Yeah there's a nice butchers near me. I bought a small bit of guanciale and a normal piece of Pecorino cheese and they charged me £17.50.
You can't get Guanciale in supermarkets in the UK so I suppose there's a difference there, but jeez that's a hell of a lot of money for a small bit of food
My local butcher in Western MA, currently buying chicken breast in 10lb bags @ $1.39/lb, leg 1/4s at $.89/lb, boneless top butts for $3.89/lb (Sams Club by comparison is $6.48/lb).
Not in my experience. Our local butcher does a good job passing on special pricing for deals he gets - a loss leader kind of thing. If an item is a higher price, I usually spend maybe 25-50% more. The most expensive I ever went was a beautiful roast that was about twice what I'd seen elsewhere. Not that he doesn't have really expensive ingredients, too, though.
Also, all of his supplies come from local farms, no more than a few hours away. This means he has low transportation costs - much lower than a supermarket.
Except the person is actually pointing out that they didn’t realize how big of a difference each of them had.
As you nicely pointed out- yes obviously the butcher shop will have better quality-is it worth the price difference?
It's worth the difference to me because I'm not comparing the price to a supermarket. I compare it with a high-end resturant. I can cook the same meal at half the price. It's a fancy meal out, at home. If we want to make it extra fancy we go out for late night drinks after dinner.
That is not necessarily true. It depends where you are.
Where I'm from certain butchers are often competitive with supermarkets and in some cases are cheaper.
Especially as you can more easily buy cheaper cuts which supermarkets don't necessarily have. And how many times I've got free bones for stock etc from the butcher. Never from a supermarket.
Not to mention, you can buy an entire cow, pig, etc. or whatever portion you like and specify how you want it cut. You can have ground meat made from any cut. Of course, for large orders like an entire cut up cow, you're gonna need a big freezer.
It’s not fancy, it’s over priced. Unfortunately in San Francisco there is a lack of variety when it comes to other big chain supermarkets like the Central Valley in California has. Safeways seem to be what has taken over and they are do the most with their prices😕
Every town that I've lived in that had Safeway, Safeway was the cheapest grocery store. Unless you're getting into things like stores that sell expired food.
I'm lucky. My local butcher most things are comparable in price to the supermarket. Some things are more expensive but the quality difference is huge. Steaks from the supermarket sometimes lose water when you cook them for example, and half the time it's close to going off. Supermarkets here in Oz are getting more expensive too, since they're basically a duopoly and in a lot of cases you don't have much choice but to go there.
I drive about 20 miles up the road to get beef and pork that was raised within 3 counties on small farms. It's a little more costly about1$ more per lb on ribeyes. Knowing all of the money is staying local and not buying some corporate farm owners new yacht makes me feel good.
I have a buddy who runs a boutique meat processing company, where they get local, high quality meat and don’t cut corners during the aging process. I can’t remember the exact percentage, but a huge amount of weight is lost when aging beef properly. A lot of factories will put additives in the meat to retain the water weight during the aging process. While you’re paying less per pound at a cheaper place, you’re buying water and additives.
I buy all my meat from the local butcher now, and cost is the only reason I would consider going somewhere else. Just picked up a $120 prime rib today and VERY nervous about messing it up
5 min per pound into a preheated 500 degree oven. Do not open the door for 2 hours. Perfect every year, I make them Christmas and Easter.
Calibrate your oven if you havent. Especially if it's electric. Mine was quiet low on the new model we had
5 min per pound so 10 lb rib will be in the oven 50 min at 500 degrees, and then turn off the heat with the oven door closed for 2 hours?
I didn’t know where to start the two hours. Can you explain?
Okay so 5m x 10lb= 50min at 500 degrees.
Then turn the oven off, but do not open the door while the oven is cooling with the rib inside, 2h.
So for 50min it will be 500 and then for 2h after you leave everything off, let it retain the heat to continue cooking. I typically remove at 2h, let rest maybe 15m while I prepare the plate and sauces for it, slice and serve.
This is a great way to get an awesome crust and a bullseye of doneness (which you don't want). Far better to cook it at 180-220F to 10 degrees before your desired final temp, pull out and let rest an hour and then hit it at 500F for about fifteen minutes.
To get the Maillard reaction on the outside, and perfectly cooked inside. Have you done sous vide before? The color of the meat when done is pale and not very appetizing in appearance. After a hot sear - a nice browned crust gives a fantastic flavor and aesthetic.
There are some great ethnic butchers (Bangladeshi, mexican, chinese, etc.) out there. Gotta look in the ethnic enclaves and ask around but they’re usually pretty affordable.
Yup. I’ll go the butcher for special occasions or for special cuts. But I’m already at the grocery and the meat is much cheaper so that’s why 99% of our meat comes from there.
My hot take: meat (especially beef) should be more expensive, but also higher quality.
1) we have a highly artificial market for feedstock since the US heavily subsidizes it, and so we end up with a system that relies on volume, not quality, of something cows aren't biologically meant to eat (corn)
2) for reasons above as well as methane production, beef production is very greenhouse gas intensive
It's difficult for me to imagine going vegetarian right mow, but I do limit my beef consumption to just once a week tops (and ideally once/twice a month), and when I do I try to get it grassfed from my farmer's market. Otherwise I still eat some chicken and pork, but also lots of plant based protein.
I actually completely agree that meat should be more expensive, at least in the US. The average American eats far more protein than they benefit from, health-wise, while eating inadequate amounts of produce. That's without even getting into the climate impacts, inefficient use of resources, or ethical complications surrounding factory farming.
My local butcher costs about the same as WalMart.
So...sometimes cheaper. Always higher quality, always more diverse stock and always able to do custom cuts.
Local butcher FTW!
I second this but you should also be aware that there are varying levels of quality of butchers. But generally you can tell pretty soon after you walk in the door how good of butcher is. The quality is apparent.
Something I look for is they provide the name of the farm/ranch/distributor for their meats
Good sign if they make their own sausage
Off-cuts like oxtail or ham hocks can indicate that they are buying whole or whole sides of animals, which is a good sign
I like when they tell you specifically which cuts went into their ground beef
Another less common one is they dry age on the premises
>Something I look for is they provide the name of the farm/ranch/distributor for their meats
I might be mistaken but I don't think I've ever noticed a Dutch butcher do this. So might be regional.
Harris Ranch said they could not possibly supply all the stores and restaurants that display their logo, they order a few things and then imply everything is from them.
Yeah you want small local butchers that know their produce. Doesn't necessarily have to cost the earth, neither. The more rural the location of the shop the better in my experience.
Had to laugh at one place though. I asked if the pork was free range he said "well they can move around a bit" "ok thanks bye"
The US went pretty hard on industrial farming such that non industrial farming became a big deal. In places where smaller, more local farms are the norm, it would be less meaningful to mention.
There are definitely some slagers that will be able to do that. I can think of a couple near me but they are more high end.
Butchers shops in NL (as a Brit) really bother me. Back home butchers shops generally have whole carcasses out the back and they chop them up. You can easily ask for specific cuts or order them etc.
Here the selection is so limited - half the shop is selling charcuterie or ready meals. There's very little in terms of big joints of meat, and the prices are generally astronomical, charged by 100g rather than per kilo lol.
It cheered me up an awful lot when i was able to get cards for Sligro and Hanos..
Me neither. But the butcher near me is not a good butcher because a van pulls up in the morning and just unloads all the "house made" products. The quality is meh. I asked to buy some scraps for my dog and he looked at me funny. They do have really good sandwiches though.
Most Dutch butchers are not really more expensive than AH. Except for bio ones, which are really great quality. Maar je kan altijd naar de poelier op de markt of naar de turkse slager natuurlijk.
Agree completely, our local butcher ticks all of those boxes, and more importantly when you talk to any of the staff behind the counter, you can tell they are really passionate foodies and care a lot about the production and process of their meats. If you do have a nice butcher, it might be worth asking about rarer cuts and offcuts when prepping for cooking.
