March/April 2011 Schedule
Three words. Basic Beef Butchery. Followed by five words: Bob Dickson is the man. The PMC finally held its first beef class last Saturday. 12 students. 5 volunteers. One hindquarter. One forequarter. 300 pounds of meat and bone. It had been so long since I’d seen anything resembling a beef carcass (so used to lamb and pig and rabbits am I these days) that it’s largesse made me feel a little bit like a dwarf attempting to take on Moby Dick with a less-than-perfunctory letter opener. Not that I did much cutting. We let Bob Dickson, of Dayton Natural Meats and Pacific Foods, a man with way more decades of experience than any of us in the room that day, do just about all the talking and cutting. It’s hard enough trying to wrap the mind around deboning a pork leg for the first time, so the student’s eyes were that much bigger when they watched Bob pull out the dinosaur bone that made up one of the steer’s back walking sticks. There was so much meat to contend with, so many muscle groups to keep track of, and yet the students (and the volunteers) stuck in there, asking questions, rather gracefully slicing rib-eyes, and sawing marrow bones so that everyone would have at least one or two to take home. It was an important day for the PMC, proving that beef didn’t have to be the intimidating beast it is believed to be. With a graceful teacher like Bob and open, curious students like the ones we had on Saturday, we discovered that carving up a steer is graspable at the very least, and very doable–with a little practice and good guidance–at best. Keep your eye out for more beef classes–focusing on whole carcass as well as smaller primals–come April.
After successfully introducing our first beef class, our first rabbit class, and our first ladies-only butchery class in January and February, we’ve got more new classes to offer in March and April, as well as several trusty classics. Lamb cookery with Park Kitchen’s David Padberg anyone? Ready to try your hand at terrines and pâtés? Learn the secrets of emulsification with Grain & Gristle’s Ben Meyer–who, on an entirely unrelated note, just recently served me the best pickled duck tongue I’ve ever had.
Adam Sappington will return in April to share his pig butchery skills, Gabriel Claycamp is back for more charcuterie antics, and, I’m very excited to announce that my French mentors, Dominique Chapolard and Kate Hill are traveling to Portland all the way from France to teach another French Seam Butchery class in Portland. I haven’t even announced the latter yet, and people are already wanting to sign up!
This March/April schedule is only partially complete. I’m in the process of confirming dates for another beef class, as well as some more slaughter classes: not only chickens and rabbits, but a potential pig slaughter class with two of the PMC’s trusted volunteers: Sarah and Bubba King, who lovingly raised a couple of Red Wattles that are getting just a little too big for their britches. I’ll announce the rest of the classes as soon as we’ve settled on dates. Let’s get to it, then!
NOTE: Thanks to Lisa Teso for these photos. You can check out more of her photos of our classes at her website!
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March 12, 2011
Basic Pig Butchery for Home Charcuterie
Time: 1-5pm
Location: TBA
Previous owner of both Swinery Meats and the renegade Culinary Communion cooking school in Seattle, and the current proprietor of Alchemy in the Kitchen, Gabriel Claycamp is dedicated to the practice of whole animal butchery and charcuterie. Not to mention he makes a mean prosciutto, among other fleshy delicacies. When we first met him last spring, and told him about our classes, explaining that we provided both a restaurant and a retail perspective when it came to butchery, Gabriel reminded us that there was a third way to butcher a pig: the charcuterie method. We were exhilarated when he agreed to teach a class incorporating that method in August. The class sold out in just a few days. For those of you who are interested in making your own pancetta, coppa, salami or prosciutto, this is the class for you. Gabriel will teach you how to cut up a pig so that you can utilize all the muscle groups to produce just about any cured pork specialty you can imagine. Students will go home with their share of meat and lots of salting and brining recipes to help them along their way.
Cost: $225
Class Size: Limited to 12 people
Registration: info@pdxmeat.com
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March 16, 2011
French Seam Butchery
Time: 4-8pm
Location: TBA
On a small farm in southwest France, Dominique Chapolard and his three brothers grow their own grain to feed their own pigs, eight to ten of which they prepare every week for four local markets. At market, they sell their fresh French cuts, like roti, cotelettes, and longe, along with their housemade charcuterie like saucisson sec, jambon, and fromage de tete. Together with the Chapolard family, Kate Hill, culinary teacher and owner of the Kitchen-at-Camont, a cooking school located just a short drive away from the Chapolard farm, offers butchery and charcuterie programs in France. In March, Kate and Dominique will travel to the United States to share their cooking and butchery knowledge. While in Portland, they’ll join forces with Camas Davis, the PMC’s founder, who learned butchery from the Chapolards in 2009—to offer a hands-on class for people of all levels. In this workshop, Dominique teaches students how to transform a pig into premium French cuts, using seam butchery, a traditional European method of breaking down animals according to their muscle seams, as opposed to cutting through muscle as is often done in many American butchery shops. As Dominique guides the students, Kate teaches them how to transform basic cuts into traditional French recipes. The class will finish with a charcuterie tasting and discussion of full-circle farming methods in France, and students will go home with meat they have butchered themselves.
