If you think trigger warnings should be a thing, I'm going to discuss, in part, how we get meat. You have been advised.
Seriously, if you don't want to hear details about cutting along the dotted lines, you should leave now.
We always had a steer or two in the barn. Steers were easy to make into food. You'd make sure they had feed, water, and clean bedding, haul the manure every so often, and when the time came they would be picked up by the slaughterhouse. A slaughter-weight Black Angus is around 2,000 lbs of moo, which is more than we were willing/able to process at home.
Hipsters take note: This is how you do the whole "Farm to Table" thing, you move the table and farm closer together. Raising pigs in your 3rd floor Brooklyn walk-up is totally reasonable.
A couple days later, the chest freezer would be filled to overflowing with steaks, roasts, and enough hamburger to sculpt life-size versions of a couple of my siblings. We had so much beef that my brother once defiantly told Mom that he was "sick of eating steak". Beef was the reward for feeding the steer, and it arrived as if by magic, packaged, portioned, and frozen solid, the white paper bundles smelling faintly of the iron tang of blood.
Yes, sick of this. He now realizes it was odd, but it's still amusing to think about it.
Getting our pork was... a more involved process. Sure, raising the pigs entailed the same steps on a larger scale (we'd raise about 60 at a time and would sell all but a couple), but transitioning from pig to pork required knowing, absolutely knowing with no wiggling around the issue, that those animals' purpose was to become meat, and also being part of the mechanism by which that transition occurred.
The slaughter itself always bothered me. I shied away from taking something that was living and turning it into a carcass (I still don't like to say that we killed the animals, that word doesn't feel fair to the intent, even if it is accurate), and thankfully my dad handled it. Dad recently told me that he always hated the act of slaughtering too, and I respect him for never letting on and taking that responsibility. It was always quick, and no animal on our farm suffered more than was absolutely necessary, but seeing it wasn't for me. I vividly remember one occasion, looking away, plugging my ears, and singing "Goodnight Sweetheart Goodnight" to myself as I waited for the .22 shot that would change a pig into a carcass.
Yes, that's some morbid shit, but what are you gonna do?
Once the head, skin, feet, and viscera were removed, you had something that was a whole lot easier to look at and work with. By the time I started chipping in, I'd be working with a quarter of the pig or less, and there was nothing left but to grab a knife and get to it. As a related bit, you learn to appreciate and respect a sharp knife when you need it to do your job.
Rather than expound on the minutia of butchering, suffice to say that I learned which muscles were tender, which were tough but tasty, and which were too tough/small to be good on their own and therefore bound for the sausage grinder. I learned that even the leanest pig produced a shitload of fat to be rendered into lard, and that cracklings aren't my thing. I learned that my family, despite being almost 100% German in heritage, did not have a seasoning recipe for bratwurst (or knockwurst, or any -wurst for that matter) and so our sausage was salt-and-pepper seasoned, which was still tasty. Apart from the pigs, I've also butchered rabbits and chickens, even a couple squirrels, and I learned that the smaller animals are a lot easier to work with because you left them in larger pieces, at least as a percentage of the whole animal.
I saw the usefulness of the animal, and I understood it's role in our life, so while I quailed at the slaughter I had no issue with preparing the flesh. Animals had a use, and so getting attached to one was similar, in my eyes, to loving a lawn mower or other useful tool. I didn't use these words when I was a kid, but I think they sum up the state of mind pretty well. Animals, even animals with names, didn't get much, if any, sentiment attached to them. They were to be treated well, and they had their purposes, but I do remember thinking/saying "It's just a (insert animal type)" more than a few times in my life.
Where am I going with all this? I guess this was an extremely long-form exploration/explanation of why I sometimes gently roll my eyes, hopefully covertly, when I hear people talk about their pets as if they were people (Not YOUR pet, just other people's pets. Your pet is totally people.). Now, with my farm days long behind me and a daughter who loves her dog like a sister (that dog is pretty cool, I must admit), I find myself softening, and it's easier to see why people latch onto their furry friends. I accept that every animal doesn't have to have a barnyard-level utility. Acceptance doesn't always equal complete empathy, though, so share pet stories/pictures with me at your own risk because some days are better than others.
Rather than expound on the minutia of butchering, suffice to say that I learned which muscles were tender, which were tough but tasty, and which were too tough/small to be good on their own and therefore bound for the sausage grinder. I learned that even the leanest pig produced a shitload of fat to be rendered into lard, and that cracklings aren't my thing. I learned that my family, despite being almost 100% German in heritage, did not have a seasoning recipe for bratwurst (or knockwurst, or any -wurst for that matter) and so our sausage was salt-and-pepper seasoned, which was still tasty. Apart from the pigs, I've also butchered rabbits and chickens, even a couple squirrels, and I learned that the smaller animals are a lot easier to work with because you left them in larger pieces, at least as a percentage of the whole animal.
I saw the usefulness of the animal, and I understood it's role in our life, so while I quailed at the slaughter I had no issue with preparing the flesh. Animals had a use, and so getting attached to one was similar, in my eyes, to loving a lawn mower or other useful tool. I didn't use these words when I was a kid, but I think they sum up the state of mind pretty well. Animals, even animals with names, didn't get much, if any, sentiment attached to them. They were to be treated well, and they had their purposes, but I do remember thinking/saying "It's just a (insert animal type)" more than a few times in my life.
This guy had some valid points. Poorly made and overly blunt, maybe, but valid.
Where am I going with all this? I guess this was an extremely long-form exploration/explanation of why I sometimes gently roll my eyes, hopefully covertly, when I hear people talk about their pets as if they were people (Not YOUR pet, just other people's pets. Your pet is totally people.). Now, with my farm days long behind me and a daughter who loves her dog like a sister (that dog is pretty cool, I must admit), I find myself softening, and it's easier to see why people latch onto their furry friends. I accept that every animal doesn't have to have a barnyard-level utility. Acceptance doesn't always equal complete empathy, though, so share pet stories/pictures with me at your own risk because some days are better than others.
I will likely just ignore stuff like this, because it's creepy.
Final thought: Just to be clear, lack of emotional attachment doesn't equal lack of caring for animal welfare. People who abuse animals are sick, period.
Feel free to share this, as that will mean more people learning what a weirdo I am, and hopefully a few people saying "oh, I guess he's not THAT weird after all".
Feel free to share this, as that will mean more people learning what a weirdo I am, and hopefully a few people saying "oh, I guess he's not THAT weird after all".
You sound like my dad. 😜
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