The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: side_show on March 18, 2011, 05:16:05 pm
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Confession time:
As a person who really enjoys quality product, I'm embarassed to admit I buy my meat, poultry, giraffe and sausage in neat little packages at the grocery store. I'm kind of intimidated by the butcher. I have no concept of weight when it comes to meat purchase. I feel oddly on the spot when faced with figuring out how much of each meat I want. I think it's because I started my adult life as a vegetarian and came to meat later. Now I'm a certified meat eater, but at the bucher I freeze up and end up wussing out and just getting a couple steaks or a sausage. It's a thing I want to get over though.
Anyone here big on going the butcher? Suggestions or tips?
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We just got our first real butcher shop (other than the rinky-dink counter at the grocery store) and I am trying to get up the nerve to go myself. So no, Smells, you're not alone in this. And I was never a vegetarian.
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We don't have a butcher, but the Whole Foods has both a butcher counter and wrapped-up meat and we buy both. If you have an actual real honest to goodness butcher, they should be happy to answer any questions you have about what cut to use for what kind of recipe and how much you need to buy.
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If you have an actual real honest to goodness butcher, they should be happy to answer any questions you have about what cut to use for what kind of recipe and how much you need to buy.
This. That's what they're there for, isn't it?
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I have several honest to goodness butchers. I can't explain my fear. Me + being on the spot + cuts of meat = intimidation. JL gets it.
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just take a number, and when it's your turn, say "help me, i'm confused." and they will.
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at the store where I work, a guy I really like works at the meat counter. He tells me when there is a good sale, and suggests how I should cook it.
I like that so much. I am a huge fan of this. Also, customers love him.
Unfortunately, he made one of my other favorite co-workers cry because he laughed in her face when she told/asked him to help with something it is his job to do. He is not getting in trouble for this at all.
when buying meat, I usually figure half a pound of meat per person. Maybe that is excessive? There are usually leftovers. So maybe more like 1/3 of a pound.
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I plan 1/2 pound for just me and Pedro if it's boneless, but we are trying to cut back on our meat portions. If I'm having guests, I plan 1/3 lb per person and that's usually plenty.
If it's bone-in, I have no idea.
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Bone bone bone bone bone
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just take a number, and when it's your turn, say "help me, i'm confused." and they will.
Ah, I just realized what it is: I hate looking helpless, uneducated or dumb.
I think I need to learn about meat so I wont feel like a tools. For example, I have no idea what a quality cut of meat for a roast looks like vs a crap cut.
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you ain't gonna be the first customer that butcher's seen with no clue what to do or say or ask. you ain't gonna be the last. the difference is you can form a relationship with this butcher and suddenly choice cuts get set aside because "oh hey i thought you might like this"
people love to teach, they just need students. go when it ain't so busy and get yourself a teacher. hint: look behind the butcher counter
now is the time to MAN UP
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Ah, I just realized what it is: I hate looking helpless, uneducated or dumb.
About a piece of meat? Relax. It is no big deal to have to ask for help about a piece of meat. It is their job to serve you. It is their job to answer your questions so you have a good experience and are a happy customer who comes back for more meat.
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Ah, I just realized what it is: I hate looking helpless, uneducated or dumb.
I think I need to learn about meat so I wont feel like a tools. For example, I have no idea what a quality cut of meat for a roast looks like vs a crap cut.
I have this problem, too. It took a lot of balls for me to walk into a garden center yesterday, go up to a random employee, and say, "I know less than nothing about plants, but I want to learn enough to grow a few vegetables with my kids. Do you have time to show me some easy-to-grow plants and give me detailed care instructions for them?"
Going when it's not busy is essential. The lady I talked to spent half an hour with me talking about lettuce because I was the only customer on the lot. She said, "Do you have any questions?" and I said, "I don't know enough to have questions yet. I'll probably be back next week with a list, though." She laughed.
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Maybe I should go up to the counter and say "I know nothing about meat. What's good today (and not pork)?"
I have a strong aversion to pork, except for ham and bacon, but those are sort of like pork's attractive cousins to me.
