The old tradition of the Irish town butchers -- Judge your butcher on the selection of "cheap" cuts and food knowledge

Lean and red meat only in the butcher's shop

The local butcher shop used to be an integral part of every town and village in Ireland and there was usually more than one.  In Northern Ireland very often there was one for each section of the community - The Protestant butcher and the Catholic one. The butcher shop was a monitor of how affluent the town and hinterland was. 

This changed somewhat with the arrival of big multinational supermarkets, particularly in more urban areas.  When I moved to a small rural village in county Meath over 20 years ago, virtually all meat was purchased in the local butcher shops.  I live equidistant between two small villages with a border dividing them.  Despite this the butchers were brothers-in-law and shared an abattoir.   Their meat was second to none.  Then along came all the EU regulations with the subsequent abolition of local abattoirs and the meat changed beyond belief.

Carcasses arrived into the shop all but cut. Suddenly they had no feet, hocks, heads or offal. In many cases it was almost impossible to get bones.  The butcher counter became "lean" literally. The cheaper cuts disappeared.  On display were diced up uber-lean round steak pieces in place of stewing beef, strip loins at the expense of sirloin, mince without an ounce of fat, chicken breasts, loin lamb chops etc.  Fat was banished and the counter was red.

I judge the quality of a butcher shop by the selection of "cheap" cuts available and by this you have a fair idea of the food knowledge of the locals as well.  In a complete turn around, the butcher counters servicing the more affluent/food savvy populations have a better selection of cuts and it is here you will find hocks, shanks, skirts, cheeks and tongues. In "the country" you will also find them in areas where there are large immigrant populations.

In the English Market in Cork, the selection of every cut of every animal is second to none.  Tripe and drisheen are on display in almost every butcher counter.  As well as the English Market, the butcher shops in Moore Street in central Dublin have an amazing display of many old and forgotten cuts and even sell goat for the large African community.

Old cuts nestle with the battered

Cooking the cheaper cuts (it is only in Ireland they are cheap - in France they are the more expensive), requires a bit more skill, time and energy so when you analyze it in more detail they are probably not cheap.  However, they have the most flavor, the best texture and are deliciously moist.  You need to add more vegetables and herbs to make the meal, making them much more healthy than just slapping a load of protein on a barbeque.

I wish my now local butcher shops were not so boring.  I want meat with fat and bone and personality. After all it's time people woke up to the fact that fat is not the enemy we have all been led to believe.  We were rightly led up the garden path by the big food cartels in cahoots with government and even the medical profession.  We need to go back and open granny's old recipe book because in her day there was not half as much obesity, diabetes and heart disease.  They ate meat with personality because the butcher was a butcher and not a slicer.

'Every fault is a fashion' - what my grandmother would have thought about modern restaurant serving trends

Serving with kilner jars on a slate
(Photo: Yvonne Carty @heypestoie)

"Every Fault is a Fashion."

I remember my grandmother saying this when I was a child. To be honest I never really understood it then. But recently it has popped into my head a lot.

I follow a lot of foodies on Twitter and many of them tweet photos of food, or of meals they have eaten, or are currently eating out. The most recent was a picture tweeted where a starter was served in a Kilner jar. For those of you who don't know what a Kilner jar is - it is a jar traditionally used for preserving fruit, chutneys, jams et cetera. You know the type with the flip top lid and a rubber seal?

Another photo I saw was of homemade lemonade and iced tea being served in jam jars. The jam jars had a straw popped in them. I really can't get excited about drinking out of a jar but customers love their "retro" feel.

Drinking from jam jars
(Photo: Lily Ramirez-Foran
@MexicancookEire)

The food industry is no different to any other in that fashions come and go. Using slate to serve food is very "in" at the moment. Now slate looks great - it really shows off the color, the texture of food and is the perfect matte backdrop. However, do you remember the teacher scraping her nails on the blackboard in school? Well that's what cutlery sounds like when it is used on these "plates". Imagine a restaurant dining room full of people scraping their cutlery on slate plates? Actually I would rather not.

My grandmother's saying went through my head when I saw all of the images and I wondered what she would have made of it. She wouldn't have gone out to eat very much as in her day as money was not very plentiful. But knowing her as I did - I know that when she did go out, she would have wanted the whole fine dining experience.

To a woman like her, Kilner jars and jam jars were the tools of her trade, as she preserved fruit and vegetables my grandfather had grown for their family to eat in the long cold winters. The idea of being taken out for a treat and being served up her food or drink in a jar. Or even on a slate.....

I can still hear her say "every fault is a fashion". But I think she would have laughed.

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