Be Your Own Butcher- Meat Retreat

This evening event focused on at-home beef butchery and cookery. Food Bloggers from throughout the Northeast including Albany, Long Island, and Pennsylvania met at the Poughkeepsie Open Kitchen on April 26th for a private butchery lesson from Mark Elia, an Associate Professor of Culinary Arts at The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park. Mark led attendees through the breakdown of the Rib 112A subprimal.   

“The versatility of the rib makes for great discussion and lessons in both cutting and cookery, added Jean O’Toole, Executive Director of New York Beef Council, “With the new knowledge from today’s event attendees understand how this one cut can be further broken down to and utilized for multiple great eating experiences. Post evaluations of the event revealed that 100% of attendees would recommend this opportunity to their colleagues and every attendee gave the program 5 out of 5 stars.   

New York Beef Council Director of Industry Relations and Consumer Promotions, Katherine Brosnan noted, “this event provided us the opportunity to engage directly with key influencers and provide them with a unique experience exploring an extremely important component of the beef industry. These influencers have a large social network and strong rapport with their followers. Their voices as beef advocates provides a direct link to thousands of consumers who may have questions about beef production, processing, or cookery. Therefore, arming these bloggers with beef skills and information will help them to share the beef story.” 

The NYBC’s goal is to serve as the premier source of beef information to the influencers in our region. One of the attendees reflected upon the event by saying, “The Meat Retreat is an exciting opportunity to learn more about where out food comes from, it isn’t just from the store!” Events such as this allow the checkoff to engage directly with influencers, including bloggers, to highlight beef’s versatility, quality and taste.