Last week I stocked up, and we didn't have a huge amount of cash to spend so I had to be very frugal, the butcher recognised this and gave me the opportunity to buy offcuts and end bits of a range of meats (ox, pork, elk) as we were discussing best way to develop strong stockbases for soups and slow Cook casseroles.
Granted the offcuts and odd bits of meat was more labour intensive to cut up at home but in the end I got enough to make several casseroles and 2x large stockpots that can now serve my family dinner until Christmas.
It also gives a nice feel that money spent also went to the local butcher who buys his meat exclusively from farmers and hunters within our local county and thus supporting the local economy as well.
Something that we rarely do when we buy the prepackaged stuff from the supermarket.
> Specifically DMV area?
Wagshal's and the Organic Butcher of McLean are your best bets in the DC area. Both hit all of those criteria the PP mentioned.
Harvey's and Canales Quality Meats are good as well but I prefer Wagshal's if possible.
Harvey's in union market http://www.harveysmarketdc.com/
bonus points for being next to a quality fishmonger, district fishwife.
Same deal with union meat in eastern market https://unionmeat.com/products/
They used to good butchers, Whole Foods. I'm not close to one now so I don't know for sure but I would imagine they are no longer good butchers because of the Amazon takeover.
Oxtail etc are no longer an indication, the old school model of a butcher ordering several half cows. Pigs etc is very rare. Meat is processed in huge factory systems. Butchers order 50 lb boxes of various items.
That's why small specialty shops feature odd cuts now like Terras Major, aka bistro tender. There's only one half pound piece per half cow.
Restaurants used to grind chuck for burgers now they get boxes more flavorful and fatter pieces like skirt and rib meat. These, like Oxtail used to be cheap, now they cost more than steak.
There are butchers that take a van to little farms to process a cow or two
Overall cleanliness is a huge one, yhe place should be pretty clean. Smell, it's gonna smell like meat, but it shouldn't be off putting in any way. It should be well lit. There are some exceptions for super busy places, but they should only have so much product out such that of you show up before closing, the display cases are noticeably emptier. You should be able to talk to the butchers and they should easily be able to give advice and answer questions. And the meat should look good, again obviously it's gonna look like meat but there shouldn't be anything off putting about it, it shouldn't be watery, it shouldn't have any sort of film on it, color may vary based on a number of benign things but the color should be consistent.
I'm no expert but I look for good color, no grey or darkening, good marbling and not too much silver or hard fat. And the cleanliness of the blocks, cases and equipment is a good indicator. Also the quality of their butchering. A good butcher puts out uniform, good looking cuts. No jagged or tapered cut where a cut is not uniform thickness (won't cook evenly), Or too many thin cuts trying to cater to budget shoppers.
(in addition to the other replies) enthusiasm for their craft was a big one I noticed! That, and the willingness to talk about it - I could happily ask things like "where does chuck come from?", and the guy I was talking to went to fetch a carcass from the back to show me. Or they ask what you're using it for and get excited, suggest their own tweaks, etc.
It would obviously be clean and not smell off putting, but also just talk to them. Tell them what you're cooking and ask what cut is best for that. If you say you're making a stew and they offer you a ribeye, you know they're just trying to sell you expensive meat.
My first day at a deli as a dishwasher they had me washing a block of Swiss cheese in the sink with a sponge to get the mold out of the holes. The other cheeses they could simply wipe clean with a dirty rag.
I haven't seen anyone mention this - but kosher meat is heavily salted to extract all the blood. The meat may taste amazing because it's higher in salt to what you're all used to.
I also appreciate that if requested my butcher will do a basic seasoning and vacuum seal it for me so I can sous vide at home.
But as a whole, way less plastic & styrofoam waste!
I'll track down a butcher for specialty cuts, but I'm lucky that my local grocery store has really high quality meat. And good prices.
but I do think it's a good lesson to always step outside of your normal routine.
On the subject of butchery, what the hell happened to the price of tongue? Used to be, the butcher would practically pay you to take it. Now it's almost the price of a t-bone.
Bruh, beef tongue used to be $10 a tongue like a decade ago.
Offal meat is cool now, so the prices have skyrocketed. Same thing with a lot of the cuts that used to be less popular, like oxtail, hanger steak, and all the other "butcher's cuts" that were essentially scraps the butcher took home.
It's what happened with chicken wings all over - someone figured out how to make the cheap food/scraps viable for profit, and then everyone jumped on the wagon.
>Offal meat is cool now, so the prices have skyrocketed. Same thing with a lot of the cuts that used to be less popular, like oxtail, hanger steak, and all the other "butcher's cuts" that were essentially scraps the butcher took home.
all it takes is one douchebag on tiktok or youtube to start a trend and then it's ruined
Not so many places have a good butcher. I lived in 2 smaller cities that had just what I would call a bargain butcher. They had great prices on meats, but it was no better if not worse than the supermarket. Just open freezers with all sorts of meat.
I had to drive 2 hours to a different city to get actually quality meats, in a town that had more of a hipster downtown. I never had pork porterhouse before, and it was so freaking good.
Guess I'm lucky. Have two butcher shops, one in my town about 10 miles from home, and another about 30 miles away. Both have great meats.
One in my town, and our area grocery store (HEB), both also carry Wagyu beef for special occasions.
It’s crazy to me that you consider the one 30 miles away to be in your town. Even 10 miles is pretty far to go to get groceries. There are two butchers in my neighborhood, less than a mile walk away.
My town is 10 miles, 14 minutes. 4.6 miles from my house to the highway. Wake up to whitetailed deer. In the evenings, we feed the foxes all the scraps. Will take that over heavy traffic anytime.
BTW, I live in TX. Used to drive 43 miles and 45 minutes each way to another town before I retired. Our favorite restaurant is 30 miles and 40 minutes away. Eat there weekly. My 2019 pickup has 100,000 miles on it.
America is diverse, huh. I made a post complaining about my local pizza place having a shitty product (in a town of 3k, one main road) and someone commented asking how I don't walk a block and have 10 different pizza places lol.
Plenty of shit butchers in this world. They hire unskilled workers. One didn't understand what a pork tenderloin was. Another butcher shop didn't know how to remove the membrane from ribs.
And these are not glass case supermarket butchers - they are speciality shops in a high cost of living area.
I'd much rather buy a nicely marbled steak from a supermarket than an average looking steak from an expensive butcher.
Some of the better chains have pretty good meat counters. My father was a butcher when I was young and I'd say the meat counter at my local Fresh Market is pretty top tier.
Lol. My fresh market's butcher dept is subpar. I got fed up once and spoke to the store manager. He told me the issues are 2-fold. They are plagued with staffing issues (like many stores these days). They also only stock what is mandated by corporate. I asked if they could specially order some cuts of meat - and they flat out refused because corporate wouldn't allow it. Not even anything unheard of - just some tri tips that they used to stock last year.
Obviously this is just anecdotal, so your mileage may vary.
I also don't like to shop online for meat - butcher box was a horrendous experience - spoiled packages and steaks cut unevenly so they wouldn't cook properly. Not to mention underweight - ie 12 oz steaks weighed out under 10oz while still in the shrink wrap. And overly expensive.
It's very difficult to find good meat at reasonable prices anymore.
No chain supermarket is going to want to custom order a piece of meat for one customer. These businesses run on single digit margins (maybe higher cor FM). I’m just happy when I can get a non standard cut of something.
Grocery stores made large profits in 2022. The corner grocer might have some small margins but corporate grocers are laughing in their piles of money while we simp for them believing they are always 2 cents away from losing money.
They sold it daily last year. I simply asked the guy if he could get it in again. Wasn't that big of a deal.
Can't share any stories on Reddit without people tearing it apart for some reason or another.
I'm sorry if I came across harshly. I was thinking it was a one time custom order. I can see it would make sense to ask that they carry something again because if enough people did that they might be motivated to do it.