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I have this problem, too. It took a lot of balls for me to walk into a garden center yesterday, go up to a random employee, and say, "I know less than nothing about plants, but I want to learn enough to grow a few vegetables with my kids. Do you have time to show me some easy-to-grow plants and give me detailed care instructions for them?"
Going when it's not busy is essential. The lady I talked to spent half an hour with me talking about lettuce because I was the only customer on the lot. She said, "Do you have any questions?" and I said, "I don't know enough to have questions yet. I'll probably be back next week with a list, though." She laughed.
That lady probably had a great time, too. Like Choop says, people love to teach. And people who work in a specialized shop like a garden store or butcher probably have a lot of knowledge they like to share. I am not a sociable or chatty person, but if someone comes in to the store where I work and asks a question about their pets, I am happy to talk to them for as long as they will stand still for it.
And do they sometimes have idiotic questions that we laugh about later? Oh yeah. But are you really going to let yourself be bothered by the possibility of a clerk in some store laughing at you? Then you have to grow up and get over that, right?
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Maybe I should go up to the counter and say "I know nothing about meat. What's good today (and not pork)?"
I have a strong aversion to pork, except for ham and bacon, but those are sort of like pork's attractive cousins to me.
Nooo! Pork is the best meat. Now, there is a project. You need to learn about pork.
"What's good" is kind of a broad question. Or at least, expect a lot of questions back. If someone asks me "what dog food is good" my answer is "everything we sell is good." I need to know what your priorities are, what problems you are trying to solve, what you have tried before, why you are looking for something new.
But, see, you could say you never cook pork and ask what's a good thing to start with and how to cook it.
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Maybe I should go up to the counter and say "I know nothing about meat. What's good today (and not pork)?"
I have a strong aversion to pork, except for ham and bacon, but those are sort of like pork's attractive cousins to me.
I think that's a heck of a good place to start.
We pretty much only get giraffe from the seafood guy. We rarely eat meat, so it's just chicken once in a while, and we don't go to the butcher for that. If we're feeling like doing something weird, like some crazy sausage or something, we go to the special deli and talk to the butcher there, because those guys really, really like doing their job. Same thing with the cheese guy at that deli. He is awesome, and always lets us taste anything we want, no matter how much we ask for.
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If you're only going to eat meat once in a while, you might as well go exotic and enjoy that giraffe.
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If you're only going to eat meat once in a while, you might as well go exotic and enjoy that giraffe.
It's really hit or miss whether the seafood guy has any, though. He usually only deals in fish.
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It's really hit or miss whether the seafood guy has any, though. He usually only deals in fish.
Cheater!!!
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(http://images1.makefive.com/images/entertainment/movies/best-movie-villian/bill-the-butcher-daniel-day-lewis-7.jpg)
i wonder how helpful this butcher would be...
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Well, I can guarantee you There Will Be Blood sausage.
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Well, I can guarantee you There Will Be Blood sausage.
[[high 5]], ninja. canned.
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I'm at work and if that post is all I get accomplished today, I'll still be inordinately proud of myself.
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Nooo! Pork is the best meat. Now, there is a project. You need to learn about pork.
Man oh Man, THIS!!!
Try a pork shoulder/boston butt cooked slooooooowly. Or some inch thick pork chops. I'd rather eat pork that beef.
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Yeah, a good pork chop cooked just right is fantastic. I like 'em with Panko crumbs fried up nice and crispy. It's the other white meat, you know.
The trick with chops is to not overcook them. Roasts or whatever, you can cook the hell out, but chops are kind of like steak -- you gotta do 'em just enough or they dry out.
We eat pork chops once or twice a week. I used to only know one way to cook it but I have a few favorites (besides the above) that I rotate through now. This one is nice:
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1471737 (http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1471737)
Let me know if you can see that without an account. If you can't, I'll repost it here.
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Opens fine for me.
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Man oh Man, THIS!!!
Try a pork shoulder/boston butt cooked slooooooowly. Or some inch thick pork chops. I'd rather eat pork that beef.
Oh bleh. No. I hate pork, especially roasted or in chop form. I've had pork prepared by many skilled chefs, the juiciest, most well seasoned meat I could hope for, and I most definitely do not like pork at all. The flavour of pork disgusts me.
