In a time when you can no longer trust what’s in the food on supermarket shelves, more and more people are wanting to know the origins of the food.  The success of cooking schools like Wickedfood Cooking School, definitely shows that there’s an interest in food preparation as opposed to ready-made meals.

With many people, this also means understanding not only the way that an animal was raised,  by the different cuts each animal has to offer.  The current DIY spirit has inspired more home cooks to branch out, turning casual carnivores into informed connoisseurs of meat. Our book of the week  The Art of Beef Cutting: A Meat Professional’s Guide to Butchering and Merchandising is a superb manual on everything there is to know about beef butchery. The book is illustrated with 450 colour photos of every cut, step-by-step instructions on cutting techniques, the best beef-cutting tools as well as cooking methods.  Its format also lends itself to the easy reference, with its hard cover spiral binding.

The Art of Beef Cutting is a first-of-its kind instructional guide, and hailed as the most comprehensive beef cutting education available in print. The book begins at carcass level and gets broken down to parts of the animal and individual cuts, from primals, to subprimals, all the way down to good old ground beef. There’s even a section on  how to calculate your profit margin in the “Cutting for Profit” chapter.

As a third-generation butcher, author Kari Underly witnessed the art of beef cutting at a very young age. With her own passion for the craft ignited, Kari became a journeyman meat cutter, and after gaining experience at the retail level, she moved on to meat education, merchandising, and muscle research.

As a leading expert in meat education, this comprehensive guide covers all the fundamentals of butchery.
Interested in buying this book? Visit – Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, is able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for, and they deliver to your door. Pay only R383 for this book (Recommended Retail Price = R448)! Red Pepper Books is offering Wickedfood Cooking School subscribers an EXTRA 10% off this book. Simply type in the promotional code WICKEDFOOD on the shipping page of the checkout process and your purchase will be reduced by a further 10%, a total saving of R65.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference. Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients. We’ve just launched a new and exciting class, Wickedfood Master Cook. Think Master Chef with a fun twist.