At The Macello

I’m in an all white room trying to discern what piece of the cow is hanging on the wall when an eye-ball stares blankly out of its socket and answers my question.

Regrouping for a moment, I ask Iris, “What part of the head do you use?”

“Tongue and cheek.” She wasn’t joking.

It’s the second to last week before the macello closes for business. The clean work rooms are void of employees; the organically run slaughter-house cannot afford to keep employees. Short of an on-site butcher, Iris is forced to process her slaughtered cow - now referred to as lot 03699025 - herself. This is an assignment she does not enjoy as the phrase “poor cow” is often repeated.

In a large meat locker, a couple dozen -

(“What’s the English term for dead cow body?” I ask my non-native English speaking friend while I pause my typing.
“Corpse” Maria answers quickly.
“No, that’s what you call a dead body.”
“But that’s what you said! ‘dead cow body’ - ‘cow corpse’.”
“Fine!” I resume typing.)

.. a couple dozen cow corpses are suspended. A smaller room stores the pieces we are to slice and vacuum seal, notably the stomach lining, heart, and liver.

After working on lot 03699025, Iris explains that those who have raised and butchered a cow tend to have more respect for the animal than those who simply buy a steak at the supermarket. The small organically run macello is not a place I’d chose to hang-out at, but as with my experience during Pig Week, I felt honored to have witnessed the wholesome principles it embodies.

Iris takes us to a contemporary café for a break. I stare at the wide-screen TV on the wall. A beautiful model swooshes her beautiful shinny auburn hair in a commercial for shampoo. I wonder if the shampoo consumer also buys steak.