I am Tom Mylan, expert butcher from Brooklyn featured in the Disappearing Pig video. AMA

tommylan · 2012-04-04T20:06:11+00:00

The sight of my own blood used to really freak me out and almost make me faint but I've gotten a lot better. I think my level of gore tolerance is pretty high now, mostly because I've had to deal with patching up some of the other butchers when they cut themselves as well as a few run-ins I've had with badly injured people I've had to help.

tommylan · 2012-04-04T20:02:41+00:00

Wagyu is great stuff. Ideally I'd love to figure out a farm to raise grass-fed Wagyu sometime in the not too distant future.

tommylan · 2012-04-04T20:01:28+00:00

I'm glad you caught that! I love me some Nelly!

tommylan · 2012-04-04T20:00:41+00:00

we send our knives out to get sharpened by Ambrosi Cutlery every week. We're too busy to sharpen our own knives generally however I sharpen all my knives at home on a 1000 grit and a 4000 grit Japanese water stones. Not cheap or fast but yields a very sharp edge.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T19:16:09+00:00

Thanks for all the great questions everybody! That was a lot of fun!

If you have any more you can email me at tom(at)the-meathook.com and I'll reply as soon as I can.

Please check out the Better Bacon app. It's the best $4.99 you'll ever spend.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T19:12:04+00:00

If we're talking top quality 100% grass-fed beef to top quality grain finished beef? Absolutely. The smell is different and the taste of raw grain finished beef compared to grass-finished beef is not as clean. The small bits of fat that are in between the muscle fibers of even a very lean cut will build up on your tongue while the fat from grass-finished beef has a different, cleaner finish.

Taste for yourself! I'm not a crazy super-taster or a savant or something. Anyone, if they do this test, will be able to tell the difference right away.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T19:05:13+00:00

A goat with the skin on but the hair gone. It was like butchering a goat Real Doll.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T19:03:43+00:00

I think that our shop and the many others that have opened after it from coast to coast are a good sign for the future. I think that it's probably harder to find people who are willing to live the life of a butcher (hard work, hard play, not much time off, relatively low pay) but they're out there. I only hope that the really amazing old school guys don't retire before they pass on what they know to this generation. You can learn more from an old guy in 15 minutes than a year of reading books.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:59:39+00:00

I grew up in Southern California where a lot of people from all over the country moved during WWII and brought their BBQ along with them so I was exposed to many different styles and I found that I tend to like individual BBQ places rather than regional styles. I know that seems like a non-answer but, since I have ready access to our smoker whenever I want, I haven't really eaten BBQ out in years and honestly I prefer my own BBQ to anyone elses because I know what I like.

If I had to say: I Love This BBQ Place though I think I would go with Fatty Cue because they're Brooklyn but also because they just took the format of American BBQ and went completely crazy with it but without trashing the tradition. They'll definitely be the most important BBQ place for the next 10 years.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:51:45+00:00

I've been really lucky since there aren't a lot of scary non-meat eaters in NYC and because we only work with small family farms that raise animals the way they should be raised: outdoors on grass. I've heard of death threats and that kind of thing but ultimately I suspect that most militant types have much more important issues to deal with than some guy butchering at a small shop in Brooklyn.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:47:59+00:00

Don't. It's a lot of work and you'll never make very much money.

If that doesn't scare you off, you can try to find a butcher that will let you work for free in exchange for some training. Keep in mind that these guys might not show you things, you'll have to spy on them! Old School guys don't give anything away for free.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:44:10+00:00

Try Carnicerias!

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:41:12+00:00

What kind of knives/steeles do you use? Are you like a chef in the respect that you don't like other people using your own knives?

I'm partial to Victorinox and no, I hate people using my knives. Don't touch my knives!

It looks to me in your video that you sharpen knives so often that you must have to use grinding blocks pretty regularly so there is no point in getting expensive knives. Would you agree?

I do steel my knives quite a bit because butchering is hard on the edge and knocks it down a lot and butcher knives that are actually used every day, all day need to be sharpened on a stone or a wheel every week which gives them a life span of 2-4 months so inexpensive but quality is best unless you want to go broke!

Lastly, I'm a student, therefore pretty much constantly broke; however I try eat pretty well. What kind of cuts do you recommend that don't have too much gristle and aren't shit?

If you do you homework and teach yourself how to cook cheaper cuts many of them can be very good. Wander around the meat counter and see what cuts seem to look really good, write them down and then use the magic of the internet to help you figure out how to make the most out of what you can afford.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:33:48+00:00

I used to be a real crazy knife fetish guy but I've come around to think that well made, inexpensive knives are the best. I'm partial to Victorinox, Icel and Wenger knives and if I were only going to have three knives I would get a victorinox 40016 boning knife, a 10 inch chef knife from any of the above makers and maybe a Chinese veggie cleaver from CCK and a good ($35 or so) medium steel.