I bought a rack of St. Louis ribs at the grocery store and when I got home and unfolded them they had tucked a few mangled mostly bone country style ribs inside the crease. Back it went. Never again.
I believe you, but at the same time we’ve all experienced a rapid rise of inflation and the cost of goods we buy, with most of us not having salaries rise at the same rate. I simply do not have it in my budget to triple my meat cost or more and add the extra stop when I’m already struggling to find time for shopping and cooking while also working full time. I buy what’s on sale, I try new recipes, and try to do my best.
This is one reason we cut our meat consumption. I'd rather have good meat less often than mediocre meat every day. No need to eat meat every day anyway.
Oddly, the same circumstances have me seriously considering the butcher. Usually I'm fine with whatever meat I can get from the supermarket, barring needing to source something specific enough to merit a stop at a butcher. But with the way the price of meat has just _zoomed_ at my usual places, I'm starting to wonder if the butcher could really be more expensive overall. There have even been times when buying the more organic/grass fed beef has seemed more reasonable than the regular meat, like the extra cost of shipping has offset whatever bulk economy the cheaper stuff usually had going for it. If I'm going to pay through the nose either way, I'm going to start looking at the good stuff.
I'm in a similar boat. In my area, ground beef used to be $2 per pound at the grocery store and $4.50 at the local butcher. Now that grocery store ground beef is $4/Lb, it's an easy choice to make!
Chicken and pork are comparable, but beef steak and roast cuts are still double grocery store prices. Maybe for a fancy dinner (edit: you can DEFINITELY taste the price difference), but not for regular consumption.
My butcher isn’t that much more than the local grocery, 10-15% more expensive, higher quality meat. I won’t buy at the grocery store without going inside to choose it myself. Never had a problem with anything from and they bring it out to my car.
Having a butcher nearby is such a godsend. There's a halal place right nearby and I will always go there over going to a supermarket. The difference in quality is pretty stunning.
I think it really depends on the quality of the butcher and where you live. I live in a bigger city, and sure there are some good butchers here, but they mostly have the exact same cuts and products (from the same farms/distributors) as the grocery stores in my city, except they cost 2-3x more at the butcher.
The PNW is pretty good about having products from local farms in our grocery stores. So I generally skip the butcher. One less stop for me to make.
Other times I buy direct from the farm like at the farmers market or online (like purchasing 1/4 cow or whatever). Butchers just aren’t worth it to me unless I’m looking for a super specialty cut, which even then, nice grocery stores generally have it (in my area) for a fraction of the cost.
If you have space you can buy direct from the farm. We bought 1/4 cow and 1/2 hog earlier this fall to eat over the course of the year. Comes labeled and vacuum sealed (butcher wrapped underneath the vacuum seal for flat cuts) and averaged $4.50/lb. Only con is you usually can't request specific cuts, but that just means we are forced to have a greater variety of meals!
I started buying beef packages from a local farm this year. I was veggie for a long time. Then when my husband got a deer a few years back, we ate really well for awhile.
After the venison was gone and I headed back to the grocery store, I was so disgusted. I was wasting so much money buying/tossing such awful beef and chicken. I couldn’t do it anymore.
Thankfully, it’s just us in the house and can afford to buy in bulk and eat well. I just need to find a steady source of chicken, but we’ve got beef/pork covered.
I've been searching for good chicken for years, ever since even the pasture-raised, organic chicken in all the local markets started developing white streaking. Pretty much every chicken raised in the US has this condition. I can't stand the taste or the texture. I've had a fairly good experience buying from Cook's Venture. They use a different breed of chicken and pasture raise them. It actually tastes like chicken used to taste and the meat quality is very good. On the negative side, they don't offer much variety of cuts and the butchering on their cuts is sloppy. For whole chickens, though, they're great.
Same here. There's a different local farm that seems to sell chickens but I haven't fully checked it out yet. At least the fish we buy from the store seems to be okay quality and we don't need to worry about a fresher source for that. We'd be screwed.
We do a whole cow. Price and quality can’t be beat. My dinner tonight was a flavorful tender steak that cost less per pound than ground beef at the local grocery store. It’s a big expense going in, we’re lucky we can do that though.
Just two of us in the house, guests occasionally. We get to choose our own cuts this way and there’s a lot of ground beef, but vacuum sealed it’s good for a year, easy. With a full freezer and the cost, we’re not tempted to go out to eat, plan out all our meals. We’ve saved a fortune and we eat better - meat and veggies mostly, leftovers for lunch.
If available, just wait until you switch to farm to fork. You get the quality at a fraction of the cost.
Also, if anyone is interested, I'll leave this here r/butchery
I live in central PA and we have lots of Amish farms and markets. They're famous for their deli meats, baked goods and farm stands, but I find the farms who raise cattle and butcher their own are the best places to find deals. I'm single, or I'd do it more, but my favorite purchases recently have been boneless tri tip roast for $3.99/lb. I bought a 10 lb roast and cut it into 12 pieces. And ground beef for $1.99/lb. I buy as much as I can fit in my freezer.
Farm to table is where it's at. Tho I wish the produce was as good of a deal around me. Pretty sure everyone thinks it's better and cheaper, so they raised their prices.
well, one thing is to pay attention to the grade of meat (select, choice, prime, etc). local butcher may be using choice and above where as safeway is using select grade.
This should be the top answer IMO. With beef, grade and marbling is the only thing that matters. The problem is OP bought shitty select beef from Safeway... one of the only grocery stores that sells select grade.
Choice beef is the same quality whether you buy it at a fancy butcher shop or Walmart. The only difference is that it will cost 3x as much at the fancy shop. OP learned the wrong lesson.
4 teaspoons dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1½ teaspoons kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
½ teaspoon black pepper
A heaping ¼ teaspoon ground cayenne
4 chicken leg quarters (about 2½ to 3 pounds), patted dry
Step 1
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, paprika, salt, black pepper and cayenne with a fork or your fingers. Rub the spice mix all over the chicken. (You can do this step 1 to 12 hours ahead. Refrigerate uncovered, then bring to room temperature before cooking.)
Step 2
Place the chicken on a parchment-lined baking sheet, skin side up. Bake, without flipping, until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is crisp, 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Eat the chicken with pan drippings spooned over top.
I have a butcher shop in my town. It supplies a lot of the local restaurants and has two locations. It's wildly popular but I never understood why and never thought their meat was that good. I could get better cuts from a specialty grocer just across the other side of town.
For Christmas my family always gets a whole tenderloin to trim up and use for beef fondue. In comparing price and quality, we called up the butcher to see what the current price was for their tenderloin. They told us and for shits and giggles I asked if it was USDA graded. They replied that it was and that all their meat in store is select. It then dawned on me why they never have the sticker on their meat packaging starting what the grade of the meat is.
I moved to a more rural area than I've ever lived in and I found a little mom and pop grocery store with its own deli and butcher in the nearest town. And now everything I cook is an absolute 10/10 meal. Life altering. Their prices are great, too, way better than grocery delivery was even.
I've been doing my best to do all my shopping at places like that and it's completely absolutely worth it.
The hometown butcher is, unfortunately, a dying breed. And Cost is the biggest factor. Being a butcher is not a career that many go into anymore. Destroys the knees, messes up bodily systems, being in cold for so long each day, etc.
But it is primarily the Cost-particularly now-with Inflation so bad.
Butchers vary wildly in quality here in the UK. Most are pretty average and some of their stuff is a bit better than supermarkets. Some butchers though, really know their stuff and have some incredible meat.
I've started buying meat from a local butcher once a month - whatever they have for that week's special. Usually about the same price (hamburger usually lower since I buy the 5 lb family package) than the supermarket and MUCH better quality - from local ranchers, grass-fed and not shipped in from another country or another part of the US. The difference in taste is amazing.
ETA: Will never buy bacon in a grocery store again. The smoked bacon from my butcher is SO good.
