A few weekends ago a group of my friends decided to roast a goat. Why not? This decision came from a desire to experience every aspect of meat-eating; animal selection, slaughter, butchering, cooking, and eating.
This task was made simple because we are friends with a guy who works at a specialty slaughterhouse and butcher outside of Davis. So they were able to be a part of the whole process and the butchers attended the goat roast celebration as participants and cooks. It was a pretty sweet deal.
The party was called a "celebration of local food" because no one wanted to feel like they were celebrating the death of an animal. We talked a lot about the whole experience. My friend K observed that the strangest part was when the goat was slaughtered; his brain immediately stopped identifying it as an animal, and began to identify it as food.
When I took these photos I was enthralled with the beauty of the roasting goat, and I certainly wasn't thinking of it as an animal. The light was gorgeous and the flames and colors of the meat caused me to just snap away like crazy. Now, though, I'm finding these photos to be a bit grotesque. It's clearly an animal, you can even see the tail sticking up. My stomach and eyes were in control, I guess, and my brain was shoved aside.
But the meat was delicious; greasy and dark, not too funky, chewy, and satisfying. They marinated and grilled the organs as well, so I tried some liver, heart, sweetmeats, and testicles. Only like, a millimeter squared, but it was enough to make me never want to eat animal organs ever again (shudder).
I'm sorry if these photos are disturbing to anyone, I put the warning in the title just in case. It was an interesting and delicious experience.
This task was made simple because we are friends with a guy who works at a specialty slaughterhouse and butcher outside of Davis. So they were able to be a part of the whole process and the butchers attended the goat roast celebration as participants and cooks. It was a pretty sweet deal.
The party was called a "celebration of local food" because no one wanted to feel like they were celebrating the death of an animal. We talked a lot about the whole experience. My friend K observed that the strangest part was when the goat was slaughtered; his brain immediately stopped identifying it as an animal, and began to identify it as food.
When I took these photos I was enthralled with the beauty of the roasting goat, and I certainly wasn't thinking of it as an animal. The light was gorgeous and the flames and colors of the meat caused me to just snap away like crazy. Now, though, I'm finding these photos to be a bit grotesque. It's clearly an animal, you can even see the tail sticking up. My stomach and eyes were in control, I guess, and my brain was shoved aside.
But the meat was delicious; greasy and dark, not too funky, chewy, and satisfying. They marinated and grilled the organs as well, so I tried some liver, heart, sweetmeats, and testicles. Only like, a millimeter squared, but it was enough to make me never want to eat animal organs ever again (shudder).
I'm sorry if these photos are disturbing to anyone, I put the warning in the title just in case. It was an interesting and delicious experience.
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