Chapter One: What is a Butcher?

8/13/2019 Chapter One: What is a Butcher?

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I remember my mother saying that it was reallyher butcher who taught her how to cook meat.She’d order something, and he’d say, “No, that’s notwhat you want, you want this.” And he’d give hera cut of meat she’d never tried before and tell herhow to cook it. It was always delicious.

Those days are pretty much gone—unless wewant them back. Today, people are starting to ques-tion where their food comes from and how theirmeat is raised, and I think that’s great. People arelooking for real butchers again. Finding one may

not be easy, depending on where you live, but don’tgive up. We’re out there.

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SEPARATING THE BUTCHERSFROM THE SLICERS~~~~~~~~~

You may think that the guy or gal who cuts andpackages meat behind the glass window of yoursupermarket meat department is a butcher. You’rewrong. Those folks are meat-cutters. In the caseof today’s large supermarkets, they’re really whatI prefer to call meat slicers. Their training andknowledge are limited to a small set of skills that

Once, in America, there was a butcher shop onalmost every corner. The tiny Vermont town whereI spent some of my youth had three. To a 1950shomemaker, the neighborhood butcher was asimportant as her hairdresser. He didn’t just sellmeat; he taught her which cuts were best suited todifferent types of cooking: slow moisture cooking,dry cooking, or grilling. He would guide herthrough the quantity she needed for her family orguests. Eventually a special kind of relationshipformed, built on trust. The butcher often knew the

entire family. There was always time for a littleconversation or even a joke or two.

Old butcher shop. Courtesy City of Toronto Archives (Fonds 1244,Item 3504).

Chapter One

What Is a Butcher?


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The Gourmet Butcher’s Guide to Meat

It pains me to have to point this out, but a goodbutcher is honest . A good butcher never cheats orshort-weights a customer, or sells meat of questionablequality or freshness. A good butcher gives customerswhat they’ve asked for and never switches out product(a trick I’ve seen way too often). A good butchernever substitutes one grade of meat for another.

A good butcher promises only what he or she can

deliver (if a customer wants an order at a given time,the customer will get it at that time). And a good

butcher never lets personal issues seep into workFinally, a truly good butcher loves his or her job andhas a genuine passion for meat and food in general.

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WHERE DID ALL THE

BUTCHERS GO?~~~~~~~~~Up to the early 20th century, a butcher was a butcherin the true sense of the word. Butchers would buy alive animal at auction; take it home or to their placeof business; slaughter, skin, and gut it; break it down;

they repeat over and over. They probably can’t tellyou the difference between one cut of meat andanother, or how to cook it. And I’d bet that theyprobably don’t know where the meat they cutcomes from, or how to judge its quality.

There’s a lot more a meat slicer doesn’t know thata good butcher knows. A true butcher—and thereare very few left—is someone who can take a live

animal from slaughter to table. This means a personwho knows how to butcher (kill) the animal, howto skin and gut it, how to divide the carcass intolarge basic cuts called primals, and how to subdi-vide these further into the myriad table-ready cutsyou buy at the store.

A truly good butcher has extensive knowledgeof all muscle groups in an animal . . . how hardeach muscle group works and which muscles are

better suited to different methods of cooking such

as braising, grilling, oven roasting, broiling, pansearing, or dry uncovered cooking.A good butcher is knowledgeable about specialty

cuts and skilled at special preparations likefrenching a pork loin or deboning a leg of lambwithout opening up the leg. A good butcher has aneye for quality and presentation. (That old saying—Customers buy with their eyes—is true.)

Bertrand Makowka of Boucherie Viandal in Montréal is a master butcher who—with his brother Yves—is carrying on thefamily tradition of whole-animal butchery begun by his father 30 years ago.


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What Is a Butcher?

purchased by the case—a case of whole loins, a caseof fresh hams, and so on. Chickens came whole,packed in ice in thin wooden crates; from these weproduced all our chicken parts: legs, thighs, drum-sticks, as well as bone-in or boneless breasts.

