WARNING: If you are a member of PETA or otherwise don't like seeing or thinking about the butchering of animals, read at your own risk.
So our team leader Chad left to visit Chile for a few weeks. He had some business to take care of and hopefully recruiting some more Chilean team members for the work here. As his return date was approaching, John and I decided to butcher one of our goats as a kind of "welcome home" dinner.
John hired a few guys to help him dig a pit in our yard. He bought a 50 gallon metal drum and buried it within our yard. They did cement work around the drum to help insulate the heat. In the wee hours of the morning on the day we were going to eat the goat, John woke up at (actually just stayed awake until) 1 am. John did the quick and hopefully painless deed of a quick slit of the throat of our beloved goat Honey. We chose her because she was the weakest of all the goats and bore kids that were also runts or stillborn at birth. With some help of some of our African friends that John enlisted to help him... they skinned and gutted the goat. And unfortunately in that order.
Usually Africans have a different order of operations as far as preparing meat for consumption. With a goat, they singe the fur on a far to make it easy to remove, and then gut the animal, and don't actually ever skin it (because the skin actually is edible ya know!) But in enlisting their help with the butchering of the goat, John ended up making concessions to the "American Way." But in retrospect he wishes he would have done it "our way." :)
Because we skinned it first before we hung it up, there were tiny microscopic hairs on a lot of the goat's body. John and I spent probably a good hour trying to remove them, because... uhhh gross! We then wrapped it in tin foil followed by banana leaves. John had started a wood fire in the metal drum and we waited till it had burned down to coals. The only problem was that only the top part of the wood turned to coals because the bottom section didn't receive enough oxygen. We were a little worried as we lowered the goat into the barrel at about 4:30 am. The theory behind the pit method is that it cooks low and slow much like a slow cooker... making it nearly impossible to overcook the goat. But is it possible to undercook it? Stay tuned to find out.... :)
Here's the goat with a little garlic, salt, and parsley seasoning sprinkled on it before we wrapped it up.
So our team leader Chad left to visit Chile for a few weeks. He had some business to take care of and hopefully recruiting some more Chilean team members for the work here. As his return date was approaching, John and I decided to butcher one of our goats as a kind of "welcome home" dinner.
John hired a few guys to help him dig a pit in our yard. He bought a 50 gallon metal drum and buried it within our yard. They did cement work around the drum to help insulate the heat. In the wee hours of the morning on the day we were going to eat the goat, John woke up at (actually just stayed awake until) 1 am. John did the quick and hopefully painless deed of a quick slit of the throat of our beloved goat Honey. We chose her because she was the weakest of all the goats and bore kids that were also runts or stillborn at birth. With some help of some of our African friends that John enlisted to help him... they skinned and gutted the goat. And unfortunately in that order.
Usually Africans have a different order of operations as far as preparing meat for consumption. With a goat, they singe the fur on a far to make it easy to remove, and then gut the animal, and don't actually ever skin it (because the skin actually is edible ya know!) But in enlisting their help with the butchering of the goat, John ended up making concessions to the "American Way." But in retrospect he wishes he would have done it "our way." :)
Because we skinned it first before we hung it up, there were tiny microscopic hairs on a lot of the goat's body. John and I spent probably a good hour trying to remove them, because... uhhh gross! We then wrapped it in tin foil followed by banana leaves. John had started a wood fire in the metal drum and we waited till it had burned down to coals. The only problem was that only the top part of the wood turned to coals because the bottom section didn't receive enough oxygen. We were a little worried as we lowered the goat into the barrel at about 4:30 am. The theory behind the pit method is that it cooks low and slow much like a slow cooker... making it nearly impossible to overcook the goat. But is it possible to undercook it? Stay tuned to find out.... :)
Here's the goat with a little garlic, salt, and parsley seasoning sprinkled on it before we wrapped it up.
