Interview:
Head Butcher in Charge
words by Geo Peck written for Fat Girl Food Squad
It has been well established now that head chefs who happen to be women are officially “A Thing”. An awesome thing, as the old boys club that professional kitchens used to be is a relic of the past. But what about all the rest of the ladies who are busting their asses behind the scenes? Women are not only running more kitchens than ever before, but they are part of the backbone of the culinary industry. They are scrubbing pots, hoisting boxes of produce, and if you are Mo, dismantling whole animal carcasses. Mo Morrison-Brandeis is the head butcher at Stock-in-Trade in Toronto, and I met up with her over drinks for a chat about how badass her career is and what it’s like being a women in a job traditionally held by men. I’ve paraphrased our conversation here:
Did you choose this career specifically or did you just fall into it?
I grew up in a family that really cared about food, so it was always something on my mind. At one point I ended up being miserable after moving to Montreal, so I came back to Toronto to finish up high school with a culinary co-op program that landed me at Sanagan’s Meat Locker. After enjoying my stay there, I figured I was either going to end up cutting hair or cutting meat. I actually grew up vegetarian, and after eating beef I felt alive and healthy for the first time!
Have you experienced any discrimination based on your gender in this job?
I’ve been lucky in this industry. The second head butcher at Sanagan’s was female, so working under her was good for my education because the expectations were higher for me. I had to do everything that everybody else did. I have heard about other women working in older butcher shops having a bad time, and there will be a degree of misogyny in almost all industries. But much like restaurants, the climate is changing. It might be weird for other people though, I have a bad habit of winking at people while I’m stuffing sausages.
Does your job make you feel empowered at all?
I’m very proud of the work that I do. I am always so focused on thinking and theory, so I think it is great for me to have a job where I work with my hands and am able to get out of my own head. It also just feels great to be able to feed people using local food, and to be able to make creations with local ingredients like apples and garlic scapes. Although it does feel badass to hack apart an animal, I am bringing a lot of female energy and I don’t work in a brutalist way. This meat comes from an animal and we need to respect that and treat them with care. It may look bad ass to be covered in blood at the end of the day, but it mostly just feels to good to know that my body is capable of doing such important work.
Do people from outside the industry judge you for what you do?
I often get people saying things like “Oh my God, that’s so crazy!” or they don’t believe I do certain things that I do, like cutting up whole animals with a hand saw. When at work people often ask if I need help carrying things by myself. Men at bars often ask me to arm wrestle them to prove myself when I tell them what I do for a living. It is also frustrating when people within the industry question my authority, I guess I don’t really look like what a butcher is “supposed to look like.” The delivery people when they come to the shop only want to speak with the owners, who happen to be men, and they strictly refer to me as “sweetheart”. The co-op student we got at the shop wouldn’t listen to a thing I said, needless to say we failed him.
Last and most important question: what is your favorite cut?
Typical butcher answer: hangar steak.