comfrank
Knows what a fatty is.
butcher \'boo cher\ v. 1) to slaughter or dress (animals, fish, or poultry) for market. 2) to bungle; botch: to butcher a job.
Unfortunately, sense number 2 was perpetrated upon me. My wife was having her annual picnic for volunteers in her nonprofit organization and wanted me to do the barbecue. I decided to make it a full-blown competition practice. All four KCBS categories, timed turn-ins, etc. I also ordered my meats about two weeks in advance from a local butcher recommended to me by some friends. Big mistake. Let me list the travesties committed by this butcher, from least egregious to most.
0. When I arrived to pick up my meat he said, "Oh, sure, I'm just about ready to start on that order."
1. I ordered a seven-pound pork butt and got a six pounder.
2. I ordered twelve chicken thighs, but got only eleven. Moreover, they had not been properly disjointed. Rather than having them separated between the knuckles of the thigh and leg, he simply ran them through a band saw, cutting off below the thigh knuckle sometimes, and leaving part of the leg knuckle attached at other times.
3. I ordered six slabs of St. Louis cut ribs. But rather than doing a proper St. Louis cut, the butcher took whole slabs and ran them through the bandsaw lengthwise. This had the effect that some of the "slabs" had bones that were only two inches long, never more than four inches, and other "slabs" had great big flaps of meet with no bones whatsoever. After smoking, they tasted fine, but there was not a single rib that I would consider appropriate to turn in.
4. I ordered a seven-pound brisket flat. What I got instead was some sort of mutant flat/point/misc frankenstein thing that was the size and shape of a football. After cooking, the brisket tasted just terrible. Very livery. So bad in fact that I refused to put any out for the guests. Moreover, I struggled to find a place where I could get six slices to put in a box. You can see how bad they are in the picture below.
Don't bother critiqueing this box; it's terrible. I would give it a 3 or maybe a 4 if I was feeling generous. You can see how uneven in width the slices are and how mangled they are on the right hand side. Yet that's the best I could do.
Fortunately, everyone enjoyed the ribs, chicken, and pork.
Moral of the story: Know your butcher.
Unfortunately, sense number 2 was perpetrated upon me. My wife was having her annual picnic for volunteers in her nonprofit organization and wanted me to do the barbecue. I decided to make it a full-blown competition practice. All four KCBS categories, timed turn-ins, etc. I also ordered my meats about two weeks in advance from a local butcher recommended to me by some friends. Big mistake. Let me list the travesties committed by this butcher, from least egregious to most.
0. When I arrived to pick up my meat he said, "Oh, sure, I'm just about ready to start on that order."
1. I ordered a seven-pound pork butt and got a six pounder.
2. I ordered twelve chicken thighs, but got only eleven. Moreover, they had not been properly disjointed. Rather than having them separated between the knuckles of the thigh and leg, he simply ran them through a band saw, cutting off below the thigh knuckle sometimes, and leaving part of the leg knuckle attached at other times.
3. I ordered six slabs of St. Louis cut ribs. But rather than doing a proper St. Louis cut, the butcher took whole slabs and ran them through the bandsaw lengthwise. This had the effect that some of the "slabs" had bones that were only two inches long, never more than four inches, and other "slabs" had great big flaps of meet with no bones whatsoever. After smoking, they tasted fine, but there was not a single rib that I would consider appropriate to turn in.
4. I ordered a seven-pound brisket flat. What I got instead was some sort of mutant flat/point/misc frankenstein thing that was the size and shape of a football. After cooking, the brisket tasted just terrible. Very livery. So bad in fact that I refused to put any out for the guests. Moreover, I struggled to find a place where I could get six slices to put in a box. You can see how bad they are in the picture below.
Don't bother critiqueing this box; it's terrible. I would give it a 3 or maybe a 4 if I was feeling generous. You can see how uneven in width the slices are and how mangled they are on the right hand side. Yet that's the best I could do.
Fortunately, everyone enjoyed the ribs, chicken, and pork.
Moral of the story: Know your butcher.
