SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Phillip Bass from Troy, ID 8-2-24
[Music] And we're walking in this shark farmer radio. Hey! I'm your host Rob Charkey. We're in the studio today just outside of Bradford, Illinois. I'm sick of getting phone calls from literally all over the country that it's spam. They call, I mean, just random from California to New York to wherever. That is weird. That's been happening to me too. And you know that have hasn't happened in a long time. I feel like it used to happen a lot. You know, somebody sold the information or whatever. It hasn't happened in a while. So, I don't know. I think you can set your phone to where you can only get calls from numbers you got programmed in. That is, but I don't encourage that because then when I go to call somebody with the XM show, then it's blocked because it comes up as an XM call. It was waking me up last night though. But even though I had my phone on silent, you know, it lights up. And then I had to take off my watch. But I mean, it's like, I don't understand what they're getting out of it. Because if you answer it, nobody talks. And it's just, I mean, it's like two every hour, at least. And it's just constant. And so, I want you to fix it. I'll give that to my assistant. Yeah, okay. That's going on on the farm today. We're ready to put up the new shed. And I did hear we got some bad news on the skidster. Yeah, the skidster is no moss. This was a our timber one, which we always have like a rough one because we beat the crud out of it out there. But apparently we, it's fine. It just has a small hole in the in the engine. Oh, no. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So if you want a good deal on a skidster, runs a little rough, what's Facebook, you know, works fine, but might need a tune up. This one might need something more. Might need a new engine. All right. Today, we're going to go out to a Troy Idaho. We're going to talk with Phil Bass. How you doing, Phil? I'm great, man. How are you? I'm doing great. We're in a great state of Idaho is Troy kind of kind of towards the top where it next down. And I don't know if we would fully be considered the hand handle, but we're not terribly far from Canada and near the border with Washington. Gotcha. Does Helen still live there? Helen, a Troy. Oh, wow. That's a little, little, little throwback, but no, I believe she's moved on. Yeah. Yeah, she followed some dude. You are an associate professor of meat science at the University of Idaho. So are you a doctor? I am. I'm a doctor coming up with Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil. I love that. I was telling him that when I was going over the information, Sam, like Dr. Phil, you probably get sick of that, don't you? Oh, it's fun. It's kind of the baby sharks on for us. Well, and you got to kind of think about it too. You know, if I say, if I say Dr. Phil, so did incoming freshmen, most of them just kind of have glazed eyes. I don't even know what I'm referencing. Yeah, I would love to be in your class. You just sitting up there. It's time for you to get real. You grew up in California. Is that right? I did. Yeah, I'm a previous plant grew up in the Berry North coast of California. It's part of California. Most don't know about, and that's okay. It was right in the redwoods, about five miles inland in a little valley called the Hill River Valley. And yeah, dairy farms down in the bottoms and then beef cattle up in the hills. Yep, great place. Did you grow up on a farm? So, yeah, let me tell you a little bit about how I've become because, you know, we always had animals and we didn't have a big farm by any means. It was all kind of hobby stuff, but we did raise cattle, sheep, never pigs. That was our cousins. We cover that side of things, but grew up with a good appreciation for where food comes from and grew up cutting meat. And that's kind of how I got started. My family is, I know basses and Italian, but I come from a very strong Italian family and, you know, all those Italian carpenters thought if they could cut wood, they can cut meat. And so, that's kind of how I got started. And growing up cutting meat in my grandmother's garage. And that, you know, as far as a farm, like what you guys have, nothing to that extent. It was all hobby-based, but still was living the dream. Was it like a butcher shop? Or you all just like, I don't know, found a roadkill and just cut it up. It was literally a wood shop. It was my grandfather's where he would build cabinets and, you know, and do all kinds of stuff. We just moved things out of the way. He had a really cool, big, tably built. It was just, you know, just an inch and a quarter plywood. But to this day, if you get that table wet, you can smell the salami that we would mix on it. It brings you right back. It's like the movie Dodgeball. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. If you can cut wood, you can cut meat. So, was it just for your family or did you, was it a business? No, that was, it was entirely for the family. You know, all of the carcasses that we would break down, beef and pork from the cousins, that would all just go back into our freezers. Lamb, we made a lot of lamb growing up. But the salami, that was, that was a big family gathering event. And, and then the end, you know, it all just kind of get dispersed to everyone. And it would always show up at big family gatherings and wedding, funeral, graduations, the whole thing. It was a really special thing. Yeah, salami is a, that's an, that's an underrated meat, I'm going to say. All right, Phil, we do got to, you do kind of go to break. Today, we're talking with Phil Bass from a Troy, Idaho, associate professor of meat science at University of Idaho. When we come back, we're going to talk about his journey to becoming a doctor. What he's doing now, we're going to talk all things, we're going to talk all things meat Emily. I love talking meat science. Yeah. I nerd out a little bit. Yeah, salami or pastrami, what's your, what's your choice? We'll be back right after the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way, go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. Happy Friday, Friday. This weekend's shark farmer weekend edition. Yeah, we're out in Tillamunk, Oregon with Derek Josie. No, the radio show. Oh, the radio show. Yeah, weekend edition. Okay. Yeah, Tim, the dairy farmer, he's a stand-up comedian. Oh my gosh. Yes, which we got to hear him when we were out in Utah. Utah, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, he's a lot of fun. He gets people laughing and loosens up the room. He would, he'd milk and then he would sleep a little bit in the afternoon and then go do the comedy shows and get home like in time to start the morning milking. Yeah, he's like, I don't know why we milked it two or three in the morning, but we did. Yeah. So he goes, that worked and you know, he, he gives his brother a lot of credit because he, you know, dairies with his brother. So when he's on the road doing his comedy, his brother takes over the dairy and when he gets home, his brother takes off for a couple of days. Yeah, I don't blame him. And like you said, shark farmer on RFD TV, we have Derek Josie out there in Tillamunk, Oregon. Yeah. All right, today we're talking with Phil Bass from a Troy Idaho associate professor at Meat Science University of Idaho. Grew up in California, cutting meat in a wood shop, something like that. I love that. It's like family get together. It's like what used to be our huge get together, not Labor Day, but Columbus Day. Yeah, but we never worked. Columbus Day. Everybody got together, dig crafts, ate good food. I mean, it was almost as big as Christmas, which people used to laugh at. So I can relate. So Phil, is that where you kind of got your love of meat? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, I've always had a, had a passion for understanding how, how the animal works. And you know, I get to see it from the inside this way. You know, it was because I probably a lot because of, of, of how it was a big family gathering and, and, and everything, you know, it meant a lot. And, and so, yeah, from there, I, I, I went to school down at Cal Poly in San Luis Vispo, California, and did a lot of meat cutting down there kind of learned an older fashion style, but I was appreciative of that. And then I just, I continued on my pursuits and, and I love, I love sharing knowledge and I love teaching and, and, and so to, in order to be able to teach at university, which I was doing a little bit of, well, I was working on my masters at Cal Poly, I knew I had to get a PhD. And so that took me to Colorado State University and, and which is Fort Call in Colorado, and only about a half hour away from one of the largest beef plants in the country. And I, man, I got to, I got to really learn the craft and the trade by going to those plants and, and working with the folks who do this every day. And yeah, I mean, I just get high off it. It's amazing. Yeah. Excuse my ignorance. I thought Cal Poly was more of a tech school. Well, you know, it, it was at one time hand, but it, it's absolutely a four year university offers master's degrees can offer PhDs. But yeah, it was, it has a very strong engineering department, but the agriculture ag, ag department is, is in great shape as well. Gotcha. So you just got hooked at a young age and you just kept going. And so what led you to get your, your masters and your PhD? I mean, did you always knew that the end goal was to teach? And that's what you want to do. You wanted to be in academia? Or did you just kind of make each decision as you went along? Hey, you know, I tell a lot of my students, the ones that come in with their list of things that they're going to do in the next four years, and the next 10 years, I just kind of laugh at them and say, you know, that's nice. You have it all planned, but life will take you into, into some interesting directions. And so, no, honestly, I went to, I went to Cal Poly with the intent of being a high school ag teacher. I was very much inspired by my FA advisor and, and, and my sister had gone in, in animal science. And that sounded really interesting to me. And so while I was there, um, saw that there was a meat cutting enterprise with Dr. Rudy Wooten. And, uh, and so once a week, we'd either go slaughter or we'd be cutting meat. And, and, and I got a good appreciation for that. Um, during that time, I was taking ag ed classes and realized I can't teach high schoolers. Uh, that just wasn't, I'm not the right person for that. What's it say? And so, but, uh, but I got a, a good appreciation that I could still teach, uh, at a university level. And that's what led me to a PhD. I, I had no intention of getting a PhD. I wanted to get a master's degree because at the time I knew that, you know, if you had a master's degree in a high school setting, you got paid more. So that was, that was the advice for a high advisor. Um, and, uh, yeah, I just thought all those, all those stuffy PhDs, what do they know? And, uh, and then lo and behold, here I am. So do you all hang out like in a lounge here with the, the jackets with the patches over the elbows? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. You know, have, have our pipes. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. I like to wear my mortar board around in class and everything. No, no, no, we're pretty late background, I tell you, in our, in our, uh, discipline, for sure. With the, uh, go into Colorado. Uh, so did you, were you able to work? Uh, actually, you know, you talked about that cattle yard, were you actually able to work with them? Yeah. So yeah, I was, I was in the, the plant at the time it was, uh, swift and company. And then that's when JBS, if you ever heard some of these names, uh, JBS Brazilian family company, uh, came in and bought, uh, the, the, uh, the company. And, uh, so yeah, I was, I was in the packing house. It was about 6400 head capacity a day. Uh, and I was there at least weekly, if not daily during some times. And yeah, I was, I was, I was cutting right there. Um, we had some really cool projects that we were working on research projects that the intent was we had to weigh every individual muscle. And so as a result, we had to really learn how to cut meat to get to those things. And so, um, yeah. So I had, I had hands on experience in the plants. So this is fantastic. So when you grill with your family, are you so annoyed if you don't get a certain cut of me? Are you very particular, like you're a butcher shop kind of guy? Yeah. I'm kind of, I'm kind of annoying to go to a steakhouse with. I'll tell you though, I, you know, I, we, we raise our own cattle. I'm looking out the window right now at our, at our steer, Gary, uh, and, you know, we're, we're, uh, uh, I'm very particular about me. My wife does an amazing job feeding our steers. Um, and, uh, and some of the best steak I can get is just, you know, out of our freezer. Um, but yeah, no, if I go to our steakhouse, um, and I'm going to pay that amount, uh, for a steak, I, I'm very particular. I've had people come out and, uh, I say, I need a, a chuck-end ribeye. Um, I've had, I've had the wait staff come out almost apologetically saying, is this really what you want? I said, yes, yes, yes. Oh my gosh. Could you imagine? We do got a run to break. Uh, today we're talking with Phil Bass from Troy, Idaho. We'll be back after the break. ♪♪♪ This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell, or lease your land? Well, check out Common Ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too, by the way. Go to commonground.io. That's commonground.io. ♪♪♪ All right. It's for Helen's favorite radio segment, Helen of Troy. Where in the world is will? Well, what you got for us today? Today I'm in Troy, which is a city in Lata County, Idaho, located in the eastern part of the Palouse region. It's very hilly up there. Yeah, its population was 862 at the 2010 census. That's it? Yeah. Oh. The community was originally known as Huff's Gulch when Jay Wesley Seat homesteaded in the area in 1885. In 1890, area businessman John P. Volmer rechristened the area with his own surname when he bought the railroad through. See, when you buy the railroad, that's right. You do what you want. Right. Listen to this. Volmer gained much of his 30,000 acres of land by foreclosing on the bank loans of local farmers. Oh, he's one of those. Oh boy. This made him so unpopular that in 1897, the residents decided to rename the town. Local legend states that the name of Troy was selected when a Greek railroad worker offered free shots of whiskey to any who would support the name. I'm in. I thought maybe they were going to burn him at the stake to be honest. Let's shoot him in the heel. For bicyclists and pedestrians, the Lata trail is paved rail trail. Lata, I forgot it. The random long A's. Near the highway that connects Troy to Moscow and Pullman, Washington. It meets the Paradise path in Moscow, which continues west as the Bill Chipman police trail to Pullman alongside highway 270. The total length of these trails is 22 miles. That's enough. Yeah. We got one notable person. And this guy is pretty notable. His name is John Henry Hayes. He's a veteran of the American Civil War and recipient of the Medal of Honor. He was born in Ohio, but moved to the state of Iowa at the age of 15 to work on his family's farm for the next three years. In 1862, he volunteered to join the Union Army. He was injured multiple times throughout the war, surviving a gunshot wound to his left thumb and being struck by debris from a falling bridge. Yeah. It's before