Is anyone else afraid of their local butcher?

[Dorothyredboots]

I'm a good cook and know my foodstuffs. I'm quite a sensible, well educated person on the whole, but get me in the butchers shop and I seem to go to pieces. I'm always hearing the TV chefs banging on about ask your butcher to bone stuff, get stuff for you, tell you where stuff comes from. I just can't seem to assert myself and slink off with 500g mince and a pork pie. Am I the only one who goes to the supermarket for meat, not through choice, but in desperation?

I like my Butchers they are so friendly, they give me great service and the meat is no more expensive than the stuff i would buy from the supermarket, i get locals discount! Its alwasy a good quality and tastes great and they prepare it how you want it with a smile on thier face.

I had never thought of that! My Uncle was a butcher in the 60s, 70s and 80s in Norfolk and was indeed 'G T Kemp, a family butcher'! And he had one of those statues of a sprightly lamb in his window. That seems wrong....

Ask the butcher how long the meat has been hung for. Don't be intimidated. Meat which has not been hung for long enough is flabby bland and pale (eg Tesco's prepacked).

Very few actual beef/pork/lamb rearing farmers sell their meat at Farmer's Markets. The stalls are very expensive, there can be cartels, stringent meat packing rigmaroles to adhere to and many people are buying into the though of a ruddy faced farmer selling produce at a Saturday market.

The bulk of farmers sell their animals at the local mart and hope that they get a decent price for them.

That was to Edam btw

thought.

heartofgold - to my mind a 'Farmers Market' should only sell local produced to high welfare and quality standards and straight from the farm. Funny that I see so many boxes of Spanish produce being unloaded from vans at 7.00 am at our local one and the boxes carefully stacked in the van again after artfully arranging them in whicker baskets on the stall.

Not all the stall holders do this of course but plenty do.

edam - that is good. That is what I think a 'local' butcher should do. Not all do though.

You can get good butchers and bad butchers.

Ours is long standing company and dp's family have shopped their for decades.

It is cheaper than supermarket in our case.

Also I tend to ask for 'enough to feed 2 with leftovers' or how ever many I want to feed.

I also ask for e.g. piece of beef for slow cooking that will feed 6. And they always tell you how much and ask if that's ok. They are also not keen on selling you very expensive meat - if you want to buy e.g. rib of beef they will try and talk you out of it 'we've got something cheaper that will taste just as good - it's an expensive bit and I;m not sure it's worth it'.

They will also offer to prepare the meat any way you want - so diced or take bone out etc even on the middle of a busy saturday.

But then that's why they have queues going out the door in a not very well-to-do area when the others are going out of business.

They have a lot of pride in their work and would never sell anything they didn't deem 'good enough'. They have a lot of very loyal customers because they are good at what they do.

One big difference for me is that the meat is cut an awful lot better than in the supermarket. I can't buy diced meat in the supermarket as it always has tubes in that make me gag. At the butchers they hand cut every piece and check it for tubes/gristle etc. They would feel ashamed to sell it like that.

I have been to shit butchers before thoug

Pheasant, do you think your uncle butchered many families?

ABD, re. the village butcher, I am talking about years ago though, originally mentioned him in connection with teaching my mother how to cook. Not sure that sort of local connection is possible now since BSE and so many slaughterhouses being shut down.

When getting some topside for sunday dinner I always ask for enough for 4 people and he always gets it right - costs a little bit more but the quality is worth it

Edam, I would like to hope not, but I cannot tell for sure.....

GentleOtter - thought I might have gone a bit over the top with my previous post but what you say is the reality. Most farmers sell in wholesale markets and hope not to get ripped off and hope to get paid - not the faux idylic setting of a retail 'Farmers Market'.

