On Tender Hooks
In a local Corpus Christi slaughterhouse still warm carcasses of heifers
and steers hang forlornly on stiff J hooks waiting for Charlie Tuner, the
“high priest of tender,” to rock, prick, and roll this meat into the
heavenly bodies the public congregation prays for.
Mr. Tuner, who once served as Mississippi state executioner, where he
“learned the right application of juice to human flesh,” comes with
impressive credentials. In his previous occupation he would zap the
condemned with 4000 volts, turning them into dead meat or barbecue,
depending on what eyewitness are to be believed. During his Mississippi
tenure Tuner pulled the switch 97 times without public outcry or injury to
himself. In the Corpus Christi slaughterhouse he greets dead meat with 400
volts of electrical stimulation and, when the carcass jerks, shudders and
twists in an exaggerated St.Vitus Dance, Tuner knows his magic is working.
The beast meat seems to literally come alive which to Tuner proves the
axiom there is life after death, especially for cows. “I wouldn’t actually
call it a resurrection,” he jokes, “but these critters sure get frisky when
I give them some juice. You might say they are climbing the walls.”
Because of his special talents in the fine art of electrical stimulation,
Tuner is in great demand by both slaughterhouses and prisons, especially in
the South, where the electric chair still rules. He prefers the
slaughterhouse because of the “working conditions and the fact that a lot
more people get to taste the finished product.”
Though a billion rib eye and sirloin steaks are sold each year in the US,
little is known about what makes the meat tender. The traditional view,
that meat marbling is the best indicator of tenderness, doesn’t hold up
under scientific scrutiny. And the $54 billion beef industry is fearful it
will lose market share to the other white meats, such as pigs, chickens,
and pigeons, that are reportedly much more cheerful at death and therefore
more tender to the taste.
One school of thought has it that to produce a gentler meat ranchers have
to be much more gentle in handling the herd. According to Samuel Peacock,
an animal psychiatrist hired by the Square Bear Ranch in Waco, Texas, “cows
are very sensitive creatures. We have long known that cows with marital
problems and demanding owners produce less meat. Moreover, the milk is
usually brown which means the cow is pacing the barn at night.”
Peacock suggests that ranchers dispense with cattle prods, whistling and
four-letter words. He recommends that cows not be slapped on the rump with
rawhide or watched when they relieve themselves. He is adamant that cowboys
should not spit tobacco juice between the eyes of unsuspecting cows--a
popular way to get a cow’s attention.
Peacock goes further. He things cowboys should sing pleasant songs such as
“Get Along Little Doggie” but recognizes that some cows might be offended
by “doggie.” He definitely advises against rap music which will likely
“make the meat tough, angry and decidedly ethnic.” Hip-hop music prompts
the cows to move too fast in a kind of cha-cha motion, thus creating tense
muscles and tough meat. He’s currently testing a medley of tunes from The
Sound of Music in barns across Oklahoma and thinks this music makes for
fatter, more contented cows. Peacock is playing with the idea of showing
the full video of the film to cows right before slaughter. He’s convinced
that Climb Every Mountain would put cows in exactly the right mood for
having their throats slit.
Some ranchers don’t buy the Peacock philosophy. In the interest of tender
chops, some take a more direct approach. Chick Davis of Amarillo, Texas
“eyeballs” his steers to determine how wide they are--the key to the number
of steaks the animals will produce. Davis uses an ultrasound machine that
provides a printout of potential meat production in blood-red,
three-dimension. The challenge to date has been getting the animal into the
machine without using prods and four-letter words. Though this is an
expensive method--$15 for an ultrasound, it has enabled ranchers to weed
out the poor producers and send them to the slaughterhouse early. With
these animals it doesn’t matter if cowboys play rap music and cover them
with tobacco juice because the cows will become dog food--and dogs like
tobacco juice.
Tuner smiles when he contemplates the other methods employed to produce
tender meat. He thinks an element of political correctness and pop
psychology has gotten into the science of animals breeding.” “You can’t
convince me,” he states, “that singing Home on the Range will make a better
burger.”
The high priest of tender believes the war “is lost or won after the
animal has been slaughtered. If you can deliver to the cow enough of a
jolt before rigor mortis sets in, I can guarantee you a tender steak.”
Tuner photographs every carcass with a digital camera permitting potential
buyers to evaluate the color of the steak and thus the degree of
tenderness. Plans are underway to put these photographs on the
Web--tendershockingmeat.com--where major buyers such as restaurant chains,
schools and prisons can look at the quality of the meat before purchase.
Having perfected his craft in two very different but related professions,
Tuner looks for ways to bring his two sets of skills together, for the good
of man and beast. His fantasy is to produce a most tender steak and give it
to someone on death row. He is convinced that the condemned would die a
much more peaceful death of his last meal was from a happy, juicy, tender
cow.
Moreover, after the consumption of such a Happy Meal, Tuner thinks he could
“bring the man down with much less juice and much less smoke. Let’s face
it; burnt flesh is not a pretty picture. It’s not fair to the witnesses.”
“My fondest desire is to treat people on death row as well as we treat cows
before, during, and after slaughter.”
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