Earlier this month Andy and I had the tremendous pleasure of attending a true field-to-plate butcher workshop with our mentor, Brandon Sheard of Farmstead Meatsmith.  To say that this experience was a dream come true is not an understatement.

When I first started raising pigs for the family larder in 2010, I had not the first idea of what it would take to accomplish the mysterious transition from pig to pork.  After spending months building my locust rail fence and trenching water lines from the house to the stand of pines where the pigs would live, the real adventure began.  I had to source the piglets.  How many?  Which breed?  Gilts or barrows?  Craigslist?  And then the 6-7 months of feeding them, twice a day.  This meant that either my wife or myself had to be home every morning and every evening…for half a year.

After all of that work, and all of that time and money, I wanted to know that this was going to be the best pork ever!  But how was I to make that happen?  I didn’t even own a livestock trailer (the 35lbs piglets were brought to their new home in the back of a pickup truck with the cap on…moving 250-300lbs pigs in this manner is a very different matter).  I had been toying with the idea of taking the slaughter and the butcher of these animals on myself, but Andy convinced me.  I had read (over and over again) from my trusty back to the land bible, Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living, but I still didn’t feel quite prepared.


Doug and Andy Carry a Hog


And then, serendipitously, some guy on the other end of the continent started posting videos on his website of how he shoots, sticks, scalds, scrapes, cleans, and cuts a farm raised pig, on the farm!  It was revelatory!  In addition to being high quality, artistic and creative videos, Brandon brought the respect and dignity that was due such a heavy task.  Gravity and artistry, I was hooked.  I am not ashamed to admit that there was a time not that long ago that two bearded men, born a century too late, could be seen in the cellar of a hundred year old farm house in Knox county, butchering a pig using traditional methods, looking up at a MacBook Pro to see how Farmstead Meatsmith would do it.
I cannot say enough what a treasure this guy is, and what an honor it was to spend some time with him in his butcher shop. Of the few folks that I place in the pantheon of food (agri-) culture professors and prophets: Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin, Marion Nestle, Michael Ruhlman…Brandon Sheard stands shoulder to shoulder.


ButcherTalk


Editors note: As it happens, I’m not the only one to do a write-up about this experience.  Check out this great article  just published in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, complete with more than forty excellent photos of the workshop!