Professional Butchers

[Varmint]

The grocery stores have taken over the meat industry, resulting in a decline in the number of professional butchers. In Raleigh, I don't know of a single true butcher -- they're all meat cutters who know more about plastic wrap and styrofoam trays than meat. There are a couple of professionals here and there in the region, but they're definitely a dying breed.

Where have you gone, Sam the Butcher??? And what can we, as consumers, do to change this???

[Chad]

Where have you gone, Sam the Butcher???

A nation turns its loney eyes to you . . .

Chad

[tryska]

ooo-ooo-ooh.....

[Mister_Cutlets]

It's a real problem, and one reason so many of us are so glad to be living in New York. If your supermarket butcher doesn't get a certain cut of meat, you can usually order it, though. And, though he might not be Sam the Butcher, you can usually benefit from developing a relationship with him. (Though not an Alice the Maid relationship.) Though he works with cryovac meat in the supermarket, chances are he knows more about meat than his twenty-something subordinates do; and between the two of you you might be able to get the meat you want cut the way you want it. Of course, if you're really in the boondocks, you might want to befriend an actual farmer, or a family whose child is in the 4-H club; small farms are the root-source of all meat culture, and you can bypass the commercial butcher decline entirely by working with them and their butcher.

yours,

Mr. Cutlets