Supporting small-scale livestock farmers and ensuring a supply of honest, affordable meat for consumers necessitates a revival of the art of butchery. Whether you're an aspiring professional or a home cook, this workshop can help you learn basic butchery technique for pork. Author, butcher, and farmer Meredith Leigh covers knife holds, knife care, butchery technique and methods, as well as cooking tips, carcass economics, and whole animal utilization.

From ancient times to today, people have been putting salt on meat to preserve bounty, improve texture, and concentrate flavor. It's one of the most ingenious and utilitarian traditions that has endured all over the world. This course will explain how curing meat has evolved, and how to approach meat curing in a way that will give you a range of options in the kitchen. Meredith Leigh demonstrates the basics, providing you with recipes for a smoky cured leg of lamb, as well as a completely dry-cured ham in the style of prosciutto. You'll walk away from this class with the ability to cure beef, lamb, venison, mutton, pork, and other meats with ease and confidence.

What does it mean to be a conscientious eater in today’s world? Between trade wars, climate change, label claims, local food, nutrition trends, and environmental justice issues, eaters are constantly bombarded with opinions and news surrounding personal food choices. For those who identify as omnivores, the global food debate is particularly chaotic. In this session, author and farmer Meredith Leigh shares expertise from her 17 years of deep study into the systems by which food and farming are made possible. Explore a firmer footing in your food choices and your food activism. From a holistic, climate-smart, and community-centered framework, this workshop provides a jumping-off point for eaters unsure of the best way to check in to mindful eating, and it also provides insight into the most up-to-date information for the well-informed food activist.

The meat industry is highly corporate and highly consolidated, meaning that as few as four companies control our country's meat supply and make money-driven decisions about how the animals are raised and processed, who is doing the work, and how the land and the workers are treated. A global pandemic showed us the fragility of these systems more plainly than ever before. The movement toward regional and local decentralized meat supply systems has been alive and well for many years, but small scale farmers, abattoirs and eaters still face barriers in the form of regulation, financing, and access that persist as the result of the system at large. In this session, author, farmer and butcher Meredith Leigh discusses Meat Mutual Aid, an empowering and alternative community based system to create better access to healthier meat, better outcomes for farmers, and cooperative organizing that moves toward true divestment from the coercive food system.

Making your own sandwich meat is a great way to save money and ensure clean food for your family. In this workshop, learn to make your own cured, cooked deli ham using just salt and pure spices. Author, butcher, and farmer Meredith Leigh will teach you about using curing to make tough cuts of meat more useful, and increase their flavor and keeping quality. Learn about food safety and the use of nitrites in cured meat products, and receive a recipe for Tasso Ham — a delicious spicy-sweet ham used in Cajun cooking.

Learn to make sausages and salamis with author, butcher and farmer Meredith Leigh. This demo will provide you with foundational information about sausage craft so that you can learn to adapt recipes, develop recipes, and have the confidence you need to produce all kinds of sausage, from fresh to fermented. We will cover recipe ratios, ingredients, equipment, techniques for creating good texture and flavor, stuffing, cooking, and further processing for fermentation and drying.

Barriers abound for the average consumer when it comes to sourcing and affording well-raised meat. One of the most viable solutions for communities and neighborhoods, especially in urban or food apartheid areas, is to cooperate and develop a community meat-buying club. Author, farmer, butcher, and advocate Meredith Leigh helps interested individuals or groups with the design and maintenance of a buying club. She covers sourcing; understanding carcass terminology; and working with butchers, farmers, and processors. She also discusses cut sheets, pricing, regulation, and cooking tips.

Discover why the educated use of the whole bird is the most cost-effective and ethical way to eat poultry. Learn to break down a chicken and watch Meredith Leigh demonstrate deboning for further creative use of the carcass.