How many people ideal for processing?

[sonew123]

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I always took it to mean the entire process of cleaning a carcass to prepare it as food, including skinning or plucking, gutting, and whatever clean-up or trimming may be needed. But I could be mistaken, maybe dressing is separate from the rest of the butchering process.I always thought dressing was an odd term for it, because it's more like undressing.

yes-thats what I was thinking too

Or dressed as in processed and pre-filled with stuffing! haha

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I just mean "dressing" as gutting....like you "field dress" a deer you gut it.

 

[dancingbear]

When you field dress a deer, it's called field dressing because you're out in the field or woods somewhere, and you can't really do the entire process where you are. That's why the modifier "field" is added, you're just doing a basic quick gutting, before you haul the beast off to where you'll finish dressing it. The reason you go ahead and field dress is partly so the meat won't get strong, you remove the scent glands on the back legs (at least that's what my DH says, I don't know if that's really correct. Nothing I've read about dressing a deer ever said anything about scent glands, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt anything, to cut out whatever those things are he cuts out) but mostly to get rid of some of the weight, those deer are heavy, and a heck of a lot harder to move if you don't gut them first. Even gutted, they aren't easy to move, I've helped DH load a few in the truck, and helped hang them to skin and clean.

But anyway, as for what dressing really means, I wasn't sure so I looked it up:
Definition #10. To clean (fish or fowl) for cooking or sale.

They don't say anything about plucking/scaling, but that's part of cleaning. I don't think it matters if you use "dress" to mean only the gutting and cleaning part, or for the whole enchilada.

Good grief, what a bunch of nit-pickers we can be sometimes! (Including myself!) Welcome to club OCD.

 

[sonew123]

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Thank you for looking that up! Yup on OCD I just want to make sure I don't not talk about something and use the wrong wording...LOL

 

[lacasitarojafarm]

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That's the best part!

 

[aggieterpkatie]

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I know what field dressing deer is.

And we do it so they're lighter, and also to help them cool faster (because the intestines hold a good bit of heat). I've never heard a hunter talk about removing scent glands.

I personally use the term "dress". Some use "gut", some use "eviscerate", etc. It doesn't really matter. I like to say "dress" because when you "dress (yes, in the field)" a deer, you're removing the intestines.

 

[Beekissed]

The removal of scent glands is so that there will be no chance of glandular secretions touching the meat....these secretions have a very strong odor during the rut, or mating season, and can cause the meat to have a bad flavor. If you even use the same knife to remove these glands and then proceed to gut the deer you can spread this flavor to the meat.

A lot of people don't realize just how potent these glandular oils can be and then often complain that their deer meat has a "gamey" flavor when they have used the same knife for all the jobs of dressing the deer....dressing the deer is the whole process of gutting, skinning and cleaning the carcass for processing.

A lot of people do not realize that the oil gland at the base of the chicken's, duck's, geese, or turkey's, tail has a very strong glandular secretion and smell also and can cause a bad flavor to the meat as well.

 

[dancingbear]

Yes, you're right, cooling the carcass faster is another reason, in addition to the weight, for the field dressing. We've butchered hogs, too, same thing. Those big animals do hold a lot of heat.

I've never noticed any strong scent from the oil glands on the tails of chickens and turkeys. I've forgotten to remove them sometimes, cooked the bird, and there was no difference. I've even bitten into them after the bird was cooked, they feel weird, an unpleasant sort of greasy-grainy-waxy feel, but no particular flavor or smell. They peel right out after they're cooked, BTW, just 2 little oval pellets. I don't think the oil glands on birds have as much to do with scent, as scent glands do on mammals.

I have had gamy deer that other people have dressed, but the ones we've done ourselves were all good. Maybe because Del cuts out those glands on the legs.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought anybody didn't know what field dressing was. What I meant was that the phrase "field dressing" didn't mean dressing was limited to gutting, just because field dressing is usually limited to gutting. I wasn't very clear with my meaning.