A Butcher in Brazil – a Job I Never Imagined Having

By Osmel Almaguer

HAVANA TIMES – My life in Brazil has been diametrically opposed to the life I lived in Cuba. For the language, the lifestyle, the culture, and because I earn my living and support my family with a job very different from journalism. I’m an açougueiro, a word that means butcher in Portuguese.

One of the many problems in Cuban society today is the lack of meat, especially beef. To the extent that between 1990 and 2022, I think I only managed to taste it about five times.

When I received the proposal to work in the meat section of the supermarket where I was employed, my initial reaction was positive, since it meant a better salary. However, after agreeing I thought nervously: “What the heck do I know about meat?”

I began behind the counter, with the prospect of becoming an açougueiro in a short time. Miraculously, I learned the skills quickly, despite having to deal with many different cuts and to get to know them starting from zero; and also to understand them and to sell them in Portuguese to customers from a slum.

In order to sell, I also had to memorize a code for each of the forty-plus products we offer. In under a week I knew them all, even though I had previously thought of myself as someone who was forgetful.

Another step in my relationship with meat took place when I began to change my eating habits. Since I now had access to good cuts of meat first hand and to special sales, I began buying meat more often. We soon abandoned that philosophy that meat is harmful, that it should only be eaten twice a week.

My body has undergone very interesting transitions, from a muscular point of view. A blood test even revealed that we arrived from Cuba with very low levels of Vitamin B – a substance that’s essential to the process of absorbing energy from the foods we eat, the formation of red blood cells, and immunity to viral illnesses. These functions were all deficient, due to the under-consumption of meat.

Here in Curitiba, many people of limited economic resources buy the meat they’re going to eat the same day, although they also like to save some in their freezers when it’s on sale. This happens even though I read that Brazil is one of the three Latin American countries with the highest beef prices.

Currently, a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of skirt steak costs 40 reales (US $8) in the market where I work. That’s the equivalent of a half day’s salary for me.

Three months after beginning in the meat department, I began my training as a butcher. This brought new challenges – learning to make the different cuts, take down the large pieces of beef from the refrigerator rooms; cut the beefsteak finely without ruining the slab; using a very dangerous bandsaw, etc.

Little by little, I also began to learn that the job requires something more than just cutting meat. It requires, vision, planning, organization of the work, and a lot of hygiene.

It’s been six months since I began doing this, but it still feels unbelievable. If in 2014 someone had appeared from the future to prophesize what my life would be like in ten years, I’m certain I would have laughed.

Read more from the diary of Osmel Almaguer.