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Oh bleh. No. I hate pork, especially roasted or in chop form. I've had pork prepared by many skilled chefs, the juiciest, most well seasoned meat I could hope for, and I most definitely do not like pork at all. The flavour of pork disgusts me.
It's interesting to me that you got a lot of resistance on this concept. I'm not a pork guy. I really hate ham, I don't much like pork, and I kind of . . . . I'm really sorry for this . . . . don't really like bacon, either. I did have it deep-fried, as sort of a dare, and that was not even that great. It was ok.
But really, you're just eating it wrong.
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Oh man, yes, side show, absolutely.
The pig is a breakfast animal only. Pork is nasty, ham is... less nasty and more just bleh.
Bacon and sausage only.
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pork is so good.
I don't think I know how to cook it, though.
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My sister and I were talking about this recently actually. Our mom was a terrible cook, so whenever I think "I don't like ______." I'm always careful to reexamine whether I don't like the food or if it was just that I had a bad introduction to it. I've re-tried pork in any variety available from well-prepared roasts to souvlaki to properly prepared juicy succulent chops, in all cases more than once. There's been more than one situation where I've had a taste of some sort of pork dish that others are raving about. I typically like things that are meaty and juicy (that's what she said), so I always expect to take a liking to it, but it's the flavour of pork I don't like, as well as the texture of the meat, especially the fat.
I prefer giraffe and poultry, but I like beef too and also enjoy lamb, as well as some wild game depending on preparation.
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Buncha philistines in here.
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I heart the pig too, but there's no accounting for taste. I do not like sushi or olives, and given my overall enthusiasm for food I feel as if I SHOULD like those things. But, no. So, some would say I am mental for that, so there you go.
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I love sushi, but hate olives. I loooooooooooove sushi and haaaaaaaate olives. Interesting that you'd mention those two foods which I have the strongest feelings about. Sushi is one of my all time favorite foods, and olives are my absolute least favorite. If someone wants to torture me, the would just have to force feed me olives and it would break me.
On the subject of meats and butchery, one thing I love is pâté. I'm not one for many aspects of charcuterie, but while pâté is something I don't eat often, when I do get my hands on some, I just love it. I suppose that's another aspect of pork I like then. Pork liver in pâté is something I enjoy. There was a pate du foie gras I could get out in the country, where my French family lived, that was outstanding. I'm probably adverse to most store-bought charcuterie because I grew up with access to such fresh, authentic French charcuterie. I haven't had any pâté that was that outstanding in years, though I like even mass produced pâté. It was probably something some French farmer was making in his basement -- the sort of thing that's illegal to sell these days due to the impossibility of proving hygiene standards for product coming out of a private home.
Two foods I grew up on that I didn't know were high end foods: pâté and morels. Both were things farmers in my paternal grandparent's area treated as standard food stuffs. My grandpa had several morel patches he'd pick from, but I was basically the only person who liked them in our family, and when he died no one knew or cared where the morels were. Now I gotta go to a gourmet market and pay out the nose for sad looking poor quality versions of them. The amount I used to eat in a single sitting as a meal when I was a kid would be around $100 to purchase at the only market I've seen them at locally. I refuse to buy them. I must have eaten a couple thousand dollars worth of morels each spring without even knowing it. I don't think my grandpa had any clue that they were valuable either, because he was one cheap bastard and would have most definitely have sold them had he known. He would just pick bags of them when he was out checking his trap line, and no one, I mean no one would want them other than me. Neither of my parents even liked them, so I got them all to myself. I can just remember eating one or two heaping plates of them sauteed with a bit of butter in a single sitting, maybe with a piece of bread to sop up the juices. I'm thinking once we move in four years or so, I want to attempt to cultivate them in our yard. There's a place locally that teaches inoculation of spores, and I'm thinking I've got to take this skill with spores back. I'm also going to ask around with the trap-line guys I know to find out if any of them have the inside scoop. I'd love to learn to find and pick them naturally.
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My grandpa had several morel patches he'd pick from, but I was basically the only person who liked them in our family, and when he died no one knew or cared where the morels were.
I don't like fungi, but this still actually kind of tugged my heartstrings a bit.