In an average week, we would receive six toeight sides of beef in two deliveries. The store hadthree full-time butchers, plus two to three part-timemeat-cutters. The store’s slogan was Bray’s IGA . . .where you’re always treated as the invited guest . Thiswas not just a meaningless phrase; we took it seriously

It was this wonderful early training and sup-portive environment that helped me understandthe value of customer service. We were happy to goto work; in fact, I often spent my days off hanging

out at the store because of its great atmosphere.In those days, an apprenticeship lasted two anda half years, during which the apprentice honedthe skills of breaking down sides of beef and porkand whole lambs into primal cuts and then cuttingthose primal cuts into individual steaks, chops,roasts, and more for retail sale.

But apprentices had lots more to learn, too. Theywere expected to master basic aspects of the retail meat

business, such as how to set up an appealing display,how to calculate profit margins, how to cook cuts of

meats, and how to handle and cook organ meats likeheart or tripe. They were also expected to understandand apply principles of good customer service.

A new apprentice began by learning how toclean and sanitize the equipment and meat-cuttingprep area. Then he—and I’m using he because therewere virtually no female apprentices then (thingsare changing now)—learned how to grind differentmeats, such as ground sirloin or ground round, tothe customer’s specifications.

The apprentice would move on to learning howto break primal cuts into retail cuts. Only then wouldhe be taught the finer aspects of the trade, like but-terflying a steak or chop, frenching a rack of lamb, orcutting a pocket into a cut of meat for stuffing. All ofthis training prepared a young person properly for acareer as an independent butcher or for a manage-ment position in a meat or specialty market.

and try—in the short time available (no fridge, justmelting ice!)—to sell it directly to customers.

With the advent of refrigeration and the abilityto keep meat products longer, the trade dividedinto two separate crafts: the butcher working at thewholesale level in the slaughterhouse and the meat-cutter working at the retail meat market.

The butcher handled the initial steps of killing,skinning, and gutting the animal, then breakingthe carcass down into the largest chunks: typically,

beef quarters, pork sides, or—in the case of lamb—acleaned whole carcass. The butcher would thensell these to a retail meat market. At the retail level,other people would further break down these largepieces into primal cuts (large sections of a carcass

such as a whole loin of beef), subprimals, and table-ready cuts, displaying them in refrigerated cases.These people became known as meat-cutters . . .and a new trade was born.

The name butcher stuck around, but it’s importantto understand the difference.

I am a butcher because I can slaughter, skin,gut, break, and process meat in every stage: fromlarge primals to ready-to-eat table cuts. The peoplein most supermarket meat departments and a sur-prising number of butcher shops are meat-cutters.

Please understand that I do not mean to discreditmeat-cutters. In fact, these days that’s what I callmyself, although I’m technically a butcher. Mypoint is that you can’t assume that the “butcher” inyour supermarket knows much about the meat heor she is selling you.

Why is it so hard to find a good butcher nowa-days? The reasons are many, but one important oneis a lack of thorough, top-level professional training.Because there are fewer and fewer master butchers,

the knowledge of their craft is disappearing. Sonaturally, we’re seeing less-than-thorough traininggiven by instructors who have had less-than-thorough training themselves.

I learned to be a butcher through an apprentice-ship with an experienced butcher at the local IGAstore in my hometown. We handled and sold beefand lamb from hanging carcasses only. Pork was


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industry in the United States has brought a oncerespected trade to near extinction.

Which begs the question: Which came first, theignorant consumer or the venal meat industry? I’mexaggerating, of course, to make a point. Old-time

butchers educated their customers. In my opinion,supermarket chains have spent the last 50 yearsde-educating customers. They couldn’t resist it; theindustrialization of the meat business combinedwith cost and volume pressures inherent in large-scale retail chain operations inevitably led to thedevaluing of the butcher’s craft, the “homogeni-zation” of product variety, and a general dumbingdown of expertise and knowledge.

Consumers aren’t stupid, but gradually, in sync

with the diminution of culinary butchery and therise of heavily marketed commercial meat products,consumers have lost their best resource: the knowl-edge shared by an experienced culinary butcher.Who can blame folks for picking up their steaks atthe supermarket when it’s probably the only meatpurveyor near to hand?

From your perspective as an individual cus-tomer, this shift in the retail meat world means theloss of service and choice, plus a loss of knowledgeabout the source and quality of the meat you buy.

I’m guessing that it’s this loss of choice and controlthat’s one of the reasons you bought this book andare considering learning the art of home butchery.

