Berlin Reed - The Ethical Butcher: How Thoughtful Eating Can Change Your World

How Thoughtful Eating Can Change Your World

BERLIN REED

Soft Skull Press

an imprint of COUNTERPOINT | BERKELEY

Copyright 2013 Berlin Reed

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication is available.

ISBN 978-1-59376-556-9

Cover Design: Jeff Miller at Faceout Studio

Photography: Alison Picard

Interior Design: Sabrina Plomitallo-Gonzlez,

Neuwirth & Associates

Soft Skull Press

An Imprint of Counterpoint

1919 Fifth Street

Berkeley, CA 94710

www.softskull.com

Distributed by Publishers Group West

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For Jackie, my partner-in-revolution~

In you I have found a graceful fighter who understands the value of looking fly while changing the world. It is my pleasure to say my dream girl is a Nightmare Woman. Heres to shaking the world until theres room for everyone.

For Daviana~

From the first time I held you, I knew you were a gift from the stars. Be unapologetic in your uniqueness, do whatever makes you feel whole, and never listen to people who stopped dreaming long ago. This world is yours.

For my Oma~

Nothing in my life would have been possible without the love, guidance, protection and hope that youve given me. You taught me to be brave, proud and honest and most thankfully, to enjoy feeding the hearts of the ones I love and pour myself into my work.

Youve always asked me to write your life story, I promise this is only the beginning.

For Angela, Ally, Mieke, Simona, and Jessie ~

In vastly different ways, you have each left indelible imprints on my road map.

I am thankful for your light along the way, for I would have been lost without it. Our paths may have diverged, but I am assured of the worth of our encounters. I hope that your travels lead you to the fulfilled destiny for which your talents have prepared you.

and

In lasting memory of Tupac Amaru Shakur.

In archetypal terms, Berlin Reed is a Seekersomeone who always believes it is possible to find a deeper level of truth and a truer expression of that truth. This spirit guides Berlins work and his very unusual path. This book explains a lot of what Berlin thinks and a lot of what Berlin does and leaves us anxious to share who Berlin is. But the best way for us to say that is to share a bit of the context for Berlin, which will hopefully say something true about him.

We are the founders of The Butchers Guild. Our membership is a national network of butchers (duh) who practice whole animal butchery. This means they buy meat in an entire carcass with some regularity to prepare in their restaurants or to sell in their shops or at a farmers market. And in our prefab food industry, if you are buying a whole carcass, it probably means you are buying from a local farm. So our members also tend to be advocates for rich, local food communities. They generally know the names of the ranches in the area; they can tell you what squashes are in season or how the weather has affected their watershed. They are sensitive butchers in the sense that they are sensitive to their place in an environment and a community. Their work is bigger than a paycheck; it means more than showing up. And Berlin may be the most sensitive of all these sensitive butchers.

In the Seeker spirit, Berlin is a bit of a wanderer. We have shared meals together in Portland; San Francisco; New York; Grass Valley, California; and in rural southern Oregon. He has committed years to connecting this idea of a context to food by showing people their own beauty. Part of the pleasure of community is that it makes it obvious what you have to share. When Berlin hosts an event, it is a gathering centered on the food producers and craftspeople, generally in their own sweet settings. Sometimes the guests have provided meat; sometimes an herb liqueur. Often they bring their appreciation. When you are raising pigs or are behind a kitchen door all day, to be seen and thanked and reveled in is a quenching experience. Berlin exhibits a raw generosity of the limelight; hes both a star and a supporting character all at once. As people who find our own deepest joy in helping others shine and connect, we see a kindred soul in Berlins instincts.

Food is the subject, the object, the verb. It is our lens. It is Berlins megaphone. In many ways, he is the most radical of our members and our friends. But in the universal, deep-down way, he is simply using food to tell you that you are beautiful and you are the truest expression of this beautiful earth.

Marissa Guggiana and Tia Harrison

Cofounders of The Butchers Guild

November 2012

My hand was steady, but my head was spinning. Billys eyes were two fixed, cloudy marbles. I traced the topography of the outstretched goat carcass before me with my eyes, then with my hands. When you are so acutely aware of every choice that led you to the present moment, thoughts swirl in the mind. In these moments, for better or worse, we are made most human. The air is charged with energy, caught somewhere between construction and destruction. Kairos. The ancient Greeks used this word to distinguish these watershed moments from chronos and its linear description of time. Billy pushed me onto a path I didnt know I was looking for, and even as I stared into his glazed gaze knowing I was in for a transformation, I had no idea this path existed or where it would lead me.

Just a couple of weeks earlier, my mentor butcher, Bryan Mayer, and I had cut the first whole animal we had ever bought for the shop we ran in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. We had chosen a goat as our first foray into whole animal butchery because it was something new for our customers, who were used to the common selection of beef, pork, and chicken. Goats appeared to be an accessible challenge for us, two new butchers who had never cut any whole animal larger than a chicken. These young goats seemed like an easy feat for a couple of first-timers.

Bryan and I had a brotherly learning dynamic, as he had begun butchering only months before I did. We both fell in love with butchery and spurred each other on in our learning. For days we had been using Cabrito!Spanish for goat kidwith each other as a greeting. Exuberantly obnoxious high fives were often involved.

While Bryan sharpened the knives and cleared our work space, I ran down to get our goat friend. Like most New York food businesses, our storage was downstairs, under those death trap steel doors in the sidewalk. Trudging up and down stairs carrying a 110-pound beef leg on my shoulder, Id startle even hardened Brooklynites as I emerged from the basement, weaving through pedestrians walking to and from the C, F, and G trains, all of which had entrances just feet away from our door. Though less imposing, the slack-tongued goat carcass got even more horrified amusement than the gams of beef usually commanded.

As was typical for the days when Bryan would teach me a new technique, I sat on the counter behind him, craning and stooping to see as he cut and talked. This often meant that I learned new techniques by either peering down from my perch above his shoulders or peeking below when I could see into that triangle of space between his arms and torso. In this case, as Bryan was learning as he cut, it was more of the mystified blind leading the mystified blind. I cant honestly say that I saw too much that day, but our shared enthusiasm at just the presence of this carcass was transformative. Once Bryan had made it through the cutting, we were both so excited about this milestone that we agreed the skull had to be saved for posterity. It was rightfully his, since he had done the cutting and dreamed of making a goat head cheese. Lucky for me, though, he was planning to leave the city for a few days and agreed to let me keep the skull.