There are many advantages to using a butcher over buying meat from the grocery store, and this article will go over them for you.
If you fit into any of the types of people listed below, then this article is a ‘must read’ for you as it will explain all the benefits of getting to know your local butcher, and how your meat eating experience can be taken to another level.
So are you:-
- A Total Carnivore Who Loves Meat With Every Meal
- A Fan of Backyard BBQ’s and Meat Related Gatherings
- A Meat Smoking Enthusiast
- A Lover of Fine Quality Foods
- A Cooking Fan Who Loves Trying New and Exciting Recipes
- A Wannabe Butcher or Fan of Home Butchery
- A Hunter Who Prepares Your Own Meats
- A Homemade Sausage, Bacon and Burger Maker
If you relate to any of these types of people, or something close, then you may get some benefit from reading this article if you don’t already use a local butcher or meat market.
What is a Butcher?
A butcher is a fully trained master of breaking down animal carcasses into retail sized portions, and finding a use for every part of the animal, so that nothing goes to waste.
They will have had years of training, either on the job being taught by other master butchers, or by attending a dedicated butchery training course. By far the most common is on the job training, and with this comes a wealth or real world experience, an abundance of tried and tested cutting methods, and many homemade recipes handed down through the generations.
Using knives, choppers and various pieces of equipment, a butcher is able to not only prepare the raw meat for sale, but can also make sausages, burgers, pies and a vast array of other meat related products. Many butchers will have developed their own recipes for sausages and pies, making their product unique to their business.
A good butcher will be knowledgeable about the different cuts from the animals, including where they are located on the animal, whether a cut of meat will be tough or tender, fatty or lean, and how best to cook the meat for great results.
Basically, if there is anything you want to know about the meat in a butchers cabinet, the butcher will be able to answer every question you have.
And that leads us on to why you need a butcher in your life if you are serious about the meat you eat.
Here are the topic headings that we will be discussing in more depth within the article, that talk about the value of using a butcher.
- Knowledge
- Skill
- Quality
- Uniqueness
- Availability
- Loyalty & Service
A Butcher Has Knowledge
As mentioned previously, most butchers learn the trade on the job from other skilled butchers. As you can imagine, this type of learning from generation to generation is going to pass down an enormous amount of knowledge that can be shared with you the customer if you have a quaestion.
A qualified butcher will know every inch of the animals that they butcher and how each muscle will cook, eat, smoke, grind, cure, shred, stuff or slice. Whatever question you have about any cut of meat for sale in their store, the butcher should be able to answer for you.
Imagine that, ANY question you have about a piece of meat, your butcher will know the answer, and will share that knowledge with you. Who needs GOOGLE when you have the genuine expert right in front of you.
Imagine you’ve thought up a new sausage recipe that you think will taste absolutely fantastic, but are not sure which meat would be best to use. Perhaps you are not sure how much fat to add, or liquid to use. I can bet if you tell your idea to the butcher, they will know exactly what you need to answer all of those questions.
Maybe you are planning a special meal for a large crowd and don’t know how much meat you would need to serve them all. Rather than leaving it to chance and getting too much or too little. Tell the butcher what you are serving and how many people, and they will make sure you have just the right amount.
The point I’m trying to make here is that a butcher is basically a human meat encyclopedia. They are crammed full of experiences, tips, tricks and suggestions that they will be only too happy to share with you if you just ASK! And that is the key. If you are going to use a butcher for your meat, use them for their knowledge too.
Butchers love to show off their knowledge, and will happily answer every question you wish to ask, if they know that you are genuinely interested in what they have to say. So if you are making the effort to use a butcher, make sure you also make use of their knowledge as well as their meat skills. Not only will you benefit from knowing what they have shared, but you will broaden your own meat knowledge, and will expand on the types of recipes you may try, and the meats you will eat.
A Butcher Has Knife Skills
Another reason why using a butcher is so beneficial, is the knife skills that they possess.
A butcher can take a full animal carcass and break it down into the steaks, chops and roasts that you are more familiar with in next to no time.
They use precision cutting to ensure that they don’t cut into the meat where they are not supposed to. They remove all the non edible parts such as bones and gristle.