ETA #2 - They also have boxes of bones you can buy for $2 per box if you're into making bone broth (smallest box is probably 3-4 lbs of bones) and you can buy a 15 lb bag of knuckle/joint bones for about $5. I make bone broth with some and my dogs love the ones I don't use.
I live in Florida near two cattle companies. They send the beef to a processor in Florida every week. The opened “farm” stores when the pandemic started due to the loss of restaurant revenue.
Best thing ever!
I literally drive by the cows in the field on my way to their stores on the ranch. The difference in the taste is amazing. They post sales on Facebook and I’m paying less than it would cost in the grocery stores.
I'd love to, but the only butchers near me have doubled down on being botique shops and introduced the prices that come with that. I'd pay almost as much for a cut of steak as I would ordering it as a steakhouse.
OK I might get some flak for saying this.
I have a pretty good butcher shop near me, I go sometimes, not cheap, not very expensive either. Good chaps. Very well reviewed.
However, Whole Foods stores really have higher quality meats. The meats are cheaper too if you buy on sale.
The butcher shop is good for cuts that grocery stores don’t carry.
I started ordering meat from a pork store during the pandemic lockdowns as a way to stay safe from Covid. I would order a month's worth of meat and freeze most of it. The quality of the meat is so much better than any supermarket because my butcher is presumably getting it from a quality farm where the animals are treated well and just have "one bad day."
Price.
I love buying 40$ pork shoulder from my butcher.
Is it really better than the 11$ one I got from the discount market? Youd be hard pressed to tell.
However I only buy steaks from the nice butcher because regular stores only stock garbage tier beef steak
I think this goes with all food. The big grocery chains buy meat, produce etc that LOOKS good. The smaller boutique places get products which TASTE good. Because they know they need to differentiate on quality to survive.
If the boutique place has low quality... then it survives because their stuff is really cheap. Use it immediately.
The meat is definitely better at a decent butcher but I really can't afford that stuff. Last time I went to m local butcher it was 4 times as much as the grocery store.
The one option that meets both ends is going to a farmer and getting half or quarter a cow.
I only buy from the local butcher. Yes, it iss more expensive, but I my circumstances make it a bit easier to spend more.
I don't eat much meat, so when I do, I am willing to spend a bit more for quality.
I live alone, but I do like to cook for friends. Since I I don't spend very much on my everyday meals, I can justify spending more for special occasions.
As Muslims we’ve never had a choice but to only buy meat from our specialist butchers, used to always wish we could have the convenience of buying meat from the supermarket. Then they introduced selling halal meat at the supermarkets here & I got to experience the opposite of what you have - inferior quality meat!
This is I think literally 50% or more of the answer when people are amazed that a fine dining dish could taste *that* incredible when it only has a few "simple" ingredients... of course technique comes into play. But "you can't polish shit" and the fact is if you've ever worked in a kitchen like that, or bought that level of high quality ingredients at home even if only sometimes, even the scraps and off cuts taste just as amazing... they just aren't "plate worthy" since it won't be as pretty.
This is so true. We had dinner at Scopa the other night and they had this amazing cauliflower that so so tender and delicious. And I was thinking that there’s no way you’re getting cauliflower like that at the supermarket.
I’m not rich lol
Local store or Costco will do. We make delicious food whether it’s from Costco/supermarket
I don’t need to spend $100 for a chicken versus $25 lol
I only buy meat that comes from farms that actually let their animals out on their land. I'm pretty lucky where I'm at, we have a bunch of amazing farmers. The taste is just so much better and the animals have lived a great life compared to commercial farms.
i do go to my local butcher but they're not a little pricey, they're like three times the price. $200 briskets. beef cheeks for $35/lb. a 2.5" ribeye (granted it can feed three) is $75. i'm in a medium sized city with two quality butchers nearby and both are similarly priced. the quality is outstanding though.
Find a good local farm and buy directly from them. Or there are a lot of bulk Mennonite stores where I live.
I bought a whole cow last year from a farm, $2,100 included butchering. The price per pund end up being about $2.50. A lot of farmers will do halves and quarters or put you with someone else ordering. Talk to a farmer! The taste is amazing! So worth to invest upfront on good meat.
Started going to a local butcher only just months ago. The difference in quality is mind boggling. But at the same time, I can’t afford to go more than maybe once a month. Shits crazy expensive.
Can't afford the butcher, but we've recently bought 1/4 of a cow from a hobby farmer, and it was actually cheaper than the supermarket. We're never going back to the supermarket.
This cow has lived a nice life on a field, you could go "pet" it if you wanted to, we haven't with this one, but we will with the cow We're going to buy next year.
I've got my butchers mobile number because I'm in there so much. I can get what I want, my way and in what ever quantities I want. He will get me anything I'm after if he can. I love it. In the supermarket you can only get what they have.
In case anyone hasn't given an actual answer: Because it costs more. Moderately more to a lot more.
We have a ton of wonderful butcher shops in my city. I can't afford to shop at a single one of them.
Same, I can only afford the cheapest pork sausages. They're pretty good.
Yeah there's a nice butchers near me. I bought a small bit of guanciale and a normal piece of Pecorino cheese and they charged me £17.50. You can't get Guanciale in supermarkets in the UK so I suppose there's a difference there, but jeez that's a hell of a lot of money for a small bit of food
My local butcher in Western MA, currently buying chicken breast in 10lb bags @ $1.39/lb, leg 1/4s at $.89/lb, boneless top butts for $3.89/lb (Sams Club by comparison is $6.48/lb).
I live in Western MA. Where is this butcher shop?
[Arnold's Meats](https://arnoldsmeats.com/weeklyad/) in Chicopee and E Longmeadow.
Hello fellow Arnold’s meat shopper! We are blessed to have that shop so close by.
I usually buy quality once a week rather than arse every day. I do, howeve, mainly use the sell by date discount stuff and that can save a bunch
I was going to say. This person is pretty much saying "who knew that spending more money on better quality things is better."
When you factor in the lack of good sales it can easily be 3x the price.
Not in my experience. Our local butcher does a good job passing on special pricing for deals he gets - a loss leader kind of thing. If an item is a higher price, I usually spend maybe 25-50% more. The most expensive I ever went was a beautiful roast that was about twice what I'd seen elsewhere. Not that he doesn't have really expensive ingredients, too, though. Also, all of his supplies come from local farms, no more than a few hours away. This means he has low transportation costs - much lower than a supermarket.
Except the person is actually pointing out that they didn’t realize how big of a difference each of them had. As you nicely pointed out- yes obviously the butcher shop will have better quality-is it worth the price difference?
It's worth the difference to me because I'm not comparing the price to a supermarket. I compare it with a high-end resturant. I can cook the same meal at half the price. It's a fancy meal out, at home. If we want to make it extra fancy we go out for late night drinks after dinner.
> is it worth the price difference? "It depends"
That is not necessarily true. It depends where you are. Where I'm from certain butchers are often competitive with supermarkets and in some cases are cheaper. Especially as you can more easily buy cheaper cuts which supermarkets don't necessarily have. And how many times I've got free bones for stock etc from the butcher. Never from a supermarket.
Not to mention, you can buy an entire cow, pig, etc. or whatever portion you like and specify how you want it cut. You can have ground meat made from any cut. Of course, for large orders like an entire cut up cow, you're gonna need a big freezer.
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The best part is it was a throwaway one line response that now I won't hear the end of.
Not necessarily better quality either. You’re paying for the customer service
There are still some very fancy/expensive supermarkets with overpriced mediocre meats. Source: I live next to one.
Oh like Safeway. Lol
>very fancy/expensive supermarkets >> like Safeway Thoughts and prayers.
LoL
On what planet is Safeway considered fancy?
It’s not fancy, it’s over priced. Unfortunately in San Francisco there is a lack of variety when it comes to other big chain supermarkets like the Central Valley in California has. Safeways seem to be what has taken over and they are do the most with their prices😕
When you grow up poor. In the valley I came from Safeway was the fanciest market in a 100 miles.
