- This is caul fat.
Do you want to touch it?
- Okay.
- Hi.
I'm a ghost.
(camera crew members laughing)
(midtempo instrumental music)
- I'm Neko.
- Hi Neko, I'm Christina.
- Hi, my name is Josh.
- Hi, I'm Christina.
- Nice to meet you.
- Are you a cooker?
- I have cooked professionally, yeah.
But that's not what I do now.
I do work with food, though.
- Now I'm confused.
- Are those like tools or something?
- Yeah.
They're knives.
I do use them like tools, though.
- Are you a butcher?
- I am a butcher!
- What do you do at work all day?
- I cut carcasses of animals into meat.
- I love meat.
Meat is like, one of my favorite foods.
It's like my life!
(laughter)
Protein!
- What's your favorite animal to cut?
- I really enjoy beef right now.
It's like kind of cool to imagine how large
this animal was when it was alive, you know?
Because it's like this animal would've been like,
1500 pounds.
Have you met a cow before?
- The last time I met a cow was in my dinner!
(Christina laughs)
- How many pigs can you butcher in a day?
- Yesterday?
I did three.
And then like a month ago, I did four in one day.
- How many animals have you butchered?
- I don't know, like a couple hundred at this point.
It's been a couple years.
- I always heard that in the scary movies
butchers always had axes.
(Christina laughs)
Is that true?
- We don't call them axes, but I did bring a cleaver
which I use sometimes.
- I'm evil now.
- So if I use that, 'cause I do use that sometimes,
am I evil?
- No.
- Aww, thanks.
- Oh, I feel like one of those serial killers in the movies.
(Christina laughs)
- So, what do you do with the cleaver?
- There are certain parts that I have to break through bones
- Does it sometimes make a crunch?
- It does.
- Okay.
- These are the two knives that I use the most.
- Oh.
- Yeah, it's not ginormous.
- Like mini daggers.
- (laughs) Yeah, kind of.
- What made you become a butcher?
- I learned about what industrial meat looks like
and the kind of conditions
that animals will sometimes have to live under.
Like there are some pigs that have never seen daylight.
And I love animals, I think they are wonderful,
And they should be treated well.
So I went vegan for a little while.
- Wait, are you still vegan or not?
- No, no.
I started eating meat again, yeah.
- Okay. (chuckling)
- What changed your mind?
- I learned about local farmers
and how some people will raise their animals nicely
and let them be the type of animal that they want to be
so I'm happy to work with those farmers
and buy their meats and butcher that stuff.
Do you like to eat meat?
- Sometimes.
I tried to be a vegetarian but I failed.
- I'm a pescatarian right now.
- Are you really?
- I only eat
the meat that I like.
- Okay.
- I like hamburgers and hotdogs
so I can't like really let that go.
- What about steak?
Do you like steak?
- Oh yeah, steak.
- What about bacon?
Do you like bacon?
- Hmmm, I only eat it on special occasions.
- Do you think you'll even be a vegetarian again?
- Probably not because meat is good.
- Meat is good.
- What's your favorite meat?
- Mostly what matters to me is if the animal was happy
and was well taken care of.
That's my favorite kind of meat.
- But how would it be a difference if the pig was unhappy?
Because I always thought that was an emotion
not like a meat.
- The emotions of the animal are often based
on the living environment that they're in.
If it's in like, a scary, stressed out environment
their body creates chemicals that change like the flavor
of the meat, and the texture of the meat.
And so you can taste that.
- Oh, what?
(Christina laughs)
- Is there any part of the animal that goes to waste?
- On pigs?
Uh, I wouldn't ever eat the teeth.
- Oh, well.
- [Christina] And the toenails.
- The toenails.
- You can't do anything with the toenails.
- What about like other bones, like is it?
- All the bones, you can make stock out of.
- Oh!
- And some of the bones have marrow on the inside.
- Oh, the marrow. Like, yeah.
That's making my mouth water.
(laughter)
Are we getting dinner soon, mom?
(laughter)
- What's the most craziest part of meat you ever aten?
- I've had calf's brains, before.
You have to make sure
if you're going to eat an animal's brain
that the animal was definitely raised well.
You can get sick from eating some.
- Cow.
- Yeah, yes.
- Yeah I heard of that.
- Yeah, but that is only if the cow
was living in an environment.
- And it ate other cows.
- Yes, exactly!
Oh, you know so much.
- [Woman off-camera] Desmond, do you know
what that's called?
- Cannibalism.
(laughter)
- Cow-na-bilism!
- Oh! (clapping and laughter)
So I brought a little piece of,
it's not meat exactly, but it's a piece of an animal
that is edible and it's like fat.
Do you want to see it?
- Yes, please!
- Awesome.
(boy groans)
- That's so
like, squishy.
- It's very squishy!
Do you know what this is called?
- Brain?
Skin?
- So this is called caul fat.
It's a lining on the inside of the body cavity.
- [Woman off-camera] So Clara, people eat this.
- Plain?
- They don't eat it plain, you take like meatballs
and then you wrap the meatball inside it
so there's just like a little bit of more fat
on the outside of the meatball.
Does that sound good?
- No.
(Christina laughs)
- Do you want to try touching it?
- Yes.
(Christina laughs)
It's like gross and really cool at the same time.
It's like I'm touching someone's like, guts or something.
It's gross.
- It's fun to touch.
(Christina laughs)
- [Woman off-camera] Can you see me?
- Yeah.
- Why's this so addicting to touch?
- That's like the question of my career (laughs).
- Do you really like your job?
- I sure do.
- Yeah.
- Butchery to me is a skill, like a craft.
And every time I get to cut something, every pig,
I feel like I can get better at it.
- Yeah.
- I will say there are parts of it that are difficult,
and there are moments where I'm like,
I'm so tired and it's been such a long day!
And that meat is so heavy!
But it's still ultimately,
like I'm still very happy to be doing what I'm doing.
- Thank you, Christina!
- Thank you!
- Can I have some of that caul fat?
- You sure can!
Hi, I'm Christina!
Thanks for watching Kids Meet A Butcher.
If you want to learn more about me,
check for a link down below.
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