Welcome back to the Farscape Farm blog. This November, we have managed to stay incredibly
busy despite our produce being tapped out. Two weeks ago, we took all of our young livestock
des?ned for the butcher, to the slaughterhouse for processing. I really wish there was a good
euphemism for slaughterhouse, but I believe that it is important to acknowledge what we are
doing. In any case, the processing takes a couple of weeks. For the kosher meats, the animal is
inspected by the shochet who looks for blemishes that would disqualify it as kosher meat. There
are a number of signs (simanim) that need to be evaluated. If the knife is not razor sharp, or if
the cut was not exact, or if the trachea, esophagus, and neck vessels are not all severed in one
cut, the animal is not kosher. The lungs are inspected. If there are any perfora?ons or adhesions
(sirchot) of the lungs, again, it is not kosher. The meat must be salted and soaked. A trained
mennaker must remove forbidden fats (chelev) and if you eat the back half of the animal the
scia?c nerve must be removed. Needless to say, this is an intensive process and makes the meat
more expensive than non-kosher meat. Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with meat that
isn’t kosher. It is just not permissible to people who keep the laws of kashrus. Muslims have a
similar process, and in fact, many Muslims will eat meat that is slaughtered by a Jewish ritual
slaughterer.
Now that’s out of the way. Once everything is appropriately treated, it goes to our butcher
(thank you Yosef Hertzmark of Migrash Farms) who divides up our meat into “primal” portions
where it gets its USDA stamp and Star K kosher certification and gets vacuum sealed and frozen.
Then we go back down to Baltimore, pick up our meat and pack our freezers. The non-kosher
animals and portions get separate USDA stamps and are labeled under our non-kosher line, FF
Meats.
Originally, this started out as a way to source our own red meat. It has grown from there as
people have asked me if I have extra of this or that to sell. And now, here we are. We have the
meat (to quote an advertisement for a fast-food restaurant) Over the next week or so, I will be
finishing off preparing my inventory for sale.
We are a very beef centric society when it comes to red meat in the USA. Lamb falls way behind
beef in terms of consumption and kid is barely on the list. When people ask me to explain the
taste of kid, the first thing I ask them if they have ever eaten lamb. If they have and they enjoy
lamb, I tell them they will love kid. I enjoy both immensely. Some people find the taste of lamb
off puting because they find it gamey. Kid, in my opinion, is milder and a bit beefier tasting than
lamb. The raw portions are redder and beefier looking as well as in taste. But it all comes down
to getting the nerve to try something different.
Both kid and lamb are available on line. Our line of meat is pasture raised and well cared for. We
like to say that all the animals on the farm have a good life until they have one bad day. Many
will find that troublesome, I obviously, do not. While livestock aren’t pets, they have good lives
on our farm. We don’t “dry lot” our animals. If they become ill, they are seen by our mobile vet,
and all have unrestricted access to pasture, hay, and fresh water. We do add in grain especially
during the winter and we try to be good stewards of the farm we own and the livestock we
raise.
If you are interested in sampling our pasture raised line of lamb and kid, drop me an email at
Pops@Farscapefarm.com In the next few days, you will be able to order directly online. Bobbi
and I put a lot of effort and honestly a lot of love into our venture on Farscape Farm. I hope you
will choose to share in the bounty we produce.