They use a variety of tools from boning knives, steak knives, hand saws, band saws, steels, and hooks to get the cuts of meat that they need. However, if all the butcher had was one boning knife, they could still break that animal down into retail cuts without too much trouble.
But that is only a fraction of their skills.
So how can these skills benefit you?
I can assure you that any meat recipe you find that has a complicated meat element, your butcher will be able to provide you with what you need. Here are some of the more popular types of meat preparations that recipes call for that you may require a butcher to do for you if you are not confident in your own knife skills
- Removing the bone
- Stuffing and Rolling
- French Trimming
- Stir Frying
- Pounding and Tenderizing
- Grinding or Dicing
- Fat trimming and Muscle Separation
- Butterflying or Spatchcocking
As you can see, there are a large amount of meat preparation methods that require different levels of skills, but your butcher will be proficient in all of them, and will likely only take them minutes to do to the meat you are buying.
Therefore, if you are making a boneless leg of lamb, have the butcher take the bone out. If you need some butterflied chicken breasts, get the butcher to do it. If you need pork escalopes pounding thin, you know who can ask to do it. You get the idea.
The butchers skills are there for you to use. You will quite often pay more for your meat from a butcher, and this is part of the reason why. They are there to do all these little extras for you, and don’t charge any more for doing it. So don’t be afraid to ask them to do something to the meat for you, if you were intending to go home and do it yourself.
Incidently, if you have an interest in cutting or preparing your own meat, tell the butcher what you intend to do, and they will happily share any hints and tips that may make the task easier for you. They would probably be willing to give you a demonstration if you ask, so that you can see for yourself how it should be done.
Just like with their knowledge, butchers are happy to share their skills with you, you just need to ask.
Butchers Have Unique Products
Independent butchers will all sell similar meats, however they will also all have their own unique style of preparation, sausage recipes, pie recipes etc.
Butchers Recipes From Generations Past
When I was a butcher in Lincolnshire for many years, we had our own Lincolnshire sausage recipe that had been handed down through 4 generations. My shop was one of 6 independent butchers in the town, and each shop had their own recipe that had also been handed down. Although all of these sausages were made using a similar sage recipe, every one tasted different in some way – they all had Uniqueness.
If you asked anyone on the street which Lincolnshire Sausage they thought was the best, you would get 6 different answers because each sausage had it’s own unique qualities that appealed to some more than others. If your sausage was the favorite of someone, you could guarantee that they would only buy their Lincolnshire sausages from you, because they couldn’t get the same sausage anywhere else. Similar, but not the same.
And so it goes for many of the meat products sold in the independent butchers. If they make their own products, they will have their own recipes. If you like that recipe, then you will have to keep going back to the same butcher as none of the other butchers will make it the same.
It is not uncommon for someone in the UK to have 2 or 3 butchers that they shop with. They will like the sausages from one butcher but prefer the pies from another and possibly the dry cured bacon from another. All butchers are different, and there is no rule saying that you can only stick to one. Shop around and then buy from the ones with the meats you most prefer.
Modern Twists on Old Favorites
Modern eating changes very frequently as people become bored eating the same thing over time. A good butcher will always be looking at ways to re-invent a dish and bring you fresh and exciting options.
Whether they are flattening and stuffing chicken breasts, french trimming racks and crowns of lamb, stir frying pork tenderloin with peppers and onions or making beef chorizo sausages. You can be sure that your butcher is constantly trying and testing new methods and flavors to bring variety to your meat dishes.
It is a natural thing for a butcher to have an interest in food, and recipes, and will always be considering how different flavors will compliment different meats. they will then go on to try and develop different coatings, marinades, spice rubs etc to create tasty and creative dishes.
Equally, if you find your own recipe and want to give it a go, the butcher can prepare the meat in any way that you require. As long as you can explain to the butcher just how you want your meat to look, they will have the skills to provide it for you.
It was not uncommon for customers to bring in their own stuffing and ask me to tie it inside a shoulder of lamb, rolled pork loin or boneless chicken. This was all part of the service and allowed the customer to experiment with different flavors while getting me to ensure it stayed in the meat while it cooked.
