The Butcher is In

I find this story on slashfood.com interesting. I consider myself to be a foodie and yes, I like to have some knowledge about the food I am cooking but I do not want to learn how to butcher my food. I understand that meat does come from animals and someone has to take those live animals and chop them into the wonderful pieces you find at the grocery store but I prefer not to think about it. I simply go to the butcher, say “I want that one please” and a very nice piece of meat is wrapped in paper for me to take home. I have a hard time with gory things; I cannot even watch silly laughable horror films because they usually contain lots of gore. The girl gets her arm sawed off and blood spurts everywhere or the man is tortured and has to dig behind his eye to retrieve the life saving key; these kinds of horrific images keep me up for days. I will replay them in my head over and over again. It took me weeks to get over the movie Hostel. I was conned into watching it in college with some friends and my god that was awful. Anyway, I think if I saw how cut up and animal it would really turn me off to cooking. When I was younger, I couldn’t even pull the skin of an uncooked chicken let because I was so squeamish. I have become more comfortable now but still avoid carving like the plague. When the meat is cooked, I am fine; I can cut that up no problem. When it is uncooked, the squishy meat under my knife makes me cringe. That said, I would like to get better and I applaud these people who have the time and money to take this $10,000/ 8 week course. They have a much better understanding about the meat and what are pieces are good for what. A knowledgeable cook is a better cook.

These Days, Butchers are Bloody Cool


by Nichol Nelson, Posted Feb 18th 2010 @ 4:30PM (Slashfood.com)

There was a time when only rock stars were rock stars. Then, sometime in the last decade, the public decided that chefs were rock stars, too. The latest profession to get the nod? Butchers. Yep, this unlikely profession -- a mix of blood, dead animals, and sharp knives -- is now, well, cool. East Coast hipsters eager to show off their adventurous side (and their food knowledge) started the trend, and recently, things have taken a turn for the weird: A slew of articles in the past year, including a splashy piece in the New York Times, have dubbed the profession "sexy."

Julie Powell, of "Julie and Julia" fame, is partly responsible. Her recent book, "Cleaving," chronicles her eight-month apprenticeship at Fleisher's Meats in upstate New York in between her descriptions of her torrid affair with an ex-boyfriend. But Powell's voice is only one of many. Butchers have a cult following, fans eager to learn the trade and pick up some of the foodie credibility it suddenly provides. San Francisco butcher Ryan Farr's shop, 4505 Meats, doesn't bother trying to be coy. Their apparel line (Apparel! Butcher shop apparel!) includes a t-shirt depicting a curvaceous woman with a whip, along with the caption "Say it sexy: Chicha-r-r-r-r-r-ones." Another shirt quips, "Pork. The noun, not the verb." Farr's classes, sessions like "Whole Hog," where participants butcher a 250-lb hog and take home the spoils, routinely sell out.

Joshua Applestone, owner and self-described "Head MooRoo" of Fleisher's, trained Powell in 2006, and says people tend to miss the point: Butchering is a lot of work. His eight-week course (which runs a cool $10,000) is in high demand, and he doesn't apologize for the fee. "It's a bargain," he says. "It really teaches people to cut, to handle the muscles and deal with the whole animal."

But why are people suddenly interested in this age-old profession? Applestone says that unlike cooking school, which can take years, learning to butcher seems accessible. "It's a lot more realistic for people to touch," he says. "It's a shorter learning curve." And there's the undeniable visceral appeal. "People are attracted to it because it's primal, it gets into the nitty gritty," he says.

Fleisher's only works with grass-fed and organic meats, which tends to pull in a very specific crowd, he says. "This type of butchery is really sourcing and working right at the ground level. That's very attractive to some people. Plus, you use knives, and who doesn't like cutting things? It's very sexy, very new, very cutting edge, but when you get right down to it no one really wants to be a butcher -- they want to cut stuff."

Some students do go on to open their own shops, of course, but he says the majority of his students come in for the skill sets. "Everyone's thrilled to learn, but when they finish the course, they're like, 'what's next?'" He laughs. "What's next? This is a never-ending journey. I learned from guys who've been doing this for 50, 60 years. What's next is you keep cutting."

Tom Mylan, the main butcher for Brooklyn's Marlow and Daughters, also trained under Applestone. His Williamsburg store is ground zero for the hipster set, and he weighed in on the hoopla on his blog, Tom the Butcher, awhile back. "I know that all you douchebags have not only a copy of Fergus Henderson's "Whole Beast" but probably the new one, whatever that one's called, too. You fancy yourself a real adventurous eater and when you go someplace like Casa Mono you always order the braised cock's comb. Yeah, you're a real medalist in the food hipster Olympics, too bad you get all your meat from Whole Foods!"