Goats Hopping on the Roof

A month or two ago, I was reading the Food and Wine section of The New York Times. I tend to do that a lot when I am bored, in case you haven't noticed. There was a pretty interesting article on goat meat that convinced me I had to try it. The article touted numerous benefits--more protein than beef and less fat than lamb. And wouldn't it be stupid not to try the source of meat that most of the world actually eats on a regular basis? Of course it would.

But when I was little, my mom used to tell me about a pet goat she had growing up. Apparently this goat climbed the barn's roof and ignited quite some anger within my grandpa. Curses were cast. Expletives were muttered under his frustrated breath. And this quirky, lovable portrait of goats was all I really had to go off of when I thought of goats.

At the farmer's market a week or so ago, though, one of the farmers was selling goat meat. Because I'd made Jim read the article, he too was swayed to give it a try. So we went for it and bought four goat chops for $10, which was a little bit pricey given the size of the chops (which were a lot tinier than I'd expected). Adventure in cooking, however, has no price.

And finally, on Sunday, we cooked them. Jim's brother gave us a recipe for Goat Curry that would take about 4 hours, which is exactly what's needed to make the meat as tender as possible. Our apartment smelled delicious for the better part of the day. Nothing like smelling something all day to make you crave it.

Or so I thought. The entire time Jim was making the curry, I kept thinking about a cute and friendly goat hopping all over a roof. I knew that the curry would be amazing, but I was nervous to try it. When Jim pulled a chop out of the curry to check its tenderness, he pulled a little piece off for me to try. I went to take the piece, then changed my mind and squealed. "A goat??? I'm going to eat goat?" I thought. But it looked and smelled great, so I ate it. And it was great. It tasted just like spicy pot roast, honestly.

The added effect of imagining a goat climbing up a barn only made it taste better!

Goat Curry

4 goat chops
3 large yellow onions
2-3 tablespoons oriental curry
1 tablespoon chili powder
2-3 potatoes
2 carrots
2 tablespoons Canola oil

Chop up onions very finely. If you have a food processor, put them in there to make a paste. Heat the oil in a stock pot. When oil is hot, put onions in pot. Cook until they are golden brown and smell slightly nutty. Add the curry and chili powder to the onions and stir.

Salt and pepper the goat chops. In a separate skillet, sear the goat chops until brown crust develops. Put seared chops in with the onions. Add water until the chops are covered. Cover the stock pot and let simmer for three hours, stirring occasionally.

After three hours, cut up potatoes and carrots and put in the pot. While vegetables cook, make rice and serve curry over the rice. When vegetables are cooked, you can take the chops out to pull the meat off of the bone and put back in the pot.

Note: When eating the curry, watch out for bones. Because goat meat isn't very popular, they don't butcher it very well. We found a couple bones in the curry even after we took the meat off the bones. If you'd rather, and what I'll do next time, is to take the meat off of the bones before I sear the meat.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

From Lauren:

I was reading the New York Times Food and Wine section at work today--yes, I know, but I was bored. Anyway, there was a post on their Bitten Blog about Richard Wranham's book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Wrangham's book suggests that cooking, and not anything else, separates us from animals.

Wrangham writes that cooking influenced our evolutionary progress and development in many ways. Most importantly, our ability to obtain and conserve more energy from cooked food than uncooked food led to a change in our physical bodies and mental capacity. Stomachs took less energy to process the food, leaving our brain open to receiving the excess energy and attention. It also promoted more refined social practices. The act of cooking food brought people around a fire, and this simple act of gathering could have calmed the nature and disposition of humans.

While I have yet to read the book, I know I will probably love it. He dismisses vegetarianism and the raw food diet, which I always love because I think both food movements can be harmful and don't make much sense.

The review brought up a lot of other interesting and valid points as well. One, for example, was especially striking to me. Wrangham suggests that the emergence of cooking started gender roles because females needed protection from being exploited as cooks while men did the hunting. Can't wait to read more on that.

Wrangham is a primatologist and biological anthropology professor at Harvard. Most markedly, he studied under Jane Goodall and wrote another fascinating book, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origin of Human Violence. It too, is now on my list of books to read. He writes with such a conversational and personable tone that it's hard not to love it. And I've only read excerpts!

So, I'm going to go buy this book. Hopefully within the next week or so because I really cannot wait to start reading. As I read, I'll write about the book and my comments.
Note: The picture of Wrangham was published in NYT's Bitten Blog and was taken by Rick Friedman.

Sidenote: The 63 Diner is now open again. We went last night, and it was delicious. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuit, and vanilla milkshake. Perfect for a date night...except for the grease dribbling down my chin. I don't think Jim minded though!