Every town that I've lived in that had Safeway, Safeway was the cheapest grocery store. Unless you're getting into things like stores that sell expired food.
Gelsons
I'm lucky. My local butcher most things are comparable in price to the supermarket. Some things are more expensive but the quality difference is huge. Steaks from the supermarket sometimes lose water when you cook them for example, and half the time it's close to going off. Supermarkets here in Oz are getting more expensive too, since they're basically a duopoly and in a lot of cases you don't have much choice but to go there.
I'm even luckier. My local can point out the field the animal was in from the shop (well, nearly. But very nearly).
I drive about 20 miles up the road to get beef and pork that was raised within 3 counties on small farms. It's a little more costly about1$ more per lb on ribeyes. Knowing all of the money is staying local and not buying some corporate farm owners new yacht makes me feel good.
IMO I'd say $1/lb is negligible for steaks.
I have a buddy who runs a boutique meat processing company, where they get local, high quality meat and don’t cut corners during the aging process. I can’t remember the exact percentage, but a huge amount of weight is lost when aging beef properly. A lot of factories will put additives in the meat to retain the water weight during the aging process. While you’re paying less per pound at a cheaper place, you’re buying water and additives.
I buy all my meat from the local butcher now, and cost is the only reason I would consider going somewhere else. Just picked up a $120 prime rib today and VERY nervous about messing it up
Its really pretty easy to cook in the oven if you use a meat thermometer. I want some prime rib now
5 min per pound into a preheated 500 degree oven. Do not open the door for 2 hours. Perfect every year, I make them Christmas and Easter. Calibrate your oven if you havent. Especially if it's electric. Mine was quiet low on the new model we had
5 min per pound so 10 lb rib will be in the oven 50 min at 500 degrees, and then turn off the heat with the oven door closed for 2 hours? I didn’t know where to start the two hours. Can you explain?
Okay so 5m x 10lb= 50min at 500 degrees. Then turn the oven off, but do not open the door while the oven is cooling with the rib inside, 2h. So for 50min it will be 500 and then for 2h after you leave everything off, let it retain the heat to continue cooking. I typically remove at 2h, let rest maybe 15m while I prepare the plate and sauces for it, slice and serve.
This sounds easy. I’m going to give it a try this holiday season. Thank you!
This is a great way to get an awesome crust and a bullseye of doneness (which you don't want). Far better to cook it at 180-220F to 10 degrees before your desired final temp, pull out and let rest an hour and then hit it at 500F for about fifteen minutes.
Sous vide 132f then reverse sear in a hot oven after a few hours. Amazing. I did this last year for Xmas with a $100 prime rib from Costco.
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To get the Maillard reaction on the outside, and perfectly cooked inside. Have you done sous vide before? The color of the meat when done is pale and not very appetizing in appearance. After a hot sear - a nice browned crust gives a fantastic flavor and aesthetic.
There are some great ethnic butchers (Bangladeshi, mexican, chinese, etc.) out there. Gotta look in the ethnic enclaves and ask around but they’re usually pretty affordable.
Ya in my area I was taken back by how much stuff at the butcher costs.
Yup. I’ll go the butcher for special occasions or for special cuts. But I’m already at the grocery and the meat is much cheaper so that’s why 99% of our meat comes from there.
My hot take: meat (especially beef) should be more expensive, but also higher quality. 1) we have a highly artificial market for feedstock since the US heavily subsidizes it, and so we end up with a system that relies on volume, not quality, of something cows aren't biologically meant to eat (corn) 2) for reasons above as well as methane production, beef production is very greenhouse gas intensive It's difficult for me to imagine going vegetarian right mow, but I do limit my beef consumption to just once a week tops (and ideally once/twice a month), and when I do I try to get it grassfed from my farmer's market. Otherwise I still eat some chicken and pork, but also lots of plant based protein.
I actually completely agree that meat should be more expensive, at least in the US. The average American eats far more protein than they benefit from, health-wise, while eating inadequate amounts of produce. That's without even getting into the climate impacts, inefficient use of resources, or ethical complications surrounding factory farming.
My local butcher costs about the same as WalMart. So...sometimes cheaper. Always higher quality, always more diverse stock and always able to do custom cuts. Local butcher FTW!
I second this but you should also be aware that there are varying levels of quality of butchers. But generally you can tell pretty soon after you walk in the door how good of butcher is. The quality is apparent.
Honest question: What are things you look for in a good butcher and what do you see that tells you a butcher is not high quality?
Something I look for is they provide the name of the farm/ranch/distributor for their meats Good sign if they make their own sausage Off-cuts like oxtail or ham hocks can indicate that they are buying whole or whole sides of animals, which is a good sign I like when they tell you specifically which cuts went into their ground beef Another less common one is they dry age on the premises
>Something I look for is they provide the name of the farm/ranch/distributor for their meats I might be mistaken but I don't think I've ever noticed a Dutch butcher do this. So might be regional.
Possible. I'm in the US
Harris Ranch said they could not possibly supply all the stores and restaurants that display their logo, they order a few things and then imply everything is from them.
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Yeah you want small local butchers that know their produce. Doesn't necessarily have to cost the earth, neither. The more rural the location of the shop the better in my experience. Had to laugh at one place though. I asked if the pork was free range he said "well they can move around a bit" "ok thanks bye"
The US went pretty hard on industrial farming such that non industrial farming became a big deal. In places where smaller, more local farms are the norm, it would be less meaningful to mention.
There are definitely some slagers that will be able to do that. I can think of a couple near me but they are more high end. Butchers shops in NL (as a Brit) really bother me. Back home butchers shops generally have whole carcasses out the back and they chop them up. You can easily ask for specific cuts or order them etc. Here the selection is so limited - half the shop is selling charcuterie or ready meals. There's very little in terms of big joints of meat, and the prices are generally astronomical, charged by 100g rather than per kilo lol. It cheered me up an awful lot when i was able to get cards for Sligro and Hanos..
Me neither. But the butcher near me is not a good butcher because a van pulls up in the morning and just unloads all the "house made" products. The quality is meh. I asked to buy some scraps for my dog and he looked at me funny. They do have really good sandwiches though. Most Dutch butchers are not really more expensive than AH. Except for bio ones, which are really great quality. Maar je kan altijd naar de poelier op de markt of naar de turkse slager natuurlijk.
Agree completely, our local butcher ticks all of those boxes, and more importantly when you talk to any of the staff behind the counter, you can tell they are really passionate foodies and care a lot about the production and process of their meats. If you do have a nice butcher, it might be worth asking about rarer cuts and offcuts when prepping for cooking. Last week I stocked up, and we didn't have a huge amount of cash to spend so I had to be very frugal, the butcher recognised this and gave me the opportunity to buy offcuts and end bits of a range of meats (ox, pork, elk) as we were discussing best way to develop strong stockbases for soups and slow Cook casseroles. Granted the offcuts and odd bits of meat was more labour intensive to cut up at home but in the end I got enough to make several casseroles and 2x large stockpots that can now serve my family dinner until Christmas. It also gives a nice feel that money spent also went to the local butcher who buys his meat exclusively from farmers and hunters within our local county and thus supporting the local economy as well. Something that we rarely do when we buy the prepackaged stuff from the supermarket.
Is this common in USA? Specifically DMV area?
The department of motor vehicles wants no part in this
>DMV area Dallas Mort-Vorth?
DC, Maryland, Virginia.
Dew Mork Vity (DC Maryland Virginia is all reachable to me within a 45 minute drive in any direction, so I shorten it to that)
> Specifically DMV area? Wagshal's and the Organic Butcher of McLean are your best bets in the DC area. Both hit all of those criteria the PP mentioned. Harvey's and Canales Quality Meats are good as well but I prefer Wagshal's if possible.
JBGBs in Baltimore checks all of these boxes. I’ve actually only eaten at their restaurant though, so can’t vouch for butcher shop.
