Do You Still Go To The Butchers?

[MUFC]

Or do you get meat from the supermarket?

[Stan]

Mainly the supermarket or a local Indian meat shop but my mum's boss owns a farm so we get some produce from there every now and then as well.

There's another butchers in town centre which does some very good produce and stock but it is pricier than supermarkets.

The Indian shop we go to you usually get more for your money and you can get good quality whole chicken (or wings, fillets, thighs etc) & minced lamb or lamb chops.

[MUFC]

People saying the butchers is a dieing trade. But the quality of meat is better?

[Carnivore Chris]

I used to always go to a local butchers, but it has recently closed down after being open for about 50 years or whatever. Such a shame as the quality of their meat was brilliant and it was all local produce, from local farms, where you knew the animals were looked after properly and kept in great conditions.

 

[Bluewolf]

Used to, but not anymore, our last local butcher closed down just before Christmas last year

1 hour ago, MUFC said:

People saying the butchers is a dieing trade. But the quality of meat is better?

Sadly it is, they just can't compete with supermarket prices although as you say the quality is so much better

[nudge+]

I usually eat out so don't buy fresh meat often but when I do then it's primarily from the butcher's; same with processed meat products.

[Dr. Gonzo]

I prefer to go to the butchers to buy meat, it's just generally much better quality. I don't always have time to go to the butchers and sometimes a supermarket is more convenient - but again, generally the quality's not as good and the selection of different cuts is much smaller. Butcher shops are definitely becoming more and more rare, unfortunately. But there's some things you can get from a butchers you're not going to get at most supermarkets - some types of meat, offal, rendered fat, stock, shite like that.

Also the premium of a butchers is only worth it sometimes. If you've got a steak you've bought from a supermarket that you're just prepping with olive oil & salt + pepper before you cook it, and compare that to a premium cut you'd get at a butchers you'll see the difference in the marbling of the steak (unless you went to a totally shit butcher that's ripping you off blind). You're only searing the steaks to cook them, so the only way to improve the quality of the steaks you're cooking is to buy a higher quality meat you're cooking. But if I'm slow cooking something like pork over the course of a few hours, I probably am not going to notice difference in meat quality when there's a lot impacting the quality of the taste cooking it that way.

[Inverted]

I rarely buy meat except for fish, chicken and minced beef/pork. So I have little to gain quality-wise. 

Supermarket steaks are shite, and if I had the money I would like to go somewhere and get high quality cuts. But I know basically nothing about it all and I wouldn't know what I was doing. 

[Smiley Culture]

Girlfriend’s Dad is high up at a company that delivers fish and he grabs a load of meat from the meat market once a week and we get a bit. It’s incredibly cheap direct from the meat market, the size of the meat is much bigger than from a supermarket and it’s just generally a higher quality. 

We still get bits from the supermarket but I’d rather it from the meat market. 

[IgnisExcubitor]

The processed meat is salty, and you don't get the good bits like Liver, etc. with the main meat. You have to buy it separately. 

I still go to the butchers. I don't know how it is for you Brit/Americans? I am assuming the killing part happens behind the walls. Here not so much. With the chicken, they simply slice the neck and toss it in a tub. You literally hear it die, as it violently crashes the sides of the plastic tub from the inside. Then they pull the bloodied bird out and strip and slice it in front of you.

It's more gruesome with the goats. But at least they usually do it before the customers arrive. 

[CaaC (John)+]

We will use our local butcher now and then if we are in his area but that would be mainly for pork steaks or pork chops or fresh clootie dumpling, black or white pudding, as I eat more chicken & fish its normally the supermarket for me and the wife, Lidls do a great Scottish Mince Steak which the wife buys if she is making Spaghetti Bolognaise or mince curry and Tescos for Richmond thin skinless sausages for curry or sausages in gravy.  

[Pyfish+]

Butcher not far from my house. Always buy meat from there for Christmas or big family dinners. Their Lincolnshire sausages are to die for!

[Happy Blue]

Yep

[Spike]

Some supermarkets have butcheries. If the one I like were closer, I'd go to it more often.

[Guest]

On 30/04/2019 at 18:06, MUFC said:

People saying the butchers is a dieing trade. But the quality of meat is better?

The quality is much better. There is a butcher I go to that has actually managed to undercut the super market.

[Berserker]

Yes, as has been said the meat is much better than at supermarkets, and here it's a level above elsewhere so it's more than worth it.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

I like to use the butcher. You get better quality, better variety and more control over how much you're getting. If I want sausages I can go to the butchers and get 3. At a supermarket you'd have to buy a pack of 8

[Harry]

I go as often as I can. Weekends normally, which gets us through about 3 days worth of dinners. Weeknights though butchers are about as useful as post offices with their crappy hours.... They should trade late every day tbh. In the days where most households are dual income there 9 to 5 open mostly just caters to the few soccer mums still out there and the elderly....

