Not a baker or a candlestick maker
May 29, 2018 11:39 PM Subscribe
I would like to hear how one becomes a professional butcher these days.
How do you become a butcher? I am sure you apprentice with a butcher but how exactly does this work?
Also, does it always require decent strength and coordination? I'm asking for an un-athletic young woman who is interested in learning to be a butcher.
I would really like to hear from anyone who has actually done this, or who knows someone well who does this.
How do you become a butcher? I am sure you apprentice with a butcher but how exactly does this work?
Also, does it always require decent strength and coordination? I'm asking for an un-athletic young woman who is interested in learning to be a butcher.
I would really like to hear from anyone who has actually done this, or who knows someone well who does this.
I'm not a professional, but I do butcher my own pigs and can speak to the physical side of things.
I would say that there are two categories of actions or movements required to butcher a whole animal, which I'll call "coarse" and "fine" because I can't think of anything more clever. "Coarse" actions would include hauling around what you get from the slaughterhouse (hog halves or beef quarters usually) and breaking those down in to primal cuts. This requires some strength, but I've butchered pigs with folks of all genders and body types and no one has ever really had difficulty with this part. A lot of this is also made easier at a professional shop where you would use a bandsaw to do a lot of what we were doing with knives and hacksaws.
"Fine" actions are really the difficult part of butchering, in my opinion. Cutting subprimals in such a way that they are presentable in a shop case is a really challenging skill to learn and takes a lot of finesse. I am not terribly good at this, but I'm also not trying to sell what I cut so it's less important for me. I wrote an article about my experience here.
My local butcher got his start by opening a fish market. When he decided he wanted to change fields, he already had the industry contacts and the know-how to run a shop, so the transition was probably not that difficult. From talking with the other employees, they all seem to be ex-restaurant cooks or worked at his fish shop prior to the move. He also does some light charcuterie work, so knowing how to make stuff like sausage and bacon would come in handy there.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:53 AM on May 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
I would say that there are two categories of actions or movements required to butcher a whole animal, which I'll call "coarse" and "fine" because I can't think of anything more clever. "Coarse" actions would include hauling around what you get from the slaughterhouse (hog halves or beef quarters usually) and breaking those down in to primal cuts. This requires some strength, but I've butchered pigs with folks of all genders and body types and no one has ever really had difficulty with this part. A lot of this is also made easier at a professional shop where you would use a bandsaw to do a lot of what we were doing with knives and hacksaws.
"Fine" actions are really the difficult part of butchering, in my opinion. Cutting subprimals in such a way that they are presentable in a shop case is a really challenging skill to learn and takes a lot of finesse. I am not terribly good at this, but I'm also not trying to sell what I cut so it's less important for me. I wrote an article about my experience here.
My local butcher got his start by opening a fish market. When he decided he wanted to change fields, he already had the industry contacts and the know-how to run a shop, so the transition was probably not that difficult. From talking with the other employees, they all seem to be ex-restaurant cooks or worked at his fish shop prior to the move. He also does some light charcuterie work, so knowing how to make stuff like sausage and bacon would come in handy there.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:53 AM on May 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
I looked into this when I was waiting to hear back from grad schools and went to a small butcher shop to ask the butchers. They said, 1) get a job learning the basics at a local CostCo, then 2) find a smaller shop that'll take you on as an apprentice to learn the more detailed parts, and 3) it's a really hard field to really break into so I should probably consider another backup plan.
posted by astapasta24 at 9:57 AM on May 30, 2018
posted by astapasta24 at 9:57 AM on May 30, 2018
I've seen a few community or technical college programs that teach people to become butchers. They aren't super common, but check schools with a strong culinary program-sometimes they will have butchering and meat production programs too. Here's a link to a program I'm familiar with in Wisconsin.
posted by mjcon at 10:41 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by mjcon at 10:41 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Julie Powell who wrote the blog/book that the movie Julie & Julia was based on wrote about learning to be a butcher in her second book - Cleaving: A story of Meat, Marriage and Obsession.
Be forewarned as the subtitle suggests, there is some non-butchery topics covered.
posted by mmascolino at 1:40 PM on May 30, 2018
Be forewarned as the subtitle suggests, there is some non-butchery topics covered.
posted by mmascolino at 1:40 PM on May 30, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
If she is in Seattle, I would have her start by contacting the Apprenticeship Program above (they have a contact form on the page) to learn more. If not, and you would like concrete advice for her, you probably need to tell us where she is/where she would hope to start working.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 12:56 AM on May 30, 2018 [1 favorite]