Goat Slaughter

The morning of the party was spent at a cattle market (with colleague) haggling for a goat.  Standard practise is to start low, disagree, wait, walk away, return, continue, argue and finally agree somewhere in between.  My price Birr 420 – looks healthy and ready for roasting.  Children hang around as normal but this time they carry rope and offer a goat-sitting/walking service until it is needed later.

 

I felt it important to watch the slaughter.  I imagine there are many children in the UK who are unaware where some of their meat comes from let alone how it is prepared and packed.  When I was younger, I witnessed a chicken being killed for dinner and later refused to eat it.  Although it did not put me off meat, I was apprehensive about what was to come.

 

WARNING!! - Do not read on if you are squeamish.  What follows is an honest description of the goat slaughter. 

 

Thankfully, in a country where animal welfare is low on their priority, the 16 year old, but very experienced butcher, made the whole process calm and simple.  Holding the goat by the horns, in one move he had the animal on its side and secure.  There was much less bleating and struggling than I expected.  In my opinion, the next part was the only unnecessary suffering caused from the slaughter.  Starting at the chin he cut down towards the throat.  The reason being is to save as much of the hide as possible for leather.  He can sell the skin for 10 Birr.  The throat was then cut quickly.  So I guess the killing lasted about 30 seconds in total.  Although twitching continued due to muscle movement, he cut into the hooves to check that the goat had completely died.  The back legs are then snapped back on themselves to make hanging loops.  The goat is then hung up to allow any remaining blood to drain.  He continued very much like an artist to slice and chop precisely, allowing him to push the skin away from the flesh, remove the hooves and head; before finally opening the rib cage and selecting which insides to keep.  Nothing is wasted.  The meat was then flavoured with a good dose of oil, garlic, salt, chilli, onion and red wine.  Everything was troughed.

 

I apologise if anyone is offended by this blog entry but for me, it was very interesting.

 

P.S. There are some pictures if anyone is interested.

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