In case you’re a meat eater looking for dinner elements, heading to the butcher counter or refrigerated aisle on the grocery retailer is usually essentially the most handy and inexpensive technique to replenish on proteins. However in keeping with skilled butchers, the meat high quality accessible in a grocery retailer or grocery store typically falls beneath the usual that you just’ll discover at butcher outlets focusing on well-sourced animal merchandise.
“The main difference between a butcher shop and a grocery store is the attention to detail that a butcher shop provides, beginning with prioritizing sourcing quality over the price,” mentioned Mike Saperstein, co-owner of Sunshine Provisions in South Florida.
As Saperstein suggests, shopping for meat from specialty butchers generally is a expensive endeavor. Nevertheless, James Peisker, co-founder of Porter Street, reminds us the upper worth tags exist as a result of “small butcher shops all over the country do a lot of extra work to seek out farms that take care of the land and the animals, which makes a better-for-you and better-tasting product.”
Specialty butchers even have the ability set to chop meat extra exactly than their grocery retailer counterparts. “The skilled tradespeople have worked hard to know and understand the different cuts,” Peisker mentioned. “That knowledge and quality should be worth paying a little extra and supporting.”
After we spoke with skilled butchers, they often acknowledged that the majority American customers will purchase meat on the grocery retailer in some unspecified time in the future, and that they’ll usually get passable merchandise that approach. However for the next 5 meat cuts and meat-related objects, butchers urge you to avoid the grocery store and go to a butcher store as a substitute.
Floor Beef And Poultry
As a result of floor meats are usually lower-cost than premium cuts and are often used for dishes like burgers, meatloaf and meatballs (which contain different elements and toppings that obscure the meat’s taste), we assumed that our consultants would say it’s fantastic to buy them at grocery shops. However butcher Luis Mata mentioned, “Ground meat products, particularly ground beef and chicken, are items I would avoid purchasing from grocery store butcher counters. The bulk of these products come pre-ground from large meat processing facilities, where the risk of contamination is significantly higher.” Mata tells us these contamination dangers may cause foodborne sickness and have, in some instances, “led to widespread recalls of products across vast geographic regions.”
By buying floor beef and poultry from butchers, you possibly can each “reduce the risk of contamination but also ensure freshness and quality,” Mata mentioned. Specialty butchers supply their meat from smaller distributors, so that they understand how the animals are raised, how the meat is processed, and precisely what goes into every floor mix.
“Grocery store ground beef typically arrives pre-ground directly from slaughterhouses, where a mixture of various cuts — and not necessarily the best ones — is used. This process can compromise the flavor and quality of the meat,” Mata mentioned. He identified that high quality butchers often grind their very own meat and use “trimmings of premium muscles.”
“This method allows them to control the quality and fat content of the ground beef, ensuring a superior product,” he mentioned.
‘Fresh’ Fish And Seafood
Grocery shops have been upping their sport within the seafood division recently, with loads of in-store butcher counters providing fish and shellfish that they promote as “fresh.”
Noel Hendrickson by way of Getty Pictures
However except you’re shopping for from a grocery retailer that’s very near a physique of water, Rusty Bowers, proprietor and grasp butcher of Pine Avenue Market in Decatur, Georgia, warns that it’s value questioning the “freshness” of grocery retailer seafood.
“My general rule of thumb is that if you cannot do a quick 20-minute drive from the beach to that store, then buy your seafood from the freezer case” as a substitute of the meat counter, Bowers mentioned. He informed us that, if visiting a devoted fishmonger isn’t an choice, frozen seafood is a greater buy as a result of “most frozen seafood (as stated on the label) is processed and flash frozen on the boat to preserve its freshness shortly after being harvested from the sea.”
“We have all walked past that land-locked grocery store fresh seafood case that smells like low tide on a hot day,” Bowers added. “Please be careful.”
Aged Beef
Aged beef is beloved amongst meat eaters for its tender texture and strong taste. Artisanal butchers have used growing old processes for hundreds of years, and as conversations about beef growing old transfer into the mainstream, we now see grocery shops attempting to get in on the sport.
However in keeping with Wealthy Silverman, head butcher of The Lambing Shed Farm Store & Kitchen in Cheshire, England, supermarkets don’t have the time, tools or setup to age their meats in a useful method. “Local butchers have the time and space to dry-age the meat by hanging it on the bone as a full carcass. This is a far superior way of aging meat and gives a much more superior taste to the product. There is a lot less moisture in it, so it cooks better. This is a tried and tested method, done by butchers all over the world for centuries,” Silverman defined.
Grocery shops, nevertheless, are inclined to age their beef utilizing “wet aging.” Silverman describes this course of as involving “meat [that’s] pre-cut in packaging and then aged in that packaging.”
“So when you see a label saying ‘21-day-aged’ in the supermarket, it’s not done on the carcass, so it’s not dry,” he mentioned. “It’s done so the moisture can’t escape, so when you are cooking it, the moisture will steam the meat from the inside, making it chewy.”
‘Bone-In’ Meat Cuts
Cuts of meat bought on-the-bone are a deal with for flavorful braising, and the leftover bones can be utilized for selfmade inventory. Nevertheless, Jerry Rempe, grasp butcher at Omaha Steaks, mentions that bone-in meat accessible in grocery retailer meat instances “tends to ‘sour’ more quickly than boneless products depending on the age of meats and how they’re stored.” The presence of the bone impacts the meat’s pH, which might result in “a foul smell, slimy texture, and sometimes a change in color,” he mentioned. “The sour smell often comes from the production of organic acids by the bacteria as they break down the proteins and fats in the meat.”
Rempe informed us meat can go bone bitter “due to the amount of air, enzymes and other compounds that affect it if the bone is in a region of the carcass that is not reached quickly and effectively by the refrigeration.” As a result of grocery retailer meat cuts usually aren’t flash-frozen, the clock begins to tick down on their freshness the second they’re lower and packaged. Meat instances at supermarkets don’t have actual temperature precision, and packaged meat can sit there for greater than a day, so the chances of bone sourness are greater than they’d be at a smaller craft butcher who replaces meat each day or at a bigger operation that engages in flash-freezing.
Pâté, Terrine And Organ Meats
Some upscale grocery shops now carry liver, kidneys, sweetbreads and housemade pâté and terrine, which can look like excellent news to these of us who love the richness and funk of organ meats. However Rosangela Teodoro, proprietor and butcher of Teodora’s Boucherie in Cohasset, Massachusetts, encourages customers to think about visiting a butcher who focuses on these tricky-to-prepare cuts.
“As a specialty gourmet butcher, I also have trained expertise in customization and trimming required for specific cuts of meat. I use specialized equipment and maintain the meats at a consistent temperature to prevent spoilage. [That’s why] I would never purchase pâté and terrine from a grocery store butcher, as they require specialized equipment and expertise to prepare properly,” Teodoro mentioned.
In terms of organs, government chef Jeanne Oleksiak of Herd Provisions Restaurant and Butcher Store in Charleston, South Carolina, additionally factors out that “they’re usually frozen [at grocery stores] and are not in high demand, so they spend a lot of time moving from freezer to freezer, especially if they’re on sale.” At an artisanal butcher store, organs usually tend to be freshly sourced and saved in optimum situations.
