the butcher who broke my heart

My job has its perks. Last week they sent me out to visit a free-range duck farm on Long Island with the butcher, the photographer and a few important decision-makers. The ducks were healthy, terribly clean, seemingly happy and surrounded by grass, trees, sunshine, spring water, fresh breezes... all the stuff you'd hope a duck's life would entail.

Sadly, the less uplifting part of the story is that these little guys are a meat commodity. Their lives are short (just a few months) and after their speedy dispatch (a quick cut in the jugular) the ducks get dipped in parafin, stripped of their feathers (which are cleaned and used in pillows and coats) and prepared for sale.

Whole ducks for Chinese markets are prepped "Confucian-style" (whole, organs and all) and frozen, while breasts and legs for standard sale are trimmed by a loyal staff of workers who've been with this family business for years. Tongues and feet are also beloved by the Chinese restaurants, so they're frozen for sale by the pound.

This was such a meticulously clean and efficient farm, I came away with a feeling of satisfaction. My post-vegetarian guilt was assuaged. The ducks have short lives, yes, but their handful of numbered days seem pleasant, unlike the crowded, stifling chicken mills and turkey barns I've had the misfortune of encountering.

The butcher, a self-described "man at the top of his game" with more than thirty years in the business, left the farm shaking his head and sighing. "I hope someday in the future we humans won't have to do this," he said. "It's different when you get the meat on my end. You package it, and it's a product."

"But when you're here and you're looking at them... I mean, this is a beautiful farm, you know? It just seems so barbaric that we have to do this."

In competition for the deeper soul, I was out-hearted by the man who deals in death. I'm still not sure if the water rimming up in my eyes was more about fate of the ducks or my own loss of innocence.