Photo courtesy of Derek Oyen and flickr
Back when I was in college, I became famous among my friends for making gyoza – Japanese pork dumplings that are fairly akin to Chinese pot stickers. I was making them with a friend one night and asked her to help me by mixing the meat and other ingredients by hand. She recoiled, disgusted.
“I’m a vegetarian,” she said. “I don’t touch meat. At all.”
I thought it was kind of strange – I was asking her to help me prepare food, not eat it – but I didn’t question her or push the issue. However, her hesitation and revulsion stuck with me. I think that’s why I was so surprised to see an article on NPR this evening about a former vegan that became a butcher. Yes, really.
According to the article, Andrew Plotsky went from barista to butcher as a means of learning about local food production. For him, this small-scale enterprise is more than a way of procuring food – it is a community effort. Someone must raise the animal, slaughter it, and process it into meat, after all. Plotsky learned about the process from Brandon and Lauren Sheard and documented his progress on his own site.
I’d like to interview these individuals at some point (and if any of them are reading this, I ask that they contact me) but for now, check out their sites and follow their adventures.
Authors bio is coming up shortly.