Related Article – How To Choose A Good Butcher
Availability
Another great benefit to using an independent butcher is the availability of harder to get cuts of meat.
Grocery stores rely on selling in volume and so will generally only carry the more popular cuts of meat. So where do you go when you see a recipe that calls for something a little different that you would like to try? The independent butcher.
From pigs trotters, to beef liver, from tripe to ox tail, from lamb cushion to pork crown. If it comes off an animal, you can be sure your independent butcher is likely to stock it, or be able to get it for you.
Also, if you are the kind of person who likes to buy in bulk, then you have access to buying larger quantities, such as a half or whole pig or lamb. You can then have it cut and packed to exactly the size requires for your family. No more making do with roasts that are too big or too small, pack of chops where there is one too many or not enough. Just tell the butcher what you need and they will get the job done, and cheaper than buying over the counter too, so you save money.
Watch This Butcher Cut A Whole Lamb Into Retail Cuts in Less Than 15 Minutes
If you feel adventurous, you could even ask for some larger primal cuts to take home and have a go at butchering them yourself. Home butchery is becoming more popular as people become more interested in where their meat comes from and how it is processed. If you feel like you would enjoy cutting up your own meat, then this article on our site will tell you about some of the tools you would need to get started. And remember, your butcher will happily give you some tips or demonstrations on meat cutting if you ask!
There are so many different cuts of meat, and so may ways to prepare them, and your butcher will be aware of most of them. So if you are the kind of person who loves looking through recipe books and trying out new meals, having a good relationship with your local butcher will allow you access to the more obscure meats that may be called for.
Not only that, as mentioned earlier, a new world of butcher made products may also open up to you. Savory ducks and faggots, pork pies and haslet, collar bacon and gammon steaks, could all be available.
Another advantage of the butcher is if you would like to have a go at making your own sausages, burgers, pies etc. Not only can you ask for hints and tips to make your own products successfully, but you may be able to get some things like sausage casings, burger discs etc in small quantities from them too. Try going to the grocery store and asking for 3 meters of hog casings, I think you will likely come out empty handed.
A Butcher Provides Loyalty & Service
Although an independent butcher is only going to stay in business if he provides excellent meat, the service they provide will also be a determining factor. And this is where most butchers come into their own.
As you will have no doubt have realized from the previous points of knowledge and skills, sharing these attributes are all part of the ‘service’ that the butcher provides. However, once you become a regular customer of a particular butcher, a mutual loyalty will develop that will benefit you a great deal.
Shopping with an independent butcher is a two way street. If you are loyal to your butcher, show an interest in their display, ask questions and interact in a pleasant way, then you will become a loyal customer and they will bend over backwards to ensure they treat you well.
Once you become a loyal customer, the butcher will get to know just how you like your meat prepared. They will know which cut of meat is your favorite and will start to put that piece aside for you when they see a particularly good piece. They will alert you to something they think you would enjoy but not be aware they have. In short, you will start to get the star treatment, and the butcher will go to great lengths to make sure you are always happy with whatever you buy.
With this loyalty and trust from both sides, you can always be sure that if you ever had occasion to complain about something, the fault would be rectified immediately and without compromise.
If you enjoy eating meat, have a love for cooking meat, and maybe even an interest in doing some home butchery, then developing a relationship with a local butcher that you trust will reap many rewards for you both.
Incidently, if you have a butcher that you use regularly and can recommend, then please do so. In today’s busy society, many people just go to the grocery store and it becomes harder year on year for independent butchers to stay in business.
Word of mouth is the best advertising that you local butcher can get, and so be sure to talk about how impressed you are with all of your friends. Tell your friends to mention to the butcher that you recommended them, and this will further develop that beneficial bond between you and your butcher.
So hopefully this article has given you an insight as to some of the many advantages that using an independent butcher can have if you enjoy eating meat. Taking the time to get to know your local butcher will develop into a mutually beneficial relationship that will pay dividends to you both over the years.
Go and check out your local butchers and start enjoying good meat, good service today.
