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Transcription: [00:00:05]
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Narrative Session in the food preservation and community activity section.This afternoon we're going to talk about meat processing with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bentley and Corrie Smith.
[00:00:22]
Meat processing is still a very lively form of food preservation in the south west Georgia area. For those of us who have only seen or tasted commercially prepared sausage or ham or sauce [?], the Bentley's operation, which still exists from a long time family tradition, is a very welcome one.
[00:00:45]
Uh I hope that you've had a chance to visit their smokehouse, I hope, perhaps, you were here another day when they were able to make their own sausage and I hope you had a chance to see them render out the crack lands and make some lard, its a very interesting kind of process and we're going to talk about it for a little while today. First of all, when did you get started in the meat business?
[00:01:08]

{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
Well, uh, this was something that I was raised with, Gerri, all the way from my childhood, but for selling it and preparing it for the public to sell, uh, we've been doing it 30 some odd years.
[00:01:22]

{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Is that right?
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
Yeah.
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
You opened a store approximately 30 years ago?
[00:01:27]

{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
Uh, the store was built in 1936. My father built it and opened it and we got married in '43 and we've been doing it ever since.
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Is that right?
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
Uh huh.
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
[00:01:40]

Have you always done the meat processing?
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
Yes we have, uh, for several years when did not do it because a longing then [?] there wasn't much demand for country meat and, uh, people are reverting back to pure meat fixed like it was done a hundred years ago.
[00:02:00]

{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Mhm.
{SPEAKER name="Fred Lee Bentley"}
And so that's why we've begun to go back into the country curing meat business because we use no additives or preservatives, except the old fashioned way.
{SPEAKER name="Gerri Johnson"}
Is there a [sound is cut off].