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WHAT EVERY TRUEBUTCHER SHOULD KNOW

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Being a butcher is so much more than cuttingmeat. It requires great customer service skills, agood sense of humor, a great work ethic (includinga clean, neat appearance), and the love of food. Ifyou’re doing butchery at home, customer serviceskills may not apply, but the rest still does, unless

Meat Industry Metamorphosis

The decline in the number of butchers and increasein meat-cutters really came about during the 1970s.As large supermarket chain stores began to infiltratemy home state, small butcher shops and the mom-and-pop stores that sold meat found it harder andharder to survive. Some managed for a while bystaying open on Sundays. But by the early to mid-1970s, supermarket chains were doing the samething. The smaller retail stores tried to stop them

by getting the state of Vermont to enforce existingstatutes known as the Blue Laws forbidding the saleof most non-edible items on Sunday.

Soon supermarkets stopped receiving wholecarcasses. Instead meat arrived already broken intoprimal cuts and packed in boxes labeled so that allthe “butcher” needed to do was open the box andcut along the dotted lines. With this introduction ofwhat became known as “boxed beef,” the need forhighly skilled employees began to drop off. Meatdepartments that had employed three full-timecutters could now do with one, and pay him or hermuch less because the work simply didn’t require asmuch knowledge or expertise.

By the early 1990s, the average age of a true butcher was 59 years old. In a trade that was oncepaid on par with electricians and plumbers, a meat-cutter now was lucky to get $12 an hour.

And even this is changing. I fully expect thatsoon all meat will be delivered to supermarketsvacuum-packed as retail cuts, thus completelyeliminating the need even for meat-cutters or meatslicers. From the perspective of large meat pro-cessors, this is an ideal scenario because it reduces

their costs and provides ideal inventory control.But in my opinion, it’s not in the best interests ofthe customers. Like you!

The responsibility for the devaluation of culinary butchery lies mainly with the commercial meatindustry as well as large supermarket chains. Theyhave preyed on the ignorance of today’s averageconsumer. The upshot is that the commercial meat


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What Is a Butcher?

it was slaughtered. In my opinion, assurance thatthe animal was humanely raised and slaughteredis particularly important.

• How long a carcass was aged and what agingmethod was used (as well as ideal aging timesand methods for each type of meat animalworked with).

• How the animal was finished (fed in the fewmonths before slaughter). Was it grass-fed andgrass-finished or grass-fed and grain-finished?Was it penned or pastured most of its life? Iexpect a butcher to understand the pros andcons of each method and not to be a slave to thelatest culinary trend.

• How to deal with unpleasant things in an animal

such as tumors, abscesses, or a dark cutter (seechapter 4 to learn what a dark cutter is), andhow to tell the difference.

• The location of certain glands that canadversely affect the taste of the meat, and howto remove them.

• How to safely use meat-processing equipment.• Proper sanitation methods: A butcher’s work

space and shop must be spotless at all times.• Regional preferences and terminology for cuts

of meat. For instance, tri-tips are common in

California, Yankee pot roasts in New England.• How to create an artful meat display, perform a

cutting test, figure gross profit margins, and addvalue and quality to a piece of meat.

• Familiarity with different spices or side dishes toaccompany a given species or preparation of meat.

• Cooking times for various cuts of meat as well asmost suitable doneness—rare, medium, or well.

• A set of good recipes, as well as the ability to helpa customer plan a meal around a specific cut.

(I give my phone number to customers in casethey get the least bit nervous when preparing aholiday or special meal for guests.)

• Knowledge of wines. A question often asked ofa culinary butcher is, “Can you suggest a goodwine for this cut of meat?”

• For value-added products, which ingredients—likegluten or peanuts—can cause allergic reactions.

Master butcher Ralph Citarella shows off an expertly pre-pared rack of American lamb. Citarella goes by the motto,I am an artist and meat is my canvas. Courtesy Ralph Citarella.

your family consider themselves your customers(just don’t let them get too uppity).

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who wants to be atrue butcher should have the following knowledge:

• Familiarity with the most common meat animal breeds and their attributes.

• Detailed anatomical knowledge of each typeof meat animal (you’d be surprised how many“butchers” don’t have this). This includesknowing where every muscle or muscle groupis located in the animal and the best cookingmethod for it. And I mean every possible cutand option.

