Butchery is an ancient trade, whose duties may date back to thedomestication oflivestock; its practitioners formedguilds inEngland as far back as 1272.[3] Since the 20th century, many countries and local jurisdictions offertrade certifications for butchers in order to ensure quality, safety, and health standards but not all butchers have formal certification or training. Trade qualification in English-speaking countries is often earned through anapprenticeship although some training organisations also certify their students. In Canada, once a butcher is trade qualified, they can learn to become a master butcher (Fleishmaster).[4][5]
Standards and practices of butchery differ between countries, regions and ethnic groups. Variation with respect to the types of animals that are butchered as well as the cuts and parts of the animal that are sold depends on the types of foods that are prepared by the butcher's customers.
Left: Relief of cutting up cattle,Saqqara, Egypt, 24th century BC; Right: A butcher (14th century)
Butchery is a traditional line of work. In the industrialized world, slaughterhouses use butchers to slaughter the animals, performing one or a few of the steps repeatedly as specialists on a semi-automated disassembly line. The steps include stunning (rendering the animal incapacitated),exsanguination (severing thecarotid orbrachial arteries to facilitate blood removal), skinning (removing the hide or pelt) or scalding and dehairing (pork), evisceration (removing theviscera) and splitting (dividing the carcass in halflongitudinally).
After the carcasses arechilled (unless "hot-boned"), primary butchery consists of selecting carcasses, sides, or quarters from whichprimal cuts can be produced with the minimum of wastage; separating the primal cuts from the carcass; trimming primal cuts and preparing them for secondary butchery or sale; and storing cut meats. Secondary butchery involves boning, trimming and value-adding of primal cuts in preparation for sale. Historically, primary and secondary butchery were performed in the same establishment, but the advent of methods of preservation (vacuum packing) and low cost transportation has largely separated them.
In parts of the world, it is common for butchers to perform many or all of the butcher's duties. Where refrigeration is less common, these skills are required to sell the meat of slaughtered animals.
"Butcher's shop", "Butchery", and "boucherie" redirect here. For the 1583 painting, seeButcher's Shop. For the landform, seeMount Boucherie.
Internal of a butcher shop inFlorence, 1983. Florence in the ancient times was famous for these shops.
Butchers sell their goods in specialized stores, commonly termed a butcher shop (American English), butchery (South African English) or butchers (British English). Butchers at a butcher shop may perform primary butchery, but will typically perform secondary butchery to prepare fresh cuts of meat for sale. These shops may also sell related products, such asCharcuterie, hot food (using their own meat products), food preparation supplies, baked goods and grocery items. Butcher shops can have a wider variety of animal types, meat cuts and quality of cuts. Additionally, butcher shops may focus on a particularculture, ornationality, of meat production. Some butcher shops, termed "meat delis", may also include adelicatessen.
Left: Shoppers at the meat poultry department of a grocery store; Right: Fish Meat Sushi store in New York City, New York
In the United States and Canada, butcher shops have become less common because of the increasing popularity ofsupermarkets and warehouse clubs. Many remaining ones are aimed at Hispanic and other immigrants or, more recently, those looking for organic offerings.[6] Supermarkets employ butchers for secondary butchery, but in the United States even that role is diminished with the advent of "case-ready" meat, where the product is packaged for retail sale at the packinghouse or specialized central processing plants.[citation needed]
A primal cut is a piece of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering. Different countries and cultures make these cuts in different ways, and primal cuts also differ between type of carcass. The British, American and French primal cuts all differ in some respects. One notable example with pork isfatback, which in Europe is an importantprimal cut of pork, but in North America is regarded as trimmings to be used in sausage or rendered intolard. The primal cuts may be sold complete or cut further.
"...revenge the blood of a Monarch most I undeservedlybutchered,..."
In various periods and cultures, the term "butcher" has been applied to people who act cruelly to other human beings or slaughter them. For example,Pompey, a prominentRoman general and politician of the first century BC, got theLatin nicknameadulescentulus carnifex, translated as "The Teenage Butcher" or "The Butcher Boy", due to brutal treatment of political opponents in the early part of his career. More recently, the Bosnian Serb war criminalRatko Mladić was nicknamed "the Butcher ofthe Balkans".
The term can also be used in a semi-humorous or metaphorical way to describe someone whose actions resemble the various skills and methods of a butcher (chopping, cutting, slicing, stabbing etc.) Spanish footballerAndoni Goikoetxea was popularly ascribed the epithet "The Butcher of Bilbao" in recognition of his perceived aggressive style of play and frequent, sometimes injurious, challenges on opposing players.
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