Killing It

April 30, 2018
With grace and power, first-time author Davis tells of how she traded a keyboard for a cleaver. After being laid off from her job as an editor at an Oregon magazine, Davis revisited a long-held dream: working as a butcher. She then reconnected with an acquaintance, Kate Hill, a cookbook author and cooking teacher living in Gascony, France. Hill led Davis through a foodie’s dream journey—with Armagnac, foie gras, dried duck prosciutto—and gave her a primer on the cultural preferences in cuts of meat (while Americans enjoy ribs, the French prefer to turn the loin into bone-in pork chops). Davis writes eloquently of the affinity she felt for the trade—“the act of butchery is, if nothing else, an immediate one requiring you to locate your own body in the present tense.” The road wasn’t without bumps, particularly what Davis calls Bunnygate—animal rights activists who excoriated Davis and her business partners for slaughtering rabbits for food. After returning to the U.S., Davis founded the Portland Meat Collective, a school in Oregon dedicated to meat education that she still runs. Descriptions of the butchery process are wonderfully detailed (to cut into a pig skull, “pull the skull and the lodged cleaver into the air... and bang it down on the table”). Her powerful writing and gift for vivid description allow readers to feel as if they, too, are embarking on a life-changing journey.

June 1, 2018
Finding beauty and moral high ground in the abattoir. In this debut memoir, Davis recounts the period when she was laid off from writing for a weekly paper in her native Portland, Oregon, and decided to become a professional butcher and local farming activist instead. When the first few butchers she sought out dismissed her attempts to learn the trade, the author maxed out her last credit card to study for seven weeks on a cooperative farm and slaughterhouse in Gascony, France. Davis' apprenticeship introduced her to a different kind of industry, a radically local form of vertical integration wherein they slaughtered, butchered, and sold every inch of the animals they raised to customers living within driving distance. These conscientious slaughtering and curing methods inspired Davis to seek out other earnest, like-minded practitioners when she returned home. With few resources besides her partner, Joelle, a fellow female butcher, and her way with words, Davis helped start the Portland Meat Collective, one of the first organizations of its kind dedicated to educating American consumers about the provenance of their meat and to promoting the less familiar cuts and methods that whole-animal chefs around the world have been serving for generations. Though the meat-squeamish might skip over the visceral descriptions of killing animals, Davis writes for them in particular. The author and her ilk believe those who eat meat have a moral obligation to source it as conscientiously and locally as possible. The author writes almost as much about her love life and her search for authentic self-redefinition as she does about carving carcasses. She relates her simultaneous relationships with a man and a woman, her pratfalls as a butcher's apprentice, and the shambling state of her affairs in general, but the writing, like her life, clicks into place when she loses herself in the subject matter. The making of a young female entrepreneur rendered in unvarnished detail.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2018

When Davis's successful career as a magazine editor (Saveur; National Geographic Adventure) foundered, she realized she'd rather experience food directly. She leaves writing and a failed relationship behind to realize a secret ambition--to become a butcher. According to the author, a proper butcher understands the seriousness of taking an animal life and makes use of the entire animal. To achieve this goal, Davis travels to France to study traditional French butchering methods. It's a deeply profound experience to confront death and a challenge to learn a physical trade, and throughout the process, she wonders about her future. When Davis returns to Portland, OR, she faces yet another journey: finding like-minded people with whom to work and share what she's learned, eventually forming the Portland Meat Collective and the Meat Collective Alliance. Throughout, Davis writes thoughtfully about our disassociation from food and looking for connection in the world, whether through food or people. VERDICT For anyone interested in the hard questions about meat production and consumption.--Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.