Buntin Family Butcher Shoppe

I’ve talked a lot about Tucker’s, so I guess now would be as good a time as any to discuss a delicate topic: butchers.  When it came time for the smaller animals – rabbits, chickens, turkeys, etc. – to move from the barnyard to the kitchen, Carmon took care of the deed himself.  He even tried it once with a hog, but that so traumatized Tunk that he never made that mistake again.  After that all the big animals went to Tucker’s Butcher Shop.  Carmon had a long-standing relationship with the Tucker’s because they had been the ones who for years had taken care of his large game processing, mostly deer and elk.  As our mini-farm moved from small livestock to large, Tucker’s again answered the call.

Carmon, however, true to his independent nature, decided that he needed to do as much as he could do himself.  That was when he bought the band saw.  As I understood the transaction, Carmon found a fellow who needed new carpet for his mobile home.  The man had purchased the carpet at a remnant sale, but had no one to install it.  Carmon, amongst his many other talents, could install carpeting, so he began to negotiate a trade.  He would install the carpet in exchange for the band saw and commercial-sized meat grinder the man had, buried under a thick layer of dust, in his shed.  It was one of those rare win-win situations and soon our barn boasted its own meat processing plant.

Carmon installed a hotel-sized stainless steel sink and counter that he had found in a junkyard somewhere.  He built a large wooden table and added a holder for a huge roll of butcher paper, looking for all the world like the grandfather of all paper towel rack.  The band saw and grinder were installed along the wall next to the sink.  Once everything was scrubbed and sanitized, the Buntin personal home butcher shop was ready to go.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I really admired Carmon’s self-reliant nature.  It was truly a source of pride to sit down to a meal in our kitchen knowing that most of what was on the table came from our little farm.  At breakfast, there were bacon and eggs, homemade bread (we ground the wheat ourselves), toasted and served with home churned butter and topped with jam, again, homemade from our own peaches, plums, or apricots. 

Lunches and dinners featured meat from the freezer (not just what, but whom), vegetables from the garden, and cold, fresh milk.  Other than potatoes, wheat for flour, sugar, salt, and other condiments, the bulk of what we ate we grew ourselves.  I’ve got to admit, that both felt and tasted pretty good.

I, however, was content to have the meat arrive from Tuckers, all wrapped, labeled, and frozen a week or two after the animal left in the stock trailer.  That wasn’t good enough for Carmon.  It wasn’t that he was too frugal to pay the butcher (although he had been known to pinch a penny until Lincoln had a pug nose).  In this case, however, it was simply that he wanted to do as much of the work himself as was feasible.  He still left the killing, cleaning, and aging of the meat to the professionals.  Everything else, we did at home.

The first time we picked up our steer, I thought I would faint.  I had no idea how large a side of beef actually could be and we had two of them!  Carmon had the entire family lined up in the barn, with their hands scrubbed and their new white aprons on, when he shouldered first one, then the other side of beef from the truck bed to the huge wooden table.  We were ready to begin.

Unfortunately, none of us knew exactly where begin was to be.  I knew different cuts of meat from having cooked them, but I didn’t know how they got from that huge side of beef to being kitchen-ready.  Although Carmon never admitted it out loud, neither did he!  With a confidence that he demonstrated rather than felt, he turned on the band saw, then lifted the first side of beef and put it on the table of the saw.  In just a few minutes, he had that side cut into four large pieces, the hind leg, the front leg, the front brisket area, and the entire rib cage and back.  He repeated the process with the other side.  Meanwhile, the kids and I were lined up at the freshly scrubbed and sanitized worktable waiting to wrap, tape, and label the first cuts. 

Carmon started with the hind leg and began cutting straight across the leg – the entire width of the leg!  When he had the first batch of steaks (for lack of a better word) done, he tossed them onto the table. The kids and I just stared at each other.  Each steak was at least two feet in diameter!  Carmon looked at our stunned faces and said, “What are you waiting for?  Start wrapping.”

I tore off a huge piece of butcher paper and began to roll the steak in paper.  Beed did the same on his side of the table.  Sess and Tunk applied the tape as the packages appeared and Tee stood by with the marker to label the packages because she was the only child with legible handwriting!  Each package was huge, about the size of a football and in a roughly similar shape. 

A pile of these white footballs rose in front of Tee before she asked, “Dad, what should I call these?”  Carmon just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, Sissy.  You name it.”  That was that, and by the end of the morning, the freezer was full of white paper packages that said: You-name-it!

© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the auth

Picture of buck from www.clker.com

Picture of meat grinder from www.lislesurplus.com

Picture of butcher paper roll holder/cutter from www.efsy.com

Picture of breakfast from www.123rf.com

Picture of milk from www.happceuropa.com

Picture of side of beef from www.chestofbook.com

Picture of butcher block table from www.rerevival.com

Picture of wrapped meat from www.getrichslowly.org