Your Butcher is Trying to Kill You!

     Actually, most likely not.  There is a dark side to meat-cutting I will warn you about, but for the most part the things you get turned off on as a shopper have nothing to do with the meat-cutter’s integrity or that of the market manager, the store, the company, or the quality of meat they offer.  99% of “ewwww….that’s gross!” is just aesthetics and has nothing to do with how good that t-bone is going to cook up on the grill.  The other 1% is yeah, that market manager wanted to make his bonus and fucked you.  Don’t eat that!

    Before we get into the don’ts, let’s get into the do’s.  Say you buy a pack of ground beef and get home and the middle of that is just all brown.  Damn, they fucked you over!  NO!  It’s probably freshly ground.  It was just packed tightly into that container.  It’s not bad.  It was probably ground that day.  The oxygen hasn’t reached the center because it was so tightly packed that the meat never got its chance to breathe and oxidize, reaching that beautiful rose petal red.  Eat that shit and quit bitching!  I’ve heard so many people complain we are putting old meat into the center of the ground beef.  That’s not how a grinder works.  Google what a grinder does and see if a meat cutter can put that perfect center of old meat into a pack of ground beef.  But be careful, as we will discuss later, old meat does go into the ground.  

    Say you’re a pretentious and narcissistic son-of-a-bitch and you see all these ribeye steaks laid out in the case ready for you to pick one up and take home, but you want a custom cut instead.  “I want it FRESH!”  Well we’ll go cut one for you cussing and fussing the whole time because “fresh” doesn’t mean anything with beef.  In fact, that marked-down steak with the brown spots is going to be the best steak of your life without pitching out the extra bucks for Wagyu or dry-aged.  Those enzymes breaking that meat down are going to tenderize the cut and add extra flavor.  Give me a clearance rack ribeye any day!  But I digress.  So we cut you a ribeye.  You complain it’s dark so it must be old.  On the contrary my uneducated friend!  The darker it is the more fresh it is because the oxygen hasn’t had time to make it “bloom” to that vibrant red.  I literally had a lady go to the manager because I cut her an “old” dark New York Strip that she, again, literally watched me cut through the window.  She didn’t believe me about all the scary science.

    There are other reasons why a steak turns dark.  Some you should watch out for, some you should ignore.  The ones to ignore are the dark tenderloins on a t-bone steak.  The tenderloin is inside the ribcage and comes in contact with all that bacteria churning inside a cow.  They turn quick and early.  Nothing wrong with them.  So you might see a T-bone marked down that sports a red New York Strip and a dark Filet Mignon.  Go for it, eat that shit up.  Get your deal!  It’s marked down for aesthetics, not quality.  On the same note, if you find a steak that has been sitting in the counter for a while and has not turned that bright red and is dark in complexion but not brown from sitting there too long…steer clear.  We call these “dark cutters.”  The animal was stressed at the time of slaughter and released adrenaline at the time of death.  The meat will be tough, strong, and gamey.

    One thing about meat is that it can be as fresh as Lil’ Wayne at a 2010 concert, but if that meat touches another piece of meat, it will turn.  THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S BAD!  Again, it’s the lack of airflow and oxygen.  A pack of cube steak where the pieces are not separated by a piece of paper will turn brown where they touch.  This is natural and to be expected.  It does not affect the taste or quality of the meat.  

    When it comes to browning, the thing you need to look out for is ground beef that is brown on the outside.  That shit is old.  Don’t eat it.  Beef is highly resilient.  You can eat a steak that has brown spots on it and be fine, but don’t risk it with ground beef.  Ground beef is scary.  The reason why you can eat a steak bloody rare is because you’re cooking all the bacteria on the OUTSIDE.  When you run meat through a grinder you’re taking all that muscle that is inside and outside and mixing it all together.  So when you take a bite, you’re biting into muscle that was outside and came in contact with bacteria and muscle inside that is safe.  Take a bite and eat it rare at you’re own risk.  I still do.  I like to live on the edge.

    Another thing to note is the “bloodshot” cuts.  You will notice a cut of meat that has dark red muscle fibers that look like spider veins.  A good market manager will mark these down for aesthetics.  This means the animal suffered a bruise while it was still alive.  Think of Asian countries where “killing them softly” chickens are on the menu.  They cruelly believe bruising them will make them more tasty.  I don’t know about all that.  But I will eat a bruised piece of meat.  I don’t notice a better flavor or worse.  Plus you get a discount!

The dark side to meat cutting…

    Look out for anything that obviously comes in pre-packaged and has a discernible label and sell-by date that has been re-wrapped with a store label and new sell-by date (or a reduced price).  These items are out-of-date and the market manager was worrying about his bonus.  When I ran a market I did things by the books.  But before then I saw a lot of underhanded dealings.  Any pre-packaged product has a sell-by date printed on the package, you just have to look for it.  Make sure that date matches the store’s shelf label on the pack.  If it is missing, look out.  I was taught multiple ways to remove these things when I was a young apprentice.  You can use nail polish remover or take a label and use the sticky part to remove the manufacturer date. 

    If it’s supposed to be fresh and you find it in the counter half-frozen, it was an old item they got too heavy on and froze to keep from losing it.  It might only have a day or two of shelf-life once thawed so don’t plan on it thawing in your fridge and keeping until the weekend.  Also never trust anything marinated or seasoned.  If it looked bad or was old or turning, it got the salt and pepper or the fancy marinade.  Marinate and season yourself.  There are too many nervous market managers worrying about their bonuses or their shrink to let something off-quality not enter your shopping cart.

How the sausage is made…

    As long as I have been a meat cutter, aside from the four and a half years I ran a market, I can only remember one place for out-of-date meat: the grind lug.  Any company that makes their own ground beef uses this habit.  Honestly, there is nothing wrong with the meat.  It’s fine, it won’t make you sick; beef is resilient.  But I didn’t do it.  If it was out, it was out.  But no place follows this.  Out-of-date meat gets turned into ground beef.  I would still eat it.  But it’s something to watch out for.  Some places may take that to extremes instead of tossing in a roast that is only one day past prime but still red and blushing.    

    Back to a previous point, there is a lot of “re-wrapping” that takes place.  Say something has a sell-by date of 10/22/22.  But it still looks good.  Hell, unwrap it, put another two days on it, and put it back in the counter.  I had a meat specialist like that.  He took everything out of date I had thrown in the trash and had my clerk re-wrap it with a new sell-by date.  After he left I had her pull all of that out of the counter and “throw it in the fucking trash where it belongs.”  As a meat-cutter I know there is probably nothing wrong with it, but I will have my honesty and integrity for the consumer.  I would want someone to do that for me.  I know what I know.  But they don’t.  

    Caveat Emptor: let the buyer beware!  But you don’t have to be too paranoid.  The last thing a business wants is to make you sick.  There are some shady market managers out there, though.  And meat specialists.  But for the most part, a good market manager is reducing a package that is still in date but is either off on aesthetics or close-dated.  Take the bone thrown and get the deal.  Nothing tastes better than a $20/lb. steak that you get for 50% off.  Hell, buy three and impress your friends by letting them think you’re bougie.