A 10 Pound Goat

Such a small animal, I’d imagine with it’s feet, head and coat still in tact. Gianna Short, a good friend whose particular area of interest is food and agriculture, won a goat in a raffle at the Common Ground Fair in September of 2009. When it was time to cook it, Gianna called me.
“Is it alive?” I asked.
“Is it gutted, how much does it weigh?”
A friend suggested she hack it up, bones in, brown it and curry it for a few days. That sounded like a good plan to me, so we did just that. Butchering the animal was like taking apart a small lamb, pretty straight forward. The smell of the flesh was unlike anything I had experienced in the past: sort of a sweet scent of death. I combined an Indian and Southeast Asian preparation, using yogurt, coconut milk, garlic, onions, turmeric and a garam masala mix containing cloves, cardamom, coriander and peppercorns. A couple days later, Gianna made some Indian bread and had some friends over for goat feast. The flavors had time to establish themselves and the curry was lovely.