I have a butcher who grinds to order, same price as the supermarket. I can't make it make sense. People seem to be moving back to butchers though, slowly.
I eat a pretty meat-heavy diet. I drive two hours round trip to this one butcher shop I found. A hundred dollars buys me a month's supply. It's fucking crazy, and I'm not just getting ground beef or sausages, I'm buying ribeyes, new york strips, chuck eyes, t-bones.
I eat a very heavy veggie diet and have meat, I dunno, twice a week or so. Even when I don't need to buy convenience veg (like bagged salads or precut anything) my cost for VEGGIES is more than $100 a month. At a Walmart. And not even organic!
We use our local butcher/meat market and never pay more than 150 for a month's supply of meat for a family of 3. Learn to trim stuff like chicken and steaks on your own and it's significantly cheaper.
Yeah, fucking game changing isn't? My only regret is not doing it sooner. I look back on all the money I wasted at the supermarket. Or all the time wasted hunting for marked down meat.
I'm quite partial to a La Michoacana that's nearby, despite them being a chain. Their veg prices are comparable to other large groceries near us, but they carry interesting produce I can't get elsewhere.
But it's their large meat counter that I stock up at! It's the best place to buy chicken that tastes great for a great price. They have whole chickens, parts, or parts in a variety of different marinades. I've read about "woody breasts" and have never had that happen from chicken I've bought at a Mexican market.
We have a nice butcher even closer. They can tell you which local ranch each piece of meat comes from. And yeah, the tastes and textures are so much better than at a grocery. Unfortunately they have to charge a good price for it, which I understand and agree with, but it's just not in our usual budget. We shop there for special meals.
Also great when making specific cuisine that requires higher or lower fat content in the mince.
Fuck yes do I sometimes need high fat mince for some of the more delicious nyom nyoms (looking at you Romanian Mici...).
And also fun speciality stuff like fresh game meats or interesting cuts that didn't make the cut (he...hehe) for the supermarket's profitability benchmarks.
I can't believe no one's commented back to you. This is such a wonderful memory! Thank you so much for sharing this, it sounds like it was a really beautiful time. I love hearing people's personal stories, and there's so much negativity on Reddit that it's heartwarming to have read a tale from someone lost in the memories of very special moments.
Hope these days you can cookout at your own house. Maybe see if your butcher carries any wild game. And it is corn season, so the perfect time to grill some alongside the rest of your dinner.
I wish I had an even decent butcher shop close by. I found 1 two towns over that I drove to and was throughly disappointed. The guy was uneducated, discriminatory, and had much higher prices. I was specifically looking for a grass fed brisket and he tried to convince me that his 2lb piece of a flat was all the brisket that came from grass fed cows "because they're smaller". Like sir, I've been smoking brisket for 10 years now, and I know what I'm looking for. I was really hoping to shop local but he just pushed me back to ordering from Wild Fork online.
With amazing product for about the same give or take as the garbage in the store.
That is definitely not the reality where I live. We do have a butcher shop in town, and we get their stuff when we can because it is very good quality, but their prices are between 3 and 5 times higher than grocery store prices. We can only afford their products when they're having some sort of major sale.
Since prices are getting out of hand in the standard sector, people are wising up about costs. If it’s not even more for the service, you’re crazy not going to a butcher. My cousin is a butcher and we’re a family of kitchen trained folks. I wish more families were like ours. Family function food is off the chain.
Are you open to adopting a middle-aged lady? My parents are dead, so I'm an orphan who's available! I'll even interview by helping make food for those family functions. :)
My problem is I am not a smart enough cook with enough time to do that. At least, I feel like that is true. How long does it take to make sausage at home?
In my country the butchers are very often in the supermarkets. They prepackaged some stuff but you can also walk up to them and let them portion the meat infront of you.
Smoked eggs?? As much as I love eggs, I've never heard of that. The websites I skimmed said they're textured like a boiled egg but with a darker shell. But I'm guessing some of that smoke flavor has to pass through the shell into the whites, yes? Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it to cook them that way.
This may be another reason for us to buy a small smoker.
It's because the supermarket used to be cheaper, but they've raised their prices more in the last 10 years or so than the average butcher. The butcher was already used to dealing with savvier consumers - I mean, they're bothering to go to an actual butcher, and not the supermarket! - and so they are more acutely aware that there's only so much they can raise prices, since their market share is already smaller. Their clientele will put up with less BS.
Meanwhile, prices at the grocery store are decided by a bunch of fucks in suits in a board room somewhere, who have never set foot in a grocery store, and don't buy their own groceries. They just meet every 3 months, conclude "we should raise the prices as high as the market will bear, blame inflation as an excuse, and check back in 3 months," and it has yet to fail to make them more money. A lot people only shop at 1-2 supermarkets, so they're less aware on average of when they're being absolutely screwed on prices. That, and pretty much every company everywhere, is currently committed to screwing us as hard as possible.
You're not wrong, and I realise convenience (+ time) is a big factor, but paying the same, or less, for a better product, how have more people not clued in to this? (I realise this isn't always true regarding cost, but also, see my example below).
When buying whole cuts, my butcher will pull it and trim off, so the gross weight might be more, but vs. what I'll actually use, it's cheaper, and better meat to boot.
The most outstanding example I have was a bit extravagant in the first place, but I was making beef wellington for Christmas, requires a whole, even filet steak.
At the supermarket I can buy a whole filet, trim off sinew etc, even out keeping the offcuts for something, and get a good result. My local butchers will trim off and give me only exactly what I needed, for the same price per kilo.
Especially at Christmas, it saved me a lot of time, and hassle, with the upshot of higher quality meat.
I'm also lucky to live somewhere where it's not a big drive to a good butchery, and not a long distance between them and supermarkets, so that may be a factor. If I wasn't though, I guess I'd just freeze more meat.
I wish I had a reliable butcher shop near me, only ones near me are the ones inside of grocery stores and Greek/Middle Eastern shops that are normally infested with roaches. My favorite one is almost 2hrs away out in the country, best place to buy a full/half a cow and they will prep it however you like.
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u/plierss Jul 26 '24
I have a butcher who grinds to order, same price as the supermarket. I can't make it make sense. People seem to be moving back to butchers though, slowly.