Edible San Francisco

Farmer Andy Griffin roasts a goat for Thanksgiving under the watchful eye of his wife, Julia, and daughther Lena - photo by Wade Wiley Š 2007

I must have smelled worse than usual, because when I went to pay for the gas I'd pumped, the Palestinian fellow that owns the Quik Stop Market where I fill up asked me if I keep goats. He inquired in a polite manner, and with evident interest, so I decided not to react as though he was subtly suggesting that I stunk. Besides, I smelled like a goat. No surprise there, because before leaving the farm to fuel up my truck I'd wrestled my Billy goat to the ground, trimmed his hooves, and gave him his annual inoculations. So Mr. Quik Stop and I discussed goats for a while, and when I left the gas station I had a full tank, a new friend, and a question to think over. Arabs eat goat, Jews eat goat, Italians eat goat, Caribbean Islanders eat goat, Mexicans eat goat, Africans eat goat, and Filipinos eat goat. Actually, almost everybody eats goats except ethnically blanched gringos. So why has goat meat been so slow to gain acceptance in the U.S.?

My own background is as "white bread" as possible. I claim Danish ancestry, but genealogical analysis reveals I'm 75% Scottish/Irish/English/Welsh mongrel. I'm so white that I can trace my roots all the way back to Camelot and the Round TableŅI'm a direct descendent of King Arthur's swine-herder! And I didn't grow up eating goat. My interest in goats came late, when I moved onto the ranch where my grandfather had raised sheep. It had been years since the land had been grazed, and the property was choked with poison oak. I got my first goats because I knew they ate brush and I wanted to clear my land without herbicides. After hearing my new Palestinian friend lyrically recite his grandmother's recipes for goat by heart, I decided to investigate the goat business more deeply.

Over the last five years I've read everything I could find about goats. To keep my studies from becoming too bookish, I've learned to slaughter goats, and for homework, I've eaten goat meat whenever possible. I've sampled the goat tacos served up by my favorite Watsonville taco truck by the side of the Highway 129 and I've eaten a sumptuous feast of goat cooked Moroccan-style at Aziza out on Geary Blvd. My research has included eating Italian-style roast goat at A-16 and Incanto, on opposite ends of the City, and I've enjoyed a Greek goat stew at Evvia, down in Palo Alto. For extra credit, I've even learned to cook goat by helping my Mexican employees when they've cooked birria and barbacoa on my farm. And at last year's Thanksgiving feast, I even spit-roasted a goat Greek-style in my yard under the direction of Petros, my own Greek in-law.