Butcher

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| footer = Left: Relief of cutting up cattle, Saqqara, Egypt, 24th century BC; Right: A butcher (14th century)

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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 the carotid or brachial arteries to facilitate blood removal), skinning (removing the hide or pelt) or scalding and dehairing (pork), evisceration (removing the viscera) and splitting (dividing the carcass in half longitudinally).

After the carcasses are chilled (unless "hot-boned"), primary butchery consists of selecting carcasses, sides, or quarters from which primal 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 shop==

{{redirect-multi|3|Butcher's shop|Butchery|boucherie|the 1583 painting|Butcher's Shop|the landform|Mount Boucherie}}

File:Florenz-66-Metzgerei-1983-gje.jpg, 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 as Charcuterie, 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 particular culture, or nationality, of meat production. Some butcher shops, termed "meat delis", may also include a delicatessen.File:Boucherie du Bac, Paris 10 April 2013.jpg, Paris]]{{multiple image

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| image1=110303 CNPP LSC 0161 (13065169773).jpg | alt1=Long and large grocery meat case

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| footer = 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 of supermarkets and warehouse clubs. Many remaining ones are aimed at Hispanic and other immigrants or, more recently, those looking for organic offerings.{{Cite web | url=http://www.startribune.com/small-butcher-shops-are-in-a-renaissance-how-did-they-survive-the-supermarket-offensive/488151291/ | title=Small butcher shops are in 'a renaissance.' How did they survive the supermarket offensive? | website=Star Tribune | access-date=2019-06-03 | archive-date=2019-06-03 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190603145907/http://www.startribune.com/small-butcher-shops-are-in-a-renaissance-how-did-they-survive-the-supermarket-offensive/488151291/ | url-status=live }} 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|date=March 2020}}

{{Main|Primal cut}}

{{See also|Cut of beef|Cut of lamb|Cut of pork}}

File:Tagli bovino.svg

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 is fatback, which in Europe is an important primal cut of pork, but in North America is regarded as trimmings to be used in sausage or rendered into lard. The primal cuts may be sold complete or cut further.

:See also Butcher (disambiguation)

[[File:The blood of the murdered crying for vengeance (BM 1868,0808.6277).jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|"...revenge the blood of a Monarch most I undeservedly butchered,..."

]]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 prominent Roman general and politician of the first century BC, got the Latin nickname adulescentulus 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 criminal Ratko Mladić was nicknamed "the Butcher of the 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 footballer Andoni 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.

File:Butcher's shop at Moroccan bazar.JPG|A butcher's display in Morocco

File:Andahuaylas Peru- pig head at meat sellers in mercado.jpg|Meat sellers at market, Andahuaylas, Peru

File:Syrian butcher in Aleppo1.JPG|A butcher at work in Aleppo, Syria

File:Leg-changing-system-1.jpg|alt=slaughterhouses machinery|Leg changing system in a slaughterhouse

File:Peddling. A Butcher's Stall WDL10734.png|A Butcher's Stall, Turkestan, between 1865 and 1872

File:Pork packing in Cincinnati 1873.jpg|Primary butchery in a meat packing plant, 1873

File:Gary Hoover, Butcher-Beckwith Meat Co., Minneapolis, MN 1955.jpg|Butcher in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1955

File:Butcher at Tekka market.jpg|Butcher at Tekka Centre wet market, Singapore

File:Meat Market.jpg|Butchers cutting chicken in Kenya

File:Adeolu segun 11 bike man, boxer seller, insecticide seller.jpg|Butcher stall in Nigeria

File:ECOLEKALABANCOROADEKEN (7).jpg|Butcher in Mali

File:2015-05-01 meat vendors at the Shueisian Temple Market (Tainan).jpg|Butcher stall in Shueisian Temple Market, Taiwan

File:Charcutier de hergla.jpg|Butcher in Tunisia

• Dario Cecchini
• Lobel's of New York
• Tom Mylan
• Omaha Steaks
• Arthur Orton
• Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors

• Charcuterie
• Meat cutter
• Meat price
• Qassab
• Qureshi
• Sausage making
• Victualler
• Butcher knife
• Butcher soup
• Boeuf gras

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Category:Meat industry

Category:Food services occupations

Category:Culinary terminology

Category:Retailers by type of merchandise sold