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Lessons in food
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This is in response to the article "Rabbit Butchering Plan Has Some Hopping Mad" (Sept. 27). In particular I disagree that children will only see violence to an animal and blood and will not understand the concept of knowing where your food comes from.
As a small child in the 1940s, I have firsthand experience with this. My parents raised chickens and sold eggs and dressed chickens. I can tell you that "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" is a real concept. I was always there to watch my mother chop off the head of the chicken using a hatchet and a tree stump, then letting it run around until it collapsed. I would not have missed this for anything.
Then, after my father had plucked the feathers, I eagerly watched Mom dress the chicken in our basement. She named all the parts as she cut them out: the gizzard, the heart, the liver. Most fascinating of all was when she cut out the ovary, which looked to me like bright golden grapes on a stalk. And to this day, eggs are one of my favorite foods.
Thanks to my mother I grew up knowing how to cut apart a chicken for cooking and how to handle other meats. When, as an adult, it fell upon me to butcher half of a deer, I did not hesitate. I only feared that it would perhaps smell bad, but, on the contrary, the meat smelled fresh and good.
Children learn from their parents. I believe children need to know where their food comes from.
PAULINE Y. TOMON
Downtown
First Published October 4, 2012 12:00 am
