Remember when you could hang a side of beef and nobody blinked?

This morning I walked into the shop and we're breaking down primals before the sun's up, old school. Then the new kid grabs the wrong saw and takes a chunk out of a striploin trying to trim fat. Had to turn that into stew meat right there on the spot, lost about 12 bucks a pound on that mistake. You guys still teach guys the old ways or just let 'em figure it out the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamies451mo ago

I mean maybe it's just me but I wonder if part of the problem is we stopped teaching guys how to work with the whole animal from the start. Like my old man started me on breaking down a full carcass before he'd even let me touch a knife on a primal. If you don't learn where every cut comes from and how the muscle groups connect, you're just guessing with that saw and hoping it works out kind of. The new kid probably never even saw a side of beef hanging before he got hired, so he's learning geometry and meat science at the same time as his knife skills and thats a recipe for expensive mistakes.

barnes.brian1mo ago

Honestly, I remember watching my uncle break down a whole hog on his back porch one Christmas Eve. He had this old wooden block that was stained dark from years of blood, and he'd tell you the story of every cut as he made it, like which muscle the pork chop came from and why it mattered. Then my cousin, who was maybe 16 at the time, tried to help and took a cleaver to a ham hock because he thought it was a shank. My uncle just looked at him, said "you owe me 40 bucks," and turned that ham into grind for sausage right there. That kid still brings it up at family dinners, 15 years later, like it was a rite of passage or something.