• Where the animal was raised, how it was fed,

whether or not antibiotics or growth hormoneswere administered, and exactly where and how


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excellent mechanical working condition, andregularly maintained, so accidents rarely—if

ever—happen.Every employee has been trained in the safe

use of the equipment as well as proper cleaningand sanitizing procedures. They know to turn thepower source off when they dismantle and cleanthe power saws. And they’ve been well trained inknife skills, knife safety, and the proper way to usehand tools and other shop instruments.

Every person in this meat department knowsexactly what to do if someone gets injured and what

precautions to take to eliminate any contaminationcaused by blood pathogens.Cleanliness and sanitation are ongoing processes,

and the department and its equipment are cleanedand sanitized throughout the workday, then fullycleaned and sanitized at the end of each day. Theplace is spotless. It’s not just about appearance;proper sanitation is an important factor in the

This superb meat display is a daily showcase at MacDonald Bros. Butchers in Pitlochry, Scotland. Courtesy Rory MacDonald.

But wait, there’s more! You need to top off all ofthis knowledge with a few other important quali-

ties, including respect for other butchers’ tools andwork space, concern for your customers and theireating habits, a total commitment to please even themost difficult customer with a smile, and the very

best service possible.

How to Recognize aWell-Run Meat Department

Customer service is part of good management, butthere’s more to consider. Let me introduce you to awell-run meat department . . .

Its physical space is designed for efficiency ofmovement and furnished to be ergonomicallycomfortable for its staff and its customers. Allthe equipment in this department is spotless, in


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What Is a Butcher?

This meat department is very profitable becauseits managers understand how to calculate grossprofit margins and verify them by performing accu-rate cutting tests to determine the true cost of theirproduct after the removal of waste material likefat and gristle. They know the difference betweendisplay life and shelf life and understand that pack-aging and display are prime influencers of a decisionto buy, because nothing stimulates appetite like a

beautifully presented and decorated meat case.That’s why this meat department has two kinds

of display case: a pre-packaged case and a service

case. Only the most experienced employees workat the service case, where beautifully presented andabsolutely fresh gourmet cuts are offered behind aglass window. Nothing is pre-packaged here. The

butcher reaches into the case to get you the cutyou’ve chosen or will cut it for you to your specifi-cations. And if you ask, the butcher will offer recipesfor the cut, as well as suggestions for presentation.

The After-Life of Meat

Display life is the time period that meat holds a nice freshcolor and remains visually appealing to the customer.

Shelf life is the period of time during which meatis safe to eat (in other words, no spoilage is present).

To demonstrate, this steak—in its original storepackaging—was photographed over a period of ninedays. Take a gander.

Day one. The steak is red and fresh looking; it’s at thestart of its shelf life, and will taste fresh and delicious.Photo by Steven Shackelford. Courtesy USDA.

Day six. The steak has slightly darkened, and browncoloration is creeping in at its edges. It is still edible,but has reached the end of its viable shelf life. Iwouldn’t buy it. Photo by Steven Shackelford. Courtesy USDA.

Day nine. Would you eat this? I wouldn’t. This steakshould not be on the store’s shelf. Photo by StevenShackelford. Courtesy USDA.

maximum shelf life of meat. The more bacteria arepresent on equipment, cutting surfaces, and meatcases, the shorter the shelf life of the product.

Cole’s Notes

Ever wonder why, when you go to a service meatcounter ( service means “staffed”) and find two layersof meat in the case, there’s pink paper between thelayers? This is to keep the steaks from turning brown.Without the paper the meat would turn brown in lessthan five minutes.

Another reason this meat department is top-notch has to do with ordering policies and ethicalpractices. Ordering is critical, because high inven-

tory ties up money and creates older product thatthen has to be discounted or frozen (two practicesI’m against).

Down the street from this meat department is astore whose meat department is—shall we say—alittle more lax. They often end up with too much


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May I Serve You?Defining Customer Service

In the retail meat business, providing friendlyquality service is one of the most difficult andstressful tasks. Whenever I think about customerservice, I remember what my former employerTony LaFrieda used to say: “Remember, anyone canwait on an easy customer. It takes an artist to wait

on an asshole!”Tony was right that customer service is an art.I try never to think of any customer—no matterhow challenging—as an asshole. I think of them aspeople just like me, but who have suffered multipleexperiences with poor service and crummy prod-ucts. Can’t blame folks for being leery after they’ve

been ripped off a few times.

