Artisan Butchery
Artisan Butchery
“Artisan”
used to simply mean, an expert in a craft or trade. But in recent years, the
word has taken on a new meaning. In the food world, artisan products are
conceived and created traditional technique rather than the modern mechanized
process. Artisan butchers know where the meat come from and the condition they
were raised in. So instead of wasteful, mechanized butchery techniques that
leave huge parts of an animal on the cutting room floor, artisan butchers use
traditional techniques to ensure that no part of the animal is wasted. The
butchers master traditional butchering skills and work on smaller quantities of
animals. Nose to tail restaurants rely on that versatility.
How artisan butchers do things differently ?
To act on their ideals, artisan butchers must master
traditional butchering skills and work on a
Since they are working with smaller quantities of animals,
butchers can show greater adaptability.Rather than cutting all beef or
pork into uniform rectangular portions,the artisan butcher takes into account
how each animal’s meat and skin will be used and sections it off accordingly.
They sell cuts of meat thatare hard to find in large chain supermarkets, such
as pork belly orhanger steaks, and unusual parts like skin to fry for
cracklings,kidneys, pig’s ears and trotters. Nose-to-tail restaurants rely upon
that versatility. relatively small scale.
History Of Butchers
The history of butchers is certainly as old as the
human civilization, as in primitive times the human race used to depend only on
the natural foods which also included different types of animal meats.
Although, initially they were unaware about the techniques of butchery, but
with the invention of various stone and metal tools they gradually learned to
cut the meat in smaller shapes before roasting them in fire. Depending on the
timeline, we can divide the history in three major parts, earlier history, medieval
history and recent history.
Earlier History of Butchers
As mentioned before, several evidences have been discovered
to justify the history of butchery in ancient time.Archaeologists recovered
primitive tools like sharpened stake, which supposed to be used for hunting and
butchering animals in pre-historic days.
Medieval History of Butchers
During the medieval time, the profession of butchery became a
reputed one as they had the responsibility to prepare the proper cuts of meat
in most hygienic way.During the meets in the Butcher’s Hall, they used to
discuss on ways to improve their skills.
Recent History of Butchers
Off late, the profession of butchering has acquired much
skills and techniques. A professional butcher has to study a lot To learn on
this subject. Several associations of butchers have started to provide first
class training and education in managing the meats.A new Butcher’s Hall was
built in Bartholomew, which received renovations even in 1996. Nowadays, the
butchers can have respectable positions at the supermarkets, meat markets,
grocery stores or famous meat processing
companies. To become a master butcher, one might require going through apprenticeship for at least 3
years.
Knives :
Boning : A boning knife is a type
of kitchen knife with a sharp point and a narrow blade. It is
used in food preparation for removing
the bones of poultry, meat, and fish. Generally
12 cm to 17 cm (5 to 6 ½ in) in length (although many brands, such as
Samoan Cutlery, have been known to extend up to 9 ½ inches), it features a very
narrow blade.
Meat cleaver : A cleaver is a
large knife that varies in its shape but usually resembles a
rectangular-bladed hatchet. It is largely used as
a kitchen or butcher knife intended for hacking through
bone. The knife's broad side can also be used for crushing in food preparation
(such as garlic).
Honing Steel : A honing steel, sometimes
referred to as sharpening
steel, sharpening stick, sharpening rod, butcher's steel, and
chef's steel is a rod of steel, ceramic or diamond
coated steel used to realign blade edges. They are flat, oval, or
round in cross-section and up to one foot long (30 cm).
Sharpening Stone : Sharpening stones, water
stones or whetstones are used
to grind and hone the edges of steel tools and implements.
Examples of items that may be sharpened with a sharpening stone
include scissor, scythes, knives, razors and tools
such as chisels, hand scrapers and plane blades.
Butcher’s Block : Butcher block, butcher's
block is a style of assembled wood (often hard maple, teak,
or walnut) used as heavy duty chopping blocks, table tops,
and cutting boards. It was commonly used in butcher shops and
meat processing plants but has now become popular in home use.[There
are two basic styles of butcher block: end grain and edge grain.
