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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

How our burgers get to our table

We butcher our own meat. My sister Kelly's family and mine split a steer every year. My brother in law's family lives on a farm and they have their own setup for butchering. One week, they shoot and kill a steer. Then they quarter it and let it hang in a cooler for a week or so to age. Then they cut it up into steaks and roasts. The rest goes to hamburger. And that is what we worked on last night. That contraption in front of my brother-in-law in the red plaid shirt stuffs bulk hamburger into packages. They have a machine that makes hamburger patties. Here is my sister Kelly, stacking patties.
After we got them in stacks of four and on trays, I'd take the trays outside and put them on these racks. It was thirteen degrees out last night! Brr. Nature's walk-in freezer.
This is Kelly's sister in law and niece helping to wrap meat in butcher paper. My niece and nephew Kyle and Danielle wrote what it was and the date on everything.
This is what it looks like now:

6 comments:

Chris said...

THAT IS A LOT OF RED MEAT!! Makes me want to go have a Veggie Burger.

theotherlion said...

Okay, after the first rather icky picture, it was interesting. And it reminded me of my mom and dad going to "Butchering Parties" when we lived in the country. Which in turn reminded me of the time my mom fed me chicken nuggets that I found out 6 years later were actually turkey testicles.

Umma said...

Woah baby, that is very cool! We bought a 1/4 cow this year from a local farm and they had it butchered for us. I'm not sure I'd have the stomach to do it myself!

Anonymous said...

Sorry we missed out. Hopefully next time!

Anonymous said...

That is amazing... that is why I love the internet and blogs so much... Your world is so far away from mine I couldn't even imagine that.. But it is amazing and helps me to remember how so varied people are even though other things so simular.

Anonymous said...

Correction on the other lion's memory: Dad didn't go, and they were turkey nuggets. Boy, they were fun times, and it is still hard to buy meat at the grocery store. It doesn't taste the same.

Oma