Booklist Review

While discussion of the butchering of goats, sheep, and deer is not for the faint of heart, rural public libraries will find an eager audience for this comprehensive guide. The text is written in a homespun fashion, and the black-and-white photos are of mediocre quality at best. Still, readers will be impressed by the wide-ranging coverage. Dardick first covers questions such as, Why raise your own meat-producing animals? and moves from there to the basics of killing, cleaning, skinning, eviscerating, and cutting up cows, pigs, rabbits, turkeys, etc. Besides the many preslaughter considerations, Dardick offers multiple tips on setting up a home-butchering business, methods for canning, preserving, and freezing meats, and suggestions for making use of meat by-products (blood, feathers, hides, fats). Selected recipes are scattered throughout the text. Anyone interested in raising livestock will be running around like a chicken with its head cut off to get ahold of this volume. Appendix; index. MAB. 641.3'6 Slaughtering and slaughter-houses / Meat cutting / Meat Preservation / Livestock [CIP] 86-5856