Downtown, the only goat you’ll find is goat cheese, but in almost every surrounding neighborhood, restaurants serve the meat itself. There’s nothing strange about that: more than three-quarters of the world’s population eats goat, and the low-fat meat makes up two-thirds of all red meat worldwide. In the United States goat farmers are trying to satisfy the immigrant demand that’s more than quadrupled goat consumption over the last 20 years. A few days after the end of Ramadan, a holiday that’s often celebrated with the slaughter of a few goats, here’s a short tour de goat exploring the other red meat.
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The modern meat goat, the Boer, was first bred in Africa about a century ago, and goat is the primary protein on much of that continent. Very different in shape from much thinner dairy goats, it’s featured at almost all Chicago’s African restaurants: with a day’s notice at Vee Vee’s (6932 N. Broadway, 773-465-2424) or Toham African Restaurant (1422 W. Devon, 773-973-4602) you can get a stew made with a whole goat head, a Nigerian specialty. Toham offers practically an entire buffet’s worth of goat dishes, but that doesn’t mean you can order them.
Me: OK. Can I have the goat-pepper soup and the goat stew?
Waitress: Yes.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/A. Jackson.
