Giddy About Goat Meat

John T. Edge writes the column “Food from the Edge” that appears in USAirways in-flight magazine.

I enjoyed the column that Edge wrote for the magazine’s October issue. Here is an excerpt:

I had eaten goat before. At Jamaican restaurants that specialized in jerked goat. And at barbecue festivals in western Texas, where goat is the meat that, after a parboil and a mesquite smoke, emerges from the pits as succulent as pig, as tender as chicken, and just a tad wild and raunchy.

But goat suffers from a bad rap among mainstream eaters — except for goat cheese, which has in the past two decades gone from boutique exclusive to grocery-store
ubiquitous.

Mention goat meat, however, and most folks bleat out a protest. Something about goats being scavengers. Something about goats eating tin cans. All of which is patently untrue.

As America diversifies to accommodate immigrants from all over the world, goat meat — often referred to these days by the more formal and appetizing term “chevon” — will go mainstream. And some white-tablecloth chefs are already leading the way.

At Komi in Washington, D.C., Johnny Monis is serving milk-roasted goat ragù atop a nest of homemade pasta . . .