Meat Hook : A meat hook is any hook
normally used in butcheries to hang meat. For example, a grip hook is a single hook
with a handle of some kind, to hold on
to a carcass while butchering.
Mallet : There are 2 types of mallets, one tenderizes
the meats by using spikes, the other uses a flat surface to spread the cut of
meat out making it thinner. The tenderizer breaks up the grain of the meat and
makes it much easier to cut and chew.
Larding Needle : A larding needle or
"larder" is the instrument traditionally used for larding. Larding is
actually placing lard or other fat, or bacon, into the meat,
laying it within the fibers of the meat in strips. There are two basic types of
"needles" used to do this, depending on the size of the cut. Larding
can add a lot of juiciness and flavor to an otherwise dry and bland piece of
meat
Meat Food Safety
Hygiene in the
butcher shop should followed to prevent microbial growth. Inspection is
guarantee of wholesomeness, not of quality or tenderness. Grading is quality
designation.QUALITY grading is
based on the texture, firmness and color of the
lean meat, the age or maturity of the animals , and the marbling. Butchers
also have obligations under the Food Act particularly at the point of retail
sale for food to be safe and suitable. As with any food businessbutchers are
required to comply with food labeling standards. Where food is sold in packages
or packaged in the presence of the customer, butchers must be able to inform
customers of food safety information including:
- ingredients
- nutritional information
- presence of allergens
- storage advice
- shelf life advice
Meat Grades
Aging of Meat
Carcasses
The overall time for dry aging carcass
meats is dictated by the quality
and performance of the refrigeration used,
the overall condition and
handling of the carcass at the time of
harvesting, and the hygiene
standards of the harvesting plant.
For example, while stored at 1°C (33°F),
the following species would
take varying amounts of time to reach
approximately 80% of
maximum tenderness:
Beef: 9 to 14 days
Lamb: 7 to 14 days
Pork: 4 to 10 days
Note: Wet-aged (vacuum-packaged) beef can be aged much longer (up to 30 days).
Lamb and pork can also be stored longer
as a wet aged product but not quite as long as beef.
Toughness and Age
Background toughness: More cross links are found in older animals, making
the meat tougher. Cross links refer to elastin and collagen rings that hold
muscle fibers in place. As animals age, more elastin rings are formed. Also,
the more exercised muscles of the animal, such as shanks and shoulders, have
more elastin rings regardless of age.
Actomyosin or myofibril toughness: This toughness is caused by the overlap of thick and
thin muscle filaments.
Less popular
artisanal cuts of livestock
Scrapple :
As with so many delicious meats, scrapple's
existence came out of necessity: to use up every bit of meat, including the
leftover broth from butchering and cooking a whole pig. If you wanted to
re-brand scrapple as "bone-broth loaf," you could.
Grains — traditionally buckwheat and cornmeal — are
added to both extend the meat and thicken up the gruel, which, after hours and
hours of stovetop cooking, is poured into loaf pans, refrigerated, and then
sliced and fried for crispy (but also mushy) delicious eating. Yes, there's
offal involved, but not exclusively
Livermush :
Livermush is all pork, with cornmeal as the only grain
— which seems suitably Southern. Needless to say, the inclusion of pork
liver is mandatory, whereas scrapple may or may not have it, and in no particular
quantity.
There's also liver pudding, which, depending who you
ask, is either totally different from livermush or exactly the same, except for
where it's served (livermush in Western North Carolina, liver pudding to the
east. But if you're close to South Carolina, you're gonna get rice instead of
cornmeal).
Paradoxically, liver pudding might be mushier, whereas
liver mush is more likely to be sliced and fried crisp like its northern and
mid western cousins.
GOETTA :
Goetta traces its roots to a different set of German
immigrants — who settled in Ohio — and sets itself apart from scapple in two
ways: pinhead oats (more commonly known as steel-cut), and
the possible inclusion of beef.
It is most commonly found in the breakfast
sausage-style roll made by Glier's
Goetta (the official goetta of the Cincinnati
Bengals), but the principle is the same (cut off a slice and fry up crisp), and
most smaller butchers around Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky make it
loaf-style.
