We’ve been cutting beef for two days. A good pace for Dad and I, him at an active 70 and me at a high energy 51. One afternoon to harvest, and get the steer ready for the cooler, two weeks to hang to age.
We broke down a side of beef a day, weighing 265lbs a side, with my little brother helping to grind hamburger.
Some people ask if I just sell hamburger-which I get- families on a budget want something quick to cook and I am too a lover of a burger and fries done right. Cut well, we get usually 30 pounds of hamburger a side and it’s lovely to have once in a while but I feel about it the way I feel about boneless, skinless chicken breast.
When we are working with a pasture raised steer, it’s an absolute privilege to see to it broken down. Bring cut carefully into so many primal, and nourishing cuts as it was intended to be.
Tenderloin, brisket, sirloin, rib roast, top round, bottom round, eye of round, t bones, rib steaks. blade roasts, rib stew, tallow, boneless stew meat…..sometimes it makes me weep people are missing out on these gifts in favor of quickly prepared burger.There’s nothing like wrapping a deep red, dense, yet tender sirloin tip roast in brown butcher paper. That’s the beauty of breaking down a half or a whole animal slowly. We get to “Ooh and ahh” over different cuts and discuss how they were traditionally prepared and how we like them (sometimes “too much talking and not enough working” according to Dad, who is happiest when he’s grumbling).
You simply can’t tell me it’s possible to feel the same when processing 25,000 animals a day. There’s not a lot of intention in a pound of hamburger containing the meat of some four hundred cows.
I think that’s what we have to aim for as consumers today: the bullseye always being the spot where the people harvesting the food intersects with the people preparing the food, no matter what kind of diet we eat.
That reverence is our way back from four hundred cow hamburgers, contaminated spinach and recalled granola bars.
Love Jenn xx