Today, we honor all our military veterans who selflessly served our nation. In that spirit, we wanted to share something special with the entire society.

We received a special story from one of our Dead Meat Society members, Kyle Walker, sharing the story of his brave family members who served and their connection through meat.

It’s the type of story that the Dead Meat Society is all about: family, food, and connection. We hope you enjoy it.

Our greatest thanks to all you veterans out there!

I’m nobody special, but my grandpa & my great uncles were heroes in the sense that they put their lives on hold to fight a World War, then did their part to build a nation & one great family.

You see, my grandpa and his siblings started in the small town of Lanesville, Indiana (go to BFE, turn left & it’s 3 miles down on the right), lived through the great depression & served in Uncle Sam’s Army during WW2. He was a butcher after the war at a small market in New Albany, IN, with his older brother, called the M&J Market (Marvin & Jim, he was Jim).

My grandpa commanded respect, not through words but by action, and you could tell it just by being in his presence. He was a simple God fearing man, true to his word, and was NEVER apologetic for hard work, along with an unconditional love for my grandmother & his family. I am blessed to be his oldest grandchild & reflect on his life lessons often… none more than around Veteran’s Day. 

I learned about meat watching him carve it up with precision in the back of the market on an awesome butcher block table (how I don’t have that today still escapes me). He would sharpen his knives by hand while talking to customers and custom-cut every order with determination and a smile. He simply amazed me beyond words!

He was a no-nonsense man who seemed to know so much… but he really knew meat and would utilize every single bit of any animal like it was meant to be… a gift!

Not that he put on lessons for me, but I would just watch as he explained the muscle fibers & how to cut through bone in a way that made the fat easier to render yet protect the meat itself. How marbling is the way to go if you want the true flavor of a quality cut steak, spatchcocking methods, bean soup, and why you save those ham bones, etc.

He always said to only eat “generational BBQ” because he believed if BBQ was worth eating, then it had to be passed down through family lineage. In his eyes, one lifetime was not enough time to learn & produce quality BBQ.

To him, there were no shortcuts & he only believed quality BBQ came from open flame cooking with home-seasoned & hand-split wood. You must understand, in his time, there wasn’t much ”in-home” air conditioning, so cooking anything indoors made the temperature right around “gates of hell hot!” He even told me stories about keeping those all-important cold beers cold during cookouts by attaching a 6-pack to a fishing stringer and submerging them in the cold stream that ran through the backyard!

As you can tell, I get my old school ways honestly! I am a throw-back and I am unapologetic for it! BBQ is way more to me than a pastime or a hobby… I literally honor those who helped shape me when I cook!

There are times when I finish cooking for hundreds of people & some want an interview, others want to talk about the process itself, etc. I usually turn them down because I just want to sit alone with a quality pour of Kentucky brown juice (“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” - Mark Twain) & thank the Lord that I had these special men of integrity in my life for as long as I did.

My BBQ is better than theirs & they expect that to be the case, I owe it to them… I just wish they were here to confirm it. In a way, I cook seeking confirmation from those who can no longer give it. But just in case, I’ll keep improving!

They are all with the Lord now and have been for decades (some longer than others), but not a day goes by that I don’t think about their life lessons. None stand out more than the lessons of open fire cooking and the simple fact that BBQ wasn’t meant to be easy. But neither is life, so sharpen the oldest axe you can find and split your wood during the fall because it’s cold & unforgiving in the winter. That doesn’t mean you can’t outwork it & eat well while that snow falls. After all…

“Splitting your own wood will warm you twice and feed the family!” - James H Day

Happy Veterans Day, Grandpa, Uncle Marvin, Uncle Larry, and if not for the “Saving Private Ryan rule,” Uncle Ev & all you real heroes out there! Keep that smoke rolling… Hopefully with home seasoned wood split with an old axe full of great memories & life lessons!

Generationally,

Kyle Walker