Have you enjoyed your little tour? Bet you’llcome back.

inventory, so they freeze it for later rethawing. Noproblem, right? Wrong, because they then sell thedefrosted meat as fresh. In Vermont (and mostother states), this is illegal. Any previously frozen

product must be labeled as such.In the well-run department, the manager and staff

know their customer base and track weekly sales.With this data in hand, they can plan their inventoryso that they sell out of most products by Sunday andstart fresh on Monday with a fresh delivery. Otherdeliveries are scheduled throughout the week—allto make sure that everything on offer is fresh.

They also allow for changes in demand. Theykeep their eyes on the weather, because cold, wet, or

snowy weather keeps folks in the kitchen cookingroasts and stews. Nice sunny weather lures themout to the grill to cook steaks and hamburgers.

This place also creates its own value-addedproducts such as stuffed chicken breast, roulades,and a variety of fresh sausage from scratch. Spe-cialty oven-ready products help increase their grossprofit margins.

This is an excellent example of a spotless value-added prep room. It’s at Boucherie Viandal in Montréal.


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MONTRÉAL, CANADA: BOUCHERIE VIANDAL~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

individuals, but we also supply restaurants—from

corner burger joints to high-end restos.

Twice a week, beef carcasses come in. We keepthem in our own chill room and cut them down

into primals and retail cuts. I’d say that most of

our beef grades Canada AA. We also source fresh

pork, lamb, and grain-fed chicken from local

Québec farmers.

Our most popular item is our beef rib steak, but

our value-added products also do well. Upstairs, we

make meat and chicken pies, beef bourguignon, spare

ribs, sausages, shepherd’s pie, lasagna, soup, quiche,

crepes, and beef, veal, lamb, and chicken stock.

Our entire focus is on quality, service, and

professionalism. We have standards for personalappearance, generally changing two to three times

a day so we’re always spotless. Our customer

service standards are very high. We expect all our

staff to be polite and endeavor to understand what

each customer wants, depending on what they’re

planning to cook; we have recipes and can explain

exactly how to prepare the meat they’re buying.

Our standards for sanitation and cleanliness

are just as rigorous. Every day, we clean and san-

itize the entire shop—this is absolutely basic. Twice

a year, we do a major internal cleanup: the chill

rooms, fridges, and so on.You ask me what a butcher is. It’s hard to

answer. A true butcher doesn’t happen overnight;

it takes years to really learn the trade.

In the old working-class neighborhood of Verdun sits agem: Boucherie Viandal, a true culinary butcher shop

that is a mecca for meat-lovers. The shop was started byPolish master butcher Ted Makowka with his French(from France) wife, Raymonde Devroete, and now hasabsorbed the second generation: Sons Bertrand andYves work side by side with their parents.

The establishment takes up two floors: butchery onthe ground floor and an enormous kitchen upstairs—the province of Mme. Devroete—for the creation of themany value-added products sold here.

There are 17 full-time staff: 6 professional butchers,service clerks, bakers, and so on. The shop occasionallytakes on apprentices, but they’re hard to find. Not as

hard to find as good butchers, though, according to sonBertrand, who’s the general manager and a very busyman. He says:

We’re a family business, so everyone has their own

job. Except me—I seem to do everything. A typical

day starts at 8 a.m. (we open at 9) when we pre-

pare for the day, doing the meat prep, cutting steaks

and roasts for presentation, and so on. It takes an

hour to an hour and a half to get everything done;

we have several self-serve and one full-service meat

case, and they’re all large.

Our customers are extremely diverse: French, English, Japanese, Korean (we’ve developed a

profitable sideline preparing meats for Oriental

cuisines). About 75 percent of our customers are

Ted Makowka. Raymonde Devroete.


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THE RESURGENCE OFBUTCHERY

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The industrialization of all aspects of our lives isdeeply troubling. and nowhere more so than infood production. I think that people are starting toquestion the wholesomeness of the products they’re

being offered in the meat departments (and other

departments) of supermarkets. Increasing mediacoverage of links between animal feed additivesand antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the increasingfrequency of product recalls, and other issuessuch as animal welfare are raising the awareness ofconsumers. Gradually, more people are making aneffort to learn about how their meat is raised andprocessed. This is a good thing, because ignoranceis not bliss; it’s a possible case of E. coli .

