Meats

Appears in

The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook

Published 2003

About

When I first moved to Morocco, the word meat usually meant lamb. In the international city of Tangier, there were a few Spanish butchers who sold pork and some European butchers who offered cuts of imported veal. But for the most part, lamb was king. Amusingly, my Moroccan butcher sold all lamb parts at the same price. His explanation: “Loins, racks, and legs don't feed as many people as shoulder, shanks, and necks.”

Though lamb still is the primary meat in most Mediterranean countries, pork, veal, and beef are well represented in France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Whatever the choice of meat, there are literally thousands of recipes in which low-temperature slow cooking is employed to make the meat tender, juicy, and flavorful. Slow-pot roasting, slow-grilling, slow-baking, slow-simmering, and slow-braising are all time-honored traditional Mediterranean cooking techniques.