Friday, 26 August 2011

'bright lights & big cleavers'


When I started doing butchery, I'd sharpen my knife and I'd receive the bit of meat I had to trim, and I'd clumsily hack away at it util it vaguely still resembled meat. The butcher said it looked at best like road kill. I wasn't upset or actually surprised. I knew it looked appalling and it would indeed be minced to make burgers. But the next time I got it I merely lacerated it to look like a manged pile of meat. So the only way was up.

These days I am far more sophisticated and can trim to a fairly high standard. Essentially it's because I stopped wielding my knife like an axe murderer. But instead, I took a very gentle approach, only using the very tip of my knife, teasing and persuading the meat to prise itself from the bone, seaming and tempting.
Being a butcher takes a lot of patience and gentleness. The soft yet firm touch is a lot easier when chopping prepping meat. It is of course always better to leave the bones with no meat on what so ever: 'meat is money'.

An old butcher always said 'Keep the meat on the meat.' And I have tried to do that ever since.

gb

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