[CaaC (John)+]

A bit off topic and instead of creating another thread what I don't see or haven't spotted is a good old fashioned greengrocers shop that just sells fruit & veg and nothing else? nowadays it seems to be a fruit & veg stall outside the shop with the normal shop's contents inside, you can still find fishmongers shops around here but as we live in the Leith Waters that is expected.

Back on topic, we did have two local butchers in our high street but one closed down as the other butchers out-shopped him.     

[Inverted]

4 hours ago, CaaC - John said:

A bit off topic and instead of creating another thread what I don't see or haven't spotted is a good old fashioned greengrocers shop that just sells fruit & veg and nothing else? nowadays it seems to be a fruit & veg stall outside the shop with the normal shop's contents inside, you can still find fishmongers shops around here but as we live in the Leith Waters that is expected.

Back on topic, we did have two local butchers in our high street but one closed down as the other butchers out-shopped him.     

In Glasgow there's a few I often pass in the West End, but elsewhere in the city I can't think of a single one. 

[CaaC (John)+]

1 minute ago, Inverted said:

In Glasgow there's a few I often pass in the West End, but elsewhere in the city I can't think of a single one. 

It's a shame that supermarkets are really killing off old shops like that, I know when we lived in Southend-on-Sea years back we would get our fruit & veg from the local shop that sold the latter and nothing else plus there were butchers, fishmongers and fruit & veg shops altogether, the owner of the fishmongers and fruit and veg shops would go to the early morning markets and have them all ready for the shoppers when they opened, go there early and get fresh morning bargains. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

6 hours ago, CaaC - John said:

A bit off topic and instead of creating another thread what I don't see or haven't spotted is a good old fashioned greengrocers shop that just sells fruit & veg and nothing else? nowadays it seems to be a fruit & veg stall outside the shop with the normal shop's contents inside, you can still find fishmongers shops around here but as we live in the Leith Waters that is expected.

Back on topic, we did have two local butchers in our high street but one closed down as the other butchers out-shopped him.     

When I was back in the UK in November I noticed the local ones by my parents and grandparents was gone. Apparently it’d been gone for a few years. Local fishmongers are still there too, but the green grocers are all gone.

It’s fucking shit, tbh. Local produce from non-corporate farms is better than the shite you get in the supermarket by loads. It’s not even comparable really. 

[CaaC (John)+]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

It’s fucking shit, tbh. Local produce from non-corporate farms is better than the shite you get in the supermarket by loads. It’s not even comparable really. 

Aye, trying to find nice fresh tomatoes in the supermarket is a pain in the arse, I learnt from the wife who did a bit of supermarket work and she knows staff are trained to put the fresh ones underneath and the nearly out of, or soft and bruised tomatoes on top, same as a lot of other vegetables, we both loved shopping in an old greengrocers shop where it was all veg. and nothing else.

Went into Tescos the other day as the wife was going to make a salad and had run out of tomatoes, I took one look at the toms in a box they were bruised and going soft and no other tray left, I just left them and managed to get just about nice toms at Lidls.    

[Dr. Gonzo]

9 minutes ago, CaaC - John said:

Aye, trying to find nice fresh tomatoes in the supermarket is a pain in the arse, I learnt from the wife who did a bit of supermarket work and she knows staff are trained to put the fresh ones underneath and the nearly out of, or soft and bruised tomatoes on top, same as a lot of other vegetables, we both loved shopping in an old greengrocers shop where it was all veg. and nothing else.

Went into Tescos the other day as the wife was going to make a salad and had run out of tomatoes, I took one look at the toms in a box they were bruised and going soft and no other tray left, I just left them and managed to get just about nice toms at Lidls.    

In America (or at least California) they at least have farmer markets with local produce at centralised locations (San Diego has one each day of the week in different neighborhoods). Some of it is excellent and very reasonably priced, some of it is well overpriced and it’s mental. But at least an alternative to supermarket produce exists.

Although I’ve been going to this lately I’ve been going to a Persian “supermarket” that has a fantastic produce section and a fantastic little butcher shop built in (although an actual butcher shop is still better for all of the reasons I listed before). I discovered it a few months ago and it’s been pretty life changing. But not everywhere is going to have specialty ethnic stores that have a fantastic produce section, unfortunately.

[Mel81x+]

Yep, all the time. It's close to home so it makes it easier to go as well. I quite prefer it as well because with packaged meat you're stuck with getting meat that isn't really fresh sometimes.