00:00:11.420but there's a mark up there that Albertans probably didn't bargain for.
00:00:19.720This is tplmedia.ca, tplmedia.ca local,
00:00:23.780because we're now in your neighbourhood likely, so check that out.
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00:00:33.640the conversation today the conversation is while it's on the tip of everyone's tongue a couple of
00:00:39.460weeks ago the prime minister came out with a national strategy for food and to kind of dig
00:00:44.880deeper on that and see where we stand our very own food professor thank you very much paul micucci
00:00:51.440for joining us we've had the food professor uh on before yeah yeah i won't uh proclaim to be the
00:00:57.140food professor but I do you know what I think I mentioned on previous shows Mike uh I grew up and
00:01:03.420I worked actually at a place called Canada Packers which is a food processing plant in Toronto and
00:01:10.980it was very interesting experience when my uh when I was young paint the picture for me because that
00:01:16.020seems to me like a tough job so 5,000 people basically would go to work in this plant and
00:01:22.800uh it was right by the stockyards which is on saint claire avenue down in toronto
00:01:27.680rail cars would come in the cattle would come off it would go to the kill and then basically they
00:01:32.960would you know go to slaughter and then from slaughter it would actually go into the line they
00:01:38.400would you know cut up uh you know cattle into every piece you can imagine and use every piece
00:01:44.560um and then the Heinz of beef would uh be put into the freezers uh and then loaded onto trucks and
00:01:52.480then there was bacon there was uh cold meats there was cheese there was all kinds of different
00:01:58.540divisions that were and then uh guns road which is on the back is where the hooves and all the
00:02:05.240other things were melted down so the smell yeah it's it was a tough neighborhood to be in man
00:02:10.920well it's gone now it is yeah it's gone now and quite frankly there's a whole story to that
00:02:15.300because it actually became a housing development that was built on top of it which i don't i don't
00:02:19.940even know how but it was and quite frankly i know i'm not living there anytime soon no that
00:02:25.380neighborhood still has a certain stench to it i'll be honest with you at times yeah well guns
00:02:29.560road still exists so there still are some food processing or there's still some uh things
00:02:34.880happening on the back with respect to leather and and okay animals so there is a slight smell
00:02:40.440not even compared to what it was before but you know i used to get on my car and it was just
00:02:45.000wretched you know the first half hour just about to be sick yeah uh going in and we used to go in
00:02:51.000so interesting and i'll tie it up but it was an interesting story we used to go through and we
00:02:56.200used to get our whites um and it was uh it was basically a jacket a white jacket white pants
00:03:03.000and uh because i had graduated from the kill area the stockyards where they used to bring the cattle
00:03:08.920over into and the kill line into night loading i used to get this white hat and it was because
00:03:15.560you're working in a freezer all night right so it was warm clothes um and i used to start off
00:03:20.600and i used to get my meat hooks so they give me my meat i everyone got two meat hooks who worked
00:03:26.040in loading and all night long uh the guy would be up on a perch and you would walk over and it'd be
00:03:33.400the number on it for the truck you were loading and you would put your meat hooks in and he would
00:03:38.040knock uh the the hind of beef off onto your shoulder and you would carry it across the
00:03:44.120loading dock and drop it into the trucks all night so you do eight to ten hours a night that's pretty
00:03:49.800manual labor that was really and that's carrying beef on your shoulders a heavy job and there were
00:03:56.200you know it's interesting and that's how strong so they used to call them the bullhunk gang
00:04:00.200uh which were the guys who did it full time and they were uh these uh little you know uh eastern
00:04:06.520european italian uh these little guys but they were all muscled like a hundred percent and that's
00:04:12.120what they did all night and they would joke around throughout the night and they would
00:04:16.200they would actually carry like a hundred pound 150 pound hind of beef with no hands on their
00:04:21.320shoulders and they would do all this crazy stuff and so my dad which is interesting because my dad
00:04:27.800you know uh was a truck driver and he had trucks and worked there uh and uh basically he would come
00:04:35.160in and he would show off also and he would grab like 250 200 pound hinds of beef and he would
00:04:43.960throw them on each shoulder and he would carry them across the dock and put them on a and that's
00:04:48.600how strong these guys were because this is dead different era man this is dead weight yeah right
00:04:54.360so i ate you know you know you think i wouldn't eat red meat but i did eat a lot of red meat
00:04:59.320because i was around it the whole time and the interesting thing when we got ready for this show
00:05:03.800I said to Christophe when we were doing the prep, I said, out of curiosity, what are people in Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia paying for top surly on Canada Day?
00:05:16.180I mean, this is almost a luxury item for Canadians now.