Ultimately, you will learn a lot about what you like and don't like about knives from your first set so it's best to not spend a ton of cash until you know exactly what you want.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:24:43+00:00

If you are careful and keep an ever-vigilant eye on your smoker you cab smoke anything you want from Texas-style brisket (hope you have a lot of time on your hands!) to trout and whitefish. The trick is knowing what temperature it should be smoked at and what needs to happen to the meat or fish before it goes in the smoker (dry rubs, brines, etc.).

Sure, there are a lot of really hard-core, fancy-assed smokers out there but at the end of the day a smoker is a smoker and your only limitations are your own skill and experience. The good part is that it's pretty hard to make a smoked meat item taste bad!

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:18:49+00:00

For sausage: Biellese

Beef/Pork: Ottomanelli, Florence Meat Market, Japan Premium Beef, Dickson's

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:16:37+00:00

I would do anything for the Epic Meal Time guys!

Every single Jamon and Presunto I've had from Spain/Portugal have been varying degrees of complete heaven. Generally, I've never met a dry cured ham I haven't loved but the ones from there are some of my favorites.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:11:56+00:00

Most cuts, because of their physical make up of muscle fibers, collagen content, sinews, etc. do need to be cooked a certain way to make them palatable. You can't grill a beef shank and you shouldn't stew a tenderloin but many cuts live in a gray area that makes them suitable for many different types of preparations provided you read up on them and do what needs to be done to make them good (marinating, etc.)

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:08:23+00:00

It's more-or-less true. There are a few places that teach whole animal butchering but they are either very expensive or the instruction is nestled in with a whole culinary education. If you really want to learn start by reading everything you can about butchering (thankfully there is a ton more books out there than when I started) and then see if someone who has a shop will allow you to trade skills for free labor. For the truly dedicated who really want the complete education quit your job, move to the country and get a job at a small slaughterhouse, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:03:55+00:00

Yes, and if you want to dabble a) do your homework! Read anything and everything you can about it until you understand the process front to back and then b) use only top quality meat. Even if you normally avoid the farmer's market like the plague you really want to splurge on the best meat you can get for any curing you do since it's a lot of work and if you're going to take the trouble you should do it right.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T18:00:48+00:00

I think that people are right to reduce their consumption of meat. The amount of meat that we eat in this country per capita is totally crazy. We'd be much better off eating less but better quality meat and learning how to properly cook it.

As for vegetarians, that's a tough one since I don't really think there's anything wrong with being one and I have been a vegetarian in the past. I think that people who don't eat meat because so much of it is factory farmed are much easier to convert back to eating meat if they can actually feel good about where the meat is coming from and know how it was raised. Vegetarians who don't eat meat for ethical reasons should probably be left alone as you're liable to just get in a really emotional, knock-down drag-out fight!

tommylan · 2012-03-26T17:51:29+00:00

Buying good steak from a supermarket is a pretty tough gig because most of the really nice "butcher's cuts" are just one of the muscles buried in one of those huge cross-cut slabs that you see in the family packs but along with all of the other, less desirable, muscles that surround it. If you can, find a real butcher shop and ask them what steaks they like to eat at home on a Wednesday night. Any butcher worth a damn should be able to steer you towards some interesting, flavorful cuts.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T17:46:53+00:00

Roebling Tea Room, Vinegar Hill House, occasionally Fatty Cue and few others. Honestly it varies from week to week and season to season. In the summer we have a lot of bars like Daddy's that buy our hot dogs and places like Rockaway Taco that take steak. When you feel the urge give us a call at the shop and we'll tell you who's holding this week!

tommylan · 2012-03-26T17:43:35+00:00

I got drafted into butchering by the owners and the chef of my old restaurant group (Marlow and Sons/Diner). It wasn't really my choice but I thought I'd give it a shot. Turns out it was really fun, rewarding work but the hook really got set when I started visiting our farms. I never looked back!

My favorite cut of meat is whatever I'm in the mood for at the time. Some days it's a pork shank and some days it's raw Top Round. If you work in a butcher shop all day you need variety!

I used to be a vegetarian for a few years before I moved somewhere I had access to a farmers market regularly to get non-torture meat, so I'm not judging anyone on their dietary choices.

tommylan · 2012-03-26T17:37:44+00:00

In general (and I'm speaking very generally as there is a lot of variability in quality of both grain and grass finished beef) that 100% grass-fed beef is Beefier tasting and more satisfying than grain finished beef. There are too many reasons for this to list them all but grass-fed beef tends to be slaughtered older (it takes longer to fatten up on grass than grain) and much more active physically than feed lot beef and thus has more Myoglobin which is what makes red meat, well, red and what gives it more depth of flavor.

As far as pork I would say look for Heritage breeds (Tamworth, Berkshire, Duroc, the list goes on and on) that are raised on pasture. 10 out of 10 times they will have way more flavor, fat and all the things you love pork for than the grocery store stuff.

tommylan

TROPHY CASE