Meat: In defense of trades

Welcome to the latest installment of our series in which some of Richmond’s greatest food artisans share what they love about what they do. Here, charcutier Chris Mattera shares his thoughts on why he loves what he does… and offers up important points about trades in general.

September 24, 2010; 6:00 AM • by Chris Mattera

Welcome to the latest installment of our series in which some of Richmond’s greatest food artisans share what they love about what they do. Here, charcutier Chris Mattera shares his thoughts on why he loves what he does… and offers up important points about trades in general.

I love that what I do for a living involves tactile and sensory experiences on a daily basis. Judging that a sausage is sufficiently mixed by looking at it and seeing how it sticks to a gloved hand. Knowing when there’s enough wine added to my grandmother’s sausage recipe by the way the raw meat mixture smells. Measuring spice blends by filling my cupped my hands in an imitation of the person who taught me how to make it. I think these experiences, and knowing how to interpret them, are what make my work interesting to me.

Another thing that makes my line of work so fulfilling for me is the sense of tangible accomplishment that accompanies almost every day spent making something. The knowledge that, if nothing else, I have created something delicious and tangible as a result of my labor is enormously gratifying. I touched on this in my last contribution to the Artisan Series, but I think it bears mentioning again.

So few occupations in our time involve physically creating anything. Most of my friends from college work crunching numbers or tweaking other people’s ideas. At the end of the day, they don’t have a pile of anything to point to as examples of what they have completed that day. In fact, a number of my friends cannot even describe what it is that they do with their days at work, beyond sending and receiving emails. I, on the other hand can tell people exactly what I do. I make sausage. My job description is a present tense verb.

Verbs as occupations seems to have gone out of style over the past few decades. How many people do you know whose job title ends in “-maker” who are under 65 years old? I understand why this is, believe me. Many times I have been tempted to trade in a title that ends in ‘-maker’ for something a little bit more refined, more genteel. Like ‘Insurance Agent’ or ‘Adjunct Professor’. But every time I got serious about leaving my trade to pursue a white collar profession, I was drawn back by the dignity and tangible nature of the work. Sure, air conditioned offices with comfy chairs are nice and come with a much lower risk of bodily harm than a butcher shop or sausage kitchen. But for me, they lack the satisfaction that comes from creating something with my own two hands.

I have always admired people with physically demanding skilled jobs. Bricklayers are among my favorites. When these people show up for work, there is nothing but a pile of rocks. When they leave, they leave behind a building. Or a wall or a fountain or a driveway. They create order from chaos, something from nothing. Trade work is the tool by which humankind realizes its vision of a future world, whether by building a bridge over a span of years or preparing a dinner over the span of an hour.

Work like that, and the work of other skilled trades-people involves many of the attributes that make us human: tool use, labor division, communication and working together toward a common goal. It’s a shame that the trades suffer from such an image problem. To the best of my knowledge, American parents aren’t clamoring for their children to take up car repair, blacksmithing or for that matter, sausage-making upon graduation from college. And maybe they are right not to do so. After all, white collar jobs are generally better paying, offer benefits, and typically involve the prospect of advancement over time, all of which are attractive attributes. But for me, and for other skilled tradesmen and –women, the sense of satisfaction gleaned from working with our hands to make, repair and reshape even a small piece of the world is worth a lot, too.

Chris Mattera (a gentleman we refer to as “The Sausage King of Richmond”) is co-owner of the nascent Sausage Craft LLC, a Richmond-based gourmet sausage producer, providing high-end meat products to Richmond area restaurants and retailers starting this fall. In addition to making sausage and cured meat for a living, he has shared his culinary know-how with the likes of Food & Wine and Richmond Magazine.

September 24, 2010 6:00 AM 1