delicious UK – April 2018

I first heard James Whetlor on a radio
programme several years ago, speaking
passionately about the ethical arguments in
favour of eating British goat meat. Whetlor
is the founder of Cabrito, which takes kid
goats from a nearby Devon dairy farm and
raises them for meat. (Cabrito was
shortlisted for a delicious. Produce Award

• see p16 – in 2016.) As is the case with veal
  calves, young male goats have no role to
  play on a dairy farm, so they’re routinely
  euthanised soon after birth, a practice
  Whetlor finds ethically questionable.
  The same clear-eyed passion comes
  across in his new book. The introductory
  chapters are engagingly written, well
  argued and unexpectedly absorbing.
  Goats, he explains, were the first livestock
  animals to be domesticated,
  and even though they’ve
  never been an important
  meat animal in Britain
  (sheep are better suited to
  the terrain) they played an
  important part in our
  ancestors’ transformation
  from hunter-gatherers to
  farmers. The goat’s history
  mirrors human history.
  The ethical argument
  comes across loud and clear
  too: “On a fundamental level
  I do not think it is right that
  we allow an animal’s life to have
  absolutely no value,” he writes. The goal of
  Cabrito, he says, is “to end the waste of the
  male kids in the British goat dairy system”.
  It’s refreshing to read a cookbook with
  such a well argued rationale.
  QUALITY OF THE RECIPES Whetlor worked as a
  chef for 12 years in London before returning
  home to Devon and working at River
  Cottage, and some of the recipes in the
  book are from fellow chefs such as Mark
  Hix and Gill Meller. Goat’s a popular meat
  around the globe and the recipes are
  suitably diverse, divided up by cooking
  method: slow, quick, over fire, roast, baked


• but no dessert recipes, which is probably
  a good thing. I opted for a West African

peanut curry and a Turkish-

inspired kid, cabbage and

bulgur wheat pilaf, but

I was also tempted by

Jamaican curry goat,

Mexican kid mole and more.

Both recipes I cooked were paragons of

concise precision (wordy recipes drive me

spare) and worked perfectly – not always

the case with chefs’ recipes. The curry was

spicy, nutty and rich, the pilaf had a hint

of sweetness and aromatic spices.

The only tricky bit was buying the goat

meat. Even at Borough Market where the

world’s most exotic ingredients come out

to play, I had a job tracking it down. And

that brings us to a fundamental problem.

A book of recipes based on a single hard-

to-find ingredient is likely to have a small

market; and given this book’s quality, that’s

a shame. You could substitute lamb and the

recipes would (mostly) work just as well.

And you can buy various cuts of goat at

Cabrito’s online shop (cabrito.co.uk).

The solution? “Consumers have the

power to make changes through the

purchasing decisions they make,” Whetlor

writes. Without a market, kid goats will

continue to be considered worthless – so

demand your goat!

PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGNThe cover is striking,

and Mike Lusmore’s food photography is

clean and appealing. A small annoyance:

the book’s a bit small, and it kept slamming

itself shut when I was cooking from it.

WHO’S IT SUITABLE FOR?Readers with an ethical

sense. If helping to fuel the market for

ethical meat isn’t enough, half the royalties

from book sales will go to the Farm Africa

charity, which works to reduce poverty in

the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Want to be

part of the solution? Buy the book and/or

make the recipes (search ‘goat’ at

deliciousmagazine.co.uk for two of them)

and ask your butcher to stock goat meat.

VERDICT +++++

THE COOKBOOK

Goat: Cooking and Eating

by James Whetlor

(£20; Quadrille)

TESTED BY Susan Low

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Aromatic Turkish-

style goat pilaf

PHOTOGRAPHS: MIKE LUSMORE