James Whet­lor first got in­to goat-mind­ing when he need­ed to deal with an over­grown back­yard. The goats were a form of “land man­age­ment”. At the time, he was a chef at the Riv­er Cot­tage in Dorset, and a few of the goats end­ed up on the menu. Notic­ing how pop­u­lar the goat was, James sought to ex­plore this niche in the mar­ket. He found­ed his store Cabri­to and he hasn’t looked back.

James al­so recog­nised there was a se­ri­ous is­sue in the dairy goat in­dus­try where the bil­ly goats were be­ing eu­thanised at birth. To cut down this waste, he works with farm­ers to raise the bil­ly goats and sell them to the restau­rant trade and the wider pub­lic.

James pi­o­neered the Goa­to­ber move­ment in the UK and Eu­rope in 2016. He was in­spired by Erin Fair­banks and Anne Sax­el­by at Her­itage Foods USA in Brook­lyn who start­ed the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion of goat in 2011 as they al­so want­ed to end the prac­tice of eu­thanis­ing young male goats that the dairy in­dus­try had no use for. The Goa­to­ber cam­paign aims to put a goat dish on restau­rant menus and to en­cour­age peo­ple to try cook­ing goat at home them­selves, for all or part of Oc­to­ber.

The Dorset-based chef re­cent­ly won a James Beard Award for his book, Goat: Cook­ing and Eat­ing. He is in Trinidad for the launch of Goa­to­berTT which takes place to­day (Wednes­day 26) and will al­so lead sev­er­al teach­ing and cook­ing events. We man­aged to get this in­ter­view with him, ex­clu­sive­ly for Propa Eats.

How sur­prised were you to hear of the in­ter­est in Goa­to­ber in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

JW: We have had such a great re­sponse to the idea wher­ev­er we have gone that for it to turn up in T&T didn’t sur­prise me as much as it de­light­ed me! I’m so thrilled that a food cul­ture that prizes goat and has its own his­to­ry and skills with it is keen to get in­volved. It feels like it gives cred­i­bil­i­ty to the Goa­to­ber project.

You are set to come here to teach and get to un­der­stand the in­dus­try here but what are you look­ing for­ward to the most?

JW: I hope to learn as much as I teach! Food and cook­ing, goat in par­tic­u­lar of course, is what I do and I am look­ing for­ward to tak­ing some ideas home, es­pe­cial­ly the fa­mous roti!

In the time since you start­ed your goat quest what’s been your biggest les­son?

JW: Hm­mm, good ques­tion. There have been so many. From the learn­ing about the farm­ing side to run­ning a small busi­ness and im­por­tance of things like cash flow, to the his­to­ry of hu­mans and goats that I go in­to in the book, Goat: Cook­ing and Eat­ing. In grow­ing Goa­to­ber I think the biggest les­son is not to feel own­er­ship of the idea and let peo­ple who are en­thu­si­as­tic pick it up and run with it.

Where has Goa­to­ber tak­en you? And where do you ex­pect to go next?

JW: All over the place! I was in Aus­tralia back in late Feb­ru­ary. I’ve done a bit of work in France, The Nether­lands and Bel­gium as we try to change the goat dairy farm­ing in­dus­try in Eu­rope. I have done events in Ire­land, Italy, Spain and we have made con­nec­tions in the US and work with Her­itage Food who are based in Brook­lyn, so I’ve been out there a few times. I am busy!

Tell us about your in­volve­ment in Farm Africa.

JW: Farm Africa has been work­ing in Tigray, North­ern Ethiopia for over 20 years, and has worked with over 11,000 women. The project re­quires that each re­cip­i­ent of the ‘goat pack­age’ must pass on three goats to an­oth­er woman once their herd has grown, turn­ing the re­cip­i­ents of the goats in­to am­bas­sadors for the sys­tem. It has had a trans­for­ma­tive ef­fect on the health of the pop­u­la­tion, the en­vi­ron­ment and the cul­ture of the area. I love the project. It shows just how amaz­ing goats are.

What would you say to peo­ple who doubt the po­ten­tial of goat?

JW: Look around the world at all the amaz­ing cuisines that have goat as a cen­tral in­gre­di­ent. Ob­vi­ous­ly the Caribbean, but In­dia, Chi­na, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, South­ern USA, Cen­tral Africa. That a big chunk of the globe and a lot of peo­ple! Goat plays a cen­tral role in so many fan­tas­tic dish­es it is im­pos­si­ble to doubt it.

Thank you James, we hope you en­joy your time in Trinidad.

JW: You’re wel­come, I’m very ex­cit­ed!

By Fran­ka Philip