Ours is a local farm shop. I was scared at first, esp as all the other shoppers seemed really posh. But actually its fine. And I listen in to other conversations I'll ask the customer why they asked him that and what is it they want him to do. (poor accosted customers)

To work out weights I did go to sainsburys before and write down the kind of weights we buy for things. I now know that 500g of mince does enough for a spag bol for 6 decent portions and that 650g of meat makes a pretty large pie that feeds 6. On bacon I ask for the number of rashers we want. etc.

i buy meat at the "farmers market" () so it's prepacked and you don't get the option for them to prepare it specifically for you, although you can order a particular cut in advance, including things they don't normally do (e.g. bone-in pork shoulder). but i know i'm buying direct from the farmers in 2 cases, from a co-op in the other.

i've taken to buying free range sausages from marks cos they're slightly cheaper than the sausages i buy at the market, but then in remembered the market ones are organic, so i would say it's similarly priced to supermarket meat (chickens are generally cheaper in supermarket, but again it's free range vs organic and they're a standard medium size i can get huuuuge chicks at the market). i'm generally happy to pay a fair price for local, high welfare meat, and if that means we eat it less often so be it.

i don't like that metallic smell of butchers either, and tbh the displays our local ones have in the window put me off. i should look in though shouldn't i.

Our butcher is lovely.
I've been going in for 20 years, when I first started shopping there I didn't have a clue and he used to help me make decisions and suggest meals!
If I am buying a joint I tell him how many people will be eating and let him choose the size for me.

Local butcher closed down, would have to drive 20mins to get to the nearest one. I never go, Waitrose and M&S 5mins walk away - thats why the butcher closed I presume. Its a real shame.

I am scared of butchers too. It's because I have no idea what is what, how much it will cost and how to spot good quality - if I knew all this going in I woudln't mind but I feel embarrassed to stand there umming and aahing for ages whilst there are people queueing.

Also, you've all got me worried about lamb shanks now! I've ordered some to have on Xmas Eve and our butcher said, over the telephone, about £2.50 per shank and that will feed one person. That seems a great price to me, so have I misheard him, I wonder?!

we have 2 butchers (that I know of - maybe another one somewhere around but never seen one - unless you count the dodgy "cheap" butcher on the market........).

One is ridiculously expensive - I've found cheaper online (even taking account of delivery costs) with really good quality butchers selling organic/free range stuff - and most of his isn't that great actually.

The other is pretty cheap - but sells lots of danish bacon and battery chicken .

that sounds about right re shanks - no-one can be arsed with long slow cuts these days so they're disproportionately cheap. i've actually stretched a single shank between 2 adults and 2 kids, but that was as part of a stew with beans etc and i was mostly looking for flavour for the gravy, one each is usual.

ABD - I've just read your 17.53 post of last night and agree with you. I'm not actually too fussy whereI buy my meat from - as long as the poultry is free range and all of it is British.

I remember when I first moved to our village and went to the local butchers to get meat. I asked if something was organic - yes; then something else - yes; then something else - madam all our produce is organic. I had missed the big sign over the front 'Organic butchers' . The other butchers in the village only sells either organic or free range. Both are lovely but I've had to order my turkey from Ocado as I'm at work when they are open during the week.

Nope. But then, my Dad was a butcher and I grew up working behind the counter.

Funny thing though - I can delve both hands into a bucket of liver to slice it for a customer but if I get a paper cut and a teeny tiny bit of blood comes out - I go light headed ! Go figure!

we have a great local butcher, he sells his own beef and is really helpful, HOWEVER, if I want to talk about recipes or good cuts I don't do it on a saturday, I go in the morning on a week day, then we get to have a proper chat without me feeling worried about the people waiting behind me.

Boden - I've asked the butcher (both local and at Waitrose) what they thought would be good to feed x people for around £x. No shame in it, and if their recommendations are good then you know you're onto a winner next time. Doing so doesn't suggest you're strapped for cash or anything (not suggesting that that's your worry, but it's the kind of thing that irrationally worries me).
ABD and Gentle - totally agree about farmers' markets.

I'm scared by my butcher too. It's not the meat but the ruddy banter about what I'm feeding him and whether he deserves it. I think the 'old style' butchers are worse for that sort of thing. Luckily I have a choice and don't have to go to hell the supermarket to get some meat.