The Satisfaction of Meat Cutting on a December Day

We will return to our regularly scheduled broadcast next week.

I am late getting this newsletter out late this week and it will be a short one at that.  But you see I have spent the last two days with my neighbors cutting up the meat from some Dexter long-yearlings that have been hanging in their cold room for the last 10 days.

Meat cutting at home is an extremely satisfying activity.  It is a dying art and skill that fewer and fewer people understand.  Hunters probably retain the closest skill set (assuming they actually do the meat cutting themselves as opposed to hiring someone for that job) and a handful of hobby farmers and small-scale producers.

When I first moved to Lillooet there were real butchers working right in the meat room of the local grocery store.  Progressively over the years, more of the meat began arriving as pre-cut.  Now that Save On Foods has taken over, all the meat arrives pre-packaged in boxes, the butchers are no more.

Back in my early days here there were at least 3 meat cutters in town doing significant work, privately helping people to butcher their livestock or deer and moose.  But no more. The red tape involved in small scale meat cutting licensing is a nightmare.  And without the licensing you cannot sell the meat.

Store bought meat comes with a price not listed on the package:  Animals raised as production units with little consideration of their natural behaviors or needs beyond what it takes to force them to grow fast and people working robotically on assembly lines of meat.  All you see is the sterilized image of cuts of meat in plastic wraps.

Part of my decision to start raising chickens came from my disgust with how the birds were being raised commercially.  I was also increasingly concerned over the loss of heritage breeds and farm skills associated with heritage breeds.  My decision to raise Dexter cattle followed afterwards, in part for their incredible ability to help rejuvenate the land through rotational grazing, and in part, my desire to raise and eat my own meat on a small scale.  Irish Dexters are the perfect small scale cow, producing both meat and dairy with ease, with few of the health problems larger breeds have.