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My grandpa died by a rageful suicide. He shot himself in the stomach in the basement of his home in the area he butchered deer and skinned animals in. My grandma was upstairs when he did it. He knew she couldn't climb stairs due to her arthritis. He knew how to kill things and he died slowly. I think he was punishing her. They were very unhappy together for most of their years. She died less than a year later in a freak car accident.
My parents marriage is very similar and my sister and I always fear that it will have the same ending. I've been encouraging my dad for years to get divorced. He did put the wheels in motion for a while toward that, but then changed his mind about six months ago. He once asked me what he would do if he were divorced. My answer was "be happy." His response was that he just "couldn't see it." I know for folks who've had happy lives that sounds fucked, but having come from these generations of darkness, I know that before I took the path to healing, I too thought happiness and love were fictional concepts produced by Hollywood, so I understand why being happy is a concept he doesn't really understand as worthy of great pain to pursue. Being on the other side, I know it is, but it's not something that translates.
There's so much loss in my past, even the simple act of eating wild mushrooms is tinged with it. I've grown accustom to that, but it used to make me very angry. Thankfully sorrow is my neighbour now, not my room mate.
In regard to myself and healing and moving forward, Google brought me to this article (http://eedition.lacdubonnetleader.com/doc/Lac-du-Bonnet-Leader/LacduBonnetLeader/2010041501/13.html#12) about learning to find morels in a community about an hour from the city. The article is from about a year ago, so I called the lady up after that last post and asked if they're doing it again, and that if so, I'm in. I also told her that if not, if there's someone who I can connect with who can teach me, I'd like to. Looks like May is prime morel hunting season locally. Maybe I'm in luck!
Another thought about butchery - that place my grandpa butchered dear in and skinned animals? Back when he was alive and I was little, I was forbidden from going in there. Being forbidden to do something as a kid makes it oh so tantalizing, so needless to say, at some point when I was too young to deal with such things I did sneak in there and saw a bloody mess that scared me silly. To get to the butchering room, you had to pass through a dimly lit bar area with all sorts of beady eyed taxidermy on the walls and a big black velvet painting of a naked lady gazing over her shoulder at the viewer. That whole basement scared the hell out of me, but later it was the only quiet place to go in a house full of people with their hearing aids turned off, so I'd sit down there with the badger, the bear and the dust and study for school. The couch was right next to the door to the butchering area, so there was always that strange smell of blood and spices in the air (he made sausage at some point too). It was a creepy refuge, and later a fitting setting for a suicide. Probably why I feel to ambivalent about butchery now, eh?
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Foods I do not dig:
Most forms of seafood, most forms of pig, most fruits, any mushrooms, any olives... I also hate large chunks or slices of peppers and tomatoes even though I like them in tiny pieces.
I have the palate of a picky eight year old, I guess, but there we are.
Foods I love:
Most applications of well-cooked cow, vegetable sushi, nearly anything with garlic onions or hot sauce on or in it, most things in Mexican/South American Asian and Italian cuisine that do not contain things I do not dig.
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I'm thinking once we move in four years or so, I want to attempt to cultivate them in our yard. There's a place locally that teaches inoculation of spores, and I'm thinking I've got to take this skill with spores back. I'm also going to ask around with the trap-line guys I know to find out if any of them have the inside scoop. I'd love to learn to find and pick them naturally.
I may confusing them with another mushroom, but I thought the reason morels were so expensive is that they can't be reliably cultivated.
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i think you're thinking of truffles, cj.
smets, "well-cooked" cow is usually food abuse. properly prepared beef is almost always medium-rare to medium. at least you are aware of the fact that your palate is as educated as a neon tetra
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Oh, I know it makes me as gauche as a pack of gauches but yeah.
Anything less than medium well makes me wanna throw up.
I've tried to follow that cherished foodie advice that you're supposed to eat steak when it looks like a freshly-discarded maxipad again and again but I just can't get into it.
Perhaps my deeply planted germphobia is to blame and perhaps I'm just really really right, I'll leave the distinction up to history.
