The Class | Blood Moon Goobie

[NeonFoxPaw]

Entry for this Gentleman

The Class of Utilization

TW: Contains Animal Death, Gore (discussion of how to cook certain edible organs and butchering of an animal)

This is an educational fiction written on the utilization of the entire animal. This is not for the faint of heart for it's educational material.

A/N: The story is in its writing phase and has only been spell and grammar checked.

Art:

[NeonFoxPaw]

The Class of Utilization

Characters Used:
Judas Abaddon (Blood Moon Goobies)
Ellie Abaddon

Part 1:

Looking around the corridor I sneak into my brother's fancy demonstration classroom with a couple other of his actual students. Trying to act natural I find a seat in the middle of the classroom to help blend in with the crowd. Barely a minute later my brother, Judas, comes marching in with a large cooler and sets it down on the demo table. He rolls up his sleeves and adjusts his shirt collar before clearing his throat.

“Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the utilization course. I am Mr. Abaddon and today we'll be breaking down the use of Lepus americanus, otherwise known as the snowshoe hare. Now in case anyone thinks this is a cute class about animals, you're wrong, and I recommend leaving before I start the demonstration,” Judas states while taking a brief look around the room.
Slouching down and suddenly finding my desk interesting I tried to avoid him spotting me as a few students got up and left. After a minute a sudden clap is heard and my eyes return to him in slight surprise.

“Well everyone let's get started.” He opens the cooler taking out different tools and a brown paper bag. “ Let's go over the tools I have with me today as this demonstration will be a multi-day job. I have here a sharp filet knife, a butcher knife, a couple of bowls, a bucket, salt, alum powder, yes it's the seasoning kind of alum powder, a couple of seasonings, a cooktop, and cooking utensils which I'll name once we get to that part,” says Judas as he organizes the demo table and put the blue cooler down onto the floor next to him. He swiftly grabs an apron from his work bag and ties it on.

“I'll retell what I said to those yesterday for anyone new here today. First I'll be showing you how to skin the rabbit for its hide, then how to cook the rabbit and any edible organs, known as offal, furthermore I'll teach you how to tan the rabbit hide and finally what to do with the bones of the rabbit,” Judas takes out what was in the brown paper bag showing it to be a fluffy white and brown hare,” Now I caught the rabbit the night before and kept it in a cold area to prevent bacteria from getting to it. I had caught it with a snare that I had set up on a rabbit trail, but for those who own farm rabbits, you can easily give it a merciful death with a quick movement that breaks its neck. Otherwise known as being a bad rabbit Chiropractor, if you want to think about it more humorously to cope with the death,” states Judas as he smooths down the long fur on the rabbit before laying it on its back and grabbing the slim filet knife.

“Firstly I'll tell you there are different ways of skinning a rabbit, but for today I'll be showing you case skinning. I use a filet knife for my work, but any sharp thin blade works just the same. Now you wanna start at the hind legs and cut around the ankle on each leg. Now be careful to only cut the skin and not the muscles as that'll make the meat tough. After that, you want to start a new cut on the back of the legs that meets near the anus. Be careful you cut around the anus without puncturing the tissue. Next, you try to slip the tail out of the tail casing, but it's not too important if you accidentally damage it unless you plan to use the fur for taxidermy, but that's for a different class. Now after that's all cut you can start gently pulling the hide down the body as the connective tissue on rabbits isn't super hard to break. Usually, you can keep pulling it down till you get to the front legs and that's where you want your knife again to help cut around the front ankles and keep tugging till the front legs are free from the rest of the hide. Then comes the hardest part, cutting around the head. Most people stop here when butchering a rabbit as most only want the pelt and the meat. This is where we are gonna stop because we're only tanning for the pelt. To make the final few cuts you're gonna wanna cut around the neck carefully to avoid the arteries in the neck and split the cased hide down the middle of the stomach,” Judas says as he runs his blade down the middle just like he instructed. Setting down the knife he folds the fur in half keeping the skin to skin. He grabs the bucket and fills it with a couple of gallons of water before turning back towards us while also grabbing some measuring cups.

“Now I have filled my bucket with two gallons of water and with these measuring cups I'll measure a cup of both alum powder and salt individually to add to the water to make the necessary tanning solution. Normally with a hide you have to flesh them before tanning, but rabbits tend to be a special case where you can peel off the extra membrane once you get to the drying stage,” Judas mixes the solution in the bucket before grabbing the pelt on the counter and dropping it into the chemical soup,” now that the pelt is not n the solution you wanna mix it at least once a day for about 9 to 10 days. We'll pick up on the tanning part later next week. Now we can get to the butchering section of today's lesson,” states Judas as he moves the bucket to the corner of the room to probably be forgotten about till after class when he brings that stinky bucket home like usual.

He walks back towards the rabbit and grabs his butcher's knife along with a bowl. He lays the rabbit onto its back once more on the cutting board before saying,” Farm rabbits taste different than wild rabbits as with farm rabbits you can bleed them like chickens right after processing them. The taste difference is just the gaminess of the meat which can be remedied with a soak in salt water or tomato juice. Moving on, I work with a butcher's knife for my work as I'm used to this blade, but I recommend a smaller sharper blade than what I'm using. Firstly, we must remove the parts that aren't edible for us, such as the head and feet. The feet can be mummified for charms or dehydrated for canines to eat as a snack. The head you can't do much with besides letting life have its way with it till you have a clean skull, that can be used decoratively. Anyway, we must find the joints in the ankles to cut around and pop out of place for easier removal. For the head, I recommend finding a space between separate spinal columns and doing a quick strong chop if you have a cleaver, but you can also cut around the columns and do what you did with the ankles,” Judas says as he makes an aggressive chop down onto the neck for a quick clean cut. He moves those bits aside revealing a now furless rabbit that's starting to kind of look like a chicken.

“Next we are to gut the animal carefully to not puncture the organs, for it can ruin the meat if we accidentally nic the intestines. It doesn't take much pressure to cut off a rabbit as the muscles on the stomach are practically non-existent. Starting right below the rib cage gently glide your blade to the anus,” his blade glimmers in the harsh fluorescent lights as it glides across the pale muscle, revealing deep ruby and garnet colors from within,” After we have access to the body cavity all you have to do is use your hand to gently scrape out the organs into a bowl, all the way from the chest down to its hind end. It's okay to give the trachea and esophagus a gentle yank to dislodge it from the neck. If needed make small cuts around the anus, being careful not to cut the intestines with it, and plop the organs into a bowl. We'll get back to those in just a minute,” Judas says as he gently shovels the previous owner's life system into a stainless steel bowl.

Not paying him my full attention I watch as he continues to instruct what to do next. He brings the now empty carcass over to the sink and rinses it off under running water to remove any bits of hair and blood still clinging to it. Like the last remnants of something unique to itself. He lays it down and starts sharing that rabbits don't have a connective front shoulder joint similar to deer as he makes the necessary cuts to portion the animal. Before I knew it my brother was done butchering the rabbit into nine different pieces. Seven edible portions and two stock portions.

“Now that we have the meat butchered we can now go through edible organs and how to prepare them,” announces Judas with a clap of his hands.

[NeonFoxPaw]

Notice:
This probably won't be finished anytime due to a family friend passing and familial matters. Thank you for reading this so far! This will be finished one day, even if I don't win since this is a good practice for my writing in dialogue. They passed on the 17th so this was a late notice.