The butcher is the person who selects the meat and cuts it up into its component parts for consumption.
I have a great butcher round the corner in Cambridge, and he sells us the red poll cattle that graze on the meadows in the city centre. They have quite different characters and I have come to recognise some of them. They are butchered locally and sold to me by a man who has no wastage. I have a friend who is a government vet whose job it is to inspect supermarket meat disposal.
Contrary to expectations the huge supermarkets are profligate with their meat and throw away tons of it. Helen is in despair over the animals bred in horrible situations, dying appallingly and then not even being eaten.
My butcher knows about how much meat he is going to need a week, butchers accordingly and then, *if* he has something left over, tells local restaurants so they can take it off his hands to sell as specials. The local Chinese community take a lot of cuts that might not be so attractive to his dyed-in-the-wool Cambridge customers, and he makes excellent sausages. He says he gets rid of about half a bucket of fat each week. Way to go…..
