I remember back when I was a kid and we did all kinds of things that would probably drive some parents of today nuts. Heck, we would make mud pies and 15 minutes later we would be eating a cupcake without washing our hands. If we dropped our candy on the ground, we just picked it up, blew it off and ate it. My dad grew up on a small farm and they did their own butchering. My dad and I would sometimes help the town butcher cut up a bull and my dad and the butcher would drink the blood from the animal after they shot it in the head just behind the ear and then slice it’s throat. He would offer me a drink now and then and I would just give him “the look” and walk away from him. I often wondered what kind of bacteria could have been in the blood, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Him and the butcher would cut the bull down the middle and then clean out the innerds and flush it really good with water through a garden hose. Once they got that far, we would take a break and eat lunch that the butcher’s wife would bring us. If people only knew how we butchered, I wonder if they would have bought from him. In reality, we were very clean once we began handling the meat. All the cutting instruments, including the saws were very clean. I used to run the sausage press after the meat was ground and the butcher mixed in his spices. Every butcher has their own sausage recipe. We wore throw away gloves and what they call a hazmat suit today, only it was a white set of coveralls, gloves, rubber boots, head covering (usually just a hat) and a mask. We used a lot of sterilization lighting and had to often check meat temps and do bacteria testing by state law. I forget some of the stuff, but I enjoyed working beside my dad.
I apologize for the length of this post.
