The Writer's Pen

A friend recently posted on Facebook that he had beef for sale – halves or quarters. He would transport the animal to the locker for processing. That post brought back memories of growing up with a ready supply of meat in the freezer.

We had a big chest-type freezer like most farm families. It was a 20 cubic foot International Harvester model that came with the purchase of a new tractor in the 1950s. The only place on the main floor of the house where it would fit was across the end of our front porch. Mom had difficulty going up and down stairs, an aftereffect of polio, so into the front porch it went. There was about 12 inches of extra space on one end of the freezer so that’s where our folding chairs were kept when they were not in use.

When full, the freezer held a half a beef, a hog, numerous chickens, packages of sweet corn, green beans, black raspberries and ice cream. Tomatoes, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, apricots, applesauce and jam were all canned, as there was no room for them in the freezer. I became very good at packing the freezer efficiently to get the most food into it. At times I was asked, “Where’s the hamburger?” or “Do we have any more chickens in the freezer?” Being able to pack the most into the space available has been a good trait to have whether packing a freezer or a 50-pound suitcase for a two-week mission trip. We used that freezer until 2000, when it gave a sputter and died. If my current freezer lasts that long, it will outlive me. Perhaps that is wishful thinking.

Back to the butchering. In my grandparents’ day, butchering was done at home. I don’t remember that ever happening on our farm. My earliest memories are of taking an animal to town to the locker for processing. When a pen of cattle was ready for market, Dad picked one out, loaded it on our truck and took it to town. Once unloaded, it was shot in the head to avoid pain, then hung up for the blood to drain and the removal of the innards. Once that was done, it was moved to the cooler where it hung for three to four weeks before being cut up and packaged. The hanging time produced a more tender product. A cutting order was needed. How many steaks to a package? What size packages for the ground beef and roasts? Did we want dried beef made? Do we want the liver, heart and tongue? Usually the heart and tongue were added to the ground beef where it was disguised and blended off.

After the beef was cut and packaged, it went into a sharp freezer that froze it quickly. Then we picked it up, took it home and packed it into our freezer. If there wasn’t room for all of it, we rented locker space to use until we had room at home. The lockers were about two feet square and deep. There was a wall of them and each one had a lock on it. Once unlocked, they rolled out like a file drawer. It always smelled so good inside that freezer.

Today, not as many people raise livestock as in the past. They buy their meat as they need it from their grocery store. I fall into this group. Grocers buy their meat in boxes now ranging from 10 to 60 pounds each. My grocery-store-owner/butcher son-in-law buys a lot of boxes of primal cuts, which he cuts into roasts and steaks including ribeye, New York strip, flat iron, Silver Lake sirloin and others. He also buys boxed beef to grind into ground beef, which he packages into various sizes and makes ready-to-cook patties.

The beef industry has found a market for all parts of the animal. Available for local grocery stores to purchase are boxes of ox tail, liver, tongue, heart, neck bones, femur bones, kidneys, hooves, tripe (stomach), natural beef casings (intestines) and bull fries (testicles). Nothing is wasted. The hides are processed into leather and other parts of the animal are all used in some way. My husband says, “They sell everything but the moo.”

Judy Taber, of Lake Park, is a member of the Hartley Writing Group.