Slaughter and butchery . Queasy readers take caution.

I eat meat. However, for as long as I remember I never have had any contact with the animals that I eat. It confuses me a little to think that I do not know where my meat comes from, how it is killed, how it is skinned and then subsequently butchered and cooked. (the cooking part I know well enough, but it is a small step on a long chain leading to the food on my table.) So in this vain, I slaughtered a baby goat last week. I can't say that I liked it but I don't think it is something anyone would particularly take a shine to. There were two goats to be slaughtered that day so that they could be sold to customers at the farm. Fateh slaughtered, skinned and gutted the first one to show me how to do it as I watched and he asked me if I wanted to do the second one. So we drove up to the barn and picked out the baby goat who was to be killed. It was a male because they are less usefull on the farm to keep around because they do not produce any milk and he was marked with blue paint on his back and had a string tied around his ankle. We loaded him into the truck and he sat between my legs as we drove to the workshop. Fateh explained how I was to kill him. I took the goat out and set him on the ground being careful to always have one hand on one of his feet so that he could not run away and sat over top of him to keep him in one position. The killing is done with a bolt gun that propels a quick bolt into the skull of the animal. It is quickly done and over with. Afterwards, the animals throat must be slit to let out the blood. Two cuts are made on his lower legs in the gap that is formed by the tendon connecting the feet to the legs. I pick the goat up, bring him inside and hook both his legs so that he hangs upside down. I take a knife in hand and make an incision in the skin at his belly so that I can start to skin him. For skinning, the knife is used to make the first cuts and to work the skin loose from the membrane that attaches it to the meat. I work up his belly and into his hindlegs. I am advised to use a cloth and my hand to separate the skin once I have detached enough skin with the knife to get a good grip. Once the skin is separated from this portion of his body, a cut is made around his hindlegs and the skin is halfway off the body. I work the other half and then work the skin off the head. This is hard and time consuming because there are so many small areas to detach. Once skinned, a slit is made in the belly in order to empty the contents of the body cavity. I am warned not to puncture the stomach because it really smells and his messy if this happens. I work my way through the organs, salvaging the liver (detaching the bile duct - not sure if this is the right terminology- because if it is punctured it ruins the liver for eating, the kidneys, the heart and the lungs for food. All the rest is waste. The animal is sawed in half, the tendons on the ankles cut to release the animal, the feet removed and that is that. A done deed. The head is left on because the brain can be eaten as well as a little of the meat in the head. ( Although it was a small animal because it was still quite young.) The animal is rinsed of all remaining hairs and blood and stored in the fridge. I think that the animal has to be kept in the fridge for about three days before eaten.
And that is a small snapshot of one way meat can come to our table.

Cravirola Cooperative

It has been about three weeks since I have been working at the Cravirola Cooperative and time has gone by very fast here. How do I start to explain life here? The farm is on 280 hectares of land set in a rocky landscape just north of Narbonne in southern France. It is a group run farm where the products that are produced are used to sustain the farm and life here. There are approximately 150 animals, cows, goats and sheep, a cheese atelier, a wood fire bread oven under construction, two large gardens, rooms for rent, a campground and a performance stage. In the summer, the campground is open and there is a snack bar that makes food for the visitors using produce, meat and cheese all from the farm. Impressive! Apart from all of this, the products are also used to sell a local organic markets in the region.
Last week I left the farm to travel with two people to an transformation atelier. This is a cooperative processing building that is used for a variety of purposes. From what I gathered, it is the only one of its kind in France, where meat of all kinds, fruit, vegetables, fish etc... can all be transformed in the same building. We were there to make use of two cows from the farm that had been slaughtered the week before. The idea was that we were to make chili and curry to sell at a music festival that starts tomorrow. It went well. The atelier was really interesting. Most of the people working there either raised animals, slaughtered them and then used the atelier to butcher, make sausages, tinned pates or package the meat sousvide or some people used it for catering operations and still others, thre was one man in particlar who used it to make tins of cassoulet to sell at the markets. All very local.
Tomorrow I am going to a 40000 person music festival t sell the meals that we prepared at the atelier. I think it will be a riot, tiring bu entertaining at the same time.
Salut for now. Nadia