Miscellaneous Meats

Amateur Sausage Making Competition

I once attended a competitive Barbeque festival and soon decided  that it was mainly geared toward promoting tourism and selling all manner of expensive BBQ paraphernalia.  Indeed there is a certain amount of meat preparation knowledge and skill involved with BBQ, but getting a little smoke on tough cuts; then moist-low heat cooking them long enough to become tender, really isn’t very complicated.  BBQ… Read More »

Barbecue Capitalism

The word barbecue is thought to have been derived from the Spanish word Barbacoa, from back when the Spaniards first observed Caribbean natives slow cooking meat over open fires on raised wooden platforms.  That trial and error practice added both mild smoke flavor and tenderness to some of their otherwise low eating quality local meat.  The different meat cuts from various carcass regions are… Read More »

Specialty Shop Business Plan

Statistically over 90% of all small business start-ups fail; with lack of cash-flow and undercapitalization being the leading causes.  Therefore, most small shop owners can ill afford to make other people’s problems their problem; such as tying themselves to variable product quality whole carcass butchery from animals produced on local hobby farms.  Fresh retail meat cuts can be bought everywhere, including local one-stop shopping mega stores where competitive pricing is… Read More »

Botulism in Meat Risks

I recently commented twice on a post in a 140,000 plus member Facebook BBQ group.  Both times that I did my food safety related comments were promptly deleted by a group administrator; presumably because they ran counter to the beliefs of those holding group territorial authority.  During my life I have witnessed the ever increasing growth of convenience food processing and… Read More »

Cattle, Chattel & Capital

Circa 10,500 years ago humans began envisioning certain animal wealth running wild and so decided to begin domesticating carefully selected species.  Domesticating livestock did away with most hazards of the hunt, saved wasted hunting time and the hard work of packing home dead weight animal parts.  Like sheep and goats of the day, kept cattle also supplied dairy food products.  Other tangible assets of ruminant agriculture included draft work, fiber, sausage casings, natural… Read More »