One of the biggest and most common issues that I come across when working with clients is difficulty with meat. Be it chewing, getting stuck in the throat or actually choking. It’s a core part of many peoples diet and yet, it can sometimes be the hardest to access with dysphagia.
Recently, I was able to pick the brains of an experienced butcher, Brennan. You’ll get to know Brennan better a little further in the piece however, interestingly, we know each other from university while we were both studying science degrees. Brennan has the unique perspective of understanding the condition of dysphagia and also preparing and cooking meat. He kindly took the time to sit down with me and explain a wide variety of meats and their different types of cuts, and why or how they may or may not be appropriate for people with different severities of dysphagia.
A few different concepts Brennan introduced me too were;
Meat Fibre and Collagen- meat is made up of fibre which gives it shape, and each fibre is wrapped in collagen that’s why these terms are often used interchangeably. When a cut of meat has more meat fibres and therefore more collagen, it tends to be more tough and requires longer cooking times to break down and become tender.
Working Cuts- these are the parts of the animal that would’ve done the “work” while the animal was alive. This means that the meat is muscular, gelatinous and tough, such as beef cheeks, brisket, shank and ribs. These cuts a typically good for slow cooking so that the muscle fibres and collagen break down with the prolonged cooking time.
Cutting Against the Grain- the grain of the meat refers to the direction that the meat fibres are lined up in throughout the meat. By cutting across this line, or the grain, you are making the fibres shorter and therefore will be able to break them down more easily when chewing or cooking as opposed to longer fibres that are cut in line with the grain.
Tenderising- there are many ways to skin a cat… or tenderise meat. What this does is begins the process of mechanically breaking down the muscle fibres and collagen. You can do this by beating the meat with a mallet, putting it through the tenderising machine (or asking the butcher to), using chemical tenderisers or using natural tenderisers- but more on those later.
BBQ Sausages Vs Italian Sausages- BBQ sausages are similar to german sausages in that they are more finely minced, further processed and then mixed with flour and water to combine the mixture. They also tend to be flavoured with a specific meal so that it ends up being a smooth minced texture.
Italian sausages on the other hand, are not so finely minced which means they are less tenderised and end up being more chewy. These sausages tend to have a higher fat content, which adds to the chewiness, but that assists with binding the ingredients after the moisture is removed during a salting process. They are flavoured using fresh herbs and spices rather than a flavour meal which adds to the texture and complexity of them.
TYPES OF CUTS
BEEF
PORK
LAMB
CHICKEN
Knowing your meat better so that you can choose a cut that will best suit swallowing needs is such an underrated area of knowledge and skill to have, possibly a skill lost as meat has become more accessible. Here's to a revival of knowing your bits and pieces 🎉 Hopefully it brings success to your next shared meat recipe! 🥓🥩🍗