Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell.

In Kyrgyzstan the sheep is a way of life.  A culture whose favorite meat is mutton, almost any large gathering will have boiled sheep, handicrafts are made from wool along with their yurts, they also have children’s game played with the knees from sheep chuko.  In the village wealth is measured in the amount of sheep or other livestock you own, at the animal bazar you choose a sheep by the amount of fat it has in its butt.  People go to the lush mountain valleys in summer to graze their sheep and other livestock.  Sheep play a huge role in Kyrgyz life and culture so this blog is dedicated to my least favorite animal in Kyrgyzstan. The Sheep. 

I have come to despise sheep.  The meat is gross, smelly, tough, and very fatty.  There are sheep feces everywhere I go.  I go on a hike 3 hours into the mountains and there is sheep poop, I go to a beautiful beach on the lake and there is sheep poop everywhere.  You can not escape it.  Every large gathering I go to there is boiled sheep, the jokes about me eating the slices of sheep fat have not stopped after a year, locals insist that I eat the fat and intestines so I become strong.  You would think after a year of me refusing to eat slices of pure sheep fat my Kyrgyz family would get bored of trying to get me to eat it, but no they have not.  Sheep also create traffic problems crossing the road en masse and until very recently (this year) the jail time for stealing a sheep in Kyrgyzstan was more than stealing a woman to be your wife.  I don’t now if I mentioned it but I hate sheep! 

This blog will not be about my hatred of this animal though.  It will be about the process of how the sheep goes from grazing to being on a plate in front of you for dinner.  It will be bloody, graphic and gross (just be happy you don’t get to experience the smells that go along with the actual process).  I’m hoping to prepare my parents for their upcoming visit.

1. Get a sheep.  Many people have and raise sheep.  If you don’t own them you will buy one either from a friend or neighbor in the village or from an animal bazar in a larger town.  From asking around the going price for a full grown sheep is about in the 3000-5000 som range (60-100 dollars) depending on how fat it is etc…

2. Tie it up.  Sheep are small but like any creature with a dull knife next to it’s neck it will fight back.  Usually one rope around the hooves is plenty.  To tie it up you simply flip the sheep on its back, grab the legs and tie them together.  From this point you are ready for the slaughter.

3. Omean (sp.)  Omeaning is the equivalent to saying a prayer.  For this part the women, kids, and men will come together for a quick prayer followed by the words omean.  They do this before any kind of animal slaughter.

4..  Slaughter it.  No girls allowed.  It is not pretty, it is not clean, but it is relatively fast.  Usually a quick slice to the neck and the sheep will bleed out relatively quickly.  They bring over a container to catch the blood.  Once the sheep is dead they will untie the legs and get it ready to be butchered.

5.. Skin it.  The first thing they do in butchering it is skin it.  It consists of gingerly knife cuts along with jamming fists in between the skin and body cavity to detach the skin.  They take care to not hurt the hide as they can sell it for a small amount, up to $10. 

Gingerly skinning

6.. Remove the innards.  Once the hide is detached they leave it under the body to act as a nice clean working surface.  From here they will slice down the ventral side of the body cavity.  Once completed they will remove the innards into a bowl. 

Organ removal

7.  Clean the innards.  This is always a woman’s job.  They will wash, rinse, and braid the intestines.  They empty the green smelly stomach contents away from the work area but never far enough.  It is a horrendous smell.  This smell and taste never leaves the intestines in my opinion no matter how much cleaning they do.  They often will use a small twig to help with the cleaning.  I think of it like a pipe cleaner.  The heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach, and intestines will all be eaten. 

A bowl of guts

My Apa (mother) cleaning the innards

8.  Cut it up.  As they butcher the sheep they will cut the sheep into manageable parts.  There is no nice clean butcher cuts like you would get in America though.  From here the parts will all go to the kazan (large metal pot).  All of the pieces will go in except for the head and lower parts of the legs.

 

Note the green gunk, that's what is in the stomach

Ready to be thrown into the Kazan

9. Singe the head and legs.  This can be done in numerous ways.  The goal is to remove all of the hair from the parts and cook them at the same time.  This is done through burning it, then scarping it with a knife until clean.  It smells like burning hair and is not pleasant.  I’ve seen this done using a blow torch and a fire.

10. Boil it.  All of the sheep parts, innards and meat are thrown in the kazan to boil for hours.  During this time the women tend to be inside preparing other things for the meal and the men smoke, drink, and stir the sheep around.  Sometimes people will separate the innards and the meat and cook them separate.  These people are heroes.  The meat isn’t good in the first place, but when you boil it with the innards it makes it even worse. 

11. Serve it up.  Now the sheep is cooked and the table is set.  Time to eat.  It usually begins with a young boy going around to wash everyone’s hands.  While he is pouring water over your hands it is customary to say some wishes for the pourer.  From here they split up the meat.  The large chunk of pure fat from the butt almost always goes to the eldest lady in the room, or if it is an honored guest it will go to the woman if there is a male and female (possibly my mother when they visit).  The eldest male, will sometimes get the head or the honored male guest (possibly my dad when they visit) .  While these parts are served to them, they share.  From here they pass out chunks of bone and meat in chronological order, the older you are the more food you get.  The youngest females usually get the smallest amount and worse cuts of meat.  Normally 2-4 middle aged men will begin shredding some of the meat, fat and intestines for the besh barmak.  The ingredients for the besh barmak are simple, shredded sheep parts, plain noodles, and sheep broth.  They mix the ingredients up in a large bowl and then every one grabs their helping.  Traditionally this is eaten only with your hands, but many people use silverware now.  I tend to use my hands, but the after affect is horrid, hands that smell like sheep for days. 

 

Head and intestines

Passing out the pieces

Intestines braided to look like a snake

Rib bones count as silverware

12.  Omean.  At the end of the meal the hand washer will come back around, this time your hands are greasy and smelly, but soap is never used and everyone will use the same towel to dry their hands.  Once your hands are sparkling clean you omean again.  Thanking the guests, and wishing them fortunes.  Depending on what the occasion is for the prayer will sometimes be directed at them.  Once this is done everyone prepares their doggy bags.  These consist of plastic bags full of chunks of fat, meat, and left over besh barmak.  There is often times a separate bag with candy, bread, and borsok (fried bread).  When ever I leave one of these I tend to wash my hands at least 2 more times with lots of soap and water.

So that is the typical process in my experience of how a sheep goes from pasture to plastic doggy bag.  The first time I experienced this I was wide eyed and taking it all in.  Now I dread it.  I hope for the day when it is a goat, chicken, cow or horse slaughter in stead of a sheep.  Despite what the lyrics from a CAKE song say, in my mind, goats go to heaven, sheep go to hell.