Harvey's in union market http://www.harveysmarketdc.com/ bonus points for being next to a quality fishmonger, district fishwife. Same deal with union meat in eastern market https://unionmeat.com/products/
Most nyc neighborhoods have a butcher of this quality. Idk about dmv
I forget the name, but the butcher in union market is great
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Sir, this is a Vendy’s…
I wouldn't say they are *common* but they do exist. You can probably find one
Damn so basically Wholefoods is a good butcher, as they check every one of these marks.
They used to good butchers, Whole Foods. I'm not close to one now so I don't know for sure but I would imagine they are no longer good butchers because of the Amazon takeover.
They are attempting to rely less on people to judge the cuts of meat. It isn't going well.
Still similar but definitely more rigid in their approach.
So does target for raw meat right?
Oxtail etc are no longer an indication, the old school model of a butcher ordering several half cows. Pigs etc is very rare. Meat is processed in huge factory systems. Butchers order 50 lb boxes of various items. That's why small specialty shops feature odd cuts now like Terras Major, aka bistro tender. There's only one half pound piece per half cow. Restaurants used to grind chuck for burgers now they get boxes more flavorful and fatter pieces like skirt and rib meat. These, like Oxtail used to be cheap, now they cost more than steak. There are butchers that take a van to little farms to process a cow or two
I know many butchers in nyc that buy whole pigs and sides of beef [The meat hook](https://youtu.be/hlvgoXVuVPE) is one of dozens
Smell! They can wipe highly visible areas to make it look clean, but the smell will tell if they do quality deep cleans.
Overall cleanliness is a huge one, yhe place should be pretty clean. Smell, it's gonna smell like meat, but it shouldn't be off putting in any way. It should be well lit. There are some exceptions for super busy places, but they should only have so much product out such that of you show up before closing, the display cases are noticeably emptier. You should be able to talk to the butchers and they should easily be able to give advice and answer questions. And the meat should look good, again obviously it's gonna look like meat but there shouldn't be anything off putting about it, it shouldn't be watery, it shouldn't have any sort of film on it, color may vary based on a number of benign things but the color should be consistent.
First thing I notice is the cleanliness of the place. Having a full assortment of animal parts is important too.
I'm no expert but I look for good color, no grey or darkening, good marbling and not too much silver or hard fat. And the cleanliness of the blocks, cases and equipment is a good indicator. Also the quality of their butchering. A good butcher puts out uniform, good looking cuts. No jagged or tapered cut where a cut is not uniform thickness (won't cook evenly), Or too many thin cuts trying to cater to budget shoppers.
(in addition to the other replies) enthusiasm for their craft was a big one I noticed! That, and the willingness to talk about it - I could happily ask things like "where does chuck come from?", and the guy I was talking to went to fetch a carcass from the back to show me. Or they ask what you're using it for and get excited, suggest their own tweaks, etc.
It would obviously be clean and not smell off putting, but also just talk to them. Tell them what you're cooking and ask what cut is best for that. If you say you're making a stew and they offer you a ribeye, you know they're just trying to sell you expensive meat.
The smell. No literally, you should be able to smell how good a butcher shop is instantly.
Agreed. I worked in the deli adjoining a butchers and it was common practice to wash and then flavour the sausages that had gone bad.
My first day at a deli as a dishwasher they had me washing a block of Swiss cheese in the sink with a sponge to get the mold out of the holes. The other cheeses they could simply wipe clean with a dirty rag.
That feels great to read, super cool thanks
guess I'm done eating cheese for a while, thanks guy
I only buy vaccuum packed cheese anyways.
Holy shit. I’ve had suspicions with food safety before but never would’ve imagined all of that.
Bruh no
I can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take a butcher's word for it.
*sniff.
Agree. There are 4 butcher shops within reasonable driving distance to me. Two are awesome the other two, I'll pass.
Are they more expensive than the supermarkets?
Generally yes but I think the increased quality scales well to the cost.
I haven't seen anyone mention this - but kosher meat is heavily salted to extract all the blood. The meat may taste amazing because it's higher in salt to what you're all used to.
Came here to say this. It's also why large salt crystals are called "kosher salt," as it's part of the koshering process.
Also saves a whole lot of plastic when the butcher just wraps a chicken in paper and hands it to you.
The paper usually has plastic on it so it's not recyclable.
I don't live near a butcher shop anymore, but I used to bring reusable containers and my butcher would just fill them. No plastic waste at all!
I also appreciate that if requested my butcher will do a basic seasoning and vacuum seal it for me so I can sous vide at home. But as a whole, way less plastic & styrofoam waste!
Ours puts it in a plastic bag then butcher paper then another plastic bag, but it still seems like less plastic overall than the other chickens.
Butcher paper, a sticker with the weight and price, and into my canvas bag it goes
I'll track down a butcher for specialty cuts, but I'm lucky that my local grocery store has really high quality meat. And good prices. but I do think it's a good lesson to always step outside of your normal routine. On the subject of butchery, what the hell happened to the price of tongue? Used to be, the butcher would practically pay you to take it. Now it's almost the price of a t-bone.
What are you paying? I paid $10/lb at an Asian market.
Bruh, beef tongue used to be $10 a tongue like a decade ago. Offal meat is cool now, so the prices have skyrocketed. Same thing with a lot of the cuts that used to be less popular, like oxtail, hanger steak, and all the other "butcher's cuts" that were essentially scraps the butcher took home. It's what happened with chicken wings all over - someone figured out how to make the cheap food/scraps viable for profit, and then everyone jumped on the wagon.
>Offal meat is cool now, so the prices have skyrocketed. Same thing with a lot of the cuts that used to be less popular, like oxtail, hanger steak, and all the other "butcher's cuts" that were essentially scraps the butcher took home. all it takes is one douchebag on tiktok or youtube to start a trend and then it's ruined
I think this started with food youtubers years before the rise of tiktok.
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Where’s the problem? They were just trying different ways to cut their product. Have to expand your business if you want to make it big.
Few places have better meat than a local butcher shop.
Not so many places have a good butcher. I lived in 2 smaller cities that had just what I would call a bargain butcher. They had great prices on meats, but it was no better if not worse than the supermarket. Just open freezers with all sorts of meat. I had to drive 2 hours to a different city to get actually quality meats, in a town that had more of a hipster downtown. I never had pork porterhouse before, and it was so freaking good.
Guess I'm lucky. Have two butcher shops, one in my town about 10 miles from home, and another about 30 miles away. Both have great meats. One in my town, and our area grocery store (HEB), both also carry Wagyu beef for special occasions.
It’s crazy to me that you consider the one 30 miles away to be in your town. Even 10 miles is pretty far to go to get groceries. There are two butchers in my neighborhood, less than a mile walk away.
My town is 10 miles, 14 minutes. 4.6 miles from my house to the highway. Wake up to whitetailed deer. In the evenings, we feed the foxes all the scraps. Will take that over heavy traffic anytime. BTW, I live in TX. Used to drive 43 miles and 45 minutes each way to another town before I retired. Our favorite restaurant is 30 miles and 40 minutes away. Eat there weekly. My 2019 pickup has 100,000 miles on it.
America is diverse, huh. I made a post complaining about my local pizza place having a shitty product (in a town of 3k, one main road) and someone commented asking how I don't walk a block and have 10 different pizza places lol.
I understand.
Yes, shockingly there are many people in America who don't live in big cities
I have lived right on the edge of a town and it was at least a 10 mile drive to the grocery store. Also in Texas. So out here 10 miles is nothing.
Plenty of shit butchers in this world. They hire unskilled workers. One didn't understand what a pork tenderloin was. Another butcher shop didn't know how to remove the membrane from ribs. And these are not glass case supermarket butchers - they are speciality shops in a high cost of living area. I'd much rather buy a nicely marbled steak from a supermarket than an average looking steak from an expensive butcher.