penicillin, too. Those guys were tough. Right. Right. Eating hard tack. On April 16th, 1865, seven days following the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Hayes marched on Columbus, Georgia to secure the naval's, the city's naval yards. A weapons factories and supply deposits. During the ensuing battle, Hayes stormed a bridge over the Chattahoochee River and helped to capture a fort guarding it. During this battle for the fort, he captured the flag and the flag bearer of an Austin battery stationed there. For this, he received the Medal of Honor. Very cool. But then on January 27th, 1904, he attempted to arrest one pain sly for domestic disturbance. Sly killed Hayes in an ensuing shoot out. Although fatally wounded, Hayes returned fire and was able to injure Sly. Sly was later convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Huh. You should never know how it's going to end, do you? Right. Right. He became a sheriff, I suppose, in Troy. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you, Will. Today, we're talking with Phil Bass of Troy Idaho. Phil, did you know all that stuff? No, no, that's news to me. Isn't learning fun. Yes. Phil is the associate professor at Meat Science at the University of Idaho. But Phil, for eight years, you served as a senior meat scientist for certified Angus beef brand. Tell me about that. That's right. Yeah, I worked for the American Association and their brand of beef. Man, it was amazing. Not only did I get to talk about high quality beef regularly, I got to travel around and just share the story of animal agriculture and where food comes from. So, yeah, I got to cut a lot of meat. So who were you talking to, like students, just industry people? Who did they have you communicating with? Yeah, it was overwhelming industry, folks, and predominantly the food service side, so the restaurant types. Retail is a harder breed of cat to capture, but we would get them every once in a while. So, we would talk with retail stores and talk about different ways of cutting meat and improving their bottom line. But most of the time, it was with restaurants and just kind of showing them all the different pieces and parts of the beef carcass. Mm-hmm. You had a wife and two kids, horses, chicken, sheep, and non-profit beef. I think most beef is non-profit. Yeah, you know, it's a love, you know, and agriculture's a love, and you know that. You know, to the point where it's just important to get out there and tell our story that just because we raise cattle or we raise food, you know, it's not like we're all driving around at Bentley's. It's just because we love doing it. So, as a professor now, what's your research about now? Yeah, heavyweight carcasses and dry-aged beef. You know, we're really good at growing beef in this country. Almost too good, and so as animals get bigger, just through, you know, normal breeding and genetic selection, better management practices, the carcasses are getting bigger. It could lead to additional challenges where, you know, we just got to use a knife a little bit different, and so that's kind of the work that we've been doing. That and kind of a passion of mine is also dry-aged beef, and that's a whole nother subject probably for another day, but you know, it's an artistic way or an artisanal way of enhancing the flavor of meat. You obviously know your way around butchering. Let me ask you this. What cuts more a sharp knife or a dull knife? Yeah, I mean, a sharp knife is my preference anyway. Are you good at that? Can you do that thing? Or do you go, oh, seal it? Yeah. Yeah, no, that's an integral part of cutting meat. You know, if you don't keep your tools taken care of, then yeah, I mean, you're going to have a harder time doing your job and could lead to injury later on. And so, yeah, keeping knife sharp is important. I would hate to show you the knives in my kitchen. Absolutely. They're a sad state of affairs. Yeah, I have a lot of talents in life, sharpening a knife is, and I even buy like the cheap one, you know, the ones that you, anybody can do it. It's still, they're still dull as heck. But anyway, I feel if people want to find you, social media, internet, anything like that, where would they go? Yeah, right now, I don't really do much for social media, but we do have a podcast called Meets Pad, so like notepad but Meets Pad. And if you want to learn more about Meets Science and all kinds of topics related to meat industry, go there, check that out on the usual areas. But I will, I will take this opportunity to shamelessly plug, you know, the story of animal agriculture is a big one. It's hard to tell in an elevator speech. And so I finally got to the point where I needed to write a book. And there's, I do have one that's called It's Not a Cow. For those who are in the animal agriculture world, probably understand the background for that. Check it out on Barnes and Noble Amazon. Yeah, definitely. It's Not a Cow by Phil Bass. Yeah. From Troy Ado. Phil, thank you so much for speaking with us. Really appreciate it. Appreciate everything you've done for agriculture, but Phil don't go anywhere. Sean Haney is coming up next. He has a book, it's not a chicken, it's weird. Catch everybody next time.