at first sight, and conversation. We talked about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and everyone in between on the theological/literary spectrum.”
Brandon changed his post-graduation plans, moved into a camper outside of Lauren’s beach house in San Diego and proposed six months later.
As their love for each other developed, so did their interest in the Slow Food movement: the idea of using local foods and centuries-old traditions of preparation and food production.
About that time, they learned of a house-building project on Vashon Island where this philosophy of life was lived to the fullest. Through this program, they would receive land and supplies at a fraction of market cost, contingent upon them building the house themselves.
Despite their academic history, Brandon and Lauren yearned for more than just the modern world and modern intellectualism; they wanted to labor truly with their hands. So, they jumped at the chance to build their house and then their home together.
As I approached their house (not the original house they built, but the one on their current homestead, not far away), the sound of children reached me before I reached the door. I had to knock twice because the joyful life bursting from inside the house drowned my banging. The door opened directly into the kitchen and Lauren ushered me in with a baby on her hip and a blond toddler hiding behind her skirt. Distressed wood floors and a long farmhouse table take center stage there, and overflowing bookshelves line the walls.
With introductions made, Lauren turned to attend to a pot simmering on the stove. She then guided me past cured meat hocks hanging from the beams and the table where their oldest boy sat coloring, and onto a porch alcove where Brandon was methodically wrapping meat.
He wore a newsboy cap over his dark hair, and his beard and suspenders reminded me of an Amish man. Bloodstained Carrharts and t-shirt revealed the work he had already done that day. As we talked, he continually picked up butchered pieces of lamb from a tray and wrapped them first in cellophane, then in butcher paper.
Large picture windows in the alcove overlook the rest of the family’s land. There was evidence of a large garden that will be flourishing again in a few months. To the right of the garden stood a makeshift pen surrounding overgrown landscape where chickens wandered and pecked among the tall grasses. Next to that, a smaller wire mesh pen housing rabbits in wooden dens stacked on top of one another. These are not pet floppy bunnies, but rabbits raised for their meat, Brandon said, and eventually space will be cleared to support pigs again.
After he and Lauren finished their building project and married, Brandon needed to find work close to home and so took a job at Sea Breeze Farm on Vashon Island where he began to learn the arts of animal husbandry, abattoir (slaughter), butchery and charcuterie (salting, smoking and curing) through on-the-job training. He also learned the cooking side of the business through his work at la Boucherie: a restaurant run by Sea Breeze Farm. While pregnant with their first child, Lauren liked visiting Brandon, to help wrap meats for the farmers market or enjoy the culinary delights he had created (including unfiltered, foot-stomped wine).
Nearly everything served in the restaurant was produced on Sea Breeze Farm, the idea being that the distance your food travels from life to death to your plate should be very short. As Brandon experienced this first hand and tasted the fruits of his labor, he could imagine no possible reentry into the industrialized food world.
“An animal that is cared for and fed what its species would naturally eat and is slaughtered in a peaceful, familiar environment tastes amazing,” he said.
As he worked, I noticed an interesting slab of meat with a trail of fat hanging off of it that Brandon carefully wrapped around a second slab of meat of the same shape. He explained that in a traditionally fed and cared for animal, the fat not only is one of the tastiest parts but is also surprisingly good for us. He demonstrated to me how he would fry the meat fat side down. The fat melts and surrounds the meat, keeping it juicy and tender.
Sheard wraps meat at the homestead on Vashon Island.
(photo by Kielen Simons)
Brandon revealed that his interest in animal butchery is primarily culinary. In carving an animal, he finds the cooking methods encoded in the muscle. He held up pieces of the lamb as he spoke.
“A much-used muscle is tough and needs to be roasted with liquid at length, whereas a little-used muscle is very tender and a quick grilling will produce delicious results.”
In 2010 Brandon left Sea Breeze Farm to found Farmstead Meatsmith with Lauren. His enjoyment and study of the process fueled the desire to educate others and give local farmers a way to slaughter and butcher animals in their familiar surroundings.
He considers himself a ‘meat harvester.’ He’s not in the business of selling meat, but of helping and teaching owners the art of slaughtering and butchering their animals in the best way — to preserve the dignity of the animal and the quality of the meat. And he continues to hone his own skill and understanding.
“I could do this my whole life and still have things to learn, ways to grow,” he told me.
Brandon goes about his work like an artist whose canvas is carcass, and whose brushes are knives.
In one of his videos he says, “If you pursue – totally single-mindedly and perfectly – the motive for creating useful, utilitarian cuts, you will stumble upon the beauty. And similarly, if you cut it to be as beautiful as possible, you will stumble upon utility. They can’t be separated…Form is function and function is form — if you’re following traditional methods — and I think that is sublime.”
For the Sheards, preparing an animal for human consumption is more than a cycle-of-life necessity. It is an evidence of grace and a representation of faith.
Lauren told me, “The first time I ever saw Brandon slaughter an animal I fell in love with him all over again. It was a lamb, at his folks’ homestead. It was an odd thing, an emotion I’ve never felt before, but I explored why the killing affected me so. I think it’s because he combined strength and swiftness in his knife stroke with grace. To be graceful in killing an animal, one has to be sure of the action – aggressive in a way. To drag it out under hesitation does no mercy to the animal. Brandon had this confidence, and I almost equated the sacrifice of the animal with the burden Brandon bore for his family’s sake; we didn’t have to wield the knife because he did it for us. Of course this all became theological for me…as it did for Brandon in his own way.”
Brandon put the philosophy in practical terms. Speaking of the methods he employs, he said, “While they are simple, they do take time, and it is much easier to freeze your meat. I think if I step back I realize it is actually the work that I like. It is such a joy and a pleasure to excel at husbandry and managing your own resources. To take a few steps back on the bacon chain from the pre-sliced, shrink-wrapped bacon to the whole belly hanging in your kitchen. It requires more of you, and therefore you produce more and do things you didn’t know you were capable of.”
Not being accustomed to room-temperature meat, I asked about those ham hocks hanging in the kitchen. Brandon scooped up his youngest, who had crawled under the worktable, and walked over to the hanging meat. He then presented me with a thinly carved, salty slice of prosciutto – the best I’ve ever tasted – while explaining that it had been cured and hanging there for two years: the last of their own pigs.
Brandon finds great value in that connection to his family’s food. As he shared his prosciutto with me, the meatsmith told me,
“The more your hands are involved in the creation of procured meat, of the flesh you eat, of the provender that makes it to your table, the more it is an expression of who you are and who your family is. It makes sharing your food and sharing your table that much more rich. It is a much more full expression of community and hospitality.”
So the meat he offered came to me laden with values and meanings. With it, the lessons of the day settled into me.
I went to Vashon to meet a butcher and learn about his philosophy and practice, but instead I met a family who showed me the joy of letting work, family, daily life, and celebration of the fruits of their labors all intertwine in a harmonious dance much like our farmer ancestors would have. As I watched Brandon and his family go about their work, I felt the Little House books I read as a child come to life before my eyes. And I discovered not a simple life, but a full life.
Find Brandon and Lauren @ www.farmsteadmeatsmith.com
