Kitchen Pro Series: Guide to Meat Identification, Fabrication and Utilization [Hardcover]

Thomas Schneller (Author), Culinary Institute of America (Author)

Book Description

Series: Kitchen Pro | Publication Date: February 3, 2009

Kitchen Pro Series: Guide to Meat Identification, Fabrication, and Utilization is the definitive guide to purchasing and fabricating meat cuts for professional chefs, foodservice personnel, culinarians, and food enthusiasts. Part of the CIA's new Kitchen Pro Series focusing on kitchen preparation skills, this user-friendly, full-color resource provides practical information on fabricating beef, pork, veal, lamb, game, and exotic meats. Helpful storage information, basic preparation methods for each cut, and recipes are included to give professional and home chefs everything they need to know to produce well-primed cuts of meat. For anyone who believes that butchery is a lost art, The Culinary Institute of America's Chef Thomas Schneller counters that notion by providing a close examination and explanation of the craft in this clear and concise book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Delmar Cengage Learning; 1 edition (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1428319948
• ISBN-13: 978-1428319943
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Cooking by Ingredient > Meat, Poultry & Seafood > Meats

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent reference for every food enthusiast, November 9, 2009

By 

Susan Debonis "Susan" (Saratoga Springs, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kitchen Pro Series: Guide to Meat Identification, Fabrication and Utilization (Hardcover)

This is an excellent reference for every kitchen. Written for the profession, but very useful in the home kitchen as well. You can buy large cuts of meat and cut them in to smaller portions of roasts, chops, braising meat, etc. The photos will guide you through to identify different cuts, where to run your knife and how to fabricate meat.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hmm...., February 10, 2011

By 

Trip - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kitchen Pro Series: Guide to Meat Identification, Fabrication and Utilization (Hardcover)

This is not a butchery book, nor does it claim to be one. It is a fabrication book- a guide mostly for the culinary professional seeking to order primals and subprimals of meat and to subsequently trim those cuts into sellable portions. There are thorough introductions to the grading scales, brief snippets about various breeds of animals, and excellent pictures for identifying cuts along with general guidelines about what cooking methods are best for which cuts. This is all good stuff, but the book as a whole is kind of like a whole beast: there's a lot of waste that could have been trimmed. First, the writing is crap in a few places. Reading the section on Buffalo was like listening to a butcher french a rib roast while biting his nails as the chorus of the Cranberries "Zombie" plays on repeat at volume level 11 from a tapedeck made of fishing wire, two D batteries, and a dead squirrel. Nobody proofread half this book. The technical stuff's spot-on and Thomas Schneller has the credentials for explaining the intricacies of meat to both the lay person and the experienced professional but he's not a writer or a historian and I feel like I could have paid twelve bucks for the pamphlet version of this book (the trimmed loin if you will) minus the filler. And why a third the value of the current asking price? Because damned if the recipes aren't the most basic, boring and cafeteria-esque bits of scrap ever plated. You'd think that maybe he'd tell you what to do with all the trim you created. Or how to cure or preserve some of the many great cuts you've just mastered on your whole Tamworth hog you have neatly portioned in your walk-in. Nope. Freakin fajitas man. Theres a couple of pork-belly cures and a breakfast sausage recipe but the pickins are slim. Nothing is contemporary or very creative. Buy this book used and rip out a few pages.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthy read on butchery, December 10, 2009

By 

jimsy (Canada) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kitchen Pro Series: Guide to Meat Identification, Fabrication and Utilization (Hardcover)

I bought this book because I'm always seeking more information on butchery, and because I am one.
However, it's rarely the case that someone will release a book that can actually inform rather that entertain.
This is a good book. Novices and Pros alike will draw something from it. Outside of this the only other book I could recommend would be the The River Cottage Meat Book.