stlbites.com – st. louis food blog of bill burge

The Butcher

Feb 21, 2008 general food

In a carnivorous world, a butcher is a necessary link in the food chain, carving a carcass of unsavory flesh into mouthwatering cuts.

Now that’s a tag line!

Not in the typical rotation of shows I watch, last night the episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel was “The Butcher.” It was pretty interesting, and especially the last couple bits when they briefly spoke about custom slaughtering and then showed at length a mobile butcher in action.

After hauling his giant mobile butchering trailer out into the middle of nowhere and leveling it, the guy literally got on a tractor and shot a cow in the head with a rifle before they strung it up and pulled it in. He then proceeded to skin it and gut it before taking it back to his facility to age and butcher into the final cuts.

As gruesome as that may or may not sound to you, it’s the best possible scenario for an animal to be slaughtered humanely, and as I haven’t found anyone that can do this in Missouri, I’d been deeply curious as to how it worked.

I did get the impression that the mobile facility on the show is probably in the upper crust as surprisingly there was actually a USDA inspector present for the entire slaughter.

The butcher specifically stressed that he is fully USDA inspected so that the meat can be further sold down the line. This is not typically the case with custom slaughter because many of the people utilizing it have no further need to resell the meat as it is for their own consumption.

I’m sure they’ll show it again so be on the look out.

Another upcoming episode of food related interest (I thought to look since they had this one) is Harvesting which will air next Wednesday.

Tags: butcher, mobile butcher, mobile slaughterhouse, modern marvels, slaughter, USDA