The other red meat
Okay... this is annoying. I've been trying to track down a source for kosher goat meat. Why should that be a problem? Kosher beef, easy. Kosher lamb, almost as easy. I can even find kosher elk and kosher venison. But goat is elusive.
When the Temple is standing, we offer goats and sheep and cows... but only sheep and cows seem to be available as kosher meats these days.
So far, I've managed to find one wholesaler (in New York!) that carries some packaged goat from Minnesota, or South Dakota, or somewhere around there. They're closed for the day, but I'm going to be trying to get ahold of them tomorrow to find out if they sell it to anyone outside of the NY area.
Why is lamb so easy to obtain, and goat so nearly impossible?
When the Temple is standing, we offer goats and sheep and cows... but only sheep and cows seem to be available as kosher meats these days.
So far, I've managed to find one wholesaler (in New York!) that carries some packaged goat from Minnesota, or South Dakota, or somewhere around there. They're closed for the day, but I'm going to be trying to get ahold of them tomorrow to find out if they sell it to anyone outside of the NY area.
Why is lamb so easy to obtain, and goat so nearly impossible?
posted by Lisa | 5:35 PM
8 Comments:
B"H
I don't like goat meat. Too rich.
There a few shepherds here. We have plenty of goats, quail, geese, a peacock, and even a pregnant buffalo (mouth watering).
But no more sheep. :-(
Too bad, we can't trade.
Although, a goat is shechted every once in a while, like on haggim, or for the birth of a kid, Jews here mostly have them for milk.
For the same reason you can't get goat in normal treif butcher shops, unless it's a West Indian neighbourhood or something like that. For that matter, it's the same reason you can get lamb but not mutton. Not enough people like it.
I've had goat meat at the house of some Yemenite friends in Israel. I think the flavor reminded me of lamb, but I don't really remember, so I guess it didn't make a big impression on me.
I saw a sign advertising special orders for whole goat at the Village Market in Skokie, but it wouldn't be kosher.
I tried goat milk once out of curiosity. I found it revolting: it tasted like lamb-flavored milk. Now having not grown up Jewish, I don't have what I imagine might be the aversion that someone who has always kept kosher might have to meat and dairy together: I've eaten and enjoyed sausage pizza, cheeseburgers, beef stroganoff and meat and cheese lasagna, for example. But meat-flavored milk was completely disgusting to me. That reaction was surprising because I having grown up in a Chinese household, I was exposed to and ate many strange things that most Americans would not even think of considering as food.
I keep kosher now, so if I would ever be tempted to eat meat with dairy, all I would have to do is to remember the above flavor to kill my appetite for such a treif combination.
The fact is that for out of the last 4000 plus years of Jewish history, goat meat was the main stable meat of the Jews until recently. It is incorrect to blame it on flavor since mutton and lamb are more strongly flavored and also much greasier and have a higher cholesterol content. To blame it on health or disgust is the same anachronistic reason some says Jews don't eat pork (which really is unkoshter) so this is false argument.
The true reasons for the decline of goat meat (which previously #1 meat of the Jews historically) are:
1. sheep additionally provided wool over goat, [and even sheep was less eaten by most Askenazim except for those of Hungary, Czech rep, Slovakia, and Romania]
2. Goat is leaner that other red meats, and in the past, that was not considered an asset back then.
3. After the Roman diaspora, those who remained in Israel relegated goat breeding to the outskirts of eretz qedoshah ( wilderness and Syria- which falls into halachic Israel in part)in memory of destruction of the Beit HaMiqdash [which did not affect the diaspora]
4. Therefore, goatmeat was bred in the centers of the Jewish world (Babylonia, Rome[which became Italy], North Africa, and Ethiopia)
5. Traditional Italian Jewish Pesach has roasted kid with garlic, olive oil, and Egg-lemon sauce for each Seder and traditional Ethiopian jews continue the used of goat meat for Chagim
6. Jewish-Italian recipes take the ideal goat meat of kids, which is at least as tender as lamb and more mildly flavored, and if we lose these recipes we are losing the oldest Jewish traditional and healthiest meat recipes in the world
This would be a shanda and show complete ignorance of Jewish history.
We are trying to find a means to market our goats here in Virginia (near Richmond). A local Rabbi has told me that there are no facilities in the area so I am investigating the possiblity of operating my own facility and becoming kosher certified. Hopefully, we'll find others in the area like you and we can provide the service.
That would be wonderful. I'm in Chicago, though, so if you do manage this, I hope you'll be able to ship. Please keep me in mind.
So Lisa -- Did you ever find the Kosher - other red meat? I realize that it has been a couple of years since the original posting to your blog, so I was just wondering.
Living here in the Los Angeles area (Pasadena actually) I do see signs for non kosher goat meat in Mexican style meat markets on occassion. Also isnt goat fur used for warmth purposes also but probably sheep fur was warmer and the sheep needed a yearly shearing anyway so why not use the fur? thanking you in advance - Manny D. (Mendel)
does anyone knows where i can buy kosher goat meat?
please perri
818 300 7684
pzion7@gmail.com
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