Glier's uses pork hearts and pork skin, both of which
provide taste and texture, but many smaller butchers don’t bother with offal at
all, making it with 100 percent pork shoulder and beef chuck.
Chitterlings :
Chitterlings are cleaned, prepared and cooked pigs'
intestines.
The intestines are turned inside out, scraped and cleaned, then cut into lengths or braided. They are then sometimes brined overnight.
The intestines are turned inside out, scraped and cleaned, then cut into lengths or braided. They are then sometimes brined overnight.
The intestines are then cooked in boiling salted water
for 30 minutes (giving off a very pronounced, pungent smell.)
Chitterlings can be sold by the length braided, or sold by weight, or made into slabs in a jelly of the liquid from their cooking. Sometimes weight or slab options will include some pig stomach (maw.)
Chitterlings can be sold by the length braided, or sold by weight, or made into slabs in a jelly of the liquid from their cooking. Sometimes weight or slab options will include some pig stomach (maw.)
The ready-to-sell product will be off-white to grey to
pink, and be ready to eat.You can eat cold with mustard or vinegar on them.
They can be boiled or fried. Heat them by frying in grease, or by simmering.They
can also be stuffed.
Pigs' intestines can be used as sausage skins.Chitterlings
are popular in the southern United States, where they were traditionally a food
for poor whites and blacks.In France, they are fried and served with vinegar
and parsley.
Cretons :
In Quebec
cuisine, cretons (sometimes gorton or corton,
especially among New Englanders of French-Canadian origin)
is pork spread
containing onions and spices.
Due to its fatty texture and taste, it resembles
French rillettes. Cretons are usually served on toast as part of
a traditional Quebec breakfast. Not to be confused with "fromage de
tête" (tête fromagée in Quebec) or head cheese.
Recipes vary, but traditional preparation involves
covering one to three pounds of ground pork shoulder in milk or water
in a large pot, then seasoning with onions and a mix of spices. The blend of
spices varies from recipe to recipe, but nearly all include ground cloves.
Other spices often used
include cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg and bay
leaf. Some recipes include minced garlic.
They are also known as prairie oysters, Montana
tendergroins, cowboy caviar, swinging beef, and calf fries – are true Western
delicacies. They are that part of the bull that is removed in his youth so that
he may thereby be more tractable, grow meatier, and behave less masculine.
When the calves are branded, the testicles are cut off and thrown in a
bucket of water. They are then peeled, washed, rolled in flour and
pepper, and fried in a pan.
They are considered to be quite a delicacy. Like
other organ meats, testicles may be cooked in a variety of ways – deep-fried
whole, cut into broad, thin slices, or marinated. At roundups in the old
West, cowboys and ranch hands tossed the meat on a hot iron stove.
Haggis :
The national dish of Scotland is Haggis. Haggis
is made using sheep pluck (the bits nowadays often discarded; lungs, hearts,
liver). The cooked minced offal is mixed with suet, oatmeal, seasoning and
encased in the sheep stomach. stomach.
Once stitched up, the stuffed stomach is boiled for up
to three hours. Once steamed and cooked through the Haggis is popular in many
ways, the most popular either on a full Scottish breakfast or
with heart Tatties and Neeps (Tatties are Scottish for potatoes, and
Neeps are turnips).
'Nduja :
'Nduja is a spicy, fatty, spreadable sausage from
Calabria, made from pork belly, pork shoulder, tripe, roasted red peppers, and
a variety of spices depending on the butcher making it. The red peppers give
‘nduja a bright crimson color and fiery taste that make it both delicious and
visually appealing when served with toast or as a condiment to add a blast of
flavor to another dish.
Brawn is the slightly more appealing name for the
much-maligned classic known as head cheese. It’s a time-tested way to stretch
out every ounce of meat you have at your disposal. There are as many variations
on it as there are different culinary traditions, but most of them follow a few
basic rules.
The head of a pig or sheep is boiled to separate the
meat from the bone, typically with the eyes, brain, and ears removed (no one
wants their dinner staring back at them). Once the meat is separated, the bones
and any inedible parts are removed from the pot.
