Tallow

Quite a few of my recipes call for meat. I think it’s important (and will make these recipes even better) if you find a local whole-animal butcher. You won’t find a row of pork chops perfectly shrink-wrapped, but a few along with every other part of the animal. This is the ethical way to consume meat. A pig is more than a pork chop. Pigs have ears, skin, and heads, which can be turned into head cheese. If you eat animals, it’s important to know how they became food.

I’m lucky to live down the street from The Meat Hook, one of America’s best whole-animal butchers. They source from local farms they’ve visited to see how the animals are raised, cared for, and humanely slaughtered. A whole-animal butcher needs to sell every part of the animal to make profit, so you’ll see various forms of animal fat. They’ll mix some in with sausages and ground meat, but inevitably there will be more fat than they can use. You’ll find leaf lard (the soft fat from around the pig’s loin and kidneys), chunks of pork fat, and tallow. These are great things to include in recipes.