I’m encouraged by the interest in traditional

butchery, as well as in the recent enthusiasm forfarm-to-table eating and local foods. Some small-scale butchers are forming business relationshipswith farmers to buy carcasses directly from them,without going through middlemen.

My customers are the ones who really pay mysalary. In my mind, they’re all kings and queens—and that’s how I treat them. My aim is to providethe kind of service I’d expect as a customer.

Never make customers wait! Greet them as soon asthey walk in—even if you’re with another customer—

to let them know you’ll be right with them. Offerextra service. C’mon, it doesn’t hurt: “Would you likethis freezer-wrapped or wrapped individually?”

Share your knowledge, share recipes, carry theirpackages, and watch your language with otheremployees in front of them. Imagine that with eachnew customer you are on a job interview—becausein reality, you are. Your customer should always see

Appearance Is Reality

In my early days as a butcher, you had to be clean-shaven, or, if you had a mustache, it had to be neatlytrimmed (I wouldn’t purchase raw food of any kindfrom someone with unkempt facial hair). You had to

be clean with well-groomed hair. A white shirt and black or navy blue tie was mandatory. Fingernailshad to be clean. And all this was actually checked. Itmakes sense, doesn’t it? After all, a butcher is handlingyour future dinner.

Service clerk Jennifer Sciou at Boucherie Viandal isready for work—spotless and delightful.

you and your meat department in the best possiblelight. Be professional! Know what you’re talkingabout and never deceive or cheat them. And finally,if you don’t know the answer—say so. You can givethem renewed faith in your industry.

Get to know them. Ask about their families. Listento them. Treat them as friends and you will becomefriends. As you get to know them, share a joke.

By the way, for those of you who are not aspiringto become butchers yourselves . . . if you’re notgetting the kind of service described above, shopsomewhere else.

People often ask me how to find a good butcher. It’s not easy, I reply. Try asking friendsfor a recommendation. If you can’t get a personal


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What Is a Butcher?

recommendation, and you’re making a “cold call”at a butcher shop or grocery meat department,start by asking lots of questions. Read this book,and you’ll know what questions to ask, such aswhere the butcher learned the trade, and whathe or she knows about sanitation laws and bacte-rial contamination. Request a tour of the facility.Remember—the butcher’s meat goes into yourmouth and the mouths of your children. Don’t youdeserve a sense of security about its safety?

My policy as meat department manager at thelast few stores I worked at was never to sell meatfrom any producer whose farm I had not visitedin person. When I can truly relay to the consumerwhat I know about the source of the meat I am

selling firsthand, then I’ve done my job with integ-rity. These are all critical things that we should bethinking about as meat consumers.

Getting involved in the local food movement inyour area can also help you find a good butcher.

Just make sure that the one you find was trained bya professional butcher and went through the 2-or 3-year apprenticeship with hanging carcasses.Don’t accept second best. What you do not wantis some self-taught individual who will more thanlikely stuff you with inaccurate information and

incorrect meat terms that will only get you con-fused looks from that truly good butcher you aredestined to find.

Good butchery is not rocket science. But . . .it’s certainly not something learned in a few shortlessons or by taking a few expensive workshops.It takes a few years of education in the trade totruly grasp the art of taking a whole animal from ahanging carcass to culinary delight on a plate.

Is Butchery a Man’s World? Nope!

When I started in the butchering business, thereweren’t any female butchers—this was strictly aman’s world. There were a few female meat wrap-pers. Things started to change in the 1970s in NewEngland, but slowly, slowly.

Butcher–Farmer

PartnershipsButcher Ron Savenor of Boston’s famous Savenor’sMarket is dedicated to developing direct relationshipswith farmers. So I asked Ron whether there’s a wayfor butchers and meat farmers to help each other

become more prosperous. Here’s what he said.

It’s a good question, and not easy to answer. I’ve

made a conscious choice to make sure that the

relationship between me and my farmers works

for their benefit. This includes paying them COD

when they deliver their meat. Technically, it’s bad

business for me to do this, but I choose to do it to

support what they do. I work on a lower markup

than I should, but I do it because I believe in the

farmer and his or her product. I want to help

them keep going. So it’s more a personal than a

business issue for me.

