Wanted: Deer Hide and Brains

I decided on the brain tanning virtually the first day of fall semester and bought the tanning book, but had a mild panic attack when trying to figure out how to obtain a hide.  The book suggests getting roadkill, but I didn't want to skin a deer on my own, and I'm not sure if it's even legal in Buffalo.  It also wasn't hunting season yet, so all the salted hides from last year were long gone and I couldn't set up barrels for hunters to give me unwanted bits.  By Thanksgiving it was hunting season, but the meat processing places in New York weren't really playing along.  I think I should've used my deep, hunter-like voice when calling and asking for a hide.  Maybe they would've taken me seriously.  All Thanksgiving I was fretting over how to get the hide, how to get the hide, how to get the hide.  I found out it's illegal to buy/sell a hide in Virginia, so I was at the whims of hunters to just give me one. 

Unwrapping the semi-frozen salted hide.

And then the obvious happened.  You know how your Mom is always finding things for you when you're little? A shoe, a glove, earring, etc.? Well of course my Mom was the one to find a hide for me.  She barely texts but days after T-giving I got a text asking me if I still needed a hide because she found one.  It takes a village to raise a child.  It also takes a village to get that child a hide.  Thanks to Carolyn Bly (Mom's co-worker) and her husband Dickie Bly for letting me have the hide from his deer.  Carolyn literally called Dickie as he was at the meat processors.  Hide interception-success! I practically ran down the school halls with glee from the news!  "Oh that's just Fran running by... She's happy over a deer hide or something."  Mom may have found it, but there was no way she was going to touch it-- the salted hide in an opaque black bag was quickly thrown into our mini fridge (that usually holds Diet Dr. Pepper), awaiting my arrival and appreciation.

The Brains
The maxim goes that an animal has as much brains as needed to tan its own hide, although the brains don't have to come from the same animal as the hide.  I didn't even bother finding deer brains and went straight for pig.
Believe it or not, the brains were actually easier to come by, considering I've got special connections to a happenin' butcher shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (the zoo!) called The Meat Hook.   Not only did I get my brains for free, but I got to extract them myself! And by extract, I mean scoop them out with a spoon.  Ok yeah, it was weird, but it was also awesome and felt like a rite of passage or something (anthropology nerd alert!). 

Matt cutting the first (of three) pig head for me.

Brain exposed.

"Hey bro, good job hitting the sweet spot." "Thanks bro. High five!"



My Dad said he's never seen someone look so happy scooping out brains! (Ok and a little devious, too.)

I got the Meat Hook thumbs-up approval.  I'm the best darn brain scooper they've ever seen.

Thanks to all the cute butchers at The Meat Hook for helping me out and putting up with me while I inappropriately waved around knives and left my work spaces dirty.  I helped out around the shop for two days to "pay" for the brains and to improve my hipster street cred.  I even carried half a pig from the shipment!! (And didn't drop it on the floor, thanks to Matt's tag-team help.)  It took three pigs to reach 13oz. of brain.  I needed half-one pound.  Have really enjoyed all the brain jokes, too.