Year of the Cow: How 420 Pounds of Beef Built a Better Life for One American Family

by Jared Stone

Overview

This is the story of a man, a cow, and a question: What am I eating?
After realizing he knew more about television on his wall than the food on his plate, award-winning TV producer and amateur chef Jared Stone buys 420 pounds of beef directly from a rancher and embarks on a hilarious and inspiring culinary adventure. With the help of an incredibly supportive wife and a cadre of highly amused friends, Jared offers a glimpse at one man's family as they try to learn about their food and ask themselves what's really for dinner.
Year of the Cow follows the trials and tribulations of a home cook as he begins to form a deeper relationship with food and the environment. From meeting the rancher who raised his cow to learning how to successfully pack a freezer with cow parts, Stone gets to know his bovine and delves into our diets and eating habits, examining the ethnography of cattle, how previous generations ate, why environmentalists and real food aficionados are mad for grass-fed beef, why certain cuts of beef tend to end up on our plates (while boldly experimenting with the ones that don't), and much more.
Over the course of dozens of nose-to-tail meals, Jared cooks his way through his cow armed with a pioneering spirit and a good sense of humor. He becomes more mindful of his diet, makes changes to his lifestyle, and bravely confronts challenges he never expected—like how to dry beef jerky without attracting the neighborhood wildlife to the backyard, and how to find deliciousness in the less-common cuts of meat like the tongue and heart—sharing a recipe at the end of each chapter.
By examining the food that fuels his life and pondering why we eat the way we do, Jared and his family slowly discover to how live a life more fully—and experience a world of culinary adventures along the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250052582
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	04/28/2015
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	829,269
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

JARED STONE is an award-winning television producer who won an Emmy in 2013 for his work on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. He has worked with several major television networks including ABC, NBC, Fox, The CW, National Geographic, and many others. Stone lives with his family in L.A.

Table of Contents

Prologue
1. Meet the Meat
Recipe: The Simplest Strip Steak
2. Grind
Recipe: Red Wine-Braised Chuck Roast
3. Heritage
Recipe: The Best Burger on the Face of the Earth (Seriously)
4. New Heights
Recipe: Killer Jerky
5. New Frontiers
Recipe: Pho
6. Ancestral Foodways
Recipe: Chicken Fried Steak and Onion Rings
7. Go Big
Recipe: Christmafestikwanzikkuh Feast
8. One Step Back, One Step Forward
Recipe: Meatza
9. Heart
Recipe: Lengua Tacos
10. Around the Fire
Recipe: Steak au Poivre
11. I Am an Animal
Recipe: Steak Frites
12. Bones
Recipe: Stock
Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

02/23/2015
Stone, a television producer in L.A., buys an entire butchered, grass-fed cow—barely squeezing it into a freezer in his backyard—to learn more about the food his family eats, as well as to connect to his Kansas upbringing. As he starts to cook the cow, the experience changes various aspects of Stone's life. First, it causes a culinary revolution in his house, as he begins to pay more attention to what and how he cooks, including an eight-dish holiday feast, and beef-tongue tacos (which he includes his recipes for). Becoming more mindful of what he eats makes Stone more mindful of how he lives his life. As he tries the paleo diet, barefoot running, and shaving with an old-school straight razor, Stone sees the benefits of adopting ideas from the past that have been pushed aside by a world where everything is processed and disposable. He sprinkles in some more technical information about his cow's lineage, feedlots, processed foods, and industrialized diets, but Stone is at his best when he tells his own story with an affable, matter-of-fact style that is humorous and touching. His story is fun to consume and easy to digest. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A high-octane, thinking-man's account of one guy's quest to find meaning in life by cooking a grass-fed steer. The food descriptions and recipes could tempt even a vegan to order steak. You'll never look at feedlot meat the same way.” —Steven Raichlen, author of the Barbecue! Bible cookbook series and host of PBS's Primal Grill

“A lively, informative, sometimes-intimate tale from his family's adventure eating a freezer full of beef over two years of culinary and lifestyle changes…. The author braises his book in his family's values [and] Stone's revealing set pieces are warm, winning and welcome. Readers will feel like guests in their home, privy to private fears and joys as well as gastronomic triumphs and catastrophes.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Stone is at his best when he tells his own story with an affable, matter-of-fact style that is humorous and touching. His story is fun to consume and easy to digest.” —Publishers Weekly

“Year of the Cow, achieves a kind of literary umami, the savory 'fifth taste' celebrated in Japan-a book that is more than the sum of its primals.” —The Charleston Post & Courier

“A winsome, endearing, and revealing story, Stone's nose-to-tail experience with a whole beef in his kitchen makes the daunting seem like can-do fun.... Epiphanies occur in unexpected places, but each one expresses the connections, responsibilities, and opportunities all of us share with food and the land. A truly enjoyable read.” —Joel Salatin, farmer profiled in Food, Inc. and The Omnivore's Dilemma and author of Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

“This book tells how one cow purchased from a thoughtful farmer and then lovingly prepared and eaten by an exuberant amateur chef and his young family transformed their lives and could transform yours (even if you never buy a cow). Year of the Cow will help new legions of eaters discover how their food choices impact their health and why it's so important to understand where the food on their tables comes from and how it was produced. Anyone only slightly interested in such things won't be disappointed. Stone's tale of transformation is spiced with good humor, telling anecdotes, and a highly engaging narrative. Share it with those you care about.” —Allan Savory, founder of The Savory Institute, winner of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, and author of The Grazing Revolution: A Radical Plan to Save the Earth

“Stone's valiant attempt to get a little control over what he eats, and thus, what he is, is inspired” —Los Angeles magazine

From the Publisher

A high-octane, thinking-man's account of one guy's quest to find meaning in life by cooking a grass-fed steer. The food descriptions and recipes could tempt even a vegan to order steak. You'll never look at feedlot meat the same way.

author of the Barbecue! Bible cookbook series and Steven Raichlen

2015-01-04
Debut author Stone, Emmy-winning TV producer, wrangles a lively, informative, sometimes-intimate tale from his family's adventure eating a freezer full of beef over two years of culinary and lifestyle change.The author wanted to feed his family in the most environmentally and ethically responsible way without becoming a caricature of a fad-following New-Age epicure. Solution: whole foods; a whole cow, to be precise. Why beef? Partly as an homage to a Midwestern childhood "near the cattle trails of the High Plains." But mainly because he wondered how the experience of eating the entire grass-fed animal—free of antibiotics and growth hormones—might affect his mind and body. Cooking it respectfully, learning the vagaries of each individual cut, would also make him more than a passive consumer. It would reacquaint him with where his food actually came from, with ancestral foodways in eclipse, and maybe even help him find a "doorway to a more soulful life." Stone provides a primer on prime beef (choice, etc.), as well as a cattle history lesson stretching back nearly 9,000 years and a cautionary tale about how the post-World War II obsession with convenience and processed foods not only has deflected us from healthier and more fulfilling means of feeding ourselves, but infected all areas of life with a ticking-clock mentality. More, the author braises his book in his family's values. Most "charming domestic scenes" one is subjected to are anything but, but Stone's revealing set pieces are warm, winning and welcome. Readers will feel like guests in their home, privy to private fears and joys as well as gastronomic triumphs and catastrophes. Though Stone engages in a few meandering asides and perhaps tries to extract too much meaning from rather prosaic subjects, he nonetheless offers provocative thoughts on our carnivorous history and contemporary options, adding some tantalizing snout-to-tail recipes.

Kirkus Reviews