Cost: $225
Class Size: Limited to 12 people
Registration: info@pdxmeat.com
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March 26 & 27
Basic Lamb Butchery & Cookery with David Padberg
Time: 1-5pm (Sat) & 3-6pm (Sun)
Location: Park Kitchen
In this two-part class students will not only learn how to break a lamb into its respective, delicious parts, they will also learn how to play with the quintessential flavors of lamb in the kitchen. With instructor David Padberg, of Park Kitchen, they’ll learn how to tie a leg of lamb and how to transform lamb into ham, they’ll find out which ingredients to stuff into the center of a crown loin roast, and they’ll taste why cooking lamb over hay makes the meat even better, why lamb neck is the most underappreciated cut of meat, and why it is that merquez tastes so darn good (it has something to do with being made out of lamb). The first day will focus on lamb butchery, while the second day will focus on cooking lamb, culminating in a leisurely Sunday Lamb Supper.
Cost: $300
Class Size: Limited to 10 people
Registration: info@pdxmeat.com
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April 3, 2011
Pates and Terrines
Time: 11-2pm
Location:TBA
Wondering what to do with all those scraps of meat and other tasty bits in your freezer if you’re not in the mood for sausage? Make a pâté of course! Learn the ins and outs of preparing European-style pâtés, terrines, rillettes, and liver mousse with Benjamin Meyer of Grain & Gristle. Students will get to taste various versions, and will go home with several of their own versions ready to cook and enjoy.
Cost: $125
Class Size: Limited to 12 people
Registration: info@pdxmeat.com
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April 9, 2011
Basic Pig Butchery for Home Charcuterie
Time: 1-5pm
Location: TBA
Previous owner of both Swinery Meats and the renegade Culinary Communion cooking school in Seattle, and the current proprietor of Alchemy in the Kitchen, Gabriel Claycamp is dedicated to the practice of whole animal butchery and charcuterie. Not to mention he makes a mean prosciutto, among other fleshy delicacies. When we first met him last spring, and told him about our classes, explaining that we provided both a restaurant and a retail perspective when it came to butchery, Gabriel reminded us that there was a third way to butcher a pig: the charcuterie method. We were exhilarated when he agreed to teach a class incorporating that method in August. The class sold out in just a few days. For those of you who are interested in making your own pancetta, coppa, salami or prosciutto, this is the class for you. Gabriel will teach you how to cut up a pig so that you can utilize all the muscle groups to produce just about any cured pork specialty you can imagine. Students will go home with their share of meat and lots of salting and brining recipes to help them along their way.
Cost: $225
Class Size: Limited to 12 people
Registration: info@pdxmeat.com
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April 13, 2011
Sausage Making
Time: 5-8pm
Location:TBA
Grilling season may be over (or is it just starting?), but sausage-making season is all year round. Learn the art of preparing merguez and chorizo, French garlic links, and Italian florentines. Students will learn how to select the right meat and trimmings from the appropriate muscle groups, and how to grind, flavor and stuff their sausage of choice. Students will go home with more than enough links for their frying pans and freezers, plus recipes.
Cost: $125
Class Size: Limited to 10 people
Registration: info@pdxmeat.com
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April 16, 2011
Basic Pig Butchery
Time: 1-5pm
Location: TBA
Learn the lost art of home butchery from wunderkind Adam Sappington, chef and owner of Country Cat restaurant. Sappington began utilizing whole animal butchery at Wildwood restaurant about ten years ago, at a time when few if any of Portland’s chefs were doing so in their establishments, though it is now quite common. For this class Adam, along with French-trained PMC founder Camas Davis, teach students, how to split sides of pork into primals, and how to cut those primals into cookable cuts like ribs, tenderloins, ham roasts, chops, and coppas. The class will also include tips on how to cook various cuts, and everyone will go home with their share of meat and recipes.
Cost: $225
Class Size: Limited to 12 people
Registration:info@pdxmeat.com