beast feaster on tv

i received an email a while ago from a lady who said she worked for a tv company based in london and they were looking for audience members for a series about attitudes towards meat. after a pleasant exchange of emails i was introduced to a sultry sounding lady named stephanie who told me more about the program - it was a program called 'kill it, cook it, eat it' and is recording for it's second series for bbc3.

our phone calls continued and it transpired that the show would be focusing on kid goats (yes, i have already feasted upon goat but this would be a valuable chance to broaden my mind) and would also be looking into the whole process from field to fork (slaughter, butchering and cooking). i finally had word from work that i could take the day off for filming. good news! i also requested the presence of one of my meat mates - stevie g - which was granted. a few days later, a letter landed on my doorstep and i opened it to see the train tickets to manchester and our reservations at a 4* hotel in oldham. apparently they were paying for everything. score. stevie g met me at the tube stop near to where i worked, and we made our way to euston to catch our train..

a few guinness on the train and much marvelling at how much countryside was still present in england, our train staggered into manchester piccadilly, me with comedy tiny suitcase and stevie g with a hankering for a sandwich. steph and friend (who will be fuming as she reads this at the neglect to my remembrance of her name) met us at the station and transported us to our hotel in a vehicle akin to a transformer, which nearly ate me as i placed my suitcase into the boot and steph 'slipped' on the remote control. as i narrowly missed my head being torn from my body by the boot i reflected on the few meats i had eaten and sighed resignedly that i would fail my task if i were dead, as it gave a certain impedance to any such project. you'll be glad to know i didn't die, thanks to the dept thinking of stevie g saying "watch out there lad". anyway, enough of this melodrama and on with the yarn.

we got to our hotel room, which was rather cosy, and immediately got down to boiling up a brew and starting the assault on room service. literally three hours later our ordered chicken tikkas arrived, but rather cunningly disguised as steak baguettes and chips. they even tasted like steak baguettes and chips, but you have to keep an open mind when you're out of your comfort zone, and being in manchester was firmly out of mine. conversation turned to what we might expect of the day to follow and i knew in my heart already i was going to scoff the freshly despatched goats without a flicker of emotion. i already had plans to lick my lips as i met the creatures. that might seem cold but, well, it is yes - you're right. despicable.

i arose to find the above picture on my phone, the sneaky stevie g had been up some time and indulged in a shower and photographing the sleeping beast feaster, for shame! gladly i will report this was the only photo he had taken. we marched through the hotel to find our complimentary breakfast, and i was happy to see croissants and as much orange juice i could drink. i even dabbled in the buffet fried breakfast, but made sure i had a kid goat shaped space left for later. we traveled via transformer car to the studio, which was bolted onto the side of a slaughterhouse. i am saddened to say that i wasn't allowed to take any photos of inside the studio and of the meat, so my last photo is a sneaked picture of what we were greeted with when we got down to the studio/set. anyway, when we got to this marquee we were harangued by the camera crew and i rather nervously tried to plug beast feaster. i bet they edit it out.

so after the micro-interviews of the marquee we were led into the studio and sat on the front row with a couple who were, gladly, meat eaters. the studio was increasingly hot throughout the day, and since i had worn a jacket over a hoodie (it was cold) and couldn't take it off after filming started lest i mess up their continuity, it was fairly warm. the presenter was going through a few set pieces and stuff, and the filming process took a long time. i was pretty much sat around, albeit it at the front for maximum camera action, sweating - tv is glamorous! a discussion with the audience members ensued, but i relented giving any opinions as it was all a bit intense. anyone who spoke on the front row immediately had 6 massive cameras rushed up to their face and a big microphone hustled below view, whilst the presenter pressed them for any sign of controversial opinion. i knew eventually they would work their way to me and i would like to take this moment to say i was shitting myself.

eventually it got to the time in the day where we would be meeting the goats, and promptly saying goodbye. outside you could hear the goats making noise, which seemed to upset people. even i was feeling a little saddened, but i gave myself a mental slap for humanising the animals, which is far too easy to do. a woman broke down into tears and exclaimed she couldn't watch it happen, and was considering going vegetarian. nothing had even happened! psh. anyway, four goats were led in and the abattoir workers began their gruesome but necessary task. a stun gun-esque device was triggered at the back of a goats head and it was gone. chains hooked around its feet, it dangled upside down and moved over a bath. another worker took his knife and with a sharp and smooth stroke, blood poured everywhere. after a couple of goats were processed this way, their bodies moved onto a table where a particularly skilled worker cut off the hooves and tidied the body up for another worker to remove the skin, head and guts. then we had lunch.

after a tasty lunch we went back inside to watch the butchering take place. john the butcher is possibly the happiest person on the planet and is skilled in butchery. after watching him cleave, snip and fillet things he, and his two apprentices, mounted a carcass onto a spit for roasting. the other 6 carcasses were out back on their own spits too. some more audience banter began and i thought i had escaped having to make myself look foolish on tv. suddenly, the presenter had turned her gaze to me and gave a little intro/question about beast feaster. i was pretty nervous with all the cameras in my face and i haven't got a clue what i said, so i'm expecting myself to look stupid. one thing i do remember was her pretty much shouting out the question "would you ever eat a puppy?!" at me, to which i replied "errrrrrrm.... no?" in a not-quite-certain of myself tone. from then til now i'm still not sure if i would eat a puppy. if i was stuck on 51 animals next april then i'm pretty sure i would. chomp.

so yeah, that pretty much rounds the day up, except for the eating of the goat. to be honest, it was cooked pretty badly and was fairly chewy and slippery. there were some good pieces that were tender and delicious, but the rest was a bit floppy. i suppose it didn't help that whilst cutting/chewing/drinking/anything there was a camera constantly in my face. and i mean about 10 centimetres from my face. that made eating rather hard.

in summary:
kid goat - good if cooked well.
knowing how my meat got from the field to my face - reassuringly humane, though actually watching it was odd. a grim reality i suppose. though i say all this and yet how can one be sure meat had gone down that route? i suppose some people can be ignorant to reality if they read something on a packet somewhere and just believe it.
being on tv - petrifying. you can all see how petrified i am when it airs, the date being either november or january. when i find out i'll post it here.

oh and just an extra side note, i am now moved into my new house and have everything installed so expect the last few months of this year to be an absolute meat-fest for the beast feaster. though do also wish me luck as i have started my dissertation - examination of gene sequence identified by lentivirus insertions in mouse tumour dna. tasty.