In the morning we visited Kinnealey's Quality Meats. I won't go into too much detail here, but man there was a lot of meat and it was cold (they work in 38 degrees to preserve the meat). In many regards it was comforting, the place was clean and very well regulated.
In the afternoon we did butchering with Charles Grandon, who is the Executive Chef at the Winchester Country Club. We cut up a whole lamb, and we worked with a primal beef rib section and some chickens.
As a devout carnivore, I have worked with a lot of meat in my life, but I have never butchered a whole animal before. I must say it was at once informative, exciting and a little off-putting. But, not enough of the latter to make me stop eating or even working with meat. It was simply a new experience. I tried going vegetarian once in my life after seeing a whole pig on a spit and I lasted all of a week. Nope, I am a meat eater.
The most interesting part of it all for me was seeing just how difficult and complex it is to cut up an animal for consumption. Our juicy little steaks come all neatly prepared and ready to cook, but it takes a lot of work and skill to breakdown and fabricate all of that meat. Moreover, it takes a lot of skill to know where to cut and where not to cut, and what to trim and even if you can see what needs to be trimmed, it doesn't mean that you can easily figure out how to do it. I have a lot more appreciation for the work that butchers do.
So, thanks. Because I don't know what I would do without my Sunday night grilled steak. Which I do even in the dead of winter.
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