25 things vanishing in America, part 2: Butcher shops
When was the last time you went to a butcher? Not the person stashed at the back of the grocery store, far from the light of day, but an honest-to-goodness butcher in his own storefront, who shoots the breeze and can gauge with his hand the exact weight of a cut before it hits the scale? If you're living in America, chances are you've never been to one at all. They've become as antiquated as five-and-dimes and general stores.There's an old-fashioned butcher, Anthony, near my house, and I know full well that I'm lucky to have him. I make a point of patronizing places that I want to see stick around. I know I could get my meat cheaper at the supermarket, but I also know that every dollar I spend with my butcher makes it possible for him to be my butcher.
Stepping into Anthony's shop is like stepping into another world, and he's the only food seller I frequent who will actually ask me how I plan to cook what I buy from him. He asks because he knows his trade well, and he does it because he has time to listen to the answer and help me out, the way neighbors do. He keeps an extra chair by the window for elderly neighbors who want to come in and chat. It's usually occupied.
In generations past, butchers stocked kitchen tables around the neighborhood, and because families were the main market, butchers did their most brisk trade in cheaper cuts of meats, like kidneys. Once meat started showing up cling-wrapped at the supermarket, people started looking to professional butchers as artisans. That brought volume down and wiped most of them off the map.
Now, much of a butcher's business has shifted from family fare to high-quality, expensive cuts like racks of lamb and prime rib. You'll pick up chuck when you're at the Kroger, but you turn to a butcher for special occasions. Ultimately, that makes him a fringe vendor or a party caterer, not a guy who delivers your staples, and it means his days are numbered.
When I cook something from my supermarket, I simply eat it. When I cook something from my butcher shop, I can't shake the feeling that I could never do it justice. Recently, I went in my butcher shop for bacon. Before my eyes, he pulled out a whole side of pig, literally yanked the skin off the slab of meat, and sliced off the freshest stuff imaginable. (It was delicious. It also made me feel a little guilty--when we buy stuff on a foam tray from the Safeway, we don't have to deal with the connection that it actually came from a living thing.)
My butcher has been working with meat since he was 9 years old. His grandfather ran a butcher shop, and the tradition was passed down. His place -- gleaming white counters, a chopping block the size of a table, an old-fashioned clanging cash register -- has been running for more than 50 years. His own kids, though, aren't interested in continuing with such a blue-collar trade. When Anthony retires, the trade will die with him.
I'm hoping that the recession will help butchers. More Americans are scaling back our restaurant patronage and cooking instead, so more of us are starting to realize the true quality of some of the over-preserved stuff we've been putting in our shopping carts. Maybe we'll turn to butchers because we'll be able to trust the quality and freshness of what we're eating. I know I'm probably fooling myself.
It's a good thing Alice found Sam the Butcher when she did. Do you think they'd have hooked up if he was punching the clock in the hind end of Wal-Mart? He'd probably have been fired for chatting her up.
UPDATE: I am saddened to report that the butcher shop I described so lovingly in this post suddenly closed on April 18 after 49 years in business. Vanished, just as I warned. Now I have to get my meat at the supermarket, where they've never even heard of capicolla.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-06-2009 @ 10:50AM
Jon Blake said...
This item is BALONEY! I don't know what part of the country you folks are talking about, but in all five boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island and Queens) and all over Long Island, butcher shops are ALIVE AND WELL. Sure, there aren't as many as there used to be, but butcher shops, poultry shops, and fish markets are all alive and well in the metropolitan New York area. Ditto for vegetable markets and bakeries. The huge supermarkets are here too, but they have not wiped out the smaller privately owned stores in our area. Lots of people here appreciate the service and the quality that you get from these privately owned businesses.
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4-29-2009 @ 12:16AM
Dee said...
First of all, where I live in the suburbs of Jersey and even in Jersey City there are no more butchers on every corner. If they do exist they are few and far between. Most people here go to the regular supermarket because of the price-it's cheaper. If they do go to a butcher,if you can find one,it is usually for a special occasion or you live in a huge ethnic arealike,Newark that has a large population of the portugeuse or Paterson where there is many muslims who get there meat from butcher shops specially for them because the demand is so great, that is there regular diet staple of say goat meat or for religious practices. that is basically where these butcher shops survive. And only there,more andmore people ,the italians ,irish,german have moved from there original homes and left their traditional ways behind for many reasons and the "old ways" have not followed with them.So the shops and stores have died with them,I'm not saying it's good but that it is basically because of families moving apart from each other and the closeness isn't there in the communites anymore. That is why some of these shops don't survive ,it's a shame because the human social contact is gone ,the comraderie and people caring about and having pride in there work and their customers is gone when these small mom and pop stores close. I personal prefer the small shops to the big stores anyway and hope they can hang on until the economy gets better, I always smile inside when I still see an old corner candy store that is "still there".........