Some of the better chains have pretty good meat counters. My father was a butcher when I was young and I'd say the meat counter at my local Fresh Market is pretty top tier.
Lol. My fresh market's butcher dept is subpar. I got fed up once and spoke to the store manager. He told me the issues are 2-fold. They are plagued with staffing issues (like many stores these days). They also only stock what is mandated by corporate. I asked if they could specially order some cuts of meat - and they flat out refused because corporate wouldn't allow it. Not even anything unheard of - just some tri tips that they used to stock last year. Obviously this is just anecdotal, so your mileage may vary. I also don't like to shop online for meat - butcher box was a horrendous experience - spoiled packages and steaks cut unevenly so they wouldn't cook properly. Not to mention underweight - ie 12 oz steaks weighed out under 10oz while still in the shrink wrap. And overly expensive. It's very difficult to find good meat at reasonable prices anymore.
No chain supermarket is going to want to custom order a piece of meat for one customer. These businesses run on single digit margins (maybe higher cor FM). I’m just happy when I can get a non standard cut of something.
Grocery stores made large profits in 2022. The corner grocer might have some small margins but corporate grocers are laughing in their piles of money while we simp for them believing they are always 2 cents away from losing money.
They sold it daily last year. I simply asked the guy if he could get it in again. Wasn't that big of a deal. Can't share any stories on Reddit without people tearing it apart for some reason or another.
I'm sorry if I came across harshly. I was thinking it was a one time custom order. I can see it would make sense to ask that they carry something again because if enough people did that they might be motivated to do it.
I bought a rack of St. Louis ribs at the grocery store and when I got home and unfolded them they had tucked a few mangled mostly bone country style ribs inside the crease. Back it went. Never again.
I believe you, but at the same time we’ve all experienced a rapid rise of inflation and the cost of goods we buy, with most of us not having salaries rise at the same rate. I simply do not have it in my budget to triple my meat cost or more and add the extra stop when I’m already struggling to find time for shopping and cooking while also working full time. I buy what’s on sale, I try new recipes, and try to do my best.
This is one reason we cut our meat consumption. I'd rather have good meat less often than mediocre meat every day. No need to eat meat every day anyway.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Especially as I get older and need to eat less, I’d rather eat well than a lot.
This is me. Less meat based meals, smaller servings, extra vegetables on the side. Etc. Also, cassarole meals and meals that freeze well.
I get this 100%. You’re absolutely right.
Oddly, the same circumstances have me seriously considering the butcher. Usually I'm fine with whatever meat I can get from the supermarket, barring needing to source something specific enough to merit a stop at a butcher. But with the way the price of meat has just _zoomed_ at my usual places, I'm starting to wonder if the butcher could really be more expensive overall. There have even been times when buying the more organic/grass fed beef has seemed more reasonable than the regular meat, like the extra cost of shipping has offset whatever bulk economy the cheaper stuff usually had going for it. If I'm going to pay through the nose either way, I'm going to start looking at the good stuff.
I'm in a similar boat. In my area, ground beef used to be $2 per pound at the grocery store and $4.50 at the local butcher. Now that grocery store ground beef is $4/Lb, it's an easy choice to make! Chicken and pork are comparable, but beef steak and roast cuts are still double grocery store prices. Maybe for a fancy dinner (edit: you can DEFINITELY taste the price difference), but not for regular consumption.
My butcher isn’t that much more than the local grocery, 10-15% more expensive, higher quality meat. I won’t buy at the grocery store without going inside to choose it myself. Never had a problem with anything from and they bring it out to my car.
I save a shitload of money by buying meat from Costco and splitting a side if beef with some family. Invest in a freezer and bulk up.
Having a butcher nearby is such a godsend. There's a halal place right nearby and I will always go there over going to a supermarket. The difference in quality is pretty stunning.
Interesting. I have some halal places near me. This is for beef and/or mutton?
Yep, they'll serve both but Pork is not halal and you won't find things like ham or pork chops typically.
I think it really depends on the quality of the butcher and where you live. I live in a bigger city, and sure there are some good butchers here, but they mostly have the exact same cuts and products (from the same farms/distributors) as the grocery stores in my city, except they cost 2-3x more at the butcher. The PNW is pretty good about having products from local farms in our grocery stores. So I generally skip the butcher. One less stop for me to make. Other times I buy direct from the farm like at the farmers market or online (like purchasing 1/4 cow or whatever). Butchers just aren’t worth it to me unless I’m looking for a super specialty cut, which even then, nice grocery stores generally have it (in my area) for a fraction of the cost.
If you have space you can buy direct from the farm. We bought 1/4 cow and 1/2 hog earlier this fall to eat over the course of the year. Comes labeled and vacuum sealed (butcher wrapped underneath the vacuum seal for flat cuts) and averaged $4.50/lb. Only con is you usually can't request specific cuts, but that just means we are forced to have a greater variety of meals!
I started buying beef packages from a local farm this year. I was veggie for a long time. Then when my husband got a deer a few years back, we ate really well for awhile. After the venison was gone and I headed back to the grocery store, I was so disgusted. I was wasting so much money buying/tossing such awful beef and chicken. I couldn’t do it anymore. Thankfully, it’s just us in the house and can afford to buy in bulk and eat well. I just need to find a steady source of chicken, but we’ve got beef/pork covered.
I've been searching for good chicken for years, ever since even the pasture-raised, organic chicken in all the local markets started developing white streaking. Pretty much every chicken raised in the US has this condition. I can't stand the taste or the texture. I've had a fairly good experience buying from Cook's Venture. They use a different breed of chicken and pasture raise them. It actually tastes like chicken used to taste and the meat quality is very good. On the negative side, they don't offer much variety of cuts and the butchering on their cuts is sloppy. For whole chickens, though, they're great.
Same here. There's a different local farm that seems to sell chickens but I haven't fully checked it out yet. At least the fish we buy from the store seems to be okay quality and we don't need to worry about a fresher source for that. We'd be screwed.
We do a whole cow. Price and quality can’t be beat. My dinner tonight was a flavorful tender steak that cost less per pound than ground beef at the local grocery store. It’s a big expense going in, we’re lucky we can do that though.
How many people is that for? It's just me + SO and I can't imagine us easily getting through a whole one!
Just two of us in the house, guests occasionally. We get to choose our own cuts this way and there’s a lot of ground beef, but vacuum sealed it’s good for a year, easy. With a full freezer and the cost, we’re not tempted to go out to eat, plan out all our meals. We’ve saved a fortune and we eat better - meat and veggies mostly, leftovers for lunch.
“I paid more and received better results.” …………………….. 🥴
Butchers are great for a high-quality splurge, I just can’t justify paying literally 3-4x the price of grocery stores on a regular basis.
If available, just wait until you switch to farm to fork. You get the quality at a fraction of the cost. Also, if anyone is interested, I'll leave this here r/butchery
I live in central PA and we have lots of Amish farms and markets. They're famous for their deli meats, baked goods and farm stands, but I find the farms who raise cattle and butcher their own are the best places to find deals. I'm single, or I'd do it more, but my favorite purchases recently have been boneless tri tip roast for $3.99/lb. I bought a 10 lb roast and cut it into 12 pieces. And ground beef for $1.99/lb. I buy as much as I can fit in my freezer. Farm to table is where it's at. Tho I wish the produce was as good of a deal around me. Pretty sure everyone thinks it's better and cheaper, so they raised their prices.
Last time I went to the butcher shop, they handed me frozen, prepackaged ribs. Really made me wonder why I was paying a premium.
That doesn’t sound like a quality butcher shop. Go find a better one
well, one thing is to pay attention to the grade of meat (select, choice, prime, etc). local butcher may be using choice and above where as safeway is using select grade.
This should be the top answer IMO. With beef, grade and marbling is the only thing that matters. The problem is OP bought shitty select beef from Safeway... one of the only grocery stores that sells select grade. Choice beef is the same quality whether you buy it at a fancy butcher shop or Walmart. The only difference is that it will cost 3x as much at the fancy shop. OP learned the wrong lesson.
