Butchers a Lost Art?

Just thought I would post my thoughts on butchers tonight. Growing up in Cupertino, CA we had a local butcher by the Cali Brothers Feed and Grain Mill at the corner of Stevens Creek Blvd and DeAnza Blvd, right across from St. Josephs where I attended grammar school. Cupertino was really a huge agricultural town before it became part of the "Silicon Valley". I used to work in the Camardas apricot drying fields during the summers. It was quite a different city back then! I remember going to the butcher when I was just a child. It had these hardwood mats on the floors with saw dust all over. The thing I remember the most is that the people we used to hunt with all used the butcher to prepare their meats after a successful hunting trips. My dad had killed a dear once and I am pretty sure we had it butchered there after field prepping it at Captain Burches, which is the place we used to hunt at. The butcher shop always had this great smell of fresh meat. Sorry vegans wrong blog! The butchers always had their white smocks on and looked like some type of doctor that had a mishap in the operating room due to the blood and other stuff all over their smocks. I think that would be very disheartening to people these days. You really do not see that many "pure" butcher shops anymore. With stores like Vons, Safeway and Albertsons I think the butcher has become a lost art. Yes they still are butchers, but if you ask for something special, for example a 3lb bone in rib eye. You would have to order it or if they if they did have a un-cut length of rib eye they would disappear behind some doors and reappear in a few minutes with a piece of meat in a tray wrapped in saran wrap all nice and pretty. I like my meat wrapped in white butcher paper! My preference is a place like http://www.bishersmeat.com/ they have a location here in Poway and one in Ramona. They used to be owned by the same person but now I think they are ran separately. I have been frequenting them for about 4-5 years now. I wish I would have known about them earlier! Thanks to the great San Diego morning radio show Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw I learned about Bishers. Erin and I have come to know the General Manager, Randy quite well. Tip: make friends with your local butcher if you have one!
Bishers certainly does not resemble the old butcher shops as I mentioned above. Much cleaner of course. It is wonderful being able to see all the meats on display so you can pick your exact cuts. Need something special and he can grab it out of the back and cut it right there for you. Randy has an excellent knowledge of meats and how to prepare them. What ever you buy he can tell you how to cook it. Would you trust the kid behind the counter at Vons? Although I usually do not use his suggestions because I have my own plan already, they always do sound tempting. We did use his suggestion when we barbecued Elk and Kangaroo! They both turned out perfect. Sometimes we go in there and explain to him that we saw this recipe but we are not sure about the cut of meat they used. He quickly comes up with a great suggestion. A great example of this was when we wanted to braise some short ribs he suggested taking a 3-4 pound chuck roast and butchering it into smaller cuts. It was a great suggestion and we have done it 4-5 times!
So if you do not know where your local butcher is I suggest you go out and find it! They are great resource for expanding your culinary knowledge!

Sidenote: For you San Diegans bishers always has a great selection of marinted meats and chicken as well as exotic meats! If you like mushrooms try the stuffed ones!