The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing and Sausage Making – Philip Hasheider – Voyageur Press (US) 2010 ISBN 978 0 7603 3782 0 – Previously I have been perhaps a bit dismissive of lots of colour photos but in a book of this type covering butchering and meat preservation you really need them and this book has them, lots of them! I will say it is a good book to steer clear of if you faint at the sight of blood. This is a great book that gives lots of detail about harvesting, breaking down and preserving your own meat and is a worthwhile addition to your library. The book has twelve chapters, the first two being somewhat introductory, talking about meat in general, cuts of meat, microbes that can cause problems in meat, and a review of the knives and other meat processing equipment. Chapter three to eight deal with butchery and meat processing of specific animal species: beef, sheep and goats, pork, poultry, big game like venison and small game like rabbits and fish. Chapters nine to eleven deal with preservation, curing and sausage making. Chapter twelve talks about building your own butchery business. As mentioned previously, lots of colour photos and line drawings.
Butchering, Processing and Preservation of Meat - Frank G. Ashbrook – Van Nostrand Reinhold (US) 1955 (although my copy is a much more recent, but undated, reprint) ISBN 0 442 20377 2 – OK no colour photos but lots of B&W and lots of good detail covering the butchering, breaking down and preserving of cattle, pigs, sheep, game, poultry and fish. The book has fifteen chapters, the first four are introductory, talking about meat eating customs, the characteristics of various meats, food planning and considerations to be taken into account pre-slaughter. The next four cover the intricacies of butchering pigs, cattle, sheep and lambs and dressing game animals. Chapter nine covers handling hides and skins, chapter ten is about cutting the various carcases, chapter eleven is about dressing chooks and wild fowl and chapter twelve is about cutting and cleaning fish. Chapter thirteen covers preserving meat, fowl and seafood, chapter fourteen covers meat products like sausages and meat byproducts. Chapter fifteen is a series of references that are probably long out of date. A good book if you can get it!
Mastering the Craft of Making Sausage – Warren R. Anderson – Burford Books (US) 2010 ISBN 978 1 58080 155 3 – This book has it all! The equipment and supplies you need, hygiene and food safety, Grinding, mixing, stuffing and cooking sausages as well as smoking and curing them. There is also a whole stack of recipes for fresh, cured, emulsified and fermented style sausages. It is a thick book with lots of info, plus some B&W photos and good line drawings.
Home Butchery in Australia – Alec Mc Vicar – Gary Allen P/L (AUS) 1993 ISBN 1 875169 40 7 – The main thrust of this book is the butchery side. Techniques for slaughtering, cleaning and butchering of poultry, rabbits, sheep, calves, pigs, goats, deer, cattle and other animals are covered in moderate detail with 8 to 10 pages per animal after poultry, which gets 20 pages. There are also notes on meat processing and preservation towards the end. The freezing, drying, smoking and salting of meat is covered. There are no photos, but quite a few line drawings.
The Cutting of Meat – Frank H. Johnstone (General Editor) – Angus & Robertson (AUS) 1961 (my copy 1972) ISBN 0 207 12331 4 – At only 72 pages, this is not a big book, but it is a classic! After a short introduction, the goes through cutting up various carcasses in considerable detail and with a huge amount of black and white photos. The first chapter deals with beef and veal, the second mutton and lamb and the third covers pork. There is no mention of poultry, fish etc. so the book should really be titled ‘The Cutting of Red Meat”! At the end of the book a few pages are given over the tools of the meat trade (old-time butcher style) including how to take care of knives and the last page of the book addresses the importance of cleanliness, but I would have thought this would have come sooner!
The Layman’s Guide to Butchering and Carving – Madeline Dolowich – Drake Publishers Inc. (US) 1977 ISBN 08473 1200 3 – You just need to see the cover of this book to know it is out of the ‘70s! It is another small book (but when was the last time you were shown how to prepare a squirrel for cooking? Spoiler alert, see page 125!) There is not a huge amount of detail on each topic, mostly 8 to 10 pages, but carving of meat and poultry get 18 pages. The book starts off with an introduction, the covers basic tools, preserving meat and poultry, carving meat and poultry, different kinds of beef, followed by how to be your own butcher, facts about poultry, veal, pork and lamb. The book rounds out with ‘Variety Meats’ which is a euphemism for ‘offal’ and ‘wild game’ which is basically rabits, some game birds like pheasant and, yes, squirrel! No photos, quite a few line drawings.
The Great Aussie Sausage Book – Erich Schwaal with B.M. Crowley – The Magistra Publishing Company (AUS) 1989 ISBN 1 86321 000 8 – This is another small paperback at 94 pages long, and as you would guess from the title, focusses on snags! Most sections are 3 to 5 pages long with sausage types and history 7 to 8 pages long. The book starts out with what a sausage is, its history and types of sausage. This is followed by meat for sausage making, equipment and casings, salt and pickling salt and herbs and spices. This is followed by some ‘how to’ including how to stuff a sausage, how to smoke a sausage and how to make your own cold smoker and hot smoker. The rest of the book is taken up with fifty famous sausage recipes including grilling and frying sausages, simmered sausages, meat pates and raw smoked sausages. Finally, the famous hot dog! The book has a few line drawings.
Meat Technology – Frank Gerrard – Leonard Hill (UK) First published 1945, my copy 1964 ISBN 978 0 24944 067 6 – This is a ‘practical textbook for student and butcher’ so is somewhat technical, very detailed and quite information dense, at almost 350 pages it holds lots of information. The main part of the book is divided up into three sections – Cattle & beef, Sheep & mutton and Pigs & pork. Each section discusses breeds, growth, slaughter, dressing and carcase quality. Towards the end of the book there are also chapters on meat preservation, poultry, meat cutting, meat as food and world distribution of food animals (likely to be a bit out of date!). There are quite a few B&W photos, mainly of the various breeds in each section and quite a few line drawings.