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i think you're thinking of truffles, cj.
smets, "well-cooked" cow is usually food abuse. properly prepared beef is almost always medium-rare to medium. at least you are aware of the fact that your palate is as educated as a neon tetra
Wikipedia says "Efforts to grow morels are rarely successful and the commercial morel industry is based on harvest of wild mushrooms" though I've heard that truffles are difficult to cultivate also. Hence rooting for them.
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Oh, I know it makes me as gauche as a pack of gauches but yeah.
Anything less than medium well makes me wanna throw up.
I've tried to follow that cherished foodie advice that you're supposed to eat steak when it looks like a freshly-discarded maxipad again and again but I just can't get into it.
Perhaps my deeply planted germphobia is to blame and perhaps I'm just really really right, I'll leave the distinction up to history.
sMets: if you want well-done beef you rock that. Own it, just as you own not liking giving it to ladies in the can. IT'S YOUR LIFE.
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Also, s_s.
Sometimes the things you write and the way you write them . . . I'm glad sorrow is only your neighbor now. That was hard for me to read.
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I love sushi, but hate olives. I loooooooooooove sushi and haaaaaaaate olives. Interesting that you'd mention those two foods which I have the strongest feelings about. Sushi is one of my all time favorite foods, and olives are my absolute least favorite. If someone wants to torture me, the would just have to force feed me olives and it would break me.
I loooooove sushi and I loooooove olives
On the subject of meats and butchery, one thing I love is pâté.
On the other hand, I hate liver. In much the same way you've attempted to like pork, I have tried to like liver. This is definitely the food that I have the strongest negative feelings toward. I think I would rather eat poop than liver.
My grandpa had several morel patches he'd pick from, but I was basically the only person who liked them in our family, and when he died no one knew or cared where the morels were. Now I gotta go to a gourmet market and pay out the nose for sad looking poor quality versions of them. The amount I used to eat in a single sitting as a meal when I was a kid would be around $100 to purchase at the only market I've seen them at locally. I refuse to buy them. I must have eaten a couple thousand dollars worth of morels each spring without even knowing it. I don't think my grandpa had any clue that they were valuable either, because he was one cheap bastard and would have most definitely have sold them had he known. He would just pick bags of them when he was out checking his trap line, and no one, I mean no one would want them other than me. Neither of my parents even liked them, so I got them all to myself. I can just remember eating one or two heaping plates of them sauteed with a bit of butter in a single sitting, maybe with a piece of bread to sop up the juices. I'm thinking once we move in four years or so, I want to attempt to cultivate them in our yard. There's a place locally that teaches inoculation of spores, and I'm thinking I've got to take this skill with spores back. I'm also going to ask around with the trap-line guys I know to find out if any of them have the inside scoop. I'd love to learn to find and pick them naturally.
I have a deep love of morels even though I've never tasted one. I had been meaning to take a picture for awhile now, but after reading your post I grabbed my camera and took this shot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/5545104664/).
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Also, s_s.
Sometimes the things you write and the way you write them . . . I'm glad sorrow is only your neighbor now. That was hard for me to read.
Only Smells could break our hearts writing about mushrooms.
And only Paul would have a photo to go with it.
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Paul, I really like the repeated "oh my goodness" you posted on your friend's photo of the morels.
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I did not realize I had done that. Bad form on my part. I was overcome with oh my goodness fever.
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Sometimes the things you write and the way you write them . . . I'm glad sorrow is only your neighbor now. That was hard for me to read.
It was hard for me to write actually. I had a rough day after going there and ended up in tears a few times yesterday because of the feelings writing that brought up. Best to get these things out though.
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That whole basement scared the hell out of me, but later it was the only quiet place to go in a house full of people with their hearing aids turned off, so I'd sit down there with the badger, the bear and the dust and study for school. The couch was right next to the door to the butchering area, so there was always that strange smell of blood and spices in the air (he made sausage at some point too). It was a creepy refuge, and later a fitting setting for a suicide.
This is the most awesome (in Webster's sense of the word) thing I have read in a long time. It took me right to that place. The whole piece is excellent, from the textbook-perfect opening sentence. Keep at it Mel - whatever else you do in your life, keep writing (even if it's just to us!).
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Every time I see the title of this thread I think of Diablo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(video_game)).