Who is ready for breakfast? Kellen and Lydia are working on the ingredients to make one heck of a breakfast from scratch. Well, perhaps before scratch. They are participating in the Ham, Bacon, and Eggs program this year that is available to local 4-H and FFA students.
They each took a hog to Rolfe's Custom Meats last week. The guys there got the hogs ready for cutting, and Saturday Tim took the kids to get to work on the bacon and hams. The leaders and the butchers showed the kids how to cut the ham and bacon from one side of the hog. Then the kids cut the other side.
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| Lydia cutting the bacon. |
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After the cutting is done, it time to begin the curing process. Then we wait. There will be another ham salting at the end of month, and several other steps between now and the end of February when the curing process will be complete.
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| Kellen salting a ham. |
Around that time the kids will start collecting the "perfect" dozen of eggs. They will be looking for uniformity of color and size.
The ham, bacon, and eggs will be judged the first week of March, and the project will end with a breakfast where the meats and eggs will be auctioned.
I just love this project, and am so excited the kids are participating this year! The kids are excited too, and enjoyed the cutting of the meats. Kellen was particularly impressed with the large saws that the butcher uses. I can't wait to see how the projects turn out!
I am so glad you shared this. It was not that long ago that you could walk into a meat market in almost any town - and find fresh meat butchered - properly.
ReplyDeleteToday - you go into any grocery store and find chunks of meat. And it's more than obvious. The meat cutter's union that was killed off did a really good thing with their apprenticeship program. Because today - it is a rare occasion when you will find a good steak or roast cut properly.
I am SO HAPPY they have this program for the kids! My husband read this and even HE wishes he could be a part of it! We could open our own meat market here!