Friday, August 14, 2009

The Slaughter

Ok - I've been buying my meat, mostly beef, from Prather Ranch Meat Co. for the last 4 or 5 years and one day last year one of the owners Steve asked what I did for a living. So beginning in January this year I became their bookkeeper. Steve is Mr. Tech, so I get a lot of bills and information from him via email and even text (I think he's the first client to ever text me! - now I have a few that do) and when I got my first email from him with the "re:Hog slaughter" tag line I was a little surprised. I mean now it sounds tame as I have actually been to Prather Ranch and have seen a cow slaughter; but I'm jumping ahead. I am definitely a meat eater but for most of my life I never really thought too much about what actually takes place in order for that meat to be available for sale at my local market. Denial can be a great thing, but in the past few years I've been thinking more and more about where my food comes from and especially the animals. This year I happened to read Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and really decided to face the fact that I eat dead animals. Understand, I had no intention of becoming a vegetarian - and haven't, but I just felt like I wanted to really see the steps that it took for a cow to make it into my lovely beef stew.
At one point I ran into Michael Recchiuti at Serpentine (great food at decent prices - they even have Prather Ranch burgers!) and told him that I was doing the books for Prather. He told me about a great trip he took up to the ranch for an article for Food and Wine and that the slaughter was a really amazing experience - I was sold. My next step was inviting myself and my husband along on the next trip that my client's were taking to the Ranch. When I started telling friends that I was going to see a slaughter they were like "why on earth would you want to do that?!" Most people were shocked and kind of grossed out - and believe me I don't really think that this is something that everyone should see as it was pretty intense. Also I have no desire to see a "real" slaughter house as I've seen enough from the news clips on how bad it can be. That is the great thing about Prather - it is not like all the rest. It's more of a "boutique" or "artisan" abattoir (sounds better in french). It was up near Mount Shasta in Northern California on a beautiful ranch. We got to stay in the cabin on the property (me & 9 guys) for 2 days. The first day we went to the cutting room to see them cutting and packaging it up. This was great as you can see where each cut comes from on the cow and I got to see how they make their ground beef; it's made from 1 cow (not thousands like those other guys) and it is made from the trimmings of all the parts of the cow like flank, filet, chuck etc. Day 2 was the actual slaughter and yes we saw everything from the beginning (knocking the cow in the head to kill it or make it brain dead) to the skinning and removing of all the organs and spraying the carcass down with apple cider to kill any germs (most places use bleach, but they go the organic route) then hanging them to dry age in the cooler for a couple of weeks. It was truly an amazing experience in that the cows are calm and have no idea what is about to happen which is one of the reasons that they are "Certified Humane" and everyone there was amazingly calm and professional and obviously cared about the animals. It helps that they only do this one day a week and only about 20 cows. Like I said, this is not for everyone, but I'm here to tell you that after witnessing this event I'm buying all my meat from Prather Ranch Meat Company. If you don't live in the bay area go to your local butcher and try to find humanely raised cattle (that is not fed corn) and  ask questions - if they don't know, don't buy it! I admit it's more expensive to buy this kind of meat but I really feel that it's not something that you have to eat every night. Have 1 or 2 nights a week with beef on the menu then maybe a pasta night or salad night. It's worth it to know how your food is raised and killed. Of course on the way home my husband did say "Just so you know, I'm not up for a hog slaughter any time soon" maybe on my next holiday I can check out the chickens too! 


  1. Interesting read, and it sounds like the experience made a big impression. Great meeting you at Foodbuzz Fest.

  2. Nice meeting you too - hope you guys had fun eating in my city! R