The process works best for my beef and pork

suppliers. They’re not interested in cutting up the

animals, just in selling me the whole carcass. So

they’re on a “whole-animal” program.

It’s challenging for me because Savenor’s is

a high-end place, so we sell high-end cuts very

easily. We have much less demand for lower-end

cuts like bottom round. We do have a terrific

market for offal, like high-quality French beef

cheeks, tongue, and so on.

The real trick is being able to use all the cuts.

Ron, at left, shaking hands with beef farmer RayBuck of Archer Angus. Courtesy Ron Savenor.


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LOS ANGELES:

LINDY & GRUNDY BUTCHERS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Erika: “We have lots of specialties that we’re proudof. Our Short Rib Royale, Tomahawk chop, porchetta,and a new item, lamb-chetta: the lamb loin and bellyattached, deboned, and seasoned with traditional herbsand spices. Another specialty is our Smokey Sundays,where we offer hot-to-go BBQ featuring highlightsfrom the week. We also offer catering, specializing inwhole animal roasts.”

The shop’s poultry is slaughtered so that stress

levels in the animals remain low, which leads to a muchricher flavor. Same for the other meats; the duo works

Founded by Erika Nakamura and Amelia Posada,Lindy & Grundy is a nose-to-tail butcher shop basedon the principle of sustainability. The owners are proudthat it’s one of very few US butcher shops that workswith whole carcasses; in fact, every animal is traceable

back to the farm where it was raised. Erika and Ameliafounded their business in part to create a stronger senseof community as well as raise awareness of the ethicaltreatment of animals. “We have a responsibility as

omnivores and carnivores to acknowledge the fact thatthese animals used to be alive,” Amelia explains.Erika: “As a chef I started butchering smaller

animals—chicken, rabbits, and whole fish. I began todevelop a passion for whole-animal butchery. I soonrealized that what I really wanted was to work in amore hands-on environment, interfacing with cus-tomers face-to-face. This led me to working in a localneighborhood butcher shop.”

Amelia: “I met Erika at a drag show in Brooklynactually! Once we got engaged we knew we wantedto open a family business together one day; we work

so well together. I joined Erika at the butcher shop tolearn the trade. The more we worked at this, the morewe realized this was something we truly wanted to do.We opened our own place in 2011.”

Erika: “Our animals are sourced locally, sourcedsustainably, and are never fed antibiotics or hormones.They must be raised with full access to pasture andnever fed any sort of grain. While we do prefer someheritage breeds over commodity breeds, we also

believe that genetic diversity is imperative to a healthyanimal. But what makes us unique is our focus onwhole-animal utilization.”

Amelia: “All our meat comes from very small familyfarms that raise all meat organically and sustainably. Weonly use whole carcasses at our shop; nothing comes in a

box, which makes us one of just a handful of US butchershops that start with whole carcasses. Every week weget two steers, seven pigs, four lambs, and 160 wholechickens (with head, neck, and feet). No boxed meat!”

Erika Nakamura (left), Amelia Posada (right). Courtesy Jennifer May.


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What Is a Butcher?

how to perform cutting tests, value-added prod-ucts, how to order professionally and efficiently . . .never mind the attributes of customer service.

And if you apprentice at a supermarket chain, youwon’t learn how to break down hanging carcassesinto primals, subprimals, and retail cuts . . . becausesupermarkets no longer deal in hanging carcasses.You won’t learn where all of the various cuts comefrom on an animal, because they don’t know, either;

it all arrives pre-cut in boxes. You won’t get propertraining calculating margins, since margins andpricing are determined at the corporate level.

How I Teach

I find that when I take on apprentices, the learningprocess takes nearly twice as long as it used to, becauseI can only expose them to a retail environment for a

day or two a week. (I work part-time at a few retailmeat markets for just this reason—to apprenticesomeone in the retail aspects of the meat business.)

To train apprentices in the hanging carcassaspects of butchery, I bring them to the on-farmcutting work I do throughout the year. This givesthem a chance to learn how to break beef, lamb,or pig into primals and subprimals and retail or

Since then, I’ve worked with a few femalemeat-cutters—in fact, I worked for one who wasa terrific cutter and a great boss. Like many otherwomen, she had a rough time fitting into thismale-dominated trade and suffered the discrimina-tion that was once common. She was every bit asgood as the male cutters I have worked with. I hadtremendous respect for her.

