In this post, Leah spoke about the shechting of the three goats.  Towards the end, she writes,  “I began to wonder at what point during the process did the beautiful goat transform into “meat?”  I am not sure that I can answer that question any more conclusively than Leah, but I want to pick up the story where she left off, as I had the privilege to witness the entire process needed to make the meat kosher, and how it was prepared for cooking.  I also was able to discover what happened to all of the parts that we did not eat for dinner – bones, skin, and the rest of the meat.

As one can imagine, this process involved a lot of work.  Many people asked me about the details, which I am happy to provide here.  At time however this description can be a bit graphic.  Continue below the jump for those that want to read on.

At 7:30, we gathered at the Adamah farm for the shechting (which involved explaining as well as the actual slaughtering).  Once the goat was shechted, some of the Adamah farmers covered it with a tarp, and carried it to an open shed next to the shechting area.  They bent down over the dead animal, and one farmer took an awl and punctured a hole between the bones in each of the goat’s rear legs.  Much later, after this same farmer helped prepare the meat for dinner, he told me that this was the hardest thing for him to do.

Hooks were passed through the holes, and the goat was hung up in the shed. Some of the farmers began to skin the animal, starting from the top (the hind legs) and very carefully and slowly working down to the head.  As the skin pealed away, the goat’s fat, muscles, and meat were exposed.

Next, the shochet came to assist with the opening of the thoracic cavity, as he needed to check the lungs.  An incision was made on the goats back, exposing the stomach and intestines, which began to slip out and were caught in a waiting wheelbarrow.  All Kosher mammals are ruminants – in biblical terms they chew their cud.  This means that they have a four-part stomach, which is very large and very apparent during this process. 

Once those organs were removed, the shochet came and reached into the goat, feeling the
lungs.  As with the shechting, the crowd was quieted, as the shochet had to concentrate.  He removed his hands and announced that the lungs were perfect – the animal was “glatt.”  The concern is that kosher animals are not supposed to have any disease.  If one has a bad cough, they can develop lesions on the lungs.  Glatt kosher animals are required to have smooth lungs, with no lesions.  Animals can still be kosher but not glatt, but as the kitchen at Isabella Freedman only accepts Glatt Kosher meat, this was an important step.  The shochet checked all three goats, and they were all perfect.  He later remarked to Aitan, the goat herder, that it was apparent that the goats were well raised and cared for – he could tell by the lungs.

At this point, the organs were all removed.  We kept some of the livers, kidneys, and hearts for consumption.  The heads of the goats were completely removed (having only been cut half-way in the shechting).  The goats were then cut between the 9th and 10th ribs – separating the hind quarters from the front of the body.  The concern is two biblical prohibitions – one cannot eat the sciatic nerve or the fats around the internal organs,which had to be burned on the altar.  The sciatic nerve is apparently easy to remove.  However, the fats that surround the kidneys extend throughout the meat on the hindquarters.  In order to eat this meat, all of that fat must be removed, a delicate and time-consuming process.  While there are some shochets who are trained to do this, it is rare.  Throughout this entire process in the shed, about 25 people remained, who continued to ask questions to the shochet and the mashgiach.

At this time it was 9:30.  Each of the three goats therefore provided two front legs and a ribcage.  There were wrapped in bags and transfered to one of the cars, and we drove to the greenhouse at the retreat center, where we had a table waiting for the rest of the process.  The entire kashering process for meat is concerned with another biblical prohibition – one is allowed to eat meat, but not the blood.  The first step was to remove the veins of the animal, for they are filled with blood.  This too was performed by the shochet, with the help of the butcher, who had just arrived.  The butcher also cut all the meat off of the ribcage, and cut the neck off as well.

We then had to soak all the meat in water for 30 minutes.  We had six legs, 3 rib cages, 3 necks, and a pile of meat which we had already cut off, which began to soak at 10:40.  At 11:10, the water in the containers had to turned red as the blood had been extracted.  We then covered each piece in kosher salt – called that because it is needed to absorb the blood that is left in the meat.  Each piece was completely covered and laid out to air for one hour.  At 12:15, we returned to find that the color of the meat had changed dramatically – it was not nearly as vibrant of a red, as all of the blood was now removed.  The mashgiach helped rinse off each piece – as the blood is now in the salt, we have to be meticulous to remove each grain of salt.

The mashgiach held the meat, one person hosed them down, and then they were passed to me, who had to dunk them in two separate vats of water.  As I pulled it out of the second vat, the meat was officially kosher, and was handed back to the butcher.  It was 12:30, less than 5 hours after the goats had been shechted.  At this point, the shochet and the mashgiach had completed their jobs and started to head home.

The rest of the process was now concerned with making our newly-kosher goat meat edible and tasty.  Goat meat is very tough, and ideally should age for a bit before cooking.  Not having that luxury, we were going to parboil the meat – that is, boil the pieces for about 2 minutes to tenderize it.  So, we put all the pieces into crates and took them to a kitchen, were we boiled a large pot of water seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg.  Each
piece was parboiled, and by 1:15 we were back in the greenhouse, for the final preparations.

Since there is so little meat on goat (and these were pasture-raised dairy goats, so they had less than your conventional meat goat) we decided to have a roast, and not sure the bones.  The butcher now removed the meat from the legs that we had.  Meanwhile, our master goat chef (the same farmer who had to puncture the tendons to hang up the goat just after it was shechted) made a concoction of cumin, turmeric, garam masala, lemon juice, olive oil, and other spices.  With the butchers help they piled the meat into a roast and stuffed it with pieces of garlic (from the Adamah field of course).  The three goats provided enough meat to make 5 roasts – each about 1 foot in length.  They were placed in pans on a bed of onions, and covered in more olive oil.  I helped carry one of the trays to the kitchen, where I handed it to the chef, with instructions to add some wine and cover it before cooking.  It was 2:10, in time for it to be cooked before Shabbat started two hours later.

Back in the greenhouse, the butcher started to help the goat herder and some other farmers who do not keep kosher in cutting up the hindquarters for them to take home.  The rib cages and the necks which were kashered but not used were going to to towards a stock.  Throughout this entire process other Adamah farmers were working in the other side of the greenhouse in tanning the pelts.  This involved scraping any sinews off of the inside and treating them with various agents.  One of these agents is actually fluid from the brain (it seems that – rather miraculously – one brain has enough fluid to cure one pelt).

At 6:00, we were called into the kitchen to prepare the meat for dinner.  Each roast was placed on a cutting board, where we began cutting it.  The result were two large platters of goat meat, which the kitchen garnished with greens.  We had a bowl of gravy as well.  Before the meat was served, a short kavanah – intention – was recited, to put us in the correct mindset. I sat down to dinner with goat meat on my plate at 7:30.  It had been twelve hours since the goat had died.

How did it taste?  At bit tough, but very much like shwarma (we used very similar spices).  It was good, and it was unfortunate that I only had a small amount.

So when did it become “meat” – I am really not exactly sure.  When we were de-veining, soaking, and salting, it was still more goat than meat to me. But once we had removed all the meat from the bone and started to prepare the roasts, there was no question it was now meat.

*The picture in this post was taken by Karl Schatz.  It shows the mashgiach, Rabbi Seth Mandel, checking to make sure the knife is sharp enough and unblemished.