Day 98: In Praise of Beef

By Adelaide Tam, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 29 October 2017

How does a cow got slaughtered? How does it become a piece of meat that I can find in the supermarket? I had this question since two years ago when I had Food Chain as the topic for my study in Man and Food Department. We initiated a visit to a slaughterhouse which located in the north part of Eindhoven. Since then I was amazed by the process of slaughtering.

During my internship in the Kingdom of Ciptagelar, locates in the West Java, Indonesia, I get the chance to explore the primitive way of slaughtering cow. Different from the modern way that I have seen in the Netherlands, the action was showing step by step, of how a cow deconstructed.

My intention for the 100 Days of Learning workshop, was to share the process of slaughtering that I have seen in the Netherlands and also Indonesia, which every cow had to be gone through to become meat.

By preparing a beef salad together with the participant, we discussed how’s the slaughtering process is disconnected from the modern society, and how to link it back to our daily life.

“The hope of animal tomorrow is to find in human culture which to learn and feel beyond itself. ” I am now still in the process of learning and feeling the welfare of the animal. I hope I can build a better future for the animal.