Now times have finally changed for the better,

and there’s an increasing emergence of womenin the trade. In fact, I’ve noticed that women arethe majority in most of my butchery classes. It’sabout time!

and politics, as well as getting out there in the worldand being active,” Erika says. “We try to be as involvedas we can.”

As for the future of culinary butchery, here’sErika’s take:“If the word culinary wasn’t in there I would say no,

there’s probably no future, but because it is I say yes.Now restaurants have items vacuum-packed, sealed,and delivered to them ready to go. Along with otheradvances in the commercial environment, these havepushed artisanal craft-style practices like butcheryout of the kitchen. But at the same time we’re seeing agrowing interest in whole-animal butchery. We hopepeople like us inspire others to take an interest in this.”

directly with suppliers to promote humane methodsof slaughter. “We choose slaughterhouses that aresmall,” Erika explains. “We end up having a connection

between the rancher and the slaughterhouse.”Erika and Amelia believe that creating a sustainableretail business is about more than products; fundamen-tally, Lindy & Grundy aims to create a strong sense ofcommunity. They work hard to foster a warm and openatmosphere for customers. Erika offers butcheringand cooking classes throughout the year. The duospend off-hours donating their services to their localcommunity, sharing their craft by donating cookingclasses to the neighborhood school system for schoolfund-raisers. “The business is built on our personalities

Finding On-the-Job Training

If you want to make butchery your full-time pro-fession, you’ll need in-depth training. I suspect it

will be hard to find. One big hurdle is not beingable to get all the training you need in one place.For example, if you apprentice at a slaughter-

house or custom-cutting shop, you will learn howto break hanging carcasses, produce the basic cutsoffered by the facility, and package for the freezer.You won’t learn the skills you need to operate a retailmeat market, such as profit margin calculation,


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intern on the premises. There are several reasons: Itslows production considerably, and there are issueswith liability, worker’s comp, insurance, and more.I have, however, interned a few people this way.

What I am observing is a growing interest in theart of butchery; beef, pork, and lamb. There seemsto be more interest in pigs than anything else. Thisis probably due to the size and ease of raising swine.

I see this interest in butchery classes and workshopssticking around for the foreseeable future, as moreand more people want to know where their foodcomes from, how it was raised and treated, whatit was fed, and whether or not it was administeredantibiotics or hormones.

So given that, it is safe to say that as long as I amhealthy and able I will also be teaching and givingworkshops. I believe in knowing where my meatcomes from, and I believe that educating people is

key to the future of local farming and keeping theart of butchery alive in America.

table-ready cuts—in the process learning whereall the cuts come from on any given animal. I alsoteach them how to precision-cut any given pieceof meat, how to properly trim, as well as the bestmethods of cooking various cuts.

It’s possible that—with the dearth of expert butchers—better meat shops are willing to considerapprenticeships, and if this interests you, then getonto that computer and start finding them.

There are some self-taught butchers at high-endmeat markets who charge as much as $2,000 a weekto provide a few weeks of training. Frankly, fromwhat I’ve seen, heard, and read, much of it is prettyinaccurate training. True culinary butchering isn’tsomething you can learn in a few weeks of expen-

sive meat-cutting classes. Anyone who believes it’spossible is just throwing away their money.I sometimes dream of opening a school for those

interested in pursuing a career in the art of butcheryor meat cutting. But in the meanwhile, I lead work-shops on home butchery, and I’ve created this bookand CD. My workshops vary according to venueand learner level. I teach at culinary schools, smallcolleges, food organizations (including the North-east Organic Farming Association of Vermont),private farms, and “get-together” groups of meat-

lovers. I get about two to three emails a weekinquiring about workshops from folks . . . somewant to become butchers, which—as you’ve prob-ably figured out by now—really can’t be learned ina workshop or two. But it gives them a taste ofwhat’s involved. Some just want to watch the pro-cess or purchase a workshop or class as a gift for aspouse, sibling, parent, or partner. (No more tiesand scarves they’ll never wear!)

Some people are seeking an internship—but

here I’m limited. Although I help out at a few retailmarkets, it’s tough to convince owners to allow an

Here’s Sterling College student Nadine Nelson at one ofmy workshops, cutting her first pork carcass.

Documents

Chapter One: What is a Butcher?