Meat and Veg

Yesterday was a water day; today was a food day.

I worked at Veggielution for a couple hours this morning, harvesting the greens growing in between the carrots. We pulled out all of the greens, then cut off the leaves to distribute. I took two big bags home; I hope the rest also found good homes. (I gave one bag to Poto.) I finally baked my apple pie this morning

and I brought half of it to share, but I had to leave before lunchtime; I hope it got eaten.

After Veggielution, I drove up to San Francisco to Avedano’s

in Bernal Heights, where I was to take my long-awaited butchering class. I really like Avedano’s. Tia, one of the owners, taught our class, and she’s as nice as can be. I also love the building that houses the market; it goes on and on, with all sorts of weird corners and rooms. And the products they carry are wonderful, especially their locally, sustainably raised meat.

We butchered a suckling pig (which, at 30 lbs, was pretty big) and a lamb (which was downright huge.) There were six of us in the class, and, even though I was snapping photos along with everyone else, I’m not going to post any of them here. The pig was a dead pig, and I’m sure there are lots of people who would be grossed out or even offended by my photos. But the other five people and I were very respectful of the animals. There was no joking about what we were doing. Everyone involved was clear that the purpose of cutting a dead animal up into pieces was to eat it, but no one treated the process as anything but serious business.

We took turns making the cuts that Tia showed us. The pig was pretty easy, although we did have to use the saw to cut the spine, and the cleaver and mallet to cut the ribs. But the carcass was so small that there was no question about cutting pork chops or tenderloins. The lamb was another story. We got through the shoulder section, but started to run out of time at the end, so Dave, the other great butcher working there, took over the hindquarters to show us one way to bone a leg and cut it into pieces. He related the cuts to beef cuts, since quadrupeds have basically the same anatomy, and I started to get dizzy from the blizzard of names he was able to rattle off.

Dave told us that German butchers can spend 20 years becoming a master butcher, and it’s easy to believe.

I took this class because I feel strongly that eating meat carries a responsibility to acknowledge that it’s from dead animals, but I also believe that meat eaters have to return to nose-to-tail eating. It’s irresponsible to eat only a few familiar cuts and leave the rest to be ground into hamburger or made into pet food. I don’t know how that translates into the world of school cafeterias supermarkets and convenience foods and whole families with no knowledge of cooking. I don’t.

Even though meat-eaters in the US should eat less meat, I believe that a majority are always going to eat some meat. I want to find a way to bring about a change so that the meat that is eaten in this country all comes from animals that are humanely and sustainably raised, whose deaths don’t go to waste, and who are eaten respectfully and mindfully.