Due to the natural gelatin content of
animal skulls, the stock will congeal when it’s cooled — this process has been
supplemented in recent times by using aspic or gelatin, but traditionally the stock is simply reduced until it has a high enough gelatin content to set. It’s
usually eaten cold as a luncheon meat, and it may be considered the original
artisan mystery meat.
Black Pudding:
A mainstay of British and Irish
breakfasts, black pudding gets its unique flavor and color from a healthy
helping of blood. It’s made from beef or pork fat, pork blood, and oatmeal,
oats, barley, or some other hearty grain.The sausage is fully cooked before
it’s sold, so it can be eaten cold — but most people bake, broil, or fry it.
Black pudding is a core part of the traditional Irish breakfast, along with
bacon, eggs, potato, grilled tomatoes, and Irish soda breadBlack pudding is
among the most accessible of the blood sausages — the high grain content cuts
the rich, iron-y taste of the pork blood and adds a delicious, crunchy texture.
Guanciale :
Guanciale is sort of like brawn’s
classy, well-behaved cousin. Its name comes from the Italian word “guancia,”
which means “cheek.” Instead of leaving the rich, fatty jowls on the skull and
boiling them, artisan butchers cut out the cheek meat and rub it down with
salt, sugar, and a variety of spices. It’s left to cure for about 3 weeks, and
typically loses about ⅓ of its original weight as water evaporates. Guanciale
might be considered a more flavorful version Italian pork belly products like
pancetta — because of the slightly different fat and muscle composition of jowl
meat as compared to pork belly, the fat in guanciale tends to melt faster. The
longer curing time also means more concentrated pork-y flavor.
Mortadella :
Mortadella is a traditional
Italian sausage made from finely ground and heat-cured pork — sounds pretty
straightforward, right? But it’s the small cubes of pork neck fat that catapult
mortadella into the artisan mystery meats pantheon.In a lot of ways, it’s like
a more interesting and flavorful version of bologna, but the delicate flavor
and texture showcases the unique spices that make mortadella special, like
myrtle berries and pistachio.
Weckewerk :
Another blood sausage custom-made to stretch
ingredients as far as they’ll go, weckewerk is a delicious way to add some
artisan mystery meat to your dishes. Its name comes from the stale bread used
as a filler — “wecke” is the traditional German word for “roll.” The main
ingredients are cooked brawn and finely minced pork or veal, along with blood
and tripe. Most versions of weckewerk are seasoned with onions, pepper, salt,
and marjoram, and some regional variations also have caraway, allspice, or
garlic. All the ingredients are ground together to provide a uniform texture,
and it can be served either in a natural pork casing or scooped out of a jar.
Gallinejas :
Gallinejas are a delicacy from
Madrid — chefs use a careful technique to clean and prepare sheep intestines,
then deep fry them. When done correctly, the intestines spiral into small,
crunchy buttons which are served with potato crisps fried in the same fat. The
dish originated in the 1950s when frugal Madrid restaurateurs from high end
restaurants would share their offal with smaller establishments, who cooked it
up into gallinejas that the common people could afford.
Conclusion:
Butchery is a traditional line of work. In the
industrialized world,slaughterhouses use butchers to slaughter the animals,
performing one or a few of the steps repeatedly as specialists on a semi
automated disassembly line. In the past, to be an artisan simply meant
that you were a person.skilled in your trade or craft. Today, however, the
term indicates a traditional, non-mechanized means of making a product or
preparing food or drink. Artisan butchers therefore eschew the practices
of factory farming and mass production, generally sourcing
organic meat from local farmers and committing to using every possible part of
an animal. Some artisan butchers and others interested in conscientiously raising and slaughtering animals have formed
organizations to educate the public and advocate for their ideals.
Bibliography
- Barnraiser : https://www.barnraiser.us/stories/nose-to-tail-an-artisan-butchery-approach-to-mystery-meat
- Escoffier School of Arts : https://www.escoffier.edu/culinary-arts/what-is-artisan-butchery/
- Google Images
- Notes By Chef Pawan Ailawadi (Culinary Academy Of India)
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