4-06-2009 @ 9:50AM
Ken said...
The local butcher shops are the best place to buy fresh meat, it smells better, looks better, and tastes better than the prepackaged stuff you get in the grocery. Were fortunate here in Toledo, we have a small chain of butter shops called House of Meats. The nice part is they are price competitive with the big grocery chains. Sure would not like to see them disappear.
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4-06-2009 @ 3:07PM
Dale hogan said...
Butcher shops are sure enough hard to find. But if you live in Memphis or the surrounding areas, you need to visit Charlies Meat Market at 4790 Summer ave.. They are the greatest.
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4-06-2009 @ 4:01PM
Liz said...
To Jon Blake - this may be hard for you to imagine, but NYC is not the rest of the country. I live in South Florida and there is no traditional butcher shop in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, or Hollywood, and by traditional butcher shop, I'm talking about a place where you find every single cut and type of edible meat from any traditionally-consumed warm-blooded animal.
New York City has large communities of people descended from cultures that utilize butcher shops on a regular basis--eastern Europeans, Germans, Italians, etc. South Florida has a ton of immigrants but butcher shops weren't at the core of cuisine in Cuba, Haiti, or several other Latin American countries that most of our immigrants come from.
Because of land scarcity and congestion in NYC people shop more at small places like butcher shops because the city literally can't fit big-box-supermarkets to replace them anyway. South Florida suburbs are sprawling and have supermarkets every few miles that the small butcheries couldn't compete with financially.
There are a couple of small Kosher meat counters down here in South Florida, but it's not exactly like you can get bacon or pork chops at one of those. So trust me, this article is not baloney. My husband, who is Romanian-Canadian grew up in Kitchener, Canada, a city settled by Germans, and full of Germans, Romanians, Poles, Hungarians, Portuguese and Serbs--ALL groups that rely heavily on butcher shops. That town is surrounded by farm land and is full of butcher shops.
Totally different case over here. It's all big supermarket chains. So consider yourself blessed because I sure wish I could find a good butcher here.
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4-07-2009 @ 12:23AM
Marie said...
Thank you Liz, well said.
4-08-2009 @ 5:18AM
bev said...
We just had another butcher shop open in my area. They are thriving here. Its the best meat and the best prices. Supermarkets are wayyyyyyyyy over priced and the meat isn't as good
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4-08-2009 @ 2:18AM
TOM TEER said...
I'M NOT A BUTCHER, A BUTCHER WORKS THE KILL FLOOR AND OTHER AREAS OF A PACKING HOUSE, I'M A MEAT CUTTER... RETIRED AFTER 47 YEARS CUTTING MEAT AND 3RD GENERATION IN THE BUSINESS.
FOR YOU INFORMATION WAL-MART DOES NOT HAVE MEAT CUTTERS THEIR MEAT IS DELIVERED (MAP-PACKED) THAT IS
'MODIFIED AIR PACKAGED'
WHICH MEANS THERE IS A MIXTURE OF OXYGEN AND OTHER GASES SEALED IN THE PACKAGE SO THE MEAT WILL LAST WITH SOME COLOR TO IT FOR APPROX 15 DAYS FROM THE PROCESSING PLANT TO THE STORE SHELF. THERE ARE NO MEAT CUTTERS IN A WAL-MART, AND AS TIME GOES ON YOU ARE GOING TO SEE MORE AND MORE CENTRALIZED CUTTING BEING DONE AND FEWER RETAIL CRAFTSMAN (MEAT CUTTERS) IN THE MARKET PLACE. MOST OF THE MEAT CUTTERS TODAY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BREAK BEEF DOWN, AS MOST CHAINS AND SOME LOCAL BUTCHER SHOPS ARE RECEIVING MEAT IN SUB-PRIMAL SECTIONS SO THE ART HAS SLOWLY DETERIORATED, AND MANY OF US THAT ARE RETIRED WOULD LOVE TO WORK A COUPLE OF DAYS PER WEEK BUT COMPANIES LIKE RALPHS (KROGER OWNED COMPANY, AND ALBERTSONS IN CALIF. AND VONS A SAFEWAY OWNED COMPANY AND MANY MORE WILL NOT USE ANY RETIRED CUTTERS. NOTE: I RETIRED AS A DISTRICT PRODUCT MANAGER FROM RALPHS IN CALIF.
NEXT TIME YOUR IN YOUR LOCAL CHAIN STORE OR LOCAL MEAT MARKET ASK IF THEY CAN CUT YOU A "MOCK DUCK OF LAMB" THERE ARE ONLY 5 OR 6 OF US LEFT IN THE USA THAT CAN DO THIS. NOTE THE LAMB MUST BROKE DOWN FROM A WHOLE LAMB IN ORDER TO PREPARE IT. MOST DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE AND STUFF SAUSAGE, ARE WHAT THE INGREDIENTS ARE FOR POLISH OR ITALIAN SAUSAGE IT'S A LOST ART.
