“Goat meat is qualified as ‘OTHER’. Unfortunately, it makes it seem exotic, a little scary, a little unfamiliar, but it shouldn’t be. Goat is delicious.”
Meet Erin Fairbanks, the project coordinator of No Goat Left Behind, a passion-driven effort to get every day diners, cooks and chefs – like you and me – to add goat meat to our diets. What Erin is trying to do, by partnering with 14 family farms across the northeast, is start a movement. She wants to encourage us, even tempt us (in a delicious way), to eat more goat meat for a good reason: to help dairy farmers save young, male goats from having a life they wouldn’t be proud of.
The hard truth is: to get more goat milk for goat cheese, farmers need to breed more female goats to have babies. Unfortunately, after they’re born, baby boys or baby bucklings, have no role on a dairy farm. So, most farmers are faced with difficult choices; but, it doesn’t have to be that way. To tell this story, I visited Angela Miller, the owner of Consider Bardwell Farm in Vermont, to see how the life of a baby buckling could be, if we all decided to give goat meat a go. Good dairy farmers want their goats to begin and end their life on the farm, but it’s costly, and not possible unless they find more people willing to try goat meat. So far, it’s been difficult for these farmers to find consumers willing to pay the money for a meat less well known. It’s a big reason why I wanted to tell and share this story, to help support this movement. Goat meat deserves a lot more attention. Come see why.
For the entire month of October, Heritage Foods USA will make it easier for us to access artisan goat meat. Many restaurants around the city have optioned to put goats on their menu to directly benefit these local dairy farms. You can try different takes on goat meat prepared for you by different chefs. In addition, if you prefer to cook yourself, you can sign up at the Heritage Meat Shop in Essex Street Market to try one of several goat breeds they’ll be selling at their counters or order online. It’s a win-win project we can all help in by participating. I hope you do! It’s a fun reason to get a few friends together to support good ideas and try something new.
Participating NYC restaurants include: Back Forty West, Minetta Tavern, Union Square Cafe, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Parish Hall, Fette Sau, Otto, Felidia, M.Wells, Lupa, Court Street Grocers, Roberta’s, Vinegar Hill House, Blue Smoke, Northern Spy Food, Palo Santo, Tia Pol, Babbo, Gramercy Tavern, plus many more listed here.
Thanks so much for watching and supporting food. curated.! I hope you report back and tell me what you think about goat meat. Happy eating!