Tutors: Bob Corker, Taiamai Corker
August 27-28  2011

9.00am Saturday til 3.pm Sunday, some meals provided.

A practical 2 day workshop to learn home butchering and processing skills for small animals.

As a species we are omnivores, it is only in the last 10-15,000 years (a lot less for some of us) that we have ‘experimented’ with agriculture and grain growing. From an evolutionary point of view we are genetically still very similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors.  Meat, fat, and organ meats are an important part of a healthy diet.   In a culture where there is increasing pressure for us to become vegetarian, it is well to remember that we cannot discard hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and replace traditional diets based on ideologies or commercial  ‘pressures’. As meat production and processing has become increasingly industrialised, for some people, home killing and butchering becomes an important part of safeguarding ones diet. This is a basic course to support you in this.

Purpose
The purpose of the workshop is to demonstrate respectful, effective and efficient ways to kill and process small animals, with simple technology, in preparation for inclusion in your family’s diet.

Major Goals

• Outlining issues of hygiene, diseases, and regulations
• Understanding tools to use, maintenance and sharpening
• General principles of killing
• Killing, skinning and dressing sheep and goats
• Killing and dressing a pig
•  Killing, plucking and dressing poultry
•  Maximising use of offal
• Cutting and preparing meat

You will all have an opportunity to share in the work and then you will learn how to cut up and use almost every part of the animal, from making lard to sausages and bacon.

Meals will be prepared with local organic produce.

You're welcome to bring your own caravan for the Saturday night, or there is a great motorcamp in Wairoa (20 minutes away) that is reasonably priced. Please contact us for further details.

Please bring your own lunch for Saturday, then Dinner, Breakfast and Lunch will be provided.
 
Recommended reading 

Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game 
- John J Mettler
Cold Smoking and Meat Curing - A D Livingston
Nourishing Traditions - Sally Fallon
Change of Heart - the ecology of Nourishing Food - Bob Corker and Kay Baxter
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration   Weston A Price

Websites:
Weston A Price Foundation   www.westonaprice.org