I HAVE ALSO BEEN AND OWNER OPERATOR OF A MEAT/PRODUCE SHOPPE IN NEWPORT BEACH/COSTA MESA CALIF. I BET MOST OF YOU HAVE NEVER HAD BONE-IN CORNED BEEF OR CORNED PORK ?
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4-18-2009 @ 7:45AM
Nancy said...
Yes...I have had corned pork....my father made it every year for Saint Patrick's Day - my father being Hungarian - he also made fresh kielbasi - as my brother still does in Florida in his shop in Melbourne - spices, casing everything you need to make sausauge my brother also sells - he makes it in the store also - and it is delicious!! BUTCHER SHOPS ARE THE BEST!!!!
4-08-2009 @ 3:14AM
michelle N said...
The vast majority of Supermarkets provide a butcher. I was curious and found you a nice one in Miami.
If you visit Miami Beach's Epicure Market on a regular basis, Rudiger Fersch probably knows what your favorite dinners are.
As a butcher at the market, the Miami resident handles customer orders each day, makes sure meat is properly cut and the display is refreshed every couple of hours and places orders for the store, which stocks USDA prime meat.
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/business-monday/job-file/story/389546.html
And there website
http://epicuremarket.com/meatseafood
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4-08-2009 @ 7:52AM
John Davis said...
OMG dude you have got to be kidding!
RT
www.anon-tools.cz.tc
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4-08-2009 @ 12:48PM
Christophelies said...
I live in the UK and our Butchers shops have all but disappeared. It is virtually impossible to buy meat that has been hung on the bone for ten days (that is the optimum time for full flavour) without it costing a fortune yet that is the way that all Butchers used to hang their meat. Our Supermarkets have meat depts but the meat they sell is bright red and as tough as old boots
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4-08-2009 @ 3:20PM
siobhan said...
My great grandfather was a kosher butcher in the Bronx. My mom would have meat at almost every dinner. She is always telling me stories of him and his love of his craft. I agree, there are none around anymore. BRING BACK THE BUTCHER SHOPS!!
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4-08-2009 @ 6:03PM
Mathew said...
I grew up with a butcher in our neighborhood, and my old man would routinely order half (or full) animal for our freezer because of the sound investment it was. We would routinely talk to our butcher about various cuts of meats, his impressions, and ask for assistance when we wanted to make sausages, etc. Now that I have my own family, it is difficult to find an "old world" butcher described in this article. I also look for local farmers to support, to help keep them afloat in these times, as well as having far more excellence (IMO) in quality of produce.
Excellent article, and I wholeheartedly agree!
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4-08-2009 @ 7:30PM
GARRETT said...
there are still lots of butcher shops i work at one called SELKIRK BUTCHER SHOP, its packed every day of the week. There are also 2 more butcher shops in the area.
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4-08-2009 @ 8:31PM
ImAGayRobot said...
I've never seen a butcher shop in my whole life and I've lived in Central PA, NE Texas, Mississippi and the Philippines.
I'd say they are pretty rare.
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4-12-2009 @ 1:16PM
Donna Jean Scheiffer said...
I live in a small town in NE Ohio, we use to have 3 small grocery stores with meat counters, with butchers tending them. Now we only have one. The bid and get a lot of their meat from the 4-H clubs, which raise the animals, and from other local grown animals. So the meat is always fresh, top in flavor, nicely marbled, they also make special cuts when requested. Prices are reasonable. They even cut up their own fresh chicken into pieces, or sell them whole, if ordered. We who go there are blessed by a good store, and good propriators.
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4-13-2009 @ 3:31AM
Jared said...
We make holes in beef.....
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4-15-2009 @ 12:45PM
Nando said...
Great article!
I think you can still find some butcher shops around town that are not going anywhere. I live in central Texas and was raised in Houston. With the Latin community being so big in the south you see a lot of those old school butcher shops. Latin style butcher shops are great. You get choice cuts of fajita meat and can pick up some treats you don't seen in bigger chain stores.
I have lived in 4 regions of texas and have always been able to find a shop like this. Most of you would say "Hey guy, we don't have a hispanic community in our area." You will, soon. Don't worry about it.
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4-17-2009 @ 10:42AM
Nancy said...
My father and uncle had a butcher shop in upstate NY for over 40 years - my brothers, uncles, & cousins were butchers. My older brother has a really great shop in Melbourne, Florida - in business for over 20 years - he started working in my father's store at 14 years old. Now his son is following tradition and joins his father and mother in their family store!!
Butchers truly are hard to find - but the meat that's cut JUST for you is far more superior that what is bought in a large grocery store!
Believe me.....you get better and more for your money with a great butcher!
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