The Butchers

Growing up, my family owned a small meat-packing plant.  We did it all in our meat-packing plant: slaughtering, processing, and selling retail and wholesale meat.  Since we didn't have much money, we couldn't afford babysitters, which meant that my brothers and I got to spend almost all of our spare time at the meat packing plant.  My personal favourite part of the meat-packing plant was the kill floor.  If my parents were ever uncertain of where I was, they would know to go look for me at the kill floor, and sure enough, ever time, they would find me, mouth agape, as our employees slaughtered beef after beef after beef.  You would think that this kind of upbringing would have scarred me for life, turned me off of eating meat, or turned me into some kind of sadistic human being, but none of that is true.  It just developed in me an understanding of where meat comes from, that if you want to enjoy the bacon at Sunday brunch, someone has to slaughter Piglet.  I also actually really like meat (although I rarely eat it these days).  When I was young, I knew from the moment the animal arrived at our meat packing plant until the moment it touched our dinner table exactly who had handled it and how it had been handled.  I had no guilty conscious, because I knew we didn't needlessly torture animals (we just did what we needed to do so all of our customers could enjoy their delicious ribeyes), and I had no worries about the health of the animals which were now our dinner, as my dad knew a lot about meat, and if he felt that it was not a good quality, he would either let that specific customer know that he thought that the cow they had brought in would not yield quality beef or (in one exceptional circumstance) did his best to have the meat condemned when he found that a 4H calf which had probably been sick at 4H time had likely been doctored to not appear sick, but he knew as soon as he saw the meat that there was a problem.  Of course, the vet wouldn't hear of condemning this calf.  All I could think was "Thank God that's not going to end up on our table, then" because, for however much I respect the expertise of a doctor or vet, when it comes to all things meat, my dad's word really is gospel.  And as far as growing up watching cows being slaughtered, no it did not turn me into a sadistic human being.  Yes, when I was a child, I thought, "How cool-- all the other kids also enjoy 'Lamb Chops Play Along'!"; I just didn't realise that they were watching TV, and I was watching something totally different.  And truth be told, if I saw a beheaded cat or puppy, I would be outraged, whereas the carcass of a cow, sheep, pig, buffalo, etc doesn't even move me at all.

I've got to admit, I feel like a terrible daughter, that when I reached a certain age, I refused to work at our meat packing plant.  Kids called me "meat bitch".  That was uncool.  But even so, now, when I am in foreign countries and I see foreign butchers, I have to stop and linger and watch for a bit.  I seldom take pictures because one thing that is universal for butchers is that they don't seem to like having their pictures taken.  I can understand.  If, when we had our meat-packing plant, a crowd of Japanese tourists had burst in and started snapping pictures of me as I worked with my bloody apron and bloody hands, I would have been so upset.  So yeah, I know where butchers are coming from when they tell me to put my camera away, and I rarely have the linguistic skills to explain to them that this is what my family used to do for a living as well.  Once, in Jordan, I was able to explain it to a butcher whose photo I had just taken (I had been taking an Arabic class), and his demeanor towards me immediately changed.  Suddenly, I was just like him, and not just an overprivileged white tourists.  I guess that is a butcher's biggest problem with having their photo taken.  Not only do they not enjoy being captured on film smeared with blood, but they also take pride in their work and they don't want it belittled.  They know that if you are taking their photo, it's likely not so you can show your family and friends back home what skill and care they put into their job.  They know that your reasons for taking their photos are the same types of reasons that someone will exclaim, "This food is so gross! You have to try some!"

It saddens me a bit that I can't explain to foreign butchers that, for me, my interest in their work is very different from that of the typical tourist.  When I pass by a foreign butcher, I'm filled with nostalgia as memories from my childhood come flooding back to me.  Yes, even though the meat on offer in butcher shops in foreign countries is often very different from what we processed in Canada (in Mongolia, it's anything from beef, sheep, and goat to horse, camel, and yak), it's the slabs of meat and tubs of discarded bones and bloody aprons that remind me the most of my childhood, and it makes me sad to have (probably) disappointed my parents so much when I decided I didn't want to work in our meat-packing plant and it also makes me miss my family immensely.