Eat what you kill.....(not for the squeamish)

"Eat what you kill" is an expression that people sometimes use to describe productivity and compensation. In books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma," the question as to whether a person should eat something that they themselves would not be willing to kill is raised.  This question has been on my mind, particularly since the scandals of kosher meat and Agriprocessors, etc, over the past few years.  Is it a greater moral imperative for me to eat organic, free-range, hormone-free, "humanely" slaughtered animals, or to eat kosher ones?  Is it better for me to pay double, triple, to eat organic, free-range, hormone-free, kosher slaughtered animals that are raised in the next county, but have to be trucked to Baltimore for kosher *scheching?  Of course, the moral imperative might be for me to be a vegetarian, but I really like meat and chicken, and although I eat less and less of it every year, I am not willing to give it up.

I have long suspected that I would be able to kill something that I was going to eat, but I never had the opportunity to try.  Thanks to Rabbi Robert Saunders, who has a great deal of knowledge and skill in schechting, I was given the honor and privilege of doing so.  He explained that schechting a chicken is not very complicated--one checks the blade for imperfections and sharpens them out using a diamond sharpener (deeper teaching there), one says the **bracha, one does not hesitate,  one makes the cut, drains the blood, plucks or peels the bird, does an inspection of the innards, then soaks and salts the meat.  Start to finish, Robert said, less than 90 minutes could have a chicken from running around the yard into the pot.  Yael, who has been staying at the ranch for a few weeks, helped to clean and "de-gut" 50 chickens the week before, and I, a novice, assisted.

We did not take pictures of the actual schechting, and really, it was a very sacred kind of experience that I felt inappropriate photographing.  It was serious and prayerful.

Kenny watched from a bit of a distance.  His comments include: "I did not have a need to touch it" and "At least I didn't faint."

We didn't eat the chicken, it went into the freezer.  I am glad I had the experience of seeing the chicken be killed, holding it while Robert cut it in the proscribed way, holding it while it died and while the blood drained (there is not alot of blood in a chicken), and helping to peel off the feathers and skin.  

At times, I remembered my Gross Anatomy class, because there are so many anatomical similarities--but several differences--chickens have 2 ***cecums, and they have very, very tiny compressed lungs.  Robert, a dentist, enjoyed going over the finer anatomical points with someone (me) who could appreciate that sort of thing.

Chickens in the barn yard

Chicken ready to cook

*schecht, schechting=kosher slaughter
**bracha=blessing
***cecum=the first part of the large intestine--faked you out--not a Hebrew or Yiddish word!