This week, in honour of deer hunting season, we’ll be posting some recipes, info, tips, etc…in addition to whatever else we/I come up with (finishing my required therapy writing)...if we stay on task.
James, The Boyfriend, is editing the video of us skinning a deer as we write…hopefully we'll get it in at the bottom of this entry.
Why deer hunting season? Who cares?? Why kill animals? Why a video? Why...why...why. So full of questions, aren't you?
Tell you what, growing up it was one of the only ways we got to eat meat, aside from raising animals to kill and eat; it’s what you do when you’re poor and you live in the country - or, you like to kill animals…but we come from a family of meat eaters and we used everything we could - we practiced sustainable living before it was "fashionable", out of survival.
Growing up farm-poor teaches you things, growing up with a mother that runs a health food store on the farm where you like, who is knowledgeable in nutrition, tends to force you to learn some basics in nutrition; which probably attributes to our eventual interest, and the year-and-a-half of University education before Culinary School, in the subject of Human Nutrition.
We’re no strangers to the ways of killing and dismembering animals; from childhood, to culinary school…we know how to kill a rabbit without a gun (hit it in the head with a hammer, hang it upside down, incisions at the ankles, strip it’s fur from the back legs to the head…), and chickens…we know what the literal meaning of “running around like a chicken with its head cut off” looks like. They used to chase our horses with no heads. We know how to cut a bison into primal cuts and more.
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| A variation of the poster we used to have hanging on our office wall, which is now in storage, sadly, that shows cuts of beef, which are similar to venison (wild games such as deer). |
...we know how to skin a deer… we know how to gut a sheep, kill a pig…we’ve seen the disgusting ways they process dead chickens for mass production, how they inhumanly kill a cow at a factory slaughterhouse.
If you eat meat from the grocery store, from a nice cellophane packages, but turn your nose down (or up) at hunters (real ones, not sports hunters) then we can have a discussion with you about how fair it is to take a cow that's been raised in a pen packed with other cows, standing in it's own filth, shoving it into a semi-truck until it arrives at a factory where it get's a stun gun to the head...that doesn't always work. Or an electric shock. Google it (we saw videos and factory floors as part of our culinary education), it's appalling.
We grew up poor, on a farm (as some of the stories of our past, located on this blog, mention) outside a very small town in the United States during the 80s’…and as such we learned things city kids don’t. We learned to appreciate what food is, where it comes from, and what it should really taste like. The Mother grew a huge garden so we had food in the summer, and canned the excess so we could eat through the winter. Without these things, things people think are strange, or disgusting, we’d never have survived. It’s an appreciation, no matter how unpleasant our childhood was, in many ways, that we cannot imagine being without.
Is it any wonder we have such a passion for food? Some of us anyway…some of us are so passionate for it that it borders on an obsession…like with me.
This week, all going to plan, we hope to make some venison stock, cut up parts of that deer I skinned tonight to make stewing beef and jerky. We’re making venison tenderloin tomorrow night with something involving mushrooms…jury is still out on exactly what, but we have ideas…our only disappointment is that the deer didn’t arrive with at least it’s heart…but we’ll be getting one, The Mother said she’d get us one from her hunting party.
So, okay, why the video of us skinning a deer? (still in editing...it's not "gruesome" or anything...promise...and we're sorry)
Well aside from tweeting about it the last two days, we’re Frankie The Blade – just a fun nickname the came out of nowhere and was part of our “Halloween costume” avi competition – so why not do something fun involving a knife and a dead animal (that we are going to utilize every part we got, except the hide)? The video is for our pal @T0MFooL3RY…if editing goes as planned…”I am ButcherFoolery”, because we’re no Tom, will be up before long…we hope we didn’t disappoint him by not saying we’re him.
Well, we made it to the end of writing, but The Boyfriend still hasn't figured out how to edit the video...so while I write tomorrow I'll chain him to a chair and make him finish it. He likes to be chained up, but first I'm going to force him to play video games and watch Food Network.
~Frank
Other food and cooking related posts we've done:
Why do we write strange shit? Because we can, and because we have to...and what business is it of yours...if you don't like our blog, don't come back. No skin off of our back...though it might be off of yours...*wink*
