[Photos: Chichi Wang]

Marrying honest food with a great cause, Slow Food NYC hosted a lamb butchering class this past Sunday at The Institute of Culinary Education in downtown Manhattan. Proceeds from the class benefited the Slow Food NYC Harvest Time program, which supports student gardens and food education programs at schools in East Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Williamsburg. Led by Master Butcher Rudi Weid, the class used lamb sourced from the pastures of Three Corner Field Farm in Shushan, New York.

Last month at the ICE, I had watched as Weid butchered an entire half side of beef. This time around, seeing Weid take break down a lamb was significantly less daunting. Only eight months old when slaughtered, the lamb weighed a mere forty-five pounds. It's easy to get mired in the numerous parts of a steer, whereas the diminutive size of the lamb carcass made clearer the distinctions between the shoulder, rack, loin, leg, and foreshank.

Following the ceremonial beheading of the lamb, Weid proceeded to butcher the animal into primals and sub-primals before separating the cuts into roasts, chops, and stewing meat. The lamb was so fresh that Weid left a majority of the skin on and due to its youth, the bones were milky-white. Whereas conventionally raised, grain-fed lambs come with a fatty exterior, our pasture-raised lamb possessed only a thin layer of fat.

Offal lovers were in for a treat. The shiny, glossy liver was taken from the lamb, after which Reid reached into and extracted a large globule of fat. Digging, he produced a singular kidney (the corresponding kidney was never found, much to the chagrin of the audience).

Wielding a seventy-year old butcher's cleaver that was owned by his father, Weid needed just a few accurate hacks to separate the ribs into perfectly portioned chops. When de-boning the legs, Weid explained that a few miniscule glands in the legs must be removed prior to cooking, or else the glands would cause the flesh to have an "off" flavor. The presences of these glands was something that I'd never known, but had tasted on many an occasion.

Following the fabrication of the meat, each cut that Weid had carefully butchered was then auctioned off to benefit the schools. The shanks were bought for twenty-one dollars, whereas the chuck chops and rib chops were sold for more than forty. A boneless shoulder roast brought in a hefty seventy-four dollars.

For years, Three Corner Field Farms has been providing pasture-raised lamb to their customers at the Union Square greenmarket. As Weid's lamb was auctioned off to the highest bidders, samples of another lamb (also from the farm) were brought out for our eating pleasure— all the cuts I sampled were tender and flavorful. The liver was some of the freshest-tasting I've ever eaten, but my favorite was the lamb fries (a euphemism for the testicles), which were battered and deep-fried. Slightly chewy with a sweet and meaty flavor, the fries were the perfect ending to a delicious educational experience.