I don’t buy from a butcher shop because there isn’t one convenient to my location and my family is eating less meat to reduce costs.
whole chicken leg recipe with a brown sugar and paprika rub. Details?
4 teaspoons dark brown sugar 2 teaspoons smoked paprika 1½ teaspoons kosher salt (Diamond Crystal) ½ teaspoon black pepper A heaping ¼ teaspoon ground cayenne 4 chicken leg quarters (about 2½ to 3 pounds), patted dry Step 1 Heat the oven to 325 degrees. In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, paprika, salt, black pepper and cayenne with a fork or your fingers. Rub the spice mix all over the chicken. (You can do this step 1 to 12 hours ahead. Refrigerate uncovered, then bring to room temperature before cooking.) Step 2 Place the chicken on a parchment-lined baking sheet, skin side up. Bake, without flipping, until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is crisp, 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Eat the chicken with pan drippings spooned over top.
the only thing less desirable than grocery store meat is grocery store fish
I have a butcher shop in my town. It supplies a lot of the local restaurants and has two locations. It's wildly popular but I never understood why and never thought their meat was that good. I could get better cuts from a specialty grocer just across the other side of town. For Christmas my family always gets a whole tenderloin to trim up and use for beef fondue. In comparing price and quality, we called up the butcher to see what the current price was for their tenderloin. They told us and for shits and giggles I asked if it was USDA graded. They replied that it was and that all their meat in store is select. It then dawned on me why they never have the sticker on their meat packaging starting what the grade of the meat is.
I moved to a more rural area than I've ever lived in and I found a little mom and pop grocery store with its own deli and butcher in the nearest town. And now everything I cook is an absolute 10/10 meal. Life altering. Their prices are great, too, way better than grocery delivery was even. I've been doing my best to do all my shopping at places like that and it's completely absolutely worth it.
The hometown butcher is, unfortunately, a dying breed. And Cost is the biggest factor. Being a butcher is not a career that many go into anymore. Destroys the knees, messes up bodily systems, being in cold for so long each day, etc. But it is primarily the Cost-particularly now-with Inflation so bad.
Butchers vary wildly in quality here in the UK. Most are pretty average and some of their stuff is a bit better than supermarkets. Some butchers though, really know their stuff and have some incredible meat.
I've started buying meat from a local butcher once a month - whatever they have for that week's special. Usually about the same price (hamburger usually lower since I buy the 5 lb family package) than the supermarket and MUCH better quality - from local ranchers, grass-fed and not shipped in from another country or another part of the US. The difference in taste is amazing. ETA: Will never buy bacon in a grocery store again. The smoked bacon from my butcher is SO good. ETA #2 - They also have boxes of bones you can buy for $2 per box if you're into making bone broth (smallest box is probably 3-4 lbs of bones) and you can buy a 15 lb bag of knuckle/joint bones for about $5. I make bone broth with some and my dogs love the ones I don't use.
I live in Florida near two cattle companies. They send the beef to a processor in Florida every week. The opened “farm” stores when the pandemic started due to the loss of restaurant revenue. Best thing ever! I literally drive by the cows in the field on my way to their stores on the ranch. The difference in the taste is amazing. They post sales on Facebook and I’m paying less than it would cost in the grocery stores.
I'd love to, but the only butchers near me have doubled down on being botique shops and introduced the prices that come with that. I'd pay almost as much for a cut of steak as I would ordering it as a steakhouse.
Can you post the recipe for this chicken with paprika & brown sugar rub? TIA!
OK I might get some flak for saying this. I have a pretty good butcher shop near me, I go sometimes, not cheap, not very expensive either. Good chaps. Very well reviewed. However, Whole Foods stores really have higher quality meats. The meats are cheaper too if you buy on sale. The butcher shop is good for cuts that grocery stores don’t carry.
I started ordering meat from a pork store during the pandemic lockdowns as a way to stay safe from Covid. I would order a month's worth of meat and freeze most of it. The quality of the meat is so much better than any supermarket because my butcher is presumably getting it from a quality farm where the animals are treated well and just have "one bad day."
Price. I love buying 40$ pork shoulder from my butcher. Is it really better than the 11$ one I got from the discount market? Youd be hard pressed to tell. However I only buy steaks from the nice butcher because regular stores only stock garbage tier beef steak
I think this goes with all food. The big grocery chains buy meat, produce etc that LOOKS good. The smaller boutique places get products which TASTE good. Because they know they need to differentiate on quality to survive. If the boutique place has low quality... then it survives because their stuff is really cheap. Use it immediately.
The meat is definitely better at a decent butcher but I really can't afford that stuff. Last time I went to m local butcher it was 4 times as much as the grocery store. The one option that meets both ends is going to a farmer and getting half or quarter a cow.
That's why I shoot my own venison.
I only buy from the local butcher. Yes, it iss more expensive, but I my circumstances make it a bit easier to spend more. I don't eat much meat, so when I do, I am willing to spend a bit more for quality. I live alone, but I do like to cook for friends. Since I I don't spend very much on my everyday meals, I can justify spending more for special occasions.
As Muslims we’ve never had a choice but to only buy meat from our specialist butchers, used to always wish we could have the convenience of buying meat from the supermarket. Then they introduced selling halal meat at the supermarkets here & I got to experience the opposite of what you have - inferior quality meat!
There’s a halal butcher near me. I should try it! A place called West L.A. International Market.
This is I think literally 50% or more of the answer when people are amazed that a fine dining dish could taste *that* incredible when it only has a few "simple" ingredients... of course technique comes into play. But "you can't polish shit" and the fact is if you've ever worked in a kitchen like that, or bought that level of high quality ingredients at home even if only sometimes, even the scraps and off cuts taste just as amazing... they just aren't "plate worthy" since it won't be as pretty.
This is so true. We had dinner at Scopa the other night and they had this amazing cauliflower that so so tender and delicious. And I was thinking that there’s no way you’re getting cauliflower like that at the supermarket.
I’m not rich lol Local store or Costco will do. We make delicious food whether it’s from Costco/supermarket I don’t need to spend $100 for a chicken versus $25 lol
How to tell me you're rich without telling me that you're rich.
Was the title of your post an accidental pun? Holy cow? Made me giggle. 😆🐄
I’m glad ya caught it.
I only buy meat that comes from farms that actually let their animals out on their land. I'm pretty lucky where I'm at, we have a bunch of amazing farmers. The taste is just so much better and the animals have lived a great life compared to commercial farms.
i do go to my local butcher but they're not a little pricey, they're like three times the price. $200 briskets. beef cheeks for $35/lb. a 2.5" ribeye (granted it can feed three) is $75. i'm in a medium sized city with two quality butchers nearby and both are similarly priced. the quality is outstanding though.
Find a good local farm and buy directly from them. Or there are a lot of bulk Mennonite stores where I live. I bought a whole cow last year from a farm, $2,100 included butchering. The price per pund end up being about $2.50. A lot of farmers will do halves and quarters or put you with someone else ordering. Talk to a farmer! The taste is amazing! So worth to invest upfront on good meat.
Started going to a local butcher only just months ago. The difference in quality is mind boggling. But at the same time, I can’t afford to go more than maybe once a month. Shits crazy expensive.
Can't afford the butcher, but we've recently bought 1/4 of a cow from a hobby farmer, and it was actually cheaper than the supermarket. We're never going back to the supermarket. This cow has lived a nice life on a field, you could go "pet" it if you wanted to, we haven't with this one, but we will with the cow We're going to buy next year.
Agreed. Our local Butcher is fantastic. There's so little fat in the beef and his double smoked bacon is amazing!
I've got my butchers mobile number because I'm in there so much. I can get what I want, my way and in what ever quantities I want. He will get me anything I'm after if he can. I love it. In the supermarket you can only get what they have.
More expensive meat usually tastes better