The Break Down: Oscar Yedra
In the lead up to World Butchers’ Challenge 2022, we’re (virtually) catching up with competitors around the world to see what they’ve been up to, what their game plan is for 2022 and how they’ve been keeping their skills sharp.
This is: ‘The Break Down’.
Though he currently lives in San Francisco and works as a butchery manager in a Bay Area grocery store, Oscar Yedra is the proud captain of Team Mexico. As you’ll soon learn, Oscar’s team is no stranger to winning, so I chatted to him about his strategy to victory at their very first World Butchers’ Challenge in 2022. Here’s Oscar…
Oscar, tell me a little bit about how Team Mexico came to be!
A few years ago, prior to the pandemic, I had 3 or 4 guys who were all participating in butcher competitions in the Bay Area, here in San Francisco. We were all related, brothers, nephews, uncles, and friends. We must have been doing alright because we’d been winning. A lot!
There’s a competition in Oakland at the Eat Real Festival, it’s called the Flying Knives Competition. They give you a hindquarter and you have 45 minutes to break it down. We’d been winning that one for four years in a row but on the fifth year they told us ‘Ok Oscar, we want to give someone else a go – how about you guys become our judges?”
Oh wow, that’s a bit of an honour!
Yes, but we still wanted to compete! So, we signed up for World Butchers’ Challenge just before the pandemic.
The world has changed a bit since then, will the same team you competed with at Flying Knives be competing at WBC 2022?
No, unfortunately we lost three members of the team since the pandemic when they moved back to Mexico and, as most of our team are based in San Francisco it just wouldn’t work. So, I called a few friends from the industry and asked them if they’d like to join the team. They all said yes!
“ We’d been winning for four years in a row but on the fifth year they told us ‘Ok Oscar, we want to give someone else a go’”
Amazing, you’ve got the connections! So, who is in the lineup for Team Mexico in 2022?
There’s me, I’m the captain and a breaker. Hector Yedra, my brother, is also a breaker. We’ve got David Jaramillo and Julio Garcia – Julio is actually both a butcher and a chef. We also have a couple of American butchers, Danny Curral is from Boston and used to work with me at Canyon Market and Colin Haydu is also American. Four of us are Mexican though so we make up Team Mexico! We are managed by my wife, Elisa.
This will be Team Mexico’s first time competing in WBC, what can the other teams expect to see from you?
I think what they’ll quickly notice is that we have the speed, I’ll just say that. We’re very fast.
It’s safe to say Team Mexico are going to be one to watch in 2022 (that is